OakMonster’s Den

Tribes divided up by race? Please. You guys completely ripped off Mencia!

I did quite well during the day today until around 2 p.m. I was creating a special project Powerpoint presentation with my coworker who was telling me what to type up. At some point he’d think about it or word the sentence out loud.

I started to nod off, unconsciously. I was staring at the monitor one second and startling myself awake the next.

“I’m sorry, Coworker. I fell asleep and missed what you just said. Can you please repeat that? Actually, wait. Hold that thought.” I got up and jumped around in my cubicle as if I was in the Mad Hatter’s exercise video.

“Still got the jetlag I see,” he chuckled.

“Oh I thought I’m over it. Apparently not.”

After that, I kept feeding myself sugar, snacking on a small brownie and a few “rat poops” (See’s Candies Bridge Mix) from the other side of the office, and some leftover mini Reeses Pieces I had squirrelled away in my drawers. Can’t do caffeine here…it’d just put me over into jittery.

After the project was done later in the afternoon, the VP who ordered the special project returned with a small golden box of See’s Candies.

“For your hard work today,” he said. “And perhaps it’ll keep you awake tomorrow.”

See why I love my office?

And I’m now going to bed. I see another goodnight sleep in my future! Tylenol PM, baby. Save me one more night!

Just a quick note to let y’all know that I did sleep through the night last night.

Yey!

Mine that is.

Last night’s “Be as tired as possible so I’d sleep through the night” strategy did not work. I woke up with a start around 1:58 a.m. thinking that it WAS indeed morning and that somehow there was a power outage that set my clock back to 2 a.m. I could NOT possibly be waking up at 2 a.m. after 3 days of about 3 hours of sleep per night!?!?

But I did wake up at 2 a.m. and spent the next 3.5 hours tossing and turning and, okay I admit it, laying around somewhat paranoid.

Why is it 2 a.m.? It should be 5 a.m. The birds are chirping! I’d better get up and check other clocks. Wait. I thought I had closed the closet when I went to bed, but why is the closet door open now? Who opened the closet? Is there an intruder? If there is, I’m not going to get up and get killed. I wonder if Cujo is in the closet. Why is the bed trembling? Is it Brandon? No. Is that an earthquake? Oh my god! I hope it doesn’t get too violent. I don’t want that spirit arrow to fall from the ceiling and hit me in the skull. Oh sheesh. THAT could actually happen, couldn’t it? I’m staring stright right at the arrowhead. Is it really 2 a.m.? Why is it not 5 a.m.!? Why isn’t my de-jetlag strategy working?!?

On and on with thoughts and intermittent sleep all the way until the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.

When I don’t get enough sleep, either having been up all night or woken up before I got enough rest, I get nauseated. The less sleep I get, the more nauseous I feel.

This morning, I left the house feeling like I was going to throw up. I couldn’t even sleep on the bus as much as I tried, but having my eyes closed seem to help keeping the dizziness down. All the way through the first half of the day. I couldn’t concentrate as I was suppressing the urge to puke. I can’t fully function at this rate.

Brandon said I should stay awake by staying at work or else I won’t sleep again tonight. But I’ve tried that for the past 3 nights and it ain’t working. At about 3 hours a night, that’s not enough sleep for me. My body needs sleep. Period. Tonight, I will require some help from Tylenol PM and a bottle of New Castle.

I finished what was urgently needed for the day and went home around 1:30. The train barely passed Staples Center and I started to nod off. I woke up in Compton, in time to call Shane to come pick me up, and managed to stay awake the rest of the way. (It was very nice of him to drive me today, by the way!) When I got home at almost 3 p.m., I settled in and the next thing I know, Brandon was waking me up at 5 p.m.

I woke up groggy but forced myself to run errands with Brandon, and made dinner. I am still sleepy right now, so I hope this is enough.

Dear Buddha, please help me sleep through the night tonight. I don’t have any more sick hours left!

