Friday Noi wanted to take me to lunch outside of school.  We left early and the place she wanted to go was closed.  There was a cone with a big light on it in the road so we couldn’t turn on it.  As we drove by she said someone was dead.  That was why the place was closed.  How did she know that?  She said she saw the tent.  I saw a big awning coming from a house and covering most of the street in front of the house.  I guess it’s like a reception where people come to pay respects to the family.  We went to another place to eat.  As with most Thai restaurants, it’s a covered area in front of a house with an outdoor kitchen.  The lady that owned this one was real nice and quite happy to have us there.  She had chickens and roosters running around everywhere.  I had a hard time eating because I just wanted to watch the chickens.  I didn’t have my phone with me so I didn’t get any pictures.  I’ve never seen so many in one place.  They were pecking at my feet.  The roosters that would fight were in cages.  Some of the roosters were huge.  I asked if she raised the roosters for fighting.  Noi said she didn’t.  She didn’t mind if they died for people to eat, but would not have her roosters die for fighting.  She could make a small fortune if she sold them for fighting.  The health department in the US would fall over and die if they saw Thai restaurants.  Yet, I haven’t gotten sick from any restaurant in Sam Ngao and the food has always been good.  Maybe we are over cautious in the US.

Friday night I had dinner with Tip and did a reading lesson for her daughter.  I wasn’t sure how to teach reading to someone that never read before, but I found some beginner reading lessons on line and Tip printed them.  Fai did pretty good.  I had hoped Ging would come over with her daughter too, but the timing didn’t work out.

My printer stopped printing even though I got the ink refilled.  Maybe refilling the ink cartridges doesn’t work.  I tried to get stuff printed at school, but it seems like a huge imposition to print color at school and I can only print black and white when I can find Noi in her office.  Otherwise her office is locked.  I feel frustration and a small amount of panic.  This took me out of the state of indifference and has consumed most of my thoughts.  I asked Noi if she would take me to Tak to get new ink.  She took me yesterday and insisted that I bring the printer.  I didn’t understand why I needed to bring the printer since I just needed to buy new cartridges.  She kept asking about the ink tank.  I kept saying that it didn’t have an ink tank and I didn’t see how the ink would get in the cartridges if they put a tank on it.  Well, color me stupid.  The printer shop in Tak put an ink tank on the printer and a thin cord that goes to the cartridges.  Take that Cannon.  Serves you right for trying to create a printer that goes through ink so fast and thinking we would have to buy expensive cartridges every month.  This morning, I printed the rest of my lesson plans for this week.  I keep getting the message that the printer is low on ink, but the prints came out fine.  So, fingers crossed that this will continue to work.  I relaxed a little.

My plan for this weekend was to get a week ahead on lesson planning, but the trip to Tak took all day so, I’m ready for this week’s lessons, but not ahead.  We went to breakfast which was a delicious soup and chicken with ginger.  Then we went to the morning market to buy more plants for Noi.  I like the market in Tak.  Then we went a few other places.  One of them had tiny pineapple.  Noi bought some and told me they were the most delicious pineapple.  They come from Chiang Rai.  They are the most sweet and juicy of the pineapple.  There are pineapple that come from somewhere else in Thailand and they are bigger, just as sweet, but not as juicy.  Then there are pineapple that come from Phuket.  They taste good, but are so fibrous that you can’t eat too many.  If you eat too many, they will destroy your tongue. The pineapple that will destroy your tongue.  I enjoyed the non tongue destroying pineapple very much.

Then to Tesco to do the printer.  Ice cream at Dairy Queen and the bank.  I should have bought food in Tesco, but by that time of the day I was exhausted and just standing around was more my speed.  The meat department has bins and bins of meat just sitting out and you grab tongs and a bag and pick what  you want.  Then they weight it and put a price on the bag.  I was mesmerized watching people pick through bins of raw meat.  I couldn’t even move to go look at the veggies.  After Tesco we went for lunch at a noodle shop  Noi has been wanting to try.  The ladies working there were real nice and excited to learn about why Noi was with a Westerner.  This was one of the first Thai meals that I didn’t like.  The meat had a strange consistency and it was too spicy.  I didn’t eat the whole thing because it just got hotter and hotter until I felt like my lips might melt off.  It hurt for at least 30 minutes after. Am I allergic to chili?  How do people find this enjoyable?  How did the first person to try a chili think that this was a good idea to eat twice?

The subjects of conversation were religion (as usual) and politics.  She has been told that the US has great welfare and that the government pays to take care of all old people and poor people.  There are no poor people and no beggars in the US.  In the US when people get old, their children do not help them.  Thai children always help their parents.  I tried to explain that some do and some don’t.  This was difficult for her to understand. Americans are not helpful to other people.  She wanted to know if Thailand or America had more charities.  I have no idea.  I find that most of what Thais think of the US is black and white.  We are all one way or another.  There is no concept of how huge our country is and how diverse it’s people are.  There’s no concept that maybe it’s not that much different from Thailand and other countries.  Everything that is a Thai way belongs only to Thais.  For instance, Thai people are very nice.  This is true, but I have met some not nice ones too.  It is also true that I have met just as many nice Americans.  Is it possible that a more true statement is people are nice?  Then she asked what I was going to do later.  I told her I was going to get a massage.  She told me if I go once a week for massage I am addicted to massage.  That made me laugh.  I tried to explain why I thought it was important, but I just couldn’t.  She asked about the lady who does massage.  I told her sometimes it’s a man and sometimes his wife.  Men should only do massage for men, don’t you think?  I told her I was so glad that wasn’t true since he’s better than she is.  She asked  why I thought he was better and I told her he was more present.  She didn’t understand.  To her presence is the fact of being in the room and someone can’t be more or less present.  They are present or not.  I tried to explain presence from an energetic and spiritual sense, but  I’m sure I didn’t do a good job of it.  It’s too late in the day and my brain is already fried.  Then that led to “Do you believe in heaven?”  I swear we’ve had this conversation before.  I said I didn’t.  She proceeded to tell me about heaven and hell and doing good deeds in order to have a better life next time.  Maybe I just don’t know the facts and that’s why I don’t believe.  There was also an aspect where I’m from America so I must be Christian and I explained that I’m not Christian and not all of Americans are.  There was also a conversation about fortune tellers.  I said I didn’t believe in their predictions.  I don’t think anyone really knows the future, educated guesses can be made, but no one knows.  She educated me on fortune tellers, again, because I must not know about them or I’d believe.  I find her questions so challenging, but also fascinating as well.  With each conversation I become more and more sure that everything is just one.  There is no good or bad and no right answer.  There is no future to worry about and the past can no longer hurt me.

Then house and car stuff comes up and I lose the belief in no good or bad and no future for a little bit.  The guy living in my house wants to buy it, but for $40,000 less than I think it’s worth.  He want’s to buy my furniture, but isn’t willing to pay what I think it’s worth.  So, I’m looking into moving my furniture out and now I’m contacting realtors.  Money represents safety for me and thinking about it actually upsets me.  In a lot of areas of my life I no longer fear for my safety or worry about how things are going to turn out, but with money issues, I still do.  Maybe that’s why this appears to be so difficult right now.  So, I can learn to release my need for money to safety.  I remember childishly asking for life to provide me with some surprise money that would get me out of debt.  Then I will believe that everything is ok.   Of course that hasn’t happened.  Still, last week I got a bunch of checks in the mail that I had forgotten Jay mailed to me.  I was able to deposit them through an app on my phone.  It was around $300 which won’t even make a dent in my debt, but the timing of it sure made me laugh.  Of course, if surprise money in the amount of $30,000 comes my way, that will be ok too.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore