Repeating Highschool

We were on our way to Ollie's baptism on Sunday when Damon popped the question.

"If you could change anything about your past, what would it be?"

Damon's just received his FBI clearance, after four months of waiting, and is practicing interview questions.

"It's a trick question," he told me.

But I was already thinking, seriously thinking about what I would change, if given the chance.

1. Vet school? Nah. I needed that.
2. Coming to Germany? Nah. That's part of who I am.
3. The three miscarriages? Well, yeah, it would have been nice NOT to have had to deal with those, but, then again....they've also led me on the road to where I am now.
4. The finance crisis of 2009? Eh. True, if Damon had been earning then what he is earning NOW, we wouldn't have considered leaving Germany. But then again, if Damon had been earning then what he is earning now, we wouldn't have considered leaving Germany.

Every choice I've made has led me to where I am now.

And I'm pretty okay with that.

I'm going to miss some friends. New ones that I am just connecting to. Old ones that I am reconnecting to. People that are good for me - and that have helped me become the person that I am. I am me again. Thank you.

Funny enough, some of those people - the very people who have stood by me during the darkest times, the people who saw me through a nervous breakdown and called me daily to see how I was, the people who supported me and grieved with me through my miscarriages and who stuck with me through my depression, when I didn't even know who I was anymore....well, some of them don't seem to like the person I've become.

And that's okay too.

I am a better person because they were there for me in the past.

That's enough to be grateful for.

Sometimes it seems to me that highschool keeps repeating itself. The venue changes, but not the content. The best part about it is - besides the fact that I'm LEGALLY AND MORALLY ALLOWED to be doing the things I was doing then anyway - that I get to change who I am, and how I respond, everytime the highschool scenario repeats itself.

I didn't think people understood me in highschool either.

But at least this time around I understand myself.

Where's the LOYALTY?!

"Ballack? You're wearing a BALLACK T-shirt?"

Wanna catch a young man's interest nowadays try wearing a soccer jersey.

(I like to think the jovial mockery erases the fifteen year difference in our ages.)

"Yeah, Ballack." I answer. "Seems to have been forgotten pretty quickly, don't you think?"

"Nothing wrong with Lahm, though, is there?" he replies.

"No, nothing at all wrong with Lahm. I just think they dropped Ballack awfully abruptly."

(Four years ago the man was Germany's golden boy. It was more than mildly disconcerting that my obstetrician in Tuebingen looked just like him. Good times, those.)

"You don't think the German team is doing well without him?" he asks.

"That's not the point. They're doing fantastic."

"But you're not going to root for them without Ballack."

"Of course, I am. I just don't understand where he is."

(This bothers me, really. Not just the Germans, but the Europeans in general seem to forget individuals awfully quickly. In the USA, they'd at least let the poor guy sit on the team bench and watch the game. Where is the loyalty? Or is this whole emphasis on the individual really more of an American concept? But oops - I promised more dialogue and less moralizing. It's probably just a soccer thing anyway!)

"What do you mean, where he is?" my young friend asks me.

"Well, for example, they've given his number away already."

He hasn't heard that - or noticed. "They have? On who?"

"The new guy playing. The 20 year old. He got one of the goals against Australia."

"Oh. Mueller." He seems pretty impressed I'm paying attention to all this.

"So. You don't think that's awfully quick? To take the man's number away already. Last month, before his injury, he was still captain of the team."

"Nobody is irreplaceable." he replies.

And it doesn't seem to bother him.

"Anyway, I'm not going out to buy another jersey, when I've got this one already."

That, however, floors him.

Michael Ballack. My number 13.

HE may be invisible, a has-been with an injury at the age of 34, but I am like an elephant stopping traffic whenever I wear his name.

Shoulda Stayed In Bed

My Thursday, June 17, 2010.

1. Met angry, rambling mother in parking lot and couldn't get away for 40 minutes. (Note: Did not help her with any of her problems since she never stopped long enough for me to get a chance.)

2. Arrived 30 minutes late to yoga class, expecting to at least catch the end of it. (I NEED my yoga class!) Substitute teacher; class packed; didn't dare go in.

3. Bravely headed to the cardio machines. (Yuck!) Did cardio for one hour.

4. Without the headsets working.

5. The men's sauna was broken so that we had a mixed sauna again. No matter how young and muscular those guys were, was NOT in the mood to sit naked with them and sweat.

6. Dropped glass bottle of expensive cream on the floor.

7. Need I mention it shattered?

8. Changed into lounge-around-the-house-clothes, figuring it was really better NOT to attempt communication with the outside world for the rest of the day.

