The Baby Blog

First and foremost – a big congratulations to my brother & sister-in-law Ryan and Jen on their successful reproductive endeavours. Shea Ryan Metz was born just before midnight on July 3rd 2011, ushering in the next generation of our family, and forever immortalizing my brother, his favourite baseball team and a bygone stadium of yore. In reality, Shea and Ryan are both family names from the Irish side of the family; not a shameless attempt to be featured on Kiner’s Korner. Considering that we’re of Italian, German and Irish decent, we have decided to make things right by naming our first baby Enrico Pallazzo Wienerschnizel Metz.

The Olympics 2012 ticketing disaster has come and gone. To manage the selection process, the IOC apparently retained a terrorist splinter group focused on sowing discontent among the sport-loving masses. Susi and I applied for somewhere in the neighbourhood of $6,000 worth of tickets in the first round, and, like the majority of UK entrants, ended up with little more than the right to deal with an unprecedented traffic jams, the very buckling of London's transportation system, and an overwhelming influx of smiling, happy tourists asking for directions to the Olympic Stadium. Mercifully, they gave the losers first crack at tickets in the consolation round. Determined not to come away empty handed, we went no-holds-barred – and ended up getting pretty much everything we asked for. Of course, by this time, the universe of remaining tickets consisted of somewhat less-desirable events, and we’re now desperately trying to convince people to join us for the preliminary rounds of power shopping, thumb wrestling and one-handed volleyball...

I’ve continued my German classes in the hope that I may someday be able to speak to Susi’s family about a topic that doesn’t involve eating, the weather or vehemently denying that the Bush era ever really happened. The problem is that I learned my fundamentals, essentially alone and in front of a mirror when I lived in Munich back in 2000, which is the equivalent of teaching a child how to speak English by sitting him down in front of a video loop of “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”. I found myself in seriously hot water with my professor last week by inadvertently hijacking a current events discussion, and turning it into a nonsensical tirade that would've gotten me arrested in any country ending in 'stan', 'land' or 'ermany'. Despite this little setback, I’m confident that I’ve made significant progress, and I look forward to discussing more risqué topics during our visit next month – including Japanese automobiles, bailing out EU member states and David Hasselhoff's post-Knight-Rider career.

Our landlord and I have recently completed a vigorous negotiation surrounding a massive rent increase. To be fair, we probably should have been paying a bit more – we haven’t had an increase since we moved in, and the rental market is booming. Further, if you read back to my very first post, you’d know that the flat was an abomination when we moved in, and we’ve gone to great lengths to improve its appearance. We took a jungle of a backyard and turned it into a mini-oasis, we replaced the furniture so that our guests won’t worry about contracting Gonorrhoea, and we even took DDT and a flame thrower to the most offensive areas of the carpet. Once it was clear that we were at an impasse, our landlord’s real estate scheduled someone to visit us and value the flat. Knowing full well that this would result in a HUGE rent increase, we invited the neighbour’s kids over, fed them our entire hidden stash of German chocolate, and locked them in to do as they pleased. The realtor came - and left very quickly - and our landlord wrote back at 7AM the next morning accepting our counter offer.

...and finally a big thanks to he-who-shall-not-be-named for introducing me to Tabasco® brand Chipotle Pepper Sauce last Saturday, and giving me an extra bottle to take home. This sultry ménage a trois of smoke, heat and Mesoamerican flair can bring out the very best in your beef, poultry and southern vegetarian entrees. So taken was I by this new and exciting condiment, that on Sunday I insisted we have dinner at the unheard of hour of 3:45PM. Susi put together an absolute feast, teeming with a variety of tantalizing vehicles for Tabasco® brand Chipotle Pepper Sauce consumption, which we enjoyed under clear blue skies and a pleasant English sun. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I polished off half of that bottle of delicious Tabasco® brand Chipotle Pepper Sauce, or that my dipping weapons of choice were lightly salted and delicately braised broad beans, but I have since been living in a digestive hell that I haven’t experienced since my first trip to the Asian subcontinent. It’s not quite Texas chilli cook-off bad, but I’ve spent the last three days in a nauseous, semi-conscious haze, and, according to Susi, my nights have been a lot like this.

And that... was pretty much the whole truth (except that by "neighbour's kids", I meant "Susi and I"). Until the next one... good night, and good luck... and good night.