Oh my gosh, you’re kidding, right? There she was, standing by the door, checking her watch, impatiently waiting. That’s just so me, have all the patience in the world when it comes to puzzles but have zero patience when it comes to waiting for people.
I approached her. She looked me up and down with a raised eyebrow. “Is this a joke? You look exactly like me, well except for the long hair.”
I chuckled. “Well, these last 10 years has not exactly been easy for me, for you, for us, I mean.”
Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean? What happened?”
I went to the nearest table. “Let’s sit down.” She shrugged. The weather was gorgeous. Well, it’s Southern California, the weather’s gorgeous everyday. I sighed.
“I see my fashion taste hasn’t change.” She said. “Still so outdated.”
“Well, what do you expect when you barely have a job and still living with your mother?”
“I did go to college, right? Please tell me I did.” I nodded. She breathed, relieved. “Then what happened?”
“I couldn’t really find a job and mom seemed reluctant when I talked about moving out of state like she doesn’t want me to go. Plus I was working three or four jobs until recently.”
“Three or four jobs? Really? Wow, what were they?”
“Well, I was working in a private school teaching Chinese and Brazilian kids English. I didn’t like it though. No one listened to me, no matter how hard I tried.
The following year, when a family came to Utah from China to do business, they didn’t know English and needed someone to interpret for them. Of course, mom boasted to them about me and that got me two additional jobs. I was enrolled in only one class then but still it was tough running around. I quit all of those jobs eventually though and that left me with only one job, doing translation at home.” I smiled.
“Whew, that spells rough road ahead. Wait, you didn’t talk about Tiger, what happened to him?” I sighed and looked away. “Mom divorced him, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did.” I sighed. “After we moved to Texas, things got really bad. Honestly, I can’t remember there been a day when they didn’t fight. That was a rough time for us. I constantly thought if they went on like this, one of them was going to kill the other and I do not want that to happen.”
“What happen after she divorced him?”
“Mom and I moved to Utah.”
“Your life sounds so bum. Is there anything for me to look forward to?”
“Of course. You get to attend three high schools in four years. You get to learn 
to play the piano and a little bit of the guitar. You’ll learn to sing and you will have friends not to mention you’ll have three maybe four graduations. Life is full of ups and downs. Look forward to the ups instead of the downs.” She nodded slightly.
I stood up and was about to walk away. “Oh, a little advice. Go to University of Utah. No matter what mom’s friend says, choose Accounting for your major and you must start practicing Chinese again. It’ll come in useful for that translation job.”
I should probably tell about my favorite drinks and why I can’t replicate them. My ultimate top of the list drink is the Boba milk tea. I’ve only had it twice, once in China and once in Oakland, California. I tell you, it is the best thing I have ever drunk. I will never forget it. I have never seen the process in making this delicious drink but my mom has when she worked in a restaurant. She told me it involves a lot of hard work to get that tapioca just right and you need special machine to do it. Also the calories for this drink happens to be horrendous, so I don’t want to drink too much.
My next favorite drink is milkshake. I think everybody knows what is in a milkshake, ice cream and milk blended together in creamy goodness. I first fell in love with this drink when my step-grandmother bought it for me at Burger King. It instantly became my favorite drink, that is before I rediscovered the deliciousness of Boba. Then every Sunday, right after church when my step-grandparents, step-dad, and I go to Burger King to get our usual Sunday meal (me, fish sandwich), I would also order a milkshake.
Last but not least, fruit smoothie. I consider this drink to be the healthy alternative to the milkshake. It’s got fruit. It’s got yogurt. It’s got juice. My favorite place to get smoothie is Ben and Jerry. Yes, the ice cream shop but their signature smoothies are out of this world. I made it myself a couple times but it was so watery and everything tasted wrong. Don’t get me started about mom’s smoothie. She doesn’t like cold drinks so she uses room temperature water instead of juice. Room temperature water, yuck. Plus she puts all kinds of weird things in there that I can’t even mention on here.
This is Another Story 