Pig

A guy called. He asked whether we could lodge and feed a bunch of people for two days, I said Yes, sure, we have vacancies.

Then I got a long list of stuff to be served, including a roasted piglet, if possible.
I said Yeah, no biggie but for the pig, I have to ask my suppliers whether they'd be able to deliver it on time and I'll talk to the chef whether it's doable. I billed the advance payment and went to do my job, which is mainly organizing, yelling, headdesking and keeping sober despite the circumstances.

I asked the chef: Hey, would you be able to roast a whole pig?
He said: Yeah, sure, whatever, I'll manage somehow, I could get a pre-cooked pig from The Meatworks, it would be easier to deal with. And, party, you say, that will rock, can't wait for all the cooking, hooray.
I replied: Excellent, so the pig business is all yours, I'll provide the drinks and candy, right?
Chef responded with a big Yes and I went back to my usual worries.
On Sunday, Chef said Alright, this is fixed, that is organized and you get the pig. I remarked that he promised to get the pig, he mumblegrumbled something and said Oh, well, whatevs, get the pig.

I phoned my sales representative in Metro. I think he likes me, most of his customers need lots of boring things like flour and milk all the time while we the fancy hotel ask for exciting shit. He only gasped shortly when I ordered a pig and then promised to ask around whether we could get a pig on Tuesday.

I went back to my paperwork and my tired mind conjured a scene, in which the delivery driver unloads a crate of coffee, some beer, a few boxes of cookies and then hands me a piece of rope to whose other end a boar is tied, saying This is Louie and Lousie saying "Oink". I called again and said Please, I need the pig dead. Now, the Metro guy gasped longer, then laughed for a while and when he caught his breath, he asked Oh my god, what happened. Long time ago, he came to understand that things sometimes get pretty odd here, that I have damn good reasons to think three corners ahead. Eh... well..., for example. I was promised that the pig will be totally dead and gutted.

I called the Chef and told him that all is set, pig is ordered. Smoked or roasted, he asked.

- Nope, just raw.
- But I wanted it cooked.
- You asked me to get you a pig. You didn't provide any specs regarding its state so I made sure it's dead, right? I snarked. - It will take a long time to roast and it's complicated and it would be much easier if it were pre-cooked. Also, The Boss said that he once had a smoked pig here, why didn't he get a smoked pig, the Chef yelled at me.
- Dear, I groaned. The smoked pig you refer to, I happened to see it. It was a piglet-shaped ham. You know, because I explicitly warned you several times, that I'm no expert when it comes to meat. I can't prepare it, I don't know even theoretically how one deals with it, I don't even eat it that much and if so, then preferably thinly sliced. You wanted a pig, you have a pig, deal with it. (See, I'm being assertive at this point.)
- Mumblegrumble, but is the advance already paid, because, if they just order all that food and don't show up, we'll be left with a pig and The Boss said that unless the advance is paid, nothing should be bought, and, anyway, everything is your fault and the pig should have been pre-cooked because now someone will be roasting it for two days. - I'll deal with The Boss and you have a pig to deal with, riiiiight?

At this point, the Chef hung the phone. I hope he's offended indeed mortally so that I don't need to deal with him any more.

Later, the Metro guy called again that hey, cool, we'll deliver the pig tomorrow. Or on Friday, if it suits you better.
At this point, it was me who gasped. We have no such big fridge so I replied that while his diligence is laudable, I ordered the pig for Tuesday so would they please hang it in their walk-in hangar fridge.

The advance payment hasn't arrived yet. The group has been here quite a few times so I hope they would eventually show up... the pig business has been stressful enough already.

The post-it problem

I think that everyone who had the dubious pleasure of my company noticed an OCD (1) strain in me. And that I can be damn irritating with that one.

I also make a frequent use of post-its. I evolved a habit of using those green ones, 7.5x7.5 cm for the bibliographic.... how do I say scheda in English? Well, sort of like index cards. Neon yellow ones are permissible, too. Not those regular pale yellow ones, nor, say, pink or blue ones. Gotta be green (or, in a sheer necessity, neon yellow).

I usually carry handfuls of post-it blocs around, I have some in my diary, but I happened to have ended up here with a single neon yellow post-it left. I need to write and I have nothing for my bibliography! and I'm in a country where I have no clue where to actually go and buy post-its (back home I'd go to the department store to the stationery; or to Esselunga; or to Ufficio moderno di Firenze before they had closed down. I'd know places).

