Spargelzeit

It’s been really fun here with the whole senior management team offsite, don’t you think? It struck me during our pizza party that, if ever there was an hour to become an autocrat and abuse human rights with impunity, that was it. You know, because the normally ever-vigilant eyes of HRFers were momentarily unfocused.

Did you know that, not only is it Springtime, it is also Spargelzeit? Of all the many, many, many weird things I learned about while studying abroad in Germany, this was perhaps my favorite. Literally, the ‘time of Asparagus’, this is the time of year when Germans go asparagus crazy (or, to coin a term – Spargelverrückt), with asparagus on the menus of every restaurant, asparagus featured on billboards and in television and magazine advertisements, asparagus featured in sketches, etc etc – asparagus is more aggressively marketed during this time than Grand Theft Auto IV. Seriously. I know. Plus, the asparagus that is so celebrated is white. It’s like asparagus that has been drained by Bunnicula – but it hasn’t, it’s just normal asparagus grown without direct sunlight and something weird happens to its chlorophyll. I don’t know. At the end of the semester I wrote complex 15-page papers auf deutsch on German nationalism and history, but I’ve forgotten most of that, remembering only the good, weird things: Spargelzeit, that time our landlady accused my roommate and me of being prostitutes – because our American friends visited so often, Wer wird Millionär/Deutschland Sucht den Superstar, watching the dollar get lame against the Euro, and some truly awful dancing.

New Feature! Summer Anthems: Because it is summerish, I would like to use this space going forward to highlight summer anthems, songs that embody the carefree energy of summertime. Songs that you hear spilling out of ice cream shops and bars as you walk down the street in your flipflips, songs that you hear at the park or the beach while you are throwing a frisbee with your best friends, songs that fuel long drives in the suburbs with the windows down. The first song I will feature is dear to my heart: Summers of 1997 and 1998, at last I had friends old enough to drive volvos, then I was driving myself, and Rockville Pike has never been so glorious as when we were flying and singing along to this. Adolescence was never the halcyon days we sometimes remember, but… listening to this song with my best friends, I’m sure I was less awkward than usual, and more happy. Give it a listen. 10-11 years ago, this was my song! (Borrow the CD if you’d like – and also please email me some of your favorite summer anthems.)