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O koryšľavej makulici

My dad was no ordinary dad. Every time when I was in a summer camp or on a school trip or otherwise removed from home, he would therefore write no ordinary letters. Instead, they were crossword puzzles, code language, letters written in a mirror font backwards (one had to read them in a mirror), letters that had to be assembled among a few people, etc. For birthdays and Christmas I got no ordinary gifts. It was always something challenging and funny. Something that required effort on our part. Today, I found a fairy tale we got for Christmas in 1982 or so. O koryšľavej makulici. It consists nearly entirely of made up words, yet the events and the fate of the poor makulica are perfectly clear (well, to a Slovak speaker). I remember shedding crocodile tears over her sorry end not even knowing what a makulica could be or look like. Here it is, recorded for posteriority.

O koryšľavej makulici.

Keď sa zažemrali repetilky, vylochnul Karis na buzlovú rovku a opeklil makulicu. Makulica podrafla a zaračala. "Hoj, makulica, apatuj!", zarepetil Karis. Ale makulica neapatovala.

Karis podral makulici lendalky a opeklil ju šuflovými račarkami. Ej račala makulica, račala, ale apatovať ju ani neburzíklo. Buzlová rovka mirzovačne čamrala a repetilky krvíkali na čochlavom bardováne.

Opeklil Karis koryšľavú makulicu kordobánom a priblinknul jej dažirky na hufňavý rabičok. Rabičok sa rozpulavil a zabrnel. Makulica žarošňavo podchlinknula a zabačkala do ročarky. "Apatuj, koryšľavá makulica, lebo repetilky už odžemrali a holica negromlí!", repetnul Karis mošňavo a hročkal.

Ale makulica iba burzíkala, no nepatočne ani neapatnula.

Podrochnil Karis Siraka. Sirak vylochnul na buzlovú rovku a opeklil koyšľavú makulicu. Hoj, boroňavý bol Sirak, boroňavý! Peklila makulica boroňavému Sirakovi, račarky šufľali, ale makulica aj tak neapatovala. Buzlová rovka Sirakovi mirzovačne čamrala a repetilky mu krovíkali na čochľavom bardováne.

Opeklil Sirak koryšľavú makulicu kordobánom a razarne jej priblinknul ratné dažirky na hufňavý rabinčok. Morovatý rabinčok sa znovu rozpulavil a dazarne zabrnel. Makulica uť len žarošňovato podchlinknula, zabačla do ročerky a rachnula. Už ani neburzíkala, ale aj tak neapatovala.

Karis a Sirak pribornili koryšľavú makulicu meričkovým rabníkom, začorili jej harníčky lepríkovými korontíkmi. Bulíčková makulička žablovične zaračkala a odflundila bru. Chorkavý žuf a kran, medlochový zríč, abarnie kurňov: taký bol lopeň keňovej makuličky.

Karis a Sirak lochnili po buzlovej rovke, ale makulicu už nepeklili. Repetilky už nežemrali. Karis podral makulicine lendalky a opeklil sa jej šofľovými račarkami. Sirak vylochnul na Karisa a Karis zaapatoval. Zaburzíkali a obzinkli koryšľavú makulicu radačovým barzom.

No koryšľavá makulica už na to ani nečofla.

xxx

The Church of the Bad Omen

There are higher powers. Indeed there are, and they are trying their damnedest to send us signs when we are supposed to do something, and especially when we are NOT supposed to do something. Sometimes they are beating us on our dumb skulls with the signs and we tank right on ahead, dull-eyed empty-headed muttons that we are.

I was running late. As always. I was also sickly, but no matter. This stubborn goat decided to go biking and canoeing (or was it kayaking?) in Amsterdamse Bos (the "forest," though it really is a pimped park). Five minutes into my ride to the train station, my water bottle holder broke off and landed on the ground. That's a sign straight from heaven or hell, whichever has these things in their immediate jurisdiction. By the time I affixed it back onto the bicycle, and made it to the platform, it was five minutes before 1pm. My group - the Netherlands Adventurists - were meeting in five minutes at the gates of Amsterdamse Bos. I called V. to tell him not to wait, I'll be late.
The train that was supposed to bring me to Schiphol did not come. "Defect...something something ...all in Dutch of course". I should have taken my cues and head home. No. Mutton head.

