More Adventures in Food

After my foray into delicious tofu spread, I have ventured into the world of cream cheese spread. Basically only for the reason that I am too lazy to go to the organic supermarket and buy silken tofu, not only because it's farther from my house than the regular supermarket, but also because a certain four-year-old I know absolutely loses all control when we go into that place. I don't know if it's that organic earthy smell, or all the natural products, but something about that place makes him go crazy and touch everything and scare me that he's going to smash some Earth-friendly glass packaging. So I've taken to buying my raw materials at the supermarket: regular old cream cheese and delicious discs of goat's milk cream cheese. What I do then is smash and mix together about equal amounts of the two different kinds of cream cheese, then add all kinds of tasty nuts and bolts. So far I've come up with 3 variations:

Green Onion Cream Cheese
For this you start with your cream cheese mixture of equal parts of the two cream cheeses, then thinly slice two or three green onions, depending on how much cream cheese you want to make. You can also throw in a little finely chopped regular onion and some chives. Smash this all up and mix it (I find a fork works nicely) and add in just a bit of milk to make the mixture nice and spreadable. Throw in some salt and pepper to taste, and voila! Super yummy and easy spread #1!

Chipotle Cream Cheese
If you like things hot, then this is the one for you. Mix up your cream cheeses, then chop up about one chipotle pepper (a smoked jalapeno in spicy marinade) and some chili if you want it even hotter. Here I also tossed in some finely chopped onion, salt and pepper and stirred in a little milk. This one tastes great with the smoky chipotle flavor and has a nice slow burn from the hot peppers!

Tomato Basil Cream Cheese
This is a variation on one of my favorite themes: insalata caprese. For this I added two chopped sun dried tomatoes (from a jar, the kind in oil), a handful of fresh chopped basil from my window sill, a little milk for consistency, just a bit of finely chopped onion, salt and pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Yum yum yum.

For some reason I've been on a whole grain bread kick for about the last week or so, and every one of these spreads tastes absolutely fabulous on a slice of toasted whole grain bread (right now I've got sunflower seed bread).

Shameless Self Promotion

Here are the results of my latest foray into the art world: an exhibit of photos at a language school. I was approached about doing an exhibit there shortly before they moved to their new office, and quickly agreed with many an idea in my head...landscapes? cities? some of my crazy bird photographs from all over the place? We settled on American cityscapes, and I think it turned out all right. I didn't get all wild and use different colors for the mats around the photos this time around, I was lacking energy this time around. On Friday after 3 trips to the school to get everything organized and put together, everything was finally finished and some clients even came in and gave some positive feedback. And I used the photos as part of a conversation lesson this evening, putting sticky notes over the locations and trying to figure out where the photos were taken, talking about who's visited those places, etc, and by the end I think the students were ready to hop on a plane and head across the ocean!

If you want to make the trip across the river to Friedrichstadt, here's where the pictures are: Fremdspracheninstitut Dresden
Angelika Trautmann
Schäferstr. 42-44
01067 Dresden

Of if you have some naked walls you'd like me to dress up, just let me know. Give me frames and something to hang them on, I'll do the rest!

Obligatory Photos of the High Water in Dresden

That photo was taken on Tuesday, I'm a bit late putting these up since there have been other things on my plate. As you can see, the water from the Prießnitz was right up to the bottom of the little pedestrian bridge by the hospital, and the water from the place where the Prießnitz flows into the Elbe was up on the bike and pedestrian path. People had stripped down their kids and were letting them play in the water on the path. While it's a fun idea (and W was begging to go in the water) it really creeped me out, because one other time when there was high water on the Prießnitz, there was some very unsavory stuff floating in there. For those of you who can't imagine what, it was anything and everything you might flush down the toilet or put in the trash in your bathroom. Not pretty.
























The ferry between the Neustadt and Johannstadt sides was closed, because the docking area was under water. I think that's running again, though, since the water has receded.






You can't see the humongous and humongously ugly Waldschlößchen bridge on here so well, but maybe the planners were onto something when they made it so big. Maybe they knew something more about high water in the future than we know! But that's still no reason for it to be so ugly. Bridges do connect, it's true what the CDU says, but couldn't they have made this connection a bit nicer? Maybe they really wanted to stick it to the protesters with an extra ugly bridge at what is otherwise a very beautiful location.























