Twos Years of Reflection

Two years have passed since our moms dropped us off at MSP; it feels simultaneously like yesterday and a decade ago. 

My mind has been reflecting lately on what an incredible opportunity this has been. My mind has also been reflecting on some of the not-so-sunny moments. I know you all want to hear about the amazing stuff which we post about a lot, but I wanted to share some of the sad stuff too.

Since moving to Thailand our collective of grandparents have been halved. When we moved we knew that there was an inevitability that we would lose grandparents while living over here. I will admit that I honestly didn't think it would happen. Dealing with loss from abroad is strange and different and not any easier than when you are home with your family.

Our first loss came in January 2020 when Genie's maternal grandmother died on her half-birthday. I only met her a few times. We had just started dating and as we were leaving her room she insisted on kissing Genie's butt. I thought it was rather humorous. 

A little over a month later, two-days before my birthday, my maternal grandmother passed. I didn't handle it well at all. My family had been telling me that her health had been on a rapid decline and that she had finally agreed to move into an assisted living center. Then, very quickly, that turned into hospice and mere hours before being moved she passed away. We were about to head into our longer break between semesters and thought, maybe we could go home for this funeral...but then COVID reared its ugly head and we knew we couldn't go anywhere. I did as much as I could to help plan the funeral, organized a slew of theatre friends back home to sing and wrote a eulogy my brother was going to read. Ultimately, my grandpa decided it was better to not risk the spread of infection and canceled the funeral. I strongly supported his choice, some family members did not. 

I often think about the last day I got to spend with my grandma. Our immediate families all congregated with us in Lanesboro for one last meal together. She and I sat next to each other at Pedal Pushers sharing fries and dousing them in ranch. When we hugged, she looked up at me, smiled, and said, "I'm so proud of you." It's a good memory and one I will continue to treasure. 

I still find days that are hard. I'll do something that reminds me of her and my mind will wander down a rabbit hole. I had a DQ blizzard as my 'last meal' before my first skin removal surgery because it was her favorite food group. I do wish she could see me know. I miss her but I know that she loved me and loved seeing me happy.

The rest of 2020 went as expected. Lockdowns, masks, social distancing. Eventually, Genie's maternal grandfather was moved into a hospice care facility. We'd get updates on how he was doing and Genie's mom would read our blogs and emails to him when she visited.

He passed at the end of April 2021. We had been told he wasn't eating much and that the end was near. He had a photo of us with Kathy when she came to visit us last year posted in his room. I thought that was sweet. I'll remember his smile and the stories he would tell us over dinner. 

This is where I could put in some great epitaph or words from Elizabeth Kubler Ross about death and dying...but that seems too cliché. 

Gut-Wrenched and Sleep-Deprived

For those of you who don't know (and anyone reading this probably does), Amanda is in the hospital following a procedure she's been counting down to for a number of years.

This blog post is not meant to speak for her. She's perfectly capable of that. 

This blog post is about how incredibly scary it is to be a helpless bystander and how I operate as a binary function.

Let's begin on Monday. It was the first school day back after New Year's. I went into school for a half-day because schools in Thailand have yet again shut down and gone virtual because of a second wave of Covid-19. Monday night was the last night our lives felt normal. We danced around our apartment and cleaned up the GIANT mess I had made the night previously making pumpkin massaman curry. 

Late Monday is when the nerves started setting in for me. I found it incredibly hard to get to sleep. By 4am, I had stopped trying. I got up, continued cleaning until the apartment shone, and then curled back up in bed until Tuesday morning at a more appropriate time to "get up". 

Tuesday was relatively dull. We didn't have school because of the shutdown. We spent the day packing, generally bumming around the apartment, and watching movies. Amanda attempted a trip to the gym, but unfortunately that was also closed. Tuesday night was unpleasant. Anxiety is real. Amanda went to bed around midnight, but I doubt she got any good sleep. She spent hours tossing and turning next to me.

How do I know this? 

