furniture in pieces

thursday , july 10 2008
my cousin and two of my aunts came in the morning. we took my cosuins car, drove to the new flat and dropped my mother, her stuff and one of the aunts there. the three of us took the car again, this time for a distance of about two throws of stones, to a swedish furniture market. on top of the building is the parking lot. the market is huge. and acoording to my cousin not even the biggest one. my cousing guided us through the furniture exhibition. entire living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, its a while ago that i have been in such a market. we had a look at the wardrobe and the bedside table my mother had selected and found a matching chest of drawers. my cousing told the guy at the information desk which pieces of furniture we had chosen and got a sheet of paper with numbers back. that paper showed to us where we would get which piece of furniture where. the bed side table was in just one cardboard box, the chest of drawers and was in several cardboard boxes, the pieces for the wardrobe we would get somewhere else. we packed everything on a carrier an went to the cash desk. we paid everything and my cousin and me went to the place where they give out the bigger pieces of furniture. my aunt left the market by feet. the furniture would take the place of the back seats as well. we went to a desk with a a big waiting room, on big boards you can read there, that it would take less than "7 and 1 minute" till your furniture come out. we handed our papers to the guy behind the desk. my cousin told me that when he was here last time they handed those bigger pieces out somewhere else. they had a big TV screen there and showed a "Mr. Bean" video there. repeating always the same one. i think it took less than eight minutes until we had the pieces for the wardrobe. after loading everything into the car we went back to the flat. i took the elevator downstairs to take a little carrier from the basement to carry the furniture. when i came upstairs again my aunt arrived. she had lost her way. we put cardboard boxes with the furniture parts on the carrier and took them to the flat. we had to reapeat that about 5 times. we put the boxes into the sleeping room of my mother and started to unpack them. we started with the smallest piece, the bedside table. i took two parts and connected them with two screws. my cousin showed to me what i had down wrong. the wrong parts to start with. and the wrong screws. my cousin explained the "swedish furniture system" to me. it was not to hard to understand. after putting together the chest of drawers i even could remember how it works. around eight o'clock we stopped with our furniture session and my cousin and my aunt gave me a lift back to the old flat of my mother.

the rest of my adventures with furniture and everything what happened afterwards, you can read tommorrow. i gotta go to bed now.

goodnight everybody,
burkhard

moving in different ways

last night i had a look in wam's book, at the beautiful pictures of dishes. and found my name on the last page in the thank you section. i was not proud. but moved. „for having been always there“, the sentence kept still on moving in my head. until about 4 o'clock. then i decided to take a homeopathic tranquilizer. i needed some sleep til my cousin would come at noon. after waking up, i phoned him. he would not come today, not for driving only once or twice. there was still stuff in the flat, but about everything my mother wants to take to her new flat was packed already then. after lunch i started to read wam's book from the beginning. wam is telling stories about his life, every story accompanied by a vegeterian or vegan recipe. for saving a bit of time i left out the recipes, i anyway don't have the head to try them out now (my food preparing adventures till now include pan cakes and scrambles eggs. not much more.) after the story about the sex pistols i needed to go to the toilet. still sitting on the john, but having already finished my business, my mobile rang. i thought, if it's the bank, i don't wanna miss the call. i answered. it was the bank. exactly one of the beautiful ladys. „you can pass by here now“. at the end of our short conversation she said, „i hope, i didn't disturb you with moving flats“. i answered with something like „no“. i didn't really want to tell her what she was actually disturbing me at. i changed from my „moving flats dress“ to „visit bank dress“, my mother wrote another cheque, i jumped on my bike, let it roll down the hill and 5 minutes later i stood in the bank. the blond lady greeted me with a smile. my heart answered with shifting one gear higher. my mobile rang. i had given in the search of a transport possibility of 2 cubicmetres of stuff in some internet auction. were different transport companies bit to transport my stuff. the cheapest one was 425 euro. much more than the things are actually worth. now the guy running that auction wanted to know, if i would accept one of their offers. i told him that all of them were far too expensive for me. still with a red head, i asked the other lady, if my mother could do now ordinary bank business, she talked to the blond one, who asked me, if i wanted certain bank notes, i shook my head. she disappeared and returned with a hand full of notes. i took them, said two times good-bye and left the bank. pitty that my mother is changing to the bank in sindelfingen soon.

i went to the town centre, brought bread and bananas and went into another book shop, and was a bit disappointed that they don't have wam's book. at the bakery i bought bread, in the supermarket bananas (biological;-) and went to the train station. i asked the lady there about sending things by train, no chance for boxes, suite-cases up tho 25 kg 15 euro something, the third one almost ten euro, the fourth one again 15 and something. in front of the public library, i just had a cappucino, without entering the library, i made my way home and continued to read wam's book. at times i was just ROFL (rolling on the floor and laughing). the more i read, the more the stories were familiar to me, the last couple because i was taking part in them. an exception was the one taking place in belzig. i remembered only that the local health department managed to be a real pain for the kitchen, and me ending up at infocafe. when it happened, i couldn't find a positive side in it. reading it less than one year later i was laughing my head off.

in a reading break, i phoned my cousin, to ask him when he would come tommorrow. around ten. he understood from my sister, that i had a checque to pay in the furniture shop for the wardrobe of my mother. i clarified the situation and asked my mother which wardrobe she actually has selected. she showed it to me in the catalogue and i finished reading wam`s book.

good night,
burkhard

money troubles

books for library
for a couple of days my mother complains about pain in her leg. but it's only in the evening and not too serious. at least that's what she said. the corrections of the first fifteen pages of the book i translated were in the mailbox today. i put commas and closing speech mark in the rong order. all of them. a couple more mistakes, and everything adds up to about two or three serious mistakes and three or four more ordinary mistakes. per page. looks like more work. i sent the rest of the book by email to my friend who found the mistakes mentioned above.

my mother, my two sisters and me are the legal heirs of my father. we agreed that my mother gets the money, which is anyway not too much. i packed all books which i still had from the library in the top case of my bicycle bags and went to the bank to check if the papers from my sister's bank already had arrived. they did not. which means to get money from the bank we need the signatures from all of us. till now the bank didn't make any problems, only when we tried last week to make a standing order for the rent of my mother's new flat in another branch of the bank, troubles started. i took money from my own account. which will be finished soon. i hope tommorrow those papers will arrive.

when i made a quick movement to one side riding my bike, the bags flipped over the carrier. i had to get up, but managed to get the bags back in order again. the top with all those books was maybe a bit too heavy. in the first supermarket i was looking for ages for things from the shopping list. after those ages had passed by i went to my bike to pack the things into te bags. on the way to my bike i passed by a group of youngsters who were making fun of each other. they involve people passing by as well. i was not in the mood and slowed down my movements. tey went all quite. i went to the next supermarket. i found things much easier there. i went to the bookshop. wam's had arrived book! the lady excused the delay with a smile and the words it was missing in one delivery. i put it into my bicycle bag and went to the public library. after locking my bike it dropped again on the floor. the books again. i gave them all back except one. i got a cappucino and read the last pages in the book i still had. after finishing a second cappucino and the book, i gave the book back.

after dinner i put the left over papers from my father into ring binders and those in a cardbord box. my cousin phoned to tell us that he will be coming tommorrow around lunch time. later my sister phoned, that gher husband won't be able to join us on thursday to buy a wardrobe for my mother and if my cousin and me can't do that tommorrow. looks like my cousin has to pass by my sister's place to get the money. my mother's account is still blocked and my cousin and my bank account more or less empty. i will try now with having a look into wam's book and then with sleeping.

good night everybody,
burkhard

shopping troubles

yesterday my brother-in-law said it would take longer to walk than ten minutes from my mothers new flat to the market square in sindelfingen. after lunch today my sister left to berlin. i took my bike to the bank to clarify some financial thing for my mother, unfortunately some papers didn't arrive yet. i am afraid, i'll have to go tommorrow again. from the bank i went to sindelfingen to my mother's new home and walked from there to the market square. my brother-in-law was right. it took me eleven minutes. i decided it was time for a break, bought a computer magazine, sat myself outside a cafe and got a cup of coffee. when i had an idea which articles are interesting i got up and tried to find the supermarket. the direct way is about 5 minutes by bike, it took me about 25 to find it. i bought everything my mother had written on my shopping list, except white cheese, which they didn't have. i searched the entire floor of the shopping centre, lots of clothing and shoe shops, some shops with glasses and jewelery, but no other supermarket. i took the trolley to my bike and realised that the wind must have been too strong. it was laying instead of standing at its parking place. i managed to lift it up again. i took the trolley back and got on my bike. when i just wanted to give up searching i found another suprmarket. no white cheese. when i decided to go to my mothers new flat i found one more suprmarket. they didn't have the white cheese my mother wanted, but at least another brand. i found another way to my mothers flat, without having to violate any traffic rules. even not by car. in the flat i emptied two boxes from their books. while putting the boxes on top of my bicycle, i managed to drop it on the floor once more. the bicycle. i went the same way back, my brother-in-law drove yesterday, except the last bit, which was through the forest. after dinner i packed some bed stuff and clothes into plastic bags. on special request of my cousin, he says he can pack them easier than boxes. the ring binders into boxes.

