Jeebus Christ!

So where WERE we, when I got so unexpectedly interrupted?

Ach ja... Peter's 'fambly'. So ok, his grandparents had four girls who survived the war. I never met his mother, she was terminally ill when I first got here, and died fairly soon thereafter. I have always regretted that. She must have been very funny, and he got her sense of humour, which is sort of like mine. He had a rough time of it back then. We were just friends, he did the night shifts. And would come home mornings to find she had hemmoraged in the night, and it did a number on him.

The only fun thing I have about her was a play on words. He was visiting her in hospital, and the other woman asked Peter to close the window because she was 'Algerian' when it came to drafts. She meant allergic, of course. That's been a running joke between us for decades now. Will say, Oh, am algerisch to that. Instead of allergisch.

See? That is one of the fun things you share when you know one another a long time.

Charlotte married shortly after the war. She is graceful, elegant, and very nice. It's only been two years since I am allowed to address her in the familiar form. Her husband was Prussian, and unfortunately died a few years ago. Peter being her only nephew, she does the mother hen number, which irritates him.

Doris got REALLY messed up by her oldest sister, who sent her off to some Nazi version of the girl scouts, (BDM) and caught an illness she never really recovered from, and never spoke with her ever again, as far as I know.

Which leaves us the eldest, Hildegard. I only met her once. It was enough, believe me. She wasn't just the black sheep, she terrorised the entire family. The only Nazi in it. And she never stopped, hey. She never ratted them out, but her escapades were legendary. Like drinking champagne and telling her husband not to come back when he got sent to Stalingrad. She wanted to be a war widow. He was a POW, and she was disappointed when he finally came back, and took up his job as a gardener. I can't think of two more diverse people to ever get married.

And she never stopped, hey. She was over seventy, flew to New Yawk.... wearing her SS leather coat without the insignia, and decided to go out searching for people who were on her 'agenda'. This is so not making anything up, by the way. The entire family was scandalised at the time.

So what did she DO? She went to Harlem, ALONE, AT NIGHT. And hooked up with this African American activist by the name of Robbie... and he was the apple of her eye. Am pretty sure she went back a couple of times after that, and I think the last time was in Florida, and she hooked up with him, whipped his group into shape with uniforms and everything. And there was something about riding those propellor boats in the Everglades, but I don't think they killed anyone. I hope...

Her sisters were on their fainting couches reaching for the smelling salts.

Yup, she was a piece of work, all right... She only said one sentence to me ever, but it was a doozy. She and Charlotte were waiting on Peter in the ho-tel lobby to celebrate his fiftieth 'birfday', and the couches there were very low. He came down and she asked me, 'Do you have CRANES to get me out of this thing?' Which was when I realised no one had been exaggerating.

Her granddaughter married a CIA agent. That didn't last. Last I heard, she is an attorney in Florida, and I just don't WANT to know, ok?

Charlotte had two daughters, and they are coming to Graz. Barbara, the oldest, who once cornered me in the reception area, and sort of implied I was a gold-digger.... at a time neither of us had two Schillings to rub together, and Renate, who is very quiet and very cool. Over the deacades, we have learned to play nice. Renate bears a striking resemblance to Jill Clayburgh, by the way... It's uncanny.

Charlotte has eyes similar to Peter's, the only one of 'da girls' who do. But with her, there is a slant to them, and they are very green. I told her that recently, and she got all flustered, it was just a compliment.... and not flattery.

So you see? Life can be fun, and irritating, and you live it as fully as you can....

And OH, yes, another classic: Hildegard was going ON about Hitler. And his grandmother said, 'YOUR Hitler made me miss the golden age of the MGM MUSICALS!' That one has to go down in history. She nearly got in a cat-fight at the market over who was better, Marika Rökk, or Ginger Rogers. Which was dangerous.

So... that ends my two-parter on Peter's family, relationships, and how you absorb 'things you never needed to know.'

But that is what a solid relationship brings with it. Have been trying to impart some of the fun things that occurred over the past (nearly) four decades, and give you a smile or two.

And on the other hand, Peter knows an awful lot about my family as well. I used to think, 'hokay... top this.' That is sort of 'guy stuff'. Always a bit of competition, but a good one means sharing. Being held, feeling 'safe'. And returning the favour when your signifcant other isn't on top of his/her game.

Some of you have been here, and you saw me at my worst, and you saw me 'in-love', which can make you so blind you don't know what hit you. Some of you have seen me so angry, and at times self-destructive I can feel ashamed.

I can pass it off, and say 'well, that comes from my bio-mom's genes', and part of it would be true.... But in the end, it was passion. No matter what I have done, it was straight from the heart, and I don't regret it.

So now you know a piece of my life I didn't share.

Who in the blue blazes got the idea

To contact the US embassy in Vienna????

