Ode to Librarians

„March of the Librarians“: Watch their annual migration to the ALA conference and observe them interacting in their natural habitat

The Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos: “Read or Die”, a sentiment after my own heart

Librarian Action Figure: The perfect replacement for all the superfluous Barbies in your life.

Library Thing: Turn your personal collection into your own private library. One day I’ll get around to joining.

Hello from Boring-ville

So, what have I been up to lately? Not much.

I have laid in so many plastic containers in my death-match against the meal moths that my pantry would make a Tupperware salesman perish with delight. It had gotten to where I couldn’t walk past the pantry without inspecting the dry goods, and yes, I was *still* finding worms. Aarrgh!

After suffering from the ill-timed antics of our booby-trap shower head *bonk!* for 3+ years, we finally got around to finding the right replacement part for attaching the shower head to the wall (37 bucks for one little part!). It took the combined might of John and myself to get the original bit off, but it was worth every ounce of elbow grease. Now we’ll have to think of another way to keep overnight guests on their toes.

I’ve been going through a very Betty Crocker phase recently. First I tried a recipe for beer bread out of a magazine for students I picked up at the university. It was only so-so. Then since we were out of store-bought bread, and no one wanted to eat any more beer bread, I made a batch of my old standby, James Beard’s whole wheat bread. Then I got really creative and made a Swedish Lenten specialty, semlor. mmm... calorie bomb... I still have a few other items on my to-make list, but I am quickly running out of steam.

John has decided to call the last couple of months “The Winter That Wasn’t.” Here’s a little photographic proof, taken by yours truly last weekend as Hannah and I walked through the rain to the bank.
Last weekend:


This time last year:

The Funny Farm

Me: “Why does the kitty need a truck full of [Playmobil] swords?”
Lego-master: “Should I know?”
Then she explained that it was in defense against all the thousands of kids who want a cute little kitty. And then when the kids run and tell their moms about the cat with the truck and the swords, the moms say, “Oh, my kids! So young! And so drunk!”

John is not so good with the aphorisms: “Remember, honey, that which doesn’t kill you will probably maim you anyway.” Whatever happened to “Buck up, little camper?”

John also has a hearing problem. For instance, this morning he thought I was singing “Take this cat and shove it” (*insert bizarre mental image*), when in fact, I was singing “Take this food and shove it” to the cats in response to their incessant pestering about their breakfast.

One of the videos John bought in Texas was Labyrinth. He asked Hannah on several occasions if she wanted to watch it, and she turned him down flat (her usual m.o.). I thought it might be too scary for her, but he finally talked her into it one dull evening around the house. I kept waiting for the devil to appear. “That’s Legend,” said John (but you could hear “Dummy” from the tone of his voice). Hey, you know I’m bad with names, but I guess no Tom Cruise and lots of Muppets should have been a tip-off.

The bad part about Hannah seeing Labyrinth is that she now has an aversion to David Bowie. “Pants...too tight! Hair...too big! Make-up...too gay!” Anyhoo, there’s a really popular band here in Germany called Tokio Hotel. They are all about 18, so they have quite the teen and preteen following, all across Europe. The band is on the cover of a recent issue of Stern magazine, so we were all checking them out when we got the mag. The lead singer, Bill, is mighty androgynous, as well as being a big fan of David Bowie. Can you tell?


Hannah claims to be put off by Bill’s feminine mystique, but I know for a fact that at one time, she had some Tokio Hotel postcards/trading cards that she bought with her own money, and she had written “Sweet!” on the back of all of them.

Don’t you hate it when you pick out a new shower gel, and then you actually use it, and it smells like upholstery cleaner?

Organization is not my forte, so needless to say, keeping up with assigning Hannah chores and paying out allowance in a timely manner have never really worked out around here. We have switched to the pay-as-you-go system; Hannah isn’t necessarily doing more chores, but she’s not hounding me about late allowance money either, because I paid her on the spot. One night I was telling her that when I get old, she’ll have to take care of me, kind of like a baby, feed me, wash me—“I’ll just Swiffer you off,” she offered. So guess who’s now in charge of dusting...

I got through my student-teaching practice run (I have no idea what you would call a one-time, one-hour session of teaching by a visiting teacher-in-training) and felt pretty good about it and got mostly positive feedback afterwards. And I found out yesterday that I got a really good grade on it, so the day started off good. Then I took a final I was not fully prepared for (bad Nee! no biscuit!) in a class that no one was really sure what was going on in anyway. *Seventy* people enrolled on the first day, and *eleven* took the exam. Add to that the fact that I thought I started my period halfway through the test (false alarm), and you can see that the second half of the day took a steep nose-dive.

