Another night. Another lullabye.

Well, while I can't seem to be able to get any of the very many oh-so-funny youtube videos I'd like to show you to come up as a pretty little screen right here (Geez, honestly, what does it take? I tried every single button a gazillion times... Beats me. Must be my job rubbing off...) - I've been tempted to try if I can make any video at all appear round here.

Et voilà, mesdames et messieurs, I give you:

The Hands and the Voice! (Daa-da-da-daaaah!)

Yet another gem for the aficionados of olden-times sound "quality" (used in the loosest possible sense), this time, with the charming clicketyclack of my piano thrown in for good measure. Donations towards a new one will be much appreciated.

No, you don't actually have to listen to it (more than twice - actually, you mightn't have to listen to it at all, if the slowness of the progress-in-uploading beam is anything to go by), but a girl's gotta try this stuff out at some stage. And something tells me you don't want to see any of my 207 holiday videos...

I'd have liked to "show" you my latest hit, but I haven't managed to record an I'm-happy-with-it version of it yet. This was one of my first ever songs, so be nice. (Which translates as: Shower me with praise. Any criticism? Write it down, then throw it in the bin!)

Lullabye.

And so, without (too much) further ado, to bed. Too late once more, I know I'll be sorry in the morning, but I can't seem to find a decent rhythm these days, what with three really very early and four rather late mornings...

So, in the hope that Billy will lull me to sleep:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhxeOaFe7hc&feature=related

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...the water's dark and deep inside this ancient heart...

Jesus knows where your house lives.

No big news, but a day of totally aim- and mostly useless browsing brought forth some obvious new favourites of mine...

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http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2009/09/07/and-jesus-said-oh-snap/

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Variations on the theme (5).

Unbefuckinglievable!!!

Really, I don't get these people. How do they do it? How can they look into the mirror without wanting to slap themselves in the face? (Actually, I hope they do. Every single time. Seeing as I can't be there to do it for them.)

Yeah, you've already guessed it: still no money for Mary. But it's much worse now because not only won't I be getting the second half of my August paycheck anytime soon, I also won't be seeing any September money either the way things are not moving right now. And on top of that I can't even hold out that little bit of hope for a quick miracle (i.e. someone in that bloody office doing their effing job for once!) any longer because I have just talked to the topmost bitch from hell and she's having a bad week.

...right...deep breaths...

See, since my last update about these fascinating goings-on, our school secretary has done everything to get someone from the School Board to please, please forward my contract (once more) to the Salaries Office - since I wasn't allowed to do it myself, it had to go the official way - and lo and behold, after just ten days she had received the reply that the person responsible had already sent that contract in mid-July but would fax it to the Office once again at once. Well, we only have their word for it, but they really seemed to have done it because they also recommended me getting in touch with the Salaries people myself again in order to kick their a...ehm, to speed up the process.

Which I did.

After many, many engaged tones and then many, many more unengaged tones this woman deigned to answer the phone. It was, however, not my very favourite contact person but someone else. When I enquired after my chances of seeing some of my money anytime in the near future her voice went all doleful and suffering and she told me how my contact person was off sick and so many other people from her department were too and how, no, the contract hadn't arrived yet, although no, scratch that, she just didn't know if it had arrived yet because they are just snowed under with work there and she just wasn't going to make any more promises because she just didn't know who was dealing with my data now and blablabla.

I interrupted her speech four times and asked her how she thought I was going to pay my next rent (or anything else for that matter), but she just went on whining and ignored my questions. No, I couldn't do anything to speed up things. No, she couldn't either. I might want to try calling again next Wednesday. By which time the September paychecks are well under way. Not mine though.

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[...]

Oooooooh, yeah, I'm taking it all back!!! No, actually, I'm not, that woman is still an impossible, incapable, incompetent excuse for a civil servant (yes, I do know: the cliché of it!), but I tricked her! (fist punching air) I rang her again, got through on the fifth go and asked her - veeery nicely - if she could tell me who was responsible for me now and if she couldn't do so to give me her superior's number. Her boss answered her phone just now, fourth go, and she was absolutely lovely! Friendly, patient, great sense of humour, interested (I might just ask her to marry me..), went through all imaginable inboxes to dig up my contract, found it (!), and with just three mouse clicks sent all (!) of my money on the way. Should be there next week.

Just like that.

I'm so...so...grateful!!! (That's how they do it: treat you like shit for three months so that when eventually someone treats you with respect again, you can't believe your good luck. My, they're good at what they do.)

Although, now that I know how simple the whole thing was - open an email attachment with contract, click thrice for payment to be authorized, done! - I am even more furious at all those waaaaaaaah (insert expletives) clerks who didn't invest these three minutes during the last 6 weeks. Just because they could.

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Right. Off to spend some money!

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Variations bound to be continued in March = end of contract. Can't wait. Then again, now I have the superior's number, I feel really powerful. Sort of.

Product Placement.

Beim dm meines Vertrauens hat ja jeder noch so abwegige Klüngel sein eigenes, riesiges Regal. Dort breiten sich dann die 39 total verschiedenen Ausführungen des Produktes aus und werben um meine Kaufkraft. Alles ist an seinem Platz, fein säuberlich in seiner zugehörigen Kategorie: Haarpflege, Handcremes, Körperlotion, Deos, Kindernahrung, Öko-Essen... - Im Leben nicht würde sich da eine Handcreme ins Körperlotionsregal verirren, Gott bewahre! Und das ist ja auch ganz sinnvoll so, erleichtert es doch dem nur sporadischen dm-Besucher die Suche... Hat sich wer was bei gedacht.

