Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
There’s an article featuring my sister, Mika (head penguin honcho/aviculturalist), over at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s SeaNotes blog: Magellanic Magic
The MBA is pretty awesome; we visited again when we took our trip back in May and Max pretty much flipped out over all the fish:
It’s also nice having a brother and a sister working there – we got to eat free sea otter steaks!
Luckily, a rush editing job came in and daddy is going to do an all-nighter. Mommy took the kids to grandma’s house and our house is quiet and lonely. Max’s new fish and newer freshwater crab are playing tag, but more about that later when I have more time. Daddy is doing a job related to the Rockefeller Foundation, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the ROC (“yeah, number one clique here”), yo.
Lookin’ kinda spaced out.
Put your mouth up to the apparatus and make a show of drawing a deep breath. When you exhale, do it through your nose instead of your mouth, but obviously not in a way that will be noticed by the people administering the test. Basically, you are aiming to make a sound like you are exhaling into the apparatus while not actually doing so.
At least, that’s what I hear.
The best way to avoid trouble at all is of course to avoid drinking and driving entirely.
But hey, work drink-ups are a bitch, I know.
Just to make that clear; sorry I forgot to mention this earlier. No time, ever. Max is wailing because he’s in sickie mode, but I want him to go to school to snap out of it. The babysitter just came, so we can get ready to go.
Oh, and Mina can sit up, pull herself up to her feet, and walk if she has something to grab onto. She might walk really soon… Please, god NO.
…some days there just ain’t enough time for simple pleasures. And apparently, even that isn’t enough because Nam pulled a large glass marble out of Mina’s mouth about an hour before I found her about to swallow a rubber band. She has very quick hands, and follows her older brother around, whose purpose in life seems to be breaking things into little pieces and strewing them all around. This is a bad combination.
Speaking of Max, he got in a squabble with a girl at school today and she apparently stuck a finger in his eye, because his upper eyelid is all swollen up. When I took him to brush his teeth, his own reflection in the bathroom mirror set off a long string of sleepy crying and exclamations of pain.
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So actually, I was conscious of the soggy diaper in my hand and also that I was eating a plate of cold food (I hate cold “warm/hot” food) as fast as I could, but it didn’t bother me so much because babies were crying all over.
Ungh.
Turn up the sound, sit back (for 8 minutes), and watch this:
I hate listening to Royksopp, but I like it used in videos.
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This brought back a flood of Japan memories. It’s funny how my memory has become compartmentalized by country. I have a set of memories that affects things I do every day. They pop up when I’m driving, cooking, or buying something at the store. I remember doing the same thing in different settings years ago. I can remember details like what it smelled like that day or the looks on people’s faces*. For the most part, these memories are very private and I feel like an island – but then I remember I can talk to Nam about most of it, and I don’t feel so alone.
What about the babies? They are going to grow up knowing at least two very different lands and languages. That is just their starting point – I can only dream of what the future holds for them.
It’s kind of hard to believe that grunge can still sound sooooo good. Soundgarden recently got back together for performances and are now releasing B-sides from the Badmotorfinger era: Black Rain
First born in particular has a habit of spinning around and crocodile rolling, but number two pulls hair and bites in her sleep.
My red pen just ran dry as I was correcting papers and it got me to thinking – I’ve never used a new pen until it ran out. Of course, I’ve had them stop running prematurely and finished up partially-used pens, but I can never seem to keep pens around from start to finish. Other people take them, or they just disappear magically, perhaps into the wormhole that most of my socks eventually seem to drop into, as well.
Also, I cannot remember how long it’s been since I’ve written a letter by hand. I used to do it every few years just for the novelty, but now… I’m definitely going to make the kids do it, though.
Nam woke up when it was still dark to go to Bangkok for a meeting. Max stayed at his grandparent’s house. Mina woke at about 6:15, later than usual, and only cried a little bit. I tucked her against my chest and she fell asleep again. She stayed nestled in my arms while the cool morning breeze whispered through the windows.
From the thumb: Blue octopus, gray elephant, red seahorse, yellow crab, green octopus.
He was totally serious about playing with them and made me sit down to watch.
