Okay I lied. I have a funny story to tell about Call Week and so I'm gonna tell it. I worked my ass off for HOF. Some of you know that...and Erin was my mentor (though she hated being called that). When Call Week rolled around she sent me the coolest Email:

OK. So I'm at work trying to distract myself from the usual tedious boredom. Listening to my ipod while I'm doing some injections and up queues Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Feel Lucky". I totally LOVE this song. Total feel good, sing along, boop around the house kinda song. I hit repeat twice. Start singing to the mice acapella (remember, only I can hear the music) and just have myself a good old time. Around the third time through I think to myself, Amber needs to hear this song. All about feeling lucky today.

And then. I get home and go to make my lunch. Turn on the radio...and you would NEVER believe what was on the radio...THAT SAME SONG. It's an OLD song, so it isn't like it is major rotation. It's a sign. I know we really don't believe in that crap, but for today...today we are totally going to buy into hook, line, and sinker. Got it? We are canning the snarky attitudes (I know...we so love them) and just BELIEVE today. :)

Happy listening. I seriously recommend playing it REALLY loud, and dancing around the house to it. :)

HA! E

So I listened to it. FULL VOLUME, and danced in my chair. And then I listened to it again. And again. And again. It put me in a fabulous mood. I loved that Erin was so sure. I loved that we were believing in signs, I loved the song (despite its country/western flavor)! I listened to it again the next day, but by the 17th, I was drooping. I thought maybe it wasn't a sign. Maybe Erin was wrong. Calls had gone out, 19 of them! It must be over, nothing for me.

But Erin was right. She was SO right. That call came on the 17th, and you better believe I turned Mary Chapin Carpenter right back on and danced all over the place in joy!! Love ya, E!!!

Lyrics:

I Feel Lucky (Mary-Chapin Carpenter/Don Schlitz)
Well I woke up this morning stumbled out of my rack
I opened up the paper to the page in the back
It only took a minute for my finger to find
My daily dose of destiny, under my sign
My eyes just about popped out of my head
It said "the stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed"

I feel lucky, I feel lucky, yeah
No Professor Doom gonna stand in my way
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today

Well I strolled down to the corner, gave my numbers to the clerk
The pot's eleven million so I called in sick to work
I bought a pack of Camels, a burrito and a Barq's
Crossed against the light, made a beeline for the park
The sky began to thunder, wind began to moan
I heard a voice above me saying, "girl, you better get back home"

But I feel lucky, oh oh oh, I feel lucky, yeah
No tropical depression gonna steal my sun away
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today

Now eleven million later, I was sitting at the bar
I'd bought the house a double, and the waitress a new car
Dwight Yoakam's in the corner, trying to catch my eye
Lyle Lovett's right beside me with his hand upon my thigh
The moral of this story, it's simple but it's true
Hey the stars might lie, but the numbers never do

I feel lucky, oh oh oh, I feel lucky, yeah
Hey Dwight, hey Lyle, boys, you don't have to fight
Hot dog, I'm feeling lucky tonight

I feel lucky, brrrrr, I feel lucky, yeah
Think I'll flip a coin, I'm a winner either way
Mmmmmm, I feel lucky today

Bear with me, I promise to go back to my humble pie tomorrow, but for today, I have to let out some excitement...

I've been holding it in for weeks. And now, for those of you who wanted to know why I had to go to the Consulate...I had to get very official, important papers notarized and I could not tell you that on my blog without certain people becoming suspicious. You have to understand (if you aren ot a scrapbooker!) that this whole thing was TOP SECRET up until the announcement yesterday! That did not, however, keep others from sluething until their fingers turned blue to find out who was keeping the secret, and many of them (myself included) were searching blogs for tips! It's been a fun (and wildly exciting) ride and I'm soooo happy to share it with Stacy and Vicki!!

If I flat-out lied to you about it, I'm sorry, I had no choice! So, now back to your regular (more humble) programming!

