I'm Not Dead Yet

With university classes just starting back up, the whole family is having to get used to a new schedule. But not really, because Lovely Husband's department postponed their classes for a week to do testing. Then he'll be in CA the end of next week, so it'll be 2 weeks before the family schedule gets chugging along. So every 5 minutes I'm checking my Palm to make sure I'm on top of it all. It wouldn't pay to forget, say, Darling Daughter at school.

Before the crush of homework and reading assignments got too onerous, I got the chance to accompany a friend to the opera. Actually, she had invited L.H., but 1. he felt weird going alone with another woman, and 2. he couldn't afford the time now that he's in presentation preparation mode. (He should have known that #1 wouldn't bother me because she's a friend to both of us, and I'm cuter than her; but I was very proud of him for #2.) So he suggested me instead since I'm a fan of Lohengrin. This is an almost *5-hour opera*, people. I love it enough that I didn't fall asleep, unlike some people in the audience, but I kept having the insane urge to yell loudly, just to see if I could be heard over the singers. Do you know the imp of the perverse? He lives in my head.

I thought that the staging of the opera was a little strange—lots of slanted floors and walls, and modern clothes mixed with medieval-esque—but the one part I really didn't get was the presence of 20-30 flags being waved almost continuously by the chorus. Ok, so they're the citizens of Brabant, and they support the king, blah, blah, blah, but it's basically a love story, so I didn't get it. Instead, I wondered if the director had attended a seminar on flag-waving and thought, "That's perfect for our new production!" Or maybe that was a big sale on flags in Mannheim. *I don't know.*

***

Do you ever catch yourself falling back into a childhood behavior you had forgotten about? I don't chew my nails anymore, though a snagged nail will get bitten off until I can get to an emery board. But thanks to my new interest in freakish, giant snails, I catch myself spending way too much time scanning the ground as I walk. When I was a kid, I got really frizzle-fried at the lake (a few times), so often I didn't even bother getting in the water. I'd walk around the picnic tables there at the state park looking for winning soda-can tabs. Now that bottles with twist-off lids and cans with pop-tops have replaced the old tabbed cans, you just don't see little dangerous slivers of aluminum lying around like you used to.

I am now up to 4 intact and 1 partial snail shell for my collection. D.D. wanted to make a necklace out of them (gross!), but I plan to make a diorama—attack of the zombie snails! I haven't decided what materials to use yet, but I will keep you posted on my progress.

***

My Darling Daughter is usually a very laid back child, but certain things will set her off, like a callous disregard for nature. She has a lovely book of children's stories from all over the world (thanks, Gwamma!); the Swiss story is about how the mayor of some town decides everyone would be more productive and the town more famous if the citizens weren't distracted by beautiful nature. So the plants and flowers are locked up behind a brick wall topped with barbed wire, and the butterflies are pinned in boxes. D.D. won't even read the story anymore. She cries just thinking about the poor butterflies.

Our landlord's penchant for hunting also brings her to tears. (1) "What did those poor deer ever do to him?" is her anguished cry. Thank goodness he moved his collection of stuffed animals (and I don't mean teddy bears) from the window and walls of his shop on the ground floor of our building. D.D. never enjoyed walking past a happy little dead woodchuck and ducks. I hope she doesn't notice his business's display of plumbing fixtures and taxidermy outside her dentist's office when she goes for a cleaning in 2 weeks.

(1) I thought I had posted about our apartment decor, but couldn't find it to link to. On the outside of our building is a mural with Saint Humberto and a stag (who was Jesus in disguise). SH is the patron saint of hunters. In our apartment, we have the lovely light fixture over the dining room table made of *antlers*, then the hand-made chairs with wild animals carved into their backs, and finally the tile oven with decorative tiles of, you guessed it, wild animals. So our home is a daily reminder to D.D. of the landlord's hobby.

L.H. told me that when he and D.D. were walking to school one day, she pointed out a tiny sapling trying to grow in a crack in the sidewalk. He made some offhand comment that it didn't look like the best place for a tree to grow, and she jumped to defend it: "How would you like to be a little tree trying to grow and have someone make fun of you?!" What the--? D.D. should join the Sierra Club, or possibly the more militant Greenpeace. I can see her in the future, strapped to the mast of a whaling ship, her self-designed "Don't Mess With Nature" tatoo glistening in the sun...

***

I !hate! people who stand in the middle of the sidewalk or doorway. (2) We live in an old, narrow town, and there is just not room to stop and gawk without forcing other people to walk in the street. And the university library is *1 door*. It's not even a double door. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to go in, or out, and had to squeeze past a cluster of dummies smoking or chatting or even waiting for someone with a stroller. Move along, people!