Because they just called me. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Listen, I KNOW it was well meant, but THAT left me spitless... and whoever it was shouldn't have done that. REALLY not. Am not angry, but more or less speechless.

No, I was polite, and rather nonplussed, ok?

How many times do I have to repeat this? I became an Austrian citizen in 1986. That call really freaked me out.

The guy on the horn was nice enough. He wants to send me a social worker, like that will work, or something. Gawwd.

What a day. I was supposed to go to Gamlitz, had one of the worst asthma attacks I have had in months, and it wiped me out. And had to cancel. And was supposed to pause in Leibnitz at Elke's on the way back. Which I was looking forward to, very much.

And then that.

Listen up. I will not back down on my decision. I have my time frame, and will keep to my decision.

It is ok if someone decided that an intervention is in order, but will NOT go there. There ARE times when you just realise you can't do it any more. So whoever it was.... please do not do that ever again.

Update: holy mackerel! You sicced the US Dept. of State on my blog? What's next, 'black helicopters'??? Jeebus, hey....

Update 2: Oh, and just swell. Call number two. Someone named Sabine in Graz. She wants me to go into a clinic, and I said NO.

And now I am feeling put out....

I will regale you with stories till I leave....

Y'know, if you spend nearly forty years with someone, you tell each other EVERYTHING. If the relationship is good. You share the absurd, the important things of all the people in your lives. It isn't gossip, it is your past, and who formed you to be who you are.

So today, we begin with Peter's grandparents. Yeah, that sounds far-fetched... But they were interesting, in that they more or less raised him. And I don't know how they ever got along together, but there was this 'thing' called World War II, you see, and Hitler, and so on.

They had five children, four girls, one boy. The little boy died, because there weren't any antibiotics back then. Peter lost his father before he was ever born. The Germans were pushing into Poland, and he was a concert pianist, and he died in a car crash.

So he never knew him. And his mother did her utmost to do everything right, and worked her ass off.

Which brings us back to the grandparents. From all accounts... his grandfather was sort of amazing. He would listen secretly to the BBC where no one could hear, and keep up on the news. I suspect I would have liked him. The Russians came into his home first back then, and they could be so brutal. His grandfather did a 'number'. Ripped down a photo of Hitler, stomped on it, and screamed and yelled.

He was basically Socialist. The photo was 'cover'. Thanks to one of his daughters.


He was interested in FKK, which was nudist culture. And mostly tolerant.

His gradmother was 'delicate'. She had heart asthma, and it was very bad. But she loved Hollywood musicals. And she did something so daring, it still takes my breath away.... There was a bomb raid, the English, I believe. And Peter had pneumonia. They fled to the basement, and his grandmother took the grammophone with her. Which was weird...

Just to keep him calm, hey.

You know what? It did. But the number she had was way off the charts. Fred Astaire singing 'Cheek to cheek` Remember how it begins? 'Heaven, I'm in heaven.' And the bombs falling????

Not to mention it was crazy dangerous, because the Blockwart was there, the Nazi guy who controlled everyone in that block. She didn't care. She was pissed off as it was.....

He remembers being up on a hill with them for Easter, 1945. And they were having a picnick, and the Americans came to bomb the city. His grandfather was outraged. 'What the hell are they DOING? The BOMBS are supposed to be falling on the industrial section, not the Opera! How the fuck do they expect to win the WAR, hey????'

His grandmother was more into musicals, and American stuff. But that is for the next post.

Yup, you can learn a lot over many years, you share, there is history there, and it can be funny, in retrospect, even if a lot is tragic.

I never thought I would do this....

USA! USA! USA!

It's about the world cup in soccer, of course...... And they are the underdogs. So I liked them advancing into the next round in the World Cup. That is awesome.... Good on em.

And that Donovan guy is cute, and not some big-mouth. Cool.

There are days....

When you stop doing things.

With the additive, 'What's the use, hey...'

I am trying to do something and leave the least amount of hurt behind me.

I don't want people to think that it was because I didn't love them.

I don't want people to feel that I didn't love enough. I did, deeply.

And Someone is gonna say it was cowardly, and some will say it was stupid......

And to them I say: you don't know what you are talking about. Were you ever in a hole so deep and black, with no chance of getting out, you wanted to die?

Because that is where I am, and I have the means to DO it.

I have always made decisions in my life. Am not exactly stupid, but am not a genius. I got where I wanted to go. I did some 'awesome' things, and not so awesome. It was life.

But there comes a time... and you say, 'I'm taking up excess oxygen on the planet.'

I want to say... you have no idea what a black hole' IS.

You know how you go to parties? And it is 'polite' to leave before it is over?

That is how I feel right now, and it is time to leave the party.

It is not ABOUT all the other people. It's about your comfort zone.

I've gotten some scathing mails today. Annti broiled-roasted me. but she does it because she cares.

