On the fly

Our time in Portland is quickly coming to an end.

   It has been utterly delightful spending time with the family.

.

We are totally under their spell,

the grandkids in particular.

They are growing up way too fast!

And yes. Swami is here. It's great to be reunited with him but more about that later. It's late and I've got to try to sleep.

A five-year-old's Christmas list

Christmas is coming so, of course, we asked the parents for gift lists for the grandkids. This is one of the ones we got back in reply:

"I opened this up to Miss Thea:

My own chapstick.
My own pack of gum that's my own, because I think I'm old enough now.
And that's it.

Are you sure? You don't want anything else?

Well, maybe some new tights because I don't have very many that fit me.
And popsicle sticks without popsicles.

For crafts?

Yes, for crafts.
And I really really really really really want a picture frame.

What for?

I just really need one.
Also, batteries for my camera
Art supplies, cause I just love to do art.
A necklace that is red with snowflake beads
Red socks with snowflakes
A pillow with polka-dots and stripes
Shoes with red and green flowers and blue snowflakes
A blue blanket with snowflakes
... Oh, and did I pronounce that I really want a blanket? Not just on the idea list, but I really want it for Christmas?

Okay.

Did I pronounce the necklace already?

Yes.

Okay then, that's it.  G'night."

Visa run recap

The visa run went well the other day. Mostly we waited. M. Lee read. I did some reading, people watching and talked with some interesting people. When my number was finally called I stepped up to the counter, handed over my passport and paperwork and, most important, paid the fee... 1900 baht (about 60 dollars US). We were both done and out in three hours. Before lunchtime. A friend happened to be there at the same time getting his residency extended (a yearly task) and I hear, three days later, it's still not done.

I will say this, the Immigration office is a world class crossroads. Everyone who wants to extend their stay passes through there... tourists, travelers, scholars, entertainers, writers, photographers, cyclists, charlatans, nuns, missionaries, do-gooders, clergy, monks, imams, shamans, wizards, warlocks, expats, refugees, wanderers, outlaws, volunteers, professionals, politicians, drunks, addicts, dirty old men, kooks and just plain crazies. I think a good many of them were there on Monday. I hear there are services that, for a fee, deal with Immigration for you, otherwise you go in person. Of course, that doesn't mean everybody does but they run the risk of fines and deportation.

Our extension was routine. The 60 day tourist visas we got before leaving the US had expired. We had to either extend them or leave Thailand. We did 30 day extensions so we'll leave mid-January and return to the States. We want to spend some time with the family. The grandkids are growing up way too fast.

As for photos of the place, I didn't even try to take one. The second anyone snapped a shot, an Immigration officer immediately appeared and made them delete it.

For the record

Ordinary day at Times Square
NYC

As I was saying, Bloggoroid gobbled up the post I tapped out yesterday on my phone during our bus ride into the City. I no longer scream when these things happen. Some of my losses have been far worse. We all know it's part on life online so here goes again. What follows is a list, mostly without comment. If I have time for more, I'll add it at the end.

NY Times
from Port Authority Bus Terminal

In the week we've been in New York, we've seen two Broadway plays, "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" and "It's Only A Play". Wonderful. We caught the Jeff Koons exhibit at the soon to be "old Whitney".  One of his pieces fetched the highest price ever received by a living artist but, IMO, he's not an artist but a designer of over-sized kitsch that, if shrunk down to regular size, I wouldn't pay a dollar for. But then, that's "art" in the world of high finance. We have eaten in a variety of places. Because M.'s mother's tastes range from Michelin Star restaurants to skeevy Chinese noodle and dumpling houses, we've eaten at both. And yesterday we made a pilgrimage to Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery in the Bowery, a favorite from Kathy's time in the City during her youth. Also, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art twice, munched on sandwiches in Central Park, took what seems like a thousand cold-hearted subway trains and enjoyed our daily short, civil bus trip from New Jersey to Manhattan and back.

Graffitti
Chinatown, NYC

New Jersey itself is perhaps the most pleasant surprise of all. It's quiet, clean and residential with wide sidewalks, trees and a million, no, a three million dollar view of the City across the Hudson. It's a Latino Mayberry. If you don't know what Mayberry is/was, I mean to say it's America circa the 1950s complete with high school football practice and tree-lined streets. If it has a seething, gang-ridden underbelly I am totally, and blissfully, unaware of it.

