cancelling christmas

well, i knew my mom hated international flights, i just didn't realize the lengths she would go to in order to get herself out of coming to visit her daughter for christmas. landing yourself in the emergency room? really?

i'm trying desperately to make the best out of a situation that has me in tears everytime i think about it (like now) when what i really want to do is just cancel christmas this year. sean won't let me take down the christmas tree, though. i asked.

bah humbug.

thanksgiving 2008

it's good to have friends who tell you what to do. and even better when they tell you to do things that you really SHOULD do. since posting a few photos from thanksgiving is much easier than putting together a list of who will be receiving a christmas card from the bergs this year kimberly's request will be completed first. sorry, jill. you're next, i promise.

most of our photos were taken with april's camera, but here are a couple from mine!

clockwise from left: ryan, april, ria, kurt, sean, bryan, nicole, nate

oh my dog...

before and after...

before you start telling me that i'm a horrible dog mother, let me say there's only a difference of a few pounds from the before photo to the after. rena puts herself in some VERY unflattering positions. she needs to watch "how to look good naked" and take some tips from carson. we've been walking a lot lately. hour plus hikes in the woods (very hilly) most every day, often followed up by another hour long flat walk in the evening. rena, as the middle child, got stuck home with mara a lot while boney got the long walks, and now it's a different story. it's been good for her. her coat is shinier, and she's lost some weight, in spite of the fact that she's actually eating more now that mara's not around for her 1/3 of the wet food they get every night.

okay, so i haven't blogged in a long time. what can is say? did anyone actually miss me?

here's an update.

our neighbors down the hill are crazier than ever. saturday night our downstairs neighbors were up, and sarah and i sat on the front balcony (well, laid on the front balcony so they couldn't see us) and watched the two evil witches literally chase a car up the hill with a 5 foot long, 5 inch thick tree branch. you think i'm kidding? i'm not. i've never heard such yelling. sarah and i ran inside when the older witch decided she was going to walk UP the hill and make sure they were gone. later, when we had smores, i threw a marshmallow in their yard. i'm sure they will have it analyzed, determine it is of american origin, and call the police.

we had a wonderful trip to berlin. our hotel was literally right in front of where the wall used to be, and we were staying in what used to be east berlin. i had great food. ice cream with three toppings (do it yourself with olive oil, black pepper, and a sweetened balsamic vinegar). sounds awful, but was amazing. much like my avocado milkshakes... found a schlotsky's and had a turkey original, no onions no mayo. missed my salt and vinegar chips, but was still satisfied. also had mexican food twice, which was possibly a german record. we saw checkpoint charlie, pieces of the wall still standing and in displays, many historical buildings, and the dogs and i enjoyed an afternoon walking around the huge park (tiergarten). unfortunately they did not allow dogs in the zoo (like the website said) so we were unable to meet knut.

i complain about my neighbors all the time, but i don't often tell you guys how wonderful our downstairs neighbors, sarah and olli are. though we do plan nights to hang out, they often show up after work with beers in hand (becks, of course, they are from bremen). they are absolutely fabulous. i can't imagine being here without them. they are going to cairo on saturday for a week and sarah's parents are coming to stay here. we have invited her folks up to experience their first ever american thanksgiving. they are, evidently, very excited, as are we!

two of our very favorite people (in gereral, AND to travel with) are expecting a baby. congratulations! you know who you are... : ) we couldn't be happier for you both. and if two are too much, we'll take K off your hands...

my parents come in less than a month, and i've got some organizing to do before the big german christmas! i've got most of my christmas presents for family ready to go back with sean in early december. one last shopping trip this friday and hopefully i'll be done! if anyone wants anything from england (bea?) let me know and i'll pick it up when we head out there...

christmas markets begin next week i think, and i can't wait to drink gluwein, eat candied almonds, and go ice skating. oh, and the banana and chocolate crepes. and the bratwurst. and the potato pancakes with applesauce. well, i think we can all see what kind of new year's resolutions i'll be making...

okay, i think that's it for now.

oh yeah, i'm really happy about the election. : )

don't stop me now...

The day after Abby died Sean and I curled up on the couch that night and watched the movie "Shaun of the Dead." I remember being so tired and falling asleep throughout most of the movie, but waking up during the zombie fighting scene in the bar. The song they played during this scene was "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. It became my anthem for Abby's passing, and has remained so the last three years and four months. Every time I hear it (and I hear it a lot as it's on my running playlist) I think of her, look up and smile.

The past day the song has been running through my head again and again as I think about Mara. I think you'll find, whatever your beliefs, that you understand why it touched me so and why it will always remind me of my sweet girls and bring a smile to my face.

our angel...

This morning at around 10:30am we had to say goodbye to our sweet Mara. She was 13 years old.

Sunday morning she started having problems, and on Monday morning she had surgery due to a severely enlarged spleen and fluid in the abdomen. Her spleen was removed, however her platelets were so low and she continued to bleed and her body continued to fill with fluid. Last night, one of our other dogs Bonita donated blood so that Mara could have a transfusion. Mara continued to bleed, and it seemed that the fluid was collecting in her lungs and causing her problems breathing. Sean made it home this morning and we took her into the vets. There was nothing else they could do, nothing else that we would want to put her through. She went peacefully with both us there telling her how much she was loved, and how grateful we were to have spent so many wonderful years with her.

Mara was adopted from Greyhound Rescue Austin in February of 2000. She was the most beautiful greyhound I've ever seen, with the softest coat (second only to Summa, another greyhound friend). Mara had the most joyful, playful personality. When we adopted Boney in 2007 she had some issues adjusting. At one point, she snapped and growled at Mara. Mara began to quiver like a leaf, and I put Boney in the laundry room and comforted Mara until she calmed down. Twenty minutes later, when I went to let Boney out, Mara ran directly to her, tail wagging, wanting to play. Rena, on the other hand, still hasn't seemed to have forgiven Boney for a similar altercation!

