Sunday, May 15th, 2022. Week number 19

Good morning. It’s about a quarter to 7:00 and I’m in the kitchen sipping on some chocolate coffee. I had black bread with sunflower oil with some mildly cooked cabbage for breakfast. I know this is not the breakfast of champions but I was told that the well cleaner will be here at about 8:30. My ex partner will probably show up between 10:00 and 11:00. I have to pump the well if I want to keep any of the water before they show up. And I’m here.

I guess I should talk a little bit about the end of last week. I went to town on Friday, mostly just to spend some time with people, so I ended up in a bit of a rush on Friday night. Usually, I ate dinner early on Friday night because I’m just ready to quit and eat something. Last week, I was actually worried about sundown and trying to get everything done before the sun went away. I am really just in my own way. There’s really no other way to say that.

But Friday night and Saturday itself we’re not very restful because of the constant assault of mosquitoes. Those humid days and whatever rain fell anywhere But here in My village made this a perfect storm for mosquito breeding. This wasn’t sunrise and sunset, this was an all day and all night assault. I don’t know how many I killed and I don’t know how many got to use me for a meal but it was a bloodbath.

The thought did come into my mind that I could have stayed in town. There is no law that says I need to spend my day off at home. My ex partner would not have particularly bothered me much and when I was coming out of the hospital, she took reasonable pains to be kind to me on Saturdays. It was completely my decision to leave and in fact, the only job that I was supposed to do that I failed to do was to throw the beans that we are going to plant today in water. An absolutely foolish amateur mistake that I only just rectified a few minutes ago. I guess we will do the beans last.

Why didn’t I stay with her? I guess it’s a complicated question with a complicated answer. Most people like simple answers to questions and they don’t like the world to be more complicated. Maybe it’s even enough just to say that it’s a complicated answer because it’s a complicated relationship. There are some obvious points. She’s not Jewish. This is not any kind of a deal breaker for our relationship but it does make things a bit dicey on Saturdays. But we also have different views on veganism. She got into it because of me but she just as easily falls out of it in company with others. She cheats.

I spent some time on Friday with the Jewish community. I went there because of a friendly invitation. Literally, I was invited to come just for the bullshit. Just for fun.

During this conversation, we talked about a number of things. Also quite complicated. I told my friend that I was reading Torah portions this year and I had my comment about last week’s reading to share with him. I guess I should say that I have had the same argument with the Jewish community as long as I have been friends with the Jewish community. I have a problem with religious belief. There is a specific word in Hebrew for this and I am way too mathematical in my head to buy into belief or the belief that is required. And the Jewish community here is Hasidic.

This doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I guess it’s the exact same situation as with my ex partner.

My friend laughed at me though. “Isn’t it funny how people say they have an ex partner but then they end up spending all their time there.” A reasonable question from another ex-partner. Look at me with yet another love triangle.

I explained to him how she is my best friend and our relationship has settled into something that it needs to be. I could argue that she has one or two thoughts that she keeps in the back of her mind. She is KGB after all. But how can you argue with someone who is there for you when you absolutely need them. Even if she is not there to the full extent that I need her, I am a hypocrite if I didn’t understand. I am not with the Jewish community to the full extent that they need me and the difference in all of this is belief.

None of us completely trust the others but all of us love each other anyway.

Now, I don’t mean to be snide here and I’m going to do my best to paint this next picture reasonably and respectfully. But when I brought up the thought of last week’s Torah portion that there was hypocrisy between saying that you do not harm people and you do not harm animals and then hauling a guy to the outside of town and throwing rocks at him until he died. There’s a lot of brutality in the Torah and it is absolutely an illustration of the problems of religious autocracy. You have a guy who says God is telling him what to do and the guys got a bad temper and they eat a lot, I mean a lot of barbecue. You can see where violence begets violence begets violence begets violence.

He then pointed out that there’s more to the religion than just reading the words.

“I just read the words”.

“Yes, there is the Torah but there is also the Mishnah and the Talmud as well as the commentaries.”

