Archive for the 'The North' Category

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.