MacGyver Mom

I was like MacGyver over the weekend.

It was hot, hot, hot and the kids wanted to swim. I dimly remembered an inflatable swimming pool in the bowels of the garage and after some looking found it under a pile of cobwebs and various gardening tools.

I tried blowing it up with a bike tire pump but it didn’t fit. Then I remembered we have an electric pump to pump up our air mattress and searched the house for it – even in Ralf’s lair, where he keeps his tools – and finally unearthed it in the guest room under a pile of clothes.

I triumphantly marched into the garden brandishing it and yelling, Who’s number 1?

Then I noticed it was an American plug. Bloody heck. So I went up to our bedroom and unplugged the heavy converter we use for our US-bought TV and lugged it downstairs.

Whereupon after hooking everything up I realized the pump didn’t have the right size adapter to blow up the swimming pool. There may have been some ladylike swearing at this point, you know, shucks, darn, that sort of thing. Then I got some duct tape and spliced it.

Perhaps you’ve seen Apollo 13? It was like that.

Ralf, who lives with me, at first didn't believe I spliced anything. And once he believed he laughed heartily about how annoyed it must have made me.

To finish my story, after about an hour the pool was finally blown up and filled with water. ‘It’s too cold!’ my dear ones complained, refusing to go in.

Envisioning all my hard work going to waste I found myself lugging buckets of warm water from the kitchen like Laura Ingalls.

That's kind of the end of the pool story.

Anyway, I thought you’d like to know.

Politically Incorrect Sunday

In grade school we told jokes on the play ground.

Knock knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

What's black and white and red all over? A newspaper.

We made fun of different races - for some reason the Polish were popular:

How many Pollocks does it take to change a lightbulb? (I forget how many.)

There were the Chinese jokes that either zeroed in on the inability of Chinese people to pronounce the letter 'R' or else made fun of their names.

'Yellow River' by We Pee Freely.

Incidentally, the Germans have their own version of these jokes.

What do you call a Chinese butcher? Ping Sau Hi (in Bavarian this means, 'Bang! Pig Dead').

None of these are particularly funny (unless you're 6, in which case they're hilarious) but at least the humor is comprehensible.

Years ago when I was a starry eyed computer programmer we had a global team meeting in Madrid. Yes, those were really the days. One night at a tapas bar a French colleague tried gamely to explain several French jokes with absolutely no success.

For example, there was this story about a small dog crossing a busy street in which the humor lies in the double meaning of the punchline, which was, 'Bang zee dog!!!!'

Then, to everyone's surprise and increasing alarm, he collapsed onto the floor howling with laughter. 'HAAAAAahahahaha HOOOOOOhoohoohooooo WAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!'

Finally he pulled himself together, reclaimed his chair, lit a cigarette and informed us calmly, 'It's funnier in French.'

I guess it must be. It can't be less funny in French.

H is for Honeypiehorse

Why, you ask, do I call myself Honeypiehorse?

I apparently have two primary facial expressions: frowning and grinning ear to ear. I've often been asked why I'm glaring at someone, to which I protest, 'I'm not, I'm smiling benevolently!' But no one believes me.

Long ago when we were dating and I was grinning Ralf said, 'Du grinnst wie ein Honigkuchenpferd,' which means, 'You grin like a honeypiehorse.' I think it's kind of a ginger cookie shaped like a horse.

I didn't speak a word of German back then and 'Honigkuchenpferd' sounded incredibly sexy. I wanted Ralf to call me Honigkuchenpferd instead of Schlumpf, which is what he usually called me (that's German for Smurf, by the way). And when I signed up for Yahoo Messenger I wanted to be Honigkuchenpferd.

But then I ran into a little snag.

Honigkuchenpferd was taken! So were Honigkuchenpferd 1, 2 and several more until I gave up in disgust - I mean, who the heck wants to be Honigkuchenpferd 28?

So I settled for English.

And there you have it, the story of me.

What Happens at Oktoberfest Stays at Oktoberfest

Last year I wrote my first and still favorite blog post about Oktoberfest .

