Bibi!!

Well,  we don't really call her "Bibi" any more,  since that was her nickname when she was quite small.
My job this morning was to get to the airport in time to meet our daughter Dana's Air Austria flight from Toronto that was coming in at 8:35.   I think it was within about a minute or two of its arrival time which,  considering the length of the flight,  is pretty good I'll have to admit.
The thing was,  Travelling Companion had phoned from Romania last night,  as is the case any time she's away,  and figured since her flight wasn't coming in until later,  that she'd just get a ride to her office with one of her associates.   Turns out the two of them met up somewhere before the luggage carousel,   which also meant a slight change in plans,  since now I'd be driving her to work first.

See,  if there's no waiting for checked luggage,  that can make all the difference.

The only minor consideration was that I hadn't managed to have any breakfast before leaving for the airport,  but I'm pretty sure I can survive on what's around my midsection at this point.  I think though there might be some other issues involving blood sugar or something,  since I was feeling a little bit pooched by the time we got back home here.
I've since hoofed it down to Merkur (um,  after scarfing down some toast)  and picked up some salmon for tonight.  Not sure what will be going with the salmon,  but potato salad comes to mind.
Dana is now fast asleep,  so I'm hoping when Travelling Companion calls,  she will have read the email I've sent to her,  asking her to call my cell phone, since I forgot to take the phone out of the room where she's sleeping.   That sucker will wake her up for sure.

 When coming from Toronto to Wienerland,  the plan is,  get a couple hours sleep,  and then hopefully you can function for the rest of the day and then go to bed at a normal time.   When going the other way,  the objective is to try and stay up for as long as possible (without checking your watch to see that it's actually 2:00 a.m. in Vienna)  and then try to sleep as long as possible to be on Ontario time.

It still takes me days to adjust in either case.

It was a heck of a sight easier when we lived in Puerto Rico.  There was no time change,  with the exception of some slight issues with daylight savings time.  I don't recall exactly how that worked,  but there was a period of time in the year when there would be an hours difference,  since Puerto Rico doesn't do daylight saving time.  At 18° north of the Equator,  there's very little point.




Apparently Dana had planned to have a checked bag all along,   but was muttering something about having to then take a bigger bag,  since she brought along some requested "loot"  for me and Travelling Companion.
I just noticed this pile on the table when I got back from shopping.
 I've been using the same batch of socks I shipped over in August of 08,  and I'm now starting to wear them out.  So you can clearly see that first of all,  that's not too damned shabby,  and that that is precisely the reason I put them on my Christmas list.
I used to wear them with my steel toed work boots,  so I know they wear well.

Didn't get any for Christmas.  Don't know how that happened,  and then I forgot to go to Costco.  
Bah!

Yay!  Socks!

Don't misunderstand me,  if I wanted to wear cheap miserable uncomfortable socks,  I could certainly go down the street and pick up all the socks my little heart could desire.   I just choose not to.   Not sure where they're made,  possibly Azerbaijan, but I'm not putting them on my feet.

We haven't told her yet where we're taking her for the weekend.   I'm somewhat hesitant to put anything here.  This could be the one and only time she decides to catch up on her reading.

I'd get into a lot of trouble.

I will however give you this hint.  It's a silly little saying that a friend of mine taught me in about 1978 or something.  I have no idea why I remember these kinds of things.   And....I certainly won't repeat it in the city where we're going. 
Because again,  I'd get into a lot of trouble.

It goes like this..."Elefant, nyald a seggit majd nem bant"


Can you guess where we're going?



Have a fine weekend.



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Really Spoiled.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop here, since the weather we've been having has been absolutely beautiful lately.
I mean, it rained in the evening some last night, and probably didn't help matters in the traffic department, but that certainly didn't have any effect on my life.
Question:  Is it "affect" or "effect"?
Bet you're wondering.
It didn't have any psychological "affect", and certainly didn't have any "effect" on my behaviour.
That just makes it more confusing.
Never mind.

