Sorry to say I'm moving this blog once again. I like clear blogs in theory but the ads are kind of driving me nuts and I don't much like how the blog is looking. So back to blogger it is for me. New address and 3rd continuation of my personal blog is at www.lifeingermdrei.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - Yup, I'm clearly anti-war and pro-choice
I had an e mail discussion with my brother yesterday who had the following to say about Roe v. Wade (his comments are in red). I have not asked his permission to share his opinion here on my blog, but my guess is that he would have no problem with the whole world knowing the truth, at least the truth according to him. And this is also a test of whether or not he reads my blog.
4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe
versus Wade. It should be overturned." You mean a woman's ability to murder her defenseless baby without fear of criminal penalty? I believe that God will judge our callous extermination of our children. In addition, Roe vs Wade was bad law and is the precedent for much legislation by the bench. It has perverted our legal justice system.
I think everyone is entitled to their own point of view on these issues, so here's mine. I think God will judge the callous extermination of the currently living, and the war in Iraq would be a fine current example of callous extermination. I don't see the morning after pill or even an abortion as criminal or callous. Women don't tend to make these decisions lightly. In my previous life as a social worker I surely saw too many unwanted children, and I will PROUDLY vote against anyone running for president who opposes a woman's right to choose. Republicans carry on constantly about wanting less government and less government interference, but Republicans also seem to want to interfere with control of my reproductive choices. Someone please explain this to me.
Just finished this book and I'd have to say it is worth your time. It is narrated by Death which sounds creepy but Death is not altogether heartless in this book. There's a girl named Liesel who the story revolves around and she turns out to be a heroine in her own little thieving way. I was fighting back tears at the end and I love a story that moves me to tears. So there ya go.
Sunday, April 6, 2008 - Heat and the Catholic Church
We recently had the occasion to spend 90 minutes in a Catholic Church for a baptism. We were warned ahead of time to dress warmly, but after about 45 minutes the fact that I had failed to put on ski socks became chillingly clear, and all I could think about was being stuck in this church for the night and how long it would take for my feet to fall off from frostbite. I've been in a few Catholic churches here in Germany (and I'm not Catholic) and all of them have been freezing cold. Now I really believe (though I'm not going to do the research to prove it one way or the other) that the Catholic church is rich rich rich, and especially super rich here in Germany where everyone pays right out of their paycheck to be Catholic ...unless you specifically became un-Catholic (like here at my house) or if you really are something other than Catholic. So my question is, WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE TURN ON JUST A SMIDGEN OF HEAT IN YOUR CHURCHES?? I am not young and I'm not quite old, but I have nothing but PITY for the very young and very old who have to sit in these churches and freeze their Catholic butts off. And then there are the uncomfortable pews and don't ge me started on kneelers. Dear Mr. Pope...you are German, can't you do something to help up here? This is a COLD country and there is something wrong when the graveyard is warmer in the winter than the inside of your churches!
While I was waiting for the baptism to start I snapped a few photos from the church graveyard. Families have to pay for these graves on an ongoing basis. More money that is not being used for heat. You know what I'm thinking about how these people died.........
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - Dan Fogelberg's new release
As lots of Dan fans are, I'm still reeling from his early demise in December of last year. His wife posted a little story on his website about a song he gifted her with for Valentine's Day a few years ago when they could not be together. She has made this song available for download on iTunes, Amazon, and probably other places where you can get music. I want to support the download of this single since all proceeds go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and because it is just a lovely tune and only costs $0.99. You can afford it.
Search on "Sometimes a Song" and remember the man as a genius in our time. Here's an old photo I found somewhere recently that I just think is nice and reminds me of the good old days....it is my current wallpaper.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - David Sedaris and my book club
I am so happy to have recently been included in a local book club. The women are terrific, are around my age, and so far I just really like the whole experience. They have all had or have kids in the International School in Starnberg near here, and the school recently hosted an evening with David Sedaris and a fabulous buffet that turned out to be free. It was a really fun night and here's some evidence:
David Sedaris is of course of Me Talk Pretty One Day fame and fortune and he was all the way around just danged funny. A good time was had by all and we all got our books signed with goofy comments. Perfect.
I came across this new site via a link on a friend's site, and wonder if I'm going to like it.
I did this map to begin with so we'll see how this turns out. By the looks of this map I guess it is clear where I came from and where I am now....with a few tiny red dots here and there otherwise.
