My Heeeeeero!

Ok, I have to admit, sometimes I think that my husband is the absolute coolest thing alive. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I think he isn’t, but today, the glass half-filled reassumed itself within my perceptions of the C man…

Occasionally here in Das Vaterland, you may find some teenager behaving badly, being a litterbug or what-not. If said teenagers get caught doing such things in the presence of older people, though, adults have no qualms whatsoever correcting the erring youth (it takes a village, right?) Tonight, my Hubble, in perfect C-dude form, saw a young man on the train intentionally drop some paper on the ground.

“Excuse me. You dropped some paper.”
“I know,” the young man said.
Afraid of a confrontation with the two older, yet obviously extremely hip 30-somethings, both with white Macs on their laps busy away at assorted duties/non-duties, his friend said, “Pick it up and stuff it in there,” indicating the trash.

The C-ster hates litterbugs, and perhaps uncouth youth (say that five times fast) even more. I often have wanted to say such things to kids but never do. I have a bit of a fear of teenagers—a fear I account to having watched the old Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk is almost murdered by kids of some adultless planet. Their chanting “Grups! Grups!” still looms in my brain. Mix that image with a little of “Village of the Damned”, and I am practically sure that kids are out to get me. I guess I just love people who have the balls to do what I wish I could. That’s my baby. He can do so much that I can’t.

Salty Mountain Specter

Oh, to have nerves of steel. My sleep patterns over the last two nights was fitful and light, much too light.

I am in Salzburg, singing for a conductor from the Mozarteum. I worked with him for and hour and a half yesterday and will do the same today. His wife, the Voice Teacher, recommended that I stay just around the corner from the Mozarteum in a monastery of sorts. Actually, it is a home for priests, not monks.

I had a little trouble finding the place yesterday as the address that I had was above two enormous doors on the side of a church (I know, you’re thinking, well, you know you’re going to stay in a Monastery, why not try the church, right…) Well, these were the kind of enormous doors that must have allowed for a carriage to come through at some point. And, one learns after being in Europe for so long, that the enormous doors of a church usually remain locked and one enters from a smaller door at the side. Even walking up to the door and trying the handle on this non-deserted street made me feel like a fool. But, alas, the handle, the ancient handle with its skeleton key mechanism, seemingly having survived the entire nineteenth century and maybe more, gave way and I entered a courtyard where a lady ironed bed sheets in a little side room that must have housed a footman or some such person before, but is now labeled “Rezeption”. Passing through that door was like my won Lookingglass. On one side, life seemed to live on, while on this one, the clocks must function differently, because I have stepped back, way back, and in just one instant.

I need to have a thesaurus at my side, because the images of this place (why didn’t I bring my camera) are just immense. I don’t know for what Archbishop it was built, using the money from some Baron or King, but it is BIG, ok? The woman at the reception points me to my room, and I’m off, on the search for it. Well, the lack of signage and immensity of it all means that it takes me some 10 minutes to find my room. The place is in the middle of Salzburg but by the time I work my way into the belly of the monster, I can practically hear my own breath. It is quiet. Überquiet. It is as though, in spite of being immaculate and filled, absolutely filled with plants on giant stands everywhere, the place has grown unaccustomed to the living. I thought, actually, until this morning at breakfast, that I was the only one in this cavernous place. Hence the “oh to have nerves of steel”, perhaps deserving the under title, “oh, to not to have the flightiness of a thirteen year old girl.” By the time I curled up into my little bed in my oversized “cell”—a cell with thirteen-foot ceilings, minimum, my teeth were practically chattering for fear that a ghost would come get me. Geez. Here I was, already a light sleeper unable to doze off for fear that a monastery could be haunted and I was all aloooooone here, waiting for the Ghost of Christmas Past to melt through the door at any moment and scare the Be-Jesus our of me. (I might have to say a Hail Mary for using the J-word there.) How can my nerves be so unreasonable? It is at times like these that I realize how ill-suited my weak constitution is for this whole business I’m getting myself into. It is almost funny now to be talking about it. But last night, it was me against the Netherworld and I ain’t kidding.

