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.

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’.”