There and Back Again

We returned from our Ann Arbor Christmas last night having seen many of the people we had hoped to see and missed a few others. Mercifully, Ellis slept the entire 290 miles back to the farm.

For a second year, our hosts in Ann Arbor went out of their way to make the three of us comfortable and welcome, whether it be playing cards, cooking or stocking up on my favorite beers.

Ellis did very well with all of the new people and did quite well playing with his second cousins, although being the youngest, they did leave him in the dust a few times. His Aunt Lindsey played with him a lot and took him off our hands so we could have an evening of much needed adult time with friends.

Ellis is poised for a language explosion. He babbles and imitates us all of the time, but not quite with words. He is getting the first sound of more and more words as we ask him what he wants and he mimics things back to us such as when we ask if he wants to take a bath and he makes the sign but also says, "Ba!" He clearly understands many more words than we realize as he often acts appropriately based on what we say. Normally, when we suggest going outside, he gets his coat, but today Rachel said, "Do you want to go outside with dad?" and Ellis got his boots and my coat in addition to his own. I was also surprised to see him try to take his clothes off on his own today at my suggestion. I said, "Let's take off your shirt," and he started to try to get it off on his own, same with the pants. He also has a firm grip on "no" and generally uses it when asked a yes or no question. However, he doesn't get "yes" yet. Instead, he says "oh" as one might in tone it in an exaggerated proclamation of "Oh, Boy!" and then he laughs a moderately sinister laugh.

Apartment: Check, I hope

It appears as though we will be renting the first apartment I have looked at. It is in West Medford about 5 minute bike ride from work. Of course the mountains of snow would get in my way now, but they won't be there forever.

A few positive features of the apartment:

• Size (1600 sq. feet) for money is extremely good for Boston.
• Downstairs neighbors are a similar couple with a kid similar in age to Ellis.
• The yard has two raised patios, one each for us and them.
• Lead paint was all removed from the apartment. (This isn't all that common here.)
• Scout is welcome to live with us
• 2 blocks from a giant park
• 5 blocks from a sizable nature area
• Current tenant will sell me Maytag washer and Whirlpool dryer for a total of $85.
• All brand new replacement windows
• Gas heat
• Gas stove
• Gas hot water
• New bathroom with tile floor and a good tub.
• Generally painted in tasteful but interesting colors
• 2 parking spaces
• Sizable room off of the kitchen that could hold our deep freezer...or maybe home brew gear.
• Big kitchen for a rental
  

A few minuses:

• It is in an oldish house and the floors are a bit wonky.
• While the majority of the apartment has been modernized in many ways, the kitchen cabinets are from '77.
• Floor plan is a little weird, but of course this was the 2nd story of a giant house at one time and hence had no obvious place for the kitchen.
  
• One tiny room I will call the plywood paneled room. The current tenants went with it and decorated it accordingly to good effect. This is the likely freezer room. We will see what we come up with though.

In summary, this is a pretty good place for us. The price is right and the landlord will give us some latitude with things to make the space work for us. The short commute for both of us is pretty outstanding and we are far enough out of the city that we can drive to Target easily, but still feel like we live in a community. Commuter rail is within walking distance and will take us down into the city, no problem.

Damned old skyway blues

As Rachel mentioned, the excitement of new jobs, a new city and Christmas with family have been tempered by the loss of Rachel's grandmother this week.

On my side, I have spent a week with my new company and despite a bit of tentativeness on all sides, we are off to a good start. I have, however, fared poorly getting back to Indiana for the funeral. I was supposed to fly last night, but saw the northeast snow storm coming, so I adjusted for an earlier flight. But the storm outfoxed me and got here at 2 pm. Northwest canceled nearly all flights and consolidated everyone on ours. They loaded my plane at 2:40 and spent 4 hours de-icing and trying to get us out. We even taxied out once, but then the pilots couldn't see out the side passenger windows well enough to verify that the wings hadn't re-iced on our way out to the runway, so back we went and as they fired up the de-icers for one last try, NWA called the flight.

