Just so

I lived in California where there is so much cultural diversity (esp. in Silicon Valley) that by and large people are very comfortable with things being done in many different ways. Cooking rice like the Mexicans is different from how the Japanese do it or the Italian way, dressing in saris is fine, so are jeans and suits. Some celebrate Christmas, some Hanukkah, some nothing or something else. Indians shake their head when they agree, Westerns nod.

From an environment that is very flexible on those little things I have come to the culture of “just so”. Maybe it is the fact that we live in a small, well-off southern German city or that I have a lot of contact with my parents’ generation right now but “just so” creeps into my life all the time. Things are just done a certain way and that is that. Nobody ever seems to even questions whether there are other, different but equally valid ways of doing stuff.

Is hard to come up with examples for that phenomenon. If it were big things it would be easy, but it is the little things that by themselves are not fit to exemplify it and only in aggregate, observed over time create the complete picture. The List I wrote about in my last post is an example. The whole “they don’t like this” discussion I had over taking geek-boy out of school for a couple of days and the pervasive attitude that things should just stay the same even if they could be improved upon because “this is how we did it” (implied is “why should you have it any better than I did – just shut up and suck it up”).

A little story about that was when geek-boy started school. Instead of getting the supply lists (there seems to be a list theme going here) a few days early on the website or via email we got it on the first day of school, along with several thousand other families with kids in school. The supplies were needed within a few days and naturally all the parents and kids flocked to the stores that day. Now this is not NYC, there aren’t dozens of stores, there is a handful that have all that is needed. The scene in those stores resembled a “Black Friday door buster deal” type situation only that we weren’t going for electronics and sweaters but fountain pens and notebooks.

I run into a neighbor that day and mentioned that scene and how easy it would be to mitigate by just putting up the lists a few days early so there would be more time to shop for stuff. She clearly did not think that this was a good idea, mainly because “this is what I had to do for two kids” (little side snide comment on my being a lazy person for only having one kid).

And then vacations …. It is early December and I hear tons of adverts everywhere to book summer vacation now before everybody else does it in January. Summer vacation? What? It is December, I am not thinking about booking summer vacation until April – and then I think I am early. But this is how it is done here and one better goes along with the program or else all the nice hotels with German speaking staff will be sold out.

I know that I am not being entirely fair here, there are 14,000 students in this city most of which I am sure embrace new technologies and do not overcook cauliflower and serve it with white creme sauces because that is the only way one can serve cauliflower – but still. A little more willingness to open ones mind would sure not hurt.

Tomorrow we are going to an Asian restaurant for my friend’s birthday. They serve sushi there. I love sushi and I just hope it isn’t offered with a creme sauce because “that’s just how food is served here.”

The List

So it is the three of us and 2 home offices on about 850 sqm. Not exactly a lot of space to spare – at least by Californian standards. The weather is grey, humid and cold and dryers do not exist. So I hang my laundry on little laundry rack things that – during the nice season – I put out on the balcony for relatively quick drying. It works – sort of – though my mom insists that I should be ironing all the t-shirts and pants, in fact pretty much everything.  In fact the laundry isn’t as nice and wrinkle-free as the one I pull out of the dryer at home. Just for clarification, though, I do not iron. I despise ironing and it is only done under extreme duress in my house.

The laundry rack in the living room will likely be a fairly permanent installation throughout winter and early spring.

But now we have that grey, nasty stuff going and the balcony option does not exist anymore. So it is hanging the laundry on the rack thingy in the living room but then we can’t see the TV anymore or taking it down to the special laundry hanging room in the basement. Not super convenient but doable.

So over the last few week I wash and haul down and hang and all is well until the other day I get down to the room with an armful (literally, the basket was full with other stuff upstairs) of clean wet laundry to find the darn place full to the last centimeter of hanging space. Geek-boy is trailing behind me. I offer a few choice words for commentary of the kind that I probably should not utter in geek-boys presence and start ranting about how inconsiderate the (…) neighbors are to take up all the space.

“Mom …” geek-boy pipes in “there is a list.”

“What (…) list are you talking about?” I reply annoyed, clean laundry slipping from my arms and me desperately looking for some place to deposit it.

“Here is a list on the wall that says when we can wash and hang laundry.” Geek-boy says absentmindedly because by now he is intently studying the list (he loves lists).

