Category: Uncategorized

Posted in potpurri, Uncategorized

I’m bored – Diary of my hip replacement surgery, day 15 post op

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

Day 9 post surgery. And by coincidence, my recovery period coincides with the whole #stayathome Coronavirus thing. So staying at home, not going out often isn’t such a big sacrifice for me.

Regarding the surgery: this is exactly what I was worried about and afraid of: not being able to do anything. People who’d had hip replacement surgery would go on and on and on about how awesome it was afterwards. No pain. But these were all lazy ass people who are now happy they can get up out of a chair without moaning and groaning. For an active person, it’s so not awesome. It’s boring and worse than before because now I still can’t go running, I can’t do any stretches, I’m not supposed to ride my bike, climb the stairs, walk without crutches, swim..what the fuck??! Am I being impatient? Maybe. Possibly. I have no idea how slow or fast recovery is supposed to be. There seems to be no guidance. They send you home but there’s no real plan. With babies for example, you get this little booklet that tells you what your baby is supposed to be able to do at certain times: weigh this much after 3 months, this and this at 6 months and so on.

Why doesn’t something similar exist for hip replacement? You should be able to ride your bike after one week. You should be able to not feel like theres a big fat dumpling logged somewhere in your groin on day 31. Or a vise-like grip, depending on the time of day, from day 38. Something like that.

I’m confident it will get better but this is exactly why I was so hesitant and a bit afraid. There’s no pain only the tightness and it’s just annoying and weird and worrying in the ‘is it supposed to feel like this?’ way. Reading up on the Internet is not helpful: has the joint dislocated and is on the loose? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Tomorrow I have my first of 10 physiotherapy sessions. Hopefully, she’ll be able to reassure me (she did and all is as it should be. Score!)

You’re not allowed to do this or that. It’s like this huge long list of all the things you’re not allowed to do! It’s awful. Don’t cross your legs. Don’t ride your bike, climb the stairs, lift more than 25 lbs., sleep on your side, sleep on your stomach, walk without crutches. And so on. It’s like really? Kill me now. First of all, according to my pamphlet, I am allowed to sleep on my side as long as I have a pillow between my legs. So I do. And I’ve slept on my stomach from day one because I can’t sleep any other way. Sleep is elusive. I take what I can get.

PS I know I am not supposed to be complaining in light of this insane pandemic. But hey, at least it’s a different topic. Enough of the Corona Virus reports already. Sheesh. I know! Wash hands for at least 20 seconds several times a day but especially after going out, Social distancing and literal distancing when standing in line (finally people here are not invading my personal space. Took a pandemic to teach them that? Good grief) and only go out to buy groceries. I know. There’s nothing more I can do. All the old ladies I know have mobile caregivers. And I sent out messages to everyone in the building if they need anything or want to be daring and go for a walk.

And yes, this too shall pass. We will get through this. No, it’s not going to be easy. It already isn’t for a lot of people and I am soooo fucking grateful for everything I still have and can do and will be able to do.

 

 

 

Posted in potpurri, Uncategorized

I really hate hospitals – Diary of hip replacement recovery

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

Don’t get me wrong – I’m totally grateful for them but don’t particularly like being in them. I had hip replacement surgery last week. A week ago exactly. I took the photo an hour or so after the surgery. So, on the road to recovery and bionic superpowers. Hopefully. I expect nothing less.

Between now and running a 10K? Months. Hell, I can’t even do my multiple times daily stretches that I’ve been doing all my life. Like seriously for the past 50 odd years. Try making do without that. Hard core. Seriously.  Muscle memory and all that? Yeah, my muscles do remember and are asking what the hell is going on? why aren’t you stretching? why aren’t you doing sit ups and pushups? Arabesques? Attitudes? (I know, it sounds like I’m totally badass and not lazy. I am lazy but there was a minimum of movements I’ve done for centuries. Okay. Decades.) 

I’m not allowed to ride my bike (even though I do a bit)  I’m not allowed to walk without those stupid crutches (mostly I don’t use them because they’re useless and topple over when I want to take something off the shelf at the supermarket) I’m not allowed to go swimming for another three weeks. Outrage. Annoying. Bored. The few exercises I’m allowed to do according to the physiotherapist and post op brochure are lame. Takes me five minutes and doesn’t tire me out at all.

