merry christmas to all!

...and to all a good night.

Mele Kalikimaka & Hao'le Makahiki Hou!

Last night I was thinking about Aunt Mary and her first Christmas without Uncle Jim...it will be a sad one for her.

Last night I watched excerpts from the old Andy Williams Christmas specials from the 60's on PBS. I think Donny Osmond is my age. I cry at everything these days and I got teary eyed watching the old specials. I think I have subconscious memories of watching the Christmas specials every year and it makes me miss the old ones who have gone on. I think my heart shakra must be open because I'm not historically an emotional person and a rare crier. But these days everything makes me cry...Hawaiian Christmas music, looking through old photo albums, thinking about how much I love my parents.

I will attach a picture of me and my pack. These critters keep me up and moving, even on the tough days. As I write this I'm getting my 4th chemo treatment out of 12...that puts me 1/3 of the way through! Yay!

I want to wish all the Nachtigal's a Merry Christmas and Happy and Blessed New Year. Here's to all of our good health and prosperity in the coming New Year.

if you like the balderdash

i've made a whole blog of it. come and check it out.

a big baby doll and a manicure set

was that pud or irma's christmas wish?

and what do YOU want for christmas?

russian tea cakes

in our family, we always made tons of different kinds of christmas cookies. these were the ones that went fastest and had to be made repeatedly:

russian tea cakes

1 C butter
1/2 C powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2-1/4 C flour
3/4 C pecans or walnuts, finely ground (preferably in one of those lovely nut grinders that attaches to the top of a jar)

stir it together. roll them into balls, smash with a fork so it makes a criss-cross pattern. bake for 8-10 minutes in a 400F oven. roll the baked cookies in powdered sugar.

eat. repeat.

this'll freak you out...

try this if you're bored.

Trailer House, South Dakota style!

can it really be true?

that not a single person has a single thanksgiving story to share?

more balderdash

i was on the train early this morning, headed for the airport and ran across a page of more of those balderdash-like words in my little notebook, so i made up a few more definitions.

aquallar - that luminous, transparent turquoise blue of the sea off boracay.

subedi - pockets of no cellular service when the metro goes underground.

vemputis - an uncontrollable tendency to wear black or nearly-black nail polish.

terysol - a spray which should be used to freshen the air outside of office buildings where smokers gather now that smoking inside isn't allowed.

epoide - the portion of a t.v. program that's shown between commercials.

pedinges - the small splashes of nail polish that get on the cuticle by mistake and must be removed with a brush wetted with nail polish remover by the nice nail girl.

jibist - one who makes out as if they had no idea what their underlings were doing. example: ken lay was the very epitome of a jibist in the enron scandal.

now, how are all of you doing on those assignments i gave you?

balderdash

for years and years every holiday, we played balderdash, a board game in which you make up definitions for real (but little-known) words and you try to write it so plausibly that everyone picks your answer and you advance on the board. you can also advance by picking the correct answer from among all of the definitions read. there was always a lot of laughter in the game and some people became known for the type of answers they wrote...i was always accused of anything russian-related and uncle jim was famous for ancient farm implements.

when you comment on some blogger blogs, there is a verification word that you have to type in (hint, hint, you would KNOW this if you were COMMENTING, people). of late, they must have changed the algorithm that generates these words because they are much more word-like than they used to be. so much so, that i've been writing them down for a few weeks now, waiting for inspiration to strike and to write a bunch of funny definitions. here's what i came up with this morning:

cringo: i was going to say that it's what you do when you see a WTF Wednesday posting like this one, but upon further reflection, i think it's a curly-haired white person in mexico.

rhorifer:  a filter which clears away boring conversations like "do any of you ever use the highest temperature wash on your washing machine?" at dinner parties. i'm looking into a portable version of one of these.

domit: a small home constructed in the garden to attract hedgehogs.

menwisms:  the all-too-seldom clever utterance or observation by the male of the species. as in husband's statement last week while watching news of california wildfires on CNN that it so typical of americans to participate in global warming in such an extreme way.

brapigic:  that itchy feeling you get when you've just taken off an ill-fitting bra.

mismar:  to accidentally get caught in the waves and get the bottom of your pant legs all wet.

kajushin:   spontaneous squatting.

quinort:  an orangey-colored moss found at the foot of evergreens in the forest.  can be brewed into a healthy (if somewhat bitter) tea.

those who have played balderdash at our house will recognize "spontaneous squatting," as one of the all-time funniest balderdash answers ever written. and to be honest, i don't even remember who wrote it, i just remember laughing myself silly.

