3 Ginger Snaps

This is a picture of the end of the security screening line for me right before I went through it for the third time today. I’ve never been so sweaty in an airport before. 

You see – today I tried to take a knife with me through security. Not just any knife. A treasured knife I’ve had for a long time and has been on many journeys. Security doesn’t care of course. They want the knife. Boots suggests I check the ukulele with the knife in the uke case. Brilliant suggestion. I grab my boarding pass and passport from Hil and head back to the checkin counter. There is pre security screening at the check in counter. I put the uke case and my back pack on the belt. Bolt to the other side of the baggage screener, grab the uke case, stand in line. Wonder where my backpack is??? The airport is super busy – I can’t seem to recall what I did with my back pack. I Conclude that I left it behind at security with hil and the kids. I check the uke case with the knife in it. Problem solved. Walk back through security to find hil and the kids. They don’t have my backpack. Uh oh. I have no idea where it is. It’s got my wallet. And a few other important items. Nothing critical. But nothing I really want to loose either. I hustle back to the check in counter. And now I am really sweating bullets. Yep. Left it at the pre screening. Fortunately my ID is in there and it matches my passport and the security person is very helpful and forgiving and everything that is supposed to be In the bag is still in the bag. My mind went totally missing for about 20mins today. And somehow, despite the fact that the Krabi airport was a total mob house – everything turned out fine. 

I relate this story because although we share the best of our life experiences here on this blog there are plenty of ugly, nasty, and unpleasant, dare I say even shameful bits we omit along the way. And social media lets us filter all that stuff at our own discretion. And that makes us feel good. But here is the sunburn that Charlotte got while snorkelling the other day. 

She says it feels like we could roast marshmallows on her back. 

And here are the pictures of the scrapes and bruises on Boots and Cate from when they had a bit of a tumble off their scooter. 

Boots’ foot after several cleanings

Cate’s thumb after several cleanings

Cate’s knee after we got all the gravel out of it and before the third round of hydrogen peroxide 

Me on the floor of the bathroom cutting Boots’ toenail off (it was barely hanging on) so that we could get the gravel out of the wound. That was fun. We poked a hole in the lid of a water bottle so that we could apply some pressure to the gravel. Worked well enough. 

Considering everything that could have gone wrong in the scooter incident, we were incredibly fortunate. Nothing broken. No punctures. Very helpful passers by. Everyone walking away under their own steam. And according to the locals we met, only a minor dust up by island standards. 

All things said and done, stuff goes wrong for us every day. Just like life anywhere else. The kids hit each other with the ornamental fans hil bought them because they were really interested in the fans they saw at the women’s museum in Ha Noi but now the novelty has worn off so they find a new way to use them. I blow my stack at Ruby because she says she wants to trade her new jade necklace in for a crumby plastic light up toy that the hawkers sell on the beach after dark. We disagree with each other about how much time can be spent on iPads. We cut snarky remarks at one another at the end of long travel days when we are tired and facing the reality of sleeping in an unfamiliar place. We wonder how life will play out when this glorious time together comes to an end and we have to formulate some new, and perhaps less glorious, adventure. 

Tonight we are in Bangkok and all our problems, quarrels, anxieties and neuroses are in Bangkok. Tomorrow we fly to Singapore and we are taking everything with us.

I don’t want to come off as negative or a synic. I’m just putting this stuff in here now because I want to remember all of it. I want to remember that we lived this experience together in the best way that we could as it unfolded. That we brought the first aid kit and the self help books and the water filter (although we haven’t used it yet) along for good reasons. And we got into and got out of some good scrapes.