H: within 10


N: (giggles)


H: Why are you laughing?


N: Because you speak German and the THING transcribes so much nonsense.


H: Oh, you already started the THING!


N: Of course, why waste time?


H: Say, Hi to my child. My husband ran, I said “We are doing the THING now” and he said “OK I’ll go grocery shopping!”


N: And are you concerned?


H: Why? Oh, that he’ll never come back? No. He has been coming back for the last 15 years, it’s his habit to come back.


N: I’ve never before seen you so optimistic.


H:My kid is listening, and he speaks English very well so he knows what you're saying.


N: Okay, so we have to do an under 18 transcript today. This will be difficult considering what we have done in the last 12 days. Wait a moment, I just remember that I have to send an email to the building management. I am happy that we are speaking English now because the German word “Hausverwaltung” is so unappealing. I prefer dealing with the building management. That feels different. I embrace that feeling. So, now it’s done. I was late, I had to send them my reply to an Umlaufbeschluss today, what is it in English? Ia have not idea. Anyway, I just sent that. Now I have to pay couple of invoices, well, actually several. But we can continue talking while I do that.


H: I want to introduce you to another German word for Hausverwaltung: Facility Management!


N: Oh yes this is such a German word!


H: Is this more elegant to your ear?


N: It is not, it reminds me of “Where are the facilities”.


H: Think spa! I would come more often if you had a spa in your building.


N: Yes, I can imagine you would come more often if I had a spa in my apartment, because if it was in the building and it was shared, you would never go there. Because you dislike other people.


H: Do you want me to say something nice to you? I always come only for you.


N: Oh, thank you that's nice so we can stop this whole THING now!


H: But people will be disappointed because we didn't do anything interesting?


N: Well, but you know, it is half time, it’s the 12th, we haven’t done anything interesting for the last 12 days, so why start now. But I think we should continue just for the fuck of it, and we should stop on the 22nd just, because we can.


H: Oh the THING can say pack now! Oh it doesn’t for me, only for you! Why is that so??


N: Because it's not adapted to your voice. Your voice is the nice voice, the kind voice and my voice is the swear word voice.


H: And I would think it's exactly the opposite normally. I bet I can do that. Pack, sucks. Okay, It says sucks, sucks is okay.


N: I trained it. I sat there in my office all day saying fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck - just to train the thing. And now it can say it and I have made it develop its intelligence and does anyone pay me for this? No. That hurts. I don’t want to do such things without pay. Now that’s a sad moment. We had a good moment, we had a sad moment, we can stop this now.


H: You could probably talk about why we forget to do the recording every single day.


Teil II folgt hier.

(Der erste Teil ist hier.)

N.: Aber ihr habt doch Weihnachtsdeko! Da ist der Giant Dwarf, dann der Adventskranz, da ist noch ein kleiner Weihnachtsmensch, da sind Holzsachen mit Lichtern, hier ist ja überall Weihnachtsdeko. Und dann stehen da oben die… stehen die da das ganze Jahr? Ach nein, Herr H. kommt da natürlich dran. Und im Fenster sind Sterne, es ist voll dekoriert.

Herr H.: Die Sterne haben wir gerade für dich drangemacht.

N.: Oh vielen Dank.

H.: Vorne raus haben wir ja immer großen gesellschaftlichen Druck, da natürlich an Weihnachten 24 Stunden am Tag gegenüber Messe ist, und dann möchte man den Senior:innen, die zur Messe gehen, auch ein schön erleuchtetes Fenster bieten.

N.: Ah, sowas spüre ich nicht in mir.

Herr H.: nickt

H.: Ich spüre das.

Herr H.: nickt

H.: Fürs Pfarrfest putze ich ja immer vorne die Fenster, damit wir nicht so verlottert aussehen. Neulich habe ich vorm Pfarrfest die Fenster geputzt, und alle alten Damen, die vorbei kamen, sagten: „Ich wohn Haus Nummer 11, kommen Sie gleich noch vorbei, ja?“, also alle. Die hatten sich abgesprochen mit dem Witz.

Herr H.: Ona und ich habe die Fenster geputzt.

H.: Ihr habt außen geputzt, weil ich da nicht drankomme, ich habe innen geputzt.

N.: Wer hat denn jetzt die Fenster geputzt?

Herr H.: Ona und ich.

H.: Und ich.

Herr H.: Ona und ich haben draußen geputzt. Und drinnen.

H.: Du Lügenbold!

