Truly a day of rest and relaxation. This morning I slept in, read my book and lounged between the early am kitty pounces. And I made the phone calls with my sister, brother, and favorite little man, Kellen. I love Sunday Skype calls. They have been too few and far between, so look out if I haven't called recently and answer if you see an "unavailable" number. Other than that, after a cup of coffee, I have the day free. I stopped going in to work a few months ago, so I have no excuse but to relax. Wayan just delivered a green coconut, which she now does every day. I am quite addicted to them. There is the option of a massage and spa, but I think I will just hang out here with the furry ones and the swimming pool right outside my bedroom doors upstairs. I haven't been home for a few weeks, so to relax here is a must.
It is slightly overcast with a touch of sun and as usual quite hot and muggy out. I bought another fan last night at the grocery store, so my downstairs has three fans that push the air around attempting to make it seem cooler. I have these beautiful large glass doors downstairs (which is my kitchen/living room) but I am not opening them too often, so not letting the kitties outside much. The little one (Ginger) is so little (3 months) and cobras, monitor lizards and the neighborhood dog still freak me out. Still traumatized from losing my last kitty. Being hyper sensitive but I guess I am allowed at this point.
In a few hours close to 3pm, I will jump on the motor bike and head to Ultimate, near the Monkey Forest. We have a Sunday game on a patchy dry field, and hopefully can play an hour or so before the neighborhood kids come out with the soccer ball. There is a Bali tournament in a few weeks, and our team has just scratched together a roster. I think I need to get in shape, seriously.
And then it is dinner with a friend of a friend that I haven't seen in years! She called and said "I am on island". Lucky me. So I chose a favorite restaurant to meet at and catch up. Decadence.
Then the week starts all over again. The weekends are so relaxing, I forget for a few days how draining the school days are. But we are almost at spring break, and I will be staying on island, saving money and volunteering at the Bali Spirit Festival. I will write more closer to the day, but Bali New Year's Day (Nyepi) falls before our break and it will be a hoot to experience. More on that later.
I wrote this next passage a few days ago, and decided to include it as part of my documenting the experience of living in the tropics.
The past two weeks of intense heat rash on various parts of my body make me think we are changing seasons again, from wet to dry. (I say this as it is pouring outside!) If you haven't had a heat rash before because you don't live in 98% humidity near the equator, let me just say, it's no fun. The constant urge to itch leads to immediate relief which then lends to extremely itchy and bleeding skin. I have learned that instant relief comes in really really scalding hot water, which you can imagine then burns the hell out of your skin. My poor neck, arms and legs have been so red and blotchy from the heat and scalding showers, that I was stopped more than once with, "are you okay?" I thought I was going crazy. Is it just in my head? Is this real? But it is real and I just dealt with it.
The hot water relief is almost orgasmic, a shuddering sense of release, no more pain, no more itch, just a wonderful tickling, scratching sensation. Lovely. Since I only have a solar shower, my hot water lasts a few minutes. There I am sticking each arm, elbow, craning neck and shins to reach the water. One night I took three showers between 8pm-3am and tried as many as 8 different ointments/powders/solutions on different body parts to see what worked best. I finally found a brilliant solution: hotel room. So last weekend a posse of us went to the beach and stayed at a beautiful hotel: pool, beach front, pool bar, spa, etc. But for me the beauty was the hot bathtub (imagine the sensation there!) and cold air conditioning while languishing on a bed watching HBO. I have no bathtub, AirCon or TV, so I was on vacation! I only went outside to the pool at 1pm because the hotel called and said, "it's time to check out." Then I ordered a dry cocktail and stayed in the pool.
Cheers.
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