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.