Right to the very end... you never did what was expected from you.

I've been very sad lately. Year has actually been very good - lot of progress, promotions, things going in the desired directions so this apparent backtrod in the last remaining weeks of the year weighs heavily on my heart. Still no mail from the Family court (waiting for court ruling in my divorce case since early October), bumps on the road to graduation, superficiality of the relationships around (containing) me.

Sigh.

Yesterday my offspringess and I watched Ulquiorra as he was claimed by the wind and the despair. We were both crying our eyes out not despondently and engulfed in expectedness but full of hurt and questions and acuteness.

How? Why? Couldn't have anything been done to ... to ... what? Soften the blow I presume.

Naze?

Kokoro e ikimasu.

Amigurumi Mouse

It is half past midnight and my impatient offspringess had fallen asleep waiting for her newest toy to be finished. This is my first attempt at amigurumi toys and it seems to be pretty successful one; I actually feel that she will like this one.

Saa, mabuta o akete

Ah, yes... this IS cable in the middle of one handsome and almost finished hand-warmer and there IS Kurosaki Ichigo in the distance. I made one beautiful hat last night while watching Ulqiorra Cifer being astonishingly smart and well thought out in his actions so today I'm making hand-warmers to go with the hat. I'm really loving how Bleach characters and their narrative evolve. I have also learned a bunch of new words and expressions. I'm contemplating making some light designing of an Bleach inspired outfit.

Lo and Behold! My Very First Crocheted Christmas Bauble

Battle of Good and... um... Not so Good?

From frozen wasteland to cracked pressure cooker in measly few days, my head hurts and bio-meteorological prognosis really cramps up my style, clarity of mind competing with affluence of bad omens. My offspringess and I had great discussion about existential battle between good and evil inside every noteworthy person. Six-year-olds are great prioritizers, they seem to never miss an opportunity to point out the obvious in the invisible.

Long Live Winter Tires

Season of disgusting weather is definitely here. Ice rain is falling since break of dawn, yet the temperature being too high it is turning into slush on the ground and on everything. I'm pretty pleased with this year acquisition of winter tires - first ones I really bought on my own, with no help whatsoever. Adversity and lousy relationships prove to be great teachers and personal advancers once again.

Ikaku

Busy day today. I made great chocolate muffins and hand-warmer (a bit seen in the photo above) and hat set. However I was displeased and restless. I am a terrible person inside when I'm trying to contain my anger. But I'm still deliberating on appropriate course of action so there is not much I can do to 'release steam'.

'What good is pride to a man if he's dead?'

Well, I used to ask myself the same question more than a few times. But it is essentially a wrong question to begin with. I see this now. It happens to be a case of mistaken identity, really... Term misunderstanding of a sort. I do not value pride because when I hear 'pride' I hear 'formal commitment' but actually this does not have to be the case. If we return for a second to Nietzche's postulate of interpretations being humanity facts there are two possible solutions: formality itself could be functional and also one could regard the thing one labels 'pride' as essential and necessary component of life worthy life. So: 'What good is pride to a man if he's dead?' is a proposition containing a fatal flaw; right to the exact moment of death one evaluates pride value in 'life' condition, not innately containing life vs death as a proper 'working condition' split.

Iyoku

My mojo is back! I can see it in the way I work through my workday, using even the last minute, handling task after task in feverish desire to get everything done so I can get back home to feed and cuddle with my offspringess and then ready my knitting and get in front of the PC to watch Bleach. I love how it evolves – from childs play into societal critique – sharp and heartbreaking, honorific and scandalous. The more I watch anime and get better acquainted with Nihongo more I see cultural similarities between Croatian and Japanese way of thinking and living. I see things we have had and have lost and I see ways we could get them back.

