Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We're goin' back to Cali, to Cali, to Cali.

We're goin' back to Cali.

I don't think so.

Remember that song? Great song. I've always felt it was written especially for me.

I've been holding out on you just a little about living in Germany. The truth is that since moving back to Germany last September I've been determined to spend summers in California. My reasons are thus: 1) I want my kids to be half American; 2) I want to spend face time with my colleagues, instead of being on the phone every night; and 3) I want to shop on Sundays, dammit!*

* The Germans, who treat smoking everywhere, even delivery rooms** as an inalienable, God-given right, have managed to make it illegal to smoke in restaurants but still hold firm on the concept: 'And on the 7th day He rested.'***

** OK, I said that for effect, I don't think even the Germans smoke in delivery rooms.

***If monks had been women it would have been, 'And on the 7th day She shopped' and Germany would be a vastly different place because of that one little word change.

But going back to Cali is not so simple. For one thing, the company we work for, after spending quite a bit to move us back to Germany and rent office space for us here, is understandably reluctant to finance our trip to California.

For another thing, the friend who was going to let us have her house in July made some dramatic life changes and is now moving abroad and renting out the house, so instead we'll be imposing on a mixed bag of colleagues and friends and moving around frequently in a borrowed car with 2 small children and enough personal effects to get us through seven weeks.

Which, as Sara kindly pointed out, could put a damper on the shopping.

Added to this, the theme du jour seems to be, 'You shouldn't have moved to Germany, mwa ha ha ha ha....' Which is good because a huge welcome would have been so embarassing.

There is also an emotional price to pay. Our 17 year old cat is clearly depressed by our pending departure. A friend of ours will be staying in our house while we're gone to look after him but he knows. He's a loving fellow and a dear old friend who values routine and having his family around him. He's been a little under the weather lately and I am not without worries on his account. May he please be well until we get back.

And finally, the piece de resistance, if you will, is our vacation. The money we might have spent on plane tickets to Hawaii will instead be spent on short-term daycare. Normally budget constraints would have forced us to forget about Hawaii and drive down to San Diego instead. However, my mother works for Hawaiian Airlines so the four of us are going to attempt to fly standby to Honolulu out of LA, where we will be visiting the rest of my family. And it gets better because hotel cancellation policies in Hawaii make it impractical to book a hotel in advance, since we may not make it to Hawaii at all.

I leave to your imagination a family of four with too much luggage and fairly uptight, control freak parents trying to fly standby out of LAX with no hotel reservation on the other side.

I know I seem incredibly easy going but I'm not at all about travel.

Suffice it to say that this summer will be something new for us. Everything will not be planned to the nines and there will be multiple logistical and professional challenges to work through. But our friends have really pulled through on accommodating us and our family and friends - not to mention Target, Pottery Barn and Whole Foods -are so excited to see us that we're going to try to make the best of it, have fun and do our part to generate much-needed business revenue in bankrupt California.

Anyway, that's the update on my end. If I'm quieter than usual for a bit, never fear.

I'm just in transit.

Olympic Day

This morning our Kindergarten had an Olympic Day for the kids who will be going to school next year, which I dutifully attended.

Picture about 30 kids sitting on benches outside. One by one they run through an obstacle course that includes benches, a jump rope, a hoolahoop, some climing, digging sand, throwing and catching a ball, that sort of thing. The first boy goes and does a creditable job. The entire course takes several minutes. Then the next child. Then the next. A hot sun. A smattering of polite clapping.

I've had high school on the brain lately and found myself picturing these 5- and 6-year-olds in high school. I could see it all: The jock. The dork. The fattie. The spaz. The rich bitch. The gawky girl. The cheerleader. The undersized hottie. The class clown. The normal kid. The good egg. And K, who is not so easy for me to place, although if I had to I'd say she's mostly normal, a little gawky and definitely a good egg.

Kind of like me.

K went toward the end, which turned out to be a good thing since my seat was stolen by another mommy the second I stood up to watch her do her stuff. She performed each task adequately, without embarassment, distinction or flair. Unlike the girl right before her who stopped and waived at the audience after each step. Or the skinny little boy who tripped over his own feet. Or the chubby little girl that someone had unkindly dressed in dirty white spandex shorts.

K was surprisingly good at hoolahoop. I myself was school hoolahoop champion by the age of 8 so it would appear that there is a hoolahoop gene.

All in all K didn't seem to take the obstacle course too seriously. She went through the motions and waited for refreshments to be offered.

A lot like me, really.

Thanks Hit40!

Hit40 recently awarded me one of her many blogging awards - thanks Hit40!

Apparently I don't have to do anything to earn this award. No list, no nothin'. It seems that my previous lovableness is enough.

To pass on this award I nominate all of you who regularly comment and make blogging fun. Those of you who are trying to increase the number of comments you get on your own blogs should definitely go suck up to these guys.

