the motherload

yep. i found it. the key ingredient to any american thanksgiving dinner worth its salt.

and i didn't even have to bribe any bidness travelers to smuggle it in for me this year. found it in the terno - my local walking-to grocery store. of all places! and we're in the armpit of bratislava here. there's not a lot of import schtuffy stuff (even the heinz ketchup tastes different).

our first thanksgiving in shanghai i bribed a local expat-restaurant owner who boasted he was serving a traditional thanksgiving w/ cranberry sauce to sell me some. i drove (well, i was DRIVEN) all over the city before i found him and his "cranberries" 3 kilos of 'em. MOUNTAIN BERRIES. better known as LINGONBERRIES. i was SOOOO disappointed. but i bought them anywayze. and i used them.  better baby berries than nothing at all (plus, they made for a very nice martini base later)!

but these little jewels are the real deal...

boy, they're pretty, ainna hey?

i blew up the label. (we actually DO live in bratislava!!!)  see?  and these little babies came all the way from the you ess ayyyyeeee!!!  how did they DO that??? 

and now for your first slovak word:  cranberries here are BRUSNICE - say that 5 times fast...

anyone want to venture a guess as to how many USD this costed me? c'mon. think just a little. what would YOU pay? k, so figure a loss leader at mebbe a buck a bag, right? think 5 TIMES that much for me.  yep.  five dollah.  EACH.  and these little babies are worth every penny.

and 7 bags is all they had. must've had a box somewhere. but i gots'em. 

mineminemineminemine...

"Recalculating"

oh how i loathe to hear her voice.  yet she speaks to me so often

"Recalculating.  Recalculating.  RECALCULATING"

and in that ever so clipped british look-down-'er-nose sort of way.  yet she's always pleasant.  it's only me that dislikes her.  the children LIVE to hear her pipe up oh-so-very often.  and she doesn't disappoint.

i want to fire her, that GARMIN tart.  she's not doing her job well.  i don't even think she knows where she is half the time.

often, when i peek, we are driving thru fields where roads have atually been for 10 yrs or so (*I* am driving on a road - SHE is not).  or she'll direct me to turn into a farmer's old tractor run for a few km, just so i can eventually make my way back to her's again.

i've only JUST been driving in bratislava.  managed to avoid it for the (almost) 3 months we've been here (and, of course the 2 yrs before that!!).  but now that the varkenhusband is back in china for a bit, i'm forced to drive.  especially to all those dang birthday parties and play dates.  you know - the ones where they just provide a street address and expect you to KNOW how to get there?   

after this last one, i'm not sure i actually WANT to get back in the car with her anymore.  i know that this child lived further out of the city than we do.  in a nuther small town.  much like ours.  but SHE told me i needed to go back into the city.  i didn't listen.  i drove to stupava, the little town further OUT of the city.  and drove around.  i couldn't listen to her anymore.  but i couldn't shut her off.  she was driving me mad.

finally, i called the mum of this girl.  she gave me a different street to plug in to the tart. 

great!  should be there in a few minuettes, i say.  and hang up.

30 minutes later, i am helplessly, hopelessly lost.  SHE has no idea where we are.  and neither do i.

so, another phone call and 3 minutes after that, the mum drives me the LESS THAN ONE KM to their haus.  now i just had to be able to find my way back.  in the dark. 

this time i turned her off.  and i found my way.  ALONE.  in the dark.  and a thick, dense fog.

and all was quiet...

who needs that garmin tartlette, anywayze?

stoopid crazy slovak rule #347

ONE BIN OF GARBAGE PER WEEK FOR PICKUP.

and these aren't your normal america-type garbage bins.  nope.  they're narrower, see?  and better enforced, so the rats don't gnaw through them.

like the night shot?  thought i'd mix it up a bit.  actually, i took this pic at or about 4pm-ish here, but lest we forget, we are in central europe and it's only been 20 yrs since the fall of communism.  still takes a toll on those daylight hours, dontchaknow...

