Normally I love to get E-Mail but this past couple of days has me on tenterhooks waiting to get the news that my uncle is gone. (2 points for using the word tenterhooks correctly in a sentence.)  He woke up for awhile last night, he was lucid and recognized everyone that was there.  Then he slipped back into unconsciousness.  He's on a straight morphine drip, good no more pain, and really no need to worry about addiction.  I'd like to thank my friends for sticking by me through this incredibly depressing business.  I understand that you might not know what to say, but your hearts  show you care, no need for explanations.  The words that you and you left meant the world to me also, you know I love you guys.  

Kat had me laughing like a loon at her Revenge of the Sith post. see here or on her site.  That felt really good, laughing like that.  Bear kept looking over at me like he always does when I'm reading and laughing.  Finally I slid the computer over to him and sure enough it wasn't long before he was laughing too.  It helps that we just saw the movie on Sat. so everything was still fresh in our minds.  My favorite was Lord Grievous' "snappy comeback".

I just heard about this kid.  Just my luck that he subscribes to over 30,000 people in a little over two minutes and he somehow skipped me.  This kid is some kind of genius.  Now that the xanga gods shut down his site and wiped his subscriptions he's had to promise to be a good boy and subscribe the old fashion way.  One at a time, or they'll shut him down for good.  I read a lot of his site and he seemed sincere to me.  I think he just has the general hubris of all 18 year old males.  (2 more points for hubris.) 

In case your wondering the literacy is all Branns' fault, thanks to her and KOL I have had to bow down at the altar of literacy.  Not to hard for me to do either.  If they had a book of the day club instead of book of the month I would be first in line.  Sometimes reading fast is a curse. And don't even get me started on tH15,  L8ly it's been my F8 to see it alot and I H8 it.  Can't you just type a complete word.  If it' not a complete word it slows me down and that's just irritating. (mini rant)  Hah! I typed runt first.  mini runt, that's redundant.  (2 more)   Anyway she got me hooked on that ridiculous online game, currently I am a level 10 Moose Harasser.  (don't ask it's just scary)  It's amazing what a person with time on there hands is willing to do.  The crazy part is how hooked I got, this is why I stay away from drugs.

Did three things today and only one was pleasant.  Can you guess which?

#1 Went and got my yearly "well woman".  Nothing like a cold speculum in the morning...better than coffee. 

#2 Saw my physical therapist, she isn't pleased with my lack of mobility, wants an ankle MRI to see what's up.  Maybe if I get it they'll find my brain.

#3 Got about 3 inches chopped off my raggedy dead hair and got the sides trimmed and shaped. 

The suspense is killing you I'm sure.  oh, okay whiney  drum roll.  #2.......not what you thought is it, she speaks English and she massages my leg.  I am a sucker for a good massage.  So a visit to her is always a little pleasant. 

The haircut comes in second place. My hair looks pretty good, even though she couldn't speak English and I was terrified she'd whack it before I could stop her.  I think she did good.  I taught her a couple English words and she taught me a couple German. I have sucessfully started a diplomatic relationship with a new hairdresser.  For you guys out there sniggering over how dumb that sounds......think back to your last REALLY BAD haircut.  Did the barber speak English?  Imagine trying to explain what you want and getting nothing back but blank looks.  Then imagine having grown your hair to a really long soft mane over a period of YEARS.  Then sit your ass in the chair I was sitting in today.  (Hey, I think that qualifies as another mini runt.)

If you only visit one link in this terribly long rambling discourse make it the one from Kat about Star Wars.  You won't regret it. 

Smiles from me to you! 

A little addition I found.

There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on
Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large
elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no
recollection of what to do with them.

My uncle is dying.  If you pray, don't pray that he lives, pray that God's will be done. Pray for my Aunt, and his sisters and brothers and his children who will be left behind to mourn his death.  Pray for a peaceful passing.  Last night he was taken to hospice care.  His lungs are filling with fluid and his kidneys are shutting down.  He has congestive heart failure.  He's tired and ready to go, we're just not ready to let him go.  Isn't that always the way with the ones we love.  I sit here over 6000 miles away wishing I could make it better, wishing I could be there, but all I can do is pray.  This is the sound of loneliness.  He is in God's hands now and truly what safer place can you be?

