Today starts with me needing to pay homage to Master Jam Maker Klaus Engelhardt and his concoction of absolute perfection, the mighty apricot vanilla jam. If I didn’t take time to recognize this contribution that helps craft a perfect vacation for me, I’d be doing a disservice to how much this golden sweetness on my morning Brötchen shapes the day going forward. Sure, I love Grüne Soße (Frankfurt Green Sauce), and Spaghetti Eis is a delight, but apricot/vanilla jam is my Kryptonite. When a jar of this homemade wonder is brought to the table, Klaus knows by now to set it down near me, and while there are five other flavors nearby, it is this one that is exclusively found on my breakfast rolls. Knowing my love of it, he even sent us a jar last year but we’ve not opened it as what possible American bread could ever be worthy of this magnificence? Praise unto Klaus the Master Jam Maker of Frankfurt.

Early during our time in Germany, Caroline visited mystery friend C&#@%$a, and after my wife arrived back in Frankfurt from the place that shall not be named (due to the GDPR a.k.a. General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, which restricts me from divulging the identity of those I do not have permission to identify), I took a photo of Caroline holding a bag. Inside that bag was this portable spinning wheel from Louet, the Victoria.

We are busy repacking it as it now needs to travel with us back to Phoenix, Arizona, and we can’t be certain it’ll be allowed as a carry-on due to our “Light-Fare” ticket restricting us to travel with 8 kilogram (17.5 pounds) each with no checked bag paid for. We are quickly considering paying to have it travel as a checked bag, but Lufthansa and United have only allocated 75 minutes between connections in Washington D.C., and with a requirement to fetch a bag before moving through customs, we are at risk of missing our connecting flight. This kind of gambling only complicates travel, creating stress that detracts from finishing a vacation in perfection.

With our test packing done, it was time to beat feet down to Römer to collect Jutta and make our way, slowly, over to Zum Standesämtchen one more time for lunch.

There will never be enough time spent with those we’ve grown fond of and as Caroline and I age, our love, respect, and appreciation have matured for her mother, my mother-in-law. Maybe you assume love for one’s family is a natural thing. I don’t believe that. We’ve not chosen our family, and sometimes their or our flaws are so great that it’s easier to put distance between us while some gratuitous ideas of love demand that we find love for our parents, aunts, uncles, various relatives if people were honest, I think they’d also admit this is not a sure thing. As a matter of fact, neither Jutta nor I much appreciated each other in the first years we’d known each other, and while I’ve said as much in a previous blog entry or two, it bears repeating that our relationship these past 20-some-odd years has only grown stronger. I think the same goes for Caroline and her mother as each has seen the other in a new light where they understand one another now quite deeply. Today carries a bit of sadness with it as we must say goodbye for now, but I do hope we’ve shared enough laughs to carry Jutta through until we can return next year.

Lunch was brief, 90 minutes today, maybe the quickest we’ve shared with Jutta this trip. Things had to move fast as we had a 2:30 appointment for a COVID-19 antigen test, which, if it comes back negative,  will allow us to travel to the United States tomorrow. If you think this is the face of pain, you’d be wrong. I’ve seen this face thousands of times, experiencing the ecstasy of pleasure, and I swear this is exactly what it looks like. Warning to Caroline: Edit this out or claim differently, and I’ll just put it back because you know this abrasive swab puncturing your skull and tickling your eyeball was one of the great thrills of this trip to your homeland. — NOT!

Just like Caroline’s face but different, this is Jutta’s face saying, “You better take great care of this beautiful daughter of mine, or else!” You can tell by how effectively she pulls this look of stink eye that she wants me to fully understand my responsibility to love and look after Caroline. Don’t worry, my sweet mother-in-law; I love this daughter of yours with all my heart.

Our time with Jutta today was only a brief four hours, and of course, it’ll never feel like enough, but we need to go. Big big hugs for you, Jutta; it’s always great to see you smile so warmly and listen to you share your appreciation for seeing us.

We retrieved our COVID test results to find we were both negative. With this bit of stress out of the way, we had some time to spare before meeting with Klaus and Stephanie for dinner, and so we wandered between the river, Römer, and uncertainty as we didn’t know where else we could go that would lend itself to any greater sense of having been in Frankfurt so the slow walk nowhere had to suffice. In our indecision to focus on a destination, we found that we could agree on visiting the cathedral, and that’s where we are.

