Bon(n) Appetit!

Well, well, well. Look who the carousel threw up. 🙂

 

Today was the Rosenmontag Karneval in Bonn. Although Karneval is celebrated madly in Germany as a whole (like any legally delineated time frame for public debauchery, drunkenness, dressing up in mad outfits, and drowning yourself in sugary treats would/should be), the North Rhine area takes a special fondness to being as certifiably loony as they can be, this time of the year. And naturally, there I was.

A friend of mine lives directly in the path of the Karneval parade. Since I’d missed it last year (and heard it being mentioned as an event of somewhat mythical proportions all year long), I put on my green sequinned hat (think a North Korean general on RuPaul’s drag race) and got myself an overpriced matching bag to boot. Then we parked ourselves on her window ledge, and spent four hours bellowing KAMELLE! at the floats going past.

And what floats there were! Admittedly, they aren’t anything to the scale of the NYC parade monstrosities, but there is a certain class and charm to things here. Marching band after marching went by in admirably matching outfits, loudly clanging brass bands and baton and flag twirlers, ever so often. Every ear-splitting scream aimed in their direction was answered by fistfuls of candy thrown in our direction. There was one extreeeemely retro moment, too, when an elderly ‘officer’ left the main stream and crossed over to where our friend, a dashing, beautiful pirate with a dashing, beautiful pirate duck strapped onto her head, was waving her plasterboard scimitar around. He dropped three bags of candy on her, and tapped his cheek for a kiss in return. She planted one on him, and dumped the booty in our pirate chest/crate (that we filled to the brim at least thrice. And also spilled stray beer over. At least thrice. Eh.)

The afternoon vanished in a rush of faces and floats. Ships went by, trucks went by. Tractors lugged massive wagons behind them, as did absolutely gorgeous Clydesdale horses, looking far more magnificent as they did, naturally. The booty consisted vastly of candy, candy, candy, but there were also gummy animals of every species, cookies, soft cakes, notepads and magnets, rubber ducks shaped with Beethoven’s head on them, stress balls, rubber balls, little pouches, a tulip float that handed out tulips (oo la laaa), and a singularly impressive procession of witches and vampires, that tossed out monster eye marshmallows from a gigantic cauldron.

During this entire time, I succumbed willingly to my Kryptonite- lollipops. The first wave had tossed a few in the window, and I decided to let myself a go a little. It led to an interesting moment later, when a man float going by yelled at me to take the lollipop out. I was completely sure I’d misheard the bizarre request, so I took it out and shouted back at him, ‘Why??’ To which I received a packet of soft cakes thrown at me, before the float went out of sight. Go figure.

Things were pretty wild west in there, though. Some people handed things to you, others slung in your direction with throws that would do Clayton Kershaw proud. Bees handed out honey-flavored chews, a field of sunflowers on legs went by and threw us sunflower seeds (little seed packets, with flowers painted on them!) and every manner of glucose fueled goodies, till my afternoon halted abruptly- I took a candy bar to the eye.

And that. shit. HURT. I was waving at someone to my right when a bar flew in from the left somewhere and caught me smack bang in my wide open left eye. I had a few moments of blinding pain and my eye felt like it was going to explode out of my head. I spent a  good 2-3 minutes doubled over completely shell-shocked and clutching my eye, going ‘my eye, my eye’ repeatedly. Then I hurried to the kitchen and my friend handed me a cold beer to hold against it. And let me tell you, alcohol *does* numb the pain.

A little while later, we headed out through the body of the parade. The only clear way out was to walk between the successive floats, and it was glorious. People were dancing on the sidewalks and occasionally spilling out onto the street. I saw a group of ballerinas hanging out a second-storey window, with MacGyvered upside down Umbrella candy catchers. 4-5 girls dancing in a circle dressed up as milk cartons, which I could not stop laughing about, and a severely impressive Renley Baratheon and company, who I deeply regret not taking pictures with.

Anyhoo, two days of sleeping off the alcohol poisoning from later that night and a bruised eye later, the Karneval has come to a close. I finally had the chance to witness a nationwide descent into madness, and added my own humble, licorice-flavored vodka insult to the liver contribution at the end. And although the binge cost me a day spent recovering in bed, I would not have missed it for the world. Dressed as a black cat and elbow deep in gummy bear treats (with a kick) is the only socially acceptable way to say goodbye and good riddance to the Karneval. So naturally, that’s what I did. When in Germany, do as the Germans do. 😉

 

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Day 30- Learning Selfishness 

And finally, day 30! Last poem for NaPoWriMo! We’re here! 🙂
So, I promised to end on a happy note- I think this one’s a happy ending. 🙂
I’m going to spend the next few days catching up on all the NaPoWriMo goodies I missed! If you have a special poem stashed away, please do tag me! I’d love to read it! 🙂
Thirty days of poems! This year, my fourth, was an absolute blast! Here’s three cheers for everyone who stayed with me all month! You’re awesome! 
Hip hip HURRAH! 
Hugs and kitten-bucketful mugs,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Cookie Monster

(Or, you know, just yusra) ❤️

The Best Ever Backyard Picnic!!!

