Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
All About Bubbles
There are lots of things one gets used to after living in the United States for more than one year. That everybody asks you how you are, but nobody wants to know. That a “7” in handwriting doesn't come with a dash in the middle. Even this stubborn resistance against the metric system.
What I haven't got used to, though, is the overwhelming presence of economic excess.
At least in this part of the country, where a seven-year-old boy once expertly asked me whether we were paying for our car "on a monthly basis", an automobile with less than six cylinders simply doesn't seem to feel right.
When my neighbor D. was pregnant with her second child, her girlfriends gave her huge gift bags full of expensive clothes at her so-called baby shower. My son, who turned eight this month, got a couple of hundred dollars' worth of birthday presents from his friends (or rather from their parents).
On a larger scale, law firms and enterprises of the financial sector compete for graduates from elite colleges by offering six-figure salaries for their first year on the job. Getting rich and retiring by the age of 35 has become not an unrealistic goal among twenty-somethings at Wall Street.
As we have also learned during the past few months, a lot of people with no financial resources whatsoever were given - and accepted - hazardous mortgages from major banks. Mortgages they could never seriously be expected to pay back.
And why shouldn’t they go for it? Didn’t even some politicians and NGOs actually embrace subprime mortgages as a means to give poor people the chance to own a home, too? Didn’t the whole country get used to living with huge deficits in its federal budget as well as in its trade? And hadn’t everybody lived quite comfortably with spending, on average, more money than he or she actually earns? The national savings rate has been in the negative since 2005. But why bother if one had got used to the value of homes growing at a double-digit rate every year?
Now, Americans watch the mortgage crisis expand and the stock markets crash. Their's, and those of other countries around the world. Concerns grow that a major recession is going to follow suit.
And not only do the wealthy lose money. Middle class people and families with low income stand to lose their homes and investments they rely on for their old age. Cities face bankruptcy because of the real estate market collapsing in whole districts.
Not that there hadn't been warnings in abundance. For someone coming from a part of the world where economies tend to suffer from over-regulation (and where people tend to put their money into savings accounts with ridiculous interest rates, rather than either spending or investing it), it was fascinating to watch the mortgage crisis evolve with the Fed, the government, and other institutions looking the other way. While the financial industry turned ever more creative in "redistributing" risks as if they could make them dissappear.
As a student of American history, I had already marveled at the excesses of the so-called Gilded Age towards the end of the 19th century, when “robber barons” like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan dominated the scene until these early financial heydays ended with the Panic of 1893.
Since then, America has become even more of a “Bubble Economy”, as Eric Janszen, founder of the investment website iTulip, argues in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine. (Janszen, and iTulip, became famous for predicting and commenting on the burst of the dot.com bubble in 2000.)
And no end is in sight, according to Jantzen: He writes that what he calls the FIRE sector – Finance, Insurance and Real-Estate businesses – has successfully replaced the business cycles which had at least been connected to the economy’s fundamental value and health, with a cycle of “shared speculative hallucinations”. Helped by media, governments and legislators, they pick out a certain sector and inflate it with capital, thus creating a perpetuum mobile of rising assets for as long as the hallucination lasts.
To cover their losses after one bubble bursts, the author concludes, financiers will have to create an even bigger new one. And a new bubble might already be well on its way: Janszen predicts alternative energies and infrastructure to be the next target. Not that those sectors didn’t need investment, he writes. But odds were that the lion’s share of the bubble trillions would end up in shares and not in actual new industries or infrastructure.
Janszen doesn’t leave much hope for any “change” of this system from the political side; on the contrary: Following Al Gore and the latest media hype, presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton have already begun to embrace alternative energies as a political key topic, thereby only delivering one more crucial ingredient for FIRE’s success in creating a new bubble.
One might add that financial sector’s powerful grip on the US economy does also result from the simple fact that alongside the bubbles, the sector itself has grown into huge dimensions. FIRE nowadays stands for more than 20 percent of America’s GDP.
Last but not least, the sector has been extremely successful in luring a major part of the country’s intellectual talent into its own system. Take the example of Princeton University: Six out of ten undergraduate students go from this university straight to Wall Street. Needless to say that the best get hired in advance, before they even graduate.
At least right now, it seems hard to imagine a way out of the vicious circle of bubble economy. Or, as Janszen laconically puts it: “Given the current state of our economy, the only thing worse than a new bubble would be its absence.”
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Boy Group Revisited
It was my first rock concert in about 15 years. It was the first rock concert I ever listened to sitting on a chair.
Sting is still the hell of a great-looking guy. His voice is still fabulous, as is his yoga-modeled body, effectively shown off in tight black pants and a white sleeveless T-shirt so ragged it looked like an actual leftover from the eighties. And “The Police” reunited still is a band that may not have revolutionized rock music, but plays songs you tend to replay in your head, songs you want to hear over and over again.
“The first boy group in history”, mocked my husband (who came with me anyway). But now the boys are way into their 50s - Sting and Stewart Copeland -, or even 60s - Andy Summers. The idols of my late teenage years, featuring grey hair (Stewart), a paunch (Andy), and a heavily receding hairline (Sting). Matching my own wrinkles and growing demand of hair color products.
This is how I spent at least the first half of the concert in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall Arena. Looking at and marveling at how old we all have become. The huge video screens displaying close-ups of the musicians from different angles, were constant pitiless reminders of that fact. Of course I had known before. But now it was shown. Live on stage.
Was that mixture of nostalgia and self-pity distracting me from the music? Was this the reason why this vibrating, exciting live-concert-feeling simply wouldn’t kick in - although the show was pretty good, the band in high spirits, the songs often jazzed up or otherwise reinterpreted? It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the event and the music; I sang along, still knowing many of the lyrics by heart. But “rocking” in my chair already felt a little awkward. Was it the folding chair that prevented me from jumping up and dancing?
Before the concert, we had met Robert in a Japanese noodle place at the Trump Taj Mahal’s bombastic casino floor. A bald, jolly little guy in his fifties, eagerly digging in his memory for some traces of the German he had learned in high school. We small talked. He had come to see “The Police”, too, combining the concert with a visit at the casino before he’d have to go “back to business” on Monday. There was a shuttle service, he told us, for the Taj Mahal’s hotel guests to the concert hall and back. Very convenient.
Maybe that’s what is most irritating about going to a rock concert when you are forty- or even fifty-something.
As a teen or twen, one got there in an old VW Beetle with at least six people crammed inside, sleeping bags in the trunk. The event was huge, feelings were intense, anything could happen - or so you hoped. And the music almost made you fly. Until one woke up freezing in a soaking wet sleeping bag the morning after one of those open air concerts.
Two decades later, chances are that a rock concert is something well organized, to be fit into a tight schedule. Somewhere between picking the children up from soccer training on Saturday afternoon and getting back home not too late on Saturday night for the babysitter. No drugs. Furtively glancing at the cell phone display in the middle of “Message In A Bottle”, in case the babysitter is sending out an SOS at this very moment about a toddler who had suddenly fallen sick…
No, neither the boys nor the concert were anything like 15 years ago. What a pity. And what a relief.
Sting is still the hell of a great-looking guy. His voice is still fabulous, as is his yoga-modeled body, effectively shown off in tight black pants and a white sleeveless T-shirt so ragged it looked like an actual leftover from the eighties. And “The Police” reunited still is a band that may not have revolutionized rock music, but plays songs you tend to replay in your head, songs you want to hear over and over again.
“The first boy group in history”, mocked my husband (who came with me anyway). But now the boys are way into their 50s - Sting and Stewart Copeland -, or even 60s - Andy Summers. The idols of my late teenage years, featuring grey hair (Stewart), a paunch (Andy), and a heavily receding hairline (Sting). Matching my own wrinkles and growing demand of hair color products.
This is how I spent at least the first half of the concert in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall Arena. Looking at and marveling at how old we all have become. The huge video screens displaying close-ups of the musicians from different angles, were constant pitiless reminders of that fact. Of course I had known before. But now it was shown. Live on stage.
