Yesterday....

was my Gamlitz day... The town is in competition for the best floral stuff in the county. People take on godparenting skills for every box or container of flowers, and it is a matter of 'honour' to get the prize of the most beautifully gardened village. Over the year, have seen them toiling away at all the boxes, and little enclosures, they really seem to go at it. Gamlitz won the prize last year, and they have a proud billboard put up at the edge of town along the bus route in. PR. I like that.... it is a community effort, and crosses party lines. 'The pumpkin and the sqashes are a bit odd, but they just had their 'Thanksgiving', celebrating the harvest. I am glad I know these things....


At the bus-stop, you could see the first dab of the paint brush, autumn is coming.... I do love autumn here. Mostly green and gold. But it is slow and stately. The ones turning now will be the first to go green again in Spring. Not like where I grew up, where it comes in a brilliant flash of color, lasts two weeks, and then you get 'broom season', as Peter's mother used to call it.... Both have their advantages....

And I would love to know what this plant is. Never seen it anywhere else, and 'think' it belongs to the clematis family..... Anyone know? It gets quite lush and full....

Yeah, sometimes I stop to smell the flowers, and the smell of the freshly cut grass before I trudge up to the nursing home. Lately, it isn't fun, because I never know what I'm gonna find there.




So ok, it wasn't as bad as last week, thank Whomever... But it wasn't good, either. He slept a lot of the time, so I read on the terrace. I went there 'armed and loaded', as 'crazy eyes' Michelle Bachmann puts it.... But it wasn't a gun. It was a photo album.

Depicting the Rise of the Mühlgasse, where we lived. And our first trips to Venice, mostly. And a cruise on a ship in the Med...

There was a strategy behind this. I've been hearing for months now that Peter can be really awful when he goes into one of his 'not gonna do it' modes. Insults staff, and so on. Really crazy stuff. So I told the staff, 'This is my 'sneakret weapon', and pull it out when he gets like that. Show him a few pictures, and I think he'll cooperate. And if all else fails, tell him I would want him to. I did have psychology as a major at university before I changed it to German, so I know a little...' Juliana said, 'Well, it's worth a try...'

And I said, 'And it can't HURT...'

Well... I HOPE not....

'It's too heavy.'

'Look, I'm gonna put it on the table here, and when you are awake enough, you can get in the chair, and wheel over, and look through it, ok?'

'You're not going to take it away?'

'Of course not. You've never seen much of it before. Look, here's Giselle at Christmas with you.'

'Have you spoken with her? How is she?'

Sinking elevator.... 'Ummm... Peter, she isn't 'with' us any more....'

He looked angered, slapped his forehead. 'Oh God, I FORGOT... of course.'

I ran into his 'sassy' nurse and dragged her away for a few minutes, and informed her of 'da plan'. She seemed to like the mix. 'Oh, you were some sort of hunk,' she told him. 'And a proud car owner!' She spotted one of me, and asked, 'Is that you?'

I said, 'Yeah, once...'

She said, 'You still ARE.'

'I'm not so sure...'

Cracked her up, she knows I play 'sarcastic'.

It wasn't a pleasant day. The weather was picture-book beautiful and warm and I would have loved getting him out of there and go for a wheel-chair ride along the brook, there is a path, but he was too weak and tired.

The drive down was 'odd' again. So much construction, and the train for Vienna had a defective Locomotive---again.... and had to go running to another platform at the last minute to get the train I needed.

Infrastructure.... at least they still DO that here.... (shaking finger...) but who knows for how long???? There is an immense amount of construction going on along the route. Which leads to apologies over disembodied loudspeakers saying 'Sorry for the inconvenience.' Hokay...

The 'sassy' nurse was interested in the tiny garden I planted. After ten years, it was thriving, and something was always blooming, and I loved it, it's probably in my genes. And there was this picture of the pastor's garden across the street from us, a huge one with an evangelical church on the corner. It was so beautiful, I was fully envious. The pastor was fairly old when we moved in. And he was always out there, tending to things.

Well, we were a half-flight up, and I could always sorta study what he was doing, so I began to learn when to do what in my garden. (And I learn fast... ) But Nature takes it's own good time...

The pastor got retired, and they got a woman pastor... and the first thing that bitch did was raze the garden. And want to turn it into a parking lot. At a city council meeting, that was denied and she was really ripped. And one day, by accident, I saw the former pastor come up the street and see what she had destroyed. I'll never forget the look on his face. That was a life's work. Sorry for the b word, but that was heartless.

That cut my heart.

Little did I know... I tended mine, and it thrived, wasn't spectacular, but it was my 'moment of Zen' after a hectic day in the ho-tel, and 'Da Quiet', hey. Was like having a symbiotic connection. I planted it all, they were my babies.... And one of the next-door neighbors used to love looking out the winder and seeing it all grow, she was very complimentary....

When I moved out... the neighbors destroyed everything I did. Ripped everything out, tore down trees I planted, it was vicious, and then I knew how badly the old pastor must have felt.

Now I know why that album was sitting on a shelf for over ten years, and never looked at it. Some things are like ripping scabs off a wound that hasn't healed completely.

But you know what? It's EXACTLY like what is going on in the world, and especially the US. You try to build up something positive, and as soon as you turn your back, someone is gonna wanna tear it down. Out of spite, greed, whatever, and THOSE people will not build anything better, but make it a dust heap, and stomp your heart.

I refuse to even walk by that house for more than a year now. I feel like the old pastor. And no, there was nothing I could do to stop it all.

But you can... vote.

Hmmm... whatever... (shrug)....

So... when I go down there... and see all the flowers and sense of 'community spirit'... that's very nice. Always with the bitter pill... 'how I would love to have planted that in my garden'. Thus the pictures...