Oktoberfest is many things to many people. For some it is a chance to eat, drink and be merry. For others it is an opportunity to explore a more outgoing side of one's personality. And for many, it is a chance to hit on someone in a really low cut bodice and perhaps stagger home with them.

For me Oktoberfest is a celebration of men in leather pants.

Seriously. There is no man on earth with at least some degree of attractiveness that embroirdered deerskin knickers, a checked shirt and an enormous glass of beer will not materially improve.

Ralf has a fine pair of Lederhosen, dark green buckskin with tasteful embroirdering and hand-carved horn buttons. On his 6'4'' physique... well, let me put it this way, ladies: Ten years ago he showed up at work in cheap off-the-rack Lederhose and I promptly broke up with my fiance and moved to Germany.

But that's another story.

You may recall that last year we had a table reserved in the Hacker-Pschorr tent through an indirect connection of friendship with Frank, the plastic surgeon. This year Toby, who is a lawyer, got a table from a grateful client for opening day. Frank joined us this year as well, as did Elke, Tommy, Dirk and several non-German colleagues.

Dirk, a successful partner in a law firm and the kind of guy whose secretary is always in love with, comes to Oktoberfest to admire 16-year-old girls in their low-cut Dirndls and drink himself under the table. He was openly skeptical of inviting Americans to join us: 'Aw, really? They always throw up so early.'

After about two beers, I joined Elke in search of a bathroom, and like last year we were gone for over an hour. Not because it took so long to find or use the facilities but because Elke wanted to visit several of the other tents and I'm the ultimate drunken side kick.

Elke is director for HR at a German company and cuts a fine figure in her dirndl. I myself was dressed like a man, albeit a curvy one, with tan leather pants and a blue and white checked shirt. Not unattractive but nowhere near as eye-catching as Elke.

Don't think Daisy Duke, think Calamity Jane.

As we strolled the grounds an enormous man with a walrus mustache in the exact same outfit as mine nodded cordially and said, 'Nice pants!' He then drooled at Elke.

Last year I had hit that perfect level of tipsiness to sail to the front of all lines with a drunkenly apologetic smile and get away with it but that was - for me - an unusual combination of circumstances. Elke has that kind of mojo all the time so again we effortlessly cut to the front of the line at two different bathrooms and three beer tents.

Elke's impressive power over others also extends to people doing her bidding, as I noticed when she sent me to buy a bottle of water while she bought coffee. On a mission from Elke, the crowds parted before me like butter.

Ultimately we made it back to our table and our leather clad men and the rest of the evening progressed in the usual fashion, with more beer, roast chicken and toasts to friendship followed by pickled fish sandwiches and roller coaster rides.

Prost!!

Ausflug jitters

Today K's Kindergarten is taking the older kids on a 3 day sleepover at a farm. It's called an 'Ausflug' in German, which means 'fly away.' K has been very excited about it and as near as I can tell, she's the only kid who doesn't have any heebie jeebies about sleeping away from home.

I've been more worried than she is. Not about the trip per se, I'm down with that.

But there's the ride home. She's driving home with another mom, which Ralf arranged but didn't' confirm. He doesn't believe that confirmation is necessary when he arranges something. I've seen this other mom several times this week but instead of simply asking her if she's still planning to bring K home Friday, I avoided the topic because I'm not sure whether to call her 'Sie' (formal) or 'Du' (informal).

I usually try to let the Germans take the lead on this but they are incredibly resourceful about avoiding the use of 'you' in conversation until the manner of address is clarified so most of the conversations with people I don't know that well end up being pretty stilted.

I'm not kidding. I have actually had this conversation, although not with Til Schweiger. I know I should just get over myself but I don't like to make grammatical mistakes.

Shocking, I know.

Anyway, instead of doing what any normal person would do and confirming K's ride home with this mom I instead asked one of K's teachers (who is definitely 'Sie') if the teachers would please make sure the kids all have rides home. She said, no, the parents had to arrange that.

At this point a rather long discussion ensued about how I expect teachers to not just jump in the car and head for home until all children are safely on their way while her eyes tracked around hopefully in search of a colleague to pass me off on.