Because I didn't even bother trying to sleep. I didn't bother so hard that I signed up for back-to-back veteran hard-mode trials in ESO (read: I signed up for difficult video game things that require paying attention and I play a role where if I'm not on my A game, everyone dies.). While my guild leaders were super excited (I don't mean to brag, but I am an excellent healer. Mom. If you're reading this, you're reading this correctly. In a virtual world where you can kill things in whatever manner you please, I dedicate almost 100% of my time to perfecting the art of keeping my friends alive to the point that none of my characters have the ability to do ANY damage. 15 year old me does not recognize 27 year old me.), it also meant that I wasn't even going to try sleeping.

Wednesday morning came early. We needed to be at the hospital at 10am for Amanda's check-in and it's about a 40 minute drive from our house. Amanda at this point was not allowed water or food, which she took like a champ, but her stomach was vocally upset about. In solidarity, I also abstained from breakfast (though I did POUND a liter of water while she went to the bathroom).

We made it to the hospital perfectly on time. In Thai standards, we were super early. 9:59.

Amanda went to the front desk to check in, but as she walked up, everyone got excited because EVERYBODY knew who she was and why she was there. (Also, all the staff love gossiping about her/us in Thai thinking that I don't understand them. I'm not going to let too much on because I think it's adorable.)

We settled into the waiting room and over the next three hours, Amanda was pulled into different rooms for different reasons: bloodwork, surgical markings, bloodwork review, consultations, photos, etc. I spent this time in the waiting room doing important things like JUDGING THE WEIRDOS IN THE WAITING ROOM.

The highlight of them was a woman in ... what I can only describe as a strip of cheetah-print velour spandex that started at about her nipples and ended so abruptly that if she dropped anything, we'd all get a show. She was wondering in broken English/Spanish/Thai (which is an odd combination for me to understand but at this point I have TOO MANY snippets of TOO MANY LANGUAGES floating in my head to remember what verbs go with which nouns) if the cocaine she snorted last night would affect her breast enhancement at 7pm.

My mental thought: "um... yes?"

The front desk: "... How much cocaine?"

**Fast forward a few hours: she did get her boobs done. Apparently it wasn't TOO MUCH COCAINE. Real question: I was raised to believe that any cocaine is too much cocaine. I wonder what the limit actually is... like... she obviously didn't die in surgery... so I guess she took an appropriate amount of cocaine?!? Sleep-deprived brain does not like this.**

Finally around 1pm we went up to a room on the fifth floor and were informed it was Amanda's room for the upcoming stay. It's comfortable. Honestly it's only a touch smaller than our entire apartment. 

After maybe 15 minutes of settling in, the translator came in with a couple members of staff and asked if we were ready to pay. 

Um? No. We were told that payment was on checkout, so we didn't bring it WITH US.

However, the hospital was not going to proceed until we had paid. (They had previously had foreigners go through with operations only to not pay and then leave the country.)

So off I went back to our apartment to put finances in place and then drive back to the hospital. All in all, it was about a 90 minute roundtrip. When I got back to the hospital, Amanda was chained to the bed by an IV line. 

Around 3:30, a nurse and the translator (who I also think was the surgeon's assistant?) came to grab Amanda. The put her in a wheelchair and off they went... 

So began the waiting. Luckily a friend in the area knew this was happening and she offered to come over and distract me for a couple hours. We went out for dinner (Gusto Sushi - Amanda wrote about it in a previous post), found the weirdest coffee shop with some adorable, albeit inbred, kittens, and then definitely got mysterious viruses from the most filthy Swenson's I've ever visited.

She left around 7:30pm and I was back to waiting.

I don't wait well.

So I did all the schoolwork I was assigned (as we're now back online). Unfortunately, I'm now too good at that and what was supposed to take me 10 hours (and it IS taking my coworkers that long if not longer) took about 3... and that was with frequent breaks and dancing.

Almost immediately after recording the last video, (10ish pm) a nurse came into the room to take Amanda's empty bed down to recovery. I wrongly assumed that meant she was getting close to done.

I asked the nurse in Thai what roughly translates to: "What is the time the professor of scissors will finish with the orange hair girl?"

