The funeral was fine.  I ended up crying, which I didn’t expect.  I think it was all the emotion in the air.  It just all seemed so very, very final.  My dad made me and my sister go up to the open casket to say our farewells and at first I was like, “I don’t want to.  I didn’t like this woman very much.  I don’t have anything to say.”  But, I got up there and saw her lying in that casket and…I thought, “this is the last time I’ll see you…  This is it.”  She looked so pathetic, and I felt bad that I had been so mean.  So, I bowed my head and apologized and wished that she was not in pain anymore.  I was very surprised at how emotional I was.

All my aunts were crying, and my uncle was crying and then her sister was crying.  It was all really very sad.  I think I cried more because I could feel how sad everyone else was.  Well, except for my one uncle-in-law.  I wonder if he was slightly happy?  My sister told me when she picked me up from the airport that at the viewing (which was a few hours before, I couldn’t make it in time for that) that he walked up to my dad right as the viewing ended, right in front of the body, and said, “Ok, after the lunch tomorrow we’ll split the money.”  And then he just walked off.

My dad was shocked.  I mean, how can a person be so greedy?  Sure enough, after the funeral was over, and we all finished lunch at this korean restaurant, the adults went over to my aunt’s house to “discuss business.”  Everyone else was dreading it and rolling their eyes, but this uncle was…. well, he was something else.  I have no idea how much money is even left to divide up.  When my maternal grandfather passed away they divided up some of the money they got from this HUGE malpractice settlement.  He had slipped and broke his neck, after which he lost the use of his arms and legs.  Apparently, if the paramedics had done something when they first found him, he might not have been paralyzed.  So, of course, his family sued and won a HUGE settlement.  It was enough to buy a house for my second youngest aunt.

I guess they were meeting to divide up the money that my grandmother received after my grandfather passed away.  Ugh, I just feel like it’s so tacky.

Anyways, it’s over.  Everyone seems to have taken it really well.  Though, I guess that’s what happens when you aren’t very close to your kids.  My youngest aunt was struggling with her eulogy cause she said she didn’t know her mother very well.  Which is terribly sad, but I’ll probably have the same problem.  I also think that was why she was taking it so hard cause she didn’t really know her and now it’s too late.

Well, hopefully the whole awful “business” side of it was all taken care of.  The last time with my grandfather it dragged on forever with a few of the aunts and uncle bickering.

While it’s sad, I’m not heart broken over this.  I wasn’t very close to my maternal grand parents.  I always blamed them for how my mother turned out.  I figured if they were better parents then my mother wouldn’t have been such a horrible one herself.  As it was, they let her do whatever she wanted and she learned no real skills and didn’t even attend school most of the time.  If they had just recognized that she was bi-polar back when she was younger, they could have started her on meds sooner and she might have actually turned out to be a decent person.

Anyways, it’s too late for all that now.  While I know that it’s not expect that I got back for the funeral, I really don’t want to hear it from my aunt.  She has some pretty messed up ideas on proper etiquette.  I have a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that this whole thing is gonna end up a  mess.  My mother’s entire side supposedly has some sort of mental illness or another.  They all take meds for something (mostly bi-polar).  Though, I suspect that the youngest one (who is also the most well adjusted/normal) may only think this because all the other sisters are actually bi-polar.

So, the thing I’m most worried about is my mother’s brother.  My maternal grandmother always babied him cause he was the only boy.  That’s partially the reason he turned out so bad.  He’s been in jail several times and he’s gotten mixed up in some really shady stuff, oh, and he’s a raging alcoholic.  The house that they have in Baltimore is actually under his name.  Plus, his mother set aside some money for him that he doesn’t know about yet.

I have no idea what the big deal with the money is.  My sister, dad and cousin think that something is gonna go down.  Maybe some of my aunts want to keep the money?  There are two aunts that are pretty money hungry.  The one is constantly in debt and has a shopping addiction.  I know for a fact that she and her husband have fought pretty severely over it.  And, I think she got a boob job.  This is the one that I think will give me a hard time if I don’t go.