Sidenote: Please also welcome yet another addition to my blogroll, KorBua of the Kinda Daily Peninguin. KorBua is another young voice of Thailand, a friend of Gnarly Kitty. She’s been by here a lot so I think it’s time she gets her place on my blog as well. Welcome!

Obviously, I’m trying to beat jetlag by making myself as tired as possible.

Then again, I have a lot I wanted to do on the computer tonight. So, that’s good for me. Bad for the lonely boy in my bed. Hehe.

A few more blog of notes I’m rolling.

First, my dear friend Olaina at Olaina After School. I got her blogging a few weekends ago. And here she is!

Olaina has been going through a lot lately, and I am glad to get her online to share her thoughts and experiences. Yet, another place for people to come by to tell her she’s loved! You will find yourself cheering on for my artist friend very soon yourself.

Then, there’s Mark. You decide if you want to visit a page that is called thatfuckinguy.com. ;-D

Mark is also known in our household as “Bowl”, shorted for “Big Bowl”. No, it’s not for the bowl you (or he, actually) would smoke, but it’s from yet another inside story.

Back in the dot com day, Mark was network administrator. One night, he caught some guy trying to remote into the company server, so Mark promptly shut the guy down. Somehow, they got into some kind of back and forth conversation over the network.

The “intruder” claimed that the company’s exec allowed him to use this server. Mark was the god of the server as far as he knew and no one informed him of such privilege. The exchange became heated, and Mark’s last word to the guy was, “Sir, why don’t you go and have a big bowl of dicks.”

The next morning came the clarification. Indeed the exec let his friend use the network without letting the network admin knew ahead of time.

So, there you go with the explanation of why we called Mark, Bowl. Somehow Brandon managed to be titled “Little Bowl” after Mark’s “Big Bowl”. And then “Bowl” also becomes a greeting among us instead of hello.

Yeah, we’re weird like that. ;-D

So yeah, I’m at home. Doing stuff on the computer is the best thing to keep me awake at the moment. I drove out to get lunch, but on my way back sleep was creeping up on me. I could feel it in the back of my head. So, the local grocery store was my last stop instead of Trader Joe’s as I originally planned. I didn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel.

Brace yourselves kids. This is going to be a long one.

The flight back was pleasant all together. Minutes after we landed in Hong Kong, it rained and thundered. After we are all board the plane, we were told our flight was also delayed because of the back up in flight queue due to the storm.

Hong Kong airport has quarantined the end section of their airport for flights to the U.S. They thoroughly search your carryon luggage. If you have small vail of liquid on you, they ask that you test it for them. The lady next to me had to use her eye drops. And for myself, a few sprays into my nose.

The flight was full. No empty seat in the economy section. With my slightly bummed kneews, I suddenly missed the comfort of the larger seat and a wee bit more leg room of THAI Airways direct flight BKK-LAX on the new Airbus. Remind me next time not to dance on the bench with heels a few nights before getting on the plane. More on that later.

Let me start back where I left off in the last entry from Bangkok.

Wednesday morning was spent with mom and the afternoon with dad. My new dentist turned out to be an English bookworm. She saw my copy of “Reading Lolita in Tehran” I had with me and struck up the conversation. At the end, I left her a list of books I’ve enjoyed recently and she left me with a filler. Later that afternoon, I went to get some contact lenses and dad nudged me into buying another pair of glasses. He hated my geekylicious thick framed one I currently wear. LOL. I got the same New Balance brand but wire frame. We also bought a new suitcase for me and did some more browsing around at another mall. We had dinner at home and Pueng couldn’t be happier! Haha. I told you she loves spoiling me to death.

