A day in Upstate NY...

Forecast for Today

Updated: Jan 3, 6:45pm EST

Right Now -6°F FEELS LIKE -6° Clear, Bitterly cold.

Earlier Today 4° HIGH AT 2:05 PM Sunny

Earlier Today 4° HIGH AT 2:05 PM Sunny

Tonight -12° LOW Clear

Past 48 Hours Snow: 12.0 in (est.)

Einschulung!

Ready for school

 Today T2 was eingeschuled.

The welcoming to the community

I went looking to link to the post I made on T1's einschulung, but I see that I have that listed as an "unblogged period". I feel so bad about that, that I will go add a few photos in when I am done with this posting. (and I added one below)

T2 chose her schulranzen and her schultüte and I filled them both up with what was on her list (for the former) and candy and games for the latter. 

We took T1 out of class to join us and all came together in the Aula (auditorium), where the leader of the community, the leader of our associated Rabbi (a lovely man who leads our school Seders and other celebrations), the principal and the head of the schulverein all welcomed us (primarily the children, but also the families) to school. Then the children were called up to the stage by name and class (this year we have three), introduced to their teacher and taken (with their gear) off to spend some time getting to know their classmates, teacher and classroom.


(The cast below is one of the reasons I am so behind in my blogging, as is the boom of my laptop, which goes in for repair next week.)

She's a schulkind!

T1's einschulung, T2 holding tight:-)

Trivial Pursuits

People who know me would rate me as a low-maintenance sort of person.

I own a lipstick (and use it occasionally), but my other make-up has all gone so far out of date as to be unusable (in fact, I discarded the majority of it a few declutters ago). I still have perfume from the 80's (truly, I still have perfume that my grandmother left me, but I only smell it every now and then).

I have been complimented on my earrings, to receive a look of shock when I happily point out the little Mickey Mouses (hypo-allergenic from Disneyworld) and often grab my daughters' medical plastic earrings. I have had my hair cut three times in the 4.5 years we have lived in Germany and had not had a manicure in the last five (my feeling- why bother when my hands are always washing something and the nails crack from use?). However, after I had a manicure in Florida, using the new, UV-cured nail polish, I liked having a manicure that didn't crack in the first day so much, that I found a place here in Berlin that did the same thing (although with a far smaller selection of colors. This was the most interesting that I could find and this manicure lasted 40 days: with it, I achieved the longest nails I have ever had. And I think that I will continue to do it: when amortized over 4 weeks, it's actually quite reasonable. And I have been enjoying having normal length nails.

What do the German and Crown Prince Haakon have in common?

Stranded due to volcanic ash.

The NYT is inaccurate: Munich closed at 7 pm.

This is a personal Blog.

Since November. the velocity of my blogging has been extremely low.

I looked around again this year and saw Germany celebrating the day the wall opened without a nod at the real history of the day: that it's the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

As I saw blogger after blogger and newstory after newstory fail to mention the coincident dates (which were the reason that official German Reunification day was instead set in October), I became depressed.

To that I added the overwhelming rape apologism that I saw surrounding Roman Polanski's much-delayed arrest, including his support by people who I actually admired (at least one of whom, when shown facts, recanted that support).

I started reading books more. And I liked them more.

This is a personal blog. It's used as a vehicle for conveying information and pictures to my friends and family and to act as a diary (I have a notoriously bad memory and am awful at keeping print diaries). It's also an open hand to meet people in a strange land and people who have some of the same experiences that I do:

• Working professional who is now SAHM,
  
• Stranger in a strange land,
  
• Older person attempting to learn a new language, from necessity rather than desire
  
• New mom dealing with the ups and downs of having children in a strange land
  
• Negotiating the shoals of a school system unlike my own in a foreign language
• Missing my homeland and seeing my new and old home through foreign eyes
• Being Jewish in a country which was the architect and hands of the will to murder my people, and which succeeded to a vast extent in doing so and exploring my religion and its tradition and rituals as my family grows
• Living in Germany as the child of an Auschwitz survivor and the mother of German Jewish children and needing, at an age I feel too young, to explain these issues to them in the least traumatic way possible
  
• Living, on a daily basis, with the visible symbol of the antisemitism of Europe: the high walls and bulletproof gates of the schools, community gathering places and synagogues I frequent and the 24 hour police guard they require
• Being a woman and dealing with the intrinsic sexism and misogyny of Western culture, where white male privilege is so pervasive that a white Christian male can tell a Jewish female that her views on sexism and racism are just hysteria and in her mind
• Being the the parent of two small girls who are growing up in this society and how to strengthen them against it and prepare them for individuals who will tell them that their beliefs and experiences are invalid.
  

