And The Fur Flies…

Things are a bit off schedule over here in Nberg. I got the news last week that a deadline that has been moved 5 weeks forward. This means there’s a grindstone over here and my nose is not far from it. Looking in my WordPress account you’d see ‘Draft’, ‘Draft’, ‘Draft’. There’s stuff to say, but I first have to say it for the guy that pays me.

Meanwhile the cats are amusing themselves, perhaps a wee bit too much.

Scarlett is in heat.

It’s not going to get very far with Fergus, but not for a lack of trying. We keep discovering them in rooms doing things that are comical, if not productive. The best one so far is the one where she lays on her side, purring and cooing and he stands on top of her and does this dance by stepping from one paw to the other, his full weight pressing down. Fergus is about four times her body weight but she doesn’t seem to care right now. He seems to know that these are stolen moments because every time we come across them he gives us this guilt-ridden furtive look, wracking his brain for alibis.

Then there’s the chasing and tussling about. The fur is literally flying. At first I couldn’t understand why all of a sudden there were clouds and tumbleweeds of hair everywhere. Then I realized that the all night flirt sessions have consequences. Scarlett has noticeable hair loss on her belly, probably from his step dance.

Yesterday, I did an online research on Roombas.

Life List – Not checked yet, but on its way

To Do (in) Life List Item #43. Move beyond the ponytail; Master 5 styles for my hair

When making up my List of Things To Do Before I’m Too Old, I realized that, although it’s been dyed, curled and straightened, I don’t think I can claim to have ever bothered to style my hair in anything but a ponytail. Other than the occasional professionally-done up-do at like, my wedding (skipped prom), that has been it.

Until last Wednesday.

Wait! Before I get to that – my pictures are all in America – you’ll just have to imagine the route that got me here:

Childhood – A massive braided ponytail. Worn every day. Heavy like a horse’s tail, it stung just as badly when wielded as a weapon. Also, bangs.

Freshman year –  Quickly learned that a dorky white  girl cannot wear a red bandanna headband in an inner city school without a WHOLE LOT of negative attention. Otherwise smoothly transitioned to wearing it down. Also, somehow avoided the Big Bang phenomenon of late early 90’s.

Sophomore year – Waves just all of a sudden turned into real curls. I also went freakishly prematurely grey. Very grey.

Remaining high school years – Mostly spent learning to deal with the curls and how to cover the greys. Also, discovered scrunchies.

College – Got up extra early, every morning, to wash and dry my hair into my Julia-Roberts-Mass-of-Curls that had to be just so for me to have a good day.

First Job –  San Francisco + the fog = Back to braids and ponytails. Hair now 75% grey = Dyeing is a way of life.

Germany – After a brief relapse into curls that were accidentally dyed black though a cultural misunderstanding with a Spanish hairstylist and the meaning of the words “not blond”, the  pony tail pretty much became a fixture.

As I said, until last Wednesday.

Here's me before, heading out to the salon.

This is me hoping this isn't a huge mistake.

This is me right afterwards, at a friend's apartment.

The reaction so far: My friends’ four-year old greeted me with polite distance, quickly excused himself and went to bed having no idea who I was. My husband keeps doing double-takes. A large portion of Thursday was spent being approached by co-workers who hadn’t recognized me and thought someone else had snatched my office. It’s like I’ve joined the witness protection program.

I still have to figure out four other things to do with it, but there you are, my new haircut and the first of five new styles.

I think I like it.

I say I have officially moved beyond the ponytail.

Kitten Update – We’re Making Progress

She's quite the lady next to him.

At the close of week three with a new cat in the household, things are finally settling down. Here’s a list of updates:

She’s not pregnant, just prone to chubbiness

It appears we've dodged the bullet.

Scarlett looks like she will be a dainty little cat, but she’s got a street urchin’s appetite, so we’re gonna have to watch her. The belly grows depending on what she’s able to stuff in there, so we’re pretty sure there isn’t any other trouble brewing.

Drugs are bad

No feel gud. Go way.

