The Two Whos

It was the weekend, and  time for the soccer tournament for Yun’s son Patrick.  Weekends like this, soccer is the center: they go wherever the games go, they stay however long the game require, nothing can get in the way of the game, not hail, not  wind, not  snow, and not the broken car.

This weekend, the game is out of the city boundary  on the Indian reservation land.  It is a  mere 35 minute drive on mostly highway road.   Not a problem!  Well…. unless you have to drive in the snow and some hail like icy rain with your car’s window will not go up!    It can be a bit of a  challenge with two youngsters n the back seat screaming for joy because “Mommy, it is raining inside of the car!”  A rare phenomena! Yun was very understanding of the commotion.  She put the heat at 100F and fan at full blast, her hands are still freezing…but the boys were happy!

“We are going to the play soccer games, games are all we care about”  This became  our mantra!

Well, once they are out there, they ‘live’ in the car for  hours while the team warms up, plays game,  lunch, warms up, plays game again…The car became their  home.  Thank god that Yun’s younger son Gavin is a ferocious reader.  Anything with words on it he will read.  So keeping him entertained for 6- 7 hours in the middle of nowhere in the bitter weather is not a problem!  That is… except when car is wet and cold, and has an occasional snow and hail shower inside it!

During the last game, the championship, Yun took a break from the screaming at the filed and came back to the “family home” to check on her “car” son.  Her hair was dripping wet, she has her heavy winter down jacket on and she is still cold.  To her astonishment, in his effort to protect the ‘family home, Gavin stripped down to a t-shirt, and piled up all his clothes on the seat where the window would not close.  “I want to protect the seat from getting snowed in.”   “Thank you, my dear child.  I want to make sure you are warm, and the wet seat can dry itself….”  Mommy  was deeply moved by the youngster’s dedication.  Well, Gavin did not give up, in his effort to protect the car, he found the ultimate the solution!  He put up the sunscreen to block the rain and snow… well done, smart kid!

Patrick’s team won the championship.  Yun was relieved: “Now, he is tired out, and we will have a quiet evening!”  Her soccer fanatics have slight different twist from others.   These kids need outdoor activity to tire them out, so the house can be big enough to house their other  noises…piano, violin, toilet jokes and imaginary games….   Plain simple and straight forward.  For that, any troubles to get the boys out there are no troubles at all…

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

The Saturday Morning Rendezvous will be a place to stop in and meet up  on a weekend morning.  Have a cup of tea or coffee, a special breakfast,  and relax and catch up from the week’s fast pace.  The Two Whos will focus Saturday’s content on physical wellness and fitness of all types.  Come back and rendezvous with us!    See you next  Saturday!  Thanks for visiting.

In Oprah’s latest magazine  entitled  “De-Clutter Your Life!” she asks this question, “When you look at  your relationship to things and the energy they contain…ask yourself if they promote joy, beauty and usefulness or are they burdensome?

Sometimes we pay a price for collecting the things we do not need….and if you are a “piler”  like Cece is, and save everything because it may be needed one day….then you can develop clutter pretty easily.  Collecting free stuff is the most tempting…there is the “LURE OF FREE STUFF”: “Keep it, it is free!”  OR  “Buy it..it is on sale!”   Worse yet, everyone in the world seems to want you to have lots of stuff too…

A few days ago, Yun got a package.When she  opened it, there was a nice touch screen mobile cell  phone with an activated SIM card and all other plug and play gadgets.  Best of it all, it was free!

“But, I do not need the phone”.  Yun says to herself.  Well, shortly after the phone arrived, the  SIM card on her old phone stopped working.   She figured these  two events were related.  So she went to the ATT store, and explained to them that she does not need the new phone but she does need her SIM card to work.  NO big deal!   They took the old SIM card out, threw it in the trash, and put in the new SIM card that came with the new phone…..  Yahoo, everything seemed back to normal.  Afterwards…. she called the phone retailer to return the phone.

Yun: “I’d like to return the phone I just got, and would you please give me a Return Authorization number?”

The man: “Something wrong with it?”

Yun eagerly: “No. Nothing is wrong is with it.  I do not need a new phone.  My phone works perfectly fine.”

The man is nice: “It is a free phone, you know!”

