Bows and Arrows

It is 28 degrees outside, icy, slippery. I'm still doing the Old Lady Waltz. A pack of young boys on their way to school this morning crossed my path, and I almost froze in my place just to avoid the minor possibility of Rutschgefahr in their presence. I need no buzz-killers today. I would like to revel a little more in yesterday's pleasantness first.

It was one of those days on which everything flows smoothly, you feel a part of a larger rhythm, a sense of knowing your place in the world and being just fine in it. I ended up meeting and talking to a lot of new people, of being more accepted by people I already know, and just generally feeling at ease, something I haven't felt since the end of September. My funds will only be low for a couple more weeks and then I'm comfortable again, the apartment is starting to feel like my apartment, and I am starting to slip into a comfortable yet stimulating routine.  Things are looking up.

I am always surprised when I get to know new people, partially because I don't like most people, partially because I believe most people don't like me, although I have nothing but evidence to the contrary. Despite a layer of bitterness mixed with shyness and a strange lack of impulse control and concern for social rules, people still actually like me, a lot.  In this way, I know I am a truly fortunate child. Someone once said it was because I was so guileless. He meant it in a good way, but I in no way lack guile.  I just don't like small talk.

I talked to someone from the IT center while he was twiddling with a computer in my office yesterday, and we ended up talking for almost an hour.  My office is separated from the rest of the team, and usually empty other than me.  So no one interrupts a conversation or makes me feel like I am not working enough--which is probably unfortunately the case anyway.  We talked about his growing up in the East. He was 14 when The Wall fell. He didn't understand what the big deal was until a little later. And now, he is absolutely thrilled with the change. We also talked about privacy issues, Linux and the Cloud. Nice guy. Since he also lives in Erfurt, we might actually hang out a little. But of course, an official invitation to have a beer won't come for a while yet.

Then, I ran into some colleagues form the Language Center at the cafeteria, ate with them and then had coffee with one afterwards. It's sometimes nice to walk into a foreign environment with someone. People all of a sudden have a different impression of you, like my co-worker from University Communications, who was sitting in the same place. My coffee partner and I cracked up over Family Guy videos and just really enjoyed the half hour.

Then, I met this other guy at the Christmas market, and within ten minutes he had given me his phone number, saying we should hang out soon.  Okay, Mr. Long, cool drink of water.  We can do that. I have no problem with that.

Then, walking through the Christmas market again in the evening, before I went to the Christmas party for the Language Center, to do some shopping for my host mother, host sister, her husband and their baby. I got everything accomplished in short order, at a bargain and quite easily. On my way across the theater square, several men simply smiled at me, those smiles men give when they are actually enchanted, just enchanted, and can't help but display it.  I like those smiles.  They remind me that I am actually a woman, not just a baking, fencing and grading machine.

On the way to the square, I decided to walk behind the stalls, since the guy who gave me his telephone number runs one of them there and I don't want to seem like I'm stalking him, even if it is impossible to not run into people in this town. As I am passing his stall from behind, he steps out, of course, and we talk for another 10 minutes before I rip myself away to make it to the party. After the second conversation, I really started to wonder when I should send a text message, since that is now the official first step in pursuit of the human object you would like to play footsie with.

I arrived at the party in a daze, quite pleased with myself. As soon as I walked into the door, the boss of the place lit up and says, "Hello, my lovely darling! Come in, Come in!." My God are you beautiful! Please, let me escort you to the back," which he did, his arm extended for me to guide me down that one treacherous step into the next room.  He asked me if I was taken, told me his name was Dieter, and told me to let him know if there was anything I needed.  If Dieter were about 10 years younger, I might be tempted to bask in that kind of worship a little while longer.

Because Germans have to be unconventional in controlled environments, the organizers of the party thought it would be great to have an archery range set up so we could take a quick lesson and then shoot arrows like they must have in those Karl May novels (The Germans have a thing about Native Americans. Perhaps more on that later in a different blog entry.) I have always wanted to try archery, and it turns out I'm not bad at it.  Like darts and fencing, it's all about one moment of concentration and relaxation all at the same time.  I did the same "Yes!!!" when I hit the bull's eye as I do when I make a really nice touch in fencing.  Obviously, the two sports have the same effect on me.

