Got this recipe from the lovely and talented Carissa:

It's best with roasted garlic, so if you want that, start early with some fat chunks of garlic drizzled with good olive oil and wrapped in foil, set in a warm, not hot, oven. About 125 Centigrade and an hour or so is what you need. I would use AT LEAST four of the biggest "toes" I could find. Use the oil, after roasting, to help thin the paste.

Get a couple cans of Garbanzo Beans/chickpeas/Kichererbsen .
(I just like saying Garbanzo Beans!) You can use dried, but it's a pain to rehydrate them. I am trying a Pyrex cookpot in the micro with quartered giant garlic, heat for 30 mins on 75% and just leave it for a while. Let you know how that goes.

I think I would use at least 3/4 cup of pan-toasted sesame seeds. I toast them in a big cast iron pan. Then I grind them in a little coffee-grinder type thing. You can just buy tahini paste if that's too much trouble.

Get the juice of two lemons, a tiny scrape of pepper (mix of red, white, green & black is best) and some comino (cumin or coriander seed) and a drizzle of olive oil (extra virgin is best, of course). I can't live without my plastic lemon juicer. I think I'll need another for our upcoming move to Maryland, not sure I can do without for any amount of time.

In hindsight from my experience, and Carissa's advice, I would only briefly shake the moisture from the beans before piling them in either a super powerful blender or food processor, or a cheap blender I didn't like very much.

Get all these things processed together, mixing and poking as you like to achieve a thick paste. Add more lemon juice or oil to achieve desired texture.
Carissa's secret ingredient is peanut butter, a tablespoonful or two. I love the Maranatha Chunky Organic from the commissary- sugar free, and it'll make you want to kick Peter Pan in the head and out the window. Meanwhile, you will probably eventually short or burn out your cheap blender. Carry on with a potato masher, unless you have a high dollar blender or food processor nearby.

I would use coarse sea or kosher salt, and be brave with the cumin. Taste and spin, until you're happy.
Decorate with paprika, a drizzle of good oil, and parsley, mint, or/and fresh cilantro/coriander. I think we may use toasted sesame oil in the future as a drizzle.

Everything's a little crazy right now with the move, but when we get settled and I get my Maryland garden going, I'm going to see what a hit of fresh thyme does for this recipe. I may be able to grow rosemary in MD, as well as basil.. both have been a miserable failure in Bavaria, along with tomatoes. There's just not enough sun!

Moving from a parallel north of Toronto, to slightly coastal Maryland, should do wonders for my garden wishes. 

Exhausted from cleaning and strategizing the move, we stumbled into a party dear friends put together for us. 

We were fed, hugged and, well, pampered with pictures and stories.

It's a really different experience leaving.. arriving.. shaping emptiness, as opposed to trying to pre-fill a hole you know, is coming into your life. 

I was thinking about what people talked about bringing back from Europe.. cuckoo clocks, expensive cars, crystal, glassware.. It all sounds ridiculous to me. I like these things, but in the end they are just more to dust, fuss over, insure and move. Okay, I hate cuckoo clocks. 

We had an expensive car. Turns out they are expensive to repair, too!

Cg indulged me on the crystal. We have a few pieces, from a cut vase, to my black iridescent necklace, to some royal blue bottles and glasses, which will keep us ornamented for many years. We picked up a little nice glassware, not a lot. Mostly fun beer Krugs and mugs. An odd assortment of painted eggs.. 

What am I *really* bringing back from Europe?

A language I never expected to learn. I'm not great at German, not at all. But I am slightly conversant. 

Experiences. Climbing the hillsides of the great fortresses and wandering their walls. 

The Ionian Ocean. Prague, Cesky Krumlov. Munich. Berlin. Athens (another damned old church..)  Freiburg and the Alsace. Wandering the Pagan Wall in the Vosges, howling on All Hallows with French kids and mischief-makers.

 Ireland! the 10pm sunsets of the Arran Isles, and knowing my way around places I have never been before. 

I learned that if I can be close to the earth, and become intimate with the ways of the seasons in a place, I can be home. I am always home in Mama Natura's lap, and this is where I have to go, to find my way around. 

Wandering the flanks of the great old fortresses and forests, my hands tracing Achillea vulgaris and nobilis, the healer's and travellers' herbs.. wild thyme in the Vosges, wildly fragrant marjoram by Kallmunz on the Vils and Donau.

Only a few of these places did we visit, for the place alone. 

Most of them we visited, because of the people who invited us. 

It's the friendships we made here, that we keep. Not the things that need dusting, insuring and fussing. A friendship is like a plant, just tend to it when it needs. Dried out and thirsty is no good, nor is drowned. 

You know the friends you have made, by whom you see when you go away. Who you hear from. 

Who did you help? Who helped you? Who made you laugh, who supported you?

Who do you know, when you meet again, you will just pick right back up?

It's hard to elucidate, for the one-pagers (those who never leave their home) what the rest of the book is like. It's a heartache, a headache, sure. But travel, especially leaping off the way you have to, to actually live somewhere foreign, opens your mind and heart so much.. 

I can't say it makes it easier. Nothing could. 

We're buying furniture for a house we've never seen, in a city we know not much about. We've read a lot, we have faith. We know what WE need. 

Not a sofa from Ikea, that's for sure! We didn't find anything we liked, despite having picked something out from the catalogue. I think a futon may serve us better. I remember my dad's apartment having the Best Sofa Ever to Sleep on Sideways. On the other hand, we found the Best Kitchen Table Ever with Drawers. I'm not even sure they sell that one in the states. I'm also psyched about the "coffee table" also known as "where we will usually eat dinner while watching whatever we downloaded on itunes". It has a glass top and little boxes to put my immense rock/shell/skull/feather/whatthehellisthat collection in. It's an eccentric,  Durrell-esque naturalist collection.

