Getting it WRONG: street buskers and regalia

Germany has had a fascination with American Indians for quite some time, especially after German author Karl May wrote stories at the turn of the 19th century about Winnetou (a fictional character) and the American West.

It's not surprising, then, to see some street buskers dressed in what is supposed to be American Indian clothing. However, it is a strange juxtaposition as the performers, who are not American Indian, wear cheap knock-off costumes meant to look like ceremonial regalia. This is rather disrespectful to the American Indian culture, to create a cheap knock-off of special dress that has spiritual importance. The music is not accurate, either.

We saw a group in Heidelberg doing this. It especially bothers my friend. I hadn't really thought about it much before; I tend to ignore buskers. However, I see her point.

Denial, asthma, and frustration

Today was a frustrating day.

I only completed one task today at work. The rest of the time, I was trying to update some things and that required running reports. Well, I was having so many problems just getting the software started, and then each report was taking forever. I had to then export the data and that took eons, too. Instead of working on something different, I was a stubborn ninny and instead fought all day with the computer. I was so frustrated that it was ridiculous and I put aside reason because I was going to make that computer do my bidding, darn it! I think the computer had the last laugh.

Even worse, I've been feeling rotten all day: super tired, with an occasional, piercing headache, and shortness of breath. When I went on the bike ride this weekend, I really flagged behind my friend on the bike, panting like crazy. Since then, even walking around leaves me short of breath. I've been like, what the heck? How can I be that out of shape? This is ridiculous; while I haven't been to the gym lately, I walk around town and I'm not a total couch potato.

It then dawned on me: I do have asthma and that's what my problem is right now. This isn't being out of shape; I did two other long bike rides this month and they were nothing like this current shortness of breath. I seem to push it to the back of my mind that I have asthma; I'm "lucky" in that it's not very serious and it's related to allergies. It usually doesn't bother me until I get a sinus infection and I've been ill for some time and it settles into my lungs. The headache makes sense, too; whatever's floating around in the air must be contributing to a sinus headache.

I've been rather bad about the asthma; it's a more recent thing, as my allergies have worsened. When I was first diagnosed with it, I won't lie: I held a pity party for myself. After all, I wanted to bike, hike, horseback ride, and at that time, run (can't do that any more, for other reasons). I felt very mopey that those things would be unavailable. Then I snapped out of it; my asthma isn't very bad and I should be thankful that it only bothers me a couple of times a year. Plus, a family member has asthma and he managed to play varsity soccer and tennis in high school so physical activity is not out of the question.

I just need to use my inhaler, rest, and give myself a kick in the pants to have a good attitude. Here's hoping that I can finish what I was working on when I go into work tomorrow.

Now this just isn't right! "American" food

A friend told me that there is something that's being marketed as an American-style product at Aldi. It's a tube of ketchup-swirled mayonnaise, "American Gewürzsauce" (seasoning sauce). Honestly, the thought of it makes me feel a bit queasy. Yes, I have had two little containers, one of ketchup, one of mayo, and I've dipped fries into each, but the thought of the two being swirled together in a tube just doesn't sit well with me.

Also, that is not American, Aldi. Mayonnaise and ketchup are not interchangeable to us. Sometimes they partner up, but for few things, and they don't co-mingle in the same tube, for goodness sakes!

Die Hightech-Fahrschule: FAIL

I walked by this driving school in Kaiserslautern and got a chuckle out of it.According to its advertising, it is hightech.

However, check out the window: it has a computer display that: a) isn't working; it's showing the screensaver; and b) is from a computer running Windows XP.

"High tech" and low tech: or more aptly, low tech and low tech but with a nice reflection of the Fructhalle, circa 1843.

I'm not sure that I'd trust the school to be high tech after this display!

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German word of the day: die Schule (the school)

Dumb at the gym, and I don't mean dumbbells

I swear, either the jet lag or culture shock of moving here is making me stupid. Well, that is my excuse, any way.

I was extremely pleased to learn that there is a gym that is free to use very close to my office. I took a tour of the gym and noted the locker room, complete with showers and complimentary towels. I was thrilled; I could work up a good sweat on my lunch break, shower, and be back in time to get back to those reports.

The first time I used the gym, I ran a bit on the treadmill and happily trotted off to the locker rooms, grabbed a clean towel, and took a shower. When I was ready to leave the shower, I realized my dilemma: the towels are not full-sized towels. Dang it. Germans are not so prissy about nudity, but this gym wasn't for the Germans; it was my fellow country(wo)men. Luckily enough for me, no one else was in the locker room so I was able to sprint to get dressed.

Lesson learned: bring your own towel to the gym.

Domesticity fail

I once elicited much laughter from my mother, as well as some aunts, when I complained about a housecleaning problem I was having. When I spent a semester in England, I decided that the outflow of money was high whereas the influx of money was nil. Thus, I picked up two housecleaning gigs for some extra spending money, which worked out perfectly and financed a trip to Paris and a trip to Dublin.

