Hokay.... edumacation

This will be a sorta-kinda rant, so you may leave now.... door's in the back, don' t confuse it with the fire-exit, which is locked and against the fire laws, last I heard, but hey.... the people who own the building didn't subscribe to the fire department, so if you smoke and the place catches fire, they'll come over and watch us burn. Please refrain from smoking, ok? This won't take long...

Edumacation... hmmm... what's set me off, you'll ask. Well... hearing that some people in the occupy Wall Street movement have two degrees and still can't find jobs and are in debt... sometimes to the tune of over two hundred THOUSAND dollars. Let that sink in for a minute.

Up to two hundred THOUSAND dollars! That should qualify them for Something...

For a person my age.... it freaks me totally. I grew up believing that higher education was the only way out and maybe up. I wanted the 'out'.

And hearing that the current cost of going to Yale is 42 THOUSAND dollars a year knocked me off my seat, hey. Left me friggin' spitless. Who could AFFORD that nowadays, huh? Oh yeah, the 'elite'.

Reporters keep telling us that things began going down-hill socially thirty years ago. Nooooo... it was longer than that.

And it was ALWAYS about class. In 1968, I was a senior in high school. I went to my so-called guidance counserlor and said I wished to apply for a college. My SATS were very good, but my high school... oh lordy... the kids from the north end got the perks, and schmucks like me were just barely tolerated.

And this counselor guided his north-end kids into the best colleges in the nation. So what do you think I got?

He laughed in my face with an expression of derision on his stupid face I can't even describe. 'You? College? Forget it!'

Stupid irish git...

And I thought, 'You just wait...'

I just wasn't 'good' enough, because I didn't come from the right 'background'.

Well, the people from the right 'background' were sorta sleazy in their morals, Preciousses...

So I said, 'I'll show them, all right.'

I got put on a waiting list at UNH, and got accepted to a business college meanwhile, so I went there for a year. It was small and in the neighborhood, and looking back, really helped me for the rest of my life to know about bookkeeping, which is the driest, most horrible thing you could wish for.

I was working, it was affordable, but I had to work a LOT.

And my first semester, I made the 'dean's list'. And got mentioned in the dreaded Union Leader, the most despicable paper in the nation. Don't get me started, hey.

So, I re-applied to UNH, and wonder of wonders... I got 'accepted'. And the troubles began.

At the time, UNH was the most expensive state university in the country. The tuition for one semester was one thousand dollars. Just the tuition. At the time... in Austrian Schillings, that would have been three months pay for them. Twenty five thousand Schillings.

Just to make it clear.

So I went looking for help. A grant, a scholarship, whatever. And y'know what? Catch-22 Preciousses. The system was gamed from the get-go. 'Do you work?' 'Yes.' 'How much do you make a year?' Told em. 'Ohh, we're so sorry, you're not eligible.'

To make it clear, was in a suit and tie and short hair in 1969, but class 'tells' with such people.

And I thought, 'fine, what am I supposed to do now, starve for a year, and then they take pity on me, or something?' Was despondent.

My boss and ersatz-father Bernie took me aside, and said, 'Son, you need a loan... I will help you with your first one, that you get it. But it will be the most important thing in your life to establish good credit, and pay it back in time, so that you can get another. You'll need a second job to swing this. There is a janitor job open for one of the small cinemas, and it pays well... would you take it?' Would I? I'd have done anything...

So we went to the bank next door, and he co-signed my first loan.. I would NEVER have asked my parents to do that, and they wouldn't have, am pretty sure even now... and I was off and running. Oh, right, now I remember... I did ask, and they wouldn't have co-signed because... they'd just co-signed one for my brother to buy a car, right. Goood all ballsy 'Murka. He was 'solid', I was the 'dreamer'.

That loan only covered the cost of having the 'privilege' of attending. I don't remember HOW, but I think it was through some of my co-workers with older brothers who were in the same predicament, and I landed in a car-pool to attend lectures. We all had to schedule our classes so that we could go out there and back, and work our jobs, and not waste time waiting for anyone else.

We had to drive over fifty minutes to campus, fifty minutes back, and I was still working 80 hour weeks, so it was fucking stressful.

Youth and resiliance is a wonderful thing. What did a day in the life back then look like?

Up at six, made toast, then rushing for my ride at 6:50. The long drive to Durham in a VW Beetle I love to this day. Except for the windshield wipers. When you needed them, they didn't wanna work. The first time they wimped out, I took the cord out of my anorak, cut it in two, and we opened the vent windows, and got synchronised, having tied them to the wipers and pulling them back and forth. Dave kept taking the car in to fix it, and it was fine.... worked so well in the sunshine, but hey... if it rained or snowed? Get out the cords. Otherwise the car was a gem.

Later he had a Mustang, and it was such a lemon.

So... Durham just before eight, a run to the Mub, which was the student cafeteria, and then RUN with a huge cuppa to class with the sand not even rubbed outta my eyes.

Classes until two or so... and we met in the Mub.. and drove home... sorta in a daze.

And sometimes I slept. Then it was off to my normal work, and when the cinemas closed, I was up in the smallest one, cleaning up the mess the audience made with my vacuum cleaner and cleaning toilets till about one a.m. And ran home to sleep for four hours if the new cop on the beat didn't fuck up my routine because he didn't know me.... On the weekends, I was at work from 8 a.m. till nearly midnight. I didn't know the meaning of sleep. Studied in the car.

So you can forget all the college films about partying... I think the only thing we did that was out of the ordinary was to go to a neighboring town one day and see the otherwise banned swedish film 'I Am Curious Yellow'. I fell asleep. I think I remember two blonde people copulating on a stone fence in front of a villa, but I wouldn't swear to it...

Now at the time there was the Viet Nam war. And the draft issue. Those things never entered my mind. I was thirsting for knowledge, and a better life. I soon learned that full-idjits who had straw for brains got passed so they would be exempt. I had to WORK for my marks.

I was glad when they changed it to a lottery thing... they drew dates of birth out of a drum, and the number ones would be the first to go. Mine was very high, so there was little chance of being drafted to a war I thought was wrong. if it had been low, I would have acquiesced... not knowing that so many people in later generations got exemptions because their families were rich. Those things always have a way of being 'fixed' somehow.

After my second year, I got into a summer program for German... had changed my major from psych to that... because the psych dept. was not into what I liked at all. And German fascinated me... just from the structure and logic of the language.

So I paid yet another large tuition, having gotten a leave of abscence assent from my boss, who was the most generous man I have ever met... and got to the school only to find that I was also supposed to pay for room and board... way beyond my means.

And I thought, 'Oh gawwd, this is a nightmare...' Said I was sorry, but I didn't have the funds for it. Did they make me work for it? Uh-uh.. There was a short consultation, and Jürgen said... 'We have good news. The German government will give you a grant, you can stay.' As if it were the most normal thing in the wurrld, hey. That that was POSSIBLE...

And it was the best summer of my life. I was finally a uni student, in a dorm, and with new-made friends, and all the fun and craziness that entails, and learned what I had been missing. Because I was poor.

And still finished two semesters of intermediate German in eight weeks and got a citation as best of class at the end. And a recommendation to go to Munich to work the following summer if I wanted to do the jr. year abroad programme in Salzburg.

Which brought up the next dilemma. HOW to afford a whole year in Salzburg, even if I did find a job in Munich the summer before?

Well back then, there was something relatively new.. a government loan, hey.... low interest...

As I'd proven four times that I was a credible client, paying back one thousand dollars pro semester to get the money for the next one.... it was easy. Got it. It would be two large payments, at the beginning of the Fall Semester, and another before the second. I was all set.

I found a place and paid a year's rent in advance to the people I rented from in June. Was conscientious and didn't splurge.

But then a strange thing happened. Nixon devaluated the dollar two weeks before my second check arrived, so I only got half the value. Can we say, 'screwed over?' I had to drop out of classes and work waiting tables, and was glad to get even that. My boss was the drunk Tartar From HELL.

And my boss had to bail me out for the money to get an airline ticket home. Gawwd love him. The minute I was back and I saw him, I said, 'You KNOW you're going to get your money back asap.' And he always had this sphynx smile, and said... 'I know. Don't worry about it.'

So I sorta missed out on the edumacation part of the second semester, but got one of another sort entirely.

And there were rumblings and a new spirit was in the land.... to put it in biblical terms...

