Air Dog

1381: The Peel Affinity

It's finally here! After years of work -- including many weekends in Haymarket, Virginia -- La Belle Compagnie's book, 1381: The Peel Affinity, is in print. Here's the official blurb:

1381: The Peel Affinity builds a portrait of a world long lost, using gorgeous photographs filled with carefully researched and reconstructed clothing, tools, armor, furnishings, and other items, all based closely on surviving artifacts, manuscript illustrations, and paintings. The text draws extensive details from historical accounts, records, chronicles, and literature, as well as modern historical and archaeological research. All this potentially dull and dusty detail is brought to vibrant life with a narrative that follows an English knight and family, his servants, officials and tenants, associates and soldiers through a year in their lives.

The Peel Affinity represents the culmination of years of work by La Belle Compagnie. Founded in 1992, La Belle is a group of independent scholars and history enthusiasts committed to the presentation of history through the medium of "living history." La Belle Compagnie has worked with schools, civic groups, museums, and other organizations to bring a bit of the past to life and has won numerous awards for its presentations. 176 pages, 163 color illustrations (Shumacher Publishing 2008)

Patrick got involved with La Belle back in the mid-1990s. Three of his close friends from university -- Eric, Alex, and Dori -- were charter members of the group and recruited him when we were living in Germany. Patrick developed a character for the group and participated in a couple of living history presentations, including the "Military Through The Ages" show at Jamestown, Virginia. La Belle is meticulous about its historical research -- this isn't some fantasy "Dungeons & Dragons" group. This is as real as they can make it.

When we moved to the U.S. for a year in 2004, work on this book was going full-steam. Patrick wanted to lend a hand, and Jennifer gamely agreed to pitch in, as well. Now she's on the cover! (Look closely at the nun on the right-hand side.)

We spent many a weekend dressed in the garb of the 14th-century, so it's great to see the book finally in print. It's already getting rave reviews in historical research and medievalist circles.

1381: The Peel Affinity is available (but out-of-stock at the moment) at Amazon, but you can also order directly from the publisher -- and see some sample pages -- at this site:

www.peelaffinity.com

We don't have our own copy yet, but we've put a few of the outtakes here so you can see what we were trying to do -- namely, put the reader right there in the middle of history.

So lace up your gambeson, pull on your gauntlets, and join us in the 14th century!

Happy New Year!

One year ago, we moved to Thailand! It's hard to believe we've been here a year already. We really enjoy living here.

Patrick took off some time from work, but we didn't go anywhere. Well, we did go one place -- we spent the first weekend of vacation at the Oriental Hotel, one of the top ten hotels on the planet. It was everything you could imagine it to be! We had high tea as a belated birthday celebration for Patrick, then spent the rest of our time lounging about, reading books, and just enjoying each other's company.




After our luxury weekend, we picked up our new little buddy and enjoyed spending more time together. During the first three months of this year, Patrick flew to the U.S. three times and Nepal twice, while Jennifer flew to the U.S. once and Bangladesh three times. We were very content to stay home!


We're just coming out of the celebration of Songkran, the Thai New Year. Actually, many cultures in this part of the world -- including Cambodia and Bangladesh -- celebrate the beginning of a new year around this time, when the the sun moves from Aries into Taurus, just as the hottest time of the year begins. In Thailand, the new year celebrations encompass five days and include "Elder's Day" on 13 April and "Family Day" on 14 April.

There are lots of traditional ways to ring in the new year properly. Many people make sure that they get out first thing in the morning to offer food to the Buddhist monks who come through the neighborhood. This is a sure way to make merit and bring blessings for the new year. Similarly, people buy and release captive birds and fish and bathe images of the Buddha with scented water.

Water plays a big part of the most visible part of modern Songkran celebrations. Traditionally, people gently sprinkled each other with water and smeared a paste of water and talc on their faces. This was a blessing -- and a way to cool off in the heat. Sprinkling and splashing water was also thought to bring on plenty of rainfall in the new year. Today, however, the gentle sprinkling has turned into all-out water wars. It can be fun if you're into it, but it can also be really annoying if all you want is to get to the grocery store.

This year we went to Thonglor, a neighborhood about 40 blocks down from our own, to walk around and enjoy the Songkran atmosphere. Our neighborhood, with its bars, nightclubs, massage parlors and "massage parlors," got really rowdy. Thonglor -- where all of the hip young Thais spend their time -- was much quieter and more polite. People are always happy to splash foreigners, but the revelers in Thonglor were gentle with us and careful not to splash Sarawat (who wasn't really into it).


All in all, a great way to finish off our first year in Thailand and start the next!

Nobody's Perfect

The first two times were great. Honestly. Two hours in the box the first night, no problem. Three-and-a-half hours a couple of nights later, also no problem.

Last night was different.


(If you look on the lower right, you'll see the Nylabone that was supposed to keep her occupied. Not as interesting as the foam cushion, I guess.)

