Seville

Posted on by
1

Two things to know when you visit Seville: first, on the ubiquitous tourist map, north is not up, and second, don’t take anything personally.

I didn’t realize the thing about the map on the first day, simply because I didn’t really care where I was anyway. I set out in the correct direction relative to the train station, got to the center of town, got lost, found a hotel, and hung out. It wasn’t until today, when I had a specific place to be, that the map caused problems. As a result, I spent a couple of hours I could have been seeing cool things being lost. Oh, well.

As for “don’t take it personally,” I had been warned ahead of time that the residents here can be downright rude. I met a couple of very friendly, helpful people, but there were a couple of times I experienced the true Seville welcome. I think there is a dictionary of the looks they give you that I don’t know. I went into a little place to buy a bottle of water. There were other people there, so I set the water on the counter. The girl behind the counter stopped what she was doing and looked at me. To me, the look meant, “What do you want?” Apparently the look meant “You need to stand there a bit longer.” I opened my mouth to say that there was nothing besides the water, and she interrupted with “Just a moment.” Fine. She took money from the guy standing next to me, gave him change, and stopped. She stood, unmoving, looking at me. “This is—” I started. “JUST A MOMENT!” “Ok! Ok!” I said, waving my hands. She stood longer, waiting to see if I would say anything more, then very, very, slowly started to fill the other guy’s order, pausing every now and then to stare at me.

Not long after that I was in an electronics store, and the clerk looked past the people standing in front of me and hit me with a stare. Were it not for the fact that the others moved out of the way for me, I never would have recognized “May I help you?”

But that, I suppose, is Seville.

The city itself is impressive, and I regret only scratching the surface. The city center is one of the largest pre-car warrens of alleys I’ve ever seen, and it is great fun to just wander around. There are beautiful gardens and parks, and that Mediterranean sun just can’t be beat. But while I’d like to stay, Vejer calls and I must answer.

Thanks!

One the way to Spain!

Posted on by
1

My journey was no exception to this axiom, as I stayed at the Little Café Near Home (LCNH) after the game. I was just packing up my hardware when the guy at the next table tried to strike up a conversation with me. I think he was asking how I got the Internet there. That’s the question I answered, anyway (I don’t). The woman he was with did speak English (I got extra points for asking where her dog Dina was tonight), and we ended up talking until LCNH closed. I had always assumed the two were a couple, and he did refer to her as his přitelkinÄ› (which is a little more familiar than kamarada), so when another guy joined us and started hitting on her (and then some) I was a bit surprised.

The sound of the alarm was most unwelcome this morning. “Here we go,” I said as I hauled my sorry butt out of bed and considered the things I had delayed this trip for, still not done. I’ve had a bit of a cold the last three days, and that completely undermined the “boo-yah” attitude I needed, and the thought of going in to town to chase down things I needed was just too much. I’m sure I’ll feel much better about shopping on my way back from the airport when I return.

Statistically, more people stand in the fast line than in the slow line. Today I didn’t notice the sign over the counter that said (in Czech, of course) “Counter for people with bizarre problems we’ve never seen before”. The graying woman in line in front of me actually started shouting at poor Lucie, the woman who had to deal with a homemade dog carrier that had sharp posts sticking up and the wheels came off of. I have no idea what the problem was with the next group, but eventually it required a conference of several people to resolve. That’s when the next lady started shouting. I had to chuckle; the speed of the line was not going to affect what time we landed in Madrid. Finally things started moving again, at least until the shouting woman got there. There was some problem with her ticket, but fortunately this time it was resolved more quickly.

Now I’m sitting at the gate, and as I typed that last sentence the guy with the homemade dog carrier got summoned to the counter. Apparently he’s not out of the woods yet.

***

I’m in Madrid!

