Nee in Germany

Rolling along

2012-01-15T14:51:00.001+01:00

It takes a while to get out of bunker mentality after you've finished a big job, but it is slowly coming along. I got out a couple of pieces of paper and started making various lists yesterday, and a lot of things have actually gotten crossed off the lists this weekend. Of course, today I am sore after vacuuming every nook and cranny in the house (except my office, dammit!) and squatting to clean a couple of spots on the floor. But groceries have been bought, overripe fruit has been transformed into tasty cookies, and the paper and cardboard of the shopping season have been wrangled and will be going into the recycling shortly. John even took down the xmas lights from outside and got the xmas ornaments box sealed and ready to go down to the cellar.

Hannah is preparing for the last of this round of tests (roughly midterms) at school, with quite a bit of prodding from us.

John and I have 3 weeks left before classes are out. I'm looking forward to the break. I wasn't planning to continue teaching but have changed my mind and have agreed to 2 more semesters. We'll see how it goes. I have received the results of my student surveys already but haven't looked at them yet. I guess I will wait until the end of the semester to see what they had to say.

I have had quite a bit of other work come in, so that was the basis for the second list, just to stay organized. I feel more in control if I have a list, so I am hoping to get everything done in a timely manner with the help of a single piece of paper.

I need to start keeping a piece of paper to list items to post about, so each entry is not a repeat of the one before. We are just that boring, I am afraid.

-Nee in Germany is a worker bee

Blog or work? hmmm...

2012-01-02T14:20:00.001+01:00

By my long-term absence here, you can tell that work won out over blog for most of fall 2011. But now that the big job of last fall is done and I have some grading to catch up on, blog can take its rightful place in the pantheon of work-avoidance tasks.

John and I took on a BIG translating job that was due in mid-December, and as the deadline drew nearer, we found ourselves putting in 40-hour weeks on the translating in addition to our teaching jobs (him full-time, me part-time). It was hard to enjoy the holiday season when our normally cheer-inducing advent's calendars

...were reminders that we were one day closer to our doom. DOOOOM!

This is what my office looked like afterward:

All those bits of paper taped on the glass to the right are the various items that were completed over the course of our project. They started on the pinboard behind my laptop and got taped on the glass when they were done. And of course there was always a new bit of paper to take their place, until xmas eve, that is. Booyah!
Hannah was basically a feral child during this period. (What else is new?) She is getting so grown up that we could trust her with things like arranging for take-out for us or cooking dinner. She really was a big help.

I barely had time for keeping us clothed and fed, much less cleaning or baking, but I did manage this:

Those are the poinsettias I forced. Luckily, they live in my office, so when it started to get dark in the late afternoon, I would just throw a couple of plastic blags over them to block out any other light and keep working. Then in the morning, pull the bags off and work some more. The red one has bigger, showy-er blooms, but the pink one makes up for it by putting out smaller blooms all over. I didn't think the pink one would manage it this year, but it was just a slow starter. I probably didn't pay more than 3 bucks each for them at the grocery store back when I bought them, and I actually have no idea what I am doing with them. I think you are supposed to let them "rest" with a cool period after they bloom, something something, but I just keep watering them all year round.

That's what I do with the mystery citrus, too. Now I know not to freak out when the leaves fall off despite the watering and some sticky, webby stuff starts showing up on the tips of the stems. Neither of those things has killed it yet. And now I have 2 new mystery citrus plants.

I threw some seeds in my balcony planters upstairs, but then the wooden railing on the outside edge started to break apart, so I set the planter on the floor of the balcony and forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when I peeked outside and saw a little tree sprouting. I scooped it into a pot, and after a while more little trees started sprouting out of that pot. The rest were pretty puny, so I recycled them, but this is what I have left for the moment.

I got a Kindle for xmas, and now I am off to add something to it, another worthy work-avoidance task.

RIP, Missy (2001-2011)

2011-12-30T19:04:00.001+01:00

We lost our 10-year-old cat, Missy, on Tuesday. She had been getting thinner, which we hoped was due to the new feeding regimine, but on xmas day she started breathing heavily. An hour before her appointment at the fill-in vet (ours is closed over the holidays), she had some kind of seizure and died.

The wound is still fresh, and we all find ourselves on the verge of tears at different times as we go back over what we could or should have done differently regarding her care, or we find ourselves looking for her at times when she could be counted on to turn up.

Hannah called her a furry puddle, and sometimes I called her an annoying asshole, but she was a good cat, and we are all already missing her companionship. As I have pointed out to John, Hannah and I are effectively pet-less since Eliza won't let us touch her. We are hoping she will come out of her shell a bit more now that she is an only child, so to speak, but she has spent a lot of time under the bed since Tuesday whenever we go to check on her, so it is hard to say.

RIP, Missy. You will be missed.

Less Golden October

2011-10-09T11:02:00.001+02:00

I have been stupidly, horribly busy pretty much since we set foot back in Germany after our Texas trip in August. Hence the lack of posting. But I am taking a few minutes for myself this morning before I have to start the next batch of insanity to put up a few bits and bobs.

When we got back from Texas, my plants were in surprisingly good shape, although the few tomatoes on the vine had problems probably related to the uneven watering over the previous month. So I chucked those and went back to watering regularly and my little plants, all grown from seeds, started really putting the tomatoes out.

I waited until the weather forecast said our Golden October was going to be over to pick them, but now I've got a good couple dozen (large) cherry tomatoes ripening in the kitchen.

Hannah totally cracks me up. One Saturday, she woke up extra early, even before the cartoons were on, so the only thing on tv was informercials. When I asked her about it, she said, "Yeah, now I need a Nicer Dicer and some of those pills."

When we were in Texas, I managed to buy the last of the supplies I needed for a Halloween cross-stitch project for my very own, but I have been so busy that it has languished in a corner. I finally had to admit to myself that I just won't have the time to work on it before this Halloween. I guess I should put it away properly so none of the bits get lost before I can start work on it.

I am going to be teaching 5 classes this semester, which starts tomorrow. I'm kind of regretting signing up for this gig, but there is nothing for it now. I've already told them, though, that there is little chance I'll want to be hired on again after this semester, so that is one less thing to discuss at the end of my contract.

And now I have to get back to chipping away at my pile.

-Nee in Germany wishes she had a Time-Turner like Hermione

Boring...boring...but not gone

2011-09-06T08:37:00.002+02:00

After a whirlwind, uh, four weeks through Texas, we are back home and getting back in the groove. Although we haven't picked up our keys from the catsitters yet. Another thing to put on the to-do list.

Hannah is attending tutoring every morning to make up the hours she missed (and we paid for) during August. This is actually a very good thing, because it is getting us back in her school routine early, which should make next Monday, the first day of school, less painful.

Yesterday I met with the gastroenterologist to get the low-down on my upcoming colonoscopy. I already knew about the procedure through the power of his own web site, so it was basically the assistant telling me everything I already knew, giving me a prescription for the pre-procedure drano, and taking some blood, which hurt like a bitch. Surprisingly, I didn't bruise, but it wasn't fun. It made me think back on my pregnancy wistfully, because my OB had a phlebotomist who must have come down from heaven on a cloud, she was so good.

John is going back in to the office today. Classes don't start until October, but he needs to take care of a few things and go by the bike shop to buy a new bike chain. His broke right before we left on vacation, so his only exercise for the last week has been jogging and washing dishes.

The cats were healthy and whole when we got home, although Missy seems to have lost some weight. I can now feel her various bones through the fur. I don't know if there was a problem with the feeding schedule while we were gone or if the low-fat cat food we bought is finally showing results. In either case, she now looks more like a regular cat and less like a landslide of fur.

John and I have very full to-do lists for this fall, so we are going to be busy busy, but I think I prefer it that way.

Nee in Germany is glad to be back out of the Texas heat

Hello and goodbye again

2011-07-24T14:48:00.005+02:00

Well, it appears I have been absent from here for more than 7 weeks, and I just came to say I'll be gone for another 5. Texas here we come! But to tide you over, I'll just post a few pictures of us.

Toodles!

Insert witty title here

2011-05-31T15:55:00.002+02:00

Since last I wrote, Hannah turned 14 and had a small (thank you baby jeebus) sleepover to celebrate. She is now powering through her birthday money by swimsuit and sandal shopping, although we are still tussling over the height of the heels on the shoes. Fourteen still seems too young for stacked heels, although 15 sounds a-ok. I found a good compromise at a shoe shop that was having a summer sale, but they didn't have them in Hannah's size. I saw I can get them online, but she'll have to agree.

I was saved the indignity of accompanying her and her 3 friends to the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie by the expedient of making up some shopping I had to do (it wasn't THAT pressing). Karma came by and kicked the shit out of me for that; no sooner had I procured some tank tops and a new blouse for myself than my right knee went on strike. I think it was the shoes I was wearing. Anyhow, I had a book on me (of course) and was able to find a bench off the beaten path to sit on and get a little pink because I had forgotten to put on my day creme with sunscreen. Then I limped halfway to our rendevous point and sat and read a bit longer until it was time to go, by which time I could walk again, although gingerly. For that, I was rewarded with some Pizza Hut pizza, our old birthday stand-by.

I'm in a minor panic about a shit-ton of work I've got bids in for or have already agreed to do. I've got two book-length editing gigs signed up starting this month and going through mid-October. Then there are 2 large (and I mean LARGE--800+ web pages and a technical report) translating jobs that I've put in for. If you don't hear from me any time soon, it is because I am working my butt off or hyperventilating in a corner.

I did manage to procure some software that should help me with the translating jobs, though (if I get them). That should take some of the pressure off. A tad. A smidge.

I'm still going to physical therapy, but there's been more exercising and less massaging recently. It is taking some getting used to, trying to adjust my posture and stuff. You wouldn't think that just holding your breastbone in a different position, or your head, would make you so sore, but you'd be wrong.

My balcony plants are growing and making me happy. Except the bunch on the top floor that the cats have been nibbling on. Assholes! At least it is raining right now and sparing me the need to water today. But I have to get out and get groceries, so that is less fun. It's only a light rain, though.

E. coli is messing up my grocery planning. There's been a bad outbreak here that's been traced to imported cucumbers (and maybe tomatoes and lettuce) from Spain and also Holland, I think. Cucumber and lettuce (with ranch dressing) are almost the only vegetables Hannah will eat, so it is really putting a kink in my shopping list. I am waiting for her to get home so I can get her started on studying for her physics test tomorrow before I leave. I need a hot drink while I wait.

-Nee in Germany is unraveling at the seams, but just a little

Ketchup? Catsup? Catch-Up!

2011-05-20T09:52:00.002+02:00

Hannah is home sick today. She got overheated during the night, even though it wasn't terribly warm, even in her closed-off room, and had to go find a bucket. She said she spent some time spitting in the toilet but hadn't actually puked, but I let her stay home anyway. In the past, she has power-puked on the bus and at school after a night like that, so it's better to give her a little rest. It was also very good timing, school-wise, because she had a lot going on this week except for today, and then she has 2-3 tests next week. Birthday-wise, she should be all better by Sunday, but even if she weren't, it wouldn't be so terrible since we have put off having her birthday party until she gets through all these tests.

The only wrench in her day off is that she is on restriction from all electronics at the moment. A note was sent home before her last school holiday (1-1/2 weeks at Easter) that she had failed to turn in her homework x number of times, but she neglected to give us the note until after school had started back. She claimed she didn't want to rule *our* holiday, but we saw through that pretty quickly. She then proceeded to give herself the above-mentioned punishment, to last 3 weeks. Oddly enough, she went way beyond the punishment we would have meted out for this particular offense, but we decided that we would make her stick with it. It's funny--the missing homework was tallied up from all of her classes, so it's possible she only missed one homework per class. I know for a fact that all but the last one were from the period before we had the come to Jesus meeting with her after we got her report card, and that one she did, but she was so disorganized that she couldn't find it when it was due. I'm obviously a mean mom, because I pointed out that her bad organization habits were having the same effect on her at school as her bad attitude earlier. Anyhow, I am letting her off one day early for her birthday. Let's just say that when she opens her presents, she may find the transition from no electronics to a plethora of electronics overwhelming.

I have been going to physical therapy for the last 2 weeks. The office is close to our house, and most of my sessions have been me lying on a heating pad for 15 or 20 minutes and then getting a massage. My doctor only prescribed 3 weeks (6 sessions), but I think I could stand doing it even longer. I've also gotten a couple of simple exercises and some good advice about my posture. I hadn't even noticed I was slumping a certain way until she brought it to my attention. It feels weird trying to correct it, like I have to assume a superhero stance all the time. (I noticed that John stands that way naturally.)

I can't wait to go back to the regular doctor and hopefully get off some of these stupid pills she's got me on. Just this morning, after checking on Hannah and starting on my coffee, I said to myself, "I'm so glad I haven't puked up any of these stupid things yet" (gag--yes, puke--no), and of course I ended up barfing in the sink. TMI, perhaps, but it just goes to show that it is easy to jinx yourself.

--Nee in Germany should make more notes when she goes so long without posting

Mother's Day recap

2011-05-11T15:03:00.000+02:00

Mother's Day was a pretty low-key event around here.

Hannah brought me a pale yellow rose on Thursday, which she tried to dye pink on Monday once it had served its Mother's Day purpose, but I think it is too late for it to draw up the food coloring added to its water.

John told me "Happy Mother's Day" before noon and sent me an ecard in which my "hotness" was stressed, so I am pretty sure it was not vetted by Hannah before her name was added next to John's.

Hannah gave me a handmade, illustrated book of coupons, "only to be used after May 8th". Here are the contents of the coupons with the illustrations described inside of brackets:

One free hug
One free kiss on the forehead (with squat) [+ lips] ← that's *me* kissing *her*, who is tall enough to need to squat in order to be kissed
One free cooked meal by Hannah [+ plate with steaming food]
One free compliment by Hannah when you're feeling down
One free hour of Hannah studying of your choice [+ Hannah with book]
One free turn at dishwashing by Hannah [+ stack of dishes + flies]
One free pamper day organised by Hannah [+ lady with towel on head + nail polish brush]
One free choice of movie (without objection by Hannah) [+ cover of Barbie Swan Lake] ← my secret shame!

(And on the back cover: Hannah S****** Productions, with a graphic that would appear to be a star on top of two crossed light sabers.)

The three of us started the morning with a rousing game of Killer Bunnies, which was a family xmas present that hadn't even been opened yet. Just unwrapping all the plastic on the various parts of the game kept Hannah busy long enough for me to finish straightening up.

Afterward, Hannah wanted to put together a 1000-piece puzzle but got frustrated right away. In an attempt to keep her at it--we're trying to help her learn not to give up at the first opportunity--I offered to help her get it started. 6+ hours later, and with a little help from John in the final stretch, we finished it.

Oi, that was a slog, but we had a good time doing it. After that, I was asked what I wanted for my Mother's Day meal, but of course the only possible answer is "anything I don't have to cook." I think John was hoping for a restaurant visit, but I just wanted to sit or lie somewhere long enough to unkink my back--which is what happens when you put together a puzzle on the coffee table and must therefore sit on the floor--and then have some dinner. So we had homemade bean rolls with some ground meat added and some pepper pops.

And it was a great day.

Ranting at the man(ufacturers)

2011-05-10T13:05:00.003+02:00

As mentioned in one of my more recent posts, we broke down and bought a new washing machine. We were able to get 2-year, 0% financing and delivery of the new machine plus removal of the old one for 1 buck, so we went with basically the same, relatively inexpensive model with a 4-pound higher capacity.

Even though replacing it was made as painless as possible by the store where we bought the new one, I still feel guilty about tossing out a machine that was in almost perfect physical condition as far as the casing, drum, door, and seal were concerned. I think John feels like the old machine would have ended up being a money pit if we had decided to keep repairing it, but to me, it feels wasteful to throw it out. More than that, it feels like we are the dupes of the manufacturing industry and their brilliant idea of planned obsolescence. A washing machine used for 3 people that couldn't make it to 10 years? My grandmother had perfectly functioning kitchen appliances that were older than I was as an adult!

At lunch today, I was watching a television program on exactly this topic in France. The producers of the show interviewed a spokesman for some unnamed manufacturer (or perhaps for some manufacturing organization--it was hard to keep track of the labels since they were in German and French), and he denied that there was any such thing as planned obsolescence, much less that his company had anything to do with it, but then they had on a woman who researches the lifetime of products. She was able to show that since the 1980s, household appliances have a lifetime that is shorter by 30% than before the 80s. And a historian gave the example of the lightbulb as the first instance of this: the original lightbulb could burn up to 2500 hours, but to move more of them, manufacturers reengineered them to last no more than 1000 hours.

This pisses me off to no little degree.

I don't know how to go about getting the manufacturers to change their dastardly ways, but I do know that they are not going to do it to me again. When our washing machine went on the fritz, I swore to John--who agreed--that when our condensation dryer gives up the ghost, I am just going to buy a second rack for hanging our laundry on and say "screw it" to buying a new one. And wonder of wonders, our dryer now seems to be gasping out its last breath. Within only a month of the same-brand washing machine. What an amazing cooincidence!

So, when it's cold out, I'll share my office/sunroom with a drying rack, and when it's warm out, I'll tuck one or more out of the way on one of the ends of our long balcony. Now I just need to investigate into a good fabric softener for our towels...

The wages of sin...

2011-04-28T19:50:00.003+02:00

...is a second showing of Nuns on the Run. Hannah has bought into John's view that we are only getting our money's worth out of our DVD subscription if we watch the videos twice before sending them back, which is why I am upstairs at my computer instead of hanging out with Thing One and Thing Two (and Cat One and Cat Two, probably).

I think Hannah is also wrapping her gift for her friend's birthday party this weekend while she watches the movie. Since most of our gift wrap is xmas themed, she only had 3 non-xmas designs to choose from: pink and blue baby shoes, garden gnomes, or grapes and wine. I don't know why she was so opposed to the garden gnomes, but I think she wanted something more "classy". Then she is going to tape pieces of chocolate all over the outside; the ones we bought are wrapped in foil painted to look like lady bugs.

The birthday girl has invited Hannah and friends to go bowling. I wasn't even aware there was an alley in this town, but I am thankful, because we always get lost when we have to find something in one of the nearby little towns. I'm also glad that Hannah is going with someone who is not me, because I pulled something in my ass the last time we went bowling (in France, because that is just what you do when you go over the border, right?). It took a week to be able to go upstairs without limping the last time, so I think I will postpone any possible reoccurences until a much later date.

Hannah and I went into town before her tutoring session and took care of the gift shopping, plus buying a skirt she had tried on with her friend last week and going to the library. I want to redo the wallpaper on a few walls and paint, so I went looking for a do-it-yourself book; on a nearby shelf, Hannah found a book about XXSmall houses and flipped through the whole thing while waiting for me. John and I had seen a segment on CNN International a while back about a micro-house in Tokyo, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as some of these. That one was tiny but functional, while some of these were more like architectural experiments. Hannah and I agreed that we probably wouldn't enjoy living in the house that had glass walls all the way around that could be slid back, leaving one whole side of the house open to the elements (and a sloping hill, if I remember correctly).

I think we will be getting a new washing machine soon. Ours has stopped spinning. I had to finish washing the last load by hand, and it was a complete pain in the ass. Thank goodness for technology! I just don't like the idea of tossing out the old one when it looks like it is in such good shape. But as John said, the repairs are so expensive (400+ last time for a heating thingie), it kind of doesn't make sense to keep paying to repair it when it is probably designed for obsolescence by year 10 (we are in year 7). I don't know--it just seems so wasteful to toss all that metal and other material. I wish I knew how to repair it myself.

