I had a mild case of gout flare last week. Luckily, I dodged the attack. Let’s back up a bit to see how I got here.

Since my last gout attack, which was over a year ago, I went back to my normal dietary with the exception of consuming beef. I also drank moderately like a bottle of beer or a glass of wine a day. In the past few months, I have been hooked on Twelve5’s Rebel hard coffee, which is coffee with a bit of alcohol. I replaced my morning coffee with my afternoon hard coffee.

Last week, while on vacation, I increased to two cans of hard coffee and a beer or two a day. Last Wednesday, we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch and I ordered a sunrise, which had tequila. In the evening I grilled burgers my wife prepared, but I wisely declined to have one even though I really wanted one. I just asked my wife to let me two bites of hers. Nevertheless, I felt a bit of a pain on the joint of my right foot at night. I knew it was coming. I checked my backpack and the only medication I had was a bottle of expired ibuprofen. I took one pill immediate and it seemed to ease the pain.

Thursday morning, I took another pill and went rollerblading with the kids. I still felt fine to skate. I stopped drinking alcohol. My wife advised me to get a bottle of Aleve. I drove to the the nearby drugstore and grabbed a small bottle. I took two Aleve pills in the afternoon and the pain in my joint subsided. I took another one before heading to bed and ended up with a bit of a stomach upset during the night. On Friday, I took another one in the morning and another one in early evening. The pain was gone. I stopped the pills.

I haven’t had a drink since then. I am so glad that I didn’t have to be out of commission for three or four days, which would cause me to miss ice skating or rollerblading. I am not so sure if apple cider vinegar would work. My internist said it has not been proven. I am just going to stick with Aleve when I get an attack. Aleve could harm my organ system; therefore, I would only take it when I needed to.

I thought this book would be a short and sweet read, but I struggled through it. I plowed through and understood only thirty percent of it. It’s definitely my own shortcomings as a reader.

I must admit. As I was reading this book, my mind was drifting off elsewhere; therefore, I got lost half way through, but I kept reading because I didn’t want to give up. After finishing it the first time, I didn’t get much out of it. I decided to start over from the beginning and to read slowly.

Deborah Levy’s Real Estate turned out to be lyrical and beautiful and I enjoyed it the second time around. Levy writes about her single life at sixty. She and her husband had divorced and her daughters had moved out of her house. In addition to places she was dreaming of, she was searching for characters, the female characters in particular. I love the following passage about estate and language:

None of this real estate belonged to me, but I felt I belonged to it.

I wrote every day in its long, timbered attic and finally acknowledged I did not have a tranquil relationship with language because I am in love with it. I asked myself, what sort of love? Language is a building site. It is always in the process of being constructed and repaired. It can fall apart and be made again.

I definitely recommend reading it slowly for pleasure. It is indeed short and sweet.

After two years of working from home, I finally put together an official office in my bedroom. During the pandemic, I just plopped my MacBook Pro on my ironing board, sat on a high stool, and worked. Last year, I broke the ironing board. I replaced the ironing board with a small glass table and the high stool with an Ikea’s stepping stool. I didn’t want to take up my entire bedroom with office desk and chair since I only work two days a week at home. I also want my bedroom to have as much space as possible.

Last week, my wife bought a used kitchen cabinet to replace another cabinet that looks like a table. The shorter sides of the the cabinet were narrow and the height is just right for a tall stool. I brought it up to my bed it flushed it right next to the dresser. Then I setup the Panasonic Home Sound System my next-door neighbor threw away last year before he moved.

I am using the sound system to play music and I am surprised how good it sounds. I like a bit of background music while I work and I also wanted some soothing jazz when I sleep. I have been listening to Bill Evan’s solo piano albums at a low volume at night. I was actually looking for a used CD player to play my CD collection and the sound system was just perfect.

I am now loving my simple office.

I had always been attracted to French romantic ballads. The melodies were beautiful and French was exotic, but I never paid much attention due to the language barrier. I only began to appreciate French ballads more when I started listening to Dalena and Don Hồ’s Oh My Sweet Love in Vietnamese and English.

