This is what 0C looks like at 8 am on an otherwise fine Spring morning. (See the chimney smoke at bottom right?) 

Someone's in the Kitchen with Hannah

Hannah has been very domestic lately. First she was on an apple sauce-making kick. She made raw apple sauce mostly by herself (I helped a little with peeling and coring the apples, but she did all the chopping) *twice* last weekend, and it made a tasty dessert. But not very much, because she pooped out after chopping 2 apples.

Then she got the idea from a crafts-and-science type magazine (based on a tv show for kids) to make her own soap. John bought her a bar of non-creamy soap (which is surprisingly hard to find, since Germans seem to use only liquid soaps) and a lemon, and she set to work with a grater and some cookie cutters. (I got to take over with the grating when she started to flag, which added an element of danger to the whole process.) Now I know how the Pilgrims and Pioneers felt, cooking and using homemade soap. She also insisted on keeping some of the soapy water from where I was soaking the pot she melted the soap shavings in, so we poured it in a recycled squeeze ketchup bottle. Her bathroom is now littered in bits of homemade soap, either from the bits that made it into the soap water, or from the bits that have broken off the bars.

I just wish she would be half so energetic and helpful when it came time for her to put away her laundry, clear away her toys, or empty the dishwasher.

Brain, Brain, Go Away...

I am having one of those manic days where I am basically on the verge of running around in circles gibbering. I’m pretty sure John thinks I’ve already crossed that boundary, but trust me, there’s still a ways to go before I am in full-fledged freak-out mode. I just. can. not. sit. still. Or quietly.

Gah!

In other news, our landlord says it may take 4 weeks or more to complete the winter garden (it’s not quite a sunroom...), because it will take around three weeks just for the windows to be made to order. Look at us with the special-order windows. La-di-da!

More Construction-Related Stuff

I wanted to sneak a picture of the guys doing the construction work, but Germany (and basically all of Europe under the EU) has pretty strict privacy laws, so I wouldn’t want to get myself in trouble by putting their pictures up on the Internet. So instead I found a photo or two to direct you all to.

There is a long tradition here of the apprentice system, and carpenters (“hand workers” in general, I guess) have their own traditional clothing even. So here’s a photo of their pants, which I find very interesting with all the handy pockets and loops and zippers and things. Not all carpenters wear the full get-up to every job, but they all wear the super-handy pants.

(By the way, click on the earlier photo to biggify it.)

Some Old-School Bitchin' and Moanin'

I am going to be co-teaching a couple of translation/interpreting classes this coming up semester, and so far I have no contract and have not heard from my teaching partner, who is actually in charge of the classes. So I contacted the person who asked me to do the job, and she told me who I needed to see in the department about the contract.

You have to understand the German office system—and this applies to private businesses, public offices, and even doctors—there is no 8-5 availability. The people may be there, but they hold office hours (like university profs in the US), and that is the only time they are open to people who do not work in their direct office environment. (Actually, for my doctor’s office at least, this means that they have “walk-in” office hours in the morning, but to see the doctor in the afternoon you have to have an appointment.) For university employees this can be as little as *1 hour per week*. I shit you not. This person is officially only available on Wednesdays 10:30-11:30. So yesterday when I got the reply from my contact person, I thought, “Hey, good timing, Nee,” and trotted on over this morning.

And the chick is out sick. The secretary in that office is... not very friendly. The secretary’s office is actually open to the public every morning, so I popped my head in to ask a question about the missing person, and you’d think I had interrupted her in the middle of open-heart surgery the way she looked at me. I’m sorry to interrupt your web-surfing, beeyotch, but I’ve got a problem that *falls within the scope of your job duties*. Aaarrgh!

So there was an hour-and-a-half down the toilet when I could have been proofreading (or blogging *g*). But I feel better now for bitching about it, so maybe I can settle down to work.

The Construction Begins!

