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Roads without
names...
Welcome to read about my
journey along the roads without names...
Jablonka 2008
June 2008 -
Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave
“The gentle
reader will never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.”
- Mark Twain
Vines cling
to the ground, trailing up and over the rock path in my Meditation Garden and
strive to find their way to strangling the plants I have tenderly placed these
past years.
Vines stalk
the ground like foot soldiers, marching up and over the rock path in my
Meditation Garden, overwhelming/strangling/determined to eradicate (something
better suiting the metaphor) all the plants I have tenderly placed there these
past few years.
No meditating
now, I have work to do. I
pace myself, waiting to weed just after a light rain when roots will
yield more easily from this soil. Once the sun has its chance, it will quickly
bake the dirt hard and make it impossible to get to the roots until the next
rain. Along the road to Piestany one sees many crumbling structures made with
bricks from this clay soil, structures that once stood proudly from this
preferred building material. It was there, it was easy, it did the job with only
labor as a cost. But with time and weather as its enemy, fired clay bricks are
now its replacement.
So, I dig and
pull and dig and pull while Bailey makes his way through the tall grass,
collecting dried seeds and leaves in his long coat. Sera and Saturday follow. I
try not to think about the chore ahead, that of battling
the collection they bring inside. I unearth juniper fronds buried in dirt
and wood chip mulch that had slid down the slope during last winter’s snow. I
peel away the growth of tangling morning glories and bramble vines that wind
around my junipers. In spite of this, there is new growth coming among a few
broken branches. My mind plans my trip to Vesele and the Garden School for new
members to fill the empty spaces and replace those that didn‘t weather the
winter. Vesele is my extravagance, finding new flowers and old favorites among
the Center’s shaded paths. I read their labels and find the Latin names in my
trusty California Sunset Garden Book to know if they will survive in my Zone II
garden.
I make my
weekly trip to Tesco and stop on the way in Vesele. I park the Rover alongside
the new Garden School building. Still bathed in its structure of red clay bricks,
it wait’s unfinished and unoccupied. I see little progress after the 4 years I
have been coming there. But some day it will be a grand and an inviting
building, standing guardian for the many acres of growing plants.
There is only
one woman who can speak English there, but she is
not always available. She is young and possibly the manager or owner as I
often see her leading a trail of workers. “Do vie” she greeted me one day
with her hello in Slovak. Trying to be polite, I happily responded with
“Dovidenia” (good-bye), getting the “D” words confused. I do try to
use the little language I think I know, but there are so many similar
words in my limited vocabulary. She giggled as she passed, at our exchange of
hello-goodbye and I realized I got it wrong. Now I just say “Ahoy” when I
greet someone.
The other
workers do put up with my limited vocabulary and sign language, and the time it
takes to help me figure out how high a plant may grow or the color of its
flowers. We smile and try to understand each other until we finally think we got
it right.
My garden is
about 2/3 finished but ever growing as is the Garden Center‘s selections. I am
pleased to find an old favorite this time, the pyracantha, and knew just where
they were to go. Ever mindful of my shrinking dollar, at only 40skk a plant, I
quickly put 5 in my cart as the price is a bargain even though they are small
and I can see they are freshly replanted in their new container. I don’t
remember ever seeing any plant less than 60skk.
When I
prepared to pay for my prizes, I could only find a young woman that usually
would be putting the identification tags on the plants. When I looked at the
receipt, I noticed she had charged me 60skk. Even if it was still a bargain, I
wanted the price as marked out in the yard where I found them. I did not like
being cheated (Americans are that way), so I pointed to the receipt and held up
4 fingers to indicate the over pricing. Flustered, she called for help to figure
out what I was trying to say. Along came the usual group of non English speaking
women, and looked at the receipt and my 4 fingers. “Ahh” they exclaimed with
smiles and a pat on my back and added 60skk to my receipt. At first I was
puzzled as to why it suddenly became more expensive instead of lowered. Then the
lightening bolt of reason hit me as I saw she had only run up 3 instead
of the 5 plants in my cart. Past visions of fellow travelers arguing over prices
with venders in third world countries flashed before my eyes and I realized I
was about to be one of those embarrassing ugly Americans.
“It is only
pennies” I had reminded one fellow traveler, “not worth making an
international incident over”.
I quickly
smiled along with the others, paid my bill, said my Dequium, and wearing my halo
made of what they considered an honest American, carried my pyracanthas to the
car. The goodwill I had just
purchased for about a dollar would last me many future months to come. There was
no need to continue the incident and tell them I had overpaid for 5, not the 4
plants wrongly charged for.
Sometimes I
meet people who teach English and they have asked me why I don’t learn Slovak.
I have tried, but as even they tell me, it is a most difficult language and
would take more years than I have left to ever get fluent. Besides, there is
much more adventure and stories to tell by my limitation and most people I meet
want to practice their English talking with me. So, I manage graciously with my
affliction.
