The Throw-Away Post (sort of)

Today I am puffy and surly/manic and unfunny, but here are a couple of things that don't require any additional humor from me (or any humor at all, for that matter).

As soon as I walked in the door on Thursday, D.D. accosted me: the most disgusting thing in the world had just happened. Thinking I was going to be in charge of a cat-barf mess, she went on to inform me that a snail had just climbed onto her new sandal and onto her foot (!) when she was playing in the meadow across the street. So she had to wash the new sandal, and would probably never wear it again. I know that the snails around here are large and relatively fast, but I couldn't quite make out how she was still long enough for one to crawl onto her foot. The best I can tell, she was walking through tall-ish grass and kicked up a slug (not a snail), which then befouled her foot. The trauma!

While walking past a large (5-story) department store early one morning, I heard this weird whistling sound, interspersed with metal clinking. It was the metal lines that were holding the sides of some banner-things that hung down the sides of the building. The banners were whistling, and the metal lines were clinking. It gave me gooseflesh, since it gave me a mental picture of one of the lines snapping and whipping through the air to maim passersby. I try not to walk so close to that building now. *shudder*

So Proud!

I found out from my mom that my niece made a sweep (almost) at her school's award night—8 out of 10! I shall call her (pinky to lips)...Mini-Nee.

She even won a citizenship award, but according to LilSis, a bit of the luster was rubbed off by M-N's bored expression. That's no way to be a good citizen, Mini-Nee! You should show *some* appreciation and modesty. Unless you're *really* bored, then full steam ahead!

***

D.D. hates it when people (generally old people) pat her head or *gasp* talk to her in public. She's starting to get quite surly about it. Today she practically ran to me at the grocery store check-out to get away from an old lady asking her about her doll. Don't want to be approached, don't look so cute, honey.

"I hate it when old Omas talk to me. That *gets on my nerves*." (You can say that last bit with one word in German, which is the most economical I've ever seen the language be.)

When I got onto her for being impolite, she replied that she's not supposed to talk to strangers. I pointed out that she's probably not in much danger from such an elderly person, plus I was only 5 feet away. She came back with an elaborate tale of the woman and her husband probably desperately wanting a little girl of their own—just like her! I let it drop at that point, but I'm starting to wonder about D.D.'s concept of reality.

***

After reading one of my entries, L.H. declared himself surprised that I noticed what other people were wearing so much of the time. He should remember that I am an inveterate people-watcher (a.k.a. starer). Plus, some people's clothing just cannot be missed.

For instance, I haven't seen her lately, but there's a woman in our village I have mentally named "The Old French Whore." She typically wears clothes that are 30 years too young, 2 sizes too small, and inevitably include a combination of fake fur, leather or vinyl, and animal prints. Paired with elaborately curled and badly dyed hair, 2-inch-long nails, and 4-inch-high heels, well, you can see where I'm going with this. I have no idea how she gets up and down the steps to the bus without tanking.

Life in the Climbing Lane

A few days ago, I got home from school to find L.H. picking up the last shards of glass from a broken jar. It turns out that D.D.+jar+tile floor=pickle bomb. Who would have guessed? It took several attempts at mopping to get all the brine up, and there was a horrid pickle/lemon cleaner stench until I succeeded.

***

Earlier today I was in the ladies', and I heard D.D. stomping up the stairs toward me (the child can't just walk up stairs), so I preemptively yelled, "I'm in the bathroom!" And she answered, "I just wanted to tell you something." Now, D.D. often has interesting insights on the world, so my curiosity was piqued. After washing my hands, I found out that "These chips are delicious with ketchup. I just tried them."

It was hard to suppress my natural sarcasm. My brain was saying, "Thanks for the newsflash!", but my mouth managed to say, "I'm glad you like them." I don't want to crush her fragile spirit with my sarcastic tendencies.

***

So I started some homemade bread to go with some homemade carrot soup (I make a mean carrot soup), but I was having trouble with one line in the directions: "Continue adding flour as you knead until the dough is no longer sticky." The damn stuff was still sticky, but was starting to approach the density of a black hole, so I declared, "I dub thee satiny and smooth. Now rise!" (Actually, I just now added that "rise" bit, because I'm—you know—a geek. hee!hee!)

***

For the most part, I think Disney television programming is insipid and pointless, but I have to give them their props when they get one right. D.D and I are addicted to "Fillmore," and we've only seen 3 or 4 episodes. It's like a police detective drama, but set in a school with school-aged detectives. They even have a big cocoa urn instead of coffee. Hee! There are lots of misleading clues and conflicting motives that make for interesting stories. So I like cartoons—sue me.

