As the Bluff was called and all the main players took the stage on national TV last night, I couldn’t help but think of the Immortal Bard. The dethroned Lord of Bluff remains Slovenia’s Prime Minister. May he and his entourage serve the country well in the year that remains of their term.
All the World’s a Stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
The kitchen project, which truly turned out to be one heck of a wild ride for a while there, and the area looking like a construction site for longer than I care to mention, we are nearing some sort of closure 😉
It all started out looking like this:
BEFORE
After which, the sliding glass windows in the balcony were thrown out along with the wall dividing the balcony/loggia from the kitchen area.
New, “real” windows were put in, with the middle one being sliding as well. This will come in handy later for my idea of placing a high-legged table right next to the windows to allow for relaxing breakfasts in fresh air whilst enjoying the view of the park below. A new wall with appropriate insulation was erected and shelving placed on top.
Waiting for better days to come…
Removing old tiling and top layer of concrete… Zaim in action!
Response to the first complaint regarding the windows (successfully resolved) while the plumber looks on and figures he’d better do his radiator job well…
New tiling and radiator in…
A job well done calls for celebration… Or at least a cup of good coffee for Roki, the master of tiling.
All of the above was done in a matter of five days so it seemed the impossible goal of quick completion of the project was not going to present much of a problem. However. The walls in my home have always been taken care of by a friend I’ve made during my agility days. Iztok is somewhat of an artist and an exceedingly thorough man. Unfortunately, he hurt a leg muscle while training for an agility competition and would not be able to come over for three weeks. Fine, I’d wait. Then an added, potentially fatal complication occurred: thrombosis. Not only is Iztok a friend, but also a father to three children with the fourth one on the way. Some food for thought on the meaning of life right there, but I digress. I decided to wait for Iztok to get better and some six weeks later he was able to come over and finish the walls. In the meantime, dinners were served in front of partly disposed concrete walls with candle light playfully illuminating creaks and holes the old windows had left, the draft moving the flames in an especially romantic fashion.
Thanks to more help from my loved ones, the new TV is up as well. LCD and all 😉 and has been put to use. Now all that is left is to pick out a new couch and to have the custom-made table built by Iztok’s brother the ingenious carpenter (who happens to have been involved in the Slovenian Presidential Palace remodelling this summer, ha! 😀 ). I promise to host the kitchen-warming party before that, though
AFTER
With this project, I’ve learned so much, for example about expansion joints in the tiling between the kitchen and ex loggia, but most importantly, I’ve met wonderful people with fascinating stories to tell and am thankful to the guys who did their job so well. In the words of Zaim, the incredible contractor who found solutions to the problems thought insurmountable by others and did so seemingly effortlessly:
Victory is inevitable – if only we try hard enough.
Here’s some more of that Slavic schmaltz especially for alcessa 😉
I’m not one to go light candles on my relatives’ graves very often, much less at times when this is expected to be done en masse by generally accepted standards and conventions, but I still cannot dismiss this time of the year. If it hadn’t been for this darned cold, I’d have gone to Urh. In Slovenia the All Saints Day is called, rather eerily, “Dan mrtvih” or the “Day of the Dead”. I prefer to think of it as the remembrance day.
A time when we pause from the hectic daily lives most of us lead and ponder over issues of a slightly more spiritual nature than job/money problems, the latest politician-induced blood pressure surge, the everimportant colour of the couch to match the wall if not feng shui rules.
When it comes to those who’ve been here before us, I somehow cannot believe that once they are gone, they are gone completely. Call it spirit, energy, whatever you like, but I feel my loved ones are with me. They were such a big part of my life that they left a print in my heart that cannot be erased by simple breakdown of their ‘shells’.
Remembrance to me had little to do with actually going to graves, preferably dressing up according to the latest fashion trends and decorating the grave once a year. It is about keeping my loved ones in my thoughts year-round and remembering the times we spent together and what I’ve learned from them. Undoubtedly, one of the lessons that stuck is to enjoy the company of those who are very much alive. Here and now.
In the words of the old bard…
Receive what joy you may
The Night is long
That never finds the day
A couple of weeks ago, a friend came all the way from far far away Krško and as he happens to be a blogger (Buba, I have a bad cold myself right now 🙁 ), one keystroke led to another and the “drink” developed into a very enjoyable evening in the company of bright, imaginative, literate, fun-loving young bloggers. Among them, all three newly elected SiOL’s house bloggers. I bow to you, oh majesties. Whoops, the popular vote thing, right… I bow to you, oh blogger celebrities: Fetalij, Irena and Chef; as well as Pi.Roman, Kandela, Mojca, Deus.X.Mashina, Nina, Barbara and last but not least, the infamous Sex.
How could I not love this town? Ljubljana rules! On the way to the bar…
No shortage of drinks… even if the waiter was far more incompetent than good old Manuel. Basil should fix things by the next time.
How’s it hanging?
Wild Ride
High Five
In addition to the cool and very different if slightly spooky environment, a good reason to pay a visit to Pr’Skelet is the 2-4-1 policy 😉
Afterwards, we moved to the Cutty Sark just off the Three Bridges to say hi to another Ljubljana resident blogger, Pengovsky who DJd at the place that night.
Take your eyes off that striped sweater right now!!!
We finished the night with a slight doubt being raised in our minds regarding Fetalij’s sexual preferences, but the doubt has since been successfully dispersed. BTW, way to go, Fetalij! Grandma’s proud of you… 😈
Here’s to many more gatherings such as this one. Thanks for the good time, y’all!
My grandmother Amalia, a.k.a. Malka, has been through a lot in her life. As a young girl, she risked her life on numerous occasions in the nation’s struggle to fight off first the Italian and then the German occupying forces during WWII. As so many other young Slovenians, she helped rebuild the country after the war, even taking part in the youth work brigades all around the freed Yugoslav territories. All of that to the point of total exhaustion.
