Funny, its a day ...

Funny, its a day like today when you can see how many of us there are down here at the end of the world.  The Amerikanski are all somewhere eating turkey and whatever.   Its a holiday and we are either in our usual holes in the ground working or somewhere else working.  I decided I wanted something warm to eat.  There's only one place open on the holiday around here.  Guess where?  Jup!  Coffee, cheese danish, and a samitch of cheese and bacon of turkey.  Don't even ask what language in which I ordered. :)  Starbucks came though just fine today. (Hmmm, samitch - that's teksikanski for sandwich on engleski). 

The call from the daughter I mentioned last blog?  Turned out to be a mass text message to the whole family so she didn't have to mess with any of us.  She was too busy to answer the phone when I called her back.  Sigh.  But she did better than the others, none of the rest of them called or texted.  Funny how that bothers me less and less these days. 

I remember the first Bozic after Carole died.  That soon will have been six Bozic past.  The service at the church concluded.  I locked up the building and realized that I was alone.  Easter was the same.  All the holidays were the same.  Even when I made sure that I had showered before I came to church it was the same.  The children didn't call then either.  For years, other people who came into my life made excuses not to be around me on holidays too.  It got to the point that when people put on their supercilious smiles and wished me "Merry Christmas" that I snarled "bah! humbug!" somewhere deep inside of me where no one could see. 

I went away and cooked my own Christmas eve and Veliki Petak fish and kupus according to the season and the Grinch did what he did in private for himself by himself.  I did not realize at the time how many of my brothers and sisters were around me.  By brothers and sisters, I do not mean my parent's children.  When Jesus brothers and sisters (ok, I suppose they were half-brothers  etc.) came accusing Him of being insane, Jesus motioned his hand around the room and said "these are my brothers and my sisters."  As it turns out, I have rather a lot of really nice brothers and sisters whom my parents never knew.  And me, the Grinch, I am not alone any more and so today on Amerikanski Dan Hvala I am thankful indeed.

First of all, CJ's dogs are "babysitting" me this afternoon as the sun slips out of sight.  One is right under my desk.  I can hear him when he scratches.  Another talks to me if I take too long clicking another song to play.

Still another has been laying quietly near my feet for a good while.  We listened to "Second Waltz - Dmitri Shostokovic"  for a while and when we finished that playlist we moved on down the line.  Right now we are listening to "Breze" performed by Irena Vrčkovic. Next up is Vrčkovic with Pidži singing Tam dol na ravnem polju.  Pidži enjoys a bit of  fame in the central Teksas area because they've heard him on the radio and some lucky folk have seen him in person.

You really didn't think that Pidži took Teksikanski music back to Slovenija did you?  If you thought that, the joke is on you.  You've read already here where I've discussed the origins of Tejano music, yes?  You've read how that influenced the rest of the music of the region and you read about the "Commanches" in Blanco County, yes?  Jup.  You got it, the whole blooming Texas music scene is dominated by music with Slavic origins, hi hi :)  If you happen to be an "Anglo" Texan reading this,,, go to YouTube and watch Irena and Pidži and the band work out "Tam dol na ravnem polju."   

If you have your "languages" ear turned on, no "po noci" in the song most assuredly does not mean the same as "panoche" on španski jezik.  The slovenijan expression means "by night" more or less, and the spanoljski means, ummmpf something a bit more crude, yet the root meaning is still something "by night."  Hmmmmm so who is going to pop up and give me a reasonable explanation how this non-hispanic heterographic homophone arrived into Mexican Spanish?  Ummmm.  Gotcha didn't I? 

Ok, one of the doggies has just put in her request for Vesna Maria, so we're going to listen to her for a while now.

Today was Vesna Maria's birthday.  Sretan rođendan Vesna Maria!  We all need to remember the date so she really knows how many friends she has out here next year.  Hi hi, I see at least two pages of birthday congratulations on her page over on FaceBook.  She is a wonderful performer with a wonderful voice.   CJ and I both love to watch her and listen to her voice. 

Someday when I think the time is right I am going to ask a certain question and if the answer is right, and if I've won the lottery by that time, I wouldn't mind a bit if Momir and Vesna Maria flew over and sang something like "Tri palme na otoku srece" at a special occaision after that.  That would just about make the celebration extra fino.  Sigh.  If I win the lottery.  Anyway, me and the doggies have them on YouTube and we can dream. 

Somewhere in one of Patria's songs they say that "a man without dreams is like the heavens without stars."  I believe that and so as long as my sky has stars in it I refuse to not dream.  Another song I would like Vesna Maria and Momir to do on that day is "Ljubav."  Momir knows why.   It has something to do with the video sash958 made with Vesna Maria and Momir doing this song.  Momir, what do you  think?  Should I say why this song is so important to me?  Or should that just be one of those things that goes to the grave with me? 

Another random trip into linguistics.  Mariachi.  A truely Mexican word.  Please explain its Spanish construction for me if you can.  You can not, can you?  I didn't think so.  Mariacke.  Slavic. Polish.  And no this did not arrive with Napoleon.  As I've shown you elsewhere, we Slavs have been arriving in North America in a steady stream since the 1500s.  Just 'cause we didn't raise a flag and build an empire doesn't mean we weren't here.  We were.  We are.   Marian musicians in certain cathedrals.  Trumpets sound the hours in Krakova and in Warsaw.  Hmmmmm.  Originally these were church musicians not from the indiginous culture, in Mexico banished from the church into the streets and to this day allowed to perform religious works only at the Shrine of Guadalupe, or perhaps Christmas Eve in certain show cathedrals or in the streets.  The priests have taught the mariachi they cannot to play in church.  Do you wonder at the anti-clerical feelings in the North of Mexico?  Religion was banned from church.  Ufffff !!!!!   What a concept ...

