Barbara's Away Game



7.9.2011

I am gone…

Columnist’s note: I will try to write in English for our English speaking friends. We had the google translator in the top right corner of this side, but a translating machine is funny but not a good translator. There are many mistakes in the translation. Well, my English is not really better, but I want to make my own mistakes. Now you read my last column with my words, my grammar and my faults…

Dear Colleagues of Norbert, I needed much more time to translate this column than to write it. Maybe you can read it in a couple of minutes; I sat here for hours translating. However, I enjoyed this afternoon with you and the next barbecue will be in early summer, without the wasps.

BBQ

The Americans love abbreviations. Maybe BBQ is one of the most common, although I have to confess to my shame that I did not know what it means one year ago, when it appeared on an invitation to any event. If you know that here in America the abbreviations not only are made of important initials but also with onomatopoeias (hey, this is really a difficult word, dictionary thanks, I mean the sound of the letter or a number, it is not really an onomatopoeia, but it sounds so good), then you are able to get it. If you speak BBQ onomatopoeic, then you get BE-BE-Q, ok, and if you know that this event is happening outside and you have to bring your own steaks, then it is easy, that it means barbecue.

We love Barbecues too, all along, but like so much we do, only in low-budget-version.
In Aachen, Germany, we had for decades a 5,- DM (~3.50 $) grill from a gas station. We bought it at the beginning of our university time to use it in the Westpark in Aachen, Germany. It accompanied us for many years until one day it collapsed under the weight of the 1000
th grilled bacon. Well, we needed replacement and there were no more 5,-DM grills to buy, because the Euro was introduced. Due to the grown number of family members we purchased a 15 to 20 € (20 to 30 $) grill pan with a swinging rack, bigger than the old one, low-budget for the advanced.

One day this barbecue rusted through, too, however the guests were on their way and we needed to improvise. We saved the barbecue evening, while we put the grill pan on a little tower of bricks, because it lost a leg. So we could grill. It was nothing for a long time, it was wobbly and you could not move the grill pan when there were hot coals in it. But it worked a whole summer. We agreed that we would get a solid grill before the next barbecue season.

Nobbi is a do-it-yourselfer, he recycles and he throws nothing away, what becomes eventually useful. From time to time he walks with the cordless screwdriver and some ideas through the house, the garden, the junk room or the garage and the results are more or less proper.

At the end of this grill season there was not only a damaged grill, we had also a defect chair, made of metal. The seat was missing, because it broke from the often change of sun and rain. Without hesitation Nobbi sawed the backrest off, screwed the grill pan on the chair legs and finished so our new grill. A solid grill for the next season, I wanted one and I got one. Great! This grill will make it to the next currency reform.

Anyway we didn’t move the beloved grill to the USA. In the hills above Silicon Valley we can’t use a charcoal grill. A stray spark could activate a forest fire. We lease the grill together with our house in Vaals, Netherlands near Aachen, Germany.

Here in California it was the first time in our entire life that we purchased a non-low-budget-grill. The Grill had to work with propane and so it became a typical American Big Propane Barbecue, with which it is no problem to grill for a huge Summer Party.

So Nobbi had the idea to give a barbecue for his colleagues. I was OK with it, but if I’m honest, I was not so happy with that like him. It was not the work I have, I like it to have guests and I like it to prepare a party. In the end I have a reason to clean up the mess on my desk, only for me I don’t do it anyway. No, it is because I am always so excited, if there come so many strange guests I don’t know and only Nobbi know them. But he promised a lot of nice people and he was right…

(How so often I forgot to make pictures, sorry about that, the picture from the spare ribs I made in the beginning, after that I forgot it to use my camera. Now I have nobody to ask, if it is allowed to show the pictures on this website. This is here the common way to do it.)

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High-Tech-Spare Ribs a Chinese specialty from Texas


It was a funny and really a very international afternoon, maybe so ragtag like a general meeting from the United Nations. China, Japan, USA, Philippines, Austria, Belgium and Germany were completely present. Brazil, India and Korea were invited but excused absent. Mexico was present due to an US-Citizen, in whose vessels also Mexican blood flows and France was present due to a German who lives in the Netherlands and whose mother is a Frenchwoman.

One Chinese grilled typical Texan Spare Ribs, with spices and a high-tech-meat-wireless-thermometer, he brought by his own, there was Turkish Tcacik made of Russian Yogurt with Australian Dill in the tube, peppers stuffed with Greek Feta Cheese, Chinese and Japanese Cakes, Italian Tiramisu, Austrian paste of fresh cheese, (Sorry, I forgot the name), but I have heard that you get it on every mountain cottage in the Austrian Alps, Chinese mushrooms, a lot of different other specialties and many bottles of Belgium beer, which was compared in tasting to German, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and American beer.

The Austrian spoke with the Belgians Dutch, the Japanese told about the romantic travel through the German river Main, from -Rothenburg ob der Tauber- and the lovely castle Neuschwanstein. China showed that it is able to cook more than only chop suey and complained about the small parking spaces in Paris/ France.

The nation which was most numerously featured this afternoon was definitely the folk of the wasps. They came with hundreds and more to taste from all the yummy stuff on the table.

All in all it was a great afternoon and the next time Nobbi will invite his colleagues, I can directly be happy with this, because now they aren’t strangers for me.

It was an international afternoon, a barbecue of cultures: BBQOC


9.9.2011


I am gone…

Columnist’s note: I had a lot of fun to translate the last column. I don’t know if anyone will read it, but I don’t write for readers, I write for myself. Now in English, because this is the language I have to improve. It’s easier for me to write directly in English, than to translate. Well, this is my challenge. I translate my own texts. Nobody else would do this with my words. (I borrow them from the English language!)

Freebording

USA is the country of the cool sports and especially the cool sports equipment. Here you drive not only skateboard or inlineskates, no, you will top it.

Higher, faster, farther…

It was in May, when an illustrious group of young people with a white van was seen at our hill. First Jonathan met them behind the house, where he was walking the dogs. They drove downhill on the wide asphalted street with their skateboards, where never drives a car. It’s a closed area, a private drive with a gate. Jonathan told me what he has seen. I thought: Good so, then nobody will be run over but maybe it is a little bit dangerous to skate such a steep hill downwards. Next time Samuel met them, when he was driving the motorcycle. They ask him for nice places to drive downhill.

One day or other in the afternoon the dogs were loud barking. As I looked for the reason, I saw even this white van directly in front of our gate. A lot of people with funny caps left the car and changed promptly the headpieces against helmets. I asked if I could help anyway. “No, no, everything is fine!”

In my mind: “Please don't be caught by John!” He can’t stand strangers on the hill, especially if they are under 25 years old. He is very sensible with the private drive and basically he distrusts young people. I thought it is funny, because if you are skating on every private drive here in the hills, you have a lot of fun…

A little bit later, in June, there was a new traffic sign, placed by John that clearly says that our road is a private drive. What a pity!

Now Moritz had the idea to purchase such a freebord too. He told me that it is like snowboarding, even only on asphalt. Why not? It seems a little bit dangerous, but if I see all the soccer playing friends and their injuries, that couldn’t become worse.

Moritz is efficient prepared. He can theoretically drive in perfection because he watched all the Videos about freebording at you tube. And you can’t believe what he has found: a video from even this funny group of freeborders, who visited our hill in May.

Look by yourself: at 54 seconds you see, how they are skating downhill our street and in the background you can see the gate with the poster –Please protect the fawns-, at 1 minute and 2 seconds you can see the white van coming down the street and at the right there are my favourite traffic signs “hawk” and “owl”. A little bit behind this curve is our house. Of course you can’t see it but I know that it is there. Actually I am standing at the gate, shaking my head and regarding the freeborders.

