providential parcel

11.30.2012

A woman rages on at her neighbor, sitting on the road in front of her house the screaming and arm flying is enough for the people above to watch the drama below.  A man pulls and finally gets the woman up and leads her back into the home where rage fades and micro flights buzz overhead.  Suraksha got her bag of chocolate, dry apples, Snyder’s Pretzels and ten bucks for ten years of life on this mountain.  And off to school she goes.  Maya and Laxman are heading down to Pokhara and I will be in charge.  The restaurant is closed but I can open a liter of beer for you if you’d like.  Didi’s daughter is also here and I don’t know what kind of work Maya has lined up for her, all the rooms are clean, there are few dishes and the only labor I know of is in the lower garden.  Clearing out remnants of September’s landslide, getting it in shape for a party 21 days away.  Oy.

The end of the month.  December, a month with mixed experiences.  Christmas in Siem Reap was interesting, buying little gifts for everyone in the bar I was comfortable in and playing the Boss’s Santa Claus is coming to town.  Gee I can’t think of any other moment right now.

Syria going dark.  I hate to read into any news event because news events come to you already inflated for dramatic purposes.  I must not read into any events as previews of what may or may not come.  Syria with no internet.  Rwanda with no internet.  The media is the most maddening influence on society.  From too much to nothing at all.  Who has lived better? 

Laxman bought two pairs of cowboy boots on line from an American cowboy boot company called Sheplers, I think.  Settling for boots instead of a Jeep was a practical and manageable way to deal with the I need I need crisis.  What do I need in times of great personal decision making?  Hmmm, it’s right behind me here somewhere.

And the party for Suraksha’s number ten birthday was bigger than I expected, and when the cake came out and the candles were lit the heavily made up little girl was overwhelmed, covering her mouth, when all came into the dining room, the overwhelming really did feel overwhelming.

And the auspicious moment of the day, of the year, of the month ok, was Mary’s parcel arriving this late afternoon, filled with stuff for the birthday girl.  Mom’s seasonal parcels always had that knack of arriving just at the right time and here again, the coincidence, no it’s not a coincidence, it’s spirits moving in people.  There is a whole different ballgame in the next dimension.  I look forward to meeting them in twenty one days.

a legion of dead Jews in Chico's head

11.29.2012

I’m staying in the room a little longer this morning, expecting the French ladies will come for breakfast, I hope to miss them and avoid emotions of shyness which in truth isn’t really the reason at all.  Look, when one isn’t a non-native speaker I will have the advantage and I think it’s unfair that the L2 has to speak English because I don’t speak French, German, Turkish, Chinese, ok not Chinese, Nepalese, Polish, Brazilian, Honduran, Spanish, Lithuanian and so forth.  So?

The mountains were not around this morning but the sun did rise but now plays hide and seek with drifters.  The room during the night is quite cool and the blanket is the only refuge.  I do need to wear long-johns, a few long sleeve t-shirts and socks for the right balance.  Last night’s moon showed Pokhara under a dark hazy blue. 

I have made no decision regarding the tangka and the drum.  I wouldn’t hesitate if I had more money but why do I really need to save anymore?  Where do you want to go at the end of the year?  @#!!

I wrapped up Suraksha’s sudden growth of edible birthday gifts and taped them shut inside a clear shopping bag and she looked at it and shook it and she was much better in controlling her lustful cocoa desires.  Only a few more days, kiddo, it’s a good tradition to wait and patience is a virtue most of the time.

You have good life brother.  I do sometimes but I’ve given up so much and what do I have to show for it.  A corner room with the sun rising right in your bed.  That’s good.  Lamjung and Annapurna 2 to my left, that’s good. Living with a family that may be as crazy as I am, that may not be so good all the time but we look for a balance and I’m sure my behavior may leave them dispirited though I don’t know what those moments may be this year, certainly four years ago I was on the lam full steam playing football with the spirits, imagine a whole living room full of dead Jews. 

