Day 505
More gratitude, please
The results of NATO’s beano in Vilnius for Ukraine: at least one more year of war, martial law, no elections, more death and PTSD. Looking on the bright side — low expectations.
Biden looked stiff as a rake. Z was rude. Some leaders said they are pissed off because Ukraine is not expressing enough gratitude for the military crap they donated to kill Russian invaders.
I never appreciated the fighting prowess of soldiers of NATO member states during the active phase of my military adventure (1979-1985). I thought British soldiers were stupid, French soldiers were underfed and Italian soldiers were ridiculous. That was more than 40 years ago.
Glauber Strass, Koenigsberger Strasse, Drake Strasse, Habelschwedter Strasse, Thiel Allee, Pacelli Allee, past General Suddath’s mansion, Warnermunder Strasse, Hunderkhele Strasse, past the Polish consulate, Hagen Strasse, through a S-bahn tunnel, underneath the avus, down winding grunie pig path, and all the way to hell.
On the way, I keep a sharp eye out for the man-eating, dog-goaring boars and the recently radical RAF. These vermin, especially the male of the species, are horny, protective and vicious, especially now with mating season on in full and the installation of Pershing missile sites in the zone1.
Teufelsberg Berlin today is one of the largest street art galleries in the world. Back then it was one big spy station2.
Which brings me back to gratitude.
In Berlin I paid rent in duty free hard liquor and cartons of cigarettes, usually Marlboro. I lived 300 meters from the Berlin Wall in Lichterfelde. My landlords, an elderly couple who survived on home-grown turnips harvested in their backyard during the 15-month blockade and airlift, expressed their gratitude by tutoring me in German and recommending good books to read from their library.
They turned me on to the magical realism of Milan Kundera, who died yesterday in Paris, for which I remain eternally grateful.