I didn’t (and still don’t) know who translated the lyrics into Vietnamese (no credit was given in the album sleeve), but I loved Dalena’s English translations. Musically, Dalena and Don Hồ were a perfect match. His smoky baritone harmonized with her sweet alto. They both sang in choir before becoming solo singers; therefore, they complemented and backed up each other like two lovely doves.

The opening duet track is an example of their wonderful collaboration. They covered Christophe’s classic “Main Dans La Main” and Dalena translated his lyrics as “Hand in Hand.” I transcribed her English version here:

I’ll love you and forever I’ll love you
You’ll always my first true love
My tenderness, my delight, and my pain
I possess you inside my heart

Someday we will be
Together you and me
Hand in hand will be ever in love
It’s so good to find
Love like yours and mine
Hand in hand through time ever in love

Her translation was so simple yet so sweet. Without knowing French, I assumed that she stayed as faithful to the original context as possible. Don Hồ followed up with a rock ballad “My Love Please Be Happy,” which was a translation from Art Sullivan’s “Adieu Sois Heureuse.” I still know the lyrics to these tunes by heart because I used to transcribe them to learn English and to sing along. Here is Dalena’s translation:

You, who had never wanted me
You, never took a chance to trust me
You, would not open your heart
You, always kept us apart

You, never tried to understand me
You, never interested in waiting
You, passed by without a glance
You, never gave us a chance

Goodbye, please be happy
Goodbye, I send you sadly
To the one that I see
Your heart chosen not to be

Goodbye, please be happy
Goodbye, and go with blessing
To the one that today
Soon will take far away

When I tried to google these songs to see if I can find her translations online, but I could not find any. I went back and transcribed them again so I could keep them here. It was a quick task because I still remember most of the songs. Here is “Oh My Sweet Love,” Dalena’s translation of Christophe’s “Oh Mon Amour”:

My love had eyes that see the sea
Through torrential rain falling fast
He lost a dream to cotton clouds
That hear him crying as they pass
The day and hour far beyond
Nothing but tears possessed his heart
The tears I caused

Oh my sweet love, please hear me now
Life waits for you to live somehow
Don’t be afraid somehow you must know
I am here to stay, I’ll never go
I’ll give to you all of my heart
All of my love, all of my life

Her lyrics were so straightforward that even with my limited English back then I could still understand the words. But there are some words that I still could not make out even today. In “Love is a Story of Love,” a translation from “La Vie C’est Une Histoire D’amour,” by Christophe, I could not figure out some of the words; therefore, I put brackets around them. She performed this song solo:

In spite of what you may be thinking
I tell you now that my heart is broken
For when you left the night decided never to end
Life for me had just begun when
You took your love and walk away, and
If there is a happy ending
On you it depends

But this is life, it’s the story of love
I love you, I need you forever
Yes, this is life, it’s the story of love
I love you, I need you and ever

As you turn to go away now
Remember this my dying day, how
You took my heart and [like] a way out
Left me for [dead]
You kiss goodbye so freely given
My love so easily abandoned
Though I really don’t understand [why]
Here what you said:

That life is a story of love
I love you, I need you forever
Yes, this is life, it’s the story of love
I love you, I need you and ever

“Tombe La Neige” by Salvatore Adamo is one of my personal favorite French ballads. I have heard countless Vietnamese singers covering this tune, but Dalena’s version still stands out from the rest. The rumba rhythm was just beautiful and her singing was so heartbreaking. I loved her English translation, “Days of Winter”:

I watch the snow fall
It brings memories of you
Our days of winter
Were the happiest we knew

Days we spent together
I thought we’d last forever
Fireside kisses linger
Sparking promise on my finger

Now I sit and watch the snow
I have nowhere else to go
While cold and lonely seeming
I’ve found happiness in dreaming.

