Nee's Week in Review

I walked into the kitchen, totally unprepared to hear Hannah explaining to her dad that she wished she had put Missy-Cat in a ziploc bag in the freezer when she was a kitten. I think it had to do with cryogenics, but my brain stopped processing information at that point.

I went to my first meeting of the student employees, where we were shown around to all the rooms for which we now have the *keys of power* (add echoing effect here) and told a bit about our duties. I will primarily be proofreading, but I'll also have a few office-y type duties for 1 professor. Sweet! The proofreading gig is totally going to kick ass. Turns out the professor I'm proofing for (not the making-copies prof) is the co-editor of a scholarly journal, and I am now her go-to person for proofreading. Plus anyone else around the department who chooses to make use of my services. I have the first article in my hot little hands, and it is *agony* making myself wait until my paper is turned in (I am blogging the travesty that is my paper on my writing blog). But I told the prof that, and she said no prob. The journal doesn't go to the printer until June.

My two classes are also going well. In the past, I am totally exhausted after expending the mental energy to follow a 1-1/2 hour lecture in German, but this semester I have 2 classes back-to-back, and except for 2 annoying classmates (who were in my teaching class last semester) I would like to stab in the eye with a pencil, everything has been roses and unicorns crapping puppies (thanks to Finslippy aka Alice for the latest addition to my vocabulary).

Back to the paper!

Pam's Potatoes

I want to give John’s side of the family a fair shake with the recipe-sharing, so here is a recipe we call "Pam’s Potatoes", but which could just as well be called "Heart-Attack Potatoes" or "Death by Dairy Potatoes." John’s dad swears he invented this dish and doesn’t see why John’s ex-step-mother should get the credit, but she’s who we learned it from. Dial 9-1 before you start eating them, then 1 again if your heart starts to go.

Pam’s Potatoes
margarine
1 pint whipping cream
sour cream
1 onion, in thin slices
1 lb. chunk of Velveeta, in bits
5 or more potatoes
Boil the potatoes, but not all the way done. Slice the partially boiled potatoes. Pour a little whipping cream in the bottom of a casserole. Put down a layer of potatoes, then some onions, then pats/bits of margarine, sour cream, and Velveeta, and salt and pepper the layer. Continue making layers until you run out of potatoes, and pour the whipping cream over the whole thing. Bake at 350F about 30 minutes or until bubbly and melty.

[ETA: oops! The third ingredient is "sour cream", not "cream cheese". I'm not sure what the recipe originally called for, but John pointed out that we always use sour cream.]

Bad role models

Am I a bad mother for letting Hannah (occasionally) watch Winx?

The whole premise of the show is flimsy and derivative—students at a fairy boarding school fight against evil—and the characters are poorly developed and bizarrely drawn, with ridiculously proportioned bodies and questionable clothing choices. And although these evil-fighters are supposed to have super-magical powers, they never seem to be able to use them for anything more strenuous than magical wardrobe change!, except when it’s the season finale, and then they manage to destroy the most powerful, most evil Thingie on the first try. Of course, up to that point they had spent a lot of time having spats with their boyfriends and each other and fainting at the slightest bit of magical exertion. But the clincher for me was that they finally reached a level in their training where they got magical gizmos to supplement their power—and they were *jewelry* and *purses*. I shit you not. Magical accessories—activate!

And for some reason, if it’s on, I will stop and watch, too. Mostly for the pleasure of MST3King it, I’ll admit, but if Hannah is going to watch something so dumb, I want her to enjoy the benefit of my cynicism and criticism (in the sense of “critical thinking”). I don’t want her thinking that even super-magic fairy princesses are incompetent unless they have their magical outfits and super-magic knight boyfriends backing them up. Because super-magic fairy princesses should totally kick ass.

Shrimp Dip

I am hard at work writing on my paper and planning a shopping trip, so another recipe for you today.

My dad’s sister gave me this recipe way back in the day (7/5/86, to be exact), but my mother has been making it for family occasions for years, and she totally *owns* it. So without further ado...

Shrimp Dip
8 oz. cream cheese
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 c. mayo
1 c. chopped celery
1 c. chopped green onions
2 cans tiny cocktail shrimp

Mix together and serve. My mom scoops out a loaf of Hawaiian bread and puts the dip in there and usually also serves more bread and a cheese ball.

Enjoy!

Short Shrift

Since I am actually working on my paper today--and making real progress!--there is no content to put up here. But recently I had an idea for just such an occasion: I will put up family recipes! Huzzah!

So without further ado, here's my Grammy's recipe for Power Cookies. They have everything but the kitchen sink! I have a note to make half, which is not a bad idea considering the amounts of ingredients used. I do remember that we used to eat the hell out of these when we went to visit, and would hardly make a dent in them.

Power Cookies
2 c. brown sugar
2 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. soft butter
1 c. shortening
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
3 c. uncooked oats
2 c. coconut
2 c. raisins
1 c. chocolate chips
1 c. chopped nuts
Cream together the sugars, butter and shortening.
Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Combine the flour, salt, and soda and add to the first mixture.
Add the remaining ingredients and knead into the mixture.
Using heaping teaspoons, place dough on greased baking sheet, 2 inches apart.
Bake at 350F for 8 minutes until browned.

A Tale of Two Explosions

A while back, Hannah was interested in "experiments", which generally meant a big, wet mess to her at the time, so in the furtherance of science, we got her a beginner chemistry set. Well, she just wanted to start mixing things together and sit back and wait for the explosions to start. We nipped that in the bud, and the chemistry set has been put away ever since. Recently she mentioned it, saying wistfully that she'd never got to use it. "Because you wouldn't read the directions," was my unsympathetic reply. Now that I think about it, though, she could just watch me in the kitchen if she wanted to find out how to make a big, explosive mess.

You can buy ultra-pasteurized milk and cream here that doesn't have to be refrigerated until you open it. The cream tends to thicken up in the carton, though, so there are often clumps in it. I had an opened container in the fridge, and rather than let it go to waste, I was making bastard cappucinos by adding it to instant espresso. Except I hit a clump when I was pouring; I squeezed a little, and KA-POW! Whipping cream shower. It could have happened to anyone, right?

But the next explosion... it takes a special brand of Nee to make such a huge mess. We can't buy Ranch dressing ready-made in a bottle here--the horror!--so we mix it up from a jar of powder Lovely MIL sent us. Except we don't eat salad all that often, so the leftover container of dressing tends to migrate to the back of the fridge, where it hides and waits. We were clearing out the fridge pre-shopping trip one weekend, and John pulled out the well-aged dressing. Now, I am sure that I had already asked him about the status of that dressing the week before, and he had declared it to be just *fine*, but then when it was my turn to do the dishes... Coincidence? I think not. Anyhoo, when I went to dump it out, I was accosted by a stench that has only one equal: cheese vomit. *gag* Did I mention that we use a Tupperware cup with a lid, like this one? By the way, the stench of zombified dressing does not come out of Tupperware easily. I started with dish soap and boiling water but quickly reached for the big guns: baking soda and vinegar. It works on the sink, so why not? It probably would have worked too, if it weren't for my own stupidness. I was trying to get the concoction up around the sides of the cup, and don't forget the lid, so I set the lid on top--not even sealed--shook it once, twice--KA-BLAM! Baking soda, vinegar, and cheese vomit stink EVERYWHERE, including the double-decker dish drainer (say that 3 times real fast) full of freshly washed dishes next to the sink. I was wiping up baking soda paste off the counters, cabinets, and walls for days afterward, and I am still finding spots until this day.

Kitchen: 2
Nee: 0

Tragedy!

During my blogging black-out last month, Hannah and I ran out to grab a few groceries. She entertained herself on the way back out to the car by figuring out how many days until her birthday. 40. (Which makes it exactly 20 days ago.) She thought it was tragic she'd have to wait that long. She actually used the word "tragic". Me: "No, it's tragic if you *die* before your birthday." She didn't get the distinction.

I also had to make a quick trip to the drugstore for a few things. There, I was profoundly disturbed by my purchases. Yes, I found everything on my list, but the packaging was just *wrong*: the TP was white! The shower gel was in a different bottle! And worst of all--the toothpaste came in a pump. Why?! Why have you forsaken me, Colgate marketing department? I wasn't emotionally prepared for the experience, let me tell you.

Here's a bit I accidentally left out of my account of our foray into folk dancing:
We had been doing this dance with a turn on the ball of the foot. A variant has you turning on your heel, so we were practicing that individually before inflicting ourselves on a partner. The instructor's wife was putting her leg out, heel down, in a weird squatting way that reminded me of a duck. And I just about lost it.
Nee's brain: "Oh my God--if I start quacking and laughing, I will never stop!"
I didn't want John's German-Swedish club friends thinking they'd saddled themselves with a president whose wife was a nutball, so I made a heroic effort to nip it in the bud, but it was hard with the duck-lady standing right next to me.

