Food Diversity

JWise Photo of the Day

Grocery shopping in Phoenix, Arizona

Shopping for food here in Arizona is both a luxury and a chore. In order for me to collect the essentials for Caroline and my diet, I have more than a dozen locations I visit to find my desired ingredients. At the moment, I’m fasting which should be an indicator to my lizard brain to NOT visit anywhere that serves or sells food of any kind, but it’s inevitable that towards the end of food deprivation I go a bit nuts. The photo above represents a few things from nearly half-a-dozen shops I’ve patronized in the past 24 hours.

On the left is a loaf of German coarse rye bread from Heidelberg Bakery, the yellow container of Goldsaft sugarbeet syrup is from the same place. The ginger required me to visit three Asian stores as one had ginger that was drying out, the other had this rhizome that had experienced freezing which made it slimy, and then finally at H-Mart Korean grocery, I was able to nab the 11 pounds I require for a Burmese salad ingredient I need to replenish. While at H-Mart I also picked up silky tofu we use in the Korean dish Sundubu Jigae I’ve mentioned here before. The pomegranate and cashews are from Costco. There’s a bag of Khatta Meetha and a jar of Gujarati Methia Mango Pickle, both of Indian origins that Caroline and I bought at Turmeric Indian Cash & Carry. Below the pickle is a Chinese Szechuan Pepper Pickle we purchased at Lee Lee’s Asian Grocery where the Mae Ploy Panang Curry Paste was also found. The black currant compote from Poland was also found at Lee Lee’s but typically we’ll fetch that kind of stuff from somewhere like our nearby Balkan Bakery or another Eastern European grocer. Finally, the Rhubarb soda is definitely not from America and had to be ordered through Amazon like so many other things including our favorite Italian vinegar, bulk Himalayan salt, peppercorns from the four corners of the earth, two-year aged soy sauce, and various bulk and ethnic items.

But we’re not done. Not only did I buy other stuff at all those stores while I was out shopping, part of our repertoire includes stops at Whole Foods, a Carniceria around the corner, Food City (another Mexican-centric store), Mekong (Vietnamese-centric), and Nelson’s Fish Market, along with some of the traditional American grocery stores. Other online sources include Mangalitsa Estates for their pork (just look up Mangalitsa pig to see them), a place called Walleye Direct where we buy frozen walleye and perch, two different California growers from whom we buy bulk almonds and walnuts, Honey Pacifica because only eucalyptus honey will do, and Alma Gourmet when you’ve just got to have authentic Guanciale (pork jowl) from Italy.

This list is hardly definitive but is merely an example of some of the sources we are able to utilize. It is also meant to be a reminder to myself how fortunate Caroline and I are to be willing to take advantage of the food diversity we have access to. Certainly, a fair amount of time has to be invested in learning about the ingredients we have grown fond of or have an interest in while the time to collect these foodstuffs must be taken into account, but the luxury of sampling the breadth of earth’s many cultural offerings is never lost on us. While certain items can be pricey such as the two-year-old soy sauce, vinegar, Mangalitsa, and various German foods, the secret of it all is that Asian, Indian, and Hispanic stores have incredible bargains due to the way their commodities are bought, i.e., bulk as nobody only buys a pound of rice, an ounce of turmeric, or canned beans when dry beans in a 20-pound bag are so cheap.

There’s another reason for this post and that is the sense of disappointment we encounter when shopping in the various ethnic grocery’s around the Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe area. You see, we often notice that we are but a couple of a small handful of white customers. Many of the other white customers are with spouses of various ethnicities so that’s their way in. The black people we see shopping in these shops are often Guyanese, Jamaican, or African and are well accustomed to buying whole fish, goat, various organ meats, and bulk spices that help flavor the world’s foods beyond salt and pepper. The problem is that the dominant cultures are not present which means they are stuck in their tiny patterns of eating what they know and not supporting these stores that offer us culinary luxuries from around the world that we can try in our own homes.