Bleach it out

Ten days ago I received a parcel from China with my new bamboo dpns and 40'' circulars in 15 sizes and I've been restlessly knitting ever since, having produced one coat, shrug, few swatches and half an cardigan (on photo above; it's going to have ruffles:). Neck deep in knitting projects I've started to watch Bleach and am absolutely loving it. Ichigo's T-shirts rock!

'Rhythm is my Life'

Here we are, on the road to Osijek again. I watched 'Love Actually' last night and it is a bittersweet pleasure bordering on pain. I fear there will be no more times when hunt is on... and am also relieved. Jury's still out.

Petrovaradin Fortress Clock

I visited Novi Sad this week. It was my second time I went there and I absolutely love that city. People are very friendly, architecture lovely and food just as I like it. We had lot of work to do and have hardly had time to lift our eyes from presentations and papers but we also had dinner in '8 tamburasa' restaurant in Petrovaradin Fortress. Evening was warm, Dunav beautiful, mismatched clock ticking to my highly pleased soul.

Rijeka Harbor At Sunset

We were already driving uphill towards highway to Zagreb when I remembered that I didn't snap any photos today and went to rectify that. It was a very busy day and I was pleased to see so meny things done. All the way back to Zagreb I thought about Porcupine Tree Heartattack in a Layby. It is such a beautiful song, and there is so much said in so few words. Surely it is a great blessing not knowing everything the future will bring. Life seems more personalized that way.

Saving Time For Later

This weekend we got an extra hour to sleep in and an opportunity to get completely annoyed realigning social clock with our biological one. So we were, my offspringess and I, getting up at 6 o'clock past few days. That resulted in some great sunrises photos. I love how she always wakes up in good spirits so we can talk and laugh and get ready for preschool and work feeling relaxed and ready for new challenges.

Sunlit Woods

Another educational and socially unpleasant day is behind us. To harmonize unpleasantness levels in all available social interaction fields we went for a brief walk in the woods around Glavica. I wish I had some brain implants that could play new Oceansize album to me in times of trouble, I like very much what it does for my psychological homeostasis.

Candied Hedge

Today Zagreb woke up covered in hoarfrost and lit by beautifuly yellow sun. I am really tired this week from all the travel, stress, business engagements and various obligations I had to see fulfilled so I'm very pleased with world's daily display of beauty which in turn makes me less nervous. Sometimes I wish I was less of a diplomat and more of a epicurean.

Bark Dlue

I traveled to Rijeka and back today through snow-covered Delnice. I was a bit shocked by the amount of snow there but also dazzled by its beauty. I had to get up really early and when I woke up I remembered I had a great dream just before I woke up, but I couldn't remember what it was about. After a while, when we arrived to Rijeka, it all came back; in this dream my friend and I came to Rijeka and met with some people which we did not know. We introduced ourselves and chatted a bit and then the people we met told us they would accompany us to where we were supposed to go. We started walking through some derelict buildings and passageways and eventually we got to a kind of half-open space with couple of iron gates in various directions. In a few moments it became obvious that it is some kind of zoo, with animals behind every gate. I stayed close to my "guide" but some of the other people were entering the habitats and petting the animals. As all of the animals were big and fierce - lions and tigers and other kinds of wild animals - I was very surprised and confused why is everyone so brave and eager to go into pens and touch the animals. My guide, who was a handsome guy I was sure I never met before, was trying to encourage me to go in and play with the animals so I got into one pen and after a quick moment one dark blue velvet lion with beautiful dark blue sparkly mane came running to cuddle with me. He was warm and soft and dark blue and cuddly and very beautiful and I hugged him and ran fingers through his mane still wondering how come everyone is so brave to be playing with wild animals and then I realised all of the animals had shoes on. They were all just dressed up people. I woke up wondering how true could this be - are we really so consumed in our interpretations and expectations so not to see something so revealing as pretense? I liked the dream very much and I can still remember the softness and sparkling beauty of my lion's dark blue mane.

