Uphill & Down

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Highs and lows, hills up and valleys down. These are the things which make up a life, and we’ve had our share lately of good and bad. Stress has a way of making tiny things seem momentous, and we’ve struggled with feeling like we’re riding down a landslide. So much is going on! It feels like none of it is in our control… and, none of it is. We suspect that the minute a person accepts that life just sort of happens without their input, the happier they are…! We’ll become happier any moment now…

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The opening photograph looks like the entire cast of Upstairs/Downstairs or Downtown Abbey ought to come out and line the drive, appropriately costumed in 1911 outfits of dark suits and black dresses, white aprons, mob caps and the works, doesn’t it? This is Mar Hall, where our friend Axel is getting married in June. D. is shooting the event and may even avoid shooting himself when all is said and done. It’s a stately venue, and the event looks to be quite posh (T. saw these pictures and wondered aloud if she’d have to get one of those huge feathered fascinators so she’d fit in with the well-heeled crowd) but unfortunately as you can see from the smaller inset photograph, the inside of these oooold buildings tend to be quite dim. Photographer D. and his stylishly-chapeau’d assistant will be dragging along all manner of lights and hoping to get some good shots of the couple during the ceremony… which will be backlit by a massive window. We don’t hold out much hope, and plan to take the pre-wedding family and bridal party shots OUTSIDE. Except if it’s raining, then there will be a switch to Plan B.

How do wedding planners around here cope!?

On the plus side, after a dampish Easter, today the weather is fabulous — and it turned beautiful the MINUTE we were on our way OUT of St. Andrews this weekend, after pouring down buckets on us all day.

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It’s ironic that the train station was where D. got a slight sunburn.

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Winter gives way to spring, and we are close to The End of All Things – well, all things academic, anyway. We got our snazzy Senior portrait and announcement from our graduating Little, and are still a bit miffed that his graduation day was moved up – but he’s so excited about the pomp and circumstances he actually doesn’t really care if we’re there or not. (We keep telling ourselves this.) Meanwhile D. is driving himself to finish his dissertation, and has a long list of “questions for further study,” which translates to, “things I don’t have the space to talk about in this paper, and if I don’t quit bringing up questions related to my research I am never going to finish this @!*&%&*#@ thing.” He is beginning to really hate the concept of word counts.

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Sunshine and shadows, the good and the less so. The sunshine: we’ve heard that our old Uni friends are pregnant – well, one of them, anyway. The strikingly tall redhead with the massive beard whom we once called Thor (his real name is Joel, which is much less exciting than our moniker), and his lovely wife, Frieda (er, Heather) are going to be parents. They are over the moon. We’ve imagined him losing his child in his copious facial hair, which said child will later enjoy pulling. Tee hee. The shadows: D’s stress is eating up the lining of his stomach, and he’s having some twinges, no appetite, and a complete inability to sleep, among hypotension and some other things. There is a statistically high number of people who succumb to all sorts of ailments during their PhD programs and don’t finish. We continue to pray that D. is not among them. We press on toward the goal…!

Meanwhile, T. has ninety pages of her revision left before she’s due to call her editor and chat. The changes, her agent assured her, were small, only superficial. However, owing to the author, the changes have now become a bit more than expected, and T. is once again rewriting a novel from the ground up. In two weeks. She wishes she could quit doing this. Her editor at this point likely wishes the same. But, one little change is a great deal like pulling on one little thread in a sweater… sometimes, it’s just easier to see how much it takes to make the whole thing unravel.

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While we’re not stressing out and unraveling our work, we are, for the most part, dealing well with our frustrations and setbacks, enjoying the newly rediscovered sunshine, which is still a bit liquid-y most days, and just trying to hang on to the tail of this beastie we call our lives, as it runs along.

Well, that’s us. What’s going on with you lot?

WORDY Wednesday (As Opposed to Wordless)

Tom Kha Tofu with Udon

Springtime in a bowl, folks; a good Thai soup burnishes the stomach with warmth and makes you not mind the wind and the intermittent rain and hail. Plus, it’s stuffed chock full of veg. We started this soup with a pair of Thai bird chillies, a thick slice of galangal root (or you can use ginger), a half stalk of lemon grass and a handful of bruised makrut lime leaves (they’re sold as kaffir lime leaves. Kaffir is a racial slur in South Africa, so we say makrut… {ETYMOLOGICAL DIGRESSION #1} *Oddly kafir in Arabic, which is the words origin language, merely means infidel or unbeliever – which is an insult to a Muslim; no idea how it got so twisted with apartheid and such), and simmered them in three cups of water for about a half hour. We then added a can of coconut milk, a container of firm tofu which had been frozen and thawed (accidentally), roughly chopped onions, a cup of button mushrooms, a random amount of fresh green beans, broccolini, a sliced zucchini (or, if you’re from here, a courgette) and a couple of carrots we had sitting. A quick ten minutes, and we added some pre-cooked udon noodles, two tablespoons of mae ploy, which is a sweet pepper sauce, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and a dash of lemon juice. It. Was. Amazing. You’ll note that the veg was barely cooked, and the aromatics were left in — that’s always tricky. Note: don’t eat the lemon grass. It’s just not that tasty. If you’re concerned about your veg being too raw with such a short cooking time, you can always give a three minute blanch to everything except for the zucchini/courgette.