Newsflash from my terrace! It too is flooded! Every time we have a torrential downpour like we did twice today, my stupid terrace gets flooded. I too am in on the adventure! Fortunately we don't have a basement as we did in our old place, there the basement was flooded every time we had rain, which was super annoying. We had some stuff ruined, and other stuff just stank to high heaven.

We love Love LOVE the new Kinderhaus!

After probably one of the worst experiences of my life (sending my poor defenseless kid off to an awful throwback of a preschool where they were convinced that he was disabled and kept trying to convince me of the same, where they went so far as to try to organize a doctor's appointment --as if we don't take him to the doctor ourselves and didn't inform them of every last "?*"*)§/ appointment-- without our permission to "put pressure on the doctor" to put him in a special needs preschool), we have started him in a new preschool that just opened and he is a superstar there. The teachers there actually seem to like their job and like kids, which is completely different from the old place. At the new Kinderhaus the teachers have tons of ideas and already this week started building puppet theaters and houses out of giant cardboard boxes with the kids. They actually let the kids use paint! Real, wet, smeary finger paint! W's group at the old preschool never once used paint with a brush, let alone FINGER paint. Good God, someone could have gotten dirty! And then the teachers maybe would have had to work to help clean up! The most artistic thing I saw there were some colored pencil drawings, and one time one other group used Play Doh. The Kinderhaus has a huge supply of finger paint and real, messy, brown clay. I want to go back to being 3 years old so I can go there and play!

Anyway, our new Kinderhaus is a fantastic place. I say "our" because it's a parents' initiative, meaning that parental work there is required. This could be anything from helping wash hand towels to fixing curtains to bookkeeping, planning parties, organizing photo archives...In our case, I will be providing English lessons for the kids. I like this, because in a way it is a kind of self selection: who is willing to do 4 hours of work per month for their kid to go there? And I can also have a look on the inside and see just what goes on inside this place. At the old preschool I really had the feeling that parents were unwanted. Please just drop your kid off, pick them up as late as possible before closing time please so you don't disturb our day, and we will fix everything you have done wrong with this child in the meantime.

I haven't even touched on the pedagogical concept. They are picking and choosing different aspects (what they consider the best) from various pedagogical approaches, including Montessori, Waldorf and others. The Kinderhaus is also free of mass-produced plastic toys--they only have things like wooden building blocks, dress up clothes, paints, boxes, beads, glue, marbles, tubes, blankets, buttons, musical instruments, books, paper, pencils, scissors, cloths, beanbags...you get the picture. The first day W asked for a car, but soon after, forgot all about cars and was really free to start exploring. This Kinderhaus is also conceived as a place that is colorful, varied, open, international, welcoming and where everyone is equal.

As if that all isn't fantastic enough, the building itself is a low-energy building with solar cells on the roof and they collect rainwater for watering the garden. In the back they will have gardens where the kids can grow vegetables and herbs, and the food on offer is organic and fresh. When I first walked into the building, I wanted to move in. It has gorgeous wood floors, cool windows and colorful rooms.

How do I know that W likes it? On Wednesday when we rounded the corner and the Kinderhaus came into view, he took off running and called out "Woohoo! The Kinderhaus!!!". On the second day he already told me that he wanted to stay there alone. Today he was practically begging me to be able to stay all alone next week. On the first day he took off with his teacher as if I wasn't even there to get water to water the plants and take some banana peels and stuff downstairs to the compost. Today he was playing and singing one of the songs he composed himself. And he talks to people there. He never spoke in the old preschool. I would like to thank Frau G and the others at the old preschool for showing me how absolutely horrible and damaging a preschool can be so I can really appreciate what a wonderful one we have found now! Sorry, Frau G, that I almost always freeze up and start swearing like a sailor as if I had Tourette's syndrome when I see you on the street or at the store, it's sort of like an allergic reaction. Maybe if someone treated the kid you love more than anything else in the world like trash and spoke to you as if you are an idiot just because you are a foreigner (who speaks the local language at least okay and can understand everything), you just might see where I'm coming from.

Hold onto your hats!

I didn't take that picture, but stole it from here.

