Mayhem

At this point I figure that there are probably only a couple of people in the USA who don't know that there were two earthquakes in the lower 48 yesterday. And I'm thinking it's because they're hiking somewhere and forgot to bring their cell phones with them. Certainly it's been the only thing people around here have been talking about for the last 30 or so hours."Hi. Can I get a small americano with room?" "Sure. That'll be $1.75. Does your house have new cracks in it?" It wasn't my first earthquake, but it was the first one I experienced that couldn't be mistaken for a truck driving past my window. Our office dynamics at 1:50 yesterday were pretty comical in retrospect so I'm going to share.
First though, there are some things you should understand about my office. Our marketing and booking office is on the second floor of a building that must have been constructed around the turn of the century downtown. The room itself is a big open thing with desks lining walls so that there's a blanks space for us to banter across throughout the workday. There are are seven of us: three marketing people, two bookers, our arty guy and the boss. The window just to the left of my desk looks directly into the office across a five-foot alley and our shenanigans have caused them to permanently close their blinds.
I had thought that yesterday would be a normal albeit busy day, but apparently that's what I get for thinking. Half of my co-workers had just started the post-lunch email check when the first rumbles hit the city. When the desk started to shake my thoughts spiked into nanosecond conversations that went something like this,
"what in the world? Is that an earthquake?"
"Seriously? What are you thinking? This is the East Coast. There are no earthquakes here."
And then when the building started to sway me off my feet. "Holy (don't tell mom what I thought there) this is the real thing."
Parallel to this internal debate was the verbal exchange in our office. When the ceiling started rattling, our boss immediately piped up with, "is someone on the roof?" Assuming that some random workman was traipsing across our building, she went out to the porch and started yelling up to the sky, "Helloooo?" By this time the two guys in the office were scrambling down the stairs in a mad fury (they both claim they would have elbowed little old ladies out of their way if it had come to that) to get to out of what is now being affectionately termed "that death trap shanty" and I, with my northwestern but untested training booked it to the nearest doorway only to look up and realize that the beam I was standing under was basically just a hall and I was sure to die anyway. As soon as it was over all the pale office workers blinked their bewildered way onto the sidewalks and asked the ubiquitous, "did you feel that?" Basically, there was a bit of Mayhem, and since I promised to share songs that I like along with these posts, that'll have to be the one. It's been on a loop in my head ever since the great east coast quake of '11.

A New Project

I've just been reading A Homemade Life. I began consuming this little treasure well over a year ago (closer to two, if I allow honesty to overcome embarrassment in my calculations) after attending a book signing with my sister in Washington DC. But I let life, and to my shame Netflix, get in the way of finishing it and the edges of the pages had begun to turn sepia on my bookshelf until, in a fit of determination to enjoy the humidity of an evening on my back porch, I rescued it from its dusty fate.
Sarah had long been an Orangette evangelist, explaining that once you begin reading her recipes and stories, you can't help but call the author by her first name as though you've known Molly personally for many years. Even more than gaining an imaginary friend, I've again become inspired to actually try to get a salad bowl worthy of the Fennel Salad with Asian Pear, and to pinky-finger-dust between the rows of the keyboard and begin writing again. Of course, the natural danger of sending my thoughts on their merry way throughout the internet is that I'll fall into verbal nausea: spewing my thoughts without purpose or plan; unleashing the hours of silence that comes with living alone on an unarmed audience, and that would be just indulgent. So, in keeping with my daily consumption of music at work and the realization that my days are accompanied by a soundtrack, I'll do what dozens (maybe even hundreds or thousands) have done before me and share the songs background my life and the stories that accompany them.

