Most Boring Post Ever

(Don't say you weren't warned about the high boring factor of this post.)

I was quite a slug while Lovely Husband was away at his conference. I've finally gotten around to having a mild cold this winter, so that was my excuse. Actually, I probably could have fought off the cold with my amazingly anti-illness powers, but I stayed up late reading the first night L.H. was gone, and I've been dragging ever since.

We've still got some snow on the ground, but I'm ready for spring now. We had a little early-springish sunshine yesterday, but Mother Nature is a tease. The forecast says there's an Arctic front on the way for all of Germany. Blech!

L.H. brought gifts from Cologne: Darling Daughter got a pink canvas make-up bag thingy with red sequins on it (tres chic!), and I got a bottle of the original eau de cologne. We were trying to decide what it smells like, and D.D. figured it out—bug spray. Very citronella-ish, but not unpleasant. I've just now put some on for the first time, so I'll have to report back on whether or not it ends up smelling like sweet pickles on me. Stupid body chemistry.

Speaking of weird smells, when D.D. and I started working on the Valentine's puzzle from L.H., we almost choked on the overpowering stench of patchouli (not my favorite scent) from inside the box. L.H. says the gift shop where he bought it was full of incense, but I suspect it was assembled in a drug den in Amsterdam. That might explain the way the pieces don't fit together correctly.

I'm starting to wonder about the pattern of scented gifts—cologne, scented candles, stinky puzzle. And that isn't even the first patchouli-scented gift from L.H. Before I went to England in the summer of 1996, he bought me a sunflower umbrella. From a head shop. It took forever for the smell to fade.

Random observation from our village:
The florist near D.D.'s school regularly puts decorations outside her shop, usually holiday related, but she's lost me with the latest: plywood cut-outs of *shoes*. What do shoes have to do with selling flowers? Is this her way of announcing that she'll be adding shoes to her inventory, because flowers alone is just not lucrative enough? Or maybe her shoe fetish is spilling over into her business. I have never heard of a shoe-themed holiday, and the cut-outs seem to be firmly attached to the beam where she displays her hanging plants, so I have to assume they are a permanent addition to the decor. Weird.

The Pea Family

D.D. showed up in our room Sunday night after we had put her to bed, so we let her crash with us. It doesn't happen too often anymore, so what the hell, right?

The overhead light was off, but L.H. had his bedside lamp on to read by, so D.D. and I turned away from the light and tried to go to sleep. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes and saw a blurry shadow puppet on the wall. I rolled over to say something to D.D. and saw that *2* sets of hands were casting shadows. Papa pea and baby pea.

***

Monday night we had an early bday dinner for yours truly since L.H. was going to be out of town most of the rest of the week at a conference. We went to the Greek restaurant here in our village (mmm...lamb chops), and D.D. decided to be scandalized by the nude statuettes that were part of the decor. For someone who's spend most of her life in her skivvies, she's a terrible prude.

***

I finally drove the car for the first time today. L.H. was trying to get ready to leave for his conference and kept remembering things he needed to bring, and so missed his bus into town. He's not the most organized person, which is one reason he needs me so much (among many other, less impersonal, reasons). I didn't even get pulled over or crash. Success! I think I may drive D.D. to ballet, which is a more precarious trip over the mountain. As long as it doesn't start snowing heavily, I'm going for it.