All I Want for Xmas...

One of Hannah’s permanent teeth was coming in above her baby tooth, so she had to have the baby tooth pulled. It and the one next to it had been loose for months but just hadn’t been getting any looser. Since she was already numb, the dentist went ahead and pulled the neighboring tooth as well; he said it wouldn’t be long until it came out anyway. Hannah was glad for the 2 bucks (she knows about the Fairy, so I didn’t have to stay up past my bedtime to make the swap) but disappointed that she didn’t get gas, because she had heard about my experience when I had my 4 wisdom teeth out, where I was *inside* Mahler’s First Symphony; she wanted to be inside “Baila Loco” by Soul Control and had even imagined up an outfit for the occasion: a cropped shirt with one long and one short sleeve, covered in glitter, and a striped mini-skirt. She’s all about the pop-star fashion.

Hannah normally reads for a while at bedtime, but last night she wanted to play in the living room + 5 minutes of reading for her pre-sleep routine. Here are the results:

A robber band


And their hide-out.

Who knew that the littlest Barbies were also the most criminally minded?

We seem to have returned from Texas with more of Hannah’s school photos than I had anticipated, so now I fear that we overlooked someone (or ones). If you didn’t get a photo, or know of someone who didn’t, let me know so I can fix that. Hannah decided to embellish one of her photos; I keep it in my notebook, but I will share a very blurry version here.

Friday's Child is Fair of Face (right?)

I used some of Hannah’s Wickedly Hot Chocolate lotion (this stuff is the *bomb*), and of course John had to chime in that he doesn’t think lotion should smell like food. Later, when he was cracking some nuts for a snack, Hannah commented that he should get some lotion that smells like nuts, or Viking.
“What does Viking smell like?”
“Stink. But maybe it would be better with a little cherry or strawberry.”


Dear Japanese Girl on the Bus,
I don’t know you from Sam, but please let me say that your puffy yellow jacket and matching Pikachu earmuffs totally cracked my shit up today. Well played.
Love,
Me


John was trying to remember the name of the nutty old man that the hobbits stay with briefly.
Tom Diddle?
Tom Dooley?
He went on in this vein until he made it to:
Weeble Wobble?
Snargle Fargle?
Tom Bombadil, you ... Tolkien-noob! He didn’t even remember that Old Tom B shows up in the first bit of the Fellowship of the Ring, before the hobbits meet up with Strider. He thought it was in The Hobbit. Pff! My mad research skillz totally saved the day on that one.


I love numbers, but I have decided to make an exception for these numbers. (Brought to you by my looming birthday.)
16 years ago I was 18; in 16 years I will be 50.
The year I turn 40, so will John, and Hannah will be 16.
I have been licensed to drive for 18 years.
I have been married for a dozen years, and my child is almost 10.
I graduated from high school 16 years ago.
I got my BA 11 years ago.
I met my best friend, WesTexGirl, 23 years ago.
I can’t go on. It makes my brain hurt.


A Hannah classic:
“There’s butter on my brain to make it work smooth. And pudding.”


Hannah is a latchkey kid for about half-an-hour once a week. *sniff* John said he came home to find every light downstairs on. Hannah said she was a little nervous about monsters. I pointed out that they would have to be tiny monsters since our apartment is kinda small. One could fit in the tile oven, she pointed out. One could *be* the tile oven.

John and I pointed out that Missy cat spends a lot of time up in the space toward the top of the oven, and the monster hasn’t eaten her. Simple: the monster-oven is using her as bait because it wants to eat a baby. Or the oven and Missy are dating.


We were watching Wetten, dass...? again (Bet that...?), and this 10-year-old kid managed to do his trick, so the moderator of the show told him he could choose his prize: “You can kiss these 2 ladies [one of whom was Beyonce Knowles] , or get something else.”
Kid: “I want something else.” (He got a trip to the Kennedy Space Center.)


Weather-talk alert!
After the wind storm last week, we got hit by a cold front this week. We got a little snow, not too much, but the temperatures have barely broken freezing for the last 3 days. I could do without walking to my first class in -6C (22F). Here is one of the poor flowering plants I mentioned last week.

Can you see the snow on the ground below it?


