No More Toast Before Noon

O. M. G. You guys, would somebody please remind me that I absolutely MUST STOP WATCHING Meerkat Manor? Of course, it’s too late now, because I just caught up on last season and DUDE (spoiler alert!)…EVERYBODY DIES! It’s just like Hamlet (um…spoiler alert?), only with more freezing and starving and getting eaten by jackals (!!!!) instead of sword fights and poison. But it’s just as upsetting! Maybe more so! Because meerkats like Kinkajou are way way cuter than sneaky old men like Claudius and Polonius!

I mean, it was bad enough when the show killed off Courageous Little Shakespeare in the first season (Sunshine views this with much the same level of horror as I have for what Prison Break did to Dr. Sara). But then Flower died! Flower! She’s the big tough boss! That’s like killing off the Bionic Woman! And THEN “Mozart, her Resilient Daughter” ALSO died! HELLO, you can so not give her the Resilient Daughter label and then DO THAT. Stupid Kalahari Desert. Stupid boy meerkats making stupid boy choices. Stupid nature! This kind of thing would never happen on America’s Best Dance Crew!

Luckily I had an overabundance of cuteness last week to balance out these outrageous meerkat developments. Yes! We had adorable visitors!

Far too much cuteness in one place!

This here is Rebekah, the fabulous baby to whom I dedicated the Warriors Field Guide.

I agree, I probably will love cats, as I am fabulous and love everything.

And she didn’t come alone! (I’m sure if you asked her parents, she is perfectly capable of driving here from New Haven by herself, but being fabulous, she would never do anything remotely illegal that might one day ruin her political career, unlike some people, apparently.)

No, she came with her brilliant DOG, J.J.!

Tada! JJ! Woo hoo!

As you can see, Sunshine was extremely skeptical about this development. She pretty much spent the whole time as you see her in that photo, staying up on the couch out of the way and surveying the situation with serious concern.

This is my Dubious Face.

But that was still a marked improvement over the last time they met, when Sunshine had a bit of a fluffy meltdown, so I’m sure they’ll be BFF’s very soon.

Yay! Yay for adorable visitors!

On an unrelated note, do you guys know that Laura Ingalls Wilder once burned down her house? Totally true. It was shortly after she married Almanzo, and she was home alone with their baby, Rose, and something on the stove caught on fire. She barely had time to grab the baby and run out of the house, and then she watched the entire thing burn down, the whole time thinking about how upset Almanzo was going to be, considering that he, like, built it, and stuff. (Man, it is so reassuring to know how much better their lives got later on!)

I mention this because I have a mild and perhaps not unreasonable fear that one day I’m going to do this myself. Luckily today was not that day, but we did end up having Slightly Singed Spinach Surprise for dinner, the “surprise” being the part where I put the frozen spinach into the pan like I always do, and it BURST INTO FLAMES.

YES. WHAT. I KNOW.

Tell me something: Did you have any idea that frozen spinach was so flammable? No? ME NEITHER. Seriously! What did I do?!

It reminds me of the time I accidentally set a toaster on fire, which wasn’t really my fault, because I’m sure pens fall into toasters all the time in other people’s houses too (<– avoid this at all costs), and in my defense it was morning, which is not my best time, but of course one of my roommates back then happened to walk in RIGHT as the fire went BWOOOOOOOF! out the top of the toaster. So to him it pretty much looked like I was just standing there watching the toaster merrily burn, and to this day I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m an idiot. Although I swear, if he’d come in twenty seconds later, I’d have had it totally under control! I swear!

For instance, today I took care of things just fine: by yelling, “AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! ADAM! ADAM! ADAM!” until the flames went out. No problem. (Apart from poor Adam’s heart attack, of course.)

No, no, Mom, do not call me first thing tomorrow morning. Yes, we have a fire extinguisher. Yes, I know where it is. Yes, I even know how to use it. I’ve read the instructions and everything. And I’m sure Adam will still love me just as much as Almanzo still loved Laura after she burned down the house he built, as long as I remember to grab his laptop when Sunshine and I jump out the window.

Quick! Let’s distract Mom with a picture of the Grand Palace in Bangkok!

Pretty!

Serene!

I took a million zillion pictures of this place, but of course the cutest ones are of the hilarious statues, as usual.

