Midweek Randoms

*A sweet friend from HS who lives in Israel now is in Germany this week for a conference. We met up with him last night for dinner and to catch up. We brought him a set of German beer in a pretty wooden crate and he brought us snack foods from Israel.

I fell in love with these when I was there in 2003 and would occasionally get them in the States. Shockingly enough, it's just not that easy to find kosher food in Germany, so getting this was a huge treat for me! There were two supermarket bags full of treats, most of those will not live to see the weekend.

*Have been feeling a bit frustrated today. I go in to the hospital in 3 weeks and called my cardiologist in the military hospital today to see if there was any pre-op stuff that I had to do. Her office told me that they are not authorized to advise me on it because they won't be doing the procedure so I have to call the German hospital where I'm getting it done. (Isn't the procedure the same, regardless of what doctor performs it?) I called the hospital and of course, the doctor's secretary's English is as good as my German (enough to politely order a roll with cheese for breakfast, but not much more than that). She started talking about a mile a minute and the only thing I could make out was the doctor's name before she hung up on me. One of the Sergeants from TLS's squadron is fluent in German and he called the hospital for me. He got told that the doctor's office doesn't give out pre-op instructions and he needs to call the surgery department for that. When he called the surgery department, no one there picked up the phone. It's nice to know that red tape is the same in any language.

*Had my first cheeseburger ever this week. After a lot of fruitless searching, we finally found a good soy cheese. We grilled burgers with the cheese the other night. I don't have anything to compare it to, but I thought it was delicious! My husband who has eaten cheeseburgers in a past life said that it was very good and tasted pretty authentic.

*Don't you just hate it when you see something online that you really really really want and absolutely need to have only to not be able to find it a little while later? A couple of weeks ago, I saw an adorable coffee cup coozie on a preppy gift site. It had an appliqued whale in a seersucker fabric on it. I knew I had to have it, but chose to walk away. I can't stop thinking about that little whale, I must have it. Of course, I cannot for the life of me remember where I originally saw it. All that I do remember is that it was not from an Etsy shop. If anyone spots this little whale anywhere, please please please please please email me to let me know. (Can't you tell I really love that whale?)

*Both TLS and I have become a bit obsessed with Words with Friends. (We are both incredibly competitive people.) Currently, I'm losing to my mother-in-law by 122 points. Ouch!

*Have started breaking out in hives randomly for no apparent reason. Trying to get an appointment to see a doctor, but have not had much luck so far. (Hurry up and wait.) I changed our detergent to a "free" one just in case that was the issue and have thought about switching to organic products for my bath and body/hair care/beauty products. Does anyone use organic products now? What companies do you recommend? The only one I know of is Lush but I'm sure there are plenty of great ones out there.