I'm so smart!

March 31 /07 3:40 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

Brother, is Landfrau ever the little super brain! Managed to get the clustr "spy" map onto my blog, now I can see who is NOT reading me and then I will fall into a deep valley of depression. Just blogging away into outer space and no one soaking up my brainstorms,sob,sob!

A real good laugh!

just touch the text for enlargement!

Latecomers

March 24/07 2:21 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

...are punished by life - an old German proverb. and, how true, how true. Got an e-mail yesterday from our wintersport place in Sauerland, stating: snow in abundance and rooms available. So, thinking back and forth for an hour, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice weekend in snow,we phoned, just single rooms left. We declined,not yet ready for single rooms, time enough 20 years from now, or so.

Birthday Blog!

March 22/07

Blog has birthday today!

...so friends, one year you have shared my stories and thoughts. And blog and me have a wish list at Amazon.de and Amazon.com (USA) under Landfrau's real name. Make your choice (just kidding,ofcse),but have a look anyway!

A Bear Problem

March 19/07 8:07 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

We Germans seem to have a bear problem. Remember Bruno? Killed by the vicious Bavarians? Now Knut is a danger, but in my opinion rather "in danger"!

IS BERLIN'S POLAR BEAR BABY TOO HUMAN?
Knut Should Be Killed, Say Some Animal Activists
Berlin's polar bear cub Knut is more famous than ever. Even star photographer Annie Leibovitz has been to take his picture. But not everyone loves the little bear. Animal rights activists want him put to sleep because he has been raised on a bottle. more... [

This is nice!

berlitz_ Just touch the link ! - This is great!

Dissapointing Democrats

The Landstuhl hospital is just one of the stops on the way back to the United States for an injured soldier. Here, Mary Robles, aged 5, stands with her father Master Sgt. Daniel Robles as he receives a Purple Heart in San Antonio, Texas in January.
(SPIEGEL-online 3/14/07)

March 18/07 3:40 p.m.





48 senators for and 50 against settlement for a date of retirement of troops from the Iraq. Necessary voices would have been 60. So, Baby Bush could leave without regrets for Camp David. -
And we shall see more pictures like the above and the USA will have to stock up on more body bags.

2 Blind Eyes and 2 Deaf Ears

March 16/07 3:07 p.m.

Landfrau usually tries not to indulge into longer stories of relatives and/or friends, but this one is such a bummer, I just cannot resist. From our eye-doctor lady we got for our tearing eyes (dryness) a recommandation of spray drops ,which you spray upon your eyelids (closed) and the problem is solved for a while. So, to have them in easy reach I put them on the shelf of the downstairs bathroom. Told so to the man of my life. Then, yesterday coming home from an errand, I found a terribly upset man with swollen,almost closed watering eyes and a red face sitting in the livingroom and yelling at me that I had told him the drops were sitting in the bathroom. As it happens, he had grabbed a can of moskito spray (4 times the size of the little eyedrops container) and had given himself a full dose right into the face. My flabbergasted question,why he did not read the label and checked anyway,that the can was far too big, got the reply that he could not see,because he had been out too, and ,coming home,wanted to apply the drops,since his eyes were watering like hell. Now, first, using the stuff when its too late,does not help, second, if he would have listened (and that`s where the deaf ears come in) he would have followed my precise instructions -on the shelf, not the window sill - but of course would have missed the chance of almost blinding himself and...yelling at Landfrau.
Had a nasty laugh,after it turned out, that no damage had been done!

FourOld Eyes

March 13/07 The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

.....and some old teeth Landfrau is writing a post about today. So, for the eyes we had a unison check up, and both of us, man of my life and myself wo`n't go blind for another year! Our eye-doctor lady is really taking good care of us, thanks, dear! -
Dentistwise it has not been unison, partner chickened out. But he joined me later on for lunch, the pleasant side of life! - We had delicious fish, yummy. Then Landfrau parked companion for a (two hour long - poor guy) coffee at our Italian coffee shop and dug head over heels into the big department store for "spring shopping", which is a real drag if you are not favoured with barbie doll measurements any more. In and out of booths and getting in and out of clothing wanted to make me shout :" there is no toilet paper in here" just for the sake of seeing what happens. But was not brave enough after all, well, finally found what I wanted and I am still happy with my prey even here at home. That will have to do for a while.

Birthday - and a Quiz

March 10/07

This charming little boy has his birthday today (has grown a bit in the meantime) - so, all the best and hopefully you will be a good uncle later on this year, and - here comes the quiz- what does that make Landfrau then same time??? (relatives excluded from the drawing for the winner).

A clue, little boy is a relative of mine!

And the winner gets, as usual ,choice of a personally addressed picture -post card. Take your choice, there are enough pics in my blog. GOOD LUCK!

Happy Birthday!

