Love and Tradition

I'm spending three days in Mezőkövesd, a village (or town) in Hungary quite to the North-East, famous for the beautiful embroidery proper of the area. My substitute parents live here (they are my "substitute parents" because they are the folks of a dear friend of mine, and since we are like siblings, his folks decided to make me their substitute child ^_^), and so we decided to pay them a visit, and in this visit, I decided to stay. In this three days - now that I can do it, for once I've get a job I probably won't be able to come here and stay long enough - I've been indulging in good homemade cooking and sipping in tips for quick and easy recipes to do at home. After all, I've a home now to housekeep and someone has to be on top of things, and that someone is me. ^_^ 

As expected, there has been plenty of talking as well, where Mommy and I fixed the world and chatted out all the important matters. From recipes and wonderful cabbage soups to loseweight (Daddy has to lose weight, so he's on a cabbage soup diet), to what's going on in the family and in the country, politics and all. From these conversations several things stay with me once I go to bed. Mommy's and Daddy's frankness, their familiarity and how they make you feel part of the family and arriving home the moment you walk past the front gate. Also, their love and care.

It strikes me how they care so much for my boyfriend and I, how they insist to send us back to Budapest with so much food "for the road" that could feed an army for a week. They make sure we feel well, feel welcomed, feel cared for. Mommy and Daddy aren't our biological folks, and yet they care is if were were their children. So, how can it be that there are so many parents out there who can't give a dime for their own children? And in the face of this, how can it be people out there who nag the childless and call them abnormal and immature?

Sadly, I know many parents, and I know all of us do, who think their children are their personal servants, that their children owe them their lives and for that reason shall pay everyday for it. Parents that don't pay attention to them, who can't wait to get rid of them, hide them, assign them to the grandparents or anyone in order to keep living as if they were single and free of care. Parents who act like their kids are a badge they've earned, or see them as a source of income, either by making the other parent of the kid pay child support, or by either sending the children to work or selling them.

With Mommy and Daddy I've the chance to experience a kind of love that knows no limits and it's not tied by blood. Just as with the parents of Dragonfly, or Alix' parents, there's a limitless love that stretches even to those who have not been born from them. Like with my Mom and Dad, who love me and show it inconditionally, they also show inconditional love.

Love isn't something that comes with the blood shared, or because "you are meant to be together" and slip gold rings on each other's fingers. Love starts in you, grows in you and it grows harder, stronger, bigger if the one you love - or the one's you love -love you back and nurture the feeling. But love doesn't die if it's not corresponded. Love can live in if it's nurtured at least for one person. Yes, love can die, if you find out that a love has grown so that hurts you more than it makes you feel good. Then you yourself stop feeding it, and it slowly dies out. But love starts with you.

There's a tradition in this land, about beautiful embroidery, but there's also a tradition of warm hearts and sweet, endless love that's extended inconditionally to anyone willing to be part of the family.

This Last Week When I Was Out

It's been a week since I last wrote, and not few things happened in this week. First of all, there was the "building matter" and this time it wasn't another evacuation - though I would have really enjoyed that - but an article that appeared in the newspapers about the building and how Supercalifragilistic it is.  This, well, rose a lot of reactions, like some utterly stupid - there's no other word for it -  reader who wrote a comment at the electronic site of the paper saying that we "shouldn't be so lazy" and instead of waiting 45 minutes for the elevator, perhaps we "should climb the stairs". Yeah, why don't that s.o.b. come here and climb 16 flights in those stairs and see how he or she likes it? I mean, I would personally climb the stairs, and I was prepared to it, but I really, really need air, not to mention how unpleasant it is to work steated up. Dude, really, think before opening your trap.

To my surprise, I also found people IN the building upset about the article for an array of reasons. So said that such a note shouldn't have been published, that the problems we experience in the building are "absolutely normal" and proper of "a new building to which one has to get used to". Dude, the building was inspected before we moved in, tests were ran - so it was said - it took an extra month to receive it because it had to be corrected (the Fire Department requested for an external emergency exit, which hasn't been built yet, nor it looks like it would), and we get here and there's not a single day, since June 16th that something doesn't work? The freaking building is supposed to be smart! Or perhaps it is smart, but also spoiled and it's throwing a temper tantrum? (That, or the building is Smart. Yeah, Maxwell Smart.)