And to wrap up, a gratuitous photo of my plants.

Hannah, my Hannah, all hail the mighty child!

One day when I was walking Hannah to school, she was explaining that she would not like to be a popstar, because even though you would make a lot of money, you would get old, and they would push you out, then you’d spend up your money and live on the street, and that is why she does not want to be a popstar. Quick! Where’s Britney Spears’ cell number? My child has some important info for her!

This morning Hannah told us she had a math test today. I reminded her of the stuff she had been doing in homework recently, and how she knew how to do each thing. She said that if she had any questions during the test she would go up to ask the teacher, because some kids do that, like if they want to know which number to round to, or how 5 pigeons are supposed to eat one rat. We asked if that was a math problem she had to do, dividing up a rat equally. She thought maybe it was for “cooks who can open up a rat without anything falling out”. John: “What in the world!?” Hannah: “Or someone in a sewing club who can put a zipper in the rat.” It is getting harder and harder to keep a straight face in this family.

Late but Long

When John’s back was giving him fits over a week ago (he’s much better now!), he had the wattle bottle on his person at all times. When he started feeling better, he left it at home during work hours, which is when my story takes place. I had retreated upstairs to the “facilities”, and I heard Hannah coming up the stairs. Wanting to head off an invasion, I shouted, “I’ll be out in a minute!” Then I heard something hit the floor, accompanied by a sloshing sound.

Hannah: “Oops! My liver!”
Me: “Take your liver back downstairs and I’ll be there in a minute!”
Hannah: “It won’t go back in! I’ll have to cook it up and feed it to the cats.”
Me: “Whatever.”

I am taking a teaching course this semester, and we each have to teach one 45-minute session to foreign students in the language program. I was observing during one of my classmates’ attempts this last week, and she was doing really well right up until the point that one of the students pointed out that they had just recently gone over the *exact same text* with a different student teacher (from the other teaching class, led by a different instructor). Ouch. A student teacher’s worst nightmare.

Hannah woke us up at 4:30 one night/morning last week with “I’m bleeding to death!” At first I thought maybe puberty had struck at an unseemly time, but then she showed up in our room with a copious nosebleed. She had bled all over her sheets (which are red, so that shows some foresight on my part *g*) and her white t-shirt, but I managed to get her cleaned up and back to bed without any more theatrics. She had another nosebleed the next night, but she was better prepared and didn’t even bother to wake us up. Thanks, Babe!

I am currently engaged in a fight to the death with these cute little moths that live in our pantry closet. I don’t have a problem with the moths themselves, just with their hideous, disgusting larvae. I thought I had managed to track them all down and destroy them before we left for Texas, but I guess it just wasn’t enough to throw out half our dry goods, seal the rest with packing tape, and scrub them entire pantry with bleach (shelves, walls, and the little holes for the adjustable shelves included). I am usually friendly to nature; I even take the time to shoo wasps and spiders outside instead of smashing them, but I cannot stand those creepy crawly caterpillar things. Flesh...crawling... I hope I will have had better luck with round 2.

I ran out of toothpaste while in Texas, so I bought some good ol’ Crest gel. Man, this stuff is *weak*. I had been using an herbal paste that tastes strongly of licorice (mmm...licorice, aka anise), and I could feel the germs dying when I used it. This Crest had better be death on wheels toward cavities, because I am too tight to toss a full stupid giant tube.

We’ve been steadily making our way through the stack of DVDs we brought back with us from Texas. Now Hannah’s indoctrination in Futurama and Greg the Bunny is complete. She’s been well-versed in Spinal Tap since a young age, so that was just a refresher course for her. [True story: When Hannah was 4, Sluggo and the lovely Peaches came to dinner, and Hannah asked them if they wanted to watch Spinal Tap. I think she had a very high rating on the “cool child” meter that night.]

I’ve also been listening to Pink every minute I’ve been in the kitchen (home of the CD player) since we got back. I’m Not Dead is a rockin’ album, although I was a bit taken aback by the amount of crack showing on the back cover. Less is more, Pink! But excessive crack aside, I like every song on the album, in large part because they cover such a wide variety of styles, including a folksy anthem-like song written by her Vietnam-vet dad and performed as a duo by the 2 of them. The tunes are so catchy that John and I found ourselves mentally humming them when we had the occasional bout of sleeplessness after getting back from Texas. I’d have to give this gift (from John) an A+.