During that 4 hours, I sat between two guys bigger than me, one a hell of a nice guy who worked in automotive and we knew the same people. He was going to Indiana as well and suggested that if we could just get to Detroit, where we would both miss our connection, that his company would pay for the rental car and I could hitch on with him. The other of my companeros for this 4 hours was a strangely conservative, glass engineer dumb-it-all (a know-it-all who actually gets his facts wrong) with a loud voice and an endless supply of jokes following the pattern of "How is a woman like hurricane?" As he complained about the poor work ethic of de-icers he believed to be examples of union-protected laziness, an argument broke out with a retired member of the Northwest Ground Crew Corp. Nice.

As we unloaded, sweaty from several hours without climate control during de-icing, NWA had one person posted whose job it was to tell us that they would only rebook on the phone and that we were all going to have to wait for a full 24 hours for a flight. Generally, the people on the phone and in the airport for NWA have been terribly rude with the customers with the staff here putting us off on the phone staff and vice-versa and the ticket counter folks putting us off on the gate personal and vice-versa.

The bright spots of course are that my company has been understanding, I got back to a warm place last night with friends in the city and I should still get there in time for the funeral and to see everyone. Secondarily, I noticed that for the most part, the average folks in Boston were all quite helpful with each other, pushing each other's cars, giving strangers instructions and help to get somewhere warm etc.

It will be quite a relief to see everyone tonight, especially Ellis, who I have been missing a lot lately with his gallivanting to Ireland last month and my gallivanting to Boston this month. He did hear my voice on the phone the other night and declare, "Da!"

Alright, I gotta go jump into the standby mosh pit.

not ready to post for a while

My grandmother died this week. I want to write something about her. I don't know how or what. We are all ok, but I think they'll be no posts for a bit.

various and sundry

• After weeks of saying "da" for dad, Ellis is finally started saying "ma" today. Tragically, he had a word for calling Scout (a half-yell that sounded like a mash-up of Scout and dog: "DAAAOH!") two days ago.
  
• Trey is fine. Sorry if anyone was alarmed. It wasn't serious, just seriously disgusting.
• I had to work pretty hard to understand German, so I never accidentally overheard conversations when out in public. Back in an English speaking nation, it's hard not to and I forgot how amusing/ annoying it is. I also forgot how to pretend that I'm not listening to other people's discussions. Oops.
• The only music we brought with us to Germany was on our computer, so we had only a fraction of our collection. Today I opened up one of the boxes of CDs that I hadn't listened to for two years and was feeling like someone had sent me a gift of music perfectly suited to my taste. I was actually thinking things like "Oh, wow, I love this album." Catherine concluded I was a nit-wit. She is likely right.
  

back in the US

We are in Indiana and the flight was fine. Here's how we're managing, in order of best to worse-

• Ellis: Has both grandparents and Aunt Catherine wrapped around his finger. Especially loves that this house has 1) a dog 2) snow 3)an enormous bathtub 4) loads of sugary food (and we haven't even started the Christmas baking)
• Rachel: Tired, oh so tired, but happy to be home. Also engaging in low-level freak out about remaining Christmas shopping and the upcoming move to Boston.
• Trey: Food poisoning. Very bad food poisoning. It's best not to report further on this.
  

last hours in bammental

I'm spending the last hours in our apartment the same way I spent the first: sitting on the cold, hard tile and waiting. Only this time, I'm waiting for a friend to pick us up instead of the IKEA delivery truck and Ellis is on the outside instead of the inside.

In a weird role reversal, I am feeling sentimental about leaving and Trey is focused on, even enthused about, the future. Maybe I am sad to leave this place because I spent so many of my days here. After rushing around and freaking out trying to get everything cleaned and packed, now I'm just thinking about how we're leaving the place Ellis learned to roll over, crawl, and walk. And I think about all the struggle to learn to shop in German and cook with weird ingredients and make our apartment feel even a little bit like a home. It was hard and now it's almost over. I can't tell if what I'm feeling now is relief about its ending or regret that I couldn't do better.

If I leave here tomorrow

We are sitting in the bed in the flat for our last night in our German apartment. Tomorrow we will take advantage of the hospitality of our French friends who will put us up for the night and then take us to the airport Thursday morning. I am feeling pretty good about all of the choices, despite a steady stream of comments coming in from the conference in America about how much better my data is than my competitor's. But, the thing is, their data is easier to put in a pretty package. So, despite the fact that I have 1200 samples and they have 6, they will get into a better journal than I will.

