Hua Hin

Big Buddha near Hua Hin

So we're now in Hua Hin, a beach town located on the west coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It's a lot like Florida's gulf coast towns in that it's half ghost town. Hua Hin is close to Bangkok so there are a lot of second homes, weekend get-away condos and apartments. Even the King has a residence here.

Dogs will be dogs and so will we

We're staying in an apartment M. Lee found on Airbnb. It's right on the beach overlooking the Gulf and much nicer than the tiny room we had in Chiang Mai. It's way to nice for the likes of us but we're willing to be corrupted. The odd similarity is that, like our place in Chiang Mai, we are very nearly the only people here. It's like we're ghosts in a vacant house. We're the only people on our floor so we've been sleeping with the front door open for the breeze.

Hobbit monk blue door into rock inner sanctum

It's a bit creepy but a nice draft. Our isolation here is compounded by the fact that not one member of the skeleton crew that runs the place speaks a word of English. That just seems like a bad idea to me but that's the way it is. Anyway, we met the owner of the apartment next door this afternoon. He is preparing the place for a family coming this weekend.

Me, Swami and Giant Golden Tortoise

Bummer. But it's late. More on Hua Hin later. I've got to get to sleep.

A five-year-old's Christmas list

Christmas is coming so, of course, we asked the parents for gift lists for the grandkids. This is one of the ones we got back in reply:

"I opened this up to Miss Thea:

My own chapstick.
My own pack of gum that's my own, because I think I'm old enough now.
And that's it.

Are you sure? You don't want anything else?

Well, maybe some new tights because I don't have very many that fit me.
And popsicle sticks without popsicles.

For crafts?

Yes, for crafts.
And I really really really really really want a picture frame.

What for?

I just really need one.
Also, batteries for my camera
Art supplies, cause I just love to do art.
A necklace that is red with snowflake beads
Red socks with snowflakes
A pillow with polka-dots and stripes
Shoes with red and green flowers and blue snowflakes
A blue blanket with snowflakes
... Oh, and did I pronounce that I really want a blanket? Not just on the idea list, but I really want it for Christmas?

Okay.

Did I pronounce the necklace already?

Yes.

Okay then, that's it.  G'night."

Visa run recap

The visa run went well the other day. Mostly we waited. M. Lee read. I did some reading, people watching and talked with some interesting people. When my number was finally called I stepped up to the counter, handed over my passport and paperwork and, most important, paid the fee... 1900 baht (about 60 dollars US). We were both done and out in three hours. Before lunchtime. A friend happened to be there at the same time getting his residency extended (a yearly task) and I hear, three days later, it's still not done.

I will say this, the Immigration office is a world class crossroads. Everyone who wants to extend their stay passes through there... tourists, travelers, scholars, entertainers, writers, photographers, cyclists, charlatans, nuns, missionaries, do-gooders, clergy, monks, imams, shamans, wizards, warlocks, expats, refugees, wanderers, outlaws, volunteers, professionals, politicians, drunks, addicts, dirty old men, kooks and just plain crazies. I think a good many of them were there on Monday. I hear there are services that, for a fee, deal with Immigration for you, otherwise you go in person. Of course, that doesn't mean everybody does but they run the risk of fines and deportation.

Our extension was routine. The 60 day tourist visas we got before leaving the US had expired. We had to either extend them or leave Thailand. We did 30 day extensions so we'll leave mid-January and return to the States. We want to spend some time with the family. The grandkids are growing up way too fast.

As for photos of the place, I didn't even try to take one. The second anyone snapped a shot, an Immigration officer immediately appeared and made them delete it.

TEMPORARY STAY IN THE KINGDOM

I'm not exactly looking forward to today. We have to go to Immigration to renew our visas. I hear it can be a brutal, all day wait. A guy I met here waited five weeks for his wife's visa but ours should be pretty straightforward though it could take all day. I'm ready. I've got snacks, my Kindle, all my devices are charged, including the portable charger which is indispensable when you take a million fucking photos with your phone every day. And I have pen and paper... you know... in case I want to write something. We are hoping for the best.

Sadly, our temporary stay in the Kingdom of Thailand is running out. We have a week left in Chiang Mai and I haven't done one post about the place yet, though I photostream an account of the passing days at Instagram and Flickr. Anyway, time to go. Have a good one.

Elephant and more elephants

Finally I got to spend time with elephants. I went with a friend a few weeks ago to Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand. Most of the elephants there have been rescued from heartbreaking situations but now, happily, they'll never be abused again. And the Park is not only a refuge for elephants, but is also home to some 400 dogs and countless cats all co-existing in relative harmony. 