I *did* manage to improve our toilet situation, I think. (So far, so good.) During the change of seasons, the handle tends to stick. I think it has something to do with warmth + humidity. Anyhow, it was sticking, and then it wasn't, but it was still gurgling for a long time after flushing. I pulled off the wall cover (the handle is set into the wall above the bowl and the tank is inside the wall) and discovered that it was just really gross back there in the tank, with lots of brownish goop and blackish moldy stuff on the bits. I sprayed everything down with bleach water and scrubbed as many pieces as I could reach with an old toothbrush, then I poured bleach into the tank and let it sit for a while. I also found a valve that controls the amount of water flowing into the tank and turned it so it would fill faster. A few flushes later, and everything seems to be back to normal.

While I was messing with the bleach, I also cleaned some gunk off the rubber seal at the top of the bathroom window, above the shade I put in there a while back. I had to pull the shade out of its brackets to do it, but now it won't roll up all the way. The stupid thing is *designed* to let you pull it out of the brackets without breaking it, but I guess no one told the shade that. grrr...

I haven't decided if I am going to watch the royal wedding tomorrow. I'm sure that it will be on several channels, so I will probably see some of it in any case, just during the course of Hannah's last day of school vacation and tv freedom.

--Nee in Germany is too tired to think of a pithy sign-off

Shopping and nature and more

2011-04-24T13:25:00.004+02:00

While John was away in Rome, the biker boots he ordered from the U.S. came. He has been wearing these Doc Martens for several years with his dressy work clothes, but a hole has developed where there is a crease across the top of his foot. For some reason, he fixated on buying biker boots as a replacement (after determining that it there are no Doc Martens to be found here in HD), even insisting that they'll go with his work khakis. Riiiight. Anyway, he and Hannah are the clotheshorses of the family, so I guess they can do what they like. I just wish it wouldn't entail special ordering things like biker boots from the U.S. and having to pay the price of the boots in shipping.

We have a bat up under the roof of our upper balcony again. Or rather, we had one; I haven't seen it in the last week. I tried to take a photo of it, but our camera couldn't handle the dim light and extreme contrast between white stucco wall and dark brown wood ceiling, so I ended up with a blurry blob. I am actually not all that sad it is gone, because I just got around to cleaning up *cough* a few years' worth of bat poop off our balcony floor. Luckily, it was concentrated in one area under that crack in the wall, but still.

John was excited to find a salamander on the parking lot when we came home from lunch with one of his colleagues and a trip to the grocery store yesterday. He insisted that Hannah run upstairs and get the camera, even getting a bit shirty when I refused to let him put it in the cooler with our frozen foods to take it upstairs. He loaded the video Hannah shot on his computer, so I don't have it here to post, but if you are friends with him on facebook, you can get a look at it.

I pointed out several escargot crawling around in the weeds and along the wall edging the parking area, but I guess he didn't find them worthy of being filmed. If you're not bright black and yellow, you're nothing, is the lesson to take away from this.

John makes sure we have our queue at LoveFilm updated so we don't miss out on any classics like Nuns on the Run. He and Hannah had already started it when I joined them, right as Hannah was complaining about the lack of nuns when she had been promised nuns, right there in the title! She has pretty high standards, you see.

Today is Easter. As one of the high holy days (or whatever they're called), it has a special status around here; by law, public dancing is illegal. I think that may vary from state to state, but I saw a couple of different tv programs last week where dance club owners and others complained about what they saw as an out-of-date and biased law (museums, opera houses, and movie theaters are allowed to stay open and provide other forms of entertainment). Hannah is already planning to learn to river dance so she can dance in protest next year. I'm surprised she's not trying to master Dance Dance Revolution for this year, but she found it challenging and gave up pretty quickly when she got it for xmas this past year.

The lunch yesterday with John's colleague was nice. She is from northern Germany and made us a couple of specialties from there: Scandinavian-style shrimp soup, shrimp on toast covered with melted cheese, and pickled herring. Hannah is not a fan of melted cheese or chunks of fish, but she managed to eat enough or decline politely enough that our host's feelings didn't get hurt. I think Hannah was able to make the extra effort because our host had made a special point of telling her how displeased her own children were that we were coming on a day when they wouldn't be there (due to custody arrangements) and how earnestly they begged her to arrange a time for Hannah to come hang out with them. So Hannah is going to go over tomorrow afternoon to play video games and such. They are really nice kids, and I am glad they all hit it off so well when we've visited back and forth in the past.

--Nee in Germany promises not to let John buy chaps or a leather vest next, even if she has to hide his credit card

Better than nothing...

2011-04-22T19:17:00.002+02:00

John is home from Rome, safe and sound. He had a good time and took 245 photos and videos! It will take a while to sort and load all of them to Flickr, but they'll be there in a few days, I imagine.

I was enjoying some sunshine on the lower balcony this morning, when suddenly I detected a scent like tire air. Yuck! My brain finally came to grips with the stank after a few minutes and determined it was fish. It is ironic that the smell made me say, "Jesus Christ! What is that smell?!" on Good Friday, which is why there was the smell of fish cooking in the first place. I thought maybe it was the downstairs neighbors, but the absence of cooking smells in the stairwell made me think instead that it was the restaurant next door.

Hannah is on school vacation and is taking her loafing responsibilities very seriously. She had to get off the couch to set the table for dinner and said her head hurt and her neck was sore. That's because your brain juice seeped out with all the lounging around, I told her, but she was sure that wasn't it.

I cleaned the downstairs balcony a couple of weeks ago, the shared stairwell yesterday, and the upstairs balcony today, and I don't want to look at a broom or mop again any time soon.

Hannah loves the A-Team movie that was actually an xmas present from her Aunt Kee to John. She was rather put out yesterday that I didn't want to watch it with her, but was gracious enough to accept Goonies as a substitute. So she watched it by herself today while I did various other things upstairs. I'm not sure what the attraction is; probably an initial interest in anything with one of the actors from the Star Wars franchise--in this case, Liam Neeson--furthered by the attractiveness of some of the male stars.

In other Star Wars news, Hannah is addicted to a web video series about Chad Vader, supermarket assistant manager and Sith Lord. When she's not watching season 7 of Scrubs online (which hasn't been released here). She's managed to cram a lot of entertainment into 2 days of vacation so far.

--Nee in Germany says she'll take the general spring smell + marauding puffs over fish smell any day

Draggin' Ass

2011-04-20T14:48:00.003+02:00

I hadn't even noticed, but my last entry was my 800th post here. (!) I know I haven't been posting as frequently the last couple of years as when I first started this blog, lo those many years ago, but I wouldn't have guessed I had gotten within waving distance of 1000.

I am pooped out today after 2 bad nights of sleep. John is at a conference for most of this week, and I usually go to bed later and sleep lighter when he is not there. That was night 1. Last night, I was attached to a portable EKG monitor and woke up every time I wanted to change position and had to move it so I didn't lie on it or pull the cables out. I also discovered that I couldn't lie on my left side because one of the leads would press on a nerve or something and cause such a powerful buzz that it woke me up, twice. I think I was done with deep sleep after that.

While I had the device on yesterday, I did as many tasks as I could think of that might set off the fluttery feeling I've been trying to describe to my docs: washed dishes, fed the cats (which requires some flexibility due to the cat-food storage situation and the locations of their bowls), straightened up in various rooms, vacuumed, cooked, hell--I even quilted. For some reason, sitting in the recliner with my knees up and leaning over my work sometimes sets it off. Then this morning before taking it back, I did my Wii routine (earlier than usual) since some of the yoga positions also sometimes trigger it.

I got home from the doc a little after 10 and have been pretty useless since then. Good thing I didn't have any work waiting for me. Hannah's on Easter vacation as soon as she gets home from tutoring this afternoon, so we can veg out a bit this evening (I'll give her a break on the studying tonight, but then it's back to the coal mines tomorrow). [Speak of the devil and she calls you on her cell phone to tell you she is on her way home.]

Also, I still smell like that awful hospital combination of antisceptic and baby powder, so I need to get in the shower at some point, if I can find the energy to get off this chair.

I had to get up to let the blind down against the late afternoon sun and discovered that Eliza (aka Poofy, aka Scaredy Cat, aka You F*cking Furbag) has been napping on the extra chair in my office the whole time. This is the cat who is so skittish, she has only in the last year worked up the nerve to come into the living room while we are sitting in there ("we" includes her favorite person, John), who had to have her cat dish placed under the stairs in order to ensure that she has a fighting chance at some wet cat food each morning since my running the water to rinse out the cat food pouch or to make coffee scares her out of the kitchen. We are not sure if she is the "who" that somehow dribbled cat nibble on John's side of the bed, but since that is her normal hideout, it is possible.

In gardening news, I got the empty flower boxes on the lower balcony filled with dirt and seeded about 2 weekends ago, and now I have seedlings! I think the fastest seedlings are from seeds I harvested myself from our flowers last year. That would be an exciting turn of events. I also cleaned the ashes off the balcony floor, and John would like me to point out that when I talked about how they got there last time, I somehow magically described the whole thing without managing to mention specifically that *I* was the dastardly, ash-spreading villain. Unfortunately, in the week-and-a-half since then, we have entered that time of spring when anything left outdoors for more than 5 minutes will be covered in a fine dusting of yellow pollen and surrounded by a swirling cloud of puffy plant matter. I guess I'll be cleaning that up in another couple of weeks.

I was supposed to clean the common stairwell earlier this week (officially, we are in charge of it for this week, but earlier in the week is encouraged), but I ran out of energy yesterday and don't think I'll be finding any more today. Complicating the matter, we have new neighbors below us, and I think they may still be moving some stuff in. Oh well, I'll do it tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed no one slips.

--Nee in Germany says it's better to be pooped out than pooped on

So proud of our girl!

2011-04-14T18:58:00.004+02:00

When the half-year report cards came out in February--yes, Hannah is only notified of her grades twice during a 10-1/2-month school year!--John and I were shocked to see that Hannah had officially been labeled as being in danger of failing the year. Most of her grades were ok in a but-we-know-she-could-have-done-better way, but she was failing two classes that are key to determining if she passes the year.

At that point, we talked to her teachers and discovered that it wasn't just the fact that she wasn't putting in enough study time that was likely to doom her to repeating the year or even to changing schools, but that her attitude to school was so bad that it had become a block for her. This led to several come-to-Jesus type talks with her and her enrollment 3 days a week at a tutoring center. I have also been working with her on those 2 subjects to make sure she is getting in enough repetition to make it all stick.

I am thrilled to say that it seems to be working. She has a much better attitude to studying, homework, and tutoring than I foresaw, and her homeroom teacher has verified that it is carrying over into the classroom. (Perhaps not in math, but I've met her math teacher and can't say that I blame her.)

Best of all, Hannah herself is able to see the results of all this hard work: she has gotten a B on each of the last 5 Latin vocabulary quizzes (a B+ even on the last one!), and an A on her English vocabulary quiz. Here she is with the proof of her diligence, in the place of honor (which is also the only place in our apartment where magnets will stick):

I'll admit that I'm not above giving her the occasional treat--so far, just a set of Star Wars patches--but I make sure not to give them to her after she brings home a good grade; that should be a reward in and of itself. Instead, I gave them to her on a day when she had worked really hard and had not complained about all the work I had given her. That's the behavior I am trying to encourage.

Last week, Hannah's physics class took the rockets they had built down to the fields by the river and had a contest to see which group's rocket would fly the highest. Regional media sent a camera man, and a picture of Hannah's group "tinkering" (at the camera man's suggestion) with their rocket made it into the paper. (Unfortunately, the scan came out very grainy, and I couldn't find the article online, so no picture here.) Hannah pointed out that there was a quote in the article from a boy in a different class (or a different school?) predicting that his group's rocket would go much further than the girls'. Haha, boy, the joke's on you, because Hannah's group--3 girls and a boy--got second place! Here's Hannah with her rocket and a few goodies she received as part of her prize:

She just got home and was telling me about her hands-on chemistry experiment in class today, and not once did she sound or say something sarcastic. Once she finishes her lunch, we'll be hitting the books. There's a lot to get caught up on between now and the last 3 tests in the 2 classes she's failing, but I am feeling a lot more sanguine about it now than I was a mere 6 weeks ago.

Poking along...

2011-03-27T15:26:00.002+02:00

Not much has been going on around here. I did buy some more soil for starting my window boxes, but it is chilly and overcast today, so I may put it off for now. Same thing for cleaning the lower balcony. At one point this winter, I noticed that something that appeared to be ashes was blowing onto our balcony and assumed it was coming from one of our neighbors' chimneys, somehow. It turns out that ashes from OUR fireplace had gotten dumped into a bucket on the balcony instead of carried down to the garbage at some point and then when the wind picked up, they were blown all around. D'oh!

I probably also need to look into some advice on caring for my poinsettia. It is getting bigger, and the "flower" parts are coming out, but I don't know why now instead of at the holidays when I was covering them. Also, the edges of the leaves are turning brown, but just the green leaves.

Both the pink and the white Thanksgiving cacti are in bloom at the moment, adding to my general enjoyment at sharing an office with my plants.

I spent part of Friday and Saturday wrestling with a sewing project but seem to have things under control now. John is a movie junkie, so once I had things sorted, I sewed while watching a movie he streamed from our German Netflix-type movie provider. Right now, he is watching No Country for Old Men, but I just can't get interested in it, especially since a lot of what I'd heard about it was the violence/gore. I can handle those things if the story interests me enough, but this one just doesn't.

John rode his bike clear across town yesterday in search of a tennis court. For most of the courts he has found, you have to be a member of a club, and John doesn't often have someone to play with or time to play, so the idea of plunking down anywhere from 200 to 400 Euros per year for the opportunity to even get on the court doesn't sit well with him. He found out about one place online that has hourly rates and no membership requirements, so he headed over there to have a look at it (and en route to return the opera video he insisted I check out for him).

I had my annual exam, and everything seems ok, but the GYN wanted to check both the placement of my IUD and a fibrous spot in my breast with the sonogram machine, so I ended up feeling rather sticky and gross from all the gel in play. And that is all I will go into there.

We just "sprang forward" today, and it is shocking to find that it is already pushing 4 p.m. Getting Hannah off to school in the morning is going to suuuuck, I can already tell.

I think the time change has affected my brain. I'm pretty sure that there has been slightly more than that going on, but I can't seem to recall at the moment. Oh, well.

--Nee in Germany likes to blame factors outside her control for her mental decline

The joy of the sunroom in spring

2011-03-22T14:43:00.004+01:00

In the American university system, we would talk about this time when John is not having to teach as being between semesters, but in the German system, the semesters run into each other and include lecture periods and lecture-free periods. Students can still be on the hook for work during this period and often have papers to write that are due when the next lecture period starts. So even though John is not teaching right now, he is not really on vacation, either. But he does have more time available for things like taking care of various paperwork that living abroad entails.

All that to say, we got German driver's licenses! John is sad that we had to give up our Texas licenses, but I photocopied them so we have proof of how young and cute we were when we got them. Now we're looking forward to our first German traffic tickets.

We decided to take our new licenses for a spin this weekend and drove over to Lorsch, where there's a building still standing from the Carolingian period (Charlemagne's grandchildren are thought to have been there after it was built; he was there before it was built). Since John was good enough to load our photos to Flickr and label them, I went ahead and wrote it up over at my poor neglected travel blog. I also found a new 30 spf sunscreen that goes on more like a lotion and without making my face first white and then shiny, so I was able to wander around without feeling self-conscious about my shiny face but confident that this wouldn't be the sunshiny time that tipped the skin-cancer scale.

I called Hannah briefly during her lunch break today to ask her about her lost pencil case, and she told me that she got a B- on her Latin vocabulary quiz last week! I am so excited for her--to date, she has failed all of them. She took another one today (it's a weekly event) and felt that she may have done even better. I am so proud of her for sticking with the work; I think this kind of positive feedback is going to only make her eager for more. It would be lovely if she could have this kind of result in math as well, but there are fewer opportunities for it as they only have 4 tests and no quizzes or graded homework for the whole year.

It is starting to warm up, and I am loving the extra sunshine. Come on high pressure system, don't fail me now! I put our drying rack out on the balcony for the first time this year and now have a couple of windows open, not even for airing out a bathroom after a shower or a catbox cleaning. If the weather stays this good, I think I will buy some more soil this weekend and get Hannah to help me seed some more window boxes with various flower mixes I picked up at the grocery store. I am not holding my breath about John's yearly proclamation that he is going to buy geraniums to plant, which he has only managed to do once in 7+ years. Besides, it is ridiculously expensive to fill all the boxes we have, and if the summer is wet, which it was the last time and very well could be again, the geraniums molder. I am perfectly happy with the seed packets that cost less than 2 bucks and hold enough seeds to fill 2 boxes with a profusion of different flowers that bloom at different times.

I didn't bother with my Wii game over Hannah's spring break, and last week I eased my way back into it with a lot of yoga exercises, but this week I am pushing the pedal to the metal. Today I ran for 20 minutes and made it 4 km (barely). When I passed the 2-mile mark, I had to scream for joy a little. We'll see how I feel when I wake up in the morning, but I have felt great all day, with lots of energy. It would be cool if I could jog outside, but since we basically live on the side of a long hill, I don't think I'll be starting from my house. It would be nice to be able to jog along the river, but the near side is all ripped up due to road work. Not if I ran in the other direction, though...

I am itching to start some repairs around here--there are holes in and chips out of the wallpaper in places (not all made by us!)--but our landlord said something about replacing some windows last year (or maybe the year before?), and I don't want to start my project before they come in and make a new mess. I may just do one wall at a time, as time and expense allow it.

I managed to cut my coffee consumption down to one cup a day, but failed at reducing it to half a cup. We weren't driving for a bit for various reasons, so we were limited to shopping at stores within bus-reach and buying what we could carry; I wasn't able to get my usual mix of 1/2-caff coffee, so I have been drinking a full cup of full-caff. The horror! Once we run out of this kind, though, I won't feel so bad about my full cup of 1/2-caff. I am also trying to cut out chocolate and black tea, but it is haaard. Fruit tea is just not cutting it for me in terms of a fortifying mid-day hot drink. I have some instant decaf (to use in making a kick-ass tiramisu); maybe I should try that.

--Nee in Germany likes her drinks like her man--hot!

Lazy kind of Sunday, except for all the work

2011-03-13T15:15:00.002+01:00

Hannah has been on school vacation this week for the start of Lent, and I think she has gotten plenty of loafing in, although she claims she didn't get in half of the loafing she had planned. She went to tutoring 3 afternoons and had a dentist appointment one morning, so there went some of her loafing time. We didn't do much sleeping in, though, so I am hoping that getting her up at just past 6 tomorrow morning won't be too much of a headache.

I wanted to go over more of her school stuff with her this week, but just didn't get around to it as many times as I had originally thought I would. I realized yesterday that if I don't sit down with her and get her started, she will just disregard my many, many reminders, just like when I ask her to put away her laundry. Rather than blowing my top, which is my usual m.o. to finally get her to put up her clothes, I need to put my money where my mouth is and show her that her education is worth my time.

