part III - of being home and coming home and orange chocolate sticks.

i take a breath. i take a sip of overpriced minibar wine. i could cry a little. instead i look out of the window and the view over the now night-lit city is magnificent again. it wasn't earlier today, everything was grey. german style. now it's darkness and twinkly lights.

the massage i had the day before was pure luxury according to the price, but it was there to help me relax. not that it really did help, but it felt nice. now i need another one to get rid of the pain in my left shoulder, the familiar pain that seems to be my achilles heel when i carry too much luggage. or when stuff happens. stuff like my dad almost dying.

there is a dummies guide to everything these days, except for this. a dummies guide on how to take care of a dad if he had major surgery and almost died. there is nothing that could have ever prepared me for it, with or without a book. i don't know what to do, how to hide my helplessness, and how to sleep when i come back to room alone in a foreign city that is grey.

but somehow i have managed. there is not guide book so there is no right or wrong. i want to buy him food, i think hospital food is horrible, and my dad likes good food. i go to the store and then i feel overwhelmed. what do you buy for someone who just had a huge surgery? i end up buying orange sticks covered in dark chocolate amongst other bananas and pudding. i know my dad likes them, so his first meal out of surgery is vanilla semolina pudding and two orange sticks covered in dark chocolate.

i tell him he looks like an outlaw and file his nails and put lotion on his face.

i buy him nice, comfy headphones so he can listen to his beloved operas.

i tell him stuff and am happy when i can make him laugh. the best words he says to me start with “when i get out of here...”

i have only my intuition as to what to do and say. somehow it seems to be the right thing.

every day when i return from my morning visit i go to a pasta bar where i eat a bowl and drink some white wine for lunch. too much white wine to be honest. i do nothing, but i am exhausted. i start to miss my life. not so much cape town itself, but something that is mine. it seems to be suspended for the time being. it's okay, i am not complaining, as long as my dad is getting better.

the view from my hotel room is even more spectacular at night. the opera is drenched in soft pink light. it was built under stalin; apparently he got something right. i can't get myself to go see something, it seems too much effort and the only nice piece of clothing i have with me is my sherlock holmes coat. at h&m i have found some very cheap, nice bikini bottoms in black but nothing that screams opera.

so i stay in and order room service. the schnitzel is phenomenal and somehow i manage to make peace with the german television. i sleep badly though and miss my bed.

what happened to the “date” with the doctor you ask? well, let me tell you that grey's anatomy is a big, fat lie. well, the only part that is true is that funny machine you use to blow balls into the air to train your lungs, but the rest is bullshit. all that flirting, the dating, the shagging in the on-call room, that getting married, that cheating on each other, phew, it is all make belief! because believe me when i tell you: a real surgeon does not have time for that. a real surgeon will manage to have a schnitzel with you at 10pm after a long day of work and then he will need an early night to be fit for surgery in the morning. i count myself lucky that the schnitzel was a really good one and that i got a ride home in a fancy surgeon's car.

but honestly i don't even care. all i care that i left a father today who was smiling, eating, and breathing on his own. the only sign that reminds of his ordeal is a brave heart scar, which i tell him daily is pretty cool – chicks dig scars!

A date request.

I am aware that this might make me sound a bit desperate, but still, I will just put it out there: I need a date. Vacation time is over, summer isn’t here yet, I need something fun to cheer myself up. No worries, guys, I don’t want to marry you or make you the father of my future children or otherwise entrap you in any way. I just want a date. I want someone to take me for a nice dinner, a little stroll through the park, and maybe some light yet steamy midnight snogging. No further obligations, you can just call me the next day and tell me you are leaving town to join the Peace Corps. I will believe you and you don’t ever have to see me again. Unless of course you are stupid like the guy who told me he was moving to Houston and still managed to run into me in NYC two months later. Then rather tell me you are not over your ex yet. That excuse works like a charm and I’m well used to it, in fact I can take it without any tears. 

 

What kind of guys need apply? 

