Yes, I just watched ‘The Story of Us’ again a couple weeks ago; and as I’m trying to find a Page Title, this one comes to mind -in the moment- and will probably change later.

So anyway —

I was born on July 7, 1961, in Gerabronn, Germany which makes me at the moment of this typing pretty damn old – and far removed. Figure it out yourself, but I want to point out that I’m barely over 45, and that I’m way over 1000 miles away from there.

I was my parents’ first child – and I believe, I’m also the tallest. And this is NOT the moment for fat-jokes! My parents actually lived and I grew up in Crailsheim, a small German town close to Stuttgart and Nuernberg. By 1966 I had 3 sisters whom I’ve kept over the years. (here I was going to list my schools and years attended – but that’s been so long ago, even I don’t care much any more).

I thought I knew better than everybody else and when I met Mark (from California, stationed in McKee Barracks, Crailsheim’s U.S. Army Base) when I was not quite 18 and fell in love, I thought that getting married at 19 was a really good idea. I guess the fact that back then, he looked a lot like Tom Cruise (and that was a few years before ‘Risky Business’ came out and I even knew who Tom Cruise was) and I just thought – hell, at this point, there’s no telling what I thought. (Now, almost 30 years later, he looks more like Grisly Adams….) Anyway, we got married in 1980 and in 1981, he got transferred to Ft. Carson, CO. So I lived in Colorado Springs from October 1981 until January 1983, when he got transferred back to Germany. I came back home on February 11, 1983, 7 months pregnant and as a surprise to my Grandpa’s 77th birthday. Melanie was born on April 20, 1983, in Crailsheim. That homecoming didn’t last long – an “abrupt and unexpected carreer change” (aka Military Discharge) led to our return to California in August that year (August 15th, to be precise – sister Gabriele’s 20th birthday).

I lived in Porterville, CA until the summer of 1985, when yet another “aprupt and unexpected change of marital status” brought Melanie and me back home. Lesson learned – stupid move – I got the message and swore to NEVER do that again (that being falling in love and marrying some foreigner and leaving the homeland….).

Yeah – right!!!!

And in May 1988, I met Eric, and we got married March 1990, Phillip was born May 1991, we moved from Crailsheim to Nuernberg/Fuerth shortly after and stayed there for less than a year, when we decided that considering the drastic military cut-backs and troop reductions and the effect it would have had on Eric’s military career, the time to ‘demobilize’ and become civilian had arrived.

Eric and Melanie left Germany to live with Eric’s parents in Williams, Indiana, in April 92, and Phillip and I followed early July. We lived in Williams until 2002 – During this time, we bought a house, Eric started working for Ford in Bedford and eventually got his bachelor’s degree. Melanie graduated from Highschool – and Phillip was 9 when we moved to Evansville, IN. Melanie, by then married – Corodon was born January 2002 – stayed in the Bloomington, IN – area. We then lived in Evansville until May 2005, when Eric transferred to the new Toyota plant being built in San Antonio, Texas.

So as of June 2005, I’m a Texan now (with a German accent) and I totally love it here. This is exactly the place I’d love to go to on vacation and would hate to leave – (ok – a beach would be good, but the Gulf in only a little over 2 hours away) – and now I live there. I love the weather, I love the sun and heat, I love where I live, it’s been a long trip, but now I’m driving around

…………..grinning stupidly at palm trees!

Of course there’s more – lots more – but for now, this I think sums it up quite nicely.