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Things are a bit busy at Chez Roder these days. Some things I can talk about and some I can’t. This year’s focus has been health and Sparky and I are getting healthy. As Sparky is light years ahead of me in the health department, I’m working hard at catching up.
I can tell you that I have been walking 8-9 kilometers a day 5-6 days a week and have gained a kilo.
I can tell you that I have been working out for over two hours a day and have gained a kilo.
I can tell you that I am consuming less than 1000 calories a day and have gained a kilo.
I can tell you that if I wake up tomorrow and the scale says I still have that kilo it says I’ve gained, we will need a new scale.
I can tell you that looking for a picture of a scale to use here, I found only pictures of happy women on scales. I have never known a woman to be particularly happy on a scale. Ever.
I can tell you that I have the world’s slowest metabolism and in a famine I would do pretty well given how uh… efficient my body is at storing energy… on my ass. I have the efficiency of a Prius with the ass of a Cadillac.
I can tell you I’m in kitten withdrawal. I no longer have Cleo to curl up with for an afternoon nap and my nose gets cold. Neither of the other two cats like to snuggle except in the morning when its all about tongue and whiskers to greet the morning light. I am really not a fan of rough tongue in the morning.
I can tell you birds have decided to nest on our back balcony thus annoying the cats and me simultaneously as they hop out of reach and sing their annoying morning song.
I can tell you my tendencies towards hoarding kittens are stifled when I find my roses dug up by the sweet Fin. Why he can’t dig up the ugly geraniums, I don not know. He’s even figured out how to move the pebbles I’ve placed all around the roots. I swear that cat is hiding opposable thumbs somewhere.
I can tell you that I actually enjoy soccer/football a lot more than American football and think it’s a much safer sport, but those pansy-ass players cry at the drop of a hat. If I see one more player cry for his mama because he got tripped and skinned his poor widdle knee… well, I’m just going to make fun of them over and over again.
I can tell you that the Italians are pretty happy in Darmstadt. In fact I think there are more Italians here than Germans. I have never seen Germans storm the streets like the Italians over a win. Then again, these are Germans we’re talking about. Street storming is a repressed genetic ability.
I can tell you my kitchenware has expanded to include the Kitchen-Aid blender I’ve been eyeing for years and had only the briefest of in-store disagreement with Sparky over the color. I wanted red and he wanted chrome (another freaking shinny surface for him to obsessively polish – like I’m going to agree to that!) so we settled on black. This is fine as my new pots and pans are red.
I can tell you that my sister is NOT coming to visit because she can’t find her passport, the rat.
I can tell you that my brother arranges awesome bachelor parties. So awesome that sometimes the groom doesn’t get to go if he wants to actually get married.
I can tell you that Von Tauber has the sweetest kids in the world. TwinkleToes is just awesome, like I’ve said before. And her latest addition, Squeakster, is the best baby I have ever been around. She is the baby Sparky needs to be around next year when we seriously start thinking about a family.
I can tell you that Sparky has been so busy that our cars are filthy. I can’t even tell the color of my car its been so long since its been washed. I was even the last one to wash it. Car Washing is Sparky’s preferred form of meditation. It’s the wax on, wax off thing that he can do for hours and not think of anything else.
I was actually a little bit ashamed to drive Gracie (my car) so filthy in the land of squeaky-clean. The last time I felt this way was when I had to valet park my ‘87 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with the smashed-in front end and the window that didn’t work. I thought those days were long behind me.
I can tell you that I haven’t had a moment on the computer in over a week because the sweet Sparky is working like mad. The man has more clients than time these days and we are still on the one computer system, which oddly enough gives us more time together talking rather than sitting across from each other sending e-mails. I think we might keep it this way at least until I get pissy about it again.
I can tell you that next week I will be gone for at least seven days and am looking for some guest bloggers because I will be in no condition to blog for probably a couple of weeks and Sparky is probably going to put up some Kylie pictures and I will be in no condition to kick his ass.
I can’t tell you where I’m going but I can tell you it has nothing to do with rehab or babies. And Vernon, I swear, of all things to remember, lactation???
Well, it might have something to do with rehab. I always wanted to be a junkie and man, Sparky can score some fine Colombian. Sparky makes all my dreams come true.
One of the many cultural references I have had to teach Sparky was the molester van, how to watch for, avoid and/or listen for muffled cries for help when walking by one. He thinks I’m paranoid and delusional.
My brother sent this to me yesterday and I think illustrates my point, although I maintain that molester vans tend to be white rather than red.
I’m old.
When renting the latest Stargate Atlantis tonight a young girl asked me to buy her and her girlfriend beer. She said that the video store guy would only sell it to her if they were 14 and they were only 12.
My immediate reaction was “God, no. You are far, far too young to be drinking.”
She just shrugged and walked away. I was shocked that such a young girl was experimenting with alcohol. SHOCKED!
On the way home, I remembered that when I was 12 I took a wine cooler from the fridge and drank it with a girlfriend watching Porky’s Revenge at the local theater. We got some guy to buy us tickets and I spent the whole movie thinking my mother was going to come barreling down the aisle and haul my ass home.
Later in the day I caught myself peeking out the window to spy on my neighbors. Granted there was a big fight between the Turkish importer of Deutsch flags and his helpers, but I was totally hausfrau-ing it by standing to the side of the window and watching for a LONG time.
Then I lectured my sister on not wearing a helmet when she rode a Vespa in a parking lot. Everyone knows that parking lots are the most dangerous place to ride Vespas.
