"You just can't get decent help these days!"

...says Walter Matthau - and he is right! 

Shouldn't you have told me?? 

I mean: it WAS a mistake when I wrote in my last post that I was reminded of Katherine Hepburn in "Cactus Flower".
Because it was Ingrid Bergman.
Well, well, well - now I know.

By the way: Look at this, please: 

Pricky

Honestly: I can't remember when I bought my last cactus.
More precise: If I ever bought a cactus. 
I had one or two as a "teenager" - they were very easy to maintain, but my heart was not with them.
In the shopwindow of "Urban Outfitter" at the Ku'damm stood a whole collection - tiny, very tiny - the photo above only makes it appear big.
I stared.
Went in.
(And fretted about my motivation. I mean: A cactus?!? The thought of a movie with Catherine Hepburn made me think even harder - was it a symbol? Do I become unruly, cross-grained, in my rebellious search for the Holy Grail?).

A cactus is a pricky, evil little thing.
In the store I thought them "funny" - and that is a word I learned to become very cautious of in connection with clothes or furniture, for instance. It always means: "funny" only for a very short time - then regret sets in, because most often it is - kitschig.
This one too.
Look at that pot! (Well, I can turn it around, then it is plain white).

What astonishes me most - beside the fact that I bought a cactus - is, that I even didn't buy the one I wanted (a miniature of the huge proud cacti with "arms" pointing up into at a relentless burning sun and blue sky in the desert Gobi...)
No, I bought that little fat one.

Why?
Because I saw that it was the only one (amongst about 50 others) that had little buds.
Pink. (You have to stare very hard to see it).
Sometimes one has to - stare very hard - to find a bud nugget - but it might be worth the effort!

Enjoy What Is

At breakfast I sit near the balcony, door open, the cool air of autumn comes in (and yes: since a few days I have added the rose-coloured dancer-Warm-up stockings, that have exactly the color of the rose in the photo above, to my dressing gown ).
The rose is "New Dawn", she accompanied me from Hamburg to Berlin, and never complained that here in the Big City she has to live in a huge pot instead of crumbly rich garden earth.
(Maybe you cannot even call it "a life" - but: she exists).
She is a fighter, a tough little person - able to look after herself (with "A  little help from her friends"), so by no means unprotected.
And this morning at almost the end of October I discover a new blossom - porcelain rose-coloured as always.
Wonderful smell, light shining through.
I think that this is how it should be:
Be tough, but also gentle, accept where you are (I am not talking about me - I WANTED to go to Berlin!) -  and let the light shine through, do not harden your heart.
Yes - I also see the little brown spots at the outer petals - but which life is without bruises? I see much more beauty, and willpower - signs of life, signs of braveness, signs of triumph over circumstances.

                                                     It's  LIFE we're talking about! 

Lisbon - non-verbal

Google swallows my comments

I am vexed: I wrote a long-ish comment on Rachel‘s post „Soulmate“ - had to give in my password for my google-Account - said „publish“ - and all of it vanished in the sky.. Might be that this only happens on my I-pad, because I thought (but still have to check) that I have commented on Tom‘s blog. This is all so annoying and time- consuming!  

Back from Portugal and The Netherlands

I took better photos of beautiful Lissabon, where we have spent a marvelous week. With mostly 30°C the temperature was so high that we gained another week of summer.
I do love Lissabon very much - I was there for the first time - and above you see the view from our phantastic hotel room.
As you know, I never announce in advance that I will travel, because I am always a bit afraid that someone on the shady side of The Law might use this knowledge to his advantage.

Now I am back - after some sunny days in the Netherlands.
And will unpack my suitcases for a while.

See you!   

I promised Geo. the photo of a raindrop

I took this photo on my narrow boat trip in September 2017. Rosemary will instantly see where I found this subject.

A subtle hint: 

A hint:

Who got it??

Thank you - and flowers for all of you!

Hurrah!!! 

It works!!!
After I tried out all your advices, (and honestly: I do not know which one helped in the end - I saw stars in front of my overworked eyes) - but the result is here:

                                           Google gave me my identity back! 

(I feel a bit as the German philosophy booktitle: "Who am I - and if: how many?")


And I learned something which seems to me to be too profound to be applied only to computers:

"Sometimes it all goes a bit weird for me, but corrects itself later." 

Yes - a metapher for Life!!!!  So:


                                    THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP!  Britta XXX 

Hacked?

