Tuesday, March 20
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HOOOOK You Up Yo
It's been quite some time since I've written a post about my parent's conspicious ways of introducing me to girls. My dad will almost take any opportunity he can get and my mom always does.
The other day we were out to talk to administration about the West One Condo (confirmed for September, yipee) and met up with a good looking Chinese girl who was the coordinator. She was tall, thin and elegantly fashionable, someone you could see slung on the arm of a young successful Chinese businessman. While she was explaining some legal jargon my mom quite suddenly, in her harsh, strict vietnamese accent, said,
"Where you from?"
"I used to live in Hong Kong."
My mom nodded her head slowly like it was actually a rhetorical question.
"That's right."
As if there ever was an answer that would have been wrong.
"Hong Kong... Yes, because, you know, you are very -- have very, beau-ti-ful skin."
Yet, while my mom was saying this, she was looking at me. Why was she complimenting her but looking at me? Stop looking at me and more importantly, stop nodding at me too. I wasn't going to verbally agree with her even after 200 nods.
The coordinator gave a whisper of a whisper of a smile and said, "Thank you." My mom had given her cheese cake when she's had cheese cake all her life. She was about to continue talking about the condo when my dad said, "We went to Hong Kong recently."
The coordinator's mouth parted, she looked interested and asked, "Oh really? Which part?"
My dad answered but also leaked in, "...after we visited my son in Japan," looked at me and nodded.
Should I have been nodding too? Was nodding their sordid version of hot potatoe and it was my turn to say something?
The coordinator turned to me and smiled. I smiled back. Yes, this is me. I am getting used to this. She asked about Japan etc... etc... I answered etc... etc...
My dad later on added for good measure, "So you are who we can contact? You are in charge of our case? Please give my son, Joe, your business card."
LATER ON IN THE DAY
We're about to close up the office but a group of people came in who my parents knew very well. After examining them my dad invited them to come out to eat. There, of course, was a girl my age there also.
At the dinner table my dad initiated the action, "You know Joe taught in Japan."
The girl asked me some questions from her seat and I answered. She was quite pretty and seemed very nice. My mom picked up the nod hot potatoe from my dad and added "Yes, haha, they are the same age so they like to talk same things." Nod passed to my father, "How can you talk over the table like that, you can't hear each other." Mom. "I will move seats."
Later, probably thinking it would be instant BINGO my dad said, "You know Joe made a video."
Joe: "Noooo" I turned to her. "I don't know what he's talking about."
Disaster averted. Patted myself on the back: quick thinking, deny everything. Thank you, X-Files.
Somehow the conversation moved to how thin she is, weighing just under 100.
My dad did a deep barrel laugh and outstretched his arm, across the table and over the dishes of food, and pointed at my forehead. His arm was unwavering and blocked everyone's view of anything, and any eyes were forced to follow the length of his arm to the tip of his finger and eventually to the object of its' view: me.
I saw the freight train coming, but I was tied down to the tracks.
"Joe is the same. Joe weighs the same," followed by the orginal deep barrel laugh.
"Nooooooooooooo. I am heavier than that. I am. I am."
I felt many sets of eyes on me -- shock, pity, curiousity, amusement, a mixture, maybe all.
He finally threw me some rope by adding, "Okay, maybe 114."
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Friday, March 16
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Sticky Office Situations
I have a new pet peeve: patients who lick their fingers to pry their health card from their wallet. It's not a warm fuzzy feeling either when later I see them coughing into their fists.
There are things that I like though: patients who instead of giving me their health card, give me their driver's license or credit card. I'm careless like that too. And asking bossy women (if they didn't bring their health card) their date of birth and then repeating it after them to clarify, darting my eyes to and fro, screen to face, screen to face.
And then there are things I don't know how I feel: patients who walk in, rifle through the file cabinets, retrieve their file and then wait for the doctor. It makes my job easier, but what if I walked into McDonald's, threw a batch of french fries in the batter, whistled a little, scooped them into a container, left exact change and then left. Wouldn't that be a little strange?
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Friday, March 9
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Jon, Odie and
 A few days ago, my sister and I went to see my parent's financial consultant with my parents to help explain the things being said. (I speak english and sometimes investment and retirement speak goes over my head -- and this may be an understatement).
At one point the financial consultant needed a record of a statement and he suddenly and casually said "Gaaaarfield," like he was just ordering an ice tea or a side salad with croutons. Before I could even think there are actually people named Garfield? a small, baby faced chinese intern wearing a horrendishly oversized, square shouldered suit was standing behind me.
"Yes?" said the newcomer standing quite still and blinking a few times, his eyes opened wide like Garfield before lasanga. His posture could have been military if you were able to see his body underneath his suit of armour.
At this point I had enough time to muse there are actually people named Garfield? and even enough time for and they look like him?
I turned to my sister who was sitting in the corner of the room, previously bored and wanting to leave, but now she smirked as I looked at her. This was when I knew I had to turn away immediately, but it was too late because I started laughing.
At first I bit my lip until I heard it again.
"Ummm Gaaarfield, I need you to..."
My body started to shake from restrained laughter and I bowed my head low to hide my amused face.
Garfield spoke next.
"Okay, anything else?"
I pictured Garfield's tiny asian head peeking out of the big and tall suit and no longer could I hold my laughter and started giggling. Keep in mind that I was sitting directly in front of the financial advisor and my parents to each side of me and everyone seemed deadly serious because of money talk. With my head bent low, all they saw was my convulsing body and hear my stifled giggles.
If Garfield was human and if the human was asian and the asian was an up and comer, eager to please intern, this was him.
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Wednesday, March 7
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Poker
I finally got some guts and moved onto the next level of stakes in poker.
The reason why it took me a year and half to finally move up is that you can't play poker with scared money. It's like catching a baseball is easy, but if someone said you'd lose 2000 dollars if you missed, it suddenly becomes more difficult and you don't trust yourself. You have to be able to catch that baseball no matter the pressure and that can only be done by days and days and days of catching it, building up your confidence and experience.
It also helps if you have lots of money. If you had 100,000 k and someone told you that, you'd be much more relaxed trying to catch it then if you only had 4000k.
So yes, I've gotten a lot of experience and I've built up a lot of poker money put aside just for poker. Now I can just play my game and I'm not shaking when I see a big bet, I know if I should fold or not and I follow through.
In the last month I also self discovered that table image and position is MORE important than your actual cards. As you go higher and higher in stakes, more and more often you don't actually see what the other person has. I like to make myself not stand out at the table and project a very safe player and then later I can steal a lot of small pots (with garbage hands) and win a lot of huge ones (when my garbage hand hits something unexpected because they think I only play premium hands).
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