Cleaning Lady

She was sick on Monday (her usual day to clean the office), couldn't come, and wanted to come today (Thursday)instead. I told her 'No, just come next Monday as usual. We'll skip a week, no problem, I'll do the essentials myself'. So I hovered yesterday, watered the plants, washed the dishes, emptied the bins, etc.

This morning she turns up on the doorstep and says: ‘Up to you. If you don't want me to stay I'll just go, but I'm here now.’ Ok. So I feel sorry for her, again, stupid me, and let her stay, determined to watch her every move and criticise/train her (she has a history of not really living up to expectations). I figured she needed the money and came to work for it, no point sending her away now.

First thing she does: goes straight to the bathroom, takes the EMPTY bin bag out of the bin and puts a new one in. There was absolutely nothing in the bin! I changed it yesterday!! So I ask her why on earth she'd done that. Answer: 'You told me on my first day I should change all the bin bags every time I am here.’ I think to myself: ‘She is absolutely right! Stupid me! I forgot to add ONLY IF THEY ARE FULL!!!’

Then I see her reach for my Lush face soap (green with a palm tree design, wonderful lemongrass smell, which I bought in the Lush store in Cambridge in 2005, and regard as a very precious piece of England and my traveling back in time device when I need it, and which she had already used to wash the whole bathroom the previous week, therefore reducing it to half it's size in half an hour)!!!!!!! So I ask her in alarm: ‘WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO WITH THAT????’ She panics and says 'Oh! just going to wash the soap holder underneath it.’ So I stand in the doorway watching her. She does the following: puts the soap in the sink, runs the hot water on full blast ON THE SOAP and washes the holder. Because I was standing there, she felt the need to scrub the holder thoroughly, the hot water running the whole time. By the time she was done, the water had melted the soap almost completely. I ask her if she can see anything wrong with what she’d just done. She looks at me like I've killed her newborn babies and shrugs and says: 'I don't have my glasses with me. Did I not wash the soap dish properly?' And she runs the hot water again on the soap, which is still in the sink, melting. Now, honestly, what else can I say? She is just dumb, poor thing. Not her fault, I suppose, that she was born without a brain.

Then I ask her what exactly she used to clean the mirror, toilet, sink and whole bathroom last time. Very casually (almost proud of herself) she informs me that she used the face soap and the washing-up liquid. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. I ask her ‘WHY??? When I have bought a very expensive purposefully created product for each of the surfaces?’ She raises her eyebrows. I point at the row of bottles of Cif and Domestos and Duck Anitra WC and so on. She says: ‘Oh, I didn't know what they were for and didn't know what else to use.’

I lift each bottle and show her the very explicit picture on each (the tiles cleaning liquid has a picture of sparkling tiles on it, the bath/sink product has, funnily enough, pictures of sparkling baths and sinks on it, the window and mirrors one has sparkling windows on it, the toilet one has a picture of a sparkling toilet on it!!!). She says ‘Oh, great!’ So I say: 'Glad we got that solved' and wait for her to make a move. She goes pink and finally asks me (30 seconds later!): 'So which one is for the bathtub again?' 
So I hand her the bottle and exit quickly before I snap. I figure it's best for my sanity if I don't know what else she is doing!

Just before she’s due to leave though, I remember that last time she was here she took out the electric perfume releaser from the plug, to plug in the vacuum cleaner. Then she replaced the device in the plug, UPSIDE DOWN. Therefore, all the oily liquid from it dripped onto the carpet before I noticed it a few hours later, by which time it was already completely empty. So I had left it in the plug, the right way up, empty as it was, just to see what she does next.

So today, just as she was leaving, I checked. It was upside down again! So I drag her back from the door, point at the thing and explain it USED to contain liquid until she inserted it in the plug upside-down, hence wasting it and staining the carpet (thankfully, it is black, so you can’t really see the stain). So she innocently asks: ‘So you want me to throw it away if it's empty?’ ‘No, I want you to understand the laws of physics, namely gravity. If you turn a vessel containing liquid upside down, the liquid will tend to get out of that vessel. So, please, I will buy another one, but I don't want it wasted in one go again. It's meant to last 72 days!!’ She looked at me as if I was insane and headed back towards the door. As she was leaving, just like an afterthought, she said to me: ‘You know, I did notice there was a nasty oily patch on the carpet. Don't know what you spilled on it!’

