tres años de soledad

Betty Draper, House's psychiatrist, and me

2009-09-23T13:05:00.003-05:00

I've been absent from this blog for almost a year now. It isn't that I haven't had anything interesting to say -- at least, I hope that's not true -- more that I've been trying to spend more time in the moment and less time thinking about future and past moments. But the other day I had a thought about war that seemed semi-profound, and I was going to write about growing up during the time of Vietnam and, later, M*A*S*H. The 6 o'clock evening news and M*A*S*H were the biggest influences on my feelings about war early in my life, and later in my life, Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five were probably the biggest influences.

This was going to be a post about war, and how old a child "should be" when he or she learns about war, but that will have to wait.

Instead, it's going to be a post about losing my father.

As an aside, or a preamble, I watch very little TV in Germany. I watch only the two shows I am willing to buy from iTunes, Mad Men and House. As it happens, the predominant story lines of each show have dealt with fathers dying -- first, House's father died last season, which facilitated his reunion with his BFF (Wilson). This season, Betty's father died suddenly, setting in motion a number of unpleasant reactions within the household. On House, the father of Dr. House's therapist died in the first episode. So everywhere I look, I have Hollywood's role models for how to behave (House's therapist) and how not to behave (Betty Draper, House) when one's father dies. And yet I have no idea how to behave, now that my own father is dying.

Three weeks ago, my father ended up in the hospital after a prolonged episode of having trouble breathing. He's been having trouble breathing for years, due in part to emphysema, in part to COPD, and in part, my sister and I were starting to think, to depression/anxiety. The doctors ran an extensive battery of tests on him, all of which were negative. Diagnosis: nothing is wrong with you. It's all in your head. They sent him home with anti-depressants, feeling no better, and considerably weaker than when he had gone in, thanks to 2+ days of lying nearly immobile in bed.

Two weeks ago, he fell and hit his head. Again, he ended up in the hospital. This time, the prognosis was more serious: dysphagia. It seems that bits of food are being diverted from his esophagus into his lungs, which can (and has, and will again) cause pneumonia, in a vicious and never-ending cycle.

The only solution, apparently, is a feeding, or PEG tube, which he flatly rejected. Therefore, my sister has determined -- probably correctly -- that hospice care is the only appropriate solution. So today, or tomorrow, my father will be coming home to stay with my mother for the last time, and tomorrow I'll be going home to say goodbye to him. I don't know how long it will take a 100-pound 86-year-old man to die of starvation, but I'm guessing it won't take very long.

I selfishly want my father to stay alive at least a while longer, if not for me than for my son, but my sister won't let me be selfish. She's probably right, but... what if she's not? It's like being wrong about the verdict in a capital punishment case.

I regret to say that, so far at least, my response to my father's impending death has not been much better than Betty Draper's response to her father's sudden death. I'm trying to balance out my snappishness with extra doses of hugs and love, but I'm not sure I've succeeded.

I'm (nearly) ready to say goodbye to my father, who has in so many ways been given more than a cat's nine lives, but I worry that my son won't even remember him as he grows up. I hope he will be able to keep at least a tiny memory of my father in his heart.

I am so glad that in recent years my parents and I have taken to telling each other how much we love each other. We were never a very touchy-feely huggy family, and until my son was born, I don't think I ever told my parents I loved them. My mother would tell me how much she loved me, always, but I was never able to say it without feeling like a phony. I occasionally told my dad I loved him, probably because he has been so close to death, so many times, but never my mom, until I had my son, and finally understood how much she loved me. So the last time I spoke to my dad -- which was three weeks, too long ago, because I've been immersed in meeting preparation for the last six weeks -- I know we told him how much we loved him.

Strange how it took having a child to appreciate my parents. What insights will losing my dad bring?

Into the Wild

2008-11-11T18:05:00.007-05:00

A few months ago I read "Into the Wild," by Jon Krakauer, and it affected me deeply. So deeply, in fact, that I couldn't imagine ever wanting to watch the movie by the same name.

Yet, when I saw it in the store I felt compelled to put it in my cart. It is not a movie I want my son to see now or, well, ever. (Okay, when he is a grown man he can watch it. But not before.)

But it's such a beautiful odyssey. A beautiful, tragic, depressing, uplifting, incredibly moving story. It could have easily been about me, or about any one of us.

When I was the same age as Alexander McCandless, I remember feeling everything intensely too. I wanted the moon, and I thought I could have it. I couldn't understand how people could settle for so much; for spouses they didn't love passionately; for jobs they didn't love at all; for small lives when they'd imagined greatness.

Now I think I get it. I think I understand how I might have made a valuable contribution to the world, instead of only looking out for myself*. But it's too late for me. Now my only valuable contribution is likely to be my beautiful son, so I'm determined to raise him well. I hope I'm up to the challenge.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

*In my defense, there was a time when I wasn't sure I could even look out for myself. So by learning how to do so, I felt like I was relieving government (and my parents, or my fellow taxpayers) of the burden.

*Ironically, if my company -- which has been described as "too big to fail" -- goes into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, I might finally get the opportunity to see Alaska, go back to school, become a teacher, whatever. Because once I lose everything, I'll have nothing to lose.

David Foster Wallace: A Tribute

2008-11-06T07:22:00.008-05:00

After reading my blog post on David Foster Wallace, a friend sent me this article from Rolling Stone, The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace.

And I couldn't even bear to read it for a couple of weeks. I've been so caught up in the presidential campaign, probably moreso than if I'd been living in the US. I've been eating, drinking, and breathing the 2008 campaign right up until the day of the election. I'd practically been holding my breath, and in the end I stayed up until 5am local time to watch Barack Obama* give his acceptance speech.

And the next day (I was home from work with a lousy cold) I remembered this article, and I read it, because as silly as it sounds, I felt that now that I knew that Obama* would be our next president, I could face it.

I had this -- in retrospect pretty lame -- theory that the ugliness of the American election, and the thought that perhaps his Rolling Stone article about John McCain in 2000 had contributed to McCain's becoming his party's nominee and being poised to win the election (Foster Wallace killed himself during the brief ascendant-Palin period) had added to his depression and he had killed himself at least in part because of it, much as Hunter S. Thompson had killed himself (or so some theories go) because of his hopelessness over the outcome of the 2004 election.

And of course, who knows if that contributed; I sure don't. It's possible that even his mother, father, best friend, sister, and wife don't know. Because who ever really knows what's in someone else's mind?

Anyway, I finally read it, and I cried. (It made me want to erase my original post, although I won't for a variety of reasons.) I'm still angry at him for leaving. I'm angry with him for leaving his wife, and for leaving her like that. I think I'm angry because I can so easily imagine being his wife, or the wife of someone like him, and I can so easily imagine how betrayed I would feel, how bereft, to find that someone who loved me so much could still leave me like that.

And I'm angry with him for leaving the world, for leaving before he could see what might happen under an Obama* administration, and for leaving without taking the time to comment on it for our benefit.

And I'm angry with him for leaving all those untaught students, who surely would have benefited from his fine mind and keen sense of humor.

But mostly I'm mad at him for leaving his wife. And his dogs. That still feels almost unforgivable to me.

But at the same time, I do get that being depressed isn't a choice, and that not being able to get un-depressed doesn't mean you're lazy, or not trying hard enough. And I realize he didn't kill himself with the intention of hurting anyone, but still. But still.

Anyway, if you haven't yet, please read about how hard David Foster Wallace tried to live. And how he wasn't really an asshole at all.

Consider this post my apology.

*And no, I don't think Barack Obama is the second (or first) coming of the Messiah. I don't even think he's the second coming of Bill Clinton, although he might be, and he might even turn out to be better than Clinton. But that all remains to be seen. All I know for sure is that he's not Bush, and in fact might just be the anti-Bush, and that's enough for me.

Yes We Can!

2008-11-04T23:15:00.000-05:00

PRESIDENT OBAMA!

Sarah Palin: Word!

2008-10-03T14:27:00.004-05:00

An interesting language-related critique of Palin is here, and reminded me of the appeal of a good sentence diagram. Sorta wish I'd paid more attention to that unit on diagramming sentences in 8th grade. (And I should probably admit that, as I move into my second year of flailing about with the German language, it might have actually come in handy.)

I initially assumed this article, "The Poetry of Sarah Palin," was a pointed jab at Palin's stunning and near-constant inarticulateness, but after reading it I'm convinced. Sarah Palin is a poet.*

*Both will require that you sign into Slate.com. Sorry!

David Foster Wallace: Not Exactly a Tribute

2008-10-01T05:00:00.006-05:00

I had the same reaction as one of my favorite bloggers (Skot over at Izzle! Izzle pfaff!) to Foster Wallace's death: You asshole.

I don't care how miserable he was, or how unable to go on. You don't ruin someone else's life just when you're about to escape your own.

It's only a notch above suicide-by-cop or any other form of suicide where people were obviously planning to kill themselves eventually, but first, they take out a few other people with them. The recent WVa killings are in this category. So, depressed fellas (and gals), do us all a favor; quietly kill yourself, alone, where you are certain to be found by a stranger, preferably a cop or someone else used to dealing with death and dead bodies. In fact, why don't you kill yourselves on the front porch of the local mortuary? Save everyone some trouble.

Of course I am a little sad about the students he won't teach (he was, by all accounts, a great teacher) and for the books, stories, and essays he'll never write, and I have nothing but empathy for his wife. But I'm mad about the way I will never be able to think of "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (or anything else he ever wrote) without thinking about his death, and specifically the manner of his death, and I'm mad about the way he chose to leave this earth.

You asshole.

*And to anyone who's thinking, "Oh, you've obviously never been depressed; you just don't understand, he couldn't help himself!" well, you'd be wrong. I've been depressed. I've been really, REALLY depressed. But if I would have ever seriously considered killing myself, I would have considered it my absolute duty to die away from my house, or the house of a friend, or anywhere where it would give people the heebie-jeebies for the rest of their lives, and I would have made damn sure that a law enforcement official would have found me.

William Kristol and the Sarah Palin Problem

2008-10-01T03:55:00.004-05:00

For anyone wondering if the right wing of the Republican party has any integrity left, please read Bill Kristol's latest Op-Ed piece* in The New York Times. The answer couldn't be more clear.

My favorite quote from the 1000+ almost-universally excoriating comments which were left in response to Kristol's column is one in which a commenter describes Sarah Palin as "Chance the gardener with a mean streak." I think Bob from New Jersey hit the nail on the head.

She's folksy and simple, and sometimes the stupid things she says sound profound, until you realize that really, underneath it all, what she's saying is absolutely meaningless. But we expect people to make sense, so we desperately try to assign meaning to her words even when it's not possible, and that allows some people to believe that what she is saying is wise, or true, or meaningful, even when it is nothing but ignorance layered with obfuscation and wrapped in snark.

Henrik Herzberg's take on Sarah Palin's trouble with the English language was also "spot on." (My favorite line, if you don't have time to read the whole thing, is the one where he described her interview with Katie Couric as, "Pronouns wander[ing] in search of antecedents like Arctic explorers in a blinding snowstorm.")

And has anyone seen Sarah Palin trying to squirm out of answering Katie Couric's seemingly innocuous and straightforward question about where she gets her information? Her answer is terrifyingly non-responsive and defensive, eventually ending up in the non-answer "Alaska is a microcosm!", which made me think, "Just fucking answer the question!" I can think of a thousand ways to answer that would have been reasonable, but she couldn't come up with one?

"Alaska is a microcosm." Huh?

Here are 10 answers to "Where Do you Get Your News?" that would have been better than Sarah Palin's answer:

10. I get all of my news from Fox News.
9. I get all of my news from Fox News online.
8. I get all of my news from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
7. I get all of my news from the Anchorage Daily News
6. I get all of my news from the Alaska Journal of Commerce, the Alaska Star, the Anchorage Chronicle, the Anchorage Daily News, the Anchorage Press, the Bush Blade, the Capital City Weekly, the Eagle Eye News, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the Juneau Empire, the Ketchikan Daily News, the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the Nome Nugget, the Peninsula Clarion, the Petroleum News Alaska, and -- of course! -- the Wasilla Frontiersman
5. I get all of my news from the Wall Street Journal
4. I get all of my news from the Washington Post
3. I get all of my news from the New York Times
2. I have trusted advisors who screen over 15 newspapers a day, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, and summarize the most important news stories from each one, and I read their news digest every morning.
1. I skim the front page of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Anchorage Daily News, and the Wasilla Frontiersman every day.

Or she could have practiced some of John McCain's famous "straight talk" and admitted that she doesn't read anything; that others read and digest the information for her, from a variety of sources including the New York Times, Time Magazine, and the Anchorage Daily News, and also from several blogs ('cause she's young and hip to the internets!), and that that's where she gets her news.

Anything would have been better than what she said. Whatever that was.

*You'll have to register to read the articles, sorry.

