The New Techniques

I'm dead tired at the moment. Partly because I just rolled out of bed, partly because it was late last night and I slept badly and partly because I worked hard and focused today.

I spent a lot of time filing today. Not on actual people, mind you. Not very carefully, either.

You see, there's this large heap of try-out, display nails on sticks which get used to teach techniques and such. None of them are blank anymore, and J.'s not sure where the blank ones are and anyway, she's leaving for holiday today, so she had other things on her mind.

It started when Sis was doing the sponge-dabbing thing to a customer and I wanted to try it. I decided I'd file some of the display nails and do so. How hard could it be?

Well, first of all I needed to beg off a new nail file. My crappy one which Sis had given me ages ago wasn't really making a dent in the color. I tried with the new one, which still took ages, but it got the job done.

Turns out, someone (no one knows who) before me tried things out, then gel-sealed the bejeesus out of them. I'm taking high-degree burns, here. One millimeter or more of the stuff. It takes ages to get it away and the end result kind of shows how frustrated you were at the end.

I got seven of the twenty-two clean and decided that was enough for one day. I'd damaged two of my almost-healed nails a bit further in the process and everything. Then I put on the first two layers of gel on them, which took care of most of the 'mauled by sandpaper bear' look of them.

Then there was the problem with the sponge-technique requiring sponges. Normally, there's tiny round ones provided by J., but they'd disappeared. Not that she didn't know where they were anymore. They're definitely in storage. Somewhere. In a bag with other nail design stuff.

That's a description of 50% of three out of four of the storage rooms.

I looked for them, but couldn't find them. J. told me to try with an eyeshadow applicator. In the meanwhile, I called Boyfriend to bring me a kitchen sponge, planning to cut it to pieces and rain down sponge-y goodness on the world.

I took a while figuring out that, unlike most things, you best don't wipe off the excess gel if you want to sponge-pattern something. The eyeshadow applicators and sponges both work. Sponges just get a prettier look.

Next, I tried a spike pattern. Then, I stamped on them. And then I kept trying stuff with the brush. A lot of things with swirling and drawing. And it went really, really well. I showed a few to J., who said 'good job', and the others agreed that it was well done. Then I tried applying some hard stuff, which didn't go as well as I hoped, but better than it could have been.

By then it was an hour after I said I'd gone home and I could fall asleep on my desk.

On my return, Iggy had escaped his harness for the second time today. So we put on his collar and tied him to my desk chair, letting him get used to being close to people. He fought the power, as he is wont to do, then calmed down. We kept him there for a bit longer, then let him go.

Then we had 'This Has Been In The Freezer For A While' for dinner (fish and veggies and fries and potato croquettes) and I fell asleep.

The Goodie Box

Iggy's goodie box arrived today. It's awesome, but we're very much at the bottom of the learning curve.

First of all, there's the litter box. Iggy has no idea what it's for. I think. Then again, we haven't left him alone with it yet. So who knows.

Then there's the treats. He likes them... But he likes Bifi sausages more.

There's the training spray, but we can't use it outside, since autumn has arrived out of nowhere and it's raining.

And last but not least, there's the harness. It's slightly too big, and he's not used to it. He looks badass in it, as far as a two-pound toy dog can look badass. Boyfriend likes the way it glows in the dark. But it's slightly too big. At first, I didn't adjust it well enough and he wiggled out while I wasn't looking.

Boyfriend got a goodie box, too. He got some games for a good price for his new Nintendo 3DS XL. He's probably going to sell some of them, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be amused for a while with what he's keeping.

And I got the document I was missing for some applications I did. One didn't ask me to send it after I explained I didn't have them with me at the time, the others weren't as understanding. So my dad sent it, one day before the deadline was up.

Now all I have to do is wait. And raise Iggy. And learn in the studio. And do the laundry. And the dishes. And open a German bank account. And... Come to think of it, I've got enough to do.

The Vet

So we finally got up from the sofa and took Iggy to the vet.

First, we had to locate a vet. We stole Sis'.

Next, we had to find his address and phone number. The phone number was easy, the address a bit tricky, but we managed. The answering machine was so kind as to tell us when we could just waltz in and bombard the poor doctor with our troubles.

Lucky for us, the doc is a very level-headed guy.

Yes, Iggy's physically fine. Here, let's vaccinate him. Does he always shiver that much?

Cue our litany on Iggy's phobia. He doesn't want to get picked up. He doesn't like new people. No, he's fine with new places and sounds and smells, it's just people that really, really bother him. Where did we get him?

The doc nodded and concluded we have a puppy that hasn't been socialised well. There's no telling how he'll react to things like vacuum cleaners or showers, but it's pretty certain he wasn't introduced to many strangers or new situations as an eight to twelve week old puppy. It would have been better if he had, but it's not the end of the world. It just means that we have a lot of work to be done.

He'll be fine eventually. He just needs time and, well, stuff. Being taken places. Learning to walk on a leash, which he definitely hasn't been trained to do.

In the mean while, the animal-doctor prescribed treats. Lots and lots of treats. Of many kinds. So far, he likes the ones we gave before. And bifi sausages. And cheese. And whatever the scary dried thing was the vet gave him for not peeing on his table. Turns out, Iggy's a little piggy when he's given the opportunity.

I guess I'll have to start teaching him some commands, so I have an excuse to give him treats. Or go to a doggy school, except there's none in the vicinity. Maybe in a few weeks, when Boyfriend has his license.

And tomorrow, probably, maybe, Iggy's goodie package arrives.

The 'Forgot'

I forgot to do lots of things, lately.

Like read the e-mails I checked. I thought Iggy's goodies were shipped yesterday. Turns out, it was today. Earliest arrival: tomorrow or the day after. BOO.

I didn't ask my mom to scan in my final results from secondary school. Which I sort of need to send in before the end of the month. Oops!

We should have called the vet today. We didn't. I didn't even ask Boyfriend which vet we're supposed to go to until late this evening, when I remembered he'd called his mom this morning about it. And I don't really have time to call tomorrow morning. It's Sis' vet, though, so I can ask her if he has, like, non-appointment hours. That'd be nice.

I didn't take my meds today. Like, at all. My meds are reduced to the anti-vertigo tablets, and I wasn't very dizzy, so now I'm getting dizzy. Karma.

And then there is a big pile of laundry that's crying out to be done already.We can't close the laundry basket any more, even though Boyfriend did one load yesterday. Whoops.

I've also been looking for a cheap clicker to see if Iggy (who spent the entire day not doing his business in the house, good dog!) is scared of the noise. So far, he's not scared of anything noise-like, but you never know. Dog-clickers in the store we ordered his harness at start at 5 euros and seem horrendously complicated. I'm looking for the ones with a button you push and it goes 'click', available in most Belgian pet stores for two euros or less. Not one with at least two different clicking sounds and optional treat dispenser. Amazon has them for under one euro, but then have 5 euro shipping stuck on. Oh dear.

Then I found a toy I'd forgotten about on my desk that pretty much does the trick. On the same subject, I was planning to clean up my desk last week. Which totally did not happen. Because... Well... I don't know. Nothing's in my way, I guess. It's just messy.

 And my drinking bottles are sort of spread around the apartment, too. I keep forgetting that there's two who need to get put in the dishwasher. Now that the insanely hot weather is over, I usually get by on one, since forgetting a refill is no longer an issue of 'water later or unsatisfying soft drink now'.

The Litter Box Idea

We made a few decisions today that may seem a bit... defeatist.

First of all, we admitted that the chances of us getting to the big animal store with Iggy in the next week were slim to none. I can't walk that far one way without pain, let alone back, and J. and W. are preparing for their holiday. We could take our bikes, but then we couldn't take Iggy. And if we can't take Iggy, well...

We ended up ordering online. The prices online seemed very reasonable indeed, and I didn't know if the 45% off thing on the dog harnesses would happen in the store, or if the store had the harnesses at all. The harness was the main thing we wanted, anyway.

We bought treats while we were ordering. We can't keep rewarding Iggy with a treat that purposefully comes in 10-stick packages. So we got smaller ones. That's not defeatist, that's just good sense.

Next, we got puppy potty-training spray and a litter box.

The spray is to be used outside mainly. Iggy doing his business outside will be met with praise and affection and treats, so he learns that outside is a happy, fun place.

But Boyfriend and I are facing the facts. Iggy is too scared 50% of the time to do anything with us close by. He's proven that he can hold his pee and poo for up to eight hours in his tiny puppy body if he's scared, only to let fly as soon as we're, to his perception, gone.

I don't know if I'm imagining things, but Iggy 'hides' in his basket if he sees me cleaning up pee or poo. I don't say anything about it, I don't get mad, but woe on me if I try to come close to him shortly after. He shivers and tries to flee, as if he's scared I'm going to explode with rabid dinosaur levels of rage.

So... Litter box. With newspaper inside.

I looked on the internet, and most of the German dog-keeping community sees this as a bad thing. Dogs should be trained to go outside. If you're too lazy to go outside, don't get a dog. Litter boxes are called 'cat loos' in German, so logically, they can only be used by cats.

The more sensible anglophone community said that it's possible, and can be used either as a slow way of house-training a small dog or a solution for (lazy) people with small dogs.

But we're not too lazy to go outside. We take Iggy outside every three hours at least, if not more often, depending on weather and... Well... Iggy. I've given up sleeping in in glorious 10+ hour sessions just so he gets let out first thing in the morning. The lazy is not the issue here.

We know Iggy's not a cat. Cats don't panic when left alone by the people that feed them, especially not if they're mostly terrified of them. Cats don't wag their tails, which Iggy did two more times since my last report.

The problem is, Iggy's scared to 'go' outside. Iggy's scared if I get out the paper towels when he 'goes' indoors.

