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I am not quite sure why, but
of the ten children, it was often I that would accompany mom and dad to the
market every second Saturday morning in the light colored blue rambler with
the DJ Gary Dee playing such songs as “Rose Garden” on the radio. Perhaps
it was because I was a “Mama’s Boy” and I knew after our visit to the
market, it would be I in the kitchen watching my mom take such things as the
ten pounds of ground beef she would buy and divide it into ten equal
packages to be then frozen for various meals over the next two weeks until
we’d make the trip again. And although I didn’t fully appreciate it back
then, now some thirty plus years later I can not help but to marvel at how
wonderful of a woman she was, and is for that matter. Many of those same
tricks I would watch her do with the groceries from the West Side Market in
Cleveland during my childhood have carried over to my adulthood, and for
that I am forever grateful to her.
Just as I had yesterday
afternoon, I spent the morning today walking Vaci utca. going from shop to
shop showing the various shop keepers my digital panoramas and inquiring if
they’d want some for their shop’s homepage on the internet. And just as
yesterday, the response was often one of awe as they’d watch the images
stitch together to make one large panorama they could use on the web, or
print for brochures for that matter. Even though the morning didn’t start
out good as the difficult restaurant manager who had asked me to return this
morning at 9 to re-shoot the panoramas with less people present didn’t show
up, it turned out to be a nice and profitable morning after all. The
adjacent shop had told me I could find the manager Erika down the street at
a different shop, and find her I did. She was very impressed with my wares
and told me her company owned shops all over Budapest and wanted to discuss
with her boss just how many panoramas they may want from me. After meeting
with her, I stopped in a folk art store that not only requested I return
tomorrow after they prepare the shop for a shoot, but they are interested in
hiring me for a complete web site. Yes it was a good day I thought, and it
was only half over.
And now, with the day winding
down, I find myself in the Café Castro on Raday utca. trying to capture some
of my thoughts in a journal entry before heading “home” to prepare a nice
dinner for my girlfriend who fell just short of begging me this morning as
she walked out the door that we have a quiet evening at home together
tonight. I can almost hear her now, affectionately scolding me for sitting
here instead of getting the copy made of the flat key or going to the UPC
business to inquire about getting the internet ordered for the flat so I can
work at home instead of at the various internet cafes I have found around
town. Perhaps it is only because she has been in my life for three weeks
that I love her “nagging” me about such things as taking my shoes off so as
not to soil the white rugs in the flat, or leaving my things strewn about
only to have her have to pick up after me. God what a great girl I
repeatedly keep telling myself that I have found as I go through each day.
And now, through the smoke of my cigar that I know she’d be telling me I
shouldn’t be smoking, I see a poster on the wall of an old couple with an
affectionate embrace and I can not help but to continue my thoughts of her
and I. She has touched me in a way that if even tomorrow she would be gone
from my life, I would forever cherish the moments we have spent together.
Even though many of the moments have been those filled with laughter, some
have been of shared profound thoughts such as those we shared on the bank of
the Danube last night when we talked about how nice it has been to have come
into one another’s lives. It was near 10 when I got back from the internet
café and though she had wanted to go to bed, she accompanied me to the river
for what unfortunately has become a daily ritual for me - a cigar. “It’s
unfortunate that is often easier to hurt someone than to love them” she told
me at one point in our conversation. What a wise woman I said to her, only
to have her kindly tell me that it was I that was the wise one. And before
we left the Danube alone to the nearly full moon above, I attempted to burn
the memory of her sitting there in the moonlight forever into my memory for
later recollection of what would be yet another treasured memory. Now, some
18 hours later, I know my attempt was successful for I only need to close my
eyes to see her beautiful smile and twinkling eyes. And with that thought,
I’d better end this entry so I can make it to the supermarket to pick up
something for dinner tonight before meeting her at home at 5. I hope she’ll
go easy on me about my failure to get the flat key copied and hopefully will
agree to play me in a game of chess on that same white carpet she so
carefully protects from my dirty shoes which have been walking the streets
of Budapest all day. I’m so crazy about her… |