and now, to help get YOU writing, two assignments:

1.  what games do you remember playing?
2.  write definitions for some of these blogger verification words (bear in mind, they are not real words, they just LOOK like real words, more or less):  relfulsi, diderest, coses, subbeacc, fazedyma, amemat, fulmor, stion, dialomp, hamerfut, hinisha, frilsha, chollnes, hialigge, rensitr

i look forward to seeing what you all come up with. yes, ALL of you. especially you there. :-)

on vets

veterans day was this week.  when i was a kid, veterans were a bunch of old guys in long-outgrown uniforms, reminiscing about the old days. today, they are young people, fathers and mothers, who spend harrowing months away from their families in a desert.

as a kid, i marveled that vets had their own day. i did wonder why so many of those old guys dressed up and celebrated a day that was, in my view, only for uncle red, him being the only vet i knew. it took me years to realize it meant veteran and not veterinarian.

snow days

i remember one particular snow day when i was in the 4th grade. i wasn't supposed to go to school because we were going up to pierre to visit dad in the legislature. it was snowing like mad and mom decided not to make the drive. however, school was NOT dismissed and although i was going to be at least 2 hours late for school and no one was expecting me, mom made me go. and she made me walk, it being too dangerous to drive (but apparently fine for a 4th grader to walk the whole way across town).

i remember trudging through the snow from our house on the west side of town, dragging my feet, dreading getting there so late. by the time i got there, i had myself pretty upset and worried about being several hours late. i think i was pretty much in tears by the time arrived. i remember that mrs. petersen said my being late was no problem, they hadn't been expecting me anyway, thinking i was going to pierre.

i wonder why school wasn't let out with all that snow that day? they always said that if mr. walker could see his black house across the street from his office then it wasn't snowy enough to call off school. i suppose he could still see it that day, tho' it was apparently too snowy for mom to drive me across town.

p.s. the picture above isn't from that day, it's from a couple of weeks ago when i was in oslo. it was just the snow picture i had at hand.

The C-Word

Hello Nachtigal's:

Sorry to have been out of touch. A new adventure called colon cancer has occupied me since late June. I certainly never anticipated venturing on this path and it has at times been very rough on me physically and yet laden with blessings. I relay this information in the hope that all of you nearing 50 will get your colonoscopies promptly.

Evidently I should have had one at age 42-44, when my tumor would have been just a polyp. Two different oncologists have told me that I must have an underlying genetic tendency for my body to have manifested this at my current age of 52. Neither of my folks can think of any family members who succumbed to the disease, although when my dad was out visiting recently he said that Uncle Jim thought that possibly their Grandpa and Grandma Sabin died of some form of cancer. Back then I'm sure people just didn't know what was actually making them sick.

In an effort to spare you the gory details I will just say that I'm glad that the six weeks of combined radiation and chemotherapy I finished on October 6 is behind me. My mom had to (once again...this is my third abdominal surgery in four years) came out to take care of me once I got really sick in September. I have a port implanted in my chest that expedites the delivery of chemo. In the first phase I wore a pump on my waist that delivered the chemo drug 5FU (appropriate acronym) into my veins 24/7. My world-class medical team at The Nevada Cancer Institute gave me a glorious respite from treatment after finishing the first course. My body recovered quickly (no doubt due to that strong prairie stock heritage). I began my latest course of chemo a week ago today. I get a two-hour infusion of two chemo drugs Oxaliplatin and Leucovorin on Monday and then they saddle me with the pump (loaded with 5FU) and send me home. I return on Wednesday for pump removal. Then it seems I get really sick (nausea can mostly be controlled by medication) and feel like I've been hit by a truck for 2 1/2 days. By Sunday I was mostly recovered. I am currently in a blessed week free of treatment. Next Monday I will return to the Nevada Cancer Institute to do it all again (I should finish the 11 treatments by the first week in April).

My brother Jerry is a survivor of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and he is cancer-free now for a few years. Jerry was very private and stoic about his treatment and recovery. He says he got tired of talking about being sick. He once mused that he may have been exposed to toxic chemicals when he and Dad ventured over to Molokai to work on some test plots. I don't suppose we will ever know what exactly caused our cancers. Envirotoxins are certainly a likely possibility.

I understand that there is a DNA test just created that will allow everyone (for $399) to examine their DNA along with all the genetic tendencies of likes and dislikes, allergies and aversions and propensity to illness. It would be interesting to see what the Nachtigal DNA dictates.