My wife, who’s typically not superstitious in the least, spoke up as I shot this image and asked that it not follow a photo of her and Jutta since it would be weird to have an image about death following the two of them. So, I posted the photo above this one to put space between them. Then, as I think about this again, this is a monument to someone’s life using a skull we associate with death, but that doesn’t change the fact that this display is here in recognition of life.

I can only wonder what her prayer was, but I’m fairly sure she had some thought or other traveling through her mind as she made a donation and lit the candle.

Dinner tonight was at African Queen with Klaus and Stephanie. This place was packed, and rightfully so as the food was terrific. Nothing much else followed as final details needed to be dealt with before our flight tomorrow afternoon. Enough said.

Late to rise, late breakfast, late shower, late to writing, late to go outside. Try as we might to fill every day with an abundance of activities so we don’t waste a moment in Germany, it’s inevitable that we hit a wall and need a slow day. After 19 days, including our flight here, the day where little happens just shows itself, and in this case, it’s a Sunday just 48 hours before we head back to the United States.

Even sitting down to write something or other feels like a chore I’m not ready to confront. And so I distract myself with a return to my neglected social media, not that I ever really do much posting there but it allows me to catch up with various subjects of interest. While the smell of plum cake that Klaus is baking wafts in from the kitchen, I bring up some newly released music from Andrew Ostler titled “Crossing The Line.” That plum cake will travel with us to be shared between Jutta, Stephanie, Katharina, Klaus, Caroline, and me later today, but for now, I sit here lazily, hoping something will happen without making an effort.

I’m getting hungry, but the effort to go find something feels like a task too big. There’s a pizza place within walking distance, but I have to wonder who offers delivery to this area. After looking at the limited choices and considering that many places close at 2:00 before reopening at 5:00, the window of opportunity is diminishing. With maximum waffle unfolding from my inner-Schweinehund, a savior appears in the form of a loving wife and a caring sister-in-law who are willing to collect whatever it is my heart desires. It’s settled, rigatoni carbonara from that pizza place, and I get to sit in the same chair I’ve been planted in for the better part of 6 hours, aside from shower and toilet obligations to care for my body and the people around me.

Now, with the order in and the ladies out for picking up lunch, I’m again presented with a blank slate of brain. Maybe some other music will help, so I turn to Bandcamp and find Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe’s “Candyman” score, but before things really get underway, food is already here. Sweet relief from a minor hunger and absolving myself of the need to write as my right hand will be busy with a fork and who can type with one hand?

As with all things, this half-day of doing a lot of nothing is about to come to an end. We are all about to head into the center of Frankfurt to meet up with Jutta for a walk over to the river, where we’ll sit down to some plum cake and coffee. This will require a bit of effort on my part as I’ve still not moved from my chair since noon, and we are on the approach of 2:30. So, time to close the tabs to the news stories I was catching up on, finally put on some socks, and maybe (as if there was a choice) grab my camera and join the others to take the U-Bahn into town. Maybe I can have a brief nap on the train to add to my collection of having done little this Sunday? Oh, what is this luxury? Others are running late, giving me another 20 minutes of not doing nothing other than tagging photos here on the blog while maintaining my place on the thrown of the dining table.

It’s already after 3:00 as we move down the train tracks with our basket in tow, heading to Granny’s house. The only thing missing is a wolf who we heard was busy blowing some house down elsewhere.

The rare site of Katharina as with her away at nearby Darmstadt attending university, she’s typically seriously busy, but today with the chance for the entire family to get together, she carved out time. Good thing she did, as seeing her and her dad smile so nicely together is a treat.

And here comes Jutta…

…joining us for Klaus’s homemade Pflaumenkuchen (plum cake) that he made just today.

A rare photo these days. Sadly, we don’t have someone else here on a Sunday afternoon we can ask to take a group image, so the four Engelhardts and one Wise are the best I can do.

Katharina might be grinning as she dragged her aunt Caroline into a 20-minute lesson about Pokemon possibly infecting her with an interest, but knowing my wife, I’d guess she’d never find space to fit it in.

Grandmother and granddaughter obviously share the same height genes.

Our coffee and cake midday get-together is coming to an end. I’m happy we could all be here this afternoon and that this three-week trip to Germany was so focused on family.

Which also included me. By the way, does this photo make my arms appear freakishly long?

Later, Klaus, Stephanie, Caroline, and I walked a mile over to a nearby favorite restaurant that put a blemish on our enthusiasm for the place. I’ll leave it unnamed until we get to visit on a date in the future when we’ll be hoping that they were only having a bad night.

