31 July 2021 

It is Saturday and the sun is shining so brightly that I think I am back in Texas again.  Well, except for the things growing in the garden and the nearly jungle like growth appearing everywhere except for what is dead due to the heat.  Yesterday on the drive into Bucharest, we saw field after field of corn - yes, "high as an elephant's eye".  My corn, however, got a very late start for several reasons.  It is not the usual corn.  It is popcorn!  I had success growing it some time ago and hope that it will grow this year as well.  I keep trying because I discovered that it is ever so much better than the kernels that I buy and pop on my stovetop.  How is it better?  It is more tender and eating a bite of it does not risk breaking a tooth.

I sat a while on the patio near the strawberry pyramid.  It was cool and pleasant even in this heat.  There is a lot to do there in order to make it a place where I can go to sit in that swing while I am watering the raised beds and a few other places that need my attention.  I have managed to rescue a lot of the basil seeds I planted from places where the snails and slugs would devour them.  The tomatoes are lush, green and blooming with a green tomato showing here and there through the plentiful leaves.  

I have just read a copy of my Autobiography written in 1951 for my high school English teacher.  She took a red pencil to it thus demonstrating to me a few lessons in grammar that I remember still.  Here is a link to it:

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:901f17ba-e500-41d4-9be7-8e167f8f4ead

Reading it I am aware that it sets my memory straight!  Some details re remembered better than others!

And here is another story.  This time from the past.  Adventures that can no longer be had.  Things change.   But this memorable trip can no longer be had.  Walking across a bridge is not the same.

Looking for Dracula

Sunday, August 19, 2001

 

We had a busy Saturday morning shopping.  The Chinese grocery is still where it was last spring when we bought most of the rice flour that they had in stock.   I tried making my own by putting the grains of rice in the coffee grinder.   It turns out great for cream of rice cereal for breakfast, but the cheese sticks were a little more crunchy than usual. I told Eugeniu that they were a little too grainy and that we needed to go to the Chinese grocery now that the new radiator is installed and that car seems to be ready for use again.  There we found that the plastic bags of plain rice flour had holes in them, so we bought the only one that seemed to be intact. Fortunately, they seemed to have a huge new supply of sweet rice flour, which works very well as a substitute for wheat flour.  We also bought some coconut milk and a few of their small plates with blue flowers around the edges.

 

It was still early so we took a new route toward our house thinking we would take a walk at Herastrau Park.  On the way, we saw a new furniture store, a complex really.  It was the one that had moved from Bucharest Mall and they did have the furniture we liked even though we already bought a sofa from Bellona.  We stopped to see the store since it is a new thing in Bucharest.  It took a long time, but we could not buy a thing because they did not take credit cards and their bank machine was broken.  By the time we had explored the whole store, we were hungry so we went home, postponing our visit to the park.  It was mid-day and very hot.

 

Later, on the way to the park for a cooler evening walk, we went to the Zambaccian Museum. It is a small museum that I have wanted to see for a long time and we supposed that it might be closed so late on Saturday evening.  It was not and we were able not only to see its fine paintings, but also to buy three books at bargain prices.   There were two books of paintings by Romanian artists, Vasile Grigore and Ion Tuculescu, and a book about the collections in the National Museum of Art that opened just last year in the former Royal Palace.  Vasile Grigore was a classmate of Eugeniu’s so it gave him a special pleasure to have a book of his paintings.  Krikor Zambaccian was a rich businessman born to an Armenian family who lived in Constanta.  He personally knew Matisse, Dufy, Derain and Bonnard as well as important artists and collectors in Romania.

 

After that, sitting with a cool “apa minerale” on the little island in Lake Herastrau seemed just right.  There were boats full of people cruising around the lake, rowboats, small sailboats, paddleboats and a few crew boats on the lake for practice.  We walked to where Eugeniu’s crew used to bring the boats out of the shed to go into the lake for practice.