Another worry has been K's anti-tick cream. Ralf was bitten by a tick when he was a kid and almost died so it's a sensitive topic. We did the FMSE vaccination and I packed tick repellant in K's bag. However, that stuff's poison and I don't want her and her 5-year-old posse playing with the stuff so I reminded her at least five times this morning to ask Miss Vanessa to help her with the tick cream.

Eyes glazed over with confusion, she nodded and said, 'OK, mommy.'

That wasn't quite enough commitment for me so I also asked Ralf about twenty times to speak with Miss Vanessa about this personally, which he promptly agreed to do without any snarky comments about annoyingly paranoid moms.

So far I've only been moderately (or, if you're Ralf or that teacher, extremely) irritating, but now I have a confession to make.

Here it is: K threw up last night. Twice. And I still sent her on the trip.

She had no fever, got herself dressed with no fuss and ate a reasonable excuse for breakfast and I figured that even if she has something, she probably got it from one of the other kids anyway.

Right?

If another mom sent her barfing offspring on a trip with my child they would probably find themselves on the wrong end of one of my rants (if I could get past whether to call them 'Sie' or 'Du'). I know that. But I just couldn't keep her home after so much build up and anticipation when she seemed perfectly fine this morning.

And believe me, I watched her like a hawk all morning and felt her forehead about fifty times.

Just out of curiosity, would you have done?

Ralf on the road

It’s Ralf’s turn to go back to Cali for a week and I am alone in a cold land where I speak like a precocious twelve year old who unexpectedly wants to debate economic policy with the grown-ups.

I did have a small cultural breakthrough today while driving Ralf to the airport, however. I was lamenting about the blank expressions I always get from Germans whenever I launch into a detailed anecdote or explanation. I worry it means I’m boring.

Me: ‘I know my German’s pretty good so it’s not like people have no idea what I’m talking about but I always feel like Germans don’t understand why I’m telling them whatever I’m telling them. They just stare at me.’

Ralf: ‘Your German’s fine. You’re just used to all that nodding and babbling the Americans do instead of paying attention. Whereas the Germans actually listen to what you’re saying.’

I never thought of it that way. I mean, I’ve experienced something similar in a professional context, having worked for German bosses. But socially I figured I was just boring, like steamed broccoli over brown rice.

Heck, I wish he’d mentioned this eight years ago. I’ve probably been the life of the party all this time without realizing it.

But anyway, although I miss him and have a rough week in front of me as a single working parent I find it far less stressful when I’m not the one traveling. More about my travel Angst here.

The house feels big and lonely but it’s not all bad:
The toilet seat stays down.
I don’t have to cook.
I can watch Buffy reruns.
I can wear my blue underwear with the little elephants on them.
(For some reason, that’s not Ralf’s favorite pair.)

Just as it was my job to provision the house for a 2 week famine slash toilet paper strike before I went back to California, Ralf also has several jobs before he can leave:
Give the girls a bath.
(They might not get another one until he gets back.)
Make sure the car has gas and windshield wiper fluid.
Change the litter.

When I was gone the local moms rallied around the single dad – Germany is a patriarchal society, which means the women think the men are totally useless and coddle them. In fact, the legendary sternness of German women is typically only for other women. So I expect no such help, although I do have a girlfriend or two for emergencies.

Actually it's not that bad, it's just that if someone is at all stern to begin with speaking German will push it to the next level.

For some reason this thought makes me tired. Or maybe I'm tired because it's 10 PM and I had a long day. Anyway, I'm off to bed, if K and L (who get to sleep in our bed when Ralf is gone) have left me any room.

One last thing: Check out Strange Shores - Ladyfi has just posted her regular blog carnival for expat blogs featuring ‘the very funny Honeypiehorse’ (that’s me) and a deeply disturbing picture of a three-headed horse.

Good night.

On language

Thank you Irmie for making a topic request. This is the first time outside of work I’ve been asked to write about something – I feel like a real writer now!

Irmie wanted to know more about the bilingual habits of our household, so here goes.

When I first moved to Germany I took language lessons but it was slow going. More about that here, if you’re interested.

