Life in Germ, Beer and Pretzels, oh whatever!?!

Ain't this a major annoyance

2007-02-21T19:20:00.000+01:00

Well from this point on this blog is officially moving to this address:
http://clearblogs.com/lifeingerm

NEW BLOGGER is a pain if you happen to have more than one blog. This blog will only display the profile from my other blog, and I can't rectify this after hours of trying....so be warned fellow blogspot bloggers. I think the new blogger is not a problem if you just have one blog, but if you have more than one with different profiles you are hosed if you switch to access them via one gmail account. If you have multiple blogs with different profiles you can access them via more than one gmail account and you also won't encounter problems. Oh if I had known this morning.

New Blogger

2007-02-21T13:30:00.000+01:00

I've just switched both of my blogs to new blogger, and after reading miles of help files it looks like I'm stuck with the profile for my "dog blog" on this blog...which is not how I want things. I'm putting up this post to see if anyone has any ideas on how to fix this....I don't see a solution other than quickly becoming proficient with html, and I don't have time for this because my house is a mess and I have 3 dogs here who would rather go for a walk than watch me pull out my hair.
Anyway, suggestions anyone? One thing I would strongly suggest is that if you have multiple blogs, don't switch over to New Blogger. This is a seriously painful bug and may cause me to have to delete this one and start over....which I hate to do because of links on my website and on the sites of my friends....HELP!

In the meantime I'm going to turn off all computers, take a walk, think this over while I hand out dog treats, and try to stop freaking out!

die Oma aka Omi

2007-02-09T12:42:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of my famous in these here parts mother-in-law. Everyone knows her, but I guess this is what happens when you stay put for 88 years. She's feisty, sometimes tempermental, but goes like the energizer bunny especially in weather suitable for gardening. She's a gardening fool and will wear herself out on her hands and knees all day in the sun. But she grows beautiful flowers and a lot of them, healthy bio vegetables, does a lot of complaining about it but also will tell you after she's rested that she loves the garden. It seems to be keeping her young.
This morning I was soaking in the tub and thinking about her and how much German I've learned from her. She's patient with my questions and is proud of the way she effectively can guess at my meaning when my German is not quite right. I am really kind of interested in the development of foreign languages, and as such sometimes we have had discussions about the most basic of problems in German....gender. Now coming from a world where things like table, sky, tree, etc. are all genderless, I have constant problems getting it right in German as do my friends (thankfully) since we all are learning this language a bit late in life. Omi really can't relate to this, and it blows her away when I ask things like why is a skirt masculine, why is a girl neutral, and why are spoons, forks and knives masculine, feminine, and neutral respectively. She looks at an object and it just IS the gender that it IS. Period. It does not matter if it makes no sense like if most of the rivers IN German are feminine but OUTSIDE Germany they are mostly masculine. In her mind THIS IS JUST CORRECT, and she cannot grasp why I don't see it this way. But she gets it slightly that my world is pretty neutral and she is nice about it when I get the gender wrong. It makes her chuckle, but I must say that NOTHING makes her laugh as hard as watching me knit. I knit via the American method....stick the needle in, wrap the yarn and finish your stitch. This almost knocks her to her knees. She has what I must admit is a much more effective method of holding the yarn so that it feeds through her fingers and she does each stitch in one swift motion. Since she's been knitting now for more than 60 years she's not only proficient at her method but knits at warp speed. I told her she can make a pair of socks in 10 minutes with 5 needles, no problem.
I could go on about her forever because I spend a lot of time with her every week. I'm her chauffeur for all things shopping and appointment related. I've really come to love her even though she's a kind of crazy little German devil woman!

I'm a lazy blogger but here's what I'm reading

2007-02-09T12:30:00.000+01:00

I just read what I think might be the best book of my life. It is called Hannah's Gift and I don't have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to adequately describe it. If I have already not gotten it for you, get a copy as fast as you can. It is painful for sure, but also about the joy and fullness of living. I cried (correction, sobbed) and laughed and felt like I'd been given a wonderful gift when I closed the back cover. Just trust me.

Now I'm halfway through Peter Mayle's new book which is called Provence A-Z. It is better than it seemed when I cracked the book open, and I've learned a lot about Provence. As we are headed there tomorrow, I'll be reading it surrounded by lavender fields, although they've been chopped back for the year. But Provence is always good no matter how you slice it. Rent our houses there at www.flertwig.de
We are going down to open them up for the season....a bit early but we otherwise have packed schedules so February it is.

And I also just read 1000 Days in Tuscany and before that 1000 Days in Venice both by Marlena de Blasi. I liked Venice better, but thought they were both lovely tales. She's a good writer and includes recipes so you can't beat that.

And on the occasion of the hanging of Saddam Hussein....

2006-12-29T22:06:00.000+01:00

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1959051.ece

In my opinion, way worth the time it will take you to read these few paragraphs.

A little on Christmas in Germ

2006-12-29T19:48:00.000+01:00

The traditions here for the holidays are different to say the least. The dude in the photo is Nikolaus who shows up in these here parts on December 6th. Depending on where you live in Germ there are different traditions on exactly how he leaves you a gift or two. And then on Christmas Eve the Christkind comes and leaves gifts under the tree, at least around here while you are at the children's church service.

Bernd shocked me this year by suggesting that we go to downtown Munich on Saturday the 23rd for breakfast and for just a bit of poking around. OK by me! We ran across this guy in our new Karstadt Oberpollinger store (quite mahvelous, go check it out!)...he was handing out candy to kids who were not afraid to approach him, and he tried to reassure those who were terrified that they should not be afraid of him. I thought he was rather impressive and I like the expression on the girl behind him as well.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy 2007. Another year closer to the end of the Bush reign!

TOC's

2006-12-15T14:54:00.000+01:00

We just happily had company for the last 8 days, two of the five peeps we were supposed to visit in Vermont last month but missed due to scheduling problems because of that pneumonia thing and being stuck in the hospital. The blow was softened by the fact that we knew these two friends were coming to Munich to see the Christmas markets. These two women, Liz and Flo come from upstate New York, and we originally found them one year when they rented our house in France (www.flertwig.de Sorry, gotta throw that plug in there). We took to this group right away but I think our friendship was cemented in the moment that they announced that they also hated George Bush.

These women are the kind of guests you can only dream about. Even though they were in a foreign country and basically don't speak German, they are well traveled, friendly and outgoing, so they get by just fine wherever they are. And most importantly for me, they do not need a babysitter. They would strike out on their own with no hesitation, shop until they couldn't carry anything more, come back, drop it all off, and strike out again. They basically took Europe home with them this week. It was something to watch. I was able in the meantime to get the laundry done and the floors mopped.

So earlier this week we went to Milan and stayed with my pal Donna who moved there this year. We toured Milan quickly one day and went to see the original of DaVinci's Last Supper. We pretty much agreed that even this alone made the trip worthwhile. If you happen to be in Milan, try not to miss it. Huge, incredible, and hard to quit staring at.

Here is a shot of Christmas in Milan taken by Donna that I especially liked. This is the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle near the Duomo in Milan. She was gone a long time working on this photo and now I see it was worth the wait! The tree is covered in Swarovski crystals...ahhh.

But back to my company. At one point while Liz and Flo were zooming around in Italy, Donna made the comment that they were kind of like her mother-in-law on crack. We enjoyed watching them zoom around, but just could not believe it. They earned the new moniker "Travelers on Crack" since they are the least likely two people on earth to ever use illicit drugs, and actually would never need them. Liz especially can go go go with minimal sleep. They are the first people I've ever had visit who went from the airport straight to downtown Munich for shopping and Christmas marketing. So they are now officially the TOC's. Never have I seen two people who thought they could manage to do and see just about all of Europe in a day or two or three. Experience tells me that they also somehow pull it off. I loved having them and we named them TOC's in the most loving of ways!

Liz and Flo, come back any old time the shopping bug hits again. It was great fun for us all having you here.

