Caregiving in Oklahoma

I had a long break from this blog, didn't I? Something like 4 years break. There was a point where I began using Facebook way more than this because it's so easy. If you're one of my Facebook friends, you can visit my page and see many posts with information and pics about trips I took while I was in Thailand. Facebook kind of picks up where this left off.

This morning I've felt that Facebook is too busy and I needed more of a diary, so I'll try this again. I want to try writing about my experiences moving back to Oklahoma and attempting to become a caregiver for my mother.

Until two days ago I was living as a retiree in Sabaneta, Colombia. It's a separate city on the south side of Medellin, and is served by two Metro stops, so I consider it part of Medellin. I left there rather hurriedly because my mother became very sick. I flew there immediately to spend two weeks with her in Oklahoma. We really thought she was at the end of her rope, but she bounced back and is doing quite a bit better as of this date. However, during those two weeks I spent with her I saw that she and my step-dad needed someone to help out with the things they can't do anymore. They don't want to enter assisted living, and I don't see the need for that yet, but someone really should be spending a lot of time here helping out. My sister isn't up for that, and there's really no one else.

I spent almost two years in Medellin. I am involved with some business activities, but the weather was the main thing keeping me there. If you search for Medellin, you'll see that it's constantly referred to as "The City of Eternal Spring". It's not far from that. I will miss the weather there. But after this scare with my mom's health, I felt I needed to be here. I discussed it with her and decided to move back to the USA. I'm not sure if we discussed it enough, certainly not much of a plan about it at all: move here, attempt to take care of things they can't do anymore, and see how it goes. I'll do the best I can. If, after some time, it seems we're all driving each other crazy, we'll have to come up with another plan. So I sold all my furniture, packed up three huge bags, flew to Oklahoma and moved into the spare bedroom of their home in Rush Springs, Oklahoma.

The Wikipedia page fails to mention the most notable thing (to me) about this little town: an ordinance against dancing in public. I remember waking up to the 1991 NPR news story that one could now dance in public in Rush Springs without being hauled into jail. It wasn't the only town, at least four other Oklahoma towns had dance bans that have since been lifted. Yep, that's the kind of area I'm living in now. They bill themselves "The Watermelon Capital of the World". This interesting article delves into the dance ban history, as well as the connection to the film Footloose.

Last night I got here after spending two days traveling. I'm still pretty tired. Having some coffee and trying to think of what I should do first. Think I'll take it easy for today, try talking real easy to them about what I'm doing here, and begin to feel out how things could be here. The sun is coming up now, time for another cup of coffee. Maybe shop for vacuum cleaners today.

Random update

These are some random pics of my life here lately. I keep the phone handy so I can snap pics, nothin' gets by me. I go into Bangkok sometimes, occasionally to Pattaya, mostly walk around Chonburi where I live and work. Most of these pics made me smile when I took them.

Here's some that were taken in and around Food Land one Saturday morning, one of my favorite places to eat breakfast. It's a small supermarket with about everything I'd need. I was impressed it has high-end scotch and cognac. It's a Bangkok Food Land. You can see some funny and odd things there. 

Let's leave my love things out of this. I think it's chair scoots.

I don't know where they come up with these names.
That's what I'd be called if I were a punk rocker or a porn star.

I include this pic because of the orange items on the shelf to the upper left, and the
shelves below. It's the saffron robes the monks wear, and other Buddhist gear.
I think it is very odd that two stalls down was where the doggy treats were stocked. 

...Finger....Lickin'.....Good....that is what that says, right?

This well-known American restaurant was outside. I'd like to direct your attention to the motto which we, as Americans, know so well: "It's Finger Lickin' Good!"--except here it is cropped rather...artfully. It's clear to me what it says, because I know what's up. But if you were a Thai, you would consider it the height of bad manners to be licking the grease off your own fingers, and the Colonel sure wouldn't want you, being Thai, to know what his motto has been all these years (if he can help it). Somebody was really on the ball here in making this appeal to Thai markets while keeping as much of the original as possible. If I use my imagination, I suppose it could be read as, "Fine Like Gold".

Another fine restaurant outside. I know it's supposed to say "Kakashi", but it sorta looks like it spells something else to me. I'm sorry Kakashi, but once you see it, you'll never un-see it. Now you have to burn each and every one of those signs.

It's amazing how much they can fit on one of these little scooters.

