pencil-making

nadir

2012-02-02T18:55:00.000-05:00

Right around this time last year started the most difficult series of trials I've faced in my life. Every time one insurmountable challenge seemed to finally be resolvable, a new and improbable catastrophe arose.

After Penny was born, I wanted to believe everyone who told me how motherhood would be, that there would be routine hardships but that all would pass. As the weeks and months passed, it became clear that in this situation, too, things were not normal--the delivery, my recovery, and most importantly, Penny's health. This was all overlaid on our family's pending international move.

This past week, as we hopefully finished a month-long series of doctor's visits and tests for one of Penny's medical issues while Peter was abroad, she became violently ill. Somehow I still believed that she was normal, that this was a routine illness like all babies get. She had turned 6 months the day before, and I figured her immune system was robust enough to handle whatever it was. Instead, she got worse, had to be rushed to the hospital, invasive testing was performed, and we got a new and again improbable diagnosis. Because she is an infant, she will have further invasive testing done, and there is a significant chance of permanent damage from not only the illness, but also the testing, and the treatment. She will have to be rushed to the emergency department every time she has a fever, and furthermore, there is no consensus among doctors regarding how to deal with the condition, which is the subject of much heated academic and clinical discussion and is extremely complicated. There is no cure, only damage control.

I am exhausted and profoundly sad. Sorry to everyone for being so out of touch.

bukowski

2011-12-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

from buzzfeed

also, for those that don't mind more classic bukowski vernacular:

The History of One Tough Motherfucker

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…"
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps.

from yourcatwasdelicious

laughter

2011-12-14T20:39:00.000-05:00

the best medicine

ladybum

2011-11-23T07:02:00.001-05:00

toesday

2011-11-15T22:13:00.001-05:00

chit-chat

2011-11-01T12:44:00.000-04:00

Penny!

catnip & cheese cupcakes, oral fixations, and papa love

2011-02-16T18:39:00.000-05:00

China

2011-02-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we got to join a class studying John Adams's operas to see Nixon in China at the Met in NYC (though Google Calendar auto-filled the "Where" as "China"). It wasn't as spectacular as Doctor Atomic, which Peter took me to go see in SanFran while we were dating, but it was still magical to see a bunch of grown opera singers under gilded archways and sunburst chandeliers reciting librettos about scratching the ears of pigs. Also, the same guy who played Nixon in 1987 was performing the title role again. I cannot imagine doing anything of that magnitude 25 years after the first round. Crazy.

As added bonus #1, it was Fashion Week, and the Met was literally right next door to the main venue (the gray block building to the left in the photo up top with "Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week" etched on it). I was too embarrassed to get any good photos of the fashion plates teetering around, but here's a stealth shot of one of the many boho/fur mash-ups we saw when we took a Starbucks break. Apparently fur will never go out of style, particularly when it is freezing.

Bonus #2 was that the Manhattan LDS temple was also nearby, and we had a few minutes to make a lingerie run for Valentine's Day.

Bonus #3: meeting John Adams himself in the Green Room after the performance. He is lovely and gracious and brilliant, a result of having spent significant time away from Harvard after college, according to Peter and me. Here's a fuzzy shot, hurriedly taken since I was literally standing two feet in front of him as he spoke to an adoring fangroup.

All in all, a nice Valentine's pre-game.

Deeper 'n' Ever Turnip 'n' Tater 'n' Beetroot Pie

2011-02-10T10:51:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, passed away. I remember spending much of junior high in Skokie and Kenilworth in the school library, devouring the books while sitting in the stacks because I couldn't wait to get to a chair.

I grew to love the little rodent protagonists so much. Maybe that's why I am totally on board for blatant, romantic anthropormorphizing of animals. And maybe that's why I cried my eyes out when Reepicheep left for Aslan's kingdom in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The passages I relished the most, though, were the descriptions of the feasts! It was thoroughly Anglocentric, and half the time I had no idea if the foods described were even real, but someday I hope to try all the recipes in the Redwall Cookbook. Maybe they'll be as delicious as I imagined them to be.

a little birdie

2011-01-23T17:43:00.000-05:00

Our little kitty in love. Thank you Bonnie for your thoughtfulness and craftiness!!!

self-hatin'

2011-01-11T11:23:00.002-05:00

This article is one of the most ridiculous, self-righteous, and frankly racist things I have read in a long time. It doesn't help that it's in the Wall Street Journal, written by a Yale Law Prof (Harvard College and Harvard Law alum), and perpetuates every stereotype of over-educated elitistism ever. The piece and its underlying cultural attitudes is a gleaming example of why I so often resent being a Model Minority in America.

I mean, I don't even care that much that these superior mothers are raising their socially stilted, overly privileged, tunnel-visioned children in their incredibly psychologically damaging ways, but because these children grow up to participate in and influence society, it becomes everyone's business. Not only can I attest that a good percentage of my med school class was comprised of the truly warped products of this type of child-rearing, but the type of [faulty] thinking driving this article also leads Asian-Americans to lead the fight against affirmative action in California universities, create sprawling cultural Ground Zeros in suburbia, and otherwise perpetuate societal conflicts in places they take over with their hyper-capitalistic, worldly success-oriented, and anti-communitarian world view. Am I being racist? Yes, sort of. But they started it!

What is it with immigrants and meritocracy? How can they get away with being such blatant supremacists?

On the other hand, if this whole thing is satire, then kudos, crazy lady.

heeheehee

2010-12-15T14:09:00.002-05:00

every animal needs a giggling baby, and vice versa

2010-11-23T09:43:00.000-05:00

This ridiculously happy baby-dog duo reminds me of growing up on my grandfather's farm, where even before I could walk I was constantly surrounded by little Korean fox-dogs that were my best friends and babysitters. To this day, being with animals makes me (and hopefully them?) feel safe and wonderful. Maybe I was a feral child...

barbershop poster

2010-11-22T13:05:00.000-05:00

I think these hair models are so beautiful.

(from Dis Magazine)

1632-esque

2010-11-15T08:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Peter and I partook in a quasi-authentic Thanksgiving at our friends' home, with all foods fastidiously researched to contain only ingredients available to the original Wampanoags and Pilgrims. It was wonderful to celebrate the abundant blessings in our lives over food with good company.

It was a lovely warm mixed crowd of young and old, different faiths, thespians, engineers, parents, journalists, and parrots. I didn't bother asking anyone's names I didn't know--just shot the 17th century breeze.

In our eagerness to eat, we only got one photo of one of the many signs describing each of the dishes and their ingredients. Here: Pease Porridge with peas, onions, carrots, parsley, bay leaf, and marjoram

The food was delicious, and Peter and I agreed that it was way preferable to standard modern Thanksgiving fare. After much drooly deliberation, Peter and I applied our ethnofreegetarianism (it's like eating in another culture, only it's our own culture in the past. Right?). From my hazy memory, we had collard greens salad, cornbread with some kind of corn that we don't eat anymore, steamed fish and mussels, wild brown rice, roast goose and veggies, and more.

Here's V chowing down on the goose carcass...

...in full view of Nikki the African grey parrot!

Luckily, he was appeased by his own authentic feast.

한국 - so in right now

2010-11-13T06:28:00.000-05:00

너무 반가워! ^_^

my christmas wish list

2010-11-11T12:42:00.000-05:00

yes please!

and we're back

2010-09-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

Nowadays

2010-08-06T16:37:00.000-04:00

1. Cat week!
- how epidural hematomas present in cats
- CAT scans!
- Dispo planning; i.e., care coordination for 15-year-old cats at home when owners have strokes
- 5150 to keep patient from leaving AMA to feed her cats
- meanwhile, cousin Rusty plays with another redhead
- minimal executive function notwithstanding

2. Retrofitting diagnoses on the Exorcist!
- Robbie Manheim as the inadvertent poster child for anti-NMDA receptor antibody mediated limbic encephalitis
- rituximab, plasma exchange, cytoxan as exorcisers
- yet another reason having teeth in your ovaries is creepy

3. General
- International Club
- sleeping in an EEG lab
- also, not sleeping

find the kitty

2010-07-24T07:40:00.000-04:00

ode to avocado

2010-07-10T20:10:00.000-04:00

you are the gristle of vegetables

still cute

2010-07-04T10:42:00.000-04:00

thank you

2010-06-29T16:42:00.000-04:00

to my friends. I'm so grateful every day not just for the delicious munchies (without exception like manna from the heavens!), but for your palpable love. I know I did/am nothing to deserve you, so I figure there must be a divine presence who loves me and demonstrates this love through you. You restore my faith in both humanity and God. Thank you so much.

YES

2010-06-22T19:49:00.000-04:00

and why not?

limbo, purgatory, and hell

2010-06-20T11:50:00.000-04:00

people often ask me how school/rotations are going. it's a difficult question to answer, because on the one hand, i really do believe that providing care for the ill and suffering is important. but on the other hand, as this article shows, the actual practices involved in contemporary medicine, including medical education, often stray far from that goal, and do so systematically, driven by "markets" and overheated political rhetoric. this article explores some of those tensions, lucidly revealing modern doctors (in many cases) to be neither healers nor fiduciaries.

10mg enlightens

2010-06-05T09:51:00.001-04:00

http://www.10mg.nl/

2010-05-08T17:59:00.000-04:00

poor pig's foot

hooray for bikes

2010-05-02T08:48:00.000-04:00

critical mass 4/30/10, pics and vids

support our troops!

