"There's always room for another piece of watermelon"

It's funny how a little thing like colour can completely throw off your groove. I managed to get Jake and Meg to hold this watermelon for the picture, but there was no way they were going to eat it. Although Meg did seem a little intrigued that 'it smelled just like our watermelon.' So, I had to eat the whole thing by myself (it was a bit sweeter than red watermelon).

In other news...

The people have spoken: Shane stinks.
Yesterday morning Kaddi pulled me aside and whispered 'Babe - you have a smell.' It's true. I now have Thailand coursing through my veins and coming out my pores. After a month of eating things like rice with chicken, fried onions and Thai peppers for breakfast, and then a hot bowl of Chinese noodles for lunch, I suppose it's to be expected. The good news is it makes your blood a little spicier, and this makes you less attractive to misquitoes. The bad news is it apparently makes you less attractive to people as well. After two months I may find myself living on Exile Island.


"It'll probably take two weeks to fix that, if I order the part today...which I won't." It's been hard to keep track of all the things that haven't worked properly since we've been here. The shower still does not work properly, despite having the technician look at it twice. The other day Meg said 'Dad, I think the guy who built this shower was drinking you-know-what. You know...alcohol?' Last night our bedroom airconditioner stopped working in the middle of the night. We had to have the kids air conditioner fixed. The air conditioner in the kitchen area is still broken. Kaddi's cel phone no longer gets a signal. The day we bought Jakob's bicycle his seat fell off. The power has gone out twice, both times at night. The phone line has disconnected, the internet comes and goes, and the other day I bought sticky rice that refused to stick. It makes one realize that we are used to being in an on-demand society. We want things right now and we expect them to work whenever we need them (we don't even need to understand why they work.)

This will take some getting used to...