I’m pretty worried about my sister too.  She’s the only one left at home now (well, besides my dad) and I think my mother is going to take this pretty hard.  When my maternal grandfather died she pretty much lost it.  And, since my mother and maternal grandmother are so similar, I think she might take this death harder.

Well, we’ll see.

This movie was so twisted it’s good.  No Mercy, aka: 용서는 없다 (Yong-seo-neun Eobs-da), is a Korean movie from director Kim Hyeong-joon.  It’s about a forensic pathologist Kang (Seol Kyeong-gu) who is assigned to examine the dismembered corpse of a female murder victim. Detective Min (Han Hye-jin) points to a fanatic environmentalist, Lee Sung-ho (Ryoo Seung-beom), as the primary suspect. But when Kang’s daughter is kidnapped, a manipulative game begins between Kang and Lee, who holds secrets about the homicide case.

It’s like the Korean version of Seven, and now I think I’ve given too much away.  Still, it’s definitely worth watching.  The psychological twists keep you guessing and the acting is superb.  Normally I prefer my male actors to be a little more androgynous and drop dead gorgeous, but Seol Kyeong-gu’s gritty-ness really fit the darkness of this film.

This is definitely one of those films that will disturb you, and it’s definitely one that will spark a lot of conversation.

We recently watched the Korean movie: The Sword With No Name.  The Korean title of this movie is actually 불꽃처럼 나비처럼 (Bool-kkott-cheo-reom Na-bi-cheo-reom), which translates to “Like Firework, Like Butterfly.”  For a historical drama, I actually liked this movie.  Normally, I’m not very into Korean historical dramas.  They tend to bore me.  Though, this one was only very loosely based on actual Korean history.

Here is the synopsis:  Moo-myoung is a Joseon dynasty headhunter who tracks down fugitives and lives off their rewards. On one of his missions, he encounters a beautiful noble lady, Ja-young, and falls in love with her.  Ja-young is on her way to the royal palace as the next queen of Joseon. Lovesick Moo-myoung becomes the personal guard to the queen in order to be closer to Ja-young and protect her. After attaining the title of queen, Ja-young tries to modernize the dynasty by allying with foreign nations but becomes turmoiled into a political power struggle. Moo-myoung must fend off devastating threats from the foreign army in order to protect Ja-young from harm.

The plot is based on the story of Empress MyeonSeong, who is a national figure in Korea.  Of course, the romantic plot of this movie is made up, and the high flying CG action scenes are a little unbelievable sometimes.  But, I felt like the two main characters had good chemistry and I cried at the end of the movie (I’ll try not to give any spoilers).  I almost felt like it would have been better to go with the original Korean title for the U.S. release of the film since the butterfly imagery and symbolism throughout would have made more sense that way.  But, I guess I can see why they went with Sword with No Name since it sounds more action-y.  Plus, since Moo-Myeong translates into something like “No Name” and he is her “sword” that makes sense as well.

Su Ae, who plays Ja-Young, does an amazing job.  She speaks so regally, and certainly fit the role of Queen/Empress very well.  I also enjoyed Cho Seung-woo’s portrayal of Moo-Myeong–The Sword.  With tons of high-flying Crouching Tiger-esque action, this film is sure to keep the audience’s interest.  I’m definitely going to have to get this one on Blu-ray just to see how gorgeous the fight scenes are in HD.

Anyways, so my dad quit.  Understandable.  Then my sister gets a call from my kungomo (paternal oldest aunt) who pretty much ticked my sister off because she told her that my dad needed money and that he should come work with her again and be her delivery driver.  Well, my sister got pissed off cause she didn’t think that my dad was in any financial trouble, and she thought my kungomo was just butting into things again.