She laughed so hard that she needed to prop herself up on the bed and responded in PERFECT English: "I'm not sure. My best guess would be a little after five in the morning? But I'm not in the surgery and I'm not the doctor." 

She left with the bed and I now had a vague idea of when Amanda would return. 

I think what bothers me most about the surgical process in Thailand is the lack of updates. If I wouldn't have gone out of my way to ask a nurse, I would have found nothing out until Amanda was back in the room.

Again, I didn't bother sleeping. There's a small 'fainting couch' in the room that I fit on just fine (thank you, tiny genetics) but it's uncomfortable and Amanda had now been gone for 10 hours. 

I did some stretching.

I watched several documentaries by Absolute History. Definitely look them up on YouTube. They're EXCELLENT. 

I practiced handstands... I'm terrible at them, but it's a great way to kill 30 minutes.

I dug around the bathroom looking for soap to wash my hands with only to discover that the ONE THING this hospital room doesn't have is SOAP. 

WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC AND THERE IS NO SOAP IN THE BATHROOM.

It's cool. I've since gone to 7-11 and fixed that issue.

Finally I settled into the couch with a bottle of water and started watching Absolute History's "Medieval Men Who Ate Bread Off of Corpses" because that's how rabbit holes work when I heard the keycard door start to beep.

5:18am.

That nurse was eerily correct.

Amanda spent the next 36 hours coming out of the anesthesia and it was equally brutal on both of us. 

First, we found out that her surgery had not been completed. Only one of the two procedures had been done because the anesthesiologist deemed her under for too long. This was glaringly obvious: Amanda still has her wings. 

Secondly, I have never experienced someone coming off of general anesthesia. I had googled it, but I wasn't ready for it in person. Her blood pressure tanked. Nurses ran in and out with drugs, fluids, and beeping machines. The Thai whispers were hushed and rapid. I could only make out words I knew from teaching small children during a pandemic: "pressure too low", "fever", "antibiotics", "sick".

She was groggy. She didn't know where she was or who I was. Adorably, for a while, she thought I was her mother and proceeded to tell me how beautiful I was and how much she likes my butt... I'm not sure why she thought her mother needed to know that, but it was cute nonetheless. 

The nurses forced 1000ml of water down her throat with a slew of small pills before she started vomiting. From that point on, I turned into my mother. Nobody got to touch Amanda, put anything in her mouth, or put anything in an IV before answering the question: "Why?"

No answer? You can't explain it in baby Thai or broken English? Go find someone who can.

The nurses found out real fast that the instant Amanda takes a turn in the negative direction, this Genie shapeshifts into a Banshee. 

The results?

Every single time someone walks into Amanda's room, they announce why they're here. 

Back home, we take advantage of the fact we can communicate with everyone: nurses, orderlies, doctors. It was jarring to be treated almost like a child: go sit on your couch while the adults do their work. My mother can attest that has never worked on me.

Since my brief, but rather violent flare, the nursing staff has been pleasant, quietly vocal, and I am their middleman. 

Pills in a container? Oop. Better explain each of them to Teacher Genie like she's an idiot. 

And Teacher Genie is a special version of regular Genie. Teacher Genie can ask a four year old what color the white horse is until she's blue in the face. No really. One of the verbal test questions for term one's final was "What color is the white goose?" and I asked it to 180 different 4 year olds at least once.

Random cup full of a mysterious white liquid? You're definitely going to need to tell me what that is. 

Injection at a non-scheduled round time? What's in it? What's the dosage? Standard for this procedure or is this a special order?

The best interaction happened last night with dinner. Amanda wasn't hungry when it was delivered, so I went into the nurse's lounge around 10pm to use their microwave. The loveliest nurse was in there. (She's stunning and nice. I mean this in every sense of the word lovely.)

"The nurses are afraid of you."

"Is it because I ask questions and demand actual answers?"

"Yes. It is not very Thai."

"Nor am I."

We then had a lovely conversation about travel in Thailand and how nice it has been to go exploring without the millions of farang tourists. 

