of gypsies and car titles

here's a picture from my travels to romania last summer. taken during a short visit to a gypsy camp outside csikszereda, i remember being mesmerized by their eyes. they allowed me to take point blank portraits, without any pretentious "cheezing". i recently posted my favorites from that trip on flickr. (to see more of my photos, you can see them here.)

and speaking of gypsies, here's a good story from the past week.

so i bought a car from this guy, the title is NOT in order, he leaves for california and then the tags expire and i cannot get new tags without a title in my name. simply put, i am at the mercy of this guy returning and going with me to the dmv to straighten everything out. but i can't get in touch with him, and nobody knows when he will return. i end up riding my bike a lot. this goes on for three weeks.

then i get this call. he's back. we agree to meet at the dmv the next day. i am ecstatic.

so after crossing wires about where we are meeting, i tell him he needs to fill out a title application. (this is where i discovered three problems fairly quickly.) first, he cannot read or write, so i fill it out for him. second, he has no middle name. ok, that's not that big of a deal. but third, he doesn't know his driver's liscense number, because he lost it in california. at this point, i wonder out loud if this is going to fly or not.

so while i'm getting a number, he goes to get his wife who is already at a window. basically, he cuts the line. he talks to the dmv worker and next thing you know, she's helping our case. apparently, she has pity on me, or him, or both and takes care of everything.

this is when i met his wife for the first time, and she takes a liking to me. they were talking to each other very rapidly, while i wrote the check. when i asked, his wife explained the origins of their language. as i suspected, they are speaking romany, the gypsy language. most of the gypsies i met spoke hungarian, so i wasn't completely sure. but we talk about romania, and their family, and it was all very sweet.

anyway, with all the titles taken care of, they split saying "God bless you" and that was my interesting story for the day.

i got the car i/m'd, tagged, and legal. my laptop got a new keyboard for free. and we're getting a new lock for our mailbox. so i'd say that it was a pretty good week.

what the (bleep) do we know?

(that's the name of the movie i'm reviewing, for those of you who might not have heard of it.) and i really tried to make it through the whole thing. tried and failed. it was THAT bad. you all know i love movies. it must be really horrible for me to go out and rent it and then decide to do something else.

i was actually very interested in the movie, hearing good things about it, and reading the synopsis and see marlee matlin in it, i decided to rent it about three times before finally finding a copy in the store. you'd think that would be a good sign.

but my goodness, what a greasy gob of garbage! actually, using the term "movie" is being very generous. it's more like a poorly produced infomercial for some really spacey, new age hooey fooey. i'm not really sure what it was they were peddling, maybe scientology or something, but it was a pretentious pile of crap.

it's a bunch of people talking really "deep" about the nature of reality, quantum physics and how we aren't really sure what's real and what isn't. kinda like the matrix in the "there is no spoon" school of thought, except without anything looking nearly cool.

marlee matlin is that deaf actress that got an oscar or at least a nomination about ten or fifteen years ago. man, she couldn't act herself out of a wet paper bag. i would have never suspected that i would ever say such a thing before i saw this movie, but i'll take keanu reeves over marlee matlin any day.

so yeah, after about the longest half hour i've ever experienced, i got that thing out of the dvd player and plopped in "stalingrad". i was so glad that i got two movies!

"stalingrad" was a german movie made in 1992. it's about the epic battle of stalingrad, russia, during world war II. if you saw "enemy at the gates" then you know a little about the story. this is kind of the same thing, except from the german point of view, and it was very interesting to me, given the 60 year anniversary of germany's surrender this week.

of course, it's bleak. but i like movies that are not happy endings, and i pretty much knew everyone was going to die. and it was also much more authentic feeling without the english dialog and contrived love triangle that made "enemy at the gates" a little too western for me.

so that's two movie reviews for you, if you count the first one as actually being one. hope you have a pleasant tuesday.

patience

so it feels like this has been a major theme in my life of late. i don't recall ever praying for patience, but if i did, i'm really sorry about it. and it's not just one major thing that i'm waiting for (although i can talk about that if i really wanted to), but a whole bunch of little things.

it just seems that anything that i might depend on is taking much longer to transpire than i would expect it to normally. tax returns, storage unit keys, or final payments on the car i just sold. it doesn't matter what it is, even if it's just an answer to a question, it takes a few weeks. right now i'm waiting for the guy who sold me betty (previous post) to return from california so that he can accompany me to the dmv in order to get the title in my name. taking a chance on some cheap wheels, i skipped a few of my normal protocols because hey, it's only $900. but apparently, they're pickier about title matters than i thought. whether by his mistake or careful design, i have been left with an unregistered car with newly expired tags.

so what, am i supposed to just not fret about it, and ride my bike until he returns my call? does that seem stupid to anyone else? or is that called "patience"? i have to admit that the picture of this becoming sort of a fairview-style showdown is difficult to shake.

i try to remind myself that all these things will come to pass in time, just like they always have. i know that wigging out doesn't do anyone any good. the new glasses will arrive. new projects will come in at work. the mailbox key will dramatically reappear.

and maybe i'll become more patient.