Single Moms for Sarah Palin!*

2008-09-09T15:13:00.009-05:00

Single moms need to unite behind John McCain. Clearly, only the Republicans are supportive of women who get pregnant out of wedlock. Instead of being judgmental and blaming the parents, Republicans accept that sometimes kids make mistakes regardless of how well they were raised, and that we need to support them no matter what.

In addition, only the Republicans are strongly behind the right of an individual and family to make their own choice about how to proceed with an unexpected pregnancy.

Finally, the best thing about the new Republican party: single moms need not feel guilty about all the time they don't spend with their kids. The really important thing to note here is that it's REPUBLICANS who are suddenly the party of choice: choice about what to do about an unexpected pregnancy, choice about who raises that child, and how.

Woot! McCain/Palin in 2008!

*Of course I'm kidding.

Truth in Advertising

2008-08-31T13:49:00.004-05:00

It occurred to me tonight that I should change the header of my blog to say "the travails of a non-dating single mom".

:(

Bite They Tiny Heads Off, Nibble on They Tiny Feet*

2008-08-16T02:56:00.007-05:00

*With appropriate credit to B. Kliban

One of my least favorites parts of cat ownership is that you unwittingly take on responsibility for all of the woodland creatures that your cat kills, maims, or tries to kill. In our part of Germany, this mostly means shrews, although there is other wildlife in our neighborhood, including several species of songbird, hedgehogs, and fox. In the past three months I have had to dispose of more dismembered, disemboweled, and headless shrews than I care to remember. (Compare and contrast with my heroic effort to rescue a confused baby shrew in the parking lot of Tengelmann's when we first moved here over a year ago.)

I woke up this Saturday morning to the sounds of what I thought was a bird chirping, and the sight of one of our cats stalking the foot of my son's bed. I lifted the bottom of the quilt, which had slumped to the floor while my son slept, just in time to see a dark shape of indeterminate species scurry under the bed.

I grabbed the cat and unceremoniously threw him into the bathroom until my son woke up. I thought I would be able to find the... critter with the cat locked in the bathroom, but whatever it was quickly hid itself, and I could find neither hide nor hair of the beast. On inspection, it appeared that I had not properly closed the front door when we returned from grocery shopping last night, which is undoubtedly how the... whatever it was got in. This explained how our other cat, who had been in the house when I went to bed, was standing at the back door waiting to be let in when I awoke. (This episode is telling, in that it obviously never occurred to our dear girl cat to let herself in via the very door from which she had made her exit.) I decided to let her in and keep a close eye on her, but it quickly became clear that she had no knowledge of the critter in my son's bedroom, as she showed no interest in pursuing it.

I lay down on my son's bed to read, keeping a watchful eye out for the... whatever it was. I waited for him to wake up, and when he did, I explained that there was an animal in his room, either a bird or a mouse, that the cat in the bathroom had been trying to kill it, and that I needed his help to save it. Then I asked him to let the cat out, and we followed him. Just as I had known he would, he immediately locked in on the critter's position, which was apparently under my son's giant stuffed bear, which sits in the corner made by my son's bookcases. I lifted up the bear just enough to see a long tail and a long nose. Our visitor was a shrew, it turned out, and so my son shooed the cats and locked them both away while I chased it. When the shrew proved elusive, we decided to just lock it in my son's bedroom and let the cats out, so I could make breakfast for us and then deal with the "critter issue" (as I had begun to think of it) on a full stomach.

A few minutes later, my son said, "Mommy, they killed something. I don't know what it is, and I don't know if it's the same thing, but they killed it." He, in some distress, pointed to the torso of an adult shrew, which lay on one of our living room rugs. Interestingly (to me), there was no blood. I, wishing once again for a man of the house to deal with such things, cleaned up the shrew bits and tried not to think too hard about where the top half of the shrew might be. Meanwhile, we wondered aloud whether this shrew half belonged to the full shrew we had just locked in his room, or to another one. The torso looked smaller than the one in my son's room so I suspected another shrew remained, but it was impossible to prove without letting the cats into my son's room, which I really wasn't ready to do.

But wild critters follow their own rhythms, and at some point while we were eating our breakfast our shrew decided it was time to make a break for it. I heard squeaking, just before the cats flashed into action on the stairs below my son's room. My son, who was hyper-alert and determined not to let the cats kill again, was on them in seconds and locked them both away. Meanwhile, I went to investigate how our uninvited visitor was faring, who in his desperation to escape had plunged between the stairs almost to the basement -- about a 15 foot drop onto marble stairs, in other words. It turns out shrews bounce rather than splatter, luckily, as he appeared only stunned. I sent my son to get the box and DVD we had set aside for shrew-catching, and then carried the little guy outside, where I released it unharmed*.

Phew! And so begins another weekend in our house.

*Where it will probably get killed by the neighbor's cat, but oh well. I only saves 'em, I doesn't adopt 'em.

Food glorious food

2008-07-15T13:33:00.010-05:00

I am currently enjoying a heaping bowlful of fresh roasted vegetables: egg-sized baby eggplants, zucchini, mushrooms, red pepper, and miniature gold potatoes broiled with olive oil, garlic, fresh-ground sea salt, fresh-ground pepper, and fresh rosemary. Fresh, fresh, fresh. (But forgot the red onion, whoops.)

I have always tried to limit my processed, packaged food intake, but it's noticeably easier in Germany for some reason -- perhaps because I'm not as big a fan of German processed, packaged food as I am of American processed, packaged food,

One weakness I still have is for Coke in a can ("dose" in German). The cans here in Germany are smaller than they are in America; that's a plus. They hold 0.33L of the precious elixir, and I usually don't even drink half a can. I just need my not-too-sweet, extra-carbonated daily "fix," but I drink as little of the foul stuff as I can. I can't go even 24 hours without a Coke without starting to feel BAD, so I've just decided to allow myself these little third-of-a-liter doses of Coke.

My other weakness -- maybe it doesn't even count as a weakness -- is frozen pizza. We keep a selection of them on hand, for those days when I'm too whupped from a long day of work to think about food. And again, frozen pizzas in Germany seem to be of a higher quality than the ones in the US, at least, the ones I'd been eating. They seem to cook up better, and have better ingredients. My favorite is a pesto tomato pizza; another one I like has fresh parmesan and rucola. Only downside: no whole wheat crust.

Oh wait. One more weakness. Refined sugar. I've been trying to replace my intake of good German chocolate with homemade desserts like banana nut chocolate chip bread. It's working, sort of. Of three freezer drawers, one is exclusively dedicated to ice cream. But a lot of the ice cream is historical; that one is from when so-and-so visited; that one is from when the store was out of the kind I really like; etc. The Belgian chocolate Haagen-Dazs we both love is the only one that gets replaced on a regular basis. (What we really want is a freezer full of is the blood-orange Eis we got in Berlin the last time we were there. But we don't want to drive all the way to Berlin just for ice cream. Well, we want to, but we recognize the insanity of the impulse.)

Back to the fresh roasted vegetables though. I had roasted vegetables for the first time (that I can remember -- I've probably had them before but never really noticed them, if you know what I mean) when we were in Sweden this past December. Our host was a full-time working mother of a toddler, with another one on the way, and she managed to pull off a delicious, healthy, homemade meal every single night we were there. It was awe-inspiring. In fact, until just now, I don't think I had made the connection, but I think that was when I decided that I would start making home-cooked meals for my 5-year-old son, even if he is too young to appreciate them.

I'm also doing it for myself, of course. Getting back in touch with the part of me that loves to cook has been good for me. (It's also responsible for putting back the 5kg I lost in my first six months in Germany.) And cooking with fresh herbs puts the gardening part of me in touch with the cooking part of me, and I've been enjoying it more than I can put into words.

Oh, and one other thing. It occurred to me earlier today that I'm cooking partly as a way of enhancing my "resume." I can't package myself -- I can no longer compete -- as a smart, young blonde hottie any more; gotta jazz up the old c.v. with some practical life skills, like... cooking. Gardening. Interior decorating. All the timeless skills that don't sag, grey, or dry up.

Speaking of gardening, I'm almost done with the backyard. One hot-pink peony, one salmon oleander, and a couple of burnt-orange day lilies to go. Then I can just relax and dream of the red-painted Adirondack settee I would nestle in the center of my beautiful garden, if only I could afford it.

Check out the food blogs on my blogroll if you love food as much as I do. Holy Basil is a great site to start at if you love Vietnamese food even half as much as I do, and Coconut-Lime is a good one if you love trying new recipes.

On the Unfortunate Naming of My Heretofore (and Likely Ever) Only Child

2008-06-28T20:36:00.010-05:00

My son is named after a mythical Persian folkhero. You Persiophiles (if that is even a word, and a cursory Google assures me that if it isn't, it should be) out there will know who I mean as soon as I describe him briefly: kind of a cad, slept with (and impregnated) the King's daughter; never (literally) around for his son while he was growing up; a tough mother-shut-yo-mouth; loved his horse; saved Persia from the marauding Arabs. Unknowingly killed his son in battle (whoops), leading to one of those classic why-didn't-you-tell-me-you-shoulda-told-me moments mythology is rife with. Yeah, that guy.

Unfortunately I only knew a smidge about this ancient Persian rock star when I chose the name for my son. I was and am a single mom, and so I chose the name unilaterally, but I did choose it out of respect to my son's Persian heritage, and with a nod to his Persia-proud papa. I had Irish and Dutch and Lithuanian and "plain old 'merican" names on the list as well as Persian names, but when he was born he just looked so... Persian. So not-Irish. So not-Dutch. Neither "Willem" (my top pick) nor "Kieran" seemed right for this olive-skinned, black-eyed, black-haired baby.

I also threw out the Finnish names I had considered, for no reason other than I have always admired the architect Saarinens, Eero and Eliel. And I threw out Mathias, a name which had the advantage of being Dutch and having a pseudo-American nickname, and which I liked on many levels, but... my son just didn't look like a Mathias. It has since occurred to me that he does look like a "Mateus" -- the Portuguese version of this beautiful name. It has also occurred to me that I could have named him Mathias, even though he doesn't "look Dutch," but that is a story for another day.

So I threw out the Dutch, Irish, and Finnish names on my list -- the "blond" names -- and I tossed out "John" (my father's name), as well. I didn't want to name my baby Darius or Cyrus or Reza, having known too many of each over the years, but most other classical Persian names sounded too strange to my Western ears. I wanted my son to have a unique name, yes, but not to have to spend his entire life carefully enunciating and then spelling his name. So I chose the name I did partly because of the lore surrounding the name, and partly because of its straightforward spelling and ease of pronunciation. So while it's true that his name is pronounced differently by Westerners than by Middle-Easterners (a slight difference in the vowel sounds, and the syllabic emphasis), essentially the name stays the same.

And I wanted to give my son a name with a positive meaning, or in this case, a good story, which it has in spades. A super-strong warrior-hero who, with his mythic horse, successfully defends his country from foreign invaders against all odds -- what could be better?

Had I realized at the time that naming my son after the Persian "champion of champions" was the equivalent of naming him Hercules (the Greek warrior of warriors), or Cúchulainn (the equivalent Gaelic hero), I might have thought better of it. Who needs that kind of pressure? Who would name their daughter Cleopatra, unless they could know she would be grow up to be stunningly beautiful and exotic? Who wants to name their kid Plato or Aristotle or Socrates, unless they have a guarantee of future high IQ? Isn't that just a burden no kid wants or needs?

Still, my son's name is his name. It suits him; it suits his background and his unusual family situation and, last but not least, his personality. He may not be as large and imposing physically as his namesake, but he has a large spirit and an imposing personality, and I hope that will be enough to prevent him from being weighed down by the name of a champion of champions.

The Unbearable Heft of Parenthood

2008-06-05T16:47:00.009-05:00

One of the most annoying things about my son is how he prevents me from being totally selfish. Let's say I've had a horrible day at work, and all I really want to do is come home, shut myself away from the world, and curl up with a good book of Alice Munro short stories.

Well, my son won't let me. "Mommy!" he yells happily upon seeing me, without even waiting to see if my face is grumpy or sad, and then he runs to greet me (or, okay, more realistically, goes back to coloring or chasing his little friend around the living room).

Then, if it's not, "Mommy, I'm hungry," it's, "Mommy, I want to play Mau Mau," or, "Mommy, look at how good I color," or, "Mommy, can you push me on the swing?" I swear, the kid is nothing but a bottomless pit of need. "Mommy, I want you to snuggle me," he said to me tonight. Then it was, "Will you read me a book, mommy?" Sheesh, kid, leave me alone, willya?

Ah, but seriously. Seriously. Sometimes, even when I really, really want to be selfish and focus just on me -- on how unhappy I am, or on the mistakes I've made in my life, or on how deep in debt I am -- he really does prevent me from achieving my objective.

And you know what? It's wonderful.

