I guess, I miss NY

recently, I've realized that I must miss NY more than I assumed. I have been saving any and every ny-related scrap I stumble upon. The other day I saved some guy's online vacation album (from his trip to NYC). Usually people have to be forced to look at one's vacation pictures, no? ...then again, I actually always liked that.

but what really made it clear for me was this morning's quite pathetic incident. I was driving up to my job when my eye caught attention of something very familiar, yet, very out of place (here in Austria). It was a UPS truck. At first, I was excited and thought, oh look, a UUUPSSS truck! aaawwwwhhh. Then I broke into tears.
Yup, I started crying because I saw a UPS truck.
I am now officially a wimp.



You know, I never cried about much before (and with before I mean before the age of 26 or so).

Well, I cried when King Kong died. It was that old 1970s version. I was about 11 years old. I also cried at Born on the 4th of July..or whatever that movie with Tom Cruise in Vietnam was called.
But that's pretty much it. Maybe one or two more non-movie related break-downs but all in all not a whiner.
However, ever since I've become a mother my emotions have become partially uncontrollable. It is highly annoying.

I'm a sinner...and no, this isn't a dirty post, either!

In a recent article of the German magazine Spiegel, there was a list of embarrassing things people do at work. I think they called it: the ten deadly sins at work
here the link (but it's in German)

I was shocked to find out that I have committed pretty much all of them …or should I say, that I commit pretty much all of them on a daily basis. I am now officially American. ;) …and that isn’t supposed to be an offense, it is supposed to emphasize the fact how much I feel in between cultures sometimes.

some of these deadly sins apparently are:
- bad manners: trying to remove food between your teeth, burp, and slouch @ the table.
- address the boss informally
- dress differently than everybody else in the office (i.e. inappropriate clothes)
- leave personal print-outs in the printer
- send e-mail to the wrong person
- forget someone’s name (in my defense, I forget everybody’s name not only colleagues’ names)

well, I'm gonna see how far I get with my behavior. i'm too old (and I don't care enough) to change. the latter, ..that is the New Yorker in me ;) u talkin' to me??
I might stop flossing in the office, though. That is a little gross, I admit. ;)

woah..I was on a roll here...

I just stumbled upon this blog-entry of mine back from November..
Since there is no categorizing on blogger.com and this entry will probably never be found again, I felt like it had to be put out there one more time:
the meaning of life?

observations: life in Austria vs. USA

I would like to add to my list (of differences between life in New York City, USA and life in Vorarlberg, Austria). Some of them are very subjective (well, they all are...so really this is just a list of personal observations):

- I watched a downloaded Friends episode the other day (thank you people who populate bittorrent. I wouldn't mind paying for U.S. TV but no darn network thinks about putting their stuff online). Anyway, it was the one in which Chandler and Monica want to buy a house in the suburbs.
"New York is great," Chandler says "but I want a house with a frontyard, and a street where my kids can ride their bikes outside."
"So, you want a house in the 1950s," Ross replies.



It is a sad pun on the reality of American life (or at least, suburbian life) is it not? And at the same time I am comtemplating about that I am thinking "so I live in a 1950s America right now." .... well, this is, of course, only in terms of security.
Here you really don't have to worry about your kids like you have to in the cities or suburbia of the States. At least to me, the USA is an intimidating place (when it comes to my kids). Too many psychos. I have to say that this probably applies to a lot of big countries. Austria is small and Vorarlberg is even smaller. Just across the border (in Germany) things look very different.

My friend Rosa would frown on such a statement but you have to compare the Austrian and US news on occasion. It's not like nothing ever happens here (well, maybe in Vorarlberg really not much crazy stuff happens) but compared to the States it's nothing.

