Wedi Blino!

You know Murphy’s law. This week is proof positive that it exists. I’ve mentioned, I think, that I was stupid enough to extend at work to cover the time until my replacement arrives (not that it matters. I’ve got six weeks max, and she’s not even been processed for approval). That means, of course, that I have to drive to the office every day. Mark is spending four days in the States. He is scheduled to return a few hours after I leave for Munich on Saturday. What happens on the day he’s supposed to leave? Rufus gets sick. The poor pup has a very bad cold and cough. I end up staying home using leave I don’t have and need elsewhere while Mark sets off on his trip all worried. We have two more doc appointments for immune booster shots, one is Saturday at noon. The other one requires me to skip lunch tomorrow so I can leave early. And I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!

That’s all well and manageable, if you get appropriate rest in between. I took a great bath yesterday, read a bit, relaxed a bit, walked the pups with Anke and Daisy, went to bed early. Schmusi whined. All night. After having whined all day already. Then it started raining like crazy. Then a humming from the living room nearly drove me insane. Then I got up and checked on Rufus (he was sleeping soundly on his pillow). Then the alarm went off. Murphy, you old bastard, I’ll kill ya! Now you all need to excuse me while I go looking for some matches I can use to prop open my eyelids…

Cry, Baby!

Last night, I said goodbye to the Lily Pad. I’m going to miss it. It was a great place. We had two comfortable years together.

I’m still at work. Every day, I wish I could hit someone. Mostly myself, for being stupid enough to offer an extension to cover my company’s ass until my replacement arrives. Turns out, it’s highly unlikely she’ll even make it by my firm “no more of this crap” date in November. And I’m stuck. Beam me up, Scotty!

SSIW is having a launch event at the Senedd in Cardiff in December. It kills me that I won’t be able to go. This would really mean something to me.

But then I console myself with the fact that in a week, we’re going to the Night of the Museums. Then we’re having a pumpkin carving party. Then it’s Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. And then… throw off the shackles just in time for the holidays! If that’s not a silver lining!

End Game

Or: game over. In any case, I am soooooo (no, wait, SOOOOOOOOOO) bored with Vampire Wars that I am categorically refusing to go back there any more. As long as the farming’s fun, you’ll find me in Farmville or looking for eggs to feed the Hatchlings, but this idiotic, pointless collecting of “powers” and beating of unsuspecting players has to end now.

For those who remain unconvinced that I actually do have an offline life, you may go visit Flickr for the latest travel pics.

Welcome to Monday.

Living in Projects

You know how when you get busy, time just flies by? I’m packing up the Lily Pad while juggling all those Vista upgrades and accreditations at work while planning my vacation while starting a new blog (yup, schon wieder). We don’t need to discuss work, let’s just say it’s not very interesting but I’m happy when things work.

Due to Labor Day this coming weekend, I’m looking at a glorious four day respite from office chair warming activities. Claudia and I are going to Cardiff where I will possible try out my newly learned Welsh and potentially fail fabulously, but who knows. It’s nice to go away with someone who’s so enthused about the opportunity, and I hope that despite the not-so-hot weather forecast we’ll have lots of chances to bring back pictures.

The new blog is named Tees Tease (teestease.wordpress.com) and currently still empty. It was inspired by the fact that a lot of my beloved t-shirts from all over the world seem to have fallen prey to the hot water wash and therefore will be donated to the clothing collection. Before that happens, though, they will be photographically documented on that site. I am rather attached to some of them.

Now, I must find out why my fax machine won’t use the tray it’s supposed to to print faxes. You have been informed. I’ll see you with new material next week. Dabo!

Bits and Pieces

Sometimes one must go back to go forward. I simply could not get on with lesson 20 last week, so over the weekend, I went back to 16 to do some review and get the grammar down better. Today, I’m finishing the review on 19. It’s going well. Very well. Hopefully, it’ll continue in this manner. After all, I’m thisclose to being finished with the course!

