My Post-War-Watch

May I introduce you to my Post-War-Watch:

If you think WT..???!, you´re right!.

Went to my hometown today (finally!!!) to sign at the notary that Bro gets House, Business and all.
Will get new glasses in return (I´m some business-woman, huh?!), ones that´ll be perfect for working at the PC (black text on white ground especially) - will have to get back to get the right data after eyes are healed, though.

Yes, after eyes are healed.
Means... I still have the band-aids on, still cannot see clearly, gets worse with the day developing. Maybe not the smartest idea to drive, but well.

For lunch we got Doner Kebab - like Pizza something you don´t get in Braunschweig. (You do get Doner Kebap. And Pizza. But the taste is different (Pizza)/since all the meat scandals and the bad smell from the Doner-Shops here... I only get it from the prize winner in home-town) - looks like that, btw:

Yum-Yum-Yum! And yes, pic taken here in Braunschweig.
Bro aka Seven-Headed-Caterpillar ate his for lunch. The whole thing.
I took half of it home and couldn´t finish it - tooooo much!

Anyways.
After Niece stared at me like forever, probably thinking, "do I know you? Who are you? Are you friendly? Do you like me? Can I trust you?" - Took like forever and then she decided I´m ok and gave me a huge smile.
Boy - she weighs a lot now with 7 months! She grabs and I guess she knows the word "hair", cause when I asked Bro to pull back my hair, her eyes - and hand! - were nearly at 'em!
She´s so strong!!!

It was good to be with family again.
But I had to keep an eye on the watch to be in time at the notary (Bro and Mum are bad at this).
Did I mention I have trouble seeing atm?
I looked at that "stupid", rather complicated watch and Bro was teasing me, now, what time is it, huh? ;-)

SIL from back on the sofa with Niece said, "Oh, you got your hm-hm-watch?!"

I was thinking, HUH?! and asked back

"Nachkriegs-Uhr???!!!!!"

SIL, Bro and Mum nearly fell off their seats, laughing their heads off.
Do you hear bad when you cannot see good?

She certainly did not say

Nachkriegs-Uhr
but
Matrix-Uhr

(obviously, no matter if you hear or see bad - you can speak very clearly, cause everybody got what (stupid nonsense) I said!)

Sounds soooo similar in German.

I didn´t even know it´s called like that.
We all laughed SO hard, it did hurt! :-)))

Well. That watch now has it´s name ;-)
And fun-memories with it, too.
Nach (post)-Kriegs (war)-Uhr (watch).

By golly... Hopefully Thursday that band-aid-lenses get off!!

Driving home was rather... whoot... dangerous!

Well, back to work tomorrow.
it´s March already then - hopefully spring is on the way...
Time so runs, huh?! ;-)

We´ve Got Plus

It was such a sunny day yesterday, and so mild! Would you ever say 5C plus is warm? It was!!! No wind, just great!

So, after running errands and taking a pic (only) of our local product beside a liquor from Africa that really was covered with "fur"...

and filling my car with two of the Three Tenors, two bottle crates that we got in Northern Germany at the coast, accidentially took it to Rhüden, where Ingo lived, in order to bring in back in the next holiday - the stores here don´t accept that stuff - ... forgot about them, took them to my first apartment when Ingo´s apartment flooded, then to our second apartment, now into this... and my Bro´s friend finally can take them, so I bring them to his place when I go there on Monday.

Well, after all that we went for a walk in the park.

We found this:

Braunschweig belongs to those cities that allow public BBQ - with the people bringing their own grills, that is.
And this is where you can leave your hot coal!
Gotta send them a thank-you note for this service!

We even found an abandoned Christmas-Tree on an arm of River Oker:

Hope you call that an "arm" - the river splits up and the two new rivers are called arms of river.

Anyhows.
Wanna see how boring and sad Playgrounds in Germany look like?
Here we go:

Anyhows it was such a beautiful day! Everybody was out soaking in the sun and "warm weather"! Food for the soul!

When we went back home, we found the pile of free give-aways hasn´t shrunk but grown!