This is not a political blog nor an economics blog nor a literary blog. It is not a feminist blog nor a conservation blog nor a mommy blog.

This is my personal blog and I talk about all those things because they are part of who am I am. Don't read and don't comment if these issues don't speak to you. I have reached a place in my life- a place of calmness- where the ad hominem attack hits the wastebasket and the individual who launches it is removed from my sphere of acquaintances. And that is how it should be.

I am not dependent physically, emotionally or financially on those strangers or acquaintances who pass through my blog gates. I enjoy meeting others, but it's a voluntary activity on both parts.

This is my safe space and I will keep it that way.

*(And for those who care, this is a wonderfully succinct link to Feminism 101 FAQ over at Shakesville).

Hatred in Action

I have had a couple of recent posts about racism and anti-semitism (and how easy it is to forget). The blowback has been that the disagreement some feel with Israel's policies doesn't indicate anti-semitism. I disagree in so many ways, because I have never seen a discussion of Israel's policies outside of the US (where people do disagree and yet manage not to be Jew haters while doing so) which did not have one side veer into vitriolic anti-semitism.

But this hideous murder of a young Rabbi and his wife, who have absolutely nothing to do with Israel's policies, who simply held a community center whose only purpose is openness and outreach, who worked for nothing but good within the Mumbai community!

The choice to take, violently, the Jewish Community Center of Mumbai and there to commit murder: what purpose did that serve except Jew hatred?

The same purpose served when my children's kindergarten here has swastikas painted on it, or rocks thrown though the window, or threats made agains it and the community center. This is not disagreement with  Israel's policies. This is an outspringing of the disease known as Jew hatred, taught in the madrassas as cartoon Jews murder bootlegged Mickey Mouses to help infants learn to hate Jews, and taught in Europe through comments, made openly at political dinners by French ambassadors, such as "Dirty little Jews- they are always starting wars" or cartoons such as these pieces of filth:--- Strange how Jews and Israelis have not issued fatwahs or murdered people over these, isn't it? And my heart goes out to the poor people, of all races and religions, who have been terrorized and murdered because of the horrible and disgusting practices of religious psychotics. May they one day come to realize that their own religion condemns them and their actions.



Al-Wifaq, February 6, 2006 (Iran)

Translation: The Jewish\Israeli devil is saying: "I don't admit the limits of freedom of speech except the Holocaust."

Web Site of the Arab European League (February 2, 2006)

Al-Watan, February 3, 2004 (Oman)
Translation:
On left - Feast of the Immolation
On right - The Islamic World's Attitude?


Tishrin, Apirl 21, 2002 (Syria)
The book in the left hand of the Jewish stereotype is the Torah

The McCain campaign dishes on Palin: She doesn't know Africa is a continent.

Please note that this is a hoax- I should check to see if Scalzi has noted this as well:)



I saw this on Whatever

Am I a Pod Person?

I'm not exactly certain what has happened to me, but I seem to have hit a tipping point.

Yesterday, before our bi-monthly cleaning person arrived, I spent four hours picking up the house (I always pick up before she gets here, or what would be the point of having someone in to do the rough- the bathrooms and floors, in particular).

But I overtidied. I went beyond any tidy that I have reached before. So much so that H. went through her alloted cleaning chores within 4 hours rather than her usual 5, and when I went looking for her discovered that she had thrown a load in the wash and was slowly folding the load in my dryer. Well, I don't like that. When my laundry is ruined, I want to do it myself (and I have- I find that dryers in particular run hot here) and she threw my "intimates" and the kids' delicates (you know, frilly, frothy, sequiny, Princess-picture covered) into a very hot, very fast wash rather than the cold, delicate cycle . I'm strangely OCD about my laundry, and I have been hanging those items all over the walls and just picked up an actual line dryer at Ikea (4.95 Euros- whotta bargain).

What annoyed me was not that she did these things without asking when she had never done them nor been asked to do them (okay, I was annoyed) but that she not only came 15 minutes late, finished an hour early and didn't ask to actually do anything (I had her change the sheets when I found her, something I haven't asked before) while avoiding me (next time the refrigerator will be her special chore). She then changed and was ready to be paid 15 minutes early, or 30 minutes under the time I pay her for (with an additional 30 minutes blow off time and two 15 minute cigarette breaks).