“So, we could have washed last week Tuesday and Wednesday and the next time we are allowed to wash is a couple of weeks from now.”

I stare at the list and wonder whether I just got sucked into some short-story by Kafka or something. There, in front of my very eye is indeed a list that tells me that I could have washed last week during two very busy days and in a couple of weeks when we’ll be away. Then there is one 2-day period in December and then we are into the new year.

I struggle for composure, seriously, still trying to keep the laundry slipping from the pile in my arms. I finally put down it down on a washing machine (not super clean but better than the floor where it would have otherwise ended up) and stare some more. Then I carefully check the neighbors big linen sheets – dry – take them down, fold them more nicely than I would have folded my own and hang my own laundry in the little space created.

We run our errand and then I go ring the neighbors door bell to apologies profusely for displacing some of their laundry from its rightfully claimed space. I mention my unawareness of “The List” and see the complete lack of comprehension in the neighbor’s face. How could I have not known about The List? How did I not intuitively comprehend that there had to be The List? How else did I think people could organize their laundry business if not by The List that gets posted in January and is valid for a whole year?

And here I am and the thought of The List had never even crossed my mind and I still can’t shake this feeling of absurdity when I think of The List.

So, I guess, at least in winter, in addition to holidays, school vacation, work requirements and alike I will have to schedule my trips – business or pleasure – around The List. At least if I want clean sheets and towels.

Rules and Regulations

Piazza San Marco – almost empty. What a sight, even in the dark and rain.

Naïve as I sometimes am I thought and hoped that some of the buttons my parents used to push so successfully during my formative years had ceased to exist or healed over enough to no longer be readily pushable . Naïve – I admit as a recent episode shows.

It began most harmless the other day when I told my parents that I had booked an apartment for three nights in Venice for a long weekend. In my experience late November is the only time to visit Venice if you really want to stand a chance to encounter the occasional local, not just busloads of tourists from all over the world.

“But geek-boy is in school” my mother saw fit to say. I stare at her blankly. “So?” I think “One Friday away won’t damage his academic performance and a trip to Venice is way more educational than six hours of school, even if it is a double Latin.” Outwardly I continue to stare blankly and say something like “I’ll just take him out of school for a day.” I am thinking of California where this is accepted practice on occasion, sometimes life just interferes with schedules.

By now my mother looks highly alarmed “But they don’t like that.” she states. Such statements bring out the worst in me: trying to regiment my life by stating the likes and dislikes of some abstract entity referred to as “they” which could be the catholic church, the members of some club or association, the totality of all our neighbors or, like in this case, the school system of Baden Wuerttemberg just brings back teenage years and all the “one just does not do that” sermons I had to endure. With that comes teenage obstinacy.

“I don’t care what ‘they’ like” I can’t help but saying. Creating more alarmed faces, “they’ll” just have to deal with it.” Now I am on a role, words starting with f and b (bloody bastards being the friendly variation) come to mind and want out but are held back at the very last second.

I know it is futile to argue and so does my mom and so gladly after a little more sparing the topic gets changed but leaves me with the distinct feeling that as a mother I am a lousy role model and will be single-handedly through this act of defiance ruin my child’s chances in life – or worse yet, risk “their” wrath which will come done in full force on the innocent child.

Needless to say, we went to Venice, it was fun and way more educational than double Latin class and we had the chance to see San Marco Square pretty much empty. Okay, it was on a Friday in late November, after dark and it was raining. But still ….

I can’t remember when I last saw somebody pay cash in a Californian supermarket. Must have either been in the eighties (although I wasn’t there to witness it) or a child buying a candy bar or something. One pays with credit cards and that is that. Regardless, in the few instances that somebody actually desires to pay with cash (me, on occasion, I have to admit) the sum seems to always be something like $4.26 or $10.01, in short, something that will put a heck of a lot of small coins in your wallet unless you have a 1 cent piece. As a rule, one never has 1 cent coins unless a) one is abroad or b) pays with credit card or c) one’s spouse has in excess of 10 of them for some unfathomable reason. That’s when the little jars with 1 cent coins by the register come in handy. Leave the one you get paying that $9.99 total with a $10 bill – take one in the above $4.26 or $10.01 situation. Love it. Convenient, logical at no cost, basically (well, the occasional cent). Total win-win.

