Some People Think Its Funny...

But it’s really wet and muddy.

Diarrhea. The scourge of mankind. The great leveler.

And my son is suffering from it.

It’s been going around at his Kindergarten, and I suppose it was only inevitable that he should contract it, as well. Well, he doesn’t appear to be suffering, except for the running back and forth to the toilet, the constant changing of underwear—he’s watching movies, jumping around pretending to be Spiderman, making the usual racket. His appetite isn’t even suffering, and he doesn’t have a fever. So, I’m not particularly worried.

And I don’t feel particularly guilty about complaining about it, either.

To be honest, it’s been a pain in the ass. I’ve thrown my back out cleaning up after the little guy, stooping to wipe his butt, clean the floor, scrub undies. It’s times like this I’m more thankful than usual that I have only one child to tend. I can’t imagine myself running behind two or more children and dealing with this kind of mess.

Don’t get me wrong, my heart goes out to him. Naturally, possessing the tender heart of a mother, I don’t want my child suffering illness. But after his bout of stomach flu two weeks ago, cleaning after the careless pissing of both males in this household (Men, please pay better attention to where you aim. Keep at least one hand on your willie, and one eye on the target ), and now this, I’ve just about had it with messy bodily fluids.

Calgon, take me away… and ease my aching back.

By the way, I did manage to figure out how to start a fire on the first go. Thanks to Hearth.com. Anyone who has trouble getting their fireplace or wood stove going, take a gander at this site. It even boasts a handy dandy video for those of you, like me, who benefit from visuals.

Ahh, the Spicy Scent of Wood Smoke... ga-ack!

I LOVE Fall.

And now that it has arrived, walking my son to Kindergarten every morning is enhanced by the scent of burning wood hanging heavy in air.

Here in Germany, a very popular alternative to the standard wall-mounted oil heaters--especially in this neck of the woods where firewood is plentiful and inexpensive--is the Kaminofen. A Kaminofen is a wood-burning stove used for heat, just like a fireplace. It's equally decorative, but the difference is it's a little stove stuck in the corner of a room (usually the living room), with a large pipe that leads from it into one or more other rooms and exhausts through the roof. It's enclosed, with little glass doors, and is very romantic.

So, beginning this time of year, until about May or so, you can walk outside any time of the day and the air smells like campfires. I love it. It reminds me of summer weekend mornings when I was a musician at the renaissance faire, and I'd smell this smell passing by merchants' booths, where the merchants who lived in the rooms above their shops set to preparing their morning coffee. Or where the glazier stoked her fire nice and hot to make her cups and bowls and figurines throughout the day. Or the mushroom guy, getting ready to sautee his first batch of garlic mushrooms. A particular scent of incense also burned, and pacing through the fair site before opening gate was a magical experience for me. And connected to it all is the image of a medieval village starting its day.

The smell is inspiring to me.

We have a Kaminofen, too. Last year, we didn't use it and were sorry for it. Our electric oil heaters are inefficient at best. We had to crank them very high to heat the rooms to a livable temperature. Our heating bill was enormous, and we were horrified. When we lived in Stuttgart, our heating bill was extremely low--but then, our apartment was very small and in the middle of the building. We barely used the heat.

So, this year, we decided to put our Kaminofen to use. The problem with this thing is, if you're not adept at building fires from scratch, you will have that yummy campfire smell in your house--at which point the idea of a fire and it's wonderful smell stops being yummy and romantic. I have spent the last week attempting to quickly and efficiently build a fire, and keep it stoked, without clouds of smoke escaping and polluting our main living area on the upper level. I've gotten the fire going, and kept it going, but every time we've had to let it die down because of the smell, and then open the windows to air it out.

It's not just my inexperience that's contributing to the problem. There's an art to the technique of fire building, and I'm determined to learn it. However, I'm also certain the joints in the pipes leak. When we moved in, before we painted, I saw the black smoke stains on the walls from the previous tenants (the ones who left all their junk in our garage for six or seven months before clearing it away). And now I know what that funky permanent smell is that haunts the upper floor--stale wood smoke embedded in the walls, a smell so deep that not even painting over it could eliminate it.

We can't really afford to have the pipes looked at and fixed. And I don't like living amid the rogue clouds of smoke that escaped during my hurry to put another log on the fire. I mean it really stinks. It's strong and my hair reeks of it. We will look for a heat-resistant duct tape, however; and I will ask our landlady exactly how to get a proper fire started and maintained (I have a strained relationship with her, and I usually avoid contact) tomorrow.

We may end up foregoing the Kaminofen altogether and make use of a couple of space heaters to supplement our bad oil heaters. But until we definitively elimnate the wood stove as a means of heat, we may all come down with black lung or die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

If, inexplicably, you never hear from me again, you'll know why.

In the meantime, I feel pissy that the wonderful campfire smell that drifts through our village is no longer as inspiring as it is a frustrating reminder of the struggles I have with our own wood burning.



























The Kaminofen (wood stove), as an instrument of torture.

Back from the Land of Nod

Jeez. I've been gone a whole week, and I feel like the world has passed me by.

I took the last week off to catch up on some household projects I'd been letting slide, but my son got sick and I spent most of the week tending him. Nothing as wrenching as helping a helpless child puke his guts out every half-hour for twenty-four hours, till there's nothing left but bubbles and bile. Makes the moms feel as helpless as the children.

In the meantime, my husband and I have been glued to the TV to watch Rita's progress, praying it would at least miss New Orleans. German television proclaimed it would wipe Galveston off the map--to quote literally. We were happy to see that didn't happen, but how full of mixed emotions we are when we watch. When you add them all together, they equal one gigantic hope: Please don't let there be a lot of damage. What else can we hope for?

This week will have to be a slow blogging week, as well, since now I really have to get caught up with those things I didn't get around to last week.

My husband took our son swimming this afternoon. I have a couple hours ahead of me... well I did, until I decided to catch up on what you-all have to say. For the last hour I've been promising myself, "Okay, just one more, just one more. Okay, one more after this one..." I haven't commented much, but I did a lot of visiting today.

