Ava is Here!

Meet Ava Ray Bowker.

This is the sweet picture I saw when I woke up at 5 am and checked my email. She belongs to my brother, Brian and his wife, Kristi.

I think they are in love with her.

As for me, I can't wait to see her myself in a little over a month.

According to Saigon time, she was born on Mother's Day, which is a gift my mother must like quite a bit~

I'm pretty relieved that they didn't choose "Hatshepsut"!

Nam, The Musical

Nam is so predictable. The day after Corn on the Abomination Cob, Scene II, he works his food magic on me. When he picks me up after school, he says two words, "Ban Xeo." The crepes. I am starving, and he recognizes the excited look in my food eyes. He looks so happy that I am happy, and he drives away with purpose.

I think he might be taking me to where he took Sue, Michelle and Pam - a ban xeo place I haven't tried but that he believes is #1 in Saigon. It's a dish that is not ubiquitous and therefore is a treat for me. So I am surprised that we drive all the way back to the neighborhood, right across the alley from the Bum Bum to get it. A woman and her daughter sit in a doorway cooking over a brick grill which sits on top of a large can. I see them often in the market, but they must be newcomers to the ban xeo business; usually, vegetables are sold at this spot in the morning.

"Number One," says Nam, and he goes about the business of ordering everything exactly how I like it. He's really proud to tell her that I don't especially care for bean sprouts, and that I like my shrimp peeled (they usually leave the crunchy shell on, believe it or not) and that I do want the mung beans added. He gets so much satisfaction from telling people what to do - pointing this way and that - what a pity he got me for a customer this year instead of some really nice person who allows him the simple pleasure of being Da Nam all the time. I only allow it in food situations, except in how to peel it or how to hold it. And I certainly do not allow it in shoe - choosing situations. The problem is that he will never understand these rules. The bright side to this problem, however, is that he always makes up for messing up by introducing me to new number ones.

So he hovers over the preparation phase of the neighborhood ban xeo, which takes a while because the wok is HOT HOT HOT and the crepe batter sits over the flame for quite some time - she must tilt the wok at several different angles to cook it evenly (when Thuy and Thanh made it for us, it had to sit for even longer on our lower-heat gas burner). As soon as he is sure that the crepe is cooked properly, his overseer's job is done. After I take my first bite and agree with his enthusiastic "number one," he goes on his way down the alley to visit his mother (who isn't getting better, he says).

The verdict: neighborhood ban xeo is delicious. It's not too taco-crispy, and it's not too soggy oily - both unfortunate textures I have encountered. The dipping sauce for after you wrap everything up in greens is just the right amount of spicy, too. My mother is right; once again, he has excelled in his most important role: My Food Introducer and Screener.

Which leads me to this topic:

This relationship I have with my xe-om driver is definitely one of the strangest relationships I have ever experienced, which is perfectly demonstrated by the corn event followed by the ban xeo event: he is impossible and infuriating, he is indispensable...he is opinionated and rude, he is extremely sweet and thoughtful... everything he says makes me cringe, some of his actions are so very touching. As you know, I call him my mother as do most of my friends ("Marjie can't go next door for a beer, her mother is coming to pick her up") but sometimes I feel I am in a committed yet bothersome marriage.

So, for quite some time I have been playing this little amusing game while being shuttled the ten or fifteen minute ride to or from school. Without the luxury of a car stereo or the possibility of books-on-tape to distract me, and possibly because of my current saturation with "Dorothy and the King of Darkness," I have begun imagining our year-long strange, funny relationship into a stage musical. In it, the story of our year is played out in songs, always performed by Nam, always sung in perfect English. Many of the songs are country because of his "cowboy" self-identity and swagger, but he also sings R and B as well as a little bit of pop. In some scenes, he will ring the castle doorbell, come inside and sing as he climbs the staircase, bringing the song to its climax and end on the Romeo and Juliet balcony. Other times, he will stop the motorbike, dismount and begin to sing in the middle of Saigon traffic. Sometimes, scenes require him to sing a song while reclining on his bike at "his spot" where I find him in the morning. Of course, he also breaks into song over food. Choreographed dances also accompany each song.

The fun part is choosing the right songs for scenes. For example, when he takes me to have lunch with his table-o-friends and they are all adding brandy to my drink and we are toasting "One, two, three, YO!" - he stands and sings Garth Brooks' "I've Got Friends in Low Places." When he hears the news that I often hire Mr. Seven on the weekends, he stands from his reclining position at his spot and sings Marvin Gaye's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." When I turn the corner after the "how to peel corn" lesson and don't really interact with him for a week is the scene where he rings the castle doorbell to sing the Hall and Oates version of "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling." Aretha Franklin's "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream" fits at the part where he is on the floor moaning about never seeing me again and losing the job of driving all of my friends around (before I tell him I am coming back for another year). Weird Al Yankovic's "Eat It" - the parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" goes so well with the scene where he wants me to eat the ball of fat dipped in tomato sauce with my soup. And I'm not sure where this fits in yet, but Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" is a must with his Man in Black Cowboy Hat.

