the Spirit of Christmas

December 27/13...5:20 p.m

It is heartwarming to hear about stories like that in our times of consumption and greed. Just let the story put a smile on your face! 

http://www.news-record.com/news/article_c8f8f7a2-6e64-11e3-a7ec-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=jqm

Another Pre Xmas story

December 5 /13...6:42 p.m.

My Personal Xmas cookie trauma

I am not so fond of baking but Xmas cookie baking brings me  to the limit. It starts with having to "free" the kitchen table which takes about 20 min. ..and then the task finding my ingredients in my overstuffed cabinets. The hidden away ground almonds finally were found in the basement storage! this hunt took me another 20 min.,getting the rest of the stuff together another 10 and yippee...finally ready to start the dough. It burns me up to read stories about moms and kids doing cookie baking with red cheeks ,singing Xmas songs. Must be fairy tales..or lies! Mine always quit me after 5 min for watching tv and I will never forget that time when daughter no. 2 invited a friend for baking . After the usual limit of 5 minutes the whining for watching tv started and when I declined the guest kid bit my ass and in sequence I hit her. I must admit that it had been a reflex from the pain and I got absolution from the kids mom. So, you see, I am traumatized an I have a tremendous admiration for dedicated baking ladies....like for example #Lisa Cake Lady Stevens !

The Magic of X-mas

November 25/11...10:24 am



On Facebook, mostly among my U S friends, there is a (rather silly - if you ask me ) game going on. you are given a number and according to the number you have to answer questions about yourself. Well, I played along and one answer I came up with has been "I do not like Xmas". Actually I should have voiced it differently. I have lost my feeling for Xmas because I miss the magic of the Christmas of my childhood.  Christmas time had been covered with a sense of expectations, whispered secrets ,smells of baking of goodies hidden away and crisp cold and snowflakes outside. And oh, that day of X-mas eve when the doors to the locked up room were opened and the smell of burning wax candles and fresh green of the X-ms tree filled the house! - And that first moment of suspense if the wishes had been fulfilled! - 


I have lost that magic to a commercialized celebration where in vain I am looking for the spirit of X-mas

A Prank

November 1/13

...no,no, not Halloween, Herr H. is no doubt able to practice prancs without a given reason. 
Well, judge for yourselves. 

Around this time of the year my car needs a tire change and usually Herr H. takes my car to the service shop. Since he had taken another tumble the previousday I did not quite trust him with my little car. He always claims anyway that he can not drive it (not automatic and the pedals are too small  - which makes me remark that it is not a toy car, other adults drive it also ) - anyway, I took him along to pay at least the bill. The shop usually serves breakfast during waiting time, a nice service, along with morning papers, quite convinient! - So we sat down for our meal and Herr H. had to visit the bathroom. I had my coffee, a nice fresh roll with different things and had a nice chat with the counter guy. After a very long time my dear husband appeared, claiming that he was totally sweaty. It so had happened, that he ,always needing something to hold on to get off the seat, had grabbed the doorhandle which came off and he catapulted right back onto the seat and had himself locked in...door without handle! So he sat there and waited for help but no one showed up and with many efforts got the handle back into the door, he had to be very careful not to push it out on the other side, then he really would have been imprisoned.  You can imagine that I laughed me head off and he still complains up to today that I did not check on him.."There she sat,having leisurely breakfast not giving a damn that I did not show up" he keeps telling everyone. 

But the car had been ready by the time he showed up again.

Yesss...that's me!

september 18/13....11:10 a.m.

So hubby, alias Mr. H. has the habit of dropping his med pills in the bathroom..and not picking them up..grrrrr! and stupid me, after having dropped one of mine picking it up and swallowing it, as if I did not have my own, which I found after it has been too late. and with the variety he drops, I do not even know what I gobbled up! now I am awaiting my doom. yours truly......:(((

An Apple A Day...

September 2/13.....10:45 a.m.

.....keeps the doctor away. Only there is a problem, neither do I like apples nor doctors.

