Well, in a week that began sort of 'meh'....

I got my arse over to the market, barely two hundred meters away from the house.

Oooo, progress.

And finally had a good 'ratsch' (talk) with Millie. She had some astounding news.... had taken a cruise to Scandinavia for her well-deserved vacation, something I've always wished to do. Fjörds, and peace and quiet, and lovely---until they went on land in Oslo, and she and her husband and friends were about five blocks away from the center when the bomb went off. Ear-splitting, and mayhem afterward. It shook her world. The police were so quick at cording off the area, she didn't see anything grisly, but it was more than enough for her.....

I told her she was lucky she hadn't. I still can't get that picture out of my head, being on the sixth floor balcony in Munich and seeing real terrorists herding tied-up Israeli wrestlers into helicopters as if they were so much cattle. I still dream about it sometimes. I don't think she'd have done well if she'd have seen the carnage on the scene. She was shaken as it was, hey.

And of COURSE she asked me about 'Da Ven' and what was he up to, she LURVES her some Ven stories. And drags customers into the conversation, telling them how awesome he is. So I told them how he got grounded due to heat conditions. 'Does he still drive?' a woman asked. 'Oh yeah... and he has a scooter to get his mail, only they grounded him.' 'Does he have a girlfriend?' 'Now and then...' 'Do you take after him?''

'Errrrmmmmm.... may have earlier in life...' (Her tone made me sort of wary, she was zafting and it sounded predatory... In my experience, you don't trust women named Monica...)

Hey, it's just standard dish if you're out on the market. So yes, fun. Of a sort.

When there weren't customers, I caught Millie up on the Peter news, and she was very understanding and nice. Her father recently died, had Alzheimer's, but seemingly wasn't a very nice man. But regarding what people go through as bystanders, it is always the same. Cuts to the quick.

I told her how I'd forgotten to leave the phone off-hook, and had a call on Tuesday. I should never have picked up. A friend. Whose husband tried to top himself off yet again in April. For the I don't know how many-eth time. He did it in the attic in our house, for instance, with an IV. He crashed a car purposely into an abuttment, and now he went and did something else again. You would 'THINK' that a doctor would know how to do that effectively... Hell, his sister took her father's service pistol and shot herself, for fuck's sake. Put the barrel in her mouth and shot her head off. I've never been able to wrap my head around that one.... EVAH. It's one thing if you're on your own, but with family? I find it hard to forgive, even if I understand...

But no, he puts his family through hell. I just didn't wanna know any more, I really didn't. Seemingly his wife D found something positive and encouraging I'd written him last year, tucked into his bills. And gave it to him while he was recovering. As if I could help, or something....

We've had a close if very loose bond over decades now, and are so similar, it gets creepy. Can enjoy things to the max... and go to the depths of despair so deep you never see any light.

So I wasn't 'surprised'. I was terribly saddened.

She had worse news for me. Their son is building his own home for his girlfriend, so the house in the south of town is going to be more or less empty. Their daughter has been long gone and on her own. So since they mostly live in Salzburg, where they have a condo, they are giving the Graz house up this fall... and moving into the Mühlgasse in October. They had bought a unit from Peter years ago and thought it might be for the kids. But no, it will be their pièd-a-terre when they are home visiting the kids. 'Our' home is currently being rented, and I didn't wanna know.

I told her there was NO WAY I would ever set foot in that house again when she said we'd be seeing one another more. NO WAY. She understood. Out on the square? Fine. There? Forget it. Maria M. still pops up in my nightmares, as harpy.

We understand way too much about one another, and it never requires having a lonnng talk. We both just know.

If I never see the K-F's again, it would be way too soon.

So Millie was very understanding... we can talk about everything under the sun, and I haven't anyone else who has been in on all the fun, the bad times, the despair, she knows all the characters in my personal drama.

And asked me about my cousins out of the blue today, especially about L. with whom she was very taken as 'what a lovely lady'. (So you see, D & L? Wherever you go, you leave an impression.) She was sorry to hear they wouldn't be visiting again.

And during the Peter part of our discourse, I mentioned that the youngest sister of my beloved step-mother was in a coma. Also Alzheimers. And said I probably knew what her three wonderful daughters must have been going through.

Hardly home after unloading this morning, 'da Ven' was in my in-box. My aunt passed away in the night over there. My aunt was the dearest, sweetest person I've ever met. She and her husband were the first to visit me, had hardly been here a year.

We met in Munich, so I was a TERROR... dragged them all over the place, showed them things a tour guide never would. And Salzburg, gawwd, did I give them the royal tour. Until, despite my enthusiasm, I saw they were just worn out. And developed a devious plan. Said we were going up a huge hill and get beer behind the church on one end of it. (Amis are NOT big on walking, believe me....) And as we were going up, my aunt planted her feet firmly on the ground and said, 'I am NOT going up there to look at another church!'

So I said, 'Trust me. We are going to get beer.' She went on, but she did NOT trust me, believe it. But she followed. And we came to a door in a building behind the church, and I said, 'come in', and it was a tiiiinnny corridor, with nothing in it. And there was another door, which led to a tiinnny corridor with nothing in it, but had a HUGE double door. And I opened one of the winged doors, and said, 'here's where we get a beer or anything else you like.'

And we were at the top of a HUGE flight of stairs, and we descended. Way down. Into a central hall with stands. Meat, cheese, whatever culinary delights you wished for. There was a rack of ceramic beer steins, but you had to take them to a trough, rinse them out, slide them down a counter, and there was a guy to fill it with their own brew of beer. And we took them with the snacks to one of the huge halls that opened off of the corridor... rough-hewn tables and hugely uncomfortable wooden banquettes. They were wide-eyed and looked like they'd gone to heaven.

My aunt said, 'You're not taking us anywhere ELSE, are you?' And I said, 'after a couple of those, I wouldn't be able to. Just enjoy.' 'And then they were in nirvana.

I 'could' have taken them in the back way, d0wn on the ground, but being the drama queen... well in my student days, we loved going up the mountain, and doing the whole grand entry thing, and my late friend John used to hum Handl's 'Water Music' when we marched down the stairs. I didn't do that with my Dad... his knees were hurting too much.

I last heard from my aunt when I had to move out of the Mühlgasse. She was very concerned, having heard so many reports from others in the family who had visited. And it was genuine, she was never judgemental. So she mailed me, expecting I would wail and bemoan, or something.

And I told her what her sister, my beloved step-mother had taught me... 'if you fall down, you brush yourself off, get the fuck up, and just go on.'

And no, I didn't use the 'f'' word.

Probably 'hell'.

And she replied 'Boy, you have a very unique way of looking at things.'

I assume it was a compliment.

I will miss her very much, from the heart.

She passed quietly, without pain. The pain will be with her family forever, and I KNOW... when Peter's time comes, I hope it will be the same.