serendipity doo dah, serendipity day, my oh my what a synchronous day, plenty of sunshine coming my way, zip-a-dee doo dah, zip-a-dee ay….
yesterday walking to next village to rent bicycles, 2 dogs decided to shepherd us, causing so much trouble in the outskirts we turned back bicycle-less. today, walking up hill, melina called us over, showed us two bicycles they had to loan us… so the dogs stopped us cuz we didn’t need to rent bicycles cuz we already had bicycles – just didn’t know it yet. (Note by Kathy: Russ Vidrick once said in a Wendy Shaffer poem, I’ve seen the dog’s faces, and they’re smarter than people.)
kathy bought a 2-for-1 book in london, picked jack kerouac’s on the road for free. it was my first life changing book (not counting the bible, which i never finished) – 43 years ago it made me spend the next 4 years searching for marijuana. just finished rereading it. on the road is all movement with no place to go. its zen mad hero (dean moriarity / neal cassady) comes across more as a combo conman rat. what struck me as full cool at 17, i see as sad empty at 60… once you’ve participated in all that madness yourself and can see the drugs from the inside, you hear the hollow in their buddha wow holy zap seek & speak. that’s not to put down the journey – the journey is always worth taking, needs taking… but the particular path is between each of us and the price we must pay. we all need a ticket to ride. the book that filled me with gladness in 1964 leaves sadness in 2006. still worth reading tho, if nothing else just to see you’re not always missing what you think you’re missing. the book is somewhat redeemed by part 3 where cracks appear in the false foundation, and totally redeemed by dean’s rat attack in the back in part 4, and the brief final sadness of the final part 5.
i was melancholy for two days cuz i started thinking how amorphous our future is, and because i didn’t want to start the work of digging into myself to make myself productive. how foolish – the future takes care of us if we’re well intentioned… and the digging down is just something that must be done – so i started with an hour of croatian study. as i said decades ago – just put one foot in foot of the other, the other in front of the one. tomorrow, i start typing and blowing blues harp.
rip-off alert – tried installing ten thumbs typing tutor course – it’s a blank disk. got ripped off twice for same product – paid 10 pounds on-line for the ten thumbs typing tutor course in poland, and they never sent us the unlocking code to use the program. then in london we bought a cd version from a computer shop… it’s blank – the box has a fake ten thumbs typing tutor cover wrapped around a eurotalk box advert. rip-off = ten thumbs typing course = rip-off … 30 pounds equals 60 dollars. only other time we’ve been ripped off was using craig’s list to rent a place with a jacuzzi in amsterdam…. craig’s listing was for a j tetero… there was a juan tetero in the apartment building but he refused to answer his door, even tho he buzzed us into the lobby. danger, danger will robbingson.
but, to balance all this out, we’ve been so very lucky with the rest of the journey – if you don’t count our 1 nite in the sheep feces field freezing to death because the european rainbow gathering folk didn’t bring the tent and sleeping bags they promised us. so, 4 rip-offs in 3 different arenas over 3.5 months. hmmmm. but the 3 weeks house sitting in london and the 3 months here in croatia more than make up for that. lotta threes involved here – (the other, the fun, and the rolling joke).
the dogs came back today to play. we call the big black male thumper, the small brown female bambi. they play with us, they play with each other. throw a stick, and as thumper brings it back, bambi keeps jumping up to bite his ear to get her share of it.
here in pula in the vegetable section of the stores they have a number associated with each fruit & vegetable – you bag your produce, put it on the scale, press the appropriate number, and it prints a barcode label with the total price. in america, folk would cheat. here, they don’t. cabbage and cauliflower cemetery ceremonies.
notebook notes: i surf time and tide – for the sea takes its color from the sky, the sky its water from the sea. i look out over the pula skyline from the roman fort high on the hill and see hundreds of little round satellite dishes. tell kathy they’re pod transmitters. she says they’re receivers cuz pods don’t transmit, only receive. store radio’s playing pap pop doo wop shoo wah shoo wah shit… do the pula hula, it only cost a kuna. (takes about 6 croatian kuna to make 1 dollar… if it’s not imported, it’s usually very inexpensive.)
past few nites, kathy’s asked me about various portions of my perilous past, and she types my answers into her computer. got some good stuff. her 3 files so far, she’s titled ‘killing,’ ‘shoplifting,’ and ‘tv.’ i’m thinking we should do a book and title it interview with an ampere – lies by smith as told to mrs smith. she just left for a walk with melina so melina can practice her english while kathy practices croatian. as i watched her walk away, i thot how much i love her – not a bad feeling for 14 months together, 8 months married – the past 11.5 months 24/7. except for our first 2 weeks when i kept trying to talk her out of a relationship due to our age difference and my anti-social hermit ways, i’ve never regretted us, nor desired someone else, nor desired being alone. i chased all these women in my life – and the only one that worked is the one i tried to avoid. hmmmm. (Note from Kathy: Ah yes, really he tried to avoid me by buying us a new waterbed after the first weekend and giving me keys within two weeks.)
of course, kathy’s the one gonna pay the price, when i get even older and more broken down than i already am and start drooling on the floor. 27 years is a big age difference… when she’s my current age (60), i’ll be 87. wow! i sure can’t see me going with some 87 year old chick – unless she were really really rich and dying and i was in her will.  but i believe what we have together is so unusually special it’s worth the pain she’ll pay later. my payment will be trying to remember who the old dude in the mirror is, who’s the young chick on his arm.
i ain’t rich in money, but i do have special magic to offer her. who else after a 3 minute whim of a conversation 5 weeks into the relationship would agree to sell everything and travel around the world for inspiration and adventure until the money ran out? she’s the first woman i’ve met as crazy as i am, the first worthy of my heart and mind. she’s also the first person i’ve met as talented across the board as i am – in words, art, photography, website – a talent that’s not genre driven, but plays with whatever’s before it. she’s not as wild or weird as i am, but who is. my inheritance to her is my body of work (poems which will live, museum worthy art), my unbelievably interesting past, my potential cult-hood after i die, and the out-of-box present i present her. i figure she can feed from my body when i move on to the fun on the other side. (to mis-quote mac davis, it’s hard to be humble when you’re imperfect in every way.)
as i said, the path is between each of us and the price we must pay. we all need a ticket to ride. the price depends on the journey. i’m a wee bit expensive and way too odd for most folk’s budget – kathy’s weird enuf flux to see the bargain and pay the price.
new day, new price… bicycle sore thighs and buttocks. rode to the top of the village hill. italian named claudio invited us in, gave us mandarins and oranges from his trees, gave kathy a glass of schnaps made from his own fig tree, fixed us some excellent strong coffee. three of us conversed in smattering of english, croatian and german while his dogs cavorted about and cats tried to sneak in his open door. surprises me how much german i remember from highschool back in the early 60s. she drank my glass of fig schnaps as well. this is a hard place for a non-drinker not to drink. too much hi-powered homemade brandy offered at every stop. after coffee, mandarins and schnaps, we bicycled down to the beach and the rocks beyond. beauty everywhere. even found purple red sea penis heads clinging to the rocks.
…there’s a blue bird on my shoulder… it’s the truth… it’s actual… everything is satisfactual – (lyrics from walt disney’s racist movie song of the south).
