Double-Half
or One Ten without ham

Years ago Ingo´s late Grandma gave me 50 € for my Birthday and I had to promise her not to buy everyday-stuff but something special.... and show her.
She told me also how her Mother did the same with her, but her Mother died before she could find something worthy enough.

Don´t you think I learned from that? :-(

But yesterday I bought that cam for 49,99 bucks. It doesn´t only look cool, it´s color matches it´s function: it´s waterproof.
Heck, now I need water! :-)
And this cam will make me think of Ingo´s late Grandma. Miss her. She always exclaimed with joy: "My children! :-)" when we came to visit (after moving out, another sad story).

When Ingo was so severly sick a woman found me by chance. She had a male online-friend in my town and was searching for an event I happened to blog about.

She was/is in her 50s, from the United States and in the Medical Sector.

She helped me A.LOT. Via Blogger, via E-Mail, she sent me/us E-Cards and helped me understand the illness, explained the stages.


(I spare the bad pics, this was on the first way up)
She became a true online-friend and also told me about her life as well, about joy and not so enjoyable stuff.

We exchanged pics, laughed and wondered about how houses are built in our countries and I learned that many Americans think of us/the way we built of Attila the Hun (With outer walls 24,5 cm, heavy doors and all).

If not for her... no idea how I could´ve possibly managed those difficult times.

I was not able to tell anyone here how severe it really was. Not my closest friend, not even Bro, whom I trust 100%.
The pity and sympathy would´ve taken away the strength that I needed, I would´ve broken down.
W. was my rescue (sure, sounds dramatic. But this was the case).

She registered me at FB, too.
Ingo got better, Ingo survived. And W. sent us a beautiful E-Card.

And then... she answered more and more seldom. Said life was not as good atm.
I offered an open ear but she kept contact lower and lower and finally, it died.
At some point, her FB-Account was gone. No answer on E-Mails.

It´s hard when someone who was so much there for you goes without giving you a reason.
Accident, sickness? Or... this may be a total misinterpretation, but it comes to mind... maybe she was a helper? Interested in people she could help and when all was good again she lost interest?
Why not let me know?


I had another online-friend, my age.
We met her severeal times when we were in Perth.
We were much alike, found a "wave", you know what I mean? She liked Ingo, too.
When she was 14 she started loosing her eyesight, when we met she could only see us in pixels. She took us to her home the first day we met none-the-less. A lot of faith.

She cut contact afterwards despite me asking over and over again, offering Skype-contact in case of loss of eyesight.

She never answered, still lives and works in Perth area, as Ingo saw.




What drives people to stop contacts like these without giving a reason? I have an idea on this one, too. But I can only guess.

Has this happened to you, too? Have you got a guess?
It makes me sad to loose friends without them saying a proper Good-Bye and giving a reason.
Maybe I´m too loyal?

We got the "EXTRA on Sunday" already, telling us the "Frauen-WM startet heute", the "2011 FIFA Women's World Cup starts today".
Hey, we´re up-to-date, huh?! ;-) More than!
(you can click to enlarge, as always)

Will you watch? My Mum sure will. She says Women´s soccer is way better than Men´s soccer, and I think she´s right (I just fail to like the game itself, though, as does Ingo).

Yesterday I went to the Good-Bye-BBQ of my colleague. Was yummy, I was surprised by how much people can eat (just the close ones, we were about eight guests) - I was the first to leave (looong day). We have the weirdest weather atm and on the way back I was rewarded with this view:


Back to the past, here are some pics of last Thursday (when I bought the Elliptical trainer - will be delivered Monday in a week, and got another ear-"piercing"), a nice facade:


Then Ingo had sausages with some sort of noodle salad:


And on the way back I took a pic of this... boy with no legs?


Today we tried another little walk. The weather is not summery at all atm...

Some more facades:



This bike just ran away, huh?


And here you can see oat grass. In the city!


And a nice bridge with Ingo.


Aldi invited us to buy some prosecco:


Yikes, sooo sweet! We need to buy (real) orange juice to mix it with!

Funny was... At "our" bakery we were greeted with "Family K" and at Aldi we met the girl who worked at the Aldi where we lived before and she rembered us, too, asking how we are.

Please notice we are a "metropolis" (will you stop laughing?! Officially we are!). Guess we are some village-metropolis, huh? I so love my town....

