May 15, 2013

When the calendar turned over into May, the weather started to get sticky hot again.  On a "clear" day, you really can't see the sky as the humidity and pollution combine to give the visual effect of a really dirty steam room.  Even the afternoon rain showers don't cool it off for long and the sweat river running down my back, and into the Chatahoochee canal,  flows non-stop.  And it doesn't get much better when the sun goes down, routinely waking up to go pee only to come back to feel the sheets wet from a puddle of sweat.  Am up to two body temperature lowering/sweat cleaning showers a day and they don't seem to be able to wash off the BO for long.  It hasn't even hit the unbearable stage yet but the kids and I are very much looking forward to the apartment pool opening in June, and hitting the road to the states on June 8th.  So for those of you keeping score, totally avoid Taipei June-September, with October/November and March/April being the sweet spots. 

Carolyn's Sunday soccer games, which started in October and are nearly every week, finally ended, so we took the opportunity of a free day with mom in town to go see something new.  Had heard about Yehliu Geopark from a few peoples, so decided to check it out.  About an hour north of Taipei on the coast, it's a spit of land that has some interesting rock formations due to erosion (wind and water).  The linked website claims it is "one of the most famous wonders of the world", but we had never heard of it before.  They did have a rock shaped like a slipper

And a piggy snout

This is supposed to be some kind of bird

 Pretty cool way to spend an afternoon, but world famous? 

A bit further down the peninsula was a cave

As is my tradition, left my scent for the rest of the animal kingdom to enjoy.

WARNING!  The rest of this entry is going to get into some pretty graphic potty talk, so if that ain't your thing, please skip to the next entry. 

Yes, peeing in exotic places is one of my "things".  Not proud of it, just kinda takes over my mind, body and soul.  Betty posted the above picture on Facebook and our friend Laurie offered to share the photo from my last night at college.  This is one of the events from that time that always seems  to get brought up whenever two or more of us get together.  It was my last night in DC after graduation (I graduated in January, so was the only one leaving town), and a pile of us went out drinking.  Drinking age in DC when we went there was 18 (how great was that), so we had the bar hopping thing down by senior year.  Not a lot is remembered about that night, I do recall finishing the night off at the Charring Cross before heading back to the group house a lot of us shared for a night cap.  My flight out the next morning was at 8AM and remember puking for the bulk of the flight home.  A couple months later, Laurie calls me up and said she just got her film (this is '87, you had to wait to see your snaps, the youngsters can look up the word "film" on the Internet) back from that night and there is a picture of me half naked (the wrong half), standing in the shower peeing on her vacuum.  I later saw the photo and you can see the stream from me hitting the vacuum.  Quite a good shot actually.  The photographer remains anonymous. 

As I reflect on this personal affectation, I was thinking this was the initial episode, but then remembered another story that gets tossed around every time the family gets together.  It seems as a young child (6ish), I enjoyed peeing on/in things around the house.  For some reason, the curtains in my room were a favored target.  In later years, when I was around 20 or so, during some family function my mom decided to talk about the day she discovered this particular peccadillo.  I felt it was time to come clean about another place that I liked to urinate, and that was in a decorative brass bucket/urn that was in the living room.  Horrified, and unaware this was also defiled a decade previously, she ran to the bucket to investigate.  While the liquid had evaporated long ago, its residue had tarnished the brass into a (rather attractive) green mold/mildew.  My dad bought that bucket on a trip to Japan years previously and was quite nice, so she cleaned it up and put it back in its location.  Years later, as she was moving out of the family home into a small apartment, it was a piece that I knew I had to have, and it now sits in our living room as a totem to this simpler time.

 

Completing today's body function jag, the toilets here are a revelation.  Am not talking about squat pots, which are barbaric and are thankfully working their way out of this society, but the Western style.  Remember the below"do/don't" sign posted in bathrooms around town (funny in so many ways), and the second on the right helps inform people that are used to squat pots not to use the western toilets as you would a squat pot.


And what the hell are they fishing for in a toilet by the way?  Makes you think twice about ordering the seafood special. 

I'm not a toilet engineer so cannot say how they designed it, but am amazed that they have developed a toilet that seems impervious to being clogged.  No matter how much paper is needed, or how large the movement is, it just never gets stopped up.  I have a long history of plugging a drain, and Paul must have inherited this gene as he is also more than capable of doing so as well, but we have not managed to clog it once in 11 months.  While they must exist, have never stumbled across a plunger being sold at any store.  Kudos to the locals for their ingenuity.

The only drawback to this toilet, and is probably due to the above flow-through technology, is that you can never see your feces in the bowl.  Dating back to the college days and hanging out at my buddy Matt's apartment, examining one's output has been a...let's call it a hobby...of mine.  We didn't always eat very healthily in those days. Add to that some borderline alcoholism, and we would produce some pretty scary bowel movements.  In a way, I think we were subconsciously looking at them to make sure we had not done damage to our insides.  Kind of a self diagnosis, but we would often be so amazed at what we left in the bowl that we would call to each other to come look, and marvel, at it.  This habit has followed along to this day and cannot resist taking a peek at what's what after using the commode, but it has been some time since I've been able to check it out due to these toilets.  I know that we were not the only ones with this affliction as there is a website called Rate My Poo, where people submit photos and name their excrement for others to rate and comment.  Always a favorite site for the kiddies.  I am not an exhibitionist and have never submitted, but it is good to know that I am not alone. 

I knew you would stay with me even though I warned you about the poopy talk, but know you are still sorry you did.  And if you want to check out Rate My Poo, you can do it here.