As I walked down the aisle in the plane, I thought, “Damn! There’s even less leg room that usual. Then I got to my row – an exit row! Horray! Once I was wedged between the other two guys, the flight attendant came by to give us the spiel about how to open the door in an emergency. “Czech? English? She asked. “Czech” the guy on the aisle said. She’s Pretty, I thought. I listened with rapt attention as she told us how dozens of lives, including our own, could hang in the balance. I nodded in understanding. Blue eyes, I thought. Luckily there were no emergencies on the flight, and the door remained safely sealed.

Continuing with a theme, there were two lines for passport control; only after I was trapped did I realize the other line was being serviced by two windows, while mine was serviced by only one – and there was some kind of problem with the guy at the window. There was quite a bit of consternation when some people were told to fill out a form and go to the back of the line – there had been nothing to indicate that anyone needed to fill out anything. I figured that would be my fate, too, but apparently not. I wonder where those guys were from.

After a few nervous moments while he flipped through my passport checking dates he stamped it, making it at least plausibly deniable that I didn’t know I have overstayed my visa. (I have been told I need to leave the European Union every ninety days now, whereas before I only had to leave the Czech Republic. If true, European Union countries could send a lot of Americans home if they wanted to.)

Things were getting interesting with the form-filler-outers when I cleared passport control, and yes, it involved more shouting. I am no longer in the land of stoic and reserved Czechs, not at all. All passport control places that I’ve ever seen are the same. There is a row of glassed-in booths, which contain uniformed bureaucrats looking for reasons not to let people into the country. There are lines of people waiting to be reviewed, and there is a zone between them, the land beyond the line that no one must enter until summoned. Violation of this rule undermines the the security of sovereign nations, and can lead to war.

The Form People, having been invited into this space only to be handed a form and sent packing, did not all leave The Zone, as it provided the only flat surfaces other than the floor for the filling out of forms. The bureaucrats shouted at them. Like proud Gypsy squatters, they held their ground. As I left, one of the Passport control guys had quit his glass cell and was waving his arms as one might to chase the goats out of your garden. I didn’t stand around to watch, wanting to get to customs before the people who had to wait for their bags.

Now I sit in the departure lounge at the train station, munching a fairly tasty sandwich. The security is tighter here that I have seen in train stations in the past; all bags are x-rayed and there is no more hanging around on the platform while you wait for your train to arrive. This feels more like an airport than a train station, although I should say the appearance of security is tighter; if the woman watching the X-ray screen opened her eyes while my bag went past I didn’t see it.

In summary, Tram Metro Bus Airplane Metro Metro Metro High-Speed Train Seville!

Thanks!

Hockey night at the Little Café

Posted on by
19

A year ago I sat here at the Little Café Near Home to watch the Czechs skate against Canada for the world championship. All the tables were reserved last year, but there was room for me and my guests at the bar.

A year has passed, and the puck will drop in fifteen more minutes as the Czechs defend their title against the Swedes. The Café is surprisingly empty tonight; there are a couple more options in the neighborhood now, but more important is that the NHL was on strike last year. Last year the rosters for the various nations reflected the best those countries had to offer (with a couple of notable exceptions); it was like several dream teams playing against one another.

Even the czech regular season was something special last year, as the best of the local boys got to play for their home towns rather than for some city across the Atlantic. (On a side note, the NHL would do well to play more games earlier in the day; there are a lot of people over here jonesing for a chance to see their local heroes play, but when games start at 3 am, the audience is limited.)

This year the NHL playoffs are still going, so the talent available for the IIHF championship is diluted, but there is still something special about this tournament in the hearts of every Czech.

***

The first period is over and the Little Café is pretty full now; the only empty table is the one directly under the television. Alas, the Czechs gave up two goals in the first twenty minutes, and Sweden is very hard to play catch-up against. The good guys had their chances, but never put the puck in the net.

***

Oh, the second period. Oh, the horror. The Swedes owned the Czechs at both ends of the ice. The Czech passing in particular was poor — it seemed like the Swedes knew where the Czechs were going to send the puck before they did. As the period progressed the Swedes got more and more uneven chances. In the period the Czechs had four shots on goal, all from the outside.

