Citizen's money

 

... or "Hartz IV". Sorry, today two Tom´s Signs2-posts. At work I get a newsticker and this news really ... didn´t know if to laugh or cry.

 

When I lost my job I got a benefit for a year (I was also signed sick, despite I said I am OK) but after that, nothing, not even health insurance, because the condo we live in we own.

It was called "Arbeitslosengeld", unemployment benefit. For one year.

Others, who don´t own anything got Harzt IV, which means you get an apartment, heating, electricity, water and the basics for free. For... infinity.

 

A basic, btw, is also a big screen TV or a new washing machine, despite we have public places to wash your clothes.

The first I see nearly every day when I walk by and the window is open because of the smoking the dude has money for, the latter female K told me. 

 

Now, "Harzt IV" does not sound nice, does it? So it was renamed to "Bürgergeld", "citizen's money". 

You don´t wanna work, fine you "only" get "the basics". 

But NOW!!! Uhhhh, bad! You refuse a job that is "reasonable" you get no (extra) money for two months!!!! Apartment, heating, water, electricity is still free, though.

In this news they call it "Money is completely canceled". Hm.

And we are not to call those people lazy, that is only a number in "low single-digit percentage range".

Makes me wonder.

We moved in here 2011. Ever since next street, where I pass by to go grocery shopping, is a dude who can walk, talk, smoke, has said TV up on the wall (!), leans out of the open window to watch us working guys quickly get our groceries, and lately a second dude moved in two houses to the right.

One street and two of them is in a "low single-digit percentage range"?

 

Ingo´s colleague has one who tends to lean on his fence, smoking (that is not cheap, btw!) ragging, "Hey, T, have been working for me again?".

 

Two months no extra-money. Germany is a mean country, don´t you agree?

How´s it like in yours?

 

Sorry, this needed to get out, please scroll down for a fun Tom´s Signs2-post.... Henry is too pi##ed to show up.

 

 

CryBaby is Back

 

These two say hi...

 

The news... the news.

"... with me Russia, Putin would never have marched into Ukraine.

I can solve that problem within 24 hours!" 

 

Please, pretty please... can that dumbhead retire for good???

 

Does this man really believe what he is blurting out???

 

Baby Henry 🦁

Help me, that can´t be true, can it? And he makes it into the GERMAN news with that nonesense.

Elect him NOW - 24 hours later we´ll have peace between Russia and Ukraine, they all will hold hands, kiss, hug and the Russians who live here now will go to Ukraine to rebuild it all, awww, sooooo nice.

Thank you MR. Hmp.

 

Please don´t forget to get him off ASAP... I don´t wanna see orange on the screen no more.

 

I think NOWHERE we have suiting politicians these days...

 

Sorry, two posts again today, you sweet Topflappen...

(Hopefully NOT) Next Generation

Ingo was so cheery, ahh, new neighbors, YOUNG peeps, three kids! Cute!

 

No.

 

DUMB. Not the kids. But.

See. ... little L was ringing the bell at her parent´s when I came to the house.

I asked, "no one there?" - "hmmm, no one opening, but I come in with you 😀".

I checked mail and that formerly shy girl (gosh, they grow up so quickly!!) cheered a big "BY-HYY!"

Sweet girl.

Other... young parent´s kid painted 400 times (yes, you read that correctly - four-hundred-times) "0" with chalk on the ground, marking each 20 zeros. 

Creative.

Not.

Crescendo: RIGHT AT THE ENTRANCE - what a DUMB Mum is that?!!!

 

A colourful something of ... ALL colours.

I can make my way around it - we live ground level, do I want all the colorful chalk in the condo???? "Colorful" footprints all over.

What about older persons, persons with bikes etc, etc - NOT A CHANCE.

 

 

 

It takes her 30 minutes PLUS to get her kids going - every time!!!, the eldest bumping with his elbows on the glass from the outside (I understand his frustration)  - I hope it breaks and she learns a lesson.

We have our joy hearing it every day (we were never allowed being loud).

Why I don´t pass by?

STRESS!!!

Boys won´t let me, if I simply go they  scream bloody murder, calling me intruder, not once, twice... Balls get shot onto our balcony, more than three times already - do not leave laptop etc outside.

So. Is this generation of young parents on a 70´s/80´s trip repeating anti-authoritarian education?!

How about your place?

Is there also a massive  bust of thoughtlessness and lack of respect towards others?

Henry 🦁 - he loves kids in general and says: Rant over!

Here you see him enjoying...

Braunschweig Play Mile - not this year of course... - but he turns his back to parents who just don´t care to teach their kids.

