Monday, February 26
Feb. 27th, 2024 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
It's not terribly cold, but somehow having it be at least a bit colder makes it feel more normal. We have had such an odd, warm winter (with the exception of one brutally cold stretch) that it seems uncanny.
My Sweetie got to work okay. I wasn't sure he should go, but he figured he'd give it a try. By the time he came home he said most of the roads were cleared.
I chose not to go to town today for pottery, because there was no real reason to try, given the road conditions. It would also not have been cleared in town yet.
I felt pretty frustrated though, being sort of stuck at home.
I was bored enough to call Trainwreck. She just moved AGAIN within the Lodge, to a suite with nicer, South-facing windows. I get it. Sunlight is a big deal. I hope she can just settle in and enjoy herself there.
She is of course, already trying to undermine the authority (a board) that runs the lodge by trying to test the limits of things like whether or not they will say anything about her wandering around the common areas of the lodge with a "drinking bottle" full of vodka.
I don't think she understand how very f'ed she would be if she got evicted from this place.
It's such a nice place. It's clean, the suites are a good size, the appliances are fairly new, there's a nice laundry room, and it's the cheapest rent she will ever get.
Yet, it's just her stupid nature to test things to see what she can get away with, and to cry "victim" if she faces consequences. Why does she literally have to walk around EVERYWHERE with a water bottle full of vodka?
What gets me, is that she's never been arrested for drunk driving or open liquor. How has she managed that when every single person in that small town knows she's drinking vodka?
Also, she's trying to talk a friend of hers into claiming disability and also living at the Lodge, just because it would make her feel better not to be the youngest person living there, and she's bored.
She did talk to our brother, and it kind of sounds like he and his wife are indeed going through a rough patch, but it's more like she's taking some time to go visit her family, to see if she could find a good job near them, and from there they might move closer to her family. She's really missing them (though I honestly don't understand why she doesn't just VISIT them more often if it's that big a deal for her).
Either way, it sounds like the break is a mutual decision, and whatever happens its something they're working out together, which seems pretty mature of them.
I decided to pull out a pair of snowshoes and enjoy the fresh, deep snow by tramping around the horse pasture a bit, and then letting the ponies/goats out into their bigger pasture and tramping around in there for a while. That made me feel a little better about the day that otherwise felt kind of wasted.
I did do three loads of laundry, so at least something productive happened.
I decided to deconstruct a couple of men's wool suit jackets that I had been meaning to do so with for some time. It's a surprisingly difficult and tedious task, and not much actual usable material in the end.
I watched a film called "Waking Life" that was pretty trippy, and kind of annoying in a way because it felt a lot like the conversations you had with college kids right after they took first year philosophy.
Bhutan is nestled in the Himalayas, between China and India. It has low plains in the South that rise to the mountains in the North.
It has a constitutional monarchy, with both a president and a prime minister.
A notable mammal is the Takin, which is of the Caprine family but is ox-like in appearance. A goat-ox. I had never heard of these before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takin
The religion is mainly Buddhist (beginning in 700's) followed by Hinduism. There are just over 700 thousand people in a fairly large country, so not overpopulated.
The early history of the region is not well-documented, and for a very long time there was no unification, the region being a series of small nations, until the Mongols ruled the area for awhile.
By the 1600's, one ruler pulled it all together and built a series of fortresses to protect against the incursion of Tibet. His name is very long. He was such an effective leader that no one knew what would become of the region after his death, so the administrators lied about his death for 50 years saying that he was in seclusion in a meditative state.
There were a lot of wars going on, almost constant attacks from Tibet and between Bhutan and India (Bhutan attacked the Indian kingdom of Koch Bihar and occupied it),
The leader of Koch Bihar then got the British East India Company involved, who kicked out the Bhutanese and then attacked Bhutan. A treaty was signed, but this led to over a hundred years of conflict between the British/India.
Eventually Bhutan decided to try to work with the British against their enemy, Tibet, and in return Bhutan was rewarded with some peace, got to have a monarch, and protected Bhutan from being invaded by China in 1910.
Still, it remained a very isolated and "backward" country, with slavery only abolished in 1958 and no currency until 1960's.
Bhutan struggled with creating some kind of national identity, trying to establish a mandatory national dress, and trying to establish the Dzongkha language instead of Hindi, and to find and remove people who were illegal immigrants (their borders were pretty leaky).
