Here’s an orchid that I shot at CWA the other day. It’s been mildly Photoshoped just to clean it up a little. I also blurred the background to make the orchid snap out:

Here’s the same shot with a poster-edges filter applied and some more fiddling with the background:

The background now seems too cluttered and muddy. I cut the orchid out so that it stands by itself:

Okay, now let’s see what it would look like on a black t-shirt. Pour black paint everywhere the orchid isn’t and warm up the tone of the orchid itself: 

Here are a couple of orchids that I shot at Mike Cassell’s house. This one is all twisty:

When I was in High School, if a fellow were going to a big dance he would spend five Dollars for an orchid like this to give to his date:

This one is my favorite for a black shirt. It has had the poster edges applied after substituting the black background: (click to enlarge)

Now all I need is for somebody to put it on a t-shirt.

Any takers?

This stuff is ridiculously easy with Photoshop. If anybody’s interested in learning, I’ll come and give you a couple of tutorial hours for beer. Air fare is extra if you don’t live in Madang.

Just when I think that I know it all, I usually find that I’m the last one to learn something interesting that everybody else has known forever.

Yesterday, Juli, our haus meri of more than twenty-four years, was creating a truly horrible stench in the kitchen. I soon discovered that the muddy looking yellow fluid in a mixing bowl was the source of the excruciatingly foul odor.

In a moment of profound stupidity I stuck my generously proportioned nose over the bowl and had a good sniff. I like to think of myself as a sort of rugged guy, but I honestly thought I might faint. Man, that stuff stinks!

She pointed out the kitchen door to a small shiny-leaved tree that I had been intending to ask her to cut down (blocking my view) and said, in her economical way, “Noni“.

So that’s what that thing is, I thought. I’ve written previously about the Ant-Eating Aliens that I believed had infested this plant. I have erred occasionally concerning alien infestations – perhaps I was mistaken in this case also.

It seems that no aliens are involved (in this case). The noni only stinks like an alien corpse.

The taxonomic term is Morinda citrifolia. In PNG it is called noni in Tok Pisin. Other names are: Great morinda, Indian mulberry, Beach mulberry, and Tahitian Noni. More spectacularly it is, in some places, called the cheese fruit or the vomit fruit. Personally, I am going for the vomit fruit nomenclature. Here’s a photo: 

The noni is quite nutritious, if you can get around the poisonous aroma. It has carbohydrates, dietary fibre, protein, and is low in fats. It contains about one half of the vitamin C of a navel orange. It is, in fact, roughly the nutritional equivalent of an orange.

My only question is, if a single orange were available on the entire planet, why, oh why would anyone in their right mind decide to eat a noni? I guess not everybody has the same choices that I have. I can afford an orange.

As to the why of it, there are many uses in folk medicine for the noni. Juli told me that the juice sells briskly at the market as a kus remedy. (For non-Pidgin speakers – kus is a general Tok Pisin term for any upper respiratory problem.) Sadly, there are no scientifically proven medically effective uses for noni.

Here’s Juli proudly showing her noni tree and the evil smelling concoction that she will soon be drinking for her kus. I’m going to send her off the doctor tomorrow:

So, just one question remains.

Why is it that the most evil tasting, vile smelling natural substances on the earth are the ones most likely to be judged by shamans, witch doctors, herbal healing experts, and so forth to be beneficial to one’s health or able to heal one’s sickness? I don’t get it.

When I was a kid, I really hated being sick. It wasn’t so much feeling bad or suffering pain that bothered me. It was the horrible substances that I was forced to swallow which were supposed to make me better.

I promise you. If I get sick and somebody says, authoritatively, that noni will fix me up . . .

I’ll suffer in silence.

I like cats. Their disdain and aloofness eerily comforts me. When my dog wants to be petted, I pretty much have to go along with it. I don’t want to hurt her little doggie feelings. She simply wouldn’t understand.

A cat, on the other hand, is the emotive equivalent of a brick. Pet it, don’t pet it – it doesn’t matter. If it allows you to pet it, that is. Rarely will cats show any reaction to rejection. They don’t lie on the floor and whine and roll their eyes at you as a dog would. Like this:

A cat walks away with a sniff and a twitch of the tail.

Most cats simply don’t care.

On the other hand, we once had a cat that, if offended by spurning when it offered its tattered ears to be scratched, would claw its way up your chest (excruciating pain here) and sneeze energetically in your face.

But what happens when your little tabby is surreptitiously replaced by a cat-disguised alien? We ourselves witnessed just such a happening.

Trevor’s cat had, earlier in the evening, displayed her usual demeanour when I petted her by scratching and biting my hand until the blood flowed freely and I was dancing from foot to foot trying to get my hand out of her clutches. This is normal. I’m used to it. It’s her cute little way of saying, “Hi, how you doin’? Now get outta my face, creep!”

After dinner, we nearly evacuated the veranda when the alien substitute showed up. Look at this:

Now the once merely evil cat has become Berserker – Destroyer of Worlds.

