Adios Amiga

I had a lovely post about mud pies all ready to go, but I find myself not in the mood for frivolity tonight. J., one of my closest and dearest friends, is moving to Chicago tomorrow. She's going for all the right reasons - love, career, better pizza. I can't say that I blame her. Instead, I blame her fiance. He had to go and be all smart and successful and charming and love her to distraction so she would move away. Stupid boys.

J. and I met our first year of medical school. She was my level-headed conscience when I came up with ridiculous ideas that had very good odds of getting me kicked out of school. She was also my conspirator in crime when I had ridiculous ideas that had lower odds of getting us kicked out. (Reference the "kick me sign" story and the "syphilis cookies" idea.) We solved a thousand crosswords together in the back of class, watched movies when we were supposed to be listening to lecture, pulled peanut brittle, and made caramels at Christmas. We cried over the same sappy movies and laughed at the same jokes.

She ventured south for me, and I braved going outside in Northern winters for her. We explored Spain together. We had dinners of goat cheese, baguettes, and honey; drank cava and vino in great restaurants and dives. We shared a love for dark chocolate and a hatred for monuments under construction.

She rescued me from myself and from the airport police. She has more shoes than I do, which is a feat unto itself. She emails me Pearls comics when they remind her of me or to cheer me up. (I am always Rat. You would think with my sunny optimistic outlook and eternal faith in humankind I would be Pig. You would be delusional.)

I will miss her terribly. I know it's not like she's moving to Mars....but it's close.

One of my favorite cousins graduated high school this past weekend. She was adorable, all red curls and green eyes. (Good looks run in the family, along with humility and stubbornness.) She has a temper to match her hair, and I love her for it. I'm not sure what the rest of us have for an excuse. Let's blame our Irish genes.

The family was all gathered up (for the most part) to watch her graduate. My friend Bradley has a habit of saying "deuces" at the end of his podcast. I find this hilarious; I have no good reason why. I decided to take this opportunity to teach my little cousins this invaluable piece of pop culture. Daniel now knows exactly what to do when he hears the phrase "throw 'em up". His father is less than proud of me.

Home Sweet Home

There are moments and experiences that define home to people. A soothing accent, a familiar landscape, a certain meal or drink all affirm you are near your roots.

It was a little after midnight, and I was headed home with my cousin. She was catching me up on local gossip when my headlights flashed on a huge group of bicyclists speeding toward us in the opposite lane.

Bicyclists with hooves and horns. Mooing bicyclists. More precisely, a herd of cattle that had escaped their field and taken it upon themselves to relocate. They were running full tilt toward freedom. (This was incidentally also the direction of the local stockyard which I am sure came as a shock to the escapees. It's like breaking out of prison and taking refuge in the lethal injection chamber. Poor planning.)

I realized I was home when the first thought I had wasn't "why are there cows in the road?' but rather 'at least they are staying in their lane'.

Nice to know living in the city all this time hasn't erased the country from me.

The girl who cried wolf

I am trying to raise Pup as a hybrid dog- both polished and raw. She goes to the city dog park during the week, and runs wild in the country on the weekends.

This weekend, she learned how to swim. One dainty auburn paw dipped in the pond. She looked up at me. I said 'all right', her command to go forward. She gathered herself up and jumped.

Forty minutes later I gave up any hope of getting my prissy city pup voluntarily out of the smelly country pond. I was pulling off my jeans preparing to jump in too when I had the eerie sensation I was being watched. I turned toward the woods.

A huge gray animal with pointed ears and a long fluffy tail came creeping out of the treeline. I froze. I had heard the howling the night before. There I was, stuck with my pants around my ankles and nary a shotgun in sight.

Pup scented the newcomer and bounded out of the pond, tail wagging. She bounced toward the wolf, and it bristled. It growled then snapped at her.

I was tearing my way across the field, hollering, and waving my arms. I was aiming for intimidating. I achieved crazy and ridiculous. Luckily for me, wolves are not good judges of appearances.

Pup yelped and scrambled backward, blood oozing out of her wounds. I started throwing everything I could get hold of at the animal- rocks, sticks, cow pies. (Gross, I know. Deal with it.)

The wolf ran for the woods. I scooped up my pup and ran for the house. She is doing fine now, just a few little scars. I am keeping a closer eye on the woods and a gun closer by my side.

