It is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. In the forty days till Easter, one is invited to give up a luxury. In this spirit, I give up bitching about Croatia.

Addendum I (March 10, 2011)

“Alleluia!” cried my beloved when she read this haiku. And then she started singing and dancing around me. I could not stop her, either. The truth be told, she is the greatest victim of my relentless bitching. My pledge is thus to her greatest joy, as well. Over the years, she must have heard a few stories too many about corruption and organized crime in Croatia. Anyhow, my heart went to her at once. Ash Wednesday be praised. The fact is that it was her who alerted me to it, too.

Addendum II (September 3, 2015)

According to good old Christian rules, one gives up a luxury for forty days only. The day after Easter, the pledge is off. Phew! As far as I am concerned, bitching about Croatia has become a way of life, as it were. The habit is acquired quite easily, and it is equally easy to keep it going, for those in power incessantly oblige with new inventions to bitch about. And there is a myriad of such inventions to cope with on a daily basis. Which is why most citizens of Croatia stop bitching sooner or later. It is thus a luxury reserved for the most sensitive of souls and for those who believe, correctly or otherwise, that they have been unjustly subjected to cruel and unusual punishment of some kind. Returning to my own unexpected pledge, I would never even consider it again. As I said, it has already become a way of life for me. Besides, bitching is a joy in its own right, and especially when it stands to reason. As expected, the Lent four years ago was far from comfortable for me in spite of my beloved’s jubilation. In fact, it was a pain in the ass.

Addendum III (March 9, 2017)

To this day, my beloved rolls her eyes as soon as I start bitching about Croatia. And this is what I do often enough, it goes without saying. She could not care less about what I actually have to say, though. As far as she is concerned, the subject itself is annoying past compare. Thus, it is easy to rile her up. Whenever I feel like giving her a jolt, I start with a few chosen words about “stupid Croatia” or “stupid Croats.” She just stares at me in utter disbelief as I go on and on about something that has happened to me, or something that I have come across in the local newspapers. The last such example was amusing enough. Yesterday I told my beloved about a woman whose apartment was appropriated because she had a few unpaid bills amounting to less than two-hundred euros. When she returned home from a trip abroad, she found workmen removing the plaque with her name from her front door. They had a court order in their pockets, too. The story is all over the local newspapers as of late. “This is what I have feared for years,” I explained. “The former mayor of Motovun would go for this sort of punishment in a jiffy.” My beloved just waved her hand dismissively. “This is rare even in Croatia,” she argued with a sour expression on her face. Be that as it may, the former mayor must have thought of a trick like this one. The court in Pazin was at his disposal, anyway. For all my bitching about Croatia, I am a lucky fellow, I guess.