OakMonster’s Den

Again, Thai politics never fail to amuse me. Here’s a report from The Nation:

‘Keep your nose out of our sign language’
A welfare group has called for hands off over how deaf people should describe politicians - in particular the prime minister - in sign language.

Published on January 31, 2008

The Council of Disabled People of Thailand claimed yesterday any interference in the way deaf people communicate with their hands “would not be appropriate”.

Council chairman Wiriya Namsiriphongphan was responding to queries from PPP members on the way deaf people referred to party leader and Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej in sign language.

During a recent televised parliamentary session, translators touched their noses when Samak’s name was mentioned. The prime minister’s nose is widely acknowledged as the most prominent feature on his face.

Many PPP members were reportedly upset when they saw the sign.

And here’s for a little visual aid. This is The Nose.

However Wiriya insisted yesterday: “This is not to mock or to humiliate him. It’s just the sign that deaf people can understand.”

At the mention of Demo-crat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva’s name, translators moved their hands around their faces and gave a thumbs up. This sign referred to his initials and also indicated they thought he was good looking.

And here’s the Golden Boy, the future PM in my book.

Wiriya said if the PPP wanted to change the way deaf people referred to Samak, it would need to pay for a seminar to determine how best to refer to the prime minister with another sign.

“Is it worth holding such a big seminar for just one person?” he said.

Wiriya said sign language for the deaf was constructed naturally and any attempt to interfere would mean a fabricated language.

Remember last year?

Well, I’m doing it again this year.

Join me, movie freaks, at The Block at Orange on Saturday, February 23, for 12+ hours of this year’s Oscar Best Pictures nominees!

Last year, the place was packed to the gill, so I plan to be at the theater early to camp out seats.  More than likely, I’ll be by myself. Again.

Who’s with me!?!

I didn’t get to to quite the housekeeping goal I dreamed up on Saturday morning. Nor did we see Cloverfield.

Upon arriving at the theater, there was a sign that says, “Camera movement in Cloverfield may cause motion sickness.” And suddenly Brandon was reminded of how much he despises the shaky camera. The Shield and Bourne Ultimatum drove him bonkers. He completely forgot that Cloverfield was mostly “hand held”.

Even with all the reviews we have read, we didn’t even think about that. So, we turned around and came home.

Then the rain came and washed away all of my weekend aspiration. All but going grocery shopping, reorganizing the pantry, catching up on all of my TIVO’ed show, and making dinner.

On Sunday, while the dinner was cooking away in the oven, I worked on the pantry. As I re-stacked my tea collection (which is HUGE), I looked at the box of ginger tea, the savior of my stomach ailments, and thought:

“Huh, I haven’t needed the ginger tea in a while. That’s good!”

And guess what happened this morning?

My stomach hurt inside and to the touch. And then I was throwing up for a good few hours.

Apparently, my dinner didn’t digest well. Actually, more like I didn’t chew my dinner well. I was so excited to eat my own home-cooked meal (Giada’s chicken Osso Bucco) that I pretty much inhaled the meal.  And I ate too much on top of that.

Premonition? Self fulfilling prophecy? Or just plain ol’ Murphy’s Law. Your call.

The second giant storm is heading to the Southland.  But today, we have a break.  The sky is super blue and there are actually fluffy clouds out.  Gorgeous.

Our plan is to be outside for a bit, see Cloverfield, and get grocery.  But my major goal for the weekend is cleaning my “den”.

I started nesting sometime at the end of the day at work yesterday.  My cubicle has looked like Kansas after a tornado for the past few months.  I finally cleared things out.  On Monday, I have to bust out the dusting cloth and 409 and REALLY clean the joint because after all, using canned air to dust your desk isn’t really effective.  LOL.

Oh, speaking of tornado, I have overheard the funniest excuse to not come into work in the elevator today.

Some lady called in “sick” and gave this excuse: “A tornado touched down in Long Beach yesterday, and I almost got blown away. I’m not coming in.”

Apparently, there were two that touched down on Thursday, one by LAX and one up in Ventura County.  Nowhere near Long Beach.  That’s just hilarious.  But I digress.

The nesting.  Yes, that is also continuing into my home office.  I have been putting off filing my paperwork and organizing it all year.  I used to get on this thing every 2 months but these days the SlothMonster wins out on the weekends all the time.