Thursday was all about mom. I barely went anywhere, just down the street to buy some lunch. And that was it. We ended up doing family dinner that night with my brothers and their ladies because my brother Onk may be going to Dubai on business for dad on Saturday. Since I haven’t had Peking duck (that’s crispy duck skin served with tortilla like flat bread and plum sauce) in a very long time, we took a trip down memory lane to dine at Great New Shanghai restaurant on Sukhumvit Road, next to the Emporium. We used to eat there on special occasions growing up and haven’t really returned there in years! We had a great time, but I don’t know if anyone else feels the significance of mom’s absense.

Friday, now this was the day to remember. I went over to mom first thing in the morning as always, and I left again to see my dentist like Wednesday. The cavity filling had to be drilled down a little more. After that, I walked over to pick up my new glasses and contact lenses. (Only 5 pairs of 1-day lenses just so I could go to the award dinner in October with no glasses. My insurance only covers one eye exam a year and that is not until after the dinner. So, there you go.) On my way back, I made a quick stop at the Erawan shrine to pay my respect to Brahma statue and then I went back to be with mom.

Lily came to pick me up from the hospital and we headed to my house to hung out and get dressed. We left the car there and took the SkyTrain to Na Na station and walked to Kinnaree Gourmet Thai. We ended up with a small group. Again. Joy and her husband were stuck in traffic and they decided to just eat somewhere closer to the club. Note, the restaurant owner, had to close that night and she was also waiting on VIP guests so she couldn’t go dancing with us or hanging out with us much for dinner. Sam didn’t forget this time but was running late. The rest of the folks who said they’d show went AWOL.

So, Tong, Lily and I enjoyed our appetizers-for-dinner meal with a few cocktails. Tong was dashing out the door to meet Joy and the rest of her friends (a 30th birthday party) at the club when Sam arrived. Not wanting to run off so soon, Lily and I hung back with Sam so she could eat dinner and enjoyed her drinks and then, in Sam’s car, we headed down to Gigabite in Soi Tongloh (Sukumvit 55).

Gigabite, according to my brother Ake and his wife who are both social butterflies, used to be a cool club. Now, it’s still cool for the younger crowd. The 30+ are hanging out elsewhere now, they said. And it is true. Gigabite was filled with college age younguns! We felt ancient in the joint, but that is just how Tong likes it! Haha.

“Young grass for the old cows,” she said, playing off of a Thai saying “Old cattle and young grass” usually implies the old man and his much younger girlfriend/wife/mistress.

The main seating arrangement at Gigabite was cafeteria style, wooden table-benches. It’s the thing to do to dance on the benches. Not quite the table because that is where the whiskey and mixers are. Oh yes, the typical club alcoholic fare, Johnny Walker Red Label whiskey and assorted mixer of water, soda, and cola and a bucket of ice. If you have more money, the whiskey could be other brand. But JWRL is the cheapest thing to drink before hitting the local (read: low class) brands. That alone filled the table, no room for you to dance on, hence the bench. Heh.

For a few unfortunate souls who like to drink, just not whiskey, you’d have the choices of Heineken or Barcadi flavored malt drinks. I did see bottles of vodka and gin on the shelf but I really am not sure if the “bartenders” could fix anything for you with those.

See? This is one thing I like about BED, they have more beer. Probably a few clubs in town that actually have Guinness and Foster on the menu. BED is the watering hole for mostly foreigners, so the music selection is usually of the international persuasion and therefore I’d know them.

Not so at Gigabite. The night was mostly DJ’ed until 11:30 when the live house band came on to rock out. The DJ’ed part was fine for me. It was a mixed of local pop dance and hip hop I don’t know (or recently come to hate–the newer and sexier Tata Young and her goddamn “El Nin-yo!”–yes it’s the bastardization of El Nino–and thanks Gnarly Kitty for the comparison video post) and American pop dance and hip hop hits. This is pretty much where I danced my ass off. Later on, after the band, the exodus began. The DJ played 2 more tunes and Tong and I were going nuts on the bench. It was “Jump Around” and “Crazy In Love” and nobody to look up to see me holding up a very drunk Tong as we danced. No we weren’t trying to do the sexy girl-on-girl dancing thing. I was afraid Tong was going to fall off the bench!