The worms meds we gave her were like kitten drano and wiped her digestive tract out of commission for two weeks. The first week she was really suffering and needed a lot of looking after. Now after two weeks of shots and digestive flora supplements, she’s bounced back and pooping like a champion.

Fergus wants to eat her or…um…well

They're not yet ready to cuddle, but I keep hoping.

Just like with the last little one in the household, Fergus could barely contain himself from licking and chomping on the kitten like he was trying to get to the chewy center of a Tootsie Pop. Also, he seems to notice this one is female. This make us uncomfortable sometimes, we’d like to think they could develop a family bond…but either it’s more of a backcountry one or he’s trying to be that creepy uncle in every family whose lap you know better than to sit on.

Apparently she's delicious.

He’s fixed, and she will be soon, so nothing can happen – and really nothing does – and it seems to be tapering off, we hope.

This is as close as they've come to co-sleeping.

Fergus loves his bag again

He’s way too small for it, but ever since I started transporting Scarlett to the doctor in it, Fergus has been taking every opportunity to snooze in his old bag and keep her out of it. It seems unfair to stick him in plastic crate and let her travel in style. I will now have to get around to getting him a new one.

Iz mein, U cant havvit.

Squirrel!?!

And for the Google image surfers coming over on kitten searches, may I suggets these sites:

Cutestkittenever

Daily Kitten

Sleepy Kittens (it’s a photo-song-montage)

And…CuteOverLoad Kittens!

Now go waste your Friday somewhere else.

Life List – Let’s Tackle a Big One First

To Do (in) Life List Item # 19. Own real estate

√ Check.

Our Christmas present came early this year.

A few months back when I started putting together my Life “To Do” List, I included this one almost as an after-thought. As an kid from a from a middle class American family, this step was just assumed. A lot has changed since I left California and now these predictions about our generation not achieving the same life style as our parents are really starting to hit home. I wasn’t as shocked as some at the outcome of last years’ crisis, in part because I’d already accepted that I had set myself back more than just a few years by moving abroad and starting over from scratch. But I still figured I was bound to get there someday.

Over here in Germany it’s also a bit different. The German version of “The Dream” is to build a house, plant a tree, have a stammtisch and sire a son. But also prominent is the idea that you might skip the whole home-ownership thing and rent your whole life. In fact, in the major cities it’s usually more expensive to own and live in your own home vs renting.

In our case, what has really stood between us and owning an apartment though has been the uncertainty of where we’ll be in 18 months. Financial issues aside, it just hasn’t seemed worth it to go to all that trouble for something we would have to turn around and sell in a few years.

The Carinthian mountains and valley, and the Slovenian and Italian Alps.

Then it finally dawned on us: We do know where we’ll be, at least twice a year, on vacation. In Austria, tucked away in Carinthia is an alp with a little local ski resort where Oliver’s family has been vacationing for over 35 years. Their small apartment, about a 3.5 hour drive from Munich, was our escape whenever we needed some roommate-free time alone. It was where he took me, straight from the airport, when I arrived for my first visit*.

There it is!

The idea finally occurred to us when we were listening to a friend, in a similar situation, who had just shelved house-hunting in favor of renting, choosing instead to invest in a vacation apartment. With his family growing (at last count, three kids), they were facing significantly increased travel costs just to take a weekend vacation. When they learned their favorite hotel was building bungalows, they jumped at the opportunity to buy one. The hotel would even rent and service the apartment when they weren’t there, allowing them to offset a lot of the costs.

That turned the lightbulb on over our heads.

Happy Friday

If you have seven minutes and either some headphones or an office mate who doesn’t mind, this virtual ride down San Francisco’s Market street is a ride worth taking. The video, shot from a streetcar in 1905 (before the quake), takes you down towards the Ferry Building and captures all the quirky driving and pedestrian antics of the time. Be sure to listen to the music too.

Enjoy.