Kathy at Prosperity Dumpling
Chinatown, NYC

As for the streets of New York, they are a panoply of languages. Mid-town and down, is the center of the hive and chaotic circus complete with food carts, wandering Spidermen, Gumbys, Cookie Monsters and every other cartoon and fantasy character, every kind of fashion, nearly naked ladies, hell fire preachers, millions of pounds of squishy tourists, sly hustlers, bustlers, immigrants, cops, military, rich, poor and inbetweens. The buildings themselves have been transformed from their original brick and stone into dazzling, ricocheting video screen mazes designed to stun and hypnotize and do. Oh, and this weekend the International Comic-Con is happening so today the streets should be extra freaky.

Ordinary day at Times Square
NYC

Oops. M. Lee just jumped up and announced that he miscalculated the time. Okay. Sorry. No time to edit this. I'll fix it later. I hope my mistakes aren't too egregious. I'm sure I'll be embarrassed when I read it later but I'm determined to post something. Otherwise, I post nothing.   So.... photos to follow.

The Elms
Bowery

Notes on last summer

Grammatically correct Bangkok graffiti.

Old editors don't die. They just wander the world critiquing graffiti. Never mind the expression. It's typical of the trade. The Language Barrier's Itinerant Editor is actually expressing pleasure over the correct use of the apostrophe. Thus we are going back to Bangkok for more. Before we leave, I have much to do. That is why, of course, I am doing a blog post which I must begin with a lament.

I blew it! Thea Bella and Kristiana stayed with us for five weeks in Florida this summer but I kept only the barest record of their wonderful visit on my external memory, otherwise known as this blog. Now there is not, for the cold winter nights ahead, a reliable path back to those sweet memories, only flitting recollections of the quirky details, things five-year-old Thea said and did. So, for my future self, here are three memories. May they lead to more.

Every night, Thea would invite me to come listen to the bedtime story, Harry Potter. At that point, they were nearing the end of book two. I would bring my pillow and lay on the end of the bed and Kristiana read to us. She is a fabulous reader. Very dramatic with perfect, distinct voices for each character. It was very entertaining. Thea's memory is much better than mine. She knew the plot and all the characters by name and the reading seemed to energize her. With the irrepressible curiosity of a five-year-old, she asked a lot of questions, all the while doing things like standing on her head and bouncing on the bed. That took some getting used to as, being grandma and all, I became instantly drowsy and was happy to drift in and out under the spell of the words. It was a bedtime story after all. In any case, this endearing nightly ritual became, for me, one of the defining moments of the summer.

Another defining event was how Thea, being so enamored by the sometimes even 90° water of the Gulf, refused to come out even long enough to eat lunch. She'd run ashore, grab her sandwich, give grandpa his, then they'd have to run back into the water. She would only eat standing in the waves. By the end of the summer she was snorkeling, beginning to anyway, and fearless in the surf. 

Mesdames K. and T.
An electric evening at the jetty

Then there were the amazing, wild tales she and grandpa made up about everything. I wish I'd recorded some of them. For example, they discussed reflections in mirrors. The little Florida house has many. She wondered if the Theas in the mirrors were real. That story almost got out of hand. They pondered which was the real Thea. Was Mirror Thea the real Thea? Was she her reflection? I almost pulled the plug on that one because, for the one moment Thea considered that, her eyes took on the appearance of dark, faraway vortices. Luckily, the next moment she rejected the idea and declared that, without a doubt, she was the real Thea and the Mirror Theas, each and every one of them, were their own separate persons. Naturally on the last day, when she and Mom were preparing to leave for the airport, she went around saying good-bye to them all and wishing them well.

As for our time in LA with M. Lee's mom, way back in July, at some point I will also do a post on it. M. Lee even requested that I do. A first! For the record, I started one before Thea and Kristiana arrived, also back in July, but it still languishes in draft. When Mesdames Thea and Kristiana came, blam-o! I did manage my morning five minute write, before Thea got up, but that's about it. My hat is off to all parents with fledglings in the nest. I think we forget, once our kids are launched, how totally engaging they are. There's never a second. It would be 9 or 10 PM before I could finally sit down to write about the day, then suddenly I'd wake up disoriented, exhausted, laptop gone dormant, cicada singing away in the mangrove dark and I could only toddle off to bed, the day gone and unwrit. So for now, minimal as it is, this will have to do.

