I was not happy. Let’s see how do I start. Stan had a rough night’s sleep and being a Monday he was inclined to drag a bit any way. He got up later than usual so my day started late as well. I had stripped the bed as soon as he left it to discourage him from crawling back in. I am lucky to live in a rented house with laundry shoots. A great invention. Stan decided on cereal instead of his usual egg so I put up the dishes in the dishwasher.

I started to get some fruit for his snack when I dumped over the cottage cheese. Only a little actually fell out but the curds and whey were all over the inside of the refrigerator. We had just had a BBQ on Saturday so it was stuffed with all sort of leftovers. I sigh and told Stan that it looked like my usual schedule of cleaning our bathroom and upstairs was going to have to be put off that I was going to have to clean the fridge.

Stan and I have a ritual before he goes to work. I stand on this small step stool to be face to face with him. The owner of the house has dubbed it the “kissing stool”.

This is the ritual:

I kiss Stan and say, “I love you.”

I kiss him and say, “Drive careful”

I kiss him and say, “Try and have a nice day.”

I kiss him and say, “Don’t work too hard.”

I kiss him and say, “Don’t fall asleep at your desk.”

I kiss him and say, “Eat you lunch and snack.”

I kiss him and say, “Dazzle them with brilliants or Baffle them with Bull shit.”

I kiss him and say, “You always make me proud of you.”

Then I get a thirty second kiss. As he leaves I lean out the kitchen window to blow him a kiss.

I ate some breakfast, and just before Andrea, my German friend arrived to take our Monday walk I put the clothes from the washer. So far I’m going with the flow. After our walk and a light repast, Germans call it Imbiss. Usually it’s a cupcake, piece of raisin bread or some other snack and something to drink. During winter it’s hot cocoa and during the warmer times it’s orange juice. I usually have bubble water (water with gas - I’ve gotten addicted to while living here and will have a hell of a time finding in the state when we go back.) We usually chat or work on my German.

After she leaves I start pulling things out of the frig, TC my African Grey is squawking and nothing I do seems to make him happy. If you’ve never experienced an African Grey’s squawk it’s at the pitch that goes up the spine into the back of your brain. I have him up where I am and he’s eating breakfast of toast with butter. He and Tatyana, our little westie share the toast - what he throws down is hers. I take him down stairs to his living room perch and have him pick a movie to watch. Yes, he knows what he wants to watch. I’ve had him pick a movie, shuffle the movies and he’ll still pick the same one. As soon as I headed up stairs he started squawking. I go down to see what’s his major malfunction and he wants me to hold him and scratch his head. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I tell him to be quiet I had work to do. Of course he doesn’t so I get a stick (he hates the stick) and put him in his cage, stick and all since he was pissed and was going to crawl up the stick to bite me. I put the clothes in the dryer and start another load. So far so good. I go back into kitchen to finish pulling stuff from the fridge; molding cheese, Stan’s inclination to buy some kind of sausage and allow it to stay long past it’s edibleness (is that a word?). There were brats (bratwurst), hamburger patties, potato salad, and the list seems endless. Finally I have everything out of the fridge all over my island and counter top. The buzzer goes off for the wash machine. It’s another German quirk, the dryer doesn’t buzz but the washer does because most German hang their clothes on either cloths lines or drying racks. I walk into the laundry room which is also TC’s bedroom, and my glasses fog over. I pull the dryer out and there’s a hole in the hose that vents the dryer. I get some duct tape and wrap it around the hose and notice a lot of lint has accumulated in the hose. I take the hose from the dryer and start pulling a LOT of lint from the back for the dryer and the hose. I have enough lint to make a nice size Pomeranian. All the time I’m laboring behind the dryer my son, TC is raising hell. Where are ear plugs when you need them? Then I hear a loud crash. I run up stairs and a vase of flowers I got as a gift from one of our BBQ guests has fallen off the credenza and spilled sugar water all over the place which Tatyana is more than happy to lap up. I had a knick knack that was a round disk sculpture with a mirror in the middle. It and a couple of trolls we got from Iceland fell as well. I pick up the flowers and vase and have no idea what could have caused them to fall, no wind from an open window down from the credenza. I mop up the sugar water before my westie starts speeding her titties off on a sugar high. Now back to the laundry room to fold the now slightly wrinkled clothes and putting a load in to the dryer. I go back up stairs and start wiping down the fridge again, pulling out shelves and drawers. I have to try and remember how I had them aligned to put them back in. One decides to go in one slot and the other side wants to go one lower. Now it’s stuck. I twist and lift and finally it comes out. I sigh and try to put it in the slots of the same level. One down and two more to go and three draws. It’s a side by side. I don’t recommend them. Neither side is big enough for all you need. I get the other shelf in no real problem. Now it’s noon and Tatyana want’s fed and jumping on my leg. So I leave the drawers for a while and fix her something. She won’t eat, her brother is in solitary confinement. I go down stairs with another stick (I have two just for these type of situations). After he gets on the stick in my hand I pull the other one out of his cage for later use. I take him up stair with a happy westie bouncing behind me yipping that her brother is out. I decide maybe a bit of a respite won’t be a bad deal before conquering the rest of the fridge. I don’t have spoiled animals…they want pieces of hot dog as well as their regular food. They also share a sliver of Granny Smith Apple. TC refuses any other type and yes Tatyana loves Granny’s as well. TC is still pissed at me so won’t take the hot dog from me so I put it in his bowl. He immediately throws it to the floor which makes Tatyana very happy. Ditto with the apple. I look at TC and say, “Screw you. Back in your cage.” He does not take this well and when I pull out the stick he starts biting at it and working his way up the stick. Needless to say I drop him and the stick to the floor. Tatyana is overwhelmed, she gets to play with her brother. I have to tell her, “No, sit.” Luckily unlike her brother she minds well. She sat and whined but didn’t go near TC until I picked up the stick and made TC get on it before Tatyana mauled him to death. I take him down stairs while he is making a popping grind with his bill and his pupils are constricted. Bad sign. Again I toss him and the stick into the cage. Birds hold grudges worst than any animal I know, so for the rest of this month he is going to be in a snit and my name is going to MUD. Oh well I have other problems. Needless to say Tatyana didn’t get her second walk which is usually after lunch. I let her out the back door and she of course thinks it’s play time. I tell her to go pee pee and come back in. She stand there and does this jerky lunge wanting me to play. After a few of those and me saying, “Nein, commen Sie heir - Schnell - jetzt.” When I speak German to her she knows I mean business. It sounds like, Nine (means no) Comen ze here which means what it sounds like Come you here. Schnell means quickly, fast, hurry. You’ve probably heard it if you ever watched old war movies with Germans soldiers in it like “Great Escape.” Jetzet sounds like yetz which means now. She bows her head and slinks back into the house giving me those sorrowful eyes. I feel like Dr. Mengele, the Nazi doctor known as the Angel of Death during the Nazi regime. I sigh and start back at the fridge. After almost dropping several of the loose glass tops on the drawers and trying to organize the fridge with everything back in it minus the moldy cheese and bygone sausage it’s time to fix dinner. Thank goodness for leftovers. I had a hamburger and Stan had some pulled pork that I had made. Anyone interested ask and I’ll send you the recipe. Luckily Stan was aware of my mood when I called him at lunch time to remind him to eat. I promised myself that I wouldn’t unload on him and I did it any way. I sent him an email later apologizing for unloaded on him about trivial household problems when he’s up to his ass in alligators with complaining officers and bosses at his door most of the time.

So that was my day. I felt like either Sisyphus, a salmon swimming against a strong current to a little Dutch boy and a damn dike with too many holes.