I found 27 four leaf clovers in about 5 minutes today, and 2 five leafers. I don't know if this counts as real luck, though, because I asked the current inhabitant of the place where I found these, and he said his parents had planted a four leaf clover plant many, many years ago near the spot where I was finding these.

Anyway, if this is real luck, what in the world am I going to do with so much of it? Will we need it for the trip the United States? That will be a long flight with just me and the two little guys. Will we need it to deal with W's new preschool that starts tomorrow? I think we've already been very lucky to get a place there and it seems like he will have very nice teachers (2 people, a man and a woman) and a very small group (5 kids!!!) for the beginning. What in the world else could I/we use so much luck for? I can think of a few of my silly dreams, which I won't even write here because they are so mundane (and I don't want to jinx them), but c'mon, that's not all going to happen just because of a few silly leaves...But I have to say, everything last year worked out pretty darn well, and I started finding four leaf clovers just after we really decided that we were 100% sure about coming back to Dresden. That fateful day last year, I walked out of the door of the house at 1083 McKimmy Drive and saw that first clover staring up at me, waiting for me to milk all the luck out of it I could. Then I found ten more at various other locations in Michigan and Saxony, at very interesting times. And everything worked out better than I could have imagined! What's next?

New British-American Shop in the Neustadt

http://beyondtheponddresden.de/

How about that? There is a new shop on Rothenburger Str. 26, run by an American married to a German who's been in Germany for almost twice as long as me! I saw the sign in the window of the still-empty shop a couple weeks ago, and thought, "Hmm, what's this all about?" and happened past yesterday only because the tram stop by my house is not in use right now, so I had to walk two stops. Good thing! It's a neat little shop, with a nice selection of foods and books. It's always funny to stand in front of shelves of American products here, it's like being transported to an American grocery store for a few minutes. She even has a wish list, so if you and a couple other people want something, she'll try to get it. Come on everybody, go sign up for Grape Nuts! I was the first person to ask. I didn't sign up on the list, though, because I will be buying my own in just a few short weeks... We wound up having a nice chat and W scored a new Dr. Seuss book out of the deal. A good stop for all.

Found

I love finding stuff, and days where I find neat stuff seem to come in clusters. Either I'm finding four leaf clovers left and right, or I find kids' clothes by the donation container or at the free store a few days in a row, or I just find stuff on the street that people put out because they don't want it any more. That is the case with yesterday and today. Yesterday I found some dishes that will be useful because a certain four-year-old in my house helps to put away the dishes and sometimes drops them. And today I found a memory card from a camera, and voyeuristic me was pretty excited to see just what was on there. I had hoped for some documents full of spelling errors or some pornographic photos, but got some pretty normal stuff, like photos and vacation videos in the mountains from 2002. Entertaining nonetheless.


































































If you're a little bit creepy like me and like to get a glimpse into other people's heads by looking at their junk, then you might also enjoy Found Magazine.

I went sailing today!

Well, no, I didn't, but "I went to Marga and took some pictures of Art Nouveau architecture!" doesn't sound nearly as exciting and glamorous as sailing. Sailing smacks of having a special striped sailing shirt, boat shoes and a cool anchor tattoo, none of which I have. SK and W were sailing with a friend on Senftenberg Lake, while I took F and walked along the lake about 4 kilometers to Marga, a little suburb built in a circular arrangement in the early 20th century to house the many miners that were needed in the area at the time.










Senftenberg Lake, like the other many lakes in Lower Lusatia, used to be a giant strip mine, but after the mining was all finished, it was decided to flood the mine and make a lake. I like that attitude: take a raped piece of nature and make something nice out of it! Not only is it a lake, but it is all public property surrounding the lake, meaning you can bike on good trails, camp at campgrounds, go for an ice cream, or play at one of the many playgrounds. Or you can sail or do whatever else it is that one does on water (as long as you don’t go to fast, there is a pretty low speed limit).























