one hour of lunar new year holiday party planning session on my calendar in the middle of the work day was out of sheer curiosity. It wasn’t until the team chat began to clamoring for to for my attention in the bottom right corner of my screen that i was deep into the endless consultant OCD rabbit hole. As expected, I was late to the meeting, as is often the case.
The second i joined, this joyful voice passes along "I'll pass it to Fain" *shooooooot*, the intro prompt flashed through my eye right before I hit Join, the thrill of recollecting my memory and my identity was quite funny, I do remember the last question to break the ice was being almost ritualistic "what excites you about lunar new year?" My brain just conjured up “reuniting with people who’s important to you and makes you happy" without thinking…
The mic keep rolling on until the person said "I think am I'm the last one". The organizer then delved into a review of last year's party and outlined this year's vision. Meanwhile, I have this can of coke that my friend brought from the pizza and soda combo has been sitting in my cabinet for two month, nothing really intrigue me enough to crack it open. I guess I am not the pizza + soda gal and the pizza shop owner has not minded me dry chug the new york slice without supporting his soda fridge.
Hearing about lunar new year two month ahead, maybe because the cold feels right, maybe my side table was whispering “you know you remember it…” I started to chuckle.
The planning crew shifted to talk about food caterings and recruiting someone to be the volunteer lead who will be granted to decide the party food options — maybe the most powerful role in this entire party — my brain started to wonder. Long before I remember, my family's lunar new year dinner night, there are one huge round table with a tantalizing steamed fish on the other side of the table that out of my reach, and a quarter sized rectangular table in the nook of feasting room, but always stayed within the eyesight from the round table -- that's the kids table.
The kids table has the same food as the adult table, but smaller, and no chilli pepper. I can't recall if i graduated to the adult table because of my taste buds outgrowing the clam flavors first or being the captain of all the family kids earned my seat early. Regardless, I never really sat there religiously, the adults talk so loud especially after a few glass of wine and beer. All kids loved coming up to me, asking for soda pours. and mimicking the burning faces of the adults drinking alcohol. They, too, experienced the throat tingling but followed a wave of giggle.
I remember how those family sized coke and sprite used to looked like a cartooned nuclear bomb, they won’t show up in your family fridge only during significant gatherings. When they do, all they kids are forbidden to pour their own soda because their little hands would eventually feed it to the table then the moms will compain how both the table and floor are all sticky. But I get to pour for them, and I always do when they ask. I quickly collected a couple cube of ice and grabbed that can of coke been neglected in my cabinet, while the volunteer lead started talking about the cost of lion dancing. I poured my own glass of coke in my spectator seat, the frizzy dance tickling my tongue, maybe just like how it also did, to my house of little monkeys.
刘树荣你要是看到这篇短文的话，想你 T.T