November 24, 2016

November 24, 2016

Clarity is gonna have to be big for us today!  This morning before Lynda pulled her card, I opened the book to see if I could guess what she might get.....and I did.....she pulled clarity!  Then when it came time for me to pull a card....guess what I pulled too?  Yep you guessed it...clarity!  Jeez!  What does that mean?!  I guess it means that we need to pay special attention to clarity today...the definition of clarity from the little book that accompanies our Bali Blessing Cards states.....Clarity is the quality of being easily understood.  The quality of being expressive, remembered, and understood in a very exact way: the quality of being easily seen or heard.  "Calm provides clarity." - Anonymous

Turns out that clarity for each of us is a pretty reflective process.  One of those insidious things that oozes through all that you see and do in a given day.  The kind of thing that you can't really describe specifically at the end of a day but rather something that you can feel confident whether you were intentional with or not.  One specific example of clarity that we both exercised today was with Ketut at breakfast time.  He is attending english classes every week and so we have offered to help him with anything at any time that he'd like.  This morning he learned the difference in the sound between paper and pepper and butter and better.  Easy for us but not so easy when english is not your first language!

"I love my coffee after the rain when it's cold out" says Lynda while I roll my eyes to keep the sweat from running into them!  Her comment was precipitated by Ketut coming out to ask if we'd like something warm to drink as it is a little chilly right now.  LOL!!!  His idea of chilly and mine are a little different!  In truth though it is definitely a little cooler after the rain and this afternoon was another downpour.  Lynda made it back from her spa time just before the rain hit and I made it into my reflexology appointment about 2 minutes before the skies opened too.

There is the thunder booming overhead again....we're both guessing that might be something we'll get used to over the coming months as a daily tune that the weather gods sing.  And here comes the rain again....it is so nice to be able to sit out here on our patio with the rain falling around us.  At the moment it is just a gentle little rain but there is no doubt that it could change at any second into a torrential downpour.  We truly feel like we're in the rainy season now.  The first few days when we had no rain it was hard to understand why it is called the rainy season but after yesterday and today we definitely feel the truth of that term.  This morning though was clear and sunny and the rain didn't hit till early/mid afternoon which supposedly is very typical.  It seems to last 30-60 minutes and then turns into this sort of misty reality where everything is wet but the skies are not dumping down on us.  Really thankful for the aromatherapy natural bugbegone product we're spraying pretty much all the time as the bugs like this after the rain weather big time!

Lynda spent her spa time with Mariana at the same spa I went to that first day and she loved her time there as much as I did.  It really is a nice place - much nicer than the one we spontaneously visited last night after our meal at the vespa warung.  Where last night there were just curtains around our space and noise from the road or people in the restaurant floating in over the curtains the spa she was in today is separate little cabins with nicer beds and I believe more skilled therapists.  Bottom line....my hunch is that we'll be back at that place once or twice more during our time in Ubud!

My reflexology appointment was AMAZING!  I wish I'd written down my therapists name as I can't remember more than that it started with a J so I'm just going to call him J for now.  He is the same guy I had almost a week ago when we first arrived and I will be making weekly visits to him during my time here.  His skill is without question and the 60 minute treatment I had today was divided between focus on knees and lower legs as well as reflexology.  Knees take a bit of a beating here with all the uneven sidewalks so I was doubly thankful for his skill!  On my way to see him my knee was giving me some trouble and on my way back home...it was almost as good as new.  Wahoo!

Before my reflexology appointment I joined Lynda at her spa location for lunch and what a nice lunch we had at poolside where Lynda had spent the morning lounging before her massage.  (I had client meetings this morning so stayed at the room where I could have privacy and good wifi).  Our lunch at poolside was delicious!  I had a chicken cutlet with a spicy sweet and sour sauce and rice and Lynda had a chicken salad.  Even though we didn't really have any room left we shared a crepe with a scoop of ice cream for dessert and were glad we did as it was the perfect ending to a delicious meal.  The crepes here are very different from ours. These ones are much more dense and heavier.  As a result they are substantial and quite chewy but honestly they're delicious!

Last night there was a dripping noise all through the night and we thought it had to do with the heavy rains that had fallen but by the light of day it turned out to be a leak from the water reservoir for the house so as a result the water had to be turned off today so repairs could be made.  Goodday has just come to turn the water back on (it was off for about 7 hours) so our assumption is that there will be no dripping noises tonight.  Last night we laughed as we wondered if our perfect little oasis had an achilles heel after all and whether we were going to have to just get used to some kind of water torture sounds every time it rained during the rainy season!  Thankfully, this achilles heel was repairable and so no more water torture for us.  LOL!

Till next time,
L & L

P.S.
Wrong on the 'no dripping noise tonight' front. We just returned from a late dinner at local warung and once again Lady Luck was with us. Less than 5 mins after our return the skies opened up and the deluge began. It was bone dry while we were out.  Loving the rain (even the sound of it on the walls....can't say the roof as we are on the ground floor of a two storey house.).

Funny story from tonight.  While we were sitting in the little warung waiting for the little old man and the little old lady to make our meal from scratch (and I do mean from scratch! Nothing is prepared ahead of time from what I can see and the smells wafting out of the kitchen are divine!) a young woman peeked over an opening in the wall of the building across the little laneway this warung is in.  She waved hello to us and called out something to the little old woman who proceeded to put a number of pkgs in a small grocery bag. Once she had filled the "order" that little old woman tossed the bag across the laneway and over the wall where the younger woman must have caught it.  The younger woman then balled up her money and threw it across the divide to the little old woman's waiting hands.  I'd say they've done that maneuver once or twice before!

On our way home we came across Ketut and Goodday sitting in front of the corner store at the end of our laneway.  We chatted for a bit and then asked if we could get them a treat from in the store as they're always doing stuff for us. They finally agreed to some ice cream with Ketut choosing a Cornetto (drumstick) and Goodday going for the Magnum ice cream bar.  See....young people the world over like much of the same stuff!

.....and now this really is the end of today so till next time.....
L & L