What…what…WHAT is this?

And why do they all have tiny adorable mystery monster babies?

Forlorn little misplaced monster baby.

Does this one have claws for a tail? Seriously, what is happening here? Is this not both insanely adorable and yet a little creepy at the same time? Kind of like some Japanese cartoons?

Hyarrrrr.

I know what you’re thinking. WHY isn’t Adam standing next to this statue, in that pose, making that expression? I know! He totally refused! Can you believe it? I tried SO HARD all the way through Bangkok to get ONE goofy Adam-and-statue photo, BUT NO. Something about not offending the locals. And something about “dignity”. As if anyone can stake a claim to dignity in a bright red “Amazing Thailand” shirt.

Adam resolutely not standing like this statue.

I’m just kidding, I totally love that shirt. Especially since he managed to bargain the seller down from two dollars to $1.75. Score! But it did rather horribly clash with the bright pink shirt I was wearing on this day.

Horrifying! Newlywed color coordination needs work!

So that’s the only shot you’re getting of us together. But hey, that behind us in the background is the part of the Grand Palace where the King actually stays sometimes when he’s there, which I think isn’t often because it is mad overrun with tourists. How awesome are those trees, though?

Straight out of Dr. Seuss! The Lorax would be so psyched!

Plus we saw something that looked kind of like the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, only with more dignified hats:

Ooooo! Guards!

Oooooo! Guards coming this way!

Here I am all happily snapping pictures, like, wow, what great shots, they’re coming closer and closer, this is so cool, and then OH WAIT turns out they were literally aiming to march right over where I was standing. Adam and I did some mad scrambling out of the way…

Sorry! Carry on!

…since I’m pretty sure they have instructions to just run over the tourists if they need to. I mean, they have places to go! In formation! And dignified hats!

Unlike the Buckingham guards, though, these ones are allowed to smile; we’re pretty sure one of them was flirting with our guide at the Spring Palace, but that’s not until later.

The Grand Palace is very very VERY shiny.

GOOOOOOLD!

Gold and sparkles and more sparkles everywhere! Totally flabbergasting!

This is the library!

More sparkly than our library, but less useful. If I understood our guide correctly, it has literally one book in it, and, I’m guessing, no DVDs or audiobooks at all. So I am quite grateful that our library has books instead of sparkles.

An adorable five-headed dragon sculpture here and there wouldn’t hurt, though.

There is constant reconstruction going on to keep the Grand Palace super-sparkly.

Replacing shiny mosaic tiles as we watch!

There’s this enormously long mural which is literally constantly being touched up; they go from one end slowly to the other, doing a little bit each day, and when they get to the end, they go back to the beginning and start over.

Enormously long!

Part of the Grand Palace as seen in the mural, I think.

More strange animals I wish I had for myself.

In fact, the temple where the Emerald Buddha is kept was completely covered in construction netting and we saw a guy jackhammering down one of the long marble hallways, which seemed…incongruous in a Buddhist temple, to say the least.

That behind the awesome statue is the enshrouded temple.

But the Emerald Buddha is really very cool. It’s made of jade (not emerald) and I think it’s Thailand’s most sacred Buddha, if I understood (and remember) right. You can’t take photos inside the temple, but you can from right outside:

From outside

Emerald Buddha Extreme Close-Up

The absolute coolest thing about this, in my opinion, is that the Emerald Buddha has different outfits depending on the season. And the king himself comes to change the Buddha’s robes at the beginning of each season. See?

I wish I had this many awesome shiny gold outfits. And someone to show up and tell me when it’s appropriate to wear them.

As you can see, their three seasons are “Summer,” “Rainy,” and “Winter.” Apparently we were there in “Rainy.” Hmmmm.

But anyway, the whole place is totally gorgeous and TOTALLY worth seeing.

Did I mention…sparkly?

And at the end we sat in the café and had coconut juice, which is actually, literally, a straw stuck in a coconut. TOO AWESOME.

Well, that should make up for all those non-photo blog posts, shouldn’t it? Are you wishing I’d go back to fascinating American history yet?

See you next week!

Quote of the Day:
Juno: I think I’m, like, in love with you. ‘Cause you’re, like, the coolest person I’ve ever met, and you don’t even have to try, you know…
Paulie: I try really hard, actually.
— Juno