Send in the Clowns

We finally move into our house in Martinshohe beginning tomorrow.  The trek is both exciting and bittersweet.  Although I'm SO DAMN TIRED of filling bags and boxes to shuffle from one place to the next, I will actually miss this little temporary apartment where Chris and I spent our first Christmas together. I love our dinners together, sharing some wonderfully cheap and delicious wine we discovered. Each night I cook, and we have dinner on the little table and discuss our day, then move to the sofa to watch videos on his tiny laptop that isn't even the size of a piece of paper. It's been cozy, quaint and very sweet.

It's frustrating and rather funny that our tiny fridge is so small that we have to scoop out ice cream from its container and put it into smaller ones that can fit into the freezer section, about half the size of a shoebox.  And, after three weeks of drinking lukewarm sodas or drinks with no ice, I finally broke down in near tears in the commissary last weekend, exclaiming "Holy crap I've gotta have a Diet Coke over ice!!! We're taking a bag home, even if I only get to have it tonight!"

Of course, Chris obliged and even concocted a way to hang it from a mesh bag outside from the kitchen window, where it hangs over the ledge. Call us white trash. Call us geniuses. In our 25F degree weather, WE NOW HAVE ICE!  

The new house has a small German fridge, too.  But we're fixing the situation by moving a larger, American fridge into the pantry. There aren't water hook ups for ice makers, so "ice trays" were the first thing on our shopping list Christmas eve. When I asked a German woman at the BX if they had ice trays, I think she told me no out of spite. ;) I don't normally listen to people anyway, and you guessed it, I found them. I kinda wanted to run down that fraulein and educate her, but Chris patted my bottom and laughed at me. Huh.

The househunt was so stressful, so we were truly blessed when we answered a classified ad for a house for rent with Gudrun as the agent. She is wonderful! Helpful, bubbly, lovely in so many ways. And funny as hell.  I love it when she calls me. "Ahhhhh, HALlo, JEAna! This is GUdrun...."

Chris loves her, too. You can just tell that she will remain friends with us after the business side of the transaction is over. I've mentioned that we have bikes and she tells us about wonderful trails, that she will get a map for me. I say that I want a tutor, and she says she'll find a teenager to work with me in the village, and she will write that down. Gudrun is so friendly, efficient, honest and kind. When she says she will call, she does. If the road is too slick from snow and ice, she'll just park and walk to meet you, never leaving you hanging.

Gudrun always hangs the phone up with a few German phrases that mean "Then it's all good" and "see you later."  One of those, although I don't know the true spelling, is pronounced "osclod" or "ossglad" or "ahsclaw." I finally asked her about the word, and she rattled off the spelling but her accent is still thick and I don't always know what she is saying unless she repeats it.

The other evening after dinner, I was sitting at the table, savoring my diet coke over ice, and Chris was talking to Gudrun. After he hung up, he casually laid down my cell phone.

"That word she says, you know ..." said Chris.

I nodded, and tried to say it. "I asked her what it meant," I added. "She said "everything is good" or "then that's that."

Chris sat down and picked up his glass. "Well, that's good. Because I thought she was calling us "ass clowns."

I nearly choked on my treasured ice.