HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHLOE!

Hey, Miss Eggers! Will you take a break from this growing, for a moment?? 'Cause you're already eleven! And I was just congratulating you on turning 10!

Happy happy birthday, to that gorgeous and elegant dancer who we call sister. We hope you enjoy your day today (did you have to go to school? Did you bring goodies?) and your party!

Big hugs from Germany from

Nikki, Shauna, Berti, and Steve

We love you!

Thirty!

I'm 30 today! Hooray! :)

Don't feel any different yet... although maybe it's because I've been thinking I'm 30 for a couple years now, anyway. Every time I have to give my age, it's been, "Um, th... hold on, tw... twenty-nine. What year is this? Right, twenty-nine."

Okay, so maybe I'm just senile already!

So far so good. Shauna and Steve ARRIVED ON THIS SIDE OF THE POND (!!!!) the day before Halloween, and have been running around to the sounds of Looney Tunes music ever since landing, dividing their time between Munich, Zurich, Ludwigshafen, and various workplaces in each city and between. They're looking for housing while still waiting for visas, starting new jobs, polishing up rusty German skills, and oh yes, also simultaneously attempting to finish a Master's thesis and PhD dissertation, respectively. They still look sane -- especially considering that the Looney Tunes have been going on for a solid six months or so by now -- but I'm also looking forward to when the poor things are able to sit down and take a deep breath, sometime! We're doing all we can, but there's little to be done except help figure out where one can give fingerprints for the American FBI (!) from a consulate somewhere, in order to hand over to the persnickity Swiss a certificate validating that you're not a wanted criminal.

They're in Munich today, but hopefully they'll be able to head over here to the Pfalz on the 20th for our little Official 30th Birthday Celebration. We've invited a few friends and will celebrate with wine somewhere... more to come! :)

Hugs for my family!

Muslims Wearing Things

Here's a fun photo-blog, responding to the notion that Muslims in Western culture will always stick out due to a penchant for identifiably "traditional garb." Most cute, check it out!

http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/

What will they think of next?

Ye scrolls were so much easier! These newe tecknologies are certainlie the devil's work.




(Thanks, Tina!)

Life is good!

I don't believe how I've neglected my poor little blog this many a moon! Partly it's because I got this awesome, and HUUUGE, translation project, and so the little guy in the back of my head who censures my time management notices if I don't use every "free" hour spent in front of the computer working on that instead of this. He pushes up his glasses disapprovingly and logs the hours on his clipboard. (I know, he's a bit of a despot.) That's been since about June, and is still not finished. It's really fun, though. Considering I find repetitive, nitpicky things like translating and editing fun -- hitting on just the right phrasing to formulate that tricky sentence will send me into paroxysms of gratification. Plus it's astonishingly well paid, and so a couple of hours an evening making sure the School of Engineering and Architecture is elegantly presented in native-speaker-like English on the SRH Hochschule website is well worth it.

Another factor eating into my motivation to blog -- or at least any sense of urgency about it -- is that a whopping percentage of my friends and family are on facebook by now. And so keeping in touch with the little details of each other's day-to-day pleasures and conflicts is easier than ever, and helps me feel close to everybody.

Neither of these are any impetus to give up the blog entirely, however, and I swear that once this translation project is over, I'll chronicle my self-absorbed thought processes more faithfully than I have been.

Until then, here's what's been going on since July (was it July?):

- Bert and I spent a week tramping around Dresden and the surrounding "Saxon Switzerland," a lovely national park with cliffs and castles

- The following weekend, we went with Martin to his sister's place in the Allgäu and climbed the highest mountain I've ever climbed. Okay, it was 1800 meters (5900 feet), which if you're an actual, rope-and-pulley mountain climber like Martin, counts as a "Kindergeburtstag." Still, it was the highest I'd ever clambered up, and the view was beautiful.

That saddle between the peaks was a little harrowing - a lot of it was a bit harrowing, actually! The village in the background is where we started from.

Taking a break on the way back down. If you look closely, you can see the lake where we went swimming the next day.

- We got back from the Allgäu late Sunday night, and then Tuesday, I flew off to Scotland for Mom's birthday, followed by our Highland adventure: Mom, Shauna, Amy and I hiked the 150-km West Highland Way, from Milngavie in the south (just outside of Glasgow) up past Loch Lomond and across the Highland Divide, and on into those wild, rolling, heather-covered hills.

IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. In fact it might count as the most beautiful, satisfying vacation ever. I think the other girls would agree with me, no? We had eight days of walking, wandering, laughing, climbing, conversing, oohing and aahing, animal-spotting, blister-plastering, rock-scrambling, whisky-tasting, picture-taking, out-loud-singing, stranger-chatting, history-learning splendor, followed by a triumphant return to Inverness, where dancing and music and partying were the order of the day -- and then of the night, until it was time to sadly pack up in the wee hours of the morning and say goodbye. I returned to "normal" life completely and utterly rejuvenated in body and spirit. The Highlands of Scotland are removed from this world. Stark and beautiful, wild and sparsely inhabited -- it was incredible to look back over the mountain tops and realize that only your own two feet have carried you over and through them. We constantly laughed that we'd found ourselves a little corner of Middle Earth.

I like how this one came out.

This one, too. Can't you just hear the bagpipes?

For more pictures of our adventure, check out Amy's picasa page!

Now it's early October, and we are in the middle of the golden season here in wine country. The grape harvest is in full swing, and wine festivals are to be found on every vine-covered, half-timbered corner here in the Pfalz. The sun finally decided that the coloring leaves were worth shining her face upon, and so we should have glorious weather right up through Bert's birthday on October 10th, this upcoming Sunday.

Friends, family, travel, adventure, enough work(!), and wine.

Life is good!!

Holidaze in Saxony!

Oooo, I'm so excited. Berti and I have noticed a lack in recent weeks of Quality Time together; thus we just up and scheduled a week away, just us two, to Dresden in mid-August!

We've been to Dresden a couple of times in the past, but mostly for short visits for specific reasons, like a concert or seeing friends. This time, we're booking a B&B and just exploring the area. There's so much to see and do -- according to the Frommer's guide so thoughtfully supplied by my Mommy in 2006, just before I came to Germany, there are delicious eats, exclusive local beers and wines, lovely bicycle paths along the Elbe, and challenging hikes through the mountainous "Swiss Saxony." Not to mention the amazing museums, with Rafaels and Titians and Caravaggios in the Alte Meister gallery, and Arabic celestial globes from the 14th century in the Science and Mathematics Salon. And the opera! And theaters!

Eeeee, and all this with my very own Saxon. I want to go now!

More things I likes.

Listing again, because thinking of these things makes me happy!

Owls.
Butterflies.
Herds of gyrating walruses.
The word "bat." (Baaat.)

Single-malt scotch.
Our large, hospitable couch.
1960's western movies.

Sunshine.
My new psychedelic string bikini.

Late brunches on the balcony with Bert.
Riding my bike.
Abba. (It's troo!)
Reading.

Maps.
Bagpipes.
Cozy pubs.
Also beer gardens.
Planning a trip.

Translating.
Wine tastings.
Potatoes. (In all earthly forms.)
Lavender.

Dogs.
Cats.
Rabbits.
Other furry things.

Calvin and Hobbes.
Museums.
Bath houses.
Documentaries.

Walking.

Walking with an ipod.

Driving in the car with Bert and an ipod.

Taking naps... which I think I'm going to go do right now!

More Ohrwürmer.

Green grow the rashes, O...

(This one gets stuck in my head for days. And I don't mind at all!)




The next one is also beautiful (this time instead of sideways, the image is just jumpy):



Go Kenny and Stuart!

Not Mars. Nope. Earrrrth.

Say. Does anyone remember this skit from Sesame Street?



The best part of finding it on youtube was discovering from the comments that other people also get this song stuck in their heads, from out of nowhere, 25 years later!

It happens to me when I think of the word "procrastination." My brain sings: Pro-cras-tin-AY-tion. Just a min-ute. Pro-cras-tin-AY-tion. Doin' it later!

Which sounds about right today. It's too hot to work here. German summers should not hang around the 97-degree mark, day after day; that's why I moved away from Arizona. But hang around they have, and you can only do so much swimming and basking and drinking of the cold beers before you start yearning for a good old fashioned freezing-rain shower. It's one thing to vacation in hot climes, another to put on work clothes in them.

(Wait, hahaha! I'm not complaining! Just a little joke! Ha. Please don't smite us with freezing rain showers.)

