I got the Fat Ass Blues

So on my way to bed the other night, I went to crawl in bed with Heather, as I usually do. However, I when I reached the door to her room, I wasn't allowed in. I called her name, and then made all the noises I could, even scratched at the door (which always works on her), but nothing. The door remained shut. What the hell is going on here?

I don't understand what has happened. Heather's always been my pet, not the other way around. I've always gotten her to cater to me. So just what the hell is going on here?

First, I wasn't any longer allowed to eat, drink, or do any sort of business in her room. And when I wasn't allowed into her room even to sleep, I began to feel a bit of worry.

On top of that, my day-time place of relaxation - the heated tile floor - is no longer heated. The windows have been open too, so not only is the floor no longer heated, but it's cold! What happened to the heat?? And then, there's tons of noise coming from outside - cars, construction... I'd jump, but I know I'd land safely on my feet.

So I had a great idea to really pull at Heather's heart strings. I perched myself as comfortably as I could on Dave's bed giving myself a great view of the kitchen and mommy's room. It was tough - his bed is really uncomfortable. I had to move the blankets around so I had some decent padding. But the effort was going to be worth it - I was going to show her that I didn't care that I wasn't allowed to sleep in her room, I'm perfectly comfortable here in Dave's room. Every time she walked by, I was sure to give her my best "Yea, I've found a new place to sleep. How do you like dem apples?" look. It was gonna work like a charm.

But it didn't! Still not allowed in! So I was forced to further my tactics. I repeatedly rubbed up against Dave's leg as best I could to show mommy who my favorite now is and, of course, to get him to give me some attention. But he's apparently not affected by my cute purring and pawing. What the hell is going on here???

I decided to spend the nights in Dave's room. His bed may be uncomfortable, but at least I'm allowed in. And wouldn't you know, after all the work I did to rearrange those blankets to make his bed somewhat comfortable, he goes and takes them out from underneath me. Helpless, I gave him a pretty good hiss. Is there nowhere I can lay in peace and comfort?!

To top it all off - after being kicked out of bed, the outside noise, the cold floor, and my food and bathroom relocated - I am beginning to forget my name. Today, mommy, Dave and this other guy (who likes to throw socks at me) came in today. I heard them downstairs and so I went right to stare at the door, assured that I would be fed as soon as mommy walked in and saw how much of an angel I was.

Heather walks in, and I hear the familiar "Hey sweetie!" Then came Dave and his "Hey Fat Ass." Then came the sock-thrower, who has taken MY place next to mommy in bed, and he greeted me as "Hey Gooball." I don't know what "Gooball" is, but I know I don't like it.

Not an easy week in the life of Zoe, The Fat Ass Cat.

Spring has sprung

So yesterday was our first real day of spring. The nicest, warmest, and sunniest day since October. The mercury reached 20, and the sun was a welcome addition. People, naturally, started shedding their heavy winter overcoats and hats. Doing this revealed some things the winter coverings had shoved out of my memory, like crazy hair colors & styles as well as fashion senses. Pink, blue, red, purple hair dyes on people of all ages and sizes (literally, saw more than one 60+ year old woman with blue hair), and out again came the bright orange polka dots and 80s-style zebra patterns.

Yet the most amusing thing about the locals' reaction to the weather was their apparent need for ice cream. Yes, it was such a hot day, reaching 70 degrees F, that people just needed to cool themselves off with some frozen cream and sugar. "Return your insides to the depths of winter while your skin boils under the desert-like sun" ... "The only dessert for the desert months" ... "Miss winter? Experience it all over again on the inside!!" were just some of the musings I had whist sitting on a bench in a short-sleeved tee shirt.

But today, naturally, the temp dropped 10 degrees, and it's raining. Ahhh, spring.

"So, how long have you two known each other?"

Kate and I looked at each other and smiled. The look on the woman's face when we answered, "a little more than 21 years" was pretty priceless. A strange mix of disbelief, shock, then turning to a general "wtf?" After watching the varying emotions cross her face, Kate helped clear things up. "He's my brother." "Oooohhhhh."

Other highlights of the week included trying to instruct a woman - initially thought to be Czech, so I spoke to her in my very broken version of that language - on how to use Kate's camera to take a picture of the two of us. After much confusion, it turned out the lady was Russian (so she understood my Czech as well as she did my English), and had correctly taken about 3 photos of us over the 10 minutes or so we were standing there.

Kate's visit also marked the arrival of a few desperately needed things - most notably chocolate chips and WARM WEATHER! "Warm" is certainly a relative term, as it made it only to a whopping 43 degrees Fahrenheit, but I can't begin to describe how nice it was to walk around outside without the winter jacket zipped all the way up, scarf wrapped tight around the neck and hat on head.