So I paid her for 5 hours while she did 3:45 worth. That will change next time. It's a problem that Lynda would recognize, because H speaks only Polish and was recommended to me by the person who cleaned our temporary housing (she herself didn't have time but was great). So talking to her even to just arrange times has been a total hassle. I think that I will move her hours back to 4, and if she has a problem, we will part ways.

---Back to my Podhood. We picked up some under the bed Castle themed boxes at Ikea and they gloriously fit the plastic boxes that we had previously getten there to try to corral the girls' toys. (Plastic boxes hadn't worked because they would just pile up on each other and make it even harder to find things. Now they fit into the under bed boxes and the girls' room is tidier than it has ever been.

There are "container" for: 1. Legos 2. Little People and related 3. Blocks and Chanukah toys 4. Wooden figures and toys 5. Purses 6. Small balls, all under the bed. There are two collapsible units (also from Ikea) that the stuffed toys are in, another for dirty clothes, a bin in the closet for dress up accessories, a trunk for playdresses, another closet bin for hats. A basket for toys with batteries. The closets are tidy as I've pulled out all the shorts and sundresses (although I won't pack them away just yet: today was a gloriously warm day) and cleared the closets.

Thing 1 has walked in the last two days after school and been overjoyed (I'm hoping to train her to help with the upkeep).

Also, I washed the sheets and changed the linens today, washed 4 loads of laundry (as well as the three yesterday) because I'm catching up on sorting through the hand-me-downs we shipped from the States as well as the ones we had here (it was time to open up the boxes labelled 5-7 and then pack away everything 7 and up). Then I made wraps and beans with rice for dinner, after joining Yelli at an English speakers' play group when the girls got back from school and letting them get their ya-yas out on th playground (and meeting some nice women with children). Then I baked an angel food cake.

I can see a real difference in the house now, I've even cleared our cornfield out and reduced the unhoused objects to a small part of the upstirs galley. When I run around each morning, it takes incrementally less time to return to base (which has been getting better for weeks) and I am going deeper and deeper into the never tidy before zone. Is this what it's like when one accepts one's destiny as a stay at home mom?

What a day it was.

Monday started with a bang.... actually, a crackle.

Thing2 had come upstairs to awaken us and ask for milk and when the German went downstairs to get some, he found our (new, although immaterial at this point) coffeepot melting in a smear of toxic smoke on the stove. Seems Thing2 had taken advantage of my relaxed state of caution (due to her not going near the stove for the last 8 months) and decided to turn it on.

That produced a flurry of activity. While we were airing the toxic smoke out of the apartment, dousing the flames on the towel and the cofeepot (and melted plate), Thing2 then decided we were being too active and she should go upstairs again, just carrying some bears and other toys. Then she fell down the stairs. Our stairs are steep and hard (terra cotta) and this is something that I had been worried about. It's why we gate them when we put them upstairs.

Man. Then a bugbite on the cheek and we were all set for the day.

After I dropped the girls at school, I stopped and got (another) a replacement coffee pot and came home, cleaned it, and had a great big mug. Man. I was ready for that. I can't understand why I waited so long to replace the silly little Mr. Coffee 4 cup I brought along (by mistake- leaving the 12 cup Braun in storage) with a regular, plug into the wall compatible machine. I also bought a new battery for my little Sony camera and a charger with adaptor (which I was grateful for, as the first seller said I would need to wait three weeks after ordering a replacement!). I blew the original in the Westin in Denver in some unknown manner (it was an American charger!).

Mnday evening we went for home-made pizza to Yelli's place, with the Things all excited about going to b's house. The food was wonderful- it was the best pizza that we have had in the 12 months since we got here. And home-made crepes for dessert! I'm afraid we can't match the food quality at our house, although we strive to dull the senses with alcohol to hide that fact.

Yelli showed me her Wii and I am overcome with envy. Maybe I will put off my freezer purchase and get a Wii instead? Does anyone know whether I can use a US-Wii in Germany and what I would need (if anything) to do so?

Then, as we were packing up the girls so B could go to sleep, Thing2 took a header directly into the lovely, altbau, extremely hard door. What a day she had. No vomitting, so we guessed no concussion and home we went.

Tuesday has to be better!

Things I haven't been blogging about...