A Long-winded Adventure

My weekdays possess a sameness which causes them to blur into each other. Therefore it often happens that I have no idea which day contained particular events; that phone call was on Monday, or maybe Tuesday, but certainly I talked to her about that then... or maybe that was another day (you get the idea). And today started out like every weekday with the buzz which signals the impending musical wake up alarm on my phone, but of course, had it been like any other day, I would probably not now be breaking from my one and a half month sabbatical from blogging.
Friday
4:00 am. Buzz. Alarm. My mind quickly and sleepily "justifies" hitting snooze.
4:15 am. Buzz. Second alarm. Similar thin justification.
4:30 am. Buzz. Repeat above.
4:40 am. Buzz. Alarm. The realization that if I do not get up RIGHT NOW I will not be able to take my shower, and will feel gross the entire day penetrates my foggy mind.
5:25 am. Trumble [v. to simultaneously stumble and traipse] down the stairs, slap the temporary parking pass in the car, and drag down to work.
5:30-8:30 smile, serve, schmooze, repeat.
BUT THEN...
...the phone rings. My co-worker's face is one of bewilderment as she hangs up the phone and then tells me to go lock the front door. Then, in a louder voice, "if everyone in the store could please move toward the bathrooms, the police are dealing with a situation out front and have told us that no one may go in or out, and we must stay toward the back of the store." Looking out the bay windows, I did not see a drunken homeless man brandishing random cutlery as I had expected. I didn't see anything at first. So she pointed. "See that? That black thingy on the newspaper box? Someone called it in as a suspicious looking object, and so the bomb squad is on the way." Sure enough, perched right next to our garbage cans, where it had been all morning was an ominous plastic object. And there we were, the three baristas, George, Marie, Frank and five other customers I had never seen before squishing chairs into the corner of the store.

At first I wasn't at all concerned. I had seen a bomb threat called in once before in Boise. They send in a robot which then lifts the package and examines it, and it's all perfectly safe relatively speaking. But wait, I had seen that from across the parking lot, and it didn't even look all that dangerous and the robot was cool. This is different. That window is less than a hundred feet from me, and beyond it there is no one in sight. Not even an eager crowd of the morbidly curious.


Ahhh, and then the thoughts started winding through my head. I should probably tell Sarah that I'm in this situation. She's working just up the street right now, and if something happened, she'd have to know where to find me. I should clean that shelf while I'm back here, because it's not like I can be up front making drinks right now. How sad would it be if I died tragically working in a coffee shop? I should get my life planned out so that when I die, it will at least be doing something worthwhile. How bizarre would that be if something did happen? Is that bomb technician wearing a space suit? It's green. Like maybe a camouflaged space suit for special missions on some green planet.

An hour and a half of these sorts of spotty thoughts, and I had worked myself into some measure of nervousness. Still, I had the foolish courage to move toward the window the get a better look as the technician opened the case and flicked out a wireless stage microphone. Someone had obviously played a set at the bar next door last night, put the mic on the newspaper box to finish loading the van, and driven away leaving us a scare for the next day. So we let the imprisoned customers out to rearrange their appointments, and finished up the shift; some (ahem, that would be myself) with hearts beating slightly irregularly.

And that, my friends, was the tale of the day that was not the same as the rest.

In an unrelated note: happy birthday to my sister!

There's an honest-to-goodness thunderstorm raging mostly outside my window. There's the flashing and clapping and dripping and whooshing. I should close my widow but then I banish that scent. That glorious mixture of laundry hung drying and all the town's dust being gathered together and splattered back down on the pavement where it belongs. And the sounds. The usual percussion of stilettos getting caught between the bricks quickened some time ago to a panicked pace, and has now died away altogether making way for the gentler sound of my FLOOR GETTING WET... excuse me while I go protect my hardwood floor and easy chair.
To resume. These are the days I love. The green has been sprouting for weeks now, and the winds have already blown the stinkyblossoms from many of the trees. We are thick into spring with all the moodiness April promises. Last Saturday I didn't bronze so much as rubied (which I realize is no proper verb) my shoulders and am still paying the painful price for my lack of sunscreen, yet it is an evening for Galoshes even by Oregonian standards. Which brings my to the bragging point of this entire post; after several years of ooohing and drooling, I finally bought myself a pair of very bright yellow Wellingtons. With a blue buckle on the side and my pants tucked into the tops, I find myself again at age four eagerly timing my steps for a pounce into the biggest of puddles. It is moments such as this when the best I would wish the world is a "pair of yelli wellies and a puddle to use them in."

