Rainer’s bunny allergies finally became too bad and we took Franklin and Grumpy to the animal shelter today. Germany doesn’t euthanize and the lady there said that several people had been by recently asking about rabbits and Grumpy and Franklin are the only ones they have now. Hopefully they won’t split them up–I forgot to ask about that, but I guess they would keep them together, right? I hope they get a good home where they can run around like crazy guys. I feel bad, but we were having to keep them shut up all the time, and that made me feel a lot worse.
The rotten/poisoned meat leaver is back and left a gift of a rotten bone and two pieces of sausage with odd blue spots in our front garden this week. I’m finally fed up and posted a letter to him/her on our bushes telling him that Charlie is trained not to eat food off the street and reminding him/her that there is a playground next to our apartment and that the kids walk along the path in front of our door to get there and could very easily see a piece of sausage and stick it in their mouth before a parent could react. Hopefully this note gets the message across. How do you deal with this kind of person? If you’ve got a problem with me, talk to me, don’t leave rotten/poisoned meat all over my yard and don’t take your anger out on my dog! Argh!
Rainer had a fed-up-with-East-Germans moment tonight. He let Charlie off the leash over by the woods and two joggers approached. Rainer made the (in my opinion) bad decision not to put Charlie back on the leash, and Charlie went to greet them (in my understanding, he didn’t jump on them, just ran over wagging his tail) and they started yelling at Rainer. Rainer apologized, but they kept yelling, and kept yelling, and kept on yelling some more. When they were finally done, two people on a nearby balcony had to continue yelling at Rainer. I’m a little torn about this, since there is this mad, possible-dog-poisoner around, I feel we should be EXTRA considerate when it comes to our dog, but there is no need to yell for extended periods of time. Rainer’s annoyed and doesn’t understand the need of east Germans to give lectures if they see you do anything wrong. He says people are a lot different where he grew up (near the Mosel Valley), I guess over there they just state their problem once, then get on with their lives.
I am, in general, fed up with the behavior of people around here. I feel strongly about being considerate of other people and always take into account that other people have feelings and have had different formative experiences than me. It just seems that people around here are very angry and need to take this out on anyone who stumbles into their path and I don’t know how to deal with this. How do you best diffuse someone in this situation? Do you just shut up and walk away, or apologize for your perceived infraction? These have been my reactions thus far. Or do you tell them to shut up and mind their own business? Something I’m starting to think they must do to each other. Do you thank them for their lecture? What? I searched the internet for an article on what to do to stop an anonymous person from trying to poison your dog, but there didn’t seem to be anything. Is the only solution moving? I’m not worried about Charlie’s health anymore, he won’t eat the stuff now, but finding and cleaning up rotten meat every two to three days is seriously getting on my nerves.
My “being considerate” thing is also apparently an “American” thing. While visiting Regensburg the other week, I hung out with another American who was worried that her kids were making too much noise and a German lady told her not to worry, if someone is annoyed, it’s their problem, not hers. The person moved to the neighborhood knowing that there are families with kids also living there, so they shouldn’t expect peaceful silence, even at 6am. She also asked her husband to move the coffee grinder to the other side of the kitchen, since the next door neighbor’s bedroom was on the other side of the wall from where it is currently standing and he told her to stop being ridiculous. I don’t get this, moving the coffee grinder does not inconvenience him in any way, but it does bother the guy who’s sleeping next door. Hmph… culture clash…
I’m always pulling Rainer out of the way of other people (on sidewalks, in shops, etc) which really annoys him. It seems in Germany, the appropriate behavior is to stand wherever the heck you want and the other people need to negotiate a way around you if they so desire. Or to extrapolate, do whatever you want and everyone else just needs to deal with it, which does not fit so well with the whole lecturing-thing they have here in East Germany, so I’m just one big ball of confusion.
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Wow. This is just wild. We’ve only visited East Germany once to go skiing and people definitely oggled us, but I drive a Defender with a safari rack so it’s to be expected lol. Living in East Germany must have been strange though. I mean you’ve got nice houses and then a place falling down right next to it. So much has been improved yet so much is still totally dilapidated. But at least you are out of that nasty area! Wow would I go insane. Hessen is far from the friendliest place on earth, but most of the people around know I am from some English speaking country and they are nothing but nice…well as nice as the get here
And your poor dog. Wow. People love leaving garbage in the fields around here. I will choke the people if I ever find them. Not only does she eat stuff but she also rolls in it. Awesome.
Charlie likes to eat and roll in manure, and we live next to farmland now, so yeah, it’s lovely. I’ve never seen garbage in the fields though. That sucks. People don’t litter here much, but the littering used to seriously get on my nerves in Berlin.