It’s Not Easy Being Green

I didn’t know the color for „pissed at the whole world for little reason,“ so green will have to do. And I’m wearing a green shirt. Will the coincidences never end?

L.H. got back from Sweden at 11 pm on Monday, and at 9 am on Tuesday, one of his former grad school colleagues [to be ever-more known as “The Sponge”] called from the train station that she had made it to Germany and could we please pick her up? WTF. There had been some mention *way* back at the start of the summer about her stopping in to visit while on a year-long exchange to Berlin, but I seriously don’t remember a request to *crash with us for 4 days* upon arriving in this country, and neither does L.H. She hasn’t really been underfoot—she biked into town Tuesday and had a meeting at a town just north of here Wednesday—but she and L.H. were not, you know, friends or anything back in grad school, which he graduated *2 years ago.* I get the impression that she is planning to mooch her way across central Germany until she can get into her student housing in Berlin. She’s leaving here tomorrow, so I guess I can keep my head from imploding until then.

Wednesday, it was like frickin’ Grand Central Station around here. Right after D.D. and I got home from school, the neighbor locked herself out, so we invited her to hang with us until her BF got home. She had been walking her 2 gay-named Yorkies, so she tied their leashes to the stair rail to keep them out of the way. They were well-behaved and quiet; no prob. Until Missy Cat tried to come downstairs, spotted them, and began hissing her threat to disembowel them. I herded her back upstairs and locked her and Eliza in the bedroom. Back to peace and quiet. Except for me and D.D. fighting about her homework. They’ve been getting a lot more this year, which is kind of to be expected, so she hasn’t always had enough time to finish it at after-school care. Anyhow, as soon as she finished her math, the doorbell rang. It was D.D.’s friend. I let them watch a movie while I cooked dinner and chatted with the neighbor, who’s American. Then the BF came, and he’s very nice, but a bit loud and boisterous. And L.H. came home in the midst of all this, so he was talking to the BF, I was talking to the neighbor, and there was a movie in the background. If The Sponge had walked in right then, I might have lost it. Right now, I feel like, “Where is my beloved rock for hiding under?”

I had to put another estrogen patch on this week, so I have a sneaking suspicion that part of my lingering foul mood proceeds from that. I have had very few thoughts this week that don’t contain some form of the word “fuck,” so that might give you a clue how pissy I am. [As a side note: While the neighbor was here, I hurt my foot and whispered, “Fuck!” She seemed taken aback, and actually said—laughingly—“You said the F-word?” Dude, I just ripped half the skin off my toe on a *metal bolt* sticking up from the floor; you’re lucky I only whispered it. I don’t know if she thought Texans don’t curse, or women, or—hell, I have no idea what assumption she was going on, but really. Damn.]

I will now try to sedate myself with posting and more coffee, although I don’t actually expect either to help. On the plus side, I am now mentally prepared to put words to paper for my term paper, having finished my prep work yesterday, so maybe that and losing The Sponge will make me more pleasant next week.

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Pile of Random Crap-et

Here’s something you never expect to hear from your sister-in-law:
“You’re digging your Christmas grave!”

***

I didn’t mean to imply in my last post that I don’t like cartoons. Au contraire. To wit, The Simpsons, Spongebob Squarepants, Dave the Barbarian, and Fillmore! are some of my favorite tv viewing. And I signed up to be the president of the fan club when I saw the commerical for The Dragon Slayers; any show that's about dragons and with a theme song by The Cure is all right with me. Even if it comes from France. Gasp!

***

I don’t know what exactly this IUD is doing to my body, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I have had the physical coordination of a gifted 4-month-old lately. The last time I was this clumsy, I was very pregnant. [It would take micro-surgery and/or a miracle for that to be the cause this time.] All I know is that I’m sick of spilling, dropping, bumping, and breaking everything. The way I’ve snapped off the tips of several of my fingernails by banging them into wooden furniture and ripped my cuticle so it bled (while wrestling bags of cat litter into the back of the car), I’m surprised I didn’t chop off a finger making stew.

***

Thanks to the power of low-budget tv programming, I have come to realize that Quincy was a really preachy show. Emergency rooms should always have surgeons at the ready. Child molesters/killers should be locked up and the key thrown away. Well, DUH.

***

We’ve almost reached the end of geranium season. I haven’t dead-headed them in days, and I miss it. The stems are satisfyingly crispy when I break them off, like snapping green beans. And I’m so anal, I find searching for dead blooms among the mass of flowers to be quite satisfying and even relaxing. One day I will have a yard, and I will plant geraniums and make compost, and my life will be complete.

***

When we were in Paris, I saw what some might term “high fashion,” but that I felt to be “mummy chic.” In a shop window, someone draped a mannequin in strips of cast-off linen mummy wrappings. At the time, I chalked it up to that wacky sense of Parisian fashion. But in Salzburg a couple of weeks later, I spotted a woman wearing a very similar shirt, but more toilet paper-y looking. She had paired it with pants that tied at the ankles, so I figure she might have had a lobotomy? Who can say.

***

We were watching tv, and a commercial came on for some phone service. That reminded Darling Daughter that she needed God’s phone number so she could call him and tell him what she wanted for xmas. My SIL pointed out that you never see God and Santa in the same place, and that they both know when you’ve been naughty and when you’ve been nice, so it would be easy to confuse them.

Who Needs Reality TV When There Are Commercials?

Most of my television-watching these days consists of cartoons interspersed with 5-minute CNN bits whenever D.D. goes to the bathroom. The only bright spot in my endlessly animated days are the commercials.

My favorite, which has since gone off the air, was for a men’s deodorant or aftershave (I can’t remember which brand). It’s supposed to be a product for manly men, so it shows the first guy punching through the medicine cabinet mirror to get out his aftershave. He jumps out the window onto the top of a bus, where some other men are already sitting, reading the paper. A cop turns a donut and skids up to the window of a coffee shop, where the girl has his coffee waiting for him. At the office, guys are flipping their cars into their parking spaces or dropping from a helicopter through the skylight into a meeting. A delivery guy, who is *on fire* jumps his motorcycle through the front window of the building, and the security guy shows no reaction other than to point to a sign that shows “no helmets.” If I were a guy, I would definitely have bought their product.

D.D.’s favorite, which is a classic in its own right, is for Kinder Chocofresh. This is a chocolaty, creamy, cool dessert that should be a food group all on its own. In the commercial, a mom and her two kids (one of each) ask the grocery store guy where they can find them. He pulls them off the fridge shelf and starts emoting about how wonderful they are while opening the package and wafting them in front of the children as he cracks them open to show the delicious middle. When he pops one in his mouth, the little girl—who looks about 5 years old and has a cutsey lisp—cracks: “Give me one or I’ll knock over your cooler shelf!” That is a self-confident child.

And I just now came across this ad for Carlton Draught (via Making Light), and I almost peed my pants. A meta-ad set to Carmina Burana has to be the highest form of advertising. EVAH.

Here's the promotional photo for a new show: "When Teddy Bears ATTACK" 

The Wonderful, Funderful Thing about D.D.

My daughter is what some people might call a “character.” She’s not necessarily a ham; as a matter of fact, she doesn’t usually care to have attention called to herself. But every day I discover something new and interesting (and often, entertaining) about her.

When we were driving to Paris with the grandparents, Gwamma the RN wanted to take a look at a sore that D.D. had on her wrist. From the back seat, I heard, “You’re pressing on my weak spot!” In retaliation, she pressed—hard—on Gwamma’s “weak spot”: her voice box. That’ll learn her!

But D.D. got back into Gwamma’s good graces by giving her a water-bottle full of kisses when we returned home. She has since bestowed such a bottle on her dad. Where’s mine?!

When we went to Versailles, she was a bit bored, as you could imagine an 8-year-old to be. She insisted on keeping her empty drink bottle from lunch, and since we were going to tour the gardens next, we figured, “Why not?” So we got a jug-band accompaniment through the gardens of Versailles.

I found a note in my Palm, but I’m not sure where we were when she cheerfully inquired, “Who wants to dress up like a tree?” Farther down in the note, she informed us that her itchy ears were caused by chicken bones and Caesar salad in her ears. O-kay.

She has the power to be unintentionally cruel, but also kind. I was sitting on the bed, changing into my jammies, when she commented, “Those panties make your butt look bigger than it really is.” So charming!

But she can also break my heart a little. Last night, she wrapped her Molly doll in a blanket, deposited her at the foot of my chair, and ran behind the couch to hide. I looked down at Molly, who had a post-it note stuck on her blanket: “Please love her.” Crack—there went my heart. She explained that she wanted me to treat Molly well, not like the Dursleys treat Harry Potter.

Life—Live It! *

Monday was a whirlwind of activity for all of us. L.H. was out the door by 5:25 to take the bus to the train station, where he caught the first shuttle to the regional airport ... and still didn’t make his flight. So he ended up taking an alternate route; at least he made it to Sweden, if not his final destination in Sweden, on the same day he left home.

D.D.’s first day of school went without a hitch. I’ve managed to get her to school on time every day this week (if just barely yesterday), and although she had homework already on the first day, she hasn’t complained about it too much. Except about her times tables, which I force her to practice.

Her first ballet class since July also went better than she had expected. They have a recital in 4 weeks, and D.D. remembered their dance well enough that she was able to hiss directions at the girl in front of her, who, unfortunately, was just as clueless before the summer vacation. D.D. claims she wants to drop ballet, but I told her that she’d have to wait until xmas break at the earliest. When I asked her what kind of class she would like to take instead—L.H. and I agree that she needs a couple of extracurricular activities—she answered, “Play with my friends?” Wrong!

I made a list of about a hundred million errands to do on Monday, so once I got D.D. safely tucked away at school, I headed to town. By 1, I had done everything possible on my list, and I was ready to lie down and never get up again. Since Monday, I have contented myself with piddling, time-wasting chores around the house, but I really need to work on my paper that’s due October 1. Eek!

