Susanne

So I went to the first German Raveler Meeting – part 1

September 19, 2009 by Susanne Leave a Comment

and I had a blast.

I’m perfectly aware that that was last weekend but then I seem to become busier and busier, I really should do something about this, one of these days, you know, when I have some spare time on my hands.

(This is a series of too long posts about that meeting. Feel free to skip.)

Before going to the meeting in Backnang (that’s near Stuttgart, and I didn’t know there was such a place before either), I went hiking in the Alps with my husband and son on Wednesday, and to a writer’s meeting on Thursday complete with shopping for all the school supplies and clothes my son will be needing until the end of the year. Even my to-do-lists were making to-do-lists but, strangely enough, I managed to do everything on time without forgetting anything important. I don’t even think I forgot anything. I might be getting better with this after all.

The raveler meeting was on Saturday and Sunday but I decided to go there on Friday because otherwise I would have had to get up really early on Saturday and teach a workshop after a long train ride. I tried to pack lightly as I always do but failed miserably. Not only did I put two knitting projects, an extra knitting bag for my workshop, books and handouts, I also packed enough clothes for a week. Since I planned on buying yarn and spinning fiber I took the big backpack, the one my husband used when we were traveling Brazil for two months, and it was full. As was my giant purse/knitting bag. Also my muscles were still sore from four hours of hiking in the mountains on Wednesday. When I got on the train a woman was looking at my huge rucksack and said, “That will be a long trip, won’t it?” Um, well, only this weekend.

In my defense I have to say that I also brought a bottle of wine for Friday night’s “pajama party” complete with two wine glasses and a corkscrew. For the whole trip I was unsure if maybe those people with ridiculous trolley suitcases on wheels do indeed have a point but every time I went my merry way, up stairs, down stairs or on and off trains I remembered why I choose to carry all my luggage on my back.

In order to get a cheap ticket I had booked a train that arrived at Stuttgart Friday noon but there wasn’t anything to do for me in Backnang until the evening when I had a date with a couple of twenty or so other knitters for dinner. So I decided to stay in Stuttgart for the afternoon and visit the Lindenmuseum. I had been there before, back in the days when I still studied cultural anthropology. I found that I already new most of the exhibits but it was very interesting to see how I had changed in the meantime. Ten years ago I was mostly interested in West Africa, and America, this time I spent a lot more time in the Asian part of the exhibition. Also my interest in African musical instruments has waned somewhat and instead I studied every piece of fabric, every garment and every tapestry.

There was a part of the exhibition showing Japanese interiors and tea things that I loved, and then I rounded a corner, saw a big Buddha in the corner, and had to stop myself from bowing before him. That wouldn’t have happened to me ten years ago for sure.

Backnang, the place of the meeting (for once I’m trying to stay on topic here because there will be quite a few knitters interested in this and they won’t be interested in hearing about museums I guess) is very picturesque. I can’t show you, though because as always I didn’t take a lot of pictures.

The hotel was splendid, I had a really nice very big and comfy room, and I didn’t even get back pain after sleeping there. That never happens. When I entered the lift that took me up to my room I already met a woman with big bags of spinning fiber. I looked at her saying, “You’re here for the meeting, aren’t you?” “Yes,” she said, “I went to Wolle Traub today.” I looked into her bag, “That’s Ashland fiber, isn’t it?”. And yet, it was, and yet she didn’t find me peculiar for knowing that.

When we knitters booked the hotel we were said to hear that there was no bar or restaurant to gather in so we decided to have a little party in our rooms. Hence the “pajama party”. In the end the very nice hotel staff put some chairs and tables in the yard for us so we could sit there and chat.

After putting away my mound of luggage I explored the city of Backnang, and totally failed to find any of the important sites for the weekend. That’s what happens when you don’t want to look touristy and refuse to take out your map. You wander around, manage only to find big box stores and buy underwear for your son instead of yarn or something interesting. I also felt a bit lost and therefore phoned my husband who, of course, didn’t hear the phone ring and didn’t answer.

