leaving time again

   

Well, the winter is here, and we're off to Colorado, because that's where you want to go to escape the cold.  Family, friends, old haunts, sushi.... We can't wait! But before we go on any trip, especially a long one like this, there is always a lot to do. As usual, we attempt to compress it all into the last two or three days. 

1) Packing: We'll be hanging out with family and friends, so it's an easier pack than usual for sure. Warm weather gear, since Colorado is a goddamn deep freeze. Why can't our families live in Barbados??

2) Shutting down the house: Our house being filled with ancient old thick stone goodness with a warm cellar, we don't have to worry about pipes breaking or fires, so that's a load off the old noggin. Still, all appliances unplugged, breakers turned off, gas off, water off, storm shutters bolted down tight. Fridge emptied, food given away to neighbors. Full cleaning (ugh) and a quick thanks be to god that it's a small house!

3) Vehicles: Winterized, batteries removed, gas tanks topped up. Bus disabled for theft protection. Motorbike chained down to withstand a tornado and covered up safe and snug.

4) Vineyard: Neighbors alerted. The old owner and I have a deal by which I let him store the wine that he made this year in the wine cellar, about six barrels worth. He still has a key to part of the house and the cellar, so he'll keep an eye out until we return.

5) Travel Insurance! This one is perverse: We gave up our US insurance when we moved here, but as US citizens traveling to one of our "home countries", we are effectively ineligible for any typical travel insurance, even though we've been living in Hungary permanently, and I am in fact a Hungarian citizen as well. Or rather, they'll happily take your money, and if you don't need to use the policy, well then it works fine. The fine print tells you otherwise, though. Finally found a great policy by IMG Global, made just for expats. They sell it in one year chunks for not too much money, and it covers the entire world including the US (with the caveat of residing outside the US for at least 6 months per year). It's great because I'm sure we'll head out somewhere in 2010 anyway, so we won't need to get anything else.

6) Bills: Set to automatic bank withdrawal, or prepaid until we return. Garage prepaid until we return.

7) Neighbors: We have three other families who live in our enclosed courtyard, so the house is always well-guarded. Gave them keys, emails and phone numbers, mail instructions and emergency cash for the inevitable stray weirdo Hungarian bill that always seems to show up when we're not here.

8) Dental checkup. A cleaning costs 25 bucks here; a cavity filled is about 35. There's a reason Hungary is the dental tourism capital of the world! All clear, thankfully.

9) Airline tickets reconfirmed and special meals ordered. My perennial choice? The Hindu meal! Always delicious Indian food with no beef, which I don't eat. Plus, even if you love the regular meal on an airline, it always pays to order something from the special menu, as it is served first.

10) Airport hotel booked, car service booked. The flight leaves at 6 am, we have to arrive at 4, and we live 4 hours away from the airport. Do the math, man! Hence, hotel.

11) Manuscripts backed up and uploaded to the all-powerful googal god. I've been incredibly lazy the last month, but even so I have a short story, a novel outline, an old novel I am trying to rework, the one I just finished, and the new one I want to make some progress on. Plus the nonfiction project. Ugh. Why do I suddenly feel like I'm drowning?

12) Prescriptions filled. Swine flu shot--okay, that was a month ago, but we got it pretty much because of this trip, since the US is still the swine flu headquarters of the world (I think it's opened an embassy).

13) Emergencies: The house has actually been shutting itself down the last week. The kitchen sink drain broke, the central radiator heater pumping unit is leaking and the pilot light doesn't seem to like me either, the washing machine has been overflowing for some reason, one of the kitchen circuits keeps throwing the breaker, or maybe that's the microwave breaking down... in any case, I'll have a bit to do when we get back!


And it's going to be amazing to return to Pecs, too. Being the 2010 European Cultural Capital, the city is awash with money, which translates into every single sidewalk, street and square in the old town being torn up and replaced with marble steps and fountains. Half the old houses are being resurfaced, new streetlights installed. The whole place is almost shut down with frenetic construction work, dozers and cranes and scaffolding. Unfortunately I learned too late that the city was offering to contribute to homeowners who reface their houses, which would have been nice. As it is, we got a new street lamp outside, and new cobblestones for our front archway. Still, the city is slowly pulling on a fancy new dress, and she will be stunning.