Simply put, a great week. As promised, we ended her last night a little drunk on Wenceslas Square and had a Czech sausage. Kate's raving about the sausage made it seem as if the rest of the week paled in comparison.
"So Kate, how did you like Prague?"
"All I have to say is that the sausage was amazing."


A day after Kate's exit, Heather's boyfriend's came for visit. So now we're pretty well stocked on chocolate chips and American TP. Stocked so well that when making our weekly choclate chip pancakes, Hunter quipped, "If I can count the chips in the pancake, there aren't enough." Amen!

A couple weeks ago I made it to a local hockey match, my first live European sporting event. The singing and general boisterousness was a ton of fun to be in the middle of, but I did find a couple things a little amusing. Some of the most raucous moments occurred when "If You're Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands" was played (sans words) over the loudspeaker. In addition, at the midpoint in the match (exactly at 10 minutes into the second period), the song of choice, with words this time, was "Sha-na-na-na... hey hey hey, good-bye." I'm no expert, but it seems to me it might be better to wait until the game is just about over before playing that.

That's all the news that's fit to print. Daylight savings started today. It's pretty nice to be typing this at 7:15 PM and have it still be light outside.

Ahoj

A Photographic Catch-Up

Made it to Copenhagen a couple weekends ago. It was great. I was able to see my friend Michelle, who I hadn't seen in a couple years. The weather was pretty scewy, though - switching from blizzard-like conditions to blue sky sun in a matter of about 10 minutes. I liked the city - it was small, and the building facades were very colorful - far more than what I've seen in Prague. The architecture reminded me of Amsterdam, though - pretty square windows and flat building fronts.


My social circle in Prague is beginning to dwindle. Tim leaves today. Reed on Monday. We went out Wednesday night with Tim to send him off right.


And... oh goody! More snow!!! (and a "screw you" to all my friends in DC, reveling in 70 degree weather) Heather made a good suggestion that we go to the top of one of the Charles Bridge towers to get some nice pictures.


My sister Kate arrives in Prague in a little more than an hour for a week. Should be a great time, but chances are there won't be any more updates until after she leaves. Until then, I leave you with this gem from my class this morning. I did a lesson on superstitions and luck in honor of Saint Patrick's Day. We covered all sorts of superstitions and things which are lucky and unlucky, and ended up with leprechauns and their pots of gold. A student asked, "So, how do you get lucky with a leprechaun?" I responded quickly (too quick to be understood by said student), "From what I've heard, alcohol usually helps." "Whats that?" "I said that you have to catch him first."

The Mispronunciation of the Week

...brought to you by the letter p.

"In the Czech Republic, there isn't much children porn."
"Uhhh, what??"
"In the Czech Republic, there isn't much children porn."
"Porn?"
"Porn."
"Born?
"Yea, porn."
"So, 'In the Czech Republic, there aren't many children born.' "
"Yea, in the Czech Republic, there aren't many children porn."

This one time, on a tram...

...my buddy Honza and I are heading to a pub to watch a football match. (yes, I say 'pub' and not 'bar', 'football' not 'soccer'... but a truck will never be a lorry, damnit, and they are pants not trousers, and favor and color will never have a u) We end up in the seats closest to the front door.
I'll pause our story to share this about Prague public transportation etiquette. If you are sitting down, and some person gets on (typically a senior citizen), and has trouble getting up the stairs due to a physical disability or general feebleness, you immediately offer your seat. Doesn't matter if you're the dude with a mohawk, eight earrings and a skull tattoo on your right cheek, you give your seat up. And if you're in the seats closest to a door, chances are you're sitting down for only one or two stops, unless it's 1AM on a Wednesday.
Now, back to our story. I see an older woman having trouble getting up the stairs. I get up, being the wonderful gentleman that I am, and offer her my seat. She is incredibly grateful (well, I think that's what her Czech rambling was trying to convey) and she sits down. After 30 seconds or so, she continues to talk to us (though we are not paying any attention), and then she reahes in her bag and pulls out a one-liter plastic water bottle. It was empty, save about an inch or so of clear, but back-washed, seemingly alcoholic beverage. She takes a sip, and then offers us some.
We politely decline, in Czech, but the lady persists. We continue to decline.
(All in Czech) "Have some."
"No, thanks."
"Have some."
"No."
"Have some."
Then, thinking that we were declining solely because it was only backwash in the bottle, she pulls out a fresh bottle, filled to the brim with this stuff, takes off the seal, and continues.
"Have some."
Now converting to English, "Thank you, but no."
"Have some."
"I really appreciate the sentiment, but no thank you."
"Have some."
"What part of 'no' don't you get?"
"Have some."
Then I noticed this woman had no teeth, and no hair (she was wearing a bandana). Ready to start laughing, I turn away from this scene. Unfortunately for Honza, he was still sitting down, facing the woman. She continues to pester him. Though Honza is Czech, he is fluent in English, and played the "I'm a foreigner so I don't speak any Czech card" pretty well. He later translated what she was saying, beyond "have some." Apparently, I was referred to as "cutie", and he was "precious."
Unhappy with my turning away, the bald woman turned to Honza and was trying to get him to take a drink. Her hand glanced his inner thigh once or twice in the process, as she was spilling this mysterious beverage.
Luckily, our stop had arrived. We get up to leave, grateful to be out of the situation, and she reaches over and pinches Honza's butt.