As the year
begins to flourish, so does the preparations for the introduction of the euro as
our currency. People are quickly buying up any homes they can as they fear the
euro will drive prices even higher. This is causing a huge housing bubble and
the value of my house is escalating as well. Some weekends I find families at my
gate wanting to know if my house is for sale. Jablonka is not only a farming
community, but also a resort destination. With many businesses building out this
way in what was once sunflower fields, new homes are being built at a faster
pace than ever before to beat the January 1st
deadline. Currently, it
takes 32 Slovak koruns to make one euro with one dollar making 19 koruns. I find
it as prices raise and my dollar falls like an escalator pair and then
with inflation creeping in, it makes it too difficult to know what I am
paying for anything. Slovakia
qualified for the Euro status by keeping inflation under 2.5%. Poland, Hungary
and Czech Republic didn’t make the requirements, going higher. I just try to
keep the weekly food bill under 1,000 skk by buying less and more “like to
haves” remain on the shelves.
Another EU
requirement is that it will be illegal to grow poppies in Slovakia. On the
surface that seems reasonable to the outside world as a combatant to the world
of drugs. But it is a crisis for much of the Slovaks because one of their
historic culinary delights is the
gray poppy seeds in their baked goods. Every farmer’s field has an innocent
300 meter patch of the white 5 ft tall flowers growing next to the corn and
other family vegetables. At full bloom, the wife carefully harvests the dark
gray seeds for baking kolaches, biscuits and cakes.
Still, May and June bring about the wild red poppies in along the roads
and in the fields. What of them?
My 75th
birthday in April came and went with little festivities; an iPod from my
daughter Dana that I have yet to install as also my new laptop I bought on my
last trip to Vegas. I am in hopes of finding a new Internet service that will
allow me to download some audible books. My current service via my cell phone
cannot do it. An Internet Provider in Myjava is planning on installing a signal
here in Jablonka. Until then, the iPod and my laptop wait on my dining room
table.
Andrea and
Rudi bring me a potted Lavender plant and a mushroom stump. The Lavendula is
special as it blooms most of the year and I place it on the railing near the
door and the garden . The mushroom stump is a plastic bag filled with sawdust
and mushroom spores. Andrea pokes holes in the bag with a nail, and instructs me
to put it in the cellar near a window, water it once a week and in three weeks,
the bag will sprout wonderful mushrooms. Pull them off and freeze them,
returning the tree to the cellar for a second crop.
Unlike button mushrooms, they must be cooked for 10 minutes before eating.
Sure enough, the tiny mushroom groups burst forth from the bag and grew until
they become giant ripe clusters.
“When they
lose their grayness and the edges turn upwards, you know they are ready to
harvest” Andrea told me.
Eagerly I
broke off the full size clumps from the first harvest. They have already been a
wonderful addition to my Mexican Pork Stew, Spaghetti Sauce and Chinese
Fried Rice and more wait in the freezer. The mushroom stump is something new
this year and an exciting enterprise for the consumer.
Slovakia is well known for its forest mushrooms and it is not unusual to
see people carrying wicker baskets into
the wooded areas after a soft rain. I am delighted to finally grow some I feel
safe to eat and that are so economical and delicious. If only I could have eaten
those that graced my walls and hid among the grass in the garden. Not a chance.
I will stick with the stump.
Dovidenia
until next time,
gyn
April 2008 -
Sounds Of Silence
“We cannot
change who we are, but we can change what is important in our lives” Gyn
Gerhardt
Green flannel
sheets
Vanilla, five
spice powder, bay leaves
Fix broken
molar
Flannel
nightgowns
Peanut butter
New
prescription glasses
Corn
tortillas
Birthday
present for grandson
New laptop
with Vista
Sweat suit
Close out
storage, bank account, safe deposit box
Find son for
ninety year old mother.
When I meet
new Slovak friends, they usually tell me of how they had a relative who defected
when the Soviet Union won Czechoslovakia as the spoils of war at the end of
World War II. Mostly it was young men who chose not to live under the government
rules, slipping from under the Iron Curtain in their quest for freedom. Many
left wives and young children behind and it is these children, now grown, that
tell me of their life without a father.
It isn’t
very often I can do something to repay the kindness of the many Slovak friends I
have made these past four years, so when one of them asked me to try to locate
her son Joseph, I was more than willing to give it a try. Finding someone who
may or may not still be alive and having only a last known assumed name is a
challenge. Oddly enough, the last known address was in Las Vegas. Armed with the
little information given me and his Las Vegas address (now over 5 years old), I
turned to the Internet. As the name I was given is rather common,
I found a history of Mafia ties and other criminal activities, but
nothing current in the past 4 years, nothing linking this Italian name (I have
actually changed the name given me to protect his privacy) to a Slovakia-born
son. What I did find were prison sentences. Knocking on prison doors looking for
a defector didn’t thrill my bones.
