DREAM OF A THOUSAND LIVES

A Sojourn in Thailand  by Karen Connelly

Bangkok always comes to you slowly, languidly, but its sprawling outskirts gradually transform into a taloned, grinning creature with an appetite for money and human time. I've grown used to the dimensions of Denchai, the familiar streets of Chiang Mai, the cotton clothes and rubber thongs of small towns. The pace of the city always surprises me. Slums trip into office buildings, apologizing with flimsy fences; markets wander into streets, shopping centres into dirty sky. Concrete edges elbow ancient temples, nudge palaces for room to grow, expand, swallow up the old to spit out the new. I dig through my knapsack for what's left of my wristwatch. The crystal is cracked and the second hand doesn't work, but it tells me the time: four-thirty. The city is still two hours away, yawning in the dark.

EMBRACE THE CHAOS (ETC)

Friday, July 19
Yes, that is my theme for the month, developed in my Wednesday yoga class.
This particular week, I have not had a moment to myself until just this afternoon, when I stole away and locked myself in a private room at Common Grounds with a large iced tea and a turkey-pear sandwich. And deleted 70 of 100 emails, avoiding Yahoo's "Hipsters flock to Mexican Coke" and "How to crack an egg". Unfortunately I did succumb to "Netflix dropping your favorites". Dammit. My favorites!

I have been thinking of you (Tricia dear) a lot this week. Paul and I went yesterday to Red Rocks - startlingly bright and strangely energizing - and I ran up and down the stairs for a total of seven sides, which I figure to be about 1850 steps plus some. I was totally crawling up the last time, when he passed me twice, going down and then again on the way back up. I churlishly imagined him skipping circles around me. Maybe humming as he did so.
Later he and Abby and I went to the IMAX Great Whites and watched South African shark cage adventurers, along with about 150 amazingly quiet daycare kids. Scared straight perhaps.
Lastly, at an exchange student/local student party near Megan Prentice's house in Green Oaks, I talked with a group of parents/sponsors about S. Africa (one woman's daughter is there somewhere, she never did remember where), and your parent-traumatizing New Zealand quest to drive me crazy with ever-more dangerous thrill-seeking attempts.
So, it was Tricia, Tricia, all-day Tricia.

IRONY

Very hot afternoon, Ken and Brian taking down the monster juniper across the street, Daddy edging and trimming the bush by the side of the front porch. Sam also is slaving away. Having cleaned up all the dog poop, he's hard at work mowing first the front yard, and is now halfway through the back. Otis runs out to make a rather large deposit in the middle of Sam's uncut grass. Abby and I enjoy the irony and perhaps (?) intentional pooping on Otis's part. And, just this moment, I hear Sam yelling that Otis has made a second offering, both are in the space of ten minutes! How does he do it?             
              Sam: "I like how you people think it's freaking hilarious!"