Double-Half
or One Ten without ham

see more crazy cat pics

Ingo said, I´d like to kuddle up with you, but I can´t turn to the side.

He feels no better. They removed the catheter from his neck since he got fever and they suppose the catheter isn´t sterile. They make a new one tomorrow, maybe on the other side of the neck. If they do so and if scars will stay, it´ll look funny, I guess. Biiiig vampire!

He breathes hard, it hurts.

I e-mailed the employment center, their business hours are hilarious! At least, when you have a job! From 08:00-12:30, only Thursday from 08:00-06:00. I hope I can arrange everything via e-mail.

I am very curious if my Mom achieves something with her lawyer! I am still so darn angry about Ingo´s "boss". I simply fail to understand how he could turn into such a very big asshole! Naive, I am in this. And happy about it!

Gosh! Time to start cooking dinner! YAY - we turned to summer-time today! (Guess the yay will kept stuck in my throat tomorrow morning when the clock rings, though... ;-)...)
Anyhow I love summer-time!!!Time to live!

I have to introduce you to my new fruit bowl, oh, sweet 70´s!!!

Thank you for your requests to keep you updated. It feels darn good to know I am not alone! So, here we go:
My day started good - I went to the gym finally again - and gave full power - let´s see what my muscles tell me tomorrow ;-)
When I came back six (!!!) calls from Ingo - darn it, do it once - I see that and call back!
I did call back - no answer. Went home, grabbed the stuff for him and went to hospital - all with wet hair, bad shoes and stuff.

He was asleep. Woke, told me his brother - who is a doctor - called and said he has one guy in his hospital who has the same symptoms. That one is in intensive care, fighting death.
My heart stopped beating for a shocking while.

He said, too, he feels way more bad (you know, drugs have certain effects) and due to that needs new clothes. So I went to the shop where my gym is, bought the stuff, heart racing like crazy all the time. Some fitted, others not, a second tour was due - thanks, car-navi! I was so messy in my head, it helped a lot.
He breathed hard, looked bad, I was frightened to death like crazy.

That darn old man opposite his bed is plain awful in noisy matters.

With all that I found two letters in the mailbox. Big surprise! One that made sure the postman had delivered it, the other a normal one.

It said: Complicated to translate, though. In the English language it says "dear" the German translation is "much honored", which is a farce in itself.

"Dear Mr. $name$,

certified herewith we sign you off this employment contract in due time to 31.05.2008.

The 10 remaining days of vacation are given to you inbetween the cancelation period.

We dismiss you for the remaining period of employment.

Note:
For the maintenance of unabbreviated claims on social contribution you apply as soon as possible at your employment center.

$Signature$"

As soon as possible, huh? 10 days???? HA! Over the last decades it would be months! They are a small company and don´t put it down at all - all the work overtime, all the not taken holidays - all gone?!!

They were friends - friends!. His boss took twice 5000 Euro interest-free over a longer period of time from Ingo and only from Ingo - no one else helped out.

What a social asshole that is.

I was a weirdo all day, between fear of Ingo and anger or nearly hatred towards his "boss". He never called to ask what had happened, nothing.

I called Ingo´s brother. It was a complete surprise - he was calm, friendly and told me to calm down. All the drugs make Ingo misinterpret things. His brother, Martin, couldn´t understand why Ingo didn´t call him, he will take care now. It´s serious, yes. But getting into intensive care is nothing to flip out.
Boy. He had changed!!! Having three kids, does that change a man so much in a good way? I was so positively surprised!



Lucky guess I got!
I called my Mom. Guess what - being a businesswoman herself, she had fights with staff and has a lawyer who is specialized in employment law.
Is it legal to fire a company employee whilst he is in hospital? We will see!

My day started so nearly carefree - I bought tomatoes and when I put them on the table I thought, hmmm, beautiful!
Red is the color of blood. And the color of love - I go for the second one and made some kitchen-pics:



"Champagne" glasses:



Kitchen clock:



Beloved little Santa:



Kitchen radio:



Vase with artificial corn poppy:



We´re in the kitchen, right? Need a napkin?



I need to think happy thoughts!

