Care Bears are Delicious!

The Kindergarten here in Neureut never ceases to amaze me. I have complained before about how they operate, but it just seems to be getting worse. I have mentioned kids hitting and kicking. I have mentioned kids whacking the shit out of kids with sticks. I don't know if I have mentioned that most of the time the kids are not disciplined. We had asked about the Kindergaten's policy after Aiden got whacked a couple of times in a single day (while Sarah was trying to round them up at the end of the day). They said the the sticks aren't ever allowed inside. Aiden had been whacked while inside. Sarah then noticed that every time she was there, a kid was swinging a stick. So we told Aiden not to bring them in, and to be sure not to run around swinging them at people. He inevitably brings them in, though, because all of the other kids do. When they see Aiden with a stick inside, though, the make him sit in a corner, because we voiced concern about it. That just annoys the Hell out of me. So one of the big trouble maker's in the class, who we will call Ah-Hoon (because Aiden insists that is how the kid's name is said), is always involved with these incidences. He is constantly kicking, hitting, biting, pinching, punching or hurting some other little kid. When the kids aren't close enough, he makes trouble with the teachers. Sarah said she was talking to a teacher once, and this little hoodlum came up and tried to spit on the teacher RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS MOM! What did the teacher do? Nothing because the mom was there. I know, I know, you want to know what the mom did? Nothing. Not a damned thing. Nada. This is how you raise heathens.

So yesterday there was quite a ruckus at school. Aiden kept talking about a little boy needing to go to the doctor because his finger came off. So as we were getting the kids ready for bed, Aiden started talking about it again. Now, for those of you without young children, you have to be very careful with info you get from a kid. So we asked him a few times throughout the getting to bed routine, and we had him play it out a couple of times. Here's how he described it.

The goon comes up behind a littler kid and shoves him to the floor. He pulls out a pocket knife, jumps on the kids and CUTS THE TIP OF HIS FINGER OFF! So what do they do? They end up calling the injured kid's mom because his finger is bleeding like he's going to die. She comes and takes him to the doctor. His finger tip will apparently be flat forever. But they took care of the bully. They took his knife away and made him change to a different classroom. Yep. That's it. Now he's in Briana's room.

Briana is going to be out all week due to illness (more on that in a minute). Aiden is going to be out the rest of the week while we decide what we are going to do. I am going to go in in the morning and talk to the director to see what they plan. We have been on the fence with this school for a while, but this is simply too much. If they don't have something lined up to deal with this kid, I really don't know what we will do. This was the only kindergarten near us that had room. We may just have to search further out. It is pretty annoying.

So we have been pretty strung out lately. The kids have been flirting with colds, and they have not been sleeping well. I have switched sides of the bed with Sarah, so I now catch all of the kids's night time visits. Last night, Sarah and I fell asleep on the sofa reading books around 10:30. At 11:00, I wake up to BB calling for Mommy. I run up the stairs to find her kneeling on her bed in front of a pile of vomit. Yippee! So we (by we I mean mainly Sarah) had to get her cleaned up. She had puke on her clothes, on her hands, in her hair, all over the bedclothes. Fortunately, we had a waterproof mattress pad on it. So we got that all switched out and got her back to bed. 30 minutes later, she was at it again. This time, we were quick enough be able to reuse the other waterproof mattress pad we had put on the last time. I ran down and grabbed her a big bowl after that. She used that bowl every thirty minutes until about 4:00 AM. Sarah finally moved Aiden into our room and slept in his bed so she could be quicker to B's aid. So I got up late, got Aiden going and then got him to kindergarten.

B was pretty pukey and sleepy all day. And whiney. Aiden showed some pretty serious signs as well when he got home. He was crazy grumpy. At one point I called the house and he answered the phone like he was ready to kill someone. Apparently he and Sarah were arguing about how many Kinder Eggs he was going to get. He was past the number that Sarah was willing to give. So he started grumbling. Then he started going on about eating Care Bears (he was watching a Care Bear's movie). So I started talking about how good they would taste good with some butter, garlic and onions in white wine and chicken broth. He said, "Yeah! Care Bears are delicious!"