Now I have paperwork everywhere.  And my Money has all sorts of unreconciled items because I haven’t track down the computer receipts to match them.  There is a pile of small notebooks on my desk that I was using but not consistently.  There is a still a whole bunch of stuff I left on the floor I haven’t put away.

Oh god. I’m going to get get buried alive if the house shifts or something.

I can no longer put off the paperwork.  Tax season is just around the corner.  Our tax lady would KILL ME if I’m not ready.  As for the rest of the room, well, I had it with my own mess.

Oh, and finally, remember I posted a writing challenge a while back?  Well, I’m going to cancel it.  Just like how everyone commented that that was a HUGE project, it is more than huge.  It’s FUCKING HUGE.  LOL.  So, I’m just going to cancel that.

Instead, I encourage you to participate in Kuri’s Best Blog Post of the Year.  Nominate your own entry or someone else’s there.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

I should have known things were never going to be the same again after Hawaii. (Oh, and the photos are up. I haven’t organized them with tags or caption yet though.)

This was our first REAL vacation together since we got married. The fact that we could (kind of) afford it and that we decided to leave town on somewhat of a whim was new.

I think that decision might have sent out the disturbance into the universe and therefore screwing things up for everyone.

Why did I say that? Here are some proofs:

1. A few days before we left, Celeste woke up in the morning and stretched. Then her neck got stuck. That simple, routine wake up stretch severely sprained her neck so much so that her friend had to take her to the hospital. Celeste was out all week and returned just yesterday in a neck brace.
2. Our first day in Hawaii, there was this.
3. Also starting on my first day on O’ahu, a weird zit inside my nose turned into, well, an alien egg. Let’s just say that I went through 4 days of breathing mostly out of one nostril, I could barely touch the right side of my face and nose, and I was in constant pain…until the alien, well, to put it delicately, started to hatch, you guessed it, on my last night in Honolulu.
4. We arrived at the hotel on Thursday to find a note from my dad who was supposed to arrive on Friday who already arrived earlier that morning. There was a confusion between dad’s travel agency. They thought you’d gain a day coming to the US from Bangkok when the truth is the opposite. So, if dad would’ve left on time, he would’ve been in Honolulu a day early by himself!
5. To add to the injury, I called to move dad’s reservation to Friday. The hotel got it wrong and had him arriving on Saturday. Isn’t trip planning fun?
6. And one more to add to the theme. I booked the luau at Paradise Cove for Sunday night. We showed up to find not only they filed us under the the wrong last name of “Bourne,” but, wait for it, they booked us for Monday night. *sigh* Needless to say, that prompted me to call our shuttle service late that night to confirm our return ride to the airport.
7. Since the moment we arrived back at LAX on Monday night, there was not even a trace of the sunny Southern California. It felt like I got off the plane at Heathrow!
8. This morning, our new employee, on the way to our monthly meeting, wheeling a dolley and juggling a basket, pulled a muscle in her back so badly she had to call a cab to get her to the hospital.
9. And in the afternoon, it rained. Like crazy monsoon rain. But a LOT colder. I left Downtown at 3:30 which usually would put me home by 4-ish. Today, I got home at almost 5:30.
10. ETA: Federer got beaten at Australia Open in the semifinal. What the…?!?!

And finally, the reason why I believe that there is something wrong with the universe these days…

RIP Heath Ledger. Starting out in a teen movie (heck, still one of my favorites) and ended in the dark side of the pool as The Joker with an Oscar nomination in his pocket.

And on a side note, look at the outpour of emotions we have for Heath and the news coverage of his death. Then look again at another life cut short, Brad Renfro’s, a troubled former child actor and teen heartthrob with a promising career, untimely death was a mere blip on the radar.

That’s just one of many ways how weird our universe works…

Aloha, gang. We’re back on the mainland. And today, we took a vacation from our vacation. We slept in, stayed in, and went out for our massages. Hmm…hot stone therapy.

We had an overall great time. I wish I didn’t have to play the tour director the entire trip, but that is what you have when we have one really out of towner in the midst. Dad had a great time too, I hope. The Couch Monkey Adventures album is up and running. That alone should give you an idea from our trip.

As I am still giving myself a break, instead of posting pictures and more recap, you’ll have 2 pieces of memorable conversations we had over the trip.

#1 - The conversation you’d have when you’ve been married for 6 years…

Me: You know I love you, right?

Him: [Looked up from his book alarmingly] Why?

Me: [Confused — the usual reply is “Yes”] What do you mean ‘why?’?

