Waking up to some punny business

This morning we bundled the kids into the car, some of us more awake than others, to meet Samantha’s god-family for brunch in Stanley.  It was a beautiful, sunny morning, bright, but not too hot.

On our way there, Joey woke up enough to ask, “Where are we having brunch?”

Andrew:  “Classified.”

There was a momentary silence.  Then I heard Joey say, “No really.  Where are we going?”

Andrew got it first.  With a grin in his voice,  “It’s Classified!”

Joey, slowly.  “No, it’s not.  Why can’t you just tell me?”

Andrew, trying again:  “The restaurant is Classified!”

By now, George and I, in the front seats are cracking up. George adds, “It’s on a need-to-know basis, Joey, and you don’t need to know.”

Taking pity on my groggy first-born, I try to clear things up.  “The restaurant’s name is Classified.”

Joey starts laughing at himself.

And then he says.  “Hu is the leader of China.”

*****

After we park, we walk over to the restaurant and as it comes into view, I nudge Joey and point to the sign.  “Get it?  ‘Classified.'”

Joey shoots back.  “Where?  I can’t see it. Guess I don’t have the clearance level for access.”

Never a dull moment at the House of Koo.  We’re sometimes slow, but never dull.

How to get from non-Newtonian fluids to shark junk in one dinner conversation

According to Wikipedia:

Non-Newtonian fluid is a type of fluid whose flow properties differ in any way from those of Newtonian fluids. Most commonly the viscosity (resistance to deformation or other forces) of non-Newtonian fluids is dependent on shear rate or shear rate history. However, there are some non-Newtonian fluids with shear-independent viscosity, that nonetheless exhibit normal stress-differences or other non-Newtonian behaviour. Many salt solutions and molten polymers are non-Newtonian fluids, as are many commonly found substances such as ketchup, custard, toothpaste, starch suspensions, paint, blood, and shampoo. In a Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear stress and the shear rate is linear, passing through the origin, the constant of proportionality being the coefficient of viscosity. In a non-Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear stress and the shear rate is different, and can even be time-dependent. Therefore, a constant coefficient of viscosity cannot be defined.

Did any of you get that?  I didn’t.

This was a snippet from our dinner conversation last night:

Don’t ask me how we got on the topic of non-Newtonian liquids.  I have no idea, but there was a discussion about them (my only contribution, “I have no idea what a non-Newtonian liquid is.”) before it all degenerated into mayhem.

Joey:  “Well, liquid water also has some non-Newtonian characteristics.  From a certain distance, it doesn’t behave as a liquid, but as a solid.”

Andrew:  “That’s right.  If you fall into it from really high up, it’s like landing on cement.”

Me:  “Yup.”

Sam:  “You don’t want to bellyflop.  That would hurt!”

Me:  “That’s right.  If you fell into water from a high altitude, you’d probably turn yourself into an exploded bag of guts.  You’d be dead.”

Sam:  “What if you make a perfect dive into it?  Could you break the surface tension and survive?”

Joey:  “Hmm.  Yes, I think so.”

Me:  “If you dove into water from a distant height in a classic diver’s pose, would you break your fingertips?”

Joey:  “You might.  But at least you wouldn’t break your head.  You would survive.”

Sam:  “Not if you landed in a shark’s mouth.”

The preposterousness of that image cracked us all up.

Andrew and Joey come to the same conclusion almost simultaneously:  “If you dove into a shark’s open mouth from that distance, you would go through him like a bullet and come out the other end!  The shark wouldn’t kill you; you would kill the shark!”

(I’m thinking, actually, there’d probably be mutual killing happening, but I keep quiet.)

Sam:  “Ewww!  That would be disgusting!  You’d get all dirty with shark guts.”

Joey:  “Nope.  You’d shoot right through him and end up in the water.”

Me:  “At a certain distance, would water be more solid than shark?”

Joey:  “Come to think of it, you would shoot right through him, but you’d probably have to go through his shark genitals.  You’d probably get shark semen all over you.”