I do have a question. If the Game and Fish Commission is firm that there are no wolves in this area and then one dies of unexpected lead poisoning, can the shooter be prosecuted for killing a non-existent animal? Or does this fall under the "tree falls in the woods" clause in the law?

Side Effects

So there is yet another side effect to this raw food diet I was not warned about. For the sake of the delicate eyes in the audience, let's call it 'Very outrageous meals in the intestines - not good' (VOMITING).

This side effect occurs after attempting to drastically deviate from the raw food diet....say eating a slice of pizza or your grandmother's homemade blackberry cobbler. It is almost immediate. The room might spin. Driving may become difficult. Problems with the other end of the GI system may ensue.

All in all, something SOMEONE SHOULD WARN YOU ABOUT.

Life in the slow lane

I have a long held theory about traffic jams. It wanders dangerously close to my theory that people should have to pass a test to procreate but is, in fact, separate.

Picture yourself driving down the interstate going an acceptable speed. Five over the speed suggestion or so. All of a sudden, brake lights are lit up as far as you can see. You slow down to forty or less and crawl along with all the other fellows stuck in the same predicament. You look for a wreck, a broken down car, construction, a flock of low flying seagulls... anything to explain why you are now behind schedule and increasing your carbon footprint by burning gas for longer than your planned time period.

Then, like Moses and the Red (or Reed Sea depending on your original translation), the lanes open up. Freedom is visible. You slowed down for....nothing. Nothing. No reason you can suss out for the slow down. You write it off as one of life's little mysteries.

I believe I have solved the mystery.

I have a tendency to push my car a little too far. Drive a little too fast. Change lanes a little too aggressively. Yell a little too indiscriminately at other drivers. (If my windows are up, it doesn't count, people.) Because of this particular set of my flaws, I have been to the front of the traffic jams. I have seen the nidus of congestion. It is almost always one car. One driver who has chosen to follow the bottom sign "Minimum 40". He or she (though it is usually a she) has chosen to putter along enjoying the complex and varying scenery along the interstate. They invariably have chosen to do this either at the peak of rush hour or at the time of day the road should be essentially empty. They choose to drive only on the busiest section of the road. They drive solidly in the middle or fast lane, switching to the slow lane just in time to exit before they are throttled by anger passengers. They are stealth poopheads.

I must assume it is one family tree that contributes these tortioses to our gene pool. We have to find that tree and cut it down. They have to be descendants of the guys who advocated chewing your food 100 times before swallowing. They must be related to the guys who drift sideways when walking in front of you so you can't pass them. Surely, they are cousins of the people who slip in front of you in the check out line at the grocery store, arrange all of their purchases by type, then are startled when they have to pay and spend five minutes digging through their purse ('cause it's always a female) looking for their wallet/coupons.

I appreciate their dedication to their slow lifestyle choice. I still have the occasional urge to run them down with a steamroller. I would bet I catch at least a few.

Once upon a time, I was smart

Today I realized how much I have forgotten. I was organizing our books, of which there are too many, and listening to the radio. Old fashioned, I know, but my iPod was dead and the laptop was still living at our old apartment. It was a 'smarter than the DJ' portion of the show, and one of the questions was "What is the capital of Mississippi?" It took a minute, but I came up with Jackson.

On the trip to kickball, DH and I tried to come up with the capitals to all the other states.

Maine posed a problem. DH was convinced the capital was Banger. While I did not dispute that this was a city, I had personally never heard of it. I came up with Augusta, to which DH promptly replied, "That's in Georgia."

We bet on it. I hate betting. I never bet unless I am over 90 percent certain, and even then it makes me uneasy. Vegas is not my kind of town.

To settle the dispute, we called upon our official judge and resident know-it-all, Bradley "Hot Pants" McRoar. He has been arbitrating for us for ages. (He is also funny, smart, single, cute....and TOTALLY impartial.) I was right. This does not negate the fact I had trouble with New Mexico.

It also does not change the fact that I have forgotten more facts than I thought possible. I don't think I could do a simple integral anymore. I have only vague ideas about how to balance chemical equations. Art history is fuzzy, and most of my childhood is conjecture. I have replaced all of this with vascular supplies, innervation of muscles, normal lab values, medication dosages, and ventilator settings. I don't miss the organic chemistry knowledge. I am okay with not knowing the four types of speeches.

I do miss my eighth birthday though. I hear it was nice.