The litter box is a kind of attempt at trying to fixing things. The idea is: if he has a place to go indoors, when he feels it's safe to go and where we know he won't pee on anything with a current running through it, he'll feel safer. If he does his thing outside when we take him, he gets happy times. We know he likes treats. If he does it inside in the litter box... Well, easier clean-up for us, peace of mind for all. He's not getting treats for using it.

Underneath the shivering, Iggy's a smart puppy. He knows how far a treat has to lie before he can quickly and safely return to his basket without being seen. He knows Boyfriend is less likely to tell him 'no, bad!' when he does something he's not supposed to (so far his two only faults are getting caught defecating indoors and bolting up the stairs to the neighbours' apartment). He knows that, eventually, I'll get distracted by something and he can liberate the treat by my feet. And he knows very much that he's faster than me.

But more than that, he knows where his business was done last. That's probably a scent thing, but Lady never pooed on the same place twice, no matter how badly or well I cleaned.  Iggy seems to very much want to find a place where his turds don't get kidnapped by disappointed humans.

So I'm confident he'll figure out what the litter box is for (eventually), but that he'll realise in time that outside is better. Outside is treats and people being happy at him and room to sniff around.

The Niceness

Today was nice.

I'm purposefully ignoring the three times Iggy decided indoors was a swell place to do his thing, because other things make it better.

I slept late. I got up at eight, cleaned up the mess Iggy made, let him out, went back to bed and slept until well into the afternoon. The nice part of this is that my dizziness didn't kick in until nine pm. Score! Yes, I'm calling the doctor first thing in the morning and making sure it gets checked out. According to wikipedia, if it's not my meds, it's benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Which is basically fancyspeak for 'ear rock took a wrong left turn and is now flailing about uselessly in your inner ear'. It's totally treatable.

I eventually got up, as said, and then used Boyfriend for his amazing... personality. Twice. I could, because it's still weekend.

Next, Iggy totally understands the basket commando. He's a smart puppy. Even better, when I gave him a treat for being a good dog, a tiny tail wag escaped. I know it was a tail wag and not a shiver because only his tail was moving. Also, he bent forward to sniff the treat. Baby steps, but still progress.

And to conclude all these nice things happening to me, McDo has Twix McFlurries. Boyfriend and I tried them. Boyfriend still prefers the Magnum Brownie, but I'm thrilled. They're delicious. 

And we looked at the breakfast menu. McDonalds now has toasties. Not just cheese toasties, no. There's cheese and ham toasties and cheese and bacon toasties. This isn't necessarily healthy or financially sound, but it reminded me of something. I have a tiny toastiemaker that I took with me to Germany. To make toasties in and stuff. Hmmm... Toasties. 

Also, there are signs that life is returning to normal. 

We are considering doing some laundry, partly because I want to put on clean jeans at some point, partly because we've definitely run out of towels and partly because that's what we do. It's one of those involuntary hobbies of mine. Sort fabrics, sniff laundry softener, wash, hang up, wait to dry, try and convince Boyfriend he wants to fold the dry stuff. It's the circle of life laundry.

And I'm back to checking the piercing website for easy contests. I like the puzzle ones, but they're not back yet. So I'm down to entering giveaways and like-n-shares. In another twelve hours, there's a miniscule chance of me winning a 100 euro shopping spree. There a familiar flutter of maybeness in my tummy.

The Dizzy II: Return of the Dizzy

I'm still dizzy.

The herbal medicine tablets I have work. For about six hours, then the world starts spinning, I get a weird headache and have to take another one. Both me and Boyfriend are getting kinda worried about this thing, even though the doctor seemed rather unconcerned. The fact that it's a possible side effect of stopping one of my medications too quickly after and I quote "long-term or high-dosage use" (Been taking the stuff daily for two years. Oops!)  could have a lot to do with it, in which case I'll be taking this Vertigoheel stuff for another two weeks or so. And not taking the stairs after eight pm, when the dizzy gets really bad.

In other news, we're also worried about Iggy. Yes, he's doing his business closer to us, but I'm having trouble getting excited about him doing what I think is a pee to convince us of how submissive he is. We still haven't made it to the pet store, so there's no doggy harness either to drag him around the town in in a more acceptable fashion. So we went on the internet and googled 'fearful puppy'. All sources say it's not the end of Iggy's potential as a happy dog, but that it'll take time and today is probably a momentary setback. The setback probably has to do with my angry voice at him for pooing in the kitchen this morning. It didn't stop us from implementing the new plan.

The new plan consists of praising him for everything he does right. Not just doing his business outside. Accepting treats, drinking water, playing with toys and walking into the open apartment door now get met with an enthusiasm just shy of a Mexican wave. Boyfriend has the tone of voice down to a tee. I'm too loud and squeaky most of the time, but I think he might be getting used to that. Iggy I mean. Boyfriend is definitely used to me sounding like I'm guzzling helium every time I get excited over something. We might be overly optimistic, but Iggy seems to be walking around with his tail held high more. 

I'm honestly wondering why he's so scared. He's not scared of being dropped, since he jumps happily from heights where I'm doubtful it's healthy (solution: holding him by the scruff of his scruffy little neck until he's got four paws on the ground) whether he's being held or not. Like I said, noises are things he loves. He actually seemed interested in us earlier when we blew raspberries on each other.

What he doesn't like are hands. Or things being held being brought close to him.

We currently have strong-smelling treats shaped little sticks. He likes them. He knows what they're for and that they're tasty and he wants them. But if someone tries to put them near his face, he flees. He also wouldn't dream of taking food from someone's hand. I never thought I'd wish for my dog to be begging for food, but I am.

I wonder what could have happened to him to make him that shy.

The advice on that was, ignore the dog, get down on his level, let him come to you. Preferably turn your back on him, it's less threatening. Sadly, I've been conditioned by a certain lively cocker spaniel with the ability to come up with James Bond-esque food liberation and housetraining rebellion schemes. If Iggy makes a noise, I'm turning around. If he's been quiet for too long, I'm turning around. I'm turning around a lot to find Iggy staring at me in utter and total confusion, looking about as to why I'm suddenly focused on his direction. Maybe I have trust issues.

That set aside, I've taken an Iggy-related decision without consulting Boyfriend on it. I'm going to teach Iggy a commando. It's called 'Basket'. He doesn't seem to mind the commando, or my methods for teaching it. I basically go 'Basket, Iggy! Go basket!', repeat it once more if and when he doesn't have a clue what I'm on about, then put him in his basket with a treat going 'That's basket! Yay! Basket!'.  If he happens to crawl into his basket by himself (which he does a lot provided he gets out, which he isn't doing much today) and I notice, I'm going 'Good boy! Good basket!'. Yes, I'm quite sure the dog thinks I'm nuts by now.

I'm not petting him much. He obviously doesn't like it (yet), so the rewards we're handing out is based heavily on sound happy with him and leaving him alone with treats. On the treat front, we need to find small, dog-tasty scented treats. As much as he loves Dentastix and the dried meat sticks, we can't keep stuffing him with those, unless we want him to turn into "Dogball! The Amazing Orb-Shaped Canine!" I tried giving him my home-baked treats, but they don't smell strongly and are usually way too big for him. No, Iggy, scared little Iggy, wants something that smells like meat and is not too hard to chew on.

Next week, we're taking him to the vet for some more vaccines, maybe a chip, and some advice on how to deal with him. We might even find him a harness so we can teach him to walk on a leash and take him places that scare him while we act unconcerned at his terror, the theory being that the nochalance at the situation will eventually rub off on him.

Or maybe we're horrible, horrible, undermedicated people with vertigo. You decide.

The Dizzy

So the dizziness I had last night got worse. The entire world was all... wobbly. Anyway, we ended up asking advice of Boyfriend's parents... In the middle of the night. Should we go to the hospital?

J. took my blood pressure (normal) and told me to drink enough and go to bed. The world spun even when I closed my eyes.

Luckily, the doc was back from holiday and didn't require an appointment. He determined it's either because I stopped taking my meds a while back, or because of an inner-ear problem. I need to get an appointment with an ear-nose-throat specialist and let him take a look. Sadly, it's Friday today and I didn't get the number to the guy until ten minutes after he stopped taking calls. Boo.

In the meanwhile, I've got a herbal remedy that reduces the heavy-storm-on-a-ship sensation to a bearable occasional wigglewiggle. I'm allowed to take up to six a day and it's supposed to last me through the weekend. Let's hope it's something small.

In the meanwhile, Iggy has discovered he likes nomnoms. He's started eating, and his hunger strike of the first few days demands he replenishes his reserves. On top of that, Boyfriend brought doggy junk food. Iggy likes it so much, he considered briefly climbing our relatively high coffee table, until Boyfriend told him 'No, Iggy'.

The longing for treats is almost big enough for him to overcome his fear of humans. He came closer than he wanted to follow a trail of treats, and even tried to convince himself he wanted to try and eat from my hand. Yeah, the fear won on the last one.

I tried putting him on my lap with a treat and ignore him, but his little doggy mind went ohnoespeoplesaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah until he was put down at a safe distance. He hasn't moved an inch from the spot I put him apart from the shifting necessary to fall into an exhausted sleep.

Don't worry, I put him down near his water bowl and food. All's going to be well. Eventually.

I'm going to take my second anti-vertigo tablet and take him down to do his business after it's kicked in.

The Television

I've been trapped in a time warp that sends my brain back to being five again every night around eight o'clock. If you want another explanation, I've discovered our internet comes with digital tv and we have Comedy Central between a quarter past eight pm and six am.

This started out as a thing for Iggy. The breeder said he liked to sit on the couch with her and watch television. From the way he acts, this could have been a rather crass lie, but we didn't know that on Sunday evening when we started changing channels like maniacs, trying to find something of interest.

Iggy, as it turns out, is not interested in the television. He's interested in squeaky toys and other dogs and becoming invisible so people stop looking at him.

