swollen feet

"You're feet are all swollen." Sasha said to me when we got to the hotel. I looked down and sure enough they were. Feet and legs that belonged to somones elderly aunt. How could this have happened?

It wasn't the only insult that happened this week. Before I left for Thailand I went to a birthday party for one of my friends. He was turning sixty. Sixty. That used to be the age somebodys grandpa was. Now the first person in my circle, not a teacher or boss had made it. Dawn made a glorious feast for us all. I had to leave before the cake. She let me see it in Lynns cranky old refrigerator. It was magnificent in all its pink frosting. I could only imagine it with all those god-damned candles.

But Sashas feet were swollen too. She hobbled around the room with a 24 year old torso perched above her moms legs. It was those 17 hours without a break in the air. In the past I always had to change planes somewhere along the line. That gave me an hour or two on earth to walk around and stretch. Neil Armstrongs legs must have resembled a pair of dead dolphins.

Today I showed her around Khaosan. It's fun to impart ones wisdom. A lot of Thai I learned from last year is coming back. We went shopping for cloths. I had told her to bring nothing and she had. That way there will be plenty of room in our tiny suitcases for treasure.

Not exactly nothing. I told her about my tripple tier system.

1. Passport, plane ticket, credit card, atm card. Without those you are going nowhere.

2. Rain hat, quick-dry cargo pants, stuffable rain jacket, multi-function super comfortable immersable shoes, compass, whistle, knife, Not essential but sometimes hard to find.

3. Immodium, pin and bandaids (blisters), aspirn, decongestive cough supressive capsules, fingernail clipper. Not hard to find but the kind of things that when you need them you need them and you don't want to have to go wandering around looking for them.

While she was looking at some tops a man and woman approached her. They wanted her to be an extra in an Indian music video. The pay was 1000 bhat, about 26.40 usd, for a days work. They led us to The Octopus Bar, the famous Khaosan super-disco. Sasha and a score of other western girls, were to sit at the bar behind a rack of super skinny Thai dancing beauties. We watched as they began rehearsing their choreography. The crew was entirely Bollywood and they were shooting old-style with a Nagra and 35mm film. I thought it was cool but she quickly grew bored of being a piece of eye-furniture and wanted to leave. So we did.

At the hotel we took a dip in the pool. Tonight its my favorite restaurant again.