The very good news is that my doctors have given me an 85% chance of full recovery with no reocurrence of the colon cancer, and as someone who lives in the gambling mecca of the world I will gladly take those odds.

I know that nobody likes to hear about the C-word so thanks for indulging me in reading my little story. Life is precious every day. I can cry at the drop of a hat now because my heart overflows and spills out through my eyes when I think about how much I love my precious Dad and Mom and how blessed I am in so many ways.

Cherish every day.

Love, Nancy

cousins julie & gisel are fishin' for stories

Julie is right! We need more relatives participating in our family blog! So, this is an invitation to all aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and friends of the family - we need your input!

HOW TO POST: E-mail Julie for a link to post. You will have to open a google account, but this is free and easy to do. If you need any technical assistance, call me and I can talk you through it. Julie's e-mail and my phone number are on page one of the family newsletter. We're looking forward to expanding our contributors and continuing to share family stories, photos and fun.

Funny story I heard

My friend from South Dakota was telling me about his mother-in-law who lives in Sioux Falls. An older lady, she's had a couple of strokes and is not one to listen to doctors' advice. When she was recovering from the first stroke the doctor was trying to determine the severity of the damage. He asked her if she knew who freed the slaves. "Janklow" she promptly replied.

of dialogues and polemic

i was asked in a message on my wall on facebook to remove the political postings i put on this blog and to post something warm and fuzzy. i'd like to write here about why i'm not going to do that. as i see it, a very big part of why i have grown up with strong political leanings is due to being a nachtigal. nachtigals are political and i know that some nachtigals are even republicans--why not be one if you can afford it, right? my dad always said that he was hoping and striving to be a republican himself one day...as soon as he had made enough money. we're still working on that in our branch of the family.

so, it seemed natural to me to write about politics and share political articles of interest on our family blog during this most important and historic election in at least a generation (certainly in my lifetime). the purpose of a blog is to be very immediate...so i shared my immediate reactions to videos and articles i saw as the campaign progressed. what i had HOPED would happen is that if other nachtigals reading this blog (all two of them) didn't agree, they would post something themselves and engage in an argument--presenting another side. because in this case, there was only one side that i could defend. i hoped that other articulate nachtigals, even if i disagreed with them, might at least post their reactions to my postings in the comments.

that did not happen. there could be a number of reasons:

1. no one is reading.
2. people don't care.
3. everyone agreed with me (unlikely).
4. the technology is beyond those nachtigals reading this blog.
5. people didn't have an opinion about this important election (i could scarcely make myself type that one).

i don't know what the reason was, but i will say that i am disappointed that no one engaged and even more disappointed to be asked to take down postings. this election is a part of all of our stories and to edit it out can only be an echo of what became acceptable to us during the past 8 years. 

i'd love to know what my fellow nachtigals are thinking and feeling about this election. so please, use the comments or send me a mail and i'll add you as an author on this blog.  what i'm thinking and feeling about it is a tremendous sense of relief and hope for the future. i can feel as well that my pride in being american (which had definitely been in hiding) is returning...i think that tomorrow when i'm standing in line at passport control in manila, i will not be hiding my passport away until the last minute as had become my custom. i don't feel ashamed to be an american anymore. and that's something special. 

i hope you'll share your reactions here. and i hope you'll also understand why i do not intend to remove any of the political postings i did here in the weeks up to the election.

snow days

I read this morning on Facebook.com that cousin Monica's boys are having a snow day today in Iowa City. Just the words "snow day" bring back so many wonderful South Dakota memories:

*Listening to WNAX radio station as the school closings were rattled off. Hoping to hear "Platte School District".
*Mom couln't get us out of bed for school on a normal day, but on a snow day when there was NO school, we'd launch out of bed at the crack of dawn.
*Eating hot Cream of Wheat with grape jelly toast. (We loved the lumps in the Cream of Wheat. We would demand that it not be stirred during the cooking process to insure the lumps).
*Running to the window for a look outside - making nose and hand prints; usually there was ice on the inside of the window.
*Cracking out the Monopoly game. We would play with several sets of money. The games lasted for hours. There was always a fight over who got the Scottie dog marker. We'd put the money collected from Chance, Community Chest and Get-Out-Of-Jail "in the middle" to be won for landing on "Free Parking". (Now that I live in California, I realize there is no free parking, but I digress). No one ever would put the game away when it was all over.
*Getting Dad to pull us on a sled tied to the back of his pick-up truck. (You know, people, this is not all that safe.) I remember cries of "faster faster" and then watching wide-eyed as we'd accelerate towards UNDER the truck when he had to slow down or stop. (No, not really that safe at all).
*Going to Platte Lake to sled down the lake hill on the West side of the lake.
*Watching the snow plow go by and marvelling at how wide the spray could be and how tall the snow mounds piled up.
*Going outside for a big chase game of tag on wheel-shaped circular paths we trudged out of the snow. The center was the "safe zone".
*Making snow forts.
*Snowball fights.
*Icicles sparkling in the sun and later, melting - dripping water onto the porch.
*Hearing the phone ring for Dad, the town veterinarian - some unlucky farmer usually had a calf or cow in some type of distress. Wondering how Dad was going to make it there.