Mr. Jooge also gave us a Forever Sharp (TM) knife that I am slightly scared to death of. I have a bad track record with sharp objects (like knives, cheese graters, paper, cardboard, and razors), and I thought I might faint when he told us about the demonstration where the guy dropped a tomato on the blade and it cut itself. Eeek! It works great on meat, though, so I guess we’ll keep it.

The weather has been all screwed up since ... uh ... forever. The overnight low has reached freezing only twice in all of January, so the plants think it is spring. Bushes and some of the smaller trees are putting out leaves; the viney-type bushes have yellow or dark pink flowers on them; bulb plants are pushing up leaves; and what I think is a cherry tree is covered in pale pink blossoms. I go by the last one twice every day on the bus, and every time I think, “Man, that shit is *bananas*!” Even I would agree that 17C (~63F) in January is wrong (although I enjoyed it anyway).

All of Europe was affected by a huge wind storm that hit Thursday. More than 2 dozen people were killed, and trees are down all over Germany on the roads and rail lines. We were very lucky in this area to have only minimal damage.

OMG. I see that I just wrote an entry on a bug infestation, toothpaste, cutlery, and the weather. Where’s my Geritol? It’s obvious I have the sensibility of a septuagenarian.

Except... How cool is this? This guy and friends/family built a scale model of Helm’s Deep OUT OF CANDY. Why can’t I ever do something that awesome?!

The Mother Lode!

Our adventures in flying went off without a hitch. We left home a little later than I had planned, but the long-term parking at the airport worked like a dream, so that helped make up for the lost time. When we found our check-in area, the line went all the way back into another section of the airport. Fortunately, the line was moving quickly, so it only took us about 40 minutes to get checked in. Security was easy as pie compared to last time, so the whole process was as painless as an international flight at xmas-time could be.

Unfortunately, there were several pissed-off babies (POBs) on our flight. Once they screamed themselves into exhaustion, we were all able to have a little peace and quiet, but then occasionally one would wake up and get started again. Luckily, that didn’t seem to set off the others. One mother was traveling alone with 2 small kids, one of them belonging to the pack of screamers. Except hers also thrashed and kicked and went boneless and threw herself backwards. John was sitting at the end of their row and got the impression that POB wanted Da-da. The poor mom was so wiped out from wrestling with the POB that as soon as the kid fell asleep, she did, too. The non-POB entertained herself the whole time with a cup, a water bottle, a book, and napping. John bets that the first thing her mother does when she gets off the plane is to punch the father.

We saw most of the smaller kids over the course of our flight, either wandering up and down the aisles alone or being walked by a parent. My favorite was this grumpy-faced tyke wearing a perpetual scowl.

While we were waiting at the gate, Hannah passed the time by composing a musical, “Nice Mice—We Love Cheese.” All the songs were about how nice the mice were, and how much they loved cheese and no one could change that. She envisioned 2 grown-ups in mice costumes in the lead roles.

The air on the plane dries me out like a starfish on the beach, but I was so paranoid about the stupid new rules that I took the travel-size tube of lotion out of my backpack. The semi-frequent but tiny drinks from the airline just didn’t cut it in the hydration department.

I don’t know if it is a German-US thing, or if the airlines have just loosened up in certain respects since the last time I flew 2 years ago, but the flight attendants on Lufthansa weren’t as, um, glossy as the American Airlines FAs. They weren’t schlubs by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn’t look like they had been shellacked as part of their pre-flight routine, either.

Also of note on our flight: the Norwegian woman with sleeves that might have been caught in the escalator at the airport. It’s the only way I can account for the shreds of lace hanging from her wrists.


I wrote the above while on the plane to Texas. I didn’t write a single word between then and now, so my recollections of all our visiting isn’t quite as precise. We stayed with my dad the first and last nights, and in between we managed to visit in *8* other places. I have photographic evidence up at Yahoo, labeled “Xmas 2006”, Stops 1-7. We saw lots and lots of people, but it would have been nice if we had had more time to spend with them.

There hasn’t been any news regarding John’s side trip (you know if you know), but feel free to continue with the finger-crossing for now.

Some kid highlights from the trip:

Our niece “Chicken” is addicted to the old coin-ear trick. When asked how the coins got in there, she replied, exasperatedly, “It’s magic!” Well duh, Aunt Nee! She only cares about the trick, not the cash, so afterwards we kept finding “ear money” lying around.

