Once upon a time

I had some help with filing.  

When a couple of years ago I moved in to Padre Island ( and Shark, a tired and undernourished cat mama, threatened by a hurricane approaching Texas coast, moved in with me bringing her four newborn kittens in her teeth),  I  was busy unpacking and when I opened my cd drawer to file my  cds and dvds, Shark promptly  gathered her kittens…..

and expertly filed them in my cd drawer

…

 

Being bilingual makes you faster… and younger!

That’s the conclusion researchers (though I’d call them “researchers”, which I’ll explain later) from the York University in Canada apparently (I haven’t read the original study report, only press reports) arrived at in their study of  104 people in ages from 30 to 88.

Among the people of the study, those who were bilingual were apparently mentally sharper, had faster reaction time and lost less of their mental acuity with age than people who spoke only one language.

It  might have been a reason  to congratulate bilingual people and hit those language books for the monolingual, if not the remarkable composition of  the population that was studied.

Half of the study group were namely English speaking Canadians and the other half…. no, not the French and English speaking Canadians ( or English and any other language speaking Canadians, otherwise similar to the monolingual group) as you might – logically – try to conclude (bilingual and mentally sharp as you are!), the other half….. were people from India, speaking  both English and Tamil!

Reading of such a composition of the “research” population, made me almost choke on my morning coffee. This is against the most elementary rules of studies: compare comparables, not incomparables, or  – as the saying goes – you put garbage in, you get garbage out! 

I am so disappointed…. and can’t  squash the suspicion that a – sufficiently influential ?- member of the research team ?- or sponsor of the “research” in question?, wanted a free trip to India? or to show off people from India as smarter than Canadians? The plot thickens…

 

Immensly proud

… to be a  member in good standing  of the UKLC = Undeground Knitwear Liberation Community!

(see comments to To pack… or not to pack)

Visitors to and residents of the tropics: support the ambitions of  sweaters!

Become a member of  Underground Knitwear Liberation Community!

Don’t let your knitwear pine needlessly in your closets!

Take them to the tropics and wear them proudly – without regard for the weather!

 

Cats weren’t happy with me tonight…

… and there are four  of  them with me right now:  two are under my permanent guardianship: a huge ( 16 pounds) distinguished “tux”, Rascal, and a  slightly less huge (11 pounds)  “furball”  (Maine Coon) Shark. They are both fatsos, while the visiting two, a  very affectionate calico, Missy (8 pounds) and a tiny (barely 4 pounds), 17 years old black cat lady, Fifs, are respectively slim and skinny.  They are also more finicky eaters than my cats.

(photos to be uploaded)

Why were they unhappy  tonight?  Oh, well, it was entirely my fault:  when I finally decided to stop procrastinating for a while and got seriously into that “sorting thing”,  I forgot everything else.

I forgot to go to the grocery store, and, when supper time arrived,  I found some chicken breast in the freezer, green and red  lentils in the cupboard, some veggies in the veggie bin and fresh herbs growing on my terrace. So I  made a quick chicken-lentil-vegetable soup for myself  within less than 20 minutes…. but could not find any canned cat food at home to feed the cats.

Found dry cat  food and youghurt, which they are supposed to eat. Put it into their  food bowls. They looked at the dry food, water, yoghurt… then back at me….and none of them touched anything. They just sat there in front of their bowls, allfour of them, all four pair of eyes following - expectedly – my every move. And then the skin-and-bones old cat lady gave a loud whine of sheer desperation!

I can’t take that much pressure, so I started looking for canned fish…. but found only a jar of  Swedish herring in sour creme with red caviar. Hesitated a moment - after all it is my all time favorite – but decided to offer it to the cats. They did not appreciate the tiniest bit, but continued to demonstratively sit in front of their bowls, looking at me now with a definitive air of not only  disappointment but a definitive disapproval. It almost made me run to the store, no matter how late, so guilty they  made me feel.

But by then  my soup was ready, and when I put some into my own bowl,  the cats surrounded me  sniffing the chicken. So, of course,  a pushover that I am,  I ate a lentil-veggie soup  with fresh herbs for supper and the cats ate chicken breast!