Friends

JWise Photo of the Day

John Wise, Steve Alt, and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

You might remember that a few weeks ago, we picked up Scottish friend William “Willy” Mather from the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport here in Arizona and brought him to Flagstaff to start his rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon? Well, today we are back at the airport, but this time we are picking up Steve “Sarge” Alt who finished a rafting trip down the same river just a few days after Willy finished his. Sadly, schedules didn’t allow for Willy to join friends Sarge and Frank “First Light” Kozyn on their trip and so while they were probably less than 50 miles apart at any given point during the past few weeks, their paths didn’t cross. But our paths did cross and even if we only have the opportunity to visit for a few hours, it’s well worth the time spent with these guys.

Sarge was on a seven-hour stopover which allowed us to pick up sandwiches and head over to Papago Park where we could pull a shaded picnic table and sit back to hear a few stories about this most recent river trip and a bit about the Selway trip up in Idaho that we had to bail out of this summer. While a small part of me wants to lament that Caroline nor I were on any white water river trips this year, I’d have to admit that I have nothing in the world to complain about.

Serb Fest or Not

JWise Photo of the Day

John Wise and Caroline Wise at Serb Fest 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona

I started writing this post before we left home for attending Serb Fest here in Phoenix, Arizona. While we’ve traveled both here in-country and abroad, this is our first festival in years (due to the pandemic) and hopefully not our last. We’ve discussed revisiting the Renaissance Festival this coming spring but this event just recently came to our attention when our friend Brinn told us about it.

I’m sharing this much before we even get there as I can’t even be certain we’ll attend, even after driving out to it. You see, we must get cash (a pain in the butt) then we must contend with parking, a potential other pain in the butt. Once we are on the grounds, I’ll be making a quick evaluation about how I see the attitudes of the other attendees and how many are smoking; if they are poor impressions, we’ll bounce. I’m well aware that these attitudes are not helpful in advancing the potential of our attendance, but when the real payoff is the time spent with Caroline as she reads to me on the way there and the way back home, I can’t help but have great expectations of where I’m willing to offer my time.

So, if I can overcome my anxieties, we’ll be enjoying some ćevapčići and maybe a few other Balkan favorites this afternoon. Along the way, I’ll grab a photo or two to accompany this post with content-appropriate imagery, or maybe just another photo of Caroline reading a book to me. Time to go pick her up.

Obviously, we made it onto the grounds of the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Church and we were joined by the aforementioned Brinn, who took the photo. It’s great to attend these types of events, but at the same time, it often occurs that we feel like we are on an island as though everyone else attending can easily see we are not of Serbian heritage and thus shun us. Or maybe it’s because we don’t smoke and drink or speak Serbian, know how to dance, wear the right clothes, or have the wrong hair color? This is definitely not unique to this festival and has typically required us to make a serious effort to engage in talking with someone but that’s not always convenient when the other people attending are celebrating the day with close friends and family. As happened with our visit two years ago we managed to hang out about 90 minutes before bailing out, well at least some money was spent with the Serbian community that in part helps support their church and a way of life worth cherishing.

Scottish Farmer Ruins Our Adventure

JWise Photo of the Day

Caroline and John Wise with William Mather in Flagstaff Arizona

On this beautiful Saturday, we were tricked into bringing this Scotsman to Flagstaff, Arizona, after he flew in via Canada from his farm in Scotland. We don’t normally offer Uber services, but this guy convinced us via email that he was a descendent of William Wallace and had recently come into his inheritance. He was inviting us to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon at his expense if we’d take him up north. We took the scenic road from Phoenix via Payson which I originally thought was so we could dip into one of his bottles of whiskey while underway, but apparently, he was nervous about an encounter with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement which makes sense now that I think about it, as Europeans are not allowed in America yet due to the pandemic. When I asked about that, he said that Post Brexit he was no longer part of that filthy horde of barbarians and so was allowed to be on our shores. By that time I was just drunk enough to believe him. Pulling into Flagstaff, we stopped at a local Haggis Shop where he was going to grab a couple of haggises and a pack of oatcakes, one haggis for this evening and one while we are out rafting the Colorado. Well, this was the last we saw of this crafty Scots outlaw as he must have left through a back door. Without hotel reservations and proof that we were booked for a Grand Canyon adventure, all we could do was head back to Phoenix looking like the rubes we are.

