Not everything is for sale

"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."
Mark Twain.


I told you here that Thais, (and I) love to sleep. Here's an example.

Husband gets the credit for this cute photo.

I love Louis Sachar

I love Louis Sachar. My first love is Holes but I’ve just finished and enjoyed Cardturner.

I didn’t know it upfront but Cardturner is pretty much about bridge; you know, that four old person, card game? Now, if I had known it was a about bridge I might not have read it – even though it WAS a Louis Sachar novel – because I had been very seriously scarred by my bridge playing experience many years earlier.

When I was going out with Not Yet Husband* I discovered that he loved bridge. I came from a family that went to watch Shakespeare plays. My parents didn’t play cards. I knew what they were – I played Cheat with my cousins – but why would you play card games when you could watch Macbeth or King Lear? (Don’t get me started on that…)

NYH*’s family started me off slowly: I was taught to play Whist, Drellacabella and Sevens. Every time – and I mean EVERY time – we prepared to play, someone had to explain the rules to me. Again. And again. And again. Any experience I gained of the game evaporated from my head the very moment I left the card table. Retaining detailed bits of information is crucial in bridge. This is when I got my first inkling that some people’s brains are different from mine.

Eventually I agreed to learn bridge. Perhaps I thought that a life with this man would have to include it and perhaps I wanted to make an effort with something that was important to him. So, during uni holidays I attempt to learn, playing with NYH, NYMiL (have you got that?) and some cousins. They thought I was terribly clever because I’d seen all sorts of Shakespeare plays but that wasn’t to last long. They explained the game to me and were infinitely kind and generous and put up with my immense stupidity acknowledged my learning status. I had a little notebook that I wrote notes in, explaining the rules and bidding for contracts and even some of the play.

In my third year at university, NYH had a colleague in the chemistry department that played bridge and with the promise of a chilli con carne and beers we scrambled together some other friends to make two tables of four. They were great fun at the beginning when everyone else was learning but soon as our friends became more experienced… I realized then that it wasn’t bridge, it was me; I remained in a fug of bafflement.

You play bridge with a partner. When you see the hand dealt to you you have to bid a contract (saying how many tricks you’re going to win.) You need to know what kind of hand your partner has so there are rules to bidding which made no logical sense to me at all you have to follow to communicate with your partner. (If you aren’t already wanting to slash your wrists, for a laugh you can see here what some opening bids mean.)

So many things about bridge puzzled me. In order to know what tricks you might make it’s helpful if you can retain the information the other pair gave during bidding; and you should try to count the high cards as they are played. Except I couldn’t: ‘Was that a King of spades in the last hand? Hmm, it could’ve been, or it might have been a diamond and a Queen… Hmm; Who cares?’ As we were learning, we were allowed to query (this is strictly forbidden in real games;) NYH would say ‘she played the queen because she knew that it was good for a trick.’ ‘How?’ ‘Because the ace and the king have already been played.’ Really? And you’d all noticed this?

I tried for about two years to learn bridge. It was long enough for me to establish that I was void (a bridge joke!) of any natural ability to play cards.

And NYH married me anyway.

(Louis Sachar’s novel Cardturner is totally brilliant in spite of the bridge play – or maybe even because of it. His characters are real; their voices so strong and the story is great. They’re perfect for any teenager… or mum or dad, come to that.)

Monday memories: Christmas 1986

I’d been going out with Not Yet Husband for about two months. Notions of husbands couldn’t be further from my mind because my first term at university had finished and we were meeting for the first time on fresh turf: Covent Garden. Just us. Would we still like each other away from university?

(I just went to ask Husband if he had any fond memories of this trip. Readers, he had no memory of the momentous occasion. He looked hazy and said, ‘was it a big meet up in the Punch and Judy?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘it was just us.’ ‘Oh. Did we have lunch in that place in the middle?’ I said, ‘you’re guessing aren’t you?’ He said, ‘well I have lots of memories of Covent Garden…’ I said, ‘but not this special one?’)