More German than German

Well, I have decided to try to out German the Germans. As we all know, I have been riding my bike rain or shine, hot or cold, day or night. I live to amaze my German colleagues. As if not owning a car wasn't enough. Or learning their language as well. A couple of months ago, we were at a parent/teacher's conference at the Kindergarten. We got scolded for using plastic bags for the kids' breakfasts. The Germans told us we were being wasteful. Now, our kids have been trained by the best. They eat their food and dutifully stuff their plastic bags back in their lunch sacks so that Mama can wash them out and hang them on my knife block full of eighty dollar knives to dry. Unless of course, the little effing German kids take their food. Then, the little effing German kids throw those plastic bags on the ground for the teachers to pick up and throw away. Then we get in trouble. So Sarah has been prepping breakfast for two kids to take to school since September. We have gone through a single box of bags. We are frugal. But the right thing, apparently, is to take a little paper envelope and use that instead. Then, it is easy to throw away. Now, I can buy into that. If you think of being able to burn it without huge waste or maybe it recycles nice and easy. I personally think that it is wasteful to buy something that seems to be designed for single use. And the Germans seem ok with it in this case. Sarah bought some to try (she had to work over the issue for a few months until she could think of it as her idea so she could buy some). They are ok. They keep bread soft enough until lunch. They suck if there is anything on the bread (hey, it's paper, what can I expect, right?). So I started using them since they are here. Then I got to thinking. I realize that no one ever know it, but I have started reusing them. Yup. It means absolutely nothing, but just like Sarah has to think she came up with the idea of using paper bags for sandwiches, I have to show the Germans how to really apply their theories.

It's odd really. I don't have anything to gain, and there isn't a prize at the end. But by golly I'm gonna run that race like a crazed man.


Oh, and if you look closely at the third picture, you will see that SPAM is actually a delicacy from Denmark. See, we ARE classy in Arkansas.

Done.

It has been a busy weekend. We are trying to decide what to do with our kiddos, see. As I have alluded to once or twice, we are a wee tight on money right now, what with a move to a new continent being slowly reimbursed (and not quite 100%, either) and not being able to sell a house or two. Due to that, we have been a little slower acquiring furniture than we had originally planned. We had planned on moving here, using our two twin mattresses for the kids and buying ourselves a new bed. Well, beds cost money. Here, they cost a LOT of money. So the kids slept on cheap air mattresses for a couple of months, and we kept the real mattresses. Then, we found a sale on some thick, roll-up foam mattresses and bought a couple for the kids. They were pretty excited. Unfortunately, they are still on the floor. So we went to a local store to look at bunk bed frames on Saturday. This involved a 30 minute tram ride. We then walked for about 10 minutes before we found a spot to cross some Deutsche Bahn train tracks. Turns out, the crossing was at the next tram stop. So we could have simply ridden the tram for another 90 seconds and saved about eight and a half minutes. Oh, well... We then walked another ten minutes or so to the store. Now this isn't really a nice store. It is a lot like a low end IKEA. But they had a better bunk bed selection, and the prices are fair. We wanted to check the quality, though, before we made any decisions. The beds are OK. I think we will end up with one. We are going to wait until next month to buy it, though.

After the furniture store, we walked back to the track crossing and caught the tram (minus the extra ten minute walk). We headed into town and stopped at a clothing store that tends to have good deals on kids' clothes. They were having a sale. We picked up some new shoes for B. They are as blue and boy as can be, but they were only €5, and they have Velcro straps. Now the littler monster can get herself ready. We are hoping to buy her something that won't force her to struggle with her identity later, but we needed a stop gap for the time being since her old shoes are falling apart and are too small. And they have laces. We found a pair of house shoes for Aiden as well. He is always cold, and we haven't been able to find any that we have liked. He has a pair that he wears in Kindergarten (it's a German thing), but they normally run about €30 a pair. We managed to find him a pair that look like mine that were only €5. Hell yes. Then, on a whim we stopped to look at some thin gloves. The kids have some nice thick ones, but they don't have lighter weight ones. We got him a pair of fleece gloves for €3.50. Nice. B got a pair of stretch gloves with the alphabet on them and some super fuzzy pink ones that she was adamant about. They were only a couple of Euros. It was nice.

