be back

No more posts until after the World Series. Go Giants!!

morning thought

My mother was convinced my oldest brother was going to be a doctor. When that didn't happened, she put her faith on the next kid. When that didn't pan out, it all landed on me. Slowly she became disappointed and we slowly felt like we disappointed her... no one comes ahead when that happens.

I think there are two ways to remedy this.

A. Play the odds. That lady with 56 kids in Brazil or somewhere like that had it right. I mean with 56, one is bound to come up a doctor right, or at the very least a nurse.

B. Start small. When I have kids, I'm starting with homelessness.

do overs

Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Brown were the two fourth grade teachers in my elementary school. I had Mrs. Johnson. I don't like to brag, but I was an excellent elementary school student.

When I went into middle school, I had Mrs. Brown for math class. Mrs. Brown said she was teaching sixth grade math because of a promotion, but i thought the whole thing had stalker written all over it because seriously, i was that good of an elementary school student.

Mrs. Brown had me and Son Bui (another kid at my elementary school) at a separate table, away from everyone. We were left on our own, unsupervised because she thought we were above what the rest of the class was doing. I did not turn in one math assignment or take a test the whole year. Easiest A ever!

My family moved in the seventh grade. For the first time ever, i struggled in something at school. Math builds upon itself, and missing a whole year of learning set me back. Math became my worst subject. The only class i feared in middle, high school and college. I avoided classes that had to do with math, majors that required math (engineers, chemistry, accounting, business).

______

I erased Long's entire math assignment.

"Do it over," I told him.

"But auntie," he whined.

"I told you LT, I want to see the work," cutting short his whine fest.

I watched as he wrote down the problems, then tapped his pencil slowly on the paper.

"You stuck LT?"

"A little."

He was more than a little stuck. His first quiz was a D. His first test was a D. He was failing math.

"Let's take it from the top okay," I said. We worked out the problem step by step. He never gets the answer on the first try.

"Another?" I asked.

He nodded without looking up.

He worked the second problem. Getting one step closer to the answer. He never gets the answer on the second try.

"Another?"

He nodded.

He worked the third problem. Inching one step closer to the answer. He never gets the answer on the third try.

"Another?"

He nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

He worked the fourth problem.

"Another auntie" he demanded smiling at me. When Lt looks up and asks for another, that's the sign that he's got it.

I've been doing a lot of math lately. Going online trying to get answers, tips and help on algebra. Reading and rereading my little nephew's seventh grade math book. Math is the first thing LT does when he gets home from school. He will call me to let me know he is done. I come over to check his homework, then we'd spend another hour fixing it. If I don't see all the work, I know he has checked the back for the answers. I erase it and make him do it over.

Lt's second quiz was a B.

"My teacher said great job Long in front of the class when she handed back the quiz to me" he said.

"Did that embarrass you?"

"No, it made me feel proud auntie."

Lt's second test was an eighty-eight percent. Not bad for a kid with a D average three weeks ago and a thirty-six year old who never excelled past elementary school math. I guess that just goes to show, you're never too old for do overs.

morning thought

Why is it called a conversation when one persons sentence out put outnumber the other like 30-1? I don't know about anyone else, but my attention span is a max of 7 straight sentences, after that you're just thinking out loud and i'm wondering what is missing in my tackle box for my next fishing trip.

a new day

The other day my friend of almost ten years said something to the effect of,

"Because of you, i can't tell when my subject verb agreement is off anymore."

Too bad cause her English used to be excellent. After years of trying to follow her lead, I've given up. A team is only as strong as its' weakest link. I've come to terms with being the weak link, the drano in a pipe of grammatical correctness.

New goal. Asianize Americans, one whitey at a time.

weighted knowledge

My father grew up in a little town along the Mekong Delta called Vinh Long. When I went there this summer, my father asked me to give my uncle a hundred dollar, which translates to about 1.6 million dong. To put things into perspective, a Nike factory worker along the Delta makes 200,000 to 300,000 dong a month. Therefore, 1.6 million dong should afford my uncle plenty of things, except maybe a pair of Nike.

The last time I saw my uncle was over fifteen years ago, so it's safe to say that i've packed on a few pounds here and there. Pounds that i like to think of as weighted knowledge. For example, a gallon of butter pecan ice cream is not good for the thighs. Weighted knowledge, now i know. Family bucket of KFC chicken, not meant for a family of one. Weighted knowledge, now i know. My body is nothing but knowledge, my butt, my cheeks, my hips, my chubby little fingers..i am a walking encyclopedia.

