Thursday Collage

Sweet, succulent, smooth, slippery like an eel orangey-yellow mango.

The first words I said to the first three co-workers I saw in response to their, "How are you?"s was "Hot," wipe sweat, "Hot," pull sticky shirt away from body and fan myself, "Hot."

Eating dark and light purple, thick grains of moist rice with my veggies and omelette feels as wholesome as eating wheat bread chock-full of oat and nuts.

Wide-eyed, blonde haired European kiddos on the Sky Train with their backs facing the riders, knees on the yellow with black speckles seats, peering out the windows in awe at the stern skyscrapers, long-forgotten gratified buildings, haphazard construction sites for new condos, and forlorn concrete lots.

I pondered today about how the red shirts are protesting the government for the people and in December the yellow shirts were protesting the government for the people too. I wondered if I should write a blog about it, but decided it's too complex to get into for a Thursday afternoon.

Smiling about the delicious Italian gelatto I ate last night with my friends, one Korean, one Thai, and one Vietnamese-American, in a Thai shop in which there was a cut-out bear display with Japanese gummy bears. What a mingling of cultures.

Still dreaming of the six scoops of gelatto: chocolate brownie, ferro rocher, kiwi apple, yogurt berry, cappuccino, strawberry. Decorated with waffle crisps, strawberry and chocolate syrups, apple slices and cashew nuts.

The gelatto made me hunger for Italy. I long to be sipping a perfect cappuccino at a dainty cafe on the streets of Florence while a cute old man with a beret plays his accordion in the square.

But focus...savor the mango, heat, rice, wonder, politics, and cosmopolitan life that make up the unique collage of my Thai days.