Of course, in the midst of all this busy-work, I had an idea for another story, and a flash of insight on a work-in-progress. Not the best timing, eh? But it seems that the more mental power I am devoting to life and stuff, the more the creative juices get flowing. (Actually, I hate that phrase—I always have a mental image of a thawing turkey dripping blood. Ick!) One day I’ll get it together and complete some of these stories floating around in my head, but not today.


* Thanks, Louie Anderson, for the best philosophy of life ever.

My Worst Fear as a Writer

from CNN International online:

Failure, escape and 'The Outsiders': Francis Ford Coppola remembers a labor of love

...
He's taken a year's break from "Megalopolis," a script about New York in the future that he's labored on for more than two decades.

" 'Megalopolis' is like being in love with a beautiful woman who doesn't want you," he said. "So you don't get to meet anyone else and you don't get her."

Trip the Second: Rothenburg

So I lied (well, forgot). Before the trek to Paris, we made a day-trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is basically an intact medieval town. We strolled about, gawping at the half-timbered houses and window-shopping. After St. Jacob’s Church, we hit the Christmas store. Oh. My. God. I love xmas, but I was smothering in it by the time we fought our way out of there. I can only stand so much flocking and cinnamon incense before descending into madness.

So then we split up. The chicks went to the Doll and Toy Museum, where they had a rockin’ Barbie display, and the guys went to the Medieval Crime Museum. Make of that what you will. We ended the trip with a walk along the top of the defensive wall surrounding the old town. I had to hold D.D.’s hand at first, because she’s “afraid of heights” (it comes and goes). She was telling me all the things she’s afraid of: “heights, snakes with big teeth (she put her fingers to her mouth like fangs, a la Holy Grail), giant snakes that can squeeze you like a boa constructor [sic], ok—all snakes.” My mom doesn’t like snakes, either, so you’re in good company kid.

We stayed home on Monday to do some laundry, and when I popped out to pick up some groceries, D.D. and LMIL got busy tie-dying a couple of t-shirts and 2 pairs of socks (D.D.’s idea). We hid what was left of the dye, in case she got any other ideas. So now she has enough to wear that she’ll only have to pick a non-batik outfit once a week.

A Joke Composed by Darling Daughter

What do you call a Ballerina who fell down?

She piroueted [sic] out fine!

pirouette=turn

Get it?

Farewell to Summer

Summer is over, and what a busy summer it was. In the 6 weeks D.D. was out of school, we visited with 2 sets of relatives and made 6 trips encompassing 12 towns. We’ve been to the pool a handful of times, including the time of composition, and I am now sporting a wicked farmer tan consisting of a white stripe across my wrist from my watch and brown stripes across my feet from my Mary Janes. Eat your heart out!

We heard on the radio that September 1 was meteorologically the first day of fall. We’re getting a last gasp of “high summer” weather—sunny and warm—but I can tell that the light is already different. In Texas, the light is basically the same all year round. It lasts a little longer and is more intense in summer, but the sun rises and sets in the same part of the sky. In another couple of weeks here in Germany, the sun will be rising noticeably later and farther south. It’s not as extreme as in Sweden (thank the 7 dwarfs!), but it is still disconcerting to a Texas girl.

I just heard from a friend at the pool that there are thunder storms in the forecast, then it is supposed to get cooler. D.D. had already been predicting cool weather: school’s starting, therefore it must cool down. Rats. The plus side is that I didn’t have to buy much in the way of summer clothes for D.D. this year because she still fit most of them from last year, although the shorts were bordering on indecently short, even though they fit in the waist. Since she’s only been out of jeans for about a week, she still has something to wear to school next week. Soon we’ll be into the season of layering for crisp fall mornings and warm fall afternoons. Step Dad was the first to notice that some of the trees were already changing color. Oh well, I like fall, I just would have liked a little more summer this year. Sigh.

Today’s Guest Blogger: Darling Daughter

Well, I’m back from a boring Trip to PARIS. I think I would like to draw a Mustache [sic] and Beard on the Mona lisa (and devil horns!).

[Typed verbatim from her written notes. As you may have noticed, she has a very German way of looking at capitalization.]

Heads up on comments change

Within an hour of my last post, I had 2 spam comments, and rather than let them get a toe-hold, I've set my comments so that you have to enter a word that appears on the screen (like when you start almost any online account these days) when you comment. I hope that doesn't put any of you off commenting, but I hope it keeps the comment section spam-free. Let me know if anyone has problems with it.

-Nee

Trip the First

So, the last 3 weeks or so... For those just tuning in, my Lovely Mother-In-Law and her husband (Step Dad), were the first to break the time/money/distance-barrier and come to visit us here in Germany. We had them for 12 fun-filled, travel-packed days, so we (and they!) were exhausted by the time we put them on the plane a week ago Tuesday.

When they arrived, Darling Daughter must have thought xmas had come early, because in addition to the “supplies” we had requested (like grape jelly and mac-n-cheese) and some books we had ordered to be sent to them, they also brought some fantastic gifts for her (and some for us), like a new dress and even more books. Since their arrival on Aug. 18, D.D. has read 7 new books for a total of 1,040 pages. That doesn’t include the books she already had that she reread at bedtime during that period. We’ve got a reader on our hands! Anyhoo, the books helped keep her occupied during all our boring travelling.

Our first extended-family excursion was a cruise up the Rhine on the castle tour. Step Dad especially loved it; I don’t think he really knew what to expect from Germany, but it seems he was more than pleasantly surprised. D.D. retreated beneath her umbrella to ward off the sun while she read her book, not even emerging when the Spanish contingent of the World Youth Day goers began dancing and singing. We were treated to the sight of teens in low-rise jeans dancing flamenco and the macarena, ostensibly for God. Having grown up Southern Baptist, I was somewhat scandalized. Ok, I’m lying—our church was of the hypocritical variety, and I do not recall dancing ever being mentioned, much less condemned, there. Mostly we were annoyed because they were obviously not appreciating the castles like we were trying to. Fortunately, they got off before we did.

We visited the town of Braubach and its castle, the Marksburg. It was the in-laws' first castle! Then we took a regional train down to Rüdesheim, a short ferry ride away from our car. We probably could have skipped the Drosselgasse, but at least LMIL and S.D. were able to eat their first German fast food there—pork steak and onions on a roll, if I remember correctly. Much better then McFood!

It was late when we got home, then we spent the next day recouperating.

Next installment: Trip the Second (Paris)

Boo-Hoo for Me

I’m not getting much sympathy from L.H., so I’ll cry on the virtual shoulder of my online friends and family instead. After I got out of the shower this morning, I noticed a rash on the insides of my forearms. In the meanwhile, it has moved across my chest, torso, neck, face, and now feet. I haven’t dropped my pants to check my legs. L.H.’s unhelpful response when I showed him: heat rash. Could be, if it weren’t 75F in our shady house. Anyhow, this rash is just the latest in a string of minor illnesses over the last week-and-a-half.

First, I think I had a kidney infection. We got back from France with the extended family on Friday, and I developed back pain and pee-urgency on Saturday. (And I started my period. Insult to injury, eh?) Fortunately, my Lovely MIL is an RN, and she always travels with UTI meds after having developed one on vacation several years ago. So she hooked me up with some sulfa drugs. Mmmm... I still had intermittent back pain over the following week, but Alleve came to my rescue.

Then there was the pill-swallowing incident. Even at 32, I still gag on large pills. [I think LilSis does, too, so maybe it’s a family thing.] Anyhow,
Large Pill + Nee = Barf > 2 Days of Nausea.

Also, mucho travelling means mucho constipation, so I’ve been dealing with the end results of that (no pun intended), including diarrhea. I’m about ready to trade in this body for a more reliable one.

[Added the next day:] The morning we were leaving for southern Germany, I woke up with no back pain, but with a crick in my neck. I couldn't move my head to the right, so I missed all the scenery on that side of the car.

Needless to say, once must of the above had passed, Lovely Husband had a bout of vomiting while in southern Germany, and Darling Daughter had one in the car on the way home. I’m hoping we will all be well again by next week, because on Monday D.D. starts third grade and L.H. flies to Sweden for a week. That means I get to be a single parent again, if only for a week, but at least my classes haven’t started yet. Otherwise I’d probably need another vacation when L.H. got back.

Non-Blogging Raised to an Art Form

It has been much harder getting back into the swing of blogging than I would have thought. On the one hand, I haven’t done much more than jot down enigmatic notes (“duck”--?) for the last 3 weeks or so, so cobbling them together into a witty, coherent post is proving to be a challenge. On the other hand, so much has happened that it is overwhelming trying to 1) remember everything, and 2) explain it. Darling Daughter just got two new videos today, so I’m hoping to scribble away the evening as she vegges out.

Of course, my pathetic attempt to explain away my absence pales to the eloquence of Fafnir (see “The News” and “missing time”).

Aack! 14 days since my last post!

Blog Protective Services will be coming after me for neglecting this thing, and there are still more days of non-blogging to come. Tomorrow we're leaving to visit L.H.'s grandfather's girlfriend (it's a long story) in southern Germany/Austria, and we won't be back until Sunday. I have tons I could say (but have not yet) about the last 2 weeks, but I promise to busily scribble while L.H. drives this weekend.

Carry on.

Cleaning House

After 5 days of cleaning my home (1), we took a day off and went to the pool and out to dinner. Except for the fact that my freckles have decided to form one giant freckle across my nose and cheeks, the whole outing was a success.

(1) And not just because the in-laws are winging their way across the Atlantic even as I type. I was mostly in student mode during the spring and early summer, when I would normally give Spring Cleaning a go, so I had saved up all the teeny, gritty jobs for "when I'm done with school." It caught up with me with a vengeance, but you won't find cleaner windows, sliding-glass-door runners, or grout anywhere.