Was that mixture of nostalgia and self-pity distracting me from the music? Was this the reason why this vibrating, exciting live-concert-feeling simply wouldn’t kick in - although the show was pretty good, the band in high spirits, the songs often jazzed up or otherwise reinterpreted? It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the event and the music; I sang along, still knowing many of the lyrics by heart. But “rocking” in my chair already felt a little awkward. Was it the folding chair that prevented me from jumping up and dancing?
Before the concert, we had met Robert in a Japanese noodle place at the Trump Taj Mahal’s bombastic casino floor. A bald, jolly little guy in his fifties, eagerly digging in his memory for some traces of the German he had learned in high school. We small talked. He had come to see “The Police”, too, combining the concert with a visit at the casino before he’d have to go “back to business” on Monday. There was a shuttle service, he told us, for the Taj Mahal’s hotel guests to the concert hall and back. Very convenient.
Maybe that’s what is most irritating about going to a rock concert when you are forty- or even fifty-something.
As a teen or twen, one got there in an old VW Beetle with at least six people crammed inside, sleeping bags in the trunk. The event was huge, feelings were intense, anything could happen - or so you hoped. And the music almost made you fly. Until one woke up freezing in a soaking wet sleeping bag the morning after one of those open air concerts.
Two decades later, chances are that a rock concert is something well organized, to be fit into a tight schedule. Somewhere between picking the children up from soccer training on Saturday afternoon and getting back home not too late on Saturday night for the babysitter. No drugs. Furtively glancing at the cell phone display in the middle of “Message In A Bottle”, in case the babysitter is sending out an SOS at this very moment about a toddler who had suddenly fallen sick…
No, neither the boys nor the concert were anything like 15 years ago. What a pity. And what a relief.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
happy uncomplicated lives
I met Anny at a wedding reception.
I am not a great fan of receptions, let alone wedding receptions, especially in the US. (I could also write about ten dozen paragraphs about my issues with American weddings, but promised myself I will try to keep my posts shorter).
It’s because I am socially-challenged. Hopeless at small talk. And very-awfully uncomfortable having to make acquaintances that are supposed to last a quarter of an hour.
Anny was an exception.
She was born in France before WWII. Her parents – I assume at least one of them had to be Jewish – emigrated to Argentina, where she spent most of her childhood. Then, in 1947, she moved to the US. “I grew up speaking French and Spanish, that’s why when I speak English, my accent is hard to detect” she said.
Mine is probably easier, but nevertheless she was not able to decipher it (I have no idea why, but it always makes me feel good, when people have problems trying to guess my accent).
Where did you come from? How long ago? What do you do? She was firing questions like from a machine gun and I could see in her shiny, black eyes that she was genuinely interested. I did not have to talk for long. “I know exactly what you are going through” she said after about one minute.
A few hours and many toasts-speeches-hors d'oevres -champagne-and-wine-glasses later, we bumped into each other again. This time it was in a tent where a live band was playing. My daughter who assumed a flower girl duties for the day (do not ask me about a 100 dollar plastic dress she had to done) was dancing with her grandparents. A lot of goofiness and laughter.
“You should be happy that you daughter has such happy and uncomplicated grandparents” Anny told me. “Because she will be able to live a happy and uncomplicated life."
Just as she was saying it, I noticed that the bride parted with her elegant high-heels and was dancing bare feet. One of her elegant braid’s maids donned sneakers and you could barely see a Nike logo from under her long, red satin dress.
Happy, uncomplicated lives. I can't stop thinking about it.
Do I want my daughter to live a happy and uncomplicated life? Or is it more complicated than that?
Happily, it’s probably not upon me to decide.
I am not a great fan of receptions, let alone wedding receptions, especially in the US. (I could also write about ten dozen paragraphs about my issues with American weddings, but promised myself I will try to keep my posts shorter).
It’s because I am socially-challenged. Hopeless at small talk. And very-awfully uncomfortable having to make acquaintances that are supposed to last a quarter of an hour.
Anny was an exception.
She was born in France before WWII. Her parents – I assume at least one of them had to be Jewish – emigrated to Argentina, where she spent most of her childhood. Then, in 1947, she moved to the US. “I grew up speaking French and Spanish, that’s why when I speak English, my accent is hard to detect” she said.
Mine is probably easier, but nevertheless she was not able to decipher it (I have no idea why, but it always makes me feel good, when people have problems trying to guess my accent).
Where did you come from? How long ago? What do you do? She was firing questions like from a machine gun and I could see in her shiny, black eyes that she was genuinely interested. I did not have to talk for long. “I know exactly what you are going through” she said after about one minute.
A few hours and many toasts-speeches-hors d'oevres -champagne-and-wine-glasses later, we bumped into each other again. This time it was in a tent where a live band was playing. My daughter who assumed a flower girl duties for the day (do not ask me about a 100 dollar plastic dress she had to done) was dancing with her grandparents. A lot of goofiness and laughter.
“You should be happy that you daughter has such happy and uncomplicated grandparents” Anny told me. “Because she will be able to live a happy and uncomplicated life."
Just as she was saying it, I noticed that the bride parted with her elegant high-heels and was dancing bare feet. One of her elegant braid’s maids donned sneakers and you could barely see a Nike logo from under her long, red satin dress.
Happy, uncomplicated lives. I can't stop thinking about it.
Do I want my daughter to live a happy and uncomplicated life? Or is it more complicated than that?
Happily, it’s probably not upon me to decide.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Happy IVGLDSW Day!
This morning, I got an email from a friend that made my day. She had received it from another friend in Switzerland, and I already passed it on to a friend in Germany. But I'd like to share it with more Very Good Looking, Damn Smart Women out there, and that's why I posted it here without knowing to whom I owe the copyright - except for the quotes, of course...
Wherever you are in the small world, enjoy!
"Today is International Very Good Looking, Damn Smart Woman's Day, so please send this message to someone you think fits this description.
Please do not send it back to me as I have already received it from a Very Good Looking, Darn Smart Woman!
And remember this motto to live by... Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!
To the Girls !!!
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened.
(Cora Harvey Armstrong)
Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut the bitch up with cookies.
(Unknown)
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
(Helen Hayes - at 73)
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
(Bette Davis)
Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
(Caryn Leschen)
I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.
(Roseanne Barr)
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
(Maryon Pearson)
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
When life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over!!!"
Wherever you are in the small world, enjoy!
"Today is International Very Good Looking, Damn Smart Woman's Day, so please send this message to someone you think fits this description.
Please do not send it back to me as I have already received it from a Very Good Looking, Darn Smart Woman!
And remember this motto to live by... Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!
To the Girls !!!
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened.
(Cora Harvey Armstrong)
Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut the bitch up with cookies.
(Unknown)
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
(Helen Hayes - at 73)
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
(Bette Davis)
Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
(Caryn Leschen)
I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.
(Roseanne Barr)
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
(Maryon Pearson)
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
When life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over!!!"
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Suburban Stay-At-Home Mom Horror Driver
On the first October weekend – it was the last hot weekend of this extraordinary summer in the times of global warming -, we went to the beach. We got there by car, an old Daimler of the kind I’ve been driving for the last ten years or so.
All parking lots were full, so we took a residential side street where we finally located a free space. It looked tight, but so what? I only had to squeeze into this parking gap parallel to the sidewalk - something I used to manage in seconds in Cologne or Berlin when I lived there, without even interrupting the conversation I was engaged in.
But this time? I just couldn’t do it. It took me half a dozen attempts to get in there, tires screeching along the curb. I felt so embarrassed I was ready to drive back to P. there and then. Only that wasn’t an option with a slightly mocking husband, the children, swimsuits, and all the toy diggers in the car. So I ignored these people sitting on their porches smirking (as I was sure they were without really daring to look), and shepherded everybody to the beach.
When I later confessed this disgrace to D., she really smirked. “So, you’re finally here! The stay-at-home mom, queen of the suburb! Welcome!”
