In short, in general, in a nutshell

Life has certainly been taking me for a ride, that's for sure. Since coming back to Chicago, I've reacquainted myself with many old friends. My relationship with my husband is fast deteriorating, and I'm struggling to maintain my own identity.

In the meantime, an old friendship with a married ex-boyfriend is complicating itself. Someone I've known for nearly 20 years... It had been nearly eight years since we'd seen each other (since shortly before my own wedding, as a matter of fact, a friendly dinner and a long chat), and some very very disturbing issues have surfaced. Oh, why do things have to be so complicated???

My family and I are moving from my parents' home next week, to our own apartment the next town over. I had other plans concerning our living together, alone. I had meant to not leave this house with my husband. I had meant to let him go on alone. I had meant to leave him behind.

But the situation here prevents that from happening at this time. Now, I have to regroup and replan. And struggle with a divided heart on two fronts. I have lots of guilt about wanting to leave my husband, which makes the deed so very difficult, tho it's what my heart wants.

I believed in a fairy tale, and now I'm paying the price... and so is my family. I need enormous strength straighten out this mess. The frightening part is that the hardest part still lies ahead...

It's been far too long...

I don't know what to write about these days that isn't about my husband and marriage.

Things are crazy, and it's all the same crazy stuff.

Feeling distraught, stressed, depressed, elated, confident and in dire need of validation--all at once.

It's a regular rollercoaster ride, here.

Wish I could skip ahead a few years so I can bypass this unpleasant time...

Who said it's boring?

I'm not really sure what to write about today; I've really gotten out of the writing habit. The new job is going very well. By the end of this week, I'll have been there two months already, and will have then moved out of my probationary period.

My husband is working nights while searching for a position more suitable to his experience. He has one very good possibility lined up and is in the midst of arranging for his second interview. He has another interview coming up at the end of the week for an even more suitable position that pays quite well. Good for him.

I'm in the midst of personal flux, myself. As I said, the job is going well, and I'm still trying to decide if I want to go back to school. See, the idea of it makes me really really tired. And, who knows if I will find a teaching position after I get my certificate???

Aside from that, I'm quite certain that when it comes time to strike out on our own... Well, let me say that I'm very very apprehensive about living alone with my husband again. He won't change his ways. He'll always drink. He'll always be controlling. He'll always...

I won't go any further. I've said it all before, and there's no point in rehashing it. If we buy a house or rent an apartment together after this, there will be a honeymoon period when things are great and new and exciting... and then they will decline into their former state and I'll be as miserable as before, if not more so. I don't want to live like that again...

And that's why I wanted to return to the States.

What I'm trying to say, without saying it, and am going to say it anyway, is that it's very likely that I'm going to leave him in the coming months. I fluctuate between hating him when he's crazy and feeling guilty for leading him on when he's sane... It's a terrible roller coaster ride.
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't plan to leave him sometime after we returned to the US. Of course I planned to. But I also thought it would be a few years down the road. But the longer I'm in the position of exercising my individuality--my independence--when not under the thumb of dear hubby (and as long as we live in my parents' home, I'm not under this thumb anymore), the more it depresses me to even think about sharing a household with him again. Once we leave, he will work swiftly to put those old constraints back into place.

But, before I drop the bomb, I want to make sure he's employed and able to take care of himself. I don't plan to do that until I can't persuade him to wait any longer to leave. By then, I'll have gotten my own ducks lined up and an attorney retained... He won't contest a divorce. But things might get dirty when it comes to custody. As soon as I tell him, he'll insist on taking our son with him when he moves out. He's already threatened to do so.

Also, I've been rewriting someone's autobiographical novel. That's been up and down, as well, and keeping me quite busy.

My son is doing really well here. He's adjusted easily to school, and enjoys it very much. It's wonderful to see him beginning to read and taking a delight in books and sounding out the words he's trying to write. His ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher called my husband the other day to say how phenomenally well he's doing in her class. That's what she said, that his progress was "phenomenal". We're very proud of him. He gets frustrated that he can't spell very much, yet, and that when he writes me or his grandpa a note, we need help deciphering his words. But I reassured him over and over this morning that learning new things takes time, and that one day it will be easy for him as long as he keeps practicing.

He's going to be Batman for Halloween this year.

I'm glad to be home.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me, "So, do you miss Germany, yet?"

And I said, "No way. Every day I remember why I wanted to come back, and I'm ecstatic to be here again."

And it's true.

This is where I belong.

So. It's been that long, has it?

My husband arrived three weeks ago, Tuesday. Things have been pretty good since then. We've had two fights so far, the second of which my own mother started, and both of them involving my husband's behavior. He wasn't drinking when he first arrived, but he's started again by sneaking into my parents' liquor cabinet. He wasted no time sniffing out the alcohol, that I can assure you. My parents don't drink cola, so he was reduced to diet lipton's and water.

But since I started working again, he's been to the store to stock up on beer and Coca Cola. That weight he lost in the last few weeks will be on again in no time, and I'm dreading having to confront him about spending our money on crap like that when we still owe my parents so much and we have to save.

On a different topic, the week hubby arrived, our son started school. He's been adjusting very well and seems quite happy these days. He's befriended the three kids from next door, all a year younger than he, and everyone at school is very curious about his Germanness. He appears to enjoy school, which is a relief for me and my husband. Picture day is already next week, and so are the orders for next month's Fun Lunches. It's been kinda fun arranging for all that as a parent. I remember those things so clearly...I also applied for a job and interviewed it, the week hubby arrived, and snagged it the very next week. Tuesday was my first day, and I've been enjoying the experience of working again in a friendly environment.

I'm a proofreader for a slide-chart company, located just around the corner from my copy editing job at the magazine publishing company I left seven years ago. And here's the ironic part: I'm working with a designer with whom I also worked when I left that company. He's pretty new here, too, having started in May. Isn't that wild? I brought my husband to the Faire, and I was happy to find out that he really enjoyed.

It was important to me that he see that part of me. He's also seen a strong, independent part of myself that he'd never known. At first he liked it, and told my mom so in a private conversation. But this week, beginning Wednesday in fact, he's been distant and rather like he's always been to me. In fact, our fight two nights ago stemmed from the return of his old behavior. He was in a bad mood and spoke to me disrespectfully, to keep an old story to a few words.

I said some hateful things (I called him a fucking german nazi. My mom said that if he treats me the way he does, then he must really hate me. My husband responded by saying he doesn't hate me, or he wouldn't have married me. I said we'd known each other for only six weeks before he proposed, how could he know? I said if I'd known him any better than I had, then I wouldn't have married him. That really hurt him, but I was angry not just because of his behavior but because we had finally gone back to square one. Honeymoon phase is over.), but later we all said sorry to one another. And since then he's been as distant toward me as ever.

The timing of the fight was pretty on-target. That afternoon as I drove home, I was feeling bad for having felt badly toward him, and for not feeling more loving and not even wanting to. I was wondering what would happen even if he made a permanent change for the better. Would I be able to accomodate that? And then my question was answered the moment I walked through the door and met him in the kitchen. He won't change. He'll keep drinking, he'll keep being rotten toward me when my parents aren't around.

But aside from that, things have been very smooth and life seems to have taken a turn for the better. I feel empowered. And I hope that my husband finds some happiness in our family's change, too.I really do.and no, I didn't proufreed my post befor posting it. I often dont.

Life is good

Life is good

I'm living in America again.

My son is loving his new school.

I have a job.

I have a brand-new MP3 player for my job.

I still have Blogit.

Life is good, don't you think?

Looking looking looking...

Looking for a job is the pits. It really is. Last week, I sent out ten resumes. I heard back on one, but only so far as to say that they had received it and will contact me if I meet their requirements. So far, I haven't heard back from them. Which is a shame, because it was similar to what I had done before (copy editor/editorial manager), but maybe a half-step up. And the commute would be do-able. And really, no matter what you see on these pages, I really am good at what I do, and I really liked the idea of working for that place.

So today, I finally bit the bullet and registered with three local temp agencies. One of them is Manpower, and I registered with about seven local offices. How convenient that I could do it all online. I found my last job, which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for, through one of those temp agencies. Back then, I just registered with one as a walk-in. And now I've registered with nearly ten offices--and I didn't have to leave my bedroom.

Ideally, I'd like to have a work-at-home position. Telecommuting is way attractive to me right now, though I wouldn't count on getting one.

What would your ideal job be?

What I didn't say...

What I didn't say when I said what I did last time about that one day...

Returning to the ren faire last week was special in more ways than just the run-in with the unrequited crush. The whole day had this magical aura for me, probably much as it did that summer fourteen years ago when I decided I would audition for the following season. And it was probably as magical for me as it is for many long-time faire-goers.

But I'm not really what one would call a Rennie, those people who go every weekend, dressed in garb of all sorts (and not always historically accurate), often without a real grasp of the era those at our faire try to recreate (the reign of Elizabeth I). When I worked there, I was a contracted musician. I had a job to do. Yes, I got to design my own costume and wear a corset under several layers of clothing, and indulge my love of Renaissance England and of the music of the time. But there is just an air about it that leaves me at peace. Perhaps it's the people... The core actors and musicians are still there after all these years. Or perhaps it just the distinct spirit of the place. I don't know. But I know I'm not the only person to feel that way.