Watch this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEAhI2mYUtM&NR=1


The rest of the footage arose from this area here, the street at the ocean is anywhere near Santa Cruz, meant Moritz. The shots with the nice houses and the stairs are made in San Francisco.

Here pictures to compare:


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By the way this poster didn’t hang anymore, although there are still a lot of fawns in the hills. No more than a week ago a small one has been run over by a car, I am so sad about that.

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This picture is from today: Without poster, but almost in the same perspective, not exactly, because I couldn’t climb with flipflops on the hill.

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Picture: With dog instead car, here I also didn’t get the same pespective as in the video.


Take this video as a postcard in motion. Greetings from California to Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and New York…


11.9.2011


I am gone…

ABC 7 News

Occasionally I mentioned it that the American news are basically different to the German news, that American Cartoons tease about that, maybe too. Therefore I love them.

Almost every day I watch the 9pm news. Of course I want to know, what happens in the world. It’s a small world. There is the South Bay, the East Bay (with daily news of shootings in Oakland) the North Bay, the Peninsula and San Francisco. If really important things happen, then you will hear from anywhere else, like New York, Washington or like few days ago about the power blackout in San Diego.

Sure, sometimes it’s about Afghanistan or Northern Africa and if there is anywhere in the world a big disaster, they will tell you.

It seems that the audience and the newsmakers like the “wraparound the neighbourhood” side of the news more than the reports about disasters. It remembers me at the “Aktuelle Stunde” or other regional news in public TV in Germany. People, like you and me, will be interviewed and it will be reported about their stories. Maybe it’s a thing of the silly season or of disaster less times.

Usually that are of course stories from this area here, sometimes they exceed the border of California, reports from Nevada or Arizona and very seldom from overseas. For example I have heard a few days ago from a drunken female moose in Sweden, which ate fermented apples and suffered hard from the intoxication. At last she hung absolutely potted anyhow in an apple tree.

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As I was sitting yesterday with Nobbi in a restaurant at the East Bay (why there and what we were doing there, is a completely different story) I had a good view to all 4 monitors. Well, it’s totally normal that you can watch in a common restaurant sports on TV all around the clock. I’m still distracted by that and I can neither concentrate to my meal nor listen to my vis-à-vis, but actually I have adjusted to that. Well, I don’t be interested in Football, Baseball and Basketball. There were on 3 flat screens sports, at the 4
th, which hung right in the direction to Nobbi over his head, showed the collapsing twin towers ten years ago and some people who were interviewed about that. We couldn’t here anything, but I was pretty distracted from the meal and the talking. 10 years 9/11…

Last year, same time I was in Germany. I visited my mother for the very last time and celebrated wedding with friends in Aachen.

There aren’t any 9 o’clock news on Sundays, but today there are. Watch this:

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ABC 7 News, the story today:

Nice couple in Germany

Asian Reporter Tricia Takanoa travelled to Aachen, Germany, to speak with Rainer and Steffi, who celebrated just a year ago their marriage after a long time concubinage. She met the couple in their apartment.

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Tricia Takanoa, ABC 7 News


Columnist’s note: Actually the ABC7 reporter called Lisa Amin Gulezian, she isn’t really Asian but her nose looks like, she speaks like the caricature from Family Guy and I roll over the floor for laughing, when I hear Tricia or Lisa speaking, because I see then either Lisa or Tricia for my own eyes.

AUS_103_04 Lisa Amin Gulezian (this smile she has only in this picture, usually she has only a decent smile that never changes)

(Rainer and Steffi sit nervous on their white loveseat, Tricia sits on the nice armchair from the fifties, she holds the micro in her hand and smiles in the camera. Oskar, the red striped he-cat creeps around the seating furniture and mews from time to time.)

Asian Reporter: (close-up, the nose is good to spot, no wrinkle, no tiny hair, a face like a painting, she noses hard when she is talking and she accents every syllable in an very unnatural way) How do you feel, one year later?

Man: (Tricia is still seen) OK, first I want thank all people (right now the camera pans to him) who celebrate our big day with us…aham (he harrumphs)

Woman: (hard nodding) Yes, yes…

Asian Reporter: (looks in her notes, then in the camera again) What has been changed with the marriage after such a long time concubinage?

Man: (looks at his wife, a shining glance in the eyes) Everything, it’s completely different. You know, things are going better and better.

Woman: (watches the ground) We have less, ahem, you know…

Cat: (close-up, he cuddles along Tricias leg) Miouuu…

Man: (you can only hear him, still close up to the he-cat) Yepp…

(panning shot directly from cat to Tricia, who focuses the camera and sighs) How cute!!! (…decent smile, as all the time)

Asian Reporter: (first she looks in her notes again, then in the camera, light smile; not more, not less) Sorry for the indiscretion but this is the audience question: Many Americans suffer under weight problems. How many pounds have you gain since your marriage?

Woman: (smiles and turns a little bit the body around) I’m looking great, aren’t I?

Man: (pulls the belly in) Well as the saying is in German „In der Mitte? Da ist nichts in der Mitte!“ (right now under title: In the middle? Absolutely nothing in the middle!)

Asian Reporter: (close-up very close, really no wrinkle) Thank you for listening and answering…

Man and Woman: (wigwagging in the camera) Greeting to our good friends in California over the TEICH (right now under title: pool)

Cat: miouuu…

Asian Reporter:…In Aachen, Germany, Tricia Takkamowa, ABC7 News (articulation: nouuus- you can’t hear the j from the u- and more nosing than the rest)

(
Back to the news in San Francisco, Dan Ashley sits in the studio; in the background you can see the life picture from the Bay Bridge like every evening.)

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Dan Ashley: (easy smile, nobody wears the suit like him) Thank you Tricia in Europe. (turns around to Spencer Christian, the weather man, who sits right beside him and who’s laughing) Nice couple in Germany, Spencer, and almost no weight problems, Great!!!…Spencer Christian with the akku-weather-forecast!

(panning shot towards Spencer, who declares the morning fog and the following sun while he is happily laughing)

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(All pictures in this column: Thank google!)


Especially I have to thank Steffi and Rainer. The Interview has been happened just in this way. I have taken their words without any manipulation; I would never be able to make this better. Thank you very much. They gave me the permission for the publishing, although it is very personal.

I had a funny afternoon with this top story. Also Greetings over the Teich (pool)!


13.9.2011


I am gone…

Evel Knievel and Hobby Nobbi

Evel Knievel was an American motorcycle stuntman, who made fabulous jumps in the 60s and 70s of the last century and thereby he got again an again enormous bone fractures. I only knew him as action figure. My cousin had such a tiny plastic man on a bike, which could be drawn on and let drive over a ramp. The jumps were far, certainly five to fifteen feet. The highlight in his career was the flight in my aunt’s garden with a blasting charge, which was added on it before by my brother. (If it was a firecracker or maybe homemade gun powder, I don’t know and I don’t say. At that time I had probably to swear that I never loose a word about that.) Some tries were necessary until it cracked, but then it banged powerful and little Evel blew up including his motorcycle.


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picture: thank google! Unbelievable what stuff you can find in the internet, this picture is certainly 35 years old. It’s the same set which belonged to my cousin…


Probably this was the reason that I ever thought that the real Knievel died by an accidental stunt. Just one minute ago I read at wikipedia, that he died in the age of 69 of pulmonary disease.

This little excursion in the American history of action and my early childhood serves only as bridge to the answer of the question: Why were Nobbi and me at the weekend in a restaurant at the East Bay?

Nobbi likes motorcycles too. Busy readers know the story about his beloved XT 500, Lord Helmet, which he has to leave in Aachen in a tragically way. She disappeared in a depot somewhere in the Netherlands. Lord Helmet’s sister rests in a friend’s storage and won’t be moved too.

