"Fabulous" Las Vegas

I'm glad Jay Leno is not just fading into the sunset the way Johnny Carson did years ago, when he stepped aside to make way for Leno in the Tonight Show. I caught the TV ad for the new Leno prime time show that will debut next month. It was classic Leno.

Jay Leno is pretending to be a TV moderator asking contestants softball questions.

Jay asks: "Who lives in the Vatican?"

One of the contestants hits the buzzer first and answers: "Vatican-ites!"

"Wrong," Jay says, "I'll give you a hint. He wears a big hat"

Another contestant hits the buzzer first. "Abraham Lincoln," she shouts.

Jay is noted for his walkabouts, when he stands on a street corner in Los Angeles and interviews willing passersby. Some of the answers he gets are hilarious. He once asked a college student in LA when in world history was the ancient times. The reply he got from the college student was, "the 18th century."

Jay Leno's walkabouts are nearly as hysterical as the Philippine reality TV shows where the hosts ask simple, everyday questions of contestants in "Let's Make a Deal" copycat shows.

The host of one such Philippine show asked a woman contestant what she puts on her husband's eggs in the morning. She answered: "baby powder."

We all know what the educational standards are in the Philippines, but not everyone is aware how the educational standards in the U. S. have taken a straight-down nosedive over the last few decades. And nothing could have prepared us for the cover story of a recent Time Magazine issue. The cover is a shot of Las Vegas' iconic welcome sign, "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas," but the city's name is spelled "Less Vegas." The article in the inside pages is called, "Less Vegas."

The story was written by no less than the crackerjack Time writer Joel Stein, which automatically ranks the story in the pantheon of the Unbelievables. "What was Joel thinking?" I heard myself ask myself.

And that real estate agent, Ms. Boemio, why would she own up to doing unethical and illegal acts on the pages of any publication, let alone Time Magazine? For those who have not read "Less Vegas," Joel Stein writes that he and Ms. Boemio both broke into a bank-foreclosed house to see for themselves the extent of the damage to the house that previous squatting "occupants" had wrought.

There's a law against breaking and entering in this country, including in Las Vegas. It's considered a crime. So what was Joel Stein thinking writing about he and Ms. Boemio doing just that? How dumb could they both be?

And then there's Ms.Boemio's admission that she advises her customers to stop paying their mortgages on their underwater homes - properties that have mortgage balances that are more than the properties are worth. She further advices that her customers buy a foreclosed house on the cheap, move to the new house and let the old house go into foreclosure.

The customer's credit record is ruined, but at least the homeowner owns a house with a positive equity and a significant upside.

There may not be a law against Ms. Boemio - a real estate agent - advising her customers to stop making payments on those customers' upside-down properties, but it is clearly unethical. At least according to other real estate professionals in Las Vegas.

Ms. Boemio has been fired by her employer, is under investigation for alleged unethical practices and the Clark County prosecutor's office is looking into possible breaking and entering charges.

Because of Joel Stein's story, Ms. Boemio's career in real estate is over and she may soon be a defendant in a criminal case. Joel Stein may be subpoenaed as a witness and may in fact face charges himself.

What was Joel Stein thinking? Did he not know that he had a responsibility to protect sources of his stories? Even in cases where his source is not asking deep cover, he should have provided that cover.

In the old days, when Americans were still the smartest people on earth, no American journalist would have fumbled the ball the way Joel Stein clearly did. This is clearly a blunder bigger than chess masters commit when they are under intense pressure.

As a Vegan, I did not like the Time Magazine story, which seemingly predicts an impending monumental collapse of the city of Las Vegas and the danger that it will take decades before the city recovers - if it does recover.

I am half-amused, half-irritated by the cover of that Time issue - Welcome to Fabulous Less Vegas - which reminds me of one of the yuks that the old radio show Imus in the Morning got when a guest pointed out that army recruiters are worried about their male recruits whose favorite expression is "fabulous."

The Imus guest was talking about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the military towards gay men who were entering the Army. The Imus guest asked rhetorically, "If you are a recruiter for the Army and you ask the young man who is enlisting how his day has been and he answers, 'Fabulous' what would you do?"

Imus and his staff burst out laughing.

A great man has passed. I watched the Kennedy wake and Catholic Mass ceremonies last night and this morning and was amazed at how highly Americans think of the late Ted Kennedy. I knew that Ted was a great man, what I did not figure on hearing was that he may have been the greatest U.S. senator ever. His name is on more than 500 bills passed by the U.S. Senate and more than 1000 bills that became law had his imprint on them. He is being compared to the great Senator Daniel Webster, and when told of the comparison, Ted was said to have quipped, "Why, what did Daniel Webster accomplish?"