Anyhow, my uncle had nothing but fat comments for me the moment i saw him. There is just something ironic about fat jokes from a guy whose belly is a good foot and a half ahead of the rest of his body when he walks. So on my second day there, I decided to deduct a 100,000 dong for every fat comment he makes. The third day, when i said goodbye, i left him 600,000 dong. He lost a million dong. At that rate, had I stayed another day, he would have had to mortgaged his straw house to pay for his mouth.

el camino

There were three hermits sharing a cave. One day a horse came by. A year passed and one of the hermits said, "Pretty black horse."

Another year passed and the second hermit said, "It was white."

Another year goes by and the third hermit said, "I'm going to have to find a new cave if this chattering doesn't stop."

****

The Shockley boys (Clint, Jonathan and I can't remember the youngest brother) have been giving the Vietnamese kids a hard time for a while now. Jonathan (the middle kid) and I have been classmates since the seventh grade. He teased me about my eyes and the way I look from the time I first met him. If he wasn't so hung up on my nationality, he would have found plenty of other material to work with. I wasn't the smoothest kid in the world.

We just dropped everyone off. It's just me, Thong and Lai now. Cruising the streets of Wichita, KS at two in the morning. My parents are asleep, thinking I'm doing the same thing. When the statute of limitations for grounding runs out, I might tell them of my escapades.

Lai spots the Shockley's house and the El Camino in the driveway. He stops. Three teenagers, unlimited boredom and limited cash with a vendetta to pay. It's a bad night to be a Shockley.

My friend Lai is an honor roll student, all state soccer player and good looking guy. Thong can barf and crap on command. He is a great resource to have when you need a test postponed. All I have to do is ask, and he will leave something on the floor. They are my boys, my best friends.

They get out of the car. I scoot over to the driver side manning my post as the getaway driver. I see a stream of water emitting from Lai onto the driver's side of the El Camino. Thong is inside with his pants pulled down and leaving the remains of his dinner.

If the Shockley boys weren't such hermits, they'd realize that we listen to New Kids on the Block just like them. We get bored like all teenagers. We sneak out and grey our parents hair prematurely like they do. We struggle with our lockers especially on days we are running behind.

If the Shockely boys weren't such hermits, they'd have a better understanding of demographics. They would realize that Asians outnumber them by a few billion. If I were the Shockleys, I'd pick on the Croatians with a population slightly over 4 million. But if the Asians are too enticing, then they better lock their doors at night because the next time we will be packing some x-lax.

morning thought

I don't know how fish do it. A camera adds easily 20 lbs on me. Every portrait I have ever taken of a fish looks five lbs smaller. It's like I'm catching nemo. Gotta add more plankton to my diet.

vietnamese guilt

My mother is always trying to move on to her next life. I don't know why she is in such a hurry.

When she is mad at my dad, it's...

"I'm not going to get married in my next life."

I'm pretty sure my father doesn't want to be married in this life.

When she is mad at me, it's....

"I don't know where I went wrong, but I'm going to be better the next time around."

For those not familiar with Vietnamese guilt, it means that I'm the punishment for her sins.

I counter with,

"Dad doesn't want to be married to you."

Okay, I don't say that. But mom better watch out, I might not be so nice in my next life.

morning thought

How come I have never heard anyone say,

"Come Wednesday, I'm going on a diet?"

People always start diets on Mondays. I guess people are just not interested in losing the weight from Tuesday-Sunday. If you are 100 lbs overweight, can you really afford to be picky?

some hills

When I was a freshman in high school, my brother Quoc was a senior. He had a car, a job, money, and a locker on the first floor. I had a lunch card, a backpack, a third floor locker and five out of seven classes on the first floor with five minutes between classes.

Due to his urging, I joined the tennis team. Something about it being "good for my college resume." He never played a sport in high school, but a mental midget like me didn't see the irony in what he was saying.

Because Quoc didn't play a sport, he had to either wait for me after school until practice was over or go home and come back. He hadn't thought about how it would inconvenience him or I bet he wouldn't even have suggested joining the tennis team.

Mental midgets, that condition must run in my family.

When tennis was over I joined the basketball team. My brother complained and made rude comments everyday. It started at seven thirty in the morning with the ride to school and continued at five thirty after practice. It was constant pissyness. A month into my basketball season, I quit the team. I stopped riding with him to school. I woke up an extra thirty minutes every morning and waited for the bus. Didn't care how bad it made me look on my college resume. I'd go to a trade school if I had to. Welding, that doesn't require an athletic resume.

