creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

Archives for October 2008

September Just Posts

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Welcome to the September Just Posts!

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There are two things that I want to write about today. First I want to remind you that next week on October 15 there is Blog Action Day. On that day more than 7,000 bloggers will all write about the same topic to raise consciousness. Last year it was about the environment, and this year it will be about poverty. (I want to thank Lia for bringing Blog Action Day to my attention again.)
Unlike most parent bloggers this month I won’t be writing about elections. Not that I’m not interested in them, there’s just that I’m only watching this whole circus show from afar. I do hope though that every single one of you who can vote has been doing so in the US, and will be doing so in Canada. As for my German readers I’m sorry to say that in the last county election where I live only 60% of those who could have voted actually did. Shame on those who didn’t!
I guess that means I’m writing about three things after all. Well, the main thing I had wanted to bring to your attention this month is Alzheimer and Dementia research. As most people I hadn’t thought about these things at all until Terry Pratchett, one of my very favorite authors of all times got diagnosed with an early form of Alzheimer’s and decided to tell the world about it. Having a disease like that still can stigmatize you. Not much is known about the disease, and how to treat it, mostly it’s just assumed that some people get a bit weird in the head when they’re old, and all you can do is hope that you’re not one of them.
As most of us, though, I know people with Alzheimer’s or dementia, people in my family, people who because of their disease turned into mere shadows of their former selves. As most of us, I know people who tried to take care for these people at home, caretakers who had to lock their parents in and treat them like little children to get them through the day. And who often in the end had to make the decision to have them move into a nursing home because they couldn’t do it any more on their own.
There is a lengthy interview with Terry Pratchett on-line if you’re interested in more information. One thing that Mr. Pratchett said moved me the most:

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

I don’t know how to make people with Alzheimer’s feel less alone but talking about it might be a good start.
And because talking about matters of social justice is at least a better starting point than doing nothing, here is the list of posts we collected in the parenting part of the blogging community. (And this might be as good a place as any to remind everybody that every person can send in a link at any time pointing towards a post he or she has read or written. You can find my e-mail address on my “About”-page.)
Ladies and gentlemen, the list:

Alejna with September 12, 2001
Border Explorer with Everything for Wall Street; Nothing for Main Street
Chani with Financial Smackdown, My Last Sarah Post, and Steal This Meme: Politics
Daily Kos with Amazing: Obama helped a stranded stranger
Denguy with Fear
Emily with Saving the planet for Starbucks customers of the future
Ewe Are Here with Busy Would Be and Understatement
Girlgriot with Speechless and Supermoms and super colliders
Holly with I couldn’t hold it any longer and Pennies for peace
JCK with IMC project: Saving the lives of malnourished children
Jen at A2EATWRITE with How to vote/how to buy a car
Jen with Good morning America, how are you?
Jennifer at Faking It with To Support of not to support, that is not the question, as I see it
Julie with How you can help recent hurricane and tropical storm victims
Lia with Age And Ageism and Give Some Thought
Leslie with The most problemmatic of times
Los Angelista’s Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness with Shiny and Bright Sarah Palin
Mad with Losing at the waiting game
Magpie with Ways to Make a Difference
Mary Murtz with Unfriended? Defaced? What?
Mir Kamin on Blogher with Men and Women: Becoming more alike makes ’em more different. What?
Mother Woman with Manning the Phones
Rebecca with That creepy obsession with virginity and In defense of a silver tongue
Red Stapler with Why I am voting for Barack Obama
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee with Dear Mr. Harper
The Ascent of Humanity with Construction and the Glass Factory
The American Prospect with Everybody Calm Down, Obama is hitting back
The Buddha Diaries with A Fistful of Bills
Under the Overpasses with The Sky is Falling–really! and The View from Down Here

The considerate people who read and sent links:
Alejna
Thailand Chani
Painted Maypole

And as always you should check out what Mad and Jen have to say this month, too. Without them there wouldn’t be such a thing as a Just Post Roundtable.

The Family Reunion

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As I have written before, I went to a family reunion last weekend. I left here Thursday in the morning and came back on Sunday just in time to have dinner with my own family.

My father was the one to organize this, and I didn’t realize how much organization there was needed until I saw that there were 27 of us, who came from all corners of Germany, and that our days were nicely structured. I was a bit scared beforehand because I didn’t know anybody there, apart from my parents and me, that is.

