The Five Stages of IKEA

Almost everyone has gone through it at some point in their lives.
It's overwhelming. You are flooded with emotions and questions. It is important to remember that you are not alone. The five stages of IKEA have been well documented since the first Swedish studies of the 1980's. The human experience is as old as flatpack furniture itself.

Disbelief
Why is this happening to me? you ask yourself, I can't believe the entire population of my city is shopping here today. The sheer monumentally of the building and the crush of people are nearly unimaginable. You have even mentally prepared. but it is entirely normal to be quickly overwhelmed.

Confusion
After the initial shock has worn off, usually in the kitchen section, you find yourself in the midst of being carried along by large crowds of people. Where am I? Why did I come here? What the hell does this gibberish name even mean? How am I supposed to get this piece of furniture in my yellow tote bag? Where did I even get this yellow tote bag??? It is normal to be disoriented and confused in these early stages.

Anger
Confusion quickly turns to anger as the people adopt defensive postures as "fight or flight" response to the confusion and crowds. You may find yourself lashing out violently at other shoppers with your yellow tote, or venting your frustration in other inappropriate ways. The best way to deal with these antisocial thoughts of slaughtering families with brightly-colored kitchen knives is to take a few minutes rest on the $150 mattresses, concentrate on the lights, and count to ten.

Euphoria
Unexpectedly, at the moment of greatest anger, there is a moment where perspective slips and you realize that you can buy almost the thing you need for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps you never bake, but you might and frankly $3 for a cake display is too good to pass up. IKEA is based upon the idea that if you make the price low enough, people will buy anything. Once you break through to the euphoria stage, your yellow tote will rapidly fill with 99 cent dish towels, flimsy glassware, plush rabbits, coffee tables, and thirty or forty pine wood picture frames. Whatever it is, you say to yourself, throw it in! It's half the price at Target!

Exhaustion
This euphoria eventually burns itself out as you become dehydrated and fatigue sets in. The more you look, the more you see the shoddy workmanship and cheap materials. You no longer fight the push of the crowds but let yourself be moved along. Now, you may be regretting some of the things you put in your bag and cart in the throes of euphoria, but you are too tired to take them out. Whatever, you may think, it almost does the job. Numbly you are content to stand still in line since you don't have to look at anything anymore. You grit your teeth and think just a swipe of the credit card and I am free.

(Conditional acceptance)
Once you are home, rested, you have assembled your furniture, rested again, you sit back and say, you know, this crap is tolerable, but sometime soon I'm going to replace this cardboard crap with something nice.

It's totally understandable.

Mez, one of the Mexican interns, left shortly after I got back, and because I'd worked most closely with her, I was tasked with making her goodbye card.

catching up

It's been a busy time since I got back to Stuttgart.
German classes started up again, with mostly the same class and the same teacher, but I have ended up missing a few even this early because of a competition I've been working on at the office.

We wrapped up the competition yesterday with me delivering the roll of plans to the office in Mannheim. This was kind of fun, actually. It's nice to be paid to go someplace different, although it was a scramble at the last minute to print out the final documents, seal the tube, and jump out of the office 20 minutes before my train left the station. It's a fast ten minute walk to the main station from my office, and then a quick 40 minutes to Mannheim on the slick ICE high speed trains.

In Mannheim, it took me fifteen minutes flat to deliver the tube and then I had about two hours to kill in the town. The third biggest city in the the state was not so interesting, despite it's location at the confluence of the Neckar and the Rhine rivers. The city is unique in Germany for its gridded city center, with each block roughly 100m long.

https://www.google.de/maps/@49.488057,8.4683271,15z

I spent most of my time roaming around the city on foot. Some really bad (or good) postmodern architecture. A big university in a giant palace. A high street with all the usual brands in Germany. Lots of Turkish food. I was back at the train station, perusing the bookstore, an hour before my train left.

To celebrate the end of the competition, I picked up a kilo and a half of mussels on sale and I cooked moules marineiere with crusty bread for dinner. Good stuff, although we both agreed we need to eat lighter generally at night.

The weekend I got back, Saori and I went shopping and I got a new wool coat, lighter than my heavy winter one. The weather here this last few weeks has hovered between freezing and a few degrees above, with snow flurries and rain.

Last weekend, I was in the office for a few hours saturday but afterwards went out to a party at a friend's house. Saori and I came early to help prepare the food with a few other friends. Assembly might be a better word since what we were doing was smearing different spreads on sliced bread and cutting them into neat squares and rectangles. The host and her boyfriend got into a small fight (both are architects) about the patterning created by the different spread breads. I was torn between thinking the whole production was type A to the extreme or an interesting and elegant way to present party food since it is about as far as you can get from opening a can of salsa and a bag of chips.

Anyway, we met a lot of new people that night, almost entirely German, and caught the last train back to town with two other friends who convinced us to grab one last late night drink at one of their favorite bars. It was a smoke-filled rock and roll dive bar, and packed at one o'clock in the morning. The ceiling was filled with shot glasses, and the four of us squeezed into a table we shared with some other guys. Saori explained that it was one of the few bars in town that play straight up rock and roll, which was its appeal. I ended up practicing my German with the guy next to me. The benefit of speaking German while a drunk is it considerably loosens your tongue, but the downside is you are not in the most 'learning receptive' mindset.

Stuttgart Ho!

It was a quiet morning when I left Houston.
I drank the coffee dad had brewed once I was up, and finished packing the suitcase and the backpack. I was precisely at 50 pounds for my suitcase, so the overflow, including all the wedding planning books and magazines had to go into my carry-on, actually Saori's hiking pack from the storage unit.
I did a sweep of the bedroom and the bathroom and the kitchen, the areas where I spent the most time, and then toasted a bagel for breakfast before dad came downstairs. He took the morning off to take me to the airport.
Traffic in Houston slowed us a down a bit, but not unexpectedly. It was a cool rainy morning.

No problems checking in, although I sweated a little bit thinking about the size of my hiking pack and the full flight to Atlanta. With dense fog, my flight was delayed getting out, and delayed getting in. Coincidentally, I realized that Aunt Ashley was also landing in Atlanta, and she was so delayed getting there, that I would have been able to surprise her in the terminal if my flight had gotten in ten minutes earlier.

