If you thought walking on a squeaking wood floor was bad, have you tried freaking on a squeaking carpet floor? Just putting it out there. Anyway, it was time to fix our floors, which had been squeaking for the past ten years. Why now? I hated house maintenance. I liked to spend more time fixing my virtual home than my real home.

Fortunately, fixing the squeaking floors was easy with the GBW Squeeeeek No More kit. It was even easier with my helpers: Đạo, Đán, and Xuân. I also found this YouTube video very helpful. Nowadays, I learned to do everything myself through YouTube.

Parts

• GBW Squeeeeek No More Kit: $25
• Squeeeek No More 50 Replacement Screws: $14

Total cost: $39

For 40 bucks, no more squeaking floors. Not a bad deal at all.

A hundred days since my father passed away. He had stage-four pancreatic cancer. I was sad, but I had prepared three months before when my sister broke the news. I accepted the fact that we could not do anything to save him.

When he died, it was time for him to leave this earth. He had lived 85 years of his life. The life he had chosen. He didn’t raise me much. He shifted the responsibility to my mother. When I was a kid and needed him the most, I was furious that he was not around to teach me to become a man. When I grew older, I got used to my life without him.

I still loved him and I didn’t hold any grudges against him, but our relationship was never strong. We could not stay on the phone for longer than five minutes. He had no interest in my life except if I had taken good care of my mom.

On the other hand, I felt the distance between us physically and emotionally. I wanted to have a frank conversation with him about his situation, but I was told not to bring it up. He was my father and I shouldn’t be afraid to ask, but I didn’t know him well enough to understand his feelings. Maybe he didn’t want to know about his conditions.

When he passed, I didn’t shed a tear. Not because I was heartless, but because I didn’t do much for him when he was alive. I will always miss him as my father and he will always have a place in my heart, but his passing was not too hard to deal with. With his condition, age, and taciturn, he made it easy for me to let go. That’s a good thing.

Sixty days since my mother passed away and I still am deeply hurt. The pain is excruciating every time I think of her dying days. I could not hold my tears when I remember her beautiful, smiling face when she was younger in contrast to her distorted, buffed up face when she was on the ventilator.

The reality is that there was nothing we could have done for her despite having access to some of the best medical technologies and physicians in the world. I accept the fact that she would have to leave this earth eventually, but it is still hard for me to accept how she died. I am not putting the blame on anyone or pointing finger at anybody, but her death could have been prevented. She didn’t have to die this way.

My heart is still heavy and my mind is still burning every time I look back at the daily screenshots I had taken on my phone on our virtual visitations. She was deteriorating and I could not see it until one day a nurse put the camera up close. I just couldn’t believe my own eyes. She did not look like that the day before.

Although she had gone, I still can’t be at peace with myself for letting her stay all alone in that hospital bed surrounded by machines. In her previous hospitalizations, I was able to stay by her side. I slept next to her on the couch, talked to her, and even shared her hospital meals. She was sick, but not lonely. Her body was weak, but her mind was strong. With her loved ones by her side, she recovered quickly.

This time was different. It was more brutal. She was suffering and she could not have any emotional support on her side. Nevertheless she had fought on, as my friend Linh has observed:

I believe that your mom hung on as her last loving gesture to you, to let you grieve and come to terms on your own. I’m sorry to see you going through everything, but I think your mother’s love stays with you to the very end.

She held on for me and even saved her last tear for me. When the ventilator was out, I asked her to forgive me and to just let go. A lonely tear rolled down her eye and her heart stopped. I didn’t cry in front of her, but I broke down whenever I was alone and thinking about her.

I tried practicing Buddhism and listening to Buddha’s words to see if I can overcome my loss, but I have not. The suffering is still burned in my brain. The pain is still too much to subdue. The truth is still too hard to handle. Carrying on this burden does not do me any good. My mother wouldn’t want to see me doing any harm to myself. As much as I am feeling down, I am not out. As much as I am holding on to this grief, I am still moving forward. I just need more time to battle it out in my own mind. If I can still write about it, I will make it through.

I was working, taking third grade classes, and tutoring at once. Đán hardly paid attention to his online classes; therefore, we had to sit through them together. I made him take notes with me when we learned about ancient China. When we were watching the video, I made him write down a few interesting points. As soon as the class discussion began, I made him raise his hand. He shared that the majority of China was Buddhism. His teacher was so glad that he participated.

When I had a meeting for work, I asked him to wear his headphones and listen to his teacher. While his classmates were writing poems, he just sat there waiting and doing nothing. When his teacher called on him to share what he had written, he simply said, “I haven’t done it.” He was supposed to come up with a list of things he liked and picked one to write a poem. His classmates came up with impressive poems and they are only third graders. This is what we came up with together:

I love making chicken wing
I dip it in flour while I sing
I cook it until it’s crispy and done
Then I eat it until it’s all gone.

