A pomelo is a volleyball-sized citrus fruit, with smooth yellow-green skin, and a thick and spongy white rind. You remove as much of the rind as possible, pry the sections apart, and peel off the membrane to reveal plump, sweet, jewel-like flesh. One pomelo usually fills a single stomach. When we were about to depart from my parents' house last week, my mom asked me from the garage if I "wanted to take pomelo." Since it's not something one can find at Safeway, I said "sure," thinking she meant only one. She emerged from the garage with two grocery bags full of fruit, one with 6 pomelos, and the other with about a dozen softball-sized Fuji apples.
"How about some apples?" she asked. (keep in mind she's still shouting most of this, although by this point, I'm about two feet away)
"It's okay. I already have some."
"I bought all these apples for your visit! You haven't eaten any of them." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Are you sure you're eating enough?"
I sighed. "Okay, I'll take two. You know, you didn't tell me you had these until now." I reached for a pomelo, and a couple apples.
"Take all of these!" she exclaimed, pushing both of the bags towards me.
"No mom, it's okay. We couldn't possibly finish all this fruit. It'll go bad."
"Ai! You hurt my feelings!" she cried.
She'd already tried to convince me to take a wheel of cheese, a smoked salmon, a basket of dried fruit, a pack of beef jerky, packs of soy milk, a box of cream crackers, a tin of cookies, and a big bag of homemade candied nuts. Whenever we see my parents, my mom always tries to load us up with food, especially on road trips. I think she's worried that we're going to get stranded in the middle of the I-5, with no one to reach us for days. When we saw them in Catalina in November, she brought a huge heavy backpack, even though my parents were only there for a day, and not even overnight. Zack and I could not figure out what the hell she was lugging around, until we were about to drop them off at the ferry. She unzipped her bag, and pulled out a canister of Nori, a tin of cookies, a three-pack of juice boxes, 2 bottles of water, 2 cans of Coke, a pack of haw flakes, and 10 packs of gum. "Take this. Your ferry might be delayed, and you might get hungry." I gently pointed out that her ferry might delayed, she might get hungry, and that we couldn't possibly carry all that food on the plane. I did, however, take the haw flakes and a couple packs of gum. I have to admit, it warms my heart a little, to think that she worries that we might go hungry, even on a one-hour ferry ride. I know it's her way of "mothering" and demonstrating her affection.