Sam:  “EWWW, JOEY!!!  I’m eating!”  She pushes her plate of pasta away from her.  Not anymore.

Me:  “Who wants cupcakes for dessert?”

This poor guy did a bellyflop off a 10m board into some non-Newtonian fluid.

Open wide! I’m coming through!

In the world of  parenting, you have to go with what works.  

 

Those Kooky Koo Kids — not that the Tsien boys can’t hold their own. (They just don’t alliterate.)

The weekend before school started, my mom invited us all to Macau for some family fun.  And wouldn’t you know it, that’s just what we had.  While the best fun was had fantasizing about the most inspired ways to exterminate the maddening swarms of Chinese tourists in the Venetian, the funniest photos were taken when we went, utterly unprepared attire-wise, to see the ice-carving exhibit, which is held in an exhibition space chilled to a glacial minus 8 degrees Celsius.

Having ceded my sneakers to my daughter who had only brought sandals, I wore flip-flops and capri length exercise pants.  Hypothermia be damned!

Dressed in the warmest clothing we’d all brought to Macau for a short weekend in the middle of the tropical summer heat, we happily set off across the Venetian continent,  to find the ice-carving show, located in Exhibit Hall F.  To get there, we had to traverse this:

Vavavavoom!

We couldn’t quite figure out why they would march throngs of families with young (and not-so-young) children past the ‘Asia Adult Expo’.  Did they think we would think to nip inside the Adult Expo exhibits and fortify ourselves against the impending arctic temperatures with the hotness of  the attractions within?  Or, were they hoping that we would emerge so frostbitten from the tundra-like conditions of the ice carving exhibit that we would be unable to resist the allure of even the skimpiest of extra layers?

It’s a mystery.

We Koos and Tsiens marched intrepidly and with eyes averted, straight past the Adult Expo and into the minus-8-degree Celsius ice show.

It’s clear to me that the subzero conditions immediately froze my kids’ brains into solid chunks of useless matter because the first photo I took was this:

Dumb and Dumber.

Gayle and Philip still retained some neural function because at least they thought to share body heat.

“Baby, it’s cold outside…”

The East is Red… like National Education would even make a dent in these noggins.

Cool cousins!

Just grateful no one’s licking anything.

“Mom! Take a picture of me with this mushroom!” (Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to freeze our butts off, taking weird pictures of green kids.)

Have they just summitted Everest? Crossed the Delaware? Reached the South Pole? It’s anyone’s guess.

Grace, thy name is Joey.

The latest in robotic arm replacements. Almost life-like.

Proof the apples don’t fall far from the tree.

Definitely explains the Dumb and Dumber thing. Not my side of the family.

Nicky chapping his butt on the ice slide.

For once, Joey is the straight man.  The bratty kid sister strikes again.

An actual nice photo!

By now, my bare feet feel as though they might snap off without me even realizing. Joey, realizing that I’m hitting a danger point, gallantly takes off his shoes and forces me to put them on; he continues on in his stockinged feet.  His shoes feel like lifeboats — both in the life-saving and boat-like aspects.

Joey prevents his mother from becoming an amputee.

Ice fishing — it really is warmer in the igloo.

Andrew, feeling the heat.

Mush! Mush!

Meet the Eskoomos.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

The Night of a Thousand Chunks

Note:  This post is not for the faint of heart.

Pop Quiz:

Q1:  What do Andrew and Usain Bolt have in common?

Q2:  What does Andrew not have in common with Saddam Hussein?  (Besides the fact that Saddam is dead.  And had a mustache.)

Q3:  In what way is Andrew a technical improvement on Linda Blair?

(Answers at end of post.)

Last night was witness to the genesis of family legend.  At approximately 12:06 am, we were awakened by our bedroom door being unceremoniously flung open and  Joey’s terse statement:  “Andrew’s thrown up.”