In the meanwhile, I'm learning how to say things like 'boobies' in German, and quaint expressions like 'piss out of my room' and 'you're shaving my balls' from watching South Park. So far, I haven't found a practical use for these yet, but who knows when I've got to freak out people by being rude with a very strange accent.

I started watching CC mostly because, every so often, shows aren't dubbed. Once a week, there's subtitles, which is something so rare on German television, I thought it was a myth.

So right now, I'm making a short post. The television is stealing me away, and I'm still dizzy for some weird reason, so sitting down is a good idea.

The Banking Crisis

(Yay! 1000 views! Thank you so much!)

I've been trying to figure a few things out today.

One of them was the Iggy thing.

 He decided that under my desk is his toilet, so I built a little barricade. He hasn't broken through yet.

We also took him for a walk on a leash today, trying to find a place where he wanted to do his business. So far, he hasn't gone since this morning, barring a tiny accident in the studio, which he will remember as the time I freaked out at him and took him outside. And by taking him on a walk for a leash, I mean gently dragged him the ten meters across the street, put him on the grass and waited for five minutes. He doesn't like the leash. I didn't like the fact that this was an impromptu trip and about twenty people saw me in my pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt.

Then I found out that there's something called a Julius-K9 harness. It's interesting, since we can drag him around on a leash without onlookers accusing us of strangling him. They're pretty cheap and seem to be popular, since they get stocked in lots of colors. It's available in several sizes, Iggy being the tiniest possible size if not smaller. And then there's the possibility of removing the two labels with 'JULIUS-K9' and putting on other ones. Julius has lots of them, even in German, but the only one catering to hindered dogs is 'Caution - Deaf Dog'. But Amazon offered a link to someplace that makes custom labels, going up to 13 characters in four available colors. The problem is that 'NICHT ANFASSEN' fourteen characters is. There's English, but I want everyone to get it. The only thing that fits is either 'ÄNGSTLICH' or 'NICHT RÜHREN'. The last one is the most accurate, but it can also be read that I don't want people to stir my dog like a pot of soup. So I'm not sure yet.

I'm also looking for a German bank. The problem is that the banks with the most available withdrawal machines are bastards and the most helpful and seemingly affordable banks have very few ATMs, meaning they're expensive if I decide to withdraw money with my card in a different branch's machines. 5 euros a pop, usually. I don't like to withdraw lots of money at once, so I sort of need the availability. On the other hand, a German card works in 99% of all German stores, so I don't technically need to withdraw a lot of money.

The 'nice' bank also offers an online account, which seems to be very cheap, and a pre-paid credit card. That seems very interesting indeed, since you can't overdraw on it and your credit rating needs to be 'can afford 20 euros a year'.

I'm confused. I'll ask for help tomorrow.

Oh, and I should start figuring out when and how I'm going to go to Belgium to officially move at the end of September. I'll ask for help with that tomorrow, too.

And maybe we'll go to a pet store and buy a K9 harness.

The Chest of Drawers

Today, I helped Boyfriend put together a chest of drawers.

Partly because he's my boyfriend and I love him. Partly because it was hot and letting him do all the work himself was cruel. Partly because the manual said you needed two people to do so (and you totally did). But mostly because I'd hounded him all day to do it so his mom wouldn't be pissed disappointed tomorrow and he was grumpy, so helping seemed like the right thing to do.

He'd brought Iggy to the studio, together with his dad's power drill and my tool set from IKEA. My tools are sturdier than the bits for the power drill.

But the weird thing is, Iggy doesn't mind noise. At all. He's fascinated and curious and if it squeaks, he wants it. We dropped stuff, there were curses, there's road works outside the apartment, a dog gets dropped off every day and barks until we go potty... And Iggy's fine with it. He doesn't bark or howl, but he wants to be part of the party.

The only problem is that he's very inhibited around people. Very, very inhibited. He's starting to drink and eat when Boyfriend and me are around, but other people still send him shivering and running off. As long as he doesn't get watched, he's fine. One look and he freezes.

We discussed this with J., W. and most people in the studio who asked why the little dog wasn't Cindy and didn't seem to like people.

The only logical conclusion is that Iggy, somehow, for some reason, is dead scared of people.

He's slowly starting to warm up to the idea of people, which is a big step forward, but there's a big condition to this idea. He doesn't want to be touched. Or looked at. Or talked to. Or gotten close to by strangers. But them being at a safe distance and ignoring him, he can totally live with that. He even follows people in the studio around, just to see what happens. Until someone turns around and sees him, then goes 'ooooh, what a cute doggy'. Then he runs off to hide against a wall.

With Boyfriend and me, it's getting okay. He follows us home from the yard, provided we hide behind the door and walk in front of him. But he makes sure we're around. He looks for us when he gets insecure, then hides somewhere he can see us.

Things might take a while longer than planned, but he's getting better. Next week, we're taking him to the vet.

The Slow P--P-P-Puppy-Progress

So Iggy is not like Lady at all, whose adaptive period was a two-hour nap and howling when left alone.

Take this morning for example.

Iggy'd left a puddle on the floor. I was delighted. This meant that, apart from the three half-hearted whine, one bark and suspiciously lots of squeaky ball noises, Iggy had discovered his drinking bowl in the dark and ingested some fluids.

As long as we were awake, though, he was dead scared to eat. He'd gotten over his fear of moving by morning, since we hadn't chased and caught him for eight hours. And he loves his basket with his new best friend, Mr. Cold Wet Towel.

He tried coming in the bedroom. I said 'No Iggy' in my serious voice. He fled to his basket and didn't come out for the next half hour.

I decided to nap on the couch for a while, which Iggy did not trust at all. I'm the one who chases him from under there with a broom, after all.

But when I moved to my computer, and I didn't move from there for half an hour... He slowly snuck towards his food lunch-box (working on that particular container), liberated a single piece of dog kibble, moved it to his 'safe spot' between the TV and the coffee table, got noticed by me, praised by me as he tried to eat it and--dropped it out of his mouth. Mission failed.

I took him on my lap while I was on the internet, stroking him whenever he wasn't shivering. After fifteen minutes, he relaxed. Then I put him down and he promptly hid under the sofa. 

Boyfriend came home with more kibble. If Iggy doesn't start eating more soon, the bag is going to last us a year. 

He didn't drink either, which was worrying. I called my dad (mom yelled at me for buying a dog), re-wetted his towel (he licked it twice) and finally left with Boyfriend to have lunch (read: ice cream) at McDonald's.

We'd tried getting him to do his business outside, to eat, to drink, nothing was working. He'd stopped shivering and freezing completely when noticed and his ears perk up at the mention of 'Iggy'. And it was hot, so a short bike ride with an icy treat at the end of it would lift our spirits.

When we came home, he'd done a poo in the hall. We hadn't been there, so we couldn't chew him out for it. And then, there was the disappearance of more water from his bowl than evaporation alone could explain, combined with puddles next to it on the floor, his ball was moved and most of his kibble being gone. Iggy had waited for us to be really gone and had played, drunk, eaten and given the puppy response to food intake (this being food output).

If we had to go to McDonald's every two hours for him to drink, it would be a long and expensive week.

The dog being dogsat next door is still going bananas. Iggy wonders why the door barks when we pass it, but otherwise has learned that it's one of those noises in this strange, grassless new home. Cars, sirens, drunken calls, roadworks, barking door.

Boyfriend and I were home again, so Iggy chose a spot on the floor to lie down and stayed there. The reason we know he's not scared any more is that he shifts position about every half hour and no longer stays in his turtle-pose, wishing himself invisible for hours on end.

Iggy is far from perfect, but he's working hard on self-improvement so far.

I'd been told to come show Iggy to S. at half past three in the studio, so eventually we picked him up at went. Attempts at making him do his business outside were met with a few sniffs and Iggy sitting down and looking around in a very confused manner. Oh well.

J. was happy to see him. Her customer was, too. S. and Sis were upstairs with a friend who was doing their hair, but careful 'Rambo' was there.

Rambo turned out to be a black French Bulldog the size of an obese spaniel. He sniffed Iggy a bit and lost interest, occasionally coming back.

Iggy, confused with this new environment, was back to being a turtle in the corner. The improvement was that he relaxed enough to lie down after about five minutes of looking around in bewilderment. We talked a bit, Iggy's dashing good looks (read: freaky cross-breed appearance) were discussed at length, Rambo investigated Iggy some more... All was good.

Then Sis decided Iggy might be thirsty.

She got a bowl and put it four inches away from him. He sniffed it and otherwise ignored it. We talked some more. When Iggy had relaxed, I tried giving him a hint by slowly pushing the water bowl closer to him. He was now squished between the wall and the bowl. He licked a few times and got praised, then left alone. You have never seen a dog look so scared and confused about water in your life.

Eventually, we left. Boyfriend had to print something, so I was left with the responsibility of getting Iggy to maybe do something outside and then take him upstairs.

He sniffed a bit, then sat down. I tried moving away, giving him some space.

And the weirdest thing happened. Iggy, who shows no allegiance to anyone, takes no food, no affection and certainly doesn't come when called... followed me. True, it was at a safe distance, but there was definite following action being perceived. I double-checked by moving further away. He sniffed, he weaved, he bobbed... But he was definitely moving in the same direction as me.

The door posed a problem. I couldn't leave it open, because burglars, but Iggy wouldn't walk through with me as close as a doorlength to him. I picked him up, put him inside and moved to the stairs. Iggy hopped up the two stairs towards the staircase. I went up the stairs. Iggy moved to the bottom of the staircase. He was not coming up; I was still visible enough. I tried moving further away, moving closer, saying his name... Nope, Iggy was fine where he was. We live on the second floor.

I moved him to the first landing. He sniffed a bit, moved to the first step up--Leon barked behind the door. Iggy sat down and didn't move.

