Life: Idiotropic

Here are the "teaser" photos... I'll get to the blog later in the week.

We got back late on Saturday night. Yesterday was spent unpacking and it's still not done and now I've jumped head-first into yearbook photos and layouts trying to get things all ready to do the layouts with the kids and have this thing mailed off by 20 March. It will be a crazy few weeks.

So, blogging will be my stress-relief when I can no longer look at yearbook stuff and I'll get my week in Austria blogged in parts over the next week or so. A few other random bits will show up on the blog in the next few days as well... little things that I didn't get time to share before the trip.






This last photo is a bit of a sore subject... it is the ONLY photo that we got the entire trip of the 6 of us and our local ski club captain jumped in at the last minute. When the yearbook is finished, I'll see if I can Photoshop him out and put Frosty the Snowman in his place. Grrr.

We live in farm country. Tiny villages are surrounded by fields. Large old brick homes encircle large courtyards big enough for farm equipment and all sizes of tractors. These tractors come in handy for all sorts of occasions. I've seen them tow away cars after traffic accidents and, for carnival, they haul balloons and floats and whatever else is needed.

Today while running some last minute pre-vacation errands, I got behind two slow tractors. Usually I'm complaining that autumn's sugar beat trucks are slow or I'll have the sad misfortune to get behind one of the fertilizer trucks, but today I slowed enough behind this tractor hauling a Karneval parade float to take this photo and just up the road was this little tractor turning the corner with large bags of yellow balloons. Everyone's getting ready for the small local parades now and it's fun to see the farmers get involved too.

The window is a very mediocre example of the windows here. Some are incredibly ornate filled with clowns, balloons, and streamers in red, yellow, and green. I always enjoy driving around this time of year in particular and seeing what fun things people have put in their windows.

Karneval is coming to town... the parties have started and this weekend, the big parades start -- the biggest one in Cologne on Rosenmontag. We'll be in Austria, so we'll miss most of it.

But this morning while drinking coffee and visiting with friends, I heard a bunch of racket from outside, so, as usual, I grabbed my camera and ran to the front door. The local German elementary school (the one Aria will attend next year), was having their big costume parade through the village and they were turning right in front of my house. The best costume was one boy dressed as a giant Kinderegg - the toy filled chocolate eggs.

Luci left this morning for school dressed in her fancy dress because she wanted to be a princess. Her class is taught by German teachers, so they like to do the local holidays big. They had a party with a lot of music and dancing and a small parade around the building to show off their costumes. (Luci's the one in the peach dress)





Tiara had a party this afternoon too. I stopped by to drop off cookies and ended up staying a while to take pictures for the yearbook. The costumes were hysterical. Three boys dressed up as girls - one in a extravagant pink and purple dress with fur and a jacket and hat and pink fishnet stockings. It was a bit frightening. The girls were all dressed cute as baseball players, cats, rock stars, and one wore a mardi gras feather mask. Tiara was a 50's girl. They played duck- duck-goose, dodge ball, musical chairs, and a few other games.





Arianna didn't have a carnival party with her class, but I took pictures of them in the computer lab learning to use the computers. They learn to log in and go into specific programs. The teacher (who is still living in the dark ages when it comes to computers) was trying to teach them to put stamps on their worksheets in the art program. It took her so long to explain it and then the network kept crashing when the kids tried to log on, that most of the kids never even got the program open before the class was over.

Today is women's day here in Germany - a day during Carneval where women reign supreme and can do anything, supposedly. One Dutch woman tried to explain, "you just forget that you're married and have kids for one day and just go out and have a good time."

May be next year, I'll dress up and go observe it although I don't think I could participate fully.

Men are told to be careful, to wear only ties that they don't care about, and on their uniforms to not wear patches or to wear old ones. Today is the day that women can cut off men's ties and steal their patches. Yes, adult, married, responsible, normally sane women, go around cutting off men's ties.

It's the one day a year here when the normally intimacy unlucky can find companionship. And yes, alcohol does play a role.

Tonight at Il Genio's, it was mostly men who came for the pizza. Most of the women were out. The party on base started at 11:11 - a significant time for carnival. It won't end until midnight. Driving around today I saw an abundance of clowns and nuns behind the wheel. Women in red with horns walked along the street holding each other up.

Tiara participated too. In host nation class, the teacher let the 6th grade girls loose to each cut a piece off of Dr. Emerson's tie. He did wear his ugliest tie to work today for the occasion, and the girls had a good time doing the normally forbidden. Tiara was upset that someone stole her piece of the principle's tie from her desk, so she doesn't have her memento anymore.

I'm being a mom today and Kirk is out with his friends still. I'm sure I'll hear all about it tomorrow, but, next year, it's his turn to babysit.

