A Message To The Dear Reader(s)

I'm going to do another blog entry soon. Really. I've been busy. Don't give up on me.

xoxo

Jovanka
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Just One of Those Freaky Things

So two days ago I'm on my big 16k powerwalk. When I go on these long walks as I've been doing lately, I like to take a backpack with me so I can bring things like my phone, camera, notebook, asthma inhaler, water and collapsible critter rescue case. I bring the latter because being all about the critters as I am I tend to see a lot of them when they are in need (I present the 14 critters currently living in my house as Exhibit "A") and one should always be prepared.

Something else you should know about me is that I am NOT USED TO these walks yet, and by the time I get past the 10k mark I start losing my grip on reality. I know this will pass and I'll soon be jumping around everywhere full of energy, but right now I'm in that adjustment phase of my fitness program where it's more like a Bataan Death March every day and I am in a blistery delirium. I don't have much energy left to expend on lengthy explanations or needless chatter.

So, I was walking along, as I've said, and in a flash of a moment a cyclist came along and just at that moment a bird erroneously stepped into his path and bad things happened. And it all happened right next to me. I gasped loudly and immediately ran towards the bird. The cyclist heard my gasp and came cycling back to where I was. Here's the conversation that happened next:

CYCLIST: What happened?

ME: You hit this bird. I work with the local bird sanctuary and I'm taking her there immediately (as I was saying this I pulled the collapsible critter case out of my backpack).


The truth is that I don't currently work at the local bird sanctuary but I have volunteered there and I knew it was the right place to go. But that would have taken too much energy to explain.


CYCLIST: (Looking bewildered) The bird sanctuary? Where is it?

ME: Merelbeke (a suburb about 10 minutes drive away).

CYCLIST: (Looking slightly frightened) I'm really sorry.

ME: (In an official tone - I'm not sure why) It's not your fault. It was an accident. I must go now.

And with that I walked quickly away with the injured bird in the critter rescue case. It was only much later that it occurred to me just how bizarre the whole thing must have been for the cyclist. He accidentally hit a bird and then literally within seconds someone was there from the local bird sanctuary to collect it. He must still be marveling at the efficiency of Gent City Services.

Unfortunately the little bird died a few minutes later. Possibly in large part as a reaction to the sheer absurdity of the situation.
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A Fresh Look at Carrie

So today I was having a rather difficult "lady time". (There. Now everyone on the internet can chart my menstrual cycle). In an attempt to cheer myself up a bit I went on the television ordering films thingy and found the perfect choice: Carrie (1976). It’s all about a girl who’s life starts going terribly wrong when she gets her period so I thought it would be apropos.

Now here’s what’s weird: I remember when I saw the film way way way back in the day that it was really scary. It gave me nightmares as I recall, and Carrie was really demonic. Now, seeing it this many years later and in my particular “state” I see that she wasn’t demonic at all – she was just misunderstood. She was just super sensitive and everyone was giving her a hard time. So she was a little socially inept? Did those high school bitches really need to expend all that energy terrorizing her? I mean for crying out loud, on top of all the usual teenage angst, she had a completely unsupportive mother.....



......who had to make creepy comments about her prom dress right as she was on her way out the door (”Dirty Pillows!!”), then she goes to the prom, actually starts to have a good time and is just being validated as Prom Queen...



...when some stupid high school chick has to dump a bucket of blood on her and ruin everything.



By the time the slow motion falling bucket had hit her date in the head, I was crying my eyes out. How could these people be so mean? And the thing is that really is how people in high school are. They pick on anyone who is different. If they had just been nice things could have been so wonderful. Maybe she would have brought her prom date home with her and he would have stopped her mother from stabbing her – who knows? But they had to go and ruin everything. By the time Carrie’s telekinesis kicked in and she started slamming all the doors shut I was screaming, “You go girl!” between sobs. Then she had to walk all the way home (Will no one stop to give a ride to a girl wearing a blood-soaked prom dress?) and deal with her bi-polar mother. It all ended very badly, and I was inconsolable, sobbing into my hands. By the time she did the thing where her bloody arm sprung out of the ground and grabbed Amy Irving, I saw it as a rightful posthumous expression of her overwhelming grief. Scary? Not a bit. I could have high-fived the girl.
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Sometimes tragedy is just funny

So this photo was in De Standaard 2 days ago. And yeah, I can appreciate that things are getting really bad. Really, really bad. Everyone's got to be protected from this thing.



