Does emotional intelligence come naturally or can it be cultivated?

The other day, I needed to take YY somewhere. MM wanted to go with us. XF said,” Go finish your Chinese homework. Daddy will give you a treat when you’re done.” MM finished her homework, but XF got busy and forgot about the treat. Instead of requesting it, MM popped a chewing gum in XF’s mouth–that reminded him of his treat promise.

Just because they don’t need you to feed them, change them, and put them to bed now doesn’t mean your job as a parent is getting any easier. The other day, YY had a birthday party at a friend’s house. Before we left, I told her I’d put a gift receipt in the gift bag, so the gift could be returned if needed. Well, the moment we got there, YY blurted out to her friend:”There’s a gift receipt in there. If you don’t like my gift, you can return it to the store.” It’s just like YY-to blunder like that even though she doesn’t mean it. I don’t know whether I should smile or frown at her faux pas. On our way home, I suggested she could have waited till when her friend opened the gift to say that. And only when her friend didn’t look so sure about the gift.

Soft skills, such as knowing when and where to say certain things, is so much harder to teach than hard skills!

It’s said that when Karl Marx was working on his great works of economic and political analysis, he spent so much time in the British Library Reading Room that his footprints were ground into the floor under the table where he often sat. Well, XF isn’t working on anything that remotely resembles the works of Marx , but he’s left some marks all right. Yesterday, while I was looking for something in the dining room, I noticed, to my dismay, that one of the chair pads had worn so thin that the edges were broken–this is XF’s favorite chair.

Who said only women are afraid of aging? Last night, XF and I ran into an acquaintance who we hadn’t seen for a while. The man was sporting a bright red brand name sweater, with braces in his mouth. I was a little taken aback by the braces and did my best not to look surprised.

I was sitting in my endocrinologist’s waiting room and heard two women gossiping. They were talking about a friend who had cancer but still managed to keep her house spotlessly clean. You would think when you’re near your life’s end, things other than a clean house would be on your agenda. The woman must be such a neat freak. I started to feel sorry for her. Then I thought what if keeping her house clean was her ONLY way of feeling in control in the face of a terminal illness. Heaven knows what I’d do were I in her shoes.

Since she spends so little time in her own bedroom, I had been using MM’s room to store things–primarily cardboard boxes for appliances that we had acquired over the years.  There was really no need to keep them now–the warranty for pretty much all of them had expired long ago. On Tuesday night, I decided to clean them all out. As I hauled these boxes to the trash can,  I was again amazed by the human capacity for hoarding trash. There were so many boxes that needed to be thrown away that XF had to crush them to make them all fit into the trash can. And this was just trash from one room only. Since we came to the States, we’ve moved a couple of times. And it seemed that each time we moved, there were more things to pack. The thought of us having to ever pack and move again really filled me with trepidations now.

I was complaining to a friend the other day about the price of duvet covers. She suggested making duvet covers out of flat sheets, which are generally included in a bed sheet set,  but never get used, in the Chinese way of making a bed. So I dusted off my sewing machine and went to work. Once I got over the initial hurdle of threading the machine, the actual sewing part didn’t take too long.  Two nights and mission accomplished!

The other day, I fixed a dish that had Jew’s ear (mu er) in it. MM didn’t want any, so YY advised her:”It’s good for your hearing, you know.” I don’t know where that came from. XF and I certainly hadn’t brainwashed her about the curing power of certain foods in the past, as far as I know. It’s amazing, and funny too, the way kids draw conclusions about things.

My bank was acquired by another bank lately. Today, when I went to a branch office to deposit some checks, I was happy to see some improvements in their ATM’s. For one thing, you can feed checks and cash directly into the machine without putting them in an envelop first; secondly, you can choose to print a receipt with an image of the check deposited. Pretty cool!