The best Christmas concert I ever saw

Not too long after I moved to America, a friend and I went to Lexington, Kentucky, one weekend looking for a surplus store. We parked our car and immediately got lost. While walking around we found ourselves walking past a long, long line outside Rupp Arena. We started asking people in the line where the surplus store was. No one knew but one guy suddenly turned to me and offered me a pair of tickets, saying, “here’s tickets for the concert. I have to go home, it’s an emergency.”

My friend tried to take the tickets but this guy would only hand them to me. In retrospect, I suspect he thought the concert would "blow my mind." Well, it did. "Back in the day" Anna looked like this. Needless to say, I had no idea who or what Pink Floyd was. The guy I was with made a big deal about the tickets, laughing and saying “you have no idea who this is or what's going on inside.” It was true that I didn’t know what I was in for, but I knew from the lines and the size of the arena that this was the biggest and easily the strangest crowd I had ever been in. 

Most shocking to me, even more so than being in the fifth row for a Pink Floyd concert, was the guy standing next to me. He was smoking marijuana throughout the entire concert! Being from Thailand I knew what marijuana was, but I didn’t know how openly it was smoked at Pink Floyd concerts.

I don’t remember the concert very well because the whole time I was watching I could not stop thinking about marijuana, especially because the guy next to me kept offering me some even though I wasn’t old enough to drink. For years afterwards I didn’t go to rock concerts because I thought I would get arrested and deported!

It was the loudest concert I’ve ever been to. It was also (inflation adjusted) the most expensive ticket I’ve ever used. I remember it as being a $100 ticket which, for a fifth row seat in 1987, sounds about right (further internet research confirms that it was the most expensive concert ticket of 1987). All I remember is that $100 was more than I made in a week working half-time as a lab assistant at the University of Kentucky.

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I told a friend about this concert that I finally realized what a big deal it was. How big a deal? The picture (below) is from the show I saw! In fact, Wikipedia has a long article about this tour, including a list of all the songs they played!  The concert was in early November of 1987, so it wasn’t really a Christmas concert, but I think of it as my best Christmas concert ever because it had the best Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. 

We never did find the surplus store.

Not a Christmas post

No, definitely not a Christmas post, but this made me laugh — a lot! I bet there is a very funny story behind that sign.

Yes, if a crew of hungry construction workers came in for lunch and all hit the buffet hard . . . then maybe we might lose some money. But even if they came in every day True Thai's buffet closes at 2 pm. Also, most construction workers only get half an hour for lunch so I think our bottom line is safe so long as we don't put any river prawn or scallops in the buffet!

The best gift I ever gave

I told you about the best gift I ever received in my last post. But not only was Ped's cooking the best gift I ever got, it was the gift that inspired me to give Amanda, one of our employees, the best gift I ever gave anyone.

Last winter, Amanda told me that she wanted to lose weight, just like I had done. So I signed her up with a fitness expert who counseled her about nutrition and helped her to do at least three cardio-intensive workouts a week. Please note that I said nutritional advice — not a diet! Trainers will tell you that the weight you lose while dieting is the weight that you will put right back on. What I learned and what Amanda found out was that the secret to weight loss is exercise, and the secret to keeping extra weight off is to eat the right kinds of food.

Amanda worked out faithfully and she lost sixty pounds in just six months! Because she changed the way she ate, the weight stayed off. Her mom told me that she went from wearing extra-large sizes to extra-small!

Ped's gift to me helped me to lose weight, and I passed it on to Amanda who has been coaching her friends on how to eat right. But best of all, Amanda's mom was working next to Ped when he cooked many of my special meals, and she learned from him how to cook healthy, nutritious meals.

The best Christmas gift I ever received

Someone asked me recently what was the best Christmas gift I had ever received. I knew the answer immediately. The best gift I ever got was not so much a thing as a service, but not a one-time service. I had just started working out and instead of a present, Ped promised me he would cook all of my evening meals in 2009, even on his days off. I don't know how good your math is, but for me 2009 was the year I got 365 presents.

This may not sound like a big deal to you. After all, Ped was already working in our kitchen so most days he was already at the restaurant when I showed up, but this was in fact a very big deal. Ped was happy that I was working out and trying to lose weight, so each meal he cooked was carefully selected to be healthy, delicious and OK with my diet. On his days off, Ped would come in to cook just that one meal for me.

It was such a great gift that Ped gave it to me again for Christmas in 2009, and then again in 2010. It was not just the best gift anyone ever gave me: it was the three best gifts I've ever gotten.

Yes, we have gift certificates!

We still have the pretty envelopes my sister Mem made to go with our True Thai gift certificates. The certificates are cleverly designed so that the "amount" is left blank, meaning you can spend as little or as much as you like! No matter how much or how little you spend, you get one handmade envelope with each card. We can also mail them out for you if you can give us the name and address of the recipient.

