A Day On The Beach

This year, after many cool years, we at last have a summer that is worth its name, with long, hot, sunny days and warm, still nights. So we went to the North Sea to spend a few days.
This is my son on the day we arrived, when the weather was not quite so nice, and no, he is not trying to part the waters to walk to America, but those clouds barely gave us time to dip our toes into the water and get back to the car. The sea, by the way, is a lot warmer than it looks. It was nearly as warm as the Mediterranean and the sand clean and lovely.
Sadly, that day it rained.
The following days we returned, and we mainly did this:

which means. the Kid tried to fly his kite for about ten seconds, and then I unraveled the cord for the next thirty minutes.  Second attempt at flying, another half hour unraveling..... and so on, until dinner time. I tried to get him to ask the more "professional" kite flyers for tips, but he refused... and I had to unravel again.

Thankfully, there was respite, with lunch, in lovely restaurants like this one.  Those fries look harmless, but they were more than excellent, and fresh made!
And should you wonder about the sock monkeys, please go visit our facebook page, the "Sisterhood Of The Mae Monkeys", for clarification.  All that needs to be said here is, thank you, Pea, for the wonderful idea.
Our hotel was this pretty house, right across from the restaurant.

The nicest house in the village. It really felt good to sit in the yard across the street and watch the many people who stopped and tok snapshots of it, and to know we were staying there.
This is the garden in the back of that house, right next to the path leading to the beach:

We used to sit in this place in the evenings and chat with the owner, and he told us stories about how the village was founded, and how people settled on the tine islands called "Halligen" just off the shore, and how they carve out a living there with their sheep and cattle, and how he and his wife bought the house twenty years ago and turned an old milk shop into a small but first-class hotel. We got recommendations where to go and buy the best smoked fish and homemade bread and which beaches to visit, and he told us not to think of buying a house there until we had visited the place at least ten times for vacation during  the different seasons, not that we had plans for doing that.
The beach is endless. You have to walk about half a mile to get from your car to the water, not a good thing for me right now with my broken back. And the public toilets are these houses:

I mean the one in the background, on the stilts. The stairs were NO fun.
Don't worry thought, there are pipes. The waste does not drop from up there into the water. It is quite clean. The bathroom, I mean. Oh, and yes, the beach and the water too.
There is another building like that a little further down the beach where they - supposedly - serve the best scrambled egg with North Sea shrimps and dark bread. Don't know if it's as good as the rumor, we never tried it. The stairs, you know.

Oh, one more thing. My son, age 15, tried his first ever coffee. And decided not to like it.

Can you see our hotel in the background?

We had to come home early because I was too ill for vacationing, but the few days we spent there was fun. And we'll try again next year. Maybe by then we'll also know how to fly a kite.

Because Ginny asked....

My dear Ginny, a wonderful facebook friend from Houston, after reading a "status" I had posted, asked if we rehearsed right up to showtime, and this made me think about a performance day really goes.
It also made me think of the little peak of iceberg others see when the curtain opens for my girls, of the many hours and weekends we put into it, and how "terrible" a show day is.
I'll try to give you a glimpse of the rest of the mountain.


This is what my troupe looked like 30 minutes before the show( photo courtesy of Fiona Ransom).
They are groomed, dressed, relaxed (more or less), well rehearsed and excited to take to the stage.

BUT

8am: School begins. For all of the kids, this is a normal school day. Which means they really don't want to be there at all, and MAN math is boring today, and can't we start rehearsals early? Do we REALLY have to go to class? Well yes, for a while, you need to. Sorry folks.
Generally, I'm in the teachers' room, getting the final copy of the CD and lyrics sheets ready ( you can BET someone forgot theirs). Which does not mean they will need them at night at all, but those papers are like a security belt during the day.

10.25am: the "big" break. A cluster of students outside the teachers' room, wanting to know if there's anything they need to know, do, change.... go outside, eat something, chill. Please.

12.00 noon: my technicians ( two 9th graders and two 5th graders) and I go over to the auditorium to start the set up. The school bought a really nice sound and light equipment for us, as far as schools go, a couple of years ago, and spent about 10k$ for it. And it is EXCLUSIVELY ours. No one else in the school is allowed to use it. And we have really, really good microphones ( the same brand Neil Diamond used on his tour in 2008.... made me feel very important!). The boys will do a sound check, of course, and I time how long it will take for our headmistress to show up and complain about the noise.... after all, the rest of the school is still having lessons. No matter. We like to announce that it is show day.

