Howdy y’All!

All of my jets are lagging, y’all! It’s been a while since my sleep cycle has been this disrupted: asleep at 9:00 PM, up at midnight, back asleep at 4:00 AM, up at 10:00 AM. I’m getting enough sleep just not at the usual times.

So, yes, we’re home… um… back in Cambodia for those new to Ye Olde Blogge. We already miss Paris, especially the groceries and by groceries I mean cheap baguettes, butter, cheese, and wine. Who knew bread and butter could be so good!?!

Here are some general observations about things in general:

• #COVID19:
  • Whether or not we actually had #COVID19 at the beginning of the summer is immaterial. If we did, our immunity is strengthened. If not, meh.
  • Few people wore masks in France even on mass transit where they were required. Few people work masks on the international flights even though they were required. Here’s the kicker: no one harassed you, gave you the stink eye, made smart aleck remarks, or took pictures of you and posted disparagement humor to social media. In other words, no one cared, unlike the US where some people seem to take the innocuous practice as a personal insult or at least that’s the way it seems on my social media.
  • Ma Belle Femme and I will be getting our second Pfizer shot (fourth overall, two Astra Zeneca and one Pfizer, so far) and La Petite Fille will be getting her first Pfizer booster this week. Hurray for us, I guess.
  • #COVID19 is spreading once again in Cambodia. We had about two months of no active infections or at least none that required hospitalizations and no one testing at an official government site. Now we get tens a day. We’re up to 250. No deaths, though. That’s what happens when you get 90% of your population vaccinated.
  • Fill us in on your #COVID19 summertime adventures in the comments!
• TECHNOLOGY:
  • Life is complicated when you have mixed technologies. I have an hPhone that just laughs when I try to download an app. I didn’t know they could do that.
  • I’m using a Kindle Fire with a keyboard exclusively. No computers for me. The Fire works pretty well for my purposes, but it doesn’t communicate well with the hPhone. Nothing communicates with the hPhone. I shoulda just carried the Fire and took pictures with it; hindsight is always 20/20, ain’t it?
  • I have a Flickr account now, so I upload photos from the hPhone — it takes forever because passive-aggressive phone — download them to the Kindle, and upload them to the media section of WordPress. It’s a process. I’ll get to it. Damn PDA.
  • The keyboard was bought in France, so it’s an AZERTY instead of a QWERTY, if you know what I mean. However, I have the keyboard set to the US, so the letters you type don’t always match the letters written on the keys. Luckily, I’ve been typing by touch for the past fifty years, and so I don’t need to look.
• HOUSEKEEPER: We finally have a housekeeper that comes in twice a week to do the floors, bathrooms, and other odds and ins twice a week. My prediction, she’ll be doing ironing and at least three times a week once school commences, which is in two weeks.

So, that’s what’s been up for Ye Olde Blogge. We’re still not back to our regular erratic posting schedule, but we’re closer. Damn PDA and unstructured time.

The Week’s Reading

Animal News

I found A LOT of interesting news about animals in the news this week. Everybody knows Ye Olde Blogge is a sucker for animal stories, right?

• DOGS SEE WITH NOSES: My favoritest story ever! As it turns out the olfactory bulbs of a dog are wired directly to their occipital lobes so that there is a close connection between sight and smell. We don’t know how it all works just yet, but, apparently, some blind dogs use their noses so well in familiar surroundings that their owners don’t realize they’re blind! It’s what it says. (NBCNews)
• WHY CAN’T CATS GET ALONG? Cats don’t so much as get along as tolerate each other when they can even be bothered to do that much. Herd and pack animals bond using a hormone called oxytocin. It’s what is responsible for feelings of love and affection. When cats who live in groups that tolerate each other are tested, though, they don’t have elevated levels of oxytocin like, say, dogs, do. Instead, they have lower levels of testosterone and cortisol. They also have more similar gut microbes because brain-gut connection. Tolerate, not love, that’s the operative term with cats. Sleep well tonight cat owners, they really are coming for you. (NBCNews)
• LIONS, TIGERS, AND BEARS or in this case, just tigers. Cambodia is laying plans for reintroducing tigers to the country in a newly designated tiger sanctuary in the eastern part of the country. Once all the infrastructure is laid out and adequate prey animals are established, they’ll import six tigers from India. Tigers haven’t roamed wild in Cambodia since 2016 maybe as far back as 2007, who knows exactly. Civil war plays havoc with wildlife and those that try and track them. (Khmer Times)
• LETHAL BLISTERS: There’s a wicked little creature in the tropical world — we encountered this little bugger in Kenya, too — that emits an acid so formidable that it can leave you scared. It’s called a blister beetle, and it’s small and red and black. If it does fall on you, brush it off, don’t smack it or eat it. You know there are all those nature is better than science and homeopaths and what not that think these little buggers will cure everything from cancer to dandruff. An unfortunate Cambodian fella bought a kilo, roasted them up, and ate a bunch. He was going to split them with his mum, but she begged off claiming they were too bitter! Likely story. Anywho. He died. She went to the hospital. So what’s the moral of the story? Don’t eat something you mom won’t? (Khmer Times)
• A “FRIENDLY” WALRUS that only sinks boats. There’s a walrus hanging around the southern Norwegian shore that is gorging herself on an invasive species of oysters, so yay, go walrus, but when full wants to sun and digest on the closest thing she can find to an ice flow. Wouldn’t you know that would be a small boat. Unfortunately, the walrus swamps some boats, okay, a lot of the boats. There’s A LOT of oysters in Norway’s harbors. Who knew? The Norwegians are so taken with her, they’ve called her Freya. Eventually, they say she’ll make her way back up north until then tie up your boat so that she can’t climb aboard. (NBCNews)