And in the spirit of cleaning house, I'm trimming some of the dead wood here. For instance, the horrible post from July 27 is already gone, but I fully intend to put the photo (of the orange lion statue) back up with new commentary that's a little more erudite than "What the f***?"

As I mentioned above, though, the in-laws will be here for 2 weeks, so I'll be having so much fun I probably won't have time to post much. We'll be in Paris for another whirlwind, 4-day excursion starting next week, so there will be much to see and discuss when I get back. See you then!

The Seinfeldian Post

D.D. and I actually had a very good shopping experience yesterday. L.H. had to stay home and work (so sad! and on his birthday!). I had a fairly thorough list, a working pen, and my slug for the cart—I have managed to leave one or more of these items at home in the recent past—plus we’d had a snack before we left, so we were all set. D.D. didn’t have the gimmes and was a good helper. It was great.

Halfway through the store, I wanted to lie down and die. Not due to the usual store-induced stress, though. The in-store music was one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs, one I’ve been listening to repeatedly while I work in the kitchen. My youth was suddenly ripped from me for the listening pleasure of persons trying to decide between lemon-scented or plain toilet bowl cleaner. Noooo!

L.H. just turned 32, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when the Mini-Mal plays *anything* by Yngwie Malmsteen, his favorite rock musician, the epitome of an 80s hair-rocker (although, to give him his musical props, he is supposed to be something of a guitar virtuoso). So L.H. will be able to hold on to the illusion of being too young and hip for grocery store music. Grrr...

I’m withholding judgment on this stupid estrogen patch thing until after I take it off tonight. If the spotting stops, it’ll be the best thing since sliced bread. If not, I could have saved myself the five bucks and just put a piece of tape on my stomach, because that’s what it felt like at first. It’s an odd sensation—try it sometime.

LMIL commented that little kids can be satisfied with the smallest things, and I thought, “Yeah, but not mine,” because D.D. was in full Barbie-wanting mode at the time. But once again she’s proved me wrong. She got a cheap, 4-inch, stuffed dog from a package of wet wipes, and you’d think it was her newborn the way she cares for it. It has a special fortified bed made of pillows to protect it from the cats (and light, and noise) while it sleeps, and she’s been keeping it on a strict eating and napping schedule. She even gave it her own middle name. I can only imagine the level of care a rubber band or a twist tie might receive.

Does this picture make you want to visit Berlin? Maybe someone should have asked that question before launching an ad campaign using this picture. 

Time Flies When You're Soaking Wet

My Lovely Husband will be 32 tomorrow, and he’s going into it kicking and screaming. I hadn’t realized it was such an issue for him until he confessed that he really thought he was turning 31.
2005-1973=32, Baby.
I may be 6 months older, but he can’t make the difference even larger just by wishing it. I told him that he can feel as young as he wants (I myself often feel about 12).

Darling Daughter has been stuck in high-glam mode for a couple of days now, so the dress-up box and make-up bag have taken up semi-permanent residence in the living room. Yesterday she was a fairy, complete with feather-bedecked wings, magic wand, and high heels. She discovered that the heels can poke holes in cardboard, so part of the evening was spent perforating the flaps I had cut off a box. Later, though, she declared that even fairies like to be comfortable, and she changed her heels (still with the wings) for sock and tennies. That’s my girl!

I was also supposed to be a fairy, but I was in turbo-cleaning mode; I allowed myself to be dolled up a bit with make-up and a choker made of a shoelace and an enormous, blue silk carnation. I think it was just the right touch to go with my Muppet t-shirt and flannel pajama pants.

First, D.D. wanted to have a fairy ball, but as it was just the two of us (L.H. was out), that was a bust. Then it was time for fairy school. I had my wand revoked for not attending class and for not watching Dave the Barbarian. D.D. is a harsh teacher, people.

Later that evening, she changed into what she thought looked like a belly-dancing costume, complete with veil. She gets this really serious look on her face when she’s dancing; it’s almost comical, but you can tell she’s totally earnest.

This morning she wore one of her tutus plus a metric ton of make-up, including a purple stripe under her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. So she could be an Indian ballerina, don’t you know. She opted to ditch the make-up and tutu but keep the bun to go into town, of which I heartily approved to myself, although I told her that whatever she wanted was fine. She obviously thought she looked great (and we repeatedly told her she looked great; sue me), but no one would mistake her for a mini-Britney Spears, so I figured, what the hell. But it turns out that she’s more modest in public than at home, so she wanted the make-up off before going out.

The weather today is just fabulous—sunny but mild and only occasionally overcast. I don’t think it’s gotten over 80. Mmmm... D.D. and I went to the playground to enjoy the good weather. She ran about for 10 minutes or so, then decided to read and cool off. She had a book handily tucked into her large, black, vinyl purse, which I had to tote for her starting when we got off the bus. I’m sure it’s the perfect accessory for my Harry Potter t-shirt and jeans. She managed to read about 30 pages and finish it while we sat there.

After writing the above, Mother Nature ran up behind me with a large “Kick Me” sign. D.D. and I went into a shop, and while I was buying her a long-sleeved Barbie shirt and some new socks, it started to rain. Buckets. Neither of us had a jacket or an umbrella, but at least we had the new shirt to pull over D.D.’s sundress. So instead of getting an ice cream while we were out, we got hot chocolate.

Last year, D.D. swore that the icky Tales from the Cryptkeeper cartoon series [I know...what were we thinking?!] was not scary and that she liked it. We cut her off when the episodes started repeating, and then it went off the air. We foolishly thought we were safe. It recently came back on, but now, as soon as the intro starts, D.D. yells, “Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!” and puts her hands over her ears. She has decided that the music creeps her out, and if we don’t turn it off quickly, it gets stuck in her head. I can relate to that. [B-O-M-B-Y!] When we got in the car the other day, some “heavy” rock song was playing on the radio, and D.D. informed me that it was her and her dad’s favorite song; it was also the only song that could banish the TftC theme song. I think she just hasn’t given BOMBY a chance.

Growing Pains

Sometimes my Darling Daughter seems so grown up; part of being a precocious only child, I guess. Like today while watching The Wizard of Oz, she said, "Wow. That Miss Gulch is a real bitch." She got reprimanded, of course. Then a little later, when Auntie Em declared that she couldn't say what she wanted against Miss Gulch because she herself was a Christian woman, D.D. asked, "She means what I said earlier, right?"

Then other times, I'm reminded of just how little she is. Like when her friend spent the night, and they slept in a pile of teddy bears and baby dolls.

But this afternoon showed me how she's really both at once. She set up her Play-doh sundae maker thingie and offered me a series of ice creams whose flavors were based on their colors. Typical 8-year-old behavior. Then she wanted me to rate each flavor as part of a taste test; she labeled the containers with the label maker. I wasn't aware that marketing was so in among the third-grade set.

I Am the Stupidest Woman Alive

So today, I let two strangers into my home. Vacuum cleaner salesmen. Or rather, one salesman and one trainee. It only occurred to me after I had let them in that maybe it wasn't such a good idea, since it was just me and D.D. at home. I'm afraid I was only paying half-attention to the spiel, the other half of my brain trying to remember the number for the police while simultaneously planning either a hurried escape or a lunge toward the knife block in the kitchen.

Anyhow, it was a cool vacuum cleaner, if I had *an extra grand plus change* for a household appliance to suck hair and kitty litter off my floors. It came with so many attachments, I'd probably have to devote a whole closet to the beast. One attachment had a brush for cleaning between the coils of the radiators, but I bet that Swiffer brush doo-dad can't run more than five bucks, no?

My favorite attachment, though, was introduced with a flourish: "For the man." It was a tube with what appeared to be a cloven hoof on the end. My brain re-engaged and went into overdrive at that point, trying to figure out *how* it was to be used by said man. Hygiene? Personal grooming? My guesses were getting wilder and more graphic; it must have shown on my face, because he hurried to explain that it sticks to the wall where *the man* is drilling a hole, to suck up the bits of plaster and sheet rock that are knocked loose. Of course! Because only *men* know how to use a drill. Riiight!

Needless to say, we didn't get the vacuum cleaner, although I did let L.H. be the one to turn them down over the speaker phone at the door when they returned later. Yes, I am a chicken. I've decided from now on to just pretend I'm not home if L.H. is not here and the doorbell rings, because I'm obviously incapable of turning away polite but potentially murderous door-to-door salesman.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

...at Chez Nee.

Darling Daughter and I have been trying to find ways of entertaining ourselves that don't involve so much tv on these wet and dreary days. Monday, it barely reached 70F. We were able to get out for about an hour for some errands during a timely break in the rain, but we weren't home five minutes when it started again. Otherwise, we've been stuck at home. On Sunday, we even had some rock-salt-sized hail.

So far, we've made play dough (1), worked on a paint-by-numbers of a princess on a pony, half-finished a tiny model of a funicular car, and built and rebuilt many, many Lego buildings. [FYI: MegaBlocks are compatible with Lego Duplo.] D.D. has declared that she wants to be called "Bob-ina the Builder." We've also baked a couple of batches of cookies.

Yesterday we watched A Christmas Story, and D.D. wanted to write a "theme" like Ralphie: "What I Want for Christmas." It quickly turned into a letter to Santa, which she folded, sealed with a label (she discovered the label-maker we got from her aunt and uncle for xmas, so now everything in the house is labeled with its name and/or price), and has hoarded it away for December. She wished a kitchen robot for me, a watch that turns into anything you want for her dad, and a McDonald's kitchen playset for herself. At one point while brainstorming, she was trying to come up with a way to combine a coffee maker and a massage chair; she will make a fortune when she figures it out.

