Classical Music Urgency

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Click here to see how Crimmy fans are taking this to a whole new level with video software.

What The Gnocchi Knows

Just when you think that east Germany and the Bundesliga may have sucked out your soul completely and you have nothing left, you eat the most delicious gnocchi that you've ever had with your darling husband and a few lovely friends. The wine was a delight, the laughter flowed freely, and did I mention that the gnocchi was the most delicious I've ever had? The waitress knows my order before I even utter a word (my favorite dish isn't even on the menu) and the chef comes out after the meal and makes sure to wish the boys good luck for tomorrow's game. Just when you think you have to go home, you realize you've made a home right where you are.

If I'm being totally honest, tonight's gnocchi isn't the first sign I've had that we might have actually made preliminary steps towards carving out our own niche here. Last night I sat in the kitchen of another wife, with several other wives, and drank wine and ate snacks and swapped stories and learned secrets for hours. I felt free of pretense there. I felt confident in my broken German. I felt I could be myself when I spoke. I felt at home with my friends there.

I walked my dog through town a few days ago. I recognized the cheese woman at the bakery. The woman at the bakery knows what bread I prefer. I saw a fan at the pharmacy who asked about Dave's health. I exchanged pleasantries with the regular cashier at the grocery store. The Real Boy got a treat from a neighbor when we passed them on the sidewalk. The door was held open by the kids who live downstairs when I returned to the apartment.

The truth is that spending eight months somewhere doesn't make you a native. You need much longer than that to truly become integrated in any community, let alone one that operates in a language other than your native tongue. But eight months is long enough to get to know the people in your building, the owners of your daily shops, and the names of your favorite candies (who am I kidding, that took me 48 hours). Eight months is especially long in the world of hockey, where your relationships are under pressure of both the good and the bad variety. You connect with people over any commonalities, willing to ignore differences for the sake of social interaction. And by forsaking those differences, you discover things you otherwise would have missed. Eight months shows a glimpse of all four seasons, families change, babies are born, teammates become friends and once again 'home' means something new.

Don't get me wrong. Aforementioned longing for things from home still stands. My sister is still WAY too far away. Pillows are still leaving much to be desired. But when the season ends (which I hope sincerely is NOT tomorrow) I will be sad. And a few days of partying together won't really feel like enough. This may not be our ideal place, the season may have had it's share of trials. But no one likes to say goodbye to somewhere/someone that took them in the way the town/our friends here have. We can always hope that next season has something wonderful in store, but the bittersweet brevity of each season never fails to surprise me when the moment approaches. So here's to prolonging the inevitable, romanticizing the imperfect, and living in the now! Auf geht's Pirates, Prost Freunde!

Round One Continues

After four games, the Eispiraten are tied at two games apiece with the Kassel Huskies. Games 5 and 6 will be tomorrow and Sunday night respectively, and if our team is able to use their momentum, that may be all we need! Wood knocked, fingers crossed, beer consumed to calm the nerves.

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Pump Up The Volume

There are pros and there are cons to living in a Soviet-era building made out of, you guessed it, painted cement. An example of a pro: When I accidentally left the the kitchen sink both plugged and running, and it overflowed while I was cleaning the bathroom, and I didn't realize it for about 15 minutes...though the flood was ankle deep throughout my kitchen and dining/living room, it didn't seep down to the next apartment. Not one drop. We're sealed in here tight.

The cons probably include things like ventilation, fire escape, and long-term viability, but frankly I'm not interested in any of those things. This isn't my permanent home and those sound like the concerns of a homeowner. Ok, the fire escape thing should be a bit alarming but I always just plan to shimmy down the side of the building with my bedsheets tied together.

The con that concerns me most is that, apparently, cement block is an amazing conductor of sound. Sounds being made on the first floor flow freely through the cement like ripples in a pond right up to our fifth floor penthouse. And when I say penthouse, I mean exactly the same as all the other apartments except that we have to walk up 72 stairs to get here.

Those who have been lucky enough to sit in my living room know first hand that the Vietnamese family below us have a strong love for the karaoke. Sometimes they devote an entire Saturday (no exaggeration) to such classics as 'Eye of the Tiger', 'You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling' and anything by Shakira. They then do the same thing all day on Sunday, mixing in some strange, Asian opera music, and sometimes they repeat this cycle on random weekdays. Like today.

I can only imagine the volume within their apartment, because the volume in my apartment is HIGH. And despite the frequent use they get from their karaoke machine, they are NOT good singers. They are, in fact, horrible singers. Lovely people I'm sure, salt of the earth. But they are frighteningly terrible singers.

Normally I try to be tolerant and just kind of...block out the sounds of karaoke time. But today is a game day for Dave and a recovery day for me (my voice sounds like a sex-line operator, I'm not well) and I had to spend the bulk of it wearing earplugs (which can silence a Boeing 747 but merely muffle the painful singing) and trying to catch up on rest. I was too exhausted and unproficient in German to bother going and asking them to turn it down (they're having so much FUN!) but I have resolved to exact my revenge. Since we have mere weeks left here, I hope to have an outrageously loud party soon before my departure, hopefully on a weeknight. And you know what might just make that party more fun? A karaoke machine. Any requests?