When it is cloudy the chill in the air remains and even fat wool socks aren’t doing it.  Moving away from this computer and stretching and getting the blood going will help.  Ok, first a big toke?  A little morning music?  Are the Frenchies gone, it’s almost eight.  The yellow apples I gave to Maya were appreciated though I haven’t tried one.  A hundred and forty rupees for one kg.  Eight apples.  There were no kids on the trail asking for anything and Prem Maya wasn’t there to reluctantly take one for her four girls.  Four girls and Tika decided to take the job in Afghanistan.  He awaits for a visa in Kathmandu.  It’s been a week of waiting.  The money was too good to pass up.  Life on the mountain, while it is clean and fresh and you’re with family there’s just no income and it’s a sacrifice.  Or is it.  Making money dishonestly will always get you in the end.  Taking advantage of someone’s sympathy in order to make money will always get you in the end.  It’s enough to stay in this room. 

Well, all aside leaves things alone and misunderstanding or accepting differences we move.  Didi cleaned up a major part of the lower garden and today I moved a pile of wood scraps and a pile of cement pieces.  Good enough for today.  In the shade I need all I have though the sun is out. And Didi’s daughter comes by to let me know I believe there is tea waiting above.  She took a shower her wet hair is long.  The nineteen year old should find a handsome someone in the future if I am dead wrong in the water.

look deep o lama

11.28.2012

 Oh the lower back is stiff and my feet are cold.  The hot shower was nice though it’s not as hot as it can get when the sun is strong, and it wasn’t today.  A nice and much easier walk to Lakeside and back than eight days ago, which also happened to be the last time I wrote in my journal.  Another breakfast of American pancakes at Mike’s Restaurant on the lake.  Three tables behind me, six American men in their late twenties from Arkansas wax no elegence and let me tell you what I heard about zombies and Remingtons and dudes trying to out-cool each other with yo-ho trailer adventures in the wild, well it was hard to think after coming down the mountain after a most engaging conversation with the monk and that left brown eye of his going deep and looking for truth when I showed him a photo of my spirit and described the dude behind the coincidences that led me to this mountain.

As darkness falls two travelers from France enter the dining room.  Maya says one is very sexy and  I look for a moment.  Perhaps.  The lady in Leh was attractive.  SA-vay!  SA-vo!  The back hurts more, Suraksha finishes school at four and it takes the poor kid an hour up to reach home, Laxman is in Pokhara again applying for a chance to work overseas.  Why in God’s name is he doing this, of course we know.  I told him before I started down that he wouldn’t have time.  Go buy a Jeep. 

Dinner finished and yawning, the family gathers around an odd tourist with a guide and this young woman inquires of the price of this and that and smelling blood like a tiger Maya goes in for the kill.  It’s a kind of sales practice here in Nepal I eventually learned to say no to, but for the inquisitive and naïve soul, the pressure and the sweet talk will leave you buying something overpriced which you regret the next day.  It was annoying enough to return to room six.

Crap.  If I want that thangka and drum I’ll need to send almost three hundred clams to Salalah.  What are the value of these things now ol boy?  Maybe just the thangka?  I told John I wanted it back because the spirits and energy was up in the area and having the tangka would help me discern.  If the spirits are in fact saying anything with me I’d like them to share some money.  I have the money, it’s 25% of what I have left. 

I asked the spirit specifically to lead me into a bookshop to find Leon Uris's Exodus and the spirit was close but no bloody cigar.

On the mountain sharing my insanity with a monk and feeling somehow relieved, contented, exonorated, at peace, do I now feel so far away from any compassion.  First it was the red necks and then awful sales pitches, why did they take me away from the joy of the morning? Time to sleep, by eight pm, clouds break up and the moon beams brightly.

through the glass

11.27.2012

Johnnie Walker did me in last night and so far we’re going up and down, sideways and backwards and sometimes even forward.  I didn’t have that much either but it was enough.  Such a blessing it is, isn’t it, to not be able to drink whiskey, at least certain kinds.  I have no problems with the Irish variety. 