I moved him past the second landing and left him on a mini-landing, eight steps from our front door. I moved up, he moved up. Sort of. Halfway, he could see me and was happy with that. I fetched his squeaky ball, having heard last night how much he freakin' loves that squeaky ball. The squeaking got his attention. Someone was playing with his ball. Sadly, Iggy was raised in a pack. He didn't mind sharing.

The squeaker in the ball is temperamental, though. It can squeak, but it can also just puff air. And the puffing fascinated Iggy enough to come farther up. It sounded like another dog. He went up another three steps, just one step away from success. No amount of faked panting or squeaking was motivating him to move. I eventually picked him up and put him the hall, fully expecting him to sit on his butt and not move for a bit.

He didn't.

He moved to the living room and stayed there. I threw his ball. He moved, poking it into a spot he liked with his nose. Then he went to his water bowl, got two mouthfuls of water, noticed I was there and went back to hogging the space between the coffee table and the TV, testing out new and interesting positions of adorableness.

So he knows his name. He knows we're keeping him safe. He's more or less housetrained. And he's slowly starting to drink.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the studio, leaving him alone with Boyfriend. What's the worst that could happen?

The Puppy

Guess what? We have a new family member.

Meet Iggy, the half-Yorkie, half-Pug. We got him from Somewhere-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere. His family was a pack of Yorkies and Pugs, with a miniature pig and a French Bulldog, plus some cats thrown in for good measure. His brother, Walter, was there too.

His original name was Igel, German for hedgehog. The breeder (who breeds pugs but loves Yorkies) said as long as we put an 'ee' noise in his name, he should listen.

We spent a long time being overrun by the pack of dogs, being bombarded with toys, a blanket, dog food, paperwork and a collar. Iggy's collar got bling. He's the flashiest mutt in town.

He has no idea what happening to him, and he's never worn a collar or a leash. His collar, we put on at once. You can't have a puppy running around with nothing to grab him by.

On the way home, we learned that Iggy is mistrustful of treats and water offered by strangers. He didn't want doggy treats, he barely sniffed a piece of offered kebab meat and in some nice cool ice cream he had no interest whatsoever. In the end, we were so worried about him not drinking in what is the hottest day of the hottest weekend of the year so far (40 centigrade, whoo!) that we splashed him with water droplets, so he'd lick at least some moisture off his nose.

Once we were home, he did a little pee outside (good boy, Iggy!) and then promptly hid in a corner and refused to come inside. He weighs less than a kilo, so he was picked up and carried. Inside, he crawled under the sofa and didn't come out for fifteen minutes. Then he explored a bit, until I had to go to the toilet. Then it was straight back under the sofa.

Boyfriend is very confused when I get annoyed at him for rewarding Iggy's scared behavior with petting.

I wanted Iggy to get used to the leash, so I flushed him out from his hiding place and put it on. Iggy threw a very quiet fit where he didn't move and just shivered. Boyfriend promptly petted him, wondering out loud how I could be so cruel to such a small, furry creature.

Then he went to the toilet, or possibly the bedroom. Iggy stayed where he was, first shivering and standing stock-still. Then he stopped shivering. Then he moved a little. Then he found a corner next to the sofa, where he shortly afterwards went to sleep. He's currently lying there with his eyes open, looking around and either sulking or being very lazy.

We've seen he can be playful, with other dogs and people he knows, but he's come from a farm in a village with lots of dogs to an apartment in the city with just Boyfriend and me. He has toys, he has a basket, he has treats, food, water, cuddles... We're not abusing him. He's just very, very confused about it all. But he's not a loudmouth. He sees there's people, he sees there's things, some of which look and smell familiar even... But he has no idea what's going on. As long as he's not howling the whole building together, he can stumble around in confusion for a few hours, even a few days as far as I'm concerned. But the leash is staying on and I'm not pitying him. He's fine.

As soon as it cools down a bit, we can go for a small walk with him. Provided he wants to move when someone's holding the leash.

The Day Out

Today, we went for a day out. Oh, and J. helped us with our search for a pet.

We went to Bamberg, where I've been before. It's sort of a long ride, and we left sort of late. I looked over a website on J.'s iPad at her insistence, looking for pets but finding none that really sparked my interest. So I showed her the labrador mixes. She immediately called to ask if any were available. All had found a good home. Disappointment, but to be expected.

Next, we had our customary lunch at a little Chinese fast-food corner in a mall. Tiny or not, cheap or not, they're delicious and they're clean. Omnomnom. Chicken Chow Mein, I love you.

We wandered around the place a bit. A game store for Boyfriend, a euro store for entertainment, Müller because we could. While I lost my partner to the video game section, I went to the household supplies, drawn there by a bucket full of fly swatters in bright colors. What can I say, I'm easily distracted. Then my eye fell onto the things next to the fly swatters. Bug nets. For windows. Easy to attach. I went over to Boyfriend and asked if he still had the measurements for the windows. He had. We needed the smallest (read: cheapest) sizes. Oh, and one of our windows in the bedroom has issues, so we needed one less. They're from Tesa. They'll be there next year. Twelve euros for buglessness: check.

We really couldn't find anything else to do, so we found W. in the coffee corner and ordered a cool treat. I went for a cranberry-blackcurrant slushie, Boyfriend for a tiny pot of B&J's. And then I remembered the other puppies.

J. called W. over, we had a slight interlude at C&A, but we ended up back in the coffee corner, J. nursing something banana-chocolate-y which I'm pretty sure was a milkshake with toppings, but which was called something fancy. Prices started at three and a half euros, German for 'a lot'. I showed the second choice puppies. The ones so ugly they're cute. They were still there.

I'm eating my earlier words. I'm probably getting a small dog tomorrow. He's got a face only a mother could love, but he's adorable and he'll be mine.

We went back to the euro store for emergency supplies. A tiny basket, something soft to line the basket with, a leash which I thought was the right size, but on unwrapping turned out to have a rather big collar included. It might fit when the pooch is grown, but until then, we're sort of screwed. I'm looking into a solution for that on Monday and asking J. and W. for a loaner collar until then. Think something's missing from the list? Just you wait.

Next stop was Toys 'R' Us, where we found blindbag ponies. My Rarity collection now only requires a transparent and a normal Rarity to be complete. And I got a golden pony. Chris, sadly, found none of his wished-for ponies.

We looked in another toy store, and around that time, the penny dropped with me. We're in the middle of a heat wave. And buying a dog, probably. And the thing has nothing to drink from.

The mall we were in had no pet store. Oh, and it was a quarter to six, meaning almost all normal stores were closed. I was starting to pray the puppy wouldn't have the wits to throw over and/or break a porcelain cereal bowl, but it's a puppy. Puppy's are too smart for their tiny bodies to handle.

So I worried while we geocached and time passed on. The caches were in interesting places: up a pole, down a well, on a hill... But I was still thinking about a tiny doggie dying of heat stroke and dehydration while I teased J. about the car rolling down the hill and killing us both fact that the love of her life couldn't leave the house without a GPS and a list of co-ordinates. Animals pee to mark their territory. W. leaves a pseudonym in hidden booklets around the country. It beats alcoholism for a hobby.

It was getting late, we were hungry and we had to pee. To KFC we went.

But wait, stop, halt! There was a Real next to KFC. For those of you unfamiliar with the chain store, just fill in 'big-ass supermarket stocking everything from survival gear to cornflakes'. And it was half an hour before closing time. I invoked possible future dehydration of pet as a reason to be late for dinner and dragged Boyfriend there to find at least a drinking bowl.

They had one model, which I was fine with, since it was anti-slip stainless steel, stocked in two sizes: cat and toy-puppy-swimming-pool. Seeing as a thirsty dog would last about two minutes with the small one, we got the big one.

Then I had my first KFC experience. It's slightly more expensive than most fast food chains, which is mystefying, since the place only serves chicken, until you get your food. They serve real chicken. It's flaky and stringy and chewy and all the things chicken should be. None of this mashed chicken product. Someone actually slaughtered some poultry and decided not to serve the bits of carcass meat and skin as the animal. Delicious. Even if someone put Spezi in the Apfelschorle dispenser.

When we finally got home, Boyfriend got visited by a friend while I went slightly nuts. I cleaned the kitchen counter, loaded the dishwasher, got rid of the forgotten but clean laundry we had lying around, finally fully unpacked, put away some handbags of mine that had somehow escaped their prison and coralled the trash. All of this happened in a shirt of Boyfriend I'd thrown on to not be half naked while we had company over. Better to have them think I'm a clothes-hog than a whore, in my book.

When Boyfriend's friend left, I asked if he could install at least one of the bug nets. Like I said, heat-wave. Heat-wave with crickets and grasshoppers hissing menacingly outside. The net took fifteen minutes to install. Most of that was sticking the velcro to the window and trying to cut the net to size. It looks okay at the moment. Should we have screwed up, well, there's plenty more where that came from.

All we have to do now is put away the toaster, unload and reload the dishwasher and maybe vacuum. On the other, hand, I wanna see how the puppy, if we get one, reacts to a vacuum cleaner.

The Ducks

My plan to feed Cindy dog biscuits and buy her love that way was thwarted before I even got to the store. The dogs are going on holiday, so today was the day they got anesthesised and had their plaque removed and shots given. Oh, and Cindy got chipped. I thought this was obligatory all over Europe for at least the last five years, but apparently, not everyone does it. It seems stupid, but that's probably just me.

So now I have a big pile of dog treats. The urge to lay some kind of elaborate trail of canine goodness through the city towards our house and see what shows up is almost irresistible.

The studio was its usual fun self today. I got to see the first male manicure client (a doctor, who I guess you want to have nice, even, strong nails rather than torn and brittle ones with spikes sticking out) and shortly afterwards helped a client towards his first time in the pedicure, thinking he had a very peculiar accents and where in Germany could he be from? Yeah, two minutes later, the man was panicking and trying to find J. Turns out, he was deaf. I'm sensitive that way. Anyway, after a bit of strained communications, I got him in a foot bath and was allowed to go back to watching nails being done.

