In the pink

Mmm, it's Thursday evening Feierabend. You know that feeling when you come to the end of the week, and realize that you've tidily completed not only all your work but also a ton of to-do's, both big and small, and now it's still light outside and the aroma of neighbors' barbecues is floating on the lovely summer evening, through the open balcony door, and right into your neat, cozy home office? And your boyfriend is laughing on the phone outside while he waits for you at the table on your new balcony, a spot which has quickly become your communal wind-down point to share Hefeweizen, the sunset, and the day's stories? Gosh, can a person marinate in any more contentment??

I wonder if this is why I've noticed a tendency of late to reach for the color pink. Weird; I was never drawn to this color before. But I just now pulled my shiny, dark pink memory stick out of the computer and regarded it for a moment. Why had I chosen this one at the hardware store sale last week, and not the silver?

Well, because pink is just such a happy color.

And I sure am happy.

Love to all... :)

Multitasking

Aren't women supposed to be good multitaskers? I'm a terrible multitasker. I can't focus on even two different stimuli at once -- listening to music while trying to work, for example, is asking for failure. It's one of the reasons I'm not good at talking on the phone: unless I'm in an empty white box, I can't focus on the conversation and my surroundings at the same time. Even if said surroundings are not asking me to interact with them, it's the sheer fact of their being there that distracts me. Interesting ad goes by on the side of a bus? I trail off mid-sentence. And god help the person on the other end if the TV is on! I'm like one of those toads who are easily hypnotized by blinking lights. This can't be normal. Help!

Meanwhile -- new specs!

I don't wanna go to bed, yet! I wanna show you my new glasses from Capitol Hill in Seattle! (Thaaaaank you, Shauna!)

Here are the ho-hum old ones. Quiet in the library, please.


But oh dear, look how cute now, I just have to take a mirror picture! In this terrific bathroom lighting! Yeah!


Now the Strict English Teacher role-playing can really commence. (Did I just publish that...???)

June: Baguettes, Döner, and Fajitas

Well, ain't I suddenly just the blogging fool?

Sorry for the neglect of late, dear blog. These last few weeks -- wait, months -- have just been fantastically intense.

Let's go back a few of those weeks to when Mom arrived in Mannheim (go free ticket vouchers!) on June 19th, and when we, about 3.5 seconds after she de-trained, hopped right back on an ICE headed for Paris.

Yep: Paris. Ooh, that sounds nice, I'm gonna say it again: Paris. Heee. And you know what, in accordance with all gushing cliche over the last two centuries, I will confirm that that freaking city is freaking beautiful. Where else can you casually point your camera upwards and shoot a photo like this?

I'll let Mom tell you about most of our adventures, including the sweetly naive American soldier dudes who asked us if there were any good jazz bars in town. I'll just say that we always have the best time together, whether it's ooohing over Rodin sculptures or making up complex histories for random passersby and seeing how long we can "converse" about them while keeping a straight face.

("Oh, I'm glad she's up on her feet again," Mom would say, suddenly nodding at a lady strutting by with a poodle.

I'd look up and catch who she was talking about. "Who, Francesca there? Yes, that was pretty tragic about the lion-taming accident." Here I'd shake my head sadly.

"Well," Mom continued, "at least Paolo was there to fight the lions off. Who knew that his sneaking into the circus to see Francesca would have been such a stroke of luck?"

And so forth. We're so weird. But at least one of us knows where she gets it from...!)

That Sunday, we got back to Ludwigshafen just in time for the Germany-Turkey game in the European Cup. I gotta admit to some nervousness leading up to the game: there has been no little social friction between the two communities in the past, and Ludwigshafen itself has the largest Turkish population in Germany. And if previous games were any indication, there was going to be some riotous celebration long into the night afterward, regardless of who won. I just hoped no hotblooded drunken soccer fan took it as an opportunity to pick a long-awaited fight with his neighbor.

