Phuong's knack for business; I'm playing tennis again

My wife and her family have a real feel for business. Phuong's dad owns and manages property, including the building that serves as the headquarters  -- with classrooms -- for ever-expanding VMG language center, where I used to work. That probably explains why they never fired me. Phuong's brother has his own handyman business, and Phuong's mom is a tailor who also cooks and sells Vietnamese food on holidays. Phuong's sister-in-law runs a store out of Phuong's parents' house. Phuong used to have a private IT business, fixing phones and laptops. (Vietnam labels itself as a Communist country with capitalism, or something like that.) Now, Phuong has  thrown herself into a a small daycare that we operate in our house, closing off our living room and putting in an air conditioner, buying and organizing toys, buying the swimming pool we use on our balcony upstairs, and cooking and cleaning nonstop. In short, she's investing love, effort, time and money into this endeavor. It started when I suggested she recruit some playmates for Joanna. Phuong loves to say she is working with "all my power."  Me? I contribute the all-important nods of agreement and approval, and the encouraging "looks good" observations to her Herculean efforts. Clearly, I'm invaluable to the success of the operation. The mission has been accomplished, and then some. Joanna interacts well with the other children, and with a little tough love from dad, has improved her behavior dramatically. She speaks much more Vietnamese now, but the kids in daycare are speaking some English because of Joanna and the White Monkey. Joanna has refined her sense of humor, answering my questions in Vietnamese because she knows I don't understand, and acting like a baby by saying "goo-goo-ga-ga" to intentionally frustrate me and laugh at my reaction. (I play along and exaggerate my frustration.) Sometimes ... life really is too short.

* * *

Less than two months after I tore my plantar fascia playing tennis, I returned to the tennis court on Saturday. My intention was to just hit the ball with my wife for a little bit, test the foot, and go home and celebrate if all went well. Instead, we rallied and tried a couple of serves back and forth. Then I suggested we play a point to see how my foot responded. Then, a point became a game, and a game became a set. I was pleased with how I moved from side to side and backwards. I was very nervous and tentative charging short balls, which my wife frequently hits. Serving wasn't an issue. In a 45-minute set, I prevailed 6-4. Phuong never broke my serve and I finally broke her serve at 5-4 to gain a tense, scintillating and courageous 6-4 victory to maintain my No. 1 family ranking with the ITA, WTA, USTA, and PTA. The rematch is Sunday. I'll continue ice therapy and rehabilitation throughout my heroic comeback -- and likely as long as I want to play tennis. As always, I credit my daily tai chi practice for making the comeback to tennis possible. By the way, I celebrated Saturday night with an Estrella beer. The most important thing, honestly, is that I can play and move again without pain. I want to  be able to enjoy a sport like tennis in my "golden years."

* * *

I never see any customers in the new Craft Beer bar near our house, other than me. I really want the place to stay open even if the supply is somewhat limited -- the adequate Estrella Damm beer from Spain and the strong and wonderful Westmalle Tripel from Belgium are the only real "exotic" beers they carry in bottles. I haven't tried the beers on tap yet -- I saw they had a pale ale and a mango beer. If I stay injury-free, I'll celebrate there one night real soon.

* * *

I have an English class that includes two daycare moms, two businesswomen and a teacher. They're fun, smart and improving quickly. Very satisfying class. I also teach a 12-year-old girl. I feel bad for her, sort of, because it's just me and her. Shockingly, she acts like a 12-year-old girl, which is a challenge for me. In this class, I'm learning as well.

