OakMonster’s Den

momandkids
Originally uploaded by theoakmonster.

When I called Mommy last night, it was noon their time. The hospital room was buzzing with activity. The Aunties were all there. Ake, my oldest brother, answered the phone.

Mom said they were having her favorite food from See Fah Restaurant and white chocolate cake. She said that she’s eating the cake first. Hahaha!

We are all grateful that you get to celebrate another birthday with us. At some point in the last few months, we feared this day would never come. But here you are, getting better everyday and kicking both cancer’s and stroke’s asses. In a few more days, you’d be at home again. It’ll be different, but at least I’m glad dad and Onk can see you a lot more than before. Part of my feeling guilty for being so far away I guess. I just get so worried.

Once you’re home, I’m sure we’d be able to get you out and about town pretty soon. Heck, I’ll wheel you everywhere when I visit next time. It’ll be just like the old days except with wheelchair. Or perhaps you’d be walking by the time I get back, even better!

Mommy - I love you. And I’m so proud of you for being so brave!

More like I heard the signs.

After yapping about college football and trash talking with the 2 bruins on my bus, I settled in for the ride home with my MP3 player. The play list went like this.

Desperado - The Eagles
Always on my mind - Willie Nelson
Always on your side - Sheryl Crow
Sweet child of mine - Guns N Roses.

2 songs are currently my show pieces and 2 others I am learning to play.

I skipped Pussycat Dolls’ Buttons and landed on Evanescense’s Call Me When You’re Sober, yet another song I’m attempting on the piano. (Vocally? I can get there after a long warm up. Heh.)

Then as we finished dinner at L&L Hawaiian Barbeque, Nickelback’s Far Away came on.

Yep. That’s another one on my new song list as well.

So, from all the signs I’ve heard today, it seems I am supposed to be playing the piano and singing…instead of posting a blog entry about it. Heh.

Good night, y’all!

P.S. I am slowly getting back to my normal eating pattern. Still going for easier to digest, not spicy items and still eating in small portions. But so far, the pain and the burping has lessened. Thank god!

Well heck, I got the pictures. So why not go over this again real quick?

Turkey Day

We ate with Justin and Olaina down in San Diego. Here’s a few pictures from our camera. And Olaina has more. Plus the story you’ll have to read from Turkey 4.0 onward.

Day After

Dinner with my aunty and her family. Here’s a picture of the lobster trying to escape. (Poor #3.65. He was gone when we left.) And of course, May helped light my dinner shot with her flash. LOL.

Saturday

A whole lotta nothing got done except for us organizing the garage. Oh, and USC kicked Neutered Dame’s ass all over the Coliseum for 44-24 victory which secures our place at #2 on all the polls and on BCS. Arizona, here we come!!!

Oh, and here’s me in the Oak Nest.

Sunday

We went down to help Nora’s parents with their computer. While Brandon and Nora’s dad did their thing and going out to shop for som RAM, Nora and I hit the mall so I can run some errands. We hadn’t gone to the mall together in so long! We hit 3 stores and we had to get back. (By the way, the 50% already on sale item is fan-fucking-tastic! If you have a t-shirt fiend on your list, you DEFINITELY must check out the sale!) And of course, now we all know about my unruly stomach winning the fight and once again took over my normal life.

Monday

Home, nursing the aching stomach. You see, the pain I can manage. But the constant need to either burp or throw up is not good for the work place. Each item I eat as the day progress seems to hurt less. It still hurts, mind you. And I’m still eating a few bites at a time. But yep, I’m sticking to bland and mushy this week.

Note to self: No spicy. No tomatoe sauce. (Oh yes, pizza did a number on me as well. Just not as bad as the spicy though.)

And while kicking it at the house, I manage to get ready for Operation Jingle All the Way 2006. Last year, we gathered up stuff and shipped off to my friend Captain Amy of the Air Force to treat the troops. This year, with the help of AnyMarine.com (also AnySoldier.com), I am gathering items to send to a Gunny of Marine Military Police to distribute.

