Summer, What Summer?

The weather this season has fluctuation between summer and late autumn. One friend said he felt cheated out of having a summer. Our friend Anna sent this this. It sums up the weather nicely.

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Flow of Consciousness - It All Comes Back to Hungary

Flow or stream of consciousness is the continuous flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings forming the content of an individual's consciousness. The term was originated by William James. Today it is used both as a psychological term and as a literary term and technique. Here is my stream of consciousness. Follow me on my journey of a few hours time.

Years before I went back for my doctorate, I bought a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikzsentmihalyi (Try saying that three times fast). It sat on my office bookshelf for a number of years and when I was between clients, I would browse these books, but this one never came off of the shelf.

During my doctoral studies, I took a course called Creativity, taught by Dr. Matthew Mitchell. Matt was one of the most inspiring instructors I have ever had and I took five of his offerings, giving me a specialization in Teacher Training and Curriculum. Setting this flow of consciousness aside a moment, one of many books required for Creativity was the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It was such a great book, I wondered why I had not pulled it off of the shelf earlier, but perhaps, I would not have appreciated it as much as with Matt Mitchell being the guide on the journey. As I wrote this today, I am finding that Csikszentmihalyi was born in Fiume, Italy, which is now Rijeka, Croatia, but his parents were Hungarian.

What started this whole stream was an e-mail from Anna, our wonderful angel who has been repeatedly coming to our rescue. She sent some pictures of her children making snow people in their courtyard. Here are some of the cute photos that sent me on my stream of thoughts. 

At 6am, I woke this morning wondering about the history of snowmen, now called snowpeople to be politically correct. My groggy early morning theory was that children of earlier times did not have the luxury of making snowmen. They were forced into labor at an early age; therefore, not having time for the playfulness of today's youth. After my first cup of coffee, I did a Google search for the history of snowmen. Seek and ye shall find this snowman site. If you missed it, click on snowman in the last sentence to be redirected. Here I found the book The History of the Snowman by Bob Eckstein. I had to put it on my Amazon Wishlist. 

If you are really into snowmen, here is the link for the world's only online magazine dedicated to snowpeople called Today's Snowman.

Recapping, the photos Anna sent made me think of snowmen. Snowmen made me wonder about their history. Thinking about their history set me off on a search, leading me to the book and magazine of snowmen. All of this made me realize that it was all stream of consciousness, which reminded me of the book Flow, bringing my thoughts to the Hungarian/Italian or Croatian author who wrote it. Last, but not least, this led to thoughts of Matt Mitchell, who I truly admire.

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The Big Drip

Once again, we revisit that seemingly never ending saga of the bathroom drama. Spanning about as long as many soap operas, this leak has been causing a problem for over two years, fifteen plumbers, six housing association inspectors, and irate neighbors. When it had started to leak through our hallway wall, I really anticipated that the problem would be found in the smaller bathroom, not the tub. 

Again, it was an issue with the neighbors downstairs, so Ron took over. We had the home owners association's plumber come yet again, but he would not do a thing unless we cut a hole in the glass block wall. It seems there is a little door in the middle of the tub in an inverted space. When we covered it with glass blocks, we were told it was a foot hold so women could bend over the tub by bracing their feet there and avoid sliding. Ron went to a bath store around the corner and they had workmen who would come out.

They removed a small portion of the glass and then removed a portion of the side of the tub, making it still usable, but delightfully unattractive. There are rotted pipes, which were originally cushioned with foam rubber that has deteriorated. What is left of the foam gets soaked with leaking water. Their solution was to take the tub out completely and replace it with a stall shower. This will give us room to move the washing machine under the window, thereby giving more room by the bidet. They mapped out a floor plan and it all seemed reasonable.

