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Directories
One can never have enough dough
Rehab is still going well, although I’m really starting to get sick of the food. Germans eat bread, cheese and cold cuts for breakfast and dinner every day. I’m sick of bread and cheese (I’ve never liked cold cuts, so there’s no big change in my feelings for them). We also have salad with lunch and dinner (which in theory is no problem), but salad here means iceberg lettuce with tomato and cucumber slices and shredded carrots and radishes. How about some variety already!!! On the bright side, this is contributing to my ever greater weight loss, as now I go into the cafeteria, take one look at the salad bar and go, ugh, maybe I’m not that hungry after all. And potatoes! I haven’t mentioned potatoes yet. Boiled potatoes every day with lunch. Enough already! Oh yeah, one more thing, they steam the hell out of the vegetables here. You don’t even need to chew, just mush them around with your tongue a little and swallow. Okay, enough criticism of German cooking.
I’m doing Chi-gong, Nordic-walking, weight training, and aqua jogging, and have lost over 4 kg. I don’t particularly like Chi-gong, but Nordic-walking and aqua jogging are fun. I need to buy some poles for Nordic-walking, then I can do this at home. There are also creative classes in the evenings and I did silk painting last week and this is a really cool hobby that I will be taking up. Everybody on my Christmas list will be getting silk scarves!!! I tried painting porcelain and I suck big time at this. Making gel candles was really boring.
I met with a psychologist yesterday to address my social isolation problems. I have no skill whatsoever in the making-friends-with-Germans department. This has gotten me pretty down over the last 3 years. She says I need to be less direct, Germans are suspicious when you come right out and say things like, “You want to come over for dinner Friday night?” or “Want to see a movie Saturday?” This is too pushy. You should instead say, “Maybe we can get together and do something sometime, give me a call if you feel like it.” And my foolproof friend making method of inviting everyone you know and their friends to a party is too pushy for Germans. They will come, but will be very suspicious of your intentions. Why? I have no idea. I don’t get what is so suspicious about inviting someone you are not friends with to a party, which is, I suppose, why I have very few German friends. No wonder Rainer was a little freaked out when I said, “I like you, how about dinner?” I have managed to set up an appointment to have coffee with another girl here at rehab on Wednesday afternoon (I said to her, “If you feel like it, we could do something sometime” and she answered, “yeah, maybe we could have coffee sometime,” to which I answered, “yeah, that would be good”). Slow and steady wins the race, right?
Anyways, her final advice was to forget about making friends and maybe they will just come along. It’s kind of like the whole getting a boyfriend thing. If you really want one, there are no decent guys around, but when you stop looking, they appear. She suggests I just find things I like to do and learn to live without friends. Yeah, okay, I guess I will give this a try.
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Oh deer me!
Yesterday, while walking in the woods, spacing out, I sensed a movement and looked up to find myself about 4 meters away from a deer, who was apparently doing the same thing I was and was equally caught off guard. We stood there, staring at each other for about a minute or two, then I slowly took out my camera, but as soon as I turned it on, the deer took off. Too bad, but it was cool anyway.
Oh, and I’ve now lost 6.6 pounds. And Herr Cogg hasn’t been such a nuisance the last two days. Yesterday he asked me what I was doing in the evening and I said I was tired and would rest. That’s it.
But I didn’t rest. I went to the library and found some pretty funny old ladies playing Rummikub and I watched and gave them hints every once in a while (the other old ladies I played with went home on Tuesday, these are new ones). It’s a pretty cool game. How come I never heard of this before coming to rehab? Maybe I will have to get it. Anyways, I’ve been invited to play along with them from now on, so tonight I will be Rummikubing.
I spoke briefly with one of the other young people here who is in my aqua-jogging class. She seemed pretty shocked to find out I was 30 (she’s 21). I guess that’s pretty cool if I look significantly younger than I am. The secret: lots of sunscreen! I also spent about an hour walking around trying to take artistic photographs. I need to read my camera manual, because the camera is supposed to have a macro-focus or something that allows one to take photos from an inch away. I could not figure out how to do this. I will post my efforts on my webpage when I get home. Oh, by the way, no rehab extension for me. I go home two weeks from yesterday.
The Chronicles of Herr Cogg
A specter has come to haunt my time at rehab, a specter I have named Herr C.O.G.G.(Crazy Old German Guy). Herr Cogg is about 70 years old, is quite overweight, and likes to walk around all day in a bathrobe with his chest hanging out. At first, it was only leering and ogling, but on Sunday he approached me to ask if I would be going to the mixed-sex sauna (where everyone is naked by the way). I told him, no, my HUSBAND has come to visit and I’ll be spending the day with him. On Monday, yesterday, that is, he came up to me to ask if my husband had left yet. I unfortunately was caught off guard and answered yes. This afternoon, he approached me to inquire as to my plans for the evening. I said I will be reading a book… in my room… alone. Some guys are just persistent. Do they not realize their advances are unwanted? I’m sure there are PLENTY of old ladies here that would be happy to have a little attention, why pick a young, obviously out of his league (if I may say so), married woman? This is a question for the ages…
In other news, the trainer in the weightroom had me focus on my lower body today and now I can barely walk; my butt muscles hurt too much! AARGH! And I met with the Orthopedist and his advise was that I should stop getting injured.
In the very tragic news department, a German woman killed at least 9 of her own babies and put them in flower pots (one in an aquarium), which she then stored in a garage. Her neighbors never noticed anything was up when she kept getting pregnant and there were never any babies. An SEP if I ever saw one (Somebody Else’s Problem).
Maybe what we need is another civil war…
This weird thought popped into my head this morning, what if the last election was so heated that the Kerry supporters and Bush supporters went to war? I wonder who would’ve won? On one side, the Bush guys are religious fanatics, so they would fight super-hard, feeling God was on their side and the Kerry supporters were EVIL (which they probably think anyway). But I think the Kerry side would have most of the scientists, but this might take a few years to pay off, as it might take awhile to grow the clone army from all the butchered fetuses. But either way, the population would be reduced and that’s always a good thing. So, who knows? (By the way, before I get a bunch of hate-mail, the above was a big joke and I don’t really think we need a civil war).
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