I was often vexed by cleaning the bathtub; in trying to wipe up the random dust bunnies in the tub, all I did was spread them all over. I finally had the brilliant idea to use the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust, as long as the tub was dry. Sometimes there were still errant fuzzies, though, and I complained of them to my mom. She asked me to repeat the problem and was laughing when I mentioned the vacuum cleaner. I wanted to know how else one would get the fuzzies. Apparently the story has made its way around to my aunts, too. Again, this is a time where I have learned that it is best to laugh at yourself.

Domesticity Fail

From Oct 7, 2008

I have one last "horror" story of failed domesticity. At times, I try to fool myself into thinking I can eat something other than cold food or food that comes in a box. Sometimes I try to cook something or bake treats. Usually the results are quite mixed.

Several weeks ago, I decided that my co-workers needed some cookies for putting up with me (and plus, I had said in my interview that food can often work well as a reward/motivator for staff..unfortunately, I may have crossed theories in management with animal training theory instead). I attempted to bake some oatmeal cookies and misjudged how done they were, as I'd like to think that the oven in the window distorts the true color of the cookies (thus I also must never be allowed in a tanning machine), and burned some of the batch.

I took the good cookies to work and told my colleagues what a failure I am and that I burned the other cookies. They raved about the cookies they had in front of them, which makes me laugh because I just followed the recipe on the label of the oatmeal.

I had thought that they were just being nice. I think it was sincere, though, because the next day a co-worker asked if I had any of the burned cookies left. I had thrown out most of them, but with a remaining cookie, had grated off the burned part and found that it wasn't too bad. I was pretty impressed that she liked the cookies enough to want some burned ones (thought I think that she would have wanted anything with sugar at that point). Sometimes you just have to take the burnt part of your life and scrape off what you can't use and make good with the part that you have left.

An experiment

One day when I was in a London suburb, I was feeding some pigeons some bread. The pigeons did not seem to be particularly intelligent, but that's okay, we can't all be rocket scientists. I spotted a cigarette butt on the ground. I decided to try an experiment, because I doubted that pigeons could be that dumb. I tossed it to a pigeon, and was horrified when he ATE it. D'oh, sorry Mr. Pigeon, I hope it all worked out. Of course, how stupid was I to not think he'd eat it?

He'll take Geography for $5

From Aug 4, 2009

My friend's daughter, C, moved to Alaska with her husband. Apparently it has been an interesting life thus far and she's almost to the point of writing a book about all the odd things that the contiguous US believes about Alaska and vice versa. My friend told me one funny story that C had told her.
Whiles she was in in Alaska, C needed to call the post office in California to get some information. When she called the California office, the very friendly postal worker asked her, "so, how's the weather down there?"
C, thinking she heard things wrong, said, "Excuse me?"
Postal worker: "How's the weather down there?"
C: "You know I'm in Alaska, right?"
PW: "Yes ma'am. Are you having nice weather down there?"
By this point in the story, I'm howling with laughter and I told my friend that the weather is probably just about the same in Alaska as it is in Hawaii or Mexico, because that's obviously where the postal worker is picturing Alaska on the map.
Go ahead, look for yourself. I especially love the representation where Alaska and Hawaii are on top of Mexico. I wonder how Mr. PW explains that one?
The best part of this story is that, if anyone should know his geography, shouldn't it be a postal worker? Can we file that under postal worker fail?

Get it right!

This is one of the favorite stories my mom has told me:
One of her co-workers was very excited about some cookies she was going to bake and bring in. She raved about these cookies and my mom asked her what type they were.
"They're anus cookies!" the coworker crowed.
That gave my mom pause. "ANUS cookies?" she asked.
"Yes, anus cookies! They're quite good."
At this point my mom thought that the coworker had taken leave of her senses but she can think on her feet.
"Wait, don't you mean anise cookies?" my mom asked.
The coworker gave her a confused look, so my mom continued, while trying to keep a straight face: "You mean anise; trust me on this one."

The Amish Friendship Bread Pyramid Scheme

I went out with some chick friends last week and one friend was lamenting the fact that her neighbor had given her Amish Friendship bread starter. She told us that it was too much of a commitment; she was going on vacation. With this starter, one must leave it out for 10 days, kneading it every so often (we were wondering why it doesn't go bad). This made me laugh; I've never heard someone so sad about baked goods before!

My thought was this (probably because I'm not overly domestic): who wants to do all that work for some bread? I'll just make it in the breadmaker, visit Avalon Bakery in Detroit, or make beer bread, which requires hardly any ingredients, doesn't require any time to rise, and is fantastic.

The friendship bread saga continues, though: on day 10, the dough is to be divided and extra is given to friends. They're supposed to start the process all over and then give some of the dough to their friends and the cycle continues.

I pondered this, then summarized the bread process: it's a pyramid scheme. The original breadmaker reels in unsuspecting fools to help with spread the Amish bread takeover who then in turn recruit more breadmakers. Friendship, my hiney.