2010-05-01T19:39:00.001-04:00

best friends

2010-05-01T09:59:00.001-04:00

kitty

2010-04-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

He loves Peter and follows him around from room to room. He's always trying to maximize physical contact with Peter and minimize it with me.

Also, we took a look under the couch and found a delightful assortment of goodies he'd batted underneath. It was like Christmas on April 6th.

movie update

2010-04-08T21:15:00.000-04:00

[Preface: Random Chinese people, please leave my blog alone!]

Movies we've watched, not including shorts and those watched singly (which we'll add on if need be at year's end), + gestalt:

11. Rain Man - The guy it's based on was Mormon and just recently died.
12. Lars and the Real Girl - Sort of a whimsical, humane treatment of mental illness, sort of constipated-feeling.
13. Narnia: Price Caspian - Shockingly not as good as the first. They should have had more close-up shots of fur.
14. The Changeling - I multi-tasked on purpose while watching this one, and probably as a consequence didn't find it as disturbing as I'd expected. Also, Angelina Jolie looks like Olive Oyl.
15. Pom Poko - It's about tanukis and testicles. What's not to love?
16. Good Hair - Fascinating topic, but Chris Rock is annoying.
17. Ponyo - More Totoro/tableau than Mononoke/narrative, but cute. Sorry to have subjected a varied group of folks to crazy anime.
18. Portland: Quest for the Livable City - Great doc about a complex issue I know little about. I just wish there were a straightforward solution.
19. The Cove - National Geographic meets Ocean's Eleven. Also, incredibly depressing. I think if I get through school I will become a marine biologist activist/pirate.
20. Revolutionary Road - Who says traditional marriage works? Not this couple!
21. Stardust - A quirky little piece with several levels on which to enjoy. Gotta love Robert DeNiro playing out every homosexual stereotype in existence.
22. The Pillow Book - I'd wanted to see this flick for a while but didn't know too much about it. Turns out that it's a completely gratuitous art film (gratuitous both for its artsiness and absurd amounts of nudity). After the initial shock, we both decided we liked it. I found the unabashed multiculturalism (in languages, lovers, settings) fascinating, the calligraphy imagery beautiful, and the exploration of fetishism to be respectful and earnest.
23. Notes on a Scandal - My friend once told me I look like Judi Dench. Also, Peter and I were sadly able to recognize in one scene the sound of a cat vomiting off-screen.
24. Porco Rosso - Surprisingly delightful. "I'd rather be a pig than a fascist."
25. Syriana - Classic hyperlink cinema. I had to read a Wikipedia plot summary as I was watching the film to sort of get it.
26. Trapped by the Mormons - The novelty wore off quickly.
27. The Edge of Heaven - My favorite movie so far this year. Lovely and sad. Made me appreciate knowing a little Turkish and German.
28. Brigham Young - I was so irritated by the male chauvinism of this Western that I couldn't really appreciate what an incredibly sympathetic telling of the Mormons' story it was. I did like it very much when Joseph Smith (played by Vincent Price) converts Brigham Young by telling him about the United Order in great detail.
29. Crossing the Bridge - Made me miss Istanbul.
30. Where the Wild Thing Are - Nice, but not as awesome as we'd heard it would be. Mostly made me glad we don't have children to bite us.

SCRIPTURE COOKIES

2010-03-15T08:15:00.000-04:00

pretty much the most amazing thing ever.

courtesy of L is for Indian by L. Ulrich

10. The White Ribbon

2010-01-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness we watched this with friends. As eloquently described by Amelia, it is indeed deeply disturbing and it's helpful to have people around afterwards who'll "hold you back from the ledge." In my post-movie funk, I gained a new appreciation for Peter's tendencies toward the contrary; when I shared my despondency with him, he responded with: "I don't feel the need to draw life conclusions from this or any other work." Again, thank goodness.

Two additional things to note, though I'm disobeying my sophomore year English teacher who said that the artist's intent should have no place in a critical analysis of a piece.

1) According to writer/director Michael Haneke, the film is about "the origin of terrorism."

2) [To Elizabeth, who noted that "everyone looked really weird"] Haneke apparently went through a ridiculous, neurotic search for old-fashioned faces of the kind in photographs from the era. This included auditioning 7,000 children and deciding that extras had to be from Romania because Austrian and German faces weren't weathered enough to be pre-WWI farmers in the region. Finally--and most intriguing for me--not just scenery, but also faces and expressions were digitally altered to create Haneke's exact intended effect. At points I noticed that a facial expression looked a little off, like it was so close to being an actual human face that the off-ness was accented and it looked very wrong. (Stuart, what's that effect called again?) Yet another element of the film that was deeply disturbing, albeit with less intentionality.

2 thumbs up
4 stars

9. an education

2010-01-14T21:41:00.000-05:00

this was the first of our movies for the year at our neighborhood theater in kendall square. (we went with our friends, dan and gwen volmar, who were great movie-company.) pros (things the movie did well): fashion, seduction, lots of clever one-liners, sensuality, and a nice dose of ravel; cons: excessive francophilia (ravel notwithstanding), predictability, elgar. rating: "could have waited to see it on dvd, but fun to see with friends."

subjective rating: one thumb up, one thumb down (we both give it half up, half down...? er, something)
objective rating: 2.75 stars

(despite barry's gentle critique of our befuddling stars-n-thumbs, our system of ratings will get continually more convoluted as the year progresses. we now have 1/4 stars...)

8. M

2010-01-13T08:14:00.000-05:00

January 11th-12th: We tried to watch this over two nights, but I was too tired to stay awake either day. I don't think it was the fact that it's an oldie, because the parts I saw were good. The aesthetic was definitely different than standard fare though. Apparently it defined the murder mystery genre. Peter liked it, but I'll have to abstain from reviewing. Also because it was pointed out by an astute reader that our review system makes no sense.

played by the MB, or the opposite of organic, part ii

2010-01-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

Bought some loose by-the-pound portobello mushrooms at Market Basket the other day. Thought it was a pretty good deal.

Cut them open to find that one was just a grotesquely overgrown white mushroom. Awesome.

(Yes, I suppose I could have figured it out by the stem.)

our venn diagram

2010-01-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

Just another couple jumping on the bandwagon, I know. But it was fun to do this together. Thanks Toibutts, for the idea, and Wangsgards, for making us look like posers (though Elizabeth will attest to the fact that we had our rough draft several days ago).

Also, at Peter's request, some outtakes, courtesy of a cat who has figured out that a camera means attention:

7. Being John Malkovich

2010-01-08T23:42:00.000-05:00

January 8th: I'd already seen this, but Peter hadn't and really wanted to. He loved the puppets! I thought it had a humorous approach to the narcissism of [even non-celebrity] actors. But the "common man" characters were so repulsive they felt overdone; i.e., Cameron Diaz's hair! Unarguably clever though. (Oh, and weird to see Catherine Keener in a vastly different role than Harper Lee in Capote.)

2 thumbs up
2 stars

6. Inglourious Basterds

2010-01-07T08:32:00.000-05:00

January 6th: Can a gratuitously violent movie be delightful for someone who is sensitive to violence? Can a movie about the Holocaust move you to giddiness? At the risk of sounding horribly insensitive, I venture a solid maybe. See this movie before you protest. But don't if you faint when you see blood [Gwen]. Special thanks to Man Movie Night.

Two thumbs up
3.5 stars

5. Capote

2010-01-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

January 5th: Despite the hype, Peter said, "Interesting history, could have been done better." I thought it was hard to appreciate the filmmakers' obvious fascination with Capote unless you're already on board the TC cult of personality.

Two thumbs down

2 stars

4. Up in the Air

2010-01-04T19:38:00.000-05:00

January 4th: We got to see this understated but compelling dramedy because a belligerent drunkard during Avatar landed everyone in the theater free re-admit passes.

Two thumbs up
3 stars

3. Avatar in 3D

2010-01-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

January 4th: A stupendously expensive, expansive, and beautiful cross between Ferngully, Dances with Wolves, and Star Wars. 2 hours 40 minutes never went by so fast.

Two thumbs up
4 stars

2. State of Play

2010-01-04T19:28:00.000-05:00

January 2nd: Journalistic/political thriller. Also watched through Amazon's Video on Demand. I love Rachel McAdams and Russell Crowe in it. Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman, just okay.

Two thumbs up
2.5 stars

1. Coraline

2010-01-04T19:22:00.000-05:00

January 2nd: A stop-motion children's horror movie. We rented it using free promotional credit from Amazon's Video on Demand, which is awesome.

Two thumbs up
3.5 stars

MOVIES

2010-01-04T19:09:00.000-05:00

Peter and I have ambitiously resolved to watch 100 movies this year. We'll rate with thumbs (out of two, each of us being allotted one) and stars (out of four, with half-stars allowed). Additional commentary as warranted/requested.

last legs

2010-01-04T19:04:00.000-05:00

my trusty 4 and a half year old vaio is most likely in a very bad way, thanks to some incredibly clever and terrible viruses and malware. i think i'm leaning towards an asus eee netbook. let me know if you have any suggestions, warnings, or tips for finding my next electronic best friend.

true

2009-12-18T07:32:00.000-05:00

I currently love this video game much more than a video game should be loved.

