Darn shame when people throw away a perfectly good book

In Heilbronn, there has been (since we moved here) recycling bins for glass and paper scattered around town, while other recycling (e.g., plastic, cans) has been picked up at the curb once a month. This has tended to work for us, but there have been some changes making it even more convenient. Our building got dumpsters for both recycling and paper, which saves me from having to make sure I get the bag to the right corner the right time of the right day or lugging a heavy bag of newspaper a couple blocks down the road. Unfortunately, the paper dumpster here has proven to not be big enough for once a month pick up, and the city says they won't be able to increase the frequency until next year. Which will correspond to them taking away all the paper collection bins at the unmanned recycling centers (too many problems with misuse, fires, etc).

Our paper dumpster isn't big enough, partly because there are some offices in our building, and partly because on occasion, there have been boxes thrown in without being broken down. This resulted in an open letter to the residents on the bulletin board and seems to be better, but the effect on me has been that I do actually have to note what day the dumpster is emptied and run out with my full box of recycling soon thereafter, before the dumpster is full again. Tuesday it was emptied, and so I said to Allan today that on our way out we should make sure that we take our paper out. The dumpster was surprisingly full (or not so surprising - since we aren't the only people saving ours up), and while I was holding the lid for Allan, my eyes caught not only some things that I don't consider to be recyclable paper (a whole box of panty liners????), but some things that just shouldn't be thrown away - brand new paperback books! Without even digging, I pulled 17 books back out, all released within the last two years, only two of them even looked like they had been read.

I was just stunned - who throws away books? Who doesn't have friends that want them or a book exchange to trade them at or a library/charity to donate them to? And why does this person live in my building?

Things I broke/fixed this week:

Things I broke this week:

A bottle of slivovice that fell out of the fridge 2 minutes before I was supposed to go to work while I was pulling celery out to pack my lunch.

Things I fixed this week:

Nothing, but I did spend 11 hours one day characterizing cause of failure for things IT broke during the cut-over.

Oh wait, I just remembered: I fixed a pair of jeans and reattached the string to my hat, both of which tore on the 10-day, 3-country holiday extravaganza.

More news already?

Goodness, nothing like starting writing to make you want to write more, is there ...
of course now I have forgotten again what it was I needed to say ... I think it was more about the subsets of food we ran into.

First of all, with the holiday we had some trouble finding anything open (or within 2 km of a parking space) in (the outskirts of) Genova other than pizzerias, so we ended up eating our fill of pizza (one of which had anchovies, because even though we had an Italian dictionary with us, the word acciuga was not in it. Hello?!? Who prints an Italian dictionary, no matter how compact, and doesn't include anchovy??? Granted, we had some suspicions even before we ordered, but I convinced Allan that no matter what it was, it wouldn't hurt him, and there were enough other good things on the pizza to surely render it edible.).

Speaking of rendering, in Lyon, we deliberately didn't eat at one restaurant which had an English translation for their menu, making it clear that they were serving calf's head, calf's liver, black pudding and tripe, and headed instead to a restaurant without an English translation where we could be in a bit more denial about what was being served. Unfortunately, my French let me down a bit, and the waiter didn't stop me from ordering cold foie (terrine) for my starter and hot paté (foie) for my dinner ... Allan on the other hand ordered Gratinée Lyonaise (under his standard premise that anything topped with cheese is good) and an Andoullie sausage, which he had long been wanting to try, for his main. Even though the waiter correctly (it turns out) served Allan a soup and me a paté, I convinced Allan there must be some confusion and made him swap with me (since I didn't know my main would be hot, I was afraid that I would end up with two cold patés, and the weather really couldn't accommodate such folly). So any way, Allan was a bit disappointed in the texture of his sausage, leading us on the following day to look up Andouille sausage in our not-so-handy (but (to Allan, at least) long-term (and generally) trustworthy) French dictionary, unfortunately only to find the rather vague definition 1) a sausage made primarily of chitterlings 2) fam, pej silly; stupid

I have now looked up chitterlings, but I am not allowed to be more specific because I got in so much trouble in 2004 for laughing about the tripe incident. Which, to be honest, I also told Allan to eat. Sorry Allan! But I ordered a salad with mystery food on it, too!

Random updates

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya. I am working on changing my style because what I considered to be the level of drama required to make a story interesting was sometimes mistaken as complaining, and I got tired of being asked if I was unhappy. And besides that, too many people I know read the blog, and so I can't complain about things that people do - too big of a risk that they are among the readers!

I can't really catch ya up right away, but here is some idea of my current status:

I finished Allan's scarf. It has Space Invaders on it. Maybe there will be a picture someday.

Just rode Allan's bike to the movie rental place where we just got an account on Monday. Still a little shocked/annoyed that they charge by the calendar day, but they have deals that make it seem affordable. And actually, I guess compared to Blockbuster they are a steal, it is just that I didn't ever rent from Blockbuster either. Took Allan's bike because he has fenders and a generator, and since he wasn't going it was free. I knew that my leather gloves couldn't compete with woolen mittens, but I am shocked at how cold my fingers got! Then, oddly, on the way home it was my toes that were cold and my fingers were fine. Perhaps because the skin on them is already dead. Binged his bell at people (another feature his bike has that mine doesn't) and they moved. Yippee! Now maybe I will hop on my indoor bike for another round. In the warm.

Made chili. Seems like we do that a lot these days, but we were talking recently about how our repertoire is so much different than it was in the US - mostly because we cook what we can't get served, and that is a very different subset of the whole.

Speaking of subsets, we ate Ethiopian in Nice. Nice!

Oh - this might be exciting to some of you: my branch of the company finally got sold. It is expected to take about three more days before we are allowed to officially use our new name, so I am not sure what I am supposed to change my e-mail signature line to tomorrow. Because, oh yeah!, the IT split is finally going to happen. So I get to go to work at 5 am tomorrow and counsel the operators if there are any problems and be their contact to IT. Here's hoping for the best!

In other news, hope that everyone had a fabulous Christmas and New Year's! If you made resolutions, I am rooting for you! You can do it!

I love Cologne!

No, not the smelly stuff that makes my nose itch; the city - Köln! By the time the train pulled in last night I was getting sleepy, even though it was just after nine. Maybe sleepy isn't the right word. Seasick is more like it. And I think it just started to press down on me.
I caught an U-Bahn to Friesenplatz and after consulting three maps started walking the couple hundred meters to my hotel. While walking there I saw so many bars and restaurants with big open windows and so many happy people out and enjoying the night. I could feel the energy of the city changing my mood and exhilarating me.
At the hotel, I was told that I had been upgraded because the hotel had overbooked, and that I should walk up the white marble staircase (oooh!) and take the elevator to the 7th floor. As I opened the door to my room and cleared the bed by a mere centimeter, I wondered what this room could be an upgrade from ... then I saw the bathroom, as big again as the bedroom, and the balcony running the length of the building (doors heading out from both the bedroom AND bathroom!). The balcony was decorated with lit Christmas trees and overlooking a Weihnachtsmarkt. I stood there for a while looking at and listening to the people before I put my coat back on and headed out to live in the city.

Back home!

OK, we are back from 10 sunny days in Crete. But other than writing that note I don't actually have the energy to say anything else ... got a couple chores I want to get done yet tonight.

Things I love

I love it when people make completely unqualified comments, like "If you didn't get a tax refund this year, you didn't do file your taxes right."

Um, maybe you should have asked me how much money I had withheld before you say that to me. And besides, I don't take tax advice from people who turn their returns in 6 months late (especially when they are getting refunds!!!!!) and have to field calls from the Finanzamt asking where it is.