Here cards are used as well, but a lot less. Merchants hate credit cards because of the fees but bank cards are used reasonably frequently although I manage to mangle up my pin basically every other time having to re-input under the glaring stares of the shoppers behind me who view my behavior as an deliberate plot to willfully waste their time.

A cent piece in need of a jar.
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Rummaging through the wallet and pulling out 23 one cent pieces and a similar number of 2 and 5 cent pieces to come up with €1.89 for two packages of gummibears is, however, completely accepted and does not elicit any type of stares and glances (other than from me). It is what the diligent German Hausfrau does to lighten the coin burden of her wallet and it is also considered a public service as it supplies the cashiers with the small change direly needed in case a schmuck like me shows up and pays a 10.01€ Euro bill with a tenner note and a Euro piece for 99 cents in change.

Just today I was in line behind a guy (not particularly cute, if you should wonder) in a 10.01 € type situation and after some unsuccessful rummaging by him I took out my wallet and handed him a cent. He basically couldn’t believe his luck. Nobody, it seems, had ever offered him a 1 cent piece in a situation like this. The cashier had a similar incredulous facial expression leading to my conclusion that most likely nobody has ever offered anybody else a 1 cent piece in the history of modern German retailing.

Which brings me back to the jar – the logical, mutually beneficial, practically cost-free solution to all our cent problems (or most of them). Can we just adopt the jar here, please?

I was about to suggest this to the cashier but stopped myself suddenly realizing that being such a smart-ass bringing in those American habits would – in one fell swoop – destroy, in fact obliterate, any good will I just created by my 1 cent gesture.

Let the rummaging continue!

Weird Stuff

“Tank & Cut” – not the new innovation in service, if you ask me
(C) Tina Baumgarter

Every once in a while here in Germany I come across something that makes me stop in my tracks and stare – maybe even with an unbecomingly open mouth and an overall slightly brain-dead expression. The first such occasion happened fairly soon after we arrived here. I left the hardware store (what else) and my eye fell on the gas station across the street where I realized that a hair dresser – of all things – was trying to create a symbiotic relationship with the gas station. All under the idiotic and completely wrong slogan “tank & cut”. To understand the degree of idiocy you must know that “tanken” means to gas up in German. Now I can’t make up my mind whether I find it weirder that somebody uses English in their slogan for a German hairdressing service without bothering to check with somebody who actually speaks the language with a certain degree of fluency whether what they are saying actually makes any sense or the fact that somebody seems to think that there is indeed a certain logic to getting a haircut while gassing up, or before or after. Just imaging the following conversation:

“Oh, honey, now that we are here at the gas station I’ll go and get a quick perm.”

“Why, darling, what a great idea, I think I get a trim as well.”

Makes perfect sense, now, doesn’t it.

The latest such weird moment happened the day before yesterday. I went to a toy store with geek-boy to buy play-doh (what we need that for is a blog for another day) and while there we had fun looking at all the stuff on sale. A rather large section had lots of model train related products (at absurd prices I might add) including the usual trains and tracks plus all the little houses, trees and people to decorate the scene. All very cute and ever so detailed and – actually – a wee bit obsessive to me. I stared in disbelief at tiny plastic flowers, pets, intricate trees, firemen, retirees, kids, families in single and multipack when my eyes came to rest on a selection of nudists some quite overweight.

Nudists for your model train! You never knew what you missed.
(c) Tina Baumgartner

I am no prude, seriously, but a selection of nudists for your model train landscape?. There is something really weird about this. More disconcerting even a selection called “bathroom stories” depicting, well, just that. I’ll spare you the picture I took but it more than borders on the tasteless, weird and possibly even kinky.

So on we went, though selections of My Little Pony, board games, Pokemon cards and stuffed animals to pay for our play-doh. Problem is I really can’t unsee the stuff I saw in the ever so harmless sounding model train section.

Weekend Trip Recap

Once in a while one encounters a place that is such a perfect embodiment of an idea that it almost seems unreal, like the place is trying to mock itself by shamelessly overdoing it.

