Barbara's Away Game
1/5/2012
I am gone...
Columnist’s note: I wish all of you a Happy New Year. We were two weeks in Germany, enjoyed Aachen/Vaals, Cologne, Würzburg and Berlin. We visited a lot of nice people, celebrated Christmas and New Years Eve and so we recognized that actually everything is as usual at home. Good so!
I want to dedicate this column to Nobbi and Petra. Nobbi, because he had not only a wonderful idea of a spectacular Christmas present, he also realized it. And Petra had years ago a wonderful idea. Together with a partner she thought about a spectacular project and realized it too. So she helped me years later to a gorgeous Christmas present. Thanks both of you. Actually I’m lost for words, but there are still enough to write about it.
Hundred Masterpieces
48 of 100
Art! What is art? I don’t want to discuss this question, too many answers. For me it’s sure that art has something to do with ability as well as with creativity. The difference between masterpieces and minor arts leaves undecided.
Not the worth of a work, the name of an artist or criticism are important, only if it pleases me, if it touches me anyhow. It must arouse emotions, whether positive or negative. The same is true for music as well as for literature, theater, movies, sculptures and paintings, whereas sculptures and paintings have no easy play with me. Many times I view a painting, which is called a masterpiece, I think nice. Not more, just nice! Am I a philistine? Or is everything due to a bad experience in the Wallraff Richards Museum in Cologne in my early childhood? No, none of them, because there are paintings and sculptures that touch me.
It’s easier if I have help. For example art educators, who tell something about the work, or humans, who grapple with art in any kind explaining, handling or playful.
Years ago I was fascinated by Ursus and Nadeschkin, a cabaret duo from Switzerland. They came up with the idea of tiding up art. Ursus was also in the USA:
Ursus in America, tiding up art:
I love the idea as well as the realization. The wit to play with serious art is also a kind of art; satire!
Petra is a friend from Aachen/Vaals, artist, free-lanced art educator and employed in a Museum in Aachen. In 2008 she worked together with a partner on a couple of interesting art projects. There was among others the Hundred Masterpieces. The two women, taken together to a fictive person Cintra, brought 100 great works of artists of the 20th Century on circa 8x8 inch (20x20cm) canvas. They didn’t copy simply the paintings; they gave the little paintings a new look, style or spirit. They zoomed in or out, painted on textured wallpaper and so they got a new own touch. They painted 100 little masterpieces and created a new artwork. On the back is written: Cintra meets and the name of the artist. In the music it would be called a covered medley.
2008 Petra guided Nobbi and me through her exhibition. We had both the same opinion. If we would have the money, we would like to buy the whole work. You could so lovely play with it. Cintra, the two artists, didn’t see the work as an art-work, it wasn’t an unique work for them, it was more a project. You could buy single pictures and they painted them again if there were customers. So they sold for example only the white pictures, or one single item, a favorite painting, or only pop artists, or impressionists.
I thought: “What a pity to separate the little pictures.” If I would buy pictures, it must be a huge amount. The work lives by its wholeness.
Not only the pictures were separated, also the partnership of the two women broke up. The pictures of the project have been divided.
Shortly after that I didn’t thought about the work anymore. But Nobbi did! 49 pictures were still in Petra’s cellar, one of them she took for a friend and the others I got to Christmas. 52 will come when they are painted. I may even wish me some of them.
I have a lot of fun. I pinned saw-tooth brackets on the frames and nailed 49 nails in the living room to hang-up the paintings.
Hundred Masterpieces, 48 of 100,
the slideshow:
Every viewer is allowed to re-sort the work, tiding up art in an own way. It’s a game.
It’s a big delight for me to explore the details. Depending on the light conditions Harings little guys shine in small squares, because they were painted on textured wallpaper. I found the same pattern in the black elements of Lüppertz. The best detail of all is in the Lichtenstein. He has been revised for me. Petra, Nobbi, I’m sure you two had a funny afternoon together.