After tearing up the target and freezing my toes off for another half hour, while Dieter watched and smiled and waved at me, I wandered inside to the party and chatted amiably with several people, but the lack of impulse control took over and I ended up talking about how I used to carry a whip to class for a semester (No shit, I actually did. I got tired of trying to get the students' attention at the beginning of the hour.  Doing target practice with an eraser was far more effective) I think everyone is getting used to the strange outbursts that make me me.

One of the teachers brought his wife and kids with him.  French, charming, the total flirt and gentleman, he has a nice family, a really engaging wife, a new baby and a four-year-old little girl, Adeline.  Later, Adeline comes up to me, looks me in the eyes and says, "May I touch your hair?" I have dreds, and kids find them absolutely fascinating. So do I. " Of course," I said, and bent down so she could tentatively touch the locks. "What kind of hair is that?" she asked.

"It's a different kind of hair."

"But how did it get that way"

I showed her the hair that is still fuzzy, that has not found it's home in a knot yet. I explained the process to her, and she listened closely, attentively. "But why isn't it soft?"

"It's soft in a different way."

She looked at one of the other teachers sitting at the table. "Would you like to touch her hair, too?"

It was T. He smiled, said no, it wasn't necessary.  "It's really weird," she said. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." T. smiled at her, and she went on her merry way.

That is guileless.

At the end of the party, I thanked Dieter for his attentiveness.  He invited me back for their live music nights. I think he will make a great Bar Uncle, the guy who always makes sure no dirtbag approaches me or gives me hassle. Cute.

On the way out the door, as I say good night, Dieter bursts out, "I love you!" and the other women with me and I start to giggle like a bunch of school girls. Cute.

And our time is up.

The Old-Lady Waltz

Sitting in the office, tea at my side in my American commuter mug, which is becoming more popular here with each day, munching on Quarkbällchen, something like a doughnut hole, only slightly bigger and denser and much less sweet. It's one of my favorite baked goods in Germany, and one that nobody can screw up, not even in the East. I will complain about the quality of East German baked goods at a later date, but suffice it to say that it pales in comparison to other regions of Central Europe.

Today is St. Nikolaus Tag, or St. Nicholas Day, the day you are supposed to wake up and either find treats in your shoes or the special Nikolausstiefel (Nikolaus boot) that you leave at the door or in front of the fireplace, or a branch if you were a bad child the past year, probably related to the old custom of being sent outside to cut your own switch for the beating you were about to receive. I thought it you got coal, maybe you did in places like the Ruhrgebiet, Germany's industrial area, formerly well known for its coal mines.  For more information, check out Wikipedia:

St. Nikolaus Day

What I find the best is the description of what happens in Central Europe:

"In highly Catholic regions, the local priest was informed by the parents about their children's behaviour and would then personally visit the homes in the traditional Christian garment and threaten to beat them with a rod."

Maybe Rihanna's (ex?) boyfriend could get into that.

I got a Choco Lolly in my mailbox at work this morning, which is the only reason I remembered.  As an American, I am more aware of Pearl Harbor Day, which is tomorrow.

I am also paying more attention to the snow right now than anything else. Here's what it looks like outside my office window today:

Charming, right? Wrong. This means only one thing to me: Rutschgefahr, translated by dict.leo.org as "slip danger" or "slip hazard."  As I have lived in Germany and Austria before, I am all too familiar with the dangers of snow and ice: Rutschgefahr, Dachlawine (literally translated as "snow avalanche," a concept I didn't understand until about three pounds of snow fell on my head and cracked my coffee mug one morning while I was standing on my balcony in Vienna and smoking a cigarette), shoes ruined by salt, and the desire to remain inside and eat enough food that you'll never be able to pass through the door again. I have slipped, fallen, eaten pavement and thrown away perfectly good shoes.

The physical aspect of slipping and falling doesn't bother me too much. Sure, your hip is bruised for a minute, but the bruise to the ego is much greater and of extensive duration.  The older you get, the more likely you will slip.  A friend of mine even has an expression for it, and I don't think she coined it: "Old Woman Fall." I forget the idiom. If anyone has a clue, leave a comment.

The ego is bruised because there is always someone around to see you fall, no matter where you are, what time of day or night.  If you slip and fall on the ice at 3:30 in the morning on a farm in the middle of nowhere, a crop of looky-loos will shoot up out of the ground, smoking cigarettes and watching as you struggle to stand up again and regain your composure, holding up their score cards to let you know just how amazingly pitiful and amusing your fall was.  The cows will also sidle over, munch on some hay, smoke a cigarette and then go home and tell the sheep--"'Nother human bit it just now. You should have seen the look on her face!" There is no playing it off, like when you stumble over a crack on the sidewalk, look back at it as you continue walking to make sure the concrete assailant is not following you.  Bad, bad crack. You deserve coal in your shoes, or to be beaten by a rod.