Mara has flown across the Atlantic Ocean three times, all of them at the feet of her parents in business class, thanks to her therapy dog status. She has visited 15 countries, 14 of them in Europe. Throughout all of our adventures, she has truly enriched our lives. People everywhere want to say hi, pet the girls, ask questions... There are probably about 500 photos of Mara and her sisters floating around in Japan from all the captivated tourists! In the last few months, as the weather has cooled down, she has had a lot of fun. We live near the woods, where she had been able to roam around off-leash, and we had been taking her to meet other greyhound and galgo friends by the river. We also live near a castle, where they have a large closed off lawn. It wasn't two weeks ago that we had her up there running around and she took a sprint and was play-bowing like the young dog she was when she first came into my life.

We miss her terribly, and are absolutely heartbroken, but so thankful she was ours. She was so loved, and will be so missed...

update on mara

mara is okay, but we had a really rough day yesterday...

after a visit to the emergency vet on sunday due to fever, weak back legs, and loss of bladder control, mara returned yesterday for a urinalysis and an ultrasound. our normal vet took one look at sunday's x-ray and knew something wasn't right. during the ultrasound, he found fluid in her abdomen and an enlarged spleen. due to fear of puncturing her spleen, he was not able to extract any fluid for testing. he said he wanted to open her up immediately and find out what was going on. his initial thought was that the fluid was blood, and that she might have a spleen tumor and need to have her spleen removed. regardless of what it was, he said it was serious.

after a talk with my friend who is also the vet tech at our hospital, sean and i prepared to not wake her up if they found something that she would not recover from. this, especially difficult because sean is out of town. thankfully my friend meike was able to come and be with me. i said my goodbyes, just in case, and held mara while she was put under anesthesia.

after about 30 minutes in surgery, the vet came out and told me that he had no bad news. the spleen was severely enlarged, but the fluid was not blood and his thought was that the spleen was infected. he removed it and it has been sent to a lab for testing. there are a number of things that it could be, and we won't know for a week for sure.

mara and i sat around in the hospital for about 4 hours while they gave her fluid and monitered her as she woke up. thanks to german hospitals, mommy never has to leave her side unless she's on the table...

as of this morning, almost 24 hours after surgery, mara is doing well. she's 13, so coming out of anesthesia is a bit longer. she's not moving around much, but she did get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and she's looking like she may need to again. she's eating and drinking and everything is staying down. she's got a 7 inch incision in her belly and bruising all around it which looks horrible, but my baby is alive...

if anyone reads this, send positive thoughts, prayers, vibes - whatever - our way... thank you!

bohemian barksody

so prague was great, but we had a bit of hotel drama... here's a little story for my few readers.

the first night we were there we took boney out to dinner with us and left mara and rena in the room. when we came back to the hotel, there was a note on the door that read "YOUR DOG HAS BEEN BARKING ALL NIGHT. VERY ANNOYING!" i wrote out an apology under the complaint, promising to take the offender (rena) out to dinner with us the next two nights, and left the note on our door.

the next morning i got a call from the manager explaining that they had had some complaints the night before, and i told her everything we were planning to do to (tire rena out in the mornings, take her with us at night). she was very nice about the whole thing, and i was extrememely horrified and apologetic, and at the end of our conversation she asked if she could come up and meet the girls because she had heard how beautiful they were! she came up and spent about 10 mintues with us, loved the girls, and despite the disturbance we're welcome back anytime...

anyway, our neighbor got even with us... we woke up the following morning at 2am to the sound of a headboard furiously pounding against the wall. because of the neighborhood we were in and the number of "cabarets" and the fact that the door slammed shortly after the noise stopped, i'm safely assuming that whoever was there was compensated for her efforts.

i was horrified and pretty disgusted, and kept imagining the confrontation if we ran into each other in the hall...

HIM: "So are these the barking dogs?"

ME: "Yes, are you the whore f*#%er?"

anyway, i never ran into him, thank goodness. ugh.

nemluvím česky.

so sean and i are heading back to one of my favorite european cities on wednesday... it's been almost four years since i was last in prague, and i am so happy to be going back, though i wish i was meeting cristin and tam there. ah, the memories!

i've signed up for the prague half-marathon next march, and i'm looking forward to some runs there, and checking out the race course. oh, and christmas shopping! and since the czech republic is a member of the EU but has not yet changed currencies (and will likely not begin any time soon) i will be able to enjoy a change from the euro to the koruna. at press time, one dollar = 18.6 koruna, and one euro = 25 koruna. it's always fun (and slightly confusing since i have inherited my mother's math skills) to deal in higher numbers. i've always wished i had visited italy pre-euro...

here's a photo from abby and mara's first trip to prague. it will be mara's third trip this round, and the first for bonita and rena. i'm sure they are very excited.

proving my point, milking a dog, whatever...

sean will kill me for this... or will he? does he even bother to stop by and read his wife's blog? my guess is no. this is his punishment.

this is sean, pretending to milk rena on our trip to france. read my first blog from today, and you'll understand. plus, it just makes me laugh. it reminds me of ben stiller in 'meet the parents' explaining how you can milk a cat.

mara, the cute little downlink station

So last night I had just turned out the lights when Sean woke up and started laughing like a hyena. We then had the following conversation.

Sean: "Look at the cute little downlink station!"

Me: "The what?"

Sean: "The downlink station, she's such a cute little downlink station!"

Me: "Mara's a downlink station? What do you mean?"

Sean: "You know, for a satellite. BONEY'S a downlink station, AND an uplink station."

