Life in Absurdistan

Most days I haven’t a clue what I’d like to share.
Not a problem today.
So here’s the routine:  Since I need to get the blood flowing in the morning anyway, and it gives me a chance to pick up one of the free newspapers at the corner, (and worth every penny,  I might add)  Travelling Companion and I both go down to the parking garage around the corner from our front door,  I go with her down to the car and off she goes.  Some times I drive her,  but most of the time she’s on her own.
But every so often,  there’s a minor issue with the whole procedure.   As a “Dauerparker”,  that is to say,  long term parking customer (doesn’t translate easily)  we have what looks like a credit card,  with a chip in it that gets us in and out of the garage. 
That’s the theory anyway.

So, when coming in with the car,  you wave this thing in front of the sensor,  the bar goes up,  you drive in.

 
Turns out I managed to NOT get a shot of the device where you either get your ticket or wave your card. 
Just pretend you can see it off to the left there.


And you can see that it’s two flights down.




Now I’ll admit that once in a while,  and it seems to be about three times a year,  one of us manages to leave the stupid card in the car and come out without it.   We don’t discover this until we need to get the car out of course,  which means having to push the call button,  take some abuse from some guy making minimum wage somewhere in some “control room” and hope he’ll open the door for us.  It would be oh so nice to have some sort of back up system like a key pad with a pin code,  but these chimps haven’t considered this.
So this morning,  even though we HAD our card,  it didn’t matter. The only message I got when I tried to get in was, “Bitte zur Kasse”,  which means “please go to the cash” or maybe we’d say, "please see the cashier”.   Well,  I’m not sure how that’s supposed to happen,  since we can’t get in,  and the Dude in the control room can’t seem to open the door either.   
So much for his big power trip.




You can see the camera up there to the left,  and a yellow spot on that control panel to the right,  in front of which you wave your long term parking card.  I don’t know how many times I’ve come along there to go in, and some poor sod is trying to get their paper card to work.  I have no clue how that’s supposed to happen.  I just wave our card,  and we all go in.



So you’re probably wondering,  “Well Bob,  why on earth should this door be locked??” 
Well let me tell ya. 



If you happen to notice the address there,  you’ll see that the entrance to this parking garage is on a pretty busy street.  Can’t just have any Tom, Dick or Smelly Man wandering in there to spend the night.   That’s a whole other story,  and was happening just after we had moved here and started using the garage.    The door wasn’t getting locked,  and there was a nightly visitor.  Now,  I spent the first few years of my life on a farm,  and I swear I’ve never smelled anything as bad as this guy.  I’ll let you use your imagination.   The heat is on in the building.  You don’t even have the stomach for any breakfast…and THAT is the first strong smell you get in the morning.   Wuf.
Both of us holding our breath waiting for the elevator got tired in a real hurry.
So ever since then,  that door has been locked.
I’m OK with that.

Now on with our little saga.
So fine,  since it’s after 7:00 a.m.,  and we know that the big door where the cars go in and out is up,  we decide to hoof it around the corner. 





I leave Travelling Companion at the street level and slink down the ramp (it’s two flights,  remember),  get the car,  but then the card won’t let me out at the gate either.
It just so happened that one of the cleaning Dude’s was hanging about,  and so he very graciously tried to help,  although it was mostly a matter of something or other being reset or God knows what,  and we finally got the car extricated from the garage. 
The advice was,  you need to phone “Mr. Maurer”.
So that’s what I did.  Dug through our tiny little jam packed,  never can find a damned thing filing system,  found some information from these people,  and got on the phone.
I do realise that once in a while I get the idea that I’m completely lost when it comes to expressing myself in another language.  It turns out though,  all you have to do is piss me off a little,  and I’ll rip your face off. 
See,  Mr. Maurer didn’t have an answer for me,  and tried to tell me that my wife had done something wrong when she came home last night.  What?  Just hang on there Tonto.  Yet another guy smoking some of that good B.C. Bud.
How can you do something “wrong”,  when you do the same routine every flippin’ night?   You wave your card in front of the little sensor.  The gate goes up.  You drive in.  Is there some other way??
Oh,  he had all kinds of excuses.  Could be the computer.  Could be the internet. 
Whatever. 
Don’t care. 
And you know,  if he had offered just a hint of an apology,  I might not have been quite so terse with him.  Some times machines screw up.  But I still wanted my answer. 
I also made a point in mentioning that their company has no difficulty taking their fee out of our bank account every month,  so then why the hell can’t I get my car out??  
He didn’t have an answer.
Idiot.
I honestly hope I never meet “Mr. Maurer”. 
I have no desire to be blogging from some fine Austrian jail cell.