That was the last moment I felt alone, or lost, or lonely for the next days. You know, I often feel a bit weird with my knitting and spinning obsession and I do know that it’s not entirely healthy and a bit out of control but it was very, very nice to be in the company of people who were the same. I found my tribe! Almost 300 people in one spot who all carried gigantic bags with several knitting projects, people who wore wool sweaters, shawls, and socks in weather better suited for short sleeves and bare feet. People who, like me, first looked at your knitted item, asking you about the yarn or the pattern or both, then looked at your button with your ravelry username, and then looked into your face. All of a sudden I wasn’t the only one who lost her train of thought in the middle of a conversation because she wanted to figure out where she had seen the pattern for the sweater the woman on the table next to her was wearing. (By the way, there was a dark haired youngish woman at the Kunberger Aura on Saturday evening who wore an orange cropped cardigan with cabled lapels and hood. She had a red t-shirt underneath. Does anyone know her, and what’s the sweater called, please?) [Edit: And thus is the power of the interwebs and of knitterly friends, Frau Schlamuser just told me that it was Arwen’s Cardigan made by Catluzipher. I just knew that I had seen it in Interweave Knits and I was right.]

But back to Friday evening. (I might have to write this in several installments, it’s getting huge.) There were already half a dozen knitters gathered in the hotel lobby when I came down the stairs. One of them was Frau Schlamuser whom I had met a couple of weeks before in Munich. We had decided that it was a bit weird to travel hundreds of kilometers to see each other when we are living next to each other already. There were others that I recognized from their avatars, and/or the user names they had on their buttons. A bit later I had a button of my own and there were quite a few people looking at me saying, “Oh, you’re that creativemother!” knowingly.

We all went to a new restaurant nearby. That restaurant had only just opened, the menu was very short, the waitress was totally new to this, and they all were quite overwhelmed by a group of twenty or more people. We had to wait for our food a long time, it was partially cold, all in all one can only hope that they will get better at this. We did have a lot of fun though:

I’m only showing you some of my pictures because I know that not everyone is comfortable with seeing his or her picture on the internet. So, instead of gathering for our little “party” at nine, as we had planned, we only started that quite a bit later. And when I finally brought my wine and glasses and such, almost no one wanted any more. So after a delightful evening I was stuck with half a bottle of wine left. Oops.

I’m really too lazy to link to everyone I met but it was so nice to see the faces of people I only knew through their forum posts or blogs (and that in my mind’s eye looked like their cats or like a bunch of socks or something because that’s what their avatars look like on ravelry). I also met a lot of people I hadn’t known before. And all of them were nice, and sociable, and fun to talk to.

After all that talking and drinking and eating it got a bit later than I had wanted. I was in full-blown people-and-talking mode but I think I stopped all my story-telling and general talking now and then to see if the people around me looked bored, or wanted to say something too. Most of them weren’t shy themselves so I was cool. All Friday evening (and Sunday) I had to answer the question, “Is that Ishbel?” because I wore my handspun Ishbel that I stil haven’t taken a picture of, and on Saturday I contemplated pinning a note to my shawl saying, “Yes, that’s Wollmeise. Yes, it is a Faroese shawl, the pattern is Irfa’a by Anne Hanson. I’m not sure about the colorway, I think it’s Red Hot Chili.” But then, where else to wear a lace shawl like that but to a knitter’s meeting?

I’ll continue this in part 2.

A Real Joy

September 5, 2009 by Susanne 1 Comment

You might remember that all of a sudden on my birthday a while ago I thought about buying a new spinning wheel. My “old” wheel at that point was almost exactly a year old. I was quite content with it, an Ashford Kiwi but that didn’t keep me from looking at other wheels. I fell for a Schacht Ladybug because it’s so cute, I admired the Majacraft wheels from afar, especially the Suzie Pro, and the Little Gem, but I kept coming back to the Ashford Joy.

That wheel would have been my first choice even a year ago if I had been certain to love spinning. But then I decided to be sensible, and since the Kiwi is only two thirds the price of a Joy, and since the only difference is that the Joy is foldable I thought, “I won’t take my wheel anywhere anyway.” and bought the Kiwi.

Of course, next thing I know I start going to spinner’s meetings. Not that often but often enough to contemplate making myself a bag for my wheel. And then, with some unexpected cash on my hand, and my husband’s instructions to use it for spinning equipment I just went and bought a Joy. And I love it dearly. It’s cute, it’s small, it’s sturdy, it can do all the things my Kiwi could do without even needing a high speed whorl. It folds easily, and I have a nice bag for storage and for carrying it around.

It arrived and I didn’t even have to assemble it much. screw in a couple of hooks, tie some fishing line to some springs, and off I went. And once again something happened that happens all the time: there were things I just couldn’t get right about spinning, and then I found out it wasn’t me – it was the wheel.