Hey, at least they rhymed. After school was done, he had four assignments that were due at the end of the day. Last night I made him and Đạo completed their assignments and turned in at 10 pm. They still have more assignments to do today. Between their loads of assignments and my load of work, we won’t have time for anything else like ice skating and rollerblading. Their grades were slipping; therefore, they can’t do half-ass work anymore.

Đạo had to write a nonfiction story and it was due last night. I kept asking him to check with me first before he submitted it, but he went and submitted anyway. The minimum for the story was five slides. He did only four. Each slide required a paragraph and a photo. He wrote the paragraphs, but didn’t add any photo. No wonder his grades slipped in the last quarter. The story he wrote was good, but that was only half of the assignment. All he had to do was Googled, copied, and pasted images. He resubmitted his assignment.

I spoke to Đán’s teacher and raised my concern that he is falling way behind in class. She told me that he needs to be more responsible and independent. Unfortunately his grades and his inability to get his assignments done tell me that he needs help. If I don’t help him, he will lose his confidence and I am afraid that he will withdraw. I want to help him at this time and then gradually step back to give him his responsibility. If it is optional, I still want to keep him doing online classes at home so I can keep an eye on him. Last year, his teachers told me that he sat in class with his head down. He did not participate in class and he did not do his assignments either. When he was in school, I couldn’t help him much. At home, I can follow his progress easier. Of course, this will change when I have to go back to my office, but it might be working out for now. I am hoping to catch him up.

For the second iteration of this blog, I am switching up the typefaces. The body text is now set in NewsReader, a beautiful serif typeface by Production Type. NewsReader comes equipped with legible Vietnamese diacritics. Big headers are now set in Name Sans, by Arrow Type. Name Sans supports Vietnamese, in which I had a small role in it. I am keeping Recursive Mono, also by Arrow Type, for coding samples.

For the design, I am stripping down the layout a bit and going for all black and white with red only on the hover state. I also keep the dark theme, which is pretty much the opposite of the light theme. The accented color is still red.

I also brought back the navigation, which I had avoided using for so long. I moved all the information related to the site to an info page, but I filled out the navigation with links to various sections as well as to my professional website.

I keep tinkering around this blog. It’s my personal site.

Tiếng hát Hà Vân ngọt ngào và dịu dàng rất thích hợp với những tác phẩm đồng quê của nhạc sĩ Hoàng Thi Thơ. Tuy nhiên album này được đạt đến xuất sắc là nhờ vào lối hòa âm khéo léo của Quang Ngọc. Anh đã đem lại những âm thanh xưa của trước năm 1975 nhưng có âm hưởng mới mẻ.

Nhịp điệu chachacha cùng tiếng kèn saxo solo trong “Đường xưa lối cũ” gợi lại phong cách của Sài Gòn năm xưa. Giọng nam Lê Minh Trung trong “Mấy nhịp cầu tre” không khác gì tiếng hát Duy Khánh ngày xưa. Nhịp điệu tươi vui nhưng đáng chú ý nhất là tiếng kèn trumpet bè cho đôi song ca. Tay trumpeter này chơi theo jazz nên đem đến cho bài hát một sắc màu đậm đà. Và tiếng kèn trumpet lại xuất hiện trong “Duyên quê” cùng tiếng sáo. Hơi đáng tiếc là phần trumpet solo quá ngắn (chỉ được có hai bars). Phải chi để tay ấy improvise từ sáu đến mười hai bars thì phê biết mấy.

Bên cạnh những nhạc phẩm đồng quê tươi tắn cũng có những bài buồn như “Tạ tình” và “Ai buồn hơn ai.” Tuy nhiên nhạc phẩm khiến người viết này phải nghẹn ngào là “Đám cưới trên đường quê.” Tuy đây là một bài hát vui nhộn nhưng nó đem lại những ký ức về tuổi thơ và mẹ của tôi. Ngày xưa lúc còn ở Việt Nam, tôi được mẹ đu đưa võng và ru ngủ bằng bài hát này vào mỗi buổi trưa. Qua giọng hát Miền Nam chất phác và êm ái của mẹ, tôi đã thuộc lòng lời hát dễ thương của chú Hoàng Thi Thơ:

Ô! ô! sáng hôm nay trên quê hương tôi,
Quê hương xinh xinh quê hương hữu tình,
Quê hương xinh xinh quê hương hòa bình,
Đường nở hoa trắng, xanh, vàng, tím,
Đẹp làm sao bướm bay chập chờn.
Đàn chim non véo von ngọn tre,
Khăn mầu son, áo mầu vàng,
Ơi, bà con đến xem mùa cưới!
Chân hài cong, tay dù hồng.
Lâu thật lâu mới thấy được một ngày vui!

