Well its Thanksgiving Day here in the ROK (or as my Korean friends call it “American Chusok”), so let me be the first to wish everyone a happy holiday.

This is the first Thanksgiving ever spent away from my family. And although I would rather be participating in those family traditions I treasure, I’m not going to sit here and lament all that I will be missing this year (I can almost smell that turkey in the oven). Instead, I will make a fruit salad, bake a pumpkin pie, and do my best to enjoy the festivities at Corine’s house this afternoon. She has family visiting, plus she has invited about 20 people to partake in the feast. So I will meet new people today, eat lots of good food, and focus on all the blessings in my life that I am often too quick to overlook.

Here are the things I am most thankful for this year:

My children, all of whom are adults now, each special and unique and well on their way to leading successful and happy lives. I don’t tell them often enough just how much I love them and how proud I am to be their father.

My beautiful granddaughter Gracyn. Someday I will make up for the lost time at the beginning of her life and will spoil her rotten. Sorry about that Mark and Renee, it’s what granddad’s do.

My parents, who are settled into a new home in South Carolina where I hope they are finding life easier. I know they are enjoying spending time with the grandchildren and their new great granddaughter.

I’m thankful that I am loved despite my many flaws and transgressions. I know I don’t make it easy to love me, and that makes me truly appreciate the perserverance required to overlook the bad qualities to see the good person I aspire to be.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to live in this fascinating country and to experience the joy of discovering the wonders of an ancient culture and its beautiful people.

I’m thankful for the new friends I have made and the old friendships I have managed to maintain. I include amongst them some people I have never met but through the power of the Internet reminded me that I am never alone. Thanks for being there with words of encouragement in my darkest days. The kindness of strangers is sweet indeed.

I’m thankful for all the brave soldiers who sacrafice so much to defend the nation that I love and to help bring the freedom we too often take for granted to the oppressed and forgotten people in this world.

I am thankful for my job which is challenging and satisfying and pays the bills. As corny as it may sound, I am truly honored to serve those who serve and I am glad to have this opporutnity to play a very small part in defending the freedom of the Korean people.

Yes, there is much to be thankful for on this day of thanks giving. I wish you all a blessed and happy day.

Well, I promised a post this weekend so here it is. Wish I had something new and exciting to report but I have really been leading a boring life lately. Anyway, here’s the scoop such as it is.

Today my pool team played in the first round of the end of season tourney. As usual, I sucked and lost three games. Since we only lost by one, I was the weak link. It really bums me out that I let the team down, but without me they forfeit, so I submit to the humiliation week in and week out.

I did run into my buddy Jeff at the bar and we came back to my place, made nachos and watched Team America. I’ve seen it several times now, but it was Jeff’s first. Still cracks me up.

Jeff will be leaving for good come February, and another good friend (Robert) left last week. I know it is part of the life here, but I am really going to miss them. Guess I need to start making some new buds, but that is not something I’m particularly good at. We’ll see.

I am mostly avoiding the bar scene these days. Which leaves me lots of time to myself. I’m not sure either lifestyle is particularly healthy. I’ve been feeling a little blue with the approaching holidays. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite, and it just won’t be much fun without family around. I will be spending the day at a gathering a coworker is having. Her daughter and son-in-law and a couple of grandkids, plus about 10 other lonely expats. I’ll be making my fruit salad and bringing a couple of pies.

No Christmas plans as yet. I would love to take a trip but I’m not sure that will work out. I’m eligible to catch a military flight on a space available basis, Maybe Guam would be nice. Actually, truth is I’m really tired of making plans that only include me. As good as my company is, I’m pretty bored with myself. And now I have shared that joy of boredom with this pathetic post. Alas.

So, I called this one transitions. I guess I’m feeling like I’m on the cusp of one. Seeing my friends heading back to the states, and realizing that I need to get my act together and make more of my life here will hopefully spur me to make some positive changes. Cause I’ve been a real loser lately.