Back in the early 20^th century is when this all began. At that time, the strip mining was becoming big business, and there just weren’t enough people around to fill all of the jobs. People were brought in from the surrounding states as well as countries to the east of Germany. They all needed a place to live, and so Marga was built. This was built as a suburb of Senftenberg, today it is more or less a part of the town. It was designed by a Dresden architect in a circular formation. When you see it in an aerial view, the town looks like a circle, with a ring of trees surrounding it and the market square and church in the center. The residential houses surround this. Historically it is interesting, because a lot of American suburbs were built following the model of this workers’ neighborhood. It really does feel like a suburb, it has everything one needs for daily life in a central place, and the houses are all on quiet little streets, they all have yards and fences, and the streets are curved so that you lose your orientation pretty easily.







A view across the market square in Marga

The thing that really blew me away about this little suburb, however, is that it was completely unified in style, and that style was my absolute favorite architectural style right now, Art Nouveau. Just for kicks yesterday evening while we were planning our trip for today I was trying to think of what I could do in town while the guys were sailing, so I searched for “Art Nouveau Senftenberg” and my good friend Google pointed me in the direction of Marga. This was more than I could have possibly hoped for!























The bakery. I like the wooden elements, often seen on country style Art Nouveau buildings.
























The post office, clearly marked by the post horn on the roof.



















The restaurant Kaiserkrone, which doesn't look like it's in business.

















There were lots of little mining details worked in to the buildings, like this on a doorframe on the Kaiserkrone: "Glück auf!" is the typical miner's greeting, meaning so much as "May luck be with you and bring you back up safely!"























Also on the Kaiserkrone: fantastic stained glass windows. These may even be original, the window frames themselves certainly looked to be original.



















The parsonage. This was one of my favorite residential houses in Marga. It was next to the church. The outside of the church was pretty reserved, and unfortunately I didn't have a look inside since there was a service starting just as I was walking past.




















Walking back into the center of Senftenberg I also happened past some pretty neat residential houses in the Art Nouveau style. Here in Dresden the Art Nouveau houses have a lot of rounded, smooth, sleek, incredibly graceful decorative elements, and in Senftenberg there were a lot of slightly more boxy elements with more grooves and almost Aztec-looking (at least to me) designs.
























This house made my little Art Nouveau loving heart skip a beat. Look at those window frames!














The intertwined roses!























The details of and around the door!
























And just one more, this was by the market square in Senftenberg. I almost missed this elephant up at the top of the facade of this house, but then I saw him and was just tickled pink. The guys had fun sailing, I had a great time on my little architectural safari, and at the end we all got together and grilled in our garden. All in all, a great day.

The Greenhouse

It may sound like a hairbrained idea to put up a greenhouse in the middle of the city where most people don't even have their own yards, but give us a hairbrained idea and we'll do it! I've been writing so many words lately that I decided to put up some pictures again. These greenhouse pictures are kind of old, so the plants are much smaller than they are now, but since I'm too lazy to transfer my newer pictures from the camera right now because the heat is making my brain melt and ooze out of my pores, you'll just have to live with these ones.

























There she is, the little greenhouse. To the left you can see the living room window next to which I am sitting right now. The plants were tiny when I took these pictures, the cucumbers are growing out of the window in the roof now.
























Tiny cukes!
























Here things were getting greener and taller.
























Behold! The tomatoes! Some are getting red now.
























Rest in peace, first cucumbers. Shortly after this picture was taken, that little red-headed bane of my existence who runs around like a wild animal now that it is summer vacation ripped our first two cucumbers off. Haha little jerk, they weren't quite ripe yet. After the tragic theft, the greenhouse was fortified with a gate. Following its construction, the red-headed beast was heard standing in front of said greenhouse, rattling the gate and saying, "Boah, krass eh, boah, ist das krass." This isn't the freaking soup kitchen, genius, we don't have any handouts here. As my grandfather may have said in this situation: "Who in the hell is that dirty little red-headed son of a bitch in my yard?" But instead, a certain member of my household tore open the window and yelled "What is your problem?" The little beast seemed shocked, but after the window was closed (and my secret window still open) we heard the little monster call us assholes. Regardless, he hasn't come back. Either he is on vacation, or was scared shitless. A Sauer Kraut* can be intimidating!

