Mid-snow today. Compare to the photo from yesterday. You can't see the bottom of the valley. 

It's War!

Hannah and John have had a battle of wills going over the state of her room for a couple of days. So far, to get out of cleaning up, Hannah has:

1. thrown a giant tantrum and locked herself in her room.

2. taken a 2+ hour bath.

3. read a Swedish book, because she knows that her dad would NEVER make her stop doing anything she willingly chose to do in Swedish. Closely related to this is 'learning': "Dad, I can't stop using the computer--I'm learning!" Yes, PBS is supposed to be educational, but playing games with Arthur and Buster may be a borderline case.

But John finally pulled out the big guns and told her no tv and no newest installment of her favorite film series if she doesn't get busy. So at least we can see the living room floor again. The movie may have come out on video by the time she finishes her room, though.

It's been snowing for THREE DAYS. If you don't hear from me for another week, assume I've gone insane. 

That's My Girl!

Despite having a friend over, Hannah was a bit bored yesterday afternoon (it was snowing), so she entertained herself for a few minutes by flipping through my unabridged dictionary. The pea doesn't fall far from the pod, eh?

Too Much of a Good Thing

We recently received a couple of belated Xmas presents in the mail, so we are now overflowing with love and macaroni and cheese. And garbage, because if you haven't heard, the garbage-men in Germany are on strike. But at least it snowed again, so the rats can't come out until it warms up a little.

But, the point of this post was to beg our loved ones not to send anything to us by mail anymore. We love all of the gifts, and they show that you obviously know us well and love us enough to choose them, but we have had a series of small cows on seeing how much people have had to cough up to the USPS to send them. Save your money and our blood pressure!

Thank you for your attention.

Strife at Chez Nee

On Sunday, John accidentally leaned on the shirt Hannah had just decorated with glitter glue and macaroni and had draped over the back of the couch to dry, smudging said glue and sending Hannah into an incoherent rage. She packed up her suitcase and declared her intention to run away to her friend's house a few doors down. Fortunately, it was already around 9 pm, so she decided to wait until the following day. She still hasn't completely made up her mind, but she's still here. Then again, I think the suitcase is still packed, ready and waiting to be called into action. So if you don't hear about Hannah for a while, it's because she has chosen to live with a new family, one that will not ruin her artistic endeavors.

It Never Fails

I posted the picture of the snowdrops last week, and we've had brief flurries of snow *twice* since then, including as I type. Un-believable! Well, not really, but a bit depressing nonetheless. Come on, Spring!

The Everyday at Chez Nee

Hannah's after-school program needs eggs for their East craft projects (blown-out, like for making cascarones). Even though I've mentioned it to him a few times, John keeps forgetting and cracking the eggs in half. So I asked if it would help him remember if I wrote on the egg carton: "BLOW ME!"

So I Lied

Ok, apparently I cannot give up my blog so easily. Not that I am filling it with enlightenment or anything...

It doesn't help that John is totally an enabler. When I told him I was going on hiatus, he basically said I don't need to give up my blog just to *work*. I love his priorities!

Anyhow, I'm not leaving, but I must warn you up front that most posts will be drive-bys and photoblogging. Speaking of which, new photos on Flickr (see under Fotos on right).

Nee at work. Or as I like to say after a break, "Back to the mines!" 

Merry spring! The first snow drops. Of course, their appearance does not preclude more snow, but it's still nice to see that spring is around the corner. Sort of. Maybe. 

Happy Birthday to me. A jewelry box/key holder/piggy bank made just for me by Hannah. Sure, to you it might look like a couple of empty chocolate boxes and a paper towel tube, but to me it looks like love! 

Trying out the email feature

Just a quick note to let you know that, yes, I am
basically dead. I have a HUGE translating job to
finish before the next semester starts in mid-April,
and I am pretty sure it will have eaten both mine and
John's sack lunches by the time everything is said and
done. I'll be home if anyone needs me, and
occasionally checking email, but blogging? Don't hold
your breath.

See you in April!

What Is Up With Youth Today?

I know I mentioned back in the day that Hannah and I had made a theater out of a laundry detergent box and puppets out of toilet paper tubes. I was also drafted into wig-making for the puppets, so there are homemade pom-poms in a variety of sizes and colors floating around the house these days. Hannah and her friend decided that the pom-poms make perfect pretend-bombs, so they spent the afternoon of their playdate tormenting John with stealth pom-pom attacks.

Once they had bombs, it was obvious that they also needed a bomb shelter, so the recently re-erected Barbie tent got to serve double duty. Hannah has slept the last 2 nights in the bomb shelter, which is well-supplied with a sleeping bag and blankets, a flashlight, and lidded Tupperware cups, one holding dry cereal and the other water. She’s ready for the big one!

When not preparing for mayhem and destruction, she’s been playing with her Barbies. She was quite methodical about it this last time. She lined up a bunch of them, numbered them off, then assigned them names on a numbered list. The Shelly dolls (and a baby shanghaied from the Loving Family) are assigned to a Mom-Barbie and get that Barbie’s number + 10 (e.g., Barbie #3 is the mom to Shelly #13). She didn’t have as many Kens as Barbies (and one Ken had to be put down because his legs snapped off), but they are also lined up, although on the opposite end of the couch (which means that there is now approximately one foot of clear space on our L-shaped couch that normally seats 5). Hannah asked me if I knew who the guys were. “Back Street Boys?” “Mo-om! They’re a band of robbers.” I think she means highwaymen. I told those guys right up front that the first time I caught them robbing in this house, out they go. Hannah assured me that they do their robbing in town. Whew!

Walking home with Hannah can be quite fun—until she decides that she has some internal injury or that her spine is snapping under the weight of my backpack, while my spine really is snapping under the weight of hers. But up until that point, it is all fun and games for us. For example, I started whistling Jingle Bells, which turned into both of us raspberry-ing Jingle Bells, which morphed into us quacking Jingle Bells. John would not have gone along with this; I have trained my daughter well. Good times.

At the doctor’s office last week, I found out that Hannah is now 1.31 meters tall (about 4 feet, 3-1/2 inches) and weighs 27.2 kilograms (right at 60 pounds). She’s getting to be a loaf!

I also got a recipe from the doctor for a “cold drink”, which tastes very similar to orange Gatorade. It only requires 4 ingredients; recipe on request. Of course, Hannah wouldn’t drink it, because she won’t drink anything without a crust of sugar on top. Boy is she going to get thirsty!

Sorry to add this non-Hannah-related bit, but it is starting to snow, not much, but the flakes are the size of cotton balls! Southern Germany is literally covered in snow—I saw on the news that people in parts of Bavaria have to shovel *the roofs of their houses EVERY DAY* just to avoid having their roofs collapse. One guy on his roof was chest-deep in snow. Christ! They even had to call in the military to help with clearing away all the snow. We can definitely afford the snow more than they can, so I hope this was originally intended for them but made a detour on the way south.

Back in the Game, Maybe

Do you ever have the feeling that no matter what you do, Fate is going to take a big ole dump on you? After a couple of weeks *cough* of non-blogging, I sat down to start my next Internet masterpiece... and promptly splashed hot cocoa on my paper, over the one paragraph I’d managed to squeeze out of my brain. AAARRGH! And when I got home that day and tried to jot off a quickie post, Blogger was undergoing some updates, so it wasn’t until the next day that I was able to post it. And John has been grading end-of-term papers almost non-stop, so computer time has also been an issue. But he’s off teaching this morning, so I have a crack at getting something up.

I figure that rather than trying to break down the last couple of weeks into easily-digestible, thematically related chunks, I’ll just give you everything now, in no particular order. Hope you’re wearing your blog-reading Depends!

Both of our American neighbors are now working on base, so they offered to take me to the commissary. John and I sat down to make up a list and were both amazed at the sheer amount of CRAP we were longing for. Well, more him and Hannah than me. My list did not include Wolf Brand Chili and marshmallows, although I had to put peanut-buttery snack foods on it. Mmmmm... Nutter Butter. Needless to say, my cart did not resemble that of your typical shopper getting real groceries. But I did manage not to go over the amount of US dollars I’d exchanged, so there was a silver lining on the fat- and salt-laden cloud. I was hoping we could really stretch out our consumption of these items, since no one needs to eat 2 bags of Doritos, 4 boxes of macaroni and cheese, or a couple of cans of Spaghetti-Os close together, but it seems that we’ve hit more on the holiday-type eating style: eat it up and get it out of the way. Blech.

A week ago we all chopped off our hair. Relatively speaking, of course. No one would call any of us “short-haired”, but I’m sure we got rid of more than a foot of hair between the three of us. Even though I lost the most inches, Hannah had the most impressive pile of hair on the floor afterwards. (1) She’s lucky that she takes after her dad in that respect, because I’ve got fine, thin, useless hair. The slightly shorter style (photographic evidence here) makes her look older and compelled me to ask her if I could put a brick on her head (to stop her growing up, see?). To which she responded, “Mo-om!”