Life with the Chief

We've had a few days here at home to get to know Sarawat. She's great! She fits so well into our life and home here in Bangkok.

She is a very cuddly dog. We tend to spend a lot of our time in the evenings sitting on two big pillows on the floor of our den, watching TV or just talking with each other. Within an hour of arriving at our place, she found a place between us on the pillows and snuggled in.

However, before we could do a lot of snuggling, we had to work on ticks. She’d been living outside at the SCAD adoption center, and like all of the dogs there, she had many ticks. The volunteers do what they can to keep the dogs tick-free, but it's a neverending battle. In the first 48 hours we must have pulled 50 ticks off of her. Her blood work showed that she is anemic, with a very low platelet count. That's almost certainly the fault of the ticks. Fortunately, she’s very good about lying still and allowing us to pull them off.


We'd been told that her foster owners from SCAD had allowed Sarawat to sleep in the bed with them. We weren’t keen on that, so we had two options for her -- either her crate or a dog bed at the foot of our bed. On her first night, she tried three times to get into bed with us. The third time, she leapt right between us and was already snuggled into the pillows before we could react. We held firm, though, and forced her off. At that point, she gave up and slept on her own bed at our feet. Since then, she’s been happy to sleep there and stay quiet until we decide to get up.

We walk her twice a day -- about 30-45 minutes in the morning and 45-60 minutes in the evening. The traffic around our neighborhood is terrible, but she's very good about listening to us and following our lead. We’ve had to be pretty creative about finding places where she can walk comfortably.


The Thais in our neighborhood are starting to recognize us. Women and children especially like Sarawat. A number of kids have come up to us to pet her, and Sarawat has been lovely with them. Our maid (who comes a couple of times a week) likes her, too, but she has one complaint: "She sleep too much."




She's not a perfect dog, of course. She can be little picky about what she eats, isn't so sure about mirrors and canals, and can be a little aggressive when meeting other dogs. However, all of this is stuff we can work through.

She can't wait for you to come visit!

Introducing ... Sarawat!

As most of you reading this know, we had a dog in Bangladesh named Bhagoban (Lucky). He wasn't the easiest of dogs to live with, but we really liked having him with us. Since he was used to being outside and hanging out with a crowd of Bangladeshis all day, we knew that he wouldn't be very happy in a high-rise apartment building here, so we decided to try to find a new home for him in Dhaka rather than bring him with us to Bangkok. True to his name, he was very lucky indeed to end up in a great new home. Jennifer was able to visit him a number of times on her trips back to Dhaka, and each time he was well-fed, clean, and very happy. He's surrounded by people who really seem to like him, and he has a big job to do -- namely, guarding everyone and everything at his place! -- so we're sure we made the right choice.

However, Bhago's departure left a gap in our home. We've debated filling that gap for most of the past year, and in the last few months we finally decided to take the plunge again. We thought we'd adopt Sam Liam (see "Dogs in Bangkok," below), but Carol, who runs the SCAD adoption center, asked us to take a look at Ngao (Shadow).

Her official bio read: "Ngao started life in a family home in an expensive Moo Baan (housing estate), where nearby SCAD is running a routine ABC project with one of SCAD's community dog aunties. According to the village security guards, three dogs were dumped early in the new year by two foreign families living in the Moo Baan who were leaving Thailand at the same time. They didn't dump them inside the Moo Baan, where they may have stood a chance, but outside on the edge of a major highway where the dog aunty found them cowering together in a drain, terrified and very hungry. She is already caring for dozens of dogs and her resources are stretched to the limit and the Moo Baan is not dog friendly to strays! The Moo Baan is expanding, so there is no safe place where the security guards could build a shelter and take care of these dogs. She knew they would be either attacked by the dogs outside or hit by a car and she was desperate for SCAD's help. They were admitted to the SCAD Centre on 22 January. Ngao has quickly become a big favorite with SCAD's volunteers and visitors. Around two years old, she's very friendly, smart and responsive without being demanding. She's fully housebroken and walks perfectly on a leash. Ngao tends to be dominant with other dogs, but is well socialized and understands how to find her place in a pack. An excellent all-around family pet!"

Carol said that she always expects to see Ngao wearing a policewoman's hat, because she patrols the shelter yard constantly and sorts out the fights the other dogs have over toys, food, etc. "OK, break it up, you two -- you go over there, you go over that way, you get the toy, you get nothing...." It's absolutely true -- during the hours we spent at the shelter, we saw all of this and more. What's funny about it is that, physically, she's not exactly intimidating:

What she lacks in stature, she makes up in self-confidence. She's bossy without being aggressive. You might say that she has ... a certain quiet authority.

It didn't take us long to decide that we wanted to adopt her. We picked her up on Tuesday, 8 April, and over the next week -- our vacation for Songkran (the Thai New Year) -- we're staying at home and getting to know her better.


