AAAAGGGHHH!!!

Ok, so it should come as no surprise that I'm a tad anal retentive.

But look at this!!


AAAA!!! This is one of the library books that I checked out this week. AAAAAA!!! All of the dates are stamped on AAAAAA!!!! not on the lines!!!! The guy that was checking out the books did this to every single one! Then the kicker. He gets to the last book, and there are no more lines at the bottom to stamp the new due date in. So he heaves a big sigh, AND THEN STAMPS THE NEW DATE IN A SPACE BETWEEN TWO OLDER DUE DATES!!!!!

WHAT?!

I can't believe I forgot this!

A couple of weekends ago our base held a Flugshau for the base members and surrounding local area residents. I guess it was a big hit. We're not allowed to actually have many planes or jets flying, I think that Germany does not allow this because of several disastrous accidents in the past.

I personally do not get the whole airshow thing. I only go because Piko deGallo likes to look at the stuff, and there is usually a funnel cake booth. Andrews AFB where we lived in Maryland has a huge air show every year. We only went twice in the seven years that we lived there. Too crowded for me.

Anyway, since the flugshau is open to the locals as well as the base members there is some local entertainment provided. Guess who was there!!1

GERMAN ELVIS!

Awesome.

The Edge of a Kinfe

It's official.

Tomorrow I will be walking that knife's edge between closer to 30, and closer to 40.

Not that I particularly care. I suppose that it helps that people are surprised to find out my age. I tell them that it's because I'm Aaaaasssian, and I use "Perrrrrr crrrreeeeaam" to keep my face young and soft.

Actually, that's not true, I use Cetaphil, and only when I can be arsed to remember.

Anyhoodles. How must I celebrate? Well, let me tell you, it sure won't be with a honking big cup of steaming coffee!!

That's right, the curse of my family has finally struck me. High blood pressure.

So I get to enjoy my the morning of my 35th year with a nice tall glass of cold water, and a 25MG tab of Hydrochlorothiazide. Oh yes, and don't forget that banana to stave off the potential potassium deficiency.

Damn!! DAMN!!! I miss that coffee. But Sarge says he'll kill me if I die.

Ok, so maybe one thing...

Summer storms are pretty frequent in our neck of the woods, and apparently in our little valley. Every afternoon last week at about 5:30 or so the thunder and clouds started to roll in, and Piko de Gallo and I would go around the house unplugging everything. The storm usually passes in about an hour or two, and we return to our regular Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Lord of the Rings/Walking With Dinosaurs geek fests.

One night we had a particularly lingering storm that would come and go all afternoon and evening. At about 2:30AM Sarge bolts upright in bed and says "Unplug the TV!!", then runs down to the living room to do just that. Shortly after we are rocked by some serious lightning and thunder.

A side note about Sarge and his TV. When we first met, he had a rather large TV that he was in love with. Mostly because he bought it for about $200.00, it was about 36". Whenever we moved it was always the last thing packed, and the first thing unpacked. This was our only TV for 8 years. He finally sold it at our last yard sale since we were moving overseas and didn't want to have a TV on a power converter for 4-6 years. I should have taken a picture of him hugging it goodbye. When we got here and we looked at new TVs he was outrageously apalled, or outraged and apalled by the cost of a TV these days. He ended shelling out "a ridiculous ammount", but in the end I think that he loves his new one just as much as he loved his old one, which kind of explains his lightning premonition at 2AM.

Anyway, I thought that was pretty much the end of it, but we discovered that some areas just up the street were actually hit!

SHAZAM!

I asked Sarge if I should send these pictures to his mom. She hates thunderstorms. Hates them as in yelling in panic whenever one rolls over their house. He thinks no.

I Use Big Words

Summer ennui has enveloped the deGallo household.

Seriously nothing going on, nothing to post about.

For example, the one "exciting" thing that happend last week. I bit my tongue so hard at lunch on Wednesday, that it still hurt when I woke up the next morning.

Yeeeeaaaaahhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

Note to The Librarian

Dear Librarian,

Did you take a close look at the packaging that that g-damn fabulous High School Musical microphone came in?

If not, here ya go...
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.
.

AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

Inadvertant PORN!!!

P.S. Happy Birthday!

Day Trip to Trier

Sunday we drove down to Trier, which is the largest city near us. It is apparently the oldest city in Germany, and is known for it's Christian reliquary collection, wine, and original Roman architecture.

We of course went for the shopping. Though, it was Sunday, so none of the reguar shops were open, but there was a handcraft fair at the Porta Negra.

