Dateline Alger

Kinda anti-climatic, since y'all know I'm home, but . . . I am home.

I had a last drink of pivo with Slavko on the job site on my last day. Then Wednesday, Slavko and Nada were kind enough to rise one hour early in the dark to drive me to the ferry to Split.

Short flight to Vienna after waiting around in Split, arriving about 2:00 p.m., walked to my "Pension Mozart" - thank you, MapQuest - and checked in, then walked around the old center of town. Nicely enough, the pension was almost in the Museum Quarter and directly adjacent to the old center with its government buildings, museums, cathedrals, palaces, sculptures, and squares.

Spent 8 Euros (senior rate!) to see an Impressionist exhibit at the Palace Albertina, then found a 20th century exhibit downstairs which I enjoyed even more, especially Joan Miro. Spent a little time lost in the dark in a large park trying to find my way back to the pension.

Interesting place, for a big city. Famous Austro-Hungarian architecture (of course!) with mythological trimmings, tons of cultural events and venues, sculptures and monuments everywhere - (musical or military themes) - parks, lots of bicycle paths, pedestrian sections, great old electric trolleys just like Zagreb or Sarajevo (since Austria supplied the trolleys to those places when it ruled them), buses, and the Underground, plus the wonderful City-to-Airport electric train, super-quiet, convenient, and only takes 16 minutes one way.

The next day, 9 hours to Toronto, 5 hours to Vancouver B.C. and - thanks to Julia - one-hour to Alger. Almost like magic!!

My first impressions now that I'm back:

1. Wooden houses seem so flimsy compared to the stone ones of Dalmatia.
2. Colored walls seem strange! (All white in Dalmatia.)
3. The sprawl in the U.S. seems obscene. (Flying over Austria and Vienna, I could see again the European planning which keeps the villages and cities so tight with farmland running right up to them.)

(And a tip: if you ride a newer 767 with Air Canada, you can adjust the headrests up or down for a comfortable overall fit in the seat, as well as wrap them to fit your head. I discovered this 5 hours too late while stretching my cramped body in the aisle waiting to exit the plane.)

Last Day, Dateline Milna

Last day. Beautiful, sunny, slight breeze: this has been a very good
season for me and a bad season so far for the olive trees. They need
rain to plump the olives.

My house is all tucked in, tho, everything cleaned, covered in plastic
or packed away in the closet with a few mothballs, and if my roof
repairs did any good things should be sound when we return next year.
Water bill paid, electric bill paid. Most good-byes said.

Tomorrow, 10/07, Slavko will drive me in to Supetar and I will catch the
7:45 a.m. ferry to Split, then a 12:20 flight to Vienna. Stay there
overnight at Pension Mozart. Then onwards the next day to Toronto,
Vancouver, Alger!

Today, however, everything is a little sad. Even the palm trees are
waving good-bye.

Peeling Away the Mask Reveals a Radiant Being of Pure Light

or Heraclition Fire.

[Fwd: living in america]

I hope the cement patching of the rough is going well
there is something harder to do than what
i am going through
what is harder is helping melanie pack things up:
scientific, emotional, i think this is like death
only i am still alive in another place i'm done in here and you walk
into the room and say did anything change and then there is I'll be back
in three weeks to finish or i need to run to the knitting store and then
i want to go out in a few hours and let's go for a walk in the arboretum
i leave at noon tomorrow and you know you, the husband, are left with
mountains of things to do only you can't do them really because if you
do the choices you make will not be what your wife would like but she
leaves you no choice but to break her heart throwing something away she
did not have the heart to throw away herself so you are the one who has
to choose and right or wrong you are on husband island. I see all of
this coming but there is nothing i can do about it because every little
item has to be processed by some idiot and that idiot is looking more
and more like me.

all that i really hope for is to find my favorite pair of glasses that i
misplaced last summer. i know they are here somewhere. funny i never
thought of glasses as plural before but i guess they really are.
Remarkably that is what the extra s is for at the end of the word. One
item (your glasses) being plural. Amazing the twists and turns of
language. I could be
lost in that issue all day.