Too lazy to care about eBay?
I can understand that. I bring stuff to my Bro. He can sell it via eBay and keep the money. With a Baby in the house, he can need it, too :-)

Happy Sunday everyone!

My English Is All Out

Those who´ve been there know where this is and recognize it happily, no?
(I don´t wanna come over as arrogant!!! I just feel proud to know the world-oldest open-air-cinema... the WORLD-oldest! Pay a visit sometime, if you come to Broome)


Australian Journey VII

OR!!! Oscar

Sometimes it just hits ya in the face, huh?! Sweet, sweet memories, so many, when I could barely see, see last post!

I could not read anymore with my sore eyes and - though not interested much - watched a show around the coming Academy Award, which in Germany is simply called the Oscar cause that golden guy looked just like her Uncle Oscar to German secretary Margaret Herrick. So, if you come to Germany and hear people talking 'bout THE Oscar these days, you know what is meant!

Anyways!
Certainly - and I so waited for this! - Roberto Benigni was shown when he got his and ran over the rows of seats directly. The scene stopped with blablabla - but didn´t he just scream something like: "thank you, thank you... my English is all out now"?

Anyhows. Being German... I refused to watch Life Is Beautiful the moment a colleague mentioned the word "Nazi".
GAH.
School... TV... everywhere, anytime we´re reminded and hence blamed for that past.
It shall not be forgotten, never. And never repeated again!
BUT.. give us a break in real life!!!! I´m SO fed up!

We came to Broome again in '99.
And certainly we couldn´t wait to visit Sun Pictures!
"Great" memories of '95, I´ll post sometime later.

We watched movie after movie until only one was left. Said "Life is beautiful".
OK, then.

My ears nearly fell off when they spoke Italian!

For Germans, everything - EVERY-THING is translated to German. A movie in cinema subtitled?! Impossible!!!

So there we sit, speaking no Italian, being German, reading English.

And after just some moments we were just watching a movie!!!

You might think, uh, so-what?! But I thought it´s just amazing what the brain can do!

We kinda "blew our cover" when that German army officer screamed in German - and it was not subtitled!!! - "if you don´t follow my rules - I´ll SIMPLY KILL you!!!"

Which was translated by the Dad (Roberto Benigni) as: "I´ll EAT ALL YOUR GUMMI BEARS" (originally a German product).

Can´t remember if we just GASPed in despair or LAUGHed crazily, but people suddenly knew we´re German and some whispered. And I felt ashamed. Thanks, German education..

Anyhows.

You can see that movie - great as it is after all! - it has so many facets to me, to Ingo and me... to us.

Bad ones of "fake?" guilt and great ones of how our brains work and of this:

And hence of the best months in my life ever.

I´m so thankful my parents - and Ingo! - made this possible!

6 months in '95,
"Open End" - that turned out to be just 7 months in '99 -
and a lifetime

of sweet, amazing, bad, funny, glorious.... you name it (stinky, too - Carnarvon´s Fish-Bin at the old Prawn Jetty will always be a part of it)

... memories I can go back to ANYTIME - i get thrown into even when I´m feeling really bad cause I temporarily cannot see...

Yes. You read right. I finish this post at shortly after 6am on a Sat morning.

Ingo came back in again to kiss me goodbye. At 05.05. Has to work again. For too little money... this is another subject we´re fighting - probably later than other countries, hurts none-the-less.

My English is all out, have a great weekend :-)
After all... We love this life, no?!

Spring In Da House

Yep. Signed sick again. After 4-5 hours at work my eyes got sore, started burning again and I could see less and less.
I worked the 8 hours, though.
My customer wanted something "new", something "emotional" for a campaign - now! Leave everything else I was told after lunch (!!) and come up with an idea.
I did and "secretly" asked my colleague what she thinks of it - actually she has another job, but this was urgent, right?

She suggested to take something we already have, that´s quick and easy.

Umm. I tried to change it to the "emotional" side, didn´t take the time to put together aproper screenshot, explained in words and sent the mail.