Shane, Lee and Kathy at the Getty - LA

Turn-around

Flying by

Home, sweet turn-around. We've just got back from Portland, Oregon. It was the last leg of a four month journey and the Big Event, the birth of Baby Chance, Supermoon Boy. Now we're back in Nevada. It's home but feels more like a traffic circle. Nevertheless, we have long-time friends here, our "stuff" is here, the Bird Park is here. Things are where and the way they are supposed to be. Maggie, aka the 7 o'clock magpie, showed up for peanuts the first morning we were back and, at the moment, sparrows fill the bushes and trees and several are enjoying a raucous dust bath party on the ground.

Squirrel underpants

And then there's my office. In case you've ever wondered where the center of the Universe is, cluttered though it be, it's my office. And, for the moment, I am there ... here. But not for long. We are leaving again at the beginning of October and won't be back until mid-January. Of course I'll still be here, the Language Barrier that is. It's home everywhere. And home is where the heart is..... which is family.

Cousins Thea, Leo and Frank

Baby Chance and Dad

Our ultimate destination is Thailand for three months. I guess it's fair to say we're in a rut. We were also there last year for three months. Yes. There is a whole big world out there, and time is running out, but we really like Thailand. But before Thailand, we're going to New York with Lee's mom for a brief visit and after that we'll all go to LA for a few days. Then she returns home and we return to Thailand. At this point, we're there more than anywhere else.

My pot

Life is strange. I never thought I'd be traveling like this. Several years ago, starting over and dirt poor, I bought a small copper-bottomed sauce pan at a secondhand store. I was delighted. It was a good omen. Revere Ware. My mother always said it was the best. I was still with my then-husband but, in fact, was more like a single mom raising three kids. A lot of meals came out of that pot, all though their childhood. And, being the absent-minded type, I burned a lot of food in it. However, I pride myself on always restoring it to some semblance of it's original secondhand glory. Now, 30 years later, a little worn though it be, all things being equal, it's still got a ways to go. I cooked my oatmeal in it this morning. 

Supermoon Boy

We were expecting him to be a couple of weeks late, like his brothers, but you know what they say about a rising tide floating all boats.

Leo, Frank and cousin Thea greeting him.

Plus, the night he was born, Frankie put his hand on his mom's belly and said "Baby out" and a few hours later, riding the waves stirred by the gigantic Harvest Super-moon, Baby Chance did just that.

Mom, Baby Chance and now big brother Frank

Frank was adamant about wearing his orange tshirt to the hospital the next morning to greet him.

He's beautiful.

A day in September

I just want to remember this, this sunny September Saturday afternoon. The only thing on the calendar is "New Baby". In the meantime silver puff artichoke seeds detach and float away into the sky and the children sail off into a future I shall not see.

posted from Bloggeroid

Evening Gulf report

They are gone. At the moment they are somewhere in the air returning to Oregon and the very lonely rest of them... sister, Dad, brother, the dingbat dogs, aunts, uncles, cousins, Ms. Willy Nelson the capital "c" Cat, the good grandma and grandpa, friends and a world that needs them and has missed them the five weeks they were here with us on Alligator Creek. The house feels empty, the Gulf feels empty but there is a good breeze here on the screen porch, enough to set wind chimes rustling and Frida's pineapple palm tree whispering. On Thursday we will begin our trans-America trek back to Oregon to await, with everyone else, the arrival of Leo and Frank's new brother or sister but not tonight.

Midnight again?

Summer is slipping by. We leave Florida in one week.

Manatee in the Gulf

Damn. I've barely made note.

Egret contemplating the sea

This is how it is...

Stump at Stump Pass

...and how it goes.

Thea on the Gulf of Mexico

Oh oh

In the snootiest voice imaginable, my granddaughter just told me, "I may look young, but I am five-years-old".