The best part about giving gift cards and gift certificates for Christmas? Think of all the money you save on wrapping paper!

FYI

Beady Eye loves loves loves our spring rolls. If you hurry, you can still catch them at First Avenue tonight. Or you can go to YouTube to see their latest video, The Roller.

Closed Thanksgiving Day

As usual, True Thai Restaurant will be closed on Thanksgiving day only. We will be keeping our regular hours on both Wednesday (Thanksgiving Eve?) and Black Friday. We hope you enjoy this holiday with your family and friends.

And remember — turkey is not indigenous to Thailand. True Thai is a year-round turkey-free zone. That's something to keep in mind when you look in your refrigerator this weekend for something to eat that doesn't have turkey in it.

Another thing to remember is that if you haven't visited True Thai in a while, there are seven (7!) new items on the menu for you to check out, all of which are guaranteed not to contain turkey (but there is tryptophan in our spinach and tofu dishes for people who like to nap after eating).

Looking ahead to Christmas

The fundraiser is over but we still have not opened the box that contains your donations to Ped's family. We are going to keep it at the restaurant until Christmas day, which is also Ped's birthday. So if you still would like to make a donation, the box will be at the restaurant.

We will then open it on Christmas when True Thai employees and Ped's family are going to gather to remember Ped and to open the donations box. I wish I could invite all of True Thai's and Ped's supporters to be with us, but this will be a family affair for Ped's family and coworkers. I'm sure you will all be with your families this Christmas day but if you have no place to go, talk to me and I'm sure we'll have room for you.

Our four-day fundraiser begins tonight!

Less than a few hours are left until the charity fundraising event for the family of Anousone "Ped" Phanthavong begins! Angel2Diva Boutique will be taking over the party room and will be offering designer jeans, shirts, purses and accessories for sale, with 20% of all sales going to the family.

If you are not into designer clothes, there will be envelopes and a box so you can still make a donation if you like. Anyone making a purchase or donation will get to try some free sesame ball appetizers.

The fundraiser begins tonight, Thursday, November 3, from 5 pm until 9 pm, and will continue each night through Sunday, November 6. We hope you can make it, and we hope you find something you like.

Confessions of a recovering sugar junkie

I thought I heard on the radio that today was Anti-Sugar Day. Since Halloween is tomorrow, that seemed to make sense to me but further research showed that the Internet has not heard of National Anti-Sugar Day, although there is a growing anti-sugar movement. The Internet instead says that tomorrow is National Candy Corn Day. I think the Internet is pro-sugar, especially since Friday was National Chocolate Day, this Friday is National Candy Day, Saturday is National Doughnut Day and Monday, November 7, is National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day.

I'm guessing the Bittersweet Chocolate day is to help Halloween candy junkies come down slowly.

I used to be a sugar junkie. I blame the Indians because they were the first to turn sugarcane juice into edible crystalline carbohydrates (i.e., sucrose, lactose and fructose).

When I was a sugar junkie, I would drink regular Coke (one ounce of sugar per bottle), and every meal was followed by dessert, usually pie or ice cream. I knew the best bakeries for cakes and pies, and, not surprisingly, I weighed half again as much as I do now.

I gave up sugar when I started working out. Ped was very good about cooking healthy meals for me with lots of protein, healthy fat and vegetables. (Hmm, sounds a lot like Thai cooking!) Eating right didn't make me lose weight, but eating right made sure that the weight I burned off through exercise stayed off.

Enjoy your Halloween week sugar binge, but when the sugar rush wears off, give some thought to restricting your sugar intake. The connection between excessive sugar intake and obesity, diabetes and other health problems is well established, but it takes will power to avoid getting too much sugar in your diet, especially since National Vanilla Cupcake, Indian Pudding, Spicy Hermit Cookie, Peanut Butter Fudge, Parfait, Cake, Bavarian Cream Pie, Chocolates, and Mousse Days are all coming up in November! (Trust me, you do not want to know about December's scheduled sugar.)

Undead posts!

No time to write a new post for Halloween, but here are links to past Halloween posts:

• Aaiiieeee!!!
• True Thai Halloween
• Halloween vs Loi Krathong

And if you think that's scary, I may rerun them again next year!

Add this to your calendars

True Thai is proud to be hosting a fundraiser for Anousone "Ped" Phanthavong's family. Here are some screenshots from the promotional flyer.

Angel 2 Diva Boutique will be donating 20% of their gross sales to the fund, and will have lots of designer clothes and accessories for sale but you don't have to buy anything — we will also be accepting donations!

We hope to see you the first weekend in November.