This weekend we visited such a place – and I am not just speaking of Ludwig’s castle Neuschwanstein but the whole area around it called Allgaeu.  It is rolling hills and happy cows, churches, fountains made from hollowed out tree trunks and free-ranging chickens, farm houses where each son of the family learned a different trade and so they all band together, bring their friends and build their own houses (to code, not just some artsy-fartsy shacks).  It is a place where villages are old and build around the churches, the home of amazing bakery products and meat-and-potato/dumpling dishes like you wouldn’t believe it.  This is where the streets are full of cow shit and nobody minds and of profuse flower pots on each and every balcony.  This is where – if one were to believe in such things – one would want to be reincarnated as a cat on such a farm.

Behind the rolling hills far enough away not to cast too much of a shadow rise the raggedy Alps providing a dramatic backdrop to all that absurd idyll.  This were geek-boy decided that he liked rural and could live in such a place (I let that one go) and geek-husband declared that this was ridiculously idyllic (no mention of moving there, I think he realizes that high-speed Internet access is not up to expectations).

We hiked for hours and finally ended up at the famous castle. It is amazing – and a bit of a let down at the same time.  Here we were on a grey mid-October day and the place was crawling with tourists.  I can’t even imagine what this looks like on a sunny July day.  They might have to close the road to walk up because there are so many people. Of course, I understand and of course I can’t judge because we were tourists, too, and of course the place is otherworldly somehow but in the end I enjoyed the villages cum cow shit and the rolling hills with raggedy mountains towering over them more.  Maybe we have to go back in like late November, maybe then one gets the castle without the crowds and a bit more of an idea of how it must have all felt when Ludwig was frolicking around there (I assume he was frolicking, I mean, why wouldn’t he).

So, today a few pictures which because of the grey skies – being the worst for a photographer – don’t do reality justice.

 

More Neuschwanstein on a grey October day
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Neushwanstein on a grey October day
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Can’t even call it a village – no street names, just house numbers
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Across he border in Austria – just as idyllic
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Happy Allgaeu cow in evening light.
(c) Tina Baumgartner

historic and idyllic
(c) Tina Baumgartner

pretty art deco details on the local pharmacy
(c) Tina Baumgartner

Tourist on the Marienbruecke, on a grey October day, more kept storming on until there was hardly any moving anymore
(c) Tina Baumgartner

this is how I want to be reincarnated
(c) Tina Baumgartner

 

Weekend Trip

So we are doing a weekend trip – California style.  As opposed to any self-respecting German who would leave work a little early – which means like 11 am because a regular Friday generally already ends plenty early – we will leave late and arrive late thanks to phone calls with, well, California.  (it is amazing what a change of location does to perspective, in California I used to be annoyed about the world pretty much being shut down by the time I got to my desk and now I am think “why the hell can’t they get up a bit earlier in California on a Friday if they want to speak to the rest of the world, its Friday evening here, hello, Friday evening, weekend, time off!!  Why can’t that 8:30 am conference call be at like 7:30 am?  Isn’t Silicon Valley supposedly always working!!)

King Ludwig’s Princess – oops, Prince castle.
Source: wiki

Its a short drive by US standards, less than 100 miles to a little town close to Fuessen.  Claim to fame: crazy King Ludwig’s fairy tale castle, Neuschwanstein.  The model for every Disney castle there ever was and is to come.  It is an absurd place, beautiful in its overdoneness, with this amazing location just on the border between the foothills and the Alps, archetypical for every little girl’s princess dreams (or at least those who do have princess dreams, I can’t remember any but maybe I am in denial).

I wanted to visit this place, I don’t know why, maybe because it will make me feel more like an American tourist than a local.  Maybe because this is the real deal, copied many times over, but it looks unreal itself.  Who knows, maybe just to get away for the weekend because I know if we stay here there will be cleaning and working and not much fun to be had.  I am determined to have a little fun, once in a while, even if my naive dreams of an easier and simpler life in Germany are all but shattered by now  between early morning calls to APAC and evening calls to California and geek-boy coming home from school so darn early.

Princess castle, here we come!

I am getting my mojo back

German guaca – came out alright

To get my cooking mojo back I made guacamole.  What better to get one’s Californian cooking mojo back than guaca with the possible exception of California roll? (which is a bit ambitious but I did find a source of nori and I brought Wasabi from California – and I found it here – but making the rice just right will be a lot of hassle if I remember correctly)

It came out rather decent, really, and the question was: will the chips be any good? And I am happy to report that they were and the whole thing tasted just fine, in fact, tasted totally California.  To offset this exotic cuisine we had bread dumplings with chanterelle creme sauce and bacon for main course and now I am indecently stuffed and can’t possible write any more.

