Friday evening before I left we had a party (three of five if my count is correct) for Emily’s third birthday.  Not sure how she managed to get five parties out of this, but between parties at day care, “immediate” family, the rest of the family, the other side of the family, and her non-day care friends, it added up.  For dinner I prepared pizzas from scratch, mixing the dough in the afternoon and letting it proof before heading over to St. Luke’s Hospital on the Plaza to visit my grandmother, who had undergone some surgery to improve blood circulation in her right leg.  All is well there.

Returning about six o’clock, I consigned my mother to serve as sous chef and started prepping the topings, setting up a mean mise en place.  In addition to a salad of spring field greens, we had the following pizzas:

Emily’s Choice – olives, Italian sausage and cheese

Margheritta – tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil

Hawaiian – Canadian bacon and fresh pineapple

Sauerkraut and Canadian bacon – a tribute to my father’s parents, who introduced this combination to me when I was a child

Arugula Salad – Italian sausage, bell peppers, mushrooms with fresh arugula added after cooking

Zachary’s Special – spinach and mushrooms inspired by the Berkeley pie shop

We were joined by Pat Goodfriend, a long time friend of the family who may be visiting us in Bangkok this autumn. 

Above, Pat poses with the Margheritta pizza, the perfect Betty Crocker image.  Other pictures from the trip:

Zoe lazing about in the sun in Jenn’s dining room

Enjoying birthday cupcakes at Emily’s day care

Jennifer and her two daughters at Grandma and Grandpa Tebow’s house

Emily opening a (big) present from Uncles Chris and Tawn

Kevin and Ava catch a late-night nap

Just as I was getting acclimated to the cool weather of early Spring in North America (and, I might add, as temperatures were brushing 21° C (70° F) in Kansas City) my time there came to an end and I returned to find the hot season very much underway in Khrungthep.  Yesterday the high was 35° C (95° F) and the overnight “low” was 27°C (80° F).

My trip from Kansas City was smooth, other than a 110 minute delay out of Kansas City that effectively eliminated my layover at O’Hare.  Which isn’t really a bad thing, come to think of it.  The entire trip took about 30 hours from the time I left my sister’s house in to the time Tawn and I pulled into our apartment car park.  By the time I unpacked my suitcases and went to bed, it was about 1:30 Monday morning.  Left: a snack somewhere over Anchorage.

Six hours later I was at Union Language School to continue my Thai language studies.  Exciting!

Of the thirteen students who started Thai with me in November, four of us are still enrolled at ULS.  Two of us are in the same class, repeating Module 3.  Another (Chihiro) is now in Module 4.  And one more (Yoichi) is in Module 5, now pretty fully able to read and write.  Oh, well, they tell us that each module is equivalent to one year of language learning in the Thai primary school system so I’m at, what, seven years old now?  Realistically, though, I think my comprehension rate is more like a pre-schooler.

It is good to be back in town despite the heat.  My tomato seedlings are making slow progress; I think they don’t get enough sun.  Tawn murdered one of houseplants but the remainder of them are doing well.