Bionic

BI ON IC

 - adjective
[1]  Utilizing electronic devices and mechanical parts to assist humans in performing difficult, dangerous, or intricate tasks, as by supplementing or duplicating parts of the body.
[2]  Having anatomical structures or physiological processes that are replaced or enhanced by electronic or mechanical components.

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On Wednesday April 27th at 13:45 in the afternoon, the lens containing a growing cataract in my right eye was chewed up, vacuumed out, and replaced by something called acrylic foldable iol (intraocular lens).  At ages 49 and 50, my dad was considered pretty young for cataract surgery.  I hold the record for being the youngest cataract patient my three anesthesiologists had ever seen.

My favorite part of the surgery was the doctor.  Doctors typically intimidate me, but Dr. Yen Dang Nieman is wonderful.  I like her because she's pretty and Vietnamese like my mom.  George probably likes her because she's a highly reputable surgeon.  The worst part of the entire affair was the brightness.  I felt "pressure" 3 times during the surgery, but that was nothing compared to the eye being dilated, taped open, and flooded with lights.  I saw bright blue and pink for most of the time, with a brief episode of white-lined muddy brown waves.  Really neat.

The next day, I was trying to help some little girls read piano music when I noticed blurry white areas in the right and lower periphery.  Immediately, I ran off to Dr. Nieman again, fearing the worst.  She dilated the eye, looked in, and explained that my collapsing vitreous was tugging on my retina.  So for everybody besides George or Liên, this means that there are pieces of gel inside my eyeball trying to pull out something very important.  Apparently, as long as I see "flashes," I needn't be alarmed.  However, the moment "floaters" appear, all hell breaks loose.

Right now my eyeball feels like a jellyfish, but every cloud has its silver lining.

Engagement

Sigh.  My baby sister got engaged a week ago.

I can't say I'm ecstatic.

Don't get me wrong.  Her betrothed is a pretty neat guy, and more importantly, he seems to treat her very well.  My reservations really have little to do with him.  I'm just not one of those big sisters who's in any sort of hurry for her baby sister to get... married.  I guess Liên, and the rest of the world for that matter, feel that it would be "nice" if I were more "supportive."  Well, sure.  I could probably summon up the attitude if Liên weren't beautiful, intelligent, interesting, blah, blah, blah.  Because then, in the best of all possible worlds, having a husband could be a step up from having nothing.

Sort of like, "You had nothing, but now you have a person who probably loves you and a societally accepted method of trying to make babies.  Congratulations."  You would think that with both of us being so headstrong, I wouldn't be such an awkward mother hen about it all.  But as long as I don't think she's gonna die an old lonesome maid or develop some weird self-esteem problem from not getting married by age fifty or whatever, I'm just in no rush.  Let me put it another way.

Here's a picture of her rudely failing to keep up with conversation.

Here's the two of us in an uncomfortable situation.  Those are pretty much all we talk about, and if we ever wrote up a book of memoirs, our selective memory would be prioritized by discomfort.  "Remember the time we were in the pool and suddenly an anonymous sibling was running around it really fast but naked?  And everybody else was staring?  And then Chi Ngọc couldn't catch up to him but kept running anyway and screaming in Vietnamese?"

This picture was taken the last time I was stronger than Liên.

What I'm trying to say is that we've been through a lot.  I know her.  It's not just another, "Happy engagement, ohmigod I'm so excited for you, you two are like the cutest couple ever."  It's a really big deal.

But in all fairness, I don't really have the right to go around shrieking, "Don't get married!  It's awful, I hate it!"  Not only would that be slightly inconsiderate to my sweet George, but I also got engaged at her age and never regretted it.  And just for the record, if being unsupportive can be considered a measure of sisterly love, then Liên loved me more than you would care to know a few years back.

Seriously though, if there's one thing I know about Liên, it's that she has the means and the guts to do whatever she wants.  I normally don't disagree with any of her decisions, and nobody ever stands in her way.  Now she wants to be with Bill - forever.  Bill, you are a lucky bastard.

Bill is a professional video editor.
Their friend Tom taped the proposal, and Bill made it into this.

N.B.  When Liên was thinking of how to propose,
her first reaction to the idea of asking Bill for a lifelong commitment
just moments before he plummeted 40 meters downwards was:

"Yeah, but Lan, what if that isn't scary enough?"

Nephews

George has two younger brothers.
The youngest is Zachary, who is married to Simone.  Zachary is a mathematician, and acts a little like my dad.  Simone and I met five years before I had ever even heard of George.  We teach at the same music school and share coffee almost every day.
The middle brother is Warren.  Warren and Christy live two hours away in Katy, TX, so we don't get to see them as often.  On November 1st of 2010, they had twin boys named Aiden and Andrew.  From Saturday to Sunday afternoon, George and I got the boys all to ourselves.

Additional notes:
This year, Austin has become a part of the "Play Me I'm Yours" project created by Luke Jerram in 2008.  As a result, we have 14 outdoor pianos available to the public.  The project has currently installed over 400 pianos around the world.  My good friends, Sarah and Emily, organized a get-together at the Travis County Jail, so we took the boys.  Emily, Aiden, and I sight read a few duets while Andrew stayed a little more out of the spotlight.

Aiden has the best baby hair I have ever seen, and likes to stare.

Andrew is referred to as "Meat" for good reason.

Children's Choir

There have always been a few redeeming qualities about going to church.  Well, mostly it's just music.  Once a blue hair gave me a hug and exclaimed, "You're worth going to church for!"  So anyway, it's not just me.

My family moved to Virginia and started attending Christ the Servant Lutheran at the end of 1988.  Liên and I started singing in the children's choir, which was directed by David Willis.  By the time I was going down the 4th-6th grade hallway of Terraset Elementary, we were way too grown up for a children's choir, so we quit.  We were cool.  Then suddenly we found ourselves highlighting parts for his hand bell choir.  You couldn't say no to David Willis.  Not because he was persuasive, not because you were interested, not because it was the right thing to do, but simply because you loved him.  By the time I was walking down the hallways of Oakton High as an overweight and insecure teenager, I was David Willis' sub.  Now that is what I call seriously cool.

David Willis holds a very special place in my heart, and has shaped me just as much as any of my piano teachers.  He died the morning of April 18, 2008.

Koenig Lane's humble six-piece choir (four of which belong to one family) and I did "Hymn of Promise" as the anthem yesterday morning, and I recorded it on my phone.  It was composed by Natalie Sleeth in 1985.  It's not my favorite composition, but Liên and I sang it for David Willis' choir 20 years ago.

Rest in peace.  I will never, ever, ever forget you.

Accompanying the recording are flowers from sweet George.

N.B.  George bought the red rose for me
and the white one for you on April 18th of this year.

1810-1849

"As this earth will suffocate me, I implore you to have my body opened so that I will not be buried alive."

Do you recognize the dates or very reasonable request of Frédéric Chopin?  I was probably about 14 when I realized that I enjoy what people unaffectionately refer to as "Classical Music," and it is to Chopin that I owe this opinion.  My loving teacher Betty Reed gave me a little volume called, "At the Piano With Chopin," and I immediately brought the cover into my art class to scratch his face into a piece of black coated paper with a knife.  Later, I realized that a photograph of him does exist, and that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to his other portraits.  Normally this would mortify me, but as I didn't have very many friends in high school, nobody really took notice.  Close one.

Back in the day, compact discs were just taking over tapes, and my mother bought me one of my first prized possessions - the box set of Rubinstein playing Chopin.  I listened to the waltzes particularly.  This waltz is from the very same book bearing a terribly inaccurate drawing on its cover.