Good Weather for Toadstools

I went for a walk on Sunday with some friends and shot some great photos of various mushrooms. It is already visible that the pace is slowing down, bringing natural year to its end. Soon there will be time for rest and stagnation so the ball could roll yet again next spring. Air is humid and food for mushrooms plentiful so they thrive in their exquisite beauty. It brings me great joy to acknowledge the functionality of nature; nothing is wasted and there is beauty in every process - circle of life always spinning between matter and energy.

Why would you want to get rid of this?

First time I laid eyes on Gabriel Gray working in his shop I thought: “Oh, my God – it’s Jeremy Clockson!!!” in utter astonishment. Never mind the fact that neither Gabriel nor Zachary could walk around being unnoticed - being far too beautiful to walk around unnoticed – but the scene from Heroes corresponded so well with what my mind has concocted for Thief of Time scene. And then he said, looking at Davis just like a watchmaker would while looking at a clock: “You’re broken…. I can fix it.” yet in that moment he surely could not.

Later on I thought about this often, feverishly, urgently – half engulfed in hectic exploration and half paralyzed with fear of what this discovery could reveal.

“But they are so different”, – my mind would echo – “one so devoid of passion and the other desire incarnate.”

And I know how it feels to yearn far over the threshold of physical pain. I seldom yearn for things so but rarer still do I comply with my yearning. Things break, and people fall apart when such desires get a chance to be satiated. But we live and learn – no such knowledge comes effortlessly nor does God pay every Saturday, as my grandma would say.

Still I had to search for the answer to this conundrum and just now I feel I could be on to something.

Malfunction Detected

Today I woke up feeling as a broken down robot. Hydraulics fucked up. Leaking coolant. Overheated. Driver update needed. I barely managed to gather myself enough to start driving to work across town when I noticed that discomfort in my neck is not going to go away purely by yielding to my willpower but that it is going to transform into full-blown torticollis and that really pissed me off. And than... I drove out of the milky fog and into beautifully sun lit Sestine basking in most wonderful autumn morning ever. That substantially improved even broken robot's today.

Road Trip to Dobova

I generaly leave the impression of confident high achiever but the truth is that I do not really like having to do everything myself. I would, now and then, appreciate having some help in daily and not so daily issues - just like having tires changed. Today I went to Slovenia to treat my loving vehicle with some new winter tires. I tried to dissolve my stress of having to plan and execute everything myself with some humor and citrus fruit but I proved to be notoriously hard to fool. Nevertheless, good people of Furlan auto service were extremely nice and it was a real pleasure to deal with them and at the same time save a pretty penny shopping there. Also I had a good time going through customs, which is always a good thing. I even got a new stamp in my passport.

Crimson Creed

Autumn is definitely here with crazy coloured leaves and stench of pensiveness in the air... How is it, actually, that people forget the experience of feeling of being in love? The warmth, smell, the feel of it? Rewarding nature of it? Vivaciousness that stems from it? All that time and effort and resources trown away on partner search just to rutinize, scrutinize and impotenize once the search ends. Suddenly security spells uneventiveness and routine justifies negligence.

Man Zero and Kelly Meickle at Kset

Monday night this week was reserved for Kset and Man Zero returning from their Balkan tour. Visibly exhausted but pleased with new experiences gathered playing on this tour thay have rounded up this experience with exquisite performance at home field in Zagreb.

For this occasion, small bend from Đurđevac, Kelly Meickle, opened the concert evening with actually ashtonishingly well played gig. What they lacked in showmanship they have surely substituted in enthusiasm and goodwill. I especially liked singer's impeccable pronunciation which heightened their act to almost professional level.

