The drum

 

Hi Natty!  How are you today, Honey?  I suppose you are getting into the spirit of the holiday season.  I hope you are having a great time Sweetheart, and enjoying good health as well.  I spent the evening today doing drum tracks.  Ah, there's nothing like live acoustic drums.  My main drum is something I made out of an old water reservoir, known locally as a "tempayan".  It sounds so good, Natty.  I mean, it sounds scary.  For the rim, I used the cage of an old fan which I noticed to be just about 20", the size of the drum head.  As you can see, I had to make some adjustments.  In lieu of tension rods, I found some tension hooks at the hardware store which I presume is for pitching tents.  I had them hooked up with steel wire to the grill of another old fan at the bottom of the reservoir.  I love this drum!  And there's still more I can do to make it perfect, but it already sounds so good.

I have decided that I can't rely on online shopping for the work that I do.  I'm certain that I would be wasting a lot of money online, especially in pursuit of name brands.  The only way to shop for name brands is to go to a brick and mortar store.  More than being ripped off, I have found it very entertaining to build my own musical instruments.  Not just in itself, but also to avoid "buying a new engine without a having a car."  You know what I mean?

Qur'an 20211204

 In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

38.  Say to the unbelievers, if they desist their past would be forgiven them, but if they persist the punishment of those before them is all ready.

39.  And fight them on until there is no more tumult and oppression, and there prevails justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere.  But if they cease, verily Allah does see all that they do.

The Spoils of War 8:38-39

Princess

 Oh Natty, that's precisely why they're jealous of you!  Oh Honey, you're caught in a feedback loop!  You poor, precious princess.  And you're so pretty!  I just want to take care of you.  Don't worry about a thing Honey, everything is going to work out absolutely fabulous for us inshaAllah.  It is December, huh?  We will come together, Natty.  I won't abandon you, inshaAllah.  Please be patient and pray.  Ya Allah, please protect my Natty.

Are you hungry?  I was so pleased with my ramen this afternoon.  I wish I could have shared it with you.  I didn't take any snapshots of it.  Like I said before, I don't want people selling ¥1,000,000 bowls of Zam-style ramen.  But if you folks want to try selling your own ¥1,000,000 bowls of ramen, here's a recipe from YouTube:

Oh dear, I don't use pork.  I used just one chunk of beef shoulder bone.  I boiled it with some fresh ginger from my yard on Wednesday, along with a spice pack like this:

It's actually a generic pack around here, and I reuse it.  I put the soup in the cooler when it was done to be used on Friday.  Whoops!  I forgot to put salt!  No big deal, on Friday I fried up some garlic and potato slices then added the soup back in.  I used the seasoning packet from a pack of ramen for the salt.  Then I heat it up, and add tofu strips, Vietnamese coriander leaves, a little more beef chunks from my latest batch of roast beef, and some fish cake.  When it was hot enough, I put the ramen brick in.  Just long enough to soften up a little, then I moved the noodles into my soup bowl to rest on a little soy sauce, and I cracked an egg over it.  I poured the hot soup in while taking care not to break the yolk, then topped it of with dried fried onions, salted radish, and home made hot sauce.  That's a good batch of hot sauce I made today alhamdulillah.  I used lots of pickled soybeans.  I nearly choked the blender, it was so thick.  Come share my ramen with me, Natty!

Hi Natty!

 

How are you, Honey?  Aw don't you worry about a thing, everything will work out just great for us inshaAllah.   You are MY girl, and I love you with all of my heart.  You are at the top of the world!  So enjoy your place, and don't worry so much OK!  You are the most beautiful girl in the world to me.  Please be patient and pray.

Today is Thursday over here for me.  In the morning I went downtown to the pharmacy to get pee suppressant pills for Lookie.  Life in this house is tough for my female cats somehow, I think it has to do with Mary's singing.  Now there's a male cat in the house, but he's biding his time with producing kittens.  I guess he knows that kittens generally outrank other cats.  At first Lookie seemed to heal from her urge to pee with Adolf in the house, so I took her off the drug.  But she can't do without it.  Wah!  My kitty is drug addict!  I'm hoping that a batch of kittens would help her out, but that remains to be seen.  Ya Allah, please heal and protect my kitties.

