4 in 1 or what is egg salad made of?

thursday, friday, saturday, sunday make a monday. stirred, not shaken, to avoid confusing the hell out of each day, which went as follows:

thursday: updating, filing, organising stuff, writing emails, counting, making sure. not like. BUT lunch with bud the weiser, frow z und soothie saved my day. thanx 4 that!

friday: making a family tree, last minute of course, branch by branch, twig by twig, leaf by leaf. packing too much stuff and going on a five-hour road trip to my home town. eventually laughing and drinking with the other early arrivalists of the family.

saturday: celebrating my parents' ruby wedding anniversary. 40 years! unbelievable but true. presenting the family tree. joint reminiscing during several activities including conquest of the Dresden town hall tower with a fantastic view of the city, dinner and drinks at a very classy and supposedly "the best" restaurant in town called "Luisenhof", a never-ending and giggly tram ride back and many more classy drinks. somehow making it to bed.

Bildquelle: flickr.com, Offbeat Photography

sunday: hugs and goodbyes to the early departurists, repeatedly expressing the wish to meet more often with the extended family, picking up the pregnantest of pregnant women and taking her to the saxon switzerland with us, kicking ball with 2, 4 and 6 year olds, searching the ball in jungle like shrub, making conversation, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes uncalled for, kissing pregnant woman and almost there baby in the belly goodbye, making and eating egg salad (made of curious oval thingies that look like this <-), watching a rather suspenseful championship final, drinking more alcohol and being amused by my father and his brother teasing each other. well, my father teasing and my uncle becoming more and more grumpy. what a sight!

and finally monday: going on another 5 hour road trip to meck pomm, making plans, making lists accordingly, re-entering the virtual world of email, fb and blogging. happy egg... uhm... end.

wednesday

as part of the 1pptw (Jo's one post per day-week) i've decided to elaborate on the midweek day (in german the day is indeed called midweek - mittwoch).

for over a year now, my wednesdays have been defined by one repeating occurence: swim class. okay, i admit i haven't been to each and every one of them BUT i'm trying and usually i also go to the pool quite a bit by myself. not because i have to but because i WANT to. strange, huh. well, at least to me. not that i don't usually like exercise. for a long time it was an important part of my life. but as soon as you stop working out regurlarly, it becomes a bit of a drag and you have to battle with your very own swine dog (not a very attractive but literal translation of the german word schweinehund, which describes your procrastinating, weak and lazy self).

Bildquelle: flickr.com, Michael Lokner

i remember my attempts at finally starting to work out again, swimming being the only kind of sports that i can do without ruining any more of my bones. gosh, sometimes i hardly managed to swim a couple of lanes without taking a break in between, let alone enjoy it. then, however, i joined a gym (i know...) with a pool and started going to swim class. WOW. what a difference. i quickly learned to swim the crawl properly and by some mysterious miracle i stopped panicking when my head was underwater for a beat too long (i realise that i use the brackets quite a bit but one more time: long story).

so now, i have zen moments while i swim, i can control my breathing so well that i can swim up to ten strokes without needing to breath AND the most important: it is so much FUN! to feel your body, to notice the change in speed and ease, to master the technique. i love it. which in turn means i love wednesdays. yes!

make-up or number two of 1pptw

funny stuff, make-up. funny people, too, who make it up. funnier even the people who make it the center of their lives.

i have no idea whatsoever what made me write those words more than a year ago. either i was shocked at seeing someone with a major make-up disorder OR for some reason i started thinking about these two individual words that joint together make up (!) an entirely new word or term.

since i haven't seen anyone lately who looked crazy enough to shock me, i'd like to stick with a philosophical approach to talking about make-up, something i obviously should have done a long time ago. so, what exactly is one making up when using make-up? it's quite obvious to claim that especially women need it to make up another identity for themselves, one without flaws, a painted image of oneself that does not look tired, vulnerable or too ordinary. it seems to become something of an armour or a mask that women often feel they need in an increasingly reckless world, which eats you alive when you admit to having flaws and weaknesses, ordinariness being the worst of them all.

i must say, i agree. when i think back to my grand stand-up performance of a tv presenter who supposedly knows what she's doing, i remember feeling glad that several layers of make-up and whatnot separated me from the image flickering across the screens of the audience. for one thing, it made me look quite different, nothing compared to my normal self, so much that i was sure people would not recognise me if they saw me without make-up. this in turn made it easier to do what i did without feeling too self-conscious, although it never prevented me from being extremely nervous. nevertheless, it did help. whatever i did, i would not have to claim responsibility, at least not in terms of my appearance. a relief that was worth sacrifising an hour of my life to being made up and teased with all kinds of cosmetic gadgets.

having said that, it seems logical to say that the more make-up you use, the more insecure you are. is that so? i kind of like this idea because at least in my everyday life i only ever use mascara. this would mean i'm pretty self-confident, which i guess is mostly true. i also kind of dislike the idea because it would mean that a LOT of women are pretty insecure, especially girls. what about you, ladies? and what do men do to cover up their insecurities? byuing sports cars?