Our "summer" vacation, aka the 2006 P-neumonia tour

2006-11-19T15:20:00.000+01:00

Bernd and I have not been to the states together in 3 years, and it was just time to go. The last 2 years when I have gone in the fall, I have ended up sick, usually with something bronchial. This year I went to the doctor at the beginning of October to talk this situation over, and he prescribed some antihistamines to take a few days before leaving, and also gave me some super “boost your immune system” vitamins and minerals. Right after seeing the doctor Bernd got sick and then I got sick, of course with the yearly fall bronchitis, but this year I was doing the happy dance since it would be over with by the time we went to the states. So we were both sick for awhile, but got better, packed, and headed out for Boston via Amsterdam on October 30th. I was really happy to be going, was feeling fine, and could hardly wait to see New England for the first time. We were headed for Maine to see friends (Owen, Jeannie, and Neola from Sacramento), and then to Vermont to see more friends (Liz, Cathy, Flo, Bob Jim and Jer). Then the plan was to go back to Boston for a couple of nights, make a tour of Boston, and then fly on to Chicago, meet Liz from Wisconsin at O’Hare, then drive on to Indianapolis to see my family at my brother’s house. Best laid plans.

So we leave around noon from Munich to fly to Amsterdam. I noticed a bit of a backache on the flight, but no huge deal as I figured I had just tweaked something with my heavy backpack or purse. We got to Amsterdam without problems but had to change terminals which takes awhile. I was suddenly dying of thirst and HAD to get something to drink. Our flight was leaving earlier than our tickets said, but in spite of this I had to run for a Coke. I slammed down the coke and noticed that I was feeling a little under the weather, but thought it was just the backache. So we climbed on the flight to Boston, and within the first hour I would estimate that I had the highest fever of my adult life. On fire type of fever. We piled the blankets on since I started out chilling, took some Ibuprofen and waited. Nothing happened except I got hotter and hotter. I was actually thinking that I might start to convulse or hallucinate and maybe I should tell Bernd to get ready. I hurt from head to toe from the fever, and by some miracle actually had 2 Tylenol 3’s in my purse. Thank you my Canadian friends who can score this stuff over the counter. I took these additional 2 pills and lo and behold my fever seemed to break, BUT the pain in my back seemed to get worse and worse and now was radiating around to my front and it hurt like hell to breathe. I was sitting there worried about Bernd having to carry everything off the plane because I could not imagine lifting a thing. A flight attendant (KLM/Northwest, all really nice flight attendants) came by and we asked if there was maybe a doctor at the airport in Boston. She said they could call for one but suggested in the meantime that she ask if a doctor was on board and see if there was a response. A doctor and an ER nurse showed up in the back of the plane, talked it all over with me, decided I was still hot from the fever (though I was feeling cooler) and said that I should really get to a doctor as soon as we got to Boston. We landed shortly thereafter and thank goodness because I was feeling worse and worse. The airline peeps came with a wheelchair, which normally would have been hideously embarrassing, but I felt too rotten to even care. At this point I was shaking all over from head to toe, could not figure out why, and made it through immigration and customs in record time. The immigration guy asked if he should call for help. I was so bad at this point that we said ok go ahead. Paramedics showed up within what seemed to be about 5 minutes, and they whisked me off to Massachusetts General Hospital ER. Now my poor German husband who thank GOD is super fluent in English at this point arranged with customs to hold our luggage while we went to the hospital. After a chest X-ray and blood work they determined I had pneumonia, and would have to spend the night there. Not good, but I had to agree that moving to anywhere else would be next to impossible since I was in serious pain whenever I had to breathe (which was pretty much constant). Bernd took a taxi back to the airport, got our luggage, got a rental car, came back to the hospital, dropped off my luggage and went on a hunt for a hotel. There was a Holiday in right next door, but the rooms were $250/night, so he drove way out of Boston in order to find something more reasonable. Nurses later told us that the Holiday Inn is totally taking advantage of their proximity to the hospital. Baah to you Holiday Inn.

So I sit up all night in the hospital in the observation unit, unable to breathe very well, or sleep because alarms were going off all night long because there was not enough oxygen in my blood and my pulse was racing. The ER doctor had told me that they would do whatever was needed to manage the pain because it was important that I cough. After 2 shots of morphine and 1 shot of Dilauded (sp?) I was still in too much pain to sleep, and I never did cough then or since.

Next morning we tried to convince the doctors that we had to go. Ha Ha Ha. No chance unless we went to Maine by ambulance, and then to another hospital. My 2nd chest X-ray showed that the pneumonia was bigger and my white count was higher, and there was no way they were going to set me free. I was moved to a regular room and out of the observation unit. They observed that I was really sick and that’s about all I can say.

At this point I must say that even though I will never know who these people were, a couple stepped up to help us starting in the ER when they got the idea that we had just flown in from Europe, had no idea what to do, etc….they offered help and their cell phone, and helped Bernd find a hotel. Then the lady turned up on the observation unit as they had admitted her mom with a stroke, and offered more help as we went along. So kind. The doctors were also kind to a fault and the nurses were also terrific. I have never really experienced nurses who seemed to think independently….they would come in my room, check the monitors and when they realized I was failing everything they would actually stand there together and try to come up with solutions to help me. A very pretty and kind doctor came at one point to draw arterial blood, was honest about how much it was going to hurt, and then thankfully it was not nearly as bad as she said it would be. I appreciated that they talked to me as if I had some sense and kept me informed as we went along. Everyone was kind and friendly and informative.

So in my new room I’m laying next to Marge, an ex-jazz singer with a blood clot. She was old and hard of hearing and at times was so hard on the nurses that it just made me chuckle. She fired one while I was there. As sick and drugged as I was I did not seem to miss much. My nurses on this unit were nice beyond belief and everyone seemed to have some connection to Germany in one-way or another. Kind of amazing. I learned the following day that I had landed in the hospital which is the teaching hospital for Harvard. A girl could do worse. The doctors (and I saw LOTS of them since all the students wanted to hear my pneumonia) were unbelievable. I think they must be successfully teaching bedside manner at Harvard these days. And the guys were all handsome and the girls were all cute. But my favorite person of all was my nurse Michele. So cute, a newlywed, and had time to talk since she only had me and one other guy for a patient for the 10 hours she was there. She printed pictures of my dog that my friend Mia had posted for me on my dog blog, along with letters from the dog. It really made me feel better to see his cute face and to read that he was having a better vacation than I was.

Again we tried the “set me FREE” theme and again it did no good at all. Michele said that to even get on the unit that I was on that you had to be pretty darned sick. I felt honored but still wanted out despite the fact that I still felt like I’d been hit by a truck. They said there was no chance until my white count was trending downward toward normal. They told me normal is 4-11 and mine was 25 the first day then 26 the second. So I was still trapped. Bernd was trapped too and it took us a long time to figure out to ask for a social worker to help with the hotel situation. It finally hit us and she was also a lot of help.

In the meantime we were of course in touch with our friends in Maine and Vermont, and since we had been set back 2 days already, the trip to Vermont was looking bad. We HAD to get to Maine as a priority since my best friend in America was there waiting for us. She had also taken a little trip to an Emergency Room in Maine with bronchitis and the inability to stop coughing. They said she was having bronchial spasms. We later agreed that traveling in October and November is a bad idea for us as she was also eventually sick with me last year as well when I came to the states. Sheesh. The friends we were meeting in Vermont were SO kind about our canceling, but this was in the end maybe not such a bad idea as one of the men was in horrible pain himself from a new case of shingles, and the other man was having skin coming off problems from a medication he was on, so 2 out of the 5 of these people were also not doing that well. The person who was renting us her house in Vermont actually allowed the cancellation without penalty. Miracle.

After 3 nights in Mass General my white count finally started to cooperate, and though they were enjoying our company a bit much for our taste, they agreed to let me go. I promised to do nothing but sit on the sofa in Maine. So we were off.

We arrived in Maine without problems, and stayed a few days longer than was originally planned. Our hosts Owen and Jeannie were kind to put up with all the illness that showed up on their doorstep, and basically let me do nothing for our time there. I ventured out a time or two for short periods, but found that pneumonia gives all new meaning to tired. Hit by a truck tired would be the best description. At least Bernd got to see a little of Maine, and we happily discovered what must be one of the best stores in all of America…a place called Reny’s. Discount everything. Columbia, LL Bean tote bags without the LL Bean tags on them, shoes, boots, snowshoes, etc….and despite my tiredness I managed to make a dent such that after Maine our luggage was already bursting. Thank you Neola for dragging me out. I had no appetite and everything tasted like metal thanks to the antibiotics, but thank you God, lobster tasted just fine. And in Maine you can order it sautéed so you don’t even have to bother tearing the lobster apart. I would not have had the energy. Jeannie and Neola cooked an early Thanksgiving dinner which was fantastic. Sadly, the number one thing that tasted horrible to me was poultry, but I liked seeing the turkey anyway and it was nice that everyone else enjoyed it. The part of Maine I saw looked terrific and I see why people want to live there…coastal Maine is the bomb.

