three peas in a pod

The Amazon Suggestion List and You

2009-02-13T23:48:00.000-08:00

I love to shop from amazon.com. Mostly because I can peruse a book / department store that would be the size of several IKEAs if it weren't virtual, while lounging about in the comfort of my own home in my underwear. Also, because it is basically the only place in this non-English speaking country that has a selection of English books that stands up to my tastes.

It is impossible now-a-days not to leave an electronic footprint on the web. Many people complain about this, but in some ways I find it to be rather convenient. When I peruse through the massive selection of books online, my views are automatically cataloged and a list of suggestions is made just for me, tailored to my tastes. How wonderful is that?! You won't hear me complaining about personal data (mis)use. Periodically I even receive an e-mail with one book suggested to me. Since it is only one, they must think down there at amazon that they have that book that describes my personallity to a T, that my soul would not be complete without. Today being one of those special days, I took a look at my book soul mate waiting to be:

I have to admit that this did receive an eyebrow raise. What on earth does that say about my character and tastes? To the defence of my reputation as not a total wierdo, the last book I purchased was for my PhD entitled "Multivariate Statistics for Wildlife and Ecology Research". This got me thinking though about how something like your Amazon suggestion list could really be a true indicator of personality. So, what's on your amazon list?

Praha

2009-01-27T17:06:00.000-08:00

It is easy for my American mind to forget that Europe does not in fact end at the eastern borders of Germany, Austria and Italy, but continues well on to the Ural Mountains. This is due to the fact that when my geography education was taking place, that was the border to the Europe that was accessible to the west and the United States, the rest was stictly hidden behind the Iron Curtain. I have been getting myself reeducated though over the last half year by an expert on the subject and had my first opportunity to see what lay behind that former dividing line over Christmas while visiting Prague and northern Bohemia with Pan Tau.

Prague-scape by night

The Vltava River

The adventure began with me driving the six hours from Freiburg to Prague in my trusty Subaru (over)packed with clothes for all occassions from skiing and hiking to fancy dress and heels for special outings as well as presents and my chocolate penguins. My mother was a notorious overpacker, filling an oversized suitcase for a weekend trip, where more than half the items never made it out for use enroute. I have always tried to avoid this trait, finding it inefficient and rather girly in a bad way. And girly it was, especially since I packed in my pink wheely suitcase :) and brought my curling iron, hairdryer and make-up. Although, I did find myself wishing I had brought more clothes to wear, since the Czechs have not yet reached that state of non-smoking enlightenment and enstated a smoking ban. Having been spoiled by a relatively decent smoking ban here in Freiburg for over a year and half, I had forgotten what it is like after an evening out in a smokey pub.

I find it amusing how the English language can seem to take on a life of its own in foreign countries. The Germans are prime abusers of "English-isms", creating awkward catch phrases and sayings that never existed nor ever will in any English speaking country. Good example "Handy", which means cell phone. Although the Czechs don't need to go to "EA" (English Anonymous) just yet, they have created a phrase or two of their own. Crossing the border a huge sign adverstising "Non-Stop" jumped out at me ("Non-stop" seems to be the Czech equivalent of 24h). I unsuccessfully attempted to purchase my freeway pass at this non-stop truck stop. Maybe because it was the only thing I could understand, seeing as the only thing I do know in Czech is "nemluvím česky" which means "I don't speak Czech", but I seemed to see "non-stop" everywhere. (Or maybe the Czechs are just really into things being open 24 hours!). I have to admit that it is rather flattering that my native language is so well liked though :).

"The city of a thousand spires"

The European continental climate essentially begins in earnest at Prague, making it much cooler in December than Freiburg. Unfortunately there was no snow during my visit, because as beautiful as the city was, there is supposed to be something magical about it under a blanket of glittery whiteness. Due to the freezing weather, we spent a lot of time hopping from one cafe to the next or from pub to pub, visiting friends or watching Czech movies purchased for the bargain price of 49 Kc, super cena! There are some really cool / cute / eccentric /seedy ;-) locals around town and Pan being a native, we got right to the good spots. We sort of became regulars at this cute little hole in the wall pub called "the Orange Bar" that had orange stucco walls and was about the size of our bathroom back home, as well as stopping for coffee and cake at a traditional pastry shop in the Letna Park district, Erhart Cafe, and breakfasting on open face sandwiches at a local cafe.

Selection at Erhart Café

Prague at first glance is a beautiful city characterized by its long history as a European cultural center, grand architecture and its escape from the destruction many cities endured in the second world war. The city center is a collection of half timbered houses, grand govermental buildings, castles, walks along the Vltava River, bridges, islands and modern buildings. It being the Christmas season, the downtown was aglow with strings of lights and decorated by enormous Christmas trees. Really, just amazing. The word is out about Prague, it is no longer a well kept secret. The main square is surrounded by kitschy souvineer shops and restaurants posting menus in English. The place is literally overrun by swarms of tourists in tennis shoes and back packs, speaking English and categorically disrespecting cultural differences.

Once you get outside of the downtown though, the city begins to show you its true nature. You get the feeling that its where real life is taking place, the real Prague where tourists are thin on the ground and boxy, communist era apartment buildings reside, live carp is being sold on the street for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner and in neighborhood shops and cafes you're greeted with "dobrý den" instead of "hello". We did some last minute Christmas shopping, looking in all the "Elektro" shops in the Florence district for a "hoover". I have never seen so many appliances packed into such a little space and such mini vacuum cleaners. I quite enjoy doing everyday things in foreign countries, like vacuum cleaner shopping, going to the grocery store or even going to the passport office. It makes me feel like I'm getting a taste of the real life there and not just some dolled up postcard experience.

Carp awaiting their fate as Christmas Eve dinner

Christmas is celebrated in much the same way as in Germany, with Christmas Eve being the main event and the following two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are spent relaxing, feasting and hanging out with the family. We spent the holidays in the nothern Bohemian country side, which offers a quaint yet pretty landscape with houses that reminded me much of my mom's famous "icebox cake" because of the black and white pattern of white plaster and dark wood planks. Many Pragonians (does anyone know what a person from prague is called??), own country houses in this area. We stayed at a cosy cottage complete with a wood stove that kept the house at a toasty 35 degrees celsius and offered the pefect Christmas atmosphere.

Northern Bohemia

Christmas Eve dinner was kicked off by a toast with Slivovice (Czech plum brandy) and was followed by carp and potatoe salad. After dinner presents were passed around. I was pleasantly surprised to find my own pile contained several packages, one addressed to Betka, my new Czech name (short for the Czech version of Elizabeth, Alžběta). I felt very welcomed. Afterward we went to the pub, something I have never done on Christmas Eve, but hey, when in Bohemia do as the Bohemians! Christmas Day we spent exploring the country side, bushwacking up to the highest peak and working off some of the dinner from the night before. We had another amazing dinner afterward called "svíčková": venison, Czech dumplings, cranberries and sauce, I'm still dreaming about it! In the US, the only day that really sees the economy shut down is Christmas, so I was surprised when the suggestion was made that we go bowling. And bowling we went. The bowling alley supplied black Chucks instead of the ever unstylish two toned leather numbers which are standard at every American alley. Why do the Czechs have more style when it comes to bowling shoes? I lost spectacularly and broke a nail in the process. So much for my years of training at Dwayne Lanes ;-). The next day, we had yet another feast, this time duck with dumplings. Afterward, we were off, back to Prague to celebrate St. Stephan's Day.

Me showing off my Prague designed winter wear (also a small tribute to Muffin)

A week is hardly sufficient to really get to know a place, and Prague seems a city that shows you up front how grand and elegant it is, but only reveals its true uniqueness and all it has to offer with time. I am intrigued by what it will show me next time.

Backpacking Swiss Style

2008-10-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

If I have the Black Forest in my back yard, then the Alps are in my neighbor's. I always forget how close they really are. Driving from Freiburg, you reach the northern extent in about an hour and a half, which is really nothing. That's closer than the Cascades ever were to where I lived back in Seattle or Everett, yet I would regularly drive three hours or more for a hike or skiing and back in one day.

This last weekend Pan Tau and I packed our rucksacks and set off for the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, near Airolo. There was no tent, sleeping bags, cook set or any of the usual business necessary for sleeping out in our packs due to this wonderful thing called a "Hütte", or "capanna" in the Italian parts where we were headed. These capanne are lodges up high in the mountains with beds, blankets, food, heating(!) and plenty of alpine hospitality. They range from the stream-lined modern Cristallina which can sleep up to 85 people and is equipped with a heated drying room for wet gear and serves cheese fondue :)! to the small Rifugio where the key is attached to the door and payment runs on the honor system.

Heading up to Cristallina

Capanna Cristallina, looking a bit like an alpine shoe box

The plan had been to hike up to Capanna Cristallina from Ossasco on the first day, sleep there then continue on to Capanna Basòdino where we would spend my birthday and the night, look around at the lakes, returning to Cristallina for another night and heading back to the car and Freiburg the following morning. The weather report called for clear blue skies and plus temperatures. What we encountered upon waking at Cristallina was a snow storm verging on a blizzard and the mercury level in the thermometer clearly below the zero mark. Never the less, we packed our stuff and began the treck to Basódino. The trail between these two Capanne was trecherous indeed: steep slopes, cliffs dropping hundreds of feet down to a frozen lake, slippery rocks, low visibility, essentially all together unfitting for a hike. We made the difficult decision to turn back and head down into the valley. Despite these wintery conditions, I really enjoyed the hike. The mountains were incredible in all their glittery whiteness.

Looking out at Basòdino from Capanna Cristallina the first evening
Me throwing in the proverbial towel

Since the northern Alps seemed to have snowed themselves in for the winter, we decided to head south toward the Italian border and Bellinzona for another hike. We parked our stuff at a nice little pensione in a small town called Gudo near Lago Maggiore and proceeded to celebrate my 28th birthday in a more urban fashion than had originally been intended. We chose one of the only two restaurants in town for dinner, which specialized in roasted chicken, the aroma of which had been taunting us all over town the entire evening, then went for drinks at the only bar Gudo had to offer, the Beby Bar, where "DJ" Luca was spinning out an interesting assortment of kitschy tunes from his little book of CDs (I never realized that you could turn "Camp Town Ladies" into a techno song, they probably shouldn't have either...). Meanwhile back at our hotel, the rest of Gudo had gathered for the big Saturday night entertainment: four older gentlemen strumming out well known Italian folk songs on their guitars in sing-along fashion. We caught the tail end when we were turning in for the night.

Bit of a wild birthday party...

We were awoken the next morning by the sound of vicious "hoovering" (vacuuming), by the sour looking cleaning ladies and so gave up on the idea of getting a bit of extra sleep and set about getting ready for our next hike. The weather couldn't have been more fabulous, 20 degrees C and clear blue skies. It was a strange feeling to have been in what felt like the depths of winter the morning before only to be waking up to summer again. The trail to Capanna Orino departed directly behind our pensione and led (very steeply) up through a chestnut forest. My legs were still complaining about the steep descent from Cristallina the day before and I was only able to convince them to walk me up the mountain after some coaxing with a couple of chocolate bars. After about an hour and a half of chestnut forest we emerged to an incredible view of Lago Maggiore with a back drop of snowy Alps. We were both feeling a bit "delicate" from celebrating the night before, so it took us a bit longer to reach our destination with several breaks and a sunny nap in between.

Lago Maggiore

Capanna Orino was deserted when we reached it, but we were joined shortly by an elderly swiss couple who were doing a similar tour to ours. We spent a cosy evening by the fire place, sipping whiskey (the Mullowney in me is starting to come out), conversing and watching the flames dance over the logs. There is just something magical about fire. The old folks took the bunks down stairs, while we slept up in the loft. Maybe it's the child in me that still loves to sleep on top bunks and loft beds, because it made it just that much more enjoyable to sleep up there.

Capanna Orino

After eating our last scraps of bread with PB&J for breakfast, we began the descent. This proved to be the most difficult part of the weekend for me. If I thought my legs were in bad shape the day before, I had no idea what was coming! Just going down the four stairs from the Hütte was torture. I did make it down (somehow) with the last half only made possible by the thought that I had to get down the hill whether I wanted to or not and that there was going to be an end to my suffering if I could only reach the car. I will certainly be purchasing some hiking poles for my next hike! I did eventually make it to the car and Pan was so kind as to remove my boots for me as I lay sprawled out in the back seat attempting to recover enough to get my gear packed into the "boot". We treated ourselves to some good old greasy burgers in Bellinzona and then headed back to Freiburg. All in all, it was a very excellent way to spend my birthday weekend.

A Swiss Way Marker

Half Way There

2008-09-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my PhD project for several years now and have just passed the official half way mark. My second field season ended Sunday with a big gear cleaning session and a BBQ on my balcony. I always end a season of field work with mixed feelings. The field work is the reason I am a wildlife biologist, spending my days in the woods, breathing the fresh air of the mountains, watching the sun come up over the Black Forest hills, commradery of co-workers (I guess I'm the boss now, so my employees!) and just being surrounded by nature. Every other project I've ever worked on has involved camping for up to weeks at a time in primitive settings with complete immersion in the project and city life as distant as a dream. In Europe, it's almost impossible to get far enough away from civilization to escape the sounds of vehicles and you're always confronted with some aspect of human life. My farthest site is only an hour and fifteen minutes from my front door, so there's no need really to sleep out. This combined with the fact that the small mammal population density was so low this year that we were sometimes getting as few as 2 animals in 147 traps and getting done at 9:30 in the morning, negated the necessity of camping. So back to Freiburg we drove and back to my city life. Oscilating between these two poles all summer was extremely exhausting for me.

Marking a yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis)

The field week began on Wednesday and ended Sunday, with my Mondays and Tuesdays belonging to the medical technologies company where I also work. My friends of course all had weekends, a luxury which I am only now enjoying again, so I would get invites to go to the beer garden, to this concert, to that movie, all of which began at the time I should have been going to bed! The new Libby cannot miss out on any such things, so I ended up getting sometimes as little as three hours of sleep a night, getting up at 5:30 to go back out and check on my mice. I am only now beginning to recoup some of my lost sleep. I'll miss being out in the woods all the time, but I certainly am glad to sleep again!

Garden Dormouse (Eliomys quercinus)

The big boss, loungin' on the job

The Sir Mix-a-lot "big butt" bag in action

- Libby

Dead Man's Peak

2008-09-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

As I have written many a time before, the Blackforest is a hiking paradise. Of course, it doesn't compare to the pristine forests of my native Washington, but it does offer an accessible source of outdoor recreation in a cultural landscape setting, which is beautiful in its own way. Hiking in Europe is very different from in North America. There aren't any real trail heads, or rather any point can be a starting point for a hike and trails criss-cross their way through the landscape changing into forest service roads, cutting through what feels like people's back yards and are signed out with a confusing, sometimes less than helpful system.

Last weekend I exploited the fact that the Blackforest is in my back yard and drove the half an hour out to one of the many, many starting points for the ascent to Feldberg, the Blackforest's highest peak. We* didn't go to Feldberg, since it's a mad house on the weekends, especially on such a beautiful Saturday as it was, so we turned off and the fork in the trail and headed for "Tote Mann", in English "Dead Man's Peak". We decided it had probably been christened so back sometime in the 1700's when someone found some dead guy who had met his end up there and the peak began being referred to as "that hill where that dead man was found", later being shortened to just "dead man" (don't quote me on that one!). It also set off a discussion on German grammer as to why it's called "Tote Mann" and not "Toter Mann" with an "r", but I'll spair y'all the details ;-).

"Bannwald" = Old Growth Forest in its youth

One of the occupational hazards of hiking in Germany is the cow pasture. They're either filled with cows, bulls or reminders of them (the cow pie), usually all three. Either way, many trails traverse said pastures and the hiker must always be alert for raging bulls or mucky pies, leaving the choice between watching the cows or watching the ground. Whenever I am passing through a pasture here, mindfully hopping over cow pies, I am always reminded of the US customs form that is filled enroute out when flying to the US. The question comes to mind "have you visited a farm? Yes / No". Hmmm, does this count as a farm? I didn't see a barn anywhere... They'd probably burn my whole suitcase were I to check yes.

After enjoying our hard earned sandwiches and basking in the late summer sun for an hour or so, we began our descent. One of the lovely things about hiking in Europe is the "Hütten", little mountain inns that provide rooms, food and respite for the weary hiker. We came across one on our way down and were very glad for the cold beer they were serving. Yes, I did say beer, on a hike, oh my have I been Germanized! It was quite a treat though, after drinking water tainted with "old water bottle flavor" all day.

* My hiking partner wishes to remain anonymous, I think he's embarrassed to be associated with me ;-).

- Libby

This Too Shall Pass

2008-07-21T06:23:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine sent me this little story and it brings a smile to my face in sad times. I thought I would share it with you:

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him,
"Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy."

Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity.

"Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?"

All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared,

"Here it is, your majesty!"

As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: _gimel, zayin, yud_, which began the words "_Gam zeh ya'avor_" -- "This too shall pass." At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

"Germany on the Patch" or "Smoke-free Libby"

2008-07-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

That title is misleading, I know. It makes it sound as if I had just won a hard fought battle against my nicotine addiction and quit smoking. Well that is not the case. I've never smoked in my life, not one puff. In fact the mere thought of smoking nauseates me, I can't hardly look at an ashtray, let alone touch one. To discribe to you how truly vile I find the whole business, I find it hard even to type the word "cigarette", because I have even come to despise the word itself. To those who know me at all, this is no surprise. When I was little I was even referred to as "the American Cancer Society" due to my constant preaching on the subject. Both my parents were chain smokers, so I had a lot to preach about. Although, it may surprise a lot of you back home, I have actually become much more tolerant! I guess it was all the practice I've been getting in here. Or maybe outwardly, I've just gotten my loathing under control.

Now the US has been very forward thinking on the subject of non-smoking (hurray!). It's been a long time since restaurants went non-smoking. That's why it shocked me to the core of my being when I first arrived in Europe. They smoked everywhere! Not just restaurants, but trains, schools, universities, movie theater lobbies, even the stalls of public restrooms were equipped with ashtrays. You name it and the Europeans smoked there. I thought I had died and gone to hell (I am positive Satan smokes at least 10 cartons a day). Slowly (and I mean slowly, glaciers melt faster than the German beaurocracy moves), things have been changing. First, the University of Freiburg went non-smoking, then train stations had designated smoking areas (as if anyone payed any attention to it, but at least they were making an effort), then through pressure from above, the European Union that is, one country after another began enstating non-smoking policies for public buildings, restaurants, pubs, bars, the whole works, except Germany. For some rediculous, unfathomable reason, the tabacco lobby is incredibly strong here. I guess it doesn't take much convincing to keep the French smoking. But since the EU wanted it, the Germans must comply. The discussion went back and forth with one minute the tobacco industry seeming to come out on top, then a new report would be issued where I thought all my dreams would come true, then it would swing back into the tobaccoists court. It was an emotional rollercoaster of political parrays. Finally, just a week before the law was to come into affect in Baden-Württemberg, I found out that there was indeed to be a ban on smoking.

At first it seemed to go over well, with only the hard core smokers mumbling their bitter complaints, and all the bars and restaurants following through with the prohibition. It's probably because the law was instated in August, when Europe's Cafes and restaurants look as if they've been turned inside out with tables and umbrellas set up along the street to enjoy the balmy summer weather. No one's inside anyway and there's no non-smoking policy for outside (YET!). So, when the weather began to turn so did the tide of the ban. Some rebellious bars began allowing smoking, catering to the 24% of the adult population that actually smokes instead of the abiding the law and the wishes of the other 76%, the clear majority might I add. Others slowly began to as well, with the motto, "everybody's doing it". You can almost hear the tobacco lobbyists' sinister laugh with every puff of smoke. I cannot believe that a nation so obsessed with the virtues of fresh air is so pro-smoking. The Germans actually have "Air resorts", where people go to revitalize themselves by breathing deeply of the fresh mountainous air of the Black Forest. I guess you need them after all the hard core second hand smoking your obliged to do in the lowlands. It's been almost a year since the ban and things seem to have stabilized. Some bars and restaurants still flaut the law, but for the most part, Germany's gastronomic sector has finally become a place I can enjoy!

Just for you doubters out there:

“There’s no level of secondhand smoke exposure that can be declared to be safe”
- Matthew McKenna, director of the C.D.C.’s office on smoking and health

Onto the Real World

2008-06-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

So big news, I'm done with college! At the beginning of this month I withdrew from my program, Industrial Design, which would have taken me another year. I had enough credits though, in all the right places, for a degree in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts. What does that big ol' name mean? Well, it means that I studied a bunch of different forms of art, that I have a BA and not a BFA, and that when looking at jobs or grad school I can discuss my background in design and architecture.

It also means I'm out of school, which is sort of the most important part. I had never really gotten back my focus after taking the 06-07 year off, and this past year left me feeling frustrated and often a little incompetent. I also was finally willing to admit that I wasn't exactly happy with the structure or instruction in my program. This was scary to admit because I had no idea what I was going to do without this direction. Well, its all turning out alright. I did what people do after college, I got a job.

I just finished my first week working at an architectural salvage store. This job seems designed for my unique combination of skills and interests. I get to compulsively sort and organize things, such as drawer pulls or paving stones, hang things on the already cluttered walls such as antique lighting fixtures (theres a whole room whose ceiling is entirely taken over by these!) or strangely oversized coat racks. I get to measure items such as door or windows and label them with this information and draw little pictures on the side to describe them. I know these aren't big or skilled things, its just that these are the type of thing I've been doing since I can remember with my spare time. Measuring and hanging, moving and reorgainizing; in a strange way I was almost spoiled growing up with two pack rats and a giant old house that I was allowed to play around with. Now I'm just learning about these items and elements on a broader scale, while getting in some physical labor that will make me strong, and making a living.