And though we have all experienced it, we still laugh or snicker when we see others do it, or watch to see how they cope with it. The Germans especially.  After all, they are the ones who created the term Schadenfreude.  They are specialists in this field.  And the larger the group of people who see you fall, the more it hurts, the harder it is to get back up, the crappier your day becomes.

So right now, I'm practicing my winter gait, a step-step-slide-shit myself, step-step-slide-shit myself..., a drunken waltz in a winter wonderland. I only hope that if I do fall this winter, no kids are in the area. Pre-teens and teens are especially cruel in this regard, without the slightest amount of decency to at least laugh quietly among themselves.  These are also the same people who in a few years will call me "Ma'am."

In the meantime, I will continue waltzing through the streets of Weimar and Erfurt, praying and cursing all at the same time, disagreeing with T.S. Eliot.  April is not the cruelest month, unless there's a freak snow storm.

And our time is up.

Pissed Off Planet's Field Guide to Western Europe: Germany. Entry One: The "Kollege"

Went to the Einwohnermeldeamt (The exact place where you register) yesterday as planned, melded an, and then learned that I need to make another appointment with the Ausländeramt in order to wrap up the rest of my resident permit business.  Since I have a job and official permission to be in the country for the next two years, that appointment shouldn't be too horrible.  Mal gucken, as the Germans would say.

Then, I went shopping to continue my nesting, bought the requisite tea-light holders, baskets for the kitchen, the flotsam and jetsam that weighs us down to one place.  I also wanted to buy a book stand for the kitchen, so I can prop up my cookbooks as I usually do when I'm working my magic in may favorite place in the apartment.  Naturally, this was not an easy process.  I searched the posh cooking section of a department store, went to a kitchen and home store, and then finally decided to go check out the large bookstore at Anger, the central shopping district in Erfurt.

And that's when I had another run in with Kollegen.

And here's where the field guide entry begins:

Entry 1.: The German Kollege

During your travels in Germany, keep an eye out for one of the most typical and fascinating species in the country, the Kollege.A standard part of life in the Fatherland, the Kollege is a force to be reckoned with, even on the sunniest and warmest of days.

The Kollege (translated: "colleague" or "co-worker") is the bet God lost when he played the German card game Skat with Satan one evening after drinking too much whiskey. In American culture, we might call this a "Customer Service Representative," but that might be a bit generous in this context. A more accurate rendering would be, "the sandwich-sucking dirtbag who always tells you to ask someone else."

The Kollege Germania is a species of the genus Collega Insolenta. Characterized by a logic-defying inability to actually answer any question of any kind that does not relate directly to its department--and even that is a stretch--the Kollege/in (male/female) spends most of its time complaining to other Kollegen about how swamped it is at the moment. A gathering of Kollegen/innen, called a widow-maker or gonad-ripper, will immediately disperse upon being approached by a customer with a question, diving behind stereo equipment, magazine racks, women's lingerie or suitcases, which interestingly enough tend to be placed next to each other in some large chain stores, such as Galeria Kaufhof or Hugendubel Books. Highly skilled at the game of Hot Potato, the Kollege prides itself on spending an entire day looking busy while actually doing nothing and making customers feel as though they'd ruined the Kollege's century by daring to live and breathe, much less ask of it the ridiculous by requesting it do its job.

Aside from the hateful confusion that stamps its pasty face, the Kollege can be identified by its Käsebrot epaulets and shrill combination song-greeting-warning-and-mating call, 'Fragen Sie bitte meinen Kollegen!' ("Please ask my colleague!"). The call, a reflection of the Kollege's innate laziness, alerts other Kollegen in the area to make a fucking dive for cover, as some loser wants to ask a question that someone could possibly answer, which might then lead to actual work. Though death by simultaneous bleeding from all orifices is often the outcome of an encounter with a Kollege, Germans insist on still acquiring luxuries such as food, clothing, heat and transportation. If you come into contact with a Kollege in its natural habitat, throw a belegtes Brötchen (small sandwich) into the air to distract them, and then run to the next Kollege before it can be alerted, grab it by the neck, start choking it, and then ask your question. If nothing else, this will prevent the assembly of a gonad-ripper and allow you to flee with only minor cuts, bruises and mental illness. 

