Thursday, June 17

Life goes on in Bangkok...

Black cat posing in the most picturesque spot

I was supposed to go back to work this week (starting June 14) but apparently one of the cleaning people at the school got Covid, so they had us work from home. Except they never sent us any assignments, so I really just kind of had a paid holiday. Lucky me!

The hot weather has also broken here as the rainy season begins. The skies are often dark but it hasn't rained all that much. But in general, at the hottest point of the day, the temperature might be 90F and “feel like 100F” and that is actually...a big improvement.

So I am able to walk around quite a bit more, and don't feel like I have to either be home or in an air-conditioned mall between the hours of 10am and 5pm (being out at those hours during the hot season is unbearable partly because I still do things like walk from the BTS station to the house—and even take the longer route—whereas if I were smart like the Thais I'd take a motorcycle taxi).

So I have been going on errands to find things for the house: bedding and a proper trash can, an electric tea kettle, a spatula. Things for putting other things in—a shelf for the shower and some trays for the bathroom counter.

We are only planning to be here for a year, and so I am constantly trying to solve the equation of whether my need for a thing is more significant than the cost of owning it for a year. New towels to replace the crappy stained white towels that came with the place? Obvs. We spent enough money getting settled in that I thought the sheets on the bed might do...but we found we only wanted new sheets more as time went on. And I am feeling an increasing desire to replace our pillows and I don't really know why because I sleep on hotel pillows without complaint but I don't know GERMS.

Sometimes my cheapness overrides practicality to a stupid degree, though. Like, I wasn't really drinking tea when we first arrived because it's been so hot. But I started drinking tea in the morning as it got cooler and we started waking up earlier so Roman could go to school. But for some reason I didn't want to buy a tea kettle even though I know they sell them for 200 baht (or like $6.60) everywhere. I can boil water in a saucepot, right? First thing in the morning, I can just put what I hope is the exact right amount of bottled water into a pot because I don't want too little tea but I don't want to boil too much because I'll just have to dump it out, and then I'll cover the pot because the burner gets super hot and I don't want all the water to boil out, and then I just have to try and remember to turn the stove off when I get out of the shower, and if I'm making oatmeal or rice cereal, I have to pour that water into my thermos and start making my tea right away because I only have the one pot.

I just bought a 200 baht kettle and this morning I woke up and flipped a switch and realized how stupid I had been. Am I learning, though? Not really. I still haven't bought a mixing bowl. THAT'S WHAT THE WOK IS FOR.

But I have things to put my things in, don't worry! I mean, I won't buy a mixing bowl but I have four adorable pink glass bowls to put my jewelry in even though they're hidden in a cabinet and no one sees them but me.

What, are you thinking maybe I don't have enough going on to occupy my time and brain with?

That is...possible.

Anyway, I also wander Chinatown sometimes and I buy Taiwanese egg cakes and mangoes and jackfruit for breakfast, and I made a hash with potatoes and shallots and fried duck eggs. Also, Sean told me you can make dulce de leche by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk for like three hours but I accidentally bought evaporated milk (the label was in Thai, OK?) and dumped it into a pot (should I say the pot) and brought it to a boil and reduced it to a simmer and only then did I consult with the internet, which informed me that you actually put the whole can into boiling water and after a few hours, you open the can to find dulce de leche inside. But at this point it was too late and also I had realized my evaporated milk error, so I boiled what was in the saucepot down with some sugar (the main thing missing from evaporated milk) and salt and when Roman got home and I gave him a spoonful, he said, have you ever had dulce de leche?

Nope, still haven't! But also, when I got home and went to open what at that point I still thought was sweetened condensed milk, I realized that I didn't have a can opener! Oh no! And our knives are too nice to use on a tin can (we have a paring knife and a chef's knife and they have wood handles and are very sharp because we're not monsters). But we have two bottle openers because of our soda water habit, and I realized that opening cans is EXACTLY what the curved point on the end of the bottle opener is for!!! It was so satisfying! And I never would've realized that had I not been such a cheapskate and had, you know, purchased a can opener.

The main disappointment of living in Nana is we still haven't found much street food for dinner. There are lots of carts serving food between 7am and 1pm, but most of them disappear after lunch, rolling off to who-knows-where. In fact, almost everything we buy on our street comes on a cart—the som tam stall is on a cart with wheels, as are the fried chicken, Thai omelet, cut fruit, and iced drink carts. In the early afternoon, a woman rolls up with her vegetable cart, which has plastic bags full of limes or garlic or chilies or whatever hanging off of it, and you just grab one of the plastic bags and pull it toward you so the rubber band attaching the bag to the cart become taut and the woman takes her scissors and snip! the bag is yours. Sometimes a guy comes by with a broom cart, and earlier this week we flagged down a guy driving a houseplant cart, and bought two more plants for the apartment. We also bought doughnuts from a cart for the first time—three of the four doughnuts were good, but the last, which we thought was filled with custard, turned out to be filled with mayonnaise and some kind of meat (tuna?). Blech.

Anyway, it would be nice if a few more carts hung around for dinnertime. This was such a touristy area pre-Covid and is clearly pretty deserted in comparison. We did find a good khao soi place that we took Sean and Emma to, and (don't laugh) the food court at Terminal 21 (the mall) isn't terrible—there are a million stalls selling street food-style meals, and most are between 35-50 baht.

They also have cheap toasted milk buns.

I found another decent mall food court nearish to the house that I sometimes check out on my solo venturing.

I maybe need another project to work on and I could probably stand to be a little more social with some of the new friends I've made here, but, you know, things are going fiiiiiiine.