Do not get in the way of an elephant butt rub

Before lunch, we got to bathe an elephant in the river. It's a bit hokey but a harmless way for us to interact with them. Our group bathed a lovely lady named Kathong. She's new to the Park and still healing after stepping on a landmine a year ago. 

Bathing Kathong

She's not the only elephant there recovering from a landmine. Another Park resident was in the hospital for three years, but Kathong's injury is the most recent. She's still shy and keeps to herself but didn't seem to mind munching a basket of fruit as we splashed her with buckets of water. And, of course, her mahout was by her side.

Kathong and her mahout, an amazing fellow.

He is her comfort and protector and hangs out with her in the field

all day, everyday. At night, he returns to his family who live in one of 

the mahout huts at the edge of the forest. You can see them in the background.

I appreciate that the Wikipedia page on mahouts includes a link to Elephant Nature Park. It's a nod in the right direction, The hooks, bludgeons, whips and chains used by traditional mahouts have no place at the Park where everyone is treated with compassion, respect, savvy and buckets of treats.

Elephant Park's newest family.

In the afternoon, after an amazing vegetarian feast, we took a walk with our guide. Along the way, we met this mama and her baby. The calf was an orphan who had come to the park, and been with his new mother, for only two weeks.

Who could object?

Of course, we all stopped and oohed and awed and started clicking away. We didn't think anything about it. After all, we were their well-wishers and delighted to see the new, happy family. But mom had a different take on things.

Mama doing what mamas do

She came around the fence, and her mahout followed her as she followed us, but it wasn't until our guide clued us in that we finally got what was going on.

And stay out!

He quietly warned us not to run but quickly follow him slowly away, and pointed us towards a larger group about to enjoy a tasty dinner. After that, the new mother turned and went back to her calf.

After a day of eating it's dinner time

All in all, being around elephants, for even such a brief time, was not only delightful, it recalibrated my soul and, no, I don't care how corny that sounds.

RIP Mark Strand

Mark Strand (1934-2014)

Cat in a Hat by Rene Magritte

Canto XVI
-from Dark Harbor

It is true, as someone has said, that in
A world without heaven all is farewell.
Whether you wave your hand or not,

It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.

Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,

Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being

Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans' wings,

The density of the palms' shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of change, beyond the evasions of music. The end

Is enacted again and again. And we feel it
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon's ripening,
In the wine as it waits in the glass.

So You Say

It is all in the mind, you say, and has
nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold,
the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world.
You take my arm and say something will happen,
something unusual for which we were always prepared,
like the sun arriving after a day in Asia,
like the moon departing after a night with us.

More poetry by Mark Stand

Bat cave Buddhas and bats

To make the most of our visit to Khao Yai National Park we stayed two nights at Greenleaf Tour's guesthouse. We took a van from Bangkok, arrived in the afternoon and after lunch a small group of us piled into the back of a pick-up truck outfitted with benches and a roof and set out with a guide to see the bats.

Whip snake along the road

We hadn't gone five miles when, unexpectedly, the truck pulled over and our guide jumped out. We scrambled after him into the trees and when we caught up he was gently lifted a long, thin silver snake off a branch. It blows my mind that he actually spotted it from the truck at about 40 mph. but he really did have eyes like a hawk.

Another amazing earthling

But more impressive to me was how carefully he handled every creature he found and showed us along the way, and there were many.


Bat and Buddha cave near Khao Yai National Park

The first cave we visited was a huge underground world. There we had the pleasure of meeting phantasmagorical insects, an enormous cave dwelling serpent and some subterranean Buddhas serenely residing in the perpetual dark beyond the bottom of the stairs.

Bat cave Buddha

Bat cave resident

Another bat cave Buddha

Another bat cave resident

At one point, pure luck, we saw a colony of tiny bats emerge from their tiny cave within the larger cave's wall.

Twilight in the bat cave

I don't know if we disturbed them or happened upon them just as they were leaving for the night's hunt but according to our guide, even for him, it was a rare sighting.

Snacking on pineapple, waiting for twilight

The big event was watching some two million wrinkle lipped bats leave their hillside cave at twilight, and leave they did, like a rushing river. We watched for about an hour as they wound their way out over the fields for the night's hunt. They consume billions of insects a night and a few hawks swoop through their ranks hoping to consume a few of them. When we left, they were still streaming out.



