Tet-ah-Tet

Only the most sadistic of companies gives it's employees every day of the week off except Friday.  But I suppose bad news for me is good news for you dear reader(s) because I'm back in the blog saddle.  My apologies for short entries and speedy videos over the Tet holiday, but there was crucial sitting around that needed to get done.  I can honestly say that I've watched more tennis in the last four days than maybe ever before. Australian Open... Who knew?

 The day after the purse snatching incident, Reyna and I decided we should conquer our fears and walk to Buddha Bar again.  To say we were hyper-vigilant would be an understatement.  Since there was little to no traffic, I was whirling around to watch every motorbike pass.  This would have been impossible under normal circumstances.  Orgininally, I wanted to make a time-lapse video of the walk from the house to the bar, but as I am still too self conscious to galavant around town wearing a camera strapped to my chest (they even call it a "Chesty," ugh), I decided to carry it instead so I could make a video of us eating (which I did, it's below).  The camera was bouncing in my pocket, and the ""Chesty" was safely folded up in it's little bag in my hand as we walked and talked. 

Of course, the fact that I wasn't recording demanded that we encounter an accident.  It looked as if a man riding a bicycle was hit by someone on a motorbike.  Both bicycle and motorbike were on their sides and a small crowd had gathered.  We then saw two unmoving legs sticking out from behind the mangled motorbike.  We had to completely pass the accident before we could look back and see if the man on the ground's head was still attached to his body.  I let Reyna look first because a.) she's braver than me and b.) I didn't think I wanted to see brains that day.  With relief we found that he did, but was lying completely unconscious in the middle of the street.  As we turned to see if he would come to, a Jeep came speeding down the road and we were almost witness to a head-on collision between two cars in the exact same intersection.  The cars passed maybe two feet from where the unconcious man lay.

Reyna and I had a brief and uncomfortable exchange discussing if we should stand and make sure the guy was alright or whether we should just continue on.  It went something like this:

Reyna: He's going to wake up, right?
Me: I hope so...
Reyna:  Should we make sure he does?
Me: I have no idea...

I'm not sure what we would have done to improve the unconscious man's situation other than add a Tower of Babel flavor with our non-Vietnamese speaking ways, so we just stood there, a little removed from the scene.  Basically we looked like the kind of rubberneckers we were trying to avoid looking like.  As the seconds passed I went from cursing myself for not recording, to being thankful I wasn't recording.  I could just picture the other people recounting the stories to their friends how some jackass western dude stood there, not helping and recording the entire scene for his blog.  Classy...  After a motionless minute (a minute is a long time to stand and wait for someone to regain consciousness -unsettling), the man's head popped up.  It was clear by the look on his face that he had no idea what had happened.  I can just imagine what that must feel like: wake up from an unscheduled nap and find yourself in the middle of the busiest street in District 2 with a crowd of strangers standing over you.  I imagine it would ruin your whole day. We watched long enough to see the other people grab his arms and help him to his feet (is that what you're supposed to do?) before we turned and made our way into the bar for a drink.  Just another day.

As you know from the video, I had a beer and Reyna had a Coke.  Then we had a plate of french fries.  What you don't know is that the beer in the video is my second, and that we ordered another plate of french fries after we finished the one shown in the video (the necessity for the second plate was apparently my fault because I said I wasn't hungry when we got there, but ate most of the fries anyway -this is why I'm fat).  I tell you that to tell you this: when we got home that evening, our neighbors stopped us and invited us to a party at their house on Thursday*.

*A little background here.  Our neighbors are also our landlords.  They are the parents of the woman who actually owns our house.  She is married to an Australian guy, and they live in...wait for it... Nepal.  They were home visiting her family for the Tet holiday, so we got to meet them for the first time last week.  They are the ones who invited us to the party.  Incidentally, Nepal doesn't sound like a very fun place to live.

Fast-forward to Thursday.  We realized as we ate breakfast that morning that they didn't tell us what time the party was to start, or what we would be doing at said party.  We went about our business; Reyna planning for the upcoming school semester and me dicking around making not-overly-inspiring-or-groudbreaking time lapse videos.  Periodically we looked outside to see if a crowd was gathering at the house next door, but it was quiet.  Four o'clock came and went.  Five o'clock came and went.  Six o'clock came and went.  As seven o'clock came, Reyna said "I'm hungry." 
"Should we cook?" I asked.
"I don't want to wait any longer."

Before we started, I walked outside one last time to see if there was any hint of a party cranking up next door.  Nothing. So we walked inside and made dinner.  Reyna made a beautiful salad with tomato, basil and fresh mozzerella and I made spaghetti.  We opened a bottle of wine while we cooked and were having a fine time.  We finished cooking, served ourselves and sat down to eat.  It was good, we were happy (well I was happy watching the Australian Open.  Reyna was likely bored to death.  It's the semifinals!  Nadal vs. Federer, we can't not watch.)

As I shoveled the last bite of spaghetti in my mouth and poured myself a fresh glass of wine I heard a small "Hellooo?" outside.  It was past eight o'clock, and apparently was time for the party to start.  I went downstairs and greeted our neighbor.  I'd never seen him dressed up before, but there he was.  I tried not to think about the fact that I'd answered the door in ratty shorts and a tshirt dotted with spaghetti sauce.

"Please come over and have party with us." He said excitedly.
"Okay! Five minutes." I replied.  I don't think he noticed the worry in my voice.  I ran upstairs and found Reyna finishing her spaghetti.
"We need to change clothes.  The party is starting next door." I said.  We spent the next 7 minutes and 23 seconds hustling around the house getting ready.  In my hustling I definitely noticed the weight of a large-ish bowl of spaghetti and half-bottle of wine sloshing around in my stomach. 

