I'm not calling it karma

...because that would imply that there's something we could do to change it. C and I are fated, destined, dooooooomed to turn up in new countries on holidays, apparently it is just something that we do. I can't imagine what would cause that as a karmic repercussion - not taking enough vacation? Being too self-centered with our ambitious "plans" and "lists" and "need to get an apartment"?

We got to Germany at the beginning of October, and just when we were in the time zone enough to go out and deal with business things (like open a bank account so we could get moved into the apartment we'd arranged), oh yeah! It's reunification day! We didn't tell you because everyone knows that. Three-day weekend! Having our plans brought up short by reunification day was actually a theme for us, I think it happened every year we lived there.

We got here October 1st as well, and I laughed when we saw a note that Daylight Savings time started the first night we were here, because I thought that was this move's version of the welcome-to-town holiday. Not so fast! The 3rd was Labour Day (which I only realized after seeing signs about the "October long weekend" and having a familiar sinking feeling), so no apartment hunting, no opening a bank account, no dealing with Serious Important Things. We put the to-do list down and went to the aquarium instead, and I thought, look how much grace and flexibility we're showing here.

And then we needed to call our US bank, and it was Columbus Day, and hardly anyone even gets Columbus Day off any more, but banks do, and it was at that point that I started pulling out my hair. We've got an apartment, though (got the keys today!), so things are looking up.

Hey you guys, we moved to the other side of the planet

Man. MAN. We had a housecooling party 6 weeks ago, went off to the farm/hotel in the mountains, packed up and left the place we had been living for almost exactly 3 years, and I'm just now starting to *feel* like we've moved to this new place.

We spent 3 weeks back home, staying with family and catching up with all the people we rely on as our local roots, and then we went to Disneyland (and anti-MouseCorp me had more fun than expected, mostly because L had a blast and was tall enough for all the rides, and is on a major Star Wars kick lately, and I got to go on Star Tours 4 times), and then we went to LAX for a looooooong direct flight and now we're here.

But we're in a hotel, and we're getting dressed out of suitcases in the morning, so it still feels like the mode of the whole last month - temporary, on to the next adventure soon - but we're picking up the keys for an apartment tomorrow, and we've been getting used to the neighborhoods, and learning the bus routes, and once we've got the apartment livable (beds, fridge) there's the elementary school to call...

So this is home, huh? So far it's been great.

World Cup madness

It's the World Cup! Did you know? C and I sort of paid attention to it when we lived in Santa Cruz, mostly because we had friends from countries where the football is important. We'd go over to someone's house late at night, or to 99 Bottles (owned by a futbol fan) to watch games, but we didn't have that much invested. The US doesn't always qualify, the tournament is usually held far away, and we didn't grow up in a strong culture of soccer fandom. The US also doesn't often compete as a single entity in international sports events - there's the Olympics, but the World Cup isn't treated like a big deal, the Tour de France is more about the individuals than their national affiliations, and we're not even invited to Eurovision.

People here in HD are psyched, though. Every game in the tournament is on the public TV station, there are public viewings of Germany's games in parks and stadiums all over the country, and even in our sedate little suburby neighborhood there are flags on cars, hanging from windows, and temporarily tattooed on our kid (courtesy of a big kid at kindergarten).

I've been watching a lot of the games, and I feel like I'm not watching the way people here do. I want everyone to win! I'd be excited if the US team kept doing well (hey, I'm even wearing red, white and blue because of the game this afternoon), but mostly I want to see good teams play well, wherever they're from. This is in sharp contrast to how I would watch the World Series, by the way - growing up in Seattle, there are definitely teams I couldn't ever support (coughYankeescough). I'm going to take this "happy whatever happens" attitude about the World Cup as an unexpected advantage of being from a place where soccer success isn't a big part of my identity.

Not the typical kids & food post

Last weekend was Easter, which (since we're not what you'd call religious people) involved egg dyeing, egg finding, stashing a basket of candy in Liam's room while he was sleeping, letting him eat jellybeans at breakfast, and gardening. It's Wednesday night, and we've still got most of a chocolate bunny and a couple of chocolate eggs in the kitchen cabinet. Heck, we've still got halloween candy in the kitchen cabinet. Are we stingy with sugar? Sort of, but we (C and I) are also kind of forgetful, and Liam seems to have picked up the out of sight-out of mind gene. He doesn't ask for candy or sugar much, in my perception, and we've been letting him have easter-basket candy when he asks (as long as he isn't tired or otherwise unlikely to handle a sugar rush well).

