Monday Morning Germs

Haven't written anything here in a few days. One child was sick, so I was in Mama Overdrive. She had a fever and glassy eyes for about three days, with no other real symptoms to speak of. We think it may have been too much sun. Isn't that totally insane? Here we are months on end without real, warm sun...and when it comes it makes us ill because we aren't used to it. That has happened with her before. The other, more likely possibility is that she picked up a little something from the little kiddie pool in Weinsberg Park. I have a neighbor who said she took four kids there and three of them got sick. Eww. But then another friend of mine swears they clean it every morning. Just the thought of all the pee stewing in the afternoon heat is enough to make me never go back.

Though I won't go back to the kiddie pool, I will definitely go back to Nola - the cafe perched at the top of the hill facing the park and a group of beautiful trees which hide aesthetically unpleasing Tor Str. I would love to have a living room like their interior, and they serve up an American breakfast there - Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Pancakes, and a Bagel with Lachs and Cream Cheese. Yahoo! They also have Belgian Waffles with Powdered Sugar and Syrup! They rock!

If it were breakfast time for me right now, like it is for the rest of the people in this time zone, all this would make me hungry. But, seeing as how I've been up since 5:30 with my bright-eyed, clapping, dough ball, it is more like lunch for me. And this is how I have rationalized the fact that I just had a piece of chocolate cake from the porno-star baker, even though its only 9 am. I always have dessert after lunch.

But back to the 5:30 wake up call. Partly because of the dizziness and hallucinations reminiscent of my college days and partly because of the brightness of the sunlight, I find this time of day magical. Its almost as if I'm dreaming when I walk around the house at this time, changing a diaper here, making coffee there...hmmm.... Its so quiet, and the sun is so bright, its almost white. There are very few people out and the air smells like a nice mixture of fresh morning dew and all the city trash being rolled in their dumpsters to the curb for miles and miles around. I like Berlin at this time of the day.

And now back to germs in city spaces. My husband has this weird thing for flip flops. He believes they should only be worn on a beach or in the shower area of a public swimming pool, where all I think from the moment I walk in the changing room until the moment I step foot in the chlorine is fussenpils, fussenpils, naked people, fussenpils, etc... He thinks the flip flop in the city thing is really unhealthy fashion statement, and he went into a lengthy lecture about hookworms with me the other day as we took a walk down to (eek!) Alexander Platz. If I hadn't been wearing flip flops and if we hadn't been heading to one of the most unpleasant places on earth, then the worm stuff wouldn't have made me so squirmy. AHHH! Squirmy wormy. Squrimy wormy. Yuck! Fuck! So that night, as I slumbered, I dreamt of hookworms and lice and whatever else there might be lurking in that kiddie pool. I woke up infested and freaked out. And this is one of the cleanier cities I've seen...