Underwear, energy conservation, and the economy

Yesterday as we were walking to Multi Culti for dinner, we passed an enormous department store, Besser Karstadt. Peering through the windows as we passed by, I spotted a Bobbi Brown makeup counter and felt the planets align. Must. Go. Inside.

For nine months now, I’ve been trying to buy cream blush and not found it. Granted, I’ve avoided the Paris Ici cosmetic store in Brussels simply because while I’m sure Dior or Chanel offer crème rouge, I was quite sure I didn’t want to pay $50 for it. Still, I hadn’t found an inexpensive alternative in the discount stores or pharmacies.

Then I read in one of my chick mags that Bobbi Brown had a new cream blush out that got rave reviews. I checked it out on Neiman Marcus online, wrote down the color I wanted, and debated having a friend hunt it down for me in the States. This is why spotting the Bobbi Brown counter in Karlsruhe seemed too good to be true. There are only a handful of stores in all of Europe that carry that line. Going inside was my destiny.

Fifteen minutes later, I had my blush plus a bottle of Bobbi’s “Beach” body lotion to mentally take me to the coast with its Coppertone-kissed-saltwater fragrance. I also had a major crush on the Karstadt store, which had three floors to explore. Must. See. Everything.

This morning I went back. I bought a great straw hat and a basic sun visor, a deep red patterned silk scarf, and the ultimate souvenir from the Land of Comfortable Shoes—a pair of Birkenstocks, my first. Of course I couldn’t get a basic brown pair of Arizonas—no I went for a three-strap pair of Papillio’s in a wild green, pink, blue, and yellow mod print. In the U.S. these probably would have set me back somewhere in the vicinity of $85. Here I paid less than $30 on sale. (When E went to Australia last fall, he bought me Ugg slippers. Retail price in the U.S. was about $80. In Sydney, they were less than $30.)

I bought the kids giant supersoakers and big lollipops and a small doodad each. We did our best to stimulate the German economy today.

***

Environmentalism is big here. Germany is a “green” country. There are loads of wind turbines, bicycles everywhere and extensive public transit. The light fixtures in the hotel have those squiggly fluorescent light bulbs that emit a traditional warm incandescent light. The water-saving showerhead transforms a trickle of water in the tub faucet to a full-force shower spray with the push of the button. Amazing. There are recycling bins everywhere and efforts to reduce packaging and waste.

When is the U.S. going to get serious about reducing energy and oil consumption? How bad do things have to get before we unite worldwide in an effort to improve the planet and political stability for all of us?

***

At the playground, there are lots of children playing wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underpants. Not just toddlers, but kids as old as five or so. Most were also barefoot because the playground is sandy.

E told me that while he was in the center plaza in the city, a young boy stripped down naked and jumped in a fountain. His dad promptly stepped out of his trousers and wearing just his underwear, joined the boy for a dip.

“I’ve seen London, I’ve seen France, I’ve seen German underpants.”

Of course in Belgium, you rarely see people in public in shorts and never in their underwear, no matter what their age. However, it is not uncommon to see men urinating in plain view by the side of the road. Let’s just say I’d rather be in Germany…. 

Karlsruhe Zoo

We’ve been to zoos in New York, Maine, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., but I can say without hesitation that my favorite zoo is here in Karlsruhe.

Located across from our hotel, it includes the standard collection of zoo animals but is distinguished by its extensive gardens and meticulously groomed grounds. We spent nearly seven hours checking out the animals and wandering the tree-lined avenues, wisteria tunnels, and cobblestone paths. A canal connects two ponds on either end of the park, and we took a boat ride through the gardens, our boat trailed by enormous gray carp with round vacant eyes and pink crescent mouths opened and begging for bread. The ducks crisscrossed in front of the boat, the little ones irresistibly fuzzy and cute.

There was a huge rose garden with lavender planted between the rosebushes. Peach, yellow, coral, pink, white, and red roses, damp from a morning shower, were a sensual feast. Every time the breeze slipped through the garden, the scent would rise like magic and perfume the air. Benches and chaise lounges punctuated the landscape, inviting people to linger. The sprawling lawns drew a few sunbathers. The kids loved the Japanese garden with its stone temples, falling water, and stepping stones crossing small pools. The daylilies reminded me of home.

