Flobits

I don't celebrate Halloween, never have and, perhaps, never will, save for the years when Colin will come home from school with a pumpkin on his head and a plastic spider in his pocket, with the sole purpose of the fake beast to give mom a genuine fright and with a great hope that she'll not turn the pumpkin into anything edible. In fact, I don't know what Halloween celebrates exactly, I don't even bother to look it up. We never had it like this in Romania, but still there's something going on around this time that involves occult celebrations and evocation of the dead and, the more I think about it, the more I see a common denominator for customs and habits that stretch through different cultures. To start with, either on the last day of October or the first of November, the Romanians celebrate the dead. At least the people in Transilvania do that. How they decide whether it's October or November is still a mystery to me and it depends randomly on the villa...

When the parents get someone (i.e. grandma)  to baby sit their child, two deep thoughts penetrate their minds. The first one is how could they make themselves scarce together and the second one is how to maximise that, to avoid any forms of dead times. Needless to say, at least one day off is compulsory and it should be used to go to the land no nappy, no toy under 19.99 euros that goes on and on and could drive a monk crazy, and so forth and so forth. In short, one should go to a place of utter serenity and complete oblivion. And, for the utter oblivion and complete serenity, nothing beats a whole, full, entire day at the sauna. For those who are not familiar to the Dutch way of sauna-ing, allow me a very short introduction. A sauna is an umbrella term for a place that comprises a few saunas (yes, I know you got that, but lemme go further). It's not only saunas (or steam/Turkish baths), there are lots of small pools, hot, warm, cold, damn cold, whirling, salty or not, etc, in wh...

    Iubesc Belgia. E o țară complicată și plină de sensuri pe care doar cei inițiați le pot înțelege. Da' nu o iubesc pentru asta, dimpotrivă.     Cei care s-au dat cu mașina prin Belgia au observat tendința lor pentru lucrurile complicate. In primul rând, semnele de circulație nu pot fi puse ca in restul lumii, pe o tabla bidimensionala si cu indicații clare, inaintea intersecțiilor. Semnele belgiene sunt toate 3D. Nimic dubios pana aici, dacă vrei sa mergi la stânga sau la dreapta. Dacă însă vrei să o iei inainte, semnul e un fel de stânga, cam la 45 grade, suficient să te încurce ireversibil. Evident, acum am GPS, cea mai tare invenție a mașinii de la aerul condiționat încoace. Surpriză, Belgia e singura țară ce a reusit sa mi-l zăpăceasca. Dar astea-s detalii, pana la urmă ajungi unde ți-ai propus.

There are a few things that certainly happen when you go to work after a long weekend. As my religion does not allow me, I do not work on Mondays, so I always have a long weekend. This one was even longer, since I had the Friday off as well. What I did, I've told you already. But, as all good things come to an end, this morning, at the crack of dawn, I entered the office. Well, maybe it was not quite the very crack, not even a regular crack, and surely not dawn, but certainly it was more than an hour before lunch. The first thing that struck me was the coffee. At home we bought one of the devices that take coffee to a different level. Either the one endorsed by George Clooney or the similar one, from the competition. That's some coffee, no kidding. The big disadvantage is that, when you go back after a break, the coffee from the machine tastes like... how shall I put it to respect the truth but still being grateful that the coffee is for free...the coffee we had at the ho...

We went to the Keukenhof exhibition yesterday, one day after the official opening. What an inspired choice! The weather was excellent (sunny and around 20 degrees), not crowded at all, and Colin had the adventure of his life. I will not get into details about what Keukenhof means, you can find it all here . I just hope that God doesn't plan to redecorate the Garden of Eden too often, for he'll surely call for the Keukenhof's artists. In short, it's a must for everyone, at least once in a lifetime we ought to see the beauty in its entire splendour.

To sweeten up the bitter taste of another Monday, I've thought of writing a few more words about my mother in law. You've already been acquainted to what kind of person she is.  In short, she was always the type to refuse anything that didn't belong to her, no matter what. And she conducted such an immaculate behaviour throughout her life. Throughout her life, indeed, except for that damned day, when she robbed a bank. Now, if you imagine her storming into a bank, pointing a gun at the security guy (who gets bored to death for eight full hours), screaming something like "I'm a bad ass mother, fucker, don't make any stupid mistakes and take me to the bitch!" you're only half right. But here's how story goes.