(thanks to sfgirlbythebay for the link)

Kitten update – Not so fast

We had a few bumps in the road today on the road to Well-ville for Scarlett, although it looks like things will be ok. I’m very sensitive to not overdoing it with the cat talk here. With home office half the week meaning I spend even less time around the two-leggeds, I get a little paranoid that I could turn into a crazy cat lady. I certainly talk to them more often now that I’m home so much, but you know…we’ve grown so close, I feel they really understand me.

You know what I mean? Fergus? Are you reading? Toss me a comment now and then!

But seriously, aside from my occasional concern about my sanity, the cats are benefiting by my presence.

Joy of Painting – Bavaria Style

People back home just don’t have any idea about the Bob Ross phenomenon in Germany. Those who are my age and a bit older will remember coming across him on public television when they were probably trolling hopefully for Sesame Street. Like me they discovered the mesmerizing qualities of his voice and manner.  There was an attraction about him that’s hard to put a finger on, but he drew you in. He was catchy.

He’s not quite the equivalent of what Jerry Lewis is to the French, but Bob is a well-loved cultural icon over here. This is evidenced by this clip I stumbled across on youtube.

Without further ado, here is Bob Ross explaining the basics of Bavaria. Take it away Bob!

Life List – Or – How I plan to learn how to properly prepare an artichoke before I die

It’s easy to drift into a daily routine where the furthest you look ahead is the next week or upcoming vacation. All too often I’ve heard myself saying that I have to do/try something “sometime” and then make no effort or plans to actually go that restaurant, see that town, do that thing.

I realized lately that I was being too relaxed about making plans and I needed a way to remind myself to do more than think about something. I’ve been tinkering with a master “to do” list of sorts for a few months. This is not a new idea; there are some good examples of people doing this online, my favorite though is this one.

I floated the idea past Oliver (my husband who is so organized that I almost expected that he already had a list hidden away somewhere, quietly ticking items off this whole time). He liked it and wanted to do it too. We put our heads together one night and came up with our own rules and lists. We’ll see how good we are at working through them.

Here’s my take on it: Life List. Bucket List. Whatever you want to call it. For me it’s My Big To Do List, a working list of things I want to achieve in my life going forward. Some goals are really big and some are more like tasks or activities, either way, they all fall under the category of things I want to do before I’m dead.

Here are our Rules: The goal is to always have goals, and to always work towards achieving them. The number of goals on the list should be kept at 100, so choices should be considered with care. Once on the list, the goal stays on until achieved. A new one can be added only when one has been crossed off. No cancellations unless it is no longer humanly possible.

Aim for a good balance of short and long term goals – aim low and high, both big and small – too many of one or the other will ruin the fun.

Oh, and have fun.

I’ve parked my list in the menu above. You can click on this link to have a look. Anyone else working on good resolutions or To Do lists this year?

These Walls Can Talk

My (usually) quiet bachelor neighbor is having a dinner party. It’s 1 am and a round of slightly wobbly male voices just belted out “Country Road” and now they’re tearing into “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”.

That the walls of the building are that thin is good to know…sorta wish I’d known a bit sooner. Definitely going to watch my enthusiastic vocalizations during the home movie bloopers show. There’s potential for all kinds of misunderstandings.

Oh…is it Raining Men? Hallelujah.

**Update – Sunday he came to the door with chocolates and an apology for being loud, explaining that his friends were helping him “break in his Wii”. A few years ago I would have understood that completely differently.**

Kitten Update – Test passed

Little Scarlett has passed her blood tests with flying colors. No major communicable diseases means I can introduce her to our cat Fergus.

This is a relief. Each night Fergus has been trying out a new love song on her to try and get her to come and play. This has meant many interruptions in our sleep patterns for the past week.

These last few nights have found him shut in the living room, two doors away. I can’t hear him, but I bet the neighbors can.

Ideally I’d prefer to wait until the worming meds have taken effect to prevent another incident like the last time we brought a kitten with baggage into our home. But although little Scarlett has dutifully been gobbling her doses coated in leberwürst, Fergus is a tougher case. He’s never been a friend to pills and has never been one to be easily fooled by bribes or slight of hand. A pill is a pill even when crushed and mixed with otherwise yummy stuff and he’s having none of it.