What do these people have against fire?

My dermatologist recommended I try a raw food diet for a month. She said it would make my skin clear and glowing. I'm not sure what kind of drugs the people were on who invented this diet. I always assumes it was a step forward in our evolution when cavemen found fire. I was apparently mistaken. Fire is the enemy.

In spite of that, I was up for giving it a go. After all, it couldn't hurt to up my intake of veggies and fruits. Lose a little weight. Clean out the system. Plus it would give those cancer cells hiding somewhere in my body a one-two punch. (I know they are lurking in there waiting for an opportune moment to take me down. Just haven't nailed down their exact location yet.)

She said I could eat as much raw food as I wanted. Nothing cooked though. (I made the executive decision that scotch is not cooked.) In all fairness, she warned me I would feel a little sick the first couple weeks.

Steak tartar-I'm there. Sushi sans rice - all over it. Smoothies and salads - bring it on. Then I realized I had to give up bread and pasta. A minor problem, as I practically live on pesto and angel hair. Things had taken a turn. Day one, not so bad. Day two, okay. Day three I realized there was a side effect she neglected. I was STARVING!

Yesterday I ate a pint of strawberries, a cup of walnuts, three bananas, a cup of yogurt, half a pound of grapes, five glasses of milk, a huge bunch of broccoli, a lemon, two carrots, celery, and four ounces of cheese. I was eating all freaking day. It's a lot of work to even chew all this stuff; I'm pretty sure my digestive enzymes must be pulling double shifts here.

I am also cranky as a sore tailed bear. James is bearing the brunt of this part (poor guy....I'm sure he just wants to hold me down and force feed me a hamburger). I do have way more energy and feel better in general, but I'm not so sure it's worth the price.

I don't think I can make this a permanent diet. It's murder to cook amazing meals and desserts and then force yourself to only have the salad. To be honest though, I made cookies today and ate the batter. It counts because everything was raw. At least that's my version of the story.

I'm almost a week into it. For giving up chocolate soufflé and cheesecake, Jessica Alba better be calling me at the end of this month to find out my glowing skin secret. Otherwise, that doctor owes me a steak - and not a rare one.

Murder, She Thought

We were driving to the dog park today and noticed a car parked in a lot in the side of the road. It was an eighties model Chevy car, bronze, fringe in the windshield. A couple of nervous looking guys were inside. Another man was attempting to shut the enormous trunk with little success.

He slammed it once, twice. It bounced back open. He pulled out some twine and started tying it shut.

I said, "You know it's easier to do that if you chop up the body," as we drove past.

DH looked at me in horror. "How is it that you go straight to murdered body in trunk? What is wrong with you that your first thought is murdered body? I was thinking drugs or moving or broken latch. Seriously?"

The man poses a good question.

I am open to good answers.

I assume it is a combination of my dark and rather dry sense of humor (Is there a wet sense of humor, by the way? Shouldn't it exist as a counterpoint? Is it the same as a sophomoric sense of humor?) plus my over exposure to the worse side of humanity.

That's what I'm sticking with anyway. It has nothing at all to do with personal experience. I swear I only rented the woodchipper for limb disposal.

Moving up....21 Stairs

I consider myself to be a pretty strong female. Biceps of steel, thighs of titanium, abs of sterling silver. My abs have recently been downgraded from platinum.

Twenty one steps at a forty seven degree incline. My new apartment is determined to prove me a weakling.

I have now made the trip up those stairs carrying a couch, two sets of mattresses, five pieces of heavy furniture (including the stupid armoire with a curved top so there are no hand holds), six ice chests full of food (frozen and fresh), and countless loads of books and miscellaneous materials that I am pretty sure I am donating before we move again.

I am sore in muscles that I knew I had but had no intention of ever using. I have blisters. I have tripped twice and skinned my knee when my darling pup wrapped her leash around my legs as we were headed up the stairs. I hate those stairs.

However, I love the new flat. Having an oven big enough to hold a full size cookie sheet is totally worth the sore muscles.

We came, we cried, we ate

Last week was a tough one -

Saturday started with one of my favorite breakfasts: biscuits and gravy. I can make a pretty mean biscuit - light, flaky, buttery. I can cook sausage with the best of them.

I make terrible gravy.

