You're Doing It Wrong

Welcome back to the land of the shitty shower and the kick ass breakfast.

I changed computer terminals and now I can at least see what I am doing. The keyboard is still all jumbled but that is just how it is going to be.

We got off the plane yesterdaz at 11am and did one of our smoothest transitions ever. We bought a public transit daz pass and the gals at the info booth were totallz useless. (I guess in Frankfurt information means a bored shrug followed by ‘I do not know.’)

We went back into the airport and this totallz German looking guy listens to our question (which I had attempted to pose in German) and tells us in what had to be a Texas influenced drawl “First you gotta git yer ticket. Then you gotta git to track one.” We made our way to track one, transfered at the Hauptwache to U6 and exited the Liepsiger Strasse (spellings are approximate as I have no supporting materials and I repeat, I am butt tired). We easilz found our hotel.

Good, inexpensive accomodations can be found on the Internet. Our place is out of the city center, near the Universitat and reasonablz priced. Our room is tiny but nice and the people are all nice and the breakfast this morning was excellent. I had a big chewy roll with lunchmeat and lox and cream cheese and a bit of fruit. There was tons of other stuff. Ask Bob, he tried everzthing.

We did 6 museums todaz: Icons, World Culture, Communications, Architecture, Film AND Photographz.

Plus we had an excellent lunch and now I can tell you why my husband said “hot and kinky sex” to the the server in a German cafe. She was very nice and wanted to practice her English and asked us a few questions of things to say. As we were eating (veg quiche, corn goulash with noodles for Bob, roasted chicken and potatoes for me, cake for dessert and I tried the Apple wein: not bad) there was this cheesy pop music playing.

The song was some woman bleating about wanting to get freaky and the server calls across the cafe, “What does she mean ‘freaky’?” So Bob finishes what he is chewing and says “Hot and kinky sex.” He then takes another breath to explain further when she says, “I get it.” Meanwhile, the cook is sticking his head out from the kitchen. It was probablz more hilarious if you were there.

Back to the sleeping thing. We found our hotel at about 1230pm and put our stuff down and then headed back out to the Hauptbahnhof to buy our train tickets for Nürnberg and Garmisch. Then we walked around a bit. We would have walked more except the temperature was 5 celsius which was about 20 degrees colder than what we left (I think, not good with the C to F translation) and even with layers it was a bit painful.

We found some dinner. I had a Glühwein, Bob had a Pils. The food was meat and potatoes. One kind of potato was like a power tater tot: bigger and harder and browner on the outside and more like mashed potato on the inside. I think it is a perfect food and ate every one and would have ordered a side order just of that if it was offered.

At this point we were losing it and we staggered back to our room at 5pm and I thought I might read for a few hours and go to bed at 8pm. My goal was 8pm. Well you can imagine how being horizontal and reading is going to keep me awake. I put my book aside for just a second to nap for a bit and fell into an unwakeable sleep and did not stir until 3am when I was wide awake.

It’s been a great day. We headed back to the Christmas market for more food. (Excellent food on every corner.) Will check in again as we can.

The blogger page comes up in German. I wasn’t expecting that.

Okay, this is not optimal as I can’t see the left margin so I’m typing in the dark. Add to that that I’m dead tired and this is one of those funkz German keyboards and prepare yourself for craziness to come.

Part I: I Suck

I used to be most organized punctual person on the planet. What happened?

I wasn’t readz when Priscilla picked us up, not even close. I was still packing my toiletries. My hair = rats nest with out buckets of products. And I didnt (the apostrophe thing is poorly located so Im not even going to trz any more) have time to do any of mz last minute things like grab phone numbers (If anyone sees the Neuners, tell them were arriving on the 4:14 train on Mondaz). (What kind of crayz people switched the kezboard around?) I also never found my mittens and it is prettz damn cold.

One problem causing the lateness was the decision to bring mz bday present: a mini ipod and I had to rip the music I wanted to put on it and organize the playlists and then since I was still totallz not ready Bob had to set it up and then I transfered enough music to get me started. Also since I had myself prettz worked up about the trip I decided to take a nice walk so I could relax and collect mz thoughts.

A major thing I never did was take care of a bunch of email issues like answer mail, thank BallardBlog for the care package for the trip (those snacks came in verz handy at 3am when I was wide awake and starving).