The difference between heat here and heat in Arizona is that the desert southwest is prepared for it. Vast resources are committed to making sure you need a sweater indoors in the summer. In central Europe, air conditioners are not only seen as horrifying electricity drains, they are also quite unnecessary. Well, usually. Since a good six months of the year are usually dedicated to trying to get warm, I have yet to see the private home that boasts an ay-see.

So instead of working, I'm going to sit here in my pajamas with the fan pointing at me, and look up some more cute videos. Oh look, the yip-yip aliens!!! Squeeeeee!



And discovering a radio. ("Ray-dee-oh. Happyhappyhappy!")

New design!

Check it out, blogspot has really extended their blog design options. I think I'll play around a bit with the seasons and my mood. What would be really cool is if you could save a design to go with a year/post/etc, so that when you click on posts from April to June, it automatically shows a certain background, and so forth. But so far, it's fun just to have the extended options.

Interwebs are neet!

Red and Black and Gold and White and Blue

What a lovely, double-patriotic weekend.

After that long, dark, cold, dark, long, cold winter, followed by a wimpy drizzling spring, the weather gods -- exasperated with our pleading -- finally slapped us with a sarcastically hot summer weekend. "Here! Are you happy now?!"

It was great. I know most people around here find the mid-nineties ridiculous, but when you have enough cold Weinschorle, breezy shade, and brand-new string bikini at your disposal, it felt like vacation.

After sleeping through the morning heat on Saturday, we gathered at Lui's in the afternoon to watch the German national team give the arrogant Argentinians a lesson in teamwork. The energy was amazing. Everyone in the shady beer garden was decked out in jerseys, cheeks streaked with black-red-and-gold paint, wearing flags like clothing, warding off the heat with cold beer and ice cream sundaes, and leaning forward in tense unison to watch that big screen. Each time the German boys magicked the ball into the Argentinians' net, you could just hear the whole city erupt into a cheer that practically lifted you off your feet (because you were already out of your chair). If the USA couldn't go any further, I'm glad Germany is now in the semifinal!

Today, we decided to escape the heat by driving an hour out of town, up into the cooler Odenwald and to a little lake that we'd discovered on a hike a few weekends ago. The temperature was definitely more pleasant than in the Rhine valley; we lay in the perfect sun and dipped in the cool water, and watched kids play badminton and football on the grass, while families prepared a summer dinner with their portable grills. It was a perfect 4th-of-July sort of day, except that no one was celebrating the 4th of July...

That's something I do miss. I always liked the 4th -- who doesn't? -- with its family and grill parties and fireworks and festive flags that make everyone feel like one big community. It's the ultimate summertime holiday. And now that I've, well, expatriated, I have developed a much more personal understanding of what it is to be American. As a result, I find I get more and more wistful for a real Independence Day celebration with each passing year.

Yet I also give up just a little more each year, because it's just not the same when no one else is celebrating anything. I imagine it's what Christmas in Egypt must be like: attempting to actually do anything just makes you a more wistful than satisfied. So this year, when people asked me if I had any plans to celebrate my national holiday, I said, "Not really; it's not the same outside the States."

So here we were at this lake today, with families grilling and the sounds of splashing and playing, with grass and a beach towel prickling my sunwarmed skin, and I thought, hey, maybe it would have been nice indeed to have a little barbecue, and too bad we hadn't made any plans in advance. Oh well...

Okay, I had not made any plans in advance. On the drive home through the gorgeous summer evening, however, I discovered that my scheming boyfriend had just happened to pick a lake in the vicinity of a place he had espied one day last year and had kept in his head since then: an American diner in the middle of the Odenwald!

The sneaky little thing. I was terribly pleased to suddenly find ourselves at a table on the patio, wearing our barely-dry swimsuits under our clothes as we enjoyed a delightfully authentic feast of charbroiled burgers, chili cheese fries, and coleslaw, washed down with lemon iced tea and cherry coke. We could have been in the States! There were American flags waving in the setting sun and everything.

After we got home, we sat on the balcony and lit some sparklers. I hummed an American tune or two, watched my sparks cheerfully burn down -- "...le-et freeedom ringg" -- and then we went inside.

Thanks, baby. Go Germany! Go USA!

Go Black Stars!

I hope Ghana whips Uruguay's butts the same as they did ours. South America has seen enough football triumphs, but an African country has never yet made it to the semifinals and it would seem fitting for this year, what with the Cup being held for the first time in Africa.

So now that you guys have clawed and bitten your way up here, go all the way!

Schade

Chrissie & Scott & I watched the USA-Ghana game last Saturday at the Niederkirchener Weinfest. They whooped our butts. Ghana was fast, clever, strong, and talented, and definitely deserved the win.... unfortunately, they also displayed a healthy tendency to see what they could get away with, committing foul after foul. Quite unnecessarily, too, considering that although the US made an admirable showing, Ghana still could have beat us cleanly. Even more frustrating, most of these fouls were never even called! (Seriously, this World Cup will go down in history as displaying the most inconsistent and weird whistle-blowing practices of any tournament. There has never been so much outrage at the bogus calls, missed fouls, and discounted goals.... it's all over the news.)

That left us feeling not only disappointed at the loss but also unsatisfied at the messiness of the whole thing. Especially because, for some reason, everyone in the room was belligerently against us. E.g., every time Ghana would score, the whole room -- seriously, all the different tables -- would turn toward our table and hoot. We weren't being obnoxious; I can't think where this scorn came from. They were probably just drunk; and since Ghana is the last African country still in the tournament, everyone was predisposed to root for them, which is understandable. But I think a factor was also that this game was perceived as the "underdog" African nation versus the "superpower" USA, and oooo, let's show those arrogant Amis that they aren't so high and mighty. To be fair, this is indeed true economically: the US is (was...?) a superpower, and Ghana is much poorer. But exactly the same comparison could be made between Germany and Ghana, or any European country and most African countries, and yet this let's-all-gnash-our-teeth-at-those-bullies attitude was nowhere in sight for those games. It's like we were the world's good guys for just too many years, and so now everyone delights in our every little misfortune, including in sports.

I'm tireder than ever of this let's-all-disapprove-of-America fashion. I rather hoped that by now, it had become fashionable enough to not be considered fashionable anymore.

In the 91st minute!

Goooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaalllllll!!!!!!



(Hahaha, "Ohh, it's incredible!" "Thumbs up for guy in purple!")

So we're still in the World Cup! It just warms me little heart that we seem to actually want to play with the rest of the world, instead of just crouching on our isolated island-continent and sticking our noses up at anything that doesn't involve guys in shoulder pads bashing at each other. Not that there's anything wrong with both kinds of football, but I like being able to cheer for the USA outside of the USA!

We watched the previous US game, versus Slovenia, at Lui's, a cozy beer garden with "Public Viewing" (the adopted Englishy words to indicate when a bar shows a game on the big screen). I got there beforehand to nab a table, and then waited impatiently for everyone else to arrive... which they finally did, just before Bert came zooming around the corner on his bike, American flag tied around his shoulders and flying in the breeze like a superhero. Now he does this for all the US games, and I've taken to calling him Captain America. We rode the bus home last night after 1-0 scores for both USA and Germany, each wearing the other's national flag around our shoulders.

Now we need to get some red white and blue face paint!!

Flag Day

I've never flown an American flag from my apartment before.

But yesterday on a whim, I bought a large German and large American flag at a gizmo shop in the Rathaus Center. Bert was very pleased -- he'd been wanting both, for the World Cup -- and this morning, he hung both from the clothesline across our balcony. They sure look pretty.

Admiring them from my office, sipping coffee, I glanced over at the calendar to see what date it is. June 14th: Flag Day.

Well! Just in time.

Lavender, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Oh boy oh boy, it's June! We can have plants on the balcony again!

Last year I grew some questionable-looking things from a mixed bag of seeds, which was a fun experiment until they really started to get belligerent and frighteningly large in their planter boxes. (I still remember Florian, wondering dubiously in his Pfälzer accent: "Warum habt ihr Unkraut gepflanzt?") They did flower for a while, before we left town one weekend and neglected to ask anyone to water the things. Indeed, they looked perfectly capable of walking on their stalks into the kitchen to get a drink themselves!

This evening, we decided to skip last year's incubus experiment and simply picked up some unmistakably recognizable herbs from the Obi Markt for about twenty bucks. Part of what helped kill the zombies -- I mean, what ruined our garden -- last year was that we have a radioactively sunny balcony, and so it's important to get plants that like that sort of thing. Mediterranean ones do: thus we now have a rosemary bush, sage and thyme plants, and deliriously fragrant lavender twins are all getting to know each other in their new homes outside our glass doors. The balcony smells delicious. An oleander is also lording it over the far corner, feeling important because he's the biggest and needs the most water.