LETTERS! I need letters, kids. More than anything. Marines. Love. Letters. So, email me your word doc or an email addressing to “Dear Marine” and I’ll get them to the guys and gals.

Sure, we’d like contribution of items and if you’re comfortable, monetary. See last year’s link for more details on how to send the moolah to help buying stuff or help us with postage.

Or if you’d like to do your own thing, check out AnySoldier.com and get going with your package! We are a little late to get the Christmas stuff out there on parcel post but you can do first class mail.

Will rally more around the Ops tomorrow.

Now I need a little rest. Who knows a nagging mild stomach pain can take so much out of you…

Well, kids. It was a good thing that I gorged myself over the holiday. My body could use a bit of the extra stored fat. Because as of lunch yesterday, I haven’t eaten anything.

So much for thinking I was back to normal. Apparently, my stomach still doesn’t appreciate a little wee bit of heat.

I could handle a bacon wrapped hot dog, but not chilli.

Pad Kraprow Gai–chicken with Thai basil and garlic…and a bit of chilli–managed to play nice for most of the day Sunday and decided not to any more around dinner time. And I haven’t been able to hold anything down since except for crackers and ginger ale.

If you look at the time stamp, you’ll see that I am up at my usual waking hours. But of course, throwing up acid isn’t the way to start the day.

That’s right. The crazy, acid-y stomach is back.

I should probably try to eat something right now. Back on Prilosec we go! Oy!

It all started at Justin and Olaina’s on Thursday.

Then last night, Aunty Tim, Uncle Noi, May and Nicky took us out to dinner at the fantastic Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Irvine. We ate like kings and queens.

Next time someone sent me a Me-me, asking what my favorite smells are, I would have to add “steak sizzling in butter”. Rib eyes. Filet mignon. Sword fish. Me and and an Absolute vodka martini. (Having paid that much for a martini in the first place, I should’ve gone for a Ketel One or Grey Goose. Sheesh!) To top it all off, they brought out a 6-inch round of New York Cheesecake to die for with sides of raspberry sauce and fresh strawberries…with a birthday candle on top.

Oh. My. God.

My 30th birthday celebration officially has gone on for 8 days! LOL.

Today I was supposed to go up to USC to tailgate before the Notre Dame game but I found it difficult to leave the house. Go figure.

Right now, I’m just waiting for Brandon to find the monster he needs to kill in EQ2. Then we’re going down to the garage and pulling out Christmas stuff and doing some more organizing. Hope it’ll be before the game starts.

By the way, if you’re playing EQ2 on Unrest, look up OakMonster. Hehehe.

And the Nest! I LOVE MY NEST! It’s an evil partner of our Bed. Those two things have the power to suck you in and keep you there. I’ll have the picture up sometime today…hopefully. You can see the rate of operation our household is on today so far. Hehe. Set the speed to “Molasses”.

Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday so far!

Let’s just say that I can never hear the word “gravy” without busting out laughing from this day on.

Olaina, our gracious hostess, blogged the play-by-play of the evening starting with “Turkey 4.0″.

And Justin, you, sir, ROCK the fucking kitchen! The turkey. The gravy. The potatoes. Oh. My. God!!!

Justin & Olaina also gave me yet another ultimate present: the papasan chair. It’s this round wicker dish thing sitting on a stand with a round futon on it. You sit down and it settles in. It takes a little finess to sit on it. I mean, when I first tried to sit on this thing, I damn near fell out. But after visiting Justin & Olaina a few more times and having sat in the Nest more, I have grown to love it. They loved the chair too, but there is no room in their apartment for it any more.

We now call it the Oak Nest.

So far, this first week of being 30 is like the best week ever!

It’s almost 1 a.m. and I’m blogging? I too suffered massive food coma, but I had my nap on the drive up from San Diego so I got a bit of a second wind…but it’s quickly blowing away. Brandon, on the other hand. is now hopped up on Mountain Dew he drank to keep him awake for the drive home.

Good night, kiddies. Hope your Thanksgiving was every bit fantastic! Share your stories here, if you’d like.

Suddenly, everything seems to be falling into places around me lately.