Now all five of us seem somewhat satisfied, but I am definitively going to buy more canned cat food and even some cans of tuna, just in case, early tomorrow morning, just after a visit to the local farmers’ market, where I can usually find at least ten different varieties of organic heirloom tomatoes (expensive, $3.50 a pound, but  worth it),  other fresh organic veggies, straight from the gardens, unpastuerized honey, homemade soap etc. Farmers’ Market here is only on Tuesdays and Saturdays, very early in the morning, and i can’t miss it – so cats will have to wait for their breakfast  a bit, if they still  refuse dry food – but at least i won’t be around to feel their disapproval.

 

The time has come to talk of many things?

Sigh, definitively not today!

Today I need to  1) finish sorting  my office and file and refile everything depending on where what stuff goes (to Puerto Rico with me, to Daughter, to storage, to waste basket) and 2) take care of my technical dilemmas.

My  digital camera is broken and needs to be replaced or repaired (but the repair is going to cost almost as much as the new camera, soo….), my  laptop works (after being repaired for the second time within a months), but without  important programs, like photo-uploading and  editing. 

About a week ago I found a way of  ”creatively” procrastinating from all this – soo boring! - sorting and packing  by starting a blog, but now I realize I can’t post any pictures to the blog due to technology malfunctions – and talking of places without pictures???? No fun and no fair.

Last Thursday, while waiting for my laptop to be fixed, I spent some time looking at  new laptops and new cameras. I found  both a laptop and a camera I like, but could not buy anyone of them right away, without the diplomatic contredance of  involving family and “family” tech expertise.

Wait till you get to a certain age  and you’ll see that  family members  (especially children in their thirties who lack own children, because they devote their lives to careers requiring both long hours, disregard for holidays, if they clash with business demands,  an extraordinary  amount of time spent traveling – mostly overseas – and an active leisure  involving an abundance of hobbies and a very active social life),  suddenly decide that at your “advanced”  age you must have regressed both physically and  mentally and  need to  be taken care of. 

I usually don’t mind very much, because, in fact, a certain amount  of “being taken care of”   is a refreshing change for someone, who I  – like I -  has been a widow  = solo and totally independent – for over a decade.  It is darn convenient to have someone else  install your programs, repair your stuff,  carry heavy bags of garden soil to your huge second floor balcony/terrace, that you decided to turn into a riot of plants, take you on a cruise, to a spa, invite you to a theatre, opera, symphony, when you are visiting or happen to live nearby, make you buy totally unneeded and “a tad” too young (let’s face it: can women in their fifties wear current “baby doll” style without feeling ridiculous???) clothes and accessories, because “mom you dress as if it still were the ninetees” etc. etc.

But in order to secure future “taking care of mom”  services,  of the desirable variety, I need to be diplomatic.

So I dispatched emails to both Daughter and Ex-son-in-law  of what I think I need, what I think I want and …. the answers – probably technically correct – came with choices of stuff I do not really want: buy an Apple…………… while I wanted an HP – its sleek, has a larger screen that Apple,  the Best Buy people assure me it will competently do everything I want it to do and more ( although, they, too, recommended Apple due to its ease of use : ” I use it in an elementary school” said a Geek Squad guy…  and I am sure he thought that for a “little old lady” it should have been a decisive argument,  since surely I must be intimidated by anything else than an elementary school appropriate technological device, lol), it costs less than Apple and would not require me to learn  a whole bunch of  totally different software at once,  since I have always used a pc.  I know my ex-son-in-law hates Microsoft and Windows, and at present seems to be particularly set against Windows Vista, but….

Ok, let’s take some more rounds of this  diplomatic contredance, while sorting  office and let the blog wait a while longer for pictures.

 

Stay Away… or PAY!

There are countries ( like Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Myanmar, Singapore – to name just a few) that welcome immigrants, particularly those, who, like retirees or investors,  will bring their money with them, without competing for the jobs with the locals. Those countries try to lure those desirable immigrants by allowing them a host of priviliges, of which most common is a right to bring their possesions like cars, furnishing and other household items duty free. 

Not Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico  is rarely a  retirement destination for Americans, other than Nyoricans (= New York Puertoricans) although it could for most Americans be  a “living overseas light” destination, a primer in the pleasures and perils of living in another climate, another culture, yet with many aspects of life similar to those in the USA.