9. A neighbor stopped by to discuss what we are going to do about damages to our VW. (An elderly friend of his ran into it last week, and the repairs are going to cost more than the car itself is worth. Although the car still runs fine, we are selling it in two months and need to figure out how to get some value out of it.)

10. Realized my T-Shirt was see-through - and I was braless - in the middle of the conversation. Tried casually crossing my arms, but wasn't fooling anyone.

11. Ryan erased part of the boys' Monsters, Inc. tape while trying to record FRIDAY'S soccer game for Andrew.

12. Aidan and Matthew took advantage of a phone call to Lori to put on their bike helmets and run away on their Laufrads, after I expressly told them not to.

13. It has been 50 degrees Fahrenheit out all day and rainy. Forecast for same.

14. A mother from the kindergarten stopped by to return the book we had given her son for his birthday on Tuesday. He has it already. Yeah. Now I get to return it.

It's only 6 PM. But I'm still frightened of what the rest of the day might bring.

15. France lost to Mexico, nothing that personally affects me, but certainly something unexpected. (I LOVE France but their soccer team plays dirty. Good for Mexico!)

16. Friday's soccer matches were a bust though. Sobs for Germany.

17. USA - although a 2:2 is nothing to sneeze at. (Sorry guys, blame the loss of that third goal on me.)

18. AND England.

Although I'm sure the upset of most of Europe's soccer teams can't be my fault alone, I still hope that Slovakian player isn't permanently injured.

Feel like I should at least send him an apology if he is!

Wrong Impression

Some Americans have moved into the apartment downstairs and I'm a little worried they might get the wrong idea about us.

Little things. Like when I was chasing the boys around the house Saturday afternoon. Literally. With a whiffle ball bat. While they screeched happily and danced naked just out of my reach. "Monster coming. Monster coming."

(I wouldn't want to live in the apartment below us, but so far, in six years, noone's ever complained!)

"I am not a monster. I'm your mother." Swat with the bat at a naked behind.

Come to think of it, we'd better start saving up for some serious couch time in the fuure.

The other thing that worries me is the song I wrote and taught them.

"I love to beat my children. I beat them every day. And when I beat my children, oh this is what they say."

Rousing chorus from the kids: "Beat me Momma, beat me Momma, beat me Momma, please."

It's a really catchy tune, actually. (You can also tickle the children, hug the children and kiss the children.....but they like the beating the best!)

At the end of the day we sat down to read the poems of Heinrich Hoffmann, a popular German children's book from the mid 1800s. In it, the girl playing with matches gets burned - to death. The boy who won't eat his soup starves - to death. The kid who sucks his thumb gets to live though - after the tailor cuts off both his thumbs.

Go on. It's a lovely collection of children's tales. The boys LOVE it.

I'm just banking on the fact that our new neighbors couldn't understand a word of it!

New Worlds For Ryan

Here's what I found on my desk - amidst a half-finished chocolate milk and some brotchen crumbs - when I came home from Writers' Group on Saturday.

With all my worrying about whether or not I am doing the right thing for Ryan, about what I could be doing differently, and better, for her, it is nice to have confirmation that just being me, and letting her be herself, is the best I can do.

Ryan's story, written while home alone (the boys were at baseball), VOLUNTARILY for FUN, came complete with pictures of horse and owner. I can only reproduce the written words here. Remember, English is her second language. (Read it out loud; it helps!)

I couldn't be prouder.

Cobolt (Picture of a black horse with Carole.)

Carole Hanson (HEART for loves) Cobolt they meant to be together but Cobolt is Veronicka di Angelo's Horse. She killd Cobolt with forsing him to go over a gump. Dr. Judy had to put him down. Carole wanted to quit riding bekos of Veronika and she almost did. Stevie and Lisa thot (say it out loud!) of a plane. Veronicka shold bey (out loud, I tell you!) Starlight but Carole said: ''You are not gonea kill Starlight and your not gonea get Starlight eather understand!?" and Veronicka said:

That's it. It's a direct synopsis of her favorite book - and TV - series "Saddle Club." Written in a second-language by a child with problems synthesizing information.

Just look at what these kids can do when given the chance and encouraged!

They need an interest. And they need a visual. (The German education system is not very visual, no pictures of the alphabet, no charts of the multiplication tables.)

But I'm psyched - again - about a few months of homeschooling in the fall. The schoolroom will take shape around us. Area history and culture. Language. Reading and math. And I'm thinking TV - and the Internet - isn't all bad for a kid like Ryan, if it is used properly. She responds to the visual and to the story. Our trip to the movie theater on Sunday is just the sort of thing she personally soaks up better than taking notes from the board or listening to a presentation.

Ryan is opening up new worlds for me. I'm thrilled to be able to do the same for her.

