Agatha came in and announced that the dinner would ready soon.Coming through the door, just as we were sitting down, was a Mabel's father, Henry. He w...s a bland, ordinary-looking man. It made me wonder what he did to snag such a hot woman like Agatha.I ate one of the most delicious meals of my life. Now don't get me wrong, my mom is great cook. But she doesn't hold a candle to Mabel's mom. Eating this great food must explain Mabel's pot belly. Both women shrugged it off as being nothing. She didn't speak English but spokesoftly to my Thai contact who was quite proficient in English and otherlanguages. This woman, he told me, had once been a man. She was from the isolatedMong tribe high in the mountains of Laos. It seems that the tribe hadsome sort of cultural dictate over who would be male and would befemale. But the strange part was that it didn't seem to be some pagancastration story. Whatever it was, if Lei Wa was telling the truth,this custom seemed to operate right. He decided to change the focus as hecontinued, "However you can see by the lines on the x-ray here that hisbones still haven't quite fused, so I think the loss of up to another 3to 4 inches is likely. That would put him at the height of a four yearold, and it will almost certainly be permanent. On top of that hisweakened muscles mean he will almost always have bladder problems, but Ithink there may be hope for him to avoid messing himself through the dayand night over time. However we can't be. I got out of the car, grabbed my bag and a pair of sunglasses, and went to find a spot in an open area of grass.I laid out my blanket and sat down to eat one half of the sandwich. If anything, the views had improved compared to my visit the last time through. There were several groups of young ladies using the park to catch the sun. One group of six girls and only two guys even had a volleyball net set up. I should have worn shorts. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of playing in jeans while.