last week, when i had a plethora of extra moving related detritus to be whisked away, we set it out NEXT to the trash bin.  bin was already half full of leaves.  (we don't put leaves in the bin.  but my snaggle-toothed strega nona next door neighbor does).  IN OUR BIN.  actually, they're OUR LEAVES, too.  but i have no idea what posesses her to wander around our garden picking up leaves and dumping them in our bin.  we have enough leaves for 30 trashbins at the moment (and that's only for what is on the ground).  if she's gonna start picking up my leaves, she may as well pick 'em all up. 

needless to say, NOTHING that we had placed NEXT to the bin was removed last week.  including the excess kitchen trash.  granted, we may have had a little more than our share of ikea cardboard last week, but landlady said just put it all out and they'll take it. 

or not. 

so i lugged it all back in.  save for the kitchen trash, which i put in the bin for THIS week (so i'm already behind)...

today, i meet up w/ the garbage guys (as an aside, they back their GARBAGE-TRUCK sized GARBAGE TRUCK all the way up to the top of our hill on our VERY narrow street and then make their way back down).  so i'm given ample notice cuz i can hear 'em coming (forwards and backwards).  so, w/ 3 EXTRA trash bags in hand that didn't fit in the bin, i make my way out to the truck.  i arrive just as they are hooking up my bin to the back to dump in. 

"zlaty blaty blah blah blah"

huh?  um, i just want to throw these extra bags in the back, ok?

"zlaty blaty blah blah blah.  NO."

ahhhh, that i heard clearly.

no?

NO.

but i'll even throw them in the back for you - i knows alls abouts those tricky EU labor laws.  you don't have to lift a finger.

NO. NO. NO.

and then he chucks the garbage bin back to the gate, hops on the truck and rides another 20 meters, forgetting all about me and my trash bags, while he begins the process all over again. 

no wonder they need the rat man 'round here.  my garage is starting to fill up w/ all this un-disposable trash!

so, that's ONE thing i miss about china.  TWICE DAILY garbage pickup.  on a tricycle, no less.

sigh....

how to jury-rig your kitchen

you use alot of these:

truly, when we agreed to install the much negotiated for new IKEA kitchen appliances, we had no idea what we would be uncovering. after all, my office (where i sit and type this all out) was also going to be a kitchen, until she changed her mind halfway thru the project (which is why i have a bare wire sticking out of the wall near my monitor - or the capped off water pipes from the shared bathroom wall).

and the landlady? stuck us w/ the IKEA delivery bill. wtf? i dunno how she managed it, cuz *I'VE* never been able to walk outta there w/out all my ducks being paid for!

but that's neither here nor there. we just didn't expect to see wall plugs or multiple extension cords connecting everything together. i guess we should have expected nothing less than the cobbled together mess that we did.

but the filth.

oh. my. gawd.

we had to scrape it off of the counter here with a knife, it was so grimy and gooey and gross.

no wonder the rat man came by last week. yech.

i guess i should be grateful. i have a new (if but still INCREDIBLY small) kitchen. and since we discovered all the grime, we had the opportunity to CLEAN it. (see?  there's my silver lining!!)

varkendaughter wants to bake, now that we have a proper oven (jury-rigged as it is).

so we're makin' cookies!  and then we're going to eat them on the floor, cuz it's clean enough now.

100 euros worth of GREEN wood

so, i've heard we're living inna "lowcost-country" (actually, i hear it over and over and over again, but i really don't believe it...)

well, here's what 105euros bought us (delivered) today:

not much, izzit? it's SPOSED to be a cubic meter. but it doesn't look like it. but that's all the wood man could scrape together. when i put it thru my handy dandy conversion dealiebop, it tells me that a cubic meter is .27 cords. which makes more sense to me.

so, if my calculations are correct, i'm paying 388.88euros per CORD of GREENWOOD. and at today's exchange rate, that runs me approximately

583 US DOLLARS per CORD of GREENWOOD.

seems like such a small price to pay for such a LOWCOST COUNTRY, don't it???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but all is not lost - see that little pile on the right front row? nope. not that one - the one further to the right. yah. THAT one...