Most Filipinos owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Ted, as he was the author of the Immigration Department's policy of giving preference to "family reunification" cases for granting immigrant visas. It was the "family reunification" Kennedy mandate that allowed parents and unmarried siblings to follow those Filipinos who had managed to become immigrants in the U.S. In my case, I was able to bring my parents, three unmarried siblings and one married brother and his family to the U.S. after I became a citizen in 1974.

She Finally Kicked Cesar out of the House

In South Orange, New Jersey we used to have a spring cleaning day when residents could put out all their household discards on the berm and the town would pick them all up and send them away to trash collection centers. Every year, on the night before pickup day in the Spring, our berm was overflowing with discarded toys, broken furniture, appliances and other odds and ends that my first wife and I had decided we no longer needed.

On one such night before pickup day, my brother, his wife and sister-in-law came to our house to return a station wagon that my brother had borrowed from me.

On seeing the pile of discarded household items, my brother exclaimed: "Oh no, she finally kicked Cesar out."

My first wife and I were the least likely people to ever get married. We were exact opposites in most things, the only commonality was our love for literature. But even on that we eventually diverged. She continued to read voraciously, while I stopped reading. It was therefore just a matter of time before she would kick me out of the house and eventually out of her life.

I've been trying to go back to a comfort zone that I had left more than forty years ago when I immigrated from the Philippines to the U.S. At first I thought it would be easy, since my childhood friends still looked the same - only a little older - and seemingly welcoming me with open arms.

But much has changed over the years. I'm no longer the same guy who left long ago, and no matter how hard I try to fit in, I'm just not like my friends anymore.

I am passionate about my politics, am a liberal-progressive now to the core. Shortly after my graduation from high school, my father lost his fortune to politics - dirty politics - and for a few years I knew what it was like to have a father who was broke and to be poor. I am therefore attracted to the causes that help the poor, the downtrodden, especially here in America, and most of such people are usually either African-American or Hispanic.

It has made no difference how much I earn, I have always identified with the teeming masses, the "milling, moiling miasma" of the underclass. (The phrase in quotes is a borrowed phrase from a campus friend I admired when we were both in college at La Salle in the Philippines.)

I am perfectly happy in the U.S. There is a place for me here. There are tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of Americans who similarly passionately pursue the goal of helping minorities and the downtrodden lift themselves up by the bootstraps. There's the billionaire George Soros and MoveOn.Org. There's the Clintons, Al Gore, Bill Gates, Barbara Streisand. There's the Brangelina tandem. There are celebrities galore who are devoting a good chunk of their leisure time to helping the disadvantaged.

When I take that same passion for the underclass to my birth country and to the friends I left behind and who would be my social circle if I finally decide to pull the trigger on my Philippine retirement, all I get are blank stares. My friends, who are very much a part of the elite in the Philippines, cannot understand why I care more about the downtrodden than about their feelings.

In a country that runs on the culture of exploitation of the masses, it is very difficult to find among the elite the same passion for proletariat politics that we liberals in the U.S. eat, drink and breathe.

While my friends have not changed over the past forty years, I am already light years away from them. As members of the elite - the ruling class - in the Philippines, my friends are partly responsible for the status quo. I don't think that they have consciously contributed to the problems that beset the Philippines, in fact they probably have genuinely struggled to be at one time or another a part of the solution.

But the Philippines is a basket case. At some point one has to decide: do I continue to knock my head against that immovable object, or do I give in and achieve an accommodation? The question is moot, because most of my childhood friends are retired. At 10 p.m. they are getting ready to go to bed. They have grandchildren who remind them every day that they are old. In a culture that accords the greatest respect to older people, they feel comfortable in being old.

In the U.S. where everybody wants to stay young, you feel good if you go through life without any major medical issues and can still do what young people do. People here respect you more if you constantly defy the aging process. and not give in.

On a personal basis, my friends are still my friends. We are friends forever. But we are very different now. I still feel that my greatest work is ahead of me. I am trying to make a difference not only in the U.S. - which is my home now - but also in the Philippines, which I feel needs my help.

Most of my friends are just retired, or about to retire, and enjoying their golden years.

Talk about my wife putting me out along with the discarded household items on the berm. Recently I tried to post a message to my high school Internet group. It would not accept my post and when I checked, yahoogroups told me that I was not a member of the group.