I think it is about public taboos. In America nothing seems taboo anymore. Here you run into stiffness all the time (sometimes it is restricting or ridiculous) but it keeps the greater society "in check" so to say. A small example: People won't throw garbage on the street here. It is regarded as a big taboo.
Another example: People will not make any big noise on Sunday or any day after 8pm (you can imagine how we fit in here - 3 Dominican-Americans, and one Arab-Austrian.;)
...our landlord was about to kick us out the other day because we were barbequing for the umpteenth time (smoking up the place, sitting until late on our terrace.)
...these are kinda stupid examples, btw. but I can't think of anything else right now. Maybe one example would be that kids here rarely fight. There is no school grouping like it happens in US schools and you will probably never ever see a "cat-fight" (girlfight, for those of you who really don't know the term.)

Anyway, this was supposed to be a list and I am writing a short novel here...
ok. let's try this again:

- online banking. oh my God, is it a pain in the a. It is so annoying that I have no idea how much or little money we have on our account (which makes it very difficult to control and maintain a budget.)
just so you know what I mean.
this is my netbanking username and password:
username: 45odmf027cDHYlmDXz
password: 67ffYUiF57zKfpU
I AM NOT KIDDING! (of course, this is not my real username and password, so you can spare yourself any hacking attempts but this is the exact style. AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT!!!!!)
Are these people crazy?

- the seriousness at work (Do you think I can apply the Dilbert Principle to my daily rut - just to lighten things up a bit for myself?). Americans definitely know how to socialize better. (Here people consider this skill superficiality, btw. - I find this interesting. I really had the same opinion once. Now, I am somewhere else.)


this is one of my many hurdles of the day... seriously.. (Dilbert is my bible right now).

- the climate. I hear it's like 100-something degrees in NYC right now. ugh. sorry.
Here it has been raining for the past 3 days and it has now cooled down to about 12 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Celsius = 32 degrees Fahrenheit)...after having been around 30 degrees (100) every day for a month. Today I actually wore a sweater and a jacket to go to work. It is AUUUUUGUST, dammit! sigh.

Dario told me that Maia started crying about the rain again. It really seems to depress her. Another thing that worries me with Maia is the fact that she is a bit isolated here. She has picked up a lot of the language in a very short time, however, she still plays a lot alone at Kindergarten and she is so depressed about that that she refused to go today. She is such a socialite it must be really hard for her.

My friends in NY (with same aged kids) tell me their kids are starting to read now. From flashcards or whatnot. This is unthinkable here. It just doesn't work this way. People would consider such educational pressure (on such young children) psychotic.
They focus on the social aspect first (and for a long time). The kids don't learn the alphabet until they are about to go to school (5.5). On one hand I think this is a good route to go, on the other hand I believe in the power of early childhood education).
I am getting former NYC-mom panic that my kid is not using its full potential. Maia is crazy smart and I feel like I am not nourishing her talents. The new Austrian-mom in me is telling me that I should shut up, relax, and let her be a kid without worries.

- daycare. on one hand it's probably good for the kids to be with their parents as much as they are here. Maia is at Kindergarten only from 9-12 (well, she could be there at 7:30, but ..there is no way I am getting out the house at that time).
On the other hand, this system sure makes it hard for the other parent (usually the mother) to work (i.e. follow a career).
Well, at least the government gives you money to stay home with your kids for 3 years (about $700/month). Actually 2.5 years and then another 6 months if the other parent (usually the father) stays home as well.

In our particular case I wonder how good it is for our kids to stay home with Dario. They sure are loved and happy but I think they are getting a rather laissez-fair upbringing (a style I have been raised with and which I do not approve of).

----
Alright, so this blog is about to burst out of its seams. And since I hate reading blog entries that are just too darn long, so I am going to apologize for the length of this entry and call it a night. (I really needed to write, I suppose.)

if you do want to see the extension of this list (observations - coming back home to Austria) you can check out this previous post: Austrian oddities....

nayla climbing

nayla (not even 2.5, yet) climbing up the pillar of our terrace ;)

i missed those robot news

apparently this isn't the latest news but I just saw this video and thought it just has to be blogged. the last few seconds the chick looks most real, I thought. disturbing but cool.

this is fucked up

You think you're numb to all the crazy sh*t that's going on in the world and then you see images like these and it just brings tears to your eyes and anger to your heart.
click here.