All-in-all this was a day of rest where very little happened.

So many days on vacation and so many experiences potentially lost to the fog of being busy all the time. But here I am to write these posts letting us account for each day covering the important moments. Maybe, like Jutta, we all suffer from a kind of dementia where the new information coming in takes precedence as we try to figure out how to deal with the new day. If yesterday was packed with things relatively mundane, why put importance on them and elevate them into long-term memory? But when we can return to even a fragment of the minutiae, it often happens that a flood of impressions arrives with the hint. We’ve seen with Jutta how an old photograph or piece of music aloft forgotten memories, how will this work when blogs with hundreds or thousands of photographs along with the text accompanying them can bring context and intense reminders to people?

Our lunches with Jutta are never brief affairs, as we typically end up spending between two and three hours camping out at our table. This being Germany, nobody cares how long a customer occupies their place in the restaurant as it doesn’t affect a tip when everyone is earning an hourly wage that isn’t dependent on our largess. There are differences in service for sure, but one difference I don’t miss over here is the server absolutely ignoring you once you’ve settled your bill. So, we just sit in the sun, take our time, order more water, Coke, or coffee, and enjoy chatting. By the way, the talk rarely takes aim at the weather other than maybe the briefest of observations regarding the current moment. Sports and TV are also off the plate unless the ladies are talking about a documentary or something from the news. We do talk a lot about family, travel, and the people we are watching.

After three hours on the first course, it’s time for ice cream, more coffee, and mineral water over at a corner Eis Cafe (ice cream parlor). I think we only spent about 90 minutes here before starting the slow walk back to the assisted living center. While Jutta has greater mobility with a walker, she’s still nearly as slow as any sloth or snail, moving nearly imperceptibly, requiring nearly 30 minutes to get her somewhere that it would take anyone else maybe 5 minutes to walk. Writing this feels like an exaggeration, but I’ve made the walk of 100 meters (300 feet) to the Main River and 260 meters (850 feet) to the restaurant we visit so many times that I have a pretty good sense of the average to get between places.

And with that, it’s time to make the walk back to the facility, passing this bear we pass nearly every day we’re in Frankfurt.

That giant teddy bear has a friend nearby who, weather allowing, is blowing bubbles non-stop.

We are dropping off Jutta back in her room, where, in one relatively small room, she’s hanging on to the mementos that bring her joy. From the photobooks I put together of some of her travels to the map of Indigenous peoples across America, including the Navajo rug, she wove herself on one of her many visits. There’s some furniture she cherishes, along with various photos of Stephanie, Klaus, and Katharina, just enough to warm her heart that her family is out there, hopefully doing well.

With the portable toilet that’s been ever-present on the right side of the street now gone, I just had to take one more photo of this sight. We walk by so often, and both love how the old-fashioned bridge connects the two sides of government offices that occupy this area.

Time for shopping now instead of waiting until the last day as we usually do. The first stop was at Blutsgeschwister for a bag to replace our worn toiletry bag and a new umbrella, both with the same gnome design.

Well, this is embarrassing. It’s December 2023, and I’m moving through a bunch of old posts, rechecking them for grammar mistakes and links that have died, when I discovered something wrong with this post. That part of what’s wrong is that from the bag above, there was some missing text, and all of the subsequent photos and text from here down. The photos had been uploaded, meaning that there was text here at one time, but inexplicably, it’s all missing. I searched for cached versions and checked Archive.org, all to no avail. I do know that we were in MyZeil near Hauptwache with Caroline searching for a perfume that was beguiling her as she smelled it on the streets as people walked by.

I’d know these clothes anywhere; we could only have been shopping at Gudrun Sjödén.

The guy who worked here at Red Wing Shoes was incredibly helpful in doing a thorough measuring of Caroline’s feet, both of them. Unfortunately, they didn’t have her size of the Iron Ranger boot in stock and couldn’t have it in before we were to leave Germany, but the service was amazing nonetheless.

My memory is thin here, but the photo was likely chosen as I  had something positive to say about the festive nature of this busker ensemble that was getting their groove on here in the main shopping area.

No photos of dinner, family, or anything else followed this billboard in the subway advertising cigarettes. While it’s tragic that we apparently lost about six hours of a day on vacation in Germany, in the scheme of things, it’s nothing as our documenting of over a thousand other travel days is a treasure trove of otherwise forgotten moments.