Making America Loud Again: Discovery

Today was all about discovering new things. Patrick, along with myself, was surprised to discover that Peter, like Gizmo, can become quite the ass when you put him in water. 

This was Peter's evil grin directly after he had given Patrick an unwanted chlorine eye-bath. The next gleefully wicked head-shot came shortly after he had thoroughly baptized David without his permission.

Normally the second-born child would simply delegate the love and vent his aggression on the third born. The problem with that sound logic is that the third born in this case has been training hard-core for three hours a day, six days a week, for the last five years. David never stood a chance. 

At one point, Evil P decided to take break from tormenting younger humans to use the bathroom. Along the way, he discovered that my parents had recently installed surveillance cameras that were digitally capturing his nefarious and tortuous escapades for all of eternity. Smile!

The next discovery came in the bathroom. Over the years, my dad has decorated the entire house in what one can only be described as eclectically-bizarre with a dash of bat-shit crazy. The toilet closet was no exception.

Take another look. This truly frightening sculpture of Van Gogh sporting a Russian medal is hung at exactly the eye-level of a grown human that is standing.

If this is not the best deterrent to standing and peeing ever, I don't know what is. I used the bathroom shortly after Peter and I certainly sat the hell down. 

Tom also made a discovery of his own. I call this one 'Don't-fall-asleep-if-your-brothers-are-total-asses-and-have-a-ball-point-pen'.

After lecturing Things One and Two on the dangers of ink poisoning their sibling, we rewarded the entire crew with frozen sticks of milk-chocolate, because, you know, that's what good parents do. Right?

Time flies when you're doping up delinquent young-ins and before we knew it, it was time to free up three beds at the Johnson ranch.

Knowing that my parents had just dealt with a week of loudness, we decided to give them a bit of quiet time. After saying goodbye to Christine, Patrick and Stephanie, we hit the road and invaded the northern side of Carolina.

For reasons only privy to Tom's arguably faulty brain, he decided to drive around a roadside market riding a tricycle that he had found in the corner collecting cobwebs.

After nearly getting kicked out of a rather nice and rustic roadside market, we ventured on to a beach close to where they claim the first plane was flown.

The boys had a blast. They're city kids, so drinking a gallon of sea water and inhaling sand particles was something new and strangely exciting for them. It did build up a mighty fierce hunger so we were all glad to come back to the ranch to find Pop-Pop manning the grill and flipping burgers.

After almost twenty years of living in Germany, I have discovered the root cause of why German burgers suck. NEWS FLASH - IT'S THE BUN. In the land of Deutsch, the buns are crap. Entschuldigung. They either turn mushy because the patty is too juicy or they crumble because the bread is too dry. The buns in America are probably not even made using real bread, but they are delicious so I don't care. I also prefer American peanut butter which looks and tastes nothing like the real peanut butter you can find at Aldi. And don't even get me started on mustard that is not yellow, the lack of which also prevents German burgers from even competing with what my dad brought to the table.

After the old man and the BBQ, Pop-Pop tucked the boys in bed and started to read 'The Old Man and the Sea'. 

It's not exactly the most riveting story and the boys had spent all day in the sun and had bellies full of burgers, so it was not a shocker when they conked out after the third page.
--------------------------------------------
Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we went to Kitty Hawk and had a good time. 
David: The beach. 
Tom: That we went to the Kitty Hawk beach. 

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That Patrick and Stephanie had to go. 
David: The drive. 
Tom: That I got smacked by a couple of huge waves and water came in my nose and my neck and everywhere.  

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Go to the mall. 
David: Go to the mall. 
Tom: Go to the mall. 

Making America Loud Again: Landfall

Being the Johnsons, we did not trust ourselves to wake up in the middle of the morning in time to make it to the airport for our flight to the States. To shorten the drive and decrease the odds of inadvertently leaving any children behind, we stayed at Grams overnight. At 4:00 in the morning, my alarm went off. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 7:30 in the A.M. from Frankfurt, which is only about 25 minutes away at that God-awful hour.  I checked my phone, wishfully hoping for a flight delay. I then rubbed my eyes and checked again. WHOO-HOO!! Our flight was delayed until 11:00! Thank you, American Airlines!

I then reset my alarm and got three more hours of that beauty sleep that Angie keeps telling me I don't need. We also called Heidi and Klaus, who had graciously volunteered to let us park at their place and have them drive us to the airport. They live about five minutes from the airport, so this saves us some seriously ridiculous parking fees. Klaus was also loving the extra beauty sleep that Heidi keeps telling him he needs.

