MAR 12, 16 .. MY DRINKING AND OTHER WATER..

Let’s begin with .. A title for a post. This post .. Any post.

By this ‘time-in-the-game’ of writing posts for my web site here you would think that finally ‘I have learned’ a thing-or-two about coming up with a title for a post. After all .. for this web site .. BABA KAPS DOXOLOGY .. this will be my five hundred and eighty eighth (588) post. I write ‘for this web site’ .. because on my other web site .. BOBBA CAPS DOXOLOGY .. I have published five hundred and thirty (530) posts. Doing-the-math (588 + 530) this makes a total of one thousand one hundred and eighteen (1,118) times that I have ‘titled’ a post.

So I have come-up-with a considerable number of post titles.

In the final analysis a post title becomes somewhat (but not 100%) simple. In my MAR 10, 2016 post I originally titled and I formally published it as .. ‘A LITTLE OF THIS .. A LITTLE OF THAT ..’ because when I began writing it I did not-have-a-clue as to where it was going to go. Then several days thereafter I re-titled it .. ‘HERE’S TO .. THE GIRL IN RED’.

Here’s where I am going with this pre-post warmup of mine. That MAR 10, 2016 post absolutely ‘titled itself ‘. For me to have left the title as .. A LITTLE OF THIS .. A LITTLE OF THAT .. would have been a great injustice to the post because what made it one of my best efforts was indeed .. THE GIRL IN RED !

If I can just leave well-enough-alone .. a post truly will .. Title Itself.

Unlike most of my efforts I pretty much know where I will go with this post. Today I am going to talk about water. 

My drinking water.

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancient Marinere) the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in 1798.

So today providing a title for this post is a no-brainer.

REALLY CAPTAIN! .. YOU ARE NOW VEERING OFF YOUR COURSE THAT WAS SPECIFICALLY AIMED AT TALKING ABOUT  WATER .. THE DINKEY BIRD GOT ME!

Last week I was asked by the fellowship here in Ulayanbayatur (YES! .. Yet another way to spell the name of this city!) to give a talk to their Saturday meeting. So today I gave one-of-my talks.

A talk about water Captain?

Because there is absolutely no way that I can find my way to a location that I have never been to in a part of Ulaanbaatar (a large city of some 1.3 million people) that I have never visited .. I was picked up and driven to the meeting. THAT was quite an effort. I ended up meeting my fellow member and host driver at what I consider to be ‘My KFC’. When so very VERY few people speak English arranging such a thing is a challenge. Changer and my translator and myself worked-it-out. Luckily I had treated Changer and his wife and two girls to a wonderful meal at my local KFC (there are quite a few here in Ulayanbayatur ‘Red Hero’) so after explaining to Changer where it was (“Changer! We all ate there a few months ago!”) my friend and driver was clued-in as to where to go.

What I am calling ‘My KFC’ is just one bus stop East of my own bus stop on Peace Avenue. So it has become one of my most critical landmarks.

These three photos were taken last summer.

It is immaculate inside and a perfect place to wait to meet someone.

When-Oh-When does it get easy? When he got there to ‘My KFC’ we could not find each another. What-to-do. We each had the other’s phone numbers and he telephoned me. Because we had spoken before I knew it was him because I had him in my cell phone contacts list. Our phone call went like this.

“This is Cap. I have a yellow hat on.” .. UNINTELLIGIBLE REPLY  .. “I am on the Peace Avenue side of the KFC.” .. UNINTELLIGIBLE REPLY .. “I am out in front on the sidewalk on the West side of the KFC.” .. UNINTELLIGIBLE REPLY ..  No words worked. Finally at about the same instant the two of us saw one another thinking .. “Someone else over there is talking on their cell phone’ so THAT must be him (My driver and/ or Me.. ).”

Luckily our mentors (Changer and my translator) had figured out that we two should meet at 11am a full one hour before the meeting because in-and-of-itself it would be a task for us to meet.

THAT .. getting me to the meeting .. WAS STEP ONE!

The meeting population was a full-house. No empty chairs. No empty stools. Friends sitting on the floor. Friends standing. As Patti and (I think I can include) Gullible can attest .. here in Mongolia these talks and the friends at them are a few notches past and above super-intense. The meeting was a two hour meeting (12 noon to 2pm) with a ten minute break in the precise middle of the meeting at 1pm.

Honest to goodness at 12:56pm .. Twelve Fifty Six PM .. I turned to my translator and quietly said to her .. “Whew! This is intense. Let’s take a break here.” Unsmiling and looking me straight-in-the-eyes she quietly said back to me .. “The break is at 1pm.” So .. KNOWING his share would be clipped-and-short .. I asked a brand new (his-first-day) newcomer if he would like to say something. He did and that-was-that. I had filled the remaining four minutes and got us all to 1pm.

