“I know that I have less to live than I have lived.
I feel like a child who was given a box of chocolates. He enjoys eating it, and when he sees that there is not much left, he starts to eat them with a special taste.
I have no time for endless lectures on public laws – nothing will change. And there is no desire to argue with fools who do not act according to their age. And there’s no time to battle the gray. I don’t attend meetings where egos are inflated and I can’t stand manipulators.
I am disturbed by envious people who try to vilify the most capable to grab their positions, talents and achievements.
I have too little time to discuss headlines – my soul is in a hurry.
Too few candies left in the box.
I’m interested in human people. People who laugh at their mistakes are those who are successful, who understand their calling and don’t hide from responsibility. Who defends human dignity and wants to be on the side of truth, justice, righteousness. This is what living is for.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of others. Who, through the blows of fate, was able to rise and maintain the softness of the soul.
Yes, I hustle, I hustle to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. I’ll eat all the candy I have left – they’ll taste better than the ones I already ate.
My goal is to reach the end in harmony with myself, my loved ones and my conscience.
I thought I had two lives, but it turned out to be only one, and it needs to be lived with dignity.”
Anthony hopkins
Easier said than done, but I’m down with making the best use of whatever time I have left. Here’s what I’ve been doing since I last posted here at LTG:
After I ate, it was time to get ready to feed the Hideaway girls. This week they desired something different–Korean style eats!
Ashley, the gal that’s been coming to the Hash, started her new job at The Green Room last night. So, after leaving Hideaway, I stopped in to buy her a welcome drink or two. It’s good to see her working again, she’s got a big family to support.
Ashley’s a nice enough gal, and I appreciate that she enjoys some of my favorite activities, like hiking and beer drinking. I have every intention of keeping her strictly in the friend zone.
I didn’t stay out late in deference to my tired old lungs. Went to bed early and woke up panting (I was alone, so not the good kind) at midnight. I registered 87 on my oximeter. I nebulized and went back to sleep. When I got up this morning I was 89. I nebulized again and walked the dogs. When I checked my blood oxygen level again, I was back to my “normal” 95. I’m not sure what’s going on with that.
In an overabundance of caution, I decided to confine my morning walk to the neighborhood. To make that effort a little more interesting, I took a photo of each house currently under construction here in Alta Vista. I had an uphill walk back to the house and I was breathing hard when I got home. Checked my oxy reading again and I was at 96. So, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation to my lack of lung capacity and blood oxygen levels. Weird.
Here’s those houses being built:
Shenandoah Bend (my street)
Everglades Drive:
Alta Vista Drive
Capitol Drive
So, that’s where things stand (and I’m still standing!). Nothing left to do now but carry on.
The sky is clearing and the night has cried enough The sun, he comes, the world to soften up Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but to carry on The fortunes of fables are able to sing the song Now witness the quickness with which we get along To sing the blues you've got to live the dues and carry on Carry on, love is coming, love is coming to us all
I just wrote you a long comment and ended up accidentally deleting it because I’m an idiot.
#8: This one is going up fast, construction just started a couple of months ago.
Spot the error!
Anyway, the walk looked good, as did the food (did you partake)?
Another commenter suggested deep breathing as a way to oxygenate your blood; I’m guessing that your walk required effort, which made you breathe more deeply, hence the better pulse-ox at the end. When you’re in Thailand, try walking around a lot, assuming the air quality is good.
Did you see all that shit about Canadian wildfires, and how that’s affecting the US east coast? Scary pics coming out of that part of the US. I’m worried for my brothers and my best buddy Mike.
Here’s what I’ve been doing since I last posted here at LTG:
You need to stop giving oxygen to your dogs. If you’re trying to make them float, you need helium. Which will also make them bark funny.
“Samgyupsal” is better than “samgyapsal,” at least. Ahem.
Deep breathing works for me. The smoke from Canada has been over Colorado Springs for several weeks, on and off. Not near as bad as NE
Lot of activity in your subdivision. Seems like there was a whole lot of nothing happening for a while. Are you tied to your current place for another year or are you looking? Maybe one of the new places is a rental?
Unfortunately, you definitely won’t have the same variety of walks in Pattaya that you currently have outside your doorstep. Air quality shouldn’t be too bad in Pats.
Edit to ask: What ended up happening to the house that you originally lived? Has it ever been rented out again?