However, I had various jobs that required me to speak German and over time I achieved a level of functional fluency, the sort where I could call someone an idiot quite plainly but couldn’t say something like, ‘When you sit down, do you get a headache, you chimp?’

Now I can, although it’s more likely to come out like, ‘When you seat yourself, do you feel any pain in the head, you monkey?’

Anyway, my improvement rate slowed dramatically as soon as I got good enough to say what I wanted to say and hit a plateau for a year or so. My German was good enough to get by professionally so I stopped working on it. I spoke German only in a professional setting or with friends but never at home or with Ralf and felt fairly lame and un-funny when I did speak it.

Then when we got an offer to live in California for a year or two (which turned into three) I worried that I would lose all my hard-earned language skills. K was two years old and just starting to talk so I also worried that she would not be able to speak German when we went back. I was eight months pregnant and about to go on maternity leave so the first thing I did when we arrived in California was to organize intensive Berlitz German lessons, six hours a week, for a month and a half until L was born. This bumped my German up a notch.

To keep in practice and make sure K wouldn’t have huge culture shock when we went back to the Vaterland, I resolved to speak only German with K while in California. I kept this resolution until about six months before we were to return, figuring at that point the mold had been cast and what mother doesn’t prefer to speak her native language to her children?

It worked. K learned English at pre-school but her mother language was slightly-off German with weird faux-Scandinavian pronunciation. But it was enough to fit in when we returned and since then she’s improved apace in German Kindergarten.

L was a slightly different story. I spent more time with her as a baby while K was in pre-school and spoke English with her, figuring that by the time we went back to Germany she’d just be starting to speak so could learn it there. And of course, she heard me speaking German to K. But her German is not as good as K’s and she’s more likely to speak ‘Dinglisch,’ which is a hybid between English and German. Then again, she’s only three so I’m not too worried about it.

R for the most part spoke English at home unless I reminded him so it’s pretty much been me keeping the German flame alight all these years. When their German grandmother notices some linguistic peculiarity of theirs I glare at him soundly and the perfect son shrugs back innocently. He is perfectly happy to let me shoulder the blame for our kids’ funny accents.

Today both girls attend a German Kindergarten so we are again an English-speaking family.

Ironically, now that we’re back in Germany my German’s slipping again.

Lick My Butt

Disgusting, isn't it? But it’s actually a rough translation for a fairly common German phrase ‘Leck mich am Arsch’, which means something between, ‘Bite me,’ ‘and ‘I’ll be darned.’

You can also insert the word 'doch' to add emphasis, i.e., 'Leck mich doch am Arsch!'

A mechanic said this to me today. Well, technically he was speaking to Ralf but I was there.

You see, our Volvo finally arrived from California about 2 weeks ago and has been in the shop ever since. It's a gas guzzler but it’s also a turbo all-weather family tank and an old friend. Driving it reminds me of my convenient, manicured, blond life as a California mom.

And we buy carbon offsets from Terrapass to assuage our Earth guilt.

The company that moved our Volvo to Germany, Navitrans (I won't bother adding a link), took so long to deliver the car that the battery died and some valve that holds the power steering fluid in rusted and started leaking. They also stole our GPS and our California license plates, although that’s not really germane to this story.

We took it to a Volvo dealer to investigate the blood-curdling sounds it was making when we drove it. Where the stocky, taciturn Bavarian mechanic apparently got the surprise of his life when the car switched on by itself and would not allow itself to be switched off.

This came as no surprise to us because the same thing had happened a few times in California when the locking and unlocking buttons were inadvertantly pushed in some sequence that we never figured out. The Californian Volvo mechanics could tell us nothing but we assumed it was a 'feature' to warm up the car before getting in because we bought it used from someone on the chilly East Coast.

The annoying part is that once the car switches itself on it can only be turned off manually, i.e., by getting into the car, actually starting the engine with the key, then turning it off again.

Fortunately, the only time it ever really caused a problem was one time in a parking lot when I had just gotten the kids out of the car and into the stroller. Other than that, it was an infrequent and relatively benign feature of the car.