I just feel safer knowing that every precaution is being taken.
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Abscess Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

I hate to go on and on about my physical ailments like an annoying old woman, but, well, depending on your perspective I am an annoying old woman. And I've got a valid complaint. I have now been sitting with this abscessed tooth for a month. A month, people! First they gave me antibiotics and then they keep looking at it and poking it and giving me more antibiotics and now I've got an appointment for the beginning of May when they will apparently saw my head in half to see if they can figure out what is going on. Meanwhile I'm feeling all run down and I have to chew everything slowly and I am turning grumpiness into an art form. I feel like slapping everyone. Including you, whoever you are.

The pain isn't very intense but it is disorienting. I can't think properly and certain things will set me off in a rage. I have no tolerance for people speaking Dutch to me for instance. Kind of a problem since I live in Belgium. I have caught myself morphing into the quintessential Nightmare American insisting that everyone speak english because they know how to and I don't feel like playing along with their little Dutch Charade. The other day a telemarketer called and I quickly bowed out of the onslaught of Dutch, "No, really I just can't do this right now. This is too annoying. Sorry. Bye." Not my fault. I blame the tooth.



So anyway, I might be a little short on witty blog entries until a few weeks from now when they hopefully just yank out all of my teeth because frankly at this point I'm sick of all the little fuckers.



The one saving grace? I have lost my appetite. HUZZAH! It's absolutely fabulous and quite possibly worth all the pain and suffering and misanthropy. By the time they heal me I will be thin!! I might have absolutely no friends left, but who needs friends when you're gorgeous??
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My Personal Set of Racial Stereotypes

Everyone has racial and/or cultural stereotypes. I don’t care who you are or how PC you are, you’ve got them as well. That isn’t to say, of course, that these stereotypes have to be negative or that we should judge people by them or be mean to anyone. I’m all for everyone being nice. I’m just saying that we all have them and should be as upfront as possible about them. So I am now attempting to purge myself of some of my preconceptions by confessing them here.

The following are some of my personal racial and cultural stereotypes:
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ALL IRISH WOMEN ARE CLINICALLY INSANE.
I have not known that many Irish women. But the ones I have known over the years have thrown toasters at me (the girlfriend of a room mate of mine years ago); Stalked me and made threatening phone calls (one that I knew when I worked at a pub in London), and gone into an alcoholic rage and thrown me out in the middle of the night when I was a houseguest (the wife of an old family friend when I was staying with them in London last year). In the latter incident, I had offended that particular Irish Woman by saying I didn’t think her house was haunted. (true). How was I to know that was her particular Achilles heel? Would it have been better if I had said her house was haunted? Apparently that was the one thing I could have said that pushed her over the edge (after 4 vodkas and 3 glasses of wine).

I don’t know what it is innately about me that pisses Irish Women off, but I’ve accepted that there’s something that does. Something about me sparks the crazy and I’ve finally wizened up and decided to stay well away. Hey – Don’t get me wrong - Ireland is a beautiful country with rolling hills of green and all that fabulous Guinness and I’m a huge Oscar Wilde fan. Just don’t let any of those crazy Irish chicks near me.
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ALL ITALIAN WOMEN ARE “ENDEARINGLY” VIOLENT

Now this one I have true license to comment on as I come from Italian ancestry on my mother’s side. In fact that is where I happened to do my field research for this particular presupposition. One of my earliest memories of my great grandmother, Nona Ferrero, was of her pretending to be asleep until everyone else had left he room then removing her false teeth and pretending to attack me with them all the while cackling and saying weird things in Italian under her breath; My grandmother (Nona’s daughter) once got angry because her daughters were fighting in the kitchen so she threw a butcher’s knife at them which landed between them imbedding itself 2 inches into the countertop (and was repeated as a “funny” family story thereafter); and my own mother once tried to stab me with a ski pole when I was 9 and had fallen on a ski slope and couldn’t get up. Ah, fegiddabaddit.

