Somewhere between then and now I got sick. As in, I-never-knew-my-body-could-produce-so-much-mucus kinda sick. It’s the dangdest thing too — I mean, aside from the seven hours I spent outside in the cold rain on Saturday, the 6 a.m. bedtime Saturday “evening”, the 9 a.m. wake-up call on Sunday to be back out in the cold for another eight hours, all topped off with a train ride that should have only lasted 3 hours, but instead dragged out into a 12 hour, 70€ all-night-odyssee after I fell asleep on the short stretch between Dresden and Leipzig and woke up 3 hours out of the way just outside of Weimar, I’ve been taking really good care of my body.

For the first time in over ten years, I carved a pumpkin for Halloween. I was returning from a hard day’s work of singing and dancing with children when a crop of pumpkins caught my eye. The big fat orange pumpkins were unfortunately on short supply (it was the evening of the 31st afterall) but I couldn’t say no to a squat yellow fellow with a thick skin and a flat side. To go with the pumpkin, I threw a bag full of gummi bears and a bottle of beer into the fray, then got home. Jan and I gathered our creative juices and carved a big ol’ smile outta that bucket full of seeds.

“Schlachtefest”. The Slaughter Festival. Images of farmers taking large knives to the throats of oversized pigs peppered my thoughts. I could almost hear the fresh roasting sizzle of the slabs of pork. I was in the small East German town of Lübbenau during a recent excapade through the German state of Brandenburg. The town sits in a beautifully forested area I was hoping would be ripe with the colors of autumn. A wet and warm season lead to a rather dissapointing foliage but the town still retained its charm.

“Yeah, I know him. He’s in my physics class.” — Aaron Ross

“I could pick him out of a lineup, but I don’t think anyone would say they just hang out with kickers,” said Texas offensive lineman Justin Blalock.

“I played pool with him once,” said receiver Limas Sweed.

“I’ve seen him at practice,” said devensive end Tim Crowder.

Asked if Bailey was on the team last year, Coach Brown said, “I don’t know.”

Two weeks vacation. TWO WEEKS! And work only started up in the beginning of September! Is it the European system? or the perks of “academia”? (Kindergarten surely falls into the upper echelons of education.) As the German saying goes—It’s sausage to me: I got out there with my empty pocketbook and threw my weight around.