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Wear Your Mouthguard.

Questions you thought you'd never hear from your husband (at least once a day) before your 78th birthday:

"Have you seen my teeth?"

"Where are my gibs?"

"Sh&*! I forgot to put in my teeth!"

"I had my teeth in my pocket, and somehow they just broke."

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Spring, But Not Yet

Even in a pagan household, everyone knows that Easter is meant to signify the on-coming of Spring. And since crocuses and daffodils peaked out weeks ago, I didn't expect to wake up this morning to a blanket of white normally reserved for Christmas.

And as the snow covered Crimmy, my mood dipped with the temperatures as we had one last breakfast with my parents, forced them to help us dig out the car, and sent them on the train on their journey back to an even snowier Michigan. It's always wonderful to have loved ones in our home, and the blow of saying goodbye is lessened by the knowledge that in a few short weeks we'll be back in familiar territory.

I See Brakelights

My dad graciously did all the driving as we undertook a 250km/155mi road trip to Kassel, Germany for Game One of the playoffs. Despite some inclement weather on the way there, the trip was short and uneventful. The ride home, however, was not as simple (is it ever?). Rain, traffic, and more rain induced traffic turned our two hour drive into a little over four. Remember family road trips from your youth? You might have painted them over with memories of sing-a-longs and Snack Packs, but there was undoubtedly some bickering, heavy sighing and threats to pull-this-car-over-right-now-young-lady. Much of this was recreated in our car last night, with lucky Hilary standing in as Alley. She was, however, a much more polite, subdued and less musical version of Alley.

Mom: Brakes.
Dad: I see them.
Mom: Brake lights.
Dad: I can see.
Mom: Braking ahead.
Dad: I KNOW.
Me: Dad, maybe just slow down a bit when you see the brakes,
so mom doesn't have to announce it each time.
Hilary: This reminds me of road trips from when I was younger.
Me: This reminds me of road trips from...
every time my family drives together.

All in all, the trip was fun. The crowd was crazy, the seats were sorted, and Hilary and I got that butterfly feeling that is oh so illusive when we watch games anymore. We got home in four, exhausted, starving pieces and fell asleep to the sound of poorly timed windshield wipers scraping across our minds.

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Football, Hockey, I Digress

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I've never been into team sports. The irony of that statement looms large over the rest of this blog entry, because now my life revolves around a team sport played by someone else. But the truth is that all my favorite physical activities can be accomplished by individuals. Yoga, running, hiking, swimming. Bowling, darts, Solitaire. Sleeping, snacking, gum-chewing. I don't like the pressure of team sports, I don't like the politics. I don't like the schedule or the mass nudity which inevitably leads to mass taunting.

Dave, on the other hand, loves team sports. Baseball, hockey, soccer. Football, badminton, Red-Rover. He loves the pressure, the group misery and elation, and the pranks.

I grew up in northern Michigan, and therefore I had a requisite amount of love for hockey bred into my DNA. I spent Friday nights sitting on the steps of the rink watching hockey with my sister and sampling Lip Smackers. I knew the names of the Red Wings as was required. But deep down I didn't care. Hockey was a local cultural event, a social outlet in a small town. But winning and/or losing meant little to me.

Dave, on the other hand, loves hockey like he loves salted peanuts (that's a lot). He knows facts and figures that no human should be able to retain. His life has always, in some way or another, revolved around his own hockey and the hockey of his nation. Winning may not mean everything, but it means a lot.

I love Dave, and by default must love hockey. I sit in a freezing (seriously, it's foot-numbing) rink every week to watch his love played out, I travel around the world, live without my complete shoe collection, and suffer through most of my days without my sister. I care about winning but only because when Dave and his teammates work their hardest but lose anyway, I hate thinking of them marching heavy hearted back into that stinky, damp, incredibly smelly locker room. I mean really, that place smells like a foot soaked in armpit warmed up in a microwave with a rotten egg. That's no place to feel sad. I participate in superstition and make sacrifices to the Hockey Gods and eat more pasta than is ever natural outside of Italy.

But everyone has their limits, and I've met mine this evening. Because not only do I spend more time than I'd ever like to admit talking about, watching and rehashing hockey games, but I also suffer through every sports-themed movie ever made. If I ever want him to watch 'Love Actually' and 'Chocolat' on multiple occasions, I have to suffer through 'Miracle' and 'Remember the Titans' and 'Goal'. Tonight, to my dismay and Dave's great joy, 'Any Given Sunday' (it's a football movie people, he's not even American and yet he somehow relates) is showing on our only English movie channel. And since I have the internet and a few good books I'd like to get through, it shouldn't be that hard to ignore the oddly artistic yet classically cheesy bottom-to-top screenplay. But I'm sitting next to a man who finds inspiration and metaphor in all sport scenarios. Every three seconds he taps me and says "Do you hear this!?" "That is SO true." "Pacino, man, Pacino." And then, to ice this annoying cake, he literally mouthed along with the entire locker room monologue as if he were auditioning for the part himself. His favorite part has something to do with 'clawing with your fingernails' to make the difference between 'winning and losing' which is apparently equated with 'living and dying.'