Speaking of which, I am afraid there are only about 4 voice talents in all of Germany, going by the number of cartoon characters with the same set of voices. It's gotten to the point that I can't even guess what show is on when walking past the living room; I have to actually look at the tv set, which I try to avoid as much as possible. And 9 times out of 10 I'll be surprised. Spongebob-guy is 6 other voices, off the top of my head, and Squidward-guy is getting up close to that number. L.H. thinks those guys should give some other voice-actors a break and step down once in a while, but I can't imagine it's that lucrative a field anyhow.

***

We have a surprisingly difficult time finding children's bubble bath around here, so we stocked up when we came across some in a grocery store in Paris. Now D.D. has Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney again, I know) bubble bath, with packaging in French. I like to think of it as horizon-expanding.

***

And here is one of mine and L.H.'s all-time favorite lines from Public Television:
"You are an idiot, but your produce is delicious."
Jennifer, one of the "2 Fat Ladies", to a live chicken while gathering fresh eggs

Paris—Day 3: Into the Bowels of the Louvre

(n.b. French spelling is not my forte, so please disregard any typos.)

Actually, the Louvre is an amazing place (and their web site is very user friendly; the virtual tours are the bomb!). The building itself is 4 stories and too huge to get into one photo without a helicopter. It was originally a palace; we were able to see rooms that Napoleon had used, and let me tell you, it was more opulent even than the current Swedish royal family's digs. But the French aristocracy back then must have felt it was lacking, because they abandoned it for Versailles (which, from the photos I've seen, appears to be gilded from toilets to kitchen counters).

You enter through a large glass pyramid that seems a bit out of place at first, but the effect from inside is really cool. Then you go down an escalator, and the main level is one floor underground, lighted by the pyramid that now acts as an elaborate skylight. There are three wings, and each wing has four floors.

We spent !6! hours walking around and didn't even make it onto every floor of every wing. (That's as long as it took us to *drive to Paris* in the first place.) Mostly we decided what we really wanted to see, and planned it out on the handy map we got when we arrived. If they hadn't thoughtfully put numbered signs on the walls, we would have been irretrievably lost in a matter of 10 minutes.

Darling Daughter got her wish and stood before the Mona Lisa, along with the 100 people pushing us forward. Choosing not to join the teeming throng in prematurely aging the Mona Lisa via flash-photography, we declined to take our own photo. Also, we didn't know how to turn the flash off on our new-ish digital camera. But we bought a postcard and a bookmark of the M.L. later at the bookshop, so take that, Philistines!

Poor D.D. was bored out of her mind after that, and I have to admit that the thousands of paintings (even the 30-foot-high ones) kind of became a blur of colored oil after a while. L.H. dutifully looked at most of the paintings, but D.D. would find the nearest bench and flop down until we were ready to go to the next room. Then L.H. would sing a little piece from the Disney "Alice in Wonderland" to get us moving: "Clean cups, move down..."

We saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, but we missed the Egyptian section. We saw David's painting of Napoleon crowning Josephine empress, but not the medieval moat that originally surrounded the Louvre when it was a fortress. I think it would take a week just to physically walk past everything, and months to read all the labels (if we could read French; there are no multi-lingual signs on the displays in the Louvre, for future reference).

Afterwards we walked the length of the gardens, which are still being renovated, I understand, until we came out on the Champs Elysees. We walked all the way up to the Arc d'Triomphe, which is a goodly way, but it was blocked off from visitors. We're not exactly certain, but we think it was related to the next day being the anniversary of the end of WW2 in France. There was supposed to be something there on the 8th (we were there on the 7th). Anyhow, we still got to see it from fairly close, but we were all too tired and cranky by then to be properly appreciative. Thank goodness the Metro station was right there.

Yes, we managed to use the Metro and not die. Please, hold your applause. The train was no problem; finding the correct platform was the problem. After asking at the information desk (and getting half-squashed in the ticket barrier—I'm alright!), we followed the signs until we reached some tracks. And of course it wasn't the right set. How silly of us not to realize that we had to follow the platform until we were behind the original escalator we took downstairs, then take another escalator *back upstairs.* We came out in a totally different area, don't ask me how. I suspect there was some kind of time-and-space-warp into another dimension, but we made it to the Place d'Italie, so who cares how we got there.