The powers that be... whoever they are... decided that if you were in high school, two years of a foreign language would no longer be a requirement to go to college.

(Huh... and I thought I'd be a teacher...)

And the bottom dropped out of the job market, and I knew people with Masters degrees who were washing dishes in restaurants just to get by, because, you know... no red-blooded 'Murkin would EVAH want to learn to speak 'ferner'..

And I began that fourth year, and had a horrendous run-in with the head of my dept. I'd spent three hours with him the Christmas before when he visited us... alone. And gave him fifteen pieces of my mind about how ill-conceived it was, and that Salzburg was not the setting to put such a programme. And he did not like me for it. (I heard they later moved it. So I was right.)

It was the second week of going with a new car pool and new debt. My dept. head was hostile. And I thought, 'Y'know what, B? This is self-defeating. Pay off your debts, and wait to see what happens', so I thought it would be a hiatus to re-coup my assets... the ones I no longer had.

I had no idea how much worse things would become.

So I re-paid all my debt in less than a year, which was good. And things became worse in the job market, which was bad... And that was the end of my 'edumacation'.

No one I know from my class back then ever became a teacher... which says a lot.

On my home front, things went from bad to worse, and I finally said, 'ok, am outta here... debt free, have a bit of money... I'm getting OUT.

Compared to these Occupy people today... I can count my blessings that I had it EASY. The banks weren't the completely soulless sharks they've become today. HOW are these poor young people going to ever find their way to land again?

Everything about all this is WRONG, and pepper spraying those 'lazy' students like cockroaches when they protest tuition going up AGAIN? It just doesn't add up to me....

So what did I learn in my edumacation? I learned to think critically, read analytically, and a language. Not much bang for the buck. And that the privileged always get the free rides and a golden ticket to a job they aren't suited for, and that vitaman C (connections) wins out every single time. Not what is in someone's head. Or their potential.

And ya haveta think... this was nearly forty years ago.

The way it is now horrifies me.

The difference here? There is no tuition unless you aren't Austrian, and then it it pitifully low. They did introduce one for locals for a while, but the outrage was so ginormous, they rescinded it. Of course there are costs for boarding, and so on. But they aren't nearly NEARLY so prohibitive. I inscribed one semester at the beginning, hoping to finish my BA. It was really inexpensive. But there was a problem. I had swing shifts, and would have missed half the lectures, and soon learned it was a losing battle. Besides which, who would have wanted an American-born German teacher?

Reality BITES....

I had some enormously impressive teachers here, and attended some lectures that left me spitless.. My all-time favourite was my friend G dragging me to his anatomy class. He was just starting out, and the professor was so demanding, they feared him. But the guy was a first-class showman. He'd bring in his 'presents' for show and tell... covered with a towel in a porcelain tray....

Once it was an arm minus the epidermis. 'Don't let this disappoint you. With a living arm, it's much rosier, and juicier.' Another it was the arm-bone attached to the shoulder bone, and he demonstrated how it can become dislocated... gutwrenchingly true-to life. And the students got to study the raised nodules on the upper arm bone, which all have names... really.

He was dramatic... but fucking effective.

G. tried to scare me. He said, 'Oh, we have to go down here.' Into a cellar. I said, 'Hokay'. And it was the dissection room, lots of live corpses, some with or without the epidermis. And all these students working on them, studying.

G. was certain I would faint or something. I don't think anyone could have disappointed him more. I said, 'OH! It's like 'the visible man', we used to have these models where yóu could see all the muscles, and the veins and arteries and the nerves... it's sorta coool. So this is where you study?'

Left him speechless.

Things like that are an education. No one needs to spend 42000 dollars a year for some asshat to fill their heads with junk they aren't ever going to be able to use.... or hardly.

You can leave the room now. Done.

WOW, Hillary....!!!

I choked on my fish... talk about unexpected and out there in your face liberal. Kudos.

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It's taken me four days to breathe in deeply and it doesn't hurt...

Which is why I went silent. And it was due to pure LUST....

Lust is a terrible terrible thing. Look where it got Herman Cain, but, mine was sorta kinda harmless.

I love eggs. I do, and they were never a problem. Up until about eight years ago. And there was to be a christmas party, but I knew we were gonna have to wait for ages till we got to a restaurant and was hungry, and made a big plate of scrambled eggs. And never got there. My sinuses closed, I could hardly breathe... I'd become algerisch (algerian) which is an old joke between Peter and I because of a Mrs. Malaprop who'd wanted him to close a window in the hospital when his mom was dying, and said she was algerian to drafts. But meant allergic, of course.

So since then, I've been 'good'. I avoid them as much as possible... and not missing a soft-boiled egg at breakfast took a while. Of course I tested this theory of mine, but an egg? Bring on a respirator, hey.

On Nov. 30th, I was in the supermarket, and they had something new. And inexpensive, which is my criteria to buy something to eat for the day where I normally have NO appetite. Quiche Lorraine... oooooo...

Now if I had been thinking normally... anything named after my bio-mom should have set off alarums and bells, and sirens and whistles. 'Toxic'.

But I had a LUST for one. Whithout thinking about what was in it and I have made a few in my time. 20 minutes in the oven, and done.

I took a few fork-fulls and had a taste-bud orgasm. And reality hit me... 'good gawwd there's lots of egg in this.' Of course there was, that's the main ingredient.

And I thought with my fork paused in the air... 'Hokay.. you should stop right now!'

And the debbil was on my shoulder saying, 'You want it, it's delicious, and you never throw food away. Eat.'

And in Austria, there's a saying that 'einmal ist keinmal'. Once is never. (shrug) It's used to excuse all sorts of behaviour. So I ate the whoooollle thing. And loved it. I just expected some discomfort, you know?

Ya think!

That was certifiably DUMB. I didn't figure in the asthma component.

In the afternoon, was uncomfortable, but it didn't worry me... went to bed fairly early in the evening as I'd been up since like about three-thirty a.m. And woke up about three in the morning with a shock... For over fifteen seconds, I could not breathe in. I really thought, 'this is it, I'm gonna die, here...' It was like paralysis. And then something loosened, and I took in air.

We all never think about breathing... y'know? When it becomes a conscious act, it's sorta radical.

From then until today, it was 'da pits'. I couldn't even draw in half a lungful without it hurting. Felt like someone was wringing out my lungs. So it's taken days, and now I can take in a deep breath without feeling someone is strangling me.

Which is nice.

In other words, I inadverdantly poisoned myself. With a pie named after my biological mother, but in reality after a province in France.

There's irony for you...

The following days, was only up in fits and starts.

And my birthday was in there, but slept through most of it. I got my e-mail, and laconically answered some things on Facebook, where I never usually go. And opened my card from my best friend, and she made me cry... but not the bad sort of crying. I've never been so moved.

For a while, I was afraid to sleep, and only did so days... as if a bit of light was a difference in making you feel safe... and up most nights... trying to wait for it all to subside. And distracted myself with my online game, and some people from the guild were totally nice, and one in particular helped me with a problem I'd been unable to solve, and advanced some in it. And chatted, and laughed... anything not to think about how I was feeling, which was like spit-up apple sauce a baby suddenly didn't like.

One in the guild... I think he's a student and lives with his parents still, but loves to auto-group me, and we talk privately... was gone over that time, and when I came on today, he said, 'Hey, wasn't your birthday on the 2nd? I hope it was good.' And I'd only mentioned in passing, that I'd wanted to level up my Beschi (conjuror) for my birfday on Friday.' He remembered. If he is 'on', he's the first to greet me. And wants to go for a group activity. And then we do something boring in the game and 'talk'. I make him laugh a lot. We talk about all sorts of things, social issues, old movies, serial killer children (the bad seed), and he has a very astute mind and some good opinions of his own where I can say, 'Y'know what? I think you're right.' Whatever, when I went 'on' today, he was right there with HEY! And I wrote 'Hey, Kaede!' (I don't know what it stands for or even his name.) And as we were on the global chat tab, some asshole told me 'Lern deutsch!) 'Learn German'. Probably an aryan neonazi. And I was momentarily furious, normally everone is polite there, and sixteen terrible things I shouldn't say on-line came to my mind and wanted to go right into my fingers on the keyboard... till I turned Austrian...

'Ummmm shouldn't that be 'LernE Deutsch?' Kaede bust a gut, and said privately, 'Hey, don't go all Duden on him.' Duden is the official german language guide for correct grammar and a lot of other things. I said, 'Sorry, but sometimes I see things here that make me physically HURT.'

