Turn It Up!

I was driving the family around this weekend when we passed a car with its bass blaring. It reminded me of a story when we used to live in Houston.

Zelda and I were hungry one night and we decided to grab a midnight snack at McDonalds since they were open that late. We pulled up behind a red mustang that belonged to a bunch of teenagers. They started blaring their radio with hard core rap. You could tell it was stock speakers because the speakers were blown. The kids didn't care. They placed their order and were waiting for their food thinking that everyone in the world will think they're cool for blasting crappy music.

I told Zelda to cover her ears and I found a radio station that played something along the lines of zydeco music. I turned the bass down and cranked the volume to full blast. I think they got the hint. They turned their music down and we laughed our asses off.

My Big Fat Viet Funeral

The women are watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" tonight. I actually like that movie despite the lack of explosions, great one-liners, and hippies learning real life lessons.

I like that movie because it reminds me of mine and Zelda's constant opportunity to learn from one another. Zelda has been to a couple of Buddhist funerals. Now for the sake of full disclosure, I don't follow the tradition as well as I should. In fact, I have no fucking idea what to do. I do what is told of me. The monks know this and will motion to me to bow 3 times vs. bow 4 times vs. bow 10 times with 3 incense sticks or 2 or 4 or 6 or whatever.

But, there she was. Zelda did what she was instructed to. She impressed the hell out of my other relatives. One of my uncles said, "Jethro's wife has been studying our culture. Did you see her place her hair behind her ear before bowing? She knows how to show respect. " In actuality, she was just clearing her hair out of her face before showing respect.

When we heard this, we both looked at each other in complete amazement and said, "Of course." We're not going to say squat about it because now we have family credibility. sssshhhhhh!!!!!! It's a secret.

We're back!

We have had one hell of a past two weeks. First school started for the girls. Then, on the second day of school, we finally closed on our house. The third day of school started the move into our new house. We finished moving out in 5 days. Boxes were everywhere in the new house with no organization. The day after we turned over the keys of the old house, Zelda and the girls flew to New York for her cousin's wedding. I stayed to work the rest of the week at the clinic and to organize the new house as much as I could. Three days later, I flew to New York City. You can read about it at Zelda's site.

But, we are back now. We have a ton of things to do. We met our neighbor while we were moving in. She's a Korean lady who spoke with an accent, "Oh! I'm so glad to see we have a good neighbor! We have been praying to God to please not send teenagers or college students to rent the place. The last neighbors were college students and would party every weekend. They climb over the fence and smoke in my backyard. We had to call police all the time!"

There's a lot of work to be done. It seems as if the previous kids that rented the place before the owners decided to sell it, did much damage to it.

The first major repair we'll do after we sort everything out is to tile the kitchen and bathrooms and put bamboo floors in the living and dining room.

I haven't decided what to do after that, but I should be able to blog more frequently with updates.

2 years ago today

I know I haven't been around because of the clinic and trying to buy this house. But, I just had to take time out today to at least to send out a memorial for my bro, Charles Kitowski.

It's been 2 years today since you were taken from us. I still remember the day we found out like it was just yesterday.

It hasn't gotten much easier. The old gang still talks about you and all of the good times. Even though we've moved on with our lives, we'll never forget you. Every time we get together, you always come up in our conversations.

Tonight, I'll be toasting to your memory. Missing you still, bro.

I LIVE!

Yeah, I'm still alive. I'll have to apologize for my absence. Between running the clinic single-handed and trying to buy this house and serving as VP in a business networking group, I'm ready to pull my hair out.

6 out of the last 7 weekends resulted in me driving to Houston for all kinds of business/stuff. The lone weekend where I wasn't driving to Houston, I had in-laws that came up and wanted to see the country side close to where we live. So, yeah....more driving for hours and hours.

This weekend, is my fucking weekend. I plan of doing nothing....and by nothing, I mean nothing until the fucking finance people call me and tell me what other piece of fucking shit that they need to verify.

You'll have to pardon my language, I'm so ready to go crazy. I'm just so ready to get this move over with. I love the new house we're going to move into (if we can ever close of the god damn deal). However, it does need a little work.

I'm sure you all have visited Zelda's site and saw some of the pictures. 2500 square feet of space and almost half an acre of yard work on a hill. It's going to be a challenge.

Just thought I'd update y'all. Enjoy your weekend.

Vegas Day 3 and 4

So we woke up without walking the strip at night yet again.

We took showers and decided that we should try and make the champagne brunch buffet. As we approached the entrance, we noticed the line was WAY TOO LONG. So instead, we found that the Bellagio has dim sum at one of their restaurants on the weekends. We decided to see how long that line was. There was no wait. We got a table right away.