As I slept, I had a nightmare and flashed back to our last trip to the U.S, where Angie had impatiently thrown a stuffed teddy bear at a TSA agent while going through customs, causing a complete lock-down that ended with bomb-sniffing equipment being brought to the scene and us missing our connecting flight.

I woke up sweating, but tried shaking off the anxiety by telling myself that nothing similar could possibly happen again. Of course, I've also told myself the same thing about family members embarrassing me in public, so I'm obviously shit at paying attention to ominous foreshadowing.

A short side note, and I am not trying to assign blame at all, but... it was ANGIE who was in charge of packing the suitcases for the boys. The only mistake that she will never own up to is that she allowed each of them to pack their own carry-on.

Sensible Peter packed earphones, a pillow, a book, and a sweater in case it got cold on the flight. Not-so-sensible David packed a bag of potato chips, fifty individually wrapped Life Savers, a soda, and three decks of magic cards.

Tom was really the joker card. Was he going to lean more towards Peter or more towards David? In the end, Tom chose the by me-self path, and that one told his ten-year old brain that what airplane folk needed the most in their carry-on were water pistols. Two of them. And nothing else. 

This is Tom, quite tickled with himself that he had been chosen out of all the people going through security to be invited to a personal interview with a security agent that was not quite as tickled. Oddly, though, he didn't address Tom. No, no. I was slightly less than tickled to have that honor.

'Sir, you are not allowed to bring weapons of any kind on an aircraft!'

'Okay, but come on! They're brightly colored plastic water guns and obviously look nothing like a real weapon. Besides, they're not filled with any liquids.'

'Sir, you're gonna have to take a step back. I'm calling in the Federal Police, they can decide.'

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that my lovely wife was not wielding any stuffed animals.

'No problem, Sir. I'll wait here patiently with my delinquent third-born.'

A few minutes later, two heavily armed police officers showed up. After a few brief explanatory exchanges, the officers lowered their weapons and had a peek into Tom's carry-on. One of them then stood up and glared at the security agent that had initially stopped us.

'Oh, come on! They're brightly colored plastic water guns and obviously look nothing like a real weapon. Besides, they're not filled with any liquids.'

I vaguely tried to avoid smirking and failed miserably. Instead, I avoided eye contact with the red-faced security agent, quickly collected Tom's arsenal of dangerous plastic weaponry and fled the scene with my fugitive family to our gate.

Despite Tom's lack of attention to detail when it came to what was allowed in your carry-on luggage, we actually made it to our flight twenty minutes before boarding. Being the wise and seasoned sailor that I am, I asked my merry bandit of seamen if anyone needed to hit the head before embarking on our voyage. When they didn't understand my jargon, I asked if anyone needed the bathroom. Tom and David signaled their interest.

When we got to the restroom, there was a cleaning lady standing by the sinks and repeatedly hitting a green button on the wall. I am witness to strange things on a daily basis so I simply ignored this and went on with my business. When I was done, I went to wash my hands. The lady looked a bit startled and quickly pushed her cart out of the bathroom. I washed my hands and then had a closer look at the buttons she had been frantically pushing. 

That's right. The buttons were to allow patrons to vote on just how satisfied they were with the cleanliness of that particular restroom. The green button was a smiley, which apparently worked well. It made me smile.

After visiting what was beyond a doubt the most satisfyingly clean bathroom ever, we boarded a shuttle to take us out to the plane.

We had a brief layover in North Carolina where we had to clear customs. One short hop later and we landed in Norfolk. While waiting for the bags, the boys began to wonder if the belt would be rotating clockwise or counterclockwise once it started. I don't remember which way was correct, but as is apparent with this picture, Mama was right. Again. 

After collecting our bags, David and Tom raced across the room and began attacking an elderly couple that looked a lot like Oma and Pop-Pop.

About a month ago, Christine and I were talking and we realized that her visit with my parents and our visit were going to overlap. Her kids go to a U.S. school and ours go to a German school, so we had always thought that there was never a possibility for the cousins to see each other during the summer break. We were wrong, though. There was a one-day overlap, and they made the most of it.

Holy shit! Zoom in and check out Tommy. I'm quite sure that this is the same glimpse that pterodactyl victims witnessed seconds before having their entrails presented to them.