I also had a bit of work come in at the end of the week, and it was haaard switching gears. I am looking forward to getting back into my work/exercise/Hannah routine tomorrow. I didn't manage to exercise all this week and missed it. Running errands isn't nearly the same as rhythm kung-fu or skateboarding on the balance board (no whacky music, for one thing).

John and I also had our 16th anniversary on Friday. We tend to be low-key about these kinds of holidays for the most part. I made breakfast tacos for dinner, and John bought me flowers from the grocery store on his way home from the library. Then on Saturday I got around to sending him an e-card. (BTW, Hallmark now has a German online presence--woo!) John and I were bickering about something (we're in the throes of acquiring various paperwork for some German bureaucratic this-and-that), and Hannah was astonished that we would fight on our anniversary. Bickering waits for no one, kid, even on such a hallowed occasion.

I spent most of yesterday on two tedious projects, one rather gross and one rather extensive. I don't think there is much of anything between the wood paneling that constitutes our ceiling and the tiles that make the roof, and I know for a fact that a bat or two has called the space between the balcony roof and the outside wall home during the warmer months. Who knows if anything else is up there right now, but more than once in the past, I have heard the scritch-scratch of something scrabbling around above our bathroom ceiling when heading for a night-time pee. So when I saw that something black-ish and very dirty looking was escaping from the crack between the paneling and the tile wall in the bathroom, I didn't know whether it was rodent poop or just dirt. It had to be cleaned off, though. While I had a bucket or two of hot, soapy water on hand, I cleaned the shower stall, too. Luckily, it hasn't been that long since I scrubbed the shower floor, so I was able to give it a quick slosh with the left-over water and call it clean.

My other project was an organizational one: I put all of the digital photos I could get my hands on into one file on the external drive we have for backing stuff up. I found photos people have sent me, photos from our old digital camera, photos from various old film cameras that were put on CD as part of the processing, photos from CD back-ups, photos that had already been backed up to various files on the hard drive, and photos from John's old Palm device. I even managed to get them organized to some extent, but it took quite a bit of the day.

Now I need to go help Hannah, whose iPod was abused by iTunes and lost a bunch of music she had saved from our CDs. I think there is a copy of one of her older libraries on the external hard drived (spotted while searching for more photos) and we are going to try to fix it.

--Nee in Germany is already kind of tired

I wish it were so, JFK...

2011-03-04T12:11:00.001+01:00

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)

From the A.Word.A.Day mailing list.

Computer stuff

2011-03-01T10:24:00.002+01:00

I am not fond of having to download software to be able to use a web site, but I am kicking myself for not having installed the Flickr Uploadr sooner. Rather than selecting the photos you want to upload, waiting for them to upload (which can take a while if there are a lot), and then having to come back and label them, you can select and label them first using the software, which them uploads them directly to Flickr without you having to go to the site and log in first, and when it is finished, all the labels, tags, and sets are already done.

I don't know if I mentioned it already, but we used our xmas loot to buy a new digital camera. Our old one was about 5 years old and had already been in the shop twice when it gave up the ghost. The new one is a Fujifilm camera that has a way-more powerful zoom feature than the old one and uses an SD card instead of whatever the old one had (for which I had to buy a separate reader when the cable croaked since our computers only have SD slots).

Right now I have some photos loading from February, so head on over there later if you would like to see them.

And on that note, I need to get back to translating.

--Nee in Germany is only uploading photos right now as a favor to John

Let's see...

2011-02-27T16:37:00.004+01:00

Getting lots of stuff done lately, here and there. Yesterday, Hannah's class had a hot dog stand at their school festival / open house for incoming 5th graders. John and I took a turn through it, dutifully buying hot dogs for lunch--24 of which we had already bought and donated for selling--and washing them down with a chocolate milkshake to benefit a school in Uganda and chocolate-dipped bananas on a stick (well, John ate those).

Here you can see the classroom a little better. Hannah and I spent half a Saturday in January painting it green. It started out a rather distressing yellow, but this is a big improvement, even if all of the adults involved on painting day said, "Better the kids than us," regarding having to sit in such a bright green room.

Then we walked over to the library to return 3 books. Now I remember why I don't take John with me--he checked out 3 dvds and 8 cds. That means one of us has to go back in a week to return the dvds and in 2-1/2 weeks to return the cds. You get books for a month, so there's no pressure to hurry back until you need more reading material.

After that, we got some groceries so we could make aloo baingan (Indian eggplant and potato dish) and gumbo and tamales. John found the ingredients for tamales in a kit when we went to the commissary a while back and wants to try it out.

I finally got the floor of the shower stall good and clean after trying out various cleaners and spending way too much time on my hands and knees scrubbing. When the cleaning bug bites, you just have to go with it.

Every year at xmas, I am inspired to make a gingerbread house. My attempts at making one from scratch in the past have always failed, so I aim to buy a kit as early as possible in the season and hold onto it until Hannah says, "I'm bored!" Next year, I'm going to let Hannah munch on it the first time she asks, because by the time I decided we no longer needed it as a decorative holiday element, it had gotten so hard that Hannah had to saw through it with a serated knife and scraped her gums trying to chew it. I finally threw it out this morning.

We have been eating our way steadily through the American food bought on post, but it has not all been as good as we remembered. I made a strawberry cake for VDay from a mix; not good. Looked good, but tasted odd. And I mentioned John's canned chili recently--yuck.

I spent a big chunk of the day on Friday labeling photos from our Italy vacation in 2008(!). I don't know if I am ever going to manage to be done. There are so many photos! And I am still only on day 3 out of like 12 days. This may end up being my new neverending project.

--Nee in Germany doesn't seem to be making as much headway with her projects as she thought

Movin' on up

2011-02-23T11:30:00.003+01:00

As of yesterday, I am 38. I'm not feeling any particular anxiety about getting older, I don't think, especially not with John announcing to facebook that he finds me hotter than ever. :) I cut my hair short recently, and the compliments I got on it (also on facebook) were a nice boost to my ego. I have also been running the 14-minute game on Wii Fit every day (I managed it in 13 minutes the last 2 days), so physically I am feeling pretty good. (I highly recommend the B52s "Private Idaho" as exercise music.)

I imagine I'll be getting off the St. John's wort soon, too. I made a little health journal when I was feeling funny recently, and although I didn't have a way of taking my blood pressure, I checked my pulse a couple of times a day for about a week and a half, and it was up over 100 for the whole time. It was back down to 80 yesterday for the first time and was still at 80 this morning before I exercised. I wonder if it has something to do with my menstrual cycle, or if it has been off and on for a while and I just never noticed it? In any case, it hasn't stopped me from doing what I want to do, so maybe I just shouldn't worry about it for now.

Let's see... Yesterday I hand-wrote notes to all the customers I had last year (in English and German) and sent them out with my business card. I am between jobs at the moment, so it seemed like the perfect time for marketing myself. I also did 3 loads of laundry, helped Hannah prepare for a Latin test on Thursday, and baked cupcakes, half of which were a disaster, although I am not quite sure why. We bought yellow cake mix at the commissary recently, and it should have been a snap, but I think they were not arranged optimally in the oven (all 24 in one go); I should have waited to put the second batch in by itself. Hannah's been eating batch 2--flat and crunchy on the edges--so they can't be too terrible. Well, edible at least. I mixed up chocolate frosting from scratch and slapped that on the "good" cupcakes, but there is still some left for helping the "bad" cupcakes go down.

John has already spilled the beans on facebook about Hannah's school problems. She's doing really bad in 2 subjects, bad enough that she could have to repeat the year. We have gotten her into tutoring, 3 times a week, but it may be too little, too late at this point. She is pretty far behind in math and Latin and may not be able to catch up. We were rather surprised to hear from her teacher, though, that Hannah's attitude seems, to her, to be one of the biggest impediments to her learning. The math teacher we've heard such terrible things about only has 4 students doing as poorly as Hannah. (Latin is an unqualified disaster for all of the students, but that has more to do with them starting so young and having to learn more due to changes in the curriculum.) Apparently, at the beginning of the school year, Hannah put up a sign on her desk, in all of her classes, "I am on strike." I have no idea why she did this, and she only stopped when her homeroom teacher pointed out that she was only hurting herself and her grades with her strike. I had never heard a peep about it until the teacher told us about it on Monday. That made me want to cry. Then yesterday, Hannah came home from school and told us that there was no vocabulary quiz in Latin, which we had been studying madly for for days, and instead she had a major test (the 2nd of only 4 for the whole school year) on Thursday on 2 totally different chapters. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry at that, as well. But I managed to pull myself together and help her study the "new" material. It is impossible for her to get a top grade at this point, but I gave her some tips about making lots of notes on the test so the teacher can see what she does know, even if she is not able to apply it on the test. Knowing the material and knowing how to use it are not always the same thing, so that is something I am trying to address with her. I've steeled myself to giving her my afternoons to help her with her school work; she won't be able to get caught up otherwise. But with her school schedule and her tutoring schedule, it shouldn't eat too much into my working hours. I will just have to be sure to buckle down when I am working and to be as effective and efficient as I can.

--Nee in Germany is trying to be Zen-like, but fears she is probably more like Cornholio

Doing and spending...

2011-02-16T15:16:00.003+01:00

Right after I finished my last translating gig, I was offered 2 short jobs back-to-back. I got the last one out the door on Monday and have been trying to get crap done ever since, with mixed results.

For one thing, I went back into my list of bookmarks to clean it up. I have a new system now that I have a new laptop: permanent links are filed in folders. Links that are actually reminders (to buy a replacement light bulb for the microwave, etc.) are unfiled, but I delete them once I take care of what they were reminding me to do (the bulb came in the mail today).

I have a few paperwork-type things to do. I have some marketing-type things to do. And I have some Hannah-type things to do. I'm going to be busy for a bit, but I have a heads up on more work in a couple of weeks, so I know I can't dally in getting my stuff done.

Hannah is home sick today. We all used it as an excuse to sleep in, which was nice, but now my mental clock is off by about 2 hours. Hannah has a bad cold: red, watery eyes, clogged sinuses, light sensitivity (she dug out her shades to wear in the house), sneezing, runny nose, cough. She hasn't been running a fever to speak of, though, so I think a little rest today will go a long way. She has to give a very short presentation in English tomorrow, which I have been making her work on and practice today, and we both hope she's up to giving it. I made her take a steam shower (head over sink) this morning, and that seemed to help, so maybe we'll repeat it this evening before bedtime.

We're having some lovely sunny weather, and the bulb flowers are starting to come up next door, but it doesn't quite feel like spring because there isn't any water flowing out of the neighbor's yard. We had a bunch of snow around the holidays, then a thaw and a bunch of rain, leading to the Great Flood of Winter 2011 in January:

Normally that kind of flooding doesn't happen until later in the year; I wonder if the change is going to affect the farmers in the area.

We went to the commissary on base on Friday and stocked up on 200 dollars worth of crap, to put it in the most accurate terms. This was after eating at Taco Bell. (I was pleasantly surprised by the fresco burrito I had; I think it had real pico de gallo in it.) John didn't seem to think that the 4 cans of Wolf Brand chili I had bought would be sufficient for his chili-eating needs, so he threw in another 4 cans. After eating one can for lunch on Saturday, he wondered why I didn't keep him from buying something that is suspiciously similar to pet food and contains the nutritional equivalent of a jar of lard. I'm sorry, but if my calling Wolf Brand chili "dog food" for the last 10+ years has not turned you off of it, John, I don't know what else I can do but try to sabotage your chances of getting back on base. Since John's contact is moving back to the States, like this weekend, I think it is going to be a long time. But now I have 7 cans of "dog food" and a husband leery of eating them. Maybe I'll donate them to a food pantry....

I must admit I folded like a cheap card table and threw in a few items myself--oh, Nutter Butters, I am your bitch--but I tried to stick to the list we had made in advance. John was *so sloooow* going through the store; on each aisle, I would get whatever was on the list, then I would send Hannah back to the previous aisle to tell her dad he needed to get X on the next aisle, because he hadn't specified on the list what type or how many of X he wanted. Then he would catch up with us 2 aisles later with a grumpy look on his face and 20 pounds of chips and dip perched precariously in his arms.

When we got home, I had to find a place for all the crap, which means that not only is the pantry closet and the snack cabinet packed to the gills, but also the top shelf of the spice cabinet, the freezer shelves, and the cabinet above the stove, plus the corn chips stashed on top of my baking pans in a drawer, not to mention the cookies and candy I just left on the counter. Good thing I had already started working out with the Wii!

Then on Saturday, we needed a little R&R (and pants), so we ventured into town for a little shopping, movie-viewing, and pizza eating. We did manage to find pants for Hannah and John, but H&M almost derailed us. It was crazy packed in there, and Hannah refused to wait in line to try on the pants she had picked out, and I refuse to let Hannah buy pants without trying them on, so we ditched H&M and found a couple of nice, quiet department stores up the street in which to spend our money.

Hannah wanted to see Black Swan, but 1. it is for 16 and up, and 2. it has a late-ish showing, so we ended up seeing the first part of Harry Potter 7. Now, I am one of those people who will almost always prefer the book to the movie, no matter how well made the movie (I'm looking at you, Lord of the Rings), and I have really not enjoyed the HP movies since after the first one. I can't remember exactly, but I think I blew off seeing one of the later ones in the theater, because I just couldn't bear seeing how mangled it would end up. But I was pleasantly surprised at how 7 turned out. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. I still had to explain several things to John (who hasn't read any of the books) and Hannah (who hasn't read book 7) over dinner, requiring a pen and paper and some charting to make it all clear. I'm sure the 2 bored-looking girls at the table next to us in Pizza Hut were thrilled to hear all the specific details of the Harry Potter universe, plus spoilers for the second half of book 7.

--Nee in Germany passed on the Trix and Lucky Charms to have plain old muesli for breakfast

Quote of the Day

2011-02-12T11:19:00.001+01:00

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

- Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865

from Quotes of the Day newsletter

Freestyle

2011-02-11T16:27:00.003+01:00

I finished my translation work for the day, and we are going to meet John's "connection" to do some grocery shopping and fast food munching on the base, so I suddenly found myself with a little free time.

So here, in no particular order, is a bit of what has been going on around here lately:

I think I mentioned getting the Wii Fit game, and I have been "playing" it for 30 minutes, 4-5 days a week. I woke up with a bit of a headache yesterday (stupid weather) and didn't feel up to exercising, but I kind of missed it. The wacky music and weird situations seem to have grown on me. For instance, in one game, my Mii character (an animated avatar of myself) is wearing a little penguin suit, and by shifting my weight from one side to the other, I can make my Wii slide on its stomach from one side of an iceberg to another to catch (and presumably devour, but they just disappear) fish. Or the soccer game where I am supposed to head balls that are kicked at me left, right, and center, but avoid being hit in the head with soccer cleats and panda heads. Mostly I like jogging, although John thinks I am mad. Most of the routes are rather short, 4-5 minutes, but even the 14 minute route is doable. I didn't think I would enjoy exercising this much, but I also don't try to do a specific routine or target certain areas. I just do what I feel like, whether that is yoga poses, jogging, balancing games, or snowball fight.

John bought me a food processor (at my request) for xmas, and I have been trying to finagle our uneaten fruit and such into new and delicious recipes. Banana cream pie was a win, although I was disappointed in the meringue topping. I've got breadmaking down, but eggs seem to be my Waterloo. On days when I don't have a lot of work, or I'm between gigs, I try to get more from-scratch cooking in. I have even managed to make some things that are rather healthy and get Hannah to eat them, like the blueberry muffin recipe I modified by using frozen mixed berries. She ate those in her school snack every day that week. We've gotten through about 3 loaves of fresh bread since xmas. I have even been making homemade yoghurt, just to see if I can. I found tips online at Salon in the food section and have had one ok batch and one quite good batch. I wonder if I could use straight cream to make some? Don't want it to go bad on me. I also made up my own muesli to eat with my homemade youghurt, and it is just sweet enough (thanks to the granola in it, I think) that it complements the sour yoghurt perfectly, or vice versa.

Some cooking has not gone so well, especially American recipes that call for very specific ingredients like corn syrup. It is not to be found here, and the sugar syrup I tried to make as a substitute was a disaster. Oh, yes, and anything based on eggs, like baked meringues. They were tasty, but the middle was way too chewy to me. With John's dental problems and Hannah's braces, I've just given up on making them for the foreseeable future.

John can't decide whether to be amused or horrified by the notes I make on my recipes: "J & H bitched about the lack of nuts" on a banana bread recipe. Seems like a perfectly legitimate reminder to myself, as far as I am concerned.

Last year, I planted carnations in my window boxes, but then I read on the seed package that they only bloom in the second year. The weather has turned warm-ish lately, so I went out and checked them, still in the box hanging on the balcony, and they seem to still be alive and generally unharmed. Plus there are a bunch of seedlings coming up in the other boxes, so I pulled all the dead stuff out of there to give them a little space, now that they seem to have taken root. I may not have to shell out much for plants this year.

My indoor plants seem to be doing ok, too. I think I didn't keep my poinsettia's covered long enough, though, because they didn't finish putting out the actual flowers in the middle. You can see here how they look stumpy.

Plus, I think this was originally a red poinsettia, which you can see streaks of on one of the bracts in this photo:

So it was a semi-success for xmas 2010. There's always next year, I guess.

The mystery citrus has pleasantly surprised me, once again. This is what I was looking at all fall and winter to date:

I mean, look at that tangle of bare twigs! But then this started to happen just a week ago or so:

Baby leaves! Now I'm glad I didn't start hacking away at like I had planned. I guess I will wait and do that in the summer when it has put out all its leaves and I can tell what is really dead.

I also finished reorganizing my office. I did it in two stages, well three, if you count swapping my desk and plants so the far end of the room is a hothouse and the other my office.

Now I have a handy bookcase with my work materials, two outlets for my gadgets, and I still have the great view. Plus, my stuff is out of the way for when the chimney sweep comes (only once a year, but still).

-Nee in Germany spends a lot of time at home

Quote of the Day

2011-02-09T12:49:00.002+01:00

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

-Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)

From the A.Word.A.Day newsletter (more info at Wordsmith.org)

And now for something different

2011-01-28T09:17:00.003+01:00

I like reading about regional issues, especially those having to do with the logistics of feeding urban areas. Here is a well-written refutal of the persistant myth that there are no grocery stores (by which is meant *national chain* stores) in Detroit, by James Griffioen.

I don't know sometimes...

2011-01-26T10:45:00.002+01:00

I recently took part in an exchange on Facebook with a teenaged relation (not one belonging to any of my readers) that bothered me. She started off by saying that she wanted a boy who would call her sweet names, among them "baby girl". One of her friends (a guy) said he thought all the names *but* "baby girl" were kind of derogatory, and I responded that I thought that was the worst one. When her response included "...the day i stop wanting to be treated like a woman...", I had to disengage or my head would explode.

Does she really think having a man call her "baby girl" makes her womanly? To me, it is infantizing her and putting him in a father-like role. That is the patriarchy, plain and simple. Is this what girls are learning about love relationships and gender roles? I know she is only 16-ish, and has had a rather odd upbringing, but isn't anyone telling her about the joy of a relationship based on respect and equality?

I love John, but I've already told him that the first time he calls me "baby girl" (or "wifey", another usage I've seen from a relation), I'm punching him in the gonads. It's actually already kind of a joke between us; sometimes he'll exclaim that I'm just so cute (in the kind of voice you use to talk to/about very small children or kittens), and I'll flip him the bird, just to make sure he knows that I consider that the very least of my attractions.

