Moose Round Up

Lots has been going on in the past few weeks. Many good things and a challenge or two. It was a good week, and there is a holiday coming up next week - all of it leaving me more optimistic. There were some ugly moments last week, but with the coming week split in two and busy, I am back to trying.

We have signed a lease for an apartment and move in December. The apartment isn't my altbau traum, but it falls into the 70-80% range in all categories instead of being 100% in some and 40% in others, AND the landlady wanted us, or at least allowed herself to be convinced by relatives to take us over the other applicants. The location is good. It's on a major street, but the street is especially wide (read: cars much further from our window than they now are) and the streetcar doesn't turn (a huge factor in the noise) and there are little balconies out the front and back. There are 4 Rooms, giving us flexibility for the future should we need it. Everything in the bathroom is in acceptable condition. The basement is huge (We are so happy about this). Parking isn't quite as tight as in other locations in the city. It's on the 1 OG - only 1 flight of steps (Yey!) which reduces our anxiety about moving and for the future.


So now we are giving thought to decoration. The kitchen is an issue. The one that is there is pretty oogly and we can't change the tiles.

Blogger won't let me load photos - so the rest of the post will have to wait

Do you read home design blogs ? Anything you want to recommend? thanks

Giving "Get off your fanny" a whole new meaning

What I lack in speed, I hope to make up in additional useless trivia. Here is the long awaited answer to the fanny conundrum (drumroll please).

From the Wikipedia entry on "fanny"

Fanny as slang may refer to the:

• buttocks (in the US)
• vagina (in the UK, Australia and other places)

Abbreviations:

• FANY, (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) pronounced "Fanny" were female army nurses in Britain from 1907 onwards, and may be the link between the word and the slang usage.

This newer potential source might explain why there was no problem with the nickname for Frances historically. Aparently there is even rhyming slang for "the f word" now.

Here's a page from IrelandLogue

Fanny - A very rude word for a woman’s private parts.

Seriously.

Never use this word in polite company as it does NOT mean your gluteus maximus out here. In Ireland, “fanny” is so rudely specific, it’s pretty much treated like a curse word.

Poor, oblivious US tourists come to Ireland every day and refer to the “fanny pack” they’re wearing unknowingly causing the Irish people around them to blush and/or giggle every time they hear it said. The anglicization of “fanny pack” is “bum bag,” by the way.

When an Irish friend came to visit me in the bay area he could not get enough photos of the exterior of a restaurant featuring an enormous statue of a woman holding a plate of hamburgers. The California hamburger chain was called, of course, Fat Fanny’s. Hee hee hee.

We were lucky enough to attend a wedding in Rüdesheim a few weeks back. Here the lovely bride and groom in their

cable car. The guests got to follow them up the hill with this view. Yes, the Rhein was in flood.

I don't care what the guide books say, the town itself is a tourist trap but the region is lovely, and the wall paintings in the kloster are really impressive. We have relatives who stayed with young boys at the Jugendherberge in Bacharach. The boys loved it, telling me excitedly about their time in a Ritterburg.

It was a wee bit weird because we know that one member of the pair went through the whole thing reluctantly, at least initially. Not the relationship or the committment, but the wedding. This is hardly a secret, it was mentioned in the wedding invitation and again during the ceremony. I just couldn't get as into it as I might otherwise would. How worked up can you get about someone improving their tax situation? But the guests were lovely and I got to talk way too much with an incredibly kind British couple.

Hint - don't ever say "fanny pack" in the UK

Genitalities

We were talking about this post from Mausi, and My German, surprised that I might have any objection to naked (somewhat older) children running around, said

You don't want to know the genitalities of your son?!

(I was trying to explain that there was a difference between boxers and buck naked.)

Strangely enough, genitalities were mentioned over at Claire's today too.

Not dead yet

Still among the land of the living, but here are my excuses for not having blogged recently:

• illness (but that only lasted 3 or 4 days) and for most that's an opportunity to blog
• the apartment search has taken a number of distressing turns recently. It's my life, but it's to depressing to write about, let alone read
• travel
  
• trying to behave myself at work

Trying with mixed success to keep my life on an even keel has taken up most of my energy, but that doesn't mean I don't have some photos.