(2) L.H. says no one actually "hates" anyone else, but he is wrong. I hope there's a level of hell where path-blockers have to eternally navigate a crowded space—like the Vatican during the Pope's funeral, or Potsdamer Platz in Berlin when the wall came down, or a Tokyo subway car. With a large, hot coffee in each hand. Pushing a stroller with a screaming baby. With a full bladder. Now I feel better.

***

D.D. and I finished the 5th Harry Potter over her school holiday, so now we're eagerly awaiting #6 (3 months and 1 day!). It comes out on the last day of university classes for the semester, but 2 weeks before the end of D.D.'s school year, so I should be able to read it during the day while she's at school and hide it at night in my room. Then I can forewarn her of any scary stuff before/if I read it to her.

We're looking for other things to read, as she has gone through all her books, including the large stack she got for xmas (thanks, JEKL!), minus the one about cats going to heaven or something. I've tried reading Little House on the Prairie to her, but after 3 chapters she thinks it is too sad. I guess it's time for me to practice my German aloud; she may still have a couple of German books that are unread.

Mattel is Ruining My Life

My Darling Daughter is as prone as any other child of 7 to get all "gimme" when she sees toy commercials, but it is especially bad during the run-up to her birthday. She wants everything she sees for her birthday. And to add fuel to the fire, there are ads currently running for no fewer than *8* different Barbie products, running the range from fairies and princesses to toothless kids and "chicks." Fortunately for my sanity, the ad for the potty-training smallest Barbie has finished its run. The commercial that cracks me up, though, is one for the California Barbie and friends (remember when the bikini Barbie was the cheapest one? I doubt it still is). One of the Kens has an afro, which D.D. calls his disco-ball hair. Hee!

D.D. went back to school last week, thank the 7 dwarfs. It was getting hard to entertain her. She got a tin of kid card games at xmas, so we played Old Maid, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, and War until I was sick of shuffling. We did tend to get silly playing War: D.D. would slap down her card shrieking "Hi-Ya!" like the sound effects in a Hong Kong fighting film. War is a *verrrry long* game, so the card-slapping shouts mutated into the names of Chinese towns and foods—egg roll! Bejing! dim sum!—and finally into the first thing we saw—coffee table! Barbie jeep! Monty Python! D.D. got down to one card and was ready to quit, but it was a 9, so she managed to get all of the cards and win.

We also put together many puzzles. If you know my mom's family, you know most of us like puzzles (except for my lil sis—weirdo!). My middle sister even included a puzzle in her novel. (Oh no! I gave away an important plot point! Just pretend to be surprised when you get to the part about the assassin and the puzzle. Thanks.) But unlike the rest of the family, D.D. does not start with the border. She starts with the most salient content—the dolls in a Barbie puzzle, or a string of pearls on a make-up table (complete with adorable kitten) in another. Then she lets me fill in the boring background and border pieces. One day she'll be able to help me finish my Millenium Falcon 3-D puzzle (received as an xmas gift while she was in utero and now 2/3 complete).

The weather was cold and wet the end of last week, but yesterday it finally cleared up. It was still cool, but the sky was cloudless and the sun was shining, so it was very pleasant. D.D. and I went to the indoor pool on Sunday to give L.H. some uninterrupted work time, but it felt weird to be putting on a swim suit when it was so cold and gray outside. Today is overcast again, but not so cold as over the weekend.

I was in town yesterday, and I noticed that the high school students standing around after school were being more obnoxious than usual, playing loud music and blowing whistles. Then I noticed they were getting loaded (the drinking age for beer is 16, I believe, but most of these kids would be 19 anyway). Finally it occurred to me that their exams are right about now. I only hope yesterday was the last day. As L.H. said, it wouldn't pay to start celebrating too early. Anyhow, these aren't just end-of-semester finals, but graduation/college entrance exams, so they're very important for their futures.

Today was my first class, and it was interesting and went well. I found out that the class I was planning to take on Wednesdays was already full, and I don't feel like hanging around bugging the teacher to get in, so I'll take it next semester. I have to finish it by the end of the fourth semester, but I don't think it is a prerequisite for any of the classes I need next semester, so I'll just double up then.