Customer said, yay! The third one!!! I thought, huh? Which third one?!

This misunderstanding made the new design - we´re such a good team, huh?!

Sadly I´m signed sick today - team leader even wanted to drive me home in my car and forced me to "pass" an "eyesight test", then let me drive home.
Booy. It got worse and worse! So, this morning I walked to the doc again.



Nope, she not a cow horse, she´s really good. Saw that horse later in town. Left eye 95% healed, right one 80%.
Have to wear the "band-aids" aka too big contact lenses at least til Thursday!
But she said, check the optometrist downstairs, they´re specialised on contacts.

The girl there said, ummm... difficult, I´ll search for them. Came back after a while, smiling - yep, we have them smaller - this last/only pair!
15 €, she said. Her colleague added an "each", yikes! Boss just passed by and said, no, pair, phew!

And. Guess what?! Since I have the right size here... the old ones are ok! WT...???

Well. Let´s see, if I don´t need them, I´m pretty sure they take em back.
Did I mention I just read a book about funny coincidences and lucky ones, too?

Team-leader called for instructions on the new project (buhuuuu) and then said, hey, you need to bring the sick certificates in asap!

So. After the gym I walked home, collected them all and marched aaaall the way back.
In that freezing weather, too!
Later I saw a bunch of kids with icecream in hand! Brrrr....

I left our house, turned around the corner to find this:



An offer to take the stuff - for free.
Did I mention I love the place where we live???

After a stop at the company I walked on the the health insurance company and on the way to the drugstore I thought... hmmm.

Something is missing!
Wrong!
Someone is missing, Ingo! Since we moved together and survived Ingo´s severe sickness, we made it a Monday-ritual to walk hand in hand to the city.
Every Monday. hence, I never go on another day, never alone.

I cheered up, though, thinking I can now take aaaaaall the time I want to browse the store Ingo doesn´t like that much, especially not now - outside it´s minus-temps, you wear thick clothes. Inside the staff sits in T-Shirts! You get cooked! True!!!

I could handle the heat and took my time and brought some spring with me for our living room:



Looove it!

And got some exceptional tea and hence also something for the Adventcalendar for my friend! Yes. Advent. Now. Hehe :-)

So much shopping makes one thirsty, huh? The drug-store also has drinks - I couldn´t resist and took these two:



The "Maus (cit: "It is not uncommon for children to watch the program with their parents or for children to stop watching around the age of 10 or 12 and then come back at the age of 18." * - sooo true, most of my colleagues and we watch it too on Sunday mornings) and Shaun The Sheep.
And then thought after paying, yikes!!! If you drink it now, you get a crap pic! So.... dumb me went home thirsty!
I passed some other shop Ingo dislikes (really, that´s for women only), design forum and got a pressie for my colleague and pressies for the two coming years for my friend P. :-)
And one thing I got for Ingo at butlers, fitting to his new toy - pics come when toy is ready.

Gotta rail against Team-leader for making this such an expensive day for me! ;-)

* cite: "The German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag found that although the target age was from about four to eight, the average age of viewers was 39."

Three Kisses

I´ve been still signed sick for the last three days.
Hopefully I get rid of my left "band-aid" today and it´s back to work tomorrow.

Well. It was kinda good to not get up at 04:51, I tell ya! It´s soooo cold still! Around -10C, gah! And dark.
Ingo had to get up early. And each morning, shortly before he left at 05:05 he came back in with the big jacket on to kiss me good-bye.
Made me sooo happy.

Especially after being that afraid yesterday.

For ages I wanted to update my last will and yesterday I finally did it. I hate to think of the subject "death".
Ingo had to drive to Berlin again. Some 250 km one way over that darn, dangerous A2.

4:30 pm... nothing, 5:00... 5:30... 5:45... time can crawl when you wait for a loved one to come home. Finally he called, all good :-)
Oh, I so hate driving. "Thankfully" the dry weather will stop just in time. Maybe I can drive on ice again tomorrow :-(

Let´s just hope we all make it back for another kiss!

