Out of Heidelberg

To be honest, I was a little surprised that we managed to get to the airport this time without any last minute hiccups, like finding out six days before your flight that your children do not have valid passports. Or having your patient-challenged wife check the Homeland Security ESTA application the night before flying and noticing that a) you got her birthday wrong and b) you used her maiden name. This is the same wife, by the way, who managed to break two of her toes two days before our last trip to the States.  But I digress. My point was that it was nice to finally board an airplane without anyone doing anything silly. Well, almost.

After vocally encouraging silly posers to 'get on the plane and stop embarrassing your mother', I found my seat. As luck would have it, I had a seat on my own and Angie was stuck in the middle section one row back with the boys. By luck, I of course mean that I did the online check-in last night, which included seat assignments, and I thought that Angie would enjoy the bonding time with the boys. Nine and a half hours of bonding, to be exact.

Shortly before takeoff, I noticed a curtain separating my seat from the front section. Just above the curtain rod was a sign that said "STOW DURING TAKEOFF". Since we were taxiing out, I thought I would simply do what the stewardess had obviously forgotten to do. I started to slide the curtain to the stow position, but as soon as I touched it, the whole thing came crashing down.

The stewardess, who was buckling herself in, whipped around and gave me a look that told me that she is obviously married. I shrugged my shoulders and turned to Angie for support. She didn't have a whole lot of that, but she did whip out her camera and cackled loudly enough for the pilot to notice.

I tried reattaching the curtain, but the stewardess started angrily snapping and motioning for me to put the curtain down. Luckily I am used to women snapping orders at me, so I dropped the curtain to my feet and patiently waited for takeoff.

Shortly after takeoff, I noticed a wagon coming down the aisle serving champagne and an option of two snacks. As it got closer, I could see that one was a nice looking chicken-pesto dish and the other was some type of beef in a red wine sauce. My mouth was watering and I was about to turn around and ask Angie which dish she was going to have when the cart stopped at the row in front of me and then returned to the front of the plane.

Some people learn something new every day, but my brain has been 99% full for some time now, so I'm still surprised on those rare occasions when it does happen. Angie never is, but I tend not to dwell on what could possibly surprise her brain. Anyway, what I discovered is that the curtain that my muscular biceps had inadvertently ripped out of its tracks was actually there to separate the Business Class from the common folk.

When we landed, Angie and I, but mainly Angie, were running a tad bit short on patience. When we got on the AirTrain to get from the terminal to the rental car, Tommy asked what would normally be a normal question.

'Papa, what is an AirTrain?'

'It's a TRAIN that's in the AIR!'

Maybe it was my tone, but David giggled and Tommy suddenly stopped asking questions. 

When we got to the rental car hub, we told the boys to sit on the bench and behave. I guess we should have been more specific, because Tommy interpreted our instructions to mean that he could mount his new suite case and zip around the waiting area making race-car noises.

For better or worse, Angie and I are used to tuning out disobedient children, so we ignored Tommy Samsonite and went to pick up our rental car. I had booked this online with Advantage and was quite proud that, after spending multiple hours, I had found a deal that would cost $1,500 for three weeks, with unlimited mileage and insurance including Angie as an additional driver, in case I decided that cruising on the sidewalk would be fun.

'Hi, the name's Johnson - I'm here to pick up our rental car.'

'Do you want unlimited mileage?'

'Yes, I already booked that.'

'Mmh. I don't see that. Would you like insurance?'

'Yes, I already booked that.'

'Mmh. I don't see that. Would like your spouse to be able to drive?'

'Not really, but I already booked that.'

'Mmh. I don't see that. Your total is $3,000. How would you like to pay?'

After nearly ten minutes of arguing with the staff that their offer was nowhere near what I had booked, we walked away. Then we went down to Budget and asked for the same exact deal.

'No problem, Mr. Johnson, that will be $1,530 and your spouse is, of course, covered without charge.'

And with that, we were on our way to Jen and Doyle's, the coolest kid-less married types in New York. The boys were dead, but they managed to keep it together for pizza.

I was dead, too, but managed to keep it together for beer. 

After a delicious culinary welcome to New York, we made our way back to Jen and Doyle's. Peter had insisted on bringing his oversized pizza pillow with him, so he was all set. Luckily, David and Tom found an acceptable alternative. Her name is Olive.  

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Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we flew to New York to visit Doyle and Ms. Jen.
David: That we came to New York with Doyle and Ms. Jen.
Tom: That we went to visit Ms. Jen in New York.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That we had to fly for more than 8 hours.
David: That Tom was annoying me in the car.
Tom: That we needed to drive and fly for so long. 

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: I want to eat Captain Crunch and maybe go to Central Park.
David: I want to have a lot of fun with Doyle and Ms. Jen.
Tom: I want to have fun with Doyle and Ms. Jen and Olive.

Twitchy Foot and the Red Giggler

Doyle missed me so much, he came all the way back to Germany just to hang out. I thought it was strange that Doyle kept insisting that he was 'here on business; not to see you'. He was probably just too macho to admit to me his real feelings. Whatever, tough guy - nice pink shirt.

Doyle brought Jen along with him, but before we get to the bourbon shots and stories of a red-headed girl's misguided youth, check out Tommy's version of slinging shots.

His evil grin is a bit troublesome, though. Knowing all too well David's passion for destroying things and inflicting pain, I am not sure if a slingshot is really the best choice of toy for Tommy at this early stage of social development. Besides, I'm quite sure he'll learn plenty about weapons from David, including the eight ways to incapacitate a teacher using the common crayon. Don't ask.

