Does schadenfreude really provide the best kind of joy? Is my enemy’s enemy my friend?

Is living well really the best revenge or would it be better to see the slithering worm trodden underfoot by a herd of Buffalo?
Is there more joy in keeping your mind on what goodies you can pick up at Harrods or would it be more satisfying to see the aforementioned slithering worm humiliated publicly in front of your own eyes?
You be the judge fellow travellers!

Is knowing that the person, who is always in the full flush of health and never has a day of being unable to get out of bed, has finally been struck down by some bed clamping illness satisfying? When this same person, who in the past has accused you of ‘taking a sickie’ while you were drugged up to the eyeballs in order just to survive and begging them to phone work for you, finally succumbs to the flu, life starts to regain its meaning. I love winter. I could shout it from the rooftops! I love winter. I love it when that slithering worm who will remain unnamed, who is never sick, actually gets their comeuppance and croaks like a toad, and coughs and splutters and can’t eat or even drink coffee. It’s a delight to find them unable to lift their bleary head from the pillow and actually countenance a day of sick leave.

“Raindrops keep falling on my head …” you’ll hear me singing
“ … something something …. too big for his bed….” As I skip off merrily into the cold and the rain and the wind, without so much as a frog in the throat.

Then I happily come home after a long demanding day at work, and generously and caringly prepare the chicken soup, and maybe even vegemite on toast and a cup of tea.
“Another cup of tea” I sing out as I merrily skip into the room!
‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ – I say through my broad smile, in reply to the barely audible groan. “What about some more Codrals?”

“…. but I’m never going to stop the rain by complaining …”

Its almost as satisfying as having the opportunity to read the written work of a colleague who you might have secretly been measuring yourself up against, and finding out he writes at the level comparable to that of a year 12 student. Or worse.

“ … cryin’s not for me …”
“Do do do do do do do do”

Or almost as good as having the nitwit driver who cuts you off and then swerves into the next lane in an attempt to get a jump on the traffic, but instead gets stuck behind a bus!
“Sunshine on my shoulder, makes me happy ….” – I sing as I slowly glide past.
The smile never leaves my face, at least not until I’m out of sight and observing yet another episode of injustice on the nation’s roads.

“So I just did me some talking to the sun, and I said I didn’t like the way he got things done, sleeping on the job!”

Or almost as good as hearing that your slithery ex who had not that long ago started the law degree has flunked out of uni!
YES!!!!
He should have realised I wasn’t lying to him when I told him he was a loser!

“Those raindrops keep falling on my head. They keep falling.”

How about the person who rushes ahead of you to get to the photocopier, only to find its out of paper!

“ something something …. sleeping on the job…. ”
“Do do do do do do do do …. They keep falling …”

What happens to the seething knot of professional jelaousy over a colleague’s promotion to senior management upon hearing of the shake out at the top of the organisation? Somehow it all melts away.

“Do do do do do do do do”
“… because I’m free …..”

“ …raindrops keep falling on my head. They keep falling.”

“Nothing’s worrying me.”
“Do do do do do do do do”

written by  pavlan on October 20, 2006 from Boksic Lug, Croatia
from the travel blog: travels of the mind to Boksic Lug
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I find my memory’s quite hazy about the trip, once you’re on the way to somewhere you enter into this no-man’s-zone of no time, space, or place. Everything you see, do, smell and touch all starts to meld into one event. Usually we arrive in Singapore in the middle of the night, because we’ve left Australia late at night or so. That means that your night and day have been scrambled, and you go into a strangely alert state, where you could sleep one minute, eat a big meal the next minute, wake up and have breakfast and neither your body nor your head can remember if its morning or afternoon. I can’t remember the flight from Canberra to Sydney at all. That would suggest that it can’t have been too objectionable. Usually if something’s upset me I‘d remember that.

The only bit I do remember is walking along aimlessly at Bangkok airport starting blankly into the faces of the other passengers and I was wearing my new Calvin Kline trousers – I’m sure you’ve seen them areound. They’re the ones that everyone seems to wear these days – they’re cotton and usually that beige/stone/ecru colour. They are really really comfortable. I bought them especially to wear on this trip. I remember being very surprised when I did bring them home that I’d already bought something almost identical from another brand. I had no memory at all at that point of buying the other ones. I’m sure its Alzheimer’s or maybe I’m just losing my mind – hang on isn’t that the same thing? They have both served me very well. In Bangkok, at the half way point on the way there as I was walking along the terminal dragging my on-board roll-on behind me with my head feeling very blank and I remember thinking how comfortable they were. I still felt quite comfy by the time we got to Heathrow. Even so, I looked like something the cat had dragged in. I do not know how people like Elle McPherson always manage to look totally fresh after a long flight.