Me: "That's not Boney. Feel her hair."

Sean: "Oh, it's Rena."

Me: "No, it's Mara. Feel her nipples."

Two things about this are hilarious to me... One, of course, that Sean was convinced that the dog was a downlink station. This morning he told me he just KNEW he was making perfect sense. And two, that the easiest way to tell Mara from Rena in the dark is to feel her nipples. But really, it is...

fruit flies, 2008

so it's that time of year again. we live in one of the wine producing regions of germany, and the harvest and production have begun, as well as the annual infestation of fruit flies. they are EVERYWHERE. it doesn't matter that i don't have piles of discarded grape skins lying around (yes, you oenophiles, they are making mostly white in this area). i have literally TENS of fruit flies in my house, and they are driving me crazy, one by one. and evidently, contrary to popular belief, they live 10 - 19 days.

yolk yolk

so this morning i was making my normal breakfast of egg whites, and i cracked open a double-yolked egg. i incorrectly assumed that this would produce a set of twin chickens, as i think most would. i did a little reasearch and found this information at http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/double-yolked-eggs-are-two-yolks-better-than-one.html

Double Yolkers appear when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk somehow gets "lost" and is joined by the next yolk. Double yolkers may be by a pullet whose productive cycle is not yet well synchronized. They're occasionally laid by a heavy-breed hen, often as an inherited trait.

About 1 in 1000 eggs has a double yolk so it isn't all that rare. In some countries, markets sell cartons of double yolked eggs.

Throughout history and in different cultures, finding a double yolk has been considered to mean anything from an impending wedding to a financial windfall to a death in the family.

So would a double yolked egg produce twins?

Probably not:
... the presence of the two yolks would generally lead to an unsuccessful hatch. The nutritional value of the egg white, which is an important food supply for the embryo is insufficient for the two embyros.

has anyone else ever found one of these? Just curious...

p.s. i'm hoping for the financial windfall.

50 euros

so i ran by the bank today to pull some money out of the geldautomat. that's atm to you guys. i was reminded of the last time i visited this particular bank branch...

last time we lived here i opened a deutsche bank account. bills are paid directly from your account here (no checks), so it's a necessity living in germany. i went ahead and kept it open, thank goodness, and by the time we got back we had 50 euros left and waiting for us our second time around.

sean was never listed on the account, so the first month we were here, we went in armed with passports to get his name added and order him his very own EC carte/debit card. also necessary here since many places don't take credit cards, and we're not always very good about carrying around lots of cash.

so we get to the counter, and the cashier helps us get all of the paperwork in order to make the changes. just when we're done, he asks us if we would like to open a savings account. we say no. he then looks at us, apparently very genuinely concerned, and says, "you should really start thinking about putting something aside for your future."

poor guy thought all we had to show for all of our (okay, mostly sean's) hard work was 50 euros/75 dollars. it was all i could do not to bust out laughing while i explained to him that we did in fact have not only a savings account, but other investments as well, all of them located in america.

the jumbo hostel

i've always loved planes... for a long time i didn't necessarily love flying in them, but i have always loved watching them. growing up in houston, near intercontinental airport, my father and i would play this game in the car to see who could name the airline first. i'll never forget the first time i saw southwest's shamu plane in the air. moving near an international airport, the game has become a whole lot more interteresting due to the increase in airlines, and less interesting because i always seem to be playing alone. it's a lot more fun shouting out airline names when you have a competitor. instead, i have sean on his blackberry. ; )

one of my greatest airplane experiences so far was a few years ago when sean upgraded one of our transatlantic flights, and we flew in the top deck of a 747. it's happened twice since then, but the thrill of climing up those stairs (on a plane!!!) that first flight can't be replicated.

but it can be topped. by a night in the cockpit suite on the jumbo hostel, with a panoramic view of stockholm, sweden's arlanda airport. i've always wanted to go to stockholm, too. thank goodness it's not the jumbo hostel in siberia's novosibirsk tolmachevo airport.

sean knows that this is all i want for my birthday, christmas, all of the remaining holidays in 2008 and 2009 if that's what it takes. sigh. i love planes.

UPDATE:

a test...

mom... a challenge. leave a comment, and not only will i take you to london in december, i'll take you shopping on oxford street and we will have tea with the queen. okay, maybe we won't have tea with the queen, but we can have tea NEAR the queen.

come on, figure it out. as far as i know, there are only about three people reading this blog. i want proof that there are four of you.

the luckiest girl in the world

i truly am the luckiest girl in the world today.

we were just getting back from our trip to frankfurt. the three dogs came with me, and we all walked around for a bit. i assumed they were empty.

i needed to stop by bauhaus (german version of home depot) to get some stain, so i left rena and mara secure in the car in the parking garage, and boney came with me inside for the 5 minutes it took to get what i needed.

we got back in the car, and boney started to pant, but i assumed it was excitement. it was not. when we got home, she immediately ran as fast as she could to the back door, and took the nastiest watery poop she's ever had.

it scares me to think how close i probably was to having to clean it up off of the floor of bauhaus. poor boney.

lucky mommy.

greyhound picnic

the galgo group we adopted rena from 3 years ago had their annual summer picnic today. i happened to look at their website today and saw the announcement, so sean and i packed up the girls and drove the hour to frankfurt.

it's very rare that the girls get to run in a fenced area here. rena can go off-leash in the woods or by the river, but mara needs a fence, even at 13! it was so wonderful to see them with so many other dogs. there must have been 100 of them in the two fenced areas. mara and rena loved it, and boney enjoyed watching. she's so mean to other dogs, so we didn't want to risk her running around, even with a muzzle. mara, as usual, escaped into a corner with a group of boys, and of course rena barked continuousy. the three of them are crashed out on the couch.