People have asked me if I would ever go back there to perform. Maybe, I tell them. Maybe I would, if I had something worthwhile to offer after all these years, and probably not until after my son is older.

When I was there last week, all my fears and insecurities about being there were put to rest. Everyone I cared about recognized me. I didn't have to say, "Hey, it's me. Remember me?"

And everyone seemed as pleased to see me for the first time in eight years as I was to see them.

That was gratifying to an unparalleled degree.

I stayed there from opening gate, until closing gate. A solid ten hours. I packed my son into the car and slid into the driver's seat not a bit sleepy-eyed. My feet didn't even hurt! During the drive home, I followed my old route through northern Illinois and was filled with the most profound sense of peace and contentment. It was, truly, a perfect day. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

My husband is arriving in Chicago Monday afternoon. My weeks here without him have been largely peaceful (barring the spats we've had over the phone), and I'm really not looking forward to his arrival. I feel a little bad about that, considering he's giving up his life in Germany to raise our son here in the States. But I don't relish resuming the power struggles, especially here on my own turf where I've always been an independent thinker and doer. My husband will expect to resume all control over our family, and I don't want to go back to that way of life.

He expressed interest in seeing the faire, and I'll take him--probably next weekend. I don't expect him to understand the influence it had on me, or to acquire a deeper understanding of me as a person separate from him (he hates the idea of me being an entity separate from him). So I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit on my own, and to get in touch with an essential part of myself that got pushed into a dusty corner, so long ago. I will probably need to draw on that strength more than ever in the weeks and months, and even years, ahead.

What a gift that day is, in so many ways!

Home-coming. It's nice to be here. But nicer not to have to go back.

I've been back home in Chicago for two weeks, now. If you're a subscriber to the view that good things are worth a little effort, then the flight over would be right up your alley. Our plane had been delayed three hours because of a medical emergency between Newark and Frankfurt.

That meant I had to change my connecting flight from Newark to Chicago. By the time we landed in Newark and I had claimed my baggage and gotten in line to check it in again, I had missed that connecting flight, and had to catch another one... to Midway, instead of O'hare. And
I had only a few minutes to catch that plane, two terminals away.

We made it, though, and even managed to squeeze in a quick call to my dad. "I missed my flight. We'll be at Midway at 10, not O'hare." So, 29 hours after our journey had begun, my son and I were finally snug in bed in my parents' home, air conditioning humming softly in the background.

My son handled it all brilliantly. He is the perfect traveller--better than most adults. Scratch that, he is the perfect child.

In the meantime, my husband is still in Germany, tying up loose ends. We don't know when he'll be here, but the target is by the end of the month. That may or may not happen.
I've been taking things slow. The first thing I did was register my lovel boy for first grade.

Then, last Sunday, my parents threw a Welcome Home/Birthday Party for me (36 years old). It was supposed to be a surprise, but I suppose the effort of keeping it that way was too much to handle, so my mom spilled the beans just a day or two after our arrival. It was a wonderful party, with family and my best friend, J. My husband managed to put a damper on the festivities by overreacting to a conversation he'd had with my mom the day before (about behaving nicely to her daughter while he's here), and called just as we were sitting down to eat to order me to pack up and come home.

He was irrational and after calmly telling him this wasn't the time to discuss it several times, I hung up on him. I told my mom what had happened, desperately trying to control my tears and outrage. She told my father, and seconds later the phone rang again. My dad answered it, chewed out my husband, told him to shape up, and about ten minutes later was off the phone again.

Later on, my dad told me to give my husband a call. He thought things had been worked out. So, when I had a moment of privacy a couple of hours later, I called (though I didn't want to) and my husband was humble and sweet and said he'd misunderstood the purpose of my mother's call. There was no apology, however. And none was expected. The damage was done. He'd managed to sabotage my birthday party (I hadn't wanted to tell him about it, but our son had leaked the information to him that morning), which, way deep down, was probably very satisfactory for him.

The following Saturday, just a few days ago, I met J and her man at the renaissance faire I used to work at as a musician. That experience deserves its own post, so I'll write more on that later. It was a really wonderful time. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Yesterday, I applied for five proofreading jobs. I didn't find them in Sunday's paper. Rather, I found them on CareerBuilder.com. I have no idea if anything will come of them. Most of them are rather far away, close to Chicago. Since I'd like to stay in the area we're in now, that could be a problem. But I'll cross that bridge IF I come to it. Ideally, I'd like a proofreading/copy editing job that isn't high pressure and tight deadlines. Been there, done that. It's fine when you're single and working long hours doesn't affect much more than your sleep. A very big part of me would like a desk job that's dull and predictable, but gets me home at the same time every day feeling sane, and with enough energy to fit in some classes to earn my teaching certificate. Like data entry. Any data entry jobs out there that pay between $30-40,000 per year? Didn't think so.

Today, I'm visiting an old high school friend of mine. I have to wake up my son so we can be on our way.

...Oh! And how cool is it that I'm actually writing within three time zones of most readers here?

Wow. I'm really here...

I thought I'd have more time...

It's ending so fast. I thought I'd have more time than this...

Tonight is my final night on the computer. As soon as I write this, I'll be restoring it and closing it down forever. I won't be writing again until after our arrival in Chicago on the 25th. I'd hoped to respond to everyone's comments and return everyone's visits, but it just can't happen until the move is over.

I wish everyone happy, light and peaceful thoughts until after I get back. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon!

Wish us luck!

It's ending so fast. I thought I'd have more time than this...

Tonight is my final night on the computer. As soon as I write this, I'll be restoring it and closing it down forever. I won't be writing again until after our arrival in Chicago on the 25th.

I wish everyone happy, light and peaceful thoughts until after I get back.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon!

Wish us luck!

A Welcome Change of Pace

I have the whole day to myself. What a gift! My visiting mother-in-law took the car and my son into Stuttgart today to attend to some personal business, leaving me all alone, without a care in the world (almost), without having to disrupt my musings to pick up son from kindergarten or make lunch, except to bring up the laundry every hour or so to dry in the sun in the backyard... It's a day of peace much craved for.

We have these birds that soar the sky around our house. I've wondered all this time what they are. They aren't hawks, of that I was certain. Could they be eagles? I couldn't find anything to compare them to on the Internet, except for a few mp3s of eagles' cries. These birds sound pretty similar to what I heard, so I decided they must be a type of eagle indigenous to the area, which delighted me. We don't have eagles in the Illinois flatlands, where I come from.

My husband thought they were small for eagles. And a recent close-up view of a circling bird showed that the tail was not straight across, as an eagle's tail feathers should be, but scooped in the middle. I finally had to admit that the birds were not eagles.

Last week, I ran into a neighbor who was cutting his lawn with a scythe. He doesn't really have a lawn, per se, if you define a lawn as having an expanse of smooth green grass soft enough to walk barefoot on. Neither do we, for that matter. Instead, his yard is typically hip-deep in weeds of varying types. Our co-neighbors, an old couple in their 80s who keep a very large vegetable garden and chicken coop to sustain themselves, had recently complained to him about his weeds infesting their garden with baby weeds. So he was out in his yard the next day with a scythe, the only tool that not only would cut it all down, but that would fit through the opening to his yard and could be carried up the hill to do the work.

My next-door neighbor, coincidently, is American who hails from Maine. He's been in Germany for 20 years or so. Came here while he was in the Navy, and stayed to work. We don't run into each other often, but our chats sometimes run long when we do. I remembered, during the course of this one, to ask him what those eagle-like birds are.

"I don't know," he said in his distinctive Maine accent. "I only know the German word for them, which someone told me when I asked a few years back. They're called, Milan."

And that was exactly the information I needed to find out what name I might know them by. A quick reverse-search on the Internet--I googled Milan on the german google.de to find out the latin name then English-googled the latin name to find out the common name in English--revealed that these birds are Red Kites.

And to my gratification, they are related to Hawks and Eagles. So I wasn't so far off the mark as I might have been!

We've Settled on a Date!

After a year of quiet, white-knuckled uncertainty, it's finally official. On July 25, just two days before my 36th birthday, my son and I will return to the Chicago area once and for all, with my husband following behind shortly after.

It'll be good to be home again.

In the meantime, I received a giant e-mail from my best friend in Chicago, who recently returned from a trip with her hubby to Central Mexico, where they experienced an intense religious ceremony conducted by a local sha-woman, involving a specific type of mushroom. My friend told me what knowledge she had walked away with, comparing it to a similar South American rite they'd participated in last year. Reading her letter made me experience an intense gush of love for this woman, reminding me how important she's been during the decade (lifetimes) of friendship we've shared. How much I'm looking forward to being closer proximity to her again, I can't convey.

Things have gotten dramatic in the house since last I wrote. Hubby tried to throw MiL out last Thursday, but none of the other brothers would take her in (isn't that sad and scary and pathetic all at once?), so here she's staying for the next two weeks, with no relief in site. After that big scare she's been on super-good behavior, but the tension in the air is thick, and it's only a matter of time before there's another blow-out.

I'm trying not to feel put-upon that during my final two weeks in this house I'll have to pack up and say goodbye to the house and the scenery around her constant presence, struggling to take my peace where I can and to ease the obvious strain on my son.