Not long after getting off the phone with the idiot,  I got a call from Travelling Companion,  wondering if her card is going to work tonight.  We guess so. 
Who knows, really? 

Other than that,  she did have some good news to share,  and that was that her pow-wow in Switzerland for next Tuesday had been called off.   This is a good thing,  since we’re leaving for Verona tomorrow,  and won’t be getting back here until some time Monday afternoon.  As it was,  she was going to have a bag all packed ahead of time,  we’d zip in here,  grab it and dash off to the airport Monday night.   Thankfully we no longer have to do that.


Which reminds me, now I’ll need to have something in the freezer for us to chew on when we get home Monday afternoon.  Ruh-roh.

I’d better go sort that out.




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Hey, no pressure!

So quite often the routine after spending any length of time away is for me to while away some time catching up on my reading.  I guess I could use the term “fritter” and it would be equally descriptive,  and I realise that when I go home,  this sort of activity will be cut right back.   There will be “things to do”. 

Or so I’m told.

So what is there to read?  Well,  there’s a certain amount of on line “news”.  And the reason I say “news” in quotation marks,  is because it’s tough to cut through the nonsense and actually find anything newsworthy.  The other slight wrinkle is,  with the six hour time difference,  if I want to check what’s happening in the markets,  I have to wait darned near all day for them to open.  Therefore,  in the mean time there are always blogs to read. 

And man oh man is that a slippery slope.

 

Now,  way back when the idea of moving to Europe started to percolate,  one of my pub buddies suggested that I write a “blog”. 

I can’t say for sure I knew what that was,  but I had a bit of an idea, since I had been following this guy,  from back in the time when we were living in Puerto Rico.  You might notice there is a bit of a “theme” there,  and it has to do with having a little too much time on one’s hands?

I should also say that,  when I use the term “pub buddy”,  I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense,  since a great number of those friends that I just so happen to meet up with at a favourite watering hole,  are people that I’ve met and who have extended the privilege of their friendship through either work or other activities. 

We do know where we all live,  and we didn’t just meet at the pub.  But for lack of a better term,  I like to use the phrase “pub buddy”.  So there.

Oh,  and I must say, I am indeed flattered that anyone would even think I could put two words together.  So for someone to suggest, “you should write….”  anything? 

Wow.  That’s nice.  Really.

 

So even though the suggestion was made way back in April or May of 2008,  and we had moved into the house in the Netherlands on the 15th of August,  not much happened on the blogging front until September.  Well,  by “not much”  I guess I mean “nothing”.

That’s a bit of a gap I know, and I hadn’t really planned it that way.  But I was procrastinating.  I mean,  where do you start?

When I finally got around to it,  not only was it that certain day that will be remembered for a long,  long time, but it also just happened to be the day after they were about to fire up the nuclear accelerator over in Switzerland.   So…since the earth didn’t get swallowed up into a black hole,  I figured I had run out of excuses,  and needed to get busy. 

That’s my story,  anyway.

 

But there was no pressure to write,  take pictures or in any way be “amusing”  “entertaining”  or anything else.  I think I had all of about six readers,  and they were all related, or possibly pub buddies.

And I was OK with that,  since it was mostly just an elaborate email,  and you can see by the lack of bells and whistles,  as you look to your left and right,  that this offering hasn’t evolved into much more.    Just words.

A picture every now and again. 

If I feel like it.

 

 

But then something happened as I was “catching up”  or “frittering” if you prefer, that made me just a tad nervous.   As I was perusing the blogs that I like to peruse,  one particular gentleman who lives in Bayfield, Ontario,  happened to mention that the Caretaker Chronicles was an “interesting,  funny read”.    I think I got that right.  

*Oh jeez*.

I think my heart skipped a beat there,  and I’ll tell you why.  See,  Al  (that would be this gentleman’s name)  has like a gazillion followers,  and so it was no wonder that half of North America was suddenly clicking on my little tiny corner of the web.  I might be exaggerating,  but not by much.

*Gulp*

I’m flattered.  Thanks.    But now what?

Is this going to keep me awake at night?    Oh Lordy!