I was trying to remember the bedtime story I used to tell D.D. as a toddler, about the floppy fish who didn't want to go to bed. So she wrote a title, "The Adwentures [sic] of Floppy Fish," and started dictating a few lines of text. When we looked at it again the next morning, she said, "That's good, but...it needs about 50 more pages!" I don't know when she thought I was going to whip out 50 more pages of a story I couldn't remember.


(1) LilSis's Play Dough Recipe
2 cups flour
½ cup salt
1 Tbsp. cream of tartar
1-3/4 cups boiling water
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
food coloring

Mix together the dry stuff; mix together the wet stuff and add it to the dry stuff. (Actually, I usually wait to add the food coloring until after the dough is mixed so I can divide it and make several colors.) Cool for 10 minutes. Knead until smooth, adding flour if needed. It lasts several weeks if sealed properly (those ziploc containers work well). D.D. really enjoyed following the "recipes" on the back of the food coloring box for exotic colors like dusty rose and turquoise.

Medicine and Mayhem

My GYN offered to put me on an estrogen patch (1) instead of taking out my IUD like I asked—thanks, Doc!—so if I start acting all whacked out or express a desire to wear polyester outfits, well, you've been forewarned.

(1) She normally prescribes this to women going through "change of life," as my grandmother calls it.

L.H. has been warning me since I got the IUD that I shouldn't dick around with Mother Nature, and apparently a hormone-laden, plastic, uterine irritant is just not enough to knock her out. Who would have thought?

While at the doctor's office, I had the second worst phlebotomy experience ever. Normally, nurses look at me and have a Tootsie Roll moment, where they see a giant, pulsing vein, then they start to drool. The first vial was filled without a hitch. The second vial—two squirts, then nothing. What the hell? I couldn't have been *out of blood.* [L.H. asked if I heard 'pssst' when she put the needle in. ha ha] So the nurse looked at the partial vial and said, "It's probably enough." She slapped a band-aid on my arm, told me to press on it, and sent me on my way.

While I was waiting at the pharmacy across the street, I felt something wet on my arm. I had bled through the band-aid and my sleeve. Despite my legendarily full veins, that's never happened to me before. And it hurts like hell, to the point that I almost made myself cry test-poking it.

And in the window of the apothecary, I saw the PHARMACIST OF THE DAMNED. Marionettes are creepy enough, but a *pharmacist puppet* is downright disturbing somehow.

Our neighbors have 2 (normally) well-behaved Yorkies, Lola and Arthur. [And what is it with Yorkie owners and gay pet names? I wouldn't be surprised to meet a Hell's Angel and his Yorkie Priscilla.] Today, L. and A. have been barking almost non-stop for *5-and-a-half hours.* You'd think they would have barked themselves hoarse by now, but no such luck. After the first hour, we heard another neighbor knock on the door and ring the bell, but no one was home. Personally, I think the dogs have eaten their owners and are barking for fresh meat. L.H. is doubtful for some reason. In any case, they have just reconfirmed for me my hatred of small, yippy dogs.

Missy Cat is still taking it slow and easy after her near-death experience, but I think she's feeling more like her old self, because she tried to rip Eliza Cat a new ass for sniffing at her.

I noticed while down in the village that hairdressers must be the only people in the world who can get away with wearing a metal-studded, low-slung belt *and* thong FMPs (2) at the same time. Outside of a music video (and the aforementioned beauty parlor), I don't think I've ever seen the combination in the real world.

(2) FMPs=Fuck Me Pumps

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen, So to Speak

Missy Cat has just proven that intelligence is *not* her defining trait. She wouldn't come in from the roof-top terrace when I called her, so I slid the door to; if she wanted in, she'd have to beg (or miaow, I'm easy). Instead, I heard 'thump, thump, thump', and she was gone. L.H. went outside and checked all around the house, and there was no sight or sound of her. I took a turn during his and D.D.'s bedtime reading and found M.C. crouching in the bushes by the front door. She had apparently fallen (jumped? slipped?) from the roof of the third floor. She loves L.H. more than me, so she let him pick her up and bring her back inside.

As of bedtime, she has a light nosebleed and seems ginger on her feet, but she let me pet her and didn't try to bite off my hand when I pressed all over her belly, looking for possible internal injuries. According to a paper I read online about high-rise syndrome, cats who fall several stories tend to have injuries to the face and chest, and fractures of the limbs. M.C. doesn't seem to be in bad pain when she walks (no crying or falling or limping, just a stiff gait), so we're hoping she's better—and wiser!—in the morning. If not, there's a vet right down the street.

I am relieved as much for D.D.'s sake as for the cat's that things turned out so well (knock on wood), because Missy Cat was suddenly D.D.'s own, personal, favorite cat the minute she went missing. L.H. and I are planning to wake up early just in case.

At least we found her before it started to rain. I think it may have got up to 80F during the day, but at bedtime it was probably closer to 60F. Ick.

***

M.C. doesn't seem to have developed any further complications during the night, but we did notice a scrape on her belly this morning. It must be tender, because she nipped me when I tried to touch it. But she had made it up onto the couch on her own, and later she joined us on the bench at breakfast, so she must have been feeling much better to make the effort of hopping up on the furniture to be so sociable. Now we need to figure out how to block up the balcony where she can't get out onto the roof. Of course, with all the cool weather recently, we probably didn't even need to have that door open yesterday (but L.H. isn't happy unless he has every door and window in the house open, even when it's 60F outside).

A Little of This, A Little of That

Yesterday, D.D. declared she was just *too excited* because Gwamma is coming and Austin Powers will be on tv. See, Gwamma, you're in the same popularity category as Austin Powers. It's true love!

[L.H. said I should rename this "The Grandma Stroking Blog," but is it my fault that D.D. is so sweet all the time?]

My daughter is generally averse to eating anything that looks remotely natural, like vegetables, but apparently she decided to suspend the rule when it comes to cherries. Last time we bought some, she put a cherry in each cheek (several times) and was all, "Look at me! I'm a squirrel!" Unfortunately, she was a squirrel with diarrhea, because she ate most of the pint by herself at one sitting. That'll learn her.

I HATE driving down the hill in our village, because cars are parked all along the downhill side, but even more than that, I HATE riding in the passenger seat when L.H. drives down the hill. He is not driving recklessly, but he drives as close as possible to the parked cars, forcing me to gasp, flinch, and clench my gut. Not the most preferred method of exercising my stomach muscles, let me tell you. And it will never get better. Sigh.

While on our outing over the weekend, D.D. spotted a pizzeria that we will NEVER, EVER dine in. Have you ever seen the cute little pizza cook statue that adorns the sidewalk outside an Italian/pizza restaurant? He usually has a board where the day's specials are posted. This one was also holding up a tray, on which was a severed pig's head. Not remotely appetizing.

I don't remember if I mentioned here that L.H. was in a funk of despair over the state of his flowerless geraniums, but it appears that his concern was premature, nicht wahr? 

So Sad!

It seems that Darling Daughter has lost track of the number of days until Gwamma and PawPaw come, but she has a good excuse—her classmates got so annoyed with her continually announcing the countdown that she stopped counting. The shame! The infamy!

My pleasure in container gardening has turned to rage at the ants who dare to chomp my plants. Somehow, our *fourth floor balcony* has become an ant haven. They don't seem to be damaging my food plants (chives and parsley), but they're eating the hell out of the leaves on my (not yet) flowering plants. They really seem to have a jones for one type with long, grass-like blades; they've eaten most of them down to the stems! After a few violent, ineffectual rages, I got smart and looked for ant killer when I went grocery shopping. Success! The stuff smells like seasoned salt but kills like cyanide. Woo! hoo!

The ants are lucky that I didn't take a page out of the neighbor's book and bust out a flame thrower. L.H. and I thought that was kind of overkill for weed removal, but to each his own.

L.H. is in the dog house right now. [I wonder if I need a set of crocheted fridgies like his grandmother has—a dog house and several animals, each labeled with the name of a family member. The problem with that set-up is 1) magnets don't stick to our fridge, 2) I try to avoid crocheted ugliness, 3) it's a little too passive-aggressive for my taste, and 4) it's more fun to tell off my loved ones in person than to relegate their crocheted likeness to the crocheted dog house.]

Anyhow, yesterday L.H. talked us into a "short" day-trip since the weather was so nice. A "quick" trip to two nearby towns turned into an 8-hour excursion that included a hike to a spring that is allegedly the site of a major event in the Nibelungenlied (when Siegfried gets whacked), and another hike (that D.D. and I passed on) to a chapel dedicated to Saint Walburga. We packed a lunch to take with us, but we were still starving and tired when we got home. L.H. is in the dog house because he conveniently "forgot" to mention that he wanted us to do the last two things, which doubled the length of our outing and added the hated element of strenuous exercise.

More D.D.

There are few things in the world my child loves more than water, string, and paper, or any combination thereof. [The mini-crossbow with suction-cup arrows she got from a magazine in the meantime might be giving the other bits a run for their money, though.] L.H. and I have seen a wide variety of mail games D.D. came up with on her own: Delivery Duck, who speaks in a robotic quack; Letter in a Bottle, which requires a full bathtub and an empty soda bottle; the Mail Basket, which is an Easter basket tied, with a string, to the upper railing on the stairs and hoisted up and down between sender and addressee; and your basic Mailbox, which started out as a Lego box, but through the power of D.D.'s imagination and a coat of paint, has become—a mailbox!

As I've been cleaning out D.D.'s toy boxes (a couple of Rubbermaid storage bins and a cardboard box left over from our trip to Texas at xmas), I have come across more bits of paper and pieces of string and yarn than a whole kindergarten art class could use in a year. Once I got all the string detached from her toys, I made a mental note to address the string tied to every knob, bed-rail, and handle in her room tomorrow. Too tired today. Frankly, I'm surprised she hasn't accidentally strangled herself by now.

