As I am preparing today’s fire for my beloved, the Motovun bug on the livingroom wall attracts my attention (“The Motovun Bug,” June 24, 2011). It takes me a few seconds to remember this period last year, when I got one of the decisions of the court concerning my supposed insult of the mayor of Motovun (“Welcome Attractions,” December 22, 2011). Indeed, Croatian courts have a habit of striking around Christmas and New Year’s, when one would least expect them to act in their perpetual torpor. Politics is politics, though. And the holiday season must be the right time to send blue envelopes to the bad guys around the country (“The Country of Blue Envelopes,” January 17, 2011). Just as I am thinking about my predicament in Motovun, Istria, and Croatia as a whole, a stinkbug appears out of nowhere. Perhaps it is the last one of the year. It does not take me long to catch it and toss it into the fire. If only the Motovun bug would follow it in due course. My most sincere wish this holiday season. Shamanism is my only hope in Croatia, anyhow.