And in that vein:
I crawled in Hannah's bed one morning to wake her up, because I was too lazy to stand next to it, and I was doing my usual wake-up routine of poking and tickling when she asked me if I had rabies. "Nope, I'm like this naturally." I'm thinking about adding it to my banner up there, because she's not the first person I've had to explain this to. The last time was to our American neighbor who had come over for drinks and games. We got really silly, and then she realized I wasn't even drinking. *g*

I got a job!

...as a student employee/proofreader. With my tutoring gig, I will be working about 10 hours a week, plus taking two upper-division courses. I think that is the perfect division of work/study: just enough that neither will make me crazy, and not so much that it eats into my family time. I am looking forward to being around other people more and being useful outside the house. Having a job and all that entails was an important part of my life back in Austin, and I have been kind of missing it. I can't wait to start!

Spring Fling

It has finally come home to me that keeping myself cooped up trying to force myself to do something I am not really all that gung-ho about doing (like a certain term paper) makes Nee a dull girl, one who sits and drools instead of writing. Rather than sit and stare out the window at the lovely scenery, I finally gave myself permission to wander out for my seasonal photo-taking. I may have waited a little late, so the flowers aren’t quite as glorious as last week, but better late than never.

And to prove the point above, yesterday I hand-wrote 6 or 7 pages on my paper, even with a two-hour break to run errands in town with Hannah.

This whole year so far has been warmer than average, a fact I have appreciated considerably, but I feel a little guilty about it. First, some people like snow and missed it this year. (I call those people “crazy”, but whatever.) Second, the warm temperatures have not been accompanied by the normal amount of moisture, so the farmers are worried about their crops this year. And the forest rangers are worried about forest fires. Coming from Texas (and with friends and family in desert West Texas), it seems kind of weird for Germany to be having the same concerns that are a perennial plague to the southern and western parts of America.

Not for the squeamish

We haven’t spotted any meal moths lately. John declared that we had them licked, but not wanting to bring down the retribution of the moth-gods on our heads, I pointed out that he shouldn’t count his larvae until they’ve hatched. But in reverse, I guess.

I realized on Tuesday that my last period started 40 days prior. (BTW, I started my period on Wednesday.) To head off hyperventilation, I got out my handy-dandy calendar and started doing some counting. Apparently the month before my cycle was about 37 or 38 days (February being short and all). So even though I am still having two weeks of light bleeding, the time in between is getting longer. I know that the IUD I have is supposed to make me lose less blood, but I thought my period would be shorter and lighter. No one said anything about having a 6-week-long cycle. Now, a 6-MONTH-long cycle--that I could live with.

I had this whole long post written up about three near-misses with lice this year, but who wants to read about lice. Suffice it to say, Hannah actually did get treated and all her clothes, bedding, and toys boiled, but we don’t think she really had lice, just dandruff and/or allergies. Of course, all that happened when I was trying to devote large chunks of uninterrupted time to writing my paper, so it just added to my sense of being doomed, paper-wise.

The poinsettia is dead. It fell victim to the zeal of an amateur gardener. But now that frees up its pot for some other victims...I mean, plants.

Life in the Fast Lane

On his last ever visit to Chez Nee, the Easter Bunny brought Hannah a computer game, The Sims. It has taken her a while to get the hang of it. So far she's had a man who hates his wife, a man who fell asleep on the bathroom floor, a family that almost starved to death, and a couple of house fires. Now she's moved up to a biting hamster and a job as a subway musician. (And another kitchen fire just now.) Sims has probably passed TV as her favorite pasttime. We don't know if that's actually an improvement. :-)

Uninvited Guest

So we had this, uh, visitor, living up under the roof of our balcony. Can you spot him?



There were little bits of poop on the balcony, but I wasn't sure if they were left over from last year's guest(s), or if they were fresh, and I wasn't about to check for freshness.

After our visitor had been roosting up there a few days, I decided to study on the balcony and soak up some morning sunlight. I would just pretend he wasn't there, just like I do the cats. Missy Cat came out on the balcony and was meowing, but I ignored her since she had just been fed. Then I realized our little guest had switched sides and was squeaking wildly. I figured that since he was still up in a crevice, he'd be safe from the predations of Missy. Except for some reason only fathomable to bats, he got within paws' reach of our Great Brown Hunter. John came upstairs and made Missy spit out the bat. After taking a breather, the little bat decided that maybe this just wasn't the place for him and flew away. I haven't seen him since. Godspeed, little vermin.

Ain't no sunshine when you're gone

I have been going through some hard-core blog withdrawal. I've tried to be a good girl and devote all my spare time to my paper (still not done *dies*), but it is making me kind of crazy. So rather than shoot my wad all at once, so to speak, I will drop in here and leave mini-posts about this and that that have occurred since my last post, which given the amount of time that has passed, has been quite a lot.

Also, I will save time by typing and posting without editing. You have been warned.

Since John is so gung-ho about all things Swedish, he signed us up to have an intro class in folk dancing (offered by one of the members of the German-Swedish club). We made arrangements for Hannah to spend the night with a friend because the dancing started at 8, which is normally when we start Hannah's bedtime routine. (Every weeknight event starts at 8 here, for some reason.) Then we flung ourselves around and stepped on people's toes for about an hour.

I haven't danced in ages, since back when I was in junior high and joined a local square dance club with the family of one of my friends. John and I got split up since we were beginners, but I had a good time anyway, even dancing with a relative stranger. I was sore the next morning, especially my upper arms, but I survived. I would be interested in doing it again, but the time is so stupid, and we'd have to drive across town into the Bermuda Triangle area. Oh well, maybe when Hannah is a little older and can stay home alone or can stay up later.

Checking In

So let’s see...
Paper—unfinished
Cold—lingering
Moths—undefeated
John—supine
Hannah—bored
Groceries—dwindling
Laundry—teetering

As you can tell, it’s all fun and games at Chez Nee. Actually, I had to take time out to address the last 2 items on the list. John gets unhappy when he has to wear the dregs underwear, and all of us like to eat.

My cold is hovering on the edge of the coughing stage, and I HATE coughing. I think I would rather give birth than have a lingering cough. Chunk-expulsion is bad enough on its own, but then there’s the rib and back soreness, the throat rawness, and sleep-coughing. The anticipation is almost as bad as the actual suffering, so I wish it would just get on with it if it’s going to so I can get on the mend.

I loaded up on cough drops recently, nice herbal ones we’ve used before. The lemon ones are lemon-y (duh!), but the sage ones have the annoying tendency to taste like Italian sausage pizza topping for about 5 minutes after being popped in my mouth. Not a taste I associate with healing.

We have seen a couple of moths around that we managed to squash, but to add insult to injury, I found 2 worms up under the edge of a metal lid on a jar of red cabbage the other night. There are no words, even made-up ones, to convey my horror and disgust at such a discovery. John pointed out that they couldn’t have got at the food inside because of the seal, and that they were only up under there because they prefer tight places. That may be true, but it doesn’t make it any less gross. The first time I find a worm on the peanut butter jar, I’m taking a flame-thrower to the pantry.

But on the bright side, I am working in the sunroom, where it is sunny and bright and smells of freshly watered plants. My big Thanksgiving cactus is putting out buds and the little one leaves, and John’s plumbagos are a-flower. The only damper on the good times in the indoor garden is that I probably killed my poinsettia. It was getting pretty mummified, per the directions I was using, so I chopped it back and started watering it again. I may have gotten a bit carried away with the chopping, though, d’ya think?

I guess I can get a new one this Fall.

My paper... I have never doubted that I *can* write this paper (thanks to my giant ego where education is concerned), I just can’t seem to give myself the impetus to apply my butt to my chair and do it. But you know what? I *do* want to finish my degree, and I can’t move on with this stupid thing hanging around my neck. So me-time is over; back to work.

Attitude adjustment—complete.

Head-Cold of the Ages

My cold has entered the cranial evacuation phase (thanks to Hannah’s germ-breathing pillow-stealing the other night), where everything that has been hoarded in there over the last few days is now trying to make a break for freedom. My eyes feel kind of like a super-ball that was found under the couch. My sinuses feel like the end of a long summer’s day at an over-chlorinated pool. And my face is covered in so many petroleum products that I look like an oil slick.

This has not been very conducive to paper-writing, as you might have guessed. Blech!

Fraud! Fakery!