With the way my life has been going this year, I am starting to wonder if there is a big bad boo boo waiting around the corner somewhere. The proverbial other shoe.

Take our Thanksgiving plan for example. I was just jonesing to cook up the turkey in my new–as in last Christmas–roasting tray and rack. And oh how I long to try to brine the turkey! (I heart Alton Brown!) We managed to secure one “orphan” to feed, and 3 people to a 10 lbs. turkey is justifiable enough for me. Especially when Erik can eat for 3 people. Hehe.

I decided to contact the lovely Olaina and that real life Superman husband of hers to see if they wanted to come up from San Diego to help us eat the turkey. It turned out that Justin had only Thursday off so they wouldn’t be able to come up. So, I flipped the proposal around that I would come down to make them dinner, turkey and all. Since Olaina is sick and Justin in medical school, I think that would make their lives easier as well. But Olaina had already bought the turkey and a pecan pie…so she invited us down to join THEM for the turkey instead. Then Erik, who ditched his cousin’s Thanksgiving to come to ours, had to drop out after getting so much grief from the family.

Final result? Much like my company potluck, I am making Rachael Ray’s cranberry-pecan stuffing and we are hauling them to San Diego.

See how all the chaos comes down to a very very good result?

Same thing is happening with Brandon’s work. He’s in the very very final stage of being considered for a full time position with the county! After 3 years of working as a contractor through an agency, he’s finally get quite far into being a permanent employee! (Benefits galore, woohoo!) There had been a few opportunities before this one that we had high hopes for but didn’t come through.

And suddenly, here we are. A week after his final interview with extremely good feedback.

And of course, my 30th birthday. If you go back in my past November blog entries, you’ll notice that I haven’t been that big on birthdays. Keeping it small and I ended up feeling melancholic about it. This year, I thought, heck, I’m turning 30 so I have nothing to lose. I was expecting a small group to turn up, but I ended up with probably the biggest birthday party I have ever had in my entire life.

Things happen for a reason. Despite all the chaos, there is eventually an order.

And, for once, I actually like order.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

*P.S.* I went to visit KorBua’s blog a second ago as she posted a band doing the cover of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan’s classic duet “Especially For You”.

That brought me to Jason Donovan. MY FIRST WHITE BOY CRUSH! My first concert ever, outside of Thai mega entertainer Bird McEntire that is. And wow. I mean, WOW. Talk about a flashback!

So I had to search YouTube to give Bua’s the link to the original, and of course I found a bunch of other Jason’s videos in the process including his recent appearance in Australia’s reality show, singing “Any Dream Will Do” in the jungle. Apparently, dude’s been around just on musical stage instead of in the recording studio. And as I come to find out after all these years that he is after straight, married, and has 2 kids! Back in the early 90s, the tabloid supposedly outed him, printing posters of a picture of him a shirt that said “Queer as fuck”. The shirt was actually white and the sentence was fabricated. Oh, my poor Jason!

Oh, Jason. Now that you’re back into my life. Gosh, where is my “The Very Best of Jason Donovan” CD when I need it! At home in Bangkok I’m sure. Thank god for YouTube.

And yep. I’m still on topic. Chaos does bring order. ;-D

Discovery #1

The slow cooked smothered pork chops (recipe from Cook Country magazine) with mashed potatoes has become another meal that Brandon would actually eat as leftover. The other stuff he’d eat as leftover are our spaghetti and turkey meat sauce, chicken or bacon fried rice, pasta salad with ham and cheese, and leftover Thai food. Occasionally, he’d have leftover pizza.

You see, Brandon is not big on leftover. One meal. That’s it. That is also why he doesn’t like restaurants that give you ginormous proportion like Claim Jumper. His eating habit makes it a little difficult for me as most recipes make 4-6 servings. Usually, the leftovers become my lunch. Eva and Celeste also bring in their leftovers, so on many occasions we would feed each other our abundant leftovers or we’d split everything among ourselves.

On the upside, his eating habit allows me to experiment and find more things to cook up. Fun for me!