I know it doesn't seem that hard. Cook the sausage. Make the roux. Add the milk. Stir and cook. Enjoy the deliciousness. Except when I try to make gravy, there is far less deliciousness and far more squirrel food. Luckily for me, I was with my grandma, and she makes amazing gravy. My arteries are so pleased.

I graduated Saturday afternoon (you may call me Dr. Q now), then we headed back home to prepare for the funeral.

We had a cousins' slumber party one night. We met at my aunt and uncle's. L. and I attempted to make cheese dip. (I was unaware that it was a recipe requiring timing worthy of MacGyver. It was easier, however, than the subsequent scraping of the cheese off the microwave. Velveeta is sticky.) We then proceeded to eat an entire tray of apples and caramel in about thirty minutes. Stayed up late, watching movies, talking, getting pictures together for the memorial service. It was bittersweet.

E. and D. came over too (S.'s little brothers, our youngest cousins). D. fell asleep in my lap holding pup. Unluckily for him, someone had been feeding pup table scraps. She had some seriously smelly GI issues. He shouldn't have hugged her that hard, that's all I'm saying.

We took the boys flyfishing, saw my little brother get commissioned (Congratulations Second Lieutenant), said our last good-byes to S., and sent L. off to prom. It was a wonderful terrible week.

Seth

I have seen more than the average person's share of death. I think it is fair; not everyone can handle death on a near daily basis. Some deaths hit you harder than others though.

My cousin Seth passed away today. He was barely twenty years old, just back from a tour of duty in Iraq. He was tall and thin, sarcastic, fun, and trying hard to get his life back on track. He loved his family. He was a hard worker. He loved the military. He was a good kid, a good man.

I remember when he first got back from basic training. He was going to be a gunner, so he had taken extra shooting courses. The family gathered up at Christmas, and we were shooting clays in the back field. He missed all but two of them. We teased him that it was easier to hit targets with cannons. He took it good-naturedly, like he always did.

He will be missed.

Lefties only

I made it to Dublin by the early afternoon. I had a wee bit of trouble renting a car; it turns out they do not accept photo copies of your driver's license, even if it expired while you were abroad and the new one was stuck in America. Put on my most winning smile and ended up with an ugly little Toyota or Nissan. I assured the nice man behind the counter I was quite adept at driving a stick shift. I forgot about the whole "left side of the road" thing.

The stick shift on the left wasn't so bad. However, I was a little uncertain at first if the pedals were also backward. I was confident the brake was in the middle. I guessed wrong about the other two. Nothing quite like revving the engine right before pulling out of a rental agency to get their confidence in your abilities high.

Survived the roundabouts, the interstates, the sheep in the road, and my inclination to pull to the right on a narrow road. Crossing the border into Northern Ireland, I noted signs informing me that the speed limits were now in miles per hour. Too bad my speedometer only reported kilometers per hour. I guesstimated how fast I was going. I guesstimated poorly. I was either being passed or flying by other cars on a regular basis.

Otherwise uneventful drive to Northern Ireland, checked into B&B, showered, went into town for dinner. Met Larry, a dentist, at the pub. Drank and hashed out what was right and wrong with the world. I'm sure we came to some excellent conclusions, but I can't remember any of them.

What's in a name?

I booked my flight to Ireland out of Frankfurt, Germany. S. was incredibly thoughtful, and booked me a flight from Nuremberg to Frankfurt. She said it would be easier to fly than to catch a train or for her to drive me.

I was looking over the tickets the night before and asked how to get from one Frankfurt terminal to the other. My Dublin flight left out of a Frankfurt 120 km south of the Frankfurt I was flying to from Nuremberg. I was unaware there are three Frankfurts in Germany, all with airports. Are you kidding me? Why on earth would you have three Frankfurts? When someone says they are flying out of Minneapolis, one assumes that it is the twin city, not a small northern suburb of Duluth. Why do they not post that in big flashing letters on websites?

S. was amazing - she scrambled and found me another flight from the second Frankfurt to Dublin. Crisis avoided. She took me to the airport the next morning, checked me in, and talked the attendant into checking my bags through to Dublin.

I had to recheck-in at Frankfurt because I was switching airlines and leaving the country. The new airline didn't open their ticket offices until two hours before boarding, so I waited. I checked in when they opened, but there was a small glitch. Even though I had a confirmation email with the ticket on it, they had no record in their system. I never wanted to speak German more. They told me I could buy another ticket if I wanted, but there was nothing they could do.

I used my last euros to call S. and then Expedia. Expedia told me there was no problem on their end and that the ticket was processed. They reissued me a ticket though in case it was a system glitch. I suspect they forgot to issue the ticket in the first place. Anyway, I went back to the counter in tears and they agreed to let me fly stand-by with my confirmation email. I also suspect they had found the ticket by this point and were covering up.

Still, I made the flight. Auf wiedersehen, Germany. I'll miss you and all your Frankfurters.

Yoga

The next day in Germany was fabulously relaxed. S. invited me to her yoga class. I have been doing yoga for about six years now, so I felt pretty confident that I wouldn't embarrass myself. Pride before a fall and all that.

Until this experience, I never realized how much yoga involves focusing on the directions from the instructor. She tells you when to breathe, where to focus your energy, how to balance your weight, and where your strength should be focused. She was a fantastic instructor - beautiful with a very smooth, soothing voice. Unfortunately for me, I still didn't speak German. I felt like such a novice.  I had to look around to see where we were in the program.  My sun salutations were off, I couldn't center myself, and my breathing exercises were crap.  Completely humiliating.

S. made me an appointment with her stylist for later that afternoon. Eight weeks without a trim and my ends were looking a little rough. We stopped at a nursery first to pick up flowers for her garden. For some reason, I had this notion that Germany was cold like the upper Midwest. Nuremberg, however, is not. It has a very mild climate; they can even grow lemon trees and magnolias in the yards! I am so jealous. I miss warm climates. I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to grow a magnolia for the past four years. They have a variety that does better in cold climates, but I'm not interested in tiny pink flowers. I want the huge white blossoms and the dark glossy leaves. Someday. For now I comfort myself with jasmines and gardenias, much to DH's dismay.

We ran to the grocery store, grabbed goodies for a picnic lunch, and then picked up the girls from school. S.'s stylist was a doll. Thomas (or maybe Tomas) was a flamboyant artist with a closely shaven head and uber stylish glasses. His English was terrible but still far better than my German. I let him have free rein - always the best option when you can't tell someone what you want. Just go with it. Halfway through the cut, he started talking rapidly in German then disappeared around the corner. He came back wearing a wig that made him look far more emo and far less hipster. I want to import him to the States.

We went to dinner at an Italian place with a friend of S.'s that evening, an opera singer. She was also lovely. Really, I've been quite lucky in my travels to meet such fascinating, talented, friendly people.

Howdy Neighbor

Woke up at 6:00 this morning (hooray for sleeping in!) to take Pup outside. She did her business promptly, and we came back inside. I padded to the bathroom, and shed my pajama pants on the way in preparation for a nice hot shower.

So there I was at the sink. Barefoot. Tank top and panties. Glasses off - in their case in the bedroom. One contact in when pup starts whining. I close my contact-less eye and squint at her. She makes eye contact and then starts to pee. Crap!!!

I scoop her up and race down the stairs. Shove open the screen door, run outside, and dump her on the grass. She barks happily and finishes doing her thing. I praise her extravagantly, and we head back to the apartment.

It is at this point I note my next-door neighbor standing right outside his door. My male, very conservative, Muslim, interventional neurologist neighbor.

Pup runs to him and wags her tail. I walk by, head high, and say good morning.

We have to move.

Resilience

*as always, all names and identifying data have been changed to protect the privacy of my patients

Child psych is not the most uplifting of professions. The patients are heartbreaking -abused and abandoned five year olds, ten year olds contemplating suicide, seven year olds with post-traumatic stress disorder. The worst that humanity can do to itself is present in child psychiatry.

I had been warned about him in morning report. He had been in inpatient twice for suicide attempts. He had been kicked out of the halfway house for bad behavior and violence. He had failed residential treatment three times. He was in trouble with the law, with school, and with his doctors. No one would touch him. Dangerous. Gang-banger. Unreachable. Unsalvagable. This was his last chance.

DeShawn was a big guy, a boy trapped in a man's body. An African-American kid who walked with that arrogant swagger particular to those who have survived a rough neighborhood or a rough life. His cornrows braided tight against his skull, a clean white do-rag, an oversized sweatshirt, and baggy jeans gave him a "don't mess with me" air. He took a seat in the front of the room. The other teens eyed him cautiously. The interview began.

He was guarded at first. Slowly, he began to share his story.

"I got stuck in here after I tried to hang myself. Had the rope around my neck, felt it tight. Staff came in before I could get myself down. Then they were trippin' later, sayin' I was gonna drink the bathroom cleaner. I was just jokin' with my home-boy; he didn't think it was funny. Guess I ended up in there 'cause I was at the end. Death is just life man, just a phase, everyone dies, I was just choosin' my time. Felt bad though, real bad. Abandoning my sisters, good girls, can't protect 'em up here."

He told us he was from East St. Louis. Vastly different from St. Louis, Missouri, which he was quick to point out. He was raised by his mother.

"She done gave me up when I was eleven. Terminated all her rights. Didn't matter none to me. She lied. I was about ten when I found out my dad, Derrek, what did I used to call him... daddy. He wasn't my daddy. There was talk, and I heard. Then he'd raise his hand to me, knock me around some, I was like 'you ain't my daddy, why you layin' hands on me?'. So I left when I was ten, was at the courts, started kickin' it with this home-boy. He got me into some business. They were my family."

He went on to tell us that all of his friends had been murdered when he was ten. He had just left the house where the killings were to do a job. The rival gang set the house on fire after the shootings. He threw buckets of water on the fire waiting for firetrucks that never came.

"It was messed up. I lost my family again that night. I went a little wild. That's when she gave me up, my mom. Bounced around foster care awhile. Got in some trouble."

DeShawn went on to talk about his real father, an aberration in the scores of single fathers I had met. His mother lied to his father about his existence - told him that she had a daughter not a son. Swore he would never see his daughter. He had been searching for ten years for his child. He found him in foster care and then fought two states for three years to get custody of DeShawn.

"He's superman, the coolest man I ever met. He tells me to think before I act. Told me to hit Derrek where it hurt. I was gonna kill him. Make him pay for what he did. Then I got to thinkin' about what my dad said. I didn't want to go to penitentiary for him, and then my sisters, you know? Their older brother killed their dad? I can't do that to them. So I'm going to go to school, in the Air Force, gonna be in aeronautical engineering. I'll hit him there. He was wrong about me. I'm gonna be famous, be somebody. I've been working hard, you know? Following all the rules, 'cause I had to get home for my dad's birthday. I did it too. I don't want to disappoint him."

He wrapped up the interview shortly after that.

"I'm stronger now - in my head. I know we die; we all die. I ain't gonna die that way though; I ain't takin' it in my hands. I'm not religious or anything, don't make it to church most Sunday's. There's something though, some reason."

He paused. "I'm done now. Can we finish?"

He sat slumped in the chair across from the interviewer, his eyes downcast, the realization of how much he had shared becoming clear.

Connor, an artistic teen with a flair for the dramatic, spoke first.

"You're so optimistic. You had a terrible experience with your family, and yet you embraced your dad with open arms. You're looking to the future. I'm having some trouble with my family now, but hearing your story makes me want to work harder at getting through that. Thank you so much for sharing."

After a few more comments, the teens were invited to write a note to DeShawn if they desired about what his story had meant to them. Every single one stayed to write. DeShawn spent the next thirty minutes reading the notes, tears in his eyes. He told us that no one had ever asked him about his story. No one had ever listened to him except his dad. The exercise had brought him together with kids that in his mind were his complete opposite and allowed him to see how similar they actually were to him. It had given him support and acceptance for that brief period of time. He asked if he could take the notes home. I pictured him pulling them out and re-reading them when he was having a rough time.

Seeing this child society had labeled unsalvageable so vulnerable was one of the most touching experiences I have had. His story, one of death and rebirth, of a father searching for a lost son against all odds, struck me. It was symbolic to me of God searching for us, of our need to become dead to this world and reborn in Christ. His resilience, his optimism, his determination to succeed against all odds with the help of his loving father were inspiring.

DeShawn has a long way to go. I know the odds are against him, and I don't know how it will turn out for him. I do know that I am in his debt. He helped restore my faith when it was at a low. For that, I am grateful.

Adventures in Puppydom

Our house became a little more crowded this week. No, I didn't buy more clothes (though that would also have been a lovely way to spend the weekend.) We have a new puppy ~ Artemis. Artemis was the Greek goddess of hunting. I'm beginning to think we should have called her Ate (ah-tay)- the goddess of mischief.

I have learned a very important lesson after five sleepless nights. I am not ready to have children.

Pup is a bit more than a handful. More like a ten gallon bucketful. Miller, my lab, was easier; he was dumb. I'm pretty sure pup has an IQ to rival most MENSA members. She has figured out how to open both of the childproof trash cans, can unravel a roll of toilet paper in the exact time it takes me to put in my contacts, and today discovered how to turn on the TV. The talking people scared her, so she immediately set to protecting us by barking her head off. She loves to steal my Coke but is less interested in DH's Mountain Dew. Good taste. She is now working on opening the fridge.

I give her three days.

Modern art and footwear

S. spoiled me terribly. My first night there she made an amazing pasta and incredible dessert. I hadn't eaten that well since I left the States. We stayed up way too late talking and drinking wine. It reminded me of when I stay with her sister. We do the same thing. I'm always tired the next day, but it's worth it.

She had parent-teacher conferences for her son V. the next day, so she arranged for me to tour a modern art exhibit with some friends of hers. The Neues Museum was wonderful - very sleek and minimalistic, and her friends were darling. The exhibit was Marcello Morandini, an immensely talented artist/architect/designer. The tour guide was very thorough; she talked for almost two hours.

Unfortunately, the tour was in German, and I tend to dislike modern art.

S. and V. picked me up from the museum, and we went for a walk in the old town. There's a fountain in the center, Schoner Brunnen, that has a lovely myth associated with it. The Glucksbringer (golden ring) set into the fence is supposed to grant your wishes or bring you love if you turn it 360 degrees. I'm always up for luck and love, so I gave it a spin. Based on the rest of my trip, I think I spun it the wrong direction.



We ate lunch at (I think) Zum Gulden Stern. They have the cutest little sausages with kraut. It's much like Prague in that you share a table with whomever is at the other end. V. had homework to finish, so S. called him a cab and sent him home after lunch. I thought this was fabulous. How fun to have your own driver! I would have pretended to be very famous and important.

S. and I continued the tour of the old town. As most all of you know, I have a distinct weakness for beautiful shoes (and clothes) that often outweighs the practicality issues I might face. I was wearing red crocodile skin open-toe heels. They are fabulous. They are not, however, all that appropriate for walking up a cobblestone path to an ancient castle as noted by the cute road worker as we passed by.

I did look cute though.

Train stations

I am quite behind on my blogs, so forgive them for being out of order. The whole trip will make it up...eventually. Maybe.

Ah, Germany. The country of kraut, sausages, and beer. I never thought much about Germany before I went there on this trip. I now have fabulous memories of it.

I've a friend who lives in Nuremberg who graciously allowed me to stay with her for a few days before my partially ill-fated trip to Ireland. I dropped M. and DH off at the metro and headed to the train station in Prague. The train I was planning on taking left at one p.m. It was about nine a.m., so I thought I could buy my ticket, grab lunch with the sixty crowns I had left, and then catch the train. The ticket man had other ideas. He booked me on the morning departure, so I had just enough time to grab a Coke and jump on the train.

The trains are an interesting ordeal. Some of the seats are reserved. Some are first-come, first-serve. I have yet to figure out how one tells the difference. I chose poorly my first go around. I tucked my bags in the overhead compartment and settled in to listen to "Agreeing to Disagree". About twenty minutes later I was interrupted by a couple who had somehow magically reserved the seat I was occupying. I spent the next five minutes standing in limbo land between the train cars. Scary place, limbo. The old westerns had it wrong. It is not adventurous to jump over the speeding rails. It is idiotic.

Wandered down the aisle in the next car and found an open seat. Hooray! Border patrol came through and checked my passport, but didn't stamp it. I find this curious. I also did not get a stamp when I entered or left Czech. What if I was a spy or a fugitive? I could totally have hidden in Czech.

My Czech is bad. My German/Deutsch is non-existent. This did not stop me from trying. I made friends with the elderly German couple in my car despite the language barrier. Sign language and smiling covers all manner of sins. They took me under their wing and helped me with the transfer in Schwandorf. I'm sure that they announced the transfer, but announcements in German are not very helpful to me.

Arrived at the train station several hours early. No wifi. No cellphone. No Euros. Sigh. I found a bank of payphones with instructions - also in German. I really envied all of my multilingual friends at that moment. An hour or so later, I finally figured out how to work the phone and reached Shara. She picked me up at the train station and my German adventure began.