What I tend to do when I get this way is shut the world out. Obviously, I have not been true to my blog, but far worse, I have not been writing home, not even acknowledging repeated emails. It has oft been said that we treat the ones we love worse than strangers. Hmm, maybe I should say that has oft been said to me. It is too true. I have a selfish side anyway, but when I get into this state of mind I feel like I am walking through a make believe world and I’m the only real person in it. It is really unfair and for those of you who have wondered what’s up with that, just let me say I’m sorry and it is nothing personal. I miss so many things and I have found a real f’d up way of dealing with it. So let’s hope for a smooth transition and a new and improved outlook on life.

And hopefully no more posts like this one, eh?

Ok, let me leave you with something I found strange here in Korea. A couple of weeks ago I was making a rare appearance at Sweet Caroline’s (yes, that’s right. Even when I do go out, I don’t hang there much. Too quiet, and when I’m out I want to be around people, even if I treat them like props). But I digress. So, I’m sitting at the bar minding my own business. There are a few people there. Some of the folks from GM Daewoo I had metbefore, and they seemed genuinely glad to see me, which was nice. And a table of Korean men, doing the Korean style thing where you buy the bottle and sit and get plastered. And from all appearances they had pretty much achieved that objective by the time I arrived.

So this Korean gentlemen comes up and starts trying to talk to me, but I’m not getting a lot of what he is saying. He gives me his business card (which I can’t read) but I smile and thank him. He leaves and comes back in a few minutes and tries to chat me up again. I am grinning stupidly, nodding and saying things like “yeah, good time” and “having fun”. He leaves and starts dancing with one of the GM execs, well, not with, more like “at”, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t exactly particpating, more like politely swaying from foot to foot. Then he comes over to me, and I swear I thought he was asking me to dance . Hey politeness only goes so far, right? I’m saying “no, I’m fine, just enjoying the music”. He persists, so I kinda just swivel my bar stool like I’m really into dancing while seated. He gives up and walks off.

Then the waitress comes over and says “Mr. (whatever the hell his name was) thinks you are a very intelligent American [hey, that’s what she said] and he and his friends want you to join them at their table”. She indicated it would be bad form to not have a drink with them. Damn, I do try hard to be respectful and lord knows us Yanks get blamed for everything wrong in the world already, last thing I wanted was to be tagged as a rude American. So, I sauntered on over.

I will preface what happened next by stating up front that I recognize there are some very real cultural differences in the way males interact here. It is very common for Korean men to walk down the street arm and arm and all that. Nothing wrong with it of course, but where I’m from men really don’t touch each other. I’m just sayin’.

So, I sit down with these four obviously drunk Koreans. I am able to discern that they are stock brokers from some city down south that I also don’t recall (I had quaffed a few brews, but I was not drunk by any means). So, they want me to put some of their Korean whiskey in a shot glass and do it in my beer, boilermaker style. I decline. I don’t like whiskey all that much, and I definitely don’t like it in my beer. Did that once and almost puked on some MPs as I raced to the bathroom (I think I blogged that, but I’m not going to look it up now). So, I finally agree to just down the shot, and they seem pleased with that effort.

So, we are sitting there “talking” (if talking includes none of us understanding much of what the other was saying, well, I guess the Koreans understood each other but they weren’t getting me anymore than I was getting them). And then the guy next to me starts touching my moustache. Ok, not many Korean men can or do grow them. And mine is rather bushy. So he is touching it and saying what I suppose was “nice moustache” in Korean. I push his hand away while thanking him “kamsamnida”. I take a pull off my beer, and damn if he didn’t start stroking the ‘stache again. Alright, I wasn’t too comfortable to begin with, but this was just a bit too bizarre. I thanked him again for the compliment, and moved over as far as I could without falling out of the booth. I guess he got the hint, because he didn’t try that again.