(I don't know why I scramble up the word sh*t...when I just wrote f*cked up in the title...and I am doing it again.)

hairdresser advertisement in Austria

what kind of ad-campaign is this? what exactly is this image supposed to convey?...."time to cut your hair?"



(this is a hairdresser in our town, btw.)

my del.ici.us - bookmarks so far

I guess, they are arranged by date added? ...
anyway, I have been hesitant about del.ici.us and it took me a while to get myself to actually use it but now I am hooked!

so, here my delicious bookmarks so far:

Gothamist

new york blog

IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com

fun celebrity news

IconExperience - professional icons

icons clipart windows style

NPR : Public Radio Programs

npr - all shows

NinaWills on 43 Things

43 things, live without regrets, etc.

Odeo Studio

record your own stuff online

Pandora Internet Radio - Find New Music, Listen to Free Web Radio

an online radio-system that learns the kind of music you like (enter the song or artist you like and the pandora will start playing stuff it thinks you might like, too). then you can micromanage, if you want..and give each song that plays a thumbs up or d

PayScale - Salary Survey, Salaries, Wages, Compensation Information and Analysis

compare your salary

Pixelgirl Presents Free Icons, Desktops and Gallery Shop!

free icons

Planearium.de presents: SP-Studio.de

create your own southpark character

Prozentrechnung Rechner Berechnung - Prozent berechnen - Prozent-Rechner Prozente Online Beispiel - sengpielaudio

prozent berechnen

Revised Design for 9/11 Memorial Saves Many Features and Lowers Cost - New York Times

comment to Lower Manhattan Development Corporation -only open for public comments for one week (starting June20)

Schicken Sie Blumen mit EuroFlorist - Sträuße, Blumen, Topfpflanzen, Trauerschmuck und Gebinde.

1800 flowers a la Austria

Scientific American: The Expert Mind

interesting article on expertise (by taking chess-masters as an example). ... complicated description... good article

Search 50 Stock Photography, Stock Photos, and Footage Vendors, as well as Royalty Free Clip Art, Illustrations, and Clipart Images

good clipart, good photostock, quality agency links, lots of royalty free stuff, too

Six Apart

awardwinning blogging tools for everyone

Sneek a peek at the Beardshalls

mama blog, twins, usa blog

WEB2.0 Application index

all the web2.0 apps u can think of (categorized)

WNYC - The Brian Lehrer Show

brian lehrer show - link to npr

WidSets Beta

rss feeds for ur mobile

Wohnzimmer Records - Artists

cool music

XE.com - The Universal Currency Converter ®

currency converter

Zillow.com - Your Edge in Real Estate

estimate the value of your home (apparently accurate within 10% of the real selling price)

insignificant thoughts

another bronx blogger

itzle

surf the net with your friends (as little virtually-walking characters)

leonard lopate show

npr - ny public radio

script.aculo.us - web 2.0 javascript

ajax scripts of all kinds

sitemap of web 2.0 applications

all there is to web 2.0, sites that let your heart beat faster

webcam times square

times square webcams

webcams worldwide (nyc)

nyc webcams

zulugrid: False Identity Generator

for all those forms online you don't really want to fill (with your own info)

the overwhelming task of customization

I was looking for something (I don't remember what anymore)...and decided to costumize the Google Search Page real quick.
HA! real quick, my a**...I spent like 45 minutes looking at all these modules one can add. My always so beloved google page (beloved for it's speed of loading) now takes about 5 minutes to come up (I should edit a bit more. maybe take out all the webcam links).

here a few odd module selections:
- shakespearean insulter
- google: evil or not?
- here lies (- an interactive tombstone ..i think I know what I am going to put to rest there;))
- disinformation (why?)
- fuzzy clock (half past four)
- US bra size calculator



when the modules (after 15 pages or so) started to come up with Russian and Swedish titles I was finally able to pull myself away..;)

speaking of which. i gotta hit the sack.
my days are crazy lately. (lately?...sisi who are u kidding? u r going to get urself an ultzer.)
OK, now...I am starting to talk to myself (in chat-language), so I really better get going.
nite-nite. xx:)

just my luck...

went to the movies with D yesterday. sneak preview (which turned out to be ironically titled "just my luck"...ironically, as you will conclude from the following entry.)

so, here in Austria (Vorarlberg, at least) the movie-tickets you buy are - like in the theater - assigned seats. when we got to our row and our places, Dario sat down next to the pretty girls, while I got stuck with the seat next to the questionably looking guy with the long untaimed hair, the too-tight pants, and generally of a rather hippiesque appearance. I stood there for a few seconds, contemplating whether I should make D move over into the "man-section" but then decided to just take the risk and settle. I can't tell you the relief, when I sat down.

