Cannon Fodder
I mentioned before that Jakarta had a tendency to get overrun. That really stood out during our walking tour of Fatahillah Square. I don’t remember if these cannons were moved to the square after the Dutch left or before. Now it’s quite clear they are not a danger to anyone. More like a playground.
Seems to me that’s the right direction for things like this.
An Afternoon in Jakarta
After wandering around in a market, visiting a mosque, and talking to the local version of a relief society, we got in these tiny three wheeled cars and braved Jakarta’s traffic to go to a restaurant for lunch. This is a lot more daring than it sounds.
Traffic in Jakarta is insane! Mind you I think traffic in a lot of places is nuts. Ulaan Battar comes to mind. Turns out Jakarta is far from the only city in Indonesia with nutso traffic. But that’s a story for another time.
What really distinguishes the craziness of Indonesian traffic has to be the motorcycles. There are more of them than any other vehicles. They filter their way to the front at every red light, whip around corners, pack in tight together, and turn up everywhere. (more…)
Suzie’s House 430 : Permission
“This.. this is nice.” Emma glanced at Kate as the two of them walked down State Street together. She couldn’t remember the last time just the two of them hung out together.
“Yeah. We should do this more often.”
NaNo and Family
I am particularly blessed because my family not only understands my need to write, they enthusiastically join me. Since I’m by far the most experienced in the field, our in-house word wars have hardly been fair. I generally take a handicap of a couple hundred.
This hasn’t exactly sat well with either Mr. Al or The Girl. Even when they would win if we counted the handicap, they weren’t satisfied. They both wanted to out-write me straight out.
This year, they are both succeeding. It’s not because I’m writing any slower than I have before. I can still whip out six or seven hundred words in fifteen minutes. The changes is that now both of them can also whip out that many words.
So I’m doing better than normal, but still lagging. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.
Wired
When Ted was little, he buried treasure in the back yard. He knew he wouldn’t remember where he buried it, so he attached a wire to the box and left the wire poking out of the dirt.
After his parents died, he inherited the house. For a few years he let renters stay there. He never did any maintenance and didn’t keep up with the property tax. Eventually, he had to sell it.
For old times sake, he went to the back yard and found the wire and pulled up the box. All his childhood treasures were gone. Instead, he found meth.
“Score!”
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Connie Gayer …(Mrs. Russell)
A Morning in Jakarta
The tour I was on only gave us one full day in Jakarta. The national guide actually considered it a light day and mentioned consideration for our jet lag, but it seemed plenty full to me. We started off with a ride in the tour bus to a local market. I already told you all about that.
I noticed that people tended to stare at us before, during, and after we passed. Yet I got the feeling we were hardly the first tour group to wander through. Little kids would run up and pose for pictures. Everyone seemed quite willing to talk with us.
Suzie’s House 429 : An Unsightly Request
Sophie took a ragged breath. She didn’t want Emma to think she had turned into a complete shrew, but she had to put her foot down.
“Over night? In Chicago? No. I don’t think so. You’re too young.”
She set her purse down on the side table next to the couch, but didn’t sit, though this conversation threatened to take a while.
Jack O Lantern
We had a huge pumpkin plant in our back yard this summer. A single plant from the dozen seed I started early in March made it to adulthood, but what a plant! The sucker sent out vines running all through the yard. Seriously, by the time it reached full size it made me think of Night of the Pod People type movies.
It was supposed to produce award winning pumpkins of the “you could move into that and live it it” verity. When the first pumpkin got to be slightly taller than knee-height, I started to think we’d need a forklift truck to move it come Halloween.
I spazzed out and harvested it way too early and have been eating pumpkin puree for weeks already. I let the next one grow to full size. It ended up about the same as the first. The day before Halloween we put it on a hand truck and wheeled it around to the front porch where it remains. I even carved it right there on the porch.
No one said a thing about it. They were too busy playing with the bubble-wrap under the leaves on our sidewalk. All summer verses about 15 minutes with a rake…. It’s hard to beat bubble-wrap.
Pipe!
“I hate irrigating,” Liam grumbled as he trudged into the field.
“What is irrigating?” Alicia skipped along beside him.
“We just have to turn the wheels on the gates so the water will go down a different set of ditches. Here’s the first one.” He walked up to the chest-high, metal gate and started turning the soccer ball sized wheel on the top to let the water flow into a new channel. “You turn that one while I do this.”
“Sure!” Alicia stepped up to another gate and turned the wheel. As she did, she stared at the way the water receded. “Hey, this isn’t so hard. It’s kind of fun. Why don’t you like….Ack! Snake!!”
“That’s why.”
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Dale Rogerson
Suzie’s House 428 : Even a Toothbrush
The guest room struck Ethan as so placid it bordered on nondescript. None of the quirky paintings from the rest of the house had made it into this space. No high-end furniture or retro styling here. Just a regular bed, normal dresser, empty closet, inconsequential side table, and a nice window looking over the dark glinting of a lake.
He liked it. Ethan felt right at home here.
NaNoWriMo 2015
Yep, I’m doing it again. I’m going to write a book in November. This time it’s going to be a Science Fiction idea that I’ve had floating around in my head for a number of years. It’s one of those great, archetype-filled journey stories. An outcast struggling to find his place in the world ends up the savior of his community.
The only problem this time is that there aren’t any human beings in the story. The hero is a water-based life form. Worse, saying “his” isn’t exactly accurate. A big part of the story is the fact there are six genders. He starts off as one and transitions to another.
I’ve tried to write this book a couple of times before. Both times I got stuck in the first chapter. Both times it was because of the gender issue. Or rather, the fact that English doesn’t accommodate alternatives to the two-gender system very well.
I started off calling him “it”. He really is an it at the beginning. The use of that word it for gender had a cold effect on the story. This time I’ll try it in first person. Hope that does the trick.
13 Things That Didn’t Fit
I’m still working on my post about Jakarta. As I go through my notes, I’m finding a lot that won’t fit.
1.
That’s a picture of a river we crossed in the bus. I think it gives a good idea of the skyline of Jakarta. But it doesn’t fit in the flow of my post, so out it went.
2. Fun fact. An Iman – Moslem spiritual leader – in the mosque we visited is elected to his position by his congregation every five years.
3. The one we talked to served for 15 years.
4. It’s an unpaid position, considered an honor.
5. But he gets a little donation from the mosque now and then.
6. They beat a drum before the announcements over the PA system.
7. The woman who runs the local women’s society has four grandchildren. She says that makes her the leader of many things.
8. My notes for the day included over two hours of crackly recordings.
9. If you bite into the banana leaf wrapping on a snack, they will laugh at you.
10. I really don’t need a snack right before lunch, but I’ll never pass up a chance to try something new.
11. Housewives in Jakarta think it is impossible to get their husbands to be monogamous.
12. Instead, they focus on condoms for protection from STDs.
13. Did I mention that you shouldn’t try to eat banana leaves? They are remarkably tough.
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