Another niece, “Fall”, is, um, selective of hearing, so it took a couple of tries to convince her that crawling on the back of the couch that stands in front of a window was not a good idea and she should get down. Her brother remarked that she was a big butt-head at home. Me, disbelieving: “Fall, are you a big butt-head at home?” Fall: “Yep.” So there you have it.

John cut his hair. He’s a damn good-looking man, isn’t he?

We couldn’t come up with a better idea than the JC Penney hair salon for the doing of the deed, so while he made his donation to Locks of Love, me and Hannah and Mom and JC roamed the mall. After we had traversed the whole length of it (it’s a small mall), Hannah said, “This place is full of crap no one wants to buy!” Indeed.

The trip back was almost as uneventful as the trip over. Our stupid e-tickets did not indicate that NO lunch would be served on our noon flight (there was no meal info for any of our flights), so we were kind of hungry when we got to Dulles, but some hot sandwiches fixed that. John was bummed that he did not get to eat at Arby’s and only once at Taco Bell, but such is life. Then on the trans-Atlantic leg, Hannah spilled her drink on John’s lap, and I lost the stylus to my Palm PDA, a tragedy that brings tears to my eyes even now, 4 days later. Here is the ersatz stylus I came up with, but it pales in comparison to the real thing.

Yes, that is a duck pirate (or pirate duck, if you prefer) pencil topper. Hannah didn’t want it.

We haven’t had too much jet-lag, but the twinge in John’s back after the trip (probably from toting four 50-pound bags up to our third-floor apartment) has developed into a crippling like the one he had on our last trip to Texas in 2004 and last spring. He looks like an unbent paper clip.

As I knew would happen, Hannah was unable to keep track of all the presents trickling in over the course of 2 weeks of visiting. Her great-grandmother firmly believes that “Xmas present” = “clothes”, so we made a trip out to Sears with her to pick out our presents. Which is where Hannah had a bit of a meltdown: “Everyone else gets cool stuff, and I only get socks!” (n.B. No socks were actually bought at Sears.) This prompted a visit to Super WalMart (Ack! My soul! It burns!) to spend up the Xmas largesse from various family members. We mainly invested in DVDs; I was on the verge of opening them all before packing so customs wouldn’t think that we were starting a DVD-smuggling ring, but it was too much work. They didn’t seem to bother Homeland Security when they opened our box and one of our suitcases.

I also ponied up for some sports bras with spaghetti straps. I have been considering going bra-less for some time (damned plastic bits on the straps of my beloved training all-cotton bras!), but the fear of nipplage has held me back. I also have a great fear of German department stores after the Snoopy-panty debacle of last fall, so our Texas trip was my first chance to look for an alternate form of chestal coverage (not having what could properly be called a bosom). Anyhoo, props to Fruit of the Loom for their excellent work in ladies’ under-apparel!

Before I got off track, I was going to mention that Santa left Hannah a note in her stocking that he was delivering her present to Germany and it would be there when she got back.

She hasn’t even had any lessons yet (or a music book, for that matter), but she’s already composing her own music with the help of stickers she numbered herself.

We managed to convey our wealth of xmas gifts back to Germany with minimal breakage; even the 18-by-24 picture frame (with glass!) and 4 place-settings of Corelle made it through unscathed. See?


My earlier, pre-trip comment that winter had arrived in Germany seems to have been premature. Winter only paid Germany a brief visit before jetting off to settle in for a long stay in the NW of the US, I would guess. Since we landed on Sunday, it has hovered around 10C (50F) and has rained off and on. You can check out the difference between this year and last year by clicking on the third link in the article, “Foto-Serie: Winter '06 und '07 im Vergleich“. The pictures in 1-8 are of the same locations, the first in each pair from last year and the second from this year (1-4 in Bavaria, 5-8 in Berlin); 9-14 are all from this year.

And on that note, I’m going to bed to the gentle pounding of the rain.

Ring out the Old...

Over the past week, I have felt about as informative and entertaining as an old stick, hence the non-blogging. I think the pre-trip stress has smothered my creativity/xmas cheer/good will toward men, but I can tell I’m back on the upswing, because 1.) my eye-tic has disappeared (knock on wood), and 2.) we’re getting on a plane Thursday morning and I haven’t freaked out (much) yet. (Ok, maybe a little, but it was all John’s fault.)