You’d think that two wheels that similar in ratios, made by the same manufacturer, using the same bobbins and construction would be like twins but they aren’t. The pull of the Joy is much smoother than that of the Kiwi. With the Kiwi I never had to use the brake but with the Joy I do need it. One very unexpected blessing is that the Joy makes almost no noise. You hear the flyer stirring the air, and that’s pretty much it. Whereas the Kiwi was always a bit louder, and mine in particular had this tendency to start creaking out of the blue. Very annoying. The Joy’s treadles, on the other hand, did take a bit of adjustment. They are smaller so I have to position my feet carefully, I have to sit farther away from the wheel, and need a bit more force to keep it going. I don’t mind though because all of a sudden my goal of spinning lace-weight yarn doesn’t seem as far away as before.

That’s what I have been aiming for right from the start. So far it hasn’t happened. I’m getting better though, I just have finished spinning a 2-ply yarn that’s almost fingering weight. And I have some hand-dyed roving that I’m currently spinning that might become Aeolian.

The last time I went to the spinner’s meeting in Tutzing someone said, “What are you spinning there? Sewing thread?” If only. I had had hopes of getting that to become a lace shawl but then it turned out to be too thick again. The yarn is nice though, and I already knit it all up into a nice shawl.

Something I also really like about the Joy is that it’s so small, it sits there innocently in its bag without screaming spinning wheel at everybody. When my students enter my room, the room I teach in, the wheel is the first thing they see. Only very few people have asked me about the wheel because you know how almost nobody really looks at things or people. But still. The Joy in its bag almost looks like an unusual musical instrument, so that’s a plus. Also I often take the wheel to the kitchen in the evenings so my son can hear me while he goes to sleep. The spinning wheel makes a nice regular sound that tells him I’m nearby. And while I did that with the Kiwi too it’s so much nicer to have the wheel, and the fiber, and everything I need in one bag that I can carry over my shoulder.

So all of a sudden I had two spinning wheels. This seems to be a very common occurrence, there are a lot of spinners out there with a lot of wheels. And that does make more sense than you would think at first because spinning wheels are tools, and some are good for a particular job, and others are good for other jobs. Like, if you want to spin very fine very even yarn you’ll look for something different than if you want to spin art yarn for example. And the most versatile wheels usually are not that easy to carry around so you might want a big wheel at home, and a light, small folding wheel for traveling.

But I looked at my two spinning wheels with a feeling of unease. They have the very same ratios. Since I got my Joy I haven’t used the Kiwi at all. I thought about this, and some people told me to use the Kiwi for plying and the Joy for spinning but then I still didn’t have all the money for the Joy, I only got the money for half a wheel for my birthday. I thought some more. The only option the Kiwi has and the Joy doesn’t is that you can get a real big flyer for it which is better for plying and for making art yarn, which means crazy yarn that’s often bulky and has things like beads, and feathers, and flowers in it.

I don’t see myself making art yarn in the near future. I’m still on the quest for “thin and even”. So I thought about selling the Kiwi. In my mind keeping it for plying would have been like buying a 200 € plying machine. And I can ply yarn as well with the new wheel. And so far in spinning at least I’m all “one project at a time”-girl. So I took a picture of the Kiwi, and told people on the spinner’s forum and on ravelry that I had a Kiwi to sell. I truthfully told that the treadles are stained with dark oil from the inside, and just 15 minutes after putting the offer in I had a buyer. And the next day I could have had four more.

It took a bit to figure out how to get the wheel to her since she lives in Northern Germany but in the end I took screwdriver to wheel, partly disassembled it, used every shred of wrapping material I had in the house, put the wheel into a box and sent it to her. It has arrived safely, and she is very happy about it. When she wrote me she already had spun two bobbin full of singles, and said she loved it.

And I’m happy too. An unused wheel would have weighed on me. Seeing it sitting there made me sad. And it’s not as if I have that much space here, it’s much better this way.

I’m enjoying my Joy (it’s named after a woman named Joy by the way). Of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t been looking at other wheels, there’s still the Ladybug, and the Suzie, or the Matchless maybe, possibilities are endless. But so far this wheel is enough.

First half of summer break

August 28, 2009 by Susanne 6 Comments

I have to say so far this summer break has been very enjoyable. We decided to stay at home and do touristy things here. That was a great idea. I actually did quite a lot of the things on my list.

We rode our bikes, and hiked, and went swimming, and had food from our garden, and made pizza from scratch, and went to Bamberg, and had barbecues, and the weather was fantabulous, and on the days that it wasn’t we sat indoors, making things. As always I haven’t been as productive as I had wanted to, but my piano is all working again (and the sound is much better now, I can’t believe it), and I have knit half an unplanned cardigan.

