Gifting season
An old friend turned up recently. In what I’m sure is becoming a modern trope when the internet causes lost acquaintances to emerge from the mists of time, I directed him here. He wrote back to say, “Do you have a job at all…?” and fair enough. Faithful readers will have noticed how little I discuss work here. This is for a variety of reasons. The foremost is the exhaustively famous prescription, “Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET. If you are the boss, however, please don’t be a bitch and talk with your hands. And when you order Prada online, please don’t talk about it out loud, you rotten whore”. Others have put it more succinctly. There’s also the thing about being boring. So it’s a rare event that you see me even mention the fact that I have a job. So savor this.
Along with the hot, humid weather described below, late June brings about the end of another session at the center where I toil in anonymity. The participants have been with us for three long months. They return to their widely scattered homes over a period of several days. As they trickle out they drift by my office in pairs or small groups to shake my hand, thank me for my work, and bestow a small token of esteem. These range from a business card and promise to show me around Riga, Sofia, Kiev, or Ptuj if I ever make it up/down/over that way, to more tangible gifts that often come in a bottle. Bulgarian chardonnay or rakia, Slovenian pečena peneča or cabernet, various dark, syrupy liqueurs of the Baltics are old stand-bys of the gifting season. Chocolate is likely, too, as are unit patches and insignia from the military participants, books, various trinkets running the gamut from plastic national-flag keyrings to elaborate ceremonial belts encrusted with gold embroidery, and the occasional Serbian air force officer’s cap that leaves its bestower unable to return to Belgrade in uniform. Pens, tie tacks, naval base paperclip trays, cyrillic fridge magnets all have their place.
Caviar is a first this June, though. Not to mention that pair of socks with Tito’s face on them.
Ehm, are you sure the sparkling wine is pečena (baked)? Did you mean peneča?
Comment by Lilit — Thursday 22 June 06 @ 08.51 MDT+2.00
Thanks for pointing out my error, Lilit. Of course it was sparkling, not baked, wine that I was referring to. Duly corrected.
Comment by sgazzetti — Thursday 22 June 06 @ 16.00 MDT+2.00
Damn, I was all ready to try the baked wine.
And, by the way, it is 50 degrees (F, obviously, you commie bastard) and raining here. Speak not to me of summer or gazpacho.
Comment by jdog — Friday 23 June 06 @ 07.28 MDT+2.00