We have an understanding that I'm coming off the rebound from the other one.

shirt-related moral failing

2009-12-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

My moratorium on buying clothes was violated a few days ago, and in a particularly gruesome way. This is my e-confession.

Some background:

During election season, I donated some of my hard-earned loan money to MoveOn.org, and in return got this shirt, which, in addition to having a retro-y and rather chubby dot-matrixed likeness of now-Mr. President, was the most deliciously comfortable and well-fitting t-shirt I have ever worn.

Then, when I got back from Europe this past summer, Gwendrew Bergolds, despite having paid to stay in our apartment and loving our cat for FREE, gifted me with this awesome Three Keyboard Cat Moon shirt. Also unbelievably comfortable and flatteringly fitting, and lovingly albeit non-hygienically worn for days at a time.

Both of these shirts were made by American Apparel. Which brings me to my aforementioned purchase: an American Apparel Unisex Tri-blend Deep V-Neck in Athletic Grey. I love it, as I knew I would, but my blissful comfort and fit satisfaction is tainted by the knowledge of directly supporting Dov Charney's porny marketing ways (hence no link to AA here), which I think is uninhibitedly misogynistic, symbolically violent even.

It's like I'm clothed in the beautiful comfort of my hypocrisy. Why must the cost of a perfect t-shirt be so high?

"weezer defies the passage of the image"

2009-11-30T09:01:00.001-05:00

My husband left me a voicemail this morning asking me to write that down. This is normal, yes?

nytimes-worthy?

2009-11-18T16:56:00.000-05:00

you betcha.

procrastinating

2009-11-17T18:42:00.000-05:00

I'm a textbook case procrastinator. Right now I have an urgent deadline that was made even urgenter by my preceptor's schedule change (so instead of one gigantic presentation in two days, I have to give one equally well-prepared one-on-one presentation a day early plus one gigantic presentation...on top of seminar, writing, and flushing charts). So naturally I'm making a to-do list (since I'm on such a list kick these days):

Things I'm really looking forward to doing:
- cleaning above my kitchen cabinets
- facebook detox, round 2
- working on family christmas gifts
- practicing vegan recipes for thanksgiving
- taking alice to the new cambridge public library
- fixing peter's bike
- checking out "leisure reading" from the med library
- reading folk of the fringe
- having brunch at s&s

the significant comprisements of my days

2009-11-14T14:03:00.000-05:00

1) taking a free shuttle from Cambridge Hospital to Outpatient Addiction Services Clinic in Somerville every day, talking about how differently Haitians and Koreans eat fish with Jean Robert, the driver

2) making cupcakes for Gwen, and then having her bring over cupcakes that are exactly the same.

3) peter and i admit we are powerless over our addiction to animal products, evidenced by our rediscovery of S&S, specifically their french toast stuffed with fruit and cream cheese and portobello omelettes.

4) getting the swine flu vaccine in a shockingly quick and straightforward way (no wait, no paperwork, but lots of guilt at having gotten it when people who need it can't). trying to figure out how to get it for peter before he goes to turkey in december.

5) re-starting interferon for rusty, who got a cold this past week but is doing better. the scariness of him being sick was considerably offset by the adorableness of his sneezing and licking his nose all day.

happy rusty day

2009-10-21T19:00:00.000-04:00

Rusty's been with us now for one full year, and to celebrate, we gave him some real good-for-human-consumption chicken! He went crazy with delight!

Then he promptly threw it up and, embarrassed, covered it up with our curtain.

Oh, Rusty-face, how did we ever live without you?

i'm reading

2009-10-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

3) it's one of the most beautiful books i've ever seen.
2) i love how it's totally crushing.
1) i feel exhausted after reading it.

p.s. - philippe reminds me of my egghead peter.

our cat oedipus

2009-09-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

The other day Peter and I woke up to find our little Korean paper doll couple version of ourselves, painstakingly crafted and gifted to us by the talented sister of my aunt when we had our Korean wedding, in the following state:

Peter's feet have been torn off, and we haven't been able to find his head anywhere. I, on the other hand, am decidedly intact, despite having also been torn off the base and having potentially delicious and chewy hair ornament bits.

That combined with Rusty's recent amorous advances toward my forearms have led us to conclude that he is a classic Freudian case.

The inappropriate perpetrator, dreaming of Peter's elimination.

(Though admittedly his castration anxiety is well warranted.)

9.9.09

2009-09-08T08:43:00.000-04:00

last stop: prishtina

2009-08-25T17:29:00.000-04:00

we've spent the last two weeks of our summer back in prishtina, kosovo, at a seminar for albanian language, literature, and culture. for us that meant 3 hours of albanian language class a day. in addition we were put up in the grand hotel prishtina, famously referred to as "the worst 5-star hotel in the world," but for our purposes has been quite indulgent.

the subtle color-coding of the auditorium in which long speeches in albanian welcomed us to the seminar.

the view out our 10th floor room window, including the NEWBORN sign, a bunch of UN vehicles, and the Ramadan tent.

the last entry in the hotel guestbook: "...thank you for a terrifying experience!"

the national library, straight out of a sci-fi b-movie

the annual bill clinton birthday poster, by the association friends of the bill clinton (our classes are on bill clinton blvd...who needs north korea?)

"happy month of ramadan!" (close readings and interpretations of above sign much appreciated)

the president of kosovo met with us seminarists...

...and a billion camera crews, as is apparently the norm for any official gathering of more than 20 people.

the last castle we'll see in europe, looking down on prishtina and fushe kosove (kosovo field). our friend sami from syria does his best magnum face on the rampart.

next stop: po shkojme ne shtepi!!!

serbia

2009-08-20T19:00:00.000-04:00

Our next stop was Serbia, starting out in Novi Sad in the north. Our trek through the country required 3 bus rides of 6+ hours in 4 days, and we're not talking quality Greyhounds with WCs in the back, ohhhh no... Anyhoo, Peter guest-writes for this entry:

A beautiful but faux-gothic Catholic cathedral on the main square (also called Freedom Square) of Novi Sad. Turning around 180 degrees, we see...

...city hall, which apparently is an exact replica of another such building somewhere in the former Austro-Hungarian empire, which Novi Sad was a part of for most of the past few centuries (as opposed to the rest of Serbia that was part of the Ottoman empire).

A picturesque street with coffeshops and typical Austro-Hungarian architecture.

This moddish building was built way back in the 1930s by some forward looking architect (Andrej, if you read this post, let us know who designed this!) who then left Novi Sad during later political turmoils.

A sobering Holocaust memorial on the Danube, commemorating mostly Jewish victims, as well as Serbs. If it's not too grotesque to blog about, it's worth noting that these people were killed by being dropped through a small hole in the ice on the Danube during the winter and then simultaneously freezing to death and drowning.

Our friend Andrej, who hosted us and who did his graduate studies in France, used his mad French skills to help some fifty-something (maybe older?) French backpacker cyclists (a bike gang?) who had rode in from Vienna. For the sake of propriety, we omit the pictures of old topless men with leathery Hulk-Hogan tans, but surely you can imagine.

The Croatian neighborhood across the river, which remained intact throughout the tumult of the 1990s, a tribute to the multicultural ethos of the area (unlike many other neighboring areas).

Here is a famous clock that sits atop the castle on the other side of the Danube, just before the sun set over the city. Another prize to whoever can see what's wrong with the clock and why. A hint: a lot of sailors cruise up and down the Danube in this area. Side note: this is where the Next Festival happens, for those hipster-readers out there.

Moving southward, we stopped in the Sandzak, the predominantly Muslim areas of Serbia and Montenegro. We visited our friend Sejo and his family, who helped Peter with a lot of his thesis research back in the day. This is his non-profit/NGO, Flores. Their hobbies: technology, youth employment, waste disposal in the area, and generally haranguing the local government. (Sejo, a veteran of the anti-Milosevic resistance movement of the late 90s, got his start in organizing by gathering signatures to convince a local bakery to stop putting powdered sugar on their pastries so students could eat them during class.)

This is the Gaudeamus Club, a ski lodge/coffeeshop/ski museum, all run by one guy. Apparently the vultures in the area are quite famous.

bosnia

2009-08-18T19:00:00.000-04:00

We spent a couple days with our friend Mirsad and his family in Tuzla, Bosnia. Tuzla literally means "the salty city" (from an old Turkish word), so named because of salty lakes and salt deposits here that have been mined since Roman times. So you could say we were in Salt Lake City (the Utah version of which is purportedly the second largest Bosnian city in the world, with 100,000 Bosnians, though Peter is skeptical of such a large number).

Tomato & pepper salad, pogača, and kajmak cheese: a classic Bosnian breakfast.

Looking down from the castle in Gradačac, where you can see a Catholic church steeple, a mosque minaret (background), and Serbian Orthodox belfry/onion dome steeple all within a few blocks.

The leaning tower of Gradačac (not just bad photography).

A typical Bosnian (non-Wahhabi) mosque, with a distinctly tall and thin minaret. Named the Husejnija mosque, locals consider this one the Sultanahmet mosque of the area.

A wall pock-marked by grenades from the war, with the ever-present 1-liter beer bottle, which locals call a "baby."

One of many war monuments in the area.

We took a trip to a castle in the little town of Srebrenik. Mirsad and his friend had never actually trekked up here, but it was quite the fortress. For quite a while after the Ottoman empire had swept through the area, this castle remained an isolated Hungarian stronghold.

