Flesh and Blood

November 13th - week one in Pattaya has come and gone with every day bringing its own a little challenge.  Still dealing with lots of paperwork, including the whole visa thing.  So the way I understand it, when we enter the country, I get a stamp on my visa.  I then have 30 days to present myself to the embassy in Bangkok to receive permission to stay in the country for 90 more days.  Then, every 90 days we have to request another 90-day-stay.  Guess this is a good way to keep track of the riffraff.

Tim seems to have had a reaction to some poison ivy - probably from the last-minute weeding he was doing around the house before we left.  We first noticed a little redness on our layover in Japan, and now it is a full-blown, miserable case all up his left arm.  If we were at home, he would have hit it right away with some Tecnu scrub and it would have cleared up in a few days.  Here?  Not so much.  Our first attempt was to hit the local "pharmacies" for some kind of topical cream.  According to the doctor we met at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital on our pre-trip, the pharmacies here are unregulated, so you never really know what you are getting - he recommended that we only use the hospital pharmacy.  But that was not close at hand, so we tried a couple of local places anyway.  We tried to explain the problem to the nice clerks - I don't think they have poison ivy here, and they seemed somewhat mystified by our description.  Have you ever tried to explain poison ivy to someone who doesn't speak much English?  Anyway, he tried a couple different creams, but none seemed to help, and the rash kept getting worse.

My next idea was to go to the hospital and perhaps find someone who could tell me what to get, or where I might find the scrub that usually works.  Our driver, Mick, took me over, and I asked for the hospital pharmacy. Of course the pharmacy was way in the back of the hospital, and when I got there, I discovered that their pharmacy was only for prescription meds, nothing over-the-counter.   So, I trudged back to the front desk to see if I could get some help there.  When I described the situation, again I was met with a somewhat mystified reaction.  "Where is your husband?," they asked.  Well, I was just hoping to get some over-the-counter something - didn't think the patient had to be present for that.  But no one was willing to give any advice without seeing the patient, so on to plan B (or C, or whatever we were on by that time).

I read online that rubbing it with vinegar and salt helped, so I gamely headed to the Tesco-Lotus (Thailand's version of Wal-Mart) to see what I could find.  Well, I was able to locate the vinegar fairly easily as it was clearly labeled and recognizable.  The salt, however, was a challenge - no Morton's Salt girl jumped out at me from the shelves.  So I pulled up my Translate app on my phone, typed in "salt," and showed the translation to the clerk - voila!  Felt pretty proud of myself for that one.  (My puzzling skills are serving me well!)  I was also successful in actually purchasing laundry soap this time, not the fabric softener I mistakenly bought when we came for our pre-trip.

The grocery store here looks vaguely like ours, but so many differences.  For example, the eggs are not in the refrigerated dairy section, but just sitting out on a table.  And there are not just chicken eggs - next to the chicken eggs (all brown, by the way) were cute little gray and black speckled quail eggs.  Also, if you're looking for a bag of Lay's, better look in the "potato ship" aisle!  The most shocking thing to me was the meat dept.  I am used to buying my meat in nice, hygienic, plastic-wrapped packages.  Here, the meat is out in big trays, and you use the tongs to pick out the meat you want and put it in a plastic bag yourself.  The worst part was the ground meat (can't say for sure if it was beef) - it had a big spoon just laying in the middle of the meat,  including the handle that had been touched by who-knows-how-many other people - ugh!  (Marika, I can see you gagging as I write this!)  Yes, indeed!  On the upside, there are always plenty of employees around to help customers, unlike many US stores.  It's nice to see so many are able to find employment this way, even though many of them seem to have little to do.  I often see clerks putting on makeup or using their cellphones - I turned down one aisle and there was a young clerk straightening her hair!

Well, after all that, the vinegar and salt did absolutely no good.  (Cathy, I bet you could have steered us to something homeopathic).  Well, hopefully Tim will be able to get out of work early today and present himself to the healthcare professionals - maybe they will be more willing to offer up some advice when they see it firsthand.  We'll let you know.

On the home front, I got to talk to Dad and Kathleen on their anniversary - ten years, holy moley!   They seemed so surprised that I was able to call them.  I am enjoying keeping up with the off-season dealings of my Tigers - so glad to hear Victor Martinez is sticking around, and that Alan Trammell is back wearing the Old English D.  I won't mention the Lions - don't want to break the spell!

Miss everybody!