Harry Potter and the breast warts

Spring has arrived, which means that the streets of our part of town are now in bloom and the only thing stopping me from cartwheel-ing from place to place is the fact that I can’t. And that I’ve still got a loose grip on my sanity.

Although the recent burst of spring energy has caused an involuntary and irrepressible urge to storm the local book stores for material to read outdoors. Here’s the catch: German bookstores, German books. Evidently there is some neurological compound in my brain that equates sunlight with soaring ambitions.

This chemical imbalance caused Simon and I to each purchase a German version of the first Harry Potter Book: “Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen”.

And, loaded up on good intentions, buyers’ frenzy and elevated quantities of pollen we set up picnic near the Isar and started The Reading Phenomenon. That is to say, Simon ripped his shirt off with a fervency that showed he meant business while I communicated my intentions through my facial expression (Munich isn’t ready for what lies beneath my shirt – pork knuckles, knodles, beer and two buckets of KFC chicken) and we dove into our literature.

Surprisingly we found that we could follow the story. Nay, more than that, we were enjoying the story. We were flying through descriptions of wizards and cats and mean-spirited bitches. We were exhilarated...speeding through the text without any seatbelts on, at the heart-thumping pace of four pages an hour. (If this blog was a sitcom, you’d hear the sound of a vinyl record being abruptly stopped right about now).

Four pages an hour?! We are the Volvo drivers of the literary world. And here’s what I’ve discovered: it’s not that Volvo drivers want or even think they’re driving slowly. It’s just that there’s so much going on around – so many new adjectives, nouns and adverbs and so much stuff happening – that they actually think they’re going at a normal pace.

After a couple of trips to the Isar, we’re 20 pages in. The plan is to finish the entire Harry Potter series (in German) before our 96th birthday. So yeah, I might be MIA for a while longer...

In other important news: the German word for “nipples” is “Brustwarzen” which translates as “breast warts”.

I have no words...

There are no words for this:



Thank you Heather for finding it for me.

If you don't watch this I'm going to be very mad

The guy who taught that dog to dance strikes again?

Today is a day for videos, everyone!

This one doesn't even require an explanation.

A serious discussion

I've spent the past ten minutes watching and re-watching this video. It's just that the more you watch it, the funnier it gets. Especially if you imagine that the first baby is pissed off at the second baby for trashing the house...and that both babies are drunk.

The Gift-Wrapping Fiasco of 2011

I firmly believe that there are few things in the world as dangerous as handing me a present and demanding it to be gift-wrapped.

In this I am the product of my parents.

My mother, while capable of all kinds of science-defying acts (like cleaning the bathroom and doing the shopping at the same time), subscribes to the theory that everything – no matter what shape it is – can be made to look like a lolly if you just put enough elbow grease into it. And my dad? Well, when I was two he dropped me and got a stick stuck in my eye, but since he was too afraid to pull it out himself he dragged me through the neighbourhood until my mother could de-branch me. What does that have to do with gift wrapping? Nothing really, but it’s my opinion that if you can’t pull a stick out from your kid’s eye, you probably can’t gift-wrap. Prove me wrong if you dare.

Despite these genes, I’ve somehow managed to make it to adulthood (and you realise this means a lot of Christmases, birthdays and a five year stint at Mather’s Shoes during which I had to wrap shoes for postage). But like every person with a severe disability, I’ve faced plenty of adversity: The Great Christmas Stereo Disaster of 1999, The Frying Pan Can’t Be Made Into A Lolly Shape Crisis of 2004 and The Accidentally Super-Glued Hand To Wrapping Paper Catastrophe (shortly followed by the Why Were You Using Superglue To Gift-Wrap ?! Inquisition).

Today I added another one to the record books when I took on the monumental task of gift-wrapping my goddaughter’s and her brother’s birthday presents (which I have to post tomorrow. Could someone please remind me?).

Luckily I was prevented from performing this task at the post office. That is, the post office staff sensed my intent to wrap five things inside their workplace and closed it before I had the chance to execute my plan.

Instead I took the pretty gift-wrap and the pretty presents home and spent the next hour and a half (HOUR AND A HALF!!!) making a complete mess of everything around me. When I was done, I had – for the first time in the history of our apartment – caused complete silence to fall over the room. Neither Simon nor Mark had ever seen a person so completely inept at performing such a basic task. I, on the other hand, beamed at having finished with five, distinguishably different and separate (because it doesn’t always work out that way) presents: two boxes, two misshaped – but nonetheless colourful – cowpats and a lolly.  If my family was by my side, they’d be applauding feverishly.

Of course tomorrow when the post office staff see what I’ve done I’ll probably be banned from buying wrapping paper in Germany, but tonight I drink to victory!