Mother's Day, Poker, and the Oldies

First off, as I have done in past years, I should once again wish all the many mothers who read my blog a Happy Mother's Day.

For my own mom, my family had planned to celebrate Saturday by each of us (dad, sister, myself) cooking one dish for dinner. Unfortunately a headache started bothering me Friday night and then continued through Saturday. Having to go into work Saturday morning did not help either, but that is another story. So it ended up being just my dad who cooked, which was a good meal so it was all good.

The interesting part of the weekend started that night when my dad was watching me play poker online and I was teaching him the tricks of the trade. Kind of funny how he was getting so nervous about these little hands worth dollars and cents, considering he is a guy who has traded commodities for a living for over 20 years, and experiences ticks in the market worth thousands of dollars on a daily basis.

Of course, after watching me play, he wanted to play too, so the rest of us busted out some chips and the Chen family played some poker for the rest of the night. Entertaining moments ensued.

At one point my sister was humming the tune to that Gwen Stefani song "Rich Girls", and out of nowhere, my mom started humming along with her. This shocked both me and my sister, because if you know my mom, you would definitely not expect her to know who Gwen Stefani is (let alone know one of her latest songs). She thinks Backstreet Boys is rock music and their beats are too heavy, to give you some idea of her musical tastes.

Turns out "Rich Girls" is a remake of an old song from the movie/musical "Fiddler on the Roof", which some of you may already know, but I and my sister did not. The original version was titled "If I Were A Rich Man" by the way.

While we were playing, I had my laptop next to me so I could check on my fantasy baseball teams, and I decided to dig out some of my oldies mp3s that I knew my mom and dad used to listen to. Stuff like Frank Sinatra, Carpenters, Andy Williams, John Denver, etc.

When I played the Bee Gees' song "How Deep Is Your Love", my dad started telling us about how the song reminded him of his college days and his first girlfriend and breakup experience. It was a little weird for me to hear him talking about that stuff, but at the same time I was glad to hear him share and show us some a side that we normally never see. One of the first times I can remeber being able to look at my dad as a "human being", rather than exclusively as a "father". Not just the guy who put a roof over my head, food on the table, and taught me discipline and almost everything I know today, but a living breathing person that I can really relate to.

So as we played poker Saturday night, I felt like it was a really great time of bonding for my family. With my sister travelling most weekdays, and me having moved out 2 years ago, it's been especially rare these days for all four of us to spend much meaningful time together. I mean, we're still under the same roof most weekends, but it's mostly just a matter of having lunch together after church, or just me watching baseball as my mom plays piano and my dad studies the market for the upcoming week and my sister watches Apprentice on her computer.

Also funny and worth mentioning is that the big winner of our poker game that night was my mom. Fitting on Mother's Day weekend I guess, good for her. Normally she is the first one knocked out because she is too busy snacking on her Chinese treats to pay much attention to the game. That, or maybe she had something like pocket 2's but didn't notice that there were 4 diamonds on the board, and think that with the 3 other people in the pot, chances are good that someone might have a flush, calling an all-in for all her chips with her one small pair.

Anyways, I have to say here that even though it was a simple night of the four of us playing a game of poker for a few hours, it was a really great memory for me that will probably stick with me for a long time. I realized later that night in bed, that the opportunities for us to do things together like that will only get scarcer as we all get older. And obviously I should really cherish these moments as much I can while I still have the chance.