I really missed everyone quite a lot!

Have a great Sunday, everyone. I hope to keep in touch more this week.

Uncut and Uncensored

Crazy Frog!!!

See the original Crazy Frog Video in its entirety! Oh, go on, take a look!

Crazy Frog is a big deal in my house. My son is, well, crazy for him. Some of you might already be acquainted with this devilish little creature. But how many of you are familiar with the uncensored version of Crazy Frog?

You may or may not know, he originated here in Germany. But as he migrated overseas, you'll notice he's lost a certain part of himself in transit. Looking for the Alex F. video to download, we discovered that many of the international versions of Crazy Frog have completely emasculated him by blurring, black-boxing or erasing his nether parts.

Our family will not stand for such audacity. So here I am, passing on to the rest of the world

Crazy Frog, uncut--

Literally.

(In the meantime, I will be away from Blogit for a few days. Take care everyone! See you soon!)

Care to Take a Toilet Brush?

I hate cleaning the toilet. I don't think anyone likes it. It's nasty and disgusting, but it's gotta be done. And today is bathroom-cleaning day. I save it for Fridays (oh joy!) so that our family will have a fresh clean bathroom and toilet to enjoy for the weekend. Weird logic, maybe, but I'm a hausfrau and it's my privelege to decide what days get devoted to which household tasks. Friday is bathroom cleaning day.

So while I'm scrubbing the toilet, I suddenly remember that my son is bringing his friend home from Kindergarten this afternoon. That's great. I love that these two get along so well. But the other boy, in my biased mother's opinion, is a bit of a monster. Hyperactive. He leads my boy astray and influences him to do things my son knows he probably shouldn't be doing. One thing they think is funny is going potty together. You know. Crossing streams. Needless to say, this makes a big mess.

This child who is not mine also is a very messy pisser. Every time he's been over, I've had to scrub the bathroom down again. Maybe I should just hold off cleaning the bathroom until tomorrow? No. It gets done now. And I'll make a point of informing the children only one boy at a time in the potty, washing hands is a must, and please aim for the MIDDLE of the toilet.

Last time this kid was over, I found out they'd been playing in the street. We live on a big hill and were rolling their bikes into the driveway by hiking up the hill, stopping in the middle of the street (german drivers are fast drivers, even on remote, curvy, residential, hillside roads).

So an hour ago, as the three of us approached the house, my son and his friend took off up the hill again, and I yelled after them in my sterm mommy-voice, "Überhaupt NICHT in die Strasse spielen, ja? Nicht in die Strasse, jungs. Niemals." Absolutely NO playing in the street, got it? Not in the street, boys! Never!

They humbly agreed. So I left them for a few minutes while I changed over the laundry (towel washing day falls in with bathroom cleaning day), and five minutes later went back outside to check on them. Normally, I would have trusted my child to do as he was told, but he was with this friend, so I thought it best to keep a close lookout. I trudged outside, down the stairs and into the parking-lot-sized driveway--and they were nowhere in sight. And not a peep to be heard. Uh-oh.

I moved to the edge of the driveway where it looked down onto the street curving downward below, and I heard the remote chime of childish laughter. I hurried down the hill to the busy street that runs at a 65-degree angle from ours and saw the two boys half-way down the hill on the narrow sidewalk. Cars rushed past inches from their flushed and joyful little bodies. I let them mess around until they saw me standing there and started to walk their bikes back up (it's too steep to ride them). My son stopped a few feet before me, turned around, and prepared to roll down the hill again.

"Nein!" I yelled. "Komm' zurück! Ins haus mit euch! Jetzt!" No! Come back! Get in the house, now!

Looking abashed, they lead the way back up the hill to our house, while I quietly but sternly chastised my son for what I knew, this time, was his idea. He likes to roll down the hill as fast as he can go, despite my calling out, Not so fast!, as I walk him to kindergarten every morning. I knew he wanted to show his friend this very cool pastime.

Once we were inside, I did inform my son that the rule was only one kid in the potty at a time, and we both made sure to remind poor D to wash his hand before eating and after using the toilet. And miraculously, his aim was very accurate when he peed. But the afternoon is not over, and I hear the two giggling in the backyard. I know when they come back in, there will be mud smeared into the seats of their pants, and dirt tracked over the floor.

But at least the toilet is still clean.

...And I'm hearing silence again. Help.

Thou shalt not suffer a WHICH to live???

Well, it’s Fall. Autumn. Herbst. All around us, members of the Animal Kingdom are getting ready for winter. Squirrels are racing around collecting nuts everywhere you look. Birds are flying every which way fattening up for the cold months ahead, feeding off the ripe berries and juicy bugs that seem to have appeared in legions. It hasn’t been safe to prepare food or to eat it in our house with the windows open because the August Bees, as I call them, have become very aggressive. They swarm in through the kitchen windows, enticed by even the tiniest trace of food-like scent and make a real nuisance of themselves. Even the mosquitoes seem to be busier than usual, working harder than ever to suck our family dry for some last-minute nourishment for their egg stores.

While, by and large, watching our co-habitators preparing for the cold days ahead amuses me, there is one insect whose activities do not amuse me in the least. Like many people, my fear of this creature borders on phobic, and twice a year--Spring and Fall--we get a large number of these visitors in our home.

I’m talking about, of course, the spider. Huge, wicked-looking brown spiders with bodies about an inch long, and long spindly legs.

They like to sneak in when I’m airing the bedrooms on the ground floor. They like to surprise me in the night, just as I’m getting my son tucked into bed. They lurk in odd places. One day early last Spring, I found one on the hallway ceiling, then five minutes later, I found one on the wall of our utility room. My son saw one under our bed, which my husband graciously squished, and a day or so later, there was another only centimeters from the light plate where I had just turned on the hall light.

