Today I was humiliated

Many years ago we bought an Italian designed kitchen implement rack designed to dangle 8 new fangled kitchen implements. Each a work of art. It may have been Alessi. There were spaghetti wranglers,  fish basters, cheese gritters, noodle blasters and all sorts of things and we have probably never used them for what they were supposed to be used for  but the implements in general have been very useful and have been adapted for a wide range of purposes – including paint stirring.

The implement holder on the other hand was completely useless. It was designed so that each implement would stay put only if it was delicately balanced on the end of the hook – and this took some doing and required the dexterity of a brain surgeon. The sneeze of a mouse would dislodge it.

I have attached a photo showing what I am talking about. Except this rack has proper hooks. Not itty bitty shitty hooks like my Italian designed piece of crap.

One tremble brought the whole lot crashing down in a cacophony of jangling Italian metal.

 

My piece of crap was a triumph of design over functionality. On many occasions I wanted to toss this whole lot of Italian metal to the shithouse and I finally did my lolly on Wednesday after the latest cacophony  and said right I have had enough of you I am going to fix you once and for all. So I dismantled the assembly and tried to fix the angles of the hooks but the little blighters are made out of stainless steel and I could not budge them a millimeter.

Typical – you make a piece of shit – and you make it so it will last for 2,000,000 years.

But in the process of bending under the kitchen cupboards to unscrew the assembly I twisted my back and pulled a muscle and damn near crippled myself. See I have reached that age where it does not take much to throw things out of kilter and I did that in spades.  Where is that bloody masseuse?

So on Friday it was time to end the misery of the dying plants on the Terrace and I garroted them before dawn while they were sleeping. I am not a cruel man and do not like to see things suffer.

I went to Dehner and collared a sales assistant and told him to take me to his toughest plants. He grabbed a whip and a chair and took me to a cage out the back and I now have two mothers that are guaranteed to survive the harshest Austrian summers and winters - although I do have to wrap their roots up in winter – but I can do that. Hell they can sleep in the bedroom with us if that is what I it takes.

But the worst part of the whole thing was that I had to get some bags of potting mix and you know what these things are like. They are big bags – like 60 liters – and they are floppy and difficult to move because they sag -  I imagine it is like moving a dead body – or even a live comatose body.

And I still have trouble with my 5 broken ribs and now I have this problem with the pulled muscles in my back so I am struggling with this sack of potting mix trying not to damage anything and trying  to put it on my trolley and this young guy – like 50 years old – bounds up and says – here let me help you and scoops it up and  dumps it on my trolley and says is there anything else I can do for you.

And I say ‘Nein – Danke’

I am like a little old man because I was stupid when I went dog sledding with a camera in Lapland and I am still suffering 6 months later. But I am getting better. In another few months I will be fine. I am not letting any more 50 year old men humiliate me.

Oh No - all that shit in the basement!

 One of the things we discovered a while ago here was that we were liable for anything that went wrong in the apartment – except for the air conditioning.

That is – when the water heating system – or anything else stops working – it is our problem. We thought this was a bit unusual at first – but so was everything else here – so paid up a few times because we were told this was the normal thing. But then we got a fairly large bills because one of the 3 toilets clagged out and the water heater exploded and we dug our toes and we said this is ridiculous.

We (i.e. Ducky Pharma) pays a colossal amount of money to the Landlord each month and we are being stung for repairs and maintenance – and I mean WE - Cate and Badger! (well Cate – Badger does not actually earn anything but contributes in oh so many other ways.)

So frothing at the mouth Badger got Rozalin to check the lease – which of course is in German – and probably runs to 600 pages – and sure enough is says in there that the tenants – US – are indeed liable for anything that happens in here.

And BTW – Rozalin is Cate’s faithful assistant and Girl Friday and is married to the delightful Holger who pretends not to speak English so he does not have to go out on double-dates with us. But we know he does speak English. He will go red when Rozalin reads him this.

She is a wonderful woman who speaks perfect English and is probably the worlds most fanatical AC/DC fan. Which of course is justifiable given that they are the greatest rock and roll band in the world and will shortly be declared a World Heritage Site.

I saw Angus Young interviewed a little while ago and I think he has reached the stage he will not be up to this speaking out loud caper much longer. I am sure he does not do drugs any more but many years of alcohol and head shaking have taken their toll. Still -  he could probably be a spokesman for the Tea Party – maybe even a leadership position awaits him.

Rozalin was once married to an American soldier and lived on an army base in one of the Carolinas but recovered her wits and fled back to Austria.

She is the owner of Sissi’s sister – Balu –and to embarrass her I have attached an appropriate photo of her with Mogli and Balu. 

Where TF was I?

Oh yes. So some nitwit in Ducky Pharma signed a lease that said we would pay for anything that went wrong in the apartment. Brilliant!

