Poker, pregnancy, and pollo delicioso

This summer there is a large turnover in embassy staff. We're losing some people with considerable time in country. To wit: Political officer (5 years), Econ Officer (5 years), Public Affairs officer (4 years) and Consular Chief (4 years), along with the DCM and one of our Info Management officers, who have each put in 2 years in Vientiane. As such, we are also losing a number of our regular poker players. So on Thursday night, we had our penultimate poker game (penultimate because at what was supposed to be the last poker game before people start leaving, we made a plan to play next week too). We had to make it a quicker game, as the US played Ghana starting at 9:00 pm that night. In retrospect, we should have just continued playing poker.



Friday after work, we jumped in the car with our friends Jon and Rose and headed for the bridge. We dropped them at the train station (overnight train for them, very romantic) and continued on to the airport (1 hour flight for us, very efficient) to go to Bangkok. Saturday at 11:00 am we found that Katherine is still healthy, the baby is healthy, and likes to scratch his/her head. I've started to think that finding out the sex of the baby is a good thing, if only to be able to say his (or her) rather than his/her or it.

Later, we met up with Jon and Rose at their choice of Bangkok hotels, the Atlanta. A prominently displayed sign outside signals the type of hotel it is not: NO SEX TOURISTS ALLOWED. Hence, Katherine and I stayed elsewhere. We stayed a stones throw away as the crow flies, but a 25 minute walk away, at Jim's Lodge (an effort to break Katherine (okay, and me) from getting used to 5 star accomodations. Jim's lodge is on Soi Ruamrudee, just behind the US Embassy. The Atlanta is on Soi 2 (the next soi over). However, it is divided by the expressway, so you have to walk all the way up to Sukhumvit Road, go under the overpass, and back all the way down Soi 2.

We had lunch at the Atlanta, then, while trying to decide what movie to go see, I inquired rather people might be more interested in a massage. It was unanimous, and a massage it was.

Saturday night, we headed to Soi 11 to my A-100 classmate A.D. Tranchina's apartment for a cocktail before heading out for some mexican food. Our first choice, Senor Pico's, had no space until 10:00 pm, so we headed out to the Silom neighborhood to Coyote on Convent. This time, thankfully, there was no election the next day, and they happily served us Margaritas (and virgin margaritas for the pregnant among us.

Jon, clearly angry at Katherine for taking his picture (while in Laos he's reverted to the animist belief that a camera steals your soul) and me, clearly watching to see if Jon does indeed lose his soul as the photo is snapped. Diagnosis: To the extent that the bastard had a soul to begin with, it's likely still intact.

Rose and special guest star A.D. at Coyote on Convent. A.D. is in Bangkok until next spring, when he will head to Tokyo for his next tour.

Jon and Rose, good people that they are, traveled to Bangkok to meet up with some friends arriving at the airport. As such, they left after dinner to head out to the airport. Coming from New York, where you wouldn't go to the airport to meet Jesus Christ, Buddha and Allah if they were all coming in for a weekend visit, but rather give them your address and tell them to hop in a cab, we were a bit non-plussed at their dedication to their friends. The word Suckers came to mind.

They'll hop on another overnight train tonight with their friends in tow to head back to Vientiane.

We came back to rain and a visit to Tesco-Lotus, the British version of Walmart, in Udon Thani to see what kinds of baby stuff we can get here rather than have them shipped from the US. If the rain stops, I'm playing tennis this evening. If not, the couch.