On the backside you can read: Kintra meets Lichtenstein
I think it has to be: Lichtenstein meets Barbara’s away game
This riddle is for busy readers easy to solve. Who is the blonde woman and what is her story? I’m happy, if you mail me the answer.
Art or No-Art, I don’t care. For me it’s art, living art in the living room! Petra and Nobbi thank you so much. The wall is big enough for the additional 52 paintings. I wish me Gogh, Starry Night, I like the blue sky, Munch, the scream, I don’t like this face, and a Nolde, he was a friend of my grandmother’s parents.
1/23/2012
I am gone…
Awards Dinner
In the last weeks and months my columns changed. The self-chosen task to inform about clichés and American mannerisms has taken a back seat. That is for sure an absolute natural procedure. I settled in and I am in the middle of the integration. I don’t have the role of the observer anymore, who just notices things, smiles or shakes the head about such he doesn’t understand, no! I live here now. I do this with my body and my heart. This is my nature.
Things, about which I still wondered months ago, became routine. Now I love “typical American” I didn’t understand before, and I notice how I adapt me. I discover so many advantages, so much positive thinking and doing, that I already know I will really miss it when we are back in Germany again.
Of course there will be ever things I won’t understand, things I shake my head about and which show me, how different we are, the Germans and the Americans. But that’s not bad, quite the contrary. It gives refreshing space for discussion.
I already mentioned it; in the meantime I’m a proud member of the Santa Clara Dog Trainings Club (SCDTC). Proud member! Here you read the first adaption! Proudness, absolutely a typical American attribute. Something I shook months ago my head about. Do you really need to highlight everything you do, you achieve or you just have, cause of a lucky coincidence? All along I see cars with the sticker:
Proud parent of an honor student...
Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of one of these stickers, because I always sit behind the wheel, when I see such a sticker on the car in front of me. Never ever I would come up with the idea to spotlight in any kind that I’m proud of my sons. But to be honest: I am! One is so good in school and all by himself, the other is that sportive and the third has a wonderful and special character.
Proudness!
Why not saying it loud? Is there the fear to fail? Maybe others are better? Causes it too much pressure for some human? If proudness and achievement is so important, are then all the other guys lame ducks? Probably I could fill sides with thoughts about the pros and contras of proudness. But nobody wants to read this, anyway not here...
I only notice that being proud and make it known is here in America much more common than in Germany. I don’t want to rate it here in public.
In some restaurants the waiter and waitresses have medals or little signs on their shirts and on the way to the bathroom you can see on the wall the certificates: Employee of the Month. To elect the employee of the month is in some companies a popular way to motivate the staff. Schools elect honor students and committed teacher and scouts have to earn sticker for the shirt. The list of the awards is very long.
Award! When I hear award I think at Oscar, Grammy and the Bavarian Movie Award.
Picture: Thank google!
Now I got as a member of the Dog Club an invitation to the awards dinner. I see! Here too! Of course, we are in America!
I was a little bit excited, I still didn’t know, what’s going on there. Any dress code? Perhaps evening dress? Like I said, when I hear award, I think at the Oscar.
No, not at all. That was just a weird idea of my fantasy. Smart casual, thank God I ask before. What a funny vision: Barbara, totally overdressed!
The meeting was more festive than the other club meetings I joined, the dinner was fine, we spoke about the successful trial the weekend before, thanks to all the volunteers, some points were discussed and voted and after the dinner the awards were presented. Every member who made a title with his dog last year got an award, individually made for each team. Then there were the awards for 40 and 50 years membership and working for the club and one special award. No complex or boring speeches, no wordy expression of thanks but a wonderful presentation (good job, Wendy), absolutely a felicitous evening.
I will familiarize awards dinner. For me it was surly an occasion to think once again about proudness and how to handle it.
With what I really have problems as German are the fact that after the presentation of the last award the event was promptly over. Quick and easy. I know it was an awards dinner not an “After Awards Dinner Party”. Too bad, because it was such a nice evening. I enjoyed sitting with the other dog club members, talking about bits and pieces. I could have sit there much longer, talking and joking with the others.