that's it for today,
good night,
burkhard

there and back again

when i got up in the morning, my sister was already gone for that weddingof a friend of hers. after my breakfast my cousin and my aunt arrived. we put boxes with plates and books into the car. my cousin drove my mother, my aunt and me to the new flat of my mother. my mother knows the way by car to the big shopping centre in sindelfingen. were my cousin should have gone to the left, my mother directed my cousin to the right. the way to the shopping centre she is used to. despite this little de-tour we managed to find te building, which is at the end of a one way street. the little van of her new landlord was already outside the buiding. we first had a look at the flat. both my cousin and my aunt agreed that it's a beautiful one. a couple of minutes later the door opened. my mothers new landlord came in. we talked a little with him, he had a little carrier with him with which we brought the boxes in. leaving mother, aunt and landlord behind, my cousin and me drove back to the old flat in böblingen. we put the top of the dining room cupboard into the corridor and carried the bottom downstairs to the car of my cousin. we went back and forth about 4 times and brought as well the top of the cupboard, more boxes and the carpet from the living room my cousin and my aunt had brought in february for the birthday of my father.
and a little table. to the new flat we went now every time the same way, only that we entered the one way street from the wrong side, which was easier and only about fifty meters. my sisters family had a small sofa in their house, they wanted to give to my mother. my cousin and me drove to get it. my sister had gone already in the morning with her son to a party from his music school, so only my brother-in-law and their daughter were at home. they had asked us not to ring the bell, but to phone them when we enter the town not to wake up my beautiful little niece. my brother-in-law was busy in the garden when we came to the house. he and my cousin carried that sofa out of the basement while i took the legs from a little table for my mother. they also put a little cupboard for my mothers television into the car of my brother-in-law. we drove back to sindelfingen, while my brother-in-law was waiting for my sister and their son to return home. aftre putting the cupboard top on its bottom we were waiting for my brother-in-law to come with the telly cupboard. i phoned him to see what was going on, my sister was already home, but my brother-inlaw had found a friend who would bring a bed for my mother. but she had to do tings first and my brother-in-law had to still put the bed into her car. thus we left my aunt at the flat, while my mother, cousin and me went back to the old flat. we packed in a couple more boxes with clothes. driving in the wrong direction of that one way street, my cousin was jokin that his mother would be upset if she would see that. i reminded him that the windows and the balconee of the flat are in the other direction, from where you can't see the street. as he was parking the car we saw his mother sitting on the bench in front of the building, already shouting at us. or him....? my cousin informed his mother about our conversation in the car and we all had to laugh. back in the flat my sister phone that her husband was on his way with their friend. my cousin and me decided to wait outside, their is no name yet at the bell outside the building, and we wanted to make sure that my brother-in-llaw and the friend would not be closed out. while we were sitting outside i phone him, to tell him that the building is at the end of a one way street. they were already on the good end. when we were unloading the car the friend excused the dirt in it, with "it is an agricultural vehicle". after unloading my brother-in-law took a key for the flat for in case he would bring the chairs and the telly cupboard the day after. my cousin and my aunt gave me a lift home, after breakfast i was falling into my bed.

sunday
short after lunch my sister came back from that wedding. she had her lunch and after a coffee we took a bus. she had not seen the flat and i wanted to pick some of the now empty boxes. the bus took a de-tour cause, the street was closed for some street party in town. we were five minutes late for the train. we took the bus and walked downhill to the flat. after we had been the some minutes the bell rang. i though there was soomething wrong with the bell, when the door opened and my brother-in-law and his son stepped in. he had the telly cupboard and the chairs with him. after carrying everything inside we had a look at the bed, he couldn't find the screws at home. they were not with the bed either. he figured another way to fix it, but he has to get some material first. well he's an engineer. he drove us back home.

in the evening there was a discussion about "did people in germany loose faith in democracy" on telly. especially in east germany people are not happy about the political development. one of the people discussing was that minister for interior affairs, who was on wednesday in belzig. he had said earlier that people in the "new german states" are not ready for democracy yet. or are they just more critical?

good night,
burkhard

old or new?

my younger sister wants to visit a friend tommorrow who is getting married. for the last days she was looking for a lift, i suggested to her to go by train, she thinks a lift might be a couple of euros cheaper. eventually she found a lift for the major part of the way, for the rest she will take public transport.

in the morning i checked facebook, wam said the presentation of his book yesterday went well. nick asked me if i could send a message to all former pakrac volunteers on facebook for the anniversary at the weekend. when i checked a message from john, i figured that he had done that already.

since my mother got the new flat, one of the main issues concerning the new flat in my family is her furniture. my family is in this case my sister, my mother, me, but also one cousin, several aunts, uncles and friends. most of the furniture of my mother is either old, broken or doesn't really fit into her new flat. my older sister offered to buy almost everything new. till now my mother wasn't too keen to throw all the old furniture away and of getting new one, even if my sister pays for it. i guess, it is again about too many memories being connected. to the kitchen table, the cupboard, the chairs, her bed and the sofa in the living room. today my sister sent me a list of furniture items to go through with my mother. at the end she agreed to about everything for my sister to buy.

my younger sister was typing minutes of a seminar she participated in the last two or three days. today one or two pages were gone all of a sudden. i tried myy best to find the text, but it seems it is really gone. the strange thing is, the text won't opne in its original format anymore.

looks like my cousin will come tommorrow to have a look at the flat and to start with the first things moving.

good night,
burkhard

typing troubles

one of the reasons why i didn´t write my blog the last couple of weeks was, that i was typing somethings else. a translation from english to german. i had agreed with a friend of mine in belzig already last year that i would translate his book. actually i should have finished at the end of march. but then my father died, and i have to admid i had other priorities then. last week monday i finally finished the translation. on wednesday little corrections. on saturday the book cover. i had asked a friend in belzig if she could do the editing. she asked me if i new the correcting symbols in german. today i sent her the first fifteen pages, for her to see what the book is about and if she is willing to do it.

after breakfast i figured how i can use my fathers computer from my laptop. my fathers computer got more capacity and thus more options and acts now like a server. now i can do whatever i did before on it, while my sister is using it as well. one of the things which i didn't figure yet was printing from my laptop. now i just can connect to the server and have everything from it's screen on my laptop's. and am thus able to print as well.

after lunch i made my usual tour to town. first i bought a newspaper, then to the bank to transfer the rent of my mother's old flat and the provision for the new one, from there to the supermarket, where i bought some food stuff. at the bakery i asked the lady for one bread. in one piece. the lady disappeared with my bread, i was still hoping she would wrap it, she put not only paper around, but also cut it in slices. when i went out the supermarket i realised it was raining. after packing the stuff and being on my bike the rain became heavier. i escaped to the public library. first to the entrance for a cup of coffee, a rest and the opportunity for my cloths to dry a bit. and to see how wam's interview looks in the newspaper. it took more space than i expected. more than half the page. including a big photo from wam. wam had said the questions were a bit stupid, but he managed pretty well. inside the library i love to stroll around, reading here and there a bit. that's what i did today as well to let time and rain pass. and i found the correcting symbols inside a german dictionary. and yes, i guess i can handle them. i found myself a chair and was reading in front of the window, when i saw half of böblingen firebrigade passing by. i hope nothing serious happened. when i left the library the rain was a little less strong.

seems like we are not sure if my cousin is coming tommorrow for moving. i guess this time we should remember tommorrow toinform the landlord better about developments on our side.

in the evening i was looking for a lift for my sister's and my stuff, about 15 boxes and a fridge. i checked with professional companies, they want 300 to 700 euros, which would be more than the whole stuff is worth. i checked on forums which offer lifts. i found one guy going with a van from stuttgart to berlin in about three weeks. from berlin i hope to find somebody to transport my stuff to belzig. i printed (which is sooooo easy now!) his details, checked my email and tested that connection to the server. i guess i tested a bit much, my sister came into the living room late and complained that the computer was too slow and wouldn't shut off anymore. i tried to shut it off from my laptop, but somehow managed to shut off the wrong computer. i had to re-type half of this entry again. sort of a draw-back. the good thing was that i somehow managed to remember what i had written, and it didn't take me too long to write the whole thing. despite the rain today it's still too hot...

good night everybody.
burkhard

long time gone

it must be about a month ago that i wrote the last entry into this blog. lack of time and a bit too much of my laziness are to be blamed, i guess. to admit, it was after such a long time a little difficult to get into the rhythm of writing diary again.

my mother got a flat in the meantime. she didn't move yet, we are still busy packing things into boxes. we shoot at friday to start moving. the original plan was to start yesterday, but the floor in the new flat was not finished. it's a two room flat in the neighbourtown, in a building which is taken care of the red cross, about fivehundred metres away from one of the biggest car factories in germany. if you look out the window though, you see a little garden. next to it you can find a park with a little creek. the red cross organises once a week breakfast and lunch for all people living there. for those who want to join.

