All shopping and no play makes Nee CRAZY!

Hannah made it through the first week of fifth grade unscathed. (She will tell you that she’s been a fifth grader since July since she was promoted at the *end* of fourth grade.) I think she even mostly enjoyed it. She’s pretty sketchy on some of the details, but it seems there might be another Texan in her class. What a small world!

Unlike in elementary school, Hannah didn’t get a master list of school supplies, so I’ve been running around all week picking things up after she found out each day what she needed. After the third day, though, I threatened to chop off Hannah’s hand if her list was written on it again. I didn’t buy all of that paper for nothing!

Also this past week, we have gone from being a zero-cell-phone family to being a two-cell-phone family.



With Hannah being more independent this year, and with John and I having irregular schedules, we thought it was time to get a little more connected. John and I have mixed feelings about giving up our anti-cell-phone self-righteousness, but since we bought the most basic phone we could find (and cheap!), we are looking forward to a new kind of self-righteousness. *tongue in cheek*

In addition to the frantic cell-phone and school-supply shopping, John and I had other household-y chores and errands to take care of. I am afraid that by the end of it, I was teetering on the edge of madness. All I needed to buy was some vacuum cleaner bags and curtain hooks, regular old everyday items in every household. Not live fairies clothed in gold. Not the last Chinese river dolphin. Just vacuum cleaner bags and curtain hooks.

It took me 4 tries to find the hooks. Actually, that’s not completely true, because the first shop had three empty racks where there should have been the kind of hooks I needed, but that did not help me.

In a town of about 150,000, in one of the most industrialized nations in the world, I still have not been able to put my hands on the goddamned vacuum cleaner bags, after a week of trying and *6* separate attempts. I have tried 2 department stores, and 2 electronics stores, one of them where we bought the damn vacuum cleaner in the first place, and the other the place where I regularly buy bags. To add insult to injury, the second place has a wall that is completely covered with bags, top to bottom, but guess whose bag was represented by a giant gaping hole where it was completely sold out? Their Friday shipment was not in as of 10 am or 2 pm, so I guess I either have to cram some more dirt in the current bag, or live in filth until Monday. I am considering ordering a case of them online.

It occurred to me on Wednesday that I should put my pedometer on. Over three days, I walked slightly over 7 miles. So if I translate that into the trek for Rivendell, I am still on Day 1 and I’ve managed this much:

Leave Bag End at full dark (ca. 7 p.m.). Go around (W) end, jump hedge.
Go through gate into a lane. Head west.
Leave lane, follow hedgerows south.
Cross The Water on a plank bridge.
Cross The Great Road from the Brandywine Bridge. Enter Tookland.

And I am almost here:

Look back at lights of Hobbiton from first slopes of the Green Hill Country.

So that was my errands. John hauled a cubic meter of wood in for our tile oven.



Of course it warmed up again and the clouds cleared off right after that, which means that you need a heavy jacket in the morning but not in the afternoon. It won’t be too long before we’ll want to start using it, though.

John moved the mice from Hannah’s room into the sunroom while he carried in the wood, and Hannah was so pleased at the lack of nightly noises that the move is permanent, at least for the foreseeable future. (Depending on how well-sealed our chimney is in the corner of the sunroom; we haven’t used the fireplace since they finished the sunroom, and I don’t want to asphyxiate our little rodent friends.)



The mice have been carefully locked away from the cats since Hannah got them, so now having them just the other side of a sliding glass door is like kitty TV for our two fuzzballs. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen scaredy-cat Eliza so animated. I was afraid that the poor mice would have a heart attack the first night with the cats prowling on the other side of the glass, but they eat and run on their wheel and otherwise act oblivious of them. They must be nearsighted, because the cats look like that Far Side comic with the cat splayed against the front window, staring at the collision between delivery vans for Bob’s Small, Flightless Birds and Al’s Rodents.

The mice are currently sharing the sunroom with the last of the cherry tomatoes.



Once the nights starting getting even colder (we’re down to about 50F at night right now), some of the balcony plants will join them. Like the citrus I am inordinately proud of (did I mention I grew them from seeds?).



And the cayenne peppers.



With actual (not quite ripe) peppers!



And last but not least, my azalea, which is actually trying to bloom again.



I’m not sure what to think of that. The web site listed on its tag makes it sound relatively easy to get it to bloom again, but the University of Minnesota extension service makes it sound quite a bit more challenging. Whatever I haven’t been doing, I guess it’s worked!

I hate to tell you this...

but I am strawberry cake.

You Are Strawberry Cake

Fresh, sassy, and romantic. You're a total flirt, who never would turn down a sugary treat. Occasionally you're a bit moody - but you usually stay sweet!

What Kind of Cake Are You?

I'm not sure about the cake, but the description doesn't seem too far off. Just ask John.

Already annoyed

Hannah has only been in school 2 days, and already I am annoyed at the lack of useful information she is bringing home. I am pretty sure she is getting various instructions from her teachers about supplies and stuff, but having to decipher the notes *written on her hand* makes me think that maybe some other things are slipping through. I know I sent TWO notebooks with her this morning, so it's not like she didn't have any paper.

Anyhoo, she rode the bus to and from school on her own today. It made me a little weepy watching her ride off in the morning and walking up to the front door from the bus stop this afternoon. *sniff*

Happy First Day of School to Hannah!

By day, she is a freshly minted fifth grader.



Complete with new cell phone.



By night, she is a hard-working mermaid.



So Hannah made it through her first day of fifth grade yesterday. It was actually only 2 hours long, so I guess most kids could manage that. There was a quick presentation for the new students and their parents, then the kids got divided up into their new classes. Hannah was happy to see that 2 girls from her fourth grade class (but none of the boys) are in her new class.

When I left the school, I passed some older students on break and almost had a laughing fit. It struck me as hilarious that Hannah is now attending school with students with moustaches. (Gymnasium includes grades 5-12.) The younger kids are on a slightly different schedule from the older kids and have their breaks in a different area, so it’s not like she’ll be mixing with them on a daily basis.

Today is probably going to suck for her, though. She had to catch the bus at a few minutes before 7 am, class starts at 7:50 and lets out at 3:30. She has never gone later than 1 before, so it will take some getting used to. Actually, she’ll only have afternoon class on Mondays and Tuesdays, but those are going to be loooong days for her. She has 9 subjects over the course of the week, including Latin and biology. Fortunately, she’s already pretty good at English. *tongue in cheek*

I thought we were going to have to buy 500 pounds of school supplies yesterday, but Hannah only got the list for one class, so that simplified our shopping. After the pizza lunch, we bought new tennis shoes, yoga pants for P.E., a new backpack and wallet, and a few notebooks.

John and I had gone before the pizza lunch to buy the cell phone, and it was amazingly easy. We went to this chain coffee shop (Tchibo) that runs weekly specials on various non-coffee items (usually household and kitchen goods, including small electronics and clothes), and for 30 bucks, we got a Nokia cell phone complete with 1 Euro prepaid on it. All we had to do when we got home was charge the battery and put in the SIM-chip. The phone number was printed on the paperwork, and the phone worked like a charm. I tried watching the demo and reading the manual to figure out how to use it, but Hannah just picked it up, fiddled around with a couple of buttons, and voila! She managed to figure out how to turn off the ringer without the instructions or the demo. Kids these days! :-)

I like hanging out with Hannah, because she always has something funny to say. Yesterday she was telling me that she’d like to be a robot, because then if you get an axe in the head, it’s not a big deal. O-kay... She was also imagining how horrible it would be to have different parents who didn’t love her like us, parents who would make her “trample stuff” to make wine for them but would only allow her to wash her feet, not the rest of her, so their wine wouldn’t get germy.