One day my friend Susie Stoner and I were messing around and missed our bus. Middle of winter in Kansas, cold and snowy. We were walking home in the snow, and yes, there might have been some hills when my brother drove past us. Made eye contact and kept going. When I tell people this story, I always say,

"And do you know how far my house was to the school? It was a heck of a long way." Yup, that's what I tell them. But from this day forward, thanks to mapquest, I can say it was 3.34 miles in the snow with possibly some hills.

It took over two hours to get home. I got sick and missed over a week of school, gave me plenty of time to read up on welding.

a cup of coffee

My oldest brother is four years my senior. We used to have these Monopoly marathons when I was a kid. I'd get up to use the bathroom and would come back to find him giggling.

"Put it back," I'd say.

"What?"

"I quit if you don't put it back."

Then my brother would take a house off of one of his properties or put five hundred dollars back in the bank.

"Okay, you happy?"

The die were in my hand, ready to be rolled. The air was still. My brother was the perp and I was the cold stone detective waiting for him to crack. He avoided eye contact. My hours of little sister training taught me to wait. The murmur of a giggle. It was time to read him his rights.

"Put it back."

"Okay okay," he begged.

Another five hundred goes back into the banker stash along with an electric company and another property from the orange neighborhood. This continued until he stopped giggling. Then I know he's given it all back.

****

The airplane is about to land. SFO to Vietnam is a long trip. Instead of handing out pretzels and peanuts, passengers get unlimited cup of noodles. When in Rome right?

It's hot and muggy, typical Vietnamese weather any time of year. Except, during the monsoon season--it's hot, muggy and rainy. I don't know if the change in weather pattern helps or hurts the locals, but to a foreigner like me the rain never helps anything.

I walk down the flight of stairs to wait for my shuttle to the main building. Lines to the Vietnamese are like stop signs to the Italians, mere suggestions. As more old people make their way down the plane, I find myself further back of the line. My mother always tells me to be nice to old people because their time on this earth is limited. It's safe to say I have been waiting for people to croak since I was a kid.

A short two minute ride leads us to the airport building. With only my backpack and fresh legs, I sprint past the line cutters down one corridor to another until I reach a big open room. At the end of the room sits the Customs Agents. I gather my visa and passport for the guy in the green uniform when he motions for me.

"Hey, whats up?" I ask the guy in green.

He inspects my paperwork.

"How long are you here for," he asks me in Vietnamese.

I give him a blank look. The blank clueless look is my greatest asset, gotten me out of almost every predicament I've been in.

"You Vietnamese," he asks in English.

I nod without dropping the look.

"You speak Vietnamese?" he continues.

I shake my head. Lack of speaking lends more credibility to the whole cluelessness.

"What kind of Vietnamese don't speak Vietnamese," he mutters in Vietnamese.

He stamps all the necessary documents and I'm free to go.

It's the line cutters turn. They gather their visas and passports. They make their way to the an agent. The line cutters greet the agents with much respect.

"Chao Chu," they always say. (Chao Chu=hello Mr. -- it's from the Vietnamese who don't speak from the Vietnamese dictionary. Those reading this might want to verify from another source.)

They are immediately toast. By speaking, they just broke the cardinal rule of cluelessness.

"Buy me a cup of coffee," the agent says.

The line cutters slide over the visa and passport. The guy in the green uniform opens the passport to find a crisp $20 American bill. The line cutters know that if the agent in the green doesn't get his bribe, he is going to make it difficult for them to leave the airport. They will be detained because something on the paperwork isn't right or certain items in the luggage is "illegal." It's just easier to buy him his coffee then to be detained for hours.

Everyone is trying to get ahead in this world. A twenty here, a hundred there, an Illinois card no one will miss, an extra hotel on Park Avenue, this kind of corruption happens every day at the airport in Vietnam. A government without a conscience hurts its own people. Line cutters are screwed over because no one from the top yells, "put it back."

a grandmother's perspective

My parents have taken care of my little nephew since he was one. Fed, clothed, changed diapers, monitored high temperatures, scolded, gushed about the kid for 3285 days straight. The summer after his 5th grade, he went to live with his dad in Vietnam. One day we drove past his elementary school and my mother said, "The school is a lot emptier this year."

morning thought

I'm really shocked that there hasn't been any attention given to doping in bingo. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, go to a bingo hall, get yourself ONE bingo card and try to keep up with an octogenarian with fifteen cards. They are juiced up on something in there.