I decided to go ahead and do seed basil and coriander again this year, too, along with some rocket I planted next to those viney objects that miraculously appeared again in the planter boxes of old, somehow surviving diligent weeding, followed by total neglect and a deep-freeze winter. I pulled a suspiciously zombie-ish one, but let the others stay because they have intoxicatingly honey-scented, tiny white flowers. Some sort of alyssum? We shall see.

We'll also see how many bees are attracted to our lavender and opt to investigate our beers while they're at it. I may have doomed us to an eternal struggle with fuzzy stinging things. Hopefully they'll be the cute bumble type, in which case I'll pour some beer on the lavender for them.

It's Whirled Cup time again!

Can you believe the last Weltmeisterschaft was four years ago?? Where did that time go? (starts checking for age spots on the backs of hands)

Deutschland kicked things off (haha) to a good start today, wiping the Australians across the field to a 4-0 victory. I am, of course, one of those irritating quasi-fans who are -- have I mentioned this? -- completely apathetic to organized sport of any kind, until suddenly it's the World Cup, and then I fever right along with everyone else just as if I'd been paying attention all that time. Admittedly, though, I'm more into the month-long flag-waving party than the sport itself. (Commence stoning.) In a place where it was, until recently, varying degrees of taboo to not actively apologize for being German, it's exhilarating to sit in the middle of a crowd of red-black-and-gold bedecked folks and roar "JAAAA!!!" with each goal. Sehr cool.

Naturally, however, if Germany plays the USA, I'm wearing the tallest and most obnoxiously starred and striped Uncle Sam hat I can either find or glue together myself. But until then, I'll root for my home away from home. :)

Amy in Deutschland

Finally, an epic post about Amy's visit in March!

It was awesome to have her here. On the one hand, mid-March is not the most aesthetic time to see the Pfalz -- winter is over, spring has not yet arrived, and the trees and vineyards are just a bunch of wet sticks -- but as Amy pointed out, hey, at least your view of the landscape is not obstructed by leaves! She was a real trooper on arrival, too, sticking it out until after 9:00pm Saturday night. Of course it didn't help that in my brilliant reasoning, a quiet, dark museum and echoing Speyer cathedral were just the place to take a person who really needs sunshine and physical activity to reset her sleep-clock. But despite my best efforts to put her to sleep (including a nice relaxing, gently-rocking train ride and a heavy homemade Jägerschnitzel) she was able to surmount the jetlag quite well.

On Sunday, we attended the Hansel-Fingerhut-Spiel, the very first wine festival of the year which includes giant, singsonging, fighting cones, a soot-smeared raggedy man, and a bonfire. After hooting at the incinerated winter (it didn't work, by the way, the burning down of Winter. It stayed cold until well into April), we hiked a thousand miles straight uphill to the Wachtenburg, where we fueled up on hearty German foods and enjoyed the atmospherically rainy view.

Monday... Monday rocked. We absolutely spoiled ourselves. (Or actually for a lot of it, Amy spoiled me, since I spent much of the time secreting penny-shaped sweat beads and wondering if we shouldn't go for the discount this and cheap-ass that. I think I need a better-paying job...) We took the train down to Baden-Baden and made sure our first stop was every chocolate store on the main street. Champagne truffles? Sure. Egg-shaped fondant things? Pile 'em on. Are these mint discs actually filled with minty filling, or are they just, you know, solid chocolate flavored with mint? Oh good, they do have the layer? Then we'll take some of them, too, my lass.

Mouths full of exotic sweetmeats, we slowly ambled down the cobblestone roads to the Friedrichsbad, aka Best Damn Spa This Side of the Mortal Coil. Cheerfully we stripped, showered, and proceeded to luxuriate in quiet hot-air rooms, hotter-air rooms, natural mineral sauna, baths and swimming pools of varying depths and temperatures... Of course we got the "soap brush massage," too, which as Amy pointed out, is only something you'd find here. They lay you out on a table, demand to know if you want a hard or a soft brush (soft, we volunteered wimpily) and then proceed to scrub off every dead skin cell with firm strokes of a foaming, bristly brush. And yeah, even the soft brush was pretty bristly! When they're done, they give you a slap on the butt with the brush and send you off to the shower. I have never felt so squeaky clean -- and ready for a full-body oil massage, which followed after!

By the time we were bundled into warm sheets in the memory-foam mattresses of the "Ruhe Raum," we agreed that it might not be a bad idea to just scrap our plans for the rest of the week and just come back here every day.

Alas, the sights called, and on Tuesday we explored Heidelberg and its castle, and walked along the Neckar river, taking pictures of the castle, old bridge, various waterfowl, and flowers before enjoying a steaming Bratwurst over a golden pile of fried potatoes at the Vetter Brauhaus in town.

Wednesday, it was off to Berlin. The best part of the whole trip, of course, was having so much one-on-one time together. I think the last visit to Seattle, Amy and I sort of saw each other in a drive-by visit that included John and his kids, and thus we realized we hadn't really just sat and caught up in a long time. So we sat on the train and talked books and philosophy and future plans and travel, and basically just grokked for the five-hour train ride. That, and watched a bunch of "Firefly" episodes on the laptop...

The first day in Berlin consisted of finding the hostel (fanciest one I've ever stayed at, by the way! Grand Hostel Berlin, check it out!), finding some Italian food (a tasty little restaurant and a nice insider tip, although we both ended up regretting that we hadn't gotten the other dish) and then moseying over to the Salvador Dali exhibit. Now that was cool. Amy, what were the features we want to put in our counterfeit Dali painting, again? We need some stylized eyes; melting clocks; Y-shaped crutch things; an unexpected object with drawers in it. Wasn't there more?

We also made it over to the Erotik Museum, conveniently located over the Beate Uhse shop (10% discount with a museum ticket!), and had a gander at some 800-year-old phallic carvings and instructional Kama Sutra-type paintings from all over the world. Very interesting, the history of eroticism in the arts. And by the time we left, we were both rather numb, possibly blind. Amy said, "I think I've seen enough penises for one evening."

Thursday was super. We had the Best City Tour Ever, led by the Best Tour Guide Ever, the astonishingly well-informed and informative Mike from England. It was supposed to go from 10 to 2, but our group was so interested and Mike was so fascinating and knowledgeable that it must have been almost 4:00 by the time we all parted ways. I learned so much, it felt like visiting Berlin for the first time!

When the tour ended, we were just in time to wait in line to enter the German Parliament Building, the Reichstag, at sunset. The hour-long wait went surprisingly quickly, and we slowly perambulated the glass dome with our audio guides, tugging at each other's sleeves to point out cool views over the city and take pictures of the light. Then we emerged into the city night below and went looking for a show or cabaret, anything to watch while we rested our poor feet in some chairs.

Well, what did we find was none other than the Biggest Show in Berlin, called (mysteriously) "Qi," at the Friedrichstadt Palast. I was unaware of this, and simply called the number in the guidebook around 7:30 to see what the Friedrichstadt Palast had on offer that night. "Um," hesitated the ticket guy, the way you might regard someone in Munich who just asked if there wasn't some kind of autumn beer festival going on somewhere, "Qi is tonight." Me: "Chi? Key?" Him: "Yes. You'd better hurry, the show starts in 30 minutes." Me: "All right. Did you say 'kee'?"

It was quite cool. The only two seats next to each other were right in the front row, so close we could put our feet up on the stage (and frequently did). The sights and sounds were overwhelming. A singer in ethereal silvery garments floats down on a huge, sparkling crescent moon while a hundred disco-ball stars of varying sizes twinkle around her; an ice rink rises from the floor to show off dancers doing impressive feats on skates; tumblers balance on and throw each other around, making the audience gasp as they catch each other, just narrowly avoiding a face-plant into the stage; athletic dancers writhe in skimpy (sometimes revealing!) leather outfits and swimmers leap into a pool which has now replaced the ice surface; trapeze artists spun high over our heads. Finally, all the female performers appeared in classic feather-bedecked costumes to execute a stage-chomping kickline that culminated in a floor full of singing fruits, peacocks, and other weird and wonderful forms all working up to a musical crescendo before the lights went off.

Whatever "Qi" means, it was pretty spectacular.