If you are fortunate enough during your travels to avoid this species, you may consider yourself very, very fortunate, as the encounter shaves approximately 6 months off one's life. But the chances of avoiding the Kollege are slim, as they, like most pigeons, mice or Beamte, have a high reproduction rate and can survive most natural and man-made disasters. Since Kollegen pervade all walks of life, it is best to simply resign oneself to it like most Germans and carry a large firearm or a basket of sandwiches to ward off most attacks.

If anyone would like to add to this entry, they are more than welcome, as the Field Guide is still in its infancy and would appreciate supplementation from more experienced travelers.


And our time is up.

Meld an, Meld ab

The hardest part about writing is doing it, is making yourself sit down on a regular basis and produce, no matter what you feel like, no matter how bad it is, because the discipline helps clear the blockage so that one day, once you get past all the shit that's locked in your head, you will get to the gold that you know lies beneath, even if it's "just" a pebble. A pebble a day adds up eventually to a treasure trove. At least, that's what I'm going to keep telling myself. What did we say in the 80s/90s? Fake it till you make it? Fine.

Now that I'm done with the second installment of the translation, I have time to catch up on all sorts of other things, like paying bills, having the power in the apartment switched over to my name, registering at the local Einwohnermeldeamt. You see, in Germany and Austria--and I imagine Switzerland, since they're such stickler for detail--you have to do something called anmelden. This means that you go to the local resident office and officially announce that you now live in the city or town that you moved to. The civil servant behind the desk then looks at you as though you are a waste of oxygen and deigns to type a few things into a database. Then you are officially registered. Then you receive notices about the TV tax that you need to pay, whether you have a TV or not.  They've actually added computers to the list, so that once again everyone pays the TV tax.

And if you ever move, which many Germans are loathe to do--it probably has something to do with the fact that when you move out of an apartment, you typically take everything with you. I mean everything, including the kitchen, the mirror in the bathroom, the ceiling lights, everything. There are no closets, so you take the wardrobes you installed as well.  Sometimes you take the carpet or the flooring. It depends on how attached you are, whether you had it installed, whether there's a full moon--then you have to abmelden, go back to the same office and announce that you are now leaving, upon which the civil servant once again looks at you as though his or her life was going so well until you showed up, then punches a couple of words into a database and you are free to register at the next Einwohnermeldeamt.

This process is daunting at best when you are native. No one wants to go there, no one wants to deal with Beamte, the civil servants, because as a rule they are the most ill-tempered, rude, power-hungry little fucks on the face of the planet. Did I use my outside voice? Oh dear. They are rude to Germans, so you can imagine how they are to foreigners, whether you speak the language or not.  And I get the sneaking suspicion that they are particularly unwelcoming to people of my complexion.

A friend of mine swore that I was being hyper-sensitive about this the last time I lived in Germany, when I couldn't get an Aufenthaltserlaubnis, a resident permit, for love or money.  The case worker I had, an absolutely charming Beamtin named Frau Bellingrath, obviously enjoyed my company, because she kept finding excuse after excuse to not grant me the permit, to make me return every three months to turn in some other cockamamie piece of paper or proof of something.  At one time, she linked the next round of necessary documentation to student loans. Student loans? I graduated from school in 1998. This was 2006. When I showed up at home, foaming at the mouth and ready to turn Frau Bellingrath into the worm farm she should have become years before, complaining bitterly about the racism I had to endure, my friend and housemate told me that could not possibly be the case, that this woman couldn't have something personal against me, and that I was over-reacting.  She would come with me to the next appointment and we'd get it straightened out.

And we did go together, and my friend, who is very good at schmoozing, had a lovely chat with Frau Bellingrath, talked about the Aachen of their childhood, really identified with each other.  I thought they were going to burst into a round of Kumbaya or something.

Then, the bitch turned to me and said, "And now...," reached behind her for Volume 2 of the Ausländergesetz, the immigration laws, and casually flipped through until she found something, said, "aha!" (I'm not kidding) and then told me, with a self-satisfied smile, that I would have to come back in another month with proof that I could ride a kangaroo bareback.

