kareina

 Two weeks ago, when I was outside shoveling snow, one of my neighbours I hadn't met yet came by walking her two dogs, and paused to chat.  The dogs are named Texas (the one with big droopy ears, that look a little like a map of Texas), and Boston (the one with the smaller ears), which names will be easy to remember. Their person is called Isabell.  This of course got us talking about how many different places I have lived over the years, and the fact that she had only recently moved into the nearby apartment complex and didn't yet know anyone locally.   Around then Keldor came home from work, so I went into the house to get some of the cookies I had baked to cheer him up (he'd had a rough day at work, which was not helped by FB reminding him that it was the anniversary of his mother's death), and I offered Isabel one too. She liked it, so I told her I would send her the recipe, and got her email address.  Then she and the dogs were ready to head on their way, and I let her know that while I am super busy till the end of the month when I turn in my Master's thesis, I am having a party to celebrate turning it in for New Years and she should come by.

After I finished shovelling I translated the notes I made when I did the cookies into Swedish and sent her the recipe. Translating back into English for my readers here:

These are a really lovely soft cookie, well worth doing again.  In fact, we bought another bottle of the ginger shot with chili juice in part because I want to do more of the cookies.  Keldor says that we can use more chili next time.

Fast forward to yesterday...

Keldor had been home sick from work all week last week--with a fever, sore throat, and headache for most of the week. By Friday he was finally over that set of symptoms, but they were replaced with standard cold symptom of a runny nose.  I managed to avoid the fever and headache, but on Friday I started also having very slightly runny nose, which stayed at background annoyance levels till Monday (yesterday). I woke Monday morning early with energy, he was still feeling the cold symptoms, so he slept in till noon. I got up at 06:00 (by which time the dawn light had been bright for a half an hour, as we'd set it to see if he felt good enough to return to work yet; he didn't).  But I did a morning workout, washed the cat's water fountain, and then settled into the computer, where I was making good progress on my thesis.

Then, in the early afternoon my hint of runny nose abruptly started being annoying, and my eyes itched. It felt more like allergies than being sick, but there is nothing in the air that I might be reacting to that hasn't been there all along, so perhaps not. He offered me some of the nasal spray he has for treating that symptom, but no, I simply can't shoot something up my nose or try to inhale anything other than good pure air.  Phobia levels of can't.

Since it was still early enough for the local pharmacy to be open, we drove the two minutes in, and I waited in the car while he went and asked the pharmacist if they have anything to treat my symptoms. She, of course, suggested nasal spray. He explained that I have a phobia about that, and she provided a package of pills, which he brought to me and I took one while he stopped into the grocery store next door to pick up a few things.

We returned home to find Isabelle, Texas, and Boston on our porch, shouting "hallo" into the open door, wondering why no one was answering. So we invited them in, lifted the cat food dishes onto the counter well out of the reach of small dogs, and offered Isabella tea and apple pie (which I had baked during lunch).  We had a lovely chat for about an hour, during which the dogs were mostly well behaved and quiet. It was only when Kali tried to sneak under the bookshelf to go from the office to the bedroom and the dogs noticed that they started barking and chased her into the bedroom, where she went straight out the cat door into her outdoor catio.  It took only a short time to calm the dogs back down, and they stayed quiet the rest of the visit.

After they left I opened the cat door and said that they were gone, then shook the jar of cat treats, and left a couple by the door.  A few minutes later Kali carefully came sneaking out, cautiously sniffing around everywhere to be certain the dogs were gone. I filled her ball with more treats and gave them too her, and she relaxed.  I settled in to the computer to resume working, and she curled up on the couch by my side.  A couple of hours later Skaði finally appeared again--hopped up onto the couch, licked Kalika's forehead a couple of times, and lay down next to her as if she hadn't been hiding for hours.

I am very delighted to have someone randomly drop by for a visit. I have missed that.  Hope it happens regularly.  The cats, on the other hand, are not so convinced this is a good thing.