Naturally, we named the car ‘Christine’ and thought no more about it.

But the mechanic didn’t like it. Volvos are not supposed to turn themselves on and it disturbed him. He dug around a bit in the engine then called us to complain that someone had installed some mystery cables in the engine that definitely didn’t belong there. Would we like him to remove them?

For 60 EUR an hour?? NFW.

When we picked up the car we were presented with a hefty bill (more of a William) by our Bavarian mechanic, who was unexpectedly smiling. Then, after we had a chance to silently register all the zeros, he explained that they had also stripped out that cables that didn’t belong.

Two pairs of eyes snapped automatically from the bill to his face when he said this, then back to the bill to scan for this additional charge. Ralf’s mouth opened to protest but the mechanic held up one hand and continued: They didn’t charge us for this, he explained, because it needed to be done.

Yes. Really. He said that.

It was while he was recounting his amazing tale of the spooky self-starting car and the unforgettable moment when he first discovered the crazy amateurish wiring in the engine that he used the phrase: ‘Leck mich am Arsch!’ and shook his head feelingly.

Poor guy. I mean, I ask you, who ever heard of a Volvo dealer doing free work? It must have really bugged him.

Ralf was blown away as well. Shaking his head as we walked out to the Volvo he, too, felt the need to say, 'Leck mich doch am Arsch!'

This post has been brought to you by Very Funny Friday.

This German life

Here are a few scenes to give you a feel for (my) daily German life.

Vignette 1: Marktkauf

I’ve already blogged about Tengelmann, an expensive German grocery store with unhelpful (by American standards) employees. But to be fair, the rudeness you encounter at Tengelmann is the higher class sort of rudeness, or the, ‘Oh, very well, if I must,’ sort of rudeness. Today we'll take a look at Marktkauf, an enormous supermarket with reasonable prices that also has clothing and household items. Marktkauf offers its own special brand of rudeness.

Yesterday the whole family headed for Marktkauf to stock up our sadly empty larder. The Jambalaya I made earlier this week tapped out our provisions and thank goodness K liked it because it was pretty much all we had. Also, next week Ralf is headed for the mother ship in California (a.k.a., our company’s headquarters) and a friend of mine asked me to buy her some German make up. So after we had loaded our food into the cart I browsed the cosmetics section with no luck and the kids were getting tired.

Seeing a Marktkauf employee go by I waved and said, ‘Entschuldigung, haben Sie Jade?’ ('Excuse me, do you have Jade?'). Not my best German sentence but perfectly understandable. Without breaking her stride she replied, ‘Schaun Sie. Ich hab’ auch keine Ahnung,’ ('You look, I don’t have any idea either'). Alrighty then. When I stared at her she sighed wearily and called out to a colleague: ‘Oi! Haben wir Jade?’ ('Hey! Do we have Jade?') and I was escorted by the colleague to the appropriate aisle with much hair tossing and eye rolling.

Ralf thinks I exaggerate about German rudeness but the fact is that he rarely encounters it. Cashiers, bank clerks, mechanics, travel agents, doctors, handymen and everyone else immediately size up his height and maleness, register his boyish charm and confidence and for all I know smell his testosterone and suddenly all these helpful people materialize out of the woodwork. When they see me coming, they take in my shortness (5’8’’ is nothing here) and register my femaleness, mousy looks and lack of confidence that I will be helped, as well as various linguistic imperfections that mark me as foreign, and write me off as someone they don’t have to do any extra work for. Of course not everyone is like this but I encounter it a lot and remember I’m an LA girl so I grew up coddled in the milk of insincere human kindness. On rare occasions when I felt my children’s lives to be in danger I have successfully imposed my will on the odd reluctant German but you really have to be in the zone.

I sometimes wonder if New Yorkers have an easier time?

Vignette 2: ‘Ich moechte Deutsch reden!’

I remember when I was first learning German it took about 8 months of intense language training before anyone would bother speaking to me in German, even if I spoke German to them. I would say something in German, even something as simple as ordering a beer, and the answer would invariably come in English. Finally after 8 months I’d had enough and vowed that the next person I talked to would speak German to me. As it happens the next person I talked to was Claus, a very sweet German consultant I worked with, one of those good-looking, ambiguously gay types that always marry a supermodel and have three kids.