I have decided, once i reorient myself, i am devoting my personal time
to the study of phythagoras. he is the man. i think he lived just across
the water from you. we'll sail to
his hometown and walk the streets he once walked.

like i said, stay on milna, duck under the covers and instead of being a
weekender go through the winter there... i'll bring provisions in the
spring. This recession in america is not going away and might get worse
sooner than later.

also another thing to ponder, the right wing in america has truly gone
crazy in the head... how are they ever going to govern this country
again if they all sit around and clap
that chicago lost the olympic bid to rio, brazail... the last time i
looked chicago was an american city. obama losing is more important that
america losing. these crazies
are going to choke on their crazy. who would ever vote for republicans
to lead us as a nation ever again... let's hope the percentage of crazy
people doesn't go up too high
or we are lost.

dateline queen anne 10/3/09

Roof Repair, Dateline Milna

It's pretty hard to ignore roof leaks when you have plaster walls. Each
leak shows up long after the rains have stopped as a rather interesting,
rust colored stain against the white plaster. And then of course when
it is actually raining, there are those not-so-small streams of water
pouring from the ceiling or running down walls and across the floor.

To get to my roof, first you have to go into my house - carrying your
tools and buckets of cement for repair - up my stairs, past my bedroom,
into the back room, step up on a wooden chair, then crawl over a small
cement sink and out a small 30 x 30 (or so) window, brushing millipedes,
snails and spiders aside. It is no easy trick getting through that
window either: any way you fold yourself has its own problems and
pains. Then you can climb up on the roof using the neighbors concrete
wall as a step. Once on the roof you must tread very carefully, trying
to put your weight on the thickest part of the roof tiles, which are
generally old and brittle since I told the Bosnians to go ahead and use
the old tiles when they redid my roof three years ago. So, every time I
climb up there to try and put cement or mastic or rubber sheeting over
leaks that I have found, I end up breaking another tile or two and
adding to my work and risk of future failure. (And, of course, this is
just the backside of the roof - - the frontside, with its own problems,
is too steep for me to contemplate repair.)

As always, Slavko has been an incredible friend, helping to locate and
review my problems, come up with creative solutions, list the supplies I
will need for repair and even drive me to the hardware store to pick
them up. Of course, as he pointed out, the right answer is to redo the
roof, again.

My plan is much simpler than that, however, and a great deal cheaper.
(And I think he suspects it.) What I want to do is spread some cement
around, call it good, and get the heck out of here before the late
autumn rains start. Then it will be 6 - 9 months before I have to face
this again!

Local Hardware Store, Dateline Nerezisca

Say what you will, you gotta love it when a trip to the local hardware
store finds you wandering among 300 liter rubber and stainless steel
wine-making supplies.

Thanks for photo, help and ride, Slavko!!

Pies

Riding with Slavko today to Donji Humacs to pick up some stone slabs for
a job he is working on, I started
talking about fruit pies. Raspberry pie, plum pie, rhubarb pie,
strawberry pie, blackberry pie (marion, logan, himalayan, evergreen),
peach, apricot, blueberry, mulberry, apple, even lemon and lime. I went
on and on and on, surprising myself. And he must have thought I was
crazy, but Julia, please take note . . .

F--- You, Dr. S.

F---- you, Dr. S.

How many times did you stick your finger up my bum?
pronouncing, h-m-m-m-m-, a little big, but seems ok.

And if that weren't enough,
you took this bionic snake,
this roto router,
and really stuck it to me.

ouch. that hurt. that really hurt.
(and we - you, me, the nurse -
watched it all on video.)

but now, you look at me with this false paternal look
that makes me want to puke,
over the top of your glasses
(do you wear glasses?)

and say
no alcohol, no tobacco, no caffeine.

OK, daddy. OK. OK.

