Caged

One down, three to go on my Thai bloggers meet list. I met with Steve Suphan–I mean, Stephen Cleary–last night just a block from my house. We had some beer and chat and listened to the house band. Fuckin’ impeccable Free Bird from a band that started out covering some cheesy 80s stuff. I was amazed. It was good to get out of the house, talked to someone frankly about my mom for a change. Thai culture is superstitious. You know how I have been talking about the impending death of my mother here? If my family or the aunties...
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Staying awake

Just keeping awake right now, y’all. This is the hardest time for my jet lag little head to stay awake. So, here I am in dad’s office, working away at work stuff and now, I’m blogging. I also sat in a meeting with dad, Onk, and my uncle and the consultants from Jones Lang LaSalle to discuss our future family business. Interesting to see the flip side as one of the consultants is an American who speaks fluent Thai. 🙂 Earlier today, I visited my mom after getting my new Thai ID card. She played with us just a little...
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Inauguration

Mom wasted absolutely no time to show me what it’s like to be here full time. Around midnight last night, I was one of the 4-woman team to carry mom in a wheelchair down our steps to get her in the car and go to the ER. Mom was having difficulty breathing. She was taking shallow breathes and making a lot of gurgle-ly noise. Gob, the caregiver, got my dad and off we went to BNH Hospital aka Nursing Home aka possibly the most expensive private hospital in the country. It was like checking in to the Ritz Carlton of...
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Nihao from Taipei!

Hi guys! Amazingly, I survived the flight from LAX to Taipei.  Kicking it here, sweating like a pig…I mean, getting acclamated to the Asian summer, in the free internet nook in the airport.  I have 3 hours to kill so I started pacing the airport and found this.  So, hooray! I had a great flight.  I ended up sitting at the exit aisle, leg rooms galore.  Not that I need that much.  But my flight buddy did though.  This Chicago med school kid named Dot was en route to visit family in Vietnam.  We had a good time chatting and watching...
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Dread

I dread the flight tonight in many ways. First, I’m scared to see mom.  I’m scared to face the reality that everyone else back home has been facing for so long.  I’m scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle it and fall apart all over the place.  I’m scared that I may not want to leave her side. I’m just fucking scared.  Period. And then, I’m scared my eardrums are going to blow up due to my serious sinus infection. Heck, my ears had trouble equalizing coming down 34 floors earlier today.  I’m still taking my Sudafed, Tylenol and...
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I’ve got the fever

Sinus infection + exhaustion due to stress = crazy ass sore throat, cough and fever spike. “No fever yet?” my doctor asked this morning. “Just low grade,99.7 or so,” I said. “Oh. It’s going to get a lot worse,” she said. And she was right. Around 1 p.m. I clocked in at 102.2. I think I broke my own record there. I’m on this super strength once a day antibiotics which makes me queasy. Sudafed to help clears the ears so I can fly. Airborne and antioxidant mango juice from Trader Joe’s to keep up the fight. And Tylenol to...
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