The view from the newly designed town square in Tuzla. Like many cities in the Balkans, they call the main square "Freedom Square" (Trg Slobode), which gets a little creepy/1984y/post-911y after a while, but so it goes. The rainbow homes in the background add a cheery touch though...

Grinding coffee, not an easy task. There's a running joke that goes something like this: "How do you recognize a Bosnian who's out of shape?" "By the bruise on his stomach!" (Unless you're ripped, the instinct while grinding coffee manually in these brass/copper contraptions is to buttress it firmly against your tummy.)

But the results are pretty amazingly aromatic, and have a cute little lokum on the side. (Peter: "Too bad Joseph Smith didn't live in the Balkans, maybe he would have rethought the WofW.")

elder mcmurray reminisces, part ii

2009-08-16T01:00:00.000-04:00

Some snapshots of the Croatia leg of our travels and travails:

A brass band in the Zagreb city center.

Chilling with our friend Kristijan near the train station.

At Mirsad's shelter for abandoned animals--they're the sweetest.

The ice cream here (sladoled) is amazing. 6 kuna (~$1) for a heaping scoop with chunks of the actual fruit, nut, or whatever in each bite. For our 3rd wedding anniversary (8/8 whoop whoop!), we had 3 sladoleds each.

This inseparable Homeward Bound-esque sheep-dog pair was running around near where we were staying, and followed us to our tram stop.

An enourmous abandoned swimming pool in Nova Gradiska, built in the 1920s. A bunch of resort and sporting facilities as well as weekend cabins in this area are in sad states of disrepair since the war, when they were looted or abandoned.

A full view of the new LDS chapel dedicated in May (find 3 differences from the Slovenian version, and win a prize!).

Front page news: "Former prime minister hospitalized, on penicillin. Mysterious illness, friends suspect air conditioning as cause. Doctors are silent."

Back page news: "Young Mormons give free car washes" and "Mormons washed cars free of charge for their neighbors and anybody who got lucky" (LDS missionaries had done a free car wash with tours of the new chapel as a service project).

elder mcmurray reminisces, part i

2009-08-13T18:57:00.000-04:00

Peter served his 2-year Mormon mission in Croatia and Slovenia, two different countries with different languages, again proving that he refuses to do anything the normal way. Here are some photos from our stopover in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The new LDS chapel (stay tuned for the similar yet different Croatian chapel) dedicated a little over one year ago. We're told that the church leader who decided on yellow was literally colorblind, but I kind of like the warmness of it; it offsets the sometimes coolness of the people, which some in the region refer to as "the Slovene Ice."

Here's Peter enjoying(?) horseburgers and Schweppes Bitter Lemon with current Mission President Hill. It's not a mainstream food (it was Pres. Hill's first), and it seemed sort of a kitschy/macho thing to eat horse. The flavor is nothing shocking, but mine did whinny a little at first.

We were invited to a missionary farewell dinner, and I was volunteered to frost the writing on the cake. Hideous, I know. Naturally, I added the American flag and stars (the missionary was an Ohioan).

We went walking along a lake where there was an adorable family of swans. This adolescent cygnet was super friendly...

...not so his mum! (My swift reflexes saved my finger, but she did peck at my feet a few times for good measure. Kudos to Peter for catching the mayhem on camera!)

Behind us is a church built on an island in the middle of the lake. I don't remember all the details about it (we've been in 3 countries since this picture was taken), but suffice it to say that taking a boat to church would be awesome. Who needs Venice?

A burek shop that Peter used to go to as a missionary! He had his old favorite: pizza burek. The guy behind the counter was Macedonian and pleased to hear that we had spent a month doing research there (we're such anti-backpacker snobs).

an unexpected trip

2009-08-05T16:00:00.000-04:00

We were halfway boarded onto the second leg of our trip from Berlin to Ljubljana in our layover in Brussels, Belgium, when the crew informed us of a technical problem. Several hours later, after wading through lots of logistical stuff and weighing our options, we settled for an all-expenses paid stay in the Sheraton and a flight out the next day. Here's what we saw and learned about Brussels in the meantime.

Everything here is gilded.

Public celebrities #1 and #2: Tintin and Snowy (We stumbled onto this at the airport, but they're everywhere--subway stop walls, 10-euro coins, and as the centerpieces of a new museum that was visited recently by the king, who apparently, like many here, is somewhat of a tintinologist.)

Public celebrity #3: Manneken Pis. This little urinating guy is on everything. Apparently Coca-Cola bottles it, much like perfume vendors in Jeddah and Istanbul. (Also featured on this machine are "Mussels from Brussels," which we enjoyed immensely on the airline's tab but didn't photograph.)

Public celebrity #4: Belgian chocolate. Chocolatiers are to Brussels what carpet-sellers are to Istanbul. Adorable shops like these offering delicious samples are a dime a dozen downtown.

Celebrity #3, redux.

Lots of street performers, like break-dancers...

...exploited Korean kids fan dancing (ah the memories)...

...and tae kwon do-ing. But they were doing it for Jesus, apparently (at least the Korean kids, I'm skeptical about the breakers).

City rent-a-bikes (Can't wait for Boston's bike czar's new program!)

Part of the Tintin Walk.

Peter, looking at the Manneken Pis: "Is that it?"

We agreed that this humongous chocolate rendition is much more impressive.

Mrs. Moroni, standing almost atop a building on the main square.

Now we're headed back to the real Europe, starting with Slovenia, and heading southward to Kosovo.

berlin

2009-08-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

Berlin was a welcome break of beautiful mild weather, things that work the way they're supposed to, and hipsters (who, despite their faults, tend to be much funner to look at than people who are either completely covered or nearly naked). We stayed in Neukölln, a delightfully diverse immigrant district, with friends of my friend from the ol' college fencing team, and biked around for a leisurely few days. I miss it already.

Brandenburg Gate: off-limits to President Obama, but not to us.

We ran into this street performance (cellist, cue cardist, and dancer) at a bridge over a canal near where we were staying (near the former Wall).

Vegan currywurst with pommes frites and gyrospfanne (gyro seytan) at a vegan cafe in Kreuzberg! (Clearly a message from the heavens that all is forgiven.)

There were mute swan couples everywhere, as much a part of the landscape as the tour boats.

Bear graffiti (people love bears in Berlin) and Peter on his sweeeeet ride.

Kids feeding swans eis cream.

How would you like this in front of your elementary school? Not sure what the intention is--maybe to promote texting?

A sentry tower that was part of the Berlin Wall still stands near the aforementioned canal.

Checkpoint Charlie, the former entrance into East Berlin from West Berlin

And you're happy about this?

We suppressed our better judgment and went to the Berlin Zoo, which has very limited barriers to animals, including aviaries you can just walk into. Here's some kind of exotic goose.

There were tons of zoo babies, including this one. Warning: nursing rhino babies may be hazardous to the mother's health!

An emu family in an idyllic enclosure that held many different animals and looked like the Garden of Eden.

Knut the Eisbär

"that's a pretty good replica" or, adventures in vespa-land

2009-08-01T16:00:00.000-04:00

Italy was one beautiful, overwhelming, hot blur. We started out at a conference in Calabria in the southern part of the country, then headed up to Rome where seemingly all the people in the world had gathered for the hottest and muggiest days of the year. Everywhere we went there were huge mobs of people we thought were waiting for a huge concert or parade, but it turns out that they were, you know, just hanging out, shoulder to shoulder with all the other gazillion tourists. We even ran into a Mormon family from my home ward in Chicago, whose nephew is going to Harvard in the fall. (Turns out the world is even smaller, Peter actually knew the kid on his mission in Croatia.) Everywhere we looked there were pieces of antiquity (many famous and unmarked, so we were always saying to each other, "Hey, there's a copy of that one sculpture," or "That's not the real one, is it?"). We only had two days in Rome, so we hit up only the tiniest smidgen of the must-see sites, but by the end of the Sistine Chapel, everything sort of became white noise. It was surreal.

On the 2nd class sleeper train from Calabria (Peter took this when the person next to me left so I could actually lie down). I was terrified of getting scabies.

"So I says to the guy, 'I'll give you liberty or death!'"

These sarcophagus still-people are everywhere, even in the blazing heat of midday.

These people, including small children, are just hanging out around a fountain at 10pm. Seriously--there's nothing going on.

The Swiss Guard at a side entrance to St. Peter's--they are studly in their Sunday best.

St. Peter's--the only place in Rome where people wear sleeves or cover up their butt cheeks. The modesty police were straight out of BYU.

Peter being drawn to the great and abominable light at St. Peter's.

We missed the Pope (because we were at Mormon church), but did attend Vespers (a choral mass) staring at this. The service was beautiful, and though the spectacular art and ornamentation was over the top, I really can't blame them in attempting to visually describe Christ's power and magnificence.

Straight out of Angels and Demons!

This is a mosaic!??!!

Michelangelo's Pieta, which he created at the age of 24

The School of Athens, in just one of the gazillion rooms in the Vatican Museum. It's probably my favorite High Renaissance piece, and I was amazed by its amazing condition despite being in the open air and partial sun.

In the corner of the painting above, the artist's self-portrait: Raphael (in the black hat), not only my favorite Ninja Turtle, but also my favorite painter.

Raphael painted beautiful women with personality, like this painting of a column sculpture, several of which appear to support the radiantly colored paintings like Athens above. She looks like a superhero!

