The World Is A Strainer
In a flood, the world becomes a strainer.
I've spent the morning bailing water. The bucket I have works like a sieve. The sandbags I've left in place are about the same.
I watch trash float by outside. It heads past our house toward what was an open field. Now it's a lake that engulfs our street. All the fences strain the garbage. Stopping the solid stuff and letting the brown tea filter thru. Everything does it. Bushes. Bicycles. A scooter chained up for the night.
The water's so high the bushes look like small strips of grass. A truck drives by. It's engine straining. He turns our corner and dips into the street. It rumbles and growls. You can see where the water must be seeping under the door. He makes it to the end of the block, almost out, but stalls. A huge plume of blue exhaust and steam pours from the underside and tailpipe.The water is about 2 inches from breaking over the the front porch. With an extra 2-3 inches up to the front door. Our rear utility area is already about 4 inches deep. At least that's how it seemed around my ankles. I don't think I'll be making it to class today.
Another one of our bags of trash floats by. I recognize the grocery bag and the way it's tied. I'd walked it out yesterday to the cans at the end of our block. It's followed by a large blue bag. And now by lots of miscellaneous junk. Our landlord is outside pulling garbage out of peoples' bushes and sending it on it's way. The fleet heads downstream, makes a left at the gate, and is swept out into the lake.
Somewhere an indian is crying...
All sorts of wildlife has found it's way onto and inside of our house. Large bugs cling to the outside walls of our place. Geckos cling to the inside ones. I found this frog on our front porch. I wonder what I'd see if I licked him. Would it be anything like the brown water at Duff Gardens?
Usually I can satisfy this with Mad Dog. It's a little open pub type place that makes some great pizza. We've found that cheese isn't such a great choice for her right now, so I have to keep trying to remember what else they have on the menu. She'll pick something like tuna fish sandwich, but not be sure. So when I get there I'll end up ordering a couple extra things. Tonight was tuna fish sandwich, and the new smash hit, chicken cordon bleu. Oh, and don't forget french fries. Those always go over well.
At night the mosquitos like to feed on my blood, but by day they hide in the kitchen area behind our house, fattened and sleepy in the daylight. I step out back with my racket, shake things up, and play a little badminton.
Last night I witnessed the first commercial I'd ever seen for this Thai franchise I like to call "Crazy Chicken" (not to be confused with El Pollo Loco). The images kept cutting from Muay Thai Boxing, to cock fighting, to fried chicken. Muay Thai, cock fight, mmm.. mmm... fried chicken, cock fight, Muay Thai, cockfight, more finger lickin' fried chicken, some more cockfighting, and finally one boxer running up the front of the other boxer and knocking him down with a kick to the head. Now that's what I call fried chicken! Or as Sow says, "kitchen".
I'm not sure what I did wrong. I couldn't read the ticket. No one that could read it knew english. After having it explained to me in thai by 4 different people, I finally grabbed a tuk-tuk and went to pay my ticket at the police station. The driver kind of explained that depending on the number of the day, you can only park on one side of the street. Even/odd I think, but he kept saying 1 / 2. Whatever, it all added up to 400 baht anyhow.
Actor, Writer, Director, Musician, kick-ass VFX Artist Extraordinaire.
I rounded the corner to the long stretch only to find the first half of it flooded. About 3 blocks worth. I guess it must be a slow grade? I finally approached the left turn for our street. There were lots of cars and scooters parked all around the mouth of the street. I slowed and made my turn. The flooding now ran twice as far down the street as when I'd left less than an hour before. Again I lifted my legs up and tight-roped my way down the yellow center line of the street. At least I think there was a yellow line under all that brown water, somewhere?
His parents don't feel he should see them until he's 6 years old. I think they should let him see Star Wars, Empire, and maybe, maybe Jedi, but for the others it's not so much when as don't bother. He's played the Lego's Star Wars video game. That's probably more than enough.
So, of course I run down there. Crowds are gathered by the post boards. Standing in calf deep water and reading how high things are expected to get. Carts line the street selling a variety of foods. Pork buns. Boba tea. Chaing Mai sausage. They see the silver lining in all this.
I immediately take Sow home and put her in bed. I get her some fruit and one of her vitamin fortified milk boxes. With the thought of big belly burning into my brain, I run to the market and buy anything I think I can get her to eat. Various fruits. More milk. More eggs. Pineapple pastries. Ice cream. The works.
The day often ends with another trip to the market, or just about any other corner if we're about town, to get a rotee. Yes, it's another fried dough, but it's full of banana and egg, so that's kinda healthy. Then we have them pour condensed milk and sugar all over it. Mmmmmm....
The other night we were watching a Thai tv show based on a magazine they have here. It's basically like the Enquirer, but focuses much more on the supernatural and the outrageous. Sow thinks the name translates to The Strange. We saw this wild segment about a guy who bakes bread to look like cadavers.
Anyhow, if you haven't already seen this it's pretty wild. This guy is an artist who grew up in a family of bakers (Kittiwat Unarrom, not Jerry). As a fine arts student, he began painting, then moved on to mixed media, and eventually sculpting with dough since it was a natural medium for him. He's putting a showing together for his final dissertation at the end of the year, but for now he's taking lots of orders. I looked for a place to order from, but all I could find were these associated press articles. Then my battery ran out.