But then, my family and I will soon be descending upon my parents in much the same way, won't we? I like to think we're nicer and easier to get along with than MiL, but it'll still be a strain, and probably most significantly on my mom and husband, for reasons of their own.

Must be tolerant. Must learn from this experience...

But at least we're going to Chicago... I thought I'd reached Nirvana when my husband had given me a digital camera for my birthday. But this return to my stomping grounds is the present of a lifetime. I only hope my husband's emigration proves to be as rewarding to him, as this move means to me.

The calm before the storm?

The July 4 cookout went quite well. I did explain to MoL that we were having an authentic American meal: Hamburgers and hotdogs that each builds him/herself with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, or whatever captures you imagination (my son topped his hamburger with potato chips!), chips, corn on the cob... MoL made tzaziki, which is a garlic dip made with sour cream, several garlic cloves, and cucumbers. Europeans seems to eat what we consider dip with a spoon or fork, often without the benefit of bread, crackers or chips. And then I told her why I made so much, so there was some pleasant conversation on that topic, and she informed me that Greece also has a couple of similar national holidays that are celebrated. Our meal was big, and my dangerously crabby husband lightened up considerably after weighting down his belly with huge helpings of everything.

In last night's World Cup game, Germany lost against Italy when Italy scored twice in quick succession during the second-half of the overtime of a 0:0 game. It was a blow to Germany, and we're now out of the finals. It's now down to France against Portugal (who beat England in the quarterfinals and sent the Tommys back home, alas. I had been holding out for England, anglophile that I am) tonight. The winner of that game, I guess, will play Italy, determining the winner of the World Cup. We're feeling a little sour about Italy right now, so we're rooting for France.

I had an interesting conversation with MoL during breakfast this morning. I had told her that I was accustomed to eating our big meals at lunchtime (a German custom), so when I hadn't had lunch yesterday and then ate my hamburger at 7 pm, it was way too much for me. My belly hurt. I couldn't finish my corn on the cob or drink my wine. I was uncomfortable for hours afterward. That opened it up for her to say that she's surprised that I have such a difficult time losing weight. I eat less than she, and yet... She asked if I had ever gone to the doctor to have something-or-other tested. I didn't catch what she said, but I guessed what she meant. I gestured toward my throat, and said, "Schilddrüse?" Thyroid? She said yes, and before I could answer her (and I didn't get the chance to answer the question at all), she corrected me by explaining that the thyroid isn't just in the throat but in the belly and thighs, as well, and then she moved on to another topic.

When someone else's information conflicts with my own, I often give it the benefit of the doubt in the moment I hear it, then later on check the validity of my own information to see what I might have mistaken or misunderstood. In Wikipedia.de, I looked up Schilddrüse, because it could be very possible that my understanding of the German word might have been inaccurate. I already know very well that the THYROID is located in the throat, in front of, and on either side of, the windpipe. But maybe I've been misunderstanding SCHILDDRÜSE all this time?

What I didn't get to tell her was that, yes, our village doctor had drawn blood to test my thyroid, but she didn't believe the results were significant enough to send me to an endocrinologist to do further testing. She just told me to walk around more, be more active. I didn't explain to her that I walk my son to and from kindergarten most days, which involves a hike up a steep gradient, and that, in fact, I had walked to her office that morning, as well. I'd decided to just leave it for when I could handle my health in my own country, in my own language.

Anway, after consulting Wikipedia.de, it turns out my information or translation wasn't mistaken.

My husband has barraged me over the years with a whole catalogue of misinformed health facts. While his education might have been... incomplete, even though he attended gymnasium and later aquired a certificate equivalent to a BS in business and internation trade, I lay the blame mostly at his mother's feet. She had had to drop out of school in Greece when she was 12 years old. She has a quick mind, but no education to back it up. I'm not criticizing her, I'm just pointing out a fact.

I considered whether I might print up the Wikipedia thyroid information, but then wondered what good would it do? But then, she might take it the wrong way and be insulted. And is it really worth it? I certainly don't want to do it do boost my own ego, to score a point against her... But might she want to know?

So things are calm here, now, and I'm grateful for it. I like peacefulness and harmony and quietude. But from years of experience, it's an ordeal of walking on pins and needles worse than when it's just my husband and myself. An explosive fight eventually breaks out between hubby and MoL, which results in MoL moving on to another son's home, where another fight breaks out, and she either moves on to the third son's home, or she hops on the next place back to Greece. That has been the pattern. She's been taking anti-psychotic and anit-anxiety drugs--at least she had been when she was here during the winter, though I've seen no evidence of them now, and I'm not about to snoop--and I see the difference in her even from last February.

Maybe that's helping keep the peace...? I've got my fingers crossed that all remains as peaceful as it has been the last 24 hours, and that this isn't the calm before the storm.

But then, a purely selfish thought just occured to me: The sooner she leaves, the sooner we will get stateside. Hmm. Maybe I will print up that article, after all...

A thank-you to everyone...

I just wanted to post a general thank you to everyone who has commented, especially the lovely ones concerning not my last post, but the one before, and my newest poem. I'm basically out of the reading and commenting circuit for the time being, and what stolen moments I can find are dedicated to writing "quickies" of any type: blogs, poetry, frozen scenes between people that get stuck in my head.

As soon as I can get back into the swing of things, I will return each and every comment in kind.
The Bad News: The atmosphere continues to thicken around here and we've had our first major scene late last night... Unfortunately, it was between me and my husband, resulting from a half-bottle of whisky he'd quietly, yet efficiently, poured down his throat; his bad mood; my having forgotten to record yesterday's Tour de France etappe, save for the last hour; and my MoL criticizing hubby about his bad behavior toward me.

The Good News (and perhaps the most disturbing): The mother-in-law and I have come to a better understanding of one another. Unfortunately, it's come under unpleasant circumstances... and it doesn't absolve her of her ceaselessly selfish behavior.

I did feel confident enough, however, to question why she doesn't switch her health insurance from Germany to Greece, thereby eliminating the need to make dozens of dr appointments every time she visits and putting her family out (namely me) to drive her all the way the heck into Stuttgart, to spend the day chauffering her to them all--and having to drag my kid out of kindergarten to do it. Her response, "Well, the insurance is better from Germany." My response, "But you LIVE in Greece, and you put everyone out to accomodate you and to conduct your personal business for you (a touchy issue separate from the health insurance one)..." And besides, no one ever asked ME if such and such a day is a good one for me to take the day off to drive her around all over der Vaterland...

Maybe this time my husband will let her take the car. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Or maybe she'll take the train, though I doubt hubby will let her.

Oh, and by the way, Happy 4th of July to all you fellow Amis out there. I've got a cookout ready to start. I hope it goes peacefully and the the only fireworks I see tonight are the ones from the few other Americans in our community lighting the skies.

It's getting emotional around here...

My mother-in-law is walking to the Rathaus (a rather telling name for a town hall, isn't it? Rat house?), accompanied by my son. She has some unfinished business there regarding her status as a resident of our village and our house. Each time you move, you have to register your new residence and all household members with the local Rathaus. For specific purposes, my mother-in-law, who really lives in Greece, got my husband to register her as a resident of our household.
A few weeks ago, my husband un-registered her because of our impending emigration. But now, she's over there, tending to her own business, (for once not making my husband do it for her), and what it involves specifically I'm not sure. No one in our community knows yet that we're leaving, for reasons of my husband's own, and there some concern MoL will let something slip while she's at the rat house... oops, I mean Rathaus.

So, MoL has been here since Saturday. Things have been going fairly smoothly, I suppose. I've gone out of my way to be accomodating and to at least meet her somewhere between what she wishes I were and what I am. I'm gratified that for once she knows her place as a guest and doesn't walk around here with the attitude that it all belongs to her. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that she's no longer an official member of our household. It might also have to do with the dramatic parting between her and my husband last February and that she no longer has the hold on him that she used to. And it might even have something to do with a certain amount of drama and line-drawing between me and her, as well. Or maybe I'm simply being territorial, but I don't think that's entirely it, either. You have to witness it to understand it.

I did notice that, starting on day one, she speaks low to my husband when I'm out of the room, diving headlong into her campaign to convince my husband that moving is a bad idea. She either thinks that I can't hear, or that I don't understand. She's said a few disparaging things about me, as usual, centering around my feeble German skills (though not as feeble as she likes to think), comparing me with how when she was as a fresh immigrant from Greece at age 17 or 18. In some ways, she's right, in others she's being unfair. She sees me as the prime mover behind our emigration, and she's right in the sense that, if her son hadn't married me he wouldn't be doing this. But it's a decision we've come to together.

Sunday, I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel a bit strained by his mother's murmurings, and Sunday night, he asked when she's leaving. He'd told me earlier that day that she'd said she was going to stay a week, at first, but now it's indeterminate. It's indicative of her narcissitic nature to constantly change her plans, as if they don't affect anyone else. It's very straining on everyone around her, and my husband has had plenty of experience with this type of behavior from her, even before I came on the scene.