And it’s true. If you live in a suburb (or, well, a small town) in the US, there’s no necessity of any parking skills. No frantic competition for the few legal parking spots in the streets of your neighborhood when everybody comes home from work in the evening – there is your garage, or your driveway. No circling around the block where your favorite grocery store is located, to virtually make a dash into any space that another car left no ten seconds earlier - there is the shopping mall with its huge parking lot or garage, no parallel parking anywhere, just move in and back out. To cut a long story short: No practice, no skills.
Need more indicators how far I already departed from the city girl? Come to think about it, within my suburban surroundings, I use the car much more often than I used to when we first moved here. Now, public transport is hardly an option, of course. But biking is, at least in this small town of P. where there still is a downtown and, close by, a comparatively cozy shopping center dating from the nineteen-fifties. But isn’t it just so much more convenient to quickly take the car to go there, especially as you could transport two more gallons of milk and wouldn’t have to go again this week? This kind of thought wouldn’t ever have occurred to me in Berlin!
So, what to do to avoid “Death by Suburb”, as Dave Goetz puts it (Subtitle: “Keeping the suburb form killing your soul”)? I may not be religious enough to follow this author with his “spiritual practices” that, as he claims, counter “suburban toxins” like envy of the neighbor’s SUV or more aspiring soccer kids. I’m not there yet, thank God, and P., after all, has quite a few decidedly un-suburban qualities, which might prove soul saving.
But just in case, I should probably start with a reversal of driving habits. No shopping by car this week (even if that means I will have to go twice to fit three gallons of milk and the diapers for my little one onto the bike). But for the next trip to New York I will take the car and not the commuter train, even if I get stuck in the tunnel for two hours, and parking fees will be ruinous.
My big fear about that, though, is that I might already be this horribly dangerous suburban mom driver, knocking about the big city… Maybe I should try Philadelphia first.
All parking lots were full, so we took a residential side street where we finally located a free space. It looked tight, but so what? I only had to squeeze into this parking gap parallel to the sidewalk - something I used to manage in seconds in Cologne or Berlin when I lived there, without even interrupting the conversation I was engaged in.
But this time? I just couldn’t do it. It took me half a dozen attempts to get in there, tires screeching along the curb. I felt so embarrassed I was ready to drive back to P. there and then. Only that wasn’t an option with a slightly mocking husband, the children, swimsuits, and all the toy diggers in the car. So I ignored these people sitting on their porches smirking (as I was sure they were without really daring to look), and shepherded everybody to the beach.
When I later confessed this disgrace to D., she really smirked. “So, you’re finally here! The stay-at-home mom, queen of the suburb! Welcome!”
And it’s true. If you live in a suburb (or, well, a small town) in the US, there’s no necessity of any parking skills. No frantic competition for the few legal parking spots in the streets of your neighborhood when everybody comes home from work in the evening – there is your garage, or your driveway. No circling around the block where your favorite grocery store is located, to virtually make a dash into any space that another car left no ten seconds earlier - there is the shopping mall with its huge parking lot or garage, no parallel parking anywhere, just move in and back out. To cut a long story short: No practice, no skills.
Need more indicators how far I already departed from the city girl? Come to think about it, within my suburban surroundings, I use the car much more often than I used to when we first moved here. Now, public transport is hardly an option, of course. But biking is, at least in this small town of P. where there still is a downtown and, close by, a comparatively cozy shopping center dating from the nineteen-fifties. But isn’t it just so much more convenient to quickly take the car to go there, especially as you could transport two more gallons of milk and wouldn’t have to go again this week? This kind of thought wouldn’t ever have occurred to me in Berlin!
So, what to do to avoid “Death by Suburb”, as Dave Goetz puts it (Subtitle: “Keeping the suburb form killing your soul”)? I may not be religious enough to follow this author with his “spiritual practices” that, as he claims, counter “suburban toxins” like envy of the neighbor’s SUV or more aspiring soccer kids. I’m not there yet, thank God, and P., after all, has quite a few decidedly un-suburban qualities, which might prove soul saving.
But just in case, I should probably start with a reversal of driving habits. No shopping by car this week (even if that means I will have to go twice to fit three gallons of milk and the diapers for my little one onto the bike). But for the next trip to New York I will take the car and not the commuter train, even if I get stuck in the tunnel for two hours, and parking fees will be ruinous.
My big fear about that, though, is that I might already be this horribly dangerous suburban mom driver, knocking about the big city… Maybe I should try Philadelphia first.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
on sunday, about saturday– love story validated
I could probably count on my fingers the number of fiction books I have read over the last decade.
There is a huge pile on my bedside table (which I recently got courtesy of D and her handsome husband. It’s been painted gray. The pile can go much higer now that I parted with my cardboard box! Thank you!) which I call a queue.
Books I intend to read hibernate in the queue for a year or so, until one day I decide to clean up my bedroom, and bring them to the “library” upstairs and start a new queue all over again.
There are a few fiction books in the queue right now, but I have a feeling they will probably travel upstairs some time before Christmas (to make room for new ones) and most of them will not have been read…
Saturday by Ian McEwan was a memorable exception. I got it as a present last year and it did not stay on my bedside table for more than a few days. I read it in the span of two or three nights.
I loved it.
One of the reasons why it resonated with me, was the setting. The story takes place in London on February 15th of 2003 – the day of a big peace rally in the wake of the Iraq war. I lived in London at the time, I was in the rally (which was huuuuuuge), and I remember that day very vividly.
I know the square where the main protagonist lives with his wife – my husband and I would sometimes meet for lunch in the nearby RIBA café. (By the way, this wonderful modernist building happens to be one of the best spots for lunch in central London. Food, given its price, is unusually good, at least for British standards. And the bookstore downstairs feels like heaven. Be careful about your credit card!).
It feels nice to read a fiction book which has so many non-fiction details that one finds familiar. In some ways you feel you were allowed to enter the pages and be part of the story.
The book had excellent reviews. Critics praised McEwan’s wonderful writing style. Rightly so. They raved about the composition. I couldn’t agree more. They loved the surgical precision and neurosurgical theme, which I also appreciated.
To me however – and I haven’t found a single review which shared the sentiment– Saturday is primarily a love story. It starts at dawn with two people waking in bed together and it ends late at night, when after a harrowing day, they both meet there again, like in a safe harbor.
Perhaps I read the novel in a way that was not necessarily intended by the author – I had thought -- after all, Observer critics and New York Times reviewers probably know better. Maybe these were my personal circumstances that made me look at this book in that way, I kept telling myself.
I went to see Ian McEwan earlier this week. He came to Princeton to promote his new book – Chesil Beach.
It was great to see an author whom I like.
Bad haircut, wrinkled linen shirt that used to be white and turned very off-white (I bet he wears it every day), wire spectacles that could perhaps find some use in the late 1970s, but that no self-respecting New Yorker would even consider donning today. I miss London so badly – I couldn’t stop thinking as he was reading fragments of the new novel (I even found his British accent to be charming!).
Chesil Beach (which I still haven’t read in full) treats about a couple on a failed wedding night -- seventy pages or so, about their inability to consume their newly formed marriage (both are virgins), struggles to find each other, express or understand what they feel and think. It's about love and patience, he reportedly said in a recent interview. “Does it reflect your own difficulties?” someone asked as he finished reading a few passages. Only on an American campus a question like that can be posed without a trace of hesitation. And only someone as British as McEwan can answer with such virtuosity – understatement, good humor, mixed with polite but firm “mind your own business” message.
For me, the most important thing during that meeting however, was him briefly mentioning Saturday – also in response to a question from the audience.
“I got in trouble with the reviewers for this book” he said. “It’s about two people, who are married and who love each other. As simple as that. Reviewers these days find it very troubling.”
Thank you Mr. McEwan!
There is a huge pile on my bedside table (which I recently got courtesy of D and her handsome husband. It’s been painted gray. The pile can go much higer now that I parted with my cardboard box! Thank you!) which I call a queue.