in the morning i was packing seven suites from my father into a suitcase. and filled three other suitcases with more of my cloths, most from my father as well. i hope my friends in belzig will still recognise me in my new couture.

before lunch i was reading my emails, about wam's book, which should have been out today and the presentation tommorrow in berlin in the rooms of a daily newspaper, an article about the book and cooking in that newspaper tommorrow, which is already on internet, found the link to a little videoclip with wam talking and a message from nick, if we shouldn't do something on facebook for the 15th anniversary of volunteers project pakrac.

despite the wheather, which was basically too hot today, i went to town after lunch. i guess that was around the time when the minister for interior affairs of land brandenburg visited belzig. i don't remember exactly how it happened, but i think it was bhady who talked to him during an event. since both infocafe and the association responsible for it are having this year their tenth birthday we took the chance to convince the town council of belzig to invite that minister for a meeting similar to the one which was the starting point of infocafe. of course i wanted to be in belzig today for the event in belzig and wam's book presentation tommorrow in berlin, but things turned to be different. i went first to the library to give a couple books back and afterwards to a bookstore to order a copy of wam's book. in the bookshop the lady told me the book is not out yet, but they phone me when it is. in one of the supermarkets i visited today the bottle recycling machine was opened and some nerving bleeping sound was going for several mintes. the good thing was, that i was this time not guilty for that alarm. at the counter i asked the lady if i could give old batteries back, she showed me where, but probably did not count with the amount my father managed to collect in the last couple of years. the battery collecting box in that supermarket was full afterwards. coming back home i had to change cloths, cause those i was wearing were soaking wet.

in the evening i was watching the news, there was a chance that they brought something on the event in belzig, unfortunately we don't get the regional TV channel from brandenburg, i couldn't find anything on national telly. still i left the telly going writing this blog and watched with one eye. my mother told me, the landlord was waiting the whole day for us to help moving. i guess we should improve the communication between us and him. later in the evening, when i was making notes for this blog i watched a discussion on telly about energy policy, reason was the increasing oil price. two of the guys were speaking in favour of nuclear energy, one of them was calling it ecological. don't worry, i managed to control myself and not throw things at the telly. in the news they had a short thing on universities cooperating with the industry, which i remember we were protesting against when i was student, upheavals in mongolia for selling its ressources to companies in other countries for nothing, and leaving ground and water of the people living from it devastated, and a member from the social democrat party who compared the numbers of members of her party to another left party in west germany. she obviously forgot on purpose the members in east germany. which shows a lot of the mentality how west-germans look at their fellow germans in the east. it's still too hot, but i will try with sleeping.

greetings from schwaben,
burkhard

forms, books and tennis balls

still tuesday night

after uploading the blog from tuesday i was fiddling with the scanner a bit. all of a sudden i understood what happend: the printer software had installed the scanner software as well. thus it was in two versions on the system and was interefering with each other. i took the scanner software off and installed the printer anew, and voila, both printer and scanner worked. i scanned two of the floor plans of the assisted living place my mother and me had visited two weeks ago in leonberg. when i wanted to scan the third one, the scanner gave up. i sent those two floor plans by email to my brother-in-law and went to bed. after reading a couple of pages in two books each i called it a day, put my mobile to ring at tenin the morning and switched off the light. i couldn´t fall asleep though. my belly started to ache. turning around, taking a homeopatic tranquilizer and turning around again didn´t help. maybe my appendix? the deeper i breathed the more pain. i tried to breath low. not too successful either. i was thinking about to call an ambulance. eventually i must have fallen asleep.

wednesday

we have to make the the annual tax declaration of my father of the year 2006 until the end of this month. i tried to do it with a special software last days, but we are missing some paper. without some numbers on it that software won´t proceed. so my mother is trying to do it now on paper. she filled in the wrong numbers in the only form we have. thus i went to the finance office in the morning. i had to cycle about four times around a complex ofbuildings hosting the police, the unemployment office and that finance office until i found a way through all those buildings. i picked up all forms which might apply to my mother in at least ten copies each. my belly was doing better and while biking home i thought maybe this was now the punishment for the overdose of rhubarb i had in the last weeks. my mother already had prepared lunch. i had semolina pudding without rhubarb stew.

being a little exhausted by everything, i was reading that comic strip from yesterday on the balcony. having that comic strip almost finished i heared a familar voice. and looked through the balcony door inside the living room. there i saw my aunt, the older sister of my father. she just had arrived with her son who is a couple years older than me. after the obligatory greeting rituals i walk with my cousin up to his car to get some boxes for putting things in. on the parking lot we find another aunt, my fathers younger sister. she used to teach catholic religion in various schools before she was pensioned. she is obvously moved cause my father is not around anymore. back in the flat we are having tea and cake. fortunately my relatievs have brought some cake with them, fortunately for me since i am still avoiding rhubarb. my mother told them that my younger sister is arriving with the train in the late afternoon, my cousin is ready to pick her from the station.

afterwards we were having a look on my fathers books. some are really beautiful, some i was found of as child and now would consider being useless, my relatives are pretty found of. like huge books with huge photograps on history and science. and unpacked and newer books with novells on the order of the templars.

my cousin, my mother and me were keeping always an eye on the watch to be in time at the station. i assisted him to find the way there. we didn´t drive exactly the shortest or even fastest way, to be honest, rather than a straight line on the map the direction i gave to my cousin would look more like a couple of "Z". we were twenty minutes before the train was to arrive, my cousing was telling me about his life. being unemployed he engages himself in his town in the tenant assocition and a citizents´ organisation which is having every year a district festivity.

my aunts already had put the books they had sorted for themselfs in the boxes. we too them out to their cars. afterwards i showed them the two rooms of the basement. although with neighbours and other relatives we had already cleaned and sorted quite something they are still pretty shocked. while i was cleaning with my cousin out a bit more,my aunts found the children toys in the corridor. they threw about two hundred tennisballs in a garbage bag, found a couple of my old toy cars and more toys, they want to clean at home to give to the son of another cousin of mine. maybe i should draw a picture of my family for you. my cousin wants to take the books for children and adolescence for the citizens association when his is coming on saturday again.

gotta go to have lunch now,

greetings,

burkhard

two cups of coffee, volunteers and cafes

thanks to everybody who sent their thoughts or condolescences concerning my fathers death. i couldn´t imagine it before, but they helped.

after lunch i went shopping. nothing too dramatic there. only the wheather. air from africa which came in between a low and a high-pressure area up here. or something like that. it´s warmer here now than in southern europe. i went to the library. with sweat dripping from my entire self i gave a couple music CD´s back and got new ones and a comic strip. they have more space than the public library in belzig. they have novels, books for children and adolescence and about health. today the cafe downstairs was open. i had to check it out. in the entrance posters about events, like readings, brunch and the lecture on africa and globalisation in the third world shop on thursday. that smelled like a cafe run by volunteers. there were two ladies in their best age talking about health issues. i orderd a cappucino, the lady asked if i wanted some cake with it. i couldn´t say no. the other one explained to her how the cappuccino machine works. after finishing cake and coffee i was reading that comic strip for a while and enjoyed the atmosphere. the lady took the empty dishes and i asked her if i could pay, she said she wouldn´t mind me sitting here for longer. my mother was probably already waiting for me and i didn´t want to be unfriendly so i asked her about the cafe, she told me the whole thing is a communal centre with the library and the cafe. they have language classes and all sorts of things, i had a hard time listening, being happy that i was right. about 10 years ago some people from the part of town decided they wanted a cafe. and they started one. so, it´s about the same age as infocafe in belzig. i have to go there again and find out more about it. i went home through subtropic climate. i unpacked the stuff i had bought while my mother prepared another coffee for me. i told her about the football match later. the german team was to play the bijelo russian one. when my mother heard bijelo russian, she remembered that her father got killed there at the end of world war II. i wasn´t aware of that, as far as i remember she never mentioned before that it was bijelo russia he was killed in. the younger sister of my father phoned, she is coming with the older sister tommorrow afternoon for a visit. rhubarb cake and coffee again delicious, the match ended in a draw, which is a success for the bijelo russian team and a little disaster for the german one.

my mother made a list of things she wants to get rid off, i typed it into the computer (if anybody is interested, i´m happy to send it). when i wanted to print the list i figured that the printer wasn´t working. i installed the whole thing anew. that was about the fifth time, thus i have an idea now how to do that. at last. during the installation i realised that the scanning software is installed during the printer installation. which might be the reason why the scanner gave up it´s work.

i watched a bit the news on television. in germany the communes don´t have enough youth workers. they showed as example a district of berlin. the youth worker they interviewed feels more like a firefighter. berlin is for the last couple of years bankrupt. germany having one of the strongest economies in the world, but not enough youth workers. better - or should i say worse? - than the comedians after the news. they (those comedians) displayed a graph on their studio walls, which showed that the pharmaceutical industry in germany got increasing profits while decreasing turnover in the last couple of years.