I know the AARP is a powerful group, but Congress needs to intervene. I propose a special commission to investigate, maybe we can get George Mitchell involved as he has prior experience with the whole baseball/steroids investigation. The pressure to win and the lure of a $15 jackpot can be astounding when you are on a fixed income, but we need to do something to help the younger generations. The last thing we need as a society is to see 40 and 50 year olds emulating these poor decisions.

opportunities

Opportunity. If I had just one wish in this world, I'd wish for my little nephew to have a lifetime of opportunities.

At four my nephew wanted to be a grandmaster chess player. He skipped the whole, policeman and fireman obsession of most boys and went right to admiring guys name Kasparov, Botvinik and Fischer. It was cute at first, until he started kicking my butt. At one point, I made up reasons to ground him just to regain some sort of control. The worse the beatings, the more severe the punishments. One game he beat me in three moves. The kid didn't see daylight for two weeks.

At eight, he wanted to be a rapper. I was told that rappers write about what they know. I wrote this rap for him.

I wanted rice. Grandma gave me noodles.

She yelled eat-whatever the I give you.

Eight year old Vietnamese kid, didn't really give me a lot to work with there.

At ten he wanted to be a football player, a wide receiver. We'd play catch everyday after school. I told him I'd represent him for thirty percent. He did a google search and told me typical agents make between four to ten percent. I countered with twenty. He said he'll only go as high as twelve. Negotiations broke down, and we had a lock-out. Never played football again.

He currently wants to be an NBA player, a shooting guard. He has a nice smooth fluid stroke. I have the height advantage. We shoot hoops everyday in the driveway. Still think I can get thirty percent.

I'm not sure where this path of dreams will take him when he's eighteen or twenty-five or ninety-seven, but I hope that someone will always open the door when he comes knocking.

****

There is this guy named Mike. Comes in my shop every Sunday. I make him a cup of coffee, two spoons of sugar and a splash of half and half with a straw. He loves the San Francisco Giants. Told me once he was going to get married. I wished him the best of luck.

Mikes parents gave him up as a baby because back when he was born, that's what parents were encouraged to do with special needs kids. He was born without arms. His face is deformed, his cheeks are squeezed together so tight that his words are inaudible, unless you try really hard. And even then, there are no guarantees his thoughts are understood. He eats and drinks everything through a straw, because he has to.

He cheats at scrabble. He spelled zbinka on a triple word square. I didn't know what to do, so I gave him 2000 points for it. Then he tried to play off faqaor for another 1,000 points when my competitive side made him use it in a sentence. It was then did I realize that because of his condition, he can't see the letters on the little wooden squares. I looked at his letters, and have him spell out the words I saw. He didn't miss a single word. Final score 2150-89. He zbinka me in scrabble, worst defeat ever.

He likes music.

Yellow Submarine, The Beatles.

"1968," Mike said.

You send me, Sam Cooke.

"1957."

Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis Presley

"1955."

Mike can tell me a song, the artist and the year the song was released. I played nice though, stayed away from things like Snoop Dog and Lady Gaga, but who knows, he might have gotten that too. Never underestimate a guy who wins by over 2000 points in Scrabble.

Yesterday he came into my shop decked out in SF Giants gear.

"Game 162, Giants going home if they don't take it today Mike."

When he left, he approached me with a seriousness I have never seen before said,

"They got to win today, they're going home?"

That afternoon the Giants had the opportunity to take down the Padres. They took home the National League West title with a 3-0 victory. Doors don't open too often for guys like Mike. People don't normally answer when he knocks.

My favorite baseball team is the Tampa Bay Rays, winner of the American League East and has the best record in the MLB. If the Rays meet the Giants in the world series, I'm pulling for the Giants all the way. If that happens, I'm going to get Mike a cup of coffee, with two spoons of sugar and a splash of half and half and talk about the how the Giants are the 2010 world champs. Mike would love the opportunity for that chat, and so would I.

cats in the cradle

When I was in the eighth grade, my oldest brother Nhan, my parents and my mom's sister (thirty something at the time) went to pick my brother Quoc up in Boulder, Co. It's about an eight hour trip on a normal bladder, twenty four on my aunts. At the time, I thought my body and I went into an irrevocable contract to not ever be like my aunt.

I just turned thirty-six two weeks ago. Been on the comp for an hour and am about to go on my third bathroom break.

If life offers you a lemon, make lemonade. Too bad it doesn't mention anything about pissing it out every five minutes.