You generally see a motorbike like this fixed up having the kitchen as
a sidecar affair. I thought this was interesting because he has everything
he needs to make a tasty bowl of soup right there on the back of his bike.

One of the motorcycle taxi guys. I use these guys a lot. 20 to 50 baht
and they'll take you  about anywhere in town you want to go. Some of my students
will end up like this guy if they don't start studying!

My left foot after an acupuncturist got done with it.

The Thai music teachers sitting around in the music room during
an impromptu jam session.

Get down.

A remarkable thing happened this past weekend. I got my first visitor after living at my apartment for almost 6 months. There's an old Thai guy, maybe mid-'70's [edit: 84!], who I see most days taking a very slow stroll up my soi. Slow due to his having had a stroke at some point. He can't speak a word of English, and my Thai is completely dysfunctional, but we say a few words to each other and have sort of become buddies. Anyway, the apartment housekeeper comes and rousts me out of my apartment and motions for me to come downstairs. I thought I was late on my rent payment or something. Here's the old guy, and he has brought along his grand-daughter who studied in Iowa, USA and speaks pretty good English. He just wants to say hello, ask what I'm doing here, how long I've been here, etc. It was really something. It's a big incentive to start learning more Thai quick. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. I will probably enlist the aid of a Thai teacher here and have them write a note to him from me, telling him how much I enjoyed his visit.

I didn't duck enough and about knocked myself out
going through this bathroom doorway, I kid you not.
Do I look pissed off? I sure was when I took this pic.

I heard some noise one Saturday morning and went outside to investigate. They were cutting down all the trees in the lot across the street, and turning them all into lumber. Also bull-dozing some decrepit buildings and removing junk cars, in preparation for some construction I guess. 

This guy obviously thinks he has what it takes to be a movie star.

They were sawing up these old trees for lumber, most of it. She's
watching him ham it up for the camera and it's cracking her up.

Of course the mangy bastards and bitches who used to live in that
field now just lay around by the side of the road waiting for me to come by.
This isn't even half of them. Look, they're as far as the eye can see on up
the road there, and there's a dozen more behind me. For god's sake,
the racket they make during the night! They're sleeping so they can
get busy some more tonight. If you look closely, you can see
a white pile of bones to the right there along the fence line.
People come by and throw food along the side of the
road for them. How the hell did I manage
to find an apartment here?

Don't know what kind of wood, dense and hard whatever it was. Probably gonna make some nice furniture.

One of my pet peeves at the school where I work: women in the men's
room. What really irks me is that these Thai teachers don't
want me to be using their restroom even as they pee in mine. 

Some of the Filipino teachers I work with. Looks like
they're a little behind in grading workbooks.

Lovely sunset at Bang Saen Beach. It's a popular getaway with Thais,
only about an hour and a half from Bangkok. I wouldn't want to swim there though.

A wonderful family style meal amongst Thai friends during a visit to Bangkok.
My number one reason for learning Thai: how to order food properly and effectively. 

I went with my buddy Vijo to the Chatuchak Weekend Market one weekend because he wanted to see the animals. This market is so huge. Just the section where all the animals are sold was huge, it's like a small zoo. All during the walkaround of the animal section we snacked on yummy food. I won't bore you with pics of all of it, but I had to include this paella which was about 1 meter in diameter.

A beautiful paella cooked by some European guy in a Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee 

getup at the Chatuchak Weekend Market. Man, this place is huge.

Sweating like crazy at the Chatuchak Weekend Market.
We took a few hours to go check out the animals. You can
buy about anything here. They told me that, up until recently,
you could buy a leopard here if you wanted one. I didn't see
any leopards, but I did see some bat-eared foxes. That can't be legal.

OK, had to clean out my camera folder and get rid of some of these pics. Hope you like some of them.

Recent trips

Things have been kind of low key and boring since I started a job here in Chonburi. That's fine with me, a boring job is preferable to the job search process. This school gives good paid holidays, and I've been trying to make the most of them. Here's some trips I've managed on holidays while I've had this job, thought it would be best to write about them before I forget.