On the Riva, I drink a beer, followed by some rakija,
then a coffee and a smoke,
(a Cubanito,)
just remembering,
just remembering.

May I die but still I say,

F---- you, Dr. S.
and all your kind.

Wine-Making #4, Finale, Dateline Milna

First day of Autumn, the white grapes are ready for bottling. This
time we do things a little differently with the help of Spiro's
brother. Instead of transferring the new wine from the rubber vat by
hand, we hook up an old pump and plug it in. Magic!!!! A white wine
gusher. Sweet now, but it will dry out as it matures. Different, too,
is the fact that most of the wine will be stored in old glass wine jugs
rather than the stainless steel canister that we used for the red wine.

It's a beautiful and successful day, capped off with some succulent
meat, potatoes and carrots cooked under embers: peka. On the walk
home, I stop for my Dalmatian annual Equinox swim.

EQUINOX!!!!!!!!

The wise man keeps his head down and sticks to business.

Wine-Making #3, Dateline Murvica

Saturday, 9/19

Today's the day! A clear, sunny day. The good red grapes have been
sitting in a vat in Murvica, near Bol, for a week now, fermenting and
getting mashed and stirred daily by Ivo's neighbor/ wine master.

Now we open the spigot and watch the beautiful stuff gush out. This is
the easy part: we just transfer the new wine by hand from the rubber
vat to a stainless steel . . . ummm, canister (I'll have to find out the
correct term). Beautiful, beautiful. We fill the 320 liter canister
almost half way like this. (1)

Then the harder part. We assemble an old Yugoslavian wine press, pack
in some of the grape mash left behind in the rubber vat, screw down the
lid, and start crankin'. Ivo, Spiro and I take turns. When we are done
pressing and straining all the mash, the stainless container has about
300 liters of rich red wine. (2)

The stuff that's left in the press is incredibly dry and packed tight.
We break it apart and pack it back in the rubber bags that we used to
collect the grapes here. Spiro will take these and have rakija (brandy)
made this winter. (3)

We celebrate by drinking a little of the young wine. Yummy. It will be
ready to start drinking in earnest after Christmas.

After cleaning the equipment, I go for a pre-Equinox skinny-dip at the
beach below Ivo's little villa. I don't realize that this is a naturist
beach until I notice the couple at the other end and the boat of young
people approaching as I am leaving.

On the drive home, we stop by an old friend of Ivo's who also has a very
nice villa above the sea on this south part of the island. (This is
actually Alexa, the guy who sold me Bella Bijela a couple of years ago.
And I am with Spiro, the guy who purchased her from me this year.)
Sitting on his patio, under a grape arbor, and shaded by almond trees,
we eat fresh almonds, drink homemade brandy, and talk about tuna fishing
and hunting wild pigs on the mountain, Vidova Gora.

We return home by climbing a gravel road that relentlessly switches back
and forth right up the side of the mountain while the little vineyards
sloping to the sea disappear in the distance below us.

Now it's Monday, 9/21, and I am back to working on my roof. But
Equinox is a'comin' then time for a swim.

Mashin' Grapes

2 x's day x 7 days = vino

Wine Making #2, Dateline Milna

09/15/2009 --

It's 11:00 a.m. but I am already a little hot and tired, eating lunch.
Still, it feels wonderful sitting in the shade under a 150 year old
olive tree twisted sinuously behind me, with a nice glass of home-made
rakija in one hand, a sandwich of cheese and salami in the other, and a
cooling breeze blowing from the North. I am high on a hill, back
winding rock roads, with an expansive view of the Adriatic and the
mainland beyond.

We are back at Sutivan again, near Milna - Ivo, Spiro, and Spiro's wife,
Golga - this time picking the white grapes for white wine and rakija.
Of the 800 grape vines, the majority are white grapes and I can feel
it. (Funny, I think, how much grape picking and tile laying have in
common. A truth I can feel in my hands, and back and knees.) This is
the real thing villa rustica, small rock shack on agricultural land,
check out the photos for a view of the water collection system and you
will see what I mean (although you can't see the dead lizard next to the
water-in sieve.) The land is owned by a Polish woman who purchased it
as an investment and who did not understand that the grapes, figs, and
olives needed to be worked for them to survive fruitfully. So we are
working them to our benefit.