N.: Ich fragte so explizit, weil du ja eben gesagt hast: „Wir müssen das Kartenspiel mitnehmen.“ Und da war ich auch ganz überrascht, denn ich dachte ja, mein Mann und ich besuchen dich und dein Kind und diesen Mann, und als du dann sagtest „Wir müssen das Kartenspiel mitnehmen“, da war ich verwirrt, wo wir denn alle gemeinsam hingehen zum Kartenspielen. Aber es hat sich ja geklärt. Es war ein Befehl, der höflich sein sollte. Ich glaube, und ich weiß nicht ob das eine neuer Entwicklung ist,

H.: Von mir?

N.: Nein, von mir, dass ich meine Höflichkeit abgelegt habe.

H.: Nein, das ist keine neuere Entwicklung. Ich habe dich noch nie höflich erlebt.

Alle: nicken

H.: Aber: Ich verstehe das ja so gut.

N.: Aber hast du dir Höflichkeit neu zugelegt? Mir ist das auch noch nie aufgefallen, dass du zu mir höflich bist. Es scheint mir neu zu sein. Und auch, dass du mehr diese Sachen, die man tun sollte, immer so im Hinterkopf hast.

H.: Das kommt mit dem Alter. Demnächst entferne ich Unkraut auf dem Bürgersteig.

N.: Bist du wieder 50 by proxy?

H.: Ich muss das gleich alles abtippen, oder? Das ist doch bestimmt schon ganz viel gewesen, reicht das nicht langsam? Wie lange soll ich denn da tippen?

Kind H.: Die Suppe ist sehr lecker Mama.

H.: Das lass ich drin.

N.: Natürlich.

(Teil I ist hier.)

H: I had the carrots that my mother cooked for us. And I prepared approximately three kilos of fruit I like oranges and tangerines and kiwi, and, things, I don't even remember. I eat fruit a lot and my kid eats apples like a crazy person, when he has an apple phase he eats to kilos per day, for weeks. And my husband, that is the person who never got sick and his entire life and has his first little sickness now in 50 something years, he never eats fruit, not ever. He only eats cookies. Okay, so he gets cookies no. But the doctor said that we need to still lie down and rest and eat fruit.

N: Or you can eat things from the vitamin owl.

H: We do, but nevertheless I have had two and a half kilos of oranges for the entire week now every day. And so today I made my portion of oranges, so I peel them and then I chop them…

N: Wait, this is an interesting piece of information. Because when you lived with me you always told me that you are allergic to the peel and that I have to peel the oranges for you!

H: This year, I can do that without being allergic.

N: I think I have discovered something fishy here.

H: No no no no, it’s not fishy. I don't know why that is, but it's the first time in 46 years that I can do that without getting an allergy, but I've been peeling oranges for a couple of days now and nothing happens. So, what I did then was that I prepared a huge, huge bowl of fruit in bite size, very convenient, you know, you can just eat it…

N: You made fruit salad.

H: It’s totally different, it’s just fruit in pieces in a bowl.

N: Yes, that’s what we call fruit salad.

H: Anyway, on the table is the huge bowl of fruit. And people will have to finish it today.

N: Yeah. What about pizza.

H: I'm not interested in pizza. Do you want to order pizza?

N: As soon as we stop this THING, I will order pizza.

H: Oh, what kind of pizza?

N: I think tuna and black olives. What do you usually take on pizza? I have never seen you eating pizza, I think.

H: I usually take mushrooms and red onion but not too much because I don't like -

N: Oh, there’s your husband coming into the room. He looks healthy again.

Mr. H: Hello, Hello, How do you do again!

N: You have to eat the fruit. You look healthy again, healthy again.

Mr. H: Yes, but my voice is a little bit sick.

H: Oh no. He triggered SIRI.

SIRI: Theory. That's how these online so I can be nice.

H: No, no! Stop! Stop!

N: This THING is not a transcript, it’s a fucking party. Anyway. Mushrooms and not too many red onions.

H: And if it's a pizza place I like then I also take pepperoni.

N: Okay, so I'll order pizza now and what do you have for dinner or have already had dinner.

H: No, we already had the carrots. And fruit.

N: Fruit salad. And carrots - in Scotland this dish is called Neeps and Tatties. Well it is not with carrots but with wassitcalled, Steckrübe, turnip.

H: Nice.

(Teil 1 ist hier)


H: Menopause.


N: Exactly. Maybe. There’s hope. And sometimes I notice early on and I can catch a couple of effects before they really hit. Very often I notice it will happen because my speaking and writing don’t work as I'm used to. So when I write and I am about to get a migraine, I confuse letters with numbers. Very strange, like I’m a leet-Person or something. So when I write an email and I see on the screen that instead of E there’s always a 3, I know I have to put my contingency plans into action. Anyway, I noticed something which I like very much. You have the big church window behind you.