Will the mother get the "hint"? Reckon not so much.

Maybe next time I brave up and tell her not everybody can jump around or wants to clean up their chalk in one own´s apartment...

Crazy Hits

From the White Horse SC we first ran into this sad santa (really, why not put the stripes together properly...) and then arrived at the mini red lights.
Near the fire station.
The alarm went off 5 minutes ago already and I understand that car drivers have to stay put, but really...

These pedestrians - cyclicst stayed put as well - just cause their red light was on red.
99.9% the firefighters will not take the route into small Huttenstrasse, apart from the fact that these people can actually SEE if the firefighters take off (background... firestation!).
They stood there forever, I finally pulled Ingo away cause I´m not willing to see if they really stay put 15 minutes like that.
Are.They.Stupid?
Will police come and put them to jail if they cross a red light that makes no sense?

Holy moly, it scares me how people fail to make up their minds these days.

You could see it takes at least two minutes before the firefighters take off!!
Sad, is it?

Do you see an increase of stupid, a lack of thinking in your place, also?

And That´s Why

I wanted to watch Eureka, starting with pilot.
Put in the DVD, chose English, no subtitles.

Got subtitles!!! Woah, dang!

Put the DVD out, repeat process.

Subtitles again!
... In English cause it starts with a German quote from Albert Einstein.

My brain at first did not get the difference, crazy, huh? Same to you?

And.
Well.
The usual!

Translated wrong!

"Zu wenig" is not "a little"!
It is just "little"!
And yes, that does make a huge difference.

"Zu viel" is not "a lot"!
It is "too much"!

And, as Ingo added, "Wissen", "knowledge", doesn´t even appear.

Why?!

Really, I just plain hate that!

Who does this???
And why...

And two episodes later I got confused again cause...

I bought the set here and, mind you... is this really necessary?

But then again... In Perth I got Jamie´s 15 and 30 minute meals and I can never give it to Bro cause it doesn´t even come with subtitles. So what about deaf people, Jamie??? (Bro is not deaf, but not so fluent in English, so subtitles might be helpful.)

And then, by no means I´m talented myself, but I sure had to laugh about this one (they spoke some Asian language)!

Reminded me of when we were in Sun Pictures in Broome watching Life is Beautiful in the original, means Italian with English subtitles and we were the only ones laughing bitterly about the translation of the German Na#i...

The brain is a funny thing, no?

The Pig

And here is a pic of the pig the cam couldn´t capture from a distance the other day.

Lives there ever since (we moved to our condo 2010).

Dunno. Not really a pretty sight, what do you think?

WHAT Do You Do?

That was one of those days.
I wandered past this car, wondered, turned back and took this pic.

"Bierschneider"?!

Bier - beer.
Schneider... taylor? Cutter?

Sometimes it´s really better to not do research.
This family once castrated pigs.

The male castrated pig was also named "barc" from where it in the end went to "bier".
Don´t ask.
I should´ve just walked on!

Some Dumb Concepts

Healthy snacks are good, right, like, say, an apple.
An apple that you can just put in your bag cause it has a natural packing, it´s skin.

There must be really people who are willing to buy 80g of sliced apple in a plastic bag for €1 when you can get a whole 1 kg for €1,99!

Who are these people, I wonder???
How lazy do you have to be, and how stupid, money- and environment-wise.

As dumb as this concept, I think:

And I really see in astonishment how many young people smoke again!
Not that sweets...
For crying out loud.

And we all agree on this being unnecessary...

Those 80g really ... Old (wo)man yells at Cloud and gets the cam out!

How Long Will It Take

This pic was taken in Perth, 2006.
We now have 2011.
And still you cannot buy oil that you can spray ready from a can over here!

Anyone a guess why? I found it so practical!

Fleischsalat

For my work I needed a pic of this salad and wanted to search an English site for it (since the German one gave out only this...), hence I needed the English word.

But all I got from the dictionary was
salad with strips of bologna-type sausage, gherkins and mayonnaise dressing [cook.] .

Is it true, you say that when you want Fleischsalat???
Ok, ugly as it looks maybe I wouldn´t want a word for it either ;-)

Pic is from http://www.pixelio.de/ taken by Hartmut910.

Cute Or Rather Sad?

At Cute Overload I stumbeled over this article, featuring among all this pic:



My... on one hand that little rat... "brave" (no, actually just young), the leopard, ... oh it all seems so cute. And sad on the same time.

What thoughts do you have on zoos?

We need them, I know. And I love to watch animals. But that a leopard lets a rat get away with stealing it´s food, that it´s "puzzled"...