Thankfully that particular strain has become diluted enough in me that the worst I do is throw the occasional plastic cup across the room when Wim has forgotten to record Rock of Love.
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ALL HAWAIIAN PEOPLE ARE UNNATURALLY OBSESSED WITH HAWAII.

I have never been to Hawaii, nor do I particularly want to go. Don’t get me wrong – it looks breathtakingly gorgeous and all that, but being the pale type who likes to sit in smoky cafés saying disparaging things about Capitalism, Hawaii isn’t really my cup of tea. All that sunshine, all those half-naked people dancing about in grass skirts and assaulting you at the airport with a volley of “Aloha”s? Yeeeeuuuch. But if you ever meet anyone from Hawaii they will talk about Hawaii as if it is a place where you have to look down to see heaven. And another thing about Hawaiian people: You’ll know they’re from Hawaii within 30 seconds of meeting them. If they aren’t wearing a flower behind their ear (which is rare) or doing that weird “hang 10” hand gesture thingy, they’re slipping the fact that they come from Hawaii unabashedly into the conversation. Asking them what time it is and that will be enough of a segue into their favorite topic. “It’s 5:30 here.......That means it’s 8:30 in the morning in Hah WAH Ee”......That’s yet the other thing: They can’t just say “Hawaii” like a normal person – they have to say it like they’re fluent on Samoan or something. The actual Samoans I let off the hook for this. But when I hear blue eyed blonds saying, ”Hah WAH Ee” I’m tempted to dump a bowl of poi over their heads.
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ALL RUSSIAN PEOPLE ARE GRUMPY
So true. And it seems even more extreme to me having been raised, as I was, in a culture where if you’re not perpetually grinning ear to ear you will be stopped in the street by people with big teeth saying, “It can’t be all that bad, can it?” or “A smile is just a frown turned upside down!”



Russians just don’t smile unless they absolutely must. I have only seen my Grumpy Russian Friend Anya smile once, and that was when she won at cards.



She has not smiled since.



You just have to know how to interpret the Russian Mood. You can tell she is happy when she stares at you coldly and asks if you want another drink. When she’s just feeling so-so she stares angrily into the distance and says, “I’m tired”.

We must look very odd when we’re anywhere together. Her with the built in Russian Grump and me with my painted on American cheer.



It’s a wonder we don’t cancel each other out.
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Rasputin's Penis

It’s really easy if you’re alive right now (and chances are if you’re reading this that you are) to think that people who lived in Olden Days were just quiet and weird and almost imaginary. They stare back at us from daguerreutypes like dorks with no sense of stage presence after all, and they seem never to have known what to do with their hair. They look like they must have had the most boring lives just dragging plows back and forth, beating rugs with a stick and building the occasional railroad.

But scratch the surface a little bit and you find out that people back in The Day were outrageous freaks.

Take this guy for instance:



This is Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, better known just by his last name, Rasputin

Raz was a psychic and a mystic. Apparently his father, Efim was as well but the only report I can find anywhere about Efim was that he once “mysteriously” identified the man who had stolen one of his horses (could it be because the man was standing in front of the horse? We’ll never know).


Supposedly a photo of Rasputin’s family when he was growing up. They look like a fun bunch, don’t they?

But what Raz could do was a little more impressive. He was a mystic and a psychic and quite a wild party guy. He was busy exploring mysticism and having orgies with his friends building quite the reputation for himself. He became known as a healer and when Tsarista Aleksandra Romanova needed some assistance with her son Alexei’s hemophilia (one of the perks of years of inbreeding), she rang Rasputin immediately. Or however people contacted each other pre-phone.


Tsarista.....Not to be confused with "Barista"


Apparently Rasputin worked magical wonders on little Alexei and Rasputin soon became a Romanov favorite.


Alexei - Cured by a man with mystic abilities and aspirin.

Unfortunately, some people didn’t like Rasputin because they thought he was giving the Romanovs a bad name, other people didn’t like the Romanovs at all and everyone freaked out for various reasons and things got messy and Rasputin was murdered.


Apparently these people used to get together with Rasputin and have orgies.

