Kruzifix noch mal! Why would the Communists...

send the bloody Catholic organisation Caritas to Peter's place, unannounced. I can't figure it out.... So he had some cleric in there, and they are WORSE than Mormons. And he loved the Easter Tree, but he wanted to know where the crucifix was in the house. Because the Easter Tree is pagan, you see....

I knew that. That is why I like them.

And we never had a crucifix in the house. Never!

That pissed him off. And he is coming baaaack!

My dad is of the opinion that my life is a fucking soap opera. Sometimes I think he is right.

Ok. Will deal with it as it comes.

At least I did not throw up.....

The Other Side of the Coin

I am really very perplexed with our government officials. So far, everyone I have had to deal with for my stuff is nice. Something is very wrong with this picture.... believe me. I had to deal with them for the first five years I was here, and then again when I took citizenship after ten years. And they were anything BUT 'nice', and have tried to avoid any bureacracy since.

But today, I HAD to 'bite the bullet', as I thought, and apply for an early retirement. It is something the other place requires me to do. I have 'tried' to get this done last week, and as much as I wanted to, it went so against the grain, I would get up, try to get my act together and then come up with the dry heaves, it was criminal. Or the runs, and didn't trust myself to leave the house. It always gets me in the stomach...

So I kicked my ASS off out of the bed, and made myself 'presentable', and marched up there. And again it was take a number, and watch the billboard, but at least they have a bell tone there. Nicer, oh yes. I did not have to wait long, and get called to )))))rooom NINE((((( Hokay..
Fifty-ish man with a full beard, not so well groomed, but what the hey.... I wasn't there for husband-hunting, after all.

Him, (accusing tone) 'You've never been here before.'

Me: (gawd, AGAIN?) 'No, I saw no necessity, this came out of the blue. A friend of mine has been bugging me for years to get my work done, but I put it off.'

Him: (on the computer) 'Mr. B. We do not bite.'

Me: (really????? Since WHEN? and some of the paretheses are what I was thinking and didn't say.)

Him: I see you began working in Austria in 1973.

Me: 'WHA?' I began working on the first of November, 1976. That has to be a mistake. Or did I fill out a form wrong? I KNOW where I was in 1973. I was at the university in Salzburg.

Him: 'Does Gasthof zur Höllbrau ring a bell? You worked there two months.'

Me: 'oh. my. gawd. I had completely forgotten about that.' (It was horrible, I repressed it.)

He smiled and laughed. 'It's all here, and two more months to get you into complete retirement, and not a pittance. ' He was actually concerned that I get my full pension, and wants to see if I worked enough to get it counting my US time, and hinted he might move something to make it work.

The US and Austria have an aggreement. My time there counts on our pension plan. As is the two and one half months I worked for the Kempinski Hotel Betriebs gmbh. in Munich at the olympic village.

We got that quickly taken care of...

Now I have to do the rest via the Embassy in Vienna.

My consultant will do it. Thank whomever.

He wants me to get the most out of my pension.

He was nice and respectful.

So Wha' HAPPENED?'

Ge-WALT! (violence)

There are some days.... you should NOT get out of bed, hey. In January, we went over to the social services office in the park. Three MONTHS later, they visited Peter this morning. Three FUCKING months. Knowing he'd been without electricity since De-fucking-cember. Priorities, much?

I have SEEN these 'ladies' when I took him there. They are the local version of the DAR and GOP.

And they rumpled their corrected noses over the chaos.

BUT they went nuts over the Easter tree, and who DID that? And where the hell did I LEARN to do that. (Well... I have only BEEN here thirty one YEARS... And I have a little bit of taste.) Gaaawwd! I didn't throw up, so I guess I'm on the way to scraping myself off the sidewalk...

So they were surprised that the electricity was back on, and he told them that Frau Kahr had done the work, and they got really snitty, like DAR and GOP BITCHES can be. 'Well, it's no WONDER it took so long.' They were Christian Dems. Sure, it took a while to get an appointment with her, but she solved the problem in two days.

They all but ASKED if he was with the Communist Party. (He was always firmly Socialist.)

They gave off some VERY bad vibes.

I cooked dinner with the little we have left there----I sold a lot of stuff while he was in assisted living, never thinking he would want to go back there.... Oh yes, he gave me the green light for that,and he got the money, but now am just devastated.

And the young lady who Frau Kahr assigned to him called, and is going to help him with finding a cleaning troupe to bring some order in the chaos.

Good Gawwd, hey.

This stuff leaves me speechless.

Make no mistake, I HATE ideologies. But sometimes it is better to go to the less empowered who have some sort of influence, than go to the high-nosed snobs who think they have ALLLL the answers, and corrupted by power.

Life is sort of an education.... Not always 'fun'.

Narziss--ism

Via Americablog, we learned yesterday that the sHill has been telling a whopper about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire. Because she was sleep-deprived. So she 'misspoke', which is Orwell speak for lying. Seemingly she hasn't slept since December or is taking hallucinegins, because she told that story several times since then.

T-Rex has a good post up on that, wonderful snark guy that he is. With a photo of a pair of pants on fire. His fear of her pulling a Lieberman and running as an independent is very unsettling, to say the least.

Actually, the first time I heard that 'landing at Tuzla' story, I was perplexed. Because it would have been all over the front pages of our newspapers for days... and was following events in former Yugoslavia fairly closely back then. The border is only about a forty-five minute drive from where I live. And I thought, 'Wow, how did I miss THAT???'

So that isn't very confidence inspiring, now is it? You have to be some sort of narcissist to do something like that, is all I can say....

Update: TRex paid me a visit while I was out doing chores, saw it on SiteMeter. Last time it was while I was asleep. I guess he saw I posted the link to his site. I must say, for a 40 foot therapod with tiny arms and horn-rimmed glasses, he was very careful. Didn't even leave a footprint on my kitchen floor, and munch out on the egg and asparagus salad in the fridge. (You'd have been MORE than welcome to it, TR, it's very nice.)

crocuses

Ok, corny, I know. I planted just a couple in the yard fifteen years ago on the little strip of grass we had.... And every year since, more and more of them just pop up. These were already blooming on February tenth! They never came up so early. As to WHY they got to be more? Net roots, they just spread. And I 'think' that they are sort of symbolic of what is happening now. Net roots. Tja, symbolic.

How To Make an Easter Tree

I can not post this at Annti's... She is too allergic to Xtrian things, you know? But am sort of old fashioned, and like traditions, even if I am a non-believer. Especially if they are 'pretty'. (Now how gay is that, huh?)

So I kicked myself in the ASS this morning, to get out of my post 'Part-em' depression, and did the following. I went to the market, and got a mess of tulips. Orange perfect ones. And a box of hand-colored hard-boiled Easter eggs. Then I went to a bakery, and got really killer coffee to go, the kind that puts hair on your chest. One black, one with milk. And an awesome big marshmallow 'peep' with cute chocolate wings, ( a chick), because someone I know has a big sweet tooth, oh yes.... And marched myself over to the hotel and surprised my favorite colleague with all that stuff at six-thirty-five in the a.m. She went off the charts for overwhelmed, and gave me SUCH a hug, that tiny person..... It made me feel better than I had felt in weeks.

So we had corfee and sniggarettes, and good chat, and it was very very nice. She told me she had let her youngest daughter see Sweeney Todd, because the girl loves Johnny Depp. Her mother had seen the concert version I had lent her on DVD, so she 'prepared ' her for the content and let her go with her friends. She said, 'She is two months short of the age limit for that, but you have to sometimes let your children feel like they are 'grown-ups'. ' Smart lady. Her daughter came back fully shaken. 'It was so bloody, Mama. I got scared. And so tragic. He nearly kills his daughter, and then kills his wife!' She handled the rest VERY well.

No, still haven't seen it. Will wait for the DVD. I don't NEED a blood-bath on a wide-scream screen with my nerves right now....

Then it was back to the market to get provisons for yet ANOTHER three day holiday, and for the Easter tree, which I should have done last week. My Gaaaawwwd, the prices are so up it is ridiculous!

So this is how you make an Easter tree.... You need a big vase. You buy some forsythia branches beginning to bloom, or cut off some long branches if they are in your garden. And a couple of fruit tree branches about to blossom. A couple of green things beginning to throw leaves. Pussy willows. Furry, pretty. LOTS. And THEN, you hang lots of blown-out hand painted eggs on it. I sort of LIKE kitsch if it is underdone, so I have three little birds in the tree. Not too much, not too little. It is a big tree.

At base, it is a pagan ritual. Renewal. And in that week, on Easter Sunday. everything blooms.

And it is lovely.

Peter didn't expect it and cried this morning. (I haven't done a Christmas tree in over three years... ) Yes, I did it for him. He is REALLY bad off. I got scared. And we have the same GP who makes house calls.

Well, I had to get some prescriptions renewed the other day, and said, 'Listen, it is really really not my place to tell you this, but I am going to give you a HINT about something. Peter is not telling you that he has chest pain on the left side, and he is depressive. How YOU deal with it is your thing.'

(you know.... you BE with someone thirty-one YEARS..... and you have no RIGHTS.)

He said, 'Peter is 'difficult' and stuborn.' And I said, 'Tell me about it... Maybe you can direct your questions so he tells you. It is just a HINT, hey....'

He has no problem with it. My GP is nice.

Good God, what an Easter hey.

Mensch. It was a start. Am TIRED of being the person in the feotal position, 'under the bed.'

HOW did we all get into this UGLY situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, hey....

Was over at Daily Kos, as there was a big uproar over the sHill supporters wanting to boycott the blog and not post any more. Ohhhh... sandbox gameses, uh-huh. But then I ran across a reccomended diary, by Teacherken. He seems to be a very thoughtful person. It really struck a chord within me.

And it really made me think about our upbringing in a white society, and how preconceptions sneak in and make you racist even if you do not intend to be. And Precioussess? NH is whiter than snow.

Unless you learn to think outside the box.

It brought back a VERY unpleasant memory. I was eighteen, and visiting my mother and her brood in NJ. My eldest step-sister just adored me. Her father was African-American. She has sort of 85% chocolate skin, and is beautiful. And I could remember her father from my childhood, and tell her what a gentle and kind man he was. So That was ok....

So we're out in the kitchen, I took off my watch, and said, 'Look, I got a tan!' And she took off hers and said, 'Look, so do I!' And I was so perplexed, I blurted out, 'I didn't KNOW you can get tanned.' (I had thought there was so much melanin in the skin that they were protected and couldn't get sun-burned. )

Our mother went into hysterics for hilarity over that one, the witch. And I was embarrassed to the end of time.

So where the FUCK did that misperception COME from? It comes from ignorance, and stuff you hear, and you end up that way. Even if you do not want to be.

So Teacherken is right. But it is best to try to be the best, most honest person you can BE.

And look outside the box.

Oooo... Happy St. Patrick's Day

Now where the hell did I put my green clothes..... damn!

Yes, am one-fourth Irish. And this day always brings back fond memories of when I was young, and reckless. It was ALWAYS hilarious. I would meet with my friend JR and his clicque, and we would 'initiate' the celebration at about five pm. at this wild pub on Hannover Street. Big buffet downstairs with corned beef and cabbage and everything Irish. Green Beer. (food coloring). Hammy Irish ballads and songs on the juke box. And exceptionally funny friends who kept me laughing till we closed the place down at one am. Terry, (a lady), would get shit-faced and goose men's asses passing by if she fancied them. The shocked look on their faces were priceless. And believe me Preciousess, Terry gave the meanest 'goose' it has ever been my privelige to receive. Did it to me right on the main street of town, and so shocked me, I fell down. And that was before we went drinking. It was a KILLER goose, and she had this technique, her middle finger was right in your asshole. Which is why I fell down. Gawd, how we laughed.

So... if any of youse guys and gals out there have a bit of Irish in ya.... and are young and reckless... go out tonight and have one Hell of a time. It only happens a few times in your life when you are young. Savour it. And you will later have fond memories of good friends, and feel a bit nostalgic when this day rolls around.

Just sayin'

Huh....

I tortured Peter the last two days with the High School Musical films, now that he has the elecricty back on. I didn't TELL him much about them beforehand. He found them charming. But.... His perception of what the underlying message is disturbed him as much as it did me, for the same reasons, without my having said a word. So I guess it wasn't my twisted perception. That was sort of interesting..... Just sayin'.... So maybe I assimilated? Who the fuck knows, hey...

Government things...

Tja, was back at the Kafka place yesterday. It was as Kafka as ever, meaning: surreal, illogical, and you can't tell what is really going on. I got told I am incapable of working, not the sort of person who can get shunted off to a new position, and should apply for early retirement, as I am too old. Welcome to 'Oldiehood'. This was said in a friendly if pragmatic way, and in the end, rather cold. But that is our entire world nowadays, coldly pragmatic. Maybe I should be relieved, but sort of felt like a tissue someone crumpled up and threw into a gutter.

The other side of the coin? Turns out I did something good. And some young person from the city senate visited Peter on Tuesday, and got his electricity turned back on on Thursday, and the guy was even polite.

I've had to DEAL with those Mo-fo's for over a year now, and they are purely vicious. My very BEST time (NOT) was with a harridan of a woman who blew me off, and I verbally bitch-slapped her and left. There was an older woman behind me, and she was so shocked she left as well. So we were at the intersection, waiting for the light to change, and she was literally shaking with anger. And said, 'How DARE she treat you like that? I'm not going to deal with her, that is for sure.' And I said, 'Lady, almost ALL of them are like that, so you better get on a suit of armour for whatever you have to deal with them for.' She went pale.

My second best encounter was with 'the guard to top all guards', as I call him. Short little guy and self-important to the max. And went into the foyer in the late afternoon to charge up Peter's chip card to keep the electricity on. Well the machine had been altered, and wouldn't take fifty Euro bills anymore. So I charged up the card with the small ones I had and went across the street to make change. Come back in, and Mr. IMPORTANT accosts me.

'You were just IN here.' (Uh-huh... observant little turd....)

'I had to make change for the machine.'

'And the seat of your pants are dirty.'

(How is THAT for a non-sequitur??)

'I had to wait for a bus in Laßnitzhöhe, and had a coffee and sat in a seat where someone had dropped some ice cream.'

'Why go all the way to Laßnitzhöhe for COFFEE?!'

And I thought, 'HerrGOTTnochmalfixsakramenthalleluja'.

And then I went all Austrian sarcastic on his tiny little ass, hey. You do it in a quiet tone of voice, and aim for the middle of the target, and drip a little acid into the tone.

'Ok, I was UP there visiting someone in rehab. I had to wait for the bus to get back. I sat in a café chair where someone had dropped some ice cream. So I got the seat of my pants dirty. And NOW, I am going to go home and WASH them. Provided you are OK with that.'

Shut him up like a clam. That is how you do it.....

So that is two examples of why I was so surprised to find a person from that company who was POLITE.

And the people who enabled all this? Well, Precioussessss.... I was taught from my youth to FEAR Communists. Turned out to be very wrong. I'd hardly been here three months and we had a group in from Russia? Well, that was sort of a tense situation for me. I didn't know WHAT to expect. The boogeyman plus thirty. And then they came. Whaddaya know, hey, they were normal. So similar to us, there WAS no difference. The scales fell from my eyes by the TONS, as one of my favourite authors wrote a couple of centuries ago.

So no, am not, so very NOT sorry I spoke with Frau Kahr. Seemingly, they accomplish things fairly fast. And once they get rolling, it is fast. Our brand seem to be what the Socialialists used to be....

But just to be SURE, am gonna crouch under my desk and kiss my ASS goodbye when they nuke us. As if that would help.... So YOU tell me what is wrong with the picture, hey....

I have finally lost ALL respect for the Clintons....

