Tales from the Towers: Ushering in the New Year

I switched on my TV in order to watch "Desperate Housewives" on the Star World Channel. There were no desperate housewives, just one desperate grandmother: ME! I sat there, facing the TV screen and all I saw were green cubes, a broken picture and strange, colorful fragments. No sound either.

So I called the cable company. A young man appeared the next day. He moved the TV set, he moved my new and shiny computer, he turned the printer around and he finally stood still, looking at the countless wires leading from somewhere to somewhere. He gently scratched his head in quiet despair.

"I never saw so many wires all in the same place!", he finally said. As if I wouldn't know. Those wires are more or less the cause of my renewed connection with God.

"Please God”, I pray every evening, “when I wake tomorrow and I am still alive, let everything be in working order so that I don't need to call someone from the telephone company, from the computer company, or – as it is now – from the cable company!" And as an afterthought I add: "And please let me be in working order as well, so that I won't have to call a doctor!"

"I have to get something from my car!", the young man said and left.

I couldn't imagine what else he would need from his car, there was so much stuff spread out on my carpet, how can he identify all that and still think he needs something more.

By the time he had the TV fixed, there were no more desperate housewives, but hopefully they'll be around next week and still desperate enough to keep me interested..

We start to plan our New Year's party. Remembering New Year's parties from the last 3 years which I spent here, I know more or less what to expect. We, the English speaking group, meet at 7.30 in our usual room. There will be plenty of food, but a serious shortage of men.

"Whoever of you who knows someone suitable”, said Hanni, “invite him along!"

I could think of one or two gentlemen, but suitable? I really don't know. One of them for instance would leave instantly the moment he realizes we have only champagne and not one bottle of serious alcohol. Another one that comes to my mind…oh well, we haven't been on speaking terms for the longest time and  when he will hear my voice on the phone, he may drop dead from the shock. I can still think of someone else…but no, I don't want this one around either!

Anyway, the party will be over at nine or so judging by past experience, no midnight excitement or special welcome for a New Year; we'll all go home to watch TV and the celebrations in other lands and other places.. Chances are we will all be asleep when 2008 makes its glorious entrance.

I found myself with nothing to read this week and I opened a book which a friend of mine has forgotten at my place. A Victorian novel written by an English romantic writer. It was an amazing piece of literature, the heroine of angelic beauty, the man she falls in love with exceptionally handsome, the bad guy in the story incredibly evil. At first she feels betrayed and retires to her room with her smelling salts, a few pages later he feels betrayed and looks for his gun to make an end to his ill-fated life, but around page 250 they finally confess their love for each other, the man who was spinning his intrigues has an accident and conveniently dies while the whole family attends a wedding and drinks toasts to each other. This was an astonishing piece of literature, going on for more than 250 pages and leaving me amazed at that writer's exceptional talent and my own stupidity as well as loss of time..

It will be a rainy week, we are told, so keep warm and well covered.

Lucca