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.

i keep getting asked, “so, how are you really doing?” like i might not be answering the question, “how are you doing?” honestly. the honest to goodness truth is, i’m doing just fine. i’m including a graph to help define “just fine” –

now, i know that doesn’t look so good, looks pretty close to dismal maybe. But it is what it is. you know during the closing credits of the jetsons, when george yells, “jane, stop this crazy thing”? well, i’m pretty sure i know what he’s talking about. it’s not that i want to go home, or that i’m sorry we moved – it’s that it’s just so much, so fast.

i’ve already posted about the delayed flight, flying standby, bh going straight to singapore from bangkok and the kids and me coming on to chiang mai. which was a bit of a rocky start (if you haven’t noticed i have a tendency to minimize things, i learned that in our “are they the right kind of crazy to move to thailand” counseling session). you thought how brave and adventurous i was when we were here without bh – I got us out of the hotel, went to the zoo, the night bizarre, the internet café… well, the truth is, that while we did do those things, and while it may have seemed brave and adventurous, it was really just forward motion. i would have rather stayed holed up in our hotel room and cried. but what good would that have done, other than to further traumatize the kids. and we did spend a few mornings crying over breakfast – some very nice people who were also staying at the hotel were kind enough to check on us, maybe more to be sure the kids would be okay left in my care.

then bh got to town and we had to really think and act like this was our new home. we took care of the kids and school and got moved into our house. i drove a stick shift - on what i consider the wrong side of the road - in the middle of morning rush hour down and around the streets of chiang mai. and that really might go down as one of the most stressful and scariest things i’ve ever done in my entire life. we found furniture, the grocery store, the local market. i’m learning to shop by picture and that there are some places to shop that are more english friendly – not meaning they speak english, but that there is some english on the packages. i’m learning that things take more time. i’ve learned that i’m spoiled. i don’t like hanging clothes to dry or hand washing dishes. it’s not convenient and it takes time and your clothes aren’t really soft. i want furniture – now. i’m glad we have mattresses and a kitchen table and chairs. but i want some place else to sit in the house. i want my mattress off the floor. i want to be comfortable. and i want routine.

i want someone to talk to. i’m a bit of an extrovert. you know barbra streisand's lyric, people, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. that was written for me, about me, i’m one of those people - well, not really feeling the luckiest people in the world part right now. and i got no people here. i mean none that aren’t family and forced to endure me because of their genetic makeup or because they said, “i do.” and not only that, the only other adult in the house is introverted. which - if i understand what an introvert means- it means he’s some kind of freak of nature – you know, like a weird mutation or something. he’s drawn me a graph to show me the difference between extrovert and introvert, i’ve done my best to recreate it.

lets say that the 0 – 7 are representative of how full up of conversation and interaction we are – with 6 being as full as you can get – and the 7 being there because i didn’t know how to make it go away. so, bh spends his entire day, either pretty full or totally full. i, however, start with plenty of space available and it’s not full until i close my eyes to go to sleep – and really, it might not be full then. this doesn’t really do his original diagram justice, but it gives you a good idea. the problems – well really it’s just one big problem – this causes are that he is all happy in his introverted little world, no one wants him to participate in any kind of conversation – it’s good, but then there’s me. sad little no.one.will.talk.to.me me. he tries, God love him. he uses exaggerated hand gestures, makes disturbing faces and he grunts, but those really aren’t good substitutes for conversation. so, i blog, a lot. maybe you noticed. and i check my email every chance i get. but it’s not the same. and the truth is, i want friends, but i hate making them. you know, the awkward small talk, the i’m not sure i’m gonna like this person, the i’m pretty sure they don’t like me. i know i’ve done it before, but once you’ve gotten past that you forget it and it’s like you’ve always been friends. it’s sort of like that mommy amnesia – the one where you forget how much it hurt to sit up in bed after a c-section so you go ahead and have another baby. that’s where i want to be, not having another baby – it took three, but now i remember the pain. i want to get to the you’ve always been friends place.

so, right this moment i would say life sucks. but it’s all part of it. i signed up for this. i know it’s where God wants our family and i know it will all be good. and i know i have a choice. i can move forward, get things done or i can curl up in a ball and cry. one is much easier than the other, but i think i’d miss out on all the misery fun.

not to mention the blog fodder.

we're driving home the other night and #1 says, "hey, is dad asleep at the wheel? oh wait, dad's not driving."

this wrong side of the car thing has us all screwed up.

yesterday we test drove a car, it was good, bigger than what we are renting right now - but most important it was automatic. no more driving stick! we also made a trip to the store to look for fish sauce, the right fish sauce, the real fish sauce, and while there here's what we found for the kids to do...

and, yes, i did find the fish sauce...

then we test drove the car.

then we went to a ginormous mall, the central airport plaza. here's a picture of just one of the motorcycle parking lots - and it's not the whole lot - at this mall...

michael had to get a new fancy schmancy cell phone for work and chan needed new tennis shoes for pe. tennis shoes that will never, ever touch another surface other than the brand new gym floor at the school. while we were there we found this...

but we didn't have any :(.

then home and to bed.

today, i woke up and decided to get back on the horse... i cooked a thai meal. my confidence was renewed because i had found the fish sauce, and this recipe called for fish sauce. here's how it turned out.

and it was tasty. no one had yogurt.

yesterday evening i went nuts and volunteered for all the volunteer opportunities currently available at the school. thankfully, right now that is only 2 things. one is international day - they group us by our nationality, and i would think i could come in handy - fresh off the boat from america and all. and then they are getting ready to hold parenting with confidence classes. i volunteered to be a hostess - which really means hand out name tags at the school every tuesday evening a for 4 weeks. just glad they weren't looking for a volunteer grounds keeper cuz i would have been all over that...