Not really, though I am super excited to be headed to Huntington Beach and Oakland/SF this summer

When I was working in an office, I used to take blog reading breaks but now that I’m freelancing, I hardly check out my fave blogs anymore. But I did today and seriously, I really admire peeps who can menu plan and stick with it for the whole week. My brain doesn’t work that way but I do salivate over their plans.

Today I saw: French dip in a slow cooker and ham scalloped potatoes and man, was I motivated!

ODE TO the SLOW COOKER
I have been dreaming of this for years and I let an opp to buy one here in VN slip through my fingers…or was that in Canada now….? SO even though I will not be living in Canada for that long (8 months), I will be buying a slow cooker within my first week of having an apartment.

LATELY
–Habitat for Humanity build (I was translating for an intl team of Poles, French, and Americans)
–riding elephants in Dak Lak Province…coffee plantations, cacao jungle, a bumpy tractor ride….oh yeah
–published photo journal of VN and actually sold a few
–started the taxation process for my exit from this country (going well!)
–celebrating baby births (Mickael/Sandra, Kat/Karl et Jacob/Hye Jung)
–bake off with em Han! (I have 4 choco/zuch loaves to give away!)

UPCOMING
–India trip for Worldwide Community Schools
–return to Danang or rather Hoi An and motobiking in the mountains!
–trip planning for Celly and papa Enfin Ankor Wat here I come
–picking up my outlandish Parisian-designed navy and brown outfit complete with crazy checkered silk leggings
–tidying house: amen for my cleaning lady, she is amazing!
–packing for Canada and visiting amazing ppl all over the continent
–digital Japanese perm!
–weddings ALI and MK all in one year? YIPPEE!!!!!
–oh yeah, grad school in Ottawa hehehehehh

THANKFUL FOR
–recent WB contract (paid for my shopping spree!)
–my life, quite exciting of late and I am not taking it for granted
–friends in the city and on the TELEPHONE
–cheap phone plan: after all the stress, Mobiphone u r good to me!
–my printer/publishing team and Photoshop designer who helped me come up with a beautiful product
–Sunday church refreshment with great messages, good friends, and awesome music
–affordable cost of living in HCMC (moto, cheap veggies, amazing gym for low, low price etc….)
–believe it or not, the hot and humid heat! = dresses and cute shoes all day every day
–hilarious, trusting parents who just laugh at whatever I say
–perfect “coincidences” nah, it’s the perfect timing of life in harmonious tune with the truth…I’m going to a Hanson concert in September = what a blessing!

UPDATE ME PLEASE!!!!!

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Why do these kind of things always have to happen to me?

So I’ve been out of town for a couple weeks and when I come back, at night, I see a giant spider (let’s say about 10cm across including leg span with a thick body of about 2.5cm cubed) on my bamboo mat. It’s brown and not too furry like the others…I wonder, how did you get in here??? It’s gotta be the bathroom vent…I have always wanted to put netting over it but of course, I have no idea where to buy such netting in this city!

I hate killing bugs and rarely do. It’s odorless bug spray or a cry for a housemate or elderly landlady (she’s much stronger than me!) for me usually but this time, I had to take it out by myself. Long story short: he scurried out onto the balcony after being sprayed and silently died while I shut the door and pretended that a giant spider had not been crawling all over my room. At least they’re not dirty!

When spiders die, they fold their legs toward their bodies in defeat…it’s quite sad so I decided not to take a pic. (And ahem, tis not the first time, I’ve seen them die….) After he dried out, I put him in the trash. Even folded up, he was pretty big. Poor animals that just should not get in human space…I feel bad but of course, he had to go. I would’ve preferred to catch him in my bucket but he was way too fast. Ugh….c’est triste, tres triste! (=sadness….unfortunately I have forgotten how to write in french w/accents….rusty tis me!)

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I “killed” it. Not really my fault but as I opened the bathroom door, he hit the floor and SQUAT, dead there he lay. IT was kinda nast but I didn’t really know if it was dead or if it was just lying on its backside like those nasty cockroaches with their legs flailing all over. So I waited a day to see if he would just go away….