Caught in a deep and dreamy stupor, I was slow to ascend to wakefulness.  George reacted faster, immediately springing out of bed and going to investigate.  At that point, I was tempted to turn over and go back to sleep, feeling justified by the well-known and universally acknowledged principle that after midnight, anything short of (and frequently, up to and including) a severed artery  is the sole responsibility of the parent not canny enough to feign coma.   However, and this is testimony to just the kind of caring and conscientious mother I am,  I reluctantly dragged myself from bed to go see.

The stench of vomit hit me before I was even down the half-flight of stairs.  Flinching from the impact, I continued, intrepidly down the steps, as George announced to me from Andrew’s doorway, “He launched off the top of his loft bed.  It’s everywhere.”  Joey stood in the hallway, gagging quietly.

As I rounded the corner to get my first glimpse into their room, I stopped short.  Not even George’s statement “It’s everywhere” could prepare me for how Andrew had defied the laws of physics and the limitations of human anatomy.  Of all the ways I could have hoped for Andrew to exceed our expectations, this would have been at the very bottom of the list.

Not even the film industry has dreamed up such a scene of utter carnage.  Unimaginatively, Hollywood has only ever shown the forward propulsion of vomit, hence the term, projectile vomiting.  Mr. Creosote of Monty Python fame, Lard-Ass from the famous blueberry pie eating contest in ‘Stand By Me’, Paul Rudd in ‘I Love You, Man’, all managed impressive distance and propulsive force — but only in one concentrated direction.  But not even the best, most creatively and cinematically revolting minds in Hollywood have ever conceived of a 270 degree blast radius from a singular launch point.  Not only that, he managed to shoot his barf to a distance of greater than 8 ft.

Dark puddles and speckles of vomit had been sprayed the entire span of the soft white woollen carpeting in the boys room, from Andrew’s loft bed in the far corner of the room, to the doorway.  This must sound preposterous to you, because as I write this, I personally think it sounds ridiculous.  But I swear, I am not exaggerating.

Like I said, Andrew Koo, exceeding expectations.

It was clear, even at first glance, that there was no way that the boys would be able to continue to sleep in that room last night.  By now, Andrew has shut himself up in his bathroom to get cleaned up and George has gone downstairs to rouse an unlucky maid, and I step around Joey (who has now recovered enough to start cracking jokes, but not enough to venture back into the room), to collect their comforters off their beds, so they can sleep in our room.  Joey asks me to collect his phone which is plugged in next to the futon that he was sleeping on — as I step into the room, attempting to avoid the dark speckles, I realize there is no clean bedding to be collected.  (“Everywhere” means everywhere.)  There is also no way to avoid stepping in vomit, as I plant my foot on what looks to be relatively unsullied surface only to pull away with it wet with gastric spume.  This, on the corner of the futon at least 8 feet from where Andrew’s mouth must have been when his digestive tract blew.  (The polo shirt Joey had laid out to wear the next day to school, on the far side of his futon was unwearable.)

I once wrote a blog post about Andrew as a toddler, not having the common sense to vomit away from his body, and managing to throw up so thoroughly upon himself at a Park N Shop that he ended up standing with his little baby Tevas having filled up with puke like wading pools.

Let me state for the record, this was NOT what I meant, when I said I wished Andrew knew how to throw up away from himself.

By now, George, Joey and I, punchy from being so rudely yanked out of sleep, are overwhelmed by the amplitude of what Andrew has achieved.  None of us has ever seen anything remotely this impressive in the entire oeuvre of noteworthy feats of vomiting.    We are convulsed in helpless laughter, even as we are fearful that Andrew will take offense at our cackling, but we cannot help ourselves.  Joey does not help matters by throwing in one-liners as they occur to him.

“Andrew Koo, a one-man ‘Apocalypse Now’.

“I love the smell of vomit in the morning.”

“Oh my god, it’s like he set off an aerosolized bio-weapon in there.”

“There must be military applications to what he’s done here.”

“There’s nothing like being woken up by having someone vomit on your foot.”