Biblical scenes and ornate frames painted on the ceiling in the Hall of the Maps in the Vatican Museums.

These may look like reliefs, but they're totally 2-dimensional paintings! (And it's not just my crappy camera--even viewed in person they look like carvings.)

Tour guides led groups in every imaginable language.

"I hate tourists!"

Laocoon and his Sons in the Octagonal Courtyard in the Vatican Museums.

Sharing a laugh with a kindred spirit.

The animal room in the Vatican Museums.

See the resemblance?

Rome has so much old stuff that we pretty much ignored this whole lot (Foro Romano)...

...until these two came along. Only 5 Euro per picture (I snuck this one)!

Yawn, more ruins. (Actually this is a pretty amazing archway, as far as archways go.)

Little known fact about the Colosseum: it was built with the money looted from the sack of Jerusalem.

Just another public bench made from ancient columns.

Lots of restaurants in the original Jewish Quarter (aka., the Ghetto) were called... Ghetto.

Just another day for a Roman seagull.

Next up: the utopia known as Berlin, and then why I'm writing this from the Brussels Airport Sheraton Hotel! (Hint: it rhymes with "schmancelled schflight")

confessions of a straying vegetarian

2009-07-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

This summer has been full of ups and downs, but I've loved all the food.

It's quite difficult to stay vegetarian in eastern Europe (for us, the Balkans and Istanbul) for two reasons, as far as I can tell:
1) The relatively recent influx of readily available cheap meat has warped "traditional" foods to be the most easily and cost-effectively prepared in mass quantities: grilled meats like döner (like gyros, but usually chicken or beef), bürek, köfte.
2) Like in Korea, people are very generous and welcoming to guests, and generally serve meats as a default (as both "traditional" foods and seemingly "better" foods than mere vegetables).

The effect of #1 is that vegetarian food is significantly more expensive, especially if we try to avoid eating only beans for a week straight. The effect of #2 is that in order to avoid significant offense (in places where I already stand out as a foreigner) and show my appreciation--especially after declining both coffee and alcohol--I must eat what is served! What a weakling I am. (Or, rather, ethnofreegetarianism is in full effect.)

The one time we dared ask whether there was a vegetarian restaurant in Skopje (or anywhere in Macedonia, for that matter), the Lush salesperson laughed at us, then suggested a Mexican place in the mall that might have some veggie stuff (which, admittedly, they did, but we didn't come to Macedonia to eat franchise-y Mexican fare).

Döner with fries and fry sauce, best with ayran (a salty yogurt drink).

We did randomly find Harmonija, a macrobiotic/vegetarian place with a terrible location (I kid you not that the entrance is in a pee-drenched tunnel) but inside was lovely staff, decor, and of course, food. We split a sample platter with the Junckers, who were like us surprised and delighted by the spread of freshly prepared falafel, salads, hummus, baba ghanoush, pasta, fried tofu, seytan wienerschnitzel cutlets, and fried mushrooms.

I tried to eat veggie in Istanbul, but the vegetarian restaurants there sort of cater toward the tourist and/or bourgeois, and have tiny beautiful portions. As much as I appreciate that there are actually vegetarian restaurants there, I wanted so badly to distinguish myself from the fashionable cigarette-wielding waifs that seem to frequent them. Nevertheless. Zencefil was a nice alternative to grilled meats. Their fresh menu:

I had patlicanli bürek (eggplant in layers of phyllo dough), and Peter had mercimek köfte (lentil "sausages"). Accompanied by homemade bread, a delicious whipped herb butter, and some smooth olive oil.

Yum! And dainty.

We also found Nature & Peace, a hippie/hipster place that had a stuffed eggplant that was amazing (and, more importantly, heftily portioned). We went twice.

With Esra, Peter's grad school friend.

My favorite food in Istanbul was dondurma, a Turkish ice cream which is incredibly thick. It's always served by street vendors who literally twirl gobs of it around and dangle your filled cone upside down and spin it around on the end of their sword/sticks. Kind of hard to explain, but the point being that the service act that goes with the ice cream is amazing, too. (Aside: The main thickening agent in dondurma is orchid root powder, thought to be an aphrodisiac because the roots are shaped like testicles, hence orchis, which is Greek for testicle.)

Look at those cones!

In Italy (more highlights upcoming), we attended a conference in Calabria in the south, where there are only ridiculously beautiful, delicious meats and cheeses. Two plates of a coursed meal we were invited to included:

The first course (clockwise from top): slightly pickled red onions, sun-dried tomato spread on rusk, fried eggplant, black olive spread on rusk, varieties of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, unknown cheese, fresh ricotta in a teensy weensy basket.

The second course: potatoes, pork sausage, pork steak, and some fancy kind of bacon that was ridiculously delicious and fatty.

In Rome, I ate in the Roman style: very simple pastas, chicory, and white pizzas. Being almost completely deprived of protein since the Calabrian infusion, though, last night we got into Berlin and had sauerkraut, potatoes, bratwurst, chips (fries), and currywurst with our friend Nathaniel from Boston (who opted for a chicken salad). I'm slightly ashamed but enjoying the eating tour, and I'm determined to return in full vegetarian force come fall.

Maybe I'm just a meat and potatoes girl after all?

things i'll [maybe] miss about istanbul

2009-07-20T04:04:00.000-04:00

kitties sleeping on bookshop stands

new and exciting chocolate bar options

kitties and giant statues of atatürk (in peter's words: "he's such a pimp!")

mustaches (theirs, not mine)

pirates

miniature stuff

jam sessions with wiimotes and nunchucks

kitties

kitties!!!

lots of things to not miss include plumbing, heat, garbage, and impreciseness in things that require preciseness (locks, prices, rules, etc). but no hard feelings.

hooray!

2009-07-20T03:49:00.000-04:00

In the kingdom of Prospect and Hampshire was born a ferocious and kind beast named Rusty. Through the patient rearing of his kind parents--the Cleric Eunice, and the Bard Peter--Rusty became a beloved ally and friend to village. Things couldn't have gotten better for this wild and charming kitten, until one day his parents went away to a far off Kingdom. Left alone to his evil Aunt and Uncle--The Priestess Gwen and the Greedy Capitalist Andrew--Rusty learned to fend for himself. This epic tale takes you through mind and soul of this courageous warrior as he confronts all of lifes trials and triumphs.

istanbul

2009-07-13T05:09:00.000-04:00

istanbul has been a bit crazy. here are some pictorial snippets (thanks marci & adam for the better photos in the bunch, as well as the wonderful company!):

istikalal street in bustling taksim, where we live

teoman, one of the kittens that lives outside our apt

gardens built in old city walls

good luck wall-hole in aya sofia

underground cisterns

curiously positioned medusa heads in underground cisterns

outside the blue mosque

topkapi tour guiding thanks to the andersons' rick steves tour

tilework in topkapi palace

wearing harem pants near the harem

mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet doors and candid camera

puts boston cobblestone to shame

famous kuru fasulye (spicy beans) at ali baba's

boat garages!

another rick steves tour for us and some friendly canucks on a ferry up the bosphorous. (we were tipped some delicous fresh yogurt!)

peter, enjoying his last carefree days as a 27-year-old

anadolu fortress - behold the sweaty conquerors!

nutella fountain!

ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream

dusky istanbul

defying the oppressive sun with another american phd couple

high adventure dice games and atrocious garment-line tans on a "private beach" that adam haggled down admission to half price for us

meyva türkü!

so long aleksandar makedonski

2009-06-30T11:15:00.000-04:00

We're leaving Skopje, our headquarters during June, for Istanbul, our July hq. Some parting shots:

a major avenue in skopje (bonus points if you can figure out what company has a complete monopoly on cell phones here)

the reptil market, where we got daily fresh baguettes

peter taking the girls for a walk (they stand out as the only mutts on leashes we have seen during our entire time in europe) past the daycare with a conspicuous picture of a black baby on the sign

a roma lady sitting in an intersection between the right turn and straight lanes with her baby. the rackets involving children (sometimes drugged, crippled, possibly with intent to earn more through pathos, a la slumdog millionaire) are heartbreaking

a bunch of kids staring at me

above and below: vozarci, a tiny village with 300 homes, a bunch of cute kitties, and ridiculously generous and welcoming people (just for asking if so-and-so lived there, we were invited to dinner, forced to have delicious refreshments, and sent home with a big bag full of beautiful produce).

a lot of craziness during our last night here, including but not limited to some war and remembrance, a huge bloody barfight involving cops and ambulances (but not me, thanks to peter holding me back), and delicious biscuit ice cream. Mirupafshim Maqedonia!

goings ons

2009-06-23T12:12:00.000-04:00

We've been traipsing around, having various [mis]adventures. Some highlights:

We went back up to Pristina for a home LDS Church meeting, Kosovar-stylez. In attendance: an SLC cop transplant working for the EU, an American-Albanian couple that met in Atlanta, a British doctoress and her Belgian hubby working for the EU, a Kosovar nursing student investigator, two U.S. national guardsmen who work on helicopters as part of the international peacekeeping force, two delightful babies, and us. I loved the absolute diversity of the group, and the fact that the Church brought us together in a way that nothing else could.

(I love the weirdness of this picture above: the soldiers who left their giant guns at the door, me in my Roma market dress ["you look like Pocahontas!"], and the most stoicly cute half-American/half-Kosovar baby this side of the Atlantic).