Sven, irritated at being cooped up all day yesterday (rain, rain, rain) decided he wanted Burger King (he's a BK-lovin' fool) even if it meant an hour's bike-ride to and back (in the rain). Well, as long as I could hold out until he returned with the food, it meant no cooking for me, so who was I to disagree? I requested a Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich and onion rings (ummmmmmmm, onion rings!) and waited.

Sven finally returned wet and tired, but with his double whopper, with cheese and bacon, or so he thought. Starving me, dug into my now-cold onion rings and then took a big bite of chicken burger only to get a mouth full of bacon! Oh NO. Bacon has it's time and place, and that is NOT on my chicken burger. Ew. I removed the offending bacon from both my mouth, and the burger while Sven discovered his whopper was bacon-free. He rec'd my removed bacon and I continued to eat a now bacon-tainted chickenburger. *sigh* I think I'm done with bacon for a while.

A word on nitrates. As far as I'm concerned, I'll keep eating lunchmeats and bacon, if I feel like it!

Now, can someone please explain to Tanja, the seduction of bacon? Bacon is not speck, my friend. It is different. I am afraid we might have to have some for breakfast on Sunday just so you can see what I mean. Of course, the bacon here is twice as small as what you get in the states, but tastes similar. It is also disgusting. The thought of eating fried pig, especially fried pig fat, really turns my stomach, if I think about it, which is why I just love that morningstar veggie bacon. All the goodness of bacon, without the fat or meat or PIG! ha ha!! So yes Erin, I've fallen quite far, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kim is no longer speaking to me, but I blame it on this little baby (whose fingers and toes, btw, have separated!). Ah, and around yesterday, my blood increased, meaning I need more iron!

You know what I'd like best right now? A 5 Alarm (boca) Burger at Red Robin, and a Strawberry Lemonade. Heaven. If you live in Germany and were never at Red Robin, let me just make your mouth water with the delicious explanation of that 5 Alarm Baby: Crank up the heat with an all-beef (or boca) burger topped with Pepper-Jack cheese, jalapenós, fresh tangy salsa, sliced tomato, crisp lettuce and chipotle mayo.

This is becoming a food-blog, isn't it? Someone want to fly me out to the states right NOW so I can go to Red Robin?! Pretty please?! (It's pretty sad when I'm begging for a free trip to the states to eat, and not to visit with friends and family, we've (Sven and I) created a monster!!!)

Happy Easter!

After wading through 83 Emails this morning, I cleaned up the kitchen from yesterday's BLT-fest and started in on breakfast: french toast and, you guessed it, bacon! The bacon is now officially gone. So no more for me for a while.

We didn't dye eggs this year (or last year, in fact!) and by the time we got aroudn to buying eggs, only brown were left anyway. So instead, we bought two Kinderüberraschungen, which I put in egg cups this morning for dessert. Sven got a rainforest tree that looked like an Ent out of LOTR and I got a knight and his um, tent. The knight is sitting on a horse that looks more like a hippo. Fun stuff!

The weather is pretty nasty and we've nothing really planned. Lost an hour to DST, and are being lazy in general.

For the scrapbookers among you, I have to share a link that Ellen sent me a couple weeks ago: Scrapbooking: The New Paste-Up. This article is pretty damn funny. The OP didn't do the the best research, which led to some rather irritated scrapbookers. The funniest thing about this article are the comments. Make sure you take time to read through them, definitely good for a laugh!

Hey, new vocabulary learned yesterday. A friend mentioned that they don't dye eggs at her house, they cover them in chocolate and 100's and 1000's, before hiding them outside. She certainly had me confused, she covered them in 100's and 1000's of WHAT?! Turns out, that's Australian for sprinkles!