(1) I did take photos of the piles of hair, but John was adamant that posting them on the Internet would just be too much.

Afterwards, we went to a little informal get-together at Hannah’s friend’s parents’ (look at me with the triple genitive—woo hoo!). The dad is a business consultant, so even at an “informal dinner”, they were able to set out matching china, silver, and stemware for *14*. Despite being somewhat in awe of their housekeeping, John and I really enjoyed getting to chat with other grown-ups while the kids kept each other entertained. We all stayed up too late, though, and Hannah was weeping with exhaustion on the 5-minute walk home.

Looking back, I can hardly even remember what has been going on. It seems like I’ve been non-stop busy, but everything has just been sucked into some kind of black hole of memory. I think a few more things have just been coughed back up, so to speak, so I will forge on.

Hannah has been sick (just the cough) since I first mentioned it several posts ago. The doctor gave us a liquid extract of thyme (yes, the herb) to help thin the phlegm and noted that she had a slight wheeze. She did a breathing test, which indicated her bronchioles were constricted, so we’re supposed to be keeping an eye on that in case she’s developing asthma. On the other hand, it could just be her personal response to the cold, he said. I’ll be glad when she stops coughing, although I’ve already noticed a decrease since the visit.

We drove to a nearby town over the weekend to hear some Swedish folk songs and discovered en route that they have a KFC, which meant we had to stop on the way home for Hannah and John. I admit I also ate one of their chicken strips, and it was just like I remembered: salty and indigestion-inducing. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give up fast food, based on my recent experiences with it. I’ve either managed to wean myself off it to the point that it throws my system off on the rare occasions when I eat it, or my stomach is getting elderly and sensitive on me. It’s less of a tragedy in my case than it would be in John’s, since his idea of delicious (Sonic frito pie and Taco Bell anything) and mine don’t quite align.

The furry boot trend is driving me mad. I have seen *1* pair out of hundreds that didn’t make me want to rip them off the person’s feet and beat her with them—a mom at Hannah’s ballet studio had some with beading that made them look very moccasin-y and cool, as opposed to road-kill-y and bad. A girl in one of my classes was wearing a pair of boots last week that would have been totally wicked without the fur, kind of a high-gloss, brown leather pirate boot. But then some deranged person decided to pair them with *fur legwarmers*, and this girl paid money for them! The mind boggles.

I spotted the most laughable car parked right outside my department recently. It was a tricked-out, red Ford Fiesta, at least 10 years old. The windows were tinted and everything. And on the back window, beautiful script lettering declared it the “Pussy Deluxe.” Sounds like one of the Bond girls. [At first I misremembered it as “Pussy Maximum”, but it’s the same difference, no?]

The Sponge showed up again, this time with a friend in tow, and we were so spineless that we let them stay with us for one day on their way to Paris. They were backpacking from Hamburg, where he had some kind of photo exhibit, using a combination of ride-sharing and regional trains. In case you were wondering, backpacking + young Austinite hipsters = STINKY. We are just too white-bread for that shit, I guess. Next time she calls, we’re just going to grow a pair and tell her no.

I’m sure there’s been more going on, but like I said, it’s now lost in the mists of time. At least it stopped snowing before our turn at snow-shoveling and hall-cleaning started this weekend. Woot!

Hannah Writes Her First Play

There is a collapsible puppet theater at Hannah's after-school care. Today she started her first play to be staged there at a future date. Here's our conversation about the play as we walked home from school in the snow:

H: It starts with this devil--
N: *gasp* A devil!?
H: No, no! He's a good devil.
N: Ok. Go on.
H: So the devil tells everyone that the play is set during World War Two. There are two main characters, a man and a woman. The woman is secretly the Queen of England. Her name is Maria Theodora. The man is very poor. His name is Marcus Melvin. I made up those names. That's as much as I have so far.

Bravo! We have a budding writer on our hands!

Yahtzee Champ-to-be

Hannah was playing with some dice she found stashed among her other games. She shook 6 dice in her hand, and then rolled 5 sixes and 1 five. She's a natural! Of course, she whipped her dad and uncle like red-headed stepchildren the first time they played Clue together, so maybe she has some kind of gaming gene enabled.

I'm beginning to think Hannah has somehow become a tool of the latex industry. Once again, she has spent her allowance on balloons. And not just any balloons, but enormous balloons larger than her torso that she is taping to the ceiling to make a disco in her room. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. 

Fashion and Hormones Equals Fun With Nee

Have you ever seen those ugly jeans (tell us how you really feel, Nee) made out of really dark blue denim—dark enough you can’t see the weave of the fabric—and “enhanced” with iridescent glitter? The wedding shop is apparently now offering evening gowns made of this “wonder fabric.”

But that wasn’t even the worst crime against fashion I spotted yesterday. Remember those tiered skirts that were so popular last year? (I still love mine!) Now imagine tiered *pants.* The top two tiers were a striped fabric, maybe denim, and the bottom tier—with a *ruffle*--appeared to be velvet. I think she may be attending the clown college across the river. With a major in rodeo clowning.

Hannah occasionally decides to sleep on the made-out couch, so she hasn’t slept in her own bed for a while. That affects our sleep-related routines, of course. I can easily snuggle up to her on the couch, something I can’t quite manage in the 2-story play bed. But that also means that she can reach me. So my usual method of waking her up, tickling, has been turned against me. And for some reason, yesterday morning she insisted on trying to *lick my thumb.* She’s getting so big, I couldn’t fight her off! So my thumb got licked, and I burst into tears. (You’d think it’d be no big deal by now; my sister used to lick my face all the time. Maybe you had to be there.) The crying was her cue to run off to the bathroom while I sobbed all over her blankets. “Are you feeling a bit, um, emotional?” John asked. I bit back my first impulse to tell him to fuck off and answered, “I don’t know.” And wouldn’t you know it: that afternoon—POOF!—I started my period. So at least I wasn’t permanently sliding into insanity.

I have shocking news for you. You might want to sit down. If you have a bad heart, you might want to pop the top off the nitroglycerin. I am actually *enjoying this winter*. There, I've said it. I know that in this photo the sun is smothered by the clouds/fog/Old Man Winter, but the trees look so magical in their mantle of frost. It's different from the look of snow, which has occasionally sent me into a murderous rage, but not today. I wish I had a camera with me yesterday evening, because Hannah and I watched a RAINBOW SUNSET outside the door to her ballet studio. It was more beautiful than I could describe with pitiful words. 

Hannah, the Hoff, and Wasted Time

Hannah was still coughing on Monday, so she got to stay home one more day. It occurred to us that her class’s field trip meant she’d be walking around outside in near-freezing temps, so she’d be better off at home. It was hard to concentrate on translating, though, so I didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d hoped to.

Hannah’s getting so big. If John’s measurements over the weekend were correct, she had grown 2 centimeters in one month, bringing her up to 52 inches or so. That means she’s within 9 inches of my height (I’m *almost* 5’1).

We were playing Pictionary the other day, and she drew a really good picture of a horse wearing blinders—well, it was good once it was done; while she was drawing, my guesses included a rabbit being eaten by a crocodile and a giraffe. Unfortunately, her word was *blEnder*, not blInder. It was a heroic effort, though.

Hannah and her best friend take turns sleeping over on Friday nights, and we usually let them watch tv if there’s something appropriate on, and a movie if there’s not. One Friday, while flipping through the channels for them, I found Knight Rider. Yep, the original. (Turns out there’s a newer version with a whole fleet of talking vehicles. urg) “Ooh, ooh!” said the friend. She *totally* dug it. I believe it was the first time she had seen it. I think Germans must have some kind of genetic predisposition to like David Hasselhoff. (Of course, even the Fug Girls can’t get enough of the Hoff.) And here’s the link again to the Hasselhoffian Recursion for your viewing... uh, pleasure might be too strong a word; let’s just leave it at “viewing.”

My mom sent us about 10 boxes of Girl Scout cookies around Thanksgiving, providing us with a running start into the holiday bloat. She’s lovely, but evil. Anyhow, I was talking to her the other day, and she offered to send some more this season. I flat out refused her. We are trying to wean Hannah off the sweets, and a 20-lb. care package of cookies is not going to help. I prefer her to make her body out of chicken and noodles and apples (some of the few things she will actually eat) instead of out of Thin Mints and Peanut-Butter Patties.

Apparently I’m not the only one around here to enjoy the winter sunshine. John’s plumbago has put out a bloom. Sadly, Hannah’s fire bean plant didn’t survive to make it all the way to the ceiling, but since its beans are poisonous, I’m not too sad that it didn’t get the chance to make any.

One of John’s students gave him a novel to read and pass on, Colony Girl. I wasn’t too impressed with it. (John doesn’t really read novels. He is currently immersed in a scientific book on the Indo-Europeans.) The story is about a teenaged girl living in a religious colony, and she sees through everyone’s foibles and wants to get away. I read the first 5 and the last 70 pages, and I knew everything that happened in the 200pages in between. And the protagonist didn’t make me care enough about her to want to go back and read the middle. So...not too impressed. (Apparently some The Library Journal wasn’t either, looking at their review on amazon.)