Once I finished the first toy box, I was covered in dirt and glitter, so I felt filthy but glamorous. Fortunately the other boxes turned out to be much cleaner. Hoorah! The boxes are sorted and repacked, but I still have to go through a couple of shelves in the cabinet and the space under her playbed, then actually *clean*, like with the vacuum and a dustrag. A mother's work is never done.

D.D. should actually be helping me more, seeing how she has so much free time on her hands. I'm not talking about school vacation; she is restricted from tv over the weekend because she used up *an entire bottle of dishsoap* washing a toy tea set with only 3 place settings. L.H. and I still haven't figured out how she managed to do it: she was only out of the room 5 or 10 minutes, and there was no mountain of suds to indicate that *an entire bottle of dishsoap* had just been used up. She got punished because this is not the first time she's done something like this, and she's been warned not to do it. It is really frustrating to be giving her a bath and find that both the liquid soap and the shampoo bottles have been filled with water, so there is about 5% soap to 95% water. Aargh!

She has tried to be more helpful around the house to make up for it, like being my quiche-mixing helper and table-setter last night, but she's going to find that from now on, she's going to have more chores, if only to keep her out of trouble.

Correction to July 26

L.H.'s comment about my abruptly ending post from a few days ago actually referred to the fact that several lines disappeared between typing and posting, not my bad post-ending skills. So I dug out the original post (thank goodness I learned my lesson from using Hotmail not to type directly into a Web-based program) and have fixed it. Sorry.

Just Call Me Cussy McFoulmouth

Despite evidence to the contrary here, I really don't curse that much. Well, I don't consider it to be much: my daughter is not unfamiliar with the words "crap" and "ass." But I try not to let it be every other word. Of course, all bets are off when I'm driving the hairpin-filled road over the hill to get D.D. to ballet. Last week was particularly bad; *three* assholes had driven over the line into my lane in a curve. Hel-lo! White lines, people, use 'em! I have noticed a lot of the locals kind of aimlessly slaloming up and down the hill, and it drives me batshit, because—dangerous!

So I'm glad that D.D. has way outgrown the parroting stage, because the grandparents would be treated to a tiny-voiced rendition of "Goddamn! Asshole!" [Yes, two separate words—one to curse the situation and one to curse the shit-for-brains endangering our lives.] Worse for me, D.D. is in the reminding stage, so I get to hear that I shouldn't say such bad words. I'm thinking, "Hey, kid, you're lucky I don't have a missile launcher on this car, because the input from your eyes would be much worse than that from your ears."

She's not Miss Perfect, either, let me tell you. While trying to construct a temple out of Legos (so she'll be an architect instead of an engineer!), there was a repeated series of collapses during the roof-building phase, followed each time by an angry "shit!" So I got to be the reminder, which is actually the natural order of things.

Now I'm remembering when she was a toddler, and she'd refuse something to eat by saying, "I don't want that cwap!" It was so funny that we had a hard time scolding her with a straight face.

But it's not all cursing and carrying on at Chez Nee.

D.D. decided the other night that her tie-dye t-shirt just wasn't fancy enough, so she bummed some gold ribbon off me and began to sew it in a big bow on the front, then to take the extra and make a loopy pattern across the stomach. Tres chic!

She and her friends have decided to make an all-girls club, and they call themselves the "Wild Girls", after the soccer movie called Die Wilden Kerle (the wild guys). The only thing is, the other girls in their class also want to be the Wild Girls, so it's a permanent point of contention between the groups, I'm afraid.

Yesterday was D.D.'s last day of school. She has 6 weeks off for summer vacation and goes back in mid-September. She was awake for 10 minutes this morning before she declared that she was bored. It's going to be a long 6 weeks.

I just hope she goes back to staying in her own bed all night. One morning at 5 am, I heard her alarm go off, then she came cheerfully traipsing up the stairs with her tiny American Girl lamp as a flashlight (15 watts can be pretty bright in a dark room). She was quite proud that she had gotten herself up, but I was less pleased to be awoken when I had an oral exam a mere 4 hours later. Then last night she made it into our bed again. Of course, it was stiflingly hot, so I can understand that it was hard to sleep. L.H. hooked us up with the fan, and we managed to sleep the rest of the night in slightly crowded coolness. (LMIL: it clouded over this morning, so that makes 1 hot day for about 8 cool days; think you guys can handle that?)

We heard this horrible song on the American radio station. It was a "heavy-ish" rock song, and the chorus was something about "Have a Nice Day", sung in this kind of tough-guy, growly voice. It was the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be ironic or sarcastic, which would make it seem more acceptable in my book, but I got the impression it was sung straight. I mean, did the band have a big, yellow smiley face on their album cover? Are the other songs on the album "Y'all Come Back and See Us" and a remake of "You Are My Sunshine"?

As much as I'd like to blather the day away, D.D. and I have a date with her horribly messy room.

You wanted photos, you got photos! Here is the perfect dress for a hooker on her big day. 

A Week of Fun

L.H. pointed out that my last post ended rather abruptly; to tell you the truth, I ran out of steam and notes at the same time. But you are free to think that I was abducted by aliens at that point, or that I was rendered unconscious by the neighbor's "washing machine music," as L.H. calls it.

***

Life didn't come to a complete halt for us once the university semester was over on July 15. L.H. is just now finishing up the last of his grading, and I had the 2-part Latin exam looming over my head. Plus I had a week of marinating in Harry Potter 6.

I did manage to crank out a baby outfit over the weekend for a friend who is due in August. D.D. and I had checked out 2 DVDs from the book bus, so I spent a lot of my weekend crocheting and watching Monsters, Inc. and Bend it Like Beckham. I'm a whirlwind of activity! [There's a scene in BILB where the heroine is being fitted for a sari, and the seamstress quips, "I'll make these mosquito bites look like juicy, juicy mangos." Damn! Why isn't she my seamstress?]

I have also spent a lot of time being a grouch. I blame it on hormones, or maybe the thought of my second Latin exam poking me in the brain. Of course, one day I think we all got up on the wrong side of the bed, because none of us could be civil. "L."H. even asked if I was "riding the crimson wave," to which I responded that he was a "whirling vortex of suckitude." That put us in a better mood; L.H. has suggested that we start using my new phrase everywhere. [Actually, I *think* I came up with it on my own, but I'm like a word-magpie, picking up shiny words I come across. So I don't want to make any easily refutable claims.]

L.H. had a really crappy Monday last week, even compared to mine. I had the 3-hour Latin exam, but he locked himself out of the house. He was scheduled to pick up D.D. from school and take her with him to a meeting on campus. As it so happens, HP6 was delivered that afternoon, and in his haste to dress (it was a hot, muggy day) and meet the mail man in the stairwell, he left his keys inside. With every window in the house open against the heat, a pretty strong breeze gets drawn into the apartment...and the front door slammed shut. L.H. was so flustered by being locked out that he forgot he had shoes in the wardrobe in the stairwell and went to pick up D.D. *barefoot*. The new neighbors let the 2 of them stay there and tried to call the landlord. When they got ahold of him, his helpful advice was to borrow a ladder from his shop downstairs and climb up the roof to the open terrace door (on the 4th floor). The whole afternoon was a disaster.

Then another day he had a minor accident on his bike.

[Oh, no! The Maniacal Laughing Woman just got on the bus!]

All in all, it was not one of his better weeks.

[Now she is talking loudly to herself, to the point that the guy behind her got up and moved to the back of the bus.]

Yesterday while on an errand, I walked past an unfortunate example of why tanning is bad. This woman was probably 60. She had on a blouse with a wide neck, which had slipped off her shoulder. There was no bra strap, so I got an eyeful of a broad expanse of what appeared to be rich, Corinthian leather. *shudder*

We have spotted more doppelgangers this semester. A friend of a friend was teaching D.D. belly dance, and it turns out that she looks almost *exactly* like my friend Dani, down to the color of her hair and the style of her makeup. And a guy in my Latin class is the spitting image of her husband, Jason, if only Jason grew his hair out waist length and dyed it black. It's getting a little freaky.

Every few weeks, an old, white van will be parked across the street, then after another couple of weeks, it'll be gone. I don't know if the owner has a work schedule like on an off-shore oil rig—2 weeks home, 4 weeks on the rig—or if he just can't always find an open spot on that stretch of the street, but the reason I notice the van is that the back side windows are covered with a poster from Pirates of the Caribbean and a poster of what I think is a VW Golf. Now, I'll be the last to complain about Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom being visible from my house, but it still seems odd for someone to cover their van windows.

On the street that runs parallel to the main shopping street, there is a high turnover in businesses. My newest favorite shop for window browsing sells scented oil and crystal lamps and fountains. If I had an extra 300 bucks to blow on myself, I'd buy the fountain that has a base made of jagged amethyst crystals supporting a clear crystal ball that spins on the flowing water. It is mesmerizing. Of course, if I had it, I would spend all my time gazing at it and would forget to, you know, eat and stuff, so maybe it's better that I enjoy it from the safety of the shop window.

My butt has fallen asleep because I am sitting on the floor in the hall outside my teacher's door, waiting to talk to him during his office hours. Perhaps I will stand and wait. Ciao!

[Added after the office hours:]
I just found out that I made the second highest grade on the final for one of my linguistics classes (German inflectional morphology). The guy whose history course I took (which is only graded pass/fail) said my exam there was "weak for a third semester student." Fuck him right in the ear, says I.

More blibber-blabber, but with love

I have finally crawled out from under my rock. I did the oral exam for Latin this morning and found out that I passed the whole thing and should be getting my certificate in the mail soon. Hoorah! Now I can stop cramming Latin into my brain and start doing more important stuff, like money-earning work and writing self-indulgent blibber-blabber on the Internet. Woo! Hoo!

