perceptions

I have been friended by seven Russian-speaking people today only, and ten in the last week.
 
Dear Russians,
 
given that my stats show only two visitors from the Russian Federation or any other Russian-speaking country with the last visit having taken place on May 14th, I realize that you didn't even take the slightest glance at my Livejournal.
 
Please note that I will not add you back, nor will I ever even consider it. I am friending people that I find interesting for whatever reason, but people whose language I can't read (let alone understand) are hardly that to me. Other resaons to immediately reject you are fascinating userpics of dumb ass cars, hot motorcycles or blonde babes with boobs.
 
So, with all that being said, will you please consider to fuck off asap and spam your own mutual journals with these useless friending trials?
 
Sincerely, lutos
 
 

Ophrys mammosa, Bosom Orchid


Ophrys sicula, Small Yellow Orchid


Ophrys scolopax


Anacamptis pyramidalis, Pyramidal Orchid

Uff. Stuffed. Bloated. Trudging forward with a belly like a Bavarian on his 10th day of the Oktoberfest.

BUT it was a great, warm, inspiring, funny, long (literally from dawn till dusk!), full, tasty, wonderful day:



( Lots of pictures: This way, please... )

Aaah, we're ready! We've weeded and raked the garden, cleaned the veranda and oiled the wood, whitewashed the street and driveway, hoovered through the house, done my yearly window cleaning, hauled tons of ouzo and wine and food into the house, made tsatsiki, beets, my special pasta and eatingdrinkingmusicpleasureweatherpreparations preparations preparations for tomorrow - it's Greek easter time! PASXA! And as every year we have about 20 people coming over for a whole day of celebration.
Hubby's bouncing around for a week now in jubilant anticipation and nearly lost his good mood today when our friend Spyros called from Lesbos telling us that he couldn't find a ferry ticket to return with the two kazikis (goats) he went to pick up from his father's farm. Without kaziki = no real pasxa! But ha! This being Greece, a friend called a friend who knew a friend of a friend working in the harbour of Mittilini, and voila - the ticket was found.

Tomorrow I'll try and take pictures of happy people in the sun. Or, under our improvised garden marquee. Let's assume it won't rain; today feels like summer with 22 degrees Celsius and low wind forces.


Quick shot of the upper garden: In front the veranda, the green thingie in the back our improvised marquee. Blind cat Fenix approaching Mama.

Right. Off to shoot some more orchid pics. Flora and fauna-high over here, if you wish.
 

I went again today and found four more orchids. Here's my favorite:


Orchis papilionacea var. heroica, Butterfly Orchid.

More here.

If I'm boring you stiff, please forgive moi. I'm in a spring-related orchid-high and yes, those hormones can get to you.

Back from a long walk with the dog. To explore other regions of the island and avoid too much poisoned bait in the neighbourhood, I'm making a habit lately of driving somewhere first with the dog seated next to me. Fun!
Today I saw many plants I haven't seen earlier on the island and while squinting through the weeds for asparagus I found a species of orchid I've been looking for ever since I first saw a picture of it (sheer luck, since it's only 16cm in height):


Ophrys regis-ferdinandii, King Ferdinand's ophrys.
 
I'm so excited to have found this beautiful little orchid. Its flowers are like insects humming in front of the blossom, aren't they?
 
More pictures here.
 

One of the things that got me into LJ-land was reading the blog of a very interesting and talented artist I stumbled upon in 2005 while reading about post-Katrina life in New Orleans on the internet.

Since then, marrus has never failed to entertain me, or inspire me, or give me -by way of her writing- a kick in the lazy butt. Reading her blog and looking at her art is often like being entangled in a fascinating book about strange happenings and weird characters and stories I couldn't even have dreamt of. And, speaking of books, she is about to publish her first book about her life and her art!

But now marrus is in pain. After surviving three burglaries, September, 11th in New York, a fire that left her homeless on New Year's Eve and hurricane Katrina just after she moved to New Orleans, the recession and some New Orleanian traditionalists have apparently broken her income and her back now. She has a herniated disk and needs surgery and therapy, but all this comes with a bold price tag while she depends on the money she earns with her paintings.

So take a look at her art, and if you like what you see, go grab your chance and buy some art as she's currently holding a sale until the first week of April!


"Soaricide" © Jenifer Marrus


"Shenix" © Jenifer Marrus

I purchased these three amazing art prints from Ms. marrus  for my home, art that deals with the topic of consistent development and metamorphosis, something of a leading motto for my life.


"My Golgotha" hanging boldly framed in our sleeping room.