Today he signed off with 'bis später :)' Written out because I said seeing bs always makes me think for a split second it means bullshit. took me a moment to realise he'd gotten a chuckle out of it.

Whatever, despite all the discomfort and feeling like something the cat dragged in... some things made me smile, and am slowly feeling better.

And the next time you lust after something you know isn't good for you... calculate in ALL the variables, ok? Lust is a bitch.

New Orwellian things you will be hearing....

Frank Luntz is despicable.... brilliant, but despicable...

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Ed really can rant.... love him...

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a candidate for a Darwin award....

it's the last clip in this short part of Countdown. The guy is right... the 'hunter' would make a good buddy for Cheney.

Memorable.....

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/28/badseed.php

You want creepy little girls? In the stage version, she killed everyone and ends up just sitting calmly playing Au claire de la lune....

And it wasn't about adoption, turns out, it was the bad genes from the grandmother who was a serial murderess..... I'd forgotten.

Here.

Annti triggered something I'd forgotten.....

She sent me a horrible, but funny Xtian thing with a doll singing 'I'm a sunbeam'. Chucky's bride... But it was the 'sunbeam' that triggered the memory. Grew up with Sunbeam Bread, and little Miss Sunbeam was on the package. Now you can get a bread-box with the countenance of this little marvel right on your local Google search. Uh-huh... And I was SURE the Google search would come up empty. Who'd memorialise a local bread, hey?

But I never trusted her.... because... in 1956, there was 'The Bad Seed'. And look at that adorable face, hey... You KNOW she's gonna poison you with 'some' sort of additive....


One of my favourite horror movies of all time. I always had the feeling that Little Miss Sunshine would become the psycopathic killer of The Bad Seed... And singing dolls claiming they are Jeebus' 'Ray of Sunshine'? Oh dear...

No wonder they invented Chucky.

Plays to a younger audience. Besides which the subtext for the film was actually heinous.

You can read a review here...

Never trust an angelic looking little girl... just sayin'.....

Fun with Semantics...

Just went 'off''. Not 'afk'. After which I'll be 'wd'... maybe. Just said 'bb' but could just have well written 'b', 'bn' or gawwd help me, 'bs'. And of course, 'dks' and hear 'hwk' a lot.

The German on-line gaming community is awash with abbreviations where you think, 'Whaaaa?'

It's been a trial to my supposed intelligence, Preciousessss... yes it has. Gobbledygook in the Chat window... and yes, you can chat on line if you so please.

For over three months, I've been playing, joined a guild, and my two 'chars' are visible to everyone as they are to me... A 'char' is a 'Charakter', a figure you have in play. English or German, easy to figure out.

In my guild, the members have this annoying habit of coming on line and greeting everyone with 'Hu-hu'. (German for Yoo-hoo!) Makes me feel like a friggin' OWL...

It gets even more of a mish-mash... people might say 'hi', 'Morgen ' for good morning, or north German 'Moin' or the stiff sticklers 'Tag' (good day). Sometimes you get 'Hola'. World language has gone bonkers, in other words.

Since this past Friday, I got popular, having been seen round a lot. The advanced players don't like messing with newbies because the game becomes very difficult and slow to advance in, so most lose patience with it.

But all of a sudden... my guild leader took me under her wing. Yeah it's a she. No one was 'on' as in online, so she asked me to do a group thing with her. There are different sorts, but the one she picked was to help me gain experience and more importantly, game points. She has several figures in the game, the most advanced being at level 95... which is awesome.....

So she has a knight at my level, 'just for fun', and we went out training our dragons. And since the Bandits and the Beserkers are easy to kill... you just have to fight long enough for your pet to level up... we chatted for ninety minutes.

And I learned that she emigrated with her parents from Kasachstan when she was ten. Has a daughter, and her name is Natascha, which her grandfather decided on and registered her at the Kasach town office, her mother calls her Nathalja, and everyone 'on' calls her 'Angel'.

Shades of the old Beatles song... 'Her name was Macgill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy...' And I was sooo tempted to ask if she had a brother named Boris, but no way would she have gotten the reference to Rocky Squirrel... hee-hee-hee...

Kidding aside, she is very nice, and helpful, and we 'talked' about a lot of things while slaughtering some monsters who weren't challenging, just for game points, because the game points determine how many capability points you get, and you can't learn new ones if you don't have enough. And it turned out we'd 'spoken' before in one or the other of her guises, but I hadn't known. I guess she was sounding me out.

Just like Sven and Heike, who pop up in the most unusal guises and places, and at first I never know who I am speaking to. And it takes getting used to... I just do the two... Pip, the knight, and RenB the conjuror, which name was so lame... I had a creative low when I generated him. But everyone knows those two are both mine.

Yesterday, she got me involved in a big 'ag', and I couldn't figure out what it meant, but it was 'auto-group'. You can register, and get taken into one. Or a normal group is when you are with another character in the same place, and you split points fifty-fifty, and the loot. In an auto-group, you just register, and get taken in, and meet new people, go your own way, and chat... But groups have the advantage that you get more points together than alone. Which helps you advance faster.

If you are invited to a group, it is good form to thank the leader before leaving. Politeness counts. Yesterday another guild girl took over when Angel went 'off'.

She saw me this morning, and promptly invited me to an 'ag'. Which I hadn't known the meaning of before, being a newbie. So I drilled her on abbreviation meanings. I'd figured that 'b' was for 'bye' when leaving, and 'bb' is for 'bye-bye'... easy enough. 'WD'--finally the penny dropped.. if someone was not at the pc, they write 'wd' for 'wieder da'. 'Back again'. 'bn' means 'bis nachher' german for later. And the dreaded 'bs' means 'bis später'. Also 'till later'. 'DKS' means 'danke schön'. And 'HWK' is only when someone joins a guild or group, so I figured it out... 'herzlich Willkommen'. 'Hearty welcome! Easy... you just have to figure it out, and of course I did figure out the abbreviations on my own, except for 'ag'.

Which this new girl explained patiently, and smiled. And I finally got the courage to ask her what the hell AFK stood for. I mean, I knew it meant someone is not available, but all I could thing of was 'Außer'. Except... and nothing came to mind. She said, 'You're thinking too complicatedly. It means 'away from the keyboard', like making something to eat or not in front of the pc.' (or going potty????). I said, 'man, you people are so short circuiting the language center of my brain, english, german.... gawwd.'

That cracked her up. And had us off and running about the monsters. 'The Gnolls would be so cute... if they didn't drool so much...' 'You should give them some pocket handkerchiefs.' 'My armour has no pockets, and I'm not using my cloak! And they want to hurt Norbert.' 'They love him, so they bite.' 'Yeah, literally.'

So ok, never see lol's there, let alone omg's, and certainly not rofl's...

It's a fully bastardised set of things which, when you first see them, seem nonsensical. Different countries, different shorthand on the internets, hey.

You learn something new every day. AFK my arse....

You'll probably think I am very selfish from the post below

Or that 'love' conquers all, and for better and for worse and all that.....

I'd still take the 'till death do us part' vow in it... and boy, I've done the 'in sickness and health' to the very best of my ability.

There is a difference between taking 'love' to such an extreme you lose everything and land on the sreeets so never bought the 'for richer or poorer'.

I don't mean in the sense that he got poor so I dumped him... nothing further from the truth. We were poor at the beginning. And for a while he was rich. I didn't like the rich part. It drove a huge wedge into our relationship, and he wasn't to be restrained. But then again, he thought he only had seven years to live, thanks to the media. So I didn't like that part. Except for maybe making a few people I love happy..

So not really.... too much to worry about.

I liked the middle part where we were getting along famously, and there was 'just enough'.

Relationships are so fragile. Horrendous things like illness really change you both in a relationship. One the patient, one the care-giver.

To love and to cherish? Well, gawwd knows, whoever she is, the love part was never a problem.

It's so easy if you 'fit'. The 'cherish' part? That is a bit more difficult.

We so often do not live up to one another's expectations, and then you can't really 'cherish' them... You want to send them to the Blue Blazes.

Everyone has their relationships, is what I'm trying to say, I guess. They get more complicated the longer you have one.

'To have and to hold'?

Oh that is the easiest part of all....

And I still wouldn't have gotten married, which is possible here for a year or so now.

