Adventures in Western Australia

Sorry, my vast fan base -- long time, no write! Things have just been that busy!

In addition to living and working here, we have decided that it is important to take advantage of our location and (occasionally at least) be tourists. Last month, we went on a really cool tour. We took a tour like the actual tourists, in a group, on a bus, and with a tour guide. It was no ordinary tour, though.

Our transportation was a 4-wheel-drive bus. It was really tall and you had to ascend some very steep steps to get in.

Our chariot awaits!

It looks tall enough in that picture, but for scale, here it is with Vinny:

4WD bus with tall five-year-old for scale.

 First, we went to Caversham Wildlife Park and got to see the animals:

Koala

Vinny feeding a kangaroo

After a stop in the lobster-fishing town of Cervantes for lunch, we went on to Nambung National Park, home of the Pinnacles, some very strange and very ancient rock formations.

First views of the Pinnacle formations (click for a bigger view).

Panorama of some pinnacles (click for a bigger view).

A pinnacle viewed through another pinnacle.

I thought this looked like a Picasso pinnacle!

The pinnacles were truly amazing natural formations, and I really enjoyed our time there. But soon it was time to load back up in the bus so we could go to a gigantic sand dune near the town of Lancelin, where our bus took advantage of its four-wheel-drive capabilities and drove around on the sand dunes (with us inside, except for the last turn, where Jeff got off and took the below picture).

Four-wheeling bus on the sand dunes

Then, we got to go sand-boarding, which as it turned out was really fun for Vinny. I didn't enjoy it as much as he did, probably because I ended up getting sand in places that I did not think it was possible to get sand.

Vinny sandboarding for the first time

But a good time was had by all, and I'm really glad we took the tour!


We've also gone several times now to King's Park, a 1000-acre park in Perth. There is lots to do and see there. The first time, we went to the "Lotterywest Federation Walkway," a large suspended bridge from which you have a great view of the park and the city. The last time we were there, we went to the Naturescape area, which is a natural bushland area for kids. Vinny had a blast climbing the lookout towers, climbing on ropes, and wading in the water.

In the future, we are going to explore more of this enormous and diverse state. Western Australia encompasses nearly 40% of the Australian continent, so there is lots to see. Our tourism will be facilitated by purchasing a car, which we will finally be able to do next month when we close on our house in Tennessee.

Stream-of-Consciousness Bullets of Getting There

We made it to Australia on Wednesday! It was a long journey. Here are a few stream-of-consciousness bullets about the trip and the past few days:

• Vinny had never been on a plane before. I was worried that he would not like it. He enjoyed our short flight from Lexington to Dallas, thank goodness. But then I was worried he would not enjoy the flight from Dallas to Brisbane, which is literally the longest flight possible with current commercial aviation technology.
• I need not have worried. They had an in-flight entertainment system which kept him occupied for the whole flight.
• I, however, was ready to get off that plane. The jerk in front of me kept his seat reclined the entire flight, which put my in-flight entertainment system so close to my face that it was almost too close to view. Thank goodness they made him sit up during the meals!
• Speaking of meals, they fed us well. Even during our cross-continental flight from Sydney to Perth.
• I was really disappointed that, when we went through immigration, customs, and quarantine, I did not see any of my favorite people from "Border Security: Australia's Front Line." I was also disappointed that nobody wanted to see the list of the contents of our bags that we had so painstakingly compiled. But, it was probably for the best, because we had a fairly tight connection.
• We almost missed our flight to Perth because we almost left Vinny's car booster seat behind. We forgot that we had it checked in as a seventh bag. By the time we figured it out, we had gone through customs and were rechecking our bags for our flight to Perth. Jeff went to the baggage help desk and retrieved it, and he finally got it just in time that we could run through the airport and be the last people to board the flight to Perth, which had fortunately been delayed.
• Once we arrived, we were met by a friend who is also an American woman living in Perth. She is the friend of a friend at my former workplace (still feels weird to call it that). I had spoken with her a lot over the internet and corresponded with her via email, so it was really nice to meet her in person. She was very friendly and very helpful.
• On Thursday, we went into Perth to get bus passes and phones. We purchased the bus passes and then we ended up using them to go to a post office where they had some particular phones that were unlocked and could be used on any network and were on clearance. 
• Yup, we went to the post office to buy phones. Turns out you can buy lots of strange things at the post office. Perhaps the most bizarre was that last week they had a special on sewing machines.
• We have decided that we are going to try to go without a car for as long as possible. It is doable here. We are staying in temporary housing for 4 weeks, and it is about 1/2 km to the nearest grocery store. It is possible to take the bus to where I work. We are looking for similarly walkable longer-term housing.
• They use the metric system here. I am still trying to get used to it. I do have some standards though, and I will be spelling the base unit of length as "meter" until the day I die.
• On Friday, we got a bank account and I had to sign some papers for my soon-to-be workplace. Jeff and Vinny got to meet some of my future colleagues and see where I will be working.
• On Saturday, our American friend took us to the biggest farmers market I have ever seen. It was amazing, especially considering it is winter right now in Australia. We bought a whole chicken, some potatoes, carrots, mandarin oranges and apples, and a liter of Gurnsey milk. We cooked the chicken and potatoes for dinner, and flavored the chicken with salt and pepper and a lemon we had picked in a nearby yard. The lemon was huge -- so big I could only use half of it on the chicken.
• Speaking of winter, I am having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it is winter. To me, it feels like we must be in the mountains. That explains the cool weather (because it is really not winter weather from my perspective). Although the lemon tree, and the gigantic aloe bush, and all the other strange vegetation contradict this theory.
• I start work on Monday. I am looking forward to it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to my vast readership!