The room’s windows are clean except for one concern.  When the painters sprayed-plasticized the brick they inevitably got the windows and I don’t know what to use to take it off.  Turpentine loosens it but floats and sticks elsewhere.  And the water pump isn’t working.  This little thing moves the water from the big tank below the rooms to the tanks next to the house.  While they are presently half-full, all it takes is a group of large Germans with the shits to use all of it like that. 

I feel I should take a shower but if I go down to Lakeside tomorrow I’ll most definitely need another one.  I don’t necessarily feel dirty except where I should clean once in a while.  Like my hair.  The Peruvian wool toke is warm enough and more importantly doesn’t scratch keeps my hair in total darkness these days. 

An overcast evening and no full moon.  Pockets of blue are hopeful but nah, right now they’re too thick to know it’s a full moon.  Last night’s brilliant shine was strong enough to penetrate the thin clouds and allow no need for a flashlight, which I always need to see room’s six’s tiny key hole lock for the tiny key.

 

I cleaned the windows in the kitchen closest to the burners that in a month splatted enough oil and grease it was impossible to see out and then volunteered since no one else was around except Didi who was busy carrying up 50kg water containers and Lord knows how she empties the thing in one of the 1000L tanks is beyond me though  I helped her empty two of them with great effort, to  go to the grandparents house to pick up milk. 

Across from the buffalo pond up on the hill a shovel demolishes the top, it is an ugly site.  The plans are, according to the Japanese-Nepali man who is undergoing this ravage, to open a five star hotel on the top.  Once completed it would have been in a prime location but not the best location I told Laxman.   The best spot is the old army post, up for grabs I asked him.  The buildings are up, and can probably hold thirty, there’s a kitchen and what else do you need aside from water. 

I speak ‘it would have been’ I hate talking about the future as if nothing is going to happen.  And listen to Christians already planning for the next year.  I think the only people who praying for the end are those who suffer.  This’ I don’t want to be told this is the end because it’s going to ruin my plans for a baby shower and if it happens let it happen’ irritates me more than anything.  An attitude of the ‘whatever’ generation that smacks of narcissism.  Woa that’s strong there mister I’m not drinking anything toxic tonight. 

Cousins from Chicago take rooms one and two.  The large Kevin James dude sounds just like Pete N. and in a way almost resembles him.  Ah steaks and bars.  There’s lots of bars. 

And a full moon.

outdoor cooking

11.26.2012

Twenty six days to go on this Monday the 26^th, Laxman makes a pretty good banana pancake, using all the ingredients except butter.  With butter and syrup I'd be back on Red Leaf eating mom’s cakes in the darkness minutes away from the bus pulling up and taking me to St. Bedes. 

A cold clear morning, the sun rose a few minutes later thanks to thick haze.  It must be a tradition not to forget where one has come from but the fire outside burns, heating the kettle.  Suraksha must have risen earlier than the sun, Laxman calls for her below.  Yesterday the eye doctor said the polyps or whatever they are Laxman didn’t ask, are returning and she’ll have to press cotton swabs in hot water on them for the next three months.  What the heck is this but someone who hasn’t correctly diagnosed the problem.  Shit, he cut them out and they’re coming back?  Isn’t that evidence of incompetence?

Well, what are the options.  Finding someone else who is more competent or more specialized.  I should take a photo of them and send them to Nancy.  Wait I know what it is.  Cholesterol.  Maybe no more chocolate for a while there kiddo?  Noooo, she cries in fear.  Maybe it’s the eggs.  This morning, though they look fine.

