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.
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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.
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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.
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