This Ikea binge would not have been possible, if I had not been stashing Euros in an a German account for a couple years. Buy low, sell high, baby. We also get almost a %20 tax rebate, here in Germany. We took advantage of that!

Chuck got a new wok, we have new skillets, and a completely metal meat pounder for when he gets desperate for a schnitzel and I have to make him one. We may have to host "German night/Deutschabend" once a week-- Cg says European night once a month.  After the cleaning lady has visited. :-)

We just have to get there. It's what I said, on the other side of the Atlantic. We just have to get there. 

Wherever "there" is. 

It's nice to "know" and have an idea, but it's another thing to Be There

One of the side effects of shock is numbness.. it allows sensitive humans to deal with immense amounts of input rationally. We're both in that place. 

Primarily, we take care of each other. We don't have a problem with roofs or food or even wine, at this point.  

Our curtains are washed and packed.. our windows naked, some of our things in the mail. It feels like our life is in the mail, at this point. 

I personally wonder, how much of the best of our European lifestyle we can translate to our new American life. 

I wonder how much it will offset cg's angst over leaving his beloved Germany/Europa. 

I'm not sure if it matters how much I create a French potagerie house, find a place where we can walk and bike where we want, and not participate in the self-destructive commuter lifestyle. 

I do all these things for myself, because this is how I want to live. 

What I have to do, to take care of him in what is a terrible transition from the only place he has felt at home, to a place he is inclined to reject on principle, I'm not sure. 

I'll do my best. I always do. 

I also always feel like a little puppy-dog, tugging, nipping and barking along the best path I can find. 

Woof. 

Sigh.

Cg just bought us "Country Cooking of France" by Anne Willan, which is just droolingly wonderful. This is our housewarming prezzie for our new home, I guess. 

Cleaning a house is one way to say goodbye to it. I'm not sure where all the fuzz and dead bugs come from. If we could figure that out, the secrets of the universe would be ours, no doubt. 

The weeks ahead of packing, ridding and organizing, cleaning and strategizing, may be quiet out here, but they will be internally busy.. mourning, anticipating, dealing, adapting.. and being glad of inflatabeds and French presses.

The more I read about our destination, the more I talk to people, the more I get excited about getting there. 

LINK

Besides the fact that it's a central point and frequent TDY destination for many of our nearest and dearest, and the fact that the icy Atlantic pond and uncertainties and cruelties of transatlantic travel no longer constitute the challenges of spending time with us..  we're sure we'll see more of our extended budo family. 

We'll probably have to set up a room for at least one of them!

That's more than okay, it's our pleasure, our privilege, and our happiness.

For us, it's a denouement.

Imagine eating in Puerto Rico, Tuscany or Singapore for some years.. then coming back to the Midwest... suddenly, it's like your tongue has died. 

We're going to be mourning, no doubt. 

Going from sitting in an Italian-run coffee shop in a heated tent on the Victuallenmarkt in Munich, to downtown Frederick, MD in some dismissive tourist joint.. unless we can speak some good Italian words to the staff.. if they are Italian.. then we can speak Spanish, that's a favorite (we really do love Spanish, much more logical to the Latinate mind than Deutsch, or, for that matter, English!) just, please, give us good coffee. Not burnt crap Starbucks. 

Give me unoaked Italian Chardonnay.. don't make me chew on an oak log to enjoy my wine. I've split plenty of oak, and while I'm too broken to think of ever doing it again, I still love the aroma of fresh split wood.. I just don't like having to chew through a cord to sip my wine. 

How many Chard lovers have set a "wood grenade" in Texas bur oak, and set to its destruction? I don't know, but I still have dents on my skull and splinters in my skin. Like the remnants of iron mesquite thorns in my feet, which always point South to Texas, when I ask them where home is. 

Then, I ask them how they got there, and the conversation gets uncomfortable from there. 

You know what?

I got the chance to go home.. and I had to choose between caring for the man I love, and that. 

I chose caring for the man I love, and in return, he brought me what may be the opportunity I have been working for, all this time. 

It's a time and place, to go looking for my time and place. 

I feel I've paid my dues, done my homework and paperwork (more of that to come, to work in MD!) and now, maybe now, it can pay off. So far, it's all been pioneering, hacking down brush and blazing the path. 

More to come, for sure, and if I should wonder how the path can be thornier, I'm sure it will become so...

So I refuse to wonder, and simply, quietly, sharpen my machete. 

My time with cg has been one of immense lightning strikes, serendipity and extreme kindness from people I barely feel I know. He inspires that in people, with his immense heart and commitment. 

To what, to why, I couldn't tell you. You have to cross hands with him, to look him in the eye (one artificial lens may glint at you, now, one pupil will never be so small as the natural one) but this man has something, IS something. 

I'm in a weird situation. I am both wife and deshi. 

As wife, I may kill him. 

As deshi, I would kill for him. 

I find both and either a bit confusing. 

Meanwhile, we have, together, a destination. 

And we plan to enjoy it. 

My machete is sharp, my shovel is ready, my mind is open and curious. 

Yeah, and I have a folder ready for paperwork.. Ready to make it work.

Ready for our destination. 

What is the sound of no hands clapping?

I have a colleague I have only met online, who was in Germany for a while, and loves festbier. 

Drinking one for you now, N! wish I could bring you one, but I don't know how to get one to TX without it exploding and spoiling. Maybe we'll have a chance, to have one fresh, over here, sometime. Hasen-Brau aus Augsburg is an early spring favorite, for its spicy, sprightly flavor as well as the elegant long-legged bunny ornamenting the label. 

It's not like we've been moving every two years, as is expected of military families. I didn't sign up for that. I'll put up with some disruption, for opportunity, and we've certainly made the best of it. 