H: I know.


N: And I look a bit like a saint today, I think, you know, not like a male saint with a beard and ragged clothes, like a woman saint in a painting with a beatific smile, very content. Yes. Don’t you think so?


H: I think you look like yourself every single day.


N: Well that’s no contradiction.


H: Another thing which just came to mind: I did something this morning that I never do. Ever.


N: You had breakfast.


H: No.


N: You took a shower!


H: No!!


N: You went outside.


H: So do you want to continue guessing, I mean, it's only 24 episodes, we can do that forever?


N: No, tell me.


H: I had sugar in my coffee.


N: But you always have sugar in your coffee, well at least at my place, even though you specially bought this sweetener and dumped it in my cupboard.


H: Yes, exactly, because I always forget that I dumped my sweetener in your cupboard. But during the first lockdown. I stopped eating sugar for two years.


N: Look what kind of charming things everyone did during the lockdown like not eating sugar, and there was poor me working all the time…


H: I’ve been eating sugar again for a few months but I did not go back to sugar in my coffee. I stayed with the sweetener in my coffee, that means that on an average day, because I don't have breakfast before 11 or something, I go into my first meetings with zero calories. And so this morning I had coffee with sugar because I got up and I'm feeling a little bit knocked out from the flu, so I had difficult difficulties getting up and I knew that I needed to be in good form. And so I decided to replace the sweetener with –


N: Crystal Meth!!


H: Sugar. With sugar. I had to convince my body to perform. And then I got the migraine two hours later and then I remembered that I once read an article about the connection between migraines and sugar intake.


N: Mildly interesting.


H: But the important thing is that now I have something in the house that helps me with the migraine and that makes me very happy!

N: There we go. Hello. Hello.


H: I made a little gasp because you look like you have a bird around your neck, and I didn't know what to say.


Mr. H: Is the tomcat here in this room?


H: No, Novemberregen is carrying a dead bird around her neck, not a dead cat.


Mr. H: Greetings to Novemberregen.


N: Greetings back. Anyway, what is the health situation like? I see your husband is still alive, we just heard him. And he is concerned about the cat, not about himself so apparently he is not close to death.


H: No, he's not. But tomorrow he will take his first day off sick.


N: This year or ever?


H: Well, I don't know, but definitely this year, and he has taken off sick but he is secretly working from home, I see him, but he has a meeting tomorrow and he doesn't see himself sitting on the train and going into huge meetings with important people.


N: And it's not a clever thing to go when you have a cold or the flu or whatever it is. Covid.


H: You don't know. No, no it's not and I encouraged him, and I said, this is your first day off sick this year so maybe you can actually do that because you're actually thick.


N: That's not such a nice thing to say.


H: I didn’t say that, the THING said that. I said sick. He's sick, and the kid is also still sick and spends his entire day on the sofa in the living room. And because there's no soccer match today. He re-watched the soccer match from 2014, I think, where we won seven to one.


N: I don't remember that.


H: I do remember that. And I remember watching it in the big bed. And my kid was five and he fell asleep. And then, with every goal we went totally crazy, my husband and I, and he cried at every single goal and we told him the story so often that he had to rewatch the match today. So that’s what he did all day. And I worked, and I finished my November reportings which is really great.


N: That's good.


H: Now there's only 28 more things I really urgently need to deliver before Christmas.


N: 28, that's almost like an advent calendar.


H: Yeah, but much more painful.


N: Oh, I wouldn't say that.


H: So how is your health?


N: Well - I think I’m perfectly healthy.


H: Wow!


N: Yes, I don't suffer from anything, even though I had Feuerzangenbowle yesterday and mulled wine. But I woke up and felt, you know, perfect.


H: You are such an easy person. I would be so bored to be you!


N: Yeah, well I'm quite happy.


H: I made myself happy today actually 10 minutes ago. So I finished working at nine and then I made my bed. It was a fever bed and I had been lying in that bed. That's not good. And no, it was not sweaty or anything but I wanted it fresh and perfect. And it's the best time of my life when I made my bed, actually there was no good English word for making your bed because making your bed, that’s what you do in the morning, or what other people do.


N: You changed the linens.


H: Yes, in Jane Austen they would say “change the linens” or some hundred years ago. Change the sheets I would say.


N: But you are Jane Austensy, you change the linens and so you can recline again.


SIRI: That's how I intelligent afternoon 15 first century something before.


N: Oh, another INTELLIGENCE is speaking.


H: Something triggered it, I don’t know why. I don’t even know where it is right now.