while writin this my computer decided that an update was necessary. i allowed him to do one. but not to crash the internet browser when i am about to upload this blog. fortunately there is some other software which is quicker than that internet browsing thing to manage the blog upload.

strange world.

good night,

burkie

music, hair and even more music

last time i watched the eurovision song contest a swedish band won. seems like a russian singer won this year. and the german, british and polish songs together on the last place. i didn´t know that goran bregovic was playing with his band during the break. i read it only on a big german internet news service and search engine. they proposed a fraud. that some neighbouring countries gave points to each other. the funny thing is that they complain in the next sentence about the missing points from the neighbouring countries for the german song which was in english (which the majority of the songs were). in the following paragraphs they give about ten more reasons for the position of the german (or english?) song. wikipedia already has articles on this years contest in more than 30 languages. they are quick..

after lunch facebook was down again. i went shopping. my mother had ordered the hair dresser for a quarter past five. so i had some time. and this time no alarm. half a minute after i arrived back home the bell rang. the hair dresser. i opened the door and confronted him with the the time difference of fourty-five minutes he was early. he was sure he had agreed with my mother for half past four. that explained everything: a misunderstanding. while i was unpacking my bicycle bags he cut my mothers hair. she wants a decent hair cut when my niece will be baptized in two weeks. now she thinks it´s maybe a bit short. but within two weeks it should grow to a decent lenght. while cutting my hair, he gave me a couple of advices on how to cut my hair myselfand proposed to me to co-ordinate my stays in böblingen with my hair cuts. i guess my efforts in cutting my hair myself couple of months ago were not too successful.

in the evening i fiddled with the scanner. again without success. just checked facebook. i got a music clip about manchester united. the lyrics are...., let´s say special (snjezana! where did you get that from?). even more important, it shows that there is somebody else reading this blog. which makes altogether ..... three people!

good night folks!
burkhard

slides, a phone bill and a missing car

my father got hundreds of slides. today i found the slide projector. most slides are from travels to the place where my father was born, north of poznan in poland. until the wall came down and communism collapsed in east europe my father was not allowed to go there because he worked for the german army. since then he and my mother travelled every year there. since a couple of years he even organised bus trips with up to fifty people. i found about three files from my father on his birthplace. since i am here i added 2 or three more. only about the area where my father was born. with newspaper articles and photograps from before and during world war II, stories and some historical texts. all about this area. lists of names of the people joining those trips, letters from those people to my father, photographs from those trips, historical and current maps, newsletters, newspapers, songs from and about the area (some written by my father). from most of those papers two, three or even more copies.

i opened that suitcase. no, i didn´t figure that number. i went up to 999. but the thing wouldn´t open. only with a little help from a screwdriver the suitcase did open. there i found medical bills, two playing cards, invitations to events, correspondence, a phone bill from freiburg. to me. from 1994. then i already lived in pakrac! seems my good old flatmates hadn´t paid the phone bill and the telecommunication company sent it to me. to me addressed here in böblingen. my father seems to have cleared the situation with a letter to the telecom. i hope my flat mates have paid that bill in the mean time. in another correspondance to the head of a military base my father complained that his car was taken away. he had joined some seminar in that military base, the guys responsible for that seminar had obviously forgotten to arrange parking space for the participants, the guards had let my father into that military base (although they should have stopped him), my father parked his car, somebody figured that the car didn´t belong there and they moved it. i can imagine my father was quite upset. i can´t remember him telling us about that incident though.

we are running out of bread again. for the late afternoon my mother has ordered the hair dresser for her and myself. a guy i remember vaguely as little child when i went to school. i guess i will go shopping before letting my hair being shortened tommorrow.

good night everybody,
burkhard

second round; rhubarb, photos, football.

somewhere last week we run out of rhubarb cake. so i entered round two of picking. i left about half for the neighbours who are coming back from holidays tommorrow. and i put a bucket full of flower soil next to the remaining plants. i didn´t understand completely why, but my mother got quite some flower soil on the balcony. it has something to do with a broken fish tank. i can´t re-call now the connection between that fish tank and the soil. i´ll have to start further investigations. my mother started with making another rhubarb cake.

in the afternoon i was watching frankfurter ffc playing umea ik in the uefa cup finals. the women section. while watching i sorted more papers of my father. and found a cigar box full of photographs. on one photo showing two young guys the year 1919 and something indeciperable was written on the back side. the time the other photos were taken was more noticeable on their front side. soldiers in nazi uniform, in military deployment, officers in the field, bombed out houses and typical nazi architecture. i found more birthday greeting cards and different identity cards of my father. catholic youth, parachuters, military driving license and amateur boxing association. my father started boxing when he was 14 years old. i have to say for the parachuters defense, the birthday card which was always the same was from the entire fellowship of parachuters.

frankfurter ffc won the uefa cup. again a close match, umea ik hit the cross bar twice. at the end the same picture like on wednesday: the members of one team celebrating, the others devestated. uefa vice-chairman gerhart meyer-vorfelder handed over the medals and the cup to the players. with the players of the team of umea ik he shook hands, with the ones from frankfurt he shook hands and gave kisses as well. he obviously wasn´t sure how many kisses were allowed, he started with two for each player, but reduced them to one each. meyer-vorfelder was minister of sports and culture of the state of baden-württemberg when i went to school. i wasn´t into politics much then and didn´t understand much of the critisism towards him. neither i understood why we couldn´t choose german and history as main courses in the last two school years. my older sister explained to me, the government was worried students might get too critical. obviously now, one decision meyer-vorfelder was responsible for. for tea time my mother served rhubarb cake. this time straight from the ofen.

the scanner still doesn´t work. there seems to be a bug involved. the suitcase is still locked. i am now at number 600. that hardening left my neck completely now.

good night,
burkhard

troubles moving

today in the morning i had a hardening in the neck muscles. couldn´t move my head to the right side. i tried to get rid of that with some breath exercise and tiger balm.

i had thought i had payed all my bills, but still some manage to accumulate from somewhere. seems i have forgotten again to ask for exemption of the telly and radio fees for being unemployed, i need to pay a couple of homepages i host with an aquaintance, my bank account is empty and i still have to pay my mobile. i was happy when my mother told me she would lend some money to me.

after lunch i managed to move my head at least in something like the right direction. since i don´t need to look to the right that much while biking, i went first to the bank, then to one of those big supermarkets. at the cash the alarm went off. the woman at the desk asked to go once more backward. i was puzzled about the bleeping noise and thought she had addressed the family in front of me. after realising that she was talking to me i stepped backward through this bleeping thing. i didn´t steel anything, honestly. i went forward again and nothing happened. the woman said everything was alright. after paying that alarm went off again. a little kidding, a little annoyed, i held my hands up. the woman told me again everything was alright. no idea what was triggering that thing. who knows, maybe my mobile radiated a bit too much. i could hardly fit everything i had bought into my bicycle bags. fortunately i had cancelled the potatoes. since the main library is closed for putting a new carpet i had to go to a branch of the library in a part of town i had never been before to get some new music. i went straight up hill. at least 2 kilometres. the houses must have been built in the last couple of years. arriving at the top i am exhausted. the building of the library branch looks from the inside much more attractive than from the outside. downstairs is a little cafe. which is unfortunately closed until sunday. upstairs, in the first floor is the actual library, bigger than the only library in belzig, with a big terrace and chairs to sit. i found a couple CDs and went home passing by my former secondary school. the students still have school vacations, so the school was closed. arriving at home i am even more exhausted.

yesterday i had opened a suitcase of my father. in it i found another suitcase. locked by two combinations of numbers. i could figure the first one, but not the second. so i started trying from 000 onwards. i managed up to the number 250.

update on the scanner: the computer finds it sometimes. but still it won´t scan. i am able to look to the right again, that hardening seems to be gone.

good night,
burkhard

missing papers, small photos and 50 deutsch mark

dear friends!
last night putting up the blog took at least half an hour (for not-so-computer-literates: that should take not more than two minutes). the connection from facebook to blogger.com somehow didn´t work. i couldn´t remember my username on blogger.com and so on. i was almost falling from my chair when i was finally finished. not by overjoy, but by falling asleep.

