I'm the Problem, It's Me

The plan was simple -- a 3-hour layover in LA before the three of us caught a connecting flight to Tokyo to join the rest of the seven, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. My friends have long maintained that I'm somehow the reason that flights get delayed, cancelled, or missed, and I hate to quote that Slytherin Head Girl Taylor Swift, but the evidence is truly stacking up against me. So it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.

To be fair, there were 1.4 instances where I was at least partly at fault for the travel drama. There was the trip my brother and I were flying to New York, and we strolled up to the gate with plenty of leeway, but there were no seats, so I led us to the next gate over to rest our weary, young legs. After a bit, I walked over to the gate and realized that it no longer said New York. I naively asked the gate agent if our flight had switched gates, and she was perplexed. Jason wouldn't even believe me when I tried to relay the message that the plane had peaced out with us just chilling 100 feet away. Okay, that one was on me. 

Then there was the Denver trip where I wanted to cross white water rafting off my 30 before 30 list. Stanley, Hongya, and I were early and hungry, so we shot past the airport to a nearby Chipotle, where we took our sweet time enjoying our sub-$7 burrito bowls. Before we knew it, someone noticed that we had gone from early to truly down to the wire, and we raced back to IAH.

I'll never forget standing helplessly in the security line as the intercom was announcing the last call for our flight. I was texting Albert that he might be going solo. I still laugh thinking about Hongya sprinting to the gate first to presumably attempt to stick his foot in the airplane door to keep the cabin from closing. Stanley and I arrived at the gate a minute later, only to see the look of defeat on Hongya's face as we witnessed the jetway pull away from the plane in slow motion. The three of us waved our arms frantically at the window like something out of a sitcom, hoping that the pilot would maybe take pity on us.

And it worked. The jetway unexpectedly reversed, and the gate agent opened the gate door, chastised us, and we were ushered onto the flight with a ton of shame but with even more glee. I think of that gate agent often -- I wish her all the best things in life. But I'll take 0.33 of the blame on that one, even though Chipotle really has some elite guacamole.

Then there was the trip that created a future Guinness record, with Maxwell wallowing in his trauma eventually becoming the youngest person in recorded history to ever purchase flight insurance. It was an incredible vacation, especially looking back on it fondly now as we were treated like kings at Lady Luck Casino in Blackhawk. Free food, free drinks, free hotel room, free money with us hitting the bonus with all the numbers at the craps table a couple times that weekend.

But if you know anything about me, you also know that the final craps run is the greatest, as I need my backpack on and the adrenaline of potentially missing a flight to maximize my rolls. Maxwell was getting a little worried, but I was in double digit territory in terms of visits to Blackhawk and knew we were right on schedule. We cashed out, hit the road, and began the windy two-lane drive through the mountains back to the airport.

Suddenly we come up on a cement truck backing up onto the road, stopping traffic in both directions. I did not know that a vehicle could inch so slowly and still be considered moving, but Maxwell will forever be scarred by the incessant beeping noise as we watched the minutes dwindle off the clock.

I crazy-taxied our way to the airport and returned the rental car. This was back in the day before Spirit could afford its own app apparently, so the rest of the guys went to get in line at security while I went to the Spirit ticket counter to get our paper tickets printed. And as luck would have it, they were unable to print our paper tickets at the desk within a half hour or something of boarding. Maxwell, Stanley, and Xiao had screenshot their tickets in the backseat while I was speeding through traffic with Justin navigating.

Screenshots weren't supposed to work either, but somehow they were accepted through security, and Xiao embarked on an exasperated run through an imaginary pedestrian bridge instead of taking the train to the gate like a normal person, and he held up the plane until Maxwell and Stanley joined him. We still reminisce about that epic ped bridge story to this day. Meanwhile, Justin and I were stuck thinking about how to get home to our exceptionally loving and understanding wives. I'll accept responsibility for a fraction of this incident.

So between these three mishaps, two cancelled flights, countless delays, and lost luggage in Hong Kong, I thought the worst had to be behind me. I thought.

For the sake of simplicity, all times will be Pacific Time. Ophelia dropped me off at IAH at 2:30am for my 3:30am United flight to Los Angeles. Immediately after checking in my luggage, there was an announcement of a global IT outage that has caused all flights to be grounded. Of course. Why not an unprecedented worldwide issue? I start texting the group, and a bit later, Peter and Titus corroborated the chaos at the Austin airport.