So that picture above is from the store, and highlights that along with all the normal building supplies and fixtures, there are also a ton of oddities. There are also two cats Oscar and Henry. Oscar is a girl. And a really awesome fish tank made out of an old tv. It may only pay me just enough to get by on, but it warms my soul just to be there. Oh, and it has medical benefits. :)

Working on my fear of heights

2008-05-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

I have always been afraid of heights. Towers make me nervous, balconies above the 5th floor yikes!, precipices, forget it! During this last winter I decided it was time to do something about it. My friend Hanna had been trying to get me to go indoor rock climbing with her for a while and I decided this was the best first step, since you are pretty safe with belts and ropes and such. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was imagining and was even persuaded to go a second time. Step number two: outdoor climbing. The weather being so beautiful this last weekend and having received an invite to meet up at a popular Black Forest climbing area, Ober Ried, I moved onto step two of fear of heights therapy. Christian and I drove up there with the intention of meeting up with Hanna and her group who was bringing climbing shoes for me. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Like the spalunking tour in the cave where I imagined just walking right into a large cavern and having a look around turning out to be crawling through mud and squeezing throuhg holes almost smaller in diameter than myself, Ober Ried turned out to be a cliff very, very high up above the vally. I had been expecting to stand on very flat ground at the very base of a cliff. The rock face that I was expected to climb had about a foot and half of edge to stand on before it dropped straight off about 300 feet down and then even farther to the street where the cars looked to be about a cm long. Yikes! We never did find Hanna and I only had my sandles, so, unfortunately ;-), I wasn't able to do much climbing. I was quite thankful when the whole ordeal was over and don't know if I'll let myself be persuaded again.

Christian with his early ninties pink and teal backpack

Berlin

2008-05-05T02:07:00.001-07:00

I just returned from a 5 day "business trip" to the capitol of my country of residence, Berlin. I was there to help set up our stand at the Radiology Congress and after minimal effort, was free to explore the city for a few days (all expenses paid) accompanied by our technical assistant, Natascha. This was my fourth time in Berlin, and each visit has shown me a different city or maybe I've just grown up and am experiencing things differently. My first trip was at 17 with the GAPP program. 28 rowdy, obnoxious American teenagers set loose without parents, alcohol permissable, almost no German and no regard for other cultures... I definately enjoyed myself, but got the kind of perspective that you would expect from such an attitude. The second time around Berlin was the starting point for Becca, Dana's and my whirlwind European tour when I was 19. I had broken my collar bone and generally made myself unfit for any kind of vacation, let alone a backpacking trip in a mountain biking accident a week and half before we left. Never the less, away we went. We made the beginning traveler's mistake of going to bed directly upon arriving at our youth hostel in Pottsdamm, where we slept from noon til 8, waking up completely refreshed, but having thrown ourselves into the wrong sleeping cycle. Jet lagged, injured and 19 years old, we spent 3 days sight-seeing and adjusting to the time zone and cultural differences. The only thing I really remember from that trip is the Pergamon Museam (my absolute favorite museum, entire ancient temples) and our youth hostel. My third trip was exactly two years ago, also for the radiology congress. Klaus and I flew out of Basel in the morning, we spent the day at the congress, then flew back in the evening. I saw nothing of the city, except what what was visible through the window of the tram as we were heading back to the airport. Rather stressful and not a whole lot of fun, but when is work really fun??

Natascha in our hotel room at CentroVital

This trip was more of a paid vacation than work, since I had so much free time. We stayed in a "wellness" hotel, basically a spa, in a neighborhood of Berlin called Spandau. I never stay in hotels when I travel, so it felt like the lap of luxury there. Freiburg, although the major metropolitan area of the Black Forest, doesn't offer much in the way of shopping, so the first day we spent checking out the shops in Berlin. I have a long list of things that I "need": new shoes, jeans, underwear, etc... and I am notoriously difficult when it comes to choosing something, so it takes me ages to finally buy something when I've decided I need/want it. For example, I decided a year and a half ago that I wanted to get myself a pair of ballerina-esk shoes. I finally found a nice pair from Camper while shopping in Berlin. Natascha and I have very different tastes, but we both found things we liked in different shops, giving us both the feeling that the trip was a complete success ;-). That evening we spent in the spa at our hotel, very relaxing, except for when I went in the sauna and realized it was mixed men and women. Where are you even supposed to look?? up at the ceiling, how embarrassing!!

A woman can never have enough shoes...

The next day was a double holiday, Christihimmelfahrt (Christ's ascention into heaven) and the first of May, so the stores were extra closed, therefore we did some sight seeing: Reichstag (capital building), Pottsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz, the Spree River, Brandenburger Tor... This was Natascha's first time in Berlin and she had the same experience with the Brandenburger Tor that I had with the Statue of Liberty in New York in the fall, it's so much smaller than you always imagined it to be!

Brandenburger Tor

In the evening we were going to go to a show at a club in the Häckischer Höfen neighborhood, but couldn't locate the club since I had dropped our map in a gross blob of spit in the subway and we decided it best just to throw it away. We just had drinks and then met up with Klaus and Christian when they were finished with dinner with clients. Rather amusing actually, prostitution is legal in Germany and the street where we were getting a pizza and waiting for them had several prostitutes at work. I walked to the corner and waited for the boys to arrive and when they pulled up I went over and talked them and then got in the car, what that must have looked like... The next day, Natascha took the train back to Freiburg and I did some more shopping in the same area where we had been that evening. Having to check out of the hotel so early and having had a rather late night, I spent the morning wandering around Berlin looking for a coffee shop that was open before 10 am (why on earth do they all open so late on Saturday??). When you need a Starbuck's that's when you can't find one, otherwise they're on every corner!! Finally, we packed up the stand at the congress and I was on my way back to Freiburg at 260 km/h (Klaus really wanted to get home).

Last day in Berlin, 3 hours sleep, no coffee in sight...

Christian, Klaus und Natascha out on the town

- Libby

Oh I love to go a wandering...

2008-04-22T03:42:00.001-07:00

Having the Black Forest in your backyard definately has its perks. I really don't utilize its vicinity enough, but on occassion I do go for hikes and such. During the summer while in the field, we camped right at the entrance to an area called the Wutachtschlucht, a rather narrow ravine through which the Wutacht River flows. I had always wanted to go hiking in there, but after a long day mouse hunting we never really had the energy for a long hike. This last weekend, I finally got the opportunity to check it out with Hanna, Maria und Schwabi. Maria and Schwabi are from Bavaria (as you can tell from the Bavarian walking hat he's wearing) and although they make an effort to speak high German for me, I still have to ask sometimes what they're talking about or else I just smile and nod ;-).

Mary Elizabeth

When hiking in Germany, you generally don't stay on a hiking trail. You use forest roads, cross high ways, walk through what feels like peoples' backyards, etc... but this trail stayed (almost) true all the way to where we turned around. It was a lovely kick off for the season of summer activities. I'll certainly be more motivated to explore there this summer, exhausted from the mouse hunt or not!

- Libby

Old Friends

2008-04-16T04:26:00.001-07:00

I've been in the Old World now for nigh on 5 years, in this time I've only made a couple of trips to my native Seattle, mostly to see my mom when she was so sick. This, combined with the fact, that many of my friends from back home no longer live in the area and most people don't make regular trips to Europe, has led to me not seeing many friends for quite some time. In the last six months though I've been catching up on visits and friends lives. In the fall I saw Ashley in NYC and Lisa in DC, while visiting the east coast, then Heather in Bologna. The weekend before last I met up with my friends, Carrie and Brian, in Geneva where they were staying with Brian's brother, Pat, who works as a physicist at the CERN project there. This last weekend I met up with Hilary and Richie Rich in Friedrichshafen. Four years, nothing and then all of a sudden I'm seeing lots of my old friends.

Carrie and I met in the wildlife Program back at UW and they both are now working for the Forest Service in Hepner, Oregon. I had never been to Geneva before, so it was nice to see the city while visiting with them. The city wraps around the southern end of Lake Geneva with an incredible view of the Alps and the Jura (a low mountain range nearby). We walked around and took some touristy pictures, catching up on each other's lives and talking about UW and what not. In the evening we met up with Pat, the physicist, and had dinner at a restaurant that served cheese fondue a gogo (I have no idea what was "a gogo" about the fondue...). It was funny, because you were allowed to smoke anywhere in the restaurant (Switzerland isn't quite as modern as Baden-Württemberg, so smoking is still quite allowed), but cheese fondue was only allowed to be eaten in the way back due to its pungent odor. So, when Carrie and Pat ordered the cheese fondue a gogo, we were ushered from our table to one in the way back by the kitchen to protect the other diners from our stinky cheese. The swiss are a rather strange folk. The CERN project, the large particle accelorator spanning the borders of Switzerland and France, was having open house that weekend, so we got to have a look around. It was fascinating! I don't think it would have been half as interesting though if Pat hadn't been explaining everything to us in easy to understand, layman's terms. I now know more about particle physics than I had ever hoped to learn. It's also nice to see what my tax dollars here are going to. Carrie and Brian were flying out early the next morning and I had a 3 hour drive home, so we said our good byes at around 7 and away I went. I hope that it won't be another 5 years before we see each other again!

Pat, Carrie and Brian, on the way down to look at the detector

The detector (is actually really, really huge)

Hilary was one of my roommates at ZTA and after we graduated from UW, she moved to New York to go to the CIA. No, not the Central Intelligence Agency, but the Culinary Institute of America! She was here in Germany in the fall, well better said, she was in Bavaria, which only marginally belongs to Germany looking at restaurants, because as I was very surprised to hear, she'll be opening a German restaurant in the Medford / Ashland area of Oregon, complete with Lederhosen, Dirndls and Oompa music. I didn't even know she liked German food, it is pretty good though, tasty Schnitzel... anyway, we didn't get the chance to meet up then, but she was just hear doing a stage at the restaurant "zum Wildschutz", and we met up halfway between Munich and Freiburg this last weekend. I caught her up on the events of my life and she shared all the gossip from the zeta sistas back home. They're going to be opening the restaurant, which is for the moment being called "Frau Kemmlings" which is Hilary's married name, on my birthday with an Oktoberfest. I've been invited to the fest to "make it more authentic" and would be expected to show off with my German. Well, I may just have to go! Although, leaving Germany on my birthday to go to a German restaurant in Oregon does seem a bit obsurd.

Herr und Frau Kemmling

So far, that's who I've seen. I hope that I'll get to see the rest of you in the near future!

- Libby

Each week its someplace new...

2008-04-10T18:13:00.001-07:00

Just to share a few...

High Heels (why do we do this to ourselves??)

2008-04-10T02:25:00.001-07:00

Charcole silver seems to be the new black at the moment. At least I have two friends and myself who are looking for fancy charcole silver heels to match dresses in that color. Hanna is attending a 60th birthday party at the end of the month and asked if I had any shoes that might match her dress, so I pulled out all my high heels and we had some fun trying them on. I do like the way high heels look on, but I never wear them because they just hurt too much! I don't know how those Italian women do it. They must get strapped into their first pair at birth for optimal high heel foot form.

Can you guess which foot is mine? :)

Since there are three of us looking for the same color and type of shoe, I had the idea that we could just buy one pair and share them. In my experience though, with three girls trying to pick out one shoe (Dana's bridesmaid dress/shoe picking out fiasco), you rarely come to a concensus. We'll probably each end up buying our own and being happy with them.

- Libby

Sarah's Project

2008-03-19T03:20:00.001-07:00

So I just finished the above rendering, though "finished" is a subjective term. The quarter ends tomorrow, its already late, so it will be turned in with some unfinished areas. I still think its awesome that I can make such images though.
The one above that is my first try at photoshopping my own image. It turned out alright, a good start, but not the most realistic or detailed rendering out there.

Well, back to a night of many loose ends and being chained to my computer. Though I think I'll take a "break" and cut my foam core to size for mounting purposes.

ps this is all underlined and I don't see any way to change that! part of why I never post, there is always something askew everytime I try formatting wise. Maybe it will get better when I make the switch to a pc in few weeks

- Sarah, I fixed the underlining for you :) - Libby

Trying out the new video function

2008-03-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

While preparing another post, I noticed, that there is a new video function on Blogger. Well maybe it's been there for a while, but I just noticed it so it's new for me! So I'm trying out this function with this video from a Sunday hike with my friends, Mirjam (blonde) and Hanna (brunette) at Feldsee in the Black Forest.

so, I haven't figured out how to turn the video yet, since I had turned it in a program on my computer and it looks right here. I don't know what the deal is...

I [don't] Heart NYC

2008-02-25T02:21:00.000-08:00

I know its rather late to be putting up a post about a trip that I took almost 6 months ago, but since I'm a chronic procrastinator and I live by the motto "better late than never" I thought it was better late, well, than never! so here are some thoughts on Sarah, Dana's and my trip to New York City back in September:

After the memorial, the Apple Festival, a "barbecue" at my cousin Eddie's house and a quick look at my Uncle Dan's Porsches, Sarah, Dana and I were off on the train to New York City. There were several firsts for me in that last sentence: it was my first trip to New York City, my first time riding a train in the United States and the first time I had ever been to a barbecue with no barbecue (apparently they apply this word more liberally on the east coast). The train ride was uneventful except for when Dana and Sarah began dancing to "I like big butts" which was playing over the iPod they were listening to together. If people had three ears, then head phones would be equipped with three speakers, we don't so they are not and I did not get to share in the iPod music >:-(.

Uncle Dan in his famous Porsche workshop

When we got to the main station, the whirr began. In fact as I sit here writing, a fog (or rather a smog ;-) has descended on my brain and the details of the trip are all a blur. Everything about New York City is an overload on the sences. I don't really know how we got from place to place. I just got off the subway when Dana said get off and we would emerge into some new area of the city. Then we would descend back down into the dark, hot subway tunnel and arrive somewhere else (not always where we were intending on going... ).

The first two nights we stayed at a youth hostel. It was ok, but I have the feeling that I'm getting too old for youth hostels. It reminded me of living in the StuSie (student dorm here in Freiburg), where it was always kind of dirty and loud and when you took a shower you were afraid that a body part might inadvertently touch some part of the shower, worst of all the curtain. Yeh, I think I'm done with dorms and hostels. Fortunately, the next two nights Dana and I stayed at my friend Ashley's, who lives in Manhatten.

Dana and Sarah hitting up one of the many hot dog stands in the city

We had dropped sarah of at the airport that morning, well it was more of a "drive by" since we didn't actually get off the subway with her. Dana and I continued on to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge which happened to be on the same line as JFK. After a long, hot walk from the subway station with Dana's body language telling me in no uncertain tones, that we had better find this place quick and it had better have been worth the travel. We did find it and it was quite nice, although we didn't actually get to see any wildlife. We did see an old German man with Alzheimer's that spoke German but didn't seem to understand it when I spoke it to him.

Dana and I at Central Park

Thanks to Dana's culinary enthusiasm, we dined at some of New York's most elite restaurants as well as some out of the way, yet incredibly tasty restaurants like Momofuku's. I have always thought of New York as being the center of all things cool, or rather things trying to be cool. One perfect example, is that restaurants that have any self respect do not post their name on the outside of the building. This makes them difficult to find unless you already know they are there. This means you have to be "in the know" to be able to eat there. Rather pretentious if you ask me and a whole lot of nonsense. Never the less, I was in the know about Momofuku's because Dana had already been there, so I gained the priveledge of eating there.

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge with the NY skyline in the background

Dana and I explored the city, checking out Central Park, the Staten Island Ferry, Ground Zero (by accident actually), Filene's basement and several hot dog stands. I did make it to one museum, the Met. It is rather large and overwhelming and Dana rushed me through the ancient Greek and Roman section which is what I was particularly interested in and then after large format Dutch paintings we both sort of lost interest and hit the gift shop. After four hot, sweaty, dirty days and several hundred dollars later our trip was over. Dana was flying back to Seattle and I was heading down to Washington DC. Again, I did a drive-by-drop-off at the Newark Airport and continued on my way.

The Verrazano Bridge which my Grandpa Boompa (Edward Mullowney) worked on as an engineer - viewed from the Staten Island Ferry

Disclaimer: These are just my (Libby's) thoughts on the trip, I'm sure you'll get two totally different versions from Dana and Sarah. I do hope they will supply us with these versions!!

A work in progress...just like her

2008-01-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

I painted this for her birthday. She was the only person I could still give artwork to as presents, and not just seem cheap. I didn't finish it, and couldn't really bring myself to work on it. Looking at it made me so sad.

I based it on a self portrait she had done after one of her many falls. For a moment she had this idea she was going to record her illness through self portraits, instead of write about it. I'm still caught between making it look like her and making it look like the drawing she did of herself. In the end its a bit of both.

Last night I was oscillating between emotions like there was no tomorrow, when I passed through one that wanted to finish the painting. Luckily I acted on this one. I still don't consider it finished, but finishing something just isn't very Denise-esque. Dana recently said she thought about having it framed for Christmas, but that it wouldn't truly represent mom unless it sat in a corner with things leaning against it for most of its life. Its true, but now that its more finished, and softer on the emotions in tone, I think its going on my wall. Maybe next to the one of Boompa so they can converse while I'm out.

She Hath Done What She Could

2008-01-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

A year has already gone by and I still miss her so much. It has been easier, than with her suffering so much, but at the same time I still wish for one more day! I've thrown myself into my PhD work, for which I think she would have been proud of me. Anyway, when my Mom, Dad and Sarah took a trip back east when Dana and I were galavanting around Europe almost ten years ago, they visited a cemetary in Vermont where some of the ancestral Bickfords are buried. The epitaph of one head stone read 'she hath done what she could'. Mom always really liked that and wanted it put on her headstone should she ever have one. Well she doesn't which is ok, but I thought she might like it connected with the memory of her just the same. So here on the anniversary of her passing away, I'm immortalizing these words in her name.

Denise, she hath done what she could.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2007-12-25T02:19:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Buon Natale to everyone! I am with Arthur's family again this year, so don't worry, I'm not alone at home feeling sorry for myself. There is always some concern, since I'm so far from my family. In the German tradition, we opened our presents already on Christmas Eve (it still doesn't feel right! and no stockings!). Arthur is now playing with his new Mac Book and telling anyone who will listen of its virtues, while Teresa prepares Christmas dinner with some of the biggest turkey drumsticks I've ever seen, with a side of Rotkohl and Knödel (mmmm!). I made a pumpkin cheese cake for today, but it got booted to the Christmas Eve program with the Maultaschen (German ravioli-esk pasta) and potato salad >:-(. After dinner we're going to make the rounds and visit the rest of Arthur's Italian familia, always entertaining. I just narrowly missed having to talk to Arthur's family in Italy where they want me to speak Italian, which I still can't do fluently <:[ ! No, wait, here they come with the phone, uh oh! Tomorrow is the second day of Christmas (these people really know how to do holidays!) and I'll be visiting my friend Dilek and her new baby.

I wish you all back home, here in Germany, down in Italy and well, where ever you might be, a very merry Christmas!

Love, Libby

Welcome to the Scientific Community, hand over that sense of humor!

2007-11-05T03:48:00.000-08:00

I was recently sent an article titled "How to write consistenly boring [scientific] literature" by Kaj Sand-Jensen. The take home message from the article was that just because its a serious subject, doesn't mean it has to be presented in such a boring manner. It's as if the price of membership into the scientific community was your sense of humor. Lighten up! The fact is that most scientific writing is boring. It doesn't read well. It lacks the flow, the finess that keeps your eyes glued to the words instead of constantly darting to the page number. My favorite science website, livescience.com, takes this extensive body of scientific knowledge and writings and puts them into a language that is engaging and most importantly understandable. Ok, so it is a bit on the infotainment side, but it's informative and entertaining (I guess that's the exact definition of "infotainment"). Some examples (I still chuckle when I read these titles):

Charge: Carbon Dioxide Hogs Global Warming Stage
Smokers Are Dead Weight at the Office

Being a scientist myself, I've read many a journal article, and while the information itself is very interesting, its "wow" factor is most often overpowered by it's snooze factor. Science is really cool. There are so many amazing discoveries, interesting facts and new technologies all hidden in the akward prose of obscure magazines that most people have never even heard of nor would they dream of reading if it were the last piece of writing on the planet. Journals with daunting titles like "Advances in Microbial Biology", but I think people would find it interesting to know that we have soil on the earth as we know it thanks to the workings of microbes, otherwise it would just be an empty rock of a planet like so many other in the universe. I guess you can't blame peoples' ignorance about the happenings in the natural world when this information is not readily available to the masses, or at least not in a form that more than a hand full of nerds can comprehend. There is hope for us scientists yet, though. I recently read an article about the most giant squid ever to be seen by humans, called a colossal squid. The squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology, Dr. Steve O'Shea, was quoted having commented on the beast's size, "if calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tires". Now there's one scientist who apparently didn't turn in his sense of humor!

Maybe the scientific style just needs more time to develop. For instance, the novel in the form we know today, is based on many assumptions. The reader has to know the rules, like how the author may tell several parts of story and switch at liberty between them crossing geographical and even temporal boundaries. Apparently it wasn't always so clear that the author was allowed to do this, because in 1786 James Fenmore Cooper wrote in his novel "The last of the Mohicans", "Leaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them." My first thought on reading this chapter opening, was "duh, I already know that you're allowed to take that privelege, so take it already and get on with the story!". Either he had no faith in the intelligence of his audience, or the assumptions on which novels as we know them today are based hadn't been developed yet. In "Tristen and Isolde" the author kept butting his presence in with comments. Thank goodness, they don't really do that anymore! No one wants a nosy narrator. So, maybe we just need to let the scientific writing develop for a few hundred years before it has reached the stream-lined, attention holding novel style of today. Until then, I'll keep reading LiveScience.

