Letter from the Wasser Family Zoo

[David writing] When we last left our intrepid explorers, they had just finished writing a 6-page newsletter and were wondering when they would recover from the writer's cramp. It seems that it has taken almost a year and a half (no kidding?!?) and the feeling is just gradually coming back into those numb muscles. Actually, there is no reasonable excuse for making you all wait this long for the latest news, so I won't even try to make up a story. Since we have 18 months or so to catch up on, we'll just let you in on the highlights and try not to bore you with the day-to-day drudgery (although some persons, who shall remain unnamed, have indicated that our everyday life is more exciting than an episode of "Dallas"). Starting here where we left off in our last letter...

Just after the last letter went out we finally got connected to the Internet. We are now reachable by email! Our email address appears at the end of this letter along with the usual pleas for letters and stuff. Use it. Any of you who are also available via the Internet, give us your email addresses! Write, dammit!

[Liza writing] In January 1995, I went to visit my sister for her thirtieth birthday. We had planned this for over a year. I had ten days with no kids to drag around. The only thing I had to drag around was the mile-long list that Dave gave me of things to buy while I was in the States. Since my mother's birthday is one week before my sister's, I got to go to two birthday parties while I was there. I had a great time. Sat around drinking pots of tea, playing bingo, yakking until all hours of the night. It was lovely. I also got to read a newspaper every day which is something one takes for granted until it isn't available.

Back from the US and straight into Maxx's birthday party. I made a beautiful cake and decorated it to look like a woven basket. It tasted horrible, of course, because I can't bake a cake to save my life. But if anyone ever needs any bricks in a clay shortage, I'm your girl. Dave was in charge of entertainment and decided to have the kids make and decorate paper hats. Dave's was a large pirate hat which was the hit of the party. I think most of the kids were entertained purely by watching Dave try to keep it on his head. (And by watching a grown man act incredibly silly.)

WARNING!! Those with weak stomachs should not read this paragraph as it contains a graphic description of Nathan's bicycle accident. In our last episode, Rebecca fell in her classroom and broke her two front teeth. In this episode, it's Nate's turn. He popped a wheelie on his bike, the front wheel of his bike fell off mid-wheelie, and when the bike came down he sailed over the handle bars, landing on his face. He broke his two front teeth and scraped much of his facial skin off. So now we have two kids with plastic additions to their pretty smiles.

We stayed in Germany for Passover in 1995 for the first time since we moved here. I had my friend Pia go scouting in the US Army PX for appropriate Passover food. First I had to explain to her what "appropriate Passover food" entailed. Then I sent her off. The PX did not have a very good selection so Pia had the manager called down to the floor and berated him for his lousy ordering methods. "For heaven's sake," she says to him, "Why have you only got a few boxes of matzah? This isn't nearly enough. And no (she looks at the crib sheet she is holding in her hand) potato starch? Ridiculous! And how can we survive Passover without (she peeks again at her list) matzah meal? Impossible!" She said she did a great job of being righteously indignant even though she hadn't a clue what she was talking about. So we called around and found a kosher grocery in Frankfurt that had everything we needed.

Baking for Passover was..erm..interesting. Since trying to get me to bake anything more difficult than a cookie is asking for trouble, it goes without saying that I should not have tried to bake the famous Barbara Wasser Passover chocolate roll. I did it anyway. After I wash my hands of egg gunk from the 10,000 eggs needed to make this cake without leavening, I see that the batter resembles foam. I t does not look like any cake batter I ever saw. I panic and phone Barbara. It's supposed to look that way. Oh. So I bake it. It doesn't look done so I bake it a little more. It still doesn't look done so I bake it a little more. It still doesn't look done so I panic and phone Barbara. It looks like a big brown sponge, I say. It's supposed to look like that. Oh. I hope you didn't bake it too long, she says, otherwise it will be too dry to roll nicely. Oh. Well, try it anyway. It will still taste good. So I try to roll it, but it breaks and sticks and I patch it and swear at it and glue it together with the filling cream. Then I wrap it tightly and put it in the fridge. It did taste ok, but I found out too late that Dave and the kids are not chocolate roll fans so my effort was wasted. It never occurred to me to ask. Passover chocolate roll is a staple item, it would have been like passing up charoset. Can't have a seder without it.

