Hapless Hot Mess

Be forewarned: this is a completely insignificant post. But in the past 24 hours I have proven to be more of a helpless, hapless handful than I thought was possible, even for me, and I can't help but be a little amused at myself. Thank God I have Alice here to supervise.

Number 1. Last night, after a long, leisurely dinner with Alice, Sam and Thi Bay, I decided to attempt to make my own chili salt. Here in Vietnam it is common to eat fruit dipped in this delicious concoction - sounds bizarre but it is SO good. A lot of times you get a little packet when you buy fruit, but we had none on hand. Thinking the recipe to be pretty self-explanatory, I got after it. In my cooking naïveté I failed to realize that chilis can burn your skin as well as your mouth (duh). I don't know what I did while I was chopping them. Rubbed my hands all over my face and arms maybe? Because a mere five minutes later my hands and everything from the neck up was on fire. I tried everything you would normally do to stop the burning of spicy food - rubbed bread on my nose, soaked my nose in a glass of milk, Alice even suggested putting butter on it - nothing worked. So for the remainder of dinner I sat there holding huge ice cubes up to my face until it went numb. It was quite the picture. My hands and lips are still stinging a little today.

Number 2. This morning I made a complete fool of myself playing tennis with my friend Duy. Never again will I doubt the athletic prowess of the Vietnamese. In I marched, looking quite the part of the sporty American chick, ready to dominate. An hour later, I had lost 3 sets in only 18 games. I think I maybe won a total of 5 points. (Un)Fortunately for me, my tennis partner happens to be the only person I've met thus far in Vietnam who has mastered the art of sarcasm. "Julia, do you like the fence? Do you like the net?" Ha. Ha. Ha. Duy did ask me to be his doubles partner in an upcoming tournament. "It is a tournament for teachers. Lots of bad players, so, you can be my partner, yes?" Thanks, so flattered!

Number 3. This is the second time in a row this week that I have remembered that I need to take my malaria medicine, gotten out the bottle of pills, filled up a glass of water, continued eating lunch...and then come back 5 minutes later wondering whether or not I actually took the pill. Short term memory loss - it's a doozy. So today I counted my pills and figured out I accidentally double-dosed. Freaking out I debated between trying to make myself throw up and calling my dad in the middle of the night for his expert medical advice. I opted for the latter, and he reassured me I would be fine. Still unconvinced (because he was half-asleep when I talked to him), I wouldn't rest until Alice had verified this on several different medical websites. I'm happy to say that I have now survived an hour and a half beyond this unfortunate incident, so things are looking good...

I guess you win some days, you lose some days. Gold stars to Garabrant for putting up with my silliness. If it weren't for her I'd probably be curled up in the fetus position right now, clutching my chili-burnt face and bemoaning my doxycycline "overdose." Chao for now.