How little can we excercise

 Neat CNN health clip

Gerhana Purnama

A lot of wonderful celestial objects like stars and planets are blocked from view where we live due to trees and buildings and clouds. Two nights ago Katrinka could see the full moon through the branches and leaves in eclipse from our tiny back open space. She came upstairs and called me from the studio. Couldn't see it from the back porch there which affords the widest view. But from the small second story front porch edge there it was - for her - I had to crouch down or the roof would conceal it. She said she could smell the sea in the cool breeze. Yes.

Another Exciting Science Article

 

World at risk of hitting temperature limit soon - BBC Science report

I love a good Science article

 I go to the Science sections of BBC and/or Guardian in the morning after a brain-cleansing game of Spider 2. After science I glance at the news and move on to what I call work which these days is getting the 2nd edition of Crooked Cucumber audiobook ready to publish and the text updated for the record. Later I take breaks for email and Facebook and don't linger on either - just tend to what needs tending. I don't read or read into any article if I can help it but today this science article caught me: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/22/theoretical-physicist-chiara-marletto-the-universal-constructor-could-revolutionise-civilisation

Prayer Flags II

 

Here's Nyoman putting them up.

Prayer Flags

Nyoman hung our Tibetan Prayer flags back up today. Maybe that's the last bit of getting things back in order from the family room construction and studio upgrade project. The flags were gifts from Shayna and Jason. Took a photo of Nyoman on a ladder getting them just right to standards set by Katrinka. They're so beautiful. No color fade cause they're not in the sun. 

Drinking Warm Water

 Right after arriving in Bali a savvy masseur told me to drink hot water every morning first thing. I've done it just about every day since then - warm to hot. I'm served warm water when I go to the Penni Wenni Salon. I've noticed Chinese descent people are often into warm water. This was really driven home in Kuala Lumpur seven years ago. Katrinka and I had become friends with some engaged Buddhists that Alan Senauke had turned us on to--Wai Leng and Vidya. They arranged for us to get a good rate at a Portman Hotel. KL has generally quite moderate prices to begin with. It was a pretty snazzy place. Wai Leng, Vidya, and their kids all came to the hotel to join us in the lounge in the afternoon. Wai Leng's brother was a ranking executive with the hotel chain so his joining us was a big deal at the hotel. And what did he have us all served for our get-together? Warm water in nice cups. That was it.

House moving

 We just felt an earthquake. I was upstairs and could feel the house swaying a little. It was a 5.7 in East Java about 180 miles from Sanur.

UFOs

 UFOs been in the news recently and MSN main stream news is taking it more seriously and Obama spoke about it and many are going ah so well maybe there is something to it and stuff like that and it all seems so weird to me because since I was about ten I've read and heard about UFOs, some not credible but most seemed pretty credible and it always seemed so weird that it was a taboo to add up all the credible stuff and say yeah something's happening that we can't do or even get close to doing and through the decades the reports and stories have overall had a good deal of similarity and there's tons of it. I've met so many people who had quite unexplainable away sightings, some rather close. If this is beings from afar checking up on us which is what it seems to be to me and again with lots of what seems to me to be credible reports, then it seems to me that what we've experienced so far is likely how close we're gonna get. Seems to me they're just gonna watch us destroy ourselves. Long ago I decided that UFOs have no more to do with my conscious life here than Sci Fi. I do like some Sci Fi. Maybe there's some sort of commonwealth of beings with technology able to go vast distances quickly in ways we've not imagined and it seems they're benign. Doing no harm. But I can't help but thinking they know better than to try to help, that only those planets with beings that evolve on their own beyond war and craziness can join the commonwealth and those that don't evolve that way will either destroy themselves or stay anchored in lower forms of technology and be no threat. They can only become a threat if that technology is given to them while they're still warlike and crazy. Don't worry. We can always be reborn in more promising environs.  

Le Mayeur Museum in Sanur

 A neat almost forgotten funky museum on the beach, once the home of the Belgian artist it's named after. Here's a link to a page for him on Wikipedia. You can see more about it by searching for Le Mayeur Museum and if you just search for images you'll get an eyeful. Next time I'm down that way I'll duck in. they also have nice antique rooms to rent. It cost less than a buck to get in last time I went. - dc 

Piped In

I look words and phrases up a lot to see where they come from or exactly what they mean. We say a lot of things and know what they mean but not maybe exactly what they mean or what their etymology is. I just used the phrase "piped in" to mean to contribute something to a conversation and I see it as a conversation that one is mainly just listening to. That's how I see it. So I wrote "I piped in" and stuck it on the URL line of Chrome and what came up first contained an example that was most interesting.:

