A year of visits by many friends: Susanne, the Grosskreutzes, Peter and Anneli Schmidt, Jenny, Susanne, Regine and Simon, Marc, Monique, Carolyn and Susanne again. Barbara slowly recovered from several complications. Rolf, Cornelius and Ulysse were in Sacro. Anneliese 70^th and Robert Forrest's 80^th birthday, and finally the turbulent Christmas, when Rome and Denver congregated at our house. - We are all getting noticeably older....

December 2007 - January 2008

Two days before New Year I had to fly Barbara back to LA from München. Invited to Jutta Micheuz's wedding on 31 December in a village near Basel we had imagined a nostalgic Christmas for us in München. Shortly before leaving for Munich Barbara had fallen hard on her rear end in her room.

Despite of that she had flown first to spend 10 days with Marga, living now in the Luise Wetzel Stift in Tübingen. When I arrived and met her at night in front of our trusted Hotel am Markt, I found Barbara in agonies. She could barely walk, she had a terrible pain in her lower left back where she had fallen on. We went to the emergency of the Schwabing Hospital,where they took x-rays but could not find anything broken.

Fortified with pain killers, she stayed in bed. I went alone to Irmgard von Neurath's Christmas Eve and to the Keilmanns' on Christmas day. On 26 January a very kind Palestinian doctor came to the hotel and gave Barbara a shot of Tramadol.

I decided to take her back to LA. Dear Carolyn changed our return flights – thank God we had both travel insurance. On 29 December we flew back on Lufthansa, Barbara heavily drugged. Kaiser in LA could not find anything either. For three weeks Barbara suffered on heavy medication. Susanne flew in to care for her mother. Her energy proved contagious.

This photo was taken when Barbara was already much better. Since she still had difficulties sitting for long times, she devised this writing desk for herself. Very slowly her abdominal cramps let up. Susanne left on 21 January. The Grosskreutzes were on the approach.

January 25-30 Jürgen and Irene

Jürgen and Irene Grosskreutz, dear friends from München, had planned a tour around the world to visit their daughter in New Zealand. What was more natural than their spending a week with us? We had invited them long before Christmas. Their flights and dates were booked. And here they were. They turned out to be most dear and helpful guests. Irene cooked, and not only she dried dishes.
On 26 January the four of us went to an unforgotten performance of Benjamin Britten's “War Requiem” with Ashkenazy at the Philharmonic, and on 29 January Barbara willed herself and them to a tour of the Weisman Museum, the first she had conducted since early December.

2- 9 February Peter and Anneli Schmidt

Peter is the oldest of my Schmidt cousins, children of Käthe Gross-Schmidt, my father's only sister. When I was 14 Peter was one of my closest friends. As it happened the Schmidts ended up in the GDR in 1945. I had not seen or heard from him directly since 1943! They live in Naumburg. Anneli is a painter and musician (viola) who runs a music group for children. She is the active person of the two, who takes him on all sorts of excursions. Peter had asked to visit us months earlier.

Peter turned out to be a congenial man. He listens thoughtfully, long-winded in his explanations but always to the point, an excellent partner in discussions – still the philosopher. We even, for fun, retrieved our discussion of 1943 on the nature of the electron!

Barbara and he enjoyed each other. And she exerted herself for them. She not only prepared an excellent meal every day, but took them on a tour of the Weisman Museum and to the Japanese Gardens at UCLA, while I went with them to the Getty Villa.

In the end Barbara drove them to the Huntington Museum and Gardens in Pasadena. - Anachronistically, neither of them knows how to drive; they relied entirely on Barbara's services!
They had booked a Best Western Tour from Las Vegas through the Indian Country and afterward flew to Philadelphia, “the Birth Place of America” as Peter phrased it. As it were but didn't know then, I would see them again in Sacro in June.

After them Sophia Severino had a layover in LA on one of her flights and, as you can see, for a day effortlessly slipped into her usual place in our house. And Fritz Keilmann from München also stayed a few days with us.

22 -31 March Jenny comes for Easter

Jenny had begged to come and stay with her dear Granny, so Easter break was just right. Barbara and she dedicated themselves to each other: a movie a day, sometimes two more videos at night sitting on her bed....

But the surprise was that this dear grandchild treated grandpa Rolf with hugs and kisses several times a day. Wonderful! - My God, when she was a couple of years old, she would start screaming at the mere sight of me....


