214 Adelaide Street West Toronto

Oh well, I was in the Toronto's "Entertainment District" last night. For all these years that I have been living here ( since 1992 ), I was there maybe a couple of times. Only once it was for an evening out. Other times just passing by. Last night was different. I was chaperoning ( not really, I sat in the car basically for almost three hours ) my 16 year old son who attended the party at "Vola" club at 214 Adelaide Street West. You may ask why did I even bother to give him ride, since there is good TTC access to the area? Or maybe why did I decide to wait in the car for almost three hours so that I can take him home? Stop wondering now. Entertainment District is notorious for violence, even murders. Bystanders died there from gun shots not intended to kill them. So I chose my sanity over possible embarrassment that my action could be for my son.

I dropped him of there around 9 pm, and was lucky to find parking spot on the next street ( I believe it was John Street ). I put 1 dollar in parking meter, since my son was not sure if he wanted to stay, so I promised to him that I would wait for about an hour to see if he wants to go home, and if not, I would leave and he would come home on TTC ( pressured by him and "embarrassment" thing that is I guess huge at his age ). So, I happily parked the car, put the money for about 20 minutes, enough to go around the corner and check out the place. I should mention I guess that it was raining and it was cold ( not very cold, but cold enough to be better dressed than I was). I walked across Adelaide Street and noticed the lineup of young girls in super mini skirts, with no jackets, no umbrellas, no socks, high heal shoes, something you see in strip clubs. I was, I have to say this, shocked. This was high school party, organized by one, I guess, entrepreneurial  student ( tickets at the door 25.00!!!).  Did the parents of these girls see them before they left? Did they know where they were going? When I saw this I was determined that I will not leave that place until I see my son coming out that door. It is not that I was worried that these girls will get cold, since it is their parent's job. I was more worried about male behaviour around these scarcely clad young females, whose only defence from showing their underwear was barely covering it skirt. Say I am old, but I really do not care. This place was reeking of "not safe" scents.

Not being able to stand anymore in the rain, and possibly raise suspicion about what I was doing there, I went back to the car. I sat in the car for about an hour, witnessed parking control towing a nice white car, and two huge big ( should I say overweight ) parking enforcement officers walking with the flesh lights, checking the cars, and giving tickets. I was safe. I paid parking and I was sitting in my car. They could not harm me. But, it is winter, and it became cold in the car, so I turned the engine on, only to discover that I was low on gasoline, and plus I was not supposed to idle. What to do to pass the time and not freeze? I decided to put some more money in the parking meter ( I hate when I pay for more time than I use ), and I walked back to Adelaide Street ( meanwhile my son called me to let me know that he liked it and he wanted to stay longer ). Right next door to Vola, there is cute little Mexican restaurant - Tequila Sunrise (Cantina and Grill). Of course it was nice and cozy inside. I ordered the cheapest item on the menu - Tortilla Chips and Homemade Salsa ( $ 4.50 ) and read Eye Weekly - free newspaper, in which I read about candid look at health care system in Canada and native women rights. I was probably an odd one there, with my glasses, reading newspaper at 11 pm, but what other choice I had? There was some nice Spanish (or was it Mexican?) music ( not sure ) playing for some time, until few young people came in, and that changed it to some hip hop. I left the restaurant and headed to my car, to check if everything was alright. It was still there. Enforcement parking officers were just leaving the scene ( I counted three towed away cars ). I sat in the car a little bit longer, called my son on the cell phone - no answer, called again, and again, and again. Finally he called me and said that he would be leaving "close to midnight". 

I decided to re park the car closer to "the place". I was able to find a spot on Adelaide close to the entrance to the club, when one young man started shouting something. In minutes the police officer showed up, and dealt with the situation. I was hoping that he would stay for a bit longer. Honestly, I wanted to approach him and ask him to go and get my son outside, because all what I could hear was loud music and yelling. But I refrained from that. It would really be too much, but I am telling you what goes through mother's head.