For starters US citizens do not need to jump though legal hoops to gain residency – Puerto Rico is a US territory and  – at least in theory – every US citizen – or  resident – is entitled to living – and even working  - in Puerto Rico.

Yes, there is a high unemployment in Puerto Rico and the income levels are much lower than in the USA:- according to official statistic the  unemployement rate is over 12%, while median wage in Puerto Rico is only about 1/3 of the median wage in the lowest median-wage state in the USA – Mississippi.  And the cost of living in Puerto Rico is  higher than anywhere else in the Caribbean or Latin America, with San Juan supposedly the most expensive city in the Caribbean – but – legally – there are no legal restrictions on a US immigrants’ right to live and work there.

There are, however, economic restrictions: Puerto Rico tries hard to restrict the influx of  immigrants – any kind of immigrants – by imposing excise duties on any and all goods brought to the island by practically anybody.  Even its turist board,  while welcoming vacationers,  is doing its best to discourage potential immigrants: on its discussion board, experts on Puerto Rico  try hard to actively discourage anybody whose questions suggest a willingness to become a Puerto Rican resident.

They point to island’s overcrowding ( which, statistically, is undoubtedly true: Puerto Rico has a population density much higher than most other places in the world), on its low income levels ( also, judging by statistics – true), lack of public transportation, which is at least one of the causes of  the horrific amount of cars  on the island, judging both by its size and by a cars per capita ratio.

Somehow  you don’t find them discussing positives,  like a much better access to affordable health care. – far, far more affordable than in the US proper. 

Positives like the islands bilingual status, which, at least in theory, should allow you to conduct at least government business in English – though I have as yet no information on how well does it actually work in practice. 

Positives like similarity of laws and jurisprudence, which – although tinged with Spanish traditions – appears to be pretty americanized.  No, I am not a  – blind – fan of American legal system or its jurisprudence – far from it. I simply think that to an average US citizen  similarity of jurisprudence is a plus, a fact that makes assimilation easier.

Positives like an abundance of  American stores with goods a US citizen is familiar with. Etc. Etc.

Add to it a rich culture, a – save for transportation – well developed infrastracture,  an abundance of  natural diversity: beaches galore, mountains galore, and  all kinds of forests, from dry forest (Guanica) to rain forest (El Yunque); great food, pleasant climate through most of the year, etc.

Finally, consider proximity to the United States and ease of reaching it thanks to a well developed network of flights.

But…. if you decide to not stay away …. be prepared to pay  for  everything you bring there. And if you decide to bring a car – which you can hardly live without on a relatively large island with no transportation – you’ll pay through the nose.

The newer and more fancy car, the more you’ll pay in excise taxes: nominally up to 40% of  your car’s value ….but with shipping costs added to the value, to make the tax even higher.

It may not be a sufficient deterrent to someone who knows Puerto Rico, knows that he/she likes living there and plans on staying there a long time.  But for someone who is moving there on a temporary basis – who, like me, was offered a job, a contract or an assignment there with a possibility to end it after 6 months, a year, two years,  but with an option to stay there as long as one  likes, it becomes a guessing game, an exercise in  figuring out how to  balance cost and comfort.

Is it worth while bringing my car over if I decide to stay there only six months? Or will I be better off buying – or renting/leasing a car there, even though cars cost considerably more over there? What if I stay a year, or two, or indefinitively? The calculation will change in each and every case, so you have to factor  different scenarios, assign probabilities, etc.

Still, life seldom follows the logical patterns and the probabilities assigned by our mind are vulnerable to the havoc our irrational emotions – or even fleeting moods of estrangement and loneliness – might at any time wreck on them. Why, or why can’t  we be more lice Vulcans (= from Star Trek)???

Or Puerto Rico more immigrant friendly?

 

A place with a view

Hurra, hurra, it finally got pleasant enough in north Georgia, so that I can sleep with ac turned off and all the windows open. A tad too pleasant perhaps, because when I sat down on my balcony with my laptop, breakfast  (healthy: steel cut oatmeal with blueberries and milk) and my morning tea, I had to go search my closet – which  is still there, but now looks like a tornado went through it – for  some  socks – since, like most Swedes, I generally walk barefoot (or in socks) around the house. Very practical – your carpet, untouched by shoes keeps cleaner, longer.

