Wild Kitten Captured

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Cat Whispering is employed once again! It's an imperfect art, but we do our best. 

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Tuk discovered a tiny wild skinny kitten a few weeks ago skulking about our outdoor courtyard. This kitten, of still uncertain gender, is obviously an orphan, so we have plotted to catch him/her. 

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Food is the classic lure, and I set up kind of box trap right out of the Boy Scout manuals of the 1950s/60s, with a weighted lid controlled by a hand-held line. (My technical engineering and carpentry skills peaked at the Pioneering Merit Badge, so I can do a lot with ropes and knots but I am helpless with any technology since the Stone Age.) 

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This afternoon the little kitten stepped into the box, and I captured them. (The pronoun "them", usually a plural one, is fast becoming acceptable for representing a single solitary mammal of uncertain gender, and this usage is being added/updated to respectable dictionaries as we speak.) The kitten was shocked and frightened by their sudden captivity, and they cried and cried. Poor little orphan. 

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We now have the kitten imprisoned/ isolated in our ground floor toilet room, giving them one room at a time to get used to. (We did this drill before with our dear departed kitten Jiuu over a year ago.) The food and water is on display; they already used the fresh litter box; and they are sleeping in a safe hiding place we designed for them. I will be on watch down here for however long it takes, talking with them when they're awake and about, remaining as still and non-threatening as possible in my lawn-chair. 

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I will sleep here, with the kitten food close to me so they must trust and venture close. It's a long nurturing process, but I'm hoping the skinny tiny little kitten will come through.
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Sad Update:  The little cat freaked completely out right from the beginning of a couple of days and nights captive inside.  Because they were so frantic to claw their way back outside and screamed so loudly nonstop night and day, Tuk decided we should free the little cat to go outside again.  The cat was absent for a day or two but then came back for food and hung around for a while.  Then they disappeared and hasn't been seen for over a week.  We hope the little feline survives somewhere.  

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-Zenwind. 

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Pledging My Time

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“I’m pledging my time

To you,

Hoping you come through, too.”

(-Bob Dylan, 1966)

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It is difficult finding the time to pledge toward contacting you, my treasured correspondents, as time goes by increasingly fast and life gets busier by the day. I am desperately behind in my writing, both in email replies and blog postings. I apologize. Part of it is my inability to find enough hours of the day when I can really focus:

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“From early in the morning

Til late at night

I got a poison headache

But I feel alright.

I’m pledging my time

To you,

Hoping you come through, too.”

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My recent routine is to completely halt most of my writing and correspondence while I am reading books/eBooks. I am a slow deliberate reader who likes to go back and re-read when necessary and take detailed notes, and it takes my complete attention in order to do these works justice.

I belong to a few local Bangkok book discussion groups, although I don’t often attend the meetings because I end up not reading the month’s book selection. I’ve always had a problem with someone “assigning” me readings, starting in junior high school and going right on through my early attempts at college. I would be assigned one book to read but I’d be drawn to another – usually one in a completely different genre and historical age. I still have that random anarchic individualistic “lack-of-discipline” reading attitude that allows me to follow my immediate intellectual interests wherever they lead. So now I also have my own hugely ambitious personal eccentric reading lists which keep me busy. I’m reading a lot of great stuff – some of it that I wanted to read four or five decades ago but never got the chance – and it’s a wonderful freedom. Pure delight.

Then, between readings, between the agonizingly complex decisions on what to read next, I try to catch up with my writing. As a bumbling perfectionist, my writing takes time to craft – though I’m pledging it to you.

Related to this, I’ve lately been ambushed by a horribly painful FMS episode, and I have lost enormous amounts of strength and energy, as well as accumulating near-crippling injuries. Back pain, neck pain – I can often deal with these everyday physical pains. But when my lower extremities are hindered, then I’m crippled. Marching is Life, but I’ve hit the goddamn Wall. I’m having acute hip pain, and simple walking around the house is difficult. I return from a simple walk to the neighborhood store (a 200 meter round trip) gasping for breath. The overall syndrome leaves me utterly exhausted and brain fatigued. On top of it all, there has been NO cool season so far, and the heat is still oppressive, without letup. I’m drained.

