I am keeping this short and to the point in an effort to not anger karma or the fair-play gods or whoever it is that makes me feel like I shouldn't talk too much about this. In fact, I think I'll just skip the whole deal and you, friendly reader, can infer that no news is good news. I'll also require you to figure out to what I refer. Sorry, it's just safer that way. And while I admit the whole ordeal is not nearly over, for completeness, I just thought I would say a word and move on for the time being.
More on Germany soon. I've just received my Rosetta Stone German language CDs and I am committing myself to an hour a day of high-quality German language learning. So far, I can count to ten and describe men, women and children as being on top of or underneath a horse, a ball, a table and an airplane. I can also reliably describe the horse, ball, table or airplane as yellow, red or blue. It's not much, but it's a start. The other day I told a German-speaking friend that the boy was on top of the woman in German. This was an accident and, I fear, a glimpse into the future of many German faux pas to come. Oh well, the crosses we bear.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Prairie Dog
Stella has both elated me and complicated my life. Her high energy level has required a 6:30 wake-up for the last three years. At first, this was a minor irritation, particularly in foul weather; however, this is now one of the best parts of my day. I used to get a very firm and insistent paw on the bed just after the morning alarm sounded. Stella was letting me know that snooze was not an option. As time went on, I learned I could steal just a few more minutes of sleep by letting her under the covers with me. She would curl up against my stomach and doze until the next alarm.
In recent months, our routine has changed just a bit. The insistent paw comes at 5:30. Stella isn't so interested in starting her walk this early (although she would without much coaxing). She wants a little time to warm up under the blankets. Stella has taken to burrowing at the bottom of the bed where she lays for an hour until either the alarm or her panting wakes me up.
Once out of bed I drowsily look for sneakers, a hat and gloves, while Stella dances around the house banging her tail and doing a high step. Every morning we walk the same route. It's a mile and a half and is affectionately called the "Kook-Loop" after one of Stella's many nicknames (Kook, Cucamonga, Stella-Bella, Bella Stella, Stella B, Stella).
This is a great time for both of us. The world is quiet and gives us time to think, sniff and pee. The last two are primarily her jobs. Stella loves to enthusiastically pull when we get to a particularly smelly corner and she has her favorite sniff/pee spots. I see some of the same people and dogs in the morning and we can both mark changes in the neighborhood - who is selling, who is remodeling, what interesting stuff is in the trash (we both like this one) and how tall the corn is this season.
Sometimes, when it is really cold or rainy, I don't want to get up. But once we are on the loop, I am always glad (for her and I) that I did. This unerring routine has forged a wonderful bond between us. I've watched so many sunrises, trees bloom, flowers spring up and snow storms with her that I feel like I can connect to nature that much better (even in Illinois) when I am with her. Stella's zest for life and activity is infectious and I appreciate the way she ushers in every morning.
Today, for the first time, she was unable to take her morning walk. We tried. Stella just couldn't do it today. As she lays on the floor beside me, mostly sedentary, I am thankful for the quiet mornings we've shared and for the way I've grown to know my neighborhood because of her. I hope we'll have this together again.
In recent months, our routine has changed just a bit. The insistent paw comes at 5:30. Stella isn't so interested in starting her walk this early (although she would without much coaxing). She wants a little time to warm up under the blankets. Stella has taken to burrowing at the bottom of the bed where she lays for an hour until either the alarm or her panting wakes me up.
Once out of bed I drowsily look for sneakers, a hat and gloves, while Stella dances around the house banging her tail and doing a high step. Every morning we walk the same route. It's a mile and a half and is affectionately called the "Kook-Loop" after one of Stella's many nicknames (Kook, Cucamonga, Stella-Bella, Bella Stella, Stella B, Stella).
This is a great time for both of us. The world is quiet and gives us time to think, sniff and pee. The last two are primarily her jobs. Stella loves to enthusiastically pull when we get to a particularly smelly corner and she has her favorite sniff/pee spots. I see some of the same people and dogs in the morning and we can both mark changes in the neighborhood - who is selling, who is remodeling, what interesting stuff is in the trash (we both like this one) and how tall the corn is this season.
