La Entropista

Thank you Sophie Scholl, for being so brave and taking one for the team. Because of you I met the liebling, who was in Berlin to promote the movie about you that was just nominated for an ACADEMY fucking AWARD for Best Foreign Language Film. Congratulations, my sweet potato. Can I wear my metallic purple lace-up stiletto heels to the awards ceremony? Just kidding. Kind of.

Meanwhile, I will encourage said sweetness to continue to be impressed that I installed the wireless router all by myself this morning. (It really wasn’t that hard).

Isn’t she lovely? From Nerve:

Valerie, 26

Last night was another one of those dinners where the liebling meets up with one of his friends that he hasn’t seen since all this shit went down and in addition to having to explain what has happened over the last year, also presents me, Suprise!, as the girlfriend. This is never fun, having to hear the story over and over again, along with the pure pleasure of the So-What’s-Her-Deal/Terminator visual scan evaluation inevitably performed by yet another skeptical German. 

Usually I just sit there like a turd drinking too much beer and trying to communicate through body language that I am not a dipshit and have like, an education (too much) and a career (that I hated) and ambition and skills and stuff beyond my current position as kept woman. But this time I was sorely tempted to channel Jessica Simpson or SanDeE* from LA Story as dingbat girlfriend for mid-life crisis guy to 1- entertain myself and to 2- simultaneously horrify and confirm the suspicions of the new acquaintence.

You should have seen the look of panic on my sweet potato’s face when I threatened to do that, but then he said that if I did then he would simply grin and squeeze me and say to his friends ‘isn’t she just WONDERFUL!”. You gotta love a guy who will take a dive for entertainment’s sake. What really happened was that when the liebling got up to peepee machen, Connie asked me point blank- so what are you doing here? My answer was- “laundry, dishes, I’m thinking about Swiffering tomorrow…” I couldn’t resist. It was just a leeetle bit.

dinner at La Villa, Muenchen- Schwabing and my fav. sweater

Anyway, last night was a work meeting, which means his friend Connie, a director, who was there with her D.P. (director of photography- no, not that other thing, you pervert) Peter, and some other guy named Reinhard (the producer) who were trying to get the sweet potato to make the music for the film they are shooting. So of course most of the conversation was auf Deutsch, and I hurt my brain concentrating so hard trying to pick up meaning from context and with the limited vocabulary I know (which was about 7% of hte conversation not including the pantyhose discussion). Reinhard, a complete charmer, offered to sit next to me and translate (no thank you stop watching me eat), which was kind but the dinner was not a social one and why do they have to stop speaking German just because I’m the retard who doesn’t understand?

Anyway, the REAL point of all this is that Connie had a BEAUTIFUL little sweet Schmooo of a dog sitting under the table and said that the sweet Schmoo Lula hated to be left alone. I nearly shit my pants at that comment because it allowed me to offer myself up for doggie-sitting services. YES! I hope she takes me up on it. THEN, the producer asked me if that offer extended to him as he as to go to LA and then to Berlin for Berlinale and needs someone to take his little Schmoo for a day and a half. F, YES.

Hund im Himmel, I may get some dog time in! This evening was not a bust! The producer said that, of course, some German was needed, you know: sit, come, langsam, etc. And I thought I am not such a idiot that I can’t learn words the freakin’ dog knows, so I said no problem, it’s all about the tone anyway, right? Now, only to convince the liebling that the Schmoo won’t sleep in the bed, and overnight is okay…

A couple of weeks ago, I went to my expensive haircutters and got my bangs trimmed for free, which is the least they could do for charging me so much to dye the gray out of my hair. The trim was so good I decided to cut them shorter, and more. They are finally starting to look okay now.

Why does Kimora Lee Simmons have a marble toilet? Why am I watching Cribs?

The back is getting long, this picture was supposed to show that. Instead, it shows back fat.

Who is the creepy lady in the corner, and why is she in my bathroom?

Reminder to self: yoga. And quit with the choco-croissants, you are not 18 any more. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was living in Santa Cruz when after four hours of surfing in 55 degree water, I sat in the Safeway parking lot and ate eight pieces of fried chicken? Well, I’m not surfing any more, either.

