Getting lonely

I miss Chris. Haven't seen him in two and a half weeks (since we got to the US). It's starting to get lonely. 8 more days til he shows up.

Summer heat

Summer finally remembered to visit Croatia. June was cold and rainy. But, finally, the sun came out and temperatures skyrocketed. The temp has been into the 90s for the past couple of days. No big deal, right? Just stay indoors and drink lots of water. Well, we don't have air conditioning yet so indoors has been hot! We have one portable fan per person in the house and move them along with us. We've also installed three ceiling fans which is highly unusual for Croatia. People usually don't have ceiling fans in private homes. Fans are helping us live through the heat. I am thinking that we'll just have to spend the money and get it done for next year. It just seems like such an unnecessary expense as it gets truly hot here for maybe a month out of the year. Still, during that month, I am thinking that it would be worth every penny (that would be every "lipa" here).

The unusual thing is that Croats don't really seem to like air conditioning their homes. Quite a few people that I know do have air conditioning installed in their apartments, yet they don't use it even when it is oppressively hot like it is now. Others claim that they would never, ever want to have one. Now, I can understand if they say that because it's expensive and it uses a lot of electricity. On the contrary, claims are that then it gets too cold and that the AC will make them sick. I sure could use one now to prove them just how wrong they are.

Kid Dreams

Every night at bedtime, either Chris or I talk to our kids about their day. Sometimes those conversations go off in different directions where we discuss anything from math, to current events, to weather or whatever else might come up. Tonight we made shadow puppets while we talked. Then the conversation drifted off in a different direction. The other day Ivor had a nightmare about all of us getting eaten by a crocodile so I asked them today about their dreams. Mia's answer surprised me. I expected to hear about ponies and butterflies. Mia told me that she had dreamt about going to school naked and that other kids laughed at her. Being naked in public is a classic anxiety dream and I bet just about everyone has had it at some point. I just didn't know that five-year-olds had those as well. I was genuinely surprised. So even in her little five-year-old world there was enough anxiety to cause a dream like that.

Ivor chimed in and said that he had a dream like that too except he at least had his underwear on and that he wasn't really stressed out about it. Apparently, in his dream, it just got him in trouble with the teacher. I am thinking that we'll talk about dreams more often now.

Economic Crisis

What happened in the US some 12 months ago appears to be at our door as we speak. Even though the economic situation in Croatia has always been hard (I can remember late 70s raging inflation when I was just a little kid), it's been getting worse each year at an increasingly faster pace since the war. Well, it's getting ready to hit rock bottom it seems. Pay cuts have been announced for the second time this year. This time retirement checks will not be spared either. Retirement checks roughly amount to $250 to $600 per month. A few days ago it was announced that school books will no longer be provided free of charge. It's just weeks from school year starting back up and parents are starting to break into cold sweat over expensive books. Only unemployment and prices are predicted to keep going up in the foreseeable future. Gas is still at some $5.6 per gallon.

So long Mr. President

While we were out of the country on our 8-day vacation with no access to local news and print, Croatian Prime Minister quit his job (without an explanation) and Croatia was left without a government. As if the political and economic situation isn't already messy enough. Now they are predicting another cut in government jobs paychecks (including already severely underpaid teachers and similar professions) and another cut in retirement pensions (which are already too low to live off of). Before the war things weren't good. Then the war came along and it's been getting progressively worse every year since. Nice doing Croatian leadership. Shame on you.

Sad to say but I am inclined to agree with this Washington Times article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/04/croatias-leader-resigns/.

VACATION!!!!

Here we go again... Vacation week is upon us and we're staying up all night packing. I am not sure how come we can never get it done in time. Chris concluded that when we're doing well, we start stalling and end up doing other things. Probably true. It would likely help if we had the house prepped for the trip a bit sooner than doing it at the last moment.

Either way, in slightly over a week, we'll post some exotic, fun and exciting pictures from our European travels. Weather is not favoring us the first few days but we're planning on not allowing that to ruin our fun.