Understood. I’m not allowed to argue unless I do my years in the University. I get it.

On the other side, when he himself actually tried to give me the religious justifications for the violence, nothing he said struck me as being sound. I don’t really want to quote him. It’s a problem really because I’m not opening this discussion up to a court of opinion but at the same time I’m not asking you to fully believe my point of view. I’m just going to say that he offered up some metaphors that did not make any sense whatsoever in context. He told a story about trying to save someone who then punches you in the nose. I didn’t understand where the wisdom of this came from or why he was saying it. He told me that only deeply religious people kill animals. I guess he was talking about laws of kashrut but I asked him if this meant that religious people were somehow more contemplative and he was befuddled by my question.

Basically, to quote fiddler on the roof, it is a puzzlement.

I have been thinking a lot about belief and about what happens to people who join religious organizations or for that matter, political organizations or social organizations. I guess you can put tinder on this list as well as Facebook or Instagram.

The only thing that I can see is that people have a gap in their life and this hole needs to get filled by people. You need people around you, and a group is a sure way to make you feel more powerful and less vulnerable and less alone. If you act the way the group wants you to act, you become a brother and suddenly you have people. And I guess people will do and say anything when they feel frightened and alone.

I’m not a joiner. I have been tortured by groups my whole life. I have been tortured and set upon by groups just waiting to get their hands on me because I’m not a joiner. I’ve had people attack me for my beliefs, for my passport, for my money certainly and for my sexuality. I’ve had people absolutely throw themselves into coercions just to get me to join with them and quell their feelings of inadequacy. I’m just not a bloody joiner. I like going my own way and I like thinking my own thoughts and I like being responsible for my own life. And truthfully, I’ve been this way my whole life.

We also got into a conversation about my relative who has been coercing my father and I for years. It wasn’t the main focus of our conversation nor was my relationship with my ex partner or even my relationship with God. It just came up as a part of things because truthfully, when you talk to a rabbi, they are going to get personal. Actually, if you talk to any Jews, they are probably very interested in hearing all about you. We’ve been reading books for thousands of years. We just love the stories.

The best thing about this conversation though is that it was completely legal and kosher. I don’t think this problem is going to go away anytime soon. The problem is that my relative isn’t kosher and I am. This is to say, I am extremely kosher in my business dealings and I am extremely kosher in my interpersonal dealing. I do not steal from people nor do I covet their belongings or their wives. I didn’t get this specifically from reading Torah / Talmud, I got this way because I’ve been listening to myself think my entire life and 3,000 years of reading have put this deeply into my DNA. I am kosher. To a point.

Yes, my ex partner is not jewish. My ex-girlfriend is not jewish. My ex-wife is not Jewish. The second ex-girlfriend was not Jewish. The most beautiful girl in the world was not Jewish.

One other story came up during our conversation that was worth a good laugh and it was about actually having the one Jewish girlfriend I have ever had in my life. The story actually ends up being more about my mom than anybody but it’s always worth a laugh.

The story goes that a little bit after high school I came home one day and told my mom I was with a female friend. My mother was shocked that I was bringing home a girlfriend.

“Yes, and she’s Jewish.”

You should have seen the look on my mother’s face. Her entire nervous system lit up like the San Francisco skyline at Christmas time. But then when I opened the door she saw C in the flesh and there was another Chernobyl like reaction. C is black.

To her credit, my mom lavished C with love and accepted her happily into her home. I am kind of still friends with C even after all these years. We had a bit of a falling out when I was in the hospital and suffering the first bite of sanctions against Russia. She wasn’t there for me when I needed her. Or rather she was there, but then found a reason to get out of it by listening to other people and we haven’t really spoken since. I mean, it was just a moment 35 years ago. She is however about the closest connection I have to my mom. That’s saying something too.

Oh, and to answer your question. C had a white Jewish father and has a black mother. Her father was a jazz aficionado and loved to hang out at the clubs and listen to the noise.