Once I checked emails and found my terminal, the flight to Stuttgart was preparing to board. I wish I'd taken an extra five minutes someplace to burn the $7 in USD I had in my wallet. Gifts or something. A last pint of craft beer. Oh well.

Lining up to board the flight to Germany, it was fun to try to pick out the Germans. There are some European facial features and structures, the clothes and shoes especially that they wear. Also in the mix were some US military type people, with the black daypacks a quiet giveaway. For the most part, the crowd looked professional. It was not a full flight, for which I was glad, and gladder to not have the middle seat.

It's a fast crossing. We have a 150mph tail wind which is kicking us along at close to 700 mph ground speed. The flight took me nearly ten hours the other direction, and this trip will be under eight. It's been a quiet flight except for when the stewardess made a quiet announcement asking if there were any doctors or nurses on board. It's really not a laughing matter, but it still made me think instantly of the movie Airplane.

Troupe of Security Actors

You can say many things about this guild of actors, but you can't say that the show hasn't evolved over time.

I would write, normally, quite a few satirical paragraphs about their history, but in a more serious way, I was disturbed by what I saw in my travels this trip stateside.

I remember when I saw rolled out the various "trusted traveler" programs. In exchange for $80 (the price is also falling, used to be more expensive), you can submit to a personal interview and a background check, and this will allow you to go through the "trusted line" at airports. You could keep your shoes on, your laptop in its bag, a simple metal detector instead of a full body scan.

When I left Atlanta on my way to Indy, I was waved to this line, along with everyone else around me, I was told they were allowing us to "try out for free" this system. No checks on shoes, no scans, no laptops out, etc.

I did not sign up for the program: my background has not been checked. I am not a "trusted traveler" but, I was given reduced screening. The same thing happened when I flew out of Houston. There was an actor at the head of the two lines, the "trusted" one and the normal, and he just told everyone to use the trusted one since they were giving more "free random trials" and that we could purchase one good for five years if we wanted.

If the level of security screening can be dropped as a marketing tactic, then why the bloody hell do we have it in place? It's not a question of security, its a question of extortion. If there is no more risk from a passenger like me to use the "trusted" line than the "non-trusted" then basically you hand over your personal details and  money to get a fast-pass. I can live with a fast pass. We are almost at the point where we have Platinum Preferred Citizenship. What I can't tolerate is the pretense of the extra security screening that is apparently just in place to motivate people to pay up and hand over personal details.

And where is the outrage from the people who actually thinks there is a threat? Is the perception of the threat lower than it was after 9/11? That a threat exists: absolutely. If anything, thanks to the actions and inactions of the world community in the middle east, there are probably more people who wish the US harm now than before. However, it should be remembered that this threat is far, far less than the one posed by, say, car drivers.

Houston

I can't believe it's been five days since I got to Houston.

The weather has reminded me of home, damp, rainy and cold, but not freezing temperatures here, which has not been encouraging to get out and do things. It's perfectly fine with me, since I really needed some vacation in my vacation.

I went to Wal-Mart, Target, TJMaxx, used bookstores, half priced bookstores, and liquor stores. I was tasked with hunting down wedding materials, so my first instinct was to find the best used bookstore in town. The place that topped the list, Kaboom books, is clearly the kind of place where the books come in much faster than they go out. Which is kind of it's draw I guess. Books go up to the ceiling, overflow the shelves, stack up on the floor. It is wealth of histories, biographies, literature, philosophy. But the older owner just blinked at me through his round small spectacles when I asked him if he had a wedding book section, or some wedding magazines.

I did end up picking up a book on home brewing beer and a history of Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany.

I ate a lot of food. Mexican food from the finest in town (Hugo's), Mexican food favored by the norteno construction workers (Taqueria Laredo), and Mexican food for urban professionals (Tacos a Go Go). Dad grilled us lamb one night and we will have thick steaks tonight too.

Still haven't had my Houston doughnut fix yet, but I plan on remedying this tomorrow at Christie's Kolache Factory.

Lots of music and drinking events as well. Thursday night we went to what was basically a fundraising event by the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra at the St. Arnold brewery. Open taps and live drinking music from the brass section and strings. The event was a bit disorganized. The music was hard to hear, and there wasn't enough seating (although we found seats!) at the communal picnic tables in the brewery's beer hall. It was still fun and unusual though.

Last night we went to listen to a Krystal Cherelle sing at Vine Wine House. We were the first paying customers of the night and we grabbed a table and some wine and cheese and enjoyed her music. Really nice voice. Afterwards, we went to grab a bite at Tacos-a-go-go and jumped over to Antique Art Bar for another drink. It's a short walk from the taco joint, but I led everyone the wrong way and we ended up having to take the light rail back up the street to the club. It was a harrowing experience for Neri who is really not accustomed or comfortable walking around downtown at night or dealing with homeless.

midwest blitz: Ponca to Indy

We got up early saturday morning and grandma made us a farewell breakfast before we got on the road. Tay drove us down to Grandma Loretta's an hour or so away.

It was good to see Grandma Loretta too. We plopped on the couch and visited awhile when we arrived, before she served us up some BBQ she'd picked up in town for lunch. After lunch, we opened presents. Josh and Andera gifted us a really sweet Engagement ornament.

Grandma is selling her house, so a lot of the furniture is already gone. There were some new carpeting, and the dining room finally was empty save for the dining table. That room, more than any, saw the biggest changes since I first remember coming to the house.

My earliest memories there, the room was dark and vaguely smokey, dominated by a massive pool table, and with a mysterious and clanking Japanese pachinko machine on the wall.

Grandma drove us over to the apartment she is renting, in a nearby senior housing community, and showed us around.  Afterwards, we went to the post office to mail our thank you cards to Josh and Andera (Tay suggested it), before we headed over to Braum's for cherry limeades. While at Braum's, Tay raised the possibility of going to the Casino, and so, why not? we drove over to the nearby Riverwind casino.