They finally kicked me out of the house.

It was like going to a Thanksgiving dinner and finding out you had to eat in the porch and not at the dining room table with everybody else.

It was only a matter of time before my friends would decide that I can no longer be one of them, at least not with my noisy and peace-shattering politics and worldview, which drive me every day of my life and which drives some of them crazy.

It was only a matter of time before my friends would say enough is enough, we don't want to hear your opinions, we don't care what you think - and shut me up.

I want to change my world, they are happy and content with their world. And none of them want to hear about the health care reform in the U.S., the debate that is currently raging in my new home country. None of them want to hear that the Philippines sits on a social powder keg.

There are two images about Home that readily come to mind. There's Michael Buble's beloved hometown in the song "Home." And then there's Thomas Wolfe's Home in "You can't go home again."

When Adam Takes a Bite off Eve's Apple

I love taking long drives with my son. That's when I find out how much he knows about life. I realized this week that my son really doesn't know anything about sex. Zilch. Nada.

"Why are people mad when two gay people live together, dad?" he asked me on our way home from San Diego. Paul sometimes sneaks up behind me while I'm watching MSNBC and CNN, so he is aware of all the political issues being discussed on TV.

My wife had to cut short her vacation with us in San Diego because she had to be back at the office. I had to drive the car back - 330 miles - from San Diego to Las Vegas, with Paul yakking it up behind me all through the trip, except when he decided to take a power nap sprawled on the back seat with his mouth wide open.

"Because it's unnatural for two people of the same sex to live together, Paul," I replied.

"Why? They're just living together," he retorted.

"I'll be darned," I thought to myself, "when should I tell Paul about the birds and the bees? When do I explain to him why he has a penis and why it's always hard in the morning?" My wife thinks that ten is too young, that we should wait until he's older. How much older?

I can't wait to tell my son about girls. He still hates girls, though I'm quite sure that there's a stirring there somewhere. My wife and I often catch him playing with his thing in the morning while watching Cartoon Network. Once he asked us why his penis was hard in the mornings.

His favorite show on Cartoon Network is "iCarly." In fact, he has to make sure that he is home at 8 p.m. on Saturdays so he can watch "iCarly."

"Do you like Carly, Paul" I asked him last Saturday.

He looked at me with that half-threatening smile and the next thing I knew I got a punch on my right triceps. That stung. God, this little guy can punch. In his mind, he has already warned me against teasing him about girls so every time I tease him I get smacked once. Lately, his punches have started to sting.

Is there an advantage in early learning about the role sex plays in the relationship between the sexes?

In my case, my parents never had to sit me down and explain to me why boys and girls are built differently.

I must have been six, going on seven, when I walked down the staircase of the two-story home that my parents rented in Pasay City, the Philippines. As I came down the last few steps, the maids - I vaguely remember that we had two maids at the time - were standing next to the kitchen stove and shushing me. They half-whispered, "Nag pa-pam-pam." (They're doing the pam-pam thing.)

I didn't know what "pam-pam" meant. Hell, I was only six.

The maids quietly motioned me to the front end of what must have been the living room. Beyond the living room, in the front part of the house, was a room that my parents had rented to a couple. I had no concept of how old people were; to me, they were just adults. The man, whom I had never before seen, was an officer in the Philippine Army. It was right after the Second World War and there were mopping up operations against the Japanese stragglers in the Philippines. The man was always away on missions.

I saw that my older brother was already peering through a hole in the wall of the bedroom. I nudged my brother aside and took a look. There was another hole in the wall, so he just slid towards that other hole.

I saw the man on top of his wife and they were going at it violently, in rhythm.

That, my friends, was the start of my sex education.

Years later, I figured out why people in the Philippines referred to the act as "pam-pam." It was an allusion to the "pom-pom" girls who with their wide open arms and legs welcomed the GI Joes who had liberated the Philippines from the Japanese.

I often wonder if I should sit Paul down already and have that all-important chat with him. Some of the kids in his Track and Field club obviously know about sex already. One of the sub-bantam boys (six to eight years old) was horsing around on the team bus with one of the older teammates when he made a hole out of his left thumb and index finger. He then thrust his right middle finger into the hole he created, kept thrusting and laughed hard.

There are girls on that track team and they were on the team bus with us, so I guessed that the seven-year-old kid was talking about what he would do to one of the girls.

My son saw what the seven-year-old did but had no reaction.

