Batten Down the Hatches! I'm in the 1st Typhoon in 4 Years in Taiwan

So what better thing to do than write?

That noble steed there is named Cooper.

Presumably after D.B. Cooper, but instead of stealing $200,000 and jumping out of an airplane, he leaped into my friend’s life through adoption six years ago and stole everyone’s heart.

Beside him lays a scooter parked in front of a 7/11, which after a long day of motoring around this southern Taiwanese city, rather than being rewarded with fuel and relaxation, was violently thrust aside in gale force winds of over 150 km/hr.

I’m sharing this today because of a few reasons:

1. There’s a roaring typhoon outside slamming my balcony window for the last 14 hours.

2. I learned where the term ‘batten down the hatches’ came from the other day and wanted an excuse to share that.

3. Cooper is not long for this world and deserves a bit of internet fame.

4. I haven’t written anything in weeks, stuck in my personal version of writer’s block.

Let’s jump in.

The Typhoon

Image courtesy of tropicaltidbits.com

This mighty beast is called Doksuri.

Doksuri is a Korean word for ‘eagle’ (독수리) and boy was it aptly named. At the height of its gusts, the windspeed is soaring over in at 175 km/h (or for my American friends, slightly faster than 35 cumulative chickens chasing across a road).

As I type this, it has moved past the northern Philippines where it sadly claimed the lives of dozens of people from mudslides and capsizing a boat, ripped through south Taiwan, and is now heading into China.

But this particular typhoon is a bit weird (again, for my Southern compatriates, it's just another word for hurricanes, or more accurately, tropical cyclones).

Back in my first two stints in Taiwan years ago, it was a regular occurrence to see two, three, maybe even five typhoons in a year. But this one is somehow the 1st typhoon to hit the island in four years.

Now I’m no hurricanoligist, but I’m pretty sure something’s out of whack with the earth’s climate.

But at least my buddy Cooper up there had a little taste of the wind last night and his floppy ears and face flapped defiantly in the face of this mighty phenomenon.

Batten Up

I’ve always known the phrase “Batten down the hatches” had something to do with ships in stormy weather. In my head, those ships were full of pirates and peglegs and parrots.

But I kind of knew what a hatch was, but batten? I just thought it was related to the word beat or batter as in to slam down a hatch.

Turns out I was wrong on both accounts.

In the nautical context, a "hatch" is an opening or a doorway in the deck of a ship, whereas I thought it was more of a lid on a hole. The term "batten" refers to a strip of wood or metal sailors used to secure a tarp over the hatch hole.

So the below would be a hatch (I think):

And for the life of me I couldn’t find a “batten” pic. So, please, try your best to picture in your head a simple strip of wood or metal.

Go on, I’ll wait.

Cooper

Cooper is a large dog who loves to scare the pants off dog-averse Taiwanese people with his friendliness and fondness for pets from strangers.

He barks about once a month and only for the most deserving of occasions. He whines if you sit down on his couch in his spot. He will paw at you if he wants scritches and will incessantly stare at you if you dare not share your nibbles.

In short, he’s a pretty darn cool dog who deserves a little internet fame.

But the poor pup has a congenital heart defect, probably due to inbreeding from wherever his ancestors come from.

His owner told us stories of when he first got him, maybe around 6 months to 1 year old, he’d take him to the beach (a particularly favorite spot of Cooper), unhook his leash, and watch Coop soar across the sand chasing after unknown ghosts only to suddenly crash down on his face and not move a muscle for 20 seconds.

Sadly, a vet visit discovered the heart problem and declared he had a few years tops. He was simply overworking his heart on these soaring adventures and it would essentially shut-down momentarily.

But here’s where the story gets hopeful.

Mr. Cooper’s now roaming around (no longer soaring) at 6 years old, a bit grumpy, a bit rusty, but he still loves going to the beach and the heart-stopping occasions stopped years ago.

Maybe all Cooper needed was a good home and a whole lot of love to help his heart grow a bit bigger to help him soar.

The threat of his heart problem is still there, and no one knows how much longer he has. But one thing's for sure — his owner will keep taking him to that beach, enjoying every precious moment for as long as he can.

Writer’s Block

Perhaps you’ve noticed a lack of Pryor Thoughts the last month. I do apologize for that.

Before I made the ‘smart’ decision to leave my career in Singapore and start tinkering away with wordlings on the internet, I had always thought that writer’s block was simply as its seen in the movies.

A writer sitting in a dark room with only the company of a bright white light of an empty word document peering out from his laptop.

As in, I thought it was just a lack of ideas of what to write. But with many things in life, the movies do not tend to tell it as it is.

For me, writer’s block kind of slowly sneaks up on me.

I’ve started dozens of projects related to earning a living online these past few years, most have failed, some have hit some success, but the bank never felt too much of a budge other than the vector of an unfortunately positioned glass of wine on the edge of a table next to a finnicky cat.

That glass of wine is my projects, the cat is my writing mojo.

Over and over, I place my work on the edge of a table, excited to take a leap into a belly of riches or a ground of failure. Most times, my cat brain is ready to shove me off the ledge, neither of us knowing if there’s a thirsty mouth or a shiny white carpet ready to be spilled upon below.

But cats are notoriously fickle little beasts.

And it seems around once a year my furball just goes wandering outside for a while. While it loves pushing that wine off the table, I guess it just gets fixated on the what else is out there for a bit.

This time, my cat went on a few amazing road trips, enjoyed a typhoon, made some weird foods, and said goodbye to a strikingly large number of friends moving away this summer.

But perhaps its because my cat had an unexpected request to fly home this summer.

Knowing your lifestyle is about to be turned upside down (almost literally considering where my home-home is vs my abroad home) can make for a cat-brain that simply doesn’t want to push wine off the table.

And that is why, while I’m finishing up this strange little piece, I’m no longer in a roaring typhoon, Cooper’s face flaps are no longer flapping, the hatches are no more battened than a bright sunny day, and I’m writing this from my parents lovely basement way back in sunny Canada.

While my real cats have long since passed away, I’m just happy my cat-brain decided to come push off a big fat glass of wine on this very jet-lagged morning.

So, cheers to you for sticking around, I believe the cat shall be back for many months to come.

I do hope you’ll enjoy the ride.

Just do me a favor and bring along some carpet cleaner, because failures, as messy as a spilt wine glass, are but stepping stones to success.

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Written by a very sleepy 12 hour time zone shifted JJ Pryor.

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