There was one point where the crowd here got excited. The cameras found the Czech Prime Minister in the crowd, and the entire bar started jeering. Something about politicians using their positions to enrich their friends. Good thing that could never happen in the US.

***

There’s still quite a bit of time on the clock, but the game is over. The Swedes are playing protect the puck, while the Czechs are playing miss the opportunity. (I was typing while watching the game and looked down to see that I had written pooprtunity. I almost left it in.) It looks like the Swedes will add a world championship to their Olympic gold. Oh, well. There’s no denying that they brought the better team to the game tonight.

Thanks!

One of my favorite bits of trivia

Posted on by
7

When the Eiffel Tower was erected in 1889, it was the tallest structure in the world, a title it retained until the Chrysler Building in New York eclipsed it 41 years later. The Chrysler building held the record for about a year, only to be surpassed by the taller but far less attractive Empire State Building.

So, what had been the tallest structure before the Eiffel tower, and for how long did it hold the record?

This isn’t really a quiz since the answer can easily be looked up, but I’m going to let people post answers in the comments just to add that little bit of anticipation.

Thanks!

The cover letter I’d LIKE to write

Posted on by
Reply

One of the biggest hurdles on the way to becoming a commercially successful writer is getting your first book published. This requires convincing total strangers to take a chance on you, and that means you have to present yourself to total strangers in the best possible light. The first light flashing along the runway to stardom is the cover letter the agent or editor will read. It’s not necessarily a deal-breaker if the cover letter isn’t perfect (as long as it’s clean), but it is likely the first bit of your writing your potential business partner will see.

Publishing is a name-dominated industry. When you have never had a novel published before, you are at a disadvantage. It is much safer for a publisher to go with a writer who writes complete crap, but crap that sells. The cover letter, therefore, is all about getting an agent or editor excited about your story — excited enough to eventually risk thousands of dollars (for an editor) or hundreds of hours (for an agent). For that reason, the cover letter is all about the story, the thing the reader of the letter will eventually have to sell.

As I sit and continue to hone the letter, I feel that perhaps for me the cover should be more like the ballyhooed End User License Agreement for Jer’s Novel Writer. More about me and the way I do business than about the actual issue at hand. And so I give you the cover I would like to write.

Dear Editor/Agent

I am a writer. I’m not some guy who scribbles in his spare time, I write all the time. Sometimes I forget to eat. Man, did that ever piss off my ex-wife when I would get dizzy when I stood up from my computer and she’d ask “when did you eat last?” (only she didn’t speak so formally) and I’d think for a moment and try to remember if I ate yesterday and generally I’m pretty sure I did or I’d really be a mess now so I’d say “yesterday…?” and she’d roll her eyes and say something like “How can you even do that?” and I’d say, “well, I was in a groove” but she never appreciated that kind of stuff.

We’re still friends, by the way. She’s remarried, couple of kids, everything’s cool.

So, eating turns out to be pretty important, not just for marital tranquility, but for health as well (remember the dizzy part?), and that is why I am writing to you, dear Editor/Agent. I can happily spend every waking moment torturing myself for just the right word, but sooner or later I have to go to the grocery store, and they always want money. While I would write for free (in fact I have been for some time), I cannot eat for free.

I know, I know, it makes no sense to me, either. Accepting that, the obvious solution is to sell my writing, which is something you could do far better than I.

As a concrete example of the stuff I’d like you to help me sell, enclosed are the first few pages of The Monster Within. It’s about a mercenary named Hunter, and let me tell you, Hunter is messed up. You read the first part, and you say, “Dang, that guy’s messed up.” Then you read the next part, and you say, “Dang, that guy’s really messed up.” Then you read the part after that and you say, “Holy Crap!” but right after that is “Ooooooh.” That’s when you flip back to the other parts and say “But I thought… dang! Now I get it! Hunter is monumentally messed up, and wicked dangerous.” You gotta love heros like that. There’s sex, too, and it’s not even gratuitous.