Anyhows, since I can´t change the world, I thought it´s rather cute, no one was hurt and I just share a "cute" pic.

Article 5 Has Passed Away

"There shall be no censorship." is no more. You can find the document RIP in Englsh here or read more here.

#censursula, Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen, who started the whole thing, didn´t even find it worthy to show up yesterday.
I mean, seriously...!!!
And I wonder, will the over 130,000 people singning the e-Petition really be ignored? Do we live in democracy?

My Dear Karl

I go very seldom to the canteen. It´s expensive and rather not healthy. But sometimes I do go. Volkswagen makes excellent Curry-Wurst (German) and it´s also fun to bond with colleagues.

So the other day I went (yes, I know, I was on holiday...).

It´s always extremely full on Tuesdays, the Currywurst-Day. So it was then. And amongst all those hectic people there stood a frog. A very big frog. He looked lost, and hurt. Hurt in the sense of injured.

I looked down and he looked back like he wanted to say, "help me?"...

New was... there was not only the canteen, but mingled in were shops. And a vet. How practical is that, no? So I looked down to the frog and said, "hey, if you want me to help you, follow me".

So he did. The vet took the poor fella, bent his really very long arms and legs and said, "nope, he´s just all right - will you keep him?"

Actually, no. Honestly, I was a bit disgusted by him! But I didn´t say that. I looked at him and he looked back like... you guess it, I kept him. Bought a litter-box, food and a food bowl at the vet-store and gave them 50 €, because they said they also care about animals who don´t "belong" to anyone.

The frog then slowly followed me.

No, I didn´t take him to the canteen - lunch-time was over anyways.

Next hurdle: 5 1/2 stories to go to my office. I hate the old elevator, that is no option. After some hops I realised he won´t make it. Not in my time-scedule. So, we looked at each other and then he hopped carefully in my arms.

Eek.

He was cold. And a bit slimey, too.

I showed him the rooms and after work took him the same way down to my car. Same procedure at home. Ingo looked at us as if we were crazy. I tried to explain and realised the frog has no name. So, since we live in Karlstreet, I introduced him as Karl and Karl looked quite ok with the name. I showed him the apartment and then I realised... Karl is not an ordinary frog, he is a king-frog and the crown is made of his skin.

Days came and went by, we fell into a nice routine and with the time I got used to how Karl´s skin feels like. I liked him and enjoyed his company.

Then autumn came. Karl got weak.
In the afternoon he layed down in his bed. He looked at me. Kinda sad, but also kinda reassuring.

And then he faded. I cried and he faded more.

I saw a tin - inside his body!

After a while the tin was all that was left. And some time after that I took the tin. I opened it. I found 5 million €.

Five million €!!

And I was sad I had lost a friend.

Then I woke up.

Following day we ran errands and Ingo said, let´s see if we need something from the hardware-store.

He found nothing.
But I stumbeled over Karl:



Life is weird sometimes, no?

Without words...

What is a witness?

Or rather, who? Where do you draw the line between historical journalism and propaganda?

Actually I´m not really sure why this bothers me at all. Because people don´t know if to be upset or not?
Because we went through this sad, mad chapter at school over and over and over just yet again?
Because I myself fail to differ: Is this historical interest or is this the right wing extremist in disguise?

A publishing company reprints all the newspapers from 1933 til '45. At least they planned to do (now, do they have copyright or not?). Some copies were sold - No. 3, "The end of Democracy" is sold for 1 €, as you can see here (german).
Police confiscated some of the copies.

Heck, I don´t even want to use the words, you know which ones.

Misusage is feared of. Agreed.

History is known, and, believe me, our history is known very good to us.

So what might be the point of reading the original words, the slogans and all that?

What do other countries think of papers like that being sold throughout Germany (again)?
What do you think?

Or am I just over-sensitive?
Who is the witness of that time, the written... words?

So far, many people are upset.


Addendum: Ingo said, aww, well, there was even a movie about the hoax of the H. Diaries, Schtonk!.
I think this is different. Different to all the originally written words/slogans to be read over and over again to perhaps memorize them. Especially at times like these. No?

Raising kids

I know I know nothing about it.
But I don´t think this toy shows the right way?
Or am I too conservative?



I couldn´t help but shake my head in disbelief.

Any opinions?

It´s Hot !

It´s weird over here! See?! (you can click to enlarge)



The trees scream "look everybody over here! We wear our colorful dresses to say good-bye to beautiful summer-times! Autumn is here!"

The skater?! No, not a freak! It was hot today! Not the expected 15 C, but at least 25!