Ophelia and I are different in a lot of ways, and one of the most glaring is the type of friend we are. My better half is the more detailed type, as she will know everything about her friends, from their grandparents' nicknames to their kids' favorite dinosaurs. I'm the opposite. I don't even know what any of my friends really do for work. Recently a couple people have asked me what Justin does, and I gotta say, I have no idea. I only spend 5+ hours with him a week in the same golf cart or on the same basketball court -- how would that even come up?

I just know how to read people, and I can tell what my friends are thinking and feeling. Their vibe, if you will. And I could tell that Titus was already about to mentally throw in the towel on the entire endeavor, so I told Peter to keep his spirits up. It was an emotional rollercoaster of a day, but this was the brief moment where I thought I would be the only one of the trio on our flight to Tokyo.

The situation started to look quite bleak. Every screen in the airport was just the Windows blue screen of death, and there was only the occasional repeated announcement with a promise of an update at the top of the next hour.

When the United gate agent miraculously started the boarding process at 5:45am, there was a joyous round of applause. Peter and Titus were boarding in Austin simultaneously, and both planes got in the air with an ETA to LAX of about 10am. At this point, our connecting Delta flight was still on time, so I was scouring the interwebs looking for a backup plan to get to Tokyo.

Then the flight gets delayed a half hour. A sliver of hope arises, at least for Titus, who was able to check his luggage in Austin all the way to Tokyo. Peter and I would have to pick up our checked bags and recheck them. My checked bag is basically 50% my clothes and 50% moisturizer cream to smuggle into Asia for Phil. At this point, I assume Peter and I will be finding an alternative route to Japan.

The flight delay doubles from 10:30am to 11am, and I assume I'll be soloing the rest of the way to Japan. The Austin flight lands at 9:35am, and Peter runs to get his bag while Titus scurries to the gate. I'm getting the play-by-play from them while resigned to the fact that I'll purchase a 12pm ANA flight instead.

My plane lands at 9:50am. Multiple scenarios are playing in my head:

1. Best case, the flight gets delayed another hour, I pick up my checked bag and recheck it, get to the gate in a timely manner

2. I ditch my checked bag and just focus on getting to the gate, purchase clothes and necessities in Japan

3. I lose all hope in making the Delta flight and rebook a later flight

I settled on option 2, just leaving my poor luggage behind with my clothes and a lifetime supply of moisturizer cream for Phil, but we don't move on the tarmac for an eternity. My plane is motionless on the tarmac while Peter got his luggage, checked it in, got through security, and joined Titus at the gate.

Between landing at 9:50am and exiting the plane at 10:50am, it felt like the longest hour of my life. I've Doctor Strange'd every scenario at this point, and just when I'm mentally saying goodbye to my luggage and Phil's moisturizer, hope is renewed. The flight is delayed until 12:10pm. Hallelujah.

All options are improbably back on the table. I'm finally off the plane at 10:50am. I pick up my luggage at 11:02am. If I want to try to check in the luggage last minute, I'd have to do that at terminal 3, but I'm at terminal 7, so scrap that thought. I try to go through security at terminal 7, but they turn me and my giant luggage away. I return back to baggage claim, take the clutch extra duffel bag out of my luggage, transfer everything in there, and leave my Samsonite stranded there.

I get into the terminal 7 security line, go through x-ray machine, but, you guessed it, my duffel gets flagged. I get an update from Peter and Titus that the plane has arrived and my "TIMER HAS STARTED."

I have to wait behind 6 other bags for my turn, and they make me trash Phil's moisturizer. I text an apology to Phil, but in my mind, I have done it. Mission impossible accomplished. I've made it through security at 11:22am with time to spare, now I just need to find gate 32A in terminal 3.

None of the signs show anything close to my gate number or even my terminal number. I wander for a couple precious minutes thinking that I must have just missed something before asking someone how to get to terminal 3.

"You have to exit to get to terminal 3 and go through security"

"No, I just went through security"

"You'll have to do it again"

"I thought it was all connected, how do I get to terminal 3 then?"

"You want the easiest way or the fastest way?"