 

Maya cooks onions and beans in a heavy wok on the fire outside.  She tosses in tomatoes and gundruk, a dry spinach like vegetable into the hot oil.  I think cooking outside is to be enjoyed.  Suraksha stirs, covering her mouth and eyes from drifting smoke.  The boy workers continue dismantling the tower.  By noon if no one is pelted by falling bolts, it will be down and clear skies will prevail again for the first time in five years.  Now Maya stirs in potatoes and the six spices, it looks very dry where is the water, ah, the steam rises as she pours and stirs and now covers.  It’s getting warm.

Laxman’s sister will be in Sarangkot next week.  She works and lives in Israel.  Today I met her husband who works and lives in Bahrain.  Laxman says they will both be here for December 21.  There is no coincidence here.  It’s something he may have thought was one but it isn’t.  Nevertheless, many questions came to me when I met the man whose name was not given;  prior to 1959 were there any Tibetans or Chinese in this area?  My guess is no though nearly half have an asian countenance as opposed to the dark skin people of the mountains.   The Gurung come originally from Mongolia, and have been here as long as the mountain Aryans.  Interesting…

The tall sinewy German from Dusseldorf laughed when I told him I’d been here since August and continued to laugh when he repeated ‘so really you’ve been here since August, aaahhaaa’, his female companion, his wife most likely, said why not, it’s beautiful.  Darn right lady.  With his chiseled head and arms, piercing blue eyes and short blond  hair the Aryan doesn’t know how to relax without having accomplished something first.  Shanti shanti I’ll ring in your ears, life is not a straight line and there is nothing precise about a circle.

Well to end the day, Laxman’s brother in law brought a big bottle of Johnnie Walker and a few hot toddies have done me in.  I held cotton swabs to the princesse’s eyes, poor kid, well there are worse off.  The moon is almost full, trying to take photos with a shaky zoom was comical.  Eleven datura seeds this morning did nothing.  I have to grind.   

The PM Tower

11.25.2012

A nice joint after breakfast, the warm sun disrobes me of all things wool.  What shall I do today?  It is Sunday, there will be rooms to be cleaned if I am impatient.  Suraksha visits the eye doctor in Pokhara.  Wanna go down?  Ah, I’d like to walk to Lakeside.  Those American pancakes were something good.  I ordered waffles but I guess the waffle maker was on the blink and got the flap jacks instead.  Laxman wasn’t too happy to learn I enjoyed a pancake he can’t make, or doesn’t want to.  I’d like to make him pancakes American style.  What the blazes do I need?

I need measuring spoons.  I envy those who can eye a quarter teaspoon of baking powder without a tool. 

I try to be normal, communicating with the world out there mostly with facebook and people just don’t accept anything that comes from the nutcake who believes the stupid world is going to end.  Well, I just don’t blame them.

Maya takes off to Pokrhara and leaves me here all alone at the guesthouse.  You want a room?  How much you got?  Ah, you’re from Switzerland?  Ok, you can have room one for a kg of chocolate.

The PM Tower is almost finished.  By sunset it will no longer obstruct views in the eastern skies.  What a difference.  And I read that Coldplay is taking a break at the end of the year.  I am so tired of coincidences.  What’s this?  They know but they don’t know. 

Time is so short and I’m sure there must be something more

And here’s some real hindsight. If I really and truly believed heaven was going to come next month I would have enjoyed life so much more but German skepticism and sensibilities aren’t going to let me go there and I will simply, do what.  The sun is strong, the winds cool I carry the Peruvian wool hat and put it on and take it off.  I carry the pashmina shawl and wrap my head and take it off and wrap my head again and take it off.  Inside the dining room it is warm enough next to the window looking down on the steps to disrobe most and from the looks of things, a nut or piece of steel fell on of the kid-workers heads.  Well, you’re lucky no one else has been hurt worse than this, not a helmet in this darn country.  Dismantling has stopped and people are calling the company to decide what to do with the kid and if work should go on. 

