Loy Kratong

This is an eventful month for us. All three of us celebrate birthdays in November and two major holidays fall in November. Of course, American Thanksgiving falls at the end of the month. In the middle of the month all of Thailand celebrates Loy Kratong. Loy Kratong marks the end of the rainy season and is a major holiday in Thailand (sort of like Easter or Thanksgiving in America). Loy Kratong is celebrated by floating lotus shaped boats down the river, releasing giant lanterns into the sky and letting off lots of fireworks. Here is a picture of a kratong and of some boys from our school with bags full of fireworks at the river (the center of the celebration).

My family...

...minus us and my brother-in-law Carl

I guess I'm weirder than I thought...

You Are 35% Normal (Occasionally Normal)

You sure do march to your own beat... But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all You think on a totally different wavelength And it's often a chore to get people to understand you

How Normal Are You?

Happy Birthday!

Weather Forecast

This is for my family who will be coming next week:

Sunny

High during the day: 90 F

Low at night: 69 F

Air Quality: Very clean

Birthday pics

I had a great birthday this year. It was really wonderful to have a friend come celebrate with me. Christina and I went to high school together. This was her first time to come to Asia and to come visit us. We were able to show her around for most of the week, but on Saturday we really did the Chiangmai circuit. We started out at the elephant camp and enjoyed the morning there. For lunch we went to my favorite dessert restaurant. After lunch we went to the big market in town and I introduced her to the best of Thai goods. The day was cool enough to enjoy shopping in what is normally an oven-like atmosphere. After shopping we went to have Thai massages. For dinner we went to my favorite salad restaurant and enjoyed the best fruit shakes in CM. After dinner we came home and I opened the presents from Gabe, Eric & Christina. Eric let Gabe choose a gift for me (within reason). Gabe's first choices were cars and trucks, but Eric steered him away from that and I eventually ended up with a Pingu desk set (Pingu is a Swiss cartoon Penguin who is very popular in Asia). Gabe loves Pingu and immediately after I opened his gift asked if he could borrow it for five minutes (which has extended into several days). The best card of the day came from Eric. I will quote it here.

Outside: With Love and Concern on this Special Day, Happy Birthday

Inside: Can you guess what a special thing is on this day?
Come to near me...
Just whisper you that...
It's you and your special birthday!

I don't really think I needed concern. I felt very spoiled by a day so cram -packed with good things. Thanks to all of you who sent me birthday greetings.

The Elephant Camp

Gabe enjoyed another trip to the elephant camp. He's been there at least four times, but it's always exciting to him. This time we got to see a tiny (80kg) one-month old elephant. Gabey thought he was very cute, but would only pet him very cautiously on the behind. The baby was still taller than Gabe.

Japanese Smileys

You Are "Dizzy and Giddy"

What Japanese Smiley Are You?

White Sox Win

Congratulations to the White Sox for winning the World Series. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to watch the World Series games because we don't have cable, but I was able to see the end of today's game at one of the student dorms. Though I've been to numerous WS games, I can't really claim to be a Sox fan, but I'm glad for them just the same. Both my brothers are die-hard Sox fans, so I'm happiest for them.

Camp

This week-end (up through today) we have been at Hume Lake Camp. Hume Lake is actually the name of the California Camp that brings a camp to the kids of our community. The camp comes every two years and is a major event for the kids. Not only kids from CM participate in this camp. It also draws kids from other areas of Thailand as well as other countries. Eric had been planning to go as a counselor, but at the last minute, they asked to trade him for me as they had no nurse for the camp. So, it ended up that while I took care of a steady stream of wounds and sore throats (from constant yelling) Eric got to spend days of quality time with Gabe. Gabe seemed to enjoy the camp very much. Up in the mountains the weather was a bit cooler and the mosquitoes were fewer so he could play outside nearly all the time. They had playgrounds and a pool as well as lovely grounds. He also had plenty of playmates. In the picture above, Gabe was revelling in being splashed by the big kids. In addition to all these sources of happiness, we also had a most unusual bathroom. We were assigned to a Thai style house as it was closest to most of the injury-producing activities. We had only a bedroom inside, but there was a huge amount of porch area, which was really lovely. Also outside was our bathroom. You can see a picture below. It was really like using a bathroom in a garden. It was beautifully decorated with lots of foliage and even a swing. It was really cool some of the time, but it overlooked a field. Sometimes, you'd be going out to have a shower and you'd see a bunch of farmers out in the field where it was obvious they could see you. Gabe, who has no shame, didn't mind at all. He really loved the idea of a swing in the bathroom and spent at least an hour a day playing in the bathroom, if not more.