We slept in a bit on Friday; oohed and aahed at the "Return of the Gods" exhibit at the Pergamon Museum (one room devoted to each Greek god! So cool!) and then hurried over to the Berlin Philharmonic box office to get tickets to a performance of Mozart's Requiem for that evening. Got some hearty German dinner at the Kartoffelhaus No. 1 on the Alexanderplatz, and then barely made it back to the Philharmonic in time for the 8:00 performance.

Actually, it was not quite 8:05 when we rushed, breathless, up to the ticket guy and tried to hand him our tickets. "Ooh, I'm sorry," he said, "They just began, and I don't believe there's late entry."

"Rats," we said, disappointed. "Missed it by 3 minutes! When is the next break between pieces?"

He promised to check. Soon, another colleague came by to see where our seats were. "Go up to that door over there," she said. We did. It was locked. "Erm," we said, "It seems we'll have to wait until this piece is over." She furrowed her brow and went to find yet another colleague.

Do you know what happened? They would not admit us to the performance. AT ALL. That was it. You arrive at 8:03? Sorry, no Mozart. Sure, I find it annoying when the music gets going and then some latecomers push past you fifteen minutes after the performance has started. But not even between sets? Apparently the conductor had decided that this would spoil his artistic vision, to have, you know, live people in the seats, and banned all door-opening from 8:00 until the end of the show. The attendants even sheepishly explained that, if someone had to go to the bathroom, he or she would not be re-admitted. Even worse, they wouldn't even refund us our money! The lady behind the counter was quite haughty about it, too. "This ticket is essentially a contract saying you will be in your seat at 8:00. We are not responsible for refunds when you don't hold up your end of the bargain." Wow. This kind of attitude is not infrequent (though, thankfully, nowhere near universal) in Germany, vendors treating the customer like some sort of nuisance, like they're granting us a privileged service that can be revoked at any time, should we fall out of lock-step. After all this time, it's still maddening.

I mean for goodness sake, this was not an airline ticket or a mob deal or a signed contract. It's eine kleine bloody Mozart. And the conductor's "vision"? Of all the absurd, out-of-touch, snobby self-importance! This was clearly not music for the listeners, this was the conductor deigning to apportion out a little of his artistic brilliance in miserly bits as long as you held quite still and pretended not to be there. Maybe the audience was also instructed to keep their eyes on the floor and not look at His Radiance as he entered and left. It's a long time since I have felt so angry, so cheated, and barely restrained myself from snarling as we exchanged clipped, heated retorts. But in the end, Amy and I had essentially just donated our money to the Berlin Philharmonic, and I stood in front of the doors and demonstrably tore up my ticket and threw it on the ground before we stomped away.

We were full of self-righteous wrath.

"WELL WHAT SHALL WE DO NOW?" growled Amy.
"IT SEEMS WE HAVE AN EVENING FREE IN BERLIN," I hissed.
"MAYBE WE SHOULD TRY ANOTHER SHOW," she spat.
"NO DICE! THEY'VE ALREADY ALL BEGUN." I gnashed my teeth.
"LET'S GO SHOPPING ON POTSDAMER PLATZ." She rent her hair.
"GOOD IDEA, THAT'LL SHOW THOSE BASTARDS!" I shook my fist at the asymmetrical Philharmonic building.

And off we flounced to try on shoes and buy the entire contents of a chocolate shop.

Saturday was great again. We took the train to Leipzig, a splendid city. It's so easy to navigate, too, and soon we had checked in and were off to find the Kartoffelhaus No. 1 for some tasty German grub. We just happened to be there on Bach's birthday (!) and so we were able to attend a 2-Euro (!) organ concert on the largest pipe organ in east Germany (!!) in the historic Nikolaikirche (!!) by one of the top organists in the world (!!!). Did I mention Leipzig is cool? We also ate our way through mounds of ice cream at the San Remo Eiscafe, explored the town, and came home in the evening to rest and get showered before heading out to one of my all-time favorite clubs, the Moritzbastei.

It happened to be very, very crowded on a Saturday. And our feet were, at this point, swollen beyond recognition from days of tramping the cobblestone streets, so we didn't stay long; just enough to explore a little, wiggle around (as much as the packed crowd allowed) to the music, down a beer, and head back home for a foot bath and some much-needed sleep.

We both woke mysteriously early on Sunday, and decided what the heck, let's get a head start. We found a hearty Irish breakfast at an outdoor cafe in the Barfußgässchen before grabbing the tram out to the creepy, atmospheric Völkerschlachtdenkmal in the rain. This is the Monument to the Battle of Nations fought against Napoleon near Leipzig, but I keep trying to call it the Battle of Five Armies, like in The Hobbit. I've been there a couple of times now, and its eerie monstrous size and solemn carvings still just arrest me. It was the first time, however, that they were playing some sort of background music in the main gallery. Which was sometimes pretty neat (the monastic choir sounds suited the location perfectly) and then sometimes a bit odd, like Sting's "Desert Rose." Oh layee oh lay? Oh well. The monument is often despised as a bit of nationalistic bombast, but I still like it, out of context. Guess I wasn't around when the National Socialists held rallies around it in the '30s, and so I just picture Indiana Jones scooping cobwebs away from its sandstone arches.

The rest of Sunday was spent cozily bundled in the train, letting the rain sluice by the windows as we hungrily absorbed the remaining episode of "Firefly" on Amy's computer and then watched the movie made from the TV series.

Monday was sad. I hate the the train-station, stand-on-the-platform-goodbye thing. Except this one was extra long, because the train sat on the platform for a good half-hour after it was supposed to depart. See, it was overcrowded for a couple of reasons:

Monday was the first day of school break in Baden-Württemberg.
The train had arrived one wagon short.
Lufthansa had reserved an entire wagon just for itself and its passengers. (Regardless of whether the passengers actually took advantage of this service or not.)
There was only one week remaining in the 66€ Aldi-Deutsche Bahn Ticket Special Event, use it or lose it.
It was Monday morning, heading to the airport.

The train got so ridiculously, unsafely full that police actually had to board the machine and forcibly remove some people! I stood talking to a DB employee while Amy and I made quizzical glances at each other out the window (she had nabbed what must have been the last available seat) and he explained that there is no limit on how many tickets can be sold for a particular train. They don't have this problem in Denmark, he continued, where you have to show a seat reservation before being allowed access to the platform. He sounded a little wistful, as if there weren't enough Ordnung in Deutschland and we should take a cue from the organized, efficient Danes. Heh heh.

Finally, Amy and I snuck to the open door for another hug and then it was choo-choo, off to the airport.

Thanks for the catch-up time, dear friend.

I needed that. :)

Stolen Child

Wow, this song gives me goosebumps.

Watch out for the faeries, Chloe and Katie!!

Text: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Music: Loreena McKennitt

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats
There we've hid our faery vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild!
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far-off furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild!
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild!
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Away with us he's going
The solemn-eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild!
With a faery hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than he can understand...

****

(Want to hear the haunting music?)

Bunter Frühling

I can't even describe how delicious it is to sit at my computer, in my very own little office, with the balcony doors wide open and a warm-cool spring breeze fluttering the things on my desk. The fluffing leaves outside are a lovely sea green. (Well, until they get older, at which point they'll deepen into emerald.) The birds are twittering springily. Fat clouds sail by, alternating with golden sun. It all just makes me want to bust out in a John Denver medley! Ohhhh, I love the life around meee... I feel a part of everything I seeeeee...

I will also be very happy to chuck the winter clothes into suitcases this afternoon in favor of skirts and sandals. My winter wardrobe is really quite awful and monotonous. Black. Dark grey. Black. Dark eggplant purple. Dark blue. Hey, it's grey and wintry outside, how about I drape my body in somber winter shrouds! I was starting to feel a bit like Frasier's ex-wife, Lillith.

So you know what I did last week? Went out and bought a bright pink button-down top. It makes me look like a tulip. I love it. And a pinstripe turquoise blouse, too. These are probably the first articles of clothing I've bought in well over a year, actually; which could be due to money and priorities -- I'd rather travel and eat wild salmon than wear new shoes -- but I'm also sure some of it is because the things in shops suddenly look appealing again. Seriously, have the last couple of years been visually terrifying in the U.S., too? I might have tried to look for some clothes before now, but every time I entered a shop, eye cancer was lurking: mustard yellow, traffic-cone orange, hospital blue. Lumberjack patterns. Leftover materials from Tron. Naturally there are bigger concerns in the world than replacing a slightly threadbare (rich, Western) wardrobe; it just makes me scratch my head how clothing designers sometimes seem to value novelty over actual appeal. "Pleasing colors have been around far too long! Let's dye things horrible instead. It will sell! We'll call it trendy!" No wonder I just hunkered down in grey and black and waited for the spraypaint to pass.