The story goes that he was poisoned, then beaten then drowned in a river (apparently it takes a lot of work to kill a Russian Mystic) and somewhere during all this someone cut off his penis and chucked it across the room, which is understandable I guess given all the commotion.

So here’s where it gets weird: Rasputin’s housemaid (who was also apparently his lover) happened upon the aftermath of the murder, found The Penis, took it away and hid it. As you do.

A few years later some Russian ex-pats living in Paris acquired The Penis and started a cult around it. This is the sort of activity people got up to in the days before television.

Then in the 1920's somehow Rasputin’s daughter Maria Rasputin found out about the cult and demanded they give her father’s penis to her as it was rightfully hers.


Maria Rasputin: Guardian of her father’s penis until she died.

Up until that point, the penis had been kept in a wooden casket, but now it was deposited into a pickle jar and presumably kept in Maria’s house.


Rasputin’s penis, kept by his daughter until her death in 1977. Hello? Dr. Freud?

Meanwhile Maria moved to America where she had all sorts of jobs, including a stint as a circus acrobat, and during all this time apparently no one thought to ask what That Thing on the bookshelf was. In her later years Maria became a writer and made it her life's mission to prove to the world that her father wasn't weird.......As it sat there.......

Maria, must we all look at that THING?

Iz all I have to remember father by!

But should it really be on the table? While we're eating dinner?

Shut up. Iz conversation piece.



Maria was in possession of her father’s penis until her death in 1977. Some time after that a man called Michael Augustine bought it at a flea market in Santa Cruz (imagine his wife’s surprise when he returns from the flea market not with picture frames or old books, but an old Russian guy’s pickled penis). It’s at his point that the story gets convoluted and people start claiming that the thing in the jar isn’t a penis at all but actually a sea cucumber (??!).


Not a sea cucumber, but a land cucumber. Frankly real sea cucumbers look too much like Rasputin’s penis to be politely pictured here.

Then in 2004 a guy called Igor Knyazkin got ahold of The Penis (figuratively) and put it on display in his newly opened museum of erotica in St. Petersburg, Russia. Igor claims that men who look at it are cured of impotency. But there are thousands of detractors who still claim it's just a sea cucumber.

Which begs the question: Why would Maria have kept an old sea cucumber all those years? And better yet: What was a sea cucumber doing at the scene of Rasputin’s murder?
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More Inventions

In these troubling times as we head into what some economists are predicting will be a catastrophic worldwide collapse, you've got to keep your chin up. Things are going to be bad for a while and until WWIII comes along to lift us out of this mess we're going to have to fend for ourselves. We need to find innovative ways to make money. We need to be entrepreneurs. If capitalism has taught us anything it's that whoever makes the most money wins, no matter what they have to do to achieve it. With that in mind I've sought holes in the market and come up with some inventions that are sure to keep my family in designer clothes and blood diamonds for the remainder of this crisis.

BTW I am referring to this as "More Inventions" because I long ago posted another list of inventions on my blog. These things are automatically patented just by me publishing them on my blog, so don't try stealing anything! Especially the butt whistle! (I'll know!)

So here are my new inventions:



Vegan Clown Shoes

I was searching for clown shoes online the other day (don't ask) and while I noticed that happily there is a large selection of clown shoes available for purchase and delivery via the internet, they are sadly all made of leather. What are vegan clowns supposed to do? Now if you've kept up with my blog you'll know that I hate clowns. Yes I am "clownist" and proud of that fact. I would gladly have all clowns rounded up into camps and I don't care what that sounds like. But I happen to love their shoes. It is my personal feeling that clown shoes are fabulous and are simply wasted on clowns. If I could find decent vegan clown shoes I would wear them constantly because I would work the irony and do them justice. And that is why I'm inventing them. By the way it doesn't surprise me at all that there are no vegan clowns. Clowns are heartless bastards.
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A Home Exorcism Kit

These could be sold at roadside kiosks near housing developments that have been built on Indian burial grounds and such. The kit would contain rosary beads, holy water, ear-plugs and a list of Hollywood production companies to contact with the story later.

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Cool Myspace Generators

A guide to how to do the greeting kiss thing in Belgium.