The house band was REALLY good. They rocked hard and sounded awesome. 100% local fare with only a few songs I actually know plus the punk version of “I will survive” with a guest female singer thrown in for good measure. I did try to get into it out of necessity because it’d look to stupid to be standing still around the dancing drunken fools. But, as I said, I did get my share of bench dancing in. Joy, her husband and his friend left around midnight. The rest of us marched on until 1:30 when the club closed. (Oh yeah, this early closing curfew thing SUCKS!)

Despite all of that, we had a few fantastic moments with the band. As a song request for the birthday girl, the band played the classic Thai folk song titled Sam Sib Yang Jaew which translates to “Still hot at 30″. To our surprise, aside from our group screaming in delight when the song came on, there was another group across the corner of the club screaming in support as well. They were celebrating someone’s 30th too!

Following that song was another classic pop ballad, Chan Mai Chai Pu Wiset (I’m no magician…pretty much the song says I don’t have much to offer you just my heart). Suddenly, that other “old cows” corner bursted into manic screaming. The word travelled through the club that someone had just been proposed to! A few minutes later, we found out it was our classmate who got proposed to and their group had more of our classmates in them! LOL! Talk about super small world!

I mentioned holding Tong up on the bench because she was quite toasted. Let me continue on telling you about our wonderfully outgoing Tong who got completely and absolutely fucked up.

I mean, she was keeping a pretty good composure, insisting on driving back to the birthday girl’s house to spend the night. Her other Thai friends were taking her words for it, but I wasn’t about to let the broad getting in the car after watching her slamming her whiskey and cola all night and stumbled around the way she did. Tong fought us a bit based on a very Thai principal of Kreng Jai–something equivalent to being courteous. The “I didn’t want to bother you” mentality we have. I told her it’d really be a bother if I have to change my flight and stay for her funeral if she drives drunk and crashes. So after a few minutes of arguing, she handed her key over to Lily.

Little Miss “No, I can drive. Really!” was in the backseat, puking into the bag withint the first 5 minutes of us leaving the club. Then she’d alternate passing out and dry heaving for the rest of the trip. It looked to us she had gotten this getting too drunk to drive down to an art. There’s a plastic bag in the backseat and a packed overnight bag in the trunk. Good going, wayward alcoholic. When we got to my house, it took us a good 15 minutes to get her out of the car and another 10 minutes to get her inside, up 2 flights of stairs to the bedroom. Lily left once we got Tong settled in. Tong woke up once the next morning to throw up. I fed her aspirin and made her drink water. She didn’t know that hangover is caused by dehydration.

Oh yeah. There’s a few things Tong doesn’t know about drinking. One of them is when to stop. It’s good to know your limit. Sam and I both have our shares of being completely drunk off our asses and therefore know our limit. Lily only drinks socially and never really gotten past lightly buzzed. Sam and Lily had a few drinks themselves earlier that night, but they were sober by the time we left.

Tong’s binge drinking worries us. Lily fears she may ended up getting taken advantage of by her guy “friends” or worse by strangers. All I could do is emphasize to her that she needs to learn to drink responsibly, learn to find her limit. The rest is up to her.

Now, Saturday morning I went to hang out with mom. Dad was at an all day seminar and P’ Onk was mostly busy getting ready for the Dubai trip he was taking that evening. There was no parking at the hospital lot so P’ Ake and his wife picked me up and treated me for lunch at Thien Dong, the French Vietnamese restaurant in the Dusit Thani Hotel, across the street so they could also park their car. When we got back just past 1 p.m., mom was in the middle of her physical therapy session. P’ Onk was already there. (and when he left the house around 1, Tong’s car was still in the garage.) We took a picture with mom for the first time! Since the feeding tube came off a few days ago, she finally felt “presentable”, mom said. Haha!