We're back in Holland after a very enjoyable weekend in the land of Goethe. Goethe himself had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of our staying, but our dear friends surely had. They made everything humanly possible for the three of us to feel at home. And they had to put up a lot with, cause we are very troublesome guests, extremely posh when it comes to culture, as I already explained before . But no matter how hard we tried to be annoying and to catch them out, all our attempts proved to be to no avail, as they got over that in the most elegant manner. A big kiss and many thanks for that! Surely, there is a drawback for such great hospitality, namely the five-kilo-surplus we had to carry back home, but these are details.

As we had winter tyres installed on our car, and as there's absolutely no need to have them on in Holland, neither legally nor meteorologically, we have decided to go to a place where the investment is justified. Thus, we'll travel this weekend to Germany, hoping to get stopped by the police and proudly show them our (almost brand) new tyres. We're going to see some friends, so we'll have a deep and intense cultural weekend, primarily focused on literature. We're going to devour a few good books and then we'll be talking about the content of them. We already have a full agenda, so the logistic part plays an important role in the whole action. First of all, we all have small kids and carrying out such actions in the municipal library is out of the question. Moreover, even without kids, there's a big issue going to the central library: it's far from home. Not necessarily when you go there, but surely when you come back. The intellectual process is so s...

I do feel bound to write a few words of redemption after the numerous reactions I got after the Stolen Beer   confession story. They all ranged from the bonhomous  yet patronising "Yeas, sure, it happens to all of us"  to "Hey, we're coming over to have a beer, it's for free anyway". Friends, it's been a misunderstanding, I am not the villain in this story and in reality I am a very nice and considerate guy who repents after such fortuitous actions. I do care for the well being of the supermarkets, the bigger they are the more shit I DO give. And I would come back to turn me in without any restriction, but I've heard some horror stories about that. And when it comes to such stories, it's time I introduced someone in this picture: my mother in law. Don't jump to conclusions, she's far from being horrid, she's a very lovely person, but you wouldn't believe what she had to put up with. It all happened in a super/hyper/mega-market. ...

You won't believe what happened this year at one of the carnival parades. I've told you already about the carnival feast and so, now it's time for a bone-chilling tale. We live in the largest city of Holland ...that doesn't have a train station. Maybe to compensate for it, or maybe for the forty-odd thousand inhabitants, we have our own local parade during the carnival. And this year we decided to attend it. The weather was bitchy as hell, alternating from some short sunny moments to rain that turned to hail and sleet, but we didn't care, cause we wanted the little one to see the affluence of silliness in its prime. We didn't wear any costume this time, we preferred to be watchers only, but let me be clear on this, as it seems confusing. By "no costumes" I meant no parrot-like carnival outfit. We DID have clothes on, though. Which made me congratulate myself when I saw a few shivering girls wearing short pants or skimpy skirts and no stockings or ...

These days we're celebrating the carnival here, then we'll plunge into the abyss of the Easter Lent. As one of the etymologies suggests, the carnival name is derived from carne vale, which means "farewell to meat", so the whole idea behind it is that we're going now to eat and drink like fat pigs, then silence. For forty days we will engage in a battle with ourselves that involves penance, self discipline, minimal existence, in short - a stoical abstinence. Or we'll be doing nothing of the kind, but use this occasion to get dressed in silly clothes and get wasted but now in a justified manner. I remember my first carnival in Holland. I was very curious back then what the carnival meant and what we'd do to celebrate it.  I was told that a costume was customary but not compulsory. So I decided in a moment that I looked goofy enough so no effort should be spent on making that worse. Anyway, I made four knots on an handkerchief and placed it on my head and i...

I'm a man! And this is not intended as a boasting statement of some extraordinary virility, oh no. It's about being a man caught in one of his chores: going to the supermarket to buy the bare necessities. Of course, it all begins with a list. Exclusively made by my wife. And she always ends the list with a question: "Do you have anything else to write it down?" "No, that's fine", I add it not even looking at what's written down.

     "Holy Mother of God, this woman is driving me crazy, she is indeed! I don't know what else to do, I've tried everything! But she keeps playing with me and my heart. I've even started to neglect the Principality's duties! Ludwig! What am I doing wrong?"      This was one of those evenings when the prince had yet another love attack. And like any other occasions he needed to talk to Ludwig, who'd been his advisor for many a year.      "Don't know, sir, you've done a lot so far", mumbled Ludwig, trying to sound convincing.      "Look, am I the King of Liechtenstein or not?"      "You are sir, you are the Prince".      "Tomayto, tomahto, Ludwig, you're not being helpful with these subtle remarks."      "Sorry, sir, I only meant ..."