What everyone expects, is that we WANT to go back to the US. CG certainly doesn't. I've never seen him so happy and healthy, as over here. Except this last year, when his poor body began to fall apart. 

I've tried to write about the things I hate about Germany, and there's a good handful... but there are more significant things to hate about the US. Crime. Lack of public education (college) and health (highest infant mortality in the Western world, shortest life expectancy for poor elders, diseased vagrants) myopic politics.. I could go on, but it's just bloody dispiriting. 

Not looking forward to being maniacal about locking, hiding, guarding. Not looking forward to kids sporting the "poopy pants" look whether they are dumbass gangster dumbasses, or just wanting to be dumbasses. Not much diff.. probably just payoffs and access to weapons. Here's to carrying a fake wallet with a scanned 20 visible. Or a can of pepper spray and a chunk of rebar. Or both. Can't carry a gun in Maryland. Gee, what about that crime in Baltimore?

When the kids have no hope of entering university, they turn to other dreams. If all they see in the media is gangsta this and pimp that, what do they have to do?

It wasn't around so much, when I was at that age, and I was a terrible misfit geek in a very white-bread magnet school. So I don't really have a grip on these issues, and I know that.

If Obama wins, will these kids start wearing ties and go to Yale?
Not unless the infrastructure changes.

Not unless we give them a way, and we make being smart cool again.

I'm not into pandering, and I'm not even sure Obama's black! He's half white! what does that mean? The man's not even an Oreo. More like Eskimo pie.

On the other hand, ol' McCain is having to stroke like crazy, just to stay above water.
Hmm. Probably not a good analogy, for a dude his age.

Miz Hillary? honey, being married to the prez, does not a candidate make. I've been married to a PA wonk for a while, and you couldn't pay my ass enough to do that job. I'm SURE not qualified for it by marriage.

Besides, I can make more at mine, which I am actually Good At.

No, I don't like any of them. Nor do I like Ron Paul, an old Libertarian Texan. I could deal with Kucinich, but he can't seem to get it together.

Guess I'm stuck with the choice of no choices, again.

What is the sound of no hands clapping?

It's been sitting there for us the whole time. 

It's a Mountain of When. 

Amel Larrieux.

It's not hard to say goodbye to limbo.

Our love for Europe, for Germany, has always been tempered by our temporariness. 

 Not tied to its tax or social system, interlopers in culture, invaders in a small, rural, vulnerable area desperately in need of any kind of economic stimulus.. 

Germany was in the grip of a cultural dictatorship, an oppressive regime which overtly and deeply, subtly, thoroughly, financially suppressed any opposition.  They remain somewhat worshipful of the free capitalism and culturalism culture who played such a part in their liberation.. and they are deeply dismayed by our descent into circumstances so like theirs... Will Obama be our Hitler? Or Hillary? I'd like to know her "maiden name" so I know her family.

I kept mine as my middle name, so that my legacy of gypsies, exterminators, undertakers and horse thieves is never forgotten. I also kept it, because the Irish threw hard in me. I can find my way around Ireland, in a way that freaks both myself and my cg out. 

"It's over here" *swerve*

"but the map says.."

"nope, it's over here!" 

Um.. there it is. 

How did I know?

I don't know. 

I wish I was closer to Ireland, in my blood, so we could go back there. The economy is booming, the land needs tenants. 

We'll go to Maryland instead. Cg's got a great job offer, it's a nice place, and my career has lots of room to grow. 

Does my soul ache for the relentless heat and caliche soils of Texas, instead? 

Not like it aches for Ireland. Well, yes, sort of. Seasons, possibility, earth, family.. it's hell in a handbasket. 

It's hard to articulate the wants, the conflicts and the ends of desire I am feeling. I do know that I am NOT looking back to a country so "right wing" even the left wing is forced to fly in circles:

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2008/02/us_politics_have_no_left_wing.php

It's not hard to say goodbye to limbo. 

It IS hard, to say goodbye to dear and hard-won friends and ways of life.. and yet.. each one of the people we have come to love, here, knows they could show up at our door, or we could show up at theirs, and all would begin again, in the very place it started. 

Evolution continues. 

It's not something to believed in. 

It's a fact. 

Participate, or join the dodos. 

They were delicious!

Magic. 

Sometimes a change of pace is just that. 

We just turned the world off, and went to Munich. We've been there so many times, but this time, with more than 

a touch of bittersweet, we binged. 

Sitting in a little hole-in-the-wall Thai place, Augustiner in hand, awaiting fabulous food, and chatting with a German who had been to Thailand and was raving about the food in this place,  I suddenly realized something. 

"We're Foodies!"

"Yeah" said cg, with more than a hint of "DUH!".

Well, I've always said that I'd never be skinny, but I'd always be happy, since meeting my peripatetic gourmand hubby, but I never figured it was this bad. I mean, just look at that foamy gorgeous beer! Look at the density of the 

foam on that cappucino, the 

black chocolate on the honey almond cake, the hot mellow tower of the macchiato. O. M. G. The coffee is so pungent, muscular and lively, you feel more alive, just sipping it. The chocolate is the same. 

And, BTW, if you've never had Augustiner in Munich, you've never been in Munich. 

The business itself is honest and ethical, and they don't even advertise. 

They don't need to. Their Edelstoff is my favorite beer in the world, kind of a mix between an Maerzen and a Pils, and they make it all year round. If you need to fall fast into poetic reflection, this is your drink. 

Even my Irish brother Mr Lawlor might make it a favorite, once we've poured a few down him. 

Ah, how do I love Munich. Let me count the ways. She is big enough, and full of enough madness, to forgive you, your own madnesses. 