I had a heartbreaking discussion with a young lady, who was distraught and whom I love.

I cried, about some of it. shedding silent tears.

I don't mean to hurt people. Period.

Y'nkow.... Suicide in austria is sort of a national sport. Believe it, look up the statistics.

And the very one thing I noticed was that people didn't understand why, and it upset them.

So If I want to go... it wasn't because of you.

It is just time to leave, ok, and I get to make the choice.

I just have to make some arrangements, Peter is cared for, my work is done, my days are so empty I could scream.....

So Why hang around?

I just have some ends to tie up.

And what is left of me will be buried in a tiny town north of here. I want that, always have.

I promise to regale you with some funny stories about Peter's family before I go.

And when I do... I want you to throw the most awesome party ever given.

I am really gonna miss N.

This really doesn't need much commentary. Especially since I will be going to the anatomy dept. of the university, and donating myself to be dissected. Only a tiny bit remains, have been told. This picture says it all, and made me smile if grimly. (Just because I am terminally depressed doesn't mean I lost my sense of humour...)

Oh man.... I'm getting dislodged.... isn't that a kick in the pants, hey

This screaming HARPY was out in the courtyard, and I guess I have till September to get out of here.....
,
Ya know what? EVERYONE has a point where they just break. And that was it.

Y'know... where you just can't DO it anymore. I've never DONE anything untoward to ANYONE in my life... intentionally....

(Yeah, you can hurt people unintentionally, and it leave scars.)

And this fucking idjit is screaming into her cell phone, heard most of it. Ending with, 'Thank Gawd I got the security deposit.' It was 20,ooo Schillings, and that was lots of money back then.

Well, hells bells, hey. I always paid my rent, the fake accrued costs, have been a model of propriety.

I do not NEED that woman trying to break into my house.

She did, but I broke the lock some time ago, and had it changed, and didn't get a 'double'.

She's a piece of work.
It
And you know what? I am SO tired, so exhausted, I don't care any more.

I really do not.

So.... I have made a decision. Am about to leave the planet.

I have an Ablebensversicherug, a death insurance. A needle and something that will do the job. Not a drug. But nearly as good.

I will just fall asleep, my organs will shut down, and I will be gone.

It won't be tomorrow, have too much to square away first.

And I will be so NICE when Charlotte visits, which is only days away...

But I have decided, and it has been in the back of my head for a long time now.

Now will be the time.

I can't just DO this all over again.

In the course of my life, everything was a fight. Justice, things that I thought were important, and they were irrelevant. I never made a difference, as far as I can tell...

The fight has gone out of me completely.

But I tried, oh gawwd, how I tried to make a difference.

I am down on the ground, and I don't think I will get up ever.

All I CAN say is that I have loved.... deeply. Whether it was people far away, or people here... I loved, and cared, and they enriched me.

That was wonderful.

Makes no sense to hang around any longer....

Just don't get on my case about this.

I WILL be going, and soon.

Better you know now, and not have it come as a 'surprise'.

My days are so empty lately.... what's to hang around for?

Doesn't she have anything ELSE to do????

Gawwd...

OK, from the top... I pay my bills. It all goes automatically from the bank to the bloodsuckers. The bell just rang. Like three times in a row, and that can only mean 'La Puppe' was out there, and I am so not opening up.

She tried to unlock my door. With a key.

EXCEPT, my old one broke off in the lock, I had to pay for it to be fixed, and had to get a new one, and I didn't give her a double for the new one. So she is out in the courtyard, yelling. I really need this right now. Like: never....

Because... my place is a MESS.

Depression is something horrible. You can't begin to imagine.

She's on her Handy outside, screaming blue murder.

She may look like a doll, but the voice is horrible.

I hope she gets an aneurism.

Looks like I am in trouble again, just keeping myself TO myself....

From the little I heard.... oh yeah, am in trouble....

I don't NEED this crap.

I don't need 'anyone'.

Let's go to Battle of the Bands, hey, because that is one person I would love to destroy.

She is fucking amazing... for bad.

From what I heard... she's gonna get some sort of wrecking crew in to break down my door, and wreck all the rest I have.
Which isn't much...

I was ballistic.

But you know what? I don't care all that much any more. She should rot in Hell.

Au Weh!

Just two photos from last Friday's road trip. This car was outside the home in the parking lot, and it had a vanity plate, and I found it sort of funny. German speaking people do not say 'ouch'. They say 'Au (as in ow) Weh! (hurt). I think it belongs to someone who works there. I don't know, it struck me as being funny. The FF means whoever drives it is from Fürstenfeld, which is a long commute.... And they bought it at the Porsche dealer in Graz.





And that vineyard is growing fast across the way. It is so beautiful.