"I feel like the king of Liechtenstein" . I don't recall who coined this phrase for the first time, I wished it was me but it wasn't. It came up at work, a fertile soil to have your frustrations validated to a high degree. It must have been one of those cases when you work your ass off and you get the job done well and everybody appreciates you, boss included, and the next day the project is cancelled. ... And the castle's crumbled and you're left with just a name I found that hilarious at the time. I even imagined other scenarios in which you'd be "the king of Liechtenstein", like trying to get closer to a woman who's been roaming your night and day dreams. And then she agrees to go out with you and she's telling you how much she likes you and she'd like to be with you. You're the king! But "you know, I have a boyfriend and I want to give our relationship a second chance". ... of Liechtenstein.

I am Colin McClown from the clan McClown. I was born three hundred and sixty five days ago in the Low Lands of Holland. I am the merriest of the merry. And I am immortal! Let me tell you something about my name. The last one I got to choose, and as I smile like a Cheshire cat all day long, I chose McClown. To be in tune with my parents' choice as well. They picked a Scottish one for me, Colin. Truth be told, I do not understand why they had to borrow one, as they had plenty of names to choose from, either Dutch or Romanian. Sjoerd, Joep, or Tjitte would have been appropriate Dutch names. As for the Romanian ones, Gheorghiță or Lucențiu would have done the job pretty well. Just kidding, if you don't speak either of the languages don't try to pronounce them at home, you'll break your tongue. I had a series of parties to celebrate my birthday but the one at home was the best of all, following the Romanian habits, literally translated to "the cut of the tuft"...

I'me getting back to one of my favourite topics on this blog but even more favourite in the real life. You guessed it first time right, it's beer. I've already listed some of the qualities of the magic drink. If you missed them, you just need to visit this place . Or that one . Although all those features are essential in shaping up a good picture/reputation of beer, there's another one that's probably the mother of them all. It's the beer's universality that tops everything else, making it a real cervesia universalis.  In a world with so many scales and references, full of transient events, beer stands immutably, a true Northern Star. The one and only Polaris.

Yesterday I opened the Pandora box with some  memories of my youth . The memories are actually about the worst bread I've ever eaten, military service period included in "ever". Now, I'm not going to do the "during the war" routine on you, but in the end the only benefit from doing your time in the army is to annoy your friends and trying to bore them to death by telling them very juicy barracks stories. This is what your friends want, and nothing more. Anyway, during the war,  the life you experience in the army is nothing compared to what you're used to. You do not belong to yourself there, you belong to the institution, then to the country, and in the end to the CAUSE, whatever that is. Imagine you hear such a crappy speech almost every single day from someone who's just finished half a liter bottle of vodka and you're not even close to smell the tediousness to follow.

You know, every end of October, beginning of November, the proud possessors of a car begin the preparation for the winter to come. I'm not sure how it was done 5-10 years ago, but nowadays everyone seems to be in need to change their tyres. For the people who live in Holland - good news, it's not compulsory for your car to have winter boots on. It would be ridiculous anyway, as winter and summer are about the same in the Netherlands, 10 degrees difference at max. You'd think that there's no stress at all, but things are slightly different. In Germany, the law is  not that permissive and the car that goes through the German territories must be equipped  for the winter.

Happy New Year! Today was my first day at work in the new year. What a wonderful and remarkable day it was, you will not believe it. The first signs showed up very early in the morning when I took the bike and I had wind from my back. "That's odd", thought I, "Murphy must be sleeping". At the office, I rubbed my eyes in utter disbelief, just to make sure I was not dreaming. The weeks I'd been away were used to the full and the offices were redecorated. Some desks were taken out and, I swear I'm not kidding, they managed to rearrange them so that everybody would get a nice view from their spot. Again, I never thought that such a design was even possible!

Warning: This post should not, under any circumstances, be read by children under the threshold of not-believing-anymore in Santa, grandparents included. Christmas is gone, we all got our gifts from the loved ones as well as from our employers :D. We also struggled to find the best for our beloved family, friends, acquaintances and so forth. Quite often we get it right, other times we just don't. But, whatever happened, keep it mind that it takes two to make a present a success. It's the giver and the receiver who need to get in tune with each other, as we will see it in this story (of course based on a true one, what else? )