I took the day off today. I had a company-meeting in town - at 02:00 p.m.! With dinner included.

The gas for going to my customer and back would have been in no proportion to the time being there and more important I would not have been able to see Ingo.

So. I got up, ran some errands, then went to town. I needed new clothes and new sneakers. My super-good red sneaker are done. On Tuesday I went through a snow-storm and my left food got wet!!! And then I looked at them and saw... they look more than used up.

So, went to the city.
Impossible to find something to wear!
The few long-sleeved sweaters were ALL in 80´s style! EEEK!
And most stuff was summer-wear already. To make a point, the staff was wearing T-Shirts.

T-Shirts.

Since it´s bloody cold outside, they heated the places up. Now, well, you get the picture. You wear a T-Shirt as well. On top of that a warm sweater and a thick jacket.
And then you find only clothes in 80´s style.
I was about to cry.

I did not, because I had already followed Ingo´s grandmothers´ advice and took some of my christmas money from my Mom and bought some DVDs. Tool Time series 4 - aaaand HA! JAG is available - finally! Harm, I do love this handsome, sexy guy! Oh I so do hope his very own voice is as sexy as the german translator ones´!!!



Sneakers. First shop - nothing. Next shop with affordable prices - OMG. The darn 80´s! Remember those stupid shoes that went over the ankle? All sorts, all designs.

Sneaker, they must have sneakers. Red sneakers. Yips. From size forty on (have 38) and in a very dark red. Nope.
White ones, heaps and heaps of white ones. Hello? How do those look like after three weeks or one rainy day?

I grabbed some black ones. Oh, in 39 for a change. Is this a european thing only? Sizes mean nothing anymore, because they mix all european countries up! So, sometimes I wear some "cute" 34 and sometimes some "fat" 42! And now this also happens with shoes!

I paid them with my money, not with Ingo´s Grandmothers birthday-money. Because... they were not beautiful (red) but only practical and needed.

On my way home I stopped because I saw those cute bags - you can use them to hand a present over and have the person use them as a bag afterwards - cute, huh, I keep one for myself, too:



I bought three bags.
The cashier-girl said, "€ 2,87 - you want a bag for them?". I said "??? Those ARE bags!" - She: "I know, some want them in a bag anyway." - "That´s PLAIN stupid!" - "!!! :-) Have a very nice day!".
Boy, she has to endure a lot of weirdos!

Went home, packed some stuff for Ingo, went to the hospital. It was school day. I parked my car at the end of the world row and went all the way to the hospital, passing the soon-to.be-nurses in their break. Outside, freezing their asses off. Smoking isn´t allowed inside. Hello??? They go into health care and smoke?

From all the running my ankle hurt, so whilst keeping Ingo company, i moved my foot in circles for relieve - and then I saw it!!!
These shoes were meant to be mine after all!



My last name translated is "Emperor" - and there is a CROWN!
After all I could have bought them with Ingo´s Grandmother´s money!

In Ingo-news. He looks like being pregnant in 6th month - with twins. All the meds they give him... I dunno "Sterofundin" is hard to find out what it really does. Fighting the inflammation somehow. They took a probe from the fluid in his belly and told him he has fluid in his lungs. Last bit makes me sick.
Maybe it´s nothing ("only dangerous"), maybe the fluid caused by inflammation.. aw, well, I´m not a doctor (and never see any doctor there either, no matter what time I show up).
The other guys in the room are noisy, very noisy, also at night.
I hope he get´s out of this soon and well.

Now I go listen to "Harm´s" "real" voice - let´s hope I will not be disappointed!

Eel - the word alone makes me shudder. 12 euros for it even more, but, ok, I bought it for Ingo. He had a big bite for brunch.

Some time later he said his belly hurts. I made some tea with caraway. Didn´t help. He couldn´t breathe properly.

We went to the hospital - emergency. They took him away from me, then told me they sent him to another one. Lucky me, I grabbed my car navi from home! Stupid thing sent me on the highway, off the highway and really complicated. I had to park my car. Me! Backwards!!! And I managed, will you believe that! When panic is around I can park my car. Good to know.