It was raining, too. Not a real rain, just a refreshing drizzle and a fog, which made the mountains on the far side of the lake invisible. Mountains or no mountains, the lake view is still breathtaking, both relaxing and invigorating, inviting, on a cool day like today, for a stroll in the nearby nature preserve or for a joy ride to the mountains… just to check they are still there, behind the fog. :-)

(pictures to be uploaded)

I’ll miss this place, this little town (Gainesville), this apartment, this terrace and most of all this view for the lake (Lanier), the woods and the mountains. I always seem to miss most places with a view.

In Ystad, the beautifully preserved medieval town in Sweden’s southernmost province Scania (Skaane in Swedish) my apartment was shaped like a fan, with panoramic windows  from my living room, dining room and bedroom affording – even without going out on the balcony - a panoramic  view of the Baltic sea, the ferry harbor with ferries from Poland, Danmark  ( mostly the island of Bornholm) and Germany and the yacht harbor; a  loooooong, sandy beach framed in wild rose bushes with their heady aroma, interspersed  with  cute, tiny fishermen’s huts. And, to the left, in front of the yacht harbor, there was en enchanting view of a gammal prison: its buildings and its  walled courtyard. No, I am not kidding: this view was very pleasant, since the old prison was stylishly remodeled as an architects’ office and the courtyard sported a tranquil fountain, and a japanese style garden. Cool!

(pictures to be found and uploaded)

In Germany, when I worked in Munich,  I happened to specify to relo ( = people arranging corporate relocations) that  I’d rather live in the country and have a view of the mountains and some water, if possible, than in the city, no matter how tempting with its cultural and architectural depth,  and they surprised me  and delighted me with a  small but cute apartment over a barn in a typical Bavarian Bauerhaus: wooden, painted, half way between Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. ( The company was delighted, too: this mountain village apartment’s cost was just a  tiny fraction of  what a city apartment would be, so even with the cost of gas for my daily commute, they still saved a bundle).

The apartment had a small balcony, just enough for two chairs, but a view over the Alps with the Zermatt in the background and Alpine meadows and other Bavarian wooden houses in front of the mountains was huge. And when I leaned out from my balcony and looked to the side, I could also get a glimpse of Sternberg Lake  (Sternberger See) , the one in which the crazy Bavarian king, who built all those fabled castles there, drowned … either by himself ot with the helps of frustrated Bavarians, whom he was bringing to the brink of financial ruin. Though now their descendants derive more income from all the turist trafic than from their cows.

(pictures….)

In Costa Rica, my wooden cabin over Monteverde, on the outskirts of a nature preserve, had two acres of land attached to it, with a fascinating, gone wild tropical garden,  a path of  candy-cane amarillises and wandering light-blue irises suddenly and quite unexpectedly appearing behing the curve of a jungle road, framing a  path to the cabin; a mini-banana plantation to the side and a clearing at the back of a cabin, allowing a  view of the mountains, of  the rain- and cloud forests at the tops,  coffe and dairy  fincas on middle slopes, and a glimpse of the Pacific  down, down and away between the green, green slopes.

There, besides the view of mountains, the sea, the tropical flora, I could also observe some of the fascinating local fauna: butterflies, mariposas, huge and colorful  like flowers, some so irridescent and  blue like the ocean away, and  the birds: funny-looking, “singing” brown colored bell-birds with their long “mustaches” ( I guess they are the only kind of bird with that type of an unusual “adornment”), and fabulously colorful mot-mots, with their tails swinging like a pendulum of an oldfashion clock, and – on a very rare occassion – even resplendent quetzals digesting wild avocados.

The view of  the birds I could enjoy most often at predawn, when howler and capuchin monkeys were feasting on my bananas, on the metal roof of my cabin, making such a racket, that it was impossible to sleep, so I usually went up, muttering some expletives adressed to the monkeys, drank my morning coffee outside or at the window (if it rained), and enjoyed the views.