Saturday

I got up this morning dying for food. I had karibik müsli with passionfruit/peach yogurt. We were out of milk, Friday having been a holiday and my forgetting to pick up milk on Thursday...Didn't take long for my stomach to demand something more substantial than müsli though and suddenly I was dying for bacon. I would have preferred veggie bacon from Morningstar (LOVE that stuff) but Germany has only just figured bacon in general out, Morningstart could take a while! For example, about 5 years ago (give or take) Sven was still new to the whole American world and I wanted to make him a real American breakfast for his birthday. We're talking fried eggs, toast and bacon. The eggs and toast weren't a problem, but the bacon, oh dear. What I ended up buying was a slab of bacon, think one piece of bacon about 2.5 inches thick...which I then sliced as thin as I could and fried up in a pan. It was so salty, Sven has been frightened of bacon ever since!

Well, after moaning about wanting bacon for a good hour or so, Sven mentioned having seen some at Aldi. I replied: "go get me that!" and then begged and pleaded for another good hour. Finally persuaded him to get up out of bed, get dressed and run to Aldi. While he was gone, the DHL man stopped by with a package from Kylene, yippee! It was full of fabulous goodies, including lovely yarns, a gorgeous belt, two chocolate eggs that were made in Germany (hee hee) a bag of soynuts, a bag of dry roasted edamame (still not sure what that is!) and a bag of yin/yang peanuts. Oh those peanuts! I'm totally addicted. Iwas after just one bite. I was sure they were something Sven would love as well, so I got up, grabbed the bag and headed out to Aldi to meet him. He hated the peanuts.

Back to bacon. When we returned from Aldi, I made myself a lunch of hashbrowns and bacon. I didn't burn the hashbrowns today, but being as inexperienced with bacon as I am, I did burn the bacon. Ate it anyway. Yes, I ate bacon. I'm afraid I might start oinking before this baby comes out, but honestly, meat products, high in protein seem to soothe my stomach and the morning sickness the best, and who am I to turn down an offer of comfort, even it means eating a pig?!

After I'd had bacon for lunch, I saw no reason not to enjoy a BLT for dinner, something I haven't been able to eat in a loooooooong time (due to the lack of veggie bacon in Germany). I made Sven one too, and we had frenchfries (he wanted the fries more than the BLT) and they were gorgeous. I just love a BLT. Even Sven enjoyed it!

In my own defense, I also chowed down on grapes yesterday. Abby suggested eating a couple when I get up in the morning to keep MS at bay, so I gave Sven the job of acquiring a few. He bought a huge bunch of seedless green grapes (he knows I tend to prefer seedless) and one bunch of the biggest purple grapes you have ever seen. These things were at least as big as shooter marbles (notice I said were...), and juicy and sweet. Um, they were originally bought for Sven, but the majority found their way into my stomach, seeds and all! Yum! Of course, there weren't any left for the morning, and I forgot to eat the seedless ones when I got up this morning, I ate a milchschnitte and had a Café Schoko instead...

Thursday

Sorry for the long break in blogging, my morning sickness seemed to take on a life of its own this week and I've been a moaning wretch. Plus, I wanted to take some pictures of things that have arrived this week, to share, but haven't gotten around to it yet. So I'll tell instead.

Kereth came by Thursday at lunchtime and took me to Ikea. The original purpose of this trip was for me to exchange our broken carousel (I have no place to keep dishes as long as it remains disfunctinal) but I was lazy and forgot to have Sven take the thing apart for the exchange. So we went to Ikea for lunch and a bit of window shopping instead. Kereth suggested getting a mosquito net for baby's crib. Yes, good idea, thought I and then realized that the mosquitoes will be out of season when baby is born so I can use the mosquito net for ME. Wonderful!

After Ikea, Kereth took me home to her house. Wonderful, just getting away from the overwhelming smells of my own house was a dream. While there we had tea and chatted and Dylan made himself comfortable climbing all over me before finally falling asleep on the couch. Kereth claims that preggo ladies give off a hormone that facinates and attracts babies. I can see it being true, because Dylan stayed pretty much glued to me all afternoon.

Speaking of Dylan. He is a cutie. 18 Months. Why is this of importance? Well, on March 23rd, Zane would have been 20 months. Seeing Dylan is a mxed blessing. He is adorable and fun, but he is also a perfect little reminder of what Zane would have been like. It's sad, but at the same time fascinating. I have no real experience with babies and their growth, so without Dylan, I'd never have known what Zane would be like at any given time.

