The Real Life of a Geeky Tai-Tai

and

Robin

I’m sitting in a Best Western hotel in Albuquerque.  I made the big mistake of getting a smoking room, and it is the STINK!   I always say I’ll never get another smoking room, but if I’m alone, I always do.  I’m allergic. I get sinus infections. I’m an idiot!

Anyway, I’m sitting in this stinky room, awake too soon because one of the drapery hooks is off the rod.  Sunlight hit my eyes at around 6:30 this morning.  I tried to turn over to avoid the light, but then I had to pee.  I tried to keep my eyes half-shut and stumble into the bathroom, but they opened on me.  I am awake.  Too early.

I got some breakfast and lots of coffee.  I’m on a carb overload as of now.  I will regret that too, later on today.  

So, as I was Twittering my friends about meeting up in Sante Fe for TequilaCon ’09 , I began thinking about last year’s big bash in Philadelphia (home of Hall and Oates) and Lisa’s neck of the woods.  Michael and I arrived in NY from Singapore May 1, stayed the night in NY, then drove down to Philly.  TequilaCon ’08 was the first thing we did as repatriated Americans.  

We’ve been repatriated almost a year, and the year has flown by!  The opportunity to actually meet these on-line friends IRL (in real life) is so cool!  I am a very lucky lady, I know that and am very grateful.  I am missing Lisa right now, but I know she’s with us and wanting us to have a blast.

I will Twitter about stuff that I think is cool, and I’ll try to post here before the big BeerHer bash tonight.

Right now, I need a shower, but I will wait to wash my hair until I get to Sante Fe. This room stinks.  I am an idiot.

Lisa, may you rest in peace dear lady.  You will be missed by many.

Clusterfook

My friend, Slobokan, wrote a beautiful post about “internet” friendships.  You need to go over there and read it because he says it better than I can.

I made a video of my new foster puppy, Sam, playing with Clyde and Hunter.  This little guy is beautiful and has stolen my heart.  Hunter would like him to find his forever home today!  It won’t happen that quickly.  We have to go to the vet’s this afternoon for a well-check and to get a microchip.  If he gets the all-clear from the vet, then we will start reviewing adoption applications. 

I used iMovie 08 to edit this video. Let me just tell you, that it’s a pain in the butt! My blogging friend, Marty, has recommended that I use iMovie 06. I’m going to download it later today since it’s free. I like free stuff.  

I just wanted to let y’all know that I’m alive and well, just a bit harried by computer woes over the last couple of weeks, broken glasses, and some other unfinished business.

My five-year old Toshiba laptop decided to crap out on me.  It’d been acting strangely the last couple of months, but then the last week it would shut down each time I tried to connect any USB device or even just touch it.  Fortunately, I had sense enough to back-up my hard-drive before she gave up the ghost.

I know you’ve all heard this before, but it really is important it to back-up all of your data on a regular basis.  It’s not as difficult as it used to be in the days of floppy-disks and CD-ROMs, or the real floppy disks!  I also use Norton’s online back-up for my Quicken files and Flickr for my photos.  By the way, Flickr is free (now owned by Yahoo), but I upgraded to a Pro account so that I could create sets and collections.  

When I was shopping for my new laptop Saturday, I saw 4GB flash-drives for $13 and 500GB USB mass-storage devices for $80.  I realize that we’re in tough economic times, but do you really want to risk losing all of your data because your computer decides to do the nasty and crap all over you?  Back-um-up, baby, back-um-up!

In other news…

My nephew, Eric, has started a blog, “Eric’s Blog: a look at life through color-blind eyes…”, and plans to attend TequilaCon ’09 in Sante Fe, NM April 25!  Please head on over there and welcome him to the blogosphere because I know you’re gonna love him — because he’s way-hotter than Tom Cruise, has a brain that Tom Cruise could only wish for, and he’s funny as hell! 

Another of my nephews, Andrew, has also started a blog, “The Wayward Hoover”.  He won’t be attending TequilaCon since he’s busy living on the other side of the world in New Zealand.  Of course, he’s handsome, talented, and very funny too because, well, these are genetic traits that run in the family!

 

 

Karl and Me at Avitable's Halloween Party

I had the honor of being a guest on Karl’s show, SecondHand Radio, Thursday night.  I really can’t tell you what all we talked about because  my Uniden 5.8GHz phone SUCKS!  I spent most of the hour trying to find a good spot in the house to keep my phone from cutting out.  