--Nee in Germany is a woman, not a baby

Stress

2011-01-20T08:17:00.000+01:00

In the spring and summer of 2009, I was writing my master's thesis and thought I knew what stress was. I was eating poorly and sleeping less than I would have liked; I had lots of weird dreams; I had hot flashes during the night a few times; my eye tic returned; I stopped having my period for 3 or 4 months. To me, that is what stress should physically look like.

In the fall of 2010, I started having weird feelings in my chest and ended up at the doctor's office, where I was given a variety of tests and some beta blockers. I finally landed in the offices of a cardiologist and a gastroenterologist. Even after all the poking and prodding, the only thing that came up was gastritis and H. pylori. After I was done going nuclear on the H. pylori, I discovered that I had a lot more energy, but the weird chest feeling was still there.

When I ran out of beta blockers, I went back to the doctor, but this time I saw someone else in the same practice. This was in the run-up to xmas, and I had been having a hard time emotionally. I cried baking cookies. I cried listening to Abba. I cried washing the dishes. At that point, I had spent a little time each day that week crying, often in the shower so I wouldn't upset my family. I felt like I needed a way to get the sadness out of me, and since do-it-yourself primal scream therapy probably wouldn't win me any friends in our 4-family house, crying seemed like the best approach.

The doctor's office was the emptiest I had ever seen it, so I guess that is why the doc spent so much time talking to me--there was no one else waiting. I had a hard time keeping it together in her office, and she gave me a prescription for St. John's wort. She said it would give me a bit of distance from the emotional problems. It has worked as promised in that respect, but I have to say, I was not expecting to suddenly feel more mentally alert or sharp than I had in a long time. That's not to say that I've been feeling stupid, but suddenly I was able to take all my post-antibiotic newfound energy and direct it in a way I hadn't been able to for a while. Like I told John, if that is what St. John's wort does, I am never going to stop taking it. I wonder if I could plant it in my flower boxes...

I also mentioned at that visit that the weird chest sensation (palpitation-like) had been more or less replaced by a kind of muscle-burning sensation that goes from my sternum to my back, but she thought that was a back/posture problem and suggested a physical therapy course just for strengthening your back muscles. I found several courses through the city's web site, but I just missed the enrollment dates, and they were all offered on the opposite side of town from where we live. It would have taken 45-60 minutes to get there by bus. So using my newly sharpened mind and my reignited sense of direction, I went into town on a whirlwind shopping spree that included buying a balance board for our Wii and a Wii Fit Plus game (used, so it was only 15 bucks--woo hoo!). I've been doing 30 minutes on it every day this week but haven't noticed any difference in the burning sensation, except that it is stronger when I am tired. I'll mention that when I see the doc again next week.

After I had been at the doctor's office, I was working on a translation about job burnout and came across this online stress test:

"The Life Stress Test, also known as the Holmes and Rahe test, was first created in 1967."

It has events that could occur in 8 different areas of life (finances, living conditions, etc.), and you are supposed to check off how many of them occurred to you in the last year.

"If your score totals 150 or more: You have a 50-50 chance of developing an illness."

"If your score totals 300 or more: You have a 90 percent chance of developing an illness."

My score was 257.

I was floored, because I hadn't experienced the same kind of physical response to stress in 2010 that I had in 2009. (Of course, once I started a "real" period this month, I realized that I had been having a "barely there" period all fall, which I had wanted to attribute to changes in my hormone levels as I am getting older interacting with the Mirena IUD I still have.)

I had also been discounting stressors that I had not viewed in a negative light, like finishing my degree (after months of antsy waiting for my results) and starting up my freelance business. Those things, on top of losing my grandmother in March (which was not unexpected, but still...), John's uncle in July (he was only 58 and had a series of heart attacks), and Shannon in September, apparently were enough to push me into the danger zone as far as my own health goes.

I know that time heals all wounds, and eventually I will get there, but I am trying to just take things one day at a time, to be productive, eat better, exercise every day. Not to take my friends and family for granted and remember to tell them I love them every chance I get.

Quote of the Day

2011-01-18T14:30:00.002+01:00

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

From the A.Word.A.Day newsletter (more info at Wordsmith.org)

Notes to myself

2011-01-12T08:43:00.002+01:00

There are certain things that recur year after year, but I haven't come up with a reliable way to leave myself notes about them. For example, when we went to set up our xmas tree this year, we found the base in the cellar, but there were no screws in it. John found them upstairs in the tool box. Why? No idea, but there must have been a reason for it last year. Then once we got the tree set up, water started leaking out of the base. That must have been the reason. (After the drying of the floor and tree skirt and the siphoning off of the rest of the water in the base, our tree was tinder dry.) But after xmas, I went over that base with a fine-toothed comb and tested it with colored water, and there was no leak. So I can only assume I filled it too high and it overflowed. That would be a good thing to know next year, hence this entry.

I could make a note in my Palm organizer or in one of my many journals, but I don't use my Palm for much outside of jotting down appointments while out and about or noting library call numbers for books I want to pick up, and rereading my old journal entries makes me sick to my own ass, all the whining and navel-gazing, really. But I generally find myself rereading my old posts here a few times a year (or more, shhhh), so this might be the most convenient method. Maybe I will also jot a note on my paper family calendar to look this post up in the fall. Hmmm...

Item 2: John is supposed to check the mystery strands of lights in the xmas box. I think they are our outdoor lights, but I don't think they work. He refused to address it this winter--his doom is sealed for next winter.

Item 3: Pat the chicken completely dry before breading and frying. I have a little burn on my forehead from popping oil that is scabbing over, and I would like to avoid that in future, thx.

Item 4: Buy an advents wreath *before* the first Sunday of advent, because there won't be any afterward. One day I will manage this. Same with advent calendars, although they might be cheaper if we wait, but all the good ones will be gone.

I may be coming back and adding more to the list as it occurs to me, but this is a good start, if not completely seasonal.

--Nee in Germany needs a steady stream of reminders in order to maintain her sanity

More small victories

2011-01-12T08:08:00.003+01:00

I've been trying to take care of small repairs and replacing defective items around the house. Recently I had to buy a new flashlight due to corrosion in the old ones (no idea how that happened), but it is currently only being used for one thing--illuminating the contents of the microwave through the glass in the door since the bulb went out. And of course the microwave manual says to take it to a certified repair person to *change the lightbulb*, which is ridiculous, even if you have to take off the entire casing to reach it. As soon as I can get to the hardware store, I'll be looking for a replacement bulb to do it myself.

I also have to find the proper knob for the radiator unit in our living room and exchange the one I bought last weekend. Ages ago, I was able to pop off the knob from the radiator in the dining room and snap it onto the one in the living room, and it worked just fine, but the stuff I found all had ventilator valves and extra bits and pieces I don't need. Unfortunately, everything in this apartment is rather outdated, so I don't know how easy it will be to find "just" a knob for this particular radiator when neither the radiator or the knobs that are still intact have any part numbers or other identifying marks.

Speaking of light bulbs, John replaced the light bulb in the fridge, lo these many years ago, and it never lit up again. While fiddling around with the microwave, the unfairness of it struck me: John had gone through who knows what ordeals to find the stupid bulb, had stuck his hand at an uncomfortable angle into the frige to remove and then replace the bulb because the cover would not come off, and then it didn't even work. So I fiddled around with it and finally got it to work by some combination of tightening and wiggling. Now we can finally see everything in the fridge, and boy is it a mess!

I think I mentioned that John is the president of a local club for Swedophiles. This club does not have an office or a fixed location for events; they just have to rent out space on an as-needed basis. This means that anything the club has accumulated--books about Sweden, leftover items from parties and events, coffee and tea thermoses and decorations for their annual xmas event--has to be divided up among the members of the leadership committee for storage. We seem to have gotten more than our fair share of this stuff, but since our apartment is rather snug, storage-wise, and our cellar rather, eh, *earthy*, we've been stashing boxes under a patio table at one end of our sunroom, which currently doubles as my office. I think I mentioned that John and Hannah moved our stuff in the cellar to a slightly less moldly corner, so that led to us reorganizing the Sweden stuff under the table and moving some of it into the cellar. Yesterday, I got some more of it pared down and into a smaller box that I hope to move out of the sunroom soon. As of right now, the space under the table is clear. My plan is to clear out, at least partially, one of the bookcases in the downstairs study, move it upstairs to my office (where it will provide storage for my books and binders and a surface on which to put some of my plants), and move the table onto the lower balcony. I want to claim the whole room as office space, and although I have been using the spaces between the plants on the table to hold papers and office supplies, I think it is better if I am not using a sizeable chunk of the room for storage.

I was relieved to find that I had stored my notes about our Italy trip in the folder with our digital photos, so that survived the great involuntary laptop-purge of 2010. I think I will work on labeling those photos this weekend.

--Nee in Germany likes to plan ahead

I am a buzzing bee... buzzzz...

2011-01-10T18:01:00.003+01:00

Let's see--I've been busy busy lately.

Yesterday I spent the whole day cleaning out my side of the closet (not even the clothes, just the storage) and my side of the bed (the floor and shelf have been such tempting storage places in the past). I bit the bullet and tossed some things I am never going to use (ugly crochet pattern for Barbie "antebellum" gowns, articles from class on prepositions of space, a plethora of amazon boxes). I downsized, reorganized, and redistributed, and now everything fits with space to spare. I even vacuumed upstairs when I was done, although it was 8 o'clock at night.

Saturday John and I drove across town and got lots of errands done while Hannah went into town with her friend and bought make-up. She got home before us, of course, because even make-up shopping can get old after an hour-and-a-half and 15 bucks worth of nail polish and lip gloss (thanks, Gwamma!). But she was perfectly cool and collected when I called from the store to tell her we were on our way home, almost 2 hours after she had gotten there herself. Recently she had told me she thought she was old enough to spend a few hours by herself in the evening if John and I wanted to go out. Our 16th anniversary is coming up in March, and we didn't get to celebrate our 15th because I was at my grandmother's funeral in Texas, so we might just have to take her up on that.

Last week I spent my evenings saving every blog entry and accompanying comments for Shannon's blog. I had saved it on my old computer (whose data has now gone bye-bye) as a series of pdfs, minus the comments, but this time I wanted to get everything, in case Blogger decides to take it down. By the time I was done, I had 674 pages in Microsoft Word. That was a mighty output for 5 years.

I thought I would be a lot more torn up reading back over her posts, which is one reason why it took me so long to start. (The way I had done it before, I was able to save a year at a time without having to go through every entry.) One thing that probably helped was this new prescription for St. John's wort, which I got just before xmas. The doc said it would help me feel a little distance from things. So far, so good. But reading back through all the entries, I was reminded of just what a wonderful person Shannon was, and how much love she had for so many people, myself included. That is something to feel good about, not sad.

Last Wednesday, we had some friends over for coffee, so the whole day was taken up with baking (me) and cleaning (John and Hannah--woo!) in the morning and visiting in the afternoon. But that meant I lost a day of translating. Today I more than made up for it. I have been aiming to get through 5 manuscript pages a day--this is for an informative brochure with lots of big pictures, so most pages are not solid text--but today I got through 11! Granted, one page with *just* a photo, but there was still a header to translate.... The next bit of text could be more challenging, since it is 3 or 4 pages of glossary to explain the medical jargon used in the brochure, but I think I have a pretty good handle on all the terms by now, 35 pages in.

And now I have to go finish up the stroganoff so we can eat.

--Nee in Germany loves dairy and mushrooms, so stroganoff is right up her alley

In the New Year

2011-01-08T13:37:00.003+01:00

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
- Carl Bard

This quote kind of sums up my philosophy for 2011. I'm not usually one for making New Year's resolutions; this just kind of came up during my time off over the holidays. You have more time for thinking once things begin to settle down after xmas.

I have made up my mind that there's no use having regrets about things I can't (and probably wouldn't) go back and change, so why let them take up so much of my mental real estate? I can't go back and practice more so I don't choke during the school musical or state music contest; my master's thesis is never going to be any better; I can't go back and not put off the small thoughtful gestures I thought I would have time to get around to doing.

So now I am trying not to put things off, even if it is just something small, like sending a donation to the proprietor of an email newsletter I have been receiving for years or filing papers in their proper place instead of stacking them on top of the file box. The big things are made up of the small things, and maybe by accomplishing enough of the small things, they will add up to something big.

--Nee in Germany resolves not to be such an ass, but she makes that resolution every year

Baby steps

2011-01-05T10:25:00.002+01:00

My friend Shannon, who passed away in September, was a big fan of quoting song lyrics. She was always much more in touch with her emotions than anyone else I know, and could find links between what she was feeling and certain songs.

I, on the other hand, have only rarely been struck that way, but I wanted to share this video for "Firework" by Katy Perry, because it reminds me of Shannon.

This and that

2011-01-03T17:47:00.003+01:00

Hannah and John still have a week of vacation, so to combat all the loafing around, he took her down to the basement and made her help him clean out our storage area and move everything into the space vacated by our downstairs neighbors when they moved a couple of months ago. Our stuff in cardboard boxes had been sitting on an earthen floor for 7 years, and the boxes were moldering. The neighbors' space was at least lined with some kind of rough tile, and they left behind a storage rack (minus shelves) that I think John was able to get some use out of. He also found a few bottles of mead that he had made back in the day, maybe 5 years ago, and one beer. Unfortunately, he also found a couple of framed items that I could have sworn were with the other framed pictures behind the desk in the study. I guess they got left in their box from when we moved here because they were relatively big. One is a drawing John's high school friend made for him and seems to be in ok shape; the other is the cross-stitch my mother made us when we got married. It looks a little moldly around the edges--I just hope I can get it clean. Any tips, LMIL?

I managed to get a decent amount of work in today, even though I slept in this morning after a less-than-decent night's sleep. The cherry on the top was checking my bank statement and finding out I had been paid for my last 2 jobs. Whooo!

I've been saving up my veggie scraps in a freezer bag to make broth, and I had a full bag, so while the soup for dinner cooked yesterday evening, I had a pot of broth simmering on the back of the stove. Then I got busy doing something else after dinner while it was cooling, but Hannah was kind enough to remind me on her way to bed that I needed to strain my weeds.

I also made goose broth from our xmas dinner carcass, but it might be a bit strong for soups and such. Maybe in rice? That carcass also provided some nice grease, with which I made a crust and the rue for a sauce to go into my chicken pot pie a couple of nights ago. Yum!

Last year, John started keeping track of all the books he had read for pleasure since we moved here, and he started an account at Shelfari (sp?) for this. I wasn't willing to go that far at the time, because it would have taken me ages to enter all the books I remember, after learning how to use it, but I did make up a list in Excel. Which I lost during the great computer debacle of my own making of 2010. Alas. But I am going to start from scratch for 2011, seeing how I got some books for xmas and all. So if I manage to get it set up, I will try to add a gadget (widget, whatever) to the side bar so you can see what I am reading.

--Nee in Germany didn't seem to mind the snow as much this winter

not dead, but starting to wish

2010-12-13T18:42:00.002+01:00

computer has been fucked for several days

using John's new computer, hate the keyboard, couldn't find notes in msword all day

have a rush job, suddenly behind on everything else

*sigh*

Busy, busy

2010-12-03T18:40:00.005+01:00

Today I spent the first part of the day running errands. Xmas is just around the corner, you know, plus I needed to pick up some medicine, do some insurance stuff, buy some shampoo--you know, errands. I was mostly successful, so that was nice. I came home tired but with a feeling of accomplishment.

When John went to clean the stairwell this afternoon, he realized that the bucket has been sitting out on the balcony, in the sub-zero temperatures, ever since we had our shower repaired. Sitting full of water. He thought it was frozen solid, but it turned out only the sides and top 2 inches were frozen. So now there is an enormous ice cube (or partial cube) melting in the bathtub.

Hannah has been watching the adventures of Chad Vader on Youtube. She got a Star Wars (Clone Wars) advents calendar this year, even though it has no chocolate in it, just cheap plastic toys. She has been bitching about the makers' sloppy attention to detail vis-a-vis light saber colors, etc, yet happily drags the bits of plastic around with her the whole day at school.

After the recent round of antibiotics, I have been feeling great energy-wise, but have recently started having digestive discomfort. I read that is pretty common until you build the flora in your gut back up. Since I originally came by my intestinal flora by passing through my mother's birth canal, and I don't think I'll manage it again that way, I have been drinking priobiotic yoghurt drinks, but I probably need to be drinking them more often. I asked John if he would share his flora with me by taking bites off my food.

I need flora, any flora!

John did not seem disposed to help me, for some reason. So I'll just have to do it on my own. Plus, I picked up the proton pump inhibitor my doctor prescribed me. That keeps you from making too much stomach acid, so I'll see if that helps, too.

And now I am off to watch the first movie from the Netflix-type service John set us up with.

Many returns of the day!

2010-12-02T10:19:00.001+01:00

Happy Birthday to my seestor Kee! May your family and your ulcer be well-behaved. *smooch!*

Disaster strikes!

2010-12-02T09:54:00.002+01:00

In a small way. Hannah cooked us a delicious spaghetti dinner on Monday. She put the noodles on the table. She put the sauce on the table. She went to close the leftover container of tomato sauce and managed to knock it off the counter, sending the plastic lid onto the hot burner and sauce down me, her, and the length of our galley kitchen. Luckily, John was making salad behind her, so he avoided getting splattered. Hannah and I had to strip off and soak our clothes before sitting down to eat.

The next day, I put the wet clothes in the washing machine on the spin cycle before washing them (otherwise it gets unbalanced), and in the 10 minutes they were spinning, I splattered my sweater with ketchup. (My pants, too, a little, but I didn't notice until later.) So that got rinsed and thrown in with the other bespattered clothing.

Speaking of laundry, I may have to murder our cats. They are inveterate pukers (one is long-haired, and hairballs are now the bane of my existence), but when I found cat puke in one of my shoes recently, that was the last straw. I don't mind them puking on the rag rugs (which is part of the reason I bought them), because those can go into the machine, or on tile, which is easy to clean, but when they start puking on other things, then I get hacked off. I've started threatening to turn Eliza into a muff after she dies.

I finally had a chance to pick up all the leaves that had fallen off my citrus plant. It had dropped over 50 leaves in about a week. I didn't even think it had 50 leaves on it. It is looking rather threadbare at the moment, but the poinsettia is looking good.

This year, I planted a slightly different variety of flowering plants in my window boxes on the downstairs balcony. There was still some statice and lobelia alive at Thanksgiving, so Hannah made a tiny bouquet out of them for the table. When I planted the carnations, I didn't realize they only bloom in the second year. The poor things are partially covered in snow at the moment. I have no idea if I should move them, cover them, or what, but if they survive this winter and my half-assed care, they will be the hardiest flowers I've ever had.

And it is snowing again. I need to return the key to the people I was catsitting for, but I really don't want to travel around in the snow if I can avoid it. Maybe I can take it by tomorrow when I am already going to be out and about (if I manage it).

-Nee in Germany has petty complaints, in the larger scheme of things

The freelance life's for me

2010-12-01T10:04:00.002+01:00

I am finishing up a freelance translating job that is pretty big--an 84-page (photo-heavy, it is true) promotional piece for the nearby university hospital. This is after finishing a different promotional piece for them that was also 84 pages long, plus plenty of photos. Now I've been asked to give an estimate for another translation from one of the hospital's departments. So I guess they liked my original translation enough to pass my name on.