My doc, for example, is in love with his longterm bloodpressure device. Take what you want what I tell him bothers me, his answer: we have to take your longterm bloodpressure. Now,I have been asking,begging, short off rolling on the floor that my bloodpressure is completely o.k. that I take it regularily etc.etc, nooo...I walk out of his office equipped with that hate device. A while ago he took blood samples for every ailment ,like my foot hurts...bloodsample - I have a sore throat....bloodsample. Now I see some reason in that, but still....
I think I have to get myself to like apples and shove all doctors!

BIKEDAY

August 20/13....6.00 p.m.

It is one of those days that I have the feeling to explode if I do no leave the house somehow.Well, there also is a necessitity of bread and oranges. I like it,if I have a destination ,even if it is only our boring little village. Always enjoy it when Ann is around at the veggie shop ,she is from GB and a friend of my daughter Gisa. She is always so overjoyed to see me, hugs and talks no end about nothing. Very refreshing!  Bought a piece of prune cake for Herr H. and my Laugencroissant for tomorrow morning's breakfast, a sin I know, but what the heck, you live but once. Since I had already been on my hate bike this morning, the one without the E (el.motor)  I think I could afford a treat. On my ride this morning I passed the Fährhaus, that place has been empty now all summer, such a shame for this great location right at the riverbanks, with its's garden restaurant, we so enjoyed going there for lunch spontaneously. Now only the fancy hotel Vier Jahreszeiten is left which has not the right choice of food for our taste.  Riding on the levee you can watch very nicely the old villas being torn down in big properties and new glasspalaces being put up. In a way a shame. I do not like it,when the old surroundings vanish.  A wide net of bridle paths has been set up where we used to ride in the wild, but at least the river is the same and the ferry is still running from shore to shore. The weather has a touch of autumn already and sitting outside in the evening you can forget about. All fitting for my blue day today.

Try to be back ( more)

August 12/13...10:55 a.m


this fb communication is just playing up to my laziness. planing on digging more into my blog again, which somehow I find more rewarding. but it takes more efforts. on the other hand, have done it before. or does "old age" also take its toll here? I am contemplating....

that's my life!

July 8/13

...6:49 a.m.

MOTHER'S DAY

May 12/13....10:00 a.m.

We stole lilac which grew wild alongside the military baracks, we bought an awful glassbowl which Mom had to rejoyce about (and later hid in the cabinet ) and we prepared breakfast with burned toast and hardboiled eggs....poor mom! - lol

A somewhat unusual travel report

April 21/13...     6:23 p.m.

A SOMEWHAT UNUSUAL TRAVEL REPORT

dreamview at Paradise Point

I like to fly, once you made it into the plane, mind you, but after 3 hours I turn into a whining kid – are we not there yet? – well…

Atlanta airport is the airport of the long,long ways and the fast black girls pushing Fred’s wheelchair. Beats me, the young lady had been twice my size but 3 times faster! Mr. H. of course is sitting in his wheelchair like the VIP he is and me, I am trailing equipped with 2 jackets,two carry ons and a waterbottle, upon which I finally sat on the boat proudly presenting wet pants from then on. Great!

We arrived in Florida- Ft.Lauderdale in pouring rain Thursday afternoon and had the luck to find again (always seem to happen to us) the dumbest taxidriver around who did not know this really big hotel at the beachside and kept asking us for the address. As if we knew. Cooling down my thickly feet in the sea at the beach had not been possible, sky and sea purest black. Check-in aboard our vessel the next morning and security were a scream, much sterner than at immigration,which I found astonishingly friendly. But that had been maybe thanks to our “push girl” a real sunshine! In our cabin we found the electric wheelchair as ordered but no gala dinner outfit for F. Our friendly steward came up with the clothes later but unfortunately Herr Husband did not have the athletic shoulders to fit in. So we got one size smaller, which showed a little tight around the waist, will move the button a little later on. Last nite dress code had been smart casual, tonite wil be formal but we will dine at the Tuscon Grille, also dressed up. The staff is friendly all over and the passengers are a mixed crowd. To watch people is fun. We are sitting on our balcony, sun is absent but it is warm. I always have to giggle when I think of my friend Charly who just recently took a cruise and one of his hints had been – do not stick to your cabin all the time, there is much to see on the ship, mix! – hmmm…Charly!