Two million bats leaving their cave at twilight
The sound and rhythm of their wings resembled breathing and, mixed, with the singing of the insects, it was like nothing I've ever heard before yet it was comforting and familiar like the sound of the ocean or the nearness of a beloved.

Yes! An elephant!

Khao Yai National Park.

YES! We did see an elephant in the wild. One. And, after repeated reminders that it not a given, one was one more than any of us thought we'd see. Khao Yai is a huge park and the elephants there roam free.

There are no elephants for people to "pet". There are no elephants for people to ride. The park rangers do put salt blocks and some hay out by the road in hopes of occasionally attracting them into view but, for the most part, they are off on their own in the tall grass and forest deep.

We just got lucky. One of the guys in our group, Paul from Wyoming (the guy in the blue shirt), spotted him from the back of the truck as we were driving. Then we all started shouting at once. I pounded on the roof of the cab. Our guide immediately stopped, threw the truck in reverse, backed up, pulled off the road and parked.

Everyone, including the guide, jumped out, cameras in hand, and ran up the path after him. Of course rule number one is don't harass the wildlife and we were good. In spite of our excitement, we did keep our distance.

It was a lone male returning from the road after enjoying the salt block, ambling slowly along the path through the tall grass heading back to the forest.

We all managed to get a few photos before he strolled up over the hill and out of sight.

Our guide explained that because elephants in the wild can graze all day in the delicious tall grass they are, in general, much fatter than elephants in captivity. This fellow certainly proved his point.

Elephants, maybe

We're leaving in the morning to spend a day and a half at Khao Yai National Park where we might, if we're lucky, see some elephants. I'm not getting my hopes up. The elephants in Khao Yai are wild, not prisoners in some cruel roadside petting zoo. I hate things like that. But, regardless of what we may or may not see, it will also be nice getting out into nature for a bit. Bangkok is a fascinating city but it's also like being rumbled around in the very noisy gut of a gigantic beast.

We'll leave about 9 am. It won't be fun rolling our suitcases to the sky train. The sidewalks are very irregular but we've done it before plus it's only a couple of block to the station and there's an escalator. Then it's two stops to Victory Monument which functions as the hub for vans and buses going all over the country. There's no escalator back to the street we want so, when we get there, we'll have to bump our suitcases down three flights of stairs. That'll suck but, again, we've done it before. We booked a tour with Greenleaf and that's where we get the van. Then it's about a two and a half hour drive from Bangkok to Khao Yai. When we get to the park, we'll drop our bags in our room, have lunch at the guesthouse and then they'll take us out for the afternoon to see what we can see. And we'll be out all day next day. M. Lee, who did this tour a few years ago and didn't see any elephants, assures me it will be a very long, very bumpy day in the back of a pick up truck. Can't wait.

Morning report

I can't figure out exactly what's going on at Villa Ratchathewi, the place we're staying in Bangkok. Don't get me wrong. I love our apartment and our host. The apartment itself is wonderful, quiet, airy, well lit and I love the view of the city from the bathtub. Plus, our host immediately replies to our emails. It's another fantastic find via airbnb, It's just that the lobby seems more like a student lounge and study hall than the lobby of an apartment building. We almost never see any adults around here. It's not that expensive by US standards but how can these kids afford to live here? Other than the old Chinese lady in the gym, who is perpetually walking on the world's squeakiest, most rickety treadmill, it seems there are almost no other adults in the building, and by adults I mean people over, oh say, twenty or twenty-five. And no. It's not because Asians look young longer than Westerners. Trust me. These are kids. So what exactly going on at Villa Ratchathewi? It's all very odd.

Clearly, the old woman is up to something. Whenever we go to the gym, she's there grinding away on that goddamn treadmill. She's there when we arrive and still there when we leave. I suspect she is the one who powers the Reality Generator at the hub of the universe and is responsible for maintaining the entire Cosmic Show. There is no other explanation. If she were to stop walking we'd all disappear. Don't worry. We'll never notice we're gone.