• Due to recent circumstances I have lowered my age range (Cousin, do you read this?!). So with just 25 years of age, you are good to go.
• Mind you, please have some sort of a job so you can pick up the bill. Don’t tell me after dinner that you really would like to, but unfortunately can’t pay for me because your parents’ cheque hasn’t cleared yet (yes, that has happened more than I would like to admit). Also asking me for petrol money to get home is a deal breaker. 
• It would be nice if you were taller than me so I can wear heels without making you feel, well, small.
• Don’t mention of God or Jesus over dinner. Or after. Especially not when we get to the snogging part. 
• Photographers and general creative, I dig you! But I can also tell the good from the bad and the ugly. If you are a photographer, you should be able to take pictures that will remind me of the days when I had a crush on Nathaniel Goldberg or even better remind me of my brother. Which is not that weird as it sounds. He is just very brilliant and may have spoilt my aesthetics for life.
• Don’t wear white shoes. I hope I don’t need to elaborate this one further. 
• Be a bit daring. You could even suggest going to the movies. Though you will know that I generally hate going to the movies and so your only option is to lure me to the Labia via strawberry gin slushies.  
• Which brings me to: Do not not drink. We simply won’t get along. I have tried the AA/teetotaller route many times, it just doesn’t work for me.
• Last but not least: please have a sense of humour. If you are reading this and don’t get offended by me writing a list (and don’t be fooled, all girls have a list, I just happened to put it online), if you might even crack a smile here and there, yes, that would be a good start.

Thank you for your consideration; you know where to find me.

 

 

Any

Trick or treat.

These past few days the dare has been hard. My weekend was utterly uneventful except for my niece’s birthday party on Saturday and the new week started with an auto repair bill of more than I can afford right now and a big, weird bruise on my knee. I guess it was to be expected to be tricky some days, but it is just damn hard not to mope on the days which are most mope-worthy.
I also think by now I have behaved so nicely for so long (or so it seems) that I really deserve a treat. Like a nice date. Not one that I have to stalk in the mall. If he were to stalk me that would be fine though, but no psychopaths please. It still scares me a bit that the last one knows where I live. So no, thank you, I need someone a bit more…normal. Though Nele says normal translates to boring and who would want that? Yes, I know it ain’t that simple and things usually don’t go this straightforward, but why actually not? Stomp my foot here and pout.
Fine, I shall stop with the moping now and just hope that one of my happily married/engaged/committed girlfriends reads this, will chat with her awesome husband/fiancé/boyfriend, and maybe come up with a plan to set me up with one of his equally awesome/non-psychopath/yet non-boring friends. Anyone?

In the meanwhile I shall practise my patience in addition to everything else and will be patiently awaiting the arrival of my non-mall date on my yoga mat. *

*Though we all know if that actually happened, I’d probably be really pissed off why there is a person I don’t know on my yoga mat.

A new first.

I think I have mentioned before how I do get excited about firsts. The obvious of first dates, first kisses, first time waiting by the phone for a new first to call. However I get especially excited about firsts that are that in the true meaning of the word. Something I have never ever done before. Yesterday was such a first.

As you may or may not know Germany doesn’t have a mall culture. They are few and far and for most parents a place where not to bring your children as opposed to dropping them there with some lunch money and a rat pack of friends.
Instead of malls my friends and I hang out at:

- Mc Donald’s for the times we had a one hour break – official or unofficial – as it was just a short trip from school. Admittingly this was no better than a mall.

- The Italian ice cream parlour Zanella for after school meetings. I cannot even begin to recall how many hours I spent there day after day, how much money I wasted on toasts, cappuccinos, and cake, and how much I must have annoyed my mother with all of this.

- Pustekuchen (don’t even ask what that may mean), a sort of bar/bistro establishment for smooth day- to night-time transformation that I fondly remember for crispy chicken fingers with honey mustard sauce. One time my friend Silja and I decided to ditch a field trip with our creepy art teacher and instead spent the entire day there. We managed to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner; played darts, read magazines, and did not get bored for 12 hours straight. I think to this day we hold the record.

There were probably a few more in between, but those were the main places we hung out, we socialized, and yes, where we met boys. No mall in sight, no mall needed. Different countries, different cultures, but I have thus grown up with a huge dislike of malls for both shopping and socializing purposes. It is just not in my DNA and my complexion doesn’t look good in fluorescent lighting.
Yesterday everything changed. I had my very first date at a mall. I became Dorothy and braved the wizard of malls: Canal Walk. I got lost in the parking garage when I got there. As you can imagine stuff like that makes the German in me, who can’t be late even if I try (and I have tried!), very nervous. Not ideal.

But as it turns out malls are not so bad after all.

1. They do serve wine.

2. There is candle light to be found.

3. If you take a date, he can help you find your car. (Keeping in mind the mall doesn’t provide those. You gotta bring your own date. Alternatively ask a car guard though he won’t buy you wine.)

4.Window shopping en tête à tête when all shops are closed is in fact so great I shall never allow any future children of mine to go to a mall. Ever. Sorry, kids!

5.Window shopping…ups, I already wrote that. Now you know how great it is.

So here … let’s go to the mall!*


*A line which you will only appreciate after having your own successful date at a mall or after watching How I Met Your Mother.