  

very cool way to support women in difficult situations around the world

  

http://www.womenforwomen.org/


  

found video/music artist worth hearing

   



I just came across a very cool video artist / musician / I don't know what to call him.... Basically he finds musical clips on YouTube and edits them together to make new music. Here's the first one below, but it isn't actually the best in my opinion. It's worth visiting the guy's page to listen to all seven tracks, plus the "how-I-did-it" track 8. 


If you dig it this one, check out the rest at: http://thru-you.com/









  

house hunting and other trials

  

Just a quick update for the dear, devoted fans of my blog, whose numbers I can most likely count on two hands, but I do love ya....

So, the news...nothing. Yup. The wine is in the barrel waiting to be siphoned off into another barrel, the vineyard is somnolent and awaiting a really good cold snap so the leaves will fall in the orchard and I can spray the trees with some sort of kooky anti-fungal winterizer, the bus is stowed and immobile, and it's been too cold and rainy to ride around on the motorbike. So, in a word, boring. Working on an older book I never published, finishing up a short story. Yawn. I'm making myself sleepy.

I suppose one interesting bit of information: my parents are moving to Pecs! I'm not sure when--there's no real rush--but I'm actually looking forward to having the folks near enough to grab a coffee with in the morning. I've been trying to talk them into the old town where we live, as everything is a short walk along pretty streets. The other option is up on the hills around town--Tettye, or Mecsekoldal. The houses there are huge, like US houses, with big gardens and vines and such, and they're much cheaper (per square foot at least) than the old town, but they couldn't walk to see me and that would make me sad. Almost as sad as having to break out a motor vehicle to visit them! I hope they listen to my advice...

Last week, we actually thought we found a great place about fifty feet from my front door, but unfortunately, we couldn't seem to come to terms on the price, and now the owner is selling it to someone else. Ah well. So in an attempt to find someplace for my dad to see this Saturday (he's stopping by the city for a few hours), I've retained not one but two real estate companies on a hard-target search of every available house that would suit the folks. I've narrowed it to two or three to show the Dad, but that's assuming my latest scheme doesn't bear fruit in the interim--harassing people who didn't know they want to sell and persuading them to sell after all! Unfortunately, it isn't as sinister as it sounds; I've made up little business cards with an offer of interest on them, and walked all over the old town tossing them into the best-looking prospects. And boy, there were two that I was drooling over! I won't post pics out of privacy, but damn. Damn. Call me back, guys!!! Especially if you're the yellow house!!! Screw it; here's a pic:

This would be so great for them... these kinds of homes were built around 1750, tall ceilings, big central gardens in the back.... Maybe the picture doesn't translate, but I'm tellin' ya, this one is a work of art. Like I said, buddy, call me. Let's do business. When it isn't my money and it isn't my house, I'm real easy!

Onto a less stressful note, in another month, we head back to Colorado for a few months of family time! I do wish the family lived in the Bahamas or something, because the three feet of snow thing I keep reading about on CNN doesn't sound that appetizing. But I guess the home fires will keep us warm.... aw...

That's it for tonight. I'll let you know how the house hunting goes tomorrow! Wish me luck!

i'd like you to meet my personal savior....

    


Those who know me know that I have a habit of yakking on about the writer Paul Bowles at the drop of a hat--his writing, his amazing life, his trendy cigarette holders... I can't help it. He was a permanent outsider, always the foreigner in another's land, and I identify strongly with him on many levels. So, having nothing better to say today, I thought I'd introduce my kind readers to the man himself. 

A thumbnail sketch would go something like this: Born in the first part of the last century to puritanical parents in New York, he fled to Europe as a budding composer. He studied under Aaron Copeland among others, and was making a name for himself when he decided he preferred writing instead. In his 40s, he wrote his first and most famous work, The Sheltering Sky, set in Morocco, a country he loved so much he permanently expatriated himself from the United States, and where he lived until his death a decade ago. In between, he traveled the world, hung out with the likes of Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, William S. Burroughs, briefly owned an island off Sri Lanka, got married to the writer Jane Bowles, and fell madly in love with a Moroccan flute player named Ahmet Yacoubi. He on one floor with his boyfriend, his wife on the one below with her own girlfriend of many years, writing their tales and traveling the world, these two (or I suppose I should say, four) forged a very special life for themselves....