We get 14 bags of white grapes off the land. Maybe 300 liters of wine.
These buggers are heavy - I'd guess about 60 poundds or so - and remind
me of bucking hay bales, except the sweet, sticky juice is everywhere.
We also get a couple of baskets of figs and some grapes for eating.

Back at Spiro's, we mash the grapes, but discover to our distress that
he will have to add sugar to get them to a level for proper
fermentation. (See photo of Spiro and Golga peering anxiously at meter
reading.) This is a big no-no, as everyone speaks disparagingly of
those chemists adding sugar and water to stretch their wine. Still,
what must be, must be and we shrug philosophically.

Once again, we finish the day with a big feast of . . . meat. Some
onions, some wine, and meat. That's all it seems to take over here for
a good time.

After Finding a Big, Ugly Centipede in my Bedroom: An Inconsequential Memory

We were walking a loop
on Sam's father's land
admiring the way -
as I recall -
he had culled the firewood,
when
from the canopy of alder and of cedar
I felt a plop!
on the top
of my head.
Suppressing a shudder
I brushed away a plump
banana slug,
still grunting assent
to Sam's sililoquy
while thinking at every step of the way,
jee-sus key-rist/
jee-sus key-rist/
jee-sus key-rist.

September Wine-making, Dateline Milna

Up at six to hit the slopes. . . vineyard slopes, that is . . . with Ivo
and his brother-in-law, Spiro . . .one vineyard, secluded among the
hills not too far from our village, as a bonus had some plump and
delicious figs too. . . then down to the other end of the island, near
Bol, where the best wine grapes grow and where - down an ever narrowing
dirt road that clings to the hillside above the sea - Ivo has a small,
true, very wonderful 'villa rustica' that he is working on, complete
with a tiny vineyard sloping down to the sea and a horizon full of
sailboats and Hvar. There, with a little help from a knowledgeable
neighbor and his sons, we were able to complete the harvest and mash the
grapes for primary fermentation . . . (This is a big experiment, Ivo's
first time making wine, although his dad did routinely, of course. But,
as a small child trying to help, Ivo accidentally 'destroyed' a vine.
His father said, "No, Ivo, you must love the vine." and after that never
let him help.) . . . then back home for a carnivores delight feast of
grilled meat and inexpensive red wine in a carton from Macedonia . . .
This was a 'red wine' grape day; on Tuesday, we go back to the nearby
vineyard above Sutivan for the white wine grapes . . .

Villa Rustica, Dateline Milna

Well!!!! while everyone else is dealing with the opportunities and
problems in their lives, I have finished tiling our little Illyrian
summer home, or villa rustica, as I have taken to calling it. That was
back-breaking work. Now, a little clean-up, some roof repair and
contracting for back wall excavation, and maybe a week or two of hiking
and painting, if all goes well.
Maybe some wine-making too, we'll see!

Tile Status, Dateline Milna

Man, seven days into laying a 200 sq.ft. floor and I'm still not done!
(That doesn't count a few days prep.) Who knew?

The work is hard and I am slow (and achey. and slow.), and I did slack
off a couple of half-days and today (somehow) forgot to get more mastic,
it's Sunday, so I am forced into inaction. Well, there's a couple of
things I can still do . . .

Slavko tells me that I am taking 3 x's as long and using 3 x's the
mastic as is normal. Gotta glue those suckers down good.

Friends have helped . . . Ivo has loaned me some tools and came over on
the first day and laid tile for a couple of hours . . . plus he drops by
once a day, loudly announcing that "Control is here!" and inspects my
work, usually pointing out some sloppy work and asking "Why, John?
Why?" . . . Slavko has wisely stayed away for the most part once I got
started, but he taught me how to lay tile, drove me to hardware stores
looking for tile, helped me get supplies, showed me how to prep . . .
and has fed me twice in the last 3 days!!!!! (I actually had two meals
in one day on Thursday! I will get fat.)