Brian, my old place sat vacant for several months but is occupied again now.
I did renew my lease here for another year, but if I found the right place, I’d pay the price to break it. I’ve got some feelers out, so we’ll see. I’d jump on one of the new places but I doubt any will be a rental. What usually happens is a foreign owner has to return to the homeland and they rent during their absence. My former landlord developed the subdivision and built several houses as models–those are the ones he rents now.
I’ll settle for the change of scenery and beach walks. I’m also planning to participate in the Pattaya Hash, so we’ll see what that’s like.
Rascal, I hope you enjoy the fresh air back in Korea! 🙂
Kev, it looks like I joined two independent clauses with a comma. I should have used a semicolon.
I tried the beef dinner. It was just okay tasting, but for only 149 pesos per meal, I can’t really complain. The girls all seemed happy, and that’s what it is all about.
I had to go back and look at the post again to see what you were talking about regarding oxygen and the dogs. I see now that the tank was next to the dog’s food and water when I took the photo. Don’t worry; it is safely beside my bed now.
Regarding the ongoing samgyeopsal controversy, there are several outlets in my area, and only one uses the “correct” spelling. One of my readers emailed a comment that I’ll share here: “Just so you know – there are many places that spell it samgyupsal -mahout as many spell it that way as those who spell it the other way. I don’t consider it misspelled since it is a foreign language translation to English, and in those cases, there will be variations.”
One thing is for sure–grilled pork belly tastes much better in Korea than it does here.
re: samgyupsal
Without a doubt, there are places that spell it that way, but it’s not the official Korean government’s romanization. The problem with the “u” in “gyup” is that “u,” when used in this unofficial way, can represent either the “ooh” sound or the “uh” sound.
Lee Sun-hee (“uh”)
Admiral Yi Sun-shin (“ooh”)
So people can use the “u” if they want, but they’re assuming that the reader is going to fall back on the phonetics of American English. What if the reader isn’t American? Sure, you can argue that it’s not obvious how to pronounce “eo,” but at least it’s part of an official phonetic system. And in that system, “u” is only ever “ooh.”
What does “mahout” mean in this context? It can’t mean an elephant driver.
re: comma splice
Did you use Grammarly to help you figure out that error? Your suddenly fluent use of terminology like “independent clause” makes me suspicious! I’ve repeatedly asked you what a clause is, and you’ve never given an answer.
re: oxygen tank
When you said “oxygen tank,” I thought you meant one of those tiny ones that can fit inside a lunch pail. Even if the airlines did allow you to take that on the plane, I can understand not wanting to lug that monster around with you all over Thailand.
No, I have no idea regarding “mahout” meaning; just quoting the email. The writer lives in Cambodia, so it may mean something there.
I’m going to plead the 5th regarding Grammarly. As to clauses, other than Santa, I’d say that you have tried to teach me that the clause has a subject and a verb and that there may be multiple clauses in a sentence. Putting them together requires proper punctuation, which I frequently get wrong. Is that close?
@Kevin Kim
Your comment reminds me of the time our company travelled from Korea to China for our annual sales meeting. 100+ Koreans.
Day 1 arrive, Chinese Seafood dinner.
Day 2 Lunch, “Chinese food is not the same as Chinese food in Korea”
Day 2 Dinner, Korean Kimchi Chigae restaurant.
During the course of the dinner, many of the team were requesting extra packets of noodles; they took the noodles out and then used the empty packet to store kimchi in and took the noodles and kimchi back to the hotel. It was noticeable that breakfast was quieter on days 3 & 4 as most of them ate their Korean food haul in their rooms.
The excursion on day 5 included mountain climbing, a trip to some shops and then a foreign food restaurant.
The shops were a knock-off handbag store and golf store. Run by Koreans and even accepting Korean Won.
The foreign food was a North Korean restaurant!
re: clause
Close enough. But what distinguishes a dependent clause from an independent one?
Admittedly, clauses are a bit nettlesome because there are so many ways to classify them. Maybe after I finish my final post on commas, I’ll do a series on clauses. The basic classification that I’ve hammered on is dependent vs. independent, but you’ve also got noun clauses, adjective clauses, adverb clauses, relative clauses, restrictive clauses, nonrestrictive clauses, infinitive clauses, etc. It’s a mess, and for purposes of teaching better writing, I prefer to concentrate on just dependent/independent clauses because that’s where most people go wrong.