Australian Journey VI

This was 1995, in Queensland, Bowling Green Bay National Park.

There we really saw life kangaroos!
Usually we saw them at the side of the road, hit by Road Trains. Smelling.
Roos weren´t that special, btw. Sheep you only saw some whool. Interesting were the cows. Some you could smell real bad in advance. Some had turned upside down, others looked like a handbag...
No, really. In 1999 there weren´t as many dead animals on the side of the road. Didn´t see as many grids,either, more fences, though.

Don´t call me cheesy or even crude. It was just an everyday-sight back then.

So, the second time I saw life kangaroos was this NP.

A new trailer arrived. The man got out with a hammer and wanted to attach som kind of tent. One of those really big Roos came by. Stood right behind him to look what he´s up to.
Obviously they breathe very softly. He never knew there was a Roo behind him.
He used the hammer, searching his goal... one, two aaaand THREE! BANG! He hit the poor Roo right in the face!

And the Roo... went on it´s tail and hit him hard in return.

The wife was screaming. "pooooor Joey!!!!".

It was comical, really.

No one was hurt seriously, so I can say: Funny.

Roo... or rather Wallaby... in pic above wanted some white bread from us. We gave water - must´ve tasted a bit of coffee, it wanted cup after cup!
My respect. They do have some claws, little fella scared me and Ingo had to take over!

Here... it´s darn, darn cold. So cold we did skip our Monday-ritual - too cold for the city (and my sore eyes).
Wednesday I´ll finally get rid off the "band-aid" in my left eye, rightie follow Friday. Knock on wood!

It´s a great thing to have contact-lenses as band-aid. Just... they´re not available in my size and hurt a lot every time I use the meds.

Just The Weekends?!

It all started with a User saying there is a 404. He was friendly (I know others!!!) - I said „thank you!“ and fixed the problem.

Next time he found something being wrong, he mailed to my account directly and added some fun-stuff as well.
And next time (heck!!! now you think I produce bad stuff, huh?!) - since he has photography as a hobby he sent me a pic of some very nice flowers. Title of the E-Mail: „Since the weather is so darn bad“.

In the German language as well as in French, Italian and so on you differ gramatically as adults between being friends or not. He took on the „du“, the friend-stuff, right away. I´m fine with that.

Since over a week (two! Huh?! At least!) he sends me a pic he took each day and that along with a very welcoming Good-Morning. It´s really good, makes me smile big :-)

We chat along a bit, if time allows it, too.

Whilst I start at 6:15, he starts at 10. Why?
Well.. He´s alone inbetween the week, I learned now!

I said, weekend-relationship?! OMG, had that for 13 years!
They´re now in their 12t h year - some whopping 300 km apart.

And... fine with it. Kinda. Like we were. Like... if you don´t know better.

It just broke my heart, I felt depressed and sad instantly.

I will never ever (never say never, huh?!) go back to anything like that.

Let´s see... could imagine he will really keep on sending me great pics and a great „morning“-greeting for a while. No idea bout age or anything and that´s ok.
We belong(ed) to THAT type of guys (for a time waaaay too long).

At the time being... with him the number of couples doing this (weekend-relationship) grew to three in my circle (with one in WA going to the extreme). How about you/r guys?

Can you somehow imagine how happy, glad and everything I am Ingo is right next door?
Like right now? On a Thursday?
Just like that?
As if this was normal? Ups – it IS normal!
13 DUMB* years of weekend-relationship. Over and never again.

* Talk to couples who´re doing it. It´s not that bad! Only in the aftermath. I could gag right now for all the lost quality-time.
Sorry. The truth for me.

I Wear A Band-Aid

... in my left eye.



When I still wore contacts, I had the same dream from time to time:
I have a lens in my right hand that has the size of my hand - and I manage to put it in my right eye!

It all started three weeks ago, a conjunctivitis was diagnosed, I was told I get cortisone. The conjunctivitis died, but the stuff left my dry eyes kinda raw.
Back to the doc I got meds to heal the conjunctiva.
Didn´t work. Eyes are red and burn like crazy.