As a woman of many madnesses, I love Munich for her own. 

CG loves mead, and we sipped some together, in the deep hard dry cold of Munich vormittag. It works for me, to be, at my core, a 

European Rolfer. I'd like to follow Dr Schleip's scientific example, 

and live the deeply examined career.. for the good of everyone we touch. I'd like to follow Dr Schwind's deeply felt virtuoso bodywork performance, so studied in osteopathic knowledge, deeply grounded technical talent and technique. So many have guided me, and I hope I can remember everything! 

I'll go where I go, and do what I do. 

My heart will always yearn for diverse colleagues, this great open field of possibilities, deep enjoyment of life in all its flavours, and this brave approach to the world. 

I wish to take it all with me, as I have taken in the cells and minutiae of food, drink, breath, skin and being. 

If you, my dear European colleagues, are in the US and need sanctuary (or just decent beer), seek us out. 

We will always have room for you, regardless how stupid our continent has become. The best we can do, always. I can only hope, in the coming days of America hopefully righting six years of  rectocranial inversion, that we will continue to be welcome in Europe.

Just happy to to have been here! and I know we'll be back. 

Otherwise, we'd miss the food!

Yes, David, it was your idea. Wish it had worked out that way. 

But here we are. Different "we" different continent, different direction entirely! 

It suits me far better, though. I find myself fluid, even in stress. 

Wouldn't say no to a week or two on Malta, though! 

When CG had to have the retina repaired, there was no way I could leave and strike out for Texas. Retina reattached, new lens in place of the old cloudy cataract, CG is well on the way to healing, but he still can't see to drive. 

Bavarian winters being what they are (excruciatingly cold and wet) our scant 5 miles into post needs to be driven, and he can't do it. 

So, I can't leave. 

It's better this way. 

I go in and teach class, and he fixes wonderful dinners. 

I feel a bit sheepish.. I teach your class AND you fix me dinner? how the hell did I ever rate THAT?

He kisses me, and he's happy, and he's a wonderful, wonderful cook. 

We're a fabulous team. 

I'm thinking its' better, not to break it up. For any time, for any reason. 

Besides the fact he's coming up with dinners no Asian fusion restaurant could match!

If the dream is shared, let us share the time together, as well. 

We don't do as well, apart... time will part us, soon enough. 

Let us have our time, our life, our fun and enjoyment.

As much as we can devour. 

That's my Valentine, for my cg. 

It's a game we call Fantasy Destination. 

CG finds jobs around the world, applies for them, and we imagine what it would be like to go there. 

Kwajalein remains a favorite fantasy destination. 14 miles of volcanic atoll in the middle of the Pacific. Morale trips to Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. Darn! Now that I know you can eat coconut crabs, I'm psyched. :-) Not great for my career, but I'd have time and space, to paint/draw/etc. Learn to scuba, spear-fish, and live off the sea, as I've always dreamed. 

We're waiting to hear about an interview he had with a place in Maryland. It sounds like a nice little town, not too close to DC madness. Once again, plenty of crab to be devoured, here! The nice thing about this location is its proximity to mountains, oceans, and worldwide travel. It also seems like one of America's last walkable, bikeable cities, with farmer's markets and maybe even a possibility for me to garden a bit. 

My wish, outside these two plums, would be for Idaho Falls. 

It's right at the toes of the Rocky Mountains, an area I have loved since I first set foot there. Of course, any Texan sets foot somewhere they can sleep under a blanket in summer, they love it. 

For me, leaving home was like being ripped apart by my dreams. 

I'm strongly oriented to my family, I'm very close to my parents (close as I can be over the Atlantic) and am very fond of my brother. Unfortunately, for them, the planes only fly one way. 

Until they understand, that the planes fly both ways, the understanding will be tragically one-way: all on me. 

So many things, in my life, have been all on me, that this is not a surprise. 

I am the first in the family, besides Alice Shaw (google her, she's interesting, though her sister Clara, my grandmother, was disowned in Shelby County for marrying a dreadful Irishman, John Dolan) to travel. My father has a collection of postcards from "Aunt Alice". 

I also married a Charles, of a major family. 

Was it wanderlust?

No, not specifically. 

More a shared dream. 

Feeling like Yoda at low tide. 

Between figuring out what I can still do with my 2x separated shoulder, heel spurs, and stress levels that would send Oscar the Grouch to therapy, I find quiet joy in teaching. 

I don't want students to feel like a lifetime of injury and debilitation, is really necessary. 

I've drawn some short straws, made some bad decisions, and had some bad luck. I can still draw, cut, and get under a newbie's balance so that they pay attention. CG took it way more high-speed low-drag than most people survive, but he did. Now, he's paying the price. And I'm paying it with him. 

The facts are that I'm almost 40, I'm busted up and hamstrung by some genetic timebomb of heel spurs, and my left shoulder does not, and never will, work the way I used to, due to a bad fall. . Heel spurs are nasty things, keep you from walking around to keep weight off, while being perpetuated by extra weight.

In other news, I can't recommend ripping up your shoulder to anyone, who hopes to use theirs. 

If you ever wondered why your elders are so sardonic, strap several kilos of bricks to the small of your back, nails on boards to your feet, and drink a ton of chili juice. 

It does a number on your attitude. 

This is a post from a young (25-ish) family friend, deployed in the Middle East as a civilian.. I'll just call him Z for now. 

---------

I am 14 miles from the Syrian Border right now, as west as one can go. A long flight in a marine helicopter over the empty heath, moonlight illuminating a wasteland. The dark does not hide the bareness, but dresses it subtly. The lights of this place are swallowed, and the stars shine vividly. My old buddy Orion came, and it is nice to see a familiar face.