most of today i felt pretty useless. my mother and me have to make the joint return of my father and my mother. from the year 2006. my father always wanted to do it but couldn´t find one paper. seems like he didn´t need it. in replacement there is another paper from my father we need now, which we can´t find. thus we were today sorting thru piles of paper again. my mother in the eating room, me in my former sleeping room where we have the computer now. i thought i had emptied the room from paper (not completely of course), but i came across more sources of paper. underneath the second desk. and inside the desk. at the bottom in one of the drawers i found a photo album from my fathers family. with little, squarrish black and white photos not bigger than huge stamps. from the architecture, the fashion and the moustaches of the men i would say the photos were taken around the beginning to the middle, some maybe at the end of the thirties. when i see pictures from this period of time i am always curious about the historical context. questions like "were the nazis already in power?", "had the war already started?", "how was life in the thirties?" went through my head. in my family hitler and the nazis were never an issue of discussion. only in the last couple of years i started to understand that my father was not quite sure about his standpoint. one of our basis of communication in recent years was watching movies together. his favourite were wild-west movies, but we could agree on any kind of action movie - martial arts, historical, crime, whatever. except movies about the nazi era. i guess a reason was a mixture of guilt, embarrassment and a couple of other feelings. my grandmother was pretty fond of hitler - at least she was pretending. i remember once in my childhood when i stayed with my grandparents she was defending hitler. in the mean time i figured that she was at least half polish, probably hundred percent. my grandmother had a polish maiden name. and she spoke german with some very hard accent. which was normal for me. it has been always like this. only recently, after having lived in former yugoslavia and worked with refugees, i came behind these little secrets. like the serbs in croatia who are 150% croatian, but more for their own security and well-being than for ideological or nationalsit reasons (another question is: "what does it mean do be of some nationality?" i leave that for the left-over-pile-of-things-to-talk-about). my father was member of the hitler youth, but at the end of the war never old enough to have been in charge of something or a child soldier. i do not know the role of his family, i only guess that my father was a victim of his own projections. at least in this case. i also found birthday greeting cards to my father, always the same for each birthday from one of his fellow parachuters. and fifty german marks. my mother wants me to ask tommorrow at the bank if they still would exchange it. i doubt that. but i found that we could sell it on ebay;-)

nite everybody,
burkhard

angles, vacuum cleaners, points and a screw driver

last night all of a sudden i understood why i like to read books (both fiction and non-fiction)and my interest into languages, cultures, history, art and why i write this blog. all lets me look on things from a slightly different angle, shifts the perception a little, adds a different picture. that all might be too obvious to you. and if you would have asked me last week, why i am interested in, say, history, i probably would have given this answer. for the first time (in my live!) i realised, that this reason is common for all of these things. like the difference of seeing things with one eye or with two. with one eye i can see. with two eyes a little more, even more i can estimate distance and see three dimensional. since last night the same seems to me works for anything else. if i want to make up my mind, i need at least two different angles. and because i am not able to always ask people for their opinion on things, i have to create all those angles in my mind.

my uncle had announced himself yesterday for 12 o´clock. which for my mother was a pretty strange time, just before lunch. on the phone yesterday my uncle pretended being surprised that i was already up at two in the afternoon. having been in bed for the entire weekend. in return i sort of had to accept his proposal to arrive here at twelfe. but instead just before lunch my uncle and his wife managed to arrive here during my breakfast. they had miscalculated the traffic. so, i was stuffing my last slice of bread into my face, before introducing my uncle and aunt to our basement. talking about introductions, my father had two brothers and two sisters. all of them have at least one child, not all are married. to have a child without been married was in their time, generation and surrounding a bit unusual. they are both always busy with something, they built two or three houses, she worked as waitress, he painter and decorator, drove trains for the german railway system and driving instructor. they both have a certain sense of humour which is at times misunderstood. i took them down to the basement, they wanted to have the toy-train for their grand-son. showing them the second room of the basement they were shocked. about the mess. we put all electronic and metall garbage into their trailor. vacuum cleaners, parts of the bike of my mother, the hospital bed and all that. they even wanted to keep two of the vacuum cleaners. i couldn´t stop myuncle from sorting some of the stuff in the second basement room (the desaster area). he found the wheels for my mothers bike, paint and things i can´t remember now. we drove the stuff to the recycling centre, were we had to sort electronic, cables, music stuff and metall. in a box we found a blow drier. brand new. we gave it to one of the guys working the, he just said "second hand market". the vacuum cleaners went into another container, which were closed from the sides, so we really had to throw them. in the music department was a big pile of television sets and on top a couple of computers. i should go at night there and see how many i can find. seriously, you can find parts for at least four computers there. which are better than the ones i am working with. at the end we had been driving there a second time, my uncle and my aunt had both their jeep and their trailor filled up with stuff, including the toy train.

so, manchester united wone the football campions league. it was a good match, going into penalties, it was close, both teams, manu and chelsea could have wone. the members of the one team were celebrating, the others not. some of them were crying. i wasn´t surprised, i have seen too many football matches. but from a slightly different point of view the surprising thing is, how many emotions such a virtual thing as a football tournament can create. nobody got seriously hurt, is missing or even died. both teams played a good match. is it a question if they get a medal afterwards, the recognition they will gain from their friends and family or the money they will be worth on the transfer market? maybe everything at once.

typing this i found a screw driver in my back pocket.

good night,
burkhard

one week squeezed into a couple paragraphs

last week wednesday i wanted to tell you what happened more on tuesday. but i was just too tired. the next days i was too exhausted. and eventually ill. thus i´m telling you now. and the week of the meantime as well. promise.

still tuesday 13th may

in the morning i had gotten by mail a couple of parts for the old computer (old meaning here 11 years old, in terms of computer speak that is old). while going by bus to the big shopping centre in sindelfingen, i realised that only single persons and couples were on the bus. during school time there are always bigger groups of school children on a bus, but then it was school holidays for whitsun. for the way there i had to change busses at the main bus station in boeblingen. so altogether i used 4 busses. in the shopping centre it took me 2 minutes to find a bakery where i bought bread (my mother was worried there might be no bakery in that shopping centre), went straight to the electronic shop, to the pile of printers, moved an unpacked printer to the side, took one box, went to the cash desk, paid, said "thank you" and good bye" and went back to the bus stop. everything took about ten minutes. which meant i had to wait for about twenty. in each of those busses one or two young girls or boys in the back with load hip-hop-techno-music on. after coming home again i installed the new printer. and it worked after only a little fiddling. fantastic! but i was in that dangerous "i can fix everything" mood. i took the computer apart and tied to change the graphics card. because of some plug it didn´t fit. i took a little more out and tried to take out the processor. i pulled and what i actually held in my hand was the cooling part. i had ripped the cooling part from the processor. when i tried that last time (couple months ago), i thought that was impossible. it obviously was not. i tried to fit the new processor and it´s cooling part, but here some other part was in the way. didn´t fit either. still in that dangerous mood. i remembered, there was still another processor somewhere in the drawer. after about 20 minutes of intensive search, i was even able to find it. a little bit of fiddling and i figured how to put the original cooling part and processor into the computer. with a little drawback: i couldn´t fix the cooler with glue to the processor (i didn´t have any), so i only could try to rely on the remaining bits on the old cooler. which was not too successful. after the processor was fixed, the cooler still moved. i still had to change some switches i could put the computer together again. although i was a little worried the processor with only loose contact to the cooler might overheat, i still wanted to give it a try. i switched the computer on. nothing. i had to open the thing again. i had forgotten some cable to put back again. i put everything together. that procedure i had to repeat about six or maybe seven times. there was always something not, loose or wrong connected. at a certain moment that night the computer started again. but printer and scanner didn´t work anymore. being afraid that it might overheat i could at least write the blog from last tuesday.

wednesday 14th mayin the morning i tried to fix both printer and scanner without success.

in the afternoon i went with my mother to leonberg. my mother had an appointment with a possible new landlady. i printed a little map of leonberg with the place we had to go marked. we took the bus to the main bus station. it was a sunny hot day. this time i didn´t look around that much. my focus was more on my mother´s rollator. the thing has brakes for two wheels, and still managed to move around. i tried a few positions, but none was too stable. on the main station we had about half an hour to wait for the next bus to renningen. outside a bakery we found a couple of tables and chairs. i had a cappucino, my mother was happy to be in the shade. we talked a bit about the changes in boeblingen in the last years. we moved here almost exactly thirtyfive years ago. for about three months i was going to primary school here. i didn´t like it. the smell was unusual and especially strong in the changing rooms for sportsclass. the teachers were friendly. as well unusual to me. altogether a strange primary school to me. fortunately only for three months. then i was allowed to go to grammar school, which was a big thing for me. now i pass it by everytime going into town. the bus ride to renningen was a little adventure for my mother. we used a long bus (long meaning app. 25 meters) and the driver seemed thave a different perception concerning speed and traffic rules than my mother. after having a quick look on the town map in renningen we managed to find the area were my older sister lives with her family. actually she and her beautiful little daughter (my niece!) came walking towards us. her son is with his other grandparents, missing his sister, her husband was on his way back from work and they just on a little walk. after coffee, tea and cake her husband arrived. he works for a big electronic comapy which develops and fabricates some parts for one of the bigger automobile companies (you may guess which one). when i got to his car, my niece was sitting on the driver seat pretending to drive (imagine the picture!). when we were all inside the car (incl. rollator) my beautiful little niece was sitting in the back on her childrens seat trying to put on her seat-belt. but unfortunately - for her - she wouldn´t come with us. and all screaming would not persuade her parents. my mother was sitting with the map i had printed (and am always a little proud, when i am able to help with this or that computer knowledge). after my brother in law started the car some voice said "after one hundred fifty metres turn to the left". i have seen such things in commercials and on telly. but i have never seen such a navigator in real live. and even in action. the thing directed us exactly to the place we wanted to go. who needs a map?we were of course a little early at the entrance of the house. my brother in law had to do something in a nearby bank. my mother and me were waiting and wondering if that was indeed the right place. it was. the lady was there at six o´clock. she showed the house to us and the apartment. a bathroom, and one room with a little space for kitchen and a little separated a bed. the house is one for assisted living ( = "a living arrangement in which people with special needs, especially seniors with disabilities, reside in a facility that provides help with everyday tasks"; i stole that from http://dict.leo.org). a library, a huge terrace, a common room for whatever occasion, and one for recreation. but in the centre of town. from the window a view on bus stop and pub. not what my mother wanted. my brother-in-law drove us home. after dinner i fiddled a bit with printer and scanner. no success. and too tired to write blogs or diaries.