I was initially afraid that lack of sleep would affect my job performance, until I figured out that electricity and with it computers, internet etc. usually went down early afternoon for a few hours, so I could take a leisurely stroll through the jungle to my cabin, take a little midday nap, a siesta, and return to the institute to work till the evening, when we anyway often had  open lectures or musical performances for both turists and the locals. I just had to remember to keep my headlamp with me at all time for that pretty scary – amagine all the snakes living there in the brush of  impatiens – night stroll back to the cabin. But I digress…

(pictures)

In Almunecar , a very, very old pueblo blanco on Andalusia’s coast in Spain, straight south of Granada, I lived on the uppermost – 10th – floor of a condo building on the seapromenade.

There the view was of the famed blue Mediterranean (sadly polluted, but the view does not reveal this shameful secret),  a mostly stony beach with its fish restaurants and their open pits from which a tempting aroma of  freshly caught, grilled sardines waffled all the way up, up, to my 10th floor balcony.

On the beach there were  turists bathing and playing in season, and outside the turist season retired expats from all over Europe, but mostly from Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmatk, Norway) and from Germany and Great Britan – the cold weather and high cost of living countries - walking, exercising.. .by the colorful  fishing boats and  fishermen loading or unloading their  nets and fish.

Beetween the beach and the condo there was  a paseo along the beach, framed with tall, stately palm trees and  full of  all kind of open air eateries, where people sipped their hot chocolate and ate churros (Spanish doughnouts) or olive drizzled toasts with garlic and tomatoes for breakfast, or munching on an abundance of tapas all day – and night – long.

(pictures)

On the left side of the bay, in the background, there were slopes of  Sierra de Grazalema  and – behind them Sierra Nevada mountains, with some of their peaks covered in snow, while oranges and bugainvilla were in full bloom at the coast. On the lower slopes, the view revealed two pueblos blancos, typical Andalusian white villages, oh, so pittoresque with their narrow streets and their white houses climbing the slopes. Between the villages and the sea there was also a carretera climbing up, up, like a serpent full of moving objects, with tunnels and dangerous curves. It was both exhilataring – and quite often scary – to watch the bravado of  cars negotiating the carretera.

(pictures)

Ah, my places with a view … I do miss them all, would love to return to them all, but not yet, not yet. Right now there are still plenty of new places and new adventures awaiting. Or so I hope.

 

To pack or not to pack…

… all  38 (!) sweaters  (how on earth did I manage to accumulate so many???) for the tropics?  5 winter coats? Boots? Wool business suits? 

Decisions, decisions.  Every move begs for purging, for simplifying  – though not  oversiplifying, as it  can have an opposing effect.

Although I think that I can safely give away  ( to Dress for Success and to a local women’s shelter) most of my cold climate winter clothing, and stash some of the remainder  in Atlanta –  as I am most likely to fly to most west USA destinations through Atlanta – I need to take at least  a few sweaters, business suits, a coat and boots to the tropics, because I’ll have to make business trips to Europe and New York, and there I am most likely to fly directly from Puerto Rico.

When moving  I desperately try to be reasonable and  travel light, especially when I am not sure for how long I am moving ( this time I have committed to six months with possibly unlimited extensions) and the move is – literally – over-SEAS, thus precluding stuffing everything in a moving van and driving it across America.

However, lightness can have its dangers. I remember vividly groups of American students descending  on Monteverde, Costa Rica in sandals, shorts and tshirts… and freezing their tootsies… and not only tootsies… off in the middle of a tropical summer… on top of the continental divide!

I also learned the hard way that trying to simplify your life can cause your family and friends some unnnecessary worry.

About a decade  ago I decided on a “gypsy” life .  I spent a few years in Europe after Erik, my spouse, died of a brain tumor, barely 42 years old. I left our house in Austin, Texas to my daughter and her spouse to live in, while they were studying at UT Austin.  But after graduation they decided to move to Colorado, so I came back to Austin, got rid of the house and most of the other stuff and some time later arrived in Colorado bearing family silver, fine Meissen china, crystals etc. etc. and gave it all to Daughter.

I noticed that  – with each unpacked box of goods – my Son-in-law seemed to become increasingly worried, which surpised me, so  finally I went to Daughter, which was busy cooking, to find out if he had anything against those gifts, because he, himself did not want to share with me the reason of his worry. Daughter called him to ask him and returned laughing. “Mom” she laughed ” tell him why are you doing this, because he is afraid that you are sick and  preparing to die”. 