Also heard comments berating the publishing, saying that by venting this in the eye of the public, the image of the company would deteriorate. Hn. Let me see: the Government don't allow the company to do any investment, as th money is needed to pay the Governments trips and stunts. Add to it, a former employee of quite a high position is in a trial, where also a former President is charged with accounts of corruption in the Alcatel case. Some years ago the Director of Mobile Telecommunications of that time summoned a press conference to announce the opening of prepaid mobile services, when the service wasn't ready and the technical tests weren't positive, and said Director happily anounced the sale in three days. Three days later he was burried in his office or out of the country on the money of the company and let the technicians to explain why the service couldn't be offered. Then the most recent former CEO of the company, discharged this May, is being held on trial for fraud, as he used public funds for his personal use, as well as allowing his wife, who was not an employee of the company, to run it to her like and destroy the work of experienced employees, not to mention to use public funds for her own means. So no, I don't really think that this note on the building is the stain that would mar the company.

I do understand that things must be kept in the company and seek to solve them without pulling a Lohan or a Spears on the deal, but when the management is oblivious about the matters and the problems are issued with e-mails belittling the sitaution, things must be escalated.

This week also, I've got a new phone. ^_^ But please, don't think it's (yet another) compulsive purchase of mine. It was a real need. Really. My old phone, an adorable purple Sony Ericsson w380 broke. I bought it around two years ago (perhaps a week or two before I met Kari) and I loved it! Phone in Hungarian, preloaded with PannonGSM (now Telnor) stuff and all that, and lets be honest: I'm a sucker for technology in Hungarian. However my phone was reaching the 2 years, which makes it old - for me - so I was thinking in replacing it anyway. I definitively needed something with Internet, since I'm a Twitter and I'd love to tweet my way around like all my other Twitter friends, not to mention going bonkers tweeting during out #twittertours. Then, of course, there's also the matter of my PDA. After years of using my PDA it broke. Yes, I had a Palm Pilot m130 that worked adorably, but before I could replace it Palm Pilot closed the business and sould out to HP, and you know when will I buy HP: on neverday. (Have enough HP experience at the office with the HP laptops and printers and stuff, I really know what they are like and I'm not paying for them). Ever since the begining of this year I went back to basics, with a small agenda. Yep, paper agenda. You know, those that don't beep, that have only one way to be looked at, that require you to write up every single event of a given repetitive task, that don't expand when you need to accomodate more activities. Yeah, those. Well, a few ups, however: don't need batteries, don't disappear on you if you haven't charged them, let you stick stickers, draw, write in code, use colors... One thing for the other, right? 

So, the point is that I needed a new phone, and I was planning on getting it by the end of this year in Hungary. Well, after an improptu decision, I was going, so I might as well use the time to update my phone, right? Not to mention that it doesn't look swell to work on the telecommunications business and have some old phone on you.

Since I'm basically a Sony Ericsson-gal, I was checking their offer and was really thinking about an Xperia. When, how much and all those questions were faraway from me. Someday, some, somehow. The idea of an iPhone also fluttered around my brain. Then it happened. The Happening.

It was early Friday morning and, as usual, my phone rang to wake me up. Yes, only I left it charging and as I reached for it it fell on the floor and the joint between both sides of the clamshell broke. Oh hell. Clamshell phones are quite delicate, particularly this joint as it controls stuff like the answering of an incoming call and so on. The phone itself was still working, but when you opened it or closed it, it didn't have that claa that push it open or close, as it should. It was getting stuck. Well, I wasn't going to walk around with a broken phone, nor I was going to wait for it to finally die on me. Once at the office, I went down to the Lobby, to the Kölbi store and checked out the phones. I didn't really had any phone in mind, so I just saw a big banner of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which was a Sony Ericsson and had all I needed, and pointed at it.

"I want that, but I want it in a plan, with Internet."

The salesguy got me the phone, programmed it, printed out the contract, talked over the monthly fee ($80), told me I'd be paying it from next month on, and just like that, I had a new phone. It gave me a lot of trouble, truth to be told, as the new thing wasn't behaving like any other Sony Ericsson I have had so far, and I had have so far three of them!, but little by little we have been getting acquainted, and even though it hasn't behaved like any of my other SE, this one and I are getting along swell. Haven't named it yet, and I haven't named any phone lately, but I think this one deserves a Scandinav/Scandinavish name. Vesa? Eric?Sven? Sven-Eric, like the cop in Sunstorm? Solstorm? Still to be decided.

