Monthly Archive: February 2005

My father’s: a lion-headed meerschaum pipe, tinged a warm golden brown, nestled in the velvet lining of a worn black leather pipe-shaped case. His father’s: a photo of himself as a small child in a white smock sitting astride a tall black ostrich, reins in hand, one small foot dangling. His mother’s: a snub-footed footstool, rounded in beige plush, a needlepoint bouquet in muted colors centered for resting feet. Her mother’s: a large tarnished silver brooch, its circled edge framing a standing waterbird with one wing raised, a smaller bird crouching beneath. My mother’s: a doll-sized china teapot, teacup and...

My son is a snaggletooth boy these days. His adult teeth are coming in with a vengeance, both top and bottom, pushing his tiny, pearly baby teeth willy-nilly about in his mouth. They lean drunkenly against each other, waggling at the touch of a tongue or a probing finger, the gaps between them widening and narrowing with each wiggled test. He actually brushed one out the other night, while preparing for bed, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent it washing down the drain of the sink, so the tooth fairy was forced to go home empty-handed after dropping her bright...

Next year, do not go on vacation the week before the biggest trade show of the year and the week before 4 major publications need to go to print. 11-hour day today. I am totally beat. Expat Bloggers in the News! Blogging’s Cure For the Expat Blues (thanks for the link studiozoe…can I say I knew you when?)

I have now had a mountain fix. Mountains AND snow to be exact. The snow in Bavaria is so SNOWY. It’s 2 feet, nay, 3 feet deep and white white white WHITE. It’s fluffinated, caked on candy coating, sugar puff loveliness. And there are fairytale castles there, and mountains. O mountains! covered in conifers and frost-blasted, fog-sweatered trees. We spent the last day of our vacation frantically whisking ourselves around and about because 4 days of foot-pain-induced relative immobility gets old SO damn fast and I was determined to get out of the house at least one day and see...

I can walk! Well, I can hobble! Without a crutch, even, if I take it slow. Although, using one crutch helps a lot. My entire right heel and the top of my foot are a delicate cyan blue, and I´m filled with cabin fever after having been mostly prone for the last 4 days. Everyone else has been skiing every day since Sunday, and today John and Anders went to St. Anton in Austria, leaving me homebound with the kids. Simone is at work, but gets home early today. Vacation is really boring when you can´t get out of the...

2 hours sitting on the runway, in the very last seats which were right next to the constant engine running and didn´t recline, plus 1.5 flight, plus no wheelchair to meet me when departing, meaning I had to hobble UP a long ramp and down a hall, while my hip and butt cramped and my leg threatened to collapse under me to where the cart was waiting, plus a 2 hour drive through the snow-covered landscape and darkness, plus getting lost in Füssen because we couldn´t read the poorly-lit roadsigns and having no access on the mobile phones, and finally...

Look at this! Love is in the air! It’s everywhere! And it’s WONDERFUL! Really Great LOVE Writing Out There Right Now: My Heart Wears a Letterman Sweater The Birthday Boy Love Letter Who do you love? Why don’cha tell me about it? Anders is picking me up in about 15 minutes, with sushi in hand,* and we are going to get the kids, go home, pack the car, eat dinner, and head on out. The weather could be better for flying, but my foot doesn’t hurt too much when I press down on it now. And I get to ride...

Crazy busy at work. Crazy stupid crutch-filled whining ouchness at home. Packing. Leaving tomorrow. You all deserve better.

Stayed home from work for my first post-accident day after discovering that 1) painkillers with red triangles on the package taken the night before make me nauseous and dizzy the next morning, and 2) #@!$%!! crutches! I can’t manage these stupid things at all. I’m more crippled than a one-legged grasshopper in a 3-legged race. The crutches, which, I might add, are now MINE to keep, thanks to a medical system that apparently thinks no one will be bothered to return them and which charges only 75 kronor a piece for them, are not the old-fashioned wooden, rubber-padded, under the...

The Good: My boss called me today and let me know that she’s so happy with my work that she has changed my status to a permanent position, cutting my trial period short by 2 months. 🙂 The Bad: I slipped on a flight of stairs this afternoon on the way out of a store entrance, and landed so badly that I ended up spending 4 hours in the emergency room this evening and came home with a diagnosis of severely sprained foot and badly bruised heel. The Ugly: Crutches and bandages for 2 weeks, and I HAVE to work...