Cubs Win, and Small Amazing Things, pt. 1

This short post is about two things that happened this week that make me happy. First off, the Cubs are the National League Central Champions! Take that, Milwaukee. Of course, this incredible event has Cubs fans all over the globe thinking just one thing: Dad, when are you going to buy a Slingbox?

I'm really going to try my best to keep up this idea that I mentioned last time of just putting up short posts about things that make me happy here. I've decided to title this series Small Amazing Things for two reasons. First, it's a rip-off of the title of my favorite climbing short featuring my favorite climber, Dave Graham. Second, it can be pronounced "small am(asia)ing things" by people in the know.

My first Small Amazing Thing is, oddly enough, Uma Thurman-inspired. In Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega takes Marcellus Wallace's wife out to dinner at Jackrabbit Slim's, and Mia Wallace goes to the bathroom to, um, powder her nose ("I said GODDAMN!"). When she comes back, she remarks, "Don't you just love it when you go to the bathroom, and you come back to find your food waiting for you?"

Yes, Mia, I DO love that!

I think Thai people must be the most observant and caring people in the world. If I sniffle in the morning, someone asks me if I'm sick before I even realize that I sniffled. When I stay up late, people somehow know I'm tired. If I try to sit in a way that is polite, but subtly shift my weight a few times, Thai people tell me to make myself comfortable and not worry about where my feet are pointing. When I was in my home stay, if I had a little bit of a hard time shelling a clam or deboning a fish, before I even knew what was going on, my Thai mom would place a small pile of extracted meat on my plate. And of course, when I'm drinking, if my glass begins to approach empty, it is instantly refilled.

I've been spending a lot of time with farang (white people) lately, but last night, I went back out to visit my Thai family, and everybody's awareness hit me like a ton of bricks. Mae Noi and co. had about twelve people over for dinner, and at one point during the meal the conversation got pretty lively, and I got pretty lost. I tried as hard as I could to listen for a few minutes, but then I figured that I would take the opportunity to slip away unnoticed, go to the bathroom and return a text message. When I got back - maybe sixty seconds later - Pi Aed was still on his rant, but my plate had a fresh pile of steaming food, and my glass was overflowing with ice cold beer. I think it was Mae Noi's small, amazing way of saying that she hadn't forgotten about me.