The Times are a-changing

Dec 30 We slept later than we wanted but jumped out of bed and headed to the park. We made six loops around the park and headed home. Linn is gone on a religious retreat and one of her daughters is here to take care of her sister’s toddler who lives with Linn. Lelk and Au live in Bangkok and are a delightful couple. Linn told Au to sweep our steps and walkways while she was away. Yesterday Au dutifully complied although we asked her not to do it. Today, as soon as we got home from our walk, we did the sweeping so Au wouldn’t have to. She has her hands full with a two-year-old. Hope is off school until Thursday. Apparently, New Year’s is a big holiday here since Lelk and Au are off work until Thursday also. After breakfast, we puttered then headed back to Rurin for espresso and muffins. Ron opted for a macadamia tart and I got a mixed berry muffin. Rurin only knows how to make delicious food. The muffin was tasty and moist. Ron’s tart was like a pecan pie but not too sweet. I...

Dec 29 Time flies when we are having fun. We have settled into a destressing, comfortable routine…unplanned but we just kind of fell into it. Each morning we get up between 6:00 and 6:45 and quickly dress and take off for the park and our morning walk before the sun beats down on us. The days with light are about 12 hours long as we are close to the equator. Six to six are our daylight hours. By 8:00 it starts warming up and by 9:00 it is too hot to exercise. After our walk, we come home to breakfast of granola, fresh fruit, and hot coffee. On the weekend Ron makes eggs and toast on Saturday and French toast on Sunday with real Canadian maple syrup…if we can find some decent bread. This is rice country so bread is mostly for farang and much of it is like Wonder bread…no substance but one market that carries farang kinds of items occasionally has some decent bread. After breakfast, we shower and check email and work on the blog. Sometimes we run errands and later have lun...

Dec 27 Yesterday was project day. We finished the fountain project and managed to muddy the steps and the house floor in our efforts. I had mopped a couple of days before so I was mildly distressed thinking about sweeping and mopping again but decided to wait until we were completely finished with the project and mop in the morning due to the heat factor here.  The entire house is tile floor and the main part is high gloss tile. Every spill shows as do tracks.  In the afternoon we worked on packing artwork we intend to take home with us. We have three paintings from Sri Lankan artists and one watercolor from India, a great street scene with a woman carrying a basket on her head filled with produce. Ron brought two large flat-screen TV  boxes from home in order to have something to take the paintings home as checked luggage. He had to reconstruct the boxes to fit the paintings and sty within the airline size limit but we got one box with three paintings completely...

Christmas Day Thais are overwhelmingly Buddhist, but they celebrate Christmas as a retail holiday. We went to bed late last night after talking to Mark, our older son in WY. We woke up at 6:30 this morning and we were starting our walk at the park by 6:55. It was much cooler walking early so we did six rounds, 40 minutes. That was an improvement and we hope to rise early each day to accomplish our goal of daily 45-minute walks. On the way home, Ron stopped and got us two Khao mon gai breakfasts…that is rice, chicken broth, sliced chicken breast, and cucumbers. It was delicious as always and for the two of us, the cost was $2.00.  Two meals with three bags each    The takeaway package from the vendor Attached are photos showing how plastic bags are the takeaway carrier.  Guess which one of us had a double dose of cucs? After breakfast, we worked on the replacement fountain that one of the dogs and knocked ove...

Dec 22 I think I have mentioned that Ron and I have been planning on moving to Mexico and living there fulltime with trips to the US twice a year or as needed. We are now looking at other options in case that plan doesn’t come to fruition due to circumstances in Mexico. Yesterday we talked about other options and started reading about Costa Rica which was our second choice in 2015 and Cuenca Ecuador which we visited in 2018. It is a World Heritage Site because of its Spanish colonial architecture which was one of many things we love about San Miguel in Mexico. In Cuenca, it is possible to live in the old town so we would not need to have a car which is one of our goals and it is affordable. It feels good to see other possibilities after being so focused on San Miguel de Allende (SMA) in Mexico. Dec 24 - Christmas Eve Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah. Sunday, I got a Thai massage and Ron got an oil massage and yesterday we got foot massages. Ron said ‘what the hec...

Dec 21 It’s always a good day when you pass the rough electrical inspection on your home construction project…in Vancouver WA. We got word today and it made us happy. Next will be the rough plumbing inspection next week…we hope. Wayne, our point person for the project and his wife, Dana, were able to move back into the house now that they have power. This morning we walked before breakfast and it was a wee bit cooler than doing it after breakfast. Ideally, we would walk earlier but I am hesitant to set the alarm. Living without an alarm clock is my idea of freedom now that we are fully retired. I went to sleep at 3:00 a.m. and woke up at 7:30, not my idea of a full night’s rest. After lunch, we both took a nap. It helped a heap. Each visit here Ron and I take the family out for a dinner. A couple of times we have gone to a nearby fish farm and have a great fish meal that is as fresh as it comes. This year the family picked a restaurant in a mall that we frequent for the ...

Dec 20 We slept well and got up at 7:00. Gone are the cool mornings that require a sweater…I miss that. We ate breakfast and went on our walk. It is much warmer and after three trips around the park, we decided to go before breakfast starting tomorrow due to the hotter weather. We showered and ran a couple of errands. Star Wars is playing here so we invited Hope, our 12-year-old friend at the big house to the movie. We ate a quick lunch and off we went. We watched the 2.5-hour movie plus an inordinate number of ads and previews at the beginning. We went in at 1:30 and exited at 4:00. Good lord. Did I mention we watched all the above in Thai? Ron and I can say ‘hello, thank you, no problem, my name is and "a little" in Thai, so imagine watching Star Wars in dubbed Thai. We understood every time they said hello, and thank you. HA! Frankly, all Star Wars movies seem to be the same after a while . We could generally follow the plot just from the action. We dropped Ho...

Dec 18 December 17 was a travel day from Colombo to Bangkok. Today we slept until 7:00 which was a real treat. We decided to get a pedicure and run errands. I picked up some pants I had made at the tailors, we bought some wine as gifts for our dinner hosts tonight and for Leslie, our host who invites us to stay at her apartment every time we come to Bangkok. We went to the agency where we hire a driver to take us to Hua Hin where we pick up a rental car when we go to our house in Phetchaburi. We dashed back home because we were getting picked up at 3:00 to be taken to Pat Rangsit Hospital for a tour by the owner, our Friend Dr. Krishrat Dr. Krishrat built a private hospital 33 years ago. Three months ago he completed an addition (actually a totally new building) and wanted to give us a tour. We have known him and his family for many years. We met his daughter, Aum, when she was an exchange student in Tigard and lived with Nattawan and Sam who own the Phetchaburi house. It’s ...

December 16 Deja vu…we walked back up to the Independence Memorial and took some photos then we found a track and did three loops but we started to get hot so walked back home, about a two-mile trek altogether. It felt good to exercise although we are way behind with our regime.    After breakfast, we got ready to run errands. The first stop was Barefoot where we got some yardage for a tablecloth for an outdoor table and some napkins. We are hopeful that wherever we end up living we will have a place for al fresco dining. Last night, Dhushy recommended we visit a shop called Kreation that carried SL clothing. Ron found five shirts and I got five blouses; all hand-loomed. They are colorful but the quality isn’t as nice as Barefoot but the price is half. We stopped by The Asia Foundation and we met with Anton, giving him some money for Tinesh’s education expenses. Anton will dispense the funds and notify me if they run low. Hopefully, we can help Tinesh f...