Maya returns.  She didn’t exactly go to Pokhara and it doesn’t matter.  She makes a salad of carrots, tomatoes and onions with salt and lemon and popcorn and like never before I eat the unpopped kernals.  She opens up a Gorka and its cheers.  The sun is gone and the ladies are down at the water pump.  There was no water yesterday and everyone is eager to assert their position in line.  Maya went down with two 25kg water cisterns and came up.  An hour later it was close to being her turn and now she  stands next to the tap for her turn.  Two large ladies from the View Top Lodge had two big bags of empty plastic bottles and they are done. 

And now the night is nigh.  It’s eight oclock and I am thinking of bed.  Well, what to do?  Maya and Suraksha have turned in and Laxman will meander until he can sleep.  Where there are no people in the rooms or in the restaurant there’s nothing to do but turn in.  Strange since the dining room was completed no one stays in the reception room, not necessarily a great place to crash because it is cold, but the tv remains unwatched.  Good we say.

gifts that fall

11.24.2012

Steadily breaking needle bushes on the side of a mountain and I find no trace of my pants which mysteriously blew off the roof a week ago.  Now Suraksha and I remove the needles covered on ourselves and wonder if it is wise to eat a choco-pie an hour before dal bhat.  ‘Why you no hungry brother’ I hear Maya knows why but plays the what part.  How would she know?  A daughter with whom there are no secrets.

And it was a mistake to tell the precocious nine year old with a week to go before number ten that I had her birthday gift.  She has fought ferociously to simply see it that I reconsidered for a moment but I held firm.  It’s not a birthday gift if you see it before your birthday.  It is bad luck.  There is no surprise when you know what you’re getting.  This no Nepali tradition she says and ‘accidently’ drops my red day pack over the side, locked, inside her gift which I’ll tell you here if you ask.

The American men last night turned out to be Australian who were sitting next to an American man with his wife.  The six drank 14 liters of beer but they didn’t have any San Miguel, the company whose name is all over Sarangkot.

The PM Tower is coming down quite nicely.  Maybe a sunset photo from the roof.  The moon will be full in a few days and I have a new friend.  I will call this brown and black dog, Kali.  Now he lays at the end of the terrace.  When I came down the steps from the upper garden his body blocked the beginning of the terrace.  Well, yesterday he didn’t manage to get by the Sherpa Guesthouse with a smaller and evil looking black dog and the even smaller weird eye dog growling him down.  And this morning he was at grandmother’s when I had hurried back at seven in the morning to look for my sixteen thousand rupee Oakleys which I had lost last night and lo!  Lo I found them under a lalupati bush I tried unsuccessfully to photo.  And again the Sherpa Guesthouse rat dogs stopped Kali from using the road.  And there he was  after lunch, with bright brown eyes and he just needs to eat I don’t think Laxman is going to like having him on this terrace.  The strange Japanese female twosome in rooms one and two with their equally strange guides may not like dogs, even a nice one like this, one look in her, his eyes and there is no harm. So, a good dog so far if he howls at the moon I might just join him. 

 

 

prelim party plans

11.23.2012

The coldest and cloudiest Friday is now, I can see my breath say when did it last snow here?  Fifty one years ago I am told, Beem holds his hand to his chest.  A lot of snow.  You can smell the precipitation in the dark clouds drifting by.  No one under a half century old here has felt the first flakes of the white stuff. You’ve never caught a crunchy flake on your tongue?  That would be nice to do, but not for long.  I sent Suraksha down to buy me wool socks from Prem Maya.  Long johns, everything warm is almost on me.  The wool blanket is necessary in the morning.  Now at ten in the morning that’s the only thing I don’t need right now.  Aside from the elusive sun.   

I don’t mind going to sleep before nine but I’m not crazy about waking up before five. What’s the difference anyways?  Maya cooks the vegetable curry outside on a fire.  Feeling nostalgia I suppose.  For the next week temps at night will get close to zero degrees Celsius.  A red chili might warm me up for a minute but holy cow I’m freezing afterwards.  What is that all about?

For the past four day boys have been dismantling the Prem Maya Tower.  Wearing no safety equipment and no shoes, the thin and ragged bunch on top and bottom as iron frames slowly descend by rope.  The new and improved view will be good.    