BIRTHDAY

March 7/07 2:45 p.m.

Two birthdays coming up, one of it starts with B - like blog - so, friends, family,fans and otherwise, start your collection, Landfrau wants a biig present! - little joke -
More about the birthdays in due time and also some very good news! So, stay put! - Vetured out today to see my dentist in the city, demonstration , so big traffic jam,two bridges closed, one I was about to cross, just one car left in front of me,when a nasty cop blocked the road. Had to circle back into unknown "fields", how I love that, feel like Hänsel and Gretel without breadcrumbs. Found my way home,sitting in several traffic jams,was not the only one,standing up the dentist. So, for another try tomorrow. -Right now on the verge to buy a vacuum cleaner called "cats and dogs" and hopefully that it might help to serve my "hairy" problems, if it sucks up cats and dogs, I don't want it.

Rising RHEIN

March 06/07 2:12 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

...and more rain to come. And you can see,where we usually walk,you really can get your feet wet.

Mean,mean moon!

March 04/07 5:05 p.m.

...or should I rather say: mean clouds. Anyway, we have not been lucky in this neck of the woods,should have looked like above,but...

let's try again next year! At least we did see some sun today, and father Rhine is testing it's limits, old rascal! Should have taken my camera, but there will be more,predictions are: rain,rain, so - no sunshine.

Moon

March 3/07 3:12 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

Will we see the NO MOON tonite? Or will this lousy rain kill it?

Honest boy

February 27/07 4:33 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

Overheard a lady scolding her little boy for calling a woman "alte Hexe" (old bitch comes close). You can not call a lady "alte Hexe" she said, and the honest anwer: why not? - By then eavesdropping Landfrau started to giggle and was promptly told by the aggravated mother to stop laughing. Well, asked her,if she would call me "alte Hexe" otherwise, which in turn made her start to laugh. Authority gone by then. Such is life.-

We are busy, arranging our various,little vaccations. You have to be an eager beaver about that, otherwise...zilch, or as we Germans say " Du guckst in die Röhre". -Right now weather pixies predictions are no asset!

Weekend,on the go

February 24/07 3:03 p.m.

Looking out of the window at :
white clouds,blue sky, our capped pine tree,bare neighbourhood trees and a fat pigeon.Saw the first "crocusse" today,taking my daily walks with Herr dog. -

Read in the blog diary of Nikolaus Piper,correspondent for "Süddeutsche Zeitung"in New York about a guide, called WICKED GERMAN FOR THE TRAVELLER. So, take notice, my English speaking friends:
Chapter SURVIVING THE AUTOBAHN:
Penalties for insulting other drivers,calling them: Damischer Bulle $ 2760
Knolle $ 425
Rchtfrtzlkraut, whatever this? is $ 100
For 99 cent you can say WICHTIGTUER twice.

And,as a weekend treat, some music samples from Sophie Auster , listen in, I think we will hear more of her in the near future!

Sliding Neighbour

February 23/07 650 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

Had been thinking only yesterday that nothing much is happening around here right now,well... this morning had been awakened by a phone call from our neighbours warning us, that it might get a little noisy. Turned out, their cat had gotten onto the roof and he (our neighbour) wanted to pick it up. But his wife also told me that she - in vain - tried to convince her husband not to climb onto the roof, too dangerous, but he would not listen. So she begged me to give it a try too. Since we have a big window out of our attic room, I could watch him climbing up onto the landing above the balcony,which is flat and actually the roof of the bedrooms up front. But kitty was sitting on the highest point on the sliding roof. Told our neighbour he should wait,since incidently the chimney sweeper had anounced himself to come in about 1/2 hour.But - he had deaf ears. So ,fascinated, I watched him lean the ladder onto the roof and start to climb up. He reached the cat allright, but when he picked it up, it started to wiggle, which in turn started to upset the ladder, which had no real support on the flat landing. And so both, cat and neighbour,started to slide down the roof on his belly, and boy, were they picking up speed! The last few meters he started rolling, still holding on to the cat and fortunately stopped inches before the final chute of about 5 meters.

And the only witness, Landfrau, almost died of a heart attack!
Later on neighbour phoned and said that his act would have made a nice movie. Chimney sweeper said the final fall might have made him a goner.

No more excitement today!

One more Goodie...

February 19/06 1:50 p.m.

...and then its finito with mardi gras - reports. Could not resist this duck! (Not a relative!)

And some more pictures

February 18/07 3:52 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

.....and..some are family!

The Big Parade!

February 18/07

Too bad, think the event is on the verge of getting out of hand,too many people, "giving" the drinks away is attracting the masses. Landfrau took flight, after strangers started to take over the bar,and cleaning the cups they might as well do by themselves then too. I hope that with those crowds milling around,no one walkes away with the "piggy bank". Well, not my concern.

Anyway, the pics give a picture!