Summing up Saturday April 6 – 1st day at sea….



St. Thomas

Trying to get familiar with the ship, gotten lost at least 3 times, the wrong steward started to call me by name, drank 2 fruitpunch, almost drunk, thought there had been no alcohol in ! And then, while dressing for dinner, I broke out into a terrific sun allergy even if I had not been frying in the sun! charming! Good thing, that the Tuscon Grille and bar had dimmed lights. Must be the long, nasty winter which made me sensitive like Dracula’s sister. The southafrican waitress had been a darling and so attractive! Herr H. is trying hard to destroy the ship with his wheelchair, first he ripped the bed from the wall, not so easy that, because he claimed the extensions cord for loading was not long enough – of course it was – then he performed his master stunt., he rammed the restaurant table and everything, glasses,dishes cutlery fell over and downs and the very decorative balsamico-oliveoil bottle crashed against the picture window. The stuff running down the glass and the broken pieces all over the place. We had to move untill our place had been cleaned up again. All the culprit had to say that he did not do it by purpose. Well,that really would have been it!. And coming out of ther elevator on the way to our cabin he rammed a pillar because he had to turn around. The music plays up front,mister! Then I had a laughing fit, in the restaurant I had been pretty pissed off. –

So, today,Sunday sunscreen 50 will go on my skin, sun or no sun. We are just landing at Basseterre/St.Kitts . It is Tuesday (the day my friend Arthur would have been looking for us at St.Thomas) April 9 and in a little while our nice cabin steward will bring our breakfast to our balcony and then we are off to hit the sugar train. About yesterday and day before I will talk later, now we watch the docking!

So, back aboard, minus driver’s licence Mr. Schultze, that he lost. Basseterre railway tour had been interesting, all those waving people at the side of the tracks gave us the impression that this had been organized. Today even number houses have to wave, tomorrow the uneven ones. The little village I liked more than Charlotte Amalie where we took an unvoluntary island tour. Actually we only wanted to take only a tour of the place, because our date Arthur did not show up and he wanted to be our guide. Turned out he had mixed up the day and the fellow at the security gate from the ship had added to the confusion. Since I asked him for help because I could not quite figure out Arthur’s answering machine, he told me I had the wrong number. As it turned out he had told Arthur that there were 2 passengers waiting for him at the pier and Arthur told him that he had ordered no packages and that must be a wrong number. As I always say – shit happens – and we finally managed to get together after all but then we had only about 2 hours left. So Arthur took us up by car to Paradise Point where also a cable car is running . He invited us to drinks and time passed too fast with getting to know each other. There had been sympathy from both sides and I had the feeling we knew each other for ages. And the view from Paradise Point had been fabulous!

So now it is Arthurs’ turn to let us show him our sights whenever he takes his trip to Paris sometime in the future.

Today we had our first tropical rain, like a warm shower it was.

Wednesday April 10

….took us to Barbados, very exciting, since we wanted to organize our own tour and I played my hamster in the wheel role to find a wheelchair somewhere for F. to get him from the shuttle to a taxi. Wow…It turned out that the el.wheelchair was good aboard but rather useless ashore, because it had not been foldable and we could not take it along this way. But our taxitour which we shared with another couple had been a success, alone from the aspect of getting to know the scenery of island life for a bit. St.John’s Church, presumably the oldest catholic church upon the islands, was impressive, especially the spooky tombs.

Thursday April 11

…led us to Dominica, the most tropic of the islands. It had been quite humid and warm of course and we decided to organize us again ourselves. Our guide, Danny suggested that we visit the Jacko Falls, which Fred could also reach by walking a few paces. This time we had taken the electric wheelchair along – bummer – useless on the terrain. Now this had been real rainforrest and we have seen our first banana plantation and I had been so astonished that Ananas grows on the ground, I had figured them growing on trees. In the evening we skipped dinner and rather watched the beautiful sunset and took a snack from the buffet which we had on the outside part of the restaurant.