Luis Alberto Urrea

2008-05-11T19:11:00.006-05:00

I've been listening to PRI shorts on NPR lately. I burn 5 or 6 of them to CD at a shot, and then listen to them in my car at my leisure when I'm on my way to work, on a long drive, out running errands; whatever. They've been making me want to write again, which is a good thing I think.

One of the stories that really moved me today was by a writer I'd never heard of before, Luis Alberto Urrea, called "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses." It was a love story about a fairly generic white guy and a fairly generic Indian girl, with the device being that the story of the courtship and marriage are all told in a sort of posthumous retrospective. But the language was so beautiful, and the story and dialogue so simultaneously real and compelling that I was completely captivated by the first paragraph. (It didn't hurt that it was read by Robert Sean Leonard, the boyishly-handsome doomed Thespian of Dead Poet's Society as a teen and the unlucky-in-love oncologist of "House" of late.)

Here's the author's blog if any of you -- my vast but shy readership -- are so inspired by my post that you want to read more about him:

www.lavistaluisurrea.blogspot.com

I plan to read "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" for myself, to find out whether it was the storytelling or Robert Sean Leonard that made it so compelling. But I probably won't be reading much of anything until this gig ends in 2009.

Pfingstturnier

2008-05-11T17:40:00.013-05:00

Tomorrow is Pfingsten. I have no idea what that means*, but it's a holiday all across Europe and I get the day off, so that's all that really matters.

Today was Mother's Day. We went to the Pfingstturnier in Wiesbaden-Biebrich. The Pfingstturnier is an international equestrian tournament which is held at the Schloss Biebrich (Biebrich Castle) on the banks of the River Rhein, in surroundings befitting the nobility who come to ride the horses. We -- the bourgeouis middle-class who pay to watch them ride horses -- admire the surroundings in an only-from-a-distance sorta way.

The first event was jumping. Actually, the first event was parking the cars. My neighbor dropped off his wife and kids, and I dropped off my kid with them. Then we went to park the cars. He works near the Schloss Beibrich, so he was familiar with the area. We drove slowly up and down the aisles of an Aldi (closed, of course, because it's Sunday and everything is closed) before my neighbor found a parking spot he thought was big enough for my Meriva. He had to literally coach me into the spot: turn the wheel, go forward, no no, back it up! straighten it out, that's it, there, now you've got it. Oh, have I? 'cause it still looks like I'm gonna hit that car... oh, okay, got it. I do not think I would be exaggerating to guess that it took close to 15 minutes to maneuver my car into this teensy parking space, and no I am not that terrible of a driver.

Then we walked up to the Schloss to meet his wife and our kids. Of course, whenever we walk anywhere together with even one kid, everyone assumes we are married to each other, which means I am free to flirt with any man I see with impugnity. If only I had my prescription Audrey Hepburn sunglasses (which I have ordered -- in tortoise, of course -- and which should be here any day now) I could have really worked it.

We bought walk-in only tickets, which meant throwing away 13€ when we realized we would need to pay for seats in the stands. The only way to see the jumpers jumping was to sit in the bleachers -- without seats, none of the children would have been able to see anything. So we got bleacher seats, and then struggled for 15 minutes to figure out where they were. I went to the security guard and asked her in my best German where our seats were. She took out her laminated seating chart, flipped it over and back a couple of times -- I'm not even sure she had it right-side up -- and then said, "over there, next to the center aisle" and waved in the general direction of all of the bleachers.

This is just another example of my vocabulary keeping me from understanding... well, anything. The tickets clearly had a "section," a "row," and a "seat." But all I noticed were the "row" and "seat" numbers, which meant that, after saying "entschuldigung" half a dozen times -- last to an elderly woman who seemed to have trouble just standing long enough to let us go by -- we were soon standing in the right row, staring at: the wrong seats.

But where were the right seats? It was completely unclear to us. We decided to stay put.

I had never seen a live equestrian event before. Even including the ones I've watched on TV, I've only seen one or two. It was actually pretty inspiring. The horses are so beautiful and listen so intently to their riders. It took me a few minutes to figure out the scoring (you want to finish faster than anyone else, but without taking any of the gates down -- and it quickly became clear no one wins ribbons just for being fastest, you have to have the fastest AND cleanest round), and a few minutes more to realize that the best riders come last, so that the times, and scores, kept improving as the event went on. The last rider was the only one from the US (which, phonetically, sounds like "dee Ooh Ess Ahh"). She had a perfect round, and was working on a respectable time, too, when on the very last gate her horse ticked a pole with his foot -- er, hoof, can you tell I'm not to-the-manor-born? -- and it fell down. A perfect round until the last gate! It was like blowing a no-hit game in the bottom of the ninth. It was so sad, and sadder for me than probably anyone else in the arena. Except, okay, for the rider herself. Well, I'm pretty sure there were other Americans there, and so one or two of them probably felt the same way.

I may need some time for a few of the stranger things to sink in. You know how when you go to a baseball game, you can buy baseball memorabilia? Trinkets, mostly, and some baseball clothing, like baseball shirts with the name of your team, or a pennant. Well, at horseback riding tournaments, you can apparently buy just about anything you damn well feel like buying. Expensive riding boots and other equestrian clothes. A professional Miehle washing machine. (No, I am not kidding.) Cheap costume jewelry or the expensive kind. Persol sunglasses! I got a little dizzy just thinking about what kind of people would buy Persol sunglasses on a whim while strolling the grounds between equestrian events. And of course, food. Every lovely, delicious kind of food you could imagine. And the über-sponsor for the entire event? Mercedes-Benz. So you could buy a Benz to match your Persol sunglasses. Oy.

Then there was the dog incident. The dog incident is one of the reasons I will never give my mother -- or my son's father -- the URL of this blog. Not that my mother knows what a URL -- or a blog -- is. But still.

As those of you who know me in real-life know, my son loves dogs. We both do. We have been without a dog for a little over two years now, unbelievably. I have had at least one dog, and as many as two dogs, for 35 of my 45 years on this planet, and my son had a dog for his entire life up until he was almost four years old. But then our beloved old man died, and the timing was such that it didn't make sense to get another dog right away. Then I was given the opportunity to take this international position through my company, and that didn't seem like a good time to get a dog. Now we are almost settled in here, but we may have to move back to the US in a year's time, so... it doesn't really seem like a good time to get a dog.

But man, we both miss having one around the house. The cats miss having a dog around, too.

So whenever my son sees a dog on the street, he is pulled to it like mass to a black hole. Or something. Anyway, he wants to pet every dog he sees, and most dogs are amenable to such. At the Pfingstturnier, he espied two such dogs, one a large-ish Bernese mountain-ish dog on a leash attached to an older woman of indeterminate age of the sort that I shall be before too long, the other a black Labrador on a leash attached to a somewhat younger woman, also of indeterminate age. The dogs seemed keen on being petted, but I hovered nervously nearby, knowing as I do that even nice dogs startle easily, and should always be treated with cautious respect.
But everything seemed fine. They seemed like friendly, easy-going dogs who like and are used to being petted by kids, and the ladies holding their leashes seemed completely unconcerned. And I had to get us some food, and he was having fun playing. So I left my son with the neighbors, warned him not to annoy the dogs, and told him I would be right back with a couple of bratwursts.

When I came back in five minutes, he was sitting in the middle of a circle of people with his shirt over his head, and he was sobbing, and everyone -- including the lady with the dog -- was trying to console him. It took me several minutes to get the whole story, but apparently he had been playing (nicely) with the dogs, and one of them had bitten him in the face. No blood, but the skin was broken, and the bite mark was awfully, awfully close to his eye. His owner swore that he had never bitten anyone before, ever. She seemed nearly as shocked and upset as I was (but not, I think, as upset as I would have been in similar circumstances).

I wanted to do something, something dramatic, like demand that the woman have her dog put down, but, well. It seemed a bit over the top. All I could really do was to pick my son up, wrap my arms around him, and hug him within an inch of his life while he howled away his pain and fear. He kept asking why the dog had bitten him, and all I could say was, "I don't know, honey. I don't know."

I expect that he will not trust strange dogs as much as he used to for a while, but I don't expect it to last very long. I, however, will never trust strange dogs again.

*Updated 16Au08 to say that "Pfingsten" translates to "Pentecost," so I guess this was Pentecost Day

A Zecke by Any Other Name...

2008-04-13T16:55:00.010-05:00

So it turns out that I am the least-observant cat owner in the entire world. This can be proven by the fact that, of the four people who petted my cat last week, I am the only one who didn't notice the gigantic, blood-engorged tick firmly embedded in the skin of her neck.

So okay. I can't remember the last time I saw a tick (known as "Zecke" in German), and I don't remember how the situation was resolved. It was probably on one of my Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, and probably either a boyfriend or a veterinarian took care of it for me.

Here I am on my own, however, in more ways than one. My German tutor noticed the tick and offered to remove it for me, but I didn't have the right equipment, which she described to me in English and German. (It locks, she explained, and then you can twist it.) She looked up a nearby pet-supply store where she was sure I could find one, and we looked up the directions using Google Maps. Unfortunately it was a long way from my house and in the opposite direction from work.

My son's babysitter noticed the tick, and flatly and pre-emptively refused (even though I hadn't asked her, nor was I planning to ask her) to remove it. "I don't do that," she said in her perfect, and perfectly charming English, but helpfully wrote down the name of the equipment I needed ("Zeckenzange," or "ticktweezers") and told me where I could get it -- any Apotheke, as it turns out.

Apotheke, in case you couldn't guess, is German for "drugstore." As is so often the case with German words that resemble English ones, I have a terrible time pronouncing it correctly. I want to say, "uh-PAW-thuh*-key," like the first part of "Apothecary." But that would be 180 degrees wrong. The correct pronunciation, if you want Germans to understand what you are asking for (as in, "Wo ist eine Apotheke?"), is Ah-poh-tay-kuh, with more or equal emphasis on each syllable (with maybe a smidge more on "tay"). For some reason I find this nearly impossible to do.

*The "uh" in "thuh" should be a schwa, but I am clueless as to where to find one in Blogger.

But I digress.

After a very busy and stressful week I finally found time to go to an Apotheke, and I managed to ask in my awkward German if they had "Zeckenzangen." Whaddya know if they didn't bring me one post-haste, and all for only 3€. I took it home, shut the cat in the bathroom with me, and went to work.

Hang on, I left out a key step. I carried the Zeckenzange box to my trusty MacBook, typed the directions written on the back of the box into Google translator (my favorite part was where they give you two options for how to remove the tick -- essentially twisting versus pulling -- and recommend twisting with this verbiage: "time-tested method"), and committed the instructions to memory.

Then I shut the cat in the bathroom with me and went to work.

Approximately three seconds later, and that particular tick became a part of history. (Yeah, I made that tick rue the day he met me! Take that, you... TICK.) After noting the ease with which I was able to remove the tick using the "time-tested method" recommended on the box, I decided I should probably also follow the box's recommendations for dispatching the tick to tick heaven. It worked exactly as promised, but... eww. I mean really, eww. I want never to have to do that, ever again, in my entire life.

I miss having a boyfriend. I miss having a boyfriend for many reasons, and this is one of them. I want a boyfriend, or a husband, or even a man who just lives in the house and takes care of the spiders in the corners and the ticks on the pets.

Is that really so much to ask?

Politics, American-Style - Part Two

2008-04-01T22:29:00.016-05:00

Oh for the love of God. And I mean that in the most areligious way possible.

Apparently, many people (aka "nutjobs") are convinced that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. To get the general flavor of the craziness, read the comments on this blog:

http://seanskti.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/barack-obama-is-not-the-antichrist

Can you believe this? This is one of the less wack blog sites I encountered when I googled the words "obama antichrist" today, my curiosity having been piqued by some nutjob making this claim on one of the websites (CNN?) I'd gone to in an attempt to parse the current craziness surrounding Obama and his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

My favorite comment on this post was from Ursula, whose reading comprehension skills were so poor that she mistook the blogger's ridicule of the Obama-is-the-Antichrist meme for solidarity, and tried to organize a support group for other God-fearing end-times Left-Behind-reading Christians who also believe that Obama is the Antichrist. I guess these folks would email each other when the swarms of locusts and other signs of the Apocalypse are revealed, and text each other on their mobile phones as they are being Raptured up into the sky. And I'm not just surmising the Left-Behind bit; she referenced the Left Behind books and movie explicitly.

And note the date. It turns out the tinfoilhat brigade has been speculating about Obama being the Antichrist for well over a YEAR now. What the f---?

Maybe now would be a good time for me to point out that, like the author of the above blog post, I do not believe in the existence of the Antichrist. Much as I'd like to*, I can't very well believe in a supernatural Antichrist when I don't believe in the existence of a supernatural Christ. That would be like believing in antimatter but not believing in matter.