After we walked out, my friend whispered in total shock, "I think you might actually be right. I think she might have something against you."  I almost fell out right then and there, because admitting that someone else is right is not necessarily written into German DNA, especially my friend's.

You can imagine that I might be a little apprehensive and wound up when I go to the Ausländeramt. And I go again this afternoon. Oh joy. Hopefully, I will have nothing to report.

And our time is up.

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig

Sitting in the office, pleased as punch, because I finally realized I can use the fleece beanie I bought secondhand as a tea cozy as well.  My tea now stays warm longer. And my hair sometimes smells like Earl Grey. Small victories in a little life...

Finally done with the second installation of the big translation, the one that makes me hate all philosophers and the people who write about them. I have a life again, one filled with time that I'm not quite sure how to fill yet, seeing as I don't "work" outside of work right now. It's strange to wake up and not see a stack of papers in the process of being graded on the coffee table, kitchen table, at the foot of the bed and on the floor next to the sofa. It's strange for the moment to not measure my life in terms of how many inches high the stack of essays sitting next to me is. There is no stack of essays. I imagine an(other) identity crisis will arise soon.

Naturally, I have a proofreading session on one past translation to finish, and the proofs of another book are coming in from someone else, and I should finish them by January, start with a clean slate. We'll see how I do.  But first, I wish to take a breather for a couple of days.

The first part of my breather was taking advantage of the market across the street from me in Erfurt, at Domplatz, which is also the current location for the bulk of the Christmas Market. There's a market Monday through Saturday, unbelievably, in the mornings, and they sell most of the things I need: bacon, butter, sausage.  Oh yeah...vegetables. I try to go there first, spend more money than I should so that I can buy what I think are quasi-sustainable goods, and of course, to go native.

I have always seen a market as an intercultural-competence proving ground, a place that separates the boys from the men. I find myself often still feeling as though someone had strung me upside-down by my toenails over a fire-ant hill and covered me with honey when I am shopping at a market, even in San Francisco. The items are not the ones you find in the supermarket, and tons of people are waiting behind you, impatient, desirous of getting their paws on their goods and getting on about the day's business of being grumpy, or smug, whichever strikes their fancy. Being at a market means knowing what you're doing, at least, that's what it means to me. It means partaking in a practice as old as food itself. It means doing something that should be second nature, but is, alas, no longer. I grew up on military bases with microwave ovens and an African-American culture that (historically justifiably) engenders a wretched fear of trichinosis and a host of other food-borne illnesses. A market was one of the last places we ever went to. If it was hermetically sealed, canned, frozen, dried or nukeable, it was our friend. Otherwise, watch out.  That fresh vegetable might kill you. Don't even think about buying meat at an open-air market. That's what 'other' people do.

But markets are great ways to build up your community network, listen to dialects, see what is popular among the community and the culture in general.  For example, one stall at the Christmas market right now sells only oranges and Christmas wreaths.  What the hell is up with that? Oranges seem to a be a big part of Christmas here. I'll figure out why later.

The markets help me recognize regional differences, such as the preference here in Thuringia for these little round balls of blood sausage. They sort of look like the bombs Wile E. Coyote would order from Acme, blackish softball-sized packets of death, tied up with a string. And it seems there are two types of them, as I found out from the woman in front of me who was asking about the Acme bombs hanging on the wall behind the butcher, a red-faced young man who sort of reminded me of the Shoney's boy, roundy, fat fingers delicately handling slices of Sulze and Leberkäse, as though he'd popped out of the womb with that fork in his hand.  I have fantasies of marrying a butcher one day, but he's definitely not my type...

But you can't get too distracted by such things. You are there to learn, and the best way to learn, in my opinion, is to listen to what other people say, see what they order, how much of it , how they order it, which platitudes they use. Before I picked up on this, I used to walk away from deli counters with 1 pound of head cheese and 3 ounces of cheddar. It was horrible. Then, I figured out that other people might have a better idea of what they're doing, so I decided to start paying attention to them.  It works. Every once in a while I flub it, like Saturday, when I bought Bauchspeck instead of Früstücksspeck.  They are both bacon.  Yay!  But the former comes with a hard rind on one side that does not make for great breakfast food. The latter, named "breakfast bacon," interestingly enough, serves that purpose.  But I didn't have enough time in line to google the difference between the two on my smart phone, so I bought the Bauchspeck. When I got it home, I realized the difference.

And that was okay, because I simply stuffed it into the fresh chicken I picked up from the other stall and roasted it last night. And man, was that good.