Before we left for school, John was reminding Hannah that since she would have new classmates, she should give them a chance and be friendly and try to get to know them and not be teasing or sarcastic. “You’re taking away most of my personality! That’s most of Hannah, dude!”

She is getting so mature. She was very conscientious yesterday about not picking really expensive items; she was worried about making us poor. I could have bought 3 times the stuff just from my last tutoring check (I tutor 1 hour per week), but it was nice to see that she is catching on that money doesn’t grow on trees.

Craft Masters!

With Hannah getting ready to go back to school on Monday, no one has really felt like tackling any of the large, looming projects, so we’ve been whiling away the time with various small craft projects. I crocheted this peek-a-boo sweater (that I can’t actually wear due to the sudden onset of Fall):



While I colored some xmas door-hangers, John put together a paper model that he had bought a while back of the Blue Tower of Bad Wimpfen:



I used my mighty craft skillz, Hannah’s stash of paper, and a template from a book to create this b-day card for John:



And all 3 of us got busy with the tie-dye. Lovely MIL had sent this kit, which we had promptly used, but we had some dye left, so we stashed it under the bed for later use. I came across it recently, but we had used up the packet of soda ash (to help the dye stick to the fabric better). Using my powerful google-fu, I figured out what exactly soda ash is (sodium carbonate aka salt of soda aka Na2CO3) and what it is used for (various types of cleaning, including laundry). I scoured the laundry aisle at the grocery store, and BINGO! Washing soda. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the fine print on the kit’s instructions, which said to use up the dye within 2 days of reconstituting it with water. (And also that it only works on natural fibers.) So our cotton tees that looked like beautiful rainbows after dying ended up pink and blue pastel after washing (and my puffy cloud socks turned out to be synthetic and dingy-looking):



Other than all the crafting, we’ve just been lounging about.

Griping in an Autumn Wonderland

Despite the semester looming ahead of me, I can’t seem to get in gear. Hannah starts school on Monday, and I think in the back of my mind I have given myself permission to be useless until then. Stupid brain. I really need to get cracking on a paper that is due October 1, plus I need to create a course from scratch on presenting in English before the first class on October 16, and it would be nice if I looked back over a few things I will be working on for my master’s thesis, which I will be starting this semester. Rereading all that, I am starting to feel a little light-headed.

John’s back threatened to go on strike after we got back from vacation, but John took that initial twinge very seriously and immediately hit the ibuprofen and hot water bottle. I know it can’t have been as bad as the last couple of times, because he continued to fart and proposition me (not at the same time) at the normal rate.

But right now I am considering doing him an injury that might put him in traction. We had a few days of nice, tail-end-of-summer weather after we got back from Scotland, but it has gone downhill from there, and now we are firmly in early fall, complete with cold and rain. John has this thing about “fresh air”, while I have this thing about “not freezing”, and I feel that the juncture of these two things is going to lead to blows. He walks around the house opening windows; I add another layer of clothes and go around behind him closing them. I am hoping we will get some firewood soon, and then we can fire up the old wood oven.

Tomorrow I will be lugging 30 pounds (roughly) of books back to the library, so I guess I better get rested up. Maybe something exciting will happen on the bus that I can report back on here. If not, look forward to another message from dullsville.

And Lame-O Was her Name-O

After some time off, it is hard getting back into the rhythm of blogging, and school, and writing, well, just about everything. This is going to be rough, but stick with me, eh?

When we got back from Scotland, John had a couple of birthday cards waiting for him, and he just wants to know, what’s with all the toilet humor?

Hannah has gotten noticeably taller recently, even to people that barely know her, so I just measured her: 55-1/2 inches at 10 years and 3 months. That’s a little over 2 inches taller than this time last year, but 1 inch of that is just since her birthday 3 months ago. Now where did I put that brick so I can put it on her head and stop her growing so fast?

I took Hannah into town to go to the library last week, and another one of those unique lines came up: “I don’t think they make burial clothes just for drag queens, Hannah.” She was disparaging my footwear.

In between my novel-a-day habit and some work for my part-time student job, I have gotten up to day 4 of our vacation journal, if you wanted to check it out. I was hoping to have a little uninterrupted work time since John went to campus to work on a paper he is submitting for a conference and Hannah went into town with her friend—they each have a new bus pass, and FREEDOM was calling to them this morning, but they got bored after Pizza Hut and one department store. And Hannah said that the gates around John’s department were closed, so I expect him to turn up soon, as well. *sigh* I guess I can label pictures until he gets home.

Home Safe!

We made it home from Scotland a little after 2:30 this morning. Ouch! The whole trip was great, but there is a metric ton of laundry to take care of, plus labeling and uploading the hundreds of photos we took (we filled up a 32 MB and a 256 MB memory card, plus half a 512 MB card), so I probably won't have much up for a day or two while we get caught up on sleep, etc. I did post a link to the first batch of trip photos on my travel blog (see link to the right), so you can get a preview of our adventures.

Now to fold a load of laundry and head off to bed.

Walking in a Summer Wonderland

You can almost set your watch by John getting antsy at 4 on a Sunday afternoon and needing to get out of the house. The weather has been atrocious, so when it turned actually pleasant over the weekend, I agreed to stretch my legs. Hannah, though, had to be dragged kicking and screaming and moaning and whining out of the house.

We live down in a valley, and the tops of the ridges along the sides are forested; you can walk for miles and miles on paths through the trees and end up in one of several neighboring towns. Getting onto the trail is not quite as simple as walking out your back door, but it is still fairly accessible. Once we got Hannah out of the car and onto the trail, she turned into a completely different kid. I told John that her “wilderness” personality was way preferable to her “civilization” personality.



Hannah’s class has gone hiking in the woods at least once a year for the last four years (and it seems they went about 4 times this past year alone), so we let her be the tour guide. She managed to find a particular stream she had told us about.



We followed the stream a ways and came across a beautiful meadow awash in sunlight.



John wanted to go all the way up to the source of the stream, but Hannah had to pee (she was so busy complaining and carrying on that she forgot to go before we left the house), so we only made it to a large puddle where Hannah managed to catch a tadpole and the drinking fountain across the path.



I had bought a pedometer recently because I want to make the trek to Rivendell, so I gave it a try on our outing (full photo set here). I did not try to measure any moon-walking, which is expressly mentioned in the directions for the pedometer, but if it worked under the “tricky condition [sic]”, we went about 4 kilometers. Now that I’ve got all the settings the way I want them, I’m toting it along to Scotland. If I’m going to do all that walking, I want it to count for something!

The Venus flytrap is blooming. Bet you’ve never seen that before!



And Hannah had a run-in with some food color when she tried to make silly putty from scratch using a recipe out of a kid’s experiment book. Grrr... fire bad!



And Happy Birthday to John (yesterday)! He’s finally caught up with me, at least until February, when I race ahead again.

See you back here in about 10 days with the full Scotland update.

No Rest for the Weary

I finished cleaning Hannah’s room last night, and I think someone may have been trying to tell me something. First, the light went out, but I’m too short to change the bulb, and John was already running out the door for a meeting when it happened, so I worked by the light of a couple of reading lamps.

Then John got home and changed the bulb. A couple of hours later, we heard something shatter, but weren’t sure if the sound came from the kitchen or Hannah’s bedroom. Turns out it was the overhead light cover in Hannah’s room; it didn’t get fastened properly when the bulb was changed, but I probably wouldn’t have done it right either, if I could reach it. By this time it was after 9, and I was picking up shards and vacuuming just so I could finish putting Hannah’s room back together.

Finally, I was able to put the big tub o’ toys back under her playbed, and as I was pushing the smaller tub in from the other side, I gashed my head open on the grip to the reading light attached to the side of Hannah’s bed (facing the wall). I rolled around on the floor for a few seconds, my scalp burning, until I put my hand on the right spot and found blood. That acted like a bucket of cold water, and it stopped hurting so bad. I got up and cleaned it up and went to bed. I was afraid that if I had kept going after such a clear signal, I’d end up electrocuted or something.

