post-sylvester

Right. We had a New Year's Party, and I had a pretty malevolent headache pretty much all day yesterday. But now I'm all better. Some things Germans like to do on Sylvester (what they call it):

-blow up fireworks for a full 48 hours. This is fun for about half an hour. After that, I have a feeling they contributed to the headache.
-melt lead figurines on spoons, throwing the lead into water and seeing what shape you get. There's a list of shapes and what they mean. I thought I had a strawberry, but it wasn't on the list, so I flipped my piece of lead over and it looked like an Islamic lady wearing a burqa. The fortune for "woman" is that someone loves me! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this somebody is Charlie, our cat, who likes my hair a lot and likes to take naps with me.
-eat doughnuts and soft pretzels

...etc. I don't really know if I made any resolutions. I don't usually make them. I want to make more paintings and play more backgammon and work on fluency in German and just do more stuff in general. I want to learn a third language and go to Scandinavia and Spain and grow my hair and take more pictures and write more creative stuff. I had an idea for a movie script the other night and I might take a crack at expanding it and doing a little project. And I want to read more books and ride my bike to cool places and be outside. Those are not really resolutions, though. Just some lofty goals?

And here are some pictures, since I don't usually post any and I should do more of that too.


Anne, me, Rix, and a guest at our party

Melting the lead


A picture I took in September when it was warm and sunny...the complete opposite of winter in Hamburg. Le sigh.