After encountering Maniacal Laughing Woman on the bus yesterday morning, I realized on the trip home that Drunky Hair Guy is really not so bad. So he flips his hair and is a bit unsteady on his feet. [Then again, the way he was fiercely scratching his head, I was glad to be sitting half the bus away.] At least he doesn't burst into hysterical laughter while everyone around him looks the other way, strenuously avoiding eye contact. The MLW got off at my stop, and she had another spastic laugh attack in the middle of the street. Thank goodness I've mastered the art of purposeful walking and managed to outdistance her.

Attack of the low-rise jeans! Aaack! I swear, there are only about 10 women in the world with the right shape to wear these pants, and yet they are squeezing the hips of every young woman I come across. It is bad enough when the end result is two fleshy pockets at waist-level that appear to be filled with mashed potatoes, but it is worse when one of the pockets is sporting a large hairy wart (seen in the shopping district). I know, people can't help having warts, but for the love of all that's sacred, don't exacerbate the scary hairiness by making it protrude atop a gelatinous mound of denim-bound horror.

If you ever think of renting the movie Seven Days to Live, don't bother; we saw it on tv recently. It's supposed to be scary (and I guess the zomby-ish creatures arising from the backed up sewer in the basement are icky), but at the "Fall of the House of Usher"-esque climax where the house collapses, Lovely Husband had to say, "So I built another house. That one fell over, caught on fire, then sank into the swamp." If the scariest part of your movie prompts quotes from Monty Python films, you've missed the boat.

I know I've mentioned the bicyclists around here, and up until a few days ago, L.H. and Darling Daughter had a little joke about them: Boy, are they going to be pissed when they realize how far off course from the Tour de France they are! Hee! Hee!

Call for help

Help! I am trying to think of something that is technically edible, but slightly disgusting. Along the lines of escargot, but not just lying around in nature. Maybe something that has to be prepared, like a jar of pickled eggs. And it must be "clean" enough to hold in the hand without filthing it up (or maybe in a cloth sack).

Ok, let the brainwaves roll in!

Decisions, decisions

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Which of these would you vote to be the next Village People action figure? I think they are looking for a new band member under the title "Future Guy" or "Space Man."

Reading is my life

In case anyone has been wondering what I've been up to:

3-hour Latin exam on Monday (translating from Latin into German, eek!)

Harry Potter 6

My husband doesn't understand the way I read books: I read the book, then I reread it multiple times in a row, or at least bits of it. I may have read the equivalent of 3 HP6s over the last 2 days. And D.D. and I are reading it for her bedtime reading; we're up to Chapter 3.

That means my brain was full of Latin, but I got rid of it in favor of Harry Potter, and that's all that's in there, no independent funny, so sorry, but I will try to pull myself together soonish.

Please everyone cross your fingers that my dear friend WestTexasGirl has a wildly successful interview and gets the perfect job today. Hell, I'd be surprised if they didn't offer it to her on the way out the door (and if they don't *threatening glare*...).

I'm Ba-ack!

Before my exams, my brain was like a balloon, inflated with particles of knowledge. After the exams, my brain is like a deflated balloon, period. There's not a lot floating around in there right now, but I can at least cobble together my notes from over the last week into a post. Be forewarned that is will be slightly more hodge-y, and much more podge-y, than usual.

Back when we were making our toilet-paper-tube puppets, Darling Daughter liberated some craft supplies and made a new sign for her door. It's quite nice—multicolored stars she painted in watercolors with her initial made of popsicle sticks glued on top and painted blue—but I kind of miss the old sign:
"Knock 76 times to enter!!!!"

My Lovely Husband likes to try out different foods and drinks. Our grocery store is a bit dull in the food department, so he's been throwing in a bottle of this or that wine or liquor when he thinks about it. Recently it was single-malt whiskey, knowing that a former acquaintance was quite fond of it. He wasn't impressed. When I saw him drinking some a second time, I reminded him that he had previously said it tasted like rubbing alcohol flavored with dirt. "But it's the dirt of the Scottish highlands!" was his response.

The first of the week was cool and wet-ish, with temps in the 60s and low 70s, but it has been pretty warm the last couple of days, in the low 90s. That is when I (and many other students) appreciate the coolness of the stone-and-tile basement library in the English department. Slipping off one's shoes and placing one's bare feet on the cold, cold tile is a popular pasttime while one studies.

Absurdity is the cure for grumpiness. One of my hard-core studying days last week, I was en route to Latin and in quite a bad mood. But that all changed when I spotted an elderly woman, obviously a tourist (but from where?), wearing a baby-pink vest with a matching scarf and ball cap...and hair. I almost fell off the sidewalk when I saw her. She looked like Dot's poodle at the end of PeeWee's Big Adventure.

That afternoon I saw a dog that looked amazingly like the robot dog from Battlestar Galactica (Muffit, for the geeks among you, and no, I didn't know that; I had to look it up). Except this dog didn't have the metal bands and was dark gray. I might not have noticed him, but he was walking along a 2-3 foot high wall that has a sidewalk and bus stop on one side and a 20-foot drop on the other.

Start rant. Then another day, I had a rage moment on the bridge. There is a pair of towers you have to pass between on the "historical"(=touristy) side of the bridge, and an *American* tour group was blocking the way while their guide tried to get them to gather off to one side. Yes, it was raining, lightly, and yes, the towers are connected and give some protection from the rain, but it is a narrow area, and these people all had apparently functioning umbrellas. It pisses me off to run across thoughtless tourists, and the Americans piss me off even more because they are reinforcing the "ugly American" stereotype. I'm sure jillions of *polite, quiet* American tourists grace our streets every year, but the jerky ones are the ones that get noticed and give everyone else a bad name. End rant.

I know there are lots of cultural differences between Europeans and Americans, but one I find quite interesting is that of maternity wear. From back when I and my friends and acquaintances were pregnant (starting 9 years ago), maternity wear in the US was either cutsie or plain, but it was all of the full-coverage variety. When we were in Sweden, we noticed that tight, stretchy, not-very-maternity-like-to-me clothes were the norm. And visible bellies. I think that is the case throughout Europe, but it may be gaining in America. I'm not sure. Anyhow, a preggie in one of my classes doesn't seem to be dressing at all differently from her pre-preggie state: low-rise jeans and halter tops. I know she's quite a bit younger than I am now, and is probably younger than I was when I got pregnant, but I always have the impression that after class she's going to go clubbing, belly and all. Weird.

Kenny Rogers almost broke up my marriage. L.H. had been (thank the 7 dwarfs! in the past!) stuck on a couple of ole K.R.'s songs, bad enough in itself, but he was conflating them, so the Gambler had lyrics from Coward of the County. Now, my mom had a few K.R. 8-tracks when I was a small kid, and we were big on K.R. for a while, so it pained me that he was messing them up. Oh, and also that he *would not stop singing.*

I've mentioned the sign/kiosk-thing across the street, but there are more up and down the main road, and they are all over the place throughout Germany and have been for about 150 years. Right now D.D.'s favorite sign is a big photo of a banana, labeled "kiwi." Turns out it's an ad for an exhibit on the guy who introduced them [(added to clarify) the kiosks] to Germany. But it gets your attention.

Another sign I've noticed is for the Backstreet Boys tour. Something like "Never gone." My ass. Who's heard of the BBoys since, like, my sister was in high school 10 years ago? And I would guess they're a little too old to try to pass themselves off as "boys." I mean, look at what's happened to Chris Kirkpatrick from NSYNC (however you spell it; where's the damn H?).

From the Bridal Shop of Horrors: apparently they realized something was amiss with one dress, because it was in the window one day and gone the next. It was actually quite pretty, strapless and white, except for the randomly placed silk flowers. They appeared to be white poinsettias, and they appeared to be sprouting from the armpit area. I can't imagine that's comfortable on your big day.

In other plant news, the parsley and flowers for cutting and drying that I planted from seeds are up and growing. I'm quite pleased with their progress, considering my usual lack of success with things green. The parsley is still small, but it tastes like parsley! Imagine that! I hope to have some flowers blooming by the time LMIL and PP come (31 days, D.D. informed me (if I remember correctly)).

What's up with me

Rain

Cold weather

Period

Bloody nose

Exams (1 down, 4 to go)

See you in a week!

Eat Your Heart Out, Siouxsie Sioux

Yes, that was *breast*

Sorry, I meant to include the following info and link:

The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996.

QUOTATION:
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
ATTRIBUTION:
William Congreve (1670–1729), British dramatist. Almeria, in The Mourning Bride, act 1, sc. 1 (1697). Opening lines of play.

As I told Lovely Husband, I like to think of this as a "learning blog." Or rather, a "showing off blog." Same difference.

Newsflash!

I just measured Darling Daughter, and she has topped 50 inches (50-1/4 to be exact). That means that she has grown 4-1/8 inches since we moved here (2 years in September).

Also, my husband has the cutest muffin butt. It's been a life-long blessing for him--just ask his mom. She tells the following story: when he was 9 or 10, a little girl of his acquaintance was heard to say that she liked the way his pants fit in the back. So do I, little girl, so do I.

Back to your regular programming...

Love Your Inner Hulk

Nee smash!

And not in your girly, screechy, glass-breaking way, either. I need a club.

Nee smash trees!

Nee smash bushes!

Nee smash fellow bus passengers!

Nee smash loud, inconsiderate classmates!

Nee smash girl wearing iridescent sequined flip-flops! ROAR!

Damn. D.D.'s "B-O-M-B-Y" song soothes the savage breast when I want to SMASH stuff.

Also this Ilona video creeped me out at first, but now she makes me irrationally happy. (Be patient for the it to load.) We see it in the morning on the kids' channel.

***

I don't know about that saying, "The exception proves the rule." (1) The *rule* proves the rule; for example, "nee should avoid sharp objects," proved by nee stabbing a craft knife under her fingernail while making puppet wigs. (Later that night I sliced strawberries without doing myself a mortal injury. Go me!)