We all started with $20. Grandma hit the slots while Tay and I headed over to the $5 blackjack tables. It's a little fun, but not really my thing. I guess because I am not constantly equating the chips in my hand to what they represent, its just a kind of token economy. And the game moves so fast, I dont really feel comfortable counting my chips between hands. The bullshit aspect is the 50 cent ante that you are required to play, a kind of per-hand fee. This strikes me as entirely bullshit since the casino is going to take your money regardless though the action of gambling. At a $5 table, you lose the equivalent of one hand every ten hands. Anyway, my fortune waxed and waned a bit, but at the end of 30 minutes, I was busted, Tay was $30 up, and grandma struck it at $150. I guess I am a good luck charm to everyone else. Grandma bought us a round at the bar, "Chips n' Ales" which was exactly how it sounds, but with more sports bar rolled into it.

The next morning, grandma rolled out a midwestern country breakfast of scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, and sausage. I miss these breakfasts a lot. Well-stuffed, we loaded up the car again and hit the road to Uncle Jeff's. He was still sleeping and Karsten was gone dropping off a friend, so its a sleepy aunt Ashley who met us and we quickly loaded up the SUV with the table and were on our way.

The weather was really good the entire trip. It was smooth driving up to St. Louis, listening to Tay's NPR podcasts, talking a bit, taking the occasional gas and pee break. We stopped in St. Louis for dinner at Sugarfire, a local chain not far from where I used to live. I got a brisket pieces and spicy sausage sandwich with pickles and BBQ sauce and tay got a platter. It was good, but not exceptional, not nearly the same caliber of BBQ as bogarts nor the gold standard Pappy's.

I finished the run from St.Louis back to Indy. Along the way, it began to snow lightly, and it was really only one stretch where we were driving through a snow flurry. We finally got back to Tay's place around 11pm, making pretty good time actually, and unloaded the SUV and put the table in place in the kitchen. It's going to triple his counter space.

The box of stuff he got from dad was a mix ranging from interesting objects worthy of hauling around (Balinese masks) to trash (Worst Psychotic Murderers, and Russian language workbooks). There was, inexplicably, an egg container for the refrigerator.

I finished my repacking and sorting (all the hard drives go into carry-on) and slept fitfully. If there has been one constant this trip, it has been low quality of sleep, and mostly filled with bad dreams.

In the morning, I had to say goodbye to my brother, and took the SUV back to the rental agency at the airport after gassing it up. Only turned the wrong way down a one way major street once.

midwest blitz: Indy to Ponca

The first day of the new year, we were up at 8 am. I cooked us some more eggs fried in last night's bacon grease, and then we threw our bags in Tay's car and we set off for Chelsea's. Chelsea graciously offered to drive us to the car rental place, so we dropped Tay's car, transferred the luggage and road snacks, and headed over.

Since Tay and I had been talking about making a midwest trip, he rented a midsize SUV to carry back a load of stuff dad had been carrying around for him, as well as a very expensive oak prep table dad picked up in the UK. Tay paid for the rental and we decided to split gas, which turned out to be a fantastic arrangement since the price of oil is so low right now.

The only problem was Tay was so nauseated he could barely finish the rental process. We had to put the car on my credit card because these cheap car rental agencies will only allow the use of debit cards if you have a return flight. I don't understand the logic, but you go.

Since Tay was basically incapacitated, I took the first leg. We had a Nissan Rogue and it was a really nice car. Handled well, comfortable to drive. Outside of St.Louis Tay's nausea became really acute and I pulled over where you could see the arch in the distance, and Tay got reaquainted with his breakfast.

We drove straight to my storage locker and I left Tay to rest in the car while I rummaged around to pull some stuff to take back to Germany. Saori and I were both concerned about our external hard drives in the harsh midwestern climate, and I also pulled out some more cold weather clothing which was convenient and Saori's hiking pack.

We took the scenic route across the river, right by the arch and across the flyover through downtown. It was strange being back in St. Louis, but really surreal to see our stuff in the storage unit again. Saori and I were both there when we filled it and locked it about two years ago, and I remember wondering what would have changed in the time that had passed since I last locked everything up. Fortunately, everything in the locker looked undisturbed, not too cold, and there was no sign of roof leaks or any other kind of damage.

Anyway, by the time I emerged with the recovered goods, Tay was feeling much better and was well enough to be hungry. We drove to the nearby vietnamese place we used to eat on Olive road, and I had a good duck soup while Tay ate some Pho. Soup was probably a good choice for fragile stomachs.

After lunch, we hit the Ladue Schnucks and bought a case of Urban Chestnut beer and a gooey butter cake.

We got out of St.Louis late, nearly dark, and Tay drove to Kansas City. We switched after Kansas City and I took the wheel all the way to Ponca. This was a different route than normal, since before I'd always gone by Bartlesville. It was supposedly an extra 30 minutes to take the Kansas City route, but I am sure we more than made up for it. Besides, I was really not looking forward to the winding and narrow country backroads one needs to take across vast tracts of wilderness from the Bartlesville direction.

Grandma Betty was sleeping when we arrived, and Tay had to go knock on the glass to wake her up to let us in.

We had a busy next day in Ponca: runs to the bank, to the pharmacy, a swing by Brace's Books, probably the most conservative independent bookstore/coffee bar I've ever seen, but still one of the gems of Ponca. I've never seen so many books by Glenn Beck in one place. We bought grandma a cake at Pyramid, and stopped by Braum's for ice cream. Tay and I had a thorough discussion about which flavor to take home. Tay, arguing from the stance of separation of nuts and ice cream, championed fudge ripple, while I argued for the equal representation of black walnut, essentially a state's delights issue. Grandma ruled that black walnut was one of her favorites but handed down a pluralist decision.

For Grandma's 85th birthday dinner, we took her Enrique's which had expanded its seating further into the airport terminal. Bob and Velma met us there, and they also brought Helen Head, the mother of the founders of Head Country BBQ, who used to make the pecan pies they sold in the store. She is an incredibly sweet woman, 91 years old, who crocheted us pot scrubbers once, and who most recently volunteered to drive grandma around when she had her neck brace on.

Bob and Velma looked in good spirits and were really happy to see us, although poor Velma's legs don't work so well and she is forced to use a walker to get around in a rather painful way.