***

Each evening, L.H. would whisper, "Hey, Baby... we're in the City of Love..." To which I would respond, "And I'm the mayor of Tiredville. Sorry, Babe." Walking around for like 12 hours is only conducive to instantly falling asleep as soon as you lie down.

The Madness of my Darling Daughter

D.D. and I had been to the grocery store, and she was telling me about the limited set of veggies that she considered ok to eat: raw carrots, frozen peas, salad with dressing, green beans, and cucumbers. But definitely NOT asparagus. (Asparagus season has just started, a big deal around here.) I reminded her that as a baby she used to eat canned asparagus. She answered that she didn't have any teeth back then and had to eat mushy food. Oh, and she was insane. I guess that explains it.

***

The neighbor's yard is looking less like a beautiful meadow and more like an abandoned lot. It just needs a few discarded cars or large appliances, and the transformation will be complete. It has been raining or overcast off and on since...forever, and the homeowners who didn't get around to mowing on one of the clearer days are now having to wade through their lawns to get to the front door. Make that a "pro" of living in an apartment.

***

D.D. is counting down the days until Star Wars comes out (tomorrow, right?). She had told her friends at school that we were going to take them all to Star Wars for her birthday, but she neglected to verify with us first, so too bad, so sad. It's not really a birthday-party kind of movie. We're taking her to see it on the day of her birthday, but we'll have an actual party the week after.

She got a tiny, plastic light saber out of her cereal box, and it has been a dual-purpose weapon and lipstick. We have a little game going, where she pretends to apply lipstick to me, and I pretend to have my lips sliced off. It's always fun and games around here.

Paris--Day 2: Let the Tourism Begin!

On Friday, L.H.'s friend took us to Notre Dame cathedral. On the way, we saw a medieval museum in a "townhouse" that had once belonged to the monastery at Cluny, the church of Saint Severin, the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, and the Sorbonne (the original building of the University of Paris plus an old student quarter). It was a bit chilly and damp, but I have finally figured out how to pack for traveling in Europe: one warm-weather outfit plus one cold-weather outfit per day, worn in layers in case it warms up.

Notre Dame was huge and beautiful. D.D. took a crying fit; she claimed it was the male chorus that was singing in the background, but I could understand if it was just the size of the place that got to her. Also, there were hundreds of people strolling through it, so in all, it was an overwhelming experience. But after we sat and talked quietly for a few minutes, she calmed down and we made our way around to where L.H. was checking things out. The line for the tower tour was a block long, so we didn't go.

Then we walked around the rest of that island. (There are 2 islands in the middle of the Seine, and therefore in the center of Paris, that were the original settlement of Paris.) The Sainte Chapelle is on the other end, and although it is smaller than the Notre Dame, it is more opulent. It was a private chapel for the king, dedicated to the Crusaders.

We eventually made it to the Eiffel Tower at the end of the day. It is much bigger than I had imagined from just seeing it in photos. There are *2* elevators *each leg*, plus a set of stairs. An hour-long line stretches from one leg to another along one side of the base. We had dinner plans with L.H.'s friend, so we weren't able to go up, but we wandered around the gardens. Paris definitely *is* the city of love, going by the number of couples we saw mugging on every occupied park bench or stretch of grass. But the final straw was when D.D. noticed that a tree at the Eiffel Tower was covered with initials that had been carved into it. Fuckin' lovers.

There are lots of snack stands catering to tourists, and every single one of them carries cotton candy. Now I understand the character in the children's book Barbapapa. Barbe a papa is cotton candy in French.

This is a photo I took from the Louvre guide book. We didn't take many photos inside the Louvre.
(Giotto di Bondone, c. 1300: Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata)

Note the interesting use of lines to indicate Jesus beaming stigmata down to St. Francis. Unfortunately, a similar, and much more interesting, painting didn't make it into the guide book, but imagine if you will: Aphrodite hovering over 6 "lovers from history" (Lancelot, Paris of Troy, Troilus, etc.) and shooting identical beams *from her crotch*. The painting was called something like "Aphrodite Conquers the Fabled Lovers."
 

Rage in the Classroom, etc.

I have to pick a different seat in class next time. The guys sitting across the table—one from Africa and one from China (who likes to be called "Rock")—are totally nice and polite and not socially retarded. The same cannot be said of the girl next to me. You might remember me mentioning her before: the Luna Lovegood spaz-alike.

