New and Improved

Remember the first project? Done.

Before

After

Kind of a tough angle to get a good shot. If only I was about 10 feet taller. It's hard to tell the old roofing shingles are beige. But it is obvious they were a mess, no? The shingles were peeling up to the left of the chimney. Thank goodness there were two layers of shingles or I might have had a bunch of leaks. There was only leakage around the chimney flashing. Last night I confidently removed the towel in the attic wrapped around the chimney. I almost can't wait for it to rain! It will not leak. It will not leak.

My neighbors-to-the-right put up a fence while the roof was going up. I'm glad to have the privacy. Next on the agenda is figuring out the overhang for the back door (the roofer does carpentry too) and some gardening. I need to move at least one plant that looks out of place with the new fence. I also want to do something about this:

This is out back. Ho hum driveway area. Only about two to three feet beyond the railroad ties is my property (in line where the forsythia is - to the right). First step is to get rid of the wood and rotten railroad ties. I may leave the one to the right. I want to find a shade lovin', low maintenance ground covering. And it's gotta be easy to rake as you can see a lot of leaves end up back there/are always there. I'm thinking Forget-Me-Not or Purple Wintercreeper. Or a huge fence.

Fortune: Working out the kinks today will make for a better tomorrow.

Tourism Saves a Laotian City but Saps Its Buddhist Spirit

“Here they come! Here they come!” a tour guide cries over his loudspeaker. “Hurry! Hurry!” The monks appear, a column of bright orange robes as far as the eye can see, walking quickly and silently with their begging bowls. The tourists cluster around them with their cameras and reach out to hand them food.

Anyone read this story in Tuesday's New York Times?

I started to but haven't had time to finish it. (Yet I have time to blog. Go figure.)

The photo disgusts me. I imagine tourist coming to my town (which they do) lining up to snap shots of us locals like we were rare birds. Ick.

By SETH MYDANS
Published: April 15, 2008
LUANG PRABANG, Laos — As the sky grows light along the Mekong River here, it is no longer the quiet footfalls of Buddhist monks that herald the day but the jostling and chattering of hundreds of tourists who have come to watch them on their morning rounds.
Luang Prabang, a place of mists and temples in the mountains of central Laos, was until recently one of the last pristine remnants of traditional culture in a region that is rapidly leaving its past behind.
Today, Luang Prabang displays preservation’s paradox. It has saved itself from modern development by packaging itself for tourists, but in the process has lost much of its character, authenticity and cultural significance.
Like some similar places around the world, this small 700-year-old city of fewer than 20,000 people is being transformed into a replica of itself: its dwellings into guest houses, restaurants, souvenir shops and massage parlors; its rituals into shows for tourists.
“Now we see the safari,” said Nithakhong Somsanith, an artist and embroiderer who works to preserve traditional arts. “They come in buses. They look at the monks the same as a monkey, a buffalo. It is theater.”
The Buddhist heart of Luang Prabang — the tranquillity that attracts visitors from abroad — is being defiled, he said, adding, “Now the monks have no space to meditate, no space for quiet.”
Luang Prabang was chosen as a World Heritage Site in 1995 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or Unesco, which determined that its architectural ensemble was culturally significant and worthy of protection by the United Nations.
Its strict guidelines on renovation and new construction have helped preserve the narrow streets, small structures and relatively light traffic of a past era. No tall buildings mar the cityscape.
“The problem is that they took care of the hardware but not the software, the culture,” said Gilles Vautrin, a restaurant owner from France who has lived here for nearly a decade.
“The city is being gentrified,” he said. “It will be a museum city. It will be a hotel city. Maybe the tourists will like it, but it won’t be the same Luang Prabang.”
The morning scene of monks seeking alms is spectacular, a seemingly unending procession that includes the occupants of the city’s 34 temples.
But as they walk down the main street, Sisavangvong Road, they must thread their way through crowds of tourists and food vendors who call out their price, “Dollar! Dollar!”
Looking straight ahead, the monks pass Pizza Luang Prabang, Pack Luck Liquor, Walkman Village, German Ice Cream, Café des Arts Restaurant and Bakery, Khmu Spa and Massage and Tatmor Restaurant n’ Bar.
The scene may be jarring, said Rik Ponne, a program specialist with Unesco in Bangkok, but “it is not a complete disaster.”
“This is a very interesting moment in time in Luang Prabang, when we have probably reached the carrying capacity,” he said. “It is a question of whether the Lao government is willing to make policy decisions about maybe limiting tourism on the site or limiting its impact.”
That would be a difficult choice in one of the poorest countries in Asia, where tourism is a major source of foreign exchange.
But if steps are not taken to control the changes, Unesco warned in 1994, Luang Prabang could become “another tourist town where soft-drink billboards dominate the landscape, where the sound of tour buses drowns out the soft temple prayers, and where the city’s residents are reduced to the roles of bit-players in a cultural theme park.”
Already the core of the city is losing its population as development drives up prices and local residents move away, leasing their homes as guest houses and restaurants.
“You cannot find people living in houses like family,” said Vilath Inthasen, 25, a native of Luang Prabang who is a manager at Couleur Café. “Now we start to live outside the city.”
Mr. Vilath spent eight years as a monk here and, like many others, he used his time in the temple to prepare for what has become the city’s only industry.
“If you are a monk, you can learn English and go into tourism,” he said. “Most of the people who work in restaurants are former monks.”
Traditionally, young men in Laos become monks for several months or years before returning to life outside the monasteries.
While the tourism brings jobs and money, he said, it disrupts the way of life he grew up with.
“I am afraid our culture will start to disappear,” he said over the sound of a buzz saw next door. “Now bars can stay open until midnight. Normally we don’t do this in Laos.”
This loss of culture is critical because Luang Prabang is not simply an architectural monument, like the temples at Angkor in Cambodia.
“There is nothing really outstanding in Luang Prabang,” said Laurent A. Rampon, the former chief architect and director of the cultural preservation office here.
“When you look at the architecture, it is interesting but normal, very normal; the temples are a little bit rough, not refined,” said Mr. Rampon, who is now an independent architect and consultant to the city.
“What is really interesting in Luang Prabang is all that together,” he said. “It is the ambience of the city, the daily life, the temples and the monks. In Luang Prabang, when the ambience is gone, it will not be Luang Prabang any more.”
As in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar, decades of war and repression held back the development that is now despoiling cities and historical sites.
A poor, landlocked nation with a population today of 6.5 million, Laos was a battleground during the Vietnam War and its aftermath and has been isolated from the world economy since then by a Communist government.
Tourist brochures describe Luang Prabang as a place where “time stood still”; poverty and hardship have allowed the past to linger.
“The paradox is that Unesco gives out the Heritage Site label partly to reduce poverty, but reducing poverty is reducing heritage,” Mr. Rampon said. “If you want to preserve heritage, you must keep poverty.”