Okay. Enough of the lamenting and complaining. I just hope my bionic superpowers kick in soon. I am a very impatient patient. Luckily, my best friend Dr. Mousen is keeping me on the rails. Hobble on.

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How can I help? The problem with plastic

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

Even though there are countless inspirational posts and tweets and newsletters explaining the power of ‘you’ as an individual and all you can change, when you’re standing in front of the supermarket shelf – refrigerated section – an array of pastel colored smoothies luring with easy healthy, some brands even with cute knit beanies, do you catch yourself thinking:

“What difference will it make if I take one or not?”

I find myself in that position way too often. Like everyday because – guilty I am – of buying Innocent smoothies and their bargain brand cousins. All clothed in plastic bottles.

They’re tasty, reasonably good for you, my fruit ration for the day (I do try buying fruit fruit- like bananas and apples and blueberries or strawberries but honestly, more often than not, they are tasteless and just yucky, sit, lonely and forgotten, in my fridge until the color brown which eventually kills any piece of fruit, induces me to throw them out)

Not a good solution those plastic clad smoothies. So can I make a difference? By refusing to buy anything clad in plastic? Simple answer is: one person can make a difference when she or he inspires others to do the same.

I will try to not buy smoothies in plastic bottles. I won’t always succeed (where I shop – out of ten different brands, only one was a glass bottle) but I’ll try and stay strong.

I’m not a neophyte when it comes to recycling and lessening my carbon footprint. I ride my bike and take public transport. I have my New Yorker tote, never ever resort to plastic bags and recycle cans, plastics, paper.

Problem is, even if we all recycle plastics- we still have too much of it. Way too much.

So goodbye smoothies in plastic bottles. I will miss the practicality, the refreshing snackiness, and all that. Goodbye. Hello bananas, apples, oranges, grapes, berries. I’ll try and treat you better. Maybe there’s even a blender in my future.

Because this 👇🏼 is a tragedy and can be avoided. Our choice. My choice. Your choice.

Posted in Uncategorized

Sophie Scholl and the face of resistance: an anniversary

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

February 22, 1943: today marks the 75th anniversary of the execution by beheading in Stadelheim Prison Munich of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and Christoph Probst, members of a student movement called the White Rose, resistance against Hitler’s National Socialist regime.. She was arrested on Feb 18th for distributing pamphlets at her university. She was executed three days later. She is remarkable for her courage, and especially prescient today in light of the #NeverAgain movement started by the students of MRD High School. 
I realize going against the Nazi Regime vs protesting in the here and now  – in this case, in the USA, going up against the NRA – has some crucial differences. No mass deportations into concentration camps for the sole purpose of annihilating a people, a culture. But there are  parallels: brave students from MSD High standing up in the face of oppressive injustice (inexplicable greed in the face of tragedy induced by the millions in donations by the NRA; strongarming congress to play dead) enduring slander and falsehoods, having the courage to face these corporate fiends can be paralleled to the past. 

What I am trying to say is that courage is courage no matter what and standing up against injustice will be heard. 
Sophie Scholl made a difference after she gave her life for what she believed in. The pamphlets were smuggled out of Germany to Sweden; were subsequently published and she became the symbol for German resistance. The kids of #NeverAgain will make a difference. 

Recommending reading: 
Das kurze Leben der Sophie Scholl by Hermann Vinke.The author was able to speak to one of Sophie’s surviving sisters, Inge Scholl, and incorporated her remembrances into the book. 

Die Weisse Rose by Miriam GebhardtHere, the author asks the question: what upbringing, what factors, turns an ordinary citizen into a hero? A resistance fighter? 

Both books here are in German but you’ll find a few in English too. 

Keep the #resistance against injustice of any kind. 

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The Frozen Dead: a French Crime Drama

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

The new year brought a nice surprise: finally a french crime drama on Netflix – about time. Hulu has been way ahead streaming french crime shows like Braquo, Witnesses, Engrenages. Glad Netflix is finally boarding the francophone train. Allons-y.

