She is by now on the other side of Facebook and her profile is currently fairly inactive.

• I remember her driving her Beetle wearing her trench coat, a hat and leather gloves. Quite a sight. That’s how she rolled.
• She smoked like a chimney, but of course only “light” cigarettes.
• She introduced me to Nutella. I had the first Nutella croissant at her balcony at the age of 6.
• She was married three times, but only to two different men.
• Her first and second husband shot himself. Her third husband died a day before my dad’s 13th birthday.
• During the war she worked as a nurse in Paris and later in Russia. She also gave birth to my dad in January 1945. Pretty crazy to have a baby when you are surrounded by rubble.
• She was a news junkie and always carried a little radio with her when she walked around in her apartment.
• She always asked what I wanted for lunch. If I shrugged my shoulders she’d say”Ok, we’ll just have cold as with pears”. That was a saying from the Rhineland area where she grew up.
• I heard that my grandpa was in a concentration camp. Somehow she got him out but no one knows the full story.
• She was a lady. But the time you would really hear her curse was when her little oil-powered heater wouldn’t come on because it was clogged with soot.
• Her phone number was 21443. Some things you never forget.

As a teenager I was living with my dad. Grandma had been living alone for decades. Her place was on my way home from school and usually I swung by for lunch.

Then things suddenly changed. My dad couldn’t pay rent. We got kicked out of our apartment. He moved in with his girlfriend and I was presented with one option: how about moving in with your grandmother? I wasn’t exactly thrilled. Most of my stuff went into storage. I went from my teenage room where you could barely see the wall into a room with bare walls and furniture that didn’t exactly match my personal style. I slept in a 40-year old bed that once belonged to my dad. My old apartment is still a legend in my hometown for the parties I threw when my dad was traveling. That wasn’t exactly an option at my new home. She had a tiny 2-bedroom apartment and I could hardly move in my room once I had my huge stereo speakers and all my records moved in there.

I was 17 and she was 72. Nice matchup. We were both used to have it our own ways. There wasn’t much space on 750sqft to escape each other.

She did a wonderful job in adjusting and trying to take care of me. She never made me feel unwelcome. Of course we pushed each others’ buttons and could drive each other nuts. I wasn’t exactly easy to get along with. Which teenager is? Plus these were the 80′s which presented one fashion shock after the other for the older generation. But for most of the time we had a blast. We accepted our differences. I don’t think I ever lost respect for her. I can’t speak for her end :) At least I didn’t turn her hair grey. Others had taken care of that before already.

She had a very dry sense of humor and we laughed a lot. We talked politics and watched the news every day. Eventually I graduated from high school and got my own place. The time with her was priceless. I wasn’t around when she passed away since I was living on the US already. I lucked out by getting to spend time with her when she was still at her best.

So there you have my 11.11.11 story. Who knows she might be trading WWII stories with Andy Rooney right now.

I heard of the great tragedy of your lead character going through a very painful divorce. I understand the family’s need for privacy. Kim and her sisters will need a leave of absence to heal and recover. Of course this leaves you with the great challenge to fill an open slot on your prime time schedule.

I’ve been thinking it over and even though I am fairly busy I am willing to make the sacrifice and step in. The problem is of course that my life is almost entirely drama free (I had a few branches fall of my tree last week and the landed pretty hard in my backyard. I also had a pretty rough Halloween weekend. This time of the year always brings up memories of The Wizard of Oz which is the scariest movie EVER).

But not all is lost: I could re-enact some scenes from my divorce that should satisfy the needs of your audience. I also have some Facebook friends that are total drama queens (male and female) and I am sure they are willing to step up to the plate when they are called to duty. One bad episode of Jersey Shore and they are having a melt-down, I swear. I might even be able to drum up 5 friends from my past live that will vouch for me being mental.

As for your core demographic: I am 45 but that doesn’t really matter. I can easily pass for 44 1/2. Most teenagers will say that I am totally lame. But we all know that they always say the opposite of what they really mean.

Since time is of the essence we should discuss the financial piece as well. I am willing to settle for $5 million per show. I am not looking to make any profit from this but of course I have a certain lifestyle to maintain and a rep to protect. My fee goes up to 10 million for each episode that would involved a marriage or divorce of mine. That will not include the rights to the wedding pics. I am already in direct talks with The Onion since they’d want to cover the event.

No matter how high your ratings will soar: This is only temporary. Once Kim is ready to get back on the air the slot is hers again.

As you can see, I am really easy to work with. You can leave a comment on this blog with your phone number and my agent will contact you.

Let’s get this over with. The sooner we get started the sooner I can have my life back.

On another note:
I noticed that Kim Kardashian is back on Match. Her status is listed as “separated”. That a big no-go for me. I am sure 99.9% of all other men think the same. Hopefully her “situation” gets resolved soon and her mailbox will fill up again. She seems to be a real sweetheart. Hopefully she won’t stay alone forever.

I need to talk to Perez now. He is a little emotional this week and he needs my shoulder.