Later, J. allowed me to put gel on my nails to make them a bit stronger. No tips ('for the love of God' was implied), though. I. told me to take some stencils technically meant to build tips out of gel with and put them under my nails to avoid getting gel all over my fingertips. It worked beautifully. The fact that I was really careful helped, too. It's amazing how much patience you can have when you don't spend the first two and a half hours of a manicure filing something to what you hope is perfection, and have it turn out 'meh'. I knew my nail shape was far, far below 'meh', but filing would end with my fingers bleeding, so only my gelling was on the line here. The gelling got the compliment of being 'super', so I was happy.

And since just shiny nails look so plain, and it's been on my mind a lot lately, I cracked out the duck stamp.

Stamping is hard. First I tried with white (I'd stolen Sis' stamping polishes) but concluded there was too little in there to work for rookie me. Next, I tried black. It took seven tries and a lot of nail polish remover to get the duck on the stamp. Then I put the stamp to my thumb, pressed and--I forgot to wipe off the excess gel of my nail. I'd effectively varnished the stamping pad.

Not a problem, wipe down, ink plate, put on pad, try again.

It turns out, the seventeenth time is the charm sometimes.

I sealed the duck up with gel, then gelled my right hand. Trying to stamp this one was impossible with my fingers trapped in stencils, and very hard indeed without them. Oh, and my thumb nail's gel had a little dent in it where I wanted the duck's beak to go. So now I had two ducks... But not very much in the same spot.

Then I decided that just two duck outlines looked a bit plain...

Long story short, I ended up with two ducks on my nails, in glittery yellow swimming trunks and goggles, done reasonably well. Because I can.

And this took me less than one hour. Is this called progress?

The Crazy Dog Lady

Today, we went looking at a dog. Not just any dog. A dog with potential to become OUR DOG.

She's a chihuahua from what I'm pretty sure was a mill breeder demanding 500 euros for an unchipped puppy without papers. Say what now? Anyway, the adult dog that's being given away is fully grown with long hair in white, brown and black. She's quiet and sweet and not used to men, a city, loud noises and not being the lowest ranking dog in the pack. She is, however, house-trained and not agressive, unlike some of her pack mates, although she is not afraid to let herself be heard if she's so inclined.

Sadly, Kara, the dog we looked at, was not quite the dog we were looking for. On the other hand, she captured J.'s heart and is being saved from a suspicious death on Saturday afternoon. Also, Boyfriend and I are dog-sitting her the week his parents are on holiday with the other doggies. Should we fall in love after all, we're allowed to keep her, but I doubt we will.

But I've been going dog-crazy lately. And not just a little, either.

I've been knitting and felting dog toys since yesterday afternoon until now, and I'm still not done. One of them won't shrink, somehow. I've got an indestructible soft ball and a comically large dumbbell toy with visible stitches. Wash it under unnaturally hot circumstances, I must.

And I found a recipe for dog treats. One batch of the stuff makes for LOTS of tiny dog treats, and I have enough for at least one and a half more batches of the stuff. I could fill one of our freezer boxes with them and become the doggy equivalent of McDonald's. Lord save us. I'm testing them tomorrow, I think. Come to think of it... There's nothing poisonous in them. I could test them now. Boyfriend!

And I've been looking at dogs. Lots and lots of dogs.

I've accepted that, if I want a dog, the chances of the pet being larger are small. Also, our budget does not allow for a pure-bred, show-ready, predictable puppy. So we're scouring the internet and small adds for tiny mutts under 200 euros. We also don't want a dog that's quiet and limp all the time. But neither do we want a yapping bouncy ball on crack. So a puppy it shall be, whom we can mold and shape after our own image (unless the perfect dog shows up for adoption somewhere). Which means a few weeks of getting up in the middle of the night to go pee-pee with the little thing. And teaching it to walk on a leash. And training Boyfriend not to go 'aww' when something newborn and tiny tries to viciously attack him.

There's two ads that caught my eye so far.

One is a set of puppies that are half-pug, half-yorkie. They're so ugly, it's cute. They're used to cats, other dogs and apartments. Also, they're tiny, which is a big plus. Boyfriend is not calling the owners so far.

Then there's a pack of half-labrador, half-something unknown. They're rough-haired and dark, but not as big as labrador puppies. They're adorable as can be, have been chipped, and are growing up with cats and kids. They're ready to leave their mom at the end of the month. Boyfriend is not calling in for them, either.

We looked at the pound's offering of dogs, but they mostly have dogs who are either old or described in such a way I'm reading 'agressive MOFO' inbetween the lines, which isn't what we're looking for, either.

That, and I'm still in love with the puppy called Otto, who seems perfect and is still looking for a good home. I'd go get him, except he lives 6 hours away by car.

Sigh. I guess I'll look further, then.

The Mean Hardware Store

I was hyper as an energizer bunny today. I fetched drinks, watched closely, and because there were only 1.5 people working today, it was easy, so I talked. And talked. And talked.

I talked so much, I was afraid I'd annoy J. I talked so much, my amount of embarrassing German mistakes spiked. The customers laughed. J. laughed. Sis laughed. I still can't keep 'fur' and 'skin' apart in German, so they concluded I must be an animal. I chose to be a turtle. Turtles are cute.

I also fiercely defended The Duck. It's a nail stamp no one ever picks, so I think it's lonely. So I offer it to clients who can't pick, but no one ever goes 'A duck? How refreshing! Yes, I'll take it!'. It's a cute duck, though. As soon as I've got gel nails, I'm putting it on there and adding seasonal details. Then I'm putting it on my gel nails every time thereafter until someone else adopts The Duck. Then, I'll adopt The Sheep, and so on. The plan is foolproof.

But I got to do new stuff. Like go to the bakery for J., help pick out nail stickers for clients, unwrap packages (even if it's not Christmas, I love unwrapping things) and then I got to replace the lamps in J.'s UV generating machines. One of the lamps had a gel spike on it and stabbed me, the meanie. 

I was so energized, I forgot to eat. By half past one, my blood sugar got so low, I excused myself to chug some soda and then slipped out and bought three euros worth of food at the bakery. At German pricing, that's lots of food. I scarfed it down in private in the kitchen, then returned, still buzzing like the busy little bee I am today.

I also got motivated to buy ingredients to make dog biscuits. Peanut butter dog treats, yum. Then, I'll use them to win over Leon, who likes treats. Brilliant, no?

But at the hardware store, they gave our dream of bug screens for windows a definite ding. The warm season is apparently over, despite the 25+ centigrade outside, so they no longer stock the screens. We can't buy them. Boyfriend said he'd look elsewhere, but in the meanwhile, we're still either stung or hot at night. Not fair.

Anyway, I should stop typing. We're going to a barbecue later. A geocaching barbecue, where I can have delicious sausages in a bun. With ketchup. How do I know this? Because it's a Bring-Your-Own-Stuff type of event, and we bought sausages, buns and condiments. Oh, and there shall be other geocachers, so probably good company. All I need to be happy is shade, and the evening shall be complete.

And then, tomorrow, I get up early and--I'll tell you tomorrow.

The Fulled Slippers

I've been trying something new the past few days.

You see, while I was on holiday, I knit two giant socks, very loosely, from the untreated yarn I won an eternity ago. It was last month? Oh, okay. Anyway, I made big, unwearable socks. I could hide my entire arm in them and still have room to spare.

Then I bought myself some washing machine bags. The kind to protect clothing from other things in the laundry while it's in the machine. It was recommended so as not to kill the filter in the machine.

Then I threw the socks, safely zippered away in the bags, into their very own laundry. Sixty degrees, high agitation, cold rinse.

They got smaller and fuzzier, but they were still big.

I repeated the process over and over until I was satisfied. In total, it took five hours and a half runs. Inbetween, I got hopeful three times that they'd fit, but all they did was make my feet wet and leave puddles all over the apartment.

Today, I think I reached the moment I was waiting for. My socks have shrunk to fit my feet, in a thick, felted, knitted fabric. The process I used is called fulling, technically, but everyone calls it felted knitting, since that's what it basically is.

It's amazing. The fabric is thicker, and the holes inbetween my stitches have felted shut, but the fabric still breathes a bit. Also, as scratchy as my yarn is, it's wondrously soft after its long rage against the machine. The fuzz is wrapped around my feet like a golden cloud of warmth. And still they're not too hot to wear with this weather. I'm in love. Wool is a magical resource.

Of course, these slippers don't have the arch support my Birkenstocks have, but my Birkenstocks, both pairs, need replacing. They're smelly, and they don't fit as well when my feet are swollen. So while I shop around for a new pair, I'll wear these puppies around the house.

In the mean while, I'm eyeing the yarn I have left over. It's three skeins and some change. I could make more slippers, but I wanna experiment with smaller projects first. Will a higher temperature felt faster? Should I get some tennis balls to throw in there?

And, most important question of all, should I start saving to buy some more untreated wool of rare breeds in their gloriously natural colors?

The Learning Through Experience

Today I went to the nail studio, where I got to learn lots of things by experiencing them.

It was a slow day. I mean really slow. The first half hour I spent staring at the ceiling and trying to find things to do. There weren't any. No customers, no dusting, no dishes, nothing. S. was doing the sweeping, and there's only one brush.

When customers finally did show up, I offered drinks, I watched, I was sociable, the whole nine yards. I fetched, returned and wiped clean. There was so little to do, I wasn't even rushed.

But on to the learning.