Pun was also there, the Thai masseur and nail lady we use for 15 years. Aunty Or dispatched for her the day before and she cleared her schedule to come see me and my mom. I got my nails done and a good kneading. The massage surely helped my sore knees! Pun also rubbed mom down pretty well. She has provided massage therapy to paralyzed patients and elderly before. She even gave my mom’s sister a few minutes of foot massage!

Mom was moved into the corner room with wonderful views of the southwest Bangkok. They moved everyone around already to do repairs on all the toilets on her floor. Mom was the last one. She doesn’t like to have the blind open on the west side. It’s a new thing. And mom has become fearful of new things since the stroke. We’ll have to slowly introduce her to the new component of the otherwise same room.

I spent more time with mom as she dosed off when dad came to get me. I said my goodbye. I told her to be good and to be strong and that I’d be back soon. She insisted that I don’t need to come back because it’s a waste of money. She hugged me and asked if I had washed my hair. LOL. Oh yeah, the cigarette smokes from Thai clubs gets in everywhere. I washed my hair 3 times and you can still smell a faint whiff. Mom’s scent of smell has become very acute since the stroke. Funny how the stroke could take something away and enhance something else. We were almost out the door when she asked to hug me again. She had forgotten we had just said goodbye.

If this was to be the last time I’ve seen mom alive, it’ll always be known that her last word to me was “Your head is stinky.”

Overall, the trip feels a lot less of a vacation I have had in the past. It wasn’t the same with mom being around the house, healthy or otherwise. Spending time with mom at the hospital is nothing like laying around the house with her and watch TV like last time for her chemo. Going out with other people during the day where mom is mostly awake makes me feel guilty. Hell, being away from her now makes me feel guilty. It wasn’t 10 days of vacation but more like 10 days of necessary errands. Coming back to my real life feels almost like what a vacation should feel like. It’s crazy.

I will talk more about mom and my visit with her in more details in the next installment.

But tired as hell. Jet lag SUCKS!

Now I have to go find something to eat as Brandon left nothing in the house. Heh. He’s been calling me every hour since 9 a.m. to keep me awake and help me fight off jet lag. It’s working, kind of.

In my head, it’s almost 1 a.m. right now and I felt like I got woken up in the middle of the night. Urrrgh.

Half way through recapping my last few days in the Big Mango. Will post this afternoon as a way to keep myself awake. See how far I could go before having to succumb to taking a nap…

The sky finally opened up in Bangkok. Well, not too much but enough to keep everything damp on and off since yesterday’s afternoon.

Tong ditched us 3 times in 3 days so far. This is new to me but apparently she’s been doing that to Joy and Lily for quite sometimes now.

Let’s see. She was going to try to come out to girls dinner (part I) on Sunday night, but didn’t make it. Her mom wasn’t happy about her going out. Okay, that’s typical of her woes. So she made plans with me and Lily on Monday to go have lunch and visit my mom.

Monday noon came, no one could reach her. Again, also typical, Tong slept through the alarm and phone calls. She showed up much later in the evening to visit my mom. We made plans for dinner last night so she could meet Joy and Lily and I for dinner.

Joy and I visited mom early in the morning and had lunch there with the aunties. Lily joined us, had lunch, and we were off to Lalai Sapp Alley shopping our pretty little heads off. I scored a dress to wear for my company’s award dinner in October for about $30. Gorgeous black shiffon thing with hippy-ish gold accent. Very me. After that I went with Joy and her mom to shop for Thai silk and Joy’s painting supply down at the Old Siam. Fun, but I didn’t get anything.

By the time we got to Polo Club for dinner we were already a bit late. Tong couldn’t make it…again. This time she said she was sick. Okee dokey. I hope I get to see this bitch on Friday this time.

I’m actually chatting with Brandon on IM. Gosh, I love dad’s little laptop and the wireless internet connection here at the house. It works well until dad’s staff arrive and start using the network. Hahah.