That night, I had trouble sleeping so I ended up photographing a lot of old photos of the Cases and Walkers.

Misc. Indy

The bad news was that Tay had to work this week while I came to visit. However, the good news was that his slate of cases was really light for the week between Christmas and New Years so he was generally able to take off around 3 or 4 every day. The few normal work days I was there, I'd get up early with Tay, make coffee and quickly fry up some eggs and bacon or sausage for us for Breakfast.

The first day Tay worked, I drove him to the office so I could use his car. I drove to Target and bought some more things for Germany and also a new shower curtain for the back side of Tay's standing tub.  After I picked him up, we walked through his neighborhood to Goose the Market, a new development meant to replicate the old pedestrian storefronts. Really really good sandwiches, although it was unclear that we were going to pay an extra $2 uncorking fee for the bottles of craft beer we drank off the shelf.

We spent a lot of time decorating, actually, trying to figure out how to use what Tay described as his bar room. It took us a few hours to assemble a new heavy wooden shelf Tay ordered and had delivered, and while he was gone one day, I took the liberty of totally re-arranging the space. We walked in and said "that's....an idea [but not a desirable one]." We joked back and forth the whole trip about our differing ideas of what his concept of "modern speakeasy" meant.

One day I walked over through more fallen down neighborhoods to check out the local Habitat ReStore, but there was nothing that I would have dragged back over to Tay's.

Wednesday, New Years eve, Tay had a half day, so we drove out in search of a traditional Indy dish, breaded pork tenderloin in a sandwich. Coming from Germany, this is known there as schweinschnitzel. Like St. Louis, there was a large influx of German immigrants early in the city's history and the food culture persisted. But not just any tenderloin sandwich would do.

Tay picked me up at his place and we drove together to lunch at The Gaslight Inn. Tay told me that this was a place considered by many to be haunted, located as it was outside of one of the oldest cemeteries. Imagine, in the heart of the brick city, an ancient crumbling brick building, with shadowy rooms upstairs and a dusty bar complete with a doily covered piano.

This is entirely nothing like The Gaslight Inn of Indianapolis. There were a few old elements, a crumbling brick column in the center of the room, but the Inn was really nothing more than a woodsiding dive bar with some cute ghosts on the sign with the establishment name. Instead of dapper hipsters, the wide majority of the bar's patrons looked like blue collar regulars, and despite the pedegree and interest (the Gaslight Inn has been featured in many "haunted places" tv shows) probably most people come because they're regulars first, for the tenderloin sandwich second, and probably a scant scattering of ghosthunters.

Tay and I both ordered the sandwich, and split an order of onion rings, and we both washed it down with a cold bottle of budweiser. Huge sandwiches. I hate to say it, but they were pretty unremarkable. Except mine bled a ton of bright red blood all over the table, and Tay's sandwich floated sixteen inches above his plate until he sliced it in half with his knife. No, not really. It was good, but honestly there's little one can do with a flattened and breaded pork tenderloin to make it exceptional.

The funny thing was after we paid, Tay casually asked the server if we could take a look around. She gave him a strange look and mumbled something about needing to ask the manager. A few minutes later, there was a bald and lean gentleman, looked like late 50s or early 60s, standing by the table and asked to take a seat. This was the owner, a former bartender. He took us in, Tay still wearing his sharp suit from court, me in a heavy sweater. "Who are you with?" he asked, his eyes darting between the two of us. His serious and wary expression suggested that I should not reply, "Perkins, party of two."

It turned out that there were groups of people, ghost hunters, TV show makers, etc. who came out to the house to ghost hunt, and he thought we were one of them. What followed then was about half an hour of him talking about the place, the initial terrifying episodes ( a chalk line turned out missing which was never found), about how alcohol depletes the spiritual aura around a person (at this point, he pointed at Tay and said, "this guy, he gets it! He knows what I'm talking about!") since we were both listening politely and giving somewhat ambiguously encouraging nods to these kind of people in hopes they will top themselves. Anyway, he ran himself out and finally said that we would be welcome to come back and check the place out with a medium, a psychic he referred people too. He said that she could look at you and tell you who you are, not right now, but were in the past. And that she was going to the local univeristy. I regret asking about what degree she was pursuing. Anyway, convo me for the contact info.

After we extricated ourselves from Paranormal Pete's Pork and PBR, we walked over to the cemetery behind the restaurant. It was a big Jewish cemetery with very German names and a few really old gravestones. The oldest we found dated back from the early 1800s, which would not have been much longer after the founding of the city.  But it was cold as hell too, so we shuffled back to the car.

That night, I took Tay out to the Libertine, a cocktail bar close to the circle, where we had a few $10 very good, and strong, cocktails, before heading over to Chelsea's place. Chelsea lives with two other girls and they had a feminist Christmas tree where feminist icons were pasted to the ornaments. We drank a little more there before heading over to a house party of mostly the girl's friends, which were mostly a mix of recent graduates. I font think I was even the oldest guy there. Oddly, there was a photo booth in one of the rooms upstairs and every group got photographed.

When the ball dropped, I lead our group in Auld Lang Syne which apparently I was the only one at the party to remember the words, and we toasted with Corbel sparkling wine. We left shortly after since Tay was really tired and I was jet lagged as hell.

When we got back to the house, I fried up an entire package of bacon, which probably helped soften the blow of the booze, and after drinking lots of water, I stumbled off to bed. Actually, I hadn't drunk that much: a few cocktails, a few mixed drinks, and a swig of sparkling wine/engine degreaser.

So ended 2014, one of the most event-filled years of a very event-filled life.

Indianapolis: day one

Jet lag didn't let me sleep in much, which suited Suki fine since she usually rouses Tay at 6:30 every morning to feed her. I was in the mood for doughnuts, so I grabbed Tay's car keys and slid behind the wheel for the first time in about 9 months. I drove over first to Long's Bakery, widely regarded as the best doughnut shop in Indy, and bought a half dozen donuts. They were amazing. Some of the best doughnuts I've ever had. Especially the apple cinnamon. And the glazed doughnuts we're a bit like Krispy Kreme's in the way they melt in your mouth, but without the KK donut deflation that I usually find in their glazed.