Wow, it's been a lot. I'll probably add photos when I can find the card reader, which is buried in one of the 2 boxes of jumbled cables and wires. Here are some miscellaneous things that have happened in the past three weeks:

• We had the closing party and open house at the children's school. We enjoyed being there, picnicking and seeing some of the parents of the other children (the few we know). We saw a CD loop of the school year and (for a very nominal fee) bought one for each grandparent as well as picking up the school photos that were available. Somehow (hey, my German is not that good) I had missed the notice for the day that they were made, but I'm glad to see the girls look presentable.


• I met another ex-pat blogger, D, who has a son Thing2's age and I've gotten together with her several times. Thing1 just loves B and made him a picture this evening. I think she loves having another little one to boss around. And he's just 10 days younger than Thing2 so she plays well with him as well. It's so great to meet another parent: even the nicest of non-parental ex-pats can't quite understand the circumscription that having young children put's on one's activities and it's wonderful to have someone to chat with while the children play. Because, sometimes, I just don't want to play.


• I met F for lunch in Kreuzberg, where she introduced me to her (wonderful) Pennymarkt, which is chockfull of great fruits, bio products and the dangling carrot that had brought me there: unsweetened applesauce. I bought their entire supply of 14 jars and topped it off with 2 inexpensive carton of Johannesberren(sp?) (I love red currants). We then went to lunch at Mt Everest, after she walked me past herr new Kaiesrs and Liedle, both open til midnight (oh, the envy) where the food was as wonderful as ever but the service was uncharacteristically lacking. My momo balls were served after F had finished her entire meal. I know that it takes a while to prepare those, but the acceptable method would have been to prepare both our meals to be finished at the same time, so that I didn't spend 30 minutes watching her eat so that she could then spend time watching me eat. New (and bad) server.


• The German and I, and D and her husband C, with the children, all went together to a "International Festival" which, strangely, turned out to be just another street fest. But it also had several kiosks which were handing out information on the Wilmersdorf-Charlottenberg section which have already turned out to be useful: one was a compendium of all the spielplatz' in the area and there turns out to be one that I missed just on the other side of my block (there are 5 in my area, 1 quite large and the others varying). I also got a listing of all the Vereins (or sports/fraternal/sororal groups) and will be looking at these soon. Thing1 also got the opportunity to bungee jump again (she did it at the Embassy Opening Street fair) and she loved it. Then we all went to Nollendorf platz and took food from Habibi to the spielplatz til the kids were exhausted. A really nice day.

I'm back...and I'm very, very tired.

600+ entries cleared out of my GoogleReader queue (I just marked off the food entries, no way was I going to catch up), a few phone calls later, and a look at local upstate NY news and I am starting to feel a bit more in control.

Over the last 10 days we have:

• Put together 29 pieces of Ikea furniture.
• Bought a couch and a washing machine from a discount outlet in NRW (the couch is a nice, angled black leater. The european style that allows pulling a hidden section out to form a bed).
• Brought all our belongings (that could be fitted in the trailer) back from the in-laws. We are still missing the coffee table, end tables and bookcases, but at this point they may stay there (we got a 9.99 end table at Ikea and the ottoman would be in the way of a coffee table).
• Brought all our belongings from the "furnished) apartment we had rented to our new apartment. Lucily, we had only bookcases (they seem to breed around me), printer stands, file cabinet, etc, there in addition to clothing, books and toys.
• Put together "closet" shelving for the closet under the stairs- the only one in the apartment. We still have some commercial shelving to put together for the keller, at which point some of the things stacked up here will go downstairs. This is the first time in 10 months that I have seen my kitchen implements and had the foodstuffs that we brought all unpacked: I have been revelling in Trader Joe's Indian food and whining that Aldi (which owns TJ's) doesn't carry anything remotely spicey.
• Had 6 lights installed and a curtain line put up, on which we have strung 6 curtains. I need to put 6 more up here in the wohnzimmer and then we need to put up lines in the dining area, the vorkuche and the children's room: right now, they are using our room because they couldn't sleep without room darkening curtains or blinds, as the sun is up here past 10. Our room (with slanted windows) came with rollshades.
• We have installed the washing machine and the dryer (which we had brought with us from the US: it was a fortuitous gift from a German family that had brought it to the US only to discover that one cannot retrofit German dryers to work in the US). The washing machine has a distressing leakage problem that we can't seem to fix so we will need to call a plumber in. Perhaps at the same time we can find a way to run a water line to the terrace, which I had hoped to have planted by now, but which I am starting to think will not happen until next year.
• We ordered a kitchen island from Bauhaus: the price was 40% of the analogous price at Ikea. I can't wait until it gets here. We are exploring kashrut right now and the tiny kitchen (that was what I gave up in order to have the area, the light, the windows, and the outdoor spaces) has no place to allow separation of milchig and fleishig. The first 6 months will be a trial and if all works out well, I think we will kasher the kitchen, dishes, et al.