Ahh, thank God the man has showered today, I thought. (which is not to be taken for granted here. YES, the stereo-type is true..and I cannot believe, I never noticed before. There are many people - especially men - that just do not shower every day and I am suffering I tell you. suffering. especially now, that it is like 85° every day, and the infrastructure here still doesn't include airconditioning everywhere.)

Unfortunately, I was almost instantly punished for my jugmental thoughts.
The minute the movie started, I noticed a pungent smell coming from my left. I had to dig my nose into Dario's shirt to escape the momentary gas-chamber simulation by my seat-neighbor's flatulence.
It was horrible. Every few minutes he let another one rip. At the end of the movie he really didn't care anymore. He literally lifted his ass and let it rattle. eeeewwwhhh!

Dario on the other hand was happy, I think. I was never so close and affectionate with him during a movie. My head was on his shoulder almost the entire time (to allow for quick but discreet escape from gaseous torture).

help pick a new name for my blog

i have decided that I am nothing like carrie bradshaw (the previous title of my blog was: I feel like Carrie Bradshaw...if she were a mama) - I am not hip; I don't have a crazy shoe-fetish..in fact, I hate high-heels; Sex and the city references are kinda obsolete by now; I am no twiggy-sized cutsie-cute Manhattanite (of course, the Twiggy reference is even older than the Sex and the City one); and I am certainly not getting "around" like that... so I have just renamed my blog to this lame line (see new headline above).
feedback is wanted.

other options for a new name:
A) mamas are women first
B) mamas are people, too
C) mama what?
D) bitching mama
(like the url)
E) a bit schizo
F) Austria-New York and back
G) getting wiser - or not.
(I actually like that one!)

Too bad I can't do polls on blogger. I'd be polling.
must check my new favorite url for a tool. maybe I'll find something to embed:
www.categoriz.com.
;)

have a look where we live now

so this is about 20 min. going up into the area behind our house. It is called the Bregenzer Wald. This particular village is Schwarzenberg...well, it's the edge of Schwarzenberg. This is Maia on the video, btw. She always insists wearing long evening gowns for hiking (well, at any occasion, for that matter. what can I say. she is 4 years old. you have to force them into pants at this age, it seems.)

why men never remember and women never forget

Listen to this first.

if this is true, then I must have more testosterone in me than I thought, for I seem to have a specific problem remembering the bad stuff. you might think I'm nuts claiming this, especially if you know my blog (and come to think of it: considering the name of my blog), but it is true. There are a few traumatic events I remember but generally I focus on the good.
Best example is my whole (very one-sided) friendship drama (see previous posts). If I had any "talent" of remembering the bad, I would totally put this shit behind me and have no desire to speak to these people ever again. Somehow, my brain, however, chooses to focus on the good in people. This makes me generally a very forgiving person. Revenge is a foreign concept to me.

Well, I guess, this isn't a bad thing. This has kept me good friendships over decades..and we all know friendships don't always come easy.

and so we went to see a Verdi opera...

the whole week I was wondering why I had volunteeringly bought tickets to the opening of Verdi's Troubadour and was secretly hoping our babysitter wouldn't show up, just so we don't have to sit through a two-and-a-half hour long opera. It was your typical "on-sale-panic" ... something goes on sale and you suddenly feel overcome by the urge to buy, even though you have absolutely no use for said item....you just apply the general and all-covering principle of the motto "one never knows" and you're good to go. Little did I know that my neighbor got tickets to the same opera for almost half of the bargain I paid.

