Jac & Ti basking

 

Typical traffic scene in Chennai India

 

Note back to Hannah

Hi Hannah, I like our house. I switched bedrooms because I wanted to sleep in the one the cats like. I play soccer and take Tai Kwan Do lessons. I like to draw. Math in school is hard. They are way ahead to multiplication with carrying. Preston and Jimmy are my friends. They came from Minneapolis too. That was the elephant trainer giving it a drink. I got to pet a baby elephant though.

I miss you too. Jessi  You can email me directly at ThorneInIndia@gmail.com

Big snail in the yard

Gecko's new tail

 

Re: Update from Jessi

The gecko's tail is growing back.  Their tail falls off to confuse a predator, and they are pretty neat.  We have geckos all around the house.  I'm sending a picture of the snail my dad saw outside our house.  It was really big.  Mom says that she sees lots of snails on the rock fences when she goes to work

 

On Monday's I wear a blue button up shirt and tan skort to school and on Tuesday I wear my house color shirt [greenish] with dark blue shorts.  The rest of the week I wear an orange polo shirt and the dark blue shorts.  On all days I wear dark blue socks.  I don't have my shoes yet.  Dad says they are on backorder at the store. 

 

It's Thanksgiving week here, but you would not know it.  It is not a holiday celebrated here.  Mom says about 25 families are going to dinner on Thursday.  Where we live, Palm Meadows, has a Halloween celebration, and it was a lot of fun.

 

In school we are learning multiplication with carrying.  When I started it, it was really hard, but now I'm getting the hang of it.  On Wednesday and Friday I have soccer after school, and on Saturday mornings I have a tae kwon do class.  I have homework on Monday's and Friday's.

 

We had a big rain Friday night.  Dad said it was part of the Northeast monsoon.  A bunch of fly like bugs hatched out.  They had big wings, and they were everywhere at 7pm.  We went for a walk, and there were toads everywhere eating the flies.  By 9pm, the flies were gone, and so were the toads.

 

Dad and mom had to go to Chennai to the US Consulate to get some papers signed.  I stayed with some friends so that I wouldn't miss any school.  During the mid-winter holidays we are going to Kerala [Southern state on the Arabian sea].  We're going to a tea plantation, and to stay on a house boat in the backwaters.  Then we're going to the beach.  The beach is what I like the most.

We are ok

We've gotten several inquiries asking if we are ok following yesterday's incident in Mumbai.  We very much appreciate the concern and we are fine. Mumbai is about 600 miles from Bangalore.

View from hotel room in Chennai

 

Deja Vu! What's New Hope doing in India?

It was a head turner when I saw the name of our Minnesota town in India…  Surreal…

Another U.S. Postal experience

We've received another packet from the U.S.  It was a photo mailer and cost $1 to send to India.  It arrived fine and fairly quickly.  Our next experiment will be an order from Amazon.

Can someone explain the center ad to me?

 

Stereotyped?

I think I've been stereotyped.  Twice now I have been in lounges in India and suddenly I was listening to Willie Nelson.  I figure I'm being stereotyped as liking Country Western music because I'm from Montana.  But I can't figure out how people know.  Is my Montana accent really that strong?  I have to say I was relieved when Willie Nelson's voice was replaced by Glenn Cambell (and that is not saying much at all).  And at least neither place played "There's a Teer in My Beer".  That would have been just too much.  For the record: I dislike country western music unless it is Alabama.  And I really, really, really dislike Willie Nelson and hope no one in India ever again is gracious enough to put Willie's songs on because the only two people in the lounge "look" like they would like it.   Thanks for the thought though.

Cat 2, Alarm clock 0, Gecko 0

Jac was chuffed and in pursuit during a fast and furrrius stalk; known prey were in his sights. The clock was collateral damage when the shock and awe of one chuffed kitty left the area of the bedroom - able to leap beds in a single bound kind of stuff. Cleared the bed and night stand, but it was long jump and tail was flat for aerodynamics; clock was clipped by tail chuffed tabby. Both clock and cat landed in computer room, where tabby quickly assumed the "it wasn't me" repose in the middle of the floor - assuming he was too cute for trouble to stick. I think his super-tabby cape should be "teflon tabby". As for the clock, it took a lick'n and kept on tick'n.

Tig was reposing on the scratch stand, and during all the commotion the best he could muster was a sleepy eyed "wasssup".

A ruckus in the night followed. One tailess, motionless, hearbeatless gecko was found on the site of the attack.

In India I learned how to give an elephant a drink.

 

Jac responds to Larrie

A question answered...