Yep, that was a tad scary...
( But after five seconds....heh. )


(sorry for the crappy pics, my camera was set to low res)

Endaksi, so this weekend I've been busy making a flickr page for all pictures related to Chios.
I figured that it's a good way to a) show off my island so y'all start queuing up to come and visit me, and b) finally get a grip and organize the gazillion photos I took since discovering the advantages of digital photography and delete the rest that is taking up unnecessary space on my hard disks.
Well, it's far from complete so don't forget and look at it from time to time (link can be also found on my profile page). Some pictures have already been posted here, but not all of you might have seen them. And lots of pics still need to be scanned (pre-digital), and those are the images I took as a tourist way back then, meaning there's lots of beeaauutiifull sights waiting to be added...go check it out:

www.flickr.com/photos/xiostales

I think I've found the most desired present for hubby's next b-day:



Though I probably should advise him to avoid hunting with others around - he already has some abandoned lead shots in his body. :S

More info here.

The good thing about living on a non-touristic Greek island is the authenticity of the people and their habits, the unspoiled nature and lonely beaches, no overkill of annoying tourists and a thousand other things I have or have not yet written about in this blog.

The bad things about living on a non-touristic Greek island, however, are the costly travel tickets, the difficult connections from most European countries, the long travel and waiting hours due to inconvenient airplane or ferry schedules and the absence of charter planes or high-speed ferries most of the year, resulting in my friends to cancel one after the other their promised stay in this beautiful habitat.

So. This has been the third alleged cancellation this year and I'm quite sad and disappointed. I understand the reasons of every one behind that, and blame it on the economy mostly, but dammit did I look forward to seeing my friends again (some of them I haven't seen since I moved here).

That made me wonder: Should I promote this island just a tad more so you cannot withstand a visit any longer? Did I bore everyone to death with my pictures of nature and flowers? Maybe I should show you pictures of sights/buildings/people worth seeing so you'll skip your thoughts of going to Crete instead? Yes, let me do that, so that someday you'll decide no matter what you'll come and visit me and my life here.

Because the absolutely best thing of living on a non-touristic Greek island is when you trample through the underwood searching for asparagus and totally unaware of everything else literally bump into ( this: )

 
 

I have become a bit lazy in updating this thing. I have been sick the last five days (as nearly everyone in the village), so there's an excuse, but mostly it's cushier to sit back and just consume everything others have written than creating one of my own. Hm. That is a passive behaviour I do not particularly like, especially since my character tends to sneak into that from time to time.
But now there's a compost heap of photos rotting away in iPhoto, from our nice carnival party we had last Sunday and pictures I've shot during my frequent walks while hunting asparagus, picking wild greens, walking my belly the dog or working in the garden. Being 'out in the fields' for the above usually means exactly that, walking aside the trodden path through olive fields, under mastic shrubs, climbing up and down over cobble stone walls, in knee deep macchia or -at the moment- lush green gras and greens, watching your step for awaking snakes or slippery stones and thusly seeing the most interesting things you'd never see on aforementioned path. Ah well - come to think of it...such is my life, too. ;)
 
So, off we go:
 
 
Himantoglossum robertianum (or Barlia robertiana) or Giant Orchid. The island is known amongst orchid enthusiasts as we have quite some species growing here in the wild. See for more pics of this wild orchid here.
 ( More pretty flora..... )

 
Yes, I know y'all want to see the men in tights, but you'll have to wait just a biiit longer. I shot too many pics of tights and wigs and (fe)male butts, and I'll need to make a selection first.

The first five people to respond to this post* will get something made by me! My choice. For you.
 
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- No guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. It may be scrambled together from things I've found around here. I may even bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
 
The catch? The catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. Let's make surprises!
 
 
*ekoh  started it, heinrick  continued it and now I caught the ball. Will you?
 
 

First Anemone coronaria (Poppy Anemone) of the year.
 
Ah, and of course the joy of photography:
 
Trying to take a picture of Narcissus tazetta (Chinese Sacred Lily)...
 

...while Nosy Dog is trying to...
 

...catch the camera.
 

 
The last two weeks it rained almost uninterruptedly, to our joy and relief I might say, which led to results scarcely seen in our habitat:
 

Water actually staying on the soil instead of being sucked in greedily!
 
Luckily we bought a 'broxometro' or rainmeter just in time and have eagerly watching every raindrop falling into it since.
 

 
Until now, the state totals 33,1cm, which is much better than we feared it would be, but still not the level we should reach, namely 75cm. Still three months to go, then raining season slowly ends in April, and it would even be better if it didn't rain after that (cos all the nasty buggers will come out if it rains in May; temperatures are too warm by then, and the moist, damp atmosphere will only be great for anything small crawling up our plants).
 