Nesting

2007-11-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a little nesting lately, shopping and changing out furnishings and decorations, and filling almost every inch of space within our tiny apartment. Or as Russell would say, "Grannying up the apartment".

A few weeks ago Russell and I were getting the laundry ready to take to the laundromat, stripping the bedding and pillowcases, and commented on how disgusting our pillows were. I really only went out to look for new pillows, but ended up buying
new sheets, a matress pad, pillow cases, and a really nice down comforter. All purchased at Marshalls for under 200 dollars!!

I eventually did find nice new pillows at K-Mart, from the Martha Stewart line. It's the first time I have every bought pillows. Mom always gave them to us as presents, saying that nice pillows were the kind of thing that you never thought to buy for yourself, but always appreciated having. The pillows are called "grandpa pillows" which I thought was perfect for our bed!

The bed is so nice and comfortable, there seems to be someone lounging on it at all times, Bianka especially! She sinks right into the down comforter so it envelopes her, dissapearing right into it. Russell says she's camoflauged, because she is the same color. She does seem to track quite a bit of dirt onto the bed though, so I started looking for an inexpensive Duvet cover to protect the comforter. Well, inexpensive Duvets don't exist, but I did find a great vintage chenile bed spread. I think it's chenile. I remember one like on the bed in Auntie Ellen's spare bed room at the old grey house they lived in when we were little.

I saw this dresser on craigs list, and impulsively called the number. It reminded me of mom's dresser a little. When I called to ask the dimentions, it was an exact fit. Because it's such an odd number, I decided it was a sign that I needed to buy this dresser. Plus, the lady delivered. So for 40 dollars, I just couldn't say no! It replaced a greed dresser from Ikea that Russell and I bought when we moved in. I am slowly trying to replace the Ikea pieces with vintage pieces. Very slowly since this is the first one I have bought in two years!

I bought this frame at the goodwill for a mere 15 dollars. It was sparkly gold, and had a mirror inside, representing a decorating fad from days past that even I can't get attached to. I unscrewed the back and gave the frame a good wash before spray painting it a stone colored enamel. I am so pleased with my self, that Sarah laughed at me every time she caught me gazing at it. I am just so impressed with the fact that I actually finished a project, and how really good it looks.

I found this old cast iron tea kettel that looks like it spent some time over a fire at the goodwill outlet. That's right, not the goodwill, but a store that takes everything the goodwill can't sell. They put it all into giant bins inside a bleak warehouse, and sell it by the pound. I found this kettle, which weighs about 10 pounds, but luckily they rang it up as a household item, all of which are priced at 79 cents. What a deal! The plate behind it is a Frankoma pottery commerative plate for Norman, Oklahoma from 1964 . I loved the obscurity of the town and it's claims to fame; industry, education, research, recreation, and healty.

I found this little paper sack pottery vase in a cute little artist town outside of mount vernon. The shopkeeper said it could hold water, but I am skeptical, as there is no evident waterproof glaze on the inside. I think it's just too cute to risk damaging it with water.

I have been looking for bookends to hold my collection of vintage cookbooks and novels up on my bakers table. However, most bookends are extremely ugly. When I found this old ice crusher at a rummage shop and felt it's heaft, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. It's interesting to look at the kitchen gadgets from times past. Always designed to make a common task easier, it's interesting to wonder what tasks the kitchen called for in the past. Ice comes out of our refrigerators crushed now, so there is no need for an ice crusher. Nor is there any need for those great old egg beaters, now that we have mixers. But I love looking at them!

Becca has been looking for a ladderback chair for a project she saw somewhere. She wants to extend the back to exaggerate the ladder, and I have been keeping my eyes open for her. However, she doesn't want a woven seat, like this chair has. I saw the ladder back of this chair peeking out of a corner and went to inspect with Becca in mind, and fell for it immediately. The barely tattered edge on the woven seat, the round legs, and the 5 dollar price tag. I carried it around my apartment looking for a place to put it, but came up empty! Every nook and cranny is filled in this apartment, so it went outside. It's making a great seat for my meyer lemon tree, which is growing nicely no thanks to myself. I really need to re-pot it, and water it more than I do. It will need to come in soon, but I want it to get as much sunlight as possible before the sun dissapears for the winter.

You can see it has two tiny fruits on it, but they look much more like limes than lemons to me. It recently went into bloom, and the entire tree is full of buds. They haven't opened however, perhaps they are waiting for warmer weather that they unfortunately won't see for another 6 months.

Bickfords on Tour - Chesapeake Bay & NJ

2007-11-01T03:12:00.000-07:00

Before going to visit my relatives in Trenton, my dad, Auntie Ellen, sister Sarah and I all went on the traditional Bickford vacation, that is, a drive. This time it took us around Chesapeake Bay. Well, just the east side that is, and we didn't get all the way down to the bottom either... Saying you're "going to Chesapeake Bay", which is what I told everyone here is where I was going, is like saying you're going to the Pugeot Sound or to the Black Forest. It's really huge and there are lots of different places to go, not all of which can be seen in a one week driving trip.

I had never been to Deleware before, nor Maryland for that matter, in fact I had never put much thought into the existence of either of these states. Having now been, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised at how nice they both are. I was actually so taken by the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland that I went as far as saying that I could see myself living there. Now I'm not making any plans, but it really was beautiful. The Chesapeake, although much more of a fresh water body than the Pugeot Sound, is in many ways similar, except that it has more of a New England feel to it and isn't surrounded by mountains and there are no islands... Ok, so it's really not that similar, but for my sea deprived self living in land-locked Freiburg, it was refreshing and enough of a reminder of home to suffice to make it similar in my mind.

We started off at the JFK Airport where Sarah, Dad and Auntie Ellen's plane arrived one hour before mine giving them ample time to pick up the rental car, which turned out to be an enormous tribute to American automobile engineering - the Lincoln town car, and have it waiting at the curb when I strolled out of customs (did I plan that? maybe ...). Sarah met me on the other side of the "nothing to declare" door on crutches, she had been in a rolling skating accident a few days before, and guided me to our boat, I mean car. We were off. It was already dark, so we didn't get much of a view of NYC as we drove by, but I wasn't concerned considering that I was coming back after the memorial with Dana and Sarah. We didn't get very far that evening, only south Brunswick, New Jersey, where we stayed in one of those generic American hotels, where once inside, the only distinguising factor between this one and one in say California is what you see through the windows. It was clean and comfy though with a pool and excellent breakfast, so I'm not complaining.

Wanting to get to our real destination as quickly as possible we took the famous New Jersey Turnpike (when my mom would talk about this, as a kid I would also get some strange ideas in my head about what it was supposed to be, none of which were close to the truth - its just a freeway with the added bonus of having to pay to drive on it). We stopped and ate in Wilmington, Deleware and then continued on to Easton on Chesapeake. This was a cute little town, remeniscent of La Conner. We did some shopping and walked / hobbled around town. I got some lovely yarn that I intend on making into new mittens and my dad some polarized sunglasses at the local hunting store. We went on an exploratory mission in our cruising unit out to the tip of the penninsula where we discovered a bed & breakfast with cabins that just couldn't be passed up. Granted we would have to sleep three in a king size bed with Dad on the futon sofa, but it was definately worth it. There's something about cabins on the water that I love.
That evening we went out on a cruise in a oyster dredgine sail boat. Unfortunately there wasn't much wind, but I did learn some interesting facts: Maryland belongs to the south (who would've guessed?), there is a bitter rivalry between Maryland and Virginia over - amoung other things - resources in the Bay, introduced Nutrias are pushing out the native "mush rats" (I'm pretty sure "musk rats" was meant here) and how to steer a 40 foot sail boat.

We went into Anapolis for a day, another pleasant surprise. It's a cute little town perched on the Bay with a rather large historical center. Again we went on a boat tour, this time of the harbor.

After leaving the Bay the next day, we drove up to Lewes in Deleware where we took the ferry over to Cape May, New Jersey. I had actually wanted to apply for a job as a migratory bird counter at Cape May that would have started the next week, but I have to take some classes here this fall which made it impossible - sigh - maybe next year. It was so nice to be on the ocean again. We took our lunch on the beach in Deleware where we saw my favorite birds, sand pipers, running in and out to escape the surf on their little legs. It was already dark when we got off the ferry, so we continued on to Wildwood, which turned out to be a beach resort town developed in the 1950's, which was made evident by the hordes of cheesy themed hotels. We stayed at the "Safari Inn" which was next to the "Aztec Inn". True to its name, there were plastic palm trees and animals around the pool. Although it was rather cheesy, I loved it! The next morning we rented bikes and rode down the board walk. Later Sarah and went for a swim in the Atlantic. Then it was time to get to my uncles and so ended our road trip.

Back East and Back Again

2007-10-08T09:55:00.001-07:00

My mom was from New Jersey, which she always lovingly referred to as "back east". Up until I was about 12, my family made several pilgrimages back east to visit my grand parents, attend weddings, a 75th birhtday and then funerals. I have just returned from my first trip back east since then, even though it was for me actually "back west". The occasion for my trip was a rather sad one, spreading my mother's ashes in the Deleware River in front of the house she grew up in. Having been so isolated here from everything that happened and my mother never really having been a part of my everyday life in Freiburg, lended to me almost forgetting that she was gone. It was almost a shock when she wasn't there too. Maybe I've found peace with what has happened, I hope so! My mom's childhood friend, Sue, still lives on the same street, so we planted a tree by the river for my mom after my Uncle Tom waded out in his Californian swim trunks to send my mom on her way, while the rest of us watched from the shore and sent flowers and tears into the river after her.

There was quite a showing of Mullowney's. Some I hadn't seen in a long time, others I hadn't seen before. I met my cousins' daughters, Eddie's Devon and Tierny, and Mark's twins Darby and Jorden for the first time and some of the "Ridgewood" Mullowney's too. We celebrated in Denise style with two gigantic hoagies (does anyone else remember getting the hoagies from the shop in the Kmart? What a treat that always was!), lots of Mullowney's and even more laughs. I can't tell you how good it was to be with my family again.

Mary Agnes, Aunt Mary and Laura

Uncle Tom being, well, Uncle TomAuntie Ellen, Sue Dash and Dad
The Lord of the Beer (or so his T-shirt claims), Uncle Bill

Jorden, Darby and Devon

Bella Italia

2007-08-07T08:06:00.001-07:00

I love Italy and the Italian language. So I have been attempting to learn Italian for about a year and half now. I have made some progress, but realized when I reached Italy how very terrible my Italian actually is. I signed up for a tandem partner (like a pen pal, but through e-mail) through the University of Bochum back in the fall. My first partner was a disaster, so I signed up for a new one, this time specifically asking for a female!! I can't believe how well it has worked out with her. Her name is Rachele, she is a PhD student in wildlife ecology, was born on October 4, 1980, loves animals, doesn't like discos ... the similarities are astounding. We've been writing e-mails back and forth since Christmas, but had never met. Arthur's family is from southern Italy, so his mom goes back to visit about once a year. This year she rented a beach apartment in Sapri and of course invited us to come along. I thought it would be neat to meet my tandem partner on the way down since she lives in Rome. She wasn't going to be in Rome she informed me, rather in Rimini at her family's beach front vacation house. I was invited accordingly. It was rather out of my way coming directly from London, but I thought "why not?!" and booked my flight for Rimini instead of Rome. I had a grand time and we really get along well. I unfortunately was not able to communicate very well in Italian, so we mostly spoke English. It really helped me though being immersed in the language and trying to express myself. It reminded me of when I was first learning German. I had forgotten how hard it is not knowing the language very well, not knowing what anyone was talking about, not getting any of the jokes... I hope to some day soon be able to speak Italian like I do German.

Me at the beach in Sapri

The view from my room at Rachele's house in Rimini

The old fish market in Rimini

Rachele and me before going out for Piadine in Rimini

Weddings Galore / London

2007-08-07T07:43:00.001-07:00

As I am getting older, I am getting invited to an ever increasing number of weddings. Four last summer and three this summer, although there could be more invites coming in. In June I went to my friend Dilek's wedding in Reutlingen, Germany. I went to work at 5 in the morning in the woods, then picked Arthur up at the train station in Löffingen, altered my ego from wildlife field biologist to wedding guest at a rest stop along the way and arrived just in time for the "I do's". At the party with the set seating plan, Arthur and I were at the "international table" where I met some of Dilek's friends who had come in from England for the wedding. As one would expect from "southern hospitality" (southern European hospitality that is), Maria, who is actually from Spain but been living in London for the last 19 years, upon our first meeting insisted that I stay with her in London when I was going for Jane's wedding. How could I say no?? On Thursday at the end of July my American style whirlwind tour of Europe began. After work, I flew to London where Maria was waiting to pick me up. I wasn't sure if I was going to recognize her since I had only ever seen her once before at the wedding, but when I saw her she was smiling and waving. One of the favorite comments of the Brittish when a non Brittish person goes to get in the car is, "are you driving then?". I of course had forgotten that they drive on the wrong side of the road over there. If I had a penny for everytime I heard that... Maria lives on the outskirts of London, so I took the Tube in the next day to explore London on my own. I've only ever been in London for one day before this trip, on which Dana, Auntie Ellen and I road the big double decker tour bus around town hitting all the most important sites, like the Tower of London, Picadilly Circus, etc... Since I had already seen all of these I felt free to just walk about town and see what I saw. I didn't have a map, so I did get rather lost, but did hang out in a beautiful park, strolled along the Thames, saw the Golden Hinde (which had made port in Everett when I was a kid, so I was rather excited to see it again), bought myself a copy of the new Harry Potter and had a Cornish Pasty. That evening I went out in Camden Town with Maria and some of her friends and we took the night bus (not the Knight bus ;-) ) back.

My feet and me at the park (can't remember the name) in London

The Golden Hinde

During the winter I took a sewing class with my friend, Bènèdicte, where I began making a long black evening dress out of a very fine cotton I had purchased with Dana in Seattle. I didn't finish it until the night before I flew to England. On Saturday I donned my newly finished dress and took the Tube to Waterloo Station to catch the train to Bracknell and to the wedding. At first I felt rather self concious about being dressed in an eveing gown in the middle of the day in the middle of Lonodon, but Bracknell happens to be on the same route to Ascot, a famous race track, so most of the people were just as dressed up as I was in their "posh frocks" as Jane once put it, except the women had on some pretty wild head wear. When I got to Bracknell I had missed the only bus that would have taken me to the wedding, so I needed to take a taxi. I unfortunately had only 3 pounds, 20 pence and 11 American dollars in my wallet and the cash machine refused to give me any money (eventhough I had lots in my account). So I convinced a cab driver to take me to the wedding for 11 US dollars, 3 pounds and 20 pence. I arrived just in time for "pudding". The party was by no means over though. There was a barn dance at the farm where Jane and Andy live with his parents afterwards. I have never had so much fun at a wedding in my life! Everyone who knows me knows that I love the story "Pride and Prejudice", but what they may not know, is what I really like about the movie is the dancing. Guess what? There was no "modern" music at the wedding, rather a group playing traditional music to which we all danced the traditional English line / partner dances!! I was extatic. I danced almost every dance and had to be pulled away when it was time to go.

Andy and Jane

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of myself all dressed up.

I was flying out on Sunday morning to Rimini, Italia to visit my tandem partner, Rachele, so I had to get back to London that night so as to get to the airport on time. I took a cab with two other people who needed to get back to London and the cab driver took us to Windsor instead of Bracknell because he told us we weren't going to make the last train that left at 11:23, but would make the last train from Windsor that left at 11:45. It was a big lie, the last train from Windsor left at 11:23 as well, so we were rather stuck. The other girl called him on his cell phone and he denied ever telling us that there was a train at all. Finally we got the central to send us another taxi and he took us to Slough for free where there was a train to London. While waiting some ruffians started making trouble and the guy with us called the police. That really got them upset, so one of the ruffians stole his cell phone and ran off with it. So then we had to call the police again and wait for them to come to get a police report so that their insurance would cover the cost of a new phone. We finally got a train at 1:15 in the morning which took us to Paddington station. I'd never been there and by that time the Tube was closed. Thank God I had been out with Maria the night before on the night bus, otherwise I would never have found my way back in the middle of the night in the middle of London. Oh and it was pouring down rain the entire time and my dress was soaked up almost to my waist. I was feeling very sorry for myself at this point. I did manage to get a bus that was going to Camden Town where I new we had been the night before. Then my bus ran some poor guy over and we had to take care of him before the bus was going to continue its route. I snuck off to another bus. After some guy puked on my foot and a very long ride, I finally made it back to Maria's at almost 4 in the morning. And that was my trip to London, I was off to Rimini the next morning...

moms stories

2007-08-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

While looking for a recipe file on my computer, I found a file titled, "when i was 25" and couldn't imagine what was in there. When I opened it I found my speech for mom's funeral. I thought I'd publish it, so we can all remember her again. I know Libby and Sarah will recognize each and every story that I wrote about, having heard them as many times as I did growing up. They are our legacy of her, that and her unconditional love we never went without.

“When I was 25, I came Seattle with 5 dollars in my pocket.” This line was the opening to a story I listened to all my life, told to me by my mother. I always listened in awe, as wide eyed at age 24 as I was at 4. She recanted this tale, her first years in Seattle, when the life of hers I knew home with a husband and 3 children was yet to be. She told me of her first job at what I imagined was a glittering wonderland called “the tropics”. There she told stories of Jack Pierce, an aging newspaper man, who lonely in his old age found a friend both in the bottom of his glass and Denise, the sweet girl who brought it to him. Of Voula, the sweet Greek woman who worked with my mother and demanded she go flirt with a man sitting at a table alone. After all, she said, “He is handsome and you have no husband!” Little did they know that the man at the table was destined to be her husband, although at the time my mom simply rolled her eyes and told the handsome man, “Look, the cups are there, the coffee’s there, can you just get it yourself?” A short courtship later she was whisking away in camper built for two to Alaska, the final frontier in her mind, driving the can-am highway before it was paved! She always emphasised. In the far away land of Kodiak, she had adventures I begged her to tell about again and again. About the Filipino cannery workers in gold lamee jump suits, all customers of hers at a job that ended when an empty bottle flew by her head. Or how she would make my dad drive the camper around when she cooked so the bears wouldn’t track her scent.

I always loved hearing her tell about the day she sat on a laundry hamper reading her growing belly names from a baby book. When she said the name “Dana” she said I began kicking her. So Dana it was.

I heard of magical places of her youth like “Washies” the ditch nearby thats main attraction was that it was forbidden. Or the San Heiken, a shop in Trenton where she could get soda’s, see her mom come in and play the juke box, always smoking and embarrassing my mother endlessly. And of the loggie, a place on the river near her Trenton home where the neighborhood congregated each winter for ice skating, bon fires, and community.

Always stories of Big Ed, who was the hero of her stories much like she was in mine. There was the day Denise, only 6, saw her beloved stuffed donkey Herman hovering outside her window and heard shrieks of some large bird or prey. By the time the small child ran outside, distressed for her Herman, he was high in a tree, Ed behind it laughing. Then there was her mother Virginia, Talulah, queen of the may, a statuesque character that my mother seemed to both revere and fear. She told of the night they were going to the Harry Belafonte concert. Late, and speeding down the highway, my mother’s mother was driving, smoking, and yelling, “we’re coming Harry! Harry! We’re coming!” Or their visit to our house when we were young. My 5 year old sister Libby displayed her distaste for cigarettes is such a fashion that Virginia exclaimed, “This child would make me smoke less”.

There was the grocery store she worked at with her brother tom, run by the teamsters she said. Where cots were laid in the isles during the night stocking, managers were loading trucks in the middle of the night with who knows what going who knows where, and the attached in store bar was always full of the employees. Her stories captured another time, another place that was distant enough from her life with us to make it fantastic to me. Trenton New Jersey, the Jersey shore, and New York City. She told of Tea Dances at Princeton prep schools where white gloves were always worn. Of a catholic school education, frightening nuns, a life before Vietnam, and the world after.

There was A ride across the country with one strait driving brother, 2 dogs, and some surf boards. A restaurant on wall street where she was ganged up on by the other waitresses, remnants of an old guard of women with pointy bras and big up-do’s. A prestigious art school she was accepted to with out showing a portfolio. Of a poetry reading she attended at Princeton where she was asked by a man while outside smoking, how she was enjoying the show. Her response of “I hate poetry” garnered a kiss on the cheek and a thanks of, “that’s the most refreshing thing I have heard in a long while”. The two returned to the room, my mother took her seat, and the man, being Alan Ginseberg took the stage to read his poetry.

It is through stories that my mother saw the world. Even a simple day at work was enough to give her stories to tell. Although her jobs were far from ordinary, working in special needs classrooms at the middle school level the days were filled with chaos that my mom always countered with laughter and smiles.

I never failed to delight in her stories, that retold her own life as enchanting fairy tale, tall at times. She was always my hero in these tales, as a brave and forgivably disobedient child, later a free spirit, and finally my mother so full of the life around her.

I never failed to delight in her stories, that retold her own life as an enchanting fairy tale. She was always my hero in these tales, as a brave and forgivably disobidient child, later a free spirit, and finally my mother so full of the life around her

The German Vermin

2007-07-18T12:54:00.001-07:00

I'm almost half way through the field work already, how the time flies! It's been a rather rainy, cool summer, but it's still wonderfull to be outside all the time. We've caught loads of animals and even an albino vole (Clethrionomys glareolus - pictured here). I would never wear white pants out into the woods for obvious reasons, and this dirty little guy just reinforces that belief. She really has very white fur, but it's so dirty that Arthur didn't believe me that she's an albino. We caught her three seperate times, the nincompoop! I guess it's all the love and attention that keeps em coming back ;-).