"I need the fastest way or I'm going to miss my flight"

"You'll need to go down this escalator, out the door, turn left, and run past the other terminals until you get to 3"

"How far is it?"

"Pretty far"

I'm not someone who gets stressed. Like, rooting for my sports teams is probably the only source of stress in my life. But it was 11:27am, the flight was scheduled for 12:10pm, and I could not accept dumping Phil's moisturizer for nothing. So let me tell y'all I turned my Crocs to sports mode, picked up that duffel bag like a running back with a football and RAN. That guy's "pretty far" ended up being close to a personal 5K race around the perimeter of the airport, yelling at multiple people "TERMINAL 3?" en route to confirm that I was headed in the right direction.

I didn't stop churning until I reached the terminal 3 security line at my top 5 sweatiest in life. Naturally, there's someone in front of me possibly traveling for the first time and taking off one item of clothng at a time to place in her bin. I get through security a second time and resume The Amazing Race. 32A is not that close to security because why would it be? Finally I see a sign for 32, turn the last corner, and, panting, join Peter and Titus at the gate at 11:52am for our connecting flight.

Just like we had planned.

The Need for Black-Asian Solidarity

I love Twitter because it highlights reality. It's the source for essentially all of my news, and as opposed to other social media sites, it typically provides people's actual reactions to current events and glimpses of original thought.  Twitter isn't always the healthiest place, but at least you can get a sense of people's raw feelings towards a particular subject, for better or worse.

Lately with the rise of anti-Asian hate in the country, it's been heartbreaking to read some of the comments.  All of the "Chinese virus" and "kung flu" and other such rhetoric have culminated to a boiling point, and there seems to be a new viral racist incident with each passing day.  Unfortunately, even the most tragic of anti-Asian crimes with the Atlanta spa shootings leaving 8 dead (6 of whom were Asian women) has been met with an infuriating level of gaslighting.

Sadly, the anti-Asian bias is not the only prevalent form of racism right now.  It has not even been a year since George Floyd's murder, and now another black man has been killed by a Minnesota police officer.  The fact that George Floyd's girlfriend was Daunte Wright's former teacher is a devastating reminder of the endless cycle of interconnected trauma.

There's much to unravel here amidst such an ambivalent concoction of pain, anger, and fear, but one of the underlying themes I've seen on Twitter is that aside from the Asian community and the black community needing time to process everything that is happening, there's the general sentiment that the two communities are alone in their separate grieving processes.

Solidarity between minority groups has historically been shaky, which is by design, as pitting different minority groups against each other has certainly been a tactic of white supremacy.  It spurred the model minority myth, contrasting (among others) Asian Americans against African Americans, suggesting that the former are successful, law-abiding people and the latter are prone to be poor, dangerous criminals.

This myth fails to mention the existence of a "bamboo ceiling" and the idea that Asian Americans may always be seen as foreigners.  As my friend Jeff Le writes:

How do we change a society that sees us as invisible?  It requires the people in power to provide opportunities and enact inclusive policies, to recognize that AAPIs aren't universally privileged and are not simply white adjacent.  Yes, it requires other communities of color to support AAPIs and lend allyship.  It requires deep financial investment in AAPI civic and political organizations, professional networks and mentorship.

However, it's not just the people in power; many Asian Americans have bought into the model minority myth, too -- hook, line, and sinker.  Not merely in believing that they are "universally privileged" and "white adjacent," but also being intimidated by and biased against African Americans.  Much of this animosity is passed down from older generations, but of course that does not justify personal prejudice.

As an Asian American man with an Asian American wife and two adopted half black kids, I've experienced this prejudice countless times in the past 5+ years.  And while it may certainly be easier to ignore the occasional racist statement stereotyping black people, we've seen the power that such hateful rhetoric can have, regardless of how innocuous the words may seem.  "She just doesn't know any better," I previously thought to myself when deciding whether or not to say something to the auntie who was venting about her black neighbors.  But ignorance is not an excuse for further ignorance.  We must call out even the smallest of microaggressions and not wait until it's too late.

AAPI advocate Cary Chow tweeted this message imploring Asians to rally against all racism:

Some of the responses were telling of past hurt and an absence of solidarity:

It's sobering to read these replies.  Asian Americans are accustomed to trying not to stand out by default, especially in the political realm, but it's crucial to note that maintaining the status quo is maintaining systemic racism.  