This morning, my husband left for work and I prepared breakfast for her and my son. I ignored the fact that, just as I got out of the shower and was towelling off, MoL walked right into the bathroom without knocking to wash her hands. If I hadn't heard her coming and had a hunch she might "forget" to knock, and jumped back into the tub behind the shower curtain, she would have gotten quite an eyeful. Part of me wonders how much her neglect was passive aggression, and how much of it was her thoughtlessly assuming that I might not mind another person just walking into the bathroom while I'm butt-naked. I left it for another day, in the event she does it again.

While we ate, she very defensively broached the subject of our leaving. I have the utmost sympathy for her, and a certain amount of empathy, too, because I've been living in the position of complete separation from my family for seven years with absolutely zero support on this side of the Atlantic. I know how my mother has felt being separated from her eldest daughter (the more stable one, to boot) and her only grandchild. Understandably, MoL is very upset about our moving, and disagrees that it'll be the best thing for us. When I pointed out that I and my family have had to deal with the separation, as well, she said that at least my mother has my sister.

What I didn't mention is that my sister suffers ADD, has been a very large handful even now, as a young adult (25 years), and that MoL also has two other sons and two other grandchildren in Germany, and that maybe she'll have to rethink her priorities, set her pride aside, and work a little harder to maintain a semi-harmonious relationship with those sons and their families.
I was cold towards her, which is generally unlike me, although I was shaken by her burst of emotion and tears. But I knew from experience that she very deftly could turn this around to make the situation all about herself.

Before we got involved in the discussion, I prefaced my initial response with, "I don't want this to be an emotional conversation..." And I didn't. I needed to protect myself, and I wanted to keep things on an even keel for the sake of my son, who was munching away on his Nutellabrot between us. MoL likes drama and can really turn a situation upside down, and I needed to stamp out the fire I saw beginning to smolder.

She didn't like it when I pointed out that she only visits us twice a year, anyway, and what's the difference between visiting us in Germany, or visiting in America. She said she's 61 years old and didn't like the idea of sitting in a plane for hours on end. That she's travelling alone, and that at least my mother has my father to travel with. She said that when she comes to America, she doesn't know the language at all. I said my mother's 60. My father was in Germany once before, seven years ago. The other times mom had visited, she had been alone, too. (My dad actually came a second time, too, three years ago, but I'd forgotten about that. It wouldn't have helped my argument, anyway...), and that my mother doesn't speak a word of German, besides Danke. How is the situation different?

Like I said, I have a lot of sympathy for MoL's situation. I know it very well. But I was irritated, maybe unfairly so, that she has never once given a single thought to how my side of the family has felt, all this time.

At the end, I pointedly told her that I don't want to hurt her, and that our decision to move isn't about her. It isn't about me alone, or my parents or any of my other American family. It's about our own little family, me, my husband and my son, and what we think is best for the three of us as a whole. And that was the end of the conversation.

I tried to be really nice to her after that. I told her I'd bought a big lump of pork roast and that I would really like it if she would show me how she makes her delicious Goulasch. And after complaining that it's too hot to make Goulasch (never mind that it's too hot to boil and fry up big meals in pots and pans, anyway), she said she would.

Tomorrow, perhaps somewhat cruelly, I've planned an Independence Day cookout. I'd be lying if I said that the cookout hadn't put an evil gleam in my eye when I considered the timing of my MoL's visit and her reason for being here (to say goodbye). One might say it's an expression of my own passive aggression, but the party has been planned since before we knew she was coming. I'm really not that mean-spirited.

And anway, after this morning's conversation I've decided not to mention the reason for the mid-week grill party at all.

Just short of a cloudburst

It's thundering, as I write this. The weather is at just my favorite, when a cold front moves through and a storm brews in the near distance. The air is charged with energy, and it energizes me. I feel it tingling along my skin, prickling along my scalp, and my creativity surges. Words and images ricochet in my mind and I have to scramble to capture them. I feel content, yet restless, like a tiger in a cage. I'm grateful I'm alone so I can release some of the energy in my writing. 

 I just took this photo. I liked the look of the white clouds against the bluing clouds behind them, and wanted to share it with you. The crows were cawing in a mad caw-caphony as the thunder rumbled through, and they are now suddenly silent. I think the storm will pass us over, though it's possible another will mosey along and drench us in a little while. My aching limbs cry of rain and drama, and through the discomfort I welcome it. I love this weather.

Heaven Help Us All

Blogital Daughter vanishes again... Isn't it just the way it always goes? Hubby finally returns to work, I get back on my writing track for a week, only to be interrupted again.

What's my excuse, this time?

Well, my mother-in-law is expected to arrive in Stuttgart, Saturday afternoon, for an indeterminate length of time. Maybe a week. Probably just until she causes enough trouble to instigate another blow-out between her and my husband.

She's coming from Greece, where she lives, to say goodbye. While I have the utmost sympathy for her grief that her oldest son and his family are moving to America--I really do, I understand the separation issue all too well--I have no doubt she is going to be selfish about it and manipulate the issue to be entirely about her. It's just her way. After talking to his mother yesterday, my husband called me from work and said, "My mom's really sad. And now I am, too."

I don't think she'll persuade him to stay here, but the danger is there. It's right and natural that he should feel anxiety and grief about leaving. But we can't stay because of her, can we? The last time she stayed with us, they had an explosive argument. This is nothing unusual. It happens every time. At the end of that argument, my husband took me aside and said, "I really hope this America thing works out. We have to get out of here."

And besides, there are two other brothers left in Germany, and the youngest of them has a set of twins, not yet a year old. The middle brother is newly engaged, though my M-i-L doesn't know it yet.

In some ways, I'm more relaxed about this visit of hers because it's the last here in Germany, and her next visit will be on MY turf. But I'm a little nervous, as well, because while her inevitable theatrics will probably solidfy my husband's decision to go through with the move, she might play her cards just right (unlikely, but still a possibility) to influence him just enough.

So, that's what we're in for beginning Saturday afternoon. After today, I probably won't be around much until she leaves again. Check the sky periodically for SOS smoke signals, then send help immediately.

How do you let go of the past?

When I was between ten and thirteen years old, my best friend and I were inseparable. We did everything together. We slept over at each other's houses every weekend, sometimes several days in a row, if our mother's would let us, during summer vacation. We tried to wear the same, or similar outfits. "I'm wearing the red shorts with the white stripe. Are you going to wear yours, too?" "Yeah." "Good."

We both loved unicorns and the color purple. We wore purple eye shadow, purple nail polish, purple lipstick. This was back in 1980-1983, when those colors were okay to wear on our faces. We both bought knockoff Walkmans from Mr. D's dollar store, for $5, when Walkmans first entered the scene.

I remember putting those headphones on for the first time ever and absolutely reeling with the sensation of music flowing right to the center of my head, to swirl and dance there. I was standing in Katie's yard in my new bathing suit, the sides cinched up high past my thigh to my hip bones, as was the fashion. Katie's new bathing suit was quietly "borrowed" from her older sister, and quite a bit more risque than mine. We felt adult and poweful, filled with the potential of our budding sexuality, even though we both had to still pull down our bras in the front as they crept upward, not held in place by much of anything.

Before I met Katie, there was another girl I was acquainted with. Marci and I weren't really friends. We bumped into each other occasionally, living in different neighborhoods, and hooked up now and again to play together. I had problems with Marci. She was bossy and a little mean. As an only child until I was ten-and-a-half, I didn't learn how to assert and defend myself until well after I had married at age 28, so dealing with Marci was often painful and I did not pursue her friendship very often.

When Katie and I were in seventh grade together, I ran into Marci at our middle school. It had been some years since I'd seen her last, so being the nice girl that I was, I thought things could be different now. Hanging out with Marci didn't seem to be as difficult as I had remembered it to be. In fact, I was rather enjoying her company. I introduced her to Katie, and the three of us became fast friends.

It didn't take long before Marci began doing things alone with me, or with Katie, rather than as a threesome. Soon, the close friendship I had with Katie began to deteriorate. Marci had started telling me Katie was saying bad things about me, which I refused to believe. I wondered why Katie wasn't calling me anymore, and when Katie finally returned one of my phone calls, I surprised to hear that she was angry at me. She said Marci had told her I'd said something terrible about Katie. And it wasn't true. I repeated the things Marci had told me Katie had said about me. They weren't true, either. By the end of the call, we both decided we weren't going to hang out with Marci anymore, much less believe anything she said about the other, that we would tell each other anything she might have said.

I hung up thinking our friendship was saved, and very much disturbed about Marci. She was still mean and bossy, and now she seemed to be deliberately driving a wedge between me and my best friend.

Shortly after that phone call came my thirteenth birthday. It was the summer of 1983, and we were entering eighth grade, our final year of middle school before starting high school. I don't remember why, but for some reason I was celebrating my birthday alone with my parents, without Katie. I think Katie had told me she had other plans. My mom had taken me to the hair dresser to get one of those curly perms that were so popular in the days of HBOs erotic aerobicize ladies. My hair wasn't quite long enough to allow the perm to hang correctly, so I looked more like Li'l Orphan Annie than I did one of those sexy aerobics women.

As I floated around my house in the cloud of ammonia that emanated from my head, waiting for something to happen, there came a knock at the front door. When I opened it, I was surprised to see Katie and Marci standing there together. They were very rude to me, cold, teasing me about my hair.