No, I didn't get any photos of my cute kids shoving candy in their mouths like I starve them, but they did all have parties today. Arianna and Luci have been making very cute lollipop valentines for a week, so they took those into school today with candy to share. I didn't have to bake for these parties, so that makes me happy.

Luci came home with a shoebox overflowing with Valentine's and candy. The best Valentine: A 8" heart-shaped balloon on a stick with the message handwritten on it. (That mom does have too much time.) Her least original: one of the 4 Barbie princess valentines that were identical.

Arianna came home with a very cute paper plate pouch with yarn woven through it so that she could hang in around her shoulders like a mailman's bag. It was covered in hearts and also overflowed with valentines. The most original was the 3D bug made with a smarties candy body and pipe cleaner wings and legs. Her least original was the barbie princess valentine that Luci got 4 of. They had ice cream sundaes at school, so that was fun and better than the traditional boxed cupcake mix.

Tiara told me on the 13th after school that she needed to make Valentines. That was in addition to her homework, the yearbook meeting, and her ballet class. So, I bought gummi bears and printed labels to put on the little packages. "Happy Valentine's Day 2007 From: Tiara" I could tell that other parents were just as irritated. It IS 6th grade. They don't care. One kid gave out bags of chips - no tag or sticker... just chips. Good for them.

Now I have to gear up for the Carneval parties that Tiara and Luci will have tomorrow. I kinda think that may be there should be a 1 party a week limit at school! 2 in one week? Too much.

Yesterday I was alarmed to hear a voice sounding over a loudspeaker outside my home. It seemed like some scary moment from a movie where I should come out with my hands up. Dramatic, may be, but you never really know.

So, I ran outside to see what it was and found a small Deutches Rotes Kruzes (German Red Cross) van driving ever so slowly down the B56 with an endless line of cars creeping along behind it. The little loudspeaker stuck out from the side and the voice was booming. All I caught from the string of German utterance was the number 16.

Thankfully, my housekeeper came to the rescue with the interpretation: Spende Blut.

There's going to be a blood drive. Ok. That's pretty normal. They have them in the area fairly frequently. But, really... a loudspeaker?? Are they that hard-up for blood? And I thought the ice cream man back home was obnoxious.

Three parties in one day!

This afternoon we were invited to join the Spanish for Paella! Paella is a delicious traditional Spanish rice dish cooked from start to finish in one pan. A family might have a pan for 12 or 16. The paella pan they used today was especially made for 50 people.

The tables were set with bread, cheese, green olives, and big bowls of delicious sangria. The paella was cooking still when we arrived on a pan that was probably four feet across. The rice and chicken cooked first, then, when the rice was almost done, they put on the mussels, large prawns, and other shellfish. It was like art the way everything was arranged perfectly set on top. Just before serving, Joanna sliced wedges of lemon so that they would rest on the edge of the pan in a way that the juice would run into the food. YUM! This is a recipe I'll get - full of flavor, but not spicy or overpowering in any way. One Italian lady was there and she brought Tiramisu for dessert - another recipe I need.

During this party, Arianna attended a party at the Hoensbroek castle for her friend where they got to dress up in fancy period costumes and go on a scavenger hunt across the castle. Such a nice dream for little princesses to party at a real castle. They had a great time.

After that we headed to another friend's house for a good ol' American birthday party with chili and other potluck items - a nice time with friends. It's relaxing to settle back into English after listening and speaking Spanish for part of an afternoon - to just talk without thinking is a good thing sometimes.

(photos will arrive soon... sadly, my camera battery died and I'd left the spare on the charger... so I'll post photos as they are emailed to me from friends)

Here's a little bit of the U.S. - the Girl Scouts. Arianna has participated in Daisy's this year - the kindergarten group of the girl scouts. She's enjoying it quite a bit. Today was "thinking day" where every different girl scout troop in the area chose a country to represent and they presented a completed project board, a snack, and some demonstration to the rest of the groups. Arianna and her class performed The Bremen Town Musicians since that is a story based in a German town. In the real town of Bremen, there is actually a statue of the donkey, cat, dog, and rooster. The girls had fun. Arianna is enjoying a large piece of Canadian candy in this photo - hence the lopsided grin.

Carnival season is here. It starts officially, I think, on Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) which is this next Monday, the 19th. That's the day that the big parades happen in Cologne, Maastricht, and other cities in this region. This is the region of Germany where Carnival is celebrated the most.

Costume shops abound though most are open only seasonally. The biggest one in the area is Karnevalswierts in Heerlen, NL -- that's where you can get fabric, buttons, wigs, face paint, fake arms, bells, and a zillions other little things to go with their range of costumes from cows to genies, but there are little shops everywhere and it's a lot of fun just to go there and look.

This is the time when you look sillier if you don't dress up and the stranger, the better.

So, Kirk and I dressed up and went to a Carneval party at the Officer's Club on Friday night.