Almost one year ago here in California he purchased a pretty cute Harley, to be look up in “Born to be wild” in B.Aus 2010.2 from the 10/3/2010.

But that’s not everything, I think, I didn’t told more…
As I came back after my trip to Germany in May, Nobbi had bought an old TT 500, which is in best shape and even shining. It’s an off road bike, without permission to drive in public traffic, but basically it looks like and sounds like an XT. Nobbi affirms he could use it pretty good as source of replacement parts for Lord Helmet and it has been so cheap that we could pay it with petty cash. Well, I think it’s OK. From time to time Samuel drives behind the house with it; thereby he meets some freeborders and comes back on foot, because he runs continually out of fueling and he needs to fill up with the canister.

If it makes my men happy…well then!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, he bought a XT 500. We picked up the bike together from anywhere in the North. We removed the backseats out of the Odyssey, took some tension belts with us and were half of the Sunday on the road. She isn’t pretty, also the brakes are broken, but he pretended it needs not too much work to fix it. Well, I shake my head. Is that really necessary, I ask me. You only can drive on
one motorbike. It has always been the same; actually he buys motorcycles to fix them, not to drive them. Of course that’s great, because fixing them is less dangerous.

Green as I am, I thought, that’s it. Now we have three motorcycles, one for the street, one for off road and one to fix. That’s enough, isn’t it?

Green!!!

Last Saturday Nobbi made grinning the proposal, if we shouldn’t make a getaway, having meal in San Francisco. I whooped for excitement…, but his grinning became big and bigger. Already I know this…, he still completed: “and then a side trip a little further…”

“Oh no, not even one more!” was my reaction. “Why? 4? Then you will finally clean up the mess in the garage!”

Well, anyway here is nobody listening to me, ok, and then we will drive to buy just another bike. This was the concept: We will drive early enough to observe the sunset at the ocean, therefore the dogs will enjoy also this trip, then we will have dinner somewhere in a nice restaurant and about 9 pm, we have to be at the guy’s home who sells the bike.

How was that? Concepts are made to be cancelled.

We didn’t get away as early as we wanted, because Nobbi still tinkered at Megan, his Mercedes. (That is also another story, I won’t tell you until it’s finished…here is the question: drama or happy end?) When we sat at 6.26 pm in the car, I googled on my smart phone, when actually sunset will be. Good Lord! Already at 7.25 pm. You need exactly one hour from our home to Half Moon Bay, that will be close, but you can make it and anyway, if Nobbi drives.

Already on the freeway it became apparent that watching the sunset at the ocean won’t happen, because the clouds, which made already the whole summer the sky over the ocean grey, hung deep at the Skyline Boulevard. I decided to watch the sunset above the clouds and to drive not until after this to the seaside.
It was so beautiful. The wave of clouds, which dozes over the hills, fascinates everybody. I can’t get enough from that. It’s so wonderful to see, how the sun goes down in it. It was very special. After that we drove through the clouds to the ocean. In the hills you saw the waft of mist flowing and even at the shoreline you had a closed cloud cover over yourself. You couldn’t imagine that only few miles away the sky was blue.


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(I still need to try a bit, how to adjust my camera by such lighting conditions)

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(here are the lighting conditions better, but the sun was already gone)

We enjoyed the darker getting ocean at the beach of Half Moon Bay and decided to have dinner shortly after the motorcycle deal, because we were afraid that we will get a time problem.

Even if I like it to backbite about Nobbi’s new hobby, purchasing bikes, I think it is actually amusing. We get around and see things, you actually don’t want to see. The guys, who sell the bikes, have all their own stories, reside and live in a different way, we usually know it and I am not entitled to deliver a judgement about it. Even I won’t, I will just report. There are really people, whose ideals are basically different. Maybe it’s in the whole world the same, but here in the USA I recognize it outstanding.

I have forgotten his name. I call him Honey, because his wife called him so, by the way she’s called Honey, too, so she has been named by him. Well, the last motorcycle bought Nobbi from Honey and Honey, two well and truly American Americans.

Honey didn’t want to reveal his address. He was afraid, that we simply come, when he isn’t at home and steal his old and damaged motorbike. Well, he said, we should take the thingamabob exit and gave him a call at the gas-station. Then he would guide us to his home.

Shortly I had my concerns that we will robbed at the gas-station. But I dropped those thoughts, because then I wouldn’t arrange an amount about a few hundreds Dollars. If even attacked, then it should be profitable.

He guided us with the cell phone towards his home. We only had to turn off once. I was impressed. In front of an opened garage, in which an ordinary car stood, were two huge pick up trucks parked, the biggest ones, with 4 doors and the longest loading floor, all in high gloss polished. Two smaller, old and scruffy pick up trucks stood left and right aside; one of them was used as garbage container. It seemed that nobody wants to remove the bulky waste ever; in fact the waste and the vehicle were an oneness. Behind this car you saw a small, little bedraggled house, between house and garage stood a trailer in very better condition as the house. As we stepped out of the car we heard terrible barking.

Honey was in front of the polished trucks and waved. He is a member of the little bit horizontally challenged Americans, but he smiled friendly and welcomed us with his name, which I unfortunately forgot. He shouted Honey and introduced us to his wife, who asked me about my dogs, she has four Labradors.


Honey (he) took the bike and Nobbi asked if it starts up. “Sure”, Honey asked Honey for a tennis shoe, because with sandals he can’t kick-start. Honey brought him a tennis shoe and the spectacle began. Anytime, it felt as half an hour, the bike rattled and honey blew as like he would have run a hundred meter sprint. He was bushed. Meanwhile I sat in the car again, I was cold. I still hoped that Nobbi wanted this bike not at all. It looses a lot of oil, something is leaking, started up very hard, has no kickstand, is not even beautiful and not useful as source of replacement parts for the XT 500, because it’s a XT 600. But Nobbi and Honey came to the car with it; I didn’t believe that it fits in the car at all. It’s much higher than the XT 500. I still hoped that we don’t take it home.

Honey pronounced his doubt, too. They tried it, screwed the handle bar downwards and it fitted. Honey was impressed, but proclaimed, that we maybe should purchase a truck. While boosting the bike in the car Honey noticed, that a huge dog poop glued at the back wheel: „Oh sorry, there’s dog poop at the wheel! I’ve got four Labs in the backyard!“ (Doesn’t matter, because the car was covered with old towels and plastic sheets.)

I grinned disgusted and announced in German: „Teurer Haufen Scheiße!“ I’m sorry that I couldn’t say this so spontaneously in English. (Now I know it: Expensive piece of crap!)


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(On the top of the back wheel you can see the evil)


Honey advised us a steakhouse nearby and after paying and signing the contract we drove to having dinner.

I wonder what actually Nobbi’s hobby is. Driving Motorcycles isn’t it, he doesn’t drive, does he? To tinker at motorcycles would like it to be, but he hasn’t definitively too less time. I believe his new hobby is buying motorcycles. You get around, you can do it with your wife and her dogs together and if you imagine the value of comparable vehicles in Germany you save a lot of money.

Nobbi, if you are happy with buying old motorcycles, I will accept this. Your hobby is buying old bikes, my hobby is writing about it. So we both have fun with it.


18.9.2011


I am gone…

Columnist’s note: This column I addict to the whole canine freestyle group and also to Judy, our fabulous teacher, especially to Barbara, Bonnie and Wendy, they welcomed me on Saturday so warm. I know that you are a real group and I’m a part, I didn’t see it for a long time, now I do. That’s not your fault, that’s only me.

Bark in the Park

The headline sounds as it would have been written by me, but it wasn’t. It was the name of the big event, to which I looked forward for months. The title says all. It’s about dogs.