I will publish this in a pocket size so it can be whipped out at the appropriate moment. Sure it will add even more awkwardness as the reader flips through the pages while leaning over a table to kiss 18 people at a party, but I feel that in itself will be making an important statement.
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Grigori Rasputin Bed-in For Peace Bed Sheets

Grab Yoko Ono and a couple of Romanovs, wall yourself up in the Pokrovskoye Hilton, and have yourself a party!


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Where Were You When You Heard the News?

Today the Belgian pop group K3 (pronounced Kah Dree) announced that one of their members is leaving. K3 originally got their name because all three of their names started with the letter "K".......(and KKK was already taken).

Their fan base, whose ages averages between 5 and 8 are sure to take the news especially hard as they are not even old enough to find solace in drink.



And to think they once sang a song called Je hebt een vriend (You have a friend).



Ha! What lies! Apparently I have a friend until one of them decides they want to branch out into film! I've been through this before with The Spice Girls you know. Geri left and the rest kept right on dancing promising me that "friendship never ends" and it was all bullshit!



Now K3 are pulling the same crap and I just don't know what to believe in anymore.

And then there is the problem of what the remaining two K3 members should do. Hire a replacement? Call themselves K2 and resign themselves to singing to audiences of confused mountain climbers?

...Or just resign to calling themselves KK (Kah Kah)?
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If Not for the Modern World...

Today I have a toothache. Because it is currently 2009 and not 1009, this means that it is a mild inconvenience I will have to endure until Monday when (by total coincidence) I already have an appointment set with the dentist. Meanwhile there are all sorts of aspirins and things I can take, and if none of that works there is a bar on my street corner. By contrast if this were 1009 my only choices would be to endure excruciating pain and a possible disfiguring facial infection or pop down to my local blacksmith (or Inquisitional torturer - whichever was handy) and have some greasy unwashed peasant pry my tooth out equipped only with a rudiment lead based tool and his unwashed hands. After the procedure I would not be coddled and given ice cream, but instead would be expected to immediately resume toiling in the potato fields or giving birth or possibly both at once.

All of this has got me pondering just what I would look like now if not for the modern world. I've been taking an inventory of all my past ailments; broken bones, teeth straightening, etc. and if not for the modern world I would be quite a different creature right now. My Medieval Self would certainly not have hair straighteners, or even hair conditioner for that matter, so my hair would be a tangled unwashed mess resembling and possibly functioning as a rat's nest. My eyebrows would be an unruly pre-historic looking nightmare and my eyes would be framed in wrinkles from all the squinting I would have had to do without contact lenses. And I most certainly would not smell like Chanel #5.

Can you imagine just how horrible everyone looked back in Medieval times? The only saving grace back then was that everyone was awful looking and bad smelling so you wouldn't feel like the odd one out. But here's the thing: If you did decide you'd had it with all that medieval muck and you started bathing regularly and washing your clothes and smelling nicely they would think you were up to something and burn you as a witch.



So with that in mind you wouldn't even bother and instead you'd just resign yourself to working in the fields covered in mud with an abscessed tooth.

And the moral of this blog entry is: When you put all the Global Warming, Worldwide Financial Collapse and Murderous Illuminati Oligarchs aside, the modern world isn't all that bad, is it?
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Tony

Tony is the most recent addition to our household. He's been with us for about three months but I haven't mentioned him yet because he was a wild street cat and has been taking a while to adjust. We've seen Tony around in our neighborhood for several years now. Occasionally we would bring him some food or offer a kind word which was always met with a hiss and a general bad attitude from Tony. But one particularly cold winter day Tony decided to come and visit us, we opened our window, he walked in, we slammed the window shut, and voila! Tony was our captive!



I'm sure there are all sorts of arguments that people might make in regard to us violating Tony's civil rights or even being in breach of the Geneva Convention in holding Tony against his will without even access to legal council, but it was very cold outside and he was very scruffy and hungry and we do truly believe that it was all For His Own Good.

The good news is that Tony has been acclimating very nicely and has calmed down quite a bit.



He enjoys sitting in the window like he owns the place.



And the other cats are starting to accept him.



He still won't let Wim anywhere near him and hisses whenever Wim so much as looks at him. But the best most wonderful thing is that he lets me pet him!!