N: Next year for the advent calendar we to a podcast transcript but we don’t speak, your Siri talks to my Alexa. But this is next year. Back to this year. Do we speak about a topic today because we have to be quick, I have many things to do and I am tired already.




Hier geht es im Laufe des Tages zu Teil II

H: You have to hurry up, I'm waiting for a phone call.


N: Yes, and any moment my boss might come through the door so then you have to look like a business person which you do of course. Because I am waiting for a piece of info from him which is very very urgent but he's on the phone all the time and so sometimes he just, you know he has a wireless headset, so he runs through the office, and dumps paper on my desk because he can’t speak.


H: Could you do me a favor? I only know him from photos. So can you turn the camera around so I can see him if he comes running in ß


N: I’ll try, I try, but he's incredibly quick.


H: Yeah, but that would be incredibly entertaining. I could look like a very busy business person. I could change my glasses, I could take the non-ugly business glasses. I see worse through these.


N: You see worse but you look better. Language – yay!


H: Incredible pun.


N: So how has your day been so far?


H: I've been working like a mad person, and my husband has the flu.


N: Oh really. Oh that's new.


H: Well, yesterday we kind of sensed that this was going to happen. And now every few hours we meet in the kitchen, all three of us because, you know, my child is also back at home because has a fever again.


N: So every couple of hours you meet to check if everyone is still alive.


H: No, we meet in the kitchen to consume medication.


N: I see, Like, what do you call that? The place where you go to take drugs.


H: Well if it's allowed then it's the white cross.


N: Exactly. You meet and you take your methadone.


H: And then we go and do your things again, whatever it may be. Exactly. And every single time we do that, we think of you.


N: Why??


H: Because I have all those things from the Vitamin Owl.


N: Oh yes, oh I forgot that I have those things and I never took them again after I started – you know, it took a couple of weeks after Covid before I forgot that I had had it, but then at some point maybe a month later, I forgot. And then I forgot to take the vitamins.


H: I even reordered new ones. We take zinc.


N: Zinc gives me a terrible stomach ache. I can't take zinc.


H: Oh I love zinc, it seems to be good if you have the flu so I've taken zinc, and we take multivitamins, and we take vitamin b1 and we take vitamin D and vitamin K. And I really don't get why I still have the flu.


N: Vitamin D is the stuff you also take to uplift your spirits, right? When you don't have enough sunshine and I discovered that, you know, I'm not a person who needs sunshine, obviously, I detest sunshine and my body doesn't need it I think. And my spirit is always so uplifted that, you know, if I take vitamin D, that's too much. I’d be insufferable. I know what you are going to say now.


Der zweite Teil kommt hier.

Der erste Teil ist hier. Entschuldigen Sie den langen Cliffhanger. ich hätte auch gern vor 21:48 Uhr ein paar Sekunden Ruhe am Tag, aber es ist, wie es ist.

H: Yes, oh, I see, you have the lucky cat waving the money and if people say no, no, you don’t get our money then you turn around to the other side and take your little black box and take out your hand granade!


N: Right. Very often, when I have calls with people a lot, so regularly with the same people, at some point they ask “What is in that box?” And then I say “Well, what do you think is in that box?” And the answer very often is: “A fountain pen.”


H: And then you say no, its two fountain pens?


N: No, I say “That’s a beautiful thought, let’s keep that thought."


H: Do you want to tell me and the public what's in that box?


N: Oh, it's a fake box there's nothing in it. So, I mean, the box is not fake, I could put something in it but, I mean, why should I??


H: There’s nothing in the signature folders either?


N: Nothing in the folders.


H: But it looks vvery elegant, it kind of takes the focus away from these somewhat out dated sideboard.


N: Exactly. And usually when I have a call and there is also my boss on it or other people from the office, they afterwards call me and say “oh I saw in the call you tidied up your office, it looks totally different!” But of course it’s just this one view, all my things are on the other side where you can’t see it because the camera is positioned this way.


H: We all do this, here, look at this side, there is my laundry. And the bed. Now you can say hey, when I worked from home you said to me “don’t put laundry in your office!”. But this here is because of Putin! This is the room where the central heating is on.


N: Yes, I know, but whan it was my room it was not because of Putin but because of - how do you say this - precarious circumstances, poverty so to say. I don’t have a room which I can use only as my office at home.


H: But you have a daughter who will move out one day, then you have a hobby room.


N: I still won’t have room for an office then. I may want a laundry room or a library only at the moment I’m throwing away all the books and replacing them with shoes. I may want a room only for shoes.


H: Anyway, I want to talk to you about process management.


N: Is this a review talk today?


