Electric Birdsland

Now that the universe has stopped expanding and begun collapsing concepts have been absorbing one another, mashing up, my brainworm today, besides a worrying series of intrusive thoughts is Tippi Hendrix, who was she Alfred Hitchcock’s muse and… groundbreaking guitarist famous for among many other hits “The Wind Cries Marnie.”

In other news I finally managed to go bouldering again after a too-long phase of inactivity and made it to the gym on Sunday so I’m rather sore less because I did so much, more because I had done so little for so long before that.

Monday. It’s Monday. What other mashups will the week bring?
What else will the angels and devils on my shoulders suggest?

Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0 Part III

The screen has gone black / failed to come on upon starting, twice. Turning the car off and back on “fixed” it both times.
Now that weather is growing colder, the buttwarming front seats, and the heated steering wheel are nice, as is the heated windshield (at least until a piece of gravel hits it and I have to have it replaced) (nice because one does not have to scrape ice in the morning it just melts right off).

What an embarrassing time to be an old white man.
I have been a bit depressed and a bit grieving since the election and really have to summon extra self-control from somewhere to keep from ranting. But so far so good.

Alpha and I had goose with friends on Wednesday. That is, we went to the best restaurant in the next town with friends of ours, and ate roast goose, 2 kinds of dumplings, and red cabbage. I don’t know if the goose also had friends, possibly. The wine was good, and we also had some schnapps. They all sympathized with me.

The world, or the part I am familiar with, a part of the world that previously had some amount of respect (or even affection) for the United States (they were so happy for us when Obama was elected), is shocked that a legitimate clown and convicted felon made it this far.

Part of me is, too. But part of me knows Americans have always been like this.

Every Republican president during my lifetime was elected by the same people for the same reason – domestic war on the poor, on minorities, on women, on the left. That’s what Nixon’s War on Drugs was all about. The current gang is just a little more openly fascist.

I have some questions: Trump is old, ill and senile. He will die soon. How allegiant is his cult to him personally, and how much to those propping him up? What will a President Vance be like? What happens if Trump dies or is incapacitated before being sworn in? What happens if he is caught traitoring? What happens when those around him start fighting amongst themselves. What happens when those behind him start fighting (billionaires vs Russia vs Saudi Arabia vs China vs whatever)?

Here in Austria, the far-right party won the most votes in the recent election, but currently it looks like the other parties will refuse to form a coalition with them, which means they might not be in the government. Or, the conservative party might just be pretending, and could eventually say “whelp coalition talks failed so we are forced to coalesce with the rightists in the interest of stability in these unstable times.”

Anyway, as the party with the most votes, the president of parliament (Rosenkranz) is from the far-right party, which makes many people unhappy. Today he attempted to lay down a wreath at a memorial for pogrom victims in Vienna but was blocked by a Jewish students group who oppose him etc. He asked the police to move them so he could access the memorial (but they did not). Austria’s (at the moment) best newspaper, “Die Tagespresse” (a satirical newspaper similar to The Onion) then reported, “In memory of the November pogroms, Rosenkranz orders police to move Jews out of the way”.

There is a saying in German, “Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst.” (The situation is hopeless, but not serious.) I think, since fascists depend on fear, it is important to maintain a sense of humor and creativity and never stop pointing out what clowns they are.

When possible and you are not going to be murdered for it etc.

Anyway. Did I say the goose was good? It is easy to make goose tough and stringy and dry, but this was perfect.

Bella Ciao

God: Where are we now?
Noah: Erm, eleven. 9:11.
God: Ok.
God: So anyway, Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.
Noah (writing): Ok, yep, good, got it. No More Floods.
God: Weeeelll not exackly.
Noah: You said, and I quote, “never again will floodwaters etc etc.”
God: Yes however.
Noah: Kill all living creatures.
God: Yes ok not all of them.
Noah (loses cuniform stylus in mud): Dang. Look, I’ll just put “no more floods” for now and add the details later.
God: You’re gonna forget.
Noah: I won’t forget! Man!
God: Yeah ok whatever.

The Damage Commission was at our house this morning.
They looked around.
My wife, who has been cleaning for over a week (with help from friends and relatives including me) apologized for the mess. Who apologizes for the mess after a flood has flooded your house?
Oh, we’ve seen worse, say the Damage Commission.
The Damage Commission decides how much damage money we get or something, at least is responsible for the first stage of the process, before it vanishes into bureaucracy. I wanted to wait on the cleaning until after their visit so the cellar would look worse but Alpha said they would know, don’t worry, which was correct.

They needed our children to sign a form so I hunted them down on the way to work. There has been much hunting down of people to sign forms lately.

I hunted Gamma down at the hospital where she is doing an internship, something to do with psychology and psychotherapy blah blah blah and out she walks to meet me, wearing a white lab coat and carrying a clip board and a book.

Oh, you have a pen to sign with, I said.
I have two, she said, flaunting the second pen.

That’s how together she is nowadays.

