Taichung Mayor's Award for Best Students

     6-7-15

 We went to Lin Yun-Yang's photo op with the Mayor Lin and hundreds of other 'first in their classes' from private and public schools, elementary to middle school. Mayor Lin just stood and smiled for the camera with the kids, a few at a time. I was glad it only lasted a half hour. Yun-Yang was proud and smiling. Only his mother was there to represent his family. Leona and I took photos with our smart phones. 

     When my wife was a kid in Tan-Zih, the mayor only gave out awards to one student per grade. now he gives them out to one in every class in every school, public and private. Still it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

P.J.'s Open Mike on Soho Street

   Red Rob is playing at an open mike at a place in Taichung this Saturday evening. He sent me an invitation. I'm going. . I will bring my blues harp just in case there is room for me to blow a tune or join Red Rob. Who knows? I should resign myself to just going there for friendship and entertainment though. 

     I am still disappointed about the shabby treatment I got from Trevor at Red Room in Taipei in October and have no plans to return unless it is something special. 

5-31-15 

     I went to the corner of the alley where Salut Pizza is and sat outside P.J's with about nine people including Red Rob, his girlfriend, Andres, Austin, to drink beer, eat tasteless German sausage and potato, and listen to blues. I played along on my new blues harp to a song and later did my rendition of Roadhouse Blues. I could have done Stormy Monday but Red took the vocals away and played in a key my 'A' harp would join. It was a nice evening, without Leona who opted to go with her cousin to see an old singer who converted at a church and was regretful. 

6-14-15 

      I rode the bike to P.J.’s again last evening. Red Rob called for an open mike again. I was out all afternoon with Leona near Chung Yo for lunch, to get new ear-bud headphones, and to get fitted for a tooth cap and was tired when we got home at 5:30pm because of the heat, but I rested for an hour and rode off to the Westside. I met Hank, a teacher here from NYC who spent a year in Norman Thomas H.S. and a number of other ex-pats. I had three beers and disgusting chicken wings. McKenna, the owner of P.J.’s makes terrible food. McKenna told me he closes the store on July 4^th to join an event in the park so I cancelled the Morrison Memorial Day I had unilaterally planned. I ended up singing “Roadhouse Blues” again on the blues harp and a truncated “Train Time.” It was fun. The next open mike will be in two weeks and then Red said there will be no more until September. On the way home, at ten o’clock (!), I stopped off at Belling’s for some leg ham and sausages. 

Bicycle Overhaul

5-26-15 

     When Giant changed the back wheel and gear rotor on my bike last week, they bent the valve. That's why when I picked the bike up Saturday morning the tire needed air. They pumped it up enough for me to ride the river but I didn't notice the tire was becoming deflated for two days because of the rain, until yesterday morning when I was setting off for Mandarin tutorial. I had to take a taxi there; 190NT. Leona brought me back on the scooter. The Giant dealer was closed Monday so I also needed a ride to and from American Eagle in the evening. I will bring the bike in for a new valve today after we get back from my dental appointment near Chung-Yo Dept. Store.

After the seventh day in a row of rain, sometimes torrential, there have been some clearing ups, like last Saturday morning when, after retrieving my bike from the Giant dealer, I rode up the Han, and a morning or two when I could sit on the and has patio and have coffee, such as today. It rained almost all day yesterday though it had stopped when I went back to the Giant dealer to complain about the air leak in my rear tire. All the owner did was straighten the valve and fill it up. It wasn't enough. I had enough air to ride to American Eagle with no time to stop off at Eagle again. I could see the tire was getting flatter. In the rain, I rode to American Eagle but by 6pm, the tire had barely enough air to get me back to the Giant dealer in my neighborhood. In the rain I rode there for immediate action; I couldn't go on like this as I use my bike for daily transportation, not just exercise. If I had to take buses to my destinations, it would take much longer; taxis are cheaper than in NYC but still would cost $50 on the days I go to Mandarin tutorial and American Eagle class. 

      The tube valve was bent by the Giant technician and riding the bike home with a soft tire must have hurt. Though I had a month or so of life left on the tire, I opted for a new rear tire and had to get a new tube, a tube that was fine until they broke the valve. My front tire, the original from 2 1/2 years ago was time to change so, for 1200NT I got two tires and a tube to add to the 1900NT rear wheel and gear rotor I got installed last week. A few months ago, I got new brake pads, too, so, essentially, my bike has all new parts for about $100us! It is 1/4 the cost of the bike originally but if I can get another 2 1/2 years out of the sweetest bike I've ever owned, it will be worth it. 

Miao-Li Readers Theater, Spelling-Bees, etc.

5-23-15 

      Yesterday it was back to the middle school on the mountain peak in Miaoli to judge a Readers’ Theater. The time tight with Wayne driving in the rain, we made it to American Eagle just in time for my class, a class mostly spent in the front of the building judging a speech contest rehearsal. Wayne came back to pick me up after diving Leona home, picked me up late and brought me back for Pizza Hut dinner with us. I read his I Ching and we shared a little sample bottle of wine.

I wanted to save the nice bottle we bought before we left for Brooklyn to celebrate when we got back. The celebration will probably be tonight. I’m going to suggest we have a nice dinner somewhere, too; B.Y.O.B. Maybe French food?

I’ve been floating since we came back a week ago.  I sit on the restrung beach chair and settle back. I am on input and I have no reservations.