My work situation is not yet resolved, but that doesn't mean I can't write about other things!

We had a great holiday.  We got a chance to see the whole family on both sides.  First we visited my dad and stepmom, and saw my sisters and their families and my bonus siblings and their families as well.  Then we went to visit Jeff's parents, and got a chance to see his siblings and their families, and spend some extra time with his nephews.

Vinny got a lot of great presents.  The highlight to him was a portable washing machine that Santa brought for him.  It is a small, hand-cranked washing machine that is basically a giant salad spinner.  The moment he saw it, he lost all interest in opening his stocking or playing with anything else.  He pretended to wash a lot of things, but it wasn't until yesterday that he and I actually used it to wash a few of his clothes.  It worked amazingly well!

In other news, I had long been annoyed by the hideously ugly wallpaper in the master bathroom at our house, especially because it was halfway peeling off the walls.  So I decided to solve that problem by removing the wallpaper.  Once I began peeling the wallpaper off, it was really hard to stop.  I was late to work on Friday because I couldn't stop peeling the wallpaper.  The wallpaper is mostly gone, but even halfway done it is an improvement.  The problem is that the bathtub and tile in the bathroom is a hideous dusty rose color from the 60's.  It's on the orange side of pink -- kind of like this.  It is the equivalent of that 70's avocado color, only pink.  My plan is to paint the walls a neutral color that will not clash with the dusty rose.  After this project is finished, I'm going to replace the hideous peeling vinyl floor in there.

Making History

This morning we left for Illinois, to join my sister and should-be sister-in-law in making history.  You see, today marks the beginning of civil unions in Illinois, and my sister and her better half are among the first to be joined in civil unity.

There's a big ceremony tomorrow morning in a Chicago park, in which couples from across the state will participate.  The governor and the mayor will both speak.  I am really excited to be a part of the festivities and I am also looking forward to the time we will spend together after the ceremony!

Alaskan Adventures

The thing I didn't mention in the previous post is that my business travel was to Alaska.  There was a conference up there and afterwards, I stayed for a few days extra.  My sister Rachel flew up from Vancouver to join me in exploring the Alaskan countryside.

We took a train from Fairbanks to Denali National Park, where we spent two days.  One morning we had a wilderness tour in the park, which consisted of riding along the road in a bus with a tour guide, periodically stopping for pictures, especially when wildlife crossed our field of vision.  We saw many animals, including moose, caribou, fox, and a lynx.

We also saw the dramatic Denali landscape,

and Mount McKinley.

I took so many pictures, my camera ran out of battery power and I had to stop.  I am not much of a picture-taking person, but I felt compelled to preserve the experience somehow.

For most of the rest of our time, we hiked around some trails at the entrance to the park, and admired the rushing glacial melt and the spectacular peaks around us.

