A Bare Adventure or: My Larry David Moment

My dears, I am exhausted and I do not feel silly at all. What happened? Tonight, after work, I cycled to another lido in Vienna, a big lido, not at the Alte Donau but at the Neue Donau. I went there a few times, it is open 24/7. When I arrived there, I asked a few guys if they would be so kind and look after my clothes (the lido is an open space, no lockers, no keys around).

The moment I wanted to pull the bathing suit out of my bag I realized, I did not bring it with me.

There are some areas known as nude-bathing-areas but the one where I landed was definitely not a nude bathing zone. So I decided to walk away from the guys, elegantly – as if I had not asked them 5 seconds before to look after my stuff – and left my clothes as close to the water as I could, covering myself with my huge towel and diving into the water, throwing the towel back to the shore the moment before I dived into the water. The water is so opaque and it was already getting dark, I did not fear that I could offend anyone with my nude appearance in the water.

The bathing suit that was supposed to come with me and might have saved me from some trouble, if only I had not forgotten it on the office where it hang to dry from the swim the day before. (here it hangs in the bathroom, still not dry)

I swam and swam and checked my keys around my waist - I had planned to tuck them into the cleavage of my bathing suit, the safest place to keep keys on a belt during a swim. Not today. Since they were not secured in my cleavage but dangling, I had to check every few seconds if they were still there.

My "bathing suit" of tonight.

And I swam and I swam, one way. The water is a dammed up stream. Tonight was the last really warm night, with a strong breeze blowing from the south. I was surprised how well I had improved on my speed since I've started swimming on a regulary basis a few weeks ago, I got so far in no time! ... yes, I made it far but I did NOT improve on my swimming speed. I already feared it might have been the drift and not my muscle strength that got me so far in no time.
The moment I turned around and my fears where affirmed: It was the wind, blowing from the south, which had created a streaming that got me way further than I had planned to go and the waves I had not noticed before, because I had been swimming in their direction, now were slapping against my face. (This is where the tragic Larry David moment sets in, the happy tune changes to the dramatic tune).

I could see the people, promenading - the swim had brought me up north to the more populated area at the lido while I was fighting to get back.
Leaving the water and walking back, naked along the promenade with my barb-wire-key-belt around my waist was definitely NO option.

The place where my clothes and my towel waited for me seemed to be out of reach. It was getting darker and darker, already 30 mins past sunset. And 1 km left to swim against the drift. I decided to swim closer to the shore, so I would feel safer and might change to walking in the water. This thought did not include the algea, growing up to the top of the water. Now I was not only swiming against the drift but also struggling with my feet to get rid of the algeas that wrapped around my feet and legs, not to forget the regular key-check, if they where still there. The area is known for thefts, I imagined how I would wander around in the dark, naked with the keybelt, asking people to give me their clothes because I would not even have a bathing suit to get back home (people sometimes need to get home in their bathing suits due to thefts). On my way to the lido I had passed a restaurant and a waitress was wearing a company-T-shirt. I imagined they might have one extra T-shirt for me, so I could tie a borrowed towel around my hip and wear the T-shirt. You can tell I had plenty of time for every kind of thougts.

This meant to be a fun-trip after work! Well, it seemed as if everyone at the lido was having a good time, except for me. I just said to myself "stupid stupid stupid". Finally, I arrived at the starting point, my towel was still there, my clothes where were I had left them before. I covered myself with the towel, left the water, sat down on the grass and stared at the peach-pink-violet-brown shades this tropic sky over the city provided tonight. Inside I was trembling.

I don't know if you can relate to Larry David, I for myself know it helped me make it through the situation. During the worse parts I felt like Lisa who once fell ill in India and believed she was going to die. Lisa combated the anxieties of youth and solo travel. No one knew where I was at that moment, the water is opaque, no chance to get saved. All they would find two days later would be my bicycle, chained to the light pole at the promenade.

During the better parts I felt like Kristin, who once believed she had a jailbraker in the back of her car and lost her cool. Either way, I was not alone, with my keybelt in the opaque drift at nightfall, some of your stories were with me. Now I added mine, still a bit short of breath.

I am so glad the heat wave will finally break tomorrow night, we had 98°F for 5 days in a row. Did I already tell you, I prefer cool climates?

