October 24, 2021

 Bali continues to gear up for visitors, holding its breath as COVID recedes. Malls, supermarkets and cinemas are now allowed to operate at 70 percent capacity and water tourism (such as Waterbom in Kuta) is now being allowed to operate again. The Bali international airport, which opened a couple weeks ago, has nonetheless seen not a single international airline booking, at least as of October 20th. At the same time, Bali's governor has declared that more than 20,000 foreign tourists have booked hotel rooms for November. Not sure how they're going to get here without an airline, but we'll see. 

The La Nina weather phenomenon, which increases the country's monthly precipitation rate by 70 percent, is set to be in effect from November to January. So I guess we will have more than 20,000 wet tourists. 

For my own part, I continue to enjoy watching these dogs develop their adult personalities--for they are puppies no longer. Jagger, for whatever reason, has taken on the role of alpha male. I don't know why, but he is the first to eat, the first to choose his spot for sleeping--the 'authority' among his three siblings. Curiously, Loki, who is as large as Jagger (the two being the largest and huskiest of the four) is the lowest in the pecking order. In all things, Loki comes last. Otis is the gentlest of the pack and prefers to spend most of his time on his own. Dixie, the female, is far smaller than the other dogs, and yet she is not to be messed with. She loves to play, to get the other dogs to chase her. She's fast as a streak of lightning and when tiring of the chase, hides beneath something that the others are too big to get under (such as my easy chair). This frustrates them to no end. And then suddenly she will dash out again and the chase continues. Dixie is, however, quick to anger, and if one of the other dogs becomes too rough, she will tear into him with a vengeance, leaving her victim cowering in shock. 

All of these dogs show up at my house as soon as I get home from my morning coffee, and there they stay, sleeping the rest of the day until evening when they are suddenly revived, at which point they run up and down the road or in the field or look for trouble with other neighboring dogs. After night falls, I do not see them again until I open my door in the morning, finding them all waiting in the driveway. It's just another day, quite reliably the same as the day before.