i wonder if they remember why they are tired, and what a wonderful day they had?

violins play for me

there are a few days a year i hate being here and would give anything to be back in the states. today and tomorrow are two of those days. it's westfest weekend. westfest is a czech fest in west, texas, about 15 miles north of waco on I-35. exit 353.

courtney and i started going to westfest together 11 years ago today. i'll never forget my first tour of gatesville the night before the fest. i was getting a drive-by tour of the prisons (where courtney now works) when we heard that princess diana had died.

anyway, there have been few missed years since that first visit, and i've even flown back from germany to attend the festivities. it's the only event where where getting drunk is almost an impossibility, cause we rarely stop dancing. that's what happens when brave combo is onstage.

this weekend court's going without me on her way up to fort worth, but i'm willing to bet i'll get a phone call late tonight or very early tomorrow morning from a tipsy girl with no dance partner. and it just might make me cry.

so tonight i'm gonna pull out a few westfest mugs, fill 'em up with some pilsner urquell (sadly, no miller lite), and bob my head along to 'pije kuba' and 'apples, peaches, pumpkin pie' - and i might even make sean polka with me.

court, have a kolache and a beerbread sausage sandwich for me.

westfest 2007

westfest 2006

westfest 2004

tipping the scales

heinzscheisse and her daughter went all out today, and they are, i think, forever on my scheisse list.

sean and i were in two levels of the stairwell, putting together multiple items from ikea. i still hate ikea, by the way. i came up, and smelled the smell of someone having trouble on the hill. didn't think much of it, got my wrench, and was about to go back to work, when sean came up and started panicking. "something's on fire, what's on fire??!!!" i took him to the window, we looked down, and see a shiny bmw convertible parked in the street and two young guys standing around. they look up and tell us they are stuck. we tell them they are not the first (nor the second, or the third, and we've only been here for 3 months). they happen to be americans, so we communicate well. we tell them to come on up and chill on our balcony, we'll give them a beer while they wait for the car to cool down and see if they can back it up.

i'll try to make a loooong story short. the guys tell us that not less then two minutes after their trouble started, the nasty neighbor was outside yelling at them, holding her nose and yelling "schtinken, schtinken!!!"- which i didn't even realize was actually used in german. evidently, the daughter of the pair ran into the house, got a pad of paper, ran back outside and wrote down the plate numbers on the car.

the heinzscheisse's, the police, the driver, and sean

so i'm putting furniture together, sean's on the balcony chilling with our new friends, and i get the call to come outside and translate. because the neighbors have called the politzei (um, that's the german police). yep. our neighbors called the police because someone accidentally drove down the street and got stuck and made a bad smell. so i translate, tell then that we just met these guys, that their gps system led them down the street, and that our neighbors, and i quote, "have nothing but time, have made war with us because our dogs peed on the street, and are NOT nice." let me say, were my german better, i would have come up with something slightly less simplistic. so the police spend about 30 minutes talking to the nasty neighbors (who gesture REPEATEDLY at our house while the cop smiles at me in silent understanding) until we get the call that the BMW serviceman will arrive in an hour to take care of the problem.

we continue with beers on the balcony, bmw comes and can't fix the car, but the poor bmw guy ends up getting an earload from the neighbor as well. and evidently he had heard it before - because they have been down the same hill, for the same problem, and the police were called and the nasty neighbors were outside yelling at anyone and everyone they could. and wouldn't you know, they were back out again and yelling because we had laid something under the front wheel of the car so it wouldn't move forward, and they were concerned that this would be left there and they would not be albe to drive if they wanted to. in three months i have never seen or heard them take their car out once, but whatever. if they wanted to drive later, and this (slightly heavy but very moveable) thing was in the road, it would be the end of the world.

a tow truck was called, the car was removed, our new friends were returned to the car rental agency for a new car, and i hate my neighbors more than ever. but i learned something. i learned something about the kind of person i want to be. when someone gets stuck in front of my house, through no fault of their own (damn those gps systems), do i want to be the one who yells at them and calls the police? or do i want to be the one that invites them up for beer while they wait?

tough decision, but i think i'll go for the beer.

the eiffel tower. really, it is.
family photo in the vineyards of pomerol
boney and her big paws
the cutest, whiniest girl in the world
on the tower in st. emillion

well, our long french vacation is almost over... it's been a wonderful week and a half, but i think we're ready to quit living out of hotels and get back to the vaterland...

here were the highlights, in no particular order...

1. riding the roller coasters at paris disney was a blast... thinking about doing this got me through the painting, and it may have just been worth it. not that i am EVER going to paint another house without professional help again. (really sean. i'm not going to do it. if you won't hire a painter in the next house then we're going to live on the hill forever. ; ) )

2. wine. oh, the wine, the vineyards as far as the eye can see, dotted with unbelievable french chateaus. we were staying in st. emillion, in the bordeaux region of southern france. man, do these people know how to ferment the grape. the only hard part is that many of the 30 something bottles we're coming home with will be best enjoyed in 3 - 10 years. sean's going to have to hide them from me. i've been known to accidentally open up a bottle of something valuable while he's away and enjoy it over the course of a week. sacre bleu!!!

3. the croissants. with the butter and the jam. although perhaps i should not list this as a highlight since it's going to take me a month to burn off all of the calories i consumed on the trip. while meals were very reasonably portioned (love this aspect of french dining) we did have pastries every morning and dessert every night. and did i mention lots of wine? french women don't get fat?? i'm obviously not french. the gym awaits.

