THIS is why I spent the horridays under the bed.

As if Santa wasn't intimidating enough.. Sick sick sick.

Thanks to Annti, for enriching my already vivid nightmares. love her.

ewwwww.

And oh... the bells haven't rung since Thursday-... they usually are my alarm clock

Tradition says, the bells got sent to Rome. Really. So no bells, and the eveangelical protestants don't do them either in solidarity.

The bells will ring on sunday.

Meanwhile, urchins go around from house to house with noise makers in the villages, and have a little song and dance, and want their victims to pray, and they get candy, and a bit of mony. Probably to go away. I've never seen that, but seemingly, it's a custom.

And now I have to go close my winder, the wind is all wrong. It's the night of the bonfires, and people take all their garden stuff and burn them, and am still not sure what THAT signifies. But if the wind is wrong.. it sure isn't good for asthma patients. Tonight it is.

GAWWD, I hate the horridays.

The horridays are back....

'Good' Friday. hokay...

This morning, on the radio, there is this guy who goes around asking questions of people, and asked, the 'man' and 'woman' on the street, what Easter is about. You'd 'Think' that it was a non-brainer... the resurrection of Christ. Right? Wronnnng.

The answere went from, 'celebrating the beginning of Spring' to 'celebrating the crucifiction', to... well it doesn't matter... the easter bunny and eating chocolate does, and it's 'fambly'.

Makes me wonder about the quality of edumacation in Austria these days, it really does.

And it became unavoidable.. the whole day, blather about the Easter bunny, and Easter nests, and spend, spend, spend, because, y'know.. for those three days, about one billion Euros get spent. Scam.

In one sense, the one person was right... celebrating crucifiction... because 'good' Friday is a horriday in northern germany among the protestants. Go figure.

I assume it isn't any better there. For anyone who doesn't particularly believe in ANYTHING, it is irritating at least, and more than irritating at worst.

HOSWEVER: I finally found out what the significance of the Easter bunny is... yep.

Some progressie 'priest' was on the radio, saying that bunnies sleep with their eyes open, and are a symbol of being on watch, and defensive, and protective.

I didn't believe a word. It's a pagan thing with the rites of spring being celebrated. Such bullshit.

I nearly got thrown out of my guild over it today, joking around. After doing a lot of innuendo jokes about eggs, but marko started it. Because I said a lot of the uproar is just pagan ritual. Which is called 'falling into the barn with the door in your hand'. In german.

After bitching about people buying waaaay to much food, because after tomorrow, preciousses... everything closes. It's like Christmas, second most terrible horriday of the year.

I won't deed all the junk.. I want my bit of ham, my white bread with raisins, a couple of eggs, and some horseradish, and I will be incredibly happy with my meal. Even if it sounds perverse.

I've been dreaming of making a creole spinach salad for days, but they jacked the prices up so high... well it wasn't worth the effort. Even though it is spectacular.

Will the US become Michigan? You decide.

She's been really on this. And very well worth paying attention to. Facism at work there.

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Are there any question?

OH, NOT! A Cardinal is gonna ' take one for the team', whaddaya know?

Ok... from the top... was nearly finished and google ate it.

Once upon a time, in a tiny happy kingdom, there was a young man. And he loved his church. Sang like a veritable angel. But he fell in love with the 'wrong' person, who also happened to be a man, and that wasn't what his church sanctioned or condoned.

But the young man was 'in-love', and he married his partner in a civil ceremony anyway, which probably hurt him inside... because his church certainly wouldn't allow it.

Now, the young man lived according to the tenets of his beliefs, and he was very helpful indeed, and tended to the needy, sang like an angel in choir, and was very busy, even though the beliefs of his church were totally opposite to who he really was, imagine that.

And it came time to vote for members to sit on the parish board, and the young man was elected by a very large majority. Which surprised the rest of the kingdom, because in a village that tiny, one would have thought they would be totally against it.

Well, his church said, 'oh no, this won't do at all. It is wonderful that he is so accepted in his community, but he must withdraw and concede his nomination. The way he lives his life is against all our tenets.'

And a wondrous thing happened. People in the entire realm heard of the young man's story, and decided to give a loud voice in opposition to his being ousted after being overwhelmingly elected.

And the loudest voices of protests came from the young man's community, because they liked him so much.

Now, the über-head of this church was of old and ancient lineage, and things hadn't been going so well for his 'lambs'. Way too many scandals. And his church's idea of never marrying, and remaining chaste for a lifetime was very difficult to follow for his fellow priestly members. Which led to... shall we say, egregious acts against the naive and innocent?

And that had led to his followers officially leaving his faith and church in droves. For years, and it was bleeding dry. And of course, revenues dropped accordingly.

But the über-head... well, he took the Sunday before the most important religious holiday of his church to go on the tee-vee and radio to say he'd revised his decision. He'd invited the young man and his spouse to dine with him. (and if I'd been asked, I'd have made a wiiide circle around THAT meeting and not shown up...) And said, that after seeing them, he would certify the election of the young man, and thought he was very upstanding. Happy end.

Disclaimer: I never denigrate what people choose to believe. If that is what the young man wanted, and actually got? I guess that's ok... but from the outside looking in... I really have to question everyone's judgement in the whole story.

I got some recent stats here. The latest involved a private school up north, and kids were abused in all sorts of ways into the 90's. And oh yeah, there was this 'terrific' horrific report on how people in Bavaria in schools like that... went so far as to turn kids, and then have them castrated when they were 20 to stop them from being gay. It was in the Fifties. If I were that young man... I would watch my back.

As to the ueber-head.. he said, 'It's against all teachings, but I'll take it on my cap.' And.. 'Jesus woulnd't have turnred them away.' No, he wouldn't have. But he meant taking responsibility for his decision a wondrously rare thing in his field.. But he has to stop the bleeding, so he's 'taking it for the team.'

Tja.. fairy tales are so odd... I must've dreamed it. I wanna know when any respect for clowns flew out the winder.

After what Giorgio Moroder did to disco... Austria strikes again on a different level, and I don't know how Annti is gonna take it.

Going into redneck hillbilly rock... oh, preciousses... this has gone BIG here, always on the radio.

Well now we know for sure when life begins....

There was a radio programme about jewish humour on this morning. So the next time people go hammer and tongs at one another about when human life begins, you can defuse it.

A christian and a jewish man get into the question, and the christian says, 'everybody knows it begins at conception'. And the jewish man says, 'no, it's when a woman first feels a child moving inside her.' And they consult a rabbi to ask who is right.

And he says... 'human life begins when the children are grown and move out of the house.'

I loved it.

It was interesting by the way... but then again Freud maintained that people laugh over good jokes.... because they hurt on some level.