Well,  I wouldn't call it a "hobby" actually,  but I do cringe ever so slightly when folks who think they can write can't tell the difference between "choose",  "chose",  "to" "too",  "lose" "loose" etc.

Just a pet peeve of mine.


Where was I?

I have to kind of scurry along here as I have an appointment at 11:30 to get the summer tires put on the car,  and considering that I seem to be running a little behind this morning,  I may not be able to spit everything out here.
 It's perhaps due to Travelling Companion being in another country,  but of course I woke up in the middle of the night and absolutely could not get back to sleep again.  Gah!

Never mind how late I then slept.  Feeling kind of guilty about that. Doesn't usually happen.

In typical fashion I snoop around the net looking for the latest news,  and I think my jaw dropped just ever so slightly to read AGAIN that people in the States have been walloped by severe weather.  
I mean,  I realise there's some risk involved when living in "Tornado Alley",  but when this kind of event goes through a built up area,  the results can be devastating.

Nowadays too,  we all seem to "know" someone,  somewhere,  and there are folks in Birmingham, (and in this case I do mean Alabama,  not the UK)  that I'm at least aware of?
Hard to really say you know someone from reading their blog,  and it's a curious thing when these kinds of remote events tend to affect us,  (there's that word again) even though they may be total strangers.  
Am I making any sense?
When someone puts into print how they feel when their dog dies,  one can't help but feel something.
It's usually sadness.
I should point out here,  that I was actually going to refer back to a post about losing a pet from about a week or so ago ,  and couldn't believe when I saw that these folks had actually lost a SECOND dog. 

This is probably the number one reason why I simply choose not to have a pet.  It's perhaps a selfish streak I know, but it's just very hard to part company with them when the time comes.    These folks once had five dogs.  They've lost two in as many weeks. 
I think the term, "having your heart broke"  comes to mind?
Too many of our friends and relatives have had their hearts broken when their pets die. 



So now finally our "toilet talk".

I'll try not to drag it out,  I promise.


See,  since getting back from Rome,  my memory has been refreshed when it comes to some of the amazing accomplishments that were achieved during the Roman Empire.  Not only were entire cities built,  and roadways created,  the evidence of which is still visible today,  but they also had many conveniences that we take for granted in our every day lives.

One of those things was some form of indoor plumbing.  

Here's the thing though,  judging by the function of the water closet in our hotel room on the weekend,  I had the impression that their technology hadn't really improved much in the last 2000 years or so.  
It looked like a normal toilet,  with the tank built into the wall,  which is something that I've gotten quite used to,  but its operation was by means of what one could only describe as a push button in the wall.
 OK well,  that should work,  shouldn't it?

 Not really.

There was so much plumbers grease in the mechanism that it refused to operate properly the whole time we were there.   The first night,  after the first flush,  it proceeded to dribble and flush,  then dribble and flush throughout the whole night.  Being as we were pretty much exhausted,  we slept through it.
 I brought it to the attention of the front desk in the morning,  and they must have done something,  since it did work for a while the next day.
And this is how I know there was so much plumbers grease in the valve,  since I took the f**king thing apart,  only to discover that it was the stupidest damned arrangement I had ever seen in my life! 
There was no way of actually getting the valve unstuck unless you had a pair of needle nose pliers.  

 For those who may be somewhat challenged in the tool identification department,  they look like this...

Note the pointy bits....

They sort of frown on those types of things at airport security,  so I had left mine at home.

 Sorry.


To make things even more interesting,  the bowl hadn't been properly attached to the floor,  so unless you could sit perfectly still on the seat, (hello!  need to wipe from time to time!)  the thing would work loose,  and at one point before we were heading out on Sunday morning to catch a glimpse of the Pope,  it got to the point where,  instead of the water rushing into the bowl,  it simply rushed out onto the floor.

Fun times!

Try to picture a guy jumping out of the way with his trousers down around his knees.

Man,  that was close!
 
I had noticed there was a built in drain in the floor,  only a couple feet from the toilet bowl.   I quickly understood why it was there.  Good planning.