For the moms: This afternoon I saw a lady with a baby strapped onto her chest trying to get three 2- or 3-year-olds to hold hands and walk with her down a path with a lot of bike traffic. The 2 little girls were patiently holding hands with each other and waiting while she tried to get the hand of the little boy. He kept throwing himself on the ground, and when she'd get ahold of his hand or wrist, he twist and turn and start whining really loud. I half-way expected him to cry out, "It burns!", the way he was acting. It made me glad, once again, that mine is big enough to threaten instead of having to manhandle her into cooperation.

I went to Toys R Us today to look for a gift to send to a birthday party tomorrow. I found what I wanted right away, but decided to take a look around since D.D.'s birthday is next month, and I might find something good. At the least, I expected to pick up a new Barbie for her. (I know, don't say it.) By the time I was done, I was ready to claw my own eyes out of my head. I think there were only 4 other shoppers in the whole store, which was weird, being in an empty toy store, so it wasn't that I was hassled or jostled or even spoken to, but just the overwhelming amount of *stuff*. The MyScene Barbie she wants is horrific-looking. I can't even begin to describe it. And the other things I had made mental notes on were either not in stock or not there. And I forgot to find something for yet another birthday party on Saturday, but I think I'll try a different store next time. Maybe they'll be better stocked.

Smurfin' Like It's 1999

D.D. watches the kid channel almost incessantly (the shame!), and they have been advertising a show for weeks: The ABCs of the Smurfs (called Schlumpfs in German). Tomorrow night, all these German celebrities are slated to come on the show and talk about their smurf memories.

That set me and L.H. off on a round of smurf-talk:

Smurf 1: Oh, no! Gargamel found our mushroom village!
Smurf 2: We're smurfed!

Smurf 1 to Smurfette over a glass of smurf-berry juice: Wanna smurf?

On viewing Crack-Addict Smurf lying in a gutter: He must have been smurfing up again.

Smurf 1, after walking in on Smurf 2 in the bathroom: I caught him smurfing!

And so on and so forth. Maybe not so funny as Mimi Smartypants, but that is a level I am still hoping to attain, someday...

Attack of the Invertebrates

It's cool and drizzly today, so we were able to see our first snails of the year. Dude, these aren't just any snails, these are *escargot* (according to our neighbor). The shells are at least the diameter of a silver dollar, and the bodies are about 3 inches long and white. They are gross but cool. D.D. and I collect the empty shells; we're up to 2.

But as gross as the snails are, they are not nearly as disgusting as the slugs we saw in Sweden. Imagine a 4-inch-long dog turd, black or brown, that is determinedly sliming its way across the sidewalk where you are trying to walk. Now imagine *thousands* of them covering a hundred-yard-long sidewalk that is the only way to your child's daycare. The only thing worse is a cage full of locusts or millipedes (remember, we were recently at the Frankfurt Zoo; trust me on this one). *shudder*

The dark side of spring isn't all slime-laden invertebrates, though. It is also *copious hair loss*. I've always been a big shedder (no mispronouncing and snorting, JEKL!), especially compared to the two other long-haired persons, one long-haired cat, and one short-haired cat I share my home with. But the start of warm weather accelerates the process. It's bad enough that it happens at all, but it appears that *only the brown hairs* are jumping ship. At this rate, I'll be completely white by winter. And the white hairs are thick and kinky (my mom compared them to piano wire; thanks, Mom!), so I'll probably look like a female Einstein. But that is where the resemblance will end, unless my moustache (also turning white!) starts growing uncontrollably.

On the bright side, the pink and white blossoms are appearing hard on the heels of the yellow ones, which helps to cut the gloom of the low-lying clouds and drizzle. Yesterday was cool but sunny, so I worked on cleaning up our terrace. I don't really have a green thumb, more like a brown pinky, but I try. The previous tenants left behind 8 or 9 large planters with mostly unrecognizable contents. There's a small tree in one, and 3 or 4 have tayberry bushes (according to the only label left behind). They put out some pitiful berries last summer, longer and narrower than strawberries and quite bland. I don't know if they'll stay. Then there's some kind of good-smelling herb (maybe basil?) in some of the pots and a few chives in most of them. I stole the dirt out of the most weed-choked pot to plant a few seeds and repot a couple of plants I keep in the kitchen window. I don't really have high hopes for the seeds, which I have been saving from our fruit—it's more of a science than a gardening experiment—but I figure that if I haven't killed off the ivy or xmas cactus yet, they'll survive a little repotting.