I wonder (and worry): I answered the comments of Gwil and Rachel - but cannot publish them, and my Google profile is not to be reached (thus I cannot comma on your blogs either). Has anyone here the same problem? And what can I do? Thank you for your help, Britta (hope I can publish this)

Do less, get more

Yesterday I went to Dussmann in Friedrichstraße - oh no: not a simple bookshop! - it calls itself a "Kulturkaufhaus" - a shop to buy culture, mmmh, mmm, mmh - would be a nice thing for some people in Germany...
It has a special section, the "English Bookshop" - and that most often gives me ideas, and I seldom leave with only one book.
(Nowadays - even if you buy for more than 20 Euros - they give you the book you paid for over the counter, just like that.
Then I put on what I call my Freiherr von Knigge-glance -- very haughty, very severe - and ask: "Will you PLEASE put it into a little paper bag, dear?"
(I had to ask at Peek&Cloppenburg too, where I bought an Armani-dress for summer: they put the dress into my hand and thought that I would walk away with it, just like that!
And if you do not pay attention, they forget to give you the receipt too - I mean: with all the security guards and detectives around: how will you prove you really paid for it??
The book above is a reminder:
spend more time on things you love - and not on chores you think you have to do.

And that reminded me that I love blog-writing (even if I have - as everybody else - little time) - and that I should just try to keep it simple, not being a perfectionist about photos e.g.

So I will give my blog-writing what they call it in modern relationship-babble:

                           "QUALITY-TIME" 

Tattoos

                                                                           

It is summer, and it is hot, hot, hot. 

So hot that people wear little nothings - men open their shirts and their huge bellies have the freedom David Hasselhoff was fighting for; and extremely well-nourished women wear mini-shorts, and thousands of them display huge tattoos. 
Everywhere you look at their generously exposed bodies. 

The University of Leipzig estimated that 
19 million people in Germany have Tattoos. (A third of the people under thirty has at least one). 
And these tattoos are not the teeny weeny Chinese ideographs (how come that I first wrote "idiograph"?)
(The photo above I found in a glossy magazine) In Berlin you can admire hole landscapes on legs, arms, shoulders, backs and sometimes even on  faces. 

Tattoos are not without risk. 
Everybody (!EVERYBODY!) in Germany who owns a "starter kit" is allowed to tattoo his victims prey  customers. 
So: 
- You risk an aesthetic disaster (just look around!!) 
- You risk your health:  There might be poisonous parts in the colours which are not designed for tattoos, but for car paint (honestly!). 

And if you want to get rid of "I love you, Annicka!" for "I love you, Babette!"? 

Well: You have to pay: sometimes thousands of Euros if her name was a long one (choose Babs instead next time!)

You can a) let somebody cut it out (iiiiih!); or b) let them use chemical etching lotions (ouch!)  or - and that will be the choice of most: c) laser. 

I hope that these three painful methods are used by doctors only. 

So, don't hum Bob Dylan's song "Don't think twice - it's alright!" when you enter my tattoo study --- it might be the wrong song.  
Better hum: 

           "Needles and Pins!"

Some Cannot Boil an Egg!

I saw it - and I wanted it.

„It will save so much space  - and time - and it  looks so cute!“ 

Though I live on 180 square meters, I bought it.
In the Netherlands I had learned The High Art of Boiling an Egg.
Which implies not just boiling- oh no: boiling the egg for precisely 4 and a half minute - after asking  myself: „Am I -  just now - above or below sea level?" How come that at that point I always had to think of M.F.K. Fisher and her fabulous book: „How to Cook a Wolf“ ?
In Berlin I found a few flies in the ointment of my new kitchen device:
- it takes an awful long time
- the outside which you have to touch to stop the high pitched "stop!"-button gets really hot
- AND: it is not only designed for a dwarf´s kitchen (hope that I do not use a political incorrect word - I’m speaking of fairytale dwarfs) - it also needs dwarf fingers (for my 1.78 m I have astonishing little hands, and they are very capable for everything in craftwork),
- no: it also demands utter precision (also no problem for me - for some time I wanted to become a pharmacist because I like using pipettes and tiny scales).

But worst of all: It cannot boil a soft egg!
Golf balls: yes, thank you: here it manages well.
But soft eggs -  whatever I tried - NO.

When comes the day when you ask yourself:
Is it worth all the efforts?

In this case I decided after three weeks: NO!

(PS: Does anyone remember the hype in the Nineties (I think) about „Feng Shui“?
Change your fate by just moving some things around - and if you want a happy partnership, NEVER buy a single item, always (!) buy pairs.
A single-egg-cooker - I am sure - would have meant „bad Feng Shui“, even a thousand years ago.
Though I cannot verify that - I tossed out all my Feng Shui books a long time ago.

As I will do with that cute little egg-boiler!