News from China

One of those blogs listed over in the corner is Chengdu Letters, a blog from my dear friend Lara who is currently teaching in Chengdu, China. She sent out an email recently and has a post up on her blog, that should be required reading for all of us- I'll let her explain it

"Hi everyone -

This is just a quick heads-up, in case you
haven't been following what's been going on over
here (which wouldn't be hard, considering the
media lockdown that China is currently
enforcing). This article is most interesting, as
the byline is Chengdu, the city I currently am
calling home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/world/asia/26tibet.html?ex=1364270400&en=9ee001aa638de393&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink"


She goes on to write "What this means for us is this: intense, heavily-armed police presence; increased internet restriction and surveillance; and wild rumors flying around everywhere, with no trustworthy foundational news source. We are not in danger, no matter how crazy the papers may make it look over here."

Go read her whole post as well as the NYTimes article listed above.

On a personal level, I've been talking with my Chinese office mate about both Tibet and Taiwan recently. Although we clearly don't see eye to eye on these issues, we've been able to discuss the cultural issues implicit in both the Chinese actions and the Western nations' response to it. We're learning a lot about each other.

Lara- be safe. We love you.

Not more winter....

It appears I spoke too soon. We woke up a few times in the night to the sound of rocks bouncing off the roof, and eventually I concluded that it was hail. Then, it turned to snow. It's still snowing now. We're predicted to end up with 3-5 inches.

On Sunday it was so warm that we decided to begin our spring planting!

This is the view outside my window now:
Will it ever end?

Happy Spring!!!

(note that this post was originally composed on Monday 3/24, see the post above this one for an update)

Although we still have forecasts of more snow in our future spring has arrived. The robins are out in force, pulling worms and antagonizing the little "chickadees" (I'm not sure exactly what the little ones are). As I went to bed last night, it was gently snowing and this morning we woke to a white Easter Sunday. But even so, the grass is beginning to turn green and there's a promise of spring everywhere.

Mom came to visit over part of this last week (my spring break) and got to see some sunshine mixed with her snow. By the time she left, she was tired of hearing me describe the weather as "balmy"! It was in the high 40s and 50s most days.

While Mom was here, we took a road trip out east and explored a new part of the state. Note that the more of you who visit, the more excuses I'll have to leave my desk and see something new! I'll let Mom speak for herself, but I thought it was a very interesting and pleasant road trip.

We drove out to the Mississippi River and wound our way up the Old River Road. We were both quite surprised to see icebergs floating in the river in Davenport. Slightly north, in the quaint town of Le Claire, we tried to go view one of the locks. Evidently, many (most?) of the locks are now closed to visitors (perhaps a result of 9-11) but we entertained ourselves watching the river and the ice.
That is, until we noticed the GIANT bald eagle perched right above our heads. Seriously folks- this bird was enormous! We then explored a little path and found more evidence of the giant birds- these little fish were scattered all over- even in the trees.

Apparently, we had happened upon a huge bald eagle migratory area, albeit 2 months late. One of these years I'm definitely bundling up and heading out in January to see hundreds of bald eagles.

We wandered our way north even more, driving through small towns, visiting antique stores (but not buying anything!), and talking all the way. We decided Saturday morning that we were going to go as far as Dubuque and made a reservation in a B&B for the night. The proprietress encouraged us to arrive by 5 as to not miss the main event: the St. Patrick's Day parade down Main Street.

The B&B was in a lovely old mansion built by a lead baron (or was it lumber?). The town of Dubuque is very historic and used to lay claim to the highest number of millionaires per capita in the nation. It's also a very scenic viewpoint of the Mississippi River. We got in at 4:30, enough time to get the tour of the B&B, enjoy a glass of wine, and wander out onto the wraparound deck before the parade started. And what a parade it was! It is the epitome of the small town parade, with a few cars, the vans for the local radio stations, some people throwing candy, and a group of people and their dogs all walking in it. Everyone had on green, of course. And there were two St Pats on rollerblades!

After the parade, drained from the excitement, we had to contemplate dinner. We discussed going to this place- due to the family connection.

However, we decided that modern Iowan food was more our style and ended up in a lovely little bistro. We even shared warm bread pudding for dessert. Yum!

I must confess here that the prime reason for picking this B&B was the fact that it had two house cats on the premises. In fact, we even requested one of the cat's favorite rooms. Well, little Cindy did indeed decide to spend part of the night with us, curled up beneath the comforter at the foot of the bed.

She was quite happy there until my phone rang at almost 2am to warn me of a gunman on campus (several hundred miles away). This turned out to be okay. Mom and I slept fitfully after that harsh awakening. We were rewarded in the morning with unbelievable omelettes: brie and pears. It sounded beyond weird to me, but turned out to be fantastic.

