Our life in Chiang Mai, video version.
A content creator… That seems excessive but I have found by adding audio and video I am able to express what we are doing a tad better, sometimes. I have made 4 short videos.. A total of 15 minutes in 3 or 4 minute bite size pieces. Fun-Size if you will, since Halloween is just around the corner.
Watch 1st:
Watch 2nd:
Watch 3rd:
Watch last:
Don’t forget to take a listen to what Diane is singing in church.
The Plumbing War
I think the phrase containing mountain and mole hill might describe this best. Since I mentioned this in our last post, I’ll give you a quick synopsis.
After some plumbing work was done in our building, a phenomenon occurred referred to as water hammer. It’s when the pipes make a ‘bang’ sound when water is suddenly turned off. With the help of Google, I became more knowledgeable, and I tried to get it corrected. In time, it could damage pipes, and it currently is an irritation. After many emails, phone calls, texts and exchanging of how-to videos, six weeks go by. We are now used to the sound and no longer notice or are bothered by it.
That chain of events, culminated in 4 people showing up at our door, ready to help. The couple who owns the condo, (with his wife who acted as translator), a plumber and a building maintenance guy. If we had a basketball, we could play a pickup game of 3 on 3. Yes, I would have dominated, but I digress.
In short, a fix seemed not worth it. We are moving on.
Suprise birthday parties:
Surprise birthday parties never ever go as planned…
The invite said to arrive at Cha Cha Mabuhay Restaurant at 5pm. We live across town and traffic can be variable. We are the first to arrive at 4:40pm. No prob, right?
While on the road we unknowingly received a text at 4:25 from Angel, “we are running late, trying to convince Lawrence to come, while keeping it a surprise.” Thirty minutes later two more guests arrived and joined us at one of 7 empty 8-chair tables. After a quick head nod and a quiet and polite hello, we are quiet and keeping to ourselves. For the perceived eternity of several minutes, we sat. In the modern day, those long minutes of awkward silence have a new weapon, the smart phone. Otherwise, we would be obliged to engage in that ancient and outdated form of human communication known as talking.
What did people do 30 years ago? I am convinced my skills have not atrophied. So, I broke the silence with a remark of “good thing we have our phones.” That brought smiles and relief. We then had a lengthy and substantive conversation with two teachers who taught math and English to 5th graders with varying degrees of interest and attention span. There is no more noble a profession. They were sisters from the Philippines. Pamela and Camille.
I’m so glad we decided to wait and took the opportunity to talk with two knowledgeable and lovely women. It was nice to get to know them. They also sang in the church choir with Diane. Without this time together tonight, every Sunday in the future would only have the disappointing head nod at best. Now it will be “yo yo ma bitches, whats the haps” or maybe something more appropriate but just with the same enthusiastic ring to it. In reality, I saw Camille the next day outside the church having an ice cream cone. I smiled and thanked her for the nice time we had the previous night. It was something right out of a black and white movie or the Andy Griffith Show. I might have even bowed just a bit. I didn’t think the “yo yo ma….” would be appropriate or even my style.
Finally, just before 7pm the guest of honor arrives at the packed restaurant. Babies were held, children ran around, random screams of recognition were heard. To my dismay a karaoke machine was at the ready. Gratefully, it never floated to the surface while we were in attendance. Even more people arrive as platters of unique and delicious foods filled the tables. I even loved the dinuguan (pork blood stew).
Angel had sent out emails to encourage people to send her video birthday wishes for Lawrence’s’ 40th birthday. It is rumored that 1.73 million people sent in 15 second ‘hellos’ from around the world. I talked with Angel the next day and she said they were still playing that morning. That’s 7200 or so hours of material. It should take just over 300 days to play them all. (Yes, I tend to exaggerate to make a point) I’m glad we left at a decent time.
The evening peaked during the video presentation time where videos were shown on the big screen and the audio blasted out of the karaoke system. Loud and rambunctious partygoers with enthusiastic screams of wooo and hooooo usually drowned out the words of the people speaking on the screen. It was the intent not the context of the words that were deemed important. The crowd went simply mad when a child came on the screen. I might remind the reader of the 70 or so people packed in the restaurant, only one was drinking alcohol. That was an Australian guy not me 🙂 When in Rome…
All these words above can only mean one thing. This was, no doubt, a Filipino event.
We were thoroughly entertained. Usually, Diane and I are only good for about 90 minutes. Though tonight, we nearly made it to the 4-hour mark. Spending 2 hours with our new teacher friends certainly helped.
For a fleeting moment earlier that afternoon we considered staying in but would have missed out on such a spark of life. I am an introvert that presents as an extravert… or something like that.
Human interaction permits growth, a welcome widening of perspective combined with tasty foods that contains pig blood. Nice.
Thank you so much for reading and watching!!!