That Katie and Marci were together was not according to plan. It worried me, and judging from their behavior, I could only assume Marci had said something really devastating to Katie to turn her against me. When they turned to leave, I closed the door behind them and cried, confused and deeply hurt by their nastiness. My mother comforted me, telling me she was sorry about Katie, but she had never like Marci and maybe now I would understand I was better off without her. It was a lesson hard-learned.

When school started a few weeks later, I deeply mourned the loss of Katie's friendship. I tried many times to find out what had turned her against me, but she wouldn't talk to me at all. In fact, it confuses and bewilders me to this day. I'd made other friends and developed new interests, and it wasn't long before Katie was replaced by a new best friend. But even through high school, even after the death of Katie's father and the note my family and I had sent her in sympathy, Katie refused to give me the time of day.

Though I wasn't a bit surprised, it was small consolation to see that Katie's and Marci's friendship did not survive long into high school. By that time, I had a large circle of friends, was active in choir, piano, theatre and enjoyed discovering the world of boyfriends and staying out late and sneaking into midnight showings of Rocky Horror.

I never heard from Katie again, but I still think about her. About fifteen years ago, a mutual acquaintance told me that she was getting her teacher's certificate, possibly in special ed. I begged our friend to please pass on my good will to Katie, half hoping I would hear something in return. I never did.

I wonder what Katie is up to now. Her friendship was so profound to me that even at nearly 36 years old, I have trouble entirely letting go of her memory. For some reason, she's been on my mind a lot the last few weeks, and I've even considered writing a note to her mother to say hello and to please pass on my greeting.

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, it occured to me that the time is drawing near that I might finally be able to forgive Marci, who was obviously a troubled young lady. The severing of my friendship with Katie has left a hole in my heart for nearly twenty-five years, and think it's mostly because the reason behind it has never been resolved.

Should I contact Katie's mother? Would I be beating a dead horse? Is there a deeper reason why Katie has been on my mind so much for the first time in many years? Is it time to reconcile only long enough to communicate what happened and put old ghosts to rest? Is she as troubled as I sometimes am over what happened?

What would you do?

It's getting closer... when you know it's time to get out

My husband has been home since last week, so I haven't been able to write. Now that he's out swimming with our son, I'm taking advantage of the alone time to sit down and write a quick post before starting the laundry.

So, we're getting closer to V-day. Well, it'll be V-day for me, and I suppose it might be a little selfish of me to view it that way. But nevertheless, things are progressing pretty quickly now. Last Sunday, I suggested my husband take advantage of his week home from work to go through our stuff with me. He refused to talk about it, and the subject was dropped. But as the week moved on and our position became more secure, by Wednesday my Dear Hubby (DH) began going through his mother's stuff that's been stored in two of our three lower-level rooms for the last six months. He sorted through it, and through some of our own displaced possessions, as well, and we decided what to try to sell together. Which of our own things to sell. Not to sell his mother's. His mother's things will be transferred to his brother's place in Heidelberg, to the delight of the brother and his current female partner.

The subject of DH's mother's stuff is a touchy one in general, since all are in agreement that she should have taken care to rid herself of it or should have shipped it to Greece long ago, before she officially moved out of her Stuttgart apartment and left Germany for good. Instead, she just packed it all into boxes and made two of her sons cart it, carload by carload, to occupy half of the lower level of our house. It's an endless assortment of household things that should have been thrown away, along with her electronics, and exercise bike and a couple of pieces of furniture. But this kind of presumption and imposition is typical of her narcissistic and careless behavior, and not at all surprising in spite of the bad feelings it incurs.

The next two days were spent sorting through our son's toys, most of which will be left behind. Our son was very good about letting go of his belongings. Part of it was he's very easy going. Part of it was that most of those things are simply too young for him now, a big-big six-year-old about to start big-boy school in the fall. But just as I suspected would happen, my nurturing child was very reluctant to let go of his stuffed animals, even the ones he hasn't looked at in 18 months. So, the stuffed-animal pile is bigger than is convenient. He also, not surprisingly, was reluctant to let go of a good half of his books. Just like Mommy. I'm tempted to quietly slip some of those animals and books into the trash pile. He'll never miss them.

Next come the boxes of things I've already sorted through, and with DH's help to bolster my courage (he's not the type to hold on to things), we should be able to reduce those three boxes still further.

So the gist of all this is, DH is finally committed to leaving. We've been emptying our house out little by litte. He's even suggested that my son and I leave for Chicago in the first half of July. DH will follow about the middle of August, after he's settled our affairs here, to be there in time for our son's first day of school.

It's possible that I'll be back home in Chicago in less than three weeks. Hard to imagine, after all that's passed.

Thinning Out

We're getting ready to make the big move to America, and while my husband still refuses to verbally commit to moving (he still says, MAYBE we'll leave), he's cancelled our apartment damage insurance, for example, and has given the thumbs up to my sorting through all our stuff and putting it into piles of To Keep or To Toss. We have around twelve unopened boxes from our last move, and I've gone through all of them and reduced the To Keep pile to three boxes--not including my son's things. The To Keep pile will be further reduced, I'm sure, especially once I enlist my husband's aid. And everything else that's in the house will stay behind.

Yesterday, as I was going through one box and called my husband at work to ask if he wanted to keep a certain computer game, he made the most decisive verbal commitment to the move I've ever heard from him. He said, "Before we go, we can go through those things together." Naturally, I skipped lightly over those words, "before we go," as if it were the hundredth time he'd said it. But my heart soared when I heard them for the first time, yesterday.

It's been very difficult thinning out my life (though I wish thinning out my SELF would be so easy). I've always been a keeper of things. Papers, books, pens, little mementoes. Part of it is that common conviction that SOME DAY I'll need this again. Part of it is an unwillingness to let go of something of the past. And still another part is a childish irrationality that an inanimate object will feel lost and rejected when I throw it in the trash. This deep and well-hidden sense of animism is probably more indicative of myself than of an innate sense of common soulfulness among all and everything. But it's still there, left over from childhood, that little girl who was secretly certain that the rock held in her hand possessed a form of soul...

So how do you get rid of all these things that, if they possess no soul of their own, at least claim and harbor a portion of your own? It requires careful, steady ruthlessness, that's certain.

But even so, it's difficult.

Blonde. Jane Blonde.

Well, we are almost certainly going to make it to the States this summer. I won't go into the sordid details--and yes, they are sordid--but suffice it to say it's been an icky business the last week in particular. Just between me and thee, over the weekend, when it was understood it would be a no-go, I came the closest I've ever been to suicide. Not in a petulant way, little Silver wasn't getting her way, but rather because I don't think I realized until that point just how important it is to me to make this move.

I don't think I can explain how deep the need is without sounding like a complete debutante who can't make it work for herself in a foreign country. You'll have to take my word for it that I'm not being a princess about this whole thing (if you knew me, you'd know I am NOT the princess type), and everyone familiar with our situation believes it's the best thing for our family.

Thanks to my parents, but not to my husband's ill judgment and bull-headedness, we are considerably closer to departure than ever before. But as the details get worked out between them, my son and I are basically being held for "ransom", which is a shitty position to be in, and the future is still held precariously in the balance. I'm infuriated with my husband but can't show it, and indebted to my parents for their generosity and understanding. So now one stress has been replaced with another, and I'm floating through the house, doing my housewifely things, preparing our belongings for the move, continuing to home school our bright son... but still unsure where our destiny lies. Is it yay, or nay?

To facilitate the cause, I've begun carrying around a little medicine bag. It's a tiny felt change purse decorated with a silver edelweiss flower I bought in Füssen when we visited Neuschwanstein castle (the one the Disney castle is based on) a few weeks before our son's birth. In it are an American quarter, St. Jude's prayer (though I'm not Christian, I do believe prayers go somewhere and are heard), an English pound, an Elizabethan groat, an American flag pin, and my favorite little worry doll. I carry it around everywhere and hold it in my hand when I can. I talk to my mother's father, who passed away two years ago, and who I believe has had a positive influence on the outcome so far. I talk to my other deceased grandfather.

The flower on my tiny change purse looks very similar to the flower on this ring.

Neuschwanstein Castle.


I also talk to my husband's deceased father--who died shortly before my husband and I met, and who my husband is certain helped us find each other--and beg him to soften his son to comply to my dad's terms, and not to try to strongarm my father.

I might sound pretty wacky to some of you, but I won't apologize for my metaphysical practices.

Anyway, while I was thinking all this out a little while ago, my husband and son were rough housing before bed. My son said to his dad, "I'm James Bond! Who are you, Daddy?" James Bond was my son's very first hero, a few years ago. My husband said, "I'm James Gond!" I couldn't resist piping in with, "Well, I'm Jane Blonde!" and managed to elicit a rare amused smile from my husband.

I couldn't help but wonder how Jane Blonde would fare in this tense, delicate situation my family and I face right now? Much better than I, I'm sure.

Will we or won't we???

It's been a rollercoaster ride all the way.

I'm dropping by today to say that whether we relocate to America or stay here in Germany is hanging by the thinnest of threads. It's an agonizing time right now.

Wish us luck.

A Womb with a View

My son is the light of my life.
He's very special, and a natural nurturer.

He made this object out of computer paper and tape,
and decorated it with chocolate smudges.
Can you guess what it is?

Why, it's a Womb with a View, of course.

How do you romance your mind?