The philosophy we've been aiming for in general is that of course we have sweets sometimes, but it's not a big deal. This is just one part of an overall philosophy that's at least a little informed by Ellyn Satter, where we aim for intuitive eating, an acceptance and enjoyment of variety, and nutrition (integrated over every day or two). There's some conflict with Liam's kindergarten's philosophy, which has a very black-and-white "healthy"/"not healthy" food classification, while I have no interest in endorsing cultural messages about food and morality.

Of course he'll change as he gets older, and who knows whether he'll broaden his tastes, or how many all-cheese or no-veg phases he'll go through, but for now we're all about emphasizing what we like about food, the pleasure of cooking for oneself and for friends, and the good it can do for your body. We'll just have to see whether he winds up with as many forgotten things hiding in the back of the pantry as I tend to have.

Both sides, now

I've been thinking about the health-care reform bill (hey, I may live Over Here, but I'm still American), and I've got really conflicted feelings about it. On the one hand, insurance-industry reform, enforced by regulators with real power, will save so much pain, so much money, so many lives. On the other hand, a single-payer public-option system could be much easier for the patients to navigate, less expensive when people have preventative care instead of problems compounded by neglect - but that also has to be run by people who believe it can work, and it will be terrible the minute someone with a "government small enough you could drown it in a bathtub" philosophy is in charge.

On the other other hand, watching the party I vote for get totally played by one person who apparently never read the platform, listening to the serious and thoughtful discussions about whether their female constituents' rights matter, do their votes really count anyway, why are they so wrapped up in irrelevant women's issues - I'm disgusted that they are the best I can realistically do for representatives in government.

I was happy to hear that a change to the student-loan structure was also part of the health-care reform bill; though the two don't directly connect in my mind, I've seen enough multi-part bills to know that sometimes this is how it gets done. Making federal student loans direct loans from the government, and putting the interest on them (money that had been no-risk profit for banks) into the Pell grant program sound like a great idea to me. I would like it even better if I knew that the amount of grant and loan money available to students was at least as much as it had been before the previous President started de-funding the programs. I heard an interesting spin on the combination of the two bills on an episode of Rachel Maddow from last week: a member of Congress said that health-care costs and college costs are things that middle-class people really worry about, and he thought it made good sense to address them both at the same time. I think he's got a point, though my quick agreement with him has me feeling a little melancholy. Mostly I'm reminded of a line of Joni Mitchell's, and it's making me feel old:

Caught in the middle, Carol, we're middle class, we're middle-aged...

Change of seasons

One of the things I've liked about our new location has been the local-ness of the food. Although you can get apples from Chile or avocados from wherever they grow evil, rock-hard avocados, most of the produce is grown here, or in Italy, Spain, or Holland. The downside to that is that when something goes out of season here, it's pretty much gone from the store. The upside is the giddy overabundance when foods come into season. The first asparagus last spring was a cause for celebration, and I've been so happy to see squash in stores lately.

Local Christmas tradition brings its own food too: the Weihnachtsmarkt in town just opened this week, with little booths selling bratwurst, giant ginger cookies, and long-awaited gluehwein. I had accepted that summer was over (it ended like a light switch had been thrown - the humidity vanished, a breeze set in, and summer was done), but the transition from autumn to winter has been more gradual. I hadn't quite realized how many of the signs were there, but the Christmas market, along with the last of the apples falling out of our trees and the drearily early sunsets, has finally tipped me over the edge.

So bring on winter! I'll get out the big pot and make some soup, and knit up some new hats, and lay in a supply of new books for Liam for days when it's too cold to go play in the yard. The coziness of winter is one of the best parts of it, though the beginning of spring is even better.

