Exploits
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Having fun
We didn’t even bring a camera, but everyone around us is taking photos so I’ll gather them all together just before we leave. Anyways, that’s one reason I’m not posting photos.
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@home 2010
Justin, Nam, Max, and Mina are visiting the Yoshida clan home in Cali for most of May. We are checking email sporadically, but are offline as much as possible. I know that means missing out on gems like the following, but that’s a relatively small sacrifice to make.
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Bad juju days
The past 48 hours have been so trying, it would be easier to just forget about them. It is for that very reason that I now attempt to document them. Two nights ago, I fell asleep with a high fever and covered up with a heavy blanket when the chills started an hour later. I woke up a couple hours later hearing my wife’s voice telling me to do something, but I was drenched in my own sweat and feverish again. I somehow sensed there was a blackout, because the room was completely dark – no flashing LEDs from electronics or nightlights for the babies could be seen. I kicked…
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What Mina Thinks of Bangkok (Daddy Concurs)
Quite predictably, the long car ride to and from Bangkok was not appreciated by either baby, which they were quite vocal about. This was a kind of test run; do we really want to unleash these two on a plane full of innocents for the cumulative nineteen or so hours it takes to get back to Cali (w/one stopover)? The answer might just be children’s cold medicine… Mina’s birth abroad has been duly reported, and her passport is in the works. Legally, she’s not a citizen exactly but has all the same rights as a citizen when she gets the passport. Say what? Yeah, it’s kind of a funny thing…
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We Against the World
I have a master’s class to teach this morning, then our whole family + nanny are off to Bangkok. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at the embassy’s ACS building to report Mina’s birth abroad and apply for a passport. The problem? There are 100,000 demonstrators trying to get noticed at high profile venues such as, say, in the front of the US embassy. So I’m in my crowd-dodging mode and have hardened my forearms just in case. I would have waited for the demonstrators to go home, but last year it took them months just to give up their hold on the airport, and we really need this passport…
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close call
On my way to pick up Max from school today, I almost killed a female university student who evaded a police checkpoint by speeding straight at me from the opposite direction. I stomped on the brakes as she almost went down sideways, but then her half-raised kickstand caught on the asphalt and inertia righted her scooter as if by magic. She rode off with a bovine smile on her face, perhaps oblivious to how close she had come to dying. The ironic thing is that the cops were trying to stop her for not wearing a helmet. ///////////////// It’s funny, right before the slow motion adrenaline effect kicked in, the…
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runs
Yesterday I got food poisoning for the first time in a couple years; it was probably a bad spot of ground pork or chicken I had for breakfast. I started feeling queasy in the late morning and had Nam pick me up after she picked up Max from a half-day at nursery school (we’re sharing the Cefiro until Nam stats working again in a couple weeks because the insurance ran out on my Crown and I figured I could hold off on re-insuring until we really need two cars again – this whole week she’s been dropping me off at school, dropping Max off at preschool, and I’ve been walking…
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Friendly Yellow Longtail
My coworker caught this fine specimen somewhere near our offices. Curiously enough, he let us hold him and didn’t try to run away at all. When I got back home, P’Kaew told me that this kind of lizard usually bites and doesn’t let go, so I guess we were lucky…
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Doctor Fish Foot Spa
In the true spirit of Christmas, we visited the biggest shopping mall in this part of Thailand, Central Plaza Khon Kaen, that just opened a few weeks ago. We were mostly there to buy Max a new booster seat for the car so Mina could inherit his old one, but we stumbled across a very recently opened foot spa featuring 15 minute doctor fish treatments for 99 baht. We’ve seen doctor fish spas on TV for the past ten years or so, and we always wanted to try them out… I mean, a stupid fish willing to gnaw on my stinky dogs? I had to try that! The verdict: It’s…
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Gut Rumblings
I had the gnarliest gas at the gym today, but I made it seem like it was this old guy that everybody hates by following him around from machine to machine. Karma may be a bitch, but I’m pretty sure God thought it was pretty amusing and should kick me down bonus juju points for it or something. ////////////////// On less shocking notes, the new term has started at our uni, the weather has suddenly turned cool (21ºC/69.8ºF), Max has become a screamer unsuitable for taking shopping, and we didn’t partake in any Loy Krathong festivities this year because Nam is full of baby and I hate people.