There were some very beautiful things, and a booth with great Regency/modern style hats, but at 60+ Euro, nothing I could aford.

There were some blacksmithing demos, which was fascinating to Piko de Gallo.

What was truly fascinating to me however was the abundance of "manpris".

This picture, also an example of a German line-up. If you're wondering where the actual line is...that's right!! There is none.
Daddy manpris.
Even the older guys were getting into it. Egads!
I swear I even saw a guy at the bus stop wearing a pair of pris, and Teva style sandals with socks. How do you say "NO!" in German? Nein!!!Nein!!! Nein und abermals nein!!!

Sarge had told me about this "style" when he was deployed. He said that it was very popular among the UK and Australian soldiers. I didn't believe it until I saw it myself. Yikes!

So, Sarge had a hard time getting served at the waffel booth, because he didn't know where the line was. Well, duh, there is not line, hello, German style. I told him that he should buy himself a pair of pris, and the next time his wait will probably be shorter. No f-ing way, he tells me. And actually, I can't imagine it either, gives me chills.

Eddie

This is Eddie
Eddie likes to stand in the middle of the road leading to our house.

And, as Sarge discovered the other day, Eddie likes to take poops on our driveway.

We don't like Eddie very much.

Trouble on Am Schmeideberg

We got trouble, with a capital T that rhymes with P and that stands for

POWER SURGE!!!!

Yes, we've been watching The Music Man, and yes, MdG, make big bang...AGAIN!!!

There was a thunder storm here the other week, and the only thing I forgot to unplug was the telephone. Well, apparently the telephone pole outside is taller than our roof.

SHAZAM!!!

It actually blew the DSL splitter apart, and off the wall!! Fried the modem, and possibly my old computer, which will not turn on now. Old houses, gotta love them.

In other Germany news...

Ikea, why do you not take Visa or Master Card?!?!?
Seriously! We got up to the checkout, and oops, I had to run to the ATM. I suppose it really was my fault since I didn't look for the Visa/Master Card sticker on the entrance. So I was a sucky American, since I was not prepared.

However, Germany, you have the most awesome bicycle stores EVER!! We went to one today that had a little track around the display area where you could try out any bike or other ride on they had in the store.

I of course rode a scooter, but Sarge was too busy looking at padded pants to take our pictures.

Tomorrow is Piko deGallo's 6th birthday!!! And she has her first loose tooth!!

It Should Come As No Surprise

16 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

However, taking Christina G's lead, and taking the test as a "Husband", my results were a little different.

67 As a 1930s husband, I am Superior Take the test!

Similar to what she got, poor wife, good husband. Though I was a much bigger failure as a wife, and a considerably less superior husband. How funny!

Alive and Doing Fine

Sarge comes home from the hospital tomorrow. Hoo-ray! The reason that they were keeping him there for so long was that his white blood cell count was very low due to the bacterial infection. So they were waiting for it to go back to normal, just to avoid a relapse or something like that. He's itching to come home in the worst way.

One good thing:
We have discovered the best walk to take Dog on. It's a loop that goes around the back of our house into the fields, and back down our road. It's easy enough that we can all do it and not be exhausted. This included Dog, because she is way out of shape. It is quick enough that we can complete it in 30 minutes, with one short rest half way through.
And we can lengthen it or shorten it, depending on our stamina and time limitations. We walked it twice the first day, but Dog was not so happy about the second outing. Sarge says she's a "one walk a day dog". She would much rather be upstairs sleeping on my bed.

One bad thing:
"Mysterious blue smoke" Yes, it was released from my less than one year old computer, when I plugged it into the 220V socket. And yet, my older than Piko de Gallo computer seems to be working just fine.

Now to find a computer repair shop where English is spoken.

Getting around Germany

Well, we now know where the hospital is.

Sarge has come down with a bacterial infection that has kept him laid up for about a week.

He has the laptop too, so there is very little internets for me.

Other than that, things are pretty great.

There's a fabulous bakery right across the street from the hospital. Yummy seasonal fruit tarts to sooth my worries with.

There is a truth universally acknowledged...

...if there is a tomato that looks like it's growing a penis, I will buy it.
If only to take a picture of it and post it here for some cheap laughs.

Life Without the Internets

Well, say what you like about Germany (that's for you Mrs. S. You can start ragging now), there may be no internets, and phone service is slow to be hooked up. But oh, we have ice cream!

Delicious ice cream. I'm so glad that this shop is not in our town or we would be huge and fat at the end of the summer.