THAT's the dry seasoned wood we received. APPARENTLY, if we wanted to purchase seasoned wood, we would have had to place our order IN THE SPRING. cuz there is no dry wood left in the greater bratislava (lower carpathian) area. of course, we certainly would have thought about that had we KNOWN WE WERE MOVING HERE more than two months in advance.

anywazye, we stacked it all (the whooooooole lot of it) in front of the teeny tiny radiator n the garage (where the OTHER car that we can't afford to buy in this LOWCOST COUNTRY would normally be parked). and we hope that, w/ its help, inna month or so the greenwood would be (oh, that's funny) dried to a point that we can burn it w/out causing a complete smokehaus effect.

in which case, i'm just gonna buy me a side o' beef and and mebbe make some sausages and hang it all by the fireplace so i get SOME value out of it.

the pied piper OR: rats, not cats

so, the other day i get a little visit from the local pied piper.

only he didn't have a pipe.

and he carried a big 5 gallon bucket. filled with little containers of this:

so, what izzit? you ask? magic beans, seyz the pied piper. well, no. he didn't actually tell me it was anything of the sort. he just told me it was for the rats to eat.

the RATS??!!!

wtf? what new fresh hell am i to expect now that the weather has turned? he had a clip board w/ all the addresses on the little street we live on (yah, the one we've discovered ALSO full of feral cats - JUST like the one who came to dinner and never left.

but if i put this out, won't the cats eat it?

nope. only the rats.

really? only the rats?

yep. only the rats.

apparently, after i signed for my plastic container of rat seeds, i was told that i could either use it or NOT use it. but i had to take it. and i was to sprinkle it around the roof - the ROOF??!! and all the basement entrances to the house.

it doesn't really look all that appetizing, does it?

nonetheless, i left it on the back patio table. still in its plastic container. and i won't let varkencat outside anymore. just in case. not that varkencat actually WANTS to go outside - i think it's afraid i may not let it back in. which is exactly what i am thinking, tho i prolly wouldn't follow thru...

the bait and switch couch

loverly, innt?

well, it WAS. in the store.

but then i bought it. or so i THOUGHT i bought it. took me a week to get all the cash out of the ATM, cuz they only took cash. and we still didn't have our slovak bank cards (not that THAT would have mattered). cuz the slovak banking system here won't allow us to spend more than 500 euros a day of our OWN money - even if we go into the bank itself and request the cash. we need to "establish a pattern." and that could take a year or so.

but back to our bait and switch couch.

when we finally DID have enough cash money to pay for it (going to the ATM - using our american accounts, incurring $15 fees for EACH transaction - a total of 7 - which took roughly 4 days, cuz well, we hafta eat w/ that cash, too, don'tchaknow), we went BACK to the furniture shop to handover the cash. funny, they said it was in the warehouse, all ready to be delivered and could be at our house in the afternoon.

and sure 'nuff. one was.

but it wasn't the soft, buttery red leather couch i saw in the shop. nope. i'm pretty sure this one is pleather. with a hint of cow in the seams.

and who do i complain to? um. NO ONE. cuz there is no one for to understand me.

good thing this is not a mine-forever couch. or i'd be really peeved. i just hafta pay the hunnerdollars in banking charges we incurred for the pleasure of sitting on pleather for 2 yrs.

the quest for an ortho(dontist)

so, i've been asking around, since the varkendaughter's teethes are full of metal. need to find an ortho ASAP.

and i got a lead. so i've been calling. but the number seems always to be busy.

but today, this is what i finally get in return:

"som na skoleni, proslite sms "

sounds rather reasonable (though i have no idea what it means - but i see that "sms" thingie and THAT seems to tell me that, perhaps, i should consider an SMS to him/her instead of a phone call), and, since i tried a few times thinking i got the number wrong the first or second. or, that, since i called from my mobile (cuz we have no OUTGOING calls available from our landline...) perhaps i dialed incorrectly.