Atonement

 I have read most of Ian McEwan’s work and I find Atonement his most powerful by far. I read it ages ago, but I have recently seen the movie based on it, directed by Joe Wright and featuring actress Kiera Knightley. The movie has been described as ‘poetry on film’ but I find the best feature to be its being true to the novel it is based on.

For those of you who want to see the movie, you can watch it online at: http://www.surfthechannel.com/episode/61497/54557.html However, prepare for the challenge of owning up and atoning for your own buried sins from long ago. This book/movie has the power to once again show you the difference between right and wrong and to compel you to right your wrongs.

Law 298/2008 Starts Monitoring Us Today

In November 2008 the Romanian Parliament passed a law which regulates the ‘retaining of data generated or processed by electronic communications service providers’. This law becomes active today, 20 January 2009.

Law 298/2008 states that all telephone services providers have the obligation to keep records of ALL phone calls and text messages sent through them for a period of 6 months. (Data includes details on the call itself, as well as the identity and location of both caller and receiver). Starting with the 15 March 2009, the same data will be ‘retained’ by all Internet services providers, meaning all e-mails, browsing, search and any other Internet activity will be monitored (date and time of log in and log out, location and identity of user, IP, identity of sender and receiver of e-mails, etc.).

The full text of this law can be found here: http://www.avocatnet.ro/content/articles?id=13906

This law surely has us thinking of Orwell’s ‘1984’ and is yet another step towards a Big Brother society. But we said the same thing about CCTV until we realised crime can be prevented with its aid, or at least criminals brought to justice. The Government will always claim that such information will only be used for the better good and will not be abused in any way. It will also claim that law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. If you have nothing to hide, why would such a law bother you?

The question is: are we willing to trade our privacy for a potentially safer society? And do we trust our government to use the information to our benefit rather than against us?

Verde Cafe

I have been debating with myself whether to post this or not, but having read a reference to Verde Cafe on a friend’s blog (http://albeenah-xtent.blogspot.com/) and having witnessed the event she is describing, I have decided to publish my opinion on the subject.

We had been looking for a cozy, friendly place to gather for another friend’s birthday, and stumbled across Verde Cafe on the net. From its description, reviews and photos, it seemed the perfect place. As if it had been intended for us all along. We happily made a reservation for 10 and made our way over there one freezing evening.

We were thrilled with the place and ignored the lack of any diet or sugar free non-alcoholic drinks, the fact that the cook was on holiday and the kitchen closed (although we would have appreciated being told BEFORE we got there and chose dishes listed in the menu), the fact that there was no purpose-built ventilation to speak of and when the room got too smoky – in the smoking area – the door would be opened and we’d all freeze to near statues and the fact that our urine turned to icicles and stalagmites before it reached the toilet bowl because the bathroom wasn’t heated in any way and the windows jammed open to let the minus 10 fresh degrees of air cool our naked butts.

Instead, we chose to concentrate on the good bits: friendly staff, extremely comfortable seating, homely feeling, colourful and tasteful design, wonderful location, fun and friendly customers, very decent/low prices, great music, wonderful atmosphere. We chatted the night away and had to be reminded that the place was closing down at midnight. Before we realised, we had been there for 6 hours eating (delivery service), drinking (what they still had from the things listed in the menu), admiring the very funny Mr. Rabbit blown-up photos on the walls and showing each-other a few card tricks.

Everyone was extremely friendly towards us during the 6 hours we spent there, but, as we were leaving, one of the staff (whom we believe to be the owner, although we can’t be sure because she didn’t introduce herself) told our birthday girl – while she was paying the bill – that we had broken a ‘house rule’ by playing cards on a day other than Tuesday. Moreover, she insisted that if we ever returned there, she was hoping we wouldn’t do it again.

Now, to make it all clearer, here are the facts:

- Fact: Verde Cafe is advertising on their website (www.verdecafe.ro) – on the last page of their menu - the fact that it has theme nights and Tuesday in particular are dedicated to card games.

- Fact: Birthday Girl had asked when making the reservation if they (the Cafe and staff) had anything planned for that Friday evening or if they’d be willing to organise some/any activity for us in particular. The answer was ‘no’ to both questions.

- Fact: Birthday Girl was not informed, at any point up to bill paying time, that that card games were forbidden on any other day of the week apart from Tuesday.

- Fact: among other things, Birthday Girl got 2 decks of playing cards as a present on that evening.