Unfortunately, I have been forced to believe in the existence of crazy whackjobs who have a lot of free time on their hands and spend it speculating wildly about someone who scares them because he is good at his job.

I was on the fence before -- Hillary, or Obama? But now I am really, solidly, 100% four-square in Obama's camp. I'm not a cultist; I still find the uncritical Obamalove to be a bit weird and unsettling. The guy is a politician, folks, and a lawyer! Of course he's flawed.

He's flawed because... he's human. If he was the Antichrist he'd be perfect, right? No Reverend Wrights in the Antichrist's past, because the Antichrist would be too smart for that! He'd choose a picturesque, passive black church -- maybe a nice Episcopalian church -- to attend for "cover." No questionable real estate deals for the Antichrist, because he'd be much too clever, and rich, to need any help from shady characters.

And yes, in my research -- trying to understand the magnitude and nature of the "Reverend Wright problem" from abroad -- I learned all of the following about Obama. That he's really a Muslim. (The logic here appears to be, "C'mon, his name's Obama! He's obviously a Muslim.") (Which, by the way, I am qualified to say -- after doing extensive research -- is pretty much the level of discourse typical of these anti-Obama screeds.) That he is married and has two children only as a "cover." (I guess the Antichrist won't need love.) That he attends a Christian church as a "cover." That he is pro-Palestinian, pro-African, and anti-Israel. Oh, and perhaps most importantly, and most difficult for me to accept, anti-American.

Because as a loyal, patriotic American, the racism implicit in 95% of these screeds depresses the crap out of me. No one would be saying any of this bullshit about him** if he was a charismatic, charming, eloquent white politician. I am very sad to see that my country hasn't come so far since 1968 after all.

I wonder what the official Scientology position is on Barack Obama. Does anyone know? Please, someone email me if they ever post a lunatic diatribe against Obama, because that is the day I will pledge cold hard cash -- of which I have precious little to spare -- to Obama's campaign.

*Tongue firmly in cheek
**A friend reminds me that there were those who claimed Ronald Wilson Reagan (count the letters, kids, that's 6 6 6) was the Antichrist.

Ostern Schnee

2008-03-22T05:37:00.009-05:00

Apparently the weather is bad globally this Easter. Maybe it's a sign of global warming, maybe not. We heard through the internets that the roads in our hometown were slush-covered and slippery last night, and reading this made us glad we were not there this Easter.

We drove to Berlin Friday evening, partly because the weather during the day was quite terrible. We woke up yesterday morning (remember, it has not snowed all winter in Wiesbaden) to pebble-sized hail, then fat snowflakes, and then more hail. I took pictures of snowflakes perching on the blooms of my azaleas. And then the sun came out. So we got in the car and drove towards Berlin and were soon met with... more snow. Enormous snowflakes slicked the surface of the Autobahn, and me with my summer tires :(

We made it to the Hotel Bogota (http://www.hotel-bogota.de/) safe and sound but it is not a drive I would like to repeat. Much of the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Berlin is twisty and mountainous, and there wasn't much traffic, which was good and bad. Good in that if I slid, or needed to brake, there was most often no one in front of me. Bad in that there were no tail lights to follow...

Today the highlight of my day -- pun intended, sorry -- is getting my hair colored at an Aveda salon (http://www.lux-eleven.de/) in Berlin. Yes, I drove from Wiesbaden to Berlin to have my hair done. It's Aveda, which means it's plant-based and not chemical-based, which I like. And they will use my exact formula (although, of course, your mileage may vary), so little experimenting *crosses fingers* will be required. And I'll feel younger and *crosses fingers* prettier for my upcoming stupendously-pointless gigundous stress-inducing meeting with the executive directors from back home, which is worth some $$$. And R will be mightily bored. But I have tempted him with a day of Legoland tomorrow, so that lets me off the hook, maternally. I got tickets for us to go to "Soul 4Kids" ("Deutscher soul stellt sich vor... ") tomorrow night at the Admiralspalast (http://www.admiralspalast.de/) on Friederichstraße, which also features a show called "Swing Royal Easter Ballroom" with the "Puppini Sisters" tonight (who appear to be a straight-faced send-up of the Andrews Sisters) to which I am sorely tempted to also drag R. Yes, it's a selfish grownup sort of a weekend for me, with occasional forays into kiddom for R's sake. Today, for example, I am letting him watch the Berenstein Bears (auf Deutsch of course) before we go adventuring on the U-Bahn to the Aveda salon.

Tonight: the DDR museum, and Checkpoint Charlie.

This started out as an email to a friend, and ended up as a post on a blog no one reads. WTF? And on re-reading it I noticed it reads like an ad for Berlin which, I guess, it is. I love Berlin. I wish we lived in Berlin, or at least lived closer to it.

Politics, American-Style

2008-02-10T02:54:00.009-05:00

I've been following the American nominating process for the Presidential election as best I can. I feel weirdly detached from the whole thing, but since the President who will be elected while I am gone might be the President for the next eight years (to put that into context, until my son is 13 years old) I am fiercely invested in the outcome.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out who would be the best man or woman to run the country. I think the answer is Barack Obama, but I'm not sure. I really am made a bit uncomfortable by his relative lack of experience, and I worry that he won't have enough of a majority (or a coalition) in the House and Senate to get anything done.

John McCain -- although I will admit to having admired him personally in the past (I liked the idea of the "Straight Talk Express," and I like that he will cross the aisle to enact legislation about which he feels strongly) -- is obviously not an option. If he chooses Mike Huckabee as his running mate, he is not only off my list, he becomes Enemy #1. I am tired (tired, tired, tired) of the meme that the United States is "run by liberals" and "too liberal" and blah blah blah. It's garbage. The only people who really believe this -- who not only believe it but can support it with "evidence" they think is compelling -- are people so right-leaning that they secretly admire the Taliban. Do not mistake this to mean that I think American ultra-conservatives will start stoning adulterers to death if they take over -- of course they won't. But they kind of wish they could.

The rest of us know that our country has been hijacked by conservatives, starting in 1980 with Ronald Reagan, who made us (well, not me personally, but us as a country) "feel good" about it. That is the scary downside of charismastic leadership. Charismatic leaders are capable of not only compelling people to act against their own self-interests, but of making them like it. (Look at Bush and his tax cuts, which hurt middle-class people the most. And who did most middle-class Americans vote for in 2000 and 2004? That's right, George W. Bush.)

And we wish the conservatives would give it back. If they won't, I'm for taking it back by force*. A country in the hands of its religious zealots is unable to act in its own self-interests because it is too busy trying to protect itself from within. Show me a country that was successfully run by religious zealots for more than a few years and I'll show you a bridge in Arizona you might want to buy.

It's been interesting trying to explain America politics to the Europeans (mostly Germans, and a few Swedes) I know. Most of them are completely mystified by it. Many of them go to church, but the idea of fundamentalist Christians who believe that the earth is 2000 years old** and do not believe in evolution is just laughable to them. They literally cannot believe that such people exist, let alone that they are taken seriously and wield power.

The few religious German Christians I know are mostly young and idealistic. They believe that the Christ they worship would protect the least among us, and so they tend to be pro-environment, pro-vegetarian, pro-gay, and otherwise fairly leftist. I do not know where they stand on the abortion issue because frankly it is pretty much a non-issue here from what I can tell. My German instructor is a proud Christian and I believe I can say with some certainty that she would not be accepted as "one of theirs" by most of the middle-class Christians who have been voting for "family values" for the last 24 years. She dresses in a way that can only be described as "funky," has magenta highlights in her dark hair, and is tattooed and pierced in enough places that she makes me feel old. I'm pretty sure she would be an Al Gore supporter if she was an American citizen.

So it's strange that the right-wing conservatives have been able to get such a stranglehold on the American political scene for so long that they have been able to effect a complete transformation of the Supreme Court in my lifetime. I liked the old Supreme Court. I thought it made good decisions. It was hardly monolithic in its thoughts and opinions, but ultimately it seemed to come to the right decision 99 times out of 100, and I want "my" Supreme Court back.

And I'm still pretty peeved at my friends (not to mention the complete strangers) who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 because there was "no difference" between Al Gore and George Bush and they wanted to "make a statement."

Well, let me ask you a question, people who thought there was no difference between those two men. Do you see a difference now? In the makeup of the Supreme Court? In the way our Constitution has been subverted, and the "Unitary Executive" strengthened? In the way this Administration has waged war? In the decisions they've made which affect the environment for years to come? Would a Gore government have condoned water-boarding, my friends? Would we be in Iraq? Would we have let Osama bin Laden ("Who?" many Americans may wonder at this point, having been distracted from that particular bogeyman by the Iraq War quagmire and the disastrous effect of the bursting housing market bubble on the economy) get away and pulled the majority of our troops out of Afghanistan as quickly?

On the other hand, we might still be talking about how Monica and the blue dress were directly responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center, and for sparing us that, I guess I'm grateful to GW Bush.

*I don't mean with our well-armed militia which is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, although that would be ironic and strangely satisfying. I mean with compelling rhetoric and aggressive politicking. My dearest hope is that Barack Obama might be able to inspire folks (politicians and otherwise) around the country to start speaking up and saying, "We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it any more."

**Oops, my mistake. Of course no one believes the earth is only TWO thousand years old. Don't be silly. It's SIX thousand years old.

Check out any one of this idiot's YouTube videos if you think I'm exaggerating about these nutcases: http://youtube.com/user/VenomFangX

Hummus is Chickpeas!

2008-01-27T20:52:00.005-05:00

One of the few foods I haven't been able to find in Germany (at least in the Wiesbaden area) is good hummus. In Michigan, hummus is a staple in most mainstream grocery stores, so I was a bit surprised to find that it's nowhere to be found in German grocery stores. Because I've been craving it, I've been looking for it everywhere.

I realized after a few months of searching that the only way I was going to find good hummus was to make it. After all, how hard could it be? It's just ground up chickpeas with a little garlic, tahini, and lemon, right?

Well, having just spent most of an entire weekend locating the key ingredients and making a smallish batch of hummus, I can say: pretty hard. Initially I asked my sister for a recipe for hummus. She asked a Lebanese friend from work for a recipe and got one that called for canned chickpeas, which I was unable to find at the local grocery store. However, once I figured out the German word for chickpeas -- "Kichererbsen" -- I was able to find dried chickpeas at the local grocery store.

I googled "making hummus with dried chickpeas" and found a multitude of fascinating (really) blogs devoted to hummus. I had no idea there were so many devoted hummus fans! Or that the experts prefer hummus made from dried chickpeas to hummus made from canned. I thought my craving for decent hummus was kind of unusual (okay, weird). But now I feel like I have found my people. Interestingly, there's a bit of a debate over whether hummus originated in the Middle Eastern countries or Israel. I have to say that I don't really care; all I know is that it's delicious.

Living in Michigan I know of a lot of restaurants that serve tasty hummus, but my favorite so far is probably the hummus at La Shish* in Auburn Hills. My favorite hummus ever (so far) is the hummus from Andie's Lebanese restaurant on Clark Street in Andersonville on the north side of Chicago. Not only the flavor but the presentation is particularly appealing at Andie's.
My hummus experiment went reasonably well, given that every single recipe called for using a blender or food processor, neither of which I own. I think it may be worth getting one just for making hummus with, however.
Based on my reading online, the consensus seemed to be that the best tahini sauce is Israeli ("Yonah" and "Karawan" were both mentioned frequently), but a Middle-Eastern tahini called "Al-Wadi" came in a close second. (My poll was not even remotely scientific, so I will be the first to admit that it's possible that had more of the hummus blogs I perused been Middle-Eastern the consensus would have been that Lebanese tahini is the best.) Unfortunately, the only tahini paste I could find locally was at a Turkish grocery store in Frankfurt. Not only is Turkish tahini not as white as it should be but more grey (I have to say I am not generally a fan of grey food), but it was described by many hummus bloggers as "not worth mentioning." Ouch.
Nevertheless, my 5-year-old son wiped the bowl clean with the grilled pita bread. He also helped me peel (aka "decorticate") the boiled chickpeas, which we both thought was fun at first but which eventually turned into a chore. If I could only find some decent whole grain pita bread I would be a happy girl. And next time, I'm going to use a blender.
After doing some brief research, here is my favorite blog (so far!) which is devoted entirely to hummus:
www.humus101.com/EN
If you can read Hebrew, there's a version that's probably even better:
www.humus101.com

Also interesting was this blog:
www.inmolaraan.blogspot.com

which I especially appreciated for its photographs of exotic fruits, like this one:

www.inmolaraan.blogspot.com/2007/08/dragon-fruit-or-hu-lng-gu.html

I also enjoyed inmolaraan's blogroll, for example "Peanut Butter and Purple Onions." Check it out if you love imagining (if not actually trying) strange combinations of food.

Enjoy!