About The Edge of Love… I very much like Sienna Miller as Cat. In fact, I thought the casting was superb. As with all movies about little snippets out of a person’s life, it leaves you wanting more (ideally), so I’ve been reading up on Dylan Thomas a bit. Very interesting. He should, if he could, consider himself very lucky to be played by the incredibly sexy Matthew Rhys (my motto: one more good reason to say something in Welsh!!), because even with the extra slobby pounds packed on, Matthew looks better than the soft, pouty poet ever did. He also has a better voice, as proven by a recording I was able to listen to on BBC Wales the other day, read by DT himself.

Our Celtic dinner was wonderful, although about half the guests didn’t make it this time. And yet, there was plenty to eat and lots to laugh at. We exchanged recipes, tested our way through a variety of mets, ciders and Drambuie, and learned that Breton fairy tales are probably best appreciated after smoking a good doobie or two… because the ones we read aloud seemed to have been written after exactly that kind of activity.

On Sunday, I nonchalantly jetted down to GAP for the day to go hiking and to dinner with the hubby, and Monday, being a training holiday, I lazed around the house and got caught up on my magazines. In other words, it’s all good. Tonight, I’m hooking up with Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller in Layer Cake (rented after I saw that it was classified as a thriller), and I promise to upload the pics from the brew course pretty soon.

Kinotag, Heimkino and a bump on the Head

Where have I been all week? Sweating with the oldies! It’s HOT in Germany, don’t you know. But you won’t hear me complain, nu-uh. In case all those whiny krauts haven’t checked the calendar lately: it’s August. It’s supposed to be hot.

But moving on…. I don’t feel like a complete post to review Ice Age 3D, because it’s been a week since we went to see it. I will say this, however: for about 90 minutes, it was good entertainment. The story was ok, although I’m sure I’ll forget it as quickly as I did the two predecessors. It was about friendship and family and the fact that we’re all a little patchwork. This was my first 3D flick, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Since you’ve read this blog long enough, you can guess what it’s going to be. Yup. G-Force! Since I can’t seem to catch the 3D versions in OV anywhere, I suppose I’ll have to forego hearing Bill Nighy (big fan, me, in case I hadn’t made that clear previously) and just live with whatever German actors they scrounge up.

On the homefront, I wasted $2.99 on iTunes to rent Paul Blart – Mall Cop. Sadly, this movie marks a return to early Adam Sandler films, all of which can be collectively forgotten, unless you’re very young or immature enough to enjoy fart jokes and being whacked over the head with a stupidity hammer. Watching Paul Blart was a similarly excruciating experience as the one time I made the mistake of paying money to see Dennis Spade in Joe Dirt, although as far as I know, Adam Sandler cannot be blamed on that one (his company produced this thing). Sorry, Clifford, but I have to disagree with you on this one. It’s not a complete catastrophe, however, because Kevin James (Paul) and the adorable Jayma Mays (Amy) actually have chemistry. Next up on the home movie front: The Edge of Love. For the heck of it.

Otherwise, I am dismayed about being stuck at lesson 20 in Welsh. I am attempting to correct minor listening mistakes before they accumulate, while at the same time I can’t seem to muster the concentration to really get through the lesson. I’ve started three times and abandoned it halfway each time. There are only six more after this. So close, and yet so far…

Werewolves, Vampires and Uncle Sam

Three days off are a splendid thing! Friday was spent doing all those things I don’t normally have time for, like almost re-registering my husband’s Jeep and soaking in the sun while the dogs splash in the river. Saturday was glorious, so the pigs and I kept the doors and windows open all day and enjoyed the warm summer winds while I frivolously whiled away the hours on the laptop, fighting and killing my way through one of two incredibly boring levels of Vampire Wars. I want my missions back!! On the slightly more bright side, I found a new way of killing time with pointless pursuits. Hatchlings is the name of the game, and all you need to do is click around and find Easter eggs hidden in Facebook pages. I really don’t care about ranking so much, but I love all the special edition eggs!