The night ended this way: they could not find my son's jacket at the coat check. He called me from inside to tell me that he would have to wait until everyone leaves ( which is like 3 am ). I begged the security guard who was looking after line up ( yep there was still line up at close to midnight ), and he said that he could not let me in. I told him something like: "I am 50 years old, why would I want to go in ?", and he gave in a bit and let me on the stairs. My son came out without jacket, it was snowing, and they were adamant that he cannot have his jacket because he can "pick any jacket he wants". I offered my credit card, I asked to speak to the manager, but to no avail. I wanted to ask them is it that they believe that I came there to help my son steal someones jacket??? But I did not and we left without jacket, it was heavily snowing, and I can tell you that I was really happy that I made it home without an accident.

I hope that next party in Entertainment District will be never again.

Oh, by the way, my son said that he had good time, he danced, talked to some people and all in all he thought the evening was a success ( minus the jacket ).

The Fall of B92

Like anything else in Serbia these days, B92, the symbol of free media during 90s is just a shadow of what it had been before. The barometer of how Serbian folks are doing is, so called, "Forum B92" where few moderators are pretending to be avantgarde by banning anyone who sounds nationalistic or chauvinistic. But it is just a farce. They really do not care. They are doing it because they think that by doing it they are somehow better than those they are banning from the discussion. To me, they are just the same, no different than anyone who says that Srebrenica did not happen. I say this because, in reality they are doing nothing to bring those who are responsible for atrocities to justice. I despise them, just the same as I despise those who want to prove that war crimes can be justified.

Here is few words about so called "free media":

http://www.slobodnavojvodina.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=302:b92-dont-call-it-independent-media-anymore-please&catid=49:english&Itemid=62

"Death of independent media in Serbia was obvious years ago. Still, some foreign correspondents and media are referring to the news coming from B92 as it is independent source of information from Serbia. If we dig deeper into reporting from B92 media house and compare it with reality in Serbia nowadays, one will find disturbing facts."



"For B92 to survive this harsh political climate in this obviously rogue state which is still harboring war criminals and had never said sorry for all the atrocities it has done to their neighbors or its own citizens, it was the only way to continue. On the other hand, by “selling their soul” B92 became a “soft” supporter of the regime which is nurturing nationalism and chauvinism and makes them no different from the mainstream nationalistic and government controlled media any more."



"Even their website forum and blog became so heavily censored that no other, but nationalistic and regime friendly ideas can see the light of the day. So please, in future reports, do not call B92 independent media for the fact, it is not any more."

Fraudulent science

Finally the charade is over. It is not MMR vaccine that causes autism.

Where is Jenny McCarthy now?

http://www.stopjenny.com/

Do people with autism want to be "fixed"? Why is everyone searching for the cause or cure instead of embracing these human beings for who they are: beautiful people who are different than majority and from whom we have so much to learn.

Stop Jenny McCarthy and those similar to her who spread the propaganda that autism is terrible disease that has to be cured.

Support those who ask for giving persons with autism a chance to become members of society in any way, shape and form they can become.

Human rights for persons with autism now!!!!!

The Happiness Project

This is title of the book I am reading. The author is Gretchen Rubin. I came across this book in my local library on the shelf for "Best bets". It means I cannot renew the book and I will have to return it today. I am only on the page 84 of almost 300 pages. I procrastinated in reading it last week, and procrastination is actually one of my favorite topics lately. I even made Power Point presentation for my family about procrastination.

