short stories

I started running again. Not much, still only 30-40 minutes, but in Stuttgart it doesn't take long until you're climbing hills or stairs. The trick is to find the gentlest routes up and down. Half the time a rusty bolt, the other half, Usain Bolt.

Saori went to the late yoga session monday night and I went for a run. Afterwards, I was just tired and wanted some easy to make dinner. Frozen pizza would have done it. But we don't even have so much as a box of mac n cheese or a can of chili to dump in the microwave. It's something that's gone from our lifestyle living here- less from a consciencious decision as much as the fact that the frozen pizzas are terrible. Actually I don't know why we eat so little prepared food- Dr.Oetiker brand is owned by the richest family in Germany- but its probaby because we just aren't used to it.
So I set a bag of dried spätzle to boil, minced an onion and started carmelizing it in a pan, and shedded a block of spanish manchego to make kase spätzle. Saori pointed out that it would have been easier to just make ramen but Id forgotten about it.

Fall hit Stuttgart when the last date in August touched the ground. The weather dropped ten degrees celcius overnight. Now, well into scarves and jacket weather, we are facing a cold and rainy week.

Fun fact about Stuttgart- it's actually the hometown of Roland Emmerich, director best known for a bunch of big budget disaster movies like Independance Day, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow. I can feel a strange sort of connection between these films, which are popcorn fluffed, bloodless, children's fantasies and the easy and sometimes sterile environment of Stuttgart. In many ways, Stuttgart is high density suburbia: affluence and listlessness, a bedroom community which happens to be located in a giant industrial and economic powerhouse. The reason you keep running into people you know is that the city doesn't really have that many compelling places to go.