Once a year dog lovers meet each other in a city park in the middle of San Jose to a kind of fair. Dog schools, treat-bakeries, dog food shops, accessory shops, which offer leaches, bowls and costumes, vets and pet clinics introduce themselves. You find patterned poop bags in all colours of the world, a brass band plays and you can buy backpacks for dogs in “stars and stripes”-design. On the stage happens a costume contest for dogs and they search for the dog with the funniest trick.

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By the way I’m not a friend of costume contests for dogs, nevertheless I was impressed. “May I take a picture”, I ask the other end of the leash from this princess. “Sure!“ Whereupon the princess crouched down and left a huge bunch on the lawn. I pulled instantly a bag out of my trousers pocket, gave it to the other end of the leash and in the meantime there was spontaneously a fortune-finder who steps in the middle of this mud. There are moments in life, if you watch them in TV, you think: Who comes up with such weird ideas!


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That the four-legged friend of the humans is appropriate dressed for trick and treat.

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Cupcakes for dogs


I know such events from Germany, too. Last year we made a show with the performance-group of the “Retriever-Förder-Verein” Aachen (Retriever-Development-Association Aachen/Germany, or just Aachen-West-Dog-Club AWDC, in the meantime I understand the American way of abbreviations), on even such an event, it was shortly before our moving in the USA. It was my passion. Not such events, no, but to prepare and perform a program with a group of committed, high motivated and surely advanced hobby-dog-dancers, to show the people that you can get more than only a well behaved dog with positive dog training; a relationship in which both, human and dog, get a lot of fun.

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Performance group of the R-F-V in May 2010 at the dog-fair in the ice-rink of Aachen (we don’t have ice in summer in the rink, because we don’t have San Jose Sharks which need the whole summer ice). The laughing faces of the humans and the dogs speak for themselves.


It was not the first time of performing and I observe with big delight that the group is busy and active and presents the program of our dog club on many events, with big delight and a lot of aspiration.

Well, who wonders that I write so little about my dog-activities here in the USA are now able to understand. It’s a sad theme for me.

I have discovered a dog club, but I was not really happy with it. The sport and the training, they offer, have a good level, and they offer a lot of different dog sports. But to be honest, I’m bored. Not because I think I am better in doing things, no way!, I still have to learn a lot and they are able to show me my faults, no! I miss the manner
how we make training in Aachen and the fun we had always together. It’s not the sport I miss, it’s the people.

Here in the dog club everybody does his sport for himself, sure with support from high quality trainers, but the group-structure is missing. I miss the
together. Now I understand that the rest of the world says; to be typical German “Vereinsmeier” (this word I can’t find in any dictionary, my translation is: Club Guys! If there is no translation, maybe only the Germans say they are Club Guys) Almost no matter what we are doing; main thing together and after that we go in the club house to have a drink or we go for a little walk with the dogs…

Here, in the Santa Clara Dog Club (SCDC, I needed weeks to decrypt that), you come for a session of seven dates, take part at your class and go home again. It’s a little bit uncomfortable.

The group of dog dancers is a little bit different. We meet only once a month, because our trainer comes from far away, but nevertheless the group seems to be steady. It makes really fun. The few women, who participate, are downright amiable, full of humour and I feel very ease with it, but even only once a month.

Canine freestyle is this sport called. Some people smile about that, as so often, because the understanding is missing. And now we were registered to introduce our sport, canine freestyle, at „Bark in the Park“. Indeed we didn’t have a common choreography, but still a common performance. Everybody should show his skills to a medley of Western music. We are in the USA, Western music! Isn’t that great, the first performance in the USA for me and then Western music! I was so happy about that and then…my lovely dancing partner Ceallagh (spoken Kay-la) was going in heat, so that the high season should be on even this Saturday. It was not allowed to come with a dog in heat. “…Bringing a bitch in season could definitely up the aggression factor of other dogs…”, so the official statement from the organizer. Of course, I understand. Nevertheless I was disappointed. Quite simply it shouldn’t be. I didn’t come to the dress rehearsal, I was frustrated.

And then they asked me if I could take the video, now I wouldn’t participate at the performance. Just ask me and I say yes! Well, and then I got an e-mail that I would be more than useful for the group and my enthusiasm would inspires others, they would miss me at the demo, they only were yet three. This honey around my mouth felt good. I could look forward to Saturday again.

I came without my dogs but with the camera and got a bandana around my neck, therefore you can see that I’m a part of the group. That meant a lot for me. A group of natives, who think, that I am a member of them. What a pity that they get so seldom together.

The first demo was at the same time with the costume contest. I took the pictures. They danced without music, because the costume contest needed the sound system and there wasn’t almost any audience. The second demo, one hour later, was better. You could hear the music and the dancers showed their dance skills with charisma.

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Square-dance with dogs


I would have liked to participate the dance and to have fun with Ceallagh and the six others together. Maybe it was so more important for me, to see, I’m a part of them although I couldn’t dance this time.

I have a dream! A group that meets one time a week and works together on a common choreography.


22.9.2011


I am gone…

Columnist’s note: First of all, I made a mistake in the last column. The abbreviation of the dog club has to be SCDTC, Santa Clara Dog Trainings Club. I’m so sorry, I’m still learning! Thank you Marianne for the hint.

The reaction of the last column was impressive for me. So, if I’m impressed or hit by feelings, I have to write about it.

I set myself the task to search for clichés and to write for my people in Germany about that. Our countries and we are so different but nevertheless we both have humour and the ability to laugh and to love. Now I’m going to write for you, the natives, and the people who just speak this wonderful and for me very foreign language, too. It’s never my intention to harass or to affront. This might be the beginning of a wonderful friendship. The Americans and me!


That was one small step for mankind…one giant leap for me.

You Tube: Billie Jean, Michael Jackson
click the mouse on the right button and back to the column
(so you can hear and read at the same time)
Billie Jean, Michael Jackson, first moon walk ever!

I didn’t enter the moon, but the country of that man, who made the first step on the moon. This was a huge step for me; certainly the bigger part of mankind absolutely doesn’t care.

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(Picture: Thank google!


One year passed without the feeling that I made development in case of integration. I knew indeed that
I need to be active, because America hasn’t waited for me, and also that everything takes its time but anyhow I didn’t make progress. I pivoted me in a circle.

There were milestones, over and over again. For example the first visit at the hair dresser. In Germany I already hesitated to go for a hair cut, but the fear now to go not only with the usual dislike but also with big language problems was tremendous. It was helpful that my last visit at the German’s hair cutter in my old neighbourhood, shortly before Christmas, was indeed very successful in question of chit-chat, but the hair cut ended in a disaster. Leon, my old hair cutter and neighbour, pulled my part on the wrong side due to the intensive gossiping. Well, it couldn’t get worse and so I had the heart to go finally to a haircutter here in the USA. And what a surprise, both the communication and the hair cut went well.

Suchlike milestones were the visit of the private dog school, which advised peanut butter as treat for rewards, the week with two broken cars and the change of the workshop, which tried to sold me a pup and of course the beginning of training in the Santa Clara Dog Trainings Club. Likewise the invitation from Caroline and Tadd from Seattle and to meet them in Walnut Grove at Grandma Becky’s Farm are part of it, these were all milestones on the way in the integration. Refreshing conversations or also struggling in English, but all in all it was arrival and incorporation.

Nevertheless I was discontent. Why? Quiet simply, if I would make a list, how many people I met here in the USA in excess of small talk, US-Citizen in comparison to Germans and other Europeans, the output would be alarmingly.

Elsewise, who would I invite to my birthday party? Hm, I only know Germans and Caroline and Tadd, but they live too far away.