The base of Al Qa’im is the death place of trains, the last point, where they come to their eternal respite.
This is the quietude, the place of stillness. They lie hollow, yet are not forlorn. There is a hushed solemnity here. This is the place of endings, but they are dignified.
Old concrete ties crumble, supporting rusting iron. Even now, sparse clumps of fetid brown and green weeds caress these metal footpaths.
The old train station here has something written in a language I cannot read, greeting or wishes for safety. Some other buildings have official looking markings, all in a script unknown to me.

What was this place? I wonder if families were here, time past. Clothed in long robes, small children running around. A few british people, interspersed sparingly, pale skin contrasting with the people of this land. Wearing that look that says minor discomfort at being somewhere alien. Were there once vendors selling food for the trip? The hustle and bustle of the masses. Maybe young men off to school, to seek their fortune. Old men coming back to their families.

Where could you go from here? Damascus to Jerusalem? Baghdad to Tehran to Kabul To Lahore To Calcutta? Mosul to Ankara toIstanbul to Sofia to Belgrade to Budapest to Vienna to Munich? And once you make it to Munich, I can go to Regensburg, or Nurnburg, and then to Weiden and then to my parents house. Wine, Biscuits and gravy, and comic books. The thought that maybe I can get to a home out of time from here is comforting. Now, I am sure those lines do not exist. This was a place of tearful goodbyes, and joyous hellos.
There are no trains leaving from here.

This place is now the terminus.

I mourn the loss of a time I will never know, perhaps that time that only ever lived in an imagination. The train station I romanticize is now full of marines, and humvees, and MRAP’s. These depots are now maintenance and living areas, plywood houses with spray paint, grease stains on the floor. Some of the old trains served as living areas, and are littered with debris. This place is Casey Jones Ghost jones.

I am still captivated by this place. In my bag now is a four inch cotter pin I found, and I will be able to hold it years from now, and see these old trains. Soviet and French derelicts, hollow hulks sitting mute.
Where have they been, where could they go? I thought I recognized the font of the Bundesbahn, the authoritative german font bringing back other memories, other journeys.

It is raining now, cold drizzling, and later today, I will climb into a helicopter and depart this place. The stready hum-thrum of the blades will blot some things out of my mind. And yet, I owe it a debt, for I have the impetus to write again.

 1: The fact that the local, over priced hardware store (OBI) closes at 4pm on Saturday. Must be nice, kids, must be nice. Meanwhile, I need a new car battery, and all of your employees are grabbing a cigarette and driving the 3 blocks I just cycled to try and purchase a new battery on time, home. Disappointed, again. That's it for OBI, as far as I, and anyone I talk to, is concerned. The double bonus of "overpriced" and "banker's hours" is not a winning one. 

2: Sundays-- can't mow your lawn, can't futz in the garden, can't work on the car, unless you are hidden from public view. A good day to do your taxes or clean the basement. God forbid the Oma across the street catch you weeding. 

3. Cultural Perfectionism: cars cannot have the slightest thing wrong with them, to pass inspection. Mine, which was slated to sell, failed due to an uneven emergency/parking brake and a rocker arm which was kinda loose.  Seriously, people, this is unsafe HOW? just mildly! but this is the German mentality, that mildly unsafe is UNSAFE. Keep in mind, that what I was dealing with, were on post, vaguely Americanized, regulations. I can't imagine the German TUV being even that easy. 

4. Cultural Perfectionism, Part 2: Germans, of course, are the most liberal country on the planet, giving asylum to all kinds of refugees and asylum seekers (provided they can prove German heritage or other abject need)  and have an unimaginable level of cultural guilt concerning these matters. However, it leads to some serious wierdness, and high taxes to pay for the welfare of all kind of "asylum seekers". When the US crashes and burns, and we head back here, we can only hope to be so lucky. A reason to keep up with my Deutsch. 

5. Economic Success: Germany, as the richest country in Europe, forced the Euro on the populace. They were not allowed, nor asked! to vote on its adoption. People call the new currency "Teuro" which means "expensive thing". For them, prices of goods increased by half again, or double, depending on the vendor's honesty. Honest vendors cut the numerical value in about half, and put the Euro sign on it. The rest (most of them) just replaced the Dmark sign with a Euro.. effectively doubling the price of goods and services sold. 

6. Weather: Germans call it "Wetter" for this reason-- every time you go outside, you get wetter. Cold and wet, or wet and cold. However you like it.  Forget it. 

7. Language:   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html 

Mr Clemens argues it more perfectly, hundreds of years ago, than I could ever hope to. 

8. Food: At least in this rural area, the most adventurous is bland, MSG-laden faux Asian. Greek fare is much better, seconded by Italian. I cannot tolerate so much wheat product, so Italian is a very poor choice for me. The Greek diet of fruit, veg, olive oil, seafood, sheep cheese, thick yogurt and lean meats and seafood, suits me well. It's just their green wines, and ouzo, that get me in trouble. 

9. Music: Okay, this one's lame, but unless you love classical ( I do, sometimes, some things) and flashback, especially 80s, German popular music will make you nuts. Pluses: Sophie Hawkins and other forgotten gems.

10. Traffic-- this gearhead girl grew up on articles about how wonderful the Autobahn was, without its speed limits. We ended up with a sleek, smooth and speedy BMW 523i, our Black Beauty. She would do 180 kph without you noticing the difference. Heavy and silky in the left lane, Beauty would whip past anything you asked her to, and never miss a lane, as long as she had good tires and was well maintained. 

Unfortunately, on the modern German autobahn, most of the traffic is trucks from Slowhattica, spraying salty goo all over your windshield and kicking ice bombs under your fairing. They are not supposed to pass each other, but they often do, resulting in an "Elephant walk" at 80kph. A real drag, if you were driving twice that, and have to wait for Slowhattica to pass Dawdlebooblika at a measured difference of .0567 kph. 

