Category Archives: Family

Happy Birthday Mom!

Posted in Family, Mom is Better Than Everyone. Especially Me. by

I know everyone thinks they have the best mom in the world, but dudes.

Mine puts up with me.
And Paps.

Sometimes at the same time.

And in almost thirty years, she’s never sold us to human traffickers.

That’s pretty impressive.

In addition to that, she makes really good Indian food from scratch, yells at the TV while watching football and totally backs you up when you make the assertion that your father looks like a smaller version of Erik Estrada.

So, to Mom on her birthday:

Sorry I curse so much.
And whine like, all the time.
And yell about pretty much everything – good, bad or indifferent.
And don’t drink enough any milk.

Basically, I’m sorry for being your kid.

You deserve so much better…but I can assure you that no-one will love you as much as I do.

And there is absolutely no-one alive who will take as much glee in mocking Paps.

Happy birthday, Mom.

I love you.

Your Jemika xx

Home Sweet Home Or, You’ve Got Mail

Posted in Family by

Living over 1000 miles away from your parents is tough.

I see them once a year if I’m lucky and traditions like Sunday Dinners? Not really a reality in my world which is a shame because Mom is a pretty phenomenal cook.

However, they do send me pretty spectacular care packages.

Upon checking the mail today, I realized I had a giant box waiting for me in the communal mail bin. I lug this beast home and call Paps.

Jaime: Jesus, Paps! I almost killed myself trying to lug this thing into the house. What did you pack? Cinderblocks?
Paps: Just open it, will you?

I grab a knife and start shredding away.

Jaime: Who taped this thing?!
Paps: I did.
Jaime: Was your primary objective that I not be able to open it? Because if so, well done!

Yeah. I’m the worst. People should not love me.

I finally manage to open it and notice a slightly squashed box with my name scrawled on it in an unfamiliar hand. I gingerly rip it open and immediately start roaring:

“OH MY GOD! RAINBOW COOKIES! YOU GOT ME RAINBOW COOKIES! THERE ARE RAINBOW COOKIES IN MY HOUSE! RAINBOW COOKAYYYYS!”

For the uninitiated, Rainbow Cookies are these amazing cake-like morsels of heaven sandwiched with raspberry jam and almond paste and enrobed in chocolate. And the best ones in the whole world can be found at Columbino’s in West Palm.

And I have them! In my kitchen! Right now!

Once I stopped roaring like a lunatic about rainbow cookies, I tore through the rest of the care package to discover:

Two different kinds of naan bread
Cassava chips (because I grew up in South Florida with a Ugandan father)
Banana chips with black pepper
Gummi Bears
Heinz Baked Beans (I’m English. Every now and then, a girl needs a fried egg and beans on toast with lashings of Worcestershire Sauce)
Homemade lime pickle
White pepper
Two different kinds of hot sauce – Mexican Yucateca Chipotle and Jamaican Grace Hot Sauce

It’s actually a pretty good culinary representation of my life – Spanish South Floridian influences, East African influences, English influences and Indian influences – every last one of them delicious.

Thanks for the goodies, Mom and Paps! This is the best care package ever!

I love and miss you so much. Thanks for feeding me even though I’m over a thousand miles away.

Love:

Your mouthy kid. The perpetually hungry one.

Also, RAINBOW COOKIES!

Happy Father’s Day 2012

Posted in Conversations With Funny People, Family, Father Knows Best by

“You need to be nicer to your dad.”

I hear this all the time from people who don’t really know Paps. Primarily because a majority of my stories about him involve me yelling at him.

For example: yesterday, we got into an argument about classic rock. I’m talking about how I prefer the Stones to the Beatles and he asks if I like David Bowie:

Me: Oh yeah. Bowie’s cool.
Paps: You know his real name isn’t David Bowie, right?
Me: Yeah. It’s David Jones. He changed it because he didn’t want to be conflated with Davey Jones from The Monkees.
Paps: He named himself after the knife.
Me: Yeah. A Bowie knife. I know.
Paps: He did it to impress Mick Jagger. Jagger…dagger.
Me: No, he didn’t!
Paps: Yes, he did, Jemmy.
Me (physically biting off the words in anger): No, Paps. He. Didn’t.
Paps: Jemmy! I used to read music magazines in the 1970′s. I would know!
Me: Paps! I read music BOOKS NOW! I would know!

These are the stories people hear and as a result, they wind up wanting to buy Paps a pint and thinking I’m a jerk who needs to stop yelling at her father.

Fair play. I’m the one telling the stories. I have no problem painting myself as the mustache-twirling villain in these scenarios and honestly, they’re a lot more interesting and a lot less glurgey than the way I really feel about the guy.

However since it’s Father’s Day and I’m over a thousand miles away, I figure a little glurge wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I don’t look anything like this anymore. Like, 15% of me has a very genuine concern that this isn’t really me at all.

Paps is my hero and I am so damn proud to be my father’s daughter – dark-skinned, bullheaded, schmoozy and loud. I just hope I’ve inherited his other traits too. His loyalty, his generosity, his kindness and his selfless devotion to the people he loves. I have never met a man who does more for his family than Paps and I am so damn lucky to be his kid.

So, to my hero on Father’s Day – I hope you have a wonderful one and I really wish I was at home with you. This is the one day you get to be better than Superman, so live it up. Because tomorrow — Man of Steel’s back on top again.

I love you, Paps.

Your foul-mouthed, nakami oldest kid xx

Happy Anniversary Mom + Paps

Posted in Family, Mom is Better Than Everyone. Especially Me. by

Mom - who is that dude in the back with the rockin' mustache?

We have four different couches at Mom’s house and yet, she insists – insists – on smooshing next to Paps.

