Filmed at the Tibetan Homes Foundation.
Tibetan Buddhism seems to traditionally favor mechanically-aided prayer. Each of these wheels has a core wrapped with paper inscribed thousands of times with om mani padme hum (“the jewel is in the lotus”). Spinning the wheel sends the prayers up to heaven.
Tenzing Nima, Woodstock alum, actor, and proprietor of Momotours, came over for dinner at Sharon & Steve’s, and regaled us with monkey stories.
There are two types of monkeys in Mussoorie, langurs and rhesus. Langurs are beautiful, graceful, and fairly shy of people. Rhesus are very aggressive and can be dangerous. So langurs are hard to get pictures of, while rhesus may attack if photographed.
These are sometimes called Hanuman langurs, because the monkey god Hanuman is often depicted as having silver or white fur and a black face (although he’s also often portrayed as hairless or human flesh-colored).
shot Apr 16, 2005, 2:25 mins
music: The Animals
Now that the weather’s finally getting warmer, we figured the turtles could spend time outside, so we bought some low fencing (intended to demarcate flowerbeds or something) and planted it in the garden. The enclosure didn’t need to be very high – turtles don’t jump, after all…
(later)
We seem to have solved the problem. I turned around the fencing so that the horizontal bars are on the outside, and the turtles are faced with tall (to them), smooth vertical bars on the inside. They still try to escape, but not nearly so hard, and they seem to have gotten the hang of just relaxing in the sun (there’s a plastic tub set up as a shelter for them to crawl under when they get too hot). I’m still looking for the right size and shape of ceramic planter to use as a pond for them. In the meantime, I put down one of those things you put under a plant pot to catch overflow (sottovaso – undervase – in Italian; what’s the word for that in English?). It’s just low enough for them to crawl over the rim, and they both immediately plunged in. Apparently they get thirsty quickly in the sun.
I was contemplating getting an iguana as a pet, til I read that they live 20 years and can get to be 6 feet long; I don’t feature me at age 62 trying to walk a six-foot lizard. Maybe we’ll get a python instead…
This one’s for Carol & Steve, who went shopping in Boston and vlogged it.
La Bottega del Maiale (“The Hog Shop”) is a small gourmet food shop in the heart of downtown Lecco (Piazza XX Settembre) specializing, obviously, in pork products, but they also have a great selection of cheeses, wines, sott’oli (preserves in oil), sottaceti (preserves in vinegar), and many other wonderful things.
I didn’t try to subtitle the Italian conversation going on between me and the shop ladies. The manager gave me permission to film, but the younger woman at the cash register initially said, “Oh, no, no, no – don’t film me – I’ll hide under here [the cash counter].” I said, “That’s fine, I don’t film anybody who doesn’t want to be filmed.” Then I mentioned that my daughter is filming all her friends, and they’re all excited to be on the Internet. “Oh, yes, yes, yes, in that case it’s fine!” she said.
Towards the end you can hear me say:”I think they’re going to hate me for this” – referring to viewers from outside of Italy who will probably be salivating by the end of the video (as long as they’re not vegetarian).
Lecco’s various volunteer organizations had a fair, and some provided entertainment.