The cousins had an absolute blast for several hours. The evening ended with the only respectable way I know of to feed ten humans - pizza.

After dinner, my dad brought out a homemade strawberry-Jell-O-sugar cake that highlighted his utter lack of wisdom when it comes to winding down hyperactive cousins. The only thing that saved the day was that our wild ones had not slept on the plane and were losing power quickly. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow! 
--------------------------------------------
Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we arrived and that we saw Patrick and Stephanie - that was a surprise. 
David: The surprise with Stephanie and Patrick and Christine and jumping in the pool again. 
Tom: That we came in and that Patrick and Stephanie were here. 

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That we had to fly almost the whole day. 
David: Finding out that Patrick and Stephanie had to leave the next day. 
Tom: That the waiting in Germany for the flight was really long. 

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Go in the pool. 
David: I want to have fun with the rest of the time with Patrick and Stephanie and go in the pool and, oh, yeah - eat a dill pickle. 
Tom: Go into the pool again with Patrick and Stephanie. 

Optical Delusion

Today was the long-awaited trip to Stuttgart to cash in the musical tickets to see 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' that my parents gave the boys for Christmas.

It was a long drive and the stuffed bags the boys were gripping only foreshadowed the impending pillow fight Royale that I recommend to all siblings who are forced to spend more than twenty minutes together in a cramped space. Let's get ready to RUMBLE....

We stayed at the same hotel as last year, mainly because the boys found it so incredibly cool. They got their own suite which was 12 doors down the hall from our room. It has a touch screen TV in every room, including the bathroom and the shower and the floors are heated. How can you compete with that?

Last year, conservative Peter decided to go full-on David on all of us as we were getting off of the elevator on the way to checking out. He surprised us all by waiting until the elevator hit the ground floor and then swiping his hand from top to bottom, lighting up every floor.

He could not control his giggling as we exited. That is, of course, until he ran into Irmgard, the slightly overweight cleaning lady with the cart of fresh towels waiting to take the elevator up. She was not amused. I was. 

Let's just say, it ended with a red-faced Peter and Angie trying to convince the both of us that it was not funny, even though she started cracking up as soon as Irmgard made it to the first floor.

As we made our way to the reception, I joked with Peter that the next time we come, there would probably be a sign stating that children are not allowed to ride in the elevator unaccompanied. Germans are notorious for their rules and signs. Americans are notorious for ignoring rules and signs. I'm not typically one to buy into stereotypes, but we found this lovely plaque shortly after checking in. Peter was thirteen the last time we were there. 

This sign was not there last year. Just saying. 

After checking in, we made our way to the rooms. Yes, rooms. One of the many joys of having a family of five is needing to book two hotel rooms whenever we travel. Thanks, wallet!

Obviously, we went to the boys' room first. There was one single bedroom and in the living room, there was a fold-out sofa bed big enough for two. Peter took one look and pointed at the single bedroom.

'That one's mine.'

David immediately started hyperventilating and his cheeks flushed.

'WHAT??!! Peter! You have your own room at home ALL THE TIME! AND - you had the single room the last time we were here. THAT ROOM IS MINE!!!'

It was either the booming voice or the twitchy eye, or maybe even the spittle clinging on David's clenched jaw, but Peter wisely chose to back down. Tom also chose the path of compromise.

'Ok, but next year it's mine.'

Once David's breathing returned to normal, we left the wild animals to tear apart their hotel room in ways that would have made Keith Moon proud. I Can't Explain. 

Angie and I slipped out to go to the gas station across the street. We thought we would buy some water and juices for the morning. Along the way, Angie insisted on stopping and taking a picture of this wall mural.

'Ah, crap! I guess Peter won.'

Over the years I've grown accustomed to ignoring Angie's useless banter, but this one intrigued me.

'What do you mean "Peter won"?'

'Well, when we drove in, Peter saw this wall and made a bet with me that it was not flat. I bet him that it was an optical illusion and that the wall was actually flat. Looks like he was right. Hee hee.'

'And, dare I ask, what was the bet?'

'I have to do the dishes for a week.'

'So, let me get this right. You made a bet with our first born and the reward was that you do the chores that he is already getting paid to do each week? 

No response. Angie blinked several times. Her left eyebrow lowered slightly.

'Yeah.'

I have been married long enough to know when it is a bad idea to keep poking a wounded Mama bear that has just realized that she had been conned. Instead, I turned my attention to my other cubs who had huddled up to the hotel bar for our 'complimentary drink'.

