Still On The Edge (Having Not Fallen Off)

As I was getting dressed to go to Bead Society yesterday (it's not much like High Society; it's sparkly though) I realized I needed earrings to go with a recent weird necklace.

By the time I ate dinner, I was wearing them.

I also made a couple of beaded beads.

Today I finished the necklace.

On Friday I saw The Artist, which I wasn't terribly keen to see, but decided to anyway since it's been getting so much attention.

Yawn.

Too long, too predictable. I don't know what the fuss was about.

What is getting me excited though, are my vacation plans for a few months hence: I'm going behind the Iron Curtain.

Yes I know it no longer exists. Yes I know it never existed in any literal sense. Nonetheless in my previous life when I held a South African passport, I wasn't welcome too many places, and Eastern Europe in particular. That's in part why I have to go there.

I was introduced to Kafka the first time I went to Europe, as the guests at the youth hostels traded books relentlessly. You can only carry so many books for a three-month vacation. Yes, one needs books even on vacation, perhaps especially on vacation. I much preferred The Castle to another trade: The Amityville Horror, which was (predictably) pretty stupid. Even though Kafka hardly painted an appealing picture of his environs, perhaps because it was inaccessible to me it has always held a mysterious appeal.

Some mumble decades later, I finally get to travel there.

We (my kids and I. The attack cats and the cat sitter will be guarding the house) will be going to Krakow, Prague, Budapest (yay! Hungarian beaders! I need to find Hungarian bead shops), Dubrovnic and perhaps somewhere else in Croatia, though I haven't decided exactly where.

The last real vacation we took (as opposed to visiting family in Australia which is like a vacation in many ways, and yet not entirely) was when we went to Spain and France in 2003, the summer that people were dying of heat stroke and we had a car (not to mention hotel rooms) without air conditioning. No really, it was a lot of fun!

This time the kids are older and aren't such picky eaters and are more interested in the totality of the experience, which I think will make it more fun for all of us. I think we'll have a blast.

I'm psyched.