Tonight. Dave had a flat after three loops, so I did one more by myself. He caught a ride with a passing motorbike – pulling his bike beside them. He SMS’d to say he’d gotten the flat repaired and was back on the road. In Vietnam, help is usually never too far away!

My mom and stepdad’s flight left Atlanta at 7:25am Thursday morning their time (7:25pm Thursday night Vietnam time). We pick them up at the airport tomorrow night at 11:00pm Friday night Vietnam time (11:00am Friday morning Atlanta time). So, anyway you slice it, it’s about a 27.5-hour trip for them. Will be weird to see them in Vietnam!

My bachelor party/stag party/whatever you want to call it is this Sunday night. My mom and stepdad will be leaving on Sunday to fly to Cambodia Sunday afternoon so I will be up for whatever that night. All I know so far is it involves bowling. An Indian food. And I imagine beer, although I haven’t been told that specifically yet.

Peace!

I just finished reading the book Drood by Dan Simmons. It’s about the last few years of Charles Dickens’ life – and is in particular a fictionalized version of the origins of Dickens’ last book, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which was not yet complete when he died. Kind of a horror/mystery novel, which is not my usual genre, but it was very well-written and I enjoyed it a lot.

It’s a bit long at 771 pages, and I thought it was a little repetitive in some parts with all of the comings and goings, etc., but I read it very quickly because I kept wanting to find out what happened next.

I remember when the book came out in 2007 and was well-reviewed then – I remember thinking about buying it and I may have even had it in my Amazon shopping cart for a while. But I didn’t buy it then for some reason and just happened to see a copy of it in a bookstore here recently and bought it.

Simmons wrote another book called Terror which is a fictionalized retelling of the doomed Franklin expedition in search of the northwest passage. That story was also fictionalized in The Rifles by William Vollmann, which I read not too long ago and found very interesting. (Franklin’s ship was named the HMS Terror.) I hope I will run across a copy of that one too – or maybe I’ll just break down and get a freaking Kindle, in which case I could just download it for $8 or whatever.

10 days until wedding. 2 days until my mom and stepdad arrive. Wow! This is really happening!

11 days to wedding. Must. Keep. Fat. Off.

It’s Monday morning here. Rode 30km more last night. Good ride.

Today is my off day. I need to go into school for a few hours to work on a draft exam and also to edit my slides for next week. I finished grading my class’ second midterm exam yesterday – much better results than on the first midterm. Maybe we made it too easy.

Went over 30km tonight – my bike computer wasn’t working at first so not sure exactly how far. Haven’t ridden in a while – had a strange rash on my legs that required an antibiotic cream and pills to get ride of, so didn’t want to ride while that was going on. Ah, the joys of living in a heavily-polluted, third-world, tropical country!

Felt good to be on the bike – I have been off of my diet recently too and I could see my face starting to fill back out. Don’t want to get fat right before I get married! (Will at least wait until after! Ha!)

Two more weeks = married. For realz.

On Thursday we went back out to Long An (Thao’s hometown) for what was hopefully our final step in the Vietnamese government’s marriage approval process. Two Thursdays ago was mental health check at the hospital. This past Thursday was strange meeting with government official at justice department.

We had an appointment for 1:30pm but, like most things here, it did not start on time. At about 2:00pm, I asked Thao to go up and ask what the holdup was. No answer. At 2:30pm, I went up myself to ask. No answer. We were later told that the man who was supposed to interview us at 1:30pm had “gone home for lunch and gotten drunk,” so they had to arrange for someone else to interview us. Nice.

The guy asked Thao a bunch of questions in Vietnamese about when and how we met, how long we’ve been together, why we wanted to get married, etc. Then he told Thao in Vietnamese that he was about to ask me some questions in English, and he needed me to answer his questions in English very slowly and clearly because his English was not very good. I said okay, then he turned to me and said, very slowly “Do you want to marry her?” And I said, also very slowly “Yes.”

He then turned to Thao and said in Vietnamese “Tell him he can’t just answer yes. He needs to explain himself so I can understand his thinking.”

He then asked me again, equally slowly “Do you want to marry her?” I’m thinking “This is a yes or no question dude. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.” So I said “Yes, she has been my girlfriend for two years. We love each other very much and are very happy together and want to get married. We have been planning on getting married for about 4 or 5 months.”

He then told Thao in Vietnamese to tell me to look at the clock on the wall behind him, which I did. And he asked me in English “What time is it?” I said “Ten minutes to 3,” at which point he turned around and looked at the clock. He then wrote some stuff down on a piece of paper, shook my hand and said we were approved. I don’t know what my being able to read a clock has to do with our getting approved to get married in Vietnam, but whatever. So thanks mom and dad for teaching me to tell time. Otherwise I might be single forever.

My mom and stepdad will be arriving in Vietnam next Friday night, the 18th. They’ve got a pretty full itinerary – two nights in Saigon, two nights in Siem Reap, Cambodia, two nights in Hoi An, Vietnam, Christmas Eve and Christmas in Saigon, our wedding ceremony in Long An on the 26th, and our wedding party in Saigon on the 27th. They fly back to the U.S. on the 28th. Should be a great trip for them! We are excited to have them here in Vietnam.

“I will remember your name and face on the day you are judged by the funhouse cast.”

“6.) Mindy Lawton. The 33-year-old pancake house waitress from Orlando claims she was dumped by Woods in 2007. According to the Post, it was her affair with Woods that was caught on camera by the National Enquirer, when he was snapped dropping her off at her trailer park.”