While Wayne was here, we asked him to drive us to the vet with Nala. Nala had scraped her back between her front legs squeezing out from under the dining room table last week. The wound was getting worse so we went for treatment. The vet said it wasn’t serious. Leona put the cone on Nala’s head so she wouldn’t try to lick it, though I doubt she could reach it.

There is one more officiating for me to do for Leona’s cousin’s publisher, a publisher which, according to Wayne, had a terrible year and is losing its market share of textbooks to tow other competitors. I did two this week.

We have no holidays planned. I mentioned everything from Hokkaido to Nara, to Paris or the Mediterranean around Barcelona, even Morocco, but Leona isn’t jumping. Out of the mist of the plum rains in our ‘triumphant’ return from Brooklyn, it’s been more about cutting ties than making inroads.

    The third and last contest in a week was at Leona's childhood middle school in Tan-Zih. Unlike Shuang-Wen, which had the same format spelling bee last Wednesday, these children were disorganized and unprepared. They sat on the auditorium floor, not chairs, and remained seated if the spelled the words wrong, which most of them did by the sixth word! The correct spellers stood. By word #10, the contest was over. I got paid two hours for thirty-five minutes on stage looking American. 

Back in Taichung after the Brooklyn House Sale

5-19-15 

     Facebook is so unreal but it's good enough to kill someone you would like to but don't want to go to jail for. 

There's no sense telling anyone the truth and filling your mind with their existence, but 'ignoring' is a power taken away from you by corporate media. Why can't I block CNN and other apologists for market capitalism the way I block the fools who friended me? Why even snipe at folk who don't know how transparently rude they are?

     It is good to be back in Taiwan and good that there is no more crap associated with 1210 Ave Y. The last inconvenience was the slime-ball junk-men leaving the rest of the junk in the garden. Vinny wrote that Mr. Saadia "understands" it was out of my control. When you live in NYC, many things are out of residents' control. Service is bad, slow, or absent until an agency blindly accuses you; then the auto-pilot leaves you no recourse. I think I will protest the $100 fine for discarding the TV.

     I brought the onion bagel to Red Rob last evening. I did a lot of bike riding yesterday starting with the ride to Mandarin tutoring, to American Eagle, and then Belling's. Today I will ride up the Han River. I should go early, say 8am, before it gets too hot; it was 34 degrees yesterday. Later I'll bring the bike in to get air and the gears adjusted; they've been slipping. 

     Leona brought Yun-Yang and Yun-Shen the 70's Marvel and Action comics I found in the box in the closet in the basement hallway. Long ago, Alan Dulfon had sifted through the hundreds of comics left to me by Kenny Zekowsky and found valuable ones. They were in that box. Leona said Jia-Hui commented that the cartoon didn't look like Spiderman; that was funny since she was looking at the original drawings. I gave Jia-Hua a Skybar, Mallo Cups, and Hello Kitty candy box.

      Most of the knickknacks are unpacked and put into their eternal places. The Yuengling beer label stands on a book shelf between an AC/DC shot glass and souvenir flag-draped four-inch Statue of Liberty. Aunt Ray’s plastic silhouettes wall-dancers await deployment on the enclosed patio wall next to the Gary Cooper/Ingmar Bergman photograph. Sixty-nine cork wine caps line the inclining ledge above the tempered-glass windows, the seltzer bottle and 78’s sit on the bookcase, two relics, one still useful on the crank 78 Gramophone nearby. Three major league baseball bats remain in the cardboard box until I have a rack to display then in the tea room. Two View-Master viewers will probably become part of my teaching tricks: look inside and describe the slide. Whoever draws the better recreation, as judged by a panel of me and two students from opposing teams, wins. That’s how it goes with knickknacks. A candelabra reproduction of a Notre Dame gargoyle keeps company with the kachina on the electric fireplace.  

American Eagle Fun-Day up the Mountain

4-26-15 

     I had fun with American Eagle on Fun Day up in the nearby mountains off Dong-shan Road. I was told before but never realized that the cataract mountains vaguely through the mist and smog housed thousands of monkeys, a few hundred of which come down one slope to "give a show" and get fruit in return. Though the forty or so students and another twenty adults (parents, administrators, and teachers) couldn't do much to explain or enjoy the "Compass" game, though one parent and Zoe tried in vain, the children had fun otherwise, and I had the most fun. Four of my eleven students tried their best to sing "The Unicorn Song" after being prompted by Zoe I had given in and resigned to sing the verses to their chorus until she stepped in and shamed them to do the song as she had heard them practice in class. It was like hearing the Beatles after John and George died; sorry Paul and Ringo, but you're not enough. The barbecues got hot, the tiny pork fillets got browned, and everyone ate. After the talent show, we walked off a kilometer away to see the monkeys and hear a guide tell everyone about it. The camaraderie between me, Calum, Monalisa, Benjamin, Darren, and John was fine. Zoe drove me up with some students in a van but Darren drove me back on his scooter. 

Marijuana Bust near Taichung

   4-17-15

  Another American dude in Taichung was arrested, along with others, for having a marijuana plantation including some poppy plants. Funny but the news wasn't reported at all in the English media here. Leona showed me a picture of the weed, the dude (a 41 year-old) but only his Chinese name. There was a different bust last year in the same mountainous area near Taichung Paws animal sanctuary. What a coincidence.