We eventually made our way back to Boston via LL Bean in Freeport. I had been vibrating for LL Bean for literally months, had poured over the catalog also for months. I had orders for friends in Germany to fetch, and managed to do this with help from a salesman, but found that NOTHING compares to Reny’s in Camden, Maine. LL Bean was pretty much on the expensive side, did not have sizes and colors that I wanted, and in the end I would suggest using the LL. Bean catalog or go to Reny’s instead.

In Boston we had a good hotel and shuttle service to the train system. We made our way out one day for a little bit of a tour, saw some of downtown Boston, a corner of Harvard and a corner of MIT, scored some stuff in the bookstores, and headed back for naps. Ah well. Boston looked way interesting from my window on the train.

On to Indianapolis via Chicago. Cancelled the meeting with Liz due to being pretty much under the weather and agreed she needs to come to Europe. We drove to Indy and had a fun few days with my family. My parents came from Tennessee for a few days, and we had a great time with my nieces. They are adorable and fun to be with. Highlights in Indy were that Bernd went to his first football game, the Colts vs. the Buffalo Bills. The Colts thankfully won but barely and it was apparently an exciting game. Then for me we just by accident had seen right before we left Germany that James Taylor would be playing in Indy the night before we went home. Scored tickets…very expensive tickets because they were almost sold out. Our seats turned out to be just about directly in his face, and it was just a great big deal for me to have seen and heard the music that has run through the fabric of my life. I was moved to tears a couple of times. It also made me miss my country pretty badly. What really made us laugh was the advanced age of the crowd. Bernd’s comment was “the next time we want to go to a concert, why don’t we just go visit a nursing home?” Uggh, so true. It was a baby boomer crowd all the way and how we all got so old suddenly is a mystery! There were some younger people there, but they appeared to be with their grandparents! Painful. Anyway, great show, great music, great storytelling, and you should never miss an opportunity to see James Taylor. I had seen him once before around age 19 in the 1970’s and we both really looked significantly different as did the crowd in general.

The next day back to Munich via Amsterdam. The KLM 747 was as comfortable a seat as you will ever find in coach, but for a girl trying to get over pneumonia, losing a night’s sleep was not ideal. I could hardly get to bed fast enough but felt better after a 12-hour sleep. It was great to have the dog back and thanks Mia for what seems to have been a wonderful vacation for him. Lots of Uben vacation photos are at http://www.doghotel.blogspot.com/ There are so many photos that you have to click backwards into the archives to see them all. Mia is a good photographer and there are some cool shots.

No time to rest, had to do laundry (thanks to jet lag, a lot got done in the middle of the night), repack and jump back in the car and point it toward the South of France. This sounds more exotic than it really is as this trip is all about closing up our rental houses for the winter, and mostly involves work. We went via Gallarate, Italy (near Milan) to break up the trip, and got to see our friends Donna and Ted who are living there somewhat temporarily. Italy is not agreeing with them as planned. I can see why….I personally think that Italy is the wild, wild west in the middle of Europe. It is just too chaotic and nutty for my taste, but I do understand the appeal of Tuscany, Florence, etc. I would advise to stay off the roads or just prepare for chaos. We had a nice but all too short visit there and arrived in France yesterday. Thankfully it is warm here and so the house heated up quickly. We’ve seen some neighbors and our friend Sascha in less than 24 hours. For those of you reading this who have been here, Didier (from the restaurant in Montagnac) lost his mother recently and we hear is so devastated that he has not been to work in 3 months and is having a terribly hard time with the loss. Very sad.

I”ll post pictures when we get home next week. I stupidly forgot my camera so have no photos yet to go with this story, but eventually….

Things I learned from our “summer” vacation (we actually could not go until fall because Bernd was working waaay too much)

1. Pneumonia hurts like hell and is a lot like being hit by a semi…I get why old people die from it
2. Mass General is a good place to be if you are really sick and it is good to have Mass General nurses and Harvard doctors on your side
3. I’m lucky to have a husband who rolls with the punches (despite some initial crabbiness he was a good sport overall)
4. I'm lucky to have good friends who are willing to help by waiting on me and by letting me just lay on their sofa
5. I’m lucky to have lots of understanding friends, none of whom got one bit mad by cancellations
6. I’m lucky to have a family who immediately offered to help with the medical bills (bound to be huge) if our German insurance will not do a good job of paying
7. I have the two cutest nieces in the world and their mother is the greatest coupon clipper of all time. My brother tolerates a lot of pink in his life.
8. I still love James Taylor
9. I miss my country
10. You can get lucky and get a comfortable seat in coach
11. My dog can survive 2 weeks without us (I’d have never thunk it)
12. My friend and her dog are great dogsitters
13. Things go better politically when I’m back in the homeland. It did my heart good to see the Democrats take back control of the House and Senate, and to see Rummy go. Please rise to the occasion Democrats.
14. It is great to be home, even if home is in a foreign country

And that’s our “summer” vacation. I shook hands with Neola and we agreed to pick another time of year to meet in America from now on. October and November don’t seem to be working all that well for us and our health just can’t take it.

Oktoberfest 2006

2006-10-04T18:02:00.000+02:00

Ya gotta give it to Bavarians when it comes to throwing a big beer bash....no one does it better. Our friends and neighbors, Christel and Norbert, invited us to go with them to Oktoberfest this year on closing night. They were meeting their daughter and her boyfriend and their friends and relatives, and these guys had a table reserved, along with what seemed to be lots of food and beer coupons!
So we hopped on the train with our friends, and rode all the way from our little village since there might later have been drinking and driving issues...well yeah if we went about this all correctly! Here they are on the train on the way in.....
So as we arrived on the train which dumps you right at the fairground, the skies opened up and monsoon hurricane started coming down. We thankfully had an umbrella, but when it is a windy downpour, you might as well just prepare to get wet. We were pretty drenched, but here is the scene when we arrived. This tent (Hacker-Pschorr) holds exactly 6950 people inside, and I'd say the place was pretty danged full. And since it was pouring rain, maybe even some of the 2400 from outside came in and joined us in what turned out to be a big, steamy sauna! BUT, the music is loud, the dirndls are fantastic, the food is actually good, the people seem to like the beer, and the company was great, so I have nothing to add other than it was some rip-roaring fun. And I can't remember ever seeing Bernd quite so wild and jumpy! If you hate crowds, I'd say avoid the place. But if you want to get rowdy once a year, for sure come to Munich. There's no better place. In general I'm not a fan of German beer drinking music, but it is so perfect in this setting that you just really would not want to hear much else.

Some various photos:

The tent started leaking due to the downpour. No big deal, just pop open the umbrella.

Christel collecting chicken bones for her cats. I think it was not that much fun carrying that bag around, but it made us all laugh. We tried to sell them on the way out, but no takers.

Me and a Bavarian guy who has had a liter or two of beer. He's been working way too much and too many hours and I'd say he really needed this buzz...until the next morning when the dogs wanted to take a big walk and work called again......

This is Yvi, Christel and Norbert's oh so cute daugher, and her equally cute boyfriend Stefan. We love Yvi around here. She is also our veterinarian. She's gentle and sweet and smart and speaks really good English. These two are getting married (and I think this is a good thing...they will have very cute, very blonde children), but I told Stefan that our dog Uben is still Yvi's best friend. Stefan wants to be her best friend, but Uben slid in there already. So ist das.

At the end of the evening since this was the closing night of Oktoberfest, sob, they passed out sparklers, dimmed the lights, and the whole tent fired up. It was dramatic and something to see. My photo does not do a good job of capturing it, but I also have a movie so if you want to come by and see it, complete with music, come on over. I had the thought that this would never happen inside in North America due to potential fire. I wondered for a millisecond if it was really safe, but decided it would be a good way to go if it was time.

Christel, Norbert and Yvi, thanks so much for taking us along for the ride. It was a great night even though we couldn't unload those bones. Let's go again next year with bigger umbrellas and raingear!

Scammers, scammers everywhere

2006-10-02T14:47:00.000+02:00

Earlier this year we were in Munich for some reason, and when we arrived home there was a ton of commotion in our driveway. There were 2 strangers with a big hose, my mother-in-law, and our nephew and niece from next door all standing around talking. Turns out that the 2 strangers came to the door of my mother-in-law and made an offer to power clean the driveway for a mere 800 Euros. Our nephew and niece were trying to stop it when they realized what was going on. The scammers not only were robbing my mother-in-law, but had taken her to the bank to get the money, and she had told the guy her PIN number. Now I tell this only as a warning to the elderly and vulnerable...be wary of those who come to the door.

