Incoherent Scribblings

Bittersweet Holidailies

I had this little introduction written up and meant to post it yesterday to launch this year’s Holidailies, but decided to put it on hold for a day after being inspired by kitten fun yesterday. So, here it is.

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Because of many things that were beyond my control last year, I did not participate in Holidailies. However, when I first participated in 2005 I had a good enough experience that I decided to return this year.

Two years ago. December 2005. When I think about my life then I am flooded with bittersweet memories.

I was on a different continent and possessed a different marital status. I was semi-depressed and directionless because even though I didn’t want to admit it, I was slowly beginning to realize that era of my life was coming to an end.

There were precious few hours of daylight but the days were agonizingly long for me. I spent too much time watching badly dubbed TV while waiting for him to come home. When he was at home, we spoke less and less and the tension grew to be nearly unbearable. When he wasn’t home I was almost content, except I couldn’t help but wonder what was really behind the flimsy excuses he gave me for not being there. I refused to cry, but my anger towards him grew until it threatened to consume me.

But then again, I was excited. After almost four years I was getting ready to go home to visit my friends and family. I was anxiously awaiting the birth of my nephew. While I had been overseas, my niece had transformed from a baby into a little girl and I couldn’t wait to get to know her. I was looking forward to eating silly American “delicacies” and hearing my native language spoken all around me.

Days after I wrote my last post of the 2005 Holidailies season I flew across the Atlantic and into the arms of my family. My nephew arrived eight days later and there were whirlwind visits to my old stomping grounds.

I gained perspective and when I returned to Germany I gave myself an ultimatum: If my marriage hadn’t improved in six months I would walk out the door and never look back. Well, despite the effort (on both our parts), my marriage didn’t improve and I did indeed walk out the door.

And though I have looked back a couple of times, it was only briefly.

House Call

First of all, if you haven’t figured out by some of the cryptic blog post titles here and there, I am seeing someone. As I told my mom, it is not the dude from the laundromat, but the situation is complicated and I am still trying to sort things out. I am not sure where it is going or if it will go anywhere, but he makes me laugh and for now that is enough.

Of course, all the time I am spending with him has drastically cut into my stitching time. I take my stitching with me because we keep insisting that we need to work on spending time in “companionable silence,” but for some reason when something gets unzipped, it isn’t my stitching bag!

Nevertheless, I did get some stitching time in this weekend while watching Season 1 of House M.D. As you may or may not know, when I moved to Texas I left my $10 yard sale TV in Iowa. As a result of this TV-lessness, I have been totally jonesing for Dr. House and finally decided to join Netflix so that I can watch TV shows that I missed while I was in Germany or have never seen in English and movies on my computer.

Writers strike or not, with no TV I have obviously not yet seen the current season of House, but I am thoroughly enjoying seeing all the previous episodes in order. I figure by the time I catch up on the first three seasons, Season 4 should be close to being released on DVD.

Anyway, while I was drooling over Dr. House, I worked on Outi’s replacement birthday exchange piece. Though I have no pictures to share at the moment, you can rest assured that I did not drool on the linen.

And as I usually say when I have no pictures to do the talking for me and I am running out of things to say, the exchange piece is coming along nicely, I am enjoying stitching it immensely, and I believe it is on schedule to be finished and mailed by December 1.

TTFN!

Rostig

That is the German word for “rusty.” Now, I will admit that I don’t remember if one uses the concept of being rusty at something to describe being out of practice, but in keeping with the spirit of Denglish, today I am going to.

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Today, while working at the Information Desk, I had a lady come in to register for a community borrower card. Because I am still learning all the nuances of the different services we provide at the Information Desk, at this point I had to bring another librarian in to refresh my memory as to the next steps in the community borrower registration process.

When we first spoke at the desk, I thought I had detected a German accent in the prospective community borrower’s English and as we began filling out all the necessary paperwork, it came to my attention that she had a very “German” name.

However, it wasn’t until she was looking over her registration information and mentioned that our computer had not put an umlaut over the “a” in her last name that I took the plunge.

“Sprechen Sie Deutch?” I inquired.

Why, yes, as a matter of fact she did, she replied in German. She then asked me if I was German. In German, I replied that no I wasn’t, but I had lived in Germany for four and a half years. (Seriously, it’s the blonde hair, it gets them every time!)