The government made efforts to remove "illegal immigrants": In 1988, Bhutan conducted a census in southern Bhutan to guard against illegal immigration.... Each family was required to present census workers with a tax receipt from the year 1958.. to prove that they were indeed Bhutanese citizens..citizenship cards were no longer accepted as proof of citizenship... many began to protest for civil and cultural rights... protests and related violence swept across southern Bhutan, the government in turn increased its resistance. People present at protests were labeled "anti-national terrorists".[46] After the demonstrations, the Bhutanese army and police began the task of identifying participants and supporters engaged in the violence against the state and people. They were arrested and held for months without trial.[43] Soon the Bhutanese government arbitrarily reported that its census operations had detected the presence in southern Bhutan of over 100,000 "illegal immigrants"... The census operations, thus, were used as a tool for the identification, eviction and banishment of dissidents who were involved in the uprising against the state... forceful deportations of between 80,000 and 100,000 Lhotshampas and were accused of using widespread violence, torture, rape and killing. The evicted... became refugees in camps in southern Nepal. Since 2008, many Western countries, such as Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, have allowed resettlement of the majority of the Lhotshampa refugees. (paraphrased from Wikipedia)
Things are MAYBE getting better? In 1999 the ban against internet and television was lifted.
The U.N. identified Bhutan as a "least developed nation" in 2023.
The economy is mostly based on agriculture, tourism, and the sale of hydroelectricity. They face a serious issue of being very land locked, thus always having to have workable trade agreements with China and/or India to even get trade goods in and out of their country.
The national dress code is pretty serious, and travelers must be careful about how they dress when visiting the country of they want to enter into any of the temples or government buildings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driglam_namzha#:~:text=The%20Driglam%20Namzha%20(Tibetan%3A%20%E0%BD%A6%E0%BE%92%E0%BE%B2%E0%BD%B2%E0%BD%82,such%20as%20art%20and%20architecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan
https://youtu.be/JS-1d8c5cX4?si=RFcTsx19cKxKzi9y
It's not terribly cold, but somehow having it be at least a bit colder makes it feel more normal. We have had such an odd, warm winter (with the exception of one brutally cold stretch) that it seems uncanny.
My Sweetie got to work okay. I wasn't sure he should go, but he figured he'd give it a try. By the time he came home he said most of the roads were cleared.
I chose not to go to town today for pottery, because there was no real reason to try, given the road conditions. It would also not have been cleared in town yet.
I felt pretty frustrated though, being sort of stuck at home.
I was bored enough to call Trainwreck. She just moved AGAIN within the Lodge, to a suite with nicer, South-facing windows. I get it. Sunlight is a big deal. I hope she can just settle in and enjoy herself there.
She is of course, already trying to undermine the authority (a board) that runs the lodge by trying to test the limits of things like whether or not they will say anything about her wandering around the common areas of the lodge with a "drinking bottle" full of vodka.
I don't think she understand how very f'ed she would be if she got evicted from this place.
It's such a nice place. It's clean, the suites are a good size, the appliances are fairly new, there's a nice laundry room, and it's the cheapest rent she will ever get.
Yet, it's just her stupid nature to test things to see what she can get away with, and to cry "victim" if she faces consequences. Why does she literally have to walk around EVERYWHERE with a water bottle full of vodka?
What gets me, is that she's never been arrested for drunk driving or open liquor. How has she managed that when every single person in that small town knows she's drinking vodka?
Also, she's trying to talk a friend of hers into claiming disability and also living at the Lodge, just because it would make her feel better not to be the youngest person living there, and she's bored.
She did talk to our brother, and it kind of sounds like he and his wife are indeed going through a rough patch, but it's more like she's taking some time to go visit her family, to see if she could find a good job near them, and from there they might move closer to her family. She's really missing them (though I honestly don't understand why she doesn't just VISIT them more often if it's that big a deal for her).
Either way, it sounds like the break is a mutual decision, and whatever happens its something they're working out together, which seems pretty mature of them.
I decided to pull out a pair of snowshoes and enjoy the fresh, deep snow by tramping around the horse pasture a bit, and then letting the ponies/goats out into their bigger pasture and tramping around in there for a while. That made me feel a little better about the day that otherwise felt kind of wasted.
I did do three loads of laundry, so at least something productive happened.
I decided to deconstruct a couple of men's wool suit jackets that I had been meaning to do so with for some time. It's a surprisingly difficult and tedious task, and not much actual usable material in the end.
I watched a film called "Waking Life" that was pretty trippy, and kind of annoying in a way because it felt a lot like the conversations you had with college kids right after they took first year philosophy.
Bhutan is nestled in the Himalayas, between China and India. It has low plains in the South that rise to the mountains in the North.
It has a constitutional monarchy, with both a president and a prime minister.
A notable mammal is the Takin, which is of the Caprine family but is ox-like in appearance. A goat-ox. I had never heard of these before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takin
The religion is mainly Buddhist (beginning in 700's) followed by Hinduism. There are just over 700 thousand people in a fairly large country, so not overpopulated.