Man Zero followed shortly after and they were amazing. Meticulously over-rehearsed and wonderfully adjusted soundwise they absolutely owned the crowd. It was difficult to remove eyes from their act; someone always moving around, performers switching guitars, adjusting and readjusting ton of switches so seamlessly and well rehersed that it almost seemed efortless. It was a celebration of functionality in itself. Their music, on the other hand, was perfect - live, vibrant and satiated with mental imagery. In their performance they had all the pomposity of let's say - Battles (think Tonto) along with crystal clarity of melody and sound of If These Trees Could Talk (think Above the Earth - Below the Sky). It was a revelry of sound that left me dream-filled and pleased to infinity.

Man Zero Autumn 2010 Balkan Tour

Warmly greeted few days ago by Man Zero guys I had an unparallel opportunity to talk to and spend some time with them before they left for their autumn 2010 Balkan Tour. They will be performing in Serbian, Macedonian, Greek, Bulgarian and Hungarian clubs (for more detailed itinerary please visit their myspace page) in the next few days and for tour finale they will be performing at KSET on October 11th.

Tomislav, Igor, Denis and Elvis are very eloquent and down to earth bunch of people which I found in good spirits preparing for the trip. We exchanged couple of brief remarks about the band and their work, about making of their album Telemark and their outlook on genre classification, eventually giving priority to making and listening to music. You can check out their myspace page to get better acquainted with their music – fortunate concoction of instrumental post-rock and pragmatic kinda' love of playing that shines through every riff and beat.

I also had an opportunity to snap some photos which (if you don’t mind my saying) came out great as their state of perfect unison inevitably radiates through.

Lastly, if you find yourself in the way of Man Zero itinerary from today - 30th September to October 09th 2010 come and see their show which will be coming back to Zagreb on October 11th. See you all at KSET!

We Could Live on Future Islands

Yesterday evening I went to see Future Islands at Kset. I first heard of them through my online acquaintance Zach Kelly's Pitchfork review of their "In Evening Air";. Though at first I found their sound awkward and dispersed I have grown to like them very much so when I heard they are going to perform in Zagreb I was very excited and had no doubt in my mind that I should attend. And it really was a nice show; a bit sloppily adjusted sound-wise but I am starting to feel I am spoiled rotten by few superbly set up gigs at Kset (last one being unbelievably perfect Russian Circles). The crowd was in good, dancing mood and performers pleased with the reception. Very nice show indeed.

As Always, Perfectly Concise Yet Obnoxious Pointer to One's Own Shortcomings

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of a crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

RWE

Nevertheless:

Wit is often concise and sparkling, compressed into an original pun or metaphor. Brevity is said to be its soul. Humor can be more leisurely diffused through a whole story or picture which undertakes to show some of the comic aspects of life. What it devalues may be human nature in general, by showing that certain faults or weaknesses are universal. As such it is kinder and more philosophic than wit which focuses on a certain individual, class, or social group."

Thomas Munro

Appearances

Last few days I have been ruminating on how much we extrapolate from so little we can objectively verify. But boy, some of it is oh so pleasant. Like yesterday, ... we were on Murter city beach checking out if the sea has cooled down after the windy and rainy few days when an older gentleman approached me and said that I was 'the most beautiful woman he saw on this beach all season, regular sex bomb'. I was taken by surprise but really flattered. Some of the other people on the beach (mostly females) were somewhat stunned by his stunt and taken aback by my expression of surprised gratitude. There was murmur all around and I'm sure everyone had personal conclusion, interpretation of us, actors of this tale, sifted through the sieve of their referential frame. The gentleman and I might have been actors in objective reality, objects moving through physical and psychological space, being the action provoking re-action, but every person seeing us act was actor of their own interpretation production - being more of the factor of eventual conclusion formulation than any of physical actors.

Perfect Postcard

We had beautiful last day on Kaprije, a bit fresher after the rain with clear air and high visibility. We climbed to the Kaprije summit and enjoyed the sight of Zirje and Kornati and smaller isles nearby.

Stoping to smell the succulents

We're still on Kaprije swimming and sunbathing and eating well. I'm not usually big on vacations and I usually cannot stand not working on something palpable. This time I have managed to have my cake and eat it too; I rest and relax and have fun and also have fun coordinating some work-related issues from here. I love the feeling that this year I won't find myself buried under a mountain of backlog when I return to work.