Then I drove to the other train station, my regular train station still being under water, and failed to find a legal parking spot because everyone who normally uses my regular train station is now also using the other train station so I went home and had Alpha drive me to the other train station. When I got to town I went to the ministry to meet Beta.

I hesitate to say which ministry because with Beta you never fucking know how secret something is. Anyway she came out and we went to Starbucks – I think I am allowed to divulge that – where I had a pumpkin spice latte and she had another beverage, I will not say which one. I also had a ham and cheese croissant. She signed the document and now I’m carrying it around until I go home at night. I walked her back to the ministry and she walked me back to the UBahn. I’ll go in here, she said, it’s a secret entrance; you may enter the UBahn station over there.

See you in November when I get back from [REDACTED], she said.

Then I took a couple subways and a bus to the office. On one subway a fellow got on, he was wearing an accordion securely strapped to his body. He said something and began to play. He played short versions of a couple songs I recognized but could not name. Others seemed to be ignoring him. When my stop came I gave him two 2-Euro coins and exited (he, ever the professional had been blocking the exit with his body so one was forced to interact with him one way or the other).

He thanked me and broke into a nice rendition of “Bella Ciao”, my favorite involuntary subway accordion song.

Standing on the platform watching the train leave, I had the same feeling as I had as a boy after loading a jukebox with a bunch of coins and punching in the numbers for many terrible songs before leaving a place.

Enjoy, suckers, I did not say as I watched the tunnel suck up the train. I caught a glimpse of a woman on the train giving the accordionist more coins, and felt good.

Marked safe

Woman: Was that a joke.
Man: Yes.
Woman: Try harder.

(We all react to catastrophes in our own way.)

So we’ve had a bit of flooding.
Short version: a Flood of the Century that was, where we live, considerably worse than the previous Flood of the Century 22 years ago.

Man (trying harder): We had everything packed and ready to go: documents, spare underwear, cats. My climbing gear bag. A siren went off and your mother said it was time to go so we did. Shortly before the official evacuation notice.
Woman: Ok.
Man: I suppose you could call it premature evacuation.
Woman: That was another joke right.

The cats are extremely well-behaved here at Beta’s place.
So are we.
When we woke up this morning the sky was blue (still is) but it’s still too early to go back to the house and check on damage and clean up and discard etc.
Some villages in the area are still in the process of being evacuated.
The cats are sleeping.
My wife is checking the news on her phone.
My daughter is working.
Now I will stand up from the comfortable chair to put my breakfast bowl into the dishwasher, and my wife will steal it.
Later we will get dressed and go for a walk.
There is a climbing gym in the neighborhood but I don’t know if i am up to it.
I woke up at 2 and thought about all those who have to flee on short notice, all around the world.
I hope they are doing ok.
But not all of them are.
I fed the cats at 4:30.
I woke up at 6:30 so I did fall asleep at some point.

Equilibrium

So anyway. There I was in the woods. Looking around. Weather was beginning to cool, but still hot, not like today which is cool and rainy, perfect, perfect weather.
It was hot but the woods were shady.
I was wearing socks this time in case something ran up the inside of my pantsleg again (nothing did) and a straw hat and a pink Bikini Kill T-shirt and blue jeans. And shoes. I had clippers in my pocket, hidden by the shirt in case I encountered the owner of the forest or a hunter or whatever (I didn’t).
I told myself it was legal to clip the cattails; I wasn’t taking many and the ones that were protected are a different, smaller kind. These are ok to take.
I don’t know if they really are. According to something I found online it is legal in Austria to take things (nuts, berries, mushrooms) from the woods for your own use, but not, like, commercially, and not firewood etc. So I took 5 hazel switches (for possible basketry) (I didn’t take more because I didn’t want to look greedy should I encounter an owner or other authority) (I didn’t) and looked around for thick stands of cattails.
I found some near the edge of a pond. It was a steep slope maybe 2 meters down to the water’s edge.
I don’t know what happened. I was carefully going down the slope when I just tipped.
I was clutching at the grass and plants, but it was no good.

Voice in my head: “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” (all lower case, calm, more dismay than terror, more wanting to get this falling stuff over with so the climbing back up can commence). I did not catch myself elegantly. There was 0% elegance going on here.
Did I make a sound? I don’t recall.
At least I didn’t fall into mud or brackish water.
I bet Mary Oliver fell into the cattails sometimes too.
“There it was, the soft animal of my body, lying there on its back in the reeds, hoping nothing slithered up its leg.”
I resolved to start doing more squats and knee mobility stuff.

I got my cattails, a medium-sized bundle, and wandered back to my Ford Tourneo Courier 1.0 Ecoboost (which a recent passenger determined dings a lot, safety warnings that are, in sum, distracting).

I went home and set out my catch in the shed to dry under the wasp nests (3 at last count). That reminds me, I forgot to put my bicycle back into the shed and now it is raining. My motivation to put my bike back was mitigated by the 3 wasp nests.

I made some twine. I watched the closing ceremony of the Paralympics with my wife. At some point I went to bed, because I woke up in bed this morning, happy to see the rain and the cooler weather.

