Can you believe it's still raining? it's gorgeous. like grey fur. so i won't have to mow the lawn today. and i probably, as long as this keeps up, won't have to be a soccer mom. lawd!
It did manage to stop raining for a couple hours yesterday. i took the kids to the zoo. I love the zoo. My favorite are the seals, but also the orangutans, chimps, bird sorts, the tarantula and turtles. We also saw some ponies. One had such a large penis that a crowd of children drew around it. luckily there was a fence. I mean, this was the petting zoo section! Of course I was asked to explain this phenomenon. And of course I said the pony must have laid down on something sticky that other things kept getting stuck to until the tubular formation was achieved. just kidding. the kids were molto impressed. there was such a hullabaloo i dropped the camera.
I recognized a lot of names at the zoo. That is, a lot of Germans have animal last names. There's -
Mr. Bear (Baer)
Mr. Brown Horse (Brauner)
Mr. Black Horse (Rappe)
Mr. Dog (Hund)
Mr. Hedgehog (Igel)
Mr. Mouse (Maus)
Mr. Rabbit (Hase)
Mr. Lion (Loewe)
Mr. Sheep (Schaf)
Mr. Stork (Storch)
Mr. Bird (Vogel)
Mr. Fox (Fuchs)
Mr. Mountain Goat (Steinbock)
Mr. White Horse (Schimmel)
Mr. Sparrow (Spatz)
Mr. Frog (Frosch)
They're all in the phone book. And that's not all. Ok, we've got Larry Bird and Sheryl Crow and Redd Foxx. But are there others? No!
Actually Germans can have pretty wonderful names. One of my favorites is Mr. Holzapfel (wooden apple). Also read about a Frau Wintermantel (winter coat) the other day. And the guy who works at the Foreigner Registry is named Mr. Sorgenfrei (Mr. Carefree). My colleague says that must be a Jewish name. And I said it's a pretty crap name for a German Jew.
6 comments:
One of my clients (from a corporate engineering dept.) is named Richard Head. If you ever meet him, he goes by "Richard."
I guess you have to be familiar with the politics of corporate engineering departments to appreciate the name...
Hope your camera is okay. I'm off to lie down in something sticky.
Hmm, what about Peter Finch, Christopher Wren, Samuel Colt, Stephen Crane, Hart Crane, Charles Lamb, Eddie Rabbit, Gary Hart, Adam Ant, Sam Bass, Jack Trout, Kurt Salmon...
oh very good, bob. don't tell my german colleagues. I told them they were outdoing us in this department. (they do have those names, too. my doctor's name is "Trout.")
Carl, but your friend is not a pony, right?
*LOL* sarah. oh yes, there are some pretty cool names, himmelfreundpointner for instance. ;)
schoisswohl. :)
i'm pretty lucky with my last name.
there's an a.j.bear, a skier.
ha! the pony story reminds of a horse we saw at lainz in vienna last year, attracting a crowd of children with the same kind of attraction. ;)
not that much rain here, just a little on sunday - as usual at the time when we wanted to play tennis.
m
Oh Sarah, what a funny post! Carl Bryant's comment kept me laughing, too!
another funny name: grasmuck (grass gnat). m
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