“MURDERER!” chanted my roommate when I told her the news. Really supportive she is.

On the second day after we determined that no, he would not just go away, I had to sweep him up and dump him out. That was gross cuz he was stuck to the ground and so I had to flip him into the dustpan and saw his dead lil eyes and soft, creepy body…why do these things die so easily? Now he’s in our garbage bin…I refer to it as the gecko head.

Eieyyyyyyyyyyyyucckers! Anyway, what’s done is done. PICS to come…just bot batteries and need a blasted card reader and then I can upload again.

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Another one of those monster bugs came my way….into the office flew a huge ol’ bat….to me that is! Turns out that it was a huge butterfly the size of my palm (yes, w/long fingers included) that liked to hover near my head and hang upside down…so how was I to know it wasn’t a bat? Inconveniently, my colleague was outta the office so I had to fret alone…I can’t help it, I ran and beckoned s/o else to help shoo it away and yes, I did scream…c’est la vie pour une fille nord americaine…I’m just not used to these kinda things flying INTO an OFFICE!

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Ahhhhh I have to clear this off my chest: on a country road trip yesterday, I hit a cow in the road!

We were doing so well and it was fun crusing the roads on our way to My Son and Hoi An. The views are really quite something although it’s better to be the passenger and not the driver so you can really enjoy them.

The cow incident occurred near the destination point after at least an hour on the road. For whatever reason, I didn’t think the cow was going to panic and run straight into my bike but that’s what happened. Afterwards, it ran off wounded although it wasn’t severely hurt. My motorbike is small and I wasn’t going fast….it fell over and amazingly still worked although the basket and mirror were bent. Now I have cruise control on my bike which means I don’t always have to have my hand on the accelerator which is not a good thing. But actually, it’s very convenient… And I just brought her in for repairs a couple days ago….

On the bright side, I’ve taken to wearing a helmut and my Vina alien socks actually protected me from scraps on my ankles, so all I got were some bruises and cuts on my knees and thigh. I’m very sore actually! But things could have been a lot worse! I’m thankful that nothing serious happened but I feel pretty guilty and stupid!

Why me?

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OK so here’s some cuter animals that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me but will start bringing it out again.

I went to my colleague/VNese prof’s house for our lesson (usually we meet at the uni) and he has a female cat who just gave birth. Her little kittens are less than 2 weeks old and they haven’t opened their eyes yet. They’re about 5 inches long and still so cute. I will have to get a pic but basically for the first time in my life, I saw kittens nursing.

In Vietnam, I see dogs and cats with full bellies, nipples and babies! It’s different from Canada where most pets are neutred and so, I notice everytime. I’ve seen piglets, baby chicks and now the smallest kittens. Finally, a refreshing animal scene!

Pray for no more swooping birds of prey!

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I don’t know why and I never expected animals to be smthg to mention on this trip. However, I can’t get away from them.

1. I was victim to bat droppings when I went to church. I wouldn’t even know what hit me if my friend hadn’t pointed out a couple days earlier that a bat frequently occupies his balcony and leaves him lovely little piles everywhere. At least I was wearing a jacket!

2. Rats are definitely not mice! As I biked home yesterday night, I could hear the rats running around in the grass and then a couple darted out on the street. As I was pedaling, I just hoped that one wouldn’t brush by my feet….Then I saw a bird swoop down (and I was thinking: strange, a seagull!) and grab one of these long-tailed rats in its claws and then I realized that it was some kind of predator bird flying around and hunting for its latest meal. By then all I could hope for was that it would not drop the rat near or on me….ewwwwwww!

3. Geckos squeak or caw or something like that. What I thought was birds chirping is actually geckos (inside my house) calling. I don’t mind seeing them on the walls occasionally but not in my room. And the tiny ones (1-2 inches) are kinda creepy.