Coworkers really make a difference when you're working on a field study. You spend so much time together that if you don't get along, it makes the summer miserable. I am lucky to have two excellent co-workers; funny, nice, hard working... but I guess they have to be nice to me, because I'm the boss!

My trusty side-kicks, Urs the pirate (Arrrr-genine!) and Emilia the CanadianMe handling a yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis for those of you who are interested). You can see that it was a cold morning because I'm wearing two fleeces, a jacket and a wool hat (that I made myself :) )

The gloves protect from needle sharp rodent teeth and all types of gross stuff which I won't list off here. Here I'm marking the mouse with an ear punch which at the same time doubles as a genetic sample

A Chilhood Foe Revisited

2007-07-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

As I am in a funny position of not quite being a student and not being a member of the workforce so to speak I find myself with little money. In this transitional time as I wait to see if I'll be continuing my education next Fall I work two semi odd jobs that just barely allow me to make ends meet. Due to this I have backed down on some of my food politics and loosened how and where I shop. Enter Grocery Outlet. As a child I was dragged to this dimly lit wharehouse of almost expired boxed and canned goods enough to create a physical aversion to the cheery rainbow logo used to draw the unsuspecting in. Needless to say I hated it. As an adult it went fairly unnoticed in my life except on the occasional foray to that lovely part of my home town known as Everett Mall Way. Only the best of the best set up shop there. Despite these pretensions I was recently drawn to go there in hope of finding cheap edible food. This urge was furthered when I passed by one in the Central District and actually saw fresh produce outside! I decided that perhaps my childish impressions were outdated. So last Monday while in Everett I stopped in. Low and behold! The organic movement has trickled down to such places. I was able to purchase many more than adequate items for prices I could actually afford! A four pack of my favorite Kiss My Face soap was the same price as one bar in the regular store. I was able to purchase Tillamook white cheddar for less than the block that has been dyed orange. I found other dairy and meat products that although weren't organic where hormone and antibiotic free. My cottage cheese was even produced by a co-op of Farmers, albeit in Vermont and not Washington, but still, I can agree to that. All in all, I left very satisfied and even a little excited that I could afford to purchase food in ways that didn't give me political pangs of guilt. I'm not sure if Grocery Outlet has changed, or just my awareness of poverty, but thank heavens for the Canned Food Warehouse!

the Wildlife Biologist - week 1

2007-06-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

I studied wildlife biology for four years and worked on several studies, but have never been able to bring myself to call myself a "wildlife biologist". Now that I have the first week of my long planned PhD project behind me and many more weeks looming before me, I think I can begin saying "I'm a wildlife biologist". I like the sound of that: Libby, the wildlife biologist.

I have held many jobs in my life, where I've always been in the employee position. For the first time I find myself the boss. I have two "employees" working on my study with me this summer. They're not really employees considering that I'm not paying them, but they are working/slaving for me and I'm responsible for telling them what to do since I planned everything. We started on Friday last week by laying out the trapping grids in two forest islands surrounded by a sea of meadow and setting out the traps. The next morning we had a moderate catch, some common voles, yellow-necked mice, a garden dormouse and a whole lot of slugs (in German they're called "Nacktschnecken" which literally translates as "naked snails"). We checked again in the evening with a few more of the same species. The next day was another moderate catch, but on the third morning it seemed that every trap was occupied. We were still checking traps at 10:30 at night with a head lamp.

The first few nights we drove back to Freiburg to sleep and get up again at 5 am (Urs wanted to see his girlfriend, of all things), but we did spend one night up there. I love waking up to the fresh air of a forest with the early morning bird calls and dewy folliage. That's what makes all the hard field work worth while. Coming back to Freiburg and my messy room in between is like when there's one of those aweful intermissions at the movie theater (I get very personally outraged when that happens, and it happens a lot in German movie theaters). Your immersed in the story, off in another world or a life other than your own and then you get a rude jerk back to reality right in the middle. I'm going to try to spend as much time in the woods as possible while I'm working on the study, because that's why I'm doing this, isn't it??

In the wild

2007-06-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

As of recent, Bianka has been given out door privileges. It wasn't that she earned them through good behavior, she really just began demanding them. She would sprint out the door as soon as it was opened, or spend hours looking out a the great out doors with such a look of longing, that we finally had to let her go.

She only goes out when we are home to gather her up and bring her inside. No easy task at times, she hides until she is ready to come back in. She has a favorite place, 3 houses down, under their porch. The porch is surrounded by both lattice and a bushy garden, making it Bianka's "fort". Not only does she love hunkering down behind the lattice, but the garden is a host of various bugs for her to hunt.

Her killer instinct is clear in the way she looks at birds, but she sticks to the bugs. It's amusing to watch her chase a bug. From afar, the bug is invisible but Bianka's leaping and frolicking is clear. She looks as though she is doing an interpretive dance, her partner the bug is rarely caught.

She is out right now, but came home to pose for a picture. She is very friendly, approaching other cats often, looking for a buddy. Alas, there have been no takers, most cats run away to their own homes before she can make their acquaintance.

She did have a collar to identify her in case she wandered too far, or animal controll came visiting. Unfortunately, as smart as she is, Bianka figured out that the quick release built into cat collars meant that she could push her paw under the strap and rip the collar off herself. So she came home without it one day. It was so cute too, pink with polka dots and a pink tag with a mouse on it.

Her she comes, trotting inside, licking her chops and meowing for a congrats. She must have caught a bug.

A mystery package

2007-06-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Libby had been asking for weeks if I had received my birthday present in the mail yet. Never one to hide an emotion, Libby's excitement was good sign that I was going to be surprised. She was sure I wouldn't miss it, it was going to be in a box larger than usual. At least twice the size of a shoe box.

When I came home and found a 4 foot tall box on the stairs, I was sure it was for the family we rent from who lives upstairs. But when I drew near, I could see the addressee was in fact me! I carted the tall box downstairs, bottom heavy as it was. I placed it in front of the door and opened it to let Bianka out.

She too seemed baffled by the large box. What could be inside? What could need those air holes cut into the side? She did her best to sniff the answer out, inserting her little nose into each air hole.

Finally I took a knife to the box and opened it to find my very own tree! It had broad, flat, shiny leaves, and one single white blossom. Come to find it was a dwarf Meyer lemon tree.

When I described the package to Libby, she was shocked at its size. Apparently her own citrus trees that she ordered for her container garden in Germany just didn't compare. In fact, the box that came was so small, she thought it couldn't possibly have the orange tree she was expecting inside. But when she opened it, it had both the orange and lime tree that she had ordered!!

My tree has spent some time in the neighbors yard, where there is good afternoon sunlight. I found it up on his porch one day. He had mowed his lawn and been a little confused by the squatter in his garden. Now the little tree is upstairs, sitting in a spot that gets all the sunlight our day can offer.

The blossom is gone, which I thought was a sign that my tree was not doing well. However, I have recently noticed in it's place tiny green fruits the size of a Q-tip in two locations!

When Libby said dwarf Meyer lemon tree, I thought she meant that the tree wouldn't grow large, but it looks like I have itsee bitsee lemons instead!

Now I need to purchase a larger pot and re pot it. Hopefully I can rope someone into some advice. I can offer a tiny glass of lemon aid in return.

More than one way to grow a tomato

2007-06-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

The usual method of growing a tomato is to get some dried seeds and plant them in some dirt. But the tomato, as well as any fruit, is actually the mother plant's way of giving her offspring a little boost at the beginning with water and nutrients, like the yolk that nurishes a chick in the egg. In nature the seeds just sprout directly out of the fruit. My Mom's friend, Ellen, sent me this picture of her own accidental garden which happens to be nature going about its course. I found it so amusing, that I thought I would share it with everyone:

It reminds me of the time when my Mom slipped a very hairy looking carrot (it had begun to sprout new roots in anticipation of spring) into Dana's lunch bag when she was in third grade. We all got a good laugh out of it, but Dana probably didn't find it so funny at the lunch table.

Spring Cleaning!

2007-06-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

All I've been doing for about the last 2 months is cleaning. I was cleaning for a coffee shop, I'm cleaning out our parents house, but finally I got to my own cleaning. I've lived in my apartment now for 4 months and I had never quite felt completely settled in. That ended last night when I finally got to a point where it felt organized, and although not completely painted, at least I now have all shelving up, and even a few pictures. So here are some pictures of my adorable 2 room basement apartment taken at one of the few moments it will look this clean. Oh, and thank god the manager put the communal vacuum back, I think there was more hair on the carpets than is currently on Sylvestor and Little Boy combined!

Bedroom looking North

Bedroom looking into kitchen (East). The other door is the bathroom.

Bedroom looking South, I really need pictures on this wall.

My sunken kitchen

There is supposed to be one more picture of my private alley/courtyard, but alas my formatting skills have once again fallen short. I'll post it seperately (it just adds another place to go, like a small concrete room with maple trees for the ceiling) when I get a picture of it during the day and it looks a little less bleek.

Has cooking from scratch died?

2007-05-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of chicken pot pie, or any pot pie for that matter. There are no pre-packaged, frozen or otherwise pre-prepared versions available in Germany. That's a good thing. I've had a hankering for chicken pot pie for a while now and I've finally located and purchased the perfect little dishes to bake them in (single servings are far superior to a communal pie), but I still can't find a perfect recipe, let alone even a good one. I want to start with a whole chicken, making my own stock, making the crust from scratch, but I have yet to find such a recipe. I think the american public is so horrified by meat that looks like the animal it came from, that no one even knows what to do with it anymore. I was browsing the net looking for such a recipe and came across more strange concoctions that I can't believe their conceivers dare to call recipes. Ingredients including pre-packaged pie crust (or worse Pilsbury bisciuts in the tube), throw in two cans of Campbell's soup and some chicken breast, canned chicken broth, canned mixed vegetables and so on in that manner. I'm a bit leary of any recipe calling for any product by brand name. One even called for non-dairy creamer, blasphemy! Herbs? No where to be seen. Flour? What for if you can open a can of puff pastry? All the most basic elements of the kitchen seem to have been out to lunch when these recipes were conceived. So, seeing as there aren't any of these prepacked products available here in Germany, I can't really use any of these recipes anyways. If anyone out there has a good recipe for pot pie that really, really is from scratch, then please post it as a comment! I would be very grateful.

Whatever happened to making things yourself anyway? I come from a generation that can't even conceive of the idea of making their own salad dressing (I know because I used to be the same way), pancakes come from a bisquick mix and even do-it-yourself recipes call for numerous pre-packaged foods (vanilla pudding mix as a "secret" ingredient, that's one ingredient that should remain a secret!). I for one, do not intend to go down that road. Maybe I've become a food snoot since I've moved to Europe, but I just see it as expecting good food all the time. There's no reason everyone shouldn't do the same. There's a whole group of people that have said "no" to the convience food route, to the fast food and have started a movement called Slow Food International. This is one movement that I could join.

My First Car

2007-05-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

I have had a lot of firsts this year: my first vegetable garden, my first tomato, first parent lost, and the very first car that I purchased with my own money. I did not want to buy a car, I still do not want to own a car, but for my PhD project it is an absolute necessity. So, after countless hours on the internet looking on websites for used cars, driving around Baden-Württemberg (first with Klaus and then With Arthur's brother, Oli, and Wilfried) looking at cars and finally settling on one that I liked and was in my price range. The new secretary at work just bought a Ford Focus station wagen and my boss told me it would be a good car for me too. I had no idea what I was looking for, so having some direction was helpful. Dana has a Subaru Impreza which I liked, but had been talked out of buying a Subaru because no one here in Germany knows much about them, therefore they must be bad. I kept it in the back of my mind though. I looked at quite a few Ford Focus station wagens becoming ever less impressed by the familiness it exhuded and its boxy, Fordy form. Just for fun I looked at an Impreza near Stuttgart with Wilfried last weekend. When I saw it, I knew I wanted this car. I was still unsure, because it was a private sale (in Germany, professional car lots have to give you one year garantee whereas the general public does not). After having the rigorous test that each car has to go through every two years (TÜV) and passing, I decided this was the car for me. Besides it was also about a thousand Euro cheaper than any Ford box that I had looked at. On Friday evening after work I went to Stuttgart to purchase the car. Oli picked me up from the train station. I was buying the car with cash and didn't feel comfortable carrying that much with me. I didn't realize though that you can't withdraw more than 2000 € from an ATM in a day! So I had to wait til Saturday to buy it. I'm not very good at bargaining, but I was able to talk the price down by 200 €, actually about 500, when you consider that the seller put in an additional 350 € at the end for oil change and other small things. After all that, I'm finally the proud owner of a 2000 Subaru Impreza. Thank God that's over!!

Here we are on our first day looking at study sites (there's a forest island in the background):

Although I spent what felt to me like a fortune, it is only just the beginning. I have yet to pay the lisencing tax for it, insurance - almost 1000 €/year at first >:-(, and maintanance. Owning a car is a rather expensive affair! The best thing about having my own car is that I can get it as dirty as I want and no one is going to complain to me to go to the car wash with it once a week.

Poor Argumentation

2007-05-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

The Bible is probably one of the most misused, misquoted, over-interpreted source that ever served a biased and uninformed argument. With that in mind, I was sent a link to this letter which had already been translated into German (and probably many other languages) and had gone around the globe a few times before it reached me. It was written by an unknown author in response to a radio "Dear Abbey" type after she said that homosexuality was wrong because it was condemned in the Bible, siting the passage Leviticus 18:22. I'm for interpreting the Bible loosely, but for those out there that are for strict interpretation, this letter is written to you (the Bible is all or nothing)! At the risk of being a hypocrit, because I havn't actually checked whether or not these passages in the Bible coincide with what is written in this letter, I'd like to share this letter with you all:

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

Kind of puts things in perspective, huh? I am not a lesbian, gay, or a proponant thereof, nor am I agianst it (why should I even have an opinion on something that has nothing to do with me??). But the people who feel the need to have an opinion about it try to base their opinions on something they like to pretend is fact. After quoting the Bible, these people then move onto to say it's "unnatural". That is the biggest load of bologna I've ever heard! If anything it would be "unnatural" for our species not to display intersexual tendencies. More than 1500 species have been observed romping with their same sex counterparts (Homosexual Animals Out of the Closet from LiveScience.com). If wild animals aren't "natural" then I don't know what is.

Disclaimer: you can believe whatever you like, but just please don't support it with poor argumentation.

- Libby

What's that strange plant attached to my tomato?

2007-05-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

Although I have some rural roots, albiet distant roots, I like to pretend that I'm not a total city slicker. Growing up in suburbia would make me more of a Suburb-slicker, or a "suburber"? Anyway, being a wildlife biologist I can identify most native plant species, mammals by skin or skull of the pacific states (at least that's what my transcript boasts) and feel comfortable with my knowledge of the natural world. This knowledge ends where the forest's edge meets farm land. I came to the embarrassing realization that I had no idea how my pepper plants were going to look once they had sprouted, because I had never seen a pepper plant in my life. I also saw an eggplant plant for the first time when I bought a seedling for my garden, or at least recognized it for what it was, but I swear I've never seen one before. The first time I saw a mature asparagus plant I paraded my total garden ignorance by asking if it were dill! (And no, a mature asparagus does not in any way resemble the product that you eat, it looks like a feathery little evergreen). The connection between the pepper plant and red pepper has gotten lost somewhere along our way to becoming "civilized". How many of you would recognize a carrot plant in the ground without the big orange hint? Or know what the color of a tomato flower is? I have yet to find out what an eggplant flower looks like, because mine hasn't bloomed yet. Ok, so I'm not a total agricultural dunce. I've heard stories of people not knowing that a potato has an above the ground part and I'm not that out of touch, but I couldn't recognize that part above ground, yet. I'll find out when mine comes up!

This topic is part of what Barbara Kinsolver's new book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life", that I just finished reading is about. She describes her year of living off the bounty of the land in a 100 mile radius around her farm in Virginia. What an incredible book. I'm not going to write a book review here, but I would suggest that you all get a copie and read it. Immediately. Especially you, Dana. It's all about food, good food, growing it yourself and being aware of what it took to get it to your plate. But before you read it, be prepared for your own gardening frenzy that may ensue! Thank God I started a garden before I started reading it, because I wouldn't have been able to stand waiting til next spring to begin! I was even considering whether I could get away with a chicken coop on my balcony. I think that's where Yvonne would draw the line. I'm already looking for cheese making equipment though. Who would have thought that you can make mozzarella with milk from the grocery store in less than an hour?

The idea of being self sufficient or even partially self sufficient isn't new. Many websites are devoted to growing your own food, even in an urban setting and, yes, even in an apartment. The self-sufficient-ish website is all about doing what you can and growing what you can under any living circumstances. My container garden is my attempt at being self sufficient-ish.

Tree-Hugger / Öko-tante Award of the Month

2007-05-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided to give out an award to people I know for when they do something environmentally friendly. I should give it to myself for my garden, but really the person I know who has the least impact on the planet is surprisingly Arthur. So that's why he's getting the very first Öko-tante / Tree-Hugger Award whether he wants it or not. Why he's so eco-friendly (without wanting to be):

- almost never buys new clothes
- wears his clothes 'til they fall apart
- rides his bike everywhere
- I caught him using a plastic bag that came from the video store back in Tübingen (that's five years he's been reusing that bag!)
- uses his back-pack instead of plastic bags to carry groceries
- doesn't go on long trips that use a lot of fossil fuels
- his drinks come in reusable glass bottles (beer and cassis berry juice)
- recycles and composts
- doesn't use a lot of water for showering ;-)
- and last but not least, he wear's Birkenstocks (actually Fakenstocks) but only around the house

Congratulations Arthur on being so earth friendly!

- Libby

My Very First Tomato

2007-05-15T04:37:00.000-07:00

Four weeks ago I bought a little tomato seedling at the local garden center, two weeks ago it was already almost a foot tall, one week ago the first flowers bloomed, and today the very first tomato was visible. The flower intended to lure in pollinators in the cycle of reproduction had served its purpose and fallen away to reveal the tiniest little green tomato. This is the very first vegetable that I've ever grown! I can't wait to taste it. There should be plenty more where it came from though. I also planted a bunch of tomatoes from seed and have hordes of seedlings waiting to be potted. I'm so proud of my tomato!

- Libby

To Mom on mothers day

2007-05-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

Mom,

This was my first mothers day without you. I knew it would be hard, so I was thankful that I had to work most of the day. Nothing seems to keep my eyes dryer than a full day in the kitchen, where there is no time to be sad or miss you too much.

Becca had a mothers day brunch, but I couldn't seem to make myself go. She invited all the mothers in teh cressell family, and they are so full of laughter and joy. I knew I wouldn't be full of laughter this day, and wasn't up to faking it, or being the sullen girl in the corner. Being with Diane reminds me of being with you, which is good in a lot of ways, but today it would have hurt too much.

I remember mothers days when we were little, I would ask you what you wanted, and you always said, "a clean house". The last mothers day with you we went to Ivars at Mukilteo. You were still walking a bit, clutching Russell's arm as we walked out on the dock. It was a big deal to me to see you and Russell together. He never really got to know you, so knowing you got to see a little of how sweet he is was important to me.

I am going to the canyon to celebrate mothers day with Russell's mom in two weeks. I bought her some presents, a vintage table cloth and an old fashioned pitcher. It seems she has the same old fashioned taste as me. I am really lucky to have her, she's the nicest mother in law I could ask for, kind of like Grandma Eva was to you. Every time I went out I saw the presents I would have bought for you. A pretty tile you could have hung in the kitchen with all the others I helped you collect. Russell and I were in Ellensburg and I saw a hat I would have bought for you to wear. You hated that you only got a bath once a week at Foss, and wore the hat I brought from my honeymoon. I think you liked it more when one of the aids called you "that bad mexican boy".

You did like to be "bad". I remember finding your dentures shoved in one of your clutter drawers with a giant caramel stuck to the mollars, hiding your naughty treat from me. Or when you snuck out of the movie "The Strait Story" to go have a taco. One of your favorite stories of childhood was when all 6 mullowney's were in the same school, and your brother Eddie made you steal other kids lunches on the bus so he could put dog biscuits on their sandwiches.

Things have been pretty lonely without you. I cry a lot, at the most randon times. Sarah and Libby say they dream about you all the time, but I don't. It would be nice to see you in my dreams. I did have one dream about you. You were sick, and then we found out you had breast cancer too. But we figured out you got the cancer from a trip to the beach, when a duck walked up to you and bit your boob. I laughed at that, because it reminded me of you. But in the dream you died again. I really hate that you died mom. You took part of me with you, the part that ever still felt like a child. So I guess I am really grown up now. I remember after Grandpa and Grandma Mullowney died, you said you felt like an orphan. I guess I kind of feel like that too now, completely without parents.

I wish I could have done a lot more for you. Like made you a wedding album, or just given you mine. It made you so happy I should have just let you have mine. So what if the pages got smudged with twinkies you were sneaking in your bedroom. I wish I could have brought you better food at the home, like my icecreams at the restaurant, or some of Amy's good soups. I just didn't think of it. I wish I could have spent more time with you too. I used to cut my visits short to avoid seeing Dad, and I hate that that happened. The last day you were alive I ran from the room to avoid him, and one of his hugs that I told him countless times were not welcome. I lost some of your last moments because of that, running from him.