So, after getting our children clothed, we went to an open house at a school that is aimed at prepping kids for starting school here in Germany. It is more of a 'I am not sure my kid can pull if off' sort of Montessori school. Now, since the Germans don't seem to actually teach anything until about age 20, we aren't worried that Aiden doesn't know enough. The problem, however, is how much German he can speak. We simply don't know how much and/or how well. We know he is speaking it in Kindergarten, but he won't do it around us. So he doesn't necessarily need to learn how to count, per se, but he does need to learn how to count/identify numbers in German. He also doesn't know the German alphabet. It's the little things. So we visited the preschool to check it out. It seems OK. We are going to take him in for a complimentary visit next month, but I think we won't follow through. We are supposed to get a TV next month as well. I think that having some German playing at home will get him where he needs to be quickly. We'll see. From what I can tell, he learned everything he needed (concept wise) for starting German school during his first year of pre-school in St. Louis when he was three. They really do have low entry standards. His only problem is the language.

Today we stayed around the house. Briana has a cold, and she didn't sleep at all last night. I got to bed late (a little after midnight). She was in bed with us, but still up and down until around 4:00. At 2:45, she got up and announced that she was getting up and planned on going downstairs to play. Sarah managed to get her back in bed, and once she finally drifted off, she slept until 8:00 or so. Aiden, however, came in at 7:30 ready to go. So I dragged my sorry, tired ass out of bed and played the cheerful daddy. I found some cartoons for him online and watched with him for a little while. Then I made a huge pot of coffee and baked three loaves of bread. Sarah came down around 9:30 or 10:00. I was feeling all productive and managed to convince Sarah to stack the washer and dryer. We have been threatening to do this for a few months now. We got it done and then brought up part of a shelving system that fit between the wall and the appliances while still staying under the water heater (that is hanging up on the wall near the ceiling). It looks really nice in there now. It allowed us to moved some stuff around and get rid of some clutter due to a lack of horizontal storage space. Then I went down into the cellar and put the rest of the shelf together and tidied up down there a little bit.

Once I was done in the cellar, I brought up my truing stand and settled in for some bike maintenance. The spokes on the front wheel of my commuter bike were a little loose. That makes the rim sing when I brake if the pads are damp. So I tightened them up and then fine tuned the rear wheel. They were in surprisingly good shape considering how much I ride that thing and how many big bumps I hit. I followed up with the wheels on the kids' trailer. I noticed a month or so ago that some of the spokes on it were just short of finger tight. It took some more work, but I got that done. But, while doing that, I noticed that the hubs felt rough. So I cleaned and repacked them. Then I told Sarah I was done with being hunched over a stand, so I was going to put everything away. So she asked me to look at her front brakes. Her wheel was off center. So I had to pull it off and line it back out on the truing stand as well. So I trued up 5 wheels today and rebuilt the hubs of two of them. Oh, and I took the tire off of my front wheel so I could true it up "right". That was a pain. I have these HUGE rims, and, while they make the wheel bomb proof, they also make it almost impossible to remove and install a tire. My hands are absolutely aching now. I did not bother with the rear tire.

Okay, it is almost ten o'clock, and I am beat. I am going to wrap this rambler of a post up and get to bed.

Toodles...

-jd

Wine Country smells like pee...

It would seem that I haven't written in a while. That means this one's going to be a doozy. I have a list a mile (1.6 km) long to cover. I might even add some pictures later. I have to get them off of the camera. Actually, I have a few lying around. Maybe I will start with those and see what happens.

So… Where to start? Christmas turned out OK here in Germany. We kept it small. It made it quite relaxing, and the kids didn’t get too many toys to play with. That was a first. For Christmas dinner, we had a rabbit. I hadn’t noticed when I was looking at them just how long the packages were. I asked Sarah to pick one up and then didn’t look at it until I pulled it out to cook it. Turns out, when you buy a whole rabbit in Germany, you actually get the whole thing. Except for the digestive tract, feet, ears, and eyes. Yeah, the head was pretty unexpected. And a rabbit head without eyes and ears is pretty creepy looking. I had initially intended to cook the head since it was there, but I hadn’t mixed up enough flour coating, and my skillet wasn’t big enough. It was a big ol’ bunny. Surprise number two came when I started cleaning the body cavity. I found kidneys, a liver, a heart, and lungs. So they are in my freezer awaiting some inspiration that happens to call for the insides of a rabbit. It hasn’t hit yet. The rabbit was amazing when it was cooked, though. I coated it with flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg; browned it in olive oil and butter; and then simmered it in chicken broth with onions for about an hour. I reduced the drippings and made a nice, creamy gravy. It was really tender and mild flavored. We loved it.