While eating, we met a very nice couple sitting next to us. I ordered Gai Lon, which is Chinese broccoli. The couple next to us were from San Francisco and said that we were doing the great and healthy route while they were doing mostly fried stuff. They loved dim sum and could eat every meal with chopsticks if possible.

Then, they noticed that the wait staff also brought us hot sake for brunch. Hey, it's Vegas. As we were sitting there, I noticed a familiar face sitting a couple tables down. I realized it was a guy that I had seen on TV on the World Poker Tour. After we finished eating, we went back to our coffee shop. This time, we had the Mexican. Coffee with tequila. We walked around the pool area and sat for a few minutes. I called an old high school friend of mine who lived in Vegas, Sara. Sara and I were both honor student/jocks in high school. I played basketball. She played basketball and soccer. I remember our senior year when she was "confused". She noticed that she was attracted to women instead of men. After high school, I lost track of her until my wedding. She brought her girlfriend to tell a few of our high school friends about her sexuality. I had kept her secret for years. Needless to say, our high school friends were shocked. However, my college friends (the guys) were all staring at 2 hot lesbians with their mouths wide open. To me, Sara is much more like a sister than anything else.

Anyways, Sara picked us up at the front of the hotel and drove us off the strip. We got to meet Sara's new partner, Adele. Adele is the sweetest person. She's very soft spoken and funny. Sara took us to some center with the Ritz Carlton as the hotel. We had coffee and caught up with each other. It had been 10 years since we last talked. But, it seemed like not a day had gone by. In the evening, they asked if we liked seafood. The best seafood buffet in Las Vegas is at the Rio Rio. So off we went where I challenged Adele to see who could eat the most in crab claws. I think it was a draw by the end of the night.

Afterwards, Sara drove us to another part that Christina had mentioned to us, the Fremont Street Experience. It was incredible. There were so many lights! We saw the Golden Nugget and the famous Vegas cowboy. Then, she drove us to New York New York hotel. That's where we caught the last show of our little trip, Zumanity.

After the show, we decided that we should finally walk the strip at night in order to pick up souvenirs. We stopped by a magic shop to get the kids a few magic items. We walked back to the hotel and it was 1:50 in the morning. Unfortunately, because of daylight savings time, 10 minutes later would be 3:00 in the morning. Our flight was 6:30 in the morning. So, we decided to stay up, pack and leave. Because we had 2 stops before we landed back in Houston, we got in about 5:00pm. The first flight out, we had kids behind us kicking our seats. We have't slept at all and now we have fucking parents who can't control their kids while on a plane. We drove out to my parents' house and had dinner with them. Then, I drove back to New Town. It was the longest drive I ever had to make. I was constantly stopping to pick up energy drinks, coffee, etc. I slapped myself silly a few times to make sure to stay awake. Zelda slept the whole ride home. When I pulled into the driveway, I woke Zelda up. She then told me to go straight to sleep and she would get the kids and everything else into the house. Needless to say, I crashed like a boulder.

An anniversary in Vegas: Day 2

So we slept 12 hours instead of 2. Well, we needed it. So this day would be it. This was the day that Zelda and I were married 10 years ago.

"Happy Anniversary," I said as I kissed her in the morning. We were so going to do this day up right. Zelda hopped into the shower as I called the concierge to see if there was anyway possible to get a reservation for a patio dinner that overlooks the Fountains of the Bellagio. They have a water show every 15 minutes in the evening. I told them it was our 10 year anniversary. They told m that they would see what they could do and would get with me to tell me whether or not they could do it.

After we got ready in the morning, we walked down to the little coffee shop in the Bellagio. We each got special coffee for around $10 each. By special, I mean that they put some high quality XO bourbon in it. Then, we found a few slot machines. Keep in mind that neither Zelda nor I are much gamblers at all. We were told before we left that the machines no longer take actual coins. So, I took out a dollar bill and put it into a slot machine. I told Zelda, "I guess now you pull the lever." We pulled the lever. Nothing happened. "I guess you have to push the buttons that are lit up." We pressed around. Then, the screen started spinning. "What the hell?" We put $2 more into the machine and pressed more buttons. Eventually, the spinning stopped. "I guess that's it." We can now say we've gambled in Vegas....$3.00 worth.

We decided that we should make the most out of the day. We went to Todd English's Olive because they have a patio. We ordered appetizers, lunch, and cocktails at 11:00 in the morning. Why not? We're in Vegas! Afterwards, we decided that we should get tickets for the monorail and pick up our tickets for the show that I bought on our anniversary. We decided that we should really see a showgirl show while we're in Vegas. I read a few reviews and decided on Fantasy at the Luxor. I checked out the prices online and the cheapest tickets were not very different from the best tickets. So, I decided to purchase front row tickets. I have to highly recommend this show for everyone (over 18 of course). It's far more modern. The women are super hot and their dancing was absolutely hypnotic.