The Romans

We didn't hear often from Rome in 2008. Cornelius was kept frightfully busy pushing his 10 people and traveling to conferences and invitations, and Anne Cecile was working for a licensing examination as a European patent attorney - besides she anyway writes only when put under heavy pressure.

Sometime during this year Cornelius had a breakthrough with his research. He was able to show the influence of serotonin on “early mouse death”. The young litters of his mice, which had been subjected to serotonin deficiency, were dying for no definable reason. AC suggested to measure their temperature after birth, and sure enough some of them showed a violent temperature rise after which they just died. He realized that the same process might explain “Early Infant Death Syndrome”, which likewise had never been explained satisfactorily. The paper was a huge success. The BBC interviewed him, and he is still traveling all over the world giving talks on his research.

However, the most tangible result of this success besides a raise was that EMBL made him a full member with – like it is customary in Europe – a tenured position for life.

“I am now looking for a suitable mausoleum in Rome,” he wrote, but he has no real intentions to stay there for the rest of his life. They began to look for a nicer, cheaper and larger apartment in Monterotondo - just at the time when AC found herself pregnant again!

While we often felt neglected by them, Cornelius developed a beautiful relationship with Marga. They visited Marga several times this year. Here AC and Calliope have brought new plants to grandfather Hans' grave in Tübingen.

Susanne decided that her brother needed to have a new camera. For a while thereafter we occasionally got photos like this one of Anne-Cecile's parents at Christmas 2007. The first and only picture we have seen of them. They live outside of Aix-en-Provence. - Meanwhile (2009) the camera was filled with sand and has stopped working....

30 May- 9 June Rolf meets Cornelius and Ulysse in Berlin and Sacro

Sometime in April Peter Schmidt sent me a tentative invitation to celebrate the 140th birthday anniversary of our common grandfather, Werner Gross at his former parsonage in Sacro near Forst, Oberlausitz. The present pastor there had conceived of this idea.

My first thought was “die sind verrückt”, they are crazy. But after a few days I changed my mind. My earliest memories are from several visits with my grandparents when I was 4 or 5. And new-found cousin Peter played an important role in those. If Cornelius would join me, I was prepared to fly to Berlin and together with him take the train to Forst. An enthusiastic response from Cornelius settled the matter. He would bring Ulysse along!

This happening has its own web page with many photos.

We met in a small, spartan hotel in Berlin – as you see - over Weissbier and apple Schorle.

The parsonage and church of grandfather Gross (1899-1936)

We slept with the numerous members of the Schmidt clan - males and females separated in two dormitories under the eaves.

Breakfast in the grandparents' former dining room. You'll recognize Peter and Anneli. The three children are their grandchildren, their mother stands next to Anneli.

Lunch with Peter's grandchildren at the Sacro Restaurant. Despite initial language problems, Ulysse, who speaks 3 languages but no German, felt right at home. It helped that Anton on Ulysse's left, an unusual boy(!), spoke English quite well.

A completely exhausted Ulysse waiting for the train to Berlin.

Cornelius and Ulysse flew back home, and I stayed for a few days at Valerie Popp's still empty apartment on the Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. Valerie, the granddaughter of a friend of my parents (1938) though 6 months pregnant, was a most charming hostess.

Much anticipated with fears and trepidations by his mother, Caspar was born in September.

20 – 27 June Susanne to the Rescue of her Mother

Barbara was once again in poor condition, this time with a more unpleasant than painful prolapse of her uterus. Her doctors at Kaiser decided that they would operate on her and tie her sagging organs with a net to her spine. This was to take place on 17-20 June, 10 days after I had returned from Berlin. Susanne, faithful soul, immediately decided to fly to LA and care for her mother after she would come home.

Barbara was recovering well and Susanne had some time to pursue her own nostalgic memories of LA. On the morning after a tour of movie-star homes she walked to the cliff where she took this self portrait and several other unusual pictures.

The mighty eucalyptus trees along the cliff

Catalina island and the Pacific under the morning clouds.

1 July Marga's 95^th Birthday in Tübingen

Barbara was in no condition to fly to Marga's 95^th birthday, and I, fearing another disaster, was happy. As always Marga did not want any guests and at the same time was elated by her well-wishers. The following pictures were taken by Christian Scherwitz, a nephew of Marga's and the father of charming Eva.

Eva and Marga reading the birthday mail – or the menu?

Nobody can make Marga laugh as Eva can. A most charming picture of a 95-year old lady.

Vacation Time

In August 2008 Cornelius, AC and their children spent their vacation in Istria, Croatia, where we had spent three weeks with Cornelius, Susanne, and Monica Willumsen in 1972.