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THE BEST EVER BACKYARD PICNIC!!!

My bonkers backyard has lately been invaded by an entirely welcome presence. Since the past week or so, a mixed sort of flock of birds has been showing up every day to scrounge for crumbs in the yard. Now, ‘tiny’ is almost a misleading term. The lot of them, about 10-15 birds, are a nice assortment of what google tells me are Wrens and Warblers, with the occasional sparrow tagging along. They’re barely palm sized (and if you’ve seen my hands you know how tiny that is!). They more than make up for it in sheer insistence though. Singing and chattering and arguing and basically being as noisy as it’s humanly possible to be, starting mid morning to well into the day.  It’s rather adorable really, but I’m going to say that very, very quietly, ’cause my cats are sitting right here looking very disgruntled and feeling sorry for themselves.

It turns out that the birdbrains, whom I’ve named The Twits, have quite a wicked sense of humor. They’ve been driving the cats fairly insane all week long.  Not only do they flit about their heads in a tempting way that drives the kitties hopping mad, but they know what they’re doing too. Two of them simultaneously dive bomb the confused kitty, or one of them swishes by in the middle of a pounce, completely throwing the cat off. They know exactly what they’re doing, with all these cunning aerial tactics. I swear, the day the cats get organized too, there’s going to be a full blown war in my backyard.

Well, as it happens, today there weren’t so many crumbs to be found in the little corner where the flock… flocks.  Not that it saddened them, they just argued more insistently and a couple flew into the house too (Bird mafia, I tell you… ). So Mum decided that she’ll throw them a picnic party, and she sprinkled an assortment of omnoms near the corner of the Brook  (it’s  a trickle running across the yard but very there despite it’s size). So! Food, fresh flowing water, a pile of twigs to play in and a low hanging branch. Bring on the festivities!!!! =D

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Oh and as if they weren’t enough, the commotion brought a wee mouse out from somewhere.  He was supremely unconcerned, walking through the birds to his choice of food and scurrying back to the twigs to eat them. I caught him washing up later too. 🙂

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So! That was my impromptu backyard picnic!  Hope you liked it!!! =D

Oh and this was the evening sky. The weather’s just been too beautiful to resist clicking. 🙂

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Lemonade and cheers!

Cookie ❤

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/daily-prompt-without/

Here’s to Perfect Days!!! =D

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Best friends are the best!

Some days, they’re just perfect.

Get up and see the sweetest smile on earth, smiling just for you.

Get out of the house and have an absolutely amazing time with an absolutely amazing friend. The kind who makes the stupidest, most mundane day turn incredible, just by being there.  That kind, yep.

Get back home past the point of exhaustion and fall asleep watching the same beautiful smile, and listening a voice so loving, the angels could weep.

Some days, they make you feel truly blessed.

Hope you have a blessed day too. I just had mine. 🙂

Hugs,

Cookie ❤

 

 

 

PS. A, so I’m officially making this the song.

 

A One Day Vacay!

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Guess who has a one day break from exams and psychos? 😀 😀 😀  Yep, me, lol. Here’s what I’m listening to today. Feel free to sing along, as tunelessly as you please! 😀 😀

 

Feel free to add more songs in the comments! Have a great day, y’all! 😀

Cheers,

Cookie ❤

The Morning Ride

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The Morning Ride

 

Out the moving train window I see
The trees nodding, waving away merrily.
Branches dotted with so many many greens
That no artist could ever have thought of, or seen,
A red brick house uphill standing tall
Daubed all year round in the colors of fall,
Wide open endless blue reaches of sky,
Cotton woolly fluff bunnies up high,
A lone white sheep grazing in the lush grass,
Rows of chrysanthemums on the overpass,
The odd car pulling up aside in the lane,
Companions for a moment and then lost again,
A spatter of rain from a mischievous cloud,
Spanked by the wind and then properly cowed,
Blows away giggling quiet as a feather,
A part of today and then lost forever.

©CM

Okay so I cheated a bit. I didn’t take a walk, as the prompt suggested. But the next best thing was a connecting train ride with an amazing view, so here you have it!  🙂

Love and light,

Cookie ❤

PS.  We hit 250 followers yesterday, and by happy coincidence it was also our fiftieth post. Fifty!!! I feel like an extra caffeinated cat on catnip!!!

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Thanks so, so much guys!!! PARTY TIME!!!!      😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

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catandog

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well, cake anyway! =P

So cake and hugs all around!!! Two Hundred and Fifty of them!!!! 😀 😀