Purpose

Hi,

It was another hot day in Chiang Rai.  There was a very strong breeze in the afternoon, blowing this years batch of little puffy balls all over the lawn and the pool.

Most of the usual suspects knew the ‘Zany Day’ song on the first day.  There’s still time to join the crowd and impress us with your knowledge of zany old songs (555).  “Bing bang, I saw the whole gang, dancing on my living room rug.  Yeah, flip flop they was doin’ the bop.  All the teens had the dancin’ bug.  There was Lollipop with-a Peggy Sue, Good Golly Miss Molly was-a even there too.  A-well-a, __ __ I forgot about the bath, I went and put my dancin’ shoes on, yeah…”  Hint:  Easy zany should be a category.

This morning we had an appointment with our attorney.  He was going to accompany us to the land office so we could pay our annual ‘house tax’.  In Thailand, foreigners are not permitted to own land.  You can own a house, but not the land.  This leads to many variations of who’s house is it?  We have a legal document that protects us from unsavory consequences and keeps us legal.  When we got to his office, his assistant informed us that he was in Bangkok.  She had a document ready for us to take to the office, with the amount due at the top.  Since we had a good parking place, we walked the 2 blocks and took in the local store-fronts.  It took awhile for them to actually take our money, but with the help of three office workers, the case was closed until next year and we didn’t have to explain anything.

On our walk back to the car we peaked in the window of the Chiang Rai Fitness Center.  There were rows of aerobic exercise machines and a weight rack.  We’ll have to go by when they’re open and see what’s going on in there.  We also saw a book shop, but it’s run by a big fluffy cat so we kept walking (555).

This afternoon we were back at the big tile/appliance store with a van-load of blue tile that wasn’t needed for the pool.  They took the tile back and gave us a credit.  Pretty amazing.  Then we applied that to the tile we need for the patio deck.  I love it when stuff like this works out.  

School is out and the traffic has changed.  There are a couple of major streets that we used to avoid in the afternoon because when the kids got out for the day, the traffic was crazy.  Between school vans, parents picking up their kids, and the kids on motorbikes, moving objects would be coming from every direction.  Today we breezed down one of those streets with no obstructions.  

Today’s photo is a Burmese Shan Rain Drum taken at the house of a friend.  It’s also called a Frog Drum for the four frogs on top.  The whole thing is made of bronze and has a distinctive sound.  They’re not used much in today’s music, mostly used as tables, but very interesting to see and hear.

Have a Thrilling Thursday.

                     Peace,

                               Danny

“Efforts and courage are not

enough without purpose and 

direction.”

~John F. Kennedy