Hot but with a Dry Breeze in the Shade

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I haven’t posted here in a while. We are getting daytime temps up in the brutal mid-90s*F, and the direct sunlight is unbelievably oppressive. Our “cool” season will be over very soon. I know that readers suffering through extreme cold in the great white north don’t want to hear this; but the “hot” season of March, April, and May is our own most dreaded time of year because of the hellish humidity.

I am determined to get air conditioning into our two rooms before the worst hits us. So when I’m feeling well enough I’ve been doing a lot of work clearing junk out of the way for when the guys eventually come to install the a/c. This being Thailand, there is no guarantee that we will get it in, but I dread another year of the heat without it.

I did the moving and cleaning early today but still was drenched in sweat while working inside. And my back started hurting worse than in recent memory – making it painful to even breathe. After de-frosting our ancient frig (which ices up quite fast) I showered and went to the neighborhood store for ice and especially for some cold Beer Chang.

Returning, I cleaned all of our major floor fans outdoors and left the parts out to dry. The final thing on the agenda was to be outside to receive the delivery of chicken livers for our two remaining cats. A woman rides her bicycle by and brings the liver between 14:00 and 15:00 hours every Wednesday.

As I had made a respectable dent in my agenda, I finally sat in the shade and went through a liter of beer with ice in a big mug. The breeze was surprisingly dry in the afternoon, and I stopped sweating – which is unusual for outdoors. The Beer Chang numbed my backache.

My personal sound system is the best I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I made use of it today. Waterproof (sweat-proof) phone and headphones from Sony. For “cleaning music,” Led Zeppelin is the best to get me moving, and I added some Queen later on; hard rocking fast-moving jumpy stuff. (The cats think I'm insane.) For “sitting in the shade music” later, I listened to the Dixie Chicks, and their song "Traveling Soldier" always makes me weep.

It’s evening now, but the house is still hot. The beer anesthesia has worn off and the pain is acute. I should have bought another pint. So I will stop typing and lie down.

-Zenwind.

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Pipe Bombs Go Off Outside Downtown Mall

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Sunday night two pipe bombs with watch timers went off outside Siam Paragon shopping center in Bangkok’s center. No one was hurt even though it was during a busy time. I walk by that spot at least once a month.

Conspiracy theories have really taken off, and there are all manner of villains blamed. “TIT” (“This Is Thailand”) and I’m rarely surprised anymore. We will continue to be vigilant when out and about.

-Zenwind.

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The "Cool" season is here

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We are enjoying our January's all-too-brief respite from the tropical norm of extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity. Yes, we still drip with sweat when venturing out and being physically active. But the relatively comfortable dryness of the air at this moment is astonishing and is welcomed beyond belief. The Dew-Point (a calculation of "felt temperature" combining heat and humidity) is very, and rarely, low. Thus, when I meditate, the inhalation of breath is much more free, and the cooler inhaled air is ecstatic beyond description.

This week, the temperatures dropped down into the mid-60s F, and I had to cover my feet at night, and one night I had to turn off the fan!

I have accumulated a huge collection of eBooks for Kindle reading, and I don't know where to start. So many books; so little time! I am going to re-start working out on the treadmill again (despite my doctor's orders), because I can read and exercise at the same time. I am so sick of being idle and weak.

So, ever and always, upward!

-Zenwind.

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New Year's Eve 2014/2015

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We are hanging in there, and this year we escaped flooding once again (unlike the dread year of our 2011 Flood), although southern Thailand has had some bad flooding this year. We now have a very brief respite from the worst of the tropical heat. The year 2014 started with anti-government protests, mass demonstrations, and a bit of violence. But the Royal Thai Army stepped in with a coup d’etat on 22 May and declared martial law. Parliament was sent home. We had an Army squad on the corner by the police station for quite a while, but Thailand has seemed to quiet down for the time being.

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Our biggest personal loss this year was the passing of dear Mommy Kitty. She had been sick for a long time, and one day when at her lowest ebb she crept off to die in private. We miss her. (I still intend to write more about her heroic motherhood.) She slept by my feet for years, and I still roll over carefully in the night, thinking that she might be there. But a new generation showed up in the form of little Jiuu, a rescued kitten that is tearing up everything in reach. Together with Willy and Pinkie, Tuk and I are celebrating at home tonight.

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Of the many books I’ve read this year, here are some of my favorites (with links to any reviews):

On the Nature of Things by Lucretius;

Cato: a tragedy (1713) by Joseph Addison

Classic exposes of Scientology by Russell Miller and Jon Atack

The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian

The Darkship series by Sarah Hoyt

Ayn Rand: the Russian radical by Chris Matthew Sciabarra (not yet reviewed).

