of spiders and collegues...

..i just so wish that for once something nice would happen...

.in the aftermath of the cyclone, the tourists stay away, and will do so for at least another week, and the restaurant is dead and I'm broke and it is boring, like watching astro turf grow or chewing sand so it feels.

Last night a miserable soul stole my garden lights, the ones that light out the path so my customers can make it to the restaurant... ( I think that just maybe a certain lodge in this town pays somebody to make my life harder:the other day they sent some of their customers to spy on me, those people bored me for an hour and did not even buy a bottle of water. Also they 'stole' or shall we say 'took over' jack's elephants while he was in England. Now I do find jack a superb asshole, but stealing his elephants and mahouts is pretty crass.).

As for the chickens, Dumbfuck the second is a calming presence and for the first time in month the chickens seem rather well adjusted: unless I am late feeding them, then Dumbfuck jumps on the terrace, stamps his feet and crows at house party volume until I dish out the feed...

Had a bit of a run in with a spider, a big one , sitting on a beam right next to my bed; at least as big as my hand, legs out to here, scaly looking and quivering and striped, meant to impersonate a snake- a banded krait- I presume... ' I'm here and what are you gonna do about it ..' the spider insinuated: quiver quiver the legs... - now I draw the line somewhere; NO SPIDERS IN BED! So I grabbed the broom – ouh ooh the spider went and vanished behind the beam, when I looked around the beam, I found Caruso, our foot long house ghekko, munching, crunching on the spider, some legs,-about four- scaly and striped still quivering outside Caruso's mouth.. Caruso all but waved to me, and I am sure he would have said ' ' thanks' mate' , if he did not have his mouth so full!

Dumbfuck the second ,der Nibelung and Queen Latiffa

....let's face it, chickens are about the most stupid creatures that walk the earth: besides that, they are also extremely distrustful- they think everybody wants to eat them- and let's face it; they do have a bit of a point there. But chickens are also mean: and some are meaner than others: there was Josephine, ( a good momma, we have to give her that) but man, was she mean and just crazy.... violent too, if one can imagine a violent chicken, but she was, she was.... until she keeled over, presumably of old age as we could never catch her.

Her descendants make up my chicken coop after thefts and the ravages of the rainy season: three hens and a rooster. All as paranoid and as mean as Josephine. Plus the rooster is the brother of the ladies. A three legged chicken does not seem to be too bad an idea to me, but somehow I do not think that it will work out quite that way. The ladies seemed to have figured out the same thing: they are of laying age but no eggs so far. So when Bill presented me with a new rooster a genuine jungle fowl; he , Bill that is-seems to get one a year- with the impending moon festival from a phnong family, and as he prefers coq au vin to a live chicken, I wind up with the gifted rooster: not that I mind, this one is as nice as the last one, Dumfuck (the first), and this will be Dumbfuck- the second....friendly, almost tame, big and pretty he is....

My resident fowl did not agree: the ladies walked off in a veritable chicken huff, and` Der Nibelung, the rooster went after poor Dumbfuck ( the second), who still was a bit wrinkled from his day long jungle trip in a rice bag. Dumfuck ran, der Nibelung followed, and Dumbfuck lost a lot of his baroque tail feathers. And der Nibelung would not let up...

That's it I decided, this month is a bad month for chickens in Asia:` all these festivals, and each and every one needs a sacrificed chicken.... soo there a re no good ones left in the marked and I am out of coq au vin.....

so after dark I raided the chicken coop: grabbed der Nibelung and put him under the chicken pen for holding until his turn came to join the food chain. the next morning, a veritable racket in the front yard:

Dumbfuck running for his life, and der Nibelung pursuing him: the little creep had chewed or shall we say, beaked his way out of the coop destroing it good. Dumfuck left for higher ground and spent a miserable day on the terrace: der Nibelung does not dare to come too close there.

In the evening I caught him again:this time I wised up some: I was not nice and bound him. Put him under what was left of the pen. Just to find him, there in the morning, but the rest of the pen reduced to splinters. ( choy' said bong serrei when she saw the damage, s'one 's Josephine's, isn't it ?' she mused. And let's kill him. And she did.)

I cooked him on open fire, with lots of my last red wine and he turned out great, lot's of meat on him too: shit yeah, said bong serrei, the bastard sure ate enough rice!.

Tentatively, Dumbfuck-( the second ) came out of hiding: the ladies seemed slightly charmed by him, especially queen latiffa, the big whit hen, spitting image of her mother Josephine in more than just beauty, unfortunately....

so the chickens charmed the rooster and vice versa; until it got dark... the ladies had figured that the chicken house was not safe, so they flew into the jack fruit tree's branches. Dumbfuck tried to follow.. and.. fell into the river: the ladies s sniggered and I had to jump in and rescue him as the waters are still running fast after the taifoon...

soo now dumbfuck – the second sits on the terrace drying up-poor guy....he gives sad clucking noises,`wrapped in a` towel he is...

