Blind Man Walking

Today is a good day; I didn't have to walk over any dead guys to get into school. Last Monday I was coming to school early to teach my zero hour yoga class. It was shortly after 7:00 AM, so when I saw the police talking to our custodian, I figured someone had tripped the security system. We exchanged "Dobre Rano's", and I entered the building. What I failed to notice, however, was the dead person lying behind the police car, definitely all done walking.

Made me think of the cop shows on TV where they always decribe the "perp", you know, caucasian, male, six feet tall, with dirty blond pony tail, etc. As the witness, I'd be like, "Perp? There was a perp?" I think of myself as pretty observant, but I was definitely off my game that morning. Too early I guess.

I am a tornado of activity today, with all the presents swirling around inside the vortex, sorted, but mostly unwrapped, all unpacked. Yes, I am very stressed, but meanwhile here at school, the students are crazy as they traditionally seem to be anywhere before holiday. As I feel it is bad form for a teacher to be just as crazy as the students, I am trying hard to keep it together.

I have two large suitcases I had planned to pack, first for taking gifts home to Chicago and then for hauling equipment back to Slovakia. Fulbright has given me money to purchase equipment for my school, and I have determined that what we really need is anything that is a modification of the official type of equipment, particularly balls. Over here we can purchase volleyballs, for example, but any kind of oversized, light or soft ball is unavailable. Slovakia doesn't "do nerf". So I have placed two orders and will load up this equipment when I return home on New Year's Eve, the second important use of the suitcases.

Everything looked good for packing until it came time to include a purchase I had made for a certain anonymous brother-in-law whose initials are JMG. It was one of those fun gifts to buy because when I saw it I knew I had found the PERFECT PRESENT. But what happens when the perfect gift not only doesn't fit in your bag but is considered weapon-like and therefore unable to be a carry-on? I called the airlines, asked advice from everyone, and finally scored with a duffle on loan by Chuck. While the length is adequate, I sacrifice space and compromise on substantial suitcase structure.

This concerns me for two reasons: fragile gifts and P.E. equipment. Recently I made a Xmas shopping trip to Modra, a nearby town famous for its vineyards and well-known for its ceramics. The small factory uses a 400 year old process where the pottery is hand-thrown, then painted with an opaque glaze, then hand-painted by about 6 women in any number of traditional combination of colors. Each piece is different, and if you don't break it (I already broke TWO) the glaze will last forever. So I am challenged to safely pack the ceramics.

The other issue is that I will hopefully still have adequate room for all that equipment on the way home. So what started out as the perfect gift, has somehow disintegrated into, "Geez, he just better appreciate this..." I've gone from energetic elf to grumpy Grinch in the blink of an eye...

Last week I traveled to Gyor (say j-YOUR) with my friend, Erika, to buy not just any fabric, but SPECIAL fabric. Actually Erika had helped me bus to Modra for ceramics the day before, and then we trained down to Hungary the next day to get the material. This field trip turned into a three country, three currency expediton, although no trip was longer than 1 and 1/2 hours.

Last fall I had mentioned that I really loved the blue fabric I kept seeing in the folk art stores. The material is hand dyed with indigo, and then hand-stamped using 100 year old wooden blocks that are about 5" x 10". Erika said we must go to "The Blue Lady" (Although not the store's name, a good one, right?) There are as many patterns as stamps and an infinite number of shades of blue. The store was small and contained yard goods as well as made up clothing and accessories. I soon realized some blues looked purple, while others were green. Some samples were navy but I preferred the brighter shades. After the initial shock of just standing there, gaping in visual overload (much like at Modra the day before), I chose three contrasting prints, not perfectly matched but then that's just the point.

We cruised the farmer's market: Erika bought shelled walnuts from a granny and ever the Xmas shopper, I purchased pastry brushes made of chicken (I think) feathers. Spent an inordinate amout of time doing laps around the small village trying to locate the magyar hat I'd seen but didn't buy for Marisa. I swear the vendor pulled up stakes because we never did locate it. Instead we hopped the train to Bruck on de Leithe (sounds like brook on delight) for dinner in Austria. And although dinner was "de Leithe-ful" bed looked even better. Dobru noc!