I MEET A HUNGARIAN- AMERICAN NEIGHBOR FOR THE FIRST TIME : HE CAN COMMUNICATE WITH FINNISH PEOPLE and HIS CHINESE GIRLFRIEND!

Oh the MYSTERIOUSNESS of being HUNGARIAN!  And Hungarians themselves are into the mystery of our origins and reading all around the human genome and DNA about now.

Last week, walking my dog, I happened to meet a neighbor I didn't know about who is a Hungarian-American of recent vintage.  What an interesting and enthusiastic young person!

Of course, he mentioned that his people were now calling themselves Germans and Slovaks as well, because of well - the way the countries borders changed.  But his first language is Hungarian, and I must stay his English is excellent, just enough accent to know that.  He lives with his CHINESE girlfriend.

We talked for quite a long time.  Enough that my dog lay down without being told to.  (She knows that "mom is going to have a long conversation!")

I told him at the start of the conversation that I do genealogy research, that I don't speak Hungarian, but that I translate with the help of dictionaries and by asking other people who do speak it when I get stuck.  I told him that I was convinced it was an Asian language, because by putting words in front or back or a root, you change the word - the imagery - that Hungarian is a poetical and humorous language. 

I told him that sometimes when I translate place names, for instance, I'm reminded of the translations one gets in certain Chinese restaurants.  For instance, one place, which is on a plateau with a lot of pine trees around seemed to be named "Black Hat."  (One Chinese soup that has something for everyone to pick out of it is called "Happy Family.")

"I can understand Finnish people!  I can understand things my girlfriend says and she's Chinese, because of that placement," he said.  "We're MONGOLIANS!"

To finesse this a bit, there is evidence that while the LANGUAGE, which is not from the Latin, and not from the Slavs, probably came from an ancient starter population that dominated life at some point, and there is evidence that the Mongolians DNA is in, not only some Hungarians, but in a swath of countries, including southern Poland, parts of Germany, and so on,  it may be a case of the DNA being diverse and the language being what prevailed even if the original native speakers' DNA became minority DNA.

I look into this every few months, because I know that DNA and the human genome science is getting more and more specific and interesting all the time.

I look forward to another conversation in the moment with Ferenz!

EASTER

THE DOG STOLE THE SAUSAGE FROM THE EASTER BASKET AFTER IT WAS BLESSED

We often got our Easter Baskets blessed on Easter Saturday, not at the parish we belonged to, which didn't offer this, but another parish a few miles away.  Inside each basket there were home baked breads and rolls, and other items that were intended for our Easter Day lunch, things like boiled eggs, celery, salt, butter, meats like ham, and - of course - for the children, Chocolate Easter bunnies, jelly beans, and marshmallow chicks.  We rarely got candy so these were really special. 

All these would be laid upon a bed of artificial cellophane grass, most often green, but sometimes pink or yellow, and an old cloth doily would be placed over the top of the precious basket.  We would go into the church and arrange our baskets an the kneeler along the communion rail.  (As I write this I wonder if all my readers will know what I mean.  In our churches it was common to separate the altar area with a metal rail. These days in many churches people stand in line for Holy Communion and do not kneel.)  We would expose the contents of the basket to the upcoming rain of Holy Water by folding the doily aside.  Then go to sit in the pews to listen to a brief  but sincere Easter prayer lead by the priest and the blessing.

One year my mother's picnic sized hamper included a large sausage.
That year one of the priests at this parish had a pet - a large dog.

As the parishioners settled back into a moment of fervent prayer, the priest's dog came down the center isle of the church.  Before anyone could imagine what he might be up to, the dog snatched the large sausage and ran out of the church with it.  Smart dog!

The serious Easter prayer was punctuated by the wild suppression of laughter, as everyone attempted to avoid laughing out loud or running out of the church after the dog - who was long gone.  Their shoulders shook in glee.

My mom took it well.

C 2016 All Rights Reserved  Magyar-American BlogSpot.

CROWNED RABBIT IMAGE FROM RUSSIA

EASTER EGGS - HUNGARIAN STYLE

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SPRING - PLANS FOR A GARDEN - YOU TOO CAN MAKE SEED BALLS and PROVIDE BUTTERFLY and BEE FRIENDLY FLOWERS

MY GARDEN is starting to spout,

 including some plants that made it through the winter

that were only doing so so last year, including

YELLOW CALENDULA, PALE PINK PERFUMED SNAPDRAGONS, RED GERANIUM,

a single SUNFLOWER, and, the secret of whatever seeds I put into a SEED BALLS.

Since I posted on the heat wave, we finally got hit by a few rain showers locally. We will still attempt to conserve water. 

I attended a SEED BALL MAKING WORKSHOPS for ADULTS at a local LIBRARY here in Southern California a couple weeks ago.  The idea is to make these seed studded clay balls, then drop these them here, there, and everywhere there is a need for plants that butterflies and bees love .  (Try not to waste them by planting them where gardeners wack down anything they don't recognize as a weed!  But consider old graveyards, along certain road sides or crossings, between buildings... places were there is some land where they can grow as nature allows.)

