Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village

Sunday 27 July 2014

The Marvelous Toy - my Nike+ FuelBand

Britta Huegel

Dear You, 
we are still melting away in Berlin - on our balcony we had 38°C yesterday, and in the evening we are all happy to manage just to reach the Viktoria-Luise-Platz (two streets further) if necessary on all fours and order a cool Weißbier and look at the beautiful fountain of this "Adornment Place", as the creator of the Bavarian Quarter called the many little places with fountains, greens and benches created at 1900 for the benefit of the brave bourjeois.
But lifting the tall beer-glass is not enough to stay fit!
Yours Truly - always easily in love with a new technical gimmick - possesses the Nike + Fuel band for about 5 months now. Enough time to find out that it is
- inaccurate (when I wear a tote bag in my right hand and wear the Fuel band on my right wrist - it doesn't count my steps correctly, it counts less)
- more than inaccurate - downright lying! and frivolous superficial: when I am pushing heavy weights at the fitness studio, I get less points than I get for preparing breakfast
- competitive (well, that I might be too) - it tells you in the evening, when you connect it with your computer how well you managed in relation to your age-group (I am much better!) and in relation to all Nike + Fuel Band users (among them the 17 year old sport addicts - guess: I am much better!). These points are absolute numbers, not influenced by your age.
- In my defence I can offer: except this one time I don't boast about it. Really - I don't. Neither do I post my sensational points on Facebook (and bore you stiff) nor on Google + (and bore you stiff). Yes, one can do that, but I don't.
If this little gadget has so many faults - and a pedometer would do the trick as well - why do I love it?
Well - in the beginning husband was very surprised to hear me chirp: "No, you don't have to go to the grocer's - I'll do it!" and woosh I was away - I still needed 176 points to reach my "GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!" Very untypical for me, I even offered to bring down the garbage! (He got a bit anxious then).
   The garbage is his task again... BUT: my psyche is constructed in such a simple way that it helps to look at my fuel band to make me walk and move more. And that is a good thing, simple or not. This Lady thrives on praise - and that it gives frequently. Sometimes a bit - hilariously: I'll never forget when my orthopaedist told me I should rest my knee (later my ankle - both well again, thank you) - and just at this moment the Fuel band blinked in big letters: "GO, BRITTA, GO!" (It won).
Ah - and I even learned something for 'Life as Such':
when I first put my GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!!! very high, I reached it every time, but with gritted teeth. Now I lowered the goal for a third, reach it every time, am happy - and march on, thus reaching the former high goal of the past almost every time - but with the smug self-satisfaction of thinking: I hadn't to do this.
And that's a good thing to learn for other aims in my life too.  






Sunday 20 July 2014

"Cocoon above! Cocoon below!"

Britta Huegel

Dear You, 
I am a bit suspicious by now. Don't trust myself. Or know myself all too well... which might be the same thing, in the end. 
Meaning: Look at those few posts in the July, (few?!? - I'm fooling myself: only one!), dribbling like tired water from an old hose. I know: we have July - it is hot - very hot in Berlin at the moment, they foretold us 36°C... I love it, but it doesn't turn me into a Mexican jumping-bean... 
A lot of other bloggers seem to be a bit under the weather too. To check myself out I looked at my old blog, "You are witty and pretty". A lot of the dear followers there - of course all bloggers too - have thrown in the towel. Some changed their blog-address. And I want to find out when I gave up my blog - aha: December 2012, BUT - it started much earlier, the retreat - about August, I would say. (Why does Edna O'Brians title "August is a Wicked Month" springs into my mind?). 
I changed my blog after two years - regretted it, because I had more followers then - and hope I have learned from history (hahaha, every historian gives a hearty laugh). Change isn't the answer (that will always happen without my doing). Concentration might be. 
(In this heat? You bet...) 
What do I want to tell you? I am utterly clear in my German blog about cafés and culture in Berlin; quite clear in my blog "Britta's Happiness of the Day" (www.burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com); also clear but - reduced to a balcony instead of a garden - a bit restrained on "Gardening in High Heels"(www.gardeninginhighheels.blogspot.com) - but here? 
A little dab of culture, a little dot of everyday life, a whiff of this, a tattle of that. 
But still I think I won't do what I did yesterday (at last!): I planted a new rose on my balcony, "Augusta Luise", beautifully scented, adorable apricot, wonderful form. I brought her "successor till yesterday, Augusta Luise I." from my garden in Hamburg to the balcony in Berlin; she flowered in the first year, mumbled in the second - then was cautioned by me in the third and fourth year (when she didn't produce one single blossom) - and then I cut a long story short, or, as we say in Germany: "He that will not hear must feel" (come to think of it: that saying dates me - nobody seems to even understand the meaning of it anymore today - but that might be a good thing, too). But poor Augusta Luise I. was banned into the Hinterhof - and I bought a successor, "Augusta Luise II.". (And I do hope that "Getrude Jekyll", "New Dawn", "Iceberg", "Hans Gönnewein" and the other two are willing to draw their lessons from that!)  
And decide languidly: I will stay with this blog. It is much too hot to change it now. 

Britta  
(fickle and a bit vague as the photo above). 

PS: Just to give you at least something of substance: 

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!

An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know! 
Emily Dickinson 




Sunday 6 July 2014

WOW! I'm a MOTHETTE!

Britta Huegel


Dear You, 
I feel a bit like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" - being head over heels in work, being rude in not commenting on your blogs (though I read them!) - but having time to apply for Sir Paul's Band "The Hawkmoths" (I confess: the photograph of me above that I sent him is not utterly new) - look at http://magicalchristmaswreaths.blogspot.de/2014/07/hawkmoth.html - 
and I was chosen! My heart races - and I am so glad that Rosemary from http://wherefivevalleysmeet.blogspot.de/ is there too!! 
We play in the West End in London - virtual of course, the Mothettes fluttering around the Hawkmoth Sir Paul - the contrast of our leather outfits (yes - think: Suzie Quatro, Gianna Nannini or Tina Turner) to his tophat and white silk scarf will be ravishing. 
Makes me think back of my real tour through Germany - long time ago, where we were modeling and danced for a big fashion company through Germany's big cities. Yes - Yours Truly danced here in the Kongreßhalle in Berlin (now it is called: "House of the Cultures): 



and in Hamburg, and Frankfurt, and Hannover, and Munich, and, and... 
It was such a fun! (for us - we were students and could go back to our studies - the real models and dressmen and dancers faced a harder life). I could tell you 1001 stories from that tour - but: "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!

PS: One thing I have to work out in my soul: 
I always held it with Marlene Dietrich's song - you might know it: "I am from head to toe centered on love" 


where she sings: 
                            "Men flutter around me 
                              like moths around the (candle)light, 
                              and if they are consumed by fire - 
                              well, that's not my fault!" 

BUT now - as a MOTHETTE - which fate is awaiting me???