Exploits
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Fortuitous Testudines
On my way home from the gym about an hour ago, I spotted a familiar silhouette on the side of the road… I saw it after my headlights had passed over, but some primal part of my brain recognized the dark shape and screamed POSSIBLE FOOD SOURCE. I stopped and backed up a bit, and got out of the car. The rear running lights on my car shine through 38 year old lenses, so they aren’t that bright. But they were bright enough to show that I had found a pretty big turtle with pretty yellow stripes running up and down his legs and neck; his shell was about 9…
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We hates steps with overhangs, preeeecious!
Daddy took Max to work today and Max tripped on the marble steps to the main building because there are 1″ overhangs on each one… there is no apparent reason to have overhangs on steps, other than to make people (especially children) trip on them. Max hit the lip of the next step with his face and his canine tooth cut the inside of his mouth… Tears! Pain! Much sadness and shock! Luckily, daddy had milk ready in the car. Milk makes everything better.
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Wherein I confront craziness
In the interest of getting everything on the record, we decided to confront the crazy bitch, at her request, at the police station last Thursday, dependant on a couple of things. We first called in a favor and asked about the officer in charge and got back the answer that he had a reputation for being straight, and a good cop. That was a good sign, because a chance you take when going to the cops here in an unclear case like this one is that the cops are either sided with your opponents for whatever reason, or the cops themselves want something. So I wired myself with a cellphone…
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No work accomplished today
I wanted to get some midterm grading done the past five hours, but I ended up entertaining Max instead. He wouldn’t go to sleep and Nam was busy putting together slides for a presentation in Bangkok at some lexicographical conference in ten days – it takes precedence over my work so I had to watch the baby (of course, pretty soon he will be the toddler and there will be a new baby). I really need to get as much grading done as I can in chunks because with 11 classes (7 different courses; 3 which I’ve done before but am improving and 4 new ones), a few hundred students,…
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Monkey Time at Kosamphi Forest Park
A few weeks ago we decided to go out for a drive. It was time to take Max for his first visit to the monkey park in the nearby town of Kosum Phisai, so we put his car seat in the trusty old Kujira and were on our way. We took the Kujira instead of the Cefiro because: Monkeys are little bastards that scratch up cars for fun Max sleeps really well in the Crown with its worn suspension and lulling vibration It’s a proper cruising car!! Max spots some fellow monkeys! To a normal person, this might just look like a bunch of monkeys sitting in a row, but…
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smell my armpit
I forgot to post my instructional photo on how to harvest bananas, caveman style: Unable to hold the clump with one hand while chopping with the other (the clump was hanging over into the neighbor’s yard in an awkward position – don’t worry they got their cut!), I instead used E. Honda power to rip it off. This was taken a couple months ago in our backyard. We pretty much have the best tasting bananas in the world, and they are the perfect food for babies. We even sun-dried some and made chips. Yum! P.S. That’s an empty bird’s nest constructed in between the fruit. We’d spotted it before but…
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Himiko’s Punch Perm (aka Pimiko’s Punch Perm – PPP)
As in, they have reconfirmed Himiko’s tomb as the kofun (burial mound) in Sakurai that T and Adam and I walked around on the way past Miwa Jinja on a cold drizzly day a few years back. You see, this is important because the location of the Yamato kingdom has always been disputed by tourist money-deficient Kyushans who just can’t accept the fact that Nara always has been and always will be the one, the only, the Kingdom of Heavenlike Yamato, biiiiotches. What Kyushu is lacking in ancient bronze mirrors from China (burial mound evidence), however, it makes up for in cultural value. So let that be a lesson to…
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Baby Mantis
The other day I felt a spider running on my shoulder so I caught it in my hand. It turned out to be a baby praying mantis the size of a match head, still nearly translucent with black stripes over its joints. It was like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I held it in my palm and poked at it with my pinky finger, and it boxed with me for a while. I decided it was too risky to go inside for my camera and just let the little guy go in my new row of baby winged beans.
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Away for a few…
The English Program at my university is leaving tomorrow at 5:30 AM for a four day trip to a national forest in Saraburi for our annual English Camp. It will be sad to leave the baby and Nam for so long, but it should be fun…
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Volunteering in Kalasin
Last week a few of us teachers were asked to visit some classes being taught on a volunteer basis by our Business English major students out in Kalasin. We went out without much info and assumed these were classes being taught at a school. As it turned out, one of our student’s family had created an ad hoc classroom outside their house and was hosting free lessons for two weeks since schools are mostly on holiday during October. Children from their village as well as neighboring villages attended, with younger kids coming in the morning and older ones in the afternoon, perhaps 30 kids per session. The classes were being…