"You do not sleep. We try to go in when you sleep, but you never sleep."

"I'm too scared to sleep."

"You know, you are not very scary."

"Now we both know that, but there's no need to tell your friends."

*winks* *walks back to Amanda's room with hot soup*

I spent most of that night chatting with people on various messengers. Amanda has a friend who will be having a very similar procedure done later this week. She was a glorious person to bounce everything off of. It was also incredibly cool to hear the differences between their procedures. 

Friday, Amanda really started to perk up. She demolished her breakfast and as soon as lunch arrived, it was gone. She was itching to sit up and we spent a good portion of the day moving her arms and legs. She took a nap between breakfast and lunch and another short nap after she finished her lunch. 

The day was full of pushes of energy that lasted just long enough to do one thing: sit up, check Line, respond to one person. She received many messages of support and love. She read them all and replied to as many as she found energy for. But this process really has proved that Amanda and I can sit in companionable silence for hours on end. 

I also had to explain to her that a coup was currently occurring in our home country. Imagine waking from anesthesia to the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale. But if I didn't get to her before Rachel Maddow or Twitter, she wouldn't be too pleased with me. 

Dinner for Amanda came early: about 5pm. She thought it was early. In reality, that's what time dinner came the night before, but she was so out of it that it took until 10pm for her to be interested in trying it. She wolfed down the fried rice and deemed it "boring, but passable". 

Our friend from earlier stopped back in to check up on Amanda. We ordered Poke Bowls and I'm afraid we made Amanda quite jealous with the smells of sushi wafting across the room. By the end of the short visit, Amanda was completely wiped. 

I'll give this to our friend, she knows exactly when to leave. Not that she isn't welcome, but she reads signals impeccably. 

Amanda took another short nap and we settled into an evening of quiet podcasts and me working on Google Slide presentations for school. Inevitably I ended up procrastinating doing actual work and ended up on Twitter and then here.

For now, that's it. 

It's 6am on Saturday. Amanda is officially 2 days out of surgery and itching for the next step. Hopefully it involves physical STEPS because she's itching to get out of that bed.

And me? I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Food-a-palooza! ~ Amanda

 Why hello there Thai Pad Readers!

Yes, it's us, The Thai Pad Bloggers. We know it's been awhile. Perhaps you were starting to wonder if we've forgotten about you or that we fell off the face of the planet. You can put your worries aside for here is another yarn to weave.

Over the past few months we have been enjoying our ability to be out and about, to explore the area we live in. As two self-proclaimed foodies, this has involved new restaurants and home cooking shenanigans. Now I could have just posted all of these meals on Instagram and been done but instead I thought our readers back home might enjoying some anecdotes about our food-scapades. 

First up on our tour...Gusto Sushi

We found this little sushi restaurant near my surgeon's clinic and it is fabulous. The rolls are pristine, the miso soup is perfectly salty, and the atmosphere is quiet and welcoming. 

Am I showing you all of these to make you jealous?

Yes, yes I am.

We had a brief break between semesters in November so we decided to take the bus down to Hua Hin to explore the resort town. We were there for a week and it was beautiful. We stayed at a small, sea-side hotel run by a German family; their pups Magnus and Sally were especially enjoyable. While in Hua Hin, we took a tour of the Monsoon Valley Winery and enjoyed a three course meal. Never fear, we two Americans were throughly stuffed on Thanksgiving. 

We both admit that we miss Western kitchens. Our current "kitchen" consists of a microwave, a kettle, and a toaster oven...but our food doesn't look like that is all we have.

This last phase I'm simply going to call "The End of the Year Campaign". We essentially ate around the world: Italian, American, Mexican, Japanese, French, Peruvian, NY Pizza, Thai, Greek, Georgian, and Russian. Our taste buds were thrilled but our stomach were not.

Are you hungry?

How about now?

Congrats! 

You made it to the end.

Now go enjoy your own food-a-palooza!

American Politics Abroad: 2020

I woke to the news Saturday morning that one of the biggest activists for women's, LGBTQIA+, and basic human rights has passed away. My first thought was sadness for her family, death is never easy to cope with for the living. 

