Women rule in carneval

Carneval Thursday is women's day. There's a traditon of cutting off ties then. Unfortunately most men don't wear ties on this day. Except for very nice ones, like Hartmut, my boss. Heide took the chance, as you can see.
In general, Berlin is no city for carneval. We from Rhenania had to import the tradition. I was pondering about joining the festivities in one of the few rhenanian bars, but decided to just have a rhenanian lentil soup and a kölsch (beer from Cologne) at Staev, and then enjoy a quiet evening at home with Emil. There's more days of carneval to come. And after all, it was Hanne's last day at work today, and we had to celebrate with champagne and donuts. No need for more partying then.

75 years ago

In 1933, January 30th, Hitler was made chancellor of Germany. Nazi terror started to rule openly and took over in all areas of society. How incredibly fast democracy was destroyed, and how trade unions reacted, you can see on the ver.di history website.
I'm proud I was one of the team to build this site. Especially students and teachers visit it. So we help keeping the memory: Never again!

Planning for Berlinale

The big Berlin film festival Berlinale starts next week. And I will be there! My collegues agreed to my vacation, so it will be movies again for eleven days (and nights), like last year with Acidrongeur aka Franck.
I started planning today, now the program is online. I sure will go to see the new film with the children from Golzow, the longtime documentation that started in 1961. I enjoy it since many years, first on tv, since 2006 during Berlinale.
And of course the new Scorsese is not to be missed, "Shine a light" with the Stones. But no chance to get any tickets for the opening evening and/or see Mick Jagger and friends. I'll try to get some online for the 3rd or 4th show on friday afternoon.
Ahhh, I'm so excited!

Holocaust Memorial Day

Sunday was January 27th. This day in 1945 the nazi concentration camp Auschwitz was liberated by the red army. Since many years, it was a day of commemoration in Germany, with meetings and events like here in Berlin center.
In 2006 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution and decided to designate January 27th as an annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust, and urged Member States to develop educational programmes to instil the memory of the tragedy in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again, and requested the United Nations Secretary-General to establish an outreach programme on the "Holocaust and the United Nations", as well as measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.
Read more about it here, and join the fight!

Fun in trains

Emil and I went back to Berlin on Saturday, and were lucky to sit in a crowded compartment with talkative people. The guy had Spiegel documentaries on his laptop, and we all enjoyed the one on Lenin and the russian revolution. Shouts and hot discussions filled the small place. We had lots of fun!
Alex and Anna had brought us to Stuttgart station and waved us goodbye until March, and Kurt was standing opposite the opening door in Berlin, and helped me carrying my stuff by taxi to Crellestraße. What a nice collegue!
By the way: The smoking lady was seen in Böblingen on Friday afternoon. Street art.

A visit to Anna's new office

Thursday was a very special day to Anna, assessment day for the job she had applied to last October, working for the state of Baden-Württemberg. They will take only six this year, and there are more than fifty to apply for it. She was one of the first four to be asked to a day of tests and talks. And - of course - she was one of the chosen few! She was offered a job very close to our home, in Böblingen, only eleven km away.
Yesterday evening we went by public transport to the new office and had a look. We were so curious.
In March she'll start working as vice-chairman in Böblingen district authority (if that's what it's called in english). More she'll find out next week, in an interview with the head of district authority, her new boss. A hard job, but a great start of a new career. Congratulations, Anna!

Nutritious food

It's a week now since my new diet started. All I have to do is to NOT eat wheat, sugar, yeast, and of course milk and cheese (except from sheep and goats). Which means to forget about most ready-made dishes, and go for the real thing, the good old home made stuff. No problem as long as I'm in Stuttgart, actually it's fun to cook for the kids and myself. Even breakfast on my own is quite nice and tasty, as you can see on the pic.
I wonder what it will be like next week, when I'm back to work and Berlin. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to the new way. And maybe do more exercises as well? Try biking again?
How often have I said and written that now over the years? ;)
But this time I'll make it! A week ago I joined a dieters' group at The daily Plate, to get support. It's a great website, and the program helps counting calories, vitamines, fibres, the lot. Now I can always check what I've eaten, and how to change for the better. Nice!