The truth is far more mundane as Flagstaff doesn’t even have a Haggis Shop nor did we drink a bottle of whiskey while on the road. This is our friend Willy whom we met years ago on a different rafting trip and we were simply bringing him to Flagstaff for his own adventure rafting through the canyon, without haggis and without us. We did enjoy our scenic drive through the largest stand of Ponderosa pines in the world and all the conversations that entailed.

Is This Home?

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts, Travels

Airport in Frankfurt, Germany

I didn’t have an iota of interest in photographing one other thing in Frankfurt on our way out of the city. Our focus was on getting to the airport and dealing with the circus of hoops. Regarding those missed photo opportunities, there was nothing, not a thing, I could have captured that would have wrapped up the three weeks of our vacation that is now finished, fertig, and finito. Back to the circus, I anticipate the worst going through airports; they’re as bad as going into department stores where I know that there’s little likelihood of me finding the experience pleasing. There’s too much anxiety here as I wait for something to fall out of order, forcing us into the oblivion of chaos as we try to right the listing ship we hoped to take home without incident.

Taking the train to the airport is one of the saving graces as there’s no tension of jumping out of cars in the turmoil unfolding in the front of the terminal. Casually, we depart the train and start the long walk to the place in the terminal where we need to go, wherever that may be. We don’t care where it is as signs will direct us should we find ourselves walking aimlessly; plus, there always seems to be a staff member who helps point the confused in the right direction. Our first line has us collecting our boarding passes, checking in and paying for a bag we didn’t really anticipate having, and inquiring about the availability of upgrades. Passports, COVID-19 test results, attestation, and vaccine cards are handed over before we can pay the 59 Euros to check our heavier bag. As for upgrades, while Lufthansa’s business class was reduced to nearly a third of what it was a week ago, it was still a bit too pricey, but Premium Economy sounded sweet, and so here I am with my legs stretched out, my computer comfortably on a table in front of me, and my stomach full from our lunch that was served about an hour into our flight.

But I’m getting ahead of things: after checking in and purchasing our upgrades, we still had to maneuver the security gauntlet. Whoa, was that really it? It’s certainly a cliché, but that was butter. We slid through with belts and shoes on, and nothing was flagged for extra security checks. Done and sitting down for a bite to eat just moments later.

Flying over Germany

Back to our flight already in progress, with only 6 hours and 45 minutes remaining before reaching Washington, D.C. That’s the next pressure point as we’ll only have 70 minutes to collect our bag, make it through U.S. Immigration and Customs, and board our United flight to Arizona. I’m skeptical we can make it but I’ll pretend some optimism so as to not torture myself with negativity. Oh, what is that? Turbulence? Flatulence? Nope, it’s Mr. Sandman asking me to join him for a nap; I just might oblige.

Thirty minutes later I return to awareness of being in flight. Just made my first bathroom break, and normally, that wouldn’t rank as important enough to find its way onto these pages, but I saw that there might be a dozen people in the economy section while premium economy has significantly more passengers. As I came back, Caroline was watching The Black Klansman, and by mistake, I started reading the subtitles on her screen. Damn it, I was dragged into this cringe-worthy film, but as I tried listening in on the headphone Caroline wasn’t using, the dialogue was too dreadful, so I continued to read and squirmed while not being able to turn away. The really horrible thing is I’m learning nothing about racial history I didn’t already know, but I’m giving up time when I should have been trying to drag something out of my mind and into a document.

Watching the movie, I find my brain wiped clean of wanting to write. Obviously, I’m well aware I’ll likely have only regurgitated some lament, tripe, or iteration of something or other I’ve already spewed before, but that doesn’t mean I should so easily turn away from trying to find the hidden words not yet sequenced in my head I’ve been trying to discover. And then the movie is over, and we are down to less than 4 hours before we land.

I said I was learning nothing about racial tensions I didn’t already know, but I have to take into account that for much of my life, those around me have told me again and again that I see a hateful world they cannot see. From the perspective of Spike Lee, who made The Black Klansman, I can understand his need to inform people that the point from 40 years ago to today is a short one wherein some respects, little has changed or maybe even gotten worse. I do have the knowledge of living in a mostly-white bubble, but that doesn’t blind me to the innuendo and structural bias that’s nearly always on display.

