Happy Saturday and Summer Solstice! A big thanks to Natalie of Natalie the Explorer for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare.

Even though it’s summer solstice and supposed to be hot as hell today, it’s not. It’s in the upper 70’s today, unusual for this time of the year. It’s a good respite for the last two days, which has been hot and super dry, with humidity dipping into the single digit. Still, it’s summer, so I think I’ll settle for something iced.

I returned to work this week with colleagues asking whether I had fun on my road trip. “Yes,” I told them, “I saw a lot of beautiful landscapes and went to a lot of new places.” After I said, I felt like I’ve told a lie even though I did indeed enjoyed the trip.

Maybe I’m just being selfish. Maybe I’m just looking for something to complain about. Truly, upon self-reflecting on the trip, I felt anger more than anything else because I couldn’t and didn’t get to do many of the things I got to do.

I didn’t get to listen to anything in the car. There was no music, no podcasts, and barely any audiobook. Each time I start playing something in the car, my mom would either start talking over it or start playing Youtube videos loudly on her phone. Either way, I couldn’t listen to anything I wanted and had to always listen to her voice or some guy drone on about politics and history in Chinese. This week, I am playing catch-up with my podcasts.

So far, I think I’m done with last week. Onto this week…

I do not like to be ordered around like a child or a pet. I am a human being. I have thoughts and emotions. My mom brought an electric noodle maker on the trip. Each night she would cook in the hotel room and place a plastic bowl with instant noodle in front of me and would say, “Eat now.”

Then after we’ve eaten, she would say, “shower now.” It was just like our trip to Taiwan.

There were so many times I wanted to sneak out of the motel room in Hanksville, drive a few miles into the desert of highway 95, and photograph the night sky. That was the whole reason I brought an extra camera lens and the tripod. We were in the heart of dark sky country the first 2 nights of the trip. There’s not a city in sight for 125 miles. Light pollution was at its lowest.

Yet, I couldn’t because every little movement from my side of the room would be questioned by my mom even when she’s asleep. “What are you doing?” She asked when I got out of bed to use the bathroom one night. So imagine my explanation when I get dressed and grab the car keys.

The other thing was she kept wanting to take over the wheel even though she wasn’t feeling up to driving. The three times she drove, she ended up needing to switch back about an hour later. Unlike me, she is also not used to navigating mountain roads. The curves and the switchbacks scare her and she would start whimpering and screaming at every little peep that didn’t come from her.

Much of the roads on the road trip were mountainous. There were tight curves and steep declines. I had no problem navigating those as I’ve driven on plenty of mountainous roads before. However, if I so much as let out a little yawn, she would threaten to take over the wheel. Did I mention I barely had any coffee on each day of the road trip while had to listen her Youtube videos and snoring every night?

I don’t mention this in front of anyone out of politeness, but here, this is my world, my blog, it’s my place of expression and a place to vent my bad emotion. I, therefore, thank you for listening and hope you didn’t think I’m being a whiny little brat. I know my mom means well but I’m someone who hates to be controlled and babied.

As a reward, I would like to share my harvest this week – a 2-pound head of cone-shaped cabbage – and guess who had something awful to say about this magnificent creation.