Since they had shared their whiskey and my beer glass was empty I bought a round of beers. It would have been rude not to, Koreans don’t do “Dutch treat”. Anyway, we do some toasts and the next thing I know the guy who was so intrigued by my moustache is stroking the top of my hand. Alright, that really freaked me out. I got up and asked the waitress “what’s up with this guy touching my hand, is that some gay thing?” She laughed and said “no, it just means he likes you”. I said, “yeah, that’s what has me worried”. I told her about the moustache incident and she said “don’t worry, they are just drunk and being friendly”. Well, I don’t really want to cause an international incident, but this is just taking the US-ROK alliance a little to far for me.

About this time, the GM folks were heading out and the drunk Korean with the business card had the female exec cornered. She is from Great Britain and is really funny and very kind. She was being very polite, but clearly wanted to get the hell outta there. So, I interrupted and said how nice it was to have seen her again and she gave me a hug, thanked me for rescuing her and made a beeline for the door. I also said my goodbyes, but it took me another ten minutes before I could escape my hosts. I had to promise to come to their hometown for a guided tour about ten times before I was able to flee the scene.

So, that was the only unusual thing I have encountered of late. And no, in case you are wondering, I don’t anticipate a transition to gayness or Korean style touching or whatever they hell that was, anytime soon. Not that there is anything wrong with it….

Well, the title to this post will surely bring some disappointed visitors doing a Google search. Trust me, the title is not a desparate attempt to generate hits on my near-dead blog. I have a funny story to tell about that word.

But first, about last night. It was pool league again. Three more losses. I really suck. That has nothing to do with sodomy BTW. I just can’t put a decent pool game together. The team captain gave me a pep talk, encouraged me not to give up, to relax and have a good time and all that. Well, I do enjoy playing pool. I just don’t like it in a competitive kind of way. If I didn’t suck, I would. But feeling like I am letting the team down while embarassing myself gets old real quick. I would have resigned but most weeks we have the minimum number of players and that makes quitting not really an option. So my self imposed nickname is “better than a forfeit”. Well, the team won the match despite my failings last night, so I guess that’s the important thing.

Part of the problem is that I don’t even practice any more. That’s because I have basically quit the bar scene. In my former life I rarely went out drinking, and I just don’t need to acquire any more bad habits at this late stage of my life. So these days I mostly stay at the house and play CIV III, watch TV, and fall asleep on the couch. Now you know why I haven’t been posting, when you ain’t doing anything of interest, there isn’t much of interest to write about. I’ve been trying to reacquire some passion for politics, but so far its just not happening.

I do have this story to tell from last night. We have a Korean woman on our team. She teaches English to middle school age kids. And she is working hard at improving her own English language skills. She actaully does quite well, but like most of the Koreans I’ve met, they disparage their own English speaking abilities. If I could only speak Korean half as well as the Koreans with “poor English” I would have a much easier life here. “June” (I don’t know her Korean name, if I asked I’ve forgotten it) is always working on her vocabulary and brings a notebook with words she is learning to the pool league every week. Between games she will ask us the pronunciation and meaning of the words on her list, which she then dutifully writes down in Hangul. Last nights words included “guise”, “excavation”, “fraternity”, “carte blanche” and several others I can’t recall at the moment. Me and a couple of the guys sitting at the table would use the word in a sentence, try and provide alterantive definitions, and explain when and how the word might be used. After awhile I got up to throw some darts, and June came up and said I have another word on my list and the guys at the table “couldn’t help her with it”. I said, ok, what’s the word? “Sodomy” (imagine it being said with a Korean accent). I just looked at her. The guy I was playing darts with cracked up and said “go ahead, John. Tell her”.

Her innocence was charming as she waited expectantly for my answer. And my reaction was funny. I am by no means a prude and I don’t think I have any sexual hang-ups, but geez, telling this sweet young woman about sodomy was not as easy as you might imagine. So I fumbled and stumbled, and she wasn’t quite getting it. So, I just described the act. She laughed and said, “oh, something homosexuals do”. I smiled and said yes, but not just homosexuals. And no, I did not give her the slang term for the act. She can find a boyfriend to do that. Anyway, when I mentioned the Biblical origins of the word, she was familiar with the story and we thankfully moved on to other words.

That was the highlight of my evening. Which says a lot more about my life than I might otherwise admit.