Peter has been in the 'au weh!' mode for several days. The weather changed, got cool, there is a lot of wind, which is abnormal, and causes phantom pain. He keeps having pain in the foot that was amputated, but feels the toes that are gone, and they hurt. And the rest of that leg keeps jerking, and he yells 'Au Weh!' So far, he hasn't gotten a med that stops it and has some sleepless nights. I know that it isn't acting out, have read about it, so I know that is a real problem for him.

We're settling into a routine. Friday is visiting day. Routine is good. He focuses on that, and looks forward to it. I wheel him downtown, he gets an ice cream if he behaves, and we talk. The staff seems to think I'm sort of like clockwork, and that is good. They are friendly, and I can set them off laughing with my off-the-wall 'humour', even tho I don't feel like that inside.... not at all...

And can only report positive things about that facility.

Oh yeah, I can bitch and moan about getting down there. Last Friday we got stuck in Wildon. Something about the switches in the tracks again. And that train at that time is cutting it narrow. I had to run the 300 meters from the station to the main square to catch my bus, and it was critical, because there wouldn't BE any more till late afternoon.

Au weh!

There are glitches in any system, but it turned out ok..... this time.... and if I bitch about schedules and things.... well, every trip is an adventure, I pay, and I expect to get to where I wanna go, golrammit...

Mostly I do.

So I go down there again, the day after tomorrow.

(Yeah, just a sucker for punishment...)

I got a post-card yesterday. Günther and Dorle did a cruise up to the North Polar cap, saw fjords, must've been awesome. They returned Monday nite and she got caught up on events here, and I was green with envy because I always wanted to take that trip. She revealed that her father-in-law would like to take all of Peter's stuff out into the drive-way from the garage and make a bon-fire out of it.

This did NOT surprise me. He is a hard, and unconciliatory man, to put it mildly, and I think he did his son a mess of harm. And continued on with his wife, and his grandchildren.

But the card was a weird choice. From Iceland. Sulfer geysers, hey. It's beautiful, but not what I would have expected.... It's like getting a subliminal message. Sulfer stinks like rotten eggs. Sulfer is what you hear about Hell being like. She said on the phone that it was horrible, and I wouldn't have booked THAT tour for anything. Who the hell thinks things like that up.... going to that smell?

So yeah, it was sort of an uncomfortable thing to get.

I don't know if it was a concious decision.

And someone across the way, an African, keeps playing something where someone is crying, 'rock bottom!'

It is getting pretty annoying.

Au weh!

I got into a discussion on another blog.....

I know, I know, it's a re-post from three years ago. It was about the World Cup. I am not so crazy about sports, and was going on about how I find it too nationalistic. But I said the Olympics were better somehow, and there wasn't such craziness attached to it. I was there in 1972. In the Village, working... Nothing is ever what it seems in the media, you know? I rarely tell anyone about what I saw when that ended, and will not here.

However.... it was still a long way from the fanatacism that developed afterward. Obama's people owe me a quarter for every time they used my rhetoric, or I will get Tony Hayward to shake him down... as revenge....

Change

You know... we all get SO FUCKING bent out of shape about terrorism, since 2001. Turn on any sort of media since then, and boy howdy, aren't they painting the canvas to make everyone so frightened you end up having to put your undies on the cold wash SOAK program to get the skid marks out before doing the regular cycle, right? And before anyone wants to take a hit on me for not knowing what I'm talking about, being long gone from NH---on that day? The husband of a very close cousin of mine was near the WTC, and another in the Pentagon. So yeah, I came home from work, it being afternoon here, and for no reason at all turned on the teevee, which I usually do not do, and thought: WTF stupid horror film is THIS? It took minutes to realise it was real. And it took hours to get through trans-atlantic per telephone and ascertain that MY family was ok, and they were---how fucking selfish.

No, this is not yet another my-god-how-horrible-it-was piece. Done to death. It's in our collective consciousness.

But life is sorta perverse, as we all know. I happened to be working at the Olympic Village in Munich in 1972. In the cafeteria where the athletes ate. 1400 university students from all over the world. That hit was the granddaddy of terrorism, if not so 'grandiös' and massivly deadly. In that whole clusterfuck I ended up standing on a balcony watching nice, engaging people being herded, tied up like cattle, into helicopters by masked men, and later heard them being blown up via the radio at work. It was a long time ago, we didn't have instant teevee and helicopters filming, AND NO. I would NOT have wanted to have seen it, looking back. What I saw was ENOUGH, thenk you... It wasn't like it was a choice or something. Which is the point of this. You don't get asked.

I'd seen them all summer. They engaged people in the most wonderful dialogues , and were exceptional.

I've probably never gotten over it, not really, but in my repressive stage, I wrote this about what went before, engaging and establishing dialogue with so many people from all over the world. Unlike so many people, who tend to be insular, when I first came here, I always wanted to be a good ambassador....