The weekend before we picked her up, the people at SCAD took her for a routine blood test and final veterinary checkup. The volunteer who took her to the vet sent an SMS text message to Carol that read, "I think I have to kidnap Ngao. I luv her! sitting up like lady muck on the front seat taking everything in -- what a great dog!" So, yeah ... we’re pretty excited to have her.

We have, however, decided to change her name. The Thai volunteers at SCAD's health center pick the names for the dogs when they come in, usually based on their appearance. Ling looks like a monkey. Nampung is honey-colored. Sam Liam has a triangle on her nose.

Ngao was named because she quietly follows people around -- like their shadow. While it's a nice name for that reason, we didn't think it quite fit her. She doesn't just follow people. She conducts surveillance. And, of course, she's white -- how many white shadows have you seen?

Still, we liked the idea of a Thai name for a Thai dog. (Not that we know she's Thai. To be honest, she looks like some sort of ghetto terrier-corgi mix from the back alleys of Glasgow, but we won't tell her that.) After much debate, we decided to name her Sarawat. What the heck does that mean, you ask? Well, "sarawat" is Thai for "chief police inspector." We figured that matched her personality pretty well, and while Thailand isn't known for having many female chief police inspectors, there's always a first time for everything. (And it's easy to pronounce: "Sara" (like the girl's name) plus "Watt" (like the measure of electricity), with the stress on "Watt").

We're very excited to have Sarawat as part of our household, and you can be sure you'll be reading more about her here in the months to come!

Dogs in Bangkok

Bangkok is full of stray dogs. It seems that every temple, construction site and neighborhood 7-11 has at least one or two strays roaming around. The stray dog population here is estimated to be around 300,000.

Many of the strays in Bangkok are neighborhood "pets" -- they don't belong to any one family in particular, but often whole neighborhoods will put out scraps for the animal. We've seen street food vendors and construction workers hand out snacks for strays in their neighborhood. It's not unusual to see stray dogs in Bangkok wearing collars. This is Luong (not sure what that means -- we call him "Fat Dog"), who is the mascot of the motorcycle taxi guys who work our street.


Other strays -- especially those at temples -- are dumped there by people who are disposing of unwanted family pets or neighborhood pests. Buddhist teachings about the sanctity of life dissuade people from killing them (or having them spayed or neutered), so they decide to throw them over the wall of the local temple for the monks to deal with. The monks don't much like having them around, but are willing to leave the dogs alone to hang out.


SCAD, or Soi Cat & Dog Rescue (www.scadbangkok.org), in Bangkok is one of the leading stray animal rescue organizations here. They're not primarily an adoption agency -- most of their work is dedicated to animal birth control (ABC) work. There's no way a single organization could find the money or the space to take all of the thousands of stray dogs and cats who roam Bangkok 's streets.

So SCAD's primary mission is to take these animals from their neighborhoods, inoculate and neuter them, and put them back. However, every once in a while they'll take cats and dogs in for adoption. Usually they're puppies and kittens whose mothers have been killed (usually after being hit by a car or being poisoned) and who are too young to live on their own.

Back in February, Patrick travelled to the U.S. for business. A couple of weeks before his trip, he called SCAD to see if they had any dogs who needed a ride. SCAD's "Hearts & Hounds" program has agreements with shelters in the U.S. and Canada that are willing to take dogs from Bangkok who need homes. SCAD and an agency in the Washington, D.C. area agreed that Sua (Tiger) would be a good candidate to fly to the U.S.



Last year he'd been hit by a car and was paralyzed. Over the last few months he made a seemingly miraculous recovery and now walks normally. So, Patrick was Sua's escort to his new home country. A lady from Lost Dog and Cat Rescue in Washington , D.C. met Patrick at Dulles International Airport to take Sua and help him find his forever home.

When Patrick was working with SCAD on the paperwork for Sua's transfer, we both had a chance to visit SCAD's adoption center. Jennifer had already planned on doing some volunteer work there once her World Bank contract was up. Here are some of the characters we met (photos in this section courtesy of SCAD, used without permission):

Ling (Monkey) is a great guy! Beautiful to look at, friendly, rambunctious and playful -- a real dog's dog. Unfortunately, Ling needs a big yard with lots of room to romp.


These three siblings (Goolap (Rose), Nampung (Honey), Ngaa (Sesame)) arrived together and charmed everyone at the center. They're a great set.




Sam Liam (Triangle) is a lovely, quiet puppy with extremely soft fur. If you put a cat's brain into a dog's body, you might end up with Sam Liam.


Finally, there's Mot Daeng (Red Ant). You remember the "weird kid" in school, the one who ate too much paste and always wanted to be in every picture? That's Mot Daeng.


The other dogs don't really like her, but to be honest, she brings it on herself. No one can chew on a leaf or sit in a shady spot without Mot Daeng coming over to chew or sit, too. We feel sorry for Mot Daeng, but ... just like the weird kid, do you really want her coming over to your house every day?

We have had so much fun playing with dogs and talking with the SCAD volunteers. Check out the website and be amazed at what a few dedicated people can do!