Sick Day

My daughter has been sick with a cough and cold for the past week. Then last night my husband started with the waah waaah waah - my throat hurts.

I was all prepared to give up my important Monday activities in order to dote on my poor ailing family by cooking homemade chicken soup, brewing special healthy teas, distributing tissues and trash cans around the house, filling up water glasses and handing out meds.

However, I decided suddenly came down with a stomach ache. Man, I was so looking forward to spending my day in the kitchen, cleaning up after everyone, picking up the used, wet tissues from all over the house.

Instead I had to lay on the sofa,playing working on my computer while catching up on some of the important movies I had saved and occasionally holding my stomach.

Then, my husband woke me up in the middle of the night (okay it was 6 am, but it seemed like the middle of the night) with his sore throat noises and his frail voice complaining, 'I can't sleep, my throat hurts.'

Finally, after I realized I wasn't going to get back to sleep with all those noises, I offered to make him a cup of tea. Then comes the whiny, 'ok.'

He's the one who can't sleep - I could sleep fine, but I have to get up out of my oh-so-comfy bed and make him a cup of tea. While he lays there doing nothing - wide awake!

When it's all done and I'm snuggled back in the covers, he wakes me up again. Spoken in a frail and whiny voice, "Can you take the tea bag out for me?"

Me: "What?!?!! Why can't you remove your own tea bag?"

Him: "It hurts to move."

I won't go into the - God was smart when he gave the childbirth thing to women. You guys would never make it through the first cramp! I won't go into what babies men are when they get a little sick and how the mommy always has to still 'do stuff' whether or not she's sick. I won't get into any of that. I'll take the high road here.

I'll just give up. I'll just forget about my 'tummy ache' and be the nurse.

Late for church - again

This morning my daughter wanted to get to church early to show off her outfit. Being the devout parents that we are, we allowed her the opportunity to turn her church experience into a social opportunity.

Since we were there, we signed our son into his class early. We weren't in the mood to sit around waiting for our service to start, so we walked back to our car.

We sat in the car and looked at the clock.

17 minutes to waste.

Me: Wanna make out?

Him: Where should we go?

Me: Why not here in our car in the church parking lot?

Him: Everyone will be walking right by our car to get in.

Me: So?

So . . .

More than 17 minutes later, we walked into our service after it had begun. Everyone turned around and looked at us as we smoothed down our hair and straightened our shirts.


I know they were all jealous but trying not to be because of the whole 'thou shall not covet' thing.

Klink-a-dink

Today I went for a massage and went over to my friend's house for lunch.

I then decided to stop at Whole Foods for a quick grocery shopping. I happened upon a good friend there, klink-a-dink - so we took our time through the aisles. We were savoring the rare moments we both had to shop without our progeny tugging and begging.

I realized I had forgotten the lettuce so ran back to get it. I then found my mom in the produce section. Another klink-a-dink, so we had a nice chat next to the prickly pears.

On my drive home, a good friend I haven't spoken with in a while called. She's been hanging out with the Real Housewives of Atlanta. So she had to fill me in on the scoop!

It was a klink-a-dink day.

For once, I escaped the offspring and found some fun! Above you see the kids having fun too and making a little money while I did my important bidness.

Censored?

Have you ever heard that song, Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo?

Have you heard that song, Sex in the Kitchen?

Did you know that that Gwen Stefani 'Bananas' song is really full of sh*t?

I hadn't heard any of these here in the U.S. I heard all of these in English over in Germany.

It's a little uncomfortable when I'm riding in a car with my kids and the profanity starts rolling out on the radio, but we have learned to use it while we're over there. We just replace the German word we don't know with a curse word - they don't seem to mind.

But, that Sex in the Kitchen song came on while my husband and I were shopping in a jeans store.

I found myself looking at the clothing while uncomfortably trying to pretend I didn't understand the words pounding out through the speakers above.

Censorship exists here, thank goodness?

Clueless

I admit it. I'm a new blogger, and I'm completely inept and clueless.

I nosed around on the internet to try to figure out how to make a button for my entrecard, but I cannot figure it out.

Most of my 'readers' find me through google because of the picture above from my post on 'White boots in Berlin'.

Hey, I just realized I could probably expand my readership by putting this picture in every post!

Maybe I'm on to something here. If you steal my idea, I may have to . . .

wait, you won't steal my idea because you are simply a poor prostitute trying to find a place to buy footwear.

Sorry, I guess I shouldn't be calling my most loyal readers names. Are you offended by the whole 'prostitute' thing since that's much better than other names you could be called? Or should I refer to you as a professional man-pleaser? Let me know the politically correct title, and I'm happy to use it for all future references to you, my dear reader.

I apologize if I've offended. I'll try to find some new pictures of things you might appreciate, how's that?

Are we good, now?

Is that really your son, ma'am?

For no apparent reason - a notsogood picture of an elephant kicking me in the butt!

We have been traveling to Europe since before my children were born, so they are used to the drill. We like to think that our family is savvy at getting through the airports.

We all prepare ahead and my kids know that they are only allowed one suitcase each, which cannot exceed 50 lbs. We set out our scale for everyone to weigh their suitcases, switching out heavy important stuff with light important stuff. Everybody gets their ipods loaded and charged. Winter coats go into the checked luggage, so we aren't schlepping them through the airport. We make sure we have the chargers for the laptops, cameras, ipods, phones, etc.

We expect our children to be pros at getting through security. We even have a family competition to see who can make it through security the quickest.

When we arrive at the baggage check-in, the agent asks the routine questions, "did you pack your bags yourself?"

Husband: yes

Son: No - my mom packed for me.

Agent now pointedly directed at my husband: Were the suitcases ever out of your eysight?

Husband: no

Son: Yes they were - when you were looking for which way to go, you weren't looking at the suitcases!

Annoying? of course. Harmful? not really - he was just the annoying kid at this point.

But then she gets to the other questions -

Agent: Do you have any weapons in your baggage or anything that could be used as a weapon?

To a nine year old boy who bites his sandwiches into the shape of a gun, everything can be used as a weapon!

Soooooo . . . when we get to the first passport checkpoint.

For some reason this is where my son always freezes. The little boy so eager to talk and tell the truth, has become mute. For some reason, the officers always pick him to question. They never expect that we are kidnapping my daughter or that my husband has kidnapped me.

They begin their questions after looking at the passports. It usually starts with, "what's your name young man?"

My son looks off into the distance, tapping his chin and acting like he's trying to remember what name these people told him to use so he can get some candy!!!

Then they ask him where he's going.

Again with the stare into the distance and the chin tap, as we nudge him and say with teeth clenched, "grandma's, remember?"

Not suspicious at all, right? Somehow, we always make it onto the plane, but we just have to go through the whole thing again on the return trip.

What's brown and sticky?

The stick that Susan from Art Spark Theater sent me a while ago has finally been placed.

I originally planned to place the stick at the Nuremberg Christmas market.

However, the stars did not align . . .


Sooooo, together with my family we decided on this spot in Erlangen, Germany.

This is a bench holding flower boxes on an artsy street in the university town. It was placed on New Year's Eve around 5:00 p.m. All the small, quaint restaurants on the street were busy setting their tables for the big night ahead.



Thank you, Susan for sending me the stick and letting me take part in your guerrilla art project.

Oh yeah . . . 'a stick'.