Tonight.

Beetroot Coconut Ginger Soup, Mixed Appetizers, Ayurveda Special:
Bori (deep fried mungo bean dumplings with tomato chutney) Samosa (filled vegetable pastry) Pakora (egg plant in deep fried chickpea flour) Vegetable Sabji (mixed vegetable curry with paneer) Rice (with vegetables and cashews) Papadam (flat cake made of lentils) Halawa (sweet semolina)

Helles during, framboise after.

The last time we came here we fought like mad and then played crazy make-up Uno afterwards. This time no fighting. The appetizers won, as the Ayurveda teller and the tofu stroganoff were not as super fantastic as the soup and mixed antipasti. Funny thing: we must have made an impression on the waitress, because as we ordered the schnapps, she mentioned that last time (in November!) we ordered the framboise, and we had to take williams birne instead…as it happended this time we ordered the williams, they were out, and had to take framboise.

Last night.

Loup de mer von grill, salad, rosemary potatoes, tiramisu, white wine. Very yummy. How I feel about whole fish:

“ps- had grilled fish and salad and rosemary potatoes for dinner tonight, with tiramisu for dessert- the fish was “loup de mer von grill” (how is that for three languages in one?) and when I got it it was a whole fish, staring up at me! Ahhh! Again! When will I get used to this? I tried not to look it in the face while I was eating it (no eye contact!), but I wanted to say, “hey could you lift your left pectoral fin so’s I can gouge the flesh around it out? I’m hungry.” At least in California they make it look less like the animal you know it really is. Can I have a teriyaki salmon burrito, please?”

There is value in having food look like what it is- one ought to know one is eating pig stomach or calf’s brain in one’s taco.

what is it, under there?

Night before.

Steinpilzrisotto in Weiswein gekocht with black truffles and parmesan on top. Apple tiramisu, flammery (what the?-this can’t be right- it was a dense chocolate english-style pudding, wheat-based, anyone know what the real name of it is?) with carmel chestnut sauce. Heavy, but much better than the cloyingly sweet apple and whipped cream mush of the other dessert.

PS- 70% off at H&M! Bought a sweater for 7 Euro. That’s the way I like it, baby.

PPS- tomorrow, woohoo!:

I suppose that if awful things were happing to your body and you were forced to stay home in misery, it would be most satisfying that it is absolutely freezing out there in the nature, instead of feeling irritated and deprived when the weather is delightful, such as in places where glorious things just fall form the sky.

Tonight however, with my good friends Tylenol and his partner in crime, Codine, I’m going out. First, to see Rhythm Is It!, an inspirational, up-lifting documentary starring deprived urban multi-kulti kinder having their spirits restored and their faith in learning renewed by the opportunity to dance to the soul-stirring strings of the Berlin Philharmonic. Then to dinner at Müllersches Volksbad, which is an Art Deco indoor swimming pool that is so lovely that it almost makes me willing to disrobe in front of others just to dip my toe in the pubic soup.

By the way, how many times have I told you that the Berlin Philharmonic has decided to record the liebling’s music for his current project? Very excited and proud, as if I had something to do with it, that the “make no mistake about it, the best symphonic orchestra in the world” (said the beautiful, skinny, big-boobed Israeli coloratura soprano that they are using) will be playing his music. My liebling is composing music that the best orchestra in the world will record, and this is my biggest accomplishment for the day:

but I can hold forth on exploding toads and giant squid

its COLD. Deceptively sunny and bright, making you think you can go out there with a skirt on and even wear your sunglasses like Spring was a-commin’, but really its MINUS SEVEN degrees out there. -7! C, not F, to make it  more dramatic, mind you- talking about 19 degrees F. I need to go get my bio-eggs and my oiko-bread and my butter-natur NOW so I don’t freeze solid after the sun goes down. Yikes!

At least its not Berlin, where it’s -13C in the middle of the day, that’s 9 degrees F. Crazy fuckers.