Things are Different Here

Having realized long ago that the number of tips earned in a coffee shop is tied (albeit loosely) to the amount of piffle I can engage in, I end up making some sort of comment to nearly every regular customer every morning. So I told him that I liked his blue tie with the graceful moons on it. He explained that he got it from Mexico. Comparing it to the bazaars I'd been to just south of the border I was surprised, "really? I wouldn't expect to find that sort of style in Mexico," His raised eyebrow response was, "oh, no. I got it from the president of Mexico." Right. Another world here.

Tiredness Part II (Owlishness and forced mornings)

Sunday night: we had an evening work meeting despite the snowstorm. It was boring and relatively pointless, as we had all expected. But while we were sitting inside being bored it was snowing outside. So on the way home it was absolutely necessary to have a snowball fight with Wendy until my fingers threatened to go the way of the Woolly Mammoth. Eye-rubbing began at 5 am. Result: 6 hours sleep.

Monday night: is always trivia night. The catch is that they have added a round of trivia questions and begun the contest later in the evening. So despite the fact that I did not stick around to see whether my team successfully contended that we did name the Rushmore Presidents in the correct order if viewed from the ranger station at the bottom of the hill, my wake up call at 5 meant that I again recorded 6 hours of sleep.

Tuesday night: Was the Missy Higgins concert at the Ram's Head. You didn't know that I was a fan of hers. Neither did I. She was recommended to me by a regular, and so based on a 30-second iTunes clip, I decided that I really wanted to see her show. Unfortunately, as she is talented and becoming ever more popular, she is touring with two other acts and did not even appear under the lights until 9:45 to start her set. As I thoroughly enjoyed myself I did not leave early as I had shruggingly supposed I would and made it home around midnight. Cell phone buzzed again at 5- I clocked between 4.5-5 hours for the night.

Wednesday night: I went back to The Ram's Head for happy hour with Tadd, Sarah, Steven and Tacy, during which we all talked about our various blogs and writing in general. Being inspired, I stayed up rather later writing the previous post, and the bulk of this one. Opened again, up unmercifully early. Result: somewhere around 7 hours (which, you will notice is getting back toward normal).

Thursday night: was a surprise birthday party for Wendy. It was particularly surprising to her since her actual birthday was at the end of January. She did not see this one coming. I stayed 'till one-thirty-ish then, as I finally did not have to open at Starbucks, I crashed until around noon this morning.

I think perhaps I might just be caught up in time for the weekend.

Tiredness Part I (an introduction)

Dawn has never broken gently over me.
I have had roommates and housemates who literally do that little happy-morning-flounce as their eyes are opening long before first light. I have personally never had the energy nor the inclination for this particular display of early birdieness; I distinctly remember as a child the flowing tears when I realized that I "really did have to wake up now." Of course at that time in my life I would cry over such minor things that it seemed I was single-handedly trying to make the high desert in which I lived into a tropical climate. Still, those ante meridiem hours were always especially trying. Mom would try to forestall the tears and rouse me with OJ and back scratches on several occasions, but my owlishness was deeply seeded. Even through college my morning routine consisted of groggily rolling over, pulling on the clothes closest to me (which explains my deplorable fashion for many years), and hobbling as quickly as possible off to work or class or whatever event I was about to be late for. All of that talk of birds and worms, and morning people generally being more productive than we the creatures of the night served equally to motivate and annoy me.
This being another of my years of adventure and personal growth, I decided to convert to the Sunrisen. To change my spots I signed up for the opening shift four (sometimes five) days a week at said Green Apron House. Now instead of orange juice and back rubs I am awakened by the grating and buzzing of my cell phone alarm, a cold brisk walk and the prospect of a ten hour working day.
I am actually quite proud of how well I have adjusted to this new extra early morning lifestyle. But this week has been quite the beast. You must understand that I have retained that college mentality that I can catch up on my sleep later and I won't miss the winks too badly. This theory is true until you either pile up too many lack-sleep-a-days in a row or cut the nights too short. This week I did both.