Yes, that's MY hand, patting Tony on the head! Ha ha HA, Wim! HA HA!!!!

There is NOTHING more validating than the feeling that you are the only person a grumpy cat will allow near him!....And yes I know it means that I'm horribly codependent but I don't care. I still feel super cool.
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Leave Modern Art to the Professionals!

I am not usually a fan of Modern Art. In fact I can’t stand it. Too many times I’ve been dragged out to see a modern art exhibition and ended up throwing a tantrum in front of a paper cup in a frame that the artist has given some fancy name to and is charging $12,000 for. “This isn’t art you assholes!" I scream, "Learn how to draw!” at which point I am dragged out of the building by Security and jailed for 3 months. .....OK, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’m quite certain that it’s just a matter of time. All you have to do to become a “Modern Artist” it seems is think up ways to be increasingly more annoying.

(The worst piece of "Modern Art" I have ever seen: A bathroom shelf with a glass of water on it called Oak Tree......FUCK OFF!!)

So this past week, I’ve had two Modern Art experiences and I have Good News and Bad News to report. First the Bad News: Modern art in it’s most banal form is alive and well at the S.M.A.K. Museum in Gent. We went there and saw canvas “paintings” in one solid color in red, blue and yellow; a slide projector which randomly projected different words such as “typewriter” or “alive” on the wall opposite it; and running films of plastic bags being blown about in the wind. PUH-LEEZE!! It’s this kind of Emperor’s New Clothes crap that keeps the so-called “Art Form” going, because it is SO daft that people think they’re just not “getting it” so they pretend that they are and these so-called “Artists” get lots of grants to create even worse stuff next season. Newsflash: There’s nothing to “get”! It’s a plastic bag! It’s impossible to feel an emotion over it! That emotion that you are feeling is homicidal rage that someone is actually being paid to produce this crap! The “Artist” would have made much better use of himself if he’d actually picked up the plastic bag and placed it over his head.

I’m not kidding you. If I had had a baseball bat and some lighter fluid with me it would have been a whole different afternoon.

OK. Now the Good News - There is one group of artists who know how to do Modern Art right: The Finns. As far as I’m concerned, Finnish people are the only ones who should be allowed to do Modern Art, and I don’t even care how fascist that sounds. Incase you aren’t aware, Finns are very odd people. I mean this in a good way. Perhaps it comes from living in a country encased in an iceberg with 14 minutes of sunshine per day (I’ve never been there, but this is what I assume): They have to find bizarre ways to entertain themselves and they do. Take as Exhibit A Finland’s entry in the 2006 song contest:



They are a band called Lordi and they won, thereby putting Finland (and half-decayed zombies) firmly in the forefront of European culture. See what I mean? And these were Establishment Finns!

So when I got an invitation from my lovely Finnish friend Mira to her Art Piece, I suppressed my natural aversion to Modern Art for the evening and I was not disappointed. My friend Anya and I walked through the streets of Gent until we found the flashy sign out front:



The show was called “Plan B” which I liked because it made me think that they had collectively scrapped their first idea for a show. Plan B is the fallback plan and therefore what is always planned all along.......am I reading too much meaning in?

We were greeted at the entrance by Mira dressed in some sort of futuristic outfit.



She shuffled through some papers and told us that we needed to fill out some forms before being interrogated. We went to the bar area and proceeded to fill out the forms. The questions made no sense at all, much to the chagrin of my grumpy Russian friend.



Luckily there was wine in plastic cups on hand to make it all worthwhile.

After filling out the forms we were assigned to different “lockets” to be asked questions.

I was ushered to a table where I was given a series of Rorschach inkblot test, the results of which were recorded into a notebook.


This one is clearly a picture of my parents fighting.

Next I was asked a series of questions by a Finnish guy who kept slipping and reading the questions in Finnish.



I answered them anyway and the answers were duly noted.

We were given drawings to write our own captions under:



And captions to do drawings under:



And all amidst a sort of 1984 theme:



With a fabulous funky bar behind it:



THAT my friends, is how you do Modern Art. Sure it made no sense, but it was good fun. And there were drinks. And laughs. Try getting that out of a plastic bag blowing in the wind!!
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