John hadn’t noticed anything amiss (he was in the study during all this), so when I told him what had happened, he tried to show sympathy by patting me on the head. Hello! Gaping wound on head! He was lucky I didn’t smother him with his own squishy pillow, which was Hannah’s suggestion after I had one particularly bad night’s sleep when John was making some weird noise in his sleep.

We all slept in nice and late this morning, and then I finished the last few bits in Hannah’s room and stripped her bed. The end. Thank the Seven Dwarfs.

We were planning on taking Hannah to Mannheim for an event hosted by Nick (the tv channel for kids), but we ended up staying home. For one thing, it has been raining so much that the Rhine has gone over its banks in several places, and the Nick thing was supposed to be held in a park along the Rhine. And then when we woke up, it was raining hard enough that no one felt like getting out in it. We would have still gone if Hannah had been really gung-ho, but she declined.

So instead of partying down with SpongeBob et al., she has spent the day organizing her new-found Barbie loot into a Barbie city in the living room. In addition to the Loving Family House that has been transformed into housing for the Barbies, she has a schoolroom, a throne/princess bed, a tree house, a grocery store, and a bathroom. It takes up less space than you would think, but it definitely contradicts Hannah’s statement that she never gets anything.

One of the perks of a major cleaning action is the recycling of old toys into new ones. Yesterday Hannah got into the dress-up cabinet and turned herself out as Hip-Hop Cheerleader (TM). She even insisted on going out into town with me like that. Some days it feels like she is growing up so fast—I just noticed that the top of her head reaches my nose—but then she spends a whole day naming her 101 Barbies and dressing up as Hip-Hop Cheerleader, and I realize she still has a lot of little kid left in her.

Nee the Cleaning Lady

I started yesterday on Hannah's room, and I probably won't be done before tomorrow evening. If you ever saw my room as a kid, Hannah's room was--ok, it actually wasn't that bad, but Hannah had been put in charge of straightening up the last couple of times, and her room had gotten to the point that you could hardly get under her play-bed without the aid of a compass and a shovel. I'm throwing away a lot more than the last time I had a mega-cleaning in there, but it's mostly small plastic toys out of the chocolate eggs. Those things seem to multiply in the bottom of her toy boxes, and she never plays with them after eating the chocolate, so it was time to give them the old heave-ho.

All the cleaning has eaten what is left of my brain, but maybe I have enough to watch some SpongeBob. Maybe tomorrow I will manage to scrape out whatever it was I was thinking on the bus earlier today. hmmm...

My Dirty Secret

You all know how much I have loved the series of Harry Potter books. If the price of Book 7 had been 45 bucks, a pint of blood, and my left hand, I would have been, "Here's 50--keep the change. Do I need to bring my own clean needle and tourniquet?"

So it may come as a surprise to you all that I do not particularly care for the movies. The first 2 movies were ok, but Prisoner of Azkaban was already getting a bit thin, plot-wise, and Goblet of Fire was almost unintelligible due to the amount that had to be chopped out to make it fit into a reasonable time frame. Hannah got to see Order of the Phoenix during a friend's birthday party, but I don't even have the urge to see it, even though we can watch it in English at one of the small movie houses here. If John were really set on it, I would go with him to that one, just to simplify explaining all the bits missing from the book and the bits John missed on screen, but otherwise I am not planning to go. I think Hannah is starting to feel the same; we could have bought the DVD of Goblet of Fire on sale this weekend, but she wasn't even interested, even though we had bought the videos up to that one.

So, to sum up:
Harry Potter books=yay!
Harry Potter movies=boo!

Hannah was going to spend the night with her friend last week, but she didn't manage to hold out (she had already spent the night with another friend the night before and had spent the whole day at the swimming pool with a local youth group, so I could have predicted that another night away from home might be too much). John was watching a video when she called (I was already in bed), so he turned it off and went to get her. The next morning I had to leave early to tutor, and I discovered that John had left the VCR and converter, and the computer and accessories, on over night. He is so anal about wasting electricity that I had to leave him a note about that. Then I left another note that I had baked some pretzels and he could find them in the oven. When I got home, this note was on the table:
Nee,
This morning I found handwritten notes on the dining room table and the computer keyboard, and some pretzels in the oven.
Love, John

He was actually home when I came in. He had just been watching the complete set of Monty Python DVDs and was feeling a bit whimsical, hence the note.

It's always fun and games around here.

I am a gardener. Really!

Not much going on with us. We all are kind of dragging, maybe due to a mild cold or just the semester/school year catching up with us now that vacation has started.

But in other news, my tomatoes are thriving.



My Thanksgiving cacti are putting out new, purple leaves, and even Hannah's Venus flytrap is trying to bloom.



Last but not least, the perfect fusion of Star Wars and organic farming: Grocery Store Wars

Ode to My Office Supplies

pencil sharpener—
ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone,
my silver darling

I feel a bit like the Hulk, but instead of being doomed to walk the earth alone, I am doomed to never find my goddamned pencil sharpener when I want it. That was one of the “little things” I was bitching about losing a few weeks ago, and now I’ve gone and lost the replacement I bought. That fucking pisses me off (as evidenced by my language). John says I should attach it to a tire so I don’t lose it; I thought about putting it on one of those wallet chains. Whadya think?


(Thanks to Bandit at Bikernet for the original photo.)

Anyhoo, office supply heartaches aside... I made tomato soup and cloverleaf rolls for dinner, and John was asking me how I managed it (with my mad chef skillz, yo!): “Did you roll the dough into little balls first and then drop them in the muffin hole?” “Muffin hole” has now officially taken over for “cake hole” at Chez Nee: Shut your muffin hole!
[ETA: John told me after he read this that he'd actually said, "stuff them in your muffin hole", which I had thought, but then I assumed it was my twisted brain putting words in his mouth. And in case you haven't caught on, he was talking about a muffin tin. *vbg*]

This isn’t looking so sexy anymore, eh?

But then I gave it a drink of water and it, ahem, perked back up.

The teenager downstairs insists on cranking his stereo a couple of times a day, and I discovered this morning that polka music with the bass turned up is a very effective counter-measure against washing machine music. I don’t know who gave us that CD (Jooge and Mr. Jooge?), but I actually kind of liked it. John was not amused by the music or my reaction to it, but at least it worked on the neighbor and I could turn it off quickly.

Hannah is now officially a 5th grader and on summer vacation, so we are sleeping late and otherwise being bums. Only 15 days until we leave for Scotland!

Stop—Hannah Time!

Walking to school with Hannah is always highly entertaining. Topics on the next-to-last walk of the school year on Tuesday:

• I have been harassing Hannah to buy new pants because hers are getting too short and too tight. But Hannah doesn’t want to buy any jeans that are glittery, because she is afraid that the boys at her new school next year will look at her butt* and whistle at her, and then she’ll have to punch them in the guts, and then she’ll get a note on her school records: “Not college material.”
  
  *With John and me as parents, it is cosmically impossible for Hannah to have anything but a big, bodacious boo-tay.



• Hannah wants to be a chef when she grows up, but she doesn’t see the point of the chef hat, and she definitely doesn’t want a moustache (apparently a requirement in her mental picture of a French chef).



• Tuesday was garbage pick-up day, so we had to wend our way past the bags and cans on the sidewalk. After passing a particularly nasty-smelling bag, Hannah commented. “Phew! That smelled like Dad’s farts after Mexican food. *pause* Or international night. Or meatballs.”



