sent and saved

i readily admit to having become the semi-mad-woman who often emerges during times of stress and fury, but one of the points o' obsession these days really cannot be ignored. that is: those calendars i thought i saw in the back of a moving vehicle are not only confirmed date-telling, wall-hanging items—but i have now discovered where to purchase them. i managed to avoid, yet again, getting shot to pieces by not taking a picture—but i could have, with neither zoom nor trouble.

meanwhile, many many posts of love have been showing up on [not-my-] doorstep, none routed through Hungary—just through the gauntlet of small grubbing arms whose main phrase these days is "paketiče." before i could receive the most recent one, all swathed in inspection tape (plus a little "passing" sticker), however, i had to (quick) find the appropriate piece of furniture for the under-table transfer of funds. there's a fine line etched into the declaration form—and a skill that has its one bright display of savoir-faire and glamour—between delineative honesty (a virtue) and avoiding customs queries/duties (much better than all the seven deadly virtues, combined).

for all the pushy intensity of most things here, it would seem that my grossly unqualified (linguistically) attempt to argue this levied unnecessity to its paymentless death was something "not done." as in: the colleagues who could have helped me, at least with language, were left gape-mouthed or fleeing to the kitchen as i explained that in all my years of merrily receiving parcels of affection in this city, i have never shelled out a single dinar to the pošta (which, in any country, is not owed any fraction of the original sentiment). i think i also probably slipped in some epithets about nationalism and petty beaureacracy by mistake. so i had to pay, after all.

tomorrow my best favourite—preferable to any sort of mail—arrives.