 

Today we set out for Snagov, intending to eventually find Dracula, with ice chest full of cool water and a picnic lunch.  We had some ideas about sitting in the park by Lake Snagov and taking the boat to the small island where the Snagov Monastery is being renovated.  It is said that the head of Vlad Tepes is buried there, but the nun who took us into the church said that his entire body is buried there.  I stepped over his grave several times looking around under the platforms and beams that support the artists who are restoring the frescoes.  It was not so easy, though, to get there.  No one seemed to know exactly how to find the boat that we could take to get to the island, but someone said you could drive around the lake and go across a bridge.  So we gave up our parking place and loaded the car with the chest and the folding chairs. This Park is oh so different than when we took a bus to get there and had to walk such a long way from the bus stop.  Once at the place for the boat to take us there it was only to find that the boat to the monastery on the island in the middle of Snagov Lake was broken and wasn’t running at that time. In the meantime, we observed that the railway workers union had improved the park a lot.  It was hot and we were not inclined to just loll around wasting away the afternoon.  We followed the directions to turn left and go around the lake to get to the road that would take us to the monastery.  At one point Eugeniu asked a young man and he told us we had two choices, suggesting another monastery farther to the East.  We drove on toward the little island where we might find Dracula’s grave, at least the one in which his head is supposed to be buried. The best part of the drive was when the road was lined with tall poplars on either side.  It seemed just like a road should be, so lovely and cool and so identifiable. When we finally caught a boat at another park to ride across to the island with the monastery, we found ourselves back on the other side of the lake right back where we had been before.  I thought we would stop at Snagov Monastery Island on the way back, but the boat went chugging past the island with the church spires clearly visible and people standing on the dock waiting.   We got off and found the car again.  I refused to enter the Turkish public toilet for reasons anyone might suspect who has ever seen one.  We did not give up even though we had already explored another park which had two nice restaurants.  El Captain was new and modern and had a ship theme and Vanatorul was state-owned.  It has not been modernized, only privatized.  Three parks and one boat ride later we were no closer to our goal.

 

We backtracked to the main highway and then went down the same road to the place where the Gypsies had circled their three covered wagons to cook their lunch.  The right turn did not seem to point us in the direction of the communications tower we saw that marked the location of the monastery, but a couple sitting by the road in front of their fence told us to follow the road and take the right turn ahead.  We wound around until we crossed a bridge, keeping the tower in sight. The pavement ran out just as we saw a roughly painted sign indicating that the monastery was to the right down a narrow rocky path.   We parked the car and a young boy escorted us down the path that ended at a small dock in the reeds at the edge of the lake.  There was a small wooden boat with water in it beside the pier at the bottom of the path. I said that I would not go in that one, but the young man who escorted us down who was the path called out, “Tatiana” to someone on the island who was near the monastery.

 

While Tatiana was rowing us across to a small dock, Eugeniu gave me his jeans and said that he was going to take a bath. We were not even one-fourth of the way across when I heard a splash behind me.  He swam the distance with no trouble though I was sure that it was too far for comfort.  Tatiana told us that there was a wedding in process in the church tower, but that when it was over, we could go into the church.  While we were waiting, we discovered the other dock and saw the very boat that we had expected to take us to the island with the monastery.  Normally it would have, but they were in a hurry to keep the appointment with the wedding party so we had been thrust back upon the dock near where the car was parked.  Never mind that we had paid the big boat for the trip to Snagov Monastery, we had had a nice boat ride and a great view of the lake.  I had no doubt that we ended up with the best of all possible worlds by getting to arrive by rowboat with Tatiana and walk through the flock of turkeys under the plum trees so full of ripe purple fruit.  Inside the church, we saw that the scaffolding covered most everything, but the nun told us a lot about its history and she said that this church with the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the one the world knows as Dracula, has a rich history that extends at least back to the days when the Dacians held it as a refuge against the enemies of those days, the Romans. Mircea cel Batrin, a ruler during the conquest of the Ottomans, sent mud to Istanbul instead of gold and started a war that lasted thirty years.  Vlad, the Impaler, built a defense wall, a prison, a retreat tunnel and a belfry that is still there.  The bridge that he built is no longer there.