Come to find out that my dad was indeed feeling a bit anxious about finances.  It just blows my mind that he would ask his siblings who are also financially strapped for cash rather than ask his children for help.  Considering that his son makes a fairly hefty salary, his daughter and her husband are pretty financially stable and his youngest daughter is living at home with completely disposable income, you’d think we’d be his first choice.  But no, I guess that he was too proud to ask us.  Stubborn old Asian man…

Well, my sister talked to him and found out the situation was not as bad as kungomo was making it seem, but that he was a little worried.  So, my siblings and I transferred a pretty sizable chunk into his account to help him out.  Course, he doesn’t want to keep accepting money from us (you know, that whole Asian machismo thing) so he talked to my kungomo about heading up the delivery side of her cleaners.

This caused my sister to break out into hives again.  She does that when she gets stressed out.  I think it was the whole thought of having to deal with my kungomo on a regular basis again.  My dad swears that the delivery part will be his business and that it’ll be completely separate from my kungomo (minus the deliveries he does for the customers within her zip code, yeah that sounds clear…).  So, he went and bought a new van; all despite our very, very vocal protests.  He also asked my sister to create a new webpage for the cleaners so that they could advertise.

It’s all a huge headache.  On top of my dad bugging her to create a website, there was talk of furloughs at my sisters workplace, so it was making her very stressed.  I kind of ended up taking over the project.  So, I purchased stock photos, created coupons, made a website, made a facebook business page and got that all rolling.  Even made a Facebook Ad campaign which launches soon.

I still see some huge issues with this plan.  For starters, my kungomo is pretty much bankrupt.  She hasn’t paid the rent on her work spaces for almost a year now.  She’s tried to get out of her lease, but the landlord is desperate to have people in that space so he’s pretty much letting her stay there for free.  Meanwhile, she’s been getting further and further into debt paying for utilities and operational costs.  Who knows how much longer she has until she’s just forced to shut down?  Then there’s the whole hassle of having to work for her again.  Though, to be fair, my dad is also pretty hard to work with.  On second thought, this might work out if I can get enough interested generated from social marketing.  I guess this can be my little experiment.

Until things pick up for the delivery side, my dad is helping out at the cleaners that does the actual cleaning for my kungomo’s shop (her’s is a pick up store, which means she sends the clothes out and gives a portion of the profit to another cleaner) by pressing pants.  Their pants presser just quit and my dad is filling in until they find someone new.  He thinks he can handle both…  It’s all making me wish that I lived closer to keep an eye on him.

In the meantime, I go back to full time at my job tomorrow and I’ve got to concentrate on schoolwork.  Things have been pretty insane.

Course, we still managed to make a trip out to the Dallas Farmer’s Market.  They added so much more stuff to Shed 2!  I’ll have to get back there again soon.  There are a lot more food stands now.  Thankfully, it wasn’t blisteringly hot outside like it was when we tried to go last year.  So, the Hubby was able to make it through the whole trip.  Last time he got dehydrated and we had to leave earlier than I would have liked cause he was about to pass out.

Also picked up a Gold Rush Bouganvilla.  I asked the vendor for a plant that wouldn’t require much attention.  He suggested the bouganvilla because they can be ignored and still flourish.  The way he put it, they like abuse.  Apparently, the more you abuse it, the better it does.  So, I have named mine Barry the Masochistic Bouganvilla.  I hope it does well, I’ve kind of become attached now that I named it and gave it a personality.

We got some peaches that turned out to be not that great, but we also got some blueberries (insanely cheap), jalapenos, leeks, local honey, and some awesome cookies.  I’ll definitely have to go back for the cookies from Wackyms Kitchen.  He makes them from fresh natural ingredients using original artisanal recipes.  I don’t know what that means, but I know they are delicious.  We got the peanut crunch this time and we got salted caramel last time.  They’re pretty amazing.

The Rise and Shine breakfast at the Pecan Lodge was also pretty good.  What I loved most about them was that they used produce that they purchased from the sellers at the Farmer’s Market.  They had a cute little chalkboard outside their shop that listed where they got their produce and where you could find it for purchase at the market.  I think they were the ones that had the bbq smoker outside.  That thing smelled absolutely heavenly!  It’s too bad that we didn’t stay long enough to go for lunch, but that’ll definitely be on my list of things to do for our next trip there!