Last spring, there were so many spiders, and I so often encountered them with my son, that together we formed an efficient team of spider extermination: Upon a spider sighting, I run to grab the bleach-based, anti-bacterial bathroom cleaner, and a roll of paper towels. I spray the spider continuously until it stops running away (or, rather, it stops running toward me), while uncontrollable screeches and screams pass my lips and hysteria threatens to overwhelm my senses. Once it stops moving, I then drop several paper towels on top of the motionless body. I have to be careful, because sometimes they play dead, then try to come after me again when I get close enough. Quite like Michael Mayers. After I cover the body with the paper towels, my son comes to the rescue and stomps the hell out of it. Finally, I clean up the mess. The whole process takes about three minutes, start to finish, and it takes a good hour or so longer before my heart stops palpitating and my hands stop shaking.

Now that it’s fall, the spiders have returned, looking for warm dry places to sleep the big sleep until next spring. I just wish they wouldn’t look in our house.

Those nasty spiders have begun appearing again, just last week. Friday night, for example, I had a close encounter with two. I had left the dishwasher cracked open for a few minutes between washings, and when I returned and opened the door, in the dimness of twighlight I saw the telltale scuttling of long legs and slammed the door shut.

“What’s wrong?” my son asked.

“Spider,” I said, trying to keep calm. “There’s a spider in there.”

“Let me see,” he begged, over and over.

“No,” I insisted, still more. “If I open the door, it’ll run out.”

So, with the dishwasher less than half full, I turned it on full blast, full heat, and let it run the full cycle, hoping the spider would fall apart and go away.

Later that same night, I was putting my son to bed. As I passed from my bedroom to my son’s, I saw, from the very edge of my vision, a dark spot along the floorboard. Please don’t let that be a spider, I pleaded in silence. And then I chided myself. My imagination was running overdrive. It’s fall, and I’ve been worried about spiders, so now I’m seeing them where there aren’t any.

When I returned to my room, I glanced down, expecting to see empty space. But to my horror, there was a huge brown spider waiting for me. As if we’d never stopped, my son and I went immediately into Spider Slayer mode, working smoothly and efficiently through my bursts of rage and horror, until the creepy crawly critter was good and dead. I did, of course, have the presence of mind to snap some pics, beforehand.

The next day, Saturday, I opened the dishwasher and finished loading it with the dishes that didn’t get loaded the night before due to the emergency cycle run, and with that morning’s breakfast dishes, then ran the cycle again.

That afternoon, after unloading the now-very-clean dishes, I glanced into the food trap to see if the first spider had made it through or not. To my dismay, I saw two very long legs hanging out of it. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness within the machine, I could see that not just legs got stuck in the trap, but the whole damn body was wedged inside, very much still intact.

Suppressing a shudder, I braced myself for the inevitable. I was going to have to take that sucker out of there and throw it away.

I’m not going to bore you with more details, but suffice it to say that by the time I finished dislodging it from the food trap, taking pictures of it, and scooping it into the trash, my heart was going about a million miles an hour, and my hands were shaking badly. I managed to get some good shots, though, and you can view them below.
Knowing that big spiders like these really like living in your house is very disconcerting, and until the invasion season is over, you live through a kind of paranoid shock: Always on the lookout, always a little bit jittery, jumping at the tiniest shadows in the corners.

I did a little investigation to determine what kind of spiders these are, hoping to god they aren’t Brown Recluses. But I think they are. We don’t seem to be infested, but rather invaded bi-yearly, and I take precautions to keep their numbers to a minimum. Several years ago, I house-sat a Recluse-infested home, and I know for a fact that that isn’t us. But it still makes me anxious. I get nervous and jittery just writing about it.

I’m supposed to be a nature-lover. I’m a solitary eclectic practitioner of the nature (goddess) arts, and I know the spider is a revered creature. I know that it represents wisdom, self-knowledge, the weaving of time and sundry other wise and useful things. But I do not suffer spiders to live in my home. Not small ones, not harmless ones, not big fast ugly brown ones.

My rationale is that if I were to walk into a spider’s home, that spider would wrap me up like a big juicy burrito and suck me dry in a heartbeat. In fact, he’d probably throw a party, and one of his guests would have the bright idea to throw salt on the bite wound and call me a marguerita. Well, the same rules apply to my home. Invade my space, and you’re history. Basta.

Update: Thanks to another blogger's gentle direction, I spent a couple hours the other night searching for the identity of our arachnid guests. These are house spiders, otherwise known as Large European House Spiders. Large is right.

During my search, I also encountered this descriptive phrase on a French (?) university website:

Tegenaria atrica C. L. Koch (Araneae, Agelenidae), a common and harmless house-spider in central Europe, often received for identification from worried parents.

Yes, I would say that about sums it up. Though I'm not sure about the harmless part. Try telling my adrenal system that.

What the heck?

A basket... and a ball ???

Oh, Basketball !!!

I love it when the boys have fun.

What’s Your Genre? Say it Loud, Say it Proud!

People have the need to label and pigeonhole each other, and in the writing world that holds especially true. Even here at Blogit, we’re cast into our specific genres. That’s not a bad thing; it helps keep everyone organized so it’s easier to identify what we want to read. It’s how we find books in the bookstores and in the libraries and on Amazon.com.

But it puts a lot of pressure on the writer, what should we focus on and which slot to place ourselves. What’s the best genre to write in.

If you’re like me, you don’t like pigeonholes. You like the freedom to write whatever the hell you please as the mood strikes. That attitude doesn’t suit publishers and marketers, however, so sometimes we’re forced to make a decision.

When someone asked me the other day in which genre I write, I wasn’t sure what to tell them. My typical answer is a broad one. (Well, my typical answers for just about anything tend to be broad, but that’s another issue, entirely!)

I used to write literary short stories. I cut my teeth on literary reading, and literary mimicking, and after a good fifteen years or so, I had to admit I’m not good at literary. Maybe I haven’t lived enough. Maybe I’m not emotionally mature enough. Maybe I simply lack the talent to create something interesting and meaningful out of the dull and lackluster.

But about two years ago, a change within my writing took place. I became less concerned about making myself fit that literary mold, and started letting loose a little. Romantic elements crept into my work.

I was accused of sounding too Harelquinesque by members of my critique group. I thought that ironic, since I’d read precious few Harlequins in my time, and the last one was while studying for my Chaucer final in college twelve years ago. (You’d need some light reading, too, after finishing that class!)

