The Bully

We have a neighborhood bully here in Rothenburg. He is short, rather puffy, with ginger-colored hair and whiskers, and .... four legs. Yep, he's a cat! You might remember in an earlier blog I mentioned that I was hearing some hideous growling several times a day from something that sounded like it was the size of a mountain lion. Well, the culprit has been identified!

This cat is a real terror. He hops the stone wall into my landlords' property and starts trouble with our resident cat, Mozart. Usually it's about 15 minutes worth of growls and snarls of increasing undulation and intensity. Last night, however, the whole thing exploded into an outright cat fight. The fur and spit were flying! I've never heard anything like it! If The Bully is not harassing Mozart, he's picking on the brown tabby around the corner, or the white and black cat up the block, or the calico around the other corner. I admit to a perverse desire to have my son's Super Soaker water gun so I can blast the little natter in the duff with a good stream of water. Ha ha!

The weather here is off and on, up and down, and I am not sleeping more than about 3 hours a night. I guess I am just not doing enough during the day, in spite of my 3 mile walk, to really be tired. I tend to get rather hot at night so am up and down, opening and closing windows, and adjusting the covers on the bed. I spent an inordinate amount of time chasing a mosquito last night. I would just close my eyes and begin to relax when an annoying buzzing in my ear would begin. If it's not a mosquito, or the heat, then I need to get a drink or go to the bathroom. I must drive my landlords crazy as they live downstairs and have to listen to the pitter patter of my size 9 feet all night long.

I broke down and had a piece of Black Forest Torte yesterday. All the cream made me sick as a dog though, same thing that happened last time I ate a piece. Maybe I will learn one of these days. I stopped for ice cream a couple of weeks ago. They tend to serve liquor in their ice cream dishes here which I don't appreciate, so I ordered the Black Forest Sundae which did not have kirschwasser or any other alcohol in it. What it did have was three small scoops of ice cream, vanilla, chocolate, and nut, topped with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and cherries. Sounds good, huh? Well, it wasn't. The cherries were extremely sour and the addition of sour cherries made the dairy products already in my stomach curdle like last year's cottage cheese...yuck!

Ice cream and tortes aside, the breads here are heavenly! I am currently addicted to something called a "seele" which is a long roll topped with salt and caraway seeds (which I normally don't like). I recently went through a period of eating two cheese brötchen per day. I think I gained 5 pounds that week, which I now have to walk off! I still avoid eating out as a way to save money and stave off temptation. I hope I can continue that tradition when I return home!