Since Adam got laid off, we’ve both been a little down and have basically been sitting on our asses playing video games. Which doesn’t mean we aren’t looking for work, Adam has to deal through his Union and trust me, he’s been calling. We’ve had some good visitors though, had some more last night, SIL Smut and her fiancée came over to give us some gifts that SIL Saz sent us for Christmas but they were sent to SIL Smut and didn’t arrive on time and so we just got em. Plus because they are both great they made us dinner straight out of a cook book from Pouce Coupe, it was almost like we were UP north.

Because I’ve been talking about them more frequently, I will introduce them to you. SIL Saz is my older SIL though not older than me, Adam is the eldest of the three of them and I’m the oldest of all six of us if you count our spouses which to me is pretty funny because in my family I’m the youngest, youngest cousin, grandchild, only grandchild on the one side BUT my dad has six sisters and one brother so being the youngest is super cool. Back to SILS. SIL Saz you may recognize from my comments, she reads the Greeper. SIL Smut is the younger of the two and has gone through various name changes, first I started to call her SIL Deux. Deux meaning two in French, and then when I got back from Bali I changed it to SIL Dua. Dua meaning two in Indonesian. Even though I know that I meant no insult with the word Dua who the hell wants to be second and technically she was third born anyway which means if I were going to keep it accurate she’d be SIL Tiga. But before Christmas SIL Smut and fiancée came over for a Wii night, Christmas spirits type visit and I didn’t even realize until they left that she had called her Mii for the Wii Smut. I enquired, she gained even MORE has the best kid stories of the three of them points . She got another one the other day, SIL Saz left a comment which begged a story. If I told you stories they’d both kill me, but from the one story I was able to FINALLY solidify a name for Tiga born SIL Smut.

Before we had dinner last night we opened gifts. All we knew was that SIL Saz was excited. This could not ever be a bad thing. I received the best belt buckle on the face of the earth and this belt buckle here is pretty bloody hard to beat. Now I am basically The Scorpion Queen. Adam received a Pan Flute that he is already playing super sweet sounds on that are not in anyway annoying. Not annoying AT ALL. And she gave us a poo calendar a Monthly Doos the 2010 dog poop calendar. It will likely go in the bathroom. WHAT? a poo calendar? Yes, picture an Anne Geddes photo but instead of babies on the leaves there is dog shit. Brilliant.

Some of the time it isn’t like we want to sit on our asses, we’ve been trying to get for photo walks for days and the weather is refusing to cooperate. I do not have a problem going for rainy walks they are rather enjoyable but when you are trying to take photos rain and photo walks don’t mix and I keep forgetting to wear contacts and my glasses get covered in water spots. Even the night walk we’ve been trying to go on has been a no go. We managed to get out one day and I took a couple shots before it started to rain they are nothing special, I like the beehive picture I got and I really like the public art displays all over the city put on by Vancouver Biennale. The red man is one of many sitting in a big circle. When I first saw them I instantly thought of Bali because almost everyone there squats like these statues do.

This one is an older one I took of another display very close to us.

We want to go for walks so bad to catch some of the insane last minute preparation for the Olympics, the energy in this city is crazy simply crazy. I did walk by the art gallery where the Olympic count down clock is and as I walked past and saw the work they were doing on it ALL I could think of was a HUGE flowered moo moo that I wouldn’t even let my mother wear for her 100th birthday. I’m really hoping we get a chance to do a rain free day walk and night walk within the next two weeks here.

While looking for the above photo I realized that I have NOT shown you all a photo of Dr. Vegas in his BRAND SPANKIN’ knew WRESTLING SUIT [from Christmas] made for him by beyond awesome friends, what a seriously killer gift.

I had a lot of posts that I had hoped to get up before the end of the year but I ended up spending most of the time worried sick about a friend, helping said friend and spending time with said friend so I was unable to finish the last of my 2009 posts, said friend is ok now; and even though we plan nothing for Christmas we ended up out more than usual, where I learned that it is no lie the new Star Trek does in fact look better on a massive HD TV on a Blue-ray and let me just BITCH here for a second because OF COURSE the Blue-ray copy has way more special features than the regular ol’ DVD. It has a gag real but NO deleted scenes. #SuckitDVD you may as well be a fucking VHS tape. So then I thought I will make a To Post / To Do list for 2010. NOT resolutions.