I and my bike have schlepped each other along clumsily on local trains through Leiden... I never know how to fit into the train with my bike and not be in the way of others. I knocked another bike down, stabbed a lady with the brake handles, smeared bike grease all over my new pants (which had to be worn, since they were, you know. new.)
I got of at Schiphol, which is a very large airport. I felt a little silly there, pushing my bike around fashion shops and food stands. I walk outside, no idea how to get the hell out of this jungle by bike. But, amazingly (not in the Netherlands, just anywhere else), a bike path begins RIGHT at the airport. 6km to Amsterdamse Bos. I get there, try to call V., but he's not picking up. Omen upon omen. I wait. Try again, nothing. I decide to bike through the Bos a bit, it's so lovely outside, and then maybe bike all the way back to the Hague or something, we'll see. I tried V. one more time, and this time I got him. They just rented canoes (or kayaks?) and were headed out for about an hour.
Great! I'll catch up with them. I kept getting lost, since all the signs consist of at least 25 unpronouncable letters, but I found it. I had no cash. Omenomenomen. But, the lady suggested I can borrow some from my friends once I find them. Sure, the inner dimwit agreed with glee. The lady did NOT suggest that I leave my bag with her, nor did she give me a waterproof plastic bag like she apparently did to everyone else. No matter. I am a street-smart worldly traveler, surely I can navigate a silly solo canoe (or kayak?). I squeeze myself in, stuff my bag between my knees towards the nose of the canoeyak. On we go. Wee!
I paddle something fierce. I am so good at this, slicing through water like knife through buttah. Sun is glistening and jumping off the ripples in the water, so I bust out my trusty old camera and snap away. There is a big furry bird up on the tree and I try to zoom in as much as I can before it flies away. Snap....snap...and....oops! There's a tree right ahead of me. I veered too close to the bank. No matter, I am a street-smart worldly, and strong, traveler, few fierce strokes with my paddle and I'll be out on the open water again.
Another thing that the lady did not tell me is how unstable the solo canoeyak is. Two fierce strokes and I felt the center of my gravity was dangerously leaning to the right. It felt like it was all in slow motion, and suddenly the world was surprisingly wet and cold. I am frantically thrashing about with my arms, dog paddling but failing, sputtering water all about in a bit of a shock. I latch onto the canoeyak and try to turn it around and haul myself in....this is of course utterly futile.

A lovely Dutch couple pedals by on their water bicycle.
"Are you alright?" they ask.
I am utterly startled. My posessions are swimming in an area of 20 square meters, I am up to my neck in muddy cold water looking rather insane.... do I LOOK alright?!?!
"No, I am NOT alright. I think I need help," say I.
"Can you swim?" the lady part of the couple asks.
...at this point I am genuinely pissed off. YOU get into this water and look suave, you daft cow, think I.
"Yes, of course I can swim," say I.
The man part of the couple suggests I try climbing onto their bicycle and off of it into the water filled canoeyak. That is not working, since when I try to climb on, the bicycle tilts and starts to drown. He asks me to get off and suggests that I swim to the shore. They leave. They pedal off while I'm still in the middle of the bloody river thrashing about and choking on water.

Count to five, slowly. There is mud beneath. It is gross, but I stand in it. I sink into it upto my thighs. Brrrr. I drag the caneoyak to the shore, relieved to see my bag still in it. But my digital camera and my beloved Nieman Foundation sweatshirt are gone.
It's a good thing I didn't die, that would be bloody expensive! I think. I am not insured yet, or at least don't have any papers about it yet.
When on the shore, I tip the canoeyak upside down, as well as my bag. I pace back and forth, still furious at the couple. I check my digital arsenal.
"There is no response from phone," my phone says, but at least there is something on the screen. The iPod is just dead. You can see water inside.
I undress, I so don't care if the Queen herself paddles by right now. I wring out my t-shirt and pants. Sanity assembled back, I push myself into the canoe and canoe back into the water and launch successfully. I look like Hell and I smell worse.
The highligh of the trip were praises from the rental people at my calmness and level-headedness. But, what am I gonna do...we worldly street-smart travelers don't cry and stomp our foot in front of the populace.