More the day after Tomorrow

And then came the winds

"I blinked my way home through the wind today...
...with leanings and sneezes and cold through my clothes."

-Lauren Feste
The last few nights I have been awakened long before my alarm by the conviction that my panes will be blown out of my windows and onto my bedroom floor. The windswept look, while not necessarily fashionable, is certainly everywhere to be seen. My calves are only just adapting to the extra work involved in maintaining a posture at right angles with the pavement.
It has been rather blustery here.

Two fiascoes and a frozen fake-out

Out of fear that I will not be able to maintain the energy to start blogging, I will save updates on the last couple of months for a better time; (that is, when you call me, or when I have had coffee and my fingers are willing to fly over the keys) but I have promised my mother that I would write about the holiday desserts this year, and it is bad form to break promises so soon after the day of new resolutions. So here is my story.

Anyone who does not read my sister's blog in tandem with mine does not necessarily know that she has become quite the gourmet. I'm rather ashamed to admit that she has, on more than one occasion, saved me from flopping into my bed with an empty and growling stomach by offering me a meal of "planet salad" or Thai Mahi at the end of the day, as I am too exhausted to brown and munch my quick-cook pot stickers. So when Thanksgiving loomed on the calendar and she began rehearsing her menu of honey roasted duck, and other out of this world delicacies I found myself torn between the desire to be helpful and the knowledge of my domestic ineptitude. I offered to make dessert. I culled through some recipes and (skipping over Pumpkin Pie in favor of something more exotic) landed on a Pushing Daisies-inspired Pear Gruyere Pie. Then began the problems.

First, the fridge ate my butter. Second, I forgot that a one-serving-sized blender will not be able to manage the ingredients for a whole (five-serving) pie. Third, Sarah does gourmet cooking: not baking. Therefore she doesn't have unbleached white flour, or fine sugar or anything but sea salt. And Fourth, I'm a horrible cook.
When my slightly overly browned, wheat flour crust concoction had finally cooled enough for me to foist it upon my fellow celebrants, I was simply relieved that there was plenty of coffee and cookies homemade by Tacy (who is an excellent baker and cook) to erase the taste of my mess from our mouths. Fiasco number one.
For Christmas, I was inspired by the untasted Guinness in my fridge, and chocolate all around, and the realization that a cake does not require a pie-crust (which I will slowly work up to making again). So Chocolate-Stout cake was the goal. One would hope that after thanksgiving I would be advised that I should furnish my own baking soda, sugar, etc., but I had again forgotten (I had managed to remember the flour this time) so after countless trips back and forth from my apartment to Sarah's kitchen, a close call with chocolate getting too hot too fast, I managed to spatula the batter into the two pans and stick them in the oven. Then I attempted the icing. The problem with time, is that it cannot be hurried, and so when I tried to squeeze the 2 hour prep time for the icing into 20 minutes, I ended up making a chocolate cake with chocolate sauce. At least it was edible this time. Fiasco number two.

Our New Year's celebration widened from the familial three (Sarah, Zeb and me) to eight. My easily-intimidatable nature suggested that I not test the truth of the "third time's a charm" adage. Our dessert was Trader Joe's frozen Tiramisu. It was delicious. If Lisa hadn't been with me when I bought it, I had been less honest, and the world didn't know about fiascoes one and two, no one would have even known that I am not a world class dessert artist. Thank goodness the next holiday is Valentine's because I sure do know how to pick out good chocolate, and can make drinking chocolate like nobody's business. Small steps away from disaster, I suppose.