Now, Friday, 12th of April gave us a beach day at Palm Beach on St. Maarten including a lousy B-B-Q at the French part of the island. The other half is Dutch. I never thought that surf can pull your feet away like that and I really hit my knee on the ground. The bad one at that. Must say that we are still learnable and therefore we took a shipside owned wheelchair along and I pushed. Of course I did everything wrong and had a very unsatisfied passenger. Our busguide had been a Texan, he was funny and helpfull - unfortunately somewhat fast in speech. His favoured words had been cool and uncool. St. Maarten seemed very clean but the island had suffered heavily from hurricanes.

Well, another two days at sea and then again Ft. Lauderdale, there we took a tour aboard the Jungle Queen through the canal region and I finally managed to get a sunburn ,well shit! And Herr H. spilled bloody Mary onto the brightwhite tablecloth in the restaurant. – end of mischief!

To top it off, never saw so many fat people like aboard and have not walked such long distances since we sent Shaylor dog to dog’s heaven.

Do not give up!

April 21/2013 

 yep, it's me..alive and kicking, back from a great trip to the Caribean Islands! report coming up asap - do not despair, my

few faithfull friends I have left! ;)

HANS IN LUCK - Hans im Glück

November 6/12 ...4:04 p.m.

Hans im Glück....
 a fairytale about a guy who has lots and comes out with nothing, only he is happy about it but I am not, imitating him. To start with, my car broke down and the repairshop is offering a lineup of about 2 weeks. So, if the weather plays along, I take the E-bike for my reduced shopping. Could also take hubby's car, but  I won't (but that is another story). Now today- sun shining - I took off to do some errands. First to my farmshop on the road,to get some fresh eggs and since the shop closes during lunchtime I told the lady to just put them in front of the door,would pick them up on my way back home. Went to the bakery and then to the supermarket where my car had broken down entering the parking lot, this nightmare still gives me gooseflesh. Anyway,did my shopping and loaded my basket on the bike, wanted to start off and..... woom...the baket came off, all my purchases spilled on the sidewalk. Fazit - bottle of red wine broken, everything soaked with red wine. Pixcked my stuff up, stowed it again, did some swearing under my breath and tried to get on my bike and...woom, everything on the ground again. Now, I have made shopping trips with same bike and basket a dozen times and nothing ever happened, I was really flabbergasted. This time my loss had been the milkbox,which broke and leaked. So I stowed it upright and took off to the farm, where I picked up my eggs. Fortunately the lady had put the carton into a plastic bag, so I changed eggs out of and redwine soaked flowerpackage into plastic bag. Mind you, I did a lot of logistics, rearranging all my milk and wine wet purchases. What really amazed me had been a glas jar of chickenbroth which had survived two crashes. For a few hundred meters I have to cross a little forrest and there, right in the middle, a truck blocked the way. Remembering my bike accident 2 years ago I decided to get off the bike and push it by the truck and you will not believe it, my basket slipped off the 3rd time. Actually I was about to yell at the truckdriver, but then the guy had been so nice and helpful and picked up all my remains, because that is what you could call them now. From the dozen eggs 2 broke, there was more spilled milk, my bread and croissants were kind of soggy by now  and to top it all off the truckdriver picked up the plastic cap of the milkcarton and threw it into the bushes. Fortunately I recovered it.  So I stowed my remains for the 3rd time, and then I discovered that I had forgotten to fix the spring which holds the basket onto its carrrier. That had been the reason it slipped all the time. But the jar with the broth rolled around like a bowling ball for a dozen meters and did not break. The label is somewhat dirty though.

