Hermit crabbing

We have hermit crabs. From the beach of Similajau National Park of Bintulu, Sarawak.

My colleague RL had this epiphany while on the beach that we should pick up some crabs which are apparently sold for like RM20 each in KL and keep them as pets.

So now in our hotel room in a takeaway box (which www.hermit-crabs.com/ tells me is not quite the right crabitat but we'll figure something out), we have about 15 active crustaceans and a clam, which frankly quite shocked us by turning out to be alive.

We feed them all a diet of drinking water and Quaker oats which they seem to enjoy, and these guys have really been quite entertaining with their daily clambering and digging, and more clambering and more digging - it's incredibly peaceful yet intriguing to watch.

Some trivia, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that hermit crabs:

1. Move backwards or sideways but never forward

2. Move their legs in circular breast-strokes, which sort of explains how they form those sandballs on the beach

3. Like standing on each other alot

4. Have one big and one small claw..

...and we're still learning.

I managed to cajole the hotel's housekeeping guy to feed the boys (we like to believe they are boys) over the long Labour Day / Wesak weekend. Apart from being slightly worried they might get out of the box and under the sheets, he's pretty game. Have I mentioned how great these Everly people are?

Reality bites..more like chomps away savagely at your guts

When I was a young-er person, I made several vows, if you like to myself i.e.

1. To always do what I think is God's work, and
2. To never forget what it feels like to be a child

Now these, while having served me well have also landed me in a fair bit of trouble. Trouble meaning?

Meaning believing unrealistically in the fundamental good of people, and expecting again unrealistically, that people should act a certain way because of how you treat them. And believe in them. And try for them. And of course the older and wiser will rightly expect, this has ended up in SO many disappointments to-date in this disgusting period of my 20s, where apart from crash landing on the hard tarmac of real life you're also supposed to find your place on it.

It's 12.45am and no time to be politically correct.

There is fundamental good in people. It's just that together with it there is fear, weakness, self-preservation instincts, priorities, whatever!else that push come to shove makes them act...differently from how you thought they would. And like a child, each time it happens I am still surprised - why would someone do that to me?

Work has helped. 4 years have helped me separate responsibility from commitment, and the understanding of how to meld the two again if I want to. It has made me see that sometimes there is a need to make bad decisions for some people in order to make a good decision for more in the end. More importantly, just because someone or something is the centre of your world does not mean you are the centre of theirs. And vice-versa.

So now....while I still think it's bloody hard to do God's work I do think that praying for clarity shows me the path to do what is right, objectively by everyone involved, and usually that is pretty much the best decision there is. And the other part of the pact? I'll take the wonderment, and but with some armory involved. You need it to keep it.

Back in Bintulu

for another month or so. Here;

1. The stars are really bright at night

2. There's a surprising amount of seamstresses around town - under staircases, in houses, near supermarkets, upstairs of shoplots - I've appointed a particular Shirley myself, whom I am currently overwhelming with bales of Japanese-inspired-Indonesian fabric and Project Runway dreams

3. Fruits are beautiful, wild and strange - thorny longans, pink starfruits, snakeskin fruit, sappy dates called dabai, and the list goes on.

Gray's Anatomy Season 3! is on tv - gotta go.