A not-so-silent film review

This evening I donned my new polka-dot blouse, my platform heels and my Audrey Hepburnesque black raincoat, and strolled the three blocks between my apartment and St. Anne's Church to watch the silent version of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera accompanied by Larry Molinaro on the church's magnificent organ music starting at seven in the evening.
It was quite an experience. I had never seen a silent film on any screen bigger than my computer before so that in itself makes it memorable. For an hour and a half I, and a score of others, sat mesmerized (despite the discomfort of the pews) and entertained by the alternating sepia, black and white, and occasionally the red or blue images on the screen in front of the altar. To call the famous drama a comedy is perhaps a strech, but the composer/accompanies Larry Molinaro swept the story along with the beautiful-yet-not-to-be-taken-too-seriously score which included variations on the cancan and Pick-a-little as well as other famous pieces that I couldn't quite put the name to.
All in all it is the best movie I have seen in a long time due, in great part, to the surround sound and the fact that I haven't been to see a movie since my return to the States.

On Locales

Everyone knows about Townies and Bumpkins: those particular people who simply cannot live without __(fill in the blank)

a. neon lights shining down on their repose, the gentle lowing of taxi horns and uncontrolled radio decibels, and the company of those so rich that if they were a garden they could feed a small country and can locate planets with their very high noses.

-or-

b. crickets (and other creatures far too small to be able to emit sounds at the volume that they do) hosting raves, winds sweeping through the plains and the shutters, and the cracks around the door, a wake-up call performed far too early by the sun, and the company of quadrupeds.

Such categories as City Slicker and Hillbilly are easily defined, and those who fit into them are even easier to spot. But I fit into an entirely different slot. I am a Suburbanite. A Cul-de-sac-ee. One who was born at the end of the asphalt, but could look down the street and see one of the last pairs of horses actually kept within city limits. My family was made for this kind of life. There was the perfect "field" for us to play in, until the builders actually developed that two-acre plot. And there were trees that were climb-able as long as we weighed less than 50 pounds, but really, one shouldn't expect too much from a tree that was only planted twenty years ago. And then there was my family. We were made to live in a neighborhood. Large and friendly, we were absent-minded in that way which necessitates borrowing sugar from the clan next door because no one remembered to put it on the shopping list. The children of the street formed a docile gang whose dangerous activities included playing Uno in the middle of the street or a round of Truth-or-Dare which forced someone near the outhouse the construction workers had been using all month. When we felt particularly edgy, we would attack a house with rolls and rolls of toilet paper. Our logic was that we could trick everyone into thinking that we were innocent if we merely TP-ed one of our own houses. Of course the next morning we would have to clean up our own mess, but we never seemed to mind.
With this sort of background, it is no wonder that I have some trouble adjusting to life downtown. I've learned that between the loud talking or singing stumblers, the high heels on bricks which sound as though an old fashioned horse and cart is walking through my room, and the streetlamp perfectly positioned to shine like a very close and very unfortunately unmoving sun directly in my face, sleeping in the city is a skill. Fortunately my day expired around 2 1/2 hours ago, and so I will have no need to work particularly hard in order to sleep tonight. Right now, actually.

Shades of rodents

We usually had some package of nuts to strew about the back porch for Chester. Why we named the fattest of the fox squirrels Chester, which to my mind is reminiscent of a floppy-eared dog, is beyond me. There was a whole crew of climbers who were unbelievably resourceful in poaching the contents of the bird feeder before dinner.
As I grew older, I slowly stopped noticing the squirrels. Sure, I noticed the chipmunks at the Grand Canyon, and the campgrounds, but that's because they were always so cute with those black eyes and the stripe down their back. When I went to Germany, for a time, I noticed them again. They were no longer that muted brown I had come to expect as the only acceptable dye-job for squirrels. These punks had red hair. And they weren't quite as long or fat as the American squirrels. Today I noticed these East Coast squirrels. They are like those pieces of wood that are faded to a gray by the sun on the top, but still show that living red-brown underneath. Except the squirrels scamper. The wood does not.

...Of Untamed Weather

Did I forget to mention that I got my very first "tropical storm day off" from work last week? Well, I did. They thought the town might flood, so Phillips told me to stay in bed, and I got some of my shopping done instead. I'm telling you: things are different here. There are fireflies, tropical storms, and unbelievably muggy days.

A Moment...