In Germany, you are able to drink beer, wine and champagne at the ripe age of 16. Oddly enough, Peter, who is now fourteen, was the only one not trying to convince the bartender to give them an alcoholic champagne.

After enough bubbly to float a small armada, I asked David to take a picture of Angie and me. Peter then decided it would be funnier than that time when that guy threw both of his shoes at George W. Bush to give Mama bunny ears on THE only picture that we took of us together. I honestly don't know where they get it from. 

In a bizarre twist of events, we were actually on time. We even had enough time to document this rare moment. Yeah! No bunny ears!

The boys lately have perfected the fine art of fighting each other over anything and everything. This evening's drama started when David wanted to sit next to Tom and Peter insisted on sitting in the assigned seating listed on the tickets that I had randomly handed out. Tom stood quietly by and enjoyed the pre-show drama as his two older brothers argued about who could sit next to him.  

In the end, Peter won, as is evident by his 'I won' smile. David lost, as is evident by his 'I hate you, Peter' smile. Tom called it a draw, as is evident by his 'everyone wants to sit next to me' smile.

The show was amazing. A tad too much singing for my liking, but Angie tells me that's normal in a musical. Thanks, Butter Buns!

The show ended rather late, so we made our way back to the hotel to settle down restless animals. We got the boys tucked in and explained again that we just down the hallway and that if they needed anything, they could just call us. Angie and I then took bets on who would call first and how soon that would be. Thirty minutes later, Tom called. I won. 

'I can't sleep.'

Angie lost the bet, but instead of doing the dishes for a week, she had to go over and get Tom to go to sleep. Not surprisingly, that turned out to not be that easy. Peter and Tom were sharing the sofa bed, only Peter had turned sideways and had spread-eagled Tom out of any sleepable space. Angie peeked in the single room and saw that David was fast asleep. Then with one whisper, Angie both completed her mission and shattered David's dream of having one night alone in his own room.

'Do you want to crawl in with David?'

Angie flaunted her way back into our room looking prouder than Mary.

'Tada!'

'Bravo! But you're explaining to David in the morning how his single room turned into a double.'

Luckily for everyone, no explanation was needed. The boys were super excited about the breakfast buffet, which is really awesome at this hotel.

After chowing down, we still had some time before checkout, so we decided to check out the new 'game room' that was not there last year.

When we walked in, there was a man sitting on a bench next to the dart board with a laptop and headset. He didn't register that five other humans had suddenly joined the room and that the three smaller ones were picking out sharp pointy things to throw at the dart board.

'Um, excuse me. You might want to move.'

'Why?'

'Because my kids are crap at throwing darts and that looks like an expensive suit.'

The man then huffed like a little kid and stood up with his laptop.

'This is unbelievable.'

'Which part? That my kids want to throw darts in the game room with a dart board as the centerpiece or that you didn't consider going to the conference room next door to take your mega important call?'

The self-proclaimed important man did not respond. He amused me with one more huff as he stormed out of the room. Ba-bye!

After almost half an hour of poking holes in the wall around the dart board, we decided to leave. We walked across the street to the parking garage and along the way, we saw an Irish pub with the same name as the one where Angie hosts a pub quiz every week.

'Hurry up, Steve. The guy at the checkout said that we only have thirty minutes to get out of the parking garage.'

'That's not what he said.'

'Yes, it is. Do you wanna bet?'

Roughly ten minutes later, we were pulling out of the parking garage and got to the turnstile. Angie shoved the ticket in and the display lit up: 'Insufficient funds'. Angie half-glared and half-smirked at me before hit the 'Call' button.

'Yeah, I'm sorry. My husband is a MORON and didn't understand the concierge at the hotel. We paid for the parking and checked out about forty minutes ago and ...'

'Bzzzzz...'

And that is the not so hilarious story about how I will now be doing Peter's chores for the next week.
--------------------------------------------
Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: The musical, definitely. 2nd best thing was the room & the darts.
David: That we didn't really fight, it was super fun, and the room was cool, and that I learned magic tricks today. 
Tom: The musical and the cool room with the cool breakfast and, actually, everything.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That we had to leave so early because of dance school (which was cool). 
David: The drive. 
Tom: In the musical when my belly hurt. 

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go to training and, if the weather is okay, to go play some hoops. 
David: I want to see my friends again. 
Tom: I don't want to go to school. 