I was fascinated by all the ice on the ground, still melting.

The sun essentially did not set the whole time we were there -- at best it was twilight for a few short hours before the day began anew, so we had to draw the curtains tightly if we were to get any sleep.

It was a really amazing experience that words cannot begin to describe -- and neither can pictures.  To be in a place so untouched by humans, so wild, so vast, so rugged -- it was a very emotional experience for me.  I pretty much could not wipe the goofy grin off my face.  I exclaimed at the amazing landscapes, the high mountain peaks, the wild animals.  I felt so connected to the natural world -- more connected than ever before.  I could see why people fall in love with Alaska and stay, despite the harsh conditions.

Business Travel

I am on business travel this week, at a conference.  Overall, I am having a lot of fun.  But there are moments that are not fun, especially for a woman business traveler in a male-dominated field.  Over the past four days, I have had the following experiences:

• My supervisor's supervisor (hereafter referred to as Boss) and I were traveling on the same flights.  Upon boarding the plane, I saw Boss was already on, so I made a comment to him about the legroom of his seat on the plane.  His row-mate volunteered to trade seats with me in exchange for payment so I could sit next to Boss.  I suggested he take it up with Boss, since he is richer than I am. The guy discounted monetary wealth as unimportant and waxed rhapsodic about happiness and the quality of life.  At that point his words combined with the creepy vibes I'd been getting from him made me realize what type of payment he was thinking of, so I declined and disengaged from the conversation.  My suspicions about his motives were confirmed when Boss told me the guy had invited us to join him in the airport lounge.  (Hint: he was not interested in Boss's company.)
• Upon checking in at the hotel, I was asked if Boss and I were together.  No, we are not.  Also, he has kids who are my age.
• At a social event, I was mistaken for being married to another one of my colleagues.  At least this person realized that I worked in the same place as my would-be spouse.
• Conference attendees get free breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  This morning, I was charged for my breakfast, because I was obviously the spouse of one of the men I was eating with.

These are small slights, but they all add up to make business travel a lot less enjoyable for me than it is for my male colleagues.

House of (Poor) Health

This has been a month of sickness at Casa Rebecca.  It began on April 1, when we were supposed to go to Kentucky to see my sister, should-be sister-in-law, and nephew, who were at my parents' house.  Jeff was too under the weather to go along, so I took Vinny up there for a 24-hour visit, because I had to get back home to fly out early Sunday morning for a conference.  We were stopped on the interstate in the middle of nowhere because there had been an accident, when Vinny started screaming about his eyes hurting.  Two hours later, my bonus mom looked at his eyes and declared that he had pinkeye.

I felt like the world's best aunt: bringing my contagious child to expose my nephew to disease at the very beginning of an epic two-month cross-country trip.  But I took Vinny to an urgent treatment center on Saturday morning to get him medicated, and then we devised ways that the boys could play together without spreading infection.

Treating Vinny for the pinkeye was not so fun.  He was really scared of the drops and I would just hold him down and put them in, but I didn't know how Jeff was going to handle that after I was away.  But luckily, Jeff had a stroke of genius and let Vinny put allergy eyedrops into Jeff's eyes.  After it became a mutual eye-dropping process, there was no longer an issue.

On Sunday I traveled to San Francisco for a conference.  I was staying at a beautiful hotel at the top of Nob Hill.  On Monday I was abnormally tired -- beyond the usual fatigue of sleep deprivation, jet lag, etc.  Monday night I woke up with severe chills -- I suffered through them all night because I had not thought to pack any medicine.  In the morning, I had a choice: walk three blocks straight downhill to a pharmacy, and then try to hike the three blocks straight back up, or pay $10 for some gold-plated tylenol from the hotel.  I paid the $10.  They even delivered it to me.  I spent most of Tuesday lying around in my room.

I found out that a friend of mine was going to be on the same flights as me on the way home, and on Wednesday morning we left San Francisco.  For the connection I had requested assistance to get between the gates, so I got to ride one of those people movers for the first time, which was fun.  But the landings of my flights were incredibly painful to my ears, which were apparently congested (I had no idea until I flew).  I understand why babies cry when the plane is landing.  I was tugging at my ear lobes in the hopes that something would help.  When I got home, my ears were so clogged that the outside world sounded like it does when I wear earplugs.

