Month: October 2015

Some mornings a person just has to write.  And not the writing that one is being paid to do, no, rather the writing that is necessary to purge the mind of the many thoughts swirling around, colors and shapes and foggy ideas just outside of the scope of consciousness, a nebula of dreams or ideas or, in the case of the Caustic One this grey cold morning in Central Germany, just too many things the Mind has decided are worth more than the quest to be sitting at a desk in twenty minutes.

The week in review.  An interesting title, as it really does not encompass the week, or even most of the activities, but a select sampling of things that really really really (and really) form the basis for the swirling star trek brain effect.  Each item could form the basis for its very own blog post, but the likelihood of that happening is expected to be quite low, possibly approaching zero, and standardized to the normal distribution (see what she did there?  Stats references in the middle of a non-stats post).

 

The week in review – in reverse.  This morning, as with the last two weeks, the CO awoke quite happily at 520.  520.  05:20.  Not with the sun, as the sunrise is closer to 07.48 these days in this sleepy little burg, but with some other clock.  This morning, she decided to be lazy and try to sleep some more; Ms Purraliscious had taken up the entire center of the bed and this was an opportunity reclaim that territory and ease the aching bones.   At 630 she decided to prolong the luxurious, marvelous time sleeping as she woke to find — no pain.  No pain.  NO PAIN.  No twinges, not a single one, escaped from back or legs or even that tiny spot on the bottom of her foot where a miniscule piece of glass has stubbornly lodged itself.  It was wonderful.  Marvelous.  Something to celebrate and so, she did, by acknowledging the presence of … normality.  Health.  Sweet, and almost tangible.

Kalamata olives.  There are people in the world who have never tasted a kalamata olive.  While this may not seem like much, this morning, as the CO ate her breakfast, which consisted of Grossblatt Hafe (oatmeal) with feta cheese, kalamata olives, red/white onions chopped finely, a bit of 8-kräuter, and a nice fresh fried egg from the chickens of Helmut the Entomologist, this realization came to her.  Kalamata olives, the taste on her mouth, rolling the stone around until it was clean, coupled with the fresh delicious taste of the egg and the feta cheese, speaking to her and saying “we *are* marvelous, aren’t we”.  She feels quite blessed, fortunate, and privileged to be able to enjoy them.

0520.  Yesterday morning, 0520, an email came in which the CO did not see.  Much later in the day, upon reading the missive, she made a call to the US.  Peanut answered, sounding weak and sleepy — and it turned out that she was having four transfusions.  Four.  F. O. U. R. !!!  It seems as thought the loss of blood which affected the CO a few years ago had taken hostage her dear friend Peanut as well… and with only four liters of blood in her body, the fact that she is alive is a miracle.  Our generation of sturdy women ignore our symptoms, carrying on in spite of a problem which might be an actual “thing”; the irony of the situation is that most of us are medically trained in some way and really should be better at self diagnosis.  The CO suspects that Peanut’s unwillingness to look into her symptoms earlier have much to do with the responsibilities which we take so seriously – family, work, household.  They say that the first heart attack a woman of our and the previous generations suffers is the last.  Obviously an easy thing to believe.

Thankfully the next generation has a little more smarts – Echo, suffering from chest unease and tingling arm, managed to rouse herself from this “oh, maybe it is nothing” syndrome we have and spent a night/day at the Emergency Room.  Thankfully Gameboy is a supportive hubby – “You get better!” instead of “oh, I’m sure it’s nothing” which so often is the mantra of the men in our lives.  We and only we know when our bodies are revolting and in need of a little TLC.  Of course, if we spent more time on self maintenance we might be better served – prevention is nine tenths of the cure?

Which means that the Caustic One is overdue for a spa day a the salt baths.  Hm.

Yesterday.  Sunday.  Caustic One wanted to See People.  There are a lot of very nice People at the Liebfrauenkirch on Sunday mornings, so she decided to make the attempt to understand the service and off she went.    There was a baptism, and the brass choir was playing – along with two very accomplished guest musicians; a woman adept at straight horn, trumpet, that little tiny trumpet (can’t remember what it is called) and the most amazing trombone player of all time.  Wow.  CO has never heard talent and beauty of this sort come from a trombone before; classical – baroque-ish- too-many-notes type amazingness.   And of course, seeing some of the Nice People, although it was disappointing that there was no kaffee/tee klatsch afterwards, which is when generally the chatting and catching up happens.  In the time that CO has been in this little town, there has never been a lack of klatschtime after the service.