It's really happening--we're having a "winter garden" put in. Yesterday they started putting up scaffolding in the front of our house so they can go over the roof to access our terrace (instead of barging into the apartment--and hopefully disturbing our turdy little teenaged neighbor "Matthew", heh). But Spring graced them with heavy rain and a little hail, so they had to stop and finish that this morning. Then Spring rained on them a little more today, but they bravely came back in the afternoon and started tearing down the terrace. Woot! Pictures of the construction to follow.

Even though the garbage men are still officially on strike in our state, they took pity on us and came around one day last week to clear out some of the mountains of plastic bags that were threatening to topple over and kill passersby in an avalanche of garbage. I am telling you, that was a stroke of PR genius. To me, it made it seem like the garbage men were totally willing to work, if only the *state* would be reasonable.

The recycling is still there, but tin cans and plastic packaging won't raise the stink that food scraps would.

John and I have been busily translating, just digging ourselves out to accompany Hannah to and from school and to take care of the bare necessities (food and the occasional school supplies for Hannah). But we will have to work to the sounds of construction directly over our heads starting next week, because our landlord is finally getting around to building on a "winter garden" where our terrace currently resides, which he has been talking about since we moved in 2-1/2 years ago. The carpenters came Thursday bright and early to take measurements, and they are supposed to be back early next week to start work. I will photo-blog the work, just for my own amusement. You have been forewarned.

John = Jesus

Run, do not walk, to Sluggo's Flickr site to see John as Jesus. (Sluggo = Sharon's John, for those in the know.) John has finally reached his life's goal!

Snippets

I hope my sucking fixed the computer shutting itself off, because I am sick of hearing Hannah in the computer room, "Shee-ot!"

More signs of spring:
* dry skin that makes my hands look like chicken feet
* allergy nosebleeds for me and John (John hardly ever even gets a cold, so this is a big deal)
* narcissus
* alternating bouts of exhaustion, energy, and insanity
* rain and high winds
* lows above freezing and highs nearing 60

John tricked Hannah into watching the Swedish movie, and then I got pulled into it, too. It's really cute.

Hannah told me this morning, while I was trying to get her out of bed, "You sound awful. And you look like the Devil." I had a picture in my head of a tiny Professor Higgings.

John's final Flickr update

John finally went through the last 2 stages of shaving; check the Foto link on the right.

Hannah didn't finish her homework until almost 9, so I'm too tired to think of anything else to add. Sorry.

Time Change!

Psyche! Europe changes to daylight savings time a week earlier than in the US this year, so we will be *8* hours ahead of our Central Time Zone homies for a week.

If you are planning to take your child to see "Eight Below", be forewarned

*spoiler*

that there is one scary scene where a seal jumps out of (or maybe from behind?) a whale carcass. Hannah went to go see this movie (titled "Antarctica" here in Germany) with a friend and her family, then spent the night with them, and the next morning she was still horribly worked up about how that scene had almost given her a heart attack. So it's your typical, good, clean Disney fun.

I don't think we woke up in a particularly bad mood this morning, but by the time John and Hannah left at about 1 to go swimming with friends, we were on the verge of a three-way, Homer-esque choke-athon. We have been watching DVDs on our laptop since we didn't want to buy a DVD player when we weren't planning on living here permanently. But recently the DVD drive has been crapping out on us, sometimes working, but often not. I had checked out a Swedish Astrid Lindgren video (Ronja Rövardotter) at the library bus, and John wanted to watch it this morning. But this was one of the crappy mornings, and he was in a *foul* mood after screwing around with the computer, trying to make it work. So after they left, I got to work with my superhuman problem-solving skills.

Oh, yeah. We've also been having the problem that sometimes the computer will shut itself off with no warning. This usually happens when Hannah is playing a game online. Arthur's ice cream game has had this effect several times.

Yesterday I had already run the system check and defragmented the hard drive, so that wasn't it. This afternoon I ran the full virus-check, but it shut down halfway through. Now, I had already seen the suggestion in an online forum that this shut-down problem is often due to overheating, so I opened the window to let in some brisk, cool springtime air. Started the computer back up, the virus check ran all the way through with no problems. So then I shut everything back down and got out the vacuum cleaner. That was the solution offered on the online source. There was a *lot* more dust and gunk than you *ever* want to see come out of your computer, trust me. I couldn't get the section over the fans open because I didn't have a special screwdriver (a 6-pointed star instead of a Philips-head like the others, pff), but I was able to get the fuzz out by sticking my teeny, tiniest crochet hook through the holes over the fans and pulling the dust bunnies (which were pretty nasty and menacing) out. Sewing nerds will win out over techno nerds every time!