I didn't intend to post this morning, but a comment on the previous post--from a blogger on another blogging forum--prompted this response from me.

While everyone is entitled to their opinion about what they might consider worthy reading material, it's my own opinion that bashing a particular genre as illegitimate is being pathetically closed-minded. Romance seems to receive the brunt of this prejudice, and yet it's the highest-selling, most lucrative genre out there. What does that tell you? Those nay-sayers automatically assume that writers of genre fiction are largely bad writers writing predictable material.

Sure, in romance the girl always gets the guy (or the apprentice always gets the evil sorcerer several books down the line, or the spaceship commander gets the big ugly alien, or the good guy always dies, or whatever ending is appropriate for your favorite genre--including literary fiction), the journey there is never the same and can hold as many twists and surprises as a Dickens novel.

As for the writing, every single genre out there boasts some excellent writers who can not only dream up interesting story lines, but use language exquisitely to carry the reader along a fascinating journey. By the same token, there are also writers out there who, for all intents and purposes, can't put a proper sentence together and shouldn't be published at all, except that they have fertile imaginations and a great hook that sells.

Just as there are different types of intelligence--and one type isn't any better than another--there are different genres that fit different personalities or emotional needs. A person's IQ isn't lowered just because he or she likes to read about romantic love and steamy sex, or dragons and magic. Just as it doesn't automatically make you a great intellectual if you prefer literary and science fiction.

Read, and write, what makes you feel good, or what inspires your imagination. You don't have to like every single genre, you don't even have to sample from every one that doesn't spark interest. But snobbery and prejudice are so unattractive whatever form they take. They not only severely limit a person's experience, but colors one's character a certain shade of bland.

How boring.

Here's a fun exercise...

Two years ago, I realized two things about my writing:

1. I didn't feel that literary fiction was my niche. I had, and still have, little to say in the way of literary fiction.

2. Almost everything I had been writing revolved around relationships and romance. ...Including, to a certain extent, the horror novella I had recently completed.

In my critique group, I had received many unpleasant comments about several of my stories sounding like a Harlequin romance novel. Since I hadn't read romance novels up until that point, I decided to start and see what I could make of them--and if I could write a romance novel, myself.

Well, I discovered that I actually enjoy reading romance novels, though they sometimes depress me, and I do get tired of them after a few and have to move on to something else for a while. I also discovered that writing romance is fun, too, though I have yet to complete that novel I started two years ago.

While researching romance writing, I happened across the Harelquin website. Not only does it promote its own, very numerous imprints, but it has a free online library where visitors can read short stories that parallel the current novels of the month. It also features a writer's section where there are online workshops, message boards, and, among other things, a Writing Round Robin. One of the featured authors begins a chapter of a short story, about 1,000 words long, and then readers can submit subsequent chapters for online publication every two weeks or so.

I did this once, two summers ago, when I first started out in the romance genre. Of course I didn't get selected. I didn't expect to. But it was fun. And it wasn't until this month, that my timing was right on (or should I say write on?). Not only did I remember to check in on the current Writing Round Robin, but I managed to check just last week, shortly before the new one began. I promptly made my way to the online library and printed up a good dozen short stories to get a good idea of what and how to write. And, I've been having a lot of fun with my research!

So when does the new WRR begin? Well, today, actually, which is why I'm writing.

I just downloaded the first chapter of the new WRR, and plan to get started writing the second chapter this afternoon. Yeah, I'll submit the chapter. And it's highly unlikely any of my submissions would get chosen. But it's good practice, and good fun.

And it's a wonderfully non-committal way to get myself back into writing fiction. I may not get published, but I'm still a winner any way you slice it!

Oh, the summer time is comin', and the trees are sweetly bloomin'...

Oh, the summertime is comin',

and the trees are sweetly bloomin',

and the wild mountain thyme

grows around the bloomin' heather.

Will ye go, lassie, go?

This is the chorus to a song close to my heart. We sang it a lot at the Ren Faire I worked as a musician.

I got these lovely flowers for Mother's Day. My husband took my son out Saturday morning (everything's closed here on Sundays) to pick out my flowers.

I think they're the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. My son decorated a card with three sunflowers on it. "This is Daddy, you and me," he said when I opened it. On the flap of the envelope, my husband had written, "Für unsere liebe Mami... Because you are the only angel that lives on earth." The inscription brought tears to my eyes, because it was a rare declaration of the depth of my husband's affection.

My husband also gave me a new backgammon set. Our old one is a glass board with glass stones which we got from a Folksfest carnival two years ago. I've been wanting a real, fold-up board ever since, so it was a lovely surprise. The day was relaxing, quiet, pleasant, and we got a good many games of backgammon in, as well! We're pretty well matched as players, so it's always a toss-up who'll win.

Black moods and sesame-seed bagel cravings...

I can't even blame my mood on the weather. Today is my favorite kind: impending rain and thunderstorms accompanied by a nice cool front.

To everyone I know, I'm an anomaly in this respect. I love rain, clouds, mist, thunder, wind, dramatic weather of the cool and cloudy kind. It comforts me. It rests contentedly behind my eyes. It doesn't burn my skin or make me sweat or hurt my eyes.

So, it's not the weather that's making me crabby, either.

I don't know what it is. When I awoke this morning, I felt pretty normal. But The Mood descended over me like a black shroud as I was blow-drying my hair, when my son sneaked into the bathroom and stood quietly beneath me. When I lowered the arm holding the hair dryer, I bonked him on the head with my elbow.

"Ouch!" he said. "Be careful, Mommy."

I was irritated that once again he had snuck in without knocking, a habit I'm trying to break him of. He's getting too old to walk freely into the bathroom when Mommy is in there doing mysterious Mommy things. Like taking a shower and personal activities of that ilk. I tried to be decent about it, but the irritation leaked through when I said, "Sweetheart, darnit, knock before you come in!"

And then I was reminded by him, for the umpteenth time this morning, to call his kindergarten teacher to find out when the fireman is expected to arrive for the kindergarten demonstration.

Today is speech therapy day, and normally we skip kindergarten (which is like preschool, and daily attendance is not required) on Tuesdays to concentrate on that activity. But the fireman is coming, and my son didn't want to miss it. So, I had to call to find out when he was coming, so we could work that in before zipping off to speech therapy.

And it was that final reminder that pushed me over the edge. I didn't want to be reminded again, and it wasn't even 8 am, yet. I didn't want to deal with phone calls in a foreign language and kindergarten and firemen and speech therapy and my diet, and my son's inevitable begging to take him to McDonad's as we sometimes do on our way home from Tuesday speech therapy, and cleaning the kitchen, and changing the sheets and doing more laundry and folding it and spending the afternoon trying to reign in my son's energy to sit the afternoon learning to read, write, add and subtract, and the further inevitable begging to play our favorite computer game afterward...

And so, that's why I'm crabby. Oh, and I'm sure PMS might have something to do with it, as well. Nice synchronicity, there, she adds wryly.

And so I thought I'd use the downtime--before picking up the boy from KG to bring him to our appointment--to do a little blogiting. And you know what? I don't even feel like that, today.

The clouds just broke open with lightning and thunder, and I think I'm just going to sit back and play my computer game for a little while. Haven't played it in weeks. Maybe it'll take my mind off my bad humor and my empty tummy.

Secrets Kill

A common secret that shouldn't be common, nor a secret.

Secrets kill your spirit, your mind, your body.

Last year I came to understand that the my greatest weapons over emotional abuse inflicted by a partner battling his own inner demons is to no longer respond to his outbursts, and to open my mouth and tattle.

Responding to verbal abuse creates justification for the abuse. And if you let the other person go on without visibly getting worked up about it yourself, you go a long way toward minimizing the situation. Eventually, the abuser gets an earful of his own blathering and backs down when he understands that you're not a sufficient sponge to soak up his feelings of inadequacy. He shuts
up because his words echo back to him and he hears their ridiculousness.

Useful phrases in my repertoire, when I start to get worked up in spite of my efforts not to, include:

Why are you shouting? and
Come back when you find something worth getting angry over.

In reference to my last post, my husband and I are both concerned about our son's readiness for German AND American first grade, both of which have very different requirements. Our son already meets his German requirements, which are minimal, but my husband is desperate to ensure our son's academic success in Germany, in the event we stay put. Germany is far less forgiving of students who don't excell early, determining as early as age ten whether they are university material or not and dictating the direction of each student's education accordingly.

So, to ensure that our son has an advantage over every other incoming German first grader, he wanted me to teach him to read in German this summer (in addition to a year's worth of American kindergarten curriculum which we've been desperately cramming the last few weeks) he told us that our son could no longer watch TV or play our nightly computer game after hours of afternoon of studying, and that I could not read any more books.

My infuriated response was to write about it in my previous post. But I kept quiet to him about it (because I also recognized his need to start a fight), and his mandate was never enforced.

In the meantime, I inquired of our son's speech therapist and kindergarten teacher about the best techniques and tools for teaching reading to German children, and they both stoutly insisted to let the school do it. They have their methods, and it's best when everyone starts off on the same foot. I told my husband this, and while he wasn't happy about it, never pressed me further. That's not to say the bug won't crawl up his ass later on and I won't get another earful.

But the pressure is off for the time being.

