December 2, 2006
Last night we went out to dinner for Lung Song’s last day at starfish.  In a way it was sad, but he didn’t quit, he was fired.  Last month he was driving in his sparatic crazy way and ran into a woman on a motorbike.  As soon as he hit her he said Mai bin rye!  No problem.  Well it was a problem in someone’s mind, like the woman, and Dick who fired him.  Regardless we celebrated his last day and it was a celebration, not a sad dinner.

I will say that for the first time I felt like I was eating Thai spicy food.  I thought it was spicy as I started eating, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  Then I ate the chili.  I didn’t mean to, but it was a little green bean looking thing hidden in a mound of greens.  This was way beyond the mouth hurting spice.  My conscience was effected.  I stopped eating and just sat there as my whole head buzzed.  I drank all of my beer and water trying to get a little relief in my mouth, but it only lasted a moment.  I am amazed that chili can cause vertigo.  I was mildly disoriented, and this is all from one of the smallest peppers I have seen.  Regardless I was feeling like a major lightweight with my spice tolerance.  Then of course May Noi, on of the cooks sitting next to me said prick, spicy, prick.  Yea yea it is hot.  Then all of the Thai staff looks over at me and laughs about how I think the food is really hot.  It wasn’t the food in total (which was quite hot) it was the pepper I ate whole.  After a while May Noi started reacting to something.  What she thinks the peppers are hot too?  Interesting.  She ate a pepper whole too and reacted more than I did.  That was the perfect opportunity for me to both sympathize and point out that it wasn’t because I am an American, it was because the peppers are really really spicy.  We all had a good laugh again, and I felt like part of the group.