*Edited to note that, sadly, La Shish in Auburn Hills is no more. Apparently the owner was a bit of a crook, or at least, that is the impression one leaves when one is being investigated for money laundering and then suddenly leaves the country, leaving one's employees high and dry. We were in the US recently for a visit and my craving for La Shish hummus had to go unrelieved. I did find time to grab a kafta kebab sandwich from the Shish Kebab Express on Telegraph in Southfield though, and oh man, was it good.

Muslim Philosophy Revisited

2008-01-15T01:59:00.000-05:00

So I listened to this episode of This American Life today:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1224

and it made me feel as if I needed to *immediately* redact my previous post about Muslims. I don't deny anything I said in that post -- the truth is, that things have transpired over the past several years that make me suspicious of all Muslims. And the Muslim community has not done a particularly good job of rebutting their crazy zealots -- more later.

But I know in my heart that, just like Christians and Jews and Buddhists, there are good and bad in all groups. I *know* there are good Muslims, and I'm so sorry that this is now a country where you can't openly be anything but Christian in a school without risking persecution or worse.

This issue troubles me more than you can imagine, and the reason I wrote my previous post about my father's intractibility on this topic was that I was trying to point out that the current situation in our country is bad, so bad that my normally reasonable father has been rendered unreasonable.

And so bad that even I -- long an independent thinker, which can be demonstrated by my refusal in the third grade to say the word "God" in the pledge of allegiance (in 1970!) -- now find myself yielding to the power of "groupthink" and wondering about the intentions of my previously unsuspicious Muslim colleagues at work. And it is something I wish I could do something about (something other than making sure my son has no unreasonable prejudice against Muslims, which I am doing). I wish I knew more Muslims, as friends that is. But I don't.

But in reflecting on my previous post, I now think I was too flippant -- in effect not only not helpful, but perhaps adding to the misunderstandings between Muslims and non-Muslims.*

I want my country to return to being a secular nation. It *is* a secular nation, and it always has been. Yes, the underlying principles of our country are certainly Judeo-Christian in nature, but that doesn't mean we should have to defend our religious beliefs -- or lack thereof -- in our secular schools.

The idea that school should not be a place for religious indoctrination is so basic and fundamental to the success of this country that I cannot believe I am still having to argue about it.

I believe that Good and Evil exist, but I do not believe in God and the Devil. I believe that Good exists in the hearts of men, and that this is where Evil lurks as well. And no matter what religion you believe in, as long as it doesn't infringe on MY right to believe what I want, or inflict pain, mental anguish, or bodily injury on others, I believe YOU have the right to believe in it.

But I do not believe you have the right to teach your religion to my child in school, unless I have purposefully chosen to send my child to a private religious school. I also don't believe that I (or any other atheist) have the right to teach my "religion" to your child in public school, but... and here's the rub for a certain small group of Christian zealots -- I do have the right to teach your child about the scientific theory of evolution, at least until a measurably and demonstrably sounder scientific theory is proposed.

And no, the fact that the antennae of amoebae or hummingbird eyes or whatever (or *quickly consulting Wikipedia* the bacterial flagellum of E. Coli) are "irreducibly complex" does not change this.

*Luckily no one reads this blog! :)

To My Ex-Boyfriend Upon the Occasion of the Death of His Cat

2008-01-11T18:56:00.005-05:00

My first dog died at the age of 15 or 16. I was in college. I had inherited her from my older sister when she left for college 13 years earlier. She was a small dog, a mostly-black* miniature poodle, about which there was really nothing remarkable, except that she was my dog and I loved her.

*I now know that the technical term for a two-color poodle is "parti," but I grew up thinking she was a "party poodle" :)

What stands out is that she had quite a high tolerance for being dressed in doll's clothing and being carted around like a baby. And she never bit me out of meanness. A favorite game we used to play was when she would run under my bed and stick only her front paws out, one black paw and one white paw. I'd tap each of her paws and she'd pull them back under the bed. Then she'd stick them back out. Sometimes she would only stick out one paw. This game entertained both of us mightily. In my defense, I was seven. And in her defense, she was a dog of very little brain.

My second dog died at the entirely-too-young age of four. When that dog died it knocked me for a loop for several years, partly but not entirely because I was almost entirely to blame. It's a long story which I will not recount for you, my imaginary readers, because I still remember it much too keenly. It was my fault in the way that if one does not take every precaution to keep something valuable safe it is that person's fault if that valuable something gets broken, even if someone else takes a sledgehammer to it. Nonetheless, it was my fault, and I carried that burden around with me for quite a while. I believe I still have that burden around here somewhere, actually.

When the next two animals died -- the cat who was hit by a car and the dog who died of complications from a rare cancer of the nose (which sounds kind of funny but wasn't in the slightest) -- it was, in a relative sense, no big deal. Sure, I cried my eyes out both times. But it was pain I was able to move away from, to separate myself from, as I had not been able to with the dog whose death was my fault.

On the other hand, the last dog who died also hit me hard. This was for several intersecting reasons, which I will attempt to untangle. One was that I felt as if I had let him down long before I had to put him down, by ignoring him in favor of my baby, then toddler, and finally child. This dog had been my child-surrogate until I finally and unexpectedly had an honest-to-goodness child, and then I replaced him in my heart without much regret and without much thought, and I felt bad about it. He had always been a mopey dog, unlike the dog he was meant to replace, and only got more morose as he grew older and more arthritic and as I paid less and less attention to him.

The other reason was that this death was also my fault, in much the same way the death of the earlier dog had been my fault. In this case, I did not guard carefully enough against the possibility of this dog getting into trouble, even though I knew his propensity to eat things which were not food. And I still feel guilty because I knew he had eaten human medicine, and I knew it was probably dangerous, and I did nothing about it. In my defense, my son had a broken collarbone that needed tending. But I could have called someone and asked them to take the dog to the vet as soon as I realized what had happened, and I didn't. Also in my defense, I knew I couldn't afford emergency care for my dog. But.

But.

Finally, the hardest thing was the knowledge that I was in no position to "replace" him with a puppy. A puppy would have gone a long way to easing the pain, but we can't afford a dog right now, we don't have time for a dog right now, and we don't have a place for a dog right now. Note how many times I said "right now." We will have another dog one day. I am counting the days until I can get another dog, only I don't know when we'll be able to have one, which makes the counting rather abstract.

So I still miss all of my animals who are gone, and you will surely miss your girl for a long time to come. It took a good six months before I stopped expecting the dog to shuffle off the couch to come greet me when I came home from work. And I know it is a burden to be the one who decides when it is someone else's time to go. And mostly, I'm sorry there was nothing I could do to make it all better.

And although I never told you this, I'm sorry I didn't ask you to come with me when I had to put down my dog. It's true that if I'd asked you might have said no, thereby letting me down. It's also true that you might have gone with me but still let me down by saying the "wrong" thing, or by not saying anything at all. But at least I would have given you the chance to be there for me. Instead, I chose to protect myself. And told myself that if you really cared you'd have offered to come with me; that I shouldn't have had to ask.

But everyone is different, and I find now that I have absolutely no idea what you need from me when our situations are reversed.

Whatever You Call It, It's M-m Good.

2008-01-09T18:55:00.001-05:00

So the heat has been off at my house since some time ago. I don't know exactly when because we were in the States at the time, but when we came home from the airport on Sunday the place was positively Arctic. Apparently what happens with these radiant floor systems is that they leak a little bit (?) and over time the amount of water that is missing is replaced with air and both of those things are a problem, too little water and too much air. Because of course, hot air in a tube under your floor won't warm much of anything.

So the landlord came over on Monday and did a little something (bled off the excess air), and said it would be working soon but might take 24 hours for the house to warm up. So I waited patiently, partly because I am obedient (some would say passive), and partly because my German still sucks and I avoid conversations that must be conducted in German at all costs. (My landlord speaks English, but not very well, and I speak German, uh, not at all. Not in any meaningful sense of the word "speak," at any rate.)

Two days later, it was still damn cold in here. So I called the landlord again, and established with his German-speaking wife that it was still "kalt" in here and could he please come look at it? So he sent someone over to add water. Umm. Might he not have considered the need to add water when he noticed there was too much air on Monday? Or is that asking too much?

At any rate, in my opinion it is STILL cold in here. The thermometer in the upstairs bathroom, whose accuracy I have no reason to doubt, reads 14C, or about 57F. That's not warm, folks! That's cold.

Luckily, we are flush with blankets and down comforters, so sleeping is not a big problem. But being awake in a cold house is not pleasant, regardless of wearing sweaters and slippers and the like. It just isn't. I don't need the house to feel like the African savannah under a noonday sun; I'd just like it to be warm, okay?

Anyway, the worst part is that I've been down with a nasty cold since we flew back on Sunday. I truly believe I could have warded off the cold if the house would have been warm, but alas, it was not.

So: soup! I have been craving soup. Any kind of soup would do, of course, but what I really want is homemade chicken soup. Or Europa's* extra delicious creamy tomato soup, yum. And I was thinking about how in every language I am familiar with, the word for soup is practically the same. How many other words can you say that about? Not many. Even really common words like cat, dog, house are pretty different if you just look at French, Spanish, and German. But soup is soup. In German it's suppa, in French, soupa, in Italian, zuppa, and in Spanish and Portuguese, sopa.

Coincidence? Or universal word root? Any linguists out there care to weigh in? Or, I dunno, anyone who isn't of European extraction want to tell me what soup is in their language? (I bet it isn't quite the same in Senagalese or Thai, but without any annoying facts to screw up my theory I am batting a thousand.)

Whatever you want to call it, though, it really is m-m good.**

*Europa is the fabulous old-world Italianisch eatery up the street in the little village we live in. It has a lovely family-friendly atmosphere, and as soon as I stopped expecting the owner to speak Englisch (about the time I learned enough German to order food in) she seems to positively glow when we walk in. It also has the slowest service on the face of the planet, but the food is absolutely worth the wait. Make a note, though: it is not a place to take tired, hungry children.

**With apologies to the nice marketing people at Campbell's soup.

Wie sagt Man "plunger" auf Deutsch?

2007-11-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

So my long toilet saga has finally ended. In Obi, a chain store kinda like and and yet kinda unlike Home Depot , I found what I had been looking for unsuccessfully for the last two weeks -- something I could have gone out at 2AM in the US and found at any one of a dozen stores -- a toilet plunger. (I'd tell you what they're called in German but it turns out that even the Germans don't know the word for them. Of course, I only asked German women -- maybe all German men would know the word for it. But how many American women do you know who wouldn't know the word for "plunger"?)

I thought perhaps my experience was unique, but when I IMd a friend back home when my frustration with the toilet issue was peaking (on that day not just one but BOTH of our two toilets were backed-up), he quickly Googled and found half a dozen MetaFilter threads on the topic. Apparently German toilets are notoriously finicky, yet plungers are nearly unheard of. Go figure.

Interestingly, toilet brushes ("WC bürste" -- every German knows the word for this!) are ubiquitous. This is because the German toilets are designed to be environmentally friendly in theory but are in my limited experience extremely wasteful in practice. German toilets, unlike American toilets, are not full of water in-between flushings. They are for all intents and purposes empty, with only perhaps a cup and a half of water at the very bottom until you flush, when water rushes out from beneath the rim and flushes whatever is in the toilet away. German toilets offer a continuously-variable flush volume, which works great when you pee because how much water does one need to flush away half a cup of pee? Right, not much.

On the other hand -- and I apologize if any of my imaginary readers are eating while reading this, but if you have your own five-year-old you will understand that I have gotten very comfortable talking about this -- the continuously-variable "low-flush" toilet does not work so well with on poop. I'm sorry, but there's no delicate way to put this: with no water in the toilet, one's poop sticks to the porcelain. Flushing sends water pouring down the sides of the bowl, which removes most of it but never fails to leave smudges of poop here and there which cannot be dislodged regardless of how frequently or vigorously one flushes.

The ubiquity of the toilet brush in Germany is thereby explained. The typical home improvement store has nearly an entire aisle devoted to this single item, from the cheap and pedestrian plastic WC bürste in a variety of cheerful colors to expensive sleek modernist nickel-plated white ceramic wall-mounted versions. I was able to justify the purchase of a stylish Day-Glo green ceramic WC bürste holder for my bathroom and an equally striking Day-Glo orange ceramic brush holder for the guest bathroom (aka my son's bathroom) on the grounds that we use the freaking things every single day. If I am going to have to use a stupid toilet brush every goddamned day I at least want it to be pleasing to the eye.

The very nature of German toilets forces one to be all too familiar with the ever-changing quality of one's poop and, if one has a five-year-old, of the ever-changing quality of one's five-year-old's poop. I never knew, before, just how sticky one's poop becomes when one eats too much chocolate, as one is apt to do when one is five years old.

However, it could be worse. Hours of research on German toilets have made me grateful that I live in NEW Germany rather than OLD Germany, when the typical German toilet still had an "inspection shelf." I'll let you Google that one for the gory details but suffice it to say that Germans of yore apparently had an unhealthy interest in the quality of their own poop.