But the signs are good that the cooking mojo might come back!

 

 

The Art of Cooking

Something really strange is happening: I can’t cook anymore. I mean, I guess I can still cook but it is not easy and natural anymore. Back home in California it has – at times – been hard to think of something to prepare and I remember frantic searches on the Internet and leafing through cook books just to come up with nothing and then ending up preparing pasta. But I also remember times when we needed dinner and nobody had gone shopping and I just opened the fridge and the freezer and grabbed some stuff and came up with a dinner that everybody – including picky “I hate veggies” geek boy liked. In my blissful memory the latter scenario is much more frequent than the former.

Another day another Schnitzel (c) Tina Baumgartner

And now I am stuck in scenario 1 – pasta with meat sauce. It is literally all I can ever come up with, well there is Schnitzel and sandwiches – but sandwiches don’t count as cooking, really. I wreck my brain to think of what I prepared at home in California and I draw a blank. Pasta? Schnitzel? I know there was other stuff, and it wasn’t sushi because we go out for sushi. Maybe it was fajitas, that must be it and fajitas is really not much of an option here, but then fajitas were prepared every other week at best. So what is different, what turned me into this unimaginative non-cook?

I can only speculate. The kitchen is tiny, I mean “bump into each other when turning around” tiny. Just a few minutes ago I felt like yelling at geek-boy to get the hell out of the darn kitchen because between his dad and myself there simply wasn’t enough space for a third person.

I also don’t have the provisions I have in California where I have stuff in the pantry and the freezer, where I actually have a pantry and a freeze which deserve the names.

Then there is all that German food that I am all of a sudden apparently expected by the world to prepare. I go to the store and find “Sauerbraten” spices (Sauerbraten is a special kind of German roast that is marinated in wine and/or vinegar overnight to make it slightly sour. It is eaten with Knoedel). I haven’t made a Sauerbraten in like – ever, literally and since I moved to the US I made Knoedel once. I mean, seriously, Sauerbraten spices?? The flip side is that I can’t find the stuff I need for survival. Today I was trying to find Tapatio – no luck, neither did I get Tajin, my favorite spicy, limey Mexican spice – and soy sauces comes in tiny bottles.

Of course, one can argue that it is possible to cook without Tajin and maybe it is indeed. I am about to find out.

I Want My Stuff!

I generally think of myself as not very materialistic, I drive a real old car – if I drive one, now I don’t have a car, just a borrowed bike – designer clothing means nothing to me and I rather improvise with something creative that just hang something big, expensive and ugly on my wall.

Improvising being the operative term here; to be able to improvise one needs to have … something. At home in California I have lots of stuff, a whole garage full of stuff. Cheap stuff: old books from garage sales, torn out ads from magazines, flea market finds, old drawer knobs from architectural salvage places (better than any Gucci store for me – I LOVE architectural salvage places, love, love, love them!), and paint chips from the hardware store. Somewhere there must be a hardware store that went broke because of all the paint chips I took home from there.

My Pantone chips – fresh off the boat from the US – decorate my left hand office wall

So here I want to improvise and be creative but I have – nothing. No old books, only a few door knobs (I brought them from California) and just a few rather uninspiring paint chips. Good thing I brought paint chips, too, the cute square Pantone colored ones. If the thought crosses your mind that only really crazy people bring paint chips from the US to Europe when they move and all the have is five suitcases and six pieces of hand luggage you shall be forgiven. Even I admit that it is a bit crazy and that is even before I confess to having brought wall paper remnants as well. Only a few pieces, but you know what, it was an awesome idea. Since I have nothing to improvise with here and collecting improvisation-worthy material is not a trivial matter and can’t be rushed, really, those paint chips and wall paper remnants have been all I had to work with and I put them to good use – I think.

wall paper remnants imported from California decorate the right hand wall. Mom contributed the heart.

My formerly barren office walls look a little nicer and more colorful without clutter and cheesy prints. I am basically out of materials now, though, a few door and drawer knobs left for the coat hanger in the entry way – and then I might have to earnestly get into collecting more stuff here, if only I had room to store!