You had a picture of your father, he was looking out over the water, his hand over his eyes to narrow his scope, and wearing some ridiculous old fashioned mens wool bathing suit. The picture had "where are you" scratched into it by your father. You kept it because that's what you thought every day. Every day I wonder where you could be. Where are you? I know part of you is with me, and libby and Sarah. But it's only the memories of you, not you for real.

When we went to Chloe's Batmitzvah, Uncle Tom said he thought I was you for a moment. I got my hair cut like you, or like a picture I saw of you in the 70's. Short and choppy, with no regard for current trends. You told me when I was growing up that you always did terrible things to your hair. This always makes me laugh, especially because nothing you did to your hair could detract from your beautiful face, or the love it radiated when you smiled. I cried for half an hour at the Batmitzvah, Sarah found me in the stairwell and Russell came out and we went for a walk. It was the first time I was with your family without you. I think everyone felt your absence that day, and I know I wasn't the only one to shed tears missing you. The group is getting smaller, without you and Eddie, and every gathering is shaddowed by that fact.

Everyone at work asked me if I was good and called my mom. I got tired of saying, "she died in january" so I started just nodding yes. Finally one of my coworkers told me her mom died too, when she was 14. It was nice to have someone else there who understood the kind of absense I felt on this day in particular. Her mom died from anestesia, unexpectedly and suddenly. She's right, I had lots of time to say goodbye to you, but I didn't. I only said goodbye once, the day before you went into the hospital the last time. I told you I'd tell my kids all the stories you told me, and what an amazing mother you were, and that I hoped I could show my children as much love as you showed me. You told me to take care of Sarah, and then told Russell to take care of me.

I miss you every day Mom, but today was one of the worst. They say it gets better with time, and I know it will. But I'll never stop feeling sad, the hole you left will always be there. I love you so much, Mom, and I wish I could curl up in your hug, and say "Happy Mothers Day" right to you.

Back in the Saddle Again

2007-05-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Things are really getting going with my PhD project. I'm in the process of buying a car, my equipment is all ordered and I've been choosing my study sites. Things always seem so straight forward on paper, or rather on my computer screen, whereas in reality things usually look quite different. Using Google Earth satalite pictures (I couldn't live without this program!) and a GIS mapping program I chose my sites, meticulously going over ever inch of the Black Forest, zooming in from an altitude of 10,000 feet whenever I recognized the cute little fluff of green that marks a forest island. They look so nice from above, the right size, the right shape, the right distance apart... On Sunday, my room mate, Yvonne, and I went out and looked at some of them near Elzach where she works in a clinic. Locating these little forests from satelite images printed on paper was no easy task, especially since some of the "roads" on the map turned out to be tractor trails through fields that had since grown over. We did locate most of the sites though. In Washington and I'm assuming the rest of the western United States, the forests are usually approximately the same mix of trees and undergrowth. You'll find on a larger regional scale differences, but not in a 1 hectare (100 x 100 meter) clump of trees. In Germany, a 1 hectare stand of trees can be groups of a single type of tree planted (monoculture) in rows next to a group of a totally different type of tree. In some, the undergrowth has been totally removed in others not. This extreme variation is very bad for a scientific experiment! It's turning out to be a bit more difficult than expected, but isn't it always that way?!

It was really nice to be back out in the woods, feeling like a wildlife biologist again with my clipboard, identifying plants, taking notes and taking in the natural world as it is. Although she's a speach therapist, Yvonne is very good at identifying plants. I still have a lot to learn here in Germany, because although the flora and fauna is similar to that of western Washington, it's not exactly the same. There are Douglas-fir trees here though. I can usually smell them before I see them. They have a distinct smell that brings me back to the woods back home. Funny how a smell has the power to evoke memories stronger than anything else.

Field work does not come without dangers though. Yvonne was attacked by a vicious tick while were were walking across a meadow. I've never had a tick and I very much hope that I never will. I'm sure it's not so bad as I'm imagining it, but it's an experience in my life that I really rather could do without.

So that's an update on my life, as it goes.
- Libby

Getting Carried Away, But Enjoying the Ride

2007-05-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

I posted the pictures again, so I hope that you all can see them!

As you all saw in my previous post (provided you all read my posts), I have started a container garden on my balcony with my roommates, Yvonne and Julia. Julia just moved in, but she's just as passionate/crazy about gardening as I have become. We only started about three and a half weeks ago, but we already have quite a lot growing. Still, for someone who checks every couple of minutes if anything has sprouted/grown/born fruit(still a bit early for that), three and half weeks seems like an excruiciatingly long time. To kill time while waiting for things to happen on their own, I've started a garden journal. I call it the scientist in me that likes to document each step, noting changes, keeping track. Arthur calls it the beaurocrat in me. It's already come in handy though, because then I can see when I fertilized what and know when to fertilize again, when I planted what and so on. Next year I won't make the same mistakes and know what worked best. Anyway things are starting to look quit green out there, so I thought I would share it with you all:

Ok, so this bell pepper plant didn't get this big in three weeks. Only one measly little bell pepper came up that I planted and I was in need of some instant gratification, so I bought this seedling at the garden center when I was there:

Here you can see the bell pepper basking in the late afternoon sun, with some tomato seedlings and lettuce bed:

What we've got growing/planted in our garden:
- chili peppers (5 seedlings up)
- bell peppers
- physalis (Cape gooseberries)
- cherry tomatoes
- vine tomatoes (almost about to bloom!)
- strawberries
- German lettuce (Kopfsalat)
- Romain lettuce
- pumpkin
- calamondin oranges
- basil (Italian)
- basil (Thai)
- Thyme
- parsley
- cilantro
- chives
- sunflowers
- peppermint
- rosemary
- lime tree
- lemon tree

Phew, that's a lot! I didn't realize how much we really had until I made this list. We'll be lucky if we're able to go out on the balcony by the end of the summer!

-Libby

My Daemon!

2007-05-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullmann, will forever be one of my favorite stories (thanks Dana for introducing me to it!). Now I like fantasy novels, but only "good" fantasy. None of that cheesy stuff verging on a romance, "sex-pot" novel with Fabio posing on the cover. What makes fantasy cheesy, is that it isn't believable. Where you catch yourself saying "yah, right". The Golden Compass is written in a way that makes it believable making it some how realistic. I've passed this around to everyone who has asked for something to read. I always say, this is "good" fantasy when people give me that sceptical look, because that is just what this book is, really really good. So if you havn't read this book, then I suggest you do, immediately!

In my opinion, the best thing that can happen to one of my favorite books is that they make a really good movie out of it. Usually a movie doesn't do the book justice, but like they always say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I think they will do a good job here, considering the flood of fantasy stories gone movie in the last 5 years, like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I've known that they were planning on filming The Golden Compass for almost two years now and have eagerly been looking forward to it since. It's finally coming out! Well in December this year. While I was looking for the start date I came across the movie production page where you can get assigned your own Daemon after anwsering a series of questions about yourself, so I'd like to introduce you to my Daemon, Agapius:

Here's Arthur's Daemon:

Here's Dana's Daemon:

If you'd like to create your own then just go to the Golden Compass Website.

- Libby

Skills for Life

2007-04-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I was invited to Mirjam and Mattias's joint birthday party at the Mattisle cabin in the Black Forest. The theme of the party was "What I want to be when I grow up". You were supposed to dress up as the profession that you wanted to do when you grew up. I thought about it and these were the main things I wanted to be:

- Paleontologist (1st grade)
- Civil War historian (4/5 grade)
- Veterinarian (6-9th grade)
- Pathologist (11th grade - first quarter of college)
- Baker (always somewhere in between)

What did I become?, good question. I guess medical technologist / wildlife biologist, rather an odd combination, but I'm in transition. I never did find a costume and just brought one of the stuffed animal bats that I have and pretended that I wanted to be a bat ecologist. Mirjam borrowed my stuffed animal falcon and went as a falconer.

Thinking about what I wanted to be back then brought back a lot of memories, even of birthday parties from when I was kid. What always made a party really exciting was a piñata. Sarah, Mom and I made one for Sarah's and my birthday party when I was about ten, decorated like a jack o'lantern. For the party I thought it would be neat to bring a little of my culture to share (I know that piñatas are originally from Mexico, but they have since been integrated into American culture), combined with a little German culture. In Germany, pigs are thought to bring luck. The Germans have an interesting attachment to swine, but I'll explain another time. Lots of birthday cards and gifts are decorated with pigs and you can even get marzipan pigs to give to people at New Years, usually holding a four leaf clover in its mouth. With this in mind, I decided to make a pig piñate. The task, which turned out to be quite the undertaking, began on Friday afternoon with balloons, toilette paper rolls, and paper mâchè.

Now I havn't done paper mâchè since I was about ten, in fact that jack o'lantern may have been the last time, yet I whipped that pig together as if making paper mâchè pigs were the passion of my life. I was quite proud of myself. Paper mâchè is one of those life skills that after having mastered it in grade school continues to be of use for the rest of your life.

The next day, Yvonne and I started decorating the pig with pink crepe paper squares. This ended up taking a lot longer than expected and after glueing about 20 squares on I lost all desire to continue. But the show must go on! So I called in for reinforcements. Arthur showed up and we three finished the job just in time for the party.

I filled it up with some sweets and some "for over 21" treats. I was rather dissappointed that my masterpiece was doomed for destruction, but when I realized that my cakes are too it took most the sting off. Besides, I saved an ear and the snout. It ended up being a big "hit" at the party, hee hee hee.

- Libby

I'm too sexy for this resume

2007-04-11T04:07:00.000-07:00

In Germany for some reason that not even the Germans themselves can explain, a resume strictly requires a photo. You can't just paste in that nice picture of you from your last vacation, oh no, it has to be really high quality studio type one. I am a notorious cheapskate, or am frugal as I like to think of it. My grip on my money gets even tighter when I feel that the reason I have to spend it is totally obsurd. Resume photos is one of these reasons. I think its the most stupid, rediculous idea I've ever heard of. That out of the way, it is a well known fact that more attractive people are generally treated better by society, have more mates, and so on in that fashion. For the less attractive of us out there, a photo can only be a disadvantage. If you think that even the Germans couldn't be so shallow as to throw out resumes from the less attractive without ever having read them, guess again. I know that they do it, from sources that wish to remain annonymus.

I have never needed so many passport photos in my entire life combined as I have in the last three and half years here in Germany. In fact, in the US I only ever once went and had passport photos taken, and that was for my passport. Here I had to turn one in for my basketball team, for the archery club, for signing up for the dorm, when I applied for the university, for my lisence and so on.

I just recently sent out a grant application which required a resume with picture. As usual, I went down to the train station and had my picture taken in one of those do-it-yourself picture booths. It turned out alright, after I wiped the strange smudges off the glass that ruined the first set. Later, after having sent the application away, I brought up the subject of the resume picture with my friend Bènèdicte, who is French and also doesn't understand the Germans (we get into some good rants sometimes ;)). She had taken one of those job preparation courses, where you learn all the do's and don't's of application writing and interviewing. Apparently I did everything wrong with the picture that you could. Rule #1, do NOT use the photo booths for pictures. The explanation here was that they want to see that you put effort into the application and that you were willing to spend money on it, which means that getting the job really matters to you. Rule #2, do NOT use a casual picture. And I had been debating whether or not to use a picture of me from the bat study taken in clothes I had been wearing for a week with a bat as a bootineer. WRONG! Rule #3, the picture should NOT be the size of the ones you get at the photo booth, they should be about the size of a nice wallet picture. Well, I blew that one, but maybe when they see that I'm American they go easy on me, or maybe harder.

I have to turn in another resume, and this time I was determined to be prepared. My roommate Yvonne's brother is a professional photographer and when she was preparing her resume to apply for logopedic positions, he took the pictures for her. They were absolutely incredible. I couldn't have her brother come, so I got the next best thing, Yvonne. Yesterday, we hung up a white cotten sheet on the balcony and did a photo shoot. It was a little embarrassing, but I managed and got a couple of nice shots that I then fixed up with several different photoshop type programs (either they don't all have all the functions I need or I just can't find them). Then I sent them over the internet to be printed on professional paper. So simple and so cheap! All in all, I only spent 1 Euro and 63 Cents for a whole lot of photos. I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch though, we'll see how they look when I get them back from the developer. Here are a couple of examples:

I find that black and white pictures look much nicer, but I added a color one just in case:

I liked this shape, I got the idea from a German photographer that specializes in resume pictures:

My Nikon Picture project has a sepia function that I think looks really nice. Here I used a square shape instead of the traditional tall rectangle:

There were some pretty bad pictures too, here are some of them:

This one was ok, but it wasn't the type for a resume:

- Libby

Container Gardener

2007-04-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

I recently became aware that not all the fossil fuel emissions that I am personally responsible for come from transporting my body from one place to another. Most of the foods I buy, and products for that matter, make a very longer journy from their place of origin to my kitchen; farther than I travel in a year (last year excluded). I know, I'm a little slow on the uptake, and maybe I did just fall of the turnip truck, but the message finally hit home and decided to do (a little) something about it. I am going to grow (some of) my own food.

I live on the top floor of an apartment building, which makes a real garden (the in the ground type) out of the question. What we do have though is balcony that wraps almost all the way around the apartment, making a planter garden quite feesible. With the sometimes excruciatingly hot summer temperatures in Freiburg and the presence of a glass roof, the climate on our balcony can take on even some of the most sun dependent crops like oranges, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. And those are what we are planting! We also planted lettuce, but that will be placed on the shadier side of the house once it gets going. I was also so ambitious as to plant a pumpkin. Every Halloween I have a pumpkin carving party and I thought it would be neat to have grown my own. Some people say pumpkins absolutly will not grow in a container, while others say they will as long as the pot is "big enough". I haven't quite figured out how big "big enough" is yet, but I bet it's gotta be bigger than I want. I'm going to try it out though. Besides even if it just flowers it'll be worth it, because I have a recipe for fried pumpkin/zucchini flowers from Arthur's Italian family that is incredible.

Aside from my desire to decrease my ecological footprint, I have always dreamed of having a garden. Back at the Brown House we had a garden. "We" is an overstatement, my parents had one and I'm sure I did very little gardening as a three year old. But I do remember picking the
tomatoes and carrying them in a "giant" round wicker basket into the house. I still have an memory of red and green tomatoes with their viney smell and somewhat dusty skin. When I was ten, Sarah and I both received little green houses for our birthdays. Since our birthdays
are only one day apart, we usually received identical presents. The little green house came with seeds for carrots, so carrots we planted. I watched every day to see if they had sprouted. I can't remember how long it took, but to a ten year old it seemed like years before they little green plants showed themselves above the soil. I was so proud of them! I took it as a personal insult to my carrots that I was expected to kill some of them off for the sake of thinning. I then proceeded to cut out a little garden in the yard , about 3'x3', where Sarah's and my carrot seedlings were transplanted. My dad made me fill it in though, because it was too shady due to the enormous cedars, yews and a maple in our yard that probably belonged to the forest that became our yard long before white settlers came to the area. Here in Freiburg, I've made several measly attempts at growing things. First I tried peppers, but I started way too late in the year, the pots were too small and they got far too little light. Needless to say, I never saw a single pepper. Last year I planted some peas which turned out ok, I got about ten pods out of the deal, but again, the small pots and late start hindered my success. This year I'm determined to do it right. On Saturday this last weekend, I headed off to the local Obi hardware store with my room mate, Yvonne, where we purchased the beginnings of our garden:

4 6-gallon pots
3 2-gallon pots
110 litres of soil
seeds for tomatoes, lettuce, chives, pumpkin, and parsley
1 rosemary plant
1 mint plant

From the supermarket, I bought the most handsome red bell pepper of the bunch (from Israel, sigh) and a lovely slender chili pepper, for the seeds. You have to start off with good genetic material afterall. That evening at the "night flee market", which turned out to be quite the event with live band and everything, I finagled 3 more pots for the low price of three euros. I'm on the verge of getting very carried away!

I never seemed to have the "right" place to have a garden, not the "right" situation in my life (moving around a lot), or no real use for that what I could have grown. Now, I've decided to make it right, because this is something I've always wanted and why put off for tomorrow what you could grow today?

- Libby

Making limoncello

2007-04-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting anything lately, because I havn't felt like there was anything "post-worthy" going on in my life. Day for day, its feels the same with the minutes flowing by from 8:30 to 5 when I get to turn off my computer, go home and turn on my other computer to work on my project. Ok, so I don't work on it every day. I've just been feeling rather forlorn lately, as if I'm still waiting for my real life to begin or like I'm perched on the edge of a canyon full of possibilities, too afraid to take the dive and see which one I catch. Day by day, year by year I inch back from the edge, secure in my job and my life with its monotany but also the stability it brings. Now I've set events in motion that assure that I'm going to take take that dive whether or not at the last minute I yell "stop, wait, I'm not ready!". That push is coming from my PhD project, that I've so meticulously been planning for over a year now. That's right, it will be Dr. Bickford to you! I also have two "employees" relying on me, or so I like to think of them. One is coming all the way from British Columbia on a DAAD scholarship and another has signed away his freedom for the summer for the opportunity of writing his undergraduate thesis on small mammals with me, voluntarily too! I'm not quite sure they know what they've gotten themselves into. I recently wrote to my boss from the small mammal project that worked on all those years ago in the Cascade Mountains of Washington (what a wonderful summer!). The moral of the story is, I told him that I am now myself the proud supervisor of my own small mammal project and asked for some advice on this that and the other on project logistics. Upon reading about my choice research subject, he informed me that "most people that worked with [him on small mammals] ended up switching careers or shooting themselves". I hope my employees don't feel that way after this research season.

Although I'm about to take the plunge, I've tied my saftey rope tightly around my ankle, so that when I do dive and there is nothing in the canyon but empty promises, I will have the means to pull myself back to safety. I have agreed to stay on in my job for two days a week for the summer and then come back full or part time for the remainder of the year. Its not how I would have chosen it, but when life gives you lemons, make lemonaide (or limoncello as the Italians do). Have you ever wanted something so much you could almost taste it? I can almost taste the limoncello I'll be making. Just two more months!

-Libby

A quick Update from Sarah

2007-03-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

I don't have any theme but I wanted to share a few pictures with everyone that represent what I've been doing in my life lately.

Heres me kissing Felix, which marks the arrival of the boys new apartment life. You can see Sylvestor in the mirror giving us one of his typical dirty looks.

Well, my computers almost dead and I'm having formatting issues as usual, so more to come later! May be even some apartment pictures, if I get aroung to it.

-Sarah

CUTE!

2007-02-26T01:34:00.001-08:00

I have gone back to this website far too many times to look at these recipe cards. They are the cutest in the world. Look, squirrels are wearing chef hats, and mixing batters! I want squirrels to mix my batters then scoldingly chirp at me when I stick my finger in it to taste. I want a bunny to be flipping things in my frying pans.

I can't even imagine what kind of cuteness is on the back side of the card. Not that I spend too much time thinking about it, but I would like there to be an owl, reading a cookbook and making recipe suggestions to me. Or racoons peeling apples for a pie!!

Oh I want them!!! Er, the cards. Not the imaginary kitchen staff of animals. (Can't I have both!)

- Dana

New Year's Par-tay!

2007-02-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

People have been asking me how I spent my New Year's Eve. So here's how it went.

- I visited my Mom, she told me "Happy Sylvestor" at 3 pm (that's New Years in Germany and the German word for New Year's Eve!)

- then I got a bad make over at Nordstrom's

- then Dana, Diane, her new boyfriend, Robert and I went to Becca's. The party broke up early and this is the big New Year's celebration at midnight:

I don't really like New Year's (too many expectations to do something extra exciting) and under the circumstances at the time didn't feel like celebrating. But it was nice anyway.

Reminiscing

2007-01-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

When I was home in Everett a few weeks ago, I was going through all the old pictures with my Dad looking for ones of my Mom for the slide show and just to remember her as she once was. While going through them, I came across a lot of other old pictures that I knew I need to have a copy of too. Here are some of the best:

The pinkies on Easter

Can you find Becca?

Little Boy when he was a little boy

3 Peas and a Pooper

2007-01-17T06:33:00.000-08:00

There is a new addition to the Bickford Blog. In all intents and purposes a sister, so it is fitting that she should join us in sharing about our lives with each other. Welcome Becca! May your posts be as zany and wierd as our own.

Arthur's Suprise Present

2007-01-14T22:43:00.000-08:00

Look what Libby's taking home to Germany!

No, not Bianca. Just her dander so they can fly out of Libby's suitcase and inflame Arthur's allergies. After this shot was taken Libby layed down the law.

After this we had etiquite lessons involving a small harness and leash. Bianca did well at first, but quickly devolved to Libby mopping the floor with a very fiesty furball. Bianca's etiquite lessons will being ending when the leash and harness go back to their rightful owner. In February I will be taking up parenthood of Sylvester and Felix, who I fear will have a hard time adjusting to apartment life, and so will need walks in the salty Seattle air.

Denise Joan (Mullowney) Bickford

2007-01-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

Denise was our Mom. She was born on November 16, 1951 in Fitch Sanitarium in the Bronx of New York City. We all had different experiences with her, different relationships, different memories, but we all remember our Mom with love and we'll miss her.

We love you Mom!

Officially old

2007-01-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

It was quite a year of adult like events for me. I was married, very grown up thing to do. I worked as a pastry CHEF, a real adult job. And cared for my very ill mother, moving her to a nursing home and making very difficult decisions with her. All very much grown up things to do.

So to commemorate my aging, I went out and bought my self a pair of Lee jeans. The tag claims "lower on the waist!" but they rise inches above the waist line of the fashoinable jeans I have purchased up until now. They also cost a mere 12 dollars (marked down from 35,) an adult bargain compared to the 100 dollar or more price tag on most premium denim these days. But part of growing old loosing the ability to distinguish the difference between jeans, concluding that they all look the same and making it incomprehendable to spend more than 40 dollars (30! 20!) on a pair.