The poor thing is quite hirsute, but that doesn't really excuse the wide array of annoying behaviors (or the "Happy Kiddies" technicolor pencil case). Imagine a painter who imagines himself a performance artist: he makes bold, dramatic strokes on the canvas, dancing back occasionally to see the result. Not imagine that it's a hairy woman with a pen. It's quite distracting.

Leaning over me and staring at my notes instead of reading the overhead is also distracting. And asking what we're supposed to do every time we get a worksheet—3 times per class. Get a hearing aid, damnit! And acting like a game show contestant when we discuss the worksheet all together with the instructor: 3! 3! 3! And wiggling in her seat like she has ants in her pants. And *taking off her shoes and putting her SWEATY, pantyhose-clad feet on an empty chair*. And how does one even make paper squeak by rubbing one's fingernail across it?!

***

There's a guy in one of my classes who seems to be going for the young George Michael look. I wondering which gender he is trying to attract. Hee!

***

My skin is so dry today, I could strip the paint off wooden furniture with my bare hands. I could scratch my class notes onto my arm and still read them this evening. I could wipe my hand across Tammy Fay Baker's face and remove her makeup down to the skin. I look like some kind of desert lizard, which is something considering that the only place wetter than here is in the Amazon (it is raining buckets as I write).

***

I personally feel that if you are extremely pigeon-toed, wearing boots with 3-inch heels and long, pointy toes is not going to improve your chances of not tripping and falling. Just an observation from the bus stop.

***

D.D. was in such a fantastic mood when I picked her up one afternoon this week that she wondered if I had put super-happy potion in her milk at breakfast. I reminded her she didn't have milk, but maybe there was something in her chocolate milk at school.

***

I'm not exactly a professional decorator myself, but I wish shop owners would make a little more effort with their window displays. The bakery in the village where D.D. takes ballet has some dolls in the window, and nothing makes me want to buy bread more than seeing Chucky with a baker's hat and a rolling pin.

***

D.D. and I have been noticing enormous ravens big enough to carry off a cat or possibly an unattended baby. Between them and the giant snails, I'm becoming concerned about the water supply around here. There's also a nuclear power plant somewhere nearby...

Life Goes On

I'm still working on my Paris write-up, but there's so much to say! So here are some tidbits from real life since we got back:

I had to run some errands in town, and I passed through my favorite section of the main pedestrian/shopping street. I like to think of it as the Thoroughfare of Deliciosity; 3 bakeries, a butcher specializing in smoked sausages, and a coffee and tea shop are all cuddled up together, so there's a series of good smells as you walk past. mmm... sausage and coffee and bread... mmmm.

I strolled though a department store on the way to my bus, but their wares weren't any better than what I had just bought, so I didn't bother to stop. But I noticed that right in the middle of a big area that is being remodeled, they had left one little display carousel—of hairnets. I wonder if they have such a hard-core clientele of hair-net shoppers that they didn't want to piss them off by moving their wares to another section with the rest of the hair-care products.

D.D. announced on the way home from school one day that she wanted to be a gardener when she grows up, "instead of a ballerina or that other stuff" (dance teacher, police officer, archaeologist). I hope she has a better knack for it than I do. My tiny seedling (indoors) had croaked when we got back from the trip, and so had most of the flowers D.D. and her friend had sown on the balcony. But my beloved ivy and xmas cactus were still going strong. They probably looked down their shoots at those puny seedlings.

D.D. stopped to look at something on the ground and declared that she thought it was a "roly-poly-oly", without a trace of silliness. I think Disney has messed up her vocabulary.

Postscript to Paris—Day 1

Advice for
Driving in France:
Be prepared to pay several tolls as you drive across the country. From the border to Paris, I think we stopped 6 times for a total of 24 euros. That's about the cost of a half a tank of gas. Eek!

Driving in Paris:
There is a disturbing lack of lines on the streets. And the few lines seem to be more of a suggestion than a law, judging by the behavior of the other drivers. Ditto crosswalk signs for pedestrians, who seem to have a militant disregard for personal safety. I'm pretty sure most of the jaywalkers were Parisians, not tourists, going by the absence of maps and cameras and the presence of a purposeful stride. Also, our hotel wasn't in a touristy area.

Germans are pretty conscientious sign-obeyers, so the difference in mentality in Paris was quite obvious.

Paris—Day 1: The Trip

We haven't done much highway driving since we got the car, just short jaunts around town or to neighboring towns that are not connected by highways (think of Elgin to Taylor, Texas, as opposed to Austin to Elgin), so driving across a large part of France made us use skills that had gotten a bit rusty. But we made it in spite of our map- and sign-reading deficiencies. And we managed to keep ourselves entertained in the process.