A few months ago we took a little trip out to Kanchanaburi, site of the Death Railway popularized by the movie Bridge Over The River Kwai. It's popular with Thai people and farangs alike due to the beauty of the countryside. I bought a 2 or 3 night stay at a place called Monsane Resort when we went to a travel fair early this year at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok. It seemed like a good deal at the time, though I found out later it didn't get such good reviews. It was OK, the room was small but the breakfasts were OK. We spent the days out traveling around anyway and only slept there pretty much, which is the way it should be. Next time I'll just go there and find some place down on the river. I think you can find some pretty cheap places, and actually on the water.

This was the entrance road to the hotel, a gravel
quarry. Not really very good beginning. Oh well,
the reservations were bought and paid for.

A lot of time we spent driving. It's kind of spread out, and the maps were not the best. My GPS pissed me off, don't know what's up with it, wasn't very reliable. Could be we were too far out in the sticks or something. There were couple of sites we never could find, another museum and a place called Hellfire Pass.

The "Death Railway". I'm not really sure what
is the real thing and what is reconstructed.

We found the places close to town easily enough. It's a big province and we hardly tried to see it all. Here's a map which shows that Kanchanaburi is about the first thing you get to from Bangkok. Erawan Waterfalls, where the water exits Sri Nakarin (I'm assuming Si means Lake in Thai) is the furthest north we ventured. But even at about 70 km from Kanchanaburi City it's still not in the middle of the province. I understand there is public transportation to most of the popular places, but you really need a car if you want to explore the area.

Speaking of which, I got a chance to drive around a deserted patch of roadway last week. You know they drive on the left here? It was my first time. I thought I was doing quite well indeed. I think I even said, "Piece of cake!" Then I tried to pull over to park and drove right up onto the curb. It was humbling. I'm considering buying a car, but I'll have to go through an actual driving course. They tell me that's not required here to get a Thai driver's license, only have to pay the fee and watch a 90 or so minute video. If that's true, it explains a lot.

This was the same spot, just turned 90 degrees to the
left to have a look down the river. 

This was a very nice looking area where we stopped
to have lunch. Nice and comfortable, under what I assume
is the remainder of the Death Railway.

Some beautiful views from our restaurant

This was on a visit to Erawan Falls, about 35 KM north of the town. It seems I remember there being 9 levels. I think this was level 5. Wow, so many people, couldn't even find a place to sit down, so we kept climbing.

We stopped at this one which I think was level 7. The ones
lower than this were inundated by bikini and Speedo clad Russians,
and we had gotten a little tired of climbing by this point anyway.

It was lovely, with schools of little fish that would chew on you if
you stood still. I hear some people pay to have this done
on their feet. We both found it excruciating, just on the feet. If
you actually get in the water and hold still they are nibbling everywhere. 

Very nice, but extremely slippery. You really have to watch it.
Yes, yes, I bought another pair of swim trunks already.

The waterfall had created cascading pools, and each of them had dozens of the little fish.
I would have liked to laze about in them, but I couldn't take the nibbling.

The train pulled in as we were walking off the bridge.
Didn't buy a ticket to go on it.

We went to one of the museums which included a display of weapons and unexploded ordnance.
There were quite a few photos of the period, and many paintings done by the prisoners themselves
vividly documenting atrocities. They were quite graphic, and I don't include any here. I knew
thousands of allied prisoners were killed in the years of Japanese occupation, but I was
surprised to learn of the slaughter of far more local Thais and Burmese
than allied prisoners. You don't hear about that much. 

I had to include this unfortunate display, which was not a joke. It's an under-funded
attempt by the museum staff to indicate what loading of the prisoners onto
Death Railway boxcars might have looked like. The result looks like a set
from an episode of Robot Chicken. Somebody needs to donate a
few thousand bucks so they can make some decent exhibits.

We ended the day with a visit to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery of the
allied prisoners and Bridge over the River Kwai. It was peaceful and moving.

We had coffee at Obama's Coffee shop in downtown Kanchanaburi. Nice Houdini-like picture of him
conjuring treats for you. There was a poster of Adolph Hitler inside too, weird. Good coffee and service.

Kanchanaburi was nice. I'd go again, but would probably try to find a cheaper place.

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Somebody I know hates Songkran because of all the drunk driving, partying and water throwing, so she wanted to get out of the country. I was kind of curious about the festival, have certainly heard a lot about it, but maybe next year. I've never been to Malaysia either. This somebody and me took the cheapest vacation we could find and went to spend four days in Kuala Lumpur. She loves to travel and often keeps her eye on the Air Asia website, and has come away with some spectacular deals. Latest one has been round trip flights for two to Chiang Rai this coming October. She snagged a special on there for 600 baht, and that includes taxes and fees! 