It is a neat experience, though, to be staying here. It is very nice, actually, almost luxurious, really. And all for the asking price of 27€ a night. This seems to be a secret hideaway, though, available only by word of mouth. I mean yes, anyone can call and book a room (I’m still not sure if they allow women), but knowing that the place even exists…that’s the thing. I am lucky to have found it, I guess. And, truth be told, I think that it is even good to sometimes be scared. It brings us back to what we were as kids, afraid of monsters under the bed, and bumps in the night, or, if you’re a bit older, of murdered priests with rosaries they use to murder their unsuspecting victims as they come back from the dead, singing devilish Eucharist plainsongs that, when played backwards, say things like “I am the devil” or “The blood of the lamb won’t save you now.” Insert scream here.

Happy Clucks

For along time now, Chris and I have only bought free-range eggs. After having seen some of the horrifying videos of how chickens are treated, it only seems right somehow. Don’t get me wrong. All in all, I am a country boy and don’t have a lot of sympathy for animals that we eat, for the most part I consider animals to be beyond stupid and almost deserving of being my main course. I have no intention of becoming a full-fledged vegetarian (I have tried it before, several times, in fact, all unsuccessful. Well, maybe I should say ‘successful’ up until the point that I started to crave steak or bacon.)

Anyway…

I digress.

What a surprise.

As many of you who read this blog may have surmised, I am rather proud of my adopted country. The inroads that this society has made concerning environmental standards, aiding the poor, the sick, etc. are all things to be proud of. But even I was pleasantly surprised at the progress I just learned of. Chickens in Germany will no longer be allowed to be held in cages beginning in 2009.

The government has not imposed this law upon the economy willy-nilly. They made the decision based on animal cruelty standards. Since the announcement that the new law will go into affect, it has observed that non-free-range-eggs have gone down in production from 90% to 68%. This is a trend which they expect will continue throughout the year.

This is a socialistic government at work. What this means for me is that my omelets will eventually get cheaper, since I have always made them with the more expensive free-range eggs. The omelets my naughty neighbors have made using eggs from caged hens will get more expensive, but only for a time until supply and demand takes care of that. For years, we have bought free-range eggs as a way of voting our opinion with our dollars. Other people were obviously doing the same, and it paid off by basically punishing those cruel individuals who either did not know or did not care about where eggs come from. (This is an opening for my vegetarian readership to go off on me about meat in general.)

(This idea of voting with the dollar is partially a response to one of my comments from a previous blog entry about crossing the Atlantic on a freighter. The author of the comment pointed out that I should just fly in any case because even if I were to boycott the airline flight, the plane would fly anyway. This is true in the short-term, but, eventually, if more and more people refuse to fly, there will be fewer and fewer flights scheduled, and, therefore, fewer emissions.)

Well, I guess the main point is that I find this egg decision to be a very advanced principle for an industrialized nation of 80 million. We should not treat the animals that we raise for food so badly. They should be raised humanely. After all, our ability to rise above or own barbarism is what separates us from our food!

This whole discussion remind me of a commercial. I like the cat best:

Kitty's Day Out

My friend Adam seems to be my cat’s new best friend. BFF, you know… She loves to wrestle with him and play rough. Chris and I don’t really roughhouse with her anymore (our hands couldn’t take the ongoing abuse.) So, Mia is always elated when Adam comes over and she can regress to her animalistic catness. Today, though, they have decided to be cultured and go out on the town for a spot of shopping.

Shiver Me Timbers

Chris and I had a nice Sunday walk around town. It was nice to see nature, even in spite of the “concrete jungle”, as friends of ours used to call it. It caught my eye, when passing one of our three interconnecting rivers here in Pforzheim, how much natural energy there is for the taking in this world, yet we still have energy problems. If we were just a little cleverer about it, tapping into the world’s natural, renewable resources along with conserving the energy we use, there would definitely be enough to go around.