Our first source of amusement was a road sign while we were still in Germany: Danger! Accidents Possible! That's about as useful and specific as the US Homeland Security's "Orange Advisory." [It actually refers to a dangerously short on-ramp. The sign.]

Then when we got to France, we saw lots of white cows out in the fields, all lying down. The first standing cows we saw were black, so L.H. quipped that they must be German cows. We speculated on whether they were imported to be the worker cows, or just to be a positive influence on the white French cows. Then I wondered if perhaps the French cows were subverting the German ones, because we saw a couple of black ones lying down. Car games with nee and L.H.

More pervasive than cows, though, were the fields upon fields of rapeseed (1). I mean, the stuff was *everywhere*, so it must be a major crop. As a matter of fact, we saw a (German) tour bus that claimed it ran on pure canola oil. Neat! We didn't take a photo ourselves, but you can see the beauty for yourselves here. I happened to recognize it because I had seen it while driving through southern Sweden with L.H.'s friends acting as our tour guides.

(1) Rapeseed is the source of canola oil (see the debunking at the bottom of the linked page), but Americans don't want to see the word "rape" on their kitchen staples, as in "rapeseed oil", so it got a new name.

You know how American highways have mile markers but only sporadically, plus exit numbers? Well, in France, *every 100 meters* is marked with a sign. So at the end of the length of a football field, there's a number: 366.9, 366.8, 366.7.... I'm just anal enough that I would catch myself keeping track of them, which meant it was time to distract myself with futile reading assignments for school and Crazy Eights with D.D.

If you ever go to France, DO NOT EVER order andouillette in a restaurant. You will receive tripe sausage, also known as chitterlings sausage, as L.H. discovered to his eternal horror. After a quick search online, I see that it is often referred to as "sausage bursting with offal." L.H. said it smelled like the outside of the pig from which it originally came.

After the mystery lunch, we passed a bizarre series of ... installation art? on the highway for maybe 20 km—disks, spheres, pyramids, cubes, flat squares, a single pole, flat triangles, and cubes on one point, all in rainbow-hued pastels. They were just lying on the ground next to the road. After 10km, I was all, "Ok! It's geometry AND art—we get it!"

Some of you may be tempted to smite me for blasphemy, but there was a stretch or two between Reims and Paris that reminded me of Texas scenery, maybe between Austin and Waco. The part of Germany we're in tends to be hilly and forested, so it was a nice change.

We managed to drive into central Paris, find our hotel, and put the car in a garage without a hitch. D.D. was happy that she got her own bed and that there was a tv, but she didn't know what to make of the bidet. L.H. mused that it was the perfect size for a Barbie pool, but D.D. was disgusted by the suggestion. And we had no Barbies on hand with which to try it out. Suffice it to say that the bidet went unused while we were there.

Then we paid a visit to L.H.'s friend from Sweden who is living in Paris temporarily to help take care of her baby granddaughter. She and her daughter took us on a walking tour of their neighborhood (at the Place d'Italie) and pointed out some good places to eat. D.D. found a feather on the ground while we were out. When a pigeon crossed her path, she held out the feather and said, "Hey, Pidge! Looking for this?" all smart-alecky. Hee!

After a quick Chinese dinner, we went back to the hotel and geared up for Day 2: Let the Tourism Begin!

Electronic Prozac

I've been in a bad mood, but having a bit of a rant off-screen and reading about Sars' version of a bad mood made feel better.

So I will now troop upstairs and cobble together my notes from the Paris trip into a real post for tomorrow.

The Air Up Here

Even more than low-rise pants and stairs, Germans love fresh air. On May 1 they all troop out into the woods for "wandering" and grill parties and fresh air. I think it may be a national sport.

The valley where we live was once an "air spa." I'm not sure if that's a nice way of saying "sanitarium," but even today, the locals praise the air quality and compare it to that of the neighboring villages.

There's no AC, so it's understandable that people open the windows when it's warm out, or when it's cool but clear. But even in the dead of winter people will have their windows flung open, especially first thing in the morning. Don't you know the 3 required parts of the morning ablutions: shit, shower, and hypothermia? I can't imaging that the house gets so funked up every single day that it is necessary to thoroughly air it out. Maybe my neighbors are just smelly.

But I remember my mom commenting on the old German ladies tut-tutting that she didn't air out her bedding every morning. You still see feather bolsters hanging out of upper windows in the mornings. Weird.