4. dinner with our favorite waiter in the world. philippe at la gitane down the road from our cheap hotel in paris, who remembered the girls in an instant. on our last trip here two years ago, he took our plates from us and proceeded to feed the leftovers piece by piece to mara and rena and forever endeared himself to all of us. love this guy. unfortunately last night it rained on us and i had to run the dogs to the hotel after a brief reunion, but we'll be back. and he told us he would be there until he died, which is good to know.

5. mara got to visit with a male greyhound from munich in st. emillion. though this was not necessarily one of the top moments of the trip for me, it meant a lot to her (super doggy slut that she is) so i've chosen to include it.

6. i got some WONDERFUL photos of the girls while we were here, and tomorrow before we leave we'll get the requisite shots of boney at the eiffel tower to add to the collection.

7. sean relaxed. and had fun. and didn't work so hard.

8. today i rode the subway all by myself to the galleries lafayette. i didn't buy much, but i bought something beautiful. my mother will not be surprised to hear that it's a very nice bag... (it's your fault mom, you did this to me.) i loved my day, and i'm enjoying relaxing, with nothing on the agenda until sean gets home and we go for drinks on the champs-élysées.

9. my brand new chanel blue satin nail polish. i found a sephora, and tonight my toes are going to match the eiffel tower.

france, part one.

so we arrived in france yesterday. when we got here i painted for weeks, and sean asked me what i wanted to do as a treat for working so hard, and so i told him i wanted to ride roller coasters in paris. so, here we are, and roller coasters i have ridden...

we went to walt disney studios yesterday and i THOUGHT my favorite roller coaster was there. about 8 or so years ago i went to orlando and rode the rock'n roller coaster (aerosmith) and loved it. turns out in paris, though it is indoors and probably a very similar coaster, they skipped the neon signs they have indoors and turned the music way down. makes for a much less exilerating ride. but we rode it 3 times, and i still had a blast.

today we went to disneyland. space mountain in paris is a bit different than space mountain in the us. my mom and i went here a few years ago (hi mom!) and i took her to disneyland at her request and we went on space mountain. to her surprise, it does a few 360's. for me, that's great, but not so much for her! here, they've got all kinds of lights, planets, etc., and it's much better than i remember in the states. i managed to get sean on it twice... besides that we did a few other rides, includeing phantom manor which has always been one of my favorites...

i wish i had studied physics and engineering (or whatever) and was a roller coaster designer. seriously. i think that would be the perfect job for me.

we went out to dinner tonight at a little italian place here in bussy st. george. i've said this before, but having the girls with us is amazing. without them, we're just another two americans traveling in europe. with them, we're two americans with greyhounds who people stop and talk to. once again, we had another fabulous evening with numerous people stopping to chat because they or their kids were interested in the dogs. at one point, our waiter came out and was amazed at how many people we had crowded around our table talking with us. i tried to convince him i was famous in america, but i don't think he bought it. next time i should keep my sunglasses on and probably dress up a bit. the girls are worth their weight in diamonds. they enrich our lives so much. if any of you have any doubts, just come visit.

tomorrow morning we're off to bordeaux.

dogs catch the yawns from people

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26045097/?GT1=43001

that dogs catch the yawns from people is interesting, but really not surprising to me.

however, the dog yawning in the photo is getting fitted for his new fleece jacket in "Germany's first custom tailor shop for dogs in Leipzig."

oh. my. goodness. leipzig is only 4 hours from here. i've gotta get the girls in for a fitting. greyhounds need jackets, it's not fashion, it's a necessity...

(and you see what i mean about my hair worries? she appears to be sporting a mullet. which is not at all uncommon among women here...)

hornberg. burg hornberg.

last week sean told me that we were going to go away for two nights, but he didn't tell me where... thursday morning i packed my bags, and we drove about 45 minutes and ended up at the castle burg hornberg (burg in german means fortress, berg means mountain). we had stayed there last round in germany and loved it, and it was great to go back. we had a wonderful time, relaxed, drank lots of the local wine, and spent a lot of time outdoors with all three girls. unfortunately on the way back home i spilled hot coffee (from mcdonald's, of course) all over my leg. it left a nice burn that looks suspiciously like a guitar. a wii guitar, that is...

here is a photo of the castle toilet, and a demo of how it is used. i am wearing shorts, they are just covered by my hair...

and speaking of hair, tomorrow i'm getting it cut and colored. i've been here three months, i've got a good inch of roots now with some greys in there, and it's obviously time for a trim when you can't tell i'm wearing shorts in photos.

finding a hairdresser is probably one of the most stressful things about getting settled here. my german, while okay for some things, is not okay when i'm trying to communicate with anyone holding a pair of scissors anywhere near my head. especially when you've seen some of the haircuts around here, not to mention the colors. conservatively dressed older women walk around with purple hair. there's a woman in my neighborhood who has hair the color of ronald mcdonald, and she wears pants with an elastic waist and floral blouses. actually, she makes me smile (and like most germans, i do NOT make her smile back)...

anyway, i found a girl who speaks english at a salon, and i'm gonna give her a shot. and now i've got to go find some photos to take with me in case her english is as bad as my german.

