oddities of life

ritual
No one I've asked so far seems to know the original purpose for this, but the locals say it is the penis of Grgur Ninski who is the giant statue a stone's throw away-it's his toe that is golden smooth because you must rub it for luck. when a friend was visiting I told him the ritual was to kiss it. oops. And how did the penis fall so far from the statue you might ask? This and other questions I ask myself when encountering life in another country, another culture of tradition and deep history.
But daily life and its details rise to the surface. Like the paint situation. I want to repaint my kitchen and I'd like some gloss so that it's easier to clean. Not wanting to start a thought with "In America" but I must since I was just there and buying paint for a bathroom. "How glossy would you like it-we have 4 choices?" But the local hardware stores have only matte finish paint. Shiny does not exist. At the cafe below my street, well it's more like a tiny alleyway, the young guy who manages it had a paint chip fan in front of him and my pupils dilated. I asked where it was from and if they had shiny paint. "Of course, they have everything!" The store is a few villages away, the next town of size. So I hitched a ride with a neighbor and got a bucket of white for starters. Came home, slapped the creamy glop on the ceiling and voila- matte again. so it's back to the search for any kind of gloss. And a penis that doesn't fall so far from the man.

the more things change

'Have you been swimming yet?' That's the local greeting these days. It's been an odd spring here. The first of May is when we non-natives usually start jumping into the turquoise waters while the Croatians traditionally wait until St. Anthony's day in the middle of July to take the plunge. Last year- for some reason I remember the date though usually numbers slip through my sieve brain oh so quickly - I began the sea ritual on the 28th of April. So now we greet each other with the question, to ascertain if there is a braver or randier soul in our sphere.
Tourists were plentiful over the first of May holiday when the bars started opening in the morning and all of the ice cream parlors stocked their freezers. But now it's rather quiet again. Some bicycle tours in colorful lycra with bird beak helmets with heads down to get up the hill to where I live. And mostly there's daily work to do in the field - weed the onions and potatoes, tend the grapevines and above all use that weed whacker under the olives and everywhere else you can reach.

where have all the bees gone?

I had heard there was a problem of dying bees. But that was from an American and I thought that this island hadn't been - and might not be - affected because the hum of the multitudes of flying pollinators was so loud behind my house. This year, when I asked my neighbor if he was selling pollen as usual, he said there had been a very bad year, 'slabo', and he didn't have much. And my local friend, who showed me how to use an extractor one day when I stopped by to see his wife and fresh baby, said they'd lost more than 30% of their bees this winter. The world does come to paradise...
So I decided to do a little research and found that it is a world-wide problem and that some scientists think the bees' immune system has been compromised. When tested, they carry every virus plus a few fungi that bee people know about. There is some evidence that they lose their orientation and can't find their way back to the hive. Who would think that intricate navigation instinct could be twisted? I don't want to get morbid, which is soft in Italian, but without bees the whole revolving system of plants and people is rather tilted.