Speaking of all things organic, remember the flaming ball of xmas tree? We have a compost can downstairs, so I wanted to do the right thing and put the tiny, singed tree in it. First I had to get the hot-glued-on ornaments and candles off. Turns out, it's not a tiny tree at all. It is a pine branch that was denuded, the stick jammed into a pot of clay, then the branchlets wired back onto the stick in the form of a tiny tree. So the damned thing was not alive at all (no wonder the water kept running straight through the pot, duh!) and was a fire hazard from the get-go. Next year we are going to be here the whole time, so we'll get a full-sized tree and use electric lights. Those two things alone should reduce our chances of a house fire.

I just realized this morning that classes start *next week*! Ack! Ack! Aaaaaaaack! (In case you were wondering how I feel about it.) Did I mention AAAAACK!!?

It's the Most Yellowful Time of the Year

If colors had personalities, yellow would be cheerful. It's the first color to make a widespread appearance in the spring around here, and I for one appreciate it.

Well, I finished my paper only 5 minutes after the department closed on Thursday, which is probably the closest to on time I've ever been with a paper. I managed to dodge several bullets—the black ink cartridge on our printer was almost empty, but held out for 40-something pages; some of my typed notes disappeared, but they were mostly digressions; and my instructor was totally cool and said I could turn it in "whenever"—and I got the damn thing out the door. So I was pretty pooped out Thursday evening (i.e., no blogging).

Friday we spent the day in Frankfurt. First we went to America (a.k.a. the Consulate) for a few hours to renew D.D.'s passport. As D.D. pointed out, it felt a bit strange to hear so much English.

Then we went to the zoo. It's east of the skyscrapers downtown, but we could still see buildings rising up around the zoo grounds. For a relatively small zoo, we still weren't able to see every single thing in 3-1/2 hours. We only saw the giraffes in the distance on our way to the restaurant (L.H. had found out via their web site that they have a Mexican restaurant—it was ok), and we tried to see the lions at 6:40 on our way to the gate (they close at 7), but some grumpy zookeeper was telling everyone to take off because they were closing. Jerk. Fortunately, a lion was in its outside enclosure, so we got a walk-by viewing.

Saturday we slept in, then we had to make the mother of all grocery trips because we were out of *everything*. Mother Hubbard looked in our pantry and was shocked. When I shop, I like to take a list, and I stick to the list, unless I think of something that I know we are definitely out of and that should have been on the list. L.H. takes a list, but he tends to use it more as a starting point. D.D. is 7 and wants everything in sight, list schmist. Sadly, L.H. and D.D. have had to become fairly adept at sensing when I'm reaching my grocery-shopping breaking point, at which time they become quiet and wary-eyed. I feel bad for them, but at least I retain my sanity and don't lash out at them.

There's a reason L.H. and I have stayed happily married for 10 (!) years:
Thursday morning, preparing to charge myself up for the last leg of paper-writing, I put on a full pot of coffee. L.H. was still in bed, but awake, so I told him, "I hope you've got your coffee-drinking shoes on." And he replied, "More like coffee-drinking Depends." Hee! I love that man!

Out of Pocket

I know everyone is panting breathlessly, waiting for my next sparkling update, but I've got nothing but a brain full of a linguistics paper on cognitive metaphors. So check back in next Friday once I've got the bitch turned in.

Errata

I didn't mean to imply in my previous post that gluttony is the primary trait L.H. has passed on to D.D. It's probably only a coincidence that they both love spaghetti more than our pets, because L.H. hated spaghetti as a child. His mother still finds it astounding that her small child who hated mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes and would only eat spaghetti plain with a little butter turned into such a big spaghetti fan.

No, love of language is the trait he's most proud of passing on. I asked D.D. a question last night, and she answered, "Oui. I mean, si." She's as fluent as any other second grader in German (according to her teacher), and L.H. keeps her in practice with Swedish. She's even mentioned wanting to learn more Spanish, in addition to the few words she remembers from kindergarten. And she is always asking language-related questions, like wanting to know about the letter 'e' with the two dots over it. (She should ask her dad; I have no idea.)

And she's like both of us in that she loves Ren and Stimpy. She's watched the first couple of seasons on DVD with us (thanks JEKL!), and she does a passable Stimpy voice. Hee!

***

Small kids are cute, but I'm glad D.D. has left that stage behind. There's a little sister at D.D.'s ballet class who I think is about 4, and everything she says comes out at the top of her voice. I guess I'm just not used to little people, but I think that would drive me ape shit if it were my child. I'm sure D.D. was a lot louder a few years back, but now she spends as much time as she can finagle sedated by television, so I'm more used to the loud toy commercials narrated by MONSTER TRUCK RALLEY-TYPE ANNOUNCERS. Yes, even here in Germany.