Set number 2 of driveway powerwashers showed up at the door today. I took awhile getting to the door and by the time I got there they were already talking to my mother-in-law. Flashback. As there is a line in our driveway where the first set of washers stopped, I thought ok maybe I would surprise the husband and get the rest done to match the part that is clean. So I asked about how much. The guy at the door calls his sidekick over who proceeds to tell me what a bad job the previous washers did, how it all needs to be redone, and that THEY would coat the driveway with something (no clue what that was in German) so that this would just in every way be better. Never did get a price for just the 1/4 that I wanted done, but they made the equally astounding offer of 300 Euros. As this might have taken them an hour to do (the driveway is not that big) I politely said no, it was too much money, and turned to go. Sidekick man wanted to debate my decision. Less politely I said (in German) "Was I not clear, I just said NO." He STILL wanted to debate this but the original guy convinced him to leave as it was a sure thing that I was not going to part with the 300 Euros. I guess cleaning the 1/4 that I wanted done was just not worth their time or effort. Funny how they seemed to be less nice upon leaving then when they were trying to get me to open up my Geldbeutel.

Pumpkin soup

2006-09-27T22:05:00.000+02:00

I've never been any kind of great cook. My mom is a great cook but (sorry mom) was not all that patient with me in the kitchen.....in all fairness I also had little to no interest in anything in there except for the insides of turkeys. Early childhood weirdness. But then I came here and got a new life where I'm home during the day, and so now I cook. People seemed to serve a lot of pumpkin soup around here in the fall, and I became an immediate fan. I got a general idea of how this was made, and started experimenting. I now crown myself the best pumpkin soup maker in all of Bavaria. I use a pressure cooker for speed and also because I don't want to boil the ingredients. And there is nothing fancy in this soup, just natural, fresh ingredients (well ok Mia, there are chemicals in the bruehe) and it seems to taste better to us if herbs and spices are left out completely. My basic method is to make a puree of pumpkin and other vegetables, so you just put in however much you want and go from there. One nice thing about this time of year in Germany is that you can go to the vegetable market and have them cut you a hunk of pumpkin so you don't have to waste a lot or use up all your freezer space. My friend Donna got a monster from her neighbor last year and was begging to give away pumpkin. (Actually, I just made some soup from that guy from last year and it was delish so thanks DJ!)

Fresh pumpkin, peeled and chunked...several pieces
Potatoes...a few....peeled and halved or quartered depending on size
Carrots...peeled and in chunks
Onion....peeled and quartered
Leeks...just the white part, in chunks
Garlic cloves, a couple if the mood hits you
Celery (stalks) if you have some, a few, cut into chunks

Throw all of this in a pressure cooker with a little water in the bottom. Bring it up to pressure on high heat, then turn it down to medium heat for about 10 minutes. Cool under cold water and open. My method is to mash this all up with a hand held whizzer, but a food processor would also work. Process until you have a smooth puree. Put it back into a pan on the stove, and add bruehe or chicken stock that you have made with bullion cubes or I supposed canned would work too...but good old German bruehe has some good flavor involved, so this is what I use and chemicals be damned.
Add the liquid until you have the consistency that you want....probably at least 4 cups, maybe more. Just eyeball it. Heat through and if you want creamy soup, add some cream at the end.
Eat, slurp and be merry because winter is coming!

Bush countdown clock for those of you, like me, who are counting the days, minutes, and seconds......

2006-09-27T19:34:00.000+02:00

September 11th

2006-09-11T16:41:00.000+02:00

I was in Prague of all places on September 11, 2001. I was with 3 friends, and we were starting across the bridge over the Charles River when a young Irish guy with spikes in his face stopped and asked us if we had heard what had happened in New York. The spike in his eyebrow made us not believe a thing he said. My friend called her husband in Munich and we joined with the rest of the world in the horror that was this day. Three out of four of us were in too much shock to even shed a tear, and though we had CNN and could watch it over and over, it just did not seem real. We left Prague via train the next day, and while in the train station a man came over to the 4 of us, and in broken English said that he was very sorry about what had happened to our country. This moment of kindness sent us all over the edge into tears. I did not really fall apart again until my friends flew back to the states....I was ironing and watching the ongoing coverage, and it all came out like a waterfall.
What can one say 5 years later? It is still bone achingly sad watching the observances on CNN, and I still don't and never will understand why my country reacted with a war in Iraq.

Bush and his grip on reality..or in your guts you know he's nuts

2006-08-16T18:38:00.000+02:00

Frau Fasching!? Go figure

2006-08-12T11:10:00.000+02:00

One day this week I was headed to town on the train and as I made my way up to the platform I noticed it was suspiciously empty except for 3 elderly people...2 women and 1 dude. The oldest little lady told me the train would not be coming for another hour due to construction somewhere on the tracks...this was apparently in the newspaper, but since I can't make out the imperfect verb forms in the article, I don't read the paper except for the ads with pictures. Sad but true. So I thanked her for the bad news and headed back to my car. She kept standing there looking kind of lost, and since she reminded me of my mom I told her that I was going to drive into town, and asked if she wanted to go with me. I could see the wheels turning in her mind as to whether or not I was an American serial murderer of old German ladies. She asked me if I knew the way and I said of course....then I told her that my German was not that perfect yet and maybe we could talk on the way and I could learn something from her. She hopped right in. We chatted the whole way into town and I'm proud to say that I understood it all because she spoke good old high German instead of the impossible to comprehend Bairish that is more normally spoken around here. She told me on the way that I was a good driver and that I was NOT scaring her! She turned out to the be same age as my mom, and now I have a new little friend in Solln, and her name of all things is Frau Fasching! It was a fun little adventure.

Look at these cute little faces

2006-07-12T21:41:00.000+02:00

This is a group of girls at the Humble Hearts school for the deaf in Nairobi, Kenya where we are now sponsoring a little girl and a teacher. For me they are just too adorable for words so I won't write any.

Mom and Dad

2006-07-12T21:37:00.000+02:00

For those of you who have never gotten a look at my parental units, here they are! Are they cute or what? I feel so fortunate that they are both plodding along in relatively good health, although the one thing I would wish for is that they could bear the flight over here to check out life in Germ for themselves. My mom will see this on her computer at work, and I am DAMNED proud of the fact that she learned to use a computer at her age (84...and still working!!!)
Mom, print this for dad!
xox
s

Bush's visit to Germany

2006-07-12T21:23:00.000+02:00

I heard today on the news that George Bush is coming to visit Germany and will see the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. My German husband referred to this as the meeting of "Dumb and Dumber." In honor of Bush's visit, please note my new anti-war link on the left side of the page with a nice message if you run your mouse over it. And feel free to click on it of course.

And life in the South of France too

2006-06-09T20:59:00.000+02:00

My friend Mia and I are in Provence at our house with 3 dogs. We are really having a wonderful time. It is great to see the sun and warm weather, especially after we had snow on Mia's birthday on the 30th of May. Cute dogs pictures are not here, but are on Uben's blog at www.doghotel.blogspot.com

A nice scene in Moustier St. Marie

My favorite pottery...of all time....they are always happy

to see me coming!

Pepper in Riez

Brits

2006-05-27T23:19:00.000+02:00

I found through much digging, a breeder of Brittany spaniels near us...well about an hour away, but that is closer than going to France. We are not in the market for another dog, and I really don't want to deal with a puppy, but I desperately wanted to just see some baby Brits, and maybe hold them as a big bonus. So I came up with a phone number, dialed it, handed the phone to my husband and asked him to please speak German. He cooperated and we ended up in Rosenheim today to oooh and ahhh over 3 little baby Brits. The mom looks almost exactly like our Brit in the face....her overall color is darker and Uben is more roan, but they could have been brother and sister. In the litter (this dog Mirka's first) there were 3 girls....Blanca, Benedicta, and Brenda, all names that made me giggle. Here are some shots of these girls from Rosenheim. Mirka has a blog at www.mirkarosenheim.blogspot.com if you feel so inclined. The pups are 5 weeks old, as adorable as puppies come, and their mother was sweet and loving toward them. I don't know how I made it out of there without a puppy in my pocket.

