the other passenger

Hello there faithful reader,

I am not sure who you are since you've been chinchy on the posts, but whatever I guess you are out there.

This week in order to continue the celebration of my 22nd year of vida and to feel clean again I took the plunge and joined a gym. True Fitness to be exact and it's glorious. Hot, clean showers, free soap, toilet paper, shampoo, water....man it's heaven. Seriously I have not felt as clean as I did when I left Waco until now. Thus far I've been 3 times, the one I actually joined is currently under construction and I have guest passes to the other branch. So yea, it just gets better. There is just something so wonderful about being in a room lit by neon lights, jammin' to funky techno remixes, with 20 other people pedaling as hard as you can on a stationary bike, while following the instructor who might be into the music a little to much as he saddle slaps his legs (I think its a universal sign for "faster"). Simply superb.

In other news, earlier today, prior to the joys of the gymnasium I (along with Christina) took our daily taxi ride from our school to the BTS (above ground metro). Fridays in Bangkok are similar to any other major cities, in that traffic is insane, especially after a hard rain like today. So we are sitting in our cab venting to each other about the recent rebuke received from our principal that we are using the copying machine too much (another story), when Christina starts laughing uncontrollably. Between her giggles she manages to tell me that the driver is doing something shady (way to common for comfort), and then proceeds to tell me in Spanish (our code talk) that there is an animal in the taxi with us. I try to get a peek between the driver set (which i am sitting behind) and the set beside him, I can only see the console and his hands, with EXTREMELY long and thick nails on them stroking something. My first thought was "oh it must be a ferret." Clearly a sensible pet to have in a cab. But no, I get a better look and I see...it's a pigeon. Yes, a dirty bird that should remain in parks was sharing the 45 minute cab ride with us. Again, as it happens hmmm maybe 50 times a day, I am faced with a choice: get grossed out or laugh, get mad or laugh, get freaked out or laugh, get frustrated of laugh, get (you name the emotion) or LAUGH. My tickle box floweth over. I've laughed in so many non-funny situations in the past two months that its clearly makes a strong argument for my life being a comedy. I mean really, a live pigeon sitting on the console. It gets better though, as the moments pass it starts flapping its winds and moves to the dashboard. At which time Christina pulls out her workout t-shirt to shield herself in case it decides to fly to the back seat. I make the hasty choice to use my hands to cover my eyeballs first, since they would be most damaged by bird pecking. The pigeon flaps, the driver chills, we laugh. The pigeon poops (3 times), the driver opens his glove compartment pulls out some tp and cleans it up. We decide we for sure have avian flu and call it a day, or better yet a week. And what a week it has been, so many more stories, but that will have to suffice for tonight. Tata.