My dear friend Khevron, and his wife Lareena, are busy travelling around Europe just now. They started in Ireland, where they have family, and have worked their way north and west (with a little back and forth in southern Scandinavia as there is just the one train track to Bergen and they chose not to take the boat from there) to Luleå. They were on the night train Thursday evening, which meant arriving in Luelå at noon. So I worked in the morning and finished up in the lab (where we changed out the tubing connecting the laser to the ICP-MS for the first time since getting the machine) just on time to head to town. I have been putting off going to town to ask the optometrist’s office to tighten up my glasses, which had gotten loose where one side attaches to the nose. Therefore after they arrived we put their bags in the car and walked over. Khevron was looking for some clip-on sun glasses, since he left his prescription sunglasses at home. He also asked them if they could adjust his glasses, one arm of which was pointing out in a weird direction after having been stepped on. My optometrist’s office didn’t have clip ons, and didn’t dare try to fix his for fear of breaking the arm right off, but they fixed mine and suggested that he try the one next door.

The shop next door was out of the clip ons, and suggested we try the one two doors down. Both of the first two shops really busy, and we had to wait before it was our turn. The third shop, on the other hand, had no one but the lady on duty, who chatted happily with us about a variety of topics while showing us several different choices on clip ons—some that just clip on, others that both clip on, and then can be raised up out of the way when one goes inside. Some were as is, and others were big and meant to be cut down to better match the size/shape of the underlying glasses, and there were several colours to choose from. Khevron is normally the sort of shopper who prefers to look at all of the options (in many stores if possible), think about it, and then go back and get the one he likes best, and he suggested going away and thinking about it. Laurena and I pointed out that it is a bright sunny day, and that we aren’t going back into town, and that he could just buy them now. While we were chatting the lady insisted that Khevron give her his classes so that she could adjust the arm back where it was meant to be, and after it was fixed he finally agreed to pick a pair of clip ons, and she cut them down to the right size for his classes, and we went on our way. The errands took way longer than I anticipated, but it was fun hanging out and chatting, so I didn’t mind.

Then it was home, eat lunch with David (who had the day off of work, and so had finally made the time to go buy the lists to frame the opening to the office that we made bigger a year or three ago, it looks much better—now it is only replacing the wallpaper, adding a cover over the seam between the hall floor and office floor, and putting up the new chin-up bar and that remodelling project will be complete) and Caroline (somewhat late according to my tummy), get them settled, and then I baked a big loaf of bread with roasted garlic and made a black currant pie for the choir party.

I got the kitchen cleaned back up from that on time to head to the Uni to pick up people for the party. We had about 25 or 30 people who showed up, many of whom took bicycles to the house, so that we needed only Johan’s car (seats four passengers), and mine (seats six, but one of my seats was empty) to get the rest here. We started with making tacos for everyone, and while they were eating I mixed up some yummy ice cream and put it in the ice cream maker to chill while they finished eating dinner.

After they ate the ice cream (except for the serving I set in the freezer to eat today, since I wasn’t hungry at that hour; slight pause in typing while I go get that serving to eat now, having just thought of it) we played a name-memory game: the first person introduces them self and also sys the name of an animal that starts with the same letter. Then the second person repeats the first one’s name and animal, and gives their own name and animal. Each subsequent person repeats the names and animals of all of the preceding (in order) before adding their own. Our choir has many exchange students this year, from countries as diverse as Korea, Poland, France and Germany, so most names were ones that at least some of us had never heard before, adding even more challenge to the game, and most of us were able to remember the animal, but not the name, for some of the people, which meant we had to keep asking. Much to my surprise, some people remembered the names but not the animals. Our list included (and I am forgetting more than half of them, but I could remember more last night):

Dragon
Leprechaun
Panda
Tiger
Jaguar
Ant
Fox
Raccoon
Guppy
Albatross
Antelope
Komodo Dragon
Lemur

Then we spent a nice long time singing along with karaoke videos on youtube, taking care to include songs in every language spoken by someone in the group. While we were singing a couple of wonderful people (at least Gustaf (guppy) and Tanja (Tiger), as I saw those two working as I returned to the living room from the loo) put leftover food in the fridge and washed the things that didn’t fit in the dishwasher. Then we switched to a game—divide into three teams and the first to start singing a song that start with (or the verse or the chorus starts with) a specified letter gets a point. After a bit we ran out of letters and switched to “includes a specific word”, and Gustaf opened a book from the shelf and chose words at random for us to use.