My Minniemouse Cup

September 14/2012.....  9:32h

Now here I am again, after a very long time - it is not my fault,believe me, blame facebook which keeps me so occupied and darn...I can not resist! - But now to my story, another one about Herr H., he is my favoured victim, now that Herr Hund only plays his pranks in dog' s heaven.
- So I have this favoured minniemouse cup, gifted with by grandson ages ago after his visit to Disneyland Paris with grandpa. I just love to have my morning milkcoffee out of it. And what happened? I opened the dishwasher and there it was, minus handle. It had come off very neatly.
I had been heartbroken, mind you! showed it to Herrn  H and he suggested I glue it on. That' s what I did and I used that very strong glue,which you never get off your fingers when you are not careful. Set the cup aside for drying. Last nite Herr H  decided to fix himself a cup of tea (very seldom he manages something like that by himself - lol ) and told me very much later of his achievment and that his fingers were full of glue. Now then my mouth dropped open because of all the cups we have sitting around he had to take the glued one which he even knew about being broken. Imagine the handle would have come off again, he really could have scalded himself with the boiling hot tea!  Well, he was lucky that the handle stuck and was pissed off about me laughing so hard about the glue on his fingers. Said that I would not get a good night kiss! - I survived that!

Blame it on the iPad!

June 24/2012.......1:20 p.m.

My overall blogging laziness!  Or maybe it is, that I have not so much to say anymore, my creativity seems to dwindle with progressing age. Also I lost my foremost blogging victim - Herr Hund! He alsways had been good for a story. And Herr Husband does not seem to get himself into mischief so much anymore since...well, I better be quiet und nice! -
But there is something I have to tell you. Fascinating! A few days ago I had been out on our balcony, enjoying the tiny glimpse we have from up there upon the river. Suddenly a bird riot broke loose and a buzzard almost hit my head. He was chased by two blackbirds. They have young ones which start to leave the nest right now and maybe that is what made them so agressive. Anyway, why the buzzard had been so immobile was that he carried a rabbit and then he dropped it - smack - into our driveway onto the car of Herr H.  Fortunately it had been a very tiny,soft one,but without head!  ugh!  I gave it a garbage bin burial and the next day it was joined by one of the tiny birds,which I  found also in our driveway. Our driveway seems to be an assembly place  for dead creatures, once it had been rats, that had been at the time our neighbouring farmer still had been raising pigs. Now the farmer couple is dead and the place has been sold and the new owner is turning it into very fancy living quarters. I prefer that, although our next door neighbour claims that now our houses will look like domestics quarters. We told her that our new neighbour might supply us with look alike worksuits with his name on the back. hahaha...

Now we have to see how we get over this rainy sunday, last evening it had been so nice for a change that we put up the grill and had a perfect barbeque dinner outside. Today no biketour and no icecream run but this way you are in luck for a post.  So hope for more rain, friends. JUST KIDDING!

SENIOR MOMENTS

May 6/2012....1:00 p.m.

....We have them and we live with them, one of the unpleasanteries of getting older. But sometimes they are downright funny - like this one:
We had been visiting with our young family in Hungen the previous weekend and as it happened, there had been this may festivity in Kindergarten.  Of course our little one, 4 years old, had been very excited and from the time we arrived talked about us coming along to see her performing the "fire dance".  We wanted first to check into our little country inn,a few miles from their home where we usually stay ,and unpack our bags, and..tough luck...arrived at the kindergarten too late. The fire dance had been over and our little actress had missed her stage show. Sobbing and throwing a temperfit (understandable) grandpa tried to comfort her, telling her that there would be another performance an hour later, which then we would watch etc. etc. 
 Only the kid had not been bawling, instead looking at him with big round eyes and me standing next to the scene had a terrible laughing fit, trying in vain to stop him from talking down the wrong kid. And you should have seen the face of the kid's father, he must have been thinking his kid ran into a "good uncle" and was about to grab grandpa by the neck. Only seeing my laughing efforts to try to stop grandpa made him realize what happened and he joined me laughing and grandpa finally caught on and let go of the wrong kid,claiming that wearing the same cap they all looked alike.

And,by the way, we watched our little star perform the "fire dance" and her little world had been set straight again.

SO SAD

March 21/12.....17:01 p.m.