One of the other things one can't have a seder without is a symbol for the sacrificial lamb, usually a shank bone. What does a vegetarian do? we wondered. We decided to wing it with a small wooden sheep from the kids' toy box. We found out later that one can use a roasted beet. A roasted beet? Yes, a roasted beet.

I usually complain bitterly every year about the Haggadah (guide book) we use at the seder. To me it does not capture the spirit of the commandment "You shall tell your child about the exodus from Egypt", and besides that, it is boring and kids don't understand it and it isn't much fun. Every year when I complain the response is usually something like "If you don't like this one, suggest a better one". This year, since I was leading my own seder, I got to choose the Haggadah. Unfortunately, I don't like any of the ones I have (and I have a lot of them). So I made one up. It consists of the basic required rituals (four cups of wine, Matzah, bitter herbs, etc.) and the telling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. We encouraged the kids to ask questions and we posed some of our own. It was a little bumpy the first time, but it worked out pretty well. I'm sure that the kids got more out of it than they usually do, because it was geared more toward their interests. I'm not suggesting that everyone should do this, but it works for me. I like it better because in the past I have always felt that I came away from the seder table without ever really knowing what the whole thing was all about.

In June, Sam played one of the leads in the 1995 school play entitiled "Gute Nacht, Naomi". Sam played Naomi. She didn't have too many lines since her character was catatonic through most of the play. She was quite good. (I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign.) There were times when I wondered how she could keep a straight face since the boy playing opposite her was hysterical in the comic relief moments of the play. I didn't realize just how good she was until she came out for her curtain call and she looked like a completely different person. The audience noticed it too and the applause swelled when they saw her come out. A few weeks later, she came bounding down the stairs and asked us, "Do you know what I'm going to say when I win my first Oscar?" I don't know, Sam, but I'm pretty sure we'll find out.

After working for weeks, day and night, the cast of the play needed a vacation. One of the kids has a family house in Prague, in the Czech Republic. So off went Sam on her first weekend trip alone. She had a great time and bought a dress and ate crappy food because they had to cook for themselves and none of them could cook very well, including Sam. Ever since this trip to Prague, she hasn't really been home. She's off here, there and everywhere. She comes home to do homework, set the table, do some laundry, and pack for another overnight stay at a friend's house. I complained that now that she is interesting and fun and cool, she's never here. I put in all that work raising her and she's giving all her good stuff to other people. She patted me patronizingly and said, "People who are cool do NOT hang around with their mothers." She has a point.

In July we went to the States for the annual vacation and also to see our new family members, Harry Simpson and Gabriel Jacobsohn. Both of the babies turned out to be very adorable and look exactly like their Auntie Liza, which is a good trick since Harry's mother and Gabriel's mother are related to Dave. (And especially since they don't look much like each other.) We did the usual US trip stuff. Bought books, ate, yakked to relatives, bought books, took day trips, ate, played with the cousins, bought books and ate. We also tried to put a bunch of our record albums (yes, we still have some!) onto tape, but none of them came out! Ack! Now I still have to listen to Sam's music. The girl has no taste. We stayed in the States four weeks, and still weren't sated with yakking and books and food, but we had to come home in time to recover from jet lag and go to school.