Frogs doing it in a mall pond

The other notable thing about this place besides, like I say, the bathtub in the window, is the mosque which we can see from all the windows. The first chant is before sunrise. It's really more like an open throated yell. The first few days, when we were still jet lagged, it was really annoying. It felt like 2 AM and neither one of us could get back to sleep. Then I got accustomed to it and one morning I actually got up and checked the time, 5 AM. Not so bad really. In the yoga community where I used to live, we started at 4 AM. According to a national survey at the time, our Society was ranked the most despised neighbor in America. People dreaded living near us more than they dreaded living near gang members. Anyway, the following morning, when the chanting began, I awoke to the charming mental image of a lone desert Mullah chanting in the courtyard of an outpost white stone mosque as a gigantic orange desert sun rose over the vast Sahara, its rays streaming across the horizon into the otherwise indelible silence. Then last night, we realized the chanting is a recording. Talk about buzz-kill. Plus, I just noticed that I dropped one of my ear buds in my coffee.

Bangkok massage parlor

Red pants and tennis shoes

One happy, very fashionable little lady

Saturday and Sunday we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. aka the JJ Market. Bangkok is full of big glitzy and and some very high end malls but, among them all, the Chatuchak Market is legendary. It's one of the largest markets of it's kind in the world and the first time or two wandering through, seems infinite. These photos are misleading because the street is still empty. I took them early Sunday morning before people started arriving but every weekend, without fail, thousands attend. Even as we were leaving on Saturday afternoon, throngs of people were still streaming in*.

She and her "mom" are vendors at the market

We spent a lot of time at the market last time we were in Bangkok and it's the first place we headed when we got back. There's good people watching, a vast, eclectic array of goods and great prices. And this is a big plus, the Chamlong Asoke's Buddhist vegetarian outdoor food court is near the market so we always go there for lunch. The population is 97% Buddhist but it's hard finding vegetarian food in Thailand.

JJ Market coconut water man

*Footnote:
In the comments, Mr. Donut posted an interesting detail about the Chatuchak Market. Thanks Mr. D.

"It's more than a hundred thousand visitors per day or something like that, but it feels at times like a million all trying to cram into a closet."

Hi from Thailand

Bangkok graffiti

Notes on the fly

Thriftstore deco pop art plate
Price: $20
Artist unknown

We left New York on Friday and flew to Los Angeles where we spent a few days doing the town with M.'s mom. That is, we took her to her favorite charity thrift shops. She had a great time and even came away with a few super bargains. Just for the record, the broken glass and toys deco pop art plate pictured above was not among them. And we went to MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). After seeing the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney in New York, I was prepared to be unimpressed by their Warhol exhibit but big surprise! Shadows was delightful.

Warhol - Shadows
MOCA, 2014

It is a single work composed of 102 variously silkscreened and hand painted canvases. The images are based on two impressions of a shadow in Warhol's studio. A few minutes in the room and my dismissive attitude melted under their unobtrusive and oddly soothing sway. All together, the paintings are charming in the way a chant is charming or yes, okay I'll say it, an afternoon shadow. Because of its size, this is only the second time Shadows has been shown in its entirety. The curator describes the collection as a "haunting, environmental ensemble". Even though it's a Warhol, for once I agree the rhetoric.

And as I'm on the subject of works by Anointed Ones such as Warhol, Koons and Wool, I recently read a thread on Metafilter about why their art is so "valuable". Warhol's picture of a coke bottle recently sold for $57.8 million and Koons' Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4 million, a new high mark for a living artist. Considering the relative inanity of these "masterpieces", this may leave one wondering what the fuck IS art anyway? Without going all "art speak", the very pinnacle of pomposity, it helps to keep in mind that the value of any work of art is arbitrary and personal. Consider those stick figure drawings your toddler gave you back when. Priceless. Just so, in a lessor fashion of course, it is not hard to see why billionaires treasure works by the Anointed Ones. Buying and selling these "masterpieces" allows them to legally move great gobs of money around. The upscale Art Market could be otherwise called the Billionaire Laundromat.

"Apocalypse Now"
Price: $26.4 million
Christopher Wool

And now, after traveling for 45 hours, we're in Bangkok. I count that time from Los Angeles when we got up in the morning to Bangkok when we finally got to bed some two nights later, after dinner and walking to the Big C for bananas, oatmeal and instant coffee for breakfast. We're staying in an apartment M. Lee found on airbnb. It costs $60 a day, which is a lot more than the $9 a day room we had in Chiang Mai last winter, but it's Bangkok and in a great location.

Inflight map

For the record

Ordinary day at Times Square
NYC

As I was saying, Bloggoroid gobbled up the post I tapped out yesterday on my phone during our bus ride into the City. I no longer scream when these things happen. Some of my losses have been far worse. We all know it's part on life online so here goes again. What follows is a list, mostly without comment. If I have time for more, I'll add it at the end.