I'd finished half the box just on the way back home. First though, we needed some food.

I stopped at Tay's grocery store, about a fifteen minute walk away, a Kroger which looked like a typical depressed and impoverished neighborhood supermarket. It was still a treat and contained varieties and foods I'd not seen since leaving the US. I envied the peanut butter aisle. They even had a few local craft beers on sale.

I bought a bunch of staples: tea, coffee, cereal, more eggs, country sausage, bacon, fruits,  vegetables. Tay doesn't cook much, he takes the approach of eating foods which are reasonably healthy and can be fixed in five minutes or less. So he usually eats a lot of salads, sandwiches, and things he can throw on the George Foreman grill.

After putting away the groceries and washing the dishes in the sink, I decided to take a stroll to The Circle, located about a mile and a half south of where Tay lives.

Indianapolis was a city by fiat and geometry: when the state was being established, it was decided that a capital city was required, and it was arbitrarily located in the geographic center of the state. There was nothing actually here except a small forest and an unnavigable small and sandy river. The city was designed as a grid a mile square, with a circle in the center and four diagonal streets radiating away from the circle. This was the nucleus of the city.

Indy reminds me a lot of St. Louis- they shared similar boom times and the brick architecture, landscape, and feel of an impoverished, abandoned, and corroded industrial city. Tay's neighborhood, one of the early neighborhoods outside of the city center, was built of elegant and stately houses likely for the city elites and upper middle class. The years  saw the neighborhood decline in the predictable way, and it was only recently with renewed interest in the urban cores that the neighborhood began to improve and attract new residents. These resi-dental streets are still gap-toothed, but I get the feeling that this will not last.

There are ton of war monuments in Indy, the center of the city is given over to them, including the giant confectionary white pillar and fountains which take up the entire circle. This monument commemorates the "soldiers and sailors" who died in the wars leading up to the erection of the monument before WWI. The city tarted up the column with string lights as a Christmas tree, a move which I at first found incredibly tacky but then softened the more I read the plaques and memorials. Many of the wars commemorated rank among the most unjust in the history of the US: the land grab that was the Mexican war, wars to exterminate and dispossess the Indians. It is nice, however, to have a central focal point in a city, a landmark for understanding the relation of the other parts of the city.

I stopped at the library on the way back. The central branch is lovely, with restored and elegant reading rooms complete with fireplaces, wood paneling, and coved vaulted ceilings. I checked out a book on the history of Indianapolis architecture and simply read for about an hour.

In the afternoon, I drove out to an Indian grocery store and stocked up on Indian spices and ingredients for an Indian dinner. I also grabbed Tay some quick meal Indian pouches and a big box of frozen chapattis so he could have some more after I left. It was a little strange to think about Indians (from India) in Indiana.

When I got back to the house I dragged up the inflatable bed from Tay's haunted basement and ran a load of sheets. Jet lagged, I took a nap for a few hours until Chelsea brought Tay home from the airport around 1AM. She's very nice, very thoughtful and giving. I suppose you need that kind of personality type for social work.

Indianapolis: arrival

Breezed through immigration and customs in Atlanta, and then I had some time to kill before my short flight to Indy. The first thing I ate on arrival in the US was toasted everything bagel with cream cheese. Amazing. I wonder how hard it is to make bagels.

Tay was still in Phoenix when I arrived in Indy, but he apologized profusely and let me detailed instructions. I was debating public transport, but since it was bitter cold, late at night, jet lagged, and exhausted, I wisely opted for a cab, expensive as it was.

I let myself in to Tay's and my old cat Suki came out to greet me. Probably she remembered who I was but I think she was too relieved to have someone pay attention to her to be angry with me for giving her up years ago.

Tay has a great place, a home or duplex which must have been quite expensive and luxurious when it was first built. Original wood floors which are creaky now, but still installed with a very high level of craft. High ceilings and lovely dark wood moldings, doors, and frames. It is the kind of place that suggests dark leather chairs with brass fittings, slowly revolving ceiling fans, and whiskey cocktails. The office of a 1940's private detective, perhaps.

I slept in Tay's bed that night and Suki jumped up to join me. I was pleased and surprised since Tay said she was having trouble getting up, but apparently she CAN but much prefers to be picked up or to use the folding stool Tay bought for that purpose.

Voyage to the Future!

Middle seat on a Delta time machine bound for the Future and possibly, Atlanta. I have finished re-reading Shrier's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I have read finished another masterwork, SkyMall, and all the peanuts are gone. We are still sitting on the ground. At this rate, they will have to de-ice us again, resupply with provisions, replace the engines and airframe, distribute bifocals to those who didn't need them on boarding, and bring priests to baptize the new infants and bless the dead we stored in the overhead bins.

Over an hour after our scheduled departure we creep towards the runway, cargo bay loaded with luggage and a shrink wrapped Christmas present from Porsche which will arrive already qualified for antique plates. Just got an announcement that after the last two planes [ever manufactured] land, we can take off [before they destroy the runway to make room for Stuttgart's second spaceport].

Whee! The winter air roars by the plane as we rush into the aether and future!
[Live-blogging for future posting is a heady experience. It's almost like you are here with me, just several days ago (your time) when it actually happened. I am speaking directly to the future: If you find a way to reply, please let me know post-haste! -Ed.]

The cause of our delay is doubly frustrating.
After the coldest summer of my life, both of us were looking forward to a winter filled with icy wind, frosty panes, and picturesque German townscapes covered in snow. Instead, what we got was not markedly different from summer, except slightly colder and more damp. It poured on Christmas.

This morning, the day we both leave in the morning for international trips to visit family, it snowed. Several inches.

I called us a cab to take us to the airport, partly to save time, but also partly to save us from the 15 minutes of dragging our suitcases through the snow. Another side perk about Stuttgart: almost all the taxis here are Mercedes-Benz. The driver was also confounded by the white stuff on the ground- he drove so slowly the entire way to the airport, it would have been faster to walk. I wasn't disappointed, however. This was the first time for me to snow in Stuttgart, and I held Saori's hand as we watched the snowy city and hills drift by.