A horse race in/near Prizren, Kosove, (I'm never quite sure where I am) that we randomly got invited to by the local Minister of Culture, whom we met by cornering while he was getting ice cream.

Back in Skopje, a rehearsal for traditional Macedonian music and dance, easily some of the best folk dancers I have ever seen. Clearly governmental funding makes a difference in preserving these traditions, since the only other group I can think of that was of similar caliber was the [also nationally funded] folk dance/music group in Seoul.

The musicians, who were amazing. Peter has been keeping frantic fieldnotes, and I read them to get a sense of musically what's happening. One of the most striking characterisitics of the folk music around these parts is that it's not uncommon to be in 7/4 or 9/4 meter, and people automatically know how to clap to and dance to it. Groovin'.

A tiny historical museum in Galicnik, a tiny rural town in the mountains that gets overrun once a year by thousands for a huge traditional wedding celebration (one lucky couple is chosen by various criteria I didn't quite catch) on St. Peter's Day (July 11, which is Peter's birthday!). We got a personal tour of the well-kept museum, and the lovely older gentleman who was our tour guide personally knew nearly all of the people Peter asked about in relation to his research.

Sheeeeeeep crossing!!!

At the Jovan Bigorski (John the Baptist) monastery. Rather than posting pictures of the intricate icons and frescoes, which you can Google, here are the resident peacocks and me wearing a velcro wrap skirt they force the women to put on when they enter (I was hoping for the rayon knee-length flowered number that would show my jeans, but the priests chose for me).

Sunset at Lake Ohrid, looking towards the castle on the hill.

The view from the balcony of the "room" we rented for the night. It' off-tourist season, so Peter and I got to stay in a fully furnished 5-bedroom apartment with 2 bathrooms for 1350 MKD (~$30).

An ancient amphitheater. Apparently the Greeks and Romans didn't have a monopoly on this kind of stuff (though the Western media as well as my Latin teachers sure fooled me).

The view from the castle on the hill back across Lake Ohrid. Making the exhasting trek up here gave us new insight into the difficulty of building/maintaining/living in a "city on a hill."

Oops! So we got in a car accident. It really really sucked, and two cars were wrecked (note: our trusty little Skoda looked much better than their mid-size Audi), but fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Also, I take back everything I've ever said about Europeans being better drivers.

kosova

2009-06-11T04:05:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we bused up to Prishtina. I was surprised by how trendy and cosmopolitan it was, even compared to Skopje. Swarming with made up and dressed up young people, who mostly didn't give my Far Easternness a second look (which I have grown used to in Macedonia). We met with an American gentleman who works for the EU and sort of runs the Kosovo LDS non-branch at the Newborn sign. Everyone is encouraged to sign it, but we didn't, probably because we're Western squares.

We went to an Albanian folklore festival as the "honored guests" of one of Peter's colleagues. It started out with a parade of traditional music and dance.

Then we were sat right in front of one of the two giant stacks of speakers (at full volume, with people speaking/singing as if the event wasn't mic'd).

We watched a series of dances and songs, many (for me) somewhat uncomfortably nationalistic, with traditional dancers and singers mixed in with children waving Albanian flags and youth in military apparel miming the brandishing of guns.

The next day we headed to a commemoration of the 1919 uprising of Albanians in Rruogova against Ottomans/Serbs (we couldn't figure out which because all official announcements were in Albanian [which we're beginning to learn], and though most older Kosovars are fluent in Serbocroatian like Peter, many refuse to speak it for political reasons, and Peter got yelled at on a couple occasions for speaking Serbian by the normally very welcoming American-loving people). The event was again strongly nationalistic and unbelievably loud at times, and there was also almost an obsession with documentation, with camera crews running around everywhere and obstructing everyone's view. Most of our view (as seated honored guests, mostly for being from Harvard, but also possibly because our hosts may think that Peter is an Albanologist of sorts) was like this:

After some speeches and poems, there was a reenaction of the events of the uprising (including a terrible massacre of women, children, and the elderly as the able men were out fighting), complete with blaring sounds of guns and dogs as well as a sort of epic poem (all with cameramen running alongside the action).

The mountains we were in were stunning, and the crowd was deeply moved. It was amazing and troubling to witness history and politics in full swing.

another day in skopje

2009-06-09T03:20:00.000-04:00

little brown dog and bela in their beds. this also is the nursery during church, in/during which they have been very reverent. sam points out that they are macedonian orthodox, however.

the "tourist" restaurant, where we had tavce gravce and a mixed grill (a food post, including explanation of our vege-straying, coming soon). we went because of the cats, obviously. the cats are professional beggars: ruthlessly charming and aloof as it suits them

part of baskerfest, an outdoor street art festival with music, food, alcohol, and crafts. here youth from around macedonia compete in an official graffiti competition.

an accordionist just outside of baskerfest, competing somewhat unsuccessfully with a super-loud self-consciously hip croatian band across the way

a clip from a sold-out concert (we got tickets in "the fog"...we'll leave that up to your imagination if/how much we paid) from standing room only. we both liked this band a lot: baba zula, a self-described "oriental dub" turkish band with belly dancers and a sedate ottoman eugene hutz-type frontman.

a two-hour tour! (plus roma market, plus another concert)

2009-06-02T11:14:00.000-04:00

[peter writing, eunice edits]

at 7:30 we headed out to a roma market by the river here. it's like a massive flea market strung out along the river and some cement flats just above the banks. imagine an open air strip mall. or as they call out when they drive around neighborhoods, "sell old, buy new."

the recap of our buying experiences:
- peter predictably bought books, which are a pretty safe bet (since you see what you get)
- eunice bought a great dress for ~$2, hopefully you'll see in pictures soon
- she also bought a flat-iron for ~$3, which she bartered down for half price, which helped us feel less gouged when it exploded as soon as we plugged it into an outlet

at 11:35 we got a phone call (well, andrea did) asking us to take our guests (the christoffersons and wondras) on a brief tour of skopje. and to meet them in 25 minutes at their hotel (a 10 minute drive). we'll break this into an overview of things done and then highlights of things said.

things done:
- taxi ride to city center, complete with awkward-making proselytizing attempts by our party (elder wondra was the president of my mission from 1996-1999, so we had a good time with this)
- very cool museum recently opened to celebrate mother teresa (a native of skopje)

the tour guide showing a photo of mother teresa's mother (center)

headdress worn by mother teresa, as well as her albanian name on the hide: gonxhe bojaxhiu

elder christofferson signing the museum' guestbook

- wandering across the 500-year old stone bridge into the old town
- stop-in at st dimitrije's church and a chat with the priest there, who wanted to organize an ecumenical youth conference along with their kids at a local monastery
- whirlwind tour of the museum of ethnology (lots of crazy-cool outfits, one of which elder christofferson joked he might try donning for conference)
- an amble through the backstreets of the old town and through the main bazaar
- cab ride back to the hotel, where we got separated at the behest of elder chritofferson, perhaps so he could talk with peter about the region, but more likely so that elder wondra could teach eunice an everett hale verse that pres benson cited in a talk (which he told her to ask peter to set to music)

things said:
- mother teresa has been pronounced "blessed" for now because one miracle has been proved by the vatican; when another has been verified she will be named a "saint"; sister christofferson suggested just putting it to a global vote
- elder wondra pointed out that former president trajkovski of macedonia was a lay minister in the methodist church, a situation both unusual in this region(mostly orthodox or muslim) and also indicative of the country's deep multiculturalism
- [very interesting symbolism in the museum: doves, fishes, and curvy etched glass evoking filigree, teresa's father's trade]

filigree glass

fish room, soon to be with fishes

- NOT FROM HERE, BUT JUST REMEMBERED: we got talking about tonga, and elder wondra told us that tongans were his favorite members of the church, and that if tongans and germans would intermarry, they would produce the best members of the church
- elder wondra told us that the church had already invested over 500,000 EU in humanitarian aid in macedonia
- he also shared with us his impresions that "americans always seek authority," not meaning that americans want to be in power necessarily, but that we always want someone to tell us what to do. he recounted goethe's idea that we should treat those above us (in power) and those below exactly the same. he feels like americans fail at this
- IRONY?: this whole converation bookended his being accosted by a roma child begging for money, but who refused to let him go on his way even after a very generous giving of a 1 EU coin.
- while looking at some elaborate (and very large) woven rugs, elder christofferson remarked that such things were only possible when people had more time on their hands and fewer meetings to go to.
- in thie car ride back to the hotel, he shared that (as has been pretty widely acknowledged for 10 years or so), the number of missionaries in the church is dropping, but mostly because that age group is shrinking (thanks to the spike with baby boomers and their children and the consequent drop), but that a higher percentage of church members are serving missions now.

so to recap: american are too authority-loving; we should make rugs, not meetings; and if mother teresa comes up for a vote anytime soon, vote yes. (perhaps the lds church will use this as a way to regain some popularity after the prop 8 debacle last fall...)

at 3:05, peter took a nap.

at 7:45, we went to a concert of neo-traditional macedonian music. photos and video below.

dr. paul, mrs. peter, muslim mormons, and the baha men

2009-06-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

Monday was wonderful and fascinating. During the day, Peter and I sort of helped [but perhaps hindered] Andrea as she cooked up a massive Macedonian feast for the evening, taking a short break to meet with our future Albanian tutor.