When I am wrapping up a project, I start to get a slight panicky feeling, in case the work dries up. But so far, that hasn't happened. Small jobs pop up here and there, during and between bigger jobs, and the bigger jobs show up fairly regularly. So I guess I shouldn't give in to despair about the irregular nature of the job.

Editing is my real love, my vocation, but translating is starting to grow on me as well. At first, I was worried that my German wasn't up to snuff, but I didn't take into account the fact that I am as stubborn as a terrier when it comes to figuring things out. I might not know what a certain term means, or have seen a certain expression, but I will take the time to look it up in several places and tease out the meaning, and then take the time to look up the context in English and figure out how it is talked about there. I love looking things up, so this is rather up my alley. Plus, the proof of the pudding is in the English, not the German, and I can totally rock the English.

I am not rolling in dough with this job (at least, not yet), but it has kept us from being pinched when things like John's dental bill or our car repairs have come up. All in all, I am glad I have started doing it.

-Nee in Germany works in her jammies part of the day

Free from the tyranny of the cat!

2010-11-29T10:56:00.003+01:00

Well, just the cat I have been sitting. Her owners should be back from a delightful snorkeling vacation in Egypt later today, and boy, will they get a shock. It has been snowing since the day after they left. We got a break yesterday, and the sun even came out in the afternoon, but it has been snowing non-stop since after Hannah left for school this morning.

Except for making the daily run to feed the cat and translating, I haven't been up to much. It was John's turn to wash the dishes and do the grocery shopping over the weekend, so I didn't even have to do any of that. I spent most of the weekend curled up in the armchair, powering through the last phase of a sewing project. The rest of the week's worth of evenings should see it done. Then I already have another project in mind--a friend's daughter is going to have a baby in February, and a crocheted baby blanket should keep me out of trouble for another month or so.

Poinsettia watch 2010: I added a second plastic bag at night (an IKEA shopping bag), and the pink leaves are getting even darker. I don't know if it'll make it all the way to red (or if this plant was even red when I bought it), but it is still an encouraging development.

-Nee in Germany has an unobstructed view of the snowing, snowing, snowing...

Let it snow

2010-11-25T10:33:00.002+01:00

When Hannah left for school at 6:40 this morning, the streets were wet and it was drizzling, but by the time I left for my catsitting duties at 8:25, snow was falling fairly heavily (large flakes, falling at an angle so even an umbrella doesn't help 100% to keep them off you). I walked home through wet, slushy snow. At least it will disappear from the streets quickly--I don't have to get back out in it, but I have to think about John on his bike and Hannah on the bus later this afternoon.

The cat lives up toward the top edge of the valley, and the view of the snowy village below was really beautiful this morning. I wish I had a working camera to capture a bush covered in little yellow flowers along its side with a thick layer of snow on top, or pink roses, fully blown and draped in ice and snow. The warm, spring-like weather we had earlier in the month has not done the foliage any favors now that it is snowing.

Judging by this webcam, though, it is not that snowy down in town, just toward the top of the castle hill. We often get more snow up here than they do down there, and the village even above us often looks like a winter wonderland while we only have a light dusting of snow.

I have reached the tipping point in my current sewing project, and I'm finding it hard to get my brain engaged with translating instead of sewing. Both should be completed within the next week, though, barring a disaster.

-Nee in Germany likes walking on snow, thereby destroying it

Home stretch

2010-11-24T10:12:00.002+01:00

Just 2 more doses! Yesterday I bought a bunch of probiotic yoghurt to start chugging once I am done. I am thinking that after "eradication therapy", which sounds like scorched-earth warfare on my innards, I am going to need to jump start things.

I am getting rather tired of the incessant low-level nausea, the taste and sensation in my mouth of having just licked a whole xmas-list's worth of envelopes, and waking up 3 times a night and not even having to pee. Plus the anxiety over swallowing the larger pills without choking. When I feel nausea, I start stuffing myself, but then I feel overfull PLUS the nausea. I can't imagine suffering through it for a long time, like during chemotherapy. So I am telling myself not to be such a wiener.

[Had to take a quick break to de-escalate a situation with the cats in the next room. It sounded like one might be ripping the other's head off, but when I walked in, they were sitting about 2 feet apart looking at each other. Whatever.]

I am already feeling like I have a lot more energy. Part of that may just be psychological since I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with all this medical stuff, but part of it might be because I stopped taking the beta blockers. I've been checking my pulse in the morning right after I wake up, and it has consistently been 70 beats per minute, so I think going off them is probably ok. Even after a whirlwind weekend of turkey day baking and cleaning, I felt regular tired, not I-have-to-sit-down-in-the-middle-of-what-I'm-doing tired.

This morning has been almost as busy as yesterday already. Everything went basically the same up to the catsitting duties, then I took the car into the shop for a few small repairs and its biennial (every 2 years) inspection. Then I got to walk home in the rain. Well, more of a heavy drizzle at that point. (By the time John left for work, we were getting rain mixed with wet snow. Yuck.) I could have taken the bus, but I need to get a little exercise to start building myself back up. You can't sit on your ass, babying yourself for a couple of months without getting a bit out of shape, you know. Tomorrow morning I'll take the bus all the way up to the cat, but I'll walk home. Depending on when the car is ready, I may be doing it more than once.

Luckily for me, I was wearing my GoreTex shoes and my raincoat over my winter coat as I walked home in the rain. When I bought the shoes, I showed them off to John, who for some reason had it in his head that I had bought sexy shoes and was disappointed when it turned out that I had bought boys' all-weather shoes. When have I *ever* bought sexy shoes? If I took a quiz that told me what kind of shoe I would be (sounds like something you'd find on Blog Things), I'd be orthopedic, I'm sure.

The pinkination of the poinsettia seems to be coming along smashingly at this point. The citrus decided to make a liar out of me and has started dropping leaves again, but it has also started shooting upward in several places, so I'll just have to wait for spring to see what happens under normal growing conditions.

My two Thanksgiving cactuses have been blooming for a few weeks now. I think the pink one is running out of steam, but the bigger white one still has lots of buds on it. They have bright, interesting flowers, but I almost enjoy picking off the wilted flowers as much as looking at the fresh ones. Unfortunately, they drop yellow pollen on everything under them, including my shirt sleeve while picking off dead blooms. Sorry, I'm not the one you're looking for.

-Nee in Germany hasn't murdered any plants recently

No Peace for the Wicked

2010-11-23T10:17:00.002+01:00

Yesterday it was the sound of running water, today it is a high-pressure hose across the street. About a month ago, some genius decided to tag a stone wall with some anatomically questionable penises (if I were younger, it might influence my decision to let one near me). Now someone has come out to spray them off the stone.

It's already been a busy morning. Since John was focussed on turkey day foods and American junk food on Saturday (and our fridge is so small), I needed to go get groceries for the rest of the week. I am also catsitting this week, so I got up, took my meds, got in the shower, ate breakfast once the post-med hour was up, drove over to tend the cat, drove to my normal 2 stores, and came home. I managed to score some excellent Xmas wrapping paper (you know I love me some gift wrap) and a couple of things to put under the tree for Hannah, oh! and a kit for a gingerbread witch house, which seems to be traditional at the holidays for some reason. Hansel and Gretel and all that, I guess.

Yesterday I managed to translate almost 4 pages, even after getting a late start in the morning, so I am hoping that today will be equally promising, work-wise.

-Nee in Germany can't decide if tagging with more realistic penises would have been acceptable

This and That

2010-11-22T11:08:00.002+01:00

Our shower is leaking and the repairman won't be here until 4. I finally put a rolled up towel against the bottom of the door and closed the door to my office to try to block out the noise, but such loud tinkling of water cannot be contained. Between the sound of running water, the extra water I am drinking, the antibiotics, and yesterday's turkey dinner (more on that below), I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom today.

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. We could have waited until the weekend following, but the guests we had invited had a scheduling conflict due to child custody arrangements, so we moved it up. John and I both scoured the local shops for a large turkey and only came up with a frozen baby turkey that weighed about 9 pounds (not enough for 6 people) or a freshly butchered, large turkey for 50 Euros. Ouch! John has connections at the university, and she and her husband were able to take him and Hannah along to the local military installation, where they were able to gorge themselves on American fast food and drown in the junk food offerings of the commissary. And buy a big turkey, among the bags and bags of junk food they carried home. I started cleaning and baking on Saturday, and I was very glad to finally put my feet up yesterday evening after our guests were gone. All in all, it was a success.

Now it is time to concentrate on the next big event--forcing my poinsettia to bloom. I brought it and my citrus plant indoors a few weeks ago, and they both immediately started dropping leaves. Oh, no! But now they seem to have stabilized. The citrus has new leaves, and the new growth on the poinsettia is turning a nice shade of mid- to dark pink. I'm having to be extra vigilant about keeping the door to the sunroom (aka my office) closed because I suspect the cats had been chewing on the poinsettia's lower leaves, hence the extra pukiness after they were brought inside, and I know for a fact that one of them will chew on the plastic garbage bag covering it overnight if given the chance. Sadly, my ability to post pictures of the glory of a forced poinsettia is severely hampered by our dead digital camera (there is a workaround, but I am lazy), so you are spared my efforts at vegatative photography.

-Nee in Germany is dreaming of a red-poinsettia'ed Xmas

Now we're getting somewhere

2010-11-19T09:30:00.002+01:00

(Copied in part from my email to my family, to save time.)

Finally got the results from the gastroenterologist: gastritis caused by h. pylori, plus a weak valve at the top of the stomach. So I will be going on a week of antibiotics (amoxicillin, clarithromycin, and pantoprazol (actually a proton pump inhibitor), handily packaged together as a "ZacPac") to eradicate the h. pylori. The gastro doc recommended that treatment because of the family history of stomach cancer (you have a 6 times higher chance of getting stomach cancer if you've had h. pylori, I just read). I also read that pretty much any symptom between the nipples and the belly button can be attributed to this type of gastritis, so I'll just have to wait and see how I feel after the treatment.

So, there is no reason to believe I will be keeling over any time soon.

I've only taken 6 pills so far (the regimine is one each of the above, mornings and evenings), and I've already got a delightful rash on the back of my arm, but I doctored it with some lotion and will keep an eye out for any other locations.

Now I can get back to the real purpose of this blog, boring you all with extended descriptions of my efforts in indoor gardening, which I will resume after work today.

-Nee in Germany is on the road to recovery, possibly via diarrhea-ville

Someday, my results will come...

2010-11-16T11:15:00.003+01:00

Talked to the gastroenterologist's office just now. The doctor is reviewing the results and will fax them to my g.p. first thing in the morning. So I should be able to call in the morning and get an appointment. Hell, I'll call now and get an appointment for later tomorrow morning. Ka-ching!

ETA: appointment for 11:30 Thursday morning.

I'm much calmer now

2010-11-16T09:15:00.002+01:00

So I spent the hour from 5 to 6 pm last night dialing the gastroenterologist's number every 30 seconds or so and didn't manage to get through. I was about 50 flavors of pissed afterward, and I think John thought I was going to give myself a stroke.

In the meanwhile, I have been tracking down information on my symptoms, and I will go out on a limb and make a self-diagnosis of non-acidic laryngopharyngeal reflux, caused by a malfunctioning sphincter or 2. I may end up being way off base on this, but at least I have given myself a bit of relief from thinking I might (possibly, probably not) keel over while waiting for stupid test results. If reflux is causing my esophagus to spasm, that could be the chest weirdness I've been feeling, and the mild breathing problems I've been having could also be caused by bile or whatever hanging around in my tubes.

We'll see, but I think just calming myself down is going to help with the severity of some of the symptoms, at least. I'll keep everyone posted...

-Nee in Germany spends a lot of time clearing her throat

Seriously hacked off

2010-11-15T12:52:00.002+01:00

Just got off the phone with the g.p.'s office. Still no results. She asked when I had been to the gastroenterologist. Last Monday. Oh, it usually takes *3 weeks* to get results. Wha?! The receptionist at the gastroenterologist said middle to end of *that* week. I'm pretty sure John heard that, too, so it wasn't just me being high. So I am going to try the special call-in hour this evening at the gastroenterologist and see if I can get some more info. grrr...

Busy, busy

2010-11-14T15:43:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I went to the grocery store, or rather, 2 stores, which went off with one big hitch--my debit card wouldn't work at the 2nd store. After I had gotten out 20 bucks, printed a bank statement, and bought groceries at the first store *with the same card*. Annoying. So I had to run down the street and get cash, come back, and pay for my groceries, which were sitting in the cart at the end of the check-out lane the whole time. And since that jolt of adrenaline, I've felt pretty good.

Today, I spent a good chunk of the day finishing up the dishes and battling meal moths, again, but in the spice cabinet this time. Also annoying, but I got the cabinet thoroughly cleaned out and sanitized, so I'm hoping we don't have another outbreak.

Now I am going to hang around with Hannah watching tv.

Annoyed

2010-11-12T11:47:00.002+01:00

I called the g.p. yesterday and today, and no results have come in yet. So I decided to google the gastroenterologist who did the endoscopy to see if there were any tips on how long I would have to wait, and there was a whole slew of info on the site. Now I am annoyed that 1. when I made the appointment by phone, no one said, oh, by the way, check out our web site while you wait for 4 weeks, and 2. it didn't occur to me until now. Extra annoyance: there is a phone-in consultation available to ask for your results, but only Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 5-6 pm. If I had known that *yesterday*, I could have called. Now I have to wait until Monday for *somebody* to have some results, either the g.p. or the specialist.

So annoyed.

Probulation complete!

2010-11-09T08:36:00.002+01:00

So yesterday I had the upper GI probe. I have no idea how it went, because the sedative basically knocked me out. I assume I was only about 97% unconscious, though, because I woke up in the next room in a comfy lounge chair, and I am guessing I got there partially under my own power.

What weirded me out last night was the realization that I probably was able to cooperate with the doctors *in German* in a semi-conscious state. At least I am spared the embarassment if that wasn't the case, because I don't remember anything after drinking something that tasted like banana + cat food and getting a shot. I have a hazy recollection of being asked to hold something in my mouth and it subsequently falling back out, and that's it.

Even when I had my wisdom teeth out and had laughing gas, I wasn't fully out of it, although I was pretty high. But I was aware of them tugging around in my mouth. That was the last time I had a major medical intervention requiring chemical assistance. Now I am wishing I had been given a sedative when I got my IUD inserted.

Sleepy time aside, I felt pretty ok when John got me home, but later, once the deadening spray had worn off, I had a couple of sore spots in my throat, so I am wondering if they took any tissue samples. I got to laughing at my current Terry Pratchett novel last night, and that did not feel good at all, but things feel better this morning.

I should be able to get the results from my doc at the end of the week, so I'll update once I know something.

--Nee in Germany is glad she didn't see any tubes anywhere at the doctor's office

Back Home

2010-11-03T09:36:00.004+01:00

Our trip to Switzerland went off well. We didn't have any problems traveling, except for indecision on what kinds of snacks to buy en route. The train is not the cheapest option, but it is not that much more expensive than gas and toll fees and parking fees if we were to drive. Plus, it is WAY less stressful. Navigating on the German/Swiss highway systems is not that difficult, but there are always little surprises lurking, plus the famous German traffic jam (Stau). We left home on the first day of the fall holidays in our state, and the train was full enough; I can imagine what the roads must have looked like. So we saved ourselves a lot of frustration with the train.

You also get a better view of the scenery from the train compared to the highway. Of course, when I pointed that out to John en route, we immediately went into a tunnel. Talk about unfortunate timing. But we didn't spend too much time in tunnels. We did get to see the Rhine Falls from up close, though. When we went to Italy a couple of years ago, we stopped there and climbed down to them, but on the other side. Either way, the view was spectacular.

When we got to Baden, our friends met us and showed us around a bit. There was a way cool playground tucked under a tall bridge. Looking at it from an American perspective, I could imagine it being a lodestone for lawsuits, but from the perspective of someone who's lived in Germany for a while, it was cool but not out of the common way. The town reminded me a lot of Heidelberg, on a slightly smaller scale. There are thermal springs there (hence the name, "bath"), and John and I drank some of the water. It tastes like the liquid inside the shell of a freshly boiled egg. Not something you'd want to drink a lot of, so you'd be sure to get well quickly, if you were drinking it for the health benefits.

Then we headed for their village a little ways outside Baden. We had delicious a Indian dinner, sent the kids off to bed, then stayed up chatting until about midnight. It was nice to visit with friends from back in the day in Austin.

The next morning, I realized I had neglected to pack a change of pants. I could have sworn I had folded them with the rest of my clothes, so I assumed I had just not managed to grab the bottom item in the stack of clothes slated for the suitcase. I imagined I would get home and find a giant pile of cat hair on my cords because they had been lying on the bed unattended for 3 days. Turns out, they were still in the bottom of the laundry basket full of clean clothes. I had gone over my mental list so many times, I had just imagined myself folding the pants. D'oh!

At 6 that evening, we were descended upon by a swarm of little kids. Karen (a Brit married to an American) had put up a sign in their apartment building warning the residents that they would be visited by marauding children in search of sweets and had arranged to have children of their acquaintance from the building, the kindergarten, and the playgroup come by so they could trick-or-treat in a pack. Hannah had bought some black fairy wings* and sparkly make-up and dressed up as a Goth butterfly fairy. We also had a pirate princess, a regular pirate, a regular princess, a teeny teddy bear, a wizard (who went around roaring like a dinosaur--he wasn't too sure about things), and a cat. Hannah has determined that the key to getting a good haul (either at Halloween or Mardi Gras) is to have a cute, tiny kid with you so you can siphon off the bulk of their candy. They won't know the difference.

*The wings were decorated along the top edge with black fur and silver tinsel and came with a headband topped with a circle on a stick (also covered in black fur and silver tinsel), making us joke that next year she can use it to dress up as a Goth Teletubby.

Then the next morning, but not too early, we headed back home. Since we got to the train station early, we had time for a cappucino and to buy some lunch to take with us. John managed to find chips that have the texture of Funions but are bacon flavored. Riiiight... Then when we got back to Heidelberg, John got approached by an old lady while I was busy buying bus tickets from the machine. She was offering to sell him a ticket that would be good for the rest of the day, but that she didn't need any more. All for 2 Euros (a one-use ticket for 90 minutes is 1.90). When we took a closer look at the ticket, it was for Bern, which is in Switzerland. I am pretty sure it isn't valid in a town more than 2 hours north of the border. Oh, well--you live and you learn. John learned that sweet-looking little old ladies are not to be trusted. I could have told him that.

Nee in Germany is related to little old ladies of that kind

Off for the Weekend

2010-10-29T12:47:00.002+02:00

Just to keep people in the loop, we are going to Switzerland for the weekend to visit friends and will be back Monday afternoon. It feels a little douche-y to announce we are flitting off for an international jaunt, but my family yells at me for not letting them know if we are going to be gone.

I am going to spend the afternoon finishing up a BIG translating job I have been working on forever *cough* so I can send it off and enjoy my weekend with a clear conscience.

Hannah is supposed to be stopping at Claire's after school to put together a few pieces that should culminate in a Halloween costume of some kind. She tried to tempt me hither with the suggestion of a little mother-daughter time, but she just doesn't have the guilt-trip chops yet to get me to abandon my so-close-to-being-done translation.