Check-in

Currently, we are wildly busy trailing after our five year-old granddaughter, Thea. She and my daughter Kristiana are staying with us here on Alligator Creek for the five weeks. It's wonderful. We spend a lot of time at the beach. We all love it and it's the best place to get the wiggles out. Thea adores the water, won't even come out long enough to eat her sandwich at lunchtime. She and Grandpa eat standing in the waves. I swear she's half fish and he's 3/4s kid. Ok. Gotta go.

Morning notes

Leo negotiating a mealtime compromise

We think it's hard keeping track of toddlers and getting our kids to finish a meal. Try being the parent of a fledgling. This morning I watched the Mockingbird parents feeding their kids. One of the babies landed on a frond in Frida's palm tree and waited while they rustled him up a little grub then, when he'd had enough, flew off. A minute later one of the parents came back with another squiggly goodie but the baby was gone. Imagine if our toddlers could do that to avoid eating their broccoli.

"Frank, just one more bite then you can go play."

Also, all morning Sonny has been out on the screen porch ranting to his parents about how hot it is in Florida and it's only June, how he had a life in New York, ten years, how he learned all about being responsible during his forties, there, up north. His mom says something and he gets very animated about how he doesn't do anything illegal anymore but his deadbeat friends are cheating him out of a lot of money. I believe him.

Here's the thing. Sonny is a good guy at heart but his friends? I'm sure he's right. A rough lot. It's not his fault. He explains to her how, just recently, he went with some girl to help her rescue her drugged out friend and ended up getting "dragged into the middle of a situation".

"Then some guy walks up and threatens to put a bullet in my head", he says.

Also, he's upset because some strange guy just showed up on his Facebook page.

"I'm gonna erase the damn page. Everybody knows your business. People you don't even know. What's up with that? That's the most turmoil damn thing anybody could have made."

Pops is quiet but Sonny and his mom are deeply into it.

"Don't interrupt your Mother!"

"You're interrupting me."

"Can't I even talk?"

"My voice don't even matter around here, Mom! For years I've been telling you to drink that shit. You've been skinny for the last seven years but you only listen to Pam. You drink that and it's like an extra meal. It's like an extra meal throughout the day, but you only drink it when Pam tells you!"

When the conversation switches to Sonny's difficulty filling out rental contracts...

"It took 35 minutes just to fill out the damn form, then they wanted a credit card so I tore it up!"

...mom interrupts asking Sonny what he wants to eat.

"It all depends on what you want to do, Maw."

"You want pancakes with an egg?"

At this point, Pops mumbles something in a feeble voice and she yells,

"I'm not talking to you!"

Ok. Enough. The screen porch has reached sauna temperatures. BTW, if this sounds a little.... mmmmmm..... snarky..... I don't really mean it to be. First off, I would be the pot calling the kettle black. If you're a regular here you know that, by nature, I'm a total deadbeat. I get Sonny. I am Sonny. And anyway, you know... I don't judge. I just report.

Lucky Pierre and me on the job

Launch minus 10

I thought we were leaving today (Tuesday) but, being so uprooted these days, it's easy to lose track. Yesterday we were in Portland. It was a splendid visit. We got to do a little bit of everything, the Children's Museum with Thea (five next Sunday) and Leo (four in August), swim class with Frank (two in August), toss balls for the goofus dogs, Nevada and Owen, watch baby birds in the old apple tree, have time out of time sunny afternoon chats vetting names for the new baby coming in the fall as the kids played in the yard, do a birthday shopping spree with Thea Bella, watch this year's crop of sunflowers rise up out of the ground and enjoy a big noisy family Sunday barbecue on our last night in town. Already I miss everyone terribly but tomorrow we begin our trek across the country. This will be the third time we've driven to Florida. We'll be on the road five 650 mi/10 hour days, the high point being a meet-up on Friday with Roy in Kansas City. That will be fun. We have never met in person but go back to the good ol' misc.writing days on the usenet and M. Lee and I both really enjoy his blog.

posted from Bloggeroid

News at 10:33

Finally Minerva and her magpie companion dropped by the Bird Park today for some peanuts and kibble. It's the first I've seen of them this year. The place is incomplete without them. She was a little too big for the branch she's trying to perch in but that didn't stop her.

