Tag: CrittersInMyHouse

More stuff about Food

On By rrainefioreIn Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I still have a rat living with me.  The other night I heard a lot of rustling in the walls.   I looked up and he was staring down at me from a rafter with such a look of confusion – ‘What is she doing here”?  He paused for a second as we both stared at each other not sure what to do.  He ran back into the walls.

I also still have cockroaches.  I bought some bug spray at the store that I’m sure is toxic and shouldn’t be in my house, but neither should ants and cockroaches.  I also bought this plug in mosquito repellent thing that I’m not sure does any good.  So, the bug spray works great on ants and two days ago, I got to try it on a cockroach.  I was skeptical since I grew up in Florida and nothing killed them there.  I found one on my toilet seat.  I didn’t want to spray the bug spray on my toilet seat in case it is toxic enough to burn my legs off.  So I waited until he ran.  He ran for a hole in the door.  Perfect.  The bug spray has a tiny nozzle that fits in the hole in the door and now he can just die in the door, out of sight.  Oh no, it did not go down that way.  Five minutes later I heard a loud flopping sound and looked over.  In the middle of the room is the roach flopping around and creating quite the drama and he flopped across the room on his back, legs flailing everywhere.  Just before he died I heard him say – “you did this to me bitch, now you have to watch me die”.  So, the bug spray works great, but the roaches have attitude.

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day at the coffee shop trying to book my plans for vacation and eating/drinking sugar.  I should call it the sugar shop instead of the coffee shop.  I sat outside for a change because the weather was delightfully not hot!  I also tried to cook some of the food I have before I have to toss too much of it out.  I made scrambled eggs.  I haven’t had scrambled eggs since I left the US so that was a nice treat.

Last night I went to Ging’s house for dinner.  I was looking forward to seeing a Thai house from the inside to see how it compared to mine.  Not much different except that they have lived there for awhile and have a preschool daughter so it has stuff everywhere.  For a lot of houses, the kitchen is outside.  That was the case at their house.  So, that’s different than mine.  I really don’t have an outside area.  I helped her cook dinner as she told me the Thai names of everything we cooked.  I remember none of it, but I now carry a notebook with me everywhere and it’s in there.  Tip came over after dinner and took me to see her house which is a couple blocks away.  She has a little electric cart that looks like a golf cart except smaller.  She took me over in that.  And she took me around the front of the hospital and showed me where the dental offices are, there are also acupuncture offices and they have massage at the hospital too.  They both live at houses at the hospital.  I also love that they speak to their children in English as well as Thai so they will learn both.

Today, I went to the market with Ging.  Then I went to get a massage.  I went to the same lady I went to a few weeks ago.  Without exercising and sitting in these tiny plastic chairs all the time, and stress, I’m a disaster.  It was a painful 2 hours.  Still, I think it’s important and will get better as I become more comfortable living here.  Some interesting things came up.  I’ll put them in a separate blog.  It was a beautiful day so I didn’t get much done that I wanted to do because it all involved a computer and I just wanted to sit out side.  It probably didn’t get over 80 degrees today.   I found taro ice cream and since I’m in love with taro milk, I thought this might be the most exciting thing to happen all week.  No.  It wasn’t.  It was meh.  I’ll stick to the lime vanilla ice cream bars I found at 7-11 in the future.  I feel like I’m posting a lot of pictures of food in these blogs, but it’s interesting to me.  So, here are your food and flower pictures for this blog:

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

meh.

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized

They had parent day at school today.  Parent day included a lot of speeches about what, I don’t know.  It also included some strange video that looked like it was about on-line predators, but again, I don’t know.  And it included an introduction of and a speech by their new western teacher – yep – me.  Don’t sign me up for the speaking tour.  All in all, it was about 4 hours long.  They fed me lunch – guess?

After, I was going to work on lesson plans, but the internet wasn’t working.  So, I decided to take my nook up to the dam and read.  There are two entrances to the dam.  The one I went to was closed.  It just so happens to be next to the stairs that go up to what looked like a temple on the top of the hill.  I debated taking the challenge since it was overcast.  I wasn’t sure if it was worth it if I couldn’t get photos.  But, my other choice was to go back home and sit in my house.