You need to buy water based modeling clay such as the Crayola Air Dry Clay brand, which is the dough kids use to make little sculptures and comes in quart sized plastic buckets.  It turns out that this clay, water based, can harden but also resoften in the rain, or when you water it and the ball provides a good seed sprouting environment. 

You will also need some peat moss and some seeds.  We used Calfornia poppy seeds as well as a package of bird and butterfly mix.

Take about a quarter cup of this clay, roll it around into a ball, then flatten it like a pancake.  Sprinkle a generous amount of peat moss on it, and then a few seeds.  Roll this again into a ball, and roll the ball in more peat moss.  Viola!  You have a seed ball.

One thing California and Hungary have in common is POPPIES.  Our native poppies, a brilliant gold color, are our state flower, and one of the reasons that California is called The Golden State.   (The other reason is that by summer much of the once-green landscape is covered with golden dried out vegetation.)  We had some rain, finally, and the desert, including various succulents and cactus,  should be blooming brilliantly very soon. 

I made eight balls in fifteen minutes.  You do not need to dig deep to plant these balls.  Just a little scoop out or simply place them on furrowed ground.  Four of them I planted along an old abandoned rail road track that has a path past it.  So far, I have not seen anything sprouting when I walk past this area, but you never know.  Because of the rains there are the native California mustard plant (short, unlike the Spanish mustard the Spanish explorers are responsible for, as they claimed the country for Spain by throwing their own mustard seeds), as well as native wild geranium (rarely do these survive long enough to bloom out due to all those wackers!), mint, and a number of small yellow flowered and purple flowered ground covers that seem to hibernate for years just waiting for enough rain to sprout.

The four balls I left in a bag to be planted later all sprouted in the bag and have been transferred into a large pot.  I cannot wait for one or all of them to grow into beautiful plants that I can try to identify!

I found this link that will explain more about seed balls PERMA CULTURE - ANCIENT METHOD OF NO TILL AGRICULTURE



HEART SHAPED WORLD

Heart Shaped Political Map

Medieval French

Google Public Domain Vintage Search

MALIBU - THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS - A HEAT WAVE HITS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - IT'S 88 DEGREES TODAY!

Sadly, the last few days have been unseasonably hot - very much so.  While parts of the United States of America have more freezing weather, in the last couple months we've had only two significant rainfalls, which brought a "normal" amount of rain, but have no effect on the drought here in California. 

There's a construction site down the street, dug down low for a parking garage, and it's clear that we are living on a deep bend of sand, which once must have been under the ocean.  After the last rain you could see wetness saturated the sand about three feet.  It only stopped construction a couple days and then it dried up and they went ahead and poured cement.  However cement and tarmac roadways, driveways, and construction prevent rain from soaking in.  Instead it makes its way into the Santa Monica Bay, which is very polluted.

Hiking in the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which barely qualifies as a Mountain chain by the way because much of is simply not high enough, you can see more evidence of dramatic earth changes in the past, millions of years ago they say.  Along one trail there are on the top of the mountain the equivalent of undersea scoop outs that are still full of sand.  When it rains sometimes beach quartz and petrified shells that have been in place for ages and were once part of the COASTAL BEACHES are exposed.   Something - a massive earth quake, comet hit, or perhaps volcanoes out at sea or maybe even "polar shift" are responsible for throwing beaches thousands of feet and making these mountains.

There are only two mountain chains in the world that go east to west rather than north to south.  These Santa Monica Mountains and the other chain are the Carpathians of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

My concern is not just about water for drinking, cooking, washing, and personal bathing, which is in short supply for the farmers in less citified areas of this massive state of California, resulting in ever higher prices for fruits and vegetables but that the food chain is also effected.

Case in point, the thermostat went up to 88 and insects started coming into the house looking for water.  This means I have to start exterminating, something that I never had to do before the heat wave.  As the earth dries up and the bugs start dying, well so it follows that birds will starve, and so it goes.

Because of the construction site, which is on what had been a long vacant lot, every morning we smell skunk.  In the middle of the night a possum and a cat seem to be getting into a fight for turf in the back yard.  There was a raccoon in our garbage cans.  I figure they have been displaced from the long vacant lot. 

The raccoon was in our cans in the morning light and was bigger than my dog!  My dog was barking, I looked out and saw no human beings, so I opened the door and there was the raccoon.

So do I hope for more rain?

Yes!


NATIONAL PARK SERVICE - SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS

LOW INTELLIGENCE and the MILL HUNK HUNGARIAN AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

Although my own father didn't work in a factory, several of my ancestors and relatives did, and like many of those immigrants and first-generation Americans who came from agricultural Hungary to work during the Industrial Revolution and then some, the stereotype of low intelligence was stuck on them.  What a convenient and easy way for people who had command of the English language and some time in here to "other" the Hungarians (as well as others from Central and Eastern Europe) so that they could, pre-union, use them up and spit them out in those days before there was any SSI, SSDI, or other Disability programs. So many men were injured permanently, killed, or sickened and died early from unsafe conditions including pollution into their lungs, and even working long shifts six days a week wasn't enough to support a family.