I knew it was just a matter of time, with all the travelling and jet lag and too much Uno, but I now have a raging bladder infection. I tried to deny it for days, but today I am capitulating to the achey misery of it and am spending half my rainy afternoon in the bathroom and the other half on the couch practicing moaning. Tomorrow I go to Franz Josef Apoteke and get myself some of that herbal remedy that we can’t get in the States. Unfortunately one can only take it twice a year (last time was in November), but I have no other choice as antibiotics in foreign lands are not covered by my insurance and I haven’t found cranberry things around here. In the meantime I’m going to make “Meßmer „Momente des Glücks,“ overdose myself with vitamin C and watch Se7en.

On another similarly rainy day, I made soup. Inspired by the relentlessly hot dal soup with chicken and rice at Sangam, I attempted my own:

I sweated the onions and garlic in butter tempered with olive oil, and toasted the spices (coriander, yellow mustard, ginger, cumin, cinnamon, citrus flakes). Added half the finely chopped hot chili and ginger and sauteed some more.

Added the chicken broth, bay leaves, s&p, lentils, chopped tomato, diced potato and carrot, and let it all simmer until the dal disintegrates into its mushy goodness, skimming off the froth as it begins to boil. After about 20 min or so, added diced raw chicken breast fillets and a handful of basmati, the rest of the garlic, chili and fresh ginger. Simmered some more.

Adjusted spices, then served with freshly chopped cilantro and a generous squeeze of lemon.

I think it was important to add the garlic/ginger/chili at two seperate stages to give both depth and brightness to the soup, as was adding the cilantro and lemon at the end as a counterpoint to the earthiness of the dal and cinnamon/mustard/cumin toasted spice mixture. It would have been great with a beer.

to sunny Germany. The flight was fantastic, thanks for asking. We flew from LA to  Munich together, non-stop- a good thirteen hours or so of making out as we hadn’t seen each other for three and a half weeks. We ate bad food. We played Uno. Every beverage I had had that wonderful thing called free alcohol that makes international flights slightly bearable. The highlight of the trip was me yelling at the crazy lady behind me for being loud and inconsiderate and FUCKING CRAZY: I got all scornful teacher on her ass and it felt GOOD. I am not a confrontational person by nature (lover not a fighter) but good lord, that lady was driving me bonkers with the endless fighting with her asshole of a husband, him degrading her, she shouting at the top of her lungs “HE’S PERFECT! He thinks he’s PERFECT!! He can’t wait to divorce me!” until the stewardess had to come and tell her to please calm (the fuck) down (crazy lady) please, and her husband covering her mouth with his hands and then cooing and kissing her after. Bizarre.

I was surprised that the typically bold Germans who have no problem telling you on the street that you are doing something wrong, didn’t say a word to her about her behavior so I finally lit into her. I asked the liebling later if he heard me yelling at her, as he was asleep, and he said “yes, but you didn’t really yell at her…enough. I would have grabbed her throat like this and tell her that if she didn’t shut up that I would just continue squeezing harder and harder until she died a quiet painful death and they would have to carry her body off the plane on a stretcher and not one person on the plane would would say one thing about it because they don’t give a fuck about you.”

You see why I love him so?

Anywho, to this place I brought my three cup dolla-twenny-five Ikea as-is department espresso maker:

praise the Lord and all things Lavazza, and my robe:

very important for the lounging and the breakfast making and the walking around naked, as there are no curtains here and certainly none to fit the eyeball of a window you see above. Not that I would want one. Notice all the lovely light from the skylight in the 20 ft+ ceiling? I know you’re jealous.

It is brilliantly sunny right now, and I wonder whether this is typical for Bavaria or whether it’s an abberation and soon it will feel like Poland again. In any case, I sit in the sun and look up language schools using my new and very spanking DSL connection, which dramatically changes the nature of our evenings, as now I sit and read the blogs of funny people I don’t know and he plays Bejeweled. Till 3 in the morning. I’m not kidding. This is the life.

I hate this game, and games in general. I have no attention span and would rather be doing something else, like, anything else, but I promised, and I did, and lordy I won. Played both xenia then you/quark on a triple word score for 57 points. F yeah. Of course G-ma couldn’t let that lie so we played a second round and I got soundly trounced. This is why I only play Scrabble once a decade.

Then we went to Rite Aid and picked up our arthritis prescriptions.

Old. Ladies.

P.S. I officially do not have tuberculosis