In the middle of summer.
In South Florida.
In a house where they don’t really like to run the air.

Yeah.

They’re kinda sweet.

Happy anniversary, guys! Here’s to 32 more.

Love you both.

Your mouthy older kid who calls with stupid questions and spends a majority of her time arguing with Paps*

* Look, I wouldn’t argue with you if you didn’t say such preposterous things. Also, you make up bald-faced lies about things and then when I repeat your lie – operating under the assumption that it’s the truth – I get yelled at. Hey, you know what’s not amusing? That! How the hell was I supposed to know that there’s some sort of tribal ridiculousness about the definition of the word ‘Marvari’? Also, the caste system makes no sense to me. NO sense. And the fact that it’s been Balkanized even further, segmenting castes into separate groups based on geography and identification with a particular deity? It makes it even more complicated. You would think that a nation with a billion – Carl Sagan with a B Billion – would actively work to make things easier, not more convoluted. I mean, Christ! You need a phD in Indian anthropology just to make sense of the damn thing and yet, it’s common knowledge to everyone who isn’t me. Where was I? Oh yeah — stop saying things that get me in trouble in a roundabout way. You’re making me look bad…and I do an excellent job of that all by myself.

xx

In Memory of my Grandmother

Posted in Family by

For almost thirty years, I was lucky enough to be my grandmother’s mouthy, pain-in-the-ass granddaughter. The one with the voracious appetite who made her laugh against her better judgment.

She had a great laugh – loud and brassy.

A couple of years ago, we were gathered in my grandfather’s hospital room and couldn’t find the remote to change the channel. So, I hopped up, teetered precariously on a chair and started channel surfing.

She immediately started yelling, “What are you doing? Get down from there! You’re gonna break your head!”

I looked at her and replied, “It’s fine! We’re in a hospital. What better place for me to break my head than this?”

Then, there was the time she was flying out to California to visit my uncle. Paps was taking her to the airport and I came along for the ride.

“You’re coming too?” She asked.

“I have to,” I replied. “Paps has been using that cheap dye that turns his hair red and now, he looks a little Al-Qaida-ey. Gotta make sure he doesn’t get arrested.”

Both times, she cackled with laughter.

I’m gonna miss that laugh.

Grief is a callous sonofabitch. He just saunters up, cold-cocks you and keeps right on walking. He teaches you nothing and leaves you disoriented and in pain.

But you know what? Not this time. Sorry Grief, but we’re not playing rope-a-dope. You don’t get to leave me black, blue, bruised and bloody.

When I think of my grandma, I’m not going to be mired in sorrow.

Instead, I’m gonna think about how she always made me pea and potato curry whenever I came home.

I’m going to think about her making dry roasted peanuts and removing the skins by rubbing them between her flattened fingertips.

And I’m going to think of her laugh.

I’ll be missing you, Ba.

Love:

Jemmy xx

Texting With Paps Or, Happy Father’s Day 2011!

Posted in Family, Father Knows Best, Texting With Paps by
Mom is pretty, I am…lumpy, for lack of a better term and Paps is duly unimpressed. Yay family!

Texting With Paps: The Father’s Day Edition

Some background really quick: I sent him a card in which I wrote this incredibly thoughtful, honest and touching statement about how he is my hero and that everything I do is in the hopes of being like him. He’s smart, so I want to be smart. He’s funny, so I want to be funny. He’s well-read, so I want to be well-read. Your basic King Louie — “Whoo whoo whoo. I wanna be just like you. I wanna walk like you, talk like you do.”

To cut the saccharine a little, I add some gentle-natured ribbing. Because if I didn’t, he’d immediately get suspicious and also because you can’t let Paps’ head get too big. He’s practically a Macy’s Parade balloon to begin with (what, dude? It’s true. Mom’s nodding, isn’t she? Yeah).

So, I added something along the lines of, “You’re as dark as a starless sky, as freshly-laid tar and over roasted espresso, so I spend a lot of time out in the sun.”

(Before you get your Hanes all wadded up, let me explain that Paps and I are the darkest members of our family and rib each other about it often. Why? Because you’ve gotta laugh to keep from crying. See, Indians come from a rich tradition of skin-color bias where bleaching creams are a million-dollar industry - outstripping sales of Coca-Cola and tea! Tea! What the fuck? -  and girls are told not to spend time outdoors because no man will want to marry them if they get too dark. I can’t even begin to explain just how much is wrong with this, so I’m stepping off my soapbox and getting back to the original point)

Sow what you reap, I guess because that lead to a battery of texts:

Paps: Thanks for the father’s day card, I am as dark as freshly laid tar? Like starless dark sky? Like a badly burned Oreo cookie? Like freshly mined coal? Dark is good. It often refers to being mysterious.
Jaime: Mysterious? In your case, I think you mean ‘criminal.’
Paps: OK. Don’t even talk to me.

Several minutes later

Paps: Why is it that your mom is finest, purest cream and I am full-bodied robust roasted Columbian?
Jaime: Because Mom is a wonderful celestial being filled with light…and you are a mud person. Like me.
Paps: Again, don’t even talk to me.

Half an hour later:

Paps: Why don’t you just say Swamp Thing? It would make me feel a lot better.
Jaime: Don’t be ridiculous. Swamp Thing was green, not peat-colored.
Paps: DON’T BOTHER HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ME!

So, to Paps on this wholly-artificial holiday created to prop up sales of barbecue grills, golf balls and ugly-ass ties you wouldn’t even use to make a noose — Happy Father’s Day!

I’ve wanted to be just like you ever since I was a little kid. Hopefully, I’m making you proud. And if I’m not doing that – at least I’m making you laugh.

Your daughter (the mouthy dark one) loves you.