Mini-Me

Our Darling Daughter is a perfect mix of the two of us. When she was born, MIL said she looked just like me, and my mom said she looked just like L.H. When she was a little older, they switched positions, but there was no doubt that she belonged to both of us.

As she's gotten older, she looks more and more like me (to the point that my nephew swore that a photo of me at about age 6 was D.D.), with certain features that are her dad's. People we've just met even comment on it. It's a running joke that if we lose her in a crowd, I'll just ask everyone if they've seen a smaller version of me.

Anyone can manage to produce a genetic duplicate of themselves, though, so I'm more excited that she's taking after me in other respects. She loves to read. Every night, either L.H. or I read to her (she often reads along and corrects me when I misspeak), then she takes a book or two to bed for another 15-20 minutes of quiet reading. She's getting very fast, too, and will announce how many pages she's read when she's done. Some days she wants something short and easy, like one of her many Arthur (the Aardvark) books. Tonight she is reading a chapter book that came with her American Girl doll (thanks gwamma!).

But 2 recent events have proved beyond a doubt that she's got the reading gene. In a friendship book (remember those?) that went through her class recently, she put down "reading" as both her hobby and her favorite thing to do. Then as we were walking from the car to our house this afternoon (we're leasing our parking space to our neighbor, so we park on the street around the corner), she was *reading and walking*. Classic Nee childhood behavior. Only TV zombifies her more than books, and she is actually continuing to read now that we're home instead of turning on the TV (her usual M.O.).

Probably over a third of our household goods we shipped to Germany was books, and I am afraid the percentage will be somewhat higher when we eventually head back. I guess I should start saving for that now. Eek!

Added 30 minutes later: She tried to eat and read, but I nixed that because 1. I am using the book for my research project and don't want it covered in spaghetti sauce, and 2. she would not actually manage to eat anything, and I'd rather that reading not become mixed up in her mind with dieting.

And to round out the picture of her genetic heritage, she is able and willing to eat copious amounts of spaghetti. Her father is (in)famous in his family for having eaten something like 15 meatballs at one meal. Peas, meet pod.

And Now for the Rest of the Story

Our Little Shop of Horrors plant put out a new leaf, and it looked like a Venus flytrap on its side until it finished unfurling. I'm starting to think it might be an alien life form.

***

Turns out I misread the sign on the new restaurant in our village. It's a pizzeria/kebab house. I guess I was confused by the picture of a guy *wearing a sombrero*. That doesn't really say "pizza" or "kebab" to me. They don't even deliver, so I doubt we'll ever try them out. Besides, one should approach such a place only if one has acclimated oneself be eating a steady diet of Taco Bell and Sonic chili dogs.

***

There's an older couple from Spain that live across the street from us, and I see them sometimes when I'm out and about. Today the lady was wearing a red leather jacket, red leather boots, and a hot pink knit tube?skirt. I saw a blind man behind her wince.

The Navel-Gazing Post

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel like a meat sack?

***

I have to say that I'm a rather reserved person (in person). Once I get to know and love someone, I can be the real, the obnoxious me, but until then I can be a hard nut to crack.

I'm the same way with my writing. I've only let a couple of people that I love and trust read my fiction (not the blither-blather I post here), and I only talk about it in a rather general way here. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in how other writers go about the business of writing.

One thing that I haven't made up my mind about is keeping writing-in-progress type statistics. Some writerly blogs I have seen have a special column dedicated to number of words written for the month, or number of manuscripts sent out to publishers, or number of rejections for a year. I can understand *mentioning* those things in a self-woo-hoo kind of way (like, I hand-wrote 3 steno pad pages of a long-dormant story last night; woo hoo!), but I feel that I myself would get so bogged down in the minutiae of this kind of "bookkeeping" that I wouldn't manage to keep writing. Maybe that's just an aspect of my anal-retentive nature.

One of the blogs I follow irregularly is from a person I came to respect on the recently vacated writing list, and she is a member of a smaller group that self-selected from the larger critique community. Apparently, they use the numbers I mentioned above as part of an internal support system comprising congrats, reminders, and a shoulder to cry on. It kind of reminds me of a weight-loss program, where every member is trying to accomplish the same goal but is eager to encourage every other member in the process. Anyhow, I can see how putting your numbers out there in such a situation would be part of the way such a group would function, but working alone, I don't think it's for me.

To put it a bit crudely, to me it's like a potty-training parent: she and every other parent in the same boat is totally excited that Susie made a poopy in the potty, but no one else wants to hear it.

