Spaghetti Parmenara, 3 New Rathmells and Chicken Fingers

We have now been in Chiang Mai for 3 full days.  It seems longer than that, but not in a bad way.  Tonight was our first cooked meal at home, if you could call it that…my Dad would be ashamed at the lack of “color” on the table…it was all I could muster up…so I threw together some spaghetti, rolled it around in parmasen cheese (did you all know I bought, then brought, a 17 pound parmasen cheese wheel?…yes, I know and recognize I have a problem)…I added a yellow watermelon to the table and that’s what I called dinner.  Not a vegetable in sight.  Things can only go up!

Speaking of highlights, three new Rathmell creatures found their way into our house today.  We met up with Thailands premier cat-rescuer on the road and grabbed three of the five kittens she had in her back seat.  She and her friend spend the majority of their days saving and finding homes for cats and kittens…and three of them were saved by being in our home (does she know how we treat appliances??)  The kids are enjoying them and we hope they all come to enjoy us someday too (and pay us back for the food by killing little creatures and baby snakes).  One already killed a gecko, but I consider them to be in the “good guy” category of vermins.  Our friend Paul said that many kittens die here, so I told my kids not to get too attached.

Jack and “Panther”

Megan and “Shadow”

Adrianne and “Tiny” (aka “I’m the one who might die soon”)

I spent three hours at the huge supermarket today along with the Thai version of Home Depot.  My very first venture out in the truck by myself was to get a power washer, which does not surprise anyone who knows me very well.  (I think I talked my Dad into buying one about 3 minutes after I arrived at his house)  It will help clean the Koi Pond, which has randomly become our pet project (maybe because we don’t have our stuff so other projects are kind of on hold).  Our house looked really clean in pictures, but I think they might have let things go a little since then…

Anyhow – at the supermarket, I was pleasantly surprised (and completely grossed out) by the chicken fingers that were on sale.  And by chicken fingers, I mean, chicken fingers and not the juicy nuggets they sell in every American restaurant. I’m not sure how much meat is on a chicken claw, but if you ever get the hankering, stop by and we’ll get some – deep frying can cover over a lot of cartilage. 🙂

I will sign off – we are always so tired at the end of the day – I think maybe because of some sensory overload – we are going to begin some intensive language training in March, so who knows what these blog posts will say then!