The next morning, I went to the medical center at work, where they gave me some antibiotics for my ear infection, and then I stayed home for two days.  I was feeling enough improved to go to work on Monday, especially because I wanted to avoid the paperwork.*  But I did go to my regular doctor on Wednesday, because my ears were still incredibly painful.

I am a good and sharing wife, and I passed whatever I had over to Jeff.  I had blamed him for my illness, and it may be that he did give it to me and then I gave it back to him in mutated form (with earache).  So he went to the doctor this past Tuesday because he was feeling so lousy.

On Tuesday I hosted an interviewee.  Normally I am polite and shake people's hands, but I did not shake his because I had noticed that my eyes were feeling grainy and painful and were getting kind of pink.  The next day I went to the doctor and she confirmed that I had pinkeye.  And yesterday it seemed like Jeff was coming down with it too.  We have washed all the towels and sheets in hot water and are now using them only once before throwing them back in the wash again, until the infection subsides.  We are also watching Vinny's eyes to make sure that he doesn't get it again.  He has been dispensing the drops into my eyes for me, and takes the whole process, including hand-washing, very seriously.

We had invited my dad and bonus mom down for the weekend, but they uninvited themselves after finding out about all the germs in our household.  "We'll come another time," they said.  We've been sick for nearly 4 weeks in this household, but surely it's got to end!


* My workplace has a strange policy that if you are absent from work for more than 4 days in a row with the same condition, you are placed on short-term disability.  Weekends count against the number of days, probably to discourage people from using sick days for vacation.  This is not the first time I have dragged myself in to work in order to avoid the arduous paperwork process.  All you have to do is survive a half day and the counter gets reset.

Travel and Home Again

We took Vinny to his Grandparents' house on the Wednesday before we left for the conference, because we wanted to take a CPR/First Aid class on Thursday.  We did, and are now both certified in CPR and First Aid, at least for the next year.

We left on Saturday, driving to New Orleans.  We spent one night in a beautiful new hotel for a bargain price (the gubmint rate, since I was on business travel!) before arriving mid-afternoon.

Jeff had a great time in New Orleans -- he explored the French Quarter and went on a cemetery tour.  I spent the majority of my waking hours in the convention center, although I did get a chance for an evening beignet excursion to Cafe du Monde, and to go out to dinner one night with my boss and his wife (and Jeff too), and another night with Jeff alone.  I tried a lot of new foods, including rabbit, which tastes like a cross between chicken and pork.

Finally the conference was over, and before leaving New Orleans, we went on a swamp tour.  We saw lots of alligators and other creatures, and we got to hold a baby alligator.  Then we started driving.

We stayed in that same hotel at the same gubmint rate -- unfortunately I suffered a migraine when we got out of the car for dinner, so Jeff made the executive decision to stop.  We arrived home on Saturday evening -- only to get up early the next morning to go pick up Vinny.

We spent the afternoon with Jeff's sister and brother-in-law, allowing Vinny to play with his cousins.  It was a lot of fun, especially for Vinny, but we had to leave earlier than we would have liked, to make it home at a decent hour.  I was terrified that the migraine would make a reappearance, but luckily I remained migraine-free.  This morning marked the return to our regular schedule -- Vinny to school and me to work.

Prepping for the Conference

Remember last November, when I was the signage chair for a major conference in my field, and how exhausted and burned out I was, and how I said I wasn't going to do anything for the conference this year?

Yeah.  Uh, so, I didn't exactly keep my promise to myself there.  I'm not doing anything as hard or involved as that, but I am one of the judges for a student competition, a speaker for the part of the program aimed at attracting minorities to the field, and I am presenting a session (along with two of my colleagues) at the conference.  Also, I was asked to help some students who won a prestigious fellowship find their way around the conference.  (I was also told I should use this as an opportunity to recruit shamelessly for my employer, so I have them all set to meet some Important People from my workplace.)

The conference is in New Orleans, which is just close enough to drive to (although far enough that it is still a big trip).  Jeff is going with me, and we are once again leaving Vinny with Grandma and Grandpa, who were kind enough to look after him once again.  Unfortunately, their house is in the opposite direction that we need to go, making the trip about six hours longer each way (since we have to go there and back once each way).  But I think Vinny will have a good time, and so will Jeff, exploring the city.