- Fact: we did not play any card game as a group, or individually. I showed the rest of the group a card trick – I will atone forever! - and some people in the group tried to figure out how it is done. At no point during this card orgy were we informed that we were breaking a ‘house rule’ or asked to stop threatening the smooth running of the place by shuffling some obviously forbidden items on the table on the wrong day of the week.

Of course that believing we were in an extremely friendly venue, where ‘every party retains the beauty of a relaxed and relaxing chat with friends’ (and that’s a translated quote from the Verde website), we were stunned to hear such an accusation and warning from the Verde woman. Birthday Girl in particular felt insulted and appalled by the way the comment was made, but worst of all, after we had all praised the place and made plans to become regulars, that one comment was enough of a wet blanket to ruin the whole mood of the evening. We left feeling like scolded children and I doubt any of us will rush back there soon. Such a pity! Because I absolutely loved the place and I would warmly recommend it to everyone I know. Just make sure to ask for the book of rules first, just to make sure that your seemingly harmless leisure activities aren’t in fact gross trespassing of a house rule!

Orasul Curat Luna

Check out this ecologically-educational game at: http://www.orasulcuratluna.ro/

To my dismay, I got them all wrong!

However, in real life I do make an effort to throw garbage in the bin, rather than on the street, I don’t let the water run pointlessly while brushing my teeth or soaping myself in the shower or while washing dishes (only for rinsing!), I turn the heaters off when I leave the house, I switch lights on and off as I walk in and out of rooms and I generally recycle anything I can (paper being the main item). So I don’t feel that bad after all…

What do you do to keep the environment clean and safe?

Happy Birthday Adi Barar!

15 January 1960, Timisoara, Romania, Adi Barar. All babies are cute, but 49 years ago, this particular one must have been one of the cutest ever born. For lack of funny, childhood photos of Adi, I will insert a couple of grown-up ones. If he is this handsome at 49, how could he not have been the cutest baby 49 years ago and growing up?

Happy birthday Adi, and keep up the good work with Cargo and all your other projects!

Dandelion Soup

My review rating: 3 of 5 stars
Wonderful, light-heartedly written, surprising and funny. I recommend it warmly to those who still believe there is such a thing as coincidence. This book is about proving that everything happens for a reason and openness and communication is the key to it all.

'Recipe for Dandelion Soup:

- fistful of garbanzos
- clutch of white beans
- handful of dandelions
- two wide-brimmed hatfuls of spring water
- a slosh of olive oil- some slivers of monastery beef
- two cloves of silvery garlic
- one enourmous wrinkled tomato
- an old potato
- one stout stick for stirring

Soak the beans overnight. Toss the beef in a pan with the olive oil and stir until cooked. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for three hours over a fire of pine cones and olive branches until the beans are tender. Sprinkle with dandelion petals.

Eat in the best company under a sky of stars.'