Time to departure, 2 hours. Current time, 2AM. It sure feels like vacation already. :)

Really BIG jeans

Well, Croatia now has a dubious distinction of having put together a largest pair of jeans. Why would anyone even think of doing something like that? Sure, they've raised around $10,000 for charity (some 50,000 kuna). It might have made more sense to take the jeans and donate them to the needy along with time and resources that were used to stitch this thing together. I think that might have done more good.

You can read the whole story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090614/od_afp/croatiaoffbeatguinness

A dozen resons to celebrate

We have a dozen good reasons to celebrate today. It's our twelfth wedding anniversary. I am amazed at how quickly the time went by. World has changed, we've changed, kids came along, much has happened. It seems like we just met but it also seems like we've always been together. It's a strange but reassuring thing. :)

Greetings from The Mud

Here is a little trivia for you. City of Zagreb is comprised of a number of small communities. We live in one called Blato. Translation - The Mud. And it's been really trying hard to live up to its proud name. I am assuming that it was named some 50 years ago when there were just a few homes here and probably few or no streets which is a far cry from a densely populated area that it is now. In recent year, Zagreb has finally started expanding its infrastructure to its outskirts including city water, gas, sewer. I know that you feel like in the US that kind of work sometimes takes forever, gets messy and annoying. You have no idea. So for the past three year our street has been stripped of the asphalt (other streets on and off to different degrees) so the work could be done. No, its still not completed. Unbelievable, I know. At different times the project ran out of money, or construction was happening elsewhere, or it was too cold, or there was no apparent reason why nothing was being done. Now that we are several weeks away from local elections, the work has magically resumed. Do you really think these folks are worth reelecting? Me neither.

Fresh round of work means a fresh layer of mud to drive over while the street doesn't really look like a street. So Friday our dead end street was blocked by equipment as I was returning from dropping the kids off at school. So, I decided to be enterprising and take a shortcut over an unpaved empty lot, conveniently adjacent to a neighboring street. This lot was commonly used as a temporary "bridge" in situations like this by many of us. Unfortunately, it rained two days previous. You see where this is headed. An inviting meadow turned into a menacing mud pit within seconds. Yes, it was a bad decision but once you're in it there really is no turning back. To make things more interesting I was giving a lift to a couple of carless neighbors returning from a grocery run so I ended up having an audience for the adrenaline pumping ordeal. While trying to maneuver the car onto grass a number of things went through my head including reprimands from my husband and my dad's face when I called him to help me dig the car out. A few seconds later I managed to finagle my way onto the road and could breathe a sigh of relief. I trekked to our clean, paved parking lot which quickly got covered in mud dripping from the car. The car was covered top to bottom, windshield included. It was comical.

It was embarrassing to drive the car over the next two days. I was going to drive it to the car wash the same day but our regular car wash is currently closed for some reason and I didn't know of other locations. There aren't that many car washes around here. So today I finally took it in to a newly discovered location. In Croatia, a car wash is a lot more personalized experience. A prewash is done by hand so two to three guys work at each car wash. All glass is wiped by hand as well after the wash. I don't have to tell you the looks that I got when I pulled up. I just tried to keep a straight face. Cool as a cucumber I emerged on the other end with a clean, shiny car. I haven't told Chris that I washed it yet. I want him to be pleasantly surprised when he sees it in the morning.

Mamma Mia

Mia, my 4 and a half year old, came home a few days ago singing Abba's Mamma Mia song. I didn't think that she's ever heard it, let alone that she'd remember it once she'd heard it. She proceeded to tell me about this really neat movie with a "cowboy" girl (Sophie, one of the characters in the movie wears a cowboy hat in a scene or two I think) and singing and dancing and then this girl is getting married... Apparently she saw Mamma Mia (the movie) and instantly fell in love with all of Abba songs. So we bought her the movie and she's been singing and dancing to Abba for the past few days. Ivor can't help it. He's watched some of it too and so far really likes the music too. Oh, and in case you don't know this (Mia told me), Mamma Mia song is about Mia and her mommy. So no one better go around claiming otherwise!