I'd love to be there today for a snow day! Dibs on the Scottie dog.

thought for the day....

get out there and do the right thing!

because if we don't laugh...

we must cry...

keep this in mind when you go in to vote

because SNL has got it on the nose:

larry david is waiting for nov. 4

this was just so good and so encapsulated exactly what i'm feeling about the madness that is this campaign, that i have share larry david's oct. 22 blog from the huffington post in its entirety: I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it's worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there's still a potential cure. With this, there's no cure. The result is final. Like death. Five times a day I'll still say to someone, "I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins." Of course, the reality is I'm probably not going to do anything. What can I do? I'm not going to kill myself. If I didn't kill myself when I became impotent for two months in 1979, I'm certainly not going to do it if McCain and Palin are elected, even if it's by nefarious means. If Obama loses, it would be easier to live with it if it's due to racism rather than if it's stolen. If it's racism, I can say, "Okay, we lost, but at least it's a democracy. Sure, it's a democracy inhabited by a majority of disgusting, reprehensible turds, but at least it's a democracy." If he loses because it's stolen, that will be much worse. Call me crazy, but I'd rather live in a democratic racist country than a non-democratic non-racist one. (It's not exactly a Hobson's choice, but it's close, and I think Hobson would compliment me on how close I've actually come to giving him no choice. He'd love that!) The one concession I've made to maintain some form of sanity is that I've taken to censoring my news, just like the old Soviet Union. The citizenry (me) only gets to read and listen to what I deem appropriate for its health and well-being. Sure, there are times when the system breaks down. Michele Bachmann got through my radar this week, right before bedtime. That's not supposed to happen. That was a lapse in security, and I've had to make some adjustments. The debates were particularly challenging for me to monitor. First I tried running in and out of the room so I would only hear my guy. This worked until I knocked over a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Sit down or get out!" my host demanded. "Okay," I said, and took a seat, but I was more fidgety than a ten-year-old at temple. I just couldn't watch without saying anything, and my running commentary, which mostly consisted of "Shut up, you prick!" or "You're a fucking liar!!!" or "Go to hell, you cocksucker!" was way too distracting for the attendees, and finally I was asked to leave. Assuming November 4th ever comes, my big decision won't be where I'll be watching the returns, but if I'll be watching. I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon. 

* * *

and i have the benefit of an entire ocean between me and the madness. how are all of you coping when you're subjected to the hateful ads? i'm very grateful to escape that.

time zones and news cycles

when i get up in the morning, there have still been a lot of news hours going on in the US, so these days, i'm quite entertained to see what the latest madness from the US campaign has brought while i slept.  here's just a few from this morning:

1. sarah palin's $150,000 shopping spree, including $75,000 at neiman marcus. hmmm, i wonder how many other hockey moms and joe six-packs she ran into while she was there? i also wonder what her old clothes were like that she needed to go all imelda to that extent? perhaps tho', she was just trying to stimulate the economy.  good on ya, sarah!
   
2. in new mexico, you can be drunk when you vote (is THAT how people will bring themselves to vote mcpalin?), but not wearing a t-shirt with a political message. especially if it says "obama."
3. this morning, on CNN i saw a story about electronic voting machines in west virginia that just "happened" to switch votes to mccain, despite the obama line being clearly pressed by voters. officials claimed there were no irregularities and an especially dopey official was trotted out to assure viewers that even if he, who happened to be republican, wanted to tamper with the machines, he sure didn't know how. yeah. right. strangely, i can find no link to this piece on the CNN website.
4. sarah palin flies her kids around on alaska's tab. for personal travel, like watching daddy's snowmobile race. (this one seems familiar, i think it reared its head a few weeks ago too, either that or i dreamed it.)
5. sarah palin thinks that the vice president runs the US senate, going so far as to say that "if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom..." call me crazy, but when i apply for a job, i try to know what it actually entails. and who is brandon anyway? joe the plumber's son?