• On the way into the school, we passed a girl on a unicycle. Hannah said, “Too bad unicorns aren’t shaped like hamburgers. Then they could advertise for McDonald’s.”
  “What? Unicorns?”
  “Yeah!”
  At this point, we had entered the building, and something about its construction makes it a perfect echo chamber. If more than 1 person is talking in the hall, you can’t even hear yourself think over the din.
  Me: “Are you sure you don’t mean unicycle?”
  H: “What?”
  Me: *more fruitless questioning* and finally “Unicorn?!” (in German)
  H: “No.”
  Then she went in her classroom, so I still have no idea what was supposed to be burger-shaped.

Hannah refuses to use the correct endings of certain words in English. I am pretty sure she knows the correct 3rd person singular, but anything ending in –st doesn’t get a pronunciation of –sts; instead she says –stiz, giving us “cost-iz” and “taste-iz”. Now “mouse” has gotten the plural “mouse-iz”. She told me today: “Mouse-iz smell like raisins.” Not to me, kid.

Hannah is following in the hallowed footsteps of her Grandma Lou: dying her hair at the first possible chance.

I figured that if Jooge let K put a non-permanent dye on her hair over xmas, I could do the same for Hannah. Only Hannah didn’t want pink, she wanted black. And her color will last 24 washes. She goes back to school in September, so I hope we can squeeze 24 washes in during that time. *g*

Note to all parents:
Even if you think your kids are big enough to know better, please take the time to remind them not to play with chemicals in the form of household cleaners. Hannah managed to spray bathroom cleaner in her eye Monday night while she was supposed to be brushing her teeth. First she claimed it fell and accidentally sprayed, but the next day she fessed up that maybe she was trying to clean a weensy spot in the sink, but nothing came out of the bottle, so she turned the nozzle toward her face to check it out. She won’t be doing that again.
So please, please, remind your kids that cleaning supplies are off limits.

All That and a Bag of Potato Chips

Sorry I’ve been AWOL lately. I had a raging case of PMS, or in my case, DMS* (during menstruation syndrome), and I didn’t think you all wanted me spewing crazy on you, so I mercifully withheld pen from paper and fingers from keyboard until now.

*Yes, I realize that this coincides with my monogram, but at least I am not PMS, John’s ex-step-mother.

We have managed to be extra sociable lately. Hannah’s class had their end of school party on the first really summer-like day since the freak spell in April, so we soaked up some rays and chatted with a few of the other parents, John more so than me. Hannah spent a big chunk of time hunkered over a lizard she found; she spent the rest of the time catching grasshoppers. And of course the evening wasn’t complete until one of the boys ripped the pants of one of the girls, which was an improvement over the party in the first grade, when one kid just about brained another one (there was blood involved).

We spent all of last Saturday at an intimate garden party. Some friends of ours through the German-Swedish club (they are Swedes) invited us over for grilling and relaxing. They have the coolest garden. It is not at their house, but in the middle of a bunch of small fields, kind of like a community garden arrangement. The garden is a little Garden of Eden in the midst of some hay and bean fields. Berry bushes cover the fences on either side of a pretty lawn. You could travel from fruit tree to fruit tree like a pinball all the way to the cute little house where they store their grill and patio supplies. If we go back in another week or so, we could choose between apples, pears, quince*, plums, cherries, rhubarb, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, and even cherry tomatoes. They grilled sausage and pork chops for us, and John taught them how to make smores. *shudder* A good time was had by all.

*A quince looks like a pear, but you can’t eat it raw. Remember from Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat”?
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful pea-green boat...
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon...

I have been cracking up over some posters up around the bus stop for SHITDISCO! In small print it says that it is a Glaswegian band. Everything’s coming up Scotland! Have I mentioned we are going there in August on vacation?

I am seriously considering boycotting the Internet for the next week or so until I can buy and read Harry Potter 7. It comes out tonight, and I don’t doubt for one minute that by 5 am some dummy will have posted the ending somewhere that I can’t help but stumble across it. Since I have to be mentally present for my last 2 classes on Tuesday, I can’t buy it before then (the agony of owning it but not being able to read it would be too intense for me to put myself through), but I still remember WesTexGirl telling me about her friend’s experience when HP6 came out: on a *scrapbooking* bulletin board, someone posted the ending IN THE SUBJECT LINE, so everyone who logged in that day saw it first thing. I would have been 87 flavors of pissed, so I am not going to allow myself to accidentally get in that situation, hence the boycott.

See you in about a week!

Happy 500th Post to Me!

Last week, I had some hard-core personality swings. One day I was Little Susie Homemaker—baking, cooking, cleaning, laundry, mopping, the whole nine yards. Then I was Girl Friday—filing, shredding, and a little more cleaning. If you were to judge me by the piles that tend to form in my wake, you might think I am a big slob. But really, I like to think of myself as loosely organized. I generally know which pile to look in to find things and can put my hands on what I’m looking for quickly. But even with the whole clean-athon last week, there are 3 (admittedly small) things that have gone missing in my household, and it is driving me *bonkers*. They should have been where I looked for them, even if they had started to molder. *sigh*

I did manage to finish the outfit I made for Hannah’s teacher’s impending baby. Hannah’s class had their end of school year party this afternoon (the first hot, sunny afternoon in ages, praise the Seven Dwarfs), and the kids gave her a joint present then, so I’ll slap some buttons on this puppy and take it to her sometime before school is officially out in 1-1/2 weeks. Turned out cute, eh?


I swear, there was more in my brain before it got melted at the party, and it is not getting any earlier, so I will turn in and take another stab at it tomorrow.

The Wheels on the Short Bus Go Round and Round and...

I’ve got to get out of the house more, because the crazy outside the house is much more interesting than the crazy inside the house (usually—Hannah was on a roll last night (see below)).

First there was a woman wearing the most hideous high-heeled, shiny, metallic *clogs* I have ever seen. They made me want to claw my own eyes out *while crossing the street*, they were that bad. The way the woman was strutting in them, she seemed to think she was hot shit. Yes, shit is definitely the right direction...

Then there was a sight at the bus stop that would have been hilarious if it didn’t also make we want to cry. An old man in a wheelchair was camped out under a tree; he had several cold drinks and a big outdoor umbrella. He had set up 2 chess tables, complete with 3-legged camp stools for potential opponents, and he had a selection of magazines and newspapers on sale in front of him. But the clincher was his cat. He had a not-fully grown cat in a harness attached to his wheelchair. Outdoors. The cat was totally calm, even though it had 3 giant jingle bells on its collar, and even let a kid in a stroller pet it. The man obviously was planning on spending some time there, because he had put out food and water (in sparkling stainless steel bowls!), had attached cat toys to his wheelchair with sticks and string, and had put a couple of puffy blankets for it to lie on. I found it very sad, somehow.

And finally, not crazy, but I saw a very pretty Russian dude on the bus. Like try-not-to-get-caught-staring pretty. That was the biggest bus excitement since my recent sighting of the drunk fighting couple from the next village over being drunkly lovey-dovey. I’ll take pretty Russians any day over that.

Hannah, Better Than TV

Hannah was asked in Religion class: What is God? She was telling us her answer at dinner last night:

H: God is in everyone. He could be Dad, he could be Mom, he could be this ham (gesturing at her plate).
J: I have an extra big dose of God.
H: You don’t even have long hair like Jesus!

She’s got you there, John.


Hannah has been thinking about dying a lot recently (in an abstract sort of way), probably in response to her great-granddad passing away. “This is my testament [will] for when I’m dead.”
Written on a piece of paper from the phone note-pad, translated from German by me:
“I want to be burned up when I am dead and put in a can and thrown in the waters of the Caribbean. If I have a fortune, I will give it to my first-born child (or my first adoptive child).”