Thankfully, no one else was in the mood for brawling, either. The game was certainly suspenseful; Mom, Nadja, Bert, and I watched it in a beer garden with a projector and giant screen. After Germany won 2-1, the town did indeed erupt -- but fortunately, fans on both sides were almost painfully conscientious to avoid provoking each other. Goes to show you how weird the communities' relationship is when the biggest reports on the news the next day were that, hey, nobody set anything on fire last night!

Ludwigshafener celebrate peacefully in Berliner Platz, the city center

The following weekend, because we just decided, hey, we're not exhausted enough, Mom helped Bert & me move into a lovely new second-storey apartment in Friesenheim.

Friesenheim is still a part of the greater Ludwigshafen amoeba, but unlike Lu-Mitte (where we were before) it is decidedly lacking in ugly highrises. And the apartment is brilliant. Built in 2002, everything is spacious and bright and very well designed, including an enormous balcony that runs the entire length of the place and looks out over greenery. And -- I have my own office! It's cozy and neat and painted a warm terra cotta. As I sit here, I'm watching the evening descend through the double glass doors that access the balcony. It also moonlights as a guest room... hint! hint! ;)

The move took place on a Saturday, and Mom was a champion helping to unpack and settle us in while Bert & I had to work the next week. Specifically, I had been contracted by the Fachhochschule in Heidelberg to give a 4 1/2 hour lecture on German Society & Culture to a group of international visiting business students. Piece of cake! said my brain. Foolish brain. Turns out, four and a half hours is a really long damn time! But it was worth it in the end. After the lecture, some students even came up to say it was the most enjoyable session they'd had in the program so far!

I felt bad having to work so much while Mom was visiting, though. Happily, Bert, shedding his Clark Kent attire and donning his tight Superboyfriend underoos (in this case, bike shorts), rode to the rescue by taking off from work to lead Mom on a little bike tour of Ladenburg, one of the cutest towns on the Neckar.

Then that evening, Heidi and Jens arrived from Chemnitz for a weeklong visit; and the day after that, we picked up Nigel at the Mannheim train station. Seems we moved to a bigger place just in time! And just to top the numbers off, a few more friends came over that night to sit on our new balcony and enjoy Mom's delicious spaghetti for ten, and help us create a colony of empty bottles with which to christen the kitchen.

I should mention that my friends and Mom got on like a house on fire. She's so laid-back and funny that I don't think anyone really notices that "someone's mom" is there; she's just one of the group. Bert's mom is kind of like that too, actually... in fact, Bert even commented on that, saying that although they barely speak each other's languages, the two "würden sich trotzdem gut verstehen." :D

Alas, all good things come to an end... I had to take her back to the train station the next day, Friday. We would have been sadder about it, had we not known that we were going to see each other a week later in Seattle!

But first there was more wine to be drunk. The next day, we were joined by two more weekend visitors: Bert's friend Christina and her partner, Stefan, both of whom had just returned from bicycling around the world for two years (!) in order to take pledges for cancer research (!!). They had the most amazing stories and pictures, including one of a city rising before them through a mountain pass: Katmandu, the capital of Nepal (!!!).

In return for regaling us with tales of high adventure, Nigel fed everyone fajitas:

They were a hit.

We like-a the sal-sa!

With seven people, however, even our spacious new apartment had reached its capacity, and Christina and Stefan happily pitched their well-used tent on the balcony for the night.

All of this was over the course of about two weeks. Two days after hugging the last of our guests goodbye, I was packing a bag myself to head off to the States until August.

But that is the stuff of another blog entry...

Fun videos

Thanks to Amy for the hilarious Paris Hilton for President ad!

And to Sven for the jammin' We Germans. "Football play vee better zan you..." Cuuuute!

Heat of Summer

As the name suggests, the "World Spice Merchants Herb & Tea House" in Seattle looks like Marco Polo's cellar. It's reminiscent of some ancient apothecary shop, its walls lined with mysterious glass orbs filled with beguiling powders and leaves, and the cozy sitting area, replete with a large picture book of ye olde historickal mapps of the worlde.