I guess I make it a resolution to not make any. If I want to change something about myself I’ll change it, resolutions, shmesolutions.

Here is a funny photo of me on Christmas Eve. It was Adam’s idea, on our walk, to use the Red Olympic Mittens as beer holders and they were tall cans and thus were a perfect fit, genius. Holy he will SO fit in when I take him up north. We have plans to eventually head up north with one of my very best friends and his lovely lady friend who I have come to love dearly as well, as it turns out he and I have both lived in Smithers and Terrace so we have a lot of wonderful things to show our significant others. I’m more excited about Smithers, the beauty of the place is undeniable. I think we should hit Terrace first or it’ll be an even worse let down.

In the year 2010 I would like to accomplish some if not all of these things that I will discuss below but they are more like goals, things I think about when it isn’t just the Christmas season.

• Finish my Bali series. I still have shit loads of great stories and photos to share, one that is pretty hilarious yet painful, and photos that although are on my Flickr have not been posted here. And now with returning in April, which was the plan until yesterday and is now up in the air due to Adam being laid off, I’m given even more reason to finish that series. I’m also planning to continue to try and get this charity off the ground with me dad.

• Re-write my about page and continue to learn how to use Wordpress properly and get myself moved to a new template.

• I’d like to have February 4th pass this year and remember my dear friend PH as he was, loving, brilliant, someone who believed in me no matter what people said, someone who should still be here, but isn’t, I just want to remember him fondly. I want to give myself permission to remember the good times, and not re-hash and relive the loss in such detail as I have done for the last few years now. I want to free myself from the guilt and the pain, but I won’t know if I can do it until the date approaches.

• I get asked a lot of questions as a blogger, some on Twitter that are too long for 140 character responses and deserve a post, others over email, and in comments, I’d like to start a series this year where I take it a step further than responding to all of my lovely comments which I appreciate so very much and am very thankful for and writing the posts. (with the persons’ anonymity kept if they choose). I get asked some heavy shit, that if I wasn’t a lazy blogger I’d have posted on ages ago. I have actually apologized to people I’ve promised posts for and I’m now putting it into writing I’m going to engage you all more by posting what you wanna know.

• Read at least 20 books, I missed my quota again this year damnit. But I mentioned to Adam that I wanted to try and take the 50 book a year challenge (yeah right who am I kidding) and his response was “but that would mean we won’t get to spend as much time together.” *swoon* I love my husband. 20 books it is.

• Get the 2010 Calendar Wars post up.

• Get through the Olympics with moisture, the essence of wetness, still left in my body from all of the glorious uncontrollable joy crying that I have just learned to go with and take as it comes.

• Show up at events I’m invited to, no matter the guest list. February will be my first test.

• NO MORE FAIR WEATHER DICK FUCK ASSHOLE USER FRIENDS.

• And last but not least continue to be myself again on my blog, stop letting feelings of victimization keep me from writing my mind and letting my depression issues keep writing themselves into stories of the past and present. There are some things in my past I’d really like to find the balls to write about this year, I’ve dealt with them, but there is no doubt these are situations that should be talked about, not to rehash, to educate.

I changed my mind and instead of doing more favourite photos in this Bali 2009 post I thought that I would take you around the Villa and although we went out sight seeing a lot home is where the heart is and cool stuff happened there.

My parents have had this sign for ages it existed when my name was still my maiden name Liscumb. I am pretty sure I even asked my dad the exact story from the sign while I was in Bali but I was on vacation brain and I have no idea. It has been repainted since it was on the green fence that held my dad’s old horse in Prince George. The weather there did a number on it. I never lived in Prince George so we must have had it in Terrace too.

