Gratitude

Hi,
Today (Wednesday) was The King's birthday. I watched a little of the celebrations on TV this morning. One channel was showing various dance and musical numbers being presented by different schools, I guess. What continues to impress me is the care and effort taken to continue the traditional forms. Oh, speaking of this morning, at 6:30 a woman's voice came over the loudspeakers that are mounted in the neighborhood. After about five minutes, the national anthem was played, over and over until 7:00. I'm awake, really. Forgot to tell you the significance of the yellow and pink shirts. The King was born late on a Monday. The color for Monday births is yellow. When he left the hospital recently, he wore a pink blazer and everyone scrambled to wear pink. He said he just wanted to wear something different and not be boring.
He has a pretty cool sense of humor for an 80 year old.
We had a birthday dinner planned for this evening for Jen. The one thing missing was a cake, so we went into the market, to a bakery we'd seen a few days ago. I somehow remembered how to get through the maze of stalls and find the place. We had the woman write 'Happy Birthday' in Thai on a cake with pretty roses. That was our big outing of the day. We spent the day around the house. I finally changed a broken string on my guitar and played a bit. Joyce went to Mae Sai with the family and since most offices were closed, there wasn't much to do on the house project.
The travelers arrived at the house with bags of goods from their shopping trip. It was fun, watching them sort through things to find out what was who's. I don't wear suits very often (hardly ever), but the Armani that Pui brought back make me want to go get one. I think the price had something to do with it. I thought a $100 suit from downtown was a bargain. For what translates to $60, it makes one want a suit. Hmm.
We had a feast. Boot whipped up some new dishes along with the favorites and we had a great variety of tastes. As usual, there was one spicy dish that we left alone. One of the after dinner fruits was avocado. Thai avocados are round. They have a thicker skin that's almost like a shell. They're cut in half and after the seed is removed, the meat is scooped out with a spoon. I didn't have any, but I watched as our guest poured a bit of raw honey into the 'cup', mixed and ate. Interesting. After the fruit, we had the cake, complete with candles and the same 'Happy Birthday' song (in English) that's sung in the States. (I find that very interesting)
After dinner, we ended up having our first Karaoke Hostage Night. Somehow, we didn't see it coming, but it beats the Wangcom Inn. Nu wanted to go to a website to find the lyrics for a song Joyce wanted to sing. From there it became clear that singing was on the menu. What a trip. They sang song after song, with Lisa's laptop serving as the 'machine' and mine being a search engine for news of the day. Third started playing with one of my digeredoos and that became a sideshow to the singing. He began to get a tone and in between the laughter, an interest was born.
Speaking of music, the song was "Come Together" by The Beatles. Lane wrote that it was the first track on the '69 Abbey Road album. See if you remember this one, from a group on this side of the pond. They battled the Beatles.
"Where did your long hair go? Where is the girl I used to know? How could you lose that happy glow? Oh, __ __"
I think it's time for Wacky Wednesday.

Peace,
Danny

"Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside.
No matter what's going on outside of us, there's always something we could be grateful for."
~Barry Neil Kaufman