I noticed that the loss of my tic coincided with surviving the Lucia-fest we attended over the weekend. I got us thoroughly lost on the way, and Hannah had a bit of a meltdown after she took part in the Lucia procession, and our friend saved us seats that she unwittingly stole from another family, but otherwise it was a fairly innocuous event. There was a drawing for door prizes, so we bought 7 tickets, 2 of which Hannah promptly lost. She did win one item—a tube of caviar. “Oh, well--at least Dad can eat it,” she thought, but alas, there was a small hole of unknown duration in the metal tube. Rather than risk salmonella, which John would have gladly done if we weren’t traveling the same week, we threw it away and washed the stink off our hands. We also found a cat-sitter that night (finally!), so maybe that also helped reduce the pre-trip stress.

Winter has finally decided to grace Germany with its presence. We had our first frost last week, and the temps have been hovering around 5C (41F). Hannah won’t always wear her hat, and on those days, she says her ears feel like popsicles that ice bears (=polar bears) are munching on. Another sign of winter: I can’t touch anything in our home without shocking myself. The VCR is the worst.

We made it to the Xmas Market this week but didn’t buy anything but food. I swear, John and Hannah are constitutionally incapable of walking down the main street without needing to graze along the way. *She* wants sweets—it was 5C out, and she spent the whole time pleading, “Ice creeeeeam!”—and *he* wants to try every kind of roasted nut offered (if I were Mimi Smartypants, I would write an essay about my husband’s love of hot nuts, but instead I will just amuse myself in my head), so almonds and chestnuts this time. And it’s not like I didn’t feed them first.

Our suitcase o’ presents is basically packed, so there shouldn’t be too much to remember when it comes time to pack except clothes and personal stuff. That doesn’t mean I’m not making a list, but I’m only including the most important things. I can buy a new toothbrush if I leave mine behind, but we can’t get on the plane without our passports, so the passports are on the list and the toothbrushes are not.

Hannah’s school offered photos this year for the first time, and they came in yesterday, so we will be spreading the joy as much as possible while we are in Texas. When John saw them, he wondered why we ever let her out of the house looking so mussed. I reminded him that Hannah had gotten herself ready and didn’t want our help and thought she looked *very chic*, so grin and bear it, baby.

I wanted to make an elf of myself, but I think I am out of time, so here are some other fun xmas games and stuff (check out You Got Elfed) from Office Max (who would have thought!).

And with that I will sign off for the rest of 2006 and the first week of 2007. Happy Holidays!

The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Tuesday sucked ass. There is no other way to describe it. Everything that could go wrong did, up to and including my thermos of coffee leaking through my bag and down my jeans. I didn’t even bother to go to my afternoon class, because with my luck, a piano would have fallen on me. That’s how bad it was.

Wednesday’s fantasticness was in inverse proportion to Tuesday’s suckitude. Everything that failed on Tuesday succeeded on Wednesday. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a chorus of fairies had appeared to rub my feet and sing me to sleep.

Now I am hoping to just maintain an even keel between now and our trip a week from today. I am a little concerned about an intermittent eye-tic I have developed; this only happens when there is more stress than I want to admit bubbling deep below my surface. Did I ever tell you that I had a tic for the first 6 weeks we lived in Germany? Every new thing I encountered, every new person I met, my eye spasmed the whole time. What a first impression I made.

I don’t think I was being particularly goofy yesterday, but Hannah told me it was time for her to put me in a retirement home for nutballs. Thanks, Honey.

Busy Bee Nee

I have finished all my xmas shopping! (Thanks to the power of the Internet.) You all will be happy to hear that no one will be receiving pornographic marzipan (probably Not Safe For Work), or an apron depicting a busty barmaid in a dirndl (although it was a close call, LilSis). If I asked you for advice on what to get a loved one, rest assured that I immediately changed my mind and got something completely different. That’s just how I roll.

All my shopping sleuthery (shoppery sleuthing?) has left little time for those pesky chores like blogging and homework and housekeeping, so I guess I will be playing catch-up this weekend. Hannah is about to go to a birthday party, so that should free up some time. I have taken on a proofreading-esque job/favor for John, and despite being annoyed at the formatting quirks (which are not part of the correcting job), I am enjoying the work. If I could just get through with my stupid degree (yes, the luster is gone), I could get back to doing stuff I like, like working.

I recently told John that I am surprised I haven’t flunked out of school because I am not a self-starter. I guess I am especially gifted at cramming. *g* This makes me think that freelancing might not be such a good career choice for me. I’ll definitely be looking for an office job when I’m done with school. [BTW, WesTexGirl: Welcome back to the ranks of the studious!]