We went for a looong walk. I still found myself stopping, saying to Ingo, "Look! It´s in the middle of the week and here we are - together! Going casually for a walk!" Like it´s the most normal thing to do! And it is now! No need to wait for the weekend, no more stitches when seeing other couples inbetween the week!
How and why did we manage to live in different places for so long?!
But. I try not to think of it and just enjoy what we have now :-)

See, this house is all wrapped up against the coming winter:



Ingo´s rehab is due. Yips, already after only being home for 10 weeks without any medical attendance or care he gets rehab granted. Boooy, those guys are quick, no?!
Next Tuesday he´s off. Maybe for three long weeks. Far away. If he does not go he won´t get any money. Clever, guys :-(

The Last Resort

So sad. Today I read in the local newspaper about an 84-year-old man who strangled his 82-year-old wife, then killed himself.

He was blind, she was dement and wheelchair-bound. He left a note, "Please don´t be mad, it had to be that way". They lived in a house of their own. Children were not mentioned in the article.
The article goes on every second suicide is committed by senior citizens; they are sick, in pain. The only alternative would be a nursing home – and they know they will be separated there. They cannot cope with that thought.

Hello?! Separated?! They are old, that´s all. I learned that it´s difficult for couples who found each other in nursing homes to find a place for themselves and could not believe it.

But that couples who lived together for decades are separated like teenagers is unbelieveable to me.
Just where do we live?! Who decides this and why?! Mostly it´s two-bedrooms anyway!

It makes one afraid of getting old, really. I wonder, do those people who make these decisions want to be treated that way themselves when they come to that age, to that point? Do they actually think about these things?

What do you have in endless nights full of pain if not your partner?! Here is the article (german).

Deep Fried

OMG. I just zapped into a report. In Scotland they love Take Away Food. So do we. But... They deep fry just plain everything! Fish and Chips? Sure.
Pizza?! Yep. Chocolate? Yes! Even Marshmellows – here ist the deep-fried Pizza on Wiki ans here is a deep fried Mars bar.

I dunno... Has anyone tried? Can I label that "yummy"? I´m in doubt... ;-)
Sure it can´t get a "health"-one!

And yes, I´m ok again. We needed some time apart - me, at least... thanks again for your support!

Oh, help - they are back!

It started slowly, you can say innocent, barely noticeable...
Maybe they invade only in my gym - I hope so, so far this happened only there.

Some time ago I saw a man in the gym. Hm dunno, I guess a bit younger than me. He had black hair and I stared in disbelief - he wore the same styling/haircut Limahl did (that guy is still in business, see here - and he wears still that haircut - sized to the current time).

Then it was quiet for a while.

Until last week. A guy much younger than me, mid 20s maybe. He wore all black, so his hairstyle came out with no doubt - Billy Idol (he is also still around)! The lightest blond and exact that styling. a wee bit shorter.

Inbetween I saw some guys with sweat- or wristbands...

And today.... a guy, maybe 17... OMG, I thought, oh, no... please...
Today I had to face this:



It was white and a bit smaller, his hair was dark brown and pretty much like in this pic!

I mean, yeah, when the 70´s came back - and they are still around - that was great, cool, groovy!

But the 80´s were bad the first time, so who wants to have that yet again???

Oh, please no! And they are all so young they weren´t even around back than.

Maybe my parents thought, oh no, not the 70´s again, but I can stand against that, saying I have the sweetest memories of a colorful, happy, free childhood.
What can you say about the 80´s? Embarrassing they were, I think - clothes- as music-wise ("Cherry, cherry lady", do I have to say more?). And that kiddo can´t even tell for real, so why???

From my point of view sweatbands are just yucky - and besides he did weight training, not cardio.
(I also wonder why some guys wear gloves? My friend says they have sweaty hands and can´t hold the weights without. But so many guys with sweaty hands??? And besides, that´s nothing to be proud of, is it? That´s like wearing a big sign saying - don´t come near, I´m sweaty! Eeeek.)

Boy, I guess in the future I´m forced to take my glasses off before entering the room...

Sorry, I´m still in shock and fear. Will this go on and on? Will they stay in the gym? Are they in other gyms as well, I can cancel in a months time...

To top all that I thought we have skipped the months March to September - the storm nearly knocked me off my push-bike. No, really. I had to stop once. And it was hard work.
Boy. Weekend!!!

Oh. Nearly forgot to mention: The sweatband on that kid says "nimms easy". "Nimms" is german for "take". Not "nimms leicht", not "take it easy", but this. As I said, the 80´s were embarrassing!