 

The exterior of the church looks almost new, but the brickwork is the original.  In front of the church there are two columns in the wall that are twisted yet are of brick, an amazing work of art.  The arches have four rows of bricks with each one more recessed than the one before it.   The nun told us that the church is built on the foundation of a much older wooden church which preceded the building of this one in the 14th century.  She had not had much formal education but she had learned to read Cyrillic and is reading the old manuscripts.

 

We enjoyed our ride in the boat with Tatiana and our drive back to Bucharest was interrupted only when we stopped to purchase fresh tomatoes from a roadside stand in Saftica. I could tell they were from the garden of the woman selling them because they had such a delicious aroma.

 

30 July 2021 

No root canal today.  There are other problems and I have to deal with them first.  I hate the long trip to the dentist, but must endure this long process that seems to know no end.  And then there is the place on my head where the soreness still exists.  I fell and cracked my head on the base of the soba in the patio room about a week ago.  It is still sore and has been bleeding enough to give some concern.  However, no trip to the doctor as there is still the Covid mess that goes on and on and on.  Do not want to get exposed whether or not I have had the vaccine.  It still hurts. 

So today I have decided to use this blog as a way to present so many stories that I have written  most of them long ago.  Here is one that not only may be interesting, it will reflect a bit of the changes that have occurred here since that time.  That particular museum no longer exists!

(Oops. this is a repeat!  Forgetful?  Yes.)

Museum Day in Bucharest

by

Nancy Clayton Rice

Copyright © 1997

 

I saw a little sculpture museum on the tram the other day.  I know the city well enough by now that I could find it again so we drove there after church on Sunday.  The caretaker was walking up just at that very moment.  He let us in for a delightful tour of this newly restored gem of a building.  The entry way is a delightful surprise with its rich marble and ornate design.  The newly polished oak parquet floors were shining and the sculptures were tightly packed but pleasantly arranged in several rooms with elaborate ceilings.  The smell of new paint was a sign that the interior had just been refinished.  This museum is open again after a year and a half of restoration. One room was completely white including the ornate carvings in the ceiling.  It reminded me of a church I had visited once in Disentis in the Swiss Alps.  It was by particular design that these walls were white.  Cornel Medrea broke with tradition in this, we were told.  In addition to his works, there were two fine sculptures by his wife who had also been his student.   One of those, a bust of the sculptor himself, seemed to catch him in mid-speech, full of life.  The roughly textured busts rendered by Cornel Medrea captured the strength and force of personality, some of which were much larger than life.  I enjoyed examining the allegorical drawings and compositions of the monuments and the models for individual segments of larger works as well as seeing larger, smoother sculptures of people in more symbolic and stylistic forms.   We were glad to see this museum after all this time.

Next we went to the Central Military Museum on Stephan Furtuna.  I had thought that this would be like a drill for me as I did not want to see the ugly olive green of military objects of destruction.  What a surprise!  This complex of buildings has displays of objects from the earliest of times.  The medieval castles and fortresses were given the most delightful of displays with maps to show the ruling and warring parties and schematics and models of the fortifications.  

I even recognized a favorite of mine, Risnov, a small fortification just outside Brasov in southern Transylvania.  When we took our friend Liz to Bran Castle some time ago, we hopped off the bus in a drizzling misty rain.  With just one hour before the last bus would leave to take us to Brasov.  We climbed nearly straight up the zigzagging path to explore this small castle.  Within the walls, we found a delightful grassy green terrain undulating between the buildings, some of which had museum displays of former times.  Other buildings were being used, perhaps as in days of old, for chickens, geese, lambs and goats.  It was a scene that gives me a clue as to why some philosophers so praise the pastoral life.  I felt a sense of the security, of freedom to bask in the sun as it broke through for just a moment before the rain drizzled in again.  We looked out over the walls to the village below and the plains beyond where weekend farmers were out tending to the crops.  I was pleasantly surprised at the Military Museum to recognize it in miniature which speaks well of the faithful rendition all of the artistically well documented displays in this collection.

