I got an email from someone asking why am I not reviewing books if I signed up to review books - am I a) too busy living life? 

Have no idea when I signed up for that, but signing up to anything these days just takes 'Log in with Google?' and voila, you're signed. That said, well, yes. Yes, I am busy. We went to the shooting range yesterday and I shot some shit up and today I was supposed to fool around with the Dark Huntsman's expensive rifle, but didn't get around to it, I just got a chance to run around with his new dog. I shot a small-calibre handgun rather well. If the owner didn't say - aim a little below the dark circle, I wouldn't have put everything just below the dark circle. I still tilt my weapons, same as I do the camera and, because it's been something like a freaking decade, I don't know how to steady my weapons. I am used to lying down, using nothing for support but my own hands. Out here you are supposed to sit and the gun is supposed to rest on a bunch of sandbags or nifty little gun-stands. Fuck that :D

This afternoon we were supposed to spray the vineyards, with the sky packed with high clouds. We were debating it, knowing full well that if we a) don't spray, the sun will come out in a full blaze. If we b) spray, it will pour like a bitch before nightfall. The General proposed we just spray the smaller of the two and in a combined effort, we were done in under two hours. Then it rained a little, but only a little. 

Just to humble-brag, two new queens have been introduced to the auxiliary hives (those small ones on the side and the yellow one above the central green, some of which are also split down the middle, housing two half-families) and one covered queen bell (possible new queen being developed) was moved to the ... dunno the English word, but the native word is: prasilcek. It's just too cute. I've even seen the queen-tradesman's garden corner where he only keeps these tiny boxes. Something otherworldly about it. Bottom line, we now have ... seven or eight possible hives? At least six should grow into full stack-hive status by the end of summer. The problem is pastures - it rains just as it is supposed to bloom and the trees have gotten washed off, again, this year, so there is no honey. Not that I care, I only need it enough to feed the tiny buggers. I've no need to pour.

   *Also, I have gotten into embossing. Just a little. Because I found one of G's tools fit for it - may have overshot on the size of the industrial heat gun, but the tiny stamps I'm making are adorable. First thing I made was a girly little name banner for G's hive hut :D

Weird, dumb nightmare, looking for a train in an oversized train station. My hitchhiking days, no money, huge backpack. One way ticked going home someone else has bought me. The train station is abnormally large, equally a Parisian shopping centre, full of theatres and production rehearsals, spiralling up and up, with too little logic to passages and elevators. I'm told by a man that you need to pay the conductor 50 bucks every hour on this train or they kick you off. But a woman taking my ticket, because I asked her twice, having not understood her the first time because I am not fluent in French, deliberately misdirected me a floor up and I figured I'll be faster running, if only I knew where I was running to. Retro station cafes, full of international passengers discussing exhibitions and book launches, rich people everywhere and the clock is ticking. The train was late, so I may still have a minute to catch it, but I just can't find it, yelling in a language everyone seems to disdain and is laughing at me: which way to the fucking trains? ...

This may be a result of an Epstein documentary I started watching last night, which sort of disillusioned me. I always wanted to go to New York, but the doc starts with this girl who sells all her three paintings for an absurd amount of money on her first exhibition and I thought, that's a dream! But it becomes clear she was rich to begin with and her headmistress pimped her out to rich people who then molested her, so ... Not a dream. 

I mean, when there's corruption in a communist regime, it's filthy and pathetic, but when there's corruption among the money people, it's posh and classy and they never run out of teenage pussy and FBI has no power and articles get written about them as if they are the Great Gatsby. 

Since the dawn of time until the end of time. 

Downed four espressos, hopped on a bike. That usually results in one shitting themselves fairly quickly or a wonderful ride. It was a wonderful ride. 

General's line of the week.

"You don't have a crooked nose. In fact, it's far less crooked than it should be, considering how big your mouth is."

Didn't know a condition like this exists: my mom gets nauseated if there is too much food on her plate. (She is very skinny, really doesn't like to eat.) We were having some street food, great yummy stuff, but there was too much and I could see her struggle. Not to finish. To start. 

Fuck me, what a day :/

It started fairly well - we went to G's parents' farm to help with rolling hay. But even there it started to go slightly awry - enough to unsettle G. And just as we were to finish and have a meal, mum called that something's wrong with my dad. I called them an ambulance and g and I hurried over to get to them. Dad was in a weird state - I've seen him much worse, but he was a mess. You can never tell and I still can't, whether it's a mild urinary infection or we'll be planning a funeral tomorrow. His health is absolute. It's either there or it's gone completely. he's gone through strokes, epilepsy, heart attacks and septic seizures from zero warning to a full-blown life-threatening emergency. The ambulance came and we got this weird sense that we have to try and convince the healthcare workers that it's serious. It was such a weird vibe. 

        Because of the Covid, only one person may escort him and even then I had to sit (or I stood) in the waiting room while he was first tested and then taken into the ER... And I waited .. and waited ... and waited ... An hour passed, two, three... It got to 5 pm, at which point he has to take his blood thinners, and still nothing. I started asking people if they have it on supply or should mum bring it. nobody would talk to me. Dismissive, flippant people. Acting like they were brutally overworked when in truth hardly anyone came through the ER - perhaps half a dozen old people feeling nauseated, a girl which OD, some man with his toe chopped off and a few people with allergic reactions to season hayfever. They all came and left while I sat. They allowed me at some point to go check on him, because he needed to pee and hasn't drunk anything for four hours - he has diabetes. 

       At 5:30, three and a half hours after having been brought to a near-empty ER, a nurse finally takes pity on us and checks his chart and they take him to an office, where they decide he doesn't really belong in the COVID section. A nurse who signed him in hurries over to say he's already been checked. really? By which doctor? What did they say? Oh, they said he doesn't really belong in the Covid section. AND?? And he was supposed to be taken to the non-Covid ER section. Which he wasn't. He was left in the hallway for three hours. An 82-year-old man. 

       I told the nurse they are damn lucky he wasn't having a stroke or a seizure. She said they're not really the ER. I said: We came in a fucking AMBULANCE. With symptoms of a septic seizure! 

       Mum arrived and the doctor went outside with me to take his history. She assured mum that he doesn't need blood thinners, to which mum and I thought, oh, good, because he only takes them for the flavour and everyone knows nothing bad happens when you suddenly stop taking them. It's not like 25-year-old doctors can be wrong. Well, she told us to wait and linger for a few more hours as they wait for results. 

       Starving - it was near six and I haven't eaten yet, mum and I offed to the closest food vendor, where we were eventually joined by sis and her man. My sis can go full Goebels on shitty people, even strictly asking nurses and doctors to give her their full names and so on. We decided that at 8 pm, she will go in to ask if they offered him any water, taken him to the restroom, given him any of his medication. but a few minutes prior the doctor phoned mum to say he's been moved to the infection ward. 

      That is where we are now. I'm wondering if maybe dad was stung by something, but would he have a fever then? 

      G has in the meanwhile successfully transported one of his father's wayward swarms, having to wait just a little while when we spoke last, to get all the bees out of the car (the dog had eyes like saucers and kept perfectly still the whole ride). He was using his dad's old crate, which obviously had some gaps :D 

       I am SO tired. The terrified adrenaline of dad's condition subsided into exhausted, frustrated weariness and I am beat. He kept asking for mum, her presence giving a centre to every situation - same as I feel about G. Fuck. I have to sleep some now and we'll see what tomorrow has for us. 

In the cart

Sometimes Etsy shows you that people have your shit in their carts... And it's equally: Just buy it already!... and Really? MY shit? OMG I'm so proud of myself right now!! :D