For a second week running we felt a little bit like Dorothy in Kansas’ tornado alley as another monster typhoon bore down upon us. The wind and rain started on Friday and by Saturday night, the full maelstrom hit the top end of the country, trying to huff, and puff, and blow down everything in its path. Like its little brother Sinlaku before it, Typhoon Jangmi was doing its best to disrupt our lives and put lots of people’s lives in danger in the mountains and near the coast.Cassy was sick as can be all week and finally succumbed to her dreaded throat infection on Wednesday after trying to soldier on earlier in the week. She ended up having three days off, a highly unusual situation for her, but partly due to the fact that her classes were a lot easier to plan as there is a visiting anti chemical dependency team taking over a fair bit of her time. She still feels a little washed out today, so it was a rather savage brute. She took some solace in her plight with two little furry friends being very friendly in her time of need and managed to read a few books and get lots of sleep with them as constant shadows.
Friday night I brought home some lasagna and salad from Wendel’s Backerei down the street, where Gurecki and I shared a couple of relaxing Erdingers in an enervating heat haze, the clouds and smog sucked away by the approaching typhoon, leaving little protection against a blazing autumnal sun. Home to watch the NRL on Friday night (6pm Taipei time) and then off to bed early for me as I was determined to mine any golden swells that were going to be produced by the approaching big boppa.
Crack of dawn Saturday I made my way to Greenball where I met up with my mate JB, who was hesitant to go out. An American, JB has lived here off and on all his life and his fluent Mandarin is a cause of constant frustration for me: I’d love to have those skills! Anyway, as JB got the good oil from all over the coast, I got the brand new MR spitfire waxed up and ready to go. JB demurred as it was pretty rough and surgey and he only had his longboard, so I went out to join a small but determined local crew. It ended up being a pretty frustrating time, getting a few waves, not really doing them justice, then dinging up the new board on the way in. It’s a very dangerous exit point on the Tetra pod wall, but the boys were all helping: collecting boards for each other and helping each other out of the water. Driving back in the grey squall, I planned my next moves: getting to Brandon’s with beers and KFC after a quick shower in time for the AFL grand final celebrations! I managed to get there on the scooter with a few minutes to spare before kickoff and we had a great day as the game was exciting and the company funny and entertaining. Wal and I and Ivo and Lewy kicked on for a while to the Qiyan WoSoo bar where we ate some dinner and drank a few more beers.
The wind screamed and whistled through the night, the rain came down in torrents and various foreign objects flipped and crashed against each other in the streets outside, a cacophony of sound that intermittently woke the cats who cried, or us directly to sit up startled and wonder what on earth was happening out there. Sunday was definitely a day to hunker down inside, which we did, enjoying lots of reading and TV. We’ve watched the first 4 episodes of the Aussie cop drama “Rush”. It’s really very good: we were disappointed that we didn’t have more to watch. Along with many episodes of the spine chilling “Dexter” which seemed appropriate with the other worldly howls from outside interrupting from time to time, we certainly had our fill!
Excitement on Sunday night when the web site and the phone tree revealed that school had been called off for today, Monday. Hurrah! We were so disappointed to be cooped up all last weekend and half of this one that we felt we deserved it actually. We’ve had a great day today, not really doing much, but taking a few quiet moments to luxuriate in that most decadent of moments: a work day when you don’t have to go to work, it’s all legit and you’re not sick….fantastic!
Typhoon Jangmi has eased as it heads offshore so Dorothy’s red shoes are safe again for now. Photos: tracking typhoons on Sunday, a blurry AFL grand final shot (Sean’s wife Katie just had their second child, Mia, last night…), the “girls” relaxing all over each other (even in this heat!), and the storm surf on Saturday. There is also a shot of Virg writhing in the stinky, sweaty clothes I use to walk up the steps! For some strange reason, both cats find this totally irrestible, especially the hat: weird!