Whilst sorting things out on (or rather off) our little "pool-table", I found the container of one of the Lions-Watches.

I´m a thinker while sorting, my brain obviously doesn´t want to have anything to do with stuff like that (bad for when being asked: Where did you put this or that!).

Well. From good to bad memories of being and ceasing to be a Lions-Fan I came to being confiding, trust- or faithful... or... well naive?


From time to time we bought "fan-stuff" at the games. A shirt here, a cap there, some pins... One day we didn´t have enough money. The lady gave us the shirts anyways and said, "just pay the rest next time!".
Now I dunno. Back then there were always thousands of people there and we didn´t buy stuff that often, either.
Certainly we paid the rest next time.
But how could she be that confident? Does she do that with anyone or do we look that honest?

I left my car - with the keys! - with a farmer in France for over two weeks to go to England and travel by bike there.
He said, "in case we´re not here when you come back: The door is open and I put your key here".
Would I do that today???? Leave car + keys?

I left all the luggage with a taxi in Cairo for a whole day.
Whilst we wandered the museum, the luggage went who knows where, came back and we got a great tour tourists usually don´t get - family-dinner included.
Would I do that today???? Leave all my belongings?



In Oodnadatta, Australia, I was handed some batteries to deliver to a homestead 100 km away. In Windorah I worked the terminal for paying for gas myself, cause the guy there was blind (sure he would´ve heard if I used the wrong keys).
We left our car with all our belongings in many a garage there and never anything was missing.

I forgot my bag with all our money and passports in Cuba - and the guy at the bar went and kept it for me. Guess he even never ever looked inside.




Seems like I put a lot of faith into strangers when I was young - and never got disappointed.
None-the-less I don´t have that much faith now.
When Ingo wanted to hand my camera over the other day so some total stranger could take a pic of us together, I said, "yeah, sure... he´ll run away with that thing!".

How come????

After all I was rewarded, kinda, for my faith in younger years by all those helpful people later!

Does faith cease with age? Becomes faith equal to being naive?
Would be logical if I would´ve gotten betrayed, but I never was.

Shouldn´t, hence, my faith into strangers rather grow?

I´m confused... an idea, anyone?

Why would I kiss food, huh?! Right.
A kiss in German is "Kuss" and for our anniversary Ingo made Kuskus (written with only one "s", still sounding the same), aka Couscous:


Ok. This is a post about food only... (nearly)

Despite the dangers of EHEC (years ago I read a book on biological warfar and this stuff just starts to creep me out btw) Germany started to say cucumber and tomatoes are safe again.
I care more about the yum-factor and this was given - finally!!! Y.U.M:


I so love and cherish German Bread!
Really. It´s special and there is so much variety, too.

Anyhows. Atm I cannot go to the gym. There is no aircon, it´s hot and sticky and I got my Father´s genes. I used to laugh about him complaining he cannot stand the heat.
Thanks, Dad. You gave it to me and with age it comes through :-(
Me!!! The one who loves summer, sun, heat!!! Unfair!

So... I have nothing to do but enjoy life and we went to the city on Thursday.
(Ingo helps me buy a good elliptical trainer, I´ll quit Gym and save 30 euros each month. And don´t get pissed at the guys there (shaving in the public shower and all that) - our condo isn´t hot and sticky.)

This is the only day in the week the horse-butcher has his shop open.


Ross is another word for Horse.
I know.
Horses are so cute!
But... well. Never tasted horse-meat. But Horse-Sausages are yummy!

So. We went and bought meat for making Roulade.
Yeah. I said, we can eat twice from this! Ingo disagreed and bought some Beef-Roulades on top:


The dark ones are the horseys. Heck. We can eat 3-4 times from this - why doesn´t Spouse believe me, huh?! Thankfully we now have a freezer.
Well. Let`s see if we can tell the difference between horse and cow.

Two off-topics:

This is Angus´ turtle, living right beneath our kitchen-window, enjoying a melon (Turtle even looked up when I talked to it/him/her!)


Yes. Parents are AC/DC-fans and can you imagine this is a VERY seldom name in Germany?! Poor boy. I always picture him in a tuxedo with shorts. And a guitar. Guess it´s not only me doing so...

Ingo just said we should´ve painted the kitchen green instead of red and the Green Chamber red so this would look better:


Aw, well. I love green :-)
Let´s see taste how the roulades come out.
Rather cold and rainy this weekend btw...

