Bangkok Expat Mama

Sleep, Read, Sleep Some More

It's that time of year again. Pedro has taken the boys up to Surin, which lies about a 6-hour drive northeast of Bangkok, to see the Annual Elephant Round-up. Hundreds of mahouts bring their elephants every year to bond, network, share trade secrets, compete at football and tug of war, and re-enact military processions from the ancient days when elephants served in battle. The preceding list applies to mahouts AND their beasts. I'm sure that these noble, wise giants remember each other from attending year after year; they communicate among themselves while their human masters/trainers/companions are catching up at the same time. So it's a win-win for all.

This is the third year that Pedro has taken Nathan up there, but the first time that Alec has demanded to go as well. "I'm going to Surin, too. Me, too. I'm big now!" he proclaimed last week. He's old enough now to know when he's missing out on something, and as you might recall from an earlier post, he's certainly more keen on bonding with Dada these days, so we decided he could go, too...

...which meant that suddenly this weekend opened up ahead of me, like a great yawning maw of borrowed time to fill with whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted -- no schedules, no obligations, just me, me, meee! My mind was spinning with visions of sleep, sleep, and another helping of sleep; getting a facial; getting a foot massage (or two, if feeling truly decadent); reading on the opium sofa (see BKK Digs photo album in righthand column); reading in bed; reading at chic cafes; and reading my little brain out, period! Glamorous, eh?

So far the break has proceeded pretty much along the lines I'd hoped. Just a couple snags along the way. I stayed in pyjamas until 2pm yesterday: The horror! How slatternly! There has been much reading, loads of it, and yes, I indulged in a relaxing foot massage yesterday at the Soi 33 Wat Po branch and then again today (!) at Phunnee on Sukhumvit, near the Villa...

...which led to another treat I allowed moi-meme. A few steps away from Phunnee is a 20-year-old secondhand book store I've never entered. If ever there was a good time for a spontaneous book browse, this was it. After much dipping in and out of volumes (good practice for next Sunday's massive used book sale at the Neilson Hayes Library) and some pleasant bargaining with the proprietor, I left with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "Heat and Dust", Marian Keyes' "The Other Side of the Story", Woody Allen's "Getting Even", and a 1-week-old "Hello", all for 530baht. (For scale, a new "Hello" costs about 320baht at Villa.) So "ha!" to Distri-Thai, the distributor that marks up overseas publications to extortionate prices.

The major deviation from my plan, which included luxurious hours of shut-eye, was that I stayed glued to the computer until (gulp) 3am last night. After laughing my arse off at a pirated DVD of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (the Best of Carson disc) until about 11pm, I made the mistake of checking "just a couple blogs" before bed...and then got sucked into the Google vortex of looking up names from my previous lives, like high school, college, graduate school, old neighborhoods. Doh! Note to self: Next time I conduct a "This is Your Life" a la Google, I must do it when the sun is shining. I mean, 3am?!

What spurred me on, one name leading to another, was partly knowing that no one needed me to fix breakfast or help put on a toy Bob-the-Builder toolbelt when the sun rose, and partly that so many of the former classmates and neighbors I looked up are succeeding fantastically in the outside, regular world (i.e. John Dickerson, alias "Dickie" back in his Elmo days; Brittain Stone, the nicest guy at the Hall; Sheba Crocker, who terrified me at field hockey, etc.). Happiness for them segued to envy and then to pique at myself for not following through on the career fantasies I had expected, long ago, to make real. I was going to be editorial page editor of the Washington Post! I was going to be a Dorothy Parker, minus the tragic personal life! Take the publishing world by storm, and all that. Classis mid-life crisis. I know, I know, how do you make God laugh? Answer: Have a plan. Life is funny like that.

Along those lines, I hadn't planned to attend tae kwon do this weekend. The big idea was to abandon schedules and obligations. But after sleeping in until 11-frickin'-30am (what did I expect, after bedding down at 3?!), playing hooky was not an option. My gut led me right with this decision. Kicking, jumping around, and sparring for an hour got my blood moving and reminded my body that this is daytime, that means we are awake now. Bodies must be awake if they intend to read away the rest of the day!

Unexpectedly, sparring went well for the first time, ever. Relatively speaking, that is. I felt less scared of getting accidentally zapped by someone's foot or fist, more focused on tapping the target (i.e. opponent's chest protector) with my own foot or fist. I realized today that my legs are longer than most of the women's in the class, so I should make use of that length, tap them and slide away before they can get close to me. Hm. Interesting.

Well, enough about me. Must go call my boys before their bedtime in Surin. It's weird to think that at this time we're usually lying across Alec's bed, reading bedtime stories. Right now exactly. I can't wait to hear about their adventures with the elephants in Surin. But until tomorrow afternoon, I will continue to sleep and read and...no more Googling people!

Vote for Pedro

Note to self: Don't attend a loved one's tae kwon do belt test with a camera containing ancient batteries, or else most of the shots you try for will not work or, at best, will come out blurry like this one.