Ladyfi

Maven

Lawyer Mom

Kristina (I know, you don't do memes, but do I love your blog)

Domestically Challenged

Michele

Gracey

Bebe

Emily

Sara

Wendy

Patty

Patti

Debbie

Solipsist

Natalian

Charlotte

Naturelady

G (sorry you're last but you have the shortest name)

This is off the top of my head with no memory aids whatsoever so if I forgot anyone please feel free to appropriate this award for yourself. You know who you are. And I probably love your blog.

Yes...

I love this picture although it's an interesting statement. Once when I stayed with friends at their (totally luxurious) cabin I discovered a huge stack of Better Homes and Gardens dating back to the 1920s. Whoa. I spent most of that weekend time traveling.

The post-war articles in the 20s (I forget which war) were all about frugality. Frugal was chic. I read an article explaining how the good housewife has pride in frugality, uses breadcrumbs to make muffins or oatmeal, that sort of thing.

The 50s were quite different. There were big color advertisements for enormous cars - would you believe in all those years average MPG hasn't improved at all? - and disposable utensils being thrown away by laughing, attractive people.

Today in the new millenium frugality may be making a comeback. Not like the 20s or anything but modest inroads.

What do you think?

Small Town Sunday

Again it's Small Town Sunday at Wendy's. And again I got nothin'. Lint in the navel of bupkis. So I'm going for Small World Sunday. Get it?

Thanksgiving 2007, Los Angeles, Home. . .

The Tipping Point

Can anyone guess what this is? It's a graph. At first glance it looks like something increased gradually for a while then suddenly increased a lot, right?

Interestingly enough, the rate of change used to generate this graph was completely constant. I used 5%, a modest increase, and I started with the number 1, a pretty small number. Until the x-axis reaches about 76 you don't really notice much change then suddently between 76 and 96 things get crazy.

Weird, huh? Who'da thunk increasing the number 1 by 5% a few times would do that? Besides trained statisticians, that is.

I leave it to your imagination what that 5% represents. Spread of AIDs? Population growth? Health insurance costs? In the context of green energy legislation, it could represent global warming or how much energy is required to maintain a certain standard of living for a fixed percentage of the world's growing population.

And that's just if you start with number 1. The results are even more dramatic if you start with a less lonely number.

The House passed the renewable energy bill yesterday. I am pleased about this. Of course, it still has to get through the Senate and then I think it has to go back to Committee or something (I'm trying to remember from that 'I'm Just a Bill' song in Schoolhouse Rock but it was never my favorite) and then we'll see. There are some valid objections to this bill, and other objections that are pure fabrication, but I look at this graph and know it's time to make a change.

If any of you made a call yesterday, or faxed, or emailed your Representatives, or even spent a moment in contemplative silence wondering about the future, thanks.

See you in the future.

Make the right call

I just called my representative and left a voicemail. I said that I'm a voter and want to urge support for sustainable green legislation. I added that it's not just about green or job creation, it's about how our entire economy and way of life is dependent on surplus energy. And oil as a cheap and readily available form of energy is running out.

Now's the time to break our complete dependence on an increasingly scarce resource. Consider calling today before the big vote. If they vote against investing in sustainable green energy we'll pay the price for it not that far down the road, probably in our lifetimes, definitely in our kids'.

If you don't believe me, do not call your Representative and we'll all just hope I'm wrong. If you do believe, even a little bit, please click here and make a phone call. It's your duty as an American, a voter, a parent, a global citizen and an adult.

(Not to lay it on too thick or anything.)

On Friendship and Facebook

I wrote a new post about Facebook relationships, feel free to check it out: http://ls-workgirl.blogspot.com/

Then purely by coincidence someone sent me this picture, which captures the essense of what I was trying to say.

Get a wife

Ralf is in Dublin for a few days, which means I don't have to cook. For dinner last night I ate 6 garlic stuffed olives, half an avocado, a bowl of blueberries and an Actimel. I thought about opening a bottle of wine but couldn't be bothered.

Clearly, I need a wife.

A good manager is hard to find

Feel free to check it out, unless it's not your thing: http://ls-workgirl.blogspot.com/

A busy day

Monday. Munich setting a poor example for global warming. Gray, cold, drizzly. Yoga in the morning, work through lunch, customer demo in the afternoon, pick up the kids from playdate, drive Ralf to the airport, drive home in the pouring rain and put the kids to bed.

The product demo went well although Ralf claims that at one point I banged the table and bellowed the German equivalent of, 'Dude, we can totally do that!'

I have no recollection of this. I think he's screwing with me.

The meeting ran an hour late so we were late picking up our kids. I was too chicken to phone the mommy who had collected our kids from Kindergarten, taken them to gymnastics and home again, and to whom I had solemnly sworn we would be there by 5:30.

I mean, sure, sometimes people get held up but with our two kids she looked after five kids for four hours and walked them from school to gymnastics and home again and we were, like, an hour late with no message.

Basically, I just couldn't face the music when I had a big chunk of German fall guy sitting right there next to me.

Er. What I mean is that male charm was clearly in order so I made Ralf call her to explain and appologize.