So perhaps it should not come as a surprise that yesterday, when power was cut off in her building, she would not let this stop her from voting in the Presidential elections. Aged 85 and not in the best of health, she walked down 9 flights of stairs in pitch black dark she had to illuminate with her tiny battery light, cast her vote and walked back up. Not too many ladies came from that same mould, huh?
Rather interesting that the electric company should choose a Sunday and an election Sunday at that, to replace a transformer in a neighbourhood predominantly populated by old pensioners, mainly of the same basic political persuasion. Without prior notice except on the Internet and one local radio station. For an added bonus, reportedly, one of the buildings affected by the blackout is home to one of the presidential candidates’ parents. Perhaps even more interesting in the light of the tighter results than anticipated.
You can read a more detailed account of the elections and a commentary on the issue of the mysteriously hard-working electricians on an election Sunday by Človek Lubenica in Slovenian.
Savica Waterfall – photo by dr. filomena, September 2007
Today is Blog Action Day with the topic being the Environment. Here is a link I found interesting, Greentips – environmental ideas in action prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
If you are still questioning how far-reaching the effects our actions have on the environment or have already realized that time to act is now was yesterday, you’ll have plenty of reading ahead of you if you take a peek here: list of environmental issues.
This is what Gorenjska Region of Slovenia looks today and the way we’d love to keep it for future generations. – photo by dr. filomena, September 2007
The full quote I chose for this post’s title comes from the indigenous people of America and goes like this:
Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. We are more than the sum of our knowledge, we are the products of our imagination. “
So many things have been going on lately… but hey, what else is new. I haven’t posted to the blog in a while because I either didn’t have the time to (or rather spent it in another way, say playing squash – yippie!) or being unsure of how to convey my thoughts to you guys.
A week ago I finally got to meet Camille, a fascinating young woman from New York City who’d decided to move to Slovenia… for love. I’d “met” her in the blogging community. Hey, you guys are real flesh and blood! More on that later. Anyway, after having met up with her for lunch and seeing she’s as cool in real life as she is on her blog, I offered to take her out for a night on the town. So last Saturday, we started the evening chatting in my home and finding the right dress etc.. you know, girl stuff… then drove off downtown. My car’s glove compartment is filled with CDs and as Camille is studying Slovene now (go C!!! – you should exchange notes with Adriaan and “the girls”) we opted for Alenka Godec.
After a stop at Cutty Sark to say hello to another blogger, Pengovsky who DJd at the place that night, we made a tour of the most popular places, such as Global. More on that later. On our way up we shared the lift ride with four young bouncer types, one of them lovingly holding on to a large cut of red meat in a plastic bag. What gives? The place being empty, we were instructed to go to Opera Bar first. Lo and behold, there she was. The lady from our choice of CD in the car. Alenka Godec.
An old friend of mine turns out to be the new assistant manager of the place that was just celebrating its third anniversary… above is the photo she took of “Camille and the two Alenkas”. Alenka has an amazing voice and came across as a really nice lady as well.
Afterwards, we returned to Global, where we wished we’d brought along our own DJ from Cutty Sark or, alternatively, that C’d been given a go at it (her brother is a DJ, too!) Still, the music was at least ok – at least at times – so we actually got to dance a little bit. I do believe C had a bit of a culture shock with the way people danced. “Dirty dancing” was not all that dirty in comparison to a few of those couples. Thanks for the good company, C, hope to do that again sometime soon.
A day later, I found out about the (probably same one who was nice to us) bouncer at Global beating a young man just a half an hour or so after we’d left the place. He died in hospital on Wednesday. This photo was taken yesterday on site where he lost his life. Such a senseless waste.
On a happier note, yet another blogging friend, buba švabe, came to town from Krško to see us on Friday. The visit turned into a real bloggers’ gettogether with 14 bloggers present, among them all three of SiOL’s new “in-house bloggers” (the top bloggers hosted there per users’ vote who’d been given contracts now), namely Fetalij, Irena and Chef.
Photo by Pi.Roman
It was such a pleasure to meet a bunch of interesting young people in one go, all of whom can think, write and actually have fun in real, offline life. Pi.Roman took a zillion photos before Kandela finally took his toy away, and among his subjects were Mojca, Deus.X.Mashina, Nina, Barbara and last but not least, the infamous Sex. We met up at the Skeleton Bar and then moved on to Cutty Sark. This ‘event’ deserves a separate post someday…
All in all, it’s been quite a week, meeting so many interesting people, among them an incredible number of bloggers. Seeing a vibrant young lady move from one continent to another for love, taking a pic with a local celebrity, partying at a place that effectively became a murder scene a half an hour after we’d left, playing squash, travelling to Slavonski Brod for a day (seeing houses still heavily damaged by the gunfire of a decade ago was slightly surreal), hanging out at an ad hocbloggers’ meeting where I realized half the people were political science majors, enrolling in the second year of my Political Science MA programme and last but not least, spending a wonderful Sunday in equally wonderful company and enjoying the fact that He Cooked Again.
Stuffed tomatoes for a refreshing dinner snack: fill with the extracted tomato pulp, young cheese, cottage cheese, a bit of olive oil, chopped up fresh basil and salt/pepper to taste. Chill in fridge for half an hour.
Having just had a glass of Los Pagos Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile, all I can say is that I have no idea what the meaning of life is, but what I’m sure of is that we should all do our best to enjoy the ride while it lasts.
My condolences to the family and friends of Goraz Čamernik who died so needlessly at the hands of the club bouncer. May he rest in peace.