Good beer; no butts; IELTS success; comeback rained out

It was like I saw the Yeti, or the Loch Ness Monster "Nessie". Right in my very own neighborhood I spotted a bottle of Westmalle Tripel, one of the many wonderful beers brewed in Belgium. I was walking home from a birthday party with Phuong and Joanna when we we noticed a new bar right around the corner from our house called "Craft Beer".  I asked for a menu and they had Westmalle Tripel. In fact, I saw it in a cooler and bought a  bottle for 170.000 dong ($7.50 U.S.).  The bar gave me a mango beer from Belgium at no cost that I didn't recognize. It was good enough, but the Westmalle Tripel was a special treat for the White Monkey. Remember, the  best beer I can get in Bien Hoa is Chimay at about the same price, and Affligem for cheap (about 39,000 dong a bottle), which is very suitable for the money that I earn. But not since I got a La Trappe Quadrupel  and a Chimay Blue (after a rough day) have I enjoyed a beer in Vietnam as much as I enjoyed the Westmalle on Friday night. Vincom doesn't carry La Trappe anymore, but I still have rough days. The Westmalle Tripel has a slightly fruity taste but also delivers a slight alcohol burn from its 9.5% abv.  Am I being critical? Of course, which is a privilege that I pay for.  For the record, I owe any beer knowledge I have to my friend John S., who is a brewery of brilliance when it comes to beer. I thought Purple Haze was the world's best when I met him.  He set me straight in a hurry.

* * *

Saturday was my three-year anniversary of quitting cigarettes. For some reason, I've had the ability to moderate my drinking since I met Phuong. I have no more than a shared beer a day with my wife. That's a first for the obsessive-compulsive White Monkey. But smoking is another matter. If I don't quit altogether, my OCD will be in full bloom.  I'll smoke with coffee, when I drink beer, after meals, after sex, before sex, and during sex. I'm being a smart-ass, of course, but I'm unable to moderate my cigarette smoking. It's all-in at a pack a day, or nothing. I've chosen nothing and I've noticed a difference in my overall health. I sleep better and dream more, and colds and sinus infections don't last very long. I'm more proud of quitting cigarettes than I am of my 50,000+ pageviews for my blog.

* * *

My former private English student Sam, who I taught for more than a year, took her IELTS recently and scored what I think is a very respectable 5.5. I think that's a tough but fair score for Sam. Her speaking and listening skills are first-rate and deserve higher marks, but like so many students I've taught, writing is tricky. Her reading is good but -- like me -- she's a slow reader and that doesn't help when you're taking exams like IELTS. I'm proud of Sam, who went from absolute beginner to extremely competent in a very short time. She's a bright woman. Good work, Sam!

* * *

My highly anticipated return to the tennis court (highly anticipated by me, at least), got rained out on Sunday. I overcame the slight setback to my recovering left plantar fascia, caused by some clowning with Joanna, and I was ready to go. But an act of God put the comeback on hold, which means I'll stay No. 1 in the family rankings at least until we play next week.

Feeding kids in Vietnam; 1 guard pees, another mocks me

There are many different styles of parenting. As many styles as there are parents, I would guess. But the one constant I see in Vietnam is that parents would rather feed their little children and toddlers than have the children and toddlers feed themselves. A scene that I see everywhere is moms, armed with a spoon or chopsticks, squatting next to their child and shoving food into the child's mouth. Occasionally, I'll see a male feeding kids -- but it's almost always a mom or grandma, and she's almost always squatting and methodically thrusting food at the kid's mouth. It reminds me of a mother bird feeding its young. The little birds open their mouths, and the mother bird spits in the food. I haven't seen the spitting here -- except by males and many females on the streets, in the parks, next to churches -- but the children willingly open their mouths without so much as lifting their hands to help. My wife does this with our daughter as well, and it's a minor source of contention in our household. I got Phuong to stop chasing Joanna around the house with a plate and utensils, but she loves to feed our daughter. The White Monkey taught his daughter to use a spoon and fork (the first lessons came with passion cheesecake at The Coffee House). And I refuse to hold a cup, or soda, or glass of milk for her; Joanna holds her own drinks when dad is there or she doesn't drink. I'll bet you didn't know that White Monkeys could use tools and utensils. Anyway, Joanna and the children who come to our house for daycare are encouraged to feed themselves. The moms get it. The style of parents feeding kids continues here until the children are 4 or 5 years old. I've seen moms feeding 6-year-olds, but that's not overly common. Part of this practice could be cultural. Family sit-down dinners are handled differently here. They seem more random, with women running in and out of the kitchen serving food, men eating, drinking beer, and talking (and spitting), and kids coming to the table, eating a bite or two and then taking off to play. Joanna has been allowed to leave our dinner table and return; it's another source of contention.  But I won a concession: Joanna can't take food out of the kitchen. She'll try and cry, but it's a no-go with Dad. Sorry, Joanna.

