Expanding my World......

This is the flag of Thailand. The center stripe of blue used to be red but was changed in 1917 as a show of support for the Allies in World War I. I am now volunteering as an "English conversation partner" for two students studying at the English Language Institute in Knoxville. Benjarat is from Thailand and Song is from South Korea. I haven't met Song yet (he was a no-show) but "Ben," as she told me I could call her, is a pretty Thai girl with a wonderful smile. She has been in the States for about a year but needs much improvement with her English in order to increase her TOEFL scores and be admitted as a student at UT. We're meeting at Panera but I may then scoot her to Starbucks across the street because I have $15 in gift card money there and, as usual, I am flat broke. I have taught myself the usual greeting one makes to another in Thai (sa wat dee, with the "dee" being drawn out in a mid-tone). Thai has 5 tones! So it is possible that one word has five different meanings depending on how you use the "tones." I'm hoping my obvious butchering of this greeting upon seeing Ben tonight will put her more at ease and we can jump in to some English conversation about her family.
Now that I'm educating myself more about Thailand, I can't get the song "One Night in Bangkok" out of my head! Unfortunately, it's not the only song of the '80's that's stuck in there.
Update: I met with both Ben and Song last night. We had an hour of conversation and I learned a lot about them. Ben is from Bangkok and Song is from Seoul. Ben is a female and Song is a male. :) I gave them a lift to the library after our session in my "big American car." ha ha I look forward to meeting them again next week. We worked on the "ch" sound and the "th" sound, both of which are difficult to master when you're not a native speaker of English so you can only imagine how difficult it is to make the "lth" sound, such as in the word "health." :)

Turning 45, I Think I'm Turning 45, I Really Think So!

This past Monday, the 19th, I celebrated my 45th trip around the Sun. Though I "turned" 45 on Monday, I am now four days into my 46th year of life. It was an interesting weekend prior to my birthday. Li-yin and I hiked all weekend in the Smokies and the 8 mile hike down (the Boulevard Trail) from Mt. LeConte was, for me, grueling. It seemed the last mile (which ended at Newfound Gap) was straight downhill and required stepping down many rocks and many rough-cut stairs dug into the earth. After hiking 13 miles in under 36 hours that last mile down was brutal. I didn’t want to go up. I didn’t want to go down. I just wanted to be able to shuffle along on FLAT ground. :) I did, however, make it to the end where Li-yin and I then hitched a ride down to the Alum Cave Bluffs parking lot where her car was parked. I have remarked on many occasions that I will never hike UP the Boulevard Trail to Mt. LeConte ever again (after doing that twice). Now, I can also say with fair certainty that I will never hike DOWN the Boulevard Trail again. But enough complaining about my out of shape body and the idiocy of hiking 15 miles in my shape. The beauty was in that Sunday evening. One of my friends, Frankie, decided that she wanted to make dinner Sunday evening for me and Li-yin since we would be tired from hiking. I reluctantly agreed even though I knew I would be dead tired and just want to go home, shower and get up close and personal with my den couch. Li-yin dropped me off and I took a hot shower and then drove the 2 blocks (yeah, I’m a wuss) to Li-yin, Hua and Tracy’s apartment where Frankie was cooking. My legs were hurting and my muscles were still trying out contortionist stances but the hot shower helped. I knocked on the door, being only a few minutes late. I heard scrambling going on inside and immediately realized what was taking place. A surprise dinner and party for me! :) There were all my international friends, all of whom have become very special to me over the last year: Tracy and her husband Hua, Li-yin, Nana, Frankie, and Jui-he. There was a HB balloon for me and a table full of delicious food, as you can see. Someone even remembered my remark long ago that red velvet cake is my favorite. :) After eating the delicious meal, the candles were lit and everyone sang Happy Birthday in English. Then I requested Mandarin and they sang in Mandarin. Nana then sang Happy Birthday to me solo in Georgian (being the only Georgian in the room). I blew all the candles out but they quickly started re-lighting one by one. I thought Hua was absolutely going to pass out from laughing so hard. He kept remarking, "That’s so funny, that’s so funny" and it was pure bliss to see such honest, fun laughter coming from everyone! :) I requested a cup of water and we finally made the candles go out. My friends gave me a rice cooker (which I’ve been wanting) and 2 beautiful Yankee candles (my favorite scent, honeydew melon) and Jui-he brought back from his recent trip to Taiwan a bag of delicious milk tea. They all signed a birthday card, writing special messages to me and signing their names in English and in their native languages. It was a wonderful evening and one that I won’t soon forget. The best present was, of course, sharing a meal with my friends and enjoying wonderful diverse conversation with them. Sometimes we laugh and joke and sometimes we solve the world’s problems but we always have a great time together. "Turning 45" turned out to be a positive, memorable event in my life. One I will cherish in years to come.