thursdayi decided to slow down the computer again. printer and scanner still on strike. three mails from people who want the toy train.

fridayi installed the printer a new. it works! no changes about the scanner. one more mail about that toy train.

saturdayi feel devastated. stay in bed entire day.

sunday

no changes about my *#!-being. have a bowle of soup. for the rest: still in bed.

monday

am at last starting to recover. my surrounding doesn´t move anymore. at least some things are immobile.

we were running out of coffee. as i am the only one drinking coffee here, my mother preferred a small pack. thus i sneaked some biological fair trade coffee in. i went to the "third world shop" and bought a pack there. they have a poster about a lecture their shop on "africa and globalisation" in their window. the lecture will be held by some university professor. i will see if i can go there.

the printer doesn´t work anymore. again. after a couple of hours fiddling i figure "it is not a mistake, but a feature" (famous quote by jascha and malte). after switching it off i always have to download the firmware anew. whatever that means. at least i know where to click;-)

tuesday

an uncle phoned, he comes tommorrow, to check out what he may pick for himself his family or grandchildren. shopping. fiddling without success with scanner. writing blog.

good night.

burkhard:-)

current location, an explanation you better skip and one for those living in the rest of the world

dear friends
i am getting the idea that when writing a diary (new speak: blog), there is space been made for new thougths. i will work on the idea. i should be quick today, i am a little afraid my fathers computer could overheat.

people are asking me where i am at the moment. click: here is the answer.

maybe i should explain first a bit, especially for people living in a more or less flat area. others may skip this papagraph. people living in flat areas actually as well. how the house my mothers flat is in is situated in the landscape. when you walk out the basement you are standing on the road. when you walk out the entrance you are on the road as well. whereas the entrance is a couple of stairs higher than the basement. how can that be? first it is not the same road. it is more a path. or a yard. second, i might have mentioned before that the house is on a hill. almost on top. and that is the point. that almost on top. there is a decline between path and road, meaning you walk down the stairs outside from the yard to the road.

i was planning to get up in the morning at 8 thirty today. i did not. i got up at seven 50. after a quick breakfast i went into the supposedly empty room in the basement. same situation again: boxes all over the place, things on wrong places and such. having achieved a certain level of order my focus shifted to the preserving glasses in the second room. i started to empty the cupboard. when the neighbour came down, he asked me when the waste collectors would be coming. even more we were wondering how much waste they actually would take. or rather: how much would they leave behind? considering that we had thrown everything on that pile except electronic waste and old tires. "how much will they leave behind" was our running gag in between plastic, paper and all kinds, shapes and sizes of pieces of wood, until a truck passed by. blue and white on the outside. not waste collectors, they drive orange trucks. another truck right behind the first one. colour: orange. the neighbour said he is going to disappear now, he didn´t want to take the blame for all the wrong things we had thrown outside. and the mess we had created there. the driver got out the truck, we greeted each other and i stumbled something like "eh, it´s a little more, than one squaremetre". the guy walked along the bulk waste and counted 1....2....3....4....5.....6....7.... squaremetres. for every quarter of a squaremetre 5 euro or one coupon. (makes how much for one squaremetre? and in total?). before i was finished calculating i agreed (what else could i do anyway?). the co-driver came out the truck as well. while they were throwing the waste into their truck i was going through the basement to my mother to explain the situation. which was not too bad. back down the basement the neighbours wife reminded me to take the boxes of blankets out as well. i took the first one, walked out and asked the guys if they would take blankets as well. they did. the neighbour was back. he suggested to me not to just put the boxes next to the others, but to throw them right into the truck. the neighbour and me started to believe that we really could get rid of this incredible pile of stuff. after 5 more boxes of blankets, sleeping bags and curtains we became a bit bolder and started to bring garbage bags. we even tried with an old tire. but they returned that. which they did with some metall parts as well. like an old hospital bed (where did this come from?). they took some pieces of furniture apart, threw the material part in the direction of the truck and left the metall parts on the road. well, better than we had expected. after about one hour the entire 7 squaremetres were crushed inside the bulk waste collectors truck. the driver asked me if i wanted to pay cash or by bank transfer. i said by bank transfer. or cash. actually i didn´t mind. he had already filled in his form, he didn´t mind if i sign or my mother. the guys drove down the road. i realised that the driver had used some yugoslav language. with the neighbour i went back to have another look at the basement and realised that i forgot to take a photo from the bulk waste. the neighbour said a photo from the half cleaned out second room would do as well. from those 7 squaremetres we had gotten the hospital bed, some smaller pieces of furniture and a metall cup board back. at the same time we had added all those boxes of blankets, cardboard, old paper ad mixed garbage. more than enough to make up for the metall. i said a couple times thank you in different words to the neighbour.

my next project was to broom the attic. this is the moment to explain a typical custom here in schwaben which they call "kehrwoche". the kehrwoche regulates the weekly cleaning of the house and surrounding area. i am not aware which laws and rules exist in other areas, thus give me a couple of minutes. each family takes turns in cleaning. the family in turn gets a sign "kehrwoche" next to their door. i will investigate further on this topic. as adolescent my older sister and me had to help our parents with kehrwoche. my sister did the stairs, i did the basement and the attic. i should say rather, i was supposed to do attic and basement. i did broom the basement. but i hated to broom that attic. it was next to impossible to clean the black, concrete floor. wherever i went with the broom there was dust blown into the air. on the black floor it was about impossible to see the dust. it was probably even more than hate. i just couldn´t do it. i did .... nothing. i waited a while. or was walking in circles. and counted. since the time past even slower when i had my watch with me, i left it on purpose in the flat. after a while i went back to the flat and pretended that i had done my share of kehrwoche. as things are subject to change, the floor of the attic is. it´s neither black anymore (at least usually), nor concrete. somebody had put some plastic with a light colour instead (or on top). actually the light colour was covered with a layer of dust (which made the floor almost black again). it is like holidays to go over it with the broom. compared to the floor as i knew it. still the attic has a roof on top. with a pitched roof area. which meant for me that i was brooming on my knees or almost horizontal. when i had finished the bin was half full. with dust. this week my mother and me have kehrwoche, i will try to figure out if my efforts of today could be seen as part of this.

for lunch my mother had prepared not just left overs from not just yesterday. but from the days before as well. i felt hungry and had cake as desert. still the staircase was waiting for cleaning. the part taking most of the time was the railing. brooming and mopping took only a couple of minutes. the rest of the day i bought a new printer, fiddled on a homepage and with the speed of my father´s computer.

and am going to bed.

nite.
burkie

up and down the stairs, a couple more squaremeters and croatian birds

dear friends!
so it looks like there is at least somebody reading this blog;-)

i forgot to tell you yesterday that flower shops in our part, as the only one of germany were forbidden by court to open. because of witsun. motherday is one of their major days to make profit with. some shops had announced already before, that they would not obey to that decision. i am wondering if they really opened yesterday. and about the consequences.

before i switch off the light i read a couple of pages in two books every night. last night all of the sudden the letters on the page of the book i was reading started to move. without me moving my hands. i didn´t drink any alcohol. for about half a year. too much rhubarb maybe. my mother suggested that i might have been bumbed my head into the wood of the roof construction of the attic too much yesterday.

right after breakfast i went to the basement to check the situation down there. which was a good idea. i had left quite a mess yesterday in the room which is almost empty now. almost empty meaning there was only the toy-train, an old fridge, the insulation material and about 20 bottles of wine supposed to be left. but there was cardboard and plastic all over the place. i cleaned up a bit since this should become for the things to keep. for the rest of the next couple of hours i was most of the time walking up and down the stairs, with the difference that upstairs i didn´t have anything in my hands. when i went upstairs now i met our neighbour putting on his shoes. we started to take out more children books, school books, my old electronic and chemical experiental cases, most of which we left in a corner in and outside the attic. the neighbours kept on making jokes about all the things my father has collected. and saw some similarities in my reluctance of throwing things away. we took the table on which our mother had changed us when we were babies - while sweat dripping from my neigbours face on it -, our old living room table, chairs and boxes with german army magazines. some of the things which are connected with my memories from my childhood and youth. we even found some training gun ammunition. the neighbour was in the arny as well a couple of ranks below my father. another source of stories of my fathers life. once i a while when i had the opporunity i took things back from the street into the basement i wanted to check if it was worth to keeping. like a plastic bag full of stuff, in which i spotted some eyfa (european youth forest action) batches and stickers. my old latin books and my sisters´french books. we had collected about five or six squaremeters waste (very rouglh estimation). my mother had ordered one squaremeter. we were wondering the whole morning what the waste collectors would take. and hoping they would not leave too much. around lunch time we were both pretty knackered, but also had everything except a couple of boxes down, so i proposed to the husband that i would finish the rest by myself after shower and lunch.