* * *

When I was doing tai chi at the park last week at about 4:30 p.m., a security guard at a tea shop across the canal from me and the four moms and families from our daycare group pulled out his miniature manhood and began peeing in front of us. My sensibilities were intact, but I thought the security guard's behavior was unacceptable in front the moms and kids. I yelled over to him to go inside the tea house about 10 yards away and pee, but he merely laughed and kept peeing.  I shrugged because I wasn't going to walk on water to cross the canal and confront him. I resumed my tai chi when his security guard "buddy" decided to try to mock me by imitating my tai chi in an exaggerated fashion. Just as he started, my next posture and subsequent series of postures put my back to him, so I didn't get to see his unquestionably hilarious routine. Phuong witnessed the entire episode and said the tai chi imitator stopped his routine when he saw that no one was watching him and he slogged back to his chair, tail between his legs. Phuong and I didn't understand why the first guard didn't pee inside the tea shop. The second guard was just a fool. Actually, both guards were fools. 

* * *

-- I'm happy to report fantastic progress with my torn plantar fascia. My new shoes arrived and I'm walking pain-free and even doing minimal jogging. Very minimal. There's a tiny bit of discomfort when I run, so a scheduled return to the court for light tennis practice this weekend may be postponed a week. I'm day to day, so to speak,  so it could still happen.

-- One of the bags of fancy weasel coffee we bought wasn't quite right, and I got a mild headache every time I had a cup. Genius that I am, I stopped drinking from that bag. No problem with the other bags. Perhaps the three hours of daily screaming and crying from our house full of children is contributing to my headaches as well. Nah, not likely. 

-- Guys were shouting into their cell phones at my new coffee haunt and I couldn't read -- I could easily hear them through my headphones even with my music blasting. So I returned to The Coffee House where's it's busier but quieter. The thing about The Coffee House is that I'm more likely to bump into people there that I know from my old job, and that interrupts Jack Vance. Unacceptable.
-- This blog broke the 50,000 pageview barrier last week. Thank you to every reader of this blog. Again, a shoutout to my readers from Italy, who have pushed my numbers up quite a bit in the past year. Grazie. 

3rd wedding anniversary; blog nears 50,000 pageviews

Sunday, March 10, is a special day indeed.  It's the third anniversary of my marriage to Pham Thi Ngoc Phuong, my true love, my best friend, my partner in life, my partner in parenthood, and now my partner in business. We've been together more than five years. There have been some ups and downs -- we're human, after all -- but for two people who spend nearly all their time together, we've been amazingly "up". There are so many reasons I love Phuong; maybe the thing that appeals to me the most is her ability to adapt. Phuong is stubborn like all of us, but she'll listen and change when it's appropriate. For example, I complained that our daughter Joanna wasn't getting enough social interaction. So Phuong started a daycare business and not only has Joanna benefited socially, but Phuong and I are making more friends. I know I'm a lucky man and don't always deserve a woman like Phuong, but because of her I've stopped smoking, increased my tai chi practice, limited my drinking to half a beer a night, and do more than my share of cleaning, laundry, dishes and cooking -- she'll vouch for all of this. The White Monkey can be productive when he's happy. I've been helping Phuong with the daycare business as well, but admittedly I don't enjoy screaming children, especially when they're clingy in hot and humid weather.  (God bless Phuong's friend Nghi for helping with the daycare and quieting the whiny kids.) Also, Phuong has been my de facto manager when it comes to my teaching. I have eight students now -- it will be seven after next week when my favorite student Sam leaves to take her IELTS test. Boy, do I hate to see her go. Anyway, It's Phuong who handles the money, and interprets for the students and me when needed. So, in addition to our wedding anniversary, let March 10 also be known as Phuong Day for a woman who deserves to be celebrated for putting up with a sometimes sour and churlish White Monkey. (Marriage is for better or for worse.) By the way, I hope this blog puts me over the 50,000 mark for all-time pageviews; I'm only a handful of  pageviews short, and it would be nice to surpass the milestone on our third wedding anniversary. Love you dear Phuong.