- Babs Horton, Dandelion Soup, Prologue

The Templar Legacy

Try as I might, I cannot resist the temptation to touch upon literature in this blog, so here goes the first post about a book – The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry.
Most books I read leave an impression and I’ve always thought there’s something to be learnt from any book, regardless of its quality or ranking in the bestseller charts. However, there are some books that leave more than an impression. There are books that leave you wondering, questioning the very principles and beliefs you’re based your entire life on. The Templar Legacy can have that effect, if you allow it.
It had been sitting in my bookcase for a couple of years already, waiting to be read, but it just sounded so similar to Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, that I just couldn’t bring myself to read what I suspected would be virtually the same story in someone else’s words. The Knights Templar again, some sort of cape and dagger intrigue and chase again, another hero without a cause, bladdy blah all over again I thought. What is more, I wanted to avoid the unavoidable questions that The DaVinci Code had raised with me when I read it in 2005.
So what it took was actually another book written by Steve Berry, The Romanov Prophecy, which I read in two sittings and which proved to me that the author, no matter how Dan Brown-ish in style, deserves a chance. When I finally picked up The Templar Legacy, I had trouble putting it down again. Beyond the now acknowledged Steve Berry page-turning style, beyond the un-debatable historical facts which were equally well documented as those used in The DaVinci Code and the rapidly unfolding fictional storyline, the book certainly raises some issues for the believer and non-believer alike.
Dan Brown’s hypothesis was aimed at sowing the seeds of doubt about Jesus’ chastity, claiming that Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene and that they had children and a bloodline carried forward into the 21st Century, hence the Holy Grail being in fact Jesus’ direct descendant. Steve Berry on the other hand, started his quest and constructed his whole theory around an alleged statement made by Pope Leo X: ‘It has served us well, this myth of Christ.’ With the alleged words of a Pope as a starting point, with all the irrefutable historical facts thoroughly researched, with the established mystery of the Templar Order and their quick rise and quicker fall and with Berry’s unlimited imagination, I am sure it took longer to write and edit the book than plan to it out in his own head and make the connections between the jumbled up pieces of history and legend.
His biggest claim was that the Knights Templar did not gain all the political power they had by way of military strength, pious faith or wealth, but rather by knowledge. The 9 original Knights who founded the Order had somehow stumbled across some information and proof that had the potential to dismantle the whole of Christianity. The Templars referred to it as The Great Device. However, faced with it, the Catholic Church let itself blackmailed by the Templars and bought their silence by allowing them as much power and independence as they wanted. Eventually, they had become stronger and wealthier than whole kingdoms, and by the early 14th Century, they were too much of a threat to the Catholic Church and some European monarchs (mostly the French) and a joint decision was made to wipe them off the face of the Earth. On Friday, the 13th of October 1307, the French king, Philip the Fair, came down on the Templars with all the armed forces he had. Most were tortured and murdered, some were imprisoned and died later, but it seems that some got away. Some, but enough to carry on the traditions or the Order, albeit underground.
The supreme knowledge (especially of the Great Device) was only accessible to the Master of the Order and was passed down to his successor just before his death. Therefore, when Jacques De Molay, the Head of the Templars at the time of the 1307 purge, was captured and all remaining Templars fled for their lieves, there was no way he could have passed on the information, or indeed no one to pass it to. The great secret of the Templar Knowledge and wealth seemed to have died with him.
This is where historical fact ends in Steve Berry’s book, and where imaginative speculation begins. Based on far-fetched but still plausible connections between historical findings in connection with the Templars, Berry develops a theory according to which The Great Templar Device was in fact irrefutable proof that Jesus had not been the Son of God, but in fact had been no more than a simple man. When, at the end of the book, the characters’ quest comes to an end, what they find in the Templar hidden vaults are Jesus’ earthly remains – bones which can be scientifically assessed to be what they claim. Moreover, an unknown gospel is found with the bones, briefly recounting the blessed life Jesus had lead as a prophet, but also stating that his death had been on the cross, where he had hung for 3 days – not one afternoon, as the Bible tells us, where his bones were crushed on the last evening – although the Bible specifically tells us not a bone in his body has been crushed, and where he had been left hanging for the birds to pick at his corpse before it was dumped in a common grave. This unknown Gospel of Simon claims that the fisherman himself went, together with some other disciples, and retrieved the body and preserved the remains as they were found by the first Templars one thousand years later, under the ancient Temple of Solomon.
So, whereas Dan Brown implied that Jesus, although the Son of God, acted as human as possible while on Earth, married and had children, Steve Berry claims that Jesus may not have been the Son of God at all, but a mere mortal and a prophet among many. If taken into account as a possibility, this claim threatens to shatter the lives of billions, annul the whole of Christianity, churches and believers alike.
This topic has been debated by the various religions for thousands of years already. The Jews are still waiting for their Messiah and have always denied Jesus that quality, the Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet, but Christians base their whole system of beliefs upon Jesus’ Divine origin and mainly upon his death of the Cross and his resurection 3 days later. If the Church has made it all up in order to use it as a means to control their followers, as Pope Leo’s statement seems to indicate, the religious and social consequences are beyond imagination. Not only would all Christians be in fact Jews (which would only mean reverting to the beliefs they had before Jesus), but the millions of Christian priests and preachers would be unemployed, millions of nuns and monks would be homeless, the Churches redundant and powerless, the churches’ assets suddenly illegal since they could no longer claim any religious or social recognition, the Protestant Ethics on which capitalism was built would collapse, taking down society itself. The personal implications would, of course, vary, but I dare say the rate of suicide would skyrocket, as would the crime rate.
If there is any shred of truth in either of the claims made by the two authors, my only hope is that the Church continues to guard the secrecy at all costs, for everybody’s sake.In the end, no one can argue for or against faith, so it is up to each and every one of us whether we choose to believe and what we choose to believe into. The question is: is your faith strong enough to withstand such claims?