Well, I admit, even in the midst of my present FMS bodily pain, I no longer suffer the debilitating migraines (aka, the “poison headaches”) that I had through the first 50+ years of my existence. A much-appreciated mercy.

Time to stop typing and post this before the next wave of “brain-fog” will engulf me, bog down my writing, and delay this posting. “I’m pledging my time/ To you/ Hoping you come through, too.”

-Zenwind.

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Bird Songs, Weather Signs

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Hanging out my laundry today on the veranda, I noticed a few unique bird songs that I haven’t heard in a long time. Migratory birds from up north in China have arrived, chirping their little hearts out.

The last couple of days have been horribly hot, as the sun has no longer been obscured by clouds. I have been sleeping in swim trunks with two fans blowing on me full blast. The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, so maybe we’ll get some relief.

A curious weather difference between SE Asia and North America. In America (and several other worldwide locations) the reliable weather saying is: “red at night, sailors’ delight; red in the morning, sailors take warning”. Here it is the opposite. At sundown just now our western sky is red, which made me re-check the weather reports. Sure enough, thunderstorms tomorrow.

I skipped the philosophy book meet up in the city tonight. Plato is just too boring, and it’s a major hassle to get into town and back. Maybe next month, if the book is right.

-Zenwind.

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October in the Kingdom

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After a rather dry but cloudy Rainy Season, we ended it with a lot of rain in early October. That appears to be ending now, and on the last two nights I’ve seen the moon for the first time in recent memory.

I try to post here at least once a month in order to let anyone interested know that I’m still alive and kicking. I haven’t written much of anything anywhere lately – either on blogs or in personal correspondence – since I’ve been reading a huge amount of stuff and watching a lot of movies, both in theaters and on DVD.

I also just found a big trove of my old music CDs hidden amongst Tuk’s junk that were “lost” during the chaos of the Great Flood of 2011 when we had to scramble and move everything up to higher ground; and I’ve been laboriously transferring this music first to my computer and then to my phone’s music files. (My Beethoven 9th Symphony – the “glorious Ninth” in the words of Alex in A Clockwork Orange -- was a flawed CD so I had to buy another one to upload.)

We are doing well, all in all. I still have a fragmented blood clot throughout my entire left leg (Deep Vein Thrombosis) from last December. I take the anti-coagulant meds and see the doctor for regular monitoring blood tests and for periodic ultra-sound scans. I seem to be very susceptible to blood clots, since this is far from the first time, and I’m scared to death of any inactivity and long-distance airplane flights.

I am a member of three Bangkok book club meet up groups, but I rarely make it to any events. I’ve always been an extremely undisciplined random reader who reads what he likes when he likes. This caused problems in high school and in my early attempts at college in my early-twenties. (When I returned to finish my philosophy and history studies in my late-thirties I was very much on-task as far as readings.) Now, I’ve been spoiled since my retirement by the freedom to read randomly again. I’m ignoring most of these book club readings now, mainly because they don’t make me laugh enough. Laughter is the very best medicine!

I attended one meet up of the Bangkok Philosophy and Classical Literature book club last month, its first one. The book was On Anger by the Roman Stoic Seneca. Good book, great international group with a lot of smart young thinkers mixed with older ones with long reading experiences. The book was a good analysis of anger, and I was forced to confront my own history of anger (and violence). In this respect, “assigned” readings that I wouldn’t have ordinarily encountered can be invaluable.