This is a conundrum. Should I teach my son about sex? Should I wait until he gets sex education through his school? I want to sit him down soon because I am impatient for him to emerge from that stage where all boys hate girls (he'll be eleven in January), but my wife is terrified at the prospect of him knowing about his sexuality. I tell my wife that Paul might fall in with the wrong crowd and learn about sex the wrong way. She said, "what are you worried about? You're his nanny. You know everything that happens to him 24/7." Good point.

I think she wants him to lose his innocence at a much later age than his peers so he can enjoy his childhood longer. And she wants to hang on to him as her little son for as long as she can. But, he's starting to rebel. When she calls the house and Paul picks up, Paul can't wait to put down the phone and go back to his video game. I don't exactly approve of video games being the focus of his life, but at least he is now asserting that his life is separate from his parents'. That's a good sign.

Oh, by the way, about San Diego. It was actually my wife's first choice as our destination city after we sold our house in South Orange, New Jersey in 2007. There were very few houses for rent in San Diego at the time and the houses for sale were way overpriced. Las Vegas was our second choice. We moved to Las Vegas because there were lots of rentals and the houses were already starting to come down in price.

We knew that in another year, we could snap up a nice bargain in Las Vegas.

My wife and I both loved San Diego. We loved the harbor, the many sailboats and speedboats that lay in anchor in the Bay. We loved the beach on Coronado island, the world famous Imperial Beach right next to the Hotel del Coronado. Paul absolutely loved the beach. He didn't mind the cool water - kids love the cold surf that adults simply can't stand - and I had to pry him loose. He would have stayed in the water all day if I didn't insist that he came out.

Sea World is unbelievable - especially the night shows. If you're in San Diego, you must go to Sea World. The Zoo is great for the kids, but it's brutal on old folks' legs and knees. Thank God for the escalators in the middle of the trees, or how else could old folks get back up after going down the rolling hills of the San Diego Zoo?

We took in a tour of San Diego and Coronado Island on the Old Town tourist bus and squeezed in a trip to Legoland in Carlsbad, 30 miles north of San Diego. I slept on a bench in Legoland while Paul and his mom were two kids exploring and going on rides.

It was in the low 80s during the day and in the 70s at night. I caught the TV at the lobby as we were walking back to our hotel room. The weatherman mentioned in glee: "It was 112 degrees this afternoon in Vegas, folks."

More Embarrassing Moments

I got a few calls telling me that the post titled "Ten Most Embarrassing Moments in Cesar Lumba's Life" was hilarious. One of the callers was my friend, Ben Pangilinan from New Jersey, who said he thought my wife Paulita is an even better writer than me and writes funnier stories.

My sister-in-law asked why my stay in a New Jersey hospital in 1989 was not included in the all-time best. I told her that it was originally on the list but I edited it out. I also edited out a portion of my wife's original post, which I felt might gross some readers out.

"But you took away the punchline," she said. "That was the part that really made you look hysterical."

Because of these developments, I have revisited the Ten Most Embarrassing and am putting back the sections that I removed from the original and adding an 11th embarrassing moment, which would have been one of the ten. Since there were only ten in the original, one of those that were in the published version must not have been in the original, right? You are correct. The tenth most embarrassing - the one about me as a 13 year old blowing a bubble out of my nostril - was not in the original list made up by Paulita.

The section that was edited out of Paulita's submission (from I've Got You Under My Skin):

(Background: I sang Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin" in front of about 300 people, mainly alumni of De La Salle University in Manila, and found out after I stopped singing that I had sung out of sync with the background music. I had already stopped singing but the music was still going.)

That night, Cesar went to bed still depressed about his performance on stage. He had a hard time falling asleep, while I was out as soon as I closed my eyes. I was tired.

I woke up in the middle of the night and saw Cesar sitting on the bed, apparently having awakened from a nightmare. He was screaming: "Nakakahiya! Hindi na ako kakanta uli sa stage." (It was humiliating, I'm not going to ever sing on stage again.)

During the next two weeks, he woke up in the middle of the night at least three times with the same resolution. Never again, he would say, never again would he sing on stage, especially when he could not hear the melody.

I told him he should forget about I've Got You Under My Skin. "I'm sure people have forgotten about that already."

I noticed, though, occasionally he would make that smacking noise with his lips, something that he does when he remembers a faux pas or something that he finds embarrassing.

More times than not, I am correct when I say, "you remembered 'I've Got You Under My Skin' again."

