The 1st Breath of spring

I know it sounds odd. It isn’t even March yet but it is true. Make no mistake, it does not, not under any circumstances mean that spring is coming yet quite the contrary. It just like a movie previews Nothing else. This is how it will feel like. Sun, warm sun and a particular smell in the air. Not the dogpoo smell but a real spring kind of vibe, that’s all. Nothing else yet. No snow melting or anything like that of course not. And later this week or next week our socks will freeze off again in the -25 but we won’t mind anymore the same way we did before. We will be laughing; try all you might your time is up cranky winter! And we will be crying; where is the spring our bodies and minds are aching for?!

But it will come eventually. Spring. Thinking it curls my tongue up. Wonderful name. Like a love affair we will soon all be having a dizzy head of it. And in March when snow truly starts melting the smell of melting dogshit will help to get that dizzy head. Till then...
... when we can we sit outside catching a bit of sun kicking the snow. Great things are to come we hope. Tobi is sure. I hope. He flips between excited anticipation and panicked out anticipation. What on earth will he do with an infant dragon? It comes naturally I keep telling him but stopped recently when he nearly bit a couple of my toes off through my boots just after spitting a moderately sized fireball dangerously close to my head. It seems he had enough off hearing ‘it comes naturally’. He wishes for something else and when he let me know this it must have been one of his panicky anticipation moments. Fair enough.

I became an uncle recently and it is a very weird feeling. The happy parents are the aunt and uncle of Lili’s. Wicked dynamics. They are experienced Aunty and Uncle but know nothing of actually having one while we are fairly well experienced about having a kid yet know nothing of being an uncle. Tobi says I shouldn’t worry, it comes naturally.

I can’t bite through boots. And apart from special occasions when I am really really angry and put on a not Irish accent anymore just some really stupid sounding one I will produce plumes and some fire as well. True, I used to speak with an Irish accent when getting agitated. I lost with my Glaswegian. Something to make me sad but the joy of anticipation helps me let go.

Tobi was away last night he popped over to Vienna and Budapest to the Opera Balls. He hasn’t actually gone to the Balls but to the anti-balls. It is common that the new aristocracy has this wonderful events once a year when they come together to show off their pretty dresses and drink some nice cocktails. Something very similar to the president’s birthday party in Finland with the possible difference that in central Europe they at least have the face that it isn’t state sponsored.
The Anti-Ball event is organised by... guess whom! Of course, the anarchists! Those guys whom the police always treats most heavy handed. Why? Because they are enemies of the capitalist system and they really mean it!

In Budapest for example, at some point about 15 of them walked over to the Opera Building and on the stairs a couple of them pulled their trousers down to show off their bottoms expressing their opinion about the event and I guess the winners of Corporatist Capitalism to the true amusement of the photo journalists and TV crews. The police couldn’t tolerate it so about 40 of them in riot gear beat the crap out of them. The contrast, last summer on a Rainbow Parade the Fascist and Racist antiprotesters threw eggs at the parading cheerful crowd. Eggs that had a hole punched on them to fill them and filled up with acidy liquid before. The police on the spot and the courts later last year announced this was merely an expression of their opinion. As I said, Anti-Capitalist are the true enemies of the state these days. Still. So... Obama, Sarkozy, Brown? They are talk, talk and talk. Sorry pals to disappoint you who believed otherwise.

Anyway, Tobi enjoyed the events somewhat. I think, although he isn’t telling, he may have been responsible to hyping emotions a bit thus contributing to the ‘incident’ that gave the excuse to the police to overreact.