http://www.paulbowles.org/bowlesbiography.html


Many sources lump him with the Beats, but this is not true; he preceded them by a decade. The roll-call of Beat writers paid pilgrimage to him in Morocco, not the other way around. Paul Bowles' biography is as interesting as his fiction, which itself is a breathtaking blend of spare imagery, enough sinister twists to match any alley in Fez, and a humor drier than bleached bones in the sand. I would highly recommend picking up some of his short stories (he was a very prolific short story writer), or one of his four novels. I'd start with The Spider's House, but it's up to you!


http://www.paulbowles.org/

water is cool

okay, no politicizing, I promise... just a very cool short video about how water behaves. Amazing!

a vineyard of our own, or, how we became peasants

    


While our wine awaits racking at our wonderful neighbor Laci Bacsi's place, I may as well fill you in on an amazing development that occurred at the same time. Surrounding most Hungarian cities of any size are "telek"s, which roughly translate to "site" but are colloquially gentleman's farms / vineyards. There are three or four such clusters around our city, Pecs; Laci Bacsi's is located on Szőlőhegy. Szőlőhegy means grape mountain, but it is fairer to say it is a mound of soil rising a few hundred meters above the plains leading to Croatia, southwest of the city by around ten miles. A few kilometers across, Szőlőhegy contains hundreds of teleks, most with well-established vineyards and orchards similar to Laci Bacsi's. Some are very simple (only a field of corn or a vegetable patch), while others are huge, with multi-story primary residences built on hectares of producing land. All in all, the area is extremely pretty, quiet, friendly and it smells great!


After a day of working our wine at Laci Bacsi's place, we decided to ride the motorbike down the maze of little dirt lanes, poking around the teleks and in general just enjoying the fall air. The sky was hard, high blue, smoke from fires reminding me of Southeast Asia, the sounds of life among the forest and from between the rows of grapes everywhere. Down one little road quieter than most, we spied a very old man limping along with a cane. We slowed, said hello without stopping the bike, continued up the road until we came to the end, where there were three teleks side by side. Each just a bit over a half acre, each with grapes and fruit and veggie gardens and little houses and press houses.


We got off and peered over the fence at the little whitewashed house with terracotta roof tiles, the picnic table beneath a huge walnut tree, the rows of grapes past that. A giant vegetable garden was overfull with tomatoes and beets, a double row of fruit trees as far as the eye could see, and not one but two fig trees, one of which was growing over the fence and offering us a sampler of honeyed morsels... As we ate the figs, something caught our eye, screwed into the metal of the fence: a For Sale sign.


Wha?


Just as the fig caught in my gullet, a scraping noise came from behind: it was the old man we had passed. His name was Anti Bacsi, and he had followed us back up the hill. "D'ya want to look at my house?" he rasped, face flushed and leaning on his cane. 


Oh yes, sir. Yes we do.


So commenced our tour. The charming little cottage had three rooms with an open atrium, one of the rooms being used as the press house and containing the descent into the cellar. Which was amazing. Immaculate. Huge, tall, cool but not too humid, filled with the delightful scents of fermenting wine. The main room had a table and chairs, a bed, a great old wood stove (with oven), hundreds of knicknacks and dried flowers and old photos and a wall full of framed awards the old guy had won with the wine he made from the property. There was a small kitchen, with stove, fridge, hutch, and another table and chairs. 


Outside, we wandered around the property as he pointed out the fruit trees. It was like walking around a nursery. Peach, pear, pear, peach, walnut, cherry, quince, sour cherry, cherry, plum, pear, apple, apple, plum, pear, apple, sour cherry, walnut, cherry, another kind of pear, another kind of plum, another peach, here's a blackberry bush, these two rows are table grapes, try a pear from this tree (it was as crisp as a hard green apple, and as sweet as honey).... 26 fruit trees in all, most with lingering fruit high up where he couldn't reach. 


Wine grapes? Check and double check. Trellised, trained and trussed up to perfection (if a little weak from a few years lacking regular fertilization). Five rows each 30 meters in length (100 feet), a total count of 200 thick, 10-year-old trunks. The other five rows bordering it? Oh, he explained, that belongs to the neighbors. They hate wine, so they let me run the grapes and keep the wine I make, in exchange for keeping them looking nice. I'm sure they'll let you do the same... So that made 10 rows, and about 350 plants all up (they're a little more widely spaced on that side). The varietals are Leanyka white and Blauer Portugieser red, about half and half. Enough to make 500 liters of wine easy.