Oh, boy. His pancreas is inflamed and the eel may be the cause. Maybe a gallstone is involved as well.
Happy Easter that was.
He was in big pain, I was helpless and the staff frustrated cause they had to work on a public holiday. We waited and waited and I had to watch him suffer badly. I could do nothing.

They did computed tomography, x-ray, ultrasound. And we waited and waited and waited. By now I suppose he got morphine. Gosh. My Dad got that in his last days in his unsuccessful fight against cancer.

They put a catheter first in the hand, then in the neck, down direction heart. They did not explain well enough, I did not understand. His food supply will come intravenously. He asked for water all the time and actually he wasn´t allowed any. Since we were alone I gave him some.

The guys who did the "serious" catheter were really nice to me. Guess they saw I was nervous. They wanted to let me stay at first but then sent me out. Boy.

Time can crawl.

I dunno. Some (???) years ago Ingo wanted so badly to go to the German Bowl in American Football despite the fact that something in his neck/mouth did hurt. Next day, Sunday, we went to the dentist (10 euro), then to the ENT doctor (another 10 euro) and he said, man, that´s life-threatening, go to the hospital! His tonsils were badly inflamed. On a Sunday. Now he "chooses" Easter-Monday.

I should go to bed, but I can´t.
My heart races.
I packed some stuff to bring him tomorrow. I know he is safe.
This is the first time I am alone over night in this apartment. I know this is the stupidest thing ever, but I am kinda afraid. Of what? Dunno. I will have my night-light on like always. And still...

And will you believe this: I live in the easterly ring area. Right opposite of the Brunsviga, a cultural centre in town - this combination means no parking available after let´s say 8 p.m.

10 p.m. I came home - and I park opposite the kitchen window. I went in backwards. I had no damage on the car. Weird, plain weird (I saw myself cruising for at least 15 minutes! - I parked the car backwards! Me!!! Second time in one day!).

I am so not tired. I have to work tomorrow. "Witching hour" is just about to came.

And my ankle hurts badly from standing around all day.

But I parked the car!

And Ingo is safe.

All is good. Or so I thought....

I am sorry. Really am - I simply don´t know anymore where I had this one from! It was someone´s old, abandoned blog, I guess. If you see your words here - please don´t feel offended, but let me know who you are - because... I thought your guesses were hilarious! I loved them!

Am not sure a native english person finds it that funny as well. But after rediscovering it, here we go:

"Wondering

Deplane means you get off a plane, delouse means you get rid of louses, devise doesn't mean you get off a vise or get rid of them, defence ( in british English it is written that way, I looked it up!) doesn't mean you get off a fence or get rid of fences. What about when you delight someone?. Do you set fire to them or do you put the fire out or do you gt rid of them?"

I can´t come up with something similar in my native language but think it is fun nonetheless! :-)
Any guesses from you?

It started 2006 - my right ankle started hurting for no reason (ha-haaa age that´s the reason!!!)

All in all I went to see 13 different doctors, thanks to clinic and group practice. From a weak foot that I should simply train by buying a bucket and some raw corn and try to grab the corn with that foot to "we have to operate" I got so many different opinions.

Some ? ten years ago or such I played tennis - ok kinda tennis, was more like "hey, ball coming!!!" with my brother. There had been a fire and the place we played on was new and a bit higher than the next one. I wanted to get that ball and flew over the edge, ending up with a swollen ankle. Stupid me told the story every doc I went to. And hence the different opinions.

I am a normal human being. My body, my hip isn´t even. I have to do five different, small exercises every day and I´m fine, that´s what doc No. 13 found out and it worked.



Daily basis, huh? Haha, I am a normal human being!!!
Call it laziness, slothfulness, long story short, I didn´t practice and have the bill for it now. It hurts. Bad. So bad the whole leg was shivering - whilst driving the car! So, since a couple of days I´m not driving. Different time schedule and I´m kinda ride sharing with my colleague. Bit one-sided, but we had it the other way round as well, so I don´t feel too bad.