Books I intend to read hibernate in the queue for a year or so, until one day I decide to clean up my bedroom, and bring them to the “library” upstairs and start a new queue all over again.
There are a few fiction books in the queue right now, but I have a feeling they will probably travel upstairs some time before Christmas (to make room for new ones) and most of them will not have been read…
Saturday by Ian McEwan was a memorable exception. I got it as a present last year and it did not stay on my bedside table for more than a few days. I read it in the span of two or three nights.
I loved it.
One of the reasons why it resonated with me, was the setting. The story takes place in London on February 15th of 2003 – the day of a big peace rally in the wake of the Iraq war. I lived in London at the time, I was in the rally (which was huuuuuuge), and I remember that day very vividly.
I know the square where the main protagonist lives with his wife – my husband and I would sometimes meet for lunch in the nearby RIBA café. (By the way, this wonderful modernist building happens to be one of the best spots for lunch in central London. Food, given its price, is unusually good, at least for British standards. And the bookstore downstairs feels like heaven. Be careful about your credit card!).
It feels nice to read a fiction book which has so many non-fiction details that one finds familiar. In some ways you feel you were allowed to enter the pages and be part of the story.
The book had excellent reviews. Critics praised McEwan’s wonderful writing style. Rightly so. They raved about the composition. I couldn’t agree more. They loved the surgical precision and neurosurgical theme, which I also appreciated.
To me however – and I haven’t found a single review which shared the sentiment– Saturday is primarily a love story. It starts at dawn with two people waking in bed together and it ends late at night, when after a harrowing day, they both meet there again, like in a safe harbor.
Perhaps I read the novel in a way that was not necessarily intended by the author – I had thought -- after all, Observer critics and New York Times reviewers probably know better. Maybe these were my personal circumstances that made me look at this book in that way, I kept telling myself.
I went to see Ian McEwan earlier this week. He came to Princeton to promote his new book – Chesil Beach.
It was great to see an author whom I like.
Bad haircut, wrinkled linen shirt that used to be white and turned very off-white (I bet he wears it every day), wire spectacles that could perhaps find some use in the late 1970s, but that no self-respecting New Yorker would even consider donning today. I miss London so badly – I couldn’t stop thinking as he was reading fragments of the new novel (I even found his British accent to be charming!).
Chesil Beach (which I still haven’t read in full) treats about a couple on a failed wedding night -- seventy pages or so, about their inability to consume their newly formed marriage (both are virgins), struggles to find each other, express or understand what they feel and think. It's about love and patience, he reportedly said in a recent interview. “Does it reflect your own difficulties?” someone asked as he finished reading a few passages. Only on an American campus a question like that can be posed without a trace of hesitation. And only someone as British as McEwan can answer with such virtuosity – understatement, good humor, mixed with polite but firm “mind your own business” message.
For me, the most important thing during that meeting however, was him briefly mentioning Saturday – also in response to a question from the audience.
“I got in trouble with the reviewers for this book” he said. “It’s about two people, who are married and who love each other. As simple as that. Reviewers these days find it very troubling.”
Thank you Mr. McEwan!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Pursuit of (Women's) Happiness
Last Tuesday I was sitting down at the dining room table, trying to start reading the paper for what was probably the eighth time that morning - only to be instantly interrupted by my two-and-a-half-year-old: “Mama, my train! It doesn’t work!” Up I was again, trying once more to attach the engine to the long toy train R. had assembled on the living room floor. Feeling a little exhausted at 8.45am already. Wishing – with a pang of guilt, of course, about what a heartless und ungrateful mother I was - I could catch a train to some office in the city and put together some words for an article instead.
Ok, train is back on track, all aboard, another five minutes for my newspaper if I’m lucky. And there it is: A column in the New York Times’ business section, titled “A Reversal In the Index of Happy”, telling me that women nowadays not only tend to be less happy than men, but also that they are, on average, significantly less happy than they were in 1970! Although – or maybe: because – women in the new millennium do a lot more paid work and less housework than in the nineteen-sixties.
What has happened, apparently, is that men in general cut down on their work, while women still spend about the same amount of time on work but feel they’d need to do a lot more. Or, as the columnist puts it: “Men’s leisure time has grown; so have women’s to-do lists.”
If it is true that women today compare themselves not only to other women and what they have achieved (like they did in the Sixties), but also to men, it seems like we did not exactly chose new priorities, but simply set ourselves a lot more goals. Like a female student said in a conversation with one of the happiness-researchers: Her mother’s goals in life had been to have a beautiful garden, a well-kept house and well-adjusted children who did well in school. “I want all those things, too, but I also want to have a great career and have an impact on the broader world.”
The result is a lot of pressure, and even if a universally accepted definition of happiness is probably hard to establish, too much pressure most certainly is not a good component.
So, are these surveys simply water on the mills of neo-conservatism, indicating that society would be so much better off, and women would be so much happier if the latter concentrated on their traditional role in kitchens and kids’ rooms? Is cutting down on perfectionism a promising way to more happiness? Like the lady whom I met on the train lately told me: “When my children were little, I simply decided that we did not need a spotless house. So I stopped cleaning up after I came home from the office and played with my children instead, telling myself: They will remember the fun and not the mess!”
Should woman endlessly deliberate what might make them happy, until they miss the chance to have children, like it tends to be the case in many European countries? Or should we just fight more vigorously for affordable universal day care plus better treatment by employers for women with small children?
Before we moved to P., I was one of the lucky few, who had that perfect combination of work and children for a short time. I worked part time - three days per week – as a journalist in Berlin for an employer with a lot of understanding for parents’ need of flexibility, while N. was in school and R. was in preschool until 4pm. Also, there was a nanny to bring the boys to school and pick them up on the days I worked. Plus, a husband who, in spite of a full time workload, still loves to spend time with his sons and does so regularly.
Now, as I’m not yet allowed to work in the US, one important component of my life is missing, and sometimes badly. There is less balance in my everyday life; I tend to feel I’m standing on just one leg right now where there used to be two. Maybe there are more unhappy moments now, especially when I nourish feelings of loss and renunciation. But there might also be more moments of intense happiness because I spend more time with my children. Just enough to let me sense that concentrating on one task is not necessarily the worse alternative to multitasking - and getting this feeling that one doesn’t do anything right. Am I all in all less happy now than I used to be in Berlin? I honestly couldn’t say.
Don’t get me wrong: This is no plea for the case of stay-at-home moms. I’d go back to work tomorrow if I could. But instead of nourishing unhappiness at times when one cannot have it all, it might be better trying to make the most of what is the case just then. Like sitting on the sun deck on a beautiful September morning, spending one intense hour with R. building a new, exciting train track. And then writing - maybe not that Pulitzer-Price winning article, but at least this post -, while a perfectly content little guy choo-choos along all by himself. Here we are: One happy little man – and one happy woman. At least for this precious moment.
Ok, train is back on track, all aboard, another five minutes for my newspaper if I’m lucky. And there it is: A column in the New York Times’ business section, titled “A Reversal In the Index of Happy”, telling me that women nowadays not only tend to be less happy than men, but also that they are, on average, significantly less happy than they were in 1970! Although – or maybe: because – women in the new millennium do a lot more paid work and less housework than in the nineteen-sixties.
What has happened, apparently, is that men in general cut down on their work, while women still spend about the same amount of time on work but feel they’d need to do a lot more. Or, as the columnist puts it: “Men’s leisure time has grown; so have women’s to-do lists.”
If it is true that women today compare themselves not only to other women and what they have achieved (like they did in the Sixties), but also to men, it seems like we did not exactly chose new priorities, but simply set ourselves a lot more goals. Like a female student said in a conversation with one of the happiness-researchers: Her mother’s goals in life had been to have a beautiful garden, a well-kept house and well-adjusted children who did well in school. “I want all those things, too, but I also want to have a great career and have an impact on the broader world.”
The result is a lot of pressure, and even if a universally accepted definition of happiness is probably hard to establish, too much pressure most certainly is not a good component.