I’m not impatient. First of all I can celebrate only with Germans and furthermore: Haste makes waste! (thank phrasen.com, in German we say: good thing needs its time,
Gut Ding will Weile haben…You can’t translate sayings, you need replacement) Anyway I developed a new project besides the search and confirmation of clichés or their rebuttal: The wish to meet natives in the manner that I get similar homesickness when I have to leave again, as I had when I came, just only in the other direction.

Well, such a project you might have cloudy in your head, only you don’t know, how to realize. Fortunately I don’t have to, because such things happen actually anytime by itself.

I am not so far with my project, that I would get bitter homesickness, if I would leave now, no, but in this days happens a lot. The last column, which I wrote, wasn’t read not only by Germans but also by the dancers of the canine freestyle class and Judy our teacher. As I wrote the text I didn’t have really an intention. I only would like to describe the event on Saturday. As so often, when I write, I have a headline, some ideas and the muse kisses me. The rest is not really on my influence, it just happens.

That I had the heart to send the link of our English website to the group was sure one of my best ideas ever. And here I would like you to remember the headline: This was the giant leap: …one giant leap for me!

I had neither the intention nor I had count with it that it takes so much reaction. I got a lot of friendly, heart warming e-mails and proposals to make training together or doing something after training. There are people with similar thoughts or some they recognize that there is somebody not really happy and instantly it follows reaction. Bonni and Barbara invited me to the member-dinner and afterwards to the member-meeting. The dinner would be mostly typical American dishes, dress code California casual and the meeting sometimes very boring, but if I want, I might participate as guest. Sure I will come, I’m happy to get this invitation and I’m proud.

So many Germans claim Americans would be superficial, would be always ready for small talking but not more either. Now I will get rid of this cliché, even if I didn’t meet yet every American. Well, the American I met is always ready for a friendly chin wag and little small talk, even if you don’t know him. It remembers me at the people from Cologne (the fabulous German city with the second highest cathedral in the world). He likes also to chat with strangers. He asks for salutation (I try to translate the Cologne dialect in the brackets): “Wie isset?”(„How’s goin?“) Answer: “Joot!”(“Fine!”), next question: „Un sons’?“(„and else?“) „Och joot!“(“Fine too!) Similar chats you have here in California: “How are you doing?”, „Thank you, everything is fine!“ Not as elliptical as the Colognes but almost the same.

Marginal difference, but if you have a problem in Germany, if the doing isn’t fine, then only the good friends and the relatives usually take care. In contrary, strangers are more refusing.

Well, I wrote a column that I miss the group structure and I would like more together and it’s raining encouragements. There are people who take care, share thoughts or simply say: “Yes, exactly, let’s do something together.”

I can’t find any superficial behaviour; no it’s absolutely the antonym.


The first but maybe most important rebutted cliché!!!

I guess the small talk and the absolute, most effusive amiability and the readiness for talking seems so superficial for us Germans is due to our inability to welcome strangers warm and hearty. It’s not the American vis-à-vis, that’s superficial; it’s us, who block. We don’t want anybody to come close.

The first cliché is rebutted. The integration has begun.



7.10.2011


I am gone…

Creative block

She doesn’t kiss me, the muse, although I would have so much to tell you. There are some reasons that I didn’t write. I got wailing mails and the readers asked, what happened, no new column in more than two weeks. Well, here is a short column without muse- involvement.

First of all there was simply no time to write.

I was at the club dinner and the club meeting of the Santa Clara Dog Trainings Club, met a lot of really nice people who welcomed me very warm and hearty. Now I know that I have found the right Dog Club as well as people who have convinced me, with their heart-warming manner, their humour and their helpfulness, that it is still possible to find my luck in the USA. Sometimes I was in doubt about that. I was so impressed and happy about the great evening in pure American ambience that I could write about that a very positive column next day. Unfortunately I had no time to sit down and to write.

I had even volunteered for a school project to accredit the high school status of our school. I needed to read many pages written in officialese, I had to answer questions I didn’t understand and actually I conceived questions by myself for a survey. I was totally swamped, fought me through the stuff and was finally struggling with my own brainpower. Unbelievable how complicated some people write texts. If they had been written in such a German, it wouldn’t help a lot. To write columns makes more fun!

The next day was a Half Moon Bay day. Our group of she-Expats* re-sorts itself, this is perhaps the destiny of she-Expat* groups, joining and leaving. It was the first time Gundula accompanied us, she came from my hometown Aachen in Germany, that’s an own story, I will tell you another day…

*she-Expat: that’s also an own story, but long time ago. She-Expats are the female life-form of the Homo sapiens expatriensis, an own subspecies of Homo sapiens and a very different form as the Homo sapiens sapiens, the modern human being. They look similar but the manner of living is very special. My group of she-Expats meets once a week in Half Moon Bay to walk on the beach and to chatter in German.

We found a strange fish.

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It was definitely a shark (I covered my hands in plastic bags and opened the mouth of the fish to verify) but hard mutated. The upper part of the tail fin was as long as the body of the shark, maybe a Fukushima-victim. It remembers me at the strange fish-mutations, which swim in the water close to the nuclear plant, where Homer Simpson works. I don’t write an own column about that, although I have funny stories in my head. No time!

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(Two Pictures: Thank google!)


On Friday I picked up Nobbi, my husband, at the airport after two weeks Germany and we looked forward to a long time without travelling for work. Next day we made a nice getaway to the highest mountain in the neighbourhood to visit the telescope on the top of it. The drive felt like one and a half hour due to many serpentines and on its end there was nothing to visit. All areas closed! Renovation! However, it was a nice trip. I don’t want to fill pages with it.

On Monday I wanted finally write again, but I had back-problems and couldn’t sit at my laptop for a long time. And then I got the call: “Barbara, I need immediately to fly to Asia! Please, pick up my trousers at the cleaners!“ I took the trousers, which Nobbi then still forgot. Now I’m two further weeks grass widow and look forward to the weekend, I get a visitor from Aachen, Germany. Thorsten will come; he travels as much as Nobbi. He comes this evening from Tomsk, Sibiria, on his way to San Diego, California and flies then to Shang Hai, China. With a visitor in the house I can’t write either and sitting for a long time is still impossible. So I won’t tell you about the first winter storm with hard rain and the first snow in the Sierra, too early Spencer, the weather man, said and so it was the shortest summer in California at all, because the very last rain fell unusual late in June.

So much I could write to all this, instead of that I only mention it shortly and ask for patience. As soon as I am able to sit for 4 hours again without break and in the house will be calmness, the shy, sensible muse comes back and I will write more.

I look forward to a weekend with a visitor from Aachen, next week I will meet Wendy with her dog Molly in the park, my first private meeting with a native and I hope that I don’t have to write a column about my first consultation at an American doctor. I wait for spontaneous healing due to well-directed self-therapy.

If you have any questions or comments feel free and use the guestbook. Now it’s bilingual.


10/14/2011

(the American way to write the date, Basti, thanks for the hint)

I am gone…

Columnist’s note: I’m behind on writing, although I don’t have the demand to inform you about everything, anyhow there is something like privacy, but I still like to tell my stories… (I have more stories than time to write)

Just brief; Nobbi has extended his Asia-abidance, initially to one week more, but he mentioned that it could maybe become longer. I’m glad to be so lucky to experience many great things. Thereby I distract myself to be a grass widow. I had also my first “you and you“ meeting with a native, it was so fine and we had so nice talking. We will meet us more often.

Oh, and the shark wasn’t mutated. It is a tresher shark also named fox shark. Thank Oli, he showed the picture a colleague from the zoo-aquarium. Britta mentioned it also, that it could be a fox shark. Sometimes I prefer to believe my own stories than the reality but in this case I’m happy that I’m not yet completely nuclear contaminated and that it’s only a further joke from Mother Nature. This shark hits his prey unconscious with his long tail.


Wikipedia: Tresher Shark


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(Last two pictures: Thank google!)