Armed with a fusillade of disinfectants and carpet cleaners, Joycie valiantly sets about cleaning up the mess as I get the kids re-settled into their makeshift beds and make sure that Andrew has a bucket by the sofa, just in case.  Joey is still throwing out his one-liners (“We need to register Andrew as a Lethal Weapon.”) when Joycie’s voice floats out of the boy’s room: “How many times have I told you boys to shut the closet doors!”

The implications of this sink in.  Andrew has not only managed to disseminate the contents of his stomach across a seriously mind-blowing expanse of his room, he’s  found a way to blow chunks over his and Joey’s entire wardrobe.  He turned his entire room into a kill zone.  Everything would need to be laundered.

This sets us off afresh and we are, by now, practically crying from laughter.

This morning, after a very truncated night’s sleep, we were still, bizarrely jazzed by the previous night’s incident.  Joey was surprisingly good-natured about his rude awakening and the knock-on effects of Andrew’s gastric episode, probably because we are all still awe-struck by its impressive and unparalled magnitude.  The stuff of legend.

He put it this way.  “Imagine if Andrew had not puked straight ahead, but instead, leaned over his side rail and thrown up on me.”

Holy sh!t.  Doesn’t even bear thinking about.

Pop Quiz Answers —

A1:  They have both accomplished amazing feats previously considered physically impossible.

A2:  Andrew actually has Weapons of Mass Destruction.

A3:  Andrew doesn’t have to wind his head up.

P.S.  Samantha would like everyone to know, she is responsible for the title of this post.

Ego-tripping

Here’s one from the archives that I forgot about.

Last November when I was driving Joey into Central over Thanksgiving break, I found myself following a Porsche Panamera, a beast of a car.  Broad and powerful-looking, it’s a Porsche on steroids, amped up on testosterone and machismo.  Still, I thought, as a drove along behind it, it’s a handsome car, especially in that steely metallic brown.  I have to admit, I was finding it a little sexy.

And then, I looked at the license plate.

Because 'O-B-N-O-X-I-O-U-S' wouldn't fit.

It occurs to me that the owner must be using this car to weed out any thinking women who might be tempted to date him.  Bimbos are, of course, much easier to manage.  So smart of him!

I guess what’s so offensive about this car/plate combo is its ham-handedness.  I mean, it’s just so obvious.  Wanna-be playboys around the world, take note.  A car of this bling-factor requires a little subtlety or humor with a plate.  How about ‘BANKRPTD’, (or ‘COMPENS8NG’) or, how about just abort the vanity plates altogether?   Although,  a keychain that says “My other car is a Chevy Vega” would not be amiss.

On the other hand, come to think of it, if you drive a Chevy Vega or Ford Pinto, held together with baling wire and rust and chewing gum, ‘PLAYA’ would be a great plate.

The art of the un-shower in Vietnam, or, why the firing squad is too good for certain designers

After a long, exhausting day of travel which included leaving for Taipei Airport at 6:30 am to catch a 3 hour flight, another 3 1/2 hour, 40 km/hour ride along Vietnamese roads, of uneven quality,  in a van no doubt assembled in a Communist nation (“Mercedes Benz — bringing you vehicles built by Socialist labor — and definitely free of German-engineering, too.”), to directly board a 3 hour boat tour of scenic Ha Long Bay, we arrived at our home away from home, the local Novotel, to find a bath tub, rising gracefully from the floor of the bath room. I looked for the shower stall.  Sometimes, they’re separate.

No shower.   Whaat?

There was, thoughtfully, a shower attachment, which was stored in the side of the bathtub.  And, thoughtfully again, a surrounding shower rod and curtain, hanging beautifully nearly a foot away from the edges of the tub, designed in such a way as to in no way hinder shower water from flowing directly onto the bathroom floor.  That probably explains why the designer had intelligently omitted to provide a way to attach the shower head anywhere above the level of the tub.

Always a good idea to leave lots of space between shower curtain and tub to allow the free flow of water onto the floor.