This month’s philosophy reading (next week) is Plato’s dialogue, Meno. I first read this 30 years ago, and reading it again is every bit as boring. (I really love Plato’s classic The Apology, the trial defense, aka “apology”, of Socrates; and I enjoy The Symposium for its wonderful theater; but Plato generally bores me to death and I loathe his totalitarian mindset.) In Meno: “innate” knowledge as a somehow “recalled memory” from some kind of past existence? Needless to say, I’m skeptical. To be honest, I’m a bit irked to have been seduced into re-reading this – which activity hijacked my precious time for writing and for reading other things. I may go to the meet up next week, but generally I have retired from argument and may have nothing to say.

I have lately been reveling in the re-reading of the wonderful Charles Stross series, The Laundry Files. They are called “Lovecraftian spy thrillers”: bizarre horror; hard science fiction; dry British humour. Wow. (Look for a review of this series in the future on Zenwind.)

This week is my regular 90-day visit to the dread Immigration Office on Wednesday, then celebration of the birthday of Franz Liszt (b.1811) on Thursday, followed by our long holiday weekend. My main aim this week is to push my exercise regimen into a major re-start after a long spell of decline and sloth due to ill health and pain. (“What a drag it is getting old” – The Rolling Stones.)

Yet, from the perspective of H.W. Longfellow: “Excelsior!” (That is a poem!)

-Zenwind.

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Blues Music in Bangkok

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Blues music venues have come and gone during my short experience here in greater Bangkok. But one solid and predictable standard of excellence is always at the Saxophone Pub and restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights. Usually a mostly Jazz venue, the Saxophone features phenomenal Blues by Ped’s Band at 21:00-23:30 on Fridays and Saturdays. Highly recommended.

At the rather new venue, Nothing but the Blues, on Thonglor, it’s all Blues. Ped (above) hosts a Blues jam every Sunday and Wednesday night, and there are several other Blues bands I haven’t heard yet. Chai and the Blues Maniacs play on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Chai et al has a singer named Nurse and she can really belt out the Blues. When she sings “Rock Me Baby” (B.B King), I get goose bumps from my back to my arms to my shoulders to my neck and scalp. Whew!

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“Rock me baby/ Rock me all night long

Rock me baby/ Rock me all night long

Rock me baby/ Till my back ain’t got no bone.”

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Can’t get that song out of my head!

-Zenwind.

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Mid-Autumn Festival

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Tonight’s Full Moon is an important Chinese holiday, celebrated especially in China, Vietnam, and by the worldwide Chinese diaspora. It is a harvest full moon festival.

We have had occasional clear skies lately. This means hot sun in the day but good moon viewing at night. I will look for the moon tonight.

-Zenwind.

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September Coolness, Finally

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On this Ides of September the tropical climate here seems to be a bit more forgiving. Not exactly “comfortable,” since the humidity can still be wicked. I went out for a neighborhood march at midday, and, although it was not as horribly hot and humid as normal, I still came back home in the traditional condition of wringing sweaty wet.

But we’ve had a few rains lately, which tend to cloud the blasted blazing sun and relieve us a bit. Sometimes, only occasionally, you catch a refreshing breeze. September is usually the rainiest month of the rainy monsoon season, and in this particular rain-starved drought year we are finally getting some. The rainy monsoon that usually approaches us from the Indian Ocean’s northeastern-ward flow is being met by a west-ward flowing tropical storm bearing down on us from the South China Sea to our east. Vietnam (Quang Nam Province, my old stomping grounds) and Laos have already been hit by the cyclone, and we are next.

Tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday should bring us heavy rains – I hope. The temporary flooding will be a problem – especially for me on Thursday night when I go into town to a meet up with my libertarian friends, but I trust I can navigate through. If not, I think I can keep my head above water and survive.

Meanwhile, I sit in swim trunks and have the fan blowing on me at full-blast.

Blessed coolness. Zen delight.

-Zenwind.

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Little Cat Jiuu, R.I.P.

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Our beloved young cat, Jiuu (meaning “Tiny”), died today, barely one year old. We are heartbroken, as she was a vibrant member of our family. Jiuu was a cosmic clown, making us laugh continuously. She was a loving pet, and she just adored Tuk, sleeping near her every night.