As a student, I have always felt like a bit of a fraud. On the one hand, I try to get away with coasting on my brains instead of working hard. Then when I have to take a test or write a paper, I feel like I should finally get my comeuppance (which, since I kind of believe in Karma, I totally deserve). But then I inevitably get a good grade. Like the paper I wrote last October. I finally got it back (or at least got an answer to my email to my professor about it), and I got a 1.7 on the paper and a 1.3 for the class. In Germany, grades start at the top with a 1.0 and go down to a 6. So once again, my suckitude has gone totally unnoticed! I guess I am just going to have to work harder at proving I suck.

But at least this gave me a bit of a boost for finishing the current paper, so I'll see if I manage to squeak by or get the lashing I deserve this time.

Working working working, dying dying dying...

Let's see ... at the rate I'm currently going, I'll have finished my paper by sometime in late 2009. I need to pick up the pace if I want to get this thing turned in before classes start again the third week of April.

Hannah is on Easter vacation, so of course she has a bad cold. Which means she has to sneak into my bed in the middle of the night to breathe sick germs on me and steal my pillow and generally squash me, which equals a bad night's sleep for Nee. I think I'm going to bed early, like right after posting this.

John has totally put me to shame with his stick-to-it-iveness. I think I hate him. He's spent the whole day preparing for a new class he'll be teaching this semester. What an upstanding jerk, ha ha. (Please take my sarcastic assholery with a grain of salt--I'm totally projecting onto poor John.)

Back to the mines!

*They* are the champions

Apparently I am the only lame-ass in my immediate family. John was recently voted president of the local German-Swedish club (out of a field of 1, but still), and Hannah was just accepted into her first-choice Gymnasium. We just turned in her application one week ago and weren’t expecting an answer for at least two more weeks, so it was a pleasant surprise to get the letter in the mail today.

I, on the other hand, don’t have a single word down for my paper, which was due by today. I’ve been reading and thinking, and thinking and reading, but no writing yet.

Unfortunately, my lame-assery is spreading, because all I can manage blog-wise right now is some linkitty, for your entertainment.

Some printables for kids (German site)
Each of the pictures links to a different collection (calendar pages, seasons, sports, etc.).

Children’s artwork translated into photographs (click on the arrows for the complete series)

Crass avarice (or stuff I would like to buy):
chess cookie cutters
approximate watch
parasite pals erasers
a sari
Jane Austen action figure
periodic table shower curtain

The Periodic Table of Dessert
A Scientific and Rigorous approach to patisserie -- in Full Color

Place the state game
Name all 50 states in 10 minutes

Death and Taxes poster

Stuff aimed at specific readers:
Art Garfunkel’s reading list
Chris' Eastern Screech Owl Nest Box Cam'

Photos galore

Today I will let my photos do the talking. Here are a few recent events.

Winter waited until the first day of Spring to wrap up, but I think it is over. Click on the photo for the full array of carnage.


Once Spring defeated Winter, we took advantage of the nice weather to go to a nice big park (think Zilker Park in Austin) in a neighboring town. Again, click photo for the full album.


I didn’t manage to work up a full plant-blogging post, but I did put a few recent photos together into an album (click photo).


John shows the proper way to hold up your pinkies during high tea. Hannah invited us.

Let it snow x 3

The intermittent snow of Wednesday was followed by the ceaseless snow of Thursday and Friday (where we live, at least.)

Unfortunately, it is a very wet snow that Hannah says is no good for making snowballs. Walking in it sucks, too. And tomorrow starts our week of servitude in the public areas of our house, so John will get to shovel snow (if it doesn’t melt off overnight, which is doubtful), and I will get to clean the stairs and entryway. Bleah.

I think I had mentioned the unusually warm winter we had been having up until the first day of spring. The restaurant next door to us got a bit ahead of themselves; they started working on expanding their outdoor dining area right before the snow hit. I was impressed, though—their handymen kept working despite the bad weather, and now the steel girders supporting the new wrap-around porch are already in place.

I think my iron levels have stabilized, if slightly at the low end of normal. For one thing, my eyes look a lot like those of a white rabbit—reddish around the edges. Back when I was bloodless, that part was the same color as my skin. For another thing, walking up stairs (or through slushy snow) no longer makes my leg-muscles gasp for air like a stranded whale (at least, that’s what it used to feel like).

We put in Hannah’s application to her Gymnasium of choice. She may not get accepted because they have a lot of variables they consider, some of which don’t apply to her (sibling already attending), but she had a second and third choice listed in the case she doesn’t get in to the number one choice. We feel that she will get a good education no matter which school she gets into, and we don’t plan on being here for the rest of her education (knock on wood), so it is not the end of the world if she goes to 2 or 3. We know of some parents who dislike the local choice of schools so much that their reaction to not getting into the private schools they applied to was to start considering moving to another country. *boggles*

On the first day of Spring 2007,

Mother Nature gave to me...

Snow


Sun


Snow again


Sun again


... and repeat up to now. It hasn’t been below 40F since this morning, so there was no chance of it sticking, but that doesn’t mean the weirdness of the weather was lost on us.

This was the most exciting thing to happen to us since Hannah lost a tooth last week, so you can understand the dearth of posting. Maybe I will do another gardening post in a day or 2, since that is one of the few major things I’ve been up to. (I did finally find a paper topic; writing it will be a different matter.)

Food-blogging

Happy Anniversary to Me!

I don’t know that the recipe I had for this is very close to real Black Forest Cake, but that much whipped cream can’t be wrong.

Did you know that the (GenX) 12th anniversary is gold foil?

That is one of the dangers of having an anniversary that falls within the grocery store Easter-display season.

I know that, at least in Texas, people have the impression that German sausage is the end-all, be-all. If you are talking about Bratwurst, you may have a point, as evidenced here by this prototypical German dinner of Bratwurst and Spätzle:


But the German sausage-making industry has a dark underbelly: Wurstsalat (sausage salad).

The sausage is basically strips of bologna, and the salad is made of the same ingredients for tuna salad—mayo and pickles, etc. John wanted to try it, but that was likely the first and last time.

Another German food with a reputation that is better than its actual taste (to me) is Knödel. These are basically potato dumplings. I made plain ones from a mix, but you can also fill them with meat or veggies. I thought I made them too big, even though I followed the directions on the package, but mine looked a lot like one of the pictures on the Wikipedia page I linked to above. To me, they ended up tasting like a gloppy lump of gluey potatoes.


We got out and enjoyed the first nice, warm day of spring. See John and Hannah frolic here.

Dullsville, Population 3

We have finally caught up to the 20th century. Yes, you read that right: the last century. We still don’t have a tv with a remote or a cell phone, but we do have a DVD player (2 actually—1 American and 1 European), and as of yesterday we have a cordless phone. This from a family who hooked up DSL before our computer was even delivered.

This morning I asked John if I should make a Black Forest Cake this weekend.
“Do we really need a cake?”
“Don’t you like a cake for celebrating?”
That’s when he got the deer-in-the-headlights look. I know it might seem self-serving to others, but I didn’t want him to be caught flat-footed tomorrow when there will definitely be no opportunity for him to run out and make a last-minute contribution to our anniversary festivities. I don’t actually want anything, but I want him to at least have a chance at doing something, if he wants to.

When we do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, we each get a candy bar. That is John’s idea from the Swedish tradition of “Saturday candy”. Sometimes I let Hannah get a magazine in addition to/instead of her candy, if she is with me at the store; last week it was a Barbie magazine (aargh!). During our outing last Sunday, she had it in the back seat of the car and was checking off all the items she wanted out of a mini-catalog on the back page. She tallied up her choices: 250 Euros! She asked if I would buy her everything on her list. No-o! Well, how many chores would she have to do to buy them? I would never have to lift a finger around the house again. She automatically rejected cleaning up cat barf—that would still be my job. Then she decided to try a new tactic. She pared a few items from the list. How about buying her 120 Euros worth of stuff? Still no go. She has been working on the list every time she comes across the magazine this past week.

John was tired of the moth-sex paper in the pantry, especially since he thought it was cruel to leave Wormy Little Bastard stuck on there indefinitely. WLB seemed to be getting dehydrated, etc. So John took the paper down and was going to remove WLB from his hormone-laden prison. But in doing so, he pulled WLB in half. Which is much less cruel than leaving him stuck on the pantry wall. So farewell, Wormy Little Bastard. You were a much better pet than Missy Cat, and you left Eliza Cat in the dust.

We have spent the better part of the last winter stockpiling newspapers, in the event we ever got around to buying wood for our wood-burning tile oven, which we didn’t. I was reading up on ways to form logs out of the paper, and I was planning on trying it out one of these nippy mornings. But of course it is getting steadily sunnier/warmer, so even that pitiful attempt to light up the oven just once this year is doomed to failure.