Well, we are off to Paris in the morning and won't be back until Sunday evening. Check back in around Tuesday for an update on our globe-trotting adventures. And Happy Mother's Day, in case I miss making all my calls Sunday evening.

Defeat of the Mystery Puff (edited for your pleasure)

Remember the pollenous puff I mentioned before? Well, I'm starting to think it might actually be an alien life form. When this occurred to me, I had the mental image of a cheesy old sci-fi magazine cover, with a blond woman holding her hands up to her face, "No-o-o! Not the Puuuuuffff!"

I had noticed that clusters of puff were collecting here and there around the house, thanks to the recent spate of warm weather and resultant window-opening. So I hauled out the vacuum cleaner to get rid of them, and it turns out that there were many more than I had suspected. I even found them hiding behind the vanity in the bathroom. They were definitely trying to get entrenched; I could tell.

And I suspect they were bringing in reinforcements. I have found more spiders and giant fuzzy beetles and spindly-legged ?dragonflies? in the house, wandering around innocently. But I see right through them.

The puffs are trying to set up a colony. Their strategy is simple but brilliant: puffs and bugs waft in through the open windows, looking like innocuous bits of pollen, but then they start joining together in bigger and bigger puffs, until I am unable to dislodge them with anything short of full wattage on the vacuum. And it is against our religion to squash bugs, so if we can't scoop them out the window, they get to stay.

I think I got to the puffs just in time, though. There were enough of them around that I'm afraid they were on the verge of applying for statehood, or at least petitioning for civil rights.

But I can tell that the battle is not over, at least until the trees stop blooming. One day it will get murderously hot, and we'll cave and open the windows (only .1% of German houses have AC). That'll be their big chance to regroup and try another assault. But I vow to remain vigilant, of that you can be sure.

[I'll let you know if anyone is interested in the movie rights. George Lucas, I'm looking at you.]

For You

We have had just the most glorious, uh, 3 days (I started this over the weekend, oops!). It's been clear, warm, and sunny, my favorite type of weather. Even I—sun-shunner that I am—have gone out to catch a few rays, until I noticed some red blotches on my arms. With the feeling I was watching skin-cancer in progress, I quit the balcony for the less carcinogenic (except for the fine dust) living room.

Now that the sun's come out properly, I can see that the neighbors' yards are taking on prarie-like proportions with the deep grass and wildflowers. Remember the opening credits to "Little House on the Prarie", where the individual Ingalls-es are running down a slope? Put a white, 4-story house at the top of the slop, and an apple tree halfway down, and that's what I see out the front window.

We're way past "the days are getting noticeably longer," but it came as kind of a surprise since it's been so overcast lately. Dinnertime tends to sneak up on you when it's still full sunlight outside until after 7 p.m. I mean, the sun is not even casting shadows yet. Even the street lights don't come on until after 8:30. It would be even worse if we didn't live down in a valley; when the sun goes over the rim, we get evening, but the people living out in the plains are probably already getting zombified by the late light.

Even half a week after the last rain, we can hear the water rushing through the stream that flows under our street. The city had to do something with the water to keep it from washing away their nifty roads, I guess, so several streams spend part of their course underground. It makes an interesting white noise at night. I don't generally require white noise to sleep, but I have to admit it's soothing.

Darling Daughter did a fantastic job of cleaning her room over the weekend, so I got her a Barbie magazine as a little bribe for continued good behavior. Or reward, it's all the same. There are a ton of magazines for little girls—Barbie, Disney Princess, some other princesses, and about 80 pony magazines. D.D. got one last week that has 14- or 15-year-old girls in it who like ponies, and who like boys, and who have problems with their ponies and boys. This magazine has everything an almost 8-year-old could want!

Speaking of Barbie, D.D. was playing on their (her?) website, a charming little game called "Room Makeover." You get to pick from an astounding array of crap to decorate your virtual bedroom, and one of the Barbie friends pops in at the end to congratulate you on your fantastic talents. I thought my eyes would bleed at the sight of the psychedelic nightmare that adorned the computer screen. For one thing, I don't know how anyone could *sleep* in such a room. I for one would certainly develop some kind of psychiatric disorder.

L.H. and I are generally anti-knick-knacks. Horizontal space has a disturbing tendency to get stuff piled on it around here, so the fewer things we have to dig out of the mess, the better. L.H. is more mess-averse than I am (as evinced by the current state of my side of our room), but I do my fair share of picking up. But ceramic doodads and posters are not my idea of decorating. I guess I lean in the Nordic decorating direction (woo! hoo! IKEA!).