We picked up our tickets early and bumped into people advertising a time share that was being built. They told us that they would sell us tickets to any show we wanted to see for $20 if we listened to their selling points for this new time share. Zelda and I talked it over and said that we had heard great things about another show called Zumanity. We've been talking about purchasing a time share for awhile now, because of the deal that her mom had gotten. However, we wanted to see the bottom line: The cost. We agreed to listen to the selling point. After 2 and a half hours, we got the bottom line. Holy Shit! Far more than what we were willing to spend. So, we thanked them and got our tickets. They did manage to get some vital information about time shares though. It's just another way for us to work the time share system to our favor. Once I get the clinic up and running on its own, we will be able to take more vacations. Not now though. So, we got our tickets and left.

We got back to the Bellagio and I realized that the concierge never called me back like they promised. I went to the concierge to ask what happened. If it's one thing I have to credit the Bellagio, they will fix any mistakes they make. They told me that none of the restaurants take reservations for patio seating, but since no one called me back, they will do what they could. Seconds later, the concierge told me, "They have one table at Olives for you and they will hold it for you, sir." Even though we had already eaten there for lunch, I had no problems going back. It was a great atmosphere plus the dinner menu was different. We got there and the table was ready for us. We sat down and a new water show was just starting. The song in the background was "Fly Me To the Moon." This song was sung to both Zelda and I by 2 of our friends, Corin and Tom, on our wedding night.....ah, memories....We got pictures while the fountains played.

I mean, look how close we were:

We started with Foie Gras as the appetizer. I ordered the Kobe beef while Zelda got their scallops. The water show went off every 15 minutes. Oh yeah, we did this up right.

After dinner, we went upstairs and got dressed for the show, Fantasy at the Luxor.

We sat in the front row when the curtains came up. The singer came out first. She walked into the crowd and would occasionally drop the microphone down to a member of the audience. No one would say anything. Then, she circled right back down to the front....in front of Zelda and me. She ended her song and dropped the microphone to me. I figured, what the hell. I screamed into the microphone, "VEGAS, BABY!!!!!! Woooooo!!!!!!" She did it again. I screamed again, "We're going to Vegas, baby!!!!!!" I think I turned 3 shades of red. But, I didn't care. I was having fun. She then asked Zelda if she could borrow me. She pulled me up to the stage where she tried to get me to dance for the crowd. Now, I'm not quite the dancer like Trashman. So, I just laughed and sat back down.

Next, came out Sean Cooper. He's the comedian and impressionist. After he did an impression of James Brown, he said, "Where's my boy that was screaming 'Vegas, baby'?" Just then, a bright spot light shown right on me. "Holy.....Shit....," I muttered. My hands were in my face. This is not happening. No way in hell. "Why don't y'all give him a round of applause to get him up here!" I'm thinking at this point, "Oh shit...oh shit.....oh shit....." Well, I got on stage (thanks peer pressure.) Sean asked me, "Who is the guy known to gyrate his hips and is known as the king of rock and roll?" I answered, "Elvis Presley." Sean asked, "That was easy, huh?" I leaned in and said, "yes." Then he said I was leaning in too far and that this was not a brokeback kind of show. I decided that I really should play along. I put my arm around his shoulder and gave him a kiss of the cheek. The crowd roared. He cracked up and said, "Holy shit. This is like Rush hour 4." He fell to the ground cracking up and I almost doubled over laughing. He then told the beautiful girls to take me back stage. So, I went back. It was dark back there and one of them tied a cape around me, put a wig on me, sunglasses, and handed me a guitar. "It's okay. We're going to dress you up like Elvis. You don't have to do anything. We'll do everything for you, okay?" I answered, "Okay."

Then I hear, "Here's Elvis!" They walked me out on stage. I'm pretty sure I'm 8 shades of red now. Sean complimented me on something. So, I responded with my poor attempt at an Elvis impression, "Thank you very much." Then, the girls did a dance around me as instructed by Sean. I looked at Zelda to see her laughing her ass off.

I eventually sat down and just started laughing. I couldn't believe that had just happened. Out of the entire crowd, they picked me. For the rest of the show, you couldn't tear the smile off my face. Sean did more impressions of course. And each time he did, he ragged on me. It was great! I will never forget this moment.

At the end of the show, I got his autograph. I wish I could've gotten the girls' autographs too. That is the only regret I have of Las Vegas. We went back to the Bellagio and said that THIS TIME we would take only a 2 hour nap and wake up and walk the strip.

We woke up 10 hours later.