a picture like this
reminds me how blessed she is
to be daddy's girl

and, yes, i meant to put two bs instead of two fs. cuz this is an extra-special, costs worth way more than your regular ol' run of the mill best friend forever. i'm talking about a bought best friend. yep, the kind of genuine & true best buddy that only baht (that's thai money) can buy. i know, i know, i've heard it before. money can't buy friends, blahdy, blahdy, blah. well today it did and it was good. lately we've all been having a wee bit of a friendship crisis. now, i know we've only been here just over a month and these things take time, but try telling that to friendless children. #1 not included, he's doing pretty good on the friend front. he's got his own crew.

(yep, he's clapping off beat - that's my boy.)

but the other two... #2 isn't even looking anymore because she's certain no one will ever be able to replace her bff and #3 gives us an "i still don't have any friends" report everyday after school. however, yesterday after school he was singing a different tune. he comes running up to the man and me, bbf in tow, and wants to know if he can stay for an hour after school to play with bbf. oh, and can he have 30 baht so he can buy snacks for the both of them... to do this justice i have to relay the actual conversation -

#3 with bbf in tow comes running (almost dancing, but not) up to the man and me and says (in his most excited, please, please, please you gotta let me you can't say no kind of way), "can i stay after school for a whole hour with bbf?"

the man and i respond, "what are you going to do for an hour?"

#3, looking a little panicky like he's pretty sure a no is coming down the pipes says, "oh, i dunno, play on the playground, oh and if you'll give me 30 baht i'm going to buy snacks for bbf and me."

at this point bbf jumps into the conversation, "we'll do our homework, of course and it's okay if you wanna give him 40 baht for our snacks." he ends his contribution with a big ol' eddy haskel kind of smile...

#3, certain that bbf has hit on something, agrees, "yeah, we'll do our homework" and then leans over and says to bbf - in a very loud conspiratorial stage whisper, "i didn't ask for 40 because i don't think they'll give it to me."

the man, a sucker every time, has the 40 baht out before #3 can finish his whisper to bbf. #3 grabs the cash and they're off. the man heads off to pay his parking ticket - a whole other post - allowing #1 time to hang with his crew, #2 time to lament how she has no friends and look at how #1 has friends and #3 now has a friend, when's she gonna have a friend... all the while at least 3 girls from her class come up and try to start a conversation with her, and #3 to buy snacks for his all new bbf...

at dinner, #3, with a very happy smile on his face asks, "do you think i can do that again next week? you know stay after school and play?" and he really, really looks happy.

but it is most necessary - he's installing our phone line. that's one step closer to our very own internet...

*note - any and all similarities between my post, bh's post and thailand girlwonder's post are, of course, due to the fact that we all experienced the same thing, but all ownership of this experience goes to bh, since he's not the one who hid out in the coffee shop.

bh has made it a goal that we try to have at least one cultural exposure every weekend. this weekend was supposed to be the elephant park, but due to a leak in our kitchen and trying to arrange for the handy man it didn't happen. since we hadn't gone to sunday walking street and everyone said we really, really needed to we decided to make that our outing. so we drove to the area of town where it's located and parked. big mistake. it's called sunday walking street for a reason. it's not sunday parking street - which is what we tried to do. when we make it back to the car, really before the time we were told it even begins we were stuck. and i mean s.t.u.c.k. it was bad.

when we initially discovered our problem we walked on by, like we didn't know that car, who would've done something like that. so we walked past it a few times trying to figure out what to do... how could we get out. and just decided we were stuck like chuck. (i'm not sure how stuck chuck was, but it must have been bad.) then we started thinking of all the things that could happen to the car - it could be booted or towed... neither were very appealing, but towing was a little scary. our computers were in the trunk and we couldn't have them towed away, too. so bh - very bravely - went to the car to get them, while i went and hid, pretended to be a tourist, pretended to not know him. when we met up again - 5 or so minutes later - bh had the computers and was a bit distraught. apparently all the vendors around were very upset. gave him an earful. so he sent the kids and me to wawee, very convenient, and headed off to see if there was a way out of this mess. and he has no way to contact me because i left my cell phone at home. our plan is that at a certain time the kids and i will head to a place we both know how to get to and wait for him. so here i sit enjoying this...

and knowing that if i were in his place i wouldn't be able to move the car through the tears of frustration and anger. good man he is.

and he just walked in, with books for me in hand and a smile on his face. all he will tell me is that when he got back to the car a police officer was waiting for him and that now the car has been moved a few streets over. he won't tell me more, says he's gonna blog about it. i guess we can read about it together - here.