Anyway, I asked him something in German and he answered in English and I responded in German and he came back in English and so on and so forth until finally, blushing with the strain of continuing to speak German to someone who was ignoring my efforts I glared at him and said, ‘Claus, if you don’t speak German to me I’m going to smack you!’ He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t even noticed me speaking German, then shrugged and said in a kind voice (in English, of course), ‘Well, I would, Laura, only your German is so terrible.’ This was a long time ago and there did eventually come a day when Claus and I switched to German but it left its mark.

Vignette 3: Threading the Bobbin

Now that I have a sewing machine it is expected that I can use it to sew things. And to a limited extent I can – I just made a third pillowcase, this time with ribbon trim! But now I’m starting to get helpful suggestions from various people about what I ought to sew next, including my husband. While in California for a conference not too long ago Ralf and I bought a ski suit for L. Although it’s supposed to fit a six year old and she just turned three it’s a bit short so Ralf asked me to pluck out the Velcro patches on the shoulders and move them up a bit to give it more length. I reached for the suit but he was strangely reluctant to let go of it. ‘Do you think you can do it?’ ‘Well,’ I answered honestly, ‘it does mean threading the bobbin.’

Threading and re-attaching the bobbin is still something of a challenge for me but I gamely reached for suit again, which continued to be withheld. ‘Do you know what a seam ripper is? Do you have one?’ he asked, holding the suit away from my outstretched hands. Well that was just insulting – after 4 sewing classes I can’t do zippers but I know what a seam ripper is! I grabbed the suit and glared at him.

Two triumphant hours later I had successfully moved two Velcro patches a whole inch.

I can't believe how much I rule!

Quintessential you

I have a pretty high IQ. I’m not a genius or anything but I’m bright. However, unless I’m doing higher math or something it really doesn’t show – in fact, quite the opposite, because I'm a total klutz.

We’ve been back in Germany since mid September and in that time we’ve had to change the vacuum bag twice because it was full of broken glass. At least twice a week I drop one of our spices and it shatters on the floor and I have to vacuum up fiddly little bits of glass and powders while yelling at my kids to stay out of the kitchen. About every other week a glass of spaghetti sauce meets its destiny in my kitchen and you’d be surprised how far that stuff can travel on impact. We have dark red flecks all over kitchen ceiling and Ralf has threatened to paint the entire kitchen brown if I don’t mend my ways. If you come to dinner at our house, expect to eat well but don’t come into the kitchen while I’m cooking because the tornado of spilled wine, tomato stains, broken glass and piles of glass and parsley on the floor might put you off. On one memorable occasion I cut my finger while making a salad, spraying the walls and kitchen window with blood just as a friend who was over for dinner popped her head in and offered to help.

I couldn’t help noticing that she didn’t eat any salad.

Last night I went rummaging in the medicine cabinet for something to put my lingering cough to rest, at least for the night, and emerged triumphantly with an almost full bottle of Sinupret, which is a German mucus dissolver (my best translation for ‘Schleimloeser’). I was holding it tightly by the lid, which inexplicably separated from the rest of the bottle. Needless to say, the bottle with its entire contents plunged to the tile floor. It erupted spectacularly, depositing its sticky load all over the floor, the walls, the mirror, the husband and my pants. A few gluey drops even found their way into my hair.

Ralf’s comment as he grimly helped me wipe up the worst of it? ‘This is quintessential you!’

Conversations with boobies

Yes, I refer to my kids as my boobies. It’s actually ‘bubis’, which is short for ‘bubalah’ (a lovely Hebrew word for Sweetheart), but the Germans use the term ‘bubis’ to describe boys. So I get some pretty strange looks from Germans and Americans alike when I say, ‘Come on, bubis. ’

Maybe I should take a page out of Scarlett Johansson's book and refer to them as 'my leading ladies.'

Anyway, just a short post today to share two conversations I had with my bubis yesterday.