Anyway, I found a place that sells bulk shelled sunflower seeds and also has a pretty good price on salty peanuts. I use the sunflower seeds to make creams and add fat to anything. They are extremely nutritious and make excellent snacks with raisins. They are also extremely cheap so I guess you can say I use them as a cashew replacement. And besides, for the most part they are local because we grow them here.

So I left town in a cab and had my usual snappy banter with the cab driver. I told him my views that things are getting serious in the war. I told him that Ukraine was on the fast track to joining the European Union and he thought that was fake news. I mentioned Sweden and Finland joining NATO and he also said that was nothing. I also gave him my view that if this thing continues and turns into an all-out fight against the Russians, Belarus is in the isolation tank with russia. We are the only country truthfully standing with Russia and only countries who refuse to get out of their oil contracts still support Moscow.

The cab driver then went into a tirade about sports and doping. He was using this metaphor to explain his belief that all would be okay. I did see his face go a bit slack when I told him my opinion about the future. Not only would a ground war be fought on the territory of the Republic Belarus, if Putin decides it’s time to push the button, and he certainly is crazy enough to do it, people living in the town of Pinsk are close enough to be shelled. But for some reason, he believed that talking about Russia’s problems with the Olympics was enough not to worry about things and just keep on going. He is a taxi driver. He has a family. He needs to make money. All of this stuff is just so much noise.

I put away the stuff I brought home, took a pair of scissors and a basket and went out to cut horseradish greens. I threw them in my big skillet with some oil and some spices and a couple of packages of cheap udon noodles that I got at the store. After a few minutes of frying, I tossed in some water to get the noodles to their correct consistency and make a bit of a sauce and then I said some prayers, sent a message to my friend at the Jewish community thanking him for the invitation and had a beautiful green dinner.

It would have been better without the mosquitoes. Being at War sucks. Trying to live peacefully and being attacked relentlessly by mosquitoes who want your blood is a miserable life. He can’t really rest when you’re being attacked by bloodsuckers. And the crazy thing is, we didn’t even really get the rain we needed. It probably would have been worth it if we had actually gotten the rain.

***

Well, that I will say went very well. Dima and his man Sasha arrived about an hour early. Literally, I had just started setting up the pump when they arrived at the gate. And immediately, these guys went to work.

Dima was the boss of this small brigade, Sasha was there as a light helper. Whether it is important or not, upon noticing my accent, it became important that we all point out our nationalities. Dima is Belarusian, Sasha is Russian by roots and y’all know who I am by now.

They arrived by bicycle. No trucks, no big equipment. They brought with them a trowel, a brush, a few buckets, a bag of cement and some rope. They were in fact annoyed at having to wait for the pump. They wanted to dive down and go to work immediately.

On the negative side, they broke my wheelbarrow. They were just putting very heavy material in and Sasha of course was heavy-handed. Dima had to tell him to keep his swearing to a minimum. Like my friend said, the difference between Belarusian and Russian is how we use the language. I guess it also has something to do with native sensitivity. Like I said, like I have said many times, I like the Bell Russian people. I generally have a problem with Russians.

But I would say even with primitive technology, they were very fast and very professional. Dima also has a bum leg. He smashed it and blames Belarusian medicine for improper work putting it back together. So he limps but he is strong as an ox and handled a ladder that I myself could not put properly away in the barn like it was a toy. That’s a good friend to have.

And if it’s worth mentioning, he is a sailor. This is from a tattoo I noticed when he took his shirt off.

So it’s 10:00 right now and the entire process took about 2 hours. I would not say that they removed an entire meter of sand from the bottom of the well. They had an explanation why a certain amount was important to leave behind. But the holes in the side were cleaned, enough material was taken out to allow more water to filter in. We will know more about this within a couple of days. My recommendation is to allow the well to refill, drain it once watering the plants to get the cement residue and the residue from their work out and then we should be back to Clearwater again.