1pm: the girls start to arrive. Some of them have their lunch in hand and have to stay outside (NO eating in the auditorium!!!), the others use the stage as couch. The usual picture would be: four or five teenagers lying around on their tummies, cell phones or iPods in hand, sharing and talking about music.

1.15pm: the first pantyhose emergency.

2pm: rehearsals start in earnest. First nervous breakdown because someone forgot her lyrics and needs a sheet < why I was in school early and made new copies.

2.10pm: trouble with the microphone cables. Ildal throws a tantrum. Only a mild one, and it is over as soon as I hand over my own, privately-owned Sennheiser mike. For now.

3pm: We did the setlist once, and there are no major flaws. The girls are getting nervous because they want to dress up. I tell them they have another four hours, and to relax. We call a break. Despite dire threats to life and general well-being two or three disappear to the church yard across the street for a cigarette. My hubby brings me something to eat and fresh coffee.
By now, my son Mario has joined us and gets sound and light properly rigged with the boys. Suddenly, the music sounds a lot better and the disco lights are working..... the auditorium is darkened, stage magic appears. The atmosphere changes, and the kids' mood with it.
This is a moment I love every time we perform, and it is very tangible.
Only a moment before, we were at school and rehearsing, now we are in a venue, and getting ready to perform.

4pm: our dressers show up. The performers retire to the dressing rooms below the stage to get ready.

4.10: second pantyhose emergency

4.30: lipstick and mascara emergency

4.33: another speech about how NOT to use perfume before you go on stage. Geez.

4.45: Ildal takes her second tantrum, this time worse and LOUDER!!!! than the one before. Her voice sounds especially dramatical in the basement hallway.

5pm: At least half of the teachers notice now that they did not buy tickets for the show and want some.
Which is distracting but nice, because it means they will come.

5.12: third pantyhose emergency, and first dress emergency. Frantic calls to older mothers and sisters, who show up minutes later with alternate clothing.

5.25: Ildal ( who is 18) and a couple of others who aren't need another cigarette.

5.30: fourth pantyhose emergency, because Ildal sat  down on a bench in the church yard and tore hers.

5.58: first bra emergency

6.00: box office opens. A couple of older brothers sell tickets and do security duty. Some 5th graders try to wheedle their way in without paying, which is sternly denied.

6.10: a brief warm up in the basement hallway. Chasing out some curious 10th grade boys at the same time.

6.22: second bra emergency. The safety pins and tape come out of my big bag.

6.25: Ildal throws her third tantrum, this time with tears and vows to quit RIGHT NOW. She is sent off for another cigarette with the admonition to return ASAP because her make up has to be redone.

6.30: the gates open. I'm not yet changed, sweaty and exhausted and near panic. And - uh oh - the mayor of our city walks up to me and shakes my sticky paw. That's just what I wanted. Well, he is also my boss, so he might as well see that I do indeed work for my money.

6.50: the auditorium is  filled to the last seat. The lighting and sound are working. Technic team are on their places. Curtain is closed. Both headmistresses have shown up, nearly all teachers are there. Reporters from local newspaper and from the big paper in Hamburg are present. Mayor and other politicians are here.

6.58: one last visit to the dressing room: the girls are serenity incarnate. We form a huddle. We hug. I cry a bit.

7pm: back in the auditorium and in my seat next to the nice headmistress. Soaked through, ready to drop, sore from shouting at Ildal.

The music begins, the spot light lights up, and the curtain opens: and yes, every minute was worth the effort.

English: the living language

I'm going to be mean today.
it's graduation exam time, and the 9th graders who are about to leave school are studying for their oral English exams next week. They come to me for coaching,  hoping I'll be able to teach them everything they did not learn during their past four years in two days. But "That's not how it works," of course,  said with the wonderful words of my novel's female main character.
The first part of their test is an introduction of themselves and their families.
So I tell them to write it down in German first, and then to translate it, and then we do the corrections together.
Today, I was served this by a girl. She is 17,  her origins are Turkish, and she is one of the GOOD students. just to give you an idea. And a laugh. Go ahead. Don't think of the girl, think of the garbled language and enjoy. I'm going to copy it out for you. Verbatim.


