I am swimming through layers of bliss this morning.

After twenty-four long hours, a lay over in Seoul, and a forty-five minute drive in darkness, we arrived at the Riva Surya Hotel somewhere in Bangkok.  Even though it was almost 1:00 am Bangkok time, at least a half of dozen people greeted us, served us delicious, ice cold jasmine and lemongrass tea, carted our bags to our room, and repeatedly asked if there was anything else we needed.  A warm shower – almost better than sex after that long on a plane – and seven hours of not quite solid sleep later, I am sitting in an open-air restaurant on the banks of a river whose name I do not know eating the most spectacular breakfast I can remember.  It is the food, above everything else, the first bite of the purple-rind dragon fruit, that opens my interior eyes and announces, you are not in Kansas anymore Toto.  To paraphrase Confucius, the journey of ten thousand miles begins with food. 

Shout out to my high school bro, he knows who he is, for the best international flights I have ever taken. One more shout out to my incredible Meg, who, after dinner on our last night in Seattle, managed to diffuse an escalating situation, when, thanks to my muddled brain, we discovered that our flight the next morning departed at 11:55 am and not 5:55 pm as I had told Melissa. This is something I grudgingly admit I am prone to doing.  I have other talents, really.  This just is not one of them.  

Biting her tongue to keep from telling me what I already knew, Melissa scrambled to finish packing. She had worked all week.  I had not.  My screw up scrambled her timetable and nerves.  Meg waltzed into our bedroom and announced, “I am here to relieve the tension.  I may or may not have had a second glass of champagne.”  And just like that, the tension dissolved.

Final shout out to my friend Abraham.  Thanks for the champagne.  Who knew it had such medicinal value?