fit for a king

not many homes provide a stellar view of the sun rising over the himalayan foothills, a perfect vantage for monkey-viewing and an arena to rid oneself of a deep-seated fear of spiders. a cozy single room filled with music (remember, simon and garfunkel define home as “where your music’s playing”), the wonderful smells of my cooking (which reaches the extent of pasta, ramen and french toast), and the quick pattering of mice feet in the ceiling, king’s chambers truly is fit for a king. or queen.

a few mornings ago i drank my coffee as i watched about 8 monkeys fighting over a loaf of bread on the roof top below my porch. i felt like i was at the zoo as i watched a mama carrying her baby on her chest, teenage monkeys swinging acrobatically from the roof to the porch below and the true power of the giant alpha male, forcing the poor peons to allow him to feast on the loaf of bread and then allowing one of his concubines pick the lice off of his fur as he lounged in the sun. above is a photo of a monkey playing with my water bottles as i cooked at my stove. while the monkeys have been known to interrupt my favorite activity—porch sitting—by stealing my breakfast off of the plate i feel lucky to live in a himalayan-style zoo.

the other most common animal in the zoo during the monsoon season was, as many of you have heard, the plate-sized spider. to construct an analogy, snakes are to indiana jones as spiders are to courtney humm. living amongst the great beasts during the monsoon forced me to turn fear into rage as i annihilated spiders with my weapon of choice—a broom. this is me on one of my first spider-killing adventures, accompanied by the fearless cole blume, who wrote in a blog entry that i “vanquished [my] enemy with a vengeance" (coleblume.blogspot.com). however, i was happy to put aside my spider-hunting days when the monsoon, and thus the spider season, ended.