Terminal 21

Terminal 21 is just another (nine-storey) shopping place in Bangkok. But you will be walking inside feeling like you are traveling. The mall is designed to look like an airport -It opened last year while the nation was dealing with the flood crisis.  Life does go on.  The world goes on. And it's right under one roof for Bangkokians and visitors -

I was here for the first time yesterday, but only to have brunch in Mexico opposite the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, not far from the city's municipal railway -

There are more spots to see. Or I could get lost in a maze of shops in Tokyo.

 ABC Wednesday

Joy

 

Tea and poetry
commemorate a milestone
on May twenty-third

A greeting arrives
happy birthday little guy!
aren't you eight just once?

Smiling quietly
his reply brings utter joy:
I love you, Mommy!

Haiku my Heart and Haiku Heights

Beautiful eight

On Wednesday, May 23rd CJ turned 8. Planning the celebration was ironically quicker in a distance than when I was personally fussing over every detail in previous birthdays. I woke up at half past six, Thailand time and waited for the clock to strike seven when it was eight in the Philippines to greet my little guy.

He was already out biking. My heart danced at how normal a young boy's activity that can be. Grandma hollered, "CJ! your Mom's on the phone!" Pause - then it was a trumpeting sound on the line. He let me in on it: "my Ben 10 sword, Mommy." Oh, okay. I thought it was new year there already.

Quite a birthday. Quiet and controlled as I put together a few things that bind us -

A reading to commemorate CJ's eighth year -

and eight things I am thankful for:

1. reaching the eighth year in good health


2. the opportunity to celebrate it


3. big improvement on speech and motor skills


4. having the means to provide for him


5. feeling heaven's warmth on my tea table,


6. which was filled with charm specially for the day,


7. and being able to document it


8. hearing "I love you Mommy"

In the stillness of midday, I smiled in gratefulness to God for carrying me this far in my role as a mother.

Mommy Moments & Color Connection

Pet names

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Lu asks

Do you have any pet that has a name inspired by your readings?

If not, what would you pick if you DID?

Do any of your friends have book-based names for their pets? (Or their children?)

Piano lessons were imposed on me when I was a little girl. My love for reading extended to the short background of the music or biography of the composer written on my music books. I think I enjoyed the reading part more than working on the keys. Fast forward to 2002 I bought a toy poodle and named him Mozart, that's him on the sidebar, after the composer. I use his photo as a bookmark.

My mother's dog is named Shakespeare, after you-know-who. (sorry for the HP reference). A fairy tale - addict young niece named one of our cats Snow White, and the other George, after King George.

Thursday Thirteen: Books the feature dogs

1. Odyssey by Homer features Argos
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov features Banga
3. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie features Bob
4. Call of the Wild by Jack London features Buck
5. The Roly-Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter features John Joiner
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck features Candy's dog
7. Two Gentlemen of Verona, by Shakespeare features Crab
8. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens features Diogenes
9. Harry Potter by JK Rowling features Fang
10. Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien features Garm
11. Ulysses by James Joyce features Garryowen
12. Adam Bede by George Eliot features Gyp
13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens features Jip

Pet names

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Lu asks

Do you have any pet that has a name inspired by your readings?

If not, what would you pick if you DID?

Do any of your friends have book-based names for their pets? (Or their children?)

Piano lessons were imposed on me when I was a little girl. My love for reading extended to the short background of the music or biography of the composer written on my music books. I think I enjoyed the reading part more than working on the keys. Fast forward to 2002 I bought a toy poodle and named him Mozart, that's him on the sidebar, after the composer. I use his photo as a bookmark.

My mother's dog is named Shakespeare, after you-know-who. (sorry for the HP reference). A fairy tale - addict young niece named one of our cats Snow White, and the other George, after King George.

Thursday Thirteen: Books the feature dogs

1. Odyssey by Homer features Argos
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov features Banga
3. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie features Bob
4. Call of the Wild by Jack London features Buck
5. The Roly-Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter features John Joiner
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck features Candy's dog
7. Two Gentlemen of Verona, by Shakespeare features Crab
8. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens features Diogenes
9. Harry Potter by JK Rowling features Fang
10. Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien features Garm
11. Ulysses by James Joyce features Garryowen
12. Adam Bede by George Eliot features Gyp
13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens features Jip

Songkran soaked

Songkran is the Thai new year characterized mainly by people celebrating it with water. According to Wikipedia, songkran is a term derived from Sanskrit, and may refer to new year celebrations in or parts of southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Lao, Thingyan in Myanmar, Yunnan in China and northern Vietnam.

Fifteen years in the kingdom and this recently concluded Songkran on April 13-15 was only my second time participating and really having fun - in Huahin, Thailand's summer capital last year and in Silom, the country's financial district this year.

This is the Songkran 'make-up,' or that's how I call fragrant talcum powder mixed in water and rubbed gently on people's cheeks -

Originally, water in bowls is poured on the wrists only. People exchange good wishes and go their way -



Nowadays a huge fire hose spews water on revelers. In some instances it's not even water in the dippers, but whiskey.  Silom is closed to traffic. No one in this formidable crowd is dry. Not the cops, not the food or booze vendors, not even the journalists covering this event. In one corner people danced to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive -



Songkran ammo - the red and blue water gun behind the ever present somtam (papaya salad), fried chicken and sticky rice in every Thai celebration -  

The Thai government provides mats for people having their Songkran dinner in parks. A nephew and a niece who flew in from Cebu in time for the frolic would have made perfect mat models but discretion had better be the order of the day if their aunt do not want to get murdered this early in her blogging past time.

Our World  ABC Wednesday

Dust off

"Don't look at my feet, Grandma so you can not see that it's dirty," says CJ when he does not want to take a shower before bed.

Good heavens where did he get that? I always washed my feet before I went to bed when I was a little girl.  And CJ's Dad always showered. Our conversations at least didn't have indications that former Mom-in-law had isuues with ex-hubster on taking showers when he was CJ's age.

Honestly I am amused. But perhaps because I am not directly in line at the moment to deal with such 21st century child's progress in reasoning.

Good old psychology has been right all along to observe that 'little boys don’t take baths, they just dust off.' That takes me to a tantrum he threw in Hong Kong because I forced him to take a shower. 

Sometimes now I think I should have just let him dust off, although I don't think it should apply to dirty feet in bed. How long would this argument last, I wonder, but he's a boy and I'm just his mom learning, learning, learning.

Mommy Moments & Color Connection