So forgive me if I don't post about my poopies on a regular basis, but occasionally I'll get off my high horse and offer myself a very small self-congratulations here.

Wallowing in Spring

Most Germans—at least, those I've observed here in our village—take their seasonal responsibilities very seriously. When we had our first cold snap in the fall, everyone dutifully trooped out for the last lawn-mowing and hedge-trimming of the year. On the third day of spring weather, people could be seen sweeping and scrubbing sidewalks, trimming rose bushes, and putting out new flowers. So I find it humorous to see one house where they still have plastic evergreen garlands and candy canes festooning their balcony. They may not have made it out on the balcony since they put the stuff out, but you can't miss it from the entry to the house.

After the first day or two of industriousness, though, everyone is out catching some sun and enjoying themselves out of doors. Even though the river is up over the sidewalk on the north bank again (all that melted snow had to go somewhere), the river meadows farther down were covered with bodies when I rode the bus past this afternoon. At the moment [of composing], I myself am soaking up some sun at the playground with Darling Daughter, whose goal seems to be filthing herself up as much as humanly possible. She's taking a break from throwing herself off the swing into the dirt to watch a ladybug that landed on her hand. This week we've seen our first ladybugs, bumble bees (the size of jawbreakers), and butterflies of the year.

Another marker of spring is the annual migration of the ice cream parlor owners from the Mediterranean. ("Italian ice cream" is *the thing* around here.) Their return is heralded by the appearance of patio furniture outside of every shop that can be considered a dining establishment by the furthest stretch of the imagination. Last year, it was still pretty cold when the restaurateurs decided it was spring, but people flocked to the outdoor tables like lemmings, huddled up in their heavy coats and scarves.

I can't help but compare this spring to the one we experienced in Sweden, which started *late*. D.D. had to hunt easter eggs in a snowsuit because it was that cold, and there were a few flurries while we were outside. I don't think we actually saw the sun until early May. I don't remember exactly *when* it was, but I remember going downtown and seeing that every inch of grass in every public area was covered in half-dressed bodies, and every shop was empty. I thought I, the Texas-raised girl who was used to 360 days of sunlight a year (only a slight exaggeration; the Austin visitor center site says it gets 300 days), was the one to appreciate it the most, but it turns out that power-sun-worshipping is a popular sport in Sweden.

***

Darling Daughter has some strong prejudices. Lovely Husband was flipping channels on the TV and came across a concert by some German singer I'm not familiar with. D.D. immediately declared that he was too old to be cool (about 50 in her opinion), plus he was singing a country song, and that was definitely out. So be forewarned that she has deemed herself at almost-8-years-old to be the arbiter of all things cool.

On the way home from the playground D.D. was telling me that she likes to call the still-leafless trees naked. Then she said, "I see your penis, tree! hee! hee!" It's hard to keep your cool in front of your child when you want to fall down laughing.

Spring Fever

It is glorious outside, the epitome of a spring day. The sun is out; we could tell before we even got out of bed this morning. I hadn't noticed—thanks to all the overcast recently—that the sun is already much farther north in the sky. Our car's external thermometer said it was 15C (around 67F) yesterday. This Sunday is the official first day of spring, but it appears to be getting a running start. I'm all for it.

There are snow-drops and yellow and purple crocuses in the neighbor's yard, confirmed with Darling Daughter's binoculars (thanks westtexasgirl!). A little snow is clinging tenaciously to a few roofs and the shadier parts of people's yards, but I have full confidence that it will be gone in another day or two. Oh happy day!

Self-flagellation, again: If it weren't a time-waster itself, I'd make myself write 100 times, "I will not fart around." But instead I will work on my paper. Only 16 days until the due-date. Ack!

Composed March 12

At the supermarket meat counter (pre-packaging is not so big here), you can get ground beef or pork or a mix, so I asked for the mix to put in spaghetti. I get home—and it's pork all the way, baby. I should have suspected something was amiss when the woman gave me the exact amount I asked for, because she usually messes it up on the order of 100 grams. Something had to give, I suppose.

The mistake wasn't enough to ruin my lovely spaghetti dinner, but I was still a bit put out. So Lovely Husband says, "Eat pork and be merry," only he puts in a slight pause after "eat." That cracked us up. Now he's considering sending it to the Pork Advisory Board as a new slogan. Even if they don't use it, it will be immortalized here in my blog.