Is it not bad enough I have to pretend to love one sport, but now I must be subjected to non-hockey related sports symbolism on my nights off?

Playoffs

Considering that most people were predicting that this team would end up last place in the league, it's pretty exciting and vindicating to be ending the season with the 8th and final playoff position secured. Auf geht's Pirates, kempfen und siegen!

What I Want and Why

Homesickness has taken a stranglehold now more than ever, since the countdown is officially on and the end of the season is within reach. This is the short list of material reasons we need to get to North America soon.

Border Salsa.
If you are from Marquette, you understand. If you're not, let me just say that a pint of border salsa and pile of corn chips have a lifespan of about 4 minutes when in the vicinity of my mouth.

Customer Service.
Because at I miss the way the old adage that tells me the customer is 'always right', even if that promise is delivered with some eye-rolling and passive aggression.

A Microwave.
I know this is not a necessity per se, but I can't say my quality of life is what I want it to be when I can't make microwave popcorn.

Mac'n'Cheese.
If I have to explain this to you, you should stop reading this blog altogether. It's the creamiest, the cheesiest, Velveeta shells and cheese.

Alley, Scotti, Raquel, Kim, Sarah, etc.
Sometimes you need to let your hair down without pretext.

Cheddar Cheese
Proper, brightly orange color, sharp cheddar. As big a block as I can get my hands on.

Saltines
To enjoy with above mentioned cheddar.

Normal Sized Pillows.
Because I've lost my patience with square down pillows the size of half my mattress, and small, rectangular pillows that masquerade as a replacement for the standard U.S. version. My neck is kinked, my sleep is interrupted, my moods are volatile.

For the Love

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How can I not love a man who spends his evening with me snacking on grapes and ravaging a box of Toffifee while watching documentaries and discussing conspiracy theories?

Au Revoir, Sweet Pinkerton

I'm sad to report the passing of Dave's much beloved family cat, Jinx, over the weekend. She was an elderly woman and was in the company of loved onces when she departed, but losing a family member as integral, cuddly and bossy as Jinx is always incredibly difficult. For Dave's family at home it has been painful to watch Jinxy grow older and become more ill, and for Dave being absent from all those changes and for her death makes home feel all the farther away.

Going back to Manitoba and visiting a Jinxless family will be extremely sad for David and myself. My obsession with the Real Boy isn't my only expression of animal-love. I consider Jinx my third and most hairy sister-in-law. And since I'm kind of a sentimental, pouty, baby, a loss like this is always hard for me and can reduce me too weeping in a matter of moments. Whenever we would head to Brandon I would double and triple check my supply of extra-strength anti-histamines because despite my all encompassing love of animals, the feline variety make me particularly swollen and itchy. And Jinx was a lover who needed to be loved, so I always bit the bullet (or swallowed the pill) and gave her what she was after. This year I won't need my drugs, and this fact will probably reduce me to tears several times while packing.

Luckily for me, however, the Bonks are a family who don't bother with sappy, pointless, grieving. They celebrate life with laughter, Spumante and progressively louder storytelling. As an adopted member of their clan, it's lucky for all of us that I'm good humored, love the bubbly and speak loudly. I can get behind this kind of mourning. For the rest of this blog, picture me tearful but joyful, slightly drunk and using my outdoor voice.

Jinx grew up with and raised the Bonk children, acting as a principle character in many of their formative memories. She spent two decades ruling that house with an iron fist and the softest fur this side of the Atlantic. She loved eating table scraps, drinking tuna juice and getting a 'lick of booze' from Grandma Brown. She paid special and closest attention to Julie, being the youngest Bonk who spent the longest time living on the Crescent with Jinx. They spent many (and I mean many, many more than you can even imagine) long hours in Julie's twin bed discussing their favorite books, works of art, and sleeping positions. Whenever someone we love is gone, it's the end of an era of our lives. While the last of Jinx's years might not have been the easiest for her or for those who had to administer her insulin needles twice a day, those won't be the years that we think of when we happily miss her. Childhood is over, and perhaps it has been for some time. Losing Jinx punctuates that fact with certainty, but leaves us thankful for the extra years she gave us to pretend a little bit.

Goodbye Jinx! We'll meet you in the ever-cycling ball of energy on the flip side!

*Please know, I've experienced human loss and I know that some people find those who personify animals incredibly annoying. I have no patience for those people, I know the difference and I'm sure I don't need a lecture from those who can't see the place of an animal in a family. As Grandma Brown would say 'People who don't love animals...well, there's just something wrong with them and I don't like it.'