...to breathe. Just a moment. Well, an afternoon, that is. I have been rebuked countless times since moving to Annapolis for my laxity in blogging. At first I had no excuse other than laziness and jetlag for being so remiss, but I have, at long last come up with three good excuses which I will lay out in High School essay-like form.

First,
Second,
Finally,
In conclusion, I am now working three jobs (read approx. 6 1/2 days per week), one which occasionally requires my presence at 5:15 am, another which occasionally requires my presence until as late as 11:00 pm, and I am exhausted.

Or, as a more true explanation, I now work as a hostess at Phillips Seafood Restaurant, a barista-in-training at Starbucks, and a nanny for Charlie (who is just under two months old). As you can, I am sure, tell from the fact that I have posted twice today, I have the afternoon off, and am desperately trying to catch up with my life. So I'm off (like a dirty shirt) to get everything else done. Right now. Effortlessly.

Apostrophy s

Neither I nor anyone I know would ever quite call me an accessories kinda girl. I have only owned purses in succession, and they were generally of the sporty/practical variety. My criterion was that it be sturdy enough to be worth the money I had invested in it, it must hold at least one book and my moleskin, and it must be as inconspicuous as possible. Even when my hair was embarrassingly boyishly short, it was like catching caffeinated frogs to get me to wear feminine (large and dangling) earrings. I always marvelled at those girls who allowed their ears to droop from the weight of their ear decorations. Truly, the number of fashionable items labeled with my name and the possessive contraction were relatively few.
But like so many things in the past year-and-a-bit-more that has passed, this has been changing. I now own (and wear) not just my sterling ball earrings, but also multiple styles and colors of danglies which are large enough to be seen from 15-20 feet away, and shoes that go with outfits. My cherry-red purse is anything but inconspicuous and large enough to shelter a Boy Scout camp-out.
More important than all of these other accessories- vying with my music makers (ipod, guitar, etc.) for the role of the item that I cannot be without for more than a few hours- are my sunglasses.

How can anything so fragile and 50's looking be so important?

Well, if you had a pair you would understand their magic. The anonymity and glamour which accompanies this single article of wear is astonishing. Behind them I cannot simply walk: I must stroll, traipse, even strut. Even in the ratty cleaning/laundry day jeans, I feel that I must be that movie star or that author, or that singer who is just on the brink of being famous. That those I pass in the street just must be thinking to themselves, "hmm... I wonder if that's someone I should know about." Then I saunter past (leaving, of course, a wake of dazzle) and go about my daily life. And that is the power housed in my wonderful sunglasses.

Days go by...

Everyone told me that Time's leaden feet of the beginning of my stay here would be transformed in the last days into winged things such as those which made Hermes so famous, and despite my doubts, the days are indeed flying to their close.
Siobahn, the new au pair, arrived Monday night.
I leave in five days, and have more plans for those hours than can possibly be realized.
Silke and I are visiting the Netherlands on Friday.
I still need to purchase obscene amounts of chocolate to bring home with me.
There is laundry to be washed and hung to dry in the corner of the yard where I run no danger of being embarrassed by the passer-by being able to see my undergarments.
Felix, seeming instinctively to realize that I am being somehow withdrawn from him, has become adorably clingy and kuschlich (prone to snuggle).
Photos of all the places I do not want to remember are still in need of being captured.
...Therefore, if you hear nothing from me for a week or so, don't be alarmed. I haven't been sold into white slavery: I'm just tired, stressed and trying to make it back to the states.