So then I pulled out the DVD drive, vacuumed a little more, and started 'er up. And it decided to play along, letting me put in movie and actually playing it. While it was still working, I wanted to start backing things up, because it had been a while. But the damn CD burning function didn't seem to be working. So I put in a DVD that seemed to be for troubleshooting DVD/CD problems, but in reality it reinstalled some DVD movie-playing software. Urgh.

FINALLY, I figured out that the CD I was putting in wasn't ready for burning (I don't know computer terminology), but I found a simple check-box to enable CD writing, and ka-zaam! We are backed up!

John says I am the best computer sucker he knows. ha ha, I forgot how to laugh. But we have both noticed a *huge* drop in the amount of time the fans are spinning, to the point that I have feared the computer turning itself off several times when it is just the fans switching off. Hell, right now, I have *5* Explorer windows open, including the dreaded Arthur game, and the fan just switched off as I am typing. Before that, it was running on the lowest setting. So go me!

Happy 300 to me!

According to Blogger, this is my 300th post since starting in October 2004. I know for a fact that John thought I'd never make it this long. *nya nya nya*

But this really is an actual post, with actual content, not just patting myself on the back, so keep reading.

The last couple of weeks have been really odd. The kind of odd that gets you invited to the "Very Jerry Springer Easter Special", if you know what I mean. First, my paternal grandfather proposed to my mother. Marriage. (My folks are divorced.) My dad had moved Grandpa a few months back so he was living closer to him because Grandpa was getting forgetful--stuff like meals and taking his meds; not good. But Grandpa wanted to move back to his own house 4 hours away, and he was lonely, so he popped the question to my mom when she took him some dinner one night. (He didn't always remember that she was his ex-daughter-in-law.)

Grandpa finally talked Dad into moving him back, but before he could talk my mom into joining him, he died. Two days after moving. Of a heart attack.

Some of my family made the comment that at least he was back where he wanted to be, in his own home, but maybe all the stress and excitement of moving was a contributing factor. Who can say?

Then there was the question of what to do with all his stuff. The man was a merchant marine and had 30 years of traveling in which to fill up his house with oddities from all over the world. John couldn't talk me into asking for the African figures and masks carved out of teak?ebony? or the "adult" bar-ware, and I couldn't talk him into the velvet matador painting or the Japanese collage made out of iridescent butterly wings, so I guess we are at an impasse. And under no condition whatsoever do we want the *giant, scary monkey* from the attic. (Picture one of those wind-up monkeys--with or without cymbals--and enlarge it to 3-feet tall. *shudder*) That damn thing gave every child in the family nightmares. Trust me, you do *not* want to wake up in the middle of the night and see it sitting next to the bed.

Bon voyage, Gramps, and happy sailing.

Spring, etc.

We’ve had the computer pretty well tied up with work, so even though I had jotted down a bit here and there to post, I haven’t had much chance to do it. And when I finally did, it wasn’t relevant anymore. *sigh* The life of a blogger.

Spring limped in over the weekend, giving us enough sunshine to warm up the house a bit—just enough to take off my sweater and open a few windows, anyhow. But my suspicions that Winter had just gone off for a quick nap might actually prove to be correct. The temps dropped down again Monday (John thought it was close to freezing when he walked Hannah to school at 7:30), and it started raining yesterday, but not too heavily. A friend said he heard we might get another snow. Heaven forefend! I’ll take the cold rain, thankyouverymuch.

But there are other signs of Spring that give me hope, like the lengthening days; it’s easier to get out of bed at 6:45 when it’s already getting light out. And the *craziness*. Have you ever seen someone chug 4 espressos? That’s me, minus the espresso. It’s kind of hard to stay on task when you’re channeling Cornholio.