I've finished the laundry already, so this evening we just have to throw a few things in a bag, then we'll be catching a train at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

Ciao!

One reason I consider myself liberal

2010-10-20T13:46:00.000+02:00

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

My girl, again

2010-10-15T16:24:00.002+02:00

I love that Hannah is so close to us. She could be a raging teenager already, and who knows? Someday she might be. But for now, she comes home and chats us up, and since I'm working upstairs, she regales her dad with everything that is going on at school, including dishing the dirt on people's love lives and what's up today with her nemesis. This even after we have urged her not to be so mean (if mostly in her head) to said nemesis.

Nee in Germany is a lucky mom

My big girl

2010-10-13T07:35:00.002+02:00

Hannah and I have been on our own for a couple of days while John is away on business, and I've really been aware of how mature she's getting. She had an orthodontist's appointment on Monday, and afterward we had to run by the grocery store for a few forgotten items. She insisted on carrying them even though I offered to carry the toilet paper, saying her dad would insist that she carry it for me (since I am sooo frail, duh), plus my stuff, and his stuff, too, while she was at it. I love her understated sarcasm. I told her I was surprised she didn't think her dad would want her to carry me, too; I fit on her back.

She stayed home sick yesterday. She wasn't violently ill like in September when I was in Texas--John sent her to school with an upset tummy, and she barfed on the bus before she even got there--but she had a loud, wet cough that would have been a distraction to her and her classmates. She was already sounding better yesterday afternoon, though, and told her dad on the phone last night that she'd be going to school today.

Then this morning she told me she was enjoying school more this year, now that she has gotten away from certain teachers and has more interesting subjects, which includes chemistry, physics, and a technology class. She even learned something in music class! (Instead of doodling SpongeBob, which has been her usual m.o., I learned.) And when she left, she was perfectly pleasant, unlike the surly dwarf I used to send out the door last year.

This afternoon she is going to stop off to pick up another forgotten item at the store. She even took it upon herself to make a reminder in her cell phone. She's getting so dependable! That's one of the things I like about living here: our town is set up in such a way that Hannah can get herself around and help with errands and such while staying in a fairly circumscribed area. I think that has contributed in large part to her burgeoning independence.

Nee in Germany is all verklempt

Patience is a virtue

2010-10-07T11:16:00.002+02:00

I was hoping to have the results of my 24-hour EKG earlier this week, but my doctor was out of the office, and today, her first day back, she was already booked, so I have to wait until tomorrow to go over it with her.

Having to wait kind of sucks. I've been pretty calm about things up to now, but I'm still having the fluttery feeling, plus some new annoyances that may or may not be side effects of the medication I'm on, and my patience is getting a little thin.

It's boring to me and to my family to always be paranoid about every little twinge or burp. I'm trying not to complain too much, because John gives me this look, like he's torn between worry and thinking I'm a hypochondriac. :) But this is my blog and I can complain here if I want to.

Most of the physical annoyances are right there on the package insert, so I haven't let myself get too worked up over them. Oddly, I haven't experienced any of the symptoms on the "very frequent" side effect list. But headache, shortness of breath during exertion, stomach ache from the "frequent" list, and pains around the heart area and muscles cramps from the "occasional" list? Check, at least in small doses off and on. As long as they go away again within a day or so, I chalk them up to the medication and don't worry about them. But there is one spot right between my shoulder blades that hurts (and I kept accidentally whacking it against the edge of the kitchen counter while sitting on a stool in there this morning, grrr); it could just be from working at a desk, but I don't like it.

I have also developed a burping problem. Laugh if you like, but it is extremely annoying. Water makes me burp. A banana makes me burp. Not eating anything for over an hour makes me burp. The icing on the cake was some bad reflux last night while sitting on the couch, upright, after one of the healthier meals I've made in a while (baked fish, rice, and stir-fried veg). Now I just need to find out if the chalky antacid I have is ok to use with my medicine. I guess it doesn't matter, because I had to use it last night, and I'm still here this morning.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get some useful news.

Beans, beans--they're good for your heart...

2010-09-30T08:32:00.002+02:00

Maybe I haven't eaten enough beans, then.

Right now I am undergoing some tests to try to pinpoint the reason(s) for some odd feelings I have been having--a slight tightness in my chest, a fluttery feeling in my chest and neck that comes and goes--and a fast heart rate and higher-than-normal blood pressure my doctor found. So far, all of the tests--blood work-up, ultrasound on my heart, EKG--have come back normal, but I am waiting on the results of a 24-hour EKG before we can make any more decisions. I am on a beta-blocker to bring down my heart rate, but at a fairly low dose.

I haven't had any shortness of breath (outside of climbing the stairs) or dizziness, just the occasional slight headache, which can be a side effect of the medication I am on. And the funny chest feelings.

After the last month, I am willing to accept that it could be stress-related, although I normally react to stress with sleep problems and an eye tic.

One thing that really got to me in all this was my enforced uselessness over the weekend. When I saw my g.p. on Friday, she immediately rushed around taking blood, hooking me up to the EKG, and giving me meds, but then I was supposed to take it easy when I got home and try not to overdo it. John was the iron-fisted enforcer of this advice, and his gentle but firm remonstrances when he found me sitting on the floor, trying to sort laundry put me in tears. One would think that having doctor's orders to do nothing would be the cat's pajamas, but it was driving me crazy. After dropping off the EKG device yesterday--and having no new directions to the contrary--I started adding some activity back into my day. I drove the few blocks down the street for my turn at catsitting duty, cooked a simple dinner, scrubbed out Hannah's toilet, and put away some clean dishes. Surprisingly, I felt both tired and slightly manic afterward. Who knows what that is about, but I will continue to try to pick up my daily activities without pushing myself. If I feel weird, I will stop, as I already promised John.

And Hannah was so good with helping to pick up the slack in chores and such, I got her a little Wars calendar she had already begged me for. Each month has a photo of a different character, plus sketches from the planning stages. The Leia photo will help if we manage to get around to making a Leia Halloween costume for Hannah.

Munchies

2010-09-22T18:11:00.004+02:00

John discovered that the "American-style" chocolate chip cookies* at the store were only 88 cents, so he bought 2 packages. After we had hovered up most of them, there was one left, and since we are fair-minded people who knew we had had our fair share, we left it for Hannah. Only she automatically assumes we are not fair-minded, despite us telling her that we left the last cookie for her, and so we got this:

If you can't read it, it says, "Hannahs cookie Paws OFF!" This, after she licked *both sides* of the cookie in front of me.

*To be fair, they are really similar to Chips Ahoy. Usually when something is labeled American-style (or it is implied by the obvious red-white-and-blue packaging), it tends to be American in name only.

Despite her bogarting the cookie, I must tell you how much I love this girl. She was looking in a German teenie magazine and was asking about the difference in two words she thought were synonyms. Turns out, they are only very similar in meaning, just like their English counterparts--jealousy and envy. John pointed out that God says in the Bible, "I am a jealous god." Hannah asked with a straight face, "Which Bible?" I can see that 4 years of religious instruction in elementary school were not wasted on her. :^)

Finally, I got the horrible munchies this afternoon, and all there was left to eat was a very slobbery chocolate chip cookie, so I dug into the pantry and whipped up some cookies. Ingredients: butter, marzipan, flour, almond slivers for decoration. Yum! And in a serendipitous turn of events, the marzipan had been sitting, unopened, in the pantry for who knows how long, and I managed to use it up a mere week before the expiration date, without even looking at the label in advance. Not bad for a sugar-fiend.

Then I came back to my desk and finished 2 documents totaling 3 pages of loosely spaced text. Yay!

Today was rough

2010-09-20T18:28:00.002+02:00

Really, really rough.

I talked to my mom on the phone last night and came away pissed at my almost 18-year-old nephew.

Got up and got a doctor's appointment for some minor breathing problems I've been having. I was able to concentrate and get a solid hour of work in before going to the doctor, but then I had a hard time keeping it together.

Then this afternoon, I read this entry at Regretsy, which had me a little teary, but when I got down to this comment

#22 Kate V. :
That is so incredible! I’m actually inspired to make my own urn now. My family’s lazy, and if I don’t they’ll just pour me into a coffee can.

I started bawling and couldn't stop.

I can't explain it... Shannon would have been able to put it into words...

Hannah's new look

2010-09-10T17:56:00.003+02:00

Hannah was in the orthodontist's chair on Wednesday while I was landing in London at Heathrow. Here's the results:

She's on a soft-food diet at the moment, due more to the pressure on her teeth than to any pain, but she's handling the yoghurt drinks, soups, apple sauce, and overcooked noodles pretty well so far. Hopefully in another day or two she'll be able to chew a little better.

All of this coincides with a big pile of goodies I brought back with me at the behest of Hannah and John. Actually, my mom wanted to send John a care package for his birthday, but first we were in Sweden and then her back got all jacked up, so it fell to me to arrange a calorie-laden birthday box. If Hannah's teeth don't get better soon, she'll miss out on the corn chips and Reese's pieces. I managed to convince her not to open a couple of things so they won't go stale before she can eat them, but it is a real test of her intestinal fortitude to forego all the treats.

We haven't managed to get out of the house since I got back around 9:30 pm on Wednesday, so tomorrow we really need to get out and procure the new tooth-care items her doctor has recommended, as well as some school supplies and groceries. The first day of school is right around the corner again!

Shannon

2010-09-09T12:58:00.003+02:00

As most of you are aware, my best friend Shannon Coad died last week.

I am not ready to talk about it.

I have read the outpouring of love and support for her and her family online, but I am just not ready to do it in that format. I spent a little time with John and Sherrie last weekend, and they know what is in my heart. That is all that matters.

Right now losing her is a big gaping wound whose edges don't even meet, much less starting to scab over or heal.

Someday I will find words, but for now, there are just tears.

Only in our family

2010-07-29T18:03:00.000+02:00

John and I* have this shrieky voice we use when we are going to say something offensive to the other person without really meaning it, or meaning it with love. Yesterday, John shriekily told me to “shut the hell up!” Hannah, who knows our weird ways, said sort of wistfully, “I hope I have a marriage like yours someday.”

While considering how to tell this story, it occurred to me that some things are just really hard to put into words without giving people the wrong idea.

Hannah is getting into the groove of our weirdness. The other day, John said something about the bigness of his butt (in the context of trying to navigate our long, narrow kitchen with all 3 of us in there), and I quipped that his butt is so big it has its own gravitational field, and Hannah chimed in that his butt needs its own weather forecast. I high-fived her for that one.

* I have generally moved on from the shrieky voice and play it straight. John finds it hilarious when we’re chatting in bed and he says something annoying and I tell him to fuck off. It’s twuu wuv!

Red is Blue

2010-07-22T12:43:00.003+02:00

I am sad.

A friend's husband has just found out that the surgery and months of chemoradiation he suffered through has basically not made a dent in his cancer, and even a radical surgery that would leave him without a tongue or vocal cords would only have a 25% chance of completely getting rid of the cancer. Hospice has been called in, and he is not expected to make it more than 6 months.

Every time I think about it, I start to cry. He's only 46. My friend is going to be a widow at 37.

It is so fucking unfair. I want to scream at the universe, hit something, put the pain somewhere outside my body.

All I can do is tell her I love her and hold them in my heart.

For the first time in living memory,

2010-07-15T15:48:00.002+02:00

...we are out of tomato paste. Please bow your heads before the enormity of that statement, because it means that the impossible has just become possible. John may not know how much milk, toilet paper, or coffee we have in the house, but he knows that civilization just may cease to exist if he doesn't come home from the store with a tube of tomato paste. Many's the time when I've fallen on my knees before him, shopping list in hand, "For the love of all that's holy--no. more. tomato paste." I was understandably panicky when I realized that the last 2 tablespoons of tomato paste in the house were stored safely in the vegetable crisper--just before I squeezed them into some carne guisada. Now I feel unanchored from reality, floating along on a tomato-pasteless tide. How will I survive until John is able to unleash his tomato paste-buying propensities on Saturday?

-Nee in Germany gets a bit emotional about tomato-based products

A little of this

2010-07-13T17:22:00.003+02:00

Hannah is off on her class trip. She wouldn't let me help her pack, so she forgot the folding fan I bought her and her retainer. I hope 4 retainer-less nights won't cause a big setback in her dental progress; probably not. A couple of days before they hopped on a train for their 1-hour tip, there were a couple of instances where the A/C went out on some trains and caused some students coming home from a class trip to suffer heat stroke. That's *just* what a mom wants to see on the news while preparing to ship off her kid.

I also had to sign another form for her to be able to do the climbing wall [this was the thing we were fighting about in my last post] and email it to the place. The original one got misplaced between my signing and their arriving. *sigh* We haven't heard from Hannah since then, so I hope everything is under control. She'll be back about 2pm on Friday.

Yesterday it was hot all day, to the point where I had to move my computer downstairs closer to the oscillating fan, but then a delightfully violent summer storm blew in in the evening and pelted us with rain and hail. John had tipped the upstairs windows, and rain managed to blow in across half the length of the room, so I had to run upstairs to mop up. This is what it looked like outside afterward:

At one point, we couldn't see anything beyond the tan house at the bottom of this picture because it was raining and hailing so hard.

It's been much nicer today. We've had just enough cloud cover and wind to make it comfortably warm as opposed to murderously hot. I wish I could paint. I would only paint clouds.

-Nee in Germany doesn't know her cumulus from her cirrus

Yesterday

2010-07-08T09:06:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was stupid.

I got up prepared to wage battle against my computer. Tuesday afternoon, my anti-virus software started giving me warnings every single time I changed web pages. Just checking my webmail was a travail. Tossing the alleged culprit from my temporary internet file folder--multiple times--did nothing. Ran the anti-virus software without it actually finding anything. Gave it up and decided to do it Wednesday morning.

I got up, started my computer in safe mode, started the virus check. While that ran--for 2 hours!--I washed the dishes, watered my plants, and vacuumed the entire house. When it was done, I discovered that it still hadn't found anything virus-y on my machine. It just didn't like that script running, apparently. Anyhow, through the power of my big brain and a quality I like to call stubbornness, I finally figured it out and got rid of the source of annoyance. By this time, it was close to noon.

I worked a bit on my translation, but it was hard to get into it. The elation of the previous day, when had I finished 1.5 times my normal workload, and the morning's triumph over my computer made it hard to settle down.

Then Hannah came home and accused me of not signing a form she needed for a rock-climbing event her P.E. coach had arranged (to take place in two weeks, I believe). We disagreed about that for a bit, then when she went to the bathroom, I checked her school stuff in her room. Where I did *not* find the form, but I found a different form that she had never shown me about tutoring in Latin. Not to go into too much detail, but I was immediately incandescently angry. The kind of angry where you completely shut down lest you choke the living shit out of someone. Yes, that angry.

So I made her go eat lunch and put the finishing touches on the presentation she is giving today on Texas. I was too mad to concentrate on working, so I just gave up and went to help her with her handout and slides. Which is when our new printer ran out of ink for the first time. *sigh* I should have known. So John took her stuff into town for copying this morning and will meet her before class to make the drop. I'll have to take the ink cartridge into town tomorrow to be refilled (refillable--yay!).

I figured I wouldn't be able to get to sleep with the Germany semi-final game starting at 8:30, so I stayed up farting around on the Internet when I had intended to write or blog. It was surprisingly quiet--a lack of goals will do that--with only the occasional sound of a dispeptic cow in the distance (aka, someone who can't make his vuvuzela work).

All in all, the day was a bust, minus the workout my circulatory system got from the rage jolt.

-Nee in Germany has hope that today will be better

New sub-title

2010-07-06T17:57:00.003+02:00

John called me that--"militantly anti-sentimental"--and it was perfect, so I stuck it up there with my title.

I used to worry that I was too unemotional, but that is not exactly true. I cry at yoghurt commercials and that one scene in Return of the King and that one song on the Wiggles. I just don't get worked up about getting old or dying or experiencing other calamities. That's just a part of life. Part of that I get from my grandmother, who used to say that she had gotten her 3 score of years and the rest was gravy. She was a pragmatist, and I picked up on that. Part of it is just me. And that's ok.

I'm baaack

2010-07-05T17:39:00.004+02:00

Last week was dreadful. It was hotter than Satan's oven, and I had the last of those articles to finish copyediting, and my office is on the top floor of an attic apartment with windows facing southweset, and it is hard to think when all of those factors conspire against you at the same time. But luckily, it cooled off a bit over the weekend and is now delightfully overcast, so my brain is functioning properly again and I can tell you all about all the non-thinking things I have done in the meanwhile.

Due to the mind-numbing heat, I have had to be extra-vigilant about watering my balcony plants. I don't know what this is, but I got it as a little gift from a guest, and I bunged it in the pot with the walnut tree and the dead mice for want of a better place for it, yet it is thriving there.

I have a variety of flowers growing from seeds, none of which I know the name of.

This is some cilantro I let get away from me. Apparently, you are supposed to use it before it puts out flowers. The leaves near the flowers don't taste good, but maybe there are still some bigger leaves lower down that are still edible. John is making guacamole tonight, and baby needs some cilantro for it!

Someday, this will be chamomile. Right now, it is just some disgusting green stuff. God help us if that is how the tea is supposed to taste. (I don't drink it anyway, but John does.)

There's also the mystery citrus plant. Every year, I drag it indoors in the fall, and it gets scraggly and droopy and its leaves fall off if you look at them, and I do a little creative snipping on it, and when spring comes, I drag it out on the balcony and say, "The hell with it." Then it puts out a bunch of healthy leaves that you can't get off with pliers. Still no fruit, though.

Here's another victim of my long-term gardening. This poinsettia still has a few faded pink leaves from when I successfully forced it this last winter. And look--a bud!

Finally, we have the biggest disappointment of my 2010 gardening attempts. Looking at the thick, healthy leaves, you'd think I was well on my way to a motherlode of flowers. Well, you'd be wrong. Wondering what was up with the mystery plants (because I always neglect to label the planters), I dug out the seed packets I had saved and discovered I had planted carnations. Yay! Carnations! My favorite flowers! And then turned over the packet to discover they only put out flowers in the second year. What a blow.

After I got my editing sent off Friday evening, I devoted myself to a weekend full of watering and cleaning. John was disappointed on Saturday that I would rather stay at home with a bunch of cat fuzz and caustic chemicals than go swimming with him, but really, the house needed it and I had been planning it for half of the week. It takes me that long to build up to these things. John didn't give me half a week to embrace the idea of swimming, which I don't care for that much to start with. Plus, he was happy to have been gone when I told him that Cry-Baby came on tv, AND I WATCHED IT. Luckily, I had a lot of stuff already sprayed or washed and drying, so I could devote myself to the deliciousness that is a young Johnny Depp. I must have watched this movie once a week the whole time I was preggers with Hannah and during her infancy (I think Jooge turned me on to it--how can I thank you enough?!), so it is probably melded with her DNA somehow. Anyhow, when I wasn't getting all hot and bothered over Johnny Depp in his tighty whiteys (let that image sink in, ladies), I was scrubbing the shit out of bathrooms and the kitchen. Major spring cleaning type stuff.

On Sunday, Cry-Baby came on again, so Hannah got to enjoy the beauty of it first hand (she had accompanied a friend shopping on Saturday and so missed out on the glory). John avoided it by washing the dishes, slowly and thoroughly. Afterward, I put together a new bookcase and got my side of the closet a little bit neater by moving all the books out of it and into the new bookcase. I also got my office neatened up now that the one project was over but before I got back to the other project. It made it nice to get back to work this morning.

