perfect days in paradise...

well, the season is off to a spectacularly sluggish start: yes there are customers and quite a few, and all of them give credence to the saying it's not quantity but quality. quality they are not.. they are on the whole dispicable and then some....
fat and blond and cheap are predominant: yesterday a sizable specimen rolled in after dark: ooh i have not eaten all day. and she ordered a lot and drank some and then she said can you change 50 dollars, and of course i was not able to, this being one of those interminable holidays of two weeks or there abouts- banks closed an all that.... oh i will pay you tomorrow- she said and bored me for another hour and the next day when i did need the money to buy cooking gas she was nowhere to be seen and when finally she came she said she was sick implying my food-( turned out she drank iced coffee in snuol of all places; i did not eat there she said, and you had coffee with that ice there in it i said??? wow that is stupid!!! i thought and she heard me...in the end she coughed up all twelve dollars that she owed me and will come back for more food(?)tomorrow)-to eat- i perceive that as a threat!).
but then yet it was it is one of those days today:
as by now we are truly poor bong sereri has taken to selling the fruit of our trees; and we make quite a bit of money from our bananas, milk fruit, guavas and so on. the bananas are quite a lot and ripe and have to go: so do the coconuts, but that is another` story all together..
the bananas: banana is the biggest grass in the world- also the heaviest as it turns out; the bananas- the fruit grow and grow, the plant: the so called grass lists and lists as the fruit grow, and those things get quite dangerous and one has to cut them down... the fruit by now getting to twenty kilos or more.. so we cut them and down they come shaking the earth and having bong serrei and me running for our lives more often than not...( the other day i tried this alone and the plant fell on me and i got stuck and it took me forever to dig my way out from down yonder, and a few bruises, now how ridiculous can it get bruised by bananas, try to live that one down....).
why are we doing this to ourselves bong serrrei and me wondered let the sellers get the fruit off the plants and we get a dollar less. then so be it we said ( as in depression without champangne is not worth it is as my friend fay would put it so nicely) so now the sellers/buyers come to the land and have to cut the fruit themselves.. so do come their dog; and the bullies killed it.. the dog, not the seller quite.. yet... : the dogs were trying to bite us...( ensuing discussion: you owe for dead dog. no dog bit us. and anyways- says bong serrei :you eat dog anyway..so you want money i get dog i eat myself..) the buyers bought that one .. pouff!! lucky break that one ...we did not have to pay for the dead mutt).
meanwhile: big crashing sound in the bar, glass`works a lot- breaking: damn rats i think and run into the restaurant: no rat, although most of the last remaining wine gasses are broken: stuck on the wall- mortified: caruso the ghekko: sorry he mumbles; there was this juicy spider and i.. i.. just ran into those weird things- , i did not even see them..and the spider behind...' 'getta move on, caruso' i say, and chase him off and remove the shards or our last vestige of civilisation...

teutonic

..another good one when it comes to English speaking hereabouts:
a few years back at Christmas the big tsunami hit the west coast of Thailand.
My manager happily explained to my – (German) customers: no, the cyclops not make the tsunami, tsunami happen when Teutonic plates shift....
( nobody on the hill ever said tectonic plates ever again.of course....).

yesterday i will fix...

..the mouse- another mouse is behaving beautifully and the little arrow stopped meandering all over the screen all on its own without being prompted to s, oo, luxury!!!

the weather seems to be holding up: some clouds and the odd shower while the sun still shines and one or two rainbows are visible..

The terrace lights blew the other day, big time. Polly- the 'politician's brother' and Polly himself, the politician ( I.e. Electrician)- Polly's brother still has not figured out that the word is electrician*)- say we need new cable to fix the problem- from phnom penh- the stuff here is worthless. Which is true. So dark it will stay for the time being, except for candles and maybe some of those unsavory things that I can load up and then hang in a tree just to have them give the ghost at the most inconvenient time..

the nights hereabouts fall with an enormous and quick thud, and the moon is down to a pretty but inefficient sliver... and fireflies, pity one can not train them... so dark it is and American couple got caught in the dark with their hamburgers. Luckily I found a candle or two that had escaped the lightening of the barbeq. Things seem to be moving here and are looking up or so we hope: to day my laundry actually dried!! all of it!!! ( for month on end the only way to get really dry clothes was to just put them on, no kidding.

..the jack fruit tree, seen from my terracde upstairs

*) Polly's brother will start working for me in about two weeks, that will be fun, a classic conversation: the light not broken. Me: ooh ??? not broken?? but they do not work!!- yes ( uttered with some enthusiasm) not broken. Me :then what?, not broke!. Me :so? Him not broke! So we fix! Now I get it : he means broken... another one: ' yesterday after school I will come and fix okay lights not broken!? ' - this will be fun!!!)

seems like the rains have left us for now, maybe even for the duraton of the coming dry season: sunny days, almost hot, and very nippy nights that leave us with a second blanket ready to use and use we do it..
tentatively the first tourists venture into town again- nothing to write home about yet, but it is a beginning.
The garden looks overgrown though beautiful, the river is retreating to manageable proportions, and the jack fruit tree sports a hammock that is almost over the water...and the mouse on the computer will not work to day at all an i am giving up writing for today..

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!!!