Now it is a sensational apartment. It is a Penthouse. It has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and a gigantic lounge room and 2 terraces with a view over the city and Stadtpark and I am guessing that if we wanted to buy it we would need about €3 million.

It is the sort of apartment that companies provide for expatriates who have to spend a few years in place – work their butts off – and move on. It is twice the size of our little house next to the city in Sydney and we are very grateful to live in it.

But it is old.

And it is starting to fall to bits. And the last thing I would have in a lease for an apartment like this is that I would pay for things that break. We simply do not want to be responsible for stuff that does not belong to us. Indeed we cannot imagine why anyone would put us in this sort of situation. Well we can but I cannot write why.

So I thought I would find when the lease expires to ensure that we fix the problem when  we renew.

Uh Oh!

The lease expires in August. The Landlord has not contacted us. I am guessing he is not renewing the lease and we are going to have to find another place to live.

That means I am going to have to move all that shit in the basement.

All those fucking towels.

AAAArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggh!

Time to put the chocolate in the fridge

From our Hotel Room in Berlin over the Tiergarten

When we saw our apartment in Vienna for the first time it took our breath away both because of how beautiful it was and also because of how hot it was.

It was in July and it was a hot day in Vienna – but not ferociously hot. When we entered the apartment we thought it might be on fire and started looking for buckets - but were greeted by the existing tenant and invited – together with the relocation agent with whom we were on our voyage of discovery – to sweat our way around.

The guy was working at home – in the lounge room downstairs - not in his study upstairs. We remarked at how steamily hot it was and he said that they had turned the building air conditioning off to make some repairs. He pointed at the truck in the courtyard below.  We looked at what indeed appeared to be a truck that could be making repairs to a building air conditioning system. Ho bloody ho!

This of course turned out to be a lie. The system in our apartment is  not connected to any system in the apartment building.  It is self-contained, big, noisy and does not work very well at all. You will find a description here.

The man worked for IBM and was going to live in Dubai on one of those Palm Leaf thingies with his wife and child. I suppose he lied because he had some liability for the apartment and needed to get a tenant for it. It is not something I would have done but still.

So then we moved in. Reality moved in with us. We commenced our intimate relationship with the air conditioning people. Our current man – some have moved on – retired – that sort of stuff – is very nice. He comes for Christmas dinner.

We then understood that the reason the man was working downstairs instead of in his study is that the studies – which have large skylights – were uninhabitable in summer – except as Saunas – and then only if you get then Finns to stop throwing water onto the hot rocks and go out on to the Terrace to barbecue Reindeer steaks.

Mind you we barely survived the first month as I had to rush out and buy fans and the cats lay about the house panting and sleeping was nigh on impossible until we got used to the sound of our sweat dripping onto the floor – and having to remember to put the saline drips in and not touch any metal parts in the apartment without wearing Kevlar gloves.

The only times I have been hotter than this was visiting Cate’s parents in their retirement home in Bundaberg in Queensland - which they kept closed tighter than a drum.

We would go at Christmas and the outside temperature would be maybe 35°. Inside the house it could be – and I am being generous – 40° and you could cook a Turkey in the kitchen sink. 

The blinds would be drawn and there not be the slightest chink through which a breath of air could pass. Cate’s father would probably be wearing a cardigan lest he catch a chill. 

My knees would buckle as I lurched into the oven of lounge room and Cate would catch me and stop me from falling into a dead faint onto the lounge room floor. Cate would prop me up in front of a fan - with a wet towel over my head - with a pitcher of iced water - and tie me to the chair to prevent me from toppling over. When dinner was ready she would mash it for me and feed it to me with the spoon and pusher set from her childhood.

The air conditioning people and the apartment owner had of course trudged this road many times before and did much tinkering and fiddling with screwdrivers – for show purposes only.

They knew immediately that they could do nothing. They have – to their credit – tried many things – including putting pieces of cardboard into the units – but all to no avail. As I have said before – if cardboard could fix it – it should have been fitted at the factory.

We realized shortly after the first visit that we had been gulled by the tenant and would have to do the best we could.

So we hounded them and hounded them – or rather Rozalin hounded them – so that we got them up to there current level of efficiency – which is probably about 60%.

For the upstairs studies we bought separate air conditioning units and the owner of the apartment graciously provided holes in the windows so that we could run the hot air outside.

We manage quite well now – all things considered. Except for the chocolate. At about this time of the year when it starts to get really hot the chocolate has to move from the kitchen cupboards into the fridge – otherwise ghastly things start to happen.

As for the IBM man? I have put a spell on him. Each night he dreams that rats are eating his testicles. He wakes many times each night screaming and tearing at his underpants.

I have always had this power but I use it wisely.

I am currently using it only on the IBM man and to make Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann sound like a gibbering idiots whenever they speak.

Spell Power should be used for good and it should be used modestly.