NY Times
from Port Authority Bus Terminal

In the week we've been in New York, we've seen two Broadway plays, "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" and "It's Only A Play". Wonderful. We caught the Jeff Koons exhibit at the soon to be "old Whitney".  One of his pieces fetched the highest price ever received by a living artist but, IMO, he's not an artist but a designer of over-sized kitsch that, if shrunk down to regular size, I wouldn't pay a dollar for. But then, that's "art" in the world of high finance. We have eaten in a variety of places. Because M.'s mother's tastes range from Michelin Star restaurants to skeevy Chinese noodle and dumpling houses, we've eaten at both. And yesterday we made a pilgrimage to Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery in the Bowery, a favorite from Kathy's time in the City during her youth. Also, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art twice, munched on sandwiches in Central Park, took what seems like a thousand cold-hearted subway trains and enjoyed our daily short, civil bus trip from New Jersey to Manhattan and back.

Graffitti
Chinatown, NYC

New Jersey itself is perhaps the most pleasant surprise of all. It's quiet, clean and residential with wide sidewalks, trees and a million, no, a three million dollar view of the City across the Hudson. It's a Latino Mayberry. If you don't know what Mayberry is/was, I mean to say it's America circa the 1950s complete with high school football practice and tree-lined streets. If it has a seething, gang-ridden underbelly I am totally, and blissfully, unaware of it.

Kathy at Prosperity Dumpling
Chinatown, NYC

As for the streets of New York, they are a panoply of languages. Mid-town and down, is the center of the hive and chaotic circus complete with food carts, wandering Spidermen, Gumbys, Cookie Monsters and every other cartoon and fantasy character, every kind of fashion, nearly naked ladies, hell fire preachers, millions of pounds of squishy tourists, sly hustlers, bustlers, immigrants, cops, military, rich, poor and inbetweens. The buildings themselves have been transformed from their original brick and stone into dazzling, ricocheting video screen mazes designed to stun and hypnotize and do. Oh, and this weekend the International Comic-Con is happening so today the streets should be extra freaky.

Ordinary day at Times Square
NYC

Oops. M. Lee just jumped up and announced that he miscalculated the time. Okay. Sorry. No time to edit this. I'll fix it later. I hope my mistakes aren't too egregious. I'm sure I'll be embarrassed when I read it later but I'm determined to post something. Otherwise, I post nothing.   So.... photos to follow.

The Elms
Bowery

Bloggeroid ate my post

I did a more complete post on the bus coming in from New Jersey but the blogger app ate it. This one I'm doing as we wait for the day's sandwiches to be made. Today we're going back to the Met. OK. That is all.

posted from Bloggeroid

NY street scene

This will have to be quick. You know how it is. We were supposed to leave at 11 AM and it's already 10:55. Oops. :56.

We're in New York with M.'s mom. Her treat, we're going to a Broadway play this afternoon. Don't ask which one. I don't remember. I've got bigger things on my mind, such as downloading my photos from yesterday. M. and I sat out on Times Square on small red metal folding chairs while his mom shopped at H&M. It was a circus. Of course,  my photos are no different than the thousands, perhaps millions, of other photos people took of the place yesterday but here's one of mine.

NYC, Times Square street scene

Notes on last summer

Grammatically correct Bangkok graffiti.

Old editors don't die. They just wander the world critiquing graffiti. Never mind the expression. It's typical of the trade. The Language Barrier's Itinerant Editor is actually expressing pleasure over the correct use of the apostrophe. Thus we are going back to Bangkok for more. Before we leave, I have much to do. That is why, of course, I am doing a blog post which I must begin with a lament.

I blew it! Thea Bella and Kristiana stayed with us for five weeks in Florida this summer but I kept only the barest record of their wonderful visit on my external memory, otherwise known as this blog. Now there is not, for the cold winter nights ahead, a reliable path back to those sweet memories, only flitting recollections of the quirky details, things five-year-old Thea said and did. So, for my future self, here are three memories. May they lead to more.

Every night, Thea would invite me to come listen to the bedtime story, Harry Potter. At that point, they were nearing the end of book two. I would bring my pillow and lay on the end of the bed and Kristiana read to us. She is a fabulous reader. Very dramatic with perfect, distinct voices for each character. It was very entertaining. Thea's memory is much better than mine. She knew the plot and all the characters by name and the reading seemed to energize her. With the irrepressible curiosity of a five-year-old, she asked a lot of questions, all the while doing things like standing on her head and bouncing on the bed. That took some getting used to as, being grandma and all, I became instantly drowsy and was happy to drift in and out under the spell of the words. It was a bedtime story after all. In any case, this endearing nightly ritual became, for me, one of the defining moments of the summer.

