Category: Chillin’

Cooling down period

I had to be extra careful for the past day or so because little problems started popping up in the same 24 hour period, and I took them as signs from James Brown in the sky that I had to be careful not to freak the funk. There were four signs in total:

  1. Yesterday, I noticed a wasp’s nest on a sapling in our front yard when I got home and immediately thought to spray it with insecticide, but decided to be nice and refrained from doing so. Later, when I was watering the yard with the hose in one hand and Max on the other arm, I must have sprayed the nest when we were standing next to the sapling in question. I saw a quick flash of yellow and black, and reflexively batted it out of my face, but not before the little bastard stung me on the bridge of my nose. I tried to ignore the quickly spreading pain as I tried to determine whether Max was crying because I ‘d swung him around to ward off any wasps on him or because he’d been stung. It took me a minute to take him inside the house and inspect the exposed parts of his body and by that time he had stopped crying. The intensity of the pain on my nose was getting worrisome and I readied my phone so that I could call Nam (who was coming home a bit late from work) with the push of the send button in case I blacked out or something… But then the pain peaked and I knew I would be OK. Max was playing with toys inside so I took the opportunity to run outside with a can of mosquito spray and completely soak the nest and chase off the angry guardians. Then I set it on fire with a can of WD-40. Then I knocked it off the branch and ground it into the driveway, crushing all the gross little green larvae into paste. Then I set the crushed remains on fire with a splash of gasoline. I would have finished by pissing on the smoking remains, but there were people passing by on the street… PAYBACK’S A BITCH, BUGS!
  2. After getting stung on the nose, I hung out with the baby and waited until mommy got home. I took Max to the shower, and he took a huge dump in his plastic bathtub while playing with every single toothbrush in the house. So I found out about it by noticing brown lumps floating next to all the pretty red, blue, and other brilliantly colored toothbrushes. OK this is standard baby protocol – clean him first, call mommy to get him out. Now I’m left with a tub filled with tepid water, ten toothbrushes, and huge lumps of dookie, some of them of the floating variety, but some solid sinkers as well. It occurred to me that this cleanup was going to require getting my hands dirty when conveying poopie into the toilet. So yes, for the first time in my life (that I can remember at least), I held dookie in my bare hand. Since it was already there and disgusting (but somehow not so disgusting since he’s still a baby – baby’s make everything better), I decided I would give it a squeeze between my fingers. All I can say is, he needs more fiber. Oh and also, I’m really happy he didn’t have corn for breakfast.
  3. Today I woke up an hour early to get to school early so I could prepare for my first class. Instead, that hour was spent getting two more signs from JB in the sky. First up, my rear left tire was totally flat. Not much to say there because I buy used tires for my old car and stuff like this just happens all the time – and I actually enjoy changing flats. But this sign led me to believe it would be prudent to watch for a more serious happening so I decided that an ounce of prevention…
  4. Would end up with me immediately receiving another sign. I decided to check fluid levels after changing to the spare tire and popped the hood… As I touched the radiator cap, the screw holding my glasses’ frames together came loose and the frames popped apart, ejecting my right lens on to the driveway. The tiny screw was just gone. I had to run inside and find my back up pair of glasses, which has chipped lenses (baby accident).

So after all of these signs, I decided to play it cool today and not go anywhere unnecessarily. We made dinner at home and didn’t go out shopping… Just had a nice, quiet evening. Tomorrow is a new day.

A Day of Rarities

Nam and I ran a bunch of errands today and saw three very rare things:

  1. At the body shop: A Kujira Crown almost just like mine, but in much better condition (original everything: 4 cylinder engine, chrome trim [sob], automatic shifter on steering column indicating the car’s original purpose as a taxi in Japan [moving the shifter from the center allowed another passenger to sit there], etc.) restoration-wise. I say almost because I think mine was the deluxe version with a straight six 2600cc engine and optional (front seat only, non-retractable) seat belts. In particular, this old timer had Crown badges and some other details I had never seen before, but were probably originally on mine as well. Basically, he owns the prettier car (in dark blue). I took a look in the engine compartment and under the car a bit, though, and mine is better maintained as far as non-visual areas (plus I have an RB20 silvertop under the hood and matching 5-speed tranny, so I figure mine is a better match for me). I asked him if he would ever consider selling his. He said he’s owned it for thirty years so he’d only sell it to somebody who would take care of it… He wants twice as much as I paid for mine, but the guy who sold it to me basically sold it for the price of the engine (also because he wanted someone to take care of it). I can’t buy it anytime soon, but I know where the old guy lives just in case…
  2. On a backroad shortcut to the highway between Kalasin and Sarakham: kwai puak, also know as kwai don in the Isan dialect; this means a pink water buffalo. I thought I’d seen one in the distance last year, but it looked more tan-colored than pink. Well I can tell you now, seeing one from behind, it looked like a cow-sized pig – bright pink!. It was awesome! The hair around its face was stubbly and it moved along just like any other water buffalo on the right side of the road, walking and chewing on grass. Actually this guy’s friend was walking on the left side of the road, and he was supposed to be the third thing on this list but since he’s basically the same thing, he doesn’t get his own number.

So I wished I’d had my camera twice today, but I stopped carrying it along in the car a long time ago (it’s a heavy DSLR). Plus, we just sold Nam’s pocket camera to a friend, so maybe we need to buy phones with better cameras or something.

Bovine 911

Last night, Nam, Max, and I saw something I’ve been expecting to see ever since I came to Thailand.
We had finished dinner at a restaurant just down the road and were on our way home in the Cefiro when we came upon flashing lights at a big curve. A police pickup blocked the view from the rear, but when we passed by we got a clear view of the latest road casualty: A young white cow of the type that used to frequent our yards, locally (and also commonly) known as Brahmans.
When I first started driving around here I was sure this type of accident would be commonplace, but as it turns out, people seem to make sure their animals are in at night. Sometimes cows or small herds of them get away from their keepers during the day when they are set out to graze, but I’ve never seen them on the roads after dark.
This all leads to the question of liability… It seemed that the only party injured last night was the cow, but that could very easily not have been the case… Which party is legally at fault in Thailand? I only know of one related case, personally: A coworker was driving down a country highway and hit a fighting cock trying to run across. The owner ran out from his house and demanded 3000 Baht ($90 US) in compensation. My coworker refused to pay and drove on, and insists this was both legal and the right thing to do.
I’m going to have to ask more people about this.