One day I will be so far ahead on my classwork, etc., that I will be able to read my pile o' Pratchett waiting for me. Until then...

Ps. New Flickr photos of Hannah. See link on right.

Return of the...Whatever

King of the Jungle?
Originally uploaded by NeeS.

This, uh, statuary stands at the entrance to [Name of City] College, which I was under the impression was some kind of prep school. It now appears that this school has been bought out by the circus and turned into a clown college. You just know that the posh lions guarding, like, the New York Public Library are laughing up their sleeves at this poor guy.

Good, Bad, and Indifferent

You know, I could adopt the “I (don’t) like...” format, and blog entries would practically write themselves! To wit:

I don’t like static. I usually wear my hair up, but poor Hannah has the “fork-in-light-socket” look every time she sits on the couch. And I am SICK of shocking myself on the tv, vcr, computer, Hannah, cat, kitchen faucet, and tile wall. I’m not kidding; I’ve started grounding myself before touching electronics.

Despite my previous declarations of hatred, I am completely neutral toward winter this year. I attribute this to the greater-than-usual amount of sunshine. As I have mentioned before, ad nauseum, I can handle most anything served to me with a side of sunshine.

We let Hannah play hooky today, and, by extension, ourselves (to a lesser degree). John had one class to teach this morning, so I got to miss both my classes to watch Hannah. He got home five minutes after my second class started. Woot! She actually does have a cold; if she laughs, she starts this gurgly coughing that sounds really gross. But since she only ran a slight fever yesterday evening and none today, she goes back to school tomorrow. Lucky thing: they are going on a field trip, so she really will have only half her classes.

Since I worked on a translation gig over the weekend, I gave myself the day off (mostly) to watch tv and play with Hannah and to chat with John. It’s nice to be able to have a conversation with my husband once in a while that is not about making dinner or doing the dishes. Of course, those conversations could also be interesting to the outside observer since John always accuses me of “treacherously” doing the dishes so it is his turn, even if the dishes have been piling up for 2 or 3 days. (Why yes, we are firm believers in the piling system of kitchen organization, why do you ask?)

To make the day seem like less of a blow-off, I folded the last of the laundry from the weekend and worked on some creative writing projects. Little did I know that as soon as dinner was over and I wanted to blog, the damn sink would seal itself closed, forcing me to everything short of voodoo to get the damn thing unblocked again. In the process, the dishwasher overflowed (just a little this time), so I had to mop, making Hannah unhappy with me because *she* wanted to mop. She is finally getting into chores, even bartering hanging up her clean clothes (she usually puts away folded stuff) to be allowed to sleep in our bed last night. But tonight really wasn’t the night for her to take up mopping. Tomorrow, though...

We bought a faceted crystal sphere so we could enjoy the occasional sunshine on more than one level, and here are the results in the downstairs hallway. (It was too bright to get a photo upstairs.) But even with the sunshine, it only got up to about 37F today. So tiny rainbows was about it for big events at Casa Nee. And Hannah is coming down with a bad cold, probably the same one that kept her friend out of school two days last week.  

I do not like...

...my daughter waking me up in the night 3 times in one week. I thought she had outgrown that.

...my husband tricking me into getting up at 8 am on Sunday. He refused to believe that “cotton on to” (1) was a legitimate usage, and being too much of a reference-nerd to let that pass, I was forced to get up and prove him wrong.

...discovering our cats lounging on the dining-room table when I went to look in the dictionary.

...the tree at the bus stop in town. It is covered in enormous spikes that could be really dangerous if I were a foot taller. And the equally enormous pods it drops (as long as my forearm) look like they could be incubators for alien beings.

...clouds. True, it is officially -1C (about 30F), but it feels colder than when it was officially -5C (about 23F). I hate you, clouds.

(1) from Merriam-Webster online:

cotton
Function: intransitive verb
1 : to take a liking -- used with to <cottons to people easily>
2 : to come to understand -- used with to or on to <cottoned on to the fact that our children work furiously -- H. M. McLuhan>

I like...

...the neighbor’s yard. It is full of garden gnomes, including 2 sets of Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.

...the little carvings on buildings around town, like the faces and shields above the doors to a bookstore.

...the record store near the English Department. Any shop that makes me want to run out and buy a turntable so I can buy Born to Add and Pet Sounds from them is all right by me.

...one of the dresses at the infamous Marriage Royale. It’s white with gold, lacy trim. It looks like something Björk would wear if her swan were at the cleaners. It makes me happy.

...sunshine on a cold day. And it has been COLD. The high pressure front that had Russia locked in ice is now hovering over the rest of Europe. Today was a balmy 30F, but when I left the house yesterday morning, it was about 23F. As long as Mr. Sunshine is there, though, I am happy as a clam wrapped in a balaclava.

Hannah Breaks Hearts

Hannah told John last week that she didn’t want him to read to her at bedtime anymore because she is too big for that now. *crack*

Tonight she was doing her division problems like a champ. I asked if she had been practicing her multiplication, and she said, “Yeah, with Dad.” She never wants to with me. *crack*

We’re sobbing on the inside.

Where's my mohawk?

You know how strict teetotalers are supposed to basically be repressed alcoholics? Well, I think uptight people like myself are probably repressed anarchists. I say this because I frequently find myself stamping down anti-social and violent urges, like head-butting the jackass sitting back-to-back with me on the bus, or kicking saggy-panted teens into the street (after yanking said pants down), or stabbing annoying classmates in the head with my pen. If I actually acted on any of these urges, I would be so punk rock. *heh heh*

Racy!

I was riding the bus last week, and I had noticed this, um, interesting looking couple at the bus stop. Apparently they were sitting in the seat right behind me, because I suddenly heard the woman moaning, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Four times "Oh!", that's right. The girl I was sharing the seat with and I both whipped our heads around (so we were turning toward each other), but then turned right back to face the front. It was so hilarious, because usually the Germans on the bus are totally unflappable. I guess they make a special exception for orgasmic old ladies on the bus. hee hee!

And in that vein...
Hannah always asks us if it is ok if she plays with her Barbies. Why wouldn't it be? Then she goes in her room and closes the door and *closes all the blinds*. John almost slayed me when he said she'll go blind if she doesn't quit playing with the Barbies so much. Please don't ever show her this post.

Dance, Dance, Dance

Am I a mean mother (1) for making Hannah go to ballet? If she had her druthers, she’d lie on the couch watching tv every day after school. John and I have talked about it, and we agree she needs some kind of extra-curricular activity.

Today she was quite the Chatty Cathy after school, but as soon as we got home, she made a pitifully transparent attempt at crying and claiming she had a headache. While I was making my world-famous headache cure (hot cocoa), she was using the kitchen counter as a barre to do a jump they have been practicing in ballet class. Doesn’t like ballet, my butt. She was as happy as a clam once she got to class. Sheesh.

Her teacher wants to split up the class because it is getting too large and unwieldy (14 kids barely fit in the room, much less at the barre), so Hannah will probably move into the group that meets an hour later. That means she’ll have an extra hour after school on Wednesdays to be a slug before we have to leave for class, but that also means I’ll have to drive in the dark. Oh, well, the days are starting to get longer again, so it won’t be dark forever.

(1) I’m already a mean mutha’. I was just wondering about the other kind.

Apparently I'm much more vain than many of you might have guessed, because I am obsessing (again) over the encroaching white in my hair, which is not so much creeping as making a kamikaze attack. I recently replaced my long-dead hair clip thingie, and the contrast between the end of my hair (which is almost waist-length since I'm too lazy/cheap to get it cut) and the top became suddenly, horrifyingly obvious, as captured here for your viewing enjoyment and sympathy.
 

Bleebity, Blah, Bloo

I realized that it was probably time to put something up here or I’d lose all 3 of my readers. Unfortunately, not a lot has been going on that is particularly bloggable.

Since xmas, we’ve had snow, rain, a smidge more snow, and a hard freeze, so now there’s half-an-inch of snow frozen on to everything. That sure beats the 6 inches we had to scrape off the car over the holidays just to go to the store. And we haven’t gotten anything like the amount they had further south.

I finally broke out my sexy, blue pajamas and have had to endure ridicule from my loving family, but at least I’m warm.

I am on the brink of conquest in what shall evermore be known as “The Battle of the Plantar Warts.” Poor Hannah had one on each foot, but I guess we weren’t treating them aggressively enough, because one of them added 3 offspring, so after New Year’s I really got after them, applying salicylic acid 3-4 times a day and scraping off the dead skin with a cuticle trimmer at least once a day. It was gross but satisfying. I’m still treating 2 small spots that look like they still have the tell-tale black bits in them, but the other 2 warts are completely gone, all without the dreaded doctor’s visit. (I don’t know what Hannah had against the doctor; he is just the sweetest, gentlest man.)