John and I like to think of ourselves as beyond the sordid world of commerce, which is probably why we are so poor *ha ha*, but Hannah is a born entrepreneur. She has been planning on opening a restaurant for ages now, remember?


and here


And she and her friend practice their cooking skills on their rare play-dates (or more accurately, practice making odd concoctions that they write up and call “recipes”.


A lot of her restaurant talk has been about the interior design, and she doesn’t actually like food, so it is hard to imagine her actually becoming a chef, but you can’t keep a budding entrepreneur down. She has discovered the Hot Shot Business game on the Disney web site and has tried out lots of different businesses: pet spa, comic book shop, candy store. The site actually gives tips about marketing, etc., so it is educational, kind of. Hannah is not typically very competitive, but she did *not* like being 6th on a list of successful players and wanted to crush her opponents. We have a little Alex P. Keaton on our hands, I’m afraid.

Over the Hump

It seems like whenever I don’t blog for a week or so (well, with real content), it is that much harder to come up with something to post, without it sounding like a letter to my grandmother. Suffer, Pope!

Hannah's class went to camp for 2 days last week. I was a little worried about their travel plans because there was a transportation strike called for this week, but it turns out that it was a one-day event, so it was a non-problem. Unfortunately, it was cold and wet the whole time they were gone, so they didn’t get to swim or do as much as they wanted to outdoors, but they did hike 2 hours up a mountain to tour a castle. Hannah was put out that one of the teachers got to drive there while they had to walk, but that teacher is also 7 months pregnant... Anyhoo, Hannah had not really been looking forward to the trip because of the roommate she ended up with and had cried herself almost sick over it the night before. But on the way to meet up with her class at the bus stop, she was little miss sunshine and roses, and she had a good time. We went to a birthday party on Thursday night, where there was a surprising number of parents of 4th graders, and one of the other parents asked if we had called the camp yet to check on Hannah. She hadn’t either, but she was tempted. I think it was a good experience for both the kids and the parents.

Not that I got a lot done while Hannah was gone. You would think that would be the perfect time, but I just didn’t feel like doing much. The yahoo photo service finally got around to letting me automate the change-over to Flickr, so that has sucked up a lot of time with fiddling with the results. I also added a Flickr badge over on the right, so you can get to my photos by clicking on it. I’ll probably have to go back into my blog archives and fix a bunch of broken links thanks to yahoo photos going south, but I’ll get around to it when I have something pressing to avoid. *g*

It is often not the big differences between the US and Germany that bother me, but the little ones. For instance, I have not been able to find a cloth dishrag anywhere. I don’t care for using only a sponge for all our dishwashing and counter-wiping needs, and our dishrags are wearing thin. See? How sad.


It seems dumb to ask our family to send a care package with dishrags in it, so I have been trying out other alternatives. First, I cut up a large dish towel, but John complained that I made them too small, and I don’t care for the texture of the fabric (the pink one below). Then I crocheted one (the yellow one).


It seems kind of dumb to have to make dishrags, but it keeps me from going mad in my spare time. I am also crocheting a baby sweater for Hannah’s teacher. The closer it gets to the end of the semester, the less I feel like working. So I guess I have actually felt like working for a total of about 2 weeks this semester. It’s a record!

I just wrote my grandma a postcard complaining about the cold, wet weather, and 5 minutes later the clouds blew off and the sun came out. I guess that is as good a method for influencing the weather as Hannah’s—she wears summery clothes, even if it is raining when we leave the house, and by the time we get where we’re going, it has stopped and holds off the entire time we’re outdoors. At least, that is what happened at the midsummer party.

All the rain has been good for the plants in general, but the flowers have been looking awfully soggy. Maybe they will perk up if it stays sunny for more than one afternoon. It has even been too wet to get out and take photos of the flowers, which you know I love to do. You’ll just have to imagine them: roses in every color, beautiful pink and purple hortensia, lilac, and daisies.

We’re going to Shrek 3 this afternoon, not necessarily the perfect activity on a sunny day, but it was planned in advance.

*insert sound of hysterical laughter*

I was scrolling through my favorite blogs just now, and came across the latest entry by Naomi Kritzer. She in turn has linked to some *bizarre* artwork featuring Jesus, but her labels are what had me laughing hard enough to pee my pants. Enjoy!

Pimping my other blog

New post up at the travel blog.

Nothing new here: just rain, sun, rain, sun, ad nauseum. Sorry.

Books R Us

Modern technology is a wonderful thing. John and I took his photos from his trip to Texas for his grandfather’s funeral and put them up at Snapfish. Then we organized them into a photo album; Snapfish will print and bind them and mail the finished album to his grandmother, without us leaving the semi-comfort of our desk (have you seen our crowded, cramped Hobbit-hole office?).

I can’t wait until I am able to order laminated versions of my favorite books. The advantage of plastic pages is obvious when you think about cookbooks (I’m drooling just thinking about Beard on Bread and The New Basics Cookbook laminated and ring-bound), but consider the fate of my copy of Pride and Prejudice: right now the pages are falling out and the ink is fading from so much handling. (I re-read P & P 3-4 times per year.) But a super-sturdy version—an adult version of board books, if you will—might actually survive life on Nee’s bed-side table.

My idea of ordering books bound to my personal specifications is not entirely a new one. At the Herzog August Bibliothek (Duke August Library) in Wolfenbüttel, John and I once saw how one of the dukes had had all of the books re-bound in matching white (I think) leather covers. The result was a thing of beauty, if ridiculously expensive.

I don’t doubt that my idea will someday be feasible. Right now, people in highly specialized fields are already working to make rare, out-of-print books available via print-on-demand services. The scanned or re-typed materials are stored electronically, to be printed and bound in very small batches, which normal publishers don’t do. At least one publisher has already seen how this could be profitable for them in the future, when the technology for producing books at home has become as simple as the current technology for printing photos from your computer. (See an excellent entry by The Rejecter for more details.) Unfortunately for that publisher, their attempt to change their standard contract to give them the electronic rights to a work in perpetuity (*gag*) was met with outrage, and I believe they have since withdrawn that clause. With so many other personalized items available via the Internet—see Cafe Press for an example of an online mug/t-shirt/mousepad printer—I don’t see why not books (as long as the authors are properly being compensated, which brings us back to the publishers, I guess).

I am Texan, Hear Me Yell

You Are 52% Texas

At first, you seem Texan... but just because a chicken has wings don't mean it can fly.

How Texas Are You?

This may be true for their definition of "Texan", but I am one anyway. When people ask me where I am from, I usually say "Texas", not "the US". Now if Kee's husband took this, he would get a 100%...

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

Hannah just told me: "You're the biggest nutball in the world, except that guy on Spaceballs, and that's just a movie."

Nee Leaves the House--News at 11!

I would reinstate the weather-bitching level, but I can't remember how it is supposed to go. Suffice it to say, I am not happy with the level of rain recently. Rain should be a good thing: it makes the plants grow, etc etc. It's starting to feel like the UK or something, though. We have a heavy shower in the morning (luckily after Hannah's walked to school), then it turns gloriously sunny, so I run out to the library, and then a huge wind-and-rain storm hits while I am waiting for the bus (luckily there was a shelter, because I had no jacket or umbrella with me (see glorious sunshine, above)). Very annoying. Mother Nature, please take note that we are no longer amused.

Ahem.

We have been keeping busy with Hannah's multiple ballet recitals (ok, two). The first was for the whole ballet school, so we got to see tap-dancing adults, teens in tutus, and nose-picking pre-schoolers. Their recital this Sunday was a benefit to raise money for housing for the parents of children being treated at the local (big-time) cancer center, so the tiny tots were left at home. Hannah's class and a parallel class were the youngest there, and they all did a good job. I was chief hairdresser for Hannah's class again; she suggested that maybe I could do it for a living. Ha ha! *wipes tear from eye* That was a good one, honey. I am the least frou-frou woman you are ever going to meet, so the idea of me helping other people be beautiful...