The park included multiple playgrounds. The playgrounds in Europe are outstanding. In the U.S. safety concerns and fear of liability have reduced the number and quality of playgrounds They all seem to be the same red and yellow configurations of curly slides and low platforms. U.S. equipment doesn’t offer much of a challenge for older children. Here big kids can enjoy balance boards, merry-go-rounds, climbing pyramids, awe-inducing slides, rope courses, climb and glides, and lots of sand. It’s little nerve-wracking for overprotective moms, but the kids gain so much confidence.

As my kids scaled an enormous rope pyramid, a disabled boy visiting the playground came and sat beside me on the bench. He appeared to be about nine, the same age as E-Grrrl, with medium brown hair and blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. I think he had cerebral palsy.

He came and sat quite close to me, his face open and inquiring. I turned to acknowledge his presence with eye contact and a big smile. He wasn’t able to speak but gently touched my shoulder to get my attention and then began pointing to things on the playground. He touched his own chest. He pointed to me. He pointed to items surrounding us.

I wasn’t sure what he was trying to say, and I didn’t want to confuse him by addressing him in English, and so I reached into my vast German vocabulary of ten words and came up with the perfect response to his friendly overtures: Gut. The German word for “good.”

He pointed, I smiled, acknowledged what he was looking at, and described it as “good.”

And it was. This boy, perfect in his imperfections. This day, which began with a thunderstorm and turned sunny and pleasantly warm. Above all, this place and time. This connection between people from different generations, different parts of the world, different ways of seeing and being.

Separated by so much and yet so little, the boy and I agreed, we smiled, we touched each other’s shoulders. For us the world is “sehr gut” indeed.

June 28, 2006

Karlsruhe, Germany: Tourist friendly

Remember my glowing description of the hotel suite we have on the top floor of the hotel, how I loved all the big windows? Sunday night powerful thunderstorms came through and I thought we’d be blown away. The rain battered the windows, the wind howled, and suddenly being surrounded by all that glass seemed menacing. In the morning the sidewalks were covered with leaves and small branches, and the temperatures were mercifully far lower than Sunday’s high of 95.

Karlsruhe has proved to be a tourist friendly town. It has a fully staffed visitors’ center, a large park and a zoo, a big market square, several parks and playgrounds, and a small mall, all within walking distance of the hotel. E spent Monday getting us oriented.

We ate lunch in a café near the market called Multi Culti. I ordered a pork chop with curry sauce and pommes frites. Somewhere we had a miscommunication, despite the waitress’s ability to speak English. What I received was entirely different—a slice of tender roast beef wrapped around a filling that had corned beef and pickle in it. Sounds gross, but it was delicious. Instead of pommes frites, I received spatzle. They were awesome. E had a pasta dish with a cream sauce and spinach and shrimp. The kids had fried chicken strips and frites. The food was excellent and reasonably priced, one of the best meals I’ve had in Europe.

*****

World Cup Fever—ask me if I like sports and I’d say no, but I’ve loved watching World Cup games on the hotel TV. I’m pulling for England and it has absolutely nothing to do with how cute David Beckham is—really, it’s all about his foot work and the game saving goal against Ecuador. Monday I cheered for the Italians over the Aussies, and no it was not because the Italians had snappy blue uniforms as opposed to the Aussies icky yellow and green ones. And I assure you Luca Toni and all the players with great hair did not influence my allegiance in the least. I’m a serious sports fan. It’s all about the fine points of the game you know.

After dinner Monday we took a walk and the streets were peppered with people draped in Italian flags and cars cruising and honking their horns to celebrate the Italians victory. People have decorated their cars with flags representing the teams they support. The Americans were knocked out early and needless to say, don’t have fans over here. I have an official World Cup English jersey. If I’m brave, I’ll wear it tomorrow. Go Becks!

****

The German word for soccer, fussball, is pronounced “foosball.” Wonder if foosball tables originated in Germany?

Saw a tram with a display indicating it was heading to “Bad Wild.” See you have to get on the bad bus if want to be wild.

