A quote of Steve Jobs

 Yesterday I saw the weekly German Sunday institution "Tatort" = "Scene of Crime". 

It exists since 1970 (!) and till today broadcasted more than 1200 episodes - the very special is that the detective superintendents are representatives of one of each federate state - as Bavaria or Nordrhein-Westfalen, scene always in the same city. 

Yesterday it was Munich's turn.

It fell into the category of: "Everything was better in the old days" - a sentence I disgust, but here it was true :-) 

Yet you also can learn by junk, and a little marvel I found in this scrap was a quote by Steve Jobs: 

"You are the intersection of those five people with whom you surround yourself" 

(as my translation sounds somehow bumpy I will quote the German version: "Du bist der Durchschnitt der fünf Leute, mit denen du dich umgibst."     

I look into the beautiful cold sunshine and brood: Do I believe that? 

And: Who are those five?  

Snippet: Quote by Dennis Meadows (The Limits to Growth)

Süddeutsche Zeitung (February 18th, 2022) : 

What do you think nowadays about the Club of Rome? (...)

Meadows: 

"I grew older. More and more I understood that most people rather do not need that I have an opinion of them. So it is irrelevant for me, what the Club of Rome thinks about me, and I am sure , that they do not bother what I think of them, so I did not trouble myself to form an opinion."

and: 

"One of the guiding principles (maxims) of my life is: 

"Play the cards you've got, instead of wishing you had got different ones."

(The article was in German, so I hope my translation to be correct). 

No milk today...

 

No, that's not true. I drink milk - in my coffee and in my tea (though for three days I followed the advice of a well-researched study to NOT drink milk in tea or coffee, because it stops the beneficial "clearing things" of coffee or tea - I forgot which, must be the result of my stubbornness ). 

I have discipline - but as the bitterness of the coffee soured my face, after three days I said: 

"Mumpitz! Balderdash! Poppycock!" or something like that . "I did not become ... mumble, mumble... a glorious ripe woman (that periphrasis might be the result of the three days fast...) to start with that nonsense!" That I said while I did some MIF or TIF - I do not tell you which... 

I am a person who ate butter when the world recommended margarine, and every morning I eat an egg. And add milk to my porridge. Oh, oh, oh...  

The cows you see in the picture are living on a farm near by - and life for the triplets is adventurous: there are also cats, hens, rabbits, and tractors. All equally exciting. 

How to "reframe" a molehill

 

Why on earth did I choose the photo above for a post I wanted to write about "reframing"?  

Reason most often follows my impulsive choices.  

Moles - as every gardener knows - are a nuisance in a well-kept garden.  On a meadow I can watch them without anger or worry - not mulling if the farmer shares my nonchalance. 

"Reframing" is a modern psychologic method which turns an old-fashioned adage into something that brings more money. Olden folks said: "Look at the bright side!" - now we "reframe". (Sorry, I know, dear psychologists, that my name is Horatio: "There are more things in heaven and earth...")

The well-advised gardener tells himself how valuable the fluffy worked-through earth of a molehill is (though preferably brought from a meadow, miles away from his garden). 

From the realm of metaphor to reality: 

Since yesterday I have to stay at home (in Bavaria) - only for three or four days, and just as a precaution. 

My dear friend Anne visited me on Wednesday, so glad to see her! 

Her daughter, a vet (horses mainly) and mother of three boys who go to school, lives only 45 minutes by car from me, and as Anne was visiting her she drove her mother to me. All three of us had a wonderful cheery evening. 

Son&DiL thought it wise that for 3 -4 days after that visit I shouldn't have contact with the triplets - Omicron is in Germany at its height, really alarming. All of us are 3x vaccinated (except the triplets of course) - and I can understand their concerns, especially as mostly school kids spread that plague now. 

When I told Anne that I have to stay at home (of course with walks and buying groceries) she said: "You should have told me, then we wouldn't have come..." "Exactly", I interrupted, "that is just why I didn't - I wanted you here!!"

 

And then her daughter used the technique of "reframing": "Well, see it like this: now you will have three days just for yourself, isn't that wonderful?" 

Knowing that it is only for a short time I agree with her: 

it is. 

Now I have a mini-holiday, a bulk of time to write, do Yoga, do my household, make plans, draw, think - wonderful!"

   

Snippet: When I get up in the morning

This is the view I have here in Bavaria early in the morning. VERY early in the morning. The earlier I go to sleep (hahaha - with the hens, we say in Germany and I feel almost guilty that it now sometimes means 22:00 -- but then: I am tired by highly amusing workouts with the triplets) the earlier I wake up - has some logic, come to think of it. 

Early sounds are: a cock, the little red train (hooting on unguarded railway crossings) - and some cars in a distance. 

So have a good morning and a bright day! 

My Quote of the day: 

Anthony Quinn: "Even with 60 you still can be 40 - but only for half an hour per day."  (rough translation by me)

A New Drive

 

Since last month I have again a car. I told you that in Berlin five years ago I sold Knut, the little red Fiat 500, because I had many, many undergrounds and busses right in my neighbourhood and wanted to do a little bit for saving the planet. 

When the pandemic time began I saw that this had been a fault. (It has been sort of a fault from the beginning: before I always had big and quick cars - the Fiat 500 is cute - but neither big nor quick. Though very useful in a city). 

In Bavaria - in a village that has no shop, not even a bakery - I had to go by train to the next "bigger" village to buy groceries - and carry them up a long steep hill. My son helped me to find a car with 7 seats (guess why :-)  - and the funny thing is that now he drives my car - and I got permanent -- No, not his Corvette, sigh..., but their family one above. (It is without a flaw - what looks strange is water from thawing frost, photographed through my kitchen window). 

And I am very happy with it! 

Muddy thinking

Muddy thinking? Yes - if your dear correspondent had thought a bit less about the mud and mire in which the boars were wallowing, she might have done what long time ago was part of her studies: look hard at the words of a text. 

Maybe the word "Gamsbart" would have flared up in her mind. Pip reminded me kindly using the word "Gamsbart" without any reproach - same procedure I use when "correcting" a wrong word the triplets use while learning to speak, with no comment, just blithely using the correct word. 

 A "Gams oder Gemse" is a "chamois", Rupicapra rupicapra (Latin shall keep a rest of my dignity). 

And who should have known better than I - Zodiac sign capricorn! And before you tell me I am mistaken a second time: I know that Gemse and capricorn are not the same, only relatives: of course the capricorn is bigger, has longer horns, darker fur - as was expected capricorns are better and more beautiful, hahaha   :-) 

So: most Bavarian men wear a tuft of Gemsen-Hair. To bind that is high art - for a fine tuft they need the hair of one to ten Gemsen!!! (should look as a bearskin in London?) and you have to pay nonchalant up to 1000 Euro! - and, as many handicrafts: that handicraft is threatened to die out. And as if that is not enough: an EU-regulation threatens those Bavarians, who choose to carry a feather tuft from the mountain cock or eagle on their hat, with the forbiddance to use "visible sharing of protected animals". (They are only allowed to use the feathers of old hats). 

I was a bit more at ease when I read that the cheaper version of a Gamsbart is made out of deer hair or badger, or - trara!! - boar. 

PS: While I am at it, wallowing in mea culpa, I might just as well add that I only spoke derisively about a special sub-category of Bavarian hats: the Seppl-Hut, which you see mostly on drunken men at the Oktoberfest. As I am not able to transfer a picture from Wiki to my blog, you have to look it up. No tuft there. 

The other Bavarian hats - with a Gamsbart or more seldom a tuft of boar  :-)  - are quite chic.