More on Sponsorship of Children

2006-05-27T18:17:00.000+02:00

We got the sad word recently that the little girl (Barbara) we were sponsoring in Kenya had moved away from her home and school. Her father was murdered last year, and this year her sister was killed when hit by a train. Her mother told the Humble Hearts school that Barbara was having a terrible time dealing with the loss of her sister, so she decided to move away with her. Perhaps this is best, or at least I'm trusting that her mother is making the choice that she sees as best for Barbara. We are in the process of regrouping and will either sponsor another child or a teacher at the school.
In the meantime, I got word by snail and e mail about my friend Kathy in Tennessee, and the great success that one of her sponsorships was. Follow this link for the whole story.
http://tinylink.com/?I5eUQxpTfj
Way inspirational.

Snails

2006-05-24T21:44:00.000+02:00

Besides being the worlds biggest Avon freak, I’m also a snail killer. The little slimy fellows have historically been a big problem here in the garden. I planted marigolds last year and overnight they were all gone....same with some of my herbs last year. I do not want to put out snail poison because of the dogs, so I did a little research and found out about beer traps.
Take a yogurt cup or a tall sour cream cup, and make a 2 inch hole about 2/3 of the way up. Bury the cup in the ground by your plants so that the hole is at ground level. Put a couple of inches of beer inside and cover the cups so your dogs don't get drunk. In one night I killed about 60 snails in 3 cups and did not lose a flower. They are not that attractive out there in the garden, but they work like a charm and I'm hoping to be able to eventually wipe out the snails from around here and take the cups out of the ground. So there ya go.

I'm hooked

2006-05-24T21:37:00.000+02:00

I am a complete freak…or as my friend Donna would say, a freakshow. An Avon freakshow. I never thought I would be saying this, but I'm in love with Avon. I was getting my hair cut about 6 weeks ago, and in bops the Avon lady to bring my hairdresser a bag of something. I thought I saw Avon on the bag, and in shocked German I said, “Sind Sie die Avon Frau” (are you the Avon lady)? She answered me in the most perfect English imaginable. I was shocked and stunned and surprised, and told her that I had actually even looked online for her, and where the heck had she been? She lives only about 1.5 miles from me, teaches English in the next village to adults, is as fluent as I am, has tons of personality, brings the loot to my door (gotta love that!), gives me deals and samples, and I have to have become her best customer in the past few weeks. I have used Avon here and there in my lifetime, but due to these samples, I’m now the biggest fan of all time. This stuff is just fantastic. The moisturizers are as good or better than the stuff I’ve been paying a small fortune for, the cleanser I bought is the best thing ever, and I could go on and on. And it is cheap. Really cheap. And most importantly, it comes right to your door in English!
E me if you want her name or phone number. I’m just thrilled to have an Avon lady and the English is an amazing bonus…I would have done it in German, but this is so much nicer. Note in the photo how she wrote on the box that I MUST try the stuff inside. Makes me laugh but I do obey!

The Red Devil

2006-04-22T21:27:00.000+02:00

Thanks mom and dad. I really love him. My friend named him the Red Devil. He purrs when he runs. For those of you who know about my weekly struggle, I STILL can't get dampfnudeln to come out right. Uggh. So hard, but not the fault of my boy above. The problem is more heat related. Buy this mixer if you can afford it. They allegedly have a sturdy transmission that will out live the owner. And they come in lots of cool colors.

More of France

2006-04-21T14:28:00.000+02:00

This morning someone left a rude comment on my blog about me and France, so in an effort to really tick him off, here are some recent photos of my last trip to the South of France, and scenes specifically from St. Tropez. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we enjoyed every minute of cruising around the harbor and checking out the outrageous ways that people spend their money.

France and some of the people who inhabit our 'hood

2006-04-20T10:21:00.000+02:00

We just got back from our yearly spring trip to Provence to work on the gardens, and to get the houses ready for the summer rentals. We had terrific weather and an all around good time....it was just a big bonus to get out of the snow here.

I could kick myself for not taking more pictures of the people there, because I could have saved myself a thousand (at least) words, but I wanted to blog a little about the guy who we buy wood from every year. His name is Daniel, and he lives in the next village from us. He looks like the Unabomber but maybe even scruffier, speaks French, English, German, and Cambodian. Shocking in a country where people tend not to be even bi-lingual. He has a Cambodian wife and together they tell me that they speak English. It seems pretty broken to me, but apparently works for them. After the wood delivery, he told me that they had just bought a new farmhouse, have no electricity, do zero shopping at the grocery store because the food is all too full of chemicals, and they grow or slaughter all of their food. They have a toilet and use a hose to pour in water to flush it. They cook over a stove with wood. He does have a cell phone and I asked how he charges it, and he told me he goes to his mother's house. Bernd later told me that they also eat at mom's house a lot. So much for the "old ways." The wife told me that she did not like our house and the way it was built, and for some extra income they build houses for their friends, but only out of stone and wood, not the plaster that our house is constructed with. The criticism of our house and the comments about food in the grocery store struck me as their own little manifesto. I asked how they mangaged to live without a computer and he said that if someone gave him a computer he would immediately give it back. They got a kick out of my complete hysteria over the thought of this. I told them that for me, life without a computer would just be no life at all. They looked at me like I had come from another planet.

Then we also have some other neighbors who have a holiday house in our neighborhood, but come from the area of France just south of Alsace. They are friendly people, and the man, Piorot seems to really love Bernd. They invited us and the rest of the 'hood for dinner one night, as they had hauled 35 Kilos of pork and sauerkraut from where they live to Montagnac for a charcrute feast. Never in my life have I seen so much food piled on a plate, and everyone, even the tiniest of women mangaged to stuff it all in. There was more meat on my plate than I would normally consume in 2 weeks, and a mountain of sauerkraut. There was no way I was going to risk the inevitable intestinal rebellion by eating all of this food, so I had a few bites and stopped. There were of course also appetizers, cheese, and dessert involved in this meal, as well as a variety of wines and champagne. Poor Bernd, who seems to be the new best friend of the host, had to eat and drink everything, and literally staggered home at the end of the evening. By the next morning he was not feeling so great, and basically lived in the bathroom for the next 2 days. At one point we were worried about how we would make it back to Munich without a porta-potty in the car. Poor guy. So the moral of this story is that being German does not guarantee you immunity from the fermenting nature of sauerkraut.

I asked Bernd later if he had understood the fire hose French that was spoken by Piorot directly into Bernd's left ear all night long. He said "of course not." He thinks there might be a dialect involved, but maybe the French was just going in too quickly. Piorot is an all around lovely guy who is zany and a lot of fun to be around. And he makes the kraut from scratch.

Odds and Ends and the continuation of culture shock

2006-03-09T22:44:00.000+01:00

A few odds and ends that I forgot to include in my very first post on this blog about how different things are here. A few stray thoughts....
1. We have no closets. We have something called shranks which are pieces of furniture that hold our clothes. Well technically we do have closets here because we had some built, but nice as they are, they are not normal. In a newly constructed house I really can't understand why there are still no closets.
2. When you rent a house or apartment, the kitchen is more likely than not to be an empty room with nothing in it...no cabinets, no sink, no refrigerator, no nothing. You have to bring the whole shebang with you, or buy one and install it. Not that easy of a deal, and certainly not cheap.
3. You have to pay for your shopping cart at the grocery store. It costs either an Euro or you can use an Euro sized chip. I have a few of them in the cup holder in my car in case I don't have an Euro coin.

It is raining here right now, and this has greatly reduced the snow volume in the last 24 hours. Still have not seen any grass, but I can see the concrete in our driveway. Very exciting. It is slushy mess outside, but I'm doing the happy dance to see the snow melt.

Snow, Snow, and more Snow

2006-03-07T07:52:00.000+01:00

Well they say we have more snow here right now than we have had in 67 years in March. The only "person" who seems to be getting into it is Uben. Bernd says he has no weather issues....but then he also is pretty lame with a shovel and does not have to drive in it! We have little Benny the Jack Russell here, and he can't go very far in the yard since the snow is about 5 times deeper than he is tall. Uben does at times forge a path and Benny will follow him down the "tunnel" that Uben has made. I keep declaring it spring, but apparently not loud enough.

Humble Hearts and our little girls in Africa

2006-02-22T09:29:00.000+01:00

We recently decided that even though we are always a little strapped for money, that poverty is very relative. We are always on the poor side of life because we have 3 houses, take nice vacations, and buy our dog everything he never even knew existed. We are also more or less a one income family. But being that poverty is relative, and many things were influencing us (Oprah of course!) to want to do our small part to help, we started doing research on organizations for child sponsorship. We settled on an organization called Angel Covers which started small by making quilts for children in worldwide orphanages. They now have many programs for sponsorship and support of children throughout the world. We chose to sponsor a child who goes to the Humble Hearts school for the deaf in Nairobi, Kenya. The school not only takes deaf children, but also hearing children from the slums of Nairobi in an effort to educate the community that deafness is not a curse. The photo above is the school. About as basic as you can get, but the important thing is that it is functional.