anyway, so I dragged Dario with me and was despised for it for most of the evening. not only did I keep him with my "culture" from his all-day-anticipated game at home but I also exposed him to millions of bugbites and a dozen arias, which nobody understood a word of.
once in a while he threw me a quick mercy-translation of what he picked up (since it was sung in Italian), although, I think, I always got the ghetto version of what was said. (eg. D: that lady, who is stumbling around like a drunk by the way, sure has a lot to say. me: she isn't stumbling around like a drunk she is being dramatic....what'd she say? D: basically...that payback is a bitch.
;) I think he kinda brought the piece to the point with that statement, for I finally couldn't take it anymore and against all opera-proper behavior pulled out a newspaper, where I had seen a short description of the plot earlier. the story is so complicated I had to read the plot three times. when my seat neighbor asked me for the paper I knew, I wasn't the only one who had no clue what the hell was going on on stage. I still don't know what a Troubadour really is, though.

Must remember for next opera trip:

a) leave work early so there is still time to eat dinner, change work-clothes, brush crazy hair from drive home, and to put on make-up.

b) leave on time (as to not be stared at while making an entire row of people rise during the first act so you can get your fat, underdressed, and particularly late ass to your seat).

c) also, to be on time: try not to invite people over at the same time you are supposed to leave the house (an old friend of mine had spontaneously called and I had invited him over for a quick update and a house-tour. in my defense, I thought it was an hour earlier than it really was.)

d) tickets (forgot them at first)

e) there is an embarrassing difference in size between regular binoculars and opera binoculars.

f) PREPARE. know what your going to see. preferably in detail, for those arias are looong and if you don't know what the heck they're saying you will get bored pretty quickly. An opera isn't a blockbuster. The story usually is strong and dramatic but the performance is no action-crazy on-the-edge-of-your-seat kinda series of events.

but seriously, now. it wasn't bad at all. the arias were a bit long sometimes but the sun-set atmosphere was great (it's a set built on the lake of Constance), the music was really not what I expected (beautifully played by the Vienna Philharmonics), and Dario agreed that he did actually like it, after all.
I feel a little bit smarter now. ;) ... just kidding. of course, this wasn't the first opera I've seen (I have actually been in an opera once...with a small supporting non-singing (!) role)... but I really do think it's good to feed your brain something else once in while. something that isn't so easy to digest, as everything else in nowadays' short attention-span driven society.

over the hedge

went out to the movies with D yesterday. Over The Hedge was our movie of choice, ...mostly because it was the only choice. Did I mention the two-week cycle of English movie night in the Cineplexx here?
Anyway, it was great. Haven't had that many laughs in a while. ;)
D liked it, too, and he usually tries to ridicule me (if ridicule can be used as a verb), because I like "cartoons". It's not a "cartoon", I always argue, it's an "animation", which I try to sell as something with more class.
Of course,...I do like cartoons, too. ;) Mostly the classics, though..., ...except for printed cartoons/comix. of those I like the more modern ones better (eg boondocks, get fuzzy, calvin & hobbes, gary larson, etc.). ... like you care.

Anyway, I should be working and not blogging...so off I go.

oh, and I really am liking my thirties....the sex is getting better and better.
I just had a need to share that. it is not all down-hill from the day you turn 30. ;)...although, I am getting fatter...
and my eye-sight isn't all that..and my back is killing me...and...
yeah..ehm...I am not making my point very well,...so, I'm gonna go.

laterz, as my friend tricky would say.

maybe not that happy after all? or maybe just a bit schizo.

unless you can break down crying for no reason when you should be "happy" (or thought you were) then I might be not so happy, after all. I guess it is the fact that I am close to a burn-out. My job is demanding to no end, I have lots of responsibilities but no power, and to top it all off I feel like I am always one fighting against the masses. Everybody seems to hate, blame, and criticize the projectmanager...or do I have to say ME, the projectmanager. sigh.
I am now racing between two company locations and my work-load has doubled. Of course, at home I still have to do a juicy part of the workload (kids and household stuff), so I think, I will soon have reached the point where I would like to bungeejump off a bridge.