Now back to my topic about happiness. After I gave this presentation to my boys here, they seemed totally unfazed. I do not know if me telling them that what they do is called procrastination will make any difference right now. But, I believe that all experiences that we have in our life, including me giving this presentation to them, shape somehow who we are or who we become. Act now! Do something meaningful. Enjoy now, as Gretchen Rubin says on page 84 of her book.

p.s. You may think I am procrastinating now, but you are wrong: there is laundry in the drier. So the perfect time to guilt free blogging is while doing laundry :)

Cooking with love and love for cooking

For me it goes both ways. In my tiny kitchen I find solace that is hard to find anywhere else. When it comes to cooking I do not know about procrastination. It is always good time for me to cook. I love cooking and I rarely follow the recipe. If I do, it makes me really nervous, I usually screw up something and it does not turn out to be the way I want it. Well, I do follow recipes sometimes, it sometimes turn out to be OK, but I always modify something as I usually do not have all the ingredients the recipe is calling for. This is what I hate the most about recipes because in each and every one of them is an ingredient that I do not have. So, I cook "from my head". I do not think that I am able to make the same meal twice, because I always make it differently. Ingredients may be similar, but I add them in different order, I add different quantities, and I try it as I cook and decide what is the next step.

My family loves my cooking. I explained them that it tastes so good because "I cook with love". There is no tasty homemade meal if the love is not one of the ingredients. The love is magical. It combines that spices and ingredients in a perfect way. Adding love to your cooking with make your meals to be not only testy, but in a way your vehicle to spread the love.

For tonight I am planning on making the meal called "Turli tava". My son asked me several times to translate this word. We do not have translation of this word into Serbian, so when it is translated from Turkish - turli means "mixed" and tava means "pan". It is Turkish or Middle Eastern dish, but I adopted it through my Macedonian roots. It calls for all different kind of vegetables (mainly eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, onion, pepper) including the main ingredient okra. You can make it to be vegetarian, or with meat. When I make it with meat, I like to buy nice, fresh veal stew. It is fairly easy to make. The most of preparation is cutting veggies, and stewing the meat with onions, before everything is combined and put in the oven to bake for few hours. I like this to be baked in the slow heat to combine flavors. My hubby likes to add few pieces of bacon on top. I am not particularly in favor of this, but I will do it today because he specifically asked for it. This is another thing about my cooking: it is my way or highway. I do not like any suggestions, and like to add things just the way I feel they should be added.

Here is the recipe for "Turli tava"


■1 kg. mixed meat

■potatoes, tomatoes, paprika

■onions, okra

■aubergine, string beans

■1 ground onion piece

■cooking oil, salt

■red mixed pepper

■pepper



Chop the meat and fry it in a pan with cooking oil. Chop the vegetables into small pieces, add the meat and some cooking oil and water. Put enough water so the mixture is boiled and still there is no much left after baking. Add spices and boil for a while. After that put it into a crockery baking dish and bake it on 2000 C for 1,5 hours. Stir the mixture 2-3 times during baking. The food is ready when it becomes brown.

Tuesday Report

Every journey starts with the first step. The same holds the truth when it comes to my understanding of meditation. For a longest time, and I can say, all of my life I resisted even thinking about meditation. It is boring, I thought. How is it possible not to think anything ( this is how I imagined what meditation is)? I cannot be so quiet in my mind, it is too busy to meditate. However, recently I discovered that meditation is not at all what I thought it was. In short, it is not "not thinking about anything", it is just focusing on your own being, your own present state of mind, body and soul. It is acknowledging there are things going on around you, and inside you, but the point is not to let these things destruct you from being aware of your lightness, your highness, your ability to connect to the higher power, to the shining light that we all belong to.

But, there is a problem with that. Now that I know what meditation is, I still do not do it. I am too anxious to let it go, to let go everything around me, to focus on only myself, only my own presence, my own existence. As if I am going to meet with the stranger, someone who bothers me, as if I just cannot stand my own company, as if my own company is burden to me, as if I, me and myself are just a group of those boring people who have nothing new to say to the world. Is this too harsh to say? Maybe, but at least it is honest!

Moreover, although I still cannot make myself relaxed enough to enjoy my own company in meditative state, I am aware of how dangerous is when people try to escape from their own being, their own feeling, their own fears. I may say: I will try to connect with myself, which I think I never did in the past. Will this bring me to a better place?

