Phrases

 Received a check a few months after it would normally have arrived. Person who sent it said he had a good excuse - he's lazy. I replied that I'd never thought about it once. And added:

Some Local Phrases

Sing ken ken. Balinese - no big deal

The rest are Indonesian

Tidak apa apa - no big deal

Jam karet - rubber time

Tidak terburu-buru - No need to hurry.

Santai saja - take it easy

Pelan pelan 

Slowly

The mirror opposite of Japan where the #1 word mothers said to children was reported to be:

Hayaku! - Hurry up.

Mouse R Us

We have a mouse in the house. For a long time. I see it now and then like if I get up before it's light and am sitting working in the living room I might catch it in the corner of my eye running along the base of the wall.  We learned we've got to keep the pet foot container lids on tight or she'll get in therm. She'll eat a little out of a banana sometimes so we've been keeping them in a hanging net. Our cat Kucita has killed a couple of mice. We've found the remains. She doesn't eat them like our cat in the US did. But recently she seems rather unconcerned and she's mainly at the neighbors anyway. Dogette Bandita has paid much more mind. She has gotten obsessed with the mouse. She'll sniff around, especially sticking her nose in under the stove. Sometimes she gets so worked up. She'll sniff here and there and run around and out the back pet door and back in as if she were chasing it.  I've seen her chase the mouse from the kitchen to the living room where mousy can dart under the couches. Sometimes Bandi will sit for hours staring at the stove or in that direction, waiting I guess for the mouse to appear. She was doing that the other day while I was doing dishes and I saw the mouse run from behind the fridge hugging the wall around the corner and toward the living room - going right by where Bandi was sitting and staring. Poor Bandi. She just doesn't have what it takes to get the mouse. That's okay with me. As long as there's just one mouse and she doesn't leave droppings anywhere or do any harm.

Inexcusable Absence

Pardon me for not posting here recently. I'm just focusing on getting this audiobook of Crooked Cucumber done and have had a hard time pulling away and a bunch of other stuff I feel compelled to do - like play a few games of Spider 2 solitaire - and doing podcasts. Today was the first Life in Bali mini-podcast called Katrinka's Earring. 

Life in Bali with DC

 That's the name of a podcast that just went up on Cuke Audio Podbean. No Guest. Just DC rambling on about podcast and home news and stuff about living here. Nothing earth shattering. A song at the end called Waiting for You.

Bill Gates says the obivous

 Solving Covid easy compared with climate

A brief meeting

Katrinka was walking with a friend on the way to the Power of Now yoga studio and at the point on the beachwalk where one goes on to the path to the  studio, they stepped aside so a man on a bike could go by. He deferred, saying, "Ladies first." Katrinka answered, "Thank god we're in Indonesia where you can say that."

Now of course I'm canceling her for being so insensitive and old-fashioned - until dinner that is.

My birthday gift from the Cosmos is:

Rather Occupied

Hi there. Last year I read all of Crooked Cucumber, a chapter at a time, in Cuke Audio podcasts. Those audio chapters contained many changes and fixes from the original book. I read from a text that has been updated and corrected through the years - especially in 2019 when I was involved with the Japanese translation. Bill Redican of Shunryu Suzuki verbatim transcript fame, then went over each chapter's audio and text and noted any and there many glitches and discrepancies and made minor editing and copyediting suggestions. Now I'm going over his notes, entering fixes to the audio and text, and cleaning up clicks and pops and unwanted sounds in the audio. This is slow going and tedious. What with all the other stuff I do, it's been hard to make much headway. So in order to get through this project more quickly, I'm practicing some cyber-austerity. There may be a dearth of posts in Cuke nonZense and Cuke What's New Blog. There may be fewer or shorter Life in Bali podcasts with fewer guests. I still want to have a Zen guest every week and will continue reading pieces from the work in progress, Tassajara Stories.  And there will still be the mini podcasts I suspect. We'll see. I never know what I will actually be doing next. Take care. - dc

Dr. Raya

 

Dr. Ida Ayu Narayani was a guest on our Life in Bali podcast for the third time yesterday. She's got some good things to say. 

From the Union of Concerned Scientists

 Each Country's Share of CO2 Emissions

Must have more Stuff!

  Prosperity comes at 'devastating' cost to nature - BBC Science

Rule Keeping Rule Breaking Countries and Covid 19

 Loose cultures have eight times the deaths of tight ones - Guardian - and then there's New Zealand which was elastic - it was loose and then tightened. 

Climate Crisis Messaging

I recently asked on Facebook for alternatives to calling climate change an "existential crisis" which to me doesn't connect well with those of us without college degrees and good book learning. As Rebecca Solnit pointed out, the Biden admin is doing a lot of good messaging such as focusing on Jobs, jobs, jobs. John Steiner sent my original message out and got some suggestions. Here's a good one from David Fenton of the Social Change Agency.

A great simple metaphor, proven and tested, is to say, “we have put a pollution blanket around the earth, which is trapping heat, melting ice, raising seas, flooding homes, and making storms and wildfires stronger. The good news is we know how to remove the blanket — by switching to clean energy. And we need to hurry.”