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.

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

Highlight of my Father’s Day was spending time with Đán, my second child. Despite the scorching heat, he wanted to go fishing. I had gone fishing in the past, but never paid attention to it. Fishing had never been my thing.

I would rather rollerblade than fish. With my gout flare up, however, skating was out of the question. I took Đán to the state park near our house. Neither of us knew how to assemble a fishing rod. I was grateful for YouTube.

We kicked back, drank Cherry Cokes, snacked on spicy Doritos, and pretended to fish. Obviously we didn’t catch any poor fish, thank goodness. We did, however, spend a few hours together. Đán and I alway have a complicated relationship.

I love all of my kids, but each in a different way. I worry about Đán the most. He had changed so drastically. Of course, kids change when they grow. Even though Đạo is 15 now, I can see him change over the years since the first day we brought him home from the hospital. I kept looking back at clips I filmed of Đán when he was five or six. Now he is completely different, his personality in particular.

He told me that I am being mean to him because of Xuân. In his mind, he always thinks I favor Xuân over him. When he became too verbally aggressive against his younger brothers, especially with Xuân, I stepped in. Both Đạo and Đán have more experience, more vocabulary, and more physical strength than their younger brothers. Naturally, when they picked on Xuân, he couldn’t defend himself yet.

In addition, I am tougher on Đán because he spends way too much time on his computer and doesn’t know how to stop. No matter how many times I explained to him the reasons for what I did, he never wanted to listen. I hope that when he grows older he will understand that my actions have always been fair and balanced.

What I am doing now might make him dislike or even hate me, but I am doing it because I love him way too much. I hope one day he will get it, but if he won’t, I won’t hold anything against him. I just have to do what a father supposed to do. It is my responsibility.

Today we put our differences aside and just enjoy each other’s company. I thanked him for spending Father’s Day with me. It meant a lot to me. I will never forget our time together.

I took all four boys to thee theater to watch Inside Out 2. I loved the first film, which released 9 years ago, and I was hoping that the sequel would be as good or better. I was not let down.

In the first film, Riley, the main character, had Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. As she hit puberty in the second, more characters showed up such as Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui (Boredom). Nostalgia showed up too, but they shooed her away.

I loved the ice hockey actions. The animations were well done. The story was also well-executed. The line that almost brought tears to my eyes when Joy said, “May Anxiety is right. As we get older, we feel less joy.”

A while ago Pooja Saxena reached out to me about a project she was working on. She was doing research “to document different models of handwriting that are taught to primary school students around the world.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t help her with that. I referred her to someone else. I am glad to see some information on handwriting education in Vietnamese.

A year ago, we licensed a commercial CMS ($21,500 annually) and a cloud server ($11,000 annually). We also paid almost $200,000 for the design, development, implementation, and migration. A year went by, the new website has gotten nowhere. Yet, we need to pay $32,500. This is super wasteful, but it is what happen when someone has no experience in web technologies take charge of the website. I have nothing to say. I just do my part and go with the flow.

It’s already been 12 days and my gout flare is only getting worse. I could barely walk yesterday. Last night, I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep. Aleve doesn’t do the trick any more. I am still limping around the whole day today. This is my worst gout flare yet.

I haven’t done any physical activities in the past 12 days. I am going to spend my weekend resting—both my foot and my mind. I can’t be stressed out anymore. There’s no point in putting myself under stress. Whatever happens let it happen. I can’t control anything.

I need to get over this gout flare. I also need to think about my lifestyle. The food I eat and the alcohol I drink. I am getting older now. I really need to take things easy. I will be much more careful in the winter. I can’t afford getting attack during the skiing/snowboarding season.

Làm Đĩ is a novel about prostitution written by Vũ Trọng Phụng. Although it was published in 1936, the book is still a refreshing read. Vũ Trọng Phụng was such a great writer who was ahead of his time. Even though I only read it in recent months, I loved the book so much that I decided to create a sample page to preserve it. For long-form reading, I chose Job Clarendon, by Bethany Heck and David Jonathan Ross. For headings, I selected Albula Pro, by Silvio Meier. For the book title, I wanted a whimsical vibe; therefore, I went with Mireille, by Anita Jürgeleit.