Monday, April 9, 2012

Shopkeeper

Today the very happy, smiley Korean shopkeeper I like here threw me a small package of chocolate macadamia nuts on my way out the door.

Mmmm... Candy from pretty strangers...

Friday, April 6, 2012

Turtles

Yesterday turned out to be a better day than predicted. We went to the "hippie" town where the boys bought souvenirs of a legal yet questionable nature. We also hung out on the beach watching the surfers for a bit...

A French speaking couple (he was Caucasian, she was perhaps Chinese or Japanese) came by and I offered to take their picture together... Afterward, the woman told me, as an afterthought and a bit of a reward, that down at the end of the beach were some turtles, so we headed off that way...

I looked and looked, but all I saw were some rocks that looked vaguely like a turtle. I turned around and steeled my nerve to make an inquiry to the sole other beach occupant, a nubile young lass sitting with her one year old baby...


Some things are easy to see...

"Excuse me, but have you happened to have seen any turtles arrived here?"

She pointed to a spot three feet in front of her, and directly in my path. There was a turtle.

"Some of them look like rocks," she said.


...only once you know they are there.
"I can't believe I didn't see it!"

And though I knew and reminded myself that my focus on how to approach and ask her a question was the cause for the oversight, I was still stunned and embarrassed...


That evening we had supper with friends and went to see a dumbass movie, after which we left my eldest behind at a yogurt shop to try his luck meeting girls.

Finally, we were on vacation.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Intentional infidelity

One should not rest one's full emotional weight on any one person. This tends to bend the relationship, if not break it entirely.