Public transportation, private space

The first time I moved to Germany (in 1999), I was absolutely flattened by culture shock. I hadn't spent that long learning the language, and thought everyone sounded so angry all the time. I couldn't figure out why shopkeepers always had to say hello and goodbye to everyone who came in, and I could not imagine why people were content going to 13 different specialty shops every day instead of one big all-in-one store. What a crazy place! What a waste of time! And then I started doing it too, and when it was just the way things were instead of some weird new requirement, it was fine. Yeah, American grocery stores freaked me out a little when I moved back the next year.

My most persistent culture-shock issue this time around has been the lack of personal space afforded in public. People step right in front of you to get on the bus, they'll stand unbearably close in line, and (most maddeningly) they get up early on the tram, walk over to the door, and loooooom over you until you let them stand closer to the door, even though you're still two blocks before the stop. Where do they have to be that's important enough to climb over a stranger to get there?

Interestingly enough, though, nobody talks to strangers on the tram. I may get jostled when the tram fills up, but I've never been asked what I'm listening to, or what I'm reading, or what my phone number is. My personal-space bubble may be small, but apparently it's soundproof. Liam is the exception to this rule: he says hi to people, particularly old ladies and babies, and is actually pretty good at making conversation ("I'm going to kindergarten. My socks have pirates on them!"). He's the quickest way to draw attention in public, and is pretty charming about it.

Conflicted consumerism

I like the concept of Buy Nothing Day; I'm pretty anticonsumerist normally*, and I feel like reporting on Christmas shopping has taken this nasty turn, with stories built completely around companies needing to make half their yearly gross in December, and profits are down from this time last year, and you people need to go spend money or the economy will fall apart and it will be your fault!

This morning, I had failed at BND by 9:30 AM, and spent the next little while enjoying my capitalist-consumerist-traitor chai and wondering if it mattered that much. I'm not in the US, and today is just another Friday here, not the shopping-pocalypse. I'm not making a Statement to the German public if I don't go all out with the Black Friday madness: nobody else here is going shopping at 4 AM either, because that's crazy. Incidentally, you really don't want to take me shopping with a gajillion other people at 4AM. I'm grumpy enough about crowds and shopping when I'm awake.

*I think of this as simple pragmatism, because I don't see any point in trying to join a game I can't really compete in. This is actually a big leap in maturity, and not just foot-stompiness, as previously I didn't see the point in playing a game I couldn't win. If status can be bought, but I'm never going to have enough money to be Important, why play? Why give other people's opinions of me that kind of power? Since the goalposts will always be moving, why sign up for a life of feeling inadequate?

International Thanksgiving!

That's right, I did a low-effort non-post and then skipped the next day. This is why I'm a terrible diarist: I get caught up in living my life and don't want to detach and write about it. That, and I'm tired at the end of the day.

I figured out what it was I was going to write about Thursday: private space in public transportation. I have opinions! I guard my personal space jealously! I'll pick this back up later this week.

What I could have written yesterday goes something like this:

For several years now, ever since we moved 2 states away from our families, C and I have done Thanksgiving with a group of friends. Everybody brings something that's special to them from their family's get-togethers, hosting rotates so nobody gets stuck hosting 25 people every year, and everyone rolls home with leftovers afterward. A word of advice: invite someone from New Mexico to Thanksgiving this year. Our friend KT's green-chile cornbread is great, and is a big reason I'm wishing we could be "home" this week.

We're keeping up with the theme this year, extending our family to people near us, though the ingredients will be different: some of C's classmates will be coming over Saturday. They're bringing foods that are typical from their families, but their families are in Japan, Taiwan, and Serbia (and maybe Brazil).

Today I made cranberry sauce (I found cranberries at the grocery store last month, at the grocery store I almost never go to, and I was so excited I bought three bags), and tonight we're making apple pie and pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is a sticky point with non-Americans: if they haven't tried it, they tend to look at you like you're crazy for suggesting it. C's classmate whose spouse works for the US military here (and who therefore has PX access) surprised him with a can of pumpkin last week, so here's hoping the pie goes over well.

Turn it around

I had a really frustrating time this morning, between the post office's short hours, some badly timed clumsiness, missing two trams and a bus all at the same time, and yet another trip to the store for yogurt. During my third attempt to get into the post office, when it was only 5 minutes until opening, it occurred to me that I could be feeling better just by being less outwardly grumpy. Instead of sighing and checking my watch four times and rolling my eyes, I smiled at the other people in line. Fake it until you make it, right?

