Frost on the Pumpkin

Post-election, we're starting to get into the fall holidays. We spent some time raking leaves in our backyard the weekend before last, only to have our hard work undone by a windstorm the next day that dropped more leaves on the yeard than we had raked in the first place. (Sigh.) This past weekend, we were invited to our friends David and Christy's for an early Thanksgiving dinner, so Speck and I got up early on Sunday to make apple pies. Tim helped me peel and cut up several pounds of apples for 3 pies - one to bake for dinner, and 2 to freeze for future needs. (The dough for some pumpkin pies is also in the freezer now, ready to be rolled out.) The new recipe I tried for the apple filling is tasty, but really juicy - the bottom crust turns to mush. But no one seemed to mind.

We're planning a trip down to the Army base this weekend. We have been thinking about getting a new TV, and have decided to exercise our consumer confidence and go for it. The flatscreen should be lighter and slimmer than our current TV, and already set up for digital and HDTV; by buying it on base, it'll also be multi-system and dual-voltage. So: easier to ship than our current model, and better to watch. While we're down there, in addition to the obligatory Taco Bell fix, we'll do some grocery shopping (the appeal of this is hard to understand unless you've lived overseas. Whole aisles of cheddar cheese and breakfast sausage! Ingredients you can't buy here! And things like cereal which you can get here, but on base it's half as much.) We'll also stock up on things at the exchange - this is kind of like a Target. Minka will have to stay home just so we can get everything into the car. Lucky for us, the Ohio State-_ichigan game (I can't write the name until it's over) is on late here, so we should be back in time.

But before that, we have 2 big dates this week. Tonight Tim and I are going to the hospital for their welcome tour/information session for expecting parents. (I'm practicing my vocabulary for childbirth terms - somehow, "labor" and "C-section" aren't in the standard German you learn in school.) And Thursday is our long-awaited 2nd super-duper ultrasound, where we're hoping to FINALLY learn Speck's gender.

We had a neat event last night: The American composer we worked with to do two projects to teach English to minority kids in inner-city Berlin through theater and music hosted a thank-you show for the Ambassador and his wife, who were truly the driving force behind those projects. These are kids from schools that had some of the highest gang and violence rates in the country, who are told every day by German society that they'll never amount to anything. Well, the violence has gone down, and even the kids who didn't take part in the musical have seen for themselves that if you're willing to work hard and try to accomplish something, there are people and organizations out there that will help you. The Embassy began it, but the German government is now on board too. Anyway, there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears from me and my German staff that went into these projects; it was wonderful to hear the kids sing again, and listen to the high school kids tell the story - in excellent English, which they couldn't have done when we began this work - of how the projects came to be. (Their story even quoted a long excerpt from the letter I wrote to the school director when we began. Neat to be recognized!) Speck seemed to enjoy the music, too - s/he definitely responds to the sounds of singing.