Anyone who knows me knows that I am childfree by choice. I tolerate only the most well-behaved children in my midst. So when I say that I never want kids, but if I ever did have a kid, I would want it to be THIS KID, you best believe.

Shamelessly stolen from my buddy, Rori.

I’m sitting here in the kitchen on Robert’s laptop. He is in his room. He’s hurled yet another epithet at me. It hurt of course, they always do. I am getting ready to make another Chess Pie. It’s my mother’s recipe and I remember her serving it every single Thanksgiving of my childhood. I kept the tradition alive. But this time, Robert wanted to make the pie himself. So I let him. Naturally, he burned it. So now I’ve got to make another one, plus cranberry sauce (from whole cranberries). And I need to start the rest of the food. I just hope he stays in his room and out of my hair (and face) until it’s time for dinner. Then, I will probably fix a plate for myself and head to my office upstairs, my sanctuary, where only the cat comes up to see me. Where I can find peace, for a little while.

Thankful? Even though my heart is broken over the way Robert’s and my relationship has deteriorated (I’m not sure how much of this I can or should attribute to his illnesses and paralysis), there are still a few things in my life that keep me sane and make me happy. So in no particular order, I’m thankful for..

• This beautiful house, but I’m not too happy about the way we had to get it…
• My wonderful best friend in the world, who with just one word can make my entire day, who when everything else is going wrong, I can count on…
• My job. It’s gotten better in the last few months since I became a floater secretary. I’m paid well, quite well, and I enjoy what I do…
• My freedom. I have the freedom to write what I want and say what I want without fear of reprisals from the government or military organizations in my country. Others around the world have no such luxury.
• This blog, the one place where I can come and be myself…
• My cat, who also sometimes is the difference between happiness and sadness. He loves me unconditionally .. as I guess only a beast can. And for that he gets an extra slice of turkey today!

And I did manage, at the last minute, to grab us a nice dining table and chairs. The table, with its nice inlaid wood, came from Peyton’s Auction Gallery. I picked up the chairs on e-Bay, the seller is local. They don’t match at all, but they look nice together in a funky sort of way, I think. The chairs have casters on them.

Here’s a sampling of some of my favorite songs. There are 20 songs on this jukebox and they run the gamut from Croatian rock to smooth jazz to 80s metal…. Just call me Sybil! Enjoy!

This time last year, I didn’t even know you. Now, I don’t know what I would do without you. I know November is a tough month for you. Axl got it right about one thing: It’s hard to hold a candle in the rain .. and it’s hard to hold a candle to you. I don’t think anyone can.

Ja volja nikada dopust te, moj prijatelje.

I’ve always thought it interesting when hard rockers such as Guns N Roses and The Scorpions team up with an orchestra. It’s been done to great effect several times, here with November Rain, and the Scorpions have performed several songs with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, including Still Loving You, and the one featured here, Like a Hurricane. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath also had an orchestrated instrumental piece on their I Sold My Soul for Rock and Roll double album, called Laguna Sunrise, which I didn’t even think I would be able to find since it’s seldom mentioned on any playlists or reviews of this album. But YouTube to the rescue!

I’ve been reading with interest the news reports (which are scant here in the U.S.) about Kosovo, being as it is, poised for some semblance of independence (or at least autonomy). Elections over the weekend of October 28-29 in Serbia mustered barely the majority necessary to even carry a vote (they were voting on a new Democratic Constitution, the present one having been in place since Milosevic’s reign).

As the London Economist explains, it’s pretty much out of Serbia’s hands, as Kosovo has been administered by NATO since the bloody bombings of 1999. (A blog rant for another day.) Nonetheless, the voting Serbian public was led to believe that a vote for democracy was a statement to the world that Kosovo would remain part of Serbia. But nothing could be further from the truth. The fate of Kosovo instead lies with the so-called Contact Group, comprised of the majority ethnic Albanians of Kosovo and certain governments, including the United States and Great Britain. They have their own ideas about what should go down:

Trade-offs between them are being proposed, some involving issues unrelated to the Balkans, such as Iran.

Iran? WTF Yes, Iran has everything in the world to do with the Balkans. And all of this goes to show that it was never, ever, not even in your most drug-induced hallucinogenic dreams, about humanitarian efforts.

Garter snap to The Kosovo Report Blog.