Hannah’s teacher has made notes on her math homework more than once that she needs to practice her mental reckoning, but she is horribly resistant to the idea. I tried to get her to do some word problems on the way home from school on Friday (“if there are 7 cages at the zoo, and 6 animals in each cage...”), but she flat out refused to learn anything (her formulation). And she doesn’t even have the excuse that the boy behind her and his non-stop stream of dirty jokes are more interesting than multiplication (that was my problem in the third grade).

In the next 8 days, I have 1 final exam and 1 presentation, so I will in all likeliness be absent again for a while. See you on the flip side!

A Little John, A Little Nee

I can't believe Hannah likes home video shows so much. For the most part, I find myself cringing and empathizing with the poor people getting maimed and embarrassed. She just laughs. Of course, her dad's favorite scene in My Cousin Vinny is when the cocky defense lawyer addresses the court with a bad stutter, which is when I get up and go to the bathroom or get a drink of water; it's terrible.

So tonight she is laughing at the misfortunes of others, recorded for posterity on video, and last night she was crying almost hysterically at the calf-roping event while we were watching some rodeo documentary on tv. She was afraid the calves might strangle themselves (to death!) on the ropes. She also won't watch nature shows; too many animals eating other animals. But show a man getting racked or a woman sitting on a chair that breaks under her, and Hannah eats it up. *sigh* Fortunately, she only sees this show once in a blue moon.

Heads up!

I’m fiddling around with the content in the frame to the right, including a link to my Flickr account, so check it out once in a while for new stuff.

I started this as a completely anonymous blog, using nicknames and pseudonyms for my loved ones, but I feel now that I can loosen up a bit. (1) Not completely, understand, as my husband is a bit nervous about us being foreigners, etc. Anyhow, I’d like to introduce my Darling Daughter, Hannah, and my Lovely Husband, John. Of course, with those names, they are still fairly anonymous. I’m still Nee; that’s one of my family nicknames, bestowed by a nephew ages ago.

(1) Commenters can still be as pseudonymous as they choose, but it’s not a requirement, and hopefully dropping the initials will make it easier for people to comment without have to keep a cheat sheet of who’s who.

I’ve only been out of the house to run a few errands since New Year’s, so I haven’t actually observed anything new that I can comment on here. (2) Back to my cozy hole under a rock for a few more days until school starts back and I can stare at my fellow students.

(2) Except this: somehow, Hannah has it in her head that Las Vegas is the best place in the world. She called it “the place where dreams come true” the other day. I have no idea how this has happened.

The Insanity Stops Here

For me, the spirit of the season can be summed up thusly:
Now I have a little time to hurry up and finish all the crap lying around so my end-of-year tally doesn’t look so dismal.

I have managed to step back from the hobby madness, though, and get a little perspective, which means that my sister’s quilt might possibly probably won’t be done in time for her tenth anniversary in August. (This is the quilt I started before her wedding. *cringe*)

But at least I finished the Millenium Falcon 3D puzzle I got as a gift sometime between 2001 and 2003, if I had to narrow it down. I had actually put all the separate sections together; I just hadn’t got the sections into a model of the M. Falcon. (I couldn’t bring myself to call it the “M.F.” on the Internets, which made me laugh.) And although the previously posted photo *looks* like the model, it is actually an M. Falcon falling apart at the seams. Unfortunately, the few flimsical (1) cardboard “supports” provided with the puzzle were not sufficient in number or strength to actually hold together the surprisingly heavy sections. And a couple of pieces turned out to be missing (2), so there were a couple of holes. At the time I was working on it, I was cursing a blue streak and threatening to quit or throw it away every 5 minutes; it even got a bit surreal there for a bit: I was fantasizing about making a time machine so I could go back and sterilize my parents, for some reason (either for creating a child with a 3D puzzle mania or for buying me the puzzle in the first place, it’s not clear to me now). Anyhow, I kept doggedly at it until it was together enough for a photo and a ranting blog post.

(1) D.D. started using “flimsical” again recently, a word that I love and have been using to excess myself. Feel free to adopt it.

(2) The puzzle company had a form for replacing missing pieces, so I hope to have a complete set if I ever try to do it again. Of course, that would require several years to blur the memory of the first time, and some reengineering and a pot of glue to make it work.

Stop the insanity! Second and last 3D puzzle of the xmas 2005 season. It's the Millenium Falcon, in case you can't tell. Rant on this topic to follow. 

My Daughter Cracks Me Off

At dinner tonight, I was asking D.D. about something on her cheek, which I at first took to be a scratch, but on closer inspection realized was just some of the hair color rubbed off. L.H. then chimed in to ask about her scratch. At that point, he suddenly realized we had covered that. A moment later, he brought up how weird it was that he was so far behind in the conversation.

Which is when D.D. asked, "Should I put you in a home?" (1)

I almost wet myself laughing.

(1) Back story: My dad moved his dad closer to him since Granddad needs some looking after (getting forgetful and paranoid). My LilSis also lives close by, so I'm pretty sure Dad figured he would let her do the bulk of the watching after Granddad. Except now she's moving 3 or 4 hours away. And wouldn't you know, when I talked to my dad yesterday, he immediately brought up putting Granddad in a home. Which is where the topic of nursing homes came up.

Tis the Season to Enable

Right before the holidays, I was able to shake off my early-winter funk and switch into high gear. I got in some required and some extra-curricular (but still school-related) reading. I finished the tree skirt I had moved, unfinished, from house to house for years. I even wrote a bit on a couple of short stories. And by the time we went to bed on xmas eve, I had washed and put away all the laundry, picked up everything but D.D.’s room (because I didn’t have a shovel and safety gear), cleaned my side of the bed and closet, and vacuumed the whole house. I went into xmas at the top of my game.

And then I opened my gifts.

I love my family. They know just what I like, and they got it for me. Unfortunately, what I like can easily become an all-encompassing obsession that takes over my life. L.H. gave me *6* Discworld novels, and my mom gave me the 3D puzzle pictured in the previous post and a Sudoku game. I broke down and put the puzzle together, with L.H.’s reassurance that “It’s the holidays! Have fun!” That was just over 24 hours of my life of fun. I think he started to get an idea of the scope of the problem when dinner was 3 hours later than I had originally planned. Silly man. Doesn’t he remember the photo of me, 20 weeks pregnant, standing in my pjs at the kitchen table until all hours of the night putting together this other 3D puzzle? I just wish I were so diligent with my school work.

D.D. is a lovely little child who did not get us out of bed until 8:30 on xmas morning (unlike my nephew who tried his luck first at *1 AM* and finally succeeded at 3:30, the little turd). She was pleased with all her gifts, although she was somewhat disappointed that she can’t make any explosions with her chemistry set. Damn the luck!

I need to get some more fresh foods in the house. I’ve been living off leftover stuffing, coffee, and the contents of my stocking—chocolate and licorice and blueberry-flavored tea—for 2 days, and I can feel rickets setting in. The grocery list beckons!

Ps. I found a rockin’ recipe for popcorn balls that tastes like slightly chewy Cracker Jacks. Recipe on request.

Here is the 3D puzzle I finished between noon on Xmas Day and 5 pm the next day. I may not be good at originality like my LMIL, but give me something with directions, and I will whip it like a red-headed stepchild. 

I’m Dreaming of a Pink-and-Purple, Polka-Dotted Xmas

So maybe 4 hours before Xmas Day is a little late for the de rigueur pre-xmas post, but I’ve been collecting tidbits for over a week, so it averages out.

Every year, I manage to slide a few more tacky xmas decorations past my husband. This is the man who came into our marriage thinking multi-colored lights were tacky. Oh, silly man. I let D.D. put the ornaments and the silver tinsel on the tree, so everything is lopsided and clumpy. L.H. complained, but he who is too lazy to fix, must endure. Personally, I like it; it reminds me of the fringe on a go-go dancer’s dress. I’ve already bought some red and gold tinsel for next year. My ultimate goal is bubble lights.

I have to draw the line at animatronic xmas decorations, though. I mean, if you want to scare people, why not cut to the chase and hire a clown? A shop in our village has a full-sized Santa outside its door, facing the street. Santa’s head turns left and right, watching you go by. And a pharmacy in town has three little angels in the window, playing trumpets and turning either side to side or bowing. Baby angel musician robots. Eek.

Another mind-boggling decorating misstep I saw in town was in the same window with the headless angels I mentioned previously. Behind the mannequins, some deranged person has hung deer heads—deer heads made of white plaster soaked in iridescent glitter. (Iridescence is another point on which L.H. and I disagree, he being for, and I against.)

But it’s not just the shops getting in on the decorating madness. (But compared to back in Texas, you might not call it mad at all.) One family down the street has a Santa climbing a rope ladder up the size of their house, another lounging on a window ledge, and a third in an old-world style robe standing behind the railing around their terrace, which makes him appear to be trapped in a play pen. Most people (if they put up a Santa at all) would be satisfied with just one Santa.