At this point she had been entered into our system so we collected her annual fee and then briefed her on our community borrower policies and did a little demo of the online catalog. As this was the first time I had been involved in registering a community borrower, I mainly observed as my colleague instructed her on the catalog and how to renew books online. Near the end of the demonstration, the phone rang so I left the scene.

She spent a few minutes browsing the catalog but before she left, she came back over to the desk and started chatting away with me in German.

I was very excited to be speaking German again but was also nervous and as a result, I was embarrassed at the rustiness of my conversation.

Although I understood and responded correctly to the questions about how long I had been living in and what brought me to West Texas Town, I completely misunderstood the question she asked about whether I had come directly from Munich. I stumbled over my past tense helping verbs (haben vs. sein) and was surprised she understood anything I said as the order of the words in my sentences were enough to make me cringe as they tumbled from my mouth.

I apologized profusely for my German, but told her that it was because I hadn’t been practicing. Minutes later as we parted proper in German fashion, I couldn’t help but hope that I had made a contact that would help me fulfill #48 on my 101 Things list: Continue practicing my German in the US.

Goodbye Germany

Dear Germany,

It’s been nice getting to know you, but I am afraid that the time has come for me to say goodbye.

I had very few preconceptions about you when I first came here because truthfully, when it came to Europe, you never really interested me all that much. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would spend four years of my adult life amongst your people learning your language and culture!

I have to admit that there are still lots of things that I don’t quite understand about your way of life, but I guess it is those little quirks that make us all unique. And though I don’t fault you for being the way that you are, I still sometimes question these things. However, if a suitable explanation is nowhere to be found, I just shrug it off and say, “Well, that’s Germany for you!”

Although your language presented me with challenges from time to time, overall it was a pleasure for me to learn. And yes, I still think a lot of your people sound like they are going to cough up a hairball when they say certain things, but the beauty is that I can understand them now!

I was surprised by your scenic variety and was especially fond of your lush river valleys in the west and your snowy mountain peaks in the south. Unfortunately, I never made it to your seashores, but I am sure they are delightful. I was sobered by the brief trip that I made to the former communist areas in the east and hope that one day your people and government are able to bring back life to the area like it deserves.

I won’t delude you or myself into thinking that in the four years that I was here I integrated like I originally hoped that I would. However, I believe that my time with you as an extended visitor was worth every moment, whether the particular moment was good or not.

Thank you for allowing me to have an experience that will benefit me for the rest of my life.

Leb Wohl!

Renée, the blondelibrarian

Moving Arrangements

I thought I would take a moment to address some of the comments/emails I have had in the past few days regarding my move.

First off, the arrangements for the kitties are coming along nicely. We made flight arrangements for the cats yesterday and now all they will need is a health certificate from the vet within 10 days of their flight. For those of you who are wondering, they will fly three days after me and, luckily, they won’t have to be quarantined.

However, I will admit that I was a tad worried for a while because when we had the geriatric blood work done on Mouse a few weeks ago it was discovered that she was suffering from a hyperthyroid condition. The vet wouldn’t let her fly until her thyroid stabilized, but after putting her on medication which she will now have to take for the rest of her life, she has been given the green light to go.

Furthermore, as of yesterday almost all of my personal belongings have been shipped to the US and will arrive in America this coming Tuesday. My dad has offered to pick them up in my absence, so when I get home my things will already be there.

Of course, I am sure that anyone who has ever made an international move will probably wonder how my things are going to arrive at their destination so quickly.

Simple: When I decided to return to the US, I took the opportunity to drastically purge my things.

When one only keeps sentimental items that cannot be replaced and the bare essentials, it is amazing how much stuff you realize that you have that you will never really miss. As a result of this extreme decluttering mission, I somehow managed to pack all of my personal belongings in just over ¾ of a cubic meter.

Believe it or not, sometimes (i.e., when you don’t have a lot of stuff) it can actually be cheaper to ship by air instead of by sea. And, as you probably figured, shipping things by air only takes days, not weeks.

Finally, for those of you who asked, I am sure that once I get over the stress and excitement of moving back to the US I will occasionally miss Germany and most likely even suffer from reverse culture shock. Nevertheless, for now I must admit that I really can’t wait to leave.

In fact, I am currently so keen on it that I don’t even mind living out of a suitcase for the next twelve days.