It would have meant having unlimited trust. Maybe they should put THAT in marriage vows... and I wouldn't have been able to do it. Then, when things were good... Or now.

And it was never about economics. It was about basic honesty about EVERYTHING.

Oh good Gawwd.... gay marriage? So NOT! Or ANY marriage! You never know what horrible things will happen!

The telephone rang.

I thought it was one of those calls from the IFES Institut where they ask you about your buying habits, or if you feel 'secure' where you live, and was in the mood to 'talk'.

Uh-uh, Preciousses... it was local gubmint. Regarding Peter.

I freaked out, because I thought he was in hospital yet again, but it was worse.

Juliana at his home sicced a lady on me. Juliana's the main person in the admin office. Me being the only person to talk to regarding Peter. And the lady on the phone was 'gubmint'.

It was about being his Sachverwalter. Someone who manages people's 'things'. And I said, 'What 'things' am I supposed to manage when there is nothing there?'

She wanted to know what bank he had, which I told her. And she said they would transfer it to Gamlitz, and I said 'Ok, but it won't do you much good... they were crazy enough to give him a three thousand Euro overdraw limit, and he always kept it right at the max. Meanwhile the overdraft is 'probably' a third of that.'

Would I OVERTAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY for his debt?

And I said, 'Listen, we were together for thirty five years, but we were NEVER married. I have only 70 per cent of my pension and barely get by, but pay my bills. THAT would be impossible!' I have no responsibility for his fuck-ups, and don'tcha just lurrrv you some banks....

There was lots more... lots. Whether he was really in 'demenz'. Uhhhh... go figure? I did a thumbnail sketch, beginning with three amputations on one leg, the stroke in the supermarket, the two heart attacks...' And the secrecy, and that I NEVER got any honesty from him when it came to his financial situation. And that he suddenly didn't know he was talking to ME last time I saw him. 'Oh, it was diabetes?'

I admire the amount of restraint I've developed over three decades, really... Because twenty years ago, I'd have turned the air PURPLE. She knew... She definitely knew. And I gave her 'Saures'. Which means sour and bitter... Couched in 'polite' terms.

I could always have talked to the four walls about his finances and gotten more answers.... That sickness is so insidious, it defies description.

Otherwise.... I hope I didn't fuck up.

Gawwd... some days you can reminisce and feel all warm and fuzzy...

Well then reality BITES, as they say.

This is the nicest interview...... Betty White at 89

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As much as I detest 'Morning Joe'. Can we say 'impressive'???? Rewatching... I thought it telling when Mika asked about gender issues in 1949. Her answer is so TELLING... 'You had a job and did it, and didn't think about that.'

Tomorrow is Evacuation Day...

It may have been on The Daily Show, but is historically accurate. So forget Black Friday, and think about Evacuation Day. I can only link, not embed...

But you can see it here.


And btw... it was funny as hell. And why didn't I learn about it in school? Just wonderin'....

Am gonna have a turkey leg... ooooo And laughing

over Ed going after 'the Mittster'....

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And Lawrence O'Donnell on the ninth Commandment... fun. I love it when he gets riled. And the end of the clip is just great....

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#

Hopefully the turkey is done soon.... before I lose my appetite.

I don't have much contact with people any more...

Since I never leave the house...

But first thing in the morning I see my tobacconist, just when she opens.

We've talked about lots of things. Cooking, of course. I just gave her one of my favourite recipes today... for the first time.

But generally, what's goin' on, and general things...

I don't know HOW we got on the subject, but she said she had stopped dying her hair, because she has a condition where her hair would fall out if she continued.

HER hair is grey for about four months now.

And I didn't put my foot in it. I said it suited her, and I didn't think that dying one's hair did any good whatever, it never suits one's teint... mostly..

And yeah, I dyed my hair... twice... I looked like a ghost. Da Ven... well I don't even want to think about Grecian Formula.. His is now fine as it is, full and lovely.

And I said if the cut is good, women with grey hair can look damned elegant. And it was true, I do think that.

And then we had a 'moment'. When someone confides something to you about their life.

When she was young, she wanted to dye her hair, and wear pants, and her parents were very conservative... the lady is now about sixty. And when she went into apprentenceship, the first thing she did with her pay was get her hair dyed and get some kick-ass pants. And I said, 'oooo.... Rebel!'

And laughed. So I told her my 'rebellion' story.

In the Fifties, men and young boys had pants that were cut so wide, you could put helium up them and just blow away. That WIIIIDE... And 'pegged pants' came out. And I was always unhappy with the flappy floppy ones I had... With my first money, I bought a pair, earned it running errands.

So I went to my beloved cousin's all proud that I'd earned and bought it for myself... I used to take care of her kids, she was from New Yawwk so was 'hip', you see. And I went into another room and changed, and came out... and my Mom was there.

If you wanna see pursed lips of disapproval, you have to go to New England, believe me.

And I asked, 'Whaddaya think?' Very pleased with myself.

And my Mom said, 'You're not going out like that!.'

'Why?'

'Because you can see everything... even the crack!' She meant my tush.

And then came the classic 'Go to your room and change.'

So I said today, 'Y'see? Different cultures... but basically the same.' And she laughed.

And that last line became a signature anytime anyone of us was getting ready to go somewhere, and I'd tell Peter... 'Hey! Go to your room and change!' If it wasn't appropriate. And he'd give it to me occasionally.. It never died out. So I passed it on.

I don't see people much any more. But sometimes you connect, and it's nice.

Greetings from Pumpkin Land

Yeah, it's that time of year again... Thanksgiving in the US... I have a love-hate relationship with that day, used to love it.

Where I live is pumpkin land, just realised. It's a very important crop in our region.

I spent one foggy November day in the late 70's, sitting in a field, splitting pumpkins open, and harvesting the seeds. The rest of them were mostly left to rot. Or mulch, or whatever you want to call it. It was the seeds... 'Styrian Gold', they call it. It was clammy cold, and so on, but there was this group, and everyone was telling side-splitting jokes, and we just DID it. And in the end, it was fun.

So why were the seeds so important, and still are? They get dried, and pressed, and then you have a wonderful oil. It is dark green, looks like something you'd want to use to grease machinery with. It is used on salads, like rapunzel with bits of potato and onion. And it is expensive, because it takes a lot of pumpkins to turn up enough seeds to get a liter out of them.

There is an international group out there, I kid you not, and they swear on how healthy it is... especially for prostate problems, and since it affects men, got attention. They had a convention where I lived. A liter bottle here was going for about 100-120 Austrian schillings, which was about ten to twelve dollars. In New Yawwk... which was one of the places it was available, it was going for 130 dollars a half-liter. Nice profit margin, and good on 'em if they were able to bilk them for it.

I, of course, was amazed... 'Why waste all that good pumpkin? We do all sorts of things to cook it, it seems sad...'

Well, over the decades, they did learn, and squash, which had been theretofore on a menu and fairly bland became a hit. And pumpkin? There were a lot of people who cooked it. Poverty food, ya know, after the war. I learned it from the mother of a co-worker. And it is so basic totally Austrian cooking and so delicious, it was always a staple on my menu.

Oddly, there isn't any distinction in the word for squash and pumpkin here. All the same name.

And obviously, big differences.

Ive been a very.... VERY subversive influence here in one family. Because they thought it was unthinkable.... I made a pumpkin pie for people I knew. Most of them didn't care for it. Not really, it seemed 'unnatural' to them somehow. And it was really good, mind you.

However... the son in this family 'lurrved' it. And for many birfdays after did he want cake? Nope. He wanted a pumpkin pie, gawwd love him... His mother made me give her the recipe.

And I grinned. Oooo... subversive, ewww!

So Happy... but Annti's card... think about it...

ohhhh, hey man! And how things change...

I spent a bit of time digging doday about the woman below... because I was fairly certain that she was originally from Austria. I've known a Dorle and a Dorli in my life, so it seemed to be a logical conclusion that that diminutive form of Dorothea or Doris is from my part of the woods.

Dorle is dead, and Dorli is very much alive. So we talked....

Those diminutives are only specific to Austria... yay for us.

Trying the Google... well... I was AMAZED at the hate.

Of COURSE it was all a set-up, and of COURSE they smeared something on her so that it LOOKED like she got pepper-sprayed, and she's a well known agitator, and an otherwise disgusting person who is not credible.

