Project Plants was temporarily unplugged because of overloading just as I’d been able to plug in again on another aspect. Mrs. Kangaeroo gave a frantic phone call as I headed off on an afternoon ride to say that the humidity pods containing the Aussie plant seeds were emanating an awful smell. I asked her to unplug the pods and headed off on my ride again. We’ll get some extension cords out today and give the pods a try again. It seems that I overloaded the power outlet. At least, I hope that’s what it was. Project Plants is on hold…
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As I touched on over the weekend, I’ve started trying to grow plants from seed and I completed the first round of the process this morning before heading off on my bike. Dwarf wattle seeds that I soaked in boiling water last night were the final group of seeds that can be planted in the winter. I managed to spread the seeds over a tray and put them in the humidity pod. Most of the work was finished yesterday after the ride. The process so far started in September and October of last year (2022) when I collected Australian native…
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Following slovenly Saturday where I did basically nothing for the whole day, today has become a bit of sprightly Sunday, being busy from the get-go, with the Death Machine taking a prime position. The Death Machine is, of course, the nickname I give to my Performer recumbent bicyle. It gets that name because the bike feels so unsafe, the feeling while riding it is that death is imminet. It’s no exaggeration. Riding the bike is a frightful experience. And I crashed the Death Machine badly around this time last year, fracturing my leg and causing permanent damage to my knee.…
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Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the dinosaur led to messing about on the computer. Unfortunately, this opened the door to a reacquaintance with Osama, a delightful performer who made his name playing renditions of famous Western tracks mostly from the 1970s in Japanese in a style he calls 直訳ロック (chokuyaku rock, “literal translation rock.”) Didn’t take…
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Though I had no legs, I was gifted with a glorious morning today. Nearly every day this week has been tough going in the pre-dawn hours. Wind was the main scourge, and there were a couple of days when I had to take irregular routes because the wind was so strong that riding through it threatened to leave me too tired to work. It proved to be a wise decision. Cold, which is only natural at this time of the year, and errands, which were extremely frustrating and ultimately fruitless, were other factors that ate into my riding. Anxiety and…
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It’s bloody freezing, but some know the best way to beat the cold. We had a pretty heavy snow fall last week, but it was followed by a few days of unseasonably warm spring-like weather that took the edge off. Only for winter to return with a vengeance as the mercury plummeted, the winds wound up and the sun struggled to break through the clouds. Some of us are better at coping with the cold, with my pet Dinosaur being a case in point. Dino is a rosy-faced lovebird, which is endemic to south-western Africa, so they’re genetically inclined to…
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With Valentine’s Day focusing a spotlight on love (or at least a love of chocolate in Japan) and having gone to a movie theater to see a film for the first time in decades over the weekend, I got to thinking, which can often be a dangerous thing. Growing up when I did, I became accustomed to barriers breaking down as the conservatism of the 1950s gave way to the counterculture of the 1960s and moved onto the freewheeling 1970s. It was natural for me to see society become more progressive and permissive, as well as more diverse and inclusive,…
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Today I got a message from someone who really inspires me to be a better person, and it has thoroughly made my day. That message has now gotten me away from writing in the third person because doing so makes me sound like an even bigger tosser than I am. As I sit here with a warm, fuzzy feeling, it was also a nice reminder that I should tell people how they’ve made my life better. Cold, bleak, dark and windy, with not much else nice about the day, I’ll brighten it up a bit more with a snot block,…
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Cycling is one of Kangaeroo’s great loves. And so is chocolate. It’s rare when the two meet, though it’s not unfair to claim that the prospect of guilt-free gluttony of chocolate is a motivating factor for Kangaeroo’s cycling. But in this week when chocolate assumes center stage in Japan, it was a delight to come across cycling chocolate sets. It was this great delight that Kangaeroo managed to come across the sets, which are selling for a measly 184 yen apiece (for a boxed package of five decent-sized chockies!) The sets contain chocolates in the shape of a bicycle, a…
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Actions by many people give Kangaeroo to give life a go, and they almost certainly don’t know it, and Kangaeroo doesn’t even know nearly any of them. One of the benefits of the dark period of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the gift of being able to go for a bike ride, usually along the Tama River in the western suburbs of Tokyo, and nearly every morning. These rides are a crucial part of Kangaeroo’s life because they provide routine. Kangaeroo has been able to learn that routine is essential for his wellbeing and the pandemic threatened that when his…