A subject that has for some time puzzled me is what people, conscious of their own carbon footprints, can do when they must travel internationally. The carbon emitted in order to take one flight across the ocean is so high that it almost cancels out our step forward in getting rid of our car.

I have considered becoming a passenger on one of these giant tankers that make regular crossings over the Atlantic. Did you know that you can book passage on one? It costs about $100 a day, which includes your food. Doing some research on it, I found that a guy wrote a book about his travels on a freighter. It sounds interesting, so I put it on my “to read” list. He said the food wasn’t too shabby on his first voyage. It was:

BREAKFAST

Fresh milk/ chilled orange juice

Asst'd. Cereals

Eggs to order

Fried corn beef hash

Baked beans/ plum tomato
Fresh baked bread

Marmalade/jam/butter

Coffee or tea

LUNCH

Soup: Garlic soup w/crouton Salad, Greek salad

M. Course: Stir Fry Beef Tip's w/vegetable,
Chips, Fried eggplant

Fresh baked bread
Dessert:
Custard with toppings

Coffee or Tea

DINNER

Soup of the day

Salad of the day

Entree: Spaghetti carbonara

M. Course: Chicken in tomato herb, boiled potato
Buttered pasta, steamed rice, broccoli

Asstd. Cheese/cold cuts

Fresh baked bread

Dessert: Fruit cake w/custard

Coffee or tea

This sounds good to me. I think I’ll book a ticket just for the bread. I mention it, though, because I thought it was funny when I was weighing the pros and cons aloud to Chris when I said, “Yeah, I could take one of those ships across. But, even when I make it to the States, I am still 500 miles from civilization.” This made both of us laugh, as I inadvertently grouped the entire East Cast into some kind of barbarian wasteland. I kind of feel that way, I guess. That’s probably why it slipped out. As a Midwesterner, though, I find people from the East to have such an almost innate stridency that I never really feel at home unless I’m talking to someone from “back home”, someone whom I can rely on to be somewhat polite and well-intentioned.

There I go again, being close-minded and prejudiced. I’m still voting for Obama in spite of myself.

So True

Teeny in so many ways

Chris has been working on a test project for a great job prospect. Unfortunately, the target group for the advertisements, which he is creating, is girls between the age of 15 and 24. This means that he has had to research what girls like these days, what music they listen to, what they read. It is interesting how little we know on this subject. I thought Nelly Frutado was the name of some gay fruit drink.

This means that our lives (me by default) has been inundated, somewhat against our wills, by teenybopper media for days now. I guess it just got the best of Chris. He went to his room, found a shirt that he must have worn as a teenager himself and did his best impression of a teenage girl of today. I have to say it is pretty accurate. Oh, and hilarious. And, yes, unbelievably gay. Fun, though, you’ve got to admit.

Grace

Who this bitch think she is? I, for one, would love to see Hillary just bow out gracefully. What ever happened to stuff like that anyway, people who cared more about showing that they had class than about jumping into the mud to fight it out to the bitter end? I long for those days again. Maybe that’s why I’m for the cool-as-cucumber, Cary Grant-esque Obama and his smooth-talking ways. He is a kind of throw-back/throw-forward, an indicator of what’s to come. Or at least I hope so.

Not much has been going on here. This singing is still going well. I am going to Salzburg in a couple of weeks to sing for the Voice Teacher’s husband who is a conductor at the Mozarteum. He will supposedly be able to help me with his ideas. I’m looking forward to it, but, yeah the pressure’s on.

Chris has a really cool job prospect that we are both crossing our fingers for. But, we know better now than to get our hopes up until a contract arrives to be signed.

I am generally very upbeat these days, and don’t have much to complain about.