I got a Pork Goghee taco plate with Gimchee and the Hubby got the Beef Goghee taco plate.  I also ordered the Pork Goghee Quesadillas, but I would not recommend them.  They were a tad on the soggy side and the cheese was not very tasty.  But, the caramelized onions in them were good.  I’d skip the quesadillas and just add the onions to the tacos or the torta.

The tacos were pretty good.  A tad on the salty side, but the flavors were there and I liked the addition of the gimchee.  It’s an interesting flavor combination.  I would try them again the next time we’re in the area.

Just watched Maroru Hosoda’s epic Summer Wars last night courtesy of FUNimation.  It was absolutely amazing.  Honestly, I think I liked it just as much as I’ve liked any Miyazaki film that I’ve seen, and that really says a lot.  This film had a great story line that seems like it could be crazy realistic in the somewhat near future, given the current progression of our society.  The characters were well developed and compelling.  There was no point in the film that I felt was slow or boring.  Plus, it had some great comedic moments in addition to some very poignant ones.  The overall theme of family ties was what really made this film for me.

I would seriously place this in my top ten for films.  I highly recommend everyone get a copy, and would really recommend seeing it in the theater if you’re one of the lucky few that got a screening in your city.  I think this film was absolutely robbed of an oscar nomination this year.

As for dubbing vs. subbing.  We watched the English dub and I have to say that I enjoyed it.  Normally I’m a pretty hardcore fan of the original language and watching with subs, but FUNimation did a decent job with casting this time around.

Synopsis:

Kenji Koiso, an eleventh grade math genius, agrees to take a summer job at the Nagano hometown of his crush, Natuski. When he arrives, he finds that her family have reunited to celebrate the 90th birthday of the family matriarch. His job is to pretend to be Natsuki’s fiancé. Meanwhile, his attempt to solve a mathematical equation causes a parallel world’s collision with earth.

Trailer:

Yesterday, the Hubby and I went out to lunch and then we saw the movie, Barney’s Version, at the Angelika Theater.  If you’re not familiar with the Angelika Theaters, they tend to show the art house/indie flims rather than mainstream films.  Now, that doesn’t mean that they don’t occasionally show a mainstream film, but if they do it does have art house roots.

Barney’s Version synopsis:

Take a ride through the life and memories of Barney Panofsky, a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, foulmouthed 65-year old hockey fanatic and television producer, as he reflects on his life’s successes and (numerous) gaffes and failures as the final chapters of his own existence come sharply into focus.

My review (spoiler alert):

I loved this movie.  It’s been a while since I’ve come out of a movie theater and been truly moved.  The story was excellent and the casting was perfect.  I adored Dustin Hoffman as the father and Paul Giamatti was amazing as Barney.  While you kind of want to hate him because he basically leaves his second wife on the day of their wedding to chase down and pursue another woman he meets at said wedding, the earnestness of his pursuit of his “true love” seems to make it all right.

When the marriage begins to crack after decades of seemingly wedded bliss, you find yourself sympathizing with Barney, even though he does the unthinkable.  Even after he and his true love divorce, he continues to woo her with the same relentlessness that won her over from the start.  You’re rooting for Barney to get back with his true love until the very end.

The end of this film made me sob!  It was so tragic.  Plus, circumstances within my own family just made the ending so much more poignant.  Also a nice addition, Jake Hoffman as Barney’s son.  I kept looking at him and thinking, “he looks kind of familiar.”  Turns out that he’s Dustin Hoffman’s real life son.  He was pretty good in the movie as well (and a pretty good looker, see picture to left).  He hasn’t been in a lot of movies (he was Adam Sandler’s grown son in Click), but I hope to see him in more.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this movie.  It had great acting, a great story line and it was very touching.  I would say it’s a great date movie, but only if you don’t mind your date seeing you bawl like a baby.  But, that might just be me since I tend to cry very easily at movies.