July 2017 A Memoir

Mother’s Day Surprises/ Birthday Celebration

This is my third attempt since Christmas to write a blog. My writing was going pretty well but now I can’t get out of being stuck. As Heidi says: just write, editing will pull it together. OK we’ll see.

The last six months have been up and down, mostly up though. Mother’s Day weekend was a big surprise. Heidi came of course and for the life of me I can’t recall what we all did on that day besides a big balloon, flowers, oh a new tablet and Heidi making Breakfast/Brunch?? We were sitting around the table talking and all of a sudden Heidi says “Mom are you going to open the door?” I said,  “Why should I open the door?” She told me someone knocked on the door or rang the doorbell which I did not hear, yikes! I opened the door and had the surprise of the year. My nephew Joachim was standing there from Germany. What a surprise. He knew I love surprises and this is the second time he did that. The first time was in Santa Cruz where I was working as Director of Food and Beverage at the Santa Cruz Hotel. 

Heidi had to go back home to Santa Cruz a little later.  Joe and I spent a week sightseeing and, at times, he went out on his own. We talked a lot, especially about my brother Manfred, his Father, who passed on in 2013. Joe wanted to know about Koenigsberg, our home before we had to flee from the Russians. Manfred would never talk about the war years to his kids. I answered oodles of questions about that time in our life. We were children: I was barely 10 and Manfred was 9. Funny, I remember so much from those childhood years all the way back to about 4 years old.

Now it is the end of July.  Heidi, and I each had a Birthday and it was a busy month. Neal has a Birthday tomorrow.

We all missed Kurt who passed on the 29^th of July 18 years ago.

Heidi and I did a tour of the African Safari West in Santa Rosa for our birthdays. It was an interesting Adventure. We drove in these double decker jeeps and had a great time, learning about various animals out of Africa. The Birds were the most amazing part. I missed seeing Elephants and a Lion or Tiger. We saw Monkeys, a Cheetah, Zebras and a lot of different Mountain Goats. Our tour guide was very informative - a little long winded but all in all it was educational. I can never stop learning even at the age of 82, ha, ha. Once we got back home, we took a shower and I set up a Birthday Kaffee Klatsch for Heidi with two friends. It was a great ending to a busy day. In the evening Heidi took me out to dinner.

Neal’s’ Birthday wish is a dinner at a Mexican Restaurant and that is what we will do tomorrow evening.