transplanting me

what great things have we shown my mom today? well, the hospital - at least the outside of it - when we dropped bh off to have his infected ear (ouch) looked at. and the drug store - where we attempted to pick up bh’s over the counter prescription drugs, but weren’t able to. the kids’ school - she got to wait with the kids’ while bh and i had a meeting with c14’s math teacher, whom i would love to tell you all about, but my mom’s here and she always said, “if you can’t say something nice, then shut your pie hole.” or something like that. and then she got to stay at home while bh and i went to teach our english classes. and i know i said y’all at least 5 times during my class. but i have yet to say tumpt, but i’ll figure how to work it in winey.

about the best we’ve done today, as far as giving my mom a taste of thailand goes, is bringing home dinner from the market. a veritable thai feast.

oh, and we had another tokay spotting. she’s thinking she might like one if she could get it leash trained!

so how does one spend mother’s day when visiting thailand?

just joking. that’s not all we did. we also washed the car, cuz we know all about celebrating!

here’s my picture documentary of this morning -

this is where we start.

it seems almost unreal.

missed the greeting. and it wasn’t documented, because of the tears.

and then she led us home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it’s national melanoma/skin cancer detection and prevention month!

i’m celebrating
at least participating
4 cancers removed

one was squamous cell
easily treated, freeze it
caught very early

two were basal cell
excision is required
scars small price to pay

one melanoma?
biopsy is still pending
stitches in my butt

stupid as a kid
“wear hat and sunscreen,” dad says
but i was too cool

how can i defend
skin self-exams, sunscreen, hat
doesn’t seem too hard

you should do it, too
no better time than right now
take care of yourself

this morning bh and i woke up bright and early so we could get to my appointment with the skin doctor. before we left i checked my email only to learn that the contract on our house in colorado fell through. i wasn’t too surprised, but certainly was disappointed. there’s not a lot we can do about it, so we try not to worry. besides we have other places to be. so we head to the hospital where i have the bad, bad skin cancers removed from my body. and i’m left with this…

i have to leave it covered for 24 hours. but tomorrow i’ll post a pic of the stitches. i also have this…

not a real picture. this computer rendering of a buttocks was done by me and no, i’m not taking any clients. and i won’t be posting a picture of those stitches uncovered. that would be too much sharing.

and waan, sensing i’ve had somewhat of a rough morning, greets me at the door with this. it’s his feel better present for me.

nasty dog.

i made this

out of some of these

if you are thinking, she made a plastic bag out of plastic bags, you’re right. and now - i’m quite sure my footprint is like one size smaller.

when i first started on it and bh didn’t know exactly what i was doing he looked at my work in progress

and worried that it would be awful itchy and very impractical.

if you want to know how to make plarn go here. and the pattern i used? this won’t be all that helpful, but i googled hobo bag knitting patterns and then just kind of winged it.

this little fellow has taken up residence on our residence. he’s a tokay gecko, aka the pit bull of the gecko world. sounds charming, doesn’t he? thank God he seems content to be outside and hasn’t decided to move in with us, because i’ve done enough reading to know he’s not the friendliest when confronted and s8 would be all over confronting him.

you can hear what he sounds like by clicking here, and it is so totally worth the time and effort it will take to go listen. and while you’re listening imagine you’re in bed trying to fall asleep and every 5 min or so you hear this lovely mating call.

bh and i are gonna be teachin’ english. don’t worry, he’ll be doing the written part - handling all the capital letters and such. i’m going to be teaching conversational english. my qualifications - i love to talk. i know words and i need to use them. and i somehow need to pass this on to thai speakers. and i have no idea how. i would love to take a tefl course but there’s no time between now and wednesday. especially since i still have to wrap up my thai class. at the last school (i heart that school) my kids attended they used shurley grammar and had all these little jingles they sang.

a sentence, sentence, sentence is complete, complete, complete…

this little noun, floating around, names a person, place or thing…

there are alot of these jingles and such catchy tunes. but i’m thinking this might not work with adults. adults who wouldn’t understand the jingles and might possibly feel silly singing them. so, we’ve found a website or two to help us out, ideas for games, lesson plans and such. and i am going to try to take a tesl class this summer, but i might have already ruined any chance at all for these lovely people to speak english.

it’s coronation day here in the kingdom of thailand. and seeing as how i’ve never, ever lived in one before, i find it way too cool to say i live in a kingdom. way too cool. probably cooler than it is.

what is coronation day, you ask? it’s the day when thais celebrate the coronation of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which occured on may 5, 1950. that means he has been the king of thailand for 58 years - you can check my math if you want - making him the world’s longest-serving current head of state and the longest-serving monarch in thai history.

and, oh yeah, i live in a kingdom.

the other day, c14 and i were stopped at a red light, sharing hair styling tips - cuz he now recognizes that i’ve been there done that - and feeling like a light snack. luckily for us, we just had to roll down our window and get the attention of the guy working that intersection. now, we’ve stopped at this intersection at least once a day since we’ve lived here and this fellow is always there and we’ve never been tempted to buy from him. but i guess bonding over hair care must really work up an appetite because c14 couldn’t get the window down fast enough. once our purchase had been made c14 opened the bag and we found three of these…

and we had no idea what they were. or what they were made of. or anything. c14 immediately started chowing down and i began brainstorming for any and all ingredients i thought these crackers (they might be crackers), cookies (possibly cookies), firm pancakes (maybe) could possibly be made out of. i briefly considered fried snail slime or maybe the fat of something (like pork rinds). but really still have no idea. bh thinks maybe the stuff they use to make rice cakes (i think that’s called rice) and we know they are slightly sweet. the texture is like that of a pork rind - with the same kind of crunch. but no more investigation can be done, because they are gone. and c14 says we should get them again, since they are so very convenient.