First, S. asked what had happened to my nails. I said I'd filed the gel off. She wanted to see, so I showed my hands. She mentioned I'd gone too rough on it and damaged my nails, they were all red. I didn't see anything, and how did you know they were damaged? She squeezed my pinkie nail gently. I nearly hit the ceiling. Ouch! I later saw, in sunlight (rather than the harsh halogen lamps from the studio) that there were indeed red blots under my fingernails. I am not getting new gel until they've healed, which might take the very professional diagnosed time of 'a while'. I'm agreeing. I can't scratch myself without hurting my nails right now.

The day got slower still. J. called me over to do the base coats on her nails. Oh, and file off the gel already on there. This was after S. demonstrated how magnificently I'd done on my own nails. J. spent a lot of time patiently explaining I was partly filing her skin. I got most of the techniques fairly quickly, but I was still hitting her cuticles. After three fingers of this, I figured out I knew when I was hitting it if I put my thumb on the cuticle. My file couldn't go in there, I couldn't file into the skin. If I did go that way, I bumped into my thumb. It's not cheating if you learn from it. The base coats were easy peasy lemon squeezy compared to the filing.

There was still nothing to do, so I went to I., who was sticking nails on gel pots and coloring them. There I learned that tip glue only dries quickly when warmth is applied. And it sticks to your fingers like, well, glue. I was covered in it ere long, and still I couldn't get I.'s technique to work. Then I saw her correct my half-succeeded attempts and figured I could just put the nail on, glue under the little gaps, and the shape of the nail would suck the glue to where I needed it. Brilliant!

The nails took a while in drying, but we got around to putting gels on, anyway. I learned I put on way too much and that we do not want half-open foils on tiny gel pots if we want to work cleanly. Also, foils on open gel pots get messy. Really, really messy. By the time I got home, I was gelled, glued and covered in tip dust.

Don't worry, most of it came off.

The Hairdressing Incident

You know how sometimes you get bright ideas? Yeah, those kind. I had one of them today.

You see, Boyfriend has been complaining about how his 'long' hair has been bothering him lately. And since we're back, I thought I'd run the clippers through it for him, fifteen minutes works top, we could do it right before we left for lunch with his parents.

Wrong. On all accounts.

See, it didn't go fast. Or smoothly. I was running the machine through it. And through it. And no hair was coming off. Or, more accurately, no hair was coming off where I wanted it to come off. I had clumps of short hair here and there in the back, where I was working on it, but not the way I wanted to. And I was pulling Boyfriend's hair. So he started working on it.

I was worried about the choppiness of it, but he soothed my worries. Then we did something wrong with the settings. I wasn't worried anymore, so it became... funny. Really, really funny.

My mom had given my camera back on holiday, so I started taking pictures of Boyfriend trying to shave his hair to a stubble. There was no uniform length and there was a bald spot, and then he asked me to clip it with scissors first to (quote unquote) make it go faster. Oh, and these weren't hair clippers. It was a beard trimmer.

By the time we arrived at J.'s and W.'s place, we were late and Boyfriend had a hat on, due to the unfinished hair cut making him look like he had had mange in the recent past. J. thought it was a little funny when she saw. Sis told Boyfriend to keep his hat on while they were eating, because she couldn't look at it. In all truth, it was pretty bad. I have photos to prove it.

Anyway, we ate and got back home. Boyfriend's hair was short now in most places, and he was completely bare in others. So we took the safest razor we had in the house and some foam and started on the remaining hair. I nearly peed myself laughing at the image of the love of my life shaving himself bald with my pink razor. Don't worry, it's one with replacable blades.

The shaving took longer than anticipated, and it wasn't the most uniform of operations. For entertainment, it ranked a big fat nine out of ten to watch. I took some more pictures. It went from mangy to 'lawn mower incident' to 'barber had a stroke'. Finally, after going through 'monk confused about his own religion', he was bald. Like, really, really bald. There's not a hair left on his head except his eyebrows. We're not that big a set of screw-ups that we took those, too.

I'm not sure if I like it yet. I'll tell you when I stop laughing.

The Return

Boyfriend and I are back in Coburg.

We had lots of fun.

I finished my knitting project for the week in two days. Turns out, feltables knit up crazy quick.

Boyfriend got labeled as 'from another planet' for his slight airheadedness and 'not German' for not calling his mother 'Mutti'. I concluded this means he's from Saturn. Oh well, alien or not, he's mine and no one else can have him.

We did end up renting bikes, which turned out to be 9 euros a day, but we got a deal on five days for the price of three, since we'd be returning them early and we rented them about one hour before the store closed. Boyfriend's was the shiniest, proving that men can be distracted by shiny things, too. After about a mile, the chain flew off. He didn't manage to alert me to this fact, and I found out two kilometers later. By the time I found him, he'd been standing around helplessly for long enough for passer-bys to take pity on him and help.

We got five kilometers further before the chain came off again. This time, we weren't close to a noisy road and I heard the unmistakable KLUNK-"SCHEISSE!!" of a man who is not used to a willfull bike. Sadly, I didn't have my bike bags with me, so my handy-dandy gloves were far, far away. I did know enough to guide Boyfriend to a grassy patch next to the road when ordinary tinkering wouldn't get it back on. We flipped it upside down, got a grip on the chain, and managed to make it to the B&B.

The next day, my uncle and dad proved their techno-nerdiness. My dad travels everywhere with a tool box. Not a measly basic screwdriver set, hammer and adjustable wrench, either. You can maintain pretty much anything with nuts, bolts and screws up to two inches wide with that thing. And when he broke it out and my uncle looked it over, the two brothers discussed the pros and cons of having 'a number fourteen' in there, which my dad hadn't. My uncle thought this was folly, my dad said he managed without.

Anyway, we arrived to find them working on my bike. Apparently, mine needed maintaining too. And they didn't know which one was Boyfriend's, either. They worked their magic, broke the gears' equilibrium, but the chain stayed on. Something about the bikes looking modern, but being cheap because of an old-school chain set up where you had to move the back wheel to tension the chain.  Also, that seat needed to be higher, chop-chop. Boyfriend sulked about this last bit. Who cares about spines when you could be as stable as a child with trainer wheels, anyway? That argument didn't work, so he got to learn that, on a 'unisex' (read: women's) bike, the healthy seat height is actually kind of comfortable. I think the testicular crush risk going down in case of a crash also helped.

I also went shopping, as per usual. I found a few shirts and the world's most comfortable dress. Boyfriend found a new hat, which he loved almost as much as I love my new dress.

We spent one day playing Monopoly. Boyfriend won. Yes, I sulked, but it was fun. 

Walks, we didn't go on. Boyfriend didn't feel like it, and I had not been in pain for literally weeks and wanted to keep up this streak of healthiness by avoiding steep up- and downhills. Then my dad slanted an explanation in such a way that it sounded like my parents, sister and cousin would take a walk, and Boyfriend and I would visit a castle. There was a two-kilometer walk to the castle. This sounded innocent, until I saw the signs warning of 30% inclines, no wheelchairs, no elderly walkers, mountainbikers BEWARE!!!. I was wearing sandals, not hiking shoes.

Strangely, no problems were felt going down. The way back, however, was full of 30% inclines up. My 'bad' leg, the one that underwent two surgeries, a cast and then hurt the most while I discovered my shin splits, was strangely fine with this. My left leg, however, felt like I was tearing the muscles straight from my calf bone. Nothing more attractive than a sweaty, overweight young woman gasping for air from sheer pain in a thirty centigrade heat.

We went to the animal- and amusement park, where Boyfriend had a ball with the animals he got to feed. Deer that were affectionate until they were done eating, suspicious pigs and bears which could do trick shots for treats, oh my. The amusement park part was less successful. Boyfriend had never been on any 'wild' rides. Which apparently was anything more exciting than a carousel. The moons spinning round and round got him good and scared, the water slide gave him some confidence, but the log flume elevator shook my elevator-shy knight in shining armor so hard he was still shaking five minutes after we got out. I didn't get him to go on the roller coaster, so we spent our time in the gift shop, drooling over a giant blue dragon plushie for the low, low price of 99.99 euros. Oh, and looking at dogs looking for homes. We need a dog, we're lonely.

My nails held out until Friday. By then, the right hand was a mess. The gel was cracked and coming off in flakes. J. is so good at her job, she's psychic. Anyway, I removed the gel on the right hand and the left hand came off during the train ride back today. I visited J. already, and she said she'd do my nails next. I hope those last longer, since the fingers on my left hand are already pounding from my typing, the nails are so thin. On the plus side, I can no longer function without nails sticking out two millimeters. Victory!

Boyfriend and I are no longer 'whiter than salad cream', either. Somehow, we ended up catching some sunlight and turning, if not brown, then a very convincing shade of beige. Oh, and getting a bit sunburned. Not on our heads, though. We have head coverings.

On the downside, Boyfriend and I did talk a lot of English this week. I switched languages lots, English is more spoken in my family than German, so I got confused. Also, I listened lots to my Norwegian audiobook. During my visit to the in-laws, I already noticed I needed more practice. Is it Monday yet?

Anyway, by Friday, I'd had enough of my family for another month or two. My mom was criticising my clothes, shoes, hair, body and behavior, my dad was starting to label all food as poison again and my cousin and sister were living in the pool again.

One of my cousins who wasn't there was looking for a drinking bottle. I recommended mine, which my dad had labeled as 'crap' when seen over the internet. They came into stock in the local supermarket just as the aforementioned cousin's mother left. My dad looked them over and decided the BPA-free wonders were okay, and so cheap! They bought three, two for home, one for the cousin. For four euros a pop, it's hard to go wrong.

Saturday, we got to go home. Fun! We amused ourselves admirably the first four hours or so. Then we missed a train (through no fault of our own) and our entire schedule got shaken up. I did not get to buy the laundry bags I had my eye on, Boyfriend is running late to celebrate his friends' birthdays and we're both exhausted.