OH, i booked my mom and dad's flights for christmas today! whoo-hoo! and we're going to london to celebrate my mom's birthday while they are here!

bye, bye, deet...

so i had to say goodbye to one of my closest friends tonight... dietlind is moving to florida with her girls on thursday, and as happy as i am that she's finally making the move back to the states, i'm even sadder to see her go... i've known her for years, moved once and left her, and now she's leaving me. such is life as an expat. people are always coming and going, it seems like it's one goodbye after another.

this one is particularly hard.

hi mom!!!

hello my sweet mother... i know you're reading this, so i just want to tell you how much i want you guys to come to germany for christmas! (she's wavering, you see... hates the long flight overseas, and who could blame her!)

but, if you come, i promise to show you a fabulous time... we can play guitar hero every night, go gambling in baden-baden, go to london for a weeekend if you like, spend christmas in prague, or back in italy - you name it and we'll do it! of course, i'm not going to take you back to france unless you can dig up more than 'fromage' from your high school frence... if you're not gonna come out once a year or so, i'm going to have to tell sean we need to move back. : (

i love you. please come!

www.t*&b#@ogs.com

so about 7 years ago i registered a domain name and started a little website for the girls in an attempt to learn html. it hasn't been updated in years, and my html skills never progressed beyond the very basic.

a few weeks ago i had an offer to buy the website... i spoke to my lawyer (brother-in-law) who just happened to help negotiate the sale of business.com, and he gave me a little negotiation advice. when i got my first offer, it was waaaay lower than i expected. i countered. he countered. i just let it sit for a while, and today i emailed him back with my final offer.

if they take it, i could pay for a good part of our vacation to france in august (or take sean somewhere else), and then donate a good portion of money back to the greyhound/galgo rescue groups we work with. but i need to be able to do both.

anyway, cross your fingers that they will take it. cause i'm not going any lower.

UPDATE: well, they accedted my offer, which makes me think i should have gone for a bit more! oh well, we'll have a great trip and some greyhounds will get to eat, so all is wunderbar...

time for a polish change.

all my girlfriends (you too, mom!) know that one of the first and last things i like to do when i come home is go get a pedicure. they are awful here. no polish, no tub full of jetted water, no massage chair... just a scary german woman weilding a dremel. that's pretty much it. really.

i'm so desperate after two months, i think i would do this...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25783483?GT1=43001

i'm also wondering, is this FINALLY the pedicure that i'm going to be able to convince sean to get? it does seem a bit more, um, manly...

das haus

some photos of the house... the green room is the guest room, hope to see everyone in it in the next three years!

knobs

so i've got a locksmith coming tomorrow to change two of the doorknobs in the house. turns out boney CAN open the doors, and she has shown great determination to do it again. they don't use the round turning knobs here like they do in the states, or so i've seen, so i'm curious what they'll come up with that is boney-proof.

we have our first houseguest coming into town this weekend for the formula one race in hockenheim. no, i'm not going. sean is looking forward to it though, of course. i'm in a mad scramble to get the house presentable. i hired a cleaning lady yesterday (thank you, thank you, thank you sean!), but unfortunately she can't start until next week so i'm on my own with the organization AND the cleaning.

i'm also working on planning a vacation in august to france, most likely to the bordeaux region. if anyone has any tips or advice on where to go, please let me know. we've waited until the last minute, of course, and finding a hotel that will take three big dogs isn't so easy... wish me luck.

i just sent out a note to friends and family letting you all know where this blog is. i'm curious to see who actually reads it, so leave a comment for me if you do. until now, i think there were three people who knew about it (hi kimberly, sean, and sarah!), but i've decided not to be shy and put it out there. and if any of you read this in texas and want to send me a chicken guacamole tubular taco and some creamy jalepeno ranch from chuy's, let me know. i'm getting desperate. sean, we need to go to stuttgart and try out that "fabulous" mexican place you were told about.

i promise, once i finish this house, my life will be a bit more entertaining...

m' ladies.

i watched an old frasier episode the other day guest starring sarah silverman, who i absolutely love. she was a patient of the docs on his first day at his new practice. turns out he had slept with her roommate, who had told her that frasier had called her m' lady while they were in bed. everyone in their circle of friends started calling each other m' lady, it turned into a huge joke, and someone's aunt named their dog m' lady. anyway, it struck me as hilarious, and i've been calling the girls m' ladies for weeks now...

so, without further ado, some photos of m' ladies.

and a few of the greyhound puppies from greyhound rescue austin.

rena

mara

the bergs, circa 2006

taking home the grand prize in 2007. mara and rena

boney, our little black sheep

abby and mara, 2003

oh, the puppies...

meeting the puppies

mara and boney playing in austin

my dog can open doors.

warning: if you love cats, you might not want to read this

so yesterday sean and i were upstairs hanging pictures on the third floor and hear a cat wailing outside. i look out of the window and see that bonita has the cat in her mouth and is shaking it. sean ran outside and by the time i got out he had her by the collar and the cat was dead...

a little background on the cat. we were walking the other day, and there was a cat just off the side of the road in the grass. the girls got within a foot or two, and boney realized it was there and of course went crazy. on the way back the cat stuck it's head around and boney tried to get closer, but i got her in the house. i was out a bit later taking trash out and the cat was making it's way up the street. i went to get a closer look, and saw that it was missing an eye and had a huge red growth where the eye should have been. it was dragging a useless leg behind it, and was pretty slow because of this. it looked at me and opened it's mouth to hiss, but no sound came out. it's remaining eye was weepy and it looked as if it was crying. i started calling it sad cat. boney spent the afternoon looking out the windows at this cat, and we had a long talk about how obviously no one was caring for it, she needed to be sympathetic and leave it alone. i wanted to feed it, catch it and take it to the vet, and even remarked that maybe i should let boney out to put the poor thing out of it's misery. those words came back to haunt me.

boney opened our front door and let herself out. she's done it with the internal door in our main living room twice again this morninig, as if to show us that it was her, and we didn't accidentally leave the door open. we've since taken to locking the door with a key from the inside.