i don't know about you, but i'm going to miss this when it's all over, for the sheer entertainment value.

scenes from the autumn holiday

last week was the kartoffelferie or "potato holiday" in denmark--it used to be the week that kids were let out of school to go home to assist with the potato harvest. today, kids think potatoes come in a plastic bag from the local supermarket, so it's much more about rushing around, doing all sorts of fun things. we were supposed to go to istanbul to do that rushing around, but husband had some meetings come up at work that he couldn't miss, so we didn't go there. once those meetings were over on tuesday, we drove around denmark and did things like visit an old mill to watch wheat being ground to flour in the traditional manner and we took a little ferry over to langeland (a small island) and we went to legoland and to the west coast of jutland to see the north sea pounding in on the beach (and an old german bunker or two). here are a few of the highlights:

trying out the hand grinder

looking for skippable rocks

in the straw bale maze at tivoli

seeing whether the north sea bites

it does

playing in the sand dunes

watch out for old german mines!

sights of amsterdam in legoland

check out the bridge rising up to let the boat through!

someone's getting tired...

you can't go to legoland without getting some lego!

carbon footprint

i found out we wouldn't have had to fly all that way to munich to see neueschwanstein castle. they have one in legoland! and the weather was much better!

i suppose now finn'll want one of these for christmas...

a voice of reason

this is so brilliant, i had to share it in its entirety. thomas friedman's column from today's NYT:


Palin's Kind of Patriotism
by Thomas Friedman

Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.

How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?

We are in the middle of an economic perfect storm, and we don’t know how much worse it’s going to get. People all over the world are hoarding cash, and no bank feels that it can fully trust anyone it is doing business with anywhere in the world. Did you notice that the government of Iceland just seized the country’s second-largest bank and today is begging Russia for a $5 billion loan to stave off “national bankruptcy.” What does that say? It tells you that financial globalization has gone so much farther and faster than regulatory institutions could govern it. Our crisis could bankrupt Iceland! Who knew?

And we have not yet even felt the full economic brunt here. I fear we may be at that moment just before the tsunami hits — when the birds take flight and the insects stop chirping because their acute senses can feel what is coming before humans can. At this moment, only good governance can save us. I am not sure that this crisis will end without every government in every major economy guaranteeing the creditworthiness of every financial institution it regulates. That may be the only way to get lending going again. Organizing something that big and complex will take some really smart governance and seasoned leadership.

Whether or not I agree with John McCain, he is of presidential timber. But putting the country in the position where a total novice like Sarah Palin could be asked to steer us through possibly the most serious economic crisis of our lives is flat out reckless. It is the opposite of conservative.

And please don’t tell me she will hire smart advisers. What happens when her two smartest advisers disagree?

And please also don’t tell me she is an “energy expert.” She is an energy expert exactly the same way the king of Saudi Arabia is an energy expert — by accident of residence. Palin happens to be governor of the Saudi Arabia of America — Alaska — and the only energy expertise she has is the same as the king of Saudi Arabia’s. It’s about how the windfall profits from the oil in their respective kingdoms should be divided between the oil companies and the people.

At least the king of Saudi Arabia, in advocating “drill baby drill,” is serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. My problem with Palin is that she is also serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. That’s not patriotic. Patriotic is offering a plan to build our economy — not by tax cuts or punching more holes in the ground, but by empowering more Americans to work in productive and innovative jobs. If Palin has that kind of a plan, I haven’t heard it.

campaign cocktails

is all this election crap getting you down? did you survive the Palin-Biden showdown, but you are wondering how to cope with the upcoming debates? this may help:


(courtesy of VanityFair.com)

Baked Alaska
1 1/2 oz. Don Julio Reposado tequila
3/4 oz. Godiva Caramel liqueur
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
1/2 oz. Bacardi 151 rum

Mix first three ingredients in a blender or milk-shake machine. Pour into a tall glass. Float rum on top and light on fire.

Obama Mama
1 1/2 oz. pineapple-infused vodka
1/2 oz. blue curaçao
Club soda

Serve over ice in a double rocks glass. Top with club soda. Garnish with pineapple wedge, rind on.

