On Being Careful What You Wish For

I think there is an old joke that goes along the lines of this post but the facts recounted here really did happen to me.

This morning I set off running North from Dr. Koenig's flat (my home for 2 more days). It's not one of my regular routes but I've been that way before. It gets rural surprisingly quickly. You start running past small vegetable farms as soon as you pass by the main take-off and approach path of Nuremberg Airport.

As it was before 6am and farm workers are "early to bed, early to rise" types I ran past a crew just getting ready to start their shift. I was sort of curious to see what they were about to do but as my training partners know, I don't slow my pace for (almost) anything. Fortunately I was on an out and back so I saw them on my return. It should have been obvious from the field, they were harvesting white asparagus.

The earth heaps should have been a giveaway

For the benefit of those who haven't visited Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands in springtime I'll just say that asparagus is "A Big Deal" here. I won't say it's my absolute favourite but it is very good, it's a local specialty and they do a really good job of preparing it. I've only had it a couple of times since I got here and it will be gone soon (remember McRibs?) so I thought to myself "it would be great if we had asparagus on the cafeteria menu today". Fast forward to 12:30. Yes! Steamed white asparagus (in way more butter than I would use) with a couple of slices of nice smoked pork. All for less than 6 Euro.

Once the enjoyment had faded away it occurred to me I was now facing one of those logal/ethical/philosophical situations that Psych undergraduates so enjoy dealing with. Like the one about the young woman who meets a guy at her mother's funeral (If you know a psych student ask her).

The way I see it tomorrow I have two options:
1) Alter my running route to take me past one or (preferably) several armored cars picking up or delivering large sums of cash or
2) Run past the exact same asparagus field (maybe a few rows over) and wish for those same large sums of cash

Please leave a comment if you'd like to vote or if you have yet another option or if you'd care to send me large sums of cash.

Thanks for reading,
Tom

Bits of This and That

Nothing profound from Germany in this installment but here are a few observations and insights into what I’ve been thinking and doing over the past few days.



It's easy. Just read the instructions



Indiana Jones and the Temple of Laundry



I rediscovered Laundromats last night. Certainly not glamorous but an essential part of life. If you think about it the whole “one family per washer/dryer” concept is incredibly wasteful. But the ability to stick your laundry in a machine in your own dwelling, go off and do something fun or productive then come back to finish the job on one’s own schedule is a luxury I won’t be taking for granted anytime soon.

I may be kicking my TV addiction while I’m over here. Initially I thought all the channels I got were German. That wasn’t fair. One is Austrian. Fortunately I had no difficulty with the accent. I get 22 channels total. Of those approximately 22 are German language. At home when I come into an empty house I almost always immediately flip on the TV. Over here I’ve started to put on music or internet news radio instead. What has not changed is my need to have some form of background noise. In fact it’s probably more important over here. The loneliness can start to get at you and I’m starting to understand Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway. Perhaps I should buy a volleyball.

I may be becoming more German than I know. This morning my bus was nearly two minutes late. I was almost freaking out. How could this be?

When commuting by bus (especially in Germany) you tend to see the same people every day.  There’s a father with a young son 3-4 years old. The man must work near my office as he drops his boy at the day care here in the office park. The little boy is normally very cute. This morning he was just in a foul mood, crying from the second he set foot (actually today he had to be carried) in the bus. Now I have no formal training in psychology but I do consider myself a keen observer of the human condition. This young man had no projects running behind schedule and no impending cost overruns. There were no customers making unreasonable demands of him. He hadn’t had any disagreements with a spouse, likely had no personal financial concerns and almost certainly had not had any traffic encounters with poor drivers. Maybe he was in a foul mood just because he was. And maybe that happens to all of us. We get into a funk just because. On the other hand maybe everything happens for a reason and he didn’t get a prize in his cereal or he hated the outfit his mother made him wear. Who knows?

On the factual side I’m keeping myself fed and I’m running every day with no particular program or goal. Most days I get plenty of sleep but with last night being laundry night my bedtime was later than I prefer. I’m able to stay in touch with my family using various tools of modern technology but I still miss them.

More later, thanks for reading.

Tom