I know some people scoff at the idea of global warming, but you cannot deny that the weather has been excessively weird this year. They’ve already had snow in North Texas, while we haven’t even gotten below 40F yet. Rose bushes are blooming. The geraniums are still alive in people’s window boxes. Remember this tree?



It’s now covered in fuzzy buds. You need a heavy jacket to leave the house, but no hats or gloves or wool coats. Trust me, Germans live in mortal fear of drafts and break out their scarves in October, whatever the weather, so they are not exactly prone to underdressing, unlike my husband and daughter. It is nippy in the mornings, but you’ll be sweating under your sweater by lunchtime.

12 Days ‘til Texas!

‘Tis the Season to be Greedy

Is it wrong for me to drool outside the showroom window of this kitchen boutique?

A few doors down, though, my eyes were accosted by an evening gown that appears to have been constructed out of a ball of foil covered in sequins. Hannah liked it.

Hannah is counting down the days until we fly to Texas. Literally. I went in to wake her up this morning, and she opened her eyes and said, “Seventeen days ‘til we go to America.” On Thursday, she called out from her room, “Are you going to wash underwear soon?” Fearing the answer, I asked why she already needed more underwear when I just finished the wash on Monday. Turns out she had already packed for the trip. The early bird runs out of clothes, eh?

I hate it when you think of the perfect gift, then discover that everyone is sold out until after xmas. grrrr.

If anyone is looking for something to read, I highly recommend Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. I was laughing so hard during the scene where he was trying to order a beer in a Glasgow pub that I was crying. That will get you some funny looks when you are sitting at a garage, waiting for your car to be inspected.

My iron levels turned out to be in the acceptable range (if on the low end), so we (the doctor and I) have decided to keep the IUD. I am perfectly healthy in every other respect, knock on wood, so there’s no need to start chopping out or burning off completely healthy bits when I could just eat more meat. For those in the know, my ferritin is 47 (normal is 13-150) and my hemoglobin is 13.7 (normal is 12-16, and I started at 7).

Totally unsolicited, here are a few tips on shopping for Hannah this year, if you are so inclined:
No earrings, please, as her piercings have grown up.
She wears a size 10.
Barbie stuff is still ok, but she’s also into Legos.
We now have a DVD player (thanks to the generosity of Mr and Mrs Jooge (I couldn’t come up with a good nickname for Mr J)), so DVDs are now an option.
Hannah has more books than shelf-space, yet she still complains about not having enough to read, so books are always welcome.

Voila! Xmas is served!

Already an Evil Genius at 9

Hannah was telling me in the car yesterday that if she were the bad guy in Superman, she would grind up the Kryptonite really fine and put it in his soup. As far as I know, she has never read a Superman comic or a Superman movie, but she knows his one weakness and how best to leverage it. Evil!

Home on the Range

I told John that one day I want a house with enough space for an office, even if we have to share it. (1) But I want my own desk, and by “desk”, I mean “kitchen table.” I need lots of space to spread out when I work. It doesn’t matter if I’m studying, editing, sewing, or balancing the checkbook; I want to be able to have everything I need right at hand. I think a low rolling cart for holding my collection of office supplies and loose bits of paper that I could store under the table would be the perfect accessory. And a Mac, but definitely not pink. I hate pink more than I hate Brussels sprouts, and wouldn’t you know it—I got a “raspberry” Mac at my old office when our computers where updated. AAARGH!

(1) Technically, we have an office, but since it is tiny with a ceiling that slopes down on both sides from the middle and isn't well-insulated or well-lit, it is more like a detention cell than a workspace.

I’m a bit concerned about my daughter. For homework yesterday, she had to rewrite Little Red Riding Hood from the perspective of LRRH herself. I was reading what she had written after she and John had left for Swedish school, and I almost wet myself laughing:

Grandma looked dumb, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. “What a big ass you have, Grandma.”
“The better to toot with.”
“What big peepers you have, Grandma.”
“The better to stare with.”
“What a big, fat, stinky mouth you have, Gr—“

BaHaHaHa!

A Couple of Fun Things

I wanted to embed a YouTube video of the Helsinki Complaints Choir, but I couldn't copy the whole tag over at YT, so you'll just have to follow the link, but it is hilarious in a thoughtful way.

And here is something that is funny in a less thoughtful and more silly way: the Holiday Snowglobe. Shake it!