I would say the room measured 15 ft x 15 ft and into it were squeezed at least forty friends. To allow us all to breathe one man opened up a ceiling level window behind me and allowed some of the – 10F air outside to flow down upon us. I kept my parka on the entire meeting. So too did all the rest. There really was NO PLACE to put coats. Putting one’s own arms some place was a challenge. The room .. the building itself .. were both intense. YOU would call them ‘dingy’. Here in Mongolia I am used to them. I call them sincere, earnest, hard-core, basic, working-class, blue-collar facilities.

EXCUSE US CAPAIN! .. WATER CAPTAIN ! WATER !

“THAT Captain is the title of this post!”

“WHERE ON EARTH WAS I ANYWAY” .. “YOU CAPTAIN WERE LISTENING TO ‘THE DINKEY BIRD SINGING IN THE AMFALULA TREE’ CAPTAIN .. “GOT IT.”

So into the small meeting room (see above in case you are now totally lost here!) I walked about 11:30am this morning. And there on a small table was a large bottle of water.

“This is a good thing.” .. I thought to myself .. “Some water to wet-my-whistle if I so need.” .. I HAD FORGOTTEN TO BRING MY OWN WATER!

I need a facility. “Where is a toilet?” I asked my (now friend and) driver. He took me to the toilet. It is far .. FAR .. beyond any description I can muster up here .. let me just do a quick copy  / paste from above .. The toilet was : A very intense, sincere, earnest, hard-core, basic working-class blue-collar toilet. It seemed small enough that I had a hard time finding a place for my arms.

And there .. in the very intense, sincere, earnest, hard-core, basic, working-class, blue-collar toilet was another member of the fellowship very carefully filling up a second large bottle of water from the faucet of the toilet. I will not now .. in dignified company .. repeat some of my thoughts about our sincere, earnest, hard-core, basic, working-class, blue-collar, toilet and nearby related facilities.

“Patti and Danny 48073 and Tom 48067 and many MANY others .. Please pick yourselves up off the floor holding your sides and laughing out loud. It is undignified!”

Love them to the heights of heaven above! They wanted those attending the meeting to have lots and lots and lots of water.

Today’s Rhetorical Question: Who Can You Trust ?

Todays Answer : When it comes to WATER you cannot trust anyone!

MY WATER .. HERE IN MY APARTMENT ..

I have two sources of water.

1. Bottled water I purchase from the super market.

2. Tap water that I get out of my kitchen faucet.

Notice the ‘guardian-of-the-sink’ above. I absolutely love  all of the stuffed animals that Happy .. my landlord .. keeps in his home here. Get this. I say Happy and not Happy’s wife or daughter. Why? Happy comes here to (one of his) home(s) several times a week. Happy is extremely courteous and often I do not even know he is here. Then again he usually checks in when he leaves. When he notices any of the stuffed animals have been moved .. especially the one in the kitchen above .. but I also move the ones in my room .. Happy  carefully puts them back into their proper places when he leaves.

Especially my three friends above who live here beside me on the computer.

Below is where the ‘rest of the crew’ live. When Happy sees they have wandered away .. they are returned here to their place.

And?  .. Move them I most certainly do. They are constantly talking to me saying .. “Dad we like to see different things. Dad will you please move us Dad?”

I think that Happy and I are ‘brothers-under-the-skin’ in some unknown para-psychological way.

REGROUP HERE CAPTAIN .. GO BACK TO SQUARE ONE ABOVE .

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 

MY WATER .. HERE IN MY APARTMENT ..

I have two sources of water.

1. Bottled water I purchase from the super market.

2. Tap water that I get out of my kitchen faucet. I do one of three things with the tap water:

2.1 I use the tap water untreated to assist the toilet to completely flush.

2.2 I treat the tap water with World Health Organization approved halazone tablets. I DO NOT DRINK my halazone treated water. I use it for bathing especially to wash my face.

2.3 I boil the tap water in my kettle.

My kettle brings the tap water to a full-rolling-boil. In Alaska in my cabin I also boil my melted snow to purify it this same (boiling) way.This boiled tap water I drink and use for at least 95% of my water needs. I find it extremely cost effective over buying bottled water and it saves on the use and throwing away of 5 litre plastic bottles. Lastly it is much simpler to just have one water source.

To encourage myself to drink a lot of water I ‘flavor’ it.

I add 100 ml of soda (20%) to 400 ml of boiled water (80) so I enjoy the taste of my water.

To dispense my boiled water more easily than pouring it out of my 5 litre storage bottles .. I save it in empty soda bottles.

My goal is to have an absolute minimum at all times of between 15 and 20 litres of water. The below 5 litre bottles provide me with my base 15 litre supply. Then I work from the above five bottles to maintain a 5 litre ‘cushion’ to keep my 15 litre supply 100%.

Time Captain to call-it-a-wrap and to press publish.

It is nice to have sub-titles on my posts. I could have titled this post .. A Meeting .. but I wanted to really discuss my water use.

Smiles .. Cap ..

Just in case you wonder .. “What does Cap do all day?” .. Just ask Patti!

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