Mother Nature Hates Me

On Wednesday, Darling Daughter and I spotted the first flowers of spring, *2* snow-drops (little, white, bell-shaped flowers that are the harbingers of spring here and in Sweden) in someone's yard. Thursday, it turned cold and dark. Today, Saturday, we woke to a heavy snowfall. It is still too warm, relatively speaking, for it to stick, so everything was slushy when I ran down to the store around noon. Since we are now guaranteed to neither starve nor freeze to death (yay! tile oven!), I do not plan to move from the house for the rest of the weekend.

[Added about 4 pm—Mother Nature is now taunting me; we're getting alternating clear skies/sunshine and dark gray clouds, but no more snow. Hooray! The snow from this morning has melted off most of the roofs around us. Double hooray!]

I suspect Lovely Husband of a plot to push me over the edge. It is subtle and insidious. This morning he repeatedly said, in a delighted voice: "Look at all the snow!" "It's steadily snowing!" "I love snow!" See the simplicity, the evil?

***

As an aspiring writer, I feel it is my duty to propagate new words as I come across them. In that spirit, here is a bit of new vocabulary (with attributions) for you to enjoy and use:

fantacular (4-year-old niece) – fantastic plus spectacular, I think
stupitude (me) – state of being stupid
a sphincto-cranial event (via John Scalzi) – an instance of head-in-ass syndrome

***

I had a very unproductive week, school-wise. I'm only halfway through my primary source for my paper, and I haven't even begun my analysis. I got a lot of housework and Internet surfing done, though, which I guess you could say is the mental equivalent of staring and drooling.

I admit that one reason I haven't finished reading for my paper is that I have been reading for pleasure. My first choice would be fantasy, but since I've read all my books (1) and the pickin's are slim in English at the library (I'm too cheap to go out and buy books), I have only read one Terry Pratchett novel in that genre. So I turned instead to Jane Austen. I have a copy of Pride and Prejudice at home, so I started by rereading that. Then I read Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

I have to say that P&P is still my favorite work by JA, followed now by MP. S&S? Not so much liking there. It was hard to understand, and therefore empathize with, the characters in the first half of the book. I may give it another try before I have to return it. There's still Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion to read, so the order of favorites may still change.

(1) "La chair est triste, hélas! et j'ai lu tous les livres" ["Alas, the flesh is weary, and I have read all the books"]-- Stéphane Mallarmé

Writing and Weather

I used to lurk on a writing-themed yahoo group—until the number of personal attacks outnumbered the number of useful comments—but now have no place to post my brilliant insights on writing. So consider this a thinking-out-loud post and feel free to skip ahead.

One thing that used to annoy me about the writing list was how *literal* people were in their critiques of other people's work. (It's a surprisingly easy trap to fall into.) For instance, suppose you read, "His eyes were filled with anger," or "I could see the fear in his eyes." (1) I understand the argument that these are perhaps overused expressions, but I seriously wanted to start knocking heads together when people objected to them because they weren't literally true.

Now I am reading Metaphors We Live By for my term paper, and the authors are able to clarify the source of my annoyance for this example: human beings conceive of eyes as "containers" for emotions. This idea is so intrinsic to us that we can say someone's eyes are "full of" anger/fear/hatred/joy and not think twice about what it means. We use the metaphor "eye=emotion-container" in our everyday speech, not just as a literary device, so when we encounter it in literature, we should not assume it is an affectation.

So take that, critiquers!

(1) Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press, 1980. p. 50
***

The weather-caster on CNN International said that Europe was experiencing lower than normal temperatures for this time of year. Well, DUH!

We're currently getting either rain or very wet snow. It doesn't matter, as the effect is the same: melting snow. Hoorah! I would gladly take a whole week of dreary, gray skies and showers if it means the snow will finally be gone. Lovely Husband was hoping for *more* snow, but he's obviously off his rocker. I don't think that's proof enough to have him locked up, though. Hmm...

I will say one nice thing about the snow here—it stays white all winter. In Sweden, it would turn dirty gray, and even at the start of May there were still glaciers of blackish ice on all the street corners where the snow plows had deposited snow over months and months. I guess there's just not a large enough volume of snow here to keep gravelly slush on the streets and sidewalks. The snow that sticks around is invariably on stretches of ground that no one has to (or can) walk across.

***

Novel Do-Nots, Cont'd:
3. No one will live for centuries without biological or gravitational effects. My old-timers will look like withered potatoes, not young people in the prime of life. This applies to wizards, sorceresses, elves, etc.

People Watching

I am an inveterate people-watcher. I haven't veered off into voyeurism--yet?--but I really can't help noticing that the love-child of Sherlock Holmes and David Crosby (complete with mutton-chop sideburns and a long-stemmed pipe) was accompanying Anna Nicole Smith's grandmother through downtown today.