Then Hannah wanted me to cut her hair. I told her that she'd have to get in the shower right after dinner if she really wanted me to do it. Normally she has achieved a mind meld with the television at that point and requires a blasting cap to get her moving, but I must have come across as sufficiently serious for her to get a move on. She has thick hair, like her dad, and she was getting annoyed with "sweaty neck", so off it came, all but a section that she is braiding and pushing behind her ear so she looks like a Padawan learner.

I'm sure there are other things I've forgotten, but I need to go start dinner, so farewell, friends and loved ones, for now.

2010-06-30T15:13:00.003+02:00

John got home Sunday night, tired but happy. Since then, I've been busily working away, and everyone else has been busy, too, so not much has been happening to report on. John had over 400 pictures(!) from his Russia trip, but he managed to weed them down to somehere in the 200s. Last night he got them posted, but not completely labeled, to Flickr.

Hannah is suddenly eager to work on her school project about Texas because otherwise she has to study Latin. Rather than make her wade through a bunch of stuff online, I bought her a book to use while I was in Texas in March. It's a rather simple book, but the project is for English class, and her classmates haven't gotten so good in English yet that they could follow something too complicated, so I guess it will work out.

-Nee in Germany, not dead yet

The Wisdom of Hannah

2010-06-27T16:57:00.002+02:00

Walking to the bus with Hannah on one of the play nights last week, I asked her about her grades. She told me that her Latin teacher thought she could get her grade up if she put in some more work. Then, she said the most amazing thing: "Mom, will you help me?" I told her that was the first time I could recall her asking me for help with school (usually I just boss her around, unasked). Then I mentioned that I had just bought a book for her to help with Latin (I do that a lot--our collection is quite extensive). She moaned and groaned. I pointed out that she *had* asked for my help. "Yes, but I didn't say I wouldn't complain." That was so Hannah, I just burst out laughing.

Play Report

2010-06-27T14:51:00.002+02:00

At Hannah's school, extracurricular activities aren't extensions of regular classes like when I was in school in Texas, for instance, classes for band or drama. Instead, they are completely voluntary, after-school clubs. I think (this is Hannah's first year) participation gets marked in the kids' end-of-year report cards, but there is no grade for it. This year, Hannah joined the theater club, to mine and John's surprise, and this week, they put on their play, three times.

Since John has been out of town all week and therefore unable to pull his weight in the areas of attendance at the play and accompanying Hannah home after 8 p.m., I have been to all three shows. I now consider myself somewhat of an expert on Hannah's club's adaptation of Sarah Weeks's novel, So B. It.

The basic premise of the play in the stripped-down version I saw (there's more plot info at the amazon link above) was that a girl living with her mentally retarded mother and an agoraphobic neighbor runs away to travel across the country to try to find out about her mother's past and her own roots. Hannah played the role of the girl's father, who lives in the home where the girl's mother had once lived.

The play opened with a bunch of girls in white dancing around the stage with some white boxes that got left behind. The boxes were the main props in the play, serving as chairs, tables, beds, benches, even a bus. The bus scene was really well done, too. The boxes as bus seats were offset from each other so all of the passengers--an elderly pair of sisters (one of whom complained the whole time), a mother and bratty kid, a lady who talked nonstop about her cats when given the slightest opening, the main character--were visible to the audience. A screen had been placed at the back of the stage, and passing scenery was projected on to it. The only bit that was kind of off was the sound effects for the bus motor--it sounded like a souped-up lawn mower.

All in all, I thought they did a really good job.

After the third performance, the kids had to stick around to dismantle as much of the stage as the could; Hannah's school is in a historical building in the old part of town, meaning there is not a lot of space inside or outside where they could have expanded to add a theather, so they have to cram their performances in the foyer of the school. Some work men will probably be there on Monday to take down the risers. I waited out in the courtyard with some other parents and jotted this all down before I forgot. I was also driven slightly mad by the delicious smell of grilled meat wafting over from the far end of the courtyard. I mentioned the space issue with Hannah's school; the building forms a U at one end of a courtyard, and the other U is made up of a church and either some apartments or a co-op (Hannah wasn't sure). They have a yard that is fenced off from the school courtyard and seemed to be having a grill party. Hannah and I agree that it must suck to live that close to a high school, especially when the kids are out in the courtyard during their breaks.

John took our digital camera to Russia with him, so I had to take photos with an old analog camera. I'll try to come back and add a photo or two later when I have the film developed.

-Nee in Germany forgot her ticket for the third performance at home

I gots the brain pain

2010-06-25T16:12:00.002+02:00

Yuck. Just waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in. But at least I got that horrible article done and out the door.

Got a random phone call. I didn't recognize the speaker's voice, and he (I thought it was a he) wanted to play "guess who I am". Annoy-ing. Turned out to be John's aunt-in-law, who apparently is here in Germany. I think she may have just landed, because she was in Frankfurt, and her family is in Bavaria. Probably waiting on a layover to Munich. She thought I sounded ill, and I thought she sounded like a man, so it wasn't the best conversation we've ever had, but at least it was short. Maybe we'll hear back from her when she is settled and de-jetlagged.

I think I'll work on the dishes while I am so mentally useless. Hannah's play is running through Saturday, and I am going to all of the shows. I have to leave here around 5:30 to run a couple of errands beforehand, so it is not really worth it to start another article (well, to pick up where I left off yesterday on another article) this late in the afternoon. After I sleep in tomorrow, I'll report on Hannah's play.

Licorice

2010-06-23T14:46:00.003+02:00

I am on the hunt for some decent licorice. First I picked up a bag of hard licorice. I had to stick a new piece in my mouth to unstick the old piece from my molars, that is how hard they were. Then I got a bag of soft licorice (same brand). It is unsatisfyingly mushy, a bit like those red jelly candies we used to get around Easter. Dear God, why can't I find a proper licorice I can chew without damaging my dental health?! *ahem* I'll put that on my next grocery list.

So tired

2010-06-22T21:18:00.002+02:00

Hannah had theater rehearsal this afternoon, so I wrapped up work around 5:30 to start the rice for fried rice later. I washed some dishes, and around 6:30 I started heating the oven for egg rolls. Then I got the fried rice and hot and sour soup going. Now it was past 7, and Hannah still wasn't home. So I called her cell phone. Not on. I kept on with the dishes. I fried the hell out of that rice. I called her phone 8 or 12 more times. Not on. I rushed to the window every time a bus came. She didn't get off. I turned the stove off. John called from Moscow, and at first I thought it was her (the numbers are similar). Freaked John out (that call cost him !13! Euros via our cell phone). Promised to call him when I heard from her. Cried. Called her phone. Called her school. Looked up the teacher's home number and called there. No answers. Finally, at 8:30 PM!--30 minutes after her toothbrushing and getting ready for bed time--she gets off the bus, looking totally unconcerned. I was so relieved I felt weak, but not too weak to rip her up one side and almost make her cry. She said she didn't even know what time it was. Called John and gave him the good news that I hadn't lost Hannah while he was gone. Got her fed and ready for bed, and now I think I will go to bed early, too.

Shopping

2010-06-21T21:00:00.002+02:00

For some reason, when John is home, I tend to be somewhat reluctant about doing housework, but as soon as he leaves on a trip, I sack up and do what needs to be done, I guess because I know he won't be along to pick up the slack. He's only been gone since Friday, and I am already tired.

Hannah had a project for school, and I was really impressed by her ingenuity in getting it done. She had to record a poem, complete with sound effects for German class, so she used her ipod to record all the various parts. I went online and found a short demo for her on using Windows Movie Maker to cut and mix audio, and between the two of us, we got everything converted, imported, cut, mixed, saved, and uploaded this evening so she can play it in class tomorrow. (I also had to find another copy of the poem for her online, because it somehow got "lost"--she claims a classmate took it--between the day she told me about the project and a couple of days before it was due.)

I went into town with Hannah today to do a little shopping. I don't leave the house that much now that I am working full time from home, so it was nice to have a little break. She didn't have to go to school today because the seniors are taking their oral final exams and the school cut the other kids loose to reduce the noise level, but she did have rehearsal for the play starting at 12:30. We got up at a relatively early time, 8:30-ish, and after sending off another edited chapter, we got on the bus for our shopping spree.

Hannah's birthday money was really burning a hole in her pocket, and I had told her she could spend part of it. She had a firm idea of what she wanted, too, because she had fixated on the pajamas that Mia wears during her post-breakup depression in Princess Diaries 9. We found Hello Kitty pjs, but not fuzzy ones, damn the luck. I told Hannah that it is summer, and no one has AC--why would they be selling fuzzy pjs at this time of year? I also let her buy eyeshadow and an eyeliner--she played with them for a while after she got home and decided that she wouldn't wear them to school because she thought they made her look "slutty." Well, when your first attempt at eyeliner gives you Cleopatra eyes, yes, it might be a bit too much. I'm sure she will get with a friend and figure it out eventually, but for now I am not too upset at her decision. (Obviously, I am the wrong person to help her.) I had already put my foot down on high heels, though, which she feels is totally unfair of me, but too bad. As long as I can keep her distracted with Chucks, skinny jeans, and Star Wars t-shirts, she won't have to die of the shame of not having high heels.

After she went off to rehearsal, I rounded off my errands with a trip to the grocery store for some victuals for the actors on opening night (Thursday), since the teachers warned us the kids wouldn't have time to run out for something to eat beforehand. I also hit the Asian grocery for hot and sour soup mix, baking soda, and John's rooster sauce (hot!). Then I had to lug everything over to a different bus stop than I would usually use because the road into our village is currently being redone and the bus route is all screwed up for those of us trying to get there.

And now I have to go make sure all the windows are closed before heading to bed. John complains that it is stuffy if we don't have at least one window open at night, but Hannah and I have been waking up "grunky" (her term) thanks to the cold spell* we are having. John's not here, so stuffy it is.

*Germans even have a name for it: sheep's cold. Apparently there is an increased risk of a cold spell around the middle of June due to some meteorological stuff I didn't bother to memorize, a time when (historically) the sheep would already be sheared and therefore susceptible to the cold.

--Nee in Germany can hear the sheep bleating up the hill from her

Chatty

2010-06-20T09:20:00.003+02:00

John is off to a linguistics conference in Moscow. He left Friday with a colleague, and a group of them were going to spend the weekend doing tourist-y stuff before the conference starts on Monday. He has promised me a matryoshka doll and Hannah a Hard Rock t-shirt (if Moscow has a Hard Rock Cafe, which I don't doubt).

So Hannah and I are on our own for the next week. It is going to be a busy one, too. She is in the theater club at school, and they are gearing up to put on their play, So B. It, starting on Thursday. She spent all of yesterday afternoon at rehearsal and went back this morning for another full day of it (9-3). She complained about all the sleeping in and tv-watching she was missing out on, but I pointed out that it is only 1 weekend and will be over soon. I also pointed out that she doesn't have school tomorrow, so she can sleep in a little then before rehearsals start again at 1. I was surprised that Hannah decided to join the theater club, because she is generally not a joiner, but she has stuck with it. Oddly enough, she got the role she has (as the slightly mentally retarded father of the main character, I think) because the teacher in charge thought Hannah was the only kid who seemed to be able to be serious about it when they had their retreat in March. Hannah, serious? She's a better actor than I thought, haha!

I am trying to use the forced alone time to get more work done on the book I am editing, and maybe get a little of my own writing in. We'll have to see how that goes.

--Nee in Germany is all alone. There's no one here beside me. My problems have all gone. There's no one to deride me, but you gotta have friends...

Quote

2010-06-19T13:18:00.000+02:00

Found this while looking for something work related:

Be who you are and say what you want, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

--Dr. Seuss

All Over

2010-06-13T20:59:00.003+02:00

On Saturday, we attended a graduation ceremony for yours truly. Which was kind of weird, because I finished my exams a year ago January, turned in my thesis last July, received my diploma in the mail this January, and now it is June. But not all departments even hold a graduation ceremony, so I was happy to go.

There was a short welcome speech from a faculty member.

Then the English Department choir sang. John took some video footage of it, if anyone is interested.

Then the main speaker.

(The room was gorgeous, all wood carving and paintings, but it really seemed to suck up the light in our photos. Sorry.)

Then some more singing. Then the graduates (and people taking their exams but soon to graduate) were called up one by one.

A lot more people came than had been expected, so we really filled up the front of the room.

Afterward, we were served champagne and buttered pretzels (this *is* Southern Germany, after all).

(For those of you keeping track at home, in this photo I am wearing pumps and Hannah is not, yet she is taller than me.)

Then Hannah and John took me out to lunch. Hannah really wanted Chinese, but since she doesn't actually differentiate between Asian cuisines, we went to the Thai restaurant within view of the university building where the ceremony had been held. John decided to base his order on how obscene the dish sounded and ended up with Ped Rad Prik ("crispy fried duck with chili sauce"). Hilarity ensued: "You really seem to like that Prik." "You just can't get enough Prik, can you?" And so on in that manner.

I think John's 2 glasses of champagne went to his head, because Hannah and I were trying to explain about an experiment we had seen on Mythbusters about beer goggles, and he wouldn't stop watching a fly that got caught in a spider web in the corner behind him. It was his fault the fly got caught in the first place, because somehow (I didn't see it happen) he managed to knock one of the fly's legs off, making that 5-legged little sucker a sitting duck, so to speak. It was like being involved in the production of the most boring nature show ever.

Afterward, they wanted ice cream, so we headed down the street for it. The interprising ice cream salesmen had hung one of those stupid vuvuzelas (the horrible plastic horn that Africa has introduced to soccer fandom) out front and invited people to blow it. A couple had just given it a go when we walked up, and then while I was waiting for John and Hannah to order, I watched a little kid, maybe 4, walk up with his mouth wide open to blow into it. Luckily, the adult with him pulled it away and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. Just like with a public toilet, you are taking your chances with one of those things.

On the way to the parking garage, John insisted on one last photo to commemorate my time at the university.

Now the umbilical cord is officially cut. Hello, cruel world!

Too inappropriate

2010-06-11T15:38:00.002+02:00

...for facebook. But here, anything goes.

Here's another quote from me, for the record books:
"If what you just said is likely to be cross-stitched and put up in someone's bathroom, it's not really pillow talk, *John*."

Working from home

2010-06-03T19:33:00.000+02:00

So I am now more or less officially* working from home as a freelance translator and editor. For the first few weeks, I was working from the dining room table, or the living room recliner.

My back wasn't too happy with either of those arrangements.

It didn't take too long to realize that the desk I had bought Hannah was primarily being used as a horizontal surface for storing books, and ostensibly clean clothes, and anything that missed the floor. So I stole it from her and put it up in our sunroom, which is now doubling as my office. The chair is fairly comfortable, the desk surface extensive, and the view wonderful. I should be able to make a ton of money up here!

*Note to self: time to send in some paperwork for this, that, and the other.

Forgetful Jones, part 2

2010-06-03T16:06:00.003+02:00

I'd forget my head if it weren't for my neck...

Around the time we were initially discussing a vacation to Greece, a little volcano by the name of Eyjafjallajokull was closing air space all over Europe. Add that to the problems Greece has by itself--economy cratering, protests leading to fires and deaths, strikes, the annual summer wildfires, plague of frogs--and I was as nervous then about traveling to Greece myself as I am now about John traveling to Russia in a couple of weeks alone. (Well, with a group of linguists, but not with me.)

Google's ads are tempting him, though. Every time I am around when he checks his email, he informs me of the latest travel specials--Crete! London! Berlin!

We just found out that our friends are staying in Switzerland one more year, though, so I think the weekend trip we had been planning could easily be expanded to include a visit to them and a bit of a vacation to boot.

On Memorial Day

2010-06-01T09:19:00.002+02:00

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

-Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)*

*from the A.Word.A.Day email newsletter

Two eyes, four eyes, blue eyes, more eyes?

2010-05-31T11:34:00.001+02:00

When I was in the third grade, I got glasses. I could once again make out leaves on the trees, and I got "most improved player" in softball.* By the fourth grade, I had already had my lenses strengthened twice, so it was time to go into hard contact lenses. Those also needed to be upgraded once or twice a year until I was in my late teens, but they were supposed to help slow down the deterioration. Since then, I have always had contact lenses, although I haven't always worn them. There have been several long periods--after Hannah was born, after moving to Germany--where I got new glasses and didn't bother to wear my contacts. Unfortunately, in all my years of glasses-wearing, I have never figured out the best way to care for them, and inevitably the lenses get scratched. That is very annoying, especially since the current batch of scratches is right in the center of the lens. In addition to that particular annoyance, I can't wear sunglasses while wearing my scratched-up regular glasses. That was brought home to me while visiting Legoland last weekend. We had a rare sunny spell, and it would have been a lot more comfortable with shades. (And a hat, but I have noted that for next time.)

So, with all that background now thoroughly explained, I am having to train myself to wear contacts again. When you first get them (hard ones, at least), you have to gradually build up to wearing them all day. I am up to 4 or 5 hours a day at the moment. Since I am working from home, and my work space is right across the hall from the bathroom, it has been a fairly simple procedure; it would be a hassle if I had to tote the supplies around with me. Tomorrow I have to take Hannah back to the orthodontist, so maybe I will get myself some new shades while I am out to celebrate my newly independent eyeballs.

*My improved visual acuity did not included improved depth perception, nor improved hand-eye coordination, so I was never going to play softball professionally, but at least I didn't completely suck rocks any more.

Vacations of the stars

2010-05-29T18:23:00.003+02:00

"Lydia ... never heard nor saw anything of which she chose to be insensible." --Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

In summers past, Hannah and I left vacation planning completely to John. Those were the cold, drizzly vacations we spent in Sweden.

And Scotland.

After those, Hannah and I insisted on somewhere warm. We can get cold and drizzly at home. John took pity on us and planned a trip to Italy. That is definitely the place to go if you want heat.

This year, he has really been pushing for Greece. His original plan was to land in Athens, look around a couple of days, and catch a ferry to Crete.

Hmm, I said, are you sure about that? What about the financial crisis?

Ah, it won't affect us.

What about the protests?

That's just the Greek way of letting off steam.

What about the deaths?

Um, maybe we'll just skip Athens and fly straight to Crete.

In the meanwhile, I have made a few more pertinent points regarding our finances and upcoming expenses (which do include travel for John), and I think Greece will have to wait for us.

But in other news, Greece has been overrun with frogs.

Things that make you go WHAT?!

2010-04-27T14:35:00.003+02:00

The washing machine repairman came today. He left the machine running with some special detergent for removing gunk, and I spent the next hour randomly feeling up the machine to make sure the water was really getting hot. It was! And we were only out 2/3 of the original cost for this 6-year-old machine. *sigh*

Hormones are kicking my ass. They haven't been making me crazy (that I can tell), but it would be a kindness if my face would just explode already and stop being colonized by monster zits. *sigh*

Hannah brought up the mail this afternoon: an L.L. Bean catalog. Ok, not an unusual experience. I pulled off the plastic wrap to find a quarter of the back cover neatly ripped off and completely missing. How did that happen?!