Remember the fruit seeds I saved for planting? Those are doing fine, but now John is getting in on the action with some walnuts that were sprouting in the pantry.

This one is already pretty far along; the other one is just starting to peek out from its shell. Maybe tomorrow I’ll fix up one of the window boxes with the onions that are sprouting.

School Daze

While I was making Hannah’s snack for school, she asked me not to chop up her carrot, because she likes to eat it whole.
Me: I’m just afraid it’s too hard and will snap off your teeth.
H: To me, it is as soft as a baby’s butt.

Hannah asked me to get her a training bra. I find the sports bra to be infinitely more comfortable than the regular kind, but I figured that every girl needs a traditional hook-and-lace type bra to start. She was so excited, she put it on right away. Then we went to a school open house, and she fidgeted, and pulled, and complained the whole time. “Welcome to the rest of your life,” I told her. She took it back off as soon as we got to the car.

In the German school system, instead of having one all-purpose type school that offers a wide variety of classes, they have schools that are specialized, and the children are sorted into them based on their personal strengths. Children that are strongly academically oriented go to Gymnasium (college-bound); each Gymnasium has its own orientation. We went to an open house yesterday at one that stresses foreign languages and all-around personal development. Band has not traditionally been a school subject here, but this school offers band, and for those who don’t want to participate in band, keyboard or recorder. There is also a science track at this school, but even that requires two foreign languages. Hannah really liked the school; if she went there she would take English and Latin next year (and probably keyboard), and add French in 8th grade. It’ll probably break John’s heart, but she’ll drop Swedish lessons next year.

I’ve often considered coloring my hair a la SJ, but 1. I don’t have the nerve, 2. I’m not thrilled with the idea of bleaching (i.e. frying) my hair first, and 3. I’m not sure it would take on the white hairs (which would not actually be the purpose of said dyeing). As to #3, John said maybe a rinse would work, since it works on old ladies. As much of a fuddy duddy I may be, I refuse to accelerate the process of aging by putting a purple rinse on my hair.

Homebody Nee

My poinsettia has been looking kinda sickly, so I googled up a cure. Turns out, I should have retired it after it bloomed and let it “mummify” before reviving it when the weather turns warm. (Sounds very mad scientist-ish, eh?) So I lugged it out to the balcony, where I will patiently neglect it for a while.

That little maneuver has freed up some space on the table in the sunroom, but I had to clean the sap off it before I could reclaim it for my own use. Did you know that the sap from a poinsettia can cause an allergic reaction in a large portion of the people with latex-sensitivity? Also, a poinsettia is not poisonous. As this site so helpfully puts it: “If you're going to knock the hubby off for the insurance money (there's a cheery holiday thought...), find another plant.” I love learning useful stuff off the Internet.

On one of my mad mad mad mad Spring cleaning days, I emptied the pantry (again) and pulled out the shelves (behind which I found some more larvae—AARGH!), then scrubbed everything with shower cleaner. Then I did the same thing with a small cabinet where we keep our snacks—crackers, nuts, dried fruit, popcorn—then I put everything into zipper bags and plastic containers. Now it is several days later, and I was just going to brag on our worm-free pantry (excepting Wormy Little Bastard on the flypaper, of course) when Hannah went to open a Tupperware of cereal and found a larva up under the rim. It was blocked from the actual food by the awesome power of the T-ware seal, but it *should not have been alive* in the first place. So then I had to check all the other million containers, one of which also had a foiled larva against the rim. Hannah wanted me to add the newcomers to the flypaper so she can feed them to her Venus flytrap—she just sowed the seeds 2 days ago—but I said, Hell, no! The flytrap will have to attract its own food. This isn’t a cafe, you know. It is very humiliating to be bested by a creature with only one more brain cell than George W. Bush. *zing!*

I am afraid I have gotten acclimated to the rigors of indoor gardening and pest battling; if it were to get any more exciting around here, I might have a heart attack.

Back in the Saddle Again

Avenging Unicorn Play Set: “Everyone wants an imaginary unicorn friend that they can call forth to smite their enemies.”
I never knew I wanted one, but now that I know it exists, I can’t imagine living without it.

We needed to get out of the house this weekend and stretch our legs, so we took a little day trip on Sunday. For the last 3+ years, we’ve lived a half-hour away from the town I lived in as an army brat; we visited it for the first time yesterday.

The only address I could find was from my birth certificate, so John did his Internet magic and printed out a map or 2 to help us find it. We shot right past it on our way into Darmstadt, but since we also planned to see a couple of other things south of town, we decided to check it out on our way back out.

We made our way to the city-center, which is where you usually find any sites of interest in a German town. Turns out that Darmstadt is centered around a giant shopping complex, but there were a few interesting places interspersed among the shops. Nothing looked familiar.

Once we hit the old buildings, the playground, and the ice cream shop, we found our car and headed back out of town. Due to my bad directions, we ended up making a big loop to get back to the military housing, but find it we did. We took some photos of the building number on my birth certificate, then drove along the “village” and took some random photos of buildings. They definitely looked familiar to me, but none of the surrounding area did. There was a fence around the whole thing and a couple of guard posts, which I am sure I would have remembered if they had been there when we lived there. But that was almost 30 years ago; things change.

Afterwards, we found Burg Frankenstein (Frankenstein Castle) and walked around in it and took tons of photos. My dad likes to tell about the haunted house they (used to) set up at Halloween there. Looks like they still do. I remember going there once.

Then we headed for the Felsenmeer (Sea of Boulders). We were also there when I was a kid, but the parts I remembered weren’t the way I remembered them. I guess that is normal. Unfortunately, the name didn’t ring a bell when John was planning out our trip, so I ended up tromping around in the woods and mud in these.


Up until we had to hike back up the hill to get to our car, Hannah declared it was the Best. Outing. Ever. She got to climb over boulders. She used her walking stick to christen all the more interesting ones, like Big Rock and Whale. She ran out of steam at the end, though. Her last attempt? “I dub thee ‘stupid-I-have-no-name-for-you’.”

Out and About with Nee

I bought some fly paper covered in moth pheromones as the next stage in the escalating Battle for the Pantry. The first thing I caught was a bag of chips that had been improperly stowed on the top shelf, then I caught myself trying to get the chips off. Finally, after about a week, I caught a larva. It was still alive after four days, so John and I elevated it to the status of pet (albeit one we don’t feed), and he named it Wormy Little Bastard, a pet name with a storied history on his mother’s side of the family. Yesterday Hannah spotted another larva in the pantry, so John stuck it on the fly paper next to WLB. Hannah thinks they make a cute pair. We didn’t come up with a name for it, which is just as well, because it made a break for freedom, and John had to crush it. Sayonara, little worm.

John asked me what I wanted for my birthday, but he thought I wasn’t being serious, or was asking for something cheap to let him off the hook, so he bought me some DVDs instead. But I really wanted it, so I went out yesterday and bought it for myself. Isn’t he cute?

Flying Pig Watering Can

Hannah had a week of school vacation last week, and we actually managed to keep her fairly occupied. Her friend spent the night once, another friend came over for a play-date, we took Hannah and yet another friend to the dreaded JumpInn, and we went into town for the Fasching Parade. Hannah insisted we go early to stake out a good spot because she was paranoid about claim-jumpers. She had already pictured the evil-doers in her mind, hanging around to pinch her spot as soon as she moved and taunting her about it: “Someone will jump in front of me and say, ‘Ha Ha, it’s my place now, you little twit’.” See how she planned to react?


Unfortunately, she did not foresee that neighboring parade viewers would be a bigger problem than potential place-stealers. Between the cuteness of the toddler on our left and the aggressiveness of the 12-year-old on our right, Hannah figures she had a 20% loss in candy receipts. Her haul was still ¾ of a plastic Halloween pumpkin plus a baseball cap and a wallet, so it was nothing to sneeze at.

She went all out on her costume, let me tell you. It was basically the same as her costume on the last day of school before the holiday:

Business Woman Costume

Except she added lipstick, shades, and a headband to transform herself into a millionaire.

I got out my sewing books and taught myself how to knit after the semester was over. Not being happy to just knit practice squares, I immediately started a project. It turns out that the hat ended up too small for Hannah, so it is winging its way across the ocean to my 5-year-old niece Fall, who has a much smaller head.

Ode to Librarians

„March of the Librarians“: Watch their annual migration to the ALA conference and observe them interacting in their natural habitat

The Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos: “Read or Die”, a sentiment after my own heart

Librarian Action Figure: The perfect replacement for all the superfluous Barbies in your life.

Library Thing: Turn your personal collection into your own private library. One day I’ll get around to joining.

Hello from Boring-ville

So, what have I been up to lately? Not much.