Happy Turkey Day to Us

We didn’t have time to cook a big dinner on Thursday or room to store a turkey in the fridge last week, so we shopped for the bird yesterday and I cooked it today. Here are the results of my meager efforts this year (all from scratch): turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, rolls, tea. Plus Hannah, who improves any photo.



And here is the lemon meringue pie I made from scratch this morning. Hannah has been begging for one for weeks, so I let her juice the lemons while I took care of everything else pie-wise. I’m not normally a good pie or meringue maker, but this time I had success!



I am not much of a risk taker normally, but I cannot resist using an untested recipe off the Internet when I want to make something new, even for holiday cooking. This is the turkey recipe I have been using since the year we lived in Sweden, and this is the lemon pie recipe I printed out yesterday before we went shopping.

Green Thumbs R Us

My Xmas Cacti are both in bloom!



I managed to force the Poinsettia.



My citrus plants I grew from seeds have survived the summer.



We bought some plants in late summer. This one never took off, so I figured it was just a dud. But apparently it really likes the warmer-than-normal temps and rain, because it went into overdrive recently.



Here’s one of the other plants that we bought at the same time and which bloomed and died on schedule.

TMI Alert!

My doctor’s appointment went fine. Everything looks good, including the IUD I complained about. I had it put in to reduce my period because I was suffering from severe-ish iron anemia. Technically, it has reduced my period—if not for something called hygiene, it would be possible for me to use only one thin pad on most days and a mini-pad on others. Sweet, eh? Except my periods last 12-15 days. (1) Even the doctor agreed that is a drag, but since it is not unheard of, and since the *total* blood loss is less, she highly recommends I keep the IUD. We’ll talk about it again when my blood-work comes back next week (the phlebotomist didn’t maim me this time).

(1) When I called 2 weeks ago to make my appointment, it was the first day of my period. I thought I’d still be on it when I had my check-up, based on 21 months experience (and the longest period to date the month before). But my body betrayed my brain once again: it lasted only 5 days! That was probably the shortest period I’ve ever had, except maybe my first one at age 11.

Hannah Fannah Po Pannah

Hannah specifically asked for this advent calendar this year (usually she gets one like this). Unfortunately, she wanted the hottest item this xmas season; the department store I went to yesterday was sold out, and they reported that there weren’t any to be had for love or money. Rats. Hannah declared that she’d just take the normal chocolate calendar, but I think I can improve on that with something like this.

I would have gotten her one from our local gummi-bear shop (how cools is that? We have a shop that sells nothing but gummi bears), but I’m afraid Hannah was swapped at birth, because she doesn’t like gummi bears very much and therefore cannot be the fruit of my loins.

One thing that makes me very proud of Hannah is her congenital resistance to peer pressure. She is not merely impervious to it, she is actively hostile to it. She and her best friend (1) were talking about participating in a local parade, which is usually a low-key affair around here. St. Martin rides his horse at the head of the procession, and kids and their families follow carrying paper lanterns. Hannah mentioned the lanterns, and the friend said that teenagers don’t carry lanterns (she is 10). Hannah bluntly pointed out that they are not teenagers. Neither ended up going after all (we just caught the tail end of it from our balcony), but it was reassuring that Hannah understands about and approves of age-appropriate behavior.

(1) Back before she and the best friend had a flaming row and broke up.

Gotta Be Me!

Probably once a week (and now it really is only once a week because I’ve restricted my blog-reading (except WesTexGirl) to Saturdays—oh, the agony!) I read about the "10 weird things about me" meme that is making its way around the blogosphere. That got me thinking about my own level of weirdness.

I don’t have webbed toes or a third nipple; I think I’m physically normal (although some people might argue that my long toes disqualify me).

But, I know that maybe I, uh, think about things a little differently from my nearest and dearest; I really don’t think I’m *weird*, deep in my heart. I’m just a person who likes to hum while she walks.

I noticed recently that when I am washing the dishes or taking a shower or otherwise doing something that doesn’t require a lot of attention, my mind wanders. Back to Austin. And not Austin as the backdrop to a big chunk of my life, but *Austin*. Burnet Road, Lamar, South First, the Party Pig, HEB. *Every HEB I’ve ever been in.* No kidding. Instead of thinking about Hannah’s second birthday party or her first steps or our wedding or John’s graduation, I think about the produce section of a supermarket I haven’t seen in 2 years, alternating with driving directions to said store.

But that’s ok, right?