By now it is time for the kids to go back to school. This is an interesting year for us, as almost everyone is changing schools. Alex is starting Kindergarten, Maxx is leaving the Kindergarten for first grade, Rebecca is leaving the elementary school and going to the German equivalent of high school, Nathan's class is being split up based on the choice of foreign language (he chose Latin, almost all the others chose French; Good boy, Nate!), Samantha's class is being split up because too many kids dropped out last year and they are merging her class into the other classes. Alex is very excited about Kindergarten and so is Liza. It will be the first time that Liza actually gets a few hours to herself everyday while all the other guys are in school. We'll have to wait and see what comes of it though. [What has come of it is that the house is actually clean and tidy once a day around 11 am. You'd have to see it at that exact moment, though, because at noon the kids start to come home and it isn't clean again until the next day at 11.] Maxx is very lucky in that she will get Rebecca's old teacher. Rebecca had the same teacher for grades 1 though 4 and this year Mrs. Ebner-Schreindorfer will be taking on a first grade class again. After a bumpy start with Rebecca in the first grade, we have grown to know and love Karin and are very pleased that Maxx will be in her class. At least we know the methods that she uses, and we've also gotten to know her (and her family) personally, so we get to see them outside of "business hours". Rebecca will be going to a different school than the one that Nathan and Samantha are attending. This school is in Babenhausen, which is an additional 10 minutes on the train. This school is a special "experimental" school, one of only a few in Hessen, and they get more money from the state and are allowed to play with the curriculum and they offer a lot of after-school activities and they have more open classrooms and a lot of other stuff that looks kinda neat. It seems funny to be sending our 10- year-old alone on a train to school, but the public transit is so much more accessible here in Germany. There are about 10 kids from Hainstadt who will be going to this school along with Rebecca. Mr. Schreindorfer, Rebecca's previous teacher's husband, works in this school as a teacher/vice-principal, and we are all looking forward to finding out what/how they do what they do.

In October, Sam's theater group was invited to do their play, "Gute Nacht, Naomi", in Frankfurt at a big high school regional theater festival. She was thrilled. During this time Sam fell in love, but she doesn't want me to tell you about that.

At Hallowe'en this year we decided that we would not take the kids out for trick-or-treating like we always do, because it is usually cold and wet and the big kids are too big for that and the little kids are too little and they always come home with ten tons of candy and they always wanna eat it and I can't afford to buy the bags from them this year and last year they didn't really want to sell me the bags anyway. So, instead, we planned a Hallowe'en party. We made invitations and sent them out to about 50 people (mostly families with small children, neighbors and co-workers). Since Germans don't celebrate Hallowe'en, we had to be pretty explicit on the invitation that only "costumed" party-goers would be allowed in. We decorated the living room with spider webs and silly Hallmark-style Hallowe'en junk, the kids and Liza made about 100 ghosts out of Kleenex which we hung from threads over the buffet table, we made costumes for everyone (as usual) and cooked and baked and prepared. We tried to have party food which was a little unusual (for Germany) and that wasn't junk. We covered the buffet table with raw veggies and dips, cheese, and crackers. We made pumpkin muffins (from our favorite North Carolina restaurant recipe) and peanut-butter cookies. We had a pot of spiced cider on the stove at all times (it makes the house smell nice and warms the tummy without making you drunk). The mix of people who showed up at the party was quite interesting, and we all made our way around mingling and chatting with the crowd. It was a huge success, and we have vowed to make it an annual event, for which an invitation is soon to become a coveted object (I can just see the ticket prices after the scalpers get their hand on them).

The next major excitement was Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday where you invite a lot of people over to your house and get to take a few days off from work, which you then use to cook and clean and cook and clean some more, just so that you can thrill your guests with your culinary prowess (that means "how good you can cook"). We did that... and were we ever tired when it was over! It was a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner, of course: Stuffed acorn squash, corn bread, cranberry relish, that sort of thing. Liza was in charge of the desert buffet (as usual) and it was very good (as usual) and we all ate too much (as usual).

In a December issue of a teen magazine, Sam had seen a cow fur top hat that was only 60 marks! She coveted this hat. So being the wonderful, but stingy mother that I am, I made the hat for her. Big hit. During Chanukah we had invited various friends over for latkes. One night, Sam's friends Jan and Julia were coming. About forty-eight hours before they were to show up, Sam told me in a pathetic voice that she was supposed to make them each a present and not only did she want to beg my help, but she wanted me to think of something good to make each of them. She had wanted to give Julia a copy of "Winnie the Pooh" in English, but it had not yet arrived from the US. So she would give her that in January when it was her birthday, but what could she give her now. I had some cow fabric left over from when I made Sam's hat. So we made a stuffed teddy bear and named him "Moo Bear" or in German "Kuh Bär" (cow bear). For Jan, we made a hat. He is a magician so we made a soft sculpture version of a black top hat with a white rabbit trying to climb out of a hole in the top of the hat. Jan says that it is a big hit at kids' birthday parties.