Oh, Hi!

I've been a little bit busy lately!  So busy that I failed to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of my beloved son (that was October 5), or discuss the family party that we held for him, or talk about the student who started working with me at the beginning of the month, or the vacation I've taken for the past week.  I'll try to remedy that right now:

• I can hardly believe that Vinny is 4.  He is such an amazing little boy and I am so glad he came into my life four years ago.  Every day I love him more and more, as if that is even possible.
• Since his birthday was on a Tuesday, we held a family celebration the Sunday before, just the three of us.  Vinny's aunt and cousin had a little online video chat with him for his birthday.  We ate homemade pizza and a Dora the Explorer cake for his birthday dinner (more on that cake later).  He got lots of great presents, including a remote controlled car; Lego Rock Band plus a guitar, drum set, and microphone for the game; and a fun set of gears that you can put together on interlocking backing.  He was positively thrilled with the whole thing.
• He had requested a Dora cake for his birthday.  I said okay, I would make him a Dora cake.  Jeff bought a Dora cake pan and I baked the cake.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was decorating it.  You need 10 different colors for decorating Dora.  For example, she has light brown eyes, but dark brown hair.  Furthermore, she has the whites of her eyes, the light brown iris, the black pupil, and a little dot of white in her eyes.  She also has a bracelet that has light blue, dark blue, and yellow beads in it.  Luckily I bought some sort of frosting mix that was probably actually some amalgam of petrochemicals.  I mixed up all the ten different colors of frosting in ten different bowls, but I was having a lot of trouble with doing everything I had to do to follow the directions.  I had to change out frosting colors, which was an arduous process, especially because I had only one tip of each kind that was required.  A lot of times I just had to do one or two little tiny things and then I had to move on to the next color (for example, red was used only for Map's mouth and nothing else!).  By the end I was going so nuts that Dora's eyes and hair were the same color, and furthermore, she did not have a pupil, not to mention that glimmer in her eyes.  And she evidently forgot to put her bracelet on, because even though I had mixed the blue colors, I did not use them because if I had, I would have completely lost any shred of sanity I had at that point.  I had allowed myself two hours to decorate Dora; it ended up taking five!
• I have a student working with me who worked with me the summer before last.  He has a prestigious fellowship and worked with me the other summer on something completely unrelated to his research.  He asked me if he could come back and I could help him with something that he's doing for his research.  I said "of course" and the rest is history.  He's a really smart dude and easy to work with.  He is close to graduation, so he asked me to write him some letters of recommendation for jobs.  I'm trying to figure out if there's a way we can hire him at my workplace.
• Last weekend, we went to Memphis.  We saw the children's museum, which Vinny loved.  They had this wind tunnel with a model airplane in it, and you could turn the fans on to create the wind, then operate some levers which would operate the flaps on the airplane and lift it into the air.  He absolutely loved that wind tunnel because it had fans!  He was talking about the "fan tunnel" for days.  We also went to a place called Incredible Pizza, which was a pizza buffet plus arcade games and also larger games such as miniature bowling and go-karts.  Vinny rode with me in a go-kart, and we were winning the race until somebody hit my go-kart in the back left corner and spun me out, which caused the race to stop until they cleared it up.  Some of the other go-karts had passed me before they had to stop for the cleanup, and they ended up winning.  Anyhow, the food was pretty good and the games were fun too.  The next day we went to Graceland, and that was a lot of fun to the adults in the party but not so fun for the four-year-old.  On Monday we headed back home but we stopped at Shiloh National Battlefield Park, where a major Civil War battle was fought.
• Then, I stayed home for the rest of the week.  I went in to work for a half day on Wednesday, but otherwise I just spent the week at home.  I did some cleaning up around the house, and I did some shopping, and Jeff and I went out to lunch together once, but I basically took it easy all week, which was really nice.  I really needed to get away from work for a while, and I feel really refreshed after this time away.
• Today, Dad and Marvis are coming to celebrate Vinny's birthday.  It should be a lot of fun!