Great Pumpkin

I think my brother had the complete Peanuts comic collection. Those comics were little square formed and orange booklets. My favourite character was surely Snoopy, the dog, but then directly Linus with the cuddly blanket, we are soul-mates.

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(Picture: Thank google!)


The Great Pumpkin is my favourite story. Linus believes in him. He sits in the night of Halloween in a pumpkin patch and waits that the Great Pumpkin appears and brings presents while all the other children walk from door to door for Trick and Treat. Decades ago this little movie has been for me already a cultural event.

Clip of the Great Pumpkin, Peanuts:




Now it’s the middle of October and a further time America prepares itself for Halloween. In the front gardens you see pumpkins and straw-witches, spider webs and giant spiders at walls, ghosts hang at houses and orange is the most seen color in the stores.

Once again, I thought. Now we are so long here that Halloween is an old acquaintance. Last year I was totally surprised about the terrifying mass. This year I know what happens. Not a bit of it! There is still so much to learn!

Last Sunday I had to drive to the airport to drop off Thorsten. Before that we wanted just short to go to Half Moon Bay for a nice walk on the beach. Just short! Sundays before Halloween! How greenly!

I have to explain: The road to Half Moon Bay passes through the hills where often the fog hangs, which comes from the ocean. (Look: Evel Knievel and Hobby Nobbi, the pictures with the fog) It is a wonderful route, especially if there is no fog. The road curls and suddenly you can’t change the direction anymore. This time not the fog stays in the hills but the traffic. So, we stuck in traffic jam and had to come through. Between the hills and Half Moon Bay are the nurseries. First you pass Santa’s Christmas tree farm, then fruit, vegetables and cut flowers, animals made of metal and the season horse (now in black with terrifying goggle-eyes, sorry no picture) and then the huge pumpkin-patches.

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I didn’t know how popular the pumpkin patches of Half Moon Bay are. Now I know it, after we spent half of the afternoon in the traffic jam. We u-turned in Half Moon Bay, because we hadn’t enough time for a walk at the ocean. Thorsten still had to catch a plane. One day later was the story of the Great Pumpkin of Half Moon Bay in the news. 1700lb, this is the Californian record of giant pumpkins.

Great Pumpkin from Half Moon Bay

Every year is the Half Moon Bay “Art and Pumpkin Festival”, by the way it’s only this weekend. But already last weekend there were bouncy castles for the kids, a maize maze and a lot of fun. Before the Festival begins, the biggest Pumpkin of the area wins a prize. The people come from far far away to look and to wonder.

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Yesterday was a Half Moon Bay day again, as usual we walked on the beach, but we had a blue sky, a yellow sun and it was unusual warm, somewhat about 80°F(ca.25°C). After our coffee we visited the Great Pumpkin.

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This is for sure the most impressive vegetable I’ve ever seen and touched in my entire life.

Linus, I’ve seen the Great Pumpkin with my own eyes and you were so right. He brought me presents: a beautiful day, sun and heat in Half Moon Bay and a wonderful memory of you.



10/20/2011

I am gone…

Back in business

When Nobbi asked me almost two years ago (a couple of days shortly before Christmas 2009), if I would go with him to America, my first reaction was a rigorous NO. Never ever! I had a lot of reasons, very lot, and one of them was the love to my dog club, my doing as a dog trainer there and the feeling; I can’t give up my life, only because my husband makes career.

At Christmas I had a fervid discussion with my mother, it was our very last disagreement. She had the opinion that I shouldn’t be so egoistic and I need to follow my husband. I had the opinion that I don’t want to give up something from myself. Why should I change something if everything is fine?

I changed my opinion, it was a process, which took maybe two weeks. The next six month were full with changes.

Since I’m here, busy with settling and arriving, I mentioned from time to time that I miss my dog club. I got again and again the good advice from acquaintances here or friends in Aachen, Germany: “Then make training still by yourself! Quite simply, just offer something.
Quite simply!

Great idea!

Quite simply? I’m the perfect employee, if you say to me: “Hey, do this!” I’ll do it! I’m a terrible freelancer; eat away by self-doubt and never the courage to risk something. I have a lot of ideas, but I need badly somebody who pushes me.

So I decided to dream not anymore, and only to take care of my own dogs. This story you can read in
Bark in the Park and One small Step for Mankind. It was gorgeous enough for me that I can be happy in a dog club again and finally meet people who are dog lovers like me.

Well, last week I met Wendy with her dog Molly for a walk. Wendy mentioned that she would like to be able to play with her dog, as I do, to train Molly not only with treats.

„I can teach you!“

But not just so. I explained that I’m a proud Lind-art®-trainer and we usually give classes, Team-balance, team-training by play and motivation. Only I have not the heart to do this here, because my language skills are so bad.

I can work on them. Now I teach her Team-balance and learn English in doing so. Yesterday I gave the very first, pretty official Team-balance lesson in the USA. I prepared this lesson in-depth and I went so through my English that I was almost able to speak so free like in German. Sometimes I was struggling, then Wendy helped, sometimes there was a word to think about, but in the main I was satisfied. I had absolutely forgotten how much fun I have if I’m teaching Team-balance. Wendy and Molly had also fun. Her comment: “It’s totally different!” She meant the manner of teaching, with theory and homework.

Well, I plan a website, hope that Wendy won’t be my only student here and I will find by and by more interested people, who are willing together with me to get into the adventure Lind-art® USA.

One key sentence accompanied me in my entire Lind-art®-trainer schooling and it carried every lesson I gave. It is the sentence from Aurelius Augustinus:

“In you must burn, what you want to ignite in others!”

Inside me the fire burns again, it’s a big blaze and I’m looking forward to ignite it in curious Americans.


10/27/2011

I am gone…

Yeah-chaka-chaka-chaka-chak

Please imagine: while you hear the “Yeah” you see me raising the arms like a Y in the air, at “chaka-chaka-chaka” I turn my hips from the left to the right and to the left again, and the “chak” is a jump as high as I can. Why?

I’m so happy and rightly relieved!

Moritz has passed the driving test.

Almost exactly 6 month ago I wrote a column about our first driving lesson. We drove in a bush because a car came towards us on our lane. It was not easy for me to drive with him in the beginning. I had fear. Nobbi gave the first lessons to him and I dodged driving when ever I had the feeling, it isn’t safe. Freeway, serpentines, to much people in the car, again and again I took the wheel, instead of let him drive. But in the last weeks I saw progress and got confidence. And I knew he has to drive now Nobbi isn’t available. He became a safe driver. Last Monday I had the heart to let him drive to school. This means carpool-lane. That’s for advanced. If I would grade him, he gets an
A.

Anyway I was exactly so excited, as it would have been my own driving test. Moritz was much calmer than me and did very well. The comment of the examiner was written diagonal under the report form: good driving!

I’m happy that he passed, happy that I have two sons with a driving license now and mainly happy that he could drive by himself through the neighbourhood now.

Until his 18
th birthday he drives with special rules. It is not allowed to drive between 11pm and 5am, no mobile devices like i-pod or cell-phone while driving and without an adult, 25 and older, he mustn’t transport 20 and younger.

The forth California Driving license in our family and “only” three cars, actually two, because Megan, the old Mercedes, doesn’t work anymore dependably. Maybe Nobbi should change his Hobby; not buying motorcycles but buying cars.


11/2/2011

I am gone…

Ode to my Poolguy

Columnist’s note: I give this column to Tim, my pool guy. It was a little bit more than one year ago, he commemorated me at James T. Kirk the older. We developed something like friendship. Tim explained me America, the politics, the economy, he told me the wonderful story of the crow he shot in early morning due to its cawing and he affirmed me not only one cliché. Therefore I’m unlimited thankful. He came every Tuesday except the week between Christmas and New Years Eve and one week in May. It was heavy rain and the windshield wiper of his truck wasn’t working.