Also the PamNewsletter is done and you can find it here. Long storz short: I designed the page using CSS and I dont know what I am doing I just fiddle until it looks how I want and I look at it using Safari, the OS X Mac browser. When I tested it on other browsers, it looked like shit and I wanted to either (a) fix it, or (b) change it, or (c) write a warning apologz for those who are seeing it in its crappz form but I ran out of time and never even announced that it was up. So, if you are here visiting to see what happened and whether I shined you on this year: no I did not. I am just not organized. If you are not seeing this I will be sending out a notice when I get home.

It’s that getting ready for a trip time when the cranky panic hasn’t yet given way to the punchy “who cares? I’m blowing this town.” Way too many last minute tidbits to take care of. Excessive adult beverage consumption is tempting but need to be responsible for a few more hours or risk arriving in another country with not enough underwear and too much sunscreen (not needed where we’re going.)

I have a widget on my desktop with the local weather. It shows today plus a three day forecast with the temperature and a graphic. For example: a sun and cloud or clouds and rain. Today’s graphic showed clouds and what looked like booger colored hailstones. What was that? I think it had to do with the wind but why green boogers?

Here’s my other Creem letter to the editor which was printed in METAL Creem Close-Up January 1988 with Metallica (James and Kirk) on the cover.

The mail column in this spin-off was:

CHAINMAIL (CHAINMAIL is your forum … if you have any opinions, observations, secret knowledge or simply a godlike insight into metal, we’d love to hear from you. So, to become a force to be reckoned with in metal circles everywhere, send your letters … .

LEPPARD: ULTIMATE SELL-OUT OF ALL TIME EVER IN HISTORY … OR NOT?

At the end of last year I wrote you a letter whining about the whereabouts of some mythical Def Leppard record. Now, finally, I have it after scratching on the door of my local record supermarket first thing on August 3, watching the brain-dead clerks trying to get the registers turned on.

Now that I have my record home, what is this? Where is that fabulous “raise your fist and beat the air” music that never left my aural cavities daily for almost three solid years? Listening to the pounding battle-cry of Pyromania (the album I want to be buried with) I ran laps, did volumes of calculus and fought with my stupid boyfriend. I was AWOL from a collegiate torture known as sorority rush in order to go to the fabulous Forum and sit in the nosebleed section with said boyfriend and three of his drug-snarfing pals and I was virtually drooling in euphoria. Now, five long years later, I break all speed records buying this album only to find my idols have mutated into some kind of Night Ranger.

It’s like these guys skimmed the perfect (nauseating) elements of every bogus commercial rock outfit from Bryan Adams to boys-of-the-moment Bon Jovi, and made the quintessential commercial rock cupcake album. There’s no punch, not stomp, no fun! And their formerly crappy lyrics have, amazingly, become worse! I am distraught. Well, I suppose the album will be huge; they probably could use the money. I hope they’re happy now!

Yeah, I never liked the Hysteria album as much as Pyromania but it did spend a lot of time in the CD player back then. It didn’t occur to me until re-reading this letter recently what an oddball biography I was offering what with the metal, calculus and sorority bits. Not what you’d expect from a headbanger, eh?

I needed to buy this fancy product for a gift. Normally I would get it at the spa but since I wasn’t going to be at the spa before I gave the gift I decided to order it online. The reputable seller I would normally use was out so I randomly searched for the cheapest price and placed my order.

Yesterday I got one of those orange cards in the mail that says I have a package from Hong Kong that I need to sign for at the Post offce.

I had a box to mail anyway so I trucked down and showed my ID and got my package from Hong Kong. Get this: the shipping box had a lovely blue ribbon on it. Have you ever seen that?

Turns out it’s the product. The online store said it was in CA. I was a little nervous that I bought a knock-off but I opened the box and if it’s fake, it’s a brilliant fake. It even has the insert about the product in about 10 different languages. So what’s the gimmick why they can sell it cheaper from Hong Kong and does this violate any laws?

I wish I could blog while I was driving because I always think of all kinds of things to say then. But later, when I’m sitting here in front of the computer (I almost just typed “sitting here in front of the TV” I don’t even know what I’m doing right now) I’m a big fat blank.

In case you didn’t hear, Mötley Crüe is reuniting for a big tour. I already informed Bob, with a big HA HA HA, that he should find his earplugs as he would be attending this event. All the hippies and so forth that I’ve been a good sport over the years: it’s time for payback.

