Michael and Kari

I woke up yesterday morning with an interesting email:

Subject: Crazy
From: Michael Levy
To: Ben August

Dude, I'm engaged...

Yes, this is pretty crazy. Michael and Kari reconnected at our ten year high school reunion....in November....of 2007. Yeah, that's right, seven months ago. Ever since Mike started talking to Kari again he's been crazy. And no, not the usually crazy-angry Mike but a good crazy-happy Mike. Every time I've talked to Mike since then he's been with Kari...even that time he told me, "Bro, I'm sooo busy with med-school work I can't possibly come to NYC to see you before you go to 'Nam." Yeah, that time he was with Kari too...and I can only assume giving her some kind of medical exam because my oldest friends in the world would never lie to me!

Anyway, I'm really excited for you guys. Kari I hope you're prepared to:
1. Eat Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches the rest of your life.
2. To either never eat crust again or to finish all of Michael's crust.
3. To build a lot of forts in the woods.
4. To get irrationally angry from time to time. i.e. You carpool to an event and don't get dropped off first.
5. To go bowling once a week.
6. To have your children speak two languages: a) English b) Lebowski
7. To eat Mark Burger's whenever you go to Borden place.
8. Never go to a professional hockey game without Michael crying first (Yeah, Mike, my dad is still pissed)
9. To make fake id's when your kids go to college.
10. To wake up to that grin every morning for the rest of your life. Yeah, the same one in the picture above.

Congrats, guys! Now please plan the wedding date around my quarter life crisis.

The Augusts Are Coming! The Augusts Are Coming!

(PICTURE: The next time we'll beat eating in a restaurant together the restaurant most likely won't have windows, walls, a floor that isn't the sidewalk, plants, sterile cups, clean silverware, ketchup, padded seats, customers wearing baseball hats, or well, other white people.)

The Vietnamese Paul Revere just rode by my window on a motorbike screaming, "The Augusts Are Coming!!!"

That's right, Mom and Dad have booked a trip to Vietnam! They'll be here at the end of October. I'm not only really excited for their visit but I'm also really proud that they're taking this vacation. They are going to do a group trip which will take them all over Vietnam and to Cambodia. They're going to fly to Hanoi a few days prior to the rest of their group so they can spend extra time with yours truly.

As some of you may know, my mother isn't much of a flier. And well, it's kind of a long flight(s) to Hanoi. My mom sent me this message yesterday:

ok - so: How do I love thee?.... Enough to take 11 planes in 16 days
Eough to come to a country full of strange creatures

Enough to travel 1/2 way around the world

Yepp... love you,xxxx mom

I told her that reason number 1 and 3 were basically the same thing which makes me slightly offended that she only loves me two ways.

I'm sure October will be here before I know it. It's just four months away. That should be just enough time for:
1. Me to kill the last bugs/rats/spiders/mysterious future creatures in my house.
2. Huyen to convert to Judaism so that my mother and father will invite her to dinner.
3. My beard to get bushy enough for my dad to be able to rip it off my face when he sees me.

Love you, Mom and Dad!...but I'll love you much more if you walk out of the arrival gate at Hanoi airport with an Espositos sandwich in hand.

East Vs. West

After posting the video of the spider the other day I got countless emails from friends who were astonished at the size of the beast in my living room. I told my Upper Intermediate English students about the spider and they asked to see it. I thought it would be a great experiment to compare the reactions of people from home versus the reactions from locals:

A couple of my favorite moments:

1. Nearly everyone saying it is small. 

2. Mai (far right wearing a white shirt) asking, "Did you cry?"

3. Me saying, "My friend is teacher." Yeah, I'm starting to develop a bad habit of leaving out the "a" in sentences sometimes. 