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ouch!

...the rains are abaiting and the insects make up for lost time, it seems.
The electricity is still feeble and slightly soaked. The unmistakable sound of a new electric fire- the problems in the kitchen had been solved by polly my neighbor's son: he learned how ' to be politician'  from the ngo's- according to his brother who is learning english, but somehow can't get the difference in sound between politician and electrician (or electricity for that matter: you have problem politics? he asks, when i come looking for his brother...)
well anyways there was that sound again,but by now it is far too dark to trouble the 'politician' so i just turned off the outside lights that were making that hissing sound and hoped for the best...
and it worked - until i went to the toilet. dark there of course, but i know my way around found the pot and sat down .there must have been something on the seat.... ouch!!! i must have sat down on an ant.. ouch... aouch again! this is NOT an ant! no it was not, it was one of those mean 2 inch big  and very painful cambodian hornets...that i flattened with my sorry hide, and it took revenge. ouch, and i am out of hystamines.. and in a foul mood, it hurts!!!
yet another fun night in paradise!!!

high winds, feeble sun..

..after a rather scary night, the winds are still high, but a feeble sun is trying to break through the clouds...
not much damage luckily, apart from some of my passionfruit vines beeing ripped off the roof and a small electrical fire in the kitchen nothing seems amiss. The river did go up a little bit, but not too much and is receeding slowly now.
due to the electrical` pericles there is no current in my kitchen and i am separated from my kitchen motors for now. Moni is supposed to fix it, but has not shown up yet....
everything is dripping wet, and as soon as a ray of two of sun have made some inroads a quick shower drenches everything anew...
Seems that the storm did very much damage in the lowlands of cambo and flooded at least the komong thom area, but that is about all we know yet.

waiting for the cyclone to hit....

cyclone Ketsana is about to hit da nang in less than two hours...That is still quite a`ways from here, but we do feel the storm all right already: torrential rains, fierce gusts of wind that do not howl but screech, its cold and wet and the river is- very- high again....there is nothing one can do but batten down the hatches- provided one has them- and wait and hope for the best....strangely enough i did have customers for lunch and have a reservation for tonight (provided they can made it down of course) seems the weather creates an urge of impulse for want of a better word, in westerners for... comfort food. so comfort food it is....

..and the jungle stands in ominous silence?....

it has been a busy week at the restaurant, loads of fun customers, and i kept trotting at an if not brisk at  at least a fun pace.
 today the rains are coming down again as if there will never be sun again, and the stream of guests has dried up again so to speak.
But.. i am quite tired, so i will go to bed early.... and sleep: if  nature will let me that is...
you must all have read at some time of other,those wonderful books where the hero/ and or/ heroine gets to spend the night in the jungle- involontarily most of the time. and the text will go; ' as the night falls, the jungle stands in ominous silence' - or some such... Are you kidding??? somebody- the writer in this case has not done their homework). the jungle, silent??  the jungle never, never shuts up (nor the creatures that live within, as it may be. the case.) there are always the crickets, of course: chrischris chris chrischrischris and so on. that is only one kind of course; the next cricket  goes 'chrickchrik- chrick chrick'- and the next one sounds like a cellphone, the old fashioned kind going off- all night . then there is the sound of small creatures getting killed by bigger creatures: squeek, sceetch-craaw.!! as in : game over. then there are the frogs: they sound like a myriad of symphony orchestras tuning up( all night).: brooh. boon brrooh boon... (quite soothing actually)
Add some gibbons in the distance- those are a noisy lot: bobblegobble ouuukouuk, brraaah! and some insistent night bird on some mission ofrother going: boon, booon- boon- boon. all night....
ad the wind, the river and the odd ouwl Huueehhuuhee!
ominous silence it is not....- it's a bloody racket!!

 I guess it is time to get back into the kitchen and work....and I will need customers, that is for sure... am still hurting, and think i would like to take a break in Phnom Penh

I' like to imagine Iddy sitting own little lotus flower, attentively looking up at Buddha. And Buddha will patiently explain: wait for nine days and rest, then your soul will be free to roam the worlds for ninety nine days and on the hundredth day you will be reborn, and as you only brought joy to the world you may choose who you want to be. And Iddy will say really? Truly? And Buddha will smile and say, yes it is true, and Iddy will give a little chirp. wag her tail and happily jump  so that lotus flower will shake ever so slightly, and then she will curl up at Buddha' s feet for seven days.