Forty nine years ago Irish Catholics around the world lost one of their own and the curse called on a family continues to this day.  Did I have anything to do with this curse?  Of course not.  I was only nine months old, but I did see the anguish and sorrow and the fist shaking and God saw disrespect and together the curse was enacted. 

Such a silly thing this curse crap is though you cannot refute.

Maya and I took a walk to the grandparents for tomatoes, mustard leaves and other pulses.  My, the Christmas flowers sure entice one to take a few pics.  The lalipati grows alongside the road, wherever it darn well pleases.  Travelers check into rooms 1-3.  Older American sounding men with white hair.  I bet we are similar in age but they are big because of their steakhouse diet.  Sniff, I like steak.  I enjoyed a nice steak during my last night at in Dubai.  I walked by the Outback several times but because it’s in the Dubai Mall they don’t have beer.  And to boot, the prices are so ridiculously high and they can’t say they’ve earned the right to charge fifty clams for an eight ounce steak.  No bull way dudes.

So, here’s the prelims on the party.

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It Party

                                       Featuring REM on mp3 and other great end of the world hits

 Friday

12.21.12

12pm-Midnight

All Food and Drink FREE

Unless we’re all alive on 12.22.12

Super View Lodge and Restaurant

Sarangkot

Call for more info  00977-61-622610

looks good, eh?

Tracy, God be with you

11.21.12

A cold morning, smoke filters into the room, sunrise is twenty minutes away.  Last week the orb rose ten minutes earlier. 

Wow, I took on this mountain and one hour and fifty minutes later I was back in room six and yuck I feel not good.  Very sore calves, heavy head, fatigue, maybe sleep now, no, Maya won’t permit it, another hour or so maybe I can nibble on something.  Tomorrow morning Marcello leaves for KTM.  He was liked by the family here. 

And thankfully a very hot shower and shave in room six’s once notorious toilet.  Shivers afterward, very cold and…and…the chief of Pokhara’s police department has checked into room five with his wife and a couple of assistants, I guess they’ll sleep in four but not two where Suraksha and I found the bed sheets soiled from an hour of something I’d rather not talk about. 

So you didn’t visit Nyima.  I don’t know about timing anymore.  I don’t know anything anymore, I am just tired.  More so than usual. 

11.22.12                                                                      

A colder morning than yesterday.  I need to buy warmer socks.  The calves are burning, the stomach settles after breakfast.  Suraksha’s eyes are improving.  School next week.

Thanksgiving in America.  The Lions lose again (?), cranberry sauce and gravy, corn and turkey, mashed potatoes, seven up with a cherry, pie, chocolate, apple, sour cream peach.  Who’s washing dishes?  Draw from the hat.  I got silverware.  The cabinet is too low to watch tv and wash forks. 

The chief of police in room five turned out to be a prominent judge and his wife.  Now they are gone.  Many people going up and down the mountain today, few come in for breakfast.  Towards the end of the week more are likely to stay up and eat or have a cup of tea or take a room.  Why do people on holiday look at Saturday and Sunday as a weekend?  Every day should be the weekend when there is no work.

I cleaned the dining room windows inside and out after a bowl of noodles got real tired and headed to room six but then Suraksha came by for a visit and I never got that nap.  By five I was scrambling to get dressed for above a nice looking sunset that turned into a stunning sunset.

Tracy.  What the heck.  Gone within two years of knowing her, gone from this life.  Wow, I am at a loss, you always think she’ll get better.  Mary  is doing better.  Was staying in Antep a good idea?  Or was she in England when life ended.  Very sad, very humbling tonite.

I am so to tired of telling people of the end.  I wish someone else would speak up. 