Don't you think it's fascinating that a Biblical date palm came back to life?  The Prophet (peace be on him) loved dates, but I don't like them.  Ya Allah, please forgive me!  I am managing though to plant fruit trees in my yard that I do eat, and it's a slow process.  I cut the grass this evening, and it's been a while since I did so because it's been very wet here.  Now that my sister is taking care of my parents, I want to try cutting the grass in the mornings, since I usually buy takeout lunch.  Today I had beans ready in the cooler, which is a quick fix for dinner along with a burger and a sunny side up egg.  Want some?

Ginger

 

Hi Natty!  I like that hat, Honey.  Say, you're not letting the jealousy of others get to you, are you?  It's not something that you can get rid of.  It's a Biblical thing: brother has been killing brother because of jealousy ever since the dawn of humans.  Even if you were to be down and out, then they will kick you when you're down then get bored with you, and find someone else to be jealous about.  Idiots.  So don't let them spoil your fun.  Be careful and pray yeah, but don't be a doormat.

Are you hungry?  I decided to harvest some of the ginger that had been growing like mad in my yard, and that's what a freshly dug up and washed ginger looks like above.  Those large tendrils have the same texture and scent as the meaty parts, but the joint where they join up is a bit tough.  I thought about eating the tendrils, but I didn't.  Fresh ginger doesn't really need to be peeled, and it's so fragrant Natty!  It's almost like perfume.  I made a fresh batch of my generic roast beef this morning plus broth for my ramen on Friday, and I wanted to add ginger to the stuff.  It worked, just like the usual stuff plus ginger.  I boiled my potatoes for fries in the broth but when I fried them up, I couldn't taste that much difference.  Oh, I forgot to add salt to the broth.  Want some fries, Honey?  I offered a fry to Lookie, but she prefers to steal them.  Cats.

I really like Mary's avatar's outfit today, even though I don't prefer jumpsuits for her.  I set up the cigarette holder just right, so it looks great!  Alhamdulillah!

Movie night

 

Hi Natty!  How are you?  Staying happy?  I hope you are having a marvelous time wherever you are, and keeping yourself safe and healthy.  You beautiful girl!  I'm doing OK over here.  Kind of drowsy.  I always get drowsy after the sunset prayer.  Nothing special o n the menu today.  Just the usual stuff: takeout rice for lunch, and curry pups for dinner.

What do you know about diamonds?  Tonight is movie night!  "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971), back when the names were cute!  That's what the Bond movies lately are missing, the cute names.  Tiffany Case, Peter Francks, Plenty O'Toole, Shady Tree, Bambi and Thumper.  Also the humor isn't the same as it was.  I love the part where one of Willard White's lackeys got shot, and his response was "Tell him he's fired!"  Ian Fleming is by far the best writer of Bond movies.  Charles Gray played Blofeld in this movie, but he played Henderson in "You Only Live Twice".  Could it be that Henderson was Blofeld all along,?  Oh, the intrigue!  I did see a bit of the last Bond movie "No Time To Die", from the little I saw it seemed OK.  Better than "SPECTRE", at least.

Borders

 

Hi Natty!  How are you, Darling?  I guess you're busy being you, huh?  You are a Rock and Roll Princess!  Well have tons of fun Honey, and take care of your health and safety.  It's been such a comfortable day.  I like cool weather.  I wanted to sleep in, but I couldn't.  That's one thing about sleeping on the floor: you can't sleep too much.  The floor won't let you.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I did some yard work this evening.  I plan to organize the vegetation growing by the wall, which is the border to my parents' former house which is now my brother's house.  There is a group of tangled trees which I hacked on today.  It's a twisted mess of kaffir lime (the first snapshot), curry (the 2nd one), a weed with huge thorns and a couple types of vines.  It doesn't look disorganized because the vines have pretty flowers, but all I want to keep is the kaffir lime.  Oh by the way, people here often put curry leaves in their curry, but it's not what curry powder is made of.  It sure smells like curry, though.  I got most of it done, I'll continue tomorrow inshaAllah.  Lots of thorns there.  Few ants though, thank God.

Hey, check the song below!  I first heard it when I was 4 years old.  I was living in London then.  Yeah, London England UK.  What a life!  Music is a spiritual thing for me.