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The best movie I’ve seen this year:

Whiplash, without a doubt.

Honorable mention:

Edge of Tomorrow.

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-Zenwind.

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Post-Christmas Post

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Christmas 2014 came and went without much community notice up here in Nonthaburi, although Christmas carols could be heard in the major malls down in the city. (And carols on my streaming internet radio stations are inescapable.) All of December has had a festive atmosphere on our street since HM the King’s birthday is on 5 December, and yellow light displays are on all the trees. (Yellow is the color associated with the King.) The lights are kept on until after New Year’s Day, and they are really something to see. Stumbling home after a pub crawl, it’s like traveling through a winter wonderland – without the snow and cold.

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The highlight of my Christmas was telephoning my sister and her gathered family in the old homestead in Pennsylvania. It was their Christmas Eve, and we talked until my voice gave out. (I’m not used to talking that much!)

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I never did get to see the Geminid meteor showers as I had hoped when writing my last post here. By the time it got dark enough, haze had made seeing any stars impossible. Now I know why there are no astronomy clubs in the greater Bangkok area.

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I’m feeling better, although I’m still weak from the forced inactivity from the thrombosis. The doctor told me to not do any treadmill work for a while even if I felt up to doing it. I see him again after the New Year. But I have been walking the neighborhood loop down by the river and around by the hospital – a neat little 4 and one-half klick distance. I see my Thai friend who makes key copies near the hospital and stop to talk with him briefly. He speaks a bit of English because he had spent some time in the USA a long time ago. Nice guy. On my walks I see a few other Thai folks I know, most of whom do not speak English but who know me by sight. The friendliness makes it truly my own neighborhood.

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Some mornings during this our Cool Season are fresh like a summer morning on the farm. But the sun is still hot. The two previous days were very humid, with rain falling one evening. Yesterday was more of the typical hot-humid hell day we would find most other times of the year. I wish I could get out to walk earlier in the morning when it’s the most comfortable, but my evening FMS meds make me too groggy to do much of anything before 11:00 AM.

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Sick Skinny Silly Willy sleeps next to me now. Why do animals near death seek me out? He likes to go out and lie in the sun at midday.

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Our new kitten, “Tiny” (or, “Jiuu,” in Thai) is a clown. She is about seven months old and rips a destructive path through her world as only a young cat can do. She terrorizes poor old Pinkie, who is shy. But Silly Willy just stares her down. Jiuu will charge straight at Willy in full fighting mode, only to veer off at the last moment. It’s as if she is reading Willy’s mind, “Come on, you little bitch; I’m too sick to chase you, but if you come close enough you’ll be sorry; come on, make my day.” Jiuu just watches him with mystification from the sidelines as Willy turns his back on her with contempt. Little amateur cat up against the (ailing) big-league feline.

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I just finished reading the lengthy Ayn Rand: the Russian radical (1995; 2013) by Chris Matthew Sciabarra. Wow! Chris has been an internet acquaintance for several years from some neo-Objectivist discussion e-lists. He is quite a gentleman and one hell of a great scholar. I would like to review this book properly someday on Zenwind, but here I will just mention that he looked at Rand through the context of the culture she grew up in, in Russia’s “Silver Age” of literature and philosophy. He focuses on her (very Russian, and also very Aristotelian) “dialectical” methods of explaining history and philosophy – and I must say that he brings up integrative trends in her thinking that I had noticed from the very first and which he analyzes in the wider context of Western philosophy. It is a unique and masterful work of scholarship – and it’s the second volume of a trilogy he has completed on philosophy. (The temptation is gnawing at me – shall I examine the other two volumes?)

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Enough.

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-Zenwind.

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Vivaldi on a fine day

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Comfortable weather here is a rarity, and this is one of the first in this our all-too-brief “Cool Season.” One can never count on many more fine days, so one must enjoy each one as a rare gift. I put my lawn chair outside, but I put it in the shade. I also wore a headband since I sweat whenever I move around, even in our winter; I took off my shirt; and I still put plenty of ice in my big thermos beer mug.

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I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy lately, so I needed music that is non-invasive. (English lyrics disrupt my thinking, and instrumentals are best.) I picked Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and played it over and over while reading about dialectical philosophical traditions (Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Marx, Rand) on my Kindle.

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I’m recovering from a bit of a low spell, but I’m on the upward mend. A recent bout of thrombosis has stopped all major exercise, and I am very weak. Going to the hospital every day for a while allowed me to catch a head cold. (Where are contagiously sick people assembled together? At a hospital. A hermit like me rarely mixes with others.)