 

But like I said.  No pressure!

 

And apparently “followers” has had a bit of a loose definition in the last little while,  since the guys and gals over at Google seem to be messing around with Blogger.  Sure wish they’d stop doing that.  Personally I’m not overly keen on surprises,  and even less so on change in general.

 

Which is why,  years from now,  long after I’ve run out of something to say, this blog will probably look pretty much the same.

 

And in the end,  I suppose “that”,  as they say,  is "that".

 

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Just Driving.

Staggered in the door yesterday afternoon at around 1:15,  which was pretty good time,  since we left the hotel just outside Ljubljana at about 9:20 yesterday morning. 
I figure if I can do the trip in either direction in under four hours I’m doing alright.  The traffic was surprisingly light,  even when we got back here closer to Vienna,  where I was expecting a huge blockage where they’re working on the “HansonKurve”.   Something like that.
Don’t ask.  Huge project. It’s going to take them about a year and a half,  which is annoying,  since it’s one of the preferred ways to get to the airport. 
Come to find out the gentleman whose funeral we were attending had been rushed to hospital on Monday with some sort of heart issue,  and there was the hope that an operation could have saved him, but he passed away on Wednesday.  So then there were visitations in Ljubljana on Thursday and Friday,  and then a brief gathering at the grave site in Sava on Saturday.   
He was otherwise in fairly good health for a man of 80,  which is why the whole thing came as a huge shock for everyone.  Some times we simply don’t know what lurks in our veins I suppose. 

We weren’t quite sure of the protocol,  and wanted to at least pick up some flowers.  Of course,  everything closes up by about noon time,  so we were kind of out of luck on that front.  It turns out we could have brought along a platter of the type of grave site candles that are commonly seen and used everywhere in Europe,  and certainly here in Austria and in Slovenia. 



Not sure if you’ve ever seen these,  but these are very common here.  You can buy these at gas stations,  grocery stores,  and there are even dispensing machines at grave sites.


You can see a couple different styles here.





Plus you can see them all lined up here at the grave sites.

And wrapped up here along with the flowers...

So....  this was the scene when we were in Slovenia…

NOT!

No, this was from last November,  when the snow was so heavy that the power went out. 
Oh how I would have loved to have such cool temperatures!   Saturday was HOT!  And I don’t mean maybe.  Mid thirties I’m guessing?  Gah!

There’s not even any traces of snow in the mountains either.  So that picture above is just wishful thinking.
Also of course,  one doesn’t show up for a funeral service in one’s short trousers and golf shirt either.  I’m not even sure that would have helped.  I think I must have knocked back a good three litres of water after we got to the restaurant.   Plus,  I think I was the only one there wearing a tie.  Fool.
Hey,  what do I know?  I didn’t want to be under dressed.  When we were getting out of the car and about to walk up the hill to the cemetery,  I was about to put on my jacket,  (I know!!)  and the cousin quickly pointed out to me (in Slovenian)  that that wouldn’t be necessary.   My Slovenian might be pretty weak,  but there are some things you don’t need to tell me twice.   Tossed that sucker back in the car mighty quick.


I was able to remain pretty detached from the whole proceeding until these guys started singing.



Then it was only a good thing I was sweating so profusely since it was pretty hard to not get watery eyed.
I don’t even know how they got the words to come out, and I could see a couple of them having difficulties.


Again,  I don’t know if this was protocol,  or if they were all his buddies.  We didn’t get a chance to ask.  But they were actually very good,  singing two part and some times three part harmony. 
I had taken along the camera,  but had left it in the car,  not knowing what would be appropriate,  but at one point a daughter-in-law asked if I would photograph the whole thing,  so I hauled it out again.  I know she wanted me to use her point and shoot,  but I wanted to use the Nikon.  A little selfish of me I know,  to want to be in control of my own pictures,  but I’ll make up a disk and send it to them.  I’ll also then have photos to show anyone back home who might wish to take a peek. 

So that was our weekend.   We came home here to a rather warm apartment,  with the thermometer showing 28,  so it took a few hours for the air conditioning to bring the temperature down to a comfortable level.   I had this bright idea that I’d go out later on and fuel up the car and get it washed,  but there was just no way I wanted to go back outside.  So that meant I was once again the chauffeur this morning.  

It looks like it’s not going to be quite so toasty today,  with a few clouds getting in the way of the sun.


I can suffer a few clouds.


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