There's a lot of other things I hate.. now that I'm leaving, I can talk about them. 

Honorable mention is the "Knoedle" a blob of potato goo that, if no one is watching, I like to hurl against solid objects to see if it sticks. I've actually done that, recently. Very satisfying. The only use, for this sticky clod of starch. 

Meanwhile, I'm sure there will be a top 20, of American things I hate.. and more. 

Perspective is a bloody harsh mistress. 

On 26.01.2008, at 16:17, one of my German colleagues wrote:
(in part)

>As far as I know, the German grammar was the rather unsuccessful result of an attempt to superimpose the Latin grammar >(romanic language) on the German (germanic) language. Does not work that well.

This is part of my problem. I am one of the few, the proud, the GEEKY! National Latin Scholars (age 14 or so) and German retains its tribal inflections. Having learned Oberpfalz Bavarian, I found my colleague from Hannover unintelligible. He found me the same.. meanwhile the conflict between German, and its badly adapted Latin structure, is a mis-fit, that gives me fits.

>But I must admit that I am glad that German is my first language, I would be in severe difficulties to aquire it as a second or >third one. Romanic languages with all the declination and flexion drive me crazy. Before I have half figured out how to say >what I want to say, the person I am talking to will have retired by then.

LOL I feel the same way about Deutsch! Now, if we had moved to Italy, or Spain.. French is too irregular and gutteral for me to get along in. Very sexy to listen to, but I can barely ask for a glass of water.

>But what is much more difficult are the cultural (in the ethnological sense of the word) differences. I am just reading >"Teacher" by Mark Edmundson which gives me interesting insights into the mind of certain kinds of American college >students. A very strange, and for me strangely shallow and empty world - as long as I take my cultural background as an >absolute. Probably the characters of this book will find my world terrible from their point of view. I think because the material >culture is so similar, we tend to be in grave error in estimating the amount of difference between the US and Germany.

Hm.
Our German friends say to us: "you are very strange Americans!" we tell them, that our American friends say the same. We keep the old, independent, free-thinking, iconoclastic America, rather than this new invention of slack-mouthed media victims. The "Neauveaux Ranch" if you will.. (Texanism for people who buy land to drive golf carts around on, because they are afraid of horses -NOT including LBJ, rather his would-be successor the limping duck) and their economic victims.

Out to dinner this evening ( lovely stroll to an Italian place), remarking on the vital aspect of the older folks, guaranteed retirement and health care.
There was an old gentleman who stuck his cigarette in his mouth, toyed with it in his hand, and finally took Tim Conway steps out the door to smoke, in in this new year of Rauchverbot (no smoking in public places), as did everyone else. Germans don't break laws. They put on their seat belts as they are driving their cars out of the driveway, but they put them on.

I've been living in your world (this region's sheltered version of it), for almost six years. It's not terrible. It requires more awareness, that there are people in the world other than yourself, something Americans are particularly terrible at.
We went looking for wide open spaces, and are having to re-adapt, to the places that are clogging up due to our own carelessness and obsession with individuality, and individual transportation.
We're the ones who didn't like all that togetherness, didn't fit or couldn't deal, in the first place. This is how we ended up in the New World.
Mr Clemen's satirical writings are still true today, for the child of wide open spaces and frontier mentality, tossed into close interaction, with people who are actually good at that sort of thing.

Recycling is the law. (though we've actually had people hide trash, in our driveway trees... !)
No working, no noise (can't mow your lawn), nothing open, on Sundays
Nothing bloody open after four on Saturday, either!
State funded health insurance, on several levels
Sick leave is unlimited, as directed by a doctor. You don't run out.
Litter is minimal. Vagrancy is invisible. Crime is also minimal.
There is a kind of social perfectionism, which perhaps only the Japanese supercede.
Driving lessons are expensive, and last something like 200 hours.
Even having a car running, while talking on a cell phone, is worth a fine and ticket.
Cars are required to have emissions stickers, in many cities. Cost is per emission level or something.
Bicycles are treated as vehicles (though a dear friend was, fortunately not badly, struck by a car in Regensburg)
Lots of room to walk, cycle, or take public trans!

Am I ready to go back to the crime-ridden, careless, littered, chaotic, polluted, expensive-awful-beer&wine often bad-food US?
Am I ready to pay rent again, to be again in the land of legless soccer moms where walking is criminal, and biking just gets in the way of cars? No wonder Americans are doughy. Sigh.

I'm at a point where we really have to "fish or cut bait".
I have to improve my German and pass the Heilpraktiker, or get back to the US and get into practice, and move on with my training.

It is easier for Americans who never fit in, at home, to not take it so personally, when they are a stranger in a strange land. It's a perpetual state, and no surprise for us.

And, I guess, these remarks might already feel way too serious people on the other side of the waters?

For most Americans, as with many Deutschers I'm sure you can think of, the world ends at their state line.

Someone shared a quote about a life without travel, being like reading only one page of a book.
Originally, my world ended at the Texas border.. but the first time I slept in the chill of the Rocky Mountains in the summer, I was "outta there". Once I left Texas, that was it. I will always have a home, but it's like realizing that your mother is an axe murderer... not so much that you wonder how you ever got on, there, but that everywhere else seems quite livable!

Quite sure I can't "go back and stay" I'll be migratory now, wherever I go.

Anybody got a Jetstream they're not using?

I have to add.. in the semiprivate world of my blog, that it is still OK to be educated and intelligent, in Germany. We sat next to a table of people who were running through a variety of languages and comments, in our tiny nowhere town.