There are just things I never will be understand.
I learned: I’m a proud wife of a successful husband, proud mother of three great sons, a proud owner of two gorgeous dogs and a proud member of the Santa Clara Dog Trainings Club. Proudness...I really can live with it. America...here we go!
1/26/2012
I am gone...
Big Brother is watching you
... we even show it voluntarily to him
He doesn’t see everything, but quite a lot.
I got e-mails from amazon; maybe you like this or that book about raw feeding dogs. Once I ordered a book about raw food. Well, I would have like to answer that I already have one and that’s enough for the moment. What a pity that you can’t answer such kind of mails.
In our Forum Basti and I tried to influence the advertisements with writing silly things. It worked. Basti wrote something about cars and we got some announcements for used cars and car insurance. I never understand the advertisement for the moldiness-conference. Never mind! The Forum is dead! I found the link to cancel the amazon-mails with the annoying bargains.
And now I am on Facebook!
Month ago I signed in and why? I’m so curious. An acquaintance invited me to follow his moving in the area here. He posted it on Facebook. Why not? I signed in and now I’m on Facebook. First just to look what others do, a passive member. What a curse! “XXX wants to be friends with you.” Either I ignored the question or I clicked confirm. I would better click: “Ok, if it is absolutely necessary!” Then I had friends and nothing happened. There are people you didn’t have seen for years and they wrote not a single word, nothing! What a pity! I have so many words left over; I would like to swap them with friends.
Of course there are others, dear friends, with whom I chat betimes, little exchanges, but basically I was passive. I felt observed. Not only by friends, more by Big Brother, who offers me on the rim San Jose Groupons (I’ll be damned if I know, what that is!), or they tell me that Heidi Klum lost 30 pounds with a miracle diet and I could do the same. If I would loose 30 pounds I would need seriously a doctor. Probably Big Brother thinks, who is so much online, has weight problems for sure. Ha! Got you!
I don’t look on it anymore; instead I catch me more often by watching what the others do. A dear school friend, she has also a lot of words left over, wrote me that she is hooked on Facebook, because she is so pretty curious. In the meantime I understood.
To hear how is really the going of the friends and to go in depth is Facebook the wrong place. I use it more as entertainment, like the wraparound news in the newspaper or the area news and talk shows in TV, also a little bit People magazine (just without Celebrities), all this with the big advantage that I know them all. Some more, some less!
And don’t forget the really tough information!
I heard in Facebook about the sad news that in Duisburg/Germany a pet store begins to sell puppies. The entire dog world in Germany is upset, with good reason. Besides I read jokes, watch funny videos on You Tube and from time to time I sign an online petition against this or that.
It is like newspaper and television and we are the editors! Great!
One favorite video:
Well then I actually discovered that Facebook is very useful for myself. I tried to upload my own slideshows, half an hour after that they deleted them with all comments, because I violated the copyrights. I promised betterment, because they impend to close my account. Now I will be a good girl! I only link my columns, that should be ok.
In the meantime I posted successfully some pictures, added new friends and wrote mostly some words to welcome them.
Barbara’s Away Game goes Facebook! Name: Barbara Auswärtsspiel
Henceforth you can hear when a new column is published, from time to time I’ll post some pictures and I’m always ready to swap some words with friends.
I don’t care anymore that there is somewhere in cyberspace somebody or something knowing everything about me. I go with it. Therefore I can watch my friends and be able to show them whatever I want as long as I accept the copyrights.
Big Brother, you give me the room to meet a lot of people in your house. I tell you my stories, you listen, I show you wonderful pictures, you watch them and sometimes I have free music to hear. That could be a wonderful friendship.
1/23/2012
I am gone
Columnist’s note: I dedicate this column to Christilla, my neighbor. The dogs can’t thank with words, they do this with glances, with whipping tails and with trust. I will thank you with words, you give me the opportunity to watch growing puppies and you show me that there are people who have enough heart to help where help is needed.