There and Back Again

We were gone for a week, headed up to Wisconsin for a family reunion.  Overall, a good time was had -- both of my sisters and their families were there, and Vinny had a great time playing with his cousins -- but there were some hair-raising moments.  Family is a double-edged sword -- it can bring out the best and the worst in people.  It was quite interesting (in a horrifying sense) to see sibling rivalries still playing out, fifty years later.  It was somewhat jaw-dropping to see the blatantly rude glares and dagger-throwing stares of family members whose fundamentalist views were so rigid that they condemned their nearest relatives.  But it was also refreshing to see the fierce loyalties between family members whose views may differ, but still share the bond of love and mutual respect.

As you might guess from the previous paragraph, although I took vacation days to attend this event, it was no vacation.  But it was at least a different type of tension than the one I experience every day at work, and there's something to be said for variety.

All of this is to say that I am a woman in desperate need of a vacation.  I've been (to quote Dr. Isis) losing my junk a lot lately.  The stress is enough to drive a person crazy.

I can't take a substantial vacation yet, though.  I have a big review the middle of this month, and then it's crunch time for my super-hard project.  I won't have a chance to take more than a long weekend until October.  In the meantime, I believe I will have to plan that week in October, to have something to look forward to.  So, vast blogging audience, any suggestions for a family with a will-be four-year-old, a destination that won't break the bank, won't take too long to travel to, and will be enjoyable for all three parties involved?

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there who are reading this blog!  We already celebrated last Sunday, because I have to leave on a business trip late this afternoon.  We went out to a restaurant of Jeff's choice, and I made him his favorite cake for dessert.  It was a good celebration.

Also, a special Fathers Day shout-out to my dad.  Thanks for being such a good dad and for loving me unconditionally.

Weekend Fun

In a rare moment of convergence, both of my sisters and their sons will be at my dad and bonus mom's house on Sunday. This means that we'll be heading up there tomorrow and spending all day Sunday with them. There will be a cousin party. My sisters and I will have special sister time. I am bringing a cake baked by me and my favorite baking assistant, to celebrate my bonus mom's birthday (which was last month, but who's counting?!?!).

I am looking forward to this little break from work. For my latest responsibility, there is a hugely important report due to the gubmint after the Ides of March. I've been working on it nonstop for the past two weeks, so it will be nice to have some fun times with my family.

Business Travel

Last week I was on business travel to our nation's capital. Now, as you all know, I hate travel, especially when it's business travel and not vacation travel. This was going to be a pretty long trip: leave home on Monday, return Friday night, and I was not feeling too happy about it. To make the trip more palatable, I arranged to have dinner on Wednesday night with one of my cousins who lives in the area.

As it turned out, a gigantic snowstorm was making its way towards the area. The meeting was shortened and we were to finish up on Thursday rather than Friday. Because of that, the organizers moved some sessions from later in the week to Wednesday night. To preserve my sanity, I skipped those sessions and had dinner with my cousin as originally planned.

The last question was, how to get out of there before the blizzard struck. On Wednesday, my airline was not letting people change flight plans without paying $800 for the privilege. So I called my work's travel agency and they reserved me a rental car (1/4 the cost of changing flights). I had two other friends in the same boat with the same airline, so driving home seemed both economical and doable. But just before we picked up the car, we thought we'd try one last time person-to-person at the airline counter. The folks at the counter had more of an incentive to let us change -- they were the ones who'd have to deal with us on Friday after our flights were canceled. So they agreed to change our reservations for free. We got home Thursday afternoon safe and sound, more than a day earlier than originally planned, and several hours earlier than I had anticipated based on driving.

Back Home Again

I made it home safe and sound on Tuesday, one day later than I had planned. The delay was because when I got out of my car to pump gas, I got a migraine! Luckily, this happened right outside of my hometown, so I just called my dad and bonus mom and they came and picked me up and let me spend the night. If it had happened anywhere else I suppose I would have had to find a hotel room.

Then, on Thursday, I got another migraine! I was so angry and disgusted about that. I don't usually get them in such short succession like that. It made me feel a little worried that something is changing (for the worse).

But it hasn't been all headache, all the time, around here. (Well, okay, it pretty much has. Because even though I didn't have an aura obscuring my vision on Tuesday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday, I did still have a headache -- enough of one that I chose to wear my hair down rather than in my usual ponytail.)

