“There’s this water cooler in the office that no one ever fills up,” Amy started telling me.

“So I came up with an idea for a contest.  People mark on a sheet when they fill it up and at the end of the month, the winner gets a prize.”

“That’s a good idea.  What kind of prize?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  A pack of gum or something.”

“Who wants to do that for gum?”

“That’s not the point.  So I find out that Seymour has been filling up the water cooler when there’s still a quarter of a tank left – just so he can fill it up before anyone else!”

“It’s almost empty, what’s the big deal?”

“It’s a big deal because he’s cheating on my contest and wasting water!”

“Whatever.”

“So the next time I heard him fill the cooler, I caught him.  I told him SEYMOUR YOU ARE BANNED FROM MY CONTEST!  Loud enough for the whole office to hear.”

(Everything Amy says is loud enough for the whole office to hear.)

“That must have been pretty loud.  Normally I can hear you from down the hall anyways.”

“That’s what he gets.”

“So how’s the contest been going since?”

“No one is doing it but me now.”

Heard in the E.R. today:

“Stick around, there’s bound to be some hand injuries.”

“No kidding, people just don’t get it — don’t hold onto a lit firecracker.”

“Last year, some guy blew his throat out with a mortar.”

“No way.”

“Yeah.  It didn’t go off, so he bent over it to take a look, and it went off.”

“Jesus.”

“The nurse looking at his throat was actually looking at the inside of his throat.”

“Remember that girl who lost her arm a couple years ago.”

“Yeah man, I was in triage and this guy comes in saying his girlfriend cut off her arm.  So I’m like yeah, yeah, probably a finger or a laceration, and whoa, she comes in without an arm.”

“How did that happen?”

“There were so many stories, they never figured it out.  They were drunk and she jumped out of the car, or a car hit them while her arm was out.  Story kept changing.”

“Or someone pushed her out of the car probably.”

“Did they ever find her arm?”

“No.”

Amy’s been using her Nintendo DS as a little diary lately (via the Hello Kitty PDA) – oh, it’s called micro-blogging now?  Great.  Anyways, I’ve been getting a kick out of reading her minimalist daily summaries (posted with her permission), below:

Dec. 25, 2008:
*heart icon* SCOTT GOT THIS FOR ME FOR X-MAS!

Dec. 26, 2008:
H’S FAMILY CAME FROM CHICAGO.  ONLY MADE SPICY FOOD.  RAN (as in exercised).

Dec. 27, 2008:
MITT (friend in prior entry) and his family over.  2 girls!  Ooseung had fun w/ the girls.

Dec. 28, 2008:
*bicycle icon*  Ice skating.  Nephew was good for 1st time.  Our team beat their team in battleship.

Dec. 29, 2008:
*bowtie icon*  Sanrio store w/ Ooseung.

Dec. 30, 2008:
*car icon*  10:30 OIL CHANGE

*uh-oh face*  Nephew hit head – Emergency Rm!

Dec. 31, 2008:
*star*  OFF WORK THIS WEEK!

[The Hello Kitty Assault Rifle - My wife does not approve of this unofficial adaptation, mostly because the Hello Kitty face is clearly not drawn to spec.   Picture from Topless Robot.]

Valentine’s Day was atraumatic this year. Amy made me promise not to get her something this year and she would do the same. She probably wanted to avoid another hissy fit from me about dissimilitude in gift giving which I can understand.

This is the “card” Amy made for me (below). It was in a 2×2 inch envelope she made and I initially thought she was giving me a condom (in her favorite flavor, I hoped).

The “skills” line made me laugh out loud, in a real way, not in a silent expressionless lying internet way. It made me think of Napoleon Dynamite or l33t gamer speak.

This is what I drew on the back of her card:

I don’t care what cartoonists say, drawing cartoons is a hell of a lot easier and carefree than the more realistic style I usually shoot for. It’s like CHEATING in comparison. I might draw more cartoons now.

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HELL OF KITTIES

My thanks to half-Corean model and Hello Kitty addict Aein for info about the upcoming Hello Kitty Online game. I’m going to try to get Amy into it. I’ve kind of swore off MMOs indefinitely (at least until they make a really good post-apocalyptic one) but it would be fun playing with Amy for once.

Can I be a kitty with chainsaw paws?

(Just between us though, my favorite part of Star Wars Galaxies Online was decorating my house. I am the self-proclaimed Boba Fett of online interior decorating. Or at least a Dengar … maybe more of a Zuckuss.)

