Super flight, great friends, good food and beer

I could have flown round trip to the U.S. for about $1,000 with Air China. But after three difficult experiences with the Chinese airline, particularly in Beijing, I chose to spend $1,400 for a round-trip ticket on ANA, a Japanese airline. The costly trip to the U.S. was flawless, smooth, and almost relaxing. It's a 24-hour trip with about 19 hours in the air; the transfer at Tokyo's Narita Airport was easy, peasy, Japanese-y.  No long lines, no shoving or pushing, and quiet, professional staffers. I paid for a hassle-free flight to the U.S. and I got what I paid for. I watched five movies on the nearly 13-hour journey from Tokyo to Washington, D.C.: Bohemian Rhapsody (biopic of Queen's Freddie Mercury); The Mule (elderly Clint Eastwood runs drugs); Vice (Dick Cheney biopic); Cold Pursuit (Liam Neeson kills to avenge son's murder); and Venom (weird Marvel Comics movie). They were all OK except Cold Pursuit, but none will make my top 5. Vice intrigued me the most. The trip back to Vietnam will be a little longer because of winds, but I'm hopeful for another good experience.

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Initially, I stayed with friend Ron in Elkton, Md., and looked at a house in his neighborhood. It's a beautiful place in a nice location, but requires quite a bit of work that wouldn't be cheap, possibly $40,000 to $50,000. Looking at houses is always fun for me, and I enjoy imagining the potential and what life would be like there. I have a house in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which is a wonderful little village, but it's wise to keep options open, I guess. I went to visit friend Andy in north Wilmington, Del., and stayed at his (and his wife Jane's) house. I couldn't ask for better or more generous friends than Ron, Andy and Jane, or John S., whom I'll visit next week in Ohio. I'm hoping to hook up with my children in Ohio and New Jersey. And I've got the annual eye doctor visit, and lunch with my lawyer in Cleveland, coming up.  Friend Tommy visited twice when I stayed at Ron's house, but I was so tired that we didn't chat as much as I would have liked. Hopefully, we'll catch up next time when my wife Phuong and daughter Joanna are here with me ... if Phuong can get a visa. We may find out about the visa before the end of the year.

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We're not real far from the ocean in Elkton and Wilmington, and there's lots of bays and rivers in the area. This means seafood is plentiful and generally of higher quality. Crab soup and salmon have already been on my menu. And since I dig the pig and chicken, there's my local favorite, scrapple -- and I cooked and ate nearly an entire one-pound brick at Ron's. The craft beer scene in the U.S. is over the top, and there seems to be a local brewery on nearly every corner. Even Elkton has a couple of craft beer bars with tons of local brews in bottles and on tap. Life suits me better here than in Vietnam, where I'll always be considered an outsider and curiosity. And the weather is more comfortable in the U.S. The Vietnamese are wonderful (e.g. Phuong), but my daughter is an American citizen and belongs in the U.S. with MOM and dad. I know I've beaten this horse to death, but we really need a change for our daughter's sake.

* * *

Of course, I miss my wife and daughter terribly. Joanna tries to kiss me through Skype, and she has such a wonderful and devilish smile. She was quite sick when I left, but she's gotten better. Phuong gets sick for about seven hours and recovers well. Drives me crazy. I'm still coughing and fighting jet lag, but my skin cleared up instantly in the U.S. and I'm confident I'll be back at full strength in time to return to the dirty air and heat in Vietnam, and get sick again courtesy of the little angels that come to our house for daycare.