Dinner for 18

It all started a few days ago when Angie informed me that Simone and Flo would be coming over on New Year's Eve. The next day, Angie was on the phone with Katherina.

'Sure, you guys can come over. Lauri can also spend the night.'

The next night was quiz night, and Kristina spontaneously needed an alternative plan for New Year's Eve. Angie came to her rescue. 

The day after that, we went to dinner with Tobi and Erica, who are visiting from the States. On the way to the restaurant, Tobi asked a question disguised as another question.

'So, Steve, are you guys making chili again this year?'

'Yes, Tobi, we would love if you and Erica could join us on New Year's Eve.'

And that's the funny story about how I voluntarily ended up making chili for 18 humans on New Year's Eve. The recipe I use is one that my dad handed down years ago. It actually won 1st place in a Virginia chili contest in 1981. My dad even named it - 'SHIT HOT CHILI'. Over the years, I have scaled up and adapted the recipe to accommodate nine people, which is our normal guest quota. I included the recipe for 9 people at the end of this blog. If you ever find yourself needing to make it for 18 people, just double everything and your 'before' picture should look something like this.

Despite fully justified assumptions, the beer and Tequila are not for the cook - they are the secret ingredients. Ok, full disclosure - the recipe was conceived when my dad was still drinking like the sailor he was at the time so it may not be needed at all. I wouldn't know - I've never been brave enough to stray from the original recipe. I photocopied this original recipe many years ago. It was covered in grease stains, sweat and comments written by my dad in all caps, his go-to writing style. One of them stood out for me.

October 4th, 1981

WE FIRST TRIED THIS ON SUNDAY OCT 4TH, 1981. THE KIDS WERE AT LISA'S BIRTHDAY PARTY AT THE COLLEGE PARK ROLLER-SKATING RINK AND PAT AND I HAD A NICE AFTERNOON JUST BEING TOGETHER AND MAKING CHILI. 'FEEDBACK' FROM 1ST TRY: EXCELLENT!

I think about that every year that I make this recipe. Angie and I often get caught up in the chaos of raising kids. Every now and then we get a moment to ourselves and I'd like to think that we cherish those kid-less moments together like my parents did so many decades ago. None of that shit happened on New Year's Day, though. I was busy kicking Angie's ass out of the kitchen so I could make 3 pots of SHIT HOT CHILI.

It's not a party at the Johnson's Zoo until the police show up or someone breaks something. While I was adding the SHIT to SHIT HOT CHILI, Peter decided to try breaking his foot by launching a Kung Fu Panda move in the hallway. The good news is, he did not break his ankle as we initially thought. The bad news is that his overly muscular dad snapped a few shots of him being carried to the sofa by his mamma, who is now shorter than him. When the hell did that happen?   

Peter tends to over-nurse his injuries, but when Tobi and Erica showed up with bags of sweets from the U.S. of A., Hop-along Pete rose to the occasion and secured his place as the primary gift-receiver.

At first, I was fully on board with Tobi's plan to bribe our kids into loving him. That was before the sugar snacks were distributed to the greedy masses. Talk about your all-time backfires. 

Being the wise parents that we sometimes are, we timed the sugar high perfectly so that the low came crashing down just before it was time for our yearly 'Dinner for One' showing. For those of you that have not heard of it, it is a comedy skit making fun of the Brits that has somehow become a standard New Year's Eve show that every self-respecting German family must watch. No British person that I know has ever admitted to hearing about or seeing the show, but that's besides the point. Roll the film!

A weird coincidence - 'Dinner for One' has a run-time of, you guessed it, 18 minutes. After almost twenty minutes of border-line silence, it was time to prep for blowing shit up. I assigned the work package of filling refillable lighters to two of the few remaining sober adults.

After another twenty minutes of border-line contemplation, we were ready to get our crackers on. We loudly made our way down to the park in front of the City Hall building at the end of our street. Shortly before midnight, I looked over and caught Peter stuffing his face with rockets. I of course whipped out my camera but I was too late.

'Ah, come on, Peter. One shot'

'Ok, but don't get my teeth.'

'Um,...Weird, but ok.'

  

Feel free to zoom in on the picture and let me know in the comments if you see any teeth. I won't tell Peter though - he seems to be a tad self-conscious about his grill.  