Enter Eddie
LaRue, Private Investigator, Las Vegas gumshoe extraordinaire. The name invokes
romantic images of rumbled trench coats, day-old beards and unkempt hair. Shades
of worn paper-back novels and old TV series flash across one’s mind as the
tongue sounds the name, Eddie LaRue. I might envision a sleazy office at the
head of creaky wooden stairs befitting of any old west sleuth. Opening the door,
I might find an Elaine, a ditzy blond filing her nails, crossed legs clothed in
silk, skirt up to her……
“He ain’t
here. What can I do you for” she might say with deep crimson glossy
gum-smacking lips as she continues her filing.
But the real
Eddie LaRue is just the guy next door, somebody’s husband, father, and
grandfather. He mows the lawn, does shopping at Wal-Mart and barbecues on
Sundays. However, he also just happens to be the husband of my dear Cocker
Spaniel breeder/handler friend, Terrie. Like
most youngsters who read Nancy Drew
and the Hardy Boys when they were growing up, Eddie never got it out of his skin
and has been doing his sleuthing in Vegas ever since.
A couple times a year you just might see him on TV talking about a high
profile case he’s working. And Elaine is actually a conservative matron who
does her job assisting her boss in a professional manner. So, when I asked
Terrie for hints on how to narrow my search, I was thrilled that I knew someone
who could help an old woman in Slovakia find the whereabouts of her long-lost
son before she died.
“Elaine can
do it in her spare time. She has access to places you can’t go to. Most
probably he is dead which is why he stopped writing”, Terrie offered.
A few weeks
later, Terrie gave me a 30 page report of the last 40 years of the very Joseph
Caruso we were looking for, one tracing every city address where he ever lived
since coming to America. He was still alive and living only 2 miles from
where I was staying.
I went to the
address on the report but found no one at home. I did find
a German Shepard, on guard behind a glass patio door, warning me not to
break into the house (which I had no intentions of doing). I came back a few
hours later and saw a man with the dog coming out of the apartment.
“Hello, are
you Joseph Caruso?” I asked politely from a safe distance. Puzzled, he
responded in the affirmative. I could sense his fear of why I was asking. I
quickly told him who I was and that I brought word from his family in Slovakia.
Clearly unnerved, he invited me inside to learn more and especially how I was
able to find him.
Once inside I
met his lovely wife Maria and he began his story of intrigue, how he escaped
wearing a stolen German soldier’s uniform and made his way underground to
Italy. There he found a man who could smuggle him into America. He had been
compelled to write about the injustice of the government and in doing so, would
be cause for arrest. To this day, he still feared the KGB would find him and
kept into hiding, fearing any link to his family in Czechoslovakia would bring
them harm. I told him I was sure now with the country’s split into the Czech
Republic and Slovakia and their
membership in the European Union,
the KGB was no longer looking for him. I do know that other defectors who went
to America regularly visit Slovakia and hoped he would see his mother before she
died.
Recently,
Slovakia and the United States signed an agreement that visas are no longer
required between the two countries. At last this now makes me legally in the
country and my years of trying to be
here with the elusive visa are now at rest. Zuzana’s lawyer cousin continues
to resolve the problem of the ownership of my house and car. Next year it
hopefully may be completed under
another forthcoming Slovak agreement.
Before I left
for Jablonka, Joseph gave me an envelope with a letter and pictures inside for
his mother. But he stilled feared any direct contact to them, asking if I would
be the go-between which of course I agreed to do. It is my hope that one day he
will return to his birthplace and his mother can once again hold his hands and
smile upon her long lost son’s face as only a mother can do.
Completing my
yearly health mission to Las Vegas and my “to-do list”, and with my two
suitcases chocked full of purchases,
I headed home to my beloved Jablonka. I was “good to go” for another year
and also eager to deliver the report and envelope to Joseph Caruso’s mother.
Andrea and
Rudy brought me home from the airport, along with Saturday and Sera who had
spent the month with Zuzana. They still had not closed the deal on the Tizik
house. Two years of trying still had them left hanging in limbo, but our
friendship is as solid as if were already neighbors. I was eager to rejoin my
dogs and feel the joy of sleeping once again in my own bed. Distant journeys are
refreshing, making the homecoming even more spectacular.
The last of
the glistening winter snow laid wait for me and much of March gave revisits from
time to time. Then, on the sunny morning of March 9th as I walked in
the crisp morning air, I was startled by a strange silence. The winter birds had
fled for new vistas. Saturday sniffed at the garage corner where her hedgehog
had hibernated for the winter. That night she and Sera barked nonstop at the
gates. In the glow of the streetlight, I investigated to see the family hedgehog
curled up in his ball on his way with his summer journey. The following day the
summer birds arrived, full of songs and chirping just as eager to be home as we
were.