I started writing a horror story at the same time I started getting comments that my other stories were sounding like romance novels. I didn’t knee-jerk and say, “Hmm, I think I’m going to write a horror story, today.” No, the idea came as a single image garnered by a line in a song I’d heard on the radio. I believe the song was about war, but my mind took it elsewhere. I sat down and, over a period of six months, pieced together my longest short story ever, which evolved all on its own without help from me. I simply channeled it.

I was offended by the Harlequin comments, but the more I thought about it, the less concerned I was that my stories contained romantic elements. If I were to be honest with myself I would have to admit that I like romance.

This was difficult to achieve, because I’d grown up rather snobby about what I read. Part of it was influence from other snobs. Part of it was coming into adulthood as a graduated English major. Part of it was simply that I had interests in other genres and couldn’t be bother with such fluff. When I considered what I had been reading when I’d scorned Romance novels the most vehemently, however, I was humbled. Who was I to condemn Romance as a genre, when I read such schrott as Fantasy, Horror and some SciFi thrown in for good measure???

So, after finally opening up to the possibilities, I decided I would read romance novels, and try to write one, too. And I’m glad I did. I’m having a ball reading all I can get my hands on, and learning about the craft.

But that still doesn’t mean I’ve managed to find a niche.

Because of its particular structure, I’m also using the romance genre to help me learn the craft of writing a novel. Even though I am currently settled in Romance, and have an idea for a second book within this genre, I also have ideas of several other books.

Those stories may or may not fit into the Romance genre, depending on how the wind blows when I start writing each one. Most of them, however, are historicals. And all contain romantic elements.

I don’t recommend pigeonholing yourself in any one genre, unless you have a great gift for one single thing and possess no interest exploring other coops. But the next time someone asks you, “What’s your genre,” be honest. Tell them what you’re working on now, and leave it at that. Hold true to what’s in your heart. Write whatever you feel like writing…

Without exception, without apology.

Uh oh. It's that time of year again. I've signed up. Have you?

Well, I did it. Last week, I got my reminder notice in my e-mail, and I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. For those of you who are not familiar with it, NaNoWriMo is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month.

What happens, is a bunch of crazies like us already-prolific bloggers sign up for this event, and during the month of November, we labor, sweat, keep bizarre waking hours, and tear our hair out trying to meet the prescribed deadline of writing 50,000 words in one month.

For a typical genre novel, that’s exactly half of a book, or two hundred pages of specially formatted manuscript pages. Word counts are done on the honor system, and they do have a way of counting the words you submit at the end of the month, if you claim you’ve met the 50,000 mark. They respect your privacy, and offer simple suggestions for encrypting your work, if you feel the need to do so—which is basically unneccesary.

But they trust you to be honest, and that what you submit is actually what you’ve written in November ONLY, and NOT including what you’ve written UP TO November.

The reward is more personal than it is anything else. You get a free T-shirt if you are a winner, and there are as many winners as there are people who succeed in writing 50,000 words. There are probably one or two other little advantages, like getting your name displayed somewhere on their website. But like I said, it’s really the personal reward of achieving a difficult goal that really drives people.

This event has been around for a few years now, but I didn’t learn about it until last year when someone people on a writing list had mentioned it in passing. Curious, I looked it up and decided to give it a try.

For those of us with full lives, writing 50,000 words in a month is a difficult task. I got up at 5:00 am every morning, enduring my husband’s ruffled feathers from my having invaded his personal pre-work solitude. But most mornings, I managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed, brew a pot of coffee, don my headphones and played my writing music via my Real Player.
I wrote a lot. I wrote more in one month than I ever had before. I’m a slow writer, you see. A procrastinator, a thinker, a muller. But last November, I really cranked. In those four weeks, I spewed forth 25,000 words, one quarter of my “new” novel. I was very proud of myself. I didn’t win the prize, but I surpassed my expectations, and set a new record for myself.

Unfortunately, due to burnout, life circumstance, what have you, I haven’t added to that word count, since. My romance is still languishing, begging to be fleshed out beyond the critical plot work I dedicated to it this summer. It's had a nice long vacation, and it's long overdue to get back to work.

So, when I signed up again on Friday, I thought I’d probably continue where I left off. Maybe this time, I’d meet the goal, and the hardest part of any novel, the middle, will have been completed. I just want to get this particular book out of the way, simply so I can say, I DID IT! I FINISHED A NOVEL!

But something happened to change all that.

Yesterday, my husband took our son for a father-son jog/hike a little ways down the road. He came back with an interesting piece of history to which we later found only a single sparse reference to on the Internet.

You see, back in the early 19th century, a local woman was killed on her way home from market. The few details he brought home (if you don't mind, I'll just keep that info between me and my greedy little writer's heart) made me wonder aloud if the place where this happened was haunted.

And then I said, That would make a good premise for a ghost story. And then I remembered a premise for another ghost story that’s been bubbling on the back burner for maybe the last ten years. And then I thought, Holy mackerel, I could combine them!

And then I thought, Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be starting a new novel when NaNoWriMo launches this year. That tired old romance can wait. I’ve got a good solid outline of the plot and can return to it another time, and lose nothing since it’s already lost momentum.

But this new story, well, really intrigues me, and I get excited thinking about it. It would be nice to use NaNoWriMo to get a big start on it, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get more than 25,000 words out of it, this year.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll have enough momentum left over at the end of November to finish it, too.

Time will tell...

The Prelude to My Fifteen Minutes of Fame...

Well, the interview went well. The reporter wanted to make it short, but we ended up talking for an hour or so before she moved on to my husband. The questions were standard. How my husband and I met, how I felt about uprooting my life to live in Germany, what were the first things I noticed that were different. Things of that nature.

My husband was pretty excited about it. He came home in a good mood for a change, and shortly before the woman called, he was bordering on obnoxious. Recognizing the signs, I begged him to play nice and be quiet. When I'm on the phone with my mom, he gets all excited like a puppy and runs around making all kinds of noise with our son, as if trying to show evidence that ours is a happy healthy family, making it impossible to hold a conversation for all the racket going on.

