harper says

I often feel that we’ve become stunningly detached from nature as human beings.  I think our natural instincts and…for many of us…our muscles have atrophied!  We float way above our natural origins in our cozy made up environments.

I was recently getting a pedicure, and the woman who was painting my toes mentioned that my feet were so soft and free of calluses that she suspected I just floated above the ground instead of walking.  While that is kinda funny, it does showcase my modern day passtimes, and it did pop into my mind while conceptualizing this illustration.  Its true…I don’t do much walking around barefoot on pebbles….my feet spend most of their time tucked into tennis shoes or curled up underneath me while working. 

The most gorgeous toilet I have ever seen.   Bigger than most NYC apartments!  This was a public bathroom for a restaurant.

While we were exploring the neverending maze that is Chatuchak market, we stumbled upon the pet section.  Do they really think that painting the cages pink will make it any less sad to see a bunny confined in such a small space!?

Requisite novel reading by the pool.

We donated some money to a Thai Temple and bought a ceramic tile to write our names on.  Somewhere in Thailand our names will become part of a new temple roof.

A very common tradition in Thailand.  Most everyone buys fresh jasmine wreathes and various lucky or blessed rear-view mirror bling for safe and swift travel on the Thai roads.  This was taken inside a minibus.

I did these business cards for a friend of mine last month.  I just got some copies of the cards in the mail today, and I like how they turned out.  I think its important for people (specifically fashion people) not to take themselves too seriously!

If you’re in the NYC area and are in need of a fashion forward eye, email me and I’ll give you her contact info (which I omitted from this view of the card…I wouldn’t want her overrun with random callers!)

‘dream boat’

Some experimenting with collage and simplicity - or complexity.  You pick.

I came home from vacation last week to find the final printed version of my latest project in the mail!  This newest educational guidebook published by Generation Yes is a Science Guide, meant as a learning companion for middle school science labs across the U.S.  I also worked on their previous Tech Yes Student Guide, which was built upon in style/layout for this newer version.  It was lots of fun!  I got to ‘go to work’ all day drawing funny amoeba like creatures, birds, rockets and other cool stuff all day long - sending all my finished files at the end of the day to the talented Katherine McHale, who arranged my illustrations into her design layout.  If only I got to play/work like that on a regular basis!

Below are a sampling of some of my favorite pages:

Though it may make some well up with disdain, I can’t help but share the awesomeness of our hotel bungalow at the Sofitel.  We’ve kept the budget pretty practical…but decided to stay here in the lap-o-luxury for a few nights before heading back to the United States, where we will have to reacquaint our noses with the grindstone.

This bungalow on the beach has its own pool and an outdoor bathtub filled with frangipane flowers.  It also comes decked out with daily replenished fresh fruit and orange juice, plus a license for hedonism!

I’ve spent a lot of time by our pool reading and having a swell time.  We’ve eaten really well - from mushroom soup to die for from the italian spot down the street, to the real good and real cheap local food restaurants which can be found by the dozens down many a charming street in this popular beach town south of Bangkok.

I don’t really want to think about going home : (

We attended a beach wedding last Thursday for a friend of the family who’s name is also Kirsten.  Her parents, like mine, were teachers in the Congo in the 80’s.  How opportune it was that we just happened to be in Thailand for the occasion! 

The ceremony took place in the afternoon in a grove of palm trees next to the beach.  It had been raining all afternoon…then stopped…then started raining again as soon as everyone thought it was safe to start the ceremony!  We all huddled under umbrellas as they exchanged vows.

We broke for a few hours of relaxing while the beach tables, chairs and large pots of orchids and palm fronds were set out for the evening reception.  Luckily by then all the rain had stopped and the dusk temperature was perfect.  We all toasted with Kir Royales and ate chicken satay with peanut sauce and other tasty Thai dishes.  The whole scene was lit with tiki torches and the green glow of squidding boats anchored close to shore.

After the meal we all began lighting special paper lanterns used in Thai celebrations (particularly Loy Kratong which takes place in November) and let them float up into the atmosphere over the ocean.  We lit so many, they eventually looked like a constellation of stars sitting high in the sky.  It was a really cool wedding.

1) Extreme optimism in load-bearing machinery

2) Limitless incarnations of snack food - unidentifiable yet so tasty!

3) A prevalent Thai phrase, “Mai Pen Lai”, translated roughly as “Ehh, everything’s cool” or “It’s alright” or “Life goes on”, distilled in this free-form staircase landing at a monestary in rural Thailand.

As an American without health insurance, I’ve experienced first hand how difficult it is to take care of one’s health with a system like ours.  Like most of us, I will only go to the hospital if there is something really, really wrong that I can’t avoid visiting the hospital for (a.k.a - taking the serious financial hit).  Of course…this is the crux of the problem!  If all Americans were able to go in for yearly physicals with bloodwork and the whole 9 yards, would as many people be forced to visit the emergency room with problems they had no way of knowing they could prevent?

In the past, I’ve had some experiences with the American healthcare system that have seriously soured me to setting foot in U.S. hospitals at all.  

Then there’s Bamrungrad International hospital in Bangkok.  Newsweek magazine recently named it the best hospital in the world and more and more middle class Americans are making the long journey to Bamrungrad for surgery of all kinds. Its so much cheaper to have involved surgery here that the airfair and a week or more of recooperation on some Thai beach is still cheaper than to have the surgery alone done in the states.

Jason and I just had full physicals at Bamrungrad, and I must say its very civilized.  We didn’t wait more than 20 minutes to see specialists, and at the end of the bloodwork, EKG, ultrasound and chest x-ray, we got all the results bound in a nice book.  And I could afford it, which is saying a lot.   Jason also had a couple of wisdom teeth pulled…and it cost him a fraction of the U.S. price.

So one of the pictures below is a hotel lobby in Bangkok.  The other is a picture of a waiting room at Bamrungrad.  Can you guess which one is which?

Last Monday evening we took off from the United States and flew to the other side of the globe!  We stopped briefly in Alaska (to refuel, I guess) before resuming the gruelingly long flight to Thailand.  We stopped early in the morning in Taipei, Taiwan to change planes…and I was amused to discover that a few of the boarding gates were decked out in a Hello Kitty motif!

We arrived in Thailand’s newly minted airport at around 11:30 AM on Wednesday.  We wisked through immigration and picked up our bags on the carousel and went to meet my father and stepmother at the arrivals hall. About 10 minutes into the drive by minivan to their neighborhood, the van suddenly lost momentum and began making a very strange noise.  Then the driver nervously imparted that there were no longer any breaks, and finally the minivan wheezed to an abrupt stop in the middle of four lanes of crazy Bangkok highway traffic!  A van hit us from behind, though not very hard…and then there we were, marooned like a traffic island with two lanes of cars squeezing past on either side of us.

After a call to the tow company, we hailed a passing cab which pulled in front of the steaming minivan to let us in, and we were again on our way. 

That afternoon I had a 2 hour massage which cost all of $9 US, and we were very very very tired trying to stay up until at least 8:30 PM so as to avoid jet lag.