Battle of the Stereos

It appears that "Phantom of the Opera" played loudly has no effect on the volume of the music played by the teenager who lives below our study. Surprisingly, Depeche Mode does. I guess 80s techno-pop can totally kick the ass of modern techno. I won the battle of the volume control!

I haven't been posting much lately because classes just started, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I am taking 20 hours *eek!*, so many future posts will probably be scribbled on campus and typed up after darling daughter (D.D.) goes to bed. Lovely husband (L.H.) thinks I will drop the blog now that the semester is underway, but I don't think he understands the ego-maniacal pleasure I get from it. Where else can I blithely make whatever comments I want without being called to task?

I think I'll pop Enya into the CD player (well, not her—"Get in there, dammit!"), then get back to the proofreading.

Weather-bitching level: 0.5
We had 2 glorious days—clear, sunny, and not too cold—what the locals call "Golden October", but today it's overcast again. As long as it doesn't start raining again. Urgh!

On a happier note, we did manage to get the tile oven fired up last night. This morning the landlord dropped by and shared the secret of keeping it hot all night, so if it gets cold again, we'll give it a try.

Tuesday morning

Mornings are not my forte. This morning has just reconfirmed my hatred of the early hours of the day. It wasn't actually a *bad* morning until the cats decided to fight on top of the tile oven and knocked over my ivy in the process of flinging each other over the edge. It's a 5-foot drop, so there was soil *everywhere*. This is the second time that has happened; I think the cats will make lovely house slippers when I'm done with them.

I expected to be crippled with foot pain today, but am pleasantly surprised that I am only experiencing mild soreness in my legs and knees. Yesterday I decided to follow lovely husband's (L.H.) creed, which is "Don't dress for the job you have; dress for the job you want." His mother told him that back when he was a graduate instructor, and he has been natty on the job ever since.

I don't quite have the wardrobe to pull off natty, but I decided to spruce myself up a bit on my first day back to school with a pair of nice-looking, tall-heeled loafers my sister gave me. Damn her and her attractive shoes! A hundred yards past the front door I realized the folly of my thinking. Screw business attire! I'm sticking to tennis shoes and jeans until I can put my hands on a pair of those cute little velvet, Chinese mary janes. I have my eye on a black brocade pair. They won't be weather-appropriate, but I'm sure I can find some rain boots that will fit over them for the outdoors.

Rain, rain, rain--I'm so sick of rain

Lovely husband (L.H.) has a new hobby, reading Bushisms online. He's been working steadily at it for at least the last 3 nights, with no end in sight. I hear him chuckling and snorting downstairs in the unheated study and know that he's found his calling.

[Interesting side note—we actually lived in Gothenburg, Sweden when this jewel was uttered:
"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease."--After meeting with the leaders of the European Union, Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001
We stopped admitting that we were Americans at that point and tried to pass ourselves off as Canadians.]

Home life has been light on blog-able material for the last couple of days, mostly due to PMS. Enough said.

Here's a funny episode, though: L.H. and darling daughter (D.D.) were looking at a collection of Far Side comics, and L.H. was suddenly explaining about cows and cud and multiple stomachs (Gary Larson has a lot of cows in his work). D.D. broke in on the explanation to say that she already knew what the four stomachs were for: "1 for cans, 1 for plastic, 1 for paper, and 1 for foil, Tee!Hee!"

When D.D. is being so cute and clever, I thank my lucky stars for her. But other times, like much of this weekend, I think that hamsters may be on to something with that eating their young thing. That may be the PMS talking. Or the rain-induced insanity.

I thought the weather in Texas changed fast, but in this part of Germany you can literally watch the change from pouring rain to a sunny, cloudless sky in about 5 minutes. L.H. and I watched it happen repeatedly yesterday. We even got to see a full double rainbow. Of course, we were out in the pouring rain at the time, so maybe we weren't able to appreciate the beauty of it fully.

Today, all rain. And I don't even have the energy to bitch about it.