To be fair to the old bloke his faculties are probably going. He got glasses for the first time yesterday: reading glasses. At last I’m not the only one… When he got home from the glasses trip he did a bit of tidying. He ventured into the button box where he found a number of treasures. A tie pin (aw gawd, did I really fall for a man who wore a tie pin?); an ARP badge (air raid patrol) and a single earring of mine.

He remembered (vaguely) that these earrings had been purchased by him in our dating days (though he couldn’t put an exact date on it) during a trip to Covent Garden (where we might or might not have been with other people) and was distressed that he had only found one. (The other one was in my jewellery box; I had kept it for sentimental reasons in spite of its singleton status.)

We had wandered about Covent Garden market and saw these gorgeous earrings. They were expensive and we were students but Not Yet Husband told the girl he wanted them. To our horror, the expensive price tag was for a single earring only (damn that trendy Covent Garden) but by this time NYH was unable to back out.

Regular readers will know how much I like lizards. I have blogged about all sorts – monitor lizards here and here; a blue crested lizard here; various gecko visitors here and a skink here. But I thought the lizard fascination grew while I was in Thailand; apparently not.

I wonder what those two young people wandering around Covent Garden in Christmas 1986 would have thought if they’d been told what life had in store for them.

For scale these are about 1cm tall and wide. They are inserted from the back of the ear lobe.

******

As a public humiliation tactic, each day I will show my progress (or otherwise) on my edit: page 31.

Falling Down

I've a guest blogger for you today. Husband is here to tell you about his journey home yesterday through the war zone that is Bangkok. I know, it doesn’t sound much of a topic and it is very long, but do read because it gives a flavour of life in Bangkok right now.

Getting home? A simple activity that for various reasons, to be recounted here, left me standing at a bread counter in a supermarket feeling very much like Michael Douglas in the film Falling Down only without the sub-machine gun (luckily for the Baker).

So you can fully appreciate my inner feelings of wrath and despair (at the same time), I will need to give you a little context:

• Bangkok is in the midst of a form of social unrest that borders on civil war.  As I type, on Friday night, the Army and the Redshirts have been fighting most of last night and all of today. 
• The company I work for is located in the Business District in Bangkok, only a short distance from the protestors barricades and myself and my colleagues have narrowly missed some of the more violent incidents in the area only by time rather than by distance.  Indeed one colleague didn’t manage to miss the violence at all.
• My job entails, among other things, responsibility for our disaster recovery procedures.  This essentially means I am responsible for staff safety in times of crisis (like today).
• Because of the escalating violence in the city yesterday evening, we had evacuated our offices and today rebased a number of staff (including myself) at an alternative site located about 8km from the city centre.
• I don’t own a car.  The upside of which is that I don’t have the stress of driving in Bangkok traffic (a whole amusement park rolled into one neat four wheeled package), and the downside is I have to rely on trains and taxis to get around (and buses if I ever pluck up the courage to use them.)

The rest of this blog entry is a description of that 8km as I experienced it this evening, and of a baker’s narrow escape from loaficide (made up word, but trust me, it’ll catch on).

I managed to leave the office early, though not in the nice “it’s Friday let’s all pack up early and head for the pub” way.  More of a “There’s fighting in the streets between the army and the demonstrators, the transport system is shutting down, and we need to get home before dark in case we get shot by accident” kind of way.  So not having a car, and the ‘alternative’ office location being in the suburbs, this meant a taxi ride to the edge of the inner city (Skytrain) rail network. I began walking along the road in the direction I wished to travel, with my head filled with worry about the shooting, family and staff safety, and the impact the reduced work rate would have on my deadlines. Do you know how hot it is in Thailand in May? Every few steps I turned around to see if an empty taxi is sneaking up on me from behind. The first available taxi that stopped refused to drive me to the train station, no reason was given.  The second agreed.  The driver proceeded to tell me that all sky train stations were closed due to the fighting in the streets today.  I insisted, in my very poor Thai, that I still had 20mins to drive the 2-3km of road to the station before it was due to close.  He asked where I wanted to get to eventually, and I told him the location of our apartment, further into town. Get a motorbike from here, he said, it would be easier. Easier maybe, but an 8km motorcycle taxi ride though Bangkok’s gridlocked streets wouldn't help my already fragile nerves so I insisted that he take me to the station. If the trains had stopped running, I told him, I would get another taxi from there.  He found this amusing. 