There was once a wedding at which I had certian duties.  The bride's father is a mariachi.  He had written a song especially for his daughter's wedding but he was sure his group could not sing in church.  Hi hi hi hi hi, that's exactly where  that sung was first heard.  In Church.  I insisted, and  they played the man's song for his daughter inside the church in front of the altar.  Viva la revolucion!!!!  Bog i Hrvati!!! Dios y la gente!!! God and the people!  Oh dear, I am a bit radical I'm afraid. 

Oh my, here we are, me and the doggies, listening to Vesna Maria sing "Alaj mi je veceras po voji" along with Djerdan - now this is a recording that thrills my heart. 

Now here is CJ, and she really thrills my heart.

pa,

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
 24 studenog 2011

The Patio

In the front of Starbucks on 802 in Brownsville is the "Patio."  Inside Starbucks is smoke free so the smokers all go out front, so do all the people who want to feel the warmth of the sun.  Starbucks recently put out new tables and chairs to replace the wobbly ones that were there.  They put new umbrellas out there too, although, from what I see, people rarely use those.  The "outside" crowd mostly crave the free fellowship, the sunshine, tabacco smoke, and the fresh fumes from the vehicles on the roadway.

Outside people somehow feel free to greet one another and there are ad hoc groups which meet irregularly during the week.  Lots of politics and deep philosophy gets discussed on the Patio.  Lots of business is transacted out there too.  The rich kids from Matamoros  congregate out there too where their guardians  can keep an eye on them.

During the "Huadajahant?" episode of recent note, I noticed the Patio was empty.  When that horrid moment passed, people began once again to haunt their favorite tables.  Yesterday, as I drove around the building to get to the drive through where the squawk box is, there was one fairly young female sitting at a table all by herself. 

I must explain that there are some advantages in being an old man, especially there are advantages in being an old man who has his very own lady.  Such an old man can observe what is displayed before him, take note of it, ponder its meaning and quite go on his own way. I am an old fellow and I have CJ and that is especially nice.

Ok now, here is what I observed. Just the facts.  The young lady was sitting there in a short skirt.  So short in fact that you could see, ummm, everything, as you passed by a few feet away in the driveway.

I suppose of course that we should merely assume that she was simply basking in the 27C morning sunlight.  We could assume that, and if she were at home in her own backyard I wouldn't be seeing it and that would be that.  Fine.  But she wasn't home in her own backyard, she was in a heavily trafficked public place and there was no way to avoid seeing what she was displaying.

Actually I believe that either consciously or subconsciously she was hoping to attract the attention of some young fellow.  That makes me sad for the fellow she finally does attract. That makes me sad for her, and as a matter of fact, I am insulted.

I filmed the flowers on some cacti eary this morning. Their petals and other parts were turned up to the sky and the bees were buzzing and carrying on around them.  That's what plants are supposed to do.

They bloom, they display their blooms, the bees come and the job is done and that's that.  Plants really don't have much else to do.  You've never heard of a plant writting an opera or building a building or doing anything else much other than just being a plant and attracting the bees.  Other than making honey, bees have very little use other than carrying out their role in the cycle of the plant's life.  As far as I can tell, plants and  bees have very little spiritual or intellectual life.

The message the young lady was sending out yesterday morning was that a male's value is similar to that of a bee.  She attracts him, he does his part after which he really should just fly away and die perhaps. 

Now do you see why I am insulted?  I am not a plant.  I am not a bug.  I am more.  I want consort with a female who is more than just a flower to be pollenated.  Not that that part of life is not to be enjoyed as well, no, its God given and its there, but for human beings that's simply not the main course.

There's more.  Implied in the young lady's message is that the pollinator must be young.  Therefore an old pollinator is of no value.  He should just die.  Also implied in her message is that older women past the age of pollination are of no value and they should also just go away and die.  In another generation those of age and maturity were valued for the experience and the wisdom they had accumulated but seemingly no more. 

That's quite a message in that young young lady's attire.  As you can see I resent her message.

This brings us to the topic I want us to consider this morning.  Grab another cup of coffee, come back and sit down and hear me out.

Nearly every day I see our Slavic women sitting on the Patio in skirts so short that I see, ummm, everything, or nearly everything and they are sitting in highly trafficked places where I cannot help but see their nakedness.  I see them and I am not impressed.  I am not titillated.  I am not attracted.  To the contrary, I am insulted.  I am angry.  I am hurt. 

Where do I see you naked?  In your videos on YouTube where you cut romance to shreds, where you vanquish romance to the trash can and where you replace love with the base activity of polination.  I do not wish to polinate you.  I do not wish to see you polinating even vicariously through the illustrations you find somewhere on Google. The kind of relationships you are holding out as "ideal" to our youth are shallow.  What you are showing in your video has no more depth than a bee fluttering around a flower.  Thirty seconds of watching a bee and a flower together is boring, so is what you are showing me when all you can show me is skin skin skin.

Please in the YouTube videos you place on public display let me see beauty and joy.  Let me see the full range of emotions we Slavs so love to share.  You are stuck on a one note song when there is whole melody to listen to.  We Slavs have the best music in the world.  Let's let the world hear the depth and reach of our music and our souls.  We are not just breeding stock.  Let's take pride in ourselves and show the world what we really are! 

But first, put your pants on and button up your blouse.  For the love of God don't insult me any more.  I am a Slav. I am more than a flower or a bee.  A lot more, thank you.

Don't mistake me, you can show me flowers and bees, but just keep your skin covered please.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
23 studenog 2011