…Because nothing says genuine 911 like a spoiler the size of a Cessna wing (and judging by the height of the hood, front wheel drive as well).
(thx Mark)
This video intrigued me so much, I had to dig around a bit. Here’s the juicy bits:
UPDATE:
Here’s some alternate contact info I found; I have no idea if it’s correct.
Chris Pongpitaya Schoenes Co.
229/3-4 Soi Akamai 7, Sukhumvit 63
Bangkok 10110 Thailand
Phone +66 2392 4177
Today is Mother’s Day in Thailand since it’s the Queen’s birthday, and the Queen is mother to all Thais. Nam and Max went to Khon Kaen with my mother-in-law and I spent the day watching Mina. She basically slept on me all day, only waking to feed and put everything within reach in her mouth before throwing it on the ground.
While she slept, I trashed several thousand mailing list messages in Gmail that I’ve no longer got time or interest in keeping up with, and hit the Empty Trash Now link. The following message ran across the status ticker thingy up top:
Oops… the system encountered a problem (#793) – Retrying now…
Gmail continued to suffer from Excedrin headache #793 for a few minutes, after which the beautifully empty trash page appeared with this message in the middle:
No conversations in the Trash. Who needs to delete when you have over 7000 MB of storage?!
Cheeky.
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On a related note, I don’t really like the new Gmail interface (mainly, the Compose mail button sticks out like a wart), but I can live with it. If you can’t there’s a way to switch back to a much older version of the interface, albeit without Labs support.
This is the funniest series I’ve seen in a long time.
The first two are my favorites but the rest are funny as well:
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART III
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART IV
What it’s really like to work in a music store PART V
(thx g)
Yesterday when looking for tools to make a gated baby fence, I found the smallest gecko I’ve ever seen. He was hiding under one of my tool bags and was suffering from some gross mold that had eaten away part of his body. Less than an inch long, the thickest part of his body was about 1/16″. He was too weak to run for very long, so I trapped him on a scrap of paper and put him outside on the window ledge where lazy insects like to congregate. I fear he wasn’t long for this world, so I hope he got a nice last supper.
Both recent finds when all I had was a crappy cell phone camera.
This is the first time I’ve seen this type of mushroom here and one can only wonder if licking the nipple would be deadly or not.
I found Leafy Mothra in our driveway and captured it in an empty mustard jar for Max to see. He was duly impressed, as the entire body was blaze orange. Leafy Mothra was about 2″ long.
The Kujira Crown is still my daily driver; driving in heavy rain everyday with no power steering, no hand brake, fairly torquey rear wheel drive, and Max in the front seat (in his new, larger baby seat) is a challenge, but it’s cool driving such a unique car every day.
Here’s a photo from the other day when we had to dispose of a dead body in the woods:
Although the lighting in this photo masks it very well, she is in great need of a new paint job, which when done properly will entail sanding everything off, fixing several holes and rust patches, and cutting out and patching the hopeless areas with sheet metal and bondo.
What color? My love for black is tempting me to say to hell with the fact that it will be like sitting in a microwave and just go for it, but I’m also toying with the idea of gunmetal gray or dark metallic silver. Or bluish silver. Or hell, even just brown again – I never thought I’d own a brown car, but it suits this car pretty well. Oh well, I have plenty of time to think about it since all the money saved for the new paint job has long since been used on diapers and milk and medicine and toys and clothes and whatever for my other, un-neglected babies. <sigh.>
UPDATE: This is what my MS-60 Kujira Crown looks like now: http://cosmicbuddha.com/2012/03/the-toyota-kujira-crown-reborn/
ACT FAST WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!! GET YOURS TODAY!!!
@ the baby store conglomeration on the third floor of SermThai Department store, Maha Sarakham, Thailand (link to hp removed due to malicious script warning).
Mina reared back as I was holding her today and smashed the side of her head into my nose so hard I saw stars and involuntarily shed tears for a couple minutes. If I had much of a nose, it might have broken; as it was, it only bled profusely. Mina thought it was funny as hell, then she peed on me through her cloth diaper. Then she cried when I put her down to stop the nose bleed, and finally, she took a huge overflowing dump in her pee-soiled diaper, which I had to clean up after I stopped crying and bleeding.