1:1 USA/England

Offensive Material Alert!!! This is NOT about World Cup Soccer. And it's not really about the Brits either. But yeah.....people seem to be a bit touchy nowadays. If you don't want to hear about oil spills, BP and what I think of stock dividends and pension plans in light of the greatest environmental disaster to hit the U.S.....well, feel more than free to wait for the next blog. Get yourself a nice cup of coffee instead. Or tea. I swear, this is not an anti Brit/or USA/or even big, bad oil company rant. I don't think. (But if you own stock in BP - and are waiting for your dividends - be prepared to be offended.)

Those of you who know me personally must be wondering why I've been keeping silent on the whole oil spill thing. Environment. Wildlife. Government. Big companies. I should be going crazy, right?

It's like Liz and the German education system. I'm so furious that I'm speechless.

I read my first news articles and saw my first pictures yesterday.

Denial was so much prettier.

And then Ryan and I went out to see the 3-D Whales and Dolphins movie at the Corso today. (It was last minute or I would have invited Babette, Lori, Cindy, Karen, Syrie and sent out a general email to the English Group. The Corso is an amazing English resource here in Stuttgart; we gotta remember to use it!)

It was nothing new really, nothing that we don't already know. Most whales and dolphins are threatened, if not endangered species. A number will be extinct within our generation.

But it was weird to be watching this in wake of the oil spill. No sorry, in wake of the huge hemorrhaging artery we opened into Mother Earth. (As if you didn't know that's how I've been feeling all along.)

And then it hit me. 3,000 West Indian Manatees. The last of their kind. (I believe there are some dugongs living in the Ganges River; I also believe the Ganges River is so polluted you wouldn't want to be a dugong living in it.)

That species is gone. We killed that species. April, 2010. I know we've killed, and will continue to kill, thousands of insects and plants yearly. Pollution. Climate change. Loss of habitat. Slash and burn agriculture. Overhunting and fishing. (Did you think I'd forgotten all that just because I was silent?)

But we signed THIS species' death warrant with one, specific environment disaster. (Note I didn't say careless business transaction - I don't know enough to place blame. And I do drive a car.)

One bad pipe fitting.....one careless mistake.....hey, accidents, by definition, happen. But this one will kill the Manatee as a species. Then there are the birds, the fish, the crabs, the turtles, the dolphins, the sharks, the plant life, the shrimp......dying slowly. This may not be news to you, anymore......but I'm only ready to accept it now.

Ready to accept this horrible accident as change. Ready to try to make comparisons to the rising age of Aquarius. (Couldn't do much with it, although I did learn a lot about astrology trying!) I'm willing to TRY to accept this, prepared to believe that change is part of the natural cycle of things, even man-made change, and move forward.

Then again I'm not a shrimp boat owner in Louisiana or a resort manager in Florida. Then again, I'm not going to watch the ooze spread down the coast of Mexico, throughout the Gulf and into the Bahamas, Cuba and beyond. (C'mon - do you REALLY believe a disaster of this magnitude isn't going to somehow manage to affect Haiti?!)

This is going to move up the Gulf Stream into New England.

This is going to change the world.

What I will not accept - and here comes the offensive part - is the acrimony of British citizens moaning about falling stock prices and pension plans. Life's a bitch, guys. Welcome to it.

BP's actions - be they negligent, or criminal (and I am NOT saying they are, because my guess is they are no more criminal or negligent than any other oil company)- or just plain bad luck - well, BPs actions have changed the face of the planet. We're all going to have to live with that, in one way or another. Fishermen and homeowners in the affected areas. Stock holders and employees world-wide. Wetlands, sea mammals, fish, birds and plant life.

My God, this is HUGE! I am sorry you are hurting, am sorry about your pension plan. (Really, that has GOT to suck.) Not so funny now that it's not the Americans any more is it?

But BP has got to accept responsibility. Not because they are British, but because it's the right thing to do. (I know I am giving a major oil company a lot of credit here but I'm trying to stay positive!)

Can you IMAGINE how the world would react if a U.S company damaged the environment and economy of another country this way?!

You cannot honestly expect BP to pay out stock dividends before they've cleaned up the mess they've made. It's called an investment. I think that implies risk. Guess what, you lost. You cannot be outraged at the excesses on Wall Street and then turn around and ask for the same thing. My money please, to hell with the rest of it.

I can't believe we are witnessing the destruction of an entire ecosystem, and way of life along the Gulf Coast, and talking about stock dividends in the same sentence. For shame.

But it's not because BP is British. It's because we are all human. We opened up that artery in Mother Earth together.

The USA and Britain have been buddies since that little spat they had a couple hundred years ago.