But upon futher reflection, I realized I don’t even want to see Mötley Crüe. Yeah, sure the Shout at the Devil show at the ECen at UCSB was wild and fun and LOUD but I never listened to their CDs much and I wouldn’t even trudge to the arena last year to see Def Leppard or Van Halen, why would I go for Crüe? The only reason would be to watch Bob suffer through it and that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to go.

I have a number of blogs I read on a regular basis. I’m going to make a list hopefully before we go on vacation. But I know what’s it’s like to someone doesn’t post for awhile — but geez, even doing a half-assed job at blogging takes a lot of time. I’ve been trying to get the rest of this CREEM magazine stuff together forever but I’m working on the holiday newsletter and actually doing some creative writing so the blog suffers … .

Today I’m going to tell you about pit juice as in underarm product. I have a particular product I use by Tom’s of Maine and it’s the only thing I will use. It’s not the plain deodorant which clearly doesn’t work and is not better than nothing. It’s the anti-perspirant & deodorant. One time I needed a refill and Bob couldn’t find it so he bought some regular brand in its “aloe vera” version since that sounded half natural and I swear after I used it I couldn’t get my armpits wet in the shower. Sorry, but I don’t think it’s healthy to have completely dry armpits. (I know, isn’t this a swell topic?)

Last time I needed my product I ordered it from Fred Meyer and for reasons I don’t understand it took about 2 months for the order to come through and at the end I was rolling a dry canister under my arms in pure desperation. This time I gave myself a good headstart and I brought in my bottle to the health products counter so we’d have all the correct product numbers and apparently that gal took my info and went on the never-ending coffee break because a month later when I check on the progress of my order: no one knew nothing.

I started all over and then checked in a couple of weeks ago and we seemed to be on track so then I checked again last week and the lady said that there was a huge display and why didn’t I just buy it from the huge display? Well, I checked the huge display and my stuff wasn’t there and at this point the huge display wasn’t even there anymore. “Sure it is,” she says, “I’ll show you.” And we march over to the huge display: but it’s not there any more. It’s gone. Completely gone along with the gallons of mythical product that I want. She checks in the back and swears she will call me with the info on my product.

No call.

This morning I logged into Toms of Maine.com and ordered 3 bottles. It should be here by the end of the week. Eff Fred Meyer, Hazel Dell.

Yesterday I ran some errands including going to Home Despot to get some replacement lights for our front of the house motion detector which has been off forever. When Dad and Erin were here they looked at it and Dad bought some replacement bulbs but they didn’t fit so I ran in to HD with the old bulb to see if I could find the right size.

In the parking lot a giant seagull stood on the hood of a white pickup truck and pecked at its reflection in the windshield. It was really creepy. For a second I wondered if it was the truck owner’s pet. And if seagulls are that stupid, why we don’t see them on car windshields all the time.

I found my replacement bulbs and they have self-check at HD now so I got out of there in record time. I decided to fix the bulbs the minute I got home otherwise they would sit on the counter forever. Dad showed me how to get the contraption open so that wasn’t an ordeal but the minute I touched the bulb (which I was holding in a dishtowel) prongs to the thingey, the bulb would go on and immediately become molten freaking hot so I couldn’t get it in there properly. The person who designed this thing should be flogged without mercy. I tried several things to turn the unit off and nothing worked. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just switch it off — you’ll have to ask Uncle Joey about that.

I called Dad for tips and we eventually figured the best plan was to shut off the breaker so off to the basement I went and after several switch-go back out and up the stairs and check: no-go back down and try another switch — I turned off every switch and it WAS STILL ON. Then I had to find a flashlight so I could find my way back to the dark basement and turn everything back on. Long before this point I decided this was a large, time consuming pain in the ass for one little thing which I believe is a metaphor for our entire existence.

I checked the shop to see if there was an additional box in there and there was and I turned off everything in that one, replaced my light bulbs, reassembled everything and then turned everything back on. The light has been burning ever since. I don’t know how to make it a motion detector again and frankly, I’m bored with the project. The goal was to have a light there and it’s there: all the time.

Can I please complain about the traffic? I hate commuting anyway and two nights in a row there was an accident on I-5 NB. Last night it took 45 minutes and it was yoga night which means I didn’t even leave downtown until 7:15. Tonight it took an hour.

Also, Mr. Angry Honking Truck Driver: Dude, there were at least 10 open car lengths behind me and only 2 in front of me so I don’t know what you were thinking speeding up like I’m going to yield to you in front of me.