The pockets are deep, the zipper is long, and the back fully covers my "coin slot" that most girls bear to the world these days. "The new cleavage" some have claimed. They leave no excessive lenghth intended to be worn with heels, possibly even having been designed for a pair of keds. And i can just see the ironed pleat down the front begging to come out.

So with the big three-oh still 2 years away, I have officially started the long decent towards "mom jeans". Perhaps it's my maturity that begs for jeans who's legs don't drag in the dirt, perhaps it's the old lady in me that doesn't want her butt-crack saying hello to everyone behind her, or maybe it's the future mother in me that doesn't like jeans situated just below my budding love handles turning them into "muffin tops". Which ever part of my future self was making the descisions today, I was given a glimpse at the mature adult I am becoming. But if I show up with a mini-backpack purse and a turtleneck under my sweater, just shoot me and put me out of my misery, please.

My new jacket

2006-12-14T00:26:00.000-08:00

Out with the old and in with the new. My last winter coat served me well, 5 winters to be precise. As much as enjoyed wearing it, it was time for something new. This time I opted for an Italian model from my favorite store here in Freiburg that sells leather shoes and felted wool jackets. Here I am in Karlsruhe in my European jacket looking and feeling very European:

Weihnachtsmann Family

2006-12-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas time always brings lots of goodies. Sofar I've already raked in:
- one chocolate advent calendar (for my birthday)
- a stocking full of sweets, nuts, oranges and german chocolate
- a box of Ferrero Kuesschen that Wilfred just about pollished off
- a family of Weihnachtsmaenner (santa clauses)

I thought the family of Weihnachts men were so cute that I would share them

Mom's birthday

2006-11-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

It was mom's 55th birthday last week, and to celebrate, her friends threw her a party.

The women she has been in a "group" with for 10 odd years made her queen for the day. Here is Ellen dressing mom for the part in a royal cape she made herself along with a crown and a scepter. I asked mom what her first comand would be as queen, and she pointed at me and said, "take the birthday banner home with you." She's been trying to pass that along to me for years now.

Here my mom was entertained by her court jester. He was a singer hired to sing her the song, "the mess around" by Ray Charles.

She was all smiles, and when he started singing another song, she pointed her scepter at him and said, "sing the mess around!"

At one point, Becca helped mom use a comunication board that Becca uses with her special kids. It's a frame with the letters of the alphabet in the corners. Becca sticks her head in the frame, and mom would spell a word by looking at the letters. It takes a while, but would help for basic communication. Becca told my mom to spell a word, and she spelled D-U-S-T. When Becca asked why she spelled that word, mom said, "Because I have a lot of it."

Dad wasn't allowed at the girls only party, but he sent mom an icecream cake from Baskin-Robbins. Mom's favorite, Coffee icecream. It was decorated with a curious george swinging from the branches.

We had a family party again on saturday complete with an icebox cake covered in archie McPhee's figures. It was a true Denise cake in every sense.

Happy Birthday Mom!!
Your girls love you more than words can say.

Bogenbau

2006-11-20T02:46:00.000-08:00

What woman does not dream of crafting her own long bow?! Well, what archer at least? None! I have always wanted a long bow, eventhough my own bow is a store bought recurve purchased for its practicallity and, well, price. I bought it while I was working on the DEMO project (small mammals) right before I went to Tübingen for a year at the Archery shop in down town Everett. The shop was actually a corner of the proprietor's wife's furniture store that he had comandeered for selling equipment and for generally hang out for Archers. Funny story, the first time I went in, the archery section was really quite small, but when I came back at the end of the summer to buy some new arrows, it had increased to about twice the size. I asked him about it and commented on how his wife was very kind to relent more of her furniture shop to him and he said that she was on vacation and didn't know about it yet. Anyway, I knew I was going to be moving a lot, so a bow that comes in three pieces (well four if you count the string) and can easily be packed in a suitcase was ideal. But how I longed for one of the beautiful long bows, crafted from one piece of wood, whittled down to its elegant form and pollished to perfection. Alas, it was not to be. Until I met Mattias. He has already made several long bows and suggested that we all make ourselves one together. He would supply the wood and the know how and we the time and muscle into our bows. After many months of looking for a work shop where we could begin, Mirjam secured us the Forstverwaltung (like the forest service/logging company) work shop that just happens to be right next to the archery range.

Day 1:
On Friday night the work began. The first step was to cut the shape of the bow out of the block of wood using a drawknife. Berni and I used ash, while Mattias and Miri used elm. Ash is softer and easier to work, which I was very thankful for seeing as this is my very first attempt at wood working. I don't think I quite realized how physically demanding this was going to be, but it was very satisfying work!

Day 2:
After cutting the shape of the bow out, you have to clean up the front surface of the bow. This surface must consist of one early growth ring, otherwise the bow may break where to growth rings meet. This was done by selecting a thick growth ring along the side and then scraping off the upper layers until you reached the late growth ring above the desired ring with the drawknife. Then a regular knife was used to carefully scrape off the last ring and then sanded til smooth.

Day 3:
The bow grip has to be whittled out of the block of wood in the middle and fit to the hand. This really personalizes the bow. So I would file then test how it felt in the hand, then file then test etc... At this point the bow still has about 150 lbs. of power, I can pull at the most about 40 lbs., so at this point the arms of the bow had to be cut and filed down to make them thinner. After that, the tilling process begins. Here is Miri tilling her bow.

This is a long process that gradually through testing and filing, makes the bow balanced in both arms. We didn't finish on Sunday, so we'll be back to work on them at the end of December. More then!

Halloween in Germany

2006-11-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

Halloween having its origins in celtic culture and therefore English, has until recently only been celebrated in countries that share roots with England (Check out the history of Halloween). Germans didn't really know about it, but while globalization has Americans celebrating Cinco de Mayo, it has an ever increasing number of Germans celebrating Halloween. This year marks my fifth Halloween in Germany and in that short period of time, I have noticed an increase in its popularity. There were even trick-or-treaters this year! It certainly caught Arthur off guard when then came to his door. Being completely unprepared, yet not wanting to let the children go empty handed, he dug out some old chocolates he had floating around at the back of his closet.
I had a small Halloween party this year as well, complete with pumpkin carving, pumpkin pie and a cheese cake (it was a request). Unfortunately, the German's desire to celebrate this holiday does not extend to dressing up :-( ! That's the best part of Halloween! Alas, I'll have to save my costume for next year or for Fasching, the German Halloweenesk holiday in February. You all know it as Marti Gras.

Mrs. Cree

2006-10-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

The following pictures are of our honeymoon, which are in reverse cronological order, starting from the last day of our honeymoon. We spent the last 3 days in and around Flagstaff Arizona. Here are some ruins north of flagstaff. The native americans built these stone structures about 900 to 700 years ago, then for unknown reasons, abandoned them.

In one of the "palaces" large groups of dwellings, there was a blow hole. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon in which a large cave deep underground will inhale and exhale a cool breeze depending on the atmospheric pressure outside. You can see it has enough force to blow my hair around a bit.

The second to the last day we drove to Sedona, which is a very upscale little resort town nestled in some of the most beautiful red rock. We took a day, did some hiking, saw cold water canyon, and did something we will never do again. We ate fudge. It was a terrible nausiating experience we shall never repeat.

Here are pictures of both Russell and I sitting out on a land bridge. It looks scarier in the picture with Russell, but as you can see in my picture, it wasn't that intimidating.

Here are Russell and I on various parts of the steep rocky hike.

Here is the grand reason I came down to this area, for the Grand Canyon! We would need an entire vacation devoted to this place alone to grasp the grandure of it. My photo does not do justice, or convey how amazingly, overwhelmingly enormous this canyon is.

Now we move on to Mesa Verde. This is a series of cliff dwellings built the same time as the last ruins. Apparently the people lived on the plains that covered the top of these mesa's, but eventually found they could build permanent structures free from the ellements in the small coves just under them.

They lived here for years until drought forced them to migrate to find sustanance. This site, called the Cliff Palace, was likened to a convention center for many tribes to meet and hold council, pray, and do business.

Acess to these dwellings was a series of ladders through thin chasms. In the valley below were Juniper trees which were used to make everything from diapers to clothing, anti-flatulance beverages to antiseptic. On the plains above they hunted and farmed corn, which was stored in graneries in an alcove at the top of the cliff palace. You can see them, they are the two slits at the top of the above picture.

The middle of our trip was spent in Colorado. Here we took one of the most scenic highways I have ever seen. It was called the Red Mountian Skyway by the tourism board, and it lived up to all that promises. It took us through the San Juan mountian range, part of the Rockies.

Here is a tiny mountian town called Ouray, that had all the charm of a alpen village. It was founded after silver was found in the mountians that surround it. We has some amazing Toffee here, and thought it one of our favorite stops along the entire trip.

Below are just a few of the mining ruins that dot the mountian above. For 150 years they extraced ore from the mountians that was heavy with silver, some so pure it could be smelted strait into silver without purification. The mines have torn holes in the mountians, depositing piles of silt and disrupting the water table. The water is no longer filtered as well and reclimation projects funded by the mining companies themselves are in the works.

Here I am taking a moment to smile for a picture and stretch my legs upon transitioning from Utah to Colorado. Being from Seattle, I thought I knew all about mountians, what with being sandwiched between two grand ranges, the Cascades in particular. But the Rockies are so majestic and have the same feel as the Alps.

This very large home, carved into rock in the late 40's was the perfect road trip distraction. A man, left this parcel of land from his homsteading family, blasted with dynamite and carved an 8 room home for he and his wife. The building process was facinating, as well as the controlled climate within the rock. But my favorite part was the decoration, which was given the consideration of any modern home in the 50's, except the walls were chisled sandstone. It was ac aptivating juxtaposition looking at June Cleavers home inside the Flinstones house! They wouldn't let me take any pictures inside the home, much to my dismay.

We spent 2 days in Moab, Utah where Arches National park is. WE didn't go into the park, rather we hiked at some equally beautiful areas just outside the part that Russell was familiar with. Here you can see manifest destiny moving anything out of it's way!

You can see why they call it Arches national park. Many of these natural arches dot the beautiful sand stone.

Below is the last of the sunset we watched from a place in Moab called Slick Rock. These "rocks" are actually petrified sand dunes, and are now one of the most popular places in the world to mountian bike. We didn't bike, just came and watched a memorable sunset.

On the way to Moab we spent hours driving through the Navajo reservation. Its very rocky, and in the middle is Monument Valley. This valley is full of freestanding towers left by rushing water and volcanic movement of the earths crust here.

This was the welcoming commitee. They came out to say hi as we drove into the park.

Just a hair off the reservation, which spans a desolate looking dessert, (the painted dessert no less) was an oasis. This crook in a little river was lush and green, and looked more prosperous than anything we had seen for quite a while. We must not have been the only ones who thought this, as the early pioneers set up a small fort, which is well preserved and tended to by the local comunity.

We are expecting.....

2006-10-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

First a bride, soon to be a mother! The title may lead some of you astray. Sorry mom, I am not pregnant, but Russell and I are expecting our first "baby". A kitten baby!

Our little girl is a princess through and through. She is a siberian cat, one of only 3 breeds of forest cats that have been domesticated. I don't know what that means exactly, but the breeder told me that, and she will have those cute little bob-cat points on her ears when she grows up!!

She is only 8 weeks old, and we are forced to wait until november 4th until she can come live with us. It's excruciating, let me tell you. She is all white, as you can see, with a mask forming on her face. Her eyes are baby blue, and her nose is the sweetest rosy pink!

She will remain all white except for her mask and "points". The backs of her ears are a light grey and camel brown calico, and her tail is grey. Light grey at her body, fading to dark grey at the tip of her tail.

We are still looking for names. Russell likes Priscilla, and mom likes Rose Bud. We thought something russian would be fitting, like Katarina, or Katya. Or something describing how white she is like Bianca.

Arthur will like the suggestion a co-worker made for naming her "Athsma Attack". Also on the list from co workers was Swayze, White Lightning, Willis, and Gwen. Gwen would be named after Jamies coat, who was named after Gwen Steffani by the Fremont taylor that made her.

WE have 3 very very long weeks left to prepare the nursery for her arrival. Nursery isn't the right word, maybe Kittery?

Cross-Dressing at the Co-op

2006-10-10T21:21:00.000-07:00

So here is the requested coverage of las weeks birthday bash. The few photos I took with a borrowed camera didn't turn out, but here are some my housemate Rory took.

All in all the party went well. Most of my close friends came, some left early, some stayed late, and Becca fell asleep and missed all the fun. Most of my housemates were in good spirits and dressed in drag. Most of the pictures captured are of them, such as Kashina and Lee on the left, and Steve and Annaliese on the right.

Unfortunately my pumpkin pinata didn't turn out, but at least I found a way to re-use the bridesmaids dress!

Attention Bickford Sisters!!

2006-10-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

You know all about what I'm doing here, because I post stuff all the time. Now I want to see a post about this cross dress formal that I unfortunately was not able to attend. Get on the ball here ladies! ;-)

Love, Libs

Happy Birthday to Me!

2006-10-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

One thing I've learned in Germany, if you want a birthday cake you have to make it yourself. Here it is also the norm for people to organize their own birthday parties. And so I made my own cakes. Under that same motto, if you want to get birthday greetings you have to let people know it's your birthday. Instead of being dissappointed when people don't remember my birhtday; Here's one for me on my 26th birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

It's not easy being a bride's maid

2006-09-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Three girls, three different body shapes and three very different tastes... You can see where this is heading. If not, Becca, Sarah and I were chosen to be Dana's bride's maids. I've never been involved in a wedding before, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Dana, being the nice bride she was, allowed us to help decide which dress we were going to where in the wedding (matching of course). Back in April when I was visiting in Seattle the battle began. We went out looking and trying on. Becca would hold something up that she really liked that I would wrinkle my nose at and think to myself that the designer should be hung for such an offending creation. Then I would find something that I'm sure they felt equally repulsive and so it went. And it was all sooo expensive! Finally, Dana saved the day when she just bought three Janeville pink summer dresses (at a great price I might add) and it was settled. I went back to Germany with the satisfaction that I wouldn't have to go through that again. WRONG!! I had forgotten, that we still needed foot wear. This ended up being about ten times worse than the dress hunt. I think the worst moment was when we were at Target almost 'til closing the night before we were supposed to leave for Oregon. The pickings were slim. That's were we found these "lovely" numbers pictured above. In German they're called Stiefeletten which directly translated means "bootlette". Needless to say we did not buy these. Although we did buy something equally as hideous, white macromea pleather flat sandles. I was out numbered two to one and I had well past reached my Target limit, so we all payed out 6.99$ for them and went home. The next day Sarah, Becca and I left in the Durango for a trip down the Washington and Oregon coast on our way to the wedding in Mill City (more about that later). I think we would have stopped at every outlet mall and Ross on the way down to look at shoes if I hadn't put my foot down. When we got to Salem, our last chance, we did find great sandles at the Gap and that was the end of it! Thank God!
Dana had decided not to have her wedding professionally catered. Instead it was catered by Sarah, Dana, Becca, me, and a friend of Carol's from school. I still think this was a great idea, but it sure was a lot of work. We got to Russel's parent's house on Wednesday evening and got right to work unloading groceries. Dana did most of the work preparing the food. In Seattle she made the pulled pork, the pie crusts, the short bread, and the "Better than Brad Pitt brownies" (what's a "Brad Pitt" brownie ;-)). Chicken 'n' dumplings, various salads, cobler, roles etc. were also served. Here is Dana and Becca picking chicken for the chicken 'n' dumplings. I was also helping but stopped to take this picture. I also personally made the pea and cheese salad. I was given the honor because of my supior cheese cutting skills (I made perfect little cubes out of the baby loaf of Tillamook) and because Becca's arm had just been freed of her six week long cast ordeal and wasn't able to do it. The food turned out really good. It was about 95 degrees out that day, so unfortunately the Brad Pitt brownies melted. Poor Brad!
Mill City is a pretty small town in a very beautiful area of Oregon. There is only one hair dresser in town and three weddings were going on on that same weekend. Everyone was having their hair done there. Carol made us appointments for 7:00 in the morning. We had all been up pretty late the evening before at the rehersal dinner where the hoards of Mullownys befell the unexpecting Cree family. It was quite exciting to see everyone again. So we were very tired at the beauty salon. Since Becca and I have about the same length and color of hair and everything else was matching, we decided on matching hair do's. Becca was up first to be done. It looked nice in the magezine... She ended up with what I can only describe as a Liberaci helmet. Then I was up, I kept thinking that I can't let that happen to me! Why on earth did we choose that hair do?! The hairdresser, noticing how distraught I was talked to me about exactly what I wanted and I ended up with a much tamer version of Becca's. Phew!

Summer Showers

2006-09-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why a wedding shower is called a "shower"? My Aunt Mary brought along a little story about the origin of this expression. The moral of the story is that the bride is "showered" with gifts before her wedding. And boy did Dana get drenched! I attended both of Dana's, the one for friends and the one for families seeing as I fit both categories. The first one was a fifties house wife style complete with aprons as gifts for the guests. I helped put the finishing touches on those the very night that I arrived in Seattle. The shower was at Becca's new place which is very cute and tastefully decorated. To go along with the fifties theme, a tator-to casserole was served as well as a jell-o mould. I unfortunately missed the games due to my jet lag. At the next shower that my Auntie Ellen arranged, Sarah and I held an "it's your life" quiz about Dana with questions like what was Dana's first job (door-to-door poetry salesman) or what sond did Dana sing in jazz band that my Mom used to proudly play (the shoop shoop song, we also accepted Basin street blues seeing as that was the real answer). Aunt Mary made a bouquet out of all the ribbons (pictured here on Dana's head). They were two very lovely parties.

Back in the US of A

2006-07-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

As anyone who has been following this blog knows, my sister Dana is getting married at the end of August. What would be a wedding without the middle sister, moi?! I will of course be attending. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I booked my flight for 7:30 in the morning on Saturday the 12th. I think it was because I didn't notice how early it was when I booked it. Anyway, I'll be arriving at 16:50 (4:50 pm) on August 12th at the SeaTac airport, so if anyone has time... I wouldn't mind being picked up. I'll be returning to Germany and my everyday life on September 2nd (arriving on the 3rd).

If anyone wants anything from Germany, tell me now, so that I can get it. Same for the Germans, anything from the US?

- Libby

It may not be Ireland......

2006-07-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

I may not be jet setting off to Ireland, traveling through England, and wearing posh frocks, but I have taken two weekend trips to Oregon back to back. The scenery is familiar yet stunning at times. The time was divided between planning my own wedding, and attending another.

This photo is of the lawn Russell and I are to be married on. His Dad, Don, leveled it out, seeded it with green grass and has a sprinkler set up, pulling water from the creek below.

This is Rock creek, which sits below the ceremony site. The flowers that seemed to be dripping from the banks, weighing the branches down is called Ocean Spray. It's too bad they will be gone by August, the white flowers looked perfect for a wedding!

This field of wild flowers is on the Cree's property. It's full of daisies and fox glove and looks beautiful with the tree line beginning behind it. I love the name of fox glove. I like to imagine little foxes putting their cute little paws in the bells of the flowers and tip-toeing around. Cute!

This is a creek on the way to Scio, where we went to apply for our marriage license. It was the first grey day in a while.

This photo doesn't show it well, but this pasture land rolls up and down, along with the roads that bisect it. Thus, it is named by the locals, roller coaster hill.

This part of Oregon has the most covered bridges in the west, 7 to be exact. They all kind of look like this one, but it's so rare to see a covered bridge these days. You can take a bike ride through all of them, about 40 miles. Russell dreams of putting on a bicycle race that passes through all of them.

This is Cassie, Russell's brother Anthony and his girlfriend Mire's dog.

Here Russell and I stand with his friend Tom Jones, aka Sporty, and his new bride, Dara. The wedding was beautiful, and I got some idea's for food. Tom is going to be the officiant at our wedding.

This is the 4th of July parade in Mill City. I attended with Carol, who talked of days when the parade was full of floats, each with a local princess. The parade was full of horses, beautiful old fire trucks, logging trucks, a few floats, and some people on their 4wheelers. What parade would be complete without the shriners. Instead of little cars, the Mill City shriners drive around in bathtubs!

This little baby goat was one of many at Bauman farms.

For a quarter, you could buy a handful of goat treats, and they would nuzzle it out of your hand!

This is Russell and I in front of the farms store. I found a kitten inside! They told me I could take it home, but I thought that I could never give it the life it could have romping around a farm.

The most important reason for our trip to the farm was to arrange some of these hanging baskets for the wedding. They are HUGE and beautiful. We will have 2 big ones, and 2 smaller ones, on the ceremony site. I also bought pie cherries for the wedding, and we bought some amazing donuts that had been made 5 minutes before.