We continued on in silence for a few minutes (I have to say this, so our conversation cannot be blamed for what happened next.) For no apparent reason, he decided to leave hitting the brake a fraction too late, and proceed to ram his taxi into the back of a large black SUV that had stopped in front of us.  Luckily he was wearing a belt, and I, in the backseat, was spared injury.  However his taxi cab faired less well and with the front crumpled like an empty crisp packet, we got out joined the motorist we had hit and surveyed the damage. 

Now at this point I have to relate an Expat folktale. Soon after we arrived in Thailand we were told by some expats we met, that if you are involved in an accident or witness a crime in Bangkok, your best course of action is to leave as soon as possible.  This was supported by apocryphal examples where foreign witness were effectively prosecuted and responsible for the damages or compensation, in line with the Thai justice logic that those most able to pay, should be the ones to pay, and the fatalistic belief that if I had never come to Thailand in the first place, then this poor taxi driver wouldn’t have rammed his vehicle up the backside of a sporty people carrier on this most unfortunate of days.

So in a manner quite uncharacteristic for me, I checked that the two motorists were unhurt, explained that I had to leave, promptly turned away and jumped into the next passing cab.  Resisting the temptation to say “Just drive!”, I couldn’t in Thai even if I had tried, I left them to sort out the mess and drove on towards the station: 10mins before it was due to close.

This driver turned out to have issues of quite a different kind, and he kept groaning, and looking over his shoulder at me with a sad grimace.  Eventually I deciphered his upcountry Thai, and realized he was groaning “puat thong, puat thong” ‘I have a stomach ache’, and looking at me as if I could cure it with a wave of my, now shaking, finger.  I didn’t feel very talkative, with worries of my own, but he continued regardless.  “I will stop here” he said as we approached a junction, “toilet” and “no money” were other words I could make out between the groaning and strong Thai accent.  Now I’m getting worried all over again.  I have about 5 minutes left to catch this train, and this guy wants me to help me with his financial woes: perhaps pay for a stomach operation, or a new toilet.  Clearly I was having trouble getting the gist.  After he stopped, I know not where, I reluctantly reach for my wallet.  All became clear, as he refused my payment.  What I suspect he had actually been saying was something like this.  “I have a really bad stomach ache, so I need to go to the toilet, and soon.  I am going to have to let you out here, and therefore there will be no charge.”  With a mixed feeling of relief and mounting panic, a strange combination I can tell you, I alighted from his cab.  His final gift to me, was a gesture towards the right side of the junction, which possibly meant ‘you need to go that way’, but could just as easily have been ‘whatever you do, don’t go down that road’.

Anyway, having left two cabs in as many kilometers, I was now resigned to the fact that I was not going to make the last train.  So my next mission was to find another taxi that was prepared to take me towards the centre of town, closer to the fighting.  I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

I had forgotten to tell you, but I had an errand to run.  Not a big deal, but starting to become significant.  I had chatted with JJ earlier in the day, and she has mentioned that we needed to get some groceries in.  Not quite “stockpiling during the Blitz” groceries, but I expect she was half thinking about being stuck inside for a few days, if things got even worse over the weekend.  As I was out already, and not expecting the trains to shut down, a car crash, and a gastrically challenged taxi driver, I had of course agreed to pick some up on my way home, to save her the need and risk of going out in central Bangkok.