Kirk went at 6 and enjoyed a full dinner with venison, steak, chicken, fish, and a lot of other food. I had to pick Tiara up from a ballet rehearsal, so I didn't get there until 8:30 and missed all that. Still, I didn't miss dessert and that was pretty good. Later in the night, they served a really good Hungarian goulash soup in the bar and that was a great antidote to the wine I'd been drinking.

The costumes were fun - clowns, Robin Hood, princesses, cats, an African-American German Heidi, knights, Wonder Woman, the Queen of Hearts, and other people from all centuries and places.
Entertainment never ceased, with each act almost pushed off by the next before they'd really finished. A huge group from Aachen came all in intricate costumes with the full pomp and splendour of the royal carneval groups. The band played. The prinz sang. And the others played and laughed, and acted silly. It's really strange to see.

The last band played an Alp horn. Some Alp horns can be a lot bigger, but this one was big enough and it looked difficult to play.

My favorite was Elvis. Wow. And I'm not a huge fan, but this Elvis was amazing. He's French and actually worked with Kirk until a few months ago when he moved back to Paris. He came up though for this party and performed for us all, then left us wanting to hear more.

Anyway... it was nice to get a little glimpse of the culture here. At the end, they all switched to German, I think, thinking that the only people left were Germans. We didn't care. We all had a great time dancing until 1am and laughing at each other. There were a lot of Germans, Italians, Americans, and Canadians there, a couple French, and a lot of Norwegians. I'm not sure what other nationalities were represented, but it was a great mix of people all enjoying themselves, talking together, and having a nice time.

We'll definitely go next year - I'm already thinking up a costume.
Photos: 1)A nice pair of clowns - a very nice older couple I chatted with a bit. 2)A jester with the Aachen carneval singing group 3) Two friends - one, Tiara's teacher as a 50's girl and the other, Kirk's coworker as Heidi. 4) One of the dance troupes 5) The husband of one friend sitting on the lap of another - playfully - just as the husband walked by and they both saw him... a totally innocent, but humorous moment

Tonight, after spending all day cooped up in the house watching it snow and cuddling with two sick kids, I escaped to the Frisbee Club to enjoy a few hours out with friends at the International Women's Club Norwegian Evening.

The ladies had a nice table spread with beautiful brochures from Norway and we were not allowed to enter without being given a couple of them including some information about a cruise. A table on the left was filled with beautiful jewelry and the famous Norwegian sweaters for sale.

Front and center the gift table sat filled with things that the ladies made themselves. Most were knit and all were beautiful. In the center was a kransekake - also handmade. Another table had beautiful clothing hanging above it and beautiful handpainted antiques and dolls giving us a feel for the culture there. Every Norwegian lady there wore her traditional attire. Each region has a slightly different dress, but they still all own them and wear them for weddings and other important events - even now.

The food was wonderful!

Plates of Tjukklefse (a variation of the traditional Lefser) sat on the tables as appetizers. Lefse is a traditional flatbread made of potato, cream, and flour and cooked on a griddle, then filled and rolled up. It varies regionally. The "tjukklefse" that we had is a bit thicker. Ours was filled with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Soon plates of another flatbread came out. This bread is wafer thin and crispy like a cracker. It's made with barley flour, salt, and water. It came with our soup called Sodd that was so delicious, I ended up getting seconds.

Sodd comes from the middle of Norway, the county of Tronderlag, where it is served for special occasions. The rich chicken broth is filled with carrots, leeks, mutton, tiny pork meatballs, and buljong. Ours was served with boiled potatoes also inside.

Before our dessert we were treated to a nice slideshow with beautiful photos from Norway including some of Norwegian faces smiling from behind a layer of snow covering their red faces, and photos of couples sitting around candles lit inside ice caves. It all looked beautiful, but cold and much like photos of Canada and Alaska.

Dessert and coffee time came and we were told to try every dessert. Ok, twist my arm! We had Kransekake, Kvaefjord kake, Chocolate cake, and cheesecake.

Kransekake, or wreath cake, is a traditional Norwegian dessert usually eaten on special occasions like during weddings or at Christmas. It's formed by making concentric circles of cake and layering them on top of each other to form a steep pyramid. The recipe is below.

The cheesecake was delicious and lighter than the American ones. It was more of a sour cream cheesecake, not as sweet or as heavy as the cream cheese ones. On top was a nice thin layer of strawberry gelatin.

The absolute favorite dessert of the night and the thing that all the ladies raved about was the "Verdens Beste," meaning, the best in the world. This cake is similar to the German bienenstich and is excellent! I got the recipe for this one too! Enjoy!

I had to leave early since the kids had been sick, but it was still a fabulous night. The Norwegian ladies did a beautiful job putting the evening together.

The recipes: These were translated from Norwegian to English and then I've changed a few things to make it more readable, but it's late and I'm tired, so it's still a bit oddly worded. Still, be patient. The cake is excellent and worth the effort and a bit of trial and error.