It was great to be home and see my number one fans again. Jeff was relieved to be no longer single-parenting it, and Vinny just thinks I'm lots of fun, which is very affirming. Last night he and I made some gingerbread dough, which we rolled out into gingerbread cookies this morning. I used the cookie cutters of his choice (two different gingerbread people cutters, as well as the slightly less Christmas-themed shapes of hearts, flowers, butterflies, and squares) to make the cookies, which he then decorated with various candies before I popped them in the oven for seven minutes.

I used the gingerbread recipe in The Joy of Cooking, which I had never tried before, but they turned out quite well. The only problem I had was that the dough comes out of the refrigerator hard -- I had to chip away at it with a fork in order to get some pieces out. Even when it cools to room temperature it is still quite hard, and rolling the dough is a major upper-body workout -- along the same lines as sawing a gigantic squash, only you have to do it more than twice. My left arm was in a fair amount of pain by the end of the whole deal.

But, once you worked the dough, it made some fantastic gingerbread cookies. They held together better than any other recipe I've used. Vinny was able to decorate them with no problems. And most importantly, they were really really delicious. I got a chance to eat one before packing them up and sending them off with Jeff and Vinny to Granny and Granddad's.

I have the house to myself this weekend; they're coming back on Monday. I plan to spend a significant amount of time sleeping and trying to get rid of this blasted headache (yup, my hair is still down today).

Live from Urbana

I was concerned about the weather forecast for today, because snow was promised at home.  Now, normally, snow in East Tennessee is a joke -- that is, as long as you're at the lower elevations.  But today, I had to cross a mountain -- sure, go through a mountain pass, but still, it was a concern.

The promise of snow actually delivered.  We got about 1/2 inch in our yard.  We got Vinny dressed and went outside and played in the snow with him.  Because, hey, this was going to be one of the few snows of the winter!

I left home at about 11, when I figured the roads would all be clear.  And I had no problems over the mountain at all.  When I called Jeff later that afternoon, he said that all the snow had melted by 1:00 pm.  Once I got into Northern Kentucky, the roads were completely dry.  As I drove North, the temperature kept going down, but since the roads were dry I didn't really care.  My drive was completely uneventful, except for the fact that I had the radio cranked up and was singing at the top of my lungs in order to keep myself from getting drowsy.

I got to Urbana at about 6 local time, dropped off my stuff at my aunt and uncle's house, and went out to dinner with an old friend who still lives in Urbana.  We went to this Chinese restaurant that I had really missed, where I ordered "Ants Climbing Trees."  I'm not sure what's in it, but there are no trees or ants in this dish, just some combination of ingredients that tastes really good.  I got a chance to catch up on what my friend is up to as well as some local gossip.

Now I'm back at my aunt and uncle's house, waiting for them to get home.  I plan on sleeping in late in the morning, and then making my way to my sister's place sometime in the afternoon.  She and I will talk tomorrow, to coordinate.

I'm an Aunt!

My newest nephew was born last night at about 5:30 pm. He weighed 8 lbs, 11 oz and was 21 inches long. Mamas and baby are doing well.

So, it's off to bed with me, so I can leave in the morning! I'll be spending the night in Urbana before driving the remaining 3 hours to help with the newest member of the family.

Conference Woes

So, Jeff had come down with something really nasty last Monday night, and was incapacitated Tuesday, and barely functional Wednesday. I had hoped to avoid it, but no such luck.

Even my constitution of steel (if I were a D&D character, I'd have a score of 18) was no match for this virus. I woke up early Thursday morning to the most painful sore throat in the history of the universe. Then, as the day progressed, I felt worse and worse until by Thursday afternoon I had a fever of 101.5 F. In addition, the sore throat had been replaced by horrible head and bronchial congestion. I went back to the hotel and skipped the Thursday evening event entirely. I didn't sleep well at all and missed Friday altogether. Luckily nothing much was going on at the conference and Jeff just went in and moved a couple of signs for me.

I suddenly realized that I would have to travel the next day, which in my state, did not seem like a good idea. So I called my dad and bonus mom and asked for their advice. Their advice: seek medical treatment (oh yeah, what a great idea!), so I called the hotel's front desk and asked if they could tell me the location of the nearest urgent treatment center. Instead they suggested that they could call the house doctor for me. He could come and look at me in my hotel room. Sold!