I have laid in so many plastic containers in my death-match against the meal moths that my pantry would make a Tupperware salesman perish with delight. It had gotten to where I couldn’t walk past the pantry without inspecting the dry goods, and yes, I was *still* finding worms. Aarrgh!

After suffering from the ill-timed antics of our booby-trap shower head *bonk!* for 3+ years, we finally got around to finding the right replacement part for attaching the shower head to the wall (37 bucks for one little part!). It took the combined might of John and myself to get the original bit off, but it was worth every ounce of elbow grease. Now we’ll have to think of another way to keep overnight guests on their toes.

I’ve been going through a very Betty Crocker phase recently. First I tried a recipe for beer bread out of a magazine for students I picked up at the university. It was only so-so. Then since we were out of store-bought bread, and no one wanted to eat any more beer bread, I made a batch of my old standby, James Beard’s whole wheat bread. Then I got really creative and made a Swedish Lenten specialty, semlor. mmm... calorie bomb... I still have a few other items on my to-make list, but I am quickly running out of steam.

John has decided to call the last couple of months “The Winter That Wasn’t.” Here’s a little photographic proof, taken by yours truly last weekend as Hannah and I walked through the rain to the bank.
Last weekend:


This time last year:

The Funny Farm

Me: “Why does the kitty need a truck full of [Playmobil] swords?”
Lego-master: “Should I know?”
Then she explained that it was in defense against all the thousands of kids who want a cute little kitty. And then when the kids run and tell their moms about the cat with the truck and the swords, the moms say, “Oh, my kids! So young! And so drunk!”

John is not so good with the aphorisms: “Remember, honey, that which doesn’t kill you will probably maim you anyway.” Whatever happened to “Buck up, little camper?”

John also has a hearing problem. For instance, this morning he thought I was singing “Take this cat and shove it” (*insert bizarre mental image*), when in fact, I was singing “Take this food and shove it” to the cats in response to their incessant pestering about their breakfast.

One of the videos John bought in Texas was Labyrinth. He asked Hannah on several occasions if she wanted to watch it, and she turned him down flat (her usual m.o.). I thought it might be too scary for her, but he finally talked her into it one dull evening around the house. I kept waiting for the devil to appear. “That’s Legend,” said John (but you could hear “Dummy” from the tone of his voice). Hey, you know I’m bad with names, but I guess no Tom Cruise and lots of Muppets should have been a tip-off.

The bad part about Hannah seeing Labyrinth is that she now has an aversion to David Bowie. “Pants...too tight! Hair...too big! Make-up...too gay!” Anyhoo, there’s a really popular band here in Germany called Tokio Hotel. They are all about 18, so they have quite the teen and preteen following, all across Europe. The band is on the cover of a recent issue of Stern magazine, so we were all checking them out when we got the mag. The lead singer, Bill, is mighty androgynous, as well as being a big fan of David Bowie. Can you tell?


Hannah claims to be put off by Bill’s feminine mystique, but I know for a fact that at one time, she had some Tokio Hotel postcards/trading cards that she bought with her own money, and she had written “Sweet!” on the back of all of them.

Don’t you hate it when you pick out a new shower gel, and then you actually use it, and it smells like upholstery cleaner?

Organization is not my forte, so needless to say, keeping up with assigning Hannah chores and paying out allowance in a timely manner have never really worked out around here. We have switched to the pay-as-you-go system; Hannah isn’t necessarily doing more chores, but she’s not hounding me about late allowance money either, because I paid her on the spot. One night I was telling her that when I get old, she’ll have to take care of me, kind of like a baby, feed me, wash me—“I’ll just Swiffer you off,” she offered. So guess who’s now in charge of dusting...

I got through my student-teaching practice run (I have no idea what you would call a one-time, one-hour session of teaching by a visiting teacher-in-training) and felt pretty good about it and got mostly positive feedback afterwards. And I found out yesterday that I got a really good grade on it, so the day started off good. Then I took a final I was not fully prepared for (bad Nee! no biscuit!) in a class that no one was really sure what was going on in anyway. *Seventy* people enrolled on the first day, and *eleven* took the exam. Add to that the fact that I thought I started my period halfway through the test (false alarm), and you can see that the second half of the day took a steep nose-dive.

All I Want for Xmas...

One of Hannah’s permanent teeth was coming in above her baby tooth, so she had to have the baby tooth pulled. It and the one next to it had been loose for months but just hadn’t been getting any looser. Since she was already numb, the dentist went ahead and pulled the neighboring tooth as well; he said it wouldn’t be long until it came out anyway. Hannah was glad for the 2 bucks (she knows about the Fairy, so I didn’t have to stay up past my bedtime to make the swap) but disappointed that she didn’t get gas, because she had heard about my experience when I had my 4 wisdom teeth out, where I was *inside* Mahler’s First Symphony; she wanted to be inside “Baila Loco” by Soul Control and had even imagined up an outfit for the occasion: a cropped shirt with one long and one short sleeve, covered in glitter, and a striped mini-skirt. She’s all about the pop-star fashion.

Hannah normally reads for a while at bedtime, but last night she wanted to play in the living room + 5 minutes of reading for her pre-sleep routine. Here are the results:

A robber band


And their hide-out.

Who knew that the littlest Barbies were also the most criminally minded?

We seem to have returned from Texas with more of Hannah’s school photos than I had anticipated, so now I fear that we overlooked someone (or ones). If you didn’t get a photo, or know of someone who didn’t, let me know so I can fix that. Hannah decided to embellish one of her photos; I keep it in my notebook, but I will share a very blurry version here.

Friday's Child is Fair of Face (right?)

I used some of Hannah’s Wickedly Hot Chocolate lotion (this stuff is the *bomb*), and of course John had to chime in that he doesn’t think lotion should smell like food. Later, when he was cracking some nuts for a snack, Hannah commented that he should get some lotion that smells like nuts, or Viking.
“What does Viking smell like?”
“Stink. But maybe it would be better with a little cherry or strawberry.”


Dear Japanese Girl on the Bus,
I don’t know you from Sam, but please let me say that your puffy yellow jacket and matching Pikachu earmuffs totally cracked my shit up today. Well played.
Love,
Me


John was trying to remember the name of the nutty old man that the hobbits stay with briefly.
Tom Diddle?
Tom Dooley?
He went on in this vein until he made it to:
Weeble Wobble?
Snargle Fargle?
Tom Bombadil, you ... Tolkien-noob! He didn’t even remember that Old Tom B shows up in the first bit of the Fellowship of the Ring, before the hobbits meet up with Strider. He thought it was in The Hobbit. Pff! My mad research skillz totally saved the day on that one.


I love numbers, but I have decided to make an exception for these numbers. (Brought to you by my looming birthday.)
16 years ago I was 18; in 16 years I will be 50.
The year I turn 40, so will John, and Hannah will be 16.
I have been licensed to drive for 18 years.
I have been married for a dozen years, and my child is almost 10.
I graduated from high school 16 years ago.
I got my BA 11 years ago.
I met my best friend, WesTexGirl, 23 years ago.
I can’t go on. It makes my brain hurt.


A Hannah classic:
“There’s butter on my brain to make it work smooth. And pudding.”


Hannah is a latchkey kid for about half-an-hour once a week. *sniff* John said he came home to find every light downstairs on. Hannah said she was a little nervous about monsters. I pointed out that they would have to be tiny monsters since our apartment is kinda small. One could fit in the tile oven, she pointed out. One could *be* the tile oven.

John and I pointed out that Missy cat spends a lot of time up in the space toward the top of the oven, and the monster hasn’t eaten her. Simple: the monster-oven is using her as bait because it wants to eat a baby. Or the oven and Missy are dating.


We were watching Wetten, dass...? again (Bet that...?), and this 10-year-old kid managed to do his trick, so the moderator of the show told him he could choose his prize: “You can kiss these 2 ladies [one of whom was Beyonce Knowles] , or get something else.”
Kid: “I want something else.” (He got a trip to the Kennedy Space Center.)


Weather-talk alert!
After the wind storm last week, we got hit by a cold front this week. We got a little snow, not too much, but the temperatures have barely broken freezing for the last 3 days. I could do without walking to my first class in -6C (22F). Here is one of the poor flowering plants I mentioned last week.

Can you see the snow on the ground below it?


And to wrap up, a gratuitous photo of my plants.

Hannah, my Hannah, all hail the mighty child!

One day when I was walking Hannah to school, she was explaining that she would not like to be a popstar, because even though you would make a lot of money, you would get old, and they would push you out, then you’d spend up your money and live on the street, and that is why she does not want to be a popstar. Quick! Where’s Britney Spears’ cell number? My child has some important info for her!

