Finished Product

Today, I completed my chair. I didn't actually build the chair but I gave it a new life.Yay for recycling! This chair was old and wooden with a terrible cork looking (but actually not) seat. I guess I should have taken a before picture for reference but I have another chair just like it so I will try to remember the before picture next time. I rescued these two chairs on my way home from work one day last fall. From the start, I planned to sand, paint and upholster them but they sat in the garage all winter awaiting a nice spring day and a trip to the local hardware mega store for the proper tools. In case you are interested, you would need sand paper, paint, foam and a staple gun. I got the fabric from a textile shop. Total cost of materials for the two chairs was just under 25 EUR but one third of the cost was the staple gun which I can use again.
I know I said I had two chairs but there is only one here and that is where this story gets a bit more interesting. Unbeknown to me someone had completely reinforced the other chair with screws and glue around the seams which means I was unable to remove the cork looking seat. At this point, I do not have the set of two I was hoping for, however, I have two options. the first and plan would be to go through with the sanding and painting of the other chair as is and upholster the entire bottom, not just the seat bit and maybe the top so it matches. This is more difficult because all of the seams would be visible and thus I would need to cover the staples and make sure all of the lines of the fabric line up on two sides. Option number two at first seemed unnecessary but may actually be the easiest. Apparently this was a popular chair style in its day because when we were at Patrick's parents' house last Christmas, I noticed they had one just like it sitting in the kitchen. When I mentioned that I recently picked up two identical chairs his mom offered me hers. Since we were there by plane, I didn't have a way to bring it with me and I didn't really need 3 chairs anyway so it stayed behind. Next week, Patrick will travel to his parents house by car so there is a possibility for him to bring it back this time. I like this plan because then I could have two identical chairs and get a different, black and white fabric to do the third one as a coordination.
I wish everyone could see the Eurovision song contest, mostly for the incredibly ridiculous teal 80s dresses the current group (representing Iceland) is wearing! The lead singer actually looks like she is going to the prom wearing a dress inspired by one of those toiletpaper cover dolls - insane!

Dieter Thomas Kuhn

Last Tuesday we celebrated my friend's Bachelorette days by going to a concert of one of her favorite performers, Dieter Thomas Kuhn. Basically he covers a bunch of 70s' songs and people dress in retro garb. I was told to dress like a hippie so I did. However, I expected pot-smoking, mellow, dirty hippies to be in attendance. It was actually super upbeat music sans drugs, dreadlocks and dirt. Here' what some of my friends wore: Because it was a Tuesday we got dressed in the office and because we are classy ladies, we walked across the city in our outfits, sunglasses down making one stop to buy two bottles of sparkling wine from a discount grocery store. We met up with the MOH and surprised our friend at her house, kidnapping her and making her dress in the van we were on our way. Once we arrived at the concert, I began to notice that EVERYONE was dressed and we were actually a bit under dressed. In keeping with German tradition for a bachelorette party, our friend had a list of things she needed to do in order to be allowed to marry (of course this is not serious but it makes it fun). One of her first tasks was to get men to sign her T-shirt. Check. Next, she needed to get 5 photos of her posing with shirtless men. This proved a bit more difficult and even though these men had nothing to hide, they refused to take their shirts off. I guess they didn't want to remove their green track suits. Apparently the band/lead singer often wears this same track suit to perform but during our show he wore something a little different. In the middle of this task the lights began to flicker so we headed into the concert hall to stake out a good place on the floor. unfortunately, several hundred people beat us to the best spots so we did our best to get close to the front of stage left. This later paid off big time when Dieter entered the audience and our bachelorette was able to talk her and 5 friends onto stage to dance with dieter. I was actually one of those friends, however, I got kicked out before I could get to the dancing part. It was probably for the best because I don't think I could have handled a solo dance with Dieter. Which reminds me, you must be wondering what Dieter wore, wonder no more you can revel in his three piece suit covered in silver sequins. Don't overlook that horrid moustache which was NOT on his face for the promo poster.

Throughout the performance, I thought he was serious and that his fans were insane. Last Friday, I wondered aloud if he wears his hair like that on a regular basis and my friend informed me that the whole show is a joke. Aparently he and his band started in the late 90s as a parody and soon found themselves playing to sold out audiences. After a couple of years, they retired on top convinced this insanity could not sustain its success and determined to quit while they were ahead. After several unsucessful attempts at their own music they disapeared. Recently they put out a new CD and began touring again to solidify their comeback. It is kind of visable that they are not in concert shape and Dieter didn't actually sing any of the songs. If you notice in that second to last photo, I was standing right next to him and could not hear his voice.
After the concert, we went to the impossibly packed afterparty, ditched for some frozen margaritas and capped the night off with a late night Italian dinner. By 4pm I was home in my bed and by 8:30 I was awake and headed to my longest day of work ever. Thanks to a large coffee, an ice cream bar and Coke light I made it through until 11:00pm the next day. I consider that a huge success.