Sunday was gloomy and wet, so I got caught up on my reading and spent relatively little time online. I discovered, however, that whilst collecting eggs, I’ve also earned shells, which in turn can be spent at the Warehouse to purchase retired special edition eggs. After incubating my 4th-of-July egg, I now call a tiny Uncle Sam my pet, and I have to feed him eggs to keep him happy…

I rented my first movie from iTunes. It was really easy and didn’t take nearly as long to download as I had feared, considering a 45-minute episode of 24 once took me nearly two hours. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans completed the trilogy for me, but I have to say, this could have been a straight to video release without losing anything, mostly because there’s nothing to lose. The story is so predictable, I could have written the script for this film. An underchallenged Bill Nighy is stylishly menacing, although his most memorable feature is that he wears those creepy contacts all through the flick. Michael Sheen, although reprising his role as Lucian, was woefully miscast as the Lycan leader. Not that he didn’t act well, he’s just had too much exposure in other stuff in the past few years, in my opinion. I’m not even going to talk about all those rapid changes from day- to nighttime; it certainly is convenient that Sonya (the incredibly sexy Rhona Mitra) and Lucian get caught at night, she gets executed in full sun a short while later, and only a few seeming minutes after that, Lucian gets to try his luck fighting Victor in the full moon.

Fortunately, it turns out that this is something like a prequel to the other two, so we don’t really have to fear any more sequels…

Early Weekend Morn

Actually, my early weekend starts tomorrow, but why haggle over a few hours? I would like to take this opportunity to say hello to my visitor from Wales. I have a sneaking suspicion who it could be, but don’t you live in North Wales? The network showed up as being located in Caerphilly… oh well.

Lest you, my dear readers, fear I’ll be bored tomorrow, ’tis not so. I’ll be up for the early dog walk, as usual, then on to vehicle reg and the giant trash receptacles, where I’ll begin the clearing of my household. And daggone it, I’m going to the hairdresser’s, finally! I am looking forward to two days of not going anywhere for the actual weekend, because my house needs to be put in order, and I believe I promised someone to look for that mp3 player…

I think I’ll have a mini champagne, as well, for finally cracking lesson 12, though as expected, now lesson 13 has me stumped a bit. What’s that I’m saying? I’m talking about my free Welsh language course, of course. If you’re wondering what the heck it actually is I’m doing there, visit Say Something In Welsh and join the fun.

Speaking of joining, if you like traveling to Great Britain or if you’re a Wales fan or a Welsh person lost in Germany, come visit Annette and me on wales.mixxt.de. I hear we might have a celeb writer interested in doing a piece for us. That would be very cool if it worked out!

That’s enough advertising for one morning, I think… I can’t help it, between Vampires and Taffies, there’s not much else but the guinea pigs, and they’ve gotten quite a bit of blogtime already…

Anyway, don’t expect to read from me until Monday, and have a great weekend!!

After the Fires

Were I to find only one word to describe the weekend, it would have to be… barbecue! Saturday afternoon took me to Stuttgart and the backyard of friends who were firing up the grill for some homemade cevapce and don’t ask me what those burger-thingies were called. As always, the food was plentiful, and a great time was had by all (although Max and Rufus had to go home early because Rufi decided he wasn’t getting enough grilled food).

On Sunday, I was invited to a surprise birthday party in Wiesloch: more great food, more good company, and the end result was one very tired Party Queen. Good thing I have a week to rest…

TGIF Once Again

Honestly, I don’t know if I will have any time to post at all this weekend. After all, life beckons. Tomorrow, I have to get ready for my sister’s visit, do some shopping and go to a barbecue (possibly featuring the visit of a friend I haven’t seen in a few months). On Sunday, I expect to spend the morning with my sister, visit another friend in the afternoon, and watch that video my colleague thinks I need to get scared by. And after that, it’ll be Monday.

But I have confidence that you all will survive for a couple of days without me. Just in case you miss me too much, you can help me review some music for our Celtic dinner in August. Tell me what you think of The Rough Guide to Celtic Music and the Chieftains’ Celtic Wedding.