But in the time I spent at the market, I learned that here you can order cold cuts by the slice, and I even did it, just to make sure it wasn't some sick joke.  I learned that far too many people in this part of the world love blood sausage. I also learned that it will be a long time before I understand much of the Thuringian accent. But I got an awesome chicken, and I didn't die of food poisoning. It's a win-win situation. And I will have much more to report about "my" market soon enough.

And our time is up.

"A Place Called Home"

It's supposed to start snowing today.

Crap.

The apartment is starting to take on a slight personality, because I am starting to fill it with stuff.  Stuff, once again stuff.  I devoted four months of my life to getting rid of stuff in the States so I could pay less for storage and move here unfettered.  And now I'm starting to pick up stuff. I should stick to the basics, of course, but my kitchen probably now has more stuff than some people acquire in a lifetime.  And I'm not even close to being done with the kitchen. It is barely adequate. It must at least become functional.

Things I like about the apartment:

1. It has a kick-ass oven, at least for conventional German standards. I have learned that the back of the oven holds more heat than the front. Pretty typical, but good to know before I start baking in it.  Yes, incredible. I have lived in my apartment for two weeks as of today, and the only thing I've managed to bake are some prepared Brötchen and a pizza. Can't wait for the 1st of December to be over, can't wait to get into my kitchen.
2. I like the funky floorplan. The apartment is basically the shape of an isosceles triangle. The Kitchen, interestingly enough, is at the narrowest part. My bedroom at the broadest, which also looks out on the street.
3. My bedroom. I have a bedroom! And not the closet that I crammed my double bed into in SFO. There is space for a larger bed, a place to put my clothes, bookcases if I want, and a desk.  And it gets tons of light.
4. The shower stall: low to the ground, large, all glass panels. Towel radiator next to it to keep my towels and bathrobe comfy warm for when I'm done with my shower.
5. The sofa bed I ordered. Not the fanciest, but functional, very red, and large, with a recamiere on one end. I get to lay out like a Grande Dame and watch movies.
6. It's mine. I found it on my own, signed for it on my own, and will pay for it on my own. It's mine.
7. It's the first apartment in Germany I've ever had on my own.
8. The fencing club I'll be going to is literally five minutes by foot from the apartment. Even in the freezing cold it won't be that bad. And I can shower at home if I want.
9. It's not in Weimar, which, though cute, is very, very small. I already know almost all of the commuters by sight, and I've only been commuting a week and a half.
10. Did I mention it's mine?

Soon, it will be a clean, well-lighted place for books, for cooking, for sitting, for me. I look forward to nesting in December, to going shopping on the 2nd (Verkaufsoffener Sonntag, the one Sunday of the month when they open the stores to shoppers. It's a boon in a retail wilderness.)

I have a home.

And our time is up.

P.J. Harvey's "A Place Called Home"

When one door closes...

Forgot to blog yesterday, came into work and got right down to it. When I made notes last night about the blog entry I wanted to write this morning, I noticed the absence and got annoyed at myself. I'm trying to escape the hamster wheel for a minute, not reinvent it on another continent. Tja...

Yesterday I stayed in the office late, because I have this deadline for the second installment of this translation I'm doing for a foundation in the States, and, like I always do, I put off the work until the last minute. I've got three days to go, 4oo footnotes and one last proofreading session, which means I have to work here, not at home.  At home, there are too many distractions, like the paint on the wall, or the clean dishes that look like they could use a second washing. So I stay here in the office, which at least has a desk. I check FB every couple of hours to make sure I still have a normal connection to the human sphere.

It occurred to me yesterday while translating that it's hard to have a mid-life crisis and be obsessed by death (that would be me), when your entire being has to concentrate on one specific task. When I'm trying to make a deadline and earn some cash, I have no time to wonder about "the meaning of it all" and what I will think about on my death bed, or why I should bother doing this thing called Life in the first place. Instead, I focus on the minutiae, and forget my mortality for a moment.

But there are always reminders, and they happen in the strangest of ways, like discovering that your friend's dog has gone missing and is most likely dead at this point.

But this is more than a dog.

