Typing from home

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, we're typing from our very own palacial home this wonderful Tuesday eve.

It took only 17 days to a) get phone service (okay I lied before when I said no more posts about phone service) and b) figure out how the hell to connect to the internet. But now, we are connected at a whopping 26.4Kbps so you know we're downloading loads of porn. Anyway, we will not be deterred by the slow connection speed. That is not to say that I won't complain incessantly, but that is my right as an expat.

So I think I'm now unofficially licensed as a Microsoft tech, as it took me 4 days of playing around before I could get our modem to be recognized and connect to PlaNET online, Laos' preeminent internet service provider. But before you think that's a lucrative career, it pays about $10 an hour in Laos. That was the going rate of the two people we talked to about coming over to figure out our computer problems, but I think we probably could have talked them down to about $2 an hour, which is more in line with highly skilled labor here (seriously).

Our first load of stuff arrives tomorrow. It's the stuff that has been in storage since we moved out of the Brooklyn apartment last June, so it will be like Christmas in March. What's in this box? Oh, it's a gravy boat!!!! Fun for days!

Sunday (Easter) we're having our first party. A brunch for 11 (including 2 kids). Time to put that gravy boat to work.

Oh, and I have decided that my next great quest will be to become the greatest badminton player...OF ALL TIME!!!! There is a badminton court on the embassy grounds, and very competitive badminton (called "chicken wing" or, peak kaai phonetically, in Lao) is played there. I've played the last two days, and damn is it fun. I've also started to play squash at the Australian Club, which now counts us as members, but that game seems vaguely bourgeois (no offense Stephanie), and being in a communist country, I consider myself squarely in the camp of the proletariat (except for the maid and the gardener and the driver and the big house and diplomatic immunity of course).

p