Remember Better Off Dead with John Cusack? A woman in the bank was wearing the dad's aardvark-fur coat, minus the cute aardvark-head hood. Where do you even find a coat like that?!

Here's another one: remember the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall? A woman on the bus was wearing a furry? feathery? fuzzy? scarf that looked as if she had skinned the C.L. and dyed her fuzzy neck-thing purple. Ghastly.

Yes, I know, I'm probably going to burn in hell.

Cat Psychology 101—Now Enrolling

Here is how I like to imagine our cats view the world.

Eliza Cat (lying on the radiator at the top of the stairs):
"Here comes that woman! She's headed straight for me! Do I have time to hide?! Maybe if I crouch down she won't see me! OH NO! She's spotted me! Run for the bed!!"
(Shoots under the bed like a flash.)

Later, back on the radiator:
"Here she comes *again*! Must flee!"
(Jumps down to the stairs, flings self between rails and drops down one foot to the top of the tile oven.)
"Whew! That was close! It's a good thing I'm so clever and agile!"

Missy Cat (lying across the middle of the stairs):
"That woman wants to come upstairs again—over my dead body, Beeyotch!"

Quickie

The Chinese take-away was replaced by some sort of Mexican pizza restaurant. I only saw the newly painted window as I drove by the other day. Although the word "Mexican" is on the sign, we don't have high hopes for the quality of the restaurant, as there is a "Mexican" fast food restaurant in town that is pretty much a Turkish kebab house, maybe with a bell pepper thrown into the food. The meat is that shaved goat or pork or whatever. I don't know what kind of indigenous gods there are in Turkey, but that place will definitely give you Montezuma's revenge, if you know what I mean, so we avoid it.

Alas! (My new favorite exclamation after reading Pride and Prejudice. Not that it's in there, but whatever.)

Indoor Fun

When I took D.D. to the movies last week, we got there early enough to catch the very end of the credits from the earlier showing, and I saw that the band that did the soundtrack is named Bananafishbones. That is the best band name I have ever heard! I am already planning to name any goldfish we get in the future that. It's probably a good thing that there won't be any baby-naming possibilities in my future, because Bananafishbones S. has such a ring to it, don't you think?

***

We inherited some kind of tropical tree thing when we moved into our apartment, and it makes me a little nervous. For starters, it leans over the stairs (it's much too heavy to move), and we brush against it every time we go by. I'm not sure why it hasn't died, because we hardly ever remember to water it. And it has these weird things—I think they're some sort of air-roots—that dangle off it between its big, frond-y leaves; some of them are several feet long, and sometimes they stick out over the stairs, too, like long feelers. If we all turn up missing, check the plant.

***

In other news, snow.

***

Sometimes I don't think D.D. lives in the same world with the rest of us. We were watching a movie, and some characters were talking about the prizes (record albums) for a talent contest they were planning to enter. Out of the blue, D.D. says, "I hope they like bagels." There wasn't anything about bagels in the scene, so I asked her to explain what she meant, and she said, "You know, they're like donuts with little seeds on top." Thanks for clearing that up, honey.

D.D. is forever going on about having a "project" or "experiment", usually involving water, plastic bags, and/or strings. Many of her "projects" are variations on a disco ball, but she still has managed to make some, uh, creative things, and even a few things that work, like a string pulley. She's not scared of math, either, so it occurred to me that if her 7-year-old's plans of becoming a dancer don't pan out, she might end up an engineer. But then my experience of working with engineers sits up and screams in horror, "NOOOOO!" I guess 7 is too young for any of us to be making career plans for her yet, but perhaps I will gently steer her away from the soul-sucking career of engineer anyway.

***

I love this site: The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord. It includes classics such as
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
and
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.

It has inspired me to start a list of things I have seen in fantasy novels that I will NOT do in my novel:
1. My protagonist will never know something without knowing how he knows it.
2. My protagonist will never instinctually know how to do some horribly complicated task (see number 1).

This is just the beginning. I'll add to the list as I come across other useful items. Feel free to send suggestions.

I wasn't going to haiku about the weather again, but during a flurry of crafts with Darling Daughter, my lack of artistic talent prevented me from visualizing the most aesthetically pleasing arrangement of the available beads, foam shapes, paper, and glitter glue, so I had to resort to creating a poem out of lettered beads. In case you can't make it out onscreen, it says

blue skies-sunshine-green-
only a figment of my
imagination

It's ok, but it's not the same without the glitter glue effect.