Tuk had rescued her as a kitten after her mother was killed by a dog. Tuk had a good vet give her all the vaccinations in the book and brought her home on Halloween last. We kept her indoors, and we cannot understand how she got so sick. Animals don’t live long here in the tropics.

She got sick suddenly less than six weeks ago and went into a radically steep decline. The vets cannot explain it. She wouldn’t eat and went right down, despite our force-feeding her liquid nourishment, fluids, and meds. We took her to the vet many times, most recently just this morning. But she gave up the ghost this evening. Poor little girl. We miss her so much.

Here is a picture of Jiuu from the early days when we brought her home: http://pinetreewind.blogspot.com/

She was a darling.

-Zenwind.

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Bangkok Normal

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I went into the city yesterday and found Bangkok Dangerous to be more like Bangkok Normal, at least for the afternoon and evening I was there. After the bombings of earlier in the week, there were not quite as many people on the mass transit or in the stores, but the automobile traffic was in normal gridlock. The security people are checking bags more thoroughly.

I had planned on taking the express boat in and to land on the Sathorn pier where Tuesday’s bombing attempt occurred, but I stepped out of the house into the blazing heat and found a taxi right in front of me. So I skipped the walk to the river and took the taxi, riding in air conditioned comfort to the nearest Skytrain station. What’s happening to my sense of adventure?

It was our libertarian meet up night, which takes me out a bit to the east of the city center. I hate crowds, so my usual strategy is to go out there on the Skytrain in mid-afternoon when it’s not as crowded. There is a movie theater within walking distance of our meet up pub, so I passed rush hour in a/c comfort. From the Skytrain I got a good look down at the Erawan shrine where Monday’s bombing occurred, and although there were people there the crowd was much smaller than normal.

My friends all went home before 23:00, so I went to The Rock Pub – Bangkok’s House of Rock. There were only three of us there in the audience for the late band, Jimmy Revolt. The band knows me as a very enthusiastic fan of theirs, and if I’m there they always play “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin. Although this band has its origins in Punk, they are always surprising me with their new covers of old classics, e.g., "Johnny Be Good," "Paint It Black."

After the pub closed, I sat at one of their outdoor tables talking to one of the audience, an interesting guy from Serbia. He has a PhD in music history and did his dissertation on something like “New Wave Rock Music in the Soviet Block,” or similar. Obviously, he doesn’t have a job in the field. Great conversation.

Normal taxi ride home after midnight with very little traffic and, surprisingly, few police checkpoints. Our street still has the trees trimmed with cascades of blue lights from the recent Mothers' Day (Queen's birthday), and at 3AM it looks magical.

-Zenwind.

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Explosion in central Bangkok

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There has been an explosion this evening in central Bangkok, close to the famous Erawan shrine that honors the Hindu god Brahma.

It is thought to be a big pipe bomb, and at least a dozen people have been killed and several dozen wounded by the blast. News reports are still coming in. Good old BBC was the first to alert me of this.

The site is at a major intersection, and I often travel by on the elevated Skytrain. I have often shopped at the nearby Amarin Plaza (where I bought my hammock recently).

Who did it is an instant controversy, as most Thais have their personally favorite villains to blame. The political thickets just get thicker and thicker.

Stand by.

-Zenwind.

Update: The value of BBC International News is apparent now, as no other news service is remotely as up to date. (Al Jazeera is a decent second.) CNN and Fox News are asleep at the wheel.

Update: Overnight there's been a lot of changes in reported facts and theories.

Update: This afternoon (Tuesday) a similar bomb was thrown off a bridge toward the Sathorn pier, but it bounced into the river and exploded there without injuring anyone. This is the pier I have often used when coming into the city via express boat down the Chao Phraya River; I land there and take the nearby Skytrain into the downtown area from there.

I still plan to travel into the city later this week -- if public transit is working somewhat normally -- although Tuk thinks I'm nuts.

-Zenwind.

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