Now he never comes again.

His boss has lost too many customers here in the hills. The tour isn’t profitable anymore. He was here pool guy for 14 years. It was so sad. I’m especially sad, because Tim is one of the natives I met in my shaping phase. He helped me so often, gave hints and he could tell so nice stories. I invited him and he promised, he would come for a coffee if he will be in the neighbourhood…

I will miss him.

I named the Lieutenant Auhuura. “Au huur” is a word of the idiom of Aachen, my home town. It means: the old and higher ones. Long time ago it was used to lay the blame on the nobles and rich ones. Today nobody knows the meaning, but it is used as term of surprise and consternation.

Star Trek Original Series Intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdjL8WXjlGI
As ever; right mouse click and back to the column

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In the logbook of the USS Enterprise

“Space. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship, Enterprise. Its three years mission: to explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

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…Lieutenant Barbara Auhuura can’t believe her eyes, as she sees a life form at the pool, which is obviously busy with search for food. At the first sight the life form looks like Captain James T. Kirk, only decades older. The mission of the crew is the localisation and exploration of strange civilizations. So Auhuura put the communicator in her ear, walk to the pool and begins with the communication. She is welcomed friendly and peaceful, but it seems that the communicator doesn’t work, she doesn’t understand anything. She asks the alien gentle to speak slower and in fact it works. He is called Tim and he explains, that he doesn’t look for food, he only keeps the water clean…

…Months passes by and every week on Tuesday Auhuura meets Tim. He tells her about politics, behaviour and attitudes of the civilization. He is a solid link for the Lieutenant between her and this planet. From time to time Auhuura thinks while talking with Tim: He looks like Jim, just older…


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(Last four Pictures: Thank google!)

…One year later. The crew is still busy with the exploration of the civilization, but meanwhile firmly convinced that they are peaceful residents and it’s still possible to live wonderful together in a federation. It’s more than exploration; it’s a kind of integration…

…Last Tuesday Tim said good bye, not only until next week, no, forever. His glance was sentimental, his voice sounded fatherly. His task was done. He was not employed just to clean the pool; he had the responsibility that the mission of the crew succeeds. To ensure the peaceful exploration of the civilization it needed a link between them and the travellers.

So, Captain James T. Kirk arrived from the future, called himself Tim and looked once the week if everything was fine. Now, sure that Auhuura needs no more help, he could back to the future…

Tim, today I talked with your boss. He told me that you work closer to your home now. That’s only cold comfort. I will miss you.


11/5/2011

I am gone…

Gravity sucks
Or no luck with the Lick Observatory

Columnist’s note: “Gravity sucks” are not my words. As I heard it yesterday I already knew that it will become a title. These were the words of Dr. Raja Guha Thakurta, (http://research.pbsci.ucsc.edu/astro/raja/) a Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in Astronomy and Astrophysics. He fascinated us with his profound knowledge, his huge intelligence and coruscating humor at his lecture about galaxies.

Star Party

A couple of weeks ago Nobbi, Jonathan and I made a short trip to Mount Hamilton to visit the oldest hill-telescope of the world. I already mentioned the long drive and the unsuccessful trip, because all areas were closed, even the parking lots, due to renovation. What a luck there is google! Well, then you look in the net, what you could have seen there. And thereby Nobbi discovered the Star Party at the 5
th November. You could order tickets, what he did. In fact he ordered 8 tickets therefore every child can bring a friend. They promised lectures, viewings of the telescopes and if the weather is fine spectacular views of billions of stars.

If the weather is fine!

Well we had almost the last half year blue sky. Also the last week was starry except a short break. But we have November; someday also the weather in California will become awful. This happened yesterday. At our way to the Star Party the sky looked like this (we didn’t see stars, but maybe starlings, the birds on the wire, in German “starling” called “Star”, so we maybe have seen some after all):


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The closer we came to Mount Hamilton the more terrible got the weather. On the top of the mountain, circa 4200 ft (ca.1300m), it was 36°F (2,2°C) cold and we had heavy rain, so that I didn’t make any pictures from the Lick Observatory. I had fear for my camera and my health. What a luck there is google.


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Picture: Thank google!


The Lick Observatory (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_Observatory) was built in the end of the 19th century and that exactly makes its charming ambience. Even if you can’t watch any stars. The mixture of old and technological advance makes it very special. The big telescope we looked at (second biggest dome in the pic) is very old, it stands on in circles affectionately laid hard wood floor and you feel as you would be in a story of Jules Verne. This alone was the drive worth.

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Please notice the circular hard wood floor and the wood paneling at the wall!


In the corridors hang modern flat screens which show the observatory by itself and things will be explained about our unimaginable huge universe, whether planets, stars, galaxies or the history of Astronomy.

Fascinating!


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this picture I shot also from a flat screen


Even if we had bad luck with the weather and the view through the telescope wasn’t possible, the trip was a success. In every case the highlight was the living lecture of Prof. Dr. Raja Guha Thakurta. Already only the title was great:

„Astronomy and Cosmology (not to be confused with Astrology, Gastronomy and Cosmetology)“

He spoke about the evolution of galaxies, about their birth, development, aging and death, about cannibalism, breakfast, lunch and dinner in the universe. Responsible for all: the gravity, gravity sucks! Except a seven year old girl, who fell asleep, the whole audience was trapped by his speech.

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this pic I shot before the lecture, while the Professor was talking everybody was attentive, me too, therefore no further pictures


Professor Thakurta explained us the expanse and the depth by a vivid animation, a journey through the cosmos. He said our planet and the milky way is absolutely usual for the universe and the chance, that there is other life in space in this endlessness is not little. Presumably we’re not alone.


Already Mr. Spock mentioned it: Fascinating!


Fascinating!

We didn’t see any real stars at the Star Party through the big telescope. Our star was Professor Raja Guha Thakurta. I think he earns a red carpet to his speaker’s desk.


11/8/2011

I am gone…

Stairway to heaven

You Tube: Stairway to heaven (Gregorian version)



Exactly 40 years ago I was been very excited. It was the day before my 4th birthday. We lived in this time in the Swabian Alb, a kind of “very small Sierra” in Germany. It was biting cold and I knew: “Tomorrow I get 4, finally!”

In fact it’s the first birthday I remember. I got a red bike as present, which belonged before to my brother, but I didn’t care. Finally a bike! My father taught me to drive. He pushed me while I was talking the whole time. And when he didn’t answer, because he couldn’t hear me anymore, cause I drove the way by my own, I fell and bewailed. I trusted him, I thought he hold me. He laughed and said: “What do you want, you already can drive!”

I was so proud and finally grown up.

That was 40 years ago.

Today I was the whole time sitting and driving in the car, hearing my favorite radio station Classic Rock, 98,5 San Jose, 101,2 San Francisco. Not that I don’t like actual music, quite the reverse, but I didn’t found another radio station with more than 10 songs and this is boring with the time. So I prefer to hear oldies, then you meet again and again old acquaintances and you’re happy about this.

Today they celebrated the 40
th birthday of Stairway to Heaven from Led Zeppelin. They played continual any cover versions and one was better then the other. You could rate them on facebook, if you like the version or not. The Gregorian Version was shouted down. I think that this art doesn’t earn it, because I liked it outstanding. So here the version in complete length, I hope that in Germany the GEMA, Company of Musical Performance, doesn’t disapprove that. (GEMA, in Germany you can’t watch a lot of “you tube” videos, you can watch in the US, because the GEMA doesn’t allow it, they are afraid, that they don’t get money for the song)

During the research to this song I find, that the German Wikipedia-site and the American aren’t in common about the release date of Stairway to Heaven. I don’t care, if 40, 39 or 41 years. It’s a great song.