Fact is that no matter how happy I am to be out of the big city, I miss my friends in New York badly. I mean, I have good friends here but they are just not as accessible as, for example, my friend Rosa who lived upstairs from me, or my friend Marta who sat in the office next-door to me. I underestimated how valuable such daily venting about little crap can be.
I just don't have this now and the added stress of being the sole provider of our existence isn't making this any easier.

so, and now I have to get back to work. another set of over-time.
and tomorrow I am supposed to be at work at 7:30 ..HA HA!

if you now read the next (i.e. previous post) you'll think I'm schizo. and if you know my blog then you probably have been thinking that for a while now. ;)

happiness?

I've been wondering, whether I am content with my decision of having moved to Austria or not and I haven't found the definitive answer until just a few days ago, when someone told me to ask myself, where I feel more at peace and I knew that answer was "here" (in Vorarlberg).
Nevertheless, I seem to have an inner turmoil about this. Maybe it is my rebellious self, the one that called all the shots in my "younger" years. The reason I might have been insecure about my decision is that my rebellious self has been (and still is) confusing me by telling me that I am not supposed to feel content in this "godforsaken place" - as I would have referred to it in my youth.
I am supposed to yearn for the big city, the vibrant melting-pot I loved for so long. Instead, I find myself happy with the fact that I have to fight no traffic, that I can park whereever I please, that my kids can roam around carefree, and that every night I can watch a different sunset over the lake of Constance, right from the convenience of my terrace.



Of course, not all is happy and dandy. Today, for example, I realized that I think I am in the wrong career. I was sitting in a room full of people who were willing to put in 15 hours a day, because they really love their job. I, on the other hand, feel resentful for every extra hour I have to spend in my office (which there are many of - hours, I mean). And then I remembered when I last had this passion about a job (working 24hour days sometimes). This was during my days at the film-production, I used to work for.
I was 18 and shamelessly exploited there but, nevertheless, I have never found more joy in a job. It is a field full of creativity and interesting people. Of course, you meet your regular idiots and a-holes but all in all it is a fun business.
Unfortunately, this realization is coming kinda late. How the hell would I pull such a career-change off now? Especially in Vorarlberg. HA HA!

Well, one can't have everything in life and thus I am going to focus on the things that make me happy.

faux pas and other rants

today I walked into an optician's store (or was it an ophthalmologist?) to get my glasses fixed. behind the counter was a - what my friend Vern would call "foxy" -girl. I estimated her age about 10 years less than what I lug around.
She fixed my glasses (the frames) for free and curious about further ophthalmological treatment I asked her where the doctor is.
I am the doctor, she replied dryly.
Oh, I began to stutter, I'm sorry. sure. it's just that you know how it is when you reach that age..we are really getting older...everyone is looking so young to me now..(thinking: oh no, did I just tell her she is old?) ...I mean,..ehm..it's just that your shirt (thinking your boobs)...
it's ok, she tried to save me from my sad twirl-down (note the sophisticated choice of words here: twirl-down. ..there must be a better term to describe this. but like so often, I am tired and semi-braindead and thus way too tired to look up synonyms, never mind THINk of a synonym.)

---------

there are no English movies here in Vorarlberg. Except for Sneak-Preview night every two weeks. I am really starting to suffer under the movie-going-deficit. we actually drive over to Switzerland sometimes to see a U.S.movie undubbed.
Well, it's not like it's a much further drive than it used to be in New York City. 40 min. and no traffic is not too bad.
-----------

damn, I am trying to post this and the blogger server(s?) is (are) just reaally slow right now. Assuming that most bloggers on blogger.com are Americans, probably old enough to work, I am wondering: What the hell are these people doing? YOU SHOULD BE WORKING over there! it is 2:55pm. ;) What are you doing blogging?
Don't you love my mathematical/statistical ambitions lately? I love making assumptions for the sake of a good (pointless) running of the mind. ... must stop that, as not to sound like a dumba**.

campaign for the 1-second film

Since this is the second time I am watching this video with amusement, I thought it is worth to share (i.e. blog). Fun for the movie buffs, anyway.