This was the city that Saori landed at nearly two years ago. A cab ride from the airport to an unfamiliar town covered in snow. At the airport, we just had time for some coffee after I checked in before I had to jump in the security line. The security line was not so bad, and then there was another at the gate where I cleared immigration. The flight is full and we still have another nine hours to go. Time enough for another story.

Yule

Merry Christmas, Happy Belated Hanukkah, and good tidings for Festus or whatever festival you celebrate which nearly coincides with the winter solstice.

Christmas in Germany is really interesting for one it is incredibly secular. There are scant references to Jesus or the nativity (although Christmas trees are called Christ-child trees) which is in part due to the years of Nazi rule which pushed a secular or even pre-Christian pagan tradition, which was believed to be more purely "Aryan" or authentically German. Songs such as O Tannenbaum are closer references to pagan yuletide tree worship (Yule log, anyone?) than the Christ story.

The second thing is there is not even a nod to Hanukkah here. No dreidels or menorahs at the Christmas markets. No happy Hanukkah cards at the grocery stores. Granted, after the attempted genocide against the Jews in Germany, probably there are not many living here. Perhaps too, there is the shame and crassness of an attempt to mainstream a Jewish festival. But then again, the religiosity of the festival here is really downplayed.

I took a half day off Tuesday, and Saori and I did the last bit of shopping runs. That night, we invited over Xenia and another one of Saori's coworkers and we taught them to make s'mores over the fire and I  listened to them gossip and bitch about work while we drank lots of wine.

I was badly hung over the first part of Wednesday, Christmas Eve day, but Saori made me bacon and eggs and I started feeling better. We cleaned house and then went for a stroll in the woods where I scrounged around for firewood that wasn't too wet. That night, I made a penne bake with roasted zucchini and bell peppers, with lots of mozzarella and Gouda cheese. Turned out pretty good actually. We lit another small fire and then fell asleep watching Charlie Brown Christmas specials and How the Grinch stole Christmas.

This morning, we got up and made coffee and opened presents under the tree. Saori got me a great memory foam pillow and warm socks, and I gave her some Chanel lipstick and a big aloe plant. I also got some cards and other presents from my other two grandmother's. I made a breakfast egg scramble which was festively colored with green peppers and red tomatoes and we cleaned the house again. Skyped mom but didn't get a hold of dad.

Tonight, we hosted a Mexican dinner for Lina and A, the two teenaged (well, Lina just turned 20) daughters of my boss. They brought some mean guacamole and chips and a bean Chile, and I provided the main dishes of pork and potato Colorado and quick fried zucchini with garlic. Everything was really good and we washed it all down with tequila and mezcal.

Now its nearly 3AM and everyone is passed out on the floor around the low table where we ate. I'm happy we have enough pillows and comforters for our guests. The girls are taking off to Austria tomorrow so I shouldn't let them sleep in too late. But for now:
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I must stop Christmas from coming! I need more time!

The weekend flew by. Friday, I brought Saori a coffee to her office after I got off work. My new nickname at her office is 'The Starbucks Angel.' Saori has been loaded with work since her competition team all got sick and then the office put her in charge of leading the team. Friday was many people's last day before the holidays, and several interns were also leaving. Saori, seriously sleep deprived all week and continually interrupted by merry well-wishers, was pulling an Ebeneezer Scrooge since she was so frustrated. "I just need to get this file out!" she snapped at anyone who ventured forward offering beer, wine, cookies, or other winter treats.

I hung around since she was almost done, and then we hit the grocery store before heading home and Saori made us Japanese curry for dinner.

Saturday was a whirl. I made us a late breakfast and then we caught up with Apo for coffee in Stadtmitte before he took off for Greece. Then Saori and I split up to go Christmas shopping, fighting off the crowds and plunging headlong into the riotous and tumultuous stores.  We shopped for a few hours and met up again before becoming too tired to continue and we headed home.

Sunday Saori had to go into work in the morning after I made us a quick breakfast and mochas. I lit out for the last day of the Esslingen Christmas Market. This was my favorite one in the Stuttgart area. Most cities add a gimicky twist to thier markets to make them distinctive- Esslingen wins. It was a medieval themed market, and the heart of the market was a cross between a Christmas market and a pre-renaissance festival. People were dressed up in costumes, there was delicious food everywhere. Tons of wood crafts, leather craft, pottery, skulls and flags fluttering in the breeze. A lot of fun.

That night, we invited Rosario and her friend, another Argentine, over to dinner. I made a vegetable stew with the leftover lamb fat I'd been saving, and it was really really good, especially after I added some Harissa paste and tomato paste. Rosario was Saori's team mate when we were all Seniors in Buenos Aires, eight years ago. It was surreal to see her again. She did get a kick out of seeing my Claudio tee shirt (which for other surreal reasons, has also survived eight years and somehow made it into the limited clothing supply I've been suitcasing around since we packed up our apartment in St. Louis two years ago).

Alsace

Friday was a slightly crazy scramble as we finished not one but two competitions. Slightly crazy, since one of the lead architects was going to Argentina the next day and we seriously needed to be done with these projects at a reasonable time.

Friday was also Oscar the Mexican intern's last day. He brought in pastel azteca which he described as Mexican lasagna and made for us. His parents had brought him Mexican corn tortillas to use so it was nice to have that special taste again. Mez made refried beans and salsa, although none of it was very spicy.

I did have the dubious distinction of being the first to take a shot of the Mezcal that Oscar brought along at the office lunch.

After work, Ola, the Polish work-student, and I went with Oscar to his WG and we had a round or two more of Mezcal and chatted with his roommates about theater therapy. Saori was working like mad on a competition but she shot me a text if I wanted to go to Strasbourg the next morning. I said, sure, so I headed home early after saying vaya con dios to Oscar.

Saturday morning we got up a little after six am to meet up with Saori's coworkers for the car trip to France. There were five of us, all girls except me, and all of different nationalities. They rented a little car and we hit the road for the hour and a half ride to Strasbourg. It's still a little strange for me to think that France is closer than Tucson is to Phoenix.