What a pleasure it then was to wander into S. Oliver recently and be greeted by shades from actual nature! Hm, maybe I'd better stock up before the next wave of apocalypse chic comes around.

My stepmom has a great sense of color. I mentioned yesterday that Sarah had given us a multi-color patterned quilt, which infuses this whole room with cheer and bounciness. She also sent me, while I was running around in circles last winter looking for a pie pan, any pie pan, stainless steel would have been fine, a beautiful, ceramic, deep-dish, fluted, deep red pie dish. With a cream-color inner lining. It makes everything that comes out of the oven look sumptuous.

Isn't it interesting, how affected we are by colors? Sometimes I choose to cook something round just because I want to use my pretty pie dish. A bed is even more inviting when the bedspread looks nice. I have eaten things, magpielike, just because the colors were attractive.

It can work the other way, too -- my mom laughs her head off at Simpsons one-liners, but she just can't watch the show because, visually, it's an assault on her rods and cones.

I remember reading somewhere that home teams' locker rooms in sports arenas are often painted aggressive "fighting" colors, like black and red. The visitors'? Pale pink! Haha.

Color, color. Colors colors colors. If I had some crayons, I'd probably be drawing rainbows today.

2010 State of the Nation

Gosh, I haven't blogged in a long time! I mean real blog-blogging and jiggity-jogging, not just posting amusing vids and random commentary. In fact, I don't think I've done an actual update all year! Yee!

Too bad the Ideal Time (free evening, stuck inside with a cold, Berti out on the town) happened to arrive when I'm not feeling particularly witty or insightful. No matter, duty calls! I must keep my self-absorbed windbagginess elastic and exercised if I'm to grant my 2011 self any sense of dismayed, oh-how-young-and-foolish-I-was satisfaction!

So. Yes. What is up. What is nyeww. Bbbp bbbp bbp. Hm. Think I'll get some chocolate.

That's better. How about I just start back in January and find my way to April from there.

Not that finding the way to April was easy. No sir, it was a long, dark, cold, dark, cold winter!

December.

Mom and Shauna and Steve all arrived on the same day toward the end of December to celebrate Christmas, and what with our new couch all ready to envelop ze guests, I was practically delirious with glee to have the first wave of butts sitting on it that I had pictured/hoped would sit on it. I was really excited for Christmas this year: it was the first time the season would be done at my place (Michael was missing, but Mom and Shauna were there) and I went out and bought a little potted tree and new tree decorations to hang on it. It's so funny, knowing that I've been settling in here for 3.5 years now, but that I still don't really have all my "stuff." Books and DVDs, for example, which I'm sure I bought at some point are simply not on this side of the pond. (I'm set for Halloween decorations, though!) Pictures, mugs, all those little things you gather up over the years that make your place yours were pretty much re-set in 2006. Not that this is necessarily bad; I didn't own any Picassos. And I took my favorite mug with me. And now I have new favorite mugs. And new things that make my space "mine," like this gorgeous riot-of-colors quilt that Sarah gave us for Christmas a couple years back and brightens up the futon in my office. It all just makes it slightly startling to say, hey, maybe I'll put up some Christmas decorations! Aaaafter, I buy them, I mean!

Anyway, it was blasted freezing outside, forcing us to stay inside and have the sort of visit I'd been needing for a while. Berti and Steve spent the week with their folks and grandfolks in the Erzgebirge and Black Forest, respectively, while we remained in Lu did nothing. No plans, no obligatory running around; just sleeping in late, getting up and lighting the tree, spending the day in our pajamas experimenting with making soups and talking, talking, talking, before decadently deciding to put in a movie in the middle of the day. Mom was a trifle (!) ill, which kept her snuggled on the couch for the first couple of days (hence the soup endeavors on Shauna's and my part) but it turned out not to be Swine Flu, for which we were all so grateful that we willingly sat through 2.5 mind-numbing hours of the Worst Arthurian Movie Ever Inflicted Onto a Strip of Film, "Excalibur." Seriously, did teenagers make this movie? You spend the first half of the film spraying gingerbread crumbs on the carpet in (unintentional) mirth, and the second half recoiling from the screen going, "What the f....?" We needed much soup and Glühwein to recover. Then we watched "Braveheart" and all was well.

I also liked how we did presents this year. We didn't really have a Present Ceremony as such, instead just whipping out appropriate items at what seemed like a good time. Shauna and I were getting ready to brave the negative-Celsius temperatures in a quest for more alchemy ingredients, when she said, "Oh hold on a second! I got you a Christmas present," and rootled around in her suitcase to hand me a pair of beautiful, chocolate-colored, sheepskin suede gloves. Just as we were leaving, Mom commented, "I'm almost done with this book, mind if I raid your shelves for something new to read?" and so I gave her the new book I'd bought her. It was quite laid-back and pressure-free.

A couple days before Christmas, Mom was feeling better so we went shopping in Mannheim, and then on the 24th we took the train down to Bavaria to spend the holiday with Sara and her family in Burglengenfeld. Naturally, there were lots of holiday hordes, and so we somehow ended up with an almost 4-hour wait for the connection in Stuttgart. Tsk! we said, We'll just have to spend a cozy evening out at the Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt, listening to music and eating snacks and drinking Glühwein, doing some last-minute Christmas shopping as we peruse the booths with their crafts and trinkets!

Christmas day was lovely, and noisy. I forget how grown-up my life is, until I spend time with a family with tots and remember how lively a house can get! We exchanged presents under the (beautiful, huge) tree the morning of the 25th, and the boys were thrilled to discover what Santa had brought them. Soon, there were new treasures spread out over the house. I was partial to the toy airplane, myself, and played with it long after I was supposed to be finished assembling it, while Shauna helped Augie balance on his brother's new bike, which the latter was quite afraid of and the former couldn't wait to get back on after repeatedly, inevitably falling off. (Don't tell Augie that two-year-olds aren't really meant for big-kid bikes.) Then daddy and the boys chased each other around with plastic ray guns while Mom, Shauna and I helped Sara prepare Christmas dinner.

We were home again on the 26th, welcomed Steve back from the Black Forest, and bathed ourselves in wine for the next two days before all sadly going our separate ways again for New Year's. At least a rocking time was had by all. Mom danced 24 hours nonstop to celebrate her first "Hogmanay" in the Highlands, and Bert and I tootled over to Dresden to set off fireworks and champagne corks with friends in the middle of the city. (A little spooky, actually, watching explosions over Dresden. I voiced this to Bert, and he admitted to the same thoughts. We wondered how many old folks were choosing to stay inside with the curtains drawn.)

January.

January was cold, cold, and damn cold. Unusual for this area, which is mild and full of vineyards and grows figs and lemons, and is known as the Tuscany of Germany. Bert and I went for a couple of magical winter Wanderungen through the snowy Odenwald, sometimes wading through thigh-deep snow as we navigated the sparkling icy forests.

I also spent a great weekend with my English-speaking girls in Strasbourg. We had no particular objective, except to have a girly weekend looking for Theresa's wedding dress and eating French food and embarrassing ourselves with our long-forgotten French. We've assembled ourselves into a nice little collection of expats these last couple of years: a group of Americans and Canadians who have found ourselves settling in Germany for one reason or another. We don't get together very often -- maybe a couple times a month, more often for Linda and Chrissie and me, since we live closer -- but when we do, it's always a breath of fresh air to hang out with fun girls and make English jokes and cultural cracks. We gleefully took note that our holiday flat was located on the "Rue de Bitche" and since then, we have been the Rue de Bitches.

Also in January was a stompingly fun concert. Bert -- my little metal head -- has a few bands that he and his friends grew up listening to as twelve-year-olds in the GDR. And although they are, every one of them, by now painfully dated and cheesy, and the performers are well past middle age, Bert and his friends devotedly attend every concert they can get to. One of these bands is called "Manowar." (Yep.) Are you picturing album covers with flaming swords, warriors clenching freakish abdominal muscles, and cat-shaped naked women? Okay, then you can probably imagine what the music sounds like.