My sister-in-law’s family has a fun tradition I wish I could participate in: they try to find the ugliest possible wrapping paper. One year her sister skunked the whole family with *Hulk* xmas paper. I thought I might be in the running with Shrek paper I found at the Toys R Us (in this color scheme), but then it occurred to me that “Eat, Stink, and Be Scary” isn’t specifically holiday-themed. And Shrek and Donkey weren’t wearing Santa hats like the Hulk. Rats.

L.H. and I have a typical xmas shopping arrangement: I buy, wrap, and ship all of the presents for the whole family, including D.D., and he shops for me. And as usual, he started about the time I finished. But we were both finished far enough in advance that there was no need to enter a shop at all on xmas eve (which may not even be possible in these parts).

So that was the pre-xmas blather. I wish all my loved ones a happy, healthy (especially LilSis and her brood), restful, and safe holiday.

Nee and Rudolph are Goin’ Down in History

Today, I officially became the last American to set foot in a Starbucks. And I didn’t even burst into flames! But I didn’t drink coffee, so I’ll still be the last person to drink Starbucks coffee if I get around to it before I die.

I had made plans to meet a classmate for tea this morning, and since I didn’t have all afternoon to hang out (her first suggestion was going to her place on the far south side of town; I live on the far north side of town), she suggested Starbucks. It was terribly crowded, but we got the last two seats in the farthest nook.

And that’s about all there was to it. It was ok as far as coffee houses go. I do have to mention that I’d been looking for xmas music for my old man, and after popping into 4 or 5 shops in the shopping district, I found basically what I had been looking for *at the counter at Starbucks.* American commercialism strikes again.

Now that I'm actually doing it, I feel kind of lame blogging a photo of a felt tree skirt. But this is a felt tree skirt that I *made*, and it only took 5 years or so. That might be some kind of record for my entire family. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Pissy

By the time we got to school this morning, I was ready to boot D.D. out of the car as I sped past the building. I would have sold her to the first Gypsy to wander by, but no self-respecting Gypsy would pay good money for her the way she was acting.

Today is the last day of school before the holidays, so I’m hoping she straightens up before we’re trapped at home with her for a couple of weeks. Otherwise I may turn hamster and eat her.

She was in a perfectly good mood yesterday. Of course, what 8-year-old wouldn’t be: she got to eat lunch at McD (blech—it totally tore the ass out of me), go on a toy shopping spree *for herself* at Toys R Us, ride the carousel at the xmas market, and go ice skating. She made me so proud in the department store: “Mom, that scarf is *so* tacky.” The scarf in question was knit in lengthwise stripes in magenta, acid green, turquoise, and brown, and all but the turquoise stripes were garnished with matching fur. That’s my girl!

D.D. has got the German slang down, so L.H. and I are always learning something new from her. In English, if you don’t have a special interest in something, you can say, “It’s all the same to me.” In German, you can add either “fart” (grade-schoolers) or “shit” (everyone else) to that phrase, which gives it a certain flavor not easily translated into English.

Her English is also developing an unusual slant, thanks to the gentle warping from her parents. She often declares that she has to “take a whiz” (1) on the “terlet”; when she’s cold, she needs a “blanklet.” I’m almost positive she got that last one from her younger cousin K.E., although she can’t recall now.

(1) From the game introduced on Ren and Stimpy: Don’t Whiz on the Electric Fence (sample track 13 here).

Ode to My Friend

My best friend since the sixth grade has also caught the bloggin’ bug, and I’ve been enjoying seeing her life in more detail than had previously been possible from seven time zones away. But imagine my surprise to read this about myself. Although she might have overdone it a wee bit *grin*, it really touched me. And although I know I will not be able to do her justice in mere words, I want to tell WestTexGirl here just how much she means to me. (1)

We went through most of our teenage firsts together: first dance, first boyfriend, first heartbreak. We weren’t clones of one another; we had interests apart—WTGirl managed the girls’ sports teams in junior high, and I...um...took homemaking against my inclination—but the differences never served to split us up, just to make us each more well-rounded. And they didn’t prevent us from spending hours on the phone every evening after spending all day at school together. One reason I was such a reasonably well-behaved teen was that my parents threatened to take away the phone as a punishment for rule-breaking. What would I ever do without at least 10 hours of contact with my best friend every day?! And we somehow always had something to talk about.

I spent my last night before driving the four hours to start university the next day with her—first at the Kettle until midnight, drinking hot cocoa, then standing in my driveway for a couple more hours, not wanting to say goodbye. Despite the distance, we managed to stay in touch and see each other semi-regularly. And at each visit, we picked up right where we left off, as if there had never been a separation or major changes in each of our lives.

We used to joke about being on the same brain wave, but now I realize it was probably all WTGirl. I can’t count how many times I’ve been in need of a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on, and the phone rang, or there was a “thinking of you” email from her in my inbox. Even with hundreds of miles between us. And it’s not just her timing; she always knows the exact right thing to say. She is tactful and warm, and a compliment from WTGirl is like a bear hug.

She is also wonderfully supportive. Many is the time I’ve had an ass-headed idea, when my normally supportive husband looks at me like he’s trying to decide on the best institution to have me committed to, but WTGirl enthusiastically cheers me on, although with a helping of advice and common sense so I don’t go immediately down in flames.

Part and parcel with her supportiveness is her fierce loyalty to her friends and her generous heart. There are a lot of us she could have given up on as being too far away or too busy with our own silliness, but she doesn’t. For example, when one of her friends recently had twins as a single mother, WTGirl could have said, “I’d love to help, but I have a full-time job, and a family of my own” (including a toddler and a stubborn little 8-year-old). Instead, she became this friend’s main lifeline, even more so than her own mother: she took her to the doctor, took care of a million tiny details while she was on bed rest, even accompanied her into the delivery room, and she was there when her babies came home.

The flip side of being friends with WTGirl is that you always wonder if you’ll ever live up to such a high standard of friendship. But I like to think that I am benefiting from her example.

She is also a super-smart lady. You have to take what she said in her blog entry with a grain of salt. This woman teaches ANATOMY, people. I would never in a million years be able to remember everything she does; I get to “the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone,” and then I’m lost. And she manages to deal with college-aged students and not go on a killing spree. Tact. Patience. She’s got them both in aces.

And she is eloquent. You should read her entry on our home town. I promise you, no one else could make it sound so good. The Chamber of Commerce should be cutting her a check. She sees the good no one else sees, and she can translate it so the rest of us start to get it.

I am proud that she still thinks I am worthy of her friendship, because it is something worth having.

(1) Lovely Husband has pointed out that this is something only women would do. The last two message he received from his best friend from high school were a birth announcement for his second child (typed by his wife, I think) and an evil, gloating missive on the occasion of George Bush’s reelection. To say nothing of the porn.

Sensitive but Tough

I saw a short bit in Der Spiegel about research by an American doctor (plastic surgeon) that proves women have more nerve endings per square inch of skin than men, therefore, we are more sensitive to pain. This will confirm my husband’s perception of me, since I really love to milk a minor injury for sympathy. Of course, he has never given birth to a 9-pound baby without drugs, so I think that should automatically give me a pass for...oh...FOREVER.

Catchin' Up is Hard to Do

I love it when I am almost out of stationery supplies, because that means fresh supplies are right around the corner. I started this post (*cough* several days ago *cough*) on the last few blank and partially blank pages of my spiral, and with the last smidge of ink in my pen, but by the end I’m sure it’ll be new paper and ink for me. Hoorah!

The last parent meeting for D.D.’s class was held at a local restaurant, back in the bar. The teacher opted for the more informal, comfortable setting (compared to the tiny desks in their classroom) since we were only discussing the logistics of their class xmas party. We started at 8 (so late!), and after an hour, another group filed into the adjoining room. It turned out to be a birthing class. A birthing class meeting at 9 pm on a Monday in a bar. Why wasn’t this an option when I was pregnant?!

D.D. and I have spotted Kujo the dog several times recently, and it is never a confidence-inspiring event. Twice we’ve passed him and his owner on their walk, and both times the owner only put the leash on him while we walking past them. It also was a bit unnerving that he turned his head to watch us go by, and also that his owner reminded him about 50 times to stay sitting. One of the times we saw them, D.D. had been scooping up snow as we walked and had a big ball of it in her left hand. I told her not to even pretend she was going to throw is while we were in view of him, because I did not doubt he’d interpret it as an attack on himself or his owner. Most recently, we saw the daring duo tooling by in their convertible (top up, this time). When we got to their house, Kujo was in the yard, snarling and snapping as usual. His owner was in the garage, and she yelled something at him that sounded like “Ray-bo.” D.D. thought it was short for “Ra-bies,” but the word for that in German is “Tollwut.” Good guess, though, kid.