Finale

My football fanishness came to something of a sad end on Sunday when German lost 0-1 in the final match against Spain. It was quite pitiful. We did not play well, and as a foreigner, it was almost comical to observe the almost silent procession of cars out of the city when compared to the uproar which followed the quarter- and half- finals. There were some fireworks (supposedly in honor of Spain), but it seemed to me more as though the boys had bought them supposing that we would win and then decided to set them off just so they would not go to waste.
The quarterfinal and half-final were something to see, however. The match against Portugal was just flat out an incredible game, and the excitement of the other players at the Public Viewing was thoroughly entertaining. The half final was against Turkey, and the politics of the game was quite interesting. Germany has a relatively high Turkish population and the foreigners are, unfortunately, rather looked down upon (often for what seems logical reasons). The very political message before, during and after the match was that everyone needed to be sportsmanly and that particularly means there should be no burning of flags or punching of the fans of the opposing team. I even received a notice from the America Embassy warning that although they expected a peaceful observation of the match, there was the possibility of riots in some of the larger cities such as Berlin. As I went to meet a group of German acquaintances at the public viewing I was very clear in my mind that the possibility of danger would come if the Turkish team one. Fortunately, the Germans won, and the town had a very long night of celebrating.
Having finished my night of revelry after the Halbfinale with a back ache from too much standing, I decided to watch the final not at the Public Viewing on the Pferdemarkt, but rather in a restaurant where I could satisfy my Radler (sprite and whitebeer) craving and general hunger. Today my friend Anna informed me that it is my fault that Germany lost the match because I did not join her at the viewing, and I was the Glucksbringer (good luck charm). So my apologies to all of you who were rooting for Germany. Had I known my power I would have endured my hunger and thirst and gone to the marketplace.

I just discovered...

... that I am a German football fan. To those who know me, this will come as something as a surprise considering the fact that the last time I was a true fan of a sport was when the Bulls were playing the Jazz in the Finals. Here in Europe the Europäische Meisterschaft is taking place in Austria, and Fußball fanishness is contagious. This evening I pulled all of the limited strings that I have here, and managed to get myself down to the Pferdemarkt (a large parking lot which is downtown and surrounded by official or important buildings) to join several hundered other fans in a standing room only observation of Austria vs. Germany. It was an interesting game. I stayed at Pferdemarkt for the first half but went to my favorite Irish pub for the second so I could sit down. Well, maybe just an entertaining game. One of our star players was banned from this game following a red card that he received during our game against Croatia, and before the first half was up, Coach Löw joined him up in the stands. That's right, not only the Germany national coach, but also the Austrian coach was thrown out of the game for arguing with one of the refs. Then, not too far into the second half, Ballack scored a penalty goal making the score finally look like something other than a pair of badly drawn glasses. Ironically, I missed the penalty kick the first time around because I was looking for a seat, but don't worry; I saw it plenty of times in the replay. So it ended with the German team advancing to the quarterfinals and all of downtown Oldenburg erupting into yells, song, flag-twirling, and a deafening amount of honking. So there I am. Officially a fan of the German National Team. Of course, anything else and I think I would be burned at the steak by everyone I know here. Except for Drew and Lisa. Sorry guys.

Overkill

We all know that I am over-compensating for my extended absence from the blogging world by posting three times in one day, but I thought I'd just say what you're thinking.

Here is a dollop of randomness to close out my day:
1. The great thing about Germany is that you can buy two bottles of Guinness for 1.76 euros.
2. The moon is incredible tonight. If you haven't seen it yet (because it's daytime right now for nearly everyone who reads this), you need to look out your window tonight.
3. I am brewing homemade root beer (thanks mom, for the kit).
4. The government gave me money to stimulate the economy. They intend for me therefore to spend in such a way that it will pour into our economy, but ironically enough, I will be using it to pay my local taxes because I didn't withhold enough last year. So much for that plan.

Oh. There are only four items there. It seems ridiculous to start numbering items unless you have at least five, and I had thought I would have at least that many, but I have fallen short, and I'm not going to go back and take out the numbers because then you wouldn't get to enjoy this mini monologue if I did. Bis spaeter.

The past two weeks...

First of all, Carolin somehow ended up with Scarlet Fever, an illness which I thought had died along with the heroines of countless novels up until the 19th century. The main effects were that she was rather more subdued and not allowed to attend Kindergarten for a week.










Also, on Sunday I saw this incredible car...



...except that it was driving on the street, not through a mountain pass of ice and marble.












And this guy came to my house to clean the chimney and I forgot to shake his hand for luck, but I'm not sure I could have managed because my hand was already occupied with holding Felix (my goodness that kid is getting heavy).