Last night we watched Super Size Me. I am never going to McD again. Ever. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I had actually been there yesterday morning. Fried apple pies are my secret shame—that’s right! They still *fry* them babies here in Europe. Ka-ching!—well, they would be if I went there more than 3 or 4 times a year. John had confessed a side-trip to the Indian take-away when he was in town last week, and I had just missed the bus, so I decided to kill 20 minutes (and unfortunately, all of the skin in my mouth) by partaking of the fried deliciousness. I’m surprised my body didn’t go into shock, seeing how I’ve been in one of my “food is gross” phases lately, and therefore trying to avoid it as much as possible. John bought a metric ton of fruit last weekend, though, so I’ve been having to eat that just to keep it from the fruit flies. But a diet of fruit and fried apple pie just doesn’t work. Anyhow, the point of this paragraph was to say, “Watch Super Size Me.” (The DVD extras were way cool.) It’s like The Jungle for the 21st century.

John's New Look

Facial hair style #2 going up on Flickr. Note the picture of Hannah passed out on the floor after seeing her dad with a handle-bar moustache for the first time.

Sad spring flowers. Pitiful. 

I was going to do this whole photo blogging extravaganza on the fight to the death between Winter and Spring, but frankly, Spring really is just not trying. A few bulb flowers (crocuses) have braved the cold since the snow-drops emerged from under the results of the early-March snowfall (hence the name-get it?), but they are pitifully few and far between. I�ll post my sad, sad picture of them after this.

Then when I got home with Hannah after school, IT DARED TO SNOW! Only a few flakes, but still! The nerve! That is on top of the recalcitrant piles of snow in every shady spot, including in front of our house. (But it is even worse as you go up the hill north of us to the next village; there is still a 2-foot high pile of snow where the snow plows deposited it earlier.) So you get a photo of a neighbor's glaciated driveway. And to the dog who took a crap on it: my sentiment exactly.
 

From the Mind of Nee

John said I should start collecting all my „unique utterances“, meaning things that no one in the world has ever said before, in all likelihood. That’s a polite way of saying “all the crazy crap that comes out of my mouth” (although there’s not enough paper in the world for that). So here are the few we could remember (going back 10 years), but that have become the stuff of legend around Chez Nee:

To John: “Baby David Crosby can kiss my butt!”

To Hannah: “Quit kissing Lenin and eat your dinner!”

To John: “Quit rolling my shit up!” [shit=car window, in this case]

Running on Half a Brain

My Palm PDA is not just a personal organizer, it is like a portable second brain. In the time I've had it, it has become the second half of my soul.

So I was crushed to discover that it had completely crapped out on me and all my data was wiped out. Fortunately, I had backed it up recently, so it wasn't a complete loss (except my copious scribblings in NotePad, *sob*); I could reload most everything from the desktop software, but I still feel betrayed. It was like waking up to find a stranger in bed with you (unless that stranger is Johnny Depp, rrowrrr!).

On the other hand, finding my PDA blank was also somewhat liberating. No lists of things to do and vocabulary to learn hanging around my neck anymore! (Until I reloaded, of course.) I'm *so* tempted to go back and dump them on purpose. And also a bunch of the email I've been hoarding that I mean to "do something" with, "someday."

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free. (Nikos Kazantzakis)

See, Nikos Kazantzakis gets it!

John's new hobby: shaving

Since we are currently between semesters, and John has put a note on his door that students who need to reach him should just email him, he felt it was time for one of his hair purges. So this morning, he shaved off just a bit of his beard. Click on the link under "Fotos" on the right to see the initial results. You vote: David Crosby or Lemmy Kilmister?

He plans on altering the beard every couple of days, so check early, check often.

THAT IS IT! I am sick of your crap, Mother Nature! We are through! I mean it! This is war!

The dark patch among the snow in the neighbor's yard is where the water table has risen so high that the springs in the area are backing up, so to speak. It's not visible in the picture, but water is gushing out of the ground in several spots in the green area.

And in other news, dinner with friends was a success. John made chicken enchiladas. Yum!