October Highs and Lows

HIGHS

• walking with M from his mum's place to the Grabkapelle Rotenberg.


• meeting my Schwiegermutter in Tübingen for a nice 10 km walk to the Neuer Botanische Garten and seeing the geographical center of Baden-Württemberg.
  


• I can't really explain this one publicly, but Udo, this has to do with your email and phone call and what you've asked me to do! I'm thrilled to continue this project and I'll have it finished by the time I return to Wisconsin. J


• deciding on a new cooking plan - to cook one new recipe each week (we otherwise keep slipping back to our usual favorites). However...(see Low #3)


• taking a nice drive with M through the Schwarzwald on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to find fall colors (of which there were basically none - leaves went from green to dried-up this year) and not getting into a single accident with the maniacal motorcyclists darting in and out of all lanes, passing in curves, and speeding.


• our weekend in Breisach and a side trip to Gunsbach, a town in the Elsass where Albert Schweitzer lived when he wasn't in Africa.

• 

  Gunsbach, France



• applying for a freelance translation job. I have no idea if I'll hear from them because it wasn't a position or project being advertised, but I saw a need and it feels pretty good and productive to have an updated resume.


• Remembering last year's pretty fall colors.

  

  This pretty little bush is right outside our kitchen window.

LOWS

• failing at trying to add an image gallery into a Blogger post to make my posts shorter and leave the photos only for those who want to click on and see them. Apparently this is not possible with Blogger...??


• downloading Picasa thinking I could put a few photos into a folder and make a link from my blog, and watching Picasa scan every file on my computer looking for photos and sucking them into itself. I didn't realize Google now owns Picasa and therefore can gain access to all my photos in my computer's memory. Uninstalled Picasa. I don't have any sketchy photos, but I want to decide which photos leave my computer and when.


• trying a new recipe with all the right ingredients - potatoes, ground beef & pork, kohlrabi, onions, Pfifferlinge (chanterelles) - and it was not good. Unfortunately the sauce was mainly soy sauce, which overwhelmed every other delicious taste in the dish.


• grabbing a towel to smack a fly with vengeance worthy of the Wrath of Khan only to slam my hand into the corner of a wall, sheer off a chunk of skin that still hasn't healed yet, and bruise my knuckle. And I missed the damn fly.


• spotting a large spider on a wall in the basement, cringing but ignoring it, and then on the way past it again seeing it scurry inside its hiding place - one of my winter boots!


• realizing I need new winter boots.

Fun Quotes of the Month

"I hate donkeys." ~M

"It would be easier if she spread her legs more." ~M*

  *He was commenting on a woman on TV trying to balance while kneeling on an exercise ball and only realized what 

   he'd said after I shot him a wry look.

B: "Do you consider yourself a Swabian?"

M: "Oh, absolutely. And I'm even proud of it sometimes." 

After choking down a disappointing new meal:

 B: "We can't keep making the same meals all the time!" 

 M: "Oh yes, we can. We absolutely can."

"I can speak proper German, but I'm Swabian nonetheless."  ~M


B: "Oh my God, I just read an article...Do you know what they do with the body when a person dies on a flight?!"

M: "Well, sure. They put 'em in first class and cover 'em up with a blanket."

B: "Oh. My. God. That's exactly what I just read. What the...?!"