Strangely ebough, I am really enjoying this but I need to finish this
this week so it doesn't interfere with our big wine-making plans. The
grapes are ready!

Chaz Says "We've Got Some Time . . ."

i'm glad melanie can work from home
part-time at least
i was however a bit disappointed
because i had given myself up to moving and that
involved a lot of emotional work

but as usual the universe will give to you
if you put the universe in charge

actually the job worked for me
when i saw that 5 hour energy
drink was advertising on
baseball tonight

they've set up a web site for her
she renamed the organization
she will be travelling around the map to attend
conferences
and she is working on the new logo
all in the first day

the graphic/web person at 5 hour energy
works behind a monitor that is so big
that all Melanie could see at first was his shoes
probably a 4 foot monitor
mac of course

now that i am back from reliving my life
in omak i think i can polish up my stories
about omak with some even better fabrications
of the truth

i hope to be in alger this weekend
and i'll let the boys at the speedway know
you miss them

chaz

Tile Preparation

I chisel away with my 1/2"chisel, leveling all the old concrete in
preparation for tile laying. Julia says I need a bigger tool. Funny,
that's what all the spam I get everyday says too.

Anyway, I whack the chisel a couple of times. H-m-m-m-. Maybe a little
music would help. I put on Indexi, an old Yugoslav (Sarajevo) rock
band. Not bad. I hit it again. Huh, I think I need a little coffee.
Back again. Hit it. Don't I have a cigar stub somewhere? Yeah. Good
smoke. Hit it again. Where are Charles, Tim, Eliot, Spencer when i
REALLY need them? Hit it. I text a message to Almir, telling him how
much I really enjoy Indexi. Get a reply, and have to reply to him.
This is slow work. A couple of whacks. Hey, what's that dripping down
my chest? Sweat, by god. Better take it easy. i think I'll take a
picture of me working so hard. Take a drink of water. Jeeze this is
boring. Its getting hotter. Maybe I should finish tomorrow?

The things we don't do . . . tile floors, pack suitcases, sell shoes,
run projects . . . when all we really want to be doing is sailing the
Mediterranean with a fair breeze at our backs and some wine, olives,
figs and cheese in the larder . . .

Williams Happy Genius

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

William Carlos Williams

Near Noon, Sacred Grove

What Do I Find?

I am chipping away at my concrete floor trying to level it with a 1/2"
chisel in preparation for laying some tile and what do I find but
'Leetle Henri. '

When Julia was Here

I was trying to get to the coffee one morning when I became aware that
Julia was describing something to me: "A little black crustacean . . ."

'What?" I said, 'Was that a dream?"

"No, it was on the patio. About so big," she spreads her thumb and
forefinger," and with a tail curved like this." she curls her finger
upwards."

"Oh, you mean a scorpion!" I say.

"What's a scorpion?" she asks.

No matter, since she had whisked him into her dustpan and tossed him out
into the grass, whatever he was.

I tell Almir this story as we are making our way home one night. We
both laugh as we enter my patio.
There in the middle under the light is a big, black cicada.

Almir, the city man, peers at it suspiciously and edges around it.

He looks at me. "Is that a scorpion?" he asks.

(Image from keepingupwith-kathy.blogspot.com)

Tonight

I eat garlic on the waterfront and feel very Mediterranean.

I am wearing the batik rag shirt that Julia bought in Indonesia 'cuz I
fancy it makes me look very artistic ex-pat, like maybe Robin Williams
or Nick Nolte.

I Am No Papaprazzi

I am on my way to a morning coffee with Slavko to discuss the supplies
that I need to buy to tile my floor when I round the corner to the Riva
and see Beyonce and Jay-Z walking down the plank from Eric Clapton's
yacht to do the same. Have coffee on the Riva, that is, I don't think
they know Slavko. I finished my coffee, snapped a quick pict, rented a
scooter, rode into Nerezisca, ordered my supplies, did some
sight-seeing, got a lot of sun, and by the time I returned the yacht was
gone.

