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shaken

Posted on 25/03/2011 by monica @ transplanting me

i just felt the second tremor of the evening. they’re very mild here and having no experience at all with earthquakes it took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on. the epicenter of the earthquake was up near the burma/thai/china border and it was somewhere around a 6.8 on the richter scale. here in chiang mai they’ve said the tremors register about 3.0. which, from what i understand, puts these tremors in the category of no big deal when it comes to earthquakes.

but for me it is a bit more than no big deal. because it plays into one of my biggest fears. the fear that something horrible will happen while michael and i are separated. this has been on my mind quite a bit lately. michael arrived home from the states just before the earthquake happened in japan and he’d had a layover at narita airport hours before the earthquake struck. that moved this fear of mine from back burner to high gear (am i mixing my metaphors? are those even metaphors?). and then he headed to nepal. and up into the himalayas. and he sent me texts that said things like, “wow! we finally made it. crazy, wild times.” which to my paranoid mind translates to “wow! can’t believe we made it alive!” or the one from this morning, “taking very scary bus ride through the himalayas today. mostly downhill with barely enough room for the bus.”* and i’m pretty sure by that he meant, “headed down a mountain in a death trap with no brakes!!” thankfully, i’d heard from him earlier this evening and he said, “looks like we made it through the worst part.” so i knew he had better than even odds of not being trapped under a bus somewhere on the side of the himalayas when i texted him that we’d felt the earthquake.

we’ve never discussed what to do if something major happens while we’re apart. part of me doesn’t even want to go there. but then i wonder if that’s wise or responsible. shouldn’t we have a plan? shouldn’t i know who to call in the middle of the night on a weekend if i need help and i need it now? i like to think that the chances of needing a plan like that are slim, but with as much as michael travels (40 days so far this year, but who’s counting?) it might be a tiny bit more likely than i think.

Posted in me me me, michael | Tagged earthquake | 8 Comments

just like riding a bicycle

Posted on 20/03/2011 by monica @ transplanting me

this is michael’s bike

michael’s bike is a special bike. it’s not special because it’s a super-dee-duper top of the line bike (it’s not), and it’s not special because it’s an awesome color (it is an awesome color, but that’s not why it’s so special) and it’s not special because of any amazing promises that were made in the advertising of the bike (we saw no advertising). it’s special because it’s different.

and it requires a different bike riding skill set to get it to go. it didn’t come this way. the pedal came off and before we could find the tool we needed to fix it our house help’s husband had it all taken care of.

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strength

Posted on 16/03/2011 by monica @ transplanting me

i’ve always thought of myself as a strong person – physically strong. i’ve sort of prided myself on knowing that if furniture needed to be moved i could do it. i needed no help lugging around luggage or boxes or bags. help with my groceries? not necessary, i’ve got it. but, recently, i’ve discovered that while i still think of myself as strong – i’m not. i don’t know that i’ve deteriorated to official weakling, but i am certainly fast on my way. just before i decided to redefine myself as nowhere near as strong as i thought i was, i came across a business card for crossfit chiang mai.

what is crossfit? it’s “constantly varied high-intensity functional movement” it’s “fitness for life”. and it’s really challenging. really. i happen to know one of the trainers – i didn’t know he led this secret trainer life, but knowing the trainer certainly made it easier to give it a go. i went for my initial assessment. the work out included rowing, pushups, pullups, squats and sit-ups. nothing too difficult – at least reading it on the board wasn’t difficult. the brilliant thing about crossfit is it’s completely scalable. need to do push-ups and can’t do an all out push-up? that’s okay, because you could do a ~~girl~~ lever push-up. can’t do a lever push-up? that’s okay, you can do one leaning against a bar. (i have personal experience with this. you’d be surprised how hard it is to do a push-up against a bar when you have ~~absolutely no~~ very little upper body strength.) and pull-ups? those are scalable, too. and squats? yep, scalable, or relocatable (i don’t think that’s crossfit lingo). i kept falling forward, the solution to that is to get really, really close to a wall. facing the wall. as you go up and down – and your form is not so good and you end up leaning too far forward – you can drag your face along the corrugated metal.

i survived the assessment, i might not have been able to lift a coffee cup the next day, but i’d gotten in the required numbers of each thing. it’s only been a few weeks and changes are already noticeable. i can do a squat, with no help from a wall. i can do a ~~girl~~ lever push up. it’s not pretty, but i do get it done.

Posted in crossfit, me me me | 10 Comments

the carnage

Posted on 21/02/2011 by monica @ transplanting me

the great chicken massacre of 2011. that’s what we’ll remember it as. we might also remember it as the time everyone was really, really thankful i was too stunned to run for the camera.

it all started with the rose apple tree. it’s currently loaded with rose apples. no one in our family is a big fan of this fruit. some of us will eat it, but none of us are crazy about it. which made the harvesting of the rose apples a perfect opportunity for our mâe bâan and her husband to make a little more money. but the bats were hindering their efforts. it seems that bats love rose apples. and they love to take one bite out of a rose apple and then move along. so p’khao put up some plastic netting to protect the rose apples from the bats. turns out it’s also the perfect size to trap bats. and one bat got so caught he injured himself. so p’khao rescued him. and put him in a cage. on my dining table. (a14 tells me that bats carry japanese encephalitis.) turns out this bat was so injured that he didn’t recover. luckily (for us, not the bat), p’khao returned to take care of the necessary arrangements for the bat. he then told us not to worry about the bat, that he had something else for us.

the something else turned out to be chickens. 2 of them. 2 very sad looking chickens. 2 very sad, pathetic looking chickens that he assured us would taste yummy. and he’d even been so thoughtful that he’d named them. after our two youngest children. which meant we could look forward to the culinary delight that would be the eating of a14 and s11. somehow it wasn’t very appetizing.

the chickens went into the aviary. the aviary that hasn’t been used since we don’t know when. and the dogs were to stay outside the aviary. which got the dogs barking. non-stop. i’m sure that stressed the chickens to no end. if they were meant to be egg laying chickens there was no way they were gonna lay any eggs at all. and if they were meant to fatten up for eating time that wasn’t going to happen, either. i wasn’t sure how this was going to end, but i didn’t have to wait long to find out.

it happened during a14′s harp lesson. everything got quiet. the incessant barking ceased. and i was so happy to have some peace and quiet that i didn’t even think about why it was suddenly so peaceful. it took me a good 40 minutes to worry. and when i went to check it out i was greeted by a scene right out of a horror movie. s’mores had silenced the chickens. in a not so nice way. she was covered in black feathers – which was a difficult feat in itself, seeing as how the chickens had so few feathers. and she was covered in gore. she’d also ingested a pretty good amount of gore. if it’s labeled on this diagram she ate it.

i thought quickly enough to keep a14 and s11 from coming outside to see what had happened. c16 was fast on his feet and offered to clean up the mess. and actually did clean up the mess. it’s now a little difficult to look at s’mores without seeing her as a blood thirsty beast masquerading as a cute dog and, since i haven’t noticed reinforcements around the aviary, i’m pretty certain we’re out of the chicken business.

Posted in dogs, s'mores | 5 Comments