A few minutes later, the clock struck twelve and all hell broke loose. It was Matti's first New Year's with the Zoo and I don't think he was prepared for just how loud it gets downtown. He raced across the street and took shelter under the City Hall awning until it was all over.

The rest of the fireworks blowout went as it normally does with one exception. Peter and David discovered that if you drop fireworks in the sewer, it make a very loud explosion. Matti was not impressed. 

To anyone that lives across the street from City Hall that had their water pipes inexplicably burst on New Year's Eve: 'um, ... sorry 'bout that.'

As soon as the smoke cleared, it was clear that Matti was having no part of joining us for the after fireworks party. We also lost Kristina who was off to celebrate Johannes' birthday at Vater Rhein's, the best place downtown to get a mean bowl of spaghetti at 2 o'clock in the morning (so I've heard). And then there was thirteen.  

  

The hour after fireworks is typically wasted trying to explain to adrenaline-pumped post-generation Z types why they need to go to bed. I give Peter points for trying a new approach this year.

'But I'm taller than Mom!'

'You're right. Angie - time for bed!'

Angie laughed a little too loudly. Peter sighed defiantly and raised his hands in the air. I then reminded Peter of the family rule that children cannot ignore their parents even if said parents occasionally ignore each other. Okay, it's more than just occasional and that exception only tends to work in one direction, but that's not the point. GO TO BED!!

The whole 'veins popping' trick always worked with my dad and I thank him each year for teaching me that trick at an early age.

After an involuntary rendition of 'So Long, Farewell', the von Trapp kids retired to their sleeping quarters to continue on with rather loud activities that bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything remotely related to sleeping. But, hey! Their door was shut.

I'm sure that in one of Sebastian's previous lives he was a high-ranking official of the Star Trek Fleet Command, but in another life, I'm quite confident that he was a bartender specialized in making gin and tonic's for ladies who had already consumed copious amounts of Champagne. Move over, Brian Flanagan.   

Two and half gin tonics later, someone asked Simone to get half naked so that we could check out one of her tattoos. She found this funny.     

Three gin and tonics later, Angie yanked on one of the left-over Christmas crackers and proudly displayed what she started calling a dog-horse.

After grinning like the village Trump for almost a minute, Angie started making what I can only hope she thought were dog-horse noises. I've never heard a dog-horse but I can state confidently that they do not sound anything like what was coming out of Angie's mouth. 

Needless to write, the night was involuntarily winding down. Even Simba knew it was time to find his human warm bottle, also known as Simonelina. 

Simone was the domino piece. She toppled, followed by Angie. Sarah went home. Sebastian and I stayed up and took pictures of marquee signs made by wild animals that only make sense to the inner circle of The Johnson's Zoo. Frono!


SHIT HOT CHILI:
3 Kg Ground Beef
4 Steaks (cooked)
2 green pepper
2 red pepper
3 medium onions
6 celery stalks
6 cloves garlic
3 cans peeled tomatoes (400 g)
5 boxes tomato sauce (500 g)
2 tube tomato paste
3 bay leaves
1 TBSP garlic salt
2 TBSP parsley
3 TBSP Oregano
1/2 jar jalapeno peppers
2 Habanero peppers (diced)
1 TBSP Tabasco sauce
1 TBSP Cumin
1 TBSP Cayenne Pepper
2 TBSP Chili Powder
1/2 Beer
8 cl Tequila (4 shots)
3 cans kidney beans

Cook steaks - 4 minutes per side on medium-high heat. Cut into tiny pieces. Brown and drain ground beef. Add to a pot. All other ingredients go into a blender. Throw everything into a big-ass pot and let simmer for 3 hours, uncovered. After 3 hours, add the kidney beans (with juice) - cook for one more hour. Enjoy!

--------------------------------------------
Ladder Talk: [We were lucky enough to get the animals locked in their room - there was no way in hell I was going in to try and do Ladder Talk]
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
David: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
Tom: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
David: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
Tom: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
David: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....
Tom: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....

Every day has a sunset

Christmas morning always comes earlier than I'd like, but the boys were actually somewhat civil this year. The first wake-up call was from, surprise, surprise - David. He tried convincing Angie and me that he should be allowed to open his gifts while his brothers slept because removing all of his gifts would only make it easier for his brothers to find theirs. I tried to explain to David how life really works, but he disappeared in mid-sentence.

A few seconds later, I heard David singing opera as loud as he could just outside Peter's room.

'Peter's up!'

Next, I heard the home phone ringing. David answered and then ran into Tom's room screaming.