Sometimes I think I failed....

My first reaction, and it took me years to deal with, was 'Change'. It dealt with the Other part of that wonderful summer and the hope. Which got crushed.



You could be anywhere, and get blown up. There were terrorists being looked for where I worked when I first came here to Austria for good. I missed a bomb at a train station in Italy once. By one day. AND a devastating earthquake in the south of that country. But you go on, hey. And you know what? You just have to fucking DEAL with it. You don't need the gubmint to make the rules. And it never occurred to me to be SCARED all the time. Y'all have something that USED to be called a Constitution. Gonna sit on your ass and be 'skeered'? Well be my guest. Am not gonna join you on the bench in the waiting room, hey.


So this is about the good stuff, and the anger I felt that the world wasn't what I wanted it to be when I was 23 years old and naive: And the saddest part? It was more than thirty-five years ago, and not much changed. Depressing. The stick pins referred to were lapel buttons, and were something everyone was eager to collect...

"What reverence is rightly paid to a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom he made perform the acts of God?"
W. H. Auden (Friday's Child)

AND EVERYONE CRYING 'CHANGE!'



In the narrow corridor

Between Forum and Chapel

The atheletes are milling about.

It's an open Bazaar

Where the West meets the East.

(or is it perhaps

a miniature Big Apple??)

The reporters write for the evening news,

That here is a love feast

Where humanity is spoken

But to me it is Babel:

And behind their smiles

I see thirty-two tooth salutes of contempt..

They trade national tokens

When their training is over

And the August sun is on the wane.

And everyone's crying 'Change!



Some of their stick-pins are, of course

More in demand---

Depending on reknown and supply-

(For who wants a Poland

When one can acquire

A token of Russia---

or Japan, by and by?)

The Olympic ideal does not exclude

the desire for personal prestige and fame.

And so here the capitalist ethic reigns,

And everyone's crying 'Change!'



Most stay in their groups;

They're like gaggles of geese

And they casually size up their opponents.

The Belgians won't speak with the Germans,

And the French look down with noblesse oblige

On the rest of this city's components.

And the Indians are wary of the Pakistanis.

The Nigerians hate the Rhodesians....

Still, they are anxious to trade

So they swallow

Their pride and political allegiance.

The friendliest are from the smallest countries;

From barely visible dots on the atlas.

They compete with the best and have no face to lose.

And their names tie the tongue, are exceedingly strange...

And EVERYONE'S crying 'Change!'



And we watch them, amused....

We foreign 'guest workers'

Try not to compete, but try

To understand what we're all about,

To conquer the predjudices

Our leaders have taught us

And try to discover their lies.



(We find sinister reasons for political deeds.

Can most of them be really due

To something so mundane as greed?)

We grow national guilts for the actions of others,

Attempt to solve problems,

And the grounds our talks cover

Range from politics to jokes,

to religion and pollution.....

And we can only agree that our world is insane.

And everyone's crying 'Change'



CHANGE cry disillusioned Americans

as George Meany offers millions to dump George McGovern.



Change! cry the Irish

who are weary of blood-shed, still demand to be self-governed.



Change! cry Rhodesia's majority blacks,

while their whites promenade and acknowledge no guilt.



Change! cry the Greeks

who have lost their Democracy,

and blame the American military bloc.



Change! cry the people of the Middle East

While the world sits in judgement

To the ticking of a nuclear clock.



Change! cry the people trapped in the suburbs,

in anonymous houses, sleazily built.



Change! cry defenders of the Earth's environment,

while in factory accidents, their neighbors are killed.



Change! cry the starving and the world's minorities,

who live on hate, while others grow fat.



Change! cry the young, as they champ at the bit,

while the Establishment sees they're held back.



Change! cry the conservatives who want power and control,

and tremble at thought of a reverse in the order of things.



Change! cry the liberals who shout out for justice

So all have a chance to grasp the brass ring.

Yes!, they shout, Change!



On the day of departure

the action is frenzied,

and the shouting reaches fever pitch,

trading sneakers and track suits,

And their laughter and smiles

no longer seem stretched,

are real, and their owners fit.

Competition is over,

and now they are grinning,

no longer concerned

with who will be winning.

Koreans wear Russian warm-up pants;

Belgians wear French warm-up jackets.



We smile and fight down the urge to gloat,

For we long know what they're finding out,

Have the experience and memories to back it.



The September wind blows yesterday's news

Through the passage-way. Then it rains.

And the athletes take refuge in the Chapel's pews

To a dying last echo of 'Change'



Change! For the world is shrinking fast,

On yourself you can no longer rely.



Change! And drop tribal habits at last....

Or like the dinasaurs.... We WILL die...

Whelp.... looks like we haven't, doesn't it....

