Life with the Two Crazy Dogs

Ai-yah brother and I met yesterday at Sambol Restaurant. My boss told me to take my time. Nice, huh? Before I left my work parking lot, I wondering what in the world am I gonna talk to him about - school, music, work and what else?

Got to the restaurant, a table and waited about 5 minutes and he showed up. When I saw him walked in, I waved to him, like I have met him before! It was spontaneous. We shook hands, and the first thing that came out his mouth was “It’s so cold. How can you live in this cold?” I find it funny. He had his snow cap on and his coat. As soon as we sat down, we started chatting till we got out of the restaurant.

Here I am worrying about what to talk about. Our conversations started from our father, father’s recent surgery, our lives - when we got to the States, cousins in Ipoh and US, relatives, his siblings, me, my schooling, work, his work as a consultant, and to the major subject - MUSIC. We spent at least an hour chatting about music. He gave me a CD on Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. He told me to expect music books from him. Yeeeeehah!! Boy, this guy is well educated in the subject of music. Being an engineer, he analyzes the pieces he plays. I don’t do that. The only thing I ever analyze is augmentation – change to a different key. We even talked about Bela Bartok’s Mikrokosmos – Bela Bartok’s method of piano teaching.

I thought I would be bored – but heck, no. I was so enthused by his excitement when he talks about his work, music and school. Of course, when we touched the subject on our own families, we were more cautious of what we were telling each other. It was weird that we hardly mentioned our mothers. It is actually kinda strange to even mention our mother in our conversations.

We were so engrossed in chatting, he was actually running late. The POS camera I brought along was long forgotten. When we got to our cars, he showed me his music notes and the books he uses to teach his neighbor’s kid. He mentioned he will be back in Minneapolis again and many more if the client accepts their proposal. We then said our goodbyes, shook hands again and wished him a safe flight home.

My impression of him in his emails was kinda snotty, however, meeting him in person, I was so wrong. When I told him the tab is on me, he told me the tradition is elder brothers or sisters always pay for the younger brothers and sisters. Huh?? I told him I have never heard of that. He said I don’t have to pay anything when I’m dining with him.

He kept telling me I should visit him in Boston. Hey, I have been to Boston once, and I like that city – it’s very old and historic. Who knows, one of these days I might take a few days off and fly over to Boston and feast on great seafood.

Overall the get-together was worthwhile. It’s definitely nice to put a face to the emails I have been receiving for 7 months.

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