When I answered the phone, I sequestered myself in the bathroom, where the echo factor is at a minimum (we have laminate flooring and no area rugs to dampen voices and other noises. Phone calls are difficult for this reason). Three minutes into my conversation, my husband and son walked into the bathroom, deciding it was imperative to wash their hands at that very moment, and that they couldn't go downstairs to do it.

After my son left, my husband kept snapping his fingers to get my attention and pointing to the sink. This man is extremely persistant. He kept doing this until I got up from the edge of the bathtub where I was perched and looked. There was a smudge of dirt in the bowl. Then he pestered me to clean it.

Yes, he did.

And no, I didn't.

I waved him away repeatedly, like the annoying insect he had become, and he finally wandered out again.

Thirty-five minutes into the interview, he showed up again and begins to pester me to get off. I'm telling too much, he says. Again, I waved him away. After I gave some some nasty looks, he left the room. And then the phone disconnected.

Now, when I'm talking to my mom on the phone, it often disconnects after exactly one hour. We're never sure if it's coming from her end, or my end, but that's what happens, and we chalk it up to the transatlantic cable. When I looked at the phone, it indicated I had been on the line for 38 minutes and some seconds before it cut out. How were we disconnected? Did my husband do it? It certainly was not beyond him.

I was mortified by the thought, and we exchanged some words. He didn't admit to having disconnected me. Nor did he deny it. I waited until she called back, and she sounded a little irritated. I apologized and said I didn't know what had happened there, and we moved on.
So after another ten minutes or so, we finished up, and she asked to speak to my large child of a husband. He took the phone and went outside, where he spoke to her by the swing set, under the stars. His part of the interview was considerably shorter. He was humored and truculent at once, after he got off the phone.

He was also very drunk and more than a little obnoxious. A couple of beers and 2/3 of a bottle of whisky will do that to a person. I did briefly wonder what kind of impression he might have made, but let it go. What's done is done. Besides, he can carry himself off pretty well, when he wants to.

Lucky me.

Who could possibly be interested in ME???

I have an interview tonight. Not a job interview. Tonight, someone from my hometown paper is going to call me for an interview. She’s going to speak with my husband, as well.

Some weeks ago, I had solicited all of the local papers within a 25-mile radius of where I lived, back in the bygone days of singledom. I queried all of these editors about an idea I had of a column. The thrust of the column (get your minds out of the gutter!) would be the accounts of an expatriate woman, living in Germany. Basically, what I’ve done here. The purpose of this was to earn some saving money for our semi-imminent return to the US.

So far, I’ve gotten turned down by three editors. The first, I’ll come back to. The second, was very rude. The third, said he didn’t think my idea fit his paper, but would forward my query to another paper that directly served my hometown. I had already queried that particular paper, and have yet to hear from its editor, but figured at the time that my idea being forwarded to him by the editor of another paper couldn’t be a bad thing.

The first response I had, from the first newspaper I queried, was actually quite positive. It was from the editor of my hometown paper. He thought my idea had potential and to forward some samples of my work. I took some of the posts from here and sent them to him. That very day (or rather, it was late evening for me), I received a very enthusiastic response from another person at the same paper. He said they were very interested in my idea, but had no place for it at the moment. Would I be willing to wait a few weeks to a few months for them to discuss it, and see where in the paper they could work it in? Then, he asked if I would be willing to submit to an interview by one of their reporters, which could serve as a bridge to my column.

I’m no idiot. Of course, I said, SURE! I wasn’t sure, however, whether I would hear from them again, and if so, whether it would be before our Big Move (if it happens).

Then two evenings ago, I received an e-mail from the reporter who would conduct the interview. We bounced e-mails back and forth, and settled on a time. Tonight is the big night. She’ll be calling around 2:30 pm CDT, and will want to talk to my husband as well. He was silly about it when I told him, and I could tell he was a little bit excited. “Try to think of all the questions she’ll ask…” He’s very, ehm, organized, that one. True to his German nature.

I did tell him one question she revealed would be whether we intend to come back to the US. I suggested it would probably be a good idea to not lie, but not reveal our plans, either. Yes, we’re interested, but at the moment we’re undecided. Which, basically, is the truth.

So, think of me this afternoon. I’m nervous, excited, and wondering if, since the interview is being conducted so soon, are they getting ready to squeeze me into their scheme?

Creating from the Heart

About 12 years ago, two things happened. First, we had a flood. I had a pile of artwork I'd done in high school and college collected in one of those large reddish-brown paper portfolios. I'd only taken one art class in college, and while I could produce some nice things, it always took an enormous amount of effort and concentration. So each piece, for its own reason, was pretty dear to me. This folder got caught in that flood, and my dad--uncharacteristically--threw it away and everything inside it.

By the time I found out, it was too late and the news devastated me. That artwork had been things of the heart which I could never get back, never replicate.

A few months later, I had been working on the computer. When I was done, I took the 3.5 floppy out of the drive, gathered my things, and started up the stairs to bed. Three steps up, I tripped. Everything in my hands went flying, including a full glass of water. The floppy and the water made contact, and everything on that disk was destroyed.

On that disk were all the papers I'd ever written in college, and all the short stories I'd written up to that time (yes, most of all that paperwork were relatively short!). Naturally, I could not recover these things on the disk.

I told these two stories to a friend of mine shortly after the waterlogged-floppy incident. Henry said a bundle of his artwork had gotten destroyed in a flood, too, some years before. But it was his mother who had thrown the paintings away. He was livid, at first, but then realized everything he'd done was still in his heart. It was still recoverable from that hard drive of the soul, but it would come out in different form, sometimes even better than before.

I'm no longer friends with that person, but those words, so like the ones Ciel offered me in her comment, will always live in my heart. I don't do artwork anymore, but whenever I lose a document, or a chunk of text (which, thankfully, isn't often!), I always think of what my friend Henry said to me. Then, I hunker down and start over, having faith that the next result will be as good, if not better.

After I throw a hair-pulling, blood-curdling temper tantrum.