McCandy Cane
1 1/2 oz. peppermint schnapps
1/2 oz. white crème de cacao
1/2 oz. grenadine
Half-and-half

Add first three ingredients to a shaker filled with ice and shake. Strain into a martini glass. Swirl half-and-half on top, and garnish with a candy cane.

Pom Pom Palin
2 oz. vodka
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Pom pomegranate juice
Champagne

Add first three ingredients to a shaker filled with ice and shake. Strain into a martini glass rimmed with red sugar “lipstick.” Top with champagne.

Cuppa Joe Biden
1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. Baileys
1 oz. Irish whiskey
6 oz. hot coffee
Whipped cream

Combine first four ingredients. Pour into a brown-sugar-rimmed glass and top with whipped cream.

On the Baracks
2 oz. citrus-flavored vodka
1 oz. blue curaçao
Lime juice
Sprite

Add ingredients to a shaker filled with ice and shake. Pour cocktail and ice into a highball glass.

verbiage

alas, i cannot take credit for this, as it is her own words...tell me, do you want THIS as your nearly next president?

"On Good and Evil"

It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.

That's not a good guy.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"You Can't Blink"

You can't blink.
You have to be wired
In a way of being
So committed to the mission,

The mission that we're on,
Reform of this country,
And victory in the war,
You can't blink.

So I didn't blink.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)


"Haiku"

These corporations.
Today it was AIG,
Important call, there.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)


"Befoulers of the Verbiage"

It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)


"Secret Conversation"

I asked President Karzai:

"Is that what you are seeking, also?
"That strategy that has worked in Iraq?
"That John McCain had pushed for?
"More troops?
"A counterinsurgency strategy?"

And he said, "Yes."

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"Outside"

I am a Washington outsider.
I mean,
Look at where you are.
I'm a Washington outsider.

I do not have those allegiances
To the power brokers,
To the lobbyists.
We need someone like that.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)

"On the Bailout"

Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the—
It's got to be all about job creation, too.

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

We've got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We've got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"Challenge to a Cynic"

You are a cynic.
Because show me where
I have ever said
That there's absolute proof
That nothing that man
Has ever conducted
Or engaged in,
Has had any effect,
Or no effect,
On climate change.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)


"On Reporters"

It's funny that
A comment like that
Was kinda made to,
I don't know,
You know ...

Reporters.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"Small Mayors"

You know,
Small mayors,
Mayors of small towns—
Quote, unquote—
They're on the front lines.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 19, 2008)

"our last hope...

...of ending our country's reputation as the fat assholes of the universe:"


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

i know we're not jewish, but think about it...

they can't be serious...

ok, this latest excerpt from katie couric's interviews with sarah palin takes the cake:

Asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, Palin - a journalism major in college - could not name one publication.

"I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media," she said at first. Couric responded, "What, specifically?"

"Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."

"Can you name a few?"

"I have a vast variety of source where we get our news," Palin said. "Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, 'wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

* * *

who do these people think they're kidding?

use your vote wisely

just had to share one more to assist you in making the right decision come election day.

if you didn't see this

at least there's SOMETHING to laugh about with regard to this ridiculous woman. if you missed the original one, it's here. and frighteningly, it seems to be as much of a joke as this one from SNL.

ralph & pat in denmark

we've been busy since mom & dad's visit to copenhagen began and tomorrow it's already over. 

since they arrived, we've...

 put them to work washing windows:

we've acquired a big-ass t.v. (on which to play the Wii):

we've roasted a whole hog:

we've gone for a walk in the waning afternoon sunshine:

we've hunted 4 (and 5 and 6) leaf clovers:

and mushrooms:

we've gone for a walk in the king's gardens in copenhagen:

had an expensive beer at nyhavn:

and posed for a picture at nyhavn:

it's been great to have them here, but i suspect they'll be glad to go home to their microwave, fast washing machine and weak coffee. oh yeah, and their t.v.

parenting 101

why, oh why, have we spent a small fortune on legos when all it takes is a couple of cardboard boxes and you have hours of fun....

the house on the creek

in preparation for our upcoming housewarming party, i've been moving old CDs of pictures over into iPhoto so that we can make a "before and after" slide show to show during the party. during the process, i came across these pictures of the "house on the creek" taken when we were in south dakota for christmas in 2004. i think that was the last time i was down there. i suppose it's deteriorated significantly since then. does anyone have more recent pictures of it that they can share here?

we sent j-p up a stick to retrieve a small scrap of those purple shingles for posterity.

look how little sabinochka was!