I had a similar realization at work: in the proposal I'm writing, I've been stuck on the last section, trying to find the right way to say that the current state of the field I'd like to get involved in is not good enough, and that I'd do things differently, and ask the relevant questions, and get the more useful results. It kept coming across badly, though, and trying to read the section from a reviewer's perspective I was really put off by the negativity. I switched the perspective to "hey, some work has been done already, and I'll expand on it as follows:" and it got so much easier, both to write and to read.

Updates

I wrote about Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals the other day, and lo: the excerpt I wrote about, that I thought hadn't gotten enough attention in the reviews, is in a Writer's Block podcast I just downloaded. It's really moving to hear him read such personal stories in his own voice.

Yesterday's festivities were a lot of fun: the kids had all made paper lanterns, and were so excited to have the teachers put little tea lights inside. We went around the neighborhood and stopped every few blocks to sing a song. We didn't have an audience per se, but Liam has been learning the songs for weeks and singing them at home, and he had a great time. C and I talked to one of the teachers, who was surprised to hear that we don't do Martinstag in the US (though he seemed happy that we do caroling at Christmas).

Very creative

I was on my way home from work last week, walking the 4 or so blocks from the tram stop to our house, when I saw a man riding a bike with one of those child trailers attached. My first thought was the same as it always is when I see one of those contraptions: Kids at car-wheel-height! Those things terrify me! I was enormously relieved to look closer and realize that the trailer was completely full of cases of beer. When it's socially normal to go to the store without a car, and also normal to buy water and beer 20 liters at a time, people sure do get creative.

Local customs

I wasn't sure whether people did Halloween here, so I wasn't really sure what we should do - get Liam all excited, only to discover that none of our neighbors is expecting trick-or-treaters? Keep it quiet, and then feel like the boringest parents ever when all the other kids at Kindergarten have costumes? There weren't a lot of pumpkins in the grocery stores, so when we saw a good-looking one we grabbed it. Liam did not want to help scoop out the inside, but he was pretty excited to draw a face on the pumpkin and pop out the little pieces after I cut them.


We've dressed Liam up for Halloween before, first in a little pirate costume we bought (and then used as pajamas for months - arr, sleepy pirate), and the next year I made him a hooded sweater with ears and a tail and called it a puppy costume, and he wore that for a long time too. In early October I was trying to think of something I could make in time, and I had a short list together: we have doctor dress-up stuff, or I could buy a black hoodie and fuzzy white fabric and make a skunk costume, or maybe I could make a spider costume? On a whim, I asked Liam what he wanted to dress up as, and he immediately said "a Christmas tree!" It's a great idea, easy to make from stuff we have, visually clear, and potentially confusing for the kids at Kindergarten who weren't expecting Christmas to start for a while yet.



We put our pumpkin outside with a candle in it, opened our front gate, set out a few more candles (since we can't figure out how to make our porch light stay on), and lo and behold, we got trick-or-treaters! They were mostly groups of little kids with a couple of adults, and they'd crowd up our steps and shout "Suesses, sonst gib'ts Saures" (basically "treat or trick"), then happily bounce off with their candy to the next house. Once I knew there were kids going around our neighborhood in costumes, I took Liam out, and it turned out that we'd done exactly the right thing in putting our pumpkin and candles outside: every other house in our neighborhood was either buttoned up tight or had put out a pumpkin and candles as an invitation. People were really nice, and though Liam was initially a little shy about knocking on people's doors and then talking to them, once he got the idea that they would give him candy, he was all for it.

Even though we've been here a full year, there are always new surprises, things we expect but don't happen, or things that are so obvious to the locals that they aren't mentioned, and then we're left to scramble. We've been surprised by Reunification Day (at the beginning of October) two years in a row now, because everyone knows about that (so nobody needs to remind you it's coming up). We've gotten better at improvising on unexpected holidays (when every shop in town is closed), but I still feel the American calendar more strongly than the German calendar. Anyone want to come over for Thanksgiving?