Another defining event was how Thea, being so enamored by the sometimes even 90° water of the Gulf, refused to come out even long enough to eat lunch. She'd run ashore, grab her sandwich, give grandpa his, then they'd have to run back into the water. She would only eat standing in the waves. By the end of the summer she was snorkeling, beginning to anyway, and fearless in the surf. 

Mesdames K. and T.
An electric evening at the jetty

Then there were the amazing, wild tales she and grandpa made up about everything. I wish I'd recorded some of them. For example, they discussed reflections in mirrors. The little Florida house has many. She wondered if the Theas in the mirrors were real. That story almost got out of hand. They pondered which was the real Thea. Was Mirror Thea the real Thea? Was she her reflection? I almost pulled the plug on that one because, for the one moment Thea considered that, her eyes took on the appearance of dark, faraway vortices. Luckily, the next moment she rejected the idea and declared that, without a doubt, she was the real Thea and the Mirror Theas, each and every one of them, were their own separate persons. Naturally on the last day, when she and Mom were preparing to leave for the airport, she went around saying good-bye to them all and wishing them well.

As for our time in LA with M. Lee's mom, way back in July, at some point I will also do a post on it. M. Lee even requested that I do. A first! For the record, I started one before Thea and Kristiana arrived, also back in July, but it still languishes in draft. When Mesdames Thea and Kristiana came, blam-o! I did manage my morning five minute write, before Thea got up, but that's about it. My hat is off to all parents with fledglings in the nest. I think we forget, once our kids are launched, how totally engaging they are. There's never a second. It would be 9 or 10 PM before I could finally sit down to write about the day, then suddenly I'd wake up disoriented, exhausted, laptop gone dormant, cicada singing away in the mangrove dark and I could only toddle off to bed, the day gone and unwrit. So for now, minimal as it is, this will have to do.

Shane, Lee and Kathy at the Getty - LA

Fiona's story

I found a "note to self" on my desktop tonight. It had one word, Fiona, and a link to the video below. Thank you, past self. Watching it pulled me back from the abyss I fell into today fiddling with the endless details for this upcoming trip. So I'm embedding it here for my future self, because the time will come again, and for anyone else happening by who might like, or need, a sweet story about now.



PS. If you happen to know who did the song, please let me know. It's not only perfect for the video, it's just good.

Turn-around

Flying by

Home, sweet turn-around. We've just got back from Portland, Oregon. It was the last leg of a four month journey and the Big Event, the birth of Baby Chance, Supermoon Boy. Now we're back in Nevada. It's home but feels more like a traffic circle. Nevertheless, we have long-time friends here, our "stuff" is here, the Bird Park is here. Things are where and the way they are supposed to be. Maggie, aka the 7 o'clock magpie, showed up for peanuts the first morning we were back and, at the moment, sparrows fill the bushes and trees and several are enjoying a raucous dust bath party on the ground.

Squirrel underpants

And then there's my office. In case you've ever wondered where the center of the Universe is, cluttered though it be, it's my office. And, for the moment, I am there ... here. But not for long. We are leaving again at the beginning of October and won't be back until mid-January. Of course I'll still be here, the Language Barrier that is. It's home everywhere. And home is where the heart is..... which is family.

Cousins Thea, Leo and Frank

Baby Chance and Dad

Our ultimate destination is Thailand for three months. I guess it's fair to say we're in a rut. We were also there last year for three months. Yes. There is a whole big world out there, and time is running out, but we really like Thailand. But before Thailand, we're going to New York with Lee's mom for a brief visit and after that we'll all go to LA for a few days. Then she returns home and we return to Thailand. At this point, we're there more than anywhere else.

My pot

Life is strange. I never thought I'd be traveling like this. Several years ago, starting over and dirt poor, I bought a small copper-bottomed sauce pan at a secondhand store. I was delighted. It was a good omen. Revere Ware. My mother always said it was the best. I was still with my then-husband but, in fact, was more like a single mom raising three kids. A lot of meals came out of that pot, all though their childhood. And, being the absent-minded type, I burned a lot of food in it. However, I pride myself on always restoring it to some semblance of it's original secondhand glory. Now, 30 years later, a little worn though it be, all things being equal, it's still got a ways to go. I cooked my oatmeal in it this morning.