I will be spending my next couple of evenings researching computer printers. Ours has finally gotten to the point that it is unusable--actually, we might be able to print in color, but I got too frustrated with it on Sunday to verify that. I need to go into town tomorrow, so I will look at what is available there, then on Friday we are going to the mall and will look at what is available there, and maybe by this weekend we can have a new one up and running. *sigh*

We bought Hannah Sims 3 for xmas, and she was happily playing along when John's hard drive pooped, and now it won't load on the new hard drive. Who knows what is going on there, but neither of us have time at the moment to really look into it. *sigh*

The leak in the car mysteriously stopped as suddenly as it started, but now the AC compressor doesn't work, nor the windshield wipers. Coincidence? I wish! We could probably get by ok without the AC, but not the wipers (which, by the way, I managed to change all by myself, after carrying them around in the hatch space for *cough* at least a year *cough*). *sigh*

Otherwise, things are going just swimmingly! :)

-Nee in Germany just realized she sounds like a downer today

Surprise!

2010-04-23T20:15:00.004+02:00

That's how we felt when we discovered that the computer John had bought in January was having problems recently and would have to get a new hard drive. WHAT?! John called customer support and was walked through some test in order to find that out. Oddly enough, I had run a diagnostic test myself just the week before, but the code that came up wasn't on the list I had access to, and I misunderstood the text that mentioned something about not being able to access a disk, something something. Turns out, that *did not* refer to the CD disk drive. *sigh* None of that would have been that big of a deal, but when John went to save the C drive to the backup disk, Windows didn't bother to include any of his data in that, only the programs and their data. Then the technician came and took away the old drive and mailed it off for reconditioning before we noticed the problem. John has pointed out that he was lucky to only have had the computer for a few months and not to have put that many new documents on it, to have some data in email and online, but it was still a very sucky frustration.

In less frustrating news, I got a rush translation job this week and made a wad of cash. Ka-ching! Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of time I would need and had to put in some extra hours I would normally reserve as non-work time late in the evening and early in the morning. But the doctor who hired me didn't seem to mind that it was a little late.

Hannah is harassing us to make an elaborate birthday party supply order from amazon us, just so she can have a ton of Star Wars swag on her birthday. Most of her friends are going to be out of town; we could make the Star Wars stuff ourselves with our color printer and some glue. Today I was teasing her about her nerd cred--she misremembered the subtitle on a Fantastic Four (*heh* I just typed "Fabulous Four") movie--and she said it was hard growing up in a nerd-free country. I asked if she felt like she didn't fit in, but that wasn't the case--there just aren't enough nerd role-models here to emulate.

I lost some of my balcony plants, including the mystery tree, the smaller walnut tree, and the lavender. I didn't really like the lavender very much, and I didn't even know what the mystery tree was, so I guess it was not too much of a loss, and now I can reuse their pots. All my flower boxes have sprouted so far, and I finally have seedlings coming up in my herb pot as well. Yay, cilantro! I need to cut back my poinsettia and just generally do some gardening this weekend.

John and I take turns planning meals and grocery shopping, but Hannah was not pleased with John's choices this last week, many of which were meat-less. "I neeeed meeeeat!" she moaned at every meal. Scurvy, I am telling you. Anyhow, today I got sick of her whining about the lack of meat and the lack of instant food for lunches and told her that if she didn't like it, she could do it herself. And she did! She sat down with our kitchen notepad and started planning meals. When she ran out of ideas, she fetched a stack of cookbooks and started looking for more ideas. One of us still has to drive her to the store (and probably cook some of the meals), but my baby sacked up and offered to take on some responsibility! *sniff*

And now I will try to post this with the poor internet connect from up in our sunroom.

-Nee in Germany looks forward to meat

Forgetful Jones

2010-04-20T08:21:00.002+02:00

God, I always leave something out of my posts, so this will be the general catch-up post.

Poor Hannah, with her Star Wars fetish, missed out on the Star Wars characters at the mall last winter. After one of our near-death attempts to deliver Hannah to a birthday party in a different town--a successful attempt, although we almost killed each other over it--John and I went grocery shopping at said mall, and it was overrun with adults dressed up as Star Wars characters. One of the shops had a big Star Wars sale, with costumes and Lego sets on display in the main mall. I couldn't find a light saber like Hannah wanted, and I couldn't be tempted to buy one of the Lego sets, but I was tempted to pinch the butt of one of the Storm Troopers to see if I could get a reaction. I decided against it in the end.

Hannah has also been haunting an American costume shop online and has discovered a Princess Leia costume that she wants. It comes with a Darth Vader head for collecting candy in, but she thought something a little more R2D2 would be more appropriate. She is bemoaning our lack of a dog--we aren't really dog people, though--because they even make Star Wars costumes for dogs. I can't remember the second choice, but the first was Han Solo.

And in technology forgetfulness: After I got John's Palm up-to-date, I plugged in a card reader to get some photos loaded onto my computer from our digital camera. John commented on the many little gadgets I have invested in recently, and I had to point out that if our many electronic devices still work fine except for one little detail--Palm cable won't connect to computer, camera cable won't connect to computer--isn't it better to buy a little gadget for 10 or 20 bucks and get several more years out of the device rather than toss it and shell out hundreds of bucks for a replacement? I had him there.

John and I aren't averse to buying things, just wasting things. Which is why the washing machine repair man is coming next week to look at our washer. It should heat its own water, but I don't think it has done that in a while. That hasn't concerned me too much, because even Al Gore recommends washing in cold to save energy. But when slimy gray bits started showing up on our clothes, bits that would not have formed if we had been able to occasionally use hot water (as proved by my pouring hot water into the machine and getting rid of the gray bits behind the drum), then it is time for a repair.

And now if I have forgotten anything, it will be lost to the mists of time.

-Nee in Germany uses Forgetful Jones for her Facebook icon, sometimes

I fought the technology, and I won

2010-04-19T20:05:00.003+02:00

John has been so sweet; he's been posting my technological successes on his Facebook page, even.

It started with hooking up my laptop to our LCD tv. John has been on a youtube kick, watching various stand-up comedians like Billy Connelly, and Eddie Izzard. And he also found some Far Side specials. So of course he wanted to share these with us, but he couldn't quite figure out how to force us in front of the little screen on my laptop, or crammed in front of the desktop computer in the study. That's where I came in.

All of these little successes started with some online research, naturally, so I could avoid buying things that I would then have to send back. Five packages in the mail later, I have set up a converter (requiring three separate cables) for connecting my laptop to our tv, and installed an infrared device on my laptop so we can finally (after 2 years) upload John's data from his Palm for safekeeping and also download electronic texts for him to read.

And of course, buying the proper equipment didn't mean that it just up and worked as required on the first (or second, or third) try. There was all sorts of adjusting and more looking up tips before I hit on the right combinations. One thing that still irks me about the tv set-up is that I can't just use it as a projector, i.e., what's on my monitor shows up on the screen. I had to set up the tv as a second monitor, which means that my monitor is now functionally twice as wide, with the left half still visible on my laptop and the right half visible on the television. It is strange mousing off the right side of the laptop monitor and trying to keep track of where I am on the tv screen. But once you get it set up, you can't really tell that it's not tv-ready programming.

I also bought some more ink for our printer to see if the name brand really does a better job than the store brand, or if our printer is just that sucky by itself, and some new surge protectors for John's newish computer. It has been doing this weird shut-down thing that could be due to our landlord's shitty wiring, and I'm hoping the new strip will help.

Unfortunately, I have allowed all this setting up to cut into my work time, so I need to see if I can't get caught up soon. That may be easier said than done, though. Hannah and I have dentist's appointments tomorrow after school, and I am helping her get ready for a math test on Friday. Luckily, she has afternoon class at least one day this week, so I have a few more child-free hours in which to work.

I never know how to end these entries. Maybe I should take a page out of mimi smartypants' book:
—mimi smartypants wrestled a pangolin once.
—mimi smartypants does what her brain tells her.
—mimi smartypants tells James Joyce, in no uncertain terms, to put it back in his pants.

-Nee in Germany is good with plugs

Isn't it funny...

2010-04-09T09:54:00.001+02:00

how being effective leads to more effectiveness, but being a lazy loaf just leads to nothing? And you get a brand new chance every. single. day. to manage either of them? Just thinking aloud.

Yucky Easter

2010-04-04T18:10:00.002+02:00

The weather has been quite bad today, wave after wave of dark clouds and rain. Luckily, Hannah is too big for egg hunting, which we wouldn't really be able to do outside anyway since we don't have a yard or a playground nearby. But after chomping down an 8-inch-high chocolate bunny, she complained about the dearth of candy around here. She seems to think that the American version of every holiday is an orgy of candy (although in this case, she wouldn't be far off the mark), and it is unfair that we have separated her from her sugar-laden heritage.

I have been in various stages of soreness all day today. Yesterday I defrosted and cleaned the freezer (which is on the bottom), and scrubbed all the gunk out from underneath. All that kneeling and squatting made my thighs hurt, only I don't notice it until I want to get up from sitting.

I also started planting the seeds for my herbs and flowers on the balcony. I got most of the planter boxes cleaned out and topped off with new soil, but I had to stop when, surprise!, the weather turned cold and wet yesterday afternoon. I am pretty sure that defrosting your freezer or starting your gardening works like washing your car for attracting rain clouds. At least I had the sense to put the planter boxes I had already seeded onto the balcony floor instead of back out on the railing to get washed away in the rain. In a couple of weeks, I might have some seedlings.

Not paying attention

2010-04-04T17:06:00.005+02:00

On a recent shopping trip, I wanted to treat myself to one of my favorite German candies, gummi-colas.

Only, when I got home, Hannah pointed out that I had managed to buy FRUIT-flavored gummi-colas.

Okay, I suppose. I mean, I am familiar with cherry coke,

and lemon pepsi

and pomegranate 7-up.

(Heh, that last one is actually 1. not a cola, and 2. a recent find of Hannah's from the import shop.)

But if you will notice on the bag, the third fruit is (not pomegranate) orange. I don't recall there being an orange-flavored cola in the States, but they drink it over here.

There is another one called Schwip Schwap.

I wouldn't drink either of them, for I hate orange, but I like the commercials for Schwip Schwap better. They show a lab where people are trying various methods for getting the cola in the orange, with humorous results.

Anyhow, Hannah was able to reassure me that the gummis didn't actually taste like anything but cola, so I was able to chow down on them without worrying about them including any extra flavors or vitamins. *whew!*

I've got to start reading the packaging more closely, though. Who knows what it will be next time...

Follow along

2010-03-25T13:38:00.002+01:00

I took a break from translating earlier to eat lunch and clean the stairwell. Normally, our house is as quiet as the grave, minus our cats meowing their heads off, but someone went into or out of each of the other 3 apartments during the 45 minutes or so I was sweeping and mopping.

The last person came out of the apartment directly below us. I thought it might be the son, who was a teenager when we first moved in here and is now in his early twenties. I don’t know what he does exactly, but I remembered that I’ve seen him with the ambulance service, so I thought he might be an ambulance driver, and thought that was pretty cool. But then I remembered that in Germany, young men have mandatory military service; if they object, they are allowed to do social service instead. So maybe he was doing the ambulance thing as part of his social service. Still cool.

This thought led to the memory of the members of Tokio Hotel getting their orders, but trying to get out of it because they were on tour in America. And then I realized that there was no situation I could imagine the German army being in where they would say, “Damn, if only we had Bill Kaulitz here!”

A little of this...

2010-03-24T19:30:00.002+01:00

I am in a really good mood because I have a translating gig that is going really well so far. Except for the fact that the spacebar on my laptop is acting up. It was worse earlier, even after I used canned air to blow under it. Now it is just occasional, but not quite often enough to make me want to throw my laptop across the room.

Since I was working on the translation, John took Hannah to the orthodontist yesterday. And of course neither of them could tell me exactly what was said, just that she has another appointment in May and will indeed be getting regular braces. So I called today to ask if I should arrange to have her teeth sealed at her upcoming check-up/cleaning. And also, what is the deal with the braces? Long story short, the orthodontist will be doing the sealing on the fronts of the teeth when she puts the brackets on, sometime over the summer. I think Hannah will be in them for a whole year.

John wants to get through more of the songs on Rock Band at the "difficult" level, and when making his choice just now, he said, "This guitarist only has four fingers. It can't be that hard." He was talking about a Black Sabbath song. Looks hard to me.

I'm really supposed to be cleaning the stairwell since this is our week and it is my turn (we're so egalitarian). But John is my enabler, and he got me on my weak side: "It's already 7!" I like going to bed early, and my sense of duty couldn't overcome my love of lots of sleep. So tomorrow I will use a bit of the time when I'm taking a break from translating to do the cleaning.

The weather is super nice, and I really wish I could be spending my daylight hours out on the balcony, playing in the dirt, but alas, my work ethic has kicked in and I am trying to stick with it, damn the luck! But, I give myself little coffee or fruit breaks to get some fresh air and stretch, so I used the hand that wasn't holding my apple today to pull dead plants out of one of the planter boxes. Unfortunately, my bucket for collecting stuff for the organic waste can is full, so that put a crimp in my "gardening." I guess I'll drag it downstairs tomorrow when I'm cleaning the stairwell.

And with that, I will start rounding everyone up for bed. Night!

Hannah has gone to the Dark Side

2010-02-08T18:37:00.007+01:00

Hannah has decided that she is a huge Star Wars fan and that she therefore needs more Star Wars stuff. We have all the movies on video, so that is a start. She has also given one of the characters on Animal Crossing the catchphrase "StarWarsRox".

Two Halloweens ago, we went through the epic struggle to find a Storm Trooper costume, successfully, as it turned out. But now Hannah has outgrown her costumes and they are in the hands of her male cousins. What would they know about Star Wars?

Oh, that.

I bought myself an Empire Strikes Back t-shirt at Old Navy when we were in Louisiana; when she saw a Star Wars t-shirt at H&M here in town, she begged me to buy it for her. I hate to say it, but mine is much better quality. At least it is not almost sheer.

She discovered that the animated Clone Wars series is on tv on Sundays and about had a nergasm. Like most programs she likes, we are not allowed to breath a word while it is on, at the risk of being shushed and getting the glare of death. I have to say, the animated series is better than the movies I-III, and this from a dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars fan.

All of this was kicked off by us buying a copy of Fanboys while in Texas after having it recommended by a new-ish relative who, it turns out, is as big a nerd as we are.

We watched it again last night, and Hannah said she wants to have a Star Wars funeral, maybe have her ashes scattered at the Lucas Ranch. I pointed out that she will probably feel differently about it when she is 90, but that if she gets run over by a bus next week, I will try for the Star Wars funeral angle, and that seemed to satisfy her.

Despite my nerd creds, Hannah has a hard time talking me into buying her Star Wars stuff. Unfortunately for her, my tightwad side overrides my nerd side in department stores. Also, I am constitutionally unable to spend a big chunk of cash on what is basically a hunk of plastic with a brand name on it (i.e., a light saber). In the third place, she doesn't have anyone to fight with here at home (unlike in the photo above), so that means John and I would be the recipients of the inevitable light-saber-whacking.

Oddly enough, I remember what it was like to want Star Wars stuff and not get it, but in my case, my mother wouldn't let me buy action figures or vehicles, only stuffed animals (Ewoks) and t-shirts and the occasional coloring book. Those fell into the "acceptable for girls" category. When I wasn't trying to trace the movie poster for Return of the Jedi out of the newspaper, I was longing desperately for a little plastic Luke Skywalker and his jiffy speeder. I was definitely a tom-boy growing up, playing softball (badly) and spending the time I wasn't reading on my bike, and I guess this was where my mother felt she had to put her foot down. Most of the time, she told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I also internalized the message--from where, I am not sure--that anything boys could do, I could do better, so having my mom be so anti-action figures was a real blow. BUT, when I was in my 20's and already married, she bought me a Millenium Falcon 3D puzzle. I guess she figured that the odds of me turning out as a lesbian as a result were pretty low at that point, so it was a safe purchase.

[Edited to add:] I forgot about Hannah's ipod. The first video clip she put on her new ipod was this youtube video--the Lego Star Wars Orchestra playing the Darth Vader theme. Excellent!

Hannah, Re-Activated

2010-02-08T18:15:00.002+01:00

As you may remember from last spring, Hannah has been wearing an activator to correct her jaw misalignment. She has been very diligent about wearing it, and the orthodontist has declared herself pleased with the results. We were kind of expecting that she would be going into braces soon, but the ortho thinks she can fix everything without them. The jaw is now in the right position, and all that is left to do is pull one or two teeth that had been growing from too high in her gum down into position. So Hannah got a new activator, pictured above, that is designed to do just that. It is grape kool-aid colored and fused into one piece, meaning that instead of two parts that attach separately to her upper and lower teeth, her teeth slide in and out of the wires attached to the single piece that just sits in her mouth. The first two nights she had it in, she managed to spit it out during the night and found it on the floor. Mmm... if there is anything I want to put in my mouth in the middle of the night, it is a chunk of plastic and metal wires that has been lying on the floor in a 12-year-old's room. Glad it was her and not me.

Now I guess I had better get her in to the regular dentist for a cleaning. I was waiting until we found out if she would need to have all her teeth sealed in preparation for braces, but that doesn't seem to be in the plans anymore.

Say Hello to Nee, M.A.

2010-01-30T14:01:00.003+01:00

Back in July, I told you all about my adventures in thesis writing. I have been waiting more-or-less patiently since then for my results, and as you may have noticed from the photo above, they finally came! I am now officially a Magistra Artium.

At first, I was just glad to be done and didn't want to worry about it. Then we went to Texas on vacation, and I didn't have to worry about it. Then we came back in September, and I figured it was too early to worry about it. But when classes started back in October, I started to worry. Finally at the beginning of November, I sacked up and called the appropriate university office. It turns out that faculty have no deadline for grading theses. ::boggle:: So then I went to talk to my first reader, and she told me that she had sent in her assessment/grade already, and it was a pretty good one. Basically, I had to wait for the second reader to get his grade in, then for the diploma to be printed. Only then would I find out how I had done. And that took about 10 weeks. *sigh*

But now I am officially done. No more worries, no more waiting. Yay!

Water, water everywhere

2010-01-18T09:33:00.002+01:00

Back in November, I found out that my thesis was accepted and that I will indeed be getting my M.A. (more on that soon). To celebrate, and because he had been jonesing for it, John took us to a little restaurant up the hill from us for dinner. On the way home in the car, I noticed that the floorboard was wet.

"What do you mean 'wet'?" demanded John.

I splashed my feet in the puddle under my seat. "Wet!"

At that point, it was late and dark and cold, so we scooped out as much water as we could manage with a dust pan we keep in the trunk and called it a night. The next day, and on many subsequent days, I went out with a stack of towels and sopped water out of the front and back floorboards on the passenger side. Judging by the many sprouts I pulled out of the carpets and floor mats and the moldy items I scraped out of the door pocket, I'd say we'd had the problem for a while.

I can't tell that there is a leak around the seals on the doors, and a little googling brings me to the conclusion that the water could be getting in through a couple of different places in the ventilation system (blocked pollen filter or blocked a/c drain), which are located behind the dashboard on the passenger side.

When we first discovered the problem, it was a busy time of year, approaching the holidays and all, so we put off taking the car into the shop. I tried to buy a tarp to put over it, but let's just say that it wasn't a successfull maneuver. After the holidays, it finally turned cold and snowed. Frozen floorboards are preferable to soggy. But yesterday it rained all.day.long. Buckets and buckets of rain. At some point, I am going to have to go outside and bail out the car. If we don't get it into the shop soon, I am going to buy us all galoshes to wear in the car.