Shall I try this again!  I wouldn't have got so mad except it takes forever to upload pictures and then to see it all go poof is just maddening.

So last Sat we went to Nuremburg to look at the VW bugs.  I was surprised there weren't more newer tricked out cars, almost all of them were older.  But most always in pristine condition. 

The blue bug was my faorite.  The picture just doesn't do it justice.  It was perfect inside and out.  In the background you can see part of the Zeppelin Grandstand.  More on that a little later.  Funny how they are all intently looking in the trunk.  I wonder if I missed the plans to dispose of someone? Ha!

I though Herbie was off in Hollywood making movies.  Guess I was wrong, because here he is in Germany with another American friend.

Now you know your tiny when a bug looks large by comparision.  The guy that got out of this car unfolded himself.  That's the only way to describe it.  He had to have had his knees under his chin.  This car makes a mini and a bug look big.  That's Mike, Wes and Bear trying to figure out how they would get in and out if it belonged to them. 

I have never seen a three eyed bug.  With eyelids no less.  We found out it used to be a rally racer and the third headlight is for visibility in the middle of nowhere, isn't that where all rally races are held?  It was the only one out of about 500 that had three headlights.

I took this one pretty early in the day.  The stadium did have a huge back on it with a   giant swastika.  American troops blew it up in 1945.  In 1969 the Germans had to blow up  a big part of the building that stood at the far end of the field for safety reasons.  As you can see it's a race track now.  They also hold concerts in the grassy areas.  Teenagers skateboard all over it and on the day we were here there was a circus setting up in the grass behind the bug show.

Me and Mike standing where "you know who" gave some of his speeches.  Back in the day there was no railing.  Notice were both wearing coats in July.  The temp didn't get above 63 until late in the afternoon.  If the sun had stayed out and the wind had quit blowing it wouldn't have been so cold.  We did end up taking them off later in the day.  It's weird for this Southern girl to be wearing a coat in summer.  It just seems wrong.

This is probably my favorite shot of the day.  Porta Potties!  There we are standing where Hitler stood and getting all kinds of weird vibes from it and you look down and see all these porta potties.  My how things have changed.

Piece of crap xanga ate my post.  I'll try again later when I'm not so furious.

We went to a birthday party/bbq held at Soldiers Lake.  A biker buddy turned the big 4-0.  Being the thoughtful gal I am I picked up a card with a couple of cute chicks on the front, that being what most biker guys turning 40 want.

  Before he opened it I told him, "I got you a couple of cute chicks", and he said "damn I really wanted Russians"  This is me.    oh!    Czechs!  damn language barrier! 

Then we all ate, drank and generally got merry.

They call the guy in the red shirt hamster.  Of course having an incredibly twisted mind I ragged on him quite a bit right from the start.  Later on after I had a "few" he's telling me how he was at the bahnhof and saw an incredibly hot girl with pants way down on her hips and her thong pulled high.  And how he tried to get his camera out and get a picture of her ass before she got away.  I looked at him and said "You are such a Perv. You just wanted to print it out and do God knows what."  Mike proceeded to snort beer out of his nose and Justin laughed so hard he fell off the picnic table.  Bear is choking and trying to get away before he dies laughing and the "hamster" says all innocent "What?"    They told me a few days later that he really is a perv and I have good instincts for picking up on it 5 min after meeting him.  God, men can be incredibly dense.  All you have to do is look at the guy and you can tell he's a perv.   Opening his mouth just confirmed it.

A face only a mama could love.  Or a Harley rider.  So of course at this particular party he was very well loved.  He was rescued many years ago from the asswipe that made him lose his eye in a gruesome bit of abuse.  (sometimes I hate people) Now he's a happy rider with a good life, and he still has the sweetest disposition.  What a face, classic!

The kissing bandit!  Every time I turned around there he was, smooch, smooch.  At one point I thought to myself "Bear is gonna kill me all this smooching"  But then I noticed that he is an equal opportunity smoocher and Bear got just as many as I did.  So if I have a new boyfriend then so does he!  And yeah, the bandit did have one to many long before we got there. 

All for now, next post the Volkswagen show in Nuremberg.  It's this coming Sat and will be held in the same stadium Hitler held his infamous Nuremberg rally's.  I'm sure the platypus is already getting jealous of my opportunity to see thousands of bugs.  I promise many pictures.    