The U.S. is hurting now and we need your help and support, not your bill of services rendered. (I would be feeling REALLY REALLY shitty and apologizing my ass off to everyone in sight if it were an American or a German company, by the way. I do that a lot as it is, though.)

We're in it together. For better or worse, guys, for better or worse. (The rest of the world would be laughing its collective ass off at BOTH countries....ever believe in karma?......except that the tragedy is too horrid to laugh at.)

Together, we've managed to killed the manatee. That's gotta count for something, right?

Team Earth

I really do love the World Cup.

Understand that, as an American, I didn't even realize they HAD a World Cup for soccer until a few years ago. And cared even less.

And then it came to Germany four years ago and captured my heart. I was nine months pregnant with twins. Just waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Because EVERYONE had reassured me that they would come at 35 weeks. And waiting. And waiting.

And those boys - the German team - waited with me. (I wasn't on speaking terms with two inside of me anymore. This was MY body - it was time to GET OUT!)

Germany itself came alive that summer too. And presented a whole new image to the world. We were cute, and naive and charming. The world loved us.

And we loved ourselves. Suddenly, it was okay to hang the German flag up again. And hang it out of your car. And stick it to your face. And wear it. We were allowed to be proud, allowed to be happy about who we were.

"Geschichte," they wistfully tell you when you mention that we should be able to do this more often than once every two years. (Four years for the World Cup and two for the European Cup.) "History." Why Germans don't display their flags like people in other countries do. Why they are always a little embarrassed - and apologetic - to show any amount of national pride or spirit at all.

Well good Lord, if the Americans and Brits can fly our flags, right?!

History.

The thing is that Germany scares us more than most because it is so recent, and because it reminds us of what we, ourselves, are capable of. It's not the destruction of the native Americans centuries ago or the imperialism of the British over India. It's not slavery and its not apartheid. And it's not dark-skinned, Africans in Rwanda slaughtering eachother with machetes or Muslims battling it out in the Middle East or Eastern Europe.

It's not the black man, or the yellow man, or some remote tribe far away. It's us. It is white, Christian people from one of the most highly developed countries in the modern, Western world, a country that brought us music and art, literature, science and technology. It is US, systematically slaughtering people who weren't all that much different than us - but different enough apparently - only three generations ago.

It's too close.

Two years ago I watched the European Cup games with other patients in the psychiatric ward. The common room was filled with all of us, Turkish and Polish, German and French, schizophrenic, bipolar and suicidal, drug addicts and alcholics, teenagers, men, women and the elderly. And we got together to watch the games. It was really nice.

We need that. We all need that. A feeling of unity. A feeling of hope. A sense of being part of something greater than ourselves.

Today the Internet - and facebook - binds us more closely than ever before. And my multi-culti circle of family and friends can choose their battles. We had the Olivo's over to watch the South Africa/Mexico game this afternoon. Omar is Mexican-American. Tracy is British. But I have a big, soft spot for Anita, and Lynn-Ann and Liesl and Beulah and their families who have had to leave their beautiful homeland of South Africa because of political and economic strife and frankly, just plain violence. It's okay - Tracy and I were just checking out the players anyway. Good-looking African boys versus good-looking Hispanic boys. It really doesn't get any better than that!

Tomorrow I play American......but may have the Olivo's over anyway. As long as Tracy and I are rooting for the best-looking player in the shortest shorts - we're rooting for the same thing!!!

And Sunday.....family histories collide as Germany plays Australia. Although I've already pulled all the boys to my side with generous applications of face paint and a cool Michael Ballack T-shirt. Let's see Damon paint the Southern Cross on Ryan's face and see how long she roots for Australia!

But see. It's fun. More so than the Olympics (C'mon - does ANYONE really watch the Olympics?!) the World Cup draws us all together for a few months every four summers.

The flags are out again in Germany. And we're rooting for our boys.

"Geschichte" is not forgotten. You want to talk about forgetting history, take a look at Somalia or Nigeria. Any idea what atrocities are going on there, RIGHT NOW? "Geschichte" should not be forgotten.

But the world can only move forward together. We all need a sense of who we are, as a country, and as a member of the larger world community.

Can flags and soccer do that? I don't know. I do know they won't heal the open wound in the earth off the Gulf of Mexico. I do know they won't end the war in Afgahnistan, solve the problem of world poverty, prevent the spread of AIDS or cure cancer.

But it's nice to see the flags in Germany again this summer. And nice to see us smile and root for something TOGETHER, as a country and as a community of people.

It's what we got. And if a bunch of boys chasing a ball around the field brings us closer together, well maybe, just maybe, we can work together on some of that other stuff too.