Cheryl on the Web

Is it justifiable? By now you’ve probably heard about the news: this Friday in Holland, a state-sponsored network will be airing “The Donor Show”, in which 3 dying candidates between the ages of 18 and 40 compete for the kidney of a woman who wants to give one up. Viewers can SMS (text message) the woman giving up the kidney to influence her decision of who will receive it. Holland is famous for exploring the limits of liberality, as well as promoting health and the environment, but this seems to top it all.
(more…)

Tonight after dinner, as Tim and I were clearing off the table, Tim turned to me with an empty plastic container and said, “Where shall I put this, O Almighty Ruler of Recycling?” And he was serious. I often manage to catch him breaking one of the all-important recycling decrees in Germany, so he should be serious! :) (more…)

Tonight Tim went with some friends to see Spiderman 3 OV (Original Version = no German voiceovers) in the cinema. I refused to go, trusting my female instinct that the film would not be worth seeing. Not to mention that I don’t much like the actor that plays Spiderman and I don’t consider the films to fall into the stereotypical action-movie class that generally does appeal to me.

If Tim and friends are to be believed, it seems my intuition was right and I can happily go and spend my nine Euro fifty better elsewhere. It seems that the main actor cried (I mean, really cried) multiple times in the movie; the plot when it came to the Sandman was not remotely credible (but then again, it’s Spiderman we’re talking about here, so is that a valid criticism?); most of the budget went into effects for the not-so-credible Sandman; and the movie in general was pretty random.

Any other suckers - I mean, folks - out there who saw this movie?

My parents left Sunday for the US after having been in Europe for just over a week. Their trip was a last minute one, planned about 5 weeks in advance (which is last-minute if you ask Mom:). Tim and I were thrilled that it all worked out and that they were able to come; the last time they came to visit us in Europe, they planned the trip months in advance and by the time they got to our house in Holland, everything was in moving boxes and we were about to move to Germany! They spent last Saturday and Sunday with Tim and I, then on Monday they left for Salzburg, Austria - where I joined them on Thursday. Friday the three of us drove west to castles in southern Germany, then north towards Aschaffenburg on a series of roads that together are called the Romantic Road. Tim was on a business trip most of last week which is why he couldn’t join us. My sister Becky was in Florida finishing up the school year as a teacher at Sarasota high school; if she would have been able to join us everything would have been 100% complete.

We had lots of good times. Just watching Dad eat a real German breakfast of crusty breadrolls and deli meats was enough to get the day started off right. Then there was the humour of driving down German country roads, one scenic view after another, while both Mom and Dad struggled persistantly to get their camera to take a picture of it. (If it wasn’t the batteries, it was the forced flash or the lens lid not being open that foiled their efforts. I eventually improved at leaving the highway on command for photo-op scavenger hunts. If you speak with them, tell them they need a new - modern - camera.) Of course, no one expected that I’d beat them all at the game “Hotel” back home in Aschaffenburg. The big topper was during one of the final rounds of pinochle with the four of us, when jet-lagged Tim made a cryptic bid in response to my opening bid and refused to give me, his partner, any explanation other than “that’s for me to know and you to find out”!

Between the four of us we managed to collect a decent amount of photos. I’ve posted the ones that are most meaningful to me on Bubbleshare (click on the scrolling images). Mom and Dad have more pictures they took in Salzburg but I wasn’t there for a couple of those days so I left them out.

Today I feel surrounded by family but I am really all alone. My parents are actually on the same continent as I am for a change, they are in Austria right now and we are sms’ing back and forth (Mom is beginning to catch on how that works). Tim is on a business trip in Japan (reference his blog) but staying in touch. I just called my great-grandmother in Oklahoma to congratulate her on her 95th birthday and felt like she was almost right next door. And my sister in Florida is going to call soon so we can catch up!

You know, when my great-grandmother was born in 1912, staying in touch wasn’t nearly this easy. I think of my grandfather who emigrated from Germany to the US in 1922, looking for better work; he was in the US for some time before he brought his mom and siblings over to join him, and I imagine it wasn’t that easy for him to stay in touch with his family in Germany either. I am lucky to be alone but still feel surrounded by family thanks to modern technology. I suppose I’ll only have to wait another 20 years or so before the telephone is video-based, that will be even more “face-to-face” contact .. no pajama calls then!

Tim and I have put my parents to bed, in our house in Germany. They just arrived in Frankfurt from Ohio, and during the house tour they went into the bedroom .. and just never came out :) You can’t really blame them though - they were scheduled to arrive yesterday morning!

(more…)

Yesterday after work, Tim and I drove up to Frankfurt with some friends to go to a concert of the L.A. Guns. Somehow during a ballad middle in the concert we got dragged onto stage with some other folks to sit campfire-style around the band. (No, this is not something I usually would do, but Tim was the first one to be dragged up onto the stage, so when I got pulled up I didn’t protest.) At one point, the singer asked me - in front of all the entire audience - “Do you speak German?” I hesitated, decided he meant fluent German, and said, “No”. He said, okay, what do you speak? I hesitated, decided that to answer “English” was trite and very non-specific, and answered with a smile, “American”. He laughed and said, “Where are you from?” I hesitated, hesitated again, and finally said, “It’s a long story.” (more…)