So, here are a few pictures (Well, quite a lot of pictures but I was amazed at how many things we had done without taking the camera.):

First harvest this year.

Hiking to the Andechs monastery.

Ammersee

Ammersee again (there’s nobody in the picture I know, by the way)

A day later we grilled the fish be bought at the lake, and again some of our own peppers.

We even moved the garden furniture. (And behind the furniture you can see the pots that hold all our tomato, eggplant, pepper, and chili plants. Right before the jungle of zucchini, and beans, and potatoes.)

We made lactose-free pizza from scratch, with spinach,and eggplant from the garden.)

I taught my son how to use a sewing machine, and he made several bags.

I went to the botanical garden.

And it’s hothouses.

We went to Bamberg as every year. (And I have no idea why the weather looks so grey, it really wasn’t.)

My son took a lot of pictures, including this one of me packing.

I read a lot of books, I knit a lot, I spun a lot (and I have to tell you about my new spinning wheel), went to beer gardens a lot, and rode my bike a lot. We’ll be having friends over on the weekend, I’ll prepare my sock knitting class for the German raveler meeting, and will help my husband with his album in the making. He’s been busy recording and mixing for the last few weeks.

Two and a half more weeks to go. We’ve been enjoying our family time so much, I hope we can keep this up when school starts again.

This blog is still on

August 10, 2009 by Susanne 6 Comments

You know how you always think you’ll have more time once summer break starts? That summer break that’s 10 days old today? Yeah. Me, too.

I have been doing things but posting here hasn’t been one of them. I’ve been playing computer games on my ipod, I’ve been ordering and receiving a new spinning wheel, a couple of weeks ago I found out that I probably have ADD, we’ve been making the most of every single non-raining day that we had so far, I found out that not only am I weighing as much again as just after I had the baby (I never was heavier, btw), I’m also completely unfit so that a hike that seemed like a breeze last year left me panting and with sore muscles for days this year (well, I wasn’t panting for days).

I’ve been reading books, watching Torchwood all through for the second time, and Farscape, finished two pair of socks, started two other pairs of socks, frogged back a quarter of an intricate lace shawl only to start something new with the same yarn, decided to also rip back a turtleneck sweater that I’m making (half-finished), decided not to order any books, CDs, DVDs, computer games, yarn, or spinning fiber ’til the end of summer break, only to buy four comics, and another game (it was only 4 Euros I swear).

I have a long list of things I want to do until the middle of September:

work out again (see above)
design and knit a lace shawl for a class I’ll be teaching next fall
install a new version of WordPress on my blog and that of my husband
sew some pillow cases and coasters
write a story about summer in the next ten days
ply the Corriedale I spun up, and spin up some lovely hand-dyed BFL I bought (that’s a sheep breed for those who don’t know, Blue Faced Leicester -I doubt that they really have blue faces, though)
write at least one blog post about “How to be idle” and “Idle Parenting” – for the record, these books are marvelous and eye opening, and very helpful. Now I feel like a revolutionary instead of a lazy person
tidy and maybe clean the house so that some flat surfaces will be visible again
pick up the guitar and play once or twice
ditto with singing and piano
have my piano repaired (which means that there won’t be any piano-playing for a week, since parts of it need to be removed)
go on at least two more hikes
go swimming with my son often so that maybe he will be able to swim at the end of summer
go to a party in Bamberg in two weeks
attend the first German raveler meeting in the middle of September and before that to prepare my class there
use the hammock and enjoy the garden as often as I can

Right now it’s raining, I have to answer a gazillion e-mails, and phone a handful of people but my son is upstairs with his grandma and my husband is recording bass lines. Oh, I’ll do some singing for him soon, too.

You know why I love vacationing at home? If I were somewhere else right now I’d have to sit in a tiny ugly hotel room with both my husband and son, sitting on uncomfortable beds with nothing to do but wait until it stops raining.

On turning 42

July 27, 2009 by Susanne 3 Comments

When I still was in school my birthday always happened during summer break. Always. By the time school started again it was like a distant memory. Always a bit odd to celebrate it weeks later.

Now I’m a bit more grown-up and living in a different part of Germany where my birthday always happens in the last week before summer break. This year on a Monday. Which somehow feels wrong. At least my morning student moved her lesson (for her own reasons) but in the afternoon I almost had to work from 2 to 8. (I know it’s only 6.45 now, another student had to cancel.)