This morning I went out to the balcony to get the laundry out of the dryer, and I had to bust out laughing at the sight of our neighbor across the street jumping up and down *in his trashcan*. This poor retiree has nothing better to do with his time than to reorganize the garbage cans on a regular basis so that everything fits in efficiently. In Germany, there is a stereotype about that kind of person, who noses into his neighbors' business where the upkeep of the yard and house is concerned; our friend was able to mark this neighbor as one of the "petty bourgeois" on sight.

My favorite formal-wear shop (for disparaging) has some new crap-tastic displays. I don't know if it is the mannequins or the dresses, but every one of them has bullet-boobs. I can't imagine who they are planning on selling those dresses to--Anna Nicole Smith is obviously no longer in the market, but they must have someone in mind. One dress is actually kind of kooky-cute, but it has boning on the outside of the bodice, and it sticks up over the edges, then there are these golden stars on the ends of them. It's like they were going for the "sparkler" look. Maybe it's a Miss Universe dress?

Generic Title Here

John made it home on Monday, none the worse for wear. Poor guy—he sat on the plane in Detroit for 2 hours while they made repairs before they were allowed to take off. You would think that is something the airline would have scheduled for a time when that plane was not also scheduled to be flying, preferably an earlier time. Anyhoo, what with the delayed flight (he was originally scheduled to land at 5:30 am our time and called me from the airport at 9:45) and the weird train connections from the airport, it was 1 pm before he got home. Hannah was so excited in anticipation of seeing him after a week that she declared on the way to pick him up from the train station that she already had tears in her eyes just thinking about it.

Right as I was trying to get Hannah to eat actual food (as opposed to ketchup), John brought home a box chock full of American junk food (heavy on peanut butter and Mexican food). Now she doesn’t want to eat anything else. But I have turned it into a weapon—she wouldn’t eat anything but meat at dinner last night, so I threatened her with no junk food all day today. She said, “Fine!” in her best teenager voice and stormed off to her room to play Für Elise all phantom-of-the-opera style on her keyboard. The angst!

It has been pretty hot the last few days, pushing 90F, so we’ve been sleeping with as many windows open as possible. Of course, then I can’t sleep, because every noise from outside seems to be the sound of Missy Cat flinging herself to a stupid death from the balcony. Both cats like to lounge on the railing, so when they hop down onto the wooden floor, there is a distinctive cat-landing sound that could be construed as a cat self-flinging sound when one is mostly asleep.

I made the mistake of leaving Hannah’s bedroom door open for maybe 1 minute while I was doing something in there, but I closed it on my way out. So of course I managed to lock Missy Cat in there with the cage of mice that she had not previously even been aware of. Now she and Eliza Cat spend a portion of each day prowling like fat tigers outside the door, mewling, as if I am going to let them in. *pshh!*

And now some gratuitous plant-photo-blogging:

Cilantro (avert your eyes, Jooge!)


Citrus (could be orange or lemon)


My sprouted onions bloomed!


We’ve got cherry tomatoes! Woot!

I hate Wednesdays

John left on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I got Hannah out of bed and into the bathroom, and then I dragged myself into the kitchen to make coffee. Suddenly I hear *splash*, "Oh no!" What in the hell? Hannah slipped and stepped into the toilet. To do that she had to have been standing on the edge of the tub. Her job was to pee and put on her clothes, in that order. I don't know what induced her to stand on the fixtures, and she won't say. After that she was convinced her pants had gotten toilet water on them, although I didn't see any wetness until after she stuck her foot under the faucet in the tub, so she had to change, etc.

This was after she had informed me that she didn't have to go to her first class that morning at 7:45. *boggled* What? She had mentioned that the PE teacher was going to be out, but I assumed there would be a substitute. I should have remembered that there is never a substitute--the teachers just have to juggle the best they can. Did she have a note from her teacher? No. I asked if she was sure about a million times, and finally she said that one of her classmates had asked the teacher if that meant he could sleep through the first hour, and she said yes. I had to be somewhere at 8:30 for tutoring, and normally catch the bus at 7:45, so I was in a bit of a quandry about getting Hannah to school (once she was free of the toilet water). Finally, I just sent her off to school on foot when I got on the bus. She walks home every day by herself, she could manage the other direction, which is downhill to boot.

Then that afternoon one of the mice bit her finger and drew blood. She didn't bother to tell me about it until this morning on the way to school, so I suspect she deserved it. She was quick to tell me that she washed it with soap right away, so no mouse diseases for her, I guess.

Then after ballet we were going to get a bite of Turkish fast food, but she was Little Miss Cranky Pants (and I was probably Mrs. Cranky Pants by that point), and a motorcycle racing loudly by as we were waiting to cross the street was the last straw for her. She just wanted to go home. Luckily for us, we live next door to a restaurant, so she got her schnitzel and fries, and I got a fabulous omelette, made with potatoes, onions, and ham. My love of potatoes on all possible dishes dates back to the Enchiladas Rancheras at La Reyna in Austin, and it was just the cure for a cranky afternoon. Hannah picked a seat out on the fancy new terrace, so we got to melt into goo in the late afternoon sun until it went over the ridge behind us right at 7 pm. We waddled home in a much better mood than when we left for ballet.

Yesterday was mercifully disaster-free (except for Hannah and some boys having a difference of opinion at school, which is not uncommon). This afternoon Hannah's class is supposed to paint a mural based on Keith Haring's work, and she has been complaining that she doesn't want to go since yesterday. She may get her wish, though, because it has already poured rain for an hour this morning since I dropped her off at school. It may still be too soggy to paint 4 hours from now.

Also, I have had my student employee job for a month now, and one of the instructors at the English Department has already asked me if I would like to be considered for the pool of temporary instructors. There's an outside chance I could be teaching a course on making presentations in English next fall. I taught a similar course in the translation department last fall, and I *am* the queen of PowerPoint (although I find most of the bells and whistles distasteful and generally skip them), so I think I could do a good job at it. Movin' on up!

New new new!

Yes, I need another blog to keep track of like I need an extra hole in my head, but... If you will look to your right under "Fotos", you will see that I have started a travel blog. John came home on Sunday from his bike tour with lots of good photos, but he wasn't interested in posting them anywhere himself (since yahoo photos is on its way out--see my first post for more details). Thus, a new blog is born. I won't be posting there frequently, since we don't travel all that much, just when John starts feeling stir-crazy, but I hope to eventually find a home there for all the photos we've taken since we moved here, plus a few from earlier trips that I am trying to get digitized.

Enjoy!

Sad news

John's paternal grandfather passed away yesterday, and John is now on his way to Texas for the funeral. He left here at 6:45 our time and won't arrive until 10 pm their time (5 am our time). Trans-Atlantic travel makes for a long day.

John's grandfather was a very sweet man, and we are sad that he is gone. But he had been in a VA hospital with Alzheimer's for over 5 years, and it was time for him to go. He made it to 90 with his last birthday, and he passed away on his 65th wedding anniversary.

We were remembering (and have told everyone the story a jillion times in the last 2 days, so bear with me) how when Hannah was a baby, he would say "That's the prettiest little fella I've ever seen", every time he saw her, even during the same visit. He was already slipping mentally when I got into the family, but he was still funny, friendly, and sweet. John and his brother were lucky grandkids.

If you're looking for me, I'll be holding down the fort until John gets back on Monday morning.

Somebody's checkin' in!

Hannah had a sleepover birthday party yesterday, and I had forgotten what little-girl sleepovers were like. Hannah estimates it was *2 AM* before they went to bed. That is after I went down after 1 AM and told them no more tv and lights out. When one of the moms came this morning for the pick-up, she brought me roses from her garden for my bravery in being the first parent to host a sleepover party for Hannah's same-aged cohort. Sweet.