Sometimes, when it is really cold or rainy, I don't want to get up. But once we are on the loop, I am always glad (for her and I) that I did. This unerring routine has forged a wonderful bond between us. I've watched so many sunrises, trees bloom, flowers spring up and snow storms with her that I feel like I can connect to nature that much better (even in Illinois) when I am with her. Stella's zest for life and activity is infectious and I appreciate the way she ushers in every morning.
Today, for the first time, she was unable to take her morning walk. We tried. Stella just couldn't do it today. As she lays on the floor beside me, mostly sedentary, I am thankful for the quiet mornings we've shared and for the way I've grown to know my neighborhood because of her. I hope we'll have this together again.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Dogs are professional heart breakers
On Friday I came home from a fun-filled day of hiding away in the university library book stacks to let the dogs out. Molly erupted from the house, baying and flailing around in the snow like a maniac. Stella came out, too; however, she looked like she might have had a nip at the bottle. At first I thought she was having a hard time walking on the crusty snow until her swaying continued on the driveway. She was happy to see me, tail wagging and generally dancing around - she was just a little clumsy. For Stella aficionados, we all know that she doesn't really DO clumsy. She's excellent at running (really fast), chasing tennis balls and squirrels and pissing Molly off. All of this she typically does very athletically. So, I was a little worried to say the least.
I fed them both and Stella still had an appetite (whew) but she swayed around the food bowl and her collar banged around while she ate. I elevated the bowl to make it easier, but the dizziness continued. I worried about poisoning, but nothing in the house was disturbed. I called our vet and he said keep an eye on her and if things got funny, take her to the emergency clinic. Given her appetite, lack of vomiting and normal pee and poo functions, I decided to keep an eye on her until the morning.
8am Saturday she was still woozy and now these funny tremors started where she sort of shivered when she was moving. A visit to the vet wasn't overly informative; he took blood and said to come back Monday for more tests/assessments. His best guesses at this point were encephalitis, meningitis, stroke or a blown disk. This ushered in a long and painful weekend of watching Stella get a little worse, lose her appetite and her interest in toys. I've spent entirely too much time poking the internet and scaring myself silly.
Today she mostly rested with intermittent periods of crashing into furniture, falling down, and swaying uncontrollably. We successfully walked down to the school by our house and actually did pretty well. It figures she would be most at home outside, mucking around. She fell in the snow a couple of times but she can still jog around and wag her tail (even if it looks like her afternoon martini just kicked in).
I am optimistic that it isn't some sort of nightmare degenerative neurological disorder; however, without thousands of dollars of tests we won't know for sure. In the best case, she has peripheral vestibular disease, which may indicate an inner ear infection and usually goes away on its own in a few days or weeks. There are a few other fun ones such as myasenthia gravis, which has a good prognosis with drug treatment. My favorite is "coondog paralysis," which normally results from coming into contact with raccoon saliva. Again, good prognosis, but nothing to treat with - just time. She got out for a couple of hours on Tuesday during the big crazy storm, so who knows what she might have encountered on her foray.
Without further diagnostics, it looks like the most reasonable course is to treat with a crazy dose of antibiotic (thank goodness she has been healthy till now), steroids and time. I've got my fingers tightly crossed and I feel lucky that I have David in all of this. I really want us to be four in Germany and beyond. If this goes badly, my morning walks (among a million other things) would never be the same.
Ugh.
I fed them both and Stella still had an appetite (whew) but she swayed around the food bowl and her collar banged around while she ate. I elevated the bowl to make it easier, but the dizziness continued. I worried about poisoning, but nothing in the house was disturbed. I called our vet and he said keep an eye on her and if things got funny, take her to the emergency clinic. Given her appetite, lack of vomiting and normal pee and poo functions, I decided to keep an eye on her until the morning.
8am Saturday she was still woozy and now these funny tremors started where she sort of shivered when she was moving. A visit to the vet wasn't overly informative; he took blood and said to come back Monday for more tests/assessments. His best guesses at this point were encephalitis, meningitis, stroke or a blown disk. This ushered in a long and painful weekend of watching Stella get a little worse, lose her appetite and her interest in toys. I've spent entirely too much time poking the internet and scaring myself silly.
Today she mostly rested with intermittent periods of crashing into furniture, falling down, and swaying uncontrollably. We successfully walked down to the school by our house and actually did pretty well. It figures she would be most at home outside, mucking around. She fell in the snow a couple of times but she can still jog around and wag her tail (even if it looks like her afternoon martini just kicked in).
I am optimistic that it isn't some sort of nightmare degenerative neurological disorder; however, without thousands of dollars of tests we won't know for sure. In the best case, she has peripheral vestibular disease, which may indicate an inner ear infection and usually goes away on its own in a few days or weeks. There are a few other fun ones such as myasenthia gravis, which has a good prognosis with drug treatment. My favorite is "coondog paralysis," which normally results from coming into contact with raccoon saliva. Again, good prognosis, but nothing to treat with - just time. She got out for a couple of hours on Tuesday during the big crazy storm, so who knows what she might have encountered on her foray.
Without further diagnostics, it looks like the most reasonable course is to treat with a crazy dose of antibiotic (thank goodness she has been healthy till now), steroids and time. I've got my fingers tightly crossed and I feel lucky that I have David in all of this. I really want us to be four in Germany and beyond. If this goes badly, my morning walks (among a million other things) would never be the same.
Ugh.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Slow Progress
At this stage in the move, the most notable events are the progress David and I are making on our dissertations. I think that I am over half way now. I have one more paper and an overall discussion and conclusion chapter. I am shooting to have a (very rough) draft in 6-8 weeks. We'll see. David is making steady progress. He has little choice but to finish in mid-May. His advisor is leaving then and won't return until January. With us leaving at the beginning of June, David is pretty much locked in to a defense time period.
On the job front, David is working out the details. This includes whether or not we can use moving money for start up costs. That makes a difference in terms of what stuff we take. Money only for moving = I'm packing my crappy broom and dust pan and shipping them across the Atlantic. I am optimistic that we can get most of our stuff in a few boxes and ship it UPS. It's about $800 for 250lb and it only takes a few days. I think pots, pans and linens weigh < 250lbs. I wonder if we can ship Molly?
Local news: we are having a huge snow storm with blizzard conditions. Guess what Stella did in light of the bad weather? She bolted while we were shoveling the drive and proceeded to elude us for over 2 hours. I finally spied her sitting on the corner (really) waiting for the bus to pass. She then launched herself into a huge snow drift, paddled through it and ran (sort of) around a house. When I finally caught up to her she had an enormous snow beard and was shivering uncontrollably. Damn dog. I don't suppose anyone would have a guess as to what Molly was up to during all of the ruckus?
On the job front, David is working out the details. This includes whether or not we can use moving money for start up costs. That makes a difference in terms of what stuff we take. Money only for moving = I'm packing my crappy broom and dust pan and shipping them across the Atlantic. I am optimistic that we can get most of our stuff in a few boxes and ship it UPS. It's about $800 for 250lb and it only takes a few days. I think pots, pans and linens weigh < 250lbs. I wonder if we can ship Molly?
Local news: we are having a huge snow storm with blizzard conditions. Guess what Stella did in light of the bad weather? She bolted while we were shoveling the drive and proceeded to elude us for over 2 hours. I finally spied her sitting on the corner (really) waiting for the bus to pass. She then launched herself into a huge snow drift, paddled through it and ran (sort of) around a house. When I finally caught up to her she had an enormous snow beard and was shivering uncontrollably. Damn dog. I don't suppose anyone would have a guess as to what Molly was up to during all of the ruckus?
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Moving, scams and what junk to take
In my search to find a trustworthy source to move our goods from somewhere in middle America to Germany, I have discovered an indisputable fact: movers are big fat scammers. From completely illegal operators who hold your stuff ransom, to barely-legal freight intermediaries who will deliver your belongings 2 months late and in a condition so bad you wish you would have just left it in a dump somewhere in the U.S. and saved yourself $2000, these characters run the gamut.