Now it was my turn to laugh. “No, son” I said, “don’t you worry, I am not preparing to die, I am preparing to LIVE, unencumbered, unburdened from possessions. I am preparing to be movable. Have brains, laptop, adventurous spirit – will travel! “   

…So how, ten years and more than ten moves and ten ”simplifications” later I somehow became a proud (?) owner of such an abundance of  sweaters??? 

 

Crashes

Yesterday (9/11) my laptop crashed. For the second time in a month, and since last time I lost all data from it – and most of the programs, and busy with moving to Puerto Rico, I barely started uploading everything again, I think it might be time to buy a new one. (

But back to crashes. For most Americans 9/11 is about  crashes into World Trade Center Towers in New York, about crashes of  vastly different ideas of what a desirable civilization, a desirable society is or should be, and about  different ways of trying to impose your idea – and/or will - on everybody else. 

I had my own personal crash of  ideas and wills on September 11…. some 40 years ago.

I was 17 and in seventh heaven, since everything seemed to turn up roses for me that year.  At the beginning of June, even before  I  managed to take my final high school exam  ( In Poland, my home country,we called the final exam”matura” – a symbol of maturity? – and the high school – liceum), I  already went through a grueling week -long entry exam to Polish Film, TV and Theatre Academy in Lodz, Wajda’s, Polanski’s and Skolimowski’s alma mater – to name just a few famous Polish film directors.

Now I was accepted there,  to study film, to become a film director myself in the future. I hardly believed my good luck, since I was  one of only  22 accepted as students that year out of  over 240 candidates!  In addition,  I was  also the youngest (by three years) and the only female! 

No wonder I was proud as a peacock and had a feeling of floating over the earth….  .

I was so totally self-absorbed that I must have missed any and all signals from my boyfriend Jacek  (Jack) of how he felt about the situation.  I accepted as the most natural thing in the world that he proposed marriage ( a day after I got the acceptance letter),  despite the fact that we have only dated since February of that year, that I was only 17 ( he was 20), and about to leave town for at least four years (I lived and he studied in Poznan, while my school to be was in Lodz, 240 km away)  and we got officially engaged on the day of my high school graduation.

My mother let me spend summer vacations with him (after all we were engaged), and we spent one month at the seaside, and another in the Bieszczady mountains, where he was born and his parents lived.  I had a time of my life  and did not pay the slightest  attention  to the fact that all through the summer he made  frequent mentions of  our future marital bliss – hey, I liked him, I liked being with him,  being adored and  having all the sex I wanted without too much restrictions (Poland was a communist country, true, but also a staunchly, conservatively catholic one, and even in the era of  flower children in the West, in Poland premarital sex was not considered acceptable… unless you were engaged to be married, which made the society give you somewhat of a blind eye – and a pretty wide berth),  I loved spending a summer vacation with him and feeling aah, so grown up. But my dreamy next step was to study film directing, not being married, scrambling financially and having to do without a maid – because as students we would not be able to afford one, while  I had neither experience in – or the slightest inclination towards housekeeping, and the thought of possibly having a baby (brrr) caused me considerable nightmares.  So marriage – other than as a years away possibility – had no allure for me.

Yes, I would miss him, I answered his inquiries, but I would be busy learning, experiencing the world I so far only dreamt about, and, anyway, we could see each other  twice a months on weekends, alternating my trips to Poznan  and his to Lodz  (train tickets in Poland at that time were cheap and trains frequent), and he, too, could concentrate on his studies ( he studied engineering and his grades weren’t as stellar as in my opinion they should be, if he truly wanted to be worthy of me… well, yes, I already admitted that at 17 I was not yet a woman, but already  a peacock). He countered that he would try to transfer to a  technical university in Lodz, which was fine with me.  Alas, he did not get a permission to transfer.

September 11 was his namesday (for uninitiated: a birthday of his patron saint or el dia de su santo, which in the catholic Poland  – and not only Poland – was celebrated instead of the person’s own birthday. Please don’t ask me why you would get presents and a party on your poor patron saint’s birthday – I grew up in this culture and never gave it a thought at that time – only now it strikes me as ridiculous).