Tuy nghe Hà Vân hát mà hình bóng của mẹ đã hiện về trong tôi và không thể nào nén lại cảm xúc được. Tôi nhớ mẹ vô cùng. Nhớ tiếng hát ngọt ngào, nhớ nụ cười duyên dáng, và nhớ tình thương bao la của mẹ. Rồi nhớ đến sự quằn quại khó thở ở những ngày cuối đời của mẹ, tôi lại rơi nước mắt. Cả cuộc đời mẹ khổ đau đã nhiều thế mà lúc nhắm mắt cũng không thoát khỏi sự đau khổ cho đến lúc mẹ thật sự ra đi.

Giờ đây không biết bao lâu nữa mới thấy được một ngày vui nhưng rất cảm ơn album này của Hà Vân đã cho tôi gợi nhớ lại tiếng hát và hình ảnh của mẹ tôi. Tuy vui mà buồn. Tuy buồn mà vui.

I like to revisit grammar books once in a while to remind myself of the rules and the idiosyncrasies in the English language. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the fifth edition of Rebecca Elliot’s Painless Grammar as much as the first time I read it. The content is still helpful. I just got bored of reading about grammar. Let’s get back to more exciting fiction books.

My son Đạo has been reading my blog. He reads not only just my latest posts but also the archives. He has read as far back as 2014 on family-related posts in English. He has 11 years worth of materials to go.

I have been blogging for 18 years and I have finally found an audience. That’s an accomplishment that I have never set out to do. Even today, I write for myself. I have been writing like no one is reading. I don’t think about any particular audience when I write. Not setting an expectation liberated me to write whatever was on my mind. The drawback is that I had gotten myself in trouble on several occasions. I didn’t know how far I had gone until it backfired. I rather take that risk than censoring myself. If I cannot be free to write on my personal blog, I might as well just shut it down. For almost two decades of blogging, I only fucked up a dozen times. That’s pretty good.

My only goal for this blog has always been to practice my writing. I started writing in English first because I was terrible at it. I could not keep my grammar straight. English has so many rules and some of them are so idiosyncratic. Even today, I still have to look up lay versus lie to make sure I use the correct one. I have made tons of grammatical errors, but I kept on writing like no one is watching. I don’t give a shit about the grammar police, but I always welcome edits from anyone who cared enough to send them my way.

While concentrating on English, my Vietnamese was slipping. I only began to write in Vietnamese when I figured out how to add diacritical marks. Unlike English, Vietnamese is a bit easier to write for me. Other than keeping my spelling straight, I don’t have to worry about grammatical errors. I realized that Vietnamese has no grammar rules. There’s no such thing as singular versus plural. There’s no rule on past, present, future, and perfect tenses. I could not find a Vietnamese grammar book. I don’t think it existed. (If anyone has such a book or knows one, please let me know.) I can build up my sentences any way I wanted to and it would not be grammatically wrong. They might not make any sense, but they are not wrong. As long as I spell correctly and have a logical flow, I can write in Vietnamese. Because there’s no rules in Vietnamese, it is a challenge to become really good at it. One of my favorite Vietnamese songwriters is Trịnh Công Sơn whose lyricism remains fascinating to study. He bent and substituted words in unexpected places and still managed to make his lyrics flow naturally. You would miss his wordplay unless you pay close attention to it. I still read his lyrics and discover something new every time.

For my blog, the topics varied from deeply personal to mundane documentation. I don’t know if anything I had written resonates with anyone. I didn’t know who reads my site, but I do now. Of course I welcome him into my world. This blog is a place for me to collect my thoughts, my daily activities, and my personal interests. It just isn’t private.

Thưa mẹ, hôm qua Chị Hương và Thơm, Cháu Chris, Phương, Sammy, Eric, Cháu Chắc Aiden, cùng vợ chồng con đến Chùa Di Đà cúng thất thứ bảy cho mẹ. Đồng thời xin mẹ cho chúng con xả tang và thỉnh hình về thờ và tưởng nhớ mẹ.