I'm reminded of the famous Martin Niemoller quote at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

My hope and prayer is that we can learn from past mistakes and forgive past wrongs to mourn injustice together.  Only then can we join in solidarity to work towards fighting racism.

Hibernating Patriotism

I remember counting total gold, silver, and bronze medals with my friend Albert back in 2012.  There I was at work, with one monitor focused on a gas severance tax spreadsheet and another monitor streaming the Summer Olympics.  There was some light trash talk among friends residing in China and some discussion with my parents regarding which country they were rooting for in various events.

That's probably an oversimplified way of claiming my allegiance to the USA, but I specifically remember being so proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free... only to have everything flipped turned upside down in 2016.

I think the overarching feeling to my usual patriotism the past four years has been one of embarrassment.  Because deep down, no matter how much we claim "not my president," Donald represents this country, and he represents us.

Do you recall the first Republican debate that included Donald?  It was hilarious because we thought he was the punchline.  Now, a presidential term later, we realize that the joke was on us.

I'm still shocked at how much people hated Hillary, but the current two-party system is a mess.  More often than not, voters are left to seemingly choose which candidate they'd rather lose, which is a bizarre method of voting.  Of course, who's to say what's the correct way to cast a ballot?  Some hone in on character, others policies.  Many are single-issue voters who just punch red or blue down the ticket, no matter what.  It's a flawed process because we are voting for flawed people.

There is no such thing as a perfect candidate because there is no such thing as a perfect person.  But with every part of my being -- as a Christian, as a father, as a husband, as an Asian-American, everything -- I'm tired of feeling embarrassed because of Donald.  The word "evangelical" is thrown around a lot around election time, but I'm tired of worrying about whether Donald is somehow speaking on my behalf in the eyes of nonbelievers.  I'm tired of anti-racism somehow being categorized as a political stance.  I'm tired of seeing AA friends worry about our safety with each time Donald trashes the "Chinese Virus" that his administration has completely failed in handling and resorted to ignoring.

As my brother-in-law Josh said so eloquently, my faith informs my values, and my values inform my politics.  And so, today, I continue to pray for my country, and I celebrate the hope of new beginnings.  Hello,  President-elect Biden.  Let's get to work.

How Omar Dominated Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey was 10 months ago, and Omar is getting married this week.  I think now is the perfect time to set the story straight.

Harvey was devastating to the city of Houston, but we are a resilient people, and out of the torrential, never-ending downpour birthed countless stories of heroism and sacrifice.  I have always been proud to throw up the "H," but that fateful week in August was peak H-Town.

But somehow or other, it has gotten back to me from various people that my role in the “rescues” has been grossly exaggerated.  Like, worse than how badly the folks on Storage Wars overestimate how much they can sell their cobwebbed junk for.  No, I did not backstroke from my own flooded house with my wife and 1-year-old in tow.

Our house was under mandatory evacuation, so we spent a rushed hour moving a lot of our stuff to the second story before loading up the Honda Fit to head over to my parents’ house.  The three of us huddled into the car, bowed for a quick prayer, turned the key… and nothing.  The battery was dead.

The timing was not ideal, with the water on the roads rising by the minute, and by the time we transferred everything and everyone to the other car, the water was over the curb and creeping onto the sidewalk.  Luckily I was able to maneuver around the new lake by cutting across my front lawn, and I thought I was so slick until we got to Sienna Parkway and grasped that my car was way too low to pass.  Defeated, we retraced our steps, sliding across the front lawn and back into the garage.

Enter Omar.  His giant truck showed up on our driveway to take us to the promised land.  With my family safe and Omar willing and ready to continue helping out, I started asking around via text and tweets to see if anybody was stuck at their house.  Over the next few hours, we assisted a couple of church families with escaping from neighborhoods with knee-deep water on the pavement.  That’s when we started hearing about one particular flooded subdivision in Riverstone. 