Monster weighs in at an all-muscle 140,000 words; it’s a powerful beast that will grab you by the throat and drag you from cover to cover.

Unless you don’t like that kind of thing, of course. If you’re shy, the beast will simply hold your hand. Enclosed is an envelope plastered with stamps worth damn near a buck of my food money, just so you can get back to me. (Note that although my mailing address is foreign, my not-in-the-US-ness is not formally recognized by any government. You can pass me my grocery money just as easily as you could to any other US citizen.)

I have another work in progress, The Quest for the Important Thing to Defeat the Evil Guy, which is exactly like almost every other fantasy novel except it has evil talking squirrels and a hot stepmother.

Yours,
Hungry Writer

Notes:
There are a couple of reasons not to use this cover letter. First, it makes me seem psychotic. It’s important that people don’t realize you’re psychotic until after you ink your first book deal. After that it’s marketing gold. Second, the tone of the cover letter is light and flippant, and the tone of the novel isn’t. This would set up false expectations. One could argue that Editor/Agent would appreciate both cover letter and novel for their unparalleled (adjective carefully chosen, just beating out orthogonal) use of the English language, and would forgive the difference in tone, but Editor/Agent seems to be easily distracted.

On the other hand, the query does use “wicked dangerous”, and ends with “hot stepmother”. I bet Editor/Agent doesn’t get many queries like that!

1

Thanks!

My Plane to Spain Delayed a Couple Days

Posted on by
2

I was planning to fly over there this morning, but the list of little things holding me back was just too long. I’ll be heading out on Monday, now. It promises to be a good time; I’ve never been to Spain before.

Thanks!

We all have our sad music

Posted on by
9

As I write this, it is late at night. It’s the time of what if, the time when the demons visit, poking me with their sharp sticks. It’s the time of memory and regret. I’m listening to one of my favorite singers.

This music I only allow myself occasionally. Her voice is beautiful, haunting. When I listen to her sing, I remember her passion, her pain, and her humanity. I remember watching her perform in my home, and I think of what almost happened. In this case ‘almost’ is about the same as the chance of Earth taking a nose-dive into the sun, but there was a moment, defined by a shared joke, that we were in the same place.

I wanted to kiss her, but for all the familiarity and alcohol we were still a thousand miles apart. Better, then, this perfect memory of perfect longing, uncorrupted by the ugly truth of the next day. Better to listen now to a voice that will always say something different to me than it does to anyone else. Better to remember her scent, her laugh, her smile, and her eyes, her eyes.

Her memory of the night is probably so different it’s comical.

But what if I had kissed her?

Thanks!

Thunder and Lightning

Posted on by
5

There aren’t very many thunderstorms here in Prague, so when one happens by it’s cause for celebration. I’m sitting at the Little Café Near Home right now, and outside the window the bottom has dropped out of the sky and the rain is dumping down.

I saw the first flashes off to the west, over Žižkov, and as the storm gained intensity the thunder went from a rumble to a crash. The street outside has become a river, and people are dashing into the café for shelter. They have to fight their way through the knot of people crowded under the tiny awning over the front step, and were there room I would be out there with the other spectators.

The window is open, however, and I’m ignoring the occasional raindrop on the electrical outlet in favor of the the clean, fresh rain-driven breeze. What’s the worst that can happen?

In the time it took English Loud Phone Talker (Elpht) to come in and polish off his Red Bull and espresso, the storm passed. The smell lingers, but not even distant rumbles are audible anymore.

Thanks!

Now There’s a sport I never thought of…

Posted on by
5

There are four players on the rather small court, two teams of two. They are on bicycles that have been specially modified for the event. Riders may not touch the floor, and they may not kick the ball. Instead, they propel the ball with quick flicks of the front wheel while all their weight is on the back. These guys can hit it hard. Like hockey, you are allowed to catch the ball, but you must immediately drop it straight down.