4. Mosquitos, nets and rackets — In the village, I was always so grateful for the mosquito net under which I took my refuge at night. It was the only time that I would be sure that none of them would get to me. (In fact, as I type, I’m pretty sure some are under my desk chewing me up right now.) Then I was introduced to the mosquito racket which would shock them on contact. Now, I’m not one to kill insects but when they attack you, you must react. My aunt bought me a racket to bring back to Danang and so far, it’s been very useful. However, even after I spend 5mins zapping bugs in my room before I go to bed, while I sleep, I hear buzzing and wake up with new bites. I kinda feel like this is their revenge for me buying this mosquito killer. Maybe I need to mount up a net in my room in Danang….

I just want to be left alone but the animals and bugs just won’t go away!

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Why do the bugs follow me wherever I go?

I’ve just moved again after passing a few glorious weeks in a bug-free zone (my American friends had their place exterminated), I’ve moved on to another friend’s house. However, it’s a big place and I’ve been designated a room that faces the outside streets and has not had anyone live in it for awhile. I was pleased to finally settle in (I still haven’t found a place of my own though b/c of my crazy schedule) and just as I was going to take a shower, I moved the curtain and saw smthg brown and fuzzy: SPIDER and the biggest one I’ve ever been in a room with! Ahhhhhhhh! Good thing I knew where the RAID (my new best friend) was. I ran out to get it and then chased this creepy crawly and soaked it w/pesticides but b/c it was mighty big with a fierce and fat body, it didn’t die but kept running and climbing the bathroom walls. Finally it went in the corner where the toilet plunger lay and so I covered it with the plunger. Nasty! It didn’t die and I could still hear it scratching at the plunger…….I wanted to die!

Then I heard other buggy noises and saw giant cockroaches trekking into the bedroom. These guys are almost two inches long with nasty WINGS and long legs. RAID got them but they shake when they die and it’s sooooooooooo gross! At the end of the war, I killed 10 roaches and their carcasses are still lying all over the place. HELP ME!

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So I went to have lunch at this awesome fish noodle place (sorry MK) and as I was waiting for my bowl of fresh, steaming, warm-your-throat, $0.70 noodles, I saw a little mouse crawli into the back of this place and stand on its tippy toes to grab a piece of basil or Vietnamese plant. Then he came again and again like he was scrounging for food for his family. Since the food’s prepared at the front of the store, no one was watching except me. Then a girl came by and put this bowl of leaves on a higher spot so lil Mr. Mouse couldn’t reach it anymore.

The weird thing is that I don’t like mice. I have memories of being 10 and seeing a mouse in my cat’s paws and almost touching it. I hate them usually and don’t want my salad near their paws. I jump and shriek like many of you when you think about such creepy crawlies (though I like spiders = welcome in my room anytime) but after about a month here, I realized that this guy also needs food and we’re just animals who are hungry at lunchtime. I didn’t mind and almost wanted to videotape it. Weird eh?

But if that mouse comes w/in a metre of me, it’s DEAD MEAT or either I’m outta there so fast that you’ll have to call me speedy Marisa! (my marathon running friend)

In fact mice thrive in Vietnam and maybe ppl eat them. You get used to it after awhile and so it’s not too bad. It’s kinda like the ants…in my new place, I don’t mind them b/c they stay on the floor and not in my food.

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Oh man, yesterday I killed a medium sized cockroach in my apartment and left its nasty smashed body parts up on the wall, in hopes that the cleaning staff would remove it (mean, I know). Then a couple hours later, I returned home only to see a massive group of black ants hovering round the cockroach. It was Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo disgusting (akin to Lily’s rat story) and so I had to kill all the creepy crawlies although I usually let them be. But I had a party to go to so I had to get changed and go. This morning, I was so tired so when I got up, the last thing I wanted to see was this wall of death which is so nasty (imagine a large insect mess with ant polka dots splattered around). I have to clean it up tonight, but alas, I have a shopping date. It will nonetheless be done. EW!

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