June 27, 2006

Karlsruhe, Germany: Getting there

I’ve often written about E’s amazing navigational ability—he has great spatial concepts and intuition, can visualize the way things connect, and enjoys studying maps AND watching the weather channel. He’s a man that is in tune with global and local geography. He’s also someone who embodies the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared!

So it is no surprise to me that before our trip to Germany, he scoured the stores for the best possible gazetteer he could find. He supplemented this with a common road map and plugged in the address of our destination into an online mapping service to get written detailed directions. He not only had all his bases covered—they were highlighted and tabbed with Post-it notes. According to the Web, it would take 4.5 hours to get to Karlsruhe. We left home at 9 a.m.

The ride through Belgium was uneventful, except we took the long way around Liege. Things didn’t start to fall apart until we were in Germany with our stomachs growling, ready for lunch. E turned off the highway to head into a mid-sized town in search of a restaurant and a gas station. The town wasn’t immediately off the exit, as we thought it would be and we wandered down a road with no name for quite some time before hitting the “centrum.” No restaurants open this early on Sunday.

In the process of trying to get back on the highway and deal with detours and road construction, we got lost. Instead of landing back on the highway, we ended up on a two-lane road winding through the countryside. After figuring out what road we were on and checking the maps, we decided to stick with it and catch up with our “official” route farther down the road.

It had been 62 degrees and raining in Brussels; it was now 95 degrees and sunny in Germany. By taking “the road less traveled,” we were getting a glimpse of the beautiful German countryside, soft blue-hazed mountains and rolling hills that reminded us of Virginia’s horse country--except there weren’t any horses. Unlike England, where every hill and dale is dotted with sheep or cows, there wasn’t much in the way of livestock here.

We were amazed to see crops and gardens form a patchwork on the side of steep hills. I joked that a ripe tomato might fall off the vine and roll for miles. (Attack of the killer tomatoes!) We passed through dense forests and were amazed by the size and shape of the evergreens. The fir trees formed perfect conical points, as if they’d all been pruned by Edward Scissorhands.

This part of Germany shared the Belgian tradition of red tile roofs but the houses weren’t the ubiquitous brick we saw at home but were all stucco. While most were shades of white or cream, we were surprised to see quite a few that were colored—mustard yellow, pale green, pink.

What we didn’t see was a place to stop and eat. The kids were starving. I was kicking myself for not packing snacks or sandwiches. When we were finally out of the country and back on a highway we were tooling along when E said, “Look! A McDonald’s!” We couldn’t believe it. We gave up all hope of lunch in a native gasthaus and hailed the Golden Arches. I had my trusty German pharase book in hand, having spent part of the drive reading up on German customs and etiquette and the rest of it memorizing how to say hello, please, thank you, yes, no, and “Where are the toilets?”

We should have added “I’d like a Quarter Pounder with cheese” to the list of essential phrases. No one at McD’s spoke English so we had to point at pictures on the menu to order and keep reminding ourselves not to lapse into French, merci beaucoup.

Back on the road, we found ourselves becoming increasingly confused by the road signs and directions. The signs were directing us one way, the maps indicating another, and we kept getting turned around or stuck on the wrong road. It is the first time ever in our 24-year marriage that I’ve seen E make more than a single wrong turn on a trip. We stopped for directions multiple times, only to confirm what our experience at McDonald’s had foreshadowed: most Germans don’t speak any English.

Long story short: we expected to arrive at our hotel around 1:30 p.m. Instead we arrived at 4:30, hot, weary, and demoralized by how difficult the trip had been

The good news? The hotel is lovely (and air conditioned), our suite is spotless, comfortable and nicely furnished, the bathroom is luxurious, there are down comforters and pillows on the beds, and we’re in a penthouse suite on the 10^th floor with big windows and a terrific view on all sides. Who knew Best Western had four-star hotels? Impressive.

June 25, 2006

Thanks to Nollind at Squarespace for solving my access problem. The hotel has a single computer with Internet service, charged by the minute, and it´s so slow. I´m convinced I´ll end spending more money on checking my e-mail and posting to my blog than I will on food. Will post later today after composing on my laptop. The funky German keyboard is another hindrance. I´m proud to say I now know the German words for delete, cut, and paste.

