Saturday, March 23, 2013

key the canon! key the canon!


3.22.13

8:42pm—An annoying headache all day, no thanks to local vodka last night as we wished Ramesh adieu.  A steady stream of tourists and locals kept me busy enough during the afternoon and by nightfall all the rooms are booked.  I told Suman my economic principle that will never leave you in any kind of financial disarray: don’t spend more than what is coming in.  Of course a two or three month monsoon requires saving up for three months of no business and who the hell am I anyways to share advice about money.

Today was Prisma’s birthday number four, Madha made an apple cake and she bought two Cadbury chocolate bars and I melted them with a little butter and drizzled it over the cake and wasn’t that cake pretty good. 

3.23.13

Where are the twenty two Chinese right now?  Sure it’s only five thirty in the morning as I type this.  It is good fortune to have a strong supply of water filling up the big tank with the group coming.  Can I hope for the same good fortune and get hired from here before the end of May?  My faith is weak.

Lamjung’s outline is only visible in the blue overcast.  A sore throat persists, no smoke yesterday, perhaps not today.  I am accepting the inevitable crash if I return to America with nothing.  Hitting the bottom again, geez, there’s nothing more humbling. 

I’ve read enough of the Tibetan book.  The deeper you go into any faith’s commentaries and interpretations the further you are from common sense. 

A cloudy sunrise with one red splotch, such haze subdues what could have been a pretty nice photo.  The camera is functioning though I get a lens error if I use the zoom too much and have to turn it off.  No cheers from the onlookers, a subdued bunch they will be, hanging on at the top hoping clouds will disperse.

A joyful orchestra of birds and a very distant cock crows.  Do I look like a fool helping?  The old white dude carrying water, the old white dude carrying clean dishes, the old white dude.  I don’t care but sometimes I do and that annoys. Why think about such things when nature sings a sweet melody right outside your door.  The tourist airplanes and micro-flyers buzz overhead, a multitude of youthful locals march their way to the top.  The birds are unfazed.  The sun finally ascends the horizon haze forty minutes later.  It’s time to go up.  Take a panadol first, toilet paper, 1rs throat lozenges.  There are some very exotic calls coming from the trees now, the kind one hears further south among the Tropicals.  I can’t even describe a bird call right now, but if I could repeat it…it’s gone.  The Tibetan horns blow from below.  Another day with three threes in the date and an equation totaling three.  Does it mean anything? God I wish to not make or think about meaningless connections anymore.  And what is there to four threes, oh the rare clover. 

5:13pm—Eleven of the Chinese checked in, their other half will stay at the View Top.  After helping Maya wash dishes and pots and everything else because Didi took the day off but didn’t tell anyone, I wiped down the outside tables of beer bottles and glasses while two Chinese men were taking photos with saucer-size lens of birds.  Stay away birds!  Look at the sunset, look at that moon, a three quarter waxing, don’t point your amateur skills at the woman showering below, hoodlums.  To their credit they didn’t intrude with the neighbor but ya know, it’s not a compassionate thing to do but if you smash your cigarettes on the ground and ignore the ash tray, I’m gonna key your camera.  Right?  Enjoy your stay.

I’ve had 497 songs on my ipod for the past three years and before cleaning the rooms I clicked shuffle songs and the music started with my only two AC/DC songs and continued playing them alphabetically.  Some shuffle, but I was glad it played the way it played, it was nice to hear four songs from the Allman Brothers, three from Amberlin, Andy Irvine and his ‘Eastwind’ album is a perennial favorite, two from Audioslave and then ‘Hey Jude’ my only Beatles song, two Ben Harper’s, two Black Crowes before finishing room six. 

Do you really think Detroit is a place you need to be now, that is if I don’t get hired from here before I have to leave?  I can see myself among the bustle outside the ballpark on Friday nights and bumping into people I know.  I’m not asking for anything but a buck or two and I can buy an umbrella, thanks Martin.  Where am I staying?  St. Dominics, they have these great sausage and green peppers lunch on Tuesdays, some dude who learned from this other dude who owned a restaurant in Northville called Hole in the Wall.  John Genetti I think his name was.  Well, bro I don’t like seeing you this way, come home with me and you can sleep under the grill of my beemer.  Thanks, but I passed up on a 8k a month job and I don’t sleep under anyone’s beemer. 

The Chinese eleven cooked dinner and I have a stomach ache.  Maybe it was the boiled pumpkin, maybe it was the chicken stock they called soup, I don’t know but I passed on Maya’s rice and am nurturing a few coconut cookies back in room eight.  The Chinese dude with the camera too big for anyone has it sitting on a tripod aimed at Pokhara below.  He’s taking a long exposure photo or he’s waiting for the haze to dissipate. Four of the middle aged women sit in the dining room and play mahjong and one of them has that earthy 19th century I’ve lived on the farm and only got electricity last year, dark complexion with a pulled back look like someone’s got her hair and is pulling really hard.  Ya’ll gonna be here tomorrow?  I think there’s rain in the forecast.  Hmm.  Your room will be a warm cozy place to stay.  You want hot water?  Bring your thermos to the kitchen and we’ll fill it for you for a special I’m not appreciating how bloody hard it is fee to heat this water and we’ll be ok.  Ok?

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