Him: Oh. I thought may be Brad Pitt was standing right here or something.

#2

Me: Is it so wrong to want something fruity and alcoholic right about now?

Him: I’m sure Waikiki has a few gay bars you can go on a hunt…

Hawaii Day One was quite an eventful day. Party at Ray’s was quite fun. His house ROCKS my socks off. Up in the hills of Waialae area. The view, even at night, was just amazing.

Hawaii Day Two started off slow as everyone needed the sleep. I was the first one up. After an hour or putzing around the room, I decided to just go to the beach on my own. Upon waking up to tell Brandon where I was going, he decided to roll out of bed and join me.

We strolled across the park to the Ala Moana Regional Park beach. It’s beautiful even out here. The water is clear and the temperature is just right. Little kids play. Young people jog. Old folks swim. It was awesome.

We strolled through the mall on the way back to grab breakfast and some snacks for dad. A few hours later, dad was ready to roll and we went on a walking excursion.

Nan recommended Yama’s Seafood Market as a local food favorite. It was only 1.2 miles away according to Google Maps and the gang agreed on walking there. And there we went. The route, though, took us through the part of Hawaii tourists don’t usually get to see. Cheap apartments. Industrial warehouses. Not so glitzy and posh. The backbone of the city.

Oh, and there was no place to sit down at Yama’s. It was a pick up and go kind of place. Since we walked there, we weren’t about to walk back to eat. There were some chairs outside but we had to sit in the bright afternoon tropical sun to eat. Brandon finished first and assumed the sun-blocking duty, standing up and providing shades for my dad so he could finish his lunch. LOL. On our way back, we found that just a mere block down from Yama’s is a park…where we could’ve had a picnic…in the shades.

Now we’re back to the hotel for a few more hours, waiting for the next hunger pang to drive us to the mall. Dad still needs an aloha shirt for the wedding tomorrow.

We are becoming quite a bunch of mall rats staying at this place. LOL.

The Couch Monkey has had a fun day out today. You should see the pictures.

We are here!

And as it turned out, so is dad.

Dad’s flight actually landed this morning, not tomorrow. Imagine if he didn’t take one day delay! He would have been here yesterday by himself! And then when he arrived, we found out that when I changed his reservation to FRIDAY, they scheduled him in for Saturday. Pfffssshh…

Anyways. Brandon and I got here in one piece. Although we have had probably the most fucked up Hawaiian welcome ever.

Not 10 minutes into our shuttle ride from the airport, the driver turned up the radio to hear traffic report and we found out that they closed a portion of the westbound freeway because baby sitter/neighbor ran off with the 23-month-old toddler and tossed the poor kid off the overpass into the traffic below. We were already cringing when we heard this.

And then our bus came up on the scene. At first we could only see the ambulance, but just past it we saw a bundle of white cloth on the concrete…

…with bits and pieces of flesh scattered outside what the cloth couldn’t cover.

Aloha, indeed.

Because of the H-1 closure, the entire Waikiki was…actually…is in a dead gridlock. I mean, Bangkok on a rainy day bad. People couldn’t get to the highway so they side-street it. Even with dropping off passengers all over Waikiki, it still took 2 hours for us to get to our hotel.

We walked to the mall, ate (dad hasn’t eaten since breakfast and we haven’t since lunch) and now we have to run downstairs to the cab and then off to Ray’s place for dinner.

Dad left Bangkok without a hitch and we’ll be on our way in the morning.   We are now done packing.

Tomorrow, it’s off to O’ahu.

I may or may not have access to the internet, so there may or may not be a Captain’s Log from Honolulu.  But rest assured, there will be PLENTY of moblogging.

Keep your clicker on my Flickr and you shall get updates.

Aloha!

In 8 hours, my dad will leave Bangkok for Tokyo, then from there to Honolulu.
ETA: Like daughter, like father, dad suffered that fever-body and head ache-exhaustion bug that I get when I have a down time from a stressful period.  Now I know where I get THAT from!  So, dad, fearing that it might have been something worse, postponed his flight to the next one on Thursday.  He will now arrive in Honolulu one day after us.

In 48 hours, Brandon and I will be on the plane heading out to Honolulu.

Gotta love the fact that dad’s roughly 15-hour flight across the world equals to 2 days from our time zone.

And I have 2 days to do laundry, do some mainland shopping and hunt down some CDs for my brother.

Eek!