The Nazis Are Coming

Today once again marks the anniversary of the infamous 1945 Allied firebombing of Dresden that, in one night, leveled most of the city and killed somewhere between 24,000 and 40,000 of its inhabitants.

Neo-Nazis rally along the Elbe River in Dresden, across from the city's famous Frauenkirche.
(Photo from 2005 timesonline.co.uk article.)

And tomorrow, as they do every every year, the Neo-Nazis will descend on Dresden promoting their belief that the firebombing of Dresden was, in actuality, a racist holocaust enacted against Germans. Anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 are expected to gather downtown tomorrow, prompting a massive police operation that will involve over 3,000 officers. There will also, of course, be a massive left-wing counter-protest, and I'm sure the police force will be kept busy. An e-mail was sent around the biotechnology institute where Jake works warning all foreigners either to be especially careful downtown or to avoid it altogether.

My initial reaction upon hearing news of the rally was, "Oh man. I am so there." Purely for curiosity and educational reasons, of course. But the more I think about spending my Valentine's Day with Neo-Nazis, the less appealing it sounds. Besides, it's probably not the best atmosphere to be bringing a baby into. Even if said baby is an Aryan.



JEM

P.S. Stay tuned for a video tour of a couple of sites particularly significant to the 1945 bombing of Dresden.

A Mother is Born

My whole life I've never really been a baby person.

I mean, I thought they were cute, but they've always made me very nervous and uncomfortable. My youngest brother is only 5 years younger than me, so I didn't grow up around babies the way some people do, and I never really learned the baby arts of holding and soothing and burping and diaper changing. It felt like any time anyone passed me a baby, I would do something wrong and require correction. Babies, of course, are like horses in that they can smell anxiety. So, naturally, any time one found its way into my arms, it would scream and squirm and generally act as uncomfortable as I felt.

This has always gnawed at me a little. I felt like I was missing some trait inherent in all women, and I worried about the day I'd be left alone with my own baby. Would I know what to do with it? Would it accept me? Would I accept it? Would we even like each other? The decision to get pregnant required a bit of a leap of faith on my part that the feelings and instincts would come — sort of a "Field of Dreams" mentality.

And so, a few hours after Jethro was born and I had settled into my hospital room and Jake went home for the night, the nurse wheeled Jethro into my room. Smiling, she said I could snuggle him or whatever I wanted, and when I was ready to sleep I could take him to the baby room across the hall. And then she walked out. I was alone with my child for the first time in my life. My initial feeling was a little bit of panic. I wanted to call out to the nurse, "Wait! I don't even know how to hold him! What do I do?" I stared at him for a moment and then gingerly pulled him out of his shopping cart-crib thing. I awkwardly shifted positions for a while, trying to figure out what worked, and he was patient with me. Gradually the panic and discomfort faded and disappeared. It's hard to explain the feelings that took over. For lack of a better description, I felt like a mother. I felt calm and unafraid and confident. Not so much confident in my abilities, as confident in my bond with Jethro. Confident that we would learn together and help each other.


Next week he will be three months old. And we have learned and helped each other. But not only have I developed all those baby skills I'd always lacked, I have been genuinely shocked at how much I love this new job. I love everything about it. I love holding him and napping with him and feeding him and changing him and bathing him. I love watching him grow and develop little personality traits. Even when he's screaming I love it. I'm just crazy about him. Every little thing about him.


Apparently, if you build it, they will come.








JEM

Portraiture

Apparently passport photos aren't kind to anyone.

However, our trip to the friendly neighborhood portrait photographer yesterday reminded me of another strange German phenomenon (we're on a roll, kids!): Hanging on the walls and in the windows of every little photo shop in Germany, amongst the normal baby, wedding and happy family portraits, there are always several massive, dramatically lit black and white prints of buck naked people. Sometimes you see faces, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the "special areas" are disguised, sometimes they're not. OK, usually they're not. Sometimes it's just a three foot wide poster of someone's butt or provocatively arched and greased up torso, man or woman.

It's not so much that these pictures are on such prominent display that I find strange — rather the fact that, apparently, people regularly pay money for naked pictures of themselves. What in the world does one do with a gigantic black and white, soft focus photo of one's own bosoms draped in a long strand of pearls? Hang it over the fireplace? Really? And when company comes, what are they supposed to say? "Ah! Are these the bosoms we've heard so much about? They're wonderful! You should be very proud. But of course you are. You have a massive print of them hanging in your living room."