11, was originally 10. The bullet-riddled briefs. One evening in 1989, Cesar was looking for briefs to wear after his shower. Most of his briefs were in the wash, so I handed him a pair of briefs that he was no longer wearing because they were full of bullet holes.

I said, "Why don't you wear these, since you are going to bed anyway and nobody will see you wearing them." So he put on those briefs.

That night, he suffered his first atrial fibrillation episode. His heart was beating fast and irregularly. I rushed him to a hospital emergency room.

He was given some medication to put his heart back in rhythm and a Xanax to calm him down. After a couple of hours, his heart went back into sinus (normal) rhythm. A pretty, young Filipina nurse went into his room to check him out, to make sure that he had had no heart attack, or swollen feet, etc.

The nurse asked him to lift his right leg. Cesar was wide awake already and he remembered that he was wearing the briefs that I had handed over to him. Cesar looked at me, his face clearly showing embarrassment. He rolled to his side and lifted his leg. Meanwhile, with his two hands he was covering his crotch. The nurse examined his right leg, laid it down gently and said, "Now let's see your left leg."

The nurse was already in on the farce. She had seen that Cesar's briefs was shot full of holes and was good-naturedly needling him.

Cesar squirmed and laid on his right side, lifting his left leg for the nurse to see. The nurse was openly laughing, so was I, and Cesar lay there with a quizzical smile on his face.

After the nurse left, Cesar turned to me and said, "Hayop ka, bakit mo ipinasuot sa akin yung sira-sira kong briefs." (You animal, why did you make me wear these tattered briefs?)

I will be on vacation for a week and won't be able to acknowledge your comments if you send them by email. If you wish to comment on this or any other post, please make your comments here on the blog itself. Don't email me, or call me.

I hope you agree with Paulita that if I had included the sections I had edited out of her post, the Ten Most Embarrassing post would have been funnier.

Face to face with the horrors of the U.S. health care system

"I think I have the swine flu, " I told the admitting nurse in the emergency room of a Las Vegas hospital two weekends ago.

The nurse stuck a thermometer under my tongue and clamped down my left arm with a blood pressure monitor strap.

"It is painful when I breathe," I said.

"Where do you feel the pain?" she asked. I told her it's right in the middle of my chest. "The pain traveled from the top right side of my ribcage," I told her, "and on my back directly behind it, until it traveled to the center of my chest. Then the pain in the other places was gone."

The nurse hurriedly wheeled me into one of the emergency rooms and then I saw Nurse Ratched of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" masquerading as a doctor. "You don't have swine flu," she sternly corrected me, "you don't even have a fever."

She ordered an ECG (electrocardiogram) on me and soon a young Filipina technician was wheeling in an ECG machine and fitting me with its wiring. A phlebotomist came in to stick a needle in me, then I was rushed to the x-ray department, which I had all to myself - there were no other patients there at 4:30 in the morning.

About half an hour later, Doctor Nurse Ratched came back and told me I was not having a heart attack - all the tests were negative.

I could have told you that, I thought. Who said anything about a heart attack? "I have all the symptoms of swine flu, including the diarrhea - except for the fever," I told the doctor. "It never felt like I was having a heart attack," I said in triumph.

I thought I would put the doctor slightly to shame. Instead, she said: "We'll admit you anyway for a one-day stay just to be sure. We also want to do a nuclear stress test on you this morning."

The controlling Dr. Nurse Ratched was at it again. Was she being cavalier with the people's money, knowing that Medicare had my back?

I was brought into a private room on one of the higher floors, given a tranquilizer and was out till about eleven.

I was released that day with the doctors knowing that I did not have a heart attack. They still did not know what was wrong with me. They suggested I should see my primary care physician right away.

As I should have expected, my primary care physician was on vacation, so his assistant - a physician's assistant (PA), not a doctor - saw me. She recognized right away that I had had an asthma attack and I was still having one right there at her office.

Asthma was my second choice, after swine flu. After all, I had taken my wife Paulita and Paul to Zion National Park in Utah, where there were a lot of trees and strange high-desert plants. I must have picked up some strange allergens in Utah, I told my PA, whom I actually liked. She's a very likable person. She has a ready smile, in sharp contrast to my primary care doctor who has personally seen me only twice since I moved my family to Las Vegas two years ago. Both times, he saw me for two minutes - including the time he spent writing my prescriptions.

I filled my asthma prescriptions at my favorite Walgreens and went to work. I started taking the Prednisone pills, started using the Advair inhaler, and every time I felt tightness in the chest I puffed in a couple of Albuterol inhaler puffs.

