200th Post

What?

No, of course we’re not still asleep. Okay, yes, we’re doing a lot of sitting and staring into space, the house looks like our suitcases have a novovirus and have spewed their guts all over everything, and of course, downstairs the wall is still open and everything is covered by a thin layer of gray dust. But we’re not lying down and pretending none of this exists. Oh, no. We’re up. We’re at ’em. We’re… stumbling around in a daze, but we’re upright.

Gradually our lives are getting back on track and our minds back into this time zone. While T. has mostly been able to make it through the day — possibly because so much of her vacation time was spent in bed! — D.’s transition is much harder. We suspect that it’s due to the lack of strong light on this end, causing our internal clocks to just kind of wander about aimlessly. D. was up at 3 a.m. Wednesday, gave up trying to sleep at about 3:30, and got up to study. He had to have a nap in the evening, and another nap this evening, yet he was awake this morning at about 4. We’re hoping that his internal clock will reset soon!

Thanks to Dr. K’s mask, T’s ‘flu/infection/virus/snot fountains did not return from sitting for ten hours on the plane with coughing people. Though we are a little worse for wear since our chiropractor is still vacationing on the beach in sunny Sydney (where he grew up, the lucky duck), and we were a bit astounded to land in Schipol and see snow on the ground (after leaving balmy S.F. at 71­°F/22°C), we’re adjusting nicely, for the most part.

Thursday found us treading the familiar stone stairs to our choral society meeting, where, in honor of the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death, we’re preparing a big concert. Yes. It does seem a little weird to not honor the day of his birth, but his death, but …well, you know musicians. Any excuse to sing some Haydn. We were given our program… and sort of gaped at what was before us:

1. Insanae et vanae curae
2. Organ Concerto in C, Hob XVIII:1
3. The Storm, Hob XXIVa:8
4. Mass in B flat, Hob XXII:10, Missa Sancti Bernardi von Offida (Heiligmesse)

The Mass is in Latin of course, and some of the other pieces are in the dreaded German again — but we may be getting a reprieve for one piece — our director likes the English translation better. We’re a little relieved, only because the group is so much smaller this semester — some still haven’t made it back to school, being stuck in the snow in other parts of Europe! As there are only four tenors at the moment, we most sincerely hope that everyone returns in one piece!!

One of the more enjoyable things we did when we were home was to recreate a 1950’s classic cake. We had so much fun on Memory Lane we thought we’d recreate another classic — Boston Brown Bread. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a coffee can (Yep, it’s bread-in-a-can while the Boston Baked Beans cook. Yankee ingenuity at its best) and we ran out of time, but interested parties will be amused to note that we’ve found a replacement for the can! Behold the pudding sleeve!

Actual traditional British puddings — not the catch-all word for desserts, but the actual dishes like Spotted Dick and suet (yikes!)…puddings — are steamed. Apparently those Yankees got their ingenuity from somewhere!

This weekend we’re privileged to visit with Elizabeth Wein, another American author living in Scotland whom T. had the pleasure of interviewing this past summer. As we always do when we’re leaving the country, we put out a call to those Americans we knew to make sure no one needed anything from home. Elizabeth’s kids needed some Wintergreen Life-Savers in a dire way, so we’re going to deliver them in person, and Elizabeth is going to let us watch her team of change ringers at the Dunkeld Cathedral! That has to be the best trade-off, ever.

We’ll be taking pictures, of course, as the first time we visited we only ended up with about 25 pictures of the place, none of which really captured its beauty. Elizabeth lives in Perth, so we’ll catch a train there in the morning and ride up the rest of the way with her. It should be interesting, as she’s quite a prolific writer, and was recently nominated for a Nebula Award!

This is the 200th time we’ve written to you, here on Hobbits Abroad, since we found out that D. was accepted to Glasgow University, way back in July of 2007. At that time we were ambitious, and thought that we’d travel about quite a bit more. But, we also named the blog Hobbits Abroad because we tend to be sort of stay-at-home Hobbits. This year … this year it’s been our stated goal to get out a bit more — but we’re hoping for more than that.

A chance comment left by a reader indicated, in a joking way, that they were of the opinion that we hated Glasgow. D. anxiously scanned back through the past twenty posts or so, worried that he’d been somehow offensive. Though we often do a bit of Eeyore-ing on the blog, and get a little down about the darkness from time to time, we really are enjoying the opportunity and the adventure of doing something different — so from time to time, we’re going to be posting some of the reasons we like living as hobbits abroad. Not only will that help to balance some of our whinier days, it’ll remind us of what we love about our lives. So, stay tuned for that.

We just got an email from Julie L. who informed us that it’s 80° in L.A.

In more weather news, yesterday, as D. was walking home from work, it dumped rain, stopped, produced a rainbow, and then… it snowed. We figured it was a message from God. Sure, the world won’t be destroyed by rain. But there’s always snow. Or maybe hail…

Happy New Year!

– D & T

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