My second thought...shit. 

I am a worst-case scenario thinker. Always thinking ahead to what-ifs so I can try to be prepared for the inevitable. It never really prepares me because reality always seems to think of that one scenario I hadn't. 

Worst case scenario: 45 and his team will rush to pick a new appointee and the Republicans will quickly approve, thus having a Republican leaning Supreme Court that will overturn the rights of so many American citizens. 

We all know that the current political leaders are going to push to fill her vacancy before November 3rd. The same leaders who were adamantly against letting Obama replace Scalla's successor will rush the process so that the 45th president will get to replace three Supreme Court Justices in his one term. I know that the Democrats in office will do everything they can to prevent this but only time will tell how this will play out. I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to be tumultuous. 

I am relieved that I am from Minnesota because I know Senators Klobuchur and Smith will fight. You go girls!

As a U.S. citizen living abroad, I sometimes feel like I'm watching a reality TV show, "America: 2020". I have a feeling the ratings would be pretty high because you can't make up this plot line. You can't script this.

When we moved to Thailand seventeen months ago, my students' first question after finding out that I was from the U.S. was if I voted for Trump. They all received a resounding no from me and I was met with smiles. Majority of Thais are not Trump fans.

As the fight for a Democratic Party Nominee started ramping up a year ago my co-workers would ask me who I thought could beat Trump. I had my favorites, and yes one of them is on the ticket, but I always told them that I would vote for whomever the DFL nominee would be. 

Genie and I did vote in the Citizens Abroad Primary last March. It was an exciting and hopeful experience. It was heartening to see other politically-like minded people gather together. 

We watched as one by one the potential candidates dropped out of the race. Each time my Italian co-worker would say something along the lines of "Oh I see, another one left. I bet it'll be Biden...but I think he will lose, which I'm ok with because a Republican president is better for the world because there will be no terrorist attacks." I don't understand his logic and there's a reason I leave the lunch table when he joins it. My co-workers would also ask me how Trump got elected, how America could let that happen. I would usually begin with the fact that he lost the popular vote and then explain the archaic electoral college. So, did America 'let it happen'? 

Then the world shut down, well most of it. 

After two months of lockdown, Thailand slowly began opening up and we returned to school my conversations with my co-workers about the U.S. shifted from politics to Covid...but I would remind the ones that would listen that that is a political issues. If those that had been voted in would have listened to science maybe America wouldn't be in the situation it is in now.  

Once a week I teach an advanced English club for six of my 7th graders (okay in reality I teach this class to the two students who are leaps and bounds ahead of their classmates and the three of us talk about whatever we want and the other four just sit there trying to catch up but still take notes as I explain how to outline a paper). I was explaining that one should have an unbiased opinion when expressing opposing views in a paper and neither of them knew what unbiased meant. I decided to use politics as my example, it worked, but they could see how hard it would be for me to be neutral. They did ask who I was voting for and were relieved with me fervent support for Biden and Harris with one of them telling me that I would lose my moniker as their favorite teacher if I were to vote for Trump. I have also informed them that I will be a nervous wreck on November 4 as I watch the voting results roll in. 

Despite the chaos going on, many of my students still see America as some sort of 'Holy Grail' and dream of some day 'making it there'. 

I fear for the future of my home country if this path continues. I fear that there might not be a country to come home to. 

Here we are, less that 50 days away from the election and I am nervous but am doing my best to remain optimistic. 

I received my ballot this weekend and all I can do, once filling out the appropriate bubbles, is hope that my ballot makes it home. That my vote will count. That I can exercise my right as a citizen of the United States before any of that is taken away from me.

Please vote. That right was fought for. Don't let their battles be for naught. 

A Night Above

This past weekend we decided to have a little getaway from our studio in Min Buri and venture to downtown Bangkok.

A few weeks ago, I saw an instagram ad for a sky bar and restaurant called Above 11. The ambiance, food, and drinks all looked incredible. Plus, I hadn't been to a sky bar yet and wanted to go. 