Then this same week I had this rich, wrapping messaging with a new penpal of mine, with whom I've took off and flew across the pink and purple skies of the soul. The long, almost daily messages written in such a fashion I felt as Henry Miller penpaling with Anais Nin (me reading Tropic of Cancer may have something to do with the feeling, but may not also), were topped with a delicious letter from her in my P.O.Box on Saturday. Oh the delight! Her letters telling ne as much as her words, the scent of the paper wrapping warm arms around be, from a new friend greeting me as an old one.

This past week felt as heaven!

Well, not to mention that I've worked on fixing the last chapter of the thesis and I've got an SMS from the tutor sayin that "we should unify the document for lecture and defense". We are one step ahead of you, Sir!

To finish it up, I've come up with an idea for a book. After reading a half-assed article in Harper's Bazaar, I've decided I'll compose a book on how to pack for a travel, based on my experience in the matter. Kinda like a "how to do" book with some frappy title like "How to pack and don't kill yourself or the suitcase in the process". How about that?

Happy new Week!

What We Share

Last week I discovered that the movie AVATAR will be in Costa Rica's movie theatres by December 18th, which is not a bad thing, save that my flight departs the 18th, at 16:05, so there's no way in Hell I could watch the movie. Well, not like I'm such a big fan or anything, but the movie does tease my curiosity. The chances to see the movie on the plane are close to 0, and since it's a KLM flight and not an Air France one, the chances actually stay close to -100%. Yeah, KLM features movies like... well, like those movies you never heard about and if you did, I did everything in the world to avoid watching them, such as "Wall-E", "Juno" and any other thing that hardly reaches the PG rating. (Yes, I hate family movies.) In other words, KLM is one of the reasons why I'm so happy Nagi (my laptop) has a battery that stays alive for 2+ hours and that I've plenty of Supernatural downloaded in it. (Others are happy too, like the man sitting next to me in my flight back to Costa Rica this April, when he rather watched Nagi's screen discreetly, than watching the abhorrently boring movie KLM thought suitable to feature.)

Then, my curious brain posed a question: Is it possible I can watch AVATAR in Hungary? So I checked the movie schedules, and guess what? I can watch AVATAR in Hungary! Awesome! My plans actually include watching it the same day I arrive, which is totally doable (I hope), since there's a Friday's restaurant in the mall where I can see it in 3D. The question that arises then is: will Kari be up to it? Maybe he's tired or maybe he doesn't want to watch the movie. Well, I do, so I will. This then kind of got me thinking about relationships and the expected interaction within it.

As it happens, usually, for the couple to go anywhere there must be a consensus of some sort: you go to the movies to watch a movie only if the two of you decided to watch it, or one day the two of you go watch a movie you like and another day go watch a movie the other one likes. Same with everything. Either both of you agree into something or one day it's the day to please A and the other day the day to please B. But why should it be like that?

For instance, Kari loves African countries and all those wicked places that sound to me more like spices than locations. He wants to go to Mauritius, and Egypt, and... Timbuktu... I mean, what would I know, and you know when will I go there? On Neverday, that's when. I mean, I'll help him pack his luggage, and Hyne knows he'll need my help, make sure he has all he needs for the trip, take him to the airport, sit with him until the boarding moment arrives and wave him good-bye and then pick him up, listen to his stories, maybe even look at the pictures and pretend that's interesting, but I am not going, just like I would never pretend to drag Kari to go with me to some Jay-Z, Ja-Rule, X-Zibit, Snoop Dogg concert, or sit and watch a Dragon Ball Z movie, or Queer As Folk.

It is cool if the two of you share interests, such as The Gathering, Guns'n'Roses and Rammstein in our case, but if you don't, why do you have to force the other to "share" your likings? Why do you force yourself to suffer through the likings of the other? After all, just because you like your mate, it doesn't mean you have to like what she or he likes. I mean, he likes "halászlé" (a stinky Hungarian fish soup... totally disgusting) which I LOATH, and I like liver, which he can't even see in picture before turning into a full blown bullimic (no pun intended).

Then it extends. I was talking to Mom yesterday about chores and how Kari and I will cook together (I'll teach him to cook), but I won't be cooking. Mom said that though she knows I loath to do chores, I shouldn't place "the weight" on his shoulders, but rather do things because that makes him happy and hope he'll reciprocate. No ill intended, but I'm really not inclined to take such an advise for a woman whose husband wouldn't even swap up the coffee he spills on the counter. My approach here is "it's not MY duty, it's not YOUR duty, but it's what WE DO TOGETHER".