I certainly don´t go to the gym with this. So I have the time and passion again to put my Australia-diary from 1999 from hand-written to online-presence again.
I went as far as Windorah today. This is our car, a Nissan Patrol Long Wheel Base in the dune:



Ahhh, sweet, warm times. Today we had several snow-storms and stuff - eeeek! The snow melts away, but it´s plain ugly weather.

Well. I try to keep the site going - and practice my ankle. I mean... I don´t get younger. I could put the darn diary someplace and never find it again. That way it´s quite safe, is it?

I wonder... When will be the next time I can go on a journey like this - as a retiree?
Will I play lotto, become a millionaire and head off just like that? Awww, sweet dreams!

Now I go and practice to get that darn ankle back in place...

Well, we went to see our families today - we haven´t seen each other since Christmas! So I got heaps of birthday-presents, Yay!

I had to leave one behind cause it´s too big, our car wasn´t empty. It´s a red board that fits my red lack!

I mentioned some time ago that we need a key holder. Well, we have one already now, so I try to give this one back to IKEA. But it shows one thing: My brother really listens to me, right? And how they decorated it is just hilarious - and I think it´s a little revenge for this - which, as a revenge, I link here now and show it off yet again ;-)

This is a key holder with slate, hence they added chalk. You can click to enlarge, see what they did to Ingo? :-)



"Wattenlaeuper" is a liquor from the sea - we always go on holidays to the sea if we stay in Germany. Boy, I hope I am as good a listener as he is!
The two guys to the right in the pic are my bro and his girlfriend :-) On his 30th b-day.

I put the pics on the heating (I never use that thing), that way I can enjoy them everyday! You can click to enlarge and see the chain I´m wearing - made by my bro, the goldsmith (glasses from my bro the optometrist and no, I do not have two brothers! When the light is right, I take a pic of the latest jewelry he made for me):



When I'm at my families` place I certainly have to grab the phone and order one ten without ham. This time it´s enough for three meals, YUM:



We then went to visit Ingo´s Grandma. I was quite sure she would reproach, we had kinda reassured her we would come by once a month!

We rang the bell and she burst out in joy! She took me in her arms - three times! She even got up for it once again after she was seated! Boy was it great to see a person so happy!

I said, "well, we should have come by earlier" and she replied, "nah, I understand"!

She then gave me 50 euros (birthday present) and when I said no, she said "oh, you shut up! And I wanna see what you bought with it, too!"

She told me her mother gave her money as presents as well. And, as it is, you put it in your purse and buy everyday-stuff but you don´t go and say, "now this is something just for me and just for joy and I thank $giver$".
So, her mother said, "this time I buy you a present!" They went to my Dad and bought a watch. That year her mother died.

So, if I was superstitious I would not buy a present and show her, right? But then I go without her, so it should be ok.

I mean, she is right! My Mom gave me money for Christmas and I bought everyday-stuff like cheese and milk from it!
I still have some and will use it for just-for-me-stuff and thank my Mom for it.

Yips, you can always learn something good from another generation! And I will visit Ingo´s Granma more often now again.

... or is it? I won´t go for stamp collecting, but if I get to send a letter or such I will use this one, supporting the understanding that nature is precious:



It says "conserve nature globally - Germany polar baer Knut".

That´s where our politicians laugh at.

How else can it be that they let one person interrupt his holiday to take part in a cabinet meeting?

Nono, I do not feel pity for that person.

But isn´t this just ridiculous:
The person had his holiday in Mallorca. Now, the meeting was in Germany. Allegedly there was not even one seat free on the scheduled flights (at least not first class, I suppose).

But then the solution is very easy - why not take a jet from the German Federal Armed Forces? So that jet went empty (apart from the crew and one or two bottles of Champagne maybe) from Germany to Mallorca, picked the minister up, went back to Germany. The important man made a decision at the meeting, got picked up by the jet that flew him back to Mallorca and then empty back to Germany.

Well, don´t you think that it must be just so nice, so spacious... I bet that´s even better than first class on a regular plane (not that I ever had the chance to try that out).