Homesickness and a case of the What-ifs...

Germany is a very lovely place. It has so much to offer: rolling hills, climbing mountains, interesting culture, fattening cuisine, excellent scenery, and fascinating cities. so why is it I'm so desperate to return to my flat, unexciting corner of the American Midwest, where urban sprawl plagues even our dusty rural cornfield communities? They say home is where the heart is, but I never managed to drag my heart away from home, to make a new one in this foreign country, where people are quite the same, but just different enough to make you aware of it.

I can't really put my finger on exactly what it is about the German culture that makes me uncomfortable. There is an aggressive mentality that has been hard for this passive creative type to get used to. I'm not alone in this observation--other American residents of Germany feel very much the same. There is also a frank abruptness in speech that often corsses the line into rudeness.

Also, the language is horribly complex, and I'm convince, now, that 30 years old was too old to have started learning this particular tongue. There are linguistic details I simply cannot grasp and reatin, so I've stopped trying. Not out of faith of my own communication skills and the hope that someone will nicely correct me, but rather out of hopelessness and frustration. There is little logic to the rules, and my duplicitously ordered-yet-dreamy brain just can't keep it all straight without firm logic to grasp onto. I find myself inventing creativemnemonic devices to remember this or that prticular rule, and inevitably forgetit and manage to confuse myself later on.

When you get down to it, these are surface things. These are things you get over and move on with, making do when you need to. There's more to this discomfort of mind than the little things.

I once wrote a very long story that dealt with the issue of home. It was based on an actual experience of mine, and the piece was less of a work of creative non-fiction, than it was a method of catharsis. It was about a woman--me--who got stuck overnight in the Heathrow airport, in transit between Chicago and Stuttgart, with her very active two-year-old. She was alone. Her mom and dad were safely tucked away in their cornfield abode, a six-hour flight behind her, and her husband was anxiously awaiting her return to der Vaterland, 90 minutes ahead. At the end of the story, the woman finally realized where home was for her. It was with her husband, and she embraced this realization wholly. And yes, when I finally boarded the plane that would take me home to my husband, that's how I felt, too. To an extent.

Unlike that woman, who in all other ways was really me, a part of my soul got left behind when I left my Motherland. I've never been able to retrieve it--even after that turning-point at Heathrow, where I came the closest I'd even come to accepting Germany as my new Home.

It's clear that I need to be back home. I need to be near my support system, my family and friends I hold dear, and with whom I hold good relationships. I need to be in a place where I can reach out and grow and nurture everything about me that I had abandoned in order to be with my husband in Germany, things that are stubbornly difficult to achieve here, either due to lack of availability, or because of that damned language gap (which brings new meaning to the words that haunt the English tube system, Mind the Gap) I mentioned before.

There are so many risks involved in relocating our little family to my hometown just beyond the Chicago Far West Suburbs. Assuming my husband gets his green card (and there's no reason why he shouldn't), there is the money issue. And the job issue.

We're luckier than most, though. We will have to leave everything behind and start over. But we have a home to go to--my parents will gladly put up with us while get on our feet, just to have us in the same country again. We'll have a car all our own, thanks to my dad, who just bought a new car yesterday and said he'll store his old one for us to keep when we come Home.

We'll even have some pretty furntiure, which my mom put in storage for us a year ago, when she replaced it with new. My old double bed will be waiting for us, too--considerably smaller than the German one we're used to: two twin beds nested together in a single frame. And our son will be able to enjoy the classic turned-wood bunk beds I'd used during my adolescence, and later used by my sister (we're ten years apart).

We've got way more already waiting for us than most immigrants have when expatriating themselves from their homelands.

But the biggest risk isn't not finding jobs for boths of us, as one might think. In my mind, the biggest risk is the emotional one for my husband. He wants to move to America. He's wanted to for ages. But wanting a thing and being happy with it are are two different matters, indeed.
I wanted to move to Germany, too. What if, like me, he found he just couldn't drag the deepest part of his heart away from the land he grew up in and truly be happy in America?

What if it happened that neither one us can truly be happy with one another, because neither one of us can truly be happy and fulfilled in the same place, at the same time?

It won't stop me from taking the risk. But will it stop my husband, once he gets that stamp in his passport, and my parents call to inform us that his green card is waiting for him on their kitchen table, and it's time to go?

Questions to think about.


(and I'm wondering, too, if I'm capable of writing about anything without turning it into a thesis???)

I see the light... exposing my dimmer side.

I finally got through to the American Consulate in Frankfurt. I’ll tell you right here and now, I do not ever want to be a clerk in any government facility. If the primary job requirement isn’t a kind of slow patience mixed with a cranky, world-weary attitude, then dealing with average folks like me puzzling through the labyrinthine logic and vague instructions that come with form-filling is enough to break anyone’s spirit in no time.

I never feel so stupid and such a bother to anyone as I do when I have to deal with window clerks in government buildings. Well, almost never.

But, my questions were answered, and I’m feeling much relieved to have this part done, and the day has shown to be a profitable one. Because, not only have I substantively concluded that I never want to be a government clerk, I also have decided that when I grow up, I want to be a paranormal investigator. Okay, that doesn’t sound very grown up—especially for a 35-year-old with family to take care of.

I came to this decision after stumbling across this website, The Shadowlands. Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve wanted to do something like this for quite a while, now, and have always maintained an interest in the paranormal. Always. But when I downloaded some ghostly sounds from this site and played them back on my computer, I was captivated. And I knew for sure that’s what I want to do.

Do paranormal investigators even make a living at what they do? Or do they squeeze it in between clocking out at the office and slipping into their cozy ghost-free beds at night? What kind of training do these people have? What qualifications are required, if any? Where in the Chicagoland area can I get such training and qualification, and find a group to hang with? I don’t know.

I think I have a lot of, well, erm, investigating to do…

Put me on hold, PLEASE!

How hard can it be?

In July, I applied for my husband's US residency visa. Normally, this is an exciting thing. We both agree that our family would be better off financially, if we lived somewhere we can both work decent paying jobs, and that would be back in the US. Also, I miss my friends and family, my own culture. My own, if often unpleasant, Chicago weather patterns. My own language.

