SAAMSIP-SAWNG

Belated blogging birthday greetings to the lovely Fee, who turned saamsip-sawng this past week. (in deference to our current culture-straddle, I'll leave her age in thai -important info for proper greetings here, while omitting it from polite western convo, hehehe.) I find myself in the happy two-month period, before I even the score in late May, where Fee is old while I remain young.

You will be happy to read that Her Magnificence was well honored, with a total of four (count them, four) birthday dinners in a five-night birthday extravaganza. In all there was so-so food consumed on a beautiful mountainside, delish homemade indonesian with friends, northern thai goodness amidst wood antiques, and a closeout thai/german repaste.

The above shows Fee blowing out the candles in a so very tasty (and super-seasonal) strawberry clafoutis. The beauty of clafoutis is that not only is it delicious - thanks! to Gernod and Marisa - but you get to enjoy saying clafoutis over and over. It never gets old, not unlike our dear Felicity... J'taime, baby!

DOPPELGANGER

Couldn't find the umlauts for the A, but we've been meaning to take this picture for awhile.

Here I am with the Thai moviestar Ananda Everingham looming in the background. Due in large part, I believe, to our shared semi-pitiful facial hair*, I sometimes get (disappointed) double-takes around town.

Maybe it's my choice of tasty chocolate truffles** over his zero calorie cola that gives me, though an inch shorter, a 5kg weight advantage (negated, I guess, by the camera's 10 lbs...)

(* shaved off later that day)
(** apologies to those not privy to the intra-Ippolito family joke)

JERSEY FOR A DAY

I can't resist posting this*, coming direct from the 'awkward-indoor-nighttime-candid' section of the archives.

Further proof that even PhDs just wanna have fun. Big belt buckle, maybe some leather, and she's ready for the Willowbrook Mall (circa 1987) ;)

Fortunately, nature and a little humidity returned Fee's hair to the luscious curls that I fell in love with.

(*photographer's note: taken under direction to 'jump-up-and-down' to showcase, ala Pantene ads, her bounce and lustre.)

BEACH NIGHTHAWKS

Before heading back north to the mountains, and with added impetus of a visit from our friend Patrick, we decided to grab some beach time.

The above, taken from our bungalow's porch, is a photo of Patrick and Fee reliving their college days, perched above the silent Candlelight Beach of the oft-throngy island of Koh Samet. A favorite weekend getaway of (too) many Bangkokers, it was delightfully peaceful during our mid-week jaunt.

An unexpected feature of the beach was it's location at the thinnest point of the island - so, though facing east (like all Samet's beaches), we could walk up to the ridge to catch the sunset over the jagged west coast. Will post a western pic if I can find one...

TIME FLIES...

...Like a pigeon.

In an effort to fill our reader(s?) in on happenings here over the past six weeks, I've taken some photos out of the 'recent past' archives.

A neighbor in Bangkok kept a flock of trained pigeons on his rooftop, and would exercise them daily around dusk. Oftentimes, I'd be swimming, looking up as they flew figure eights and other patterns somehow dictated by the Australian flag (upside-down at that, though right-side up to Aussies?) the man would wave. A few blows of his whistle had them flying back to their roost.

They were lovely to watch. We even got some video, as one part of our grossly-unfinished homage to BKK. More or that later.