Migbars, and old man whining about health

My recipe for “Migbars” (energy bars to snack on while climbing etc. that are healthier and cheaper than commercial ones) is nearly all sorted out. The climbers I know who have so far test-eaten them all gave positive feedback.

I remain happy with my Ford Tourneo Courier 1.0 Ecoboost although the cruise control is distracting. It is my first car with a cruise control, I like the cruise control, but it switches to “standby” if I step on the brakes or gas while using it, and I have not yet figured out how to just switch it back on, and instead must turn it off and back on instead.

I woke up today without vertigo for the first time in more than 2 weeks. I am hesitant to discuss my health, as I don’t want to be an old person cliche talking about my health all the time, but I always find trouble-shooting a PITA and it’s even more so when it is your health you are dealing with and man don’t ever do internet searches for health/illness stuff. There are so many potential causes of vertigo! Most dire! This led to me bouncing from one doctor to another, with the result that my body has passed inspection and I am street-legal for another year. It has been determined by MRI that my brain is “not clinically relevant” which sounds insulting but is good news; my ears are fine, except for the growing deafness and tinnitus, and so on.

I have been forced to monitor my blood pressure, which so far is right where it should be.

I still don’t know what the cause of my dizziness was – anyway I woke up this morning feeling fine for the first time in 2 weeks. I think it might have been a combination of the hot weather, stress, fear and panic. I was somewhat miserable and unable to go climbing, which is my main anti-misery tool lately. Anyway. Feeling better now, I think. Hope it sticks. Maybe I can go climbing again soon (as soon as I manage to convince Alpha that I my equilibrium has returned), and have a Migbar.

Interspecies contract

It is sometimes good for your mental health when you are able to give the wheel to your stone age side that is otherwise so often repressed in today’s society (does not apply to fascists) and so I found it liberating yesterday to go into the woods and look for some natural fibers with which to make a basket; I have no idea how to make a basket so we are talking early Neanderthal in my case (archeologists have found traces of cordage-making in 90,000 year old Neanderthal settlements but based on how easily the practice of twining fibers came to me I would guess it is earlier than that) anyway I clipped a few cattails and stripped off their leaves, which I find good for making cordage as the leaves are quite long and there are smaller bits on one side of the leaves you can strip off that are good for making thinner, almost thread-like twine that is quite strong but I do not know yet what to do with that either; in fact that is the reason I am trying to make a basket because when a friend asked me, But what are you going to do with the twine? I answered, Make a basket and so there I was with my cat-tails, wandering deeper into the woods to find some branches I could use for a frame and it felt like the opening scene of a detective show where a passerby innocently stumbles upon the first body, which I call the “Leichenfund”-scene as in, I am on the sofa, TV is on, my wife is outside talking to the kale in the raised bed and I shout to her, Honey hurry, your Krimi is on, you’re going to miss the Leichenfund! and I stepped into a tuft of grass and something cold, moving fast, wriggled up my leg, between leg and trouser-leg and I instinctively did the dance (definitely an instinct imprinted in my lizard brain, requiring zero thought) that one does in such a situation, the dance we have been doing since the days of Neanderthal fiber-gathering, probably longer, and in response the cold wriggling creature threw it into reverse and wriggled off through the grass and I thought, Lizard? Snake? and mused upon the interspecies contract whereby one wriggles, one dances, the wriggler exits stage left, no harm done and how that would benefit both species in such a way that we have both evolved to this point that we can safely go our separate ways, happy with our rapidly beating hearts and a story to tell when we get home.
I found no body, but I did cut a few branches that are crookeder and less uniform than I had hoped for for a basket but perhaps that will lend the finished product an interesting air, assuming I can produce a piece of twine to tie them together that doesn’t break when I tug on it.
Then a bee stung me in the left shoulder blade when was watering the flower bed in front of the house. My first thought was a wasp, which will sting you for fun, and not a bee, which you have to give a reason and I had given bees no reason to sting me, I am mellow with bees, I was merely watering their flowers, and I said a bad word and squirted myself in the back with the hose to get rid of the wasp, which will sting you multiple times if they are in a mood to, but when I got back into the house and removed my wet shirt I could see the stinger and its attached poison sack still in my shoulder blade and realized a bee had somehow crawled up my shirt and stung me when I leaned against the wall of the house (as an American, I am always leaning against something, this is typical for Americans, a fact I read on my phone from an article citing a CIA manual for its spies under “how not to look American while abroad” that said Americans were always leaning against something; I was leaning against the interior of a subway when I read that, but everyone leans against the interior of the subway, don’t they?) and finding itself between house and shoulder blade it felt compelled to sting, sadly, because I meant it no harm and honeybees, unlike wasps, can only sting once, and this beautiful animal died, and when I pulled out the stinger I of course accidentally squeezed the remaining venom into myself making it worse, and wished for an interspecies contract with honeybees, which of course maybe we have already and which I had violated, such as, Don’t squish us and we won’t sting you. Maybe.
Anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with the animals in my clothes lately.
Just what happens when you leave the house I guess.
Now please excuse me, I must water the yard.