Crossing into France is easy and happens in an eyeblink. EU is EU so no stops, no checks, no giant fences. You cross the Rhine and boom all the signage is in French. It's really bizarre actually that there is not even a buffer zone with dual languages, like in the area close to the border of the US.

Anyway, first stop was the modern art museum which was really nice. Definitely worth a second visit. Afterwards, Natasha, the French(ish) who went to school there, took us on a walk through the city to a big restaurant called Ancienne Douane. It's a sprawling place, tons of tourists, but the food is really quite good and Alsatian specialties. I got a kind of pork knuckle with tons of sauerkraut, and then a giant dessert which was a kind of tall sponge cake absolutely soaked in rum.

We took the scenic route through the city afterwards to get to the start of the Christmas market in the late afternoon. The Christmas market in Strasbourg blows away Stuttgart in all aspects except for the glühwine. Here they were serving it too in cheap plastic cups rather than the traditional glass or pottery mugs that are returnable everywhere. The decorations were totally over the top. Lights and decorations everywhere. Giant Christmas trees, cobblestone streets brilliantly lit with the alley overhead strung with lights. It's what I imagine Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley would be like Christmastime in Potterworld. Absolutely packed however. One particularly festive and picturesque alleyway was so packed we were all literally shuffling along bumping into one another. We all got lost a few times when we were separated.

We shopped and drank and fought the crowds/took photos of the decorations until well after dark, and then hit a giant French grocery store on our way out of Strasbourg. I picked up a few beers although the selection was not as good as I had been hoping. We did get some good cheeses and a few bottles of wine as well.

I was so exhausted I fell asleep in the middle seat of the car a few times. We drove north on the German side, and then when Flammkuchen was proposed, a regional dish on both sides of the border, we hopped back across the border to a small village eatery on the French side, which really reminded me of the old village British pubs. Flammkuchen is like a flatbread pizza, but with cream or other types of white cheeses like roquefort instead of a tomato sauce topping. Really good stuff.

Anyway, I fell asleep again on the drive back so before I realized, we were already on the outskirts of Stuttgart and it was a little after 1am.

Warm fuzzies

What can I say about police killing black people? People are fooling themselves if they think an indictment means justice. There are so many factors at play here and they are all connected. There is a problem in the black community - a feeling of victimization and a lack of strong social structures. Poverty and crime are correlated: in the US you are penalized for being poor, and the most penalized are black people. The cops killing and hurting black people are a very small minority but they are allowed to act with impunity. Something like 4% in the NYPD produce all of the resisting arrest charges, which are slapped on when there is a violent encounter. The basic problem is that there is deep rooted unfairness in our economic system, and a latent racism which exacerbates the problem.

All I can say about the latest report on CIA torture is that they seem to be taking a page from Stalin's NKVD, especially in regards to methods and practices. No oversight, no restraint, no accountability, no humanity.

I love the US, but I have been ashamed of our dangerously backwards nation. We are the redneck of the world, the United States of Azerbaijan.

Krampus watch

Tired is the watchword of the week.

Saori jumped back to work this week, and she was rewarded with her own team of five architects and one intern to command in this competition. She is a little overwhelmed but I am sure it will be great experience.

We are roaring ahead with two competitions both aiming to finish this friday, which is why sunday I put in a full day at the office.

Today was interesting- I saw the most peculiar round shiny thing in the sky. For a few moments, the clouds parted, and it was glowing, incredibly bright, and it bathed parts of the city in a warm light. It made me feel oddly happy, and it stirred vague recollections that I might have seen it somewhere before.

Tonight there is the first freeze warning of the season. The low chance of sleet was downgraded to a "winter shower." Damp cold is about as enjoyable as wet socks.

We have been accessorizing our home out of the winter blues- we went to the Christmas market in Ludwigsburg saturday. This Christmasmarket advertised itself as the "Baroque" Weihnachtsmarkt. The one in nearby Esslingen is billed as the "Medieval" Weihnachtsmarkt, and honestly they all sell the same stuff as the one in Stuttgart's city center.

Ludwigsburg was a nice change of scenery at any rate. We got a hot steak sandwich with onions from one of the many grills set up, and that was really, really good. We also ended up buying a small iron owl lantern for our chabudai (low Japanese table) as well as some yunomi (hand thrown teacups.

Friday night was St. Nickolas day, when kids traditionally put out their shoes, and St. Nick fills them with chocolate and small presents if they are good. I have a pair of boots, but Saori's are nicer, so I borrowed hers to set out for the night.

We both got each other little presents and opened them saturday morning. I don't know if we are just getting old or what, but we were both really happy that we gave each other thick warm socks. Saori also picked up a star paper lantern. These are really cool traditional decorations, in warm bright colors, which come with bulb and cords and you hang them up in the window. Now we have two stars, a red and a white one, both lit and hanging from the ceiling lamp, and they give a really nice and festive atmosphere.

I was a little bummed I missed the festivities around St. Nick's day. In Southern Germany across to Hungary, there is a tradition about St. Nickolas and his counterpart, the Krampus. Google Krampus and you will see why it never really spread far from its origins in these old tribal areas. It was some kind of demon from pagan mythology, traditionally depicted with horns, goat legs, and a long, long tongue. It carries birtch bundles (a holdover from tree-worship rites) which it uses to swat children. Typically, it is also shown wearing shackles (Christianity shackled the monster), and with a basket or washtub on its back to cart off misbehaving children to be eaten or to Hell. In the US, we say, work hard and behave or Santa will leave you coal. In Germany, they tell their kids that a hideous monster will eat them. It's all kind of taken in the same spirit as Santa Claus by the kids- some are terrified, some are wildly amused, many are dubious, all depending on age. Anyway, last year, Saori saw a procession in the city center of kids in demon costumes being "attacked" by a Krampus.

So right now, I am lightly tracing pagan rites and mythologies of southern Germanic peoples. As an American, both paternal lines lead back to Enland, and it is very likely that I have deep and old Germanic bloodlines through both the Saxon invasion of England and Norman vikings. There is nothing so mystical about blood, however, compared to language.