I think I hit the jackpot, though. There is a great website, movingscam.com, written by someone who was a victim of, well, a moving scam. They have recommended movers, web-boards galore and you can search by company to see if they are "blacklisted" or to what degree of shyster a company is operating. Just in the nick of time, too. I was considering a company who actually stole another mover's license number and just slightly changed their name (legal company: shipex; illegal company: shippex). See what I mean?
Prime horror story example: One family contracted with movers who picked up their crap, put it in an undisclosed warehouse in Florida and promptly went out of business, while the moving company owners went to jail on fraud and various other charges. Said family had since moved abroad and had to track down their stuff, retrieve it (months later) and have another company move it (again). Apparently they were lucky to have tracked down their belongings at all, so I guess it could have been much worse.
This leads me to what junk to take. I have narrowed it down to a few select items that we really couldn't give a rip about but that are expensive to replace in Germany. It appears that the household goods chain, Ikea is from Sweden and as luck would have it, they are a landscape feature of much of the EU. This makes matters much more manageable as we can buy low priced crap to furnish our home. This is in lieu of yard sale shopping (my preference), since several German friends have told me that Germans don't yard sale.
WHAT?! No yard sales? I have to wonder what becomes of old puzzles, discarded Tupperware and that really tacky Christmas decoration that Aunt Betty gave you 10 years ago. I am hoping that no yard sales implies an even better scenario: really choice dumpster diving options. We'll see.
I think I hit the jackpot, though. There is a great website, movingscam.com, written by someone who was a victim of, well, a moving scam. They have recommended movers, web-boards galore and you can search by company to see if they are "blacklisted" or to what degree of shyster a company is operating. Just in the nick of time, too. I was considering a company who actually stole another mover's license number and just slightly changed their name (legal company: shipex; illegal company: shippex). See what I mean?
Prime horror story example: One family contracted with movers who picked up their crap, put it in an undisclosed warehouse in Florida and promptly went out of business, while the moving company owners went to jail on fraud and various other charges. Said family had since moved abroad and had to track down their stuff, retrieve it (months later) and have another company move it (again). Apparently they were lucky to have tracked down their belongings at all, so I guess it could have been much worse.
This leads me to what junk to take. I have narrowed it down to a few select items that we really couldn't give a rip about but that are expensive to replace in Germany. It appears that the household goods chain, Ikea is from Sweden and as luck would have it, they are a landscape feature of much of the EU. This makes matters much more manageable as we can buy low priced crap to furnish our home. This is in lieu of yard sale shopping (my preference), since several German friends have told me that Germans don't yard sale.
WHAT?! No yard sales? I have to wonder what becomes of old puzzles, discarded Tupperware and that really tacky Christmas decoration that Aunt Betty gave you 10 years ago. I am hoping that no yard sales implies an even better scenario: really choice dumpster diving options. We'll see.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
It's official
David has officially accepted a position at the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) starting in June. This leaves us in the following (happy) conundrum: 4 months, 2 dissertations, 2 dogs and an apartment full of crap (some useful, some not - the apartment crap, that is). To mark this occasion, I decided to keep account of the build up to our new status as "expats." Assuming that this web-logging habit sticks, I plan to also log our time in Germany.
This is primarily intended for friends and family; however, I'll try to also make it useful for people moving overseas (particularly those with Canis lupus familiaris in tow) and, once we arrive, for people curious about German culture. I am planning to learn German, so I'll throw that in as well - for good measure.
Well, here we go. I'll try to update regularly and maybe you will read it, maybe you won't. Either way, it should be an interesting experience for David, Molly, Stella and I.
This is primarily intended for friends and family; however, I'll try to also make it useful for people moving overseas (particularly those with Canis lupus familiaris in tow) and, once we arrive, for people curious about German culture. I am planning to learn German, so I'll throw that in as well - for good measure.
Well, here we go. I'll try to update regularly and maybe you will read it, maybe you won't. Either way, it should be an interesting experience for David, Molly, Stella and I.
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