ZERO

Woke up yesterday morning with this song in my head, a tune from 1979 called Zero, on my music site, Defuser Music dot com.

Tide Times

It's interesting how many people don't understand how the tides work. I'm just talking about when they're high and low here in Sanur. I'm not surprised when a tourist speaks of the high tide as if it's the same time every day, but Nyoman, my trusty driver and helper? He asked if I was going to go to the beach to swim and I said not till the tide's high enough and had to explain to him that it's late in the afternoon today. It rotates around the clock with two high and two low tides roughly 12 hours apart from each other. Today the high tide is estimated by the site I look at (it's not exact but close enough) to be at 3:38 PM and tomorrow at 5:36 as I recall. That's almost a two hour jump. That happens when the high tide is approaching the sunset time. When it's in the morning, it tends to be about a half hour later the next day and continue like that till it's in the late afternoon like tomorrow. 

Rent paid up

Just hocked the family jewels and paid rent for our home in Sanur up to September, 2021 so even if we are destitute we will have a place to be destitute in. And if we have to leave we can transfer it to someone else. Or we could do a house swap for a month or more with someone in the Bay Area or wherever we wished to be. But for now there are no plans to do anything more than stay here and keep working on the Cuke Archives and other mad ventures. Our landlord is such a sweet guy. Local senior, traditional, doesn't speak English. We didn't even make an English copy of the new contract this time. The prior one which went up to September of this year stated that the rent would go up if we extended but, without me even saying anything he said he didn't want an increase. He likes having us here. He likes that we meditate and do yoga like him and that Katrinka councils people for free. Hard to leave here. Anything remotely comparable in the US would be at least ten times more expensive. 

Photo of some guys from Java I've known for years who were helping out here. They're sitting on the bale, a traditional raised area in the front courtyard. That's kardino on the left. Carpenter, builder. Known him almost five years. Next is son Peri, Jainul who did tile work, Bambang the plumber.

Jane Hirshfield new poem

Homs - just published in the New Republic

Leonard Koren books

I always admired Leonard Koren's books which get into the nitty-gritty of life in Japan

Imperfect Publishing - A brief list of publications can be found on this simple one page site for

How to Take a Japanese Bath

A list of Leonard Koren books on Amazon

Leonard Koren dot com has a list of more books

Schedule Part I

Someone asked how I spend my day. I see it as mainly working but it goes like this:
Rise when I awaken.
Shower - mainly just cold.
Hot water and lime (Bali jeruk nipis - little round limes)
Walking meditation - any length I want or set a timer to anything I want.
Sitting meditation - begins with

Herding Ants

Lot's of Bananas here and different types, another way that Asia has benefited from Central and South America. Many don't peel that easily and I've found the best way, especially with those that are thin-skinned or small, is to slice them diagonally first. Did that with a couple of over-ripe ones this morning. It's hard for a banana to get too over-ripe to eat. I'll eat them if they're black with mold on the skin. Best then is the cook them, fry in some coconut oil. Yum. So I was going to do that but dogette Bandita was barking and I figured it was the trash guys and there was a lot outside of the can and basket out front I wanted them to take - leftover from a recent cement and tile Japanese bathtub construction project. They said it'll be extra for that. We agreed on 50,000 rupia - about $3.50. That included picking up a bunch of old tile, rocks, and broken cement that was lying up front. Then I went back to work and later remembered the overripe bananas. Lots of tiny ants on them. After considering whether to just cook it with the ants, I brushed off what I could and rinsed the rest and got it cooking. I told the zillion that remained that I was sorry for their loss of so many comrades and it was my fault for leaving that out. I told them they could continue feasting on the bit of sticky stuff on the counter till I was cleaning up. I saved the counter for last at breakfast cleanup, took a sturdy thick kitchen wipe (Katrinka brings back from US), placed it flat on the edge of the counter, held it down on the corners, and slid it slowly forward and around, sending many thousands of the tiny ants scurrying away on the established route. When I was finished and the counter was clean, I didn't see one tiny ant crushed or stuck on the wipe. They got the message.