Karl knows that I also own an iPhone, and I recall him asking me why I wasn’t using it.  I couldn’t because AT&T coverage is even worse!  I rarely use my iPhone for calls at home because I’ll have 3 bars, then suddenly “NO SERVICE”.  All of those ads that claim, “More Bars in More Places”?  Uh, NO, you lying b**tards!  Yet, AT&T can get away with their false advertising because in the fine print it states, “based on global coverage”.  GAH!  Still, I can’t live without my iPhone!

Somewhere in our conversation on the show, somebody suggested that it could be interference because of DSL or maybe the wireless router.  I don’t know, but I’d like to have a phone that actually works!

The other issue I had was my nervousness!  I’ve never been interviewed on-air before with an audience of the coolest bloggers in the world… along with my awesome nephew, Eric.  YAY!  Thanks for calling in, Eric!  I’d link to him too, but he hasn’t started his blog… yet.

If you missed the show, you can still check it out at SecondHand Radio.  I would, but I don’t think I could stand to hear myself!  Thanks again, Karl, I had a great time.  I hope you did too !

Now, I’m off to stalk Shiny’s and MetalMom’s blogs so that I can come up with, what I hope will be, some good interview questions.

The  compelling story of Geeky Tai-Tai’s Road Trip will continue after I entertain a few questions from Delmer of  What’s a Delmer Look Like?  Delmer is participating in Avitable’s five-question interview revival, and I asked him to interview me. His questions follow.

If you want me to interview you, the instructions are at the bottom of the post.

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1.  You have recently (all things considered) moved back to the United States from Singapore.  What did you miss most about the US while you were away from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?  What do you miss most about Singapore?  Are there any Singapore dishes you wish you could get here that you’ve not been able to find (for the sake of this question we’ll include “alcohol” as a dish).

A.  I missed my family and friends the most while living in Singapore.  It takes a full 24 hours to get home, and that’s just the air travel.  It was particularly difficult when my father-in-law was dying, and then when Dad had to have open-heart surgery.  In Dad’s case, I decided to wait until he was out of surgery and recovering before getting on the plane.  The “not-knowing” would’ve been too hard on me.  He is a picture of health, by the way, and just drove Mom cross-country over the holidays to visit my sister in California.  

B.  I miss our friends the most — we were a big happy family of different nationalities, and we celebrated most of our holidays together.  Oh, how I miss them!

C.  Just the other day I was watching Tony Bourdain on the Travel Channel, and he was in Singapore trying out foods at different hawker centers (my mouth is watering as I write this).  One of the centers he went to for chili crab was where we took my BIL for a seafood feast while he was visiting us.  I miss roti prata with curried vegetables, chili crab, cheese lobster, bok choy, and bakkwa (a barbecued pork “jerky”) from Bee Cheng Hiang.  Bakkwa is a very popular gift during Chinese New Year and the price is always higher then.  I’m going to try to order some online because it’s vacuum-packed and can be shipped.

Hmmm… I wonder why you’ve included alcohol in your question of things I might miss???  Fortunately, Anheuser-Bush began importing Tiger Beer before we left Singapore and we buy it regularly.  One beer that I really miss and is not imported here is Kilkenny, and that’s a downright shame!  However, I did “fall in love” with Stella Artois while living over there, and so she’s mah beer bitch here too!

2.  If a person were to read over your blog, and I’m referring to the December 12, 2008 entry, they would find that it didn’t take you too long to run afoul of the law once you returned home. Did you do anything to catch the eye of local law enforcement while you were living in Singapore? (Maybe you chewed some gum in public?)

Luckily for me, that was my very first run-in with the law, and I hope the last!  I did, indeed, chew gum in public and got stares from many Singaporeans who were still unaware that chewing gum is legal in Singapore now.  The government has been working very hard to promote a smoke-free environment and, thus, legalized the sale of chewing gum in pharmacies.    

3.  Is owning Havanese dogs everything you hoped it would be? Do they really not shed? Or is that simply propaganda spread by Castro’s henchmen? Are they chewers? Do they listen well?  Is there any behavior you wish you could change.

When my friend, Mary, told me that Havanese dogs are her favorite breed because they’re so loving and delightful, I never dreamed that they would be this good!  These little fellas are the best dogs I’ve ever owned.  It was love at first sight with these guys for all of us, and everyone they meet enjoys their antics.  So, yes, they’re everything I hoped they would be and more!