We had sad news today. Our friends inVancouver told us, that a mutual friend, Jack Gemmel , had died.  He has no family left,so there will be just a memorial get- together in the Yachtclub where we all had been members and sailing buddies. We can not take part,so I thought I give Jack this post. He had been a great guy and fate did not mean well with him. He went blind years ago, so he could not be a captain anymore, sailing big ships across the oceans.
R.I.P. Jack and keep sailing on, wherever you are!

Plitsch-Platsch - I'm taking a Bath....

March 14/12....3:50 p.m.

No, no, not me, I prefer a shower!  So does Herr Husband, but once a while he thinks he should take a bath , not in the tub, mind you, he chooses our little pond. Fortunately the fish are goners since the heron gobbled them up a year ago, otherwise now they would have died of a heart attack when this big whale dived in. No kidding, I thought that would have been impossible for a grown up, but he almost managed to drown himself.  He, who never lifts a finger, suddenly decided to fill up the pond. Result: he stumbled and fell head over heels into the puddle,taking along an abundance of rocks decorating the edge. And since he hardly is able to get out of a chair by himself, he was lost and me being upstairs in the house only heard his cries for help after a while. Fortunately I had been around or he still would be lying about. He had been lucky that he touched ground with his arm, otherwise he might have managed to get his head under water.  I do not know if pleading not guilty would have helped me during an investigation. O.K.after I stopped laughing we tried to get him into an upright position which had been a hell of an effort. 

The victim lost some fingernails and had some bruises and a stiff neck, the helper had a tummy ache from laughing.

and next winter I will put up a sign: NO WALKING ON ICE!

Give it a Try

March 3/12....5:00 p.m
I know, I know, have been absent too long, somehow I seem to suffer from a kind of writer's block or I am spending,or should I say wasting, all my wisdom on facebook and twitter. Not that I have to say much there either, but talking with a feedback somehow makes it easier.
No funny family stories either and Herr Husband lost his ability to act as my object of fun. o.k. to be honest, the incidents which make me laugh I can not write about, they belong into the privacy corner.   And Herr Hund, who always had been good fo a fun tale, is wagging his tail on that big meadow behind the rainbow. It has been over a year now that he left us, but I still miss the rascal, to be honest not the walks in the cold and the rain. Took the bike today to give it a go against the wind, not excactly a fun ride, but at least my bad concience will keep it's mouth shut at tonite's pizza battle. Gave Herr H. the choice between veggie or pizza dinner...pizza it is. 

Somehow it is amazing how I can go on babbling about nothing, an art in itself - three cheers for Landfrau! So now I will top off my "having nothing to say" with some beautiful flowers, still sitting on our dining room table and evaporating a hint of spring.

Yesterday....

February 11/12........6:45 p.m.

....all my troubles seemed so far away....when I come to the ferry landing,somehow that song always, or mostly, crosses my mind and I remember the times when I had passed that place almost every day with my faithfull companions, dog Shaylor (called Herr Hund) and horse Lander,  who by now are waiting for me on that big meadow behind the rainbow. There still is a twist to my inner self when memory catches up with me, but then I try to be realistic,nice times have been nice times and there is a time and a place for everything. Everything right now is not such a piece of pie and this darn cold weather we are having does not help. I think we are into a new ice age like we have had in the middle ages and it is said that bursting vulcanos might have something to do with it. And we had that big fellow Eyjafjallajökull acting up two years ago  in spring. Whatever, we can not do anything about it, or at least not much. - I am looking forward to warmer weather, where I can take out my bike again, miss that too, big walks are  not so in favour with me anymore since I have that damaged knee from my bike accident in November 2010. - Oh man,it seems, I am turning into a whine winnie, what a drag.
 Should talk a litte bit about Daetti again, remember,my iPad, which has turned itself into almost a person somehow, but I sneakily try to get the upper had and its about 50:50 by now. Only writing posts I have not ventured into, well, I tried, but it has been a poor effort.

there is ice on the edge of the river



fancy hotel at the ferry landing



..and this has been summertime and has been....

So, friends, you see, I am still around, have a look once a while, I might have been here!