Life: Idiotropic

This afternoon with all windows open, we heard voices from the courtyard and seconds later all three of my small ones ran shrieking in joy to find their German friends' - our landladies granddaughters - playing there. And that was our day. They played from 1:30 until about 7 outside in the sun, rollerblading, hula-hooping, bicycle riding, and going down the slide on burlap sacks.
The whole family was here for Gillrath's schutzenfest with Hardy and Beret walking in it - Hardy with his nice green suit and feathered cap, and Beret with her beautiful purple and blue irredescent formal gown and a bouquet of Lily of the Valleys.

For the occasion, Tinny baked her famous sour cherry cake with a thick cake layer that is almost as light as angel food cake, but flavorful and not too sweet and a cherry layer that is absolutely delicious and just tart enough. They also had a large apricot cake from the bakerei with a traditional latticed top. They invited me to sit, so my "list of things to do today" quickly became my "list of things to do tomorrow" as I sat, listened to the conversation, drank coffee, and ate cake. I thoroughly enjoyed my generously thick slice of Tinny's special cherry cake. It was delicious liberally topped with freshly whipped cream. I was completely stuffed when I'd finished it, but apparently it is not acceptable to stop at one piece of cake. After all, it's food and Hardy sitting across the table had already consumed three large slices. "Neee, Ich bin dicker mit viel kuchen." (basically, my 2-year old way of saying too much cake will make me fat since my German language skills are so pathetically weak) Yeah, didn't get away with that. Essen. Gotta eat. So I accepted another delicious slice of apricot cake. No whipped cream this time. I'll be good. Arianna came up to me to ask me something and I turned just for 10 seconds or so to talk to her. When I turned around to take the second bite from my cake, it had been liberally topped with a thickness of whipped cream equal to the thickness of the cake. The rest of my afternoon was sunning my fat-soaked self in the backyard talking a little, watching the kids, and trying to follow the German conversations around me. It was very enjoyable - much better than the chores I'll be doing no-doubtfully tomorrow - and I learned a few new German words in the process.

Plus - we've been invited to a party on the markt in Geilenkirchen tomorrow night - should be interesting.