Decision #1

Finish working on updating BorenConsulting.com, or rock out on the piano? And then I still have to wrap up Shane’s website with pictures and things.

Bah! I have the entire 4-day weekend to work on our own site. As for Shane, there’s tomorrow! I had quite a long day. I need a break too.

Discovery #2

Well, I’ve posted their links on my blogroll for a while now, but I have not properly introduce the addition to the Thai Voices section. I came across Matt the Lost Boy and Metroblogging Bangkok (especially Daniel) through Kitty and KorBua.

I swear, hanging out (virtually–no less) with those 2 Thai younguns are making me hipper by the minute! LOL.

Decision #2

Should I bring lunch tomorrow and join the ladies? Or take my free lunch coupon over to the Daily Grill and perhaps doing lunch solo? Hmm…

…for still glowing with massive pride after Saturday’s whooping of Cal, our shot at the Rose Bowl and even, dare we say, at National Championship game??

Fog clears, revealing a grown-up USC - Los Angeles Times

“I don’t know how I held on to it, seriously, because once I caught it, I blacked out,” said Dwayne Jarrett.

Oh, and held on to it, you did, Jarrett!

An inconsistent quarterback threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to a wide-open receiver who was his third option.

“I was just like, ‘Oh gosh, just don’t throw it over his head,’ ” said John David Booty of Steve Smith.

Wow. He said, “Gosh”…and proved once again, thou shall not doubt the Booty!

The best birthday ever? Indeed! It all started on Wednesday into the actualy birthday on Thursday and bled over into the madness that was Friday night. And of course, the USC Trojans brought me a little something on Saturday night as well.

A HUGE thank you to my gang for coming out to Seal Beach Hennessey’s in droves!

Matt, Terri, Allen, Zak, and Frenchy and Brandy trekked in from all over Los Angeles. Celeste and Eva came in from the San Gabriel Valley. Nora came up from the real O.C. And finally, Stephanie hauled all 3 kids plus Connor in from Valley of the Dirt People. Your commute in to the humble Seal Beach made one hell of a birthday gift for little me!

On a side note, Morgan Claire turned out to be the Belle of the Ball with the ladies at the party. Stephanie finally had time to breath as everyone took her turn playing with Claire.

And of course, my homeboys and homegirls. Brandon (of course!). Shane. Toni and Erick. Paul and Lupe. James and Aurora. Brenda and Jon. Tanya and her boyfriend (Dude…you’re so nice, I just don’t remember your name!)

Aurora and James bought me a giant sucker with a sticker that said “30 Sucks” and a string of plastic beads with “30″ coins on it and at the bottom, the medallion said, “Why grow up?” So I ran around the place with the beads around my neck and the sucker in my pocket.

Celeste took a picture of me holding Morgan Claire who had the “Why Grow Up?” part in her mouth. Talk about cuteness!

At 7:30, I started with a Black and Tan. Well, with all the folks coming in, I managed to eat half of the blue cheese burger and intermittenly took a drink out of that pint. Somewhere towards the end of that pint, around 8:30, Paul bought me the Irish Car Bomb.

For those uninitiated, an Irish Car Bomb is dropping a shot of Irish whiskey with a splash of Irish cream into a half a pint of Guinness and chug, chug, chug!

Yes. I did the shot. Lauren has the pictures to prove it! (Will try to get them from her soon.)

Frenchy wanted to buy me one as well, but I had to tell him to hold off a bit. He kindly obliged. Around 9:30, Frenchy, Paul and I had a round of Irish Car Bombs.

It got to around 10 p.m. when most of the gang left. I didn’t touch another drink. It was down to Brandon and I, Shane, Terri and Allen when Tanya and her boyfriend bought me another Black and Tan. All of us nursed our last drinks until almost midnight when we all headed out.

Yes. I walked myself out of the joint.

Saturday morning came. Typical of me, I didn’t get that nasty hangover headache until the afternoon. Hehehee…

And of cousre, the 4-day Birthday celebration ended with USC’s victory over Cal.

Turning 30 doesn’t suck one bit.