anyway, after we got boney in the house, sean went and wrapped the cat in a towel and we put it in a box and headed to the vet. freaking out, of course. i didn't know at that point that it was, in fact, sad cat, and was terrified that it would be a) my downstairs neighbors cat (they are our friends, and i'm sure our dog killing their cat would have ended that) or b) frau heinzscheisse's cat from down the street (she hates us, and i'm certain she would have done everything she could to have boney put down). when we got to the vet and i realized it was sad cat, i had the vet examine her so i had some ammunition for an animal cruelty and neglect case if i needed to bring one against someone if they went after us. he was dehydrated, had pellets from a bb gun in one leg, a tumor in the muscle in the other, the tumor in the eye, and was evidently old. not that any of this makes boney killing it okay, but the fact remains that the ONLY reason she was able to get ahold of this cat was because it could barely walk. it was too weak to defend itself - bonita came out without a scratch. the way boney killed it would have caused it to die instantly. i won't get into details. the cat was microchipped, but not registered, so we have no way of knowing whose it was, and i know in my heart that no one was caring for him... and if they were they were monsters.

i cried and cried at the vets, should anyone think i sound unsympathetic about this. i pet the poor thing and apologized profusely. the thing is, boney was a hunting dog. she did what she had been trained to do, and what greyhound have been trained to do for thousands of years. it's in her blood, and if she wasn't good at it in spain she probably wouldn't be alive today. that doesn't mean we won't be visiting a trainer or working with a behaviorist.

we're having the cat cremated, and i'm going to climb a hill and give it a decent send off and a beautiful resting place.

one month later...

wow, it's been a month since i've been here... i'll make this short and sweet.

most of our household goods arrived three weeks ago, and the last small shipment arrives tomorrow. we've been working hard getting everything organized. first booked guest arrives in september, so i've got some time. have to work on guest rooms and my gym/office and i'll be done... of course, there are a lot of dishes coming tomorrow, so the kitchen will need some re-organizing as well.

not much traveling... we went to belgium a few times. bruges and brussels. going to geneva on sunday for a few days.

have started running a bit more, and doing pilates now that the reformer is here. feeling better now that i'm excercising. went kayaking last night, and now know where to put in the boat. my favorite thing has been riding my bike around town though... so nice to be able to do that...

dell girls' night tonight, and tomorrow the magnetic fields play just two bus stops down from us! we don't get that many bands here that i'm interested in, and i LOVE the magnetic fields, so i'm very very excited!

girls are doing well. it's hot here. mara's 13 now and she's too old for this crap.

rainy nights and early mornings...

it is pouring here... i'm loving the storm, though i fear the girls need to go potty and none of them will go out in the rain. hopefully we'll get a break here soon and can go out for a quick walk. right now i'm distracting them from their bladders with bull penises. doggy crack, i tell ya!

tomorrow we get up early and drive to dunkirk, france to meet sean following the end of his 5-day bike ride. then we're off to bruges for the night. it's one of my favorite cities to visit, small, picturesque... love the canals, and i love the kriek. kriek is this cherry flavored beer that is very very sweet. of course, in germany it would be illegal to flavor beer like this, so it's a special treat for me. the germans, instead of brewing beer with flavors, just mix things into beer after it's brewed. like the radler, for example, which is beer mixed with a sprite-like drink. or beer and cola, which i have never tried and proably never will.

i'm looking forward to my first excursion out of deutschland, and bruges is the perfect place. five years ago when we first arrived in germany, our first trip was to brusells, and i THINK we spent a day or two in bruges afterwards. i'm losing my memory.

single soldier!

purchased from the commissary. how about single serving???

olive...

here she is, my new ride, minus the shopping bags that attach to the rear rack...

neighbors

so our nasty neighbor frau heinzscheisse is at it again... we walked by her house, on the OTHER side of the street, and of course rena desides to pee. quite a feat in itself, really, considering the decline. so she and her daughter stick their heads out the window and starts yelling at us. her daughter insults sean for speaking english back to her (really, should he just stand there and take it and say nothing because he doesn't speak german well???), and then they yell at us for a few minutes about how we should walk UP the hill to pee the girls before we walk down the hill by her house. now i need to find out if it truly is verboten for dogs to pee on the street. if it is, fine, we won't do it. if it is NOT, we still will do our best to not do it as she obviously wants her f***ing street to be pristine, but we won't put up with the abuse...

we have a few sightings of a neighbor across the street whose balcony faces ours. um... i'm pretty sure he's a nudist. or just really likes hanging out on his balcony naked. i wonder if he knows that this place is not empty anymore? or if he even cares?

Please omit it.

last night our house turned into a giant panic room! german houses have metal blinds on the outside of the windows called rolladen. germans typically put the house to bed and close these in the early evening. last night at around 7 we had a problem with the electricity and a fuse broke, and all of the electric rolladen (leading out to all the balconies) closed and wouldn't open. s said it well when he emailed our landlord - "it's almost like being prisoners in our own home..." had to make a few calls and pull out my rusty german, but the rolladen are fixed and we are no longer prisoners.

so this morning, after the rolladen phone calls, i was pouring a cup of coffee when the bell rang. i went downstairs and my next door neighbor from down the hill was standing there. i opened the door, and since we had not spoken other than 'guten morgan' and 'guten abend' the first thing i did was introduce myself to her. we shook hands and she brought out a handwritten note and started trying to tell me something. i knew immediately that i had done something wrong and she was here to tell me ALL about it.

well, it turns out that one of the girls peed on the ivy that grows off of her property and stops at the street, and she would like them to stop. She was kind enough (really, i actually thought this was very thoughtful of her) to write the note in german and then use a dictionary to translate it into english for me - evidently one can tell i'm an american when i say good evening, which is just wunderbar...

here's how the note reads...

the urine from your 3 dogs before our premises. There ivy grow is our premises, above and below our house (home). Please omit it.

