One of Those Nights..

Every family has them... those "memorable" days when everything that can possibly go wrong, does. They end up being totally hilarious, but it does not always seem funny at the time to all the parties involved. We had such a day, or evening I should say, on one of my last nights in Chiang Mai.

The Loi Krathong/Yi Peng Festivals are the biggest yearly event in Thailand. I felt so fortunate to have been there for it! It's sort of like Mardi Gras, Christmas, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. Renee, Damien, another couple and I had gone to the celebration, but it had been too late for the kids - plus they hate the loud fireworks.

 
It was now several days after the festivals. Orin and Micaiah had made Krathong rafts in school, and mommy and daddy had bought two Yi Peng lanterns for them, none of which had yet been sent aloft.  We decided to pick Damien up from work, eat at a Thai restaurant close to Payup, and then send the rafts down the small river near the school. Then we would send up the Yi Peng sky lanterns later at home.

At the restaurant everyone got their food in turn as is usual in Thailand, but they did not have Orin’s preference so his new order came out after we had all finished our meals. It was sausage balls with what looked like little veggies on the side. From across the table Renee and I both thought they were some kind of miniature green beans and carrots. We were all in conversation and distracted, just waiting for Orin to finish his meal, and didn’t notice Micaiah grab one of the “green beans” from Orin's plate and pop it into his mouth. The next thing we knew he was screaming insanely, grabbing and slapping his mouth and making the most unbelievable faces I’ve ever seen. The only other time I’ve EVER heard a kid scream like that was when Aaron got pepper in his eyes when he was 18 months old. (Well, maybe also when his ear drum was about to rupture on another occasion…) Anyway, it was some kind of 5-alarm, torturous hot pepper and he was totally freaked out. All the pretty, young Thai staff of the place had been smiling and intently watching us the entire night for their entertainment. I wish I had noticed their reaction to Micaiah and the hot pepper! I kind of wondered afterwards why they put those peppers on a plate they knew was for a little kid? Damien had to take him outside with my frozen pineapple shake to calm - and COOL - him down. It took a while. About 10 minutes after they came back I looked up and Sora was about to pop one of those suckers into HER mouth! I caught it just in time. (Hmmm. Wonder how she got that, Orin?) Thanks goodness we didn’t have a repeat episode!

This narrative does NOT do justice to the spectacle of Micaiah and the hot pepper! I was too empathetic to Micaiah's suffering to take any photos. (Sure wish I had them now though. :) )

Thai Chili Peppers

Once Micaiah was sufficiently recovered, off to the river we went. By now it was already past bedtime on a school night. Hmmm… lighter, lighter, where is the lighter? My handy flashlight in my purse came to the rescue (thanks Pops.) We eventually found the lighter on the floor and then our way down to a little dock from whence to cast the lighted Krathongs away.

After finally getting the Krathongs' candles and incense lit came the dilemma of how to get them into the river. The dock was about 3 or 4 feet above the water. The banks to the sides and beneath us looked dark but OK. I said “Damien, why don’t they put them in the water from that spot down there that looks like a flat rock?” as I pointed to it. THANKFULLY Damien jumped down first because the bank was NOT solid, but a huge mound of ooey, gooey muck in which he sank up to about his ankles, one foot a full stride in front of the other!!! Oh, how I wish now I had taken a picture of him and the look on his face but I was too shocked and amazed, and especially too worried that he had hurt himself. He said he was not injured, but boy he was STUCK. He pulled really hard to extract himself and climb back up on the dock, but both of his shoes were still down there, sucked in by a vacuum stronger than an Orek with an 8# bowling ball. MUCH stronger. By now I was starting to be amused but trying to control myself, and I saw Renee stifle a laugh too. Damien was NOT happy.

They both then proceeded to work on extracting the shoes with MUCH difficulty, understandably, seeing how they were each a foot down in a sucking mud-vortex hole. 

 While this was happening, silly Nina, glancing up and down the dark river, trying to be funny (sort of) thoughtlessly blurted out “I hope there are no crocodiles watching us and swimming this way,” which sent Micaiah into a panic. He started crying and saying over and over “I want to go home, I want to go home!” I held and comforted him as best as I could and said that I was just making a stupid joke and there were NO crocodiles (I hoped!) and finally calmed him down.

 The shoes were both finally extracted after 15 minutes or so…

......now let’s light those freaking rafts and get out of here! The only option now was to just toss them into the water from the dock – no gently setting them afloat.

The first one got wet and went out but the 2nd one miraculously stayed lit! It was very pretty.
 



Unfortunately, there was absolutely ZERO current so they both it just sat there and didn’t float down the river like they were supposed to.

 
I was already emotional due to it being so close to my departure for home so that made containing my emotions impossible after this totally anticlimactic sendoff. During the short walk back to the van the hysterics fought mightily to burst out of me, and did come out in spurts. While Renee and Damien wandered off to find a way to clean the gook off of Damien’s shoes and get cleaned up, I got the kids in the car and then fell to pieces. I'm sure the kids thought Nina had gone mad or something but I absolutely could NOT contain the response to the hilarity of it all. I tried hard because I felt bad knowing that Damien was not happy but I just could not help it. I was in tears, laughing out loud hysterically, over all the events of the evening, even after they got back and we were driving home. I apologized to Damien but told him I knew he would laugh about it someday too. Someday. :)

We went straight home and got the kids to bed. I told Renee and Damien that it was a good thing we didn’t try to send up the sky lanterns. We would probably have burned the house down.