So, are these surveys simply water on the mills of neo-conservatism, indicating that society would be so much better off, and women would be so much happier if the latter concentrated on their traditional role in kitchens and kids’ rooms? Is cutting down on perfectionism a promising way to more happiness? Like the lady whom I met on the train lately told me: “When my children were little, I simply decided that we did not need a spotless house. So I stopped cleaning up after I came home from the office and played with my children instead, telling myself: They will remember the fun and not the mess!”
Should woman endlessly deliberate what might make them happy, until they miss the chance to have children, like it tends to be the case in many European countries? Or should we just fight more vigorously for affordable universal day care plus better treatment by employers for women with small children?
Before we moved to P., I was one of the lucky few, who had that perfect combination of work and children for a short time. I worked part time - three days per week – as a journalist in Berlin for an employer with a lot of understanding for parents’ need of flexibility, while N. was in school and R. was in preschool until 4pm. Also, there was a nanny to bring the boys to school and pick them up on the days I worked. Plus, a husband who, in spite of a full time workload, still loves to spend time with his sons and does so regularly.
Now, as I’m not yet allowed to work in the US, one important component of my life is missing, and sometimes badly. There is less balance in my everyday life; I tend to feel I’m standing on just one leg right now where there used to be two. Maybe there are more unhappy moments now, especially when I nourish feelings of loss and renunciation. But there might also be more moments of intense happiness because I spend more time with my children. Just enough to let me sense that concentrating on one task is not necessarily the worse alternative to multitasking - and getting this feeling that one doesn’t do anything right. Am I all in all less happy now than I used to be in Berlin? I honestly couldn’t say.
Don’t get me wrong: This is no plea for the case of stay-at-home moms. I’d go back to work tomorrow if I could. But instead of nourishing unhappiness at times when one cannot have it all, it might be better trying to make the most of what is the case just then. Like sitting on the sun deck on a beautiful September morning, spending one intense hour with R. building a new, exciting train track. And then writing - maybe not that Pulitzer-Price winning article, but at least this post -, while a perfectly content little guy choo-choos along all by himself. Here we are: One happy little man – and one happy woman. At least for this precious moment.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Back - Home?
The first full year as “Transatlantic Nomads”, as a friend who flies back and forth even more often than we do calls her blog (which is definitely worth checking out if you speak German), has passed. After spending the summer in Germany, we are back in P.. A little exhausted. Somehow more glad to be here again than at least I had expected before. And the resume for this first year clearly is: A life in two countries has to be learned.
It was wonderful to see our families in Germany, of course. Flying in from Newark and to be picked up at Cologne airport by the (grand)parents didn’t even feel much different from driving to their house from Berlin like we used to until we moved to the US; both trips take at least nine hours.
After moving on to Berlin, we enjoyed our little apartment just in the same house we used to live in before. The first two weeks on the well-known turf passed quickly and delightfully: Rediscovering old and dear places, getting back to some nice routines like food shopping on the Kollwitzplatz street market on Saturday mornings.
But pretty soon afterwards, we started to feel awkward. First of all, it is impossible to have a two-and-a-half-months vacation – even for Germans who are spoiled in that sense. It took us a while to figure out why, although looking back, the solution seems self-evident: While the lives of most other people – friends, relatives – hadn’t changed much, and most of the old social infrastructure was still there, OUR lives had changed completely, of course. No work. No office to go to in the morning. No school. All the everyday routines were gone, and we had somehow managed to – at least emotionally – ignore this.
That K.’s laptop with all his work stuff on it broke down for good just three days after we had arrived didn’t help. That our German cell phones had gone out of business because we hadn’t used them for too long was another one of many small nuisances that add up to make one feel uncomfortable and, well, not really at home. On top of everything, most of my elder son N.’s friends went on vacation trips with their parents sooner or later because it was their summer holidays, too. Only R., our two-and-a-half-year-old, could go back to his old preschool for two months and was perfectly happy there.
So, here are the lessons learned: We have to travel more in Germany next summer, to make our regular trips real explorations of our home country. We’ll have to book some sort of summer camp for N. (Although, and this is one of the best things achieved in the summer, we went to a most extraordinary kid’s pool next to the Museumsinsel in Berlin Mitte at every single sunny day, so that N. learned how to swim properly!). And the parents need some sort of working projects, too. In general, a whole lot more planning needs to be done beforehand…
Still, many treasured memories were brought back to P. Getting reassured, for example, how important really close friends are – and continue to be after one leaves. I spent many of this trip’s best days and hours with my girlfriends H. and B. whom I have known and loved for more than thirty years in one case and more than twenty years in the other. And even some of the friendships that had only developed over the last six or seven years in Berlin have stayed close in spite of us moving away. So, apart from not forgetting where one’s roots are and making sure the boys continue speak their first language, there are quite a few good reasons to make the strenuous - and expensive - trip every year.
Maybe even coming back after the summer is one of these journeys' big assets. Some small things that felt SO good. To write an email on the evening before the flight back announcing one’s arrival, and to receive an answer from M. within seconds that one has been missed. Or to be greeted as warmly as by our neighbor D. who came outside to hug us in the midst of all our suitcases – and had filled our fridge with good things to eat. Maybe it IS possible to have two places – and kinds – of home, after all.
It was wonderful to see our families in Germany, of course. Flying in from Newark and to be picked up at Cologne airport by the (grand)parents didn’t even feel much different from driving to their house from Berlin like we used to until we moved to the US; both trips take at least nine hours.
After moving on to Berlin, we enjoyed our little apartment just in the same house we used to live in before. The first two weeks on the well-known turf passed quickly and delightfully: Rediscovering old and dear places, getting back to some nice routines like food shopping on the Kollwitzplatz street market on Saturday mornings.
But pretty soon afterwards, we started to feel awkward. First of all, it is impossible to have a two-and-a-half-months vacation – even for Germans who are spoiled in that sense. It took us a while to figure out why, although looking back, the solution seems self-evident: While the lives of most other people – friends, relatives – hadn’t changed much, and most of the old social infrastructure was still there, OUR lives had changed completely, of course. No work. No office to go to in the morning. No school. All the everyday routines were gone, and we had somehow managed to – at least emotionally – ignore this.
That K.’s laptop with all his work stuff on it broke down for good just three days after we had arrived didn’t help. That our German cell phones had gone out of business because we hadn’t used them for too long was another one of many small nuisances that add up to make one feel uncomfortable and, well, not really at home. On top of everything, most of my elder son N.’s friends went on vacation trips with their parents sooner or later because it was their summer holidays, too. Only R., our two-and-a-half-year-old, could go back to his old preschool for two months and was perfectly happy there.
So, here are the lessons learned: We have to travel more in Germany next summer, to make our regular trips real explorations of our home country. We’ll have to book some sort of summer camp for N. (Although, and this is one of the best things achieved in the summer, we went to a most extraordinary kid’s pool next to the Museumsinsel in Berlin Mitte at every single sunny day, so that N. learned how to swim properly!). And the parents need some sort of working projects, too. In general, a whole lot more planning needs to be done beforehand…
Still, many treasured memories were brought back to P. Getting reassured, for example, how important really close friends are – and continue to be after one leaves. I spent many of this trip’s best days and hours with my girlfriends H. and B. whom I have known and loved for more than thirty years in one case and more than twenty years in the other. And even some of the friendships that had only developed over the last six or seven years in Berlin have stayed close in spite of us moving away. So, apart from not forgetting where one’s roots are and making sure the boys continue speak their first language, there are quite a few good reasons to make the strenuous - and expensive - trip every year.
Maybe even coming back after the summer is one of these journeys' big assets. Some small things that felt SO good. To write an email on the evening before the flight back announcing one’s arrival, and to receive an answer from M. within seconds that one has been missed. Or to be greeted as warmly as by our neighbor D. who came outside to hug us in the midst of all our suitcases – and had filled our fridge with good things to eat. Maybe it IS possible to have two places – and kinds – of home, after all.