Addendum
The Horse won:


The Cow was watery, fed with... ugh. If Roulades it will be horse now.
I also started to buy the more expensive "chicken-friendly" eggs.

You want milk with your bread?


Went to the bakery today after I called them this morning, like every Wednesday, to order bread.
Usually Ingo goes on Wednesdays, I go on Sats (we go together, but he often can´t find (hello city) a place to park the car) - now that I can´t go to the Gym (no air-con, sticky-hot) I go on Weds, too - huh. Great sentence, sorry... Anyways...

There were two customers in line before me, I said, "Hello!".
The shop girl looked up, gave me a smile, "hi Miss K!" and to the first customer, "first I´ll serve Miss K, that goes superfast!", fetched the readily packed bread, I handed over the money and she said, "oh, what a nice ring, a King?"

Hello, do I live in a city or a village after all?! Too funny (and sweet)!

Yes, I live in the city, for sure. Took me some time to find a place for my car.

Oh, I live in the Village. On the way from the car to the house I met four neighbours, we all gave a friendly hello, little kiddo included.

Oh, the milk that comes along with the bread? Another article I could not resist, due to the funny and smart packing, it even comes with a soft but stable handle - it says: "Comes from the yard. And from the heart." and isn´t it funny to use, too? Yes, sometimes I fall for things like that... And it closes tight after using, too!




Addendum... the cup says "Die Löwenstadt", "The Lion City". Did you know they even translate titles of series? We get "Die Simpsons" instead of "The Simpsons". So... in case you happen to watch an episode of The Simpsons in German... we wish them no harm...

That`s us, obviously. On our anniversary. 17 years, can you believe this?!

Ingo found a new tour for us, isn´t this graffiti just kinda cool? I think this is a Kookaburra on top, no?


And certainly we found again something someone lost and another put up to be found:


Suddenly we were at... a cool playground:


The kids let us play as long as we liked - which wasn´t long, I tend to get sick on such things...

Next stop:


The Okercabana


Isn´t that a cute boat on the roof?


Beach... and our anniversary-snack:


Yikes, must´ve been cooked in old fat...

Next stop was a hit for many, as you can see by the huge amount of bikes:


More bikes...


Classic in the Park. I hate being squeezed among people. And then unfriendly ones, too - I got grumpy, Ingo got mad and we found our way home separated.

My poor bike, all alone...



We calmed down and had a BBQ on the balcony to make up for those... fatty "Pommes Frites".

And Ingo said he has more new routes to try out, yay for summer! :-)

As mentioned, today was Daddy-Day. So, after packing the rest of things for my Mum and emptying that huge closet (!!), I ordered two Ten Without Ham (and bet it´s not a ten anymore, but they know that gal from Braunschweig is back and they know what I want).




Niece was coming for lunch, too.
And Bro set her at my side for it!
She looked me in the eye very serious for quite a while and then gave me a huge smile and let me feed her.

On top is the first Baby I ever fed (if you not count the bottle I gave her Dad - back then!).
She was super-well-behaved and I wonder... did she recognize me, as her Daddy thinks, or did she check me out anew and decided I´m ok?

Whatever it was, she´s really cute. Remember The Three Tenors? What works for Dad works for Daughter, too:



She showed me her sheep (and certainly the sound died the moment I turned on the cam - and certainly the battery was low, too, so... no better than this):



Later on Daddy forced me to try let me dress her with new jeans and a very cute "jacket" in green while my Mum hold her (boy. Not easy!).

Do we look like one family, me, Bro and Niece?

Was really fun with her. She just loved to destroy towers of building bricks I built for her.
And she really tested me out, too!
She let the sheep drop down to the floor to the other side, just quickly noticed my Mum who was sitting there, looked to the other side and gave me "the look". Like... will I get up and give it back to her?
What was this for? Testing out if I´m "nice" or testing her power over me? At least she did this only once and rewarded me with a thank-you-smile, too.
Cutie-Pie.

No luck with the glasses, though - they came without failure but one with the wrong diopter. But... that way we looked for Sunglasses for Ingo who lost his (and - thanks to Murphy will find them once Bro made new ones) and he will send over both via mail.
Here is a possible model to choose from with Bro being the modell for this, too:


Back to work tomorrow and Friday and then another long weekend, yay!
Hope I get to see the Wee-one more often, she´s fun to be around with.