Daily Report: Old Places, New Faces

I started off the day nice and early, even though I had gotten to bed at about midnight last night. However, as I've never been able to get away with too little sleep, nap time arrived shortly after midday. I've had a bad week of work really, with 3 out of 5 days so far being rather substandard. Hopefully next week improves, as the upcoming paycheck includes my Christmas shopping and Philippines trip.

In the early evening, I sent Epril and Maid Go out to a little boutique that Epril has discovered (Milano, Pattaya Central Road, just west of Third Road, south side of the street) which is simply filled with really pretty dresses and accessories... staffed by a nice girl who really knows her fashion sense. Epril and I had seen a dress there yesterday for 2000 baht that I sent her back to buy today, along with shoes and a purse (4000 baht total).


Maid Lee and Epril.After Epril got back from shopping, she got all dressed up, and then we were out to Stan's house for cocktails. (We actually had to stop back by the boutique on the way to Stan's to learn how to tie the sash on Epril's dress: Neither Epril nor I knew how to tie a bow.) At Stan's, we saw that he had bought Maid Lee a rather fetching cocktail dress and was taking her with us out to dinner... which of course confirmed my suspicions: Stan has a new girlfriend. Stan had found a girl he liked in the Philippines, and had been trying to bring her to Pattaya, but after 4 months of her seeming to encounter all manner of ever-more-outlandish, ever-more-expensive-to-fix problems that kept her from coming to Thailand, Stan finally looked for domestic love. Maid Lee is a cute little lady whom Stan readily admits is "totally nuts". She does have quite a personality for such a little thing.

At 7:00, we went out to dinner at Hans, meeting up with Jeff and Lee there. After dinner, Epril and I went to TQ2 for a while, and chatted with Geordan and his lady friend, Pung. After that, it was off to Shooters for the first time in about 3 months. Ray is back in town and managing nightly at Shooters, and I met up with Bob there. Eric from Pittsburg showed up, and he brought along an interesting fellow named Thor, a local expatriate cartoonist from London, who describes himself as "a traditional British eccentric", which I thought quite apt. All of us sat around chatting for a few drinks before Epril and I called it a night well after midnight.