Glacé or The Frozen Dead. One expects grim; you get grim. Remember Les Rivières Pourpres (The Crimson Rivers) with Jean Reno and Vincent Cassell? Glacé is of the same DNA: ice in its veins ie most excellent.

Episode one (of six) opens at a cable car station in the French Pyrenees. It’s winter. So you get the icy winds, crunching snow and windshield wipers always on. Two workers starting the day, bundled up, travel up the mountains covered in thick snow. As they approach the first station, something is flapping in the icy wind. We already know it can’t be anything good. It’s not: a flayed horse hanging from the cables, its severed head bleeding into the snow. Definitely a rather ingenious criminal because it couldn’t have been easy getting that horse dead or alive up the mountain.

Cut to your perennially hung-over french cop: Charles Berlinger (absolutely huggable and wonderful) as Capitaine Martin Servaz from Toulouse has been requested personally from the prosecutor’s office to take on this case. “Why me? It’s a dead horse ffs” “Yes, but a very expensive one. The owner demands our best.” Servaz wants to stay in Toulouse, finish the case he’s currently working on. One senses there’s more to his reluctance. The reasons are revealed, like the many layers of winter clothing – some come off easily, some take more effort. The insane asylum near by may have something to do with it.

Wonderfully gothic with the vastness of a western yet claustrophobic because of the gruesome crimes. It’s great to the end and rather pertinent and of the times. If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, nothing will.

Glacé

The Frozen Dead

6 Episodes Netflix worldwide from January 1st, 2018

Posted in krimi, Uncategorized

wo bist du, feigling

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis

München Mord vom September 2016 – hat definitive mehr grau Zonen als der erste München Mord vom vorigen Jahr. Angelika ist heartbroken, daß sie es nicht geschafft hat, den Täter zu fangen. Es wird  mehr procedural gezeigt – Leute potenzielle Zeugen befragen usw. Und Ich muss mich entschulidgen  – die Gedanken sind vom September und unvollständig.  Werd ich nachholen. Weiter lesen bitte danke trotzdem. 

“Spuck mich an!”

“Intreganter Feigling”

Fall ungelöst. Wie’s halt so oft is.

Warum sehen wir München Mord nut einmal im Jahr? Das Problem mit dem Fernseh-Programm, also wie die Krimis gesendet werden: es fehlt an Intimität: wir können keine Beziehung zu den Darstellern aufbauen und die Darstellern zueinander. Es fehlt an Urgency des Augenblicks. Man kann nicht einfach weiter machen wo man vor einem Jahr aufgehört hat. Das können die Schauspieler nicht, das können wir als Zuschauer, Miterleber, auch nicht. 

Ich finde, es würde der Serie gut tun, wenn man 4 oder 6 oder 8 Folgen zusammen dreht und auch dementsprechend sendet  – also 4 Folgen in 4 Wochen usw. Gibt doch dem Team einen längeren Fall, die wir über 4 Wochen mit verfolgen können. Es muss ja nicht gleich à la Das Verbrechen sein. Aber die Geschichte kann man doch viel spannender machen, wenn man 4 Stunden hat einen Fall zu lösen als 60 oder 90 Minuten. Die Dänen machen es so und auch die Schweden, die Briten, die Franzosen. Die Serien auf Netflix usw. Das ist die neue Art und doch nicht so neue Art, Serien zu konsumieren. Let’s binge. 

So wie es ZDF/ARD/ORD derzeit noch machen,  ist schon a biserl vorsintflutlich. Eine Folge alle 6 bis 8 bis 12 Monate bringt es nicht mehr. 

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krimi revue: Kommissarin Heller – Der Beutegänger

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis
Der Beutegänger
Der Beutegänger

Die zweite Folge, die ich gesehen hab (Tod am Weiher war die erste Begegnung mit Winnie Heller und ihr Kollege Verhoeven) und trotz der etwas spröden Umgangsformen, ein durchaus unterhaltsamer Krimi Abend mit Nachklang.

Wir haben zwei ermordete junge Frauen und eine nervöse angespannte junge Frau. Sie glaubt sich verfolgt; alte Stalker Geschichte mit Ausdauer.