On Thursday I was mightily proud of myself because I had everything packed the day before, and I left with time to spare, and I was calm and composed. It seems that in going in panic mode the week before I had gotten over it. The whole train ride was very pleasant, even changing trains went smoothly and uneventful. The only thing I didn’t like was that the table in the train was so small that when the woman sitting across from me put her laptop down there wasn’t any place left for me. I ended up squeezing my lace pattern under her computer cables, where it was hanging precariously. (And on my way back the same thing happened. First a guy with a laptop (who also kept his big luggage under the table so that I didn’t have any room for my feet), and then a woman with a big writing pad and a newspaper. Next time no table for me.)

The hotel we stayed in was about the ugliest hotel I’ve ever seen. (I won’t link to it here for obvious reasons.) The rooms though were big, and so sparsely decorated that they had a serene feeling.

After unpacking I went down to have dinner with the first bunch of relatives. Four of my father’s cousins with their respective spouses. I was surprised at how nice and kind everyone was. Through the whole weekend I felt blessed that these people on the whole are very friendly and warm, intelligent, and with a sense of humor. (I always had taken sense of humor for granted until I met a bunch of my mother-in-laws relatives. Somehow they just don’t get this whole laughing thing.)

The next day the reunion started in earnest and the remaining people arrived. We had lunch together, and then went for a guided tour of Wernigerode. The guide was not as funny as he thought he was, he played guessing games and gave away bonbons for correct answers but at least we got to see something of this really beautiful town. At one point in the tour the guide’s wife approached him saying, “Is this the second tour? When will you be home?” And he answered he’d be home at half past four but you could see that she didn’t believe him. At which point I gave up on ever being warm again.

On Friday evening we had dinner at the hotel, again, talked to each other, and saw part of a video about a historical play one of my father’s cousins has written about the town where my great-grandparents come from. It’s a bit weird to be related to so many people with a totally different dialect. A lot of these people are from Erzgebirge, that’s Saxony, another group came from Hamburg (you know about Hamburg, don’t you, no need to link this one), and the rest from various places around Germany, Hesse, Lower Saxony (totally different from Saxony, and in a completely different part of Germany), and then there was me, living in Bavaria. In viewing the film it was evident that quite a few people didn’t understand a word of it because the actors talked dialect, and two thirds of the audience didn’t understand a word. Interestingly I didn’t have much difficulties. Living in Bavaria for ages and having friends from all over the country obviously has trained me in understanding different dialects. Well, German ones at least.

There was another thing that had me wonderfully prepared, my father sent me an e-mail beforehand, explaining who was expected to come and whom they were related to. I took that out quite frequently to help all those conversations that went like, “And that is Fritz, I think, and he’s the son of the youngest daughter of my great-grandmother. And this is my grandmother, and the guy over there is my father,…” and so on.

There was only one other person in my age group, also a singing teacher, and also called Susanne who came with her son. Creepy, isn’t it? And our mothers have the same first names too. It would be even creepier if both the name Susanne and our mother’s name weren’t so common in our respective age groups.

It also seems that all of my paternal grandmother’s relatives like to sing. There was an episode on Saturday with spontaneous bursting into song. With harmony. Nice. Who would have thought.

It was really fun to look at all these faces and see their similarities, and differences. To see people in the hotel lobby whom you had never seen before in your life, look at them and think, “Oh yeah, she’s one of us, just look at her nose.”

On Saturday we took a steam train up to the Brocken, the highest mountain in that area. Sadly, it was a very foggy day but we were lucky, and just before we had to go down again the fog lifted and we could see a bit of the beautiful landscape.

On Saturday evening the hotel had a dancing party, and someone (might have been my father, also the hotel manager) thought it would be a good idea to attend. Well, the food there was the best I had in that hotel. (The food I ate in those four days had me longingly think about vegetables, and even salad by the second day. They did have salad, in a way, but it mostly consisted of cooked green beans and shredded carrots with sugary dressing.) But then there was a big woman telling jokes, interspersed with one of these unspeakable dance duos, you know the kind, a keyboard and a guitar, and one of them sings, and they play all the songs that I try to avoid as much as possible. And then the music is so loud that you can’t talk to anybody.

And so I excused myself just after dinner, went up to my room, knitted and read the latest Terry Pratchett. A very nice evening but I regret that there were some of my relatives that I haven’t spoken to.

Sunday morning I went back, this time the trains were a bit more crowded but not unpleasantly so.

I found that I really enjoy traveling alone. It was very relaxing to just do what I wanted when I wanted to without having to consult with anybody. It was nice to have my own quiet room. It’s also much easier when I only have to pack my own things without trying to cram my son’s stuff into the same backpack as well. It was lovely for a change but I also missed my family (you know, my son and husband) and was very happy to be back home.