But the
Tittlemouse family was not as eager to leave my house as was evident by their
digestive droppings found here and there. Saturday was on duty, letting me know
where the mice were with her plaintive barking as she chased them from hidihole
to hidihole. They had no manners and brazenly appeared as if they had a right to
be there, paying me no notice. I would wake some nights hearing them gnawing on
something near my bed. During the day one worked feverishly to build a door
through the paneling of the bathroom. I answered him back with a hard thumping
of my broom stick, telling them to go away, but to no avail. The gnawed on in
spite of me. Desperately, I sought out there entrances and decided the large
opening under the sink, cut to allow the water pipes and drain access, was a
likely suspect. Then Saturday chased one that fled into a crack in a loose
kitchen cabinet baseboard. I hammered the opening shut right behind him. Then I
retrieved the Rat Glue tube and squirted out a good glob onto a sheet of paper,
placing it under the sink near the pipe hole behind my pots and pans.
That night I
went to sleep thinking all was under control. But at 5:00 a.m. I woke to a loud
crash coming from the kitchen. I could hear my pots and pans under the sink
going in all directions. Then came a moment of silence followed by a loud bang.
Somehow I was now in the center of a “Twilight Zone” episode
The clever Slovak mouse had freed himself from my glue paper and
distributed the glue all over my pots and pans. Then with all his might (I am
assuming it was a male), he had burst through the baseboard to freedom. The war
was on.
In Myjava I
found a Mouse and Rat Glue Trap. It is a piece of wood with a ¼ inch layer of
that same sticky glue. I bought enough traps to line the entrance to the kitchen
where they regularly sauntered, and set them in place after the dogs were in
bed. They used to waltz in that way when I was cooking without a by your glance.
It wasn’t 5 minutes until the mouse appeared at the doorway, sniffed the traps
and returned to his hidihole. In the morning the traps were still empty.
At my wits
end, I returned to Myjava and purchase
some botanical rat and mouse poison, something I was hesitant to use because of
the dogs. The pink-one-inch-square pieces came with a glove to wear when
handling them. Supposedly they are only potent for up to 10 days, then become
useless. I tossed a few pieces under furniture, under the sink and places I knew
they had been but not reachable by the dogs. I was hopeful the risk was worth
the effort. After this last resort, I did not know what I’d do next.
The next day
as I put the dogs in their pen, I found the clever rascals had eaten 2/3rds of
one of the pieces and deposited the remainder in the dogs’ empty dish. The
rake of their teeth proved the morsel to their liking. A second partially eaten
piece was placed in the canister lid of one of my lower kitchen cupboards. They
were either wanting to share their found wealth or wanting to punish us. It was
Sera then, who came on duty to point me in the direction of the poisoned mice.
While she had not been a participant in the finding of the live ones, she was
good to find the dead varmints, keeping a safe distance from their bodies, and
making me take notice by looking at them, then me,
and then them again. We made a good team, the three of us.
Yet, I still knew I had to find the source of their entrance, and
hopefully there would be just one.
“Saturday,
find the mouse”, I pleaded. And like the good hunter she is, she sniffed the
air and after following what could have been a track, she came to a patch of
dirt in the very center of the house, a patch near my computer desk that had
been under the wooden stairs up to the classroom of the schoolhouse. I had to
remove the stairs themselves when the mushrooms had invaded as they had rotted
away, leaving just dirt beneath. Sure enough, I could see a tiny hole in one
corner. Out we went and into the garden and returned with a pail of stones and
poured them over the dirt in two layers. Then we waited. And as I wrote on my
computer, we heard the gnawing at the stones. Good job Saturday, you found the
source. Off I went to the building supply house in Myjava and purchased some
ready mix cement. I think cement with a layer of stones on top will look very
nice in the room.
It has been
said that when one problem is solved, wait three hours and another life changing
happening will slip into its place. So, while I slept soundly that night without
any disturbances, the morning brought a deafening silence when
I slipped my teacup into the microwave and pressed the start button. I
hold off on buying a new microwave, using an electric kettle for my tea. It is
only a lifestyle annoyance, perhaps starving off something of more grandiose
proportions in my future. In the meantime, I look for a rise in the dollar
against the euro and a bargain at Tesco for the replacement microwave.
Life is
idyllic once more as Spring bursts
forth in the garden. The tulips are in bloom and the grass grows high while we
continue to seek out a gardener to mow it. It has been 4 weeks now and the
stones remain silent, without the
sound of big teeth gnawing at them.
No longer does Saturday chase the mice
around the house, nor Sera find any more dead ones. We wait only for Bailey,
Murphy and Nicholas to come home from the shows with their ribbons and merry
greetings to complete our Jablonka postcard.
Dovidenia for
now,
gyn
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