Today was the first warm and somewhat sunny day and I finally managed to wash all remaining mastic sacks; though I'm quite broken right now, it relieves me a lot, as I had meant to do that for weeks and couldn't (and the previously washed mastic tears are nearly finished).
 
By sheer coincidence or divine humor I also happen to have in exactly these weeks a lot of graphic jobs involving car decals, all designed and ready to be placed, which, as you probably can imagine, is an inadvisable thing to do in rainy weather, heh. For two of them I managed to use a garage nearby,  so take a look at them:
 
( ~car decals under here~ )
 
 

 
Hopefully we'll all find what we're looking for in 2009!
 
 

 
Ok, so I just went with the dog for a longer walk and got really scared. Here's the story:
 
We went up to the cloister on the hill and farther into uninhabited masticland. Lately I've chosen this route mainly, cos the view from the hilltop is spectacular, especially when there's a lot of dramatic clouds hanging over the island or the sun is disappearing in the whole spectrum of reds behind the southwestern mountain range. The last days it has been very stormy and cold, and the shoreline is white from the breaking waves. A lonely ship was still out there, and I wondered why it didn't choose the safety of the bay to last out the strong winds.
 

(that's Turkey over there; or, even more spectacular: I'm standing in Europe, taking pictures of Asia...;)...just sayin')
 
Anyway, it was quite late when we started our walk, and while we were continuing our path round the cape it got dimmer and dimmer. Somewhere in the middle of that path we passed a cave in the mountain, the entrance to one of the many tunnels leading into the mountain, where people formerly used to mine stones. The tunnels are declared forbidden territory, since they do not have any supporting constructions and thusly are very dangerous. I've always felt a little uncomfortable passing by the dark hole (not bigger than a square metre), as it is the farthermost point from the village, hidden from any watching eye, and you are not able to see anything inside, therefore imagining everything. When we passed by today it was dark already, and there, all of a sudden, was a shoe lying on the path, which hadn't been there yesterday.
 

(does it look like the newest NikeAir? Hmm?)
 
Now normally I wouldn't find a shoe too spooky, but this was a children's shoe and apparently very old. I always watch the ground, as I collect garbage thrown away by indifferent farmers or hunters, so I know it wasn't there before, not yesterday, nor last week. And the possibility that today, on a very cold, stormy, rainy day, a farmer went out with his child to chop some wet wood and lost the shoe on his way back is highly unlikely. Most enjoy a self-declared vacation. In addition, it didn't look like a modern-day shoe. It looked much older. I don't know why, but it gave me the creeps; it still does, and while I write this, I still look over my shoulder, feeling nervously alert. Now I don't know how an average mind works in such a situation, but mine started to pop up all kinds of  nerve-wracking, horrifying scenarios ever imagined or seen in movies, especially now that the surrounding environment was dark, the gnarly mastic trees starting to pose as a cabinet of macabre figurines and the running around of the dog in the underwood making all sorts of weird noises didn't help much. I sped up like a race-walker and only calmed down when I saw the first lights of the village.
 

(this was taken the day before yesterday, when it was obviously still twilight)
 
Back in the sanity of my home* I try to think rationally, although that is one of my lesser characteristic features. What was it then? One of the many foxes who played with a shoe he found somewhere? Where did he find the shoe? Inside the tunnel? To whom belonged it once? Is there a body somewhere inside? - I think I have neglected the other routes for a long time.
 
I think I should dress myself and join the nonsense of New Year's Eve. Heh.
 
*where both Yanni and I believe lives a ghost as well...
 

 
I have only one New Year's resolution, or more accurate, a New Year's demand:

My Inner Self complained to my Outer Embodiment that they differ by about 20 kilos and expects action to be taken immediately to overcome this depressing situation, otherwise it is feared that Self-Esteem will suffer severe functional problems.
So the urgent goal for 2009 is losing all those Rubenesque symptoms, that - and achieving Enlightenment, of course, but that's probably the less difficult of the two.
 
Unfortunately, this is only in Dutch, so of all my flist only anicca_anicca  might understand the text, but the visuals are speaking for themselves...;)

 
Have a good start in 2009, y'all!
 
 

www.abc.net.au/news/video/2008/12/29/2455919.htm
 
Hopefully they will win the case at the Supreme's Court and remove the ban on rickshaw driving in Old Delhi.
While I don't care about the 'touristic' value of them, I certainly do care about restrictions on the use of centuries-old human-powered transport for the sake of modern day traffic. I think it's highly ridiculous to state that a non-emitting vehicle is contributing to congestion in the streets, while thousands of motorbikes or cars make the roads unbearable to walk, let alone breathe in.