It seems as though CO has been spending a lot of time in the Liebfrauenkirch of late – aha.  She has.  Saturday evening the most amazing sextet of men from Russia sang for Witzenhausen.  The first half was “sacred music” and the second was folk songs and traditional songs of Russia.  One of the members, calling himself second tenor (although hearing him sing, he had the range of a male alto), provided insights into each piece before its performance: the title, the composer, the soloists.  He would then describe the words in German, in very slow, deliberate, with-a-Russian-accent German that the CO appreciated, as it made it possible for her to understand.  Occasionally a word was not translatable to German, and he used the Russian word.  For some reason this was no problem for the CO. And the music.  The harmonies were very tight.  The sacred part was thought provoking, deep, dark at times; a piece about waiting for God as one is dying was heavy but passionate and touching.  The folk part was fun.  As in, laugh out loud fun!  One piece, about a young man who falls in love with a young woman whose father has promised her to another, was exceptionally hilarious – the men acted out the parts as they sang.  The young woman, played by a young tenor with an amazing voice, cries and cries and in the end, the father relents and gives his blessing to the young couple.

Friday  night, that night of relaxation after a long week of work, accompanied by going out or hitting the town, was also an evening of pure bliss.  One of her friends, a woman who paints and then makes greeting cards from her paintings, invited her over for an informal evening of relaxation.  The two women began by climbing the mountain behind Mahlerin’s house and picking quince.  Smacking the branches and trying to catch them before they rolled down the mountain; the houses are built into the rock but the ‘backyard’ is often a steep incline; not so steep that the grass does not grow but steep enough that the CO could easily trip and kill herself rolling down the mountainside.  After quince-gathering, a nice herbal tea next to the wood oven, looking over the street, watching the sun go down, breathing in Mango Peach Salsa candle scent and burning wood wafts during which mingled German and English conversation ensued.   Dinner was spaghetti – with meat, just a little, made the way my mom used to serve it when I was a child, all mixed together noodles and sauce.  And big thinly sliced carrots, which of course reminded the Caustic One of her beloved friends in Iowa, Pig Man and Physics Woman: Pig Man also put carrots into his spaghetti sauce.  Afterwards, a tribute to a fairy tale: Hirse (millet) cream pudding with sugar and cinnamon to shake on top, along with hot pan cooked apple and quince, big chunks of sweet/sour loveliness to go atop the Hirse.  The tale is that the mother used to have a magic pot, and she would command the pot to make the Hirse.  The child saw this, and one day when the mother was out, commanded the pot as well.  The pot obliged, but the child did not know how to make the pot stop, and the entire town was engulfed in Hirse pudding and people had to eat their way in and out of town.  Obviously Disney knew this tale, as the Magician’s Nephew with the water adventure attests.  After such a nice evening, it was topped off by Mahlerin’s husband driving the Caustic One home – normally she would have returned via bike or foot, but the bike is currently kaputt and this annoying piece of glass was causing havoc with the foot.

Last night, back to Sunday, after the news of Echo and Peanut, the CO attended Taize Gebet.  Taize Gebet is a prayerful hour of retrospective singing and meditation; a chance to worship without a sermon (helpful when the language is an issue); small readings from various sources are coupled with intimate songs that are easily harmonized.  There were eleven or twelve participants last night and the music was uplifting with so many voices harmonizing.  Afterwards, the cares and worries of the previous days had been addressed and no longer pressed hard against the psyche.

And now, this morning, with this outpouring of words, it is time to carry on and go to work.

http://fraumitgitarre.de/

** ed note: this post was actually written in October 2014 but was unpublished.  One year later…

Since arriving in DE, the Caustic One has been exposed to more than her share of breads. Good crusty European breads, soft in the middle, crusty on the outside. Rolls covered with seeds of various sorts, soft in the middle, not too hard on the outside. Dense high fibre breads with nuts throughout.