I can't say that the sleepover helped my day-long headache of yesterday, but at least it was gone when I got up this morning. The girls got up at 8! Crazy! Hannah and I have been acting like pot-heads all afternoon with the lack and poor quality of sleep--everything has been 10 times funnier than it should be. We are going to bed EARLY tonight!

John left at 10 AM to pedal his butt down (up?) the Neckar. At 4 PM, the thunderstorm that was predicted hit us here at the house, and it's still raining over an hour later. We'll see if he made it as far as the hostel this afternoon. If not, he may be on the train headed home already today instead of tomorrow afternoon.

I don't like driving in the rain or when it is dim out, but I may be forced by the storm to do both. A family's got to eat. Hopefully I won't whack into anything this time. Wish me luck!

House of Lazy, Yo

So remember when I had the entire month of March off, and somehow I didn’t get around to doing anything on my to-do list—such as writing a 20-page paper, doing my taxes, or finishing any stories? Here are the fruits of my dicking around.







Yes, it is from a kit (which I got for a zillion percent off after Xmas while in Texas), but since my homemade baked gingerbread houses have been uniformly a disaster, I thought something more permanent might be in order.

I also decorated Easter eggs using directions from a 70s-era craft book (groovy!).



Hannah is having a sleepover birthday party this evening. She wanted a brownie cake, so I baked the brownies and let her do the decorating.



And in other news, the coriander seeds *did* grow into cilantro, or a weed that tastes exactly like cilantro, so John is in seventh heaven. We will be attempting some pico de gallo at the first possible opportunity.



And I guess I didn’t need to worry about my cherry tomato plant. Now if it will just put out tomatoes, all will be right with the world.

The Hannah Beneath My Wings

Hannah was watching The Jerk yesterday while John and I were busy, and when it was over, she said that it would have been funny if Navin's first girlfriend (the biker) had shown up at the end and run over him with her motorcycle. I didn't concur. Today, she decided that on review, maybe it wasn't so funny after all.

Then on the bus today, she told me about her idea for a commercial for a sports bra. Just as the mom is about to go for a jog, the sitter calls and cancels on her.
Me: "So the mom stuffs the baby in the sports bra?"
H: "Exactly! That shows how stretchy it is!"
She's going to hit it big with one of her weird ideas one of these days.

Hannah to the nth

We had a pack of cards out that Hannah was playing with, and she says the King of Hearts is the one giving himself brain surgery with his sword to avoid paying the 2 pounds for regular surgery.

Hannah has developed into quite the Chatty Cathy. She's always been bad about interrupting--for the the last 10 years, John and I have only been able to have a normal conversation while she is asleep or gone at school or a friend's house--but recently she has started talking *non-stop*. I told John that now I know what it must have felt like to be my mother when I was a child, and that I was surprised she didn't go *mad*.

We bought UNO when we were doing Hannah's birthday shopping, and Hannah cracks us up when she says, "Thank God!" every. single. time she gets a +2 card. No one else can be that appreciative of extra cards in a game where the winner is the person who gets rid of all of her cards first.

Today at the shopping center where we went to do our grocery shopping, we took an ice cream break. While we were waiting for Hannah to finish snarfing down her bee-shaped ice cream, I pulled out my shopping list to finish it up. "What in God's name is that?!" she demanded. "A grocery list. And stop saying that." *Everything* is "What in God's name...?" I don't particularly care about the blasphemy, but the repetition is starting to get on my nerves.

Star Wars Redux

I swear, even when I click on a link totally unsuspecting, or go looking for something totally unrelated (*cough*online IQ test *cough*, thanks WTG), I will come across Star Wars stuff. I'm doomed, I tell you, doooooomed!

And I'm apparently R2D2.


You're R2-D2
You're spunky, resourceful, and just a little deviant. It should come as no surprise that your Star Wars type is Artoo-Deetoo. Just like the diminutive droid who bailed out Luke and the gang more than a few times, you have tons of tools and tricks at your disposal. When in a bind, you are usually the first one who thinks of the solution (even if your zeal for adventure got you into trouble in the first place).You are a loyal friend who people can confide in. They know that you'll guard their secrets as if they were the plans to the Death Star itself. What some might call stubborn, you call driven. No amount of obstacles will get between you and your goal.

The Classic Star Wars Test
Brought to you by Tickle

Knee-Deep in Rodents

Hannah's BFF got a rabbit at the same time as she got Hannah's birthday mice. Over the weekend, we were supposed to attend a christening for the rabbit on Saturday, then the BFF would come to our house to officiate at the christening for the mice on Sunday. Well, Hannah spent the night with the BFF on Friday, and by 10 am on Saturday, they were sick to death of each other. We kind of figured the christening party was off, but the mom of the BFF called to see if we were still coming. Hannah came around to the idea, after we had eaten, of course, but we went to the BFF'S and had dinner anyway.

We had a nice time hanging out, although they insist on pouring drinks, even though I don't drink. John helpfully suggested that I like mixed drinks (like twice when I was in college, hello!), so they brought out some sweet schnapps. The glasses were totally cool. I wish I could find a picture to show you. They were egg-shaped, round-bottomed, and sat at a tilt, but they weren't that easy to tip over. I'll keep looking for a picture.

This crazy (but lovely) family finally got shot of us around 10 pm, then planned to pack and drive to Italy. *That night.* Due to a last-minute misplacing of some extra keys, I ended up being in charge of watering plants as well as feeding bunnies while they are gone, but that is no big deal. They do favors for us all the time.

But since they took off for Italy, taking the planned officiant with them, our poor mice have not had their official christening. I think Hannah may have done something with the drinking water, but she didn't make a big production of it like the BFF, who made a flower-bedecked altar and "holy water" laced with oil in the back yard. I didn't think flicking the oil-laden water on the bunny during the ceremony was a good idea, in case it got in her eyes, but no one asked me.

I like the mice more than I thought I would. They are very cute! Hannah loves them, except at night. I kind of thought they might be active at night, but the BFF insisted NO when she brought them over. Ha ha, wrong kid. We've started running the fan in Hannah's room at night for white noise. It is a good thing she is so warm natured.

Mouse 1 and Mouse 2--or Dickerchen and Pipsqueak--or Vanessa and Isabelle


[Edited to add: I went through that "new baby at home" stage with the mice. I was checking on them every 30 minutes for the first couple of days because I was worried that we had overlooked some important part of their diet or care, and that they would kick the bucket on us. I hate the "new baby at home stage", but now that they seem to have settled in, I'm not compelled to lift all the mouse furniture first thing in the morning to check for tiny corpses.]

Ack! More Star Wars!

I logged out of my yahoo mail to find this link waiting for me: "Star Wars" 30th anniversary party draws thousands. It's a conspiracy! (Of what and by whom, I do not know.)

Hannah and Star Wars, Tasting Great Together

On her birthday, Hannah claimed it was the best birthday of her life, even though she didn’t have a party that day, just pizza and a frozen cake at home with her old mom and dad. And she even had a fitness test at school, but since it lasted the whole day, she didn’t have religion, so the good balanced out the bad. We let her open her presents before school, but she was up at 5:50(!) to start the festivities. *groan* At least she acted suitably appreciative of everything.

But the icing on the cake was 2 cute little girl-mice from her best friend. The first day, she named them Dickerchen (‘Fattykins’) and Pipsqueak. I thought they were adorable names, but she had changed her mind by day 2 and renamed them Vanessa and Isabelle. I don’t know which is supposed to be which, so I still use the original names. (There aren't any photos yet, because I don't want to traumatize them until they are resigned to being stuck here.) There is a christening planned for Sunday (with Hannah’s BFF officiating), so they’ll get their permanent names then. (John suggested that the girls replace the Bible in the ceremony with some of the sacred words of Asatru, but they didn’t go for it.)

