Category: In Retrospect

May 17 is a bit of a strange day, In Retrospect. The top row of pictures, there, are all from the Cranston Street flat. You can clearly see the “elevator scaffolding” in the picture out the window, which was why we ended up giving up the place: neither of us could concentrate well enough to really work, with all of the construction and things, and as the weather was getting better, we wanted to open the windows but could not, due to the blowing dust and the noise. It’s a shame, really, because it was a nice enough flat. Sure, it had its drawbacks, but not as many as those of the Angel Building flat!

Fortunately, we love our new flat, despite the boiler issues, the windows rattling, and the students singing (or shouting) their way home from the pub at 3 a.m. With the sun coming in our massive windows, sometimes we Hobbits are almost ludicrously happy in this our little corner of the globe. This flat is where we’ll stay, for the next year or so. And then? Nobody knows. Where In The World, indeed.

The 2010 School Year is ov-ah! D. has invigilated his last exam, and his End of Year Review is tomorrow. It was supposed to have been an hour meeting with each Ph.D candidate, a serious, grueling, going-over of his dissertation progress thus far. In a turn of amusing irony, it has been shortened to …thirty minutes, with half of the time being given to D. to verbally outline his plans for next year! Fifteen minutes seems endurable, and D. considers it a good sign that his time has been cut… for the most part. We’ll have to let you know if he’s correct.

Iceland’s volcano is at it again. Most of the time Glasgow has received little or no effect except in the upper atmosphere where planes fly, which means that occasionally planes are grounded and the airport is closed, and in the presence of heavier dust (which, in Glasgow, might not be anything but normal, since this city has at least five hundred building projects going on at all times, and there’s construction pollution everywhere). Unfortunately, Monday it was quite windy, and we noticed what we thought was snow flying past. Since it was stormy and we’ve already marveled at the had hail we had earlier this month, we didn’t think anything of it… D. actually wondered if it was snow. Only later did we find out that Eyjafjallajökull had rumbled again. We are now getting pieces of ash that the size of confetti, and the airport will revisit the idea of reopening on Friday.

We may be spending June at home instead of going to Washington D.C. for T. to receive her book award! (She seems oddly unbothered by this.)

Last year, on January 3, 2008 we were staying at our friend’s house, here in California. He was off in Spain, we were staying home with some nasty flu bug.

Apparently, 2007 wasn’t a very memorable January 3 for us, as we stayed in Glasgow over that holiday. It was … cold. We can be certain of that. We can also be certain that it’ll be very cold when we get back after this holiday, with forecasts for the worst winter in 25 years, and one of the coldest in the past 100.

January 3, 2004 found us buying a new sink, for the remodel of our condo in Benicia. That same day, we got around to putting in some firm structural supports for our espalier pear tree (5 varieties, each on a different branch). The condo is gone, along with the pear tree – both were practice for when we pack up and leave Glasgow, hopefully to move into a place to stay put for awhile.

In 2000, we were gardening? That’s got to be when we developed the roll of film! It was a great garden, but we couldn’t have done it in the middle of winter, even in California! It’s amazing, looking at these pictures, to think that we used to wait months and months – until the roll of film was full – to be able to see what pictures we took. Picture developing was a surprise and an adventure, because you never really knew what was there: the roll may have sat in the back of a drawer for years, waiting to be taken in.

Were we actually silly enough to visit Holland in January? (No… November! -t) Again, this must be when the film was developed. We’ll have to check our physical photo album to see when we were there. 1999 sounds right … but who knows? In some ways, the people who put the little date-stamp on their photos had it right: you’d know when the picture was taken. Unless you didn’t remember to set the date, when putting in new batteries.

Today finds us doing a bit of tidying, a bit of laundry, and preparing to go cook for some friends. They have a Meyer Lemon tree, so we’ll be making up another batch of lemon marmalade. We’ll probably also make a few batches of cookie dough, to go into the freezer for while we’re not around.

Our time in the US is winding down: we have 1 more week, and then it’s back to the cold, and the work. This week’s shopping goals include finding a white noise machine, and a lot more cardigans…!

Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats
by Walt Whitman

Ah, poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats,
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me,
(For what is my life or any man’s life but a conflict with foes, the old, the incessant war?)
You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites,
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!)
You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses,
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;)
You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother’d ennuis!
Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth,
It shall yet march forth o’ermastering, till all lies beneath me,
It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory.

Ah, it seems that Mr. Whitman has got our number — we’re half in and half out with 2009 — bemoaning the tarnished glory of what was going to be a wonderful year, and, inadvisedly optimistic, relentlessly hopeful, looking toward the new and unblemished 2010. Here’s to our “real self” stepping out from behind pettiness and meanness and “o’ermastering” our tendency to sulk and retreat.

Onward.

Roll on, 2010. Happy New Year, guys.

