Silent Night

All work comes to a standstill when the holidays are upon us. This is especially true if you are interested in having work done at your place of residence. When we took occupancy of our condo, Tim noted a squishy spot in the floor of the master bathroom. We notified the powers that be, who had us cease the use of the master bathroom in order to determine the source of the problem. The floor dried up, but the squishiness quickly returned when the water to the toilet was turned back on. A squishy floor can be a big problem – more so here, as our entire condo has beautiful wide-plank teak (I think) floors, even in the bathrooms. Once the source was determined, the work was arranged – after the holidays.

Yesterday was the first work day of the New Year, and the Danish owner (our landlord) and his Thai wife arrived from Bangkok with their trusty handyman to check the issue personally. The owner was kind enough to bring us a bottle of bubbly in apology for the inconvenience. Now here we are, two days into the new work week, and the condo is teeming with workmen. Not only did the workmen show up to dismantle the floor in the bathroom, but the "air con" (as it is called here) repairmen came to clean the smelly air conditioner unit in the master. Along with the building manager and the housekeeper, a total of seven people were in my bedroom! It's days like this that make me happy to be a renter – the bill will be going to the owner :) I must say, they are carrying an awful lot of rotted wood out of there...

Kill two birds with
one stone?

We also inquired about getting our own internet line shortly after we moved in, as the wifi here is very unreliable. (I am currently writing this in Writer (Word) because I can't access the blog). It was back in early December when we asked; we were told then it would have to wait until after the holidays. Now I know this isn't all that unusual – people put off having work done during the holidays back home, too. But here it seems to be much more of a given – don't even think about it! And the problem with getting our own internet line is that we don't know if it will be any more reliable than what we already have. Is it a condo issue, or an infrastructure issue? I asked the building manager if she could have some of the other tenants who have their own internet lines get in contact with us so we could ask them. As good as her English is, communication is still an issue - don't think I got my point across. Guess I will have to try to catch them in passing. (Although not a lot of passing happens here – it is, thankfully, a very quiet place.)

The "cool" temperatures of the last three weeks, along with the driving winds, have fled.  While the weather was in the upper 70's and  low 80's, and the Thais were bundling up in their jackets, we forwent the air con in favor of some wonderful fresh air.  Two big sliding glass doors that open to the sea breeze provided us with a steady rush of air that howled through the windows and made the front door hard to open and tricky to close without slamming.  I had one of our big, empty, five-gallon water bottles sitting near the front door one day, and when I opened the door, the bottle went airborne and nearly took out the person who'd knocked.  I'm talkin' windy!  We enjoyed the constant roar of the waves as our natural "sound machine," and my laundry dried very quickly on the drying rack (no electric clothes dryer here).

But alas, the cool season here is very short indeed.  The forecast is the same every day for the next week.  Right now my weather app says 30°C with a real feel of 37°C (that's 98.6°F).  Please don't think I'm complaining - I'm well aware of what my Michigan brethren are dealing with right now :(  

But here in Thailand, "all is calm, all is bright."

Taken from the deck around
5:30 a.m.

moon sequence courtesy of Tim