The game requires remarkable amounts of skill. Players move forward, backward, and they stand on either wheel. They hop the bikes, spin and twirl, and generally put on X-game performances, but without the arbitrary judging. It is an actual sport, by my stringent definition. (No judges, scoring is significant, scoring is constantly a possibility.)

Apparently, the sport has been around a long time. Right now at the Little Café Near Home a documentary is playing, honoring a team who started back in the black and white era (also known as the communist era, but for different reasons), and today, beer bellies and all, they’re still mighty damn good. They have trophies, medals, and awards out the wazoo. Shelves and shelves of them.

OK, the documentary just showed them getting the gold in Sydney. I think it did, anyway. If that’s the case, it is yet one more beef I have against American olympic coverage. There are olympic sports that look cool that I didn’t even know about? I look forward to the day when each channel bids to show a particular event, rather than the olympics as a whole. By not locking up the entire games with a single provider, obscure channels would have a chance to carve a niche for themselves showing events the big boys could never afford to show. NBC can pay a billion dollars for figure skating, while the outdoor network picks up biathalon cheap and NBC learns the hard way that figure skating is not a sport. That, my friends, is the free market, and under that system you would be able to watch the events you like. Somewhere.

Thanks!

Bar 100

Posted on by
1

A hundred bars in four countries over the course of a year and a half is hardly an astonishing accomplishment; I’m sure there are those who have dwarfed that figure without even trying. I’m not terribly motivated to inflate the number; there are times when weeks have elapsed without me undergoing the grand adventure of breaking in a new place. I have my principles, and I have places I belong.

For the record, this was not the first time I’d been to the beer garden at Letná (rhymes with met yah), but it was the first time since the Bars of the World Tour officially started.

Letná is a park on the hilltop on the steep side of the river. It is in full bloom right now, as the plants jump into summer with gusto. It is not just the vegetation that responds this way, the population of the city comes out in force on those first few beautiful days that tell you that summer is here, and mother nature isn’t just fooling you this time. As this is the Czech Republic, an important part of enjoying any day is having a nice beer.

The line at the beer window moves quickly, and even on crowded days there is room among the hundred-plus picnic tables arrayed along the hilltop, sheltered by flowering trees. The breeze brought with it a slight chill, and there was constant danger of flower petals falling in one’s beer, but those are the hazards one must overcome to survive in a place like this.

There are dogs everywhere, running and playing among the picnic tables, chasing one another and yapping happily. The number of cigarette butts on the ground around the tables is surprising, even for this city.

The view from up there is one of the best in Prague. (The best view is from the TV tower, because it is the only view that doesn’t have the TV tower in it. Remember the giant Iron babies?) The oldest part of the city lies below you, just across the Vltava, and you can see why this town is nicknamed the city of a hundred spires.

On the pathways people stream past: punk kids on skateboards; elderly couples with their little dogs; and long, graceful rollerbladers weaving between them. Many of those who stroll past are carrying beers, and that is no crime here. (Some of them would be surprised to learn it is a crime anywhere.)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a story that takes place on one of these benches. When I wrote the story it had been more than two years since I had been up there, but it was (almost) exactly as I remembered it. (I had forgotten about the plastic cups. There is another beer window in another hilltop park, where you leave a deposit and get to drink beer in a more civilized fashion. The story starts strong and builds an interesting character, but ends schmaltzy, as so many slice-of-life type stories do.

I did no writing while I was there; I write this from the Little Café Near Home, days after the fact. At the time, I did not think about the milestone that bar represented.

Unless an unlikely acting job materializes, I will be traveling soon to other countries to meet up with people who like going to bars. That is likely to inflate the numbers substantially.

Thanks!