Later,

V-Grrrl

The reluctant tourist

We head out for Germany tomorrow. I should be excited, right? A vacation!

But I never wanted to visit Germany. I associate the country with the Holocaust and Hitler. And even though I’m not Jewish, I take it all a bit personally. My father was the oldest in a family of eight, and all of them served in World War II. My mother’s brother fought with the Allied Forces at the Battle of the Bulge here in Belgium. That’s the one where more than 78,000 Americans were killed the week before Christmas in 1944. Read that again slowly—78,000 Americans died in ONE battle. So crossing the Belgian border into Germany is not something I would have chosen to do for a vacation.

Why then am I going to Germany? Well, because E is attending a conference there, not far from the mountains and some tourist attractions. He thought it would be great for us to join him and check things out. It’s a good idea, but I’ve been less than enthusiastic.

With E in the conference all day every day, that leaves me and the kids on our own to navigate in another country with another language and another type of food and another kind of plumbing and yet another mass transit system. That’s a lot for a lazy Grrrl to deal with. I just want to park myself in a chair on a porch somewhere and sip some wine and read a good book. I don’t even want to think about navigating a foreign city with the kids in tow—it would take all my courage to do that solo. Sigh. But I’ll do it and pretend I'm a better person for having stepped outside my comfort zone. All together now: “Go, V, go!”

It’s supposed to be hot in Germany. E mentioned very casually that the hotel may not have air conditioning. Oh sure, make it seem like no big deal—y’all I am way too old for hot hotel rooms, OK?

He also expressed far too much enthusiasm when he told me the hotel has a laundry room. Woo hoo—as if I want to hang out there. Honestly, hotel laundry rooms creep me out. I feel like rape bait every time I go near one.  Me, I’m praying the hotel has a pool, because if all else fails, I can keep my kids happy for big chunks of the day with a pool. We’re bringing a huge stack of library books. I’m bringing my laptop.

Don’t anyone make me feel guilty for not being enthusiastic about seeing Germany and experiencing the native culture. Don’t you dare ask about my spirit of adventure. Just keep reading this week. Maybe I’ll have a GREAT time and you’ll be able to say, “See that wasn’t so bad.”

I hope you’re right.

Back when I was a PR associate.....

...Char was my partner in crime. For nearly ten years, we worked together on Web sites, brochures, advertising sections, marketing materials, presentations, reports, and articles. I did the writing, she did the design.

We recently collaborated on an upgrade of Char's own site, Keystrokes Design & Marketing, and Char has launched a blog on Web development called Essential Keystrokes.  If you're a blogger, a marketer, or otherwise involved in communications, these sites are worth checking out.

Happy Weekend

V-Grrrl

Service please!

One of the adjustments we faced in moving to Brussels has been the nature of our restaurant service. The typical American restaurant experience focuses on speed and customer service, not just food. An American server will introduce themselves, smile a lot, make small talk, describe the specials, answer questions and take your drink order within 5 minutes of you taking a seat.

His or her job is to anticipate your needs, refilling your drink glass regularly or topping your coffee mug, and checking back with at regular intervals to let you know the status of your order, or if it has already been delivered, to ascertain that everything is satisfactory and to clear empty plates from the table.

A good American server is friendly, personable, and strikes just the right balance between being available to the customer but not intrusive. Serving in the U.S. is an art form and the national chain restaurants provide their staff with extensive training not just in how to complete their tasks but how to set a proper tone with the customer and anticipate his or her needs. Local restaurants develop their own personalities. Dependent mostly on tips for their income, a smart server works hard to make your meal as enjoyable as possible and to connect with the diner.

In Belgium, dining out is an entirely different experience. Belgians, who are always in a hurry when they’re in the car, are in no rush when they enter a restaurant. Your server will wander over to deliver menus whenever it’s convenient, will tell you about the daily specials only if asked, will not offer refills on your drinks unless summoned to the table and will charge for every drop of coffee or cola that splashes into your mug (no bottomless cups or glasses here). You won’t be interrupted, engaged in conversation or rushed to complete your meal, but the down side of this is that receiving and settling the check can take quite a lot of time.

