Not Creepy. Quirky.

One of the first books not written for children I ever became fascinated with was a book my family had about US presidents. It was published by National Geographic (my father was big into National Geographic) and the book had lots of pictures. Portraits and drawings and cartoons of all the men who had been presidents up until that time - which meant the book only went up to Lyndon Johnson. Before I had even started kindergarten I was quite familiar with what our past leaders looked like - and their wives as well. Over the years, especially once I'd learned to read well enough to read a book like that, I would pull that book off the shelf and pour over it. And once I learned to read I was a bit disappointed to find out that Eleanor Roosevelt had not been a president but had only been married to one - the extra attention paid to her in the book fooled me.

I credit that book with starting me on my fascination with US presidents and the US presidency in general. I've read all sorts of biographies of presidents and early in life I learned to name all the presidents in order. Even now when I have trouble falling asleep I name all the presidents in order. I can tell when I'm starting to get sleepy because I'll forget who the thirteenth and fourteenth presidents were (Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce - likely I forget them because they were forgettable as presidents. Fillmore was never even elected president and Pierce just plain sucked at the job). My passion for the presidency expanded to a fascination with presidential trivia and then to presidential assassinations. The combination of the two - presidential assassination trivia - is practically intoxicating to me. No detail is too obscure or weird for me.

My friends have learned to accept my somewhat macabre interest. My husband has learned to actually embrace it. The US presidency isn't something he learned much about during his education so anything I have to say about it is new and interesting to him and if I'm talking about the assassination of a president, he's even more interested. It's politics and true crime all wrapped together. And as proof that my husband indeed knows me, as one of my Christmas gifts he bought for me Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell.

Sarah Vowell is proof that I am not unique in my fascination and interest in the assassination of presidents. In her book she takes various road trips, sometimes dragging her somewhat reluctant friends along, to visit various museums, landmarks, cemeteries, parks, and in the case of the place where John Wilkes Booth was killed, a roadside shrine as she writes about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield and William McKinley. In short she did what I've done myself - in the case of Lincoln, that is. I have taken advantage of the years I lived in the Washington, DC area and have visited lots of the landmarks involved in the assassination - Ford's Theater, the Petersen house where Lincoln died, the Surratt tavern in Maryland, the Surratt boarding house in DC, and about 20 years ago a took a tour where you travel the escape route of John Wilkes Booth. She pokes around, asks questions and in general makes road trips involving the murder of heads of state sound fun. And to me it would be fun! That's my kind of road trip! Going to see an exhibit showing a bit of John Wilkes Booth's thorax is something you wouldn't have to even dream of talking me into doing. Just say "John Wilkes Booth's thorax" and I would be grabbing my purse. Sarah Vowell's writing about these offbeat trips is interesting, relevent and rather funny. It's part history lesson, part pilgrimage and I am all envious that I wasn't with her when she made these little jaunts to see the (sometimes literal) bits and pieces that make up US history. It was comforting in a way to know that there is someone else out there who shares my quirky interest and for whom no detail is too minute.

And just in case Sarah Vowell Googles her name and finds this post, let me say this to her: I'm with you. John Wilkes Booth was undeniably handsome and would it be wrong to me to say that Lewis Powell was kinda hot? I mean for a guy who slashed up a secretary of state and all.

All Together Now

Language Week, Day Three. I'll give you a paragraph of German.

Ich bin eine dieser fanatischen Personen, die es nicht aushalten können, wenn sich die verschiedenen Lebensmittel auf dem Teller gegenseitig berühren. Einige Lebensmittel können sich berühren. Es macht mich nicht verrückt, wenn sich mein Ruhrei und der Speck berührt, aber es werde mich verrückt machen, wenn sich der Speck und der Ahornsirup berühren. Ich esse Gemüse von verschiedenen Schüsseln, damit sich zum Beispiel das Wasser von meinen Spinat nicht mit dem Hünchen berührt. Pommes Frites dürfen nichts anderes berühren, wie zum Beispiel Soße oder ähnliches. Ketchup und Majo mussen immer getrent sein. Ich esse Wurst und Kartoffelsalat von verschiedenen Tellern. Wenn der Kartoffelsalat die Wurst berührt odor den Ketchup, dann wurde mein Kopf implodieren wie die Luke bei Lost.

Translation: I'm one of those fanatical people who can't stand it if their food touches on the plate. Some foods can touch. I won't go crazy if my scrambled eggs touches the bacon but I would go nuts if the syrup from my pancakes touched the bacon. I eat vegetables in separate bowls to prevent something terrible happening like the water from my spinach touching my chicken. French fries have to be kept free of any touching of food or sauces. Ketchup and mayonnaise has to be separate for French fry dipping. If I'm eating wurst and potato salad they have to be on separate little plates because if the potato salad touches the wurst or the ketchup touches the potato salad my head will cave in like the hatch implosion on Lost.