K: Mommy, how old are you?
Me: I’m xx.
K: Were you ever 30?
Me: Sure, xx years ago.
K: Whoa. That’s a lot.

Author's comment: Note the use of the word 'whoa', which I found more dramatically expressive than 'wow' would have been.

Me (to L): Come here, you succulent thing, you!
L: No, Mommy, you’re a sucky thing.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

After the excitement of the conference and the whirlwind activity of Thanksgiving we’re enjoying a quiet weekend of hanging at home and simple errands. Tomorrow is Sunday before December, which in Germany is the first Advent day. I’m not so well-versed on the religious history (something Catholic, I think) but you light one candle on the first Sunday, two on the second, and so on. Family and friends come by and there are coffee and cookies. It’s nice.

Soon we will have to get a tree and try to find a spot for it in our living room, which now has all our California furniture. Ralf will pretend we’re not getting a tree this year and I will half believe him and bug him about it and one day he’ll just come home with one. We will decorate it together with the same decorations we’ve used since before K was born. We will play Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby and drink tea and eat cookies. The kids will fight over the fragile ornaments and at least one will get broken. I will sneak off to my computer to check my email every few minutes. Ah, Christmas!

We have other Christmas traditions. For example, we invite all our friends over for Christmas coffee sometime in December. This year was hard to organize because we’re going to Ireland for a company Christmas party but now the date is set. I will make egg salad sandwiches with extra dill because Gesine likes them and Irish stew and everyone will bring their mom’s Christmas cookies (German Christmas cookies are pretty elaborate and no one in our generation knows how to make them). We will crack hilarious jokes about the relatively lame excuses Ollie's girlfriend uses not to show on such occassions. Chances are Kaye will come by to play and I’ll invite her mom over as well, who after spontaneous invitations on L’s birthday and Thanksgiving probably thinks we do nothing but cook for twenty people every night.

We will also visit the Weihnachtsmarkt, which is the Munich Christmas market. Actually there are several in Munich and they offer live music, handmade decorations, various delicious foods and hot drinks and other things of that kind. Each has it's own specialty, like the Flammbrot (flat bread with cream cheese, ham and chives) at Sendlingertor. It’s one of the nicest things about living in Munich.

On Christmas Eve we’ll go to Ralf’s parents for coffee then dinner (meat fondue with 12 sauces) and after dinner Ralf and his mom will play Christmas songs on the piano - badly, but that’s part of the tradition. Then I will play my one Christmas song, 'Greensleeves', which for some reason I can play perfectly with two hands and everything. Greensleeves is the last lonely remnant of my expensive musical education. Then there will be champagne and presents, mostly for the girls, who will be overwhelmed after the first three. Later a couple of Ralf’s best friends whose families don’t do a big Christmas Eve celebration will come by and they will drink and talk about old times. I won’t be able to contribute much – they’ve all known each other for more than twenty years and I wasn’t there the night Ralf stole the car or got drunk and fell down the hill into the poison ivy. But that’s OK because I usually crash and burn by 11 anyway.

On Christmas morning we’ll go for a brisk winter frog march after breakfast, which I will pretend to enjoy but not really fool anyone. There’s a German word for people like me: ‘Warmduscher’, which means ‘someone who takes warm showers.’ In a land where 19 degrees Celsius is considered acceptable swimming temperature this is a fairly insulting thing to call someone and in some situations may be considered fighting words. I prefer the term ‘LA girl’ but it hasn’t really caught on.

After traipsing up and down the winter landscape and getting plenty of fresh winter air into our lungs we’ll head home to relax, which means that Ralf and I will collapse on the sofa and the girls will climb all over us and giggle. It will be annoying and divine.

Another Christmas. We are blessed.

F#%&*!!!

Leni’s Kindergarten teacher reported that Leni ran up to her excitedly when chicken was served at lunch and yelled ‘Ficken! Ficken! Ficken!’, which is the equivalent of the F-word here.

Our Feet Are the Same

This is a trick that a good friend of ours, Timm, used to remember how to say 'Auf Wiedersehen.'