Sometimes I can’t believe it how time flies. May 25, 2010 happened already ten years ago. That was the day when I got up in Stuttgart, Germany, around 3 a.m. to pack some odds and ends into my suitcase, tossed the keys to my apartment into my own mailbox, and took a cab to Stuttgart […]
Across the Fence
Across the Fence: Pancakes
Do you remember specific dishes from your very early childhood? Some that you outgrew but still make, a little changed up? I can still taste the German pancakes my mother used to make when I was about four; we usually had them for lunch in our nursery, my mother, my brother, and I. Sprinkled with […]
Across the Fence: The Ice Saints
Remember last week’s article about making hay while the sun shines and not counting chickens before they’re hatched? And that these adages come from farming – very obviously so? Every once in a while, in a DIY store, I come across the Farmers’ Almanac of the current year, and I wonder whether anybody really uses […]
Bacon’s Double Take – A Knife Connection
When Joe emailed me the below photos the other day, I was stumped. Not only didn’t I get his hint about how that connected us, nor did I have a story about a knife. I thought. The first stayed true, and his story might or might not reveal it. The second is wrong. I have […]
Across the Fence: More than a Cathedral
The other day, on Easter Sunday, while I was sitting at home instead of in church listening to a service, I found myself reflecting which church in my life had featured as most important. Was it the one I went to Sunday school and was a shepherd kid in a nativity play? Was it the […]
Across the Fence: A Lake in the Middle of Nowhere
Cabin Fever causes dreams of escape and about traveling despite the current order to stay in place. But we can always travel in our minds. And today I’d like to take you to a place that you have probably heard of but maybe have never been to: an artificial lake in the middle of the […]
Across the Fence: Open or in Between?
Really? She is writing about sandwiches today? She must have run out of topics. What’s there to write about some slabs of bread and some toppings? Well, if you are a foodie, you don’t get past sandwiches. And if you love history, you will find some pretty interesting stories around them. Let me share you […]
Islands of Resilience
A lot of us are looking back in history these days, most probably because they want to find out about how people 100 years ago dealt with the Spanish flu and its aftermath. But these days, there is another historical date coming up that changed the world in Europe 75 years ago: European V-Day on […]
Across the Fence: Daffodils
The other day, our sweet next-door neighbor and friend, Anita, gave us flowers from her garden – bright yellow daffodils. I placed them in a vase on our dining table, and they seemed to be a spot of sunlight in their own right. It made the cheerful setting even more cheerful. And it made me […]