This Week's Top Ten

So I'm surprised that we're still standing. We have not had even one day without a crisis of some sort. Miraculously, we do the bare minimum each day and try to show up for the next one. Here are the top ten for the week:

1. Berlin. First off, thanks for another unseasonably perfect day so that we could take group pictures before Jordan flew home. We would have done it anyway, but it would have been a lot harder in the rain. Second, we appreciate you extending all of our visas until New Years. It makes us feel welcome here, rather than having to hide out as illegal aliens. Finally, thanks for pioneering the 24-hour Christmas shopping. At the rate we're going, Rob and I are going to take advantage of it with tag-team all-nighters.

2. Will. It rained on Monday when Rob was bringing the kids home from school. Will wanted to jump in a puddle, and Rob said "Tell you what: I'll let you jump in a puddle in the next block when we're closer to home." Will said "NO! By then I'll know better!"

3. Sebi. He's started speaking German all of a sudden. In full sentences. Rob asked him if he was tired and he said "Nein, Papa, ich bin lustig!" (No, Papa, I'm silly!). We think he was looking for 'glucklich' which is happy, because he thinks that the opposite of tired is happy.

4. Maddie. She has had a fever and an ear infection since Tuesday night. She said "my heartbeat is louder and everything else is muffled. It feels like there are constriction workers in my heart."

5. Our neighborhood grocery store, Kaiser's, which has your run-of-the-mill fabulous cheese aisle, carries our favorite mustard and peanut butter for the kids, and actually weighs your produce for you (generally, you weigh and price it yourself over here, and put a sticker on it, like you have to at the health food store in the bulk section). Rob thinks it's a lovefest.

OK, it's such a lovefest that I put the picture in twice and I can't take it out without upgrading my software. Which isn't going to happen today, or even next week (see above and below).

6. Anti-stress boots for sale at Leiser. Gonna get me some of those . . .

7. Rob, who has picked up kids from school, done homework with them, and put dinner on the table every night so that I can go off and get confused about German grammar this month. On Monday, he worked intensively with Will on his ears for 45 minutes which included, but was not limited to nose drops, popping ears, drinking, lying down, and chewing five pieces of Hubba Bubba at once. That night Will shouted "WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING INTO A MICROPHONE!?" I think he's on the right track.

8. Vance and Lindsay's unlikely combinations FHE activity, the Not-Newlyweds game. It included questions like "What piece of cutlery/dish/servingware would your partner be on an elegantly set talble" and "What felony would you use to describe Dr. McFarland?"

9. My teacher, Frau Brauninger, who brought in her dollhouse furniture to help us understand Akkusativ vs. Dativ case and who gave me two smiley faces on my first test.

10. Lillian Krokant, Urban Milkware and Chocolate boutique on Wilmersdorferstrasse.

Bottom three:

1. Classmates who live up to their national stereotypes. Angelika from the Ukraine (probably spelled RnjelIka) seems to have "future James Bond vixen" tattooed on her backside.

2. Thanksgiving. Not interested in it; don't want to find pumpkin pie mix; don't want to have thirty people over for dinner. But it's happening next Thursday.

3. Erotic Advent Calendars. Blech!

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