By the time we got back on track, pun intended, we were bored. I listened some more to my book, Boyfriend listened to some music, but there wasn't much to do. So I took out a skein of yarn to be wound into a ball. I wrapped the loop of fuzz around Boyfriend's wrists like fluffy handcuffs and started wrapping. This confused the conductor so much, he forgot to check Boyfriend's ticket. I guess it's not everyday people take their hobby prep on holiday.

Anyway, we're back now. Tomorrow, we have lunch with Boyfriend's family. On Monday, Boyfriend looks into getting bug nets and I get nails. In the mean while, I have a pile of laundry that's waiting for me, and a dishwasher to turn on.

The German

My German is coming along nicely. I'm fairly fluent, but I still make mistakes.

When I screw up in German, Boyfriend usually switches to English to try and figure out what I mean. When I'm not with Boyfriend, I'm usually in a situation where not everyone speaks English, if anyone speaks it at all. This can lead to rather amusing situation. The amusement is usually at my expense.

My usual mistakes are past tenses and umlauts. Not all sound changes are predictable or even make sense. Those usually get corrected with an 'awww, you' smile.

Then there's the funny ones. I've offered clients stamping plates, describing the designs as 'indecent' when I meant frivolous, which caused an uncomfortable silence and then two minutes of laughter when I explained. I also expressed my urge to have a riff-raff carrier on my bike when I meant a luggage carrier. False friends just come to me.

And then there are the reverse mistakes. There are words in German that I know don't mean what my gut tells me it means, but it's hilarious when I listen to my gut anyway. I still have the urge to giggle when Boyfriend tells his mother everything is going well, because to my ears it sounds like he's telling her he's close to orgasm. Then there's the meaning my little sister gave to the German word for 'table' when she was little. It's silly to laugh, but sometimes you got to let the chuckles out. The small things in life matter, even if it's difficult to share them with the people around you.

In the mean while, I can usually express myself well in German. I can explain and listen and function. And that's something to be proud of.

(Normal service will be resumed tomorrow)

The Bikes

It's Thursday today. I'm imagining Boyfriend and I to be quite sick of people arguing over mealtimes and what to do to fill a day by now. Maybe we're even tired of not being able to cook our own meals. It could be we miss our electronics and friends and the internet (though Boyfriend has it on his phone). Maybe I've even broken down and filed off my hard work from Friday from my nails, but I'm going to try hard not to.

What we definitely will miss before the week is out is our bikes. Bikes are freedom, bikes are possibilities. More importantly, bikes are cooling down on a hot day and a legitimate way to spend a day without a computer. Bikes are being able to go get an ice cream when you want and fufilling a need for speed without the need for a driver's license. I know there's safe biking roads and not that many tricky traffic situations where we are.

But taking our bikes on six hour train rides, without travel backpacks, that's not feasible.

So I'm sitting here, wondering if we'll rent some. Maybe we can rent some for a week. I know where to rent them on a daily basis, and that they come with locks, so I'm definitely looking into it. I just don't know if we can afford it, is all. If it's under sixty euros, I'm getting me a bike. If it's over, no way. If we can't rent bikes at all, it's not really an issue, since I'm pretty sure the daily rate was fifteen euros per person and getting them back before six pm.

And, however awesome bikes are, that's a bit dear and limited.

The Bites

Bugs love to bite me.

Okay, so it's mostly mosquitoes. I'm not sure about ticks, since I love high hiking boots and long, looooong trousers, but mosquitoes feast on me like I'm a limited edition McFlurry.

Remember my bug bite from last week? The one that turned funny colors and needed medical attention to finally GO AWAY? Yeah, I got two more before that week was out, if not more (as mentioned before, this is being written last week).

The first one was on my leg and immediately took over eight square centimeters of my calf in the shape of a pink, raised welt. It's an angry blob, right above my youngest surgical scar. I feel so pretty, I could pretty myself into a state.

The other did not swell to cartoonish propotions and damage my self-image. No, it was on my foot. The same one that I'd already damaged scratching to hell. It's itchy. Very, very itchy. And I'm not allowed to scratch. AAAAH!

We currently don't have bug nets. Not in Coburg, not on vacation. So there's a good chance I'll be coming home with a few more bites. I'm packing the stuff that dyes all fabric neon yellow in case I get another swollen, purple affair, but usually the weather doesn't permit us to keep the windows closed all day. If I get bitten by something else and it turns out I'm even more allergic to that venom, at least I've got a tiny note saying I already paid to see a doctor this quarter, which will hopefully help things along on the medical side of things.

For the Coburg situation, Boyfriend is looking into things. He noted the casino downstairs had some, so he asked W. if they'd work on our windows too and is currently inquiring where to get them and how much they cost. We have four small windows, how bad can it be? Don't answer that. I'm praying feverishly they're affordable, so we can open windows at night and still have light on.

And if we get them, and one of Boyfriend's friends burns a hole in them because they can't keep from smoking, I'm going to make a scene the likes of which you can't imagine.

The Electronics

Boyfriend and I are currently in a tiny speck of Germany where there are people, running water, electricity, telephone line and satellite dishes but no cell phone reception. We're also staying in a small B&B where no wireless internet is offered to guests.

It's a place where you can get away from it all. It's so far from civilization, it has its own fire corps, because the town could burn down in the time it'd take for the bigger cities to get a fire truck or chopper over there. It's that small and that remote.

My family has been going there for years, so we're used to it. Boyfriend isn't, so he spent a large part of last week wondering how he'd survive without 'contact to the outside world'.

At the time of writing this (last week), I'm trying to stick of the principle of one cell phone and one electronic, handheld gaming platform. He can have his PSP or his Nintendo, but not both.

I'm sticking to this, because in the past few years, arguments have mainly been about people refusing to partake in family activities, such as a drink with the family at night or a walk or visit to a town with, y'know, shops and swimming pools and ice cream parlors and cell phone reception, in favor of gimmicks. We know we can survive a week without it because, quite simply, we have before. We don't go there to watch DVDs on a portable player or beat the final boss in some platform game. We go there because it's peaceful and beautiful and our family has done it for two or three generations.

And we're not cut off from civilization. We go places, we visit things, we run into a surprising amount of people we can talk to. We just don't have our own kitchen to cook in or a computer to spend hours chatting on. When cell phones came into our lives, we could form small groups and do seperate things. An uncle could go to a town and visit a war museum while his wife and her sisters took the kids to the pool and the rest of the guys went hiking, but we could all meet up around the same time in a café for lunch without someone calling mountain rescue because one group was late. Or we could call to those who stayed home, once a day. It's expensive to actually call, and I think that's a good thing. If they miss us, they should come along.

My dad briefly entertained the option of taking a laptop and buying German internet access, but it failed. I'm secretly glad. I took my laptop the last few years because I simply couldn't walk without agony, which limited my activities somewhat and I needed stuff to keep boredom at bay. I'm better now and I want to go places. I didn't miss my internet. To be honest, I mostly read on it and played simulations of games for smaller, handheld consoles.

So I'm torturing the love of my life in favor of tradition and the old-world idea of some time to oneself. But he can have one console. We do have a six hour train ride after all.

The Plugs

So I have this sizeable collection of earlobe plugs, including the odd tunnel or two. It's at my dream size of six millimeters. Wonderful. I still have a wish list as long as my foot on what I still want, including a pair of ear weights costing 499 euros from which only two sets were made in the entire world. It's made from silver and pyrite ammonites. Millions of years dead and they're still drop-dead gorgeous.

Right, going off-topic. What I wanted to talk about was my current dillemma. I reached my end size a few months ago and everything was going swimmingly until about last week. Then I could push my internally threaded, screw-shut tunnels loosely through both earholes. Which means my lobes are expanding. They won't get bigger than they are now, probably, but I think they're currently at about eight millimeters.

I know the solution to this. Sleep with 'naked' ears and wear what's known as 'organics' during the day. Meaning horn, wood and stone. Preferably wood, as it's light and thus doesn't help gravity stretch my ears further.

Problem: I don't know how long I can not wear jewelry before my ears stretch back to five mm or smaller. I like my end size and don't want to lose it by sleeping naked, as it were. I can wear tunnels with piercing rings through them, but as much as I like that look, it looks a bit too whimsical to be subtle. And while I like attention, I don't like constant, gaping attention.

So I guess I'll try sleeping without jewelry and pray I don't go down a size. Wish me luck.

The Vacation

Boyfriend and I are leaving on vacation today! We're leaving really early and going someplace with no internet and no cell phone reception, so I won't be able to update the blog with my daily adventures.

No worries, though. I've prepared a few small snippets of thought for the oncoming week. They'll be short and coming to you each morning, so you've got something to read at breakfast if you're not there with me.

If you are going to be there with me, you have until eight am to get in the car and drive to Germany. We'll be waiting close to delicious soup and cake and ice cream for you guys to come pick us up. If you don't want to pick us up, pick up our bags and we'll rent some bikes and ride ourselves. I'll believe there's no room in the car for two more people, because and everyone involved in this annual ritual knows why, but if you haven't let enough room for two small bags, I'm going to be severely annoyed.

This year, I can actually talk to the people around us, muahahaha!

Anyway, see you guys after a week of food cooked by other people and lovely German countryside!

The Loose Ends

We overslept today. Well, I say we did. Boyfriend disagrees.

We packed at our usual record speed, and since Boyfriend had more practice, he has a functional check list. I don't, so I spent the whole day thinking of things I had yet to chuck into my bag.

Oh, and then there's the loose ends I'm trying desperately to tie up. I want to finish doing laundry, and do all the dishes and finish my knitting and reading.

The reading I managed, the dishes sort of, but the laundry basket is magical: it keeps filling itself up with stuff while I'm not looking. And no, it's not Boyfriend's stuff, there's my stuff too. On the bright side, I did finish my huge pile of bedlinen. Now it's just half a load of towels, a selection of coloreds and a smattering of darks. Not enough to warrant running three loads in the middle of the night.