I have unpacked all except for 6 boxes which are living in my cornfield (the vorkuche) right now.

We need: to get the lines up (I am going to use flannel sheets to darken the windows in the girls' room), get some more lights up,get a toaster, CD player/radio and a coffee machine. I think we have done pretty well for this short time, though.

We also need to get a TV. Although my sister-in-law generously gave us her older TV, it can't support our DVD/video player and I need to be able to let the kids see movies and to see the subtitles myself (I find it useful when watching German to read English, and even to read the German while listening to it). I'm also looking for a staning freezer on sale so that I can actually cut back on the 5 days a week that I go shopping with the ability to buy meat only once a week and to prepare meals ahead of time as well as to be able to actually store left-overs.

Enough of that..I hope to talk about at least a few of the non-boring things that we have done recently in the next few days. Tomorrow is my next to last day of German and the last day is an ausflug (field trip) so I hope to have some fun next week, during my week of freedom: it's the last week the kids are in school and yet I won't have class!

Insomnia

Thing2 woke me at 4 am this morning and after changing her I just couldn't go back to sleep. So I ate a cupcake, had a glass of apfel schorle (herbst only!) and I have been cleaning out my TBR blog queue. Do you know that sunrise is at 4 am here in Berlin? It's now 5 am and broad daylight. With the sun setting after 9 and rising before 4 am, this is really a different world than I am used to. And no wonder that during the winter, when things reverse, that SAD (seasonal affective disorder)is such a problem here.

Finally it's over. On to the real election.

Obama 2154

Clinton1919

Visiting the Doctor

Today I took Thing2 in for her 2 year visit. One of the wonderful differences between visiting the German and the American pediatrician (although I adore our American ped- he was there at Thing2's 1st hospital check) is how unrushed I am here at a visit. Even with my poor grasp of German and the Dr's better grasp of English, there is never any feeling of hurry. I think our entire visit was over an hour long, with 40+ being just with the Dr.We discussed general developmental issues as well as physical health issues.

The remaining time was getting immunizations and I really appreciated that as well as Thing2 getting her shots (which we discussed after looking at her medical records), I was able to get two immunizations as well! As the Dr. said, it is also his duty to ensure that the parents are healthy as parents so frequently do not visit the Dr. themselves. Since I had asked whether the meningococcus vaccine was also recommended for adults, and since my HepA needed a booster, they pulled those shots out for me. So first Thing2 had her two shots (with 6 vaccines total) in her adorable little thighs (and no, she did not enjoy them) and then I had one in each arm and she was fascinated to watch that!

We will go back next month to have an additional meningococcal booster with strains more found in the Americas and then in July Thing1 will have her 5 year visit when she will also get that shot (not given in the States) as well as her last DtP booster. Then a year off until her pre-school visit.

Who would have known... now it all makes sense...

This tip is from Alice at My Wintersong and after I read it I hit my head with the back of my hand, went to my kitchen, examined my generic (Ja brand) plastic and foil wrap, and said to myself: "Dur". Join me in my feeling of idiocy.

Who ever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box? What a fantastic idea. Now,if someone would just make plastic wrap that didn’t stick to itself.I’ve been using aluminum foil for more years than I care to remember. Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll back in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time. Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, ”Press here to lock end”. Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I can’t count the number of times the Saran warp roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up. I’m sharing this with my friends that did not know this. If you all ready know this, delete this message and don’t e-mail me and make me feel dumber than I already feel. If you didn’t know this, e-mail me and let me know so I won’t feel so dumb. I hope I’m not the only person that didn’t know about this.

Imagine...

Ok, I just saw an Amnesty, Intl. ad with the music from Lennon's Imagine and the tears started slipping from my eyes. Is this a permanent side effect of motherhood or is this a result of growing older and sadder? Or of remembering the day that John Lennon was murdered?



Or perhaps it's the contrast with what is happening right now in Darfur and Myanmar and many other places...