Bowling For Dollars With Ariel

10-13-16

 Ariel has been in Taiwan two nights and hasn’t contacted me; I am not contacting him. Simone asked me if he arrived but she should be asking her mother; I presume Ariel is with her. He said he would stay for a week and then go back to Shen-Zhen to teach and do stand-up comedy. 

10-17-16

Ariel is still in Brooklyn. Simone contact him and he replied  saying he couldn't use the plane ticket he bought because Alice was in the studio. He wouldn't get the refund for his ticket for months and he couldn't get enough money to buy another ticket until the temp agency (in California) mailed him his money.

10-18-16 

Ariel is indeed going back to Asia via Taiwan. He said he was going to Shen-Zhen afterwards. Now he is on a plane, having gotten the money from the agency he was waiting for, so he said.  All he wrote was about disappointment in Alice and finding a job in New York.  I hope to have a meal with him, but he's not staying in our condo and hasn't asked to. I'm assuming he's staying with his mother in Nantou and that I will see him when he comes to Taichung.

10-22-16

I spoke with Ariel from poolside yesterday morning. He was at a Family Mart because there is no Wi-Fi where his mother bought a condo, somewhere, with the money from the Taipei condo I bought and she sold. 

 From NYC, Ariel wrote he would stay a week in Taiwan and go to Shen-Zhen, but yesterday he said he may stay for a month. His visitor's visa has a one-month limit. If he leaves November 19, he will not only miss our Thanksgiving dinner, but it will be more difficult to pick up a class in Shen-Zhen before the holiday. If he gets a sub job in December, he won't have income until the end of January. He had written that he wanted to attend the stand-up Take-Out Comedy contest in Hong Kong but the finals are tonight. He must get money from Libby to tide him over. She is his only enabler now with Alice's tap turned off. 

10-26-16

     His mother is spewing  New Testament crap on him, and he’s not flinching a muscle; too bad he's Jewish He suggested seeing a World Series game but he can't get up early enough to get here and he's not staying over.

10-28-16 

     The chaos of Ariel’s sporadic Messenger contacts left me guessing if we would get together. Leona contacted me during Mandarin class to say her exercise class was cancelled and she was game for lunch. Ariel contacted me after I made plans for lunch with Leona  saying he was coming at 2:45. When I got home, Leona informed me that Huai-Ya had asked to join us for lunch at E-Z Con so we rode the scooter there and met her. As we sat to eat, Ari Messaged he was in Taichung already. I adjusted my plans to meet him; we said goodbye to Huai-Ya and Leona rode me home to get the Yo-Yo Card, add money to it, and ride me to the station.

      I went bowling and had dinner with Ariel yesterday. So long as we do father-son things, he’s delightful. I met him in front of the old Taichung train station; we walked through the new station to the Taroko Mall. Three games, 575 NT including shoes and ball; my first game I scored 120 and was on my way to higher scores with a lead off spare in the second match when I slipped on the oily lane and sprained my left hamstring. I could barely throw and scored 95. I recovered to 107 in the third match but the damage was done. Ariel, who lost badly in the first match, recovered to get two 131 scores but I still beat him overall by one point! It was funny and we had a riot giving each other high fives and all.

      My leg feeling better, we walked back to get the MBT in front of the old station and rode to the stop after the Natural History Museum for dinner at Belling’s, but Belling’s, who we walked right past had gone fishing so we walked back to Splendor for me to get cheese at Goodwell and crossed the street for dinner in the food court at Sogo. We took the BRT back to Taichung Station where he went to got in a shared taxi back to Nantou and I took the new elevated Taiwan Railroad local home. Leona picked me up at the Taiyuan station as she had brought me earlier.

1-30-16 

After Ariel wrote bitingly how our "brotherly camaraderie" took a hit by my not complying with his request to let him sleep over here, I told him the truth; Leona doesn't want to see him. I softened and asked Leona if Ariel could come see a baseball game and have dinner over, but she refused. I can understand why. Ariel is a live wire; once he came, it would be difficult to get him to leave, and I don't want him to stay over, either. 

      I do not support his return to Taiwan. He has emotional issues that require counseling. Already he is complaining having to stay with his crazy mother. He could have come but didn't come into Taichung to watch the ballgame at TGIF Fridays with me because his mother told him not to come back late; it disturbs her. Ariel wants to have his cake and eat it too; enjoy himself with us and sponge off his mother.  

     After the first bowing match that he lost, he adapted his internal dialogue to compensate. To him, it was then a total points of the three matches that would determine the "winner." Even after I hurt my leg, he kept up talking like a sports broadcaster and offering me high fives. At the conclusion of the three matches, he totaled up our three game scores. To his chagrin, he had "lost" to me by one point. We had a good laugh about that but I detected he was sincerely disappointed. 

     On the BRT to Belling's, Ariel took photos of me sitting and sent them to my cell phone. I feel old when I am around him; it's the way he treats me, like I'm some sort of guest on his talk show, very patronizing and insincere.

     The Cubs have won the World Series, the Rhinos have won the Taiwan Series, but I have won nothing. My son is not a "loser" but he calls himself one and he treats himself that way. He is 31 years old and relying on others to pay his way, unwilling to toe the line on any job or get the credentials he needs to teach legitimately. I am not in competition with him but he likes comparing himself to me. I did it the hard way, but he is trying to do it the easy way. No good can come of it.  He may as well be bowling for dollars. 

     a mother's son returns the favor

that slap that made him breathe

together they cry unabated 

back to their lives awaited

from birth through separation 

perhaps they will walk upright

abandon their struggles

crawl out of the night

assure each other

that all is alright

give and take a bequest 

with no fight or resistance

only childlike insistence

only faith and fate

when a son returns the favor