Hiatus

As most of my, um, 5 readers know, I am moving tomorrow. I'm not sure when I'll be online again to update.

Yay boxes! Yay adventure!

Packing...

....is evil. But not as evil as oven cleaner.

Joggling

So last night on the CBC program "As It Happens," there was a story about two Canadian chaps who ran the Boston marathon while juggling. Personally, I think this is very cool (not to mention quite a difficult stunt to take on).

In other news, Ivan finished my wedding ring, which is made out of a silver quarter and therefore says "liberty" on the inside. Yay!

Sniffle

Ivan and I just watched Dancing in the Dark, with Bjork. I cried. A lot. Several handkerchiefs worth, in fact. But it is a very good movie and (gasp) Bjork offers a brilliant performance as the main character, a woman who is blind both literally and figuratively.

Anyway, I just wanted to offer you, dear reader, both a recommendation and a warning: watch the movie, but have tissues handy.

Packing for a wedding

So the pattern of the last few days in our house has been thus: wake up, have coffee, pack for a few hours, run away and do something fun (we registered for gifts yesterday, today it will be the art institute), come home and eat and read and knit and etc. Pretty nice as far as days go. What's funny is that in the middle of the vacation, I got a phone call from the wedding coordinator at the inn where we're getting married, asking me how I was progressing with the planning. To which I answered, "um, progressing? I'm moving." Anyway, I just spent quite a bit of time playing catch up with emails to the inn, the florist, a potential caterer, etc (I can only imagine how much more annoying this would be if this were a big wedding). The end result of which is a mini-vacation for Ivan and I to the Inn for a night, right after we move. Someone else making our bed, someone else making us breakfast, and talking about things like floral arrangements and fancy food and things. Hooray for the unreal world!

WooHOOOOOO

I got the Building Green job! Small dances of joy abound. The people are celebrating wildly. I'm employed in the real world!!!

Twenty Boxes....

...of books. And counting.

Disembodiment, part deux

Well, the interview went ok, although it wasn't as friendly and chummy as I would have liked. Me being perfect for the position is a pretty hard sell--I don't yet know much about green building (although I would like to), and I'm not entirely committed to a career in the field. But we shall see what happens.

At any rate, the interview gave me an idea for a future business: Ivan and I could open a green renovation business. He's probably going to be working for his uncle, who is a home renovator, and we could pretty easily turn those skills into the niche market green renovation skills we would need. I could do all the administrative stuff and some of the design stuff, and Ivan could do all the building (with a crew).

Ah, dreaming....

The Disembodied Voice

So I have a phone interview today with Building Green, a publishing copany that puts out various materials related to green building. It's a pretty cool position, although the pay isn't all that great (it's an internship). The problem with phone interviews is that there are these 2 or 3 disembodied voices talking to each other: they've never met in person, and any body language that would be sending signals disappears. So it's a little hard to get a read on how things are going. But we shall see...or hear...or something. I'll update later (I know you're all waiting breathlessly!).

Zoom Zoom!

In preparation for moving, I decided to rent a car for a few days. It helps to have one when one has to buy boxes and packing supplies and things. Anyway, I get to the friendly Enterprise pick up location near me, and the man at the counter says, "for an extra $10, you can rent a 2006 Jetta instead of a Kia." Since I was feeling self-indulgent and pouty, I decided to go for it, and have been driving a Jetta around all day doing errands. I must say, though, that there are very few cars out there that are less Al-ish than a brand new Jetta. Thus the car makes me feel a little bit like a secret agent out in disguise. Either that, or getting in touch with one's inner wasp is going around--it might be something in the water. Be careful out there.

On Reading for Pleasure

One of the side effects of taking a leave of absence is that I have rediscovered the joy of curling up with a good book. The other day, Ivan came home from work to find me curled up on the couch, deeply engrossed in an Orson Scott Card novel. I had no idea what time it was, nor how long I'd been reading, but I'd devoured the entire novel in a day.

This morning, it's been The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I must say, it's a brilliantly written novel, with aptly poetic descriptions (particularly of gardens) and the sort of plot of generations that I enjoy. She's also captured her narrator perfectly: an elderly woman, fallen from grace, looking back over her life with all of the eccentric habits of the old (hiding keys in jars of grain, for example, because the sugar and flour bins would be "too obvious"). It's a good read, and engrossing.

So now I've pulled myself out of bed and am off to tackle the kitchen of doom, which has been a bit neglected of late.

A Perfect Sunday

First of all, it was sunny and warmish--a very nice antidote to everything that ails us. We started our morning early, with a 9:30am breakfast at Tweet with Ben. A sort of "so long and see you later" breakfast. The food was yummy, as usual, and the coffee was fresh and free flowing. If you haven't been to this place for brunch, you should go: best brunch we've found in the city.

Then it was home for a nap (what else are Sundays for?) and taxes. Yes, taxes. But then there was a walk by the lake, some late afternoon reading, and then dinner at the Heartland, our little taste of home in the middle of Chicago. Mmmmm Buffalo Burgers. Yes, two meals out in one day! Blame laziness and tax refunds.