Kaprije

It is my first visit to Kaprije, island in Sibenik sea territory. It is about an hour long trip by fast boat from Sibenik and the island itself is quite quaint and lovely. What I love the most is that I have great conversation partner, vigil and interested in keeping coversations fact-packed and focused and in the same time ladden with impressions and emotion circumstance interpretations.

Afternoon in Sibenik

So, we're off to our vacation, my offspringess and I, and today we're exploring Sibenik. We started off way too early and have arrived hours before our ferry so we decided to spend our afternoon wandering trough Sibenik Sunday streets. Crickets are chirping in the high sun and air is saturated with smell of the sea and pine resin. I wonder how I ever lived so strung out and flooded with emotions of every experience so I could not form memories. Being calmer surely offers great value for how I spend my time.

How do we deal with office conflict?

Mostly not very well. But there is hope. I love my job dearly. Searching for it I was steering myself by Confucius's saying:"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life" and it, pretty much, worked. I love the challenge, intellectual requirement, hype and pressure. I love how I can fully utilize my work ethics in it and how it pays off. And of course there are people working with me who do not share my enthusiasm and who involve themselves in futile misplacement of their energy. But actual problems are never ideological in nature. Ideology merely reflects in down-to-earth situations and my opinion is that they should be regarded as such since it saves a lot of grief. The problem should never be stated as "you're a lazy-ass bastard" but "This task, that I was expecting to have been done, was not done. Negotiating new guidelines is needed." This week it worked like a charm. I'm pleased, very very pleased.

R&R Weekend

Fun and relaxing weekend is slowly drifting away to the past. Yesterday evening we had some rain and it smelled like approaching autumn. I'm not really ready for autumn yet, with my considerable summer footware collection hardly worn outside of my workplace. I wonder if this is how I will feel confronted with imminent death - pondering on amounts of unworn feelings and thoughts.

Serendipity

What do you see in photo above? Here is how the story goes; there was me, trying to mind my own business and there was my life, being complicated and wreaking havoc, as usual. So I got to the office and logged in to my gmail inbox and went on to find something motivational to assign to my status bar and I found Louis Pasteur's quote "Chance favors the prepared mind." and I put it in my status bar and went on with my daily business. Later on I had an sms altercation with my estranged spouse, later still I discussed feminine beauty with a friend and couldn't, for the life of me, remember name of an actress I wanted to use as an example of a perfect 10. Since I could not sleep not having remembered the name I searched for it by using the only movie name that I could remember featuring her - Serendipity. When I hit "search" there were few Wikipedia results one after another and in my haste I opened the one showing not facts about 2001. romantic comedy but description of the term "serendipity" in which, few lines down in the text, there is Mr. Louis Pasteur and his famous saying:"In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind." In the photo above there is my finger seconds after it was dipped in face cream while I was preparing for bed few days ago. I suppose we're all well enough prepared for this kind of discovery. Recently I started to hope my mind is prepared for more audacious discoveries. Discoveries like finding a way to assert some order and composure into emotionally tensed arrangements.

Desire

I've been a bit more at ease lately. Trying to teach myself to "stay in the moment" as Alan Watts would say through Charlie Crews's mouth. Also, I have just watched House MD S02E13 "Skin Deep" re-run. It is truly a work of art. Re-conceptualization. If there ever was a book I feel everyone having half a brain should read it is surely Joey Comeau's Lockpick Pornography. There is something utterly irresistible in acquiring a meme as beautiful as some of his mind children. Listening to Ryan Adams sing Desire as House end credits rolled over the screen I thought of my desire; odorless and transparent, mimicric and predatory - always eager to hunt down and submit yet so often unsatiated.

Exuse me, sir... Where are we now?

