Nobody knows what lovage is...

When I was a kid, there were two landmarks of note in the immediate vicinty of my grandparents' apartment in the Andrei Muresanu neighbourhood : an old lilac bush in front, and a happy lovage bush behind. I have no idea why these rather than something else, there was other vegetation available not to mention poles, chunks of concrete, a complete assortment of not-really-artful artifice to go with the naturally-occurring machinery.

You may perhaps be familiar with stunted "sentimental" nonsense from the 80s, and from the previous 80s, and from the walmart or however they call that shop with the pre-printed sentiment-papers. Lilac figures quite heavily, doesn't it ? Si privighetoarea a-nflorit.

There's in any case no shortageⁱ, anyone knows what lilac is, except for the phone kids that don't know anything (except they've seen everything, let's not go into details lest we depress ourselves -- not them, they're on antidepressants anyway). Suffice it to be said that lilac has been thoroughly exploited by Roosevelt's idiot machine.

Lovage, however... lovage nobody knows. And they look at me suspiciously, long gazes along lengthier noses, perhaps I am being clever ? Is it perhaps some pun on "love" ? Am I making some statement hidden in the broad, odorous leaves they've never truly experienced, as happy five year olds in the wet, breathing shade of old wall, among the melci and buburuze ?

Yet lovage is the fundament of a proper ciorba, which is a kind of soup exactly opposite to the common notion of a soup. Rich and flavourful and brothy, alongside homemade bread the other undergirth of making a hole a home. You know how they say, "why didn't they rebel at Auschwitz", and the ready answer comes "because they had the women along, and women always fuck things up for everyone they're with". This explanation seems to suffice, but that's mere superficiality. It doesn't explain how. I'll tell you how : women found the lovage bush growing at auschwitz, and made ciorba out of that and an old sock, and well... the hole kinda became a home. What can you do ?

And aren't you worried that if you do it, it might destroy your home ?

So there we are, not only a paragraph that starts with "so" after a one liner that starts with "and", but also (see what I did there) very much a lovage bush growing happily in the shade, down a corridor three or so meters away from the overpowering equatorial sun, in a green tub whose holes I perforated myself, among rich earth I bought at the fucking shop (after it was imported all the way from Germany, because I wouldn't trust this sad peat they have around here even as far as I can throw it, and besides, I suspect Germany still owes me some earth from the previous warⁱⁱ).

Now, lovage does indeed make good broth, but that tomorrow, for today I think I'm taking the dollies out for pizza, not to mention there's a whole cartwheelⁱⁱⁱ of a mango pie that was baked last night juust before everyone collapsed in a pile of their own exhaustment, too tired to even taste a byte.

And then maybe we go to the manga center, because

Do you cosplay ?
Nah..
But you've been dressing up^iv as a bimbo for the past week ?!
Oh... yeah, I guess I do cosplay then.

Pai nu ?!

1. See what I did there ? [↩]
2. Don't look down on my having paid for my sample, god knows they paid for theirs, all that Krupp materiel doesn't come for free either, now does it. [↩]
3. No kidding, girl's like "shit, I can barely lift this, what the hell have we done" before sliding it into the patriarchal oven. It looked like quite a happy pie, smiles dancing on its slopes because no, pie at MP's house (all halal) is not flat, but rather like a mound.

   Geddit ? [↩]

4. Took girl out to local bimbo dress shops, bought her colorful, tight dresses and six inch espadriles, which is all she's been wearing hence (on my orders). She deems going about in that geddup most humiliating, she who never went out without a bra before, respectable professional career woman who wept when Trump won as she is, up there, she says, with being made to push the shopping cart barefoot throughout the supermarket.

   The temperature is bound to increase, however, as I recently bought her a local soccer shirt. It says BIMBO in huge font all across the chest. [↩]