Kereth showered me with gifts and loans. I could hardly get myself and all the stuff up into my apartment when she took me home. Wonderful woman, Kereth! She gifted us with two adorable wooden toys from Lorenz, two things of peanut butter from the PX and a mini bag of cheese ritz bits...! And she leant me a birthing ball and the cutest little wooden mobile, and threatened me with more goodies! We didn'T want to overwhelm Sven, so decided to take it a bit at a time, and thanks to Kereth, we won't have to buy a Baby Björn!

And happy day for this baby mine, she has her first, very own toys! Did you notice my use of gender? We're pretty sure it's a girl. Kereth, who was convinced of baby's maleness in the beginning, admitted to my giving off a 'girl vibe' after spending the day with me...

Language is so much fun. Even the ugly German language (and I know you all a gree with me that German is a language for spitting all over your computer screen, I've seen Conan make fun of poor ol' Arnie, and even worse, butcher his idea of German in front of Heidi Klum, who then proceeded to say the most menial thing back to him in German, and make it sound like velvet) has it's fun points. It ocurred to me yesterday, when I was writing about Pfisterbrot, that I wanted to throw this out at you. The best letter combination out there, the Pf. Go ahead, you know you want to, say it with me (the 'p' and the 'f' are both pronounced, one after the other..):

• Pferd - horse (now everyone who knows nothing about German is going to pronounce it 'nerd' with a pf sound in front. I'm laughing already thinking about it. Tip: 'er' is always pronounced 'air' in German!)
• Pfau - peacock
• Pfalz - palatinate - territory under the rule or jurisdiction of a palatine
• Pfeffer - pepper
• Pflaster - bandaid
• Pfad - path

Are you laughing yet? Isn't there something just plain fun about saying 'p' and 'f' together? If you are curious how to really pronounce the words, just click on the links, the should take you to a sound byte where a nice mechanical lady will say the word for you. Just beware, she always says the article before the word, so listen carefully!

One last thing, the german 'z' is pretty damn fun too. It's said with a 'ts' sort of sound: tsett = zee. *giggle* Don't spit, just force the 'ts' out with a lot of air and you'll get it!

Tschüssi!!

I love this blog. You wanna know why? Even though I rarely have something interesting or witty to say, like my bud Erin, or pretty pictures to share like Tara and Alice and Terrie, my somewhat mundane blog brings out comments from people I would normally only hear from once a year. That's right, I'm talking about you: Kim, Cynthia, Jessica and Alice. I just love waking up and seeing that you four have commented. Really makes me happy. It's like, that bit of college I was slowly but surely losing my grasp on, is now staying with me!

Speaking of College, I got my reunion information in the mail yesterday. Sorry Kim, I don't see myself making it. I hate that our cluster year is with the classes 2000 and 2001. I'd much rather see Alice! And alumni sing-alongs and Heisman Club Golf Days just don't appeal to me. Although, seeing the Grand Piano Extravaganza again and touring the Science Center does! And I'll say it again, all the people I love best from Oberlin, I have seen within the past year, yes, 99% of you came to me in Munich and 1% of you I saw in Seattle. You are all awesome. What do I need a reunion for!?

Some of you think it's fun when I talk about my meals! Do I dare reveal what went into my stomach yesterday?! Started my day with a big bowl of yogurt müsli and too little milk. That stuff does NOT go down well with too little milk! Packed myself a Pfisterbrot sandwich with gutsdamer cheese and butter, in case I really was waiting for hours at the consulate...but it was the long ride home that got the better of my stomach. By the time I reached the Bäckerei across from the Bus Station, I already had plans to turn my self-made sandwich into a tofu burger and didn't want to eat it (and it's dryness) on the road. So I went across to the Bäckerei. There was a big sign in the window that said: Käsesemmel for €1.75. Ummmm, now that sounded good. I went in and couldn't find the Käsesemmeln! I stood at the counter and when it was my turn, said very meekly that I'd like a cheese sandwich. What luck! The lady behind the counter was actually friendly! She asked if I wanted a roll that was baked with cheese on top, or a sandwich...showed me the sandwiches. All but one of the cheese sandwiches were made with camembert (a no-no for a preggo lady), but there was one with Emmentaler, tomatoes and cucumbers and lettuce. Ummmmm. Almost American!