going down there to see the house and imagine all those kids in those small rooms is something that i've always loved doing, even tho' now you have to walk quite a ways to get in there. i love hearing the stories of the prolific watermelons in under the trees and of walking cross country to school and the one about little ralphie just wanting to hold a cookie for a minute. i don't know if sabin will remember having been down there at that age. i'll have to be sure to take her again before there's nothing left to see.

the view from poppelvej

this has been the view from poppelvej for almost a month. child playing DS lite, mother trying to engage her via skype. tomorrow, she'll be home!!!  yippee!!!!

if you too would like to make free calls from computer to computer and really, really, really inexpensive calls to phones all over the world, you too can have skype. http://www.skype.com. it's a free download. nachtigals love free. go, get it now, and ping me on my 'puter.

the "eyes" have it...

photo credit:  moneek

although i wasn't there...

monica loaded up the whole batch and met the grandparents in omaha at the zoo last weekend.

doesn't she have a fabulous camera? even tho' it's not a nikon. :-)

in a burst of creativity, i successfully scanned a "thank you" picture for don and debbie and uploaded it on the blog (see below).

then, somehow i found another blog site where cousin monique had created a "wordle" describing her time with sabin, owen and finn. not to be outdone, i made and posted my own "wordle" (also below) with highlights from our nachtigal family reuion...(except the word "mosquitoes" wasn't big enough to portray the ones we encountered on the excursion to the house on the creek).

i suddenly thought of my really creative cousin, debbie lang arter, who would have designed and painted her own picture from paints she made herself, using organically grown vegetables harvested in her own garden, hand-raised from endangered seeds she rescued from a trip to afghanistan, onto canvas she created using recycled paper, and suddenly my accomplishments were diminished...

...but at least someone is posting on the blog - right, julochka?

thank you
to Don and Debbie for hosting our family reunion.

I'm not sure they have access to our Nachtigal Family blog, so send them a note by snail mail to: 35510 SD Hwy. 50, Platte, SD 57369.

Are there any thoughts about the timing for the next family get-to-gether? And is it too soon to ask for volunteers for the location?

look at them nachtigals!!

that's a whole lotta nachtigals!

where are the stories?

ok people, i'm depending on you here!! i want stories!!!!!

please. :-)

and not just ones condemning me for sending my 7-year-old daughter on an transatlantic flight on her own. she LOVED it! and when you've flown as much as she has, it wasn't really that big a deal.

goodbye uncle jim

it was with sadness yesterday that i read the email from nicole, informing that her grandfather had died and letting all of us know the funeral arrangements. gisel had emailed earlier in the week to say that he was very ill and in the hospital in sioux falls and so he was already in our thoughts and nicole's mail wasn't entirely a surprise.

but, our sadness isn't really for uncle jim, it's for ourselves, isn't it? those of us who are left behind--especially aunt mary and his children and grandchildren. it's difficult to imagine being sad for him, because it's difficult to imagine a life better lived than his. he surely went knowing he had given his all and satisfied with the mark he had left behind on the world.

his success in farming, the successful children he raised, the huge flock of grandchildren and in turn great grandchildren they have produced. the beautiful home he and mary built and lived in, enjoying the beautiful view of the south dakota prairies stretching out on every side. the stories that make up a rich and long life. there was little else he could have asked for.

he will be missed. i can hear him telling stories of US senators coming to hunt in his drawl. i can hear him laughing. i can picture him dealing out another hand of tell, tho' i'll admit i'm not sure he ever really understood the game. i still laugh remembering some of the answers he came up with in games of balderdash--they almost always involved wildlife or crops or ancient farm implements. 

we were all privileged to have him in our lives and he will be sorely missed, but his life is one that should be celebrated and aspired to.

i hope someone will record the stories that will inevitably be told at his prayer service, funeral and at the family reunion next week. that's the best way to celebrate his life...through laughter and remembering. and passing the stories on.

travelin' shoes

this small person is packing her bags.  in two days, she will board SK943 bound for Chicago. on a big adventure all by her little 7-year-old self. she's headed for summer camp at Aunt Monica's house. there she'll have swimming lessons, do arts and crafts, tie dye a t-shirt, go bike riding, show her cousins how to really play with Lego, and attend the Nachtigal family reunion. we are hopeful someone puts her on a horse while she's there.

she is convinced that the 7.5-8 hours to Chicago is a short flight, which it is in comparison to 13 hours to manila. she will be looked after onboard and escorted by one of SAS's Sexy After Sixty flight attendants through passport control, helped to get her baggage and clear customs, and be delivered safely into the hands of Aunt Monica at terminal 5 in O'Hare.

her parents are trying not to worry. it's going to be awfully quiet around here for the next month.

these boots were made for walkin'

just ran onto these pix of a very small sabin.  those were her first little cowboy boots ever. she's much bigger now, but still loves a good pair of boots. 

can you guess?

what questions this picture mosaic might be the answer to?