Yeah, OK, so maybe you have a significant other who is particularly fond of your bosoms or can or what-have-you. And let's say this significant other happens to have a void of taste so dense that it swallows planets. I guess I could see getting a little something made up for him or her. I guess.

So, I suppose, for me, the most baffling naked pictures are the ones of couples together, entangled in some dramatic pose. What are you supposed to do with that? Send it out with the wedding invites? Hang it up so you can see how hot you are together every day? How in love with yourself does a person have to be to say, "Hey, Babe, you know what that blank wall in the entry way needs? A big naked picture of the two of us. Maybe on a bearskin rug."

Wait a second ... that is exactly what the blank wall in our entry way needs! Couples Brazilian bikini wax, here we come!



JEM

Further Quirks

This one is for M, who "love(s) posts on German quirks", according to her comment on my last post. Here are a few more I've been sitting on:

— Sane, ordinary people talk to themselves out loud in public all the time. They discuss which tram or bus route would be the quickest to their destination. They debate which brand of cotton balls to buy in the cosmetics aisle. And they muse aloud about advertisements. And, no, they're not just on hands-free cells. I check every time.

— I know this is contrary to the last one, but Germans, by and large, are incredibly quiet. When riding a crowded tram I often feel the need to whisper, that's how quiet they are. I forget how strange this is until we have guests from America who are shocked by the silence in crowded public places. I'm positive this will be one of the hardest things to leave behind when we return to the U.S.

— Males, but especially elderly men, often walk with their hands clasped behind their backs, which doesn't sound like a strange thing until you notice how many people are doing it in a crowded area and realize that doing so makes a person look very, very suspicious.

— Germans are FANTASTIC drivers. One of the greater thrills of my life has been riding on the Autobahn with a German behind the wheel. They drive so fast and so precisely that it's almost artistic. I usually spend the first part of the ride feeling like I'm going to die and eventually surrender myself to that and then am able to enjoy the real skill that goes into driving like that.

— East Germany has an inexplicable love affair with strange hairstyles. You see ultraviolet hair on housewives and attitude lines on every other male on public transit. People often don't believe me when I tell them how bizarre the hair is here. So here are a few photos I've compiled (you'll have to forgive the blurriness, I'm a bad spy):








Nothing defines East Germany for me more than this photo, concrete block housing and a grim-looking little old woman pulling her wheelie bag ...


... with hair the color of Care Bear fur.


Sometimes it works. I once saw a pretty young woman with what I can only describe as a sideways mullet — clipped really close to the head on one side and then blended longer and longer until the other side ended past her shoulder. She wore it so well, I briefly considered getting one myself. Ultimately the risk of it not working on me was too terrifying. I mean, really, where do you go from there?

There are certainly more (Germans are rife with deliciously subtle quirks) but I think I'll save them for another dark and dreary German day. However, if you want more, go here: germanyfromanamericanperspective.blogspot.com. It's full of juicy stuff from another American girl living in Dresden's sister-city, Leipzig. I recently met her IN REAL LIFE. It was awesome.



JEM

Clap Your Hands

Last October our ward had a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the completion of Dresden's beautiful LDS church building, which also serves as a stake center. Interesting fact: The Iron Curtain was still standing when it was built. Our church was only the second LDS church building constructed in East Germany. Anyway, I was asked to play two "American folk songs" at the party, which had a sort of international theme. So, please enjoy this video of an 8-months pregnant JEM playing a couple of old country songs.



You'll notice a fascinating cultural phenomenon at the end of the video. Rather than whoop and whistle the way Americans do when enjoying a musical performance, Germans are a chronic clap-in-time-to-the-music people. It's like an epidemic. If you don't believe me, watch the runway segments of the season 2 finale of Germany's Next Topmodel at the beginning and end of this video:





JEM

Happy Trails

Say what you will about ol' W, but I'm going to miss him.

**I apologize for the overlap in these videos. Unfortunately I couldn't find a single video with all my favorite moments.**









JEM

I've Always Thought He Had Nice Hair

It's scary enough to have your husband tell you that your hair "looks kind of like He-Man".

But it's an entirely different level of horror to look at your reflection in the window and realize that he's absolutely right.




JEM