I liked Amy’s Hell O’ Kitty inspired pumpkin above (although I had to tell her the eyes were too close together). I was impressed by the bow.

This was Sun Su’s (above). Classic, child-like, with a hint of grotesque horror. Daddy like.

This was Ooseung’s. She was a bit frightened by the final cut.

“It’s scary. There’s no eyes,” she whispered.

I wanted to carve Pinhead’s face on a pumpkin, complete with nails sticking in his head (inward for safety!). I didn’t get around to it. It was probably for the best.

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Man, this Halloween, they were giving out Kit Kats AND little Corean babies. I like eating the ears first.

Sun Su was Optimus Prime.

I think Sun Su and Ooseung had more fun giving out candy to the other kids than collecting it. There’s something funny about having a little boy and girl greeting you at the door and putting a piece of candy in your bag like they’re the parents.

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There’s a game at our house: How many Hello Kitty’s can you find?

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Last night, Ooseung asked Amy, “How come I have so many pink clothes?”

“… Because ummah likes pink,” Amy finally answered.

“Get some other colors, umma.”

Well.

I think this is our baby girl’s cry for help. I should start looking for a Harley Quinn costume and a giant styrofoam sledgehammer for her next year.

“They’re good guys because they’re always laughing,” Ooseung says of the homicidal couple Joker and Harley. I think she identifies with their mischievous nature. That would make us parents … the Batman.

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Yep, if there’s a Hello Kitty appearance in a mall, that’s where the woman I married will be. Or is this Amy’s closet? Ooseung was either too scared of the humongous kitty head or she was just eaten up by the humongous kitty head.

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FRIGHTENING RELEVATIONS

Overall, October was a fun month. I went on a cider mill trip with Sun Su and his class and then to two other hay farms with just our family.

The class field trip allowed me to see how Sun Su acts in kindergarten. He’s pretty shy with classmates and teacher alike. He rarely says anything in school. It got to the point where they actually got a Corean-speaking ESL (English Second Language) teacher to talk to him in Corean. Other than a few words he doesn’t even speak Corean, but I’m sure he just nodded the way he does with his Corean-speaking relatives. It was as comical as it was concerning.

So yeah, my Sun Su is too much like me. We talk. We play games. We draw sometimes. I put him to sleep most nights. I know what he’s feeling and he knows what I’m feeling. His favorite place is always right next to me and he always takes time to reciprocate a hug from his appah. If I’m not around, and Amy is joking about me or even says my name in conversation, he’ll pout and tell her, “Don’t say that about appah.” He also vigorously defends … The LIGER! too. (Amy tends to joke about our cat.)

Ooseung on the other hand is her mommy’s clone. She’s a joker and budding wisecracker herself like Amy. She’s goofy and loud like Amy. When you ask her to count in her head, she counts out loud, just not as loud. Appah is a distant second place winner if her ummah is around. Hugs from appah are okay as long as it doesn’t keep her from ummah for long.

Sun Su’s shyness concerns me but at least he’ll have someone around (me) who will understand him. Amy doesn’t understand what it means to be shy. It seems like her idea of relaxing sometimes is being surrounded by as many relatives as possible. She grew up with the whole extended Corean family and relatives and get-togethers every other week. I grew up with a party of three – brother, mom, and me. Even though my mom was an extrovert, that just drove me further inward. A room full of people can be like nails on a chalkboard for me. Pretending to be social when you’re not is like cruising in your car and suddenly throwing it in reverse. I can’t have a conversation with more than one person at a time. Even greeting a bunch of relatives is still ridiculously awkward. I especially fail at every Corean gathering with that last one.

My dad always said, “Shyness is a disease.” He said it with discouragement but empathy too. I’m okay with it. I’m okay with being perceived as rude or odd or too quiet due to my asocial tendencies. I can’t stop it, I can’t change it, and I’m old enough to know that by now. Anyways, maybe Amy will provide some balance to whatever Sun Su has inherited or learned from me. I suppose that balance is the cure.

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DR. CROTCHSHOT
I guess there was a reason my favorite khaki pants were folded up in the back corner of my closet for a year. And here I thought my patients were silently awed by my Gustav Klimt tie. I actually wore these all day at work. If my patients mention it tomorrow, I’ll just tell them it was their Alzheimer’s or pain pills playing tricks on them.