I paid the bill that he asked for and he didn’t hold me up for any extras. Even left the bag of cement behind if I needed it for something. And then I drank some vodka with them which was appreciated. We did not go through the entire bottle though Sasha the Russian would have been happy if we did. Dima held us to two toasts, a third only because Sasha grabbed the bottle and poured one more. But by the time we were both a little oiled, he came with me to have a look at my barn and is willing to call me at the end of the week about installing a gutter system. He will check up on material costs and let me know his bid. Nice? Nice.

At the end of the day though, I have two ways to go to genuinely deal with the groundwater problem. On the one hand, I can dig a second well or I can simply agree to spend the money on a new pump. Specifically, I need a centrifuge pump that has two hoses and can draw water from the well without the vibration of the submersible pump that I have now. I can use the submersible pump as a portable apparatus to take water out of my containers. But basically, I made a mistake and bought the cheapest tool possible. Sometimes it’s good to understand hillbilly technology and sometimes it’s just not enough.

I also need to fix my wheelbarrow now. That’s not a big deal. I just need a washer big enough to get around the bolt. But that was something else that I bought as cheap as possible that probably would have been better if I had spent a few more dollars.

The main thing is that the work got done. The second most important thing is that between us there was absolutely nothing abrasive. These guys were happy to be in business and to do a good job. You have to respect honesty. Well, I’m calling this all honesty now. We’ll see what the well looks like in two or three days and how much water comes in and how clear it is. But at a first glance and despite three small vodka toasts, I like it. These guys did a good job.

I managed to put a bunch of beans in water. Beans and bobs. I’m calling these things Bobs but I don’t really know the English word for them. In Russian they are called бобы, maybe broad beans in english. They don’t grow with climbing vines like normal beans do but grow on a 1 m high stalk with the pods hanging off the center. They are bigger than beans and I like the taste very much. I’ve also been told that they make excellent natural snacks if cooked and then just simply left to dry out.

So this is the news from here. I’m going to need some more leaves as mulch from the forest or from my own property. We managed not to make too much of a mess with the sand from the well. We took it across the street and threw it out in a place with mostly uncared for woods. If I get a complaint, I get a complaint. My idea was to put it on the road but I was advised that the government office might not like this. So we will see the situation. We did not cause so much damage except to the wheelbarrow.

That’s it. I’m waiting for my ex-partner to show up. The well has been cleaned. Possibly, I finally have a deal to put gutters on my barn. I’ve had three shots of vodka and absolutely nobody got angry at anybody for any reason. Today is planting day. And other than a few straggling mosquitoes asking me for a free lunch or a trip to Valhalla, that’s the story.

***

It’s 6:30 and I’m in the kitchen and I am absolutely done. I have no more movement in my legs. My ex partner is an absolute Dynamo next to me. But I’m at my limit.

Next to me is my Dutch oven which is percolating away with all of the beans that we did not plant. There’s a story with some of these beans. But we planted two long rows and I will build a fence for them to climb between the two rows. We planted all of the lower gardens and put all of the cabbages in the boxes. The boxes now are all full, only six stragglers remain in the kitchen and as of now, it’s just about weeding and watering.

I checked the water level in the well and it’s right back to 2 m, exactly where it was before Dima and Sasha came this morning. We didn’t get any rain so this might actually be the water level. And the water is dirty right now. But what it really means is that it only took 6 hours to recover. I don’t know if the water level is going to go any higher. The water level is what the water level is and I don’t know where the bottom of this new well is. But it seems that this cleaning job did exactly what he said and the well recovers at least two or three times as fast as it did before the guys got here.

I am actually being a jerk right now. I have backed away from the work due to pain. I feel bad about this because my ex partner and I have been getting along perfectly even creatively all day. I’m sorry. I just hit my wall.

Everything that we planted by the way is growing. You cannot say that it’s going to make it to full maturity but as of the moment, everything we planted is growing. And I believe in my dirt. I believe in that lasagna mix that I built into those boxes and I believe that the planting soil we put underneath each new plant is going to be enough to carry these guys through. We can talk about feeding them as we go but as of the moment, I’m feeling pretty good about everything.