1. Nachtigal, 2. i'll take this end of the boat ok?, 3. Driving to Eastern South Dakota - 7, 4. purple colored black butterflies, 5. Bill Clinton 7, 6. Hendrick's Gin, 7. stellenbosch_delheim 240, 8. Delicious Cheese, 9. Underwood, 10. Not available, 11. From above...12. Not available

news bulletin

small person with long hair on the right coming soon to a family reunion near you.

father's day tradition

last sunday was father's day.  i suppose all of you knew that.  i, however, must have missed out that little bulletin, despite the fact that i hang around in front of the internet quite a lot and should probably have realized it.  i even think it was father's day in my country of residence, so i have no excuse.  and we equally forgot "far" on this side of the Atlantic as well.

what we used to do for father's day in the old days (when i was a kid), was go to the big South Dakota paint horse association paint-o-rama in Huron, thereby leaving dad at home alone in peace.  this way, he could commune with his tomato plants and then head to the golf club undisturbed by all that family togetherness.  we'd bring him home a dinner that we picked up at taco john's before we headed home and he seemed quite content with that.

the one and only time we dragged him to a horse show other than the local 4-H show when it was in Platte, was an open show in Tyndall.  i'm not sure it was father's day, but i'll tell the story anyway.  it was a beastly hot summer day.  like 106 degrees in the shade.  the lunch stand ran out of cold beverages.  then the swimming pool across the road dried up.  and the whole town eventually ran out of ice and liquids of any kind.  but did we go home?  no we did not.  we did halter classes, western pleasure, reining and stayed 'til the bitter end with the barrel racing and the pole bending.  only when it was all over did we pack up our wilted bodies and go home.

that was dad's last horse show.  and he didn't even have to stand around in the sun in polyester pants and a long-sleeved shirt and cowboy hat.

happy belated father's day, dad!!!

Article from South Dakota Magazine

I came across this article from March of 2005 entitled "SDSU Honors Nachtigals, including Renegade Ralph".

South Dakota Magazine Filed by Bernie Hunhoff at 8:23 am

S.D. State University in Brookings honored the Nachtigals of South Dakota as its Family of the Year. We know lots of Nachtigals, and in our book they deserve the honors. They're all nice people who love South Dakota and most have stayed right here.

Emil Nachtigal went to SDSU in 1915. Six of his ten kids and about 14 of his grandchildren have graduated now. They're teachers, businessmen, veterinarians ... and then there's Ralph, the renegade journalist in Platte. After graduating from SDSU, Ralph landed a dream job on the sports staff of the big Argus Leader in Sioux Falls. But soon after he started, the paper's corporate fathers instituted a new dress policy that required a jacket and tie. Ralph said he just didn't want to wear a tie. They said he had to. He said he wouldn't. So he left.

He went home to Platte, where the local editor said he could do a little writing to help out. Within a week or two, the editor sold the paper to Ralph. He must have thought he looked okay without a tie. The Argus Leader editor called about a month later and basically admitted they couldn't find anybody good who would wear a tie, so they would amend the dress policy. Ralph said not to bother. He ran the Platte Enterprise for many years, and it became one of South Dakota's great weeklies. His "Bottom of the Barrel" column, which he still writes though he sold the paper to an employee, is a huge hit throughout the region.

Congrats to Ralph and all the Nachtigals.

the stories we tell

i want to read stories on this blog.

stories by people other than me.

i know you have stories. i know some of you younger computer-saavy nachtigals can interview some of the computer illiterates and write their stories here for them.

write about:

~walking uphill both ways to school, barefoot.
~warming bare feet in a fresh cowpie on a frosty morning
~watermelons in under the trees
~being dumped off a horse into a water tank
~beagle puppies

and more. go forth and interview. come back here and write. i know you can.

the cousins see bavaria

sabin on the lake near neuschwanstein slott

looking up at the glockenspiel on marienplatz, munich

baby geese in the englisher garten, munich

megan's first encounter with a snail.

hey, moneek! we wish you were here!

sabin snuggles up with cousin gizzy

it wouldn't be germany without a shot of jagermeister!