Keep sick kids home; neighbors don't help; Joanna turns 3

A few people have commented lately that I look a little pale. Well, I am the White Monkey, but I am also sick again with a vicious cough and thumping sinus headache. Filthy air, lack of sleep, and constant stress no doubt contribute to my repeated illnesses, but as I've noted, lots of other people I know are having the same health problems. But the real culprits for me are the kids who come to our house for daycare. One of the little girls had this disgusting green river running from her nose for two weeks. Her parents finally kept her home this past week when she got a fever. Other kids have been sitting in the middle of the floor crying, when they're not sleeping, because they don't "feel well."
Some of the parents sell stuff online and really hustle, and money is apparently a real motivator for them. A couple of kids are being dropped off before 7:30 a.m. so there really is no rest for the weary.  That means when I start to recover, the cycle of sickness returns to our house in the form of the little angels. My mentor teacher Laurie once chastised me for coming to school to student-teach when I was sick. She chastised me for a lot of stuff that I didn't understand at the time; now I understand and respect her even more for the lessons she taught me -- Laurie is a real gem. Anyway, when ego, or money or other selfish motives cause us to act in an irresponsible way, others often suffer the consequences. My wife and daughter have been sick as well. Since I'm the old fart of the bunch, I tend to be the sickest. When you're dealing with little kids, sickness is a fact of life. A 20-month will cough in your face and sneeze on other kids' food. And hygiene in this country isn't exemplary. Phuong is working incredibly hard to teach these kids proper manners, hygiene, and respect. Sharing was a foreign concept. Disrespect and hitting were somewhat routine. Phuong is doing God's work. Me? I stay out of the way and try not to let the little angels be too rude, angry or overly aggressive. And out of respect for my mom, who died 13 years ago, I insist on sharing. I think Phuong is doing an amazing job in every respect. Next, we'll have to teach the parents to keep their kids home when the kids are really sick so they don't spread the wealth, so to speak. I know it's daycare and the parents need help taking care of their kids, but it doesn't help when the caretakers are sick as well. My wise friend Richard and I discussed on Skype how people who are motivated by money lack a quality of character and have an emptiness in their lives ... even if their bank accounts are full.

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While I'm on the topic of money, I needed to withdraw cash from an ATM at Vietcombank on Friday. I put the card in, waited, and the card came out and the money would eventually follow.  I was so busy making sure my card went back in my wallet that I nearly forgot to grab my money.  A woman pointed to the cash, I thanked her, but when I went to grab the money, it was sucked back into the machine with a message that my funds had been "purged". The bank wouldn't give me my the money, of course, without a passport, and I told them I would go home and get it. Then they said no, they would deposit the money in my account "if we have money at the end of the day." A day later and no money (we're talking about $90 U.S. dollars, which isn't chump change to this chimp). The bank girl's English wasn't very good. She looked at my US Bank card and said I didn't get my money because the stripe on the back was dirty. Well, sweetheart, the US Bank card worked, as it has hundreds of times at this same bank, and the money came out, but the machine "purged" it before I could grab it. I accept my share of the blame for being slow to grab the money, but I won't tolerate getting a lecture from some nimrod who can't speak my language well enough to know what she's talking about, doesn't have the facts, and is flat out wrong.

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Our daycare kids were swimming on the third floor of our house when an inflatable life preserver went over the rail (courtesy of me showing off)  and onto the street below. I looked down and saw three neighbors sitting outside their houses and some random people at my sister-in-law's store not too far from the toy. The three neighbors obviously saw the toy because they watch everything we do. All three, and I swear this is true, immediately went into their houses. The random people were random and didn't care. A car and some motorbikes rode by and had the decency not to run over the life preserver. I was hoping the neighbors or random people would just throw the life preserver on our front step so it wouldn't get run over. Hope is for losers -- John the loser walked down the stairs and retrieved the life preserver from the street. 

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Not all the news is grim: Joanna turned 3 years old recently and had a wonderful celebration. Two other kids from our daycare had birthdays -- one turned 4 and one turned 3, and we had a group party with cake. Fantastic. We also had a private party for Joanna and she got shoes and toys and such. I gave her four clay chickens and a clay duck along with a clay drinking cup with fish painted on it. I'm thrilled to say Joanna loves the clay birds and plays with them constantly. She's dropped and chipped them a few times, but dad uses glue and water colors to make repairs.

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We need to send in one translated document and our visa application for Phuong is complete. When all  the forms are in, we'll await word on the interview. I'm leaving for the U.S. on Tuesday -- a short stay this time because of a cash shortage -- Vietcombank isn't helping.

