My mother country Germany boasts of five seasons – yes, you are reading right. Spring, summer, fall, winter, and – Fasching (pronounce ‘fuh-shing) or Carnival. This fifth season starts on November 11 at 11:11 h and ends on Ash Wednesday, a season beginning and ending with parades in costume, stage shows, parties, and the burning […]
Home from Home
Home from Home: Dancing Days
Dancing is big in Europe, and ball room dancing is something every kid attending a German grammar school usually learns at age 14 or 15 by attending a local dance school. I did, too, and enjoyed it that hugely that I taught my younger brother how to waltz, do the foxtrot, the blues, the cha-cha, […]
Home from Home: Trolley Trips
“Where would you want our new home to be?” My husband asked me over the phone. We’d been separated by his reposting to the United States, and I was still in Germany waiting for my visa. I had the anticipation I wouldn’t hold a job immediately after arriving in the US. And I wouldn’t need […]
Home from Home: Clamming
I have always been one for seafood. Even as a little child in Germany, I loved clams – though nobody else in my family did. But my parents were wonderful about letting me try everything (that is, as long as it was not decidedly dangerous). My first clams were marinated, overcooked, and came out of […]
Home from Home: Changing Homes
Getting married is easy, staying married is work. That’s at least what a whole lot of people perceive it to be. Let me tell you – even getting married is not always easy, especially when you are marrying into a different nationality and want to assume that nationality yourself. Almost nine years ago, native German […]
Home from Home: Endings and Beginnings
Does this ever happen to you? You are watching a wonderful romance on TV, and when the protagonist couple gets engaged or married and “The end” pops up on the screen, you want to call out, “No way!” Because, actually, this is not an ending. It is a beginning, and the beginning of something much […]
Home from Home: Christmas
“Marley … was dead – to begin with.” This line from Charles Dickens’ novella “A Christmas Carol” used to kick off Christmas for me for many teenage and early tween years. I had wrought a tradition of my own to go to a theater in downtown Stuttgart, Germany, to listen to British actor Brian D. […]
Home from Home: Tranquility
Are you feeling stressed out about running your Christmas errands (and doesn’t the verb “running” already describe the reason so well?!)? About stressed-out people taking it out on others with road rage or nagging in long supermarket lines? Are you hoping to just get the holidays over and done with? Though you really love them […]
Home from Home: Backyard Visitors
Last May, a few blocks away from where we live, a black bear was treed and removed by the Lakewood police and fire department. I was at home and had no clue that the giant animal had waddled down one main road after another without interception. Funny enough, it worried me less afterwards than what […]