Not that I had much after Bill came over here and gave this Pompous speech about how he was gonna teach us what 'democracy' really is.

And I thought 'Wha??!!!' When I was in high school I learned that it was initiated in Athens two thousand years ago. It was insulting.

And now they are playing so dirty, using Gerraldine Ferraro as sock puppet, NO.

And now it is all about 'race'. Code words, dirty tricks, incendiary.... disgusting.

The sHill is GOP.

You can catch it on America Blog on my side-bar.

It's a Man's World....

(Good grief, how I am anchored in the Seventies, hey. That song just didn't want to get out of my head today....)

Someone from the local government was due to inspect Peter's living conditions yesterday. And he was waaay overdue for a shave and a haircut, so I carted him over to Mr. Enver. He'd been ill last week, and the shop closed.

Going there is a lesson for me every time. It is a little peek into a culture that is so foreign to me, that I just watch and observe. And occasionally get my hair cut. Today there were a mess of people there, just hanging out, mostly. It was absolutely fascinating. How they interact with one another. Of course I didn't understand what they were saying, turkish sounds like it has no consonants. Must be a difficult language to learn.

But from the gestures and facial expressions, it isn't hard to guess what the subject is. It is sort of like 'charades' for me.... It's this macho thing, but done with respect, and a certain sort of bantering, can be funny.

So they have this kind of bonding thing between them. And no, it is not gay. That isn't in their vocabulary, I don't think.... Enver is the second Turk who greets me heartily on the square if our paths cross.

Today, Enver asked me to explain to his 'friend', (and believe me, they are all 'brothers' in spirit), what the results of a medical exam were. I went absolutely pale when I read it. Bad news. He'd gotten a lung x-ray, and there were shadows in the lower half of the left one and he should see an expert, like yesterday. And I thought, 'How the FUCK am I supposed to tell him this?'

Tja. Unnerving, and mine aren't so good right now. But I gathered all my courage, and told him in the best way I could. Macho, not a flinch.

So I guess I got 'points' in their world for being honest. It is a strange world they live in, but full of heartfelt friendliness, and caring. What I do not like is that they treat women like shit. Breeding mares. But if their Mommies bring them up that way, who is to blame?

I threw up, later. Having a middle-sized nervous breakdown is no fun.

He treats Peter like he would others, and is very careful. And is very kind to him.

The other side of the coin... you know?

And the gubmint person seems to be ok. So something is going forward. All this beaurocacy is really getting me down.

Some things are so damned intriguing...

I had to spend four hours at my internist's office today. And between the different tests you have to subject yourself to, you have to be out in the waiting room. Well... you can catch up on gossip magazines you would never buy. Or observe. I chose the latter....

It can be sort of fascinating. There was this guy about mid-Fifty with a gold tooth, shaved head, and a much MUCH younger girlfriend there. And they were speaking a language I SWEAR I have never heard before. Soon joined by a somewhat younger man, and the MEN gave each other a kiss on the cheek like fucking debutantes, but manlier.... And ignored the woman, who was beautiful. Only on one side, hey... And then... they got into a deep discussion, and it was all sibilant. Lots of 'SH' things in it. I recognise Slavic languages when I hear them. Wasn't. It didn't have the gutterals at all, so couldn't be Turkish. I was completely perplexed. But so stressed out, I didn't politely address them and ASK. (My nerves aren't so hot right now...) but fascinating...

Then a completely covered 'old woman' from the Middle East with her son. Talk about your matriachies. Whoooo. The son had to accompany his mother to the sonar session. And I thought, 'WHY didn't she go to a female internist in the FIRST place????' It was pretty freaky, hey....

But just when I was nearly done.....

I had to go out into the waiting room yet again. And I was 'irritated', to put it mildly...

There was this couple. My immediate thought was, what the HELL are Americans doing in here? Of the GOP variety. NO ONE dresses like that here.

But they both spoke local dialect. EXCEPT.... they kept throwing in things in absolutely perfect American English. Without an accent. They both felt ABSOLUTELY superior, and were making fun of people's shoes.... and the people. I nearly barfed. THAT was OK. Yeah, right.