Lunch Observation

Bent over the table
he sat
head low
face emotionless
hands curled
one around pen
one around paper
twirling words
from his mind.

what secrets
I wondered
or simply
the grocery list.

And Lived to Tell About It......

This is Catawba Rhododendron. It grows at higher elevations (4500 and above) in the Smoky Mountains.

This is Sand Myrtle (and also some more rhododendron).

It's June 17th at 8:00 in the morning and we've just started out on the 5.5 mile Alum Cave Bluff Trail to Mt. LeConte. I warned Li-yin that I would huff and puff a lot. I warned her that once we hiked beyond the halfway mark I'd probably start whining about how I was tired of going UP. I even acted out what it means to "whine" so she would know what I meant. :) She wanted to hike anyway, so away we went. Making the halfway point, the bluffs, by 10:00 was great. The remainder of the hike, however, took 3.5 hours. We stopped a lot: "hey, look at this view," "hey, I need some water," "hey, I need to put on some chapstick," (okay, you don't really have to stop to do that but whatever). You get the picture. :) More later, LB

No Pain, No Gain....

At 6:00 tomorrow morning, Li-yin and I will set out for Mt. LeConte in the Smoky Mountains. We'll drive for 2 hours and then hike 5.5 miles up to Mt. LeConte Lodge. We'll stay in a cabin just like this one. We'll have dinner, watch the sunset, mingle with folks in the Lodge, enjoy the gas heat in the cabins (last night it was 40 degrees) while sleeping, rise, eat breakfast and then hike a separate 8 mile trail on our descent (one that intersects and combines for a short distance with the Appalachian Trail). There's no rain forecasted for the weekend. This is good. The views will be wonderful as always (I've been hiking Mt. LeConte once a year for nearly 20 years), the stars will light up the sky at night, and if we're lucky, we'll see a bear or two and some white-tailed deer. However.....I have just gotten beyond a bad cold, have been under a little stress with my son moving to Las Vegas, and I've had lots of extra work typing in the evenings. I'm not prepared for this hike and my muscles are going to proudly scream, "I told you so" when I wake up Monday morning (incidentally, my 45th birthday), and find that I now walk like an 90 year old! I am most definitely not looking forward to a hike for which I am physically unprepared. The joy, however, will be in taking someone up to Mt. LeConte for the first time and experiencing it all over again for the first time with them. Li-yin, from Taiwan, loves to hike and is very excited about this little adventure. I don't think she realizes just how slow I'll be hiking. :)

My Crooked Path....

I keep thinking of change and how much I'm craving that right now. I'm tired of my brain to mush boring job and I'm tired of the periods of time when I go home from work only to put in 3 more hours of typing at home. I really have no reason to be living in a big, old 4 bedroom house except that it was a dream to do so and I absolutely LOVE living there. I love the old mantles in nearly every room, the way the basement smells (there's still coal from the furnace days on the dirt floor in the corner) when I venture down there to wash clothes and the way the upper floor smells of one hundred year old wood because the air doesn't circulate as much up there. But I don't love the horrendous gas bills in the winter, the way only the first floor stays cool in the summer and the amount of upkeep necessary to keep the dust at bay (though, I must say, the dust doesn't really bother me anymore). I don't just want a change. I need a change. The least complicated right now will be to change households. The most complicated (but also the most exciting and most desired) will be to move to another State (or country). Perhaps I can get by, for now, with just moving across the street or something. I love my old house. I'll miss it. Moving into a smaller place will save money and force me to go through all my "things" and do another big culling. I go through my belongings every time I move (and I've moved a lot). So why do I seem to own the same amount of "stuff"? When to move, when to move...... If I want to take advantage of all the eclectic places in the Fort then it'll have to be by August, before the new and returning students arrive.
Are these thoughts a result of being tired, recovering from a cold, and completely bored at work? Quite possible. A result of turning (shhhhhhh) 45 next Monday? Nah. Age is not such a big deal to me and probably won't be until it starts getting in my way! ha
I'm going to start looking at different places to live. Preferably within walking distance of my present house. Would be much easier to move that way. :)

What a deal!