We spent the morning exploring the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium . It's an amazing place that even has a touching pool! Woo hoo! We were amazed by the fact that that the Mississippi River is frozen over .
In fact, there were even fish frozen into the water . I wonder why they couldn't escape to deeper waters.

So, all in all, we had an exciting fantastic trip though Eastern Iowa. Come visit and we'll take you somewhere cool too!

Happy Birthday

As some of you may know, sometime in the last 2 weeks was Kimberly's birthday. It was a joyous time, as Kimberly's mom came out to visit, and we had a nice dinner of gnocchi.

The reason I'm posting this now is because I wanted to brag about the gift I got her. In my opinion, it's one of the better gifts I've ever gotten anyone (the best, if you're wondering, was a 'Can't Sleep, the Clowns Will Eat Me' onesie I bought for a friend's baby a while back).

It was the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, a huge book that reproduces the diaries of Albertus Seba, an 18th century naturalist that made all these hand drawings of new and different animals being discovered around the world. The drawings are pretty awesome, super detailed and specific, almost like they are photographs. And the book is like 3 feet x 1.5 feet, and weighs like 20 pounds, so it's hefty.

Unfortunately, the online pic above doesn't really do the book justice, so you'll just have to check it out when you come to visit.

Dreaming of a White St Patrick's Day

After about a week of decent weather, with temps almost reaching 60, I thought we were in the clear.

I was wrong.

It snowed again last night. On St Patrick's Day. This is a first for Kimberly. Unfortunately for me, I experienced an April Fool's Day blizzard while in school at Vermont, which is depressing, because it's really not an April Fool's Day joke, it's real.

Anyways, it's also another special day today, and the first time it's snowed on that day, too. So Happy Special Day to the person whose Special Day it is.

Merry Belated Christmas

I just wanted to share this pic from Christmas that my mother or sister took of little 1900 with Santa Claus:

Another Bullet Point on the Resume, file under 'Published'

In the past, Kimberly shared that she got a chapter published as part of her academic life; of course, this was a fairly technical article for people in her field, which, honestly, is kind of boring if you're not into 'corpus linguistics'. [ducks]

But now, she can really brag: she's been published on the interwebs, where not just anyone can voice their opinion randomly and without consequence (ignore that you are reading this on a blog, where we can voice our opinion randomly and without consequence).

If you go to this website, which is apparently the travel section of the San Pellegrino water company, you will find Kimberly's photo journalist skills on display.

If you go to the first article on the front page, Slow tourism in the City: introducing urban trekking in Siena, and scroll through the pictures at the bottom, you will come upon this picture of me and Kimberly's mom or sister (I can't tell) walking through the streets of Siena (yes that's a street in Siena, not a sidewalk or alley; they don't allow cars in the city, which is kind of nice):

I haven't read the article, but at the bottom are the credits, and look, there's Kimberly (they even spelled her name right):

21. Walking through Arches - Courtesy of Kimberly LeVelle - www.flickr.com/photos/33948778@N00/

Of course, the beauty of her subjects (and I don't mean the arches) is most likely the reason why San Pellegrino chose this photo.

I tried to get them to send us some cases of water in exchange for the use of the photo (I love that sparkling water, but it is awfully expensive, especially compared to the tap in our kitchen, which apparently is free), but in the end we decided we would just go for the glory.

This little excitement has also reminded me that I should really start recollecting out trip to Italy this past summer and upload a lot more of those photos, of which there are literally hundreds. Hopefully, I actually do it this time. If not, feel free to heckle me like I'm Karl Rove at the University of Iowa.

If those links above don't work, go to www.acquapanna.com, and search for Siena, where you'll find the article.

It's just around the corner...

Spring Break that is! What students don't know is that we teachers are at least as excited about the break as they are. In fact, I'd even argue that I'm more excited. I know for a fact that few of my students would be excited to hear my plans- hang out with Mom, explore Iowa, grade papers, write papers, work on projects etc. But I'm thrilled (not so thrilled about the grading and writing, but grateful to not be teaching and going to class simultaneously).

