Builder's brawn

Young builders are working around our place.

One crew is doing up a large home opposite, and another is working on a new condo about 50m to the west.

Several other gangs are working on condos in the general vicinity. This is what happens when you live in the inner-city.

Property values are higher, so people are always building.

In the slum on the other side of my condo, a dilapidated shack of a place went up in smoke while I was overseas recently.

Two or three places adjoining it caught fire, too.

I don't know what happened to the human occupants, but the rabbits being raised at one place survived.

The homes are being rebuilt.

When I go for a run in the car-parking building each day, I look over into the slum section to inspect progress. Strapping young men have poured the cement foundations, and are now erecting a steel structure to hold up the roof and walls.

The rabbits are in their cages, sleeping.

Land of dreams

Maiyuu's couch, from my bedroom door

Maiyuu sleeps the living room, right outside my bedroom door.

'I like to keep an eye on you,' he says, when asked why he likes to sleep on the couch in front of the TV, rather than in the comfort of his own bed.

When I sleep, I leave my bedroom door open a little.

That way, our brain waves can connect as we play in the land of dreams.

Marathon birthday effort

Special guest at last night’s birthday party was Jumbo the Chihuahua.

I had a picture of the little dog here, but lost it when I accidentally destroyed my blog pics, which Google keeps in its album archive.

Boyfriend Maiyuu spent the day cooking, while I relaxed, fitting in two visits to the pool, and an hour-long sleep.

‘Thank you for making it such a special day,’ I told Maiyuu as he served up dessert.

‘That’s okay...it’s not a duty,’ he said, meaning he did it out of love.

First, Maiyuu served up spaghetti with a meat sauce. Then he presided manfully over a Thai-style bar-b-que.

He cooked the beef on a hotplate, placed on top of a gas cooker. Juice gathered around the sides, which we spooned on to our plates.

The cooker sat on the dining room table. We sat around the table, helping ourselves to the beef, and the accompanying side dishes, including crab sticks, roast pork nibbles, and tuna.

Maiyuu invited two friends, sisters Golf and Som.

They brought with them the family pet, Jumbo.

As the name suggests, he is huge, just like me. Okay, I jest.

‘Is he mixed breed?’ I asked.

‘He is pure Chihuahua, but has only one testicle, which has made him fat,’ said Golf, without explaining.

Jumbo is expert at fitting humans around his needs.

‘Jumbo knows Mum wakes at 6am, to make breakfast for the family. He migrates from my bed to hers about 5am, as he knows I get up later.

‘An hour later, he gets up when Mum does, and they go downstairs together. This ensures he gets fed as soon as Mum is up; otherwise he would have to wait.

‘Mum likes to sleep in the middle of the day. About midday, Jumbo will park himself at the bottom of the stairs and howl until Mum joins him. They go upstairs together to take an hour’s rest.

‘I spoil him, giving him food whenever he wants it. Som scolds him when he gets demanding, so they are not that close.

‘When he sleeps, he likes to nestle into armpits, especially if they belong to men,’ said Golf.

Never have I met such a lucky dog.

‘In my next life, I want to come back as a small, cute dog,’ I said.

When seated at the table likes to perch himself on the arm rest, so he can keep an eye on what's going on.

After the bar-b-que, Maiyuu brought out chocolate toffee mousse and served it in glasses.

Maiyuu's chocolate mousse

By special request, he also made an instant pudding.

Golf, who hires Maiyuu to make desserts occasionally, brought along a packet of instant pudding powder. Maiyuu whipped it up, and put it in the fridge.

After that, he brought out a chocolate and strawberry birthday cake, which he made in my honour that afternoon as I slept.



That's the cake below right. He wrote a message in icing on top: Happy birthday to my love. Joop, Joop!'

Joop is the Thai word for kiss.

I was banished to my bedroom while Maiyuu and the girls inserted candles in the cake and lit them.

‘Okay...you can come out now!’ said Som.

I’m running out of puff; it took three blows before I could put all the candles out.

‘We’ll be eating your saliva instead,’ said Maiyuu.

Our guests were worried they would not be able to find a taxi home.

Maiyuu took them downstairs, and asked them to wait while he pedalled off on his bike to the main road. He flagged down a taxi, and asked it to come back to the condo to pick up our guests.