Denkt man.

Bis man vor dem Regal zu stehen kommt, das - viel kleiner als alle anderen - etwas stiefmütterlich an die Seite gedrängt wurde.

Oberste Reihe: Kondome.

Mittlere Reihe: Ohrstöpsel.

Untere Reihe: Biovital/Doppelherz.

...

Ob man sich aus dem Regal einen Präsentkorb zusammenstellen lassen kann? Ich dachte da so an frisch gebackene Pärchen (obere und untere Reihe) und deren Nachbarn (mittlere Reihe).

Oder für den schmaleren Geldbeutel nur das Ohropax (wenn aufgrund der fehlenden Kondome dann irgendwann der Nachwuchs nächtens schreit...)? Extrem glücklich machen würden mich auch diverse Kombi-Angebots-Schilder am Regal à la "Buy one, get one free!"

...Ah, so viele Möglichkeiten, so wenig Zeit!

Zu schade, dass dm keine Kategorien-Bezeichnungen über den Regalen hängen hat. Ich zermartere mir seit Tagen den Kopf, was da dann stünde. Hiermit sei der Bezeichnungswettbewerb ausgeschrieben! Und wo wir schon dabei sind: Ist das ein humoriger Moment meines lokalen Marktleiters gewesen oder ist diese Produktmélange dm-deutschlandweit - oder gar per Drogeriekettenproduktanordnungsgesetz vorgeschrieben?

Into the pensieve.

It's been a weird weekend. I was back home at my parents' and somehow every little thing, person, activity and instance seemed to be shouting at me to remember, to look back into my childhood.

There was the annual big jumble sale stretching all over our neighbourhood right outside our front door, and, naturally, I bumped into people I once used to know left, right and centre. And even without those people, those rows and rows of stalls packed with stuff that makes up other people's pasts to me always give off a whiff of melancholy - all those discarded children's clothes, skates, books, abandoned dolls and teddy bears, those countless, inevitably short-lived "hip" toys, record players, first-generation mobile phones, one-hit-wonder CDs, ski suits, schoolbags, unspeakably ugly raffle prizes... - you can assemble whole lives just by looking at the displays.

Then that same evening the people from our street, 16 houses in all, were celebrating the 30th anniversary of their being neighbours (think beer tent and barbecue) and I think I can safely say that's been the strangest social event I have attended in a long, long time. One of the neighbours had prepared a slide show featuring the highlights of three decades which, after a few pictures of the houses being built, seemed to be one long string of weddings, birthdays, silver weddings, neighbourhood outings and more birthdays. Which was nice (in a sliiightly boring way), but at the same time I couldn't help but look around me and, by way of a quick head-count, realize how quite a few of those appearing in the happy pictures are no longer around to see them...

And of course there is only so much small talk you can think of with people who have "known" you all your life, but whom you haven't spoken to in 11 years, and even then it was mostly a "Hello there!" called across the street.

Thankfully some others of the "kids generation" were at the party as well, and it was actually great fun to catch up with those I had last spoken to when we still knocked at each other's doors to ask "Will ... come out and play?" If I was to paint just one picture of my childhood it would probably be of us dozen or so children playing dodgeball and hide and seek in the street on a summer evening.

* * *

Apart from all that, a lot of piano playing and singing for me lately. Amongst others, this one. If anyone happens to know of a playback version of that...? My mother loves it and there's her 60th birthday party looming in a few weeks' time. Not quite sure I can master both the singing and accompaniment until then...

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Is there a danger bonus for teachers?

Two colleagues of mine were on early playground duty on Friday morning - you know, the duty I'm on two days a week, shouting at the kids to please not get themselves run over when not crossing at the traffic lights? That's the one.

Well, the two women were standing at the school gate as usual, talking, one facing the playground, one facing the street/bus stop, when out of the blue two Fourth Year boys (the big baby, I-refuse-to-use-what-little-brain-I-might-have type) came charging towards them, in the middle of one of their non-stop scuffle-tussles. They either didn't see the two teachers or were unable to stop, either way, they banged with full force into the first teacher who in turn bumped her head so hard against the other one that the second woman was knocked to the ground.

She broke her left wrist which resulted in a complicated operation featuring nails and steel plates. She also broke a lumbar vertebra (Lendenwirbel - that's what the dictionary tells me it is). Now, apparently there are two ways of breaking a vertebra: the fracture pointing towards the outside, or towards the inside.

The inside being where the spinal marrow is.

The spinal marrow being quite useful when it comes to walking and moving in general.

The second kind of fracture being not good at all.

Of course it's the second kind of fracture she got.

So now she's strapped to a hospital bed in a special corset for at least eight weeks and not allowed to move an inch, because any wrong movement might (and very probably would) lead to paralysis/paraplegia (Querschnittslähmung - God, I'm learning so many freaky new words today). They decided against an operation for the time being.

A colleague was on the phone to her yesterday and quoted her saying "Oh, what a nuisance. Here I am lying around, good for nothing, when there's so much to do! Some of my kids' work placement is still not sorted!"

Well, you got to worry about something, I guess.