Some Routine Fun With the Soi Dogs

I’ve been in Thailand 70 days now.  Sorry to disappoint anyone who has been  following vicariously and have noticed a bit of a slow down in my adventures here lately, but I’m kind of settling in.  I’m developing a bit of a comfortable routine.  I wake up, get ready for work, risk my life in Bangkok traffic in a 30 minute commute, review my daily lesson plans, start teaching, go to lunch, teach some more, risk my life again on the way home, get home, have my second shower of the day, play some ukulele and a video game, head out in search of dinner, come home, read, fall asleep.  On Fridays, I can head out to someplace in the LOS (Land of Smiles) that’s new to me, which I endeavor to do as much as my pocketbook can support. 

Going back to the very beginning of this blog, I talked about how my life had fallen into a rut.  I talked about how I needed to get out of that.  How I needed to escape the boring predictability of my life 6 months ago. 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him change his spots.  Err… mixed metaphors… lets try again.  Water floats to it’s own interesting times in the harbor whilst in calm waters, all boats show the same mastery at floating. 

Umm… 

You know what I mean.

We’re human beings. I’m a human being in my 40’s.  I naturally seek stability, routine and predictability.  I’m starting to get some of that here in Bangkok. 

Mind you, that stability is but a cardboard shield in the face of the frontal assault on my sense of normalcy that is living in Thailand (ahh… cardboard shield.. inventing NEW metaphors).

I can count on the doggies in the parking lot at dusk giving me some entertainment.  We call them ‘soi dogs’, with ‘soi’ meaning ‘street’… Street dogs.  Not soy dogs, that vegetarian treat.  Here, they bark furiously at the doggies on the other side of the fence in a battle of barkines,  all whilst wagging their tails.  I guess it takes the human observer to realize that the tail wagging means they’re having fun and aren’t that serious in the aggressive barking.  The soi dogs don’t see the humans all around them as part of their world.  They live in their own doggy world, seeking stability and normalcy in protecting their turf.