As midnight neared the driver of the other car announced that he was going to he heading home and anyone who wanted a ride with him should come now, and everyone else stood up too, and we all left at once. Since we only had five in my car who needed a ride Khevron came along for company on the return trip (not that it was very long—Porsön is only 4 minutes from here). Then I took time to tidy up a bit more and play dulcimer before yoga and finally going to sleep a bit after 01:00. We have not made any specific plans for the weekend. Khevron and Lareena are here for a full week, so they have time to relax and do laundry and check messages, etc. I have lots that needs doing (like progress on the next grant proposal, packing for the SCA event next weekend and the subsequent trip to Durham, preparing my entry for the bardic competition next weekend, doing an English language check on a phd thesis of one of our students, and getting the fitting done on my new self-supporting undertunic (which has been ready for that step for a couple of weeks now, but if I want it next weekend I had best get to it). But it would also be nice to join K & L on adventures…

Two of the people asked for the pie recipe, so I will share it here too.

Svartvinbärspaj

Crust:

150 g butter
1.5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used homemade: split open vanilla beans, put into a bottle with brännvin and leave it till needed. Add more brännvin as needed till it quits tasting of vanilla)
1 egg
4.5 dl flour
3 tsp baking powder

Cream together the butter and sugar, beat in the egg and vanilla, add the flour and baking powder and press into a large pie-plate (if the dough is sticky add flour to your hands as needed when pressing it).

Filling:

4 dl Turkish yoghurt
1 dl sugar
1 T vanilla extract
2 eggs
6 dl frozen black currents, lightly chopped (while still frozen) in a food processor

Stir together the yoghurt, sugar, vanilla, and eggs, blend in the berries, pour into the crust and bake at 200 C (or 150 with forced air) for 20 to 30 minutes or until the filling is mostly set.

I just checked, and while I have posted may of the ice cream recipes I have done in the seven years since we bought the ice cream maker, I never posted this one:

Vanilla Ice Cream #3.2
(first made 27 June 2015)

300 ml cream
300 ml milk
4 egg yolks
0.5 dl sugar
2 T home made vanilla extract

Whip the cream. Blend the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla extract, add the milk, stir in the cream, put into the ice cream maker till done.

April and May were particularly busy months for me, and included travel. As a result my exercise log got kind of behind. Not the basic data entry--these days I do that on my phone, but the excel spreadsheet where I actually tally up the number of hours spent on various activities and convert the data to graphs--that part didn't really get done during those two months. Since then I have managed to keep that part up to date for new stuff, and have, every so often, gone back and copy-pasted the older data into the spreadsheet. Tonight I finally finished all of that for those two months, to discover that while April was fairly typical in terms of my exercise levels, May was the lowest month since I started keeping the logs in Excel where I could see the graphs as they form. I strongly suspect that, had I been pulling that data into Excel and looked at the graphs as they were forming, I would likely have been a bit (ok, a lot) more active that month. Oh well, the logs are current now, and likely to remain that way--nothing like seeing a record low to inspire one to return to paying attention to that aspect of one's life!

We managed another four batches of concrete today, and, since today's rock were on the back side of the wall, we were also able to fill in lots of gravel and dirt behind the walls. (Why, yes, yes that does count towards the above mentioned exercise log.) Sadly, some of the rocks used today were particularly pretty, but no one will ever see them again, since they are on the back side of the wall. So it goes, and it can't be helped--there are far too many pretty rocks available for all of them to wind up in visible places in the walls (and, sometimes, rocks that aren't so pretty wind up in visible locations because that is where they happen to fit best).

While I was updating my logs lord_kjar managed to do some maintenance on the ride-on lawn mower and make progress on the great computer stuff sorting project which has been filling the guest room. Not too much more needing to happen in there before it will be ready for mom's visit in September.

If it isn't raining tomorrow (or only does it lightly) we can make more earth cellar progress, if it is we can focus on other projects. Monday some friends are coming over for dinner, one of whom I have been discussing the possibility of her becoming my apprentice. I hope she says yes, it would be lovely to have a local apprentice.

Have I mentioned that I will be running Norrskennsfest in November? It is the big event of the year for the shire, and I am looking forward to it. We are looking at doing a day-time feast and bardic competition, in addition to some of the traditional activities.