The early history of the region is not well-documented, and for a very long time there was no unification, the region being a series of small nations, until the Mongols ruled the area for awhile.
By the 1600's, one ruler pulled it all together and built a series of fortresses to protect against the incursion of Tibet. His name is very long. He was such an effective leader that no one knew what would become of the region after his death, so the administrators lied about his death for 50 years saying that he was in seclusion in a meditative state.
There were a lot of wars going on, almost constant attacks from Tibet and between Bhutan and India (Bhutan attacked the Indian kingdom of Koch Bihar and occupied it),
The leader of Koch Bihar then got the British East India Company involved, who kicked out the Bhutanese and then attacked Bhutan. A treaty was signed, but this led to over a hundred years of conflict between the British/India.
Eventually Bhutan decided to try to work with the British against their enemy, Tibet, and in return Bhutan was rewarded with some peace, got to have a monarch, and protected Bhutan from being invaded by China in 1910.
Still, it remained a very isolated and "backward" country, with slavery only abolished in 1958 and no currency until 1960's.
Bhutan struggled with creating some kind of national identity, trying to establish a mandatory national dress, and trying to establish the Dzongkha language instead of Hindi, and to find and remove people who were illegal immigrants (their borders were pretty leaky).
The government made efforts to remove "illegal immigrants": In 1988, Bhutan conducted a census in southern Bhutan to guard against illegal immigration.... Each family was required to present census workers with a tax receipt from the year 1958.. to prove that they were indeed Bhutanese citizens..citizenship cards were no longer accepted as proof of citizenship... many began to protest for civil and cultural rights... protests and related violence swept across southern Bhutan, the government in turn increased its resistance. People present at protests were labeled "anti-national terrorists".[46] After the demonstrations, the Bhutanese army and police began the task of identifying participants and supporters engaged in the violence against the state and people. They were arrested and held for months without trial.[43] Soon the Bhutanese government arbitrarily reported that its census operations had detected the presence in southern Bhutan of over 100,000 "illegal immigrants"... The census operations, thus, were used as a tool for the identification, eviction and banishment of dissidents who were involved in the uprising against the state... forceful deportations of between 80,000 and 100,000 Lhotshampas and were accused of using widespread violence, torture, rape and killing. The evicted... became refugees in camps in southern Nepal. Since 2008, many Western countries, such as Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, have allowed resettlement of the majority of the Lhotshampa refugees. (paraphrased from Wikipedia)
Things are MAYBE getting better? In 1999 the ban against internet and television was lifted.
The U.N. identified Bhutan as a "least developed nation" in 2023.
The economy is mostly based on agriculture, tourism, and the sale of hydroelectricity. They face a serious issue of being very land locked, thus always having to have workable trade agreements with China and/or India to even get trade goods in and out of their country.
The national dress code is pretty serious, and travelers must be careful about how they dress when visiting the country of they want to enter into any of the temples or government buildings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driglam_namzha#:~:text=The%20Driglam%20Namzha%20(Tibetan%3A%20%E0%BD%A6%E0%BE%92%E0%BE%B2%E0%BD%B2%E0%BD%82,such%20as%20art%20and%20architecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan
https://youtu.be/JS-1d8c5cX4?si=RFcTsx19cKxKzi9y
no subject
Date: 2024-02-27 08:17 pm (UTC)We are experiencing the first rainstorm in ages. The part of the back yard closest to the porch has formed an even bigger lake than it did when it was supposed to be filled and levelled last summer/fall.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-27 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 09:56 am (UTC)We have a set of taps at the back door, and when we can, we have a small kiddy pool there that we "play" with her in until she is clean enough to come inside.
In the earlier part of Spring when it's still cold, we just have towels, and if she's really bad, she gets to dry out in the porch where we can at least contain the mud that falls off of her. If she stinks badly enough she gets a bath.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 08:31 pm (UTC)Mungo's habit is to use the perimeter of the yard only. He does not do his business anywhere else.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-03 08:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-03 09:43 am (UTC)Roxy mainly seems to enjoy pooping pretty much right at the back door, as soon as she gets outside. Or, where I walk (I have paths through the snow out to the horse pasture).
I've really noticed at the riding barn, certain horses (River is one of them) are very smart about pooping in the stalls; they back right up and poop against the back wall of the stall, all nice and neat. One or two others tend to make a huge mess and poop in the middle, and then it gets all stirred up and everywhere.
One pony likes to pee every time in the same spot in his stall.
They are mainly in the stalls just so they are at hand for lessons (River is generally only in a stall for about 15 minutes to eat his extra food and to get brushed before I work with him, and again afterwards).
Some are inside longer because they have to be given extra feed away from the other horses.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-04 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-28 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-28 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-29 06:06 am (UTC)