The only way to have a shower was to kneel, hunched over in a tub, knee cartilage crackling against the cold, unforgiving porcelain,  with the handheld shower held, well, in one hand. Which left but one other hand with which to hold the soap, lather up and attempt to get oneself clean.  One couldn’t place the handheld shower attachment back in its place to have both hands handy, as it was stored in an upright position in the side of the  tub — meaning, if the water was running, and you put it in its cradle, you would potentially shoot the water directly out of the tub, or straight into your face.  That is, unless you adjusted the water pressure to a mere trickle, to minimize rinsing efficacy and maximize the amount of time one’s kneecaps were in agony.

When it came time to shampoo, in order to unscrew the shampoo bottle, one had to clench the shower attachment between one’s knees unless it didn’t bother you to leave it writhing at the bottom of the tub, randomly spraying gushes of water at you and around the room.

On top of all that, it took two of us to figure out which of the bottles was actually shampoo.  While the ‘Novotel’ name was emblazoned identically on the bottles, the distinguishing labels of ‘shampoo’ and ‘shower gel’ were craftily placed on neither the front or back of the bottle, but rather, the side, running up and down the bottle, in font-size that requires anyone over the age of 40 to have their reading glasses ready in order to bathe.

When we complained about the lack of shower facilities in our room, it was matter-of-factly explained to us that only half of the rooms in the Ha Long Bay Novotel offered showers.  As if that was an explanation.  Did the hotel people think that only 50% of hotel guests would want to shower?

Yes, I know that Novotel is a French chain.  Am working very hard to refrain from making any snarky comments about the French and bathing — it would just be too easy.

In my 46+ years of international traveling, I have, if memory serves, only once encountered a hotel room which didn’t have a shower.  And that was in, uhh… Paris.

Never mind.

I’m back! From Vietnam, too.

Yes, it’s been a long hiatus.  I apologize to those of you who have been faithfully checking an un-updated blog for several months.  This past year has been full of changes, which has made it difficult for me to get into a rhythm and routine in daily life.  Joey going away to boarding school has upped the travel quotient in this family — and his homesickness sometimes has made me hesitate to record the amusing bits about our daily life.  I think of him reading the blog and feeling left out, and that makes it hard.

I’ve missed writing the blog though, and look forward to making it once again a regular part of my life.  Having just gotten back from a trip to Vietnam with my mom and some of her high-school friends has given me some good blog fodder, too, and I’m looking forward to sharing that with you.

Our trip to Vietnam took us first to the north, Hanoi and a side trip to Ha Long Bay.  There is only one road currently to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi, and you may only drive 40 km/hr along it — so what would usually take an hour in many developed nations takes a bone-rattling (I’m exaggerating — a little) 3.5 hours.

Our little party (which consisted of my mom, three of her high-school mates including my godmother, my godfather and myself) was greeted at the Hanoi Airport by a young lady from our office in Hanoi who would accompany us to Ha Long Bay to ensure everything went without a hitch, as well as a company-provided tour guide named Dong.  (“I am your English-speaking tour guide!  Call me Mr. Money!  That’s because Vietnamese money is called the dong!  Hahaha!!!  (Imagine Eddie Murphy as the panhandler in Trading Places, but with a Vietnamese accent.))

Our tour guide, Dong. "You can call me Mr. Money! All my friends do!"

I knew he was in trouble when bottles of water were passed out shortly after we boarded the large ‘Mercedes Benz’-emblazoned, Third World-assembled van that would drive us to Ha Long Bay.  As my godmother worked to remove the plastic seal on the bottle, Dong offered his assistance and handily peeled the plastic away. She thanked him politely.

Dong replied, “I am always happy to support some old peoples!”

Uh-oh.

A few minutes later, with Dong laboriously keeping up the English patter he did it again.  As he monologued on about what we would see, he said, “You old people will like it very much, I think!”

