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Tuesday
October 17, 2006

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You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you can.
We were supposed to meet Dabor at Gray Area at 4:20, but we were half an hour late.
Amsterdam is funny--you think you're going straight but often you're moving in big curves.
It's a very circular city. It's easy to get turned around for any number of reasons.

We bought a cheap wind-up alarm clock so we wouldn't miss our morning flight and
then set off in search of bottled Grolsch pints and some additional groceries for a
veggie feast at Dabor's apartment, which luckily wasn't far from our cabin at Zeeburg.
We stopped in Vondelpark rose garden to catch the last of the sun. Cruisers and lunatics
wandered the rows. As it cooled off, I mentioned how I'd gone the last 5 months without a jacket.
I'd looked but failed to find one. Dabor said he'd give me one, just my size; nice too, but he was
done with it, it was time to move on. When I protested his generosity, he said he'd give me two.

He apologized for the disarray in his apartment, put on some music from his hard drive (Croatian folk melodies
set to techno beats to keep the traditions alive for the young generation), and busted out the jackets. One was
standard blue denim, the other striped sweater fabric with corduroy sleeves.
Both were nice and fit like a dream. I found several lighters distributed
among the many pockets and handed them to Dabor with my thanks.
In addition to elusive jackets, I'd been looking for Pat and Mat videos
all summer, including a frantic last minute wild goose chase to various DVD
outlets on our last day in Prague. So it was kind of mindblowing when out of the blue
Dabor offered to burn us a DVD of 77 episodes he'd downloaded. We hadn't mentioned it.
It was pure coincidence. When we expressed our surprise Dabor shrugged:
   "The universe always provides if you know what you want...."

I wonder what would happen if I started to visualize beyond clothes and cartoons?

under the bridge