Dinner tonight is going to be beans and greens. I have beans that need to be eaten and I have a whole basket of fresh greens that need to be washed and popped into the big skillet. Unfortunately, this rather massive meal is going to be mine because my ex partner is going to go home. This is not entirely a comment on my personal living conditions although she is attempting to clean at my house right now. This is something I wish she wouldn’t do but you can’t really stop her, can you? She of course has to go to work in the morning.

Her company, by the way, is nervous. She works in natural resources and the new sanctions package is going to prohibit sale to Europe. They say they are not really going to feel the pinch for three or four months. Come September though, we have a dialogue.

I probably have more to say. I probably have some thoughts about people or about what it feels like to actually have a professional show up and do his job the way dima did his today or the way my ex partner did. I know I despise the locals a lot and indeed, the two clowns who are supposedly the ones to go to for well cleaning never even bothered to listen to me. To them, the drama is complete and they either get to play with me or they will not work for me. I like this thinking. I like not having an attachment and I like the guy who showed up and did his job today. I only had to pay them money and we shook hands and even drank a little vodka at the end and I don’t have to worry about them showing up at my house for any reason on a whim looking for money to buy a bottle of vodka. And if you want to tell me that this great friendship that these assholes want from me is more than being able to come to my house and beg for 10 rules for a bottle of vodka, you should go to the synagogue or the church and join immediately because this sort of thinking is exactly what religion needs more of. And remember, 10% of everything you have goes to them. Amen.

***

Okay I don’t know if there are any rules here but it’s 1:00 a.m. and I just woke up. I am in some kind of a strange state of being. I don’t know exactly what happened but I just had some kind of moment of extreme physical fatigue. I don’t know really what happened but all of my systems just kind of shut down yesterday. I don’t know whether it was too much movement or too much deference or kindness or just exactly how much pain I was going through. That was weird.

We did all the gardens yesterday. We literally ran out of space for planting things. The last question is whether we wanted to plant leaks instead of a couple of more squash plants. And that was it. Really, from whenever all of this started, that was it.

I might be dehydrated. I have unfortunately been very limited in my ability to drink water. I only have the tanks from last week to use and they are getting down towards the bottom. I can buy some water from the store and bring it home but I haven’t done it yet. The well is not very far from being usable again but it’s got to be drained once or maybe even twice before it runs clean.

But I definitely need to get another water pump.

At the end of the day, my ex partner tried to give me a gift. She had one of these plug-in chemical mosquito disturbers. I don’t really know what this thing is called but you plug it into the wall and you put this little bar of something on it and it melts from the heat and gives off a horrible smell. You have to re-buy the cartridges to keep the thing going but in theory, you plug it in and the mosquitoes hate the smell and leave. I remembered this from 15 years ago and I remember that I almost went insane from the smell of this thing. It’s some kind of weird chemical and the minute she showed it to me, all I could think of was that it simply had to be cancerous. I remember being almost insane from the stench of those things.

Then suddenly my head just started going off in different directions and all I could see from my ex partner was how much money was being spent. I asked her about this. I asked her why all of her suggestions cost money. She just smiled at me. I was tired, she said. I felt like I was in a movie or something about a guy trapped in an insane asylum. Maybe this was kind of like Shutter Island or something like that where the insane person believes what he’s saying and is just being placated by the keepers of the insane asylum. Is this what has become of my life? Is this outside or celebrity thing so deeply embedded that I am almost completely placated by the people around me? Am I being played for a fool by so many people that this game has become my reality?

I should talk to Johnny Depp about this. Maybe Johnny Depp would understand it.

Nice. How are things over there? Ive heard there was some kind of war going on nearby. I hope everything is alright.

Yeah. They are killing people in the next country over. They’re using this country as a staging area and they shot some missiles from the next town over. People are ambivalent. I think this has something to do with propaganda or that we are the only country in the world actually supporting Vladimir Putin. And by all accounts, Putin is perhaps going insane from physical illness. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

Like I said, it’s hard to know what is real and what is not. All I know is I’m very tired.