If we accept that language affects the way we perceive and respond to  the world, then I cannot help but conclude that with the persistence of old Germanic in modern English, there may also be lingering modes of thought, deep structures of understanding which also persist, handed down embedded in the language itself. Saori is a different person in Japanese, and I am a different person in Spanish. Language is not just a hat you put on but a close-fitting suit which nudges you in certain directions.

Table talk

Last week, after sending some stuff off in the mail, I was walking around Neckarstraße, which has a nice immigrant neighborhood feel, and I stumbled across a second hand store tucked around the back of a building. They had some interesting things, a lot of crap, and a really cool low wooden coffee table, 80cm on each side, buried under a big old TV. In Spanish, I asked the owner how much it was.
Very cheap, he assured me, €10. What could I do but buy it then and there on my lunch break?

I could have waited for the weekend and someone to help me carry the damn thing, for one. Still weak and recovering from being sick, I lugged the table up the hill to my office on my back, taking occasional breaks sitting on the table. I ended up stashing it in the office and taking it on the bus back home. The stairs were less of a problem than I expected.

It looks great in the apartment. Saori said it's the perfect size and height for a typical Japanese table, and I've been very happy eating and drinking around it, just sitting on a mat on the floor. The funny thing is that it matches the old record player cabinet perfectly, and probably originated in the 1950s as well.

Work has been really busy with not one but two competitions aiming to be completed next friday.

better off outside

Nearly a month and a half ago, one of our friends sent us a Facebook invite to an Outdoor Film Festival, and I remember thinking, hmmm late November... and it's going to be outside? It turns out, the film festival is about outdoor films, specifically adventure sports short films. Festival is a traveling production, a big thing that plays across Europe and sponsored by outdoorsy corporations like Mammut and North Face and Victorianox etc.

Our friend got us tickets to the sold out performance in Stuttgart, which cost about $20. It was less about our desire to see adventure sports films than the enthusiasm of our friends, to speak plainly.

On arrival at the venue, most people there were wearing extremely sporty clothing.  Wool coats like mine were few and far between compared to the sea of Gore-Tex and hiking boots.

There were nine of us so we had to grab seats at the very very top row of the top balcony. I actually didn't mind so much being more removed from the screen.

The best thing you could say about the films were that they were short. They mostly fell into two categories: overly long music videos featuring spliced together clips of people doing extreme sports with no apparent coherance or narrative, and longer, more narrative films about people who work very hard to do stupid things. The first category was just insipid, just a few moments of nice images or concept. The four most notable films from the latter catorgy were:

A guy climbs a big mountain in Mexico without a rope. This was actually my favorite. Straightforward, simple, and you hear the climber and the videographer/route prep guy talk about it.

An ice climber pressing his aging condition (and luck) attempts to set and climb a big waterfall in the middle of winter in British Columbia. The best thing about it was the way the German subtitles dropped his frequent and colorful exclamations.

Four grrrrls attempt to paddle from Mongolia to the Pacific via some rivers.  Good! Travel adventure! This was almost my favorite until it devolved into being about feelings. The feelings were so high that one of the girls left halfway to go home based on feelings with lots of hand-wringing all around, and then due to flooding and Russia being Russia they pretty much all ended up flying home after the halfway mark anyway.

A British high school dropout likes to climb very tall construction cranes and hang off them to the horror of his mother, who claims that she can't do anything about it. After doing some more stupid, suicidal things in the Ukraine, he beings to think about how his mom might feel about the matter. I guess Parkour is outdoor adventure sports, so it squeaks in. My second favorite in the fest, actually.

I don't really get the appeal of the film fest, actually. I think the whole thing is more of a scene the more I think about it, like a place be a big adventure sports enthusiast. Here I am, celebrating Adventure Sports with my fellow sporting types.

Christmas Market

Stuttgart is known for few exceptional things- the ones not involving major industrial corporations are A) Wine, and B) The Christmas Market.

Imagine a tiny rustic wooden village in the forest, filled with lights and overflowing with people, and all the shops on the narrow streets have lit windows full of cheerful Christmas displays and knicknacks for sale. This is what the Christmas market aims for, and if you have enough to drink, really comes close to nailing it.

In a Christmas market, numerous vendors set up semipermanent stalls and decorate them for the season. Generally speaking, these are very small businesses, traditionally handcrafts. However, in more contemporary times, the wares sold at the Christmas market vary wildly: there are stalls selling LED candles, wool hats, woven scarves and gloves, Christmas tree ornaments, pottery, spices, teas, household kitchen tools, carved olivewood things, silicon spatulas, neckties, etc. Some of this stuff actually comes from Germany; much else comes from China or Pakistan or Greece or wherever.

The Stuttgart market is pretty extensive, filling two of the major city center plazas and stretching along the cobblestone streets between them.

There are also tons of vendors selling food and drinks. In addition to tons of spiced nuts and chocolate stands, there are fresh Schwabish Maultaschen stands, french fries in sauerkraut, sausages, steaks, crepes, and fry bread. By far the most popular beverage, a near requirement to drink when you go, is Gluhwine. ("gloo-vine") This is a hot wine spiced with cinnamon, orange, and other herbs and spices, and also sold spiked with other spirits. It's served in small mugs which are nearly universally interchangable for the deposit. You can pick up a Gluhwine at one stand, walk through the market, and get your deposit back at almost any other Gluhwine stand.

It's really about the experience of drinking hot spiced wine on a cold wintry night or afternoon (it gets dark around 4:30 here now), surrounded by rustic fake log cabins, Christmas lights, and animatronic moose. It's absolutely thronged with people. Busloads of tourists arrive from the surrounding areas just to come to the Christmas market. The Stuttgart Christmas market is so well known, that even the Swiss who have made a cultural ideal of artifice and Alpine wintry wonder, throng here to eat up the atmosphere.

The biggest surprise to me, apart from the fact that they launch this thing before Thanksgiving,  is the lack of representations of Santa Claus. Tons of wreaths, tons of reindeer, but really the big man is not to be seen. The market runs right up until Christmas. Nearly four weeks solid of Christmas three meters thick.

Definitely, it can be kitschy, uncomfortably crowded, and overpriced, but it is also really fun and and if you let yourself just a little bit, it is easy to get swept up in the fantastic whirl.