Neighbor’s Foster Puppies
Unbelievable! There are people, they have a bitch, which was accidently mated, and they have no better idea as bring her to the shelter.
Such things happen again and again and everywhere. That’s not an American problem; it’s a human problem! How does man see the pet, the dog and how does he take the responsibility?
Neighbor’s foster puppies, 4 weeks old
In Germany it was just going through the press; a pet store in Duisburg/ Germany started the selling of puppies, as they do it with birds and rabbits. If it is morally tolerable to sell living birds, rodents or reptiles I don’t want to discuss.
But I want explain that selling puppies in a pet store can’t be species appropriate. Never ever and under no circumstances!!! Dogs are social forms of living, with needs you can’t satisfy in a store. The first weeks in the life of a dog have essential weight for his development. In this weeks switches will be made for the rest of his life. It’s not enough to give him food and keep the kennel clean. In this time the dog learns social behavior, environmental stimuli and to know the world he’s destined to live in.
Good breeders know about their responsibility, I’m sure, loving hobby-breeders too. Sad to say; it always gives exceptions. The question is; do the humans, who take a dog, know how important that is and do they actually care about this?
At the latest when they stand desperately in the dog school, informing about “social misbehavior” or some “panic attacks” of the four legged friend, they find out that there is no pill against missing impressions in the early puppy-time.
What the pet store in Duisburg and anywhere else can’t achieve, can the shelter neither. The difference I see is that the shelter cares about the mother and the puppies. They try to find people who give them what they need, to give them a home that not only satisfies just basic needs like food and tidiness but also ensures social contacts and a lot of important and different impressions.
3 Foster-Gang-Members, 5 weeks old
My neighbor read an announcement in Craig’s-list that they are looking for such a foster family. One bitch with seven puppies needs a home. Christilla, my neighbor, has enough space, time, force and energy. Now she’s a foster-mommy. I take my hat off!!! She does her job great. Sometimes I visit the puppies to cuddle or to play with them and take some pictures of the cute gang.
Christilla is working hard, mother dog is thankful. The small pups grow fast and develop gorgeous. One little boy was very sick, he almost died but Christilla cockered him up again. Now he is happily running around, just smaller than the others. You saw the worry while she was talking about that. She is busy; cleaning, grooming, cleaning, playing, cleaning, cuddling, preparing another room for the gang, cleaning and beneath all these, walking the adult dogs, and care about the human family members.
It’s hard work but not only, they give also something. In the meantime they are so big, that they’re drinking while standing, they got tiny teeth and you can see the first different characters.
I hope that all seven pups and the mother will find good people who give them the home they need. Who give them not only food and space in the yard, but also the social contact, the education and the play they need to be happy dogs, people, who show responsibility, not only when the time and the circumstances it allows. They have earned it.
The dog is the best friend of man. This should be based on reciprocity.
2/11/2012
I am gone…
Dental Care
Here in America I needed a long time to have the heart to go to the dentist. I always need long time to go to a new doctor. I lived before 22 years in Aachen, so I only had one dentist-change since I moved to Aachen. Not because I changed the dentist, but because my dentist give up his practice to a younger dentist.
I trusted my dentist. I never sat long in the waiting room, the annoying calculus-removal was painful but routine. I know how important it is. The worst treatment was a replacement of an old amalgam filling, but I could stand it because of the amazing anesthetic’s side effect. I reacted pretty hard and was the whole day hyped up. The dentist was worried and I giggled all the time.
Well you should go twice in one year to the dentist I know it. I needed almost three-quarters of the year to get the address of a German dentist from a friend here in the area. It was Nobbi, my husband, who makes an appointment for the whole family. I don’t know, why I have so big problems to do that.
