Accounting for myself

I'm still alive, as is dear old Janet, I swear! So I suppose the only excuse for my complete abrogation of posting duty is that I've been decently busy for, oh, the last month and a half or thereabouts. Family visits, adventures with Mike, World Cup excitement (Germany plays Italy tonight in the semi-final, in fact) and almost a week of concerts and city life and just a bit of laying about on the beach with friends in Leipzig... oh, how the time has flown! I'm left with a checklist of stuff to be accomplished before I head home, a backlog of about a thousand photos to upload to the Shutterfly page, and the growing suspicion that the next 11 days are going to whip past me faster than the World's Roundest Soccer Ball (tm) zooms along it's 11 meter path and slides past a goalie's desperate hands.

Oh dear, does that make me the Ollie Kahn in this scenario? Part of me is unconsciously slipping into that role already... It's my last visit to the Krebs family, my last Uni-Chor cantata and concert, my last train trip to visit friends, my last chance to take pictures of the Gänseliesel early in the morning before she's surrounded by tourists and punks with dogs. Will this be my last time doing laundry in these crappy washers? It's reminiscent of the pre-nostalgia I felt in my last few days in Gambier. Not as deep, perhaps, but just as singular, just as ravenous for meaning and memory.

I do mean to get my thoughts in order and provide a full report of the sights and sounds, tastes and feelings between Kara's birthday (May 23, family's arrival in Germany) and Mom's (tomorrow, happy birthday!) if only to have a record for myself... but this is not that moment. I have to go grocery shopping and perform other menial tasks of daily life, though with a certain amount of (undue?) perspicacity in anticipation of yet another Life Transition.

Oh, and happy Independence Day. There.