Imperfections

Much to my surprise the red stool turned out to become the favourite item from my last apartment-tour. I fear you've gotten the impression that the place where own is a 100% streamline-designed place, living the perfection. Well, it is not. The stool is in very good company with the ladder:
Some of you living in the US might recognize the design, the ladder is really heavy, it is probably made of iron and dates back from the time before aluminium-ladders hit the market. This ladder has heavy srews and nuts and wooden steps.

When I moved out, my mother happily handed the ladder over and got herself a new, light aluminium ladder with additional steps. This ladder is actually quite small. Our cleaning lady who is small, too, does not reach the tops of our wardrobe. Which is not a bad idea at all, since it leaves me with a safe place where I could store some goods I would not want the cleaning lady to get in her hands. She already told me she needs a higher ladder, which I tend to "forget".
Yes, paranoia at large. Or maybe I don't want to replace this one with a new one.

The ladder moved in with me when I moved out from my parent's place. Ever since I was at kindergarden-age I had enjoyed climbing up those wooden steps so much. One of the first projects in the appartment after moving in was the re-painting of the walls. A lot of paint dripped on the steps and on the handle over the past 16 years. I would never clean the ladder from all the stains, because the stains tell the story that's past:

A close up of past colours:
Bright Yellow was the entrance hall, because the entrance hall gets little daylight.
Dark Red was chosen for one wall in the bed room, the love-wall of a single-woman
(I placed a candle in front of the wall and created a very special atmosphere).
And all shades of white and cream have followed ever since.

The photo was taken in my kitchen, where I "store" the ladder against the wall. You see what I like about my kitchen: it gets bright daylight!

In The Right Place

When I moved back in into our apartment after the staycation at my parent's place, I found a companion in my bed, awaiting me with a smile.
I don't know how put him there: our cleaning lady or Mr Paula? I like both imaginings, someone I know tucks the rabbit under the blanket. Whoever it was, he/she knows how to brighten up my mood. It are the moments like this one, when I fold back the cover and finde the rabbit waiting for me when I know that I am in the right place, surrounded by the people who read me.

Apropos reading: we still did not put a "Keine Werbung" (=No promotional brochures/folders) at our door so we collect all kinds of promotions hanging at our door handle every day. One day always used to be a special day: the day the IKEA catalogue arrived.
IKEA did change over the years and unfortunately it did not hop on the bandwagon of de-cluttering or be it simple simplifying. Instead it provides tons of ideas how to stuff more stuff in your limited space.

In my eyes all these pages give me mere horror.

All those photos show ideal living rooms. OMG! Get me out of of there!
The manager's words don't save the damage IKEA has done, no, it makes it even worse by promising that with IKEA's help, you will be able to fill every niche and corner, however small, with a storage-solution.

Next to the new IKEA concept (well, new - it has been around for a few years) comes to whole Selfstorage-hype. Both leave me with unease.

I will post a few photos I've taken around my apartment to give you an idea what I fancy:

There used to be a time, when IKEA's designers came up with series like the IKEA PS and 365+ which never let you down. Why didn't they evolve a whole philosophy around the series?

Where there's room, there remains room

Where there are walls, you won't find shelves

My MIL said it is waste of space when we spread out the HIFI on the top of a chest of drawers, 220cm wide. Maybe it is waste to others but not to us, since there is no need to keep the space for anything else - there is nothing around that would need the space the HIFI takes up.

Where there are groceries, you won't find them in a mess of piles and heaps but in order:

Where there are groceries, you will find them in orderYou will never find a rack in my shower. A neat box suffices. Please excuse the state of the chair, it was the first thing I did on my own, painting the chair red.
I plan on repainting it, white maybe. Eddie Ross provides the best inspirations for this project.

One drawer is enough for all place mats and dish towels.

Since we don't need the room for stuff, we have room for silly stuff like waste paper

Before I moved in, I always lived in places where I could not find a single wall that would be free from the ceiling down to the floor where I could lean against to strech my calves after a workout.It are walls like this that I value as a huge achievement.

I have been living in the same apartment for more than 15 years. I guesss I am a bit proud of the fact that you still find walls going down to the floor and that I did not give in to consumerism and did not search for every possible ways how to clutter up every corner of this apartment with the perfect storage item IKEA provides (three-dimensional of course, floors, walls, ceilings). Instead I constantly kept reducing everything to the max. Mr Paula earns a big credit here, since he is the other half who supports this reduced lifestyle on mere 613 sqft.