Took an hour longer to get to the city through the woods tonight, as there were a million fireflies, the deer were barking and looking for mates, owls and hedgehogs were making noise. It was fern season, Midsummer, magic time. 

Because balance

It is only orderly that after receiving the loveliest thank-you letter from a customer, and of course reading it aloud to G for the universe to hear, a day later I am faced with a hostile, threatening, demeaning customer who claims I sent her substitutes and not what's she paid for and that I am inbound for five 1-star reviews. I have no idea what happened, because she refuses to send me a photo of what she got. I am not saying it's not possible I made a mistake, but the way she is wording it, I sent her fakes. I suggested those could perhaps be the bonus paints I add? But to actually forget to pack three paints? Did I mix up the orders? But she claims she got two out of five ... I am not saying it's not possible. It is bound to happen eventually. It is more than possible I am at fault and I did deeply apologise and offer immediately to fix it. Up until now customers were very gracious and thankful I always added some more 'apologies' bonuses.

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

As of this moment, she only insults and threatens me further, when I ask for a photo. 

I weighted the sum of paint that should amount to what her package weighted. No way there were not at least six paints in there. Unless I added something heavy, but, again, a photo would help.

Her FB profile is... problematic. 

These four details combined - her aggression, threats, FB wall, refusal to cooperate and inconsistency in the weight she accused me of (Like, dude, Verona ochre is dry as a bone, it weights NOTHING.), her insults and then long silences ... 

I guess we'll find out what happens when I get five 1-star reviews (she explained she is telling everyone what a disappointment my shop is, regardless). So. We'll finally find out how sharp this Damocles' sword that's been hanging over my head since I opened. 

Not that I'm demented, just very tired and my brain is elsewhere :D

So yesterday, after some mowing, tending to bees and then finally spraying the vineyard - with the two-day sunny weather window we've been offered - we get home and it's evening and I'm excited with new ideas, but tired. I should sleep, but my brain is abuzz. G asks me to find a bakery still open and get some bread when I go down to walk the dog.

I grab the dog, wind some small streets to get to the one with a baker, and I notice an old gentleman kinda looking around on one of the corners. He seems more amused than confused and more leisureful than lost, but still. he makes a few steps, looks around, smiling, stops, looks around. My first instinct is he's got dementia and has wandered off, even though he does not seem to be particularly concerned about it. I tie the dog to the little nook outside the bakery, go in, get a loaf and watch the old gent though the window. Sharing my idea with the lady at the till, I suggest to check if perhaps he's lost and we could call someone? She waves it off, saying he comes in all the time, it's just how he stroll in the evenings. Great, I thank her, and head home. While unlocking the house gate, it occurs to me I should probably take the dog out for potty....................

.......................
Whoops O.O

...



aaaaaawkward.
I hurry back, round the corner and see that my poor dog is sitting outside the bakery, giving me the: "I understand sometimes you act weird, but where did you go??" sad dog face.

Skulking like a ninja, so that the bakery lady doesn't see me, "Who's demented now??" I sneak under the windows, untie the dog and hurry home.

It's a good thing I don't have babies. I would literally need to put the baby on the holding end of a leash so that they would have ME tied down. 

When you buy your wedding ring on Ali Express.

:D
Guess this shows how little I think of wedding rings. 

I did such an unusual thing (for me) last night. An unknown, liberating sense of abandon. We drove to Drej's family's exhibition - her parents and sister all came together to exhibit their work and because they are from a fairly small, ambitious town (one very dear to me), this was quite an event. The exhibition took place in a really old building, like, we are talking castle-age, and it was lovely. I've certainly never seen an all-family exhibit before - and they are all completely different creatives. I was asked to shoot, but kinda mentioned I no longer take my camera to the field, as it is rather old and I haven't the finance to invest in a new one, whereas I still direly require to shoot my promotional material. But since Drej's mate has a camera much like Marki is, I said I'm happy to just push the big button. It's really second nature to me. The chubby idiot with the camera, in the corner of social events. 

The even less characteristic part was, though Drej's mate asked if I'll be taking the memory card to brush up the shots, I just chuckled, thinking how much other work I have and feeling so oddly NOT territorial about it, my psyche felt as light as air. I would normally be sunk into the unedited photos teeth and claws. But naah, dude. You go ahead. I'm over that. Even if people have bags under their eyes on my shots, so be it. That used to drive me nuts. 

I'll admit, tho. I did kinda miss it. I've forgotten how much I like human faces.

Same old, same old.

Days are never easy. My parents are still my parents, still making one another's life a pain. I tried giving them one of G's credit cards, so they would stop constantly bickering over money (They're not poor, just annoying), but they still almost divorced four times and killed one another once by the time they returned from their weekly shopping. Mum is trying hard, but I know that if she makes any kind of mistakes - like missing a road exit today and having to drive around - dad won't shut up about it and then when she kicks him in the balls, he is suddenly the victim and the tortured old man. I called to ask how he is and he explained his usual, how bad everything is, closing with: Let us see if we survive this night ...

Well. I've lived with their bullshit for over forty years. I worry all the time, but they haven't managed to kill one another yet. I'm sure someday they will and two nice police officers will knock on my door to inform me, and this tragedy will tear me to pieces, but ... I am kinda really not even invested anymore. "I just don't know what to do anymore..." Well, dada, every time you cry for help, five people come running, rain or shine, night or day, heat or snow, to try and advise and support you and ready to do anything you think is right, two days later you tell us all to go fuck ourselves for being judgmental and to mind our own business. This happens once a month for the past ... at least twenty years. And of course he is riding his 'poor old man' train hard and will tell me to uselessly go fuck myself if I don't know how to set up subtitles on his channel, or if I ask if he'd manage to stay alive for two weeks on his own, and yet he's never had to set up a doctor's visit in his entire existence. It's mum who manages all that and drives him. He has no idea what the name of his doctor is, what medication he needs or how to ask for a prescription. So. You either need mum or you don't, dad. You don't even know how to answer a flip phone, because mum always answers the phone. 

G and I have been going uphill to try and mow some of the vineyard - due to constant rain and dad not being able to work the estate anymore, the terraces have turned to a jungle. We need to spray the vines, we just have to make our way to them first. Ooh, but the fringes are overgrown with raspberries and I love raspberries! And the bees do, too!

I attempted to extract the atlas from a decrepit dog cadaver I found by the road. I should probably try again with my eyes open, because it takes a certain kind of idiot to mistakenly extract the pelvis. In my defence, the cadaver is a mess. It's melted into black goo with ribs sticking out like a broken wicker basket. Being overgrown and me not really wishing to look too closely, I am not even sure there IS a skull. There sure weren't any femurs. G is not too happy, but I barked at him that when he brings the taxidermist a skull it's a trophy, but when I do it, I need professional help. I've put the thing, whatever it is, on an anthill to clean. 

I'm in a mood for a zombie movie. I haven't seen a good one in a long time. 

Awww, a thousand followers! Only took me since the founding of Instagram to get here! ... I should have posted my tits more, I knew it.

If only I knew how to screen-cap my phone.
So many things make sense, once you look at them from that view...

Back to talking ..

Party's over, sorry G. I can speak just fine today :D

(It was still uncomfortable to speak yesterday, so I invoked my right to a select mutism. (I get about five allowances per year to just stop talking.) Not that G's complaining. It's just weird. You can hear all the machines humming and traffic from the street.