About my family is that. I going with my parents often in the same shopping center.
On the weekend when the sun shines we go whole family to the same (the river is in Wedel).*
We grill there the whole family and play there a lot of things like volleyball.
Another thing is that we fly in the summer holidays in Turkey after Antalya. We stay there in the hotel stay for weeks and then 2-3. We then visit my uncle in Antalya and the other known in Antalya.
After we drive to Gaziantep the drive to G. takes about 14-15 hours.
When we arrived in G.for my uncle before bus station.  Our village is located about 60 km from the city. 
There waiting for us we are in our village verwandten. We then where all our well-known. Our whole town then come to us to say hello and we kiss and then left to right, Then come my friends and cousin to suit me hello.
In our village are only drive a bus stop where the buses at 6.00 in the morning and come to 2 clock will be so again. As the court is legally there great celebration. From our village  is a small brock which flows out to Eufirat. In this little brock there are 40 small also the pose from among the raussfliesst.
When we go the whole family for picnics.
We go there with the tractors but most of the few routes  to go on foot because the stretch is quite dangerous  because the ride is uncomfortable.
We stay 4-6 days in the village then we drive into town to buy something for the road home. Example, when accounting, baclava, pistachio and wider clothes.
So our adventure ends holiday in Turkey.




*The river here in Wedel is called "Elbe", not "same".


And no, I'm kidding you not.

Writing

A moment ago I read one of the funniest updates on writing that was ever posted on twitter:
"Oh no! I've written myself astray! I'd better stop or the story will take me away!"
And this made me remember a chat with another writer a few days ago, who asked me if I was an "outliner" or a "pantster".

I'm a pantster, if you care to know.
When I started out writing this novel, I had no idea where it would take me.
There was just one scene firmly fixed in my mind that I wanted to write about (and I'm not telling you which one), and the rest, well it just had to fall into place somehow.
And it did.
For the longest time, I did not know which ending the story would take, if my heroes would be allowed a happy end or not, and now they are getting one, but blemished.
They walked through their fates at their own will, taking me along to record it, but I did not shape it for them.
Just now, for instance, editing, I came across a scene where my two main characters discuss how they felt about each other during their long parting, and it ends with the woman leaving the room wordlessly.
When I wrote that scene, I had no idea where she was going or what she would be doing, only that her lover is left behind in fear and bewilderment. He spends the next couple of hours talking to his friend and producer until she finally shows up again, and it was only in that very instant when Naomi opens the door and walks in that I knew what she had been up to.
It turns out she did not run away from him and their discussion at all but did something that would solidify their future relationship.
But the point is, I was just as much in suspense while she was away as Jon was.

Which is why I am a "pantster", someone who writes "by the seat of their pants".
This means I go with the flow, let my people develop their characters while the storyline evolves, and let the storyline evolve around the characters.
The downside of this is that the editing takes long, because, as with normal persons, my protagonists change over time.
It probably also makes the book thicker than a novel that has been rigorously outlines and plotted and then written down, because you tend to be side-tracked.
Not side-tracked in a meandering way, but maybe looking at the surroundings inside the scenes more closely. After all, there is time to explore if you have to wait for your characters to make up their minds.

I'm not going to change my writing method. In fact, I love to be inside my stories.
It makes my readers tell me, "it feels as if I'm really there!" and that is all I want to hear.

And now I'm going back to the real writing.

Neil Diamond and Tequila

What do you see here? Oh yes ... it's just another hp laptop. But there is a story here.