We are still trying to think up a party plan; Hannah wanted to take 2 friends to Legoland, but it would cost us 135 euros just to walk in the gate, not to mention the gas (and about 6 hours total in the car), lunch, etc. I just about choked when I read the price list on the Legoland web site. So we’ll do something smaller and closer to home eventually.

I’m not planning on turning this into a gardening blog, but I do have to say how much I am enjoying the plants we got last weekend. I think all the seed varieties I planted are starting to sprout, so going around and checking on them and watering and weeding are giving me an outlet for my habitual need to be doing something. It’s very relaxing. I’m looking forward to having a house with a proper garden someday, if only for the chance to compost. mmmm... rotting organic material... In the meanwhile, I am spending lots of time gazing at my indoor and balcony plants.

It seems like every time I’ve turned around in the last few weeks, Star Wars this and that has been flooding into my email, etc. First I was urged to vote (via a blog, I think) for a Star Wars stamp to get its own single-stamp sheet. I voted for Princess Leia hiding the secret plans for the Death Star in R2D2, but apparently not enough people agree. Yoda and Darth Vader were neck and neck going into the final round. Then it was the Yoda lightsaber listed in the ThinkGeek newsletter. Then there was the bit on msnbc about George Lucas and Mark Hamill working together on "Robot Chicken: Star Wars", an animated spoof directed by Seth Green. *squee* (I *heart* Seth Green.) Too bad I won't be anywhere I can get the Cartoon Network when the show airs in June. Then there was another ThinkGeek newsletter advertising a mini RC R2D2 with a *light saber* remote control. Must... not... use... credit card... And finally, in a newsletter from mediabistro (I get a little of everything in my inbox), I found a link to a Wall Street Journal article on George Lucas posting clips from the 6 Star Wars movies on the Internet for free use (in making mash-ups, etc.). I don’t know how all these Star Wars-themed messages keep making their way to me without me lifting a finger (except to click a link), but it is kind of freaking me out, something I never thought I would say about anything Star Wars related (except Jar Jar Binks, heh).

Now Hannah is out of school for 2 weeks, the 7 Dwarfs have mercy on us.

The Good, the Bad, and the Weird

I went out today and managed to buy all of Hannah’s birthday presents in one fell swoop. I think this is getting to be a habit. I hope Hannah likes everything.

I got home and John was eating a leftover hamburger and fries. And to rub salt into the wound of my burger-less lunch, I opened our last jar of grape jelly to find *mold*. Apparently a hole got poked in the metal lid, probably in transport at xmas, so the jelly has had 4 months to go off. *sniff*

Hannah wants to know why Spiderman doesn’t eat flies. Don’t we all. She was also put out that I accidentally washed a caterpillar down the drain that mysteriously appeared in the sink *while* I was using it. She wanted to cut it into pieces and feed them to the Venus flytrap. We keep telling her that the flytrap will feed itself and that she doesn’t need to catch flies for it.

Ok, I realize that marketing students probably have “sex sells” tattooed on the inside of their eyelids during the first week of their freshman year, but I don’t really see how sex can help you sell plants. I must be wrong, though, because according to the tag (in 6 different languages) on the Celosia Caracas we bought, “If you place this sexy indoor/outdoor plant in a well-lit, protected location...” it puts out (in the form of blooming). Does it look especially sexy to you?

Plants R Us

So yesterday was a busy running around day for us. We took Hannah to Toys R Us to spend some of her birthday loot; she got some makeup and some Barbie stuff, so as far as she’s concerned, it was a success. Then we ate at Burger King. *shudder* I didn’t get sick afterward this time, but that’s about the best that can be said of the experience. It’s on the do-not-visit list. Then we went to the garden center and got some plants for our window boxes. Now our balconies are a veritable garden of delights.


John moved his biggest plumbegos out of the sunroom. The south side of the roof is transparent plexiglas, so we have made a little green corner with the plumbego, my onion sprouts (which I think are trying to bloom), my citrus plants, and John’s walnut trees.


The window boxes are not chock-full of flowers, but the effect is still nice, I think. John and Hannah like the symmetry.


We didn’t forget the sunroom, though. What’s an indoor garden without a Venus flytrap, right?


The sunniest spot is our “nursery.” In the front row, we have our fingers crossed that chiles will be coming up. In the back row, I have planted coriander, which may or may not be cilantro—we couldn’t remember while we were at the garden center.


If this cherry tomato plant survives, it will be a miracle, but at least it is in good company with the ivy.


Then after stuffing all the plants into boxes and toting them up and down stairs, I still had time for a quick grocery trip. On the way out of my parking space, I scraped the neighbor’s bumper. I have felt like puking ever since. I have spent most of today mindlessly spring cleaning and wishing the whole insurance-repair-having to talk to the neighbor-thing were already all done. I may just give up driving. I don’t have good depth perception, and everything is so narrow here, it is just a matter of time before I scrape a rearview mirror off, or worse. My bus ticket is already paid for, so maybe I will embrace the pedestrian lifestyle again.

Throw Away Your TV

With Hannah, there is really no need for TV to be entertained around here. This morning John and I were talking about Jerry Falwell dying, and I mentioned that I didn't appreciate religiously oriented people claiming that non-religious people didn't have morals. John asked what morals I had. Well, I don't think you should kill people. Hannah chimed in, you shouldn't stick forks in people's eyes. Well, exactly! That's what I'm talking about!

Then this afternoon, Hannah made a Lego car (for a cat to drive). She included a little rooftop terrace, where her Barbie in Swan Lake skunk Kelly girl was perched with a bowl. I was telling Hannah that she really shouldn't make it easier for the skunky girl to get around and stink up the place, and she pointed out, "she’s extra eating rose petals so that her farts won’t smell so bad." So now you know.

Birthday Girl

Hannah’s birthday is in a week. FU-UCK! We haven’t bought anything for her yet. We haven’t made any plans for a party. *starting to panic* Hannah has had a wide range of party ideas, though:

• toting her friends to an amusement park an hour away (no, because we could only fit 2 other kids in our car)


• taking her friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean (has possibilities, but we did a movie bday last year)


• camping in a tent

John might go for #3, but I see several hurdles—we don’t have a tent, we wouldn’t know how to set one up if we did, and it has been raining for almost 2 weeks, so there’s no guarantee of sunny or at least dry weather.

Hannah helpfully went to the Barbie website and made a wishlist that looks like a Toys R Us ad. There’s no way I’m going to get her Barbie shampoo or a real vacuum cleaner (in pink). If she wants to vacuum, I can certainly hook her up with our Hoover (not pink).

I asked her if she thought 10 would be much different from 9. “Well, there’s puberty.” Yes, well, I had failed to take that into consideration. 10 will probably be *way* different from 9. At school, they are doing a unit on puberty in social studies. I’ve been pleased that Hannah brings up stuff they have talked about in school, or asks me questions based on it. I don’t want to be a squeamish parent, so I make it a point to answer questions as straightforward and *factually* as possible. So far, so good.

Now that the paper is behind me, I can wash the dishes or vacuum or think about anything but the paper and not feel guilty. Good times. Also, more hygienic times. :-)

Snippet

The paper's over. Whew! Gory details on the writing blog.

I was walking Hannah to school one morning, and we spotted some flowers in someone's garden, and that set her off telling me all about Barbie Fairytopia and how the Fairy Enchantress gave Alena (sp?) some wings for saving Fairytopia.
Me: What do you get for just bringing the Fairy Enchantress breakfast in bed? Fairy eyebrows?
Hannah: Maybe you get fairy thanks. And a few bucks.