Friday, September 21, 2007
blog shmog -- ms.d we miss you!
Opening this blog, almost a year and just four or five posts ago, we said we would share our thoughts and experiences –how we try to adjust and settle in, and tame and navigate a/the new world – small town, big country, some misgivings and a lot of hopes. Essentially, it is meant to be about transitions (in case you have had trouble noticing after reading just a couple of posts:>).
For me personally, a very important part of this transition, was getting to know and making friends with D.
I have always had very few female friends (quality over quantity!) And I haven't really made many new ones – male or female – over the last decade. It takes time and I have been moving far too often. Perhaps, subconsciously, I inoculated myself against getting too close to anyone new. Because as soon as it happened, I (or they) would have to move again.
In this case my inoculation did not work. D has become a close friend and someone very important.
Was it because for a few months we lived within two blocks of each other? Because of our kids? Or because she comes from the Mediterrean and I am a Slav and there is something we share that is different from the Anglo-Saxon sensibility, if you will? Some emotional make-up? Sense of humor?
Or is it because D is an orthodox Jew who treats religion seriously? Neither orthodox, nor a Jew (trying to stay a decent Catholic, which proves complicated at times :>), I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who are as grounded as she is.
Her parenting style? Her always being calm and laid back? (which does not mean she won't yell when one of her three sweet and charming monsters gets out of hand, which, by the way, happens 98% of time; yelling, to be fair, accounts for about 1%; and 43.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot). The fact that she is warm and loving yet also capable of being demanding and able to challenge them and set limits?
Or maybe it was good food and good laugh and good conversation that you could always count on? Or her good-looking and always so-much-fun-to-be- around husband? (Oh Ms. D, I know there are days when you strongly disagree!! And it drives your crazy that everyone marvels at how wonderful your husband is while YOU know much better. I know the feeling!). The warmth and welcome of her home (yes, home, not a house!) whenever you came, whether expected or unannounced?
In some ways, they were my surrogate family. Some substitute for what I left behind when moving away from my hometown -- an extended family, where people always fight and argue and tell awful things straight into your face, but at the same love each other dearly and stay very close.
We never really argued. Not yet (wait until we start talking politics, Israel/Palestine et al. :>! Could that make good blog material?) We did not gossip too much (just very little), we did not talk about old boyfriends, and we did not necessarily share tissues when someone had a bad PMS day (just nappies and wipes when kids run around and into trouble). Under the influence (of D, of course, not alcohol) I tried to take to felting and knitting and it totally did not work. And I was never a good sport for shopping which D LOVES and can't live without.
OK, to the point. I did become quite attached to D.
And guess what?
D, along with her handsome husband and three charming monsters, have just left. RELOCATED! Went home. Except it is not "back home," or not quite. Right or wrong , they believe they would no longer be able to survive (in) Italy after living in the US for ten years. So they are taming Jerusalem right now. A new home?
Talk about big transitions.
Keeping fingers crossed for their hopes and dreams, I am nevertheless (a little) envious of anyone who will have them as friends and neighbors. And (very) sad that they are gone. And curious (big time!) about their new adventure.
To cut the long story short. Ms. D – would you be interested in joining this blog? Maybe it will oblige us here in Princeton to be a little more prolific? And you will feel mobilized (not that there is any pressure!) to drop a few lines once in a while? (Presto! To the whole small world all at once!!).
Well, I hope that you will agree. And the Small World will go global. And more prolific of course!!!
PS1. Global Priority did not prioritize this time, hm? Miraculously, your disorganized friend did retain this receipt, so we can get on their backs and be really annoying! Except, I suspect it might have to do with a small customs issue.... You did not mark the boxes. Not being sure what went into which, I attached the forms pretty much randomly. Do you think anyone might be surprised if they see baby clothing in what is supposed to be a package with "Hanuka decorations"? Perhaps?
PS2 Mr. husband just looked over my shoulder as I was finishing this post and noticed the Anglo-Saxon reference at the beginning. He strongly protests. He does not wish to be categorized as Anglo-Saxon (how does he know I meant it?). He is not, or so he claims, an Anglo-Saxon. I am not sure where he belongs then, but one thing is certain -- I am not admitting him into my Slavic club!!!!
For me personally, a very important part of this transition, was getting to know and making friends with D.
I have always had very few female friends (quality over quantity!) And I haven't really made many new ones – male or female – over the last decade. It takes time and I have been moving far too often. Perhaps, subconsciously, I inoculated myself against getting too close to anyone new. Because as soon as it happened, I (or they) would have to move again.
In this case my inoculation did not work. D has become a close friend and someone very important.
Was it because for a few months we lived within two blocks of each other? Because of our kids? Or because she comes from the Mediterrean and I am a Slav and there is something we share that is different from the Anglo-Saxon sensibility, if you will? Some emotional make-up? Sense of humor?
Or is it because D is an orthodox Jew who treats religion seriously? Neither orthodox, nor a Jew (trying to stay a decent Catholic, which proves complicated at times :>), I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who are as grounded as she is.
Her parenting style? Her always being calm and laid back? (which does not mean she won't yell when one of her three sweet and charming monsters gets out of hand, which, by the way, happens 98% of time; yelling, to be fair, accounts for about 1%; and 43.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot). The fact that she is warm and loving yet also capable of being demanding and able to challenge them and set limits?
Or maybe it was good food and good laugh and good conversation that you could always count on? Or her good-looking and always so-much-fun-to-be- around husband? (Oh Ms. D, I know there are days when you strongly disagree!! And it drives your crazy that everyone marvels at how wonderful your husband is while YOU know much better. I know the feeling!). The warmth and welcome of her home (yes, home, not a house!) whenever you came, whether expected or unannounced?
In some ways, they were my surrogate family. Some substitute for what I left behind when moving away from my hometown -- an extended family, where people always fight and argue and tell awful things straight into your face, but at the same love each other dearly and stay very close.
We never really argued. Not yet (wait until we start talking politics, Israel/Palestine et al. :>! Could that make good blog material?) We did not gossip too much (just very little), we did not talk about old boyfriends, and we did not necessarily share tissues when someone had a bad PMS day (just nappies and wipes when kids run around and into trouble). Under the influence (of D, of course, not alcohol) I tried to take to felting and knitting and it totally did not work. And I was never a good sport for shopping which D LOVES and can't live without.
OK, to the point. I did become quite attached to D.
And guess what?
D, along with her handsome husband and three charming monsters, have just left. RELOCATED! Went home. Except it is not "back home," or not quite. Right or wrong , they believe they would no longer be able to survive (in) Italy after living in the US for ten years. So they are taming Jerusalem right now. A new home?
Talk about big transitions.
Keeping fingers crossed for their hopes and dreams, I am nevertheless (a little) envious of anyone who will have them as friends and neighbors. And (very) sad that they are gone. And curious (big time!) about their new adventure.
To cut the long story short. Ms. D – would you be interested in joining this blog? Maybe it will oblige us here in Princeton to be a little more prolific? And you will feel mobilized (not that there is any pressure!) to drop a few lines once in a while? (Presto! To the whole small world all at once!!).
Well, I hope that you will agree. And the Small World will go global. And more prolific of course!!!
PS1. Global Priority did not prioritize this time, hm? Miraculously, your disorganized friend did retain this receipt, so we can get on their backs and be really annoying! Except, I suspect it might have to do with a small customs issue.... You did not mark the boxes. Not being sure what went into which, I attached the forms pretty much randomly. Do you think anyone might be surprised if they see baby clothing in what is supposed to be a package with "Hanuka decorations"? Perhaps?
PS2 Mr. husband just looked over my shoulder as I was finishing this post and noticed the Anglo-Saxon reference at the beginning. He strongly protests. He does not wish to be categorized as Anglo-Saxon (how does he know I meant it?). He is not, or so he claims, an Anglo-Saxon. I am not sure where he belongs then, but one thing is certain -- I am not admitting him into my Slavic club!!!!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
on knowing how to take a compliment
My husband keeps telling me it's an important skill -- this complement-taking business. Apparently you suck it with your mother's milk if you happen to possess an American passport. Or maybe it comes with your social security number.