I’ve read that Belgian wait staff keep their distance as a way to convey respect to the customer. Maybe so. Maybe not. Cynic that I am, think the real issue is that in America servers work for tips and here they do not. I think servers here see themselves as people who carry orders to the kitchen and food from the kitchen. End of story.

Until we went to England, the only taste we’ve had of American style service in Europe was at a Chinese restaurant in Zaventem where the proprietor waited on us herself and did so with great warmth and graciousness.

When we visited the U.K. recently, we once again tasted service with a smile. At restaurants and pubs, coffee and tea houses, our servers were friendly, thorough, and eager to top our glasses and offer extra gravy. Dining was a pleasure, whether we visited American-bred restaurants like TGIF in Bath or family-owned cafés in the Cotswolds, the staff was eager to please, happy to adjust the menu, solicitous to our children.

The whole experience left a sweet taste in our mouths. Belgium may be renowned for its cuisine, but the dining experiences we had in the UK make us eager to grab a ferry back over.

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

June 22, 2006

Letters to the World

Wordgirl wrote recently about attending the funeral of a friend and listening to eulogies prepared by her friend’s siblings and parents that in no way resembled the person she and her husband had known. The service was religious and evangelical even though her friend had not been that way.

This “false remembrance” and celebration of a life her friend didn’t lead only made his unexpected death that much harder to bear. Clearly the service was all about what his family had wished he’d been and not the person he was.

By Wordgirl’s account, there was nothing to be ashamed of in the way this man lived his life, so why not honor it for what it was? Why plan a funeral where the religious convictions of a few of the survivors overshadow memories of the deceased? The disconnect between the two versions of reality might have been funny if it hadn't been so sad.

Her post got me thinking about remembrances.

When I was moving, I was forced to confront how much space my collection of old letters consumed. I had saved every personal letter I’d ever gotten. Being a writer, I treasured people’s words and stories, and I cherished the relationships the letters represented. Neatly organized by year into shoe boxes, my collection of letters was HUGE. Part of me felt I needed to let go of them and yet at times the very thought made my stomach clench with regret.

I soon realized it didn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition. I could easily toss letters from people who no longer occupied a place in my life. I could save letters from family members, part of my family history, and save selected letters from old friends. In the process of going through all those old papers, I retraced the history we’d shared. High school angst, dating ups and downs, college adventures, good and bad jobs, married life and compromise, career moves, graduate degrees, homeownership, the pain of infertility, the joy and confusion of parenting, the challenges of family relationships—we’d gone through it all together.

In one box I came across a funny note from a college friend who had jokingly written at the bottom, “Save this forever so you will always remember US.” I’d saved it even though we’d lost touch over the years. My friend died in a plane crash when I was 33. I wanted to go to the funeral but ended up going into labor with my first child instead. I cried all over again when I remembered US, yet I was happy to have a bit of the silly correspondence that characterized our relationship to bring it back to life.

When I went away to college, my mom wrote to me 2-3 times a week. When I got married and moved to Oklahoma, I still regularly got weekly letters from her. I saved every one. Thank God. Her letters help me remember her as she really was, her handwriting and narrative voice as well as the details of home life that she shared with me preserve so much more than memories. They define our relationship. I can say the same about the letters from my sister, Louise, who died when I was 20.

While our love for a person may never diminish, the strength of our memories erodes over our time. Our vivid recollections of good times dull. Our sense of our loved one’s personality fades.

One of the reasons I continue blogging is to both share and preserve my narrative voice, especially for my kids. When I’m gone, my friends and family will have my own words as a legacy to remember how funny, pensive, neurotic, sensitive, happy, and introspective I was. As Emily Dickinson wrote about her poems, “This is my letter to the world.”

So if anyone stands up at my funeral and tries to paint a glossy picture of a woman I was not, y’all will be able to quote from the Book of V-Grrrl and put them in their place. Blog on, people. Write your own story, one day at a time. Set the world straight on the meaning of your life.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

June 21, 2006

Magical Thinking

The kids are out of school now. I’m still getting used to a life that doesn’t begin with a long walk and a few hours of uninterrupted blog writing and reading time. Yesterday my summer schedule for Mr. A and E-Grrrl called for a morning cooking project (we made deviled eggs), writers’ workshop (the kids wrote letters to Grandma), and an afternoon at the pool.