This is the view from the back of the house from the top storey patio.  That mountain there that you can barely see was very hard to capture.  I made many a mental note to get a photo when it was more visible and I forgot and never did. Things like that made the place feel more real because I was able to say to myself fuck it, you can get it on the next trip.

That patio is also where the Monday massages took place. Just had to call up the woman and let her know that there would be three of us. I got there on a Monday night so I missed that day’s massage but still got two in while there. Decent massage, little different from anything I’d experienced before, I’ve had full body massages but never had it include a full butt massage as in those hands slipped into my crack on way more than one occasion.

This is the front of the house from the steps leading from the beach to this wee gate. Before I had seen the house in person I had a really hard time guessing and even picturing how my parents told me it was set up, for some reason I had only seen photos from this angle.

Facing this way on the left is the office and a bathroom and the outside sitting area, on the right is the kitchen and the kitchen eating area.  You do most of your living there outdoors.  My dad asked me after I’d been there for a decent bit how I liked living outside. I remember saying I honestly hadn’t really noticed but loved it, probably from camping so much from such a young age and spending so much time outside as a kid it just seemed natural for me to slip right into.

I noticed while pulling the above photo for the post that a cup of MY kopi is in this photo, I had mentioned in my last Bali post – Part Tiga that none existed which I have discovered was an unintentional lie.

Selamat pagi – which means good morning, as I’m about to swig from my water bottle. I’m wearing what I slept in here so I know that it’s still morning.

I read a decent amount while I was gone, I never ever read as many books on vacation as I think I will BUT I would still bring the same amount of books plus my eBook because no matter where I am I want a variety of books to choose from which is partly what makes having an eBook so awesome, although I don’t use it much I know I will because I will eventually have to face that not cutting down on weight for trips to Bali just to be able to have a copy of a book is pretty silly. But right now I don’t feel like that.

While gone I finished Rant - Chuck Palahniuk, started and read Still Alice - Lisa Genova, Blindness – Jose Saramago, When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris and started The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood.  I enjoyed them all, although Still Alice has me convinced that I have early onset Alzheimer’s, for real, not being an asshole. And it was sort of interesting being around a bunch of rabid anjings and kucings [dogs and cats] having just finished Palahniuk’s, Rant.

One night I went to walk into the kitchen to get a drink of water or a bir IN THE DARK and a gecko fell off something from my opening the door and hit me in the face. I screamed like a pussy of course, it scurried off my forehead and I watched it run along well away from me. That was my only negative encounter with any lizards, although they are there and they are big, not tiny wee friendly looking things like the geckos, fucking lizards and I HATE lizards. I only saw one decent size so lets say medium lizard, thank fucking gawd.

Early evening here barbecue is being used for dinner, I can see the cover is off. Super bloody awesome cool thing about this time of day is the changeover between the birds swooping all over and catching bugs to the bats coming out and fucking annihilating the bugs. People ask me about the bugs, and there were a lot of flies, spiders, red ants, moths and mosquitoes but I was there during the windy season and so therefore the bugs for the most part kept off me.  I did have a few choice bites though, couple huge ones on my ass. I have never understood what it is with bugs and biting ass, but I always seem to get the biggest bites there.  And as mentioned right at the moment when evening meets night, you don’t even notice the changeover they look almost exactly the same as the birds, but the bats come out for the hunt and really they are your best friend if you want to sit outside as I am likely doing here it is fascinating watching them, trying to catch the birds accepting that their shift is finished as the bats suddenly emerge.  This is also why I FLIPPED when I opened the kitchen door as I wasn’t immediately sure if a bat was swooping by me or if it was a gecko.

So, I’m not the best sleeper in the world, unless it is a bed fat chance that I will fall asleep in it around it on it, planes can suck it I hate them I almost NEVER get any sleep.  This day however, it was my third day there I think, I can’t have been there long because I am reading Rant I fell asleep not once but TWICE. UNHEARD OF. My dad caught me sleeping on camera so I can remind myself that I was able to get myself into a relaxed enough place for that to have happened. Adam gave me grief over falling asleep in the sun to which I quickly informed him that not only had I waited the PROPER amount of time before entering the sun after applying my sun screen, I also had a my stop watch next to my head to go off AND my parents also woke me because I told them how long I was doing my front for. SO THERE.

Basically Dr. Vegas stole my tanning googles and I’m stuck in sun glasses. Not cool little buddy, those will give me tan lines. I wore my contacts every day I was there because it was so bright that my glasses were useless. We have to make Dr. Fever some swim trunks and matching ones for Vegas because Fever is still wearing his country western cowboy hat from his days back in northern British Columbia.

CRAB IN THE POOL!

They hung out together a lot, they are brothers and both doctors – they have a lot to talk about. My mom commented on how much more worn Dr. V is than Dr. F and I was all dude, Vegas gets around, he travels, he goes to concerts, parties, weddings, he hangs with the ladies and he is with the band I don’t know what band but there’s a BAND and he’s WITH IT.

The gazebo is another awesome place to sit and read.

And watch the sun set from.

This photo falls under my favourite photos, I am photographing the lights from the fishing boats. Mine didn’t turn out, I suck in that lighting. The fishing boats are tiny seriously tiny outriggers. I will cover those in another post.

This is the only photo I took inside up stairs, that is primarily what my dad wears every day, retirement is so seriously hard as you can TELL. The windows in the far right there open to the front patio where you can watch the sunrise in the morning and watch the fishing boats come in.

These are our diggs when we go visit, my bathroom had no mirror while I was there but I didn’t mind, I can go a while and not need a mirror, for serious. If the trip hadn’t have been a surprise my dad would have put a mirror in for me but he couldn’t do little things like that, everything had to be HUSH HUSH HUSH don’t do ANYTHING to that bedroom because my mom is snoopy, really aren’t all moms though?

One morning near the end of the trip I was sitting cross legged on the bed text messaging Adam and I had JUST pressed send when my bed started to tremble and shake or more like slide back and forth, took me about as long as it did during the earth quake in Vancouver for it to dawn on me that it was in fact an earth quake. I yelled up stairs “don’t you feel that?”, it rumbled a bit more and stopped. It hit Kuta about 100 kilometers from us. Wasn’t one of the ones that caused major damage around that time in September but still, that only means the people in Kuta were lucky that day.

As I mentioned windy season, my dad has a shirt on so it was one of the cooler days, again with the kopi mug I see it, the afternoon cup o’ kopi I am now an unintentional two time liar. Oh right this is the ONE day it stormed, if you look out the doors you can see the seats from the sitting area pressed together and against the wall, the storm wasn’t long but it was EPIC. And if you look really closely you can see some water on the tile.  I wasn’t really sure about the tile when I got there because generally I do not like being barefoot anywhere and I was worried they’d be slippery. Best tiles ever, who needs shoes, that is all I have to say about those tiles and that it was a delight for the first time really in my life to be shoeless everywhere around the house.

Almost every afternoon anytime after fifteen hundred hours cocks come into my parents yard and help my dad with his gardens, they clean out the bugs, it is a sight to see. I don’t know why they go by cock there instead of rooster but they do and you can talk about cocks all day long. COCK COCK COCK. They are not like farm cocks or any cocks I’m used to, for example I DO NOT remember them being so vociferous in the Cook Islands where I did not stay at a resort, they were all over our house I have loads of film photos of them. The cocks in Bali NEVER SHUT UP.  They must really like the chicks and warring over territory.  I call this cock the cock dwarfer.

That concludes Part Empat. Catch up on the Bali 2009 series here: Part Satu, Part Dua and Part Tiga.

Even though I’ve been back for a while now, it seems to be true, that Bali has a tendency to get under the skin of the people who travel there and into your mind in the simplest of ways. We just finished the kopi that I brought back the other day and I am already dying to go back for more kopi freakin’ kopi, totally bringing back four bags when we go together and thanks to the Bali kopi now i drink all my Canadian made coffee black. The last time I put cream or sugar in my coffee was the first morning I was in Bali, I listened to my parents who said it was fantastic kopi and I should try it black and being that I ate EVERYTHING that was put in front of me while there, which I know will shock more than a few people, I saw the kopi as no exception and now I drink black coffee and when I go back to Bali I will be called a black kopi drinker. So now I drink it black in both countries and I know the word in both languages and I know other words too I’m not showing off I’m simply trying to learn the language, so why not?

I don’t have any photos of myself drinking the kopi, the opening to this post is super misleading I do have photos of me drinking the bir but I never got wasted on it that was the mischievous sock monkeys Dr. Vegas and Dr. Fever getting wasted on the Bintang. When I did take photos of my food it was sometimes visible, it is a Pilsner and is a very good bir I enjoyed it almost everyday. No one paid me to say the bir was good, the bir is just good.

I did have a Bintang with this photo of my Bali fusion meal in Kintamani where the people are very poor and you find mostly restaurants all fighting for the best view, they are all buffet style with a real menu if you insist however being a high tourist area they gotta get you in and out fast. It is pretty high elevation wise and is actually cool there, I didn’t end up needing the sweater I brought that day, the only day I took one anywhere, but I did notice a big difference in temperature specially sitting to eat outside. Turns out I would not have needed my sweater anyway because they sell full on winter scarfs up there, totally tripped me out. We were leaving the restaurant and I noticed loads of tourists with these orange face cloths and they were steaming and seeing how I was still sort of upset for not getting steaming cloths to wipe off with at any time on my twelve plus hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong, I was all over this and sought out the orange steaming cloths, there was a table on the way out containing a huge pile and I quickly grabbed one and wiped my hands and face, I handed the cloth back to the pretty girl and said “terima kasih, sampai jumpa lagi, terima kasih”. (thank you, goodbye, thank you; I seem to be as repetitive in Indonesian as I am in Canadian, go figure.) I was left standing there and that was bad because I remember not being in the mood to be accosted by sellers that day, it does at times become extremely overwhelming so I turned to head back into the restaurant to find my parents just in time to see the girl dip one after the other then soak and twist drip and fancy fold the same towels from the same bucket of water and then return them to the pile on the table. I told my dad that I had just wiped myself down with who-knew-how many different people’s sweat and who-knew-what else to which he replied, “that’s Bali”. It was true, I had no witty rebuttal.

I am almost positive thanks to a lot of reconnaissance and a great girlfriend who dated a Hindu man for years that this is Hanuman. He is one of my favourite photos because of course I have aspirations of being tattooed in Bali and this photo was taken on my second day of exploring and I saw it through the lens and was instantly hit with THAT is my tattoo. I didn’t think I’d be smacked by something that I wanted to put on my body so soon into the trip. Little did I know that not only would he turn out to be a monkey but that he lead an army of monkeys and we make sock monkeys and we call members grunts of The Sock Monkey Army. This little guy spoke to me and when I read up on him I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence and even if it is who fucking cares I love him now, in some variation I’m getting him tattooed.

This guy walking down the beach was awesome, I saw him and did the run grab the camera tip toe sprint don’t trip on the tiles everywhere and break your knee or split your lip open get blood spatter all over my parents’ off white exterior everything to get this shot. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out considering I didn’t even notice the huge ass sickle sticking out the back of his pants until I had it offloaded onto my parent’s computer. The Balinese people are incredibly strong, I have photos of ladies carrying grape crates on their heads it takes four people to lift it up, yet one woman carries it. A tad mind blowing to see that for reals up close talking to them as I did on a photo walk one day with my mom, not sure if any of my favourites were taken that day though, I don’t think so.

The photo of this monk is from a temple the name escapes me but the Dalai Lama went there, he lives there more or less alone and the place is huge, I have numerous photos from this temple in fact this photo of me is also one of my favourites, I like how the sarong looks. It is disrespectful to enter temples in Bali without a sarong assholes do it but it isn’t cool with the locals, they cringe like when they see a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

Stay tuned for Part Empat where I continue to discuss my trip through my favourite photos.
Part Satu
Part Dua