Going Domestic

what a fine excuse reading is

  clapotis five drops in ... 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

This is my latest knitting project. I took this photo about a month ago, and I can't say that I've made much progress since then. I've read about five books, though!

2008 isn't shaping up to be good year in terms of commitment to my knitting hobby. I have had all of the parts of a cotton tank completed for at least a month, and I haven't been able to motivate myself to spend the required then minutes to do the little bit of sewing to finish it up. It's ridiculous, isn't it?

Maybe reading is my best pastime, and knitting is just a diversion. If I'm honest, I've been knitting for about eighteen months, and I've been reading books with chapters for twenty-six years.

My Top Five Books that are Better than Knitting:
1. Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
2. Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
3. Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
4. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
5. Fried Eggs with Chopsticks by Polly Evans

how I got here, part one

I remembered a few days ago that it was in February of last year that we decided that we'd move to Thailand. I don't think that I ever managed to blog about that.

Chris had been interested in taking one of his company's international postings even before we moved to Newfoundland. For at least six months before he was offered this job in Bangkok, he'd call me from his office on the St. John's waterfront, and try to sell me on the locations of the new international job postings (usually, what I imagine is deepest darkest Africa, if memory serves). 

When Chris's offer came through for a job in Bangkok, it was fairly easy to say yes. Neither of us were really attached to Calgary, though I felt a strong need to live in our house for a few months before moving on again. And after all, I was half expecting to be sent to Angola (where his company's website warned employees and their families about stepping outside the really high fence around their houses) or to the Kuwait desert (where there is no school, so children spend two hours per day commuting into Kuwait City).  Bangkok sounded pretty comfortable in comparison.

We read the information booklets that Chris's company gave him on living in Bangkok. We researched international schools on the internet. We talked about what we imagined our life in Thailand looking like, and also what us moving back to Calgary permanently would look like. Some things about living in Canada were very hard for me to give up. It's really hard to be so very far away from all of the important people in my life, excepting the two that I moved here with. I feel rather rotten that my daughter won't be growing up with her grandparents, that way that I was lucky enough to. On the other hand, the opportunity to live in SE Asia offered us a couple of years of adventure and cultural enrichment. In the end, Chris and I together drew out a plan for living in Thailand for the next 3-4 years that was acceptable to both of us, and there we were ...

i knew I should have skipped the workout

I was ten minutes away from my apartment and a shower when my workout was interrupted by a phone call from our building's assistant manager, saying that the maintenance folks would like to do more repair work on our master bathroom ceiling, and could they enter our unit? It was fine with me, though I also felt like slamming my sticky and sweaty head against the sidewalk as the same thing happened yesterday. Ten minutes from my much-needed shower, the repair work started. Hopefully they don't work on weekends ...

Chris and I received a monthly statement from the property rental company back in Calgary about our house yesterday, and I find it kind of ironic that our house is undergoing little repairs at the same time our apartment here is. At home, it's stuff like fixing the latching of our back door (warps a lot during the winter) and fixing up the window screens that the previous homeowners (of the "we like painted tile" fame) bent all out of shape. Usually Chris worried that the house will be a disaster when it becomes our main residence again, but I'm kind of tickled that in many little ways, it probably will be in better shape.

how does one say "happy valentines day" in thai?

Every weekday, as I drop my kiddo off at preschool, I see a long line of street hawkers with their carts, just meters outside of the compound gates. They typically are selling fried chicken, squid, tropical fruit that I have to admit looks fabulous, noodles, and cold drinks. Today, though, several of the enterprising hawkers had expanded their product lines and their carts were sporting bouquets of roses in pinks and reds.

An acquaintance of mine frequently uses the phrase "thai-light zone" for describing things like this, and I'm starting to realize that the expression fits really well.

second city

Departing from our usual habit of exploring Thailand's beach communities, last weekend, we flew to Chiang Mai. Chris and I have wanted to visit Chiang Mai for ages. Well, maybe not ages, but at least ever since we arrived here in BKK eight months ago. Frankly, I hadn't heard of the place before! Anyway, we wanted to see elephants in conservation parks, the large zoo, the famous night market that we imagined full of wonderful crafts from the north of this country. And we wanted to eat lots of khao soi. Chris had been told that Chiang Mai is the place to go for good khao soi.

The khao soi was, indeed, very yummy. It's my new favourite dish in Thai cuisine, though I am sure that the amount of coconut cream in it contains my weekly allotment of fat. The night market didn't live up to our expectations at all. I'm not sure why we expected it to be different than the other markets that we see, hawking t-shirts, counterfeit handbags, and assorted tacky souvenirs. Very busy, but without the huge handicraft section that makes the Chatuchak weekend market here a wee bit appealing. The zoo wasn't the magical place that I had imagined taking our kiddo to. It clearly needed a winfall of new funding for upgrades, and frankly, after seeing that the penguins weren't enjoying an Antarctic climate but a balmy 21 degrees C (the sad birds were literally standing in front of their air conditioner), our party headed for the exit.

There were several thing about our trip that exceeded my expectations. Our hotel was a lovely new place in the city that had a pool as nice, if not nicer than some of the beach resorts we've visited. A good pool is apparently the key to having a happy holiday with my three year-old. At breakfast one morning, Chris noticed that the pretty dishes that our hotel used were from a local celadon factory, so we planned a stop there ourselves, admired much, and made tentative plans to upgrade our current dinnerware.  My parents came to Chiang Mai with us, and it was really swell to hang out with them (I swear I haven't been on a holiday with my parents in about eighteen years), and it was awesome to have so many grown-ups around to keep an eye on M that I could take as many photographs as I wanted to, really, with my new fancy 16-105 mm lens (though apparently, it vignettes at certain distances).

We were in Chiang Mai for three days, and really, we felt that two days would have been enough for us.  On the third day, we really had no idea what to do. The five of us hung around our hotel under check-out time, trying to figure out a plan. It was kind of baffling - we'd heard that spending at least a week in Chiang Mai was the thing to do. I think that some of the usual attactions of Chiang Mai -  massage lessons, cooking classes, hill-tribe trekking, and meditation school - just weren't the right fit for us.  Meditation? Trekking? Not with our kiddo!

with love from me to you

Dear Canada Post,

Gosh, it's been awhile since I've thought of you. Since I no longer reside in Canada, I haven't felt the need to vent about how your employees leave delivery notifications on my door when I'm in fact at home and perfectly able to receive packages, or how your employees sometimes just leave expensive packages, like baby strollers, outside my door, when I am not around to answer the doorbell. I had almost forgotten about what a shining star of a monopoly you are, and then, a few days ago, I received a package from your cousin south of the border.

Oh, how I wish that you could be more like USPS! The smaller package that my folks mailed from Edmonton to me here cost three times as much, and took five weeks longer to arrive. What's up with that? See? It was mailed on the thirtieth of January, and it was here on February 5th. And check out the postage, while you're at it. Harumph.  Obviously, you're studying the business model of Air Canada way too closely ...
Regards,
Me