It has been excruciating few days. No sleep, or food, nor perk nor pleasure could distract me from the notion that seemingly nothing can be done about a problem I have. All that CAN be done is to wait and see what the future will bring - and I really hate the helplessness it implies, inefficiency it imputes to me. Walking into office this morning I was overwhelmed with a sense of closure and serenity and my thoughts tingled with a poem I read years ago, poem "Grass" by Carl Sandburg.

I was done searching for a solution already. Now I am also done waiting for a solution. I will let IT come to ME.

Cool Down, Relax, Take it Easy

This beautiful armchairs stand in front of human resources department in one Zagreb hospital. They haven't got a place in the spotlight and they seem forlorn and cast aside but actually the place they have been put in is what has kept them beautiful. Condition of material and seams on the chairs is exquisite and they look like a couple of well dressed and elegant ladies lost in conversation.

Serenity Squeal

There was no divorcing on Monday. Oh, well... had I not been prepared for another episode of 'Believe It or Not' I would have been propperly pissed. But I had been prepared, sadly. Everything is postponed for October so nobody could say Croatian Justice Department dilly-dallies. In the meantime my offspringess and I went for a walk after yesterday's rain and we shot some great photos of our neighbourhood.

Divorce Day

And here I am now, sipping coffee behind Family Court in Zagreb, seemingly placid on the outside, waiting for court session to start. It has been two long years now, filled with anguish and resentment, learning and search for understanding. Sometimes people say that after such a excrutiating experience that they feel a different person alltogether. Sometimes they're smarter, or calmer, or beter tacticians. I can say that this is all true and also not true. Perspective has changed and time has passed but nothing has changed substantially - I believed in my words and actions then, and also believe in them now, I don't feel I have misslead anybody and I don't harbor any resentment for trust spent in this relationship. Formal part of this relationship may be over today but personal part - love, trust, togetherness - that was all gone long before formalities were questioned.

Stubicke Toplice

Today we went to Stubicke Toplice to check out how's the water. Stubicke Toplice (Stubicke Spa) are about 30 kilometers from my house in Zagreb and going there is very nice and relaxing drive with not much traffic. Toplice themselves are on a beautiful, forested patch of meadow between two gentle hill slopes. Water is warm, about 30 degrees Celsius, in pools with various depths (40-170 cm) and oddly refreshing. I enjoyed swimming in it very much and have also caught some sun. Around noon it was too hot so we packed up and went home, hungry and tired, yet very pleased.

Irreplaceable Rijeka

After we finished work today we went for a short swim to Pecine. I used to live in Rijeka and my heart still breaks every time I leave for Zagreb. I miss everything about her; sight of the sea through the window, rustling of bay leaves in the evening breeze, crackling sound in my ears on a low air pressure day, even the smell of oil refinery on a hot summer afternoon. Swimming through wonderfully refreshing sea I did not think about anything, just enjoyed the moment. I almost cannot remember when I last did that.

Morning by Drava

I've been staying in Osijek for two days on business and it is truly wonderful. There is lot of work but Osijek is beautiful and quaint and people are so friendly and approachable that I'm stunned speechless. Yesterday evening we went to dinner to Zelena Zaba (Green Frog) restaurant and had fish perkelt with home made pasta and it was finger-licking good. We slept in Zoo hotel, with Drava silently flowing by our window. I feel so rested and at ease, all my somber mood from few days ago flowed away with this beautiful river.

Perhaps, it has been speculated, optimism confers a survival advantage by helping people cope with adversity.

... but does it really? Does optimism really offer survival advantage by helping people cope with adversity? And which terms it stipulates? And what is the price for such luscious arrangement?
There actually are answers to these questions. Sadly, many of them I already know and sadder still they only serve to strengthen my belief that "people" is unjust aggregation of individuals who steer their life by interpretations seldom comparable by content even when caused by immediate and proximate common experience.