We thought it would be a great place to go to celebrate our anniversary and Genie's upcoming birthday. I made a reservation and we also realized that they were on the rooftop of a hotel. 

We booked that too.

Saturday we left at about 2:30 for our hour and 40 minute commute to go just under 16 miles. 

Yea for traffic. 

Genie dropped me off to go check in while she parked. We were met with the usual, quizzical eyebrow lift when we said that we didn't make a mistake about booking a room with one bed. During the concierge's spiel, she also informed us that the gym was open 24/7, glanced at us, and said, "Oh, never mind." Of course, I pipped in with "I've already been to the gym today," which I had. 

We were situated on the 10th floor and in a room bigger than our studio apartment. The shower itself was as big as our entire bathroom. 

The view wasn't too shabby either.

We both wished that we had left earlier so we could have enjoyed this room for the entirety of the time we payed for it.

Our reservations were at 6:00 so we started getting ready a little before 5:00. 

Okay, it might have been a little too early as we then had about 30 minutes to dink around.

Genie always manages to take the best photos of me.

We were not able to access the restaurant via the hotel elevator so we had to go down to the lobby level where a nice Thai man pointed us in the right direction. We had to take a left, a right, follow the yellow-brick road, answer a sphinx's riddle, deliver a ring to Mordor, clean out a hoarder's basement, and divide by zero to find the elevator.






We were met by a host who was the first Thai to ever attempt to say my last name. Props for trying Pyfferoen. After the requisite, temperature scan and metal detector check we were pointed to the elevator that did go to the 33rd floor. This was no ordinary elevator, this was a party elevator. There was dance music blaring and we were surrounded by video footage of the views waiting us.

The view was stunning!

We had a hightop table along the rail next to the bar. We both would occasionally watch the bartenders try out their tricks. The sky was overcast so we were unable to see the sunset...darn, we will have to go again sometime. (wink, wink) However, we did get to see a lightning storm in the distance and that was incredible to watch. 

Our lovely server for the evening, Tina, was great. She checked in periodically, gave us great recommendations, and bemoaned her abilities at math with us.

We started the evening with some speciality cocktails. Genie had a lychee, orange and rum cocktail while I had a whiskey ginger beer.

                Above 11 is a Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant, so obviously we had to try the mix.

Our sushi platter consisted of three different rolls: a traditional shrimp tempura was in the middle, on the right is a sea-bass with onion, carrots, and a lime aioli, and on the left, our personal favorite, was a salmon with a chimichurri sauce on top. The orange 'flower' you see there is a carrot. Genie wants to work on creating these now.

For our second plate, we opted for their classico ceviche, which they affectionately spell as cebiche. This was my first ceviche. According to Genie, my face lit up like fireworks on the fourth of July. There was a dance party in my mouth. Their ceviche was simple, rustic, and I'd order it again. The sea-bass was marinated in leche de tigre and had a scrupulous amount of shallots. We both made sure to save our last piece to enjoy at the very end.

Our second round of drinks arrived as well. Genie opted for a reprise of her Act 1 drink and I went for "Winter BKK" which was an apple and thyme themed cocktail. 

For our final plate of the evening we knew we wanted some meat. We are Minnesota girls after all and do enjoy our meat and potato dishes. The 48 Hour Seco Beef was the obvious choice. This slab of meat had been stewing for 48 hours and was served with white beans, steamed rice, an onion salad and topped with a chalaca sauce. Genie has now had this dish on two continents and says this one was the best. The beef was so tender we only needed a spoon to enjoy it.

We were two very full but very content ladies. 

After a much needed break we obviously ordered dessert. I already knew that I was ordering their tres leches cake and a Moscow mule. Genie got a panna cotta with a strawberry coolie and a mojito. Genie mentioned to Tina that I make tres leches back home so after my first bite she came to see if their's lived up to mine. Verdict: 7/10. The panna cotta had a sprig of dill on it for some reason...aesthetics yo. 

The evening was perfect. Scrumptious food, refreshing spirits, and wonderful company.