H: Yes, we need other topics than the flu. And everything we set so far is nonsense.


N: The THING writes set instead of sad. Oh my got, it is all wrong, our pronunciation is all wrong. Said said said. Set. Sad. One has to practice that!


H: It’s very difficult. And it gives room for interpretation. So do we have an interesting topic today.


N: Let me think. Oh I remembered the word for “Winter Garden”. It’s “conservatory”! I think we should use this word more often.


H: This is a wonderful word, it’s actually a room that we use for our shoes from outside, but now when the doorbell rings I can say “oh do go through to the conservatory!” and people will be standing in this really shabby room thinking okay this is not what I had in mind.


N: But you can put up a little sign, a brass sign saying “conservatory”.


H: And they will think what are they conserving there, maybe bodies?


N: We are always come back to this body topic. I don’t know where this comes from. I don’t usually think about bodies and where to keep them. I feel quite relaxed at the moment.


H: I'm not that relaxed because I have to work the six days that I slept. I have to work in the next six days so I have to work for 12 days in six days. But I had a very long meeting this morning with my new colleague, And she performed amazingly!


N: So you have to give her a really good Christmas bonus payment! - Look at your face in the camera!


[Silence]


N: Good. I think this is long enough, even though it's not interesting. Today it's not interesting. Look what I am doing. This is, you know, sometimes in order to build up a relationship, build up trust, you have to make yourself vulnerable. So if we say “it’s not interesting today” of course everyone can jump in and say something very very mean. So, this is our attempt now to build trust, a relationship.


H: And so we leave it at that. But I think that people know that we are doing this for us and that other people…


N: Now don’t take it back, don’t spoil it! Let’s be vulnerable and see what happens.


H: Okay.

(Teil I hier.)

N: We went there and said, so okay here we are to get the tree, what is the process? And a guy in an orange vest said: There’s the saws, take one, take a tree. And there were a lot of rusty saws, thy were hanging on some sort of wooden pole. And we took one and said, where do we go now and he said: left or right and waved with his hand around, Christmas trees everywhere. So we went left, found a nice tree and thought, now what, we had to somehow saw it off at the bottom, so you have to kneel in the mud or what? I didn't do that my daughter did that. I just held up the branches of the tree because it was snowy, there was snow on the tree and it fell into the collar our jackets. And the sawing is somehow difficult, you always slip off the stem of the tree - the tree trunk. We were not good at that. And I decided, you know it has advantages to be 50, you can just straighten up and shout to any person “hey come over now we need help here!”, so a young man came and started the sawing and when we had a good notch it was easy and we took the tree to the car. Then there was this huge other guy in an orange vest and he took a look at our tree and says “we need to shape the trunk a bit to fit it into the - wassitcalled - the thing where you insert the tree trunk to keep it upright in the living room” and he has this huge motor saw and makes in incredible hellish sound with it just to chip of a bit of wood here and there. Total show-off. Then we had waffles and mulled wine and sausages, you know, it was a rural area, they always have good sausages there, and you could buy honey and veal - no not veal, what is the word, the pig in the woods?


H: Boar.


N: Boar, exactly. And other game. I’m not firm in rural language, I’m a city person, all these activities with plants and animals and making things with my hands, well, I make things with my hands on the computer keyboard.


H: And then you went back with your muddy shoes.


N: Yes, we’ll visit Mr. Wash soon.


H: You know, I have a dog and I live next to a forest. So I go into the forest in the winter like all the time. And you know, my Wellingtons collection in the, what's it what's the word, we call it Winter Garden. Every German person will know what I’m talking about. So, my Wellingtons collection in the Winter Garden and there is a really really really huge amount of dirt on all those pairs of Wellingtons.


N: It was an arranged activity, I expected someone to take care of this. With carpets, or, I know this from strawberry picking, if you go there are different fields where you can go as a city person for strawberry picking and at some you just kneel in the mud and others, there it is very convenient with straw mats. Anyway, it was a nice event and we’ll go again next year. Then we'll be prepared and next time we will be the people who help other people.


H: Because you will be the people who know that there's the chainsaw guy and I can borrow you my wellingtons and my outdoor clothing.


N: We will have this special equipment, like you can buy those rubber covers for your trousers and we may even get an electric saw on Amazon. And the car is not as dirty as one might think, because I went back and asked the orange vest person “What is the plan for cleaning boots?” and there was none, of course, so I asked “Do you have straw here?” and of course they had, there is always straw in the countryside. So we could wipe our boots with straw before getting in the car. And I would wear different clothing, I was wearing a white coat and a very long light pink scarf that was always in the way.