my mother had cooked yesterday for one day in advance, so we had the same food like on sunday. not too diverce. but quickly done. after having lunch i took the remaining boxes we had left in that corner, and a few bottles with ammoniac, salpeter acid, sulphur acid and hydrochloric acid (from my experiental phase in my youth) i had left on the staircase to the (almost) empty room in the basement. everything took maybe another hour, and i was happy when i took the decision that work was finished. i couldn´t be bothered that we didn´t clean out the second room in he basement. i was thinking i would do that in the next couple days.

i sat in front of my fathers computer and i tried to link facebook and blogger.com, but facebook went off for maintainance. i decided to read a comic strip on the balcony. when i tried to get up, i realised that i almost couldn´t move. for tea time: rhubarb cake and coffee, which in combination with the comic strip got my body moving again. i still had to clean the stairs and the basement a bit from dust and dirt. my mother found the sweater from my last day in the army with signatures from people i can´t remember. not today and not the day after those people had signed. she also gave some old trousers and suits from my father to me to try them on. most of them fit pretty well. if i put a belt on. maybe even better if i gain a little more weight as well. john told me today that he also fancies rhubarb and when he tried to grow it in croatia birds picked up the seeds. but he is gonna try again. good luck, john!

the garbage collectors come tommorrow between 10 in the morning and 1 o´clock p.m.. i should better look for bed and sleep.

good night everybody,
burkie in boeblingen

PS: already today i didn´t stick to my new rule to read my blog from yesterday before writing this one. now it´s too late to check about continuity between the two. let me do that tommorrow.

PPS: things are subject to change: my mother just told me, the neighbour is coming at nine in the morning to start cleaning the second room....

mothers day, heat in the attic, a mess in the basement and rhubarb cake

when writing a blog or a diary, it is certainly a good ideda, if i read my entry from the past day before i write my next. there is always some left-over idea on what to write....

today in the morning, even before breakfast, i gave my mother the CD with german schlagermusic from the 50s for mothersday. the one i had bought yesterday in that electronic shop.

after having lived surrounded by a lot of people for the past 20 years, either at eyfa in sittard, at peace hostel in zagreb, in pakrac or in an intentional community in belzig to me the life people live here in schwaben seems a bit like in shoeboxes to me. every family lives their own live. and that´s it. maybe my perception is a little out of focus, and other people here have something like a socal life, my mother certainly does not. the neighbours come down sometimes (those who don´t like rhubarb), they have an arrangement about the newspaper on sunday with my mother and sometimes buy stuff for her at the supermarket. those arrangements lead sometimes to long talks. but that´s about all of my mother´s social life. which is one of the reasons why i am here now.

i forgot to tell you that my mother had applied a date for bulk waste the other day. the truck will come tuesday morning. after breakfast i started to sort old boxes with cloths, school books, about fifty of my old toy cars and children books and all kind of stuff in the attic. it was pretty hot up there. right underneath the roof. our neigbour came up (the woman who doesn´t like rhubarb) and told me that her husband would help, and suggested that we start with sorting stuff in the basement, since the distance to the street is smaller and we would have space then to sort things from the flat and the attic. considering their offer to help i could not see any point to disagree to this suggestion. her husband would just finish lunch. it took a couple minutes until the information had passed the processing system of my head. i stopped all activity in the attic, went down to my mothers flat and told her about the new development. considering the huge amount of stuff my family collected in the basement in the past, and the possible resulting amount of work, i decided that it was a good idea to have lunch as well. my mother had already prepared lunch, she just had to heat it up. the husband came down, he had already finished his lunch, i should come up when i finished mine. but, please before six in the evening. after finishing lunch i went first down to the basement to clean it up a bit, it was in an embarrassing state of mess. and i wanted to save some things, before our neighbour throws them away.

of course he came down to the basement before i could fulfill my mission. we started to discuss what to do with the toy-train shall we throw it, or try to look for somebody who wants to have it. for a couple of euros or even for free (in case you are interested: a maerklin HO with tracks, station, crane, two transformers and landscape with tunnel; without waggons and trains; but you have to come here to get it! write to my email address). disassembling would be quite some work. so we left it for the time as it is now. we found a complete german army uniform and gas mask, rucksack, sledge, our old school books, children toys, children books, my old lego boxes, 4 tennis bats and maybe one hundred tennis balls, some of them packed in their original boxes, insulation material (not used), wallpaper (packed in plastic) and two of my old lego boxes. same as for the toy-train: all for free, but you have to come and get it. and we collected about 6 big carbage bags with stuff, 5 vacuum cleaners, skiis, ski boots, three lamps, a sledge, two army sleeping bags, more children toys and two cupboards. most of that broken, unusable or way out of fashion. we asked the other neighbour, if he could drive his car away, that we have place for all that stuff on the side-walk. he is greek, not only of nationality, but also concerning mentality. like you would imagine a greek when you have watched that famous movie with anthony quinn. we put everything wooden out on the pavement. the garbage bags, the electronic and metall waste we left in the corridor of the basement. also the children toys and the army uniform (i will try to get in contact with kindergardens and an army shop here in böblingen on tuesday). we took two more cupboards from the attic down to the street, when i realsied that one of my lego boxes was on the pavement underneath all the other waste. we agreed to meet again tommorrow at ten o´clock to continue to sort out the attic. it was already tea time and my mother was waiting with tea and rhubarb cake. i changed my cloths, washed myself to get ready for tea time and the wife came down and managed to involve me and my mother into a talk and before i realised, she, her husband and me were again the basement and taking out the stuff from the corridor to the street. she even managed to get the key for the other room in the basement from me and started to clean that out. i had not considered before even to start with that room in the next two weeks. at least we can open now door to that room. we discussed what to do about the remaining mess in the room, she expressed her willingness to help and agreed that we continue tommorrow. after the attic. i took the army uniform to the flat of my mother and asked her to put it on the balcony to give some fresh air to it. when we finished it was about dinner time. i went down to the street again and took my lego box back to the first room we had cleaned. i was knackered. i washed myself again. i first had some coffee and cake, then without break inbetween i had dinner. befor writing this blog i checked out on wikipedia where mothers day comes from. apparently some usamerican femenist had the idea at the beginning of the last century, but was fighting it after realising how it was commercialised. in germany the nazis promoted it to an official celebration day. i better finish this now, tommorrow unknown and long forgotten things in an attic and a basement are waiting for me.

good dreams,
burkie

two second hand markets, one electronic shop and stewed rhubarb

dear friends!
when i wanted to put on my blog on last night, blogger.com told me that my blog was blocked for being a possible spam blog. the past entries were still readable, but i couldn´t make any new one. for being suspected as spam one reason can be nonrelevant content. that makes me think a bit.... when john read about my blocked blog on facebook he promised me to send a plumber. it works again! thanks john!!

when i wanted to leave today the house i realised that i couldn´t find my wallet, where i have coins and my papers in. i left without. i first brought bread at one of the two bakery-chain-shops and went from there to the library. the second hand market was in the entrance room where i usually have a cup of coffee. lots of people seemed to have had the same idea. not to have coffee. but to go to that market. entire families. looking for books. i found two books i really would like to read. i was about to buy them, but they both were pretty heavy and big. i have about no idea how i shall transport the books i still have in my mother´s flat from boeblingen to belzig. i checked with a professionel moving company the other day, but moving with them would cost more than my stuff is worth. so i left those two books for somebody else to buy. inside the library i used again their computer, this time to print out a map of the town where my mother plans to move to. when i paid for printing i asked the lady at the desk if they had coincidentially seen my wallet. they had. they even wanted to phone me, but couldn´t handle the address on my ID-card. i went to the other second hand market behind the supermarket in the industrial area of the town. the parking lot of the supermarket was packed full of cars, and still people were looking for a place to park cars. i felt sorry for them, i remembered that my father was sometimes driving around the entire area several times until he had found some space for his car. the market was pretty international: russians, polish, turkish and of course german people. i heard some yugoslav swearing as well, and i think the intonation was croatian. kitchen stuff, tools, books, cloths, TV sets, one table with only watches in all sieces and shapes, music CDs, computer games, etc. a T-shirt with "Deutschland" written in a gothic font. in belzig that would be a clear political statement. i managed not get upset and passed by the stand. i could have bought an entire computer in parts or even complete, but the same here, how would i transport it? so i got on my bike again. on the road the situation was almost worse than on the parking lot. a queue of maybe a kilometre or more. of cars. i again felt sorry for the poor people in fuel driven vehicles which are usually much faster than my bicycle. for me the traffic jam was no obstacle. i went to a huge shopping centre in sindelfingen. it hosts one supermaket, one huge electronic shop, two bookshops, several clothing shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants. i went to the electronic shop (germans may guess which one). TVsets, stereos, washing machines, dish-washing machines, computers, computer equipment, music CDs. and a lot of everything. there is not one real music shop in the area left. even in stuttgart the big music shop has closed. you got everything connected to music there. music instruments, stereos, and thousands of LPs, i guess i haven´t been there for a while. they used to have any kind of music. my mother had found a pretty cheap printer in a commercial leaflet of this shop i was in now. if i was lucky the printer might fit without the packaging into my bicycle bag. i compared the size of an unpacked printer with the one of my bicycle bag. the printer seemed a little big. i asked one of the shop assistants, if he thinks that the printer would fit into my bicycle bag. without packaging. he said the bag is maybe a bit too small. i asked him if they would have the printers still on tuesday (on monday shops are closed). they had one hundred still in the store. i agreed that the printer is very cheap. thus i gotta go on tuesday again. this time by bus. i bought a CD for my mother. for mothers day. and got on my bike. most of the way back was uphill, mostly on bike paths, but i was back at home in less than tweny minutes.

