It isn’t often that I’d refer to my father-in-law as a savior, but in this case he has turned out to be one.  Yesterday Tawn spent the day with his family to celebrate Mother’s Day and he laid out the facts of our remodel case to his father: basically, that we wanted access to a bit more money to get this remodel finished the way we had planned instead of leaving many parts – including the kitchen – undone.

It seems that there were a few sources of funds that we had not tapped into including a stash of rainy day money that had been saved for Tawn in the event of just such a situation.  Well, maybe not a situation exactly like this, but close enough.

So the crisis has been canceled and the remodel appears back on track, including the kitchen.  Sorry for the flip-flop and drama on a daily basis.  Just trying to keep my readers as up-to-date as I am.

In other news, we had dinner last night – a whole group of us – to wish Markus and Tam a bon voyage as they head off to Germany tonight to get married.  That’s right, the first in our group to seek out legal recognition of their relationship.  They will return here after the wedding and will continue to live here for the next year or so.  Very exciting news.

Right: Tawn and Tam after dessert.

We ate at a local establishment, Thon Krueng, that has been at the corner of Thong Lo and Soi Thong Lo 13  for pretty much all of Tawn’s life.  When the place was suggested, Tawn blanched and said the food was no good.  He said that about two seconds after he said, “Oh, I haven’t eaten there in twenty years.”  So we agreed that if it had remained in business in the two decades since he formed the opinion about the food, that perhaps it had improved.

The dinner was very nice.  There were ten of us there and the food was tasty although, giving Tawn credit, not perfect.  A group of five Korean men were sitting at the table behind us and on the side cart there were seventeen one-liter bottles of Singha beer, all empty.  They were very, very loud and were playing drinking games.  At one point the entire restaurant ceased eating and speaking and was just staring at them.  And nobody said anything to quiet them down.  Thankfully, they left about halfway through dinner.

Afterwards we walked to a nearby gelato shop and had ice cream, a gang of gay men occupying the corner set of tables.

The 11th Thai Short Film and Video Festival begins on August 17th running through the 26th.  Then there is a second section September 6-9 called the Digital Forum, exhibiting feature-length digital films from Thai and international directors.

There are several highlights including a program on films by and about French women, two British shorts sections, a Spanish shorts section, and two competitive sets of international shorts.  Of course there are the Thai shorts as well, ten different programs!

More information is available in three places: an article from the Bangkok Post, the schedule in Thai and English at the ThaiIndie.com website, and some information in English on particular films that are sponsored by ThaiIndie.

Films are showing at the EGV Cinema in Siam Discovery Center.