(1) Actually, it's "prove" in the sense of "proofing yeast", i.e., testing it.

The puppets have been a medium success. D.D. spends too much time saying she's bored, and since I have been hoarding boxes, toilet paper tubes, bottles, and every other craft-able item for D.D.'s after-school class, I liberated a few items for "Stewart Family Puppet Theater." A laundry detergent box was transformed into a breathtaking stage, ready to present the comedic highs and tragic lows of the toilet-paper tube soccer players, as drawn by D.D. and yours truly. I dipped into my yarn stash (which takes up a whole under-the-bed craft box) and made several wigs (aka pompons) that can be easily crammed into the top of the tubes. We've had the most fun so far making the hair "grow" by pushing a popsicle stick up the tube. Stay tuned for further adventures in puppetry.

***

We had several days of pleasant weather—which is high praise from me—but a low-pressure system named "Zeus" moved in around lunchtime and put an end to it. After L.H. left to pick up D.D. from school (around 3), it started to rain. When it started to hail (pretty tiny bits), I jumped in the car to carry out my "rescue operation" as D.D. put it. I found the two of them taking shelter in the open garage of one of D.D.'s school mates. His mother drives like a bat out of hell, so they were hoping the rain would let up before she careened into her garage and crushed them. So not only did they not get pelted by hail, but I also saved them from certain death. Go me!

We got a letter from my grandmother in West Texas, and she mentioned the hot weather there. D.D. immediately grabbed some notepaper and wrote:

"Hi, Ma, don't you dare to talk about the weather! The weather is very, very super bad! Love, D.D."

Hee!

Shoe Envy, Muppet Love, Mitten Fate, etc.

At the end of D.D.'s ballet lesson, some teenaged girls came in the waiting/changing area to get ready for their tap class. One of them had on the !cutest! sandals. I was sorely tempted to steal them when her class started, but reality (=I have ugly feet) intruded and set me straight. The shoes were black with little wedge heels and flip-flop style straps (which I normally hate!). The straps were decorated with silver lines in a geometric pattern and had little dangly beads in dark colors. Why do you persecute me, oh cute footwear?!

It was murderously hot at the ballet studio, but one grandma dropping off a dancer was wearing a short-sleeved sweater (!). It did have camels on it, but since I'm pretty sure they're not some kind of totemic protection against the heat, I think she could have worn something lighter.

Fortunately, it has cooled off. It's been raining off and on for a couple of days, and today I don't think it got out of the 60s. It was muggy, but at least not too hot.

D.D. rediscovered the make-up she got for her birthday, so I've had a make-over or two this week, and she has gone from looking like a little girl with dark pink eyeshadow to a little girl with pink eye to a punk girl to an American Indian who only had berries to work with for his war paint. It took 2 days and several face-washings to get all the glitter off my eyes the first time, so I wouldn't let her use glitter on me the second time. It was horribly distracting to keep spotting the one piece of glitter stuck in my top lashes, or the one stuck on my bottom lashes, both on the same eye.

When we were walking to school this morning, we noticed a house where the gate was open. D.D. didn't think it was a good idea to leave it open, because maybe someone would steal their flowers. I told her I thought it unlikely, but she said, "Maybe some teenagers are nuts for flowers. Did you ever think of that? Those teenagers are crazy." There you have it.

Thanks to the power of television commercials, I had one of the crap-alicious songs in my head from the psuedo-band called Banaroo. I was trying to come up with a pun on their name but got stuck; D.D. came up with Banacrap, but she made it clear that it was a suggestion to help me out, and not an endorsement.

I got a triple dose of Muppet love today. First, I saw some bird puppets in the window of a chic toy store (no Barbies there!), and they looked a lot like the birds from Sesame Street, cute and fuzzy. Then I saw Statler and Waldorf in a magazine ad (they are pimping a bank in Germany). Then I saw them again in a poster in a shop window. Now I am complete.

No fug to report on, per se, but I saw a guy at the bus terminal who was wearing a dark blue polo-style shirt, jogging shoes with white socks—so far prototypical frat-boy wear—but with red shorts sporting bright yellow flowers. I was thinking, if a woman wore that combination, she would probably get lots of weird looks, but I doubt anyone but me looked at that guy twice. And I was thinking, "Fool!"

I'm not really a spontaneous shopper; I'm actually quite "male" in shopping style: know what I want or need, go where I think they have it, buy it, and leave. But a couple of weeks ago I was browsing the books on display outside a used book store (as I was walking by on my way to class), and they had a book of traditional Swedish mitten patterns to knit (for only 3 euros). I'm sure they were not expecting to actually sell the book, but how could they have known that a fledgling knitter whose husband has a fetish for all things old and Swedish would happen to walk by that day? It was fate, I tell you.

Put on Your Reading Depends

I'm afraid I'm becoming a blog addict. If I don't write something for a few days, I go completely overboard when I finally get around to it. (Why doesn't this happen with my fiction writing?) So be forewarned.

We've been pretty busy recently. Last Friday—the hottest day of the year in Germany—Darling Daughter's class had an outdoor party. Fortunately, there was covered seating and cold drinks, and it started to cool off as the sun went down, so we didn't die. There were only 2 injuries, neither to our child, so it was a success!

Then on Saturday we went to a midsummer celebration thrown by the German-Swedish club, of which we are members. There was a flower bedecked May-pole, a short program by the Swedish school kids (including D.D.), and various games. Plus dancing around the May-pole. One woman with a mic was giving detailed directions before each song. (Later someone pointed out that it would have helped the German half of the German-Swedish club if she had not given all the directions in Swedish.) Most of the kids and almost half of the adults got up to dance in rings. In addition to the able-bodied dancers, I spotted a few elderly folks, 3 or 4 pregnant ladies (one heavily so), a woman with an infant strapped to her front, and a girl with a soft brace on her ankle. Swedes take their midsummer seriously!

We expected it to be hot, but a storm had blown in the night before, and we got a few sprinkles throughout the day to keep things cooled down. Just in case, I packed a lot of heat-friendly foods for our picnic, including watermelon, cantaloupe, plums, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, and condiment-free ham sandwiches. I'm surprised we didn't all get diarrhea after chowing down on all that water-filled good stuff.

Although the above-mentioned storm cooled things off for a day or so for us, it caused big problems in other parts of Germany, including flooding, property damage from hail and high winds, and some injuries. We had seen in the paper that there was flooding in Paris, so I guess we got lucky.

Speaking of Paris, I can now announce that my Lovely MIL and PawPaw (I thought people might get the wrong idea if I used S.D. (for StepDad)) are coming to see us in August, and we are going to take a group trip to Paris for a few days. Plane tickets have been purchased and hotel rooms reserved, so there's no backing out now, Gwamma, hahahahaha! D.D. is so excited that she declared a couple of weeks ago that if Gwamma ended up not coming, D.D. would throw away her pompoms and never dance again, except ballet. That is serious.

Unfortunately, the restaurant next door closed after, what, 7 months. So we'll have to drag them a light farther away to get some authentic German cuisine. And we ourselves had never gotten around to eating there. Oh, well, our loss.

According to the temperature gage in our village, today was just as hot as last Friday (36C=97F). I wore jeans. Of course, I could be melted into a puddle of goo, but I'd still yell, "Turn up the heat!" in my best crotchety old lady voice.

Although it is hot, that is no excuse for the 2 morons I saw diving off the bridge into the river of doom. Well, one moron made it into the water, and the other moron got talked down by two locals with some sense. I watched the whole thing from the bus stop.

At least I haven't encountered the +summer –shirt –shoes guy on the bus in a while. I take that back: I saw him wearing shorts, and vest –shirt, and some Birkenstocks that he probably slipped off but I couldn't see. The flesh, it creeps when I spot him taking up a section of 4 facing seats because no one wants to sit next to an overweight, balding, sweaty, half-naked man on a bus with no AC. Capice?

I did see Vin Diesel on the street today, but he's much shorter than I would have guessed. Shortly after that, I saw another bald-ish guy wearing almost the exact same black shirt, but he had man-boobs, so I'm positive he's not also Vin Diesel.

The bus stop gives me both pleasure and pain. Pain, because after I give up my place on the bench to some old people, they compound the imposition by starting to smoke heavily, joined by the teenaged parents hanging around nearby; and pleasure because I saw a woman who couldn't have been a day younger than 65 drinking from a *baby bottle*. Minus the nipple, of course, because she probably couldn't suck that hard, but any adult who considers a baby bottle an appropriate drink container (it looked to be tea) needs a reality check. Then I looked to my left and saw another grandmotherly type about to put a baby bottle, *full of milk and with a nipple*, in her mouth. "What in the Hell is going on today?" I thought. She was teasing her grandbaby in the stroller next to her, not having a delicious snack of formula on a hot day. Whew!

D.D. has mentioned several times today (unconvincingly) that she hopes she doesn't faint due to the heat. Every time I make her drink some more water, she points out that she probably won't faint now. The cat was out of the bag when I took her to ballet, which is un-air-conditioned: "I hope I faint!" said with a grin. I promised her that if she did, I'd drag her out of the room. Then I made her drink some more water.

I'm trying not to be paranoid about the heat, but D.D.'s little classmate didn't help things this afternoon. She walked part of the way home with us after school, and she assured us that D.D. has a "pale blister" on her neck just like the one she herself had had the time she didn't eat or drink during a heat wave. (Ok, whose parent doesn't make their kid eat, and especially drink, during hot weather?) L.H. pointed out that it's not a blister, just a white splotch, and it's most likely due to the patchy job he did of applying sunscreen to her the last time.