My knitting I'm desperately working on now, but it's looking like I'm not going to go to bed any time soon if I keep working on it. But I want to know if I've got enough yarn and if I can start on the more portable slipper thang I've got my eye on. I think I'll ask Boyfriend to help me wind a ball later and knit while he's asleep. This thing is not going to let me go.

We also went shopping today for a few things we still needed. I don't know what kind of image a toy pony, condoms, razor blades and cereal paints, but that's what we got. The pony was on sale and missing in Boyfriend's collection, I wasn't sure if we had enough cereal to last us until after we're back and the condoms and razor blades we ran out of. I'm not sure if we're going to use them while on holiday, but better safe than sorry and all that. When it comes to smooth legs, it's perhaps a bit extreme to use it, but I definitely don't want babies happening, so double dutch it is.

Then there's the things you pack where you go 'I'm not sure, but...' Like eight pairs of socks when you're going for six days and wear Birkenstocks most of the time. Like three filled drinking bottles in case I need to lend one or someone in the family 'borrows' one the way they borrowed two of my six millimeter double point knitting needles three years ago. Heck, I'll pay a drinking bottle in ransom to see it back, to be honest. Like three books when I haven't been reading as avidly as usual lately. Then again, I'm leaving my pc here and my iPod is probably going to end up being used by my baby cousin, who likes playing Fruit Ninja. Should I take the cow hand puppet?

And I feel downright silly for panicking about other things. I packed a small stock of travel medications, as experience has taught me is necessary, but I can't find the aspirin we bought a few weeks back. We probably won't need it, and it costs like less than four euros to get a new package, but it's still bugging me. Somehow, I've got this sinking feeling someone will have a headache the size of Texas on Sunday, before we can buy new ones.

Oh, and I'm bringing an incendiary device a non-electronic piece of entertainment. I have fond memories of me and my family skipping meals and vowing bloody murder over it, so it might not be the best idea to bring it, but it's tiny and it was cheap and I want to play. It's Monopoly - Travel Edition. It's the size of a book and it's in German. Let the good times roll.

Let's see how this all turns out...

The Tips

Today, I did my nails. From start to finish, while skipping only one step.

I got into the studio early in the morning, as usual, but there weren't any clients. So I started filing off my animals. Which went very, very slowly, until Sis pointed out gels get removed with the rough side of a file. Whoops.

I was halfway done when I noticed that my light box had disappeared. Seeing as working in a nail studio is very similar to sharing a room with a bunch of undiagnosed kleptomaniacs, it wasn't so much 'what happened to it' as 'who took it and where is it now?'. Usually, the answer is 'S.' and 'in her cupboard', but S. has her own light boxes and she's still under scrutiny after losing the white gold gel. Also, she usually steals from Sis and J. Everyone steals mostly from Sis and J., though I. occasionally gets her personal gels borrowed without asking, too. I noted to myself I needed to ask that at some point,

Then a customer came, and I scooted over to watch. J. promptly asked if I could please clean the entire shelf of merchandise next to the counter. I resisted the urge to pout and cleaned the counter. Then I removed an appointment from the book. Then I watched J. work on the customer.

It was a very slow day in the studio, so I had lots of time to work on my nails. I had a vision. A vision and a dastardly plan of forcing myself to live with longer, gelled nails.

So I filed and filed and filed some more until I'd filed too much, but the animals were gone. Then I went to J. to ask for the short-nail tips, glue and a clipper.

I spent the next two and a half hours filing, pasting, filing, accidentally removing, repasting, filing some more, purposefully removing, repasting and filing until I thought I'd done a reasonably well job of filing my own nails into shape. J. did not agree and sent me to I., who helped me file off the excess glue and make sure my nails were uniform in shape. Sis, who'd watched me file with growing pity, asked me why I hadn't done that in the first place. I told her I wanted to practice and learn. I'd learned so far that enthusiastic filing is mildly painful and how to remove tips.

Next, I got to work with gels.

I learned something new as soon as I started hardening out the ground layer of gel. Enthusiastically filed (read: overfiled) nails hurt a lot when put in a machine. Then I put on two layers of sky blue, skipping building gel in favor of keeping a shred of sanity after my vigorous filing excercise.

Then I wanted to paint clouds and grass, but even with tips and what I considered to be long nails, I didn't have enough room for the pastoral masterpiece I had in mind. Also, I don't have the ability to do complicated stuff left-handed. So I switched tactics and went from masterpiece to simplistic fun.

White got swapped for sparkly pink, I drew some vertical lines on my nails and voilà! instant fun nails. A quick layer of sealant over it and off to show it off. Apparently, even pink pinstripes on a blue background are creative: I got complimented on my nice ideas. Then I showed J.,  who agreed it was a nice idea, but was not at all happy with the mess I'd made from my right hand. There was gel on skin, gloopy lines... My left hand was super, though. Sis pointed out to me that your dominant hand always looked a bit crappier than your nondominant hand, which cheered me up a bit.

Then I went home, admiring my brand new, self-placed tips. I'm getting better. Let's see if I can keep them on until after my vacation.

The Bedlinen

Today, I was planning on being lazy. Then I told my cousin about it, and she was shocked and appalled at the concept of her having to get up at six, be in the hospital for her internship at seven and work until at least a quarter past three pm and me spending the day in bed with a good book or sitting behind the pc, playing video games.

So I did the dishes. Compulsively. Then I scrubbed the counter tops and the cooking plate. I helped Boyfriend gather up the garbage.

I even got to doing laundry. And then some more. Then I ran out of fabric softener, so I thought 'no more laundry for me'.

Then Boyfriend went into the city to pick up the other half of my medication for my foot and do some light shopping. He asked if we were out of something. I said we needed some orange popsicles, a carton of milk and maybe some fabric softener. Boyfriend came back with popsicles, ice cream, four cartons of milk and a bigger bottle of fabric softener than we usually have.

It was the same color, but a different brand. It wouldn't have worked at home. I know this for a certainty, since I've seen my dad come home with the same color but a different brand and also with the same brand but a different color. Both times were apparently serious enough incidents to warrant a very displeased look and comment from my mom, who is Lord and a Master of the laundry machine at our house.

My reaction was a thank-you and going back to the bathroom to do more laundry. The new softener smell delicious. And it needs less to make a rather large load (I stuffed as much laundry into the vat as it would hold) smell daisy fresh. Yes, it's not available from where Boyfriend shops twice a week and yes, it's slightly more expensive, but even with the smaller bottle we needed to buy it like once a month. The stuff can cost up to five euros for all I care, it won't be the thing to crack our budget any time soon.

I'm currently on my sixth load of the day. Most of that was bedlinen. I'm trying to dry it all on our tiny drying rack. It's warm, so it's sort of working for the top layer, and the bottom part was nearly dry anyway. Hopefully, the bits in the middle won't turn out stinky.

I thought I was done. Note the past tense there.

Then I remembered the polyester bedlinen we still have. Which also needs washing. And Boyfriend's red T-shirt is sort of skulking at the bottom of the laundry basket, too. And the heat came back up, so I'm guessing our clothes for tomorrow will want laundering tomorrow evening as well. Except we're having guests tomorrow evening. Drat.

I was hoping to be done by tonight, but the bedlinen gods decided otherwise. So I'll keep washing a bit more. Even if I don't finish, I'm not gonna get back from vacation to face 'Mt. Laundry - Muahahahaha!'. 'Hill Laundry - Neener-Neener-Neener' is a possibility, though. We're coming home on a Saturday evening. I can cram a few loads in before Monday, right?

The Good News

Today was a good day.

First of all, the doctor looked at my ouchie. It's not doing normal things, but it's not AAAAH-level bad. I've been told to elevate my foot whenever possible (whenever possible is kinda tricky) and to sleep with a compress soaked in a tincture that he promised will dye anything it touches to an irremovable yellow. Charming, no?

Going to the doctor abroad was the predictable bureaucratic nightmare it is supposed to be. Once we got everything sorted, however, everything went smoothly. The people were nice, the doctor was nice, the dog acclimatising to people by hiding behind the doctor's desk was very nice. Even the lady in the pharmancy giving me my tincture was nice.

Next, Boyfriend has two dry spots on his forehead from wearing his awesome hat in the hat. I told his mom about this, knowing it was mostly embarrassing, but harmless and some face cream would sort it out in a few days. J.'s reaction was to dig in the studio's merchandise and come up with a travel pack of face cream, night face cream and eye cream. He shall be hydrated to the extreme if he sticks with it. It was sort of comical to see a guy try to handle 'feminine' cosmetics. Lacking a girl's experience of being forced by magazines to learn how to handle them, he decided it was like cold cream and basically lathered his forehead with five days face-and-neck worth of cream. I'm evil for doing this, I know, but I giggled before helping him. Then I explained how to apply it in the future. It suddenly made a lot more sense to him that only a little came out when you pumped it.

The biggest news today, however, happened before all this. Boyfriend passed his theory test for driving school. This is apparently the hardest part of learning to drive in Germany, and he's been fighting and sulking and pouting about it for nearly two years. He tried once before, failed and it made him feel insecure about it. He promised he'd make work of it when I moved in however, so I nagged him every day to study at least once a day and he passed! You have rarely ever seen such a happy Boyfriend. I need to lack serious clothing and inhibitions to make him grin like he did all day.

The story on that, however, is not over yet. He now hasn't driven a car in nine months and still has to practice before taking the practical. Next week, he gets a reprieve, since we're on holiday, but after that I'm turning my whining powers back on full blast so he practices at least twice a week and learns from his mistakes, if he makes any. He has until October to pass the test and I promised him a surprise if he makes it.

One problem: I don't know what the surprise is gonna be yet. Oh, well.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to bandage my foot in the yellow dye thing and pray the purple bulls-eye patterns goes away, the swelling goes down and I don't have to go back to the doctor on Friday.