The German bread obsession is more than an obsession: it is a lifestyle. Breakfast: Bread and something: cheese, egg salad, shrimp salad, wurst/met, quark, cheese with “marmalade”, cucumbers, tomatoes. Warm oatmeal is a rarity – but mueslix is common, with yogurt. Possibly some fruit. Lunch: Yah. Many people have bread with something, although a nice ‘MalZeit’ is preferred – a warm meal, with ‘Nachtisch’ – something sweet, maybe pudding or kuchen or what we would call in the US “jello”. Yeah, Jello. With cream. It was a shock! Dinner — light, soup and bread oftentimes. At a recent Choir retreat, we were treated to Bread and Rolls and Muslix for breakfast, a warm curry or soup with rice or potatoes for lunch and Nachtisch, and evening meal of bread (not rolls, sliced rye) and cheese, various sliced meats, Met (with raw onions, yum yum), and cream herring salad (once with a lovely apple cream). LaFerg’s consumption of bread at this retreat was greater than that consumed during the six months prior.

Which is not to say that laFerg does not like bread. On the contrary, this stuff is amazing and delicious. It is just that, the bread does not like laFerg’s body. It is basically glue. Drinking a beer (bread in a glass) is easier on the ol’ digestive tract.

Of course, one cannot be in Europe and never eat bread. But purchasing bread for one person is a bit silly, and generally, LaFerg prefers not to have a bread dinner, and oatmeal over bread in the morning. So twice a month, she treats herself to homemade bread. Mostly this has been rye/wheat, but a spelt/rye bread was also delicious.

Now, it is currently Kurbis time in Central DE. With seven squash in her kitchen, laFerg has decided to honor the Great Pumpkin by making a pumpkin-spelt bread. There are two reasons for this, but one is — well, there’s a lot of pumpkin in the house, and there will be more, as the CSA share is twice a week and laFerg is sure that more pumpkins will be available in a few short days. Secondly, she has been invited to breakfast, and what nicer gift than a small loaf of homemade pumpkin bread? Well, if it tastes good, that is…

As this entry is typed, the oven is roasting some pumpkins. From there, an overnight long proof dough will be created, for early morning baking. Whee!!!

More on this later….

The Caustic One has a lot of Stuff. Her friends in DE comment on it. She does not have as much Stuff as the Eltern, but she is surrounded by various object d’Art (bwahahah), knicknacks, toys, pictures, dishes, etc.

It’s not just First World Materialism, actually. It’s part of the everpresent fight to Remember. Caustic has lived in a lot of places, done a lot of things, met a lot of people, and her once photographic memory now has blank film. Possibly overexposed due to the many things, thoughts, meetings, adventures, encounters, etc, but blank nonetheless. Else, burried deep within some binary layer of compression in the mind so that more stuff can be added. Whatever the cause, there are things she does not want to forget.

So there is a woven basket with a couple of stuffed rag rabbits that remind her of coaching the best youth soccer teams in Kenosha. Two gals that went from shy and unassuming to leaders on their team, skilled, observant, and forward thinking. Caustic one might not remember their names at this moment, but she remembers their faces and how they developed to become confident and skilled members of the team. Their rosy cheeks in the crisp autumn weather in Kenosha, WI as they dribbled and passed their way to the goal, laughing and becoming part of a cohesive team of young-ladies-in-the-making.

There is a glass fountain pen – a gift from the friend she has known the longest, Practical, pragmatic L; on display bone china cat figurines, both tiny and small, from when the two of them used to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum and spend money on tiny kitties, mint tea, and candies at the Old World Milwaukee shops. Memories of getting caught in the rain and trying to dry long, tangled hair on the bus, which ran late when the weather was frigid. Playing D&D with friends. The fact that when Caustic found out she was preggers with Alpha, L took her out to celebrate when other people gave her crap for having a second child so soon after the first. Drinking Mint Tea at the Big House, buying pickles and hiding them from her father.

A ceramic figure that Caustic painted that reminds her of dearest Peanut, a friend from University, and a yarn doll purchased during blues fest in Chicago. Peanut and Caustic are still friends after all these years; Caustic remembers Peanut making white lasagna in a crock pot in a total dive apartment on the Lower East Side while they were college students, the best foot massages in the world from her friend who was studying musculoskeletal systems in preparation for some program at UWM that only took 20 people a year with over 100 applicants. Every time Caustic looks at the figurine, she remembers things about Peanut: the flamenco exercise class that used only ones body for toning and working which resulted in two weeks of intense agony, demonstrating that things change after a four year dance hiatus. Dancing and laughing and stringalong weekends; one of which we both attended with horrible partners who had to be ditched along the way. The best ribs on the planet, and the best bouillabaisse ever, anywhere, period were lovingly cooked by Peanut.