There’s a business near my optician that I figure is some kind of nightclub, because its hours are listed on the door as “until 3 am.” But what I really like about the place is its name—The Loo. I wonder if they know what that means... Wouldn’t it be fun to go in there, all, “I’m in the loo! I’d go *to* the loo, but I’m already there!” You could keep it up all night until they ban you! Good times.

Sometimes I wonder what in the hell I’m doing back in school. (L.H. does not like to hear that since I bitched and moaned for ages about going back.) There are lots of days when the thought flits through my mind, how nice it would be to just stay on the bus when it gets to my stop. –

Enough pointless wallowing! I started it on Friday, I talked L.H. into joining my pity party on Saturday, and by Sunday we had it out of our systems.

I got to thinking in the shower (I do all my best thinking in the shower (1)) about my recent bout of angst and dissatisfaction and generally depression/bitchiness/moodiness/unpleasantness, and I realized that if my studies were childbirth, I’d be in transition. I had toughed it out until that point, but then I was all, “Just give me some medication and let me go to sleep, but wake me up when you’ve pulled my baby from my inert body, thanks.” That’s the point when the nurses say, “Too late!” Same thing with my studies. I’ve been through 3 hellacious semesters of Latin plus the exam; I took remedial German and have managed to make As and Bs in all my classes since. But when I start to think of my exams coming up next semester, I start to feel all panicky and overwhelmed. I’d like to hope I’ll end up with a bouncing baby ‘A’, but even with perfect pre-testing habits (which I don’t have), you just never know, right?

(1) My favorite boss ever once told me that a womb-like environment is very conducive to creative thinking.

Family McFoulmouth

I can tell when I’m supressing large-ish frustrations, because smallish ones—like paper falling out of the recycling bag when I’m trying to add some more to it—induce me to screech such obscenities as “son of a f*ckin’ bitch!” Normally, that one is reserved for smashing my hand in a door, or getting rear-ended, or some such, requiring that level of foulmouthery.

Not that I’m the only foul-mouthed bass (1) in this family. L.H. officially gave D.D. the green light to say “crap” at will. Neither of us really find it offensive, although I did catch myself saying to her, “It sounds terrible for you to say that” (an old favorite of my mom’s, although it never worked). The horror of turning into my mom! Of course, when D.D. says it “cwap”, we’re taken back to her toddlerhood, and she gets a cuddle. Me-mo-ries!

(1) Five points if you get the reference without looking at the link.

Right now D.D. is spotting a big bruise and scrape on her forehead where she was accidentally whacked with a stilt at school. She calls it her dent.

I just spotted a girl (speaking Russian, I think) wearing a high-heeled version of the pink Yeti boots mentioned here previously. My faith in the general goodness of mankind is gone. The existence of these boots is obviously part and parcel with the evil being perpetrated on our fellow human beings.

In one particularly touristy side street in town, every shop has an xmas tree outside its door. Most are tastefully decorated—white lights, red bows—but one is wonderfully tacky, with *blue* tinsel. I didn’t even know it came in colors. Around the corner, a couple more shops had trees drunkenly leaning against light poles, but no bases or decorations. I’m trying to decide if the city provides the trees (in keeping with the regulations on the upkeep of historical/touristy buildings), or if maybe there’s a business association agreement for them. See? This is how I use my brain most days, speculating on the downtown xmas tree delivery system, instead of something useful, like solving the world hunger problem.

Apparently the juice bar near the English department changed its mind about the advisability of an all-red decor—maybe it was attracting the wrong kind of clientele *wink*--because it has gone to a delightfully awful marigold and pine-green interior. In stripes. They seriously need to fire their interior decorator.

And what is with the yellow-green thing lately? D.D.’s school was repainted around the first of the school year, and the walls are egg-yolk yellow, and the doors and trim are kelly green. It’s like walking around in an Easter basket there.

L.H. and I sometimes daydream about having our own home (which will probably never happen, since we don’t stay any one place long enough, but I’m not too sad at this point). I have specifically requested that we paint it some shade of purple (2)—violet, lilac, mauve; I’m not picky. He insists it will be a Viking long-house. So a purple long-house it is.

(2) My most favorite cottage-style house in Austin’s Hyde Park was *3* shades of purple, and it was a thing of beauty. I’ve been watching a less purple (only one shade), and uglier, house from the bus, and the comparison makes me want to weep.

L.H. is the master of timing. I was rushing to put on my boots so I wouldn’t be late for the bus, and he asks, “So what do you want for xmas?”—“Uh, could we talk about this later, Honey? I kind of have class...” At least this time wasn’t so, um, gross as the last time, when I tried to kiss him and he belched. L.H. the barbarian. I’m wondering about the barn-like environment of his upbringing.

Another near-celebrity sighting:
On the bus this morning, I sat facing young Kurt Cobain, who was wearing smart-glasses and looked clean and not strung out. He really could be a double for KC.

Out and About with Nee

There are laws of nature—like gravity—that normal people (i.e., non-pilots, non-astronauts, etc.) just can’t win against. Similar to this is the First Law of Nee: if I have more time, I will waste more time. The one day I *wasn’t* actively wishing for my teacher to be out sick, he was. So instead of getting caught up on the reading for that class, I wandered to the other end of the Old Town to find a special pastry for D.D. from St. Nikolaus (he’ll be putting goodies in her boots tonight!). (1) Yes, it was something I was planning to do after class anyway, but the time I saved then will probably get wasted on something else frivolous, like *cough* surfing the Web. Time management is not my forte.

(1) from Wikipedia: “Saint Nicholas is revered by many as the patron saint of seamen, merchants, archers, children, prostitutes...” [emphasis mine] Quite a collection, eh?

I’ve been enjoying the wide variety of xmas window displays, which have been out for quite a while now. There’s your standard green tree covered with colored balls and lights and surrounded by flocking. Then there’s your wire tree, each branch tipped with a large rhinestone, and the black and white ball ornaments (2) piled into a glass urn standing next to the tree. Finally, there’s your green tree covered in 80’s fluorescent-colored ornaments—some glass balls, some blown-glass birds with matching tail-feathers, and some feathers arranged into tiny angel wings or xmas trees. I kind of like that one. I do not like the reindeer standing under it that is covered in tiny, square, mirrored tiles. My eyes!

(2) The patterns on them remind me of those mind-stimulating baby toys.

Speaking of feathers, last year around xmas I noticed white, feathery angel wings in different sizes as part of a display at a jeweler’s. It was really pretty, and I found myself eagerly looking forward to window-gazing whenever I had to walk down that street. It reminded me of my earlier, inexplicable lusting after a cotton, tomato-print dress at The Cadeau in Austin, many, many years ago. Anyhow, after about a week, I realized that a *lot* of shops were using the same angel-wing motif, including an optician, so the attraction was gone. But I saw recently that a different jeweler was using an understated version of that same display, and it made me think about my former angel-wing love. Oh, the memories.

Then I saw the full-sized, headless mannequins sporting white, feathery angel wings in the window of the big department store in town. Why?!

Return from the Grave

On Thanksgiving Day, we had school and work as usual (1), so we put off our big dinner until that Saturday. L.H. was in charge of cleaning up, with D.D.’s help. I managed to roast a turkey, bake a pumpkin pie and two loaves of bread, and otherwise whip up my grandmother’s stuffing, green bean casserole, steamed cauliflower and broccoli with cheese sauce, cranberry sauce, and fruit salad. L.H. cooked some mean carrots. But consider that here in Germany, there are no such things as frozen pie crusts (and no such thing as pie, for that matter), canned pumpkin, condensed cream of mushroom soup, Velveeta, cornbread mix, biscuits in a can, pecans, or cranberry sauce. All of those things had to be substituted or *made from scratch.* So our dinner turned out to be a lot more labor-intensive than your typical modern American Thanksgiving.

(1) L.H.’s dad was surprised to hear that we didn’t get the day off, but maybe he was pulling our leg. Or maybe not.

We invited a family from down the street to eat with us—mom, dad, grandma, and two girls about D.D.’s age. They seemed to be enjoying everything and having a good time, except for the youngest, who didn’t like anything, including the bread, and just wanted to lie with her head in her grandma’s lap. It became apparent why her nose was out of joint when she stood up and projectile vomited. She managed to only hit the end of the tablecloth, but she was covered, the floor was covered, and the grandma wasn’t looking too good, either. Fortunately, she’s of a size with D.D. (the little girl, not the grandma), so I dug up a change of clothes while her mom stripped her. Then the mom and grandma took her home. The dad was fully expecting the mom to come back once she’d gotten their daughter settled in bed or in front of the tv, but we finally had dessert without her around 9.

The parents were pretty embarrassed, but it was no big deal. Kids get sick; it happens. D.D. went through a phase at age 4 where she barfed almost every day in the car on our morning commute from Elgin to Austin while we were staying with L.H.’s brother after moving back from Sweden. Barf is the bane of the parent, because we’re automatically the ones in charge of calming *and* cleaning. Blech.

