victory!

Here's one weasely excuse for not writing Euro Like Me often enough lately: my first German language newspaper story! Sort of. I wrote this article in English and the nice people at the South German translated it for me. Maybe I will get to do it again, we'll see.

Anyway it's about being cool and underground, neither of which I know much about, but it's also about Austin, Texas, my hometown. I'll try to post the English text a bit later.

Hosencheißer

Well, the Viennese voted yesterday. The Mayor gets to keep his job, but that's the only good news. The real winner was Hans Christian Strache and the anti-immigration, Nazi-apologist Freedom Party (FPO). They ran a campaign of hate, insisting, among other lies, that the other parties would institute mandatory headscarves for women (!) The FPO gained ground in the last election largely because Austria has given 16-year-olds the right to vote, and lots of these little pantshitters cast their ballots for Strache. Yesterday the FPO again made frightening gains, especially with "lesser-educated" male Wieners.

Assholes.

A Real Ring-Tail-Tooter

Gawd, that was a tough month. Or as by brother in Montana would say, 'a hard pull.'

The last four weeks have been so crazy-exhausting-exciting-exhausting. But you wouldn't know about that, would you? Because I've been neglecting this blog again, haven't I?

Well, it started with a complete technological mutiny. Both of my computers stopped speaking to the Internet. Both my computers: kaput! My watch stopped. My phone quit. For one night, even the DVD player went on strike.

This lasted for a little more than three weeks. The turning point was the night I spilled beer on (and in) my laptop. After that, everything started working better. Honestly.

Then I got an assignment from a pretty respected German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which was great! but I wasn't entirely prepared for it. I had to scribble and circle around the subject for a bit, then write it one or two paragraphs at a time, on the subway to work, or in moments stolen from my real job: Father. So I was barely able to write anything else--not even Facebook updates.

Then Adinah did an end run around us and joined the Girl Scouts! And V. got a new kindergarten teacher (who is great, but isn't it always stressful to get to know someone new?) And I had a birthday--my forty-ninth. And even more important, preparations began for V.'s birthday. Then everyone in my department at work got sick just as my boss dumped several new projects in my lap. I had to teach, do all the administrative stuff that normally consumes my days, plus quite a few things that other people usually do, plus create and do a presentation for a Webinar, whatever that is.

Then we got a kitten. A small black and white love cat named Ada. She was rescued from a garbage can in Romania, and brought to a shelter in Vienna, which is where we met her, the little darling. She's the kind of cat who gets her motor running--like, purr city--then melts in your lap.

But when we brought Ada home we got a horrible surprise. Both Adinah and V. were terrified of her. Neither of them has ever lived with a cat (actually Deanie has, back in NYC, but she doesn't remember The Little Guy.) So the kids looked at Ada and saw, not a cuddly, fluffy little Hello Kitty! but a strange, stalking furry Creature, with claws!! On Morning Two, Ada sprung at Deanie's face to play with her hair extension. Adinah shrieked to break glass, fled to her room and hid in her bed.

Meals in the kitchen were impossible--neither girl would dangle their feet from their chairs, because they could see Ada down there, purring. We had to set V. on the breakfast table whenever the kitten said 'Mraow.'

We've always known that V. both loves and fears animals (monkeys, cows, dogs, pretty much everything except caterpillars, whom she does not fear.) But we had no idea Adinah would be so traumatized by a fuzzball from Romania.

So began the long and painful era in our history known as the Katzenintegrationsprojekt, or The Great Coming Together. Many tears were shed, many screams rang out, and several gasps were gasped.

But today, we can look back and say that we have made great strides. Both girls let Ada sit in their laps now. Yelping, hollering and hissy fits are down by 50%.

And it's been a week already.

Ada aus Romanien

so long, so long

It’s official: we’re losing Rosa, our beloved first babysitter.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t the first-first. A few other folks have guest-starred as babysitters for our girls. But Rosa is the best.

I wasn’t sure what to think of her at first. She was soft-spoken and she was a radikal feminist grad student. On one of the first days she had Adinah, she asked if she could take our baby to a squat that was about to be raided by the police. I said, um, No. But I guess the important thing was that she asked.

Suffice to say, over the years, Adinah and V. have not been angels nor princesses every day they were with Miss Rosa. Adinah can bring the psychic pain, and V. has a pretty wicked backswing. Rosa has been super patient with them. She’s the polar opposite of Gloria, the heroine of that underappreciated Cassavettes film: she really likes kids, especially ours.

I don’t know what we’re gonna do without her. She has recommended a friend, and that’s a start. It’s such a precarious, maddening idea: leaving your children with another person, especially someone you don’t know so well. So many things, big and small, can go wrong. I’m sure we’ll find someone who’s okay. But I’m really going to miss talking medieval history and diapers with Rosa.

Vacation in Vorarlberg Top Ten

(in no particular order)

1) After a week without her, waking up with Adinah and walking out of our cabin to see a fleet of hot-air balloons spread across the sky.

2) An actual conversation, two large goblets of red wine and some smooching with Anette on our hotel room terrace under a big bright moon.

3) Watching V swim by herself for the first time.

4) That juicy roast ox I ate last night.

5) All of us in one bed watching the Teletubbies dubbed in Dutch tonight before we put the kids to bed.

6) Listening to Adinah reading a book called Unicorn Wings in English.

7) Watching Roger Corman's Not of this Earth, for the very first time, on the train out here the other night. It must have cost forty-three dollars to make, and it's go great, and even sort of creepy.

8) Did I already mention that big goblet of red wine?

9) The view from on top of today's mountain.

10) Eight minutes alone in the sauna today.

Home Alone Sunday Listening

(pretty much in this order)

Alexei Rybnikov & Dmitry Rybnikov-Through The Thorns To Stars (Bootleg)(soundtrack to Humanoid Woman)

Ron Geesin - Electrosound

Buddy Holly - Not Fade Away (The Complete Studio Recordings and More)

Mike Oldfield-Tubular Bells

The Jimi Hendrix Experience-Axis Bold as Love

Joni Mitchell-Court and Spark

Various Artists-Hotel Costes Volume 4

Pentangle-Basket of Light

Sol Kaplan, Gerald Fried and Alexander Courage- Star Trek Original Television Soundtrack Volume Two: “The Doomsday Machine” and “Amok Time”

Grace Jones-Warm Leatherette

Captain Beefheart-Doc at the Radar Station

Elton John-Goodbye Yellow Brick Road