A couple of years ago my aging father decided that he wanted to buy a computer and learn how to use it. He was 85 at that point, but hale and hearty, and there was no good reason why he should not, like so many senior citizens, make good use of the many possibilities of the internet. My sister and I encouraged him, my mother deplored it. She is a gardener and not too fond of technical stuff, to put it mildly.
We don't live close together, as you know from earlier posts, my parents, my sister and I.
So when my father called me one early Saturday evening to announce proudly that he had bought a laptop, I had no idea what was in store for me.
He: "I bought a laptop!"
Me:"That's great, Papa! So is it running?"
He: "No, there is a problem. It does not open."
Me: "What do mean, it does not open?"
He: "What I said, it does not open. There are two buttons, and they can't be pushed."
Me: "Uhu.... there should be only one, and it should move to the side or something...."
Growing impatience on the other side. Until we found out that he was trying to push the hinges and not the opening mechanism. Then it opened. The laptop.
"Ok, Papa. now turn it on."
"Turn it on? Where?" Confusion.
"There is a button, Papa. Upper left corner."
"You mean the one that says "esc"?"
"No, Papa, that is the escape button. Above that. ABOVE the keyboard."
"Right. What's the keyboard? Oh, ok, I found it. Wait a moment!"
While we were waiting for the thing to boot, my father said (ALL on the phone, mind you!!!): "Listen, I'll tell you what I want with the computer. I don't want to do a lot, only email, use the internet, talk to you and your sister vie webcam, and a homepage."
Yes, Papa, and I want a Porsche.  Did not say that out loud, though. I said, "One thing after the other, Papa."
Answer: "Don't use that tone with me!" (I'm nearly 54, btw)
Next, he tells me, "It says, "willkommen"! And to accept the license."
Me: "Ok, then do it."
He: "Ok." Pause. "How?"
Me: "Uhm, there should be a little square that you can click."
He: "I can what?"
Me: "Click. You need to put the cursor there and click."
He: "Ok." Another pause. My blood pressure rising. "What's a cursor?"
Longish explanation of how to click. Then: "But there is no square."
This time, I did not say, "You need to scroll." but started the explanation right away.
He: "I found the square."
Me: "Ok, then now you need to click on it. Put the cursor in the little square and then click on the left...."
Interruption: "Listen, I don't want all this, all I want is to use the internet and set up a homepage!"
Here was when the

comes in, and high time too.

"Yes, Papa, but first we have to set up the computer itself, you know."
"Uhu. Ok. It asks for a language here now. I'll take Arabic."
"NO!!!! DON'T YOU TAKE ARABIC!!! NO ONE EXCEPT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ IT AND HELP YOU!!!"
Sulk. "Then I'll take German."
Deep breath, and it was time for another shot of

With a couple of drinks under my belt, I was getting into the swing of the thing.
"Take English, Papa. You know English best, and we will get along with that, too. Set the computer to English."
Obstinacy. "No, then I'll choose German. That way, I can learn German at the same time."
"Papa, this is NOT the right place to learn more German. Please. You need to understand what the machine is telling you."
"No, I want German. It is now set to German."
Sigh.
"So how do I get a homepage now?"
Erm. "Not today,  Papa. I'll come down and visit you next month, and then we can start something for you. You have to get the wifi working first."
"The WHAT?"

A few days later my sister went to visit my parents and installed the wifi, set up and internet connection and an email account with their provider, telecom. Wrote everything down for my father, explained again, and left for home.
A few hours later, he called me.
"The email is not working."
ok.....
"But since we are on the subject, how many emails can I send? And how many accounts can I have? And does an email to the US cost more than one to Saudi Arabia?"
Time for some

Longer explanation.
"Ok, and what about the homepage? Tell me what to do! I want it now!"
Sweat prickling on the back of my neck.
"Papa, listen, I can't do that on the phone. I need to be on your computer."
Grumbling acceptance, then: "Ok but I want a google mail account."

And here began my nervous breakdown.
"Ok, you have a google icon. Click on it."
This was not a problem anymore, and we made it to the sign-in page for googlemail.
"You need to fill out that form, Papa."
This worked, until we came to "password".
"You need to choose a password to secure your account. Any word that has a meaning to you and you can remember."
Here, my mother comes in.
A heated discussion among them erupted about the password, and which one to pick. In the meanwhile, I opened iTunes on MY computer and clicked on this

to soothe my fraying nerves.
"What are you listening to? What' that in the background?"
"Neil Diamond, Papa."
"Who?"
"Do you remember, I used to have his poster in my room when I was 15."
"Oh. Yes. I have a password now."
"Good! then fill in the form."
Which he did.
"It says, "repeat the password!"
"Well, then do it, Papa."
"But I forgot it."
"Did you not write it down?"
"What? No."