I noticed that I had begun to have occasional skipped heart beats, but I was not worried because my medication, Sotalol, had reliably been my ally every time I had those occasional missed heartbeats.

Four days later I was in the emergency room again, this time at the St. Rose Hospital. I didn't want to go back to the first hospital to be treated by Dr. Nurse Ratched again, with a full-blown atrial fibrillation episode. For those who are not familiar with atrial fibrillation, it is when you feel there is a tiny mouse that is going around and around in your heart. The upper portion of your heart is out of rhythm with the lower portion because that upper portion is beating faster than the lower portion.

I was not scared because I'd had those episodes before and I always came out of those like I had just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, but having already taken a four-hour nap. No big deal, just an honest day's work at the office.

I am not telling you this for your sympathy - though that might be unavoidable - but to illustrate to you what is wrong with the American health care system.

The doctors at the first hospital that admitted me, knowing that I was not having a heart attack, should have tried to reach a correct diagnosis. They didn't. They had already done all those expensive procedures on me so they knew the hospital and the doctors, lab technicians, x-ray technicians, etc., were going to be paid. Plus they had their behinds covered. I could not later come back and sue them for not being thorough.

Our health care system compensates doctors and hospitals and laboratories for procedures done, not for actually having cured or helped the patients. It's like we all went to school and got A's for effort, not for having actually demonstrated that we had learned anything.

I don't usually agree with former President George Bush, but I like his tort reform idea. I think there should be a limit to jury awards and settlements in medical malpractice cases. The main reason doctors order many unnecessary tests is to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. Some doctors have had to pay tens of millions. The limit should only be $1 million for the most serious malpractice cases.

If I were President Obama, I would suggest however that a special court shall be set up to try cases where there is evidence of gross misconduct to determine what the proper compensation to the victim or the victim's family should be. But those cases should be the rare exceptions.

The physician's assistant who prescribed all those asthma medications, which were all steroids, should have known that deep in my medical history was evidence that steroids had caused irregular heartbeats that progressed to a full-blown atrial fibrillation.

If as President Obama has suggested medical records in this country had been computerized and available on the Internet - but only to authorized persons - my physician's assistant would have known that there was a better than even chance that my heart would go into a full-blown A-Fib condition with the use of the asthma drugs. Perhaps, my PA would have temporarily increased the dosage for my maintenance medication for irregular heartbeats. Or, she might have changed my medication to something stronger to counteract the asthma steroid medications.

Or, sensing the very real danger, she might have given me a different set of asthma medications - ones that may not be as powerful, but are not based on steroids.

The doctors in New Jersey, where I spent 30 years of my life, all knew my special sensitivity to steroids, but because medical records are not computerized, there was no way my PA or my doctor could have known that. I guess I should have told them, but it did not occur to me to tell them because I wanted the asthma drugs and was willing to take a chance.

I was happy with the treatment that I got at St. Rose Hospital, especially since I was assigned a cardiac nurse who not only knew what she was doing but had cardiac issues herself and was clearly empathetic.

I had some anxious moments, but on reflection the doctor at St. Rose did all the right things and controlled costs by not ordering unnecessary procedures that would just increase the cost to U.S. taxpayers without adding to the treatment. The St. Rose doctor waited till my blood pressure sufficiently rose (it had been very low throughout) before giving me a brand-new medication (Metoprolol Tartrate) to put my heartbeat back in rhythm. She also gave me a Xanax to put me to sleep.

When I awoke a couple of hours later, my heart was in sinus (normal) rhythm.

Ten Most Embarrassing Moments in Cesar Lumba's Life

By Paulita T Lumba

My husband, known to his friends as "Chay" and to his acquaintances as "Cesar," can be an Inspector Clouseau in social situations. Part of the reason, I'm sure, is that he is so confident of himself and is used to getting away with a lot of things that most people can't get away with. He seems less careful than most about his behavior even in certain very sensitive circumstances.

He doesn't get embarrassed easily, but does so upon reflection. Many of his embarrassed reactions are delayed reactions. It is only after he asks himself - or me - if what he did was embarrassing that he actually feels embarrassed. Once he gets into his self-analysis kick, he can't let go. Every time he remembers his embarrassing moment, he literally shivers like electricity passes his body.

1. The fried chicken. The wife of one of the prominent Filipino doctors who lived in Westchester County, New York, invited us and a few Filipino community activists for a merienda meeting. On entering the family room next to the kitchen, Cesar saw that there was a dog sitting on the sofa. As the guests sauntered in, the dog rose from its slumber and left the room.