I went to Historiska Museet yesterday. I love it there because they have nice things exhibited.
Admittedly, I'm an intellectual snob so I was constantly near banging my head against something hard. What I love about Sweden is that it's rather an user-friendly country but sometimes they just go too far. Like, the tags lack basic info like origin, dimensions, material used. Rants about their function are highly useful to the general crowd, an emulation of a Romanesque church space is neat, too, but, what if an art historian wanders in and wants to see, o woe, details ? In clear light? And that exhibition on Virgin Mary and a general ideal of a woman was neat but the clear light whine is still valid, and I'd want a catalog. With pics. In colour. The large and neat works on Swedish medieval scuplture are rather old, with pics in black and white, you know, so that there'd be something. And, anyways.
Admittedly, most of the place was empty, one thing I like about Medieval stuff is that as long as it's not that colourful 14th century Italian stuff or International style, nobody is too much interested in it because, well, it's not colourful and pretty most of the time. Apart from that stomping teenager and stomping guards chatting on the cellphone so I could mess around and stick my nose to the hollowed-out backs of the statues and such, while whining that there's no catalog available and that I'm stupid not to have studied more.

I have another rather OCD issue. I don't like going to places where I can't understand the native dialect. And, I don't like going here up north because I look like a native. My command of Swedish is passable but I don't speak it. I mean, in, say, Italy or in the Reservation, I generally look foreign so people are pleasantly surprised that I speak Florentine or Moravian (instead of textbook Italian and Czech) and even if I make a neat blunder, they are fine. Here I'm expected to be a Swede and to speak, obviously, perfectly. I thought that maybe getting a massive Finnish accent to my English would at least make the things self-explanatory... well, for the next time.

On my way back, I passed a secondhand bookshop. I sneaked in - I don't really like shopping in places where I might be approached by the staff, especially in this country, that's why I sneaked in. I would like to get the whole five volumes of Aron Andersson's Medieval Swedish Sculpture in Wood (or how the hell it's called) so I thought it would be worth checking. It was, I found volumes III and IV of Andersson, that book on English influences on Norwegian sculpture that was a pain in the arse to find and which I have only in a lousy photocopy. Then the bookshop guy came to kick me out ("vi stängs" or something), I grabbed the two books and asked whether, by chance, they may have volumes I, II and V. The guys said that they should be somewhere around, that they may have more books that may interest me and that I should drop by some other day. If I were a cat, I'd purr.

The issue of green post-its and the resulting inability to do something in the library remains unresolved, though.

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(1) Obsessive-compulsive disorder. A thingy that makes folks check ten times that they really turned off the gas stove and such.

On the road runway

Do you know that icky advert for Taft hairspray? Featuring that kitschy blonde with big mouth and big hair? It goes like Morning, Someplace, sunny, your hair looks plasticky all over; Midday, Anytown, windy, your hair holds and holds its excellent plasticky look; Evening, Podunk, sleet, your hair looks the same fugly all over.

Erm, here's one of them. There was a whole series of adverts on TV, all along the same lines. I hated them all. Karma kicked me in the shins so apparently, I live in one nowadays.

Yesterday morning, Larnaka, sunny, 25 degrees dipped in the sea, getting more sun rash to have a nice memory of holidays. Pissed and over-tanned.
Yesterday evening, Vienna, something like rain. Landed in the airport hotel, in a 200 euros room (comfy bed, admittedly, and I damn needed one. And feather pillows). View of a parking house and if I tried hard, of the Terminal 1 and a railway station. Could be 150 trashbins, admittedly.

Today morning, Vienna, there was some weather but I forgot to notice, pissed.
Today noon, Stockholm, changeable, rather cold, pissed and sleep-deprived. I seem to hate travelling.

Two days of near-panic state. I'm tired by all that travelling and there's always that damn social phobia. I apparently have an issue with the North. I look like a native. So, people expect that I'm Swedish or something like that. Which is why I don't speak Swedish. Speaking silly furriner Italian is fun, as a silly furriner, I'm always doing rather well. Silly furriner Swedish when I look like a Swede? Not fun. I should learn a handful of Finnishisms or something to feel better about it. Or I'll stick to English.