Who knows.
In any event, they do not seem to have too many issues in the complement department, here in the Uncle Sam's Land. As opposed to us Europeans, especially the Eastern breed..... We hardly ever know how to send a complement, let alone take it!
I got a pretty useful lesson today.
Sunday. Beautiful September morning-- summer almost gone, but the fall has not quite yet arrived. It feels crispy and the light is beautiful.
D springs up from bed at the crack of a dawn (7 am) and is about to leave to "hit a few (tennis) balls". Unshaved, his curly hair in a little bit of a mess, he puts on my favorite grey sweater and a pair of white shorts. Still half-asleep, I catch a glimpse of him. "Hey Mr. R you look very handsome" I say as he is heading out of the room. "I do not look handsome. I AM handsome" replies Mr. Modest.
Ho ho ho!
For a split of second I entertain the possibility of getting out from under my cozy cover and blowing him a big kick. "What the hell does he think. That he transformed into Sam Sheppard overnight?" But it is too cold. And too early. So I stay in bed and think about this modest exchange for a while.
He was right. He did not look handsome. He FELT handsome. Relaxed and energetic, he looked forward to an hour of good work-out with a good friend. This energy and enthusiams showed on his face, in his voice, in the way he walked around the room. In the way he replied. He WAS handsome - because he felt happy.
You need to feel handsome and happy in order to be able to take a complement. Otherwise it just does not sink in.
And yes, it is true -- somehow, those who grew up in Uncle Sam's country, seem better at enjoying the moment, appreciating life's little pleasures and overlooking life's big annoyances. They know how to take a complement. And they are generous with passing ones to others.
(Overgeneralization? Find another blog if you do not like these!)
I do have some issues in this department. Perhaps some self-esteem workout would be in place?
Perhaps I should get up earlier on Sunday mornings? Maybe it would even make sense to take up tennis? (D recently got me a racket!)
One thing is certain, no one in their right mind is going to complement me for playing tennis any time soon....
Who knows.
In any event, they do not seem to have too many issues in the complement department, here in the Uncle Sam's Land. As opposed to us Europeans, especially the Eastern breed..... We hardly ever know how to send a complement, let alone take it!
I got a pretty useful lesson today.
Sunday. Beautiful September morning-- summer almost gone, but the fall has not quite yet arrived. It feels crispy and the light is beautiful.
D springs up from bed at the crack of a dawn (7 am) and is about to leave to "hit a few (tennis) balls". Unshaved, his curly hair in a little bit of a mess, he puts on my favorite grey sweater and a pair of white shorts. Still half-asleep, I catch a glimpse of him. "Hey Mr. R you look very handsome" I say as he is heading out of the room. "I do not look handsome. I AM handsome" replies Mr. Modest.
Ho ho ho!
For a split of second I entertain the possibility of getting out from under my cozy cover and blowing him a big kick. "What the hell does he think. That he transformed into Sam Sheppard overnight?" But it is too cold. And too early. So I stay in bed and think about this modest exchange for a while.
He was right. He did not look handsome. He FELT handsome. Relaxed and energetic, he looked forward to an hour of good work-out with a good friend. This energy and enthusiams showed on his face, in his voice, in the way he walked around the room. In the way he replied. He WAS handsome - because he felt happy.
You need to feel handsome and happy in order to be able to take a complement. Otherwise it just does not sink in.
And yes, it is true -- somehow, those who grew up in Uncle Sam's country, seem better at enjoying the moment, appreciating life's little pleasures and overlooking life's big annoyances. They know how to take a complement. And they are generous with passing ones to others.
(Overgeneralization? Find another blog if you do not like these!)
I do have some issues in this department. Perhaps some self-esteem workout would be in place?
Perhaps I should get up earlier on Sunday mornings? Maybe it would even make sense to take up tennis? (D recently got me a racket!)
One thing is certain, no one in their right mind is going to complement me for playing tennis any time soon....
Saturday, August 4, 2007
update
you may have noticed and we haven't been very prolific bloggers as of lately.
u is recharging her batteries in germany.
u is recharging her batteries in germany.
m bogged down in other non-blog(ged) projects.
will be back in a few weeks.
promised!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
A Matter of Choice
A couple of weeks ago we had a visitor from Berlin who described her experiences in the US world of consumers as follows: “Here, it is us who are the Ossis”. “Ossis” is a sort of shortening for “Ostdeutsche” given to East Germans, i.e. people from the former GDR, by West Germans as a not too flattering nickname. What our visitor wanted to express, then, was that whenever people from (West) Germany enter a shopping mall, a supermarket, or even just a coffee shop in the US, they feel exactly like East Germans who had been raised in a Socialist system of material shortage, felt on their first trips to the Bundesrepublik after the wall came down: Overwhelmed and sort of helpless by the sheer vastness of product ranges.
Newcomers to the US get this feeling especially whenever they go food shopping. It is not just that “large” often is only the smallest category for, let’s say, eggs (going up to “extra large” and “jumbo”), or that milk and orange juice are sold by the gallon rather than by the liter (which, apart from the absence of the metric system, explains itself also by the fact that the average American family – and the average American fridge - are definitely bigger than their German counterparts). But even at the ice cream parlor one finds that the smallest portion, one scoop, is the equivalent of approximately three to four scoops of ice cream sold in Germany. Apart from that, the product is usually enriched and contains so much sugar that even a seven-year-old who LOVES ice cream has problems finishing such a gigantic scoop before it melts.
On top of this, there is the problem of choice. To stay in the ice cream parlor for another minute, there are rather fifty than twenty sorts you may chose from. Same thing at the coffee shop: No way you could order just a cup of coffee; at least half a dozen questions have to be answered before the coffee is finally yours. Regular or decaf? Whole milk, skim milk or soy milk for the latte? Tall or Grande? For here or to go? And on it goes until I forget what I actually came for. “Welcome to the United States,” grins my neighbor Debbi. “We like to consume big style, that’s what we’re here for.”
Even more bizarre I recently felt in New York’s famous Bryant Park. It was freezing cold, and we were delighted to find a small kiosk offering “Hot Chocolate”. But guess what? You couldn’t buy just hot chocolate. It came in eight or nine different flavors, but there simply wasn’t anything like plain hot chocolate! While the line of people was growing behind me, the guy behind the counter tried hard to figure out which of his flavors came the closest to plain hot chocolate– maybe malt-and-something (I forgot what the second component was), he finally decided. He obviously had to dig deep down into his memory, trying to remember how this beverage had originally tasted.
Similar experiences come with any food shopping. Among the various brands and manifold shapes of frozen French fries offered in a local supermarket, try to find some that are not heavily salted; I haven’t succeeded yet. Also, the percentage of fat is, on average, distinctly higher as in my home country.
So it seems that the choice suddenly becomes very limited when it comes to finding plain foods, i.e. something that is not enriched, sweetened, or processed in any other way. Even the lunch menu at my son’s elementary school, titled “Balanced Choice”, by the way, reads more like a fast food chain’s menu than a list of healthy meals – even if it tries hard to pretend otherwise, especially on Fridays. Try this week’s offerings: Monday: Cheese burger on a bun, Tuesday: Baked Breaded Chicken Nuggets, Wednesday: Rotini with Italian meat sauce, Thursday: Macho Nacho, Friday: Tony’s Smart Reduced Fat Cheese Pizza. (There is a vegetable side dish every day, to be fair. And children may choose a salad platter instead of their “Balanced Choice” meal. But which child ever would?)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that WE in Germany are doing so much better. Not at all, we are just – as usual –lagging a little bit behind, and I’m sure we’ll catch up soon.