Even though Castro and his henchmen fooled a lot of their fellow countrymen about how cool a Marxist government would be.  They were telling the truth about Havanese dogs being hypo-allergenic in that they don’t shed, nor do they have dander (or very little of it).  I like mah boyz to have their long hair, but it does require that I spend time combing them to prevent matting (which is bad for any dog’s skin).  Clyde doesn’t matt much, but Hunter’s hair is finer and I have to be careful about not letting it get matted.  I did learn the other day that on rare occasions Havanese carry a recessive gene causing them to have short hair that sheds.

It’s ironic that you ask about the chewing issue.  In the three months that I’ve had them they haven’t done anything naughty.  That is, until I got your email with these questions!  I discovered that one of them (I’m pretty sure it was Clyde) chewed up a Wii controller and the end of an extension cord!  I’m lucky I didn’t discover a dead dog!  These dogs are very smart and listen well.  I never raise my voice with them because it only frightens them.  They only want to make us happy.  A lot of times I can just whisper to them, and they’ll do what I ask.

The one behavior I wish I could change is the difficulty with housetraining.  Fortunately, when they do make a mess, it’s a tiny one.

4.  Despite the fact it looks like I just threw these questions (and my blog) together, I did actually do a little bit of research. Before taking the step of asking what Geeky Tai-Tai meant I looked at your blogger profile where I found you were Geeky because you have a blog (which makes you Geekiest person in your family). I’m still, however, not sure what Tai-Tai means despite the fact I clicked the Tai-Tai link to find other Tai-Taiers.  What is Tai-Tai (and if it is something obvious that everybody in the world knows about but me, please try to make it sound a little bit complicated).

It is only an obvious term in Asia, so no worries there.  A Tai-Tai is an Asian woman with LOTS of leisure time and money because she married well, as in an Asian Ivana Trump.  One time, I was signing in at a doctor’s office and I was required to list my occupation.  Since I had none, I wrote “Tai-Tai”.  The woman reading over my chart looked up at me with a startled expression and when she saw me smiling, she laughed hysterically and called in her colleagues to see the self-professed Caucasian tai-tai.  Yes, I was the laughing-stock of the day, but it was fun.

5.  As it is hard for me to come up with five sort-of original thoughts so close together, I’ve borrowed this next question from James Lipton of Inside the Actor’s Studio:  What sound or noise do you hate?

I can only choose one???  That’s a tough question, Delmer!  The first thing that comes to mind, though, is the horribly gross sound some people make when they’re trying to cough up a big “quid”.  That would be  the most delicate way I can think of to describe it.  I wonder what James Lipton would think of that answer?

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So there you have it! Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

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Now, if you want to know even more about ME because it is all about me today (I don’t know why, but that seems to be the case), you simply must listen to SecondhandRadio tonight at 10 p.m. where I will be Karl’s guest.  Whoo-hoo!  I’m excited and just a little bit nervous  

This installment of my Road Trip Series is continued from my old blog Americans In Singapore

After nearly burning my family’s home down just before Thanksgiving, I was so distraught that I told Skip that I thought I was going to be sick.  He remembered that he still had some generic Valium from his trip to visit us in Singapore last February.  I took one, and thus, any plans I’d had of going to visit my mother-in-law or anyone else were derailed.  The nausea subsided, but I spent most of the day napping, lazing about, and feeling terrible about the mess I’d caused.

Tuesday morning it was time to head over to Indy to visit Jimbo and my family.   At the last minute, I thought I would call my friend, Leslie, in Springfield in the off-chance she might be available to meet me for lunch.  Turns out, she had taken the day off work to attend a special Thanksgiving feast at her grandson’s pre-school.  We said our goodbyes and thank-you’s to Skip, Beth, and Buckner, then headed up Route 4 to Springfield.

As I was nearing Springfield, I called Leslie because sometimes GPS Lady can steer me wrong.  First off, GPS Lady was upset with me because I didn’t want to take I-55 from Carlinville.  She kept telling me, “At the next intersection, make a safe and lawful U-Turn”.  Uh, NO!  I don’t want to go that way stupid GPS Lady.  Leslie and I ended up talking to each other (over GPS Lady’s instructions and much to her dismay) until we both arrived at her bungalow at the same time.  So cool!

FINALLY, I got to see her home, her garden,  grandson’s room, and the beautiful park directly across the street from her home.   We drank some wine, took a short walk, and did our best to catch up on the latest.

Leslie and I have been friends for more than 30 years.  Even though we hadn’t actually seen each other since my father-in-law’s passing in 2005, it felt like we’d seen each other just the day before.  I wish that I’d had more time to visit, but I am happy that we were able to visit for the afternoon.  I <3 you, Leslie!

To be continued…