1. Lame costumes
A lot of adults want to have some Halloween fun. The problem is that their creativity did get killed between the ages of 4 to 6. They are also afraid to stick out in any way which defeats the purpose of dressing up. So they play it safe and buy a generic pre-made costume or do a 20% dress up by wearing a silly hat. Or better, they wear a football jersey and looks just as inspiring as throughout the entire year. Here are some places to look at for inspiration: The occupy guys on Wallstreet had some creative costumes . There was also a guy dressed up as an iPhone , someone that created a see-through effect by using 2 iPads or another lad dressed up as a camera (that actually worked). That’s what I am talking about. It doesn’t have to be that elaborate. you can create things on a budget.  Also: if you wear a costume, don’t just stand there. Do something, connect with people, make it fun. Or just keep your sweatpants on and sit Halloween out.  Personally I love theme parties. It is a great way to challenge people to be creative and have some fun. We all need to stay arts or revive our artiness if it has been in hiding due to us growing up the wrong way.

2. Really sucky candy
The suckyness of the candy could actually kill it for their manufacturers. Here is how: parents are aware of the low-quality crap that is being handed out. Many of them don’t want their kids to eat it because they fear the trip to the dentist or aren’t too fond of their kids turn diabetic by the age of 12. What’s the way out? Some parents buy that crap from their kids. What happens next? They’ll save it and hand it out next year. Eventually we’ll all go full cycle. Candy will be given out but not eaten any longer. Due dates won’t matter. It will actually help if it is labeled as expired. The kids get money from their parents and can buy some organic, low-sugar, no-fat and gluten-free cookies or load their iPads with some math and science tutorials instead.

I’ve been thinking about playing the evil candy monster and hand out some stuff that actually fastest like something (Kinder Schokolade, Ritter Sport, some Belgium Butter Cookies…). Of course the kids would all get hooked and never talk to their parents again if they continue to by them the regular junk from the isles.

3. Haunted houses
With our looming debt crisis and the most incompetent bundle of presidential candidates in recent history we already live in a scary enough place. Do we need haunted houses at this time? We spend big bucks on standing in line, freeze you buns off and listen to someone swinging a chainsaw in the dark when all you have to do is turn on the TV and watch a presidential debate?

Full disclosure
I am spoiled by having visited the Carnival in Cologne. Half of our company is located over there and I have seen dress-up parties that put everything in the US to shame. We have a lot of catching up to do.

One of the “left-overs” of my family days were our two yellow labs Hershey and Coco. They were brought into the family under the premise of us living under the same roof.

I knew by the time we broke up that holding on to the dogs would be a huge burden for either one of us. Taking proper care of two dogs when you live on your own is a huge sacrifice. Having no family or other backup anywhere nearby was making things more challenging. I had to cater to their needs first and subordinate my schedule to theirs. This is especially hard in a phase of my life that is filled with traveling and many changes of my schedule and routine.  My neighbors that were getting annoyed with the dogs barking when they lacked attention because the house was empty. I had to leave a Thanksgiving dinner at my friend’s house at 6:30, just when dinner was being served.

Since me ex-wife decided to move out of state the option to share the burden was gone. I decided to find a family that would offer a happy and safe place for them. I never considered giving them up for adoption to strangers or dropping them off to a shelter home.

I put up an Craigslist ad describing the pets and their habits in detail and posted images that were descriptive of their characters. I made clear what my expectations would be. I was prepared for this to be a lengthy process.

I invited potential owners to my home and had them to meet the dogs and see how they interacted with each other. As a next step I decided to visit their place and make sure it would be similar to the environment our dogs were used to.

There were plenty of candidates that were interested in adopting the two dogs:

• There was the single guy living with 4 roommates.
• There was the contractor that wanted to drive the dogs around from one construction site to the other.
• There was the single mom that was working from 8 – 5 and wanted to leave the dogs in their yard.
• There was a family that missed their appointments to look at the dogs.
• There was the man with a dog run far behind their house.
• There was the mom with the 2 year old that could have gotten run over.

These might all be qualified dog owners but it would have meant a major transition for our two dogs.

I ended up finding a family that had tears of happiness in their eyes when they first met the dogs and then again when I brought the dogs to their home. The dogs get to lick many faces of happy new owners. They get to play with children which they are used to. They have access to a big yard that also serves as a playground. They can stay on their usual schedule with human interaction throughout the day. They get to stay together which was another important criteria. This family offers stability. They owned dogs before.

I knew this was a situation I had to deal with and I also knew that I’d feel bad regardless. We all have choices to make in life. Some of them are tough. This doesn’t mean that we can try to make the very best out of situations that are being handed to us. We owe it to others and ourselves.

I will miss the two bundles of joy. Knowing that they’ll be ok helps a lot in mitigating my feelings of guilt and pain.

PS:
Liana and Jacob, the new owners, are wonderful and their approach to the pets closely mirrors how the dogs were treated at our home. The one difference is the cat in their new home. Hershey and Coco set the tone by emptying her food bowl right away :)