With Feeling...

I never realized before how much I rely on facial expression to understand the meaning of words. Today, I was buying a cup of corn at the Cup of Corn stand and the girl serving me seemed very nervous to be talking to a foreigner. She smiled and laughed nervously throughout our conversation, and though I caught most of her words, it was much more of a strain than usual to understand. I kept wondering why the words I was hearing didn't match her expression and doubting that I had heard her correctly.

On the same topic, that talking loudly and slowly thing actually works. I've noticed that when I'm with a group of Thais, they always enunciate and speak louder and slower when they want me to understand. When they do this, my understanding goes way up.

Gabe & Laura

This is what Gabe is doing right at this moment. His friend Laura loves him so much that she usually wants to put on a pretty dress for him. In this case, she settled for Gabe's swimming trunks.

Oven Mitts

We went bowling the other night and the girl dispensing the extremely clean bowling shoes was wearing oven mitts. I guess dispensing used shoes for a living is to a Thai what feeding pigs was to the prodigal son. I wonder if Thai people know they've hit bottom when they find themselves broke, far from home and handing out bowling shoes.

Blogthings

I discovered this site called blogthings. It has some pretty random things on it, among them a superhero namer. Here's my superhero profile.

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Micro Savage Your Superpower is Waking Through Walls Your Weakness is Airsickness Your Weapon is Your Stellar Sword Your Mode of Transportation is Submarine

What's" your Superhero Name?

My new vehicle-ha ha

Fall Colors

It seems a little silly, but during October I always feel the distance between us and and our friends and family in America most acutely. During the summer, I know that we are all wearing shorts, going swimming, sweating, eating ice cream and being bitten by mosquitoes. The shared experiences make me feel that we are closer together. During the fall, though, our experiences begin to diverge. While we continue to wear shorts, go swimming, sweat, eat ice cream and be bitten by mosquitoes, you in the US are wearing sweaters, going for long walks on cool evenings, turning on your heaters, making hot soups, and watching the leaves turn. When I think of you doing those things, the 8000 miles really seems like 8000 miles.

Having lived in a 4-season climate for 27 years, I feel the passage of time by the changing of the weather. Here, where the temperature changes little from month to month, I sometimes forget that time is passing at all. Sometimes it seems that we are just away for the summer and we'll see you all again soon. Then, by hearing of your fall activities, I suddenly realize that time is passing after all and your lives and our lives go on from season to season. I remember that I haven't seen you in over a year and much has happened and changed in your lives without us being there to share it.

So, as I look out on another sunny tropical day, I miss you all and wish I could be with you.

At Gabe's new playgroup

The latest Gabe story

This last week we had the daughters of our friends staying at our house while their mother was having a baby. One of their daughters, Laura, is 3 like Gabe. Though they have their moments of fighting, Gabe and Laura are always talking about how much they love each other. Laura dresses up every time she sees Gabe. Gabe finally decided to imitate her. An hour before Laura was to leave, Gabe decided to impress her with her favorite shirt. Unfortunately, he got side-tracked and forgot to put his shirt on so he spent the last hour of her visit displaying his bare torso. After Laura left, he saw his shirt and said "Oh, I forgot to put on my shirt." I said, "Oh, that's too bad Gabey. Did you want to be handsome for Laura." He said "Yes, but I wasn't handsome, I was just skinny." Poor kid, already worried about his torso.

Storm predictor

For those now interested in tracking tropical storms & hurricanes, there is an interesting website you can check out. It's called Tropical Storm Risk and it shows all active tropical storms, hurricanes & typhoons (the name for hurricanes in Asia). It shows their strength and likely path. We've been watching Typhoon Damrey because it's been predicted to give us a lot more rain in a couple of days, so everyone's preparing for another flood. The website is http://tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/.

The flood

Here's a pic of the flood in front of our office. Susan, the Canadian in the picture, had to climb the fence to get into our office since the sandbags were in front of the gates.