I meet my group. All of them (Sixteen, count'em) for the first time in my life, except for V. After about an hour of perfectly ineffective attempt to dry in the sun I excuse myself and head home. Bike, train, bike.... 3 hours since the refreshing dip, I finally get into a hot shower and wash the fishes away. My bag still smells of the mud when it rains.

I really trully pledge to pay attention to bad omens and heed the advice of the higher powers, working tirelessly to guide us despite our blindness and deafness towards them.

I could have loved you like a planet

...but it really doesn't matter at all...no it really doesn't matter at all.....Life's a gas!

Well, that's Replacements, now stuck in my head semi-permanently, for good reason probably. It really does not matter at all... I could have loved Cambridge like a planet, and I did, I did. But I picked up my room and plopped it into The Hague. When I look around, it looks almost the same, the same laptop on my knees, except my musically inclined housemate whistles when walking down the stairs, producing new sounds (that jolt me out of the bed and stand at the ready to defend myself before i remember he's just whistling/humming/singing....i don't get the emo stuff, always sounds like an injured wailing banshee to me). And when I walk outside...well, I don't walk outside. I get on my bike and pedal around... And streets are streets... could be almost anywhere. Except here you have to navigate through a sea of bikers, many of them are carrying large obtrusive objects, talk on the cell phone and smoke at the same time.
And all the Europe stuff.... old buildings and cobblestones....all mostly obstacles, from a biker's perspective. For a land of bikers, there's way too many cobblestones. From The Hague all the way to Leiden. My brain is still shaking three days later.
Though I do wish to be able to walk out to my old living room, and knit while sipping an IPA and moving the TV about the room to catch a grainy episode of Seinfeld.
Here I can drink any beer and watch any of 1,000 channels on our cable TV. Where's the fun in that?

All things material, be gone!

Well, except my jewelry. I mean, it does come from all over the world... and the board I made for my earrings to hang off of. That's a piece of art, really. Gradma's head scarf is the background for it, can't leave that behind. Nor five boxes worth of books or a trillion suitcases worth of clothing, every last piece of a deep sentimental value, of course.....
This is not gonna be easy.

I'm moving to The Hague. And if I defend my bloody dissertation before I go, I'll even be excited. In the meantime, I am trying to Reduce Everything. I started a big trash bag in the middle of my room, thinking I'll just throw in it everything I don't need, mercilessly. Off it will go to the Good Will. It now sports an old bike helmet with a torn off strap and a hair dryer with a torn off switch (a pattern?). Nothing more.... Unacceptable.

Meanwhile I am trying to decide if I want a gemeuvemefeldet apartment (or whatever) or whether that might be a bad thing, trying to see through the photos of various studios and apartments online whether I'll feel at home there.

Thus the journey begins.

Oh yes. The dissertation defense first. Meh.

Oooh, found a pen that doesn't work! Off to the trash bag! There is hope.

Den Haag!!!

"It's all downhill from now..."

And I sure hope so! Shouldn't that be a good thing? All downhill from now, weeeeee!

Anyway, so many expressions have almost the opposite meaning than they logically should have.

"It's all but done".... Well, my imagination suggests that it was left alone, swept under the rug, delegated to someone else who died a sudden and gruesome death... it suggests many things except for "it's almost done".

And the good old "horrible" and "horrific" - both a bad thing.... and "terrible" and "terrific" suddenly being quite the opposite of one another. Gah! I think it's a plot against the foreigners really. Nobody likes us.

I shall not be subdued. I will follow my common sense and use the words as I deem fit. Even if people will think I went off the deep end (not sure where or why).