Please, I beg you; send me photos of other suspicious felines. We need to gage the magnitude of the alien invasion so that we may report it to the proper authorities.

If you think this is a joke, check out an article in the London Daily Mail in which a former Minister of Defense warns that “aliens could attack at any time!”

Did you ever feel like this: 

We have many expressions in English for this state of being. Out on a limb. End of the road. At my wit’s end. Walking a tightrope. You can add many more.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this post – I just wanted to get the ant photo in.

What about sap. Trees have it. Technically, I guess all plants have it.

What is the sappiest tree?

I’m going for mango until I find something gooier, though I suppose a rubber tree could beat it in a flat-out oozing competition.

Earlier, I wrote of the fall of a giant in our back yard. When I went out to check progress I was amazed at the quantity of sap flowing from the freshly severed branches.

Look at this gummy mess:

Employing the roughest of estimations, I’d guess that a tree that size could contain maybe 500 litres or more of this poisonous (to me, at least) glop.

Do you suppose it’s good for anything?

Saturday was the same ol’ same ol’. Get up. Get the boat going. Pick up friends. Go to fabulous tropical island. Dive. Sit in the sun. Go home. Have a nap. Go out again on the boat with friends in the evening for a little wine and some of God’s best stage shows. Come home. Party with friends some more. Go to bed. How long can we stand this?

This Saturday there was something special at Pig Island. Rich folk! Filthy rich folk! Have a look at this:

It’s 73 metres long and it cost a gozillion dollars. It’s Laurel. It was built in the USA. Notice the wavy line down the side in the rear half (click to enlarge). That’s the reflection of the shoreline of the island! Man, that’s a shiny boat.

There is a big door in the back. They open it up and out come huge Zodiacs and jet skis. The rich people come out, ride around a little, and then go back inside – presumably to get away from the heat and watch Sopranos reruns on their satellite TVs.

I can’t even imagine, in my most consciously expanded state, what it would be like to have so much money. It really hurts my brain. Little drops of perspiration bead up on my forehead. My hands feel clammy. All in all, I don’t think being so rich could possibly be good for you. I agree with the fox. Those grapes are far too sour to bother with.

Now if you wonder who those rich folk are (who don’t even wave back), here’s a hint. Laurel is registered in the Cayman Islands. All sorts of people hide their money there. Actually, that’s a cheap shot. They may be very upstanding (if snobbish) citizens. One shouldn’t be persecuted simply because of wealth. It probably isn’t even their fault that they are rich. Let’s leave them to suffer in their air conditioned splendour.

About 17:30 we loaded up with twelve people on Faded Glory and headed for Kranket Island beach to sip a little fruit of the vine, have a swim in the 27 degree water (80F for Americans), and watch yet another mind blowing sunset.

This fellow paddled by in his canoe while two Titans of the sky (cumulonimbus if you’re interested) battled it out for supremacy of ludicrous colour:

The canoeist continued while the sky turned riotous:

Later, the battle in the air was heating up. These were fully-developed thunderstorms. We could see orange lightning illuminating them up from inside as if they were colossal advertisements for majesty:

And I sit back in my funky captain’s chair and let my eyes go a little out of focus and listen to the easy voices of my friends and feel blessed.

Money? Who needs it.

So, you think that you have a big dog, eh?

Pepe came from Karkar Island. They grow them big there. I don’t know how old she is. I’m afraid to ask her. She lives at Trevor Hattersley’s house, though I suspect she could choose to live wherever she wishes – it’s the 500 pound gorilla thing.

When we were over to Trev’s place the other night I wanted to get a photo of Pepe that would illustrate her enormous proportions. For instance, her front foot is the size of my hand.

I asked Karen Simmons if she would lie on the floor next to Pepe (hey, it’s Madang) so we could see how big she is – Pepe, that is. Many giggles later I got this shot:

She’s magnificent, isn’t she? And, Pepe is cute too.

So, my advice would be that, if you feel the urge to get into the ‘my dog is bigger than your dog’ thing at the club, make sure Trevor is not within earshot. He’ll likely trump you.

Woof.

We went to Trevor Hattersley’s house yesterday evening for dinner. We had heard that he had a ‘special present’ for Eunie for her birthday. I wouldn’t think twice about that if it was anyone else, but Trevor has a knack for gift-giving. The one thing that you can count on is that it will be out of the ordinary.

I knew that Trev had some artistic talent, but, being pretty busy, like most of us, it’s hard for him to find the time to express it.

Well, have a look at this:

You might remember the photo that I had at the top of the sidebar. Trevor did a huge sketch of it for Eunie’s birthday present – complete with a picture-in-a-picture of the tattoo of Eunie that’s on my arm.

I think it’s an ultra-cool gift. I really dig the style.

Now all we have to do is figure out where it will go in our museum-like house. It’s already stuffed with artefacts, art, books, knick-knacks, and my fabulous accumulation of rocks, shells, twigs, empty bottles and what-not that I’ve picked up from interesting places all my life. I call it an accumulation because the word collection implies a plan – there’s no plan here. Still, we have to make room for such a thoughtful gift.

Something’s got to go.