Jane's Cottage

2006-07-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

I arrived at Jane's last night to a warm welcome. Jane's boyfriend, Andy, picked me up from the bus stop in Reading after work in a big white van with his collegue who was interested in meeting me because of his ties to Connecticut. We stopped of at the "yard" to pick up Andy's "van" which to me is a station wagon (we got a bit of a laugh out of the difference later) and I immediately attempted to get into the drivers side, not even being deterred by the presence of the steering wheel which I some how didn't notice. The British as well as the Irish drive on the other side of the car and the road. These silly americans! After dinner and some reminiscing about Tuebingen, we headed off to Bray for a pint at the Hind's Head pub. We stopped and looked at the menu at the Fat Duck and I was surprised to see that the tasting menu hadn't changed at all since I "enjoyed" it there last summer.
Jane and Andy's cottage was originally the garage at Andy's parents house in the country side. He had remodelled the inside to make it a quite cosy little house. I'm staying at his parents house next door. Both Andy and Jane are at work right now, Andy as a timber framing restorator of historical buildings and Jane as a German, French and Spanish teacher at the "local secondary". Both Andy's parents are doctors in natural sciences and very into botany and ecology. I've had a wonderful conversation with Andy's mother this morning about the father's work and about research. Very nice, considering I'm on the verge of my own research project. They also have a large garden and keep sheep across the lane. Last night when I went out to look at them, they all came flocking over in a bleeting, woolly mass to greet me. They actually just thought that I had come to feed them. I'm going to help Andy's mum look after them later.
Tonight I'm going to the prom at Jane's school with her and Andy. Sounds funny, but she asked me if I wanted to come with and I thought why not. It would be interesting to see the differences between American and English prom. I don't have a "posh frock" as Jane called it, so she is lending me one of hers. Jane is quite a bit smaller than I am, but some how I managed to squeeze into her size 34 (that's 4 in US sizes) dress. Tomorrow morning we're all driving out to Devon (south west Enland) for a weekend camping trip with some of Andy's friends. It is really nice to be somewhere where I know the people. It's a bit stressful travelling around with a backpack (and an injured illiosaccral joint), showing up in a new city, not knowing where you're going to stay. I did that with Dana and Becca when I was 19, but I don't think I'll be going on that kind of a trip again. Just one destination please.

Bath, more like a shower

2006-07-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has been on a Pugeot Sound ferry knows what a nice experience it can be. Wind blowing in your hair, beautiful views of the mountains and islands. And for anyone who has been on a ferry to Greece, who knows what an aweful experience it can be with overflowing toilets, Tony Braxton playing loudly in the background... Now the for the ferry ride from Dublin to Holyhead, Whales I was expecting Pugeot Sound ferry, got something closer to the Greece ferry. We spent the better part of two days trying to get from Dingle in the West of Ireland to Liverpool. Liverpool you ask? Me too. It was never destination number one for me, in fact I had really no idea it existed. It actually turned out to be all right. Its the home of the Beatles and has some amazing beaches. I took the bus down to Bath alone, because my back just wasn't going to make it on the Hadrians Wall hike. I'm still quite bitter about that, but since visiting Bath last summer with Dana and Auntie Ellen for half a day, I had always wanted to come back and do it justice. Alas it was not to be. My back is still giving me problems and it has poured down rain all day. Tomorrow I'm going to try and visit the Jane Austin Centre before I head out, because I've read and adored most of her books (never got through 'Mansfield Park' though). Then its off to visit Jane, my old friend from Tuebingen.

The beach by Liverpool, who would have thought a place called Liverpool could be so beautiful?

Liverpool

Dingle

2006-06-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

Renting an automatic is more expensive in Ireland than renting a stick shift, so of course we were brave and went for the stick. I have now successfully driven in two major European cities on the wrong side of the road, Dublin and London last summer. I only reached for the door handle instead of the stick twice! We drove south from Dublin to Killarny. The country was very beautiful, with patchy sunshine lighting up the emerald green hills. There aren't really any major freeway type roads in the south, but we wouldn't have wanted to use them anyway. It is very surprising how fast you're allowed to drive on some of these windy country roads, up to 60 mph and there's no shoulder, just a stone wall right at the edge. It gets a little hairy when a semi or tour bus comes along that is too wide for its own lane. We camped for free in a cow pasture in Inch which is also on the Dingle Penninsula. In the morning I took Mirjam to Dingle and then returned the car to the Kerry airport. I thought it would be a quick trip, ha! The bus system isn't easy to figure out. It took me one hour to drive to the airport and six hours to get back. If I hadn't met a nice Irish guy on the bus that was also going to Tralee where I had to change busses, I probably never would have made it.
Because of my back problem, we didn't get to do the Dingle way backpacking tour that we wanted, but we are staying at a nice camp site which is mostly full of french people and we've taken some nice walks along the coast. Dingle is the full of tourist, because its the most beautiful and the most irish part of Ireland. It's one of the only areas where "Irish" (gaelic) is still spoken. Today I have an appointment with a physiotherapist, because fortunately I didn't slip a disc, but injured my illiosacral joint. How on earth one does that... Hopefully it will be feeling better soon, so that I can walk along Hadrian's wall and see some of what is described in my favorite books, the Camulod series. Yesterday started off with a bit of "soft weather" which cleared up nice enough for Mirjam and I to get sunburned. We've been hitch hiking around this area quite successfully and actually had some great advice from it. The irish are a very open and friendly folk, always ready to help out a confused tourist. Tomorrow we'll be heading back to Dublin on the bus.

Dublin

2006-06-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

After having planned for almost a year for this trip, I have finally arrived in Ireland. Mirjam and I left Freiburg with backpacks weiging 13 Kilos each (around 28 lbs.). Unfortunately I hurt my lower back right at the Dublin airport while lifting my bag off the conveyor belt and it has been getting progressively worse. What a rediculously stupid thing to do right at the beginning of a backpacking trip! Although breaking your collarbone right before going on a European backpacking trip isn't all that wise either. I have a knack for hurting myself and making travelling for my partner uncomfortable. Maybe its so that I don't have to carry the day pack ;-), just kidding. I went to a doctor down town that only accepts cash (a bit sketchy if you ask me) and was told that it should be better in a few days, but not to carry anything heavy. So much for the backpacking tour around the Dingle Peninsula!
Miri and I spent the day yesterday wandering around Dublin and then around Howth, a penninsula just outside of Dublin. Howth was really beautiful, thanks to one of the rare sunny days here. It has a small port with fish n' chips stands and a market. There was a bag pipe parade while we were there, which really gets you in the celtic mood. Although, the fish n' chips in Seattle are still the best I've ever had. Dublin is quite a nice city, but whoa is it expensive! I guess I've been pretty spoiled with german food prices where bread can cost as little as 49 cents. Since Miri is German and I live in Germany we almost always speak German together. I find it quite amusing, that everyone takes me for a German tourist. Even if I'm an obnoxious tourist, it gets passed off on the Germans.
The original plan was to take the bus from Dublin to Dingle and hike around the penninsula. Since I have to take it easy for a few days, we're going to rent a car and just take a slow scenic drive across and then see how things go.
More to come later...

Libby's New Place

2006-06-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

So, I finally got my place cleaned up enough to post it on the internet. The long awaited photos are here!

Here is the kitchen, with functioning oven. As you can see, some of the stuff is a bit high up. One of my room mates, Tobias, is about 6'5", so he has no problem using the microwave or the stereo on top of the cupboards. For the rest of us, there is chair/stool access only.

This is the main balcony. It's really nice for sunny days, or even not so sunny days. The glass roof creates a somewhat green house feeling underneath, which is nice on a cooler day. I wonder what it's going to be like when it hits 90 degees?

This is my room, well at least part of it. Before I moved in, I was really afraid that the room was way too small and that all of my stuff wasn't going to fit. But it all fits fine and isn't too cramped.

This is my balcony:

A view from my bed with my Rie Munoz and l'uccellini (little birds):

Here I am laying in my bed. I don't like staring at myself when I sit in my bed reading, so I usually just open the closet door:

That's it, that's my new palace. Unfortunately both my room mates were on vacation over the weekend when I took the pictures, so I'll have to add them later. It's only been a week since I moved in and already the dust bunnies have set up shop under my bed. I really feel comfortable here, let's hope it lasts!

- Libby

Hier Steppt der Bär

2006-05-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been a wild bear in Germany for over 175 years. This last week, all of Germany was in an uproar, due to the return of one of these large carnivores. A brown bear from Trentino, Italy named JJ1, wandered through Austria into Germany, leaving a trail of half eaten sheap and broken bee hives in it's wake. In the two years of it's life, it hasn't harmed, maimed, or killed any humans. In fact, there hasn't been a single case of a human being killed by a bear in Italy, Germany, Austria, or Slovakia where there is a large resident population. So what's the uproar all about?! I attended a seminar yesterday about how Germany intends to deal with this "problem bear" and why. Two of the wildlife biologist from University of Freiburg obtained their doctorates with projects on brown bear management in Austria. Being the only the brown bear experts in all of Germany, they were invited by Ministerpräsident of Bavaria, Dr. Edmund Stoiber, to discuss what action needed to be taken. They advised him, due to the bear's upbring and personality, to issue a "shoot on sight" command. If the bear is seen, it should be shot. The very first bear to set foot in Germany (and be noticed) for over 175 years, and the Germans want to kill it. There was no shoot to kill command given in Austria, where the bear is currently located, or in Italy, so why are the Germans so afraid? An interesting point brought up in the discussion, is that over 6500 people die per year in Germany from traffic accidents, and not one person has been killed by a bear, but no one wants to discontinue the use of vehicles. I will admit that bears are wild animals and can be dangerous for people, but the risk is extremely low.
Most of the reason that bears become "problem bears" is due to human failings. When people feed bears, leave garbage around, or sheep completely unattended without protection of any kind, it teaches the bears that they can find food near and in human settlements. When there are no consequencies for breaking into a chicken coop or garbage dumpster, then they continue in these bad habits bringing them continually in close proximity with humans leading to potentially dangerous situations for humans. This is the reason that this bear has been given the death sentence, because it has become a potential threat to humans. One person is murdered every two weeks in the Freiburg area. I would say that makes human beings a much larger threat to our safety than a bear. How Germany will react in the future to other bears dispersing over the boarder is yet to be seen. I should hope that we will see a return of the bear to Germany and its acceptance. It will take a lot of adjustment on the part of the German society, but I think coexistance is possible and neccessary!

Libby was here

2006-05-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share a few pictures I have from Libby's recent trip home. They are of a day trip we took over to Port Townsend. It was the first beautiful summery day, and we couldn't help but take the ferries and make the trip to the beautiful Olympic Penninsula.

Here are Libby and I sitting on a huge piece of drift wood carved with seals. It's sitting on a "beach" made of cement. The actual shore line is a bit further up.

We curled up inside this nook with our hot dogs, and watched the seagulls. An old hippie/surfer with a long board started hitting on Libby. She would have gone with him for a ride had the water not been so cold. Not only does she have a thing for hippies, but much older men too.

Here we are together, the weather was just warm enough to warrant rolling our pant legs up into highwaters.

Because Libby took the time to take this amazing action shot of me heaving myself onto the log, I thought I'd post it.

We took 3 ferries that day, making a loop starting at Edmonds, traveling up the peninsula from Kingston to Port Townsend. Then we ferried over to some other island, where we drove to Clinton, then ferried across to Mukilteo. It's a poor mans cruise, but beautiful none the less.

2006-05-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

This doesn't really have to do with anything, except that I've been looking at too many magazine advertisements, and this was the only one I liked (and I really like it). All part of schoolwork of course. Well, as of today I am officially an Industrial Design major, as apposed to Visual Communication Design or Design Studies. Woohoo!

W (25) looking for room in Freiburg, am clean, like to bake ....

2006-05-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

As anyone who has visited me would know, I live in really beautiful apartment. It has floor to ceiling glass doors instead of windows, wood floors, excellent view of the Black Forest, is close to down town, is really big, I could go on forever about how wonderful it is. Unfortunately we have to move out by the 1st of June. As soon as I got back from Seattle (well and had marginally recovered from jet lag) I got to looking for a new place. I don't want an apartment all to myself, it's lonely and too expensive. I prefer living with other people, but none of my friends are looking to move right now. What to do? I put an add in the Zypresse, like Craig's list or a want adds type of paper, that I was looking for a room. It's quite the usual way of finding anything from a room mate to a washing machine to a life partner... The phone calls that have been pouring in! I got about thirty calls over the weekend and looked at about 17 rooms all together. I spent my entire weekend on my bicycle riding from one room to the next hoping to find something where I could feel at home. I find it quite emotionally stressful looking for a room, especially when there's a deadline. You have to try and put your best foot forward and hope the other people like you well enough to want to you to live with them. It's important that you are clean, quiet, interesting, and not too eccentric! It's kind of like going on a blind date. Here's how it would go:

Libby: "Hi, my name is Libby. That's L-I-B-B-Y, not Debbie"

future roommate?: "What do you do, Lebbi?"

Libby: "I have a passion for cleaning, that's all I do"

future roommate?: "What do you do in your free time?"

Libby: "I play basketball, ride my bike, go out with my friends (omit archery and knitting)"

future roommate?: "Do you smoke?"

Libby: "God no! Yuck! I'm militantly against it!!"

future roommate?: "Ok... (wierd) um, we'll give you a call abou the room then"

...and so on

The most important thing when moving into a "WG" is that you get along with the people, because if you don't it's really really aweful. For me, though it was also important how the room smelled, where it was located, and whether it had an oven. I even put it in my add that I like to bake, so people who didn't have an oven would know that they needn't call. My oven now has been on the fritz for a while and I have hardly survived it! I looked at a place yesterday that was smelled musty and had old carpets. I wouldn't last very long there. It really came down to three rooms in the end.

1. In the same neighborhood where I live now, it's a new building (no musty smell!), the guys are really nice, room has its own balcony, and it has a big kitchen. The only draw back was that the room is quite small.

2. In Ebnet with a nice girl who has a lot of the same interests as me, big room, beautiful area, lots of storage. I really wanted to live there, only it would take me over half an hour on my bicycle to get to work and back and probably longer to other things like basketball.

3. Near town (Eschholzstraße near the Brennessel), high ceilings, large rooms, and two kitchens. Only problem was that it is on the ground floor on one of the busiest streets in Freiburg.

I was having a really hard time deciding whether to take one of these or wait, but I did decide and I'll be moving into choice number one at the end of May. I feel so much better knowing where I'm going to be living.

I'm coming home

2006-04-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

So. I did it. I bought my ticket yesterday. I'm going home to visit my mom in Seattle from April 14th through May 6th. I can't believe I just bought a plane ticket to fly across the Atlantic and then North America one week before I'm scheduled to fly. It's all too spontaneous for me! Anyone who knows me well would probably know, that every European trip, and Seattle trip now that I'm on this end, is very well planned. I start looking for tickets about 6-8 months before I intend to fly, I buy my ticket no later than three months before I fly, and I've lists going of everything I could possibly need to bring with, get while there, do before I go, do while I'm there, documents to bring, etc... I won't have time for all that this time. I think that's what makes me feel so nervous. I'm getting sick already just thinking about the flight. I HATE flying!! I know it's going to be really hard, but it will be worth to see my mom again. I love you Mom!

My sentiments exactly...

2006-03-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

A quote to sum up my feelings at this point in my life:

"Thirty seems the end of all things to five-and-twenty"

and a kiss to the winner (if you know where I got it from)!

-Libby

the dress

2006-03-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

How do you all like this one???

(Dana's!!) wedding stuff

2006-03-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

So it's no secret to the world that I am getting married this year.

I just thought I'd post some stat's about the wedding.

The Date... August 26th, 3 in the afternoon

The location...

Mill City Oregon. Russell's parents back yard to be exact. Well, the back 40 (acres). We chose the old camping spot, which is a lawn within the wooded acrage that Russell and his brothers pitched tents on in their youth. It sits just above Rock Creek, which is a bit more rugged than good old pidgeon creek. Like the name says, it's rocky.

Russell's dad is going to level the area and re seed it with grass. It's no trouble, he said, he wanted to build a little cabin there some day anyways. He offered to clear the hill side of ferns and such, but I said I liked the ferns just the way they were, and he said he did too.

Russell's mom is collecting chairs from the highschool where she works. They will be red and black, but cushioned and there are 100 that match. We are looking at arches to set up under a huge tree at one end of the lawn. Either we will rent one, or she said the highschool had an arch made from bent branches that we can string flowers through.

The flowers I want most are Hydrengias. sometimes I think Dhalia's. And sometimes I think about all the flowers. When it comes to flowers, I just love them all.

As for the colors, I am a little undecided. I thought green and brown to match the woodland theme of the wedding. But then the sous chef I work with said, well, there is so much green and brown around you, you probably want another color to look at. So now I don't know.

And as for my dress, I looked at one, but it was 1200 dollars. I think I just want something cute and comfortable. I know you only get married once, so I will continue to look at bridal stuff. They felt wierd when I was trying them on.

I am going to oregon in a couple of weeks to start making rental reservations and such. Looking into photographers. Cake prices. Invitations. Getting hotel reservations.

Although, I really think I will make my own invitations and food and stuff.

I liked the picknick theme. With a bake sale like spread instead of a wedding cake. I dont' know how many people will come. But I will invite the whole family.

And for the honey moon, Russell and I will drive down into Arizona for a nice tour of some of the countries most beautiful state parks and Flag Staff, where he went to college. I am very excited to see the grand canyon. I haven't ever seen land formations like what is in that area. I can't think of anything better.

Sarah back home

2006-03-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

So I finally arrived safely back in Seattle after a few bumps in the road. I has a fabulous time despite missing my intended flight home after literally running almost a mile to the train station in hopes of still making it. Libby has already covered most of the highlights of my trip, but just to add my two cents: I was exstatic to get to go to the Kunst (art) Museum in Stuttgart as they just happened to be having a show of Max Bill who I had just learned about in Design History. He was mostly a graphic artist that dabbled in sculpture, architecture, and furniture before there were such labels as graphic design or industrial design. It was nice to be in the place that modern design came out of, it made the history more real, and made what I plan on doing with my life feel more connected to reality. I was glad Libby didn't give into Arthurs insists that she culture herself at the art museum with us. She would of absolutely hated the hallway of beeswax or the thousand picture each with only one line on it that reminded me of displaying each hair on a human head in a frame. Also enjoyable was Libby's infatuation with Pride and Prejudice. While I was with her she read it twice, read bits and pieces to me outloud, and watched the Bollywood version Bride and Prejudice, and started to listen to the audiobook. I left of
right when Lizzy is stating to fall in love with Mr. Darcy and I might just have to find a copy so I remember how they actually get together in the end!

A Day at the (Dogsled) Race

2006-03-13T23:57:00.000-08:00

This was a while back, but it is an event that is worth mentioning to everyone. The Black Forest, more specifically Todnau, was the home to the European Championship dogsled race this winter and I had the pleasure of attending.
What comes to mind when thinking of a dogsled race: Itiderod, Alaska, Call of the Wild, and most of all, huskies. I mention this, because this is what most surprised me; all breeds of dogs were used (of course excluding lap dogs), not just the traditional breeds of husky or malmut. I was very impressed by how fit the dogs were. And in contrast some of the riders really could have done a little themselves to lighten the load, if you know what I mean ;-). It was a very exciting event, aided by the combined howling of hundreds of dogs. What a day at the race!

Fasnet

2006-02-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

The Black Forest is an area steeped in tradition and culture. One of the largest and most spectacular displays of the Freiburgers' dedication to these conventions is Fasnet (in the badish dialekt). In other regions of Germany it goes by the name of Fastnacht, Fasching, and Karnival in Köln. We americans would recognize this as a type of Marti Gras. Since the time when christianity swept the European continent, this has been a Christian holiday: celebrating before lent and the fasting period begins. In the middle ages, all animal products (meat, milk, cheese, etc...) as well as "marital intimacy" were strictly forbidden from Ash Wednesday until Easter. They didn't call it the "Dark Ages" for nothing! But like many of our modern christian holidays, Fasching has its roots in the antiquity.
The people of the Black Forest would dress themselves and witches and other scary creatures to try and scare the winter away. It certainly didn't work this year! I just rode through a blizzard to get to work.
True to form, Germans can't even have fun without surrounding it in a cloud of beaurocracy. "Zunfte" or unions spend the entire year preparing for this one event. In Köln, Karnival is organized into a set of programs which can be viewed (and snickered over) in the comfort of your own living room.
I didn't dress up this year, it was much too cold. Besides my only costume is Miss America.
My favorite costumes at the parade were the cats. They had really intricately carved cat masks and were dressed in cat für costumes. It made me a little sad to see though, because I'm sure that wasn't faux fur! Where's that bucket of red paint when I need it! I unfortunately was unable to take a picture of them because my hands and my camera were so frozen at this point in the parade that neither were working correctly.
The paraders would yell "Nari"! And the crowd would yell back "Naroe"!

I took this picture shortly before being bopped in the face with the furry instrument you see this "wolf" carrying in his right hand. It was also quite an interactive parade, with people being carried away by witches and confetti and saw dust thrown onto the crowd. The poor police officer who was present for crowd control received quite of bit of such attention.

New Pad

2006-01-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

It took almost a year, but I finally live in seattle again. Between staying with Russell, moving to England, and moving back, I haven't had a seattle address for over 10 months.

Russell and I moved into our first place together. We lived together before, but that was really Russell's place from before I met him, and it always felt like the place we lived, not our home. Not to mention it was in Bellevue and you couldn't get anywhere without a committed car ride. The new place is the basement of a home near greenlake. It is small, but very cute.

Russell rides his bike to work, and I can walk to Eva. We are within walking distance of

the U- district (10 to 15 minutes)
Greenlake (10 minutes)
Tangletown, the pocket of shops Eva is in (7 minutes)
Ravena ( 10 minutes)
Whole foods at 65th and Roosevelt (15 minutes)

And driving distance to everything is realisitic again.

Russell has built his "stable" for the bycicles indoors

I have a full kitchen for the first time in too long. I celebrated by purchasing a kitchen aid mixer. It was hard to spend that much money on something I dont really need, but it was well worth it.

We built a lofted bed out of 2 by 4's and some cinder blocks, which sounds ghetto, but it fits with the exposed ellemental feel of the bricks and the wood floors.