The stairs looked like they went on for ever, but they didn’t.  In fact, the stairs ended too soon.  Then it turned to log stairs and then to steep switchbacks not meant for humans to walk up.  It wasn’t a wat, but a stupa (or maybe a pagoda – not sure of the difference).  There was an older lady sweeping the floor that insisted in asking me questions even though I had no idea what she was saying.  There was another lady there also sweeping.  I took some pictures and enjoyed the breeze.  Even though it was overcast, the view was amazing.  The lady kept talking.  Coming down the trail/stairs was even sketchier than going up, but I survived it.  At that point I gave up and went home.

I read for awhile on my porch until too many bug bites said to go in.  I made a salad with the stuff I got from the market the other night.  I didn’t have salad dressing, but put some watermelon in there and it worked quite well.  Then I ate what I thought were doughnuts that I got the other night as well.  They were fried dough with sugar and scallions on the out side.  There was something that looked like meat on the inside, but might be red bean?  And it had a spicy after taste.  Why?  Why would anyone think those things go good together?

I booked a flight to Bali for two weeks of my upcoming break.

This evening’s house guests are ants and very large cockroaches.  I should work on lesson plans, but I’m giving up on the day and going to crawl into bed at 7:30pm.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Every chair was full later
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At the bottom of the long set of “stairs”
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That’s a lot of stairs
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No more stairs, just logs
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Steeper and less like stairs
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Steeper and no stairs at all

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But the views are not too bad

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Looks like they are building a temple
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Looks like they are building a temple

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Uninvited House Guests
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yum

New Wheels

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last night I discovered a pretty large frog in my bathroom.  There are lots of cracks and holes in my walls, but I haven’t seen one big enough for him to fit through.  Where did he come from?  How long has he lived here?  I think they eat bugs so maybe I should keep him.  I looked for him this morning, but didn’t find him.   How did he just appear and then disappear?

I had a rough evening last night with bugs, but it prompted me to put up the bug net they gave me.  I did a pretty crappy job of putting it up, but it helped.  I think I might re-do it this weekend and maybe rearrange or even move into the other bedroom.  It was also hot last night.  I had really been enjoying the cool evenings.  Where did they go?

School went ok today.  I had 3 classes and they seemed to get into the lesson even though they are shy to speak English.  I was told that the Director of my school thinks I’m too serious.  Now I have to try to remedy that.  There are a lot of times of the day where I’m just exhausted from not knowing the language.  I think the teacher that has been assigned to me is exhausted too.  I still have a homework project for my TESOL class that is due Saturday so I’ve been working on that in the evenings and then I’m to tired to learn Thai.  You’d think that if you didn’t know the language, you could just zone out and relax, but it’s not like that.  I feel like a fish out of water, a really tall fish.

I have to go to a teacher parent thing on Sunday.  They want me to give a speech.  I was told today that if I could do it in Thai, that would be great.  That makes me tired just thinking of it.

The wifi here is awful so I struggled all day trying to do lesson plans.  I didn’t get anything done in between classes.  I have lost internet connection 7 times while writing this.  (It took me over a half hour to upload photos last night before I gave up).  I asked for advice from other western teachers in Thailand.  The advice I got was to buy a mobile hot spot.  There’s no phone store here.  I think there’s one in another town, but I can’t get there, even if I remembered where it was.  And they didn’t speak English, so we are back to the issue of the day.  

I tried to have my agent arrange a motor bike rental for me.  Then I was told the school would lend me one.  Today, I was told that wouldn’t work.  I think they are still working on it, but don’t know how to get it here.  I asked if I could take a bus to Tak and then drive it back.  They looked at me like I was nuts and said no.  I feel so struck.  Amazing how attached to our cars we are.  And how we equate mobility with freedom.  Today, one of the teachers gave me a bicycle to borrow.  I still feel a little stranded, but it’s better.  

After school, I rode my bike up to the dam area to help a girl with kayaking.  Wow, that bike was not made for those hills.  I got a serious workout in.  But, that’s the first exercise I’ve seen in months.  So, now I feel a little better about the bike.  It will be nice to get in shape again.  And I can go to the market and get food because I have a basket.

Then I got home and Pat had a refrigerator delivered to my house.  It was her old one before she moved to a new house.  Stuff is in there cooling down right now.  I hung up a wind chime that sounds like a frog.  I bought it in Hua Hin.  It sounds great.  I tried to upload a video of it here.  Not sure if it will work…..