Monster on a diet

Posted on by
1

It wasn’t easy to do; there was some good stuff in there. It’s just that I wanted to start with the voice of the main character. I added some at the start of the now-first chapter, giving the style of prose I do best a workout right at the top. Now, three paragraphs in, the reader will either be saying, “All right, this guy can take me for a ride,” or she will be quite right to put the book aside. Before, readers had to hang with me a while before I gave them a compelling reason to do so.

I won’t submit the revised work for a couple of weeks at least; it needs time to gestate, and there are still some rough spots to smooth over. (I still want to work in a subtle promise that at least one major character that you will really like is going to die.) Additionally, I’m working up a new cover letter with more detail about the story. It seems I have been short-changing myself by trying to keep the description down to two or three sentences. I don’t even remember where I heard that advice, but I’m glad to hear from reliable sources that’s it’s just plain wrong.

I submitted an earlier draft of my cover letter to another Web site for constructive ridicule, but it’s looking like I missed out on the constructive part. I’d point you there, but the cover letter contains spoilers. If you really, really want to see it, let me know. The ridicule part may turn out to be pretty entertaining. We’ll see when the joke is sprung.

By the way, I would like to thank Jojo for her critique of the new opening. Thanks, Jojo!

Thanks!

It’s (almost) Heeere!

Posted on by
9

I’ve got a story in the upcoming issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. They call it the July issue, despite the fact that there will be another issue out before July.

Here is an excerpt of a review of the issue:

Note: apparently there are other stories in the issue as well. Go figure. The review is protected by copyright, so I will only reproduce here the parts that have to do with meeeee meeee meeee.

Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction – July 2006 by Gordon Van Gelder (Ed.) (Spilogale, Inc. May 2006 / ) – Contents: *blah blah blah*

The July 2006 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is another great one with all the stories getting a Very Good rating from me.

*snip*

The issue is rounded out by stories by new writers. “Memory of a Thing That Never Was” by Jerry Seeger is a nice little tale about a man recruited for a war against The Other. They are apparently aliens but there is more going on here in what makes for some good intrigue.

*snip*

Again, this is a magazine that you should be picking up.

So there you have it! I get a Very Good. So does everyone else, but that just means the magazine has high standards, and somehow I snuck in there. You know what you have to do, right? It’s a three-step process:
  1. buy an extraordinary number of copies of the magazine.
  2. write the editor and tell them how much you like the story by that new guy.
  3. promise you’ll subscribe if they run another of my stories (Note: please don’t sign the letter “Jerry’s Mom” or “Jerry’s credit counselor” or anything like that, or they might get the idea that you are not completely unbiased.)

The goal, of course, is to have their marketing boys say, “It’s uncanny! Sales are through the roof! The only possible explanation is this little story, Memory of a Thing That Never Was. We’ve got to get more of this guy!”

That’s what I’m shooting for, anyway.

The assistant editor who first rescued my story from the slush pile (the large stack of material that people send them even though they haven’t asked for it) will be publishing an interview with me on his blog simultaneous with the release of the magazine. I’ll put up a link so you can read my erudite drivel about things I have no business talking about.

I’m still working on getting the names of the production staff to give them a special thank-you, but I don’t want to pester the editorial staff at the magazine. Maybe there will be credits in the magazine itself.

Thanks!

Happy No Pants Day!

Posted on by
2

No Pants day is here again. It’s turned out to be very easy for me to celebrate this year; in fact, it has required almost no deviation from my usual lifestyle.

We have reached a point where there are far more than 365.2422 things to dedicate a day to each year. This leaves us with three options: mount giant rocket motors on the planet to push it out away from the sun so we have more days in a year; attach giant rocket motors around the equator to speed up the earth’s rotation, shortening the days; or pick and choose just which thing we want to use each day to commemorate. The first two options are only quick-fizes, as people will keep on coming up with things like “Left Sock Theiver Day”, and either the Earth will be pushed out past the Oort cloud to accommodate or it will be spinning so fast we will fly right off.