I re-listened to this album and it brought so much memories. Don Hồ used to sing with ease and effortlessness. These days, he over enunciates every word, which makes his singing unlistenable at times. At least he is still an active singer. Dalena had already bowed out.

Đán has been obsessed with Flash. He spends most of his screen time finding ways to install Flash Player on his PC. He explained to me step by step the process of getting Flash to run. He showed me newgrounds.com, which still has Flash games. I haven’t visited that site in 20 years. He even showed me the Flash Browser, which is still in beta. I don’t know if it will ever gain traction.

Even though I repeatedly informed that Flash is dead and unsecured, he kept digging in. I feel bad that he’s just wasting his time, but he feels passionate about it. I don’t want him to end up like I did. I wasted so much time learning Flash in college and I ended up ditching it. All I cared about was making cool Flash animation. I thought I would get paid just creating Flash intros. I was so dead wrong. The reality started sinking in when I could not find a job doing Flash. In addition, I had a Flash burn. I was creating the same thing over and over again and I failed to learn Flash scripting language. I was depressed and thought of quitting web design altogether. I could not do anything else besides Flash, but I also hit the crossroads on my Flash path.

I dropped Flash and hit the reset button. I transitioned over to HTML and focused on web standards. CSS rescued my career. HTML for structure and CSS for presentation made so much sense. They opened up a whole new web design world for me that I didn’t know existed. I was stuck in the Flash bubble for so long. Once I discovered HTML, CSS, and a bit of PHP, I never looked back. They aren’t as sexy and as cool as Flash, but they are accessible and outlived Flash. HTML and CSS are the backbone of the web. Flash came and went. Fancy JavaScript frameworks dominated and faded. HTML and CSS are here to stay.

I still love creating pure HTML and CSS sites because I know they will work for years to come. My fancy Flash creations are completely useless, but my HTML and CSS sites are still usable. If Đán wants to learn about the web, he should learn HTML and CSS. I’ll teach him if he’s willing to learn. In the meantime, I just let him explore on his own. He’s just nine years old. He has plenty of time to learn.

The first time I heard “Oriental Boy,” the lead-off track from Dalena’s Something New recorded for Hải Âu Productions, my reaction was, “WTF, Dalena?” From the stereotypical Oriental riff to the appalling lyrics, I was shocked that she recorded this song. The rap shit was just cringe-worthy:

Karate chop my heart away
Oriental boy, please stay
I’ve seen the east, I’ve seen the west
I can’t decide who I like best
Rock and egg roll chopstick beat
He’s the boy who is so sweet
I’ve seen the east, I’ve seen the west
Now I know who I like best
It’s you, my Oriental boy.

Did Dalena come down with an Asian fever? Did Hải u make her record this horrendous track? Did she write the awful lyrics? Fortunately, it was a cover of a band called The Flirts; therefore, she didn’t write the words. The rest of the album was back to the real Dalena covering pop ballads with her English lyrics. One outstanding track, in particular, is Christophe’s breakup ballad, “Je Suis Parti.” I wouldn’t understand French, but her English translation was clear:

I’m leaving you without regret
Oh the story of love, the time will not forget
I have nothing left. I have nothing left
This song is all. Your song is all.

She croons like a bird with a broken wing. She even breaks down in tears, but stays level-headed. She is leaving his sorry ass with no regret at all because she is done with him like Kim is done with Kanye. That’s my impression anyway.

As for arrangements, Quang Nhật was a decent producer who had created the distinctive style for Hải Âu just like Trúc Hồ had created a unique sound for Asia. It was a loss for the Vietnamese-American music scene when Hải u shut down its production.

I am glad that she tried “Something New” with just one track. So skip the first track and enjoy the rest of the album.

After my mother passed, I went through her room and found my pictures she had kept. As I flipped through them, I came across a snapshot of me taken with Dalena. The photo made me nostalgic and wondered what Dalena has been up to all these years. Has she left the Vietnamese-American entertainment behind? I tried to google her name, but nothing about her came up. I miss her. Like millions of Vietnamese Americans, I fell in love with “the blond beauty who sings flawless Vietnamese.” Beyond her singing talent, I had a deep respect for her English translations, which seemed to be underappreciated, of popular Vietnamese ballads.

