The rain stopped for a bit, but is coming down hard again, so I’m checking the window sills every few minutes to see if I need to put more rolled up towels on the window sills. Though it’s a pain, it IS good exercise….
I’m trying to make sure that Mother Nature gets the memo that TODAY is the official start of “The Cool Season” here in Thailand where the temperatures drop a bit and the hard rains STOP.
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Since I read “Prequel: The Last Happy Summer “ by R. G. Ryan, I want to read all the Jake Moriarity series books again. I made sure I either had them on my Kindle or downloaded them again this morning so I can reread the first 6 books again. If you want to get them, here is a source – https://www.amazon.com/The-Jake-Moriarity-Novels-6-book-series/dp/B07H9JMTN5
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I’m looking forward to painting more of my sketches today. I’m lucky that I have a lot of fun things to do – around wringing out wet towels from the window sills. 😄☔️
THERAINY SEASON – (June – October) – especially heavy June through August – heaviest in July.
We are finally getting to the end of “The Rainy Season” here in Chiang Mai. This has been a real adjustment for me.
I have a condo I love with large picture windows letting lots of light in and providing a spectacular view. Unfortunately, they also leak. The hard rains have moved me to form my ‘bucket and towel brigade’ with a membership of one, to be ready at a moment’s notice, day or night, to put rolled up towels on all the window sills, watching them carefully and wringing them out into a bucket at intervals until the rain has passed, and then trying to get the towels dry to be armed for the next rain..
I have also learned to always carry an umbrella and a “rain suit” that is an ingenious invention made from a plastic bag, with sleeves and a hood with a drawstring. Just the thing when it’s really blowing and pouring.
Happily, our condo building will be doing exterior repairs and repainting once the rainy season is completely over. One of the things on the list is doing outside resealing of windows – hopefully making it so the bucket brigade won’t be necessary next time.
The rain here is very different from what I was used to in the States. In Arkansas, if it rained, it rained most of the day. We postponed activities until it dried out. Here, it can absolutely POUR for several minutes and then stop, as if a faucet was turned off, the sun coming out and the rest of the day beautiful – or pour again, just as soon as you get your rain suit or umbrella put away. As long as you learn to be prepared to pull out your umbrella or don your rain suit, you get used to dealing with it, not postponing any activities. (I also carry a trash bag to put my wet umbrella in until I can open it up and dry it at home.)
My rain suit is actually purple, though it shows pink here.
Trying to get laundry done during the rainy season is quite laborious. I try to get my laundry out on my little balcony early in the morning to catch the good sun. Many times a sudden rain storm will drench your clothes, so you have to keep an alert eye on the skies, rather than depending on the weather app, ready to drag your drying rack inside very quickly to rescue your clothes. Then the sun will come out, and you reverse the process – sometimes several times – until the task is done.
Typhoons come from the direction of Vietnam. It’s a bit scary with weather alerts on your phone. (The alerts are in Thai – pretty useless to a non-Thai speaker like me)- but I’ve learned what it is and look for the dates that it will hit Chiang Mai. We’re up high, so we don’t have to worry about flooding, but we DO have to get serious about the bucket brigade at times like this…
The Rainy Season is coming to an end here. My son Brian says Thai ‘winter’ is next with a bit cooler temperatures (only 85 or so in the afternoons) and a LOT less rain! I’m ready!!!!!
About an hour ago, the sky turned really dark and the rain came down HARD. It pelted my windows so hard I thought it must be hail, but I couldn’t see any when I looked out. I DID see completely flooded streets – water rushing by like a river – with cars and motorcyclists (poor people!) at a standstill.
Since then, I’ve been mopping up water in my place. It filled up the window sills on the inside and spilled over and down the walls. The floor had some standing water and the bottom side of the rug was soaked.
I think most of it is under control now. I got towels and sopped up water on the window sills, wiped down the walls as best I could, soaked up the water on the floor, and now have two portable fans on high aimed at the floor and the rug bottom.
I can only imagine what kind of flooding people at street level had. I feel sorry for the shopkeepers and people who live at street level who must be trying to do what they can to contain the damage.
This IS the ‘rainy season’ in Thailand. It’s supposed to continue until around the first of November…
The “Rainy Season” is really living up to its name here lately.
My umbrella is open, drying on the floor by my door, from when we were out.
Yesterday I sopped up water from my center window leaking. Today I noticed wet footprints on the rug under my dining table next to the window. I now have used a bath towel to sop up water that leaked down the wall and under the rug. I have a fan pointed directly toward the area with the floor cleaned up the best I can and the bottom of the rug drying. I also had some leakage in my art alcove.
We will have to wait until November, when the rainy season is over, to get the windows resealed. At another time, when we have saved up enough money, we will look into getting the floor repaired. The most damage was done when the previous tenants had my place. I’m just trying to keep things at the level they are now, rather than allowing them to get worse.
“Joke” – eatingthaifood – Mark Wiens
We had a really nice breakfast. I told you about this dish before, but we hadn’t eaten it since the first time, so I had to have Brian remind me what it’s called. “Joke,” or rice porridge, is kind of like a breakfast stew here. Rice porridge is the base, but then whatever you have handy goes into the pot. We had sliced sausage in ours this morning. Brian says it usually has a bunch of ginger in it, sometimes making it ‘too spicy or hot’ for a lot of people (including me.) Today it was nicely flavored. I loved it – and only drank my water as a drink – not a lifesaver. 😃
I found another article about using my treadmill workout more efficiently. I’ve already told you about the Japanese Walking Method which I’ve been doing, consisting of 3 minutes ‘slow’ walking followed by 3 minutes ‘fast’ walking for 30 minutes. (except I do 2 slow and 3 fast so that I have a couple of minutes to cool down at the end of my workout.)
Yesterday I read about the 12-3-30 Method which consists of walking 30 minutes at a speed of 3mph at a 12% incline. (Since I’m old and WORKING on getting more fit, I did a modified version of that.) I did my Japanese method for the first 15 minutes, increasing the incline 1% at 5 minute intervals. The second 15 minutes I set the speed at 4mph and just kept bumping up the incline 1% each 5 minutes. I ended up at 6% incline before I started my cool down.) We’ll see if I’m stiff and sore tomorrow. 😜
Chuckles – Pinterest
I finally broke through my plateau on losing my lard. This morning my BMI chart is smiling at me getting well into the healthy range. (I have been in the morbidly obese, then obese range for about 5 years now.) My BMI is 22 now.
I have lost 73 pounds since my heaviest now. (Almost 19 pounds since my initial doctor visit here.) I’m hoping she will see that I’m serious about trying to take care of myself, lose the lard, and get in better shape.
I hope that your day is a good one, giving you a big smile at least once.
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