Sting, Foraging, and a Lone Pink Bunny

Barry dressed appropriately for this:At 71, Sting has managed to meet the unrealistic body image expectations required of young female artists. Clearly the guitar helps his deltoids. I also learnt how much harmonica and Latin influence is in his music, and have entirely changed my mind about retro concerts.

Speaking of muscles, Shoes and Booze had a hot visiting bartender.

As with all trendy bars, Shoes and Booze is pivoting towards local and homegrown ingredients Here are my own makrout lime plant's tinctures, thanks to Caroline!

We use butterfly pea gin made with locally foraged flowers.

But not the pink ones. Wait, maybe I should try the pink ones.

The flowers can be found on the path shortly after the sad pink forest bunny.

I'm sure there are other ingredients I could borrow in the lush forest.

But not this one. It seems to have leaf parasites.

There are lots of things to find if you stray slightly from the path.

For example, a big hole from a former well/pole? Anyway, deep enough to need a sign better than this "Manholp" one.

Also, Indian mangoes are in season. To cocktail them or not? They are simply too tasty on their own.

The Asian Koel agrees. We hear this bird daily, but this was our first sighting, at a Hindu offering including bananas.

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At the End of the Rainbow, a Melted Pencil

For the first time, I clearly saw the end of a rainbow. There may be gold underwater. In related news, Singapore is tendering for someone to sweep for and pick up lost anchors around here, just saying.

Above, sunset. Below gas refinery flare. Double fireballs a few weeks ago.

The price if ugly dried sea cucumbers seems to have been hit hard by inflation. These ones are $900 for 100g, so I'd give it a skip.

You can also pay $68 for a 15 strawberries, and they're fancy because they're different colours. The Japanese grocery stores are obsessed with the white and pink ones, but I can't understand why.

So there's always the Japanese yamatoimo, a sticky turnip that looks like animal gristle in its package.

So maybe best to shop online, but I'm still getting frightening targetted ads.

The algorithms struggle with me because I only ever click on cats and food.

Apparently, there is a need for a 'tween-the-gals pillow. My friends and I discussed and didn't think they generally affected each other. We will let the ladies be friends. Or in my case, stay blissfully unaware of the other's existence.

The latest in whitening creams can apparently turn you into a totally different human. Good idea if you commit crimes.

Maybe let's shop for clothes instead. OMG, what's happening to her leg!? Look at the knee, the ankle!

Does this dress come with, uh, booties?

Will this one turn me into an NFT?

Ok, one more leg, can't resist. Left-leg withering disease!

This story has a moral, which is to live real life instead.

So Akiko and I went to the museum and flew our planes around on the wall:Then we saw the sneaker exhibit.

Then we got cultured with the art.

This one was my favourite.

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Failing to Find Frida

This is Frida, a shy lost stray spotted in our neighbourhood last week. We managed to feed her twice, but on the third day, before we could lure her into safer places, she was gone.

So, we tried to find her. Barry dressed like a ninja and hid in the shadows. (I'm not sure why he's covering his mouth.) I used the art of camouflage: can you see my accidentally matching glasses in this picture? (I'm not sure why they're on my leg).

Before I get all jokey about this, we did spend hours looking for this cat, attempting to trap it, and failing wildly. Hopefully she is ok and found her way home. Now, let's use humour to cope.

The street birds, pigeons and wild chickens, are clearly up to no good, and I don't trust them.

While looking for Frida, we found 3 other cats who had clipped ears and did not seem lost. We also found a fairly big patch of banana trees, under which someone is gardening very cute chilis.

We took the path from our house, by the old train station.

It goes 23.4km to the North. We didn't walk the whole thing, because of melting. I don't think Frida would have, either.

We saw a snail turning left. I never really thought about it, but I guess I never really thought they turned at all. Certainly not this kind of rotation.

The closest animal we saw is this black-necked spitting cobra. This is my first cobra, and it was very cute.

We also found the 2 forest woks, which have an oddly and creepily parallel to when we saw two rice cookers in the forest. Not the same forest.

I sometimes consider adopting a Monstera plant instead of rescuing cats, and then Barry and I discuss how it would take over our whole patio, fly away like a kite, maim bystanders below and possibly steal babies. One of us is quite risk-adverse when he's not cycling.

The best thing that we found to blunt the sorrow of our failures is, of course, Critopractice! Watch next time for my new reduced entire skull outline!

I'm particularly excited about #3, where I can address memory loss, insomnia AND face lifting!

I bought Barry some #2, to address his flatulence and Insomnia constipation (which is when you wake up with bowel pain, I suppose). 

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Understanding Japan

In Japan, they don't love misbehaving children running around. However, baby chickens make their chicken daddies' lives glow.

This seal suggests that miss" is more, which is a confusing seal motto.

And the poor puppy just wants to feel secured.

Well, this seems to be some of Cosby's problem, but this is not the address for Madison Square Garden. Details.

Wholly sausage dog!

Seem on an old man's bag on the subway: Sunsetface.

I'm very happy to have found Canada Engrish. "Super, Natural" was a British Columbia marketing slogan, but one word, and not a place.

We saw a pig cafe, "where the pigs are". After the previous Seoul raccoon cafe experience, we were not ready.

We also did not find the elevators in the depths.

Nature does nothing uselessly. Except baldness. And arguably much of humanity.

We found bags made with the most natural of plastics.

"Let's become the smile" is traditional Engrish, and I think I've seen it before. It's an honourable objective.

Sadly, they didn't have the "Gaoo" or the bread person in a T-shirt version. But these serve as good examples that we don't, yet, understand Japan.

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