This is all her fault, you guys know how I am about reindeer games. Pick me, pick me.  Worse than third grade.  This has special significance though....it's all about sex.  yippee.

Name five fictional characters to have sex with.  But for better visuals go to google images and name them with pictures.

1. Aragorn/Strider LOTR    oh Viggo! your such a dirty guy.

2. Vin Diesel as Dom in The Fast And The Furious

3. Antonio Banderas as  Zorro

4. Patrick Swayze as Johnny in Dirty Dancing

 or  Ghost 

5. and last but definitely not least

Pierce Brosnan as Bond, James Bond

Have fun! and tag MyKi, Allie and platypus!  play along nicely now.  Let your imagination roam.   And thanks again Kallikrates you got my, um, creative juices flowing. heh, heh!

Why does my computer keep going back to German when I've told it repeatedly that Mien verstandlich um Deutsch ist schrecklichen?  Even that is probably.... falsch.  Which may be why the computer is ignoring me. *big sigh*    On the good side all the spam and ads are in Deutsch too, so that makes it really easy to ignore and delete.

 Someone mentioned on another blog in the comment section that modern day absinthe "is less than the stuff you hear about historically"  All I have to say about that is you've never had the stuff from modern day CZECH!  How did Jed Clampett put it....Wee doggy!  Though I think now you would just say holy s#@t ! !  My throat was on fire and yes we put the flames out BEFORE drinking.  I don't think I'll be doing that again since I didn't care for the taste and it gave me uber vivid dreams.  One of which involved flying by wiggling my toes.  Yup, skipping that little treat next time.

Speaking of gas (petrol, not beans) Our prices have gone through the roof.  They went up to 1.27 per liter.  Now for those of you unwilling to do the math I got curious and did it for you.  I kind of wished I hadn't by the time I was done.  Anyway here it is.  Follow me if you dare...

3.785 Liters to 1 U.S. Gal.  = 4.81 Euro per gal at 1.27 per liter.  But we have this little thing called a bad conversion rate.  In which it costs us $1.21 American to buy 1 Euro  So with the conversion rate in reality were paying

$5.82 per gal of gas.  Oh the agony!  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Bear went and got the car registered with usaeur plates and now we will be able to pay the low bargain price of $2.30 a gal.  Of course he had to take two days off of work unpaid to get through the morass of Army regulations and German de-registration but hey, in 2 months we should break even. 

Meanwhile, here we are happily running around the country.  Of course we knew it was costing a lot we just didn't want to face the cold hard truth.  The 40.00 eu. we usually put in got to where it didn't even fill the tank, and we drive a little bitty car. And that's almost $50.00.  Brother, it's getting hard to be a tourist.  My natural inclination is go, go, go.  But the expense is saying Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

My sister had her 8th grand baby.  Both her sons have now given her 4 a piece.  The third son is childless as far as HE claims.  I would now like to publicly thank both my kids for waiting.  Not that I wouldn't love to have a grand baby to spoil....but you kinda of have to be on the same continent to do that.  And I think were all three to young to be having babies....don't you?  Anyway my sis "CJ" is flying to K.C. MO. to meet the new bambino and my other sis "Corona" is driving over from St Louis, so there is much jealousy afoot in Germany right now.  Erg, it just kills me wanting to be in two places at once. 

One for the road.

This is on the second story of a building in the middle of town.  Nothing like a little public humiliation to keep you on the straight and narrow, right!

I thought I had deleted this picture off my camera, so I was glad to find it...this is why I want to be able to run.

Notice the red gleaming eyes.

The determined stare.

The agressive stance.

Oh yeah!  A getaway plan is a must when dealing with this momma.

Our little spot on this world is safe.  But all of the Army posts are on a higher alert.  Which for us means plan on having your car searched when going through the gate.  Dogs doing their job.  Which doesn't bother me but I always feel like it's a case of closing the barn door after the cow got out. 

This post on the London bombing has been deleted.  The terrorists responsible don't need or deserve any more attention. 

I do feel compelled to leave the previous comments, though they most likely won't make much sense anymore.  Kind of like my posts now that I think about it.