This morning Hannah told us she had a math test today. I reminded her of the stuff she had been doing in homework recently, and how she knew how to do each thing. She said that if she had any questions during the test she would go up to ask the teacher, because some kids do that, like if they want to know which number to round to, or how 5 pigeons are supposed to eat one rat. We asked if that was a math problem she had to do, dividing up a rat equally. She thought maybe it was for “cooks who can open up a rat without anything falling out”. John: “What in the world!?” Hannah: “Or someone in a sewing club who can put a zipper in the rat.” It is getting harder and harder to keep a straight face in this family.

Late but Long

When John’s back was giving him fits over a week ago (he’s much better now!), he had the wattle bottle on his person at all times. When he started feeling better, he left it at home during work hours, which is when my story takes place. I had retreated upstairs to the “facilities”, and I heard Hannah coming up the stairs. Wanting to head off an invasion, I shouted, “I’ll be out in a minute!” Then I heard something hit the floor, accompanied by a sloshing sound.

Hannah: “Oops! My liver!”
Me: “Take your liver back downstairs and I’ll be there in a minute!”
Hannah: “It won’t go back in! I’ll have to cook it up and feed it to the cats.”
Me: “Whatever.”

I am taking a teaching course this semester, and we each have to teach one 45-minute session to foreign students in the language program. I was observing during one of my classmates’ attempts this last week, and she was doing really well right up until the point that one of the students pointed out that they had just recently gone over the *exact same text* with a different student teacher (from the other teaching class, led by a different instructor). Ouch. A student teacher’s worst nightmare.

Hannah woke us up at 4:30 one night/morning last week with “I’m bleeding to death!” At first I thought maybe puberty had struck at an unseemly time, but then she showed up in our room with a copious nosebleed. She had bled all over her sheets (which are red, so that shows some foresight on my part *g*) and her white t-shirt, but I managed to get her cleaned up and back to bed without any more theatrics. She had another nosebleed the next night, but she was better prepared and didn’t even bother to wake us up. Thanks, Babe!

I am currently engaged in a fight to the death with these cute little moths that live in our pantry closet. I don’t have a problem with the moths themselves, just with their hideous, disgusting larvae. I thought I had managed to track them all down and destroy them before we left for Texas, but I guess it just wasn’t enough to throw out half our dry goods, seal the rest with packing tape, and scrub them entire pantry with bleach (shelves, walls, and the little holes for the adjustable shelves included). I am usually friendly to nature; I even take the time to shoo wasps and spiders outside instead of smashing them, but I cannot stand those creepy crawly caterpillar things. Flesh...crawling... I hope I will have had better luck with round 2.

I ran out of toothpaste while in Texas, so I bought some good ol’ Crest gel. Man, this stuff is *weak*. I had been using an herbal paste that tastes strongly of licorice (mmm...licorice, aka anise), and I could feel the germs dying when I used it. This Crest had better be death on wheels toward cavities, because I am too tight to toss a full stupid giant tube.

We’ve been steadily making our way through the stack of DVDs we brought back with us from Texas. Now Hannah’s indoctrination in Futurama and Greg the Bunny is complete. She’s been well-versed in Spinal Tap since a young age, so that was just a refresher course for her. [True story: When Hannah was 4, Sluggo and the lovely Peaches came to dinner, and Hannah asked them if they wanted to watch Spinal Tap. I think she had a very high rating on the “cool child” meter that night.]

I’ve also been listening to Pink every minute I’ve been in the kitchen (home of the CD player) since we got back. I’m Not Dead is a rockin’ album, although I was a bit taken aback by the amount of crack showing on the back cover. Less is more, Pink! But excessive crack aside, I like every song on the album, in large part because they cover such a wide variety of styles, including a folksy anthem-like song written by her Vietnam-vet dad and performed as a duo by the 2 of them. The tunes are so catchy that John and I found ourselves mentally humming them when we had the occasional bout of sleeplessness after getting back from Texas. I’d have to give this gift (from John) an A+.

Mr. Jooge also gave us a Forever Sharp (TM) knife that I am slightly scared to death of. I have a bad track record with sharp objects (like knives, cheese graters, paper, cardboard, and razors), and I thought I might faint when he told us about the demonstration where the guy dropped a tomato on the blade and it cut itself. Eeek! It works great on meat, though, so I guess we’ll keep it.

The weather has been all screwed up since ... uh ... forever. The overnight low has reached freezing only twice in all of January, so the plants think it is spring. Bushes and some of the smaller trees are putting out leaves; the viney-type bushes have yellow or dark pink flowers on them; bulb plants are pushing up leaves; and what I think is a cherry tree is covered in pale pink blossoms. I go by the last one twice every day on the bus, and every time I think, “Man, that shit is *bananas*!” Even I would agree that 17C (~63F) in January is wrong (although I enjoyed it anyway).

All of Europe was affected by a huge wind storm that hit Thursday. More than 2 dozen people were killed, and trees are down all over Germany on the roads and rail lines. We were very lucky in this area to have only minimal damage.

OMG. I see that I just wrote an entry on a bug infestation, toothpaste, cutlery, and the weather. Where’s my Geritol? It’s obvious I have the sensibility of a septuagenarian.

Except... How cool is this? This guy and friends/family built a scale model of Helm’s Deep OUT OF CANDY. Why can’t I ever do something that awesome?!

The Mother Lode!

Our adventures in flying went off without a hitch. We left home a little later than I had planned, but the long-term parking at the airport worked like a dream, so that helped make up for the lost time. When we found our check-in area, the line went all the way back into another section of the airport. Fortunately, the line was moving quickly, so it only took us about 40 minutes to get checked in. Security was easy as pie compared to last time, so the whole process was as painless as an international flight at xmas-time could be.

Unfortunately, there were several pissed-off babies (POBs) on our flight. Once they screamed themselves into exhaustion, we were all able to have a little peace and quiet, but then occasionally one would wake up and get started again. Luckily, that didn’t seem to set off the others. One mother was traveling alone with 2 small kids, one of them belonging to the pack of screamers. Except hers also thrashed and kicked and went boneless and threw herself backwards. John was sitting at the end of their row and got the impression that POB wanted Da-da. The poor mom was so wiped out from wrestling with the POB that as soon as the kid fell asleep, she did, too. The non-POB entertained herself the whole time with a cup, a water bottle, a book, and napping. John bets that the first thing her mother does when she gets off the plane is to punch the father.

We saw most of the smaller kids over the course of our flight, either wandering up and down the aisles alone or being walked by a parent. My favorite was this grumpy-faced tyke wearing a perpetual scowl.

While we were waiting at the gate, Hannah passed the time by composing a musical, “Nice Mice—We Love Cheese.” All the songs were about how nice the mice were, and how much they loved cheese and no one could change that. She envisioned 2 grown-ups in mice costumes in the lead roles.

The air on the plane dries me out like a starfish on the beach, but I was so paranoid about the stupid new rules that I took the travel-size tube of lotion out of my backpack. The semi-frequent but tiny drinks from the airline just didn’t cut it in the hydration department.

I don’t know if it is a German-US thing, or if the airlines have just loosened up in certain respects since the last time I flew 2 years ago, but the flight attendants on Lufthansa weren’t as, um, glossy as the American Airlines FAs. They weren’t schlubs by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn’t look like they had been shellacked as part of their pre-flight routine, either.

Also of note on our flight: the Norwegian woman with sleeves that might have been caught in the escalator at the airport. It’s the only way I can account for the shreds of lace hanging from her wrists.


I wrote the above while on the plane to Texas. I didn’t write a single word between then and now, so my recollections of all our visiting isn’t quite as precise. We stayed with my dad the first and last nights, and in between we managed to visit in *8* other places. I have photographic evidence up at Yahoo, labeled “Xmas 2006”, Stops 1-7. We saw lots and lots of people, but it would have been nice if we had had more time to spend with them.

There hasn’t been any news regarding John’s side trip (you know if you know), but feel free to continue with the finger-crossing for now.

Some kid highlights from the trip:

Our niece “Chicken” is addicted to the old coin-ear trick. When asked how the coins got in there, she replied, exasperatedly, “It’s magic!” Well duh, Aunt Nee! She only cares about the trick, not the cash, so afterwards we kept finding “ear money” lying around.

Another niece, “Fall”, is, um, selective of hearing, so it took a couple of tries to convince her that crawling on the back of the couch that stands in front of a window was not a good idea and she should get down. Her brother remarked that she was a big butt-head at home. Me, disbelieving: “Fall, are you a big butt-head at home?” Fall: “Yep.” So there you have it.

John cut his hair. He’s a damn good-looking man, isn’t he?