The moment you step in, you're sucked into a swirling orgy of olfactory sensation that makes you understand why cats run around in circles when they smell catnip. There are pure spices, spice mixes, rubs, teas, salts, herbs, all in various forms of ground or dried or whole, all arranged in beckoning rows with an invitation to open each jar and have a whiff. Most conversation in the shop consists of, "Wow, what is that one?" and "Ohmansmellthisone!" and "Oooh, imagine this on salmon -- I mean pork ribs -- I mean in a curry -- I mean from a spoon!" They give you a notepad to record your desired purchases, which you then take to the counter to collect your hoard.

It was while we were standing in line that my brother reached over and plucked one particular glass from the wall. It was full of what looked like some sort of whole, plum-sized fruit, oddly dried and wrinkled like a jarful of shrunken heads.

"What's that?" asked Shauna. I could already see her calculating its potential culinary value, recipes and spice properties flashing by her eyes like a vegetal terminator.

"This," said Michael, producing the jar with the pleased academic demeanor of an archaeologist exhibiting a particularly coveted artifact, "is the bhut jolokia, the hottest pepper in the world. You know the Scoville scale for capsaicin content -- in other words, pepper heat units? Well, bell peppers rank zero on this scale; jalapenos, around 10,000. The mighty habanero pushes the 100,000 mark. This little puppy" -- he turned the lid gleefully -- "weighs in at over one million Scoville units."

Shauna's and my eyes bugged.

Michael stuck his nose in it.

"Hm, kind of fruity," he pronounced. We tentatively sniffed. He was right -- it smelled vaguely plummy, and not hot at all. We nodded appreciatively.

Then Michael looked up at us and a slow, mischievous smile spread across his face. "Ohhhh, no," I said, reaching for the jar. He evaded me and glanced around to be sure no one was watching. We were morbidly curious, anyway, although continued to murmur vague warnings as we leaned forward in fascination. Michael carefully extracted the tip of one evilly wrinkled fruit and nipped off a corner with his fingernail -- a speck about the size of a grain of coarse sea salt. He glanced around once more, eyed the speck, and popped it into his mouth.

For a couple of moments, he chewed thoughtfully while the three of us stood there looking at each other. Then beads of sweat began popping out on his forehead. His eyes began to water. He inhaled deeply through his nose and blew softly out his mouth. "Are you okay?" his sisters asked tentatively.

But Michael continued to look thoughtful, the only evidence of bhut jolokia ingestion being that he was slowly turning redder and shinier than the other jars of peppers behind him.

"I think so," he finally croaked. "Well... actually, no. This is one of the most painful experiences I've ever had."

"What's it like? Should we get you some water?"

"No, no. But it does feel like my tongue is being pounded with porcupines."

"Is it getting worse?? Can we do anything??"

"Yes," he croaked again. "Buy two of them."

Hello, jetlag, my old friend...

...It's going now on five a.m.
The alarm is far fro-om beeping
And I'm laying here, u-u-unsleeping
Wide awaaaake since a-round two-thir-ty
Or was it three?
In this dark and silence.

Fool I was, I took a nap
Falling into that old trap
Now my brain knows not if it's here or there
Or still over the ocean somewhere
Well, screw thiiiiis, I guess I'll just get up
Before sunup.
Wow, this house, is silent.

Let's see how quietly can I
Take this thing off "standby"?
Maybe I can catch up on the blog!
Or on some of this email backlog!
I'll sit here waitiiiing to feel lively and inspired
Oh man, I'm tired.
And it sure is silent.

Clacking typing echoes through
This slowly-light'ning livingroom
While I keep glancing toward the bedroom door
Through which lightly emanates a snore
And I wonderrr, should I get up aaand make some tea?
Or first go pee?
Some birds break the silence.

Stirrings come from down the hall
And the thump of a footfall
Announces that it's fin-al-ly morning!
That'd be great -- but against all warning
I think now I just want to get back in bed.
And sleep like the dead.
But it's no longer silent...!