Of course, now I am stuck in the middle of nowhere, with the clear and present danger of being caught up in civil unrest, without public transport or a taxi able to cover more than a mile without some sort problem, ‘grocery shopping’ has now moved way down my priority list, somewhere below ‘getting the hell out of here’ and ‘finding my way home without breadcrumbs’.  But, it’s too late, I can’t ring home now and explain that after all I won’t be stopping for groceries.  Because JJ, who has now spent the day, not having to go out, would need to venture forth as evening and increased risk of violence descends.  So pull yourself together Beast, you’re a grown man for Christ’s sake, a couple of onions and a pound of mince should be a piece of cake.

To continue my journey… I decide that the safest thing to do is get as close to home as I can first, shop in my neighborhood, then at least if things got worse, and the traffic was already approaching gridlock,  I could even walk home from the shops.  Good plan, poorly executed, as the first few cabs I tried, replied with various Thai versions of “you wanna go WHERE!”, “No way mate” and “sfsfsfsfsfsfsfs” (that noise plumbers make when you ask them how much it’s going to cost).   I am now mentally working out how long it might take to walk the remaining 5-6km to my home, and not liking the answer.

Finally I get a young driver (greater appetite for risk, perhaps), who agrees, rather readily, to take me.  A normal, or should I say uneventful 5km later, as passing coils of razor wire and short troops with long guns should never be called normal, I arrive at the supermarket about half a mile from home.  Grateful and I guess a little guilty from my previous ‘free’ rides, I over-tip the driver and head inside for some shopping.

There’s something quite unreal about the inside of a supermarket.  The gurus of shopping habits have created an artificial world for us to live in; where everything is in neat rows, perfectly plump or succulently sweet.  And the muzak makes you feel as if your cares should fall away from your shoulders, as you are carried along a slow peaceful conveyor belt of desires.

Well clearly, I wasn’t very well emotionally prepared for such a peaceful experience, so I grabbed my basket, tore around the shelves too fast to actually see what was on them and filled it with safe essentials that required no mental dexterity; ham, cheese, butter, and bread.  Ah, the bread.  Let me tell you about the bread. 

We are a nuclear family, two kids, JJ and I.  However our tastes rarely align, with a vegetarian daughter, carnivores (son and I), and sensibly healthy, natural produce JJ.  Not your raving “honey is cruel to bees” type natural, but more your “brown bread instead of white please” natural.  So I selected one of several brown loaves and the very last white loaf I could see for me.  The bakery counter slice the bread for you, so I present myself and my loaves to the nice Thai lady behind counter and she pops the brown loaf in the machine.  Now I’m no slicing machine expert, but I would be surprised if pushing the loaf towards the blades with you bare hands is the most effective method (in the long term) for slicing bread.  Anyway, this is not a tale of lost digits, so stop smarting, and I’ll get to the point.  She pulls the sliced loaf from the machine and balances it vertically (it was bloomer shaped) with one hand, exactly the same way the Cat In The Hat balances the fish in the kettle, on a plate with an umbrella, while she fumbles for a bag with the other.  With a fair amount of shaking and teetering she eventually manages to get the loaf into the bag.  Now for the white loaf, and not just any white loaf, the last white loaf in the shop; for all I know the last white loaf in Bangkok. 

Now, I don’t ask for much.  I didn’t complain when we had to virtually shut down the office today.   I remained positive when faced with opposing views on how to stay safe and stay working at the same time.  I didn’t moan when there was no food left in the canteen at lunchtime because I lunch ‘British time’ (after 11:30),   I didn’t rant at the taxi drivers who refused to take me, or at those who did but then crashed.  But I did particularly want to have white toast on Saturday morning, while having breakfast with the family (only possible at weekends).  It’s not that I don’t like brown bread, it’s just that I wanted white.  I wanted it, and there was no good reason why I couldn’t have it, save this bread balancer in front of me.  As with the previous loaf, after slicing, she balanced it precariously in the air with one hand whilst attempting to open a plastic bag with the other.  Should I help?  Should I place my hands on either side of the loaf to prevent it from toppling?  As I was weighing up these options, the bread appeared to come apart in mid-air, like the stages of a rocket all falling away at once.  It was too late, the slices were scattered on the floor.