I've had multiple inquires regarding what Larrie does during the day...  I think he provided me with the answer when I got this email earlier!  (Jac is one of the cats.)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Larrie Thorne <thorneinindia@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:02 PM

Jac had the rips, so I chased him around the front room; hid from him in the DR and when he came by I  jumped out at him.  He scampered into the BR, and I pursued in chase.  Under the bed; redirected into the bathroom - up into the sink assuming the "Jac in the Sink" position.  Water gets turned on.  Sink fills up - I guess he did not realize the sink was filling up.  Result: one wet cat racing to front door and lots of grooming.

 

I think they're boored and need toys.  I don't seem to cut it any more.

U.S. Mail to India

We've been very curious about how long it would take for mail to get to us in Bangalore and how much it would cost, so an experiment was conducted.  Allison's parents sent a manilla envelope from Butte, MT with about a dozen pieces of paper in it.  It cost $3.50, took 9 days, and made it right to the mail box at our house.  Some mail from Montana to Minnesota has taken almost that long!  Now we just need to figure out how to send mail in the other direction.

Ants Happen

One of the more interesting observations of the circle of life in India is to realize how each life form in the circle is dependent upon those around it, which is less evident at home. I suspect this is a case of conscious awareness vs. unconscious awareness; however, none the less, it is a case for pondering.

Waste is managed here by a trickle down process. The resident humans generate waste due to consumption of stuff, and the residue trickles down to other persons of need or other levels of life, the dogs, cats, cows, crows, and the like. Once this layer has completed its consumption of the stuff, the residue trickles down to the next level and so on. Sooner or later you get to the ants; although, there are those species of ants who assume their rightful place at the top of the process and attempt to be primary consumers of stuff.

Ants are everywhere here, and there are multiple species, each with its purpose - nothing new there. What is new is that the living quarters for us humans in this tropical environment are not nearly as protected environment as at home. As such, you wind up living with a bunch of ants, and you begin to wonder about who is really in charge – what your purpose is. Am I just a conduit of nutrition to the ants? If I leave something at rest too long - it attracts a crowd regardless of where I am in my environment.

Historically, I have been rather an antagonist towards ants, and that bent has followed me to India. One of my first acquisitions upon residency in our home was to procure a can of ant bomb, which I have used to eradicate my space of ants. After a month of that behavior, I have come to the futile realization of my actions, as I have not modified the behavior of the ants a single iota. You spray, they migrate to a cleaner spot to do their business for a few days, the chemicals wear off, and they move back to the more efficient and historical path.

Another example of attempted behavioral modification was the ant "hole" that appeared under the cycad in the front of the house. The hole wast about 3 cm across, and its depth was too dark to see bottom. This particular type of ant is a nasty little beasty, and it is not aware that it should not attack a much larger agressor. My first volley was to stuff an immature coconut into the hole as hard as I could. That seemed to stop visible growth of the hole until the grounds keepers could not rationalize why the coconut was stuffed into the hole, and they removed the plug. Within a few hours, the squatters had reclaimed lost territory. Me 0, ants 1. My next move was to drop a few 2 cm pieces of granite into the hole, and then using the output of their work as backfill, I filled in the remaining holes with soil. Using my foot, I tramped the soil quite firmly. Within two days, three small holes have appeared - they are having to work around the stones; however, I fear they have adapted. Me 0, ants 2. Match to the ants.

The buildings (and houses) here are framed by a concrete post and lintel system with blank spaces filled in by solid concrete blocks. The fascia surface is a couple of layers of cement stucco and a layer of paint. So, essentially, I live in a pile of sand held together by cement, which is a perfect habitat for the ants. One can observe many minor defects in the skin of the house that has a stream of ants coming and going from it, and then you realize the porosity of the walls due to the block construction and gaps in the mortar binding the blocks together, you realize that essentially, the ants are holding the house up.

Maybe I'll be a little nicer to the ants as a survival technique - If I let them live, they might not pull out the key piece of sand that the entire house is structurally dependent upon.

Many have commented on the antiquity of ants, and that they will survive the humans when human dominance disappears from the earth, and I accept that. However, here in India at least, without the humans, the ant diet will be greatly impacted. The ants would have to resort to an ancient diet of fiber, which is probably better for them anyway, and they would need to go back to building their own domiciles. I wonder if they have retained the necessary skills to build a decent ant hill from scratch?

The Evil Knight at the Thorne House

Never let a 3 yr old have your camera!

We finally get the cats here and Jessi's trying to cut one up!

Larrie: Ready to Howl

Jessi on Halloween