Barack Obama was in my neck of the woods a while back. First in Baden Baden and then Straßburg. Current events gal that I am, I knew about it AFTER he was gone. There he was on the front page of the newspaper next to a blushing Angela Merkel. She seemed to be glowing in his presence. Anyone who's seen Angela knows she is not one to "glow". Well, Barack has that effect on people. Especially on the leader of Writers-in-Stuttgart. (Yes, that was a plug for our writer's group.) I don't think I have ever seen Karenne like this. She was still floating on cloud nine Saturday morning.
"I shook his hand." She kept saying. And as she made the coffee for the meeting, she was careful NOT to get her hand wet. Will she ever wash that hand again? 

Every year it’s the same. We go stateside to visit my family, and I am mocked for my excessive recycling. I wash out the yoghurt cups, and put them in the blue recycling box. Empty cans, plastic laundry soap bottles, gallon milk jugs, glass, and paper - all in the blue box. The problem is, the blue box is the size of a laundry basket. After roughly three days, it’s full. Really full.

I’m puzzled. Everyone in town has a recycling box, yet none are ever full. (Except for mine.) They are put out on garbage day next to a “family size” (it could hold an entire family) trash can.