Springtime

There's a new smell in the air. The sun is shining brightly from a blue sky, and warming up the cold air in the mornings. First trees are blossoming, and in our garden early flowers are peeping from the grass. It's beautiful to take a walk, and enjoy the views like this one, close to our house, on the old way from Vaihingen to Kaltental. Ahhhhhhhhh, spring is here!

Didn't it rain?

It sure did. Raindrops kept falling heavily on the roof above my bed during the night. A sound I always loved, as long as it's cozy inside. The constant dripping makes you fall asleep easily.
On the other hand, grey sky during all of the day is nothing to enjoy a lot. Everybody prefers to stay on the couch, and be lazy. Like Justus.
Pity we don't all have a chance to do so. Lucky cats!

Cats rule

Click here and enjoy Simon's cat in "Cat-man-do": a hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to wake its sleeping owner...

Pictures of an exhibition

Anna is having her birthday party today, and I decided to leave the kids alone, and went to the local artists' house round the corner, "Kultur am Kelterberg". They had a vernissage of a new exhibition, "Oben und Unten" (Up and down), with artists from Stuttgart and Melun, our partner town in France.
I was happy to meet Albrecht Weckmann again, one of the curators of this fine exhibition. We had been working together in the 80s, mostly on exhibitions, but also doing arts in our trade union. He was the guy who had most of the brilliant ideas for our famous flag shown on all the Stuttgart trade unions demonstrations and events in the 80s. It's part of the IG Medien archive now, a reminder of our history in the Archiv der sozialen Demokratie.
Back to tonight. The Kelter, an old wooden house in the middle of Vaihingen, is a wonderful place. In former centuries they produced and stored wine in it. Nowadays, it's a home for arts and artists.
The exhibiton is well worth a visit. It's the first with participants from Vaihingen and Melun on a main topic. Interesting to see the different ways the artists worked on it.
One artist's photos touched me a lot. Steffen Osvath, a young artist who only recently finished his studies at Stuttgart art academy, takes pics, and works on them, changing their look, their meaning, sometimes in a way you hardly notice the subtle difference, sometimes almost destroying the original. Great art, and a great artist. I'll sure have to see more of it, not only on his website and his online photo gallery. Here's the one I loved most tonight.

Last day before the diet starts

My Stuttgart doctors told me to have the fillings in my teeth removed (dangerous amalgam might be the cause of quite a few of my health problems), start a periodontal therapy (the umptiest - sigh) to get rid of this inflamation, and starve the candida (they seem the reason for some more of my health problems) by a strict diet: no wheat, no sugar, no yeast. At all.
So I had a last evening with chocolate and cookies, and Emily the cute cat helped eating up my non-diet food.
From today on I'll be eating only what's good for me and bad for the candida. Until I killed them. Yes!!!!

Colours

The sky was beautiful early this morning! I loved the colours...
Your favourite colours can tell you what kind of person you are. Try the colour quiz and find our for yourself.
Here's what it says about me: "Imaginative and sensitive; seeking an outlet for these qualities--especially in the company of someone equally sensitive. Interest and enthusiasm are readily aroused by the unusual or the adventurous."
Oh so true!

Anna's 26 today-hooo!

We rose at 6 a.m. (Alex with a little help at 6:30), to celebrate before Anna left to work.The birthday table in the kitchen was loaden with lots of small parcels, and a biiig one, with a brandnew super-huge pet box. We hope Justus will learn to love it.
One more parcel will hopefully arrive today, containing an electric toothbrush, state of the art. First birthday letters and cards started flooding in yesterday, more today, as well as a huge parcel from blume2000. Volker had some flowers sent by mail.
Anna wanted a swedish cheese cake, made according to Astrid Lindgren's recipe, and of course we had done it for her. It was delicious! Alex and I even managed to solve the problem of swedish measures, like cups and dl and such.
Happy birthday, dear Anna! Have a wonderful day and a wonderful year, with your new job, two weeks vacation in New York, your three sweet cats, and lots of doggy walks. Maybe a dog of your own, later this year? :)

Getting better - yep!