Let's face it, I just miss home.

So while I'm excited about the idea of relocating to the US, I'm also frustrated. I'm about mid-way through the application process, trying to fill out the affidavit of support for my husband. Because I haven't worked in six years, my parents are joint sponsors and have filled out their own affidavits to support our family after we relocate and my husband fulfills some specific requirements. The affidavit isn't complicated in itself. The form isn't long. But it requires copies of tax returns and proof of past, present and future employment, etc.

My parents have suffered the brunt of this burden, having to supply all of that information. I, on the other hand, have almost nothing to provide except a copy of the tax instructions indicating I haven't had to fill out a tax return, and to fill in my name, address and SS#, my husband's name and address, supply a heaping handful of "none" in the tax area, and having the thing signed and notarized in two places... Not bad, right?

However, while plowing through this seemingly uncomplicated pile of papers, I have managed to write up a list of no fewer than nine questions (one of them a two-parter) that have left me stumped. How can that be? What appears to be a straightforward question, really can have more than one answer. Or the question in question is worded just vaguely enough to be unclear.
Is it just me? Am I the one who is unclear? This is almost as bad as wading through a tax return, and leaves me feeling equally uncertain and stupid.
Here's the worst part. I have a phone number to call, where someone is available to answer questions. That's great. I'm certainly not above asking for help. But, in the general spirit of government facilities, I can only call this number between 2 and 4 pm, four days out of the week.

Okay, fine. So I have a two-hour window of time each day (except Thursdays) to catch someone at his or her desk. But, remember, this is the goverment we're talking about. There is a long a line of people waiting for the same thing. To add insult to injury, it's only one person at one desk, with a single freakin' phone line--

And there is no hold.

That means, if the phone is busy, you get a long message of instructions with different numbers to call for different things (I'm already calling the correct one), and then you get disconnected. There is no waiting line. You don't get put on hold to listen to some godawful muzak until it's your turn. You have to roll the dice over and over, dialling and redialling, taking anew your chances of reaching someone each time.

I've been trying to get through for an hour now, and I'm about to lose it. I only have an hour left, and then I have to start over again tomorrow.
And it's making me feel pretty cranky.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

A post from another blogger describing an experience in Berlin last year--confusion about the ticketing system in German rail stations, and riding free as a result--reminded me of a similar experience I had in Stuttgart a few months ago, in which I was not as lucky as he and his companions. This is an excerpt from my journal.

May 12, 2005--I discovered it is very risky to travel without a train ticket. Two times in six years, I’d been checked by the nondescript men who haunt Germany’s public transport system. Not a bad average, when you think about it. They look like average joes, but are really big fat sneaks hiding hand-held databases/ticket machines in briefcases, looking for ticketless victims to embarrass and fine--and even kick off the train.

Happily, I had a ticket both times.

Now, after leaving the big city and returning six months later, I was checked two more times in the last two weeks, and again, I had tickets on me.

It was a stroke of luck, really, because yesterday I dared to travel free.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve freeloaded on the S-Bahn, the U-Bahn or the buses of Stuttgart. Not by far. Especially in the last two weeks since I’ve been back here. I’m not cheap. It’s just that 1.65 € each way really adds up when you’re always on the go, and my money was going very quickly. However, my luck ran out yesterday, and I finally got caught.

I felt very humbled getting caught out! The man who nabbed me said he’d only charge me 10 €, instead of the usual 40 €, because I was “nice”. In other words, I didn’t try to lie my way out of it. Also, he could see I was a foreigner because I was dragging along my suitcase (full of dirty laundry), and had only my passport and Illinois driver’s license for ID. And, of course, I had my son in tow. After he checked his carry-along database, he could see I had never been fined before, so that helped too.

The partner of my sneak didn’t look very happy about the discount, but The ticket he gave me in exchange for the 10 € enabled me to travel anywhere in all directions for two hours. That took care of that morning’s travel—and all the times I’d gone free during the last two weeks.
I made it home just as my time limit expired.

However, I’m now in the system as a one-time offender and I don’t expect anyone to be very merciful to me next time. That’s why I purchased a month’s pass this morning. Now, instead of paying a minimum of 3.30 € per day for one round trip, I am essentially paying 1.97€ per day for unlimited travel within two zones. That’s an excellent deal. Kinda worth the 10 € kick in the pants.

What took me so long to get the pass? Why did I tempt Fate, knowing I would eventually get caught freeloading? I don't know. I guess the Devil made me do it.

What would Grandma say?

Censorship is far less stringent in Europe than it is in America. Here in Germany, we see a lot of nudity in the media. I’ve discovered a surprising number of women like to bare their ta-tas on national television, for instance. On the back page of Die Bild, there is always a woman displaying herself for the enjoyment of male (and some female) readers. 

Just as print and television are more relaxed in what they reveal of humanity, the same holds true for radio. Songs that we would never hear on the radio in America, or words within songs that get bleeped out to be allowed air time, enjoy lots of unadulterated exposure in Germany. 

We Americans know the repercussions of censorship for the sake of “simple decency”. The Janet Jackson thing last year is a prime example. But what happens in a culture where people are far more relaxed about what is seen and heard in the media? 

We hear one song on the radio with amazing frequency. It contains the words “asscrack” once in the lyrics. I never paid much attention to the song itself, except when those words seem to jump out of the music. I’ve laughed at it, my husband has laughed at it, and so has my son. It’s become a family joke as I try to stop my five-year-old from repeating it. My husband, the German, finds it amusing. In a way, I do too. They’re just words, for Pete’s sake. But that Puritan in my upbringing says, “Hey, he’s five. He shouldn’t say those things.” So, I dutifully correct him. Over and over again. 

A few weeks ago, my son finally asked me what asscrack means. “Well,” I began. “You know the middle part of your butt?” 

“The line?” 

“Yes, the line. That’s your asscrack. Buttcrack is nicer to say, but I don’t like you saying those things at all. It’s not nice. Please don’t say them.” 

“Okay, Mommy,” he promised, and kissed me on the cheek. 