No car seat; friend in accident; sleep is a luxury

One of the children in our daycare group showed up last week with a really nasty looking black eye. This little girl is pretty wild so I assumed she fell, or maybe got whacked by a sibling because it's not uncommon for her to simply yank toys away from other kids. Actually, the girl was a passenger in her parents' car, which made a sudden stop to avoid hitting a pedestrian. She was thrown forward and hit something with her face, most likely the dashboard. I didn't get the details other than the fact that this 20-month wasn't in a car seat. But that's the norm here. Kids don't wear helmets on motorbikes (I've been told they're more at risk for a broken neck with a helmet on, so helmets are not required for children). I'm pretty sure there's no requirement for a car seat, either, since I think I've seen about two or three car seats in the more than six years I've lived here. And the number of cars seems to be increasing daily.
Cars and SUVs don't yield here, regardless of typical right of way decorum. An SUV will pull out into traffic from a side street, for example, with no concern for the sea of motorbikes or smaller cars. They will honk their horns to announce the intrusion. But if a bigger vehicle like a truck is in the traffic flow, the SUV will be forced to yield because the truck will not give an inch, and it will also be honking its horn to warn the vehicles in its path that it will not yield. Size matters. There are no car seats in taxis, of course, so we always sit in the back, and I make Joanna sit in the middle in either Phuong's or my grasp. I know this isn't ideal, but since seat belts are passe here and rarely in working order, we do what we have to do. Besides, walking isn't a whole lot safer since no vehicle -- bicycle, motorbike, car, or truck -- will yield to a pedestrian. And vehicles can frequently be found riding on sidewalks. The buses are hot, dirty and complicated, so they're not an option.

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On Sunday when we went to tennis, court manager and friend Tai came limping toward us. I know this is a stupid cliche, but his face really looked liked hamburger. Smothered in dry ketchup. His left eye was nearly swollen shut and the scrapes and road burn were gruesome. He told us he crashed his bike when another motorcyclist crossed the center line and nearly hit him. I'm pretty sure Tai was wearing a helmet, which is fortunate indeed. Hell, I had a helmet on in my first accident here and still banged my coconut and had bleeding on the brain, which I slept off for five days in a Bangkok hospital.

* * *

My two English students are doing quite well and they're enjoyable in class. One of the two ladies just got back from a trip to the United States with her family and was very happy with her improved English. She told me she understood most of what people were saying to her. When I go the U.S. in a few weeks I'll have to take her with me since I struggle to understand much of the English spoken in my country.
Speaking of students, I had coffee with former student Sam, the sexiest woman alive (according to some, including Sam). Sam is such a breath of fresh air here for me -- she's got a real positive energy and vibe. Sam works for some company now, and get this, she teaches English part-time. I'm so proud of Sam, and proud of the work I did with her to improve her English and boost her IELTS score. I guess the White Monkey gets to beat his chest on occasion, too.

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Daycare remains a challenge for me, even though I sometimes love it. The kids arrive early, so we're up at 6 a.m. Monday through Friday. After I help put Joanna to bed, do chi, and share a beer with my wife, I'm going to sleep around midnight at the earliest (my wife is one of those people who takes 3-minute naps throughout the day; she can sleep standing up). That means I'm a tired and sometimes cranky White Monkey. It happens to the best and worst of us. Throw in the horrible heat and humidity, and bed of nails we sleep on, it's no wonder I've learned to snarl and smile at the same time (Smarl? Snile?). Joanna contributes to the dilemma. She's cute, charming, bright, stubborn and occasionally cranky. She demands I carry her much of the day, but past motorbike accidents have come back to haunt my back in the form of sciatica pain, especially in the morning. I'm fine if don't lift anything heavy in the morning, but Joanna is heavy morning, noon, and night. None of this has affected my tennis, however, as I've reclaimed No. 1 in the household and dominated my lovely wife the past couple of weeks. I'm aging like a fine whine.