*see here for explanation

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

by Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Good times and noodle salad

Mmmm, oh I can't believe it, I just made a pasta salad that tastes like my favorite tomato
mozarella bagel by Thomas! I am thrilled. Today has been quite a day of cooking: for lunch I took the celery I had in the fridge from making a different salad on the weekend (which received massive boos from one member of my household because "the celery is too hard and the leaves get stuck on the roof of your mouth") and whipped up a delicious soup. Call me crazy for cooking soup in this weather, but my kitchen remains amazingly cool even now because it's north facing and shaded by several trees. This soup reminded me of the Chinese Beef Casserole my mom used to make (or maybe still makes, I don't know), which is also heavy on celery, just minus the beef!
Just now I made some italian style pasta salad and can't wait to chow down, because, as I mentioned, it tastes like my absolute favorite food ever made by the bagel man. The tomato mozarella bagel was my main form of sustenance during my first month in Dresden, when I was staying next to Bagel's at the Mondpalast hostel. Even now I live only about a ten minute walk from there, and am so pleased that he is open again during the day, because now if there's crappy weather and we need to get out, I can have a coffee there and W can drink a "mango": he prefers to shorten mango juice to just mango.

Here are the recipes, sorry North Americans for the metric units of measure, but there are lots of good conversion sites online and I am lazy:

Celery Soup

6 oz. finely chopped celery (sticks and leaves, not the root! You can make a good schnitzel out of the root)
1 small onion, finely chopped
6 oz. potato
1/2 oz. unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 pints vegetable broth
salt
2 tablespoons heavy cream
chopped parsley

Melt the butter in a large pan together with the olive oil and gently fry the onion and celery until soft, about 10 minutes.

Add the vegetable broth and diced potato.

Boil for about 20 minutes, then blend it with your mixer stick (or immersion blender or Purierstab, whatever you want to call it) leaving some chunks. Salt it, throw in the cream, stir it, chop a little parsley and sprinkle it on top to make it pretty.

I doubled this due to my overabundance of celery, so we will be eating celery soup tomorrow too.

Italian Pasta Salad

250 grams noodles (I used fusilli)
200 grams mozzarella (the fresh kind in ball form)
100 grams dried tomatoes
arugula
1 clove of garlic
70 mL olive oil
balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon each pesto, mustard, honey
parmesan
salt and pepper

Cook the noodles and rinse them with cold water.
Wash the arugula and chop it a bit.
Drain the oil from the dried tomatoes and the water from the mozzarella, chop those into about 1 cm cubes.
Mix all this in a large salad bowl, add salt and pepper to taste.
Mix oil, vinegar, garlic (chopped or pressed), pesto, mustard and honey and pour over salad shortly before eating.
Mix salad and garnish with parmesan.
Mmmmm!

For this salad you can also add some ham and pine nuts, I left off the ham since I don't eat the stuff, and forgot the roasted pine nuts after having gone on an expedition to find some! Another note: the arugula in this salad also got massive boos from that special member of my household who also stated that it was "too hard" and picked out every last bit.

BP

Well, if we can't fix it, we might as well laugh about it.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

You're five today! We've come a long way, baby.

Is my kid weird?

On Saturday while we were out for a walk, W., who is four, kept pulling up his AC/DC t-shirt and flashing his belly. Sometimes he would say "Oh, there's a baby in there!" and sometimes he would just show his lovely, slightly rounded, pleasantly smooth, lily-white belly. Who wouldn't want to see a fine belly like that? But then, then he topped himself, doing something I will never forget. While walking past the Mondpalast, a hostel with a bar that has tables outside on the sidewalk as well, he saw a round table surrounded by several chic, made-up young ladies. What did he do? Oh yeah, he flashed that belly. But not only that. He stopped very close to them and their waiter who happened to be by the table at that moment, too, and started snorting like a little bull getting ready to charge. Then he took a couple of steps and repeated the process. All parties involved cracked up.

A little rant, because I love where I live

I am so sick of people wrinkling their noses about Dresden-Neustadt, where I live, and telling me how awful the Neustadt is. It's loud, it's smelly, there are punks and dog shit everywhere. Yeah, yeah, tell me something I didn't know. Despite all that, I will let you know how I really feel. To exploit my good old American love of the superlative: it's the greatest place in the world.

It is loud here if you are on one of the main streets, sure there's traffic, and often there are people out, talking or grilling or getting together in their garden or living room or in the park. Or right now, they are screaming because of whatever is happening with the soccer game on TV. So if you like your peace and quiet, either go home and leave my neighborhood alone or find a quiet place here, of which there are TONS. But I won't tell you where because you don't care anyway.