So Jacek had his namesday party on that September 11 and when he walked me home after the party ( it was communist Poland, we had no cars, nor dared to dream of them – but, influenced by Italian movies we dreamed of scooters, Lambrettas, when we dared to dream big) he suddenly gave me an ultimatum: either I stayed in Poznan (he “generously” offered that I could study visual arts, instead of film directing, since I was studying both visual  and performing arts during  the last three years of high school on a customized  gifted and talented program and did not even have to take entry exams to the Visual Arts Academy in Poznan) and we got married right away or the engagement was off – right there and then.  I was stunned, walked in silence not really believing that he said what he did and waiting for him to recant, to laugh and said it was a – bad – joke. He did not, so finally, in front of my house I asked him if he really meant what he said. He said yes. I took off my engagement ring and gave it to him – and he took it, turned around and left, without a word, a hug, a kiss.

I waited a week, thinking that surely he must come to his senses, he can’t expect me to forgo my exhilarating dream for the sake of something so bland and mundane as a premature marriage, but  he did not call, did not drop by. Nothing.  I was devastated and only the thought of  film school kept me going. So I packed my bags and left for Lodz two weeks before the school started in October.  My first  school ID picture shows not only how very young I was, but also how dreadfully sad.

(a picture to be uploaded)

Yet, with time, the school worked its magic and before I went home to Poznan for Christmas I once again was a happy-go-lucky myself and …. already  had a new boyfriend.  In Poznan, after holidays  I met Jacek when I was visiting my best friend. ( She later admitted that she arranged the meeting on his request). He offered to walk me home and I agreed.  He begged me to forgive him and take him back, offered to wait patiently until I was good and ready to marry him on my terms and  asked me to a New Year’s Eve ball, so that all our friends could see that we were back together again. I was tempted, but  decided  that it would not be fair to my new boyfriend and declined. Jacek called every day hoping he could persuade me, but when my new boyfriend ahowed up on New Year’s Eve and I went to a ball with him, Jacek – as I learned the next day – attempted to commit suicide. He was lucky, though -his roommate returned early from the celebration after a quarrel with his girlfriend, found Jacek and called an ambulance.  I decided not to visit him in the hospital and left  with my new boyfriend to visit his parents instead. 

There are large and tragic crashes - like New York’s 9/11 - and there are small,  tragicomically silly ones – like my personal one all those years ago. …. Yet I still remember it well….. and  a few years after that crash, when I heard about Jacek getting married – I cried all night. 

 

Stagflation??? Tsunami????

I happened to look up a  Puerto Rico Herald and  got goose bumps. Turns out there is a terrible stagflation  (rapidly rising cost of living with low pay and high unemployment) in Puerto Rico and scientists warn against a  very dangerous tsunami likely to hit  Puerto Rico as well.

Why, o why am I going there??????????????? 

On top of  everything   the PR government wants to introduce vacation and other benefits for part-timers!!!! Horror of horrors ……for a crude American style anti-employee-rights demagogue. But I am an enlightened European (warning! Sangrona speaking) and  despise heaping  benefits on the  rich and super-rich  and stealing  even the crumbs of prosperity – or semi prosperity - from the population at large.

And in the same breath that Herald grosses over benefits for part-timers it also suggest Finland - with its economy at the top of worldwide competitiveness - as a model for Puerto Rico’s salvation.

Herald apparently did not study Finlands economic model too comprehensively, since it pointed out Finland’s high outlays on R&D (3% of BNP versus Puerto Rico’s less than 1%), but forgot to mention about Finland’s extensive benefits for workers of all kind: blue and pink collar to professional and managerial, fulltimers and all kinds of parttimers. There is no mention either that in Finland (like generally in Europe) the pay scale is much, much flatter than in the USA. So may be paying attention to all kind of employees instead of  grossly overpaying CEO’s, hedge-fund managers and a few other privileged categories could be a model to follow for PR… in addition to increasing investment in R&D?

Oh, well, the news happened to be two years old, and I can’t wait until I can see the dangers of stagflation, tsunami and the benefits for part-timers with my own very eyes  in only about a month!