Resolving to do better myself, last night I purchased some Spargel of our own, to be cooked tonight. Stay tuned for the results. (It may not be clear from the photo that these things are big, fatter than my thumbs -- no pencil-thin sticks of asparagus here!)

In other news, big sailing ships were coming into the harbor all day long yesterday for Hafengeburtstag; a few of them docked right next door to our office. One of the ships, a two-master, appeared to be crewed by a family (or a couple of families). Their children, who couldn't have been older than seven or eight, were up in the rigging, swinging Tarzan-like from one yardarm to the other -- starting out about ten or fifteen feet above the deck, arcing out over the water, then coming in over the deck again to land perched on the yardarm attached to the other mast. There was nothing keeping them from a nasty fall other than their two hands on the rope, of course. Swinging out there did look like fun -- but at the same time, I couldn't help cringing each time they did it, because it looked a lot like little kids tempting crazy death, too.