Yugoslavian Airlines ( Jugoslovenski Avio Transport ) - JAT

It was a sunny day in March of 1990 when I took off from Belgrade "Surcin" airport to Toronto. Cannot remember JAT flight number (although I am sure that I still have somewhere that old airline paper ticket!), but it was DC-10 aircraft. Those were good days for JAT, also dubbed as “Joke About Time”, but known for the finest and best trained pilots and crews in the world. It was not obvious then, that it was actually counting its last days of fame. Soon, the UN economic sanctions against, what was left of the Yugoslavia, came into effect, and as the rest of economy JAT was struggling to stay alive, started renting its fleet and crew to foreign countries. Airport "Surcin" was shut down to international flights, sad but true, for at one time world class city with the world class airline, travelers were boarding buses to be driven to Budapest, Hungary (some 300 km away - or around 5 hours on the bus) or Sofia, Bulgaria (around the same distance) to fly to their destinations. The point of departure was in front of downtown hotel “Slavija”. At any time day or night, one could see groups of tired people with large suitcases, waiting to board the bus, or minibus that will take them to the place from where they will be able to fly. I was among them just one time, in September of 1993, leaving Belgrade to fly out from Budapest via Berlin, on Lufthansa flight to Toronto (with the transfer in Munich); a very long journey for the modern day aviation, especially when flying from the European capital.

It has been now 15 years since sanctions were lifted, but not much progress has been made for the national airline. Yes, it changed its logo, twice. Once to show the name “Yugoslav Airlines”, second time to hide the word “Yugoslav”, where “Y” is actually “J”, because of differences in spelling, in the word Jat.

Yes, it started flying around Europe and other international destinations, but it never flew over Atlantic again. For us who live on this side of the world it means changing the planes in one of the European hubs: London, Paris, Prague, Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam. The choice depends which airline has "seat sale". Some complain that passengers flying to the certain places are treated as "cattle", sent to the most uncomfortable terminals to board the aircraft that will take them to their final destination. This may be open for discussion. I personally had both experiences, and not enough flying to determine whether this is true or not. It is maybe matter of perception, but our perception is our reality.

With the loss of my country, I lost the airline, too. The airline which brought me here, now renamed “Jat Airways”, easily mistaken for “Jet Airways”, major Indian airline company. The acronym Jat still has original word in it - "Yugoslav", although the country does not exist anymore. There was some discussion about renaming it differently, but it seems that by keeping the old name, I guess the airline is clinging to the old fame. But those days are long gone by. With the old fleet, depleted assets, next to bankrupt finances, the future of the airline is unknown. We all know that Jat Airways is not the only airline in the world that is struggling, and it is in a good company of Alitalia (another national carrier that needs to be bailed out), and other, around the world airlines, which went bankrupt, or were swallowed by larger and stronger ones.

But what is the sad part of this story is not the reality that airlines are facing these days: the rise in fuel costs, more expensive airport security, more taxes and less passengers who are willing to pay astronomical airfares, the rise of low budget, low cost airlines, and growing army of very unhappy, grumpy passengers. I am sad for different reason. I not only lost the country where I was born, but I lost the airline that brought me here. I had chance to fly only one more transatlantic flight with JAT. It was in October of 1991. The time of Vukovar siege, the height of nationalistic euphoria, only few months before UN economic sanctions shut down Belgrade airport and expelled JAT from the world flying scene. JAT, as we knew it, no more. The airline we grew to love and trust gradually started disappearing from the world radar, just as the country that was her home.

Jat Airways, who knows, maybe they will fly again over mighty Atlantic, but before that they will have to replace their fleet with the newer aircraft that will be safe to fly with. Until then, next time flight to Belgrade will be a long one, exhausting one, with change of planes, going through security couple more times, boarding another plane that will bring me to the place I once called home, the place that I left flying with one of the finest airlines in the world - JAT!