We had been planning to go to Cambodia with Nam’s faculty for a couple days from the day after tomorrow. Max’s chickenpox had cleared up almost completely this week and he was going to go with mommy and daddy. Mina was to stay at home with relatives and the nanny, and we had done a test run with these arrangements. We assumed she would come down with chickenpox weeks ago, but it never happened (truth be told, we wanted it out of the way quickly and knew she was strong enough to get through it – Max and Mina played together all day every day,I even had them drinking from the same cup). Everything was going fine.
Then it all came unraveled.
Our nanny suddenly stopped coming last Sunday because of a serious personal issue. Even that was OK, because Nam’s little brother’s girlfriend, who works with kids, was going to watch Mina at our in-laws house.
Then two nights ago, Mina came down with a fever. Yesterday red bumps started appearing here and there. Today they have turned to pustules and she is itchy cranky baby.
Shit.
No holiday in Cambodia (which we already paid for).
What did we need a holiday from? Chickenpox. What prevented us from going? Chickenpox.
DAMN YOU CHICKENPOX!!
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– Here’s to another couple weeks before we can bear to look at Mina’s face again without feeling terrible.
Mina shook her head in serious disagreement 17 times in a row yesterday – I was asking about people she loves; apparently she just hates everyone, because by the time I got to the end I had run out of people she knows by name and had started naming animals.
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Max just told his mother to leave him alone and go be with daddy.
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I got an e-mail from a distant relative in Kyushu who runs a beauty salon that T, Adam, Inaba and I visited 12 (?) years ago when we went to visit my cousins Kana and Aya in Saga Prefecture (Saga was where my grandfather on my dad’s side grew up, and is the Northeast Thailand of Japan – the locals move out to work shitty jobs in the big city, and the only people moving in are either going back to work on their family’s farm, or to get away from people in general.) Anyway, when we visited the salon, they just happened to be shooting a commercial to be aired on a local TV station, so we got to be in it while getting haircuts and shouting the name of the store – “HEADS!” – at the camera.
So the owner of that shop is either a distant cousin or uncle (which makes him close enough to kill for under Sackett law), and he emailed me out of the blue yesterday. He’s recently into sansevieria plants (AKA mother in law’s tongue), which are not so popular in Japan, so he’s coming this June to check out some of the farms and collectors here in Thailand. Maybe we will hook up.
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Max had to take an entrance exam for a nearby preschool yesterday (his current school, which he loves going to now, is closing at the end of March). They test out the little kids by giving them various little tasks and challenges like drawing, puzzles, logic games, motor skills testing, simple questions, etc. Max would not enter the room without mommy, but aced all of the tests. He apparently did some of them twice, by choice, because they gave him too much time to complete them. Sounds scarily familiar.
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Nam thought up a brilliant substitute for tenkasu today: Rice Krispies!
This was sufficiently genius for me to acknowledge that I am truly lucky to have married her… For the ten thousandth time or so.
Exactly one month ago, our family took a trip to Chiang Mai by way of daddy, Max, Mina, and the nanny hitching a ride with mommy on a business trip. Our driver was fast and polite, and since there are typically no seat belts in a Thai commuter van, we decided to leave the baby seats behind. This made for a very smooth and uneventful ride, just the way I like it.
I’ve written about other parts of the trip already, but I didn’t get around to posting (blurry) photos of one of the highlights, an impromptu night stroll from the center of downtown to our hotel. We went out as a group for dinner and to check out the night market, which was a big tourist trap / disappointment. By that time, we had joined up with Daisuke and some of his and Nam’s students… Dai had expressed a longing to drink on the grounds at Wat Chedi Luang, at the very center of town, because it was beautifully lit up at night and temples make such excellent chill out spots.
So Dai and I got dropped off at the main gate, and everybody else went back to the hotel in the van. So began our journey.
Wat Chedi Luang, former home of the Emerald Buddha
Since the front and side gates were already closed, we had to walk all the way around to find a rear way in. We found it, and weaved through various building to get to the chedi (stupa).
Apparently, UNESCO and some overeager Japanese meddlers did an awesome job of rebuilding these ruins IN THE WRONG ANCIENT STYLE!!
Unfortunately, the temple grounds were full of monks and followers walking around and looking at the illuminated stupa, just like us. We could have had beers while hidden in the shadows, but having other people around kind of killed the appeal of it. Instead, we decided to walk back to the hotel by walking out to the ring road (Chiang Mai has an inner and outer ring road, one running clockwise and the other counter-clockwise, just like Osaka’s nakakanjo and sotokanjo, but not elevated), and following it back. We made several stops at historic sites along the way, roughly fulfilling one of the main to-dos for visitors to CM: Visiting many temples.
A temple on the side of the road, name unknown. I lit joss sticks and felt very spiritual, and then some loud foreign tourists came, so we left.Some government office with statues of unknown dudes. Oddly, there was an older Thai couple sleeping under the statue.
After leaving the heart of the historical district, we came upon the first 7-11 and eventually instated the two beer rule: Two cans of Leo per person at every 7-11 passed
We ended up at an outdoor futsal stadium with two fields. Daisuke played in the minor soccer league in Japan, so he wanted to watch for a while. I had several beers and a pork bau from a cart outside the 7-11, so I didn’t care. It started getting chilly, though, so I got up and stood watching the khao tom store across the street for ten minutes. There was a deaf guy waiting on the tables who would bring out food to the customers and communicate with them by pointing at the menu and writing things down on the pad, but the cook insisted on shouting at him when orders were ready, very loudly, twice for everything. It made for some fairly hilarious happenings which would suck to relate in writing.
A late night khao tom (aka okayu aka congee) store
Eventually, we neared the ring road.
Mysterious CD-stars pasted to lamp posts and curbs. Somebody is air peeing.
We passed an open jazz bar with too many skanky farangs hanging out, and resupplied at another 7-11.
More CD-stars. They might just be used as traffic reflectors, but the placement of some of them was off the road so they might be used to ward off dogs / cats / Christians.
We ended up on the ring road near a historic gate and in dire need of a place to pee, peed on it.
The only public restroom in downtown Chiang Mai
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The rest of the night was fairly surreal. We had seafood noodles outside a car dealership. It was fairly late when I saw a red lantern way down a small street, and I was drawn to it. It turned out to be a Japanese izakaya that was closing. They initially refused to serve us, but I begged piteously and an old Japanese man drinking outside shared his bottle with us. He turned out to be just an average guy from Nagoya, who I naturally gave a lot of shit to even while partaking in his drink, just because I secretly look down on Nagoyans as a proud Osakan. The owner’s husband came around and he turned out to be an ex-coworker of Dai’s, so we extended our unwelcome at the closed bar even longer.
We eventually got home, but I don’t remember that part.