who knows? cuz there are numbers for landlines and numbers for mobile. and one had better know which is which, or you ain't connecting ANYWHERES. so i always dutifully plug in the +421 code and neglect the zero, unless i am calling from a land line, which apparently, i ain't. but it's ALWAYS listed as though i would. duh....

and when i put this little sms thru my google tranlsate and my eu translate and my transtar translate (or what ever else i found while doing a search for slovak to english translate) i get this:

"I have slain, have passed sms"

every time.

wha???? was he killed? is the ortho dead? should i even bother to return the sms because, perhaps their in the middle of his FUNERAL?????

oh gawd, can you imagine if i am calling a dead guy's phone just to see if he could work on my daughter's teeth when they are in some celebratory mass??!!!

so i get on the horn with all the people i know that speak slovak. or at least all the people that i know that KNOW someone that speak slovak. and let me tell you, today was not an easy day to find someone that KNOWS someone to translate my urgent request.

turns out?

10 minutes ago i gots my answer.

damned ortho was in training. or teaching a class. or something.

i need to call again in the morning. at least i can call knowing he's not lying in a box somewhere, 6 ft underground...

myne hellish week

no pix today.

but i should be thankful. for at least i have innernet.

but let's back up, shall we?

first, on tewwwsday, the water goes out. yes, of course it happens in the morning, when showeres are to be had. and yes, of course, it happens before *I* get my shower on. and yes, OF COURSE, it happens when the varkenhusband is IN said shower...

so we got that gowin' for us, yes?

at least we get the chitlins off to skool, and the varkenhusband off to werk.

and i am stuck in waterless haus to wait.

and wait. and wait.

but, at last, water comes on. yippee!! and in more than just dribbles and splats. so i thinks i'm gonna get a cleansing.

but nooooooo.... wait! there's more!!!

honest to gawd, w/in 15 minuettes, the electricity pops off.

which means that the trickle of water i may have without it (needing that extra pump to push the water up our hill, we're told) won't be WARM.

and the weather has changed. for the COLD. it's 6C. and windy. and the radiators are cooling down quickly (lucky me, we had charged them the night before).

but finally the electro comes back. and luckily, before dark. but with it, or without it, we are still at a loss of innnernet.

and it takes TWO days to figure out why.

WHY???? cuz the landlady, who is off on holiday, chose NOT to pay the bill for three months.

and we beg and plead and whine and whinge.

and end up paying the 100 euro back fees to reconnect (in cash). but it takes DAYS.

and the !#$%^ put us at the lowest tier of connectivity.

which means i'm back to china time. or worse. actually worse.

i need to take some happy pix soon. tomorrow i venture back to coffee-tuesday hell. maybe i'll escape and just wander around w/ camera. and if i'm lucky, the cheese shop guy will open up before 2pm...

in which we experience our first shake-down

yep.

the varkenhusband gets accosted by the slovak police.

for running a red light.

and yes, i am (inconveniently) riding along w/ him.

first, they want to take away his american driving license. and his passport. (we can't have that, now, can we?). then they hint that there must be a penalty of some sort.

why, yes, of COURSE there should be some sort of penalty. hmmmmm.... but of what sort? we spend the next 30 minutes discussing the "penalty of sorts"...

850 euros.

yes. that's the first go 'round.

huh? 850 euros for following some OTHER guy making a right turn on red?

yep. 850 euros, my friend...

well, we ain't GOT 850 euros in our pockets. funny thing here - one must pay JOHNNY ON THE SPOT for these tickets. or the price goes up uP UP.

wanna know what the final cost was?

yes, still outrageous. but it's what we had in our collective wallets (minus the change - and no trip to the atm)

60 euro.

know what they stamped for the immediate payment of the ticket?

10 euros.

we got away cheap.

this time...