Public Service

This week is National Police Week.

National Police Week in Washington D.C.

Take some time to support your local cops (even if you don't like them 80% of the time). Many of them, like my Sarge, often have to put their lives on the line in dangerous situations. Some die in the line of duty, and much of the money raised during Police Week events goes to support families affected by such tragedies.

You never know when you might need one.

And yes, Sarge's favorite doughnut is the one with pink icing and sprinkles, just like Chief Wiggum.

As we were driving to school yesterday morning Piko de Gallo and I are listening to the one American radio channel we get in the car.

Of course the topic is OMGSWINEFLUOMG!!!!

This is what I hear, and I'm pretty sure I heard it correctly.

"This does not affect mission status travel, however, if you're planning on traveling to Mexico to say, have your baby, you might want to abort that."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! WUT?

And of course, obilagtory OMGSWINEFLUOMG macro.

Just in case anyone is wondering what 175 EUROS looks like.

Here ya go



Yeah, woo-FRACKING-hoo, more drugs for me. Maybe this time I will take a picture of the belt of bruises I get from having to inject myself with an anticoagulant twice a day.

Probably not, that's not an image for public consumption.

When discussing my blood thinning treatment Herr Doktor tells me:
"If you have bleeding, you MUST come in."

Well, I'm no medical expert, but DUH!

Not Perfect

What do you suppose it means when one of your supposed closest friends says:
"Well, we all can't be perfect ALL the time."
Directed at you when you are discussing a funny and fantastic fail of a project.

I wish my "Classic" girfriends were here. Friend "Lite" are just not cutting it.

Not a political statement

OMG!!

Best cake ever!!

Before cutting


After cutting.
SHAZAM!!!



I used this tutorial, but made my cake the regualr way, not with the soda. And frosted with home made buttercream frosting.

Yummy! And superduper cute.

Deligate!

I'm a very do it myself kind of person. Not saying that I can gut a house and rebuild it, but with projects and tasks, I just like to take care of it myself so I know it's going to get done.

Well, being out of commission I had to deligate several events to other people. The first one went off without a hitch, as I knew it would.

Today, I was supposed to host an event. GAH!

The reason I like to take care of things myself is that I know what needs to be done, and I can make decisions myself. I hate getting three phone calls asking me "Should I do this?", "Is this how you want it done?", "Is this going to be ok?".
No, no, and NO!

If I hand over a project to you with some guidelines and say "This is what I usually do, but this time it's your show, so do whatever you feel like doing." I'm not saying call me and email me all day long to get ideas, and approval for what is now YOUR event. I'm saying "This is what I usually do, but this time it's your show, so do whatever you feel like doing." Make a damn decision yourself and leave me alone. People won't care that the event is different from the last time as long as there is plenty of NOMS.

I handed over this project so that I could get some rest. Not so I could be stressed out even more.

Freedom!

Well I'm out.
This is how I judged the time.
I was able to see two new Sundays of Post Secret.
And, four instalments of Multiplex.

That's a pretty long time.

Now it's just outpatient treatment.

I have to inject myself twice a day with an anti-Thrombosis medication.

Fun times.

Paging Dr. House

Ok, so I came in with Pneumonia, they found "some" pulmonary embolisms.

Now it seems I have Legionellosis!

The Pneumonia was more than likely caused by the Legionellosis, but does not cause the pulmonary embolisms.

Differential diagnosis?

The best part was calling the germophobe secretary at the school I substitute at to let them know I had to contact public health.


PS.

Just lucky like that

That's me.
I'm in the hospital this week. No worries, just a touch of Penumonia that led to some tests that led to something else.
So here I am.
For a week.
Yay me.

That is not the bit of luck I'm talking about.

What is it about me that compels people to tell me things???
My roomate right now is a 50 something German local who speaks excellent english. We communicate well.
Too well.
I learned over the course of one evening that she is from the local area all her life, she has two grown children, likes to go out dancing, does not love her husband, has a boyfriend in a city 2 hours away. What?!?
Wait, it does not end there.
Boyfriend is also married (he is a sweetheart from her school days), he has three daughters (she showed me pictures), and the youngest (16) is pregnant!
Hell.
I suppose it gives her some relief to talk about it, since she knows I don't know them, will never meet them, and who would I talk about it to?? Well, other than the whole world on my blog, but who the hell reads this? I don't want to know this stuff, but I'm too polite to tell her to shut up. Plus, she translates for me, and got me apple juice when I had to drink that nasty stuff in preparation for my intestinal examination.
It is all very strange. I have spent my week catching up on my reading (3 books so far), and watching old seasons of CSI and House. She has spent it on the phone, IM-img, and sending notes to her sweetie. It's disconcerning, as she is old enough to be my mom, yet acts like my daughter.

Somewhat entertaining, and distracting, obviously nice, but strange.

Finally!!

So.

I have been trying to get a picture of this basically since we moved here.

Backstory: Since our vehicle is registered with the district of Bitburg our license plates all start with BIT. Naturally, since I am immature and inapropriate I laugh every time I see a car that contains the call letters BIT**CH###. I have never been in a position to take a picture, always driving or speeding down the Autobahn, never the passenger. UNTIL TODAY!!!

