Happy Chenny Holidays

(family photo circa 1989ish)

“We feel a lot of boys at the market.” – Mama Chen

*replace “feel” with “feed” and that is what she meant.

If you’re on Twitter you know by now that I am spending the holidays in Halifax with my parents. Thank you for sharing your enjoyment of my “mom tweets”. Thanks also for your suggestions on a new Twitter account just for my parents and the things they say and do. English is their third language behind Mandarin and Taiwanese (obviously or this would be a very sad, sad story) and I have to say – neither of my parents are good listeners. If I describe or name something, my mom will say “how to spell?” so that she can try to visualize the word and sound it out. This works great for words that sound nothing like they’re spelled. Example: quinoa.

I’ll post more about my parents in the coming weeks. Just wait until you see the pumpkin panda/dog santa my mom created.

Here are some classic’s from the past week:

Mom: “I should buy some chick-a-peas.”

Me: “Chickpeas.”

Mom: “That’s what I said. Chick-a-peas.”

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Dad hands me his cell phone and a piece of paper with a number on it asking me to program it into his phone.

Me: “What name do you want it under?”

Dad: “It’s the noodle guy. Just call him ‘Noodles’.”

My dad now has 4 numbers programmed into his phone.

Mom, Biscuit Lips (my mom’s shop), Janet (a girl who works for them) and Noodles.

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There are a few things I’d like to say about this family photo.

First, that was my favourite acid-washed skirt. I thought it was awesome and every time I wore it, I got compliments. I swear.

That was not my first perm. That means that I did this repeatedly to myself. But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because my mom’s hair is also permed.