D.D. has become a prescriptive princess. She declared that "luv" looks dumb (as seen in an "email" on the Barbie site). She had noticed it once before in a book we were reading, and now it's firmly entrenched in her mind. Her dad will be so proud.

I Need a Title Generator

If some girls that are not my daughter want to wear low-rise jeans, I say more power to them. But is it too much to ask that they at least buy said jeans in their own size? There's no added sex appeal in sporting a bulge of tortured flesh that has escaped the dungeon of denim. If you're showing most everything anyway, why pretend your ass is smaller than it actually is?

The weather is so unpredictable these days that half of the girls on the bus were wearing sweaters, and the other half tank-tops. It tried to rain this morning when I took D.D. to school, but this afternoon people were out sunning on the river meadows, getting a long-overdue dose of vitamin D. [Corrected thanks to L.H. So I don't know vitamins.] The ice cream stands were doing a booming business when I walked through town earlier.

The daffodils have started dying off, but the dandelions are well on their way to being ripe. As a matter of fact, fluffy bits are floating through the window and collecting in threatening balls under the desk even as I type. (L.H. just pointed out that they are probably not from dandelions, more likely from trees. Spoil sport.) D.D. scans the sidewalk to and from school for "puffs." Some of the neighbors have really glorious gardens coming up; I told D.D. that since we live in an apartment, we can enjoy their gardens as we walk to school, and we don't have to pull weeds or pay for all the seedlings.

Speaking of which, one of the seeds I planted has sprouted! Go me! I have no idea what it is, since I just threw all the saved seeds in the pot, but I guess we'll see eventually.

Today I sat next to a highly annoying person in my textbook analysis class, a mistake I will try not to repeat. Granted, our instructor is a funny lady, but laughing like Luna Lovegood at every little witticism is not the way to make friends in class.

In case you weren't aware, grammatical gender will be the death of me. German nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter, and there's very little rhyme or reason to it. Why is milk feminine but coffee masculine? I. Don't. Know. I'm not even positive I just got that right. I try and try to learn it, but it *does not stick.*

While chopping up the veggies for dinner just now, I noticed the labels on the packages. After checking them all, here is the international vegetable stir-fry we are having:
onions from Poland
garlic from Argentina
green beans from Egypt
mushrooms from Holland
cherry tomatoes from Italy

and oranges from Morocco on the fruit dish.
But pork and spaetzle from Germany, of course.

And for your reading pleasure, here are my results for the quiz, What Kind of American English Do You Speak:

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

25% Dixie

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Bits and Pieces

D.D. is well on her way to mastering the fine art of hyperbole. On the way home from school yesterday: "This backpack is snapping my spine! It's killing me! Look—I think it has a tiny knife, or a gun, or maybe some dynamite!"

Then this morning: "My finger is killing me! I'm dying! I don't think I can go to school!" My response: "If you die from a paper cut, you don't have to go to school. Now get up!"

The rain clouds have finally moved off, but it was nippy enough this morning that I made D.D. wear a sweater and gloves. Of course, it turned warm in the afternoon (but still no rain! Yah!), so she had to drag home a pile of clothes, but she'll survive.

You know how once you've thought of something, you can't *not* think of it? My problem is CO2. Normally, I don't give other people's breathing a thought, but once in a while, like on the bus, it will occur to me that I'm breathing in the exhalations of my fellow passengers. I haven't quite given myself a complex about it, but I might end up hyperventilating from the shallow breathing while on the bus, then deep lung-cleansing breathing when off the bus. (Typing this, I realize I sound like a freak, but everyone needs one hang-up, right? Hello?)

I like various types of sewing and crafts, but I try not to step over the line into sewing little clothes for the cats, or crocheting wall hangings with plastic baby faces. But apparently the people at the sewing machine shop next-door to my favorite bakery have no such self-restraint. It was gone from the window today, but last week they had used their power for good (embroidery machine) for evil (pot-plant cozy).

I know it can't be easy keeping an elementary school clean, especially when it has rained for 2 solid weeks. And I see the cleaning lady sweeping and mopping every afternoon when I go to pick up D.D., so I know it's being cleaned. But the smells! Normally it smells like sweaty puppies (small wonder), but yesterday eau de cat box wafted through the halls. I'm worried that D.D.'s sense of smell will be permanently damaged by the constant exposure.