 

 

 

 

 

eight years

Sunset is here and I remain sitting in room six.  After taking three hours to clean three rooms my back hurts a little bit.  I told Maya I am going to Pokhara tomorrow.  What is my agenda?  Two parts maybe one.  Buying razors and incense and going to visit Nyima.  A month before 12.21 tomorrow.  A half moon is upon us.  Is there anything auspicious in this?  Not for those whose hearts are elsewhere.

A sister going under the knife to remove a lemon on the brain.  Today, eight years ago.  That’s a long time but his influence remains key.  What would he think of his sixth son’s precog overdose?  He wouldn’t be pleased I guess.  Neither would his wife.  Nope, not one bit.  Or would they?  The superstitious Irish might raise a few crazy eyebrows and wonder or did America completely stamp out the old world?

I feel a need to visit Nyima but geez I am quite reluctant to do so.  Why not tomorrow, take Marcello with you, a quick visit if that is possible if I tell him what I want.  Show him the spirit, show him samyog written in Hindi, hopefull Dolker will be there.  Usually someone is when he is there. 

Bimal is Didi’s son and this morning her daughter came and washed the dishes.  Didi now cleans my clothes and I sit in the only other pants I have, a pair of ripped up blue jeans that appear to be quite popular sometimes.

Perhaps also tomorrow a datura pancake.  Hmmm, there will be fear amongst the natives.  What are your intentions?  Not good?  Not bad.  I am experimentally bored, to be honest.  Maybe I should be in South America. 

scientific reincarnation my butt

11.19.2012

A cool breeze in the shade and I am wrapped in a pashmina and now my mouse chewed wool shawl.  Suraksha returned this morning, eyes ok, and Suman left for school.  He will be missed, especially in the kitchen where he has learned to be a very competent cook.  Not bad at 14, dude. 

A group of eight will take the four available rooms.  I placed the Tibetan carpet I bought yesterday in room five and it fits perfect.  A beautifully deep orange with a medallion in the middle and a cool trim.  I kind of wish now I had known about these high pile wool gems ten years ago when I started buying carpets for life in the desert.  Would you like to talk about the desert at all?  Not particularly.

What’s the status of the shaman in Brazil I ask Marcello yesterday while we munched on Batta Sandeko, Paneer Palik and my all time favorite Indian dish Sev Dahi Batata Puri drowning it all with three liters of Carlsburg.  Never more popular than right now.  You don’t know who is real and who isn’t.  Actually you can, you go to the indigenous people, far away from the cities, and the people in the village will tell you who is their shaman.  And when did this sudden trend to shamanism begin, please don’t tell me four years ago. 

President Obama visiting Wa Pho. And there’s Hillary.  Obama.  An island man.  A Kenyan with Irish blood.  I assume sir, that you are aware of what I have said about you.  And you are right, just like everyone  else, I am out of my mind.  The Scientific Reincarnation of Jesus.

Well, how do the Christians diss this?  Pretty easily I imagine.  Saying reincarnation and Jesus together in a sentence ends any understanding and that is sad.  Reincarnation.  Scientifically it makes sense.  How can a Christian deny science when…wait, they deny any science that might cause a tremor in the force, Batman. 

Well, here’s the other thing I want to put on the table.  Assuming I am right and this is it and I feel selfish so selfish singing Maranatha this would call to question the great faiths of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism and who else because no expects a crazy ass ending like I am calling. 

And that doesn’t bother people, now, I think they’re tired of my rant.  I am too.  I want a life again free from this mad thinking.  I am tired and I need a hammock.

In the mean time the water pipe from Dubai works fine.  Huge gagging and coughing follows big hits.  It surely cannot be good for some part of my body.  So why do it?  Well I ate a gram of the stuff with a Malaysian chocolate cranberry bar and I don’t think I have felt its effects at all. Marcello has heard and read about the datura seed and fears one.  I take ‘em thirty at a time and they do nothing.  At the end of this month or perhaps on Thanksgiving day, I’ll grind a few and we can see what happens. 

Are you trying to shock people into making comments?  No, not really, just curious to know if we’re being read that’s all.   