Anyway, Godspeed, inventor of the toilet plunger, whoever you are. Three Euros and two minutes later, my two-week odyssey ended with a sparkling clean, flushable fully-functional toilet. Sure, it probably seems strange to put up with a clogged toilet for two weeks, but I'd be damned if I was going to spend 50€ on a plumber when I knew full well a 3€ plunger would do the trick. (Luckily we are a two-bathroom household. I probably wouldn't have been quite so sanguine about a backed-up toilet if it were the only one in the house.)

Other curiosities of German life I may post about next: Autobahn etiquette. Civil liberties. Liberal horn-use among German drivers. What do we mean when we say someone is "very German"? German fashion sense (or lack thereof). Tchotchkes and the Bauhaus, which came first? Germany: A crackerless culture. The Tischtennis craze.

The Ubiquitous German WC Bürste

2007-11-17T16:24:00.002-05:00

I thought perhaps my experience was unique, but when I IMd a friend back home when my frustration with the toilet issue was peaking (on that day not just one but BOTH of our two toilets were backed-up), he quickly Googled and found half a dozen MetaFilter threads on the topic. Apparently German toilets are known for their finickiness, yet plungers are nearly unheard-of. Go figure.

Interestingly, toilet brushes ("WC brüste" -- everyone knows the word for this) are ubiquitous. This is because the German toilets are designed to be environmentally friendly in theory but are in my limited experience extremely wasteful in practice. German toilets, unlike American toilets, are not full of water in-between flushings. They are for all intents and purposes empty, with only perhaps a cup and a half of water at the very bottom until you flush, when water rushes out from beneath the rim and flushes whatever is in the toilet away. German toilets offer a continuously-variable flush volume, which works great when you pee because how much water does one need to flush away half a cup of pee? Right, not much.

On the other hand -- and I apologize if any of my imaginary readers is eating while reading this, but I have a five-year-old and I've gotten pretty comfortable talking about poop (for a while we made almost daily references to the Japanese picture-book "Everyone Poops") -- the continuously-variable "low-flush" toilet does not work so well on said poop. I'm sorry, but there is no delicate way to put this: with no water in the toilet, poop sticks to porcelain. Flushing sends water pouring down the sides of the bowl, which removes the bulk of the poop but never fails to leave smudges of poop here and there which cannot be dislodged regardless of how frequently or vigorously one flushes.

The ubiquity of the toilet brush in Germany is hereby explained. The typical home improvement store has nearly an entire aisle devoted to this single item, from the cheap and pedestrian plastic WC bürste in a variety of cheerful colors to expensive sleek modernist nickel-plated white ceramic wall-mounted versions. I was able to justify the purchase of a stylish Day-Glo green ceramic WC bürste holder for my bathroom and an equally striking Day-Glo orange ceramic brush holder for my son's bathroom (aka the guest bathroom) on the grounds that we use the freaking things every single day. If I am going to have to use a stupid toilet brush every goddamned day I at least want it to be pleasing to the eye.

The very nature of German toilets forces one to be all too familiar with the ever-changing quality of one's poop and, if one has a five-year-old, of the ever-changing quality of one's five-year-old's poop. I never knew, before, just how sticky one's poop becomes when one eats too much chocolate, as one is apt to do when one is five years old.

I will end by saying that my hours of research on German toilets has made me grateful that I live in NEW Germany rather than OLD Germany, when the typical German toilet still had an "inspection shelf." I'm going to let you Google that one for the gory details but suffice it to say that Germans of yore apparently had an unhealthy interest in the quality of their own poop.

Anyway, Godspeed, inventor of the toilet plunger, whoever you are. Three Euros and two minutes later, my two-week odyssey ended with a sparkling clean, flushable fully-functional toilet. Sure, it probably seems strange to put up with a clogged toilet for two weeks, but I'd be damned if I was going to spend 50€ on a plumber when I knew full well a 3€ plunger would do the trick. (Luckily we are a two-bathroom household. I probably wouldn't have been quite so sanguine about a backed-up toilet if it were the only one in the house.)

Next post topic: Liberal horn-use among German drivers.

We're Going to Disneyland... Paris!

2007-09-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

So next Wednesday is Reunification Day, a German national holiday, and whether because of this or coincidentally, the international school my son goes to closes for the week. This means an enforced vacation for me, since it's still not acceptable to leave a five-year-old (especially one who has only been five for two weeks) at home alone all day.

I had been hoping the ex-boyfriend would come for a visit (he still says he will) this week, but no luck. So I was casting about for a compelling vacation spot for the week that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. Amsterdam again? Barcelona? The Adriatic? The North Sea? Copenhagen? Brussels? Prague? Stockholm?

And then the neighbors called to say they were going to go to Disneyland Paris, and would we like to go with them? Which means cheap digs and people to translate for us (the neighbors are from Montreal), so heck yeah, count us in!

We leave tomorrow at 5AM. I hope to start using my German blog site soon, so maybe the next time you read about us it will be auf deutsch!

Curly Wurly

2007-08-05T07:20:00.000-05:00

When I was a pre-teen girl at Concordia Camp, somewhere in northern Michigan, I lived for the camp store to open. Concordia was a Christian camp that my parents had somehow been suckered into sending me to, and I hated almost every minute of every day there. But when the camp store opened, I experienced the joy of freedom when I was allowed to exchange my paltry allowance for goods in the form of candy, in particular a candy bar known as the Marathon bar. For those of you who have never experienced the joy of a Marathon bar, it was a foot-long strip of braided chocolate-covered caramel which could be eaten at room temperature, but was by far best eaten frozen.

And then they stopped making Marathon bars! I still remember them fondly and have tried to describe them to friends, but have usually been met with blank stares.

Until we moved to Germany. Standing in line at Real (pronounced Ray-all) last night, I saw a familiar picture of a braided chocolate-covered caramel candy bar in an unfamiliar package: a Curly Wurly (which I will subsequently nominate for stupidest candy bar name EVER) by Cadbury.

On the off-chance that these might actually be the same as my beloved long-lost Marathon bars, I bought 5 of them. (At 39 eurocents each, this was not a huge investment.) I put them in our almost-empty freezer (which, this being Germany where wives are encouraged and even paid to stay home and shop daily for groceries and cook for their husbands and children, is used for almost nothing else since nearly all our food is purchased and eaten fresh), and almost forgot about them until just now, when I tore the wrapper off and took my first bite of a childhood memory, which I look forward to sharing with my son.

Anyone else have fond childhood memories of candy (or another food) which is no longer made?

Über Deutschland

2007-06-10T17:05:00.000-05:00

A thousand apologies, my loyal reader(s). An update is overdue.

First, we're here. We're really here; pinch us! We've been here almost two weeks, though it seems like much, much longer. This is because our first two weeks in Germany have really been a mixed bag, like a soup redolent of delightful, crisp vegetables and stinky, smelly socks. Okay, not quite like that. But mixed, nonetheless.

First, I nearly missed my flight from DTW to FRA. Well technically, I did miss it. The cut-off for checking baggage on an international flight is one hour prior to scheduled departure. We had six (eight if you count carry-ons) bags to wrestle out of the car and onto the conveyer belt, and we missed the cut-off. But really, shouldn't the hour have started as soon as we pulled up to the curb? (I mean, c'mon people, this might be my first move to another country, but surely other people move to other countries every day, and surely they too take their full allotment of luggage.)

Anyway, by the time we got all of the bags out, the stroller off of the luggage rack (don't ask), and my passport to the nice airline employee, it was too late to do curbside check-in, and by the time we wheeled our luggage cart, carry-ons, and my son (in his stroller) to the inside counter, it was too late to check us onto that flight, period.

The airline was nice enough (?) to check us onto the next flight, which was not a non-stop, but which would (in theory) get us into Frankfurt in time to get our residence permits in order to get me on the payroll. This (need I say it?) is a big deal, so I was a bit frantic. We were now checked onto another flight, departing in less than an hour, and I now didn't know the flight number or the gate from which we were leaving. My diminutive 4-1/2-year-old son and I thus set off at top speed across the airport, a carry-on bag a piece, and me with the jogging stroller slung over one shoulder.

I should point out here that I don't think it's unrealistic of me to expect my 4-1/2-year-old to push his own carry-on bag through the airport. He did it on our last trip, with a much larger bag, and on this trip I had carefully selected a smaller carry-on for his treasures and some favorite books, stuffed animals, and so forth.

However, on this trip, we somehow found ourselves all alone at the top of an escalator. I looked around in a panic for the elevator, and then asked the security guard at the top of the escalator where the nearest elevator was, to which he replied, "There isn't one." I stood like a deer in headlights at the top of the escalator, trying to figure out how to get down to the departure floor, while impatient airline personnel pushed past us onto the escalator. "Can you help me put the bags on the escalator?" I asked the security guard, to which the answer was, ridiculously, "I'm not allowed to touch your bags." To which I could only think, fuck terrorists and rules, buddy, I'm a single mom with a 4-1/2-year-old boy, two suitcases, and an unwieldy all-terrain stroller over one shoulder -- you can't fucking help me place my bags onto the escalator? You think someone might sneak a bomb into my bag between the time I put it down and the time you put it on the escalator for me? WTF?

But because I'm stubborn, and sometimes a little stupid, I thought I could make it work, so I told my son to get onto the escalator, and then I tried to carefully place first his carry-on bag, then mine, onto an escalator step above him. Clearly, anyone whose brain is functioning on a higher-level than mine was that day can already see that this was a huge mistake, but all I could think was, "I have to get down these stairs somehow."

So when my carry-on fell over onto his carry-on, which then fell onto him, all I could do was scream, "yeah, this is better than fucking helping me!" I was essentially restrained by gravity and my own stroller from helping him. I have never felt so helpless -- and simultaneously so responsible -- in my entire life.

As it was, he escaped with only a bruise on his arm and a little grumpiness, but obviously, I could have killed my son through my stupidity and recklessness. It's entirely conceivable that my carry-on could have knocked him to the ground and that he could have hit his head, or been run over by my suitcase, or gotten pummeled by the escalator treads, or any number of grisly scenarios. I apologized over and over again (to which he said, "It's okay, Mommy") but the truth is that I will never forgive myself for my lapse in judgment.

I seriously questioned not only my fitness as a parent, but my decision to move to Germany as a single parent with a young child, and I had an uninterrupted nine-hour stretch in which to do nothing but re-live this incident and question my judgment over and over again. At the end of the nine-hour flight, though, we were in Amsterdam, and I was starting to feel better about the whole thing. After all, he wasn't dead, and here we were. Right?

Anyway, I won't bore you with the last leg of the journey except to say that it wasn't a whole lot better than the first, except that no escalators were involved and we made it onto our flight. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed by over an hour, so with every minute we sat on the tarmac I grew more and more nervous that my paperwork wasn't going to make it through the German bureaucracy in time for me to start on the German payroll as of June 1. That was a very long hour.

Long story short: the paperwork got through the system, I'm on the payroll, we have a house, we have a phone, we have internet access, we have transportation, we have a nanny, and soon (crosses fingers) we will have our cats. Finally (knocks wood) it looks as if my company is going to pay for my son to attend the International School we can see from our kitchen window.

More later.

Jinxed

2007-05-04T17:43:00.000-05:00

Now I have unrequited Hauslust. In German, of course, that would be all one word: Hauslustunrequiten.

The house is officially unavailable to us.

In essence, the owner has withdrawn her home from the market until further notice. Both real estate agents think she was just too attached to her house to deal with the reality of having anyone -- any strangers -- living in it and breathing in it and touching her walls and walking on her floors and cooking in her perfect kitchen and so forth. I had Hauslust, but she was in deep Hausliebe with her house.

I'm not taking it so personally now. I was offended when I thought she wasn't going to let us rent her house because she thought my nearly-perfect four-year-old boy would be harder on it than her presumably impeccably-perfect six-year-old girl; now that I understand that it's just a personal problem, I can let it go.

Almost.

Hausliebe

2007-05-02T17:37:00.000-05:00

Hausliebe. Ist das ein deutsches Wort? (And on a related note... when will I get used to capitalizing every, single, freakin' noun?)

Well, is it? Is there a German word, or phrase, for house lust, or as I've seen it described in The Atlantic Monthly, house porn? If there isn't, there should be. I'll work on it in my spare time. There's probably a better word than "hausliebe," but I wasn't clear on whether the Google suggestion for the German word for lust -- "Sinneslust" -- was entirely sexual in meaning or not. In America, we lust after everything, not just people, but before I attach the word "Sinneslust" to "Haus" I'd like to make sure it makes a certain amount of sense.

Anyway, I have hausliebe, if there is such a thing, or even if there isn't. We were shown four -- or was it five? -- homes today, and there was only one that made my heart race. I want it. I want it bad. I want it so bad I won't even tell my RL friends about it until I've signed the lease. I'll only tell you, my virtual friends, my electronic Dear Diary.

