Today I woke up and looked at my phone to find a text from Noi telling me we should go to the Dam to see the festivities and she’d pick me up at 9:00.  I was planning on going up there anyway to watch Robin race.  She was late, as always, and we missed Robin’s race.  There was only a small part of the race at the finish line that you could see anyway and they were going so fast that I might have missed Robin if I had been there on time and blinked.  We walked around and she told me “food is over there”.  I said I knew because I came up last night.  She was so shocked.  How did I know?  I came by myself?  How is it so difficult to figure out that if you tell me there is a festival that there might be stuff going on?  Now, I’m just angry all over again.

It takes about 5 minutes to see everything at the festival.  As exciting as having something going on is, it’s actually boring.  We walk by a booth selling food and it also has a giant fountain made of black jelly.  Black jelly is popular dessert all over Southeast Asia made from leaves.  It was big bowl with a square of black jelly in the middle.  Black jelly juice came trickling out the top of the square.  Noi likes black jelly so she ordered two.  It looks disgusting, but I’ve heard about it and you don’t say no to Noi, so I guess it was time to try it.  I like the black jelly bubble drinks so hopefully this is the same thing.  The lady poured a thick dark liquid in the cup.  Again, I assume this is some form sugar.  Then she dipped the ladle in the fountain and pulled out black liquid and black worms of jelly.  Half the cup was black jelly worms.  She threw some ice on top.  It tasted like very watered down licorice and the black worms were awful.  I’m not sure why jelly balls or jelly squares are ok in a drink and jelly worms are not, but that’s my opinion on the subject.  Black jelly drink gets a thumbs down.

We sat by the river for at least an hour while Noi “played Line”.  Line is what Thais use instead of texts.  It’s kind of a mini facebook.  Then we went to lunch.  Noi spent all of lunch on Line.  Then we went for coffee – another half hour of just sitting there while Noi was on Line.  I literally spent 5 and a half hours with Noi today and about 4 and a half of it she was on Line.  At one point I asked her if there was a place she recommended I get my hair done.  I was just looking for a recommendation.  She asked if I wanted to go now.  No, any time is fine.  She took me there anyway.  It was one of the places I had been to before to get a pedicure.  The lady said to come back in an hour.  Noi asked where I wanted to go next and I said home.  I got to do laundry although I think half of it will need to be redone – things won’t dry and then they smell like mildew.

I went back to the hair salon, not really looking forward to it.  Before I left Colorado I had gone in to have all the red in my hair dyed black.  My natural  hair color is black so I wouldn’t have to dye it again here.  But, the lady in Colorado dyed it a dark brown.  The dark brown has turned to a dull frizzy lighter brown that I don’t like.  So, I can live with it, dye it black or not care what people think and go back to a fun color.  I know this lady probably has no idea what to do with curly hair and I’m not sure I can convey what I want.  So, I point to a box of hair color and say c-dang (red).  I try to explain that she can leave the black the way it is and just color the ugly brown with red, but that did not translate at all.  There was a picture on the wall of ridiculous red hair she pointed to and I smiled and said yes.  She colored all my hair and it’s more of a red brown, not even close to ridiculous. She cut my hair too which was scary as I’m not sure she’s ever cut curly hair before.  She didn’t know how to style curly hair so she straightened it.  It’s not what I was hoping for, but it’s not bad either.  20 minutes later it was no longer straight.

I did nothing useful all day other than get my hair cut, so why start now?  I headed back up to the dam to see if Saturday nights festivities were better than Friday night’s.  They were.  There were a lot more people there and there was a lady singing.  She was dressed in what looked like part of a band uniform and she was talking as much as she was singing.  She was hamming it up and trying to be funny.  Everyone was taking pictures so I figured she was famous.  I ran into Pat and she asked “Who told you about this event?  How did you know?”  I refrained from saying anything sarcastic, but I thought about it for a second.  Then about 5 minutes later I asked how her new house was and she asked if I wanted to see it.  Confusing.  She told me there was massage and I said, I had gone there last night. “You came up last night, with who?  By yourself?”  Again, why is this so shocking all of a sudden?  I’ve lived here since January.  I do most things by myself.  This isn’t new information.   I asked her about the lady singing and she said she was a famous comedian.  That explains the hamming it up part.  There was a guy selling Chicago burgers at the festival and Pat said she tried one.  I decided to try one so Pat and her husband walked over there with me.  The guy selling the burgers lives in another part of Thailand because he has a Thai wife and he travels around selling burgers.  He was very proud that he came from Chicago and that because he was from Chicago he knows how to cook a good burger.  Is Chicago famous for their burgers and I don’t know this?  He was just as creepy as the German guy from Friday night.  Pat’s husband asked me if the guy was Hawaiian.  He was definately Italian to the bone.  After I told Dam that I could just see the wheels turning in his head as he put this new information in and you could tell he was excited to have another piece of the puzzle in understanding Americans.  And the burger was meh.

By now, the woman was done performing and a guy in a suit, tennis shoes, sunglasses and a big white hat was singing.  His suit was white on the front and black on the back and he had a long black cape.  He’s a famous comedian too.  The crowd was so excited to see him.  I watched for two songs, but I just don’t get it.  I went home.  After I got home, I got a text from Noi telling me there was a concert at the dam.  I told her I was just there a half hour ago.  “Really?  With who”?   Seriously.  Yes really.  Still, just me.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore