gift...what gift?

When I told Luca that I was going, he looked at his dad and said, "so, it'll be just the boys for two weeks."

Well, there's his nonna next door whom I checked with before I made the decision. Having a grandparent nearby is really a boon and something that Luca takes for granted (I tell him all the time), but he does miss her when she's away. The boys will be just fine with nonna's home-cooking!

I'm leaving February 16. After my dad arranged my ticket (we're on the same flight), I thought: I can't embarrass my dad. I've got to bone up on Taiwanese culture, so I went surfing the Net. When I read it is customary to bring a gift to the host, I also remembered I needed to bring something to my grandfather - it is his 100th birthday after all. So, I called my dad who told me that I didn't have to bring anything and that he was planning to give a red envelope of money (which is also customary). Well, I wanted to give something else, too.


When I found out that my grandfather used to follow Taiwanese baseball (the national sport), I came up with the idea to get him a baseball jersey customized with the name TSAO and the number 99. But then I discovered that there had been a professional baseball player named Tsao who was even picked up by the Los Angeles Dodgers for a season and who played for the CPBL until he was expelled for his involvement in game-fixing. Not knowing whether my grandfather was the type of person who would find that amusing or shameful, I decided to go with the second idea of a digital picture frame.

Man, I hate buying electronics. Too many choices! What features do I need? Do I go for the brand? What's my budget? Do I get the one on sale? Whether I'm in the store or surfing the Internet, I find shop comparison time-consuming and confusing. After narrowing the choices down to three, I ended up making an eenie meenie minie mo gut selection. Then later, I found out that the frame I purchased didn't have a feature I actually do need. Back to the store to the returns/exchange counter.

Anyway, my idea is to fill the picture frame with photos of himself, his family, his children, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren, so that he could see how many people he's responsible for bringing into the world. He has four children, eleven grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. Not a huge number, but still, something to be proud of, I would think.

Thanks to e-mail, scanners, and editing tools, I'm able to contact my family and cousins across the country and across the world, get old and current photos from them, organize and add dates to the photos, all in good time for my departure.

I just need to get the right digital frame!