Just as I didn’t have it in me to photograph our leaving Frankfurt, I’m not feeling this writing thing on the way home. Well, I do have another 5-hour leg that takes us from D.C. to Phoenix, and maybe as I grow exhausted, my body clock tells me it’s well past midnight with hours to go before we open the door to home at nearly 5:00 a.m. Frankfurt time, I’ll see a story right before me, but I have my doubts.

Oh, I nearly forgot; as we were on the tram into Frankfurt, I was thinking about how peculiar it is that for three weeks, we were regular fixtures in a number of people’s lives, and with that ride towards the airport, we were on our way to disappearing. Death is a lot like that, too, as every day in every city, people are born, and others die; they simply disappear. Sure, some will miss them, but the city as a kind of organism will continue to crawl about doing what it’s been doing every day, supporting those who go about surviving while oblivious to their own brief time where they are. We were in this city, living a lifetime of experiences in regard to our existence in the area for these 21 days, and now we must leave. In some strange way, we are being reincarnated back into a previous existence where we’ll resume the rituals and behaviors we left behind. On one hand, I look forward to returning to my bed, favorite coffee shop, my cooking, and some of our conveniences, but all of that could be had should we be willing to hit reset and set up a new set of routines just as we did in Frankfurt.

How nice might it be to throw a few of life’s belongings into a small container and board a ship with your reduced footprint as you are whisked away to some random place to establish a life that exists for six months before you pack up again and adapt to new circumstances yet again? Why does humanity look to plant such deep roots on a treadmill where little changes and everything remains familiar? By what kind of insanity must we be possessed that believes constant conformity and repetition is a path to any kind of happiness? The only answer can be that we are too stupid to understand that the wealthy are given just that option and that real freedom can only be found by exploring a restlessness that burns deep in the human spirit.

Caroline Wise and John Wise flying from Germany to Arizona

Well, this is a first, two movies on a flight. The second one was Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. Great soundtrack, aside from the predictable strings orchestration contrived to drive emotions at the predictable moment of a small win, which seriously diminished the impact of the film, and the ticking stopwatch grew tedious when it was pushed too far out front, but there was something in the bleakness of futility that gave the movie power. Now, with a mere hour-thirty minutes before our arrival, the flight felt as though it was shorter than it had been. Over 90% of those on this flight have been asleep for hours now, with most window shades closed before I started watching the first movie. These people land at 3:20 in the afternoon and will need to sleep this evening; what do they know that I don’t?

Okay, I see blank spaces where letters should appear. John, you need to change your pixels from white to black as letters become words and words become sentences representing thoughts that dribble through fingers. This act of reaching into muscle memory to find key presses that allow something I vaguely know before the word starts to appear is nothing more than typing for sure, but when I think too hard about what might come next, I find myself focusing on what could be in my head and not what will appear on the screen.

I look out the window, trying to find inspiration from the Atlantic Ocean we are flying over, but only see a blue haze. A few moments before, I could see Nova Scotia and the last remnants of its island mass before leaving it behind on our trajectory toward Boston and New York City. With these quick thoughts shared, the crew emerges from the darkness armed with snacks and drinks, pushing me to press pause on this return to my external surrogate brain reflected on screen.

Tamp down the anxiety, John, as freaking out about customs when you are still this far away from dealing with that clusterfuck serves you not one bit. Instead, try to find that sense of celebration that you are once again in America, and things will show themselves not to be all that bad. In the coming days, Europe can take a few blows about things I don’t like about it or not. Hmm, this has me wondering if I really have a cohesive idea of what America is; the old clichés don’t really do it for me, and Tocqueville’s observations over 190 years ago no longer hold a lot of water for me. I have to think, who are we people from the alleged United States these days? Can we be drawn into a cultural identity that adequately offers a valid impression of the vast breadth of people that make up this land?

