A day of firsts, and possible lasts

Put one in Katherine's column.

We've now each killed an innocent member of the animal kingdom with our car.

You may remember my incident with the dog on the highway near Surin, Thailand. Well, yesterday Katherine and Jack were driving to pick me up from work. Right in front of Wat Si Muang, a temple cat darted out into the street. Katherine couldn't stop, couldn't swerve. I got the call as I waited outside the embassy to be picked up. The phone rang, for some reason I thought, oh no, Katherine's been in a car accident. I picked it up.

She's sobbing, I can't make out what she's saying, then I hear the words 'hit' and 'cat' and, honestly, felt much better. Katherine, thinking about our previous Jak, the possibility that he had the same fate, thinking about her mom's cats Basil and the late Simon, who look just like the little guy she hit, was in no condition to drive. So I jumped into a tuk-tuk and headed over.

By the time I got there, the tuk-tuk drivers that hang around the temple had come to Katherine's aid, and were preparing a proper burial in the dirt next to the temple wall. She wanted me to make sure the cat was dead before it was buried. It was.

So very sad.

In tuk-tuk driver hierarchy, it appears that the guy in white is labor, and the guy in blue is management. They probably thought the white woman a bit strange to get so emotional over a temple cat, but were very nice and helpful.


Later that night I was downstairs and Katherine and Jack were up. Then Katherine screamed for me. I dashed up to find her and Jack (and the bed) covered in chalky white puke. Jack's. He's never done it before, never really even spit up. So she freaked.

Jack was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Katherine thought we should call a doctor, and repeatedly asked me if I was ABSOLUTELY SURE I had mixed the formula correctly. I was.

But, it was Jack's first time with the formula with Iron, so that probably had something to do with it. He's fine, by the way, and was so about 2 minutes after throwing up all over. I talked Katherine into calling her friend Dana, mother of three, rather than a doctor. Dana's diagnosis was that babies sometimes throw up.

Then Jack slept 7 hours straight. I think I would like him to throw up every night if a good night's sleep is the result.

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Today I went to my favorite Indian place for lunch. We are short-timers now, so it may be the last time. I had to capture the moment.

Ah, Taj Mahal. Looks just like a miniature version of the real thing.

Tomorrow night we are going to the first of a few going away events planned between now and departure. This one demonstrates quite well just how our lives have changed since November. The guest list reads: 13 adults, 6 kids, 3 babies.