when i came home my mother had already prepared semolina pudding with stewed rhubarb. deliciuos. after eating rhubarb the teeth feel a little funny, our neigbour said the feel too long. later my mother prepared rhubarb cake. she is afraid, she put too much of the rhubarb on. well let´s see tommorrow.

good night,
burkie in boeblingen

two ways of shopping and picking rhubarb

Dear friends!

In the hope that at least one or even two of my friends stumble over this blog i address it to them. english is not only more common than my mother language (german), for some reason i also find it easier to write a diary in english.

in belzig (north-east germany) i usually buy daily things on the market, in small shops and about once a week or two in the local and small biological shop. only a few things in the supermarket. "with the economical enforced walk to the superdiscounter the consuming employees strengthen unwillingly the legitimation of the system which exploits them." frederic lordon, 14 march 2008 in the german edition of le monde diplomatique. i found this quote by accident. the guy, i think a jornalist, brings with elaborate words to the point what i can say only in simple ones: the money spent in the supermarket goes somewhere to a rich company, a little more money spent in small shops stays in the area. here in böblingen (south-west germany) things are a little different for me. my mother has got a pretty clear idea what to buy where. and this is usually one of 4 or five big supermarkets. or one of the major bakery-chains. those chains probably exist in other parts of germany or europe or wherever as well. but i haven´t heard about or seen a chain of bakeries before. i thought till recently that at least a bakery is per definitionem a small local shop. things are subject to change. i am still working on how about going on this one. i mean the clear idea of my mother. if somebody got an idea please tell me. in the bakeries the employees seem already to know my face, they already know what kind of bread i want to buy, they only ask each time i buy bread how many pieces i want to have. the doctors and their assistents greet my mother. same in the drugstore. i didn´t expect the two of us, my mother and me to need that much food. to me it does not seem to be twice as much than i need for myself. it seems at least three times as much. and my mother does not eat too much. if you think now, how does the poor guy carry all that on a bycicle? don´t worry. at least not about that. i bought bags for the back carrier of the bike. they have lots of space.

today though i did not go shopping. last night i managed to get my father´s scanner working, the printer still doesn´t work though. after lunch i collected old glass from the basement and brought it to the recycling containers up the street. and i harvested rhubarb which grows in front of my mother´s window. i have to admit it was the first time in my life and i had to look up the english word two times in the dictionary. the neighbours are on holidays for a couple of weeks or don´t like rhubarb. my mother is going to make stewed fruit and cake from it. absolutely delicious. anybody passing by to pick things up is invited to have some. as long as there is any.

tommorrow is a second hand bookmarket in the local library. to be honest the building of the library has been always ugly from the outside. after shopping i usually go there, have a coffee in the entrance room, borrow books and music cds and have a general look around. i always find a book, a music CD or maybe an article in a magazine to read. yesterday i used their computer to print the configuration of my father´s computer. from the outside the building does look not beautiful, actually it is hidden at the moment by a scafolding, at the same time they have an awfull lot of books, cds and videos. on three floors. the library in the neighbour town sindelfingen is about the same size. i plan to go to the second hand market in the library tommorrow. it is their last day open for three weeks. they exchange the carpet in the first floor. afterwards i want to go to another second hand market in front of one of the supermarkets. they sell about everything there. if i am lucky i might even find something useful.

have a good night everybody,
burkie in böblingen

on collecting things and changes in town

dear blog!
for the time i will stick to english, quite some of your potential readers don´t know german. not that i expect anybody to read my blog. only for just in case.

today a friend of my father came to pick up a couple things. my father was not only good in collecting paper (sorting is another story!) but also in collecting things. the flat of my mother is filled up with that stuff. either we throw it all away or we try to sell or give all that stuff away. we first gonna try the latter. we still can throw whats left over. this friend of my father is not exactly on the same side as me. politically. rather the opposite. in germany it is not easy to be politically further away from each other than my father´s friend and me. they studied together at the highschool of the german army. later they both worked for the army, my father administrative stuff, as i mentioned before, the job of my fathers friend was that top secret "that secret, that even his boss didn´t know what he was working on". when i said that i was voting the left party (die linke) first there was silence in the room, then the subject was finished. i didn´t dare to mention that i was on their list during the last local elections in belzig. luckily i only got 17 votes. but i have to say that i like the guy, despite our political differences, he is member of the christian democrat party, pretty straight forward, has a great sense of humour and he is one of those sources about my father´s life, always ready to tell one or the other story. he left with a historical atlas (in leather bound), a wooden chest, a wooden garden bench still wrapped in cardboard, a flower pot you can hang on the wall and two boxes of our old paper. he forgot sticks to grow tomatoes and photos from their time together in the army. what makes things a little complicated for my mother and me is that i do have a driving lisence, but i am the worst car driver you can imagine (which is actually a lie. you can´t imagine). and we just gave my fathers car to the recycling centre. there was anyway a problem with the oil and it was already 17 years old. people who are picking things up are always welcome in the next couple of weeks in the flat of my mother and if it is only some old paper.

almost every day i go shopping for my mother and me. my mothers flat is on a hill, the next shop is about a ten minutes walk away from the flat and my mother is not the best in walking anymore. she has got this rollator sort of thing which helps her keeping balance and where she can put things on as well. in a flat environment without stairs she is able to make quite a distance with the thing by herself. but already two meters after leaving the flat there are stairs. already there no chance for mom and rollator. then more stairs. the hill. to town a walk of about 40 minutes. these are some reason why one of my jobs is at the moment shopping. in the beginning i took the bus. after fixing the bike my father got last year from his brother (he needed the space for another motorcycle), i am now a happy biciclist. compared to when i went to school a lot has changed here in böblingen. i realised the changes already during my short visits for christmas and birthdays during the last couple of years, i used to say that every time i come here, there is something new, a new highway, new places in town, a new shopping centre, a new park and whatever. but now it all falls into place. i am especially happy about the new bike paths. i only have to go a couple of meters on ordinary roads and cross a couple of streets to get to the centre, i can even go to the centre of the neighbour town sindelfingen. only on bike paths. starting at my mothers flat. next time more on daily life.

have good dreams,
burkie in böblingen

the first entry ...

dear blog!
this is your first entry.

i am not used to write blogs or diaries and that sort of things. anyway, i´ll give it a try. i think it´s all wam´s fault. i heard the radio show on his diaries with my mother yesterday, and the reason he gave for it "that my family and friends know what i`m doing down here" got stuck in my head. that was the introduction. now the real thing....

in the last weeks i was going thru tons of papers my father had collected in the last 20 (or 30. or 40) years and tried to sort them by some kind of system. in the first week my younger sister joined me. it took me about a day to figure her system, but at the end i realised she actually sorted chronological. i gave up on that after about ten minutes. my first system was according to importance. bills, finances and beaurocratic stuff in one file, less important things in the second, unimportant into the paper bin. i changed that system about three times. now it consists of about 22 to 24 files. files for our father`s hometown, a little village in poland north of poznan called biala. for my father it was of course always behle, as the village was called when it was in germany; insurances, life and health insurance; finances, one for each taxes, bank stuff, pension and rent; liederkranz, the choir he was singing in; his job, my father was working for the german army administration and was before that 12 years soldier. it must have been strange for him that his son was working for peace grous in former yugoslavia. two files of music notes, one from the choir, the other one a collection of songs from and about biala. i forgot to say that we didn´t have much contact from about 1990 to 2000. only in the last couple of years we came closer. i was helping him when he had trouble with his computer and i guess we started to understand each other in a way. after having been in former yugoslavia i had gotten some sort of an idea what life is for a refugee and he probably had finally given up on the idea that i would make a career as a soldier or engineer. you probably can imagine that filing all those papers i am getting now a view from another angle on my fathers life. another source are the stories from relatives and friends. more on that maybe later. i guess i should try to find my bed soon, tommorrow i will try to talk a little about my daily life in schwaben.