A friend of mine, knowing I would benefit from such knowledge, told me about some Vegas secrets when it comes to cheap eats. Those of you who have been to Vegas recently know that the days of the cheap buffets are gone (most start at $14.99 p/person) and I didn't see even one advertisement for a $3.99 prime rib dinner. However, there are still some great deals if you know about them or can take the time to look for them. You can still get a sundae dish full of shrimp and smothered in cocktail sauce for 99 cents at the Golden Gate casino on Fremont Street! An old player piano entertains while eating. After your fill of shrimp, head to the Golden Nugget and sign up for their rewards club and get $10.00 in free slot play. My son and I turned our free $20 of play into $27 cash and smiled as we walked out the front door. :) We then headed over to the Super 8 Motel on Koval (just behind the Venetian) which is connected to the Ellis Island casino and restaurant. Yes, folks, you can still enjoy a wonderful dinner of steak, baked potato, vegetable, bread AND salad for a mere $4.99. You may have to wait a few minutes to be seated (it's a popular place) but it's worth the wait and you can do what we did.....put $5.00 into the Wheel of Fortune quarter slot machine, turn it into $50 and then KEEP the $50.00! :) We ate at Ellis two nights in a row before decided we'd had enough beef. The next night we headed to Arizona Charlie's, another off Strip casino with a 24/7 restaurant serving an incredible breakfast for $2.49! Yes, that's eggs, a slab of ham the size of Texas, hashbrowns, and a homemade biscuit completely smothered in gravy (or toast, whichever you prefer)! Those of you who know me will know how big this breakfast/dinner was when I confess I couldn't even eat it all! ha And incidentally, when you sign up for the rewards club at Arizona Charlie's they allow you to play up to $100 on their slot machines and will reimburse you for your losings (one time only). We played some and then requested reimbursement, received it, and left. So you see, with a little research (or a knowledgeable friend) you can still eat well in Vegas for very little. :)
My son (who remains "jobless in Vegas") is renting a bedroom in the house above. His roommate is also Greek (as in fraternity) and a UNLV student. It's a great house in a great location near Henderson. Vegas is a desert town and water is certainly not abundant (unless you're a multi-million dollar casino with a water show or canals). So it makes sense that most folks have rocks for grass in their yards (is it a "yard" if there's no grass?). From someone who is definitely NOT a yard person....why doesn't this catch on in the fertile east? When I owned my home, my son (who inherited my dislike of yardwork) and I would argue over cutting the yard (I only had a push mower) and over whether one of us had cut exactly "half" of the yard or not! ha Rocks for grass. Makes sense to me!

A True Wonder.....

The one really good thing about driving from Knoxville, Tennessee to Las Vegas, Nevada (okay, maybe the ONLY really good thing) is the ability to hang a right for about an hour and view the Grand Canyon! :) Wow. What a beautiful, beautiful sight. It's far more than just a "big crack in the earth." My son, who has no fondness for heights, didn't like standing at the edge (despite the railings to prevent accidents) like I was doing to click off some shots. They say that due to changing weather conditions and the change in lighting, the views can change from hour to hour. I believe it. I would love to see the sun rise and the sun set at the Canyon. I would love to hike to the bottom and lie down flat, looking up at the sky and the canyon walls. I'd love to raft the Colorado for a solid week, sleeping in tents and cooking by open fire. And when I do these things, I want to get there by flying! :)

Finder's Keeper's

I've always picked up found money. Yes, even the pennies and with no superstitions regarding whether it's heads or tails. Since I moved into the old house, however, I have been stacking up my found money on the dining room mantle. I have enough to buy a Sunday newspaper. And there's even a Chinese coin next to the quarter that I found in, yep, China. Why do I keep found money? No reason, really.....

Quirky Kicks on the 66

When I saw the Cadillac Ranch I had to beg my son (who was driving) to stop so I could take a picture! :) After all, he had refused to stop about a hour back when we passed "the largest cross in the western hemisphere" and I had to take a pic from the car! Yep, the western hemisphere! So I hurried out to the caddies to snap a few. See the Cadillac Ranch on Route 66. Check. (and it wasn't even on the list)
Taken from http://www.legendsofamerica.com/:
In 1973, Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh invited a San Francisco artists’ collective called the Ant Farm to help him in the creation of a unique work of art for his sprawling ranch just west of Amarillo. The group set about acquiring ten used Cadillacs, ranging in model years from 1948 to 1963. Built along the tattered remains of historic Route 66, the cars were meant to represent the “Golden Age” of American automobiles. Most of the cars were purchased from junk yards, and averaged about $200. The cars were then buried nose-down, facing west along the old highway. Those that could run, were driven into the half-burial holes, the rest were hoisted in. In 1974 the project was completed and in no time at all, visitors began to come from all over the world, leaving their mark on the ever-thickening graffiti covered cars. At first, the cars displayed their original paint jobs – turquoise, banana yellow, gold, and sky blue, but barely was the monument complete, when people were scratching or painting their names in the cars. Over time, vandals and souvenir hounds smashed the windows, made off with all the chrome, radios, speakers and even some of the doors. The wheels have since been welded to the axles to prevent more theft. However, Marsh still says “We think it looks better every year.”