Voting. And, COVID-19 raises its ugly head.

 When we came here, we signed up for updates from the U. S. Embassy in Croatia.  This is a normal thing where they notify citizens of changes in danger-levels, terrorist threats etc.  One of the things they've been very good about lately is sending updates on how to vote while living here.  With their help, we got an emailed ballot and envelope print-image, which we printed and filled out.  The back of the envelope had to have a large box with text stating that it is a crime to mess with ballots, and there is a place to sign that you are entitled to vote on the ballot inside.

  The front of the envelop has the verification that it is my ballot, in the return address field.  And, of course, the ballot went inside.  A lot of states that send out ballots via email, also receive them via email.  Texas, however, does not.  You can mail them back, or FAX them (the FAX has to be followed by the physical form within a very few days, so what's the point?) but you can't send a valid ballot via email.  We pondered that for a while and I even prepared an envelop to send our ballots to our daughter to mail in.  Express shipping was going to be an expensive way to vote.  Then I re-read the Ljubljana Embassy bulletin and noticed that it said you could hand your absentee ballot to the guards at the Embassy gate and it would go by diplomatic pouch to the US and be guaranteed to arrive in time.  

   And then we spent Saturday driving down to Ljubljana and back.  The hardest thing was finding the Embassy gate.  The Embassy is surrounded by tall wrought-iron fences, just like you see on TV.  There are places where cars can go in, and there are places where the fence is hardened (more protected, bulkier), but I didn't find a guard.  In fact, while searching I got almost to the end and called to a man who was entering the building.  He didn't respond, which was good because then I noticed it was the Russian Embassy.  The U.S. and Russian Embassies are right next door and the two fences looks like a single fence.  As I returned, I noticed that a guard hut a couple yards back from the fence had a guard inside and I was able to get his attention.  I expected a U. S. Marine, with whom I could bond, but it was a Slovene civilian employee who spoke good, though heavily-accented English.  I explained what I wanted and he motioned me to another part of the fence, where the bars are not so close together, and multiple cameras watch.

  He came back out of his booth with a little piece of paper.  He had me hold out the ballots and rubbed both sides of them with the little paper, then he returned to his booth.  A short time later, he returned with a grey, plastic basket, which he had me drop the ballots into.  He took that inside for a moment, then he returned with the grey basket and a wooden box with a locked lid and a slot on top.  I wasn't actually very happy that he'd taken my ballots out of sight, but when he came back I checked and I don't believe it would be possible to duplicate my illegible scrawl of a signature, nor Liz's, in that amount of time.  So, I got my ballots back out of the grey basket, and put them into the slot on top of the locked box, and we wished each other well.  My ballots are probably already back in the USofA in the care of the US Mail.  Just another day in the life of an expat.

    Meanwhile, COVID-19 has exploded in Slovenia.  It's a small country, so it's a small explosion, but disturbing because Slovenia went relatively unscathed last spring.  Each day, there are more positive tests, more confirmed cases, and more hospitalized than ever before.  Deaths haven't caught up, yet.  

  There was talk last Friday that Slovenia might close travel between counties over the weekend, and I was a little worried whether we could make our dash to vote in Ljubljana.  We had no troubles with that.  But when we left, the central part of Slovenia was officially red, while the coastal area and the area around Maribor were orange.  However, the numbers on Saturday turned the entire country red.  The county-to-county travel ban only counts if traveling from orange to red areas, and since everybody is now red, there is no travel restriction within the country.  Yeah!

    BUT, we now have to wear masks at all times when outside our homes, even when out in the open air.  There is also a curfew from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am for all non-emergency purposes, with serious fines for violation.  This was a very pointed measure because the current outbreak has been determined to have occurred due to people gathering in bars and restaurants and even homes, for drinking bouts with friends.  This will continue for at least 30 days.  Oh, and businesses, including bars and restaurants, can only have one customer in each room at a time, which essentially closed all of them.  Businesses like hair salons can be open, but again, with only one customer inside at a time.  Fortunately, I got my hair cut last Friday.

     I bought a nice Nikon camera a month or so ago.  The big lens has never worked, but I've been holding off on taking it back, thinking that maybe I don't know what I need to know.  I've gotten better and more confident with the camera and the small lense.  Example:

 

This African Violet is awesome, but it was taken with the smaller of the two lenses, and it works perfectly.  The larger lens will not focus.  It won't focus automatically, and it won't focus manually.  The violet has aphid-like creatures that are much smaller than I'm used to, and I'd like to get a nice closeup of them.

This was taken at maximum magnification with the smaller lens.  You can see the little, white spots that concern me.  I can sometimes see legs on them, and their spacing is a clear sign that they are living organisms, but I can't make a positive ID on them without more help.  So I need to get the larger lens replaced, repaired, or refunded.  Of the three, I'd prefer refunded, because I could get a higher quality macro lens, but I think that is least likely.  Slovenes hate giving refunds, for any reason.