And so ends a Tuesday night in Prague.

Propaganda

After conducting a class on advertising and its associated vocabulary (target group, product, slogan, jingle...), the natural follow-up step was a class on propaganda. I did some online research on American propaganda, and found some pretty wild things.

I imagine all Americans reading this, and probably a fair number of non-Yanks, recognize the quintessential US Army recruiting poster:

Conveniently, having done brief bios on both George Washington and Abe Lincoln last week, I noticed the nicely put together image of Uncle Sam, with Abe's top hat and beard (and no mustache), but George's facial features, hair color and age.

Some further research yielded this related one from the Vietnam War:

And there's these, from World War II:


When I studied modern US history (1945 on) in high school, my teacher mentioned that since the Cold War had recently ended (7 years or so), American propaganda was still slow to be declassified and released to the public. But similar stuff was even slower coming from the Soviet side. So I asked my students if they could find any propaganda from the Cold War which was produced on this side of the Iron Curtain.
They came up with some gems. (I've done my best - of course with outside help - to translate these)

American Lifestyle Official statistics of the USA: Every 44 minutes, a willful (premeditated?) murder. Every 9 minutes, someone is pickpocketed. Every 100 seconds, someone's home is broken into. Every 3 minutes, a car is stolen. Every 21 seconds there is a criminal act. In the lower left, the text reads: Every year people disappear without a trace (and you see the corresponding numbers for each city). This came out shortly after a plane carrying 60 Czechs was hijacked and taken to Munich. My student this morning pointed out the irony that those who were on the plane were probably thrilled to be outside of the Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia.

Clearly this is about the Berlin Wall. The text below roughly translates to "Can't get through!" to all imperialists living to the west of the wall. The irony here is that the wall was built to keep people in, not keep the westerners out. You can see the American on the left, looking all old and bumbling, especially compared to the happy, young Commie overlooking everything.

To emphasize the point of keeping people in, there was this image of someone trying to escape Czechoslovakia getting caught by the electified fence on the country's border with Germany. Not only was there the electified fence along the entire border, but there were armed guards at 100-meter intervals on 24-hour surveillance of the area, ordered to shoot anyone who came close to the border. These soldiers, upon successfully shooting and killing an innocent stranger, were treated to brand new watches, cars, and were celebrated by their peers and superiors.

This one simply says "With Communists to a better future." My friend Ryan recently quipped, "Communists are always looking toward the future. Especially in all pictures. They like saying, 'Don't look at what you got now, cause that's total crap. But some time, in the future, you'll be set. Stick with us.'"

I think I find this one the funniest of them all. It says "American agents (spies?) won't go through our village." I can't say I lived much during the Cold War, but I really don't think the US spent much time focusing its attention on the farmers in the middle of nowhere.

I'm not sure if you can make out the date written in the tear - is when the Soviet army rolled into town, and they ended up staying here until the mid-nineties. Certainly not the happiest of days in Czech history.

Two other Communist propaganda anecdotes I was told:
If you wanted a hobby outside of school or work, you had to belong to an organization. This organization, of course, was monitored by Communists, and was checked up on to be sure that no imperialist material was present which could possibly undermine Moscow's authority.
One student was very interested in amateur radios. He said he had no other hobbies - didn't drink, smoke, or chase girls. Just radios. As part of his membership in the amateur radio organization, he received a periodical dedicated to the inner workings of radios, complete with articles and schematic drawings. Great, right? Well, the first seven or eight pages of every issue was pure propoganda - articles on how great Mother Russia is, how the Imperialists are the devil and the like. This student said he never read the first few pages (as he just scanned through quickly until he got to the schematic drawings) until recently when he went through some of his old stuff, and he was pretty surprised, and amused, at the ridiculousness of it all.

The last bit of Czech Communist propaganda is probably my favorite piece of everything I've encountered. The USSR, for some reason or another, had little to no potato vegetation, and so potato farming was deemed part of Czechoslovakia's duty in the Communist world.
Apparently there's this beetle which eats the potatoes grown here. Farmers were constantly having to trap and kill the beetles, lest their crops destroyed. The beetle was cleverly nickamed the American beetle. "Make sure you get every last one! Kill them!!! All American beetles must die! They will RUIN not only everything you have worked for, but the entire Communist regime!" That was particularly well done, IMHO.

I am aware that some of the readers of this blog speak Czech pretty well. If I've made a pretty egregious error in my translations, or if you have any further insight to the images beyond my descriptions, I'd love to hear them.