Mostly good German, which I understand 80-85%. Czech, Russian (which I studied 1 semester) French, Spanish (which I also understand) some Italian as well (we WERE in an Italian restaurant!). I enjoy Greek very much, and wish I had more time and space to learn it. Let's face it, I love all languages but German.

This red-headed stepchild of Teutonic laid on an ill-fitting Latin frame, has been my curse, the last 5-6 years. I've learned it, I can converse in it, but I do not love it. It is a marriage of convenience.

It is only fun, because the German people are fun, and I will slog through their bloody (bloede!) language to reach them.

No, I can't stay here, but I don't have to go home.
Or do I?
I don't, yet, and won't know, for the next three weeks.

Our ponies are down to to wire.

"Waiting for the wheel to turn" is a lovely song by Caipercaillie. 

When I was a child, sitting in the hot pseudo-seasons of Texas, I dreamed of crisp, cold places. I dreamed of snow, I dreamed of leaves with colors other than brown. Now I live further north than I ever dreamed, and am still dreaming of snow. A good white-out would make this winter a lot more FUN!

I dreamed of places not afflicted with humidity, and will never forget getting out of the college van for my Environmental Biology class in Del Rio, Texas in November. I was wearing a Dinotopia T-shirt and shorts, and none of it was sticking to me. I just felt "funny" and kept flapping my shirt because it felt so different. Meanwhile, thousands of monarch butterflies were passing through, and at some point someone photographed me, wondering at the fluttering trees. I'll dig that up from the paper photo archives.. we women bitch endlessly about our pictures, until we really start to age.  Then, we look at old pictures, and we know now, what we wished we had known then.. that youth has its own beauty. 

I saw an un-made-up pic of Nicolette Sheridan, sent by a gf same age as me.. I could aspire to that, at 44. I've got a (literal) handful of years to go, and probably another chemical peel or two, but it's possible. 

It is only through budo, that I could ever reconcile the beast within, to the beauty possible without. I'm feeling ugly with injuries, stress, and burdens of life, but I am also excited about the possibilities within the work we are doing. 

My poor mate is having a crap year, and mine isn't going much better. 

Not yet. 

I'm having to keep a very loose rein on the horses of fate. If I didn't consciously relax, it would all go back to Central Texas. In this case, I've let them loose, to see if they bring back anything better. It's been said, that to live in just one place, is to only read one page of a book. 

Go, ponies, go. Find great grazing, find the wild, beautiful places. Find us a home. 

I won't tell you where to go, but the mountains are beautiful and the sea is fine. 

Just got back from Regensburg, where cg's in the klink- er, klinik, again. I'm just glad we still have Black Beauty, our BMW 523i that we (DAMMIT!) have to sell before we leave. She's a 1998, but Very Well Preserved. 

The inside is all black leather and burl walnut, and the outside is all sleek black speed.

 I'm hitting 180kph smoothly except for the odd wind gust, and it takes some serious breeze to move Beauty. Well, that and the idiot truck traffic the German Autobahns are currently clogged with. So I make the 100 kilometers to Regensburg, and back, traffic allowing, in about 45 mins. I could never do that in our little Honda Element (2003) that we just got as a US specs car to bring back. The BMW also gets about a third again the gas mileage. At speed, even. I coast, rather than brake, and drive as far ahead as possible. 

The detached retina is lasered back down, his eye is full of some kind of gas to keep it in place, and he has a new acrylic lens in his eye to replace the cataracted old one.  A hip replacement, cataract surgery, and he's only 50. Unbelievable. I'm just hoping that he's kind of "getting it all over with" and can enjoy his next half century some. 

Fortunately, despite some crumbling edifices, this man has the heart (albeit arrythmic) of a giant. 

He also has a little Aussie cattle dog to nip and herd and take down anything, he might happen to miss. 

One of the nurses, after getting my lecture about him needing to take his meds for the Reiter's Syndrome, along with anything else they decided to toss in his system, agreed that I was the "Shaferhunde" this is the nice black and tan race of dogs we get from Germany who organize our lives, sniff our luggage and patrol yards everywhere. 

Protection dogs. 

Hm. I identify most with the quirky, stocky cattle dog (they have a bit of Dingo in), but CG is probably more on the line of a timber shepherd. Or possibly a Rottweiler, because they are basically giant lap dogs... anyway, the partnership breaks down into its basic parts, as we deal with crises. 

Woof. 

Southern kids have it worst. Maybe there are ethnic/cultural groups with deeper family ties, but us Southern kids have this expectation laid on us, that we'll stick around family. I guess that's why those of who break away, make such a big splash. Maybe it's an economic class idea, that Harvard grads go on to travel the world after they graduate college, and we PWTs are lucky to make it out of high school. 

I made it out of high school, but life and circumstance, combined with expectations which really could have been a lot higher, though they were high! kept me from Rice or Brown.. I had scholarship possibilities in both directions. 

Hindsight being the art of seeing what an ass I've been, I did the best I could, with what I had. I would have had further to fall, when family support fell off due to my parent's divorce. I know they would have done everything to keep me in school, but it just didn't work out. I don't blame them any more. They would have done differently, if they could have. If I had known I wanted to be a surgeon, or a psychologist, maybe it would have been different. Maybe not. Things are, as they are. 

Meanwhile, I've been overseas for almost six years. 

I'm migratory now, like the whooping cranes, hawks and butterflies. I don't mind going where the pickings and climate suit me. I do mind staying where I get sick, or uncomfortable. 

I don't need to *be* somewhere. 

There are places I love, and places I have yet to learn to love. 

Anywhere I can watch wild creatures, help something grow, and participate in the currents of life, makes me happy. 

Somehow I see a future in a vegetable diesel powered Jetstream with solar panels, wandering the continents with my table. I'd like to see writing, and nature illustration, in that future.. I think I've exposed myself, enough that the possibilities will chase me down regardless. 

