Football, American College Style

You can learn all kinds of things when you read. For instance, yesterday I was reading the TV magazine comes with our digital receiver. There are lots more channels of course, but who watches that much television? So, I hadn't paid all that much attention.

BIG MISTAKE !! So, I was looking at the schedule for Saturday, and LOOK WHAT I FOUND:

NASN is the North American Sports Network. OK. That was new. But if you look a little closer:

...you see that Bobby Bowden speaks German!

No, Bobby doesn't speak German (and his English isn't always standard), but things are spoken about him in German. Nevertheless, the planned broadcast for the day was the FSU - FL game at 9 PM our time, 3 PM local time. I was so excited !! That was changed as we know, and it turns out the VaTech game was shown, but here, last week of the season, I am just finding out I can watch some NCAA football! What a hoot. All the stuff there is to see!

Next year ...... maybe they'll show the FSU - FL game and maybe the outcome will be better.

Thanksgiving

We celebrated a day later than there, but Thanksgiving it was. We were supposed to be 9 at the table but poor Peggy was so sick that she and Wolfgang didn't make it. I've already given them the date for next year!

So there was lots of food for the rest of us - I don't know it that was good news or bad news. There are a few more leftovers than usual, but that'll make Werner's mother happy.

The menu has staples and variables and the soup is always in the second category. This year it was Carrot and Cilantro Soup from Delia Smith - I heartily recommend it. (BTW Crissy, you were absolutey right about the pronunciation - Werner was trying to make it Italian!) The main staple is of course the turkey with cornbread dressing. I read a little piece about what makes Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, and the writer said it's NOT the turkey - it's the dressing. I agree! The dressing never changes. Potatoes mashed with parsnips, sweet potatoes with orange butter and cranberries, Brussels sprouts with lemon and poppy seed (thanks to Orangette), green beans. Cranberry sauce, naturally, this time with currants, pears and walnuts. That was good, too - a variation on a Martha recipe. To finish us off, there was pumpkin cheesecake and pecan pie. Coffee. Schnapps. Roll us out the door!

Such an undertaking is never without a hitch; this time it was the pie. I have become a world-class pie crust maker since there's no Pillsbury in the grocery store, so that wasn't it. But I'd forgotten to buy more corn syrup while I was there - oh no! There was a scant 3/4 cup left in the bottle, so a quick internet search for substitutes came up with honey. It worked fine, so another staple was saved.

But the turkey is the star and everyone was just as happy as Ursel to be here for dinner.

Now to take a walk ........... a very long walk.

Belated Birthday

Werner and I did my birthday today. I think we had spent one other birthday of mine apart and one of his as well. Or two. Of mine. Or his. I don't really remember that so well and neither does he; that makes me feel a lot better about my ever-more-weak-and-holey memory.

Since I like decorated eggs, this picture appealed to me. Go figure.

Anyway, we made a date to go to an exhibit about Paula Modersohn-Becker, a German artist of the early 20th century who died 100 years ago this year. Hence the retrospective (click here).

She's a bit of a cult figure here - born in Dresden but Bremen was where she grew up and she lived in Worpswede (the artist's colony north of here that most all of you have visited) when she produced most of her work. She was only 31 when she died from an embolism just after the birth of her only child.

That she had painted so many portraits of women, children, and mothers and babes makes the exhibit a bit more touching.

One aspect of the exhibit compared her many portraits and self-portraits to paintings of ancient Egypt that were painted for mummies. It's a fascinating comparison and highlights how artists were influenced by earlier art and each other.

Afterwards we took in local artistic presentations of food - good old local comfort food in a charming restaurant in our most charming quarter - the Schnoor.

Notes from Florida, Part 2

As much fun as it was with Hunter and Hannah (and Mom and Dad), they were not the major reason for this trip -- the smallest and newest of the bunch was the one I had to see: Dylan Rose. Here she is. Absolutely worth the trip!! Is she a cutie or what ??

It really was Halloween in Orlando - decorated houses and more kids in costumes. Dylan Rose dressed down a bit - the pumpkin was way to warm ! Hayden was a bit warm in his dragon costume, but he still impressed a few folks walking around the neighborhood.

Here's a sort of family portrait - getting everyone togther at the same time and awake proved impossible! As Lee said, sleep deprivation is a fact of life at their house right now.

Don't look too closely at this picture of me with Hayden and Dylan - neither was particularly happy at that moment - so I had to be happy enough for all of us.

And here's Hayden in motion; Dylan doesn't do all that much moving around, so I'll get her next time!

Notes from Florida, Part 1a

I have to briefly mention the FSU game, my birthday and Halloween at Hunter and Hannah's place.

The FSU game was a sight to behold - tents all over the parking lot, grills, tv sets, bands, games, war chants and fight songs on loud speakers. Not even CLOSE to what I knew in college -- or even much later.

Here we are with the stadium in the background in our black t-shirts. The stadium looks kinda black too! Somehow that was supposed to be a team spirit thing, but not everyone was in the spirit. That's OK; we won the game anyway!

If you want to watch the game, you can get re-runs on TV; here's stuff they don't usually show and sometimes the best part of the game: The Marching Chiefs and Renegade !

That was Saturday; Sunday was my birthday. Hunter and Hannah slept till noon (!!!) - we got home really late - so we had to start right away on the cake. We'd bought all the goodies the day before: choclolate cake, chocolate icing, candles and hats. Here's a little collage.

And then it was off to Orlando, but not before I got a shot of Hunter and Hannah in their Halloween costumes, a Super Girl and a menacing Ninja. Wow !