Annika Blendl
Annika Blendl

Die zwei unter ähnlichen Umständen umgekommenen Frauen waren Mitglied im gleichen Selbstverteidigungskurs, wo auch Hannah Lorenz (Annika Blendl, für mich ein neues und willkommenes Gesicht in der Krimi-Rige) unterrichtet. Das ist die Premise.

Lohnt sich bis zum Ende. Der arme Verhoeven setzt sich auch endlich irgend wie bei seiner schroffen Karriere-Frau durch. Das freut uns. Bis zum nächsten Mal Winnie. Pass auf die Fische auf. Wie heissen die nochmal?

 

 

 

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krimi revue: vermisst, Alexandra Walch, 17

Posted on by kaufmannskrimis
Hary Prinz als Lenz in 'Vermisst'
Hary Prinz als Lenz in ‘Vermisst’

Der Titel sagt schon alles: es geht um ein hübsches junges Mädchen, welches ausgerechnet am Vorabend ihres 17. Geburtstags verschwindet. Der Inhalt bei den diversen TV Stationen und Magazinen nehmen es an sich, auch eine Erklärung abzugeben, warum manche mit Deutschem Akzent sprechen im Österreichischen Krems, wo Alexandra und ihre Familie wohnen. Sind wir gewohnt in Österreich.

Das erste was mir eingefallen ist, während den ersten Sekunden dieses Zweiteilers: die Dänische Serie, Das Verbrechen, wo sich alles um den Tod der 19-jährigen Schülerin Nanna Birk Larsen dreht. Muss Absicht gewesen sein. Diese erste Staffel mit der wortkargen Sarah Lund war so gut, so souverän gemacht, man kann es ruhig als Bauplan fur beklemmend spannende Krimi-Unterhaltung ran nehmen. Mir lieber als lahme Original-Ideen.

Richy Mueller, Ann-Katrin Kramer in Vermisst
Richy Mueller, Ann-Katrin Kramer in Vermisst
Vermisst, Alexandra Walch, 17 nimmt den Zuschauer an der Hand, kopf über und rein in die Anatomie einer Vermissten Anzeige. Die Ereignisse, das Warten, die Ungewissheit der ganzen Familie, ist hoch konzentriertes Nägelbeisen kombiniert mit Wegschauen und Ohren zuhalten. Man will nicht wahr haben, was aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach passieren wird. Mich hats geschaudert.  Wie kann es passiert? Warum? Wieso? Was hab ich falsch gemacht? Wäre sie doch nicht aus dem Auto ausgestiegen.. Kurz: stark gemacht.

Julia Koschitz, Hary Prinz Vermisst
Julia Koschitz, Hary Prinz
Vermisst
Sobald die Kriminalpolizei an board kommt, war ich freudig überrascht. Keine Klichees, keine Echte Wiener Klamauk Truppe gehen unter. Kommissar Lenz (Hary Prinz) war geradlinig, verhalten, gut. Von der Chemie zwischen Lenz und seiner Partnerin Lisa (Julia Koschitz) her vielleicht ein wenig fad aber irgend wie hats doch gepasst zwischen den beiden. Die Regie sei an dieser Stelle zu erwähnen, denn sie war hervorragend.

Die Besetzung ist gut und Regisseur Andreas Prochaska weiss wie er was rausholen kann ohne Pathos und leidiges over acting. Die Dramatik lag in den Details, klein, fein, umso stärker. Da war Richy Müller als Vater perfekt besetzt.

Hilft natürlich wenn das Drehbuch auch passt – in diesem Fall, basierend auf der spanischen Fernsehserie Desapar, und adaptiert von Andreas Prochaska und Agnes Pluch. Gut gemacht. Eine erschreckende Mitverfolgung einer Anatomie einer Familien Tragödie. Ein Klassiker unter den Krimis was heisst: kann man sich immer wieder anschauen.

Erster Teil gesehen in der ORF Mediathek am 9.9.2015. Zweiter Teil wird am kommenden Freitag, 11.9.2015 ausgestraht und ist danach sieben Tage lang abzurufen.