If you’ve had any cute encounters or deadly encounters with animals this week or read about any in the news, let us know in the comments! We’d love to talk about them.

Blogs and Bloggers

As always there were an amazing number of interesting and compelling blog posts up during the week or so. Here were some of my favorites:

• THE ORIGINAL GIG ECONOMY: The oldest profession may also be the original gig economy. Apparently, there is an effort afoot — living outside of the US of A, I haven’t heard of it, maybe you have — to organize gig workers into more regular employees with benefits and hours and stuff. It might not sit well with everyone. Given that Ye Olde Blogge believes all work is prostitution, it might do us well to listen to what they have to say. (The Honest Courtesan)
• OVERTHROW THOSE WHO PERVERT THE CONSTITUTION with votes! That’s the democratic way that Abraham Lincoln reminds us of. That’s what you get a big heaping helping of when you visit Philidelphia, too. (Snippets of a Traveling Mind)
• FINDING PEACE IN THE PAIN: One of the hardest things in blogging is writing those deeply personal posts about your own struggles and mental health. You leave yourself so vulnerable to the reactions of complete strangers, but it can be so healing, too. For those of us who struggle daily with anxiety, just letting others know what’s going on can be a relief. (IntrovertAwakenings)
• THE “GIFT” THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Anyone who’s lost a spouse or anyone close to them knows that grief intrudes for much longer than most of the people in your life want it to, and it can be triggered by the darndest things even years after the fact. (Gay and Grieving: My Personal Journey)
• A JACKPOT A DAY: We’ve all been there. Played the lotto sure that we would be the ones who would win the JACKPOT! Visions of independent wealth dancing in our heads as our trembling hands took our ticket. We’ve all been there. We’ve all won a dollar here, a fiver there, maybe even fifty whole dollars. (Observations of a Cynical Mother)

A little humor, a little insight, a little bit of the realer side of of life. The blogosphere has a bit of everything and something for everyone.

Friends of the Blog

These folks are the tried and true. The folks who are visiting, commenting, linking and giving Ye Olde Blogge a raisin to eat or whatever the saying is.

• THE EFFECTS OF WEALTH. BobCabKing’s blog is full of all kinds of wisdom with his Daily Scrappings from the internet, Daily Quotes, and re-blogged articles. This Daily Quote on the effects of wealth on the individual, I found particularly applicable to our current situation. (Of Cabbages and Kings).
• LET THEM BE UNEMPLOYED is the modern version of Marie Antoinette’s misquote about cake, and they aren’t afraid to say it out loud or put it in writing. Apparently, Bank of America and probably others are hoping that more Americans are unemployed by the end of next year because its better for them. (Mock Paper Scissors)
• PACK YOUR BAGS! We’re moving north! The climates, they are a changing! Pretty soon, like by next summer, most of the US is going to be unlivebly hot by then, and we’ve got the maps to prove it! (Homeless on the High Desert)
• IT’S BEEN A BIG WEEK in the news, so we can understand if you missed something. Good thing Burr’s here to catalogue everything that’s worth reading and with plenty of snark and good sense to balance it out. (Fair and Unbalanced)
• IF YOU OPEN CARRY, they won’t come. There was a music festival cancelled in Atlanta because of the states open carry law. The organizers thought it was too much of a risk to have the event if good-bad guys with guns could just show up willy-nilly. Don’t blame them. Open carry really is just gaslighting. Trust me, the armed man says. I’m not going to hurt you. Honest. (Scottie’s Playtime)
• THE QUITTER WAS RIGHT! What do you know, there really are DEATH PANELS! Only this time they are judging women seeking abortions because they might could DIE!?!1! Is ‘at so, li’l lady? I bet yor jus’ sayin’ that so you can get back to WHORIN’!!! Mike’s Blog Roundup is being curated by M. Boufant. (Crooks and Liars)
• WOULD YOU DRINK FROM THE BOTTLE? Iti’s another one of Infidel’s image round ups, and if you visit the page, you’ll know EXACTLY what I mean. Let us know in the comment! (Infidel 753)

Huzzah!

Jack

Image Attribution

“Pigs to Market, Pagasinan, Philippines” by www.bluewaikiki.com is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.