Wat Ban Donnad

A couple months ago, when it was still “cold,” we visited a temple that we’d been hearing of for a while, Wat Ban Donnad (Wat Ban Don Nad?). At the end of a long, broken dirt road that runs through several villages, we ended up here:

You can see our destination out on the island:

We honked our horn, and a young monk on a small outboard came putt-putting out. Max saw the boat and it was on.

Max was wearing his inflatable life jacket all day in anticipation of riding on a boat.

The monk was shy, so I spared him the embarrassment of  a face shot.

There’s no electricity on the island, so we brought yard-long candles in addition to the usual food offerings. Giving these to a temple is the most popular form of making merit in Thailand. We talked to the monk that greeted us on the other side for a while, and he seemed to enjoy playing with the kids. Then he showed us the new temple they are building with massive slabs of timber floated down the river from Laos.

We walked around the island for a bit, then headed back to the boat.

We’ve since visited the landing again, but didn’t cross over because there was a temple festival with crowds of people, and they were packing themselves onto the tiny boats to cross over and back. In typical Thai fashion, the people sitting on the edge of the boats were half-heartedly bailing them out until the water inside reached their ankles, at which time the rate of bailing doubled or tripled – this would repeat until the boats reached their destination. When we saw this was happening, we decided it would be okay to pay our respects from the shore on this side.

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a seed

Max, in twenty years will you remember when daddy told you that chicken pox causes you to see Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes in black in white? Because it was actually a PAL to NTSC-J conversion problem. I hooked up your DVD player to an old brownscreen set we brought from Japan (that Auntie Merin gave us) that’s been sitting unused in our bedroom forever. We moved you there to be under the new cooler, since it eats comparatively little juice and is running all day to keep you from sweating…

Sorry ’bout that.

It is kinda funny, though (at least funnier than my other idea, which was to tell you you were turning into a dog).

Love,
daddy

Poxy Varicella

I came home yesterday after lecturing for two days, fresh off finals week, looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening and some much-needed sleep. Alas.

Max has chicken pox. Which means Mina will probably get them soon as well. Trying to keep babies living under the same roof quarantined is pretty much impossible, especially since the nanny isn’t around today, and Nam has a faculty meeting from now. It’s all on sleep-deprived daddy now… Max is just torture to look at with sores all over his mouth, writhing in agony and saying no to everything. Mina just wants to play. Plus the fuel pump in the Kujira died this morning. And the coffee in the pot tastes bitter.

A pox on pox.

..random

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.

Max just told his mother to leave him alone and go be with daddy.

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.

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.

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.

😉

Max and Mina’s Tribute to the White Stripes

“The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.”

The White Stripes, February 2, 2011

And so:

We did this back in August of last year.

I was never a huge White Stripes fan, but the way they are ending is inspiring. I sure wish my favorite bands had gone out like this.