So, I got my first-ever doctor housecall, which was mighty convenient, let me tell you, although not particularly cheap ($150). A wet dishrag had more going for it than I did at that point. The doctor told me that I did not have the flu (I was missing a few of the symptoms associated with the actual influenza virus), but I had some kind of virus and an ear infection. He wrote me some prescriptions for antibiotics and pseudoephedrine (in Oregon it is available by prescription only!) and my wonderful husband went and got them filled for me. The doctor said I'd probably be okay to travel the next morning, but to wear a mask so as to minimize transmission of the virus.

He was right. The fever broke that night and I was actually able to get some sleep before our 6:30 am flight. I wore the mask, and got some dirty looks from other passengers despite the fact that I was the passenger least likely to spread disease thanks to the mask. The descents before landing were fairly painful on my ears but I chewed a lot of gum in a semi-successful attempt to reduce the pressure in my ears.

Dad brought Vinny to the airport to pick us up. He was really happy to see us, and simultaneously intrigued and confused by the mask. He had grown that week, both in size and cognitive ability. His sentences are getting longer and longer and more complicated in meaning. I know he had a great time with his grandparents and I am very grateful to them for generously agreeing to take care of him for nearly 10 days!

We spent the night at Dad and Marvis' house before heading home the next day. I was still sick enough that I stayed home from work yesterday but went in today. The people at work were happy to see me until they heard my horrible cough. But I did what I could to avoid coughing on them and just get some work done.

It's great to be back home. Getting sick far from home is No Fun. I plan to use the four-day weekend to recover, especially so that I can go on my next trip the week after next -- back up to the QC to see and help take care of my sister, her better half, and my soon-to-be nephew, who will be born on or before December 3! I'm taking a week off work so that I can help them adjust to life with a newborn. I'm really honored that they asked me to come up and help them make that transition, and I hope I will be able to help out in a big way.

Oh, Hi. How Are You?

Yes, I do have a blog. It's not just a dream.

I've been so busy since leaving for this conference that I've literally had no time to sit down and entertain my vast blogging audience until now.

The conference is going well. The signage is getting put out in a timely manner. We had more signs waiting for us in the signage office than I had anticipated we would. I don't anticipate ordering any additional signs the rest of the week.

I got to see the ever-wonderful ScienceGirl, whom I will hopefully see again while I'm here, as well as my summer student, another summer student who worked in our department, and various students from the summer HPC courses that I've taught over the years. I also saw a lot of friends and colleagues who I basically see only at this conference once a year.

Jeff has been a tremendous help with handling all the signs, which I realized but was fully underscored to me yesterday, when he was under the weather and I had to handle everything myself. I am so glad I talked him into coming with me, even if he wasn't able to help out yesterday.

The loot from the showroom floor is not as shiny, sparkly, or plentiful as it was last year. This is unfortunate for the sake of the three-year-old recipient of the loot that we collect. But, I was able to score a propeller beanie, which I know he will love (since, after all, the propeller goes round and round). It's also harder to score vendor party tickets, although I admit that because of all my signage responsibilities I'm not actively looking for them this year.

We were able to call Grandma and Grandpa and Vinny once, when we had a brief respite, and Vinny was doing well. He was watching a TV show about whales at the time we called. I have to admit, I am almost too busy to think about how much I miss him.

Tomorrow night is the conference social event, and then on Friday night is the wrap-up celebration. It's been fun, but I must admit that I'm looking forward to going home (well, at least back to the right time zone) on Saturday. It will be good to see Vinny again.

Travel Plans

It's that time of year again -- conference time! Once again I am in charge of signage at this conference with 10,000+ attendees. And once again Jeff is going to go along with me. And once again we're leaving Vinny with Grandpa and Grandma for over a week. I think he's going to have a blast. Or at least I hope so.

This year we'll be in Portland, Oregon. We'll head to my dad and bonus mom's place on Wednesday, and Jeff and I fly out early Thursday morning. We'll come back the following Saturday.

Did I mention that next year, I'm just going to attend the conference? Because I am. Remind me of that before I go and volunteer for another job.