And it was time for some

I'm stopping now.
There were a lot more sessions and occasions for

but my father never had enough patience to sit down with his laptop and learn about it. In the end, he gave it to my son. My mother was pleased, he was disappointed, and I was finally sober again.

Silence

Granted, I'm not this young or this furry or this cute, but in fact I look a lot like this right now, which is why there is a blogging silence.
As some of you know, I've been ill for a long time now with an auto-immune disease that pretty much took me out of the picture, but I've been getting better gradually.
So last Monday I decided to walk to school again, and promptly fell down, and broke my arm.... which puts me back on the couch, only this time the typing is extra-hard,too.
But I'm still here.

At Home

My sister went to visit our parents on Easter.
I could not go because I am too sick to travel, but I asked her to take a walk with our mother along one very specific trail in the forest and send me lots of pics.
The first image she mailed me was this one, though, and it is such a perfect mirror of our childhood that it made me shudder a little.
What you see here is the apartment building where we moved after we had to leave the dreamy little house in the woods. And yes, you are right, what a culture shock. We came here when I was twelve or so, and my sister a pre-schooler, and moved into a two bedroom place on the 10th floor.
The view was spectacular.

In the far distance, the towers of Frankfurt can be seen. They are amazing and glamorous; it's not called "Mainhattan" for nothing. And still further away, in the distant blue haze, as it were, you can see the Taunus mountains. "Where The Rich People Are".
Everything in between is called "Offenbach". The Jersey of Frankfurt. Which is "at home" for my sister and me. We both attended this high school, the sis with great success, while I was kicked out in grade 11 and had to go somewhere else to get my graduation.

Of that, I've talked already. And yes, this is really a school building. Not kidding you. the arcades in the front? Washrooms. Seriously.

Did you read my blog about our time in Brazil? Here is a memory piece. I had not noticed it in a long while, but now that the sis photographed it, it brought back some memories.  It has been hanging in my parent's hallway for nearly forty years.

So after lunch, my mother and my sister went for a hike on that forest trail.
You may not be able to imagine it, but it begins right behind that monstrous apartment building.
As ugly as that concrete nightmare may be, once you step outside and turn left, you'll find yourself on a slope of grass that leads down to the little river. If you follow it upwards you will have to cross a street and a parking lot, and when you turn around, you'll see this:

I know. Ugly.
But look at it this way: Creativity needs pressure.
This was one of my favorite parts in "Brave New World", where the hero, a writer,  gets to choose where he will go into exile, and he says he wants a rough place, because a soft setting would not motivate him to write. Just maybe, between those beehives in the background and the concert venue in the front, my personal need for a fantasy world, in other words, making up stories.
At that time, a Canadian TV show was running on one of our channels that I loved very much.
It was about a hotel on Lake Huron, somewhere near Sudbury, and I wanted to be there, very badly.
Reminds your of something? Yes, I've come full circle.
Back to that forest walk.
We used to come here often.  From a very uninspiring dirt area, you enter a fairy realm. the amazing part is, it has not changed one bit since I was a child.

It looks a lot prettier in summer, when the trees are green and the ground is covered with those tiny white flowers of which I don't know the name and the path is dry and not a mud-slide.
The forest, once you have left the streets behind,  looks like this.

A typical, German forest in early spring, and my Mom in a red jacket.
To this spot my grandfather used to take us when we were kids. Here, the creek widens and is very shallow. You can't see it right now because of the leaves, but there is actually a kind of sand beach here. We came here for picnics and lazy, hot afternoons.

A walk of twenty minutes from that high rise, and we found ourselves in another world.

I find it oddly reassuring that this little part of the world has not changed at all. It is as if a part of my childhood, and a good one at that, has survived, carved into the stone of time to remind me of my grandparents and how life with them used to be.
A lot of things in Offenbach and Frankfurt have changed, many places have vanished.
The huge white mansion that was my birth clinic, a condo building now. Or maybe even torn down, I don't know. The center of town, taken over by dime stores and Turkish bazars, no longer a small German city center at all. Frankfurt, an international, cosmopolitan metropolis with all the famous designer stores and glitzy restaurants.
But this little corner of forest, curiously unmolested.
Not cut down for cultivation, not altered, nothing. It is just the way it used to be fifty years ago.
In my eyes, a small miracle.