God damn, I have the worst reaction to landing in this country as what I see writ large across the faces of those in our airports, and these are the people that can afford air travel, is a bucket load of stupid. How, just how the hell, has our population dropped so deeply into imbecility? Go ahead and dismiss my casual observational claim here to be able to read faces, body language, clothing, and other characteristics to qualify the intellect of those around me with such aspersions, but we are displaying the depths of stupidity in the most vulgar showing of our behaviors. Now, contrast this with my own bullshit where I lament the conformity of Europeans and their desire for a bland uniform society along with China’s recent pronouncement that effeminate males will be forced out of the eye of society as they are considered to be a danger to civil society. So we have a conflict here: in America, we are free to be as stupid as we choose to be because, fuck you, I have the right to do and say what I want. In Europe, you will be ignored, shunned, and invisible if you choose to follow your own path. While in China, there’s probably some likelihood that, like the Uighur population, you’ll end up in prison for reeducation should you show signs of individuality.

This is a conundrum as when I grew up, I loved the freedom to express myself in every belligerent way I chose with no regard to who I was offending, but as I’ve grown old, my desire is to express things passionately and hopefully smartly. I love the idea of an advanced society, but not one where half of those walking around are effectively primates of a lower order. And I don’t give a rat’s ass about what personal tragedy has brought these cultural nothings to their low point; they have at least some responsibility to lend gravitas to the American character and demonstrate grace and an ability to communicate somewhat elegantly.

Like writing angry letters after midnight, I should lay off the spleen-venting after traveling in airplanes and through airports for more than half a day. My Tourette’s is in full effect after moving among the hoi polloi, not that I’m any better than anyone, but to those around me, who think their display of consumptive behavior and brand mimicry of the doltish who’ve influenced them lend them credibility, you’re wrong, as your face belies the truth hidden behind your vacuous eyes. Fuck you and your fashion; it doesn’t hide the screaming, empty idiot inside your thick skull cackling in a half-hearted attempt to demonstrate humanity. You’ve lost the game of being an advanced representative member of our species. I’m galled that I have to return to this and accept that over the coming days, I’ll need to dull myself to this reality or crack under the pressure of integrating myself with this subspecies of Neanderthals.

Maybe the sandwich Caroline and I just shared can pull me off this cliff-side of lament, but what does it really matter as rarely – if ever – do I push out for publication these vitriolic missives that paint me into the corner of arrogance my inner-seething self can be all too familiar with, especially after encountering an abundance of smart people. So, yes, it does happen that I find myself in the company of legitimate, earnest, amazing Americans, but the cramped quarters of a domestic carrier moving us cattle around is not the place.

Enough of this, as I’m tiring of myself, but should I stop writing, I’ll begin to fall asleep here somewhere west of Pennsylvania and still far east of Arizona. It’s moving towards 1:00 in the morning inside my head, though as I look outside at the white clouds streaming by underneath us, my eyes are insisting it’s still late in the day. I need to stick with this late-day mode as sleep at this time will begin to interfere with a proper night of sleep at home. But who am I fooling? When 3:00 in the morning comes around in Arizona, my brain will be begging me to explain why I’m in bed at noon when I should have already eaten breakfast and begun the process of foraging for lunch.

Yawns are not conducive to being mindfully energetic; on the contrary, they momentarily have you questioning yourself as to why you don’t give into closing your eyes a moment to deal with the tiredness. And to think, we are only about an hour and a half into this flight. I’m afraid this battle of sleepy mind versus desire could be lost as tension in the form of a headache is knocking at the back of my skull. This could also be a bit of dehydration from the avoidance of drinking anything on this flight so we can sidestep maneuvering through the tight quarters in order to use a bathroom. Jeez, I’m feeling weak.

I had to ask a flight attendant how much time was left before we landed as I just couldn’t figure it out between my computer, which says 2:00 am, my Fitbit, which says 8:00 pm, and our flight time, which became a mathematical dilemma to my wretchedly tired brain. When we finally do reach home, there is nothing in that kitchen or refrigerator that would be easily heated and eaten and those things we bought in the airport in Frankfurt to carry us through are long gone. Going back out and driving the car to fetch something sounds like a bad idea, as does walking somewhere nearby, as we’ve already heard that the temperature will be right around 100 degrees when we land. I explained my issue to Caroline, and she reminded me that maybe we can get something in the terminal after we land, but I don’t think we’d be able to sit down as we have a checked bag, and who wants to leave that going around a carousel in an airport where anyone can walk into the baggage claim area and snatch a forlorn bag? Hmm, I think I’m delirious.

