Wednesday arrives and it is surely hump day.  My Thai class breaks down into sheer sillyness halfway through, our khruu trying to keep us together while laughing out our lame attempts at humor, mostly plays on words caused by the different tones in Thai.  Students often make silly and potentially embarassing mistakes.

For example, the word for “to ride” and the word for “excrement/dirt/ashes” is the same (khii), differentiated only by the tones.  Low tone is the first, falling tone the second.

So if you say “khii chaang” you could either be saying “to ride an elephant” or you could be talking about the elephant’s droppings… and not in a polite way, either.

Thais really like potty humor, I’ve discovered.

On an entirely unrelated note, Tawn was doing some yoga at home this evening and has discovered that he can do the splits now, but only on when side.  When he turns the other direction, he isn’t as flexible.  The benefits of yoga.

For dinner this evening I hollowed out some yellow tomatoes and stuffed them with a Thai-style chicken salad that I made a few days ago.  The flavors have intermingled very nicely.  The salad is from a recipe in the San Francisco Flavors cookbook compiled by the Junior League of San Francisco. 

It is a cold version of chicken larb that you find on many Thai restaurant menus, but minus the mint (which I was supposed to add and forgot!) and the toasted, ground rice. 

Very tasty when served on a bed of Boston lettuce with sesame dressing.