“That’s good.  But I do not need a new phone.”  (Yun is stubborn this way)

“But it is a FREE  phone.  You do not need to pay anything…”

“I know.  Thank you.  But I do not need a new phone”

“You don’t have to use it, you can just keep it, it is FREE, no charge.”

” Why do I want to keep something that I do not need?  I am trying to get simple here …  Other people can use this phone.  I do not need it…”  Yun is very logical…

“Well then, you have to return the SIM card too.  Otherwise there will be $50 charge.   3-5 days, after we receive the phone. we will do a quality check and when that is done, we will email you to complete the return. Then you can reactivate your old SIM card.”

“What?”  Now Yun is annoyed  “You mean I can not have a phone for a week?  The store has thrown away my old SIM card!”

“Madam, like I said, you could just keep the phone.  IT IS FREE.”  Good point, but it does work for Yun.

Yun said, “No, you do not understand me.  I do not need  a new phone, and I do not need IT around… and it is not acceptable that my phone has to be out of commission because  someone decided to send me a FREE  phone that I do not need!”  Yun is not happy with the situation.

The man said, “Like I said, it is better and easier that you just keep the phone.  It is FREE….”  Oh god, here we go again, Yun threw in her hand and called it  quits…
…….
To make a long story short, Yun visited ATT store again and the sales rep there called the phone retailer…. all is well.

Driving home, Yun thinks “This is Crazy.”  She has just spent 2 hours trying to return a free phone!  This free phone, really cost her a lot! 

 But, at least, the free phone is not cluttering her house…and someone else can use the phone that she does not want or need!

“Bye for Now”  from The Two Whos

This is a poem Cece wrote in memory of a loved one passing.  It is about death, resurrection and rebirth…  The cycle of life, the courage to live and to die…

Living at the Intersection

As I walked

In the silence….

The charred earth

Assaulted my senses.

It seemed like ….

All was dead.

*

The wind transported

The burned out smell

Through the air.

The trees looked like

White marble tombstones…

Their bark burned off

By the Bosque Fire

*

This graveyard of tombs…

Trunks hacked off…

Pillars….oh so black…

Some like shrines

To the dead…

Whose bones scattered

The earth.

As I walked among

The bones of the trees…

Their white greyness

Glistening in the sun…

The bones took the shape

Of birds and perhaps the lives….

That were lost in the fire.

*

And soon,…. this silence

Brought tension…

A power  driving upward…

That buzzed and hummed

And rustled….

The silences awake.

 *

 Color emerged.

The yellows and reds

Peering out in reeds

So long and springy.

*

Popping up…..I saw green

In a newly budded tree…

A newly planted youth.

 I leaned in and

Kissed it and blessed its growth

And prayed for its freedom…..

From future fires.

 *

A lizard scampered.

Some birds serenaded.

And life began again

And was evident

In the Bosque…

The cycle of life

And death and

Resurrection complete.

——-

Cece

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About The Mid-Week  Symphony: Since Wednesday is hump day, we have decided to take this moment and bronze it and have a bit of down time from the writing.  We thought each Wednesday  we would like to bring you a symphony of ideas, a harmony of thoughts, beauty, silliness and all things that make the fullness of life.  When we started this blog we wanted it to reflect our entire personalities and interests..and that means yes…. Cece loves  the Far Side Cows and Yun loves the mumble jumble philosophical books.   Yun and Cece have many interests and we would like to share some of them with you each Wednesday.

Yun and her son Patrick  were  on their way home from his soccer tournament.   This was the first time his team  had won the championship!  His coach called her son “Mr. Wall” because  no one could get thorough him…   Yun and Cece were having  some casual discussion on various addictions (yes, yes, we admit that some of our conversations are very boring and non enlightening), and suddenly, Yun said: “Cece, Patrick has some questions for you!”

Yun handed her son the phone and Cece listened as he asked her many questions about cigarette smoking.  How can a 9 year old ask such intense questions with follow up questions?  Cece felt like she was being interviewed by a lawyer who was questioning potential jurors in a big tobacco lawsuit!