The monorail in KL. Not very long, or fast.

The twin towers during the day...

What a weird sensation to visit a place that looks pretty much like Thailand in most ways. I could not tell much difference in the Malaysian people from the Thai people most of the time just by looking at them, but here's the thing: everyone and I mean everyone speaks English in Kuala Lumpur. They are way, way ahead of Thailand in the adoption of English. Why is that? In any case, it was convenient.

  

...and at night.

It was hot when we went. We went all over the city to try to see many of the main attractions but several were closed for renovations of some kind or other when we got there. We took all the modes of transportation that are available in the city, including the monorail. It was all pretty well-done, similar to Bangkok, but it needs to be drawn together into one system, with one fare.

It's been a couple months now, and memories are already fading. I should learn by now to write these things down before too long.

I remember a Mexican food restaurant that we found while searching for the main drag, where all the tourists go. We were really hot and tired after walking around looking for somewhere to have dinner, so stopped at some little bar where we could relax and have a beer to cool off. Taking that opportunity to check the GPS led us to what appeared to be the main drag of tourist places. There were many, many places that looked enticing but we settled on the Mexican place, don't know why. Went upstairs and caught a  breeze to watch the street below and have a drink. It was nice.

View from the roof of the Mexican restaurant watching all the tourists walking by below

She drank all of that beer and wouldn't give me any.

So I got one of my own.

We did so much walking. It was during a time that my knee and hip were giving me problems, but I powered through it and I think the activity was good for me as I didn't feel any worse as the days wore on. Very hot until we went to Genting Highlands. This place was really something. It wasn't my idea to go there. A completely manufactured fairy-tale land way up in the mountains. Some reviews said it was like a cross between a shabby Disneyland and Las Vegas without the alcohol. I don't like either of those places, and we'd had enough of it after only a few hours.

A pretty well done model of the entire area. It's all self-contained and
 like they plopped it all right down on a mountain top.  

I think the best part of it was the spectacular trip up the mountains and back down in the cable car. We got really lucky in the queue to go back--I spotted a short line, headed for it, Jeab showed the guy our ticket stub that proved we would miss our bus if we didn't catch it, and we were on the next car out. It happened really fast. Otherwise would have had to wait hours like the thousand other people queued up.

Leaving the facility, view from behind as we head up the mountains

Somebody's not afraid of heights

It was a little scary. Do I look scared?

During our time in Kuala Lumpur we tried to do a walking tour to see some notable sights. Merdeka (Independence) Square had some nice little shaded spots that allowed a welcome break. 

Merdeka Square

One of the shady spots around the square. I could almost hear the oud playing.

A very large mosque that we visited required Jeab to put on
an ill-fitting covering, head to toe. She was not pleased. They
were available for women to check out and return when you leave.

It was big.

And very pretty on the inside.

I think they said this was secretary of state. It was yet another
large building we saw while walking around. The parts I liked the
best about this trip was spending time with my partner having
something good to eat and drink. 

The last day (I think) we went to see a fabulous gold Buddha. That was worth the long walk up the stairs, and the caves at the top were a bonus.

That was a lot of stairs, and really steep. The big Buddha was to the left.

This cave was huge. After getting up to the top of the
stairs, got to go down some more to the floor of the big cave, and
then across the cave floor and up the steps at the far
end to another area with shrines and monkeys. Lots of monkeys.

Part of one of the shrines at the far cave

A very small shrine carved into the rock at the far end of the
cave at the top of the steps. Nothing stopping anyone from walking
on up there and getting your picture taken amongst the dieties

Anywhere with shade was a good place to be. One day we went looking for, eventually found and went walking around a big market for a few hours. Seems we saw the same stuff here that you see in Bangkok everywhere. I wonder if everything is made in some vast factory in China. I bought some key rings as souvenirs.

Street market in downtown KL somewhere.

It just now occurs to me, this pic is in almost the same spot the above pic
is. That hawkers association sign above tipped me off. We must have walked
in a big circle, or come back the same way.

Street market as the sun began to go down and lights came on. 

First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, the biggest hotel in KL.
Found myself wishing I had a wall map like that.

Well, that's it for today, this post is already too big as it is. Actually, there's more little trips so I need to follow up on this one. I'll try not to go so long before posting next time.