And yet this was my supper tonight:



That's a Döner Teller - essentially the ingredients of a Döner Kebap without the bread and with French fries thrown in as well. And it's all on the same plate. Slices of lamb. Salad comprising of lettuce, red cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes and corn. The afore mentioned fries. And it's all slathered with tzatziki sauce and some sort of red steak sauce stuff. And it's all touching! What's even worse, I fork it all up - meat, fries, salad, sauces all together - and shove it into my mouth. Mingling. Foods that normally should not only be on separate plates but you'd be lucky if I let them be on the same table together and yet I happily and greedily gobble them down in that Döner-y mishmash, all the while nearly making the food-gasm moaning noise as my eyes roll to the back of my head.

Maybe it has something to do with me being an American in Germany eating food made by Turks. I'm making my mouth into a sort of United Nations.

It Could be the Weekend. Just Depends on What Point You Started It.

The lovely Jessica tagged me last week for a meme and I said to her "Check back here on the weekend. I'll do it then.". And I had every intention of doing it except on Saturday I got caught up in watching Dancing with the Stars and on Sunday I was entirely too drunk exhausted from being all afternoon at the city festival and Monday was a holiday too and therefore technically counted towards the weekend but I got caught up in reading and didn't spend much time online. So I'm doing it today. It's only Wednesday. That makes me only two days late getting it done. Believe me, in my world getting things done two days after I said I'd do them is an accomplishment. Ask anyone who's ever waited on me to mail stuff to them.

This is one of those "Seven Random Things" memes and I think I'll shake it up a little and make it seven random things about....let's see...about me and sleep. If you want to read seven random things about me in general, click on the links in my sidebar. You'll find two hundred of them there.

1. While I may live in the land of giant head pillows (regular German pillows are 80cm x 80cm - 2.5 cm are in 1 inch so you if you want to figure out how big my pillow is in inches, be my mathematical guest 'cause you know I ain't gonna do it for you) I only sleep on a very small portion of it. I don't really care to have the pillow touching my face - my ear may touch and a very small portion of my cheek and jaw but my eyes, nose, mouth and any other face-y parts need to be free. Now I suppose I could get along with a very tiny pillow but tiny pillows don't tend to be puffy pillows and I like thick and puffy pillows.

2. Standard German beds are also different from what one finds in America in that one doesn't have the standard fitted sheet, top sheet, blanket, bedspread and/or comforter arrangement. We have a fitted sheet and a quilted comforter covered with a duvet cover, often made of cotton, and it serves as our top sheet and blanket and bedspread all in one. Makes for fast bed making! Anyway, since nothing that's laying on top of one is tucked into the sides of the mattress it allows me to indulge in having my feet uncovered - and I love to have my feet uncovered as I sleep. It's got to be bitterly cold for me to sleep with my feet covered.

3. I love my mattress. It's the best mattress I've had in all my 45 years of life. It's perfect. Firm without being like a rock. Cushy without being mushy. I'm also fanatical about keeping it flipped over and turned head to foot every month.

4. I don't need absolute quiet or absolute darkness to sleep. I actually like to have the light from the street lamps coming through the windows and the sound of a fan running puts me right out.

5. If I take a nap on my bed (as opposed to napping on the sofa), I have to nap on top of the bed. I cannot get in bed, under the covers, with street clothes on. I get a little wigged out at the idea of being under the covers in jeans and a blouse. And I'll see you in hell before I get in bed under the covers with socks on.

6. I went to a camp for the weekend with my church's youth group when I was a teenager. It was October and rather cold at night and we were in unheated cabins with sleeping bags. I'd borrowed a sleeping bag from my backpacking older brother and thought I was all set for a cozy night's sleep because it was a down sleeping bag rated to something ridiculous like -40°F. Unfortunately I didn't know it was a mummy bag - you know where the bag tapers down until your feet are practically at a point - and I ended up freezing my ass off all night because I couldn't bear having my feet strangled together like that and had to sleep with the bag unzipped.

7. I never slept with stuffed animals as a child but I did and still do sleep with a small pillow (too flat for my head pillow requirements, however!). I don't generally hold it as I sleep or even as I'm falling asleep - I just have it next to my head. But not touching my face. Lord, don't let it touch my face.

I won't tag anyone but if you love memes, need a little content boost or just want to tell us random things about yourself, feel free to steal it. Or do as I did and tell us seven random things about you and something specific. You and your hobby. You and driving. You and desserts. You and college. Break bad! Improvise!