Please feel free to add song to scenes, past, present, or future to help me piece together this musical if you need something to think about on your way to and from work.

If you have a good car stereo, however, or a good book on tape, I would suggest one of those as a distraction instead.

Blog Game Thursday: Tarn's Neighborhood Photos

I have this very talented castlemate, Tarn, who took all of these photos last week. Today's "game" - which one do you like the best?

1. Thuy
2. Monkey Boy (T and T's nephew)
3. Candle Neighbor's Son (across the alley)
4. T and T's Mother
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?
A little bit of talent, right?

Corn on the Abomination Cob, Scene II

After school, when Nam hands me another steamed corn on the cob, all I feel is dread. If he even makes the suggestion of telling me how to peel this corn, I will completely lose it. It's been a busy day- I didn't sleep well last night - and I just can't...well, you know, deal with my mother and his detailed instructions this afternoon.

So everything is going fine, all the way home (except that he wants me to pronounce my gift, something like "pop" - but I can't say it correctly and he makes me say it over and over again when all I want to do is chill on the back of the bike and be mesmerized by all of the close motorbike calls in the heavy traffic). When we arrive at the castle, as I am fishing through my bag for my keys, I tell him "thank you" again for the awful gift. He nods a "you're welcome" and he and his long fingers make no attempt at instructions while he waits (he always waits until I am inside ever since Sue locked me out of the castle). Only I can't find my keys. I have to free up my hand to fish some more, so I take the abomination - which is covered in a plastic bag - and put it under my armpit.

At this shift, Mom's eyes practically pop out of his head. "NO!" he says, sharply, in a tone that says people do not put corn under their armpits! and he grabs it from me, trying to shove it into my hand to make me hold it properly.

Here is where I throw another one of my tantrums in English that he cannot understand, but in tone and gestures that are - I'm guessing - quite clear.

"Nam, I can HOLD THE CORN ANY WAY I WANT!" I grab it from him and - even though I have my keys now and do not need the other hand - I put the bag-o-crappy-cob BACK WHERE IT WAS, under my armpit. "See! I can put it under my armpit! Look!"

And you know what he does? Instead of giving me his signature puppy dog look, Nam finds amusement in my display, and he laughs at me.

"See you again?" he asks - it's what he always asks when he makes me mad - as I close the gate, go inside and jump up and down and throw the stupid thing on the floor. Someone analyze what is going on here. The man makes me crazy.


Later, on a more peaceful and delicious note, Thanh and I take her motorbike to a place I have asked to go... last week, she showed up at the castle gate with a delicious kind of banana jello with tapioca sauce for all of us, the same tapioca sauce that my banana cake market lady uses - the same sauce that would make a slug taste great.

At her spot, they were grilling the bananas wrapped in banana leaves as usual, but the jello was sitting on the side (my lady doesn't do the jello). It's served in plastic cups with sprinkled nuts on top. Do I need to say "yummy"?

By the way, my banana cake lady has been very off and on in the market since Tet. Mostly off. But when she is there, like she was this morning, Pineapple Lady just can't wait for me to get there so she can moan and moan and point me in the right direction (about ten feet away, in case I can't find it). And our pomelo guy has replaced pomelo with the terrible, stinky durian fruit for the past two weeks. K and I buy pomelo from this man almost every day...he peels it and sections it and puts it in a container - all for only 30 cents. For the last two weeks, we have had no pomelo and no banana rice cakes and Bum Bum Massage Tran has been on vacation, so again we have begun to speak of the imbalance we feel in our neighborhood...the insecurity of the lingering question: what is going to go next?

Well, this morning the pomelo was back (I had to send K a text I knew she would be THAT excited), plus the banana cakes. But you know what is gone now? Our rice stand, our go-to fried rice heaven. There is a big banner on the site and it looks as though they are moving. But how can we know for sure? Therefore, K and I are depressed again tonight.

This is what we get depressed about in Saigon.

Happy Birthday Mom! - from Me and Sweet 6A

I wish I had kept this video running just a bit longer because Peter, third from the right, jumped at the camera and said "Please make us a pie!" as an afterthought. A few weeks ago, we read a story that had a cherry pie in it and I found that none of them knew what pie was. So I googled a bunch of pictures of all kinds of pie - apple, blueberry, pumpkin, banana - and told them that my mom makes the best pie in the world. So now they often ask, "Is your mother coming to Viet Nam? If she does, will she make us a pie?"

So no pressure, mom, but when you come next year, you need to make pies for this sweet class of mine. The castle doesn't have an oven, so you will have to be creative.

That's right...my brother was my mom's birthday present some years ago. Happy Birthday, Mom!!

"Happy Birthday Mr. Brian!"

6C became a fan of "Mr. Brian" when he guessed on all of their "People from Seattle" appearances. I put his (and all of your) guesses on a PowerPoint and they laughed their heads off at all of them. Now they often ask about him, so here they are wishing him a HB, and welcoming "Little Hatshepsut" into the world. Brian and Kristi's baby is due in about a week, and they won't even tell their sister across the world what her name will be, only that it will be "Hatshepsut" after the Queen who was "King" of Ancient Egypt. 6C knows all about her, of course...