Just to be clear on this: I have never eaten poo-poo

I hadn't checked in on Jesus' General's site for a while now... been more busy than I cared to be. He always has outrageous things to show his followers. And he showed me a clip from Afrika. Uganda, to be exact. I was just shaken, I tell you, shaken.... And after over decades, I seem to have missed some things that would make me nauseous. But feel somehow left out. I GOT a lot of verbal BS in my day, but I never had anyone who wanted me to eat their poo-poo. Thank whomever. Wouldn't have done it.... evah.

Nor did anyone ever try to insert their entire hand into my lower intestine, and work their way in up to their elbow. Therefore, according to this illogic, I can't be a 'homosexualist'.

Well hallelujah, I'm SAVED!!!! I'm so glad, am nearly cheerful, hey....

But did get concerned thinking about our late, great (sometimes grouchy) chancellor Bruno Kreisky. He incensed Parliament by coining the phrase 'lower intestinal acrobats'. So long ago, and I must have been naive. I thought he meant people who flatter, then stab you in the back. Am so not kidding.

Now I am beginning to wonder....

Ok, The General's site is satire, and can be very funny. The remarks above are satirically meant. The clip is mind-blowing, not safe for work, and don't click if minors are looking at your pc over your shoulder. Talk about inciting the villagers into pitch-fork and torch mode. (shakes head in wonderment....) Am not denying that that stuff happens, but to imply everyone does it... is sorta sick.

And still I had to laugh, somehow.

Some people have fun ideas....

This made me smile....

Hokay, am not the world's best optimist....

I spent the afternoon watching the second half of the fifth seasson of Desperate Housewives. These barstards split them in two, and you end up paying. So I waited for the second, till the price dropped, because I can't affort that bullshit any more.

As per usual... the first half was intriguing.... the twists and turns in the plot were surprising, and satisfactory..... but the end was surprising, and totally on target.

So no, it wasn't my favorite season. It zoomed ahead five years, which was irritating at first. It was unexpected.

Yup, I luv this series. But they have gone WAY beyond what I used to know. And still remain in the parameters of what life is like there.

The bells are ringing seven p.m. Maybe one day, I will pay attention to them. I do not LIKE that, used to think it was 'charming',,,,,

oh... The World Cup in soccer....

This is like a month-long Superbowl. You will not believe how much passion goes into the fans. Have never paid all that much attention to it. However.....

Am just off the phone with Peter. This stuff is so nationalistic, you could barf. It is NOT like the Olympics.

Yesterday I was in Gamlitz, and went out for a snigarette, and Frau Lübbe was nearly hysterical, because the Germans didn't win their game in the first round. 'Oh, the poor Germans!' And I thought, WHAA????? And said I was GLAD they didn't win. She was shocked. Asked me why. And I said, 'Listen, they've always got a big mouf, they are arrogant, insulting, and I don't like them because they think they are better than everyone else.'

'I would only root for the Austrians.'

'WE DIDN'T make it in to the finals!' (sob, sob....)

And we got into the US team, and she wanted to know if they would beat Slovenia.

'You aren't rooting for the US?'

I shrugged, and said, I have no preference, the best should win, although I do like underdogs....

This fascinated the oldies in the lobby.

'I do not like arrogance.'

Well, the US did get a tie against Slovenia, and of course it was supposedly a bad call by a judge on the field that prevented the 'winning' goal......

So they are still in the game despite that.

What BOTHERS me is the nationalistic aspect.

Have never been 'into' soccer. It's like baseball. I have TRIED and tried to explain baseball to Europeans. Their eyes glaze over, I swear. Or try to have someone exactly explain what the rules of cricket are.... some of you have expereienced that one, but it was in the Hofbräuhaus in Munich, and I didn't really get it....

Whatever.... every four years, the World Cup happens, sort of like a Harry Potter sort of 'happening', and it gets sort of creepy.

(I have a brain fart on the sport he was into.)

But I had an interesting conversation with Peter just now about this. Since his nursing home is near the Slovenian border, there is one nurse from there whom I do not especially like. We got off on the wrong foot. She is one of those long tall blondes with dead brown eyes who turn me completely off immediately.

Bad chemistry between us.

And this is where it gets 'interesting'.....

Peter told me she was over the moon because the Serbians had won over the Germans, although I think it was a tie.

W'hich got us into a discussion about the nationalistic stuff.

And validated a lot of what I have said over the years.

She's Slovenian. She backed the Serbs. The Serbs 'ruled' Yugoslavia for decades. They had all the top positions. The nationals like her people and the Croats, and the Montenegrans and the others never had a say in what direction the nation should go. And there was war, and they separated into separate states, and on the surface, it looks ok....

Well, to quote my bio-Mom, 'LET MR TELL YOU ONE THING!'... This stuff is impossible.

People do not forgive, over generations.