This is a picture of the little girl we are sponsoring. She has become an official member of our family, complete with photo on the mantle. She is holding a picture of us that we sent in our first letter to her and we loved the big smile on her face. She lives in a slum with her mother and sister, but more on that in a second. She is a hearing child, 7 years old, and despite the murder of her father last year they tell us that she is "ever jovial." We have come to love her.

Her little sister to the right, was also a student at the deaf school. She did not yet have a sponsor, and as much as we wanted to sponsor them both, we had to limit ourselves to one child. I did however, send things to the both girls whenever I prepared a package. I could not bear the thought of one child having gifts and the other having nothing. They have so little already.
We got a message this week that this little girl died over the weekend. We eventually heard that she was crossing some train tracks on her way to the public latrines. She apparently froze when she heard the train coming, and the information seems to indicate that she was hit by the train, and fell into open sewage. By the time she got to the hospital she had bled to death. I could have never dreamed that I would have had so strong a reaction to the death of a child I don't even know. I cried until I looked like I had been boiled. Age 5 is just too young to die. It is hard to even imagine how our little girl and her mother must be suffering with this loss. I find the open sewage part of her death to be especially troubling.

If you are reading this, please remember to be grateful that you have EVERYTHING in life. A computer (if you are reading this), electricity, a roof over your head, access to the best medical care in the world, 3 meals a day, and this list could go on and on. I try to remember daily that my dog has a better life than the child we sponsor (actually, my dog has a better life than almost anyone on earth).

If you have sponsorship on your mind at all, here are some links to Angel Covers. The director, Kari, will answer any and all questions you might have until you can't think of anything else to ask. They are based in Colorado, and those who have attended board meetings report that the board is extremely committed to making sure that your money actually goes to the children. Kari is an MSW type which of course is somewhat near and dear to my old social worker heart.

Links:

www.angelcovers.org Home page

www.angelcovers.org/humblehearts.html Children waiting for sponsors at the school

www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2005/07/kibera_africas.html Article and photos on Kibera, the slum where a lot of the children at Humble Hearts live.

Tartiflette

2006-02-07T18:48:00.000+01:00

My friend Mia and her husband Chris were here for dinner this weekend. Mia is an honest to goodness foodie, and to my amusement took pictures of the food! She sent me this nice picture of the tartiflette that I made, and I thought it was post-worthy. I also have a food blog which I put up with the intention of recipe sharing with local friends. Only my friend Donna has participated, so probably with the addition of the tartiflette recipe here, the food blog is doomed for deletion.
I think that tartiflette is best eaten in the winter, and not when you are trying to diet....this has never stopped Bernd and I however, and we ate a lovely tartiflette one summer in Annecy, France, out on the sidewalk when the temperature was in the 90's. Annecy is in the department of France called the Savoy, and this is where the cheese in the tartiflette comes from.

Tartiflette a la Susan

Potatoes ( firm ones)

onion...medium or 2 small, chopped

bacon streifen (at least 2 packages)

cream (schlagsahne)

white wine

A 1/2 round of Reblouchon cheese

For a small tartiflette, cube potatoes into about 1/2 inch cubes, enough to fill up a frying pan. Put some vegetable oil in the pan, add the potatoes, add in the chopped onion, and some bacon. We have bacon already in small pieces here, and this is ideal for tartiflette. If you don't have that pre-chopped up bacon, I would guess you would want to cook it separately and then crumble it in when the potatoes and onions are done. BUT if you live here, throw a couple of packages of bacon streifen in the pan with the potatoes and chopped up onion, and cook this on medium heat until the potatoes are done but not brown. Throw this into a deep casserole dish and add cream until you can see it through the potatoes. You want it to be kind of juicy. Then drizzle white wine over the whole thing. Stir a little but don't destroy the potatoes. Take the rind off of the cheese, and cut it up however you want to cover the potatoes. I usually cut it into quarters and slice through it lengthwise. Bake at 350 F. or 175 C. for about 45 minutes or until molten. Pig out. Get fat.

Note - The tartiflette in the photo had probably at least 10 potatoes, 3 onions, 4 packs of bacon streifen, about 400 grams of sahne, and an entire round of cheese on it. 4 of us almost ate all of it. I will be fasting until June.

Food and Jamie Oliver

2006-01-28T13:22:00.000+01:00

I really love to read about food. I love a good cookbook with photos, but more recently, I’m really into reading food blogs. There is no shortage of blogs to read out there, because there are a lot of people who thankfully like to write about food. My friend Mia has a great blog out there at www.invisible-jet.net/nosh/. I like her blog a lot because when she has posted something, I know I can get the ingredients here. I’m also partial to http://www.chocolateandzucchini.com/, which is written by a now really famous young French girl in Paris. I’m a fan among zillions.
And the most shocking part of this is that I have recently found
that I like to cook! I've never been that crazy about cooking, but my feelings about it have changed since I don't have my nose to the grindstone at a typical 40 hour a week job. I still don’t like that every day figure out something to make for dinner situation, but once in a while I think it is very fun to wreck the kitchen and make something special.
Last week Jamie Oliver was in Munich doing a book signing. My friend Mia who loves to cook and is one of his biggest fans (and she might be THE biggest fan) told me about it. I jumped right on that bandwagon because besides reading about food, I also love bookstores and signings. I had seen Jamie (Mia says I can just drop the last name since we are now friends) on TV and found him totally entertaining. I also like his easy-going style of cooking where he just seems to find the freshest ingredients and kind of throws everything together. He makes it look easier than it is. So Mia and I make a trip into town to the bookstore, and thank God we got there an hour early, because I heard later that the line ended up going from the 6th floor to the first and out the door, and some did not get their book signed at all. We were about 20 people back in the line, waited about 90 minutes, and thoroughly enjoyed our minutes with our new best friend Jamie. The first photo above is me and Jamie, and the second is Mia...a little blurry but I was kind of shaky after my chat with him! This was really a surprise, because I was not one bit nervous, but he's so cool that it actually shook me up a bit.

Hallelujah, the Holidays Have ENDED!!!!

2006-01-06T20:50:00.000+01:00

January 6th is a holiday here in Bavaria....3 Kings Day, and the end of the twelve days of Christmas. Children dressed as the 3 Kings come to your door, sing a beautiful little song in German, take a little of your money for charity, and write C+M+B, plus the year over your door. These are the initials of the 3 Kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Historically the three letters allegedly came from the Latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedicat" which means "Christ bless your house." The arrival of these little girls in our case, is not only a highlight of the season, but officially ends it for me as well. And ain't there something to be said for moving on into the new year? Over our door is exactly the following:
* 20 C+M+B 06 *
I love seeing this all year, and as a bonus, our house is blessed and protected.

I want an American Santa...ich will einen amerikanischen Santa!

2005-12-26T14:41:00.000+01:00

We have some American friends here, Peggy and Steve who come from Montana. They live in a little village across the river from us. They have some German neighbors who once lived in the states with their little girl Isabelle, who I think is now age 7. She speaks a little English and understands even more. Santa Claus is not such an important guy here in Bavaria, or at least not as important as he is in the states. This little girl however, must have spent some Christmases in the states, as it is apparently a family tradition that Santa comes by their house at some point. Last year, the family enlisted a Bavarian neighbor to play Santa. The little girl’s mother this year said that Santa would not be by, apparently because the little girl actually no longer believes in Santa. Isabelle protested that it would not be Christmas without Santa, and she did NOT want a Bavarian Santa this year, but she wanted an American Santa (Bernd’s comment at this point is that there sometimes IS a need to have Americans here). So the mom walked two doors down and asked our friend Steve to put on the costume and be Santa this year. On the one hand, this really works for me conceptually, because Steve is a tall guy, always of good cheer, and I think would make a great Santa. On the other hand, he’s just not the Santa type! Being a good neighbor, he put on the suit, walked down and did the Santa thing for his little neighbor. They gave him some wine to drink, and he commented that usually children leave milk and cookies for Santa in America. They apparently did not have any, but like good Bavarians, offered alcohol, which I hear was kind of hard to drink with the white beard and moustache. Steve talked about the sleigh and reindeer being up on the roof, and how he needed to get to America to give the kids there gifts, but as it was still night time in America, he and his reindeer had plenty of time to get there. As Steve was leaving, little Isabelle indicated that she could not linger to say goodbye, because she had to get back into the house to listen for the reindeer taking off from the roof! And this from a little girl who no longer believes!