It's a 70s ranch, though I would have guessed it was from an earlier era (50s, or at least 60s). It's been rehabbed, but get this: tastefully! Im Deutscheland! An affordable, tasteful remodel -- FOR RENT!

Oh. Mein. Gott.

It's so beautiful I can barely stand it. I wanted to beg to be allowed to sign the lease right there on the spot. I wanted to say, "this is the house of my dreams, and if I have to live in any other house, I'll never be happy, never."

But of course, I'm afraid I will jinx things by wanting them too badly. You may sense a trend, those of you faithful readers who have been with me from the beginning. It's true; even though I'm an atheist, and don't really believe in "anything," I am nonetheless afraid to break mirrors, walk under ladders, or say anything optimistic without knocking on wood.

I am a creature of the 18th century. With serious hausliebe for a rehabbed 1970s ranch house.

WTF?

P.S. If I get the privilege of signing a lease on this jewel of a house, dear readers, I promise I will provide a detailed description of it for you.

Arabs are People Too

2007-04-11T21:59:00.000-05:00

On Easter Sunday I went out for brunch with my parents and my sister, and we were talking about the tallest building in the world, and whether any buildings had "habitable office space" that was higher than the Sears Tower in Chicago (where my sister lives), and we came up with towers in Dubai and Kuala Lumpuur, but we were fairly sure that both of those buildings qualified as "tallest" only by virtue of their antennae.

Then my dad said, "Where is Dubai, anyway?" and I had to admit I wasn't really sure. In the United Arab Emirates, somewhere near Saudi Arabia, I said. Then my dad said, "Are they mostly Arab then?" and I said that I thought so. He shook his head, and I said, "Arabs are people too, Dad. There are good Arabs, and bad Arabs."

To this, my dad said, "They're Islamic, right?" and I said, yes, they're probably mostly Muslim. And he shook his head again, as if nothing more needed to be said. I started to try to defend the Muslim religion -- which I feel has been hijacked by radical fundamentalists who are to Islam what Jim Jones or David Kouresh or Pat Robertson is to Christianity; charlatans with insane agendas -- and my either soon-to-be-or-never-to-be brother-in-law effectively shushed me by changing the subject very abruptly. Part of me was thinking, "Hey! He's my dad; I'll argue with him if I want to!" and part of me was thinking, "Okay, I won't ruin brunch, but this one's not over!"

Partly I want to defend Muslims because my son is half Persian, and partly I want to defend Muslims on general principles. It is true that many Muslims do not warrant defending, and I am not attempting to defend these individuals. But just as individual Muslims may be excoriated for their actions, or their words, so should individual Muslims be recognized for their humanity, their patience, their intelligence, their tolerance, their love, their devotion, their perseverence, their faithfulness, etc.

In other words, there are surely good and bad among the members of any tribe. It's true that right now, on today's stage, there are a lot of Muslims who are either terrorists, or apologists for terrorism. But there are a lot more Muslims who are neither. I was listening on my way home from work to an Egyptian Muslim woman who sounded so balanced and reasonable in her thinking, and I wondered, why don't we hear from Muslims like that more often?

And the answer is that -- for now at least -- reason is losing. Fear and hatred are winning. The masses can be controlled with religion, and governments like that. They forget that when you try to control the masses with religion, the masses end up being in control.

Anyway, my father is 85, and probably too old a dog to teach new tricks. The problem is that he doesn't, and never has, known any Arabs personally*. I wish there was enough time left for him to make an Arab friend one day so that he could finally understand that there is good and bad in every group.

*The irony, among many ironies, is that my dad was at the forefront of the civil rights movement. Not as an activist, but as one of his, "what the heck; we're all people" general principles. He served in the Army with blacks in WWII, and he lived with blacks in co-ops (a haven for socialists, "reds," and other left-wing politics in the 1940s) when he earned his bachelors degree from the University of Michigan in English literature. He has often told me the story of the time he went out for lunch with two of his (black) fellow co-opers and was stunned to find that his friends could not use the same door or sit at the same counter as he; he had never experienced or, I guess, even noticed this previously. His father, on the other hand, was a blatant and unrepentant racist who called blacks "nigras" and thought that was the polite term.

Now for the naked, unvarnished truth: I don't much like Muslims, myself. I don't have any close friends who are Muslim. I do have co-workers who are Muslims, and I like them just fine, but I must confess that I don't trust them at some level. I suspect them of harboring secret hatred of me and everything I stand for; I suspect them of being sympathetic to terrorists and suicide bombers; I suspect them of being fundamentalists who don't think women belong in the workplace. I cannot separate out my prejudice against Arabs from the facts I know about the Muslim religion, and my fears were not allayed by the website I was recently directed to where it tried to explain how similar Christianity is to Islam and then explained that the sha'aria divorce laws are really not all that different from American divorce laws, because even though yes, it's true that the Qu'ran states that a man can divorce his wife by repeating "I divorce you" three times, he can't do it when she's menstruating, because everyone knows that some women get pretty cranky during their menses and it wouldn't be fair to let a man divorce his wife just because she was hormonal. And he can't do it within three months of having sex with her when she's not menstruating, because if he likes her enough to have sex with her when she's not menstruating, things can't be all that bad bewteen them, and if they're still having sex there's a possibility that she might be pregnant, so he can't divorce her until she demonstrates that she can't possibly be pregnant. And if he says, "I divorce you" three times when he's in a fury, it doesn't count, because you have to undertake divorce with reason. And so really, sha'aria divorce law is very compassionate toward women and children, giving the couple every chance not to divorce.

Of course, nowhere in this entire dissertation does it mention under what circumstances a woman can divorce a man. Oh, that's right. That's because under sha'aria law there are no circumstances under which a woman can divorce a man.

United 93

2007-04-09T22:48:00.000-05:00

I watched United 93 tonight. Jesus. The idea that this could have all been a government hoax to foment public opinion in support of a war for oil in Iraq... Jesus. No. What is wrong with people? Just because your government is lying to you doesn't mean it's capable of anything. Not this. No.

And I'm sorry; I know there are people who believe this truly, madly, deeply, but conspiracies of this size cannot be kept secret. Try keeping a secret with just three people some day and you'll see what I mean. Conspiracies that require hundreds, if not thousands, of players to keep their mouths shut and relay the lie in the same way just are not possible. Was there incompetence at work? Confusion? Problems with the chain of command? Inadequate emergency disaster planning? Hell yes. But a conspiracy? By our own government? Well, if you believe that, you probably believe the Apollo landings on the moon were a conspiracy, too, and I'll talk to you when you take off your tinfoil hat.

I also realized I, like many others, am guilty of forgetting the other two planes when I talk about 9/11. I forget United 93, and I forget the plane that flew into the Pentagon. I guess nothing is as dramatic as the sight of two skyscrapers collapsing in a pile of rubble, but still, how do I forget those other two planes?

I will save this (yes, I bought it; I'm not kidding, I'm obsessed with air disasters now) for my son to watch when he is old enough. How old is that? Christ, I don't know. When he's old enough to start asking questions about it, I guess. When he's old enough to learn about it in school, or from his school chums. Whenever that is -- I hope that time is a long, long way away.

Flying Tincans

2007-04-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

For a year after September 11, 2001, I was unable to watch a jet plane take off or land without picturing it accelerating into a building. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

But the memories linger even now. While not "personally" affected by what happened in New York City on September 11 over five years ago, the after-shocks of 9/11 continue to ripple, even in my own life.

When my plane landed at DTW three weeks ago, there was a moment when I imagined what it would feel like to be in a plane that wasn't going to land. What if I suddenly realized that the people piloting my plane were intent on turning it into a missile of destruction? The sensation left me a little dizzy, even five years after airliners punched holes through the top floors of the World Trade Center buildings.

And for whatever reason, I am suddenly drawn to stories of air disasters. When I was in the Frankfurt Airport, I picked up "The Boy Who Fell From the Sky," by Ken Dornstein, the little brother of one of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December of 1988. I couldn't put it down, although to be honest it wasn't the story of the plane's destruction that drew me to this story, it was the story of the brother's self-destructive life that drew me in. It was my story. We were the same age within a month, the brother who died, and surely if I had fallen out of the sky in 1988 my obituary would have resembled his. I had so much "potential." How tragic to die when all anyone can say of you is that you had "potential."

There were other similarities, too. An inability to commit to people who loved me; an unwillingness to grow up; coming to work late in the hopes that I would be fired from a job I hated but was afraid to leave; giving up on my writing career after suffering a few rejections; the list goes on and on.

The main difference between his life and mine is that I was perhaps more determined to survive than David Dornstein, who imagined with the not-unusually-dramatic pathos of youth that he would die young, and tragically (possibly in a plane crash), and then did. Instead, I lived to realize that it was not a tragedy to be good at my job, and that I was perhaps not cut out to be a writer, despite the fact that I can write. Maybe when I -- like David -- realized that I wanted the attention that would come from writing The Great American Novel more than that I had anything important to say, it was enough for me to realize that this meant I should not be a writer, at least not until I had something to say.

Now I just need to figure out how to live again. I know I can do it; I just wish I could find someone I can imagine spending the rest of my life with who feels the same way about me. I'm tired of fighting for everything on my own. I miss having a partner; I miss having someone who has my back. I miss having someone else's back. I feel as if I've proved I'm capable of living on my own; now I'm ready to live my life as part of a team.

But this post was supposed to be about airplanes. In my stack of movies I plan to watch one day when I'm not too tired to stay up after my son goes to sleep? United 93.

Because when you're about to move overseas and plan to be a frequent flyer on transcontinental flights, you want to be thinking about air disasters at all times.

Officially Official

2007-04-03T19:09:00.000-05:00

Well, it's officially official. Not only has the organizational announcement gone out, but I have gotten the call from my Global Relocation Source advisor, who is based in London. Now I'm officially excited.

One sticking point: My son will be five on September 11th. He needs to be five on September 1st in order for him to go to the International School (at company expense). So I can either (a) send him to the International School at my expense (about $1200/month), (b) fight to have my company make an exception regarding this policy, or (c) put him in an alternative pre-school, like a Montessori or a Waldorf.

It's not a big deal; just one of many curve balls I expect to have thrown my way. I'm leaning toward (c) at the moment, but I'd be okay if (b) worked out, too.

Looks like we'll move around June 1st. Soon we'll be one of a large group of American expats in Germany.

Wish us luck!

Reindeer Meat for Everyone!

2007-03-15T18:42:00.000-05:00

It's 1AM in Stockholm and I'm watching The Devil Wears Prada (just for grins) on the hotel TV, on the TV of the fabulous, fabulous hotel that sits overlooking the sea. I'm waiting until I can call and talk to my boy.

We went out to eat tonight at a restaurant called Magnus Ladulas in "the Old City," which true to its name is genuinely old. The cobblestone streets, walking distance from my ultra-fabulous hotel, are not quite as wide as a Chevy Suburban, lined with handsome patinated 3- and 4-story stuccoed buildings with deep window sills. The foundations of the buildings, according to my guide, date from the 15th century. The wooden structures above them burned repeatedly, but the foundations are that old.

I had the smoked elk with endive and balsamic vinaigrette as an appetizer, and grilled reindeer in lingonberry sauce and some delicious potato thingy with sauteed mushrooms. Yes, really. And God, it was so good. I need more fillet of reindeer in my life. We all do.

Our conversation careened from the cultural differences between the Swedes and the Germans to alternative fuels (i.e., is ethanol really good for the environment?) to how "secular" and "liberal" became epithets in America, to why there aren't more women in engineering engines (is it genetic?). My Swedish colleagues rock. I wish I didn't have to go home.

Oh, wait. Soon I won't have to.

:)

P.S. I still miss my boy like crazy. When I finally got him on the phone tonight after his play date with one of the many "older women" in his life (she's six), he said all the things I've been wanting to hear: I love you, Mommy. I'm at _________'s house playing with _____. I miss you! I love you whole world. And then he dismissed me, in a very diplomatic 4-year-old way: Do you want to talk to ________?

And the Nominee for Best Comic of the Day is...

2007-03-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

The latest Tom Tomorrow:

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=22081

My favorite line? "They are as seditious as they are flightless!" See if you can find a way to work that one into everyday conversation this weekend.

And have a good one.

Leaving Home

2007-03-09T08:45:00.000-05:00

Sunday I'll be leaving for a week. I'll be in Germany three days and two nights, and in Sweden two days and three nights, coming back Saturday evening. That means I won't see my son for over five days and six nights. The longest we have ever been apart before is two days and one night, when he was barely a year old and my sister stayed with him in Germany while I flew to Italy and back for a business meeting.