'Tom, wake up! Telephone for you!'

Tom then crawled out of bed and grumpily grabbed the home phone from David.

'Hello?'

David then pulled his cell phone from behind his back.

'Hi Tom. Merry Christmas! Bwhahahahahaha!'

Before Tom could complain, David had raced into our room.

'You said we need to wait until Peter and Tom are up. They're up. Can we open the gifts now?'

I gave David eight points for creativity, ten points for persistence and twenty-five points for being a pain in the ass.

I then went to the the kitchen for pot. Unfortunately, I could only find the kind that you pour coffee into. Angie and I then proceeded to guzzle liquid energy as the gift frenzy kicked into full gear.

Peter was the first one to strike a pose with his prize gift. Oddly enough, he ignored all rules regarding teenagers receiving gifts and actually liked getting clothing.

In his defense, he also got into knitting with his Oma on our last trip stateside. Okay, this doesn't really help his defense, but I'm sure this outing will score points with my mom.

David took a different approach. He got mega excited about a bell for his bike.

Kids get excited for different reasons, so this might even be normal if it weren't for the fact that David's bike was stolen several months ago and we had already explained to him that he would not be getting a new bike until spring. But hey, have fun with that bell!

Tom took a Mr. T approach.

'I pity the fool that takes pictures of me!'

Let's ignore the fact that the Santa Claus beard-hat was actually Peter's gift from Santa. Peter didn't mind, though, and I'm guessing that you can guess Santa's interest in the matter.

 

There were many other gifts that were victims of the present-frenzy, but the next one was the one that brought all the gift receivers to a frenzy.

At first, my parents' surprise gift remained a surprise. It wasn't until we explained to them that Oma and Pop-pop had paid for a hotel plus tickets to the Mary Poppins musical in Stuttgart that they started to huddle with joy.

After this year's present frenzy, we made our way to Frankfurt. Today is Sonja's birthday so we decided to surprise her by crashing her pre-planned museum visit with her parents. On the way, we stopped by to pick up Barbara.

A few years ago, we, as a family, handed over the 'late torch' to Barbara and she has never disappointed us. I'm pleased to announce that today was no exception. We were on time and Barbara had just gotten out of the shower. Angie was pissed, I was indifferent and my imagination was cracking up as it envisioned Barbara, snickering away as she blow-dried her hair, muttering over and over again 'yeah, take that for stealing my childhood sticker collection'.

When we got to the museum, we tried not to stand out. As I mentioned, we were there to surprise Sonja on her birthday. I won't say how old she was turning - that would just be embarrassing.

After waiting outside for ten minutes, we called them and asked them where they were. They explained that they had been there for almost an hour and were waiting in the restaurant which, oddly enough, is exactly where we had agreed to meet them. I thought about rethinking my thoughts on whether Angie's brain should be allowed to organize anything, but I looked up and got distracted by a flashy photographer.

The museum exhibition was called 'Diorama' and focused on optical illusions and three-dimensional miniature models. Outside the museum was a an open-air rotunda that boasted a mirrored ceiling. Every ten seconds, the lighting would dim, revealing a second mirror that created the illusion of an endless tunnel of mirrors, which is just what the world needs. One BILLION mini-me's!

With detective-like skills, we eventually found the birthday girl hiding in plain sight in the exact place where we had arranged to meet. Ha, ha - gotcha!

After brunch, we dumped our coats and bags in the lockers by the front entrance and made our way up the elaborate staircase to the exhibit entrance. Heidi had invited all of us so she had the tickets. She handed them to the uniformed lady at the entrance. She had a hand-held bar-code scanner and began to scan each ticket with a level of complete disinterest that I had not thought possible. Each scan registered a BEEP! which was the only sound echoing off the walls. Even the boys seemed to be quietly mesmerized by the robotic movements of the woman scanning our tickets.

As the woman scanned the second to last ticket, Heidi realized that she had reserved a ticket for Leif, who had opted for studying the optical illusion that his pillow makes when his face is planted in it.

'Sorry, sorry! I gave you ten tickets, but there's only nine of us - one person couldn't make it.'

Robot-lady gave Heidi a blank stare and replied without emotion.

'I'm sorry, I'm not the cashier. There's nothing I can do. I've already scanned the tickets.'

The woman then slowly moved the last ticket to her hand-held scanner.

BEEP!