And as for the idiot husband and his exaggerated facial expressions, the man is bi. And self-hating.

Interesting morning....

Just sayin'

About Anti-Americanism

I am not usually inclined to agree often with the Kos diarist Jerome à Paris. But this time he really hits the nail on the head about what is wrong with the media. The link is in the title. Go read. Have had some digestive problems, so between the bed and the wc, wasn't much to report.....

On DVD Nip/Tuck-- power cycling -- no Spoilers.

I had seen the first season a few years ago. Daring, impressive, basically a triangle relationship with a lot of lies built into it. And two plastic surgeons get entangled with a Columbian drug smuggler and end up feeding an unwanted corpse to alligators in the Everglades. By hanging fresh hams on it. Now THAT is pretty much cutting - edge....

Well, have been ill all week, and decided to do what John Amato of Crooks and Liars calls 'power cycling'. Looking at full seasons of a show on dvd. Only I watched seasons two, three and four in close succession and got rectangular eyes.

Remember the old-style roller-coasters? Those little cars going up a looooonnnnnng incline before the 'fun' begins? (And I am terrified of heights, btw.) Well, that is what the second season was like, suspense building, and ends with one hell of a shocker. One of the surgeons gets his throat slashed.

The surgeries got more and more radical, and I had to go out to the kitchen and get a glass of water and just listen. Yup.

Seasons three and four were the rest of the ride, hey. The twists and turns in the plot were so amazing, I was nearly speechless. And kinda clueless. 'You can't DO that on televsion! can you?' kept running through my mind. And just when you thought you KNEW what was going on, they would throw in a red herring and put you off the track, and the 'reality' was totally something else... I love stuff like that.

After they had the wonderful Vanessa Redgrave in seasons two and three, and Jill Clayburgh doing an absolutely hilarious turn, all cast against type, in the fourth season they had people banging the producers' door down, wanting a role.

Brooke Shields as a psychopathic psychiatrist. I didn't even recognise her, hey. Kathleen Turner as a sex phone operator. Ditto. Larry Hagman as not so evil magnate. Alanis Morisette as lesbian. Even Catherine Deneuve, whom Peter worships. She was amazing, as always... Rosie O'Donnell as a trailer-trash potty mouthed red-neck who wins Powerball. Fantastic, as usual...

But casting Jacqueline Bisset as the 'heavy'? That was brilliant, and she really gave me the creeps. In the extras she said she was pretty shocked by the initial concept, but it intrigued her because she always plays 'pathetic characters'. The cast never know where their characters are going from one episode to the next, when they get their scripts, so she didn't know how eeeevil she was going to become.

And boy howdy, she was evil.

The fourth season pretty much wraps up all you can say about Miami. If there is going to be a fifth season, it will be in Hell-A with totally new characters.

That was so worth doing. And one hell of a ride. The last episode in season four? Was about a drug queen, organ stealer from Columbia who was tortured, and had her breasts removed, and is one big bleeding open scar.

And I learned in the extras that absolutely nothing shown on that show for surgeries is made-up. All that really happens.

And when I recently posted about meeting an Austrian member of the French Foreign Legion? He TOLD me that the worst thing he had seen in his life was seeing a woman in Chad who got her breasts cut off so that she would not be able to nurse her baby. And I thought, 'what bull, how could she LIVE, hey.' Seemingly, it is possible. And he was right.

It wasn't exactly the right choice for choosing a series the way I feel, but it was one Hell of a roller-coaster ride. And love that series.

Higly reccommended.

Uh.oh.....Emma is arriving.....

Emma is a wind storm. With winds of up to 150 km/hour. (Why the fuck do they call these things after women, hey. Why not Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' ? 'Daddy's HOME...' ) Well what do I know, and WHOA! Thunder and lightning in MARCH? (Just happened....) Just freak me out some MORE, please, and just thank whomever. This is NOT 'normal'.

Ok, no danger here.... I stocked up on stuff and do not have to go out.