4. Mai again commenting, "Two men one spider." 

5. Anh (far left) pointing out that I didn't even kill the spider.

6. The class prematurely clapping when they thought Ryan killed the spider.

7. Trung (back row white shirt) commenting that, "I think your friend is afraid too."

8. Phuong being the only one to think the spider was large.

9. Huan (back row blue shirt) explaining that spiders living in the house and nearby are "never big." 

Because of their lack of support for their teacher and my insect woes, I'm going to have them write an essay which will be 75% of their final grade. Here's the assignment: I want a 2,000 word essay about why I am the bravest person you have ever met. 

 

They Don't Use Bagel Cutters In 'Nam

Every time I see Huyen use a knife in my kitchen my mother's voice echoes in my head, "Be careful!" Huyen's skills with a blade are ridiculous. A few thoughts struck me yesterday as I watched her go to town on a passion fruit with the sharpest knife in my kitchen:

1. I would have lost two fingers if I cut a passion fruit like that.

2. This is why they don't have bagel cutters in 'Nam.

3. If girls were this good with a knife/blade/shiv in the States domestic violence would go down. Lorena Bobbit-ing would become a commonly used verb.

4. How were we ever supposed to win a war here if the people can do this without flinching?

 

(VIDEO: Yes, I look gross again. That's the problem with having just been wearing a helmet while simultaneously sweating profusely in one hundred degree weather. Also the sound quality isn't great at the beginning of this but gets better.)

My First Lighter

The other day my coworker/friend Matt was in a motorbike accident. He got pretty banged up and ended up having to have ankle surgery at the French Hospital. As soon as he was out of surgery I jumped on my motorbike to go pay him a visit. Instead of buying flowers I decided to give him a more practical gift: The Wire Season 5. This was the perfect gift to give Matt for a few reasons:

1. On Friday night we were talking about The Wire and how he loved it and couldn't wait to see Season 5.
2. I just finished watching Season 5 the other day (not my favorite season but still genius).
3. Ryan had bought the Season 5 DVDs so it cost me nothing to pass them to Matt.

Despite being doped up on morphine -- or maybe because of it -- Matt was extremely happy to get the gift.

Forty eight hours later I went to visit Matt in the hospital again and brought him another gift: Bill Bryons's "A Walk In The Woods." I finished this book about a month ago and thought Matt might really enjoy it. Turns out he's a Bryson fan and hadn't read the book yet. Again, he was really happy to get the gift.

All that said, the greedy bastard wanted ANOTHER gift -- he asked me to go buy him a lighter. When I first came to the hospital the other day he was moaning for a cigarette. Well in the forty eights hours that I was gone a few packs had appeared on his hospital night stand. However, nobody had gotten him a lighter. Matt asked if I could get him one and I obliged. This was a tough thing to do because:

a) I was the Treasurer of Peer To Peer -- the non drinking, non drugging club -- in high school. Yeah, I'm that much of a loser.
b) I have never been an enabler to smokers. In fact, I had a reputation in college for drunkenly grabbing cigarettes out of people's mouths and throwing them to the floor. I obviously found this funny, others not so much.
c) I have never bought a lighter in my life.

All that said, I walked out of the hospital and found a lighter:



Here's the happy patient a few minutes later:

Cockroaches, Rats and Spiders Oh My! Cockroaches, Rats and Spiders Oh My!

Last night around midnight Ryan and I were watching "The Savages" when Ryan jumped up and yelled, "Jesus Christ! What the hell is that!" We flicked on the light and saw the largest spider either of us had ever seen. It was literally the size of my hand. Granted I have small girly hands but still it was really freaking big.

Hannah, please don't ask me to take any of these spiders outside and not kill them if they show up while you're here:

Zoo Part II: Monkey Petting Time

This was definitely funnier in person but it is still pretty ridiculous. This monkey was in the "children's zoo." It was literally just tied to a pole with a leash. By "leash" I of course mean an old nasty rope.

Please ignore my giggling in the background. I don't know why but I couldn't stop laughing. The closest I ever came to petting a monkey when I was two years old was my stuffed animal puppet that I won at some Harrison School event.