Really... Really?

There are some people who wouldn't recognise a turd on their doorstep if they step in itö.

Since when are octegenarians fair game to smear?

I would think they know more than the ASS.hats who have nothing better to do than tear them down.

Sounds like someone's getting 'skeered', oh yes.

I really haven't talked in weeks... to anyone...

Except tonite I had this urge to communicate, so ) called Peter.

Yup, he still knows who I am. Praise whomever. And I said, 'Hey, I found the PERFECT counterpart for your Aunt Hildegard.'

SHE was your proverbial piece of work, Nazi to the core, a shame to the family, and she NEVER gave up. In her mid-Seventies travelling to New Yawk to mix it up with radical Black groups, and later in Florida... she was a terror. Hearing about her escapades left me spitless, but had to laugh... she was amazingly 'bad'.

And I said... this woman HAS to have come from here. The zingers are really telling, she grew up here. 'What am I supposed to do, sit in front of the tee-vee and eat bon-bons?' (Boom!) There were so many, I thought... 'oh, I KNOW this kinda tone....'

Peter laughed so hard... even he had seen stuff about the Occupy movement, but was sketchy on the whys and wherefores. I tried to explain it to him.

We ended on a good note, so it wasn't a sad phone call.

I will get there soon.

And then I called the living Dorli... as an excuse to ask her if it were really only an Austrian diminutive name... but she had been in my head for a few weeks now, she worries me. It was a good excuse, in other words....

I only got voice mail, so left it at that, but she called back... she's your basic 'handy' addict. She more or less confirmed what I thought. Her news left me somewhat discoursaged... yet again.

I keep hoping and hoping that things will get better... but as in my own case... well I don't suppose they will.

They finally gave up their rented house in the suburbs and moved into the lot they bought from Peter more than a decade ago, and she said she hoped I would visit.
'
Riiigghhht... like I would ever darken that door again.

'Don't ask me to do that, ok? Because even today, I think I would become violent if I had to see 'MAGENTA AND RIFF-RAFF'...' That is what the OTHER neighbors call them.. from 'The Rocky Horror Show'. My terminoligy would be more on the lines of Gollum, 'The theives, the thieves! The dirty little theives! Tricksy! Naswty! False!'

(yeah, I'm just a bourne of good will if it comes to that... not.)

Well, Magenta was sorta freaked that they were moving in to what was their property. And went all slimy, and her first question? Would I be visiting? Really... She has reason to be afraid,

(And I'm deleting expletives so fast in my head it makes me diszzy, because I have NEVER met anyone like that paragon of disingenuousness. I will NEVER forget the day Peter had his stroke, and I rushed him to get to the telephone, and that bitch played down the weakness in his arm in the hoüpe that he would DIE that night, if they didn't take him away to hospital. And will never forgive her for it. And I'n supposed to go over there and make nice? She is 'evil bitch' personified, basta. I don't use that word often, but if anyone has deserved it... she does.. and a thief. And everything horrible you want to think of.)

Whatever, I got her up to speed on her new neighbors. If you came out of the door from the inside, on the right were the Fishers. Nowadays, there is only Mrs. Fischer. Mr. Fischer died of an untimely heart attack.

When we first moved in, there was much to do on the house. The chimbleys had to be restored, but no one thoght about the roof.

We had a severe winter, lots of snow. And Peter and I had only been there a few months. And the snow collected... and we had a roof avalanche. That sounds so harmless. Our housed have steeply sloped roofs, you see, and when a bit of plus degrees come, well, the snow sorta melts and turns the bottom layer to ice sheets, and then it slides off them to the ground. People have been struck dead in my lifetime being hit by one.

So one fine day, thaw weather... the doorbell rang... and it was Mrs. Fischer. We'd had an avalancche slide off of our roof in such a disastrous way.... it crashed through their roof landed in their living room.

I was SPEECHLESS, Peter was ill, so I went over to view the damage. It's a small two-story house, a 'two-generational' one. His nmother had the ground floor, thy had the top floor. Mr. Fischer's mother was near ninety at the time.

The avalanche fairly wrecked their living room and I was glad that no one got physically hurt. So I told them he had insurance, and it would be taken care of asap. Which it was.

(This is NOT a good way to meet new neighbors, btw....)

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Fisher died. His mother followed not long after. As far as I know... their son and his wife and children occupy the ground floor, and she is still on what we call the first floor. This is still a common thing here... multi-generational housing....

On the right, as you came out, was 'watch it!' The L. fambly. I have no idea how Mr. L is doing. Last I heard, he had an inoperable brain tumour. But he was the bane of my existence. He hated trees, and leaves especially. And was fond of litigation. He had an orchard in his back yard, and his only joy was pruning them into stumps... because he didn't like leaves.

Let's face it, leaves shed in the autumn, and land on the ground. It's nature. Mr. L was the most bizarre Tartar against Nature I have ever encountered. He brutalised his magnificent cherry tree to the point where it didn't bear fruit any more for five years. (I counted.)

He hated, HATED our Plantain tree next to the house and sicced the authorities on us saying it was sick. But it wasn't. Nothing pleased him more than the sound of a chain saw cutting down his enemies... trees. Maybe his brain tumour was developing then, and no one knew what was wrong with the man.

One of our other neighbors got to be big-headed, and told us to rake... because, literally, 'he suffers under the leaves'. Which brought out so much hilarity, we still talk about it today... I had this perverse image of him in a pile of leaves, whining and moaning... It loses in the translation, but believe me, it was stellar.

Their son and doaugher shared the upper floor. Son got married, had a daughter, the daughter is single still... and the only nice one in the house.

Her window looked out onto our garden, and I have heard how she misses what I did there, and the sound of our laughter when we sat out summer evenings.

Well, I miss it too... very very much. I laid down a patio myself. And got some garden furniture, and we'd be out evenings. And have to smile... on one of them an Igel ran through to hide in my mulch pile. It's a sort of hedgehog. My cousins were there, and there was no stopping the panic, because they thought it was a rat.

I wish they could have seen the weasels mating in the yard behind ours. Creepy creatures, and such a racket. I thought cats were loud...

Whatever, that's the thumbnail profile on what used to be our surroundings.

I miss it and I do not. The ones not in the house bemused me totally.

So it is all 'aprpos nothing'.

And Dorli Rainey is still awesome.

You could fall in love with this woman....

Wonderful lady. Generation gap my ass!

Nice Rant....

Bloomberg? Oy...

So whaddaya gonna drink, hey?

Frack the damned frackers... Problems? If you can light your tap water on fire, it probably isn't safe to drink.

I never knew that rivers in America actually caught fire. The photo on this blog is our 'river on fire', but it was just a traditional thing... scuba divers from the fire dept. with phosphorous flares swimming in the river. I think it was preferable....

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Generational Wedge?

Spent a weekend mostly with 'zocken'... playing. My on-line game programmers called it a double 'event'. Two days of getting 50% more points on everything. Plus they held two free-range 'battles'. I didn't try the latter, my characters are still too low-level, but I did get them to advance two each, which is nice. Yay for the knight and the conjuror.... and so on.

But Sunday I did take a break to watch Saturday's broadcast of UP, with Chris Hayes. He came up with a stunning 'story of the week'. You can see it here. He describes how über-conservatives, who desperately want to dismantle social security, medicaid, and medicare are sneakily trying to disaffect the young twenty-to-thirty somethings and woo the so-called elderly 55 and up by telling the latter they needn't worry, because they are going to get their benefits, but they have to make changes hey 'to save the grandchildren'. And the young 2o-30 somethings? Well hey, they are gonna have to re-think their futures... As the unemployment rate in that age group is somewhere between 20-23%, depending on which poll you hear, the ploy is a dangerous wedge aimed at getting generations at loggerheads with and resenting one another.

And it's being done so slyly, so underhandedly, am willing to bet that the Rethugs behind it would be incensed if confronted with what they are doing, and indignantly deny all such claims. It was something 'out there', but I'd never seen it in that light before.

The ensuing discussion still has me sort of upset inside, although it was an excellent discussion. I especially like that his guests are mostly 'new' faces from the publishing world and government, and not the fatuous faces full of self-importance you see everywhere else. And most of them have a lot of interesting things to say.

Whoever has a Tivo should tape it, as he's only on at gawwd-awful early morning hours. Or tune in per internet.

And oh yeah... I think my dragon is turning black. Which pleased me.

