12 January 2009

8 Weeks already!

Well it has been another week. I can't believe that I have been here 8 weeks already. In some ways it seems like forever and other ways it seems like 1 week. Today is Monday and it is back to work again. Why does that seem to come around so fast and it takes forever to get to the weekends?

Anyway, the weather here is cold today. Only 27 degrees (that’s in Fahrenheit). There is also a skiff of snow still on the ground. It is just enough to make it hazardous for me to be moving about outside. This morning on the way to work I almost slid out of my street onto the busier street. That would not have been too bad since no one was traveling on that street, but the person crossing in front of me may have had a problem. As it was, I just got the evil eye and she continued on.

My ankle is getting much better. I just have a slight limp today. For those that have not read my last entry, I fell on the sidewalk last Monday after work and sprained it. Most of the people that know me will not think that this is too unusual, but it really is. This time nothing was broken!

This weekend my brother called me to tell me that my great-niece Emmah was in the hospital. She is a very petite baby and the doctors have been concerned that she is not gaining enough weight. I think that she looks just like her mother did at that age so I was not really worried. But last week I guess the flu was going through his family like a wildfire. So of course Emmah lost a few ounces. I think they should tell the doctor that when I was sick, I lost 20 pounds. Relatively speaking, I don’t know if that is comparable or not. The new doctor has recommended a different feeding pattern that the old one did so we will see how this turns out. I think that the doctors should talk to each other and decide what course of action to take instead of everyone telling Emily to do something different. How is a new mother supposed to know what to do when everyone they think they should trust tells them something different? I think that Emmah will do fine since she seems to be a happy, healthy baby but who is going to listen to the opinion of Dr. Mourning?

This weekend I also had a new experience in the kitchen. Since I was feeling better, I thought that I would fix a frozen pizza that I picked up on my trip to the Real store a couple of weeks ago. I got out the box and looked at the instructions but of course they were in German. So I decided that I would just do what I would normally do in the U.S. I tried to turn the temperature to 400 degrees but the dial only went up to 250 so I turned it to 250. Then there is another button with several different settings on it. I turned it to the one with 2 flames since it was only on 250; I thought that I would turn on the flames. When I thought that it was preheated enough, I put the pizza in and went in to watch CNN. 5-6 minutes later, my smoke alarm went off. I had not heard it here before so it took me a minute to decide what it was. Then I started seeing smoke coming from the oven. I ran out there and looked in the oven window and my pizza looked like it had a black dome on it. I turned the oven off and opened the door. After trying to clear the smoke by waving a dish towel, I pulled it out. I burned that cheese so well that I am sure it would have stuck to any pan no matter what they advertise. I touched the dome and it was so hard that I tried prying it off with a knife. I just wanted to see what had happened underneath. Well, under the dome, the pizza crust was just barely done and the tomato sauce was nice and hot. So I was hungry enough that I cut that up and ate it. It tasted a little funny with no cheese, but not so bad that I could not eat it. Yesterday I told my mom about it and the first thing she said after a couple seconds of thought was “Is the oven Celsius?” I said “Yeah Mom, I figured that out already”.

At lunch today I was telling Gudrun and Sylvia about it and they just laughed and said that they don’t think about that since they have always lived here. Tomorrow I am going to bring in the box so that they can tell me what all of the pictures mean on it. I think that I will probably be cooking more of them while I am here.

I was also telling them that last week I spoke with Nadine and Amy from the Moline office. It was great to hear their voices and find out how their families are doing. Nadine says that it is really quiet in our cubie now. I guess that Navneet does not have as much to say as I do. Or maybe it is just not as loud. I told that to the lunch crowd today also. I don’t think they are used to me yet. Since I was so sick in December, I was really not my normal self. I was very quiet. So this week when everyone was back from Christmas break, I had to let go. Many of you have heard my philosophy that a person has to speak so many words a day. I was trapped in my apartment alone for 3 weeks and even though I talked to several people on the phone, it was not the same. So today I had motor mouth since I had to make up for all the days that I did not meet my quota.

We also spoke about my German class. I told them that I still feel like I have someone else’s tongue in my mouth since I can’t seem to control it. They told me that is the way they feel when they try to say a word with ‘TH’ in it. There is no comparable sound in the German language. I did not realize that before. I also asked them why Wednesday (Mittowoch) is the only day with out tag(day) in it. Or why 11 (elf) and 12 (zwolf) are not like the other teens (with zehn at the end). They thought that those were good questions but had no answer. Gudrun said that she did not name them so she did not know. I guess that this was just part of me trying to get my word quota in for the day.

After work I went out to the car and found that the windows needed to be scraped. I don't have a scraper since I have not had to use one yet and did not have my credit cards with me so I started the car and sat there while it warmed up enough for the defroster to clear the front window. I think that they need to invent a defroster for the front window that will work as fast as the rear window. It was clear in about 1 minute and it took the front about 8 minutes. I think that a lot of people would like this change to the cars! Then as I was driving out of the parking lot, the guard started waving frantically at me. I stopped and rolled down my window so that I could hear him yelling in German. That really helped? Then I figured out that my lights were not on. Just one more phrase that I need to learn I guess.

Nothing else much happened since the last time except KELLY’s BIRTHDAY. It was January 6th. I did not have to work that day since it was a holiday here. I called her and was going to sing happy birthday to her but decided that since she was at work, I would not subject her to it. I can’t wait for Mike and Kelly to come and see me in February!

That’s it for now. I hope that all of you are well.

Keep warm and safe.