Bela and Little Brown Dog watch over Peter as he writes down common Church phrases for the hired interpreter; in the background are traditional Macedonian art and textile pieces

just two of the beautiful dishes prepared: spinach cornbread and salad

The Junckers were kind enough to invite us to join the dinner with Elder and Sister Christofferson as well as Elder and Sister Wondra (Area Seventy from Vienna). It was a lovely and abundant meal, with remarkably normal conversation.

A bit fewer than 20 people (including those at dinner and the translator) showed up for the fireside/FHE, many of whom were non-member friends of Sam and Andrea's. Peter played the tinny Church-issued keyboard for "Come, Rejoice" and "Hark, All Ye Nations!" and everyone sang along, which was a pleasant surprise. Elder Christofferson started off by thanking the Junckers for hosting and then recalling that he was a missionary in Argentina when Andrea’s parents were also [senior/construction] missionaries there (under Richard G. Scott). He talked about the Church structure, comparing the modern church to the ancient church, detailing apostasy then restoration. He noted that he was the first apostle to visit Macedonia since Paul (though that plays a little loosely with the idea of "Macedonia," but we'll work on a political post sometime down the road).

He stated that there is no career path to become an apostle, and that the two qualifications are: 1) the calling itself, and 2) a testimony of Jesus Christ. He briefly described his professional career as a lawyer, and discussed the various professions of the ancient apostles as a comparisons: Matthew, Peter, Andrew, and Paul, who "must have had a PhD."

He then summarized where they had been on this trip (Croatian chapel dedication, Slovenia, Belgrade, meeting with officials in Sarajevo where there are very few Church members, then two days in Albania, where he met with the president of the country, and now to Macedonia), and then opened up for questions.

Among the questions asked were Peter's and mine. We've paraphrased the exchanges as best as we can recall:

Peter (to Sis. Christofferson): What is it like being the wife of an apostle? (This was originally my question, but it was weird/cute that Peter asked.)
Sis. Christofferson: Pretty standard, when we’re in SL he mows the lawn, does a lot of dishes, helps with laundry, and sometimes even vacuums. [Interruption from crowd: “That’s enough!,” followed by laughter, etc.] We are both very supportive of each other. Our family life is very happy, especially spiritually.
Elder Christofferson: She studies a lot, including languages and also the scriptures. She asks me questions that I don’t know the answer to, so then I have to go study more. It’s a pity we don’t know more about the wives of the ancient apostles. We know that Christ went to visit Peter’s mother-in-law when she was sick, but I’d like to know more about Mrs. Peter. It’s kind of an incomplete record.
We also have a very nice time with some of the other apostles and their wives. But we’re not together often. I was just looking at the assignments for this weekend on my Blackberry. There are apostles going to Australia, Mozambique, and Russia. So we don’t always see each other.

Eunice: First, what does it take for the Church to have an official presence in a country like Macedonia (where it currently doesn't)? And second, I’ve heard various things about why we don’t proselytize to Muslims, but I was wondering if you could clarify?
Elder Christofferson: The Church follows all the laws and meets all the requirements of a given country, but laws are very complicated. And in some places, that means that the Church is not able to send missionaries. So for example, in Israel, members can meet but we can’t have missionaries. In Saudi Arabia, ex-patriate members can meet, but Saudis cannot.
As far as the question of teaching the gospel to Muslims, in a place like Macedonia or Albania, that’s not a problem, because the law protects them through freedom of religion.
Elder Wondra: Of the 1,600 converts in Albania, approximately 1,100 of them were originally Muslims.
Elder Christofferson: But even in places where there is supposedly freedom of religion, that doesn’t always work out. We were in India, in Hydrabad and [somewhere else], and a few days later, some missionaries were attacked by a radical Hindu group. Well, this caused quite a ruckus in the street, and the police came, and arrested the missionaries! After a few days in jail, we got them out, but there are cases like this where the law says one thing and people do another.

Elder Wondra then spoke about the three best decisions he ever made:
1. to let missionaries in to talk to him while he was a student studying philosophy
2. to attend a young single adult conference with a theme, “Your young men should seek visions” [Joel 2], and he saw a vision, and then he married her
3. to plan to visit Skopje as part of the current itinerary

Sis. Wondra spoke about families being together forever, and how this meeting was a Family Home Evening more than a fireside, and it was appropriate that it was on a Monday night, because she feels like she’s with family.
[lots of jokes about refreshments being the best part of FHE]
classic moment: Sis W: We’ve been married for forty years. Elder W: Yes, we were married as children. :)

Elder Christofferson closed by saying that by reading the Book of Mormon, he could understand the Bible. He spoke of Moroni’s promise and bore his testimony of Jesus. He pointed out President Monson's photo on the wall, and stated that Thomas S. Monson is the president of the Church, but the head of the Church is Jesus Christ.

Lots more stuff which I found spiritually enlightening. We had treats and talked amongst ourselves informally, and there was an awesome moment when we let Bela and Brown Dog out of the bedroom, and Elder Christofferson grinning turned to me and said, "Who let the dogs out? Who, who?" Which pretty much made my week.

the Junckers, Wondras, Christoffersons, and McMurrays!

31 may 2009

2009-05-31T20:00:00.000-04:00

We had church at the Junckers’ home, complete with hymns (to CD instrumentation), "non-branch" business, sacrament, Sunday School, and combined RS/EQ. It was lovely and made me appreciate the priesthood. Peter gave the Joseph Smith lesson on forgiving, and how it will change us and make us more like Christ. We played some games and relaxed with the doggies.

the street-view of Sam & Andrea's home

the front of their apt

Peter with Bela ("white") and Little Brown Dog

30 may, wedding day

2009-05-31T19:02:00.000-04:00

I made some Amish ginger cookies and helped Andrea make lemon bars for the upcoming fireside/FHE. Andrea and Sam went to a super exclusive U.S. Embassy garage sale (passport and connections needed to attend), and then we played some rousing rounds of Greed with Andrea (winners: Andrea and Peter).

Peter and I got a 10-minutes prior invite to Aleksandar’s second cousin’s wedding. We rushed over just in time for the traveling party to leave the groom’s house via live band (accordion, trumpet, alto saxophone, drummer) and horo (a kind of line dance).

Then ribboned, honking cars paraded to the bride’s home, where the singing and dancing resumed...

...and after the dancing party stormed the bride’s room, ...and gave her shoes stuffed with money, they ate and sang and danced while they "abducted" her.

the groom, bride, bride's father, groom's father

one of the many tables of food

the bride receiving jewelry

blocking the streets with the horo

As the party moved on for the civil service, church service, and dinner, we hung out with Ljiljana, spied on her 17-year-old cat while he seduced some lady-cats, looked over some of her old photos, and reminisced about her husband, Vladimir Šopov, a poet who passed away ten years ago. We both opted to stay in for the night, watched some crime tv (British subtitled in Croatian), and called it a night.

28+29 may 2009

2009-05-31T18:00:00.000-04:00

We ran some errands with Aleksandar, had dinner with Sam and Andrea, then headed to a concert of the Offest series: Lila Downs from Mexico and her band. Sadly Patti Smith comes while we’re in Turkey...

We hung out with Jordan, a friend of Aleks’s, and talked in English about lots of politics, life, etc. Then went for cimit (oiled pastry bread inside a small loaf of bread) and yogurt drink to wrap up the evening (~3am).

The next day Andrea treated us to a lunch at Divino, a lovely restaurant, where we had lots of veggie and not-so-veggie Macedonian cuisine. We also checked out a Macedonian Orthodox church,

...the Bit bazaar (where they sell everything) and the green [produce] market to stock up for Monday's dinner/FHE/fireside with Elder Christofferon and co. Lots of people stared at Eunice; there are no Asians here as far as we can tell. Dinner at the Junckers’ (enchiladas and salad) with Lee, who comes down from Zagreb every month to home teach them (and who we think is an Embassy spy). Peter then left to concert-go with Aleksandar and Jordan (tried to see Croatian band, and then went to street musician festival). Eunice opted to stay home and finish reading Coetzee’s Disgrace, which is a great and depressing book about race, sex, and power in modern South Africa, but also about stray animals and their reflection on human existence which she’s been thinking about a lot given how many sad strays there are everywhere.

27 may 2009

2009-05-31T17:00:00.000-04:00

Today we took a trip to Tetovo in Western Macedonia with Aleksandar, Ljiljana, and Daniel. On the way we stopped at the home of Ivo, Aleksandar's friend from childhood, now a gastroenterologist who works in the papal hospital in Rome (he confirmed all the Dan Brown theories, of course). There are so many people here whose families have been friends for generations.

In Tetovo, we visited:

the Sarena Dzamija (the Colored Mosque), every inch hand-painted with thousands of eggs in the paint to keep it vibrant

check out those numbers

a pulpit

the ceiling

balconies

a nearby house with cardak/harem (a portion of the upper floor that's open-air and used for receiving guests)

a ski resort in the mountains with sheep playing with see-saws...

...and huge Macedonian shepherd dogs

Dinner back at Aleks’s was cold lamb, salad, peppers;

the remains of the lamb

We finished up with a dessert of eclairs and boza at "the center of the boza universe" (boza is this traditional tangy fermented fruity, grainy, egg-y drink; an Albanian version of what Macoy used to drink every morning?). We hung out, watched a documentary on corn (“King Corn”), had interesting conversation about activism within context of academics (because of Aleks’s work on food production and his upcoming documentary film on food production up at the ski resort we had visited). Daniel packed for Greece/Egypt, and we headed home.

