Masala is doing well. Actually it's kind of amazing how much his personality has changed since we first got him. He used to be extremely shy. At the pet shelter, he was often hiding somewhere, and when we brought him home, it took about 2 weeks for us to see him regularly. That's definitely not an issue any longer. He is comfortable in his domain, usually never leaving our side when we're home. When we go to sleep, he usually finds one of us to lean against. He's actually quite polite, all things considered. While sometimes he will get up during the night to use the toilet or eat (don't we all), he usually stays quiet. He's got a good sense of when our phone alarm is about to go off, and will usually sit patiently for it to wake us up first. Then he'll rub his face on you and demand pets. Otherwise, "petting time" is whenever one of us gets home. He will usually walk up to us, and just plop on the floor at our feet. Or just randomly, he'll come over and rub his head against you. He's very much a head/face/neck kind of guy. He's sort of okay with his back being rubbed, but he will remind you with a meow that is not his preferred spot. The belly, like on most cats, is a no-go. However, recently I've learned that if you start at the neck and slowly work your way down, you can get to the belly without him noticing - perhaps the result of the "one orange brain cell". Oh, and if you try to pet him during non-petting time, he will likely just walk away, or you will be on the receiving end of a no-claw slap. Not petting time is usually "leave me alone" time, or "play" time, and play time is all about chasing things. A ball is fine, but he's recently taken to the "jingly things on a stick" line of toys. He loves it when he can chase them around for a while, but then they suddenly stop moving. He goes into "hunting mode" by walking a half circle around it, arching his back, and gradually sneaking up to pounce.
Something I really appreciate about him is that he is pretty chill with being picked up. I know most cats don't like that, but he doesn't seem to mind that much. He usually folds himself into a C-shape with his arms and legs out, and you can just hold him with one arm underneath while petting him the other. One day I carried him around for about 30 minutes showing him random apartment things. He especially liked the freezer, reaching out to touch the bag of frozen veggies, then looking at his paw. And speaking of food, out of curiosity we give him a little bite of people food sometimes. We had to learn a lot about what cats can and cannot eat, and they're honestly pretty much okay with everything. Most of the off-limits things like chocolate and caffeine are pretty well known, but for us the big sticking point is no garlic/onions. Turns out that's in just about everything, so he doesn't get to try things as often as he'd like. As far as his preferences, he will kind of nibble at veggies, but overall, not a big fan. He will sniff fruit, but I've never seen him eat any. He'll lap up a bit of milk, but usually just once or twice. Of course he loves fish, but oddly enough he's not too keen on chicken - he'll eat it, but only after a lot of sniffing/contemplation. The big winner though, is bread. He LOVES bread, of any form. Even plain white rice he is ALL about. I don't know what his deal is, but apparently the fastest way to his heart is carbs. If I ever gave him a breaded fish stick, he would probably explode with happiness. Overall, he's just food curious. Whatever you're eating he also wants to sniff and/or try, and he'll leave you alone after he had a chance to sample it. For example, one day I was drinking plain soda water, which he was very curious about. I put some in a little dish for him, and he was jumping around it, dipping his paw in it, and just being very confused by this bouncy water. Cute~
As far as Thailand travels, we've done a bit here and there. For example, it was Constitution Day, and a Rama IX Park had a big night market with live music, food, etc.. Actually the music was really good, kind of big band jazz sort of thing. It was better than most music I've heard at bars where you have to pay a cover charge to get in, and just goes to show Thailand is amazing at A) being artsy, and B) finding an excuse to throw a party. Ella and I ate and walked around for a few hours, just taking in the vibe and consuming a weeks worth of calories. While we were walking, I was thinking - why don't more places do this? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of outdoor markets in Bangkok alone, many being a normal part of the community. You can get food and drink there for cheaper than a restaurant, because it's just a dude in a tent. For a special occasion like this you had plenty of vendors, selling stuff at pretty steep discounts. I feel in the US these kind of festivals sell things for more money than in a shop, which just seems weird to me.
In further flung travels, our Bangkok family took a day to trip to the beach. Bang Saen Beach is the closest beach to Bangkok, and is alright, but has a ways to go to match the beaches an hour or so further south in Jomtien and beyond - and those don't hold a candle to some of the islands. It's more of a "let's hang out near the ocean and enjoy the vibe" sort of place than an actual swimming destination. Though some people were swimming, we dipped our feet, had some food, had some drinks, and just chatted. We took the train to get there, which has a stop just outside our building. Overall it was about 2 hours, but whew the train ticket was expensive - at 20 baht ($0.60) a person, we'll need to save that for a special occasion.
In other news, I have a new job. But this was after ~2 months of "not working", which was surprisingly much more busy than actually working. It seemed that every day there was something to do with the apartment, errands for Ella and I, or the cat. Actually one day we went to take him to the vet, and he was not so happy about going in the carrier. It was a soft carrier with a mesh netting, and after we finally got him in... he just clawed the heck out of it and slipped out. So, very fortunate he didn't decide to display that superpower when he was on the street or something. Now we have upgraded to a proper hard plastic and metal carrier, so if he breaks out of that one, there is nothing us or even Superman can do to stop him. We eventually did get him to the vet, a process he was very not pleased with. He's actually fine with the vet, but wow he hates car rides. He just lets out constant sad meows the whole time. Thankfully he's all caught up on his shots now, so this is the last time he will need to go there unless for something unfortunate.
Oh wait, I was talking about work. The position with Ella's school didn't materialize, as it unfortunately would start after my visa expired. Instead an agency that I worked with 10ish years ago in Thailand had an opening, so I'm back with them. I'm back to teaching in a pretty low overhead sort of role, not unlike some of my first teaching gigs. Overall it's quite a whiplash from my previous gig of, you know, trying to set up and run an entire school. I'm divided between two different schools doing Computer Science and English. It's very low stress, so I'm not complaining, because this is the kind of Thai life that I remember. Now with a proper residency visa secured, I'm breathing easy in terms of my status. Just in terms of perspective, I went from accepting the job to having a visa in about 2 weeks. Portugal was... 8 months? And we still couldn't get it all done. So. Maybe they should rethink that process if they want people to come.
I'll end with something a bit less serious. An old coworker of mine messaged me out of the blue one day, and asked if I wanted to come with him to a Dragon Ball exhibition - because the tickets are buy one get one, and his girlfriend is like, "No way". While I certainly was a fan as a teenager, I've been out of the Dragon Ball scene for 20+ years. But even though I knew nothing about the new series, the exhibit was actually really interesting. Mostly just a lot of statues you could pose next to, they had a few AR activities like doing a Kamehameha to collect the Dragon balls - and if you got all of them, you could get a free poster. The whole thing is completely silly, and something that would only work in Thailand.