That right: it was A. Total. Blast. Bert and I walked to the concert hall in Ebert Park, where we joined a surprisingly mixed crowd who was palpably happy to be there. Really, the crowd dynamic just makes the event. Everyone was so jolly, so pleased to be wearing their cheesy '80s band tees and to get another plastic cup of frothy beer and sing boisterously along to songs about Thor the Thunderer. We stomped and sang and made operatic gestures at each other and took pictures with strangers, before stumbling giddily home serenading the neighborhood with, "Across the rain-bow bridge, to Val-hal-la! Odin's waiting for meeee!"

February.

Naturally we didn't neglect the annual sleeping-in-a-cave madness that is Boofen. A hearty thumbs-up to this year's location, too, which instead of a wind tunnel, was a dry and cozy hollow in the foot of one of the rocky cliffs jutting out of the Pfälzer Wald. We built up a huge fire, cooked us up a pot or two of Glühwein, skewered some sausages, and then settled down cozily in the leaves for a long winter's nap. Or at least Bert did. I stuffed my sleeping bag in my ears in a fruitless attempt to muffle his contented snoring. The performance left me quite in awe. He is not usually a snorer, but for some reason a little Becherovka and some cold air and he put on a symphony for the whole forest. While the others were puzzingly able to sleep (maybe because they were also providing some light woodwind accompaniment to his brass section), I gave it up as soon as the sky began to lighten and decided to take a little constitutional in the fresh morning frost.

Goodness me, is the Pfälzer Wald beautiful on a cold February morning! So quiet, hardly any birds; just the whisper of wind through elegant, clattering trees in the valley below. The crunch of patches of snow under your boots. The sonorous rumble of your boyfriend as you come within earshot, but not yet eyesight, of the campfire. (Haha, sorry Berti!)

February was also especially great, in that it was time to check out the little niche that Mom has carved for herself up there in the frozen (quite literally this year, did you see that famous satellite picture of snow-covered Britain?) North, and see what the Highlands have to offer in winter. And I'll tell you: whisky, cozy pubs, blood-thrumming music, dancing, laughter, and fellowship. I adore Inverness. I love Scotland. I love the Scots! Mom is one lucky gal, and if I weren't so danged happy toasting Odin down here in Germania, I would be shoving to make room in her dresser for my clothes.

March.

By March, we were all pret-ty tired of the cold. I would still rather have snow than drizzly muck, so that was, well, all right, but the darkness just took its sweet time in slowly receding from the 5:00pm mark. I was sick of bulky sweaters and never having warm feet. Fortunately there was much travel to look forward to!

The first weekend in March, I zoomed out to Berlin to visit my friend Conny, whose husband was busy checking out China in preparation for their move there in August. (!) Meanwhile, Conny is busy finishing her Ph.D. and taking care of her (incredibly cute, charming) 3-year-old daughter while cooking up another daughter, due just before they leave for China. It was a lovely visit. Sophia Charlotte is an extraordinarily bright and inquisitive kid who uses English with her dad and German with her mom. Okay, actually she hasn't yet gotten to where she sees the point in answering her dad in English, which is cute to observe. I would read English books to her, asking questions like, "Where's the hippopotamus?" and she'd point to it with a "Da!" "And what's this?" I'd ask. "Horse," she said. Then corrected herself: "Pferd."

On Friday, Conny let Sophie go to childcare as usual while she took the day off to have a grownuppy afternoon away from mommying. We explored the Neues Museum in Berlin, which is actually older than the Altes Museum, but has been renovated and re-opened for the first time since WWII in a most intriguing style: they've let most of the building retain its original frescoes, exhibit signs, and worn pillars, alongside the new marble staircases and grand windows, and the result is a very cool insight as to how the building really looked in the mid-19th century. The exhibits themselves (mostly ancient stuff, including Greek and Roman sculpture and the famous bust of Nefertiti) are splendidly arranged in spacious, inviting, well-lit rooms that show the collection off much better than in that dusty old Ägyptisches Museum on the lawn by the Cathedral. You could even find a blogger there who uses run-on sentences and excessive parenthetical remarks! Extraordinary.

We spent Saturday in wholesome family mode at the pool and pizzeria, and then Conny and I chat-chat-chatted the evening away over chocolate and movies after Sophie went to bed. It was so nice to catch up. Thanks for the hospitality, Conny!

And speaking of catching up with old friends: a week later, Amy came to visit!!! She'd been expressing an interest in coming back to Germany over the last three years, and we just never really found a good time until she just said, screw it, how is mid-March for you?

I have a mammoth blog post about that trip all prepared. I'll post it separately, however, since it's about twice as long as this one... (I hope the blogspot servers don't crash under all this weight...)

Let's see, what on earth did we do after that? Oh yes, Easter!

April.

It finally started to get a little lighter and a little lighter, and so we said, what the heck, we'll spend Easter in the freezing cold Erzgebirge just to shake things up a bit. Besides, it was high time to visit Bert's dad in Bad Brambach, his uncle Gert in Sehma, and his friends scattered all over that lovely mountain range.

We rubbed our hands together as we schemed how to avoid the whole Easter weekend travel rush, how to outsmart all those foolish fools who drive east on Easter Friday, oh yes, we'll rise at 5 o'clock in the morning and be triumphantly arriving in Bad Brambach while the rest of the drivers are still gnashing their teeth in 20 kilometers of stop-and-go on the Autobahn.

Haaaa, you see where this is going, of course. There was little gnashing, but plenty of silent scowling at the taillights of our fellow fools who also didn't get on the road until 10:30 in the morning, because we're not 18 any more either, and can't seem to shake ourselves out of bed four hours after turning off a late-night movie. It's probably better that we got a good night's sleep, anyway. We exited the Autobahn, and crossed a large portion of Bavaria on country roads, enjoying some nice scenery and a cozy lunch in a village pub before hitting the road again and rolling into Bad Brambach in the early evening. Bert's dad took us out for dinner across the border. (Please, Czech Republic, don't adopt the Euro! I like enjoying piles of fresh fish and potatoes and mug after mug of grog all for a pittance of Koruna!)

The rest of the weekend was lovely: cooking with Gert, making the rounds of visits, petting baby bunnies at the Schreiters', attending a small village rock concert with Bert's old friends and putting back pints of Krusovice. We passed so close to Burglengenfeld on Monday evening that it was the perfect opportunity to stage an invasion of Sara's home, and so we came by for dinner and a short visit before heading back to Ludwigshafen and our Bettchen.

Since then, it has just been getting lighter and lighter and warmer and warmer. I continue to be awed at the miracle of seasons, particularly spring. It seems like just two weeks ago, those trees outside my window were doomed to remain craggly stick figures for all time. Then last week, I got up one morning and they had been replaced by pink clouds! Suddenly the pink clouds are gone this week, and glossy bushy things have taken their place. I have a rotten head-cold right now, but that was just the perfect excuse to sit out on the balcony in the middle of a weekday and soak up some sunshine in the deck chair while listening to birds chirping in spring-crazed glee. Bikes! Birds! Weinschorlen! Spring!!!

Okay, I have officially spent Too Much Time sitting in front of this glowing screen, and so it's time to sign off for the night. And post the post about Amy's visit. Good night, Interwebs, and see you in May!

On little cat feet

We have had a visitor lately, to Bert's delight.

Despite a tailor-made wooden insert between our balconies, the neighbors' new Siamese kitten grew big enough over the winter to surmount this obstacle easily on his feather-light, chocolate feet. And since the arrival of spring -- about, oh, last week -- he has decided to honor us with his elegant presence.

His name is Puma, and he is a looong, beautiful animal. He perches himself airily in front of our glass door, waiting to float inside as soon as Bert grants him entrance into his new domain. Then we watch him from the breakfast table, entertained, twisting our necks back and forth to follow his exploration of our territory and making bets as to what he can slip into, out of, and on top of. He's so quiet and elegant! Cats are just generally intriguing -- how do they turn themselves practically two-dimensional to slide through the unlikeliest of narrow spaces, or jump onto a spice rack crammed with precariously-balanced bottles, and not upset a thing? He senses our admiration, too, turning bright blue eyes on us in triumph after each such feat. It must be enjoyable to be young and feline.

We'll have to talk to the nice people next door to make sure they don't mind these visits. Bert, of course, couldn't be happier to share their pet with them. He grew up with cats and feels that a house isn't a home without one. We've considered just getting one, but so far, the freedom from expense and responsibility has won out. Doesn't mean that Bert doesn't continue to cuddle every cat he sees, though (wild ones, domestic ones, they all respond to him). And really, is there anything more paralyzingly charming than broad-shouldered manly men holding small cute things in their big arms?

Bauch rein, Brust raus!

I'll get you, hero, if it's the last thing I do!