Omar and I showed up at the scene at about 10 PM, with two church families in mind to pick up.  We had two addresses in hand and were getting more via the magic of the internet.  My phone had died, so I was signed in to Twitter on Google Chrome on Omar’s phone inside of a Ziploc bag.  It was still raining hard.  The water was more than halfway up the stop sign poles.  There were all kinds of first responders there, including volunteers, police officers, and the fire department.  We told a handful of officers about the addresses we had, and they only had room for one of us on their boat, so Omar went with them while I hurried back to his truck for warmth.  I was soaked and shivering and regretting ever making fun of one of my friends for being a hoarder and keeping random items like a wetsuit in his garage.

Omar returned about half an hour later, explaining that they only had a chance to go to one of the addresses.  By this time, I had acquired another church friend’s address as well as countless others from strangers.  Omar and I clearly needed a boat to be of any use at all, so we started looking for one.

Somewhat miraculously, we found one lying on the side of the road.  The motor was busted, but at least it floated.  We requested permission to borrow it from two officers in the vicinity, but nobody seemed to even know who it belonged to, and one of them shrugged and told us to just return it after we were done.

This is the part of the story where I clearly delineate our character roles.  To put it into board game context, I was the dispatcher in Pandemic, trying to figure out who needed to be moved where and when.  Omar was the tank piece in Monopoly, doing unbelievable tank things.  Wait, there’s a tank piece in Monopoly, right?  If not, that entire metaphor falls apart.  Okay, back to the story.

We pushed the boat to the entrance of the neighborhood, and since there weren’t any oars or paddles, I was thinking we could wade alongside the boat or I could kick from behind like Dash in The Incredibles.  But Omar had other ideas.

"Get in," he said simply.

So I hopped into the 3.5-seater and watched as the Beast from the Middle East threw the rope attached to the front of the boat over his shoulder, tied it around his midsection... and just.  Started.  Walking.

Thanks to Cynthia Hua for the quick picture!

I had transformed from a dispatcher to a human GPS, and I sat there using my best robot voice for directions as Omar dragged me and the boat in cold, chest-deep water.  This wasn't a short adventure -- we had two houses to get to, and the further one was more than half a mile from the subdivision entrance.

I wish the rain let up for a single fleeting moment so I could sneak a picture in.  But Omar kept on trekking, and you couldn't hear anything except for the raindrops falling on the rising water around us and the motors of the other boats.

One of the officers driving another boat stopped us.  We were in a boat going way below speed limit in the midst of a hurricane, and we still got pulled over by the cops.  Things got unnecessarily tense:

Officer: "Where did y'all get that boat?"
Us: "It was on the side of the road."
Officer: "That's the property of the Fire Department.  You shouldn't be out here anyway.  Turn around and put it back where you got it.  You're lucky we don't have you arrested."
Us: "Well, we asked one of the officers there if we could borrow it."
Officer: "Did you?  What was his name?"
Us: "Uhh... I don't remember.  But we have two families at two addresses who need help, and we'll return the boat after that."
Officer: "You have two addresses?  Okay, fine.  But you can't fit more than 3 other people on that boat.  So lead these officers to one of the addresses and then return the boat immediately."

So Omar resumed his Strongman competition, except now we had a larger boat with three officers in it chugging along slowly behind us.  We passed by submerged cars and SUVs, making sure to avoid trees and fire hydrants as the caravan made its way towards the first address.  When we finally arrived, we stepped inside to lend four hands with moving luggage and/or kids, and the water was almost two feet deep on the hardwood floors.  Water damage is awful.  We quickly escorted the family of six into the bigger boat, and I squeezed back into the water rickshaw to navigate to the second address.

After a number of twists and turns in the dark night, we reached the second house.  The water level was about two feet away from the base of the garage, and we loaded the family of three into our bobbing vessel.  The mother was confused as to where Omar was going to sit.  I didn't say anything so I could fully enjoy the moment all their jaws dropped when they realized that Omar was about to singlehandedly haul the four of us out of the neighborhood.

It was a bit painful leaving.  The family was understandably worried about their home, and we passed up dozens of their neighbors appealing for aid from their front doors.  Our boat was probably past full capacity already, so we could only assure them that the Fire Department was on site and would be coming back soon to rescue more people.  But that must have been a sight to behold for them -- watching a hulk of a man ford a river while pulling a boat with four passengers in the middle of their street.  I hope they had popcorn ready -- that's superhero work.