On the menu today in the Big Mango: Visiting mom…which I have to get going for soon. Dentist at 1 p.m. and afternoon of maybe getting new glasses and contacts, getting a new suitcase and some more shopping with dad. Dinner at home…or my maid Pueng would kill me. LOL. I haven’t eaten at home much since I got here and she’s DYING to make me food.

In the plans: Friday night, back at Kinnaree Gourmet Thai for dinner with the classmates (part II) and then partying afterward. Lunch with Thai-Blogs folks on Saturday. Hopefully, Steve Suphan can drum up the gang. And dinner with the family Saturday night, and packing after that. Sunday, probably have to leave the house very early in the morning to go to the airport and endless security wait. Fun.

P.S. Joshua Tyler Heygood arrived last week! Poor boy has a heart condition and he got out of surgery this weekend. JC and Erick said he is going to be just fine! I’ll post more info about them when I get back.

Hi kids, I’m here in Bangkok. I miss the terrorism threat shenanigan completely. As in, my brother told me about it when I landed. Thank goodness I packed with many gallon-sized Ziplock bags. They may be come in handy. ;-D

Bangkok is hot but not too bad. A lot like LA a few weeks ago. It finally rained last night. But the sky is constantly in the shade of light gray to dark gray. Not much of the sky to see in this rainy season.

Mom is doing better than I thought. They switched one of her meds and suddenly she “woke up”. She chats all the time. All day. She’s very coherent, and she hears EVERYTHING. Once in a while she’d slip into the past a bit, or got a little confused. And even more slipping into her sleep-talking mode when she’s getting sleepy. Yesterday she told me not to eat anything with coconut milk before I get on the plane because it’ll give me gas and got really mad at my brother and his girlfriend for slow-cooking pork without adult’s supervision. LOL.

So far, Saturday we celebrated Mother’s Day with mom at the hospital all morning. After we cheered her through physical therapy, offering our smartass comments so she could try to kick us…hehe, we went shopping for some of my clothes. Got a few designer pieces (namely MNG and Zara) because dad insisted I have a few for my stay. It’s all about the brand over here, don’t you know. Then that night we had Korean BBQ with my dad, brothers, sister in law and “it’s only a matter of time” future sister in law. Delish!

Sunday was spent mostly with mom. My oldest brother and his wife took me out to dim sum, and for dinner I joined up with a few girl friends for drinks and food at her restaurant Kinnaree Gourmet Thai in Sukhumvit Soi 8. (Yes, I’m helping her promote the place!) It was supposed to be a small Mater Dei class of 1995 dinner…but we eneded up with me, Note the owner, Lily and Sam who joined us later. We’re going to try for a bigger gathering on Friday, hopefully.

And now, I must bid you farewell as I am late in going to see my mom. My dad’s office has high speed internet now, so hooray for me!

Also, a quick shoutout, my friends JC and Erick has their baby boy! Yey!

Hope everyone is doing well.

*UPDATE*
On the way from LAX to Hong Kong, I took under my wing a young, newlywed Trojan alumni who is traveling out of the country for the first time. (Already made a mistake of buying duty free items at LAX for his mom and sister not knowing he had to pick them up at the gate.) Tanner was on his way to Jarkarta to meet his wife’s family for the first time. We trudged around Hong Kong airport waiting for our flights. Here are a few pictures.

Tanner and his coffee.

A very appetizing candy bar…not!

Over in the Phillippines, a volcano is about to erupt. If it does, it’d send up ashes for my flight to fly around.

*Update* Super Typhoon Saomai is making landfall around midnight in China, south of Shanghai.

…This is going to make an interesting flight…

Over in Bangkok, the weather forecast spells rain and thunderstorm all week and therefore we’ll be flying in the rain and thunders when I land.

I’m getting on the plane in 6 hours. All of this had better blown over. Maybe I need to reinforce Bonine with valium. Or somebody please knock me out. Help me, Jesus. Help me, Mr. T!