We are back in Nevada for a couple of days to pick up a few things. Kathy, M. Lee's mom, has her surgery next Friday and we need to be there to help her out afterwards. It's great to be home, if even for a bit. The sky is blue and everything is where it's supposed to be. Ah well. When we're here any length of time I get restless. It's the curse of the gypsy soul. And speaking of wandering, my ADHD-PI is really out of control today. It's such a drag.

Whatzup

OK. I have to roll this thing forward. That means get out, crank the crank and spit out a new top page. It's a very clunky process in the way that the first cars were very clunky. I don't feel up to writing anything but it has to be done. So, by way of a whatzup, for the last few weeks we've been helping M. Lee's mom navigate the rounds of tests and doctor's appointments. Mostly that has meant waiting and wondering. At least tomorrow we get the prognosis. And we'll go from there.

And since we're here anyway, we've had a couple of game nights. We have stacks of board games but are currently addicted to a card game, Dominion. It's all anyone wants to play, well except for M. Lee who recently decided we should get back to regular board games, at least for awhile. We all agree in theory but end up playing Dominion anyway.

Last night we played three games. The first was basically a contest between Shane and M. Lee. They both got their strategies going right from the start and it was impossible to catch them. Not only that, the gods were completely against me. I had good cards but they never came up in useful combinations. During the second game Michael, who's new to the group, was the first to gut everyone with the King's Court/Thief combination but, in the end, M. Lee managed to crush us anyway with a King's Court/Laboratory. I won the last game with a simple Big Money strategy. That irritated the hell out of everyone.

Lines Past Death

I sat with my Uncle all day the day he died. That was Saturday, February 1, 1992. These poems greeted me when I brought his ashes home to Southern Oregon a few days later. He had mailed them to me from Portland the day before he died, Friday, January 31. In the accompanying letter he  wrote, “All I need is a chance at a new peace”. He died the next evening with me sitting by his side, our faces touching, breathing together. I’ve taken the liberty of calling this collection, “LINES PAST DEATH”.

LINES PAST DEATH

The two were dressed in black, in what seemed like rented clothes.  They went to the man in the next stall, be still, is all I could do.  The man had died.  They took him away on a palette covered with a royal maroon cover and deposited him in a long station wagon.  So he passed his time, in a setting of principles.  No more to be seen.  Only the rented costume comes to mind as I write.  THAT was a fancy way to leave his guest.  Like a disappearance. 


#2

evergreen and birch trees and a small bed of roses…low evergreen shrubs and a lawn on either side of an entrance walk.  Crows scan the higher branches and frighten other birds.  The distance cold alerts one and the winter sun tries to subdue the body’s alarm.  Still, it is day, and we have the whole affect of nature to subdues us    and bring peace.


WINTER

A stalwart, winter day,
seen through the vibran
escapade of voices,
leaves me to wonder at the meaning left behind.
enlivening the shadow of this,
puts the mind at ease.
Where the January sun causes
steam to rise from the grass,
enfeebling cold fingers more.
To move is a mundane project
of prospects made whole
by the failing man seeking
to encase the situation
into something respective to itself.
Cold out, he said and felt in his pocket for the next phrase.
Only metal sounds and the body thrusts viably to taste the cold air
circulating on its tattered edge.


VARY AND VARIANCE

sit well – and sleep well,
‘til all these things stand still.
The existentialist needs somewhere to go.
incidental to the truth.  how depressing =
stay. and see if you like yourself.
cold are the winds of January.
grey, dull forces of winter, cleansing of the topical mind;
male and female appear to take away the body of summer.
You go – I’ll stay, adrift are crows, caw-ing in the twilight.


ONE BRIEF INSTANT OF GRACE

After some few weeks of silence, I long to show the contour of such meanings as could survive a hallway of elders and a nursing home; lunch.  The fittest apothegm means to be oneself elsewhere, and neglect to conclude what this does.

Leave the tray a while.

Why eat all the time


~John Chance, 1992

Note: The word "vibran" is Haitian creole for "stirring".
_____________________________________________

Swami, Dalai and the Tulku

I started this post in the Siem Reap airport this morning while waiting for our flight back to Bangkok. Seven days in Cambodia was more than enough. For all the beauty, nice people and stunning ancient ruins, it's a dark hard place to be. I even dreamt I was blown up by a landmine. Trust me. That wakes you up with a start.