It can be smelly, especially in the summer from the grilling (which is a matter of taste if you like that or not) the dog pee and poo all around (which annoys me too) and maybe because of some smelly people. But come on, where don't you have those three elements? Jesus, where I come from we have super smelly Amish people, especially on Fridays in the summer, because they only bathe on Saturdays. I'll tell you what, they smell worse than the punks or the squatters here who don't bathe at all.

And on to the punks. Sure, there are punks around. But if you are polite to them and don't treat them like a total jerk, they will leave you alone too. They used to ask me for change before I had any kids, and I always said that I didn't have any. I did this in a nice way, looked them in the eye, and smiled. Do you know what? They always wished me a nice day. Honestly, not sarcastically. Once I was noticeably pregnant with W., and still lived between two of major punk begging areas, they stopped asking me for money. Since I have had kids and am on the go with my kids most of the time now, they always leave me alone, clear the way if I'm pushing a stroller and are genuinely respectful. Sure, I don't like their dogs, since they are ratty and unpredictable, but have never been bothered or threatened by their dogs, either. It's probably more my own dislike of dogs that gets me riled up in that respect. Honestly, I find the punks to be nicer than a lot of the other people out there on the streets. Small town dork that I am, I find it super cool to live somewhere where there are punks on the street. And a rather affluent American former colleague of mine put it this way, "I like living somewhere where my son can see that there are lots of different people around, and that the punks are not dangerous or scary".

And there's the dog shit, and honestly, nobody likes that. But there are more and more responsible dog owners who take a baggie with them and remove their poo. But there are still lots of jerks who don't.

Then there are all the good things about this neighborhood: the beautiful architecture, the interesting and friendly people, all the kids (I've heard we have the highest birth rate in Dresden, if not in Germany, but can't back that up with any numbers), the openness, the proximity to everything you need or could possibly desire as well as the possibility to get out of the city pretty quickly if you want. I'm sick of hearing how "antisocial" it is around here. I know of lots of other places in Dresden where you can go and see a much worse crowd hanging around the supermarkets, and I'm not talking about Prohlis or Gorbitz. Anyway, I guess what it really comes down to is that I really like this place where I live, I like going out the door and just about every time seeing someone I know, not having to drive to go shopping or to get anywhere at all, it's a neat and dynamic place with so many playgrounds, petting zoos, and kid-friendly cafes that we really can never complain of boredom or running out of things to do. It's a place that breeds and attracts people who are square pegs who don't fit into round holes, and that's just fine here. So enough of my long-windedness. I hate to carry on debates about such matters of personal taste, and even though I may be too polite to say it to your face, the next time you insult my neighborhood, do want to know what I am thinking while you barrage me with insults about my choice of a place to live? Stick it where the sun don't shine, baby.

Delicious tofu bread dip/spread

In my quest to not be such a lardass, I am trying to eat more delicious healthy foods. At the market by my house every Thursday and Saturday there is a tofu lady who makes and sells all kinds of delicious tofu products--from blocks of tofu, smoked and unsmoked, laced with delicious things like herbs, hazelnuts and chili to scrumptious tofu creams and patties. OK, so the patties are probably not that healthy, as they seem to be deep fried (but they sure do taste good, crammed full of onions and chili!), but I bet the creams are super nutritious and not too likely to continue me down my path of becoming massively fat. Then, I had a stroke of genius and thought, "Hey, those can't be so hard to make!" So I set off on my voyage into the world of creating fun food using tofu this weekend.

Yesterday I rushed off to the organic supermarket before it closed to pick up some silken tofu, since I couldn't find it at the new little organic shop around the corner. Then this morning I took 200 grams of silken tofu, whipped it up with my mixer stick (I guess the proper English name for this handy tool is "immersion blender", but I prefer mixer stick), and then started throwing in tasty chunks of stuff. I thinly sliced one green onion and blended that with my mixer stick, too, then threw in 3 more sliced green onions, as well as a few finely chopped queen olives stuffed with garlic. I added about two teaspoons of granulated vegetable broth to this as seasoning. At first glance, I was very disappointed with the runny consistency, and it didn't taste all that good either. So I put some plastic wrap over the bowl and shoved it in the fridge and hoped for the best. Just now, about six or seven hours later, it has thickened to a nice, dippable consistency and tastes great as a dip with my sunflower and sesame seed bread! Hooray! Now I can make this stuff myself! I don't have to wait until the tofu lady comes back on Thursday! But I do need the patience to wait until my dip is edible...