H: But seriously if you really want to do that next year, I will bring you my one of my many different winter forest outfits for your birthday.


N: Maybe you want to come along.


H: No, I don't want to come along!


N: But your husband would want to come along


H: For the sausages, yeah okay he would come for the food. But he would feel bad if he chopped a tree. I think for him it's a huge effort, a huge mental effort to have a Christmas tree. He likes Christmas trees, he is the one in the family who always needs a huge Christmas tree. But he tries to abstract away from the fact that this was a living tree, which was chopped for him and gets burned afterwards, and is emitting carbon dioxide like a super nova.


N: So he's not the psychopathic person who would kill someone and keep the body in his living room to look at. He is not the aggressive type. But he is someone who buys a body.


H: He would order another person, like a Mafia boss. Here, I give you 60 bucks and you do it.


N: Yeah, like I just wanna watch.


H. Like: I don't want to participate.


N: I think we have said enough now.


H: That is true. But it was a very nice topic. I hope you do something interesting tomorrow as well because I don't know how my recovery will be.


N: Maybe for 24 days you will always be in the same room and the same bed.


H: That would we be really bad because when I need to apply for Bürgergeld afterwards because I lost my clients. Seriously, I have to go and work tomorrow. There is no alternative to that. But I also think after 6 days of lying in bed, one should get up.


N: But you don't have to go outside to work, right?


H: Yeah. Yeah. But I need some kind of blood pressure that allows sitting..


N: Maybe we can do our call early tomorrow so you'll be awake later. Because my presence is so stimulating.


H: That is true, it gives me, what are those hormones called that make you happy?


N: I don’t know, but I am stimulating and such a delightful person. I’m very nice. It will give you a good start into the day.


H: Absolutely. Yeah, just send me an invite.

Teil I ist hier.

N: Oh yes and it’s still early, I'm still only, maybe, halfway through with my day because in an hour approximately I'm going to pick up my daughter from a concert. And I'm going to drive her to a party in another town because a friend of hers has her 18th birthday. And so of course she has to go there but there is the concert first. So I'm driving her there. Then at two o'clock at night I'm going to pick her up again to take her home and then at nine in the morning we're going to go to another place, and this is a bit of a funny story because, actually it's a business meeting, sort of. Because I am a person they invite to the most curious things and they invited me to - I don't even have the words for this. I am struggling to find the words because I never bothered to learn the English words for this. You know, the round thing with branches out of Christmas tree and the 4 candles.


H: Adventskranz.


N: Yes, what is it in English? And how do you make it, what is the word, to you weave it? Or do you tie it or just make it? I don’t know. Anyway, they invited me for this activity and I said no, no I don't want to do this, I don't see myself there.


H: Oh, I remember you telling me about that.


N: Yes, and then they said maybe we have a different activity for you. You can chop, I mean cut, Christmas trees, you can go into the woods with an axe, would you like this? And I said yes. So tomorrow I’ll be going through the woods on a snowy evening, only it will be morning and probably a forest. 9 o’clock in the morning.


H: Do you have shoes for this activity?


N: No. Do I need special shoes? I thought I only needed an axe.


H: Yeah, but probably you have to walk there and with leather sole shoes you don’t get into the woods to cut a tree.


N: Well, as I said, it's a business appointment so I hope there will be some level of convenience and comfort! Business people don’t have shoes to walk into woods. I won't be the only one with that problem, someone will have thoughtfully resolved this in advance. I might wear high heels. Well, I don't have high heels, so I can't.


H: But you don’t want to either you know, you are too old to still look smart if you walk into the woods in high heels. If you were 20 people would think, Oh, that's cute. But if you are 50 and do that, people think oh she's really stupid.


N: You are so judgmental. They will think “oh that mad old pitch” and that is something I would appreciate - hey, I didn’t say pitch! I said it with a b!


H:It doesn't want to say bean pod.


N: Why does the THING write bean pod now? It's so - it's so rural!


H: Anyway. You told me this morning that in your seminar you spoke about forgiveness.


N: Did I? This morning? The day was pretty long and it's only half over for me and in another 12 hours I will chop off a tree. This is - if you think about it, you cut a tree, so you kill it, and then you decorate it and put it into your living room. That’s a bit psycho, isn’t it? Like when people kill other people and make them look nice and put them in their living rooms. Not people I know. I hope. Theoretical people.


H:We wanted to talk about forgiveness.


N: Yes, and I am almost there.


H: I think it might be convenient - once you chop someone up and maybe someone I know - then it might be convenient to know where we stand on the forgiveness thing. So maybe you would care to explain.