This beguiling picture of Calliope in Istria hangs on the wall in Barbara's room.

Susanne and John Exploring Utah

Susanne and John have discovered an new “playground”: The Great Outdoors of Utah and Colorado. Susanne, who never felt comfortable on the camping trips her father took her to, has suddenly become a real outdoors woman. Of course, they stay in hotels not in a tent. She does the planning and John enjoys driving his newly upgraded jeep into the most impossible places.

Look at her, how happy she is on this hike in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah!

A New Tamriko

For the past two years I have received a load each of photos by e-mail from our old friend Tamriko Japaridze in Tbilisi. Six years ago she had finally succeeded to get pregnant and give birth to this charming blond creature named Becky. Tamriko has changed so as to be unrecognizable to her old admirers. Her once black Georgian hair may be bleached, but her features are not. She and her lucky man don't live together, they are not even officially married. He works for an American energy company in various places around the globe. Every year they meet somewhere for a month, Crete, skiing in the Swiss Alps, etc. At home she has a Georgian nanny to care for the children. They just adopted an orphan girl from Chechnya. Tamriko's letters are as confused as they have always been, but the photos speak of a happy relationship.

Tamriko and Becky in France in August.

Kelly in Japan with Cornelius and Anne-Cecile

Our great worry this year and that of her parents was Kelly Wood, Jenny's sister. In the beginning of the year she went through a period of teen-age confusion: poor grades, boredom and fierce fights with her mother. Everyone including Barbara and even I tried to help motivate her. Cornelius had the grand idea to invite her together with AC and the children to a two-week tour of Japan, where he had been invited to lecture for a month. Ryokans, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, Tokyo and here the shrine in Ise. It didn't help much to stabilize Kelly – a rigorous school year did that later - but it produced this memorable photo of her – before she dyed her hair raven black!

Meanwhile our beautiful lamp over the dining table fell apart from old age. I had finally found some sheets of durable architect's paper and spend several days replacing the lining of all three cones.

29 July – 14 August Regine and Simon in Pacific Palisades

Many years ago, Regine Wörner, a friend of Sophia Severino walked into our house and adopted us. She has been back many times since and has become a very dear friend of ours. This time she brought Simon along.

Originally Regine had planned to go on a tour of the West. They got as far as Vegas and returned, begging that we keep them a while longer; they felt so comfortable and loved Mochi (Japanese tea-ice wrapped in a rice-dough skin). They spent many hours looking at movies from their bed. - Our TV has no antenna, it serves exclusively for showing videos.

30 August Anneliese's 70^th Birthday Party

We are all getting older except Anneliese - who gets younger every year! Her friends celebrated her birthday - who would believe she is 70 – with a pool party. Someone presented her with the Micky-Mouse hat.

Our common friend Gouri Radnakrishnan-Müller took this photo of Barbara at the event with a long telelens.

10 – 19 October The Eighth or Tenth Visit of Marc and Monique

Other dear and dedicated friends of ours arrived in October, Marc and Monique from Holland. Cornelius met them in 1982 on a campground in Rome. He later traveled with Marc to India and China. I have lost count of their visits to our house, they have become very close to us. Susanne flew in to see them. As usual Peter and Anneliese were also part of this dinner party. Monique took the picture.

Marc backed by a burning Californian October sunset.

They took Barbara on a walk to the cliff. She must still take 7.5 mg Prednisone every day and has to protect herself against the sun. So she wears this faded-elegance hat on her walks in the Palisades.

Monique also took this photo of her looking a picture of Ulysse.

We don't have many pictures of Marc and Monique, this charming portrait of Monique is a rarity.
Besides Susanne (16-18 October) Carolyn on the way to her father Robert's 80^th birthday dropped by the Palisades for a couple of days. Carolyn persuaded Barbara to fly to San Francisco to attend Roberts birthday celebration at Sea Ranch (13-27 October). I, afraid of the commotion and the trip, stayed home.

And then happened the celebrated election of Barack Obama putting an end to the incompetent and frightening reign of the Bush junta. Few presidential elections were fought as hard as this one. Even I joined the activists.

20 December – 5 January A Turbulent Christmas

After celebrating several Christmas alone or only with Peter and Anneliese, this year Cornelius, AC and their children plus Jenny and Kelly all congregated at our house. This picture shows everyone watching Ulysse unwrap his presents on Christmas Eve.

Five photographers took pictures of this happening. There are so many that I put a selection of them on a separate web page.