The Joke's on Me and Dennis....

Ho ho ho ladies and hooligans,

Now that it's turned so fine in PA.....did anyone put on a tee-shirt over the weekend?....it's gotten more like usual here in Stuttgart. Yesterday was cold and rainy and blustery and today there's a light snow coming down. Pretty. But there's STILL laundry out on my neighbor's balcony!

It seems every time I look out my window, that neighbor in the building across from ours is hanging out laundry. I took pictures once....it was funny, I felt very furtive....like a private eye. But I want to know about my neighbors.....and record life in the big foreign city.

Everyone in our apartment leaves their shoes outside their door....

I spy on my neighbors whenever I can. Out the peephole in our front door, I've watched the boy next door give up waiting for the elevator and head down the steps. The elevator came like two seconds after he headed down....haha.

I know this much about him: 1. he's about 14 or 15
2. he plays tennis well enough or with hopes enough to

have one of those multi-racquet bags.
3. he gave Anna a good long look the one time we were in the hall

at the same time
4. he wears high-top brown leather sneakers with brown fur inside

I've started moving his shoes around. I know, I know, silly jollies, but it's just a little joke. Germans are so orderly! Usually all the shoes are neatly lined up pair-by-pair in the hallway.....so if I turn one of his shoes to a 90 degree angle, or switch one shoe with the shoe of the other pair....haha....do you think he'll notice? Could this be a crime here? Could we be ousted from the apartment? Or does he think it's as funny as I do....if he notices?

I quickly hurried to the stairs to get a look-over when I heard a neighbor two floors down moving about. But alas, all I saw was the back end of a small black dog. The puffy pom-pom of it's little poodle tail and to about mid-belly was all I could see. A dog-lover on floor 3.

People put plants in the window-sills outside their apartment doors. On the floor below ours is a small lime tree with two limes that have looked ready to pick ever since I got here. Oh no, NO, no way.....I wouldn't ever, really, really I wouldn't, I'd never pick someone else's fruit. I just hope they get those limes before they go downhill.

I love seeing that lime tree when I'm coming up the stairs...only one more flight to go, halleluya!

Our other neighbor across the hall had these beautiful lillies, pink and white, that were outside her door in a blue vase on the floor. I don't know if they were out in the hallway because she was decorating the outside of her apartment....joyous greeting when she returns home. Or was it because they smell so SO strongly that they were overwhelming her apartment. I'm guessing about the smell reason because you could get the first whiff of those lilies....those lillies up on the 5th floor.... by 2nd flight of stairs...4th step....coming up, they were that strong. I've put paperwhites out into the cold to fend for themselves for just this same strong odor issue. Phewwweeeee.

I'm really glad those lillies are out there, I love seeing them....and actually smelling them too. Now, there are a couple of cut blooms in water on the windowsill. You can't smell them as soon coming up the steps.....maybe only by the beginning of the 4th flight, but they're quite beautiful too.

Well, shoot! I didn't get to the story of the joke on Dennis and me....hmmm.....this story would be too long, really too long. Oh well, another day. It's funny.