“Sorry, sorry” she said, and ran off to the nearby shelves to retrieve another loaf.  But I knew she would return empty handed.  I had inside information on the white loaves, or lack of them.  She actually came back with a second brown loaf, which I nodded and let her slice and pack instead.  Now I know it’s not a big deal.  When compared to the violence and suffering in the streets outside, it is of no consequence.  But it was the one thing I, myself, me, wanted for myself today.  It was the one thing that didn’t entail having to deal with the opposing forces of other people’s needs, opinions or actions.  It was the one thing that I had decided would make things a little better today.

In the film Falling Down, this is the point at which Michael Douglas snaps,  a massive surge of rage engulfs him, and he vents with a machine gun against the forces that had conspired to prevent him from simply getting home.   For me it was a little different, I probably looked a touch sadder than she would have expected from a brown loaf, but I thanked her for slicing it, put it in my basket and made my way to the checkout.

I did walk home the last half mile with my shopping bags, past the soldiers and the sandbags. It probably helped. And JJ was lovely when I got home, and cooked my favorite dinner.  I’m sure I’ll enjoy the brown bread toasted in the morning, and I also hope nobody dies in Bangkok tonight.

Births and shopping

I have a problem. It’s Husband’s birthday in five (shopping) days, and I haven’t bought any presents. The UDD – Red Shirts – are camped out along the main shopping route in Bangkok and yesterday, the following malls were closed: Siam Paragon, CentralWorld, Siam Center, Siam Discovery, Big C Rajadamr, Gaysorn Plaza, Amarin Center. Today, tension is mounting; there are troops collecting and the malls (at least some of them) are still closed. It reminds me of another birthday of Husbands when I was almost as badly organized …

Seventeen years ago I had to be extra ready for Husband’s birthday because I was enormously pregnant with our first child. The discrepancy between the hospital due date and my due date was four weeks (yes, impossible, but I did exactly the same thing with Daughter’s pregnancy. I think I am more like an elephant than a human when it comes to gestating babies.) So having less idea than most when our baby would come, I had tried to be prepared. I had just about finished buying his presents and they were hidden away waiting to be wrapped.

So of course on the Sunday, the day before his birthday, my waters broke. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? They kept me in hospitable waiting for me to go into labour. The day passed by; Sunday night came and then Husband was going to go home for some sleep because they kept telling me I wasn’t in labour yet: “WHY ALL THE PAIN THEN?” I told Husband that he’d have to find his own presents. I told him where they were hidden and apologized for their not being wrapped. Monday morning came and Husband reappeared in the maternity unit. I wished him a happy birthday and then the day was all about me.

Son came that night at 7.30pm. He was a furry little thing. He had hair everywhere, including his back (gone now) and dark downy patches that grew into points on his ears a la Star Trek (also gone.) He was also covered in vernix – a pale waxy substance; that and the hair would suggest my dates were right and Son was earlier than 40 weeks.

As though I hadn’t entirely stolen Husband’s thunder already, I proceeded to hemorrhage following the birth. I do feel the need, after all that drama, to make a fuss of Husband each year as well.

Of course producing a son on your husband’s birthday is the ultimate in birthday presents… but he’s shared it with his son for seventeen years so far and at the very least I’d like to have some presents for the poor man to open. (Son’s presents are all organized already because he knew what he wanted.)

Jack Spratt and his wife

We had a bit of a drama this morning. Yesterday Husband’d been out shopping with a colleague at one of the computer malls, Panthip Plaza – affectionately called Pants-tip by me. It’s a mad place, full of touts and vendors, offering ‘sexy movies’ and hooky computer software.

But this morning Husband couldn’t find his bank card. Eek.