The thing is that I don't see why "being in a relationship" means that you have to accept to torture and be tortured. It doesn't make me happy to have someone wash my clothes, and I don't want to be with someone who gets happy because I cook for him. I don't want to give up the things I like and I don't want to impose them on anyone, not I want my boyfriend to give up the things that make him happy or trying to impose them on me. We might be together (well, we are) but each of us is still an individual, with individual likings and plans, and projects, so why to trample with them?

I wanna see AVATAR, but that's me, and I'll watch the movie, but if he doesn't want to, he won't. Plain and simple and it satisfies everybody. Why can't people see it this way?

Change of plans in the last minute

So I was going to go to Sofia today. With a sleeping wagon and the whole shebang. Then, in the morning, Jules called me and told me that the railroad workers were going to go on strike from Januar 1st on. O_O Holy Hell! I'm so not going to get stuck in Bulgaria! We called the railroad call center to ask about what would happen, or if the train would at least drop me on the border, from where I could take a bus home, but the girl knew nothing. She even said she wasn't aware of when the train-strike was going to start. Was it just some gossip? Was it real? I'm not risking it. I called the hotel and cancelled the reservation, and now, after lunch I'm going to return my ticket, get back my 32 thousand forints (multiply by 2.64 to get colones), and call it the day.

I won't lie to you, I'm extremely disappointed that my trip got so fucked up. I though about going next year, but I have already planned my trip for next year: I'm going to Venice. Kinda upsetting also, because I really thought God and I had an agreement, BUT I rather don't meddle into his stuff, and let him work according to the "greater picture" he has. Currently I'm grumbling really upset and I tip my head towards him and say: "Hope you don't pull one of these with the Thesis!". No, that's not the way you talk to God, but right now I'm upset my plans went donw the gutter. At the same time I'm a bit relieved. I think God has decided to help me with my finances and this is a way to cut back a little my expenses. As a matter of fact, Good Thinking, God!

As for when am I going to visit Sofia... I have no idea. Maybe in 2010, and then, I guess I'll get a plane ticket to avoid all the crap with the train and their irrational strikes. Then again, maybe by then I'll be here, and maybe I could just drive all the way down to there.

Oh well, I called Gitta and asked her if the New Year's party was still up, and it's still up! For 4000 Ft I can drink as much as I want, and there will be food and people and the whole shebang. Today, after returning my ticket, I'll be going to do my shopping for calendars and see what's out there to see. Who knows? May even call the Lord of the Horses to walk with me a little, keep me amused... My Grandfather will certainly be happy I'm not going to the Balkans. But what to do, what to do... we will be going to Győr! And then, of course, Gödöllő. And then, and then... Well, I'll be here at home, and that will be wonderful. ^_^ In the end, everything has a bright side. In this case, the brighter side is that I'll have more money to spend... only gara be careful, or I'll step over my weight limit.

Succumbed to Fair Games

How starved a reader must be to go for "Fair Games"? Shit, wasn't even that good, but honestly, I do have read every single existing piece of Krumggory ever written, and the sadest part of it is that I have written the 60-to-75% of it... and I'm the best of writers in the genre. No, ain't egomania or self-glorifying (I don't need it), but the ACTUAL AND ABSOLUTE TRUTH. morning_hell is good, really, she is, but her story comes ever once in a millenium and her quality has increasingly slumped with her last chapters. Would love to say otherwise, but this is it. Other than that, there's no Krumggory to be read in this planet. T_T Why, oh why am I not being showered with Krumggories? Why do I always have to love what's hard to get? Fuck it... You know, this is why I'm a writer, because if I want something, evidently I have to write it.

My head is already filled to the brim with snippets and stories, moves and pictures of great fiction. Oddly, I found myself writing a particular scene in detail in my journal, in Hungarian. The image itself is quite hot, two guys having sex against a wall, sweaty and glistening, with muted moans and only the sound of their hard breathing and the slapping of their flesh, but as I worded the scene in Hungarian I realized once again what I have always known: Hungarian makes it so much better. I'm one lucky bitch for knowing this fabulous, rich language.

The secretary, or assistant of the Director came to tell me that I'm moving to my new cubicle today. No more view, no more office, no more light for my own (which my boss seems to find so funny, though we were told the switches would be separated for the different cubicles)... then no more steps to climb, tow way in and out of the building, the possibility of total darkness, a space for a meeting area, view of everybody trying to make an exit of the building, a warmer place to work... it has its pluses and its minuses. In any case, where's the people to help me move? I have already detached my extensive post-it maps off the wall, packed what I could in the only box given to me.... where are the movers? The fuck with this fucking people...