From my end the conversation sounded like this:

Ralf: 'Katja, hi, it's Ralf. . . I know, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. What? I know, I'm sorry. I can't say sorry enough times. We just couldn't get out of our meeting, they nailed us to the. . . what? I know, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Yes, totally our bad. We're on our way now, we'll be there in. . . what? Yes, I know, I'm sorry. I know, you're right, we're really sorry. We'll be there in 20 minutes. Right. Right. Thanks. I know. Sorry. Bye!'

Hanging up the phone Ralf shrugged and made a vaguely Meditarranean hand gesture. 'See? No problem. She said it's totally fine.'

It must be so great to be a guy.

People of the Book

First the fun one: Outrageous Fortune, recommmended by LadyFi. I'll let you read her review, which has enough detail to tell you if this is the right book for you. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed it and thought the writing was a cross between Douglas Adams and Haruki Murakami (who is kind of a Japanese Douglas Adams).

There isn't a German Douglas Adams that I'm aware of.

Now the other one, the one I had to force myself to read: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It was excellent but heavy going, although she writes with a skilled light touch. I don't usually read books like this because they're gloomy, not to mention informative, but it was a book club book. So I exerted myself.

What a good but sad book. The heroine's difficult life didn't move me much as her personal challenges were microscopic in the face of the historical background of the book she restored (an exquisitely illustrated Jewish Haggadah). The writer did a very clever job describing clues in the Haggadah, such as salt or wine traces, then telling a story about how they got there. The reader gets a front row seat at particularly ugly episodes of human history: the bombing of Sarajevo, the coldly merciless Nazi hunt for both Jews and Jewish books, the Spanish Inquisition, the ancient wars between the Spanish Christians and the Moors.

People of the Book offers some fascinating insights into history, although I'm not a history buff and don't swear to have all my facts straight so please don't be too nit picky. For example, if the Jews hadn't bankrolled the ancient Christian war against the Moors, might the Jews and Muslims have avoided their age-long enmity? And would the Jews still have been expelled from Spain when Torquemada - evil, evil, evil, I didn't even like Googling him in case his evil spirit somehow lives on in the Internet - claimed that the victory made possible by Jewish gold came from God?

Plus I'm thinking Ferdinand and Isabella weren't so crazy about owing all that money with interest and were probably already pretty open to the idea of exiling the Jews in order to avoid paying it back. So I guess the lesson here is that it's never wise to put extremely powerful people too much in your debt, even if funding a brutal war doesn't give you any qualms.

And perhaps if this same victory hadn't put so much power into the fanatic and unscrupulous hands of the Christian church they wouldn't have gotten away with the Inquisition, which was a fascinating study in pure premeditated evil. Watching the priests calmly burning books - and people - that so much as hinted at the goodness or holiness of anything non-Christian and deliberately suppressing knowledge that conflicted with the silly mumbo jumbo taught by the Church in those days (like the earth is flat) was absolutely horrific. I needed a shower.

And you can actually witness the stage being set as early as the 14th century by the architects of the Spanish Inquisition for the later anti-Jewish sentiment in (disgusting, venereal disease-ridden) Vienna that was the warning bell for the horrors of WWII.

I finished the book feeling more repulsed than usual by the history of Christianity. But wait, the Christians weren't the only bad guys in People of the Book, although they do stand out a bit thanks to Torquemada and his disciples. Because everyone pretty much everyone else sucked, too.

The Jews are depicted as matter-of-factly mercenary when it came to looking out for their own interests, and one weak rabbi used the money he received to help his impoverished flock to feed his own gambling addiction, which was illegal and put his entire family at risk of horrible death. That was the hardest chapter for me - which is saying a lot - because I kept worrying about his children sleeping at home, unnecessarily put into deadly danger by his actions.

Tito callously abandons his underage army to their fate.

The Serbs are bloodthirsty murderers with no real agenda beyond killing their peaceful Muslim neighbors.

The UN peacekeeping force is a pathetic joke.

The rest of us are apathetic losers that won't lift a finger to help dying children.

Land developers destroy natural resources and historical works of art such as cave paintings with a greedy eye to personal profit.

The heroine's own mother, a WASP I believe, turns out to be unbelievably cold-blooded and self-centered.

Although it's supposed to be about individual heroism and sacrifice to save a beautful book, this is not a book about nice people. Then again, I guess if it were, the Haggadah wouldn't have needed to be saved so many times.

Interestingly, the real heros of the book tend to be young girls of both Jewish and Muslim faith. And the Muslims also come out of it pretty well, risking their lives to save a young girl from Nazis, not to mention saving the Haggadah several times throughout history.

Anyway, although it was a very well-written book it was hard, hard going and I felt extremely sad about the human condition and all its victims by the end of it. This is going to sound trite, but can't we all just get along? And if we can't, could we at least leave the children out of it???

Now I'm reading Lily White by Susan Isaacs, recommended by Jessica. Way different genre. Very intelligent and witty. Plenty of insights but no uncomfortable soul searching. No gratuitous millionaire love interests. Just what the doctor ordered.