Those of you who know my mother understand that while she is a kind and generous person, she is also a woman who is not afraid to speak her mind.  From the back of the van, she spoke up.

“Dong.  Let me tell you a story.  One time, when I was in China, I went into a store and just as I was about to buy something, something expensive, someone there called me an ‘old lady’.  I turned around and left the store without buying anything.  Most old people do not like to be called ‘old.’  I’m doing you a favor by telling you this, because knowing this will help you in your career as a tour guide.  Now, please sit down, you’re blocking my view.”

(Dong spent the rest of the drive up trying to tell me how young I looked.  I’m not sure he realized I was my mother’s daughter.  )

This, of course, did not stop my mother, when, upon arriving at our destination, from chastising Dong for not assisting her friends to alight our vehicle.  “Dong, you should give us your hand and help everyone get off the car.  Can’t you see we’re old?”

As she stepped down, she looked him in the eye again.  “We can call ourselves old. But, you, may not.”

My travel buddies to Vietnam. Old? I think not.

My mom. She's nice! Really! Just don't make her cross.

Beautiful Ha Long Bay.

Just a shot I like.

A scene while pulling back to dock, after our boat tour.

The Bachelorette

This morning as Sam and I were lazing around as a beautiful Sunday morning demands one do, the ‘reality’ TV show ‘The Bachelorette’ was playing.  I use the word ‘reality’ with some hesitation and a roll of the eyes, because when is it ever realistic to have a dozen telegenic, gym-buffed hunks with decent-paying jobs and no visible personality disorders vying for the favor of  a single woman in order to win her hand in marriage?

Actually, when is it ever even within the realm of reality that you can identify and assemble a dozen normal single men?   Forget about attractive, eligible, normal single men who want to get hitched.

Yeah, right.  NO WAY.  To call that a reality show is like selling the notion that Santa’s elves really are assembling toys for a gazillion kids up in God-forsaken North Pole without benefit of union representation and full dental.

As we were stupidly engrossed in a scene (I’d like to point out this was before my morning coffee) Samantha piped up — “I don’t understand why people want to be on ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’.  None of the couples ever work out anyway.  They always end up breaking up after the show.”

After a pause, she further observed, “I think it’s probably because they really don’t get to know one another well enough.”

Out of the mouths of babes — nuggets of pure gold.

Gobble, Gobble

Samantha and I went grocery shopping this past Sunday morning in an effort to get ahead of the game for Thanksgiving dinner — which, according to Koo family tradition and to accommodate Hong Kong’s lack of a Thanksgiving holiday, will be this coming Saturday.

We’ll be thirty for dinner and mayhem.  Babies, toddlers, teens, tweens, friends and family.  And probably a stranger or two off the street.  We’d never know.  It’s sheer wall-to-wall craziness.  Lots of fun, but you have to park your fastidiousness at the door when you arrive.

Sam and I have a process all worked out — because I was working off not a written list, but one in my head, she wasn’t able to tear off half and go off on her own hunting and gathering expedition.  So, she manned the shopping carts (yes, we needed two) while I pulled stuff off shelves and handed them to her to pack neatly in the wire basket bellies of the carts in her inimitably organized way.

As the piles grew and the carts grew heavy to push, Sam asked — “Do we really need ALL THIS FOOD?”

I nodded.  “Hey, if you want dinner next Saturday, this is what it’s gonna take.”

As I turned my attention away to more manic food procurement, I heard Sam mutter under her breath —

“I don’t see why people don’t just eat pizza for Thanksgiving.”

Liberace called — he wants his tux back

Seen in the window of Dolce and Gabbana —

We've come a long way from powder blue. Now all we needs is a pink tux shirt. Ruffly, of course.

When the nattily suited, pointy-shoed sales guy saw me taking photos, he came out and shooed me away.  Did he think I was taking pictures so I could copy this?

If Prince Charming came to the door dressed in this, I think staying home with the evil step-mother might suddenly seem like the more appealing option.

That’s like having a hangover before the party even begins.