And I never even stopped reading, as if he could stop me.

My husband's problem is mild compared to other abusives. He's very caring, sensitive, thoughtful and responsible to a fault. He's an injured bird done wrong by his parents. and the result is a common Jeckyl-and-Hyde syndrome. But that doesn't make his behavior right or justifiable, and it doesn't stop me from feeling desperate, infuriated, and even depressed at times.

I work hard to make our marriage tolerable in our present environment. I work hard to remain in touch with my Self, in spite of my husband's occasional attempts to rob me of my individual identity. I work hard to instill in our son a sense of love and gentleness, and to help him understand that his father's behavior is sometimes inappropriate. And I work hard to ensure our son understands that he is boundlessly loved not only by me, but by my husband as well.

I try not to let this side of my life bleed onto this blog. I don't want sympathy--there are a lot more people who need a lot more help than I--but sometimes I need an ear to scream my frustration into.

And I need to get it across right now that it's wrong to assume that all people who receive abuse from their partners or spouses are weak and passive, uneducated or unintelligent, and take it all lying down. Abuse is a secret, insidious disease, and it is far more common and reaches into far more social sectors than you might believe.

And if you find yourself in an abusive relationship, start telling people. It's liberating and empowering. It strengthens your deepest belief that you don't deserve it. It makes you stronger to begin taking steps to better your life and your spirit, however you choose to do that.

Keeping secrets will only kill you.

Earning my right to read

I must earn my right to read, if you can believe that...

My son and I have been desperately ill the last ten days, and we're still not out of the woods.

Well, he is. I'm not. And now my husband is home sick, too, and will be home for the next week.
But I have learned one thing: Hot Toddies are not only yummy, but they really do help sore throats, which is my current ailment, caused by fever and unstoppable coughing the last week and more.

But that aside, my husband has now declared that I have to earn my right to read a book. As some of you know, I've been home schooling my son to prepare him for American first grade in the fall (the German system starts the basics a year later). So far, he can read several English words strung together in simple stories. I'm very proud of him, but he still has a ways to go to meet our goal.

But now my husband is feeling slighted that our son can't yet read German words, an issue which will be addressed when he starts German first grade in the fall. (Assuming we don't make it to America.) In spite of countless teachers informing him that our boy more than meets the requirements for first grade admittance, my dear hubby insists that our son MUST know how to read German before September. And to add and subtract. And to write upper and lowercase letters. (Those last two are already getting covered by our current home schooling.) And to ensure that I accomplish these things, he said I am not allowed to read any more books until our son can do all of it.

Talk about pressure. On me. On our son. Talk about utter assholery. And now I have to deal with his constant presence until he returns to work next Monday. So goes another week without writing. And I'm reduced to reading under the covers with a flashlight, just like a kid.

On another continent, I would never have put up with the bullshit that I do. I often marvel at how far my head was up my bum when I got married. Shoulda coulda woulda.

I write too much, and it's keeping me from writing.

No really, I do, and it does. If you've ever gotten a letter from me, you'll understand what I mean. My letters are LONG. I often plug away for an hour or more, going from one topic to the next, recounting every last detail. This is a stubborn compulsion of mine, because I am utterly convinced that, without all that background information, how can anyone fully understand and appreciate the impact of what I have to tell?

It takes every ounce of will to keep a note just a note. To keep the kb count of an e-mail below 50. Sometimes I can do it, and I walk away very proud of myself. Most times, I give in to my natural inclination and end up glued to the computer with my son imploring me for my attention, "Mommy, Mommy..." and me saying, "Okay, just a minute." And that minute turns into several, which lapse into an hour... You get the picture.

I don't write letters very often, anymore. I have a lot of friends and family, and I hated getting stuck at the computer, compulsively vomiting forth every detail of my anecdotes countless times, trying to make each letter unique. Against my moral judgment, I started writing mass e-mails. But no one likes those very much, and I got a few hurt responses. After I joined Blogit and understood how I could make a blog into something other than a boring ol' daily diary, I started a public blog. This is specifically intended to repost some of my less incriminating Blogit blogs for friends and family to read. If they wanted. Without having to plod through five pages of an e-mail. And they could respond. If they wanted. Pressure off, right?

Wrong. My posts are often long-winded, because every story has important backstory and important details that are oh-so-necessary for a reader to attain a full appreciation of the bottom line. I struggle to keep my posts to a manageable length, and I walk away from the computer a happy camper if the word count is under 500 (I'm currently at 345, so I'm doing pretty well). For me, blogging is partly an exercise in being concise. And much like dieting, I still often fall off the wagon and give in to those natural tendencies.

But what I'm wondering is, Why can't I write this effluently when I'm working on a piece of fiction? Okay, it's extremely difficult for me to write a short story less than 5,000 words. It takes a lot of effort. And the more I write, the longer each story gets. My latest reaches about 25,000 words, and had outgrown its original short story status and now wears size Novella jeans. And it's a good story, too. Not a pleasant one, but it's my favorite and the most developed.

But here's the crux. With this disease of verbal diarrhea, why can't I write a whole novel? Why doesn't one pour out of me like a letter or a blog? Why aren't I as compulsive about getting down all those neat ideas I have (at least a dozen) and churning out novel after novel like some people do? Why can't novels be my medium of strength, rather than blogs and boring letters?
I need to excercise that muscle, is what it probably comes down to. I need to retrain my storytelling to flow undammed down the ravines of fiction, rather than overflowing the gulleys of personal experience. There's a lot of energy spilling out of me when I write. It's the same energy that I feel when I create music. I think it can be coaxed to flow as effortlessly through the fictive part of my brain, as well. Can't it?

Unfortunately, just like going to the gym or popping in that Pilates DVD, there's a lot of discipline to be developed, too. Like dieting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, creating fiction takes work. Blogging is like sitting down and eating a Snickers. And it's all too easy to succomb to temptation and take the path of least resistance.

I better get started on that excercise routine.

Maybe I'll start on Monday. After coffee. After writing a blog.

Oh, and by the way. Don't ever call me unless you've cleared your calendar for the afternoon, or have mastered the art of gently and expediently guiding me through my long-windedness.

Hello. My name is SilverMoon, and I'm a verbaholic.

(742 words, by the way. Could be worse...)

A Brilliant Idea

I'm forming a new tactic in the Moving to America campaign. My husband is concerned we won't have enough cash to fund the venture. And as I lay in bed a few hours ago pondering this dilemma, I remembered something my mother and I talked about a couple months ago. Why not send me ahead to find a job, get health and car insurance and our son's schooling squared away, and send him money every month until we get our finances in order?

Isn't that a great idea? Before I leave, I could go through our stuff (half of which is still in cartons from our move last year) and sort out what to keep (a few sentimental items) and what to throw away (most everything). Then, my husband can take care of selling what's saleable, including the car, since he'd be doing all that on his own, anyway. And assuming our son goes with me, our expenses here would be cut in half because I'd be living with my parents and not accruing any.

That would work, don't you think? Huh? Don't you?

Now if I could only sell my husband on it...

When You Piss and Miss and Miss the Mess

Ten days ago, our bathroom sink sprung a leak. Actually, it’s been weeks or even months that the thing has been leaking. Up until the moment I noticed that there was a pool spreading from beneath a set of shelves into the main area and heard water freely running down the elbow pipe, I thought the constant wetness on the floor directly beneath the sink was because of sloppy hand washing. You see, my son is six and my husband loves to flop around in the water when he washes his hands or takes a shower and lets it drip everywhere. Between the two of them, I’m always mopping up the mess on the floor. So you can see how I could have assumed the fault lay at the feet of the Y-chromosomes I live with.

So it was ten days ago when I noticed a serious pooling problem, beneath those shelves. And after a little nosing around, I quickly discovered our sink was leaking. Badly. Today, a plumber came to fix it. And when I saw the man walk through our door, I wanted to hide. I was still angry at him about our last encounter, and also horribly embarrassed.

When we first moved here a little over a year ago, we noticed a funny smell in our downstairs toilet. The smell got worse and worse, until finally, around the end of summer, we begged our landlady to get someone in there pronto to check it out. Up until that point, she had been dragging her feet, about the matter, telling us to pour water down the effluence drain in the boiler room to dislodge whatever might have gotten stuck in there. Never mind that I insister to her and to my husband that the smell wasn't coming from the toilet, but from the hole near the ceiling where a small fan used to be.

After insisting the problem would not go away on its own, our landlady finally called the local plumber. He was an older gentleman and a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted about him like a tarnished aura. He stuck his head in the toilet room and said, “I don’t smell anything.”
I insisted there was, in fact, an odor, and a very unpleasant one, at that.

“I don’t smell a thing,” he protested. And there we stood, arguing about whether or not there really was an odor.

I finally pulled out my trump card. “Well, we don’t smoke, and I can tell you for sure that it smells like something died in there. If you don’t smell anything, then you better figure out whether there’s anything to smell at all.”

So, about two weeks later, his thirty-year-old son came to sniff out the problem. His visit was a surprise. I had no idea he was coming. If I had known, then things might have turned out somewhat differently.

I led him downstairs to the strange-smelling toilet. He took one look around and said he didn’t smell anything, either. And wouldn’t you know it, the smell wasn’t so bad that day. In fact, it was hardly there. Still, I insisted that there was a bad odor.