Climate change, Mentis? Un-fucking-believable.

I had a nice encounter with a very personable young lady who works for my preferred tobacconist. She ALWAYS knows what brand you smoke. And the owner is a nice person. Sniggarettes went up in price, and she KNEW I had changed brands to a cheaper one. The brand is called MAIN. So she tells me she gets the 'creeps' when she sells it, because she always has to think of Maine, and Stephen King. Well, I had to tell her that I grew up in a neighbor state, and we used to call them Maniacs because of how they drived.

She found that funny.

I do what I can, hey.

Just spreading 'joy' all around the world, hey.

Ach, Du liebe Sch..... ok, SO not going there

I'm a foul-mouthed dirty hippy in spirit with short hair, which I think Atrios over at Eschaton coined. (Am tired, and just don't pull things out of the AIR, you know...) And am not going to teach you dirty words in foreign languages. But if you learn one, it is a very good thing to know them so you do not inadverdantly insult someone. We had a huge card party thing going once at the Olympic Village in Munich, 1972? And got on that topic. It was a multi-culti language thing. Everyone translated for everyone else, it was hilarious. The Spanish guy just SHOCKED me. And there was this very upright Egyptian? Well I used to know this Air Force Brat at the university, and we got on very well. And she had taught me 'the second-worst' insult you can say in Arabic, and I actually didn't believe her. I asked him about it? Well... he did not speak to me for the rest of the summer. And it wasn't anything as bad as I found the Spanish ones...Thank whomever she never taught me the worst one. (See what I mean? You choose your words, hey, or you are burnt toast.)

Nah, that had nothing to do with the link. Pretty horses. Unreal ones, you would think Disney made them up.

They sort of float....

I got a letter today. I have been chosen, it told me---to go on a free trip to the National Stud Farm where they breed the Lippizan horses. Because, you see, I won some lottery, and can take FIVE people with me, and free breakfast and one drink, and get a gift basket with food and stuff, for me and all my five friends, EACH, and get a gift that is EUR 998.00 in value, (un-named) And if it isn't there, I get it in cash. The lottery had to do with some radio station, and I have NEVER called a radio station EVER. And it was last year, supposedly. Except to call the BBC and tell them just to not air that ABC piece of shit about the path to 9/11. (The guy kind of freaked, seeing where the call was from.... I do what I can, hey... I just don't talk about it much.)

It is just another damned scam. Just welcome to 'Oldiehoood'. They probably have lists according to age groups, and figure you are so STUPID and on the verge of Alzheimers, you just jump right in there, gung-ho.

So NOT.

As to Piber, have been there often. It is a forty-five minute drive away. Beautiful. But I never liked the concept.

Was telling Peter this on the phone this morning, and after warning me not to do it... (and I am the pragmatic guy, never intended to...) he said, 'February? Most of them are in Vienna at the Spanish riding school.' And I said, 'Hey, tell me about it, but it is only the studs. And you only get to see one or two of THEM in summer for show. You get to see the mares and the foals at feeding time, and they keep the mares pregnant all the time with artificial insemination, so they don't even get any FUN.'

Toldja. I HATE the concept. But it is a business, and don't they just fuck you sideways, nowadays.

I took my cousins over there once, last time they visited. Perfect day. We were at a café. She bought a post card, and I saw what she wrote. 'Am at the National Stud Farm. No Studs in sight.' I nearly fell off the chair for laughing. Inside.

But I kept on my Great Stone Face.

Between my Dad, and my cousin.... they gave me the most twisted sense of humour, and I love them for it. HUGELY.

It is what keeps you going.

If you are still tuned in.... The call ended with me telling him it was from a travel agency with a post box address in Vienna. SM and KB travel agency. uh-HUH. I told him, 'If it were S/M and KZ' agency, I MIGHT want to check it out and be a suicide bomber. He was fucking shocked. For those of you who do not know.... a KZ was a conentration camp.

And now will shaddup, as Annti says...

If I have to be fucking CRAZY, better do it right, hey.

Just sayin'