Haus Meeting

"House meetings" are a farce.

Top-Mod believes Top-Monkey is compliant
Top-Monk does indeed follow most of Top-Mod's rules
Top-Monk manipulates Top-Mod into complying with whatever she wants

So they call meetings only to lay down the law.

How old are we, anyway? I chose a "WG" (Wohngemeinschaft ~= shared flat) for two reasons: 1) my unschooled German needs all the input and revision it can get, and 2) living alone seems to exacerbate some people's eccentricities. I naively thought that a woman in her mid-30s living by choice in a share would have accepted the idea that some thing's ain't gonna go her way all the time. That should be a Reba McIntyre song. Nope. Both of these women are bloody sure that their way is the Right Way.

Look, I've lived in Swabia. I get Kehrwoche. It's world culture heritage, probably protected by UNESCO. I survived it by besting them - industrial cleaning tools, techniques and methods indeed beat the bej-sus out of Swabian sedulity. Grow up cooking in a commercial kitchen subject to random inspections by the health department, and you'll be able to study the Suevi's rites and rituals with the eye of an ethnologist and the whimsy of the Brothers Grimm.

Just don't make the mistake I did and forget it's about the ceremony, NOT about getting things clean. Once, I cleaned my then-MIL's WC right after her cleaning lady left. MIL was expecting guests, I was there to help, and I presumed she'd want things tidy. Wrong. Mortify, humiliate, offend, insult don't quite confey the meaning of Kränken.

All my sweeping bows to and poignant souvenirs of Swabia notwithstanding, my flatmates' fixation on Their Way is not explainable by cultural history or social structure. The Hausmeister, who as far as I know lives rent-free for reasons I'll blog some other day, does not sweep. I'd love to hire a swabian to train him. What would that cost, and where's the telephone number for the Arbeitgeber contact at the employment agency?

Tonight Top-Model laid out declarations, such as, The Hausmeister shall not be expected to sweep. Even when, perhaps especially when, the concrete staircase and walkway are full of wet leaves. It is hereby proclaimed, the litigious American shall learn the concept of personal responsibilty. We intelligent Germans learn to look where we step.

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Improved English Spelling

Someone who knows how much I hate e-mail fwds printed this out and mailed it to me with a hand-written note. As an Autobahn fan, I got a good belly chuckle.


Improved English Spelling

The European Commission just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have less letters.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away. By the 4th year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ACHTUNG! ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!

Ve haf also decided zat driving vil be changed to ze oposit sid of ze road. Ze first year ve vil change over ze truks and buses.

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