Getting to the indoor pool at my husband’s workplace isn’t straight-forward if you don’t have a car. We had to catch a public bus, get off in Brussels, and then catch a shuttle to the pool. Because the bus and shuttle schedules aren’t compatible, there was lots of waiting involved. All told, it took us 90 minutes to get to the pool. By the time we arrive, I’m feeling cranky and thinking this is so not worth the effort!

The man tending the pool speaks only French. I struggle a bit trying to communicate with him—the kids are swimming, I am not. I need to pay and he wants exact change. We discover after we get there that my son has left his swim cap at home (though he was repeatedly told to pack it).  I’m forced to buy another one on the spot since swim caps are mandatory. Grrr.

As with all Belgian pools, swimmers go through a corridor that’s like a car wash to enter the pool area. After they’ve been spritzed and sprayed by shower jets, they have to walk their feet through a disinfectant bath. Because I’m not swimming and I’m fully dressed, I have to enter the pool area through the exit, by climbing over (or squeezing under) a turnstile, while carrying my handbag and the kids’ towels. I feel like a camel trying to get through the Bibical eye of the needle.  I finally get in and collapse on a bench, a little worse for wear.

The pool is part of the staff center at my husband’s work place, and it’s crowded with lunch time swimmers. A portion of the pool is supposedly reserved for kids but there are adults swimming laps in it. I tell the kids to pretend the adults are sharks and that they have to stay out of their way. For the first half hour, my kids are characters in their own live computer game, trying to dodge the relentless swimmers in the pool.

As I watch them making the best of the situation, my irritability starts to unknot. They made the 90 minute trip without complaining. I’m proud of how considerate they are of the other swimmers, and I love the way they play together. When my son patiently teaches his little sister to dive, I’m thrilled that this is my family, and that we have each other.

After an hour, the kids shower off, get dressed, and we take sandwiches and drinks out to the courtyard. We’ve missed the shuttle back, so we’re going to stay here until E is ready to leave work at 4:30 p.m.  A two hour wait.

The weather is nice, there’s a fabulous playground in the courtyard, and I settle in a chair and grab the book I’ve brought with me to read, Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking.”

This is Didion’s account of her journey through grief, beginning with the moment her husband and writing partner dropped dead at the dinner table a few days after Christmas while their adult daughter was struggling for life in the ICU with flu that turned to pneumonia and then went into septic shock. In the aftermath of this disastrous set up, Didion describes what it’s like when your world falls apart.

Didion does not create a tidy narrative or chronology, and despite the subject matter, her book is never sentimental or maudlin. She writes about her “year of magical thinking” with the immediacy of one who experienced it and yet with the objectivity of a journalist who observed it.

She is the book’s narrator and the subject and the researcher. She delivers the story in dreamlike sequences dissected by her considerable intellect and her personal search for answers. She anchors it with academic excerpts on the psychology of grief that she collected as she attempted to put her experience into a larger context. The writing wanders and loops back in on itself in neat arcs. It’s both raw and refined. Her story isn’t inspirational, it’s not a tear-jerker, it’s not meant to be comforting or a “how-to” treatise, it simply is what it is. It won the National Book Award.

Over and over again Didion comes back to the first words she wrote after her husband of 40 years died: Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

Glancing up at my two blonde children laughing as they circle in a tire swing, I vow to forget how long it took to get here and be glad for this moment. It’s all I have. And it’s perfect.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

June 20, 2006

On the Metro

E-Grrrl and I are riding the Metro together into Brussels. She has two of her favorite stuffed animals with her—a polar bear and a seal.

A street musician steps into our car and starts strumming his guitar and singing. He’s kind of good looking but the music is lame. E-Grrrl and I exchange looks and do a subtle eye roll.

When he’s done singing and starts passing the hat, I lean over to her and say jokingly, “Ok, this is the part where you hand him Seal!”

To which E-Grrrl replied slyly, “No way.  I’m not giving him a seal of approval.”

I laughed all the way to the next stop.

June 19, 2006