* * *

Here's the real news that readers of this blog are craving to discover -- the status of my torn plantar fascia, that big band of pain that supposedly supported the arch on the bottom of my left foot. It's been a month since I suffered the injury playing tennis against my wife, and the pain remains. It doesn't hurt like it used to; I know it's there and it's uncomfortable. Some days are better than others and the ice treatments and stretching three times a day seem to help quite a bit. I'm back on the chi, but I don't do any standing meditation because that irritates the foot. I'll assume that when there's improvement, no matter how slight, there's healing, no matter how gradual. I'm appealing to the 'WTA' to maintain my No. 1 family ranking over Phuong despite my inactivity. I plan to try some very light jogging in two weeks when my old tennis shoes get re-soled or when my new kicks, a pair of plantar fascia friendly K-Swiss Hypercourt Express tennis shoes, arrive. I would guess and hope that I'm about two months away from playing some real tennis.

* * *

I've resumed walking to a coffee shop near our house where I read Jack Vance books (again!) and drink cappuccinos. I was there Thursday with nine other guys who were drinking Sting or some kind of "foo-foo" drink, and every one of those guys was playing a video game. The last video games I played were by Atari -- I remember playing biplanes in my early 20s at a bar in Newark, Del. But I never really got into the video game scene, Regardless, there are worse places to hang out in Bien Hoa than in a coffee shop, so I'm not complaining. Just saying.

Playgroup is now daycare business; rehab up and down

Our experimental playgroup for our daughter Joanna has turned into a full-blown daycare business, albeit a small one for now. I was under the impression that my wife was inviting a a couple of moms and their toddlers over for daily visits to improve Joanna's social skills and interactions.That may have been the initial intention, but now the children come at 8 a.m. and stay until 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Oh, at 4:30 all the kids leave our house and join us at the park.  Our growing group -- consisting of kids, brothers, sisters, moms, and dads who show up after work -- hangs out at the park and finally heads  home around 6 p.m. The White Monkey is in the middle of all the action and the three children who come to our house seem to have taken a shine to me. I guess everyone likes to play with a White Monkey once in a while. Phuong and her friend Nghi have worked incredibly hard to make our house very kid-friendly. Phuong has set up a "safe" area where toys and such are located, and she's purchased large sheets of paper and crayons for art. Nghi has obtained some great toys and games; and all the moms contribute their best efforts to make their kids happy. I'm the group DJ, playing background kids' music in the morning on my laptop; Bluetooth amplifies the sound. Joanna, the oldest of the group by a few months, is an avid dancer to the music. Her temper has cooled off since the children have been coming, which is a result I wanted. While positives abound, life in the daycare world is not a bowl of cherries. Children will cry for extended lengths of time -- three hours in one case -- when moms must leave. The crying kids seem to prefer being held by the White Monkey ... instead of anyone else. Maybe they just want to scream in my ear for a while. That's good in a way because it gives the hard-working moms a break. Really, the kids are wonderful even when crying. Working with groups of kids means working with groups of viruses that work their way around the group. Everyone has gotten a stomach virus and fever, leaving the kids more whiny than usual, meaning they're spending more time being held by me than usual. None of the moms, including my wife, are willing to hold a whiny White Monkey, however. One of the hazards of the job, I guess. Other than being exhausted 99 percent of the time, I enjoy the work and play and, of course, the children. And I'm really enjoying my limited free time.

* * *

Rehabilitating my torn plantar fascia is pesky business. Improvement has been infinitesimal while frustration has been infinite. I can stand pain-free; walking is a mixed bag; running and tennis are not in the equation. I do stretching exercises for the foot every day, but some days I'm lazy or busy, and the exercises lack the elan they should have to be more effective. I remain committed to soaking my foot in ice three times a day -- this one's easy because I read Jack Vance books with headphones on for the 20-minute sessions. I remain cautiously optimistic because I've been able to do the tai chi form in its entirety with only occasional bouts of pain. However, pain and chi don't mix. I injured the foot 21 days ago. Dr. Internet says it takes at least three months to heal (or is it heel?) and I'm inclined to agree with the good doctor.