Hokuspokus...

...steckt der Krokus
seine Nase schon ans Licht!

Ich finde es ist allerhöchste Zeit für Frühling und Sonne und längere Tage und kürzere Nächte und neues Grün an den kahlen Bäumen und Sitzen im Park und Kaffee unter Sonnenschirmen und Feierabendgetränke im Biergarten und all das. Und wo wir schonmal dabei sind, bin ich auch noch ganz entschieden für Urlaub am Meer. Und zwar dieses Jahr noch. Jawohl. Muss mir dringend mal ein Highlight buchen... Any volunteers?

Melon&Cauli.

Happy endings get me down.
Sad ones, too.
That's why I'm increasingly fond of undemanding, uncomplicated panel shows and quizzes.
No storyline, no emotions, ergo no identification or, worse, dissociation via unelegant, simple jealousy.

Or maybe I'm just totally shallow and can't be bothered.

How do you spell "um-bear-as-sing"?

Apparently, we must have had one of those magical blue moons over the weekend, because, lo and behold!, that most priced, lost-presumed-dead, shrouded-in-legend bloody document has turned up again! Either that, or I simply have the world's most selfless, patient, long-suffering of all friends, who not only insisted on sacrificing a whole Saturday for me to meticulously scrutinize every single piece of paper in my posession in search of the legendary document,
she also found it!!!
Just like that! (Well, after about four hours.)
And she even has the grace to not rub it in (too much) on every conceivable occasion, but to just be happy that "we" found it and that she could be of help!
Incredible.
I know I would never ever shut up about it if I was in her place. What a sad little lunatic I am! (No news there.) Because apparently the papers (not one but, in fact, four of them - my eyewitness accounts obviously aren't worth a farthing!) were, after all, in that most likely of all folders all along. In the one with all the reeeaally important university stuff, in a clear, plastic sleeve, but alas, unfortunately camouflaged as something else.
Well, maybe best not to dwell on this any longer. Suffice to say that the monster has sulkily retreated back into its corner under the bed for now, gnawing at some left-over nightmares of mine.

Oh, while she was at it, my friend also found the original of my leaving certificate. You know, the one that was very, very definitely gone? The one I thought I had forgotten on a photocopier in Leipzig about twelve years ago? The one I caused a minor all-hands-on-deck situation at my old school over about three years ago? The one that provided the infamous precedence for the case above, proving that things can and do, in fact, disappear for good?
Yeah, that one.
(surreptitiously sidling off stage)

Anti-Climax.

After all these weeks of longing for the end of the semester and all that talk of how my resolutions would have to keep until then, of how I would completely start over, reorganize my life, start cooking and eating healthily again, get exercise, all that talk of postponing my real New Year's celebrations until this weekend and after making a big show of how I was going to round up everyone and go out and have the best time ever... I really would have expected to be feeling a lot more upbeat right now than I actually do.
As it is I'm having a hard time simply getting up and dressed, let alone implement any of those big-mouthed plans.
Amongst other things, I totally blame that conducting teacher of mine, who very definitely spoiled my mood by giving me a grade I don't think I deserve. Yes, I passed. And yes, who's gonna want to see that bloody certificate at the end of the day anyway? And yes, it's all water down the drain now, so stop being a sore loser. But I really feel unjustly judged. I truly did fairly well in that exam, not worse than most of the others anyway, so I deserve to get the same grade as they did. But apparently I'm under a misapprehension. I must have developed a sudden, strong case of overestimating my own capabilities.

Well, that's a first.

Anyhow. Following that unnerving and so, so irritating saying of "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference" I should probably pray for serenity and get started on that second bit, the one I have some power over. Like stopping buying all those deep-freeze pizzas and boldly venture into the fruit-and-veg-section of the supermarket again, now that I've the time again to actually cook something. Maybe energy and good humour will turn up, if I trick them into thinking they're already here.
What a cunning plan!

Lied zur Nacht.

Ponette.

If you've never seen this film, I urge you to do so. But be warned - you better have a big box of tissues ready... I double dare you not to cry for and along with that little girl. How they got four-year-old Victoire Thivisol to act like that is simply beyond me!

Bread and tulips.

A cold, crisp, sunny Saturday, blue skies,
coffee, a walk along the river and a chat with a friend,
buying warm, fresh-from-the-oven bread and a bunch of red tulips on the way home, walking, flowers in your arm, along sun-filled streets
gives you a sense of sophisticated, feel-good, well-adjusted self-suffiency in manner of Meg Ryan in "You've got mail" or similar.

Balancing bread and tulips on top of a load of laundry that you're carrying up three flights of stairs to dump them, the washing and your coat in the middle of the pandemonium that is your flat
= sliiiightly less sophisticated.