Mix 100 grams butter and 100 grams sugar, then stir in 4 egg yolks. Sift 100 grams flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar together with 4 tablespoons milk into the sugar/butter mixture.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the dough onto it.

Whisk 4 egg whites until stiff and then stir in 200 grams sugar. Lay the meringue on top of the dough and sprinkle 100 grams sliced almonds on top. Bake in the oven at 175Celcius for about 30-35 minutes. Cool on rack.

For the cream, whisk 2 egg yolks, 1 T. sugar, 1.5 T. cornflour, and 2 dl (oops... deciliters? I'd better start looking for some conversions!) milk in a large bowl on the stove. Boil it carefully while stirring all the time. Cool down. Mix this with slightly sugared whipped cream (2.5 dl cream plus 1 T sugar).

Assembly: Cut the cake in two similar pieces horizontally (to fill it). Spread the cream on the bottom layer, then place the meringued half on top with the meringue face up.


(I'm writing this recipe down as is... it obviously will need some clarification... I'll try to get that soon.)

Mix:
250g almonds with
250g almonds without
500g powder sugar
3 egg whites

Mix the above until a fest dough. Spray the forms well and put some flavour in them. (I think that means grease and flour the forms) Roll the dough as a 1cm thick sausage and fill the forms. (Or make concentric circle printouts with your computer. Bake on oven at 180C until the rings are golden (approx. 15 minutes).

Mix 100g powdered sugar and 1 egg white. Spray the icing between each ring to stick them together. Decorate with more frosting and candies as desired.

Today I woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow over everything that just made the day magical and gorgeous as I drove with 6 other ladies in the van up to Dusseldorf to attend a coffee at the American Consular General's house.

This was a follow up to the tea that I attended in December with the Consular General's wife at the club here at the base.

Our morning was beautiful, so I was sorry that I didn't have time to take pictures of the snow covering everything. The drive was easy though and in just over an hour, we arrived at the modest white house right next to a restaurant and at the edge of a forest. It looked like anyone's house - behind a little gate, but nothing overly dramatic.

Still, there was a little hut in the restaurant parking lot across the street with a large police van parked next to it and two police men standing around watching. A nicely dressed man opened the gate for us. Another staff member opened the door. The gardens are simple, but beautiful as is the house and it's insides as well.

The house was beautiful inside and filled with interesting art and small antiques. It was warm and comfortable without any hint of ostentationsness. It could have been my mother's home or the home of a friend. The details stood out though... painted panels from Russia, a nice grouping of photos on the grand piano, an interesting lamp...

Mrs. Boyse welcomed us in very warmly and a nearby maid held a tray with orange juice and water. There were probably 35 women there representing American Women's Clubs all over the area.

After about 10 minutes, she got our attention, showed us the room filled with coffee, tea, and an array of desserts as delicious as they were beautiful, then set us loose to relax and mingle as she quietly moved about the room and brought women together to make connections between sister groups. Maids scurried around refilling our cups of coffee and tea. We sat properly and soaked up the ambiance while chatting together.

I met a lot of amazing people and it showed me a bit of a world that I didn't know existed to this extent. The American Women of Cologne have over 300 members. The American Women of Dusseldorf, have, I think, around 150. Until now, I had no idea that there were quite to many Americans living here. Some have husbands who work here with international companies. Some are "lifers," married to German men.

But, we were all ladies, so we talked about kids, and family, and how much we miss good Chinese food, Boy Scouts, and where to find pumpkin puree outside of a military base.

By the end, we'd made a lot of connections. I'm getting information on our 4th of July celebration as that's something that they've missed and we're inviting them all to the anniversary celebration of our AWACS unit. They invited us to the Rosenmontag celebration in Cologne at the Hard Rock Cafe. I'm sorry to be missing that one.

Now we're going to meet quarterly which is exciting. I'm glad to be a part of this group. It really was an honor to be included and it feels good to meet people and make some connections for the other women here. It's going to be a good thing for all of us.

I really don't feel like anything has "gone back to normal" since the holidays and our trip to Paris. Since school started back up, it's all been a blur and a blurry blur at that.

Still, I try to find a little quiet here and there. These photos are from a nice cold evening that we decided to get out of the house and play a bit. Arianna climbed a tree - quite high and sat there for a while smiling casually like climbing a tree was the most natural thing in the world until she almost fell out of it trying to get down. Her little feet slipped swaying back and forth as she clung tightly to the branch above with both arms. She was hollering that she was scared and I was running back and forth hollering at Kirk to rescue her while he dashed here and there trying to get through the bushes and get to her. It's easier for a little girl to climb a tree than a big man. I've yet to see if she'll chance that again the next time we go to the playground. My guess is that she will - she's pretty determined.