Saturday evening, after a busy afternoon of mowing and raking the yard, I popped my little boy into the shower. I poured some shower gel into his hands and he began sudsing up. After pouring soap into my own hands, I said, “Okay, come here so I can wash your hair.” 

“Wait,” said my sweet angel with the complete seriousness of the innocent, “I have to wash my asscrack, first.”

Busy busy busy---but with what?

I've been busy this month. Since joining blogit, I've discovered an area of writing that supersedes regular journal writing, and it's more motivating and stimulating, as well. It's amazing how an audience, however modest, can really kick you in the butt and get you writing again.

But I have other writing obligations, as well. I belong to two critique groups and had been doing fairly well with them—probably critiquing way more than I was writing, but it’s all part of the same thing. That is, I was doing well with them, until I started blogging. Just a couple days ago, I realized that I had not met this month’s critique group obligations at all. In fact, I hadn’t even given those groups a single thought, until whammo! I was due to submit a chapter and critique at least four others—all by the end of the month.

Oh crap.

I think it’s time to restructure. Blogging has been keeping me writing, but I’ve slacked off in other areas of writing, and I find it a little disturbing that I’ve cast my real ambition aside. Although, I can take a little reassurance that others in my critique groups have been extremely quiet during the summer months, too.

Out of thin air, it seems...

I was just enjoying my lunch--jalapeno peppers filled with cream cheese, preserved in a bath of olive oil--thinking of the vagaries and interconnectedness of life. My husband has brought home this particular delicacy in the past, and I've never really had much of a liking for it. Until about two weeks ago, when suddenly, I couldn't get enough of it. Now, I jealously hoard my jalapenos, saving them for a time when I can eat them in peace, without risk of having to share. Just now, I enjoyed three crunchy, cream cheese-filled peppers, delicately dipping a corner of flatbread into the jalapeno-flavored oil, feeling all would be well in the word if only I had a helping of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.

I’ve had to give up a lot of my American culture when I came to Germany. One of the simple pleasures that got left behind was the delight Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. German ice cream, by American standards, leaves a lot to be desired. It is less creamy than it is frothy. When it melts, it doesn’t leak and leave a big liquid mess. Rather, it largely maintains its form, softening into an air-filled lump of flavored fluff. I don’t like German ice cream.

This weekend, my husband surprised me with a pint (which equals about 500 ml to everyone outside the US) of my favorite ice cream of all time. How did he know I love cookie dough ice cream? It doesn’t exist in Germany. And it’s hardly something I would pine over and mumble about in my sleep.

The bigger question was, how did he manage to find some?

From somewhere in the deep dark archives of my memory, I pulled up a faded tidbit I’d probably read in the international version of USA Today that B&J had been bought by an international food distributor. I recognized the name of the distributor, and remembered feeling somewhat dismayed by the news. I’d sincerely hoped that Ben and Jerry’s wouldn’t lose the unique quality of their product. But I didn’t dare entertain the notion that the yummy ice cream would ever reach my dusty corner of the world.

We’ve never seen Ben and Jerry’s in the big grocery stores here or in Stuttgart, so where did it come from? Certainly not out of thin air. I’ve begged my husband to tell me where he found it, but he’s keeping mum. It’s his special secret, a little treasure he’ll surprise me with now and again. I suspect he gets it from the gas station next to the grocery store where we shop. What an odd place to discover this wonderful ice cream. Not a grocery store in a big city, but a gas station in a tiny little rural town!

I wonder how long I’ll have to wait before other favorite products appear in German stores? And where will I find them? The post office? The car dealer? It’s part of what makes life interesting, I suppose. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye out for Aussie hair care products at the local farmer’s market. Boy, I could sure use some hairspray that works.

Where Does Writing Fit In?

When is the best time to write? It's different for everyone. The best time for me to write is at night. That's when the day's business if finally over and the creative juices get free rein. There are some problems witht his, however. First, I have a family to care for, a child to see to school, so I need to get up early in the morning. and I am not an early riser. The second problem compounds the first. When I write, I get wired. And of course, getting wired at night is a bad idea, since it takes hours to calm down and get to sleep. It doesn't do to wind down at 3:30 am, when you have to get up no later than 7:00 am to start your day.

The alternative is to wake super early in the morning. When I was working, I was out of bed regularly by 5 am to get to work by 7 am. So that shouldn’t be such a chore. But it is. It takes me a long time to get out of bed, shuffle up the stairs, turn on the computer, brew some coffee or tea, and try to get my brain functioning again. Add to that, the disturbance it creates for my husband, who doesn’t have to get up for another two hours, and who gets crabby because he’s grown accustomed to performing his morning routine in complete solitude, and now there’s his wife typing away and staring off into space in the space that was once his alone in the wee hours, asking cheerfully if he’d like her to brew something for him. So, that solution doesn’t work very well. Besides, it’s way too tempting to turn off the alarm and sleep in, Just for Today.

The best alternative is to write during the morning hours, while my son is in kindergarten. The problem here is twofold. E-mail and Blogit provide too tempting of a distraction to benefit from the three hours of solitude. And household chores mostly get put off until the afternoon hours, the time during which I should be tutoring my son on some life basics.

It was a lot easier when I was single. I worked full time, but it was just me I had to worry about. I didn’t have a child who needed lots of attention. I didn’t have a husband who feels threatened when I seem to be devoting more time than he is comfortable with to my projects.

So where does writing fit in my life? I try to squeeze it into the convenient pockets—and there aren’t very many—out of site of my family. Sometimes a Saturday afternoon works out, especially if there is a Formula 1 race, or a soccer game on TV, taking my husband’s mind off of my perceived infidelity. Late at night works out when I have the energy to get started after my son goes to bed, and when I feel I won’t suffer too terribly when I have trouble winding down and get only a couple hours of sleep.

Right now, Blogit is using a lot of writing time. It’s good in a way, because I’m writing—or thinking about writing—every single day. It’s bad, because it takes my mind away from my novel-in-progress, which I promised myself I would not abandon until I finished it.
But at least I’m writing.