My Lovely Husband got his xmas bonus (which the government is planning to phase out after this year—boo!), so I was able to finish up most of the holiday shopping I had planned to do on this side of the pond for family on the other side. It actually went pretty well. I picked up a couple of things at the xmas market—

I must interrupt myself here to say that the xmas market is what makes early winter here bearable for me. From almost any spot in the Old Town, you can detect the heavenly scents of candied nuts, grilled pork steak and onions, and mulled wine. *swoon*

--went into a shop or two, got a coffee, but then I ran into my first obstacle: a jewelry store. Now don’t get excited, no one’s getting *real* jewelry; it’s not that big of a bonus. But I had seen this shop with cute stuff in the window, arranged in sets, that I thought would be appropriate for my almost-12-year-old niece. I walked in and was blinded by the bling. The walls were covered in a solid layer of necklaces hanging above shelves of rings. This place made Claire’s look minimalist. I went around two or three times before spotting a cute bracelet. At that point, I was about to lose my mind, even with a hot cup of coffee right there in my hand. So I showed the bracelet to the clerk: “Do you have a necklace to match?” The display of sets in the window was a LIE. She led me over to the opposite side of the shop, I found what I wanted, paid, and fled the shop like bling-covered devils were on my heels.

The rest of my shopping is an overheated blur. Must a department store be heated to 85F when all its customers are bundled up against the 38F outside? I’m just saying. Although hot and sweaty under my 2 shirts, sweater, and wool coat, and overlooking one or two minor frustrations, I managed to finish up and get out of there without going on a murderous rampage, so that was good. Of course, then I had to crowd onto a bus with 20 lb. of packages, but I was ALIVE. That’s all that matters.

Once I got home, it was time to wrap. That is not necessarily as easy as it sounds. There is so much static in our house, due to the cold weather and our fuzzy furniture/rug, that the tape and the paper were attracting every bit of fuzz and hair in the vicinity. Have you remembered that our family consists of 3 long-haired persons, 1 long-haired projectile-shedding cat, and 1 short-haired cat who sheds if you look at her? So if your xmas package has a side order of hair... Just fair warning.

This time of year, there is a lot of fur around (in the form of hats and boots and coats), more than I could comment scathingly on in a month, but my current fur ire is directed at a furrier in town. I am not against fur per se, but if I were a fur-bearing animal—scratch that; if I were an animal whose fur was *coveted*, I would be highly insulted by the uses to which this furrier has put the fur of other animals. Weirdly dyed fur fringe; strangely shaped *felt* garments bedecked with bits of fur; hats made of the rotting upholstery from a 1976 Ford Pinto and trimmed in fur. Horrific. And one shoe shop has finally made it to the inevitable, terrible outer-limit of ugly footwear: boots covered in fuzzy pink house-shoe fabric. They call it the “Yeti-look.”

[While searching their site, I found this. I could totally buy this; it kind of redeems the above-mentioned horror, but not really.]

I am realizing that I could use this blog to track my mood swings over time. When I’m up, you all get to slog through extremely long posts, or 5 posts in one day. When I’m down, I might go a week without posting. And it’s not that I’m too busy to post; if I feel I have something witty to force on you all (bwa ha ha!), I will do it, busy or not. But sometimes I barely have the energy to snipe at my lovely husband, much lest post a snippet of blah. I wonder what kind of wave it would look like, smooth or jagged.

Checking In

So I’ve hit the bottom end (at least, I hope it’s the bottom) of one of my monthly mood swings. Basically, I just want to lie in bed with a stack of books and a coffee IV. And maybe our video of Lord of the Rings on a loop. But instead, I am sitting erect, drinking coffee in single-cup servings, and overseeing the completion of D.D.’s homework. At least she’s doing it cheerfully enough, unlike the crying and carrying on last night. But then again, she had a ton of homework on top of a very long day, so that is kind of understandable.

Part of my bad mood on this particular afternoon has to do with an earworm that not even B-O-M-B-Y was able to dispel: Wham’s “Last Christmas.” It’s surprisingly tenacious. I walked past some electricians who were working in an open garage, and not only was Wham blasting from their radio, but one of them was singing along. Now it is indelibly marked on my BRAIN.

I know I’m biased, but I think D.D. is one of the better dancers in her ballet class. Of course, a bunch of kids just got moved up, so just being a year older already puts her at an advantage, but she’s pretty graceful, even with L.H.’s clumsy genes and my spazztic genes (that’s really saying something). Today her teacher approached me about moving her into another class. She didn’t say specifically, but I think it’s the next class up. I suspect that a few of her pre-recital classmates have already made the transition, so hopefully there will be a few familiar faces. The new time is much better for us; I will only have to drive one way in the dark.

The software for our Internet provider decided to not play nice with Explorer this evening, so I spent a good half hour screwing around with this and that, including reinstalling a couple of things, but I finally beat it into submission. Of course, this happened at the exact time L.H. was trying to get ready for a meeting, and he couldn’t get to the info he needed to take to the meeting. I will leave the computer on so he will see that his semi-tech-savvy wife (here’s where I buff my nails on my sweater) managed to save the day (this time).

We ended up with about 2-3 inches of snow. I'm glad we don't need to drive today. 

Look! Our first snow of the year (on Thanksgiving). Please kill me now. 

D.D. agrees that the candy hut is the best part of the Christmas Market.  

Calgon, take me away! [D.D. wanted to buy *a package of balloons* with her tooth fairy money. sigh] 

Kids, Teeth, Fur, and Fun

I think it was my Lovely MIL who told me that age 8 can be kind of a dry run for puberty, with all the attendant mood swings. And now I know she was right. You just don’t appreciate how good your kid normally is until she turns into a smart-mouthed, angry, crying monster. Monday is a *really* long day for D.D.—school starts at 7:45 am, then after-school care until 3, hop in the car with Dad to go to Swedish School across town, and get home around 6:30 pm. When she got home Monday night, she had an armful of stuff. I heard her whining all the way up the stairs, then she dumped everything in the middle of the floor and kicked her gym bag across the room. It made me think of the home video show we saw recently, where a little girl threw down her bike and started kicking the tires and screaming. She was probably 8, too.

I can’t be the only person who has suddenly noticed the feel of her teeth against the inside of her lips, or the way her tongue sits in her mouth, or how it feels to breathe in and out. Except then you can’t un-feel it, and then I’m not even sure what the “natural” position of my tongue is, and I feel like it’s getting bigger or lying wrong somehow, or I don’t know how I normally breathe, and maybe I start to feel like I’m hyperventilating since I’m paying too much attention to my breathing. So I have this totally normal reaction (every once in a while), and my husband thinks I’m developing body dysmorphia.

[Edited to add: I think he means some kind of Verfremdungseffekt. Besides, the weird spaghetti squash shape of my head went away as soon as I got used to my new contacts. It was the contacts' fault!]

Oh. My. God. A woman on the bus skinned the Shaggy Dog to make a coat!

In other news, the Christmas Market opens today. I will start toting my camera with me into town for a Christmas photo-blogging extravaganza!

All Self-Reference, All the Time

Darling Daughter lost her tooth. I can’t believe it came out so quickly. She lost it in the middle of class, so she was able to squeeze a little fame from the experience. The tooth fairy had a business dinner and wasn’t able to get change, so she ended up getting 2 Euros (there’s a 2-Euro coin) instead of the usual 1. German kids get gifts for their teeth, but we’ve found that cash turns out to be cheaper.

D.D. has come up with a tooth fairy theory: the t.f. used to be famous [D.D. didn’t say what for], and she travelled to a lot of different countries being famous, and that’s how she collected so much money from different places so she could give out dough for teeth all over the world. This is what goes through my daughter’s head while she’s getting dressed.

On the way to school, we spotted this enormous black bird in the top of a pine tree that towered over a four-story house. We were trying to estimate how big it was (bigger than our embarrassingly big cats, I would say); D.D. thought it looked a lot like a penguin. That would be pretty big.

In the window of the wedding shop, someone had added a white fur cape to the mermaid dress. Handmade paper dress—you are dead to me now.

Remember my photo of the giant teddy bear? The same company has made an even larger stuffed animal; I spotted it in a department store window recently. Because nothing says “cuddly toy” quite like an enormous stuffed buffalo.

I had to ride a particularly crowded bus one day, and I found myself crammed into a spot where I could not but help staring at the atrocious footwear on the teenaged girl across from me. You know how I feel about the new boots. What this girl was wearing was even worse. She looked like she had gone for a stroll in her best moccasin-boots and stepped into a dead woodchuck. What the hell? she thought, and pulled the woodchuck up around her ankle. Then she had to go find another dead woodchuck so her moccasins would match.

Today we are going to go see the new Harry Potter film. We couldn’t find any showings of the original, so we’re going to watch it in German. We first saw #3 in German, so I guess we won’t be permanently scarred. Interestingly enough, Star Wars #3 didn’t seem so stilted dialog-wise in German, what little we could hear over the tremendously loud special effects.

freestyle

Ok, so not much has been happening with me lately. Winter finally reared its ugly head; we're supposed to get a freeze this weekend. I wonder if my footy pajamas will fit under my street clothes? I had to put away my "kindergarten coat" (L.H.'s description of my bright blue coat) and get out the wool one I bought last year.