Meanwhile, I'm sure I've made all kinds of accidental history, here in a cold, damp corner of Germany. 

I didn't mean to. 

True to pattern, without thinking, I rushed in, where angels fear to tread. 

Thankfully, I am no angel, but a force of nature, beyond my own understanding. Thus I end up again and again, at home in the fire, with no hope of regaining the frying pan. 

True to my nature, I won't jump back in. 

Burnt fingers, fried shoulders, I only stop, if it stops my work. 

Otherwise, my approach is flamethrower, buckshot, tracer, no-holds-barred. 

Taking no for an answer, is no answer. Status quo is just target practice. 

It's been too long, since I've drawn a bead. 

A lovely lady of 85 has come to my table. Her daughter, now in her mid-60s, brings her after her own 10 sessions. 

Both are battling structural problems, the mother has a large degree of kyphosis which is responding well to almost glacial manipulation of sternal fascia. 

It was our second session, and I asked a general question of the mother (loudly, as she is quite deaf) about other children besides her daughter.

The daughter explained, as the mother teared up and shook gently, that she was a "Kriegskind" and had been born during the war.. that women did not want to have children during that time, and thought to wait until after the war... but the great majority of men fell in the war (I am deliberately using German-flavored language) and there were no children, after.  And no men to father them. 

I was deeply touched... I reached deep into my own center, and changed my work to gently place a tissue in the mother's hand (for your eyes, I said) and held her hand for a little moment.. then I moved my hand to her lumbar spine, and supported her gentle shaking with this old, generational pain. 

It is another moment, which remains deeply engraved on my soul. 

Another was a circle of fiberglass bear sculptures in Berlin, which various countries had sent for display.  I suppose a blank bear was sent to the country, was decorated, and sent back. The British bear was covered with silly pop pictures, the Irish bear was all wound up in green and orange tapes, the American bear was dolled up like the statue of liberty.. but the one that arrested me, made me touch it.. was the Yugoslavian bear. This was some 4-5 years ago, during the Balkan war. It had been liberally pelted with machine gun bullets, and painted corpse-white. 

My first day in Germany, we visited friends (we are part of a lovely global martial arts community) in their old townhouse in Frankfurt.  
In the back yard, I noted deep holes in the lower part of the house. What's that? of course my hands wandered into these cavities in concrete... 
It was scoring from the 50 cals of the Allies... 

These are things I will not leave behind. 

I'll quote a line from Casablanca, that the problems of two people don't add up to a hill of beans in the world.. Just a guess, from a kid doing the best she can. 

A dear friend calls to check on me when I vent out here.. that's very sweet. 

It's hard to explain why I don't write when I'm happy! I'm certainly not UNhappy, I'm one of the luckier beings on the planet. Life isn't perfect, but I'm here to complain about it. 

I think the perspective of wanting firearms may seem paranoid, to those who have not lived with them. It's hard to explain that I *HAVE* been happy to have my wheelgun at my side, many times. 

I don't want to live that way again, but my upbringing and my ornery nature dictate that, should we end up in a place where public safety is a kind of sick joke (even in your own home!) I intend to be prepared. 

The referral cg got to Arlington VA could be lots of fun! Public trans and everything! Woot!

I'm really not interested in "normal American" things. I don't care to shop, I never had enough money. I don't care about commercial sports, what does that have to do with my life or values? no clue. 

Football? complete bore. Basketball, volleyball, golf the same. Does nothing for me, not interesting. 

Starbucks? Oh spare me. Lavazza, Tchibo, Segafredo! 

Chain restaurants: Crap aimed at separating you from your money. 

I'll hit local suppliers of seasonal local goodies, take it to my own kitchen, and make something wonderful! 

By the way, WalMart is of no interest, either. 

I'm hip to Ikea, though! looking for a way to buy stock in that sucker!

The options are these: Houston (ack! except for family, old friends, and a very interesting colleague for me) Suffolk MD (sounds nice enough) Sacramento (gangs galore and hot, yuk) Kansas City (unaffected by evolution since Clan of the Cave Doofus)  DC (well, lots of folks needing my help, public trans, and the Smithsonian!) Idaho Falls (in the lap of my beloved Rocky Mountains! everybody rub your lucky pennies, do your lucky dances, and so on for us on this, especially if you want to visit!) Fort Irwin (in the heights of the Mojave) Del Rio TX (bird and butterfly watching, beautiful SW TX, and I do want to pick up Spanish again) Atlanta (is this US crime central? Ack! my last choice at best!) San Antonio (has stolen much of CenTex water to run their Riverwalk, not my fave city and every highway is San Pedro)  Berkeley CA Lawrence Livermore Lab (whoa, how cool is THAT? the birthplace of Structural Integration Exploration! otherwise another damn big city).

The constant question is.. aren't you glad to go home?

Define home.. If it's somewhere I'm safe, and I know the expectations and possibilities, then the answer is, Oberpfallz, Germany. 

If it's where I came from, and I know to expect danger, have saved money for a sawed-off 12-gauge loaded with buckshot handy. 

If concealed carry is legal, I will train for it and do so. I have a good teacher. 

When I came over here, I gave up all my firearms. 

It was hard. But when I realized how ridiculously safe I was, I let it go. We have a door intercom, and my German is good enough to ask the right questions.  

I don't look forward, to having to carry again. I loved my 357.. but it's too big to really carry. Even with a 4-inch barrel. Ah, my beautiful Ruger Safety Six with nickel finish and Pachmeyer grips.. 

Meanwhile... up to this time.. we've never had to think about it. 

Think about that. 

It will get worse, before it gets better.  

Do you feel lucky, punk?

Would you pay more tax, to not have to test your luck in gunpowder?