It's the little things (okay, and the big things)

Faster than seems possible, it's approaching the day when Mackenzie and I will be saying goodbye to one home temporarily so that we can go back to our other home. For the first time in two and a half years, we'll be going back to the US!

While I am very excited to go back home, see family & friends, visit all my favorite places in Washington, and eat American food, I'm also realizing that I have less than two months now to say goodbye (for six months) to the things I love so much about Thailand and Southeast Asia. Of course it helps to know that I'll be back here pretty soon; I'm sure the months in the US will fly by just as fast or faster as it seems like my first term over here has.

So what will I miss about life here? The obvious and most important answer is my friends. Our neighborhood, our office, our church, our weekly pizza night - I'll miss all the people I see at these places. (And I'll continue to miss my friends who live in Vientiane, too!) I can't count all the ways that my Mukdahan family has welcomed, loved, and helped me throughout the year I have lived here and beforehand, too.

Other than this big thing, there are other, smaller good or just everyday things that come to mind when I think of this place. I'm sure I won't think of them all, but I've been thinking about some of them.

- I think of sounds:

Tropical birdsong, in the mornings and evenings especially.* Doves cooing and murmuring. The sound of a motorbike starting up. The rumble of the gate to a house being pulled open or pushed shut on its wheeled track. Thai, Isaan, and Lao being spoken. A tuktuk going past on the main road. The little red ice cream truck. The distinctive beat of traditional-style Isaan or Lao music (though I really prefer it not accompanied by loud, drunken karaoke parties). The radio advertisements playing inside Big C and Tesco Lotus. The trucks that go by blaring their political or product advertisements. Cicadas and bullfrogs during certain seasons. House geckos chirping a warning. Tukkaes, or Tokay geckos, calling from outside. The cycling of air conditioning units. The quiet dripping of the water filter. The hiss of a gas stove. Dramatic peals of thunder and tropical downpours.

*There's one very distinctive birdcall that I will especially miss: that of the Greater Coucal. It's not a flashy, bright-colored bird, but it sounds pretty cool. If you'd like to hear a sample, this is what it sounds like (and also what the bird looks like).

- I think of scents:

Flowers that release their perfume at night. The street after a heavy rainfall.

The type of laundry soap we always use. Grilled chicken or river fish sold by the roadside. Freshly steamed sticky rice. The various kinds of Thai food being cooked for lunch at the office. The pungent, sometimes almost pleasant odor of durian for sale. Seafood and other strong-smelling foods being prepared for sale at Big C - though sometimes it's a bit too strong to be at all enjoyable. Fish sauce being used in cooking. Fresh, hot khao piak or pho (noodle soup). The way the smell of lime juice lingers on your hands after you squeeze a wedge of lime over your meal. Freshly sliced mangoes. Incense from a spirit house or a wat (Buddhist temple). The bug-killing spray we use to kill cockroaches, ants, and spiders (okay, I won't actually miss that, even though it's usually either floral or citrus scented here).

- I think of sights:

The beautiful array of plant life, including so many flowers. Colorful butterflies and dragonflies. Impressively huge moths and beetles (as long as they stay outside!). Brightly-colored Thai flags - or Lao, depending on which side of the border I'm on.

All the wares for sale at markets. Rows of brilliant, traditional wraparound skirts (sinhs) in a myriad of patterns and hues. Golden spires and rooftops of temples. Water buffaloes and cows grazing by the side of the road - or crossing it. Chickens and dogs, and the occasional cat, trotting down narrow lanes. Geckos darting up the wall. Schoolchildren in their uniforms, coming home from school in songthaews or on the back of motorbikes, sometimes three or more on a bike. Huge, brightly-painted tour buses crawling through the town. Rows of tuktuks waiting for passengers at tourist locations and bus stations. Ornate signs and designs all over, in honor of the Royal Family. The Mekong River. Seemingly endless ricefields just outside the city. Green, rolling hills and mountains once you get even further outside of the city. Busy, bustling Centralplaza shopping centers. A 7-11 at every corner. People smiling, putting their palms together, and bowing their heads in the traditional greeting - a wai or a nop, depending on the language.

- I think of tangible and non-tangible sensations:

The smoothness of a silk sinh (traditional wraparound skirt). The electric start button for a motorbike - or kickstarting it. The slight stickiness of a fallen dok champa (plumeria/frangipani) blossom. The near-burn that comes from grabbing a handful of fresh sticky rice right out of the basket (totally worth it). The bliss of an air-conditioned room after coming indoors. The breeze coming off the Mekong. The relative cool of a cloudy, rainy-season day. The soothing softness of my cats' fur - the two of them distinct from one another.* The cloth steering wheel cover that keeps the steering wheel from burning my hands when the car has sat in the sun for a while. The squishy hollowness of an unopened pomelo fruit. The smoothness of a mango skin. The bristliness of the outside of a rambutan.

