in a Winter Storm

I came back to Großkrotzenburg tonight on auto pilot instead of going to our new apartment. excuse me NEW APARTMENT!!! in the middle of a blizzard which i hope has stopped which will allow me tomorrow morning to get to work. Which, by the way is one street over from our NEW APARTMENT. I am not sure why I came back here tonight, except that i was prepared to do that and didn't think about it. Which is typical of any and all problems in my life- they start with me not thinking and then opening my mouth and inserting my foot, or just picking up that same foot and stepping in a pile of it. Or i just proceed gamely along, not thinking, until I can't and then i wonder, what happened?

Somehow, in the midst of all of this falling snow and foot issues I have been miraculously, continuously, lovingly cared for by mothers in various countries, friends in even more countries, strangers, bus drivers, bosses, co-workers, aquaintances, and surely a host of invisible beings who protect me and guide me- beautiful human fool that i am, that we all are, along my way. I am so thankful and grateful to be alive. Grateful to be in another country and have food to eat and a home to live in and A NEW APARTMENT and friendships beginning, and still some friends from the states who still care and write and love me. As a friend said the other day, it basically all boils down to gratitude to be alive. I can be the richest person in the world, but if I am not grateful, what good is it?

Reading Charles Dickens' a Christmas Carol, which I never have before. Which, by the way is fabulous. And of course, the whole thing with Scrooge is, he has all the money he could ever ever use and he is miserable and impoverished internally. I don't have 100 Euros to rub together, but I hope I am internally rich. At least I feel so. I catch myself thinking quite often- Wow, I feel like the richest person alive- after coming upon some secret ordinary wonder or beauty-gift from life.

For example, today I had fresh goat cheese and a pear, dates and walnuts for breakfast with green tea. My wife (I have a wife!) made me a coffee with sheeps milk and then i walked to work (from our new apartment), where I got to cook yummy things for 5 hours (including a banana hazelnut chocolate cake). Could I be luckier? I don't think so. And the biggest gift of all is that I know it.

As another friend said, my god how I love this life.

Thursday Potato Soup
2 Leeks
4 onions
10 potatoes
3 carrots

vegetable stock
salt and pepper
bay leaves
garlic
chili
marjoran
cream
butter
lemon rind
parsley

Peel the carrots and potatoes, cut off the tough part of the greens from the leeks, peel the onions and put all "discarded" trimmings with the bay eaves into water and simmer.

Chop carrots and onions and leeks in a fine dice and sautee in a pan with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, which you have macerated with salt using the side of your knife on the cutting board or in a mortar and pestle.

Either pour the stock into another pot or take all the trimmings out of the one you made the stock in, quarter the potatoes and put them in the stock to cook until soft. Mash the potatoes when soft. Add the sauteed veggies, marjoran, and chili, and finely chopped lemon rind. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cream and fresh parsley.