Beware, queasy ones.

A couple days ago Nam went to a beauty salon to get her hair done and I tagged along to get a pedicure since my toenails tend to get painful if not cut correctly, and also because pedicures are the absolute best kind of addiction in a place like Thailand - inexpensive and actually good for you.

Nam's usual shop was closed for some reason, but since we were already out on the only sizable chunk of free time for the week, we went to another place that we'd actually been to before but didn't like so much because the older women running it do everything very slowly. On this day, however, it was still early and their shop was empty, so we decided to give it another shot.

I sat down and got a manicure first since I had to wait for Nam anyways, and soaked my feet in a bucket of water. What happened after the manicure was simply amazing.

The old lady unwrapped a long razor blade from the piece of wax paper it came packaged in, and began shaving away the callouses on my feet - I have LOTS of callouses on my feet. In fact, the balls of my feet as well as the heels are basically huge callouses. This stems from a bad case of athlete's foot in Japan ten years ago that opened huge cracks in the bottom of my feet over which thick layers of skin eventually accumulated. I never thought this could even be removed, actually. However, the long soak had a great effect on this chitinous mass and huge swaths of dead skin flaked off with every pass of the razor. It piled up on the wet towel draped underneath my foot like a massive pile of grated cheese. To be more specific, it was like a massive pile of fetid, extra-sharp cheddar. In hindsight, maybe I should have saved it to put on an enemy's piece of toast.

Anyway, after she was done shaving off the pedicheese, she smoothed everything down with an oblong plastic emery board. My feet felt fantastic! It must have showed on my face, because Nam had her feet worked on too.

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* This is the first time I've ever seen this service performed anywhere, at any price, even though I'd heard that it existed before.

In an effort to destroy the cattails, because her son is allergic to the snowy fluff it produces this time of year, the development manager instructed her minions to burn them. On a windy day. With gasoline.

Fucking oops.

Nam says that once they realized the fire was out of control and blowing towards said manager's newly-erected wooden houses (as in, houses she built to live in herself) they called out all the workers in shouting distance to form a bucket brigade. That had no buckets.

Oops again.

Luckily, the fire eventually burnt out when the wind died down. I just I wish I could've been here to see it too, so I could educate the natives about a few things. Like how cattails were used by Native Americans for kindling (so maybe they should use less gasoline or something). Or by people around the world for food as well as down for stuffing. Or how cattails are being used in pilot "carbon capture" farming schemes. Then again, I probably would have just stood there laughing wickedly as the world burned just across my pond and attacked the intelligent beings who started it.

Luckily, the red-tailed pheasant-like birds seem to have returned and don't seem to mind roosting in their newly-roasted environment. I need to get a photo of one someday I suppose...

It's not unusual to pull into a gas station up here in the Northeast region only to find your favorite petroleum formulation (95 benzene, 95 gasohol [E10 / E20], 91 benzene, 91 gasohol, diesel, palm diesel, B5 [5% biodiesel], LPG [Liquified Petroleum Gas], and CNG [Compressed Natural Gas], which is one of the two kinds of NGV [Natural Gas Variation]) sold out, or in the case of 95 benzene, no longer being sold at all, or in the case of LPG and especially CNG, simply not yet available.

At the PTT station in front of my university (the uni actually owns it) this morning, they were out of everything (they sell 91/95 gasohol, 91 benzene, straight-up diesel, and 5% biodiesel fomulation). There were ad hoc "sold out" signs taped to each individual pump (maybe 24 in all) and the staff were all sitting around on the pump islands. They didn't even bother telling the cars pulling in for gas that they were out, they would just laconically point to the signs in between slacking off and playing grabass with their coworkers.

It made me wonder why they didn't just put a big sign up at the entrance so that people didn't pull in and waste their time, but as they say, This Is Thailand.

P.S. Until now I've very rarely posted negative commentary on this blog regarding my country of current residence, for one simple reason - If there's one thing I hate it's the recent arrivals to a country complaining about this and that and I vowed never to be one of them long ago. Having almost been here two years now though, I feel I can begin complaining with a bit of authority. ; )

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Related link: Retail oil price list from the Energy Policy & Planning Office of Thailand's Ministry of Energy