Oh, along with regressing my general lifestyle to about 1930, I have started eating parts again. Christmas eve (I think), I cooked up some chicken hearts, livers and gizzards in flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne pepper (with a long butter milk marinade prior to coating). It was fabulous. New Year’s eve, I cooked up a kilo (2.2 pounds) of chicken hearts that I had marinated in beer. I like to keep them handy and eat them a lot like shelled nuts. A handful here and a handful there.

We had forgotten how amazing New Year’s eve is in Germany. The custom is to get blazing drunk and then fire of fireworks for half an hour at midnight. And when I say fireworks, I mean bombs and mortars. It is awe inspiring. We bought a few small fireworks that we could shoot off early with the kids. Sparklers, fountains, snap pops and the like. The snap pops here are like Black Cats. They are the size of my thumbnail (about 4 or 5 times the size of the ones in the US). When you throw them at the ground, you get stung by flying debris, and they explode brightly. I would NEVER be brave enough to pinch one of these guys to make it pop. So after the kids did their part, we got them to bed. We then spent an exciting evening sick and sober playing cards while I rebuilt all of the computers we own due to a series of freak accidents and/or failures that had broken them. About twenty to midnight we started hearing the start of the show. We got our shoes on and then decided to see if the kids wanted to see everything. As we started up the stairs, things were getting noisy outside. Briana all but leapt into Sarah’s arms. Aiden, however, would have nothing to do with it. Period. I even went so far as to drag him bodily from his bed and hold him up on his feet in front of the window so he could see the 16 inch fountain in the middle of the road (yeah, with this population density, they just go nuts in the street around what traffic is crazy enough to be driving around out there). He turned and went straight back to bed. So I told him it was about to get really loud, and we would be out in front of the house if he needed us.

So we get outside and assess the situation. There are a bunch of people over at the house next to us. There are a few people in front of the bar on the other side of us. Almost no one is across the street. So I step back inside our gate and start poking through our little sack of fireworks to see if there is anything I want to light. Sarah is standing on the sidewalk and starts frantically calling under her breath for me to come out there because some of the neighbors are coming over to talk to her. I step around the gate to do a little translating. We see an older lady (late 50’s or early 60’s) and a young guy in his mid-twenties or so. The guy steps forward and says, “So, I hear you guys are American.” In an east coast accent. He was from Boston. He was in the military, met a girl here, and stayed once he got out. He now works for the police. His dad was also here visiting, so we talked to them for a while. The guy talked to us for a couple of minutes and then went over to start the fireworks. He had a wagon about 3 feet long, 18 inches wide, with sides about 10 inches tall with fireworks mounded in it. His first choice was what looked like your standard Black Cat firecracker pack with the hundred or so firecrackers in it. Except that this one was made with what looked like M-80’s. He lights it, throws it into the street, and then turns to us and says, “Oh, this is going to be loud.” It was more than loud. It was painful. It lasted for a good 20 to 30 seconds. About ¾ of the way through, I see Sarah’s eyes go wide. She had been holding B’s head against her so that one ear was against Sarah’s chest and Sarah’s hand was covering the exposed ear. She realized that the boy must be reacting to this as well. I grabbed B as Sarah threw her at me on her way back into the house. She apparently ran in the door in time to see a blubbering Aiden disappearing into the living room. She managed to corral him in short order. He immediately, through tears, confirmed that he had every intention of going outside to see what was happening. He told Sarah that he wanted to see the battle outside.

And battle it was. It was about 35 minutes of full on siege. They sell guns here that are like starter pistols. You put a special firework in the barrel (kinda like a black powder gun), point it, and pull the trigger. The fireworks are like the missiles in a Saturn battery. Real screamers. Every six shots, you empty the spent caps, reload, and commence launching fireworks. The kids are convinced that they are each getting one next year. The whole time the sidewalks are full of people darting into the road to light off huge bombs and the like. There is no coordination, and there are people EVERYWHERE. You can barely see what is going on due to all of the smoke rolling through the streets. It is so cool. Next year we are going to try to figure out a way to film it.