Nicholaus, Santa, and the torture of German children

2005-12-20T18:20:00.000+01:00

On December 6th, there is something here called Nicholaus Day. I missed it this year with Bernd's grandchildren, but experienced it last year, and have had it on my mind as worthy of a post. When I've told the story to friends around here, all have been amazed and shocked, so here goes....

Nick comes to the houses of children on December 6th, along with his sidekick Krampus. Nick has a little gold book, and he tells the children that he has been watching them all year, and has been marking down all good and bad deeds in his book. The children stand in front of him and hold a staff while he elaborates. The really frightening thing, is that Krampus, Mr. Scary Guy incarnate, all dressed in black, rattles his chains and generally looks like he might to do something horrible to punish you when Nick reads the bad things you have been doing. I thought they were absolutely terrifying when I first saw them, because Nick was about 8 feet tall, and with his pope-like hat on, he seemed to reach the ceiling......so I can't imagine how giant he must look to a 2 or 3 year old. And then Krampus, well he's just generally terrifying. They function as a good cop/bad cop team and the pair I saw did it all in Bairish. As I still don't understand a word of Bairish, Bernd's daughter had generally filled me in on what he would discuss with the children.

What happened with Felix and Moritz (ages 2 and 4 at the time), was that each stood at attention with staff in hand (and dad real close by) and calmly listened to what Nick told them about all of their good deeds. No expression, no comment, just listened in a very attentive way. When Nick came to the bad deeds, which last year for both kids was saying bad words, both immediately acknowledged that he had been saying bad words by shaking their heads in agreement. This was so cute and funny that I had to plant my face in the wall so that they would not see my complete hysteria! This was also an improvement over the year before, when Felix had denied biting his brother to Nick when this issue came to light. After the discussion with these two scary guys, the kids get gifts (I personally think they have earned them in a big way) which have been discreetly provided by the parents.

I hear that this year, Felix, now age 5, had the very good sense to cry! He eventually calmed down, but my take on this is that I think Nick and Krampus are collectively so frightening, that I don't know how a child can avoid crying. As I've talked to girlfriends lately, it is amazing how many of us were afraid of Santa. I think as American children, we had it way easier with a guy in a red suit at the mall, than German kids do with a guy who watches everything all year, marks it in his book, and then brings along his scary friend to shake his chains at you! Felix and Moritz, you can't read this yet, but I think you are both very brave.

Dresden's Frauenkirche

2005-10-30T11:30:00.000+01:00

The TV has been on in the background this morning and we've been watching the dedication ceremony of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. This church was destroyed by Allied bombing 60 years ago, and we saw the reconstruction a couple of years ago when we took a little tour of Dresden. We attempted to tour the church when we were there, but a lot of it was still blocked off due to construction, and we ended up sitting through a lecture in German which for me was a yawn, but was way better for Bernd. We were however, very impressed with the whole project, especially the part where we not forced to pay for it via taxation, so we made a fairly healthy (for us) donation. Bernd noted this morning as he watched the ceremony on TV, and I think it bears repeating, that this is what the world should be focusing on....rebuilding instead of destruction. This church has been brought back to its original glorious state, and to read more about it, here's a link:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1265990,00.html

The Pillsbury Dough Boy

2005-10-29T12:50:00.000+02:00

Well one thing about Uben has become clear....he lives lately to steal food from the kitchen counter. Actually, anyone's kitchen counter will do. Now I can sit at the coffee table with food, down on his level, and though he will sit there and drool, he knows not to help himself. I can get up and leave the room, and when I come back he will have his chin on the table with a look of starvation in his eyes, but he won't just take any unauthorized food. Different matter if food is on the kitchen counter...he has declared open season on whatever is there. Last weekend he went into my mother-in-law's apartment where he is welcome, and when she was not looking he took the hunk of raw yeast dough that she had just made, and gulped it right down. A few hours later he seems to be fatter than ever (we are trying HARD to control this boy's weight), and I asked Bernd what the heck he had fed him that day, and he said he had not given him a thing. He started to look decidedly pregnant which is strange for a neutered male dog. Then Uben starts to seem like he is not feeling all that swell....he would freeze into a certain position and start to shake. Then the farting started. Not normal dog farts, but loud, whoa, where did that come from farts. The mother-in-law finally came and told us about the theft of her yeast dough, and we realized that the boy was probably on the sick side. For the first time ever in his life he was not that interested in going on a walk that evening, but having more spirit than sense, he went anyway. Bernd said the diarrhea was just explosive, like a cannon firing. This went on for hours, and the next day he was back to a more normal size, but when I walked him there was still that cannon quality to the whole situation. Pow. Every time. We felt sorry for him but at the same time we were amused by the sound effects. I wondered if he had learned anything from this painful result. Nope, strolled right in next door to my mother-in-law's the next morning, straight to the kitchen with nose in the air, looking for whatever was on offer for the day. Sigh. He's such an animal sometimes.

French class

2005-09-30T16:15:00.000+02:00

Well I've probably lost my mind once and for all, but I joined my husband's French class as of last night. I was thinking that I could probably handle it, as I had 3 years of French in Jr. High, High school and then a year of fairly intensive French in college, and used to be kind of decent at it when I needed to start using it in France. But as of late, all French has been sent into the deep recesses of my brain as German pretty much took over. (I would suggest to anyone with young children reading this, to put them in lanugage classes immediately before their neurons have time to develop into monolinugal English speakers) Anyway, I jumped into this class with a bit of hesitation, but the one thing I've learned, is that I will always be slower at this than the rest of the class, because this class is in German! Basic Germ is burned into my brain, but I cannot for the life of me hear something in German and turn it into French without having to send it through the English processor in my head. I thought this was kind of interesting, but not all that big of a tragedy since the French verbs are to my way of thinking anyway, in more of a correct place in a sentence than German verbs are. The teacher is kind and so are the other students, but I have to still sit next to Bernd to whisper for German translation into English. Thank goodness he is fluent in just about everything and willing to help me! I hope I learn both languages at once and end up in 6 weeks fluent in both hahahahahahaha.

2005-09-30T16:08:00.000+02:00

Here's Benny, cute huh?

A week with the dogs

2005-09-30T15:54:00.000+02:00

Well it has been quite a week around here. Our precious little guest dog Benny got hurt last weekend in a scrap with a Malamute. We are just so thankful he was not killed as the Malamute was oh probably 150 pounds bigger than the Ben man. After 5 trips to the vet he is pretty well patched and stapled up, and was a real trooper about the whole thing. He's a tough little customer who weighs 14 pounds but thinks he's a German Shepherd. We have grown to love the boy who burrows under the covers with us at night.

While dealing with the Benny crisis, one night this week I was cutting up some puten schnitzel for dinner, the phone rang, went to answer it, came back to the kitchen about 10 seconds later, and stood there like a fool looking around for the turkey. Vanished. But there sat Uben licking his chops. Now he is not really big enough to reach food on the counter, but I think he jumps up onto the edge and then lunges. He actually showed a little shame when I told him what a bad, bad dog he was. So there went dinner down Ubi's throat twice in a week. Sigh.

Uben has also as of 2 weeks ago, taken up howling as his new hobby. I can't see any reason for it, but maybe Benny is the inspiration. They are a chorus of two, twice a day, just howling at the air. They stop whenever I go to see what they are howling about, and seem pretty pleased with themselves that they have amused me so.

I read a quote somewhere recently, and I paraphrase....if you don't like dogs maybe there is nothing wrong with you, but there is certainly something wrong with your life. Amen.

Today's Sermon

2005-09-24T14:43:00.000+02:00

I feel lately that I'm running out of steam as far as criticism of Bush. Nobody who wants to hear it processes a thing, and I feel like I'm wasting my breath and typing in a lot of cases when it falls on deaf ears. I hope that America will survive this administration somehow, and that the pendulum will swing back in a few years to something more compassionate than the current "Compassionate Conservatism." Uh huh. I don't know where the kindly Republicans of my childhood disappeared to, and maybe they are still out there, but none of them have my e mail address. All I get from Bush supporters (and thanks to those of you who DON'T send me this stuff) is venom. Pure venom. Sorry to those of you who support this president, but this has been my experience of late.