Now we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the natural disaster, and while the city is still recovering, I am honored to have witnessed the feats of incredible people like Omar who gave credence to the #HoustonStrong hashtag.

And that, my friends, is the (short) true story of how Omar dominated Hurricane Harvey.

Growing Up A Mok: Mighty Ducks 2

Mighty Ducks 2 likely spawned not only an illogical amount of ill will towards the country of Iceland but also a generation of kids hell-bent on pranking people who are passed out.  The movie came out when I was in elementary school, so I know all about the flying V, the triple deke, and the fact that Pat Riley looks exactly like the evil Iceland coach and is therefore never to be trusted.  But the best thing about D2 was the introduction of the shaving cream prank.

The prank is simple, as most genius ideas are.  Wait until the victim falls asleep.  Put an ample amount of shaving cream in his/her hand.  Use a feather to brush his/her face.  The victim will then also become the perpetrator by having to scratch his/her face with the hand loaded with shaving cream.  The perfect crime.

My friend Ryan, also a newfound prank enthusiast, was sleeping over at my house.  We waited until my brother Jason fell asleep, and then we snuck into his room and got to work.

Unfortunately, I lived in a shaving cream-free home, as my dad used an electric razor, so we had to find an alternative.  We actually didn't have any kind of cream, including whipped.  The only household item we could think of to do the trick?  Toothpaste.

Between muffled giggles, we squirted some Crest onto Jason's hands and then used a feather duster to try to get him to smear it onto his face.  Unfortunately, he wasn't being super cooperative, and the result ended up rather underwhelming.  Finally, we got tired and gave up and just put the toothpaste directly onto his face.  Then we called it a night and went to sleep.

The toothpaste didn't magically evaporate, of course, so I think Jason woke up with a burning sensation in his eyes and toothpaste all over the pillow and sheets.  My mother was quite unhappy, but she probably would have understood if she had caught the movie.

Now I can order some shaving cream off Amazon to try the same prank on the kids.  These suckers ain't ready.

Growing Up A Mok: Gravity

The hardest part of being a dad is not laughing when your kid does something he’s not supposed to do.  The other day Levi was stacking some plastic donuts on the window sill, and I was tired, so I laid down on the floor next to the window.  Then he started stacking the donuts on my face.  So I sat up and put a donut on top of my head before doing a full-body shimmy and letting the donut fall to the ground.

Little man found it hilarious, so I did it a few more times, with more emphasis on each successive shimmy.  Then I let the donut just sit there on my noggin, and Levi took a couple steps closer to me, reached out...

...and full-on slapped me across the face.  The donut fell.

I was so shocked that I couldn't catch myself from literally ROFL-ing.  I told him "not for hitting" a couple times between cackles, but those pearls of wisdom probably didn't hit home.

Our upstairs loft area is slowly but surely transforming into a Gymboree, complete with toys and tunnels and all sorts of things to climb up on.  You know, the same setup you would want for a pet hamster.  A few months ago, little man started hurling items off of the second story and watching them crash down to the living room floor below.

My first reaction was the same as Tom Cruise’s at the end of his greatest movie, Jerry Maguire.  Nice arm!  But I didn’t want to reinforce the bad behavior, so I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to hide my delight.

He has flung toys into the open abyss a few more times since then, and he definitely knows it’s wrong at this point, but every time he acts up, I’m quickly reminded that he could be much worse.  He could be me.

Way back in the 90s, during one of my family’s trips to Hong Kong, I remember my siblings and I were hanging out at my grandparents’ apartment.  Now I can’t recall where my parents were, but I do know that the adult supervision was lax, to say the least.  Of course, this could be because I was at an age where I shouldn’t have needed Shawshank level security, but don’t worry, nobody got physically hurt or anything.

My grandparents' place was 35+ stories high, so we did what any kids would do in that situation.  We cracked open a window and started throwing stuff out to behold the power of gravity.

The adventure began with some folded paper airplanes, but we soon ran out of paper.  There wasn't much just lying around the house that seemed all that disposable, so we started searching some drawers.

Next thing you know, we were throwing my grandma's underwear out the window.  In the name of science, I suppose.  It was glorious.  We'd take turns tossing one out, get on our tiptoes to follow the flight path as far down as we could, then giggle with pure glee.  Rinse, repeat.