so we now have to avoid one side of the narrow road when we walk down to the river. it's truly ridiculous in my opinion that the dogs can't pee there, but who am i to argue? the sad part of the story is that as she's telling me what i've done wrong, and i'm trying to explain to her how this house and the steepness of the hill and lack of grass are such an issue for us, i start crying and can't stop. now i rarely cry... really. however ever since i was a child, the one thing that gets me is being reprimanded for doing something 'wrong' and of course this time was no different, especially since i was so utterly frustrated with the situation. i think she felt sorry for me, because she started saying things like "you love your animals... i have two cats, i understand. i love my animals too," and then told me how to get ticks off my skin with tape that she happened to have in her pocket. wtf???

anyway, i got about 50% of everything she said in the 10 minutes or so that we talked, which i'm pretty proud of, and hopefully we won't piss her off again. if you know me and the story of the guy who yelled at me in our last house in heidelberg, you'll know this isn't the first time this has happened. he ended up being a great neighbor, hopefully she will too.

good news... this afternoon i found a great grocery store (on recommendation from a friend) down the road in a small town outside of heidelberg. they have big aisles, great produce that i don't have to weigh and print stickers for myself, free parking, and they take credit cards so i don't have to worry about having enough cash on me when i go. it was nearly empty today at around 3pm when i went, which was also wonderful. i still have to bag my own groceries, but one can't have everything... : )

s got to spend the day in paris (while i argued with neighbors, stocked his fridge, and finished painting the bedroom) and will be home in an hour. now i will admit, he had meetings, but still - he had meetings in paris.

i'm ready for a 'meeting' in paris with a bottle of wine.

i hate ikea...

so today didn't go as planned...

i woke up early to get my 'charges' to the train station by 8:45. s has a colleague whose kids i entertained last night for 7 hours (which i enjoyed, but i am a scatterbrain right now dealing with everything that's going on, so i'm sure they think i'm loony), and they stayed at the temporary apartment we are not using but still have access to.

got them to the train station, and then headed off to complete first errand. IKEA. which i both love and hate dearly. i needed a clothes rack or two to get us through the next few months, hangers, and the two missing sofa cushions from saturday's purchase. a note on the clothes rack... german houses generally have no closets. evidently it's a tax thing - houses taxed by room, closets considered rooms. i don't know if that is fact, but that's what i have heard. so when i tell you that besides the smallish basement, kitchen cabinets and two small cabinets in our master bath, we have NO storage space, i'm not kidding. there is none. no linen closet, not a hall closet for coats, and certainly nothing in the bedrooms... anyway, i digress. i get to ikea, grab the hangers, locate the aisle number to pick up the racks, and of course they are out. i pay for the hangers, and go and get a number to wait for customer service to ask them for the cusions i was not given on saturday. when i pulled into IKEA, i had a sneaking suspicion that i was going to have a problem because this was not the original IKEA where the sofa was purchased, but s assured me that it would be no problem and they would be able to help me. sure enough, after a 20 minute wait, i was told that i would have to drive back to the mannheim IKEA (25 minutes or away) because that was where the original purchase was made. the rep confirmed that yes, had i purchased the sofa in berlin, i would have to drive to the berlin store. you see, i gave the mannheim store my money, and if they gave me something from the weinheim store, they would be in the the negative. ???? nice. so i drive to the other IKEA, get my clothes racks, and then get a number (okay, and a hot dog i'll admit, by this point i'm starving) to wait for my turn. i'm number 39, there are 28 people ahead of me, and there are two people working customer service. so i wait. about 45 minutes. thankfully i get my cusions with little hassle, but i spent 3 hours total running this "little" errand.

so then off to get paint and painting supplies at bauhaus. thankfully, during my 45 minute wait, i've had time to double check colors and make my detailed list. i arrive at the big bauhaus with easy parking, get my cart (thankfully i had a euro coin today), and head upstairs. find someone and tell them i need a LOT of paint, and she tells me that they can add the color, but they can't mix it because their machine is broken for the next few days. okay, so i get my painting supplies, and a few lights for the house (because in germany renters take their light fixtures when they go. hey, they often take everything AND the kitchen sink, so i'm not going to complain about this). i also pick up some white overalls for the painting, which i turned into cutoffs and am looking forward to sporting for the next few weeks until the walls in this place, as well as my overalls, are no longer white...

then off to get dog food, because we're out and i need somthing until tomorrow when the air shipment arrives. picked up a 10-pack of bull penises and some dried intestines for the girls (they are LOVING me tonight) and the food, and then head to a different bauhaus to get the paint. at this point i'm tired and i'm not going to wait for more than a few buckets, so i just go with the two main colors for now.

by the time i get home, i've been running around for 6 hours and i'm exhausted. i look longingly at the air mattress in the middle of the living room, but take the girls for a short walk. when i finally crawl into bed for a little nap, it's wet. peed-on-by-mara wet. she's always had this behavioral thing where she'll pee on the bed (and nowhere else in the house - really, she's good!) and i know better, but i forgot to stack something on top of it to keep her off. of course we have no other sheets, and i don't have a washer and a dryer until friday.

at this point i was about to lose it. i get the sheets and head off for the other apartment, where i know i'll be waiting three hours to do one load of laundry. thank goodness i decided to call my friend who lives down the street first and was able to use her washer and dryer. she was nice enough to switch the loads for me so i only made two trips and got clean sheets AND dinner.

i went for a walk on the neckar with the girls later on in the evening to remind myself why i LOVE this place, cause today it gave me an unexpected beating. painting begins tomorrow, and i've got the bedroom prepped and ready. obviously that has to be first so i can get the bed out of the living room. air shipment tomorrow includes, among other things, my accordion, big fluffy dog beds, extra linens, and my brand new city bike, complete with big basket and shopping bags attached to the rack on the back. i can't wait to go for a ride!!! the question is, do i change out of my paint stained overalls before i go?

gute nacht, heidelberg...