My friend, aelfgyfu is visiting this weekend--it is her last stop on her Drachenwald tour this summer before returning to An Tir. She flew in last night, so I am taking a long weekend. She and I will do nearby sightseeing today, probably heading out to Gammelstad, and tomorrow, when lord_kjar is also off of work, we will do a road trip and hiking adventure, including such stops as Storforsen. Then on Saturday there is a sale of new and used Swedish Folk Dance costumes and accessories at the museum, and a visit to lord_kjar's parent's house. Finally on Sunday is SCA fighter practice (she has her armour with her, so it gives me an excuse to actually get mine out, too), followed by our normal folk music and dance. She flies out on Monday, whereupon I shall return to work and see how much I accomplish before our summer holiday starts.

In good news, this week I devoted my energy to doing something with my research from Italy, and managed to get the paper draft to a reasonable point to email it off to my boss down there for comment before I had to go to the airport to fetch aelfgyfu. It would be nice to get that one far enough along to submit it for publication. Heck, it felt great to actually do that with the paper from my PhD research last week Monday.

I never have typed up anything about our trip to Double Wars, so perhaps I should say something about that before I put down the computer and go play... ( my report on the War )

I spent much of Friday downstairs in the lab, getting the next two gold capsules filled, welded shut. This required some help from my boss, but we think we know what went wrong with the welding of the one I messed up. By the time I was finally done for the day it was after 7pm, so I went home, expecting to find Crian and our houseguest, skyemaroc, hanging out and chatting. But he hadn't heard from her. This seemed a bit odd, since she had planned on taking the train from Geneva that arrives in Milan at 16:30. So after a bit I came back across the street, to see if there had been word from her, and to double check that my memory of her anticipated arrival was correct. Yes, my memory of plan A was correct, but this time there was a FaceBook message from a lady I've not met in person, but have heard of, letting me know that my houseguest was on the train which would arrive at 22:30 instead, and that her phone was out of credit. Therefore, since there is a locked gate outside of this building at night, I went home to wait. (She'd said that she'd take a cab from the station to my place). I got involved in a project while waiting, and didn't notice time elapsing, and didn't realize how late it was when she got in at nearly midnight. It wasn't till I looked at my watch before doing our evening yoga that I realized how late it was (well after 1:00 at that point).

Accordingly, I slept in today till after 10:00 and we enjoyed a leisurely morning on line, then had lunch before setting out on a trip to IKEA. Boy, am I glad that skyemaroc was along for that trip! clovis_t really didn't want to go--he doesn't care for furniture shopping in the best of times, and when the store is that huge... But she and I made an adventure of it, wandering around, looking to see what shelving options will fit the space available for them, and are an appropriate size, shape, and price. She was kind enough to take notes on the things we looked at, and enjoyed the process of narrowing down the selection. Eventually we found an English-speaking employee who was able to confirm that the things we'd chosen would cost what we were expecting them to, and he told us that if we go to the self serve counter downstairs we can get it ordered and delivered tomorrow. Then he said that delivery would be 69 Euros! Ouch! Not liking that idea, one bit. But the list was too large/bulky to manage on the bus/train back home with just the two of us. Then skyemaroc asked if I know anyone with a car. Why yes, yes I do. The shire seneschal has a van. So home we went, with a print-out of what I want. After a yummy meal (home-made egg noodles with a choice of spinach, chickpeas, ground beef cooked in garlic and spices, pesto, grated cheese, flax seeds, toasted almonds for topping--no two of us chose the same mix) we came back to the office, where I could check in via Skype to see if the shire seneschal would be willing to help pick the shelves up. "of course" was the reply. Yay!

It looks like I should have shelves before my things arrive--the boxes have cleared customs in the UK, and should be put on a truck bound for Italy in the next few days. The next experiment is just about ready to start, so now I need to learn how to analyze the results of the first one (including learning how to use Mathmaticia and the routines my research team have devised for making the graphs), get the third one ready to go while the second one runs, work on those papers for publication of my PhD research, and attend my Italian Language course 6 hours a week, all while trying to have a social life and get the local SCA shire back into active status.

I had planned to spend the weekend getting in as much progress as possible on the stack of reading my boss has given me. I have been reading, but not uni stuff. You see, blamebrampton went and talked about azkatrazathome in her journal, and I asked questions and then went and joined, so I've been happily reading the various discussions, short stories, and the tag-team longer piece of fiction in progress in between reading other stuff on LJ, Facebook and e-mail. The only progress I've made on uni reading has been while at home, since I've been leaving the computer at the office (there being no internet at home, and I'm only going home to make more food or sleep) and heading back and forth as often as necessary (it is only 0.4 km from one door to the other, though there are also a total of 5 flights of stairs between the two buildings).