During the various Chanukah shopping trips, Dave was drooling over a large magnificent Lego® castle. He was trying desperately to make me buy it for Nate. Nate doesn't do much Lego® anymore. He tried to make me buy it for Rebecca or Maxx. They don't do much Lego® either. How about Alex? It's beyond his capabilities. Dave sighed. After Chanukah the castle went on sale and I couldn't bear the whimpering so we bought the castle for Dave. Why kid yourself? If you really want it, just buy it for you. He loves his castle. He spent the weekend building it and then spent a few weeks playing with it. Then he took it down and put it away to build again another day. I still don't understand the fascination, since I'm Lego®-challenged, but I do like Play-do®.

Other wonderful Chanukah memories included the annual underwear, pajamas, and socks night. We tried very hard not to go overboard again this year and failed miserably once again. Can't get that American materialism out of our systems. But we do try to temper it by spending 50% of our money on things they actually need.

In February, Maxx had a birthday party for her 7th birthday. Since it took us a long time to get it organized, I think she actually had the party weeks after her birthday. Typical us. I hope we never have to plan a wedding, because if we do the couple will probably elope, get pregnant and divorced before we get the invitations printed. Anyway, back to Maxx's party...Since she just started first grade, she had a whole batch of new friends that she wanted to invite. "OK", I said. We invited 17 (seventeen) 7-year olds to our house for a birthday party. In the winter. Sheesh! As luck would have it, not a one of them was sick or on vacation or had other plans. They all showed up. Do you have any idea what to do with 17 7-year- olds in a room with 20 square feet of unoccupied floor space while it is freezing cold outside and their parents expect that you will entertain them for about 6 hours??? I didn't think so. Neither did we! But, we tried. We started by making paper-bag puppets. That was fun. Some kids made 2. Meanwhile, I baked the pizzas (homemade, of course). Then we played some games, including our version of musical chairs: Same as the usual version except that nobody is ever "out". Each round you take away one chair and the object of the game is to cooperate such that all children will fit on the remaining chairs. Watching 17 kids pile onto the last chair was pretty amusing. Good thing we live so close to the hospital. The pizzas were finally ready. They wolfed it down in about 2 seconds. Then cake and ice- cream. Again, 2 seconds. When we had done all the stuff we had planned to do, we realized that we were only about 90 minutes into the party. Most German birthday parties last at least 4 hours (often longer). We had no idea what to do to keep the party guests from reenacting "Mutiny on the Bounty". I still am not sure how we lived through that ordeal, but I'm sure of one thing: No more birthday parties in the winter! From now on, everyone in this family celebrates their birthday in the summer (preferably during summer vacation, when there isn't anyone to invite because they have all gone to France or Italy or the Canary Islands).

Early this year USair had some really terrific airfare deals for transatlantic travel (off-peak, of course) and my parents and brother Scott could not refuse. Mom and Dad spent 2 weeks in cold wet Hainstadt overlapping with a 2 week visit from brother Scott. They all wanted to go to Munich and visit the concentration camp at Dachau, but when I looked at the cost of train tickets it was a no-go. For all 10 of us to go the Munich for the weekend on a group fare, it was going to cost over 1000 Deutsche Mark (about $600 US). That does not include the hotel, meals, etc. Interestingly enough, the DBĘ(German Railway) also offers special deals. If we were willing to travel only on "local" trains and travelled only on the weekend (Saturday/Sunday) we could all go for 70 DM (that's right, only $50 US!). I was all ready to buy tickets, however there was no weekend when my parents and Scott were going to be here together. Oh, well. Now we know for next time. Instead, we made a couple of day trips. One day we went to Frankfurt on a museum outing. We did the Jewish museum, then the playground, then the Film museum (a lot of fun, old cameras and trick film demonstrations, a lot of hands-on stuff to play with), then the playground, and finally the Museum of Modern Art (where we all marvelled at the kids' appreciation of the truly mundane, useless, disgusting, ridiculous, boring, lame, erotic, exotic, childish, fantastic and just plain silly). I am constantly amazed at children's perception as they wander around modern art museums. In great contrast to high-falutin' art critics who puff out their chests and stick up their noses and pronounce the latest "Crayola and spit" sculpture as "a monumental transcendence of the childhood anguish theme from one of the foremost geniuses of our time", kids will say "Mommy, I can do better than that!" or "What is this crap?".

