Lately I have been so stressed out that I couldn’t sleep at night. I needed some music to put my mind at ease and Jill Barber’s Encore! was the perfect remedy. I have not heard of Jill Barber before, but her French singing soothed my brain immediately. Her beautiful voice accompanied by an orchestrated swing on “Plus je t’embrasse” lifted my spirit. The whoa-whoa horn section on “Ménilmontant“ brought back the good old Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens vibes. Encore! is a French jazz record to kick back and relax.

After 29 days at the dealership, our 2018 Toyota Sienna SE is back to us—just in time for our vacation to Canada. Ourisman Fairfax Toyota has exceeded its customer service. Ourisman loaned me a car all the 29 days while my minivan sitting in their shop.

It was an unforeseeable accident. The Deet chemical in the Repel Insect Repellen melted the rubber, not plastic. It took the technician two weeks to figured out. The final cost was almost $3,500. I am so glad that Connect insurance covered the cost. I just paid the deductible.

Let’s hope that everything will be good in the next few weeks.

It started with Đạo last week. He had a fever and headache. Then Đán had a stomachache. He used the bathroom every half an hour. I was debating whether I should cancel their Summit camp, but my wife let them attend.

I volunteered to drive the Scout troops to Summit, which was five hours away. Last Saturday, the night before the trip, I started coughing. In addition, I worried too much, I couldn’t sleep. I worried about Đạo and Đán. Because our newer minivan was still in the shop, I had to take the old minivan. The AC minivan had been inconsistent. I worried about their comfort.

Due to lacking of sleep, I asked my wife to come with me on Sunday. I needed help driving back. As soon as we got back home after over 10 hours on the road, I took a bath and went straight to bed around 8:00 pm. I took some cough syrup and it seemed to help. I am feeling better today, but still can’t rollerblade because of my gout.

Today both my wife and Xuân got sick. I hope they will recover before Friday so we can go to Canada as planned. Nothing seemed to work in our favor. This summer is not going too well so far. I hope Vương and my mother-in-law won’t be next.

Thấy tôi đọc Vũ Trọng Phụng, mấy anh bạn già giới thiệu Hồ Biểu Chánh. Lòng dạ đàn bà là quyển tiểu thuyết đầu tiên của nhà văn họ Hồ tôi vừa đọc xong. Chỉ ba chương gồm 36 trang nên đọc rất nhanh. Nội dung về ông Hội đồng mê gái lấy bà nhỏ bỏ bê vợ con. Ngắn gọn, hết.

Physician-poet Cao Nguyên, the author of Thơ Mưa (Rain Poems), follows up with badòngthơ (tercets). The form for badòngthơ is similar to the Japanese haiku, but Cao Nguyên also plays with three, five, and seven syllables.

As someone who is rediscovering his native language, I appreciate Cao Nguyên’s simple wordplay. As a designer, I appreciate his generous use of white space. When he asked me to bring badòngthơ to the web, I jumped at the opportunity.

Since the web has plenty of white space, I decided to keep it to one page. Readers just scroll to read the next poem. For the book title, I kept the web version the same as the print version, which is set in SVN Conqueror Didot, a Vietnamese-supported version of AW Conqueror, designed by Jean François Porchez.

In the print version, the body text is set in Microsoft Sans Serif, which is clean and legible. The Vietnamese diacritics for Microsoft Sans Serif, however, are a bit off, especially the circumflex-acute and the circumflex-grave combinations. For the web version, I set the main text in Inclusive Sans, designed by Olivia King, instead.

The website started off with 15 poems. The print version has 119 poems. If you can read Vietnamese or want to learn Vietnamese, you will enjoy these delightful poems. Go ahead, give badòngthơ a read.

I spent countless hours listening to Thelonious Monk played Thelonious Monk. Recently I am enjoying Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington. When Monk played Duke, he added his own spin into it. On “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If You Ain’t Got That Swing),” Monk not only swung, but he also sliced up the melody into staccato pieces. He chopped up the “Mood Indigo” and assembled it back together as Monk always had done. My personal favorite is his piano solo take on “Solitude,” in which he deployed his dissonances and angular melodic twists. No one plays Duke like Monk.

Tiểu thuyết tình cảm của Vũ Trọng Phụng về mối tình ba trai một gái. Cả ba chàng điều yêu nàng đắm đuối. Nàng thì chỉ yêu anh nhà nghèo nhưng bị ba mẹ ép buộc lấy chồng nhà giàu. Truyện ngắn, đơn giản, không bi lụy. Bài học từ sách là lòng kiêu ngạo hại cả một đời người. Tốt hơn hết là yêu thì cứ yêu đừng kiêu ngạo.

Our 2018 Toyota Sienna LE has been residing at Ourisman Fairfax Toyota since the morning after Memorial Day, which has been almost four weeks already. I took the car back to the dealer just two months after dropping $1,245 to fix the airbag warning light issue. The issue occurred again.

Two weeks after the drop-off, an Ourisman Fairfax Toyota technician reported that there were chemical spills that melted the wire-cover plastic and the plastic inside of the door panel. The chemical was from a bug spray.

A few months ago, a bottle of Repel Insect Repellent was accidentally spilt into the passenger front-side door. The Deet in the chemical melted plastics. I filed an auto claim to our American Family Connect Property and Casualty Insurance Company. Last Tuesday, the insurance company sent an independent appraiser to the dealer to assess the issue. They are still investigating to find out if this is a wear-and-tear issue or an accidental issue, which would be covered under the comprehensive policy.

I hope they will make the decision soon. If they decline the coverage, I will have to appeal. There’s no way I am going to drop another $3,500 to fix it. At this point, I just don’t know what to do anymore. I just have to wait patiently for the insurance company.

Even though my car is at the dealer, Ourisman Fairfax Toyota has loaned me a car to get around. Mad props to them.

My toe gout is slowly going away. I can’t wait for it to be completely gone so I can go back to the skateparks. I must have gained 10 pounds in the last two weeks from eating and sitting around waiting impatiently for my foot to heal.

We’re about to head to Canada next week, but our minivan is still at the dealer. At this time, our insurance is still investigating the damage. It is most likely that our car won’t be ready by next week. We’re screwed. I am going to fight this battle all the way with the insurance company. So if they want to drag it on, I’ll keep dragging it on.

I hate dealing with these types of inconveniences, but I have to. I putting myself under these pressures? It comes down to spending issue. I am not like going broke any time soon, but I keep worrying about it. Anyway, I just need to chill the fuck out. I tell myself that all the time, but I still can’t do it.

iA:

Writing connects us to ourselves, our friends and family, to people who know us and it creates new contacts, with some luck, maybe even far into the future.

This is why I encourage my kids to write and I am enjoying reading their stories. Here are their blogs:

• Lil Xuân Shine
• Lil Gui
• Tini Gui