Back to the doc today - we try something different. New meds for my right eye - and a "band-aid" for the left one, hopefully one of those works!

Weird thing was: The "band-aid" is like a contact lens - but they didn´t have it in my size!!! It´s just too big!
The doc tried several times to get it in anyways, then I took over and really did it.
Feels like you´ve got something in your eye due to the size - I so hope I don´t rub it out at night! Am supposed to wear it til Friday.

Man. I am glad meds like his exist!

But... I´m afraid that dream comes back!!!

The New "Tattoo"

What do you think, isn´t this just cool?



Peu à peu we get something done here, no?
In case you wonder: Yes it´s Braunschweig´s "skyline" as wall-Tattoo! With the same Lion my hometown holds:



I´m happy to still be here, btw.
It was raining this morning, hard, lots. But -0.5 C.
Suddenly I drove on pure ice. Yikes! Glad there isn´t too much traffic at before 6 am...
Trams couldn´t go due to ice, chaos in Braunschweig and Hannover till the afternoon! The highways - a mess, sooo many accidents (just car body damage, but yikes, that not nice, either!).
One colleague came in 1 1/2 hour late due to that.
Winter, please stop it! I was just lucky today. Same as Ingo said. Oh, my. Waaay too dangerous :-(

Time For Valentine

Look what I got today, no flowers but:



Time is precious!

The clock is really cool, all trimmed to look old. And finally you see what time it is no matter where you are.

The House Is Warm Now

Guess what?!
I got a Housewarming-Gift-Parcel from my dear friend Flea!

This is not known here, boy am I happy, thank you, my friend!



This is us (did you guess?) in front of (nearly) all we got saying smiling a big Thank You, Flea!

Actually the story goes like this - the stupid post-man "delivered" the parcel Tuesday morning (when normal people are at work) and brought it back to his station , that´s not at all on my route.
I´m still waiting for a rather boring parcel from China and thought this is it and didn´t push.

Today Ingo found a crazy smiling woman coming outta the post office with a ... haha! green parcel from WA!



I certainly used an adequate - green - knife to open it up :-)

I just loooved it! :-)

Maybe these not sooo much...


... since I don´t like sweets (I will try them, though, ye-hesss!) - they´ll serve as welcome-snack for visitors and I´ll tell them they´re a speciality from a friend of WA (I´ll tell the guests, the cookies know that).

Ingo with the Kitchen Brush we will never ever use cause it´s too darn cute:



The Brush is a Gerbera.. and, see:



It won´t live in the kitchen but on our new side-board with the other Gerbera.

See... I love sunflowers. As did my Dad.
Mum got the coffin all decorated with special "mini"-Sunflowers. And when people visit his grave, they bring sunflowers.
It sure is beautiful.
But... Ya know?

For happy days I love Gerbera now.
And I got one of the coolest Gerbera ever :-)
Um... we, certainly! Ingo was mentioned as well in the lovely card that now hangs below the "Wishing-Stone" I got in Freo in 2006:


Housewarming may not be German... the more I love having Friends in places where it is tradition and who embrace us with that!

I also asked for a bag of Big W.

Man...
...

I just don´t recognize them anymore! I don´t like the new logo, sorry, Flea! They looked the same in '95, '99 and '06 and now?
Do you like the new logo?



Well. Life goes on, right? At least I´ll not be surprised when I come back some day.

Hmmm... Housewarming-Gifts... actually a great idea! Does make the home feel warmer :-)

OH! Btw... Morris already took on his job:



"sugar", he reminds us to buy. Did I mention I don´t like sweets? (Ingo likes his tea with sugar).

Tell ya what. I´ll take over this tradition. When I get to visit Bro in his new apartment, he´ll get a housewarming gift :-)

The Three Tenors

I was about to post this in November, time so runs!

This happened back in the old apartment. Loads of stuff was already in the "truck", Bro was about to empty the top of my shelf. He grabed the first item, the second, just easily like you do, right? And then he grabbed Chicken.