We also sold our giant TV, and bought a TV one size smaller that came with a wall mount. It was a screaming deal as we made 150 dollars off the deal. I shouldn't say we, Russell and Craigslist get all the credit.

We also were very handy and built ourselves a closet. We designed and installed a shelf running the lenghth of one wall, hung a bar for hangers from it, and bought a very nice suspention line from Ikea to hang a curtian on to conceal everything. It is the same system Libby used to hang cieling to floor curtians in her apartment. I have to say, her apartment looked very attractive.

Pekannüsse Schnecken

2006-01-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, Sarah and I made pecan cinnamon rolls. They were such a hit that I got several requests for the recipe. I translated this recipe into German, so sorry for all you non-german speakers.

Pekanusschneckennudel

1 Teelöffel Zucker
1 Packung Hefe
120 mL warmes Wasser
120 mL Milch
55 g Tasse weiße Zucker
150 g Pekannüsse (klein gehackt)
150 g brauner Zucker
55 g Butter
1 Teelöffel Salz
2 Eier, geschlagen
440 g Mehl
170 g Butter
150 g braune Zucker
1 Esslöffel Zimt
55 g geschmolzene Butter

Vermische in einer kleinen Schüssel die Hefe, 1 Teelöffel Zucker und 120 mL warmes Wasser bis sich alles aufgelöst hat. Lass sie stehen bis sie etwas cremig ist, ungefähr 10 Minuten. Wärm die Milch in einem kleinen Topf auf dem Herd auf, bis sie anfängt ein bisschen zu sprudeln. Nimm sie vom Herd runter und misch den 55 g weißen Zucker, die 55 g Butter, und das Salz unter. Lass sie abkühlen bis sie lauwarm ist.
Misch nun die Hefemischung und die Milchmischung mit den Eiern und 165 g Mehl in einer grossen Schuessel. Gut rühren bis alles gut vermischt ist. Das restliche Mehl in mehreren Portionen a 55 g dazu geben und jedes mal gut vermischen. Sobald es ein geschmeidiger Teig geworden ist, kann man ihn auf eine leicht mit Mehl bestaeubte Arbeitsfläche legen. Knete ihn bis er elastisch und glatt ist, ungefähr 8 Minuten.
Nimm eine große Schüssel öle sie leicht ein lege den Teig rein. Dreh den Teig solange in der Schuessel bis er ganz mit dem Öl bedeckt ist. Die Schüssel mit einem feuchten Tuch bedecken und in einer warmen Ecke stellen damit er aufgehen kann, ungefähr eine Stunde oder bis er doppelt so groß geworden ist.
Während der Teig aufgeht, schmelze 170 g Butter. Den 170 g (amerikanische) braunen Zucker dazu geben und rühren bis eine gleichmäßige und sirupartige Masse entsteht. Diese Mischung in eine große Backform giessen und auf den Boden verteilen. Die Hälfte der geschnittenen Pekannüsse darüber verteilen. Zur Seite stellen. 170 g braune Zucker mit 1 Esslöffel Zimt vermischen und zur Seite stellen.
Den Teig auf eine bemehlte Arbeitsfläche legen und ihn ausrollen in der Groesse 35 cm mal 45 cm. Bepinsel nun den Teig mit der 55 g geschmolzenen Butter, bepinsel aber den Rand in der Breite von 1.5 cm nicht mit der Butter. Den braunen Zucker / Zimt Mischung darüber verteilen. Dann die übrigen Pekannüsse darüber verteilen. Mit der langen Seite, den Teig eng zusammen rollen. Den Saum zusammen drucken. Die Rolle mit der restlichen Butter bepinseln. Schneide die Rolle mit einem Brotmesser in 15 gleichmäßige Stücke. Lege die Stücke, mit der geschnittenen Seite nach unten, in eine vorbereitete Backform mit etwas Platz zwischen den einzelnen Stuecken. Die Form bedecken und etwa eine Stunde aufgehen lassen oder bis sie doppelt so groß sind. Währenddessen, den Ofen auf 190 Grad Celsius vorheizen.
Back die Schnecken für 25 – 30 Minuten, oder bis sie oben goldenbraun sind. Lass sie in der Form 3 Minuten abkühlen dann die ganze Form umdrehen. Die in Form gebliebenen Füllung mit einem Spachtel raus nehmen und auf die Schnecken tun.

The Bicycle and Europe, or what I never thought I would see/do with a bicycle

2006-01-26T00:50:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning to the sound of a snow shovel on the walk outside my apartment. It immediately filled me with excitement. It had snowed, a lot! This excitement continued while I was getting ready for work until I got on my bicycle, which is my main mode of transportation. As I carefully steered my way along the white street This lead me to think about my relationship to my bicycle here in Germany in comparison to that which I had when I was living in Seattle, . Back home I would never, ever have dreamed of riding my bike in the snow. This is also probably due to the fact, that when it snows in Seattle (which happens very rarely) life stops, no one leaves the house, school is cancelled, etc... Another anomoly here in Germany, is that every rides there bikes to parties or to go out for an evening of drinking and dancing. Again, something I would never have done back home, but here do it regularly. Have I ever ridden a bicycle with high heels and a skirt, yes! Did I enjoy it, no! but I got where I wanted to go and back.
Because many people don't own cars here, anything and everything gets transported by bicycle. The strangest things I have seen:
- a mattress (the people were just wheeling it along on top, they weren't actually riding the bike as well)
- a PCV pipe (the person was sitting on top of it with the end sticking out the back)
- a bow, which ended up looking more like a lance
- two coffee tables (I actually stopped to help the girl because they were falling off the side)
- a couch in a bike trailer
- Jeroen with full ski gear (including skiis)
- a wheely suitcase attatched as a trailer (this morning, in the snow!)

What I've personally transported: three large pumpkins, a fully packed backpacking pack, many cakes/pies, my bow and arrows, grocery bags hanging off everywhere possible, and I even tried to talk Dana into wheeling a shelf from IKEA back to my place on it this last summer, but she wouldn't go for it.

-Libby

Dana Bickford's Elegant Pumpkin Cheese Cake

2006-01-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

My sister Dana gave me a recipe for a pumpkin cheese cake that she developed for the restaurant where she works as a pastry chef extraordinair. I made the cake to the best of my abilities for my Thanksgiving dinner here in Freiburg. Everyone was very impressed with the cake, but no one so much as my friend, Giuliana. She said "Wow!" after every bite and even took some home with her. She told me recently that she kept talking about this cake. Even as far away as Norway people were hearing about the wonders of this cake. So, here is the recipe, if needed, I can translate it into grams. Enjoy!

Temperature in Celsius = (Temperature in Fahrenheit - 32) x 5/9
--> 350 Degrees Fahrenheit = 175 Degrees Celsius

2 lbs cream cheese (4 packages), at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar (I like to use the dark brown sugar for this cake)
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
a little pinch of finely ground black pepper
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups cooked pumpkin (I used the Libby's brand pumpkin for Mire's cake)

2 cups finely smashed gingersnaps or spekulatius (put them in a zip lock bag and roll over them with the rolling pin)
4 tbsp melted butter

1 9-inch springform pan (the removeable bottom is very important)

preheat the oven to 350.

1. Mix the butter and gingersnaps until evenly moist. Using your hand, press the gingersnaps against the walls of the springform pan first. Spread the remaining gingersnaps on the bottom and press with the bottom of a cup, measuring cup, anything with a smooth bottom. Store in the freezer until the batter is complete

2. Place the cream cheese in the bowl of a mixer. Beat on medium (number 6 on a kitchen aid mixer) for 2 minutes with the paddle attachment. Take the bowl off the mixer, and using a rubber spatula, scrape the sides of the bowl down, and the paddle. ( Scraping the bowl and paddle clean between each ingredient addition makes a very smooth, even textured cake).

3. Add the brown sugar, and mix on medium for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and paddle.

4. Add the flour, and spices, and mix on medium for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and paddle.

5. Add 2 of the eggs, mix for 1 minute on medium, and scrape down. Add the remaining two eggs, and vanilla, and mix for 1 minute more. Scrape down.

6. Add the pumpkin, and mix on medium for 2 minutes. Take the bowl off the mixer, scrape the paddle. Use a rubber spatula and mix untill you can see that every bit of pumpkin is blended evenly. There will be no more swirls of orange or white. The bottom of the bowl usually doesn't get quite mixed in evenly with the mixer alone.

7. Pour into the gingersnap lined pan. Put the cheesecake on a cookie sheet and place in the oven. (The cookie sheet helps a lot when it comes time to carry the cake out of the oven as the cake will be very delicate when hot.)

8. Put the cake on the center rack, and bake at 350 for 1 hour. Try not to open the door too much. After 1 hour, turn the oven off, but dont take the cake out. Let it sit in the oven for another hour. It is very important now not to open the oven door for an hour at all. ( It will still have a little jiggle and feel very soft when it comes out of the oven. This is ok.)

9. After one hour, let the cake sit at room temperature for 4 hours. Then transfer to the fridge over night. ( you dont need the cookie sheet anymore)

To take the cake off the bottom of the springform pan, I put it in the freezer for 2 hours. This makes the bottom stiff enough to move around without cracking the whole cake ( I found out the hard way). To serve, I put the cake on a circle shaped piece of corregated cardboard that I cut from a box and wrapped in foil. It has to be on a flat surface like the board or a very flat cake plate as it is very delicate

Time for a change

2006-01-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

January, with its cold, dreary days, can bring about a feeling in me that something has to change. This year I though it might as well be my hair. It's been long and blonde long enough to make it quite boring. Dana, you teased me about getting the Rachel from Friends hair cut a few years back. This time I decided to go for the Monica from Friends!

Just kidding! I'm just as dish water blonde as ever.

Workin' Hard, or Hardly Workin'?

2006-01-11T00:31:00.000-08:00

I must say that although working can be quite a drag at times, it also can have its perks. For example, one of the clinics where we are the computer administrators gave us eight tickets for the eight of employees of the company where I work to Europe Park as a Christmas present. Even better, we went there during work, so I got paid to have fun!
Europe Park is the Disney Land of Europe, complete with the Epcot Zentrum (the Epcot Center rip-off). I had always intended on going there since its only about half an hour from Freiburg, but just never quite made it. Now I had my chance and although I enjoyed the paid day off of work, I must admit that I was a little dissappointed. Did anyone else ever watch that Disney documentary on the making of the "It's a Small world" ride at Disney Land? That's what all the rides reminded me of. Europe Park must have bought the old animatronics off of Disney Land when they upgraded. In the Africa ride there were animals bobbing up and down on sticks and bad manikans waving from there Nubian Jam outfits. The monkey dangling at the entrance was green with moss. Unfortunately most of the most spectacular rides like "Fluch der Kassandra" (Curse of the Cassandra) were closed for the winter. It was this cool pirate ship adventure. I really wanted to go on it, but alas it will have to wait for the summer.
It was about 25 degrees when we were there, so we watched a 4D movie just to get out of the cold. 4th Demension you wonder? I wondered as well as I entered the theater. It was a poorly made computer animated 3D movie about a snow man who tries to steal Santa's job. The 4th demension was much less enjoyable than expected. "Snow" floated down from the ceiling at syncronized moments with movie. It turned out to me suds. When there was a loud crash, my seat jumped underneath me and so on.
The Russian MIR space station training unit is also on display there. After having walked through I was seriously amazed that Russians were able to get a tin can like that into outerspace and then survive in it! It looked about as technologically advanced as our old Dodge Dart. They did have a lot of showers in there though, I think three all together. This surprised me because space was so limited and I never thought of the Russians being very fond of washing.
Eventually we were all so tired and hungry, that we spent the rest of the day in a cafe. The best part was, that it was non smoking!

Sarah in Deutschland

2005-12-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have had the pleasure of having my younger sister, Sarah, here to visit me over Christmas. It has been really nice to see her, laugh with her, and talk about "The Third Chimpanzee" and other such intellectual subjects. I picked her up from the Frankfurt airport in the 15th of December and on the way back to Freiburg we stopped in Heidelberg (American central in Germany). I think I heard more English than German. We walked the castle grounds and just looked around. I unfortunately had to work some, so Sarah hung out in Freiburg, went to coffee with a strange african man, and went out to lunch at the Mensa with Arthur several times. We also had a quite a few events such as a sushi evening at Nils and Christina's, Christmas party with my basketball team, drinking "Gluehwein" (warm spiced wine) at the christmas market and just hanging out with some of my friends.
Last week was also Sarah's first ski trip, at Feldberg. We unfortunately both lost our lift tickets right after arriving at the top of the hill for this picture and had to buy new ones :(, but since they're only 16 Euro it wasn't too tragic. This is the first time that I've seen the Alps from Freiburg, its usually too misty. Jeroen was really nice and helped Sarah learn to ski. We're going skiing again on Friday.
We spent the three days of German Christmas at Arthur's Mom's new house in Kleinbottwar near Ludwigsburg. Arthur and I made Chili con carne with corn bread (not very traditional which was the point). We made way too much which marked the beginning of a three day as-much-you-can-eat pig out. Teresa, Arthur's mom, kept referring to the corn bread as cake, probably due to the fact that german cakes are more like bread. As long as I can remember there have been cinnamon rolls on Christmas. I don't know where the tradition began, but who am I to break it? Sarah and I made pecan buns for the next morning. They were a big hit and I even had a few requests. I'll have to convert the cups into grams and the text into German though. In Arthur's family its tradition to wait til midnight on Christmas Eve to open the presents. I think the only one who wants to continue this tradition is Arthur, because each year he punctually wakes everyone who has already tried to sneak off to bed. At midnight with greetings of Merry Christmas, froehliche Weihnachten, and buone Natale we all opened our presents in one big frenzy. I don't really know what everybody else received, because I was too busy with my own presents.
The first day of Christmas (25th) was spent at Arthur's mom's house with Arthur's brother Ollie, his girlfriend Ines, and Wilfried's two sons. The food was too good and I went to bed yet again over stuffed. The 26th of December is the second day of Christmas in Germany and consequently a holiday. Sarah and I went with Teresa and Wilfried to visit two castles near by. Wilfried started a snowball fight with us. Here he is preparing his snow balls to throw on us as we walked through the moat. We then went to dinner with Arthur's entire family at a Yugoslavian restaurant. I've never been so smoked out in my life. Even Arthur wanted to get out and get fresh air. The next day we went into Stuttgart for some shopping and culture. Arthur and Sarah went to the art museum and I went to the history museum for an exhibit on roman times in southern germany. It was quite interesting and I am glad that I didn't have to suffer through the 'SMOMA'.
I'm really happy that I got to see my sister. It's nice to know that people are still thinking about me over here. Here are some more pictures of our trip:

Sarah and Jeroen on a hike in the Blackforest
in Heidelberg
At the palace in Ludwigsburg
Sarah coughing and hacking due to the hardcore second hand smoking she's been doing here

Skifahren

2005-12-06T01:08:00.000-08:00

Having the Blackforest in your backyard definately has benefits. In the summer its an excellent wilderness hiking destination (as seen in some of my previous posts). In the winter, it offers the best skiing this side of the Swiss border. On Sunday, Jeroen and I rode the train and then the bus up to Feldberg, the highest point in the Blackforest and incidentally the best ski resort. It costs 16€ for a half day ticket, which for me is more than enough. Here are some pictures of our outing:

I got thoroughly soaked, because the snow was quite wet. My ski pants finally kicked the bucket. They are hand-me-downs from Andraya who also got them second hand from Value Village. I guess its time for a new pair.

-Libby

Little Tree

2005-12-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

On our Thanksgiving weekend, Russell and I spend some time at his parents 73 acre homestead in the foothills of the Oregon cascade mountains. This plot of land is not only the playground of Russell's youth and our current refuge from city life, but is a Christmas tree farm! As our trip was winding down we took a walk through the side yard and chose our own Christmas tree.

It had to be perfect as it is our very first Christmas tree in a life time of Christmas to be spent together. It also had to be small as we don't have many ornaments yet, and have a small apartment.

The tree came just in time to display the gifts Libby sent from Germany. I was also given a reason to buy matching wrapping paper and wrap the presents I have already purchased. I chose a color scheme of pale blue and antique gold. Luckily Martha Stewart's K Mart line also chose those colors this year and provided me with ornaments to match those given to me by Russell's mother, and wrapping paper in pale blue with little penguins and snow flakes.

A few little friends came from Germany. They looked so out of place in a box in the closet that I gave them homes under my tree too! They are much happier in their natural Christmas environment. I did catch Russell with Santa's head in his mouth last night. Luckily I could deter him with a piece of milka from the great advent calendar Libby sent me.

I am very envious of Sarah's coming trip to Germany. I hear that Christmas in Germany is something magical.

Thanksgiving Prep

2005-11-22T04:56:00.000-08:00

Arthur once made the comment in reference to his family, that Italians become more Italian when in a foreign country. I believe this to be true of any one in a foreign land. It's like the saying goes, "absence makes the heart grow fonder". Have I become more American since I came to Germany? To some degree, yes. The best example of this, is the Thanksgiving feast that I have held every year since I've lived in Freiburg. It was a fight to even get me to make the mashed potatoes for my families Thanksgiving dinners back home. Yet, here in Germany, I have devoted all my free time this week to planning and preparing this years Thanksgiving feast. It is somewhat more difficult to pull off a true Thanksgiving here, because many of the traditional foods aren't available. Well at least not prepackaged and ready to go (no Stovetop stuffing in Germany!), so I have to make a lot (all) of it myself. My plan looks like this:

Saturday:
- Bought the Turkey at Wallmart and began defrosting it in the fridge.
- Did some preliminary shopping
- Began staling my bread for the stuffing

Sunday:
- Baked the pumpkin and pureed it for the Pumpkin cheese cake (Dana's recipe - we'll see if I can make it as nice as hers)

Monday:
- 1/2 of the shopping at Penny Markt
- cleaned out fridge to make room for everything to come
- made cranberry sauce
- Cut bread into cubes for Stuffing

Tuesday:
- Meeting Arthur after work at Migros (my favorite swiss grocery store) for the other half of the shopping
- Make brine for the turkey (following a Martha Stewert recipe this year)
- Roast the chestnuts for the stuffing (agian, Martha)
- Pealing and slicing apples for pie (it's a little early, I know, but I havn't got time otherwise and I thought I'd douse them in lemon juice to keep them from browning)

Wednesday:
Morning:
- Make pie dough and let chill in fridge

After work:
- Defrost pumpkin (to remove more water - thanks for the tip Dana!)
- Make dough for rolls and let rise
- Make pumpkin cheese cake and bake
- assemble Heidelbeer and apple pies
- prepare stuffing
- put turkey in brine
- bake rolls

The big Day (get to work extra early):
- Stuff turkey and put it in the oven
- set table and clean up a bit
- heat up peas and carrots
- make gravy
- warm up rolls

We're ready to eat! If everything goes this smoothly, it should turn out great. Arthur's making the basque (creamed) onions at his place and then coming to help with the bird. Other guests are bringing mashed potatoes, salads, drinks, etc... It should be quite the feast!

Lucky Duck

2005-11-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

A strange phenomena has surrounded my life. I win things. During an easter egg hunt (in the northgate mall no less) I found the egg containing the grand prize, a life size steiff teddy bear. I won the poster contest at my school in first grade. I could push buttons on vending machines and candy would just come out. I even won a basket with (waxy)chocolate and (terrible) champagne from some drag queens at Everett's only gay bar, the Everett Underground. This random luck has followed me through out life, and again, luck has come my way.

Last week I recieved a message that I won the raffle at our local Safeway. I bought a ticket to support the fight against breast cancer, and my number was chosen!!

The loot this time was a basket packed with knitting things. It included 6 of the craziest balls of yarn I have ever seen. Tucked in back is the stich 'n bitch book that I had already purchased for myself. The needles it included are bamboo, and huge. The size is probably for all the CRAZY yarn that was included. The yarn is either furry, sparkly, whispy, dazzly, prickly, and all in colors I would never choose. Russell thinks I should knit them all together into one wacky scarf.

Also included in the basket was an assortment of tools I didn't know existed, but are sure to help if I ever find the time to take knitting seriously. On the far left is a vintage modeled neclace that has little notches that cut yarn. Next over are needles to stitch your yarn ends in and sew parts of your knitting together if needed.
In the middle is a great looking tool that has guages for your needles. On the bottom corner there is a cut-out that you use to measure the correct number of stitches per inch, and rows per inch also. This looks very helpful for finding the right number of stitches and correct size needles.
Second from the right is a clicking counter to help you keep track of the rows you have knitted. And on the far right are needle threaders that help the large yarn go through the little hole in the needle.

With luck like this, maybe I should be playing the lottery!!

Out-and-About in Freiburg

2005-11-08T04:57:00.000-08:00

This summer was for the most part cold, rainy, and disappointing. As a nice surprise, its been a beautiful golden autumn. On the weekends, I've been getting out and enjoying the beautiful weather. A few weeks ago I went out with my cabrio with Arthur and checked out the Blackforest. Last week I took Jeroen and we went for a drive. Here we are at Schauinsland
I've also been utilising the fact that Freiburg is closely surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature in all of Germany which is also so accessible! Mirjam and I went on a bike ride to one of my favorite summer hang outs, Opfinger Lake. In the summer it's general full of bathers and people soaking up the summer sun. On Sunday it was all but empty due to the frosty bite in the air. Here are some pictures at the lake:

Last weekend, we went for a walk through the Blackforest overlooking Freiburg. It was beautiful fall day full of autumn colors. Here we are on Schlossberg, the most popular look out in Freiburg. I swear that half of Freiburg was up there with us.