Julia was asleep in the spare room which is where he’d unpacked the various goodies. So having checked the contents of his pockets, wallet etc he had to go off to work without checking the obvious place that it would be. I’d got his bank book, work permit and passport out of the safe so that he could go and fill in, in triplicate, the paperwork to declare it missing. Once he got to work he could check online if his bank account had been emptied. Then this, which precisely illustrates our differing personalities, was our MSN conversation:

Jenny says:
  Have you been to the bank?
Husband says:
  Not open yet,
  B [secretary] is on the phone now
  I am just gonna check the acc
  I’ll let you know if it has been used
Jenny says:
  Ok
[Some time passes]
Jenny says:
  Bea? [what I call him]
Husband says:
  Yes?
Jenny says:
  Have you logged on to the account yet?
Husband says:
  Yes
Jenny says:
  And?
Husband says:
  All ok
  Not been used
Jenny says:
  Thank god.
Husband says:
  My 2 withdrawals yesterday
  and my purchase
Jenny says:
  If it's not in Julia’s room, will you get a new card anyway?
Husband says:
  Have to
  It’s cancelled now
Jenny says:
  Oh good. Panic over then?
Husband says:
  Who was panicking?
Jenny says:
  I was
  Obviously
  I panic for both of us!
Husband says:
  There was just a logical sequence of actions…
Jenny says:
  Yes, you undertake the logical sequence of actions and I panic.

*Sigh*  Anyone got any tips for changing behaviour?

Proud Mum

Today Husband’s playing golf with a colleague from the UK; Daughter’s gone off (voluntarily) to do some charity work through school… Son, who is considerably more difficult to motivate, was informed, by me, a week ago that he would be joining me for my stint at the library used book sale today.

I don’t think I ever uttered the words ‘I’m not asking, I’m telling’ but the gist… the picture… was well and truly got by Son. Still, he’d forgotten by midweek and I had to remind him he’d been press ganged and couldn’t go for a sleepover on the Friday night… He looked a bit disappointed but not a grumble was heard.

He was woken this morning from his teenage slumber (which would normally have gone on towards lunchtime) without a moan. He came to the sale and was charming and acted as my human calculator adding up the different prices of books, helping old people (really) and running errands.

I considered taking him by the shoulders, shaking him and asking ‘Who are you and what have you done with my son?’ Instead I beamed with pride, rewarded him and sent him off to the cinema to meet his friend.

This is the Neilson Hays Library (where I am bookbuyer) and our book sale today (and tomorrow.) Fingers crossed we raise lots of money.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Oh I ♥ my little office so very, very much.

I’ve been camping out in Husband’s office for five weeks (two weeks in England in the middle) because the wifi repeater had broken and the signal no longer reached my room. (It stopped being an oscillating alien disco light and only had one sad, steady blue light.)

Husband was kind and generous with his room, but it’s a bit, you know, male in there. And he would still play world domination computer games even when I was trying to work. If I wanted to print I had to trek down the corridor, carrying my laptop, back to my office…

Anyway, the lovely Simplicity IT people sorted me out. It did take several trips but they did it and it only cost 1000 Baht (£20.) (Their domestic service is now called com2u.com for anyone searching for them.)

And I’m so happy to be back in my office which is really a dressing area that I decided to post a picture of my place of work… it’s not remotely male in here, is it?

“So this is Christmas…” ♪♪♪

I shouldn’t really be here should I? Husband is setting up the new wii… he finally caved. I have to confess I don’t really understand it but then I didn’t understand blogging either – and look at me now!

About ten days ago a parcel arrived. Son and I went to the office to collect it. “Ah,” I said, “I know what this is. This is the Christmas Creatures.” Son gasped, “Can we open them now?” Of course I didn’t allow it. I rang my Dad, maker of the Christmas Creatures, to let him know they had arrived.

This morning, our Christmas morning, Husband and I were up and awake and the children, proper teenagers at last, slept on and on and on… stockings bulging and untouched. Whatever has happened to those tiny children who woke at 2am to rip open their stockings?

As they slept on, I opened my Dad’s box of Christmas Creatures. OMG. “He’s surpassed himself,” I say to Husband. “This is the best Creature ever.” Husband said I say that every year… but look – how beautiful are these?

You can go here and here to see explanation and examples of my family tradition of Christmas Creatures.