And it is absolutely STUPID to expect that.

Case in point: had a tour group in the ho-tel, and liked the guide from the UK... and she liked me.... And one evening she asked me to meet a 'Lady'. And I thought, 'Kay, will meet someone nice...' The guide gave me a glowing review, and she was 'gracious' and asked me were I was from. When I told her, her eyes blazed with more anger than I have ever seen, and she spat out: 'Ya damned YANKEE!'

I excused myself, and said I was sorry, but it was an accident of birth... and got the hell out.

So 'maybe' you can understand my being uncomfortable with all this stuff. It isn't about the sport, and yeah, in 'Murka it gets into rivalry, and so on. I just do not like the nationalistic crap that comes out of it here...

To end on a 'fun' note: The Venerable confessed he tried to play that game once in Lowell, MA. He tried a head pass, and it hurt so bad, he relegated himself to other postitions. I suppose that he didn't KNOW that only cement blockheads can do that. And Rachel Maddow told Olberman she had got knocked out the first time at ten years old, doing a head-pass. Whereupon he asked, 'Ummm... the FIRST time?' She said she would save the rest so he would keep her on....

That was funny.

Rachel Maddow for President!!!!

She 're-imagined' the Oval Office speech as she thinks it should have been done. It was a tour de force, and was right on target as to what I had been thinking below. Am glad I found the clip this a.m.

And yeah, I know, that isn't Obama's style, but was what lots of people seemingly had wanted to hear. In retrospect, he did get an unprecedented amount of money from BP the next day, and gets some of my respect back. But his MO sort of mystifies me.... Everyone gets all six years old, hollers and screams 'Gimme! NOW!' and get all hostile, thinking he is too detached, and before you know it... he gets results. That is sort of unusal, and not what people are used to, you know?

That is not to say I don't have issues with that style. But whatever, I really liked the 'reimagined' version that Rachel gave. It's well worth listening to.

Oh wow....

What is it about the news today. Southwest Airlines found a suspicious box for cargo, and there were 'forty to sixty' human heads in it. My creep-out of the week. They were destined for a research lab, and got detained in Arkansas. Just bizarre....

Color me spitless!

The (formerly) 'honourable' representative congressman Joe Barton of Texas gave the most heinous remarks I have EVER heard at a congressional hearing which the BP's CEO's attended yesterday. You can see this whore on the first segment of 'Countdown' last night HERE.

This is NOT the sort of news I like to wake up to. I went literally slack-jawed in disbelief, and then my jaw hit the floor. Apologising to BP, and then accusing Obama of running a 'shake-down' on them? Say WHAAA? And going all 'woe is me' on how corporations are being treated???

Bonehead Boehner made him retract his apology, and apologise for having apologised.

Preciousses, those people are so messed up it defies description....

From sea

to shining sea.... will have to be changed to sheening sea. How is that, Alabama? Still wanna advertise 'Come on down?' Mensch!

I don't know where Joe Jervis finds all these things...

but he always amazes me.

All right, this is what I said weeks ago...

There is a REASON that England banned the use of the dispersements BP is using in the Gulf. They are bloody toxic. And yesterday, Keith Olberman had a very good report on what I meant at the time. You can watch it HERE.

Y'know... I'm not some sort of Cassandra here predicting dire things. But I have more than a healthy scepticism of what these fucking arseholes at BP and yes, the US government are NOT doing.

You people in the Northeast can watch in horror, but you know what? These corporate suits have no soul. They make messes, but no one pays, hey, you gottabe kidding. They literally kill for profits, but it isn't traceable.

I was on the receiving end once.... I woke up, turned on the radio, which I normally never listen to... and the voices were panicked, 'Don't open the windows'. 'Don't let your children outside.' 'Don't go out unless you absolutely have to.'

It was the shock of my life, hey.... I grew up in a threat of nuclear attack, hey, and all I got was, 'hide under the desk and kiss your ass goodbye.' Terrific message. But it was REAL that time.

And I went to the market downtown, and the health department was pulling stuff off so fast it made your head spin. First harvest stuff. You don't forget stuff like that, it is shocking, and all you can feel is HELPLESS.

People were in supermarkets, scratching their heads wondering what to stock up on in the frozen foods section. In Germany, women were socking it out to get banannas. That is the difference..

It was a confusing time, in other words, and the aftermath of Tschernobyl.

Yeah, I know... 'happened a long time ago'... uh-huh. For me it was like yesterday....

Well, Preciousses, let me tell you one thing: We have stuff that will be poisonous in some places for over the next three hundred years. Well, Yeah! Progess and Profits, hey! Bring out the band for poisonous mushrooms.

For instance. Bring out the band for dandelions that grow knee-high, just bring it on.

And THAT... is what is going to happen now, over there. Only it will be LOTS worse.