N: Definitely. If you forgive someone, it gives you freedom. Because you no longer have to have these thoughts in your head, these thoughts about revenge and about how much you hate that person. So the power this person's action had on you vanishes with forgiveness. So if I kill your family, you should forgive me.


H: Well. I think I would simply kill you or hire someone to kill you.


N: I know that this is a topic where you are a bit touchy, the killing of your familiy, this is why I chose this example, so that you can, you know, fully embrace the idea of forgiveness.


H: I think you can’t kill my child, he is quicker than you are and he is also feisty


N: Yes, he plays handball, so he's not easy to catch.


H: He's very quick. That's true, but you might have an axe. So, yeah, it depends. It really depends on the situation. And if you kill my husband that would make my life very complicated. But I think that you are such a good and smart person, you wouldn't kill without a very good reason.


N: Also, it’s quite an amount of work: planning work and tidying up afterwards and, I would need a very good motive, otherwise I couldnt be bothered. I don’t have time for this, killing and such.


H: And there is fear afterwards. I think that our lives are pretty good right now so why would we end up in jail.


N: Yeah, I don't see the point of being in jail.


H: Let me continue with a follow up question. Yes, um, do you forgive everything? Just to get rid of the thoughts?.


N: Well, it's an idea. You can decide. It's no obligation, but even if it's a terrible thing that was done to you - you know, it's done anyway. You can't change that. But you can change what you do with it. And if it occupies a large amount of your brain all the time and you can’t do other things, and it always comes up again and influences you in ways you maybe don't want because, yeah it's over and done, so what is the purpose, maybe to keep that thought inside you doesn't help you. So you could forgive.


H: I think I might prefer another way of dealing with it. If the person is simply horrible, I think I cannot forgive. But I can stop thinking about it.


N: Yes, it is good that you said that because it's what I also said, I can ignore it. I don't have to forgive, I can just forget. Ignore.


H: I sort of delete the thought from my head. Exactly. And because forgiving wouldn't help, because it's still a horrible person, so why would I want to do the forgiving, I could just ignore.


N: Maybe not everyone is as good at ignoring things as we are.


H: Yeah, that's true. I'm actually very sure that this is true. But for me it works perfectly. I simply erase people. Mentally.


N: I can to this too and sometimes when worrisome things occupy my mind, I assign the thoughts certain time slots during the day and so, when my thoughts start circling about the worrisome situation again, I can tell them, no, not now, your time is between 3 pm and 3:15 pm. That works fine for me. I set an alarm clock, so I don’t forget to worry at 3 pm but I stop again at 3:15. And then I don’t think about it again until the next day at 3 pm, then I have my 15 minutes again and afterwards I can continue with pleasant things.


H: That’s a very good way. And it’s a bit psycho, too. So, this is what you learned today.


N: Yes. And what did you learn?


H: Nothing. I embraced the flu.

H: Let’s do the THING.

N: There it is. Now we are doing the THING. Perfect. How do you feel about our THING so far?

H: Um, I have to concentrate on feeling how I feel right now because I’m recovering from embracing the flu. But I think that the THING is so much more time efficient for me that I totally love it. And I find it entertaining because we still can see each other every evening.

N: That’s right, and even for me it’s time efficient even though I’m at the moment the person who prepares the file for upload, because we only have to say things once, and not several times because the audio is poor. And I can always refer back to things, I can always say “I already explained, scroll up and look it up”.

[laughter]

N: Did I kill you with laughter again?

H: Yes, but it’s very easy right now because I have to cough every 10 seconds.

N: Yes, and that’s great, it gives me the opportunity to jump in and speak.

H: I actually have to tell you something.

N: Oh, please do!

H: Yesterday you told me this very uninteresting story about the rapid tests.

N: Yes. And I lied. It’s not with pregnancy. That was on purpose, that lie.

H: I did one today.

N: A pregnancy test?

H: A rapid test and you have to be very strong now. I am not pregnant.

N: Okay.

H: I also don’t have Covid.

N: That’s good to know. It really is, because you know, we met only a couple of days ago, so I’m more concerned about Covid than about pregnancy because pregnancy is not contagious.

H: It’s self imposed.

N: True.

H: So, what did you do today.

N: I was at the seminar and the topic today was self-reflection which I absolutely hate. Oh my god, do I hate it.

H: You are terrible at that.

N: Well, I can choose, I can be terrible at that and then it’s very boring. Or I can be absolutely stunning at that and then it’s very exhausting for me, because you know I have this barrier. And it’s very good. My barrier is excellent and so normally nothing can touch me at all. And I can, you know, move it down, like by pressing a button mentally, if I want that, within half a second or so it’s down and all is fine, I’m a different kind of person, all there, no mental barrier at all. But it takes effort to keep it down if I’m not in an environment where I would naturally do that. So here, of course it’s down without effort, you know, you are not dangerous.