Landed, and everything was already closed at the airport by 7:30 on a Tuesday night. Got our bag and headed out to grab a taxi, and luck would have it that our Bangladeshi driver felt like exploring a tangent of how anti-tax he was and how he’d be voting Republican in the future. What the fuck America, nothing to eat, it’s hot, and our driver is a South Asian extremist? I tried engaging him that America has one of the earth’s lowest tax rates among advanced countries but he countered that they got something for their taxes. So, I scratched my head and considered how Suriname, Zimbabwe, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, India, Slovenia, and the Ivory Coast all have higher tax rates and see that money comes back to them in the form of quality of life (not that I’ve lived in those places)? Or maybe he was talking about Finland, Japan, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, or Belgium, who all pay between 13% – 20% more than we do, but that’s only in regards to America’s wealthiest earners, as 61% of Americans paid NO federal income taxes in 2020 and yet the cry from low-income earners is just below the intensity of someone screaming murder.

But why argue using statistics and logic? Just look at how Americans can no longer travel their roads as they are all dirt, and our hotels have gone bankrupt, and what does that matter anyway because our restaurants were taxed out of business, so how would one even survive on the road. With our air traffic control system destroyed, we couldn’t fly, our hospitals were regulated to the point they all moved to Belarus or Bolivia, where the personal tax rate is a low 13%, and bribing warlords to waive medical regulations proved cheaper than doing business in miserable America where nobody is happy, can’t afford gasoline, beer, milk, or bread that now costs $40 a loaf due to fake science from the Food & Drug Administration who wants to kill American children for Hillary Clinton’s death cult.

We are fucking beyond stupid, and no one is checking anyone else regarding the nonsense that spews out of idiots’ mouths. Oh yeah, we have the freedom to be as dumb as others will indulge us as we risk being shot if we challenge the abhorrent belligerence of their debased, broken minds.

A right-wing media willingly and knowingly distorts the truth with no reliable corporate or government entity calling them to task; it’s all just part of the noise of capitalism. If the speed of dissemination is rapid enough in a constant cycle, the damage done with a few hours of pedaling lies is enough to cement the disinformation into the vulnerable as effectively as COVID is robbing people of quality of life or even life itself. Jesus Christ, is this really what I returned to America for?

[On a more positive note – we had no problem moving through Immigration in DC, and nobody was interested in opening our checked bag. We arrived at the gate of our connecting flight with lots of time to spare – Caroline]

Last Full Day in Frankfurt

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Apricot Vanilla Jam made by Klaus E. in Frankfurt, Germany

Today starts with me needing to pay homage to Master Jam Maker Klaus Engelhardt and his concoction of absolute perfection, the mighty apricot vanilla jam. If I didn’t take time to recognize this contribution that helps craft a perfect vacation for me, I’d be doing a disservice to how much this golden sweetness on my morning Brötchen shapes the day going forward. Sure, I love Grüne Soße (Frankfurt Green Sauce), and Spaghetti Eis is a delight, but apricot/vanilla jam is my Kryptonite. When a jar of this homemade wonder is brought to the table, Klaus knows by now to set it down near me, and while there are five other flavors nearby, it is this one that is exclusively found on my breakfast rolls. Knowing my love of it, he even sent us a jar last year but we’ve not opened it as what possible American bread could ever be worthy of this magnificence? Praise unto Klaus the Master Jam Maker of Frankfurt.

Caroline Wise in Frankfurt, Germany

Early during our time in Germany, Caroline visited mystery friend C&#@%$a, and after my wife arrived back in Frankfurt from the place that shall not be named (due to the GDPR a.k.a. General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, which restricts me from divulging the identity of those I do not have permission to identify), I took a photo of Caroline holding a bag. Inside that bag was this portable spinning wheel from Louet, the Victoria.