Heathrow is where Tim and I were splitting up for a week or so. He was going on to Geneva and then Aigle for his course, while I was staying in London.
A really nice part of our trip this time as the opportunity to get into the first class lounge in Sydney. If you’re not familiar with airline lounges – this is another layer of exclusivity or class distinctions (however you perceive it) in that you (or your company if you travel for work) buy into a lounge membership and they let you into the regular one, but if you’re a very frequent flier or if you buy into a higher level of membership, then you’re allowed into another even more exclusive lounge. This was my first ever experience of the first class lounge, so I didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out, it was just like the regular lounge in many ways. In the lounge in Sydney, the waiter/steward was walking around asking people if they wanted a top up of Moet & Chandon champagne – in the regular lounge you have to get up and find your own can of Diet Coke or whatever. Actually the regular lounge isn’t too bad, but in recent years (since that dreaded incident that’s ruined everything in the world) they’ve stopped using regular cutlery and only trust us with plastic knives and forks etc. The coffee’s still good, and the seats are more comfortable than in the public areas and there are magazines and food and so on, so its much better than being out with the regular hordes, or having to eat in McDonalds or some similar place.

written by  pavlan on October 20, 2006 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: travels of the mind to Boksic Lug
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Here's a map of places I have been

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

written by  pavlan on October 20, 2006 from Zagreb, Croatia
from the travel blog: travels of the mind to Boksic Lug
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“There are two types of people in the world: those who want to break in, and those who want to break out.” P.K. Shaw

From the first time I was aware that I had independent individual thoughts, my impulse was for freedom. I wanted to break out to leave, and now that I have left Boksic Lug, so long ago, sometimes I do miss it. It doesn't know but on the other side of the world there are people who miss it. Wierd eh.

I faintly recall wandering the neighbourhood and coming upon the houses of my grandmother and her various neighbours. The doors to these houses were always unlocked, of course, as they probably still are – and as they have always been out in the country. I recall sinking my fingers into the flour, sinking them into the silky silky whiteness (not that I’d encountered silk at that stage of my life or had even heard of it). I tried to be so careful. I was very careful. How could anyone have ever known that I was there. I was astounded later, when I was busted, to learn that there had been some flour spilt on the floor and that’s what tipped them off. How they linked it to me, I’ll never know.
Another time at my grandmas neighbours place – at Baba Marija’s – upon finding the door of her summer kitchen open I went in and there I found a bucket of paint.

Baba - for those not familiar with slavic languages means a mature woman. Although Baba has been used in a derogatory sense, from my childhood memories, it was widely used as the colloquial word for grandmother. It was not used as a put-down but was a more neutral word. It was used widely, in the same way that some people refer to all their mother’s friends as ‘auntie’. Its not exactly a term of endearment, but its in the same neighbourhood. A term of endearment from the root word of Baba was ‘Baka’. This is the word we would use for our own grannie, or babushka (in Russian), whereas Baba was the word we used for someone not related to us. I don’t remember calling my father’s mother (my Baba) anything other than Baba. Apparently Baba is also the name of the Easter cake in Belorussian, which is made from yeast dough with eggs, rum, almonds, raisins, and orange peel.

Anyway, back to Baba Marija’s summer kitchen: I looked around for a brush. Some time earlier, I had heard Baba Marija talking with my mother about painting her summer kitchen. I can’t remember now if the paint was pink or a light green but there it was and I found something to use as a paintbrush. Maybe it was more like a sweeping brush rather than a paintbrush, but I dipped it in and started spreading it on the wall. I painted a fair bit of the wall too.

I recall thinking that I was helping Baba Marija and being pleased with myself and thinking that she would be amazed when she comes home and discovers that much more of her kitchen was now painted than when she had left it. I thought it was funny – I still do to this day. But alas, I was to be proved wrong for gormless fate had other things in store for me. I think Baba Marija fronted up at my mother’s house (now mind you they had been pretty good friends) and I recall there may have been some loud words spoken but I don’t recall hearing what they were and I certainly don’t know how I was connected to the crime. I also do not know how such a gesture of helpful friendship could possibly have been interpreted as a crime and there you probably share my dismay fellow travellers.

Early in life I learnt that no good deed goes unpunished. Because I can tell you that I was punished for that act of kindness in no uncertain terms and I can also tell you that noone was more surprised about that outcome than I was. The unfriendly hand of the responsible parent imprinted itself quite deeply upon my smooth and tender pagan flesh and soul, as a result of that incident, and as a result of the flour incident and I vaguely recall there were many other similar episodes.

written by  pavlan on October 12, 2006 from Boksic Lug, Croatia
from the travel blog: travels of the mind to Boksic Lug
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