Already making an appointment at a new doctor shows a fundamental difference between the health care systems in Germany and the USA. In the USA you have to look if your insurance and the doctor are compatible. In Germany the most people are in a public health insurance and usually every doctor takes them. There are exceptions but that doesn’t count. If you have a private insurance you also can go to the doctor you want. I have heard about contracts between insurances and health care, but it’s for rehabilitation and treatment at a health resort. But this is health care for advanced. I speak just about the primary health care. There you have in Germany not the problem with the question; who and where and which.
I still have not understood the health care system here and presumably I never will. I only know, not every insurance pays every doctor and/or every treatment. The insurance has “contract-partner”. If a treatment will be paid you have to check before. I heard you do this usually with a phone call. It seems to be pretty annoying! I hope that nobody of us will be really sick and we only need health exams and common routine. I have no idea what to do if there would be an emergency, which needs fast decisions and treatment. Do you also have to call the insurance first?
Anyway a friend here told me; you must not have fear for a doctor in in America. Nobody will hurt you!
This sentence I totally forgot.
I was terribly afraid to go to the dentist. Not only that he scolds me that I wasn’t so long at the dentist, also that we have maybe problems with the communication and most of all the fear that the calculus removal becomes a trip through the hell. Whatever, I was not at all relaxed.
But the dentist is in California and so he has sun in his heart as well as his employees. The woman behind the desk was outstanding friendly and I answered the here common question “How is the going?” very uncommon with: “Terrible, I’m at the dentist and full of fear!!!” She becalmed me, very gently and gave me a lot of paperwork for distraction. I had a lot of questions she answered very patient and asked me also many questions but not about the dental thing, just so. Either she wanted to distract me or she was very curious.
They take their time for you. And first of all they take your blood pressure. Dentist! Blood pressure? I’m not sure if any dentist in Germany is able to take the blood pressure of his patients and if, he’s maybe not allowed to do this, because he is dentist and not family doctor. But I don’t know, anyway it was a kind of special for me. Well, I understand I could have a heart attack. Is that what you call holistic medicine?
The detailed anamnesis and dental health exam took an hour. A talk with the dentist, measure of the gingival sulcus, X-ray and all inclusives what needed and the insurance was willing to pay. In the background sang Frank Sinatra Christmas songs, it was shortly before the Holidays. For the deep cleaning we made two appointments, I wondered a bit about that, but now I know why.
I got not only the deepest and gentlest teeth cleaning of my entire life, I also got a private class: “Flossing and brushing but right!” Actually I already made it well, but little things were improvable.
I spent each time an hour with Prophylaxis Jane (name changed by the editors). Her daughter plays soccer in college and smiled at me out of a framed picture.
Usually I lie tensed on the chair, sweating cold and fearfully awaiting the terrifying moment when the sonic plaque remover hits the backside teeth necks of the lower incisors. This is the moment when my fingernails drill into my palms because my clenched fists try to contract on walnut size. In the same way every other muscle tenses in my body and I wait for the sentence: “If it hurts you give a holler!” Then I want to laugh out, because it always hurts and nobody cares. You have to go through it!
How was that? Here nobody hurts you!
Prophylaxis Jane carefully vibrated from tooth to tooth. I relaxed. As she came to the lower incisors I shrugged, but more of custom than of pain. She intermitted: “Is everything OK? Really, I don’t wonna hurt you! I can give you something.” I smiled blissful and thought at the sentence that nobody hurts me here. I didn’t want and I didn’t need bitter medicine. Jane asked more than once. She wanted to give me some; maybe she was afraid that I would bring an action against her.
All in all she needed two hours, my smile is plaque-free again and I have to grin when I scan my teeth with my tongue. It didn’t hurt a bit.
I guess that Prophylaxis Jane was more afraid to hurt me than myself. That’s really calming. I asked me why? Is that the fear to get charged? Is it the care about the patient? Is it the pressure to loose the patient? Or is the American just not so tough as the German, maybe he is more sensitive to pain. Presumable the German health system is pretty hard with us patients.
Anyhow here nobody hurts you.
My next appointment is in three month. I’m looking forward!