It's an upside-down world......

When the person you love most sends more than enough money for your birthday that you can afford a new between-times jacket and new pair of shoes. (And not have to lie to anyone who shivers looking at you in a sweater while they are already in winter jackets, of which I have tw0, but it is waay too early.)

As to the shoes... well, they're sneakers I got as a present seventeen years ago, only wore them occasionally for a while, but for the past three-four years... well, they're sort of falling apart. Well, not even sort of... They wouldn't survive even the most delicate fine-wash cycle in the washing machine, so they aren't very nice to look at... and I do have other shoes... except most of the time my feet are swollen, and have a hard time getting into them. Like taking five minutes and cursing like Cinderella's stepsisters all the way... nope, the sneaks are comfortable enough... but falling apart.

It's an upside-down world in that I should be the one sending a goodly sum to help someone be comfortable in advanced age, and can only feel guilty about it all because I can't.

And I know that if I say anything, I'm only gonna hear he 'won' it... ummm.... errr.. somehow. It feels wrong.

And it feels like an upside-down world when I see in the snail-mail box that I got mail from my best friend. And I haven't mentioned this here, I don't think, but having been depressed this year, I hadn't even opened the mail-box from February till October, so 'someone' decided to just dismantle the door to the post-box, and it disappeared, so now I HAVE to look, 'just-in-case'.

(I'm fairly certain that that 'vandalism' is my neighbor Rudi-Doody's work... it has his signature all over it. Not broken into... the door just removed! I think he thought I'd lost the key, or something, but there IS such a thing as asking.... and of COURSE he denys knowing anything about it. Post-box doors do NOT dismantle themselves...)

It's an upside-down world when that very best friend spends over a dollar for a stamp and money for a birf-day card when she is so strapped, that money might have made the difference between getting a pack of cigarettes, or something decent to eat.

And it's an upside-down world that she finally gets back to where she had wanted to be and lands at an address that sort of sounds like 'enjoyment street', but there is no 'enjoyment' to be seen far and wide, and it becomes a mockery of what she had so yearned for. And as much as I love her, I so wish she had used the money for herself, and sent me a crazy free-of-charge e-mail.

That isn't criticism. I wish for a lot of things, and knowing what it cost her also makes me feel guilty, because I'm so not worth that sort of attention.

I wish I had the funds to send her something that would rock her world, and there never seems to be a red-cent left over come end of the month, try as I may.

And, of course, it isn't my birfday, we have a couple-three weeks yet. And I haven't ever really celebrated it except my fiftieth, where I pulled out all the stops for an entire week.

No, I didn't hold orgies, or go on a mind-bending spree. I celebrated with friends... two to three at a time, and held lavish dinner parties. All of them began with my favourite recipe at the time. Stuffed oysters creole style, with three sorts of fillings. Peter had gotten me a metal chain glove to work on the 'ersters' after I'd cut myself the first time, and a special knife to open them, so I sort of looked like Michael Jackson doing crazy work on seafood. One of my guests gave me a very expensive chopping knife with my initials and the date engraved on it, which was a lavish gift coming from someone more on Peter's side of acquaintances.

That was my favourite birf-day of all time, because I was the one giving something that I was good at, and there was champagne, and laughter, and wonderful conversation, and it was all 'good'.

The only other I enjoyed was shortly after 'da Ven' married my step-mother. I turned eight, and her sister, my late aunt made me the most elaborate cake I had ever seen, it was a carousel. I was just overwhelmed. And never forgot it. It was 'acceptance', and being part of a new 'fambly'...

Otherwise... 'birf-days' never rattled me much at all.

But it IS an upside-down world for me being a recipient of kindnesses, and humbling, and sort of embarassing.

I won't open the card till 'da day'. It will be the only thing to look forward to. And go shopping... which I absolutely hate.

There are days, like this one, where I don't feel I deserve any of that. You basic Protestant work ethic... I wasn't 'successful' in the end, so I can't be a 'good' person. The rest of the year, I don't mind being 'bad'.

There's always been a lot of 'jumping the gun' regarding my non-horriday. My bio-Mom was the worst... I would get combo-birfday-Christmas cards in September, she didn't want them to be late. A bank transfer takes three to five days even in this electronic age, because it goes through several stations, and they all 'sit' on it to get some interest. An airmail card from the US takes five to seven days, depending on whether there is a week-end or horriday in between.

The crassest thing I ever got was the usual combo birf-day Xmas card one September from my bio-Mom.

After she had been dead for over a year. First reaction? I gave my work nick-name Flipper a whole new dimension. Until I saw that the date was over a year old. It probably got lost somewhere, but that was the most horribly uncanny thing I ever experienced. Even from the grave, I thought, she never lets go, and the hand-written stuff in it was... manipulative as only she could do it.

Yeah... upside-down...

To both of youse guys... I love you. And thank you humbly.

Spitless...

This is too weird to be believed. And this for a guy with his hands on the reigns of the Western World. I happened to have a mouthfull of popcorn... and blew it all over the keyboard.

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Regulations... sometimes work, sometimes not. I had chicken over the weekend, a huuuge chicken booby

Yup, sounds ridiculous in the extreme.

And the term comes from a cousin who was about five or so and screamed over the balconies in our block to a Scottish gentleman... 'HEY, Mr. P!.. Come on over, we're having chicken boobies!'

By which she meant chicken breasts.

I thought my neighbor was gonna piss himself laughing, was a witness to the 'indiscretion'.

(smile)

So big deal, I had chicken over the weekend. It's something you would put on Facebook...

Except there is more to it.

For over a year, thanks to being clinically depressed, I just go to the supermarket next door, and twice got a bit of chicken which in local jargon would be described as a 'rubber eagle', which sums up the texture and flavourlessness of the product.

So I didn't buy any for a long time.

And had a hankering for the good old days, so I went to the market, which is about 100 yards further down the square, which is about three football fields long. And of course, I went to the people I KNOW have the best chicken EVAH. I eat very little nowadays, so I only wanted a bit.

I believe the lady who was out there every weekend has passed on. She must have been stunningly beautiful when young, but was strikingly beautiful in age. It came from within. Now one of her sons is there.

And he pulled out a chicken booby that was breath-taking. They come from the Sulmtal. And are free-range, and fed correctly. So I roasted it. It was a full pound. And I had an orgasmic experience in my mouf. I'd fully forgotten what good chicken tastes like.

And had more than enough for the entire weekend.

So yeah, I can hear you say, what's RenB going ON about, good for him, he had a nice two meals.

The people at the market are real farmers... they sell their produce, and if there isn't enough for a weeks demand... you are so out of luck. The EU regulates the conditions under which they can produce their products, and are extremely strict. What you get in the supermarket is mostly under the radar... passable, but not quality. And the price is about the same.

So for all the tea-party people... government regulations often provide much quality and safety in what is sold for you to eat. And not be poisoned.

I used to have laughing fits over terms newly coined, like Bodenhaltung. Which means free-range chickens. But if you take the word literally, it means, 'holding on the ground', which brought up hilarious images in my sick head of farmers flinging themselves about and holding their chickens on the ground. I used to have Thurberesque 'flights of fancy' in my noggin...

Which brings me back to buying at the market. Fresh produce from people who work their ass off year in and out to make something so good, you will only buy it from them. And are out there in all sorts of weather day in, day out.

And it works, on principle. If Gawwd had wanted us to have strawberries in December, they probably would have grown then. I think there is a reason why certain foods grow at the time they do, and will be good for you. I do not think that it is sane to buy things that are not grown where you live, or in season, just because it gets imported and it's there. I never did that.

And THAT is what preserves are for. I got to be really good at it. Peter buying junk crap stuff at a huge percent upgrade, because, boy... diabetics really get screwed for prices for 'safe' compote, or jam, or cookies or gawwwd knows what else.

I put a stop to it. I learned how to put up glasses of preserves without the dire additives and at a third of the cost. The farmers did their thing, I did mine. Beginning in Spring. Fruits, vegetables, sauces.... by late Fall, there were over one hundred glasses waiting to be opened.

I had to hide a couple of the cherry ones so I could do the Easter ham. I made a KILLER cherry relish for baked ham... made some friends of Peter's speechless.

I would not touch produce from a supermarket. For Peter.

Lately, haven't cared what I eat.