Risnov Castle 

Since there are so many displays and the history of warfare is so complex, we decided that we could not do it justice by trying to examine it all in one afternoon.  We left the main building to see the grounds filled with tanks and planes and trucks and jeeps.  We joked about the armor of the tank being useful in today's heavy traffic.   We could see how miserably uncomfortable it must have been inside those tanks for the very young soldiers who drove them.  The next building was open!  We saw the model of the Monument for the soldiers who died in World War I that we had visited at Marasesti on our way to Tecuci last October.  It is a tomb representing the 6000 Romanians who died in a battle holding the line against the advancing Germans in World War I.  This battle preserved the last unoccupied region of Romania.

Up a flight of stairs there was a most amazing collection of armor and swords and spears of every kind.   The other buildings were closed.  They have displays of the horse drawn carriages and the early airplanes.  We saw three statues.  Two were famous pilots, Traian Vuia and Aurel Vlaicu, who were early aviation innovators.  The other was Henry Coanda, who lived in the United States, where he discovered the principles of turbo reaction.   He returned to Romania, "only to die."

This museum is so full of things.  I cannot describe enough of it.  It is an expansive view over time of how human beings destroy and torture one another as well as how they protect themselves from one another.  In those times it seemed that always the foe was the enemy without - that other coming to take.  Now the ground has shifted.  It is imperceptible.  There are still major forces to contend with, international disputes and struggles against unjust governments, but it seems to me that the major battle line being drawn now is against individual terroristic acts.  Anonymous, erratic behavior presents a new kind of anxiety producing threat.   I think again of the exuberance of walking along inside the wall of the castle at Risnov in Transylvania and of how important it is to have a place where healthy families can grow.  Wouldn't it be nice not to need all these implements of war?  Not to have to fight amongst one another for a place to be on this earth?

Monday, 27 April 2020

This morning the sun is shining brightly and my state of being is a bit improved over the result of recent events.  Mostly I am so sadly distressed over the plethora of conspiracy theories filling the air with hatefulness and bile.  Stories made up and clearly refutable for a purpose that seems to me to be diabolic.  I resign myself to a diagnosis of dysfunctional behavior that people assume is the way one must respond to lies and hatefulness and misdirection that might cause one's death.  How has distrust of the media become so unbelievable - trust in unsubstantiated garbage that fills the internet and some of the news media that is a role model for dysfunctional behavior.  The monster gobbling up the "Ain't It Awful" sits satisfied in the souls of those who think that they are righteous and full of the knowledge that they are protecting the best of life.

I sit here looking out the window at Angel Street where parked across from us is a red car.  A woman who lives there has been taken to the hospital during the period in which she had been quarantined because of exposure to Covid-19.  A young man whose family lives down the street returned from the airport and soon came down with the virus.  They were friends, these two families. The quarantine  has served a good purpose as thus far there seem to be no more outbreaks on this street.    I am still worried.  I wonder if the ones who help us in the garden - we do keep proper distance - have been exposed.  This morning as I was emptying my waste basket, Marian was tending the small garden between the tool shed and the strawberry pyramid.  Cheerful good mornings exchanged, he assured me he is fine.  One more day of grace.  He does not deserve that horrid fate.

Then there is the news...

(I have just put my old keyboard back in place and it works best for me!!!  I cleaned it of most of the crumbs and dust from past years of use.  It is like an old friend back in place protecting me from a few of the misplaced strokes that plagued me on the small keyboard that also worked very well but for my "too light" touch.