A teddy bear from the time Wanderlustette/Echo and Caustic sold pizzas for her Dance Studio, and sold pizzas, and delivered pizzas. A stuffed kitty cat from Echo when the Long Island adventures began, because it reminded her of Emmett. A ceramic monster that Echo made in art class, purple and reminding me of “where the wild things are”, next to an applique kitty cat in an embroidery hoop where the cat is grey, because of course, Emmett was grey. And even a ceramic Emmett on a purple pillow because Emmett loved his purple pillow. And Echo knew that Mama loved Emmett.

A frog and a duck figurine from the Babes and Airplanes Gathering in Memphis with Capt. Speckles, meeting up with great friends and flying IMC from NY mostly to Memphis; smooth, happy IMC with no bumps, just surrounded by grey and silver, watching the instruments, gliding through time and space in Little Lima.

A ceramic planetarium made by Alpha, which is obviously a planetarium, but which is constantly being mistaken for an Ice Cream Cone by visitors to the house that don’t make the “friends” cut — or who are Someone Else’s Friend. YEs, there is a reason Caustic is called “Caustic”. Christmas decorations that Alpha and Echo bought one year from the elementary school bazaar after Alpha bothered his paternal grandmother for money because he needed to “buy mama christmas presents” at 10 years of age. Yes they are small and cheesy and made in China or Indonesia, but the represent something much deeper and valuable than the item themself. They represent a young man growing into a decent human being with huge interests and big dreams.

Then there are the teapots. There are no such thing as too many teapots. One is jasperware, bought from a friend who was forced to auction off many of her nice things as a result of extended unemployment. At the time, Caustic was not as strapped financially, but she’d always wanted a wedgewood teapot as a reminder of her undergraduate degree. The teapot brought not only reminders of the degree, but of her friend who went on to marry a lovely British man, both of whom she remembers fondly. Another is made by a Native Woman near Omak, where Echo worked with the children, helping them with their reading skills; it’s a beautiful piece with pressed in leaves and all the colors of the Omak landscape in Northwestern Washington State – the colors of Gaia, the first GrandKitty. There is a beautiful blue-brown-green glazed 4 cup (two American cups) from Babs, with four little matching cups, that Caustic uses regularly, and thinks of all the trials Babs faces while Caustic is in Europe, caring for a father that is more and more distant as his illness progresses; Babs, who looks amazing in a tux with top hat; Babs, whose smile lights up the clouds. A celadon green with cherry blossom pot which Caustic found while shopping at the Flea Market in Reykjavik during a three week study trip, thanks to her friend Raggy who has not only shown amazing generosity to Caustic during her trips to Iceland, but who has also introduced her to other amazing people; the Sister in Borgarnes whose husband read the sagas after dinner and, at the time, Caustic was able to understand some small content, an experience so intense and wonderful it remains in the top layer of the memory; the friend who dyes wool in the old Icelandic style and has chickens and makes wonderful cake; the fishballs with Raggy’s grandson, and the wooden puzzles which took Caustic three visits to be able to solve; making rhubarb jam and rhubarb soup on a NeverEndingSunny day in June; drinking apple tea at the museum on a NeverSunnyRaining day in October. Oma’s old “brown betty” with a twist – gold leaves; can’t remember Oma ever drinking tea, just that horrible red wine in the big jug that, at Sunday dinners, was watered down with Sprite soda for the kids; Oma’s mayonaise-sugar-mustard salad dressing; best Apple Pie (and crust) ever; the Christmas Eve cookies and snacks after the Childrens Concert after which Caustic almost always got sick from the nerves of the concert and possibly mixing too many cookies and cake with good sommersausage.

And more. But you get the idea. Not only do the things remind Caustic of someone special, but the other someones and somethings associated with that person, most of which she doesn’t remember at all until she looks at the item and starts thinking, and the memories begin to come back. That Stuff. Each representing a plethora of blessings. An embarrassment of riches. Riches of the Real Sort, that never fade.