No power, no cold water, no visa (yet), no adult guidance

We've lost power on our street twice in the past two weeks. The power outages lasted about 90 minutes each time and both occurred on Saturday night at about 7:30 p.m. That means no lights and no air conditioning. Since the weather has been typically nasty lately -- 98 in the day with 80 percent humidity -- the outages are no fun for me. I suffer in heat and can't wait to move somewhere cooler, if I don't die from heat stroke and skin rashes first. The neighbors seem to enjoy the power outages, however,  running out into the street and talking excitedly. A big neighborhood cheer goes up when the power returns.  Cheap thrills.
We've lost cool water in our house for the past two days. Our hot water -- we have a solar panel of some sort -- is really, really, hot, and working almost too well. It's not a huge issue because not many people drink the tap water in Bien Hoa. You just have to be careful in the shower or your skin will get burned. Really, it's that hot.
I dealt with pretty much the same issues in Peru except there was no hot water. Cold water was plentiful so showers provided a different challenge.  In Yellow Springs, Ohio, my house has flooding, drainage and plumbing issues, but my wonderful property manager (Teresa D.) is helping me deal with them. Bless you T.D.
My house in Yellow Springs is important because I plan to eventually move there with my wife Phuong and our baby Joanna. But that's contingent upon Phuong getting a waiver to enter the U.S. We sent documents to our lawyer and are still waiting for a response regarding an application for an I-130 visa interview at the surly U.S. Embassy in Ho Chi Minh City. If all this falls apart, I'll lose lots of money but no sleep over this "pathetic" process. But I'm not sure why a country would NOT allow a tax-paying, reasonably loyal citizen to bring his foreign national wife into his native country with her American husband and American child. Phuong is a certified nurse, accountant and IT in Vietnam. She's a dedicated mom. Worthless skills in the U.S., right? Sounds to me like some petty U.S. bureaucrats are on a power trip. I won't lose sleep because our daughter is doing quite well here. I'd rather my American daughter grew up in the U.S. with her American dad and Vietnamese mom, but U.S. bureaucrats seem to want otherwise.

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Now neighborhood kids and teens on our street insist on shouting "FU@K" at me when I walk to a local coffee shop while carrying or holding hands with my 21-month-old daughter Joanna. I guess they're showing off, or something intelligent like that. I ignored it twice, but since Joanna is with me,  I confronted them the third time it happened, but they courageously ran into their house. An older woman was with the boys, so I said the same to her in Vietnamese to demonstrate what the kids were shouting at me. But she refused to look at me the entire time and obviously took no action against the kids. Folks, all I want to do is walk to a coffee shop with Joanna to give her some exercise and get a cappuccino for me. Who benefits from stupid, ignorant behavior like this? It's about the sixth time I've had this happen to me in Vietnam, and the most disappointing aspect is that parents and other adults who are present pretend they don't hear it or act like they're looking the other way. I don't blame the ignorant kids. I blame the ignorant parents and ignorant adults who let it happen. What a bunch of ignominious ignoramuses.

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Phuong and I tied 6-6 in tennis on Thursday, and she beat me 3-6 on Friday. Her style is difficult for me -- she's a counter-puncher who hits a slower ball. This forces the White Monkey to try to generate pace on his shots, but I generate unforced errors instead. Phuong can also hit very well-placed returns that I have to chase down. This wears me out, even though my fitness is exemplary. Ha ha. But I'm not one to make excuses. Ha ha.