Monday, December 17, 2007 - The day the music died
This has been one unhappy morning here in Germ. I checked the morning e mail and first learned that the backpacks that I tried to send to our troops at Landstuhl Medical Center here in Germany had been returned to the sender (Sportscheck). So much for my attempt at a good deed for Christmas. They posted on their site that they needed backpacks so I sent 10 but alas they bounced back. Next e mail I learned that my sweet niece Abby has strept throat and pneumonia and is very sick. Next e mail our friend Shari had a ski wreck and had to be flown off the mountain and is in the hospital with a broken pelvis and arm. Then, as is my habit I clicked on my internet home page and there in the entertainment section was about the WORST news ever. Dan Fogelberg died at age 56. Yesterday. In Maine. There are masses of folks out there who are serious fans and I count myself among them. He was and is my favorite singer and has been for years and years and years. I've seen him in concert at least 6 times, and one summer I scheduled all of my work in California around his concert schedule and went from show to show to show. I would pay anything for a ticket to sit up close. I got as close as the 2nd row in Reno one year, but was always in the 4th row, or somewhere else close. I have been checking his website for years off and on to see if there was any word on his prostate cancer but no word was forthcoming until now. For me this is a major kick in the gut. Bye Dan, rest in peace. Sob.
Saturday, October 13, 2007 - The computer that sucked up my life
For the last 18 months my husband has been building a supercomputer. He has not been doing this alone of course, but I think he had a lot more to do with it than I ever gave him credit for...until tonight. We went to an open house at the Leibniz Computing Center (LRZ) in Munich where his super computer lives. Here is a link to the details and pictures can be found here as well... www.sgi.com/pdfs/4007.pdf
Here is a picture of 2 rows of the racks....there are rows after rows after rows that look like this:
I got a private tour THANK GOD since my tour was in English and the other tours were just not. I hardly understood a thing he explained, but I have to say that the whole deal was really shocklingly impressive...and enormous. Row after row of racks full of equipment and miles and miles of cables and well, this is THE computer that serves the University of Munich as well as the scientific community in Germany and the rest of Europe if they want to apply to use the computer. I don't even really grasp how this works exactly, but apparently this is the machine if you have a massive problem that a regular computer can't handle...you somehow use this one. There are something like 4800+ processors. I kind of now think my husband is smarter than he lets on around the house. I hear too much of "where are my glasses" etc....no wonder he can't find anything, he's got the biggest computer in Germany on his mind. I'm glad this project has gotten to a point where he's home for dinner again. There for awhile last year he was working so hard and such horrendous hours that he totally lost his pleasing personality...but thankfully it is back again. I like being married to a nerd that loves the dog.
All I can say in my defense is that I've kept up a tad bit better with my dog blog at www.doghotel.blogspot.com
Since I last visited here, we came back from France, dealt with a broken microwave, printer, dryer, and television. The dog had an abcess on his tail from what turned out to be a thorn that he picked up in France, and it took almost 3 months from time of entry until the time of exit. It caused him a lot of pain and grief and as I still have not seen the vet bill, probably will cause me some additional grief as well. Within about 12 hours of our return in the summer, my mother-in-law's sister-in law was visiting next door, and she had a heart attack. There was no one here to deal with this other than me, and I was thanking my lucky stars and Inlingua that I bothered to learn German, broken as my German may still be. In regards to the heart attack I seemed to have all the necessary vocabulary (though I don't remember studying heart attacks in school, but we did cover visiting the doctor!). All these thing combined had me stressed out in a way that I don't normally find myself, and I broke out in a rash on my back in August and correctly diagnosed myself with Shingles. Sigh. I got on anti-virals immediately and I'm sure this was helpful in shortening the whole deal, but for about 10 days I would have to say I was pretty derned miserable. Bernd went to the mountains to camp with his grandsons while I was at my worst, so I think the dog had to suffer the worst of it with me. Our walks were pretty pitiful and short.
So now we are all well here again, we are having a new heating system put in and that work started today. We also had new flooring laid in Bernd's new basement office today and though this turned out to be way more complicated than if ever should have been thanks to an incompetent employee at the flooring store, it is finally in and looks terrific. Bernd will be moving home to work in the near future. I have mixed feelings about this but I'm trying to look at the bright side.....with him here I'll be a little more free to move around in the world even when I have dogs here, so that's good. I'm thinking we'll save lots of money on shirts and work clothes for him since he'll be living in his pajamas from now on. And then there are some real tax advantages so this maybe will all add up to be something good.
Oh yeah, and we recently went back to France for one more dose of Provence for 2007. We went with our French class and for 10 days spoke German. It was a fun trip but the language thing gets tiring at times. Thankfully our teacher speaks fluent everything so I was not totally lost in space. The French class is a mighty nice group of people and we had a nice time with them on vacation. We are now grounded until spring when we are headed for the homeland and a trip to the left coast. We are already excited and it is still 6 months away.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - Life in the South of France
I have barely seen my husband for the past 13 months due to the installation of a super computer at his place of work. He had so much overtime left over from last year that we are happily in the South of France for 5 long weeks. We are just lucky to have a wonderful house here, and we are kicked back and doing as little as possible for the time being.
What is there to say about being in Provence? The sky is almost always a clear blue, the sun shines just about all the time, and this year for a change there has actually been some rain so things are greener than normal and we still have grass in our yard. The lavender is close to being in full bloom, the people are friendly, there’s not that much traffic (yet), and it is not blazing hot….the mistral is currently blowing and the wind is downright cool. It is a little slice of heaven being here.