He sniffed around the air vent (I suspected a bird, mouse or bat had fallen into the PVC piping that leads from the bathroom up into the attic where it remains open to anything that cares to fall in there), and said, “Nope, nothing.” Then he sniffed around the base of the toilet, pointed to the floor and said it was urine that was stinking up the joint. I looked to where he pointed, and I saw the unmistakable evidence of drying piss on the floor.

I was mortified. I knew that that morning, after a long night’s sleep, my son had been the last person to use that toilet before decamping to the main area of the house upstairs. Like most young boys, he isn’t always very accurate, especially when still crusty from sleep. He usually tells me when he misses, or cleans it up himself. But this time, he didn’t do either.

I insisted to this man, who has farmer-boy good looks and eyes that make my heart jump, that the pee left on the floor was a one-time occurrence, that it wasn’t the odor of urine that we’d been smelling. Really. There was a distinct smell of dessication going on somewhere behind the wall. Really really.

But the man wouldn’t believe me. He left the house shaking his head, and I, angry and irate, nearly shouting at him to believe me.

And now, eight months later, he was gracing my doorstep once again.

Neither one of us was very happy about it.

He uses a very thick SW German dialect, and it’s very difficult for me to understand him and the many other Schwarzwald natives in our neighborhood. When he spoke, I had to ask him to repeat himself and he was clearly unhappy to oblige. Mustering every last bit of adult reserve I had, I stopped myself from getting snotty back, and silently led him to the bathroom. He spent all of five minutes in there dismantling the elbow pipe and installing a new seal. He asked me for some paper towels, and when I gave him the roll, he smiled nicely at me. I managed to smile back, though I imagine my expression must have looked more constipated than friendly simply because he took me off guard.

When he was done, he politely said goodbye and left. And as I pondered the change between us, the doorbell rang again. I buzzed him in and he poked his head up the stairs and wanted to know if we were paying the bill. I said that I thought our land lady was going to do that.
He shook his head no.

Back on uncertain footing, I asked if he could send us a bill. And of course he said he would.
I know his daughter is in my son’s kindergarten class, because I’ve seen him there twice in the past few weeks. Both times, I did an about face and hurried out the door, feeling the residual anger and embarrassment of the summer before staining my cheeks. I’m not a bad housekeeper, and I certainly don’t let piss dry on my floors if I know it's there. But that one time, it got overlooked. And someone found out.

And I know we were not imagining the stink from the toilet. It’s not as bad now as it was last year. In fact, it’s almost gone, now. And I’m more certain than ever that something had fallen down that impromptu air duct and died.

We’ll never know for sure.

And I’ll also never know how many people now think the new folks on the hill (you never get over being the new folk in small towns) let piss dry on their floors until they have to call a plumber to find out what stinks?

I know I shouldn’t still be embarrassed, but I am. I might be able to face him the next time I see him at the kindergarten, but the memory that he caught me with piss on my floor will never fade.

The Blogital Daughter returns home... to another list.

I've been feeling that creative urge again. It's been far too long since I've felt that way. The urge to write. The urge to immerse myself in the company of other writers, dickering with the grammar gurus and the punctuation police over the intricacies of who vs whom and comma usage.

In much the same way I've missed this particular forum, I've also come to miss my old writing list. It's quite a large list, actually, with members from all over the world. One of the unique things about it is that it is not just a writing list where dorks like me discuss the same boring old drudge about writing over and over again. It's also a list that plays host to a number of critique sub-lists. Fiction, Poetry, Romance, Scriptwriting, Non-fiction, Juvenile, and others I'm sure I'm missing.

A few days ago, I signed on to that list again. Only for the discussion list, however. I don't have the time right now to dedicate to writing fiction again. Blogging, right now, is tons less effortful and more fulfilling than writing fiction. Besides, with posting your work comes the obligation to critique others' works in return. And I just can't handle that at the moment.

But I did rejoin the discussion list. I'll probably keep most of my opinions to myself, as usual, unless something really gets my dander up. And I'll probably roll my eyes at the tight-assed, dogmatic opinions of certain individuals, as usual. But the point is, I'm back on the list.

And it feels good.

Culture Clash: When Homeschooling Doesn't Add Up...

When kids go to kindergarten in Germany, they start at age three. The basic goal is to socialize the youngsters and make them aware of their surroundings, rather than filling their heads with useful, basic education. In their sixth year, the children begin first grade. This is when they begin to learn the basics. The prerequisite for children entering first grade is pretty minimal. They should be able to write their first name, follow directions, play nicely with others, recognize numbers in dot patters (think of dice), count to ten. Stuff like that. Sounds pretty reasonable, right?

So, when we started talking about going to America, we didn’t really think about what our son would need to know when he starts first grade this fall. We thought that the kindergartens were basically the same: to get the kids socialized and introduce them to some kind of educational structure. But last week, after my husband received his immigrant visa in the mail, it suddenly became priority to make sure that our kiddo has what it takes to enter first grade.

After contacting the principal of the grade school my boy may attend this fall (assuming we really do return to the good ol’ USA), I discovered that he is, in fact, about a semester behind schedule. I had been home schooling him a bit in German, up until this point, just to give him an edge when he starts German first grade. Good thing, too. But he doesn’t have the knowledge needed to advance to first grade in America. He should be reading basic words by now (about 40 of them), writing, counting beyond 110 by 2s, 5s and 10s, calculating simple math problems...

When did this start happening? I don’t remember doing all this in kindergarten. Okay, I don’t remember much about kindergarten at all. My memories of that class encompass Show and Tell day, cookies-and milk snack time, Letter-People. Oh, and I’ll never forget the time I handed in a kitty cat ditto and the teacher called me to her desk to ask why I hadn’t colored it.

“I did,” I said to her, “I colored it white. See?” I pointed to the places where my white Crayola had gone outside the lines and faded the blue outline. My teacher didn’t say anything. But before handing in the page, all the kids at my table had said that I was doing it wrong. That I had to color it a color. “White is a color,” I’d told them calmly. Little did I know...

When I returned to the table, the boy next to me leaned close to and whispered, "See? I told you." The two little girls on the other side of him nodded sagely.

What happened to those days of kindergarten, when the biggest issue was whether white was an appropriate color to color with, or who poked a hole in the inflatable Mr. D (for Doughnut)? I'm now doing hard-core home schooling in the afternoon hours when he should be watching Scooby Doo, or riding his bike in the driveway. Having to rush my child to catch up with the rest of the American kids his age is stressing him out.

And me too. And we're only in the first week.

I've sought the company of others

I Admit It...

Yes, I've sought the company of others. Selfishly and shamelessly. And if I've learned one thing, it's this simple fact: There's No Place Like Home.

No one else can take the place of the one that truly holds your heart. Not cheap freebies, not those who lure you in with promises of variety and intricate gadgets. No one.

No other blogging site can take the place of Blogitland. For some reason, the best of the best seem to have collected here... and we all pay quite a lot, in comparison, for the privilege of writing and reading in this place.

We're writers, though. We're not supposed to PAY to write, are we? And yet we do. We are quite all right with the fact that we get less than a penny a click, and yet we continue to foster our abnormal and co-dependent relationship with Blogitland and other Blogiteers.

How many of us have gone away, and come back desperate to regain that sense of completion we have only here?



Why is that?

I've thought and thunk and thought summore.



It can only mean one thing,



We've succumbed to subliminal messaging. That's gotta be it.



I may continue to wander in search of greener pastures, looking for a cheap lay of land, but none are as verdant and fertile as the fields of Blogitland.

A Surprise Visit from a Distant Friend

Last night, I ran across a friend online. Although I’m online at the same time almost every weeknight, I’d never seen her presence until last night. I met her maybe four or five years ago at an English-language play group in Stuttgart. She befriended me (it usually takes some effort to befriend me. I can be shy, at times!), and we really had some nice times together. We’d talk on the phone for hours, or meet downtown on Königstrasse to window shop. At first, our boys would accompany us, and then they each started Kindergarten so we got to share mommy and wifey stories in the luxury of their absence. I watched her belly swell as she grew a new child, and held that tiny little girl the last time we saw each other.

Her husband, once contracted under Daimler-Chrysler, decided he had had enough of being the ausländisches underdog and not being taken seriously by his coworkers. When he cancelled his contract, he returned to America with my friend and their children feeling profoundly disillusioned, leaving not only Germany, but his profession behind.

I had tears in my eyes when my friend and I parted ways. We didn’t see each other often, but I had an affection for her, and just knowing she was in the same city was a great comfort to me. I was sad when she left, but we traded e-mails for a while. And then the e-mails became less and less frequent. The last time we heard from each other was about six months ago.

But lately, she’d been on my mind a lot. I knew I had to write her, but I’ve been less busy than completely preoccupied. You know how that is? So, when I saw her on my Trillian contacts list, I was thrilled. I did a virtual happy dance, threw her virtual hugs, and we IMed for a good hour or so. For the umpteenth time, she offered to kick out their current tenant and rent out the other half of their Ohio country fixer-upper to us. I don’t know that we’ll ever take her up on her offer—or how serious her offer really is—but it’s fun to think of our families being neighbors.

Seeing her again, even if only virtually, did my soul lots of good.