I am not a scientist. But I have seen things that I would wish no one would ever have to see in their lives.

And BP is going to kill millions of people with their poison. Am convinced. No one will ever be able to eat anything that is alive still in the Gulf without dying from them.

Am not being a drama queen here... this crisis is the worst I have ever seen, and the CEO's, well I wish they would meet the fate of what they did to well-poisoners in the Middle Ages.

And they just have to STOP with the dispersants. They already ruined one third of the country with their ineffectual shit, and when it comes to Obama. Oh boy, the most disappointing Presidink ever. Is he trying to out-do Boosh? Banging head on keyboard....

omg, omg, omg.....

As if it weren't bad enough having to bus over to Peter's to turn in his keys, at a time when they are already overcrowded with school kids, it's been friggin pouring rain in sheets. And at least the transfer going there was prompt enough, but it was a hassle.

I got there on time, and the movers were already waiting outside. So I had to explain who I was, 'a work colleague over many years...' (eeeewww...) And asked whom I was supposed to turn over the keys to.

The answer nearly knocked me on my ass: 'The Bailiff'. (In German it is 'Gerichtsvollzieher', had to look up the English term in a dictionary, but I knew what it meant...)

Oh cripes, I thought, I don't wanna mess with 'da lawz', no indeed....

I opened the apt, for them, dashed to open the patio doors and the windows, because it smelled completely vile. Just in time for 'The Bailiff' to arrive and ask me who the fuck hell I am.... I handed over all of the keys, and asked him if I were allowed to check Peter's post box one last time. (May I, not can I... manners mean a lot, so thanks Mom, wherever you are...)

Ominous things in there. Had to give him my full name, and it is always hilarious to me that they get confused, and I have to spell my family name. It is actually simple, but it stymies them as I would only be if it's a long polish one with nearly no consonants, and lots of sz's in it.

'Funny' things occurred, of the kind that only I can find amusing. Like being asked if I were going to take his wheelchair to him. Which earned him one of my infamous 'looks'. That thing is so messed up with bodily waste, the only solution is to burn it. When I caught my breath, I said, 'errm, no, he has one in the nursing home, and you are kidding me, right?'

Herr Lobwein on the other side of the hall came out, and his dog Rocco nearly attacked one of the movers, and Herr L., who is very choleric, attacked the guy verbally. The mover was visibly shaken, said the guy was insane, and had a pit bull. Which Rocco is not. And I said, 'Oh, you want to make a wide circle around them, especially Rocco.' This did not earn a grim smile.

Well, by then, my duty was done, and I wanted only to get out of there. And The Bailiff suddenly blocked my exit. 'What are you taking out of here?' he demanded to know. And I said... 'Umm... a breakfast sandwich that I lost my appetite for and Peter's post which you ALLOWED me to take.' Whereupon he actually blushed, and said, 'Excuse me, sorry.' And I said, 'That's ok, I understand.'

See, manners are miracle worker rules for not getting into trouble. And I DO understand. He's got no easy job, hey.

Leaving, two of the movers were complaining about the stench from the bed and wheelchair. And one of them said, 'Well, we're just going to have to clench our teeth and get through this.' At which point, I wished I were dead.

And I said, 'I'm so sorry, guys, that all happened just before his second heart attack, and he got diahrrea, and often couldn't make it to the WC. And that is one of the few things I couldn't deal with, cleaning it up.'

And you know what? THEY attacked ME. 'Hey! He couldn't help himself! He was so poorly off, and obviously helpless.' Well, make my day, why don'tcha.

But it is a nice trait that they would say that. Shows solidarity with poor people. Didn't mind taking that hit, to tell the truth...

So I got my last ride on the 34E to Jaki, the rain was pouring down, and had a ten minute wait for my transfer, and was not gonna get drenched, because even an umbrella is no protection in that sort of rain. So I did the unthinkable, and ducked into MacD's, and got a take out bacon and egg McMuffin. Which left me only two minutes to wait. And came home.

So... why the omg's up in the title? One sentence from The Bailiff: 'Where's the other stuff? He had help.' And THAT is when I got this sinking feeling I only experienced on the express elevator in the Empire State Building, going down. And that was only a rhetorical question to himself, not to me.

THAT is when the omg's hit. 'What hasn't he told me? As usual? What kind of trouble ahead, golramit? How could I trust him, and drag in my friends without an inkling that it might hurt them? Why does he DO this shit?'

Well, I did call Gamlitz as soon as I was in the door, and gave him a vicious tongue-lashing, and told him to clear it up, like yesterday, or I am NOT going to lift a finger for him ever again. Am just beyond angry, at the moment.

Yup, just another fine mess he's gotten us into, seemingly. And I want absolutely nothing to do with 'da lawz' here... Sheesh.

All I got was 'Thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh-HUH. That really doesn't cut it....