The eight Poles remain in the dining room quietly talking.  Dinner is finished, drinking has almost finished.  The big tough looking fellas drinking Gorka without glasses are finished.  The stars, o, what good comes from blackouts.  A few glasses of Chilean wine and we’re done here.

final party planning

11.18.2012

How does one prepare for the final party?  On April 23 2009, I had the going away party which turned into other worldy.  And I planned it unknowing it would become other worldy.  This time around I don’t have a clue to where I’m going.  The children are talking about it as if they understand.  I tell them it’s all good.  Doomsday my ass, the end of the beginning is nothing but good news.  Remove Hollywood from your head now!! Unless of course that was the intention.  Like a thief in the night.  Not even God knows the time and yet spirits do?  How many senses does a spirit have?  And we know they can see the future.  And we know they can be so misleading like wolves in sheep’s clothing, a malevolent spirit calls himself Job, possesses, synchronizes and misleads.  That’s fucking awesome, dude.  A prominent shaman you once were, a noble among the Toccarians.  Celtic blood pulling this kind of crap on me.  Dude.  I will have no issues with tossing you out if all this comes to naught. 

Another bloody orange morning.  Rooms one and two are empty, we wait for five and four.  Suraksha is supposed to be in Pokhara to have this skin tag removed from her eye.  I will, it was, has been decided, going with her.  Mar Celo and Laxman and I. 

8:08pm

Marcello and I left the hospital, patches over the kid's eyes and now in the waining moments of the day, there really isn't much to say back on the mountain.

 

 

picnic day

11.17.2012

I stood at the window long enough for Beem to come over and inquire.  Just thinking.  Below at the tank Sumjana combed out Suraksha’s hair, making a thin and long braid.  The coincidental woman smiled and laughed with her niece and a neighbor.  Tourists stream up and down every morning, more so though on the weekend days.  Sunrise is so difficult to photograph properly now that orange explodes into the blue horizon for the first five minutes and every mode used produces the same blotch and splotch.  The shadows are much darker now and I presume in a month’s time the contrasts will be long and notoriously rich to do much about with a cheap camera. 

Today Suman and his singing bunch of mountain kids will have a picnic, supplies purchased from the collection two days ago when they plundered the valley with good wishes and healthful life. 

An old friend is apparently coming next month for the end of the world my ass party.  Guy was there when it all happened and though he has said I experienced nothing more than the greatest case of cognitive dissonance ever, he understands the spirit world better than I do and thus can’t be writing off multiple channeling and precognitive visions to a middle age crisis.  As a welcoming it’s time to visit a Tibetan camp for carpets.

And

I don’t know how or if I should go see Nyima now before 12.21 because I am sure as hell going to visit him if there is a bloody 12.22.  Exorcism.  He didn’t call it that though.  Four years ago he simply asked if I wanted to have a spirit removed.  I want this spirit to know I want no part of him and I will shake the dust from my heart of him, of you, if you’re reading this now you big wanker.  Ho, oh John.  I am sorry Job but you have left me dried out after four years and I need to drink.  Anticipating has never ever in my life been harder and it’s time to end. 

And, a nice picnic, a few photos, terrible cotton mouth, throwing and tossing kids around, and of course the mountains.  Now the day is closing, four elderly Germans in room one and two and two German gals in room five, wait for their meal and then off to bed it will be for them.  Tomorrow they move on.

Meanwhile I need a haircut, razors, chocolate, and there was something else.

a day after Diwali

Friday morning, the day after the last day of Diwali, all we want now is quiet.  And here it is.  Even tourists are tired of the dancing and singing, stirring the dust in the frenzy.  Yesterday's seven color tika strip remains in full a day after and could remain for a few more days.  A haircut is up and shaving the noggin clean is still being negotiated.  I hesitate only when I think of undesired attention but how else, how else could I do it otherwise.

Returning to write here seems to be, and only for me, a place no one could ever understand.