The other day trip we took was an exercise in physical torture for the enitire family. It was a German culture outing to Aschaffenburg and Miltenberg (both rather old cities on the Main river in Bavaria). When planning such a trip with many small children, we make sure that we take along enough food, water, film, hats, sweaters, extra clothes, books, snacks, crayons, paper, maps and traps and rocks and locks. (OK, for those of you who just read that last bit and mumbled "Huh?", I suggest you check a copy of "Tacky the Penguin" out of your local library.) First we took the train to Babenhausen (where Rebecca goes to school) and changed trains headed for Aschaffenburg. On arrival in Aschaffenburg, we bought the train tickets. Usually, you buy the tickets before you get on the train (even in Germany), but the ticket office at the train station in Hainstadt wasn't open at that hour (it is only open from 6:49 to 7:51 AM and 2:14 to 2:16 PM to accomodate the most punctual of German travellers). So we boarded anyway and figured we would buy our tickets on the train. The train conductor couldn't be bothered selling me a group ticket for 10 people (some of whom were children and only paid half fare) as it was all too complicated for him. He suggested that we buy the tickets at the station in Babenhausen while we waited for our connecting train. The layover time in Babenhausen wasn't more than 30 or 40 microseconds, so you know what happened there. Needless to say we arrived in Aschaffenburg having never paid for a single kilometer of the trip. Honest and upstanding citizens that we are, we went directly to the police and turned ourselves in. Well...no...but we did go directly to the ticket office and buy round-trip tickets, even though half the trip was already over. We then hiked up the hill towards the "Schloss" (Palace) and were intercepted halfway up by a "Mall" (Mall). Yes, the American kind: 100 shops in an enclosed building where the temperature inside has absolutely no relation to the temperature outside. The kids went wild. Grandma Wasser bought Birkenstocks while everyone else tried on 6 pairs of shoes (each) driving the salesperson more batty with each passing second. Eventually we escaped the clutches of modern consumerism and proceded with great vigor in the direction of the palace. The road we chose wended its way through a park, which gave the kids plenty of opportunity to run amok and we sat next to a small pond to eat our snack, which consisted of bread rolls, cheese and other assorted munchies. Somehow in the middle of all the crunching and munching, Rebecca managed to break off the epoxy tooth cap on one of her front teeth (see last letter for gory details on this topic). It took us a while to calm her down before it was clear that we were going to be able to continue our outing. Finally, after no further catastrophies, we made it to the palace: "Schloss Johannisburg". This is a completely restored building (the original was built around 1600 and destroyed during the last war) which houses an impressive collection of art (paintings, glass, sculpture, tapestries, etc.), antique furniture, etc. We wandered about the many rooms and were busily comparing the works of unknown (to us anyway) German and Dutch painters while the children ran about and made every effort to increase the heart rate of the security staff. In all, we had to leave before really getting to look at a lot of it and I think we will try to come back another time. We had to get back to the train station to catch our next train on the continuing journey to Miltenberg. Miltenberg is one of the oldest towns in this area of Germany and was spared during the war. The town boasts many old buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries. It was a popular trading post during the middle ages. I had arranged with the local tourist board for a guided tour of the town in English. Our tour guide (a school teacher) was great fun. She was very good with the children, kept them interested, asked them questions, told a lot of jokes and nasty stories about witches and stuff. Her knowledge of the town's history and folklore was quite impressive (considering that she had only been living there for a few years). She had us running all around the town as she pointed out this architecture and that church and this cemetery and that gate. After 2 hours we all felt as if we had gone back in time to the middle ages. It was very refreshing! When the tour was over we invited our guide for ice cream and then trudged back to the train station for our return trip home. On the way back we needed to decide which of 2 possible routes to take (via Hanau or via Babenhausen). We choose the Babenhausen route at the last minute and we changed trains there for the last piece of the trip. Trouble was, the train we boarded was not scheduled to stop in Hainstadt. I quickly hunted down the conductor and showed him the poor, tired, worn out travellers and asked if he could please make an unscheduled stop in Hainstadt for us. Lucky for us, he did! (Got us home about an hour earlier, too.) Otherwise, we would have had to go all the way to Hanau, change trains and come all the way back to Hainstadt.

After Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Scott returned to the US we had a few weeks to recover before we had to do the big Passover preparation. I say "we" but I really didn't have anything to do with it. Liza takes control of this activity like a Major General (and it's a good thing too, because if I were in charge we wouldn't be ready for Passover until the summer solstice) and shouts orders and commands the troops (the rest of the family) with laser-like precision. We wash and scour and clean and shlepp (Passover dishes up the stairs, everyday dishes down the stairs, up...down, up...down) all day and all night until we have no breath left. By the time we are finally ready to "enjoy" the holiday, we are all too tired! This year we made sure that we started early enough so that the kids would not fall asleep halfway through. We were mostly successful (although the 4 cups of wine did take its toll on the little ones). Not only that, but we got to try out Ben and Jerry's famous Charoset ice-cream (which we made ourselves from the Ben and Jerry's famous Charoset ice-cream cookbook).

Samantha has become the real rebel teenager. She seems to be obsessed with body piercings and after we vetoed the belly-button (several times) she settled for a nose-ring and an additional ear-ring. After that she wanted to dye her hair green, so she borrowed some hair bleach from a friend and tried to lighten her hair color so that the green color would take. All it seems to have done is to turn half her hair a sickly metallic- orange/strawberry-blond color. She has decided to forego the green for awhile until she is sure that all her hair isn't going to fall out in protest over the bleach attempt. Sam is keeping busy with her after-school activities (Drama group and Circus). She has also taken up ballroom dancing. Between these activities and all the weekend parties she attends, it is difficult for her to concentrate on her school work, but that's the joy of adolescence!

Nathan has gotten himself involved in the Drama group as well. He is also very active with a handball team (not like American handball, more like indoor soccer) which keeps him fit. He has recently started writing small programs on the Macintosh in Pascal and has quite a good feel for it. He might even follow in his father's footsteps (Oh, perish the thought!).

Rebecca has become interested in singing (lucky she gets her voice from her father) and has joined the Chorus. She is finding it a little difficult to adjust to her new situation since most of her friends have gone to other schools and the kids she goes to school with don't live in Hainstadt.

Maxx is very excited about going to "real" school. She is fairly diligent about doing her homework, although sometimes she forgets until it is time to go to bed ("But Papa, I have to read now!"). It is interesting to watch her learn to read simultaneously in English and German. A daunting task, but our Maxx is certainly up to the challenge!

Alex is...well...Alex. He was so excited about starting Kindergarten that he...well, he cried and wouldn't let go of Liza's leg. But this phase passed quickly once he met a few other boys whom he enjoys playing with. He now looks forward to going to Kindergarten, but only if Eduardo or Pascal are there. If neither of them are at the Kindergarten when he arrives, he makes Liza stay with him until they show up. Unfortunately both Eduardo and Pascal are late-to-Kindergarten types. As soon as either of his friends arrives, Mom is given a shove and sent packing!

Well, the weather has been very uncooperative (garden-wise) and there is hardly anything growing at all right now. The peas I planted (twice) never came up, either because the birds ate them all or the earth is too cold. I haven't been able to put the beans, tomatoes, squash or pumpkins in because the temperatures are too low. I'm hoping that the warm weather will arrive soon so we can get something growing. It is so depressing to see the garden in it's naked state.

We are all looking forward to our summer vacation. This year we have decided to go camping with some friends (mostly because we can't afford any other kind of vacation). We will be spending 3 weeks or so in Bordeaux (France) on the Atlantic coast in tents and sleeping bags, eating French cheese and drinking French wine and not being able to speak French at all (although our friends tell us that most of the residents at the camping ground are Germans). I think we all need a break and the summers here have been really awful (hot and humid) the last few years. We'll be sure to take notes and photos and keep you posted!

Well, that's the news from Hainstadt, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and most of the people they write to never write back.