*Yes, cats in general are not unique to SE Asia. But our cats are, and we aren't taking them back to the US with them, so we will be missing them like crazy.

- I think of flavors:

Each and every one of my favorite Thai and Lao main dishes (I won't list them all, because it would be a very long list and I'd get too hungry in the process. You can ask me sometime). Specific meals from my favorite restaurants in Vientiane. Coconut milk used in cooking. Fresh-made "Lao bread" - also known as baguettes. The wide array of tropical fruits, most of which I've already posted about: passionfruit, mangoes, mangosteens, rambutans, lychees, limes, pineapple, rose apples, dragonfruit, guava, coconut, tamarind, etc.

Frozen fruit bars in these flavors (made with real fruit juice). Homemade Lao ice cream. Mango yogurt. Passionfruit jam. Jelly desserts made of coconut milk and rice flour. The kinds of fresh green vegetables that you can't really get back home - most of which I don't even know an English name for. Potato chips with specially SE Asian flavors. Salty-sour-sweet limeade.

Thankfully, as I said, I doubt I'll have too much time to miss these things, since I fully expect to be enjoying all the people and things I have been missing in the US while we're home there. But it's good to remind myself what we'll be coming back to, at the end of these upcoming six months.

Cats, kittens, and ailurophiles

I have loved cats my whole life, as far back as I can remember. We had a family pet, an orange tabby named Oscar, when my sister and I were toddlers. Some of my earliest memories revolve around him. We loved him, although he wasn't overly fond of us I'm pretty sure.

When we moved to the house where we spent most of our growing-up years, my parents (who are also fond of cats) decided my sister and I could pick out a kitten each from our preschool teacher's cat's litter. I chose a tuxedo cat, polydactyl (six-toed) male whom I named Sweetfeet. He had little while paws, just like his mother whose name was Sugarfoot. My sister chose a longhaired black female whom she named Blackberry. Blackberry's fur later turned out to be sort of dark gray in places, but the name stuck anyway.

Sweetfeet and Blackberry were our cherished companions from the time we were about 5 years old until we were past 21. They had good, long lives - although when the family moved in their later life, they had a little trouble adjusting. Blackberry's health failed first. Her brother held on for a while longer. I still miss him.

Then our household went quite some time without any pets at all. My sister and I were getting ready to move to Southeast Asia, my brothers were moved out, and my parents' new job duties mean they travel frequently so they didn't think it would be kind to a cat to leave it to the care of housesitters so often. My brother got a kitten at his new apartment. It was fun to play with her when we visited. She's her own delightful brand of kitty crazy.

Once my sister and I were settled in to our own house here in Southeast Asia, getting a cat or two was pretty high up on our to-do list. Thankfully, our housemate and friend was also okay with the idea, especially since cats fulfill the important function of keeping the house free of spiders, bugs, and geckos that are foolish enough to be in range of a pounce. But you don't buy cats here. You go through connections. If a friend or acquaintance has a cat that has kittens, you can get them for free. So my sister and I waited for a while, putting out feelers to friends in the area.

And then one day, during language class, the director of the language school (who is also a friend) came in with one of the custodians, who was holding a little calico kitten. Our language school's ceiling is apparently a popular place for mother cats to have their kittens, and this little one's mother was nowhere to be found. Our director knew we wanted kittens, so he asked if we wanted her, even though she wasn't weaned yet. We couldn't resist. After our director friend went and bought us a kitten-feeding bottle, we took the little sweetie home and named her CJ.

Yes, she is named after Claudia Jean "CJ" Cregg, our favorite character from The West Wing. That was it for a day. CJ started to adjust to being bottle-fed. She was lonely when we weren't around, though, the poor little thing. Then the next day, our director interrupted our class again - this time with a whole dustpan full of tiny kittens! He asked if we wanted another one. We really, really did. This time we chose the little black and white male. At home, we quickly decided he would be Toby, after Toby Ziegler (also from The West Wing). CJ seemed much happier to have a sibling around, and Toby stopped howling when we put him next to her in the box, too.

Round-the-clock feeding of two tiny kittens while still trying to do language school and also find time for sleeping and eating was not easy. I can say I have a newfound respect for new parents, especially since they have to do that for much longer than one has to for fast-growing kittens! But thankfully our little ones were more than halfway through the weaning process. So we only had to give up vast quantities of sleep for about a week and a half.

Now they're already on solid (wet) cat food, mostly litterbox-trained, and growing more and more every day. They're sweet, cuddly, inquisitive, and playful. They're also developing personalities beyond, "I'm hungry! Feed me now!" My sister's CJ is more fearless and independent than my Toby, who complains a lot and sometimes needs more time to figure out new things. But they both bring me joy every day. I've missed having a cat (or two) in the house. Few things are more relaxing and heart-melting than time spend snuggling with a little kitten in your lap, in my opinion.

I look forward to many years of companionship from these two!