No, in the end, this is not a problem for the engineers to solve.

Adding to the complication is the breed of holidays that do not occur on a regular 365.2422-day basis. The floaters. Easter is one, so is the Chinese new year. Also, No Pants Day. It’s the first Friday in May, so put all your cares away.

So I, only marginally aware of what day it is in most cases, stumbled into No Pants Day. Here’s how I celebrated: I got out of bed, made tea, sat in front of the computer, scratched myself, and “researched” web comics. Somewhere in the mid-afternoon I snorted, said, “Oh, yeah, No Pants Day” and took off the sweat pants I had been sleeping in the night before. I sat back down and continued what I was doing. During the course of the day, I was never twenty meters away from the place I woke up.

It was just like many other days, but this time I wasn’t wearing pants. Now that summer is here, there are likely to be many more unofficial no pants days.

To erase that horrifying image from you mind, I leave you with this song, composed just for this day. Since I am distributing it without permission, the least I can do is give you all the relevant info, so if you find the singer’s voice especially sweet or the writer’s words especially witty, you can look for them.

Singer: Sara Hamman
Songwriter: coulda sworn there was a separate songwriter credit before, but there’s no evidence of it now. Sara has just risen that much more in my estimation. This is a brilliant song. There are others available at the Official No Pants Day Site music page.

I Wish It Were No Pants Day
Click Sara’s face to play

(right-click her face to save the file)

The image is also used without permission, but she shore is purty. I mean, just look at those eyes. On top of that, her voice calls us all to pray at an altar made of carbon fiber composite, draped with silk, and bedecked with the first daffodils of spring. Just listen and tell me I’m wrong.

Thanks!

Crazy People and Happy People

Posted on by
7

I’m not good at secrets, and I’m not good at organizing. I am the last person on earth you want to have organizing a surprise party. I’m sentimental enough to appreciate the surprise party, but really, I suck at getting it done.

A couple of days ago I got the word. fuego was coming back to town for his first anniversary. It is widely known that the lad is eight time zones away, setting up for some big movie or another. You can’t say no to the Schmoo brothers. Less known is that the movie has been pushed — production is still a week or two out. fuego is there, in the big wide southwestern US, but his thoughts are with his sweetie, so far away. He hatches a crazy plan. He wants to go back for a few days, to surprise his bride.

Cash is tight. The lad has a job coming up, but in the meantime resources are scarce. I was not there, mind, but here is my understanding of the conversation: “Uh, Mom, I was thinking…”

“Yes!”

Mom’s cool that way.

So before you can say “Uh, wha—?” my favorite brother is suspended by Bernoulli’s principle over the frosty Atlantic and it’s up to me to lure his bride to a meeting where she does not expect to find her husband. It was touch and go for a little while, as I was reluctant to lie outright, and I failed to make the event sound even the slightest bit interesting. She was ready to shine the whole adventure. Only the public exhibition of the latest Pirates cut got her there.

Thus it came to pass that I was sitting at a table across from my partially-concealed brother when MaK arrived. I waved to her and she headed our way. Then she saw him. She froze, and broke. It was one of those moments you feel lucky to witness, an honest moment when there is no pretense, no artifice, just joy.

She cried. He held her. I watched.

Crazy people, happy people, and me. It was a good afternoon.

Thanks!

Sometimes you just have to take a chance

Posted on by
Reply

I just ordered one of today’s lunch specials here at U Kormidla. My near-worthless dictionary translated Vepřový vrabec as “Pork sparrow”. I ignored the little voice in the back of my head saying “if there’s no translation for that part of the pig, you probably don’t want to eat it” and decided to give it a try.

As I finished typing the above my meal arrived, and I can confirm that nothing on my plate bears even a fleeting resemblance to a songbird. Between the chunks of fat there are some nice morsels of meat, however, and piled up with the pickled cabbage and dense potato dumplings, they are quite tasty.

Thanks!