The Thais often have a spirit house out in the front of their house.  The house is intended to provide shelter for spirits that may cause problems if not appeased.  They often leave offerings of food and drink on the house for the spirits.  After all the bug drama, my friend and I decided I needed to make an offering.  I don’t have a spirit house, but tonight I left a small offering of fruit, a gummy worm and fruit milk.  I like gummy worms so spirits might too.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Bathroom Frog

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bug netting
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School Assembly
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The upper dam
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picnic tables near the lower dam
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dam sunset
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my new ride
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refrigerator!
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offering to the spirits

Fruit Milk

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

So, after I posted my blog last night, I went downstairs and saw a huge spider.  Not the largest spider I’ve ever seen (I grew up in Florida), but large enough he could have starred in a horror film.  He was larger than the palm of my hand.  Now all my childhood survival skills are kicking in.  From now on I will check the sheets before I go to bed, check under the toilet seat before I sit down, and shake my shoes before I put them on.  No, I didn’t get a picture of him.  I was too busy with the long handled broom trying to get him out of the house as fast as possible before he killed me.

Today, same “I don’t want to get up”.  I suspect that will continue for awhile.  I’ve never been a morning person and was never fond of getting up for work back home either.  School was better.  My next door neighbor, Teacher Q, gave me a ride to school on his motorbike.  He insisted that I don’t have to walk that far (2 -3 blocks).  I taught 3 classes today.  It went fairly well.  Some stuff was easy and some was too hard, but it gave me a great feel for what to do with their next lesson.

Pat and her husband took me out to lunch with a local missionary who is also a westerner, one of the few in town.  Lara is funny and just delightful to talk with.  She has lived in Thailand for 20 years and has been friends with Pat and Dam for 10 years.  It was so nice to have an easy conversation for a change.  It was also nice that Pat and Dam set it up, knowing I would like to meet here.  Lara and I are going to have coffee next week.

After school, I came home and decided to try some of the fruit I picked up at the market last night.  Since I now have a large amount of milk from what the students brought me last night, I figured fruit and milk would be a good snack.  The box of milk said 2% and has a picture of fruit and milk on it.  Huh?  Guess what?  Yep, it was fruit flavored milk.  It wasn’t good enough to run out and go buy more, but it was good enough that I will have a fruit milk snack every day until it is gone.  The red fruit I ate was kind of like a spiced apple, but less sweet.  Not high on my list of favorite fruit.

There is a huge wasps nest in one of the trees next to my house.  It’s probably 3 feet long by 1 foot tall.  It’s been a slight concern to me and at night 10 -15 wasps are always at my window screens trying to get in.  Tonight I was sitting out in front of my house drinking fruit milk when a very loud whir sound happened, loud enough to block out all other sounds.  Then the sound moved.  It was a swarm of thousands and thousands of wasps all moving away from the nest.  I tried to run inside, but was mesmerized and stood staring.  Well, if I’m not going to run, I should at least video this.  Unfortunately the video didn’t do it justice so I’m not posting it.  Then all together they flew off in the same direction.  I looked up at the wasp’s nest and couldn’t see it.  I think what I had thought was a nest before was actually a mass of sleeping wasps.  I wonder if they do this every day.  Will they be returning or did they take off for good?

Shortly after that, a teacher and student showed up with two frying pans, cooking oil, sausages and more pork chips.

I wanted to call someone at home, but it was the middle of the night there.  Brandon had put me in touch with his friend, Chris who lives in Thailand so I called him.  We had a nice long conversation.  Having lunch with Lara and having a conversation with Chris, have helped balance something.  I feel a lot better than I have in a long time.

Then another teacher showed up with a slice of cake and asked if I wanted her to take me to 7-11.  There’s one 7-11 in town and a tiny (4-5 food vendors) market next to it.  So, I went and got chicken on a stick.  Meat on a stick is quite a popular thing in Thailand.  I bought two pieces of chicken and as I was walking away, the lady gave me a third for free.

So, now I sit here writing and battling the mysteriously appearing beetle like bugs.  I’m just sitting here minding my own business and one crawls across my computer.  I check everywhere around me and there are none.  Then a few minutes later, one crawls across my shirt.  This has been going on for at least a half hour now.  They aren’t on the ceiling, walls or floor and then one appears.  Where are they coming from?  Magic bugs.  This is a poor use of magic.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Rocks on pedestals; I don’t know why
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More rocks on pedestals
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Pedestals for future rocks, and a dog
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Afternoon snack
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Truth in advertising – That is fruit flavored milk
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Cake!!!!!