For all the fish in the ocean

I walk in, a little tense, and close the door. Make sure it's closed all the way. I climb up two steps and sit down.
"I'm just gonna relax," I say to myself.
But I know it's coming. Oh I know it's coming!
"Don't be silly, you know it's perfectly harmless! It's good for you, actually!"
Yes I know, but I don't really care to be all that rational right now. It's coming, it's coming!

I pull my knees to my chin and hug them close. I close my eyes in anticipation.
"If you last five rounds, you will feel so good. You'll see. You know it's true. You will not be in pain tomorrow after the today's boxing session. And the weights, you overdid it again. Just hang in here."
Whatever, I could just do sauna, in fact I think I'm gonna go right now, it's just nextdoor...
"No you don't!!! Sit down. You're gonna chicken out for a bit of fog?! Shame on you!"
Ohhhh why do I ever listen to you, OK, I'll sit....let's just be done with this.

Then it comes, sudden explosion of sound and steam.
PhhssssssSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

My heart starts thumping and I feel goosebumps all over. My limbs turn heavy and weak.
This is what it felt like when they released CycloneB at the prisoners in concentration camps, this is exactly it! Why do I trust complete strangers at some random sports club? This steam could be anything! In fact I think I'm suffocating! This is it, I'm getting out!
"Of fer crying out loud! You trust them because you pay them 100 dollars a month, stupid. They would all rot in jail long ago. People do this all the time. You know it's great for exfoliation!"
I so don't care right now about some exfoliation! My life is in jeopardy here!
"Oh yes you do. You say you don't, but of course you do. Besides, exfoliation diminishes the risk of cancer, did you know that?"
Of course I know! I can exfoliate some other way and certainly someplace else.
"Oh yeah? You're gonna buy the fancy exfoliating shower gel with plastic beads? You do know that they don't disintegrate. You do know they go through all the filters and all the way into the ocean and fish choke on them because they are exactly the same size as plankton."
What? So I'm here because of the fish? This is insane. You are insane!

PfhsssssssSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yikes.

"See? that was not nearly as scary as the first one. You even enjoy it, I know you."

Well it is less terrible, I admit. And skin is pealing off of me in droves. I'm gonna have a baby back, yes I will, yes I will. But it's hot and I've been here for hours, this cannot be healthy, I'll probably just die of a heart attack. In fact I'm a littl queasy alredy.

"Well if you stop fidgeting and just give it a chance. Lie down or something."

OK, I'll give you one more round, just because I was such a chicken.

PfhhsssssSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hey.

"What?"

Nothing. It's OK. I'm a little thirsty and hot, but I do admit that you were right. This is relaxing.

"Well I'm a little thirsty myself."

You know, we have a cold cold IPA in the fridge at home. Can you see its golden gleam? Can you see the condensed pearls of sweat on the bottle? Can you hear the cap popping open and the fizzing of the beer out of the bottle?"

"Yeah. I can hear that."

It's been almost three rounds. Are we good? I promise the next time I'll last five. Why, even tomorrow if you want.

"OK. Let's bail."

Talk to our friendly employees and do check our website!

I just accepted a job offer in The Hague. I am as excited as The Happy Goat (surely a bad omen). I was offered at a conference in Bristol. It's the closing dinner and some silly dancing with new to-be-colleagues. With a suitcase in hand, I rush to catch the 10:30pm train from Bristol to London, Paddington. Still in high heels, dressed up from closing dinner, I put the suitcase on a luggage rack and happily settle into my seat. Luckily I have all night in London, I'll just get to the airport and catch a few hours of sleep there. I stare out of the window, contemplating life in The Hague. Train is swarming with pimpled British kids returning home from parties. It's also swarming with one Suspicious Individual, also a pimpled British kid, who is eyeing me strangely. He sits behind me and I am convinced I feel tugging at my coat as if he was trying to get into my pocket or purse. He doesn't know however that he's dealing with the Worldly and Street-smart Traveller. I take my coat and purse and place them in my lap ostentatively, turn around and stare the Suspicious Individual down. That's right, kiddo. I know your game.

