a cold day in july

if you haven't discerned from my glaringly obvious sassy wit, sharp intellect, betwitching charm, and humility, not to mention intense bouts of impatience, i am a new yorker at heart. and even though i haven't lived in new york since i was eighteen - many many years ago - there are some things from your childhood that you just cannot shake off. there are some things that are so rooted in you, it's practically part of your nature. some things from which, even if you leave for a while, you find your way back to, because it feeds a part of your soul, because there are precious memories associated with it, because there's always hope for next year, next season, next game. this is what it means to be a knicks fan.

for those of us new york kids who came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was a decade of year after year hopefulness. this is the year. we will beat the bulls. we will beat the rockets. we will beat the pacers. we hated michael jordan (simultaneously wishing for a miraculous trade that would bring jordan to our beloved, consistently runner-up plagued team). it wasn't actually that hard to imagine. it was a different team back then - a sort of golden era if you will. we were consistently in the playoffs, consistently a great team, a feared team. sort of. at least that's what my memory tells me.

growing up, we were not allowed to watch tv on a school night. the one exception was a knicks game. i remember it so clearly, it's as if it happened yesterday. big brother and i kneeling on our family room floor, eyes glued to the tv, jumping up and cheering every time the knicks scored, screaming and lamenting every time they blew a huge lead. my mother, lounged on the couch, shouting, "they're so stupid, why do they miss that ball, i can make that shot!" and my beloved father, chanting in chinese, "su su knicks. su su knicks!" (translated into english means: "lose, lose knicks"). the only time we were allowed to watch tv and our mother was promoting her own basketball chops, while our father taunted us. of course, i wouldn't change this ever, and i long for these nights again. but all you sports fan out there, you remember that time of knicks semi-greatness don't you?

the day before i left home for college, a dear friend of mine and i promised that one day, when we had made our money in the world, we'd buy the seats next to spike lee and cheer the knicks on. (it appears that day is farther off than i had initially imagined). but somehow, life moved on without the knicks and the knicks  fell on hard times. really hard times - the dark ages for knicks fans really. and did you know that in california, where i resided for five years, they don't broadcast knicks games as often as they do in new york? go figure. so my faithful following fell to the wayside. other things came up - new friends, new loves, a new different kind of normal life. i'd stopped watching basketball altogether until i received a fateful text from my brother (an always faithful knicks fan) this past february. the incredible resurgence of the knicks and all their hopes for a championship, somehow brought back to life on the shoulders of someone who could very well have been my own brother. (if only...holla for a dolla!!!)

of course part of the frenzy and excitement was my own identification and pride as an asian american, and part of it was my new yorker kid, kneeling on the family room floor, just bursting to jump up and cheer for my home team, but i could not get enough of the knicks. jeremy lin was sensational to watch and had a truly historic sports moment. and the best part of it all was that he belonged to us. he was a new york knick.

so you see, it's kind of painful to write this precisely because i have to write in past tense. he was a new york knick. WAS. the only thing possibly more frustrating than knicks ownership management is the redskins ownership management.  that's saying something. now, here we are, with the clock ticking. big brother is tucked into a ball, rocking himself in the corner of his apartment, wondering if it's too late to refund his 2012-2013 season tickets, and i'm left sporting pontentially vintage. and we're both hoping against all hope, that the knicks will match houston's offer.

note: the one unfailing, constant thing in my sports fan life happens to be the loud, taunting family member. husband has replaced my father in the "lose, lose knicks" chanting role. and while i was definitely too afraid to punch my dad in the face, i don't hold the same reservations when it comes to husband. 

UPDATE: IT IS A FREEZING COLD DAY IN JULY. http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8174968/jeremy-lin-leaving-new-york-knicks-james-dolan-blundered-again

the apple and the tree

As you all know, this past weekend was Mother’s Day. I’ll take the recent holiday weekend as an opportunity to introduce you to the one and only, Momma Chiang. She is THE ORIGINAL Tiger Mom – move over Amy Chua because you ain’t got nothin’ on this tough lady. She is strong. Steely even. And, she is crazy. Not your run of the mill crazy. It’s the undiagnosable kind of crazy. The kind of crazy that makes your friends think your mom is adorable, only you know better. And you’re afraid. VERY afraid, because it’s the kind of crazy for which medication does not exist.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my mom. But we definitely have that somtimes tense mother-daughter relationship. Can’t live with her. Can’t live without her. And thanks to Husband, I have been led to understand the source of this tension. It’s because I am CRAZY too. There it is. In black and white for all to read. Yes. The old adage that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is sadly true.

This past holiday weekend…as my mom was, I’m sure, rewriting the draft of her annual Mother’s Day phone call speech to inform us  (read: guilt us) of how we have forgotten about her, my brother and I prepared to surprise visit her. So Husband and I boarded a plane and John boarded a train and we met in Albany. SURPRISE MOM! Well if ever there was a more understated state of surprise, I have not seen it. It’s almost like she knew we were coming, except she didn’t because when I walked up to the door, she thought I was the UPS delivery lady. What does that say about my body build and my outfit???

Let me tell you what I learned about my mom. As my mom has gotten older, I’ve become a little more worried that she would one day wire money to some representative from the Bank of Nigeria. Well I could not have been more wrong. Turns out I have a something else entirely to worry about. As we were waiting for our lunch to be brought to our table, my mother proudly announced to us that she applied for an American Express card, in my name, so that she could get 10,000 Delta miles in furtherance of her China trip this coming November. Better yet, she gets these miles after she spends $500.00 on the card – in my name. There's a word for this kind of behavior. It's called identity theft. Who knew that my mother would be the criminal and I would be the prey?

Identity theft aside, it was a great Mother’s Day weekend. We went to Saratoga where we filled up on sun, gelato, hat shopping, whiffle ball, and antiquing.  Oh and some fresh air - some really fresh pure air.

 

I’ll end today’s post with Saturday evening’s festivities. My brother and I were anticipating a night of watching the Caps-Rangers do-or-die Game 7 when my mother informed us that she cancelled her subscription to cable months ago. What do you mean you cancelled cable!?! Since Husband and I have settled into the DC region, I have all but abandoned my New York teams (the Knicks being the exception, thank you Jeremy Lin). So how were my brother and I going to play out our sibling rivalry via the Caps and Rangers without cable? We all piled into the car and drove down the main strip in my mom’s town searching for a sports bar. Sadly, there were none to be found until we drove by Hooters. Faced with very little options, we decided to go in and watch the game. My mother’s response: “Hooters? Oh, they have chocolate.” Yes mother, that is indeed what they are famous for. What can you say to the woman who thinks the two “O O” in are supposed to be eyeballs, except, I <3 her.

And even though the Rangers won, I got this on you big bro - enjoying that pure oxygen.