Two years ago, we had just discovered something we’d never seen before in the US: Orange Coca Cola. It’s a local abomination, apparently – we’ve never tried it, but I had to stop to take a picture of it, because … well, because.

A year ago, we went to visit one of my coworkers at his parents’ guest-house, the Tigh an Struan, in Largs. I took some photos, without the benefit of the really wide-angle lens. I’ll have to go back and take some more, if only so that we can have the Romanian equivalent of Hominy Grits. Truly delicious, filling, and closer to home-food than anything else (the “medium polenta” we get, here, tastes … well, like corn!).

Classes start back next week, with a week of leading people around to show them the campus, introductions, “socials” (i.e., a bunch of people in an overheated room, lots of wine, and ox-flavoured potato crisps). Can you tell how much I enjoy them?

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A year ago was a day for making 4 loaves of bread: 1 feta, olives, and spices; 1 garam masala with raisins; 2 plain. Our sourdough had still been alive. It met an ugly demise later on, and I’ve never had the heart to get another one going. Partly that’s because we always “boosted” with yeast anyway, and partly because … well, it’s a pain, and it means that you’re always having to bake bread. It was one thing, when we had family and friends to share with, and when our lives were a bit more regular but now, there’s just now way we could keep up!

As to baking, now, I’m quite enjoying the poolish method, and the results are fabulous. I’d even be tempted to say that poolish is better than sourdough. I know: heresy. But, it’s true, and it means that I can bake when I want to bake, not when some fermented blob of goo turns sullen and demands for something to be done about it.

Two more reasons I’m glad not to be at the beck and call of sourdough are that I’ve had my head deeply into writing my first chapter of the PhD, which has brought about the second reason for my not wanting bread around: I eat it.

I’m trying to get off the carbohydrate addiction, now that the draft of the chapter is turned in, but it’s a hard one to break. We’ll see how it works out, but we’re probably going to be making a lot more out of tofu and seitan, and much less in the way of bread.

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It seems that August 22 is a good day for eating prepared foods, rather than cooking for ourselves: A year ago, I went out with a coworker for lunch, at a little Korean restaurant on Argyle street. I had Garlic Noodles, apparently. I remember that they were spicy enough, but a tad greasy. Good kimchee, though. It was a good photography day, too: I managed to catch one of the Absailers washing the windows of the building!

The other pictures we have from August 22 are from our cruise to Alaska, in 2000. It was our first and last cruise. I think the best thing about it all was having chocolates on the pillows. Foodwise … nah, way too rich, way too much, too late, and just … too.

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We’re going to be doing an experiment in looking at what we were doing in previous times, here and at Hobbits. We’ve just gone through a major overhaul of how we organize pictures, up on Flickr, to put things into sets according to the day they were taken. It’s a different way of looking at the world, that’s for sure!

Apparently August 20 was a boring day last year: we didn’t take a single picture! We did, though, in 2007, and way back in 1999. Shown here are some horrible end-of-pantry experiments in cooking: a cornbread using chana flour (which actually turned out fairly decently) and a pineapple-upside-down cake … made with black currants, from polenta flour. Not a good flavor – and I could tell you that without even looking at the post! I was madly trying to wrap up this Baby Surprise Sweater, to give to my sister-in-law’s newborn. It turned out so large that my then-9-year-old sister-in-law could wear it. But it got done, and a hat to match!

We were also frantically trying to get the remodel of our condo finished, so that we could rent it out. In retrospect … well, let’s just say that we know a bit better about how to work with contractors, and know that if we ever get into a remodel situation again, we’ll just take a month’s vacation and come back to a finished job, rather than trying to live with all the chaos! The bathroom got done, though: 9 days before we left to come to Scotland. Shown here is my hat, after having been weather-treated with Scotch-Guard (which doesn’t exist over in Scotland, by the way). It turns out that the weather-proofing didn’t work so well: the hat is too small now, because it’s felt, and has gotten wet and shrunk. I have hopes of stretching it some day.

Apparently August 20 is a slim picture day, as the only other pictures we have, taken 8/20, are these, taken at a Sonoma County Beach (probably Doran, near Bodega Bay), way back in 1999. We still have prints of these – dragged along with us, in frames even. Flying a kite, on a beach. That used to be the shape of our weekends. We’d get into our little 2-door Toyota, and just drive and drive, seeing the coast of California, stopping for salt-water taffy, looking at all the places we thought we might be able to live “some day.”

It’s strange, the connection between these pictures. We used to drive to Benicia, to look at the neighborhoods, and say that we’d live there “some day.” We eventually managed it, only to move on, to let the house go, and to live a third of the way around the world. What ties these pictures together is the conflicting desires of our lives. To travel, yet to have a stable, presentable home, close to family and friends. To truly get to know the world, yet to have a place which fits us so well as we had before we left.

It’s strange, to look back upon our lives, and to wonder: where do we look next?

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