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!