We are busy repacking it as it now needs to travel with us back to Phoenix, Arizona, and we can’t be certain it’ll be allowed as a carry-on due to our “Light-Fare” ticket restricting us to travel with 8 kilogram (17.5 pounds) each with no checked bag paid for. We are quickly considering paying to have it travel as a checked bag, but Lufthansa and United have only allocated 75 minutes between connections in Washington D.C., and with a requirement to fetch a bag before moving through customs, we are at risk of missing our connecting flight. This kind of gambling only complicates travel, creating stress that detracts from finishing a vacation in perfection.

Caroline Wise and Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

With our test packing done, it was time to beat feet down to Römer to collect Jutta and make our way, slowly, over to Zum Standesämtchen one more time for lunch.

Caroline Wise and Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

There will never be enough time spent with those we’ve grown fond of and as Caroline and I age, our love, respect, and appreciation have matured for her mother, my mother-in-law. Maybe you assume love for one’s family is a natural thing. I don’t believe that. We’ve not chosen our family, and sometimes their or our flaws are so great that it’s easier to put distance between us while some gratuitous ideas of love demand that we find love for our parents, aunts, uncles, various relatives if people were honest, I think they’d also admit this is not a sure thing. As a matter of fact, neither Jutta nor I much appreciated each other in the first years we’d known each other, and while I’ve said as much in a previous blog entry or two, it bears repeating that our relationship these past 20-some-odd years has only grown stronger. I think the same goes for Caroline and her mother as each has seen the other in a new light where they understand one another now quite deeply. Today carries a bit of sadness with it as we must say goodbye for now, but I do hope we’ve shared enough laughs to carry Jutta through until we can return next year.

Caroline Wise getting swabbed for a COVID test in Frankfurt, Germany

Lunch was brief, 90 minutes today, maybe the quickest we’ve shared with Jutta this trip. Things had to move fast as we had a 2:30 appointment for a COVID-19 antigen test, which, if it comes back negative,  will allow us to travel to the United States tomorrow. If you think this is the face of pain, you’d be wrong. I’ve seen this face thousands of times, experiencing the ecstasy of pleasure, and I swear this is exactly what it looks like. Warning to Caroline: Edit this out or claim differently, and I’ll just put it back because you know this abrasive swab puncturing your skull and tickling your eyeball was one of the great thrills of this trip to your homeland. — NOT!

Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

Just like Caroline’s face but different, this is Jutta’s face saying, “You better take great care of this beautiful daughter of mine, or else!” You can tell by how effectively she pulls this look of stink eye that she wants me to fully understand my responsibility to love and look after Caroline. Don’t worry, my sweet mother-in-law; I love this daughter of yours with all my heart.

Caroline Wise and Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

Our time with Jutta today was only a brief four hours, and of course, it’ll never feel like enough, but we need to go. Big big hugs for you, Jutta; it’s always great to see you smile so warmly and listen to you share your appreciation for seeing us.

Frankfurt Cathedral in Germany

We retrieved our COVID test results to find we were both negative. With this bit of stress out of the way, we had some time to spare before meeting with Klaus and Stephanie for dinner, and so we wandered between the river, Römer, and uncertainty as we didn’t know where else we could go that would lend itself to any greater sense of having been in Frankfurt so the slow walk nowhere had to suffice. In our indecision to focus on a destination, we found that we could agree on visiting the cathedral, and that’s where we are.

Frankfurt Cathedral in Germany

My wife, who’s typically not superstitious in the least, spoke up as I shot this image and asked that it not follow a photo of her and Jutta since it would be weird to have an image about death following the two of them. So, I posted the photo above this one to put space between them. Then, as I think about this again, this is a monument to someone’s life using a skull we associate with death, but that doesn’t change the fact that this display is here in recognition of life.

Caroline Wise at Frankfurt Cathedral in Germany

I can only wonder what her prayer was, but I’m fairly sure she had some thought or other traveling through her mind as she made a donation and lit the candle.

Klaus E. and Stephanie E. at dinner in Frankfurt, Germany

Dinner tonight was at African Queen with Klaus and Stephanie. This place was packed, and rightfully so as the food was terrific. Nothing much else followed as final details needed to be dealt with before our flight tomorrow afternoon. Enough said.