It was, nevertheless, beautiful day here in Zagreb and I went for a brief walk to reward myself for being such a good and efficient little trooper today and writing a big chunk of my research paper. I also had some company and consequently an opportunity to socialize, communicate, learn and emote. We ate pretty good kebabs and sat in the shade on Opatovina, listening to Histrions rehearse for their grand opening of "Histrion Summer" tonight.

Sun Spots

Waking up is beautiful this summer. We have just watched Tristan & Isolde, my friend and I, and by watching it together I have, for the first time, realised just how much difference openness to experience makes. "You don't have to understand here to be here" Charlie Crews says and it reverberates through my experience... rearranging stuff that's already there - shuffling it around like plastic bag in the wind. And it is what it is, this lack of experience needed to be able to continually re-interpret the situation in the film. It is an absence that rolls the dice, just as experience would if there was any. Sun spot both illuminates and blinds.

None Of Us Are Free

I've been listening to Solomon Burke's None of Us Are Free lately and also have been craving for some nice homemade pasta so I made myself some fettuccine that I intend to boil in milk and season with some walnuts and sugar in the morning. I've been kinda down. Somehow the easiness of mistake accumulation seems more visible in the last few days and I am sad and perplexed and angry and sad. Mostly sad. Right now before I went to bed I watched the beginning of House S06E14 to see Peter Jacobson/Chris Taub defend community again. I just love how it all makes sense when he does it; watching him I still see Wally Jabrowski and the world somehow feels less misaligned.

As always, beauty lurks from unexpected places

Five minutes ago we had an unexpected bout of rain and rainbow quickly emerged over Zagreb sky. Finest bow for today's holiday free time present.

Breathe

I woke up annoyed and sad, shaken by nights' restless dreams and incessant pain of my inflamed right wrist. Driving to work I stole milliseconds to stare into beautiful cloud-riddled sky and listened to Blue radio and in one thrilling moment, without any warning, Midge Ure song Breathe started on the radio. The annoyance thawed out and pleasure overflowed.

You're the best mom and the best cook also!

Now, that is what I call a stellar compliment: "You're the best mom and the best cook also!" and I can thank it all to cheese flavored pastries. You can also make these and bask in the warmth of similar compliments by rolling to quarter inch thickness one sheet of puff pastry and then covering half of it thinly with mixture of one egg, pinch of salt, two generous tablespoons of cottage cheese and two flat ones of sour cream (this quantity could be for two puff pastry sheets, it all depends on your measuring generosity). Flip non-covered pastry half over the cheesed one and brush lightly with beaten egg. Sprinkle with seeds; sesame, linseed, sunflower, pumpkin (linseed here) and cut into smaller bits with sharp knife or pastry cutter and bake in preheated oven (about 200 C or 390 F) for about 6 minutes, until puffed and golden.

Five Leaf Clover

In the above photo there is 5 leaf clover I found in my yard. Interestingly, I don't really regard more-than-three-leaved clovers as a particularly good sign. I do not believe in 'magical properties', I think that people should be attentive to their environments and that considering 'a bigger picture' helps make better choices ... and yet ... more-than-three-leaved clovers seem to jump out of the meadows for me to find them. It only looks awkward and magical but in reality it is more plausible that this is above mentioned attentiveness at work - AKA magic much more useful than the ordinary household kind.

Mama's got a brand new ... boot

... And not just any boot! Brand new gray summer boots with open toes and fancy straps. Shoes being one of my passions these really really made me happy and I'm already plotting and scheming plausible scenarios for wearing them.

Insect Beauty

This stunningly beautiful guy attracted my attention during Friday trip to Rijeka. He was about 2 inches long and grooming about 3,5 inch antennae on gas station near Karlovac. He patiently allowed me to take bunch of his photos and to be bewildered with clever and functional design of his body. I searched for extra information when I got home and it seems to me that he could be Neocerambyx Raddei of the longhorn beetles.