The day so far...  Usual chores of tending to the CPAP plus washing everything that I use - the whole mask and the tubing and the humidifier chamber.  I wrote a note to Martin regarding the death of his mother.  I looked and looked in my picture files to see if I could find the pictures of the visit of his parents as we took a walk in the valley.  No luck at all, but I found lots of other memories tucked away carelessly as I said - later!  Now I am writing while I rest between chores that seem to take up a lot of time, but are not at all onerous.   The list of "later" things is too huge to contemplate or even to bring to some sort of order of preference.  Tasks begun, interrupted and made difficult to complete for one reason or another. The ever changing systems on the Internet, the new programs that wipe out the old files for no reason at all, but some programmers reasoning that they could not be at all important???  Well, I have the external hard drive that saves my time so often when the other files have completely been rearranged by that mysterious force that I could not name - but which causes me way too much time changing and trying to keep things as I need them to be to use them.  Which program should I use for which task at hand?  I settled on one photo program long ago because it offered the opportunity of eliminating duplicate files.  But now it does not seem to want to do that as there must be one or two pixels difference - they do not count so the duplicates remain to be painstakingly deleted one by one while the photos I search for remain hidden in some file yet to be revealed.

Now to go tend to some things in the garden - watering seeds that refuse to appear where planted.  It is time.  Maybe it is still a bit too chilly.  The next few days may be warm enough to coax them into appearing so that I know it was not all in vain.  First the zucchini patch that has been enhanced by more seeds, some popcorn beside them and some black-eyed peas to climb the posts that were placed in order to keep the dogs out.  That did not work, but perhaps some seeds survived or were planted deep enough by paw prints to grow anyway.

Having done a number of things, I rest on what laurels I can claim - none.  Anyway, I have watered the seeds planted that are not showing the least intention of sprouting.  Pulled a few weeds here and there and started the huge job of pulling ivy from the pear tree at the corner of this front garden.  I called a friend in Targu Mures to see how she is managing in this awful crisis and learned that she made a flash trip to the U. S. and got back just in time.  Brave one, she is!

Watching Andrew Cuomo was most enlightening.  This man can think, can put things together in a way that makes sense,  As for those crying about needing money, he said that he gets it as he then defined the things that are worse.  He ended that answer to the question of what should they do, they need to get back to work, by saying that they could go apply for a job as an essential worker!  Brilliant!  The fact that much of the government is not so sensible is sad, but worse than sad is what has happened and both my friend and I agreed that this is the better place to be.

And then there is the long distance dialogue:

Richard Rice You do not need the government to "stay at home". People should be responsible for their own health and not depend on the government. Health is not a "right", though people have the right to keep, achieve, and/or improve their health. This would include "no vaccinations". Doctors might provide good advice or recommendations, but are no means the "end-all, know-all" source for good health. That said, I have no problem with helping other people with their needs such as social distancing, etc. - no need to take a chance or endanger others.

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  Nancy Rice Certainly one does not need the government to stay at home, but someone has to give the clue as to what will be most helpful.
  If you have an idea about who could do that, then say so. Adamant cursing or viral spreading of so many things has caused unspeakable grief. Do not know what happened to libelo laws, but that Dr. Mercola would be subject to one from what I saw in his online newsletter. Akin to inciting riot, it is close to treasonous. If that is the kind of entity that you want giving you directions, then who can stop you? I suggest you elect people you can trust to governmental offices and then hold them accountable. It seems you have a slant on this that is not the one that will help me. Since we have a person on our street with the virus, I prefer that people stay at home until such time as they can give people tests to determine who has the virus or who does not. Currently 1/3 of the the worldwide outbreak of nearly 3,000,000 people live in the United States. Something is not working well there and you would do better to spend your energy trying to fix it rather than complain about the attempts of those who are doing what they can without the help of the federal government functioning in a sane and sensible manner. If the people complaining are so idiotic as to think that it is okay for them to spread the virus, then I will die. Most of them are still not aware that it is real. Most of them are riot inciters. The bottom line is to take precautions that reduce the spread of the virus until it is found to be no longer spreading incredibly fast through your and many other communities. I suggest you look at the daily news conferences by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to see the example of how the spread grows. The government is saying take care of others as well as yourself so that you will live to see another day. The same with vaccinations, if you do not want one - which you have had - many - then you do not have to take any more of them, but to scare others about it is not realistic. Fortunately we do not have polio rampaging through our society nor other things for which you can be grateful.

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  Nancy Rice The conspiracy inventors miss opportunity to actually find out about anything, but then their objective is to make money from the number of hits on their YOUTube or other site. Who is being tricked?