I had only one chicken and had forgotten all about it, too.

Demonstration by Ingo (turn on the sound):



If you have no idea this will happen, you will make people laugh hard, so sad I didn´t have the camera on back then.
Bro nearly jumped out of his skin and nearly threw the poor thing through the air!
In fact he managed to put it down on the floor gently, but had to take a time out whilst his friend and I nearly died laughing our heads off.

Certainly they kept playing with Chicken and wanted one for Christmas each.
Hence I now have three Chicken, two waiting for a tour to my hometown.

I love the rather funny sight :-)
Chicken Galore, huh?

Sadly the new ones are much less LOUD.

In case you wonder... nope we haven´t seen each other since the end of November!
Stress and bad weather prevented this so far.
I´m sad about it, too, but don´t see I always have to make the first move.
Offered help more than 20 times and now I´m just waiting.

And enjoying three tenors chickens on my shelf.

Smelly!

Monday means: A walk to the city. Today we went to the "Antiquariat", or simply second hand bookshop and I really got the three books of this town I wanted.

Can anybody tell me why old(er) books smell so bad? It´s not just the store, the books smell bad, too. Yikes.
And there was one thing I hardly did recognise: The sun!!!! Haven´t seen it for so long!
Very, very windy, though, not nice.
Wanted to try a wrap at Mc D... the slowest restaurant ever. Fast food, huh?!

On another note. Braunschweig is the first German City to try out the concept of actually asking the people what they want. Sure we did go on Sunday to vote big, fat NOs for a new stadium.
Heck the soccer team is third league, what do they need a new stadium for?

Certainly we lost. Schools fall apart and all the money is taken for a stadium.
How sad is that.

Now over to Ingo´s place and watch the SUPERBOWL, yay! Thanks, Internet!

Not The Smartest Idea

... to take "Cornergel" and then cry.

This blog isn´t read by many, I´m not a fun person, have no kids, I´m rather boring to most and that´s ok.
This is an outlet for myself, right?
So I can come back later and say, hey, what nonsense was important to you back then or just to see what heappened in my life. Right?

This time is hard on me.

That´s NOT NICE to say, I know! Others have been hit by floods, cyclones and who knows what.
But... the better your life is the more the little things weigh.

Tried everything so that today we only had to buy the food-stuff and have a good time together.
I don´t wanna go into detail. It´s like Teenager-stuff.
But I sit here, freed of 5 cartons - which was my intension, just in the long run, not THIS.INSTANT.
And alone.
Doors are closed, just yet another weekend failed.
Is this aways my fault?

It´s heavy stuff to me when big problems arouse and you cannot talk to your "partner", "friend", "loved one". My stomach feels like it´s eating itself.

Life can be over anytime. Stroke, car accident, you name it. Yet I am not worthy enough to spend the weekend with, once I said something not easy.

So many things go wrong in my life.
Mum. Bro and his family (getting better now, yay, hope they make it!), job, partnership.

I know I should be thankful.
- I am healthy,
- I have a safe roof over my head and a bit even belongs to me
- I have a good job (may change in a year, makes me feel afraid)
- theoretically Ingo and I love each other

...this is the most importatnt one to me, and here just to me.
I´d like to know.. if someone still made it down here reading (which I don´t think) - is this first priority to you, too?
Do you always ask for a kiss - ... or do you get one here and there just like that? What about hugs?
I feel so lonely.
Maybe I just deserve it that way.

All I can do is stand in the way.

Self-pity, a bad thing. Stomach, heart! Stop this now! Hear me! Buggers, you!!!

Why even bother to write this down? I need to get it out, somehow, that´s why. Then take some more Cornergel and keep in my eyes.
And do what? Hope for the next weekend? Shut my mouth forever? Take everything, without mourning, even if I don´t like it? Accept that other(s) do indeed tell me what they don´t like about me and change it accordingly? Be a "woman", huh.

I hate lost days. Lost weekends. But I do not have the power to go through closed doors, hello hell-self-pity.
Don´t come back.