Awesome.

Hinamatsuri!

Happy Girl's Day!!

It's like a little army of "KAWAII" coming to take over the world!

I used this tutorial, slightly modified, to make the little girls.

Piko deGallo has a summer birthday, and I always feel bad that she never gets to take cupcakes to school. I had a summer birthday, and I never took cupcakes to school either...hmmmmm....projecting much?!?!

All Signs Point To: NOT GOOD.

Yeah. Throw me a pitty party.

So far it's not shaping up to a great New Year. Not that there has been catastrophic hapenings in the deGallo household. It's just an abundance of small things that are bringing me down.

First of all, Sarge's health seems to be going. He's getting cold after cold, and never seems to recover. That bacterial infection in '08 seems to have messed with his immune system in a big way. That's more of a bummer for him though.

Second, Girl Scout Cookies. Oh how I hate to love to hate them. Given the smallness of our community everyone knows about 5 or 6 people selling. I hate to be the 10th person to ask someone if they want cookes, but I have 98 boxes to get rid of, and I'm not buying them all. Luckily Sarge is a cop, and we all know cops love their cookies....Just kidding, they love doughnuts.

Third, friend drama. THIS is why I'm normally an Antisocialist. And really, it's not a problem with my friend, it a problem with her husband. See, he takes umbridge with the manner in which my husband does his job. That is that Sarge actually DOES his job and does not let them cheat and slack. And that is my problem how?!? I don't know why Friend's Husband(FH) has to complain to me (EVERY TIME I SEE HIM), I guess we all know I'm actually Sarge's boss at work too?? I can see the end of this as being me no longer being able to be friends with this gal because FH can't separate his work from his wife's friendships. So, are crap friends better or worse than no friends?

I'm a little grouchy today.

Oh yeah, and not a fabric store to be found in my area.

And, why does spell check on this thing never work?

Happy New Year!

Coming out of my cave today.
Something interesting and post worthy finally happened.
Check out the fireworks we bought in the German grocery store!

This was just small spinning things, and sparklers. So I guess I can understand the name. And, as it turns out our kid is kind of a budding pyro. She set most of these off herself.
You can imagine it was a pretty noisy night.
Next time we're geting some of those rockets that were as big as Piko de Gallo.

OH MY WOOKIE!!!

AAAA!!!! I want to put this on my MP3 player!
This might possibly be even better than the Weird Al Star Wars tribute!

Country Living

Usually I hate getting stuck behind a tractor on our winding country road.
But I love getting stuck behind a tractor when there's a doggie bouncing along in the cab with the driver.
And this time I had my camera!

CUTE!!

Right after I took this picture, the tractor started to pull to the side, and I though he was letting me pass. BUT NO!!! Another tractor, just as wide, was coming from the other direction!!! Piko de Gallo and I screamed!!!!!

More proof

I know I keep going on and on about how I'm turning Piko de Gallo into a mad geek.

Well, the Halloween season was ripe with opportunities for her true (unprompted) geek-ness to shine through.

Here are the cakes I made this year for the school's cakewalk.

Piko deG sees them. "Ooooh!! The eyeball cakes! One normal, and the other one THE GREAT EYE!!!! But Mama, the Great Eye is all red!"

Geek.

My Girl

So this morning, Piko deGallo tells me to vote for John McCain.

"Because he's handsome."

Yeah, that's my girl.

Well...

It's been a busy month. And not busy-funny, or busy-interesting. Just busy.
And it's my own damn fault for saying I'll do stuff, so I'll just shut up about it.

And I'll tell a sort of funny story.

Our landlord had to come over the other day to fix something. We have not seen him in about 5 months. It's a good thing really, we wait on the little things until something big needs fixing, then we add on all the little jobs.

Anyhoodle.

We were talking a bit about the property he owns around our house (which is quite extensive), and he tells us his dad used to have honey bees here.

"I likes the honeys" he says.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Me too, Mr. Landlord, me too.

Piko Want Big Boom!

So.

The lovely Mrs. S stood in line for me, not once, but possibly THREE TIMES!!
You can read how much she loves lines here, and here. So you get the picture of what a big deal this is.

Anyway, when she went to this tech-convention last month she got signed t-shirts for Piko de Gallo and myself. Big deal? You bet. Because of who was there!!


Naturally we had to officially "break it in".

Piko de Gallo's "Cola Cascade"

Of course we did not deploy our Mentos very well, so our cascade was not that great. The second one we did was as tall as Piko deGallo, but of course I missed that picture.

And then to add pressure to my life (as if). Look at what else she sent!

A rainbow pyramid of HFC!! I feel the pressure to make something nice. Nice and yummy!

I'm feeling the bloggy love people, feeling it!

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

So today was the Star Wars convention on base.

Piko de Gallo made a new friend.

Practiced her saber technique.

Defeated an old enemy.

WON FIRST PLACE IN THE COSTUME CONTEST!!!!!!

Scooped some swag.

And went grocery shopping.

Busy Jedi day.