My Thoughts Are with Thailand

As the flooding continues in Thailand I can't help but think about one of my adopted countries and grieve for what it's going through. Evan and I spent a year there, but it felt like so much more. I still remember the sounds of waking up in the morning, the chattering of geckos and the trills of the birds outside our window. In Thailand you don't forget the power of nature. Armies of ants swarmed our house, spiders bigger than my hands inhabited our kitchen (gently, I might add). Wild dogs were everywhere, not so gently. There was a softness about people that I loved, and also a great sense of fun. No matter where I am, some of Thailand comes with me.

So I'd like to share a few photos from our time there again. My apologies if you've been a reader long enough to have seen these before.

This was the tree outside our bedroom window. I saw it every morning when I woke up. When it monsooned, everything was drenched. Immediately.

These were our street dogs. They lived on our street, and unlike most of the dogs they were pretty nice and they never tried to attack us.

Whenever we had a long weekend we usually took a bus to the islands. This is Koh Chang. Elephant Island.

And these are the types of places we stayed. From here, sitting in chilly San Francisco it looks pretty good.

Beer Chang. Yup, Elephant beer. You can speak about as much Thai as I can, now! (Ok, I speak maybe a little more.)

These were our sunsets.

And these were our pet cats.

Ok, not really. That's a baby tiger. But I did get to pet this one and feed it some milk from a bottle, so that wasn't too shabby. And we did bring home a cat that was a little (well, a lot) smaller than this one.

Thailand, I miss you and I hope you get through this troubled time without too many bruises. My thoughts are with you.