Since the new Pope is German, there's been something about him in the paper every day since his election. The latest: The 78-year-old Pope is in good shape! He takes the stairs instead of the elevator! I mean, come on, people. He's German. I think they are constitutionally incapable of using elevators. 112-year-old ladies climb the stairs here. People with crutches climb the stairs here. Open a building with fewer than 8 floors and include an elevator, and people will think you've lost your mind.

L.H. has attracted his own stalker. Well, a really annoying, needy, 42-year-old (male) student who can't take a hint, such as L.H. putting on his coat, picking up his bag, saying "I have to leave", and turning off the light. True story. I had to be in L.H.'s building today to use the library, and I came across him and Stalky in the hall, and he refused to make eye contact with me in case Stalky decided to attach himself to me instead.

We are really going to Paris the end of next week (there's a state holiday—Christ Ascension, I think). I know that it didn't work out last time, but this time we have hotel reservations (confirmed yesterday), a car, a map, a guide book, and a phrase book on CD. So we're halfway there! Only, D.D. doesn't want to go, because she's heard the French eat snails. I hope she doesn't burst into tears whenever we pass a butcher's shop or a restaurant.

What's Up With Us

I decided after L.H. got home from California that 5 days of being a single parent was plenty, thanks. I don't ever want to do that full-time. L.H. is therefore not allowed to die on me. No sudden heart attacks. No fatal bike accidents. No acute food poisoning.

D.D.'s class has been studying invertebrates, so they've covered the snail and the worm. The teacher even brought specimens to class for them to touch and watch. Considering how wet it's been, you can't walk 5 feet without coming across one or the other, so I'm sure collecting them was not a difficult feat. Then last night, the popular science program we watch (Galileo) covered the type of snails that we have around here. D.D. was all into it until she realized that we were watching escargot farmers in action, and that the snails were being raised to be eaten. That's when the tv went off and the tears came on. Then when she spotted a couple of snails on the way to school this morning, there were more tears. So she has a soft-spot for slimy, disgusting gastropods.

I am thinking about starting a hidden-camera anthropology project on the bus. First, I can have the old people that have to shake hands with every person they know on the bus, even if there are 20 of them. Then I can have drunky hair guy, who seems to think that grooming and flinging his long hair repeatedly, while head-banging to his portable cd player and sipping on a bottle of beer hidden in the pocket of his leather jacket, is attractive. Finally, I can cover the range of adolescent thoughtlessness: backing into other passengers with a 20-pound backback, hogging up a seat with a backpack so that others have to stand (and why don't the others call him on it), listening to music so loudly that even with earphones the passengers 2 rows up can hear nothing else. If you can't tell, the glamor of the bus is gone.

The weather is so shitty that I'm not even going to bother bitching about it. It would be like a -2 on the scale (except I can't remember which way the scale goes, so take my word that -2 is not good).

Composed April 24

If April showers bring May flowers, I hope they can swim. We have had rain, rain, and more rain. Funnily enough (but not in the ha-ha sense), we've noticed that it'll rain all day when we want to or have to get out and about, then clear up around sunset, when it's too late for most errands or outings anyway. Bleh!

After the rain, the thing I am most sick of seeing is Anastacia's ass. There's a kiosk across the street with posters for "cultural events" (in the widest possible sense), and every time I look out the kitchen window, she's giving me a come-hither look over shoulder, which is completely a wasted effort.

It's only one o'clock, but it's already been a full day: up at 5 to take Lovely Husband to the train station for leg 1 of his trip to California, got Darling Daughter to school by 7:45, *cleaned* the house, and went to the dentist for a filling. In the middle of the dental appointment, I noticed I wasn't keeping my tongue properly out of the way, and I had the most absurd thought: "I'm licking the dentist!" I guess it's a job hazard in that line of work, but it struck me as hilarious at the time (drug-free dentistry, thanks).

Then after the filling I got asked out. How sad is asking a total stranger *at a bus stop* to go for coffee? I couldn't even think what would be the correct response for 1. turning someone down without being insulting OR encouraging, and 2. saying it in German. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny, but L.H. was concerned when I told him about it. I think he's worried the guy will turn into a stalker, but I'm not worried about attracting stalkers until my fiction is published; then I'll have one eye behind me for literary critics.

Temporary Absence

Lovely Husband is leaving for California at an ungodly hour Wednesday morning (I get to drive him to the train station), and he's taking the laptop with him. It's the end of the first week of school, and I'm already behind in a couple of classes, so I'm not going to even make the effort to seek out a different Internet source while he's away. Maybe I'll be caught up when he gets back Monday.

See you then.