But what if there were other options? My neighbor Debbi, for example, says she got away from a lot of these dilemmas by becoming a vegetarian and opting for organic food. Not a few Americans, fearing obesity, diabetes, and other plagues of the modern eating times, nowadays cover at least some of their requirements at supermarkets specialized in organic and natural foods. Thus, they have among other things made a small supermarket in Texas, founded 26 years ago, grow into the Whole Foods Company, the world’s biggest retailer in this field with almost 200 locations in the US and Britain, more than five billion dollars yearly sales, and two-digit growth rates.
There is at least one major disadvantage attached to most organic foods, though, and this is the price. Only people from the upper end of the social ladder can afford a wretched cauliflower for six dollars or lemons that cost 1,75 dollars EACH. And even those well-off Americans obviously find price levels high enough to have nicknamed Whole Foods into “Whole Paycheck”.
Also, going to the “good” food chains and supermarkets doesn’t automatically mean that you come out with nothing but healthy stuff in your shopping cart. Apart from organic fruit and veggies, hormone-free milk, and meat without antibiotics, there also are – to give just one example - tons of sweets, disguised as ever-so-healthy cereals. Or who wouldn’t be tempted to buy an extra pack of cookies if the advertisement attached to it reads: “It never felt so good to say NO before – NO refined sugar, NO saturated fat”, etc., etc. And what about all these vitamin pills and other dubious food supplements sold in such luxury style organic megastores?
Which directly leads to the last (but not least) problem: Enter any Whole Foods (or Wild Oats, or any other organic chain’s) supermarket, and you face basically the same problem as in any conventional food store: Overwhelming heaps of different products – and hardly any clue what to choose.
To escape all this food confusion, here’s the perfect literature: Michael Pollan’s article Unhappy Meals, recently published in the New York Times Magazine. Pollan is an award winning environmental journalist and writer who also teaches journalism at Berkeley. The bottom line of his article is that the food industry has succeeded in selling us nutrients instead of foods. As a result of that strategy we simply eat (and buy!) more (because we feel so good about eating all these supposedly healthy nutrients) instead of eating right. What Pollan recommends after a whole lot of research into the subject is: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
This has become my new protective mantra I mumble to myself whenever I enter one of these gigantic food stores now. And I am already feeling so much less like an Ossi and more of a really smart consumer! Ask me again in a few months whether this has indeed benefited my health – or, at least, my purse.
A couple of weeks ago we had a visitor from Berlin who described her experiences in the US world of consumers as follows: “Here, it is us who are the Ossis”. “Ossis” is a sort of shortening for “Ostdeutsche” given to East Germans, i.e. people from the former GDR, by West Germans as a not too flattering nickname. What our visitor wanted to express, then, was that whenever people from (West) Germany enter a shopping mall, a supermarket, or even just a coffee shop in the US, they feel exactly like East Germans who had been raised in a Socialist system of material shortage, felt on their first trips to the Bundesrepublik after the wall came down: Overwhelmed and sort of helpless by the sheer vastness of product ranges.
Newcomers to the US get this feeling especially whenever they go food shopping. It is not just that “large” often is only the smallest category for, let’s say, eggs (going up to “extra large” and “jumbo”), or that milk and orange juice are sold by the gallon rather than by the liter (which, apart from the absence of the metric system, explains itself also by the fact that the average American family – and the average American fridge - are definitely bigger than their German counterparts). But even at the ice cream parlor one finds that the smallest portion, one scoop, is the equivalent of approximately three to four scoops of ice cream sold in Germany. Apart from that, the product is usually enriched and contains so much sugar that even a seven-year-old who LOVES ice cream has problems finishing such a gigantic scoop before it melts.
On top of this, there is the problem of choice. To stay in the ice cream parlor for another minute, there are rather fifty than twenty sorts you may chose from. Same thing at the coffee shop: No way you could order just a cup of coffee; at least half a dozen questions have to be answered before the coffee is finally yours. Regular or decaf? Whole milk, skim milk or soy milk for the latte? Tall or Grande? For here or to go? And on it goes until I forget what I actually came for. “Welcome to the United States,” grins my neighbor Debbi. “We like to consume big style, that’s what we’re here for.”
Even more bizarre I recently felt in New York’s famous Bryant Park. It was freezing cold, and we were delighted to find a small kiosk offering “Hot Chocolate”. But guess what? You couldn’t buy just hot chocolate. It came in eight or nine different flavors, but there simply wasn’t anything like plain hot chocolate! While the line of people was growing behind me, the guy behind the counter tried hard to figure out which of his flavors came the closest to plain hot chocolate– maybe malt-and-something (I forgot what the second component was), he finally decided. He obviously had to dig deep down into his memory, trying to remember how this beverage had originally tasted.
Similar experiences come with any food shopping. Among the various brands and manifold shapes of frozen French fries offered in a local supermarket, try to find some that are not heavily salted; I haven’t succeeded yet. Also, the percentage of fat is, on average, distinctly higher as in my home country.
So it seems that the choice suddenly becomes very limited when it comes to finding plain foods, i.e. something that is not enriched, sweetened, or processed in any other way. Even the lunch menu at my son’s elementary school, titled “Balanced Choice”, by the way, reads more like a fast food chain’s menu than a list of healthy meals – even if it tries hard to pretend otherwise, especially on Fridays. Try this week’s offerings: Monday: Cheese burger on a bun, Tuesday: Baked Breaded Chicken Nuggets, Wednesday: Rotini with Italian meat sauce, Thursday: Macho Nacho, Friday: Tony’s Smart Reduced Fat Cheese Pizza. (There is a vegetable side dish every day, to be fair. And children may choose a salad platter instead of their “Balanced Choice” meal. But which child ever would?)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that WE in Germany are doing so much better. Not at all, we are just – as usual –lagging a little bit behind, and I’m sure we’ll catch up soon.
But what if there were other options? My neighbor Debbi, for example, says she got away from a lot of these dilemmas by becoming a vegetarian and opting for organic food. Not a few Americans, fearing obesity, diabetes, and other plagues of the modern eating times, nowadays cover at least some of their requirements at supermarkets specialized in organic and natural foods. Thus, they have among other things made a small supermarket in Texas, founded 26 years ago, grow into the Whole Foods Company, the world’s biggest retailer in this field with almost 200 locations in the US and Britain, more than five billion dollars yearly sales, and two-digit growth rates.
There is at least one major disadvantage attached to most organic foods, though, and this is the price. Only people from the upper end of the social ladder can afford a wretched cauliflower for six dollars or lemons that cost 1,75 dollars EACH. And even those well-off Americans obviously find price levels high enough to have nicknamed Whole Foods into “Whole Paycheck”.
Also, going to the “good” food chains and supermarkets doesn’t automatically mean that you come out with nothing but healthy stuff in your shopping cart. Apart from organic fruit and veggies, hormone-free milk, and meat without antibiotics, there also are – to give just one example - tons of sweets, disguised as ever-so-healthy cereals. Or who wouldn’t be tempted to buy an extra pack of cookies if the advertisement attached to it reads: “It never felt so good to say NO before – NO refined sugar, NO saturated fat”, etc., etc. And what about all these vitamin pills and other dubious food supplements sold in such luxury style organic megastores?
Which directly leads to the last (but not least) problem: Enter any Whole Foods (or Wild Oats, or any other organic chain’s) supermarket, and you face basically the same problem as in any conventional food store: Overwhelming heaps of different products – and hardly any clue what to choose.
To escape all this food confusion, here’s the perfect literature: Michael Pollan’s article Unhappy Meals, recently published in the New York Times Magazine. Pollan is an award winning environmental journalist and writer who also teaches journalism at Berkeley. The bottom line of his article is that the food industry has succeeded in selling us nutrients instead of foods. As a result of that strategy we simply eat (and buy!) more (because we feel so good about eating all these supposedly healthy nutrients) instead of eating right. What Pollan recommends after a whole lot of research into the subject is: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
This has become my new protective mantra I mumble to myself whenever I enter one of these gigantic food stores now. And I am already feeling so much less like an Ossi and more of a really smart consumer! Ask me again in a few months whether this has indeed benefited my health – or, at least, my purse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