But, to get to Spring Break I have to make it through the next two days. In the next 40 hours I need to:
1. finish my presentation for tomorrow am
2. finish my lesson plans for tomorrow am
3. laundry
4. pack for the mini trip with Mom
5. grade homework for the Friday class
6. figure out what I'm supposed to teach on Friday
7. read the chapters for my Friday class
8. dishes
9. pick up rental car
10. figure out when to get together with my partner for a project due after the break
11. decide on a topic for a class project
12. send 40,000 emails (almost)
13. read 40,000 emails (just about)
14. write 3 cards
15. pay bills
16. tidy desk at school
17. go to library

I think that's about it. My apologies for using this space to post my boring to do list- but being accountable to the world at large is a useful strategy. Now let's see what I can accomplish!

edited Thursday 11:00pm

Making Liquor is Easy

Sometime last week, I got an email from a friend - he had found a bottle of Limoncello in the back of his freezer and was inquiring into how we made it (when we got married a few years back, we made some homemade Limoncello and gave it out as wedding favors). As I was looking through the computer and asking Kimberly about it, we came across this photo set (with some really pretty pictures) from when Kimberly and some friends made lots of different flavored -cellos. Doing all that stuff, made me remember how much fun, and how easy it is, to make liquor.

So on my day off, I went down to the natural food store to check out what kind of citrus they had on hand. I ended up buying some blood oranges, meyer lemons, and regular lemons.

I also had to go to the liquor store to buy a couple bottles of Everclear (also known as grain alcohol, complete with 2 cautions: 1) be careful it's flammable; and 2) excessive imbibing can result in serious health effects. These are the things you need to worry about when your alcohol is 190 proof). Let me tell you, if you're trying to buy Everclear, and don't have a fake ID or look 22 years old, you get some pretty funny looks.

When I finally got down to the making, the whole process took about 45 minutes, including the cleaning of jars, peeling of fruit, and pouring of alcohol. Now, we need to wait a couple months for the fruit to infuse the alcohol, then add some simple syrup, and let mellow again for a while. It will definitely be ready for the summer, just in time to mix with some tonic and put over ice for a refreshing cold beverage.

With any luck, it will taste as good as it looks.

From the left: Limoncello (lemon), Limone-del-Meyer-cello (Meyer Lemon), and Arancia-Sanguigna-cello (Blood Orange).

Some News

I got accepted. Which is kind of mind blowing.

Kimberly had the letter all day and just gave it to me a few minutes ago. She's mean.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll add details later, when I figure things out.

I think this calls for the the Badgers.

Has to be Done

I don't like it when people complain about the weather. There's nothing we can do to control it, unless you count slowly and systematically destroying the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels for industrial purposes to fundamentally change the atmosphere and, thus, weather patterns. Of course, I occassionally do a little complaining, but that has more to do with my Italian upbringing, where complaining is a way of life (I like to call it 'critical observation'), not necessarily a reflection of how annoying something actually is.

But then, I saw this post over at kch's place. And I got really annoyed. Or sad. Or mad. Not with kch, but with this crazy Midwest weather.

Wanna know why? Here's why: On the same day kari and co up in Portland are enjoying 'fake-spring,' the weather here in the middle is just messing with us. Take, for instance, yesterday:

The day starts out real nice, so you decide you'll spend some time outside. It's 65 degrees out and you go for a walk in the park with short sleeves on. All the snow is melting and you think you actually might see some green grass. If you imagine hard enough, you can even imagine leaves and green buds on those gray, sad trees. A couple hours later, when you get home, the temp drops 20 degrees in an hour and it starts sleeting outside. Then the thunder and lightning start. During a sleet storm. In March. Then, it drops another 20 degrees when the sun goes down. The snow starts coming down like you live on Hoth. By the time you go to bed, all that kind-of-green grass that was poking through the melted snow- remember that? - well, it's gone. It's covered in 4 inches of snow. 4 INCHES OF SNOW in, like, 30 minutes. When you wake up, the car is covered in half an inch of ice, with an additional 6 inches of light, dusty snow - you know the consistency, the one where when you brush it, it just goes straight up in the air and then down the neck of your jacket or back on the car.

Yes, I grew up in New England, where the weather swings are just as monumental. And I went to school in a place that was so cold that the 6th Great Lake would freeze over. But I moved to the NW, where the Goldilocks weather turned me into a giant weather-wuss. You could go hiking in January. And play Ultimate Frisbee year round. And the rhododendrons and dogwoods are probably already in bloom. And you could grow rosemary year round without having to worry abou tit freezing to death.

And now, I have to deal with this Midwest weather. The wind whips through constantly, creating snow drifts so high I'm worried Kimberly might disappear. We haven't been snow-free since Thanksgiving, which, let me remind you, was in NOVEMBER.

Hopefully, once this cold streak ends - which, I hope might happen by June - we'll get 2 or 3 months of nice weather before the heat and 90% humidity kick in. Meanwhile, in the Northwest, they'll be enjoying 85 dry degrees, blue skies, and not a vision of rain for 3 solid months.

Yes, I'm going stir-crazy.