I want to thank Ben and Katherine for their nice comments on the last post about my departure from academics. Now that I am on the precipice, I feel like I should have something profound to say about it. Instead, like the guy who gets to the top of Everest expecting an epiphany but discovers he is so oxygen deprived, cold and exhausted he can't think straight, I am so tired, nervous and excited, I can't think straight.

I have a vague urge, though, to get a tattoo to commemorate the event, so it must be big. I have spent 8 years pursuing a false idol and now I watch as others stare in amazement that I am ending that pursuit. Leaving the fold, a little shunned. I must be traveling on now, there's too many places I haven't seen (Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974).

parents: get ready to feel better about what your kids are eating

It is a nutritional waste-land around here these days. With all the packing to be done, the urgency of emptying the kitchen, and the lack of a dining table, regular meals are a thing of the past. Bad enough for us, but I feel much worse about Ellis. I am not super strict about what he eats and with the tendency of most Germans to feed kids till they pop, I would feel bad if I always refused the chocolates, bits of bread, and slices of bologna. But at least I make some effort to balance his diet. And now, not at all. For instance, the dozen or so little packets of gummi bear the grocery cashiers have given in the last 6 months were stockpiled in the cupboard. He's eaten them all in the past 4 days.
Last night we went to the Christmas Market and his dinner consisted of charred meat on a skewer, two sips of kinder punch (who knows what's in there?), one quarter of a blueberry muffin, and 3 bites of chocolate covered fruit. At least the first item gave him an opportunity to share a passion with his Dad.
This morning, for "breakfast" I let him wander around the house with a slice of cold pizza. It's bad people.

Two Down, One to Go

Last night we had a nice evening with my French coworker and his wife. He pulled out his trusty electric Raclette cooker and allowed me to check off of my list a traditional cooked cheese specialty that I had never had. This brings me to two out of three on the major melted cheese dish scavenger hunt having had Fondue as well, and leaving only Rarebit to go. Although with the name Rarebit having been appropriated by things that are little more than a grilled cheese sandwich, it might be a while before I find the real thing.

We were amazed that Raclette hasn't become more popular in the U.S. the way fondue has. If folks can dedicate entire restaurants to fondue, I don't see why people wouldn't fall in love with a Raclette restaurant. It has all of the major elements that launched the much less interesting Mongolian Barbecue* style places: you participate in making your own food, you would have more choices than you needed to have a nice meal and it is generally "all you can eat". From a restaurant owners perspective, it also makes you crave wine or beer, which is where restaurants make a lot of money. Basically you cook meats and vegetables on a stone while broiling cheese underneath, which results is nearly a fondue consistency, then you eat it together. The Raclette cheese is a little Swissy and semi-soft. One way we had it last night was on cold boiled potatoes which caused it to solidify just a bit around the potato and this was really excellent.

The name Raclette comes from the more traditional approach of taking a whole wheel of the stuff and suspending above a flame and scraping drippy bits off on your other stuff. The scraper or the act of scraping is Racle, or some such thing in French and hence the name. Nothing like dedicating a whole cheese to warming and scraping onto cured meat, yum. Our host's son used the cheese as a sculpting medium, collecting two or three servings and making a giant cheese ball which he then cut up like a tough steak. Our host said, "Oh, yes, all French children play with the Raclette. I did too." Guess we should start importing play doh.

We had no idea we were going to have Raclette so I picked two bottles of a wine that I knew the French friends really like from our village wine shop. They were impressed and the Minervois was a great match for the cheese. Note the wee size of the English Language Wiki entry on these wines. It is one of the things I will miss about life over here, these little regional things. Neither wine was over $10 and we agreed that while the expensive one was a nice match for the cheese, the second, cheaper bottle was probably better wine. One sad truth: I won't be buying 7 year old wines from quirky regions for $6 in Boston. But, this has inspired my interest in regional foods at home, which folks here know little or nothing about. For instance they think "barbecue" is a verb for what you do to a sausage when it really is a noun with a different definition in Kansas City, Memphis, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Louisiana. New mission: don't let Americans or the rest of the world sell our really good food traditions short. Ya know, in my free time.

*Whenever I hear "Mongolian Barbecue" all I can picture is a restaurant with a cage like a lobster tank in the front full of men from just north of China waiting to be selected for the barbecue. I know, racist cannibalism is worse than gross. Just a fleeting image though. Is speciesist carnivorism any better? I know I think so.