My cold is - very slowly. As per usual. Taking walks with Anna around Vaihingen helps. And lots of hot tea, honey and vitamines, too.
This couch is getting better as well. I took my Xmas money and asked the couch doctor to help the poor dear to become a beauty once again. Not as wonderful as in its youth (more than 100 years ago), but still upholstered a bit, with fresh colours. It will cost a small fortune, but is well worth it. Check here again in two weeks, when it'll be back home in all its new splendour.

Time to recover

My cold is slowly getting better. The coughing period started today, which usually means it's only one to two more weeks now until I'm back to normal. No more need to stay in bed all the time, but help my body get new strength. Since body and soul work together closely, my doctor recommended good books, good talks, and arts to enlighten my soul. (Nice doctor, huh!)
So I started to think about refurnishing or rather finishing to furnish my flat in Berlin (with different colours for some walls, new carpets, curtains, and lamps), and I worked on colour schemes in general. A test told me what kind of "living at home" concept was mine (ethno with a touch of aura: "you're at home whereever you are", "art is whatever you do"). Didn't I know? ;)
That led to paintings, reminded me of my love for Turner, and made me discover I like Whistler (admire his beautiful painting of a winter's evening in London) as well. Duh!
Maybe I should even restart painting myself? I had totally forgotten about it lately. So the cold and the forced staying at home might help me get better in several ways, not only bodywise. Not bad at all. Something definitely worth pondering about.

Helau! Alaaf! Narri-Narro!

Even though the flu is keeping me in its grip, I decided fun is the best remedy ever, and since I'm from Düsseldorf and love carneval, had to attend the official start of the carneval season 2008. January 6th is the date, whether it's rhenanian karneval or suebian fasnet.
Well, ok, it was on tv that I watched it, staying underneath blankets on the couch. But still - even with a snot-blocked nose you can sing well known carneval songs, and learn the words of new ones. I hope I'll make it to "Loss mer singe" in Berlin on January 19th. I really loved it last year.
Brings, a great band and most probably the winner of this year's carneval song contest in Cologne, is kind of closely related to our family: my sister's husband's brother's wife's sister's boyfried is working with them. (Haha - kind of! closely! related!)
Kliment called and invited me to Cologne the first days of February - the hot days of carneval. And to top it all, it's my sister's birthday on rosenmontag, February 4th. We'll see, time and my cold will tell... ;)

They're gone

Volker left very early this morning to work in the States for a few weeks. Anna took him and all 35 kg of his luggage to Stuttgart airport around 4:30 am. To find the flight had been cancelled. But - lucky guy! They booked him on another flight and gave him business class instead of the econonomy he had paid for. Wooohooo! We checked on the net later, and got jealous just thinking of the delicious, mouthwatering food and drinks for free he'll get now. Read all about his adventures working with lawyers in San Antonio, Texas, and New York here.
Who else is gone? My tooth! It lived to see 2008 all right - but had to be extracted yesterday. The roots had been broken, and tooth aches on top of my flu was nothing I wanted to bear for days on end. Poor tooth! And no toothfairy this morning, either! :(

Still in Stuttgart

2007 ended nicely with champagne, hugs, and fireworks - and a slowly approaching flu. It waited until 2008 to get me in its grip. When I woke up early in the morning of January 1st, head, throat and breast were aching. I packed all the same and was ready to take the train, when the children decided I couldn't go. So another ticket to Berlin bought and thrown into the waste paper basket. Sigh.
I called Kurt, Hartmut and Christel to tell them I have to stay longer, took it easy all day with hot tea and a hot bath, and stayed on the couch wrapped up in blankets, watching "How I met your mother" to cheer me up.
Early in the evening, I swapped couch for bed, and after a long night of healthy sleeping (interrupted by Emil and Justus fighting in my bedroom for about an hour before I had them separated) now I'm off to the doctors. Again. Ahhh, I wished I was at work in Berlin instead!

Wishing you a...