Cesar put some fried chicken and potato salad on his plate and sat on one of the chairs in the family room. As soon as he sat on the chair, Cesar took the drumstick on his plate and started to smell it. Not satisfied, he looked at the soles of his shoes and started sniffing, very obviously trying to find out if he had stepped on dog urine, or worse, dog poo.

Everybody in the room was looking at him. Some were mortified. Nobody was eating.

The community-activist wife of the prominent Westchester county doctor never invited us to their house again.

2. The carpet or the dress. I did not witness this, Cesar just told me this story. Once, when his first wife threw a party in their house, Cesar got so tipsy that his judgment was impaired. He was holding a glass of wine when he lost his balance. He had a choice - would he let the wine spill on the carpet, which was brand new and gleaming white, or on the dress of one of the guests, who was sitting nearby? He chose to let the wine pour on the guest's dress.

Later, Cesar's wife asked him why he let the wine pour on the dress instead of on the carpet? His reaction was, "Was it obvious?"

The poor guest never went to their house for any subsequent parties ever again.

3. The "world famous" buffet at Palace Station. My close friend from way back was sent by Philippine Airlines to Las Vegas for training. She and her husband had hosted a very expensive dinner for us when we were in the Philippines the previous year, so we showed my friend the town and I had taken her shopping.

Cesar suggested that our dinner should be at the Palace Station, where O J Simpson had been caught in a hold-up fiasco, and which advertised "the best buffet in town" for only $6.95 per person. Cesar felt that our guest should get the real flavor of Las Vegas by having dinner at a buffet restaurant.

When we got there, a part of the restaurant was under renovation, and there was hardly any food left. Even our son Paul thought the food "sucked." I was so embarrassed I made it a point to take my friend the following day to one of the more expensive restaurants in town. This was one time Cesar's embarrassment was not a delayed reaction. I saw that he was very uncomfortable throughout the meal.

4. The Tank Top at a Business Meeting. Cesar and his friend Dong Guinto had a scheduled meeting with a large printer in the Philippines whose printing facilities the two were examining because they had an order to print hundreds of thousands of copies of prospectuses.

It was so hot in the Philippines at the time, so Cesar decided to go really informal. He wore his favorite blue tank top - "sando" to Filipinos - and his khaki shorts. He and Dong talked with the owners, had a meeting with them in the conference room all while Cesar was in his tank top and shorts.

Later Dong related to me that Cesar's armpit hair was sticking out all through the meeting and the tour of the facilities and that Dong was embarrassed for him. It was only then that Cesar felt the embarrassment. To-date, every time he remembers his blue tank top, he makes a smacking sound with his mouth, and he hits himself in the head.

5. The "I've Got You Under My Skin." Cesar has talked about this many times. He was introduced as the Frank Sinatra of La Salle in one of the largest gatherings of his alma mater's alumni association. He started off his "I've Got You Under My Skin" quite well, even got a huge ovation, but as he kept singing, it became clear to everyone that his singing was not in sync with the melody. When he stopped, the music was still playing.

The audience didn't know whether to clap or boo. Cesar was nowhere to be found. He let many minutes pass before sneaking back into his seat next to me in the auditorium.

6. The Hawaiian shirt. I was out of town when the mother of Cesar's sister-in-law passed away, so my version of the story is only from what I could piece together. At the Catholic Mass prior to interment, Cesar showed up in Church wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Everybody was wearing a dark suit or a black dress, Cesar had on a green Hawaiian shirt.

His nephew and niece came up to him and asked him why he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Cesar said when he left the house that morning, he had forgotten that he was going to a wake. He thought he was going to a prayer session for someone who had already been buried.

7. Wynn or Nanay Gloria's. My heavy-hitter friend and her husband were in town. Since we had been taking them around Las Vegas for the last couple of days, they decided to treat us to the very expensive and famous buffet at the Wynn.

I don't know what got into Cesar's head, but he suggested that we should try Nanay Gloria's instead, a Filipino turo-turo (buffet) restaurant. When we got there, it was packed and there was no place to sit. We had to wait for people to leave before we could find a place for ourselves. Our guests did not like the food and got very little food for themselves.

Our son Paul hated the place and refused to go inside, so Cesar every now and then had to go outside and check on Paul. It was our last meal together with our friends and instead of having a memorable one at the Wynn hotel and casino, we ate like the Japanese did during the 2nd World War, when American bombs were raining on Tokyo. We gulped down our food and were out of there in a minute.