So I'm throwing up my hands in disgust and moving on to what I think is a much more serious and sad issue, the current genocide in the Congo. 4 million people slaughtered in 6 years and you never hear a thing about it on the news. Women and children systematically raped every day, villages burned and plundered. If this ain't the holocaust of the 21st century, I don't know what would qualify. Why is the world doing nothing? Could it be that we have no economic interest in saving these lives? There is no oil there that I know of, so does govern the world response? Where is the UN and NATO? http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/background.html
Yes, I know there is rampant corruption in this part of the world, and that is as good an excuse as any to turn a blind eye.

Here are a couple of links to read about it all. It is not at all pretty.
http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1561.cfm
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/200502/omag_200502_congo.jhtml

One organization that is trying to help is Women for Women International. Please at least take a look. http://www.womenforwomen.org/

2005-09-24T11:15:00.000+02:00

Our beloved Uben. Good dog. Sometimes.
Yesterday he jumped up onto the kitchen counter and helped himself to 1/4 pound of bacon that I had just made for dinner. He thinks that all toys, people, and food in this house belong to him. Period.

2005-09-24T11:14:00.000+02:00

Here we are hiking in Austria

20+ things I can think of with little effort

2005-09-24T08:50:00.000+02:00

I think it was my dear friend Neola, who after I first moved here 5 years ago, said I should be taking notes on what is different about life here. Well after 5 years it is all still pretty clear, if not clearer than 5 years ago.....so here goes.

1. Notes on traffic - Traffic lights are too close to your car when you stop at a red light. You have to strain your neck in some direction to see them, and between red and green lights the yellow light comes on. This is a sign to rev your engine and release the clutch, otherwise the guy behind you is going to join you in the front seat of your car. No one in Germany can stand to ride behind another car (also true in France). They will pass you whether or not there is reasonable room. Audis go too fast on the Autobahn and my otherwise very normal and mild mannered husband is prone to complete meltdowns when he is behind the wheel.

2. We have strict noise laws which means that unless you don't work outside the home, the likelihood of getting any yard work done is slim. There are some hours on Saturday where you can freely run your lawnmower, but it rains every Saturday so there you are.

3. Meat does not resemble much of anything you have ever seen before. It is all called something mysterious and comes in pig and cow size chunks in the refrigerated case at the butcher. Butchers are nice to me about my total ignorance.

4. Garbage - We recycle everything you can possibly imagine, and we wash a lot of our garbage before it hits the recycle cans. Our community did such a bang up job of this last year that our garbage collection rates were lowered for this year.

5. It costs ~$250 to have your dog neutered. All vets charge the same with little variation.

6. Gas costs $6.50-$7.00 a gallon and no one whines about it.

7. In every household (and mostly I get my information from the middle class), when the kids are in their mid to late teens, boyfriends and girfriends move in part time and start spending the night. This is seen as totally normal. American mothers here have real problems dealing with their teenage daughters who want their boyfriends to spend the night....and their battle cry is "Everyone else is doing it." Uggh. There are no taboos about teenage, unmarried sex. I would almost call it encouraged. My husband's comment was that they have to learn it somewhere, sometime.

8. Germans walk their dogs faithfully at least twice a day. My dog is half German so he demands a walk every morning at 6 a.m. and my husband faithfully responds, regardless of weather.

9. The weather here is so iffy, that everyone heads for the great outdoors at any opportunity. People are on bikes everywhere. My mother in law, age 86, just gave hers up this year. People are on bikes in rain, hail, sleet, and snow. After biking everywhere you are too tired to complain about the price of gas.

10. Grocery store notes - There are no bags at the grocery store unless you pay for them. No one does this. When your groceries have been checked, everything goes back into the cart, and then you take the cart to the car and pack it into boxes or bags in the back of the car. You must throw everything that has just been checked by the cashier back into your cart at warp speed, or the person behind you in line will run over the top of you. This is especially true at Aldi where the lines are moving extra fast. Taking your good old time works only to a point, and you must be prepared for dirty looks. When there is a big line for one cashier and another cashier opens up a register, there is no order to the scramble to be first in line for the new cashier. People will shove their way in front of you with no shame. It is important to be able to say "I am next" in German.

11. Beds have cracks in the middle and a queen or king size bed takes two sheets which are hard to put on. Everyone has their own comforter which is the size of half the bed. We have a normal mattress without a crack, but it had to be special ordered along with a very expensive blanket which fits the whole bed. It cost so much that we will have to use it for the rest of our lives.

12. Life here is in grams, kilograms, kilometers, and temperature is in Celcius. I still don't exactly know the Farenheit equivalents, but I'm clear on what clothes to wear per degree in Celcius.

13. Dogs here speak German. If you want a barking dog to leave you alone, it is best to know how to say "Go home, and fast" in German.

14. People seem to feel that they have a God given right to give you advice or in general butt into your business. For example, someone told one of my friends that her grass was too short after she mowed the lawn. Then, the following week, someone else told her that she was mowing too often. Another friend was told by someone at a train station that it was not ladylike to whistle. I was walking the dog this spring and someone came out of a house and told me that I could not walk in the fields because it was the time of year when this is verboten. Turned out that he had his dates wrong and I was still free to use the fields for 2 additional weeks.

15. It costs a small fortune to get a German driver's license depending on where you come from in the states. I had to only take the written exam and I think the whole shebang cost about $800. If you fail the exam 3 times you have to go to counseling. I made sure that I passed on the first try. The thought of a German counselor talking to me about why I was too stupid to pass the test was a great motivator.

16. Normal people speak 2, 3, 4, and 5 languages. They are kind about Americans only speaking English, but I think they think we are pitiful in this regard (I've heard some jokes about if you only speak one language then you must be American). I heard before I moved here that Germans were unkind about you messing up their language, and that you better get it right. Nothing could be further from the truth. They have a good grasp of how complicated German is, and have been quite helpful and kind with my daily struggle.

17. Anything you are looking for and can't find is probably at the Apotheke. Ant spray for example. Cream of tartar. You name it. The days of pulling a cold remedy off the shelf have not yet arrived here. You have to got to the Apotheke and ask for it. This is especially bad when you have a yeast infection, as the name of the medicine that is the cure, is the same name of the medicine sold here for Athlete's Foot. Sometimes you just have to point to the affected area.

18. Produce in general has to be eaten fast. Until recently, the only store here in Icking (a Plus) had mostly rotten produce for sale. Our post office recently closed and happily reopened with a fruit and vegetable market along side the scales to weigh your mail. This stuff is fresher and will last a few days. This is the only place I've ever lived where carrots go bad within 48 hours.

19. We sometimes have to make fires in the summer to heat up the house. Sigh. Coming from California I still have not adjusted to freezing all summer. When it rains here it not only cools off but it stays cool or cold for several days. This place does not reheat itself normally. So is life near the Alps.

20. Nothing is open on Sunday. Nothing. Unless you need gas.

21. You know how in America when you go to the Dr. and have to remove some or all of your clothes, there is always either a gown or a paper something to cover yourself up with? Well not here. This was really a shocker since my first experience with this was at the gynocologist. You can kind of choose whether to get naked from the waist up or the waist down first, but there is always that stroll across the exam room with nothing on, and I think I'll probably never get used to the waist down nakedness. The doctors here seem thankfully pretty discreet about it all, and are not staring or laughing, but still.....what's up with this?

22. And while on the topic of nudity, here in my little village there is a river, and kind of a lake near the river. You have to hike to get there, and it is kind of over the river and through the woods, but a nice walk, and the dogs love it there in the summer. But here in my little village, the attire at the lake is clothes optional, which means that everyone (except me) is nude. After a few minutes of shock at my first view of this (my husband did not warn me on purpose for his amusement) you do tend to get desensitized to the whole scene, but there is a certain immodesty associated with this Icking brand of nude bathing. Many (not all) of the men and women alike seem to prefer to recline spread eagled. I take this a little bit hard, and my only comment when I first saw all this was that I had never in my life in one place seen so many scrotums. And a few years later I can only add that they are proudly on view. Pretty racy for the very conservative little world that I live in.

23. Washing machines, dryers, and refrigerators are smaller than American models. Every American woman that I know here complains about having to constantly do laundry. The size of the washing machine really can't be about saving energy, because they run forever to do a load, and you have to do 3x the loads that you would in an American machine. You can find American size refrigerators here, but they tend to be expensive. I dream of a big washing machine and dryer, but the refrigerator is hopeless as there is not a space for this in our kitchen. Sigh.

24. Most everyone here uniformly thinks that Bush is an idiot, and have no grasp of why anyone would support him in any way. This works well for me and I appreciate the sympathy.