But the chicken? It reminded me of what can really be good. And it is because of regulations, and a memory. My cousins visiting yet again. I served chicken from the Sulmtal. I can't remember what recipe.

But there was a 'sotto voce' comment from L. to her husband: 'WHY can't we GET chicken like this any more?'

Deregulation. People cut corners, sell shit.

Because no one is looking over their shoulder. And you get tasteless rubber eagles.

And the whole problem begins with that sort of thing.

General strike and historical context

I love when history is actually respected and tied in to what happens in our day.

oh.... good stuff....

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It's a horriday here....

All Soul's Day. You go to the cemetery. It's what everyone does. A cemetery today looks like the most beautiful garden you can imagine. So people remember and honour the dead.

Actually, it should have been yesterday, All Souls Day... never seemed logical to me to have it on November first.

And I would have gone, I suppose, I was in the mood for it. Exept... I know I wouldn't have been able to find either of the two I wanted to visit. Peter's mothers, and Jane's. When Peter's finances and his mind went south, the Church was after him for costs of 'maintainance', which is a joke... people tend to the graves themselves. And wanted 10,000 Euros for a ten year 'upkeep', uh-huh.

Charlotte was upset and confused that she couldn't find her sister's grave, so I guess they just did a turnover and someone else is in there now. I really don't know how that works. Except... forever isn't forever, you know?

And I wanted to see Gisela's grave, finally, and leave some roses. Gawd that was tragic. 'Gisi', as Peter's aunt called her, or Giselle, as we called her, was her old school friend, through thick and thin. And the war was pretty thin. She had a son out of wedlock, Horst. And she was Peter and my preferred dinner guest several times a year. The first time she came to dinner, I nearly blew it. She being advanced in years, I served a mild coffee... not knowing that she was your TOTAL caffeine addict. The dinner was great, she said, but the coffee offended her muchly.

Well no one had told me before-hand, demmit... The second time, I had my weapon ready. Peter found a place that sold cuban coffee. You know how they say one that's strong puts hair on your chest? That one would have turned you into a werewolf. Heart-stoppingly strong. And she said, 'Now THAT'S more like it!'

She would only eat chicken or fowl. Or as I once wrote a cousin, 'anything that flies', and she replied, 'even a Boeing 747?' ---which completely cracked me up.

And since she was only fixated on fowl... man, I had my work cut out for me. I had a new variant every time which she had never had before. Indian, Thai, so many variations I can't even recall them all. I'd gotten Lazarus, my first pc, so I got busy and printed out menu cards for the place settings, or in her case, sent one per mail as an invite. Sorta, 'we're having chicken, wanna come over?' Went all formal, place settings, the works. Martha Stewart would have been proud of me. Hell, Emily Post would have done a Snoopy dance.

I remember I did pheasant once, which she lurrrved. But the real highlight was inviting her to a 'real' American Thanksgiving dinner. I got the smallest turkey I could find, because she ate like a bird. But it still was very big. And we had just been in Venice, and there was this porcelain shop on the corner up from the hotel, and there was a tureen... it was a turkey. Peter and I took one look at one another and burst out laughing, and he went and bought it, just for Thanksgiving. Gawwd... I don't even know whatever happened to it.

It was hilarious to look at.

So the soup course was in that.

And I trotted out all the trimmings, and the damned turkey was so big, and unwieldy, well, we had this rolling bar on wheels, cleared off the top, and wheeled it in... and I will NEVER forget the look on her face. Gawd, I was such a star.... once.

And by the way, I think I was a very good cook. Once... People at the market would get samples, and demanded, demanded that I give them recipes. Coming from a people who really appreciate cuisine, that was high praise indeed, so am not being overbearingly conceited.

Giselle would watch us like a hawk, curious as to how we interacted, and she found us very funny and entertaining. But there was a back-story to that. Her son Horst. We always thought he must be gay, lived in Vienna with 'someone', but we never knew who... and to me at least, it was as if she were imagining how her son was living there. He came home every weekend to take care of her. Alone. Just imagine...

So he was sort of a ghost.

If Peter's aunt and uncle visited, it was a different story, and could get embarrassing. Giselle would always brag.... about me. It started with the fact that Peter's aunt and uncle liked seafood, so I made a salad for after the soup, seafood. (Yeah, I did four courses...) But I knew Giselle wouldn't touch it, so I made her a small plate of chicken salad.

And the one-upmanship began. 'He made that extra just for me.' 'I've seen every Christmas tree and Easter tree since they moved in, and they are wonderful.' Sort of nyah nyah, you're just pedestrian visitors....

Embarassed the hell out of me. So on one occasion, she pushed too hard, and his aunt said, 'Want me to tell them about your son in Frankfurt?' Dead silence.

(She'd been ragging on them about their obsession with using public transportation. And Peter had spoiled her, going out by taxi to pick her up, and take her home. In that, he was a gentleman. Plus he took her to visit them in Germany twice, where they had many adventures, the worst of which was her taking his small bag through security when leaving, and Peter's insulin needle was in there. That took some explaining, but she'd never HAD an adventure before, so she relived it and reminisced often.)

I last saw her two and a half years ago. She had been ill for a long time, so was spared the decline and fall of the Mühlgasse, thank whomever. But I was with his aunt and his cousins, so we didn't get to talk all that much... I felt it was their time. So I went into the garden to smoke. And there came the ghostly Horst. A pudgy, middle-aged man who somehow struck me as looking a bit pasty and not well. We made small talk, and am sure he was as curious about me as I was about him.

The only thing we knew about the 'scandal' involving him was that as a young man, he stayed with Peter's aunt and uncle in Frankfurt, and got into big trouble, and they bailed him out. Whatever it was happened in the Bahnhof (train station) district. I've been there... in Frankfurt... it was like 42nd street in the 70's, gritty, lots of vice, lots of sleaze, lots of prostitutes of all genders. For some reason we think he picked up a guy. And it was illegal in his youth. That's all we'll ever know.

Everything else was connecting the dots from snippets of conversation, and pure speculation.

Whatever, about three weeks after I was out at her house in the suburbs, her son had been home more, caring for her, was reading the morning paper, and Horst fell off his chair immediately dead. Stroke AND a heart attack. I always wondered what happened to his long-time Viennese 'companion'. Giselle had him buried so fast, I doubt he would have been notified.

Three weeks after that... Giselle died. A year later Peter's aunt came to visit her grave... and couldn't find it. 'It's just LIKE her... making secrets out of nothing.' (a-HA!)

Y'know, the Soaps always preach that secrets always come out. In this case? äääähhhh. Wrong.

It doesn't matter. I've long learned that what you 'think' is the truth always gets a spin that leaves you saying 'WHAAA?'

So that's a day of the dead memory I wished to share today. Because my memories are fond ones and make me smile, and to honour a remarkable lady. heh, I remember thinking I'd found a sapling of the apricot tree on the side of the house and had planted it in front of the kitchen window. She looked down, and had a laughing fit. 'Son, I don't know what that is, but it is NOT an apricot tree, believe me.' (she had a fantastic garden). Of course it turned out to be a walnut tree.... blush. She laughed so hard... 'don't you know that birds drop seeds on the ground and sometimes they take hold? Just because it was at the foot of the tree doesn't mean it's an apricot tree.'

Nope... never learned about that side of the birds and the bees, unfortunately.

And unfortunately... there are also memories of an awful lot of other people long passed on, but they are the painful ones. People who died way too early, people who were ill from youth and succumbed, people very special to me.

One of them had diabetes from an early age. And I was fortunate enough to visit with her for a few hours when I was last in NH. Her thing from teenager on was having picnics in cemeterys... 'because we're all going to end up here, you know....' Yeah, sounds macabre, but it seemed to give her some sort of comfort.

So it was a day of remembering here, and honouring past people whom one loved. Which is nice. I don't ever remember anything like that growing up. People died, you went to the cemetery and see them buried, end of story. Here there is a hypocritical side to it... see and be seen. Outdoing someone else in floral arrangements. Which is petty.

So I didn't get to any of the cemeteries today. But thought about and honoured them in my own way.

Rick Perry rocks NH???

Jon Stewart really had fun with this. What was he ON??? Can we say 'crash and burn'? It would be funny, if it weren't tragic... But better now to find out he is really screwed up.

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Update to the story below

Turns out the boy was only suspended for one day. It was the principal who was the whistle-blower. He was horrified.

And now the best part. He was returned to the custody of his 'mother'.