While he was away, I swept the floor, and put on the air con in the living room, where Maiyuu sleeps, to cool it down before we went to bed.

‘Thank you again for a great day,’ I said.

‘You’re now a year older,’ said Maiyuu.

‘Happy birthday!’

Booted out of the BF's kitchen

Maiyuu made khao tom with squid for lunch yesterday, even as preparations are underway for tonight's birthday dinner.

As the birthday boy, I am guest of honour. Maiyuu has also invited three Thai friends, and Jumbo, a pet Chihuahua.

‘I want to take pictures for my blog,’ I announced.

I will ask our guests' permission when they arrive.

Last night, as part of initial preparations for the birthday meal, he made a chocolate mousse.  This morning, he went to the market to buy more supplies.

As I write, a dish of meat is sitting on the bench waiting to be cooked.

He has also cut up pineapple, and made walnut toffee. 

-
‘Are you up to making one meal by yourself?’ asked Maiyuu caustically.

I happened to mention I was hungry.

For me, hunger is a permanent physical state, or so it must seem to the Master of the Kitchen, who complains that no sooner has he finished making me one meal that I am mooching around with a hungry look, wanting him to make another.

Maiyuu makes breakfast for us every morning. I fool around on the computer, go for a swim and a run. When I come back after lunch, he makes another meal. Sometimes it is sitting on the table waiting when I walk in the door.

At lunch yesterday I decided to give him a break, and bought food from the slum area across the way.

The surroundings may be slummy, but the food is fine. Maiyuu took advantage of his free-time 'window' to buy me a birthday present. He cycled into town and back. Two hours later he turne up with a pair of work trousers.

‘They are B700,’ he said. Birthday gifts for this farang do not come cheap.

I tried them on, but they were too small. In early evening, patient Maiyuu went back to town and changed them for another pair, which look big enough to fit an elephant.

Late yesterday he also managed to rustle up a beef and vegetable soup. How does he do it? We made smart work of that, so that at the time of writing, the pot is now empty. We are both hungry again.

Well, I am...but as I say, my stomach is always crying out for food.

‘You just think you are hungry...but really, it’s all in your mind,’ said Maiyuu, as he sent me to bed last night, food bowl empty. I had complained yet again of being hungry.

This morning, as he headed into the market to buy food for my dinner, Maiyuu asked if I could possibly look after my own needs for a few hours.

‘I will be busy in the kitchen today, making the birthday meal. Can you possibly heat up something for yourself?’

In the fridge, I found the left-overs of a beef curry which Maiyuu had made a couple of days before.

‘Can I have this?’

‘That’s all there is,’ he said. ‘Dish it out on rice, and put it in the microwave,’ he said, like a mother talking to her child.

Am I really so hopeless?

Kong, Phiwit: Hottest gay couple on TV

Kong and Phiwit, from the television drama Tomorrow, I'll Still Love You (พรุ่งนี้ก็รักเธอ), are falling in love!

Played by Fluke Pachara Thammon (ฟลุค พชร ธรรมมล) and Oh Anuchyd Sapanphong, (pictured above in a TV interview), Kong and Phiwit take secondary roles in the Channel 5 soapie, but in the eyes of many viewers, they are the show.

At the Pantip webboard, fans have left dozens of posts enthusing about the pair. One fan calls them ‘scene stealers’.

Readers are also polled on whether they would like to see more of them in the show. More than 460 readers voted yes, against 140 who said they were getting enough scenes, or too many.

Oh is Phiwit, who starts the series with a sore leg. Fluke is Kong, a therapist, given the unenviable task of caring for him.

Phiwit takes every chance he can to pursue the younger Kong, who is not amused. In the latest episodes, Phiwit grabs Kong’s hand, and holds it...and holds it...

They gaze into each other's eyes, and know they are meant to be an item.

Later, Kong comes home to find Phiwit is there, getting friendly with his mother. Phiwit and Kong have shared family history.

Kong reckons dark deeds committed by Phiwit's elder brother against Kong's sister are reason enough why the two should not see each other.

Phiwit says that's all in the past, and he doesn’t care.

Watch the hand-holding scene here. The scene where Kong comes home to find Phiwit has befriended his mother is here. See Lyn’s Lakorns blog for plot details here.