I don't think she'll mind, my friend Nina, if I write about her for a minute.  I met Nina 6 years ago, when we co-taught an orientation course for exchange students in Aachen. At first, I was not crazy about her, with her fuzzy slippers and her incredibly German penchant for taking her dog Josephine--Josy for short--with her everywhere she went. But she served as a real-time example of one of the things I mentioned in the culture segment of class: German's love animals, more often than they love children. The Dutch love children, but somehow the Germans never took a page from their book. Animals are preferred, as a German scholar might say, proud of his use of the passive tense.

But I remember that Nina, after a very quiet meeting of the minds, became one of the dearest people to me that I know, a friend through and through. And I very much remember Josy, a fluffy dark brown mix between an Akita and a Malamut, at least to me.  She was a docile dog, sweet, old, and, if I am not mistaken, bilingual, since Nina spent a lot of her time talking to Josy in Spanish. I remember the first time Nina gave out to Josy in Spanish. I wondered if Josy was paying attention, until I saw her tail sink between her legs. If nothing else, she understood intonation. Josy was also the source of one of three major battles we waged with the organizer that summer, since we never went to a restaurant that allowed Josy to come inside.

I didn't see what the fuss was about in those days. But it became clear soon enough. Josy is not simply Nina's dog. Josy is Nina, as essential a part to her as her heart or her brain, as necessary as the blood in her veins. It killed Nina to travel without her, but because travel is so important to her, she went. But she spent hours upon hours figuring out how to take her with her overseas, how to move her to South America with her, where she now lives.

Josy, who was very old and surprised me by surviving the trip, transition, change in climate and overall atmosphere, the absence of the people she'd known most of her life--a testament to how much Nina is Josy--was coming to her end, with heart problems and the other ailments that plague us all, dog or human. But Nina was taking care of her as always, and never, ever, wanting to contemplate what she would do without her.

Josy broke away from the people who were watching her while Nina was away, and despite the efforts of tons of people, days of searching, and what I imagine a hysterical Nina, unable to sleep or eat or do anything except look for Josy, the search was called off. She has disappeared somewhere into the city/countryside, and after that many days without medication or proper care, one can imagine that she is indeed dead.

And this is what I found out when I checked FB during one of my breaks yesterday, when Nina emailed me and told me to check my real email for the full story. We are still trying to connect voice-to-voice.

When I finally got done with work, I took the train back to Erfurt. In the streetcar, I was fortunate enough to lift my head from my smart phone for a minute and notice that the Christmas market, which is spread throughout the Altstadt, had begun. And, instead of riding the last two stops to my apartment, which is across from the Erfurt Cathedral, I got out, bought a bag of candied almonds (there goes the diet), and strolled through the neighborhood back to my apartment.

I had an hour to go before I had to get on Skype and try to call Nina, so I took my time, enjoyed the lights, the smell of candy and Glühwein, the still-pristine look of it all, the people before they get drunk and red-nosed, and make me hate Christmas all over again. I ran into the woman who runs the shop below my apartment, her grumpy husband, running a booth in the market. Amazing that the grumpy husband is a wonderful artist, someone who paints landscapes, probably because humanity is too annoying to capture. Maybe he'll warm up to me, maybe not.

Coming around the corner, I saw everything lit up like, well, a Christmas tree, the kitschy neon colors of the Ferris wheel, the hundreds of booths selling arts and crafts, more Glühwein, stuffed animals, the people standing around and talking, laughing, behaving themselves. The weather was perfect, the pictures on the "real" camera fantastic, the night, as my downstairs neighbor had said, "was playing along with us."

And still, there was Nina and Josy.

Staring at the Ferris wheel, munching on my almonds, done with translation for the day and not knowing what to do with myself, I remembered that this is the whole point of it, to enjoy this, just this little moment, as much as I could, because, we all go through loss, we all lose, we all get lost, in one way or another. I am proud of Nina for having moved to South America, for having taken Josy with her. I am happy, as is Nina, that she did not have to "decide" what to do with Josy when it got to a crucial point. I am saddened that Josy had to leave at all, but glad that Nina had her as long as she did.

I remember hating Christmas with a passion known only to axe-murderers after my partner of 12 years left me--at the beginning of December, walking out the day after he said he wanted to leave, disappearing, as though he died--for the first 5 years after.  I hate that Nina has to experience loss at this time of year.  I hate that I can offer no comfort other than the usual platitudes, that I can not help her move more quickly through her mourning any more than I can help myself. And yet, there will be another Ferris wheel, another Christmas, eventually, another dog to love.

Just never another Josy.

And our time is up.



-Tschö, wa!