If you were able to assemble a gigantic corpus of all dialog ever written for film, television, and children's programming, and then sort each line by frequency of occurrence, you would have a pretty enjoyable little pile of cliches at the top. Some of these lines might have even coalesced into individual lexical items, like (everyone together!): "Timetotakeoutthetrash."

Now enter the top one hundred of these phrases into an iPod scramble. Submit playlist to big budget studio. Collect money for the script for Transformers 2.

Not that I was expecting, well, English words from something called "Revenge of the Fallen." But this "movie" (I ask the Gentle Reader to contribute emphatic finger quotation marks, thanks) actually contains these lines, and it's not meant as a spoof. Ready?

bad guy: "Revenge will be ours!" (fist curl)

dying bad guy: "We shall rise again!"
heroic good guy: "Not today!" (shoot)

hissing bad guy: "You have much to learn, my disciple."
kneeling bad guy: "Yes, my master."

bad guy: "You are so weak!" (stab)
good guy: "Arrrrgh."
other good guy: "Noooooo!"

little bad guy: "Who are you?"
hot female good guy: "Your worst nightmare."

Hahahahaha-- WAIT! Someone was paid for this! Give me his name and address, I want in on that.

The thing that really baked my noodle was trying to identify the intended audience. See, this dialog might actually sort of fit in (really unimaginative) Saturday morning cartoons. But although Transformers plays like a kid movie -- not only the script, but the voices and acting, could all have been recorded by two boys playing robots on their bedroom floor ("You will die!" "Oh no!" crashcrashcrash) -- there's way too much non-kid-friendly content. All the violence? Every curse word except the F one? Drug use? Pretty explicit sexuality?

Who exactly did they make this for?

I guess not I! (Adjusts monocle while swirling brandy glass and harrumphing over colleague's scientific new findings, written in Latin.)

Onion surreality

This Onion article just leaves me helpless! It's so... weird! Big, red-bearded man? Check. Eye patch? Check. On roller skates, holding pinwheel?

I'll Be Able To Get This Big Pot Of Chili Over To My Friend's House A Lot Quicker If I Put On My Roller Skates

By Rudy Lavelle

Done! A heaping, hearty 10-gallon pot of Rudy's Famous Five-Alarm Chili, simmered to perfection and all ready for the big party over at my friend Evan's house. Now, how do I get this delicious, spicy stew over there while it's still piping hot? I guess I could walk, but jeepers, I'm already pretty late as it is.

Wait, of course! My roller skates!

Man, why didn't I think of tossing on my roller skates before? I'll get there in no time, with no foreseeable problems whatsoever! And to be honest with you, I've put on a lot of weight lately, so I could really use the exercise. In fact, I'd have to say I'm just a 6-foot-9, roly-poly tub of jelly! Ha! But nothing takes the pounds off like barreling through busy city streets on my roller skates at breakneck speed with a giant, scalding-hot crock of chili.

Now, let me think, what's the fastest way to get to Evan's? It's down a really steep hill pretty much the whole way, so that'll save some time. Of course, I should probably cut through the back lot of the old ball bearing factory after I take that hairpin turn where all of those bottles of olive oil fell off a truck this morning. After that, it's just a quick detour through the indoor ice-skating rink and the park where those kids are always shooting marbles, past Mrs. Finestra's banana peel compost heap, straight through the outdoor antique china market, and then I'm home free!

Okay, I just have to get dressed real quick, and I'll be out the door, gliding effortlessly over to Evan's in no time, gingerly holding gallons and gallons of boiling chili in my sweaty, oddly undersized hands. Oh, nuts! The only clean clothes I have left are a pair of Speedos and my neon-yellow mesh tank top! Oh, well, they'll just have to do, I guess. Boy, it's pretty bright out there, so I think I'll put on my big sun-visor with the embroidered daffodils, too.

And I'll grab this giant rainbow-colored pinwheel, just for fun.

Geez, I don't even think I have time to comb out my bright red, chest-length beard. Well, I can't worry about that now. I'm sure it will get air-fluffed on my way over there, anyway, considering how fast I'll be going. I just hope it doesn't fly up in my face! Because I'll be on roller skates carrying an enormous volume of 210-degree chili!

Obviously, there's no real concern that anything will go awry on my way to Evan's, but I should take a minute to make sure all my ducks are in a row before I rush out of the house on my bright-white, unlaced roller skates holding this humongous, overflowing pot of chili. Have I taken my medicine for my debilitating inner-ear infection? Check. Am I wearing my eye-patch for my scratched cornea? Check. Do I have my iPod and portable speakers playing "The Good Ship Lollipop" on loop tucked into my Speedo? Double check!

I'm still a bit tipsy after that bottle of wine, but I think that's everything. A little low-viscosity machine oil for the ol' skate bearings, and look out Evan, here comes Big Rudy with the chili!

Oh, wait! I just remembered Evan said that when he wakes up from the anesthesia after having his wisdom teeth pulled and picks up a pink, seven-tiered ice cream cake, he'll swing by on his old tandem bicycle with the messed up brakes and grab me and my huge, extremely hot pot of chili!

Never mind!

Grad School and Kindergarten

Old Spice Commercials

I laugh harder with each successive one...!


"Who's laughing now? Heh. ...Me."




The Man Your Man Could Smell Like:




"Hyaaah."




"Just kidding. I'm not a woman."




"I used to be a doctor for pretend."

Happy Birthday, Katie!!!

My youngest sister turns 8 today. I hope you have a great day, Katydid!!!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

What's the next best thing to drinking wine?

Reading about drinking wine!

More from Eric Asimov, the approachable wine writer:

Mr. Know-It-All

Pork Roast and Riesling

This one praises a Washington wine from Chateau Ste. Michelle! Not the Anti-Chardonnay Anymore

Pinot Noir with an Umlaut

Hey! Someone from overseas has finally noticed a German grape other than the tasty but ubiquitous Riesling. Check out this article from Eric Asimov's drinkin' blog, "The Pour."

I myself was pleasantly startled to discover that the legendary Land of Beer is also swimming in jewel-colored rivers of gorgeous, award-winning, accessibly-priced wine -- none of which anyone outside of central Europe has ever heard of. A lot of them are simply well-known varieties with German names: Spätburgunder = German Pinot Noir, Weißburgunder is Pinot Blanc and Grauburgunder is Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris, etc. But Dornfelder? St. Laurent? Huxelrebe, Scheurebe? What are these?

Damn delicious, is what they are! Yet Eric nails it, I think, when he points out that "among the barriers to finding Spätburgunder in the United States, I forgot to mention one: It’s so popular in Germany, they drink most of it up." I can corroborate this. German wine producers (excepting those in the Mosel valley, with its long history of selling overseas) aren't interested in the nuisance of exporting -- not when they can sell as much as they want right here in Europe, and get the prices they're asking, without the hassle of tariffs and exchange rates. The wine growers here are small; no one is producing thousands of extra cases to ship overseas. Why risk trying to break into a new market?

I've also heard some people suggest that non-Europeans could be daunted by all the Umlauts and long names. But I dunno, that's never stopped anyone trying to pronounce -- or simply buy -- "Château Beau- Séjour-Bécot Bordeaux Cuvée." And when off-Continentals come here and try the wine, they jump right in. Look at my parents!

I think the main hurdle is simply lack of familiarity and precedent. People go for foreign-looking French bottles because they know about French wine (or at least know that others know it). Yet I have almost never found a German wine in the States -- anywhere! -- beyond the Riesling. Okay, there was once, in a huge warehouse-sized store in Phoenix called Total Wine that bragged a selection of 4,000 wines, where I found a single example: a "Dornfelder," which I put in quotes because this was the wimpiest, palest, syrupiest looking bit of flower-painted confection I had ever seen, hardly 9% alcohol by volume. Help! Slander! Fraud! This froot drink was not Dornfelder -- Dornfelder is a powerful, dark, deeply berry-noted purplish wine that can taste like cinnamon or leather, licorice or toasted vanilla; its body is so mighty that it is one of the few varieties (in my opinion) that really belongs in oak barrels, because it can not only hold its own against the wood (rather than being overwhelmed by it) but also carry it beautifully. Yet this sad little dribble was from somewhere in Germany. I could only surmise that some grower thought he could off his unsellable junk onto an unsuspecting American public. "They eat McDonald's," I could hear him scoffing. "They'll buy this crap." I was outraged for wine drinkers on both sides of the pond! O, the injustice! O, the criminal tragedy of it all!

