SAIGON
I am trying and trying to get more pictures uploaded but there are public computer problems and hence, you're just going to have to live with what's already up. I'm simply busy with lunches and dinners and meetings in between till Sunday which is when I've set aside some time for myself to pack up one year's worth of living overseas. I've got a 70kg weight limit to fit in two packages. Somehow I've got to fit everyone's gifts and everything I own into two boxes. Otherwise, no gifts for you!

Tuesday is a BIG TET dinner at Di 10's house. Big. Family, family, family. Uncle 2, aunt 5, mom (who is #6), aunt 8, 9, 10, and Uncle Tony will all be there with spouses, children and grandchildren. Seven out of the 10 kids in mom's family will be together with their mom for Tet.

It's my parents' first new year's apart from each other since they've been married. Every year, shortly before midnight of the lunar new year, they leave the house to take a short walk around the neighborhood and come back in to "dap doc" together at midnight. It's a Vietnamese tradition where you are the first to enter your home, and with your step, you bring your happiness, prosperity, and fortune into your home. It's very important who your first guest of the year is, and this year, Dad's gonna be by himself, poor guy. Maybe one of my siblings should visit, and of all of us, it should be Lobo who just got a 100% raise and grand holiday cash bonus to pass his prosperous luck on to mom and dad.

As yet, my dear friend Mitch has suggested that I become a museum docent and Albert, equally as dear to me, has suggested I work for a fellow in Paris. Any more ideas? I'm eating 'em up.
All this talk about work. I need a nap.