We went to their showroom, which is not around the corner, but in the 4th district, quite a distance away on the blue metro. They showed us the shower floor, had us choose doors, and they will replace the end wall with the glass blocks. We had to pick out floor tiles and wall tiles for inside the shower. We ordered enough floor tiles for the entire floor, but I am not sure if I want all of the walls in the same tiles I picked out for the shower. What really gets my goat is that no tile store seems to have an extensive selection. When I remodeled the bathrooms in CA, when I went to tile stores, I was overwhelmed with selections. Here, I feel like I am being held hostage at the choices and it is not just this one store. I have been to others, but I am spoiled by US variety. Then it came time to calculate costs of materials and labor... ONE MILLION, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, rounded off. That is without tiling the entire bathroom.

Anna comes to the rescue. Anna was a Hungarian Fulbright exchange teacher to the US. She exchanged places with Jennifer N. who we have become good friends with. As a result, we have seemed to absorb Anna into our lives. She is an angel and gracefully comes to our rescue at will. We had to call her a couple of times from the store, because my student translator was at work. She was so gracious, but later told us it was way too much and the tile guy who did our kitchen and hallway could do the work for much less. Then it became a hassle trying to schedule the arrival of the materials on March 8th with the workmen to do the plumbing, and then Sandor to do the tile, all the while not losing too many days of not being able to shower and getting it all done between guests coming and going. We are still working on this one, but Anna is convinced Sandor can do it all and honestly, we love his work, so that is find with us.

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A Day of Relaxation in Swapokmund

We arrived in Swapokmund yesterday and are staying at a really nice accommodation with eclectic colors. Our bathroom is purple and the room is dark blue. As strange as it may sound, it works. The bar is on the second floor of a lodge type building and the downstairs is reception and the dining room. It is rustic looking, but very well built, cheery and comfortable.

We were meeting Omo and Jean for breakfast at 9:00 and as is usual, I was up early to read and write. The four of us had breakfast at the lodge and then went walking

through the town looking in stores. This is the first time on the trip that we have had time to get off on our own. Most other times and places, we have been in a group only.

Omo and Jean wanted to check e-mail, Ron and I wanted coffee. We met at the café and then continued shopping until lunch at 1:00. We found a restaurant called The Blue Onion and had a great lunch. The ladies took off so Jean could go quad biking and Ron and I walked to the ocean. The city is so European, the German influence is inescapable. After a short nap later in the afternoon, we then met up with everyone else in the bar at the accommodation. Our group took over the bar, leaving little room for the other guests, but we were having a jolly time. They had a huge wide screen television, but they did not have any service for those of us that were desperate for some news. Adrian, Doris, Inike, and Wilfred had gone skydiving that morning and Inike and Wilfred had wanted to show us their DVD of their experience. We could not get the equipment to work on the TV, so we finally crowded around a laptop and watched it there. As exciting as it was to see, the rest of us could not imagine doing it ourselves. The four of them were held in high esteem for having the guts to do it.

We had dinner as a group in the accommodation’s dining room; Bruce fixed a chicken pasta dish in their kitchen. The Rasmusson family is staying behind tomorrow and going off on their own. We were all going to be feeling the loss of their spirit and energy when they are gone. Anna and Omo had done a little presentation of hand slapping a few nights ago and Anna found the theater bug from the applause. She wanted to do some other presentation for their last night with us. Ron and Rikard got involved too, so Ron rewrote the words to a children’s tune to fit our group experience. After dinner, Anna, Rikard, Alma, and Ron did their little presentation It was so heartwarming.

The words to the song are:

The wheels on the truck go round and round (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

The tires on the truck go flat, flat, flat (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

The tires on the truck get fixed, fixed, fixed (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

Bruce on the truck says “All on board” (Repeat 3 times)

Driver John on the truck says “Time for a smoke” (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

Thomas on the truck says “Alles gutt” (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

The people on the truck say “Are we there yet” (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

The people on the truck say “Nomad rocks!” (Repeat 3 times)

All over Africa!!!

Everyone was duly impressed. Anna and Rikard, being so young, are warm, polite, and intelligent children who gave a great deal of enjoyment to the rest of us.

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