Happy November! or "Hurray for procrastination"

Ahhh, Kinders--

How is everyone?

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the Harz mountains to wish the Grandparents a preemptive happy birthday (although that's actually a HUGE no go here--brings bad luck, doncha know...). It was nice, and we got back relatively early this afternoon, so it wasn't too stressful. I hadn't been since May and there was snow on the ground, so I was excited all around. In light of all the upcoming insanity (KiTa Thanksgiving, My Thanksgiving, 3 different adult ed courses, school, exams and WORK) I should be doing about a bajillion different things other than updating this, but you know...vive la procrastination!
So anyway, the Grandparents are well, the Angie is well, the Max is well and it was really nice to be out of the city and in such a lovely quaint village like Schierke. It's one of my favorite places in Germany because it reminds me so much of home. Sometimes I think that one of my ways of dealing with being so far away is to find little pieces of home wherever I go. To be fair, however, there are definitely more conifers in the Harz region than in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern combined. And there was snow!!!! Not much, and we didn't go up the Brocken (weather was too foggy and craptastic) where there was allegedly more, but it was enough. In Berlin it rains. A lot. Last week we had four out of five days of constant.rain. I thought I was going to go crazy! I also had nothing to wear, because no one here has dryers. Everything gets hung out on the balcony on drying racks. But when it rains and is windy, nothing gets dry. And it sucks. In the depths of winter here is when I'm at my post patriotic. Wait and see.

In other news...the elections!!!
They're coming and I'm so excited. I voted about a month ago, but it doesn't matter. I absolutely cannot wait for Tuesday to see how committed America really is to being the change we want to see in the world. I mean, I'm not the hard core Obama fan that so many other people I care about are...and if I'm going to be honest, I would have preferred Hilary, but I think that Obama has the potential to take the US in a very fascinating direction, domestically as well as internationally. I don't have anything against McCain personally. I think it's a shame that he allowed himself to get strong-armed into making such poor and uncharacteristic decisions (choosing Palin as a running mate, abandoning his principles and giving in to negative campaigning). He's a good I guy, I think. He's certainly an American hero, and he definitely deserved a better campaign than the one he got. I think that's really only fair to say. However, as a result of one of his poor decisions in particular, I hope to heaven that he doesn't win. That woman is not fit to be president now, and she won't be fit to be president in 2012. I think she needs to go back to the hinterlands where she belongs. But I don't want to get too nasty here. I just happen to think that she speaks to the vilest part of America, really the bottom of the barrel of what we stand for as a nation. And no, I would not like to go out for a beer with her. Which is also, by the way, absolutely NO MEASURE of a person's ability to govern. I mean seriously, people. Whoever came up with that crap, anyway? Fortunately, as I heard James Carville say to Wolf Blitzer today, in times of trouble, America is less likely to vote based on likeability and more likely to vote based on capability.
Here's to hoping that's true.

Anyway, I'm going to pack it in for today. I've got some reading that I won't have any other time to do...so yeah. Take care of youselves and ROCK OUT ON TUESDAY!!!