Gawwd, I could have projectile vomited on the spot.

Seemingly he has a gran who cares muchly for him.

But that is really just trouble in the making.

I could go ON... but better hold my tongue. Am too reminded of another 'mother' who was a destructive force for evil too close to home for me.

Personhood

My father, aka 'the Venerable' sent me an e-mail the other day which was unusual, in that it was longer than a few sentences...

He told me a really vile tale about someone he knows of in his vicinity. A woman who had a child she didn't want. So she spent his first and formative years telling him she hated him, and she was only keeping him on for the added money on her welfare check. (yeah, a real hum-dinger of a 'woman')

She indulged her revulsion of this child she seemingly never wanted by beating on him. Police were called in, but she was clever, nothing could be proven, and social services' collective hands were tied, seemingly. (Have I got this all correct so far, Dad?)

Well the kid acted out, what could you expect, hey? Got forbidden to ride the bus to school, and then the school expelled him... which doesn't say much for the teachers in it... But they are probably too overworked to think... 'what's going on with this child?' And his mummy dearest beat him and left marks, and FINALLY, the child was taken into the social system which is gonna be even worse for him, from what I've read and seen per tee-vee.

It's a horrible and disgusting story, and unfortunately, I know it happens a lot in 'Murka, the bad version of it.

So what does this have to do with the clip below?

The Rethugs have a proposed law on the ballot in Mississippi to proclaim that the minute an egg is fertilised it is a person. It goes way beyond what has heretofore been proposed.... because it isn't just about abortion.

I can never figure out why that 'less government' crowd has the nasty habit of wanting to get into people's bedrooms in general, and regulate women's reproductive systems in particular. They can really creep me out with this shit.

So leaving all the moral and usual arguments aside, what does the one story have to do with what they are trying to do to women in Mississippi, and soon to try in other states?

The Rethugs just LURRV the idea of babies. They love them so much they would like to strike the child labour laws. To work cheap in coporation factories, or something. (Check out what they did in the Mariana Islands on Google... it is mind-blowing. Slave labour and forcing them to prostitute themselves, way to go, the Rethugs are very sick people in their heads...)

Now leaving all the other and usual questions aside... what do you think will happen to the child whose mother was raped and was impregnated and has to look at that child if she is forced to carry it to term? What do you think will happen to the children who were not wished for but forced by law to carry to term?

I see resentment at best, and abuse in every sort of variation at worst. And there would be a lot of 'mothers' like the one who obviously has upset 'the Ven'.

But hey, it's their vision, forcing themselves into the most private part of peoples lives, and all, but they are so against the government regulating anything. Hypocrisy reigns among those people.

Why aren't they creating jobs? Oh yeah, that's what they ran on, but the only thing they've done so far is trying to curb people's reproductive rights. They creep me out with their horrid fascinations.

As to jobs? Oh yeah, they said they were gonna strangle the economy so that Obama would be a one-term president. And they have. Fact is, they will do as much damage as possible, and if people get hurt? Well they don't care.

So when I saw this clip... it raised those issues in my mind. What is left of it...

Listen carefully.

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Just a bit of mind-surfing on the keyboard....

Y'know... one of those 2 a.m. things when sleep won't come.

For three days now, it is clear we are entering what I call 'the tunnel'. It's the weather, and lack of light.

It gets light later and later, and twilight earlier and earlier... and then all you get are days of twilight, and it won't get any better before January, mostly... with an odd day of sun here and there to break the monotony.

It didn't use to bother me, but of late, it is opressive. Weighs one down.

I crossed paths with my landlady today. She was friendly, even gracious. Out in the court. Which was odd. I thought she was really pissed off at me.

We were polite. She asked about my 'partner'. Which was purely greedy inquisitiveness on her part. (shrug) Didn't really matter to me one way or the other. I told her. I have this 'thing' about telling the truth.

I know her husband is in a similar state. And she said, 'Hey, sometimes you have to see the humour in it.'

I think my funny bone got shot off in the war against diabetes somewhere along the line. Never knowing when the next crisis would come.

So I slept part of the day, and now am up at the god awful night-time hour of 2 a.m. Just having the thoughts running through my mind... and Peter is always a constant.

Y'know... It is so difficult being so cut off from him after 35 years. In all that time, I think there were about four different weeks we weren't together every day, even if the time was short some days... we worked hard, and took that seriously too.
'
It is so disconcerting that we can take a relationship so for granted that we can also be neglectful, because, 'oh, there's a crisis here', or 'have to fix that.' And 'there'll be time later on'. And we miss the important part of the entire venture. To savour one another's company as much as possible. Because one day, you won't have that any more.

I feel like something has been amputated out of me. So often in the day, my first reaction to something is, 'oh, wouldn't Peter love that', or 'wait till I tell him this',

Except I can't and I won't be able to.

Gawwd, how I miss him, despite all his faults, but he sure overlooked mine...

Which evens things out. More or less.

And I think, whether gay or straight, if you get through three decades without wanting to kill one another and only have mostly good feelings... well it was probably 'lurvvv'.

What I miss most right now? Falling asleep with him holding me, and waking up to find him watching me. I felt safe and loved. And yeah, he used to love watching me sleeping in his arms.

How extraordinarily pornographic.

If we'd filmed it, people would have fallen asleep watching it. Maybe there is a market for it somewhere in this dumb world.

Not being able to visit regurlarly and being so strapped is making me feel neglectful. And guilty. But the last time... it was such a strain on him, and my allotted time was so long, it wore him out.

If I call, five minutes is all he can take.

It's tragic.

I really wanted to become very old with him and scare a lot of horses.

I guess as a couple, we were pretty disgusting. Finished one another's sentences, laughed at the same things, sometimes so much it was side-stiching.

Odd thought... one of the first times we were alone, he was gong ON about a new Peggy Lee album. He'd seen her in Copenhagen in a bar, and she was so drunk she fell off the bar stool. She was singing, by the by...

He loved the version of 'Is That All There Is' on it.

Tja, Is that REALLY all there is? Depressing.

And on that note...

historical context

interesting...

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Trick or Treat.....

The programmers of the game I play in Berlin are always inventive. Every Tuesday they turn off their servers for a few hours and fix bugs, or add something new or make an 'event' , as they call it. Some of them are lame, some are interesting. Yesterday they took longer than usual, and had to wait for a huuuuge patch to install itself once they were back up.

The theme of the week is: Halloween! Yay...

They really went all out this time. You always begin in the same place, the town square in an idyllic realm's largest village. And I learned per special notice that there were empty baskets all over the place. And if you got one, you were to go to the 'Halloween Narr (fool)' and you would receive 'candy'. The Halloween Narr is an effigy scarecrow on a crossbar with a pumpkin head and flaming eyes.

Trick or treat in other words. Normally if you have to find things they are few and far between, but not this time. You are generously given all sorts of candy, and I guess there are six sorts.

As is appropriate, the candy is Halloween 'creepy'. Frogs on a stick, dead eye-ball chewing gum, sugar skeleton bones, pumpkin drops, moldy lollipops, candied worms, and so on.

Normally in the game, if you are given 'sweets', they are to be used in the dungeons, and enhance your life force or abilities somehow. So instead of telling you what the candy does, all you get is, 'you have to taste it to find out'. So I tried 'em out.

Takes 'Trick' or 'Treat' to a whole new level. Activate one and it can say 'eeeewwww, horrible'... and you suddenly have minus 20% of your attacking force for two minutes, which isn't good if you're in a fight. Or 'ooh, delicious', and you get a 50% life force increase for five minutes, which is a real 'treat'.

And even within one sort, they aren't uniformly the same effects. Each one is different. Won't go on, just giving you the idea of how it works. I think this is the best Halloween in a long time. Very clever, and I get a week of trick or treating. Who else can say that, right?

Whoever thought this 'event' up really put a lot of work into it, and I think it is as funny as hell. Whoever it was, they must have Halloween as the top 'horriday' of the year.

Apropos Horriday... today is our national one, come around again. You're supposed to go out hiking and take in the beauty of the country. Except the weather is dreary, and there's a fine mist, so will be in-doors. Because we all know what 'mist' means now, right?

Happy trick or treating when the day comes.

And oh, the selfishness....

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And after the War on Christmas... now Halloween

Ahhhh Faux News.... ya gotta hand it to them...

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Oil... in another context, i.e. Iraq

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