L.H. thinks people are trying to take advantage of me when they ask for a little help with something they've written in English, like a couple of girls in my classes. One had translated a letter of recommendation for an au pair position in England (took 5 minutes to look at, plus 10 minutes of chatting), and the other is taking a translation course in the English department, but had missed half of the semester due to surgery on her foot and her professor didn't have time to look at her assignments. So I corrected them and arranged to meet her this morning to return them. I was a few minutes late, but she didn't come, so I assumed she had a class and headed home. On the way to the bus, I stopped in a department store, on the hunt for the Perfect Gift (tm)—*whisper* but it's a secret. They didn't have it, but I looked at their cookie cutters since I need to expand my collection (all xmas and Halloween right now). People! Who wants cookies shaped like *tea pots*? Or *spoons*? Really! That store needs to find a new supplier.

So I leave the store, and I see the girl walking by. Turns out she had missed her bus into town and was just running late. So we made the swap, but then she gave me a pretty Chinese fan to say thanks. (It really came in handy at the ballet studio, too.) I feel like I'm finally building up some positive credit in my karma account after stirring up a bunch of family shit last week (which I won't go into here).

Of course, I will probably use it all up by mentioning the horrible dress my classmate was wearing last week. What is the deal with sequins lately? I don't mean a design with sequins on it (btw, Gwamma, D.D. is the talk of the second grade with her new sequined shirts); I mean a whole section of a garment covered in sequins. Think early Elton John. After the following horrifying event, I saw that a "boutique" in town had placed several partially sequined items in its window.

Anyhow, this girl was wearing a halter-top dress: the top was covered in black sequins; the bottom was a nightmare of chartreuse and white and black in a kind of Mondrian pattern. With loafers. Because nothing says "glamorous" like white leather loafers.

Thanks for hanging in there!

Throwing You a Bone

For various reasons, I'm not particularly in posting mode right now, but to keep gwamma and the aunties happy, I figure I can post some oldies but goodies from D.D.'s speech log. (L.H. has been keeping notes on her language(s) development since she started talking, but about 1/4 of the entries are just cute things she said.)

Enjoy.

Age 4
(about Swedish) "That's the old stuff to talk; I like new stuff like I'm talking right now.... I don't like stuff that's junky and funky."

D.D.'s version of the Pledge of Allegiance: "...to the United States and North America and South and April and March. Very good."

"I flang it." (past tense of 'fling', don't you know)

In her Yoda phase: "Pin can you not hold in your mouth." (I had some sewing pins in my mouth.)

Why she supposedly couldn't speak Swedish anymore: "A little troll that's named Maha, he came and took the Swedish away from my heart."

D.D. wanted to tussle with L.H.: "Daddy, bend down so I can kick your butt."

When I was cleaning out the coffee pot with vinegar: "That's the worstest coffee you ever made!"

Yoda redux
me: "There are lots of buildings [in Dallas]!"
D.D.: "And big are they, too."

Age 5
During a difficult BM: "I'm gonna die!"
After I tried to comfort her: "I *want* to die!"

After visiting the grands in LA: "Fangers. That's how Pawpaw says it."

L.H.: "Why did you put a cotton ball in Barbie's dress?"
D.D.: "Because so her boobs will look bigger. Fashion style."

D.D. wanted Lucky Charms, and she promised to eat "the lucky *and* the charms."

While watching a funny movie: "This part cracks me off!"

Age 6
While watching the wedding scene at the end of Star Wars, Episode 2
me: "I think grabbing onto a metallic hand [Anakin's] would ruin the moment."
D.D.: "A can of tuna on someone's head would be a little romantic."

Inside D.D.'s brain: She was musing that the only holiday when devils like to come up to the world is Thanksgiving, because they like to see those dead turkeys.

After eating corn chips in the car: "My tummy is upset. It's upset at those Fritos because they were so salty."

While looking at some golden, bejeweled chalices in a museum: "Too much God."

To the philosophical question, "Why are we here?": So we could eat and drink and so God could watch us on his television.

Age 7
On why she had been in trouble in the recent past: "Sometimes I go far away from my right self and I do bad (stuff)."

D.D. wanted to take a knife to her hard-frozen ice cream, but her dad counseled patience.
(translated from German) "*groan* Patience takes too long."

"Daddy, I would like a thermostat for tomato soup with Mommy's homemade bread" [in her lunch box].

L.H.: "What's this device called?" [pointing to a comic strip drawing of a guillotine]
D.D.: "A head off-chopper?"

Flip-flops and dying, etc.

I saw a woman in high-heeled mules make her way unsteadily across the cobblestone courtyard where I was studying; she then unlocked a bike and proceeded to mount it. I thought "Holy shit! She's going to kill herself!" To my relief, she dug around in her giant Gucci bag and pulled out some regular flip-flops, thereby avoiding catastrophe.

Then I saw a girl wearing turquoise rubber flip-flops...laced up the calf with matching satin ribbons. She looked completely ridiculous. What was she supposed to be, ballerina-slash-beach bum? Roman-slash-transvestite? I do not know.

Later, while crossing the bridge to the bus, I saw a man swimming in the river. He must have a death wish, because the city government's weekly newspaper recently carried a warning to stay out of the river, due to it being so filthy. (My husband has been in it once, and I made sure to read the article to him in the spirit of "I told you so.") After I got to the bus stop, I tried looking for the swimmer, but I spotted two little bunnies in the shrubbery instead. Cute! And much better than watching some guy dissolve in the river.

I know I said I drive like a granny, but really, I follow the speed limit. The only time I creep along is when I have to go down the main road in our village that has cars parked all along the down-hill side. Have I mentioned that the streets are all narrow? I thought so. Anyhow, I cruise along *at the speed limit* when I'm on the road to the grocery store, but inevitably, someone will insist on tailgating me. So when I spotted the 'falling rocks' sign recently, I thought that would be the answer to all my prayers: tailgaters crushed by falling rocks, i.e., instant karma.

The annoying pseudo-band has another annoying song: Space Cowboy. I will go on record as saying that only Elton John could pull off a song with that title. This band is definitely no Elton John, therefore they should just hang up their jocks.

The weather has been wonderfully warm—no, hot—and I am soaking it up. There were a few clouds earlier this week, but it didn't get too cold, and we've only gotten the tiniest sprinkle, so today was a bit humid. But hot! Woo! Hoo!

I'm Unappreciated

My hair is getting really long, so I've taken to wearing it up in a braid or a bun (shades of my grandmother). I like to think that when I take it down, I have luxuriant waves, but one day I noticed that my unbraided hair keeps separating itself into thin, scraggly, pseuo-dreds. Ok, I thought, screw the braid; the bun won't let me down. Last night, D.D. said I had a bunch of "crinkly little hairs", and L.H. commented that my hair looked frizzy, then corrected himself: bushy.

When L.H. was little, he had a knack for pushing people's buttons, to the point that his mother feared for his life when he started in on his older, bigger brother. He hasn't outgrown this trait. Of course, my mom says I had a smart mouth, but I—Wait, scratch that. Never mind.

I was just remembering the time in junior high when the guy who sat in front of me in math started calling a blond classmate "Goldilocks" and myself "Shitty-locks." My thirty-two-year-old self hopes my thirteen-year-old self told him he was a total dick. (He grew out of it, if I remember correctly.)

I hope that something like that doesn't happen to my beautiful, brunette daughter, but I imagine anyone who tried it would get a punch in the face for his efforts.

I finally broke down and hit the "Jeans Palace." According to the Levis site, the JP carries their jeans. I know exactly what style and size of Levis fit me (having just bought a pair while in Texas), so I thought shopping would be a snap. Encouraged by the "30% off brand-name jeans" sign, I entered the den of iniquity. Where I promptly had a heart attack and fell over. !!86 euros for Levis!! (and not even in the style I was looking for). Even with the discount, there is no way I would pay half my grocery bill for jeans. Sheesh!

I like to read fantasy novels, and I'm giving writing one a shot, but I have to admit that I feel a little silly writing a bare-bones outline of the plot; I actually used the word "ensorcel." *mental note—fire that part of my brain* I think I need to jazz things up, like use mafia-esque terms: the wizard whacked a bunch of people. Now I feel less silly.

My Lovely Husband just put out a bunch of geraniums and some plumbagos—or, as we call them around here, his "precious plumbagos." That goes back to when he had a huge wall of plumbagos growing outside our front door, and he would disappear for a while each evening in order to water and prune and rearrange his darling plants. The new flowers are in flower boxes all along both balconies (over one another on the east-ish side of the house). Since we have a kind of Bavarian-looking house, L.H. insists on the flowers to go with the look. I'll give him his prop and say that I enjoy the view out the kitchen window much more after his flower-planting orgy. So there.

Short but Coherent

I remember that last year the pedestrian bridge was often littered with dog poop, but it's been surprisingly clean this year (knock on wood). So it was upsetting to see that a man—an American!—appeared to be encouraging his little dog to evacuate on the bridge this evening. It's a good thing his wife came and made them move along, because on behalf of all daily bridge-crossers, I would have been forced to stab him with my pen.

Outside of the occasional motor starting in the tiny parking lot outside my classroom, we hardly even notice it's there. But today someone's car must have sprung a mighty leak, because gas—not exhaust—fumes filled our room. Latin is brain-damaging enough; I don't need a side order of toxic fumes, thanks.

Lovely Husband and Darling Daughter toted some of her friends to the pool yesterday, but L.H. has a militant disregard for SKIN CANCER, so he didn't bother to put on any sunscreen, and now he's all red. HA HA! It's my wifely prerogative to mock, didn't you know?

L.H. tried to thwart my plan to educate the online public about the wonderful world of Star Wars-themed paper products by using the first paper towel off the roll, thereby throwing off the pattern so that Chewbacca's feet or head are systematically chopped off, but my patience and cunning have paid off. Chewbacca is not only friendly and unassuming, but he kicks ass at cleaning up hairballs.