Anyhow I thought the whole day while hearing this song at my tiny red bike, which I got to my 4
th birthday.

I didn’t know that Stairway to Heaven is so old, and absolutely no wrinkles. Happy birthday. When ever I will hear it now, I have to think at my first little red bike.

11/14/2011

I am gone…

Just Laugh Lines

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This was the invitation to my birthday party.

If I plan a party, I usually make an invitation, look in my address book and send it to all my friends, acquaintances and nice guys, who I might invite. In times of internet you do this electronically. That makes the whole thing very simple and much cheaper.

Meanwhile I feel good to be here and I’m totally arrived. Busy readers know that, the others probably didn’t know that there were other times. I have taken the changes, have disengaged me. I open my arms and say YES. I think still a lot at my hometown Aachen, but not anymore in melancholy.

However, as I walked through my e-mail addresses to invite to my birthday, I had to swallow hard once again. I just skipped my very best friends, people, with whom I always made party, people, without them I couldn’t imagine funny feasts, people, with whom you hang out till 4.30 in the morning, people, you don’t have to think about how much they will drink, because you know it, people, who are deep in my heart. I didn’t click on their e-mail address, because they’re in Germany.

Weird feeling.

But instead of breaking out in tears, how it probably would have been months ago, I clicked full of pep, curiosity and tension at all the new addresses. Some I didn’t know and I got help. I felt tingly. There are the Half Moon Bay she-Expats and the après-choir-Expats, the Christmas Market Prep Team, very nice people I met on the Halloween Party, nice colleagues from Nobbi, my new neighbours (that’s a wonderful other story, I will tell you another day, by the way French), my only student and meanwhile friend, and last but not least my dog club people. I invited almost 40 people. Unbelievable that it was such a big count. Some call the party off, therefor there was a surprise guest from Aachen, who took the business in the area. I was so happy about that. We were almost 30 people.

As every year there was leek cream cheese soup, roast pork and different other yummy stuff, partly brought from guests. Thank you very much for the help. Actually it was as ever. Well, with little differences. The beer was served in little 12oz bottles out of a cardboard box (in Germany the bottles are bigger, cheaper and 20 bottles in a stabile plastic frame you can batch. You bring them back in the store and you get a lot of refund) The people smoked outside (I will adopt this for our house in Germany, when I’m back, but in November? I think about…). But else it was a nice feast as every year, except just the guys were different.

As I brought back the sound machine after our Farewell Party last summer I mentioned the great Party in link to the good music and the sound machine. The guy who lent me the stuff, laughed and said: “A party is only so good like their guests. If it was a great party, then there were great guests!”

He is right!

The party at Saturday was a further milestone for me. Now I know that I’m at home. Home is where you have people to celebrate with. And now I see how lucky I am that I have not only one home.

Dear Californian friends and acquaintances, thank you so much for celebrating with me, it was so funny.

Dear German friends, I’m already looking forward to celebrate with you some day again.

I’m forty-four; meanwhile there are wrinkles in my face. They’re getting more and more, but I affirm I’m so happy that this can be just laugh lines.



11/17/2011

I am gone…

Small World

In Aachen/Germany I lived more than twenty years. In such a long time a city becomes a village. Somehow you know almost everybody and even if you don't know a person, than you know somebody, who knows somebody. Or the person you don't know was at University-times already a guest in our old house in Vaals near Aachen. This house was decades a collegiate flat share community, in which again and again legendary parties were celebrated. As we moved in in 2000, we were probably the only ones in our acquaintanceship who never have been there on a party before. I always met people in Aachen they said: "Ah, you live in the house at the corner, where the beach party has been with the sand in the first floor..."

Aachen is a village! This is exactly the reason I love it so much.

Now I went out into the world and I recognize that the world isn't much bigger. Well, maybe the distances are wider but the rest seems similar village-like.

Maybe now Mathematicians come up with statistical calculations how likely it is that I know so and so many people and how all these are connected. I don't care what the Mathematicians say. If the likelihood is high and anyway I don't meet anybody with whom I can talk about it, I don't recognize it. So, let me wonder and wonder with me:

Meanwhile Wendy is not only my first native student, she is also a good friend. She turns out to be a real key figure in the world of dog lovers.

She told me about Mylou, her Netherland's friend. She has a Flatcoated Retriever and knows a lot about dogs. And she told me about Susanne, she knows from Mylou. Susanne is German, lives a couple of years in the US and has three Kooikerhondje, an uncommon breed in America. Wendy's dog Molly is a Kooikerhondje Mix and she is happy about every Kooikerhondje she meets.


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Picture: Thank Wendy, usually Molly doesn't have purple ears and wings, it was Halloween


What a coincidence that I know somebody with a Kooikerhondje. Last year Gundula had participated my last Team-Balance class in Aachen with her Kooikerhondje-Puppy Fyn. This year in March she wrote me an e-mail that her husband now works in San Jose and if I would have hints for her. In the meantime her children go to the same school as mine, she joins us every Thursday in Half Moon Bay and we smile about that and say:

What a small world!

Meanwhile Wendy and I visited Gundula at home, because she lives very close to the park where we meet once a week for training. Also just coincidence.

Back to Wendy's friends; Wendy gave me the mail-addresses of the women and I mailed. First I met Mylou. I asked her if we could meet at my house, because the Mini Cooper has a broken engine and the kids needed my car. I gave her my address and wanted to describe the way but she answered: "Not necessary! This house she knows good, there lived before a good friend!" Unbelievable! Her good friend is my landlady:

What a small world!

Her husband came with Philips electronics in the area and in her garage are so many motorbikes as in our. It was a nice meeting and I think we have a lot in common.

Wendy told me already weeks ago from Susanne. But I know so many German. I want to meet Americans not Germans. As Wendy told me that she told Susanne about Lind-Art© and Team-Balance and Susanne then told her that she educated her first dog thirteen years ago with Lind-Art©, I wanted to meet her better yesterday than tomorrow. What a delight! I met her on Wednesday with her well-behaved Kooikerhondje Puppy, which played happily with her and sat in front with a good focus. I saw the joy to be a team at human and dog.

In those days, thirteen years ago, Lind-Art© was in its children shoes and today there are only 41 trainers worldwide. I'm the only one outside of Europe. And anyhow we meet here!

What a small world!

Susanne wants to meet Gundula, because Susanne works on it to bring the Kooikerhondje breed to America and here are not many stud dogs. I'm sure that Fyn would be happy to be one of them.

Wendy, Mylou, Susanne, Gundula and I plan training together, varied, with lots of fun and on a high level. We have just a problem with the time and the location, but we will solve it.

But that's not all.

On Saturday Wendy told me at my party that she met Gloria in the dog park. I fell backwards!

Gloria was my first dog trainer here in San Jose. In Spring I made my first steps in the dog world in her class. It was a milestone for me. I knew nothing about dog stuff in America, I learned my first "dog words" and that she rewards with peanut butter when the German trainer would choose Liverwurst.

Wendy meets Gloria almost every Friday in the dog park. She told her from Team-Balance with a German woman, told her about Ceallaghs and mine presence and Gloria asked if I have a Golden Retriever. She saw this once in her class, and this was a German with her Golden.

What a small world!

Gloria is not at all the only private dog trainer in the area and Wendy knows maybe a lot of people, but not everybody. It seems that all these coincidences are a network, and somehow it should be!

I can't await that we five make training together, chatter and who knows what will further happen.

And again I think if I watch this in a Movie I would say: "Who comes up with such weird coincidences, that's not real!"

But it is, because also the world is just a village.

If I now meet a person who tells me that he was years ago in Vaals on a beach-Party in an old house with lots of sand in the first floor, I wouldn't wonder about that. The world is a village.


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