We couldn’t come up with a better idea than the JC Penney hair salon for the doing of the deed, so while he made his donation to Locks of Love, me and Hannah and Mom and JC roamed the mall. After we had traversed the whole length of it (it’s a small mall), Hannah said, “This place is full of crap no one wants to buy!” Indeed.

The trip back was almost as uneventful as the trip over. Our stupid e-tickets did not indicate that NO lunch would be served on our noon flight (there was no meal info for any of our flights), so we were kind of hungry when we got to Dulles, but some hot sandwiches fixed that. John was bummed that he did not get to eat at Arby’s and only once at Taco Bell, but such is life. Then on the trans-Atlantic leg, Hannah spilled her drink on John’s lap, and I lost the stylus to my Palm PDA, a tragedy that brings tears to my eyes even now, 4 days later. Here is the ersatz stylus I came up with, but it pales in comparison to the real thing.

Yes, that is a duck pirate (or pirate duck, if you prefer) pencil topper. Hannah didn’t want it.

We haven’t had too much jet-lag, but the twinge in John’s back after the trip (probably from toting four 50-pound bags up to our third-floor apartment) has developed into a crippling like the one he had on our last trip to Texas in 2004 and last spring. He looks like an unbent paper clip.

As I knew would happen, Hannah was unable to keep track of all the presents trickling in over the course of 2 weeks of visiting. Her great-grandmother firmly believes that “Xmas present” = “clothes”, so we made a trip out to Sears with her to pick out our presents. Which is where Hannah had a bit of a meltdown: “Everyone else gets cool stuff, and I only get socks!” (n.B. No socks were actually bought at Sears.) This prompted a visit to Super WalMart (Ack! My soul! It burns!) to spend up the Xmas largesse from various family members. We mainly invested in DVDs; I was on the verge of opening them all before packing so customs wouldn’t think that we were starting a DVD-smuggling ring, but it was too much work. They didn’t seem to bother Homeland Security when they opened our box and one of our suitcases.

I also ponied up for some sports bras with spaghetti straps. I have been considering going bra-less for some time (damned plastic bits on the straps of my beloved training all-cotton bras!), but the fear of nipplage has held me back. I also have a great fear of German department stores after the Snoopy-panty debacle of last fall, so our Texas trip was my first chance to look for an alternate form of chestal coverage (not having what could properly be called a bosom). Anyhoo, props to Fruit of the Loom for their excellent work in ladies’ under-apparel!

Before I got off track, I was going to mention that Santa left Hannah a note in her stocking that he was delivering her present to Germany and it would be there when she got back.

She hasn’t even had any lessons yet (or a music book, for that matter), but she’s already composing her own music with the help of stickers she numbered herself.

We managed to convey our wealth of xmas gifts back to Germany with minimal breakage; even the 18-by-24 picture frame (with glass!) and 4 place-settings of Corelle made it through unscathed. See?


My earlier, pre-trip comment that winter had arrived in Germany seems to have been premature. Winter only paid Germany a brief visit before jetting off to settle in for a long stay in the NW of the US, I would guess. Since we landed on Sunday, it has hovered around 10C (50F) and has rained off and on. You can check out the difference between this year and last year by clicking on the third link in the article, “Foto-Serie: Winter '06 und '07 im Vergleich“. The pictures in 1-8 are of the same locations, the first in each pair from last year and the second from this year (1-4 in Bavaria, 5-8 in Berlin); 9-14 are all from this year.

And on that note, I’m going to bed to the gentle pounding of the rain.

Ring out the Old...

Over the past week, I have felt about as informative and entertaining as an old stick, hence the non-blogging. I think the pre-trip stress has smothered my creativity/xmas cheer/good will toward men, but I can tell I’m back on the upswing, because 1.) my eye-tic has disappeared (knock on wood), and 2.) we’re getting on a plane Thursday morning and I haven’t freaked out (much) yet. (Ok, maybe a little, but it was all John’s fault.)

I noticed that the loss of my tic coincided with surviving the Lucia-fest we attended over the weekend. I got us thoroughly lost on the way, and Hannah had a bit of a meltdown after she took part in the Lucia procession, and our friend saved us seats that she unwittingly stole from another family, but otherwise it was a fairly innocuous event. There was a drawing for door prizes, so we bought 7 tickets, 2 of which Hannah promptly lost. She did win one item—a tube of caviar. “Oh, well--at least Dad can eat it,” she thought, but alas, there was a small hole of unknown duration in the metal tube. Rather than risk salmonella, which John would have gladly done if we weren’t traveling the same week, we threw it away and washed the stink off our hands. We also found a cat-sitter that night (finally!), so maybe that also helped reduce the pre-trip stress.

Winter has finally decided to grace Germany with its presence. We had our first frost last week, and the temps have been hovering around 5C (41F). Hannah won’t always wear her hat, and on those days, she says her ears feel like popsicles that ice bears (=polar bears) are munching on. Another sign of winter: I can’t touch anything in our home without shocking myself. The VCR is the worst.

We made it to the Xmas Market this week but didn’t buy anything but food. I swear, John and Hannah are constitutionally incapable of walking down the main street without needing to graze along the way. *She* wants sweets—it was 5C out, and she spent the whole time pleading, “Ice creeeeeam!”—and *he* wants to try every kind of roasted nut offered (if I were Mimi Smartypants, I would write an essay about my husband’s love of hot nuts, but instead I will just amuse myself in my head), so almonds and chestnuts this time. And it’s not like I didn’t feed them first.

Our suitcase o’ presents is basically packed, so there shouldn’t be too much to remember when it comes time to pack except clothes and personal stuff. That doesn’t mean I’m not making a list, but I’m only including the most important things. I can buy a new toothbrush if I leave mine behind, but we can’t get on the plane without our passports, so the passports are on the list and the toothbrushes are not.

Hannah’s school offered photos this year for the first time, and they came in yesterday, so we will be spreading the joy as much as possible while we are in Texas. When John saw them, he wondered why we ever let her out of the house looking so mussed. I reminded him that Hannah had gotten herself ready and didn’t want our help and thought she looked *very chic*, so grin and bear it, baby.

I wanted to make an elf of myself, but I think I am out of time, so here are some other fun xmas games and stuff (check out You Got Elfed) from Office Max (who would have thought!).

And with that I will sign off for the rest of 2006 and the first week of 2007. Happy Holidays!

The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Tuesday sucked ass. There is no other way to describe it. Everything that could go wrong did, up to and including my thermos of coffee leaking through my bag and down my jeans. I didn’t even bother to go to my afternoon class, because with my luck, a piano would have fallen on me. That’s how bad it was.

Wednesday’s fantasticness was in inverse proportion to Tuesday’s suckitude. Everything that failed on Tuesday succeeded on Wednesday. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a chorus of fairies had appeared to rub my feet and sing me to sleep.

Now I am hoping to just maintain an even keel between now and our trip a week from today. I am a little concerned about an intermittent eye-tic I have developed; this only happens when there is more stress than I want to admit bubbling deep below my surface. Did I ever tell you that I had a tic for the first 6 weeks we lived in Germany? Every new thing I encountered, every new person I met, my eye spasmed the whole time. What a first impression I made.

I don’t think I was being particularly goofy yesterday, but Hannah told me it was time for her to put me in a retirement home for nutballs. Thanks, Honey.

Busy Bee Nee

I have finished all my xmas shopping! (Thanks to the power of the Internet.) You all will be happy to hear that no one will be receiving pornographic marzipan (probably Not Safe For Work), or an apron depicting a busty barmaid in a dirndl (although it was a close call, LilSis). If I asked you for advice on what to get a loved one, rest assured that I immediately changed my mind and got something completely different. That’s just how I roll.

All my shopping sleuthery (shoppery sleuthing?) has left little time for those pesky chores like blogging and homework and housekeeping, so I guess I will be playing catch-up this weekend. Hannah is about to go to a birthday party, so that should free up some time. I have taken on a proofreading-esque job/favor for John, and despite being annoyed at the formatting quirks (which are not part of the correcting job), I am enjoying the work. If I could just get through with my stupid degree (yes, the luster is gone), I could get back to doing stuff I like, like working.

I recently told John that I am surprised I haven’t flunked out of school because I am not a self-starter. I guess I am especially gifted at cramming. *g* This makes me think that freelancing might not be such a good career choice for me. I’ll definitely be looking for an office job when I’m done with school. [BTW, WesTexGirl: Welcome back to the ranks of the studious!]

I know some people scoff at the idea of global warming, but you cannot deny that the weather has been excessively weird this year. They’ve already had snow in North Texas, while we haven’t even gotten below 40F yet. Rose bushes are blooming. The geraniums are still alive in people’s window boxes. Remember this tree?