She determined that Yun’s son got the “smart gene” given that both his parents are physicists.  Yun has also raised her sons to think independently and to feel honestly.  She wants them not be afraid to question adults when their adult answers do not make sense  to them…

Yun was tickled listening to Cece patiently answer the question after question Patrick asked, and secretly thanked Cece for  tactfully throwing some adult advice  to the youngster… Patrick was questioningg Cece’s parent’s role modeling in educating kids not to smoke.   At the end, Yun heard this big “Oh. now I understand !  Smoking cigarettes is like taking drugs because nicotine is a drug.  So I will never smoke.”  “Well done Cece!”  Yun murmured to herself..

You see, Cece stopped smoking  26 years ago, so she gives Patrick the gory details…. she told him about peer pressure and how it would occur and told him that since he was an athlete, he needed to avoid poisoning his system.

Cece giggled, and thanked the good god that Patrick was not the interviewer in his mom’s job interviews last week!  He would have been questioning her about quantum physics rather than “Why do you want this job?  Yun sure would fail the interview because her quantum tunneling story may not be cohesive enough for the youngster…

Both Cece and Yun have learned to  never underestimate the 9 years old’s ability to process information.  They are intuitive and can “smell” your sincerity and integrity.  They are here to keep us on tip of our toes and keep us honest and clear. 

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

Yun knows the feeling of being overwhelmed.  The saddest thing was that her being overwhelmed and stressed out seemed so justified by all standards.  A full time mother working in a  full time job.. travelling  internationally.   She was constantly overwhelmed and over stressed.  Then the single mother started  a new business in a field that she was not school trained for.  Crazy? Yes!   Overwhelmed?  Stressed out?  Definitely…

“You know, the phrase ” I am overwhelmed’ can get old.  You can get so tired of it that you are no longer overwhelmed.” Cece asks , “So then , if you are not overwhelmed, are you then something else?”  There is so much to do…so many repetitive tasks… all things calling for our attention.”      

Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with life’s  little things, that we forget to focus on basic things that keep us going….like eating or paying our bills or grocery shopping….Here is a story:

A couple of weekends ago, Yun finished her work with a client, and was driving to a gas station to fill up her tank. But she was not driving there soon enough.  The gas had  been running on low for two days.  Driving along a busy city road, her car was running slower, slower and slower, so she peddled harder and harder…  until the gas peddle is no longer responsive.   “Oh, no, I am running out of gas!  With a quiet and peaceful whisper, the car stopped while she managed to glide it to the side of the road.

All the life’s ‘things’ are still bubbling up, and now the car is running out of gas!  She started to laugh and thought it is plain too funny that life can be so naughty and merciless.  But, with all of this, she  did not let it get the best of her.  She stated, ” I can handle this.”   She called a few friends and one of them is able to come to rescue.  After 45 minutes, her car was running again.

When Cece and Yun reconnected that Sunday, Yun said: “It is hard to explain. I was not overwhelmed at all.  Just things to do. “  Cece said: “If you keep on being so happy, people will start to think you are crazy because they think you have no good reason to feel so good.”  With that, Cece and Yun laughed hard thinking how ridiculous this conversation is.   Yun said: “May be I have gone happily mad.  I just no longer feel overwhelmed by things anymore because I know that I can work things out so that I can  handle them.”

Cece is thinking of a funny story about an elephant in the kitchen.  Perhaps you notice it in YOUR kitchen… you are so overwhelmed you cannot figure out what to do with it.  Anxiety and fear might hit you.  You squeeze  around  it, try to make nice with it,  feed it, scoop its poop…..but it is overwhelming , scary and stressful to have an actual elephant in your kitchen!  What to do?

You can sit in the worry, or pretend it does not exist…or you can call “Large animal control” and get some H E L P!  There Cece goes spelling again!

Well  here is the secret: Ask for help!   Instead of being overwhelmed and frozen in your tracks, take action!  Call on friends and supporters and they will help get you out of this mess.  Whatever you call forth becomes the reality… 

 Cece has seen Yun ask friends to come to the rescue and they help and take the pressure off, repair the house, lend a computer etc.  This lessens the overwhelmed feeling and makes it more manageable. You will still have a long list of things  to do, but they are just the ‘to do list’, not the ‘overwhelmed list’.

“Bye for Now” from the Two Whos