I'd be worried, except that the girl* he'll be staying with is almost his second mom. She's been taking care of him since I went back to work when he was four months old. She loves him, and he loves her. They have the same kind of fights that we do, which means he feels safe with her, and they have a routine together because she watched him every Wednesday night for the last two years when I went out with my erstwhile boyfriend. So I don't have the kind of trepidation about this trip that I would if I was going to leave him with my sister, or a neighbor.

But still. Five days without my boy -- what am I going to do?

*She's 28, so in the name of sisterhood and all I should probably go with "woman." But, c'mon; she's a girl.

Kleenex with Aloe

2007-03-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

I hope whoever figured out how to put aloe in Kleenex was richly rewarded. Seriously.

And yes, I was home sick all day yesterday. And my nose hurts.

litbrit: Five Things I've Learned

2007-03-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

Read this post from a fellow Blogger tonight and wondered, hmm, what have I learned in my forty-four years? (Yes, I know my profile says I'm 30-something, and I am -- I'm thirty-fourteen, okay?!) Not much, really. I mean, I'm one of the wisest people I know*, and yet it hasn't done me a damn bit of good in my personal life as far as I can tell.

Can I even say I've learned five things in forty-four years? I don't know. I've learned to be grateful for what I have and to not covet the things I don't have. That's about it, I think.

And yes, today was my birthday. Or rather, yesterday was. And, except for the two times my son sang, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday... to... near my mommy!" it sucked. But I was grateful for my health, my happy child, and my recent good fortune at work.

If one of these years God sees fit to bless me with a man who loves me on my birthday, I can assure Him that I would be most grateful for that, too. Meanwhile, I'll try not to covet the husbands of others.

*I will be the first to admit that, given the company I keep, this doesn't mean all that much.

International Drunk Dialing

2007-02-27T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's not entirely a done deal at this point, so I would probably be wise not to jinx it by talking about it, but I have been offered an ISP (International Service Personnel) in Germany, starting this summer. It's not only a great career development move but a fabulous educational opportunity for me and my four-year-old, and -- do I need to add this? -- great timing.

Take that, ex-boyfriend! When you finally realize you made a mistake letting me go (and you will), it will be too late. Next time you call me you'll be dialing international, baby!

El Laberinto del Fauno

2007-02-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

Saw Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" last night. If we can agree on nothing else, can we agree that this is not a good first-date flick?

When I was a little kid (8 or 9), my idiot sister and her friends (who were in college, so 18 and up) decided it would be fun if they took me to a horror movie double-feature at the local drive-in. (I was staying at her dorm for "Little Sisters Weekend.") I don't remember the second movie, but the first one was called, "Don't Look in the Basement," and was about inmates killing the director and running the insane asylum. I don't remember the details but let's just say axes were featured prominently. My sister and her friends put me on the floor of the car with a blanket over my head after it became obvious that I was scared out of my wits, but -- of course -- I could still hear the gruesome sound effects. She told me not to tell my parents and at first I didn't, not until I started having horrible nightmares that left me in a cold panic. My parents were really worried about me. They couldn't imagine what could have happened to cause me to suddenly have such terrifying nightmares, and I eventually squealed on her.

Because of that, when I went to college I remember making myself watch movie violence, thinking it was something to which I needed to inure myself. I did get over my fear of watching horror movies, eventually, and after that I realized there was nothing more to be gained by toughening myself in this way. Since then, not watching movie violence has saved me from having certain gruesome images stuck in my head. I don't think I need those images floating around in my head. (Does anyone?)

Anyway, in retrospect, I appreciated a great many things about this movie. Once the shock of some of the film's more brutal moments has worn off, my overall impression will be positive. The young girl who plays the movie's heroine was luminous and most of the CG was done well, not distracting from the plot or acting in any way, and the score was lovely and haunting (especially the lullaby, which I find myself humming at the oddest times). The brutal anti-hero was well-played and the backdrop of the violence of war was perfect for creating the is-it-or-isn't-it-real quality the director was obviously seeking. But I think it bears repeating that this is definitely not first-date material.

Helpful tip to single men the world over: don't take a woman you don't know well to a movie featuring stomach-turning violence. On the plus side: Fairies!

Losing People

2007-02-13T07:16:00.000-05:00

After avoiding talking about it for almost two months because I was hoping my ex and I would magically stay together, I finally told my four-year-old that I was sad because I missed our friend. He looked at me quizzically and helpfully suggested, "Why don't we go visit him at his house? When it's not a school day?"

It was then that I realized he had no concept of losing people. He never had a dad, so he never experienced his loss (though he does feel his absence); we've lived in the same place since he was old enough to crawl, so he's never lost neighbors; and he's never had to lose friends, except those that have come and gone at his pre-school and so far, luckily, none of his "best" friends has moved away.

Oh, kid. I wish I could protect you from the heartbreak that comes from losing people you care about, especially when it's entirely outside of your control. But one day, I'm sure you'll understand.

About Love, Part 1

2007-02-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Practically speaking, what's the difference between being "in love" and loving someone?

The "in love" stage, in my experience, is transitory, ephemeral, fleeting; it seems to be mostly chemicals in the brain, and it's almost always replaced by "just" love, ultimately. It's fun, don't get me wrong, and I hope to be "in love" at least one more time in my life. But I don't have the same romantic need for that "in love" feeling that I did when I was, say, 17.

I think the "in love" stage frees you to overlook the other person's flaws, bonds you more tightly (as does sex), and eases the decision to commit to someone else, even though they may not be "perfect" for you. Just loving someone, on the other hand, leaves you free to notice all of their imperfections. Men, especially, seem to need the "in love" feeling to really let them jump into a relationship with both feet. (But women are not immune -- just look at the recent NASA astronaut debacle for proof.)

When my ex-boyfriend told me (again) (in explaining why he wasn't interested in trying to make things work, given all of the time we've spent together and all of the things we have in common) that he just wasn't "in love" with me, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. We were together for two years; he spent more time with my son than my son's father ever has; knew each other's families; went to the weddings of friends together; my son loved him; I loved him; we genuinely cared about each other and tried to make each other happy. But, for him, it just wasn't working.

I heard him this time. I get it. But I'll never understand.

Moving On

2007-02-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

I had dinner with my ex-boyfriend last night. I had a very stressful week at work -- more on that in another post, maybe -- and I just couldn't concentrate, and I thought, maybe if I arrange to talk to him, I'll be able to stop thinking about him and I'll be able to focus on other things.

It worked, sort of. But now I'm profoundly sad again, where previously I'd managed to get to a sort of sad-equilibrium. Oh hell, it made no difference at all in my level of sadness, except that it was great to see him again. He looked perversely handsome, but he seemed sad.

So there we were, at this little Mexican restaurant that was kind of "our" place, talking about work, and our lives, which no longer include each other, and... it just seemed so sad and unnecessary. He obviously still cares about me; he still cares about my son; we still have all the things in common that we used to have; we like talking to each other; and we're still attracted to one another.

But the thing that was the problem -- that he never felt like he was important enough to me ("I know I'll never be first in your life, but I feel like I'm a distant second") even though I swear on all that is holy that when I was with him I was really with him -- is still a problem. The truth is that I have a demanding full-time job, a long commute, a house, two cats, and a four-year-old son I see only briefly in the morning, in the evening, and on weekends, and that doesn't leave much time for a boyfriend, even one I cared about as much as I cared about him. And he's right, there's nothing I can tell him that will convince him that will change, except that with time my son will get more autonomous and need me less, and while he knows that's true, he's too impatient to wait.

So he's moving on, or trying to. And now I have to find a way to do the same.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Condi for President

2007-02-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

So I was listening to some talking heads discussing Rudy Giuliani throwing his hat into the ring for Republican presidential candidate, and I was trying to remember the last time a presidential election had been this wide-open for both parties, and I realized: never, because there has almost always been either a Vice President waiting in the wings or an incumbent President for one party, so it's usually just wide-open for the opposition.

And why is it wide-open this time? Because Dick Cheney isn't now, and never really was, a serious contender for President. He's too... unlikeable, old, and after six years in this administration, tainted.

So I was wondering, since no one really likes Cheney anyway, what would happen if he resigned in the next year or so, and President Bush was able to select his successor? Wouldn't that more or less anoint that person as the front-runner Republican party candidate for 2008? I realize he (or she -- Condi for president, anyone?) would need to be confirmed by the majority-Democratic Congress, but would that really be that difficult? Is this something that can happen under our Constitution?

Just wondering. Anyone out there know the answer?

Panic In Boston*

2007-02-03T14:22:00.000-05:00

*to be sung to the tune of "Panic in Detroit"

I was wondering if I was the only one who thought the entire Boston city government over-reacted to the Lite-Brite cartoons. Apparently not:

http://xoverboard.com/cartoons/2006/2006_08_14.html

I've also been trying to catch up on This Modern World comics. He always manages to hit the nail squarely on the head with the Bush administration. Here's one of my recent favorites:

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=21905

Oh, if only!

Too Bad No One Cares

2007-01-30T09:23:00.000-05:00

So a lot has changed in the past year. In addition to no longer having a boyfriend -- in retrospect I realize spending time with him was the only thing I was doing for myself, on the two nights a week I didn't spend with my now-4-year-old son -- I'm not playing soccer any more either. Not long after I wrote my first post to this blog, I twisted my right knee during a soccer game, and foolishly kept playing to the end. It didn't feel all that bad; I guess the adrenalin kept me from realizing how serious the injury was. And during the week I babied it, and it felt good enough to play the following week... so I did.

And I haven't played since. Worse than that, I couldn't even take the stairs at work any more, which had been my brilliant solution to how to make time to work out with a long commute, a demanding job, and a young child. It wasn't long before I started gaining weight; almost imperceptibly, but after a year, it was undeniable that I'd gained at least 10 unneeded pounds. (I'd perhaps been a bit on the thin side before.)

So add to the depression of not being able to play soccer (or just about any other sport), the depression of being overweight and not fitting into my good clothes, the depression of losing someone I really cared about, and you might be able to guess that my current mood is: not good.

I can't sleep at night; I'm not hungry; I can't really focus at work. The only good to come out of this whole thing is: I have lost those 10 pounds, and then some. So I look great!

Too bad no one cares :(

Happy Anniversary, Blogspot!

2007-01-29T20:17:00.000-05:00

I started this blog almost exactly a year ago because I wanted a "safe place" to whine, bitch, and moan about my ex-boyfriend. But I came down with a serious case of writer's block when I realized I didn't want to whine, bitch, or moan too enthusiastically because, well, I was attempting to convince my ex-boyfriend to give us another go, and I wanted him to come back to me more than I wanted the satisfaction of venting, so I posted the lame post you will see if you go to the February 2006 archives, and then one other, about a girl on my co-ed soccer team, and then this blog essentially went dark for the next 12 months.

It went dark because my ex-boyfriend wooing was at least partially successful, and we went out until just recently, when I found myself at the unhappy end of a breakup yet again. This time, however, he made it clear that I should just save my time and not try to talk him into giving us another go.

So here I am again, seeking solace in the blogosphere.

And I'm still not going to vent about my ex-boyfriend, at least not in any detail -- at least, not in any detail that could get me slapped with a libel suit. Or leave me unable to take back what I said, in the very, very unlikely event that we ever get back together, or the only slightly less unlikely possibility that we find ourselves wanting to be friends one day.

But I am going to use my damn blog. And I promise you -- you unseen and so far imaginary readers out there -- I will eventually think of things to say.

I've Got Your Back

2006-02-12T00:39:00.000-05:00

I'm playing soccer with an over-30 co-ed team. It's a lot of fun. Our players are, almost without exception -- more on that later -- really great, solid, decent people, that you'd be happy to have a beer with or play a game of soccer with or get lost in the Amazon with. They have good senses of humor, a true spirit of cameraderie exists, and they are all intelligent, kind, caring people.

Then there's someone we'll call Jill (because, what the hell; it's her name). Jill is a bitch on wheels, and I bet she thinks everyone should be like her. Honestly, I'd rather kill myself than be that kind of mean, but that's just me.

Let me share an illustrative story with you. About a year ago, my then-boyfriend came to his first game of mine. The games are all late Saturday night, and as it was a commitment I had made to the team pre-boyfriend, I felt I had to keep playing, especially if we were short on female subs on a given night. So at some point I mention to Jill that my boyfriend is there watching, and she looks up, scans the horizon, chooses literally the skankiest guy (sloppy, fat, old) across the field, points and says, "Is that him?"

At the time, I didn't know her well enough to know that she was a mean, coldhearted bitch. I thought she was just clueless. I said, uh, no, THAT guy, over there -- pointing to my very attractive, if not devastatingly handsome, boyfriend.

Later I realized she'd done it on purpose, to show how little she thought of me, I guess. Gee, thanks, teammate! I've got your back, too, you fucking bitch.

Nothing to Say

2006-02-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting a blog for, like, a year.

Now that I've got one, I can't think of anything to say.

Huh.