I've started chipping away at my xmas shopping; I've even put a thing or two in the mail. I may even have beat my middle sister at early shopping--the first gift I bought was in early September.

School is blah. The weather is blah. I am blah. Blah blah blah. See Spot blah.

There are notes in my Palm, but I am too blah to snark. Woe is me!

My plants have lost most of their flowers, so I have even lost the comfort of pretending to be a gardener. I may take a whack at the giant plant in the stairwell, because one of the leaves always catches in my hair when I walk upstairs. That is no fun.

Actual news: I got contacts. I don't think I've had any since D.D. was an infant, but since I had worn them for most of the 15 years prior to that, it was like getting back on a bicycle. My astigmatism is so bad, though, that it may take a little while before I can see consistenly well with them. The optician said they are the exact right strength now (on the second try), and that I'll get used to them. Today is just day 2, so I'll report back on that.

There is no other news. Blah.

I am Bookworm! See me read! And if you don't like it, I'll smite you with my plastic Asterix sword! 

The pink Thanksgiving cactus has decided to open a couple of blooms. I had to pick off about a dozen-and-a-half white blooms from the other plant, but it's still chugging along with new flowers. No more flower photos, I promise. 

Scared!

This week marks the start of Darling Daughter walking home alone. She asked to, and since the other kids in her class have been doing it since first grade, we thought it was time to loosen the apron strings. (Of course, most of the other kids in her class don’t live this far away, and the ones who live one bus stop further get a free bus pass.)

Tuesday, it went fine; I met her halfway. Wednesday, she walked to her friend’s house after school and called me when she got there. Today she wanted to walk home alone.

I left home at 3:10 to walk toward her the “down” way; this is the main street in our village, and the route she herself chose to take when we agreed to let her walk on her own. I thought I would meet her and carry her backpack for her. (I swear—her books are made of cement.)

I walked all the way down to her school—no D.D.

I walked into the school—no D.D. or anyone else.

I practically ran home the “up” way (there are 2 streets that run parallel; one is the main street in our village). No D.D. by the front door, and now it’s 3:35. I run up to our fourth-floor apartment and check the phone messages: she’s at the house of a classmate, about a block down the street. She had gotten home, found no one there, and walked over, which is the arrangement her father and I have with her: if we’re not there to pick you up, go to that neighbor.

It turns out that she had forgotten that she was supposed to go the down way, so she took the faster up way. Her brain was too full of homework, etc., you see.

I fetched her from the neighbor, but now I need to lie down and maybe have several drinks.

Stuff I Noticed Today

The village we live in is in a series of intersecting valleys. When we get fog—like this morning—it really settles in to fill them up. In the ten minutes since I dropped D.D. off at the door to her classroom, it has been creeping uphill and is now at the level of her school (a 15-minute walk up from the level of the river). But while we were walking to school, we had a good view of one fog-shrouded valley below us. It looked like a cloud had fallen out of the sky, as D.D. was quick to point out. Then she expanded on her theory. Maybe God dropped his blanket. Also, God is a super star (you know, like a musician), so he sleeps in a different hotel every night, and last night he must have been sleeping over our village. Maybe he had a nightmare, about the devil melting him or something, and he kicked off his blanket then. Then I pointed out that maybe God is really enormous, and maybe the “fog” was really just one of his socks.

Are Americans actually loud? Like can’t-help-ourselves loud? A girl on the bus, 4 rows behind me, was perfectly audible as she explained feudalism, Marxism, etc. to her seat-mate, but I couldn’t make out more than a phrase or 2 of the conversation between the guys on the seat facing me. Maybe it’s her idiosyncracy, because I just noticed her seat-mate leaning away from her as she spoke.

Hey! Chatty McLoudmouth! Pipe down back there!

Nope. Her seat-mate is finally able to get a word in edge-wise, and she’s almost as loud as C McL.

Am *I* loud? I make an effort to speak loudly-ish and clearly in class (in German), so I can be heard over all the private conversations, but am I automatically turned up to 20 when I speak English? Now I’m haunted by the thought.

Cleaning Out the Palm

A couple of days after LMIL and Step-Dad left, we hopped in the car to visit with L.H.’s step-grandmother-ish person (no rings, if you know what I mean *wink*) in Southern Germany. That was when we finally experienced the famous German “Stau” (freeway traffic jam). We probably spent 1-1/2 hours stuck on the Autobahn. At one point, the road was narrowing from 3 lanes to 2, and 100 yards from the point where one lane disappeared, someone towing a speedboat had broken down. Yes, that meant there was suddenly *1* lane instead of 3. Aye carumba!

I had woken up that morning with a pinched nerve in my neck, and I think the combination of Alleve and being stuck in the car while not being able to turn my neck to the right made me a bit... um... out of it. I had my Palm out, and D.D. commented from the back seat that it would be cool if my Palm included a cell phone. Suddenly, a whole new world of Palm accessories appeared before my eyes: Palm plus sandwich maker! Palm plus dental hygienist! No one wanted to riff with me, though, so I had to stop.

L.H.’s step-grandmother is really hard to get close to. She has a very strong, very controlling personality, and *I’M* the only one who controls my family. She’s also very generous, but sometimes it’s hard to appreciate the steady stream of gay sweaters (L.H.) and granny blouses (Nee) and too-large velour jackets (D.D.) she’s acquired as a side-effect of her shopping addiction. Sometimes her two main characteristics collide: she gave L.H.’s grandfather money (in Euros) for his birthday to encourage him to spend it on us (our hotel room and entrance fees) when we went to visit her (he didn’t come).

At one point in our visit, I made the following terse note in my Palm: “cyanide tooth!” Another classic: “not really radiating waves of hate, more like stink-lines of annoyance.” So that was the family side of that trip.

The touristy stuff was especially hilarious. At the Hohensalzburg Fortress, we saw that the Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach’s coat of arms included a *turnip*. That’s a noble vegetable if I ever heard of one.

Then there was the row of tourist-target shops at the Königssee. My favorite sign was for “Dr. Sacher’s Gopher Balsam”. I am not making this up! I wish I had copied down its benefits; they were extensive. Look! I found a photo! Here’s what the eBay ad says about its contents and use:
“This Gopher Balsam contains
Gopher oil [shudder]
Mountain pine oil
Camphor
Menthol
in a clinically tested cream foundation. This old, tried-and-true household remedy is good for you, aids blood circulation, and soothes sensitive skin.” I guess I'll just have to lurk around eBay until another jar turns up.

I Think I Barfed a Little in My Mouth

The girl sitting across from me in class today made me slightly ill with her poorly chosen shirt. Picture it: a black, lycra, long-sleeved top. Now add the bottom half of a black sweater, including the bottoms of the sleeves and the collar. Now add a strip of black leather just under the breasts, separating the sweater from the lycra, and along the front edge of the collar. Add silver eyelets along the leather. Now cinch up the neck and torso with a couple of silver strings. Voila! Instant illness!

Extra-Trip-Ular Activities

When Lovely MIL and Step-Dad arrived here this past summer, he was fascinated by *everything*: the flora and fauna, the houses, even the electrical lines (he used to work for the phone company). We got a barrage of questions:

Where’s the tank on the toilet?
*shrug*

Is that leaf lettuce [growing in the field along the Autobahn]?
*shrug, a little self-consciously*

After that, he was more likely to just ask himself—“I wonder...?”—because he’d obviously figured out that we are complete dummies about stuff like where food comes from and how things work.


During the trip we all made to Rothenburg, Darling Daughter wanted to play Hangman. She cheated a little against Gwamma, using the name of our village (Ziegelhausen) as her first word. Her next clue was “Dirty Frenchman.” (I still have the pages.) Turns out she was making a reference to the Disney film Atlantis, not harboring anti-French sentiment.

***

D.D. hasn’t lost a tooth in over a year (since the first grade), so she was pretty stoked to discover a loose canine last night. She was certain it was going to fall out, like, *today*, so I had to remind her that her other teeth took weeks to get loose enough to come out. She may find her tooth-loot in her xmas stocking.

She has recently learned how to blow (gum) bubbles; I heard “psss...pop!” over and over and over this weekend until she ran out of gum.

On the way to school this morning, she was planning out with whom (1) she would share her fabulous news about the loose tooth and the fact that she slept in her Barbie tent last night. I folded up our puffiest comforter under her sleeping bag, and she says she slept great, roughin’ it in the dining room.
(1) All the girls and none of the boys.

She’s growing up so fast. The top of her head reaches my shoulder now. I keep threatening to put a brick on her head to make her stop growing, to which she replies with a very teenager-y “Mo-om!” She told me that I can still call her Noodle Doodle, Punkin’ Pie, etc., but not in front of her friends. Fair enough!