Anyway, happy birthday, Brian.

Who You Barely Know and Their Private Islands

Sometimes, it's all about who you know. Other times, it's all about who you barely know and who he knew in college.

It was the third time I had met Edge when he picked me up at the airport at 4:30 a.m. (I didn't even recognize him at first). We went to his family's home in Manila where his family's cook had huge plates of bacon and rice waiting for breakfast. There, I met his DJ friends (and one producer) - Rebecca from Manchester, England, Ari from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marine from Marseille, France and his daughter, a lively, very grown-up ten year old named Zoe.

The family driver took us to the airport that morning, and we - with our UN assortment of passports - boarded a small plane for Coron - a small beach town with the only airport in the Palawan Islands. Edge's college friend, Daniel, met us at the airport there with his driver. They took us to Daniel's rooster farm for a typical Filippino lunch (no roosters on the menu), then all of us, plus Daniel's entourage - the boat man, the boat man's assistant, the cook and the cook's assistant - got on a boat and we made the hour and a half journey out to one of Daniel's family's private islands, Malcapuya.

Daniel's family owns six of the 7,107 islands that make up the Philippines, and how his father became an island owner is a good story. Back in 1973, when there was no airport in Palawan, Daniel's father, Ed, was passing through and missed the boat (only one boat per week) back to Puerta Princessa, where he was supposed to conduct some business. A man who had dreamed about living a Robinson Crusoe existence his whole life, Ed took advantage of the week, hired a boat and began to explore the islands. When he got to Malcapuya, he fell in love. He found the owner and asked if he could buy the island. He could; he bought it for about $200 - the price of a new car in the Philippines in 1973. There was another tiny island within view of Palawan, and that one was for sale, too - for $2. That's where it all started.

As for where it is going, it is going somewhere big. Currently, there is a rustic house with many beds (where we slept), many bamboo huts, an outdoor kitchen, and a caretaker's accommodations (to flush the toilet you have to scoop water out of a bucket). Within three years, the island will host ten villas and a swimming pool; a bigger island within sight of Malcapuya will host a hotel with 100 rooms to make it a mini Boracay - currently the resort capital of the islands. So, once again, I have beat the crowds to a destination that will be gone within a few years. (Oh, and not to worry, says Daniel, the little island will stay as is...)

Except there are crowds on Malcapuya... sometimes. I got up early to swim and to read in a hammock on the beach (are you recognizing the recurring theme of my year...?) and looked out to see a huge cruise ship coming toward the island. I asked Daniel about it and he said, oh, once per week, 200 guests from this cruise ship stop on the island for lunch, and they will be here within an hour. So that's why I saw a young boy stringing about fifty chickens on a stick for roasting, and why we saw the boat man and assistant carrying so many plastic chairs in.

So when the tourists disembarked and overtook our isolation, no problem, we - as in Edge's entourage, Daniel's entourage and a very big-lipped fish and some sashimi (better than tuna, Daniel kept telling us, and it was) -just got back on our boat and went to Daniel's family's island #3 for a bit of snorkeling. As we snorkeled, the cooks hiked up the island to a grilling station and grilled the big-lipped fish and mixed up a sauce of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, onions and tomatoes. The sashimi was laid out and whenever we wanted, we just wandered into the bamboo hut and ripped a bit of the tender flesh from this delicious fish with a community fork.

This is something I became accustomed to during the three days on the island - chafing dishes appearing out of nowhere, filled with deep fried calamari, steamed crabs, grilled prawns, diced pork chops and grilled fish. At one point, during an island-hopping day, between exploring the remains of a WWII Japanese gun boat and soaking in some natural hot springs, we emerged with snorkels to find a table set up in the middle of the boat with five chafing dishes. It was like having a gourmet cruiseline buffet following us wherever we went.

And every morning we were greeted with the question, would you like some fresh juice? Mango or orange? And those chafing dishes would appear, filled with corned beef hash, eggs, rice and dried fish. The Lonely Planet did not lie: Filippinos eat and eat and eat.

And they are friendly, and they are happy. The greeting for women is "Hello, maum," - always accompanied with a huge smile. Vietnamese people tend to wait for you to smile first, but Filippinos, well, they embrace with a smile, no hesitation. Even back in Manila, every heavily-armed guard smiled a friendly greeting.

So after three days on an island and two days in very modern Manila - where Edge was kind enough to make sure we knocked all of the food I wanted to try off of a list I got from a blog reader who is living in Saigon but who is from the Philippines - I am spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. And now - the best part is that I now know people - really generous, gracious, cool people, who shared all of this with me. And one of them just happens to own six islands in the Philippines.

And all of this- a birthday gift. It's a gift to top all birthday gifts, thanks to my good friend Audrey Alice (who just met Edge, who had this friend from college...)