We spruced up and walked next door.  There were about 15 people crammed around two tables right at the front door.  We were seated on the obligatory Vietnamese eating stools in front of about 37 plates of food. It was the whole family... and us.  I looked around at the spread and noticed that there wasn't a single dish that didn't have meat readily visible.  I had mixed feelings.  On one hand, I wasn't even a little hungry, so the thought of not eating held appeal.  On the other hand, I didn't want to offend our hosts by not eating their food.  Lukewarm beers appeared before us while large chunks of ice were tonged into our glasses.

"You want beer, right?" said the Australian.
"Yeah, sure." I replied.  I didn't actually want beer.  I wanted to lie down and digest.
"Reyna?"
"Um, yeah, okay*."
"Eat! Eat! Plenty for everyone!" Our hosts implored us despite the fact that they hadn't touched a morsel of food themselves.
"Um... I'm vegetarian..." I said hesitantly.
"Why didn't you tell me that when we came over the other day?" said the Aussie next to me, "we would have made something for you!"
"I didn't know it was a dinner party.  I didn't think to say anything. Oops."
"No problem! We make vegetarian for you!" exclaimed our host.
"Yeah Aunt So-and-So is also vegetarian, she'll make something for you." said the Aussie
"No, no it's alright. I'm fine. Really."
"No problem, no problem!"

*I should note that earlier in the day, Reyna announced that she would not be drinking at the party.  We went out the night before to a new and semi-fancy French restaurant and just had to have that second carafe of wine.  Headaches abounded Thursday morning.

I don't know how Reyna did it, but she dove right in.  She ate like she hadn't eaten all day.  It was pretty amazing really.  Five minutes later a plate of noodles with vegetables materialized in front of me, along with another beer.  It became clear that the party, or some party somewhere, had indeed started earlier because everyone at our table was mostly in the bag by the time eating began in earnest.  The chatter was boisterous and loud.  It was really fun even though we couldn't understand most of what was being said.  Food and beer kept coming.  I found that when my glass got about half full, an unopened beer would be placed in front of me -so I'd be left with a full glass, half an opened can and an unopened beer in front of me.  In Vietnamese culture you never drink alone, so anytime I needed a sip to force down another bite of food, I had to clink glasses with everyone.  There were also seven other people at the table doing the same thing.  So we were "cheers"ing constantly.  Soon the table was littered with empty beer cans.  I found myself with three empties in front of me before we were halfway through dinner.  They weren't there long though because one family member was apparenlty tasked with whisking away the empties periodically.  I decided to stop drinking my beer.  I had to be at work in the morning.  Clearly, I was the only one because beers were disappearing at an intensity that belied the jocularity of the atmosphere.  Besides, by this point I was so full I thought I might burst.  I actually felt heavier.

As we sat and ate, our host turned to Reyna and said, "You like ka-ra-kee?"
"Yes I do!" said Reyna.  I was baffled as to how she could sound so energetic after eating so much food and drinking so much beer and wine.  It was truly an inspired performance.

We've been in these people's house a lot of times.  I'd say we've been in the room we were sitting in at least a dozen times since we moved to conduct various landlord/tenant business.  What I didn't know, couldn't know, is that there was an enourmous karaoke machine mere feet from where we sat all those times.  Soon, there was odd Vietnamese background music playing.  Microphones appeared from somewhere and various family members started to sing.  Sometimes they would get up and stand in front of the television and sometimes a person would just turn around on his stool and sing a song.  Eventually they rang up the Abba song that has been deemed this year's "New Year's Theme Song."  Reyna jumped up, was handed a microphone and she sang with them.  The whole scene felt like a dream. 

Soon everyone was just sitting and absently picking at the food left on the table.  The Aussie excused himself from the table.  A few minutes later he returned with not one, not two, not three, but four bottles of apple wine.  Small saki sized shot glasses followed soon after.  Dread is really the only way I can describe my state of mind.  Quietly I told the Aussie, "I have to work tomorrow, I'm not sure I should do this."
"No worries, mate, it's only 20%." was his response.  I was not getting out of anything.

So I had a shot.  It was okay, not great.  Tasted like a Granny Smith apple and scotch at the same time.  I drank it and thought, "that's over."  No.  Moments later my glass refilled and we drank again.  And again. And again. And again.  Somewhere in the shot-fest about half the people in the room left.  This included the Aussie, after untold amounts of beer plus at least half a dozen shots of apple booze; carrying the 92 year old grandmother through the crowded room, down about ten stairs, and placing her gently into a waiting taxi.  And here I was worried about making it to our house, up the stairs and into bed.  After around an hour of shots all four bottles were gone and another bottle of something appeared.

"Dear god..." I choked.
"No worries, this one's only 19.5%." The Aussie was quick to point out.
"Oh great."

I lost count of how much we had.  As the last of that bottle went down our throats, I turned to Reyna and said, "Are you ready?" 
"Yeah..." was all she could muster through her haze of food and booze.

We said our farewells and hugged all around.  We managed to negotiate the stairs and walk the eight feet to our house.  We made it upstairs and laid down.

"That was really fun." I said
"Yeah, but I'm so full I think I might die." Reyna said.  I started to respond, but she was already asleep.  Soon I fell asleep as well, but my dreams seemed a lot more real than the evening we'd just had.

Stay tuned dear reader(s) because I actually DID manage to shoot time lapse of the dinner I've just described.  We got home so late I didn't have a chance to do anything with the footage I shot.  And today, of course, I'm chained to my desk for ten hours.  I hope to have it up this weekend.