Speaking of our Angel, here is David enjoying one of Angie's home-cooked meals.

I flashed this same pose many times during my college years, but the kid is only three! If he starts throwing toga parties, I'm going to have to figure a way to get Angie out of the house so we can party like rock stars.

After baby-wiping the grease out of sleeping beauty's hair, I hit the town to meet up with Jen and Doyle. Since I had just won the Canadian blog award, I felt obliged to hang out with a few canooks.

It was great hanging out with John and Liz, my funny speaking North American friends. I love maple syrup and hockey and even though I don't have a pet beaver, I'm sure I earned Canadian cool points by guzzling lots of beer.

I wasn't the only one guzzling. After her third glass, Jen began telling us stories about what a horrible little girl she was growing up. Um, did you say 'was'? There was something disturbing about the way she cracked up while telling us how she locked her babysitter out of the house. The poor guy is probably still in therapy.

As Jen explained how she narrowly avoided detention camp, Doyle was busy pacing back and forth. Doyle is an odd guy anyway, so we are all used to his strange behavior, but after an hour we asked him what the hell was wrong.

'I've got Restless Foot Syndrome.'

[five minutes of laughing, giggling and snickering]

'Oh...you're serious? What is that, exactly?'

Since most medical terms are Latin-based and sometimes hard to decipher, allow me to explain in layman's terms what Restless Foot Syndrome is. It's when your feet are restless. Man, those years of Latin really paid off.

I don't normally laugh at sick people unless they really deserve it. Doyle did not deserve it, but oh well. Him and his twitchy legs had us rolling for at least two beers. You should have seen Footloose go crazy on the dance floor!

After another beer, Jen ordered some bourbon shots and pretty soon, Doyle's leg twitch had travelled up his torso and caused a sudden outbreak of Restless Finger Syndrome.

If you need a Latin translation of Restless Finger Syndrome, just let me know; I won't actually translate it, but at least I'll know you're stupid. The symptoms involve sitting on a bar stool and loudly shouting along with people trying to do karaoke. I can tell you, it's very painful to listen to and can severely irritate singers on stage. Doyle didn't seem to care, though. He had his bad-ass pink shirt on that shouted 'step back, a'ight - I'm on business, yo'.
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Ladder Talk:
[David was face-down in pepperoni and did not wake up for Ladder Talk]
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When we go'ed on the playground with Isabel and Elisabeth.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When I didn't want that I finish my pizza.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To play with Spiderman that you can be Spiderman and we can play together.

The bridge to appeasement

I woke up to the smell of anger and disappointment. Someone was pounding on the door and the phones were ringing off the hook. As I made my way to the front entrance, I heard shouting and yelling. I nervously opened the door and was confronted by a mob of angry fans.

'What the hell do you think you are doing?'

'Three weeks?! You skipped three weeks?'

'How dare you?! What kind of zoo are you running?!'

'We want those blogs. You OWE us those blogs!'

Ok, maybe it was not exactly a mob. To be honest, it was only two people and one of them was my wife. But the point is, I can not let down my three readers. As a compromise, I offered to bridge those missing three weeks with the following snipits of blogs that would have been, had I actually found the time to write them.

This was David, getting a kick out of getting kicked out of kindergarten for the first time. I would like to think it will be the last time, but I am a realist. Sorry to all those lame-ass pluralists out there. David felt so bad that he went inside, stole Tom's pacifier and tried flushing it down the toilet. Yes, you guessed - he laughed at that as well.

Peter proclaimed himself King of the Zoo. After covering the table with animals, he refused to remove them to eat. Who can argue with the King? I can. And with only one swoop of my hand and minimal crying.

Tom figured how to be both cute and disgusting within the span of 20 seconds. This picture would be the cute part. The bubbles that shortly followed this lovely snapshot would be the disgusting bit.

In Peter and David's version of The Lion and the Dragon, the lion is apparently not so happy about his role and the dragon thinks he is an iguana.

Peter is smiling here because he thinks he has found the key to never going to the ear doctor's again.

This is Tom, moments after we have broken the news to him that we are, in fact, related.

I came home to find Angie roaming the halls again. Unlike my cousin Itt, I am actually married to this one.
Jen and Doyle say ba-bye to Deutschland with a kick-ass party. Since Angie was weighted down with an anchor wrapped in diapers, I volunteered to attend in her absence. She was not as grateful as I would have expected, but I wisely chose to just let that one go.

Sami taught the boys how to play memory. I can't remember who won, though.

Tom had his first meal. In addition to gagging himself with a silver spoon, he also smeared food in his hair, on the rug and somehow managed to fling some on the cat. At least it answers one question - when it comes to eating, it looks like he will take after David and not Peter.

Before leaving the country for good, Jen and Doyle stopped by for an entertaining variation of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In addition to lemons and humor, they also brought 8 weeks worth of homemade Mexican food. Gracias!

Instead of driving us up the walls, Peter somehow confused the instructions from his mother ship and began climbing Eisi's radiator.

Eisi presented Peter with a walking stick that was his when he was Peter's age. We then spent the rest of the afternoon explaining to people that Peter was not blind.

So there, I hope my three readers are happy now. What about Ladder Talk? you might ask. For that, I can save a lot of time and boil it down to the following generic Ladder Talk that pretty much covers the entire period.
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When I play with Dalia.
David: When I play with Dalia.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When David hit me on the [insert body part here] and it hurt.
David: When Gizma scratch me and I cry.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To see Dalia.
David: To see Dalia.