We must have gone through at least a week and a half's worth of bum covers before we were finally caught red-handed.  My poor grandma... we didn't think it was worth it to go down to ground level to look for the scattered undies, so they were probably lost forever.  Except for maybe one pair that I remember had gotten caught on a clothesline a couple floors down, though I doubt ole G went down there to claim them.

I started out writing this as a parenthood-type post with a lesson to be learned at the end of the story, but now I can't stop chuckling at the visual of some unsuspecting passerby walking around, minding their own business, and then having their world go completely dark due to flying granny panties.  This seems like a proper way to conclude.

The Story of Shiloh

"We'll see what happens."

When you're a married Asian couple, you learn to develop a conditioned response for whenever your parents or family members or friends or complete strangers ask you when you're going to start a family.  We handled the first round with relative ease, but lo and behold, the questions don't stop after the first child.  So those five syllables were our defense mechanism to inquiries regarding baby #2.

If you know me and Ophelia, you know it was only a matter of time.  We love kids.  She would argue that I am still a kid.  In fact, one of her most repeated phrases during our first 6+ years of marriage is "I married a child."  (Which is actually kind of a weird thing to say, given her job.)

Where we differed a bit was in terms of the timing of our family planning.  I thought the ideal age gap between Thing 1 and Thing 2 was two years.  Ophelia's timeline was a bit lengthier, which can be attributed to the fact that she's a decade older than her sister.

Long story short, with Levi being a wild handful at 16 months old, we hadn't really talked seriously about bringing another pooping human into the equation just yet.

So it was the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and we were hosting our small group for a feast of food and feelings.  There was, as always, much to be thankful for, and then in the middle of dinner, Ophelia pulls me aside and says "we need to talk."

From my experience in both real life and pop culture, those four words are rarely followed by good news, so I followed her to the kitchen expecting the worst.  I'm normally pretty talented at reading people, especially my spouse, but I had this one pegged all wrong -- the look of shock on her face was not one of tragedy, but one of... well, shock.

She told me that Denise, our adoption case worker, had just called her.

Okay, I thought.  So far, so good. 

Levi's birthmother...

Uh huh... 

...had just given birth to another baby...

Woah... 

...and it's a baby girl...

Slow down... 

...and Denise wants us to pray it over and let her know what we think.

What.

We rejoined our small group at the dining room table and were able to give off the impression that our lives had not just potentially experienced a dramatic change.  But a short time later, we broke the news to them and asked for prayer.

Everyone else soon scurried home, and Ophelia and I prayed some more.  It was tough ignoring all of the outside factors.  Timing wise, it was a busy time of the year for both of our jobs, especially with me not yet hitting the one-month mark at the new gig.  But in my opinion, there's never a perfect time for any monumental life changes.  I mean, it's change -- and we're creatures of habit.  But you just have your faith and each other and you make it work.

We called Denise back and said yes.

Then we phoned our parents and siblings to pass the surprise along.  I was feeling a whole lot of deja vu from July 2016... except they all knew we were expecting to adopt a newborn baby back then, and this time nobody knew, not even us.

We spent the next day trying in vain to prepare a babbling toddler to be a big brother, but what can you say, really?  (Even now, not yet a month later, we'll read "big brother" books to him that don't make much sense.  "I'm a big brother.  My little sister has to wear diapers, but I can... wear big kid underpants!"  Wait, no you can't...)

On Saturday, after 40 hours or so of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual preparation for a second child, we walked through the AIM Adoptions door with a full backpack, an empty hand-me-down car seat that had been stashed in our garage, a crazy toddler, and open hearts ready to explode.

And three-day-old Shiloh Yan-Shun Mok did not disappoint.  I will never be able to say no to her.

PC Sharon Ku

Time to buy a shotgun.  (Only half joking.)

I've said it before, and I'll say it a million times more: God is so good.  Thank you everyone (again) for all the love in every form imaginable.  I'm getting questions (again) about dropping off food (Erica has set up a care calendar for us) or checking out our registry (we don't have one) or donating toward's Shiloh's adoption (guess I'll piggyback off of the one created last year), and I can't stress enough how blessed we feel in the midst of the chaos of being parents to 2 kids under 2 (2 under 17 months, but who's counting).

This is us.  We'll see what happens.

PC Sharon Ku