What Is the World Coming to?

http://www.worldometers.info/
If you want to know how many people have died today and why, how many have been born, how many cigarettes smoked today, how many billions were spent on war-related issues and so many more. Our world in numbers. Maybe it puts it all into perspective and we can all start to become more aware of how we should be treating and charishing life and the planet that sustains it.

A Friend's Confession

I frequently remember a surprising conversation I had on messenger with a friend a couple of years ago. I would not dream of revealing his identity, however, I will try to outline his ideas and endeavors in brief, since, at the time, I thought that was the most surprising confession I'd ever heard from a man.
I had known him for a few years and knew his girlfriend very well (high-school sweethearts they were, although both in their late 20’s by the time I met them). They had always seemed - to me and to our mutual friends - like the most loving couple, very caring towards each-other, supportive and, most of all, it seemed they had managed to maintain the spark in their relationship for almost 15 years, by naturally balancing the many interests they shared and the interests they were free to pursue individually along the years. They were still making each-other laugh every day, still had new issues to discuss without faking interest, still took each-other along to concerts and events. They were, in fact, the best of friends, and as a bonus, they had an in-depth knowledge of each-other and took comfort in their intimacy. And what they were beyond all, was intellectuals, constantly reading and bettering themselves with knowledge on the most varied subjects, from biology to philosophy, from religion to art. It wasn’t seldom that I asked one of them for the definition of a word they had used quite casually in conversation. I was therefore almost speechless when the guy told me that his whole philosophy of life was actually based and centred upon sex. Nothing more, nothing less.
I cannot possibly remember how the conversation had started and what made us move it into the realm of sex, but I am pretty sure it started out as a harmless exchange of lines on a very boring day in the office. I am a very straight-forward person myself (painfully so, I’ve been told), so I wouldn’t be surprised if I had actually somehow caused the confession by asking too many direct questions. Sex is by no means a taboo subject with me, nor was it with him or his girlfriend, so we had frequently shared experiences and opinions on this matter before. However, I am sure I wasn’t quite prepared for the statement that followed.
The Confession:
In brief, my friend told me that he is obsessed with sex and that everything he had ever done in this life was in pursuit of sex. He had always been the best student in his class, because he knew that would attract the attention of the girls around him, increasing his chances of getting laid with as many as possible. He worked out and kept very fit (indeed!) not because he had ever been concerned with his health, but in order to sculpt himself into a desirable man and again, to attract as many women who would then sleep with him. He always excelled in his job, again, to make himself more visible and bed his colleagues and to be promoted and earn enough money to impress and woe a particular woman, if needed. He constantly read and kept himself up to date with the news from all fields (politics, medicine, biology, archeology, paleontology, entertainment, you name it…) so that he would be able to sustain an interesting conversation with any woman, no matter what her interests in life, therefore increasing his chances of seducing her. He even read the dictionary and retained all sorts of barely used words, all aimed at impressing women and adding to his portfolio.
I never found out how many women he had had or how many more he was planning to have. In fact, I never found out more than he told me then, because at the time I must have been too surprised to regain my presence of mind and to continue to ask questions. I also remember he scared himself a bit with what he had told me, not in the least because I knew his girlfriend and, since they’d been together for 15 years and all he ever had on his mind was sex with as many women as possible, it obviously meant he had been cheating on her repeatedly during all this time. Of course I never told her, because I saw no point in hurting either of them and after all, it was their relationship, their conscious, their life. Not my place to meddle at all.
However, I do wonder about my friend’s confession from time to time. I do not doubt it for a second. I never have. In fact, what I am wondering is how many men think the same way but will go to any length to deny it?
It has become a stereotype to claim that sex is a powerful tool in society (sex sells products if hinted at in advertising, sex can be used successfully to obtain advantages, like a promotion at work, sex can be used to blackmail, etc.). But how many of us actually see sex as a target in itself, as the engine which drives to better ourselves?
The friend I am talking about is indeed a fine young man, with everything going for him, very successful professionally and socially, educated well above average, good looking, well-off. And however surprising it was to find out that all his achievements were sex-driven, this new piece of information cannot change the facts about him. The truth is, his obsession with sex has made him a better person, hasn’t it? And (at least that once) he had the courage to admit it to himself and to me. How many of us have the guts to admit (even to ourselves) our secret desires and what actually drives us in life?