Tết năm nay mùa dịch vẫn còn nên mọi người vẫn cẩn thận đeo khẩu trang và cách xa một chút. Sau khi rời chùa, cả gia đình ghé qua khu Eden ăn trưa. Tình cờ nghe được tiếng pháo nổ giòn giã làm chúng con nhớ về quê nhà tuy rằng giờ đây quê nhà cũng không còn được nghe tiếng pháo nữa. Đã lâu lắm rồi gia đình mới có cơ hội ngồi ăn một bữa trưa ấm cúng với nhau. Rồi đám cháu và chắt trai của mẹ tụ họp lại chơi với nhau. Chúng nó đồng trang lứa nên rất hợp gu và thân tình. Như thế là vui và hạnh phúc rồi.

Mẹ đã cách xa chúng con bảy tuần rồi. Nỗi buồn cũng từ từ lắng xuống nhưng nỗi nhớ vẫn không thể nào nhạt phai. Cho dù con không muốn chấp nhận nhưng cũng phải đối diện với sự thật. Con còn quá nhiều trách nhiệm đối với những người xung quanh và bản thân mình. Con không thể nào gục ngã. Những đêm trầm trọc khó ngủ con cũng phải ráng để lấy sức cho ngày hôm sau.

Con đã không dám đụng đến rượu vì sợ tinh thần yếu đuối của mình sẽ bị rượu khống chế. Con ăn chay được 49 ngày và dường như con đã mất đi sự thèm muốn mùi vị của thịt. Không ăn thịt con cảm thấy nhẹ nhàng hơn nên con sẽ tiếp tục thực hành cho đến khi nào muốn trở lại ăn mặn. Lúc trước tưởng ăn chay khó khăn nhưng giờ đây thấy cũng dễ dàng. Mỗi Chủ Nhật ghé chùa mua về ăn cả tuần. Khỏi phải làm phiền đến vợ làm món chay riêng cho con tuy vợ luôn sẵn sàng nấu. Mấy đứa cháu nội của mẹ phải ăn hết những gì trên đĩa của tụi nó vì ba chúng nó không thể nào ăn đồ thừa của bọn nó.

Mỗi lần kết thúc tụng kinh cầu siêu, thầy Pháp Quang thường đọc những câu thơ như, “Công cha như núi Thái Sơn / Nghĩa mẹ như nước trong nguồn chảy ra,” hoặc, “Nước biển mênh mông không đong đầy tình mẹ / Mây trời lồng lộng không phủ kín công cha.” Riêng con thì mượn lời ca của nhạc sĩ Trịnh Công Sơn, “Mẹ ra đi nơi này vẫn thế / Vẫn có mẹ trong tim chúng con.” Đúng thế, cuộc sống của chúng con vẫn phải tiếp tục trên thế gian này. Khi không còn được ở trọ trên cõi đời này nữa chúng con sẽ gặp lại mẹ ở miền Cực-Lạc.

For their second progress report, Đạo’s and Đán’s grades slipped drastically and I take full responsibility for the failure on my part. I had to leave town for the entire month of December of last year. Even when I came back home, I didn’t check on them. I took their words when they told me they have done their assignments and trusted that they took their education seriously, especially Đạo.

Unfortunately, they rushed through their assignments without giving any effort. When they were supposed to write a few sentences, they wrote a few words. Đán even ignored assignments his teachers reminded him of the due dates. They wanted to play video games more than to do their assignments. I was disappointed at their lack of accountability and responsibility. Their report cards were a reality check for me.

We talked about their lack of progress and Đạo was angry at himself. His grades were low, but we both know he can improve if he puts efforts into his assignments and participates in class discussions. He and I are now back to our cave in the basement. I have to keep an eye on him while doing my work.

I don’t worry about Đạo as much as Đán who has always been struggling with school in all subjects. He doesn’t know what he is doing because he doesn’t pay attention in class. I had to sit with him and help him catch up on his assignments. He still has trouble learning math, especially with multiplication and division. For Spanish, he uses Google Translate for everything. He is falling behind. I am hoping that working one on one with him will help him improve. He constantly needed to be reminded to stay focused. He could not sit still in a classroom setting. He would do better in an active environment. I can see how freely he felt on the ice skating rink. Even when he had group lessons, he did well. I am trying to get him to join ice hockey in the future if he continues with skating lessons. As for his school, we’ll see what happens after this year.

Đọc tiểu thuyết của một tác giả trẻ mới biết mình già. Tôi không theo nổi cách viết văn của Thái Cường qua Người chết thuê. Tôi chỉ nắm được sơ sơ câu chuyện người thanh niên bị chứng bệnh ngủ rũ. Anh ngủ bất kể nơi nào và giờ nào. Vì thế anh làm nghề chết thuê. Người ta mướn anh chết giả để lừa gạt tiền phúng điếu. Còn những nhân vật khác trong truyện, càng đọc tôi càng không biết mình đang đọc gì. Có lẽ đầu óc không được tập trung khi đọc. Đành phải chịu thua thôi.