I went back to my CD collection and realized that I have a few of her solo albums and a handful of her collaborative efforts with other Vietnamese singers including Don Hồ and Mỹ Huyền. I pulled out, Lệ Đá (Stone’s Tears), her debut for Thúy Nga Production, and relived the moment. In the opening title track, a soulful ballad by Trần Trịnh and Hà Huyền Chi, she croons Vietnamese with perfect enunciation and offers her own English version:

Just ask the stone how long it’s been
And ask the distance of the wind
Then ask the street lamp in the night
Shine on more your friendly light
For my love has gone away

I am not sure if I transcribed the fourth line correctly, but she deviates from the original lyrics a bit to match the melody of the tune. Her performance is soul-stirring even though the arrangement is just average. Another notable translation is Đức Huy’s “Như Đã Dấu Yêu” (As If We’ve Loved), in which she pours her heart out on the bridge:

You came to me with all of your soul
I came to you with all of my heart
But it’s too late for love meant to be
For love will stay with me always

Dalena taps into Vietnamese hearts and souls all over the world with her rendition of Y Vân’s “Lòng Mẹ” (Mother’s Love). Her English interpretation is as exceptional as her Vietnamese execution:

Mother’s love is deeper than the sea, so wide
Her soul as sweet as peaceful stream inside
Her words on songs are gentle breezes rise
Rock-a-bye her baby in the moonlit night

I couldn’t hold back my tears thinking about my mother when Dalena sings: “With love from morning until night / All through your life she holds you in her heart.” My mother’s love was unconditional in every sense of the word.

We’re winding down our spring break vacation in Rodanthe, North Carolina and ready to head back home tomorrow. A week had gone by fast. The kids—six boys ranging from age three to twelve—had a blast despite not having access to their iPads. They didn’t complain. They watched TV, played board games, made each other scream, biked to the playground, jumped the waves, swam in the pool, relaxed in the hot tube, ate like crazy, snacked like hell, and ate some more. We didn’t venture out much except for visiting the aquarium.

While the kids were doing an exceptional job of unplugging from their digital devices, the adults still glued to our phones. How hypocritical that the rule didn’t apply to us. I limited my phone usage to only night time when the kids went to bed. I used it mostly to blog and to take videos and photos. I read when the kids watched TV. I plowed through three short books. My main role was to chaperone the kids to wherever they went. It wasn’t as fun as skiing though. I preferred winter break over spring break. Though I had the chance to rollerblade a bit and a small skatepark next to the playground the kids liked.

I ate and drank much more on this trip than our ski trips. The beer belly I lost from three months of skiing came back and bigger. I started to have a gout attack as well. It is a sign that I went over my alcohol limit. I hadn’t had an attack for a while; therefore, I let my guard down. I am hoping to get it done and over with.

Overall, it was a decent trip. My wife did an excellent job of planning and booking the spot. The kids and I are happy to just follow her lead.

A collection of essays from 1968 to 2000, Joan Didion has written eloquently on various subjects including Nancy Reagan, Ernest Hemingway, and Martha Stewart. My personal favorites are her own reflection on “Telling Stories” and “Why I Write.” She writes:

By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

A short, sweet, and pleasurable read.

Thoughtful and tender, this collection of personal essays delves into today’s culture including maternity, sexuality, masculinity, spirituality, and vulnerability. Zoffness’s prose is honest and hilarious. Here’s her reason for writing:

I wrote—I write—because I prize language’s surprises and limitations, and because in college I connected to books more than I did to friends. Literature offered throughways to comprehension, to compassion, to a quieter mind. Writing offered the same, though its lens flipped around, allowed me to introspect, test assumptions, unscramble experiences and observations. It was an attempt to participate in the conversation rather than just nod along to it.

I love it and highly recommend this collection of memoirs.