She handed the tickets back to a rather flabbergasted Heidi and Barbara tried to make the best out of a bizarre situation.

'Oh well! There are worst things that could happen.'

Most normal people would have taken Barbara's statement as rhetorical, but Robot-lady apparently felt compelled to chime in.

'Yeah, there are worst things. I just read an article about a pregnant woman in her seventh month that just found out that the baby has a tumor and they could both die.'

Trust me, I have initiated my fair share of awkward silences, but this is probably the first one where I was the one to break it.

'Ok, boys, how about you go catch up with Mama and don't make any eye contact with the lady scanning tickets.'

Like Mama, the boys are crap at following orders. They did run away from Robot-lady, but instead of catching up to Angie, they chose to plop down on some white blocks and pose for an upcoming GAP ad.

The museum itself was a let down for several of us - just for different reasons. For me, it was simple - I thought we were going to be looking at a lot of optical illusions, but there were none. There were just a bunch of miniature models and most of them looked like some of the science projects that Angie and I have made for the kids over the years because they had forgotten about them until bedtime on the night before they were due.

Angie and Barbara got super interested in the exhibition boasting an Axolotl.

If you're a normal human like me, you probably don't know what an Axolotl is. Unlike me, you might actually care, so I'll tell you - it's a Mexican salamander. They then spent about an hour searching for it before Google informed them that the Axolotl is nocturnal. I found it funny that a museum that is only open during the day would have an exhibit of a creature that, by nature, hides all day long. Angie and Barbara were not equally as amused.

Klaus was not amused by any of the exhibits, but it was this one that put him over the top. At first glance, it looked like a Native American riding a Harley.

Klaus and I approached together, both of us wondering what the hell this had to do with optical illusions or three-dimensional miniatures. On closer examination, it was a transvestite Indian sporting neon nail polish and fishnet lingerie riding a Suzuki.

'Oh, this is just ridiculous!'

With that, Klaus exited stage left. On his way out he caught a glimpse of Tommy and David's review of the 'Diorama' adventure. 

Tommy was so happy to leave that he started doing cartwheels on the way out.

David also did a cartwheel. Kinda. Okay, it didn't resemble anything like a cartwheel. He basically threw his body at the ground and damn near broke his wrist.

Angie was glad to leave the museum without any broken bones. I was just glad to leave the museum. I think Klaus was on my side of the camp.

Outside, we herded everyone together for a group photo. Just before taking the shot, Angie suggested that we all go for a coffee.

Like Garth Brooks, Klaus is not big on social graces, so I initially assumed that his glance to the heavens was a call to be saved. Turns out he was just admiring the only interesting attraction that you could see, which, by the way, you could do without even purchasing a ticket.

We then thanked Heidi again. We don't get to see each other often enough, so it was nice to visit with them. In the end, though, we skipped the social caffeine rush, which meant that we were actually on time for turkey time.

The meal was, as always, great. By great, I of course mean that it made us all a bit fatter, but isn't that what Christmas is really all about? I mean come on - just take a look at Santa.

After dinner, the boys tried forcing everyone to join in a new role-playing game that involved werewolves. Horst was the only one that managed to escape that fun. Halfway through the game, as I had my head down on the table and was being tapped on the shoulder to indicate that I was a victim, I reflected on how Opa had actually managed to get out of it.

'Hey, Opa - do you want to play a new game with us where village people use clues to find out who is the werewolf?'

'No.'

I've learned a lot from Opa over the years, but today confirmed for me that the fountain of wisdom is far from drying up.

After revealing and subsequently killing the pesky werewolf, the younger generation moved into the living room. Peter, David and Tom have been fine-tuning their lady skills and Sonja indulged them for hours as they played games and swapped jokes.

After a nice visit, we made our way home. On the ride back, the boys giddily talked about all the cool stuff they had gotten and how awesome this Christmas was. By the time we got back to the ranch, the cattle had worked themselves into a stampede of happiness.

Every day has a sunset, but it doesn't always end with your children power-hugging you and loudly whispering in your ear how much they love you. Unfortunately. 



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Ladder Talk:  [No creatures were stirring, not even a mouse - so I could not get to Ladder Talk]
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: ZZZZZzzzzz....
David: ZZZZZzzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZZzzzzz....

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: ZZZZZzzzzz....
David: ZZZZZzzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZZzzzzz....

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: ZZZZZzzzzz....
David: ZZZZZzzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZZzzzzz....