Blythe Spirit

Oscar Poll V

If there’s anything that could bring me back from the blogging grave, it’s the Oscars.

Enter the pool here!

Of course, there will be prizes.

Bless Us Every One

Best Of

This month, I’m going to write about my best moments of 2009. It was quite a year.

Best Trip:

Our life was all about travel for so long, we’d become experts at hotel sleeping and bag packing and hellos and goodbyes. So when we moved back to Portland, we plunked down our suitcases, heaved a sigh of relief, and pledged to settle down for a while. We took a couple of weekend trips and a quick Vegas getaway, but there wasn’t much glamor to speak of – nothing compared with Easter in Spain, or a villa in Tuscany, or an accidental trip to Hong Kong.

Whatever my twentieth high school class reunion lacked in glamor, however, it made up for in genuine fun and good will and laughter. It reminded me who I am and how I got here and made me proud of the people I started with, and who know me in a way that no one else does. (They also lived through the bad hair years with me. Never fear, you’ll get to see more of that this month too.)

Coughing it up

Our little family of three does just fine with my new working mom gig as long as nothing disrupts the precarious timing balance we’ve so carefully constructed. As long as Jeff doesn’t have an early meeting, as long as Theo doesn’t wake up too early and disrupt my shower, as long as I don’t have to stay late at the office. But then I went on a business trip last week.

I got home late Sunday evening after starting my trip with a canceled flight (and an exchange with an airline employee that was really just unrivaled in its rudenes. And the rudness was not mine, for once). But I was happy to have made it home and fell into bed, got up and went to work, and just about collapsed in a heap at 10am when I realized it was only MONDAY and OMG THERE ARE FOUR MORE DAYS OF THIS.

When I’m in my little routine, I spend Sunday evenings getting my clothes ready (I almost typed “ironing my clothes” but who am I fooling), figuring out lunches and dinners for the week, and going over the day care pick-up and drop-off schedule with Jeff. So without that structural safety net I found myself eating BBQ potato chips and Twizzlers I found in my desk drawer at lunchtime while sweating through an inappropriately-wintry turtleneck. But the turtleneck was clean at least, because I chose clean over seasonal.

All three of us have some version of a cough/runny nose/day care pestilence, so I’ve also been contending with fearful looks from bystanders as I hack up a lung. I feel like I should hand out anti-bacterial wipes everywhere I go. I’ll admit, sometimes I cough right into my hand instead of into my elbow, and sometimes I don’t wash my hands immediately after wiping my nose. It’s hard when you’re sitting in the middle seat on an airplane. But I am sick and tired of and, well, getting downright pissed off about, people’s reactions to my condition. Let’s be clear here: I do not have a fever. I do not have chills. I am not oinking. I just have a cold and a cough and when I get a cough it tends to last for a long time. And I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to do about that besides politely stuff my face into my elbow when I feel a cough coming on. Stay in my house for the six weeks it takes for me to stop coughing? Wear a surgical mask?

I am too lazy to expand this little rant into a well-constructed argument about the media and “news” and how the public has been not-subtly convinced to fear illness over the years and now we’re all judging one another for our germs. But you get my drift. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to health concerns, I have a freaking toddler for goodness’ sake. I have allergy-induced asthma. I know we have to take a health threat like H1N1 seriously.

But let’s just all calm down, please. Please. Deep breath.

I feel much better now.

And as long as I’m going on and on about whatever is on the top of my head, let me send you to a couple of things I’ve been enjoying lately:

Penelope Trunk is always interesting and I’m finding her latest series on Asperger’s Syndrome in the workplace really fascinating. She also just angered a whole lot of people, using 140 characters or less, and in a way that is sparking all kinds of conversations. Check her out.

Have you read The Unlikely Disciple? Speaking of controversy, it’s a book about religion and sex and Jerry Falwell and college. I’m only about 1/3 through and I can’t put it down.

Shuffle-Ball-Change

I’ve been hanging out at the community center lately, near lunchtime when the local meals-on-wheels organization serves a meal to seniors in the dining room. They do food delivery too, but those clients who are able-bodied and socially inclined show up to eat and chat and pick up a sack of day-old bagels or a newspaper.

Before lunch, the center hosts exercise classes of the kind you imagine at senior centers – they sit on chairs and stretch their arms; they stand behind the chairs and stretch their legs; they bend from the waist to one side and then another. I like to watch them because they remind me of my grandparents, most of whom are gone. I lived within a half hour of all four of them when I was growing up, but when I moved away twenty years ago this summer, I saw them only a couple of times a year. I find myself imagining Grandma doing the slow-motion version of the hokey pokey at the senior center.

This week I was there a little earlier in the day, and instead of the swayers I was surprised by a whole different group. The ladies’ tap dance class was taking place on the stage at one end of the dining room and I swear I could have watched those women all day long. They were dancing to Rockin’ Robin (A Michael Jackson homage? Perhaps.) and man, could they tap. I took my share of tap-dance lessons and I never really mastered it; it’s all about ankle and knee control and I was better suited to stiff-legged ballet. The class of seven was led by a woman who must have learned tap dancing during World War II. She was serious, stopping the group when someone was clearly out of step and making them all start over again, and they were all way better than I had ever been, even at age ten with my young joints and brand new shoes.

I wonder what kind of class I’ll take at the senior center when I am seventy-five. Hip-hop? Maybe Macarena?

The Jerk

Last week, I was feeling like I spent most of my time in negotiations. I thought far in advance about how I could convince my son to wear socks each day. I talked up the thrills and delights of his tractor plate at dinnertime. I offered to race him upstairs when the bathtub beckoned. But, most of the time, he was having none of it. He whined and flailed and threw his cars. I despaired, wondering where my easygoing kid had disappeared to. I thought (hoped) it was his molars. I didn’t want to resign myself to the idea that he was just kind of a jerk, but the thought crossed my mind. He’d just turned two. This is how they act for a couple of years, I thought. Maybe I should hire a live-in massage therapist to reduce my stress, I thought.

I was ramping up to a business trip, and I was hosting my book group. I had a lot to do and plan and think about. And the more I had to do, the crankier Theo became. He spent the weekend alternating between angelic glee and freaked-out screeching. He’d even stopped sleeping well. He demanded attention at 3am, and then wanted books read and balls tossed and games played. All three of us were delightful to behold when it was time to get up.

Tuesday night, he woke up crying (again) and screaming. OUCHY OUCHY OUCHY he said. EAR he cried.

“That’s a pretty clear signal,” the doctor snorted when I told her the story the next morning. We gathered up our Amoxycillin and went on our merry way. He’s not a jerk, you see, he just has an ear infection.

All this made me feel a little bad that he’d obviously felt miserable for a while but I’m not embarrassed to tell you I was relieved. Because he’s gone through cranky periods before and I hoped and thought it was teething or illness and in the end he was just cranky. So this time, when the doctor handed me the prescription, it was good to have a solution that didn’t involve trying to have patience, trying to listen and talk and convince a toddler that screaming should be confined to emergency situations and the playground (and possibly those evenings when his mother just can’t take it any more).

(To those of you anticipating the Oscar pool results, I apologize for the delay. I promise to post the big news later this week. Thanks for your patience.)

Two Years

Last year I worried that a five-minute video of Theo’s first year was too long. But this year I don’t care, and I made it over eight minutes long. Mostly because I suck at video editing and the software I was using made me want to cry. But also because my child is eight minutes’ worth of fascinating. I thought about ending it with a shot of myself pulling out my hair and hurling my laptop into a ravine in frustration, but then I remembered it’s not ALL about me.

Happy birthday, Buddy.

Theodore’s Second Year from Blythe Spirit on Vimeo.

Thanks to B. and Jonna for musical inspiration.

How Flossing Changed My Life

I strive to be truthful. But I used to lie to my dental hygienist twice a year, without fail, when she would ask me if I flossed. “MmmHmm,” I nodded as I tried to make sure and answer while her fingers were in my mouth, hopefully obscuring my guilty face. And then she would remark on my bleeding gums and I would say, “Well, not every day,” which meant, “Well, only once in a while when I get a popcorn kernel stuck in my molar.” And she would smile politely and then get serious and tell me I really should be flossing blah blah blah.

I finally realized that this little untruth, though practically a national pastime, was the worst part of my dental appointments. It pained me even more than the dragging of those pointy spiral instruments past my aching gums. So I finally just decided to tell her the truth, that I did not floss. I thought maybe that would garner some sympathy, that I’d get points for being the one and only person in the chair that day who admitted her shortcomings. But instead I didn’t even get a sympathetic smile this time, just a stern talking-to about gum disease.

And then I moved to Germany and met the kindest, friendliest hygienist I’ve ever known, who cheerfully gave me two teeth-cleanings straight from a Stephen King novel. I swear I saw my own blood spattered on the ceiling as I rose from the chair. And I went home and broke out the dental floss.

I have too many teeth that are too big for my mouth. This meant braces and appliances and rubber bands and elementary school photos wherein I look like a K-9 or a descendant of Nosferatu. Now that the cosmetics are straightened out, my teeth are crammed so tightly together that anything I try to slide between them becomes caught. Floss shreds. Toothpicks splinter. And I have a permanently-installed retainer that traps food particles like a Venus Flytrap grabs insects (yum). So that’s always been my excuse for poor dental hygiene. But I was determined to avoid needing cauterization the next time I hit the dentist’s chair.

And so, for the past twelve months, I’ve been a flossing machine. I floss every single night before bed, even when I’m tired, even when I’m on vacation, and even when I found out we were moving back to the USA and I knew I’d never see that friendly, devilish hygienist again. In fact, if you can believe this, I made a dentist appointment for the week before we moved just so I could display my sparkling gums to her. Of course in fine German style, when I announced I’d been flossing she said, “Oh this is fine, but your retainer is still a difficulty.” Whatever.

Now the point to this story wasn’t to give you a far-too-detailed account of what’s inside my mouth (but aren’t you lucky? you got one anyway). It’s to tell you that old dogs can learn new tricks! Really we can! Because I am still flossing, and I realized last week that I’ve started LOOKING FORWARD to how my teeth feel after I’ve flossed, in the same way I used to look forward to brushing them. Now, that minty freshness just isn’t complete until I’ve yanked a piece of Teflon-coated string between my teeth. Just think of what this means. I might one day learn to make my bed every morning! I could start washing the car once a week! I could get up an hour earlier and do yoga!

But since none of that is likely to happen, I’m just looking forward to my next dentist appointment where there will be no lies or evasion or, if I’m lucky, blood on the ceiling.

Congratulations

I’ve received so many nice e-mails congratulating me on our impending return to the USA. “Congratulations and welcome home!” they say, and it’s a reminder of one of the reasons we’re moving back, the embrace of those who know us and like us and want to have us around. When I am feeling generous and self-confident, I imagine these people are saying, “Congratulations on a new phase of life, on Jeff’s new job, on making a big decision!”

But if I’m honest, my initial reaction to these messages is horror that all these people think the past three years have been nothing but a long slow trudge and toil toward the ultimate goal of getting the hell out of here. That they believe I call Jeff at work twice a day and say, “Have you checked Monster.com? It looks like they need a greeter at The Gap in Los Angeles?” (If you know Jeff, you see that this is a funny joke because he would hate nothing more than a job where he must stand in a mall and talk cheerfully with tanned strangers all day long.) I can’t imagine why anyone might believe that leaving Germany is a triumph for me, unless they read my blog, and posts like this one, or heard me whining about how the Germans are cranky and don’t believe in air conditioning or elevators, or somehow got the vibe that it’s going to take a vat of authentic Baja Fresh salsa to make me happy. Well, maybe it’s not such a mystery.

In fact, moving back doesn’t seem so much a victory as a wobbly step toward a place where we know we should be. Germany is definitely not home, but even after just three years away, our old hometown seems like our OLD hometown. It has all the stuff I’ve been craving since I left – books I can read, movies I can see, shampoo that doesn’t wreak havoc with my scalp, and above all a support system and language I can understand. But when I think about having all that stuff and more, lit up and blinking and declaring its presence all around me, all the time, I get a little panicky. All those Sundays I spent complaining about how there was NOTHING TO DO and NO ONE TO DO IT WITH around here are coming back to haunt me, because now I’m concerned that I will never relax since something delightful will always, perpetually be around the corner – farmers’ markets! family birthday parties! that new Kashmiri restaurant that opened last week! the X-Files movie! – and I will never ever have a moment to just sit down and eat the burrito that currently lives only in my dreams.

I hope I’ll remember the lessons I’ve learned from this culture and from the reserved yet kind Germans who have taught me that a long walk in the park is sometimes better than a drive to the mall for an Orange Julius, and that sometimes it’s nice only to have a nodding acquaintance with the scruffy bearded guy who lives next door instead of knowing every detail of his life story. I am even calmed a bit when I try to imagine those congratulatory messages through a different lens, and wonder how a German might respond to his friend who has announced she is moving back home after a stint abroad. It is unlikely that he would use any exclamation marks (in fact I think the exclamation mark takes finger gymnastics on a German keyboard, not surprising). He would probably say something along these lines: “I hope your husband’s new job is with a stable company and don’t forget, the taxes here are high. Your mother will be lucky to have you nearby to help with her health problems. Please call us at Christmas and we will make an appointment for coffee.” Translation: Welcome home!

Danke Schön

I made the first stop on my farewell tour last night, and it was only appropriate that it was spent with a few of my favorite expat bloggers. B., Katie,Christina (along with her two sidekicks, Rainer and Oliver)and I talked politics and blogs and future plans until almost midnight. We ate Indian food and introduced Oliver to mango-yogurt shakes (a big hit) and inadvertently yet cheerfully explored a bit of Nuernberg I’d never seen before.

I started this blog imagining that a few friends and family members would tune in to see whether we’d survived the first week. I’m still sort of thrilled and freaked out that anyone else ever reads and comments here, and that I’ve actually met some of you in person. Honestly, when the first comments from strangers appeared, I got a little nervous. Aren’t those people on the internet a bunch of weirdos, building their own mainframes in their parents’ basements? And just before B and I met for the first time, I looked at Jeff and said, well, I guess if you don’t hear from me you can assume she turned out to be a serial killer.

But despite my slightly suspicious nature, I make an effort to assume the best about people, and I haven’t been disappointed by you, readers. I’ve found friends in a place and at a time that I felt friendless. I’ve received care packages and shopped for baby clothes and solved blog design crises with people I’ve met here. That must mean that I’ve officially become one of those internet weirdos I was worried about.

Blogging, and knowing my blog isn’t just for me any more, has been a big part of my Deutsch adventure, and I wouldn’t have kept it up if it weren’t for you, dear readers. Thanks for being here.