Wait, there is one more "German wine" that I used to see on the shelf at Trader Joe's. But don't get me started on that cough syrup, which starts with "L" and ends with "iebfraumilch." No one in Germany has ever heard of it, either.

All of which would explain why, outside of central Europe, no one associates Germany with great wine. And which American importer is going to risk stocking his shelves full of Umlauts -- Domina Spätlese, Acolon, Frühburgunder -- when he can just refill the Bordeaux instead? I think this is certainly reasonable business sense.

And maybe it's to some extent a good thing, that Germany's wine villages are a quasi-secret. Maybe in a world of increasing monochromism and the availability of everything, it's nice to preserve a few traditions that you must visit to find. Who knows, would turning the focus to export mean the end of the small grower? In what ways would it change the wonderfully democratic nature of German wine culture? I'm not sure I want to see sprawling industrial vineyards here, like some of those giants in Australia or Sonoma Valley.

One benefit I think would result from increasing recognition of German wine has simply to do with national image. When much of the world thinks of France, they think of style and pleasure. When they think of Germany, they think of coarser (or even downright brutal) cultural artifacts. Thus a little more exposure for Germany's delightful, even refined, aspects would not be such a bad thing, I think.

In any case, I definitely think my Gentle Readers should get their booties over here to sample some deliriously fine cultural artifacts. :)

By the way, what is your experience with German wine overseas? What treasures -- or unpleasant surprises! -- have you discovered?

Männer und Frauen

One other thing that I've kinda had to come to terms with is a seemingly stronger tendency to define and and separate gender expectations. Not that we don't do this in the States, too, but it does seem comparatively overt over here.

Thankfully, I'm not nearly so rabidly sensitive to gender stereotyping as I was even a few years ago; indeed, as a taekwondo-obsessed teenager, God help the person who tried to tell me what girls do and don't do. In fact I feel more comfortable in my skin these days than ever before (a delightful aspect of increasing age). But it's still weird to be shopping for sleeping bags and be directed to the "ladies'" section. Ladies need separate sleeping bags? Why yes, I am enlightened: they are narrower and a bit shorter, and the foot area is better insulated. Okay, I reply, I suppose that makes some sense. Hey, says Bert, how come my feet don't get to be better insulated? Because women tend to have colder feet, explains the salesman.

I know sleeping bags are an odd place to start digging out evidence for gender attitudes. Yet I think this reflects a marked overall tendency to separate Women's Things from Men's Things. Of course in this case, we were also simply observing clever marketing strategy at work: the female versions are indisputably cuter, with flower patterns and cheerful colors. Marketers clearly believe that, if given an option, women will prefer women-specific things. And they're right, someone's buying it. Indeed, I found the cute sleeping bags quite appealing.

So why does this still make me feel somehow uneasy? Maybe I can illustrate it with a much more extreme example: imagine if there were explicitly black-people and white-people sleeping bags. One can argue that this is indeed the case, that marketers certainly aim for specific target groups. But imagine if you walked into a sport shop and the salesclerk suggested that you might like to see the outdoor equipment for blacks. You could justify it with all kinds of physical and social evidence: these deeper jewel colors look nice with darker skin, for example. Here are the sleeping bags for Asians, with elegant bamboo-screen patterns. Wouldn't that just be... weird? I guess I just wonder if it's vaguely dangerous to create artificial segregation where it's not overtly necessary.

Yet no one here seems to share my discomfort. A nice lady once showed me her shiny pink cell phone and proclaimed that it's perfect for Frauen, with its unthreatening technology and a calorie counter when you go walking. I smiled and complimented it. Hey, if you're pleased, you're pleased, right? But then I remembered the radio DJ who scoffed that if a woman could figure out Microsoft's new operating system then anyone could, and his female colleague just chuckling politely instead of picking him up by the throat (which is what I would have attempted to do). Then again, maybe she wasn't sure how she was supposed to react on the radio. In any case, it does seem that although the law certainly insists on surface equality, such men-do-this-and-women-do-this attitudes are apparently more tolerated -- even often accepted -- here.

Of course not all separation is equally irrelevant. There are women's parking spaces, for example, which sit in better-lit areas closer to the door. This is of course a commendable idea, considering the higher chance for women to be targeted by criminal activity in parking garages than men. I'd happily make use of this, and hope that others would, too. But the signs advertising these parking spaces bug me: you see a cartoon female selecting her parking space not according to safety, but based on its being "too dark, too ugly, too dirty... ah, perfect" -- which seems to shift the focus from practicality to pure (and even ridiculous: I mean, too ugly?) perceived female persnicketiness. An important difference. Yet no one I have ever prodded about this finds it weird.

Maybe my Feminist Kevlar is not entirely as stashed away as I thought; or maybe Germans are generally just more comfortable in their assigned male-female roles than some of us twitchy Americans.

Cultural Observations, Round Brazillion

I guess the newness of living abroad still hasn't worn off, if I'm still tickled by -- or at least, still logging -- the quirks and differences. I think that's a good sign. Maybe it means those pinch-myself, oh-boy-I-really-get-to-live-here moments are here to stay!

So bum da da dum, here is the latest roundup of Gee, How Swell It is to Live in Germany...

- I love how much Germans love their country. Not in a political or national sense (that's complicated enough!), but a natural one. The whole land is covered by a well-tended and well-marked network of walking/biking/hiking paths, dotted with cozy huts in which to park and rustle up a warm spicy Glühwein in the winter or sparklingly refreshing Schorle in the summer. And what's more, people use it. It's like Sunday is national Let's Go Outside Day, and everyone dons their gear (sleek and perfectly engineered to the purpose, of course ;) ) and joins each other for fresh air and sunshine. Bert and I have gotten out a couple times in the last week for nice long day-hikes through the snowy Odenwald, and our countrymen were out in droves -- families shrieking with glee on a sledding hill out in the middle of nowhere, jolly hiking clubs sharing their pear schnapps with us at one of the ubiquitous natural Points of Interest... to be sure, we Americans like our national parks, too, but there's a wildness and inaccessibility to them that I think can somewhat prohibit a spontaneous Sunday stroll through Yellowstone. The compacter forests of Western Europe seem somehow more manageable (and significantly freer of bears).

- This has become so second-nature to me that it feels odd to comment on it until I remember that we don't do this in America: that is, when you walk into a room for a meeting, you shake hands with everyone there. Every time. Even if you've been meeting for years. In my job, which consists almost solely of small meetings, I must shake over a dozen hands a day. It's somehow nice: I like making that physical and eye contact with each person you're about to work with (although it also means I've become a hand-washing freak! Back, ye colds and virii!). I need to remember to instruct my students that, in the States, this is only done when you are first introduced.

- The Pfalz has a noticeably French touch, which is not surprising, since this area has belonged alternately to both countries over the years. So although there's a lot of hand-shaking at work, you greet friends and friendlike colleagues with cheek-kissing. Left then right: squeek-swak. I find this pleasingly Continental and elegant (although am still American enough to let the other person initiate it).

- Frenchisms also abound in the dialect -- I even hear people exclaim "Mon Dieu!"

- I also like the Pfälzisch dialect itself. To be honest, I haven't always; in the beginning, it made me feel frustrated and excluded. Now, I still can't use it (although Pfälzer laugh when they hear me go "Ajoh" or "alla hopp") but I find it adorable. I love buying "näier Woi" in the autumn and hearing BASF employees say they start work at "sivve." (For you linguaphiles, here's an interesting overview of de Pälzsch.)

- Speaking of dialects, people have started asking me where I come from in the East! I guess that's what I get for living with a Saxon...

- Germans have often complained to me that their countrymen complain too much. It took a long time for me to gather enough input to verify this, but I think now I can agree that yes, they do. Not everyone does, and not all the time, but enough to make me notice and laugh. I mean, if Being Outdoors is the national pastime, Griping must come in a close second. You have a comprehensive national health care program, but have to pay -- gasp! -- ten whole Euros at each doctor's visit? Mon Dieu! The Deutsche Bahn will take you anywhere for even cheaper and faster and more comfortable than it is to drive by car, but it's five minutes late today? Ach, du lieber Himmel! I'm not sure where this comes from, this insistence on being (or at least appearing) easily unsatisfied. I wonder if it has to do with a cultural tendency to demand perfection and Ordnung, and displaying outrage at the slightest infraction would prove your own commitment to excellence. I dunno. Any other ideas?

Anyway, speaking of Germans, there is a lovely sleepy one waiting to have his breakfast with me. Time for some coffee!