Wildlife

I haven't written much here lately, because I've been feeling discouraged by the constant junk replies of my doggedly devoted spammer. However, it seems that he has suddenly disappeared. Maybe something I did, in the way of deleting, or marking as spam, or sending to junk folder -- or maybe he just got tired, or grew up and got a job, or died. In any case, I'm newly relieved not to be receiving 20-30 spam mails per day.

Truth is, I've been pretty much limiting my jewels of wisdom to Facebook posts, which actually get more response than posts on this blog get. Which I kind of fun. I always like to make a connection with someone, to know that someone has taken the time to read, and comment, or simply check 'Like'. Silence is not a big motivator. I tend to talk to myself all day long as it is, and don't really need to write to myself, too.

I had just now posted something on Facebook about rats who run straight up walls. Sounds ridiculous, I know. In fact, I didn't believe it myself when my son first told me about it. The wild imagination of a boy, I thought. Rats are not cockroaches, not lizards, not flies or ants or spiders. They simply don't run up 8 foot walls.

Ah, but they do -- for now I have seen it myself. Straight up the wall he went -- from the kitchen counter to the wall and then over the top. How can it be? I don't know. Perhaps the roughness in the cement provides just enough of an edge for their little claws to get a purchase. Or perhaps they have been bitten by a radioactive spider and now have special powers. In any case, seeing is believing.

Also saw a Tokek on the wall the other night. This is a medium sized lizard, bigger than a cicak, smaller than a buaya. I believe this particular fellow used to live next door, but now that the occupants of that house have moved out (perhaps three months ago), the tokek seems to have grown  lonely and moved his residence to our yard (specifically, behind the washing machine). He comes out only at night, so far as I have seen, and prefers the sink area. And he will sometimes hide in solitude and simply repeat his name, as all tokeks do, until he runs out of breath. "TOE-kay, TOe-kay, to-kayyyyy".

Just When You Think There's Hope

Just noticed an article from Jakarta Globe regarding the awarding of the Nobel prize to Malala, the courageous and outspoken Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head and left for dead by the Taliban for insisting on the right to attend school. Miraculously, she survived and lives, now, to champion peace and women's rights around the world. A feel good story, right? One that lifts one's hopes for the goodness of mankind. Well, think again. Upon reading the comments, I was s...hocked to find hateful, lunatic blatherings about how it didn't really happen - no, it was all a CIA plot to have this young girl shot in the head (for some reason), oh, but not badly enough to kill her. She's a fake, they say, an instrument of the imperialistic Americans, or what the hell ever. Hoping to feel good about people, I came away feeling sick at heart instead. Would that these soul-sick, brain-dead knot-heads themselves had been the ones shot in the head - every last one of them.

Praise Music

Just behind our house stands a four unit Kost-Kostsan. The back of this building faces the back of our house and in the wall, rectangular vents have been cut into the concrete for ventilation. Just beyond these vents are the bathrooms of the Kost units. This provides us with excellent acoustical seating for the daily showers and such-like; but, there is a little bit of a problem, in that one male resident in particular regularly makes the most God-awful noises throughout his ...daily bathing routine. It's difficult, really, to describe this combination of coughing, snorting, hacking, spitting, and perhaps vomiting that accompanies each shower. How can any one man contain so much phlegm? But the funny thing, and the more striking, really, is that in the spaces between these retching expectorations, the man will break out loudly in song - and I do mean 'loudly' - with a voice that is true and clear as a large bell, but for a little bubbling and gurgling mixed in here and there. I had begun to eat my breakfast at the outdoor table the other day, and then paused to allow the man to finish with his various bodily expulsions, when at once he began to belt out the song "Amazing Grace" with such clarity and assurance - even passion - that I could not help but immediately forgive all that was less pleasing in favor of the gifting of this heartfelt, irrepressible praise. What is truly beautiful so often stands alongside the less comely things.
See More

Like