Swami contemplating Ta Keo,
the cursed temple

We went back to Ta Keo three more times but the girl who said she'd keep looking for Swami was never there. So sadly, whether lost or stolen, Swami is gone and now we must move on. If one of the girls selling souvenirs at Angkor Thommanon took him, I hope he brings her much happiness. His smile truly is irresistible.

Swami contemplating Swami

I will say this. I had an ominous feeling about Ta Keo the minute I saw the place. Swami felt it too. I have since read that during its construction, the High Priest declared the presence of an evil omen, halted the work and the temple has remained unfinished to this very day. That was a thousand years ago. Recently the Chinese adopted Ta Keo as a pet restoration project and are hard at it, putting what remains back together. Good luck.

Swami leaving Angkor Wat

But here's the thing. We have decided to think of Swami as a low level Tulku. To put that in perspective, the Dalai Lama is a top level Tulku. Top level Tulkus have to leave their bodies (die) before they can reincarnate in a new body. It's much easier for low level Tulkus. They aren't incarnations. They are "incarnate emanations" which means that the original doesn't have to die for a new emanation to manifest. Get it? Copies can exist simultaneously. Slick, eh? And emanations can be just about anything, human beings, deities, rivers, bridges, medicinal plants, animals, trees, birds, art, crafts etc. I suppose even puppets and dolls. Confused yet? The Dalai Lama goes into lots of detail here but put simply, Swami is back!

Swami and the Big Buddha of Ko Kood

He's there, wherever there is, and he's here with us. For now he's in a strange little body made of coral, a piece I picked up on a lonely stretch of beach on Ko Kood. It had such an odd shape I couldn't resist. Okay. It called to me. And I just happened to have it with me in Angkor Wat when Swami disappeared. Of course, we will look for a little yellow guy with a big red smile. M. Lee has already begun searching online for a doll maker who has experience replicating them. Reconstructing Swami will be our winter project. As they say, life goes on.

Swami contemplating the full moon.
Ko Kood

Looking for Swami

Girl at Ta Keo helping us look for Swami

This little girl represents the last small chance that we may yet find Swami. She was at Ta Keo the day we lost him and helped when we went back the next day to look for him. I mentioned a cash reward and she shot up the temple's steep, narrow stairs and scoured the third level before I even got to the second. No luck, but we'll check with her one more time before we leave. If he's there, she'll find him. She's a smart kid.

Looking down the stone
stairs from Ta Keo's top level.

Of course my "problem" is inane. This child, who should be in school or off playing with her friends, is forced by extreme poverty to be a tout. It's so sad seeing kids on the street like this but there they are and the second you arrive at a site, they swarm and cajole you, hoping you'll buy something.

You have to ignore them, because, if you don't, if you say "no thank you", if you even glance at someone, if you do anything that in any way acknowledges their existence, they suck in closer and stick longer. They are well trained.

Touts working the tourists at Angkor Wat

So you learn to totally ignore them but they are kids, for god's sake. Why is this happening? Same as always, graft, cronyism. Increasing millions of tourist dollars flow into Angkor Wat yet the temples are not properly protected and Cambodians remain the poorest people in Asia. It sucks all around.

Swami

Last photo with Swami?

Swami is gone. We are heartbroken. It was my fault. He was riding in my shoulder bag and either fell out while I was climbing around the structure in the above photo or a pickpocket got him at the next temple. Either way, I feel absolutely horrible about it. The three of us have been traveling together for the last 14 years. We're really going to miss that little guy. I'm crushed. But... dare I say... he left us with this video? I wouldn't put it past him. I just happened to take it during a tuk tuk ride through Angkor Wat, about a half hour before he disappeared.



Tuk tuking with Swami and M. Lee through Angkor Wat
As soon as I noticed he was missing, we retraced out steps. We hadn't gone far but no luck. This evening, looking at photos from the day, I managed to narrow down the area where we lost him so we'll check around a bit more tomorrow because we can. I just have to.

Me & Swami at Angkor Wat

Good night, Swami. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. See you on down the road.