My new bad habits of not phoning friends, not sending birthday cards, not commenting on blogs, and working all day long means that I haven’t received that many birthday wishes so far. (My father sent an e-mail and I talked to my sister on the phone. Oh, and a cousin of mine sang “Zum Geburtstag viel Glück” on my answering machine. I think I might be ungrateful.)

On the other hand I was woken by my dear son at 7 with the words “Happy birthday Mama!”. I’m still trying to teach him that the “Don’t wake me before 7, please!”-rule does not mean he has to wake me precisely at seven but it was nice nonetheless.

I’m told that he didn’t want to draw me a picture but then he had the idea of giving me a meditation session. We fitted that in somewhere around 12 today, we met in his room with our cushions, and he had organized a candle, and some incense, and had drawn all the curtains. We sat there, the three of us, for a moment of much needed peace.

It had been my husband’s idea to leave our son home from kindergarten today. The two of them went out on their bikes to cut flowers for me. So sweet.

We had cake for breakfast, and went out for Asian food for lunch. I still haven’t had any champagne yet which is a shame but I’ll get to it later, I promise. It’s already cooling in the fridge.

I just looked at the post I wrote last year for my birthday. I wrote that I had been looking longingly at spinning wheels on the internet. Well, guess what I did today? I know, I already have a spinning wheel but I’d like to have a travel wheel. And since I have received generous gifts of money from both my husband and mother-in-law I’m almost halfway there. Of course, being me I’m already planning to order one tomorrow, and then save the money for it later. (The reasoning behind it goes like this: If I take my birthday money, and the money I’ll earn by teaching that one student all through summer break, and the money I put away for the piano, I’ll have enough. And the wheel will be here in time for the next spinning meeting, and I don’t have to pack my wheel into plastic bags again (the other spinners were already laughing at me last time), nor will I have to sew a bag for a wheel that I won’t be lugging around much longer.) Very reasonable, isn’t it?

Apart from those nice little printed pieces of paper in envelopes I also got a heap of books because this time when my parents asked me about what I wanted for my birthday, not only did I say, “You know, I have an Amazon wishlist,” I also added, “Maybe my sister will help you with ordering something.” Because while my father has been having a computer since the late 70s he is still on dial-up and using a browser that doesn’t do java or flash or anything. So my dear sister helped out and I got a lovely package filled with books. I already started reading “How to be Idle” nodding my head at every other paragraph, and reading parts of it aloud to my husband.

When I woke up this morning I planned to write about how crappy the last year has been, how bad I feel about my weight gain (I have an ipod application that tells me I have gained 5.4 kilos in the past year.), and how I’m still tired, and meh, and not making any music or writing stories and such. But now that the day has gone a bit further along I feel much better.

So now (I have taught my last student for today in the meantime, these blog posts sometimes stretch out a bit.) I will go to the kitchen, to my dear family, open that champagne bottle and celebrate a bit. For about half an hour until it’s time for my son to go to bed. And then some more after he has fallen asleep.

A short break from parenting

July 23, 2009 by Susanne 4 Comments

My son has been away with the kindergarten for two days now. Most of those who will be starting elementary school in fall went to a hostel in the Alps on Tuesday morning and will return today, Thursday, in the afternoon. It has been a really great time for me and my husband.

I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks now. It’s not that I actually wanted to get rid of my son, it’s just that I imagined an almost three day break from parenting to be quite delightful. And it was.

This time I managed to pack in advance and without stress, I think I’m getting better at this traveling thing. We ended up having to borrow the biggest suitcase my mother-in-law owns for his things. We got a list of things to pack, among them hiking boots, rubber boots, regular shoes, and house slippers. Three times everything and about as many towels as I would pack for the whole family. The list wasn’t unreasonable though, it just took care of possibilities like him getting wet or dirty every day.

When I sent him off on Tuesday I once again was struck by the tendency of modern society to make everything into a huge drama-filled event. Fortunately only one child started crying when entering the bus but there was a lot of forced smiling going on with the mothers. Instead of dropping my son of with his suitcase in tow, like I had imagined, I got to stand around for half an hour. When the bus finally disappeared around the corner I overheard several other mothers talking about how hard it was to let their precious children go away on their own for two nights. And I thought, “Huh?”