I was up late last night with the above reading, which is good because it meant I was in the office at 22:30 when clovis_t called to say he'd changed his plans and was coming to Italy sooner than anticipated. When he told me he'd be here at 22:50 today, I decided I may as well stay up late last night and sleep in today, as I'd likely be up late tonight (though, of course, when I thought that it was in terms of "late tonight and sleep in tomorrow in anticipation of being up late tomorrow...).

Yesterday afternoon I went to a store which sells kitchen toys and picked up a decent steamer pot, figuring that the steaming basket would also make a decent pasta strainer, so it is a multi-purpose tool. I also got a single knife, cutting board, and spatula. Why didn't I make time to reserve one box of useful things I'd need right away and air-mail that ahead? Oh, yah, that's right--too busy trying to finish that thesis. This morning I went to the natural food store I found to pick up a couple of things I needed, and on my way out took some trash down to the cans. While there I discovered a bag next to the cans full of old beat up pots and pans and a thing for squeezing fresh orange juice. Having pretty much nothing in my kitchen, I, of course, took it. Now I've got one nice pot, and a few icky ones to use if I need more than one. They can be passed on when my stuff arrives. Which will take ages, as I'm told it is still sitting in Melbourne and hasn't been loaded onto a ship yet.

This afternoon I celebrated having a cooking pot by cooking up some lentils, rice, tofu, and the last of the fresh veg I'd purchased at the market on Monday (well, save the carrots--they will keep). It was quite nice, and there is enough to last the rest of the weekend, and I'll have the space in the fridge for Monday's fresh fruit/veg. It is now time to head off to the train station to meet clovis_t, my first house-guest since moving to Italy. I wonder who will be next?

The closest thing to "uni work" I accomplished today was 45 minutes this evening spent checking the various positions to which I might wish to apply to find those who's initial application deadline has already past. Those I sent a quick e-mail stating that I'd seen their ad and are they still seeking applicants? I included a link to my CV and let them know that if they were still seeking applicants I'd be happy to submit a formal packet. I've also made note of the one with a 15 December deadline, and the fact that the others are all in early January. The quest for something interesting to do once I finish this degree continues!

The rest of the day was spent in various tasks towards the goal of moving this weekend. In the morning clovis_t and I went in to uni and picked up more empty boxes from the "box store room" in the geology department. A useful place, largely full of boxes computer paper arrives in, and a few other sorts. Even found one large enough to pack my big cookie sheets! From there we when out to Allens Rivulet to finish preparing the room to move into. Of course, in order to get it empty, I first had to do some re-arranging of the boxes of things in the rumpus room. Thanks to some organizing and stacking of boxes the stuff that was already there, plus the stuff from what is about to become our room (again) now takes up less floor space than did just the one pile yesterday. Have I mentioned recently that I enjoy organizing and packing things in a space efficient manner? We didn't have much time available out there, because we needed to be back at this house by 13:30 to meet a lady interested in purchasing our refrigerator, washer and dryer. She decided she wants it, so will meet us here late in the day Sunday to pick them up. Yay! One more set of large items dealt with!

After that it was packing, organizing, dealing with FreeCycle e-mails connecting with other people who will come take away the stuff we no longer need, and meeting our houseguest. He is a friend of a friend in Alaska who has come to Tasmania to spend five weeks doing a bicycle tour of the state. He's got a rental car for the first few days and is using our house as a home base while he gets his bearings and finds a bicycle he can use for his adventure, be it purchased or borrowed (so if anyone local has a working mountain bike they'd let him use, let me know). He's already offered to help us with moving, which is sweet, but I hope that he spends more time checking out this beautiful island than he does being useful with the great moving project.

In other news, darttn is one of the world's best moms. The Hammer Dulcimer e-mail list recently recommended a book, but when I checked the ordering page, they stated that they don't process payments over the internet, that it is necessary to actually call them over the phone to give them credit card details. Not wishing to place an international call, I asked mom to call them for me, and told her to withdraw the cash from my Alaskan Bank account (of which she is a joint account member, for just this sort of purpose). Today she tells me that the book is in the mail, and Merry Christmas, *and* she says that she's put additional cash into my account so that we can go shopping for new luggage, since she figures that it will come in handy when we do travelling/moving next year. She is so wonderful! Thoughtful too!