H: Maybe you misjudge me.

N: Ha ha. But in other contexts, work for example, it’s just the default that the barrier is up, which is, for me, a very good thing, because it makes everything so much easier for me. And I can still let it down sometimes on purpose if I want to achieve something by this. It has an incredible effect.

H: But then it’s not letting the barrier down, then it’s pretending to let the barrier down.

N: Not at all, I do let it down. And nobody ever expects it and people are overwhelmed and I move it up again and continue. It’s a very good thing to have. Like a special effect. But to keep it down on purpose for an extensive period of time like three or four hours in an environment where I would not normally do this, that’s very exhausting for me.

H: It’s a mental effort.

N: Yes, a mental effort. And I usually don’t – you know, I’m so clever and normally never experience mental effort. So now I have a migraine.

H: They made you get a migraine!

N: No, I made myself get a migraine, I could choose between being bored and getting a migraine, and I embraced migraine.

H: Such a pity that we didn’t get the triptanes in Prague.

N: Oh, I got the triptans from DocMorris, but they’re at home. And I’m not at home, I’m in Kassel and there is snow here, which is beautiful. I took a walk to the seminar place and back, me in the snow singing merry snow songs for, you know, one hour and a half or so.

H: Why would you walk three kilometers to your workshop venue? I read that this morning.

N: Why not?

H: It’s far!

N: I mean, how would I – no, it’s not, it’s an hour or maybe even less, 40 minutes, something like that. How would you get there? I don’t have a bike here, and it’s uphill, so I wouldn’t like going by bike anyway. There’s no visible bus or tram, and I’m not here by car so yes, I could take a taxi, I’ll do that tomorrow because tomorrow I’ll have my luggage but without luggage, I mean three kilometers is not far. I can just walk

H: Then I have another question. Why didn’t you pick a better accommodation?

N: There are two accommodations available here because it’s not such a big place – well, there are more but they are much more expensive and they have bad reviews so I don’t pay 180 euros per night, and the review says it’s not clean.

H: No, you don’t want that.

N: I picked another location a couple of months ago, that was closer to the venue but there was this lady and she was very nice but she wanted me to sit with them in the living room and on the veranda and speak with their friends and they wanted me to explain to them about the internet and about Vodafone, they had several issues with Vodafone. And they wanted me to watch Tatort with them and I don’t want this. She was very kind and she told me that she is 75 now and she does this Airbnb thing to have contact with people, and this is not what I want. You know if I go someplace and I let my barrier down for four hours without a break I can’t afterwards explain the internet to 75-year-old ladies. It’s not possible. I have to sleep, or to entertain myself. On the internet. Yeah, I have my limits, and here they are. Total disclosure: here are my limits!

H: I think your limitations are quite obvious to anyone.

N :Do you think so? Tell me!

H: No, I’m kidding.

N: Oh, okay.

H: I’m trying to get my wittiness back from embracing the flu.

N: So, what are your limitations?

H: I have none.

N: Okay. Have you ever taken part in a self-reflection workshop and then stayed for the night with a 75 year old lady who wanted to know all about the internet?

H: No, and I think this is a very good example of me not having that limitation because that would never happen to me.

N: You don’t like taking risks.

H: Yeah, that’s probably it. I am choosing my challenges.

N: You want meaningful challenges.

H: I want better paid challenges.

N: Yeah, I’m not that money focused. I just want challenges, whatever they may be.

H: Yes, but I think the challenge for me can never be explaining the internet to le le le le.

N: The THING says le le le le.

H: Oh, the THING doesn’t know the word.

N: Is it maybe a British English expression? Instead of elderly, let’s say ancient.

H: Oh, and now when you say it, it can say elderly!

N: Yeah, your pronunciation is not good.

H: So let us subsume: if I say German it says Toronto. And if I say, elderly it says, la la la la la. The THING is bothering me. And it is only on day three and here I am talking like a person giving a language class. It’s like when I was a student and I gave crash classes in Dutch at the Volkshochschule for the unemployed. The course was eight hours per day for five days a week for four weeks. And after that, I talked like a primary school teacher on drugs.

N: I think now we have to wrap this up somehow.

H: We could explain why we do this very complicated wrapping up and not just stop because I think people asked why we do that.

N: Oh, we already explained that in episode I, so now I can say it – scroll up and look it up!

H: That’s the beauty of the THING!