Shortly after getting home, I made my tofu burger sandwich. Found the Tofu Burgers (which is basically this rectangular slab of tofu with lots of grease (for frying) and corn and carrots) at Tenglemann yesterday. I nuked it and slapped it on my Pfisterbrot. Pfisterbrot is fabulous. Liz brought some with her when she visisted last week and we were reminded just how much better it is than the stuff you pick up at Aldi...

And for dinner? We ran to Aldi before closing and stocked up on the basics and then grabbed frozen pasta meals. Canneloni for me. Awful stuff. I don't recommend it unless you are pregnant, tired of cooking and need something fast!

How was that Abby?!

And now I gotta run because Beate is in Munich visiting and she wants to stop by this afternoon (yay!) and I have GOT to clean up the kitchen. Don't want Katharina to go home with black hands and knees because she was playing on my floors!

The U.S. consulate in Munich wasn't nearly as terrifying as I expected, and thanks to Cynthia's warning that I'd better bring a book to get me through the hours of waiting, I arrived at 8am, before the crowds. Smart girl! I was out of there by 8:30!

There were no tanks, though the sidewalk on the Consulate's side of the street was barricaded, no casual passersby are welcome! So I had to go all the way around the barricades to get to the glass house where they ask for your passport and search your bag. Through one door, back outside, through the next door and follow the red line...and that's when it started to become familiar. I'd been once before, back in 1999, after I lost my passport and had to fly bck to America the day after I realized I'd lost my passport...oops! Better NEVER do that again, they now send passport renewals to the U.S. to be printed!

There was one lady ahead of me, I think she worked there, she was totally chatting up the gals behind the glass about her baby. I eavesdropped, I'll need some of that info in October as well! Basically sounds like you just come in once baby is born and get the passport issued, not a big deal. And now that I've been back to the Consulate, and know how it works, I won't be as nervous!

I thought, being done so quickly, I'd catch the next U-bahn and head home. Damn, if the busses start running every 40 minutes at 9! and I arrived at Neuperlach Süd at 8:55, missing the 8:53 bus. Next bus didn't come until 9:33! So I went back up, took the S-bahn to Neubiberg, in the hopes that a 211 Bus would show up sooner (no luck) and then went to the Bäckerei across the street and got a cheese and tomato sandwich. Adventure over!

I live mostly in la-la land. Seriously, most of the time, I'm convinced that that I'm 21, living in the not-tooooooo-distant past of my college years. And then I wake up, shower and brush my hair into a part, and WHITE hair peeks out at me from the roots. Not only that, while my roots are going white, my 'old' hair is going blonde. I love being a redhead. LOVE it. It has always been such an unusual color, and I so do not want to go blonde.

I won't, not really. My Nana is in her mid-80's and she still has red hair. Granted, it's faded so much that it's really only an echo of her youthful auburn, but red it still is. If I really want to know what is going to happen to me, I just have to look at her. It's like a mirror into my future. The thing is, I don't want to look into the future, and I'm not ready for my hair to start fading to white-ish. In my head, I'm still 21, traipsing around the world in doc martens and unwashed jeans!

And for the first time in my life, I considered dyeing my hair?! I'll wait on that one a bit. Maybe it all depends on the lighting...whether my roots are white! And Kylene, before you yell at me that you're younger and already found grey hairs, let me tell you this: you can pluck your grey hairs out, I can't remove faded roots!

Now that that's out, I've decided, after a few years of bad-ness, this year is going to be a Good Year, fading hair and all!