Such are the times of the 'poor and unknown,' as Ruth used to say.

Chaz Muses on the "Big Change"

an old friend said beware of big change
at my age so i replied i was 19
emotionally and i wasn't going to change
because she was afraid for me

do we sink into the morass of 58 or do we
strive for something different to bring back
some life... hah, so what if it is freezing cold
in michigan and so what if seattle is probably
the greatest city in the country and so what
if i am shaking with cold sometimes in ann arbor at least
the cob webs will be shook up and maybe frozen
and maybe shattered but if i survive i could be sailing on
the adriatic next summer...

and, oh yeah, we'll have a guest room for you
and julia in ann arbor

chaz

(John: one each, or will we have to share?)

Frane T.

Frane T. has a large stuffed owl on his living room wall. Its wings are
outspread a good couple of feet and its face is ferocious. Frane was a
hunter in his youth, although he is a little vague about where he
hunted. "We got on boats," he said, ". . . other islands . . ." Nor can
I quite tell what it was, besides owls, that he hunted. Wild pigs, at a
guess, which we still have on Brac, so he says.

To the left of the owl, which occupies pride of place as you enter the
room, are 4 medium sized paintings, hung on line. The first, which
darkly depicts a Mozart-like figure seated at a piano, is 400 years old,
he tells me. I prefer the third in line, some whimsical figures painted
more recently by a relative.

Frane is proud to show off his home. He even takes me into the bedroom,
opens a closet, and shows me blankets draped over two rather large
objects stacked together. 'Harmonica,' by which he means accordion, and
'clavier,' or piano. For besides being a hunter, Frane has also been a
musician, travelling from town to town in Europe, a fisherman, and – his
real occupation and that of his father before him – the town butcher.

Now he is 71 years old and retired. Each year, he rents a building on
the waterfront to the Albanian family that makes ice cream and also
rents them accommodation for the season. He rents the butcher shop too.

He is a large man - tall, broad-shouldered, barrel chested - with white hair who walks with a slow dignity,
ponderously, with his arms held stiffly, slightly bent at the elbow,
away from his body, shoulders forward. Almir pokes fun at him,
insinuating that he looks like a great seabird holding its wings up to
dry. And he does. But the gait, like much about Frane's life now, is
really a remnant of his youth, a Yugoslav "John Wayne' macho mannerism
from 40 years ago.

'Ah those girls from Belgrade," he remembers through Almir. 'They were
really liberal back then. You would go to the beach and, if they liked
you, they would come right up and within 10 minutes . . .' Almir assures
me it is true.

Frane has never married. He spends the days with his sister in her house
and sleeps at his own home in the village. It is a strong stone house,
with private patio shielded by grape vines from which he makes 'lozo', a
type of brandy. He has an open view of the village.

There is a story about Frane, about why he never married, about why he
is trapped in the past. It seems that in his youth he loved a girl from
a poor family. Frane's own family, being relatively wealthy in property
and higher position, forbad their marriage. One day Frane awoke to
discover that her family had taken her and had emigrated to Australia.
He never saw her nor heard from her again. And he has grieved his whole
life.

Tonight, we sit in his grape arbor and drink his homemade prosek, a
sweet sherry type of wine. "I can bring my ukelele and we can play some
music," I say. He looks at me mournfully for a moment. 'Ah yes, we
could,' he says,' but there are no women, so what would be the purpose?'

I light a cigar and pour more prosek in silence, having no good answer
for him.

Later we go down to the Riva for some pivo. There are plenty of women
present and kareoke loudly booms from nearby speakers, but Frane seems
no happier.

"Look at those three Swedish girls," he says. 'Here they are, sitting
alone, and no-one comes to charm them,' as if such a crime was unheard
of in his day.