It was getting difficult not to smile broadly and at everything, not exactly the best condition for a prospective buyer....wait, when did we get to that point??? I tried to segue gracefully, mentioning something I had seen on the sign:

"Your sign says the house comes with full equipment. What exactly do you mean by that?" I asked, indicating the gorgeous vacuum tube radio, the wheelbarrows, the rugs, the bed, the table, the gas stove, the fridge... "You mean the wine making equipment, right?" Which by itself is tremendous: a 500 liter fermentation vat; 5 200 liter fermentation barrels; 120 liter wine press; a wine crusher of a size that could be used to crush pumpkins; 5 100 liter oak barrels; 3 200 liter oak barrels; 1 400 liter oak super-barrel; siphons and funnels and paddles and all the sundry equipment the budding oenologist could want. "So the winemaking stuff is included in the price?" I asked again in a whisper.

He shook his head like I was an idiot who couldn't read. "What does the sign say? It says everything!"

But...but the bed? Everything! How about the dishes? Everything! Okay, what about the hutch, because we really like the way it ties the room togeth--Everything!! 

He wasn't kidding. The awards on the walls, the old photos, the galoshes beneath the basin--he was planning on giving whoever bought the house a set of keys and leaving with the coat on his back.

The sign had offered the telek for 3 million. "Well, what is the lowest price you could give us if we said yes right now?"


2.8 million. Of course, that was Hungarian Forints; a quick mental conversion (okay, not so quick; it was difficult to think all of a sudden) came to around 15,000 US dollars.


Holy shit. We could scrape it together! Still, it was a lot of dough, so I shook his hand, said we'd think about it, and raced the bike back to Laci Bacsi's place to get his council. He knew the guy, as did everyone around Szőlőhegy; everyone knows everyone there. Financially, it made sense: based on my garage rental for the bus, as well as our average store-bought wine consumption, the telek would give me a break-even duration of ten years and change. Not counting the veggie savings, the orchard savings, selling excess wine grapes, having a place to write and invite relatives to roast pigs... But still, the price... Sitting with a very nice older couple a little later, they assured me that Anti Bacsi would come down on the price. The lady of the house virtually guaranteed it: "I'll bet you a box of chocolates he'll take 2.5 if you offer it." Her husband scoffed, but she just smiled as she filled a sack with egg plants, grapes and figs from her garden as a present for me. "He'll take it, son. His wife hates that he comes up here all day and is toasted ten minutes after he walks in the door... He'll take it. Betcha those chocolates."


I went back to her a few days later with a big box of chocolates. Of course, it wasn't a surprise; word spreads fast on Szőlőhegy. Laughing, she told me she was only joking about the chocolates, and after I forced them on her, she began filling another bag with veggies and figs for me to take home.


So there you have it: a vineyard of our own. We signed the papers a week later, got the keys, and then were promptly hamstrung by a week of rain. But after that, I aerated (turned the soil with a shovel) around every single grape trunk and fruit tree, got 100 kg of fertilizer to spread around them, cleaned up the tool shed.... There were more walnuts on the ground than could be contained by four 5 gallon buckets. 


The neighbors are widely spaced, but couldn't be friendlier. Everyone came up the road to introduce themselves on a beautiful Saturday morning. The land across the cul-de-sac is basically a five acre apple orchard with no building, and the owners were out fertilizing. Two families next door to each other invited us to stay for dinner (they had a banquet spread going on, it was nuts!). And everywhere, everyone, no matter the time, holding out wine bottles and glasses. Just a drop! C'mon, taste our vintage! Here's a little palinka; distilled it myself from our pears! If you need anything, call me.... a bucket of apples for you, here ya go... say, would you like to borrow my sprayer--of course you do, here, just hang onto it at your telek. The hospitality is insane. I suppose the cynic in me explains it as everyone wanting to start off on the right foot to have a good neighbor (us), but it really goes deeper than that. 


So now we're planning what color to paint the rooms, how to rearrange the press house to be in the outbuilding and moving the kitchen into the larger room, seeing about flooring the attic... what a damn amazing week it's been! And that's how we turned into peasants....

(here's a pic of me in 30 years)

     

take a break from wine for a second

  




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