8. The "pregnant" client. When Cesar was still in the insurance business, he had a husband-wife client who had been recommended to him by one of our close friends. The woman was our friend's niece.

When Cesar saw the niece, he asked her if she was pregnant. She said no, she wasn't pregnant, just fat.

9. The third-place finish. Cesar thought he had a great speech, many of his Toastmasters teammates thought it was a great speech. When the judges' decision was announced, Cesar's name was called first - a third-place finish in a contest where there were only three contestants.

Cesar literally sank in his seat, didn't rise until his name was called again. It was his most embarrassing moment in his Toastmasters career and the only one of his contests that I and our daughter Natasha attended.

In his speech Cesar talked about how proud he was whenever he saw his father cleaning and polishing his father's long-nosed 38 caliber pistol at the window of their house in Santa Ana, Manila when Cesar was growing up. The massacre at the Columbine happened on the day of the contest, and I don't think the judges liked the fact that Cesar's speech seemed to glorify gun ownership.

10. The bubble. This one happened when Cesar was thirteen. It was the first dance party he had attended. He was dancing the slow drag with this cute little girl in the middle of the living room. He remembers telling the girl a joke that he found very funny. He laughed at his own joke and a bubble grew and grew from one of his nostrils.

He turned around and walked away while the girl stood in the middle of the room.

I'm sure that Cesar has had many more embarrassing moments in his life because he can be klutzy and careless, but I'd say those were the top ten.

A summer party in the summer of her years

It started Friday, and it started early. Paulita was celebrating her birthday this weekend - let's just say it was still summertime in human age lingo - and we wanted to make it a memorable one. We saw Sin City Comedy at the Mile Long Shopping Mall in Hollywood Palace on the Strip and were treated to a rip-roaring performance by "The Legendary Wit," a comic who has no equal in the world of entertainment.

I perfected the art of the guffaw that night. Paulita did not even comment as she usually does that my laugh-out-loud was too loud. She was hysterical herself. She was laughing so loud I had to take a double, triple, quadruple look.

And it was one rip, one crack after another. The Legendary Wit had done it again.

He takes ordinary items, like a discarded toilet seat in one hand and puts a plastic bull on top of the seat and says, "Bulls__t!" He reverses the order, putting the toilet seat above the plastic bull and says, "Holy Cow."

He cradles two plastic white lambs in his sweaty armpits and says, "Silence of the Lambs." He takes a string of baby dolls and puts military helmet above them and says, "Infantry."

He puts some plastic grapes over a toy airplane and calls it "Concorde."

He asks some in the audience what their favorite movies are. One of them says "Pulp Fiction" so he wraps himself in a picture of trees - from which paper (pulp) is manufactured and rubs his body with the picture and exclaims: "Pulp Friction."

He just went on and on, non-stop for about thirty minutes as the audience guffawed.

Friends were waiting at the night club in Gold Coast on Flamingo but since Paulita and I got out of the theater at 10:30 and didn't make it home until 11:00, I called our friends and told them we couldn't make it anymore. Paul had refused to go to bed until he actually saw us home. He was still up and playing Halo 3 with his internet friend when we got home.

We usually don't celebrate Paulita's birthday because it's so close to August 8. Our daughter Natasha was born on 8/8/88 (August 8, 1988) and over the years August 8 was always a special midsummer day for us and our friends.

People looked forward to August 8 because it was an opportunity for a spell from the dog days of summer. People made plans to attend our daughter Natasha's birthday party year in and year out.

Our friends simply forgot that before August 8 there was July 19, which was Paulita's birthday.

Natasha is in college and would rather celebrate her birthday with her friends in LA. So this opened up the door for Paulita just a wee bit. Last Thursday I decided that it was time we celebrated Paulita's birthday.

It was a small group, just a few close friends, but we made sure that everyone would have fun.

First, I asked our friend Bobit to bring beer (he brought Heinekens) and the ladies had margaritas throughout the evening. We asked everybody to sing, but it was a motley crew, so most were too embarrassed to sing in front of people they did not know.

I waited for people to go to the backyard so I could execute my Great Plan for the evening. I was going to lure Paulita to the pool and push her in and watch as all hell broke loose, with people peeling off their clothes (not all) and jumping in.

We never went outside.

We'll do it next time. Summers are long in Las Vegas.

And it was not even Paulita's birthday yet. Her birthday is today, Sunday, and we have tickets to Tickled Pink at the Harmon Theater for an extended but quiet celebration.