Anyway, now we're listening to NPR, and Ivan is working on our wedding rings. I'm blogging and about to take up my knitting. Oh, and the chocolate gnome paid me a visit this afternoon! Yay Sunday!

Houston, We Have a Problem

I just knit a washcloth.

Now that you've stopped laughing/cringing/shaking your head, let me explain why this is a good idea. First, it allows me to practice various stitches without having to worry about shaping. Second, it gives me something to sell: I can make soap, and have a sign that says "pick a washcloth, pick a soap, all handmade $20" or something similar. Finally, it keeps my hands busy (always a plus).

And yet.

I think I might need help.

The Zen of Packing

When, oh when, will I be a "real" grownup and stop moving? I get more impatient for the settled life with each move: a house, a garden, a dog or two running around, a partner running around tinkering with things that I don't tinker with myself (he, for example, is much better with car engines than I am, while I am better with sewing machines and mysterious kitchen implements). Horribly gender normative, perhaps, but that's the way things go sometimes.

Anyway, this move is going to be a bear. We're moving the third week in April, into a storage unit in Vermont. Well, our stuff is moving there. We're house-sitting for an adventurous aunt for a few months, rent free, so long as we take care of the cat and Ivan's grandmother who lives downstairs. Then we'll move into an apartment yet to be found, then hopefully start the hunt for a house that we can afford in the next couple of years.

Meaning the organization of the boxes and the stuff is only slightly short of a nightmare.

Which means that there will need to be a party, but not in the apartment. I'm thinking Feast, over in Wicker Park, for dinner with folks....thoughts?

The Promised Story

(Note to the reader: this story contains as few dates as possible, since I would have to look them up in a notebook that is currently in a box at my parents' house.)

Nanna was born in the nineteen teens in the small farming town of Te Awamutu, New Zealand. Born to a sheep farming family, she grew up at Faircroft, the first of the family homesteads (there was also Chetwind, which, I believe, came later). Perhaps because she was the only girl child out of 7, she grew up not entirely conforming to the standards of feminitity so pervasive at the time. Instead, she went to college at the University of Otago and studied nutrition, met a missionary doctor who was leaving for China, followed him to Canton, and married him. I grew up hearing stories about her journey to Canton: a trunk filled with hand sewn clothing, much of which we still have, followed her on her journey as she fended off advances from other gentlemen in the ballroom of the ship. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, and the black silk ballgown she wore did nothing to hide the fact.

At any rate, as soon as she settled into the life of a missionary doctor's wife, that life ended. Her husband was shot and killed by bandits on Good Friday, a few months after they had been married. Nanna had no choice but to return home to Te Awamutu to recoup at Faircroft.

Of course, Nanna being a woman of adventure, she could not be contained at Faircroft for long, and was soon off to study nutrition once more at Johns Hopkins University. Once again she was the subject of amorous advances, along with several mishaps of language (she once told a suitor that she just had to stop and pick up her screw.....to his shocked look she replied, "what, don't you get paid?" Of course, a screw is a paycheck in New Zealand, but the chap was shocked nevertheless.) Just as she was finishing her training, the war began, and the US Army needed a New Zealand nutritionist on the European front. Off to Europe she went with a hospital unit.

Meanwhile, Grandad, then the youngest colonel in the Army, was in England helping to organize the D-Day invasion. Once the US had made inroads in Europe, the paths of these two people would cross at a dance that Nanna almost didn't go to: she was annoyed that the required helmet would ruin her hairdo. Her friends convinced her, however, and she met my dashing young grandfather. A wartime romance followed, fueled by the priviledges of rank. Grandad would give letters attached to miniature parachutes for pilots to drop over Nanna's hospital unit, or would show up to "inspect" the unit. "Operation Mandy" went without a hitch, and the two were married in England on a three day leave. No white dress this time, no bridal chest filled with hand sewn clothing, just army uniforms and a few witnesses--but the marriage stuck and survived not only a war, but a life in the Army and three often challenging young boys.

My other grandparents' story is no less romantic, but that should be saved for another post....

Visiting History

For the past 5 days or so, Ivan and I were at my grandfather's house in Alexandria, VA, helping my father clean out the place. My 92 year old grandfather has decided to move into an apartment in a retirement community, where he is currently enrolled in about a dozen fitness classes and having to fend off the inevitable flirting women (he's quite the charmer).

Some might think this was a sad experience, but really it was quite the opposite. I spent most of my time in my grandmother's kitchen and cleaning out her desk--both spaces that hold fond memories of a woman I have a great deal of respect for. Her life, which was a long one, was also one long adventure, from her birth in New Zealand to her marriage to a missionary doctor in China to her marriage to my grandfather in England in the midst of WWII, to her life as an Army wife and mother to three rather mischievious boys. I'll post her story, and that of the wartime romance, in a coming post--it makes for great reading.

At any rate, my father, Ivan and I got into a habit of working all day, then heading over to the retirement community for a sit down dinner in nice clothing. White table cloths (and rather mushy old people food) have a way of undoing the 50 years of accumulated dust and grease one has been battling all day. Both Grandad and Dad got to know Ivan better, and bonded over typical male things like old razors and tools. All in all, it was a pretty good way to spend a long weekend.