Wait! Weight! & The Idiosyncrasies of Language.

Despite what the experts say there are more interesting ways to lose weight besides watching what you eat and exercising. While this simple three-step plan may not be advisable (or remotely attractive) to everyone it has proven to be effective for us, though entirely unintentional and certainly temporary. Another plus, it doesn't work on kids. Of course, I plan to publish a bestselling self-help book soon so keep in mind that this advice is proprietary. Disclaimer: Attempt only after consulting with a psychiatrist, recruiter, and at least one sane family member.



Step 1. Decide to move to foreign country and complete move. Should include highly stressful tasks like selling house/cars/belongings, completing eye crossing amounts of legal and company paperwork, travelling for house hunting, employer orientation, and language classes, living in hotels, AND taking care of two small, sometimes sick children and/or arranging child care throughout all.



Step 2. Eat very small portions of strange food or bypass completely. This is extremely easy to do. Looking at it will cause you to lose your appetite (blood sausage or pig brains anyone?) and trying it (old smelly cheeses, super-strong sauerkraut, odd cuts of swine) will destroy whatever hunger may have remained. We have made several mistakes at the grocery store and bring home items which go immediately into the trash. We are learning.



Step 3. Get sick. With a child in early education this is virtually guaranteed anywhere in the world and is only more effective within this diet plan. Especially if you move just before winter.



Personal Note: While this plan may seem obvious to some, it only dawned on us recently that our pants seem looser and our belts don't have enough holes. We have zero desire to shop for clothes here - very expensive, different styles - so are attempting to regain our own closets soon with a steady intake of Coca Cola and good German chocolate.



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Another weight issue is in the kitchen. All German recipes - including the instructions on the back of those pasta packets or 'meal in a box' options - call for measurements in grams or kilos. My cute little cups and Pyrex' are fascinating to German visitors but entirely without function. In our desperation for decent meals we have purchased a German cookbook and now I guess I need to go buy a kitchen scale - a local household standard.

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Mastering another language.... ha! Ha, HA!! (cough, snort). Let me start over. Attempting to stumble through the basics of a new language points out the idiosyncrasies of our own and where the differences lie, other than the basic word-to-word translation. For instance I kept trying to figure out how to express 'to do' in German, thinking that phrases like 'do the laundry' or 'do homework' or even 'what are you doing?' must have direct translations. Of course this would be too easy. The German language uses the equivalent of 'to make' the same way and with the same frequency as we use 'to do.' So the direct translation is more like 'What are you making?' 'Please make this homework for next week' etcetera. And i'm only beginning. More examples to come, i'm sure.



p.s. Please, please send frozen waffles!