So what does one do without internet service? Well, normally I would be a couch potato, or work on one of my many sewing projects. Unfortunately we have no TV, no service, and no actual TV to hook up. And my BFF is still in route (delivery is scheduled for the 12th!!). So we've been tackling the garden, unfortunately I have no pictures, but imagine 20 years of free growth. And I don't know what's a weed and what's a plant, so I've just been pulling everything that does not look familiar. I have dirt impregnated into the palms of my hands, and that's the way I like it. Hopefully we'll be able to wrestle it into submission soon enough.

Wildlife spotting so far:
A hedgehog, a jackrabbit, and a huge ass buck.

Bleh!

We are currently without internets.

Hopefully posting will resume soon.

Mrs. S, if you are still reading, I have to post some pictures of all of the awesome tile in our house.

I'm crossing my fingers for internet service.

I <3 British TV

I would say that it is pretty well established that I love me some TV.

But I especially love British TV. BBC, in all it's glory, iTV. Yay!!

Where else can you see something as awesome as TJ Wheels!!!


And then there was "Hoop-La-La". Hoop-La-Freakin-Awesome if you ask me. I do have to say that they really benefited from the professional styling that the show gave them. They were on Britain's Got Talent. Even Simon ended up liking them.


Of course this video does not work now, but you can view it on the Hoop-La-La website. I think I just like saying "Hoop-La-La".

Lots of great variety talent shows on, that I enjoy so much more than Crap Idol.

Some things

I've noticed that the Germans are obsessed with their plants!! Not just their gardens, which are very wonderful as well, but house plants.


I remarked to Sarge the other day that when you drive past the oldest, ex-barn, tin roofed, run down house, there are always tons of plants in the windows. It's like they see an empty windowsill, and feel the need to fill it. Fill it with plants.

I have not taken any photos as examples, because I think it's kind of weird to take pictures of peoples front windows.

As a comparison, there is the front window of out American friend's house.

Only a few plants, and quite afew of those are dying. I laughed at her, but she said she warned her landlord when she moved in, and told him that she was death to plants, but he still left them.

Another funny/geeky thing.

These are the trash cans in the laundry room at the hotel we are staying at.
EXTERMINATE!!!!EXTERMINATE!!!!EXTERMINATE!!!!

I'm such a dork. Though in the photo they don't look quite as Dalek-y as they did when I initially saw them.

Target. WhatTheWhat??!

Oh Target how I love thee. I really will miss walking the halls of the bullseye on a regular basis. However your on-line site is made of win too, so there is some slight relief there.

But what's up with this??

I bought some rain boots for myself, some school shoes for Piko deGallo, a t-shirt, and a solar system mobile. I was taking advantage of their free shipping offer.

I got 4 different "Your order has shipped" confirmation e-mails!!

No, not that they e-mailed me 4 times to tell me that my order has shipped. 4 separate shipments!!

Is that normal? I suppose it could be that each item is coming from a different fufillment warehouse, but still. I guess I should just smile and be happy that I got free shipping on all of the items.

Come on, it's not just me, that's weird.

P.S. Mrs. S. I looked up the word for composting bin. BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA!!
it's Kompostierungssortierfach. Like I'm even going to to be able to say that to my landlord!! 25 letters man!!

Resting

Another day, another move.

We've gone from our base house in MD, to temporary lodging on base, to the LaQuinta Inn (THE AWESOME BTW) outside of Baltimore, to temporary lodging on base in Germany, to an efficiency apartment in a town outside the base.

We finally move into our house on June 1!!!

While on the base I was walking everywhere, safety briefing, commissary, post office, gym, housing office, Piko deGallo's school. Pretty much every day. This base is small, but not *that* small.

Our car gets here somewhere around the 10th of June. Though I don't even have my drivers license for Germany yet, so it wouldn't even matter if the car was here.

Side note!!! Hooray, I just got a call that some of our furniture has arrived! Woo!

So I'm in a wee town, with no car. I guess I'll take the day off from waking, and just veggie with the internets, and my 3 English language TV channels. Maybe walk around the village and get some Doner Kebab for lunch.

This is my happy thought.That is the view from our house's back porch.

Not complaining, just updating.

Good Girl!

I know I complain alot about Dog DeGallo. Or well, I complain about her alot to people I know IRL.

But she really is a great dog. Hello, she puts up with my occasionally dressing her up in Piko deGallo's tutus, and stuff like this:


I was a bit worried about her in all of the hotels and temporary housing we were going to be spending time in during the move, but she just makes herself right at home.


I'm making it official and putting out there on the internets.

I love my dog, farts, dandruff, snoring, bad breath and all