Of course it is weird to have him stay away from home without relatives but then I know he’ll have a blast. And while I do miss him I miss him much less than I thought I would. When all the other mothers went away wiping their eyes I put on my ipod and set the music to loud while thinking, “Yeah! I’m free!” There was a swing in my step and it hasn’t really left me since then.

I’m used to not having my son around all the time. He spends his day in kindergarten until 4 in the afternoon, and then he is at his grandmother’s three days a week. And on weekends he frequently sleeps at her place too. So I really didn’t think that I spend much time on caring for my son. Often I only see him shortly before bedtime, and in the mornings for breakfast. So I went on about my day on Tuesday as usual when suddenly after my last student left I realized that, no, I didn’t have to rush off to fetch my son. I could just stay at home, watch the Tour de France on TV and spin. Very relaxing.

In the evening I waited for my husband to finish work before having dinner. We spent a delightful meal talking and eating. Afterwards we did the kitchen and just when I thought, “Oh my, it’s bedtime.” I remembered that it wasn’t that day. Instead we went for a long walk and still had enough of the evening left to watch Torchwood in my case, and obscure bands on youtube in my husband’s. I went to bed at midnight, feeling slightly guilty for staying up late, and then I realized that I didn’t have to get up in the morning. No alarm clock! I just slept in until 8.30, and woke all rested and relaxed.

The next day again there was time for talking with my husband, eating lunch at a leisurely pace, watching a bit of Tour de France and spinning before teaching, and after work, instead of rushing off to fetch my son to put him to bed before having dinner myself I could just play the piano a bit before eating with my husband. (Wednesdays my son stays with his grandmother after kindergarten and I fetch him in time for him to go to bed. In order to get him to bed on time I postpone my own dinner until 8.30 or something. Usually I start getting hungry around 6.)

I got to watch two episodes of Torchwood this time, knitting away, I went to bed at twelve again, and again, I got up in the morning somewhere around 8.30 feeling fresh and well.

I have to say that I’m a bit shocked about the amount of time and energy I have when my son isn’t home. I didn’t know it was that much. I’m also quite shocked at how peaceful I feel without him. Yes, there is someone missing, and I really don’t want him to stay away, only I suddenly find that my life works better without him.

Of course I spent a lot of the past days musing about whether I am a heartless, and unfeeling person. I watched the other mothers when their children left the parking lot. They weren’t looking elated, they were sad. Or maybe they were just putting on an act, driving home in their cars afterwards, closing the doors to their homes, and pulling out the champagne, but I doubt it.

I find that I spend a lot of time thinking about why I don’t feel like people expect me to feel. Like the “they’re growing up so fast”-sentiment. That’s always uttered with a sense of loss. Like Beck did in one of her parenting posts. And I really believe that she – and all the others – are feeling it, and yes, I even can understand the urge to keep my child close, only most of me shrugs her shoulders and says, “So what?” Yes, he’s growing up, yes, he will be going away someday, and you know what? I love it.

I don’t want my son to stay at my side forever because, frankly, he’s got better things to do with his life. And I’ve got better things to do with my life too. Of course I want to stay in his life. It would be very, very sad to have a son who refuses to speak with me when he’s older. I hope that we’ll always love, respect, and cherish each other, and that we will seek each other’s company.

I didn’t quite know if I should write this post. Because in all this you have to keep in mind that if anyone came to take my son away from me I’d probably try to kill him. We’re speaking of my own flesh and blood, about a person I love more than my life. But still, having a break from being a parent feels nice once in a while.

Oh, and the best thing was when about two hours after the children had left I found two calls on my answering machine (we almost never answer the phone). First was a message from a fellow mother saying, “Oh, you’re not home, well since we agreed on calling each other when the children are safely at their destination…” (I didn’t agree on anything, I didn’t know I was supposed to sit next to my phone until someone told me my child had survived a 90 minute road trip.) The next message started with, “Hello, this is Verena from the kindergarten…” and my first thought was, “Oh God, something has happened!” because why would she call me otherwise? Well, she called to say that – the children had evidently survived the trip. Please, I don’t need an hourly update on my child’s status. Really. I’d like to hear from you if something went wrong. When I hear nothing I’ll just assume that he’s alright.

He’s probably having a great time. He’s surrounded by all his friends and teachers he loves, they have been hiking, and playing, and telling stories, and sleeping all in one room in their sleeping bags, and eating delicious food. And as everybody knows, the only thing better than having a nice vacation is coming back to a nice home again. He’ll be back in about three hours. Until then you’ll find me enjoying my time. And then I’ll give my son a great big hug.