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One of our cats, Silly Willy, is on death’s door with an untreatable virus, but he was outside today. He is skinny and pathetic, but he’s an old friend, and he sat on my lap while I read. He is still alert and notices birds and other critters that he would have otherwise chased down if he had felt his normal self. Willy and me: two sickies.

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I had a rather confusing wake up at dawn today. (I think that I’ve written about this same illusion before.) While in bed, I looked out the window (without my glasses on) and saw white fluttering things around the blossoming tree/hedge on the perimeter wall. While we sometimes forget the month of the year here because of such a different climate, I was well aware of it being December. So I thought: okay, those are snowflakes dancing over the tree. Wait a minute … it doesn’t snow here, and trees don’t normally blossom in snow. What is happening? I put on my glasses and resolved the issue. It was a bunch of butterflies hovering around the pink blossoms. It’s a geographical confusion.

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Tonight may be my best chance of seeing the Geminid meteor showers if I go up on our roof. Previous nights have been too cloudy – we seldom ever see stars or clear skies here – but I will venture up there tonight in a last-ditch effort for some (beloved) astronomical viewing. City lights and tropical haze make frustrating obstacles to seeing the beautiful night skies. All I want is a peek.

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-Zenwind.

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Yep, Thrombosis Again

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I went to the local hospital today and got to see the doctor who treated me three years ago for a case of thrombosis in my right leg. He ordered bloodwork and ultrasound, which detected a blood clot in my left leg. I'm taking meds for it and will visit the hospital every day for a while until the anti-colagulent level is fine tuned. I'm glad I caught it fast this time around.

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-Zenwind.

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Thrombosis Again?

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I’m limping. And sulking about it. My lower left leg is lamed, and I’m afraid it might be a recurrence of the thrombosis I had a couple of years ago. If it becomes visibly swollen I will have to go to the doctor.

Not being able to walk, to fully stride out and wander, is a personal blow to my very identity. I am a walker, a rambler, and a wandering hiker by nature, and to not be able to freely walk about is like a prison sentence for me.

The previous thrombosis episode started the same way: I felt what I thought was a muscle cramp in my calf, but careful stretching didn’t help. It got worse and swelled up alarmingly.

The cause of this present lameness episode seems to be my inactivity last weekend, when for two whole days I sat and caught up with a huge backload of email correspondence and did nothing but sit and type. And beyond that, I spent a long spell in late October reading the great biography, "Mao: the untold story", and writing a review of it. Inactivity is poison. Activity is life.

I hope I’m wrong and that this crippling leg problem is not a thrombosis flare-up. But whatever the cause of it, I cannot wait to get back on my feet again.

-Zenwind.

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Hunger Games in Real Time

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The latest Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay – Part 1, started Thursday in Thai theaters, and some students have been using the “three-fingered salute” protest gesture – that in the films are targeted against the totalitarian Capitol – against the real life military government that is in place since the May 22 military coup. The students are arrested for it, but they are released after being held a while and talked to. The generals know that the world is watching them.

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Thursday was my monthly meet up with friends in the city, so I left early to get in two movies before evening. I didn’t see Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 because it is playing most places and will be around a while. (Maybe.) I saw Whiplash for the second time; it is one of the best movies I’ve seen recently, and the performance by J.K. Simmons is absolutely astonishing. I also saw Interstellar, which was one hell of a ride.

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Before leaving home I had read in local news reports that the Apex theater group (Lido and Scala theaters in the heart of Bangkok) was suddenly canceling their Thursday showing of Hunger Games at the Scala. Apparently someone was trying to buy up and distribute a huge number of tickets, possibly setting up a mass protest against our present system of martial law. Apex is said to have canceled the movie on its own with no order from the generals. I planned to see Whiplash at Lido, and I immediately saw military and police presence on the way there. No incidents happened that I know of. Friday, three students were arrested for flashing the three-fingered salute at Scala.

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I saw my second film at Siam Paragon theaters, and the place was swarming with military and police, with some VIP military folks under heavy escort. In the evening I got on the crowded Skytrain to go to my meeting place, and found myself standing face to face with a young Thai teenager in a Boy Scout uniform. I caught myself before I gave him the traditional Boy Scout salute – which is with three fingers, like the protest salute in Hunger Games!

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-Zenwind.

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Technical Problems

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Both of my main blogs will be silent for a while, until I sort out some of the blogs's bugs, some problems with appearance and line spacing that suddenly kicked up and ambushed me out of nowhere.

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Today was the first real sunshine day in many months, and I was roasted a bit while out walking. I look forward to the clear night when I can see stars.

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-Zenwind.

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