As I’m writing this I’m still a bit tired and overwhelmed by my weekend, and I feel that this account is brittle and dry and doesn’t do it justice. Anyway it was decided then and there to meet again, in about two years at the place where my parents live. And I’m looking forward to it.

Story of the Month: The Beach (Part 1)

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(I wrote this story back in August as an assignment for the writing group meeting. The prompt had been “insanity” but somehow I ended up just writing something. I turned out to be so curious about where it went from there that I ended up writing part two and the beginning of part three in September. You’ll have to wait for part 2, though, because I have to make a small alteration to it before posting it here.)

Finally they had gotten the fire going. Not exactly blazing heat but at least a little warmth against the salty, stinging wind coming from the
sea. They huddled close to it, looking into the flames as men had done since the dawn of time, their stomachs growling.

When they had planned to go onto this trip it had sound like fun. Go to an island, live on the beach for a week. Fun. Rub shoulders with nature,
and then go home with stories to tell.

Well, there sure would be stories to tell but then they weren’t as sure anymore how to make it home.

Laura held her hands close to the fire, her front too hot, and her back still exposed to the chilling wind. It felt as if those tiny salt
crystals that were everywhere cut right through to her bones. She never got the appeal of campfires and barbecues, and now she had to rely on
this to keep her even vaguely comfortable. She remembered how it always took too long for the food to get ready, and how everbody had started
eating the salads until no one had wanted all that slightly burned meat. Only there weren’t any salads this time. She longed for the coziness of
central heating and delivered pizza, to say nothing of hot baths and warm beds, while thinking that today she would be lucky to get enough
slightly burned fish to get satisfied. Right there she would have killed for a bit of pepper or a twig of rosemary.

At least they did get to keep their sleeping bags, the water filters, shovels, knives, and fishing gear. They were very lucky that the boat
that flipped over held no essentials.

On the other hand it would have been really nice to have things like bread, soup, or tents.

Laura tried to be grateful that they had enough to eat, and were reasonably warm but then she would have loved to be at home right now,
snuggling under a blanket watching TV.

The others were getting on her nerves. Stan, their self-proclaimed outdoor expert who had needed five matches to light the fire, Lenny, who
was in charge of cooking, and who already had dropped the fish twice, Samantha who kept whining that her hair was looking terrible, and her
friend Michelle who didn’t say much and seemed to be still in shock after her boat keeled over. Well, it could have been worse, everybody
wore life-vests, and they got by on clams, crabs, and fruit.

She wondered how long it would take until they would be rescued. The others didn’t doubt that there would be a rescue party anytime soon but
she thought that it would be at least three weeks, and then only for the ones who had to go to work.

The thought of spending about three more weeks with these people made her restless. Despite the windchill she got up for a walk on the beach.

“Laura? Whatcha doin'”, Samantha asked, “You can’t go along the beach all alone after dark.”
Of course she could. There was no one here besides them, the island was too small for any predators, and she’d see the fire on her way back.

Stupid, city-dwellers, Laura thought. She shouldn’t have come, and her boyfriend didn’t look as attractive any more, now that he sat there at the fire, pretending to know something about cooking over an open fire.

Laura hadn’t thought much about her time as a girl scout or going camping with her parents until now when she had to find out that the
people she called her friends were completely unprepared for living in the real world. It seemed that taking away their mobile phones,
refridgerators and cars made them totally helpless.

Well, better to learn survival on a tropical island than in Alaska.

Somebody came after her.
“Laura, you can’t go off on your own.”, Stan pleaded.
“Why not?”, she answered.
“It’s dangerous.”
“No, it isn’t. There’s moonlight, there’s the fire, the island is small,
and there are no big animals living here.”
“There could be sharks.”
“I don’t want to go for a swim, I’m just taking a short walk, calm down.”
“Then let me go with you.”

There seemed to be no way out, so she went back to the fire. The fish wasn’t done yet. It looked quite burned, though. Not exactly a gourmet meal.

Maybe she should cook the next fish herself. And while she dreamed of that she also thought about catching the next fish herself. She could
make herself a spear and get some of the bigger fish in the lagoon. She remembered how her mother had showed her to be perfectly still until the
fish forgot her. But if she made herself a spear Stan would know that she had more tools in her backpack than she had let him know. And when
she thought about what he had managed to do to his own innocent leatherman tool she knew she wasn’t ready yet. More crabs in the future.