Oh,  and when you pack as light as we tend to do,  you can't very well have your trousers getting drenched by some poorly installed Roman plumbing.  

Hence the little jig.

We left it for the cleaning staff,  and it was all tidied up and put back together,  albeit temporarily,  when we got back later that day. 
The thing was though,  we never quite knew exactly what was going to happen when pressing that button.

 Even if the thing did flush,  it seemed to take at least a minute to make up its mind,  and then there would be an ungodly whoosh!  

So the routine was:

Push button.
Leave the bathroom.
Make sure the door is closed.
Keep fingers crossed.



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Snippets from Absurdistan.

It's a funny thing,  but ever since I mentioned the notion of "Absurdistan"  yesterday,  I've had a couple examples just jump right out in front of me.
First of all,  just about every day I pick up one of the local free newspapers from the corner box,  which is about 25 metres from our front door.   I should mention that this free newspaper is also "worth every penny",  since it's a cross between say,  The Toronto Sun,  The Daily Mirror or perhaps the Vancouver Sun.   I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to the National Enquirer,  since they do cover actual news,  but in with the news there is a certain amount of sensationalistic cr*p.   (That's a journalistic term,  isn't it?)  They also have a website.
Of course,  it's all in German,  but you're welcome to have a look if you so choose.
One of the big differences that I'd like to point out is,  at least they don't have the nerve to try and charge actual money for what they consider journalism.  And really,  I've been offered free copies of the Toronto Sun at the checkout at one of our local Canadian Tire stores in Burlington,  but since we don't have a bird or a birdcage that needs to be lined,  I would simply decline.
Years ago,  at least you could go to page five and read Paul Rimstead, but after he passed away in 1987,  I didn't find too many more reasons to open up the Sun.

 I've gotten a bit off track here,  and I apologise.   Here's example number one:

 It's a little hard to tell what's going on,  and there's some actual video footage on the website,  but it would seem that the weather here in Wienerland was pretty fabulous over the weekend,  and many,  many folks were out and about not only in the cafes,  but also out grilling and generally have fun times in the out of doors.   These nitwits had some sort of disagreement,  and decided to attack each other with their cooking utensils.  There was mention made of a grilling fork,  along with an axe.
An axe?
I've never seen the need to take an axe on a pick-nick,  but maybe I'm missing something.   Nobody got killed,  but there were three injured parties.    
 I should also point out that they are Romanian.  I have no further comment.  Most of these "incidents"  do seem to involve issues between Romanians,  Poles,  Bulgarians and so forth.  Not exclusively,  mind you,  but that's just my impression.
 I'd like to also mention that I took Travelling Companion to the airport this morning for her flight to....wait for it.....Romania!
Hm.
Hopefully all the axe wielding nitwit Romanians have moved to Austria.
Mind you,  it would be best if they weren't hanging around our front door.
That would be a whole other story involving the dropped ring scam.   I did happen to have my own wedding band on,  and offered to demonstrate just what a lovely impression it would make in the forehead of the individual who was attempting to block my way into our building.
He declined the invitation.  We won't go any farther into that.

Now for the second,  and final example.  I promise.

This one involves the part where I mentioned that the absurdity isn't obvious unless you live here?   One of Travelling Companion's associates is getting married within the next few weeks,  and the report is that their marriage license was €500.    That's FIVE HUNDRED EUROS!    You can do your own conversion.  Doesn't matter.  That's a lot!
I think ours was something like thirty five bucks,  and it was arranged through the minister,  and was just lumped in with the fee that he charged,  the total of which came out to something like seventy-five dollars.    I think I understand now why a lot of these couples I meet have different last names.  They just choose not to get married.   Who can afford that?

I'm afraid I'll have to put my "toilet talk"  off until tomorrow.  I'm sure you're just "gutted",  as the Brits would say,  but between going to the airport this morning and some other minor issues, (mostly sloth)   I haven't managed to eat anything more than a slice of banana bread.
Plus I have German Teacher Dude coming at three.
The sun is well past the yard arm at this point.


Keep those sticks on the ice.





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