Don´t wrinkle your nose, don´t get upset about the 44 tons of carbon dioxide emissions that were blasted in the air for it. And well, 50 000 € - hey, that´s nothing, don´t mind it, just let all German people pay for it, it´s no big deal then, right, what are taxes for anyway?

I mean, he used that jet only six times before, traveling alone or sometimes even with another person!
Come on, let´s have a big good laugh about it - I´m talking of our environment minister Sigmar Gabriel.


Darn it. I mean, seriously - what the ### goes on in the government´s head???

Here is the full article in German.

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

I found some rather hilarious pics the other day and scanned them finally. This one was in Jamaica, circa 1973:



Those orange socks just crack me up! What a dress for a honeymoon!

But this one is even better - it shows my Dad on a business trip in Japan. Woody Allen comes to my mind ;-)

These were truly the 70´s!



Today he would throw a big party. He would turn 70 today. He died over five years ago of cancer.
Though we were not that close (we were too similar), it still does hurt too much.
Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.
I called him "Papi".

For days now a hardware store really, really annoys me with his new ad on TV. So sad that after some time the rights on songs are lost.
Freddie sure is rotating in his grave...

They sing in German to the music of "We Will Rock You" what you can do with stuff you can buy there.

So NOT cool. Show some respect guys!



Sure, Freddie loved to play with words to music (I laughed my head off when watching "The Making of 'One Vision'" the first time and was so relieved to find out that the song after all ends with "fried chicken" - everything is ok with my hearing. He is so... sweet and such a genius in these recorded scenes, really!)

But then - this ad is so darn bad.

And just now I had to hear the TV blarring in the background another ad - some stupid singing to "Love Is In The Air". What´s going to follow, huh????

Is it just me? When an ad is real bad, I refuse to buy the product.

So. Get lost you ad-guys! I don´t even remember what the love-is-in-the-air-ad was all about. I just got cranky from it. Bleh.

LASER RADIATION
DO NOT STARE INTO BEAM
LASER DIODE

Ok, a little exaggerated, but that sign is on my latest present I got from Ingo yesterday :-)

A really very well writing ball-pen with integrated laser beam, very cool.
So, if I ever happen to make a powerpoint-presentation or such at home, I´m prepared ;-)

Pizza d 'Amore... ahhhhhh doesn´t that just sound good? Delicious, auspicious and just perfect for amorous people?

(ok, I admit - I needed an online dictionary for "auspicious" - why do you guys use such complicated words anyway??? "Verheissend", isn´t that easy? I guess - I know - I will have forgotten "auspicious" tomorrow... or in ten minutes!)

Anyways.. it even looked great:



And it was SO NOT yummy, eek.
Sad thing it came in a double-package, so we "had" to go through it twice...

Note to self: Next time when Valentine´s Day is ahead - ignore stuff like frozen pizza from the supermarket!

And no, we don´t make each other presents for Valentine´s Day, we have different ways.

This is the tool I´m working with. So, if you can´t make any sense of my words sometime, I mistyped - and on a closer look you will see the letters are not the way you are used to (maybe) - looking on this key pad you might get a clue...

The man who always says I have way too much shoes - that man "forced" me to buy shoes today!!! Red shoes!!!
It´s not the original, cost only 5 € - they are in my size but not in my size (yips, cheap), but that has a good side, too:



Here, see, I can wear them right now, don´t have to wait for summer, they fit even with socks (made by Ingo´s Grandmother out of remains of other socks):



In other news we´re heading towards a stormy night, it´s already kinda frightening. They say it might get even worse than Kyrill last year in January.
We will be safe, worst thing that can happen to us is roof-tiles falling on our cars.
Still it feels bad. I feel for the people living on the coastline and in the mountains.
Man-made or circle of earth-life, I wonder...

Refresh yourself with products of my town :-)
You say, awww, no big deal - yes it is! We are a rather small place with some 240.000-something people and hence, this is a big deal!



If you wanna have a closer look, here you go (after a click on it):



VB.. very refreshing also. Victoria Bitter. After a long, hot day in the car really yum. Ingo knows a guy who buys for pubs and hence from time to time he gets real VB. And gives some to us.

Very useful, now no-one can sneak in to see if we´re here (our apartment door):