Then I quizzed my brother on why he doesn’t have a girlfriend.
Then I heard the neighbor kids screaming outside and got up to give them a dirty look . There were no kids outside. It was Markus watching Hostel.
I think I’m in desperate need of some Jell-O shots and cigarettes.
My sweetest, most beloved Cleo died yesterday. I really don’t know how to express my sorrow and grief. She came into my life 12 years ago when I was 21 and had been my right hand through it all and it was a lot. She was the most loyal and loving being in my life, ever.
I wish I had something funny to say, a dead cat joke or something, but I just don’t.
I love you, my girl.
The girl had gams. A total Leg Show model
She really did not like being disturbed while she was sleeping
Cleo and Kiska
in her favorite place, well favorite place minus the kitten
cleo
My brother, sister and I are rather competitive with each other. We compete with everything from getting our seatbelts on in the car first, getting out of the car and touching the front door first to who can get to the bathroom first and effectively bar the sibling with the direst need from entering. We are a ruthless bunch. However, one type of competition cannot be measured by speed, talent or cleverness. It is the acquisition of countries.
This type of collection started when Jeff and I were young with bodies of water. Mostly pools, ponds, streams and lakes. By collect I mean which of the latter he would fall into, with or without help. Thus Jeff learned to swim when he was quite young. I cannot correctly remember the number of duck poop laden ponds he fell into, but it was quite high. This is also the origination of Jeff’s unhealthy fear of ducks.
Now that we are older and Jeff can very effectively avoid my push, the bodies of water are no longer fun. Now we collect countries.
The rules are simple and differ from those of collecting states. For countries, one must eat in the actual country. The Great Manitoba Debate of 2006 settled the airport issue. You must leave airport ground completely and have a meal prepared in said country. Layovers in airports DO NOT COUNT.
That’s it. That’s the rule.
Now, one would think living in Europe, I might prevail in this contest; There are so many countries within spitting distance. But alas, no. Miranda caught the travel bug early. Trips abroad with her dad and her children’s chorus have given her a four-country lead. She toured Europe before I had a passport. She’s collected Australia and New Zealand and those two countries, my friend, are hard to collect indeed.
Jeff, well, Jeff is afraid to fly so his country count is rather low. He does, however, have Sweden which neither Miranda nor I have. It’s the jewel in his crown.
Well, that was until Friday. Last Friday, Sparky and I drove across the 8km bridge/tunnel from Copenhagen to Malmö, Sweden. We got gas and picked up some cookies and coffee. Thus I ate in the country.
Before I go on with the story, I must tell you a little something about Sparky. Sparky is the kind of husband that encourages his wife and supports her in all her efforts. Sometimes Sparky’s support rolls over his wife and crushes whatever will she might have into smithereens. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. Sometimes it’s just the thing a girl needs.
Sitting there with coffee and cookies, Sparky thinks. He thinks about the number of countries I have. He thinks about which countries are close by. He thinks and thinks and thinks. He is not a bear of little brain.
What did this thinking produce? Norway.
Sparky suggested we drive to Oslo, Norway. We were in Sweden so Oslo should only be 200km away. (By the way, its not. It’s a long ass freekin’ drive. Remember, we were map free.)
So we did it. We drove to Oslo. That’s right. We DROVE to Oslo, Norway. We stayed an hour and turned around and drove home. It was awesome. We even saw the polar day, which means that it never got dark. Ever. To compare this road trip with a drug trip is not without validity. Most of the time it felt surreal. We were like the British Empire, the sun never set upon our skin.
There was a moment where we thought we could drive to the Artic Circle. It would have been so cool to drive that far north, be so high on the globe, to be farther north than either one of us thought. We had only an Schuler atlas published in 1986 to gauge how far the Artic Circle was from Oslo and in that book it didn’t look so far. We contemplated it for a good hour.
Being a former college student, I know how quickly a good trip can go bad. Driving to the Artic Circle sounded like a really cool idea, but could in fact be the tipping point into the badlands. So we settled for Oslo. Yeah, settled for Oslo.
By the time we got home Saturday evening, we were wrecked and exhilarated. And filthy. Did I mention that we drove straight through, sleeping briefly at rest stops? It took 7 hours from Malmö to Oslo. It took 19.5 hours to drive from Oslo to Boweltown, including 2 sleep stops totaling 6 hours. To do the math, we drove 26.5 hours total in a 32-hour period.
We thought we could take a ferry from Oslo to Kiel and we could have, but it was a 23-hour ferry ride. Sparky had work he needed to finish so we opted for the drive. I brushed my teeth at a rest stop in Sweden on the way back, but that was it.
The best thing about this trip is that Sparky and I NEVER ran out of things to talk about. I don’t know anyone with whom I can travel better. We didn’t fight or disagree once. Even when he said I had monkey arms like Pete Sampras. Dude, does he know how to complement a woman or what? He tried to take it back, tried to say he said something similar, but not quite the same, but you know once those words are out of your mouth, you can never pull them back. Monkey arms… I suppose that was better than wide ass, I mean, white ass, very white ass.
This week I’ll post more about our stay in Copenhagen and our trip. Copenhagen is expensive, but gorgeous. The Swedish language is just German in disguise and Norway is pure heaven. Seriously, the most gorgeous country I have ever driven through. And believe it or not, Oslo is one happening city. Everyone was partying and really, really drunk.
And I pooped. In every country.
