2010-01-06: Oh noez!

 (Let me toss in a Shakespearean “forsooth” here to counterbalance the LOL-cat title.)

I didn’t post anything on January 5th. I thought I would, but got distracted (a) by a certain party (not me) who spilled her beverage onto a laptop keyboard (not mine), then (b) by cleanup (not particularly of laptop per se; Mr Mo kindly came back to Aix from Quinson, where he had driven just that very morning, to deal with this); then (c) by packing. But mostly, if truth be told, (d) by wanting to finish reading a book that I cannot take with me to Germany in a few hours. (I did not finish the book. It will keep.)

And thus it is. Amen. I will cut myself some slack if I manage to post another entry later today (at some sane time this afternoon, that is; this is a wee hours’ “I cannot sleep anyway” extravaganza).

Anyway, yes, back I go to Walldorf (the small one near Heidelberg where Johann Jakob Astor, aka John Jacob Astor of Walldorf Astoria fame, came from) to work for a few days. Too many technical questions to want to deal with off-site, given the tight deadlines. Fortunately, transport costs are surprisingly low and I will be able to sleep at Gerald and Gisela’s (the same people I’ve stayed with since the very beginning of my German gig; and also fortunately for me, while The Awful German Toilet is still there, other creature comforts, such as a shower curtain (!!) have gradually made their way into life at G&G’s).

The price of familiarity and convenience — the fact that I get to stay at G&G’s, who live fewer than 10 minutes’ walk from the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof, and whose neighborhood I now know well, etc. — is somewhat offset by the fact that I will have to leave my room by around 7:15 every morning, because Gisela tends at least one baby early on in the day. (I think by the time I arrive in Heidelberg this afternoon, around 15:00 if my flight and train connections go as planned, daycare will be over.) Ah well, I am planning on putting in long days at my client’s. At least the room is entirely mine on Saturday and Sunday. I expect to mostly stay ensconced, given that the forecast for Baden-Württemberg calls for snow showers essentially every damn day I’m there. (I have bought long underwear and more warm socks in preparation for the evil. How is it that at my rapidly advancing age, I’m still not living in a warm climate year-round???)

The other price of familiarity and convenience is yet another round of “omg, I wish I (a) had taken more German in college, (b) had remembered the German phrasebook”(not that it really helps that much for the context of my trip and sojourn, really; I’ll see if Larry has one here at the apartment in Aix), and (c) had a prayer of remembering what I ended up learning the last time I stayed for awhile. My conversations with Gisela are extremely limited, to say the least, and Gerald doesn’t usually get home until late; and while his English is better, it is far from fluent. (Much, much, much better than my German, however.)

I can only hope that I will form a few dementia/Alzheimers’-off-staving neurological connections by all of these comings and goings. But now I should really try to get a bit more sleep. Gute Nacht (more like “Guten Morgen”; but hey, it will still be dark outside for hours yet).


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