23 July 2021 Gifts from the installation team

This morning we had a nice surprise.  The installation of the hot water heater has required several visits from the team who have had a difficult job to do.  This last visit was a surprise, but the gift was even more surprising.  They, of course, did not have to bring us anything.  But they did!  A bag full of tomatoes and pickles and a huge loaf of cheese - homemade and natural.  

I offered some freshly made biscuits.  They refused, but finally the quiet one said, "Yes."  Eugeniu gave them two - just in case.  I was given a kiss on my hand and Eugeniu gave me the papers to file.

Earlier this morning I washed my hair and still am amazed at how it is turning blacker rather than grayer!  Not easily seen when dry but nevertheless there it is.  I have no idea why.  But I do know that once I quit pulling it so tight for the bun that it has grown back thicker again.  It is possible that the tea tree spray has been helpful in restoring the former thickness.

My CPAP reports have been fabulous.  I have researched the information for the extra battery and find that without the humidifier it should last for approximately 13 hours.  The last time when I really needed it,  it lasted 4 hours.  Short night sleep was the consequence until we figured out how to turn the electricity back on.  Then I began to read more about the extra battery.  It was then that I fixed the extra CPAP with the closed side to the area for the humidifier and also changed the hose so that during these days when we might have another rolling blackout for this neighborhood, I can switch quickly to the one that uses less electricity and attach it to run smoothly for a good night's sleep!   So now we know that we have the solar panel batteries and this small extra battery to power my sleep needs more easily and with less confusion about what works and how!

It has been a busier morning than expected.  But that is usual here.  The completion of the work for installing the new hot water heater and now Gigi has come to wash the rug in the patio room.  I offered her a biscuit and she refused coffee, but did accept a glass of water.  Then I told her about the granola I made and gave her a taste!  She smiled and ate the rest of the sample.  She brought another bottle of the wine her daughter made so that we have a good supply for a while.  The wine Eugeniu made turned sour so he threw it out and now she brings us 5 liters when we have finished the last one that she brought.

At 6:23 pm I am relishing the blessing of the day.  Gigi came and cleaned that last rug that we put in the patio room.  Then she trimmed my toenails!  What a relief!  Then I did that chore - riding the bike.  After a while I began to organize the last entry to the Luxembourg contest for Eugeniu's paintings.  Finding the date that he painted them led me to see that I have so many pictures on ACDSee that I cannot believe it.  In looking at them I found the first time I took pictures of those paintings, but also many other things of high interest.  What glorious memories of the years here as well as the visits there to see friends and family!  

So the day has not been lost to idleness once more.  Each day I do things on a list or just thought of at the moment.   Then I rest and play some kind of game on my iPhone!  Right now I like Clockmaker because it changes and challenges me with each new game.

The next step in my mind - to clear up the stacks of things put on the to do later list.  It has to do with the little stories I have written over the years, but have not used in any way to let them be available for others to see or to read.  Mostly impressions of how it was here when I first came and during the few years after,  Then there are trips we took including cruises.  All these are things we can no longer do either because of the Covid-19 pandemic with its variations following one after the other or to our declining desires to move as fast as some trips might require.  Thoug a stay at a hotel in Palermo might just be the ticket once we have thing sorted here and the pandemic will allow a flight there and bacvk more easily than so many other options.  I investigated the cruises, but they sto pat Palermo for just a short while.  All the interesting sights unseen would not do.

There are so many pursuits available to me now that the world has become a different place.  I have more choices of things to do than I have hours to do them!  Ancestry, recipes, stories, pictures, email messages to some who maintain contact.  Sadness about others.  Also, there are the jigsaw puzzles and the crossword puzzles that help to keep my brain functioning in a suitable fashion.  And I do like Facebook in spite of all the criticism.  Keeping in touch in a limited fashion with so many people is life enhancing despite the evil uses some put to that blessing as they try to make it into an instrument of evil by of passing along lies that so many believe to their detriment and to the detriment of all in their path.