It’s now covered in fuzzy buds. You need a heavy jacket to leave the house, but no hats or gloves or wool coats. Trust me, Germans live in mortal fear of drafts and break out their scarves in October, whatever the weather, so they are not exactly prone to underdressing, unlike my husband and daughter. It is nippy in the mornings, but you’ll be sweating under your sweater by lunchtime.

12 Days ‘til Texas!

‘Tis the Season to be Greedy

Is it wrong for me to drool outside the showroom window of this kitchen boutique?

A few doors down, though, my eyes were accosted by an evening gown that appears to have been constructed out of a ball of foil covered in sequins. Hannah liked it.

Hannah is counting down the days until we fly to Texas. Literally. I went in to wake her up this morning, and she opened her eyes and said, “Seventeen days ‘til we go to America.” On Thursday, she called out from her room, “Are you going to wash underwear soon?” Fearing the answer, I asked why she already needed more underwear when I just finished the wash on Monday. Turns out she had already packed for the trip. The early bird runs out of clothes, eh?

I hate it when you think of the perfect gift, then discover that everyone is sold out until after xmas. grrrr.

If anyone is looking for something to read, I highly recommend Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. I was laughing so hard during the scene where he was trying to order a beer in a Glasgow pub that I was crying. That will get you some funny looks when you are sitting at a garage, waiting for your car to be inspected.

My iron levels turned out to be in the acceptable range (if on the low end), so we (the doctor and I) have decided to keep the IUD. I am perfectly healthy in every other respect, knock on wood, so there’s no need to start chopping out or burning off completely healthy bits when I could just eat more meat. For those in the know, my ferritin is 47 (normal is 13-150) and my hemoglobin is 13.7 (normal is 12-16, and I started at 7).

Totally unsolicited, here are a few tips on shopping for Hannah this year, if you are so inclined:
No earrings, please, as her piercings have grown up.
She wears a size 10.
Barbie stuff is still ok, but she’s also into Legos.
We now have a DVD player (thanks to the generosity of Mr and Mrs Jooge (I couldn’t come up with a good nickname for Mr J)), so DVDs are now an option.
Hannah has more books than shelf-space, yet she still complains about not having enough to read, so books are always welcome.

Voila! Xmas is served!

Already an Evil Genius at 9

Hannah was telling me in the car yesterday that if she were the bad guy in Superman, she would grind up the Kryptonite really fine and put it in his soup. As far as I know, she has never read a Superman comic or a Superman movie, but she knows his one weakness and how best to leverage it. Evil!

Home on the Range

I told John that one day I want a house with enough space for an office, even if we have to share it. (1) But I want my own desk, and by “desk”, I mean “kitchen table.” I need lots of space to spread out when I work. It doesn’t matter if I’m studying, editing, sewing, or balancing the checkbook; I want to be able to have everything I need right at hand. I think a low rolling cart for holding my collection of office supplies and loose bits of paper that I could store under the table would be the perfect accessory. And a Mac, but definitely not pink. I hate pink more than I hate Brussels sprouts, and wouldn’t you know it—I got a “raspberry” Mac at my old office when our computers where updated. AAARGH!

(1) Technically, we have an office, but since it is tiny with a ceiling that slopes down on both sides from the middle and isn't well-insulated or well-lit, it is more like a detention cell than a workspace.

I’m a bit concerned about my daughter. For homework yesterday, she had to rewrite Little Red Riding Hood from the perspective of LRRH herself. I was reading what she had written after she and John had left for Swedish school, and I almost wet myself laughing:

Grandma looked dumb, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. “What a big ass you have, Grandma.”
“The better to toot with.”
“What big peepers you have, Grandma.”
“The better to stare with.”
“What a big, fat, stinky mouth you have, Gr—“

BaHaHaHa!

A Couple of Fun Things

I wanted to embed a YouTube video of the Helsinki Complaints Choir, but I couldn't copy the whole tag over at YT, so you'll just have to follow the link, but it is hilarious in a thoughtful way.

And here is something that is funny in a less thoughtful and more silly way: the Holiday Snowglobe. Shake it!

Happy Turkey Day to Us

We didn’t have time to cook a big dinner on Thursday or room to store a turkey in the fridge last week, so we shopped for the bird yesterday and I cooked it today. Here are the results of my meager efforts this year (all from scratch): turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, rolls, tea. Plus Hannah, who improves any photo.



And here is the lemon meringue pie I made from scratch this morning. Hannah has been begging for one for weeks, so I let her juice the lemons while I took care of everything else pie-wise. I’m not normally a good pie or meringue maker, but this time I had success!



I am not much of a risk taker normally, but I cannot resist using an untested recipe off the Internet when I want to make something new, even for holiday cooking. This is the turkey recipe I have been using since the year we lived in Sweden, and this is the lemon pie recipe I printed out yesterday before we went shopping.

Green Thumbs R Us

My Xmas Cacti are both in bloom!



I managed to force the Poinsettia.



My citrus plants I grew from seeds have survived the summer.



We bought some plants in late summer. This one never took off, so I figured it was just a dud. But apparently it really likes the warmer-than-normal temps and rain, because it went into overdrive recently.



Here’s one of the other plants that we bought at the same time and which bloomed and died on schedule.

TMI Alert!

My doctor’s appointment went fine. Everything looks good, including the IUD I complained about. I had it put in to reduce my period because I was suffering from severe-ish iron anemia. Technically, it has reduced my period—if not for something called hygiene, it would be possible for me to use only one thin pad on most days and a mini-pad on others. Sweet, eh? Except my periods last 12-15 days. (1) Even the doctor agreed that is a drag, but since it is not unheard of, and since the *total* blood loss is less, she highly recommends I keep the IUD. We’ll talk about it again when my blood-work comes back next week (the phlebotomist didn’t maim me this time).

(1) When I called 2 weeks ago to make my appointment, it was the first day of my period. I thought I’d still be on it when I had my check-up, based on 21 months experience (and the longest period to date the month before). But my body betrayed my brain once again: it lasted only 5 days! That was probably the shortest period I’ve ever had, except maybe my first one at age 11.

Hannah Fannah Po Pannah

Hannah specifically asked for this advent calendar this year (usually she gets one like this). Unfortunately, she wanted the hottest item this xmas season; the department store I went to yesterday was sold out, and they reported that there weren’t any to be had for love or money. Rats. Hannah declared that she’d just take the normal chocolate calendar, but I think I can improve on that with something like this.

I would have gotten her one from our local gummi-bear shop (how cools is that? We have a shop that sells nothing but gummi bears), but I’m afraid Hannah was swapped at birth, because she doesn’t like gummi bears very much and therefore cannot be the fruit of my loins.

One thing that makes me very proud of Hannah is her congenital resistance to peer pressure. She is not merely impervious to it, she is actively hostile to it. She and her best friend (1) were talking about participating in a local parade, which is usually a low-key affair around here. St. Martin rides his horse at the head of the procession, and kids and their families follow carrying paper lanterns. Hannah mentioned the lanterns, and the friend said that teenagers don’t carry lanterns (she is 10). Hannah bluntly pointed out that they are not teenagers. Neither ended up going after all (we just caught the tail end of it from our balcony), but it was reassuring that Hannah understands about and approves of age-appropriate behavior.

(1) Back before she and the best friend had a flaming row and broke up.

Gotta Be Me!

Probably once a week (and now it really is only once a week because I’ve restricted my blog-reading (except WesTexGirl) to Saturdays—oh, the agony!) I read about the "10 weird things about me" meme that is making its way around the blogosphere. That got me thinking about my own level of weirdness.

I don’t have webbed toes or a third nipple; I think I’m physically normal (although some people might argue that my long toes disqualify me).

But, I know that maybe I, uh, think about things a little differently from my nearest and dearest; I really don’t think I’m *weird*, deep in my heart. I’m just a person who likes to hum while she walks.

I noticed recently that when I am washing the dishes or taking a shower or otherwise doing something that doesn’t require a lot of attention, my mind wanders. Back to Austin. And not Austin as the backdrop to a big chunk of my life, but *Austin*. Burnet Road, Lamar, South First, the Party Pig, HEB. *Every HEB I’ve ever been in.* No kidding. Instead of thinking about Hannah’s second birthday party or her first steps or our wedding or John’s graduation, I think about the produce section of a supermarket I haven’t seen in 2 years, alternating with driving directions to said store.

But that’s ok, right?

Not for Children

Here are a couple of links that I have been saving. They depict the Teletubbies and Sesame Street, but they are definitely NOT for children. Wait until your kids go to bed to look at these.

Teletubbies kill
A shooter game. Enough said.

Sesame Streets
A "trailer" for a "film" by Martin Scorcese. (Which means audio from _Taxi Driver_ tacked onto video for Sesame Street. Sacrilicious!)