September 14th, 2018

Hey there,


Had a disturbing dream the other night.  Don't read a lot into my dreams, but this one shook me a bit.  In it, was in the kitchen and there were cockroaches everywhere.  Have been a bit more OCD than usual this week with regards to my cleaning regimens.

We don't see many of that kind of critter up on 16, but they can fly and with a nice updraft can easily make it up to our place.  Here is a blown up version...

That bad boy was on the balcony and they freak me out.  The shell is three times the thickness of an M&M.  Was on the street the other night and someone had left a big fluffy piece of cake on a bench and one of these things had burrowed its way inside and you could see both its ass out the side and its antennae sticking out of the top.  

Will get this out of the way...it was not over 100 degrees for two straight days.  Barely cracked 90 even.  It rained a lot, but as a true Seattleite went out into the fray.  Temps immediately went back up to well over 100 since and we still have a month of this weather, but those two days were glorious.  For me alone apparently.  Have spent the last few effin' hot days listening to people...my people... thankful we are back to the weather that warrants extreme heat advisory warnings.  Locals wear jackets when it is 110.  I am definitely in the wrong climate for my pH

Was out on the field the other morning and it was blisteringly hot when a lovely guy asked me how I was doing and responded reflexively "I hate this place".  I don't.  The people are lovely, it is safe (as long as you stay away from expats named Oz Diamond) and things are really easy as is evidenced by the annual review of countries for expats where Taiwan ranked #1 for quality of life.  I may have to check out this Ecuador.

Couple more local stories in the news to share.  Talk among the expat community since we've been back was about a couple of North Americans involved in a drug deal gone bad where a local was killed.  This story has everything.  Drugs, tattoo parlors, extradition treaties, even a decapitation.

There was also a well written story about Taiwan's single payer health care system that anyone with interest in what it may look like for the States should peruse.

Movin' on...are there any Catholics out there and if so, why?  Yuck...

Have said before how much I love digital picture frames and the one we had was an early generation that was not user friendly and could only hold 112 snaps.  It would crop or rotate those in bizarre fashion.  We upgraded this summer and the new one has a massive memory and works great.  Has a bunch of features that my pre-internet brain is having a hard time grasping, but the basic slide show is flawless and the picture definition is amazing.  Will often catch myself sitting mesmerized at the photos of people, places and plates of food.  Spent a couple hours going through our photos to pick out winners and found this one from our first year in Taiwan.  Babydoll was an eating machine at that time and wrote that the fridge was like her locker in magnetic letters,  Must have thought it funny enough to take a snap.

What is notable on that snap is that it was taken in the Spring of our first year here as the trip magnets were from our first X-mas vacation in Italy (magnetic Monet has been a part of the family for almost 20 years).  We have been travel monsters since and magnets have become one of our keepsakes.  This is what the refrigerator looks like today.

So many memories.  Told the kids they are gonna have to do a snake draft when mom and I pass to split them up coz we all have our favorites.  Every Picture Tells A Story.

Pinnacle Rod.  I repeat the line "My body stunk but I kept my funk" all the time.  Don't think you could get away with covering it these days though.  If you did, you'd have to be careful with this verse...

I moved right out east, yeah
On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry, sailing on my way back here
I fell in love with a slant-eyed lady by the light of an eastern moon
Shanghai lil never used the pill, she claimed that it just ain't natural
She took me up on deck and bit my neck
Oh, people, I was glad I found her

Finally for today, have been close to abandoning Facebook.  The whole ethical thing has been a bummer, but the real reason for considering saying goodbye is that the inane posts outweigh stuff that is interesting more and more.  However,  saw something this week that restored my faith in the medium and could be perhaps the greatest FB post ever.   Have copied it below but changed the person's name to FB lady and left out the photo.

"I got a free black sweatshirt from IBM at a conference yesterday so I decided to put it in my bag today to give it to a homeless person when I come across one. I saw this guy begging and he was wearing only a thin short sleeved undershirt on a cool day.

FB lady: Excuse me. Would you like a sweatshirt? It’s new.
Guy: yes yes! I’m cold.
(He puts it on and was so happy and excited he went to the window to look at his reflection)
FB lady: can we take a picture?
Guy: why would you want to take a picture with a homeless person?
FB lady: we are all the same.

When I had already crossed the street and looked back he had gone back to the window and was smiling at his reflection.

I do a lot of random acts of kindness and never post but my friends encourage I post to encourage and inspire others to do the same."

Wow.  Incredible, no?  For some context, I mentioned the high school sophomore girl that got shipped off to boarding school  last week?  Guess who the mom was.  She said in a previous post that her daughter begged to let her go away to school and can understand why.

The use of dialogue is one of the tropes I love to use from time to time.  Telling how she gave away a sweatshirt...a fucking free sweatshirt... as an example of one of the many random acts of kindness has to rank up there as one of the least self aware moments in FB history.  Betty was so inspired that she is going to take the toiletry kit from Business class and pass them out at a homeless shelter like she is Santa Claus.  Doing kind things when you can is most people's default mode right?  I don't look for a medal when I hold the door for the guy in the wheelchair/very able bodied hot chick, nor do I alert the media when donating to the Goodwill, but maybe I should?  How would God ever know?

Hard to pick a favorite line, but perhaps when she took the picture and when the guy asked why she wanted one with him and she said, "cause we are all the same" is mine.  You know she took it to post this shit.  Pure gold.