Pedro earned his brown belt today after a grueling test that included a lot of hurrying up and waiting (i.e. a 20-minute-long photo session of the whole school followed by watching lower belts test; then a sweaty session of forms, self-defense, and kicking combinations; another long period of watching higher belts test; followed, at last, by two bouts of sparring.).

Hooray for Pedro! He managed to make it this far within two years of starting the sport, despite traveling so much for work that sometimes the most he could train was only once a week. And yet he has kept up with the group with whom he started: Lisa, a British mum of three and a full-time teacher; Shion, a Japanese teenager with a high squeaky voice but a kick that would flatten most men; Etienne, a French dad of three who also travels a lot for work; and Priyanut, Etienne's gorgeous daughter who's awesome with TKD but has been distracted recently by her emerging modeling career (every Papa's nightmare!). The whole lot did great and deserve massive pats on the back for sticking it out.

Our small fry also held up well considering how long the belt test lasted. For nearly three and a half hours, Nathan and Alec entertained themselves by alternately roughhousing with each other in the dressing rooms, watching the test, looking at the Sunday paper's comics, debating the merits of boys vs. girls with their fellow kids Moonie and ChaCha, rolling around on exercise balls, and snacking on honey-date-nut bars. They should be proud of how patient they were during an extremely long test that, had they behaved antsy and petulant, could have been an ordeal.

Of course the Walter clan had to evacuate the test abruptly after Pedro sparred, because if he'd waited around for the belt ceremony, he would have missed his flight to the Philippines. He has an important meeting first thing tomorrow morning in Manila. The quick exit seemed rather fitting somehow, as if it exemplified how work travel has always cut into Pedro's TKD time and yet not snuffed it out. I suppose Master Don will do a mini-belt-tying ceremony at the next class Pedro can attend.

Congratulations to diligent, tenacious Pedro! Vote for him, even though he dances much better than his counterpart in "Napoleon Dynamite"! (Which I have yet to see, because not even the pirated DVD has hit Bangkok -- but I'm keeping my eyes peeled.)

What's Past Ain't Prologue

Here's my son, the fish, a.k.a. Nathan. He takes after his mother in some ways, in that he seems so far to view the world with more of a glass half-empty m.o. than otherwise; he is finicky about being correct on points of debate and holding others accountable for when they're not or being just plain inflexible; and he cherishes his alone time to play on his own terms (for him that means, like, drawing aliens or building a dinosaur world while for me that means, post-kids'-bedtime, a bowl of chocolate something, a good mag or book and some Britwit on the telly). Like his dear old Mama, Nathan can be a bit of a kook.

But one major difference between us makes me mega-relieved. That's the swimming. Anyone who remembers me from childhood (nay, even from the teen years) will recall that I was nearly always picked last for team sports, I was slow, I was scared, I was lame at all things physical. (Except ballet, but that didn't count toward coolness points at school.) I didn't learn how to ride a freakin' bicycle until I was 13 years old (and then only because my mom threatened not to send me to the camp I was dying to attend unless I finally rode the bike)! How to swim, that wasn't so late -- 8 years old -- but water-related fears continued to haunt me until high school. They were inconsistent (I enjoyed jumping off the high dive -- jumping not diving, mind you) but firmly rooted in real terror (no one has ever been able to get a proper dive out of me; how counter-intuitive can an action be, people?!).

For whatever reason, and despite sporting a reserved, cautious nature since birth, Nathan hasn't been saddled with any of my hydro-fears. Rather, he loves the agua. He can frolic with his pals and/or Dada for hours in a pool or at the beach. Even extricating him from his evening bath can be challenging. The kid just feels right at home surrounded by H2O.

Watching Nathan swim reminds me that no matter how much of myself I may recognize in him, the possibilities for him to veer from the blueprint are infinite. My failures/successes/neuroses/talents/fill-in-the-blank won't necessarily be his as well. What a liberating thing to remember.

And who knows? Maybe someday I'll nail a real dive. Don't count the old girl out yet. 

White and Green and Sweaty All Over

Scenes from a Bangkok belt test.

Mem stretching (!)

Smiling despite photo being taken five minutes before Master Don barked out "Line up!" to start our belt test. Here are Sandy (then my fellow 2nd yellow belt), Mem and Natida (then both green belts).

Natida and Mem practicing, with tiny and adorable Ingrid in the foreground. Not a great action shot, but anxiety about the test rendered me a bonehead with the camera.

We did it! Major phew.

Yay for Natida and Mem! These babes passed with silver-stripe honors (the only adults during this test to do so) and still managed to be gorgeous after sweating their guts out.

Don't let the pretty mugs fool you. These girls can kick serious ass.

Remember Ingrid from earlier? Half-pint passed her first-ever belt test with silver-stripe honors! Must take after her mommy, who's a 2nd red belt (i.e. can kick ass to the nth power) but taking time off due to bun-in-the-oven #3.