I had to go back to work on the 3^rd. It was nice and quiet. I had two people on my team present the first week. It made for some nice, uninterrupted work. The 4^th we decided to take the kids to the public ice rink that had been set up downtown. The local utility company apparently sponsors it. It was interesting. I had only been ice skating twice prior to the trip (a side effect of growing up in Arkansas). The kids have never been. Aiden decided that everyone would be watching him since he didn’t know how to skate, and said he wasn’t going to try. Briana almost had to be tied down to a bench while we got skates on her. She did OK, but mainly only because she is small enough that I can easily hold her up while I skate without her feet interfering too often. She would pretty much stomp her feet, which kept them under her, and we would tool around the rink. Aiden finally decided Briana was having enough fun that he should try it. His efforts were more…interesting. He was much more like an epileptic jellyfish on the ice. I mean his legs were everywhere. And they were never under him. It was like he was completely incapable of controlling anything about where his legs were flailing. It was really weird. I would have liked to have had them piddle around more on their own, but the rink was too crowded, and there were some teenagers tearing around too much for a flailing kid to survive. It was a fun evening overall, but very tiring and challenging. There is a rink not too far from here (maybe 45 minutes by tram) that we may try later. Or I might just write off ice skating this winter.

Sarah and the kids have had some issues lately with chapped lips. She bought some German Blistex stick and another brand to try to help it. Aiden and Briana are bad about chewing on their lower lips, so the skin under their lips looks like they always have a rope burn. Sarah noticed, however, that her lips seemed to be sloughing off when she used Aiden’s chapstick. She realized that she was having a reaction to it. So she mentioned that the next time he offered to share it. She told him it made her lips hurt and the skin fall off. He told her that when he rubbed it on his tongue, it made it feel like his tongue was throwing a party. Definitely disturbing.

The day after we went ice skating, Sarah brought the kids to my office so we could all go eat together in one of the cafeterias here on site. They were having roast chicken (they just plop half a chicken right on your plate) and French fries (I have completely adopted the European taste for fries with mayonnaise and ketchup). That happens to be one of my favorite lunches. I thought the kids would enjoy it as well. They spent the three days before they came talking about coming to the airport to eat lunch with Daddy. For those of you wondering if traveling a lot for work while your children are young has any affect, the answer is a resounding yes. Aiden asked me about three weeks ago if it was still cold at the airport where I worked. This came from a long, nine month project in Nebraska when he was three and Briana was about 18 months old (yes, over two years ago). I would fly home every other weekend, and I always had on heavy clothing when I arrived and when I left. This apparently leaves an impact on a kid living where it was 60 or 70 degrees. I would often leave St. Louis wearing lined pants and a few shirts with a heavy coat when it was easily long sleeve t-shirt/sweatshirt weather because I would land in Omaha and it would be 5 degrees. When we mention that I don’t actually work at the airport, they just look at us like we are crazy and give us a sympathetic little laugh. Briana used to also frequently ask which airport I was going to when I left for work in St. Louis. The big one (Lambert) or the other one (my office).

I went on a bike ride Sunday. It was cold. I would say low- to mid- 30’s. I borrowed some shoe covers from my neighbor to see if I could keep feeling in my feet. It didn’t work. My shoes are too narrow. When I wear warm socks (thin, fleece lined, neoprene) I lose feeling in my toes and the balls of my feet. I think that part of it is nerve pressure and the other is from being all jammed up against cold leather shoes. Maybe I will buy some cheap winter shoes for next winter. I had a nice ride in spite of that. It was really sunny with almost no wind. I went out again with my friend who is training for the Iron Man. I keep telling him that he won’t be getting any training when I go with him, but he doesn’t seem to care. We took off north and east of Neureut and rode into the wine country that is in the hills north of the Black Forest. It is really pretty. I believe we started with Stutensee and then looped down through Gondelsheim and then over through Jöhlingen to Durlach. Or something like that. It was about 45 hilly miles. It felt good, but I was tired as hell when I got home. I rode the last few miles by myself, and it was hard to commit to it. And by commit to it, I don’t mean ride fast or get a little more training in. By commit to it, I mean ride. Then one thing I noticed, however, is that much like the Alsace area of France (one of the most popular wine production areas in the world), when we were riding through the country hills dotted with vineyards, it smelled distinctly like pee…