Water Filter

There's a tiny coffee nook around the corner called Wakoka, run by Wayan (the Wa) with occasional help from his brothers Komang (ko) and Kadek (ka). He lives two houses down on the corner of our gang and the two lane street. Wakoka is carved out of the entrance to his home which is on the two lane street. We by Nazava water filters for local people close to us so that they can stop buying drinking water. They have a charcoal filter inside a clay filter in the top part and a spigot in the bottom one. Jeroen brought one over for our gardener who kept not taking it. He was here a couple of days ago hustling some plants on us that I paid too much for probably. We usually buy anything he brings. He's one of the only people I actually barter with because he's such a hustler and can't stop being a hustler. I call him Made Gangu. Only behind his back. Gangu meants to pester or bother. So I was trying to explain how the filter works and how to take care of it and he said he didn't need those parts. He just wanted the containers. I told him we haven't bought water in seven years but nope. He could only think of them as free buckets. He just didn't get it. So I said never mind and took it over to Wayan at Wakoko who got it after a minute. Told him to use the first batch to water the plants.  He liked the idea of getting free drinking water from the faucet. He filled it with a hose that's right by the entrance. I told him it was originally intended for our gardener but that he was just too kampung, too country. It's really hard to get local people and foreigners to trust anything but bottled water. Easier with city folks. But then they've got to clean the filter when it gets slimy, usually about once a week - can do that with your hands in a minute. First two we gave away they forgot to clean and the filters got too much caked on them that got too hard to clean so gave them new filters and that was years ago. Jeroen who distributes them has placed thousands of them in villages, giving a demonstration of how to take care of them to large groups. He gets donations, funding for that. I wonder what percentage of them are used as buckets. 

Harambee Arts

Gloria Simoneaux's Harambee Arts in Kenya and Nepal, dealing with serious issues, helping women and children through art therapy. 

I first met Gloria in 1972 at Tassajara. So impressed with what she has done with Harambee /Arts. - dc

Big Shot Serendipity

Katrinka and I were talking about what we'd do if we somehow had millions of dollars. How would that change our life. She guessed it would be pretty much the same except she'd not worry so much about the cost of flying home to see family. First class I asked? No - business class. That's good enough. I told her how our friend John Sumser when riding high on the Internet bubble used to fly first class. Once while doing so he said to a man near him, "Ah - there's nothing like first class." The man said, "It's good but Airforce Two is better." "You rode on Air Force Two?" "Yes, I'm Spiral Agnew. I used to be Vice President of the United States." 

Katrinka said she had only met a candidate for president - George McGovern. I said oh that tops Agnew. McGovern was great. She said he dined at the Capri in Tiburon when she was manager and that he was so kind and genuine. "Too nice to be elected president." 

Not Good to Hear

 Our visa agent Made came for a visit. Katrinka and I sat with him drinking some sencha from Japan. He's a rare Bali vegan. No sugar either. I walked him to the gate and as he mounted his orange motorbike, said he was off  to Cangu to get a computer and motorbike and other possessions that belonged to a client of his from Budapest who just died while visiting there. The father told Made he could have all of his son's stuff. Oh - he was young, I said. Yes -  thirty-five. Died from Corona. Was he in poor health? No - he was healthy, strong, did yoga, ate good food, did sports a lot - something every day, collected plastic from the river. He died two days after the first symptoms. Good lord. That Covid is hard to figure out.

Nostalgic Bali Video

 Video made by Gregory Johnson from shots from his trip here a couple of years ago. It's a download from Maildrop. Now he says it was made by Google. Not sure what he meant. Like did he ask for it or click something or choose in some way or was it like one of those cheesy ones Facebook makes that you haven't asked for. Gosh and I told him I liked the music. Did Google choose that too? Bet he did. - dc

Taco Beach Grill in Seminyak

Together or separately, if we're in Seminyak, which isn't often, we're likely to go to Taco Beach Grill which we call Bob's Taco Grill. Bob''s a Hoosier. I usually bring that up and get a new fact about Indiana. We're prejudice because we know him but we'll go there if he's there or not. If he's there he'll order for us. We loved the mahi-mahi tacos and ahi tuna tacos with wasabi cream. We've both had lots of experience eating tacos in Mexico and the US and none outshine Bob's. He's also entertaining. He's mainly vegan plus a little fish and maybe some other occasional cheating. He's a fanatic at making everything the best he can. He made some soy camembert that was unbelievably good. We'd tried some vegan cheese recently that was okay at best but Bob's vies with the dairy version. He served us from three different batches commenting on the differences. I would have eaten it all if I could have. He served us some sumptuous gazpacho [see image] which normally I don't care that much for. He's the reason his place is still open in the midst of the pandemic that has closed most.  

Global COVID-19 death toll more than double the estimates: study

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation says 

pandemic has caused nearly 6.9 millions deaths-- much higher than the 3.25 million reported.

Seminyak Nomad

We just saw Nomad which got best picture at this year's Academy Awards. Then we came to fancy, bustling, Seminyak and instead of seeming like Beverly Hills, it seems a little like the abandoned Nevada town in Nomad - factory and houses empty. Not that bad but compared to pre Covid I got that hit. - dc 

Seminyak

Our home is being treated for termites. They're going to drill holes all the way around the foundation and spray in the attic. We left this morning Tuesday and will return Saturday afternoon. All eleven fans in the house will be running high with all the doors and windows open. Our housekeeper will be in charge. Meanwhile we're taking advantage of Covid prices at an old-fashioned hotel in Seminyak by Double Six Beach. They gave us a suite. One other suite occupied and it's by relatives of the owner. Zipped over here in a little over thirty minutes. Before Covid I avoided coming here cause of the traffic. Really bad. A few other people on the beach looking up and down. None other in our area. Told a guy waiting for some business we'd rent sun chairs with umbrella shade tomorrow and get coconut water and hang out a while. Today just walked and let the waves bash me back in again and again. No waves to speak of in Sanur inside the reef but good for swimming. Prefer that but this is neat now and then - at least during Covid levels of tourists - no foreign ones at all. Santai - relaxed. And plenty of time for work. Thinking about friends who've passed on and one in the hospital. 

Climate Change News

 Also called Climate Home News