BRN

These were just a few of my favorite sights from the Bunte Republik Neustadt street festival this weekend. I only went out to the flea market and the kids' parts of the festival on Saturday morning. Some of the things on offer at the flea market were great, but Talstraße was not what it used to be with all of the great play equipment. It was not so exciting for us, because there some clowns putting on a show. While I am sure they did a great job, W. was scared of them so a departure was necessary. He has seen those clowns before, and they did some slapstick fighting which really upset him. Oh well. I don't like clowns either. When I was a child a Christian clown came up to me at the county fair and told me I was going to go to hell. I think I was nine back then, and since then there are two things I really can't stand. Guess what they are.

The weekend

This weekend we visited my parents'-in-law for their yearly summerfest. While the kids were off for a walk in the woods, I took the time to explore the functions of my slick new camera! I am not disappointed. Enjoy!

AC/DC!!!

It's been a heck of a week or so of concerts for me...Last week I saw my old friends from Dude Dude Chick playing at Orange on Kamenzer Str. Even though my friend and I were super tired and almost didn't go to the show after sitting around my house forever on that evening because of the heat and it was Friday, we finally ventured out and didn't regret it. The guys put on a very good, fun show, and we felt like we were 25 again.

Then this past Thursday I attended the Neustadt Guitarreros show at the Scheune. This was the kickoff to the yearly BRN festival here in the Neustadt, more on that later. Back to the band--I've heard of these guys before, the singer is even the brother of a friend and a very good cook of delicious Asian food. Anyway, they pretty much knocked my socks right off. They played cover songs, with Benny singing and 6 guitars! 6! Plus a bass and drums. The sound was HUGE. I'd heard all the songs before, but never like that!

And tonight, well, tonight was the topper. We saw AC/DC in the Ostragehege in Dresden on the stage they had been putting up all week. That was one heck of a giant spectacle. They pulled all the stops, there was a giant flaming train on stage, a giant inflatable Rosie, canons going off, assorted other pyrotechnics and even Hell's Bell, lowered from overhead so the singer could swing on it. To put it mildly, I was impressed with their energy. After being a bit annoyed with the two opening bands who we didn't find so great, AC/DC came on stage and made everything right again. For me, the singer's voice left a little to be desired, but the guitarist was crazy! That guy has so much energy, even with his age he still did all the old tricks and was running around playing like a madman. They don't look so young anymore, but they still can put on one heck of a show. The guitarist stripped down to his AC/DC knickers, and during one song one of the women in the audience even flashed her breasts while she was up on the monitors. The band requested "more titties", but didn't seem to get them. I even got more for my money when a fight nearly broke out by me and a giant security guy came to break the guys up. All the drama and entertainment of a good rock concert was complete!

Holy Birthday Madness!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, there are so many birthdays this time of year that I have neglected several so far this month! Like my dad, my niece, a kid we know...


















This is Cream and Knuddelhase's mom, Flo!





































Above are Cream and Knuddel busy turning one today!

There's one birthday that I wasn't able to forget, since I didn't even know about it. Well, I knew somewhere in my head that the guys would turn one soon, but didn't know exactly when until my friendly bunny caretaker and bunny provider told me on Friday that the bunny birthday party would be today! So there's a lot to celebrate around here! 4 years of W, one year of bunnies (not quite the whole year with us, but close) and...almost one year back in Germany!?! What? Where did the time go? In two weeks is exactly the time one year ago when we packed up whatever belongings we wanted to keep in and on the car, drove across a good portion of North America with a three-year-old, a pregnant woman and a German driver to put the car on a boat and us on a plane in New York. How did we do it? There are a lot of things that I am looking back on that I have done and ask myself, how did I manage that?

Holy cow, and my mom's birthday! It's today, at least it's already today here...not quite there yet. And how did I manage to remember that one?