FLIP + CHING

My Saturday – How Was Yours?

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Ching under Health, Life.

Brian was a good sport and went to the Party Hearty Zumbathon at Genesis East Central with me. Did I mention that he is the best Zumba hubby ever?

We were a little late to the Zumbathon because I insisted on going to Jenni’s 9 AM step class in Andover. It’s my absolute favorite group fitness class of all. So we arrived late and had to leave early too because of our dental appointment.

I wish we could have stuck around for the rest of the fun. Oh, well. We get to do it all over again today at Genesis West Central, so no biggie.

I wanted to stay for a couple more songs, but Brian just has to be early to everything. We arrived at the dental office 15 minutes early. Blech.

Above is a photo of Brian in the waiting lounge. Below is a photo of him in “the chair.”

We had a lot of fun with the dental hygienist, April.

I think we were her craziest patients of the day. Hopefully, the most entertaining also. I don’t know why people don’t like going to the dentist. It is so much fun!

This is Brian waiting in the corner when it was my turn in “the chair.” BTW, just between us (and the rest of the interweb), I think Brian was a little disappointed that his hot dentist Dr. Begnoche was off yesterday. Don’t get me wrong. Dr. Pierson is handsome too — but Dr. Begnoche “third degree burns” hot.

We had to swing by the leasing office to pick up my floral delivery on the way home. Brian was a little jealous at first, until he realized it was just from my boss. I guess he thought it was from one of my lovers or something. 😉

We had to come home and wash our clothes so we could wear them again today. I really wished that I’d have bought two of those Go Red AHA Party Hearty tank tops so I wouldn’t have to rush home and wash mine. I needed to give it enough time to air dry. Brian’s red shirt was fine in the dryer, but I didn’t want mine to shrink.

We barely had enough time to run errands (picked up a bottle of Datu Puti for Chad, since he liked it the last time he was over) and didn’t even have time to pick up the house before the Dills arrived. We didn’t have time to make anything so we just picked up some Papa Murphy’s. I tried their Chicken Bacon Artichoke pizza for the first time yesterday and really liked it.

We had several bottles of wine to go through and the pressure was on.

No, this is not Jay’s mukhasim face. We didn’t make him drink some of the Datu Puti. Although, that would have been really funny to see. Asking him to drink one of the wines achieved the same result.

I bet he was wishing that he picked a different bottle moments earlier.

Chad and Becca posed for a picture.

Before we started Machete, we were already three bottles in. That was probably a good thing because I don’t know of anyone who could have watched that movie sober. That’s two hours of my life that I’ll never be able to reclaim. LOL.

At the end of the evening, we wiped out about six bottles. Brian really liked the Hob Nob wine that Jay brought. Chad brought a Beringer moscato that I didn’t get to try, but he said that it tasted a lot like the Barefoot moscato that I’d been drinking.

We’d drank so much wine that by midnight, we were all really sleepy. LOL. After Chad and the Dills left, Brian and I realized how drunk we were and both agreed that we were glad we were already home. All we had to do was negotiate the stairs and make it to bed. So glad we didn’t have to drive anywhere!

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I Have the Best Boss Ever!

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Ching under Life.

I got a message from the leasing office today about a floral delivery that I needed to pick up. Brian was a little jealous at first. He didn’t know who the flowers were from and had all these crazy ideas in his head. I had no idea who the flowers were from either. I kept thinking that they probably had the wrong address.

When we got to the leasing office after our dental appointment, the first thing I did was read the card. I was totally curious. I wasn’t expecting flowers so I was dying to know who had sent them. It turns out the flowers are from my boss. Much to Brian’s relief.

Thanks, Ginger! You’re the best!

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Speaking of Speech Impediments…

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Ching under Confessions, Family, Life.

Remember how my biological father didn’t know that I had a speech impediment just like his when I was growing up? I can’t really blame him since he didn’t really know me well enough to know how much we had in common. He knew of my existence, but I didn’t know of his until I was about 11 or 12 years old. I didn’t actually get to meet him until I was 21, and we only spent a couple of weeks together. Not long enough to really get to know one another. And, I’d already lived in the US about five years when we met. I think moving to the US is what cured me.

Well… My speech impediment isn’t really cured. It’s just less evident. Somehow I don’t have much of a problem when I’m speaking English. It’s only apparent when I’m speaking Tagalog. Honestly, I would have completely forgotten about my speech impediment if things didn’t remind me of this flaw every now and then.

A lot of people don’t know of this flaw until I tell them. Actually, I don’t even think Brian knew until a few years ago when he was trying to learn how to speak Tagalog. He asked me to pronounce one of the words for him because he had trouble saying it. I read it to him, and then read it to him again because he looked confused. It didn’t seem like he was getting it so I had to say it a few times. Finally, he was like “Baby! There are no L’s in this word?!” So I had to explain to him that my R’s sound like L’s or W’s whenever I speak Tagalog.

I told him how I was tormented by all my friends and classmates growing up because of this. They would always make me say words that they knew I wasn’t capable of saying properly just so they could laugh at my expense. Para (which sounds like pawa when I say it) and araw (comes out as either awaw or alaw) were two words that I’d be asked to say frequently.

“Great! I’m learning to speak Tagalog from someone who has a speech impediment,” Brian said, a little frustrated. “I’m going to sound like a retard!”

“Trust me,” I told him. “If anyone makes fun of you when you’re speaking Tagalog, it won’t be because of your R’s. It’ll be because of the way you mispronounce everything else.” LOL.

Anyway, it’s just in Tagalog that I have a problem saying R’s. I don’t have the same issue with English words. I think that’s mostly how I’ve gotten by without people being aware of my speech impediment. That is, of course, until I tell them. When I’m inebriated I tend to overshare.

I found myself in such a situation that night we were at Stacy and Jeff’s for the sushi party a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure how we got into the subject of speech impediments, but I ended up sharing mine. I confessed it almost like I was at an AA meeting, “Hi, I’m Ching and I have a speech impediment.”

Well, not quite but sort of…

And then “Say something! Say something!” inevitably followed. I had flashbacks of my tormented childhood when I’d actually oblige my tormentors and say the words that they’d ask me to say. There was really no point in me saying some Tagalog words because none of them would know whether or not I was pronouncing the words correctly. However, since I’d put myself out there, I felt the need to explain.

The only way I can describe it is that many of the R’s in Tagalog sound a lot like the double R’s in Spanish. I cannot say those at all to save my life. So that’s how I described it to these folks I’d just recently met. They were like, “I can’t say the double R’s in Spanish either.”

So I was like, “Maybe you’d have a speech impediment too, if you had to speak Tagalog.” LOL. Maybe I’m just meant to be American. I do tend to fit in a little better here. Well, not really. Most of the time I don’t think I fit in anywhere. I do feel less out of place. At least, I don’t have a speech impediment in English!

Now, the accent… That’s something else altogether that I may never be able to overcome. LOL.