For entertainment this year besides two dogs, we brought along a borrowed complete set of DVD’s of the TV show Six Feet Under. We have done nothing but watch the Fishers since we’ve been here, and I cannot recommend this series highly enough. Take out a 2nd mortgage and buy these DVD’s. I had no real appreciation for the quality of American TV until I moved away from it, and thank you Liz for recommending this show. The characters are deeply flawed, realistically human, and it was just great to go back to L.A. if only on a computer screen which is our TV substitute here in France. I will be thinking about Ruth, Nate, David, Claire and Brenda for a long time to come. Somehow they became my friends in some kind of twisted way and in reflection I was just deeply moved by them all. My German husband wants to know if there is really this much sex and pot being smoked in America. I don’t know the answer to this but probably so in some circles. I’m moving on next to the Sopranos.
We have our friend’s dog along with us on this trip, the lovely Laika who is sweet and gentle and we love her like she’s ours. She puts herself to bed every night around 9 p.m. (I have to remember to ask her owners if this is their regular bedtime!) and she seems to be having a good time here. She and Uben do at least 2 hours a day of adventure walks and swims and though neither one of them are very stellar in the water, she does love to play with us in the lake as long as it is not too deep. She snores like a bear at night but she’s a great watchdog and alerts us to everything….neighbors emptying their trash, others walking by with their dogs, garbage trucks coming by, and she also barks at certain noises that the computer makes which makes us laugh. She seems to think one of the computer noises is a doorbell. We are happy that she’s here with us and she’s been some great company for Uben.
Monday, May 7, 2007 - I have some depraved friends...sadly for me they are on the other side of the Atlantic
I got an e mail with links today from my friend in Wisconsin who is a proud member of the Madison Hash House Harriers (a drinking club with a running problem). She is none other than the famous Heidi-Ho named in the article if you follow this link http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=6539 and has been instrumental in organizing this running of the brides event every year in Madison. Pictures can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcbeth/sets/72157600183792944/ and I must say that I just feel proud to call her my friend.
Saturday, April 7, 2007 - The best video of all time
I don't think this blogsite supports video entries and if it does I can't figure out how to do it, but here is the link to the best video of all time nonetheless.
I'm crazy for this kid from my home state of Tennessee. I'm crazy for how cute she is, crazy for the judges and the audience's reaction, and crazy for the yodeling. It makes me want to "go across to Switzerland" right this minute....and since I'm less than 2 hours away from the border, this actually could happen. And the bonus perk is that while I'm learning to yodel I could totally make my husband crazy since I'm sure for a long time I would sound like some dying animal.
Little things mean a lot when you are far away from the homeland. I pretty much started out life in Tennessee, am deep down a Southerner, but I've lived here long enough now that I've forgotten what I miss about America. We had company recently from the states and without going into too much detail about how this made it to my door (frozen), let me just say it made me shriek with delight.
There is a terrific article in this month's Vanity Fair (with the Sopranos on the cover) about 6 retired Generals who finally attacked the Bush regime's (and specifically Rumsfeld's) handling of the war in Iraq. The article is a must read. My favorite quote from the article sums it all up for me.....the quote comes from an article previously printed in Time magazine and written by Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, and I quote entirely from the article:
"American forces had been sent to Iraq, he wrote, 'with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions-or bury the results.'"
After reading this article my hope is that Rumsfeld never has another decent night's sleep as long as he lives. Probably he takes a Tylenol PM and sleeps like a baby, but girl can only hope.
I was in Milan with friends in December (see previous entry at www.lifeingerm.blogspot.com) and Sting was playing a free concert in the church where DaVinci's "Last Supper" is painted on the wall. I got a bit of a craving for seeing him since we just missed the free concert. Lo and behold he was coming to Munich so I got some tickets and stuck them in Bernd's Christmas stocking.
He is touring with another man named Edin Karamozov, a lute player from Bosnia and an extraordinary musician. They are playing the music of John Downland, a composer and lute player in the 17th century. The music is probably somewhat of an acquired taste, but much of it was beautiful and some of it sounded appropriate for a funeral. He also played a couple of Sting tunes, most memorable was "Fields of Gold" which was perfect with the lutes.
At the beginning he even spoke a little German to the crowd, but they certainly understood English as at one point during an instrumental he stopped, looked at Edin and said, "I'm lost" and the crowd cracked up. Interesting evening, interesting music, and now I'd also like to see him this year play with the Police.
I don't normally post the same photos to both this blog and my dogblog (www.doghotel.blogspot.com) but I'm posting this girl to both since I want everyone on earth to see this adorable face. She's so perfect she looks like a stuffed animal, but she's not! She's the new puppy of our neighbors in Provence, and a well loved new addition to the family. She's a Cavalier King Charles so they say, and I think she came from Slovenia. She's found herself a good home, but who couldn't love this face?
who is a proud member of the Madison Hash House Harriers (a drinking club with a running problem). She is none other than the famous Heidi-Ho named in the article if you follow this link 