Suspicious Individual leaves, then comes back with a beer, then leaves again. At least five times. Each time he passes, we have a staring contest. I check my suitcase, it's still on the luggage rack.

British kids are loud and obnoxious, drinking beer and joking about. I am outdoing myself in giving them the evil eye, till I finally tire and drift to sleep. I check my suitcase, it's still on the luggage rack. We're in Reading, only one more stop to go.

Can't wait to get off and make it to the airport to get a few hours of sleep on a bench somewhere. We're arriving in Paddington, yay. People crowd by the door, I get my purse and a coat and go for my suitcase.... it's gone. I stare at the empty luggage rack in disbelief. Looking around in panic. I even think I see a glimpse of my suitcase in the crowd rushing away from the platform, but for some reason I don't run after it. Instead I search frantically for a train conductor. I find one and together we turn the train upside down, though it makes little sense.

Bitter and resigned, I go find police officer somewhere. Two nice chaps took me in to the train police station and started writing up the report. That's when it all actually started.

See, I was to catch a plane at 8:40 am....plenty of time, one would think. My train from Bristol pulled in at 12:30am. But this is Britain.

One of the nice police chaps tells me the subway doesn't run at night. He gets online and finds out that there is "engineering work" being done on the First Capital Connect line to the aiport. He prints out the schedule for me - the first subway leaves at 6:23am. Cutting it close, but doable.

At 6:23am, I am tapdancing in front of the platform 15 and 16, from which the said subway is supposed to leave. The grumpy employee that I pull out from the kiosk there tells me they don't open till 6:40am. A bit nervous, I consult the grumpy kiosk guy on the best course of action. He sends me to Farringdon station, assuring me there is no engineering work done today...after all, it's Sunday. The train comes at 7am.

At Farringdon, I run to the platform for the Lutton ariport. Closed. I go find another grumpy kiosk guy. There are no trains until 1 pm, but I am sure to catch a train from King's Cross....just one stop over. It's about 7: 20 by now.

King's Cross is a frikkin maze. I run from this end to that, finally find the appropriate platform. No luck. I find yet another, this time extremely grumpy kiosk guy and he says there is engineering on the line. I shove my prinout from the web under his nose, but it does not seem to move him much. Perhaps he was beaten as a child.

I must find a cab STAT. If I miss this flight to Vienna, I might miss my connection to Boston. I attempt to find a cab that takes credit cards. Aaaaahahahahahaha.

That only takes me another 20 minutes. Finally I find one that takes pity on me. There's a 15% surcharge, as if I care anymore. Total is close to 140 GBP. I am stoicism impersonated. With just a hint of a bitter aftertaste.

The cab pulls into the airport at 8:40 am. My flight has left. I call my mother and sob like a silly school girl. Back to stoicism impersonated. I buy another flight to Vienna, where my mom will meet me with food, clean t-shirt, and underwear. May god bless and keep my mother in good health forever and ever amen.

Upon my return to Boston, I started an immensely entertaining conversation with the First Capital Connect.

I emailed them to complain that a) the information I got from their website was incorrect, and that b) their employees have mislead me three times, sending me to wrong stations and giving me bad information. I wrote a long detailed treatise about what happened step by step, minute by minute, and how much it ended up costing me.

 This is the gem of a response I received:

We recommend that customers always check their journey times with National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950 before travel as timetables can change at short notice. Alternatively journey details can be checked on the internet at www.nationalrail.co.uk... The stations teams at manned stations are always happy to provide assistance with any enquiries.

Brilliant. They advise me to check their website and talk to their friendly employees. I knew it. I shouldn't have been so excited about the new job. The Happy Goat fate got me good this time.

what kind of birthday cards do YOU get?

Lemuralia, the day of the Larvae

Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and repeating the incantation, "With these beans I redeem me and mine" nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!"nine times.

It's also the day when I officially become wiser and more respectable each year. Just my luck to share this day with larvae. Throw some beans over your shoulder for me... Or have a burrito.