I can't help but correlate this to what is happening in Portsmouth now (on a certain level).
All the new construction -and so much more on the way- when buildings and retail shops have sat vacant for years. They want to beautify the gateways into the city (Islington and Market Streets) - not for residents' benefit, but obviously to draw in more tourists (and their beautiful money). Anything more than landscaping will be too much.
We need affordable housing, planning board people. We want to buy homes in town. We want to shop at useful stores in town.

Banananananananana

Yeehaw!
Sorry. Private joke between me and the boyfriend.
(He's the only one who reads this blog anyhow.)

This is the last banana from that gawd awful green bunch I bought last Monday the 7th.

Fortune: With a little more hard work, your creativity takes you to great heights!

Listen

Can you hear the peepers?

Green Bananas...

I don't like 'em!

I'm starting to even things out.
I ran this morning and yesterday morning. Not that I ran the whole measly 2 miles I set out to run. I did a good bit of walking. Kittery is hilly. Especially right at the start of my run. Amazing what taking the winter, fall and most of the summer off will do to a body.
I think I have some kind of nasal drip/phlegm problem as well. Since the weekend, I've woken up with my throat feeling all scratchy. It's how it felt when I would smoke a few cigs while out drankin'. You know how some people sleep eat? I think it's called Nocturnal Sleep-Eating Disorder or Nocturnal Eating Syndrome or I'm So Hungry I Eat In My Sleep Disease. I think I have that, only I'm smoking in my sleep instead of eating.
Good golly! I hope I'm not sleep smoking in bed. That could be dangerous. (Wait a minute... Don't I want to be smokin' in bed, boyfriend? Oh no. I guess I'm getting confused with being smokin' hot in bed...)
Yeah, so -the sleep eaters eat the food they have in the house, but I don't have any smoking materials in the house... Am I going down to the corner store and buying the cigs and smoking the whole pack each night? Cuz then I'd be sleep shopping, too. And if I'm not sleep walking to the store, I'm sleep driving. I might not even be sleep smoking cigarettes! What if I'm sleep smoking the pot? Holy crap! This is getting pretty serious.
Maybe it's just a cold. Anyhow, whatever it is, it's making running a lot harder. I nearly died going up the that first hill - both mornings. It was tough.

I've also been toying with a new collage idea. I've started but not gotten very far. Butt even a little art is better than none. (And sometimes a bigger butt is better than none.)
Sneak peak:

The Eiffel Tower reminds me of lady legs with stockings on...

Fortune: You are cautious in showing your true self to others.

Uneven

Like this tile floor, I'm feeling uneven. I think it's mostly work. I know there are other things, too - lack of exercise, no time spent making art, not enough time outside.
I'm not happy at work. I'm so glad I don't have a doofus for a boss anymore. Daily I'm grateful I don't have to deal with that idiot of an ex-boss. New boss is good -real good, but tells me more than I need to know. So much so, I feel like I'm not sure what the truth is. Am I a good employee? Is upper management pleased with my work? Or am I not working hard enough? Do I need to improve?
I know the field I'm in is not one I want to stay in, regardless of whether upper management wants me to advance (or not). I want to get back into a creative environment. I want to work with hardworking open minded people. I also want to ride my bike or walk to work.

Fortune: Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life.