26 may 2009

2009-05-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

Tuesday was the first real day in Skopje.

the main Macedonian Orthodox church in Skopje

We met up with Aleksandar, Peter's friend and fellow Harvard grad student (studying Ottoman history), his mother Ljiljana, who was on vacation from being a judge, and Aleks's friend from NELC, Daniel.

"coffee" at Aleksandar's

We ran errands with Aleksandar: registered at the police station, started looking into cell phone options before lunch, and investigating Albanian language classes after. For lunch, Ljiljana and Aleksandar ordered a lamb to be slaughtered for all of us (“You guys aren’t vegetarian, right?”). It was huge and delicious and sad (Ljiljana cried when it was delivered).

the ridiculous feast

Peter, Eunice, Daniel, Aleksandar

We then were treated to a walking tour in the afternoon of the old town (across bridge, mostly Albanian neighborhood)

the old town, with a mosque in the background

overlooking Skopje, and its giant cross on the mountain

amid ruins being excavated

In the evening, we went to cafes with Aleks’s cousin and friends, Daniel, and saw a live band playing blues at Ballet, a trendy local bar.

25 may 2009

2009-05-31T13:47:00.000-04:00

After a couple days in Zagreb and an overnight stint in Beograd, we have finally reached Skopje, major destination #1 for the summer. Here’s a brief recap of a few things. While in Zagreb, we were staying with Dubravko and Mirjana, friends from Peter's mission, which was fun and very relaxing. They live with their two kids about 20 minutes outside of Zagreb proper. Dubravko picked us up at the airport and then gave us a couple hours to stroll through the city: we checked out the main cathedral (below), an overlook on the city, a little festival on the main square celebrating Koprivnica, if Peter remembers correctly, which looked not too unlike the King Richard’s Renaissance Faire we went to last summer in Carver, MA.

main cathedral in Zagreb

After that, we spent most of the next day-and-a-half at Dubravko’s, sleeping a lot (we’re both a little under the weather, with the usual jetlag to boot) and playing games with the kids. Eunice is picking up on some good words thanks to Memory (Memorij) and Guess Who (Pogodi Tko) with Beka, while Peter played some good chess with Pako. Eunice dominated Sponge Bob Monopoly, and maybe even picked up a few number words (not to mention “uzmi 4000 kn.” [take 4000 Croatian kuna]), which she seemed to draw frequently. We also got to meet a wonderful family from Paraguay. They have some Croatian family in the past and are now working with Dubravko on importing and selling different teas (mostly mate) in Croatia. So we had many delicious samples with stevia and lemon.

Eunice, Peter, Dubravko and Mirjana (back), and Patrik and Rebeka (children) at the first LDS Croatian chapel dedication

Sunday was a district conference for the LDS community in Zagreb. Lots of familiar faces for Peter, most of them doing well. It was a special occasion, as they had just completed building the first chapel in Croatia, so Elder Todd Christofferson of the Twelve came and dedicated the building. He said he hoped there might be a temple there some day, which was exciting.

We traveled that afternoon to Beograd with Sam and Andrea, an LDS American couple living and working in Skopje, Macedonia. They’re great, it was a lot of fun riding with them and checking out Beograd. Eunice quickly found some animal friends: a bunch of cats (including a “EuroRusty,” according to us) in the courtyard of our hostel, and then a big old stray dog out by the castle overlooking the Sava/Danube.

EuroRusty!

the castle

Eunice also tasted her first egg-on-pizza and her first krofna while in Beograd, not too bad for an overnight stop. The drive into Skopje was pretty straightforward from there, we stayed at Sam and Andrea’s and may do so for the next month. It’s really nice here plus, as Eunice would surely want me to point out, they have two dogs they’ve adopted off the streets. How could we resist?

krofna!

the opposite of organic

2009-03-30T09:18:00.000-04:00

It's the future of strawberries.

grrl skout kookies

2009-03-18T08:04:00.000-04:00

As a proud alum of Troop 102 (Kenilworth, IL), I would never endorse knocking off the time-honored tradition of Girl Scout cookies. However, last night I happened to make these deliteful caramel shortbread bites that Samoans could appreciate.

They're sort of a pain to make, and not as pristine as their counterparts (see below), but they're tasty, and at the very least they make me appreciate the work put into these cookies that make 16 tiny morsels worth $3 (and the second most popular GS cookie after Thin Mints).

An argument that always arises in our household around cookie season is regarding the change in name of these delectables from Samoas to Caramel deLites. Conspiracy theories are as follows:

1) "Samoas" was too racially insensitive.
2) The name was changed to reflect the switch from dark to milk chocolate.
3) The company that makes the cookie changed, so they changed the name.

I'm tending toward the final option, since several other (albeit more homely-tasting) cookies suffered the same fate. Remember Do-si-dos? Now Peanut Butter Sandwiches. And Tagalongs? Try Peanut Butter Patties. Trefoils are now Shortbread. I think I speak for everyone when I demand that this literalism stop. Until then, I'll continue making my Tongas.

pi day

2009-03-14T15:06:00.000-04:00

Peter and I decided to celebrate Pi Day by going to Petsi Pies, and we just happened to get there at 1:59pm. As we walked in, we noticed a sign in the window saying that at that precise time, they were giving out free pies to celebrate Pi Day (3.14159..., remember?).

Inside was quasi-chaos, but no sooner had we walked in when a jolly fellow bounded out of the kitchen with a box full of mini-pies and bellowed, "Who doesn't have a pie yet?" and then proceeded to bestow his gorgeous treats on pie-less patrons (including us). What a freakin' awesome job, to deliver joy and deliciousness to confused and hungry people! Happy Pi Day indeed.

the ravenous masses inside Petsi's (3/14, 1:59pm)

a beautiful mixed berry (strawberry, blueberry, raspberry) mini-pie

preparing for devour-ation

partay!

2009-03-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

last night we had the pleasure of hosting 20 wonderful persons for a tastylicious potluck and talking about issues of social justice as they relate to mormonism. what could be better?

the spread, including homemade bread, fancy chips, fruit, rice, vegan mango curry, veggie chili, hummus and veggies, roast chicken, veggie casserole, scalloped potatoes, yams, sauteed spinach, roasted seaweed, vegan muffins, vegan rice krispie treats, monkey bread, cinnamon rolls, and ice cream!

an action shot of the main activity

jason on the shoe situation: "you're so korean!"

several of our friends commented on the spaciousness of our home, prompted no doubt by the newly visible floor of our study (thanks peter!). but it was actually quite miraculous that everyone fit in our apartment, and thanks are owed to flexible people (physically as well as logistically) and the hadley's and seawright's for lending and transporting jeffs. and to our godson soren for managing to make even the vicious yanking of our kitten's whiskers look adorable. and to everyone for bringing yummies and just being there. 10q!

2009-02-12T08:35:00.000-05:00

a few of my favorite things

2009-01-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

Currently, it's llamas and cats. My dream is to run a llama and cat farm in Vermont, probably modeling this one that raises llamas and miniature donkeys. Only my farm would give out Ben & Jerry's ice cream made of pure human breast milk.

Here are two pictures that demonstrate how awesomely llamas and cats would go together.

Rusty will father my cat herd, and I'm working on acquiring the llama equivalent. Hopefully he'll be just as adorable/crazy.

surprise

2008-12-09T22:02:00.000-05:00

So I had ordered these nice Wusthof knives on-line for my mom's Christmas present, so that she'd finally stop using her broken-tipped 20-year-old 99-cent hacker. But the company I bought them from made a mistake about the knives being in stock and rather than wait for the back order, I decided to cancel the order to buy from somewhere else. To make sure they didn't also mistakenly charge me, I decided to check my credit card account on-line and make sure everything was alright. That's when I saw something that made my heart sink:

12/04/2008 Sale AIR PACIFIC (Travel) $X,XXX.XX
12/04/2008 Sale AIR PACIFIC (Travel) $X,XXX.XX
12/04/2008 Sale TRAVELOCITY.COM(Travel) $21.98

Not only am I not traveling anywhere that would cost quadruple digits in the near future, but I also bum sketchy unsecured wireless. Just in case I had become recently amnesic, I quickly searched through my email and made sure that Peter and I had no such travel plans set. Nope. I started panicking. I'd been hacked.

Hands shaking, and hoping that my credit card company would be understanding, I called Visa customer service ready to tell my [I-had-this-coming] sob story and to beg and cry, if need be. Meanwhile, I was still searching for any evidence that I had racked up the charges myself, or that Peter had. As I was put on hold for the "Charges you don't recognize" option, I logged onto Peter's email account. Second from the top was a curious email from him to his parents with the following subject:

SHHH - we're coming to tonga! (jan 17-27)

I started laughing just as the customer service agent picked up. I babbled something incoherent to her about discovering a charge that is probably a Christmas present from my husband. She laughed and said it happens all the time, and that if it turns out that I'm mistaken, I could always call back and get the charges taken off, and that I shouldn't worry. We were both terrifically cheered by the conversation and wished each other a merry Christmas.

For families

2008-11-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, some half dozen Mormons rallied for equal rights at a protest at Boston City Hall. Laurel Ulrich called us brave, but mostly we just watched inspirational speeches and got cheers and hugs from complete strangers. It was lovely.

munch munch

2008-11-12T18:15:00.000-05:00