 

Now some of these people were uneducated and without skills when they came to the United States and employment was one of their goals in coming here.  And perhaps you didn't need to be an "astronaut" to work in the mill but...
 

But, if you want to bust through this stereotype, consider that given the opportunity, many of their children, grand-children, and great grandchildren are college educated, and Master's Degrees as well as Ph.Ds. and membership in the professions are not at all unheard of.

 

Now consider, if the "mill hunk" was so stupid, how did his offspring and grandchildren end up smart enough for all that?  Intelligence is part of our genetic heritage.

 

Instead, I think these men worked long and hard and with pride.  The mill hunk was also the patriotic man who joined the military and loved his family. 

C 2016 Magyar American BlogSpot

SARAH McLACHLAN : SONG FOR A WINTER's NIGHT

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

 Image from Dover

HOLLYWOOD CINEMATOGRAPHER - VILMOS ZSIGMOND - DIES IN CALIFORNIA - FAMOUS FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF A THIRD KIND

NY TIMES article VILMOS ZSIGMOND DIES AT 85 - CINEMATOGRAPHER  by Bruce Weber

EXCERPT:

Known for creating dramatic, story-propelling images in muted colors and natural light, Mr. Zsigmond (whose full name is pronounced VIL-moshe ZHIG-mund) referred to his desired imagery as “poetic realism.”

Along with other cinematographers, including his countryman Laszlo Kovacs, with whom he escaped the Soviet dominance of Hungary in 1956, he helped usher in a new era in the look of Hollywood movies, one in which light and color and whole images superseded the importance of making the star look gorgeous.

PROOF THAT CROWS MAKE TOOLS!

DISCOVERY - CROWS CAUGHT ON CAMERA BUILDING and STORING TOOLS  VIDEO LINKED

Excerpt:  Poring over the footage captured on the cameras' micro-SD cards (the cameras safely detach from the birds within a few days), the scientists witnessed two instances of the birds fashioning hook tools they would use to probe tree crevices for food....

It was clear to the researchers that these tools seemed precious to the birds.
“In one scene,” said Troscianko, ”a crow drops its tool, and then recovers it from the ground shortly afterwards, suggesting they value their tools and don’t simply discard them after a single use.”

The birds are highly attuned to disturbances in their midst, and their tropical habitat can also be a hindrance to anyone wishing to get a close look at how they earn their living. But the cameras the team employed afforded just such looks.
“By documenting their fascinating behavior with this new camera technology,” said Troscianko, “we obtained valuable insights into the importance of tools in their daily search for food.”

A NEW YEAR OF EARTH CHANGES

Saint Louis, Missouri, flooded enough to stop transportation,  The North Of England - flooded.  (Prince Charles with his long time concern for the environment is truly the perfect person to be the next King!) Tornados touching down in unprecedented numbers.  Earth changes, no doubt.  Global Warming Summit in Paris.   Is this really something we can stop now by altering our life styles so that we no longer pollute?  (I think it would take more than recycling, and shutting down factories particularly in China, but also less use of air travel...)  Al Gore was right.  Al Gore was right.

In the wee hours I woke up and turned on the radio, a station which featured psychic predictions for the future.  In the morning I wake up again, check my weather ap and see that the experts are predicting a swath of storms "NON EL NINO RELATED" that will hit my area this week.  I took down the Christmas lights that I had planned to keep on until January 6th, in advance of these storms thinking the wet weather and electricity could be dangerous.

My dog is wearing sweaters and I've taken to using a space heater in one room - the bedroom, which I'm using 90% of the time now.  The gas wall heater is too expensive to use and so old it has no thermostat and though it can eat up the humidity when it's on, most of the heat goes out the windows. The electric bill will rise, as will the gas bill, but not enough to consider the expense of double pane windows, water heater wraps, and all the rest. 

Not too long ago, during one of the hottest summers I've ever experienced, so sick of the heat, I vowed that I would not complain of the cold or the wet.  I'm actually lucky because I'm not dealing at all with freezing rain, sleet, ice or snow and even when it goes to freezing at night I can cover up my plants outside.

I'm limited in what I can do but I do it.  I have cut back my water use especially.  I recycle not only bottles and cans but give away clothes and other things that someone else can get use out of.  I generate so little garbage that my can doesn't have to go out to the street more than once a month.  I think "if everyone would do just a little more towards this effort."  But, despite their being constant warnings - and rules - and laws - about water usage in my area, I still have a neighbor who waters excessively. Everyone on the street is angry at him but so far he has not been busted by the authorities and has not gotten any fines.

Now, anticipating the rain, I'm more worried than ever that it will be excessive and that there will be flooding in my area, which was not designed to cope with too much rain at any one time.  There is a construction site down the street that is dug out and I hope any flooding will go down into the pit instead of down the street and into the yards!

CELEBRATE A NEW YEAR!