{ETYMOLOGICAL DIGRESSION #2 BEGINS HERE} Hey, by the way, we found out why the Scots use the French word for all of their veg like aubergine instead of eggplant and courgettes instead of zucchini, as Americans who lived with Italian immigrants do. It’s because the Scots are French. (Just don’t tell them.) A brief history lesson for you:

Henry the Eighth kinda hated Scotland, and figured they were überreligious annoyances, despite marrying off his sister Mags to King James IV in 1503. Realizing they were going to get messed about, the Scots cozied up to the French, and renewed an “auld” acquaintance. And it was old — it was from all the way in the 1200’s! In 1295, the Scots signed what is termed “The Auld Alliance” with the French, against the English. They’ve had bad cess between them for ages and ages and ages, apparently. History records that they were even on hand to fight with Joan D’Arc, were the doughty Scotsmen. Scottish mercenaries were paid in French wine, which was a pretty sweet deal to them. (Perhaps that was pre-whisky?)

Well, on to more recent times (Recent, hah! But, recall, the Battle of Bannockburn (Blàr Allt a’ Bhonnaich) is still discussed here in strong terms, and that was in 1314): in 1538, James Four married his son James Five to Mary, daughter of Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, who was super rich and somewhat royal. They pushed their children, as one does, and encouraged their daughter to be queen when she was but four days old. The poor dear’s name was Mary, because they didn’t have a Baby Names book, and they went with what worked for her mother, apparently. (Oh, all right – her other name was Mary Queen of Scots, and she was either a beloved saint, or a vicious harpy, depending on who you ask around here.) Mary wed the eldest son of the king of France (aka the Dauphin), and the English went ballistic, because suddenly they realized that, Oh, ignoring Scotland is probably one of those Bad Ideas, and now they were going to gain a better organized set of enemies. They revived their feudal claims of ownership, and started Yet Another War, which ended up pitting Mary against her half-sister, Elizabeth, and you know how that ended. (What? YES, you do know how that ended. Oh, for shame! Go look it up right now.)

The point of all of this for our purposes is that the alliance between France and Scotland was never rescinded. They agreed, in that Auld Alliance, to a common language and a common purpose. Scots spoke Gaelic and French, as a matter of course… thus the inclusion of French words in Scottish conversation. Neat, huh? We learned all this at Stirling Castle our last visit.

Meanwhile, it’s interesting that French words in American Vernacular English tend to be specialized. We have “loan words” like ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, and savoir faire — but if you’ll note, the words aren’t …common, really. While they’re well-known, they’re not easily used by most of the population; they’re all sort of upper crust-y kinds of words. (With the exception of more pedestrian French loan words like denim, garage and bigot – but the plain words from the French are few and far in between.) Conversely, Italian loan words are as common as — well, Italian Americans. Think of words like alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, ghetto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin, cappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso (mafia!), pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, and zucchini. These all (with the exception of spumante, possibly) are well-used and robust parts of the American language, and not special or fiddly words at all. We find that fascinating. Guess we Americans like our music and our moods and our food, eh?

{THUS ENDS OUR DIGRESSION}

For good or for ill, this tom kha taohu soup was the last really amazing, fresh-tasting, veglicious dish we made ’round these parts, and that was about, oh, two weeks ago. Since then, the Work Fairy has come and smacked us in the head with her pointy little wand. D’s dissertation deadline is looming, his work project deadline loomed, and T’s got an editorial letter at last and another manuscript revision ahead of her — plus her end-of-April freelance revision. Erg.

Our house looks like the scene of a crime. The piles of laundry – nicely separated, not yet put into the microscopic machine – have become ambulatory and are congregating in corners, plotting. The bathroom is routinely disinfected and the dishes get done — simply because we have a limited amount of them, and T. has Issues With Germs — but the vacuuming isn’t done and the dust is collecting in drifts, which is sort of hard to avoid this time of year. The occasional sunshine has at last provoked the trees into bloom — and the grass, trees, flowers and nasty Scotch broom manages to send commando pollen dust into any little crack or crevice on the wind, which blows and blows and blows. Allergies go hand-in-hand with the Spring, alas. But, we aren’t complaining. (We don’t have time).

Along with our regularly scheduled work, we’ve had extra rehearsal for our Spring concert, which is going to be awesome, by the way. It’s a Vaughn Williams/William Walton retrospective, which will be delightful for our English audience members, and a bit stressful for the rest of us, but things are coming together and we’re finally getting to where we can look forward to the orchestra bits of the piece. Aside from our single choir, which has been split into two parts singing away at different bits, the score calls for two flutes, a piccolo, two oboes, something called a cor anglais or a sax, three clarinets in B-flat an alto saxophone in E-flat, 2 bassoons, and a contrabassoon. We’ll have four horns in F: three trumpets, two tenor trombones, a bass trombone, a tuba; timpani, and three or four percussionists playing a side drum, a tenor drum, a triangle, a tambourine, castanets, a silvery shimmer of cymbals, a bass drum, a huge solemn-sounding gong, which is going to sound like the tolling of a bell, a xylophone, a glockenspiel, a wood block, slapsticks, and an anvil. (YES. An. ANVIL. As in, blacksmiths.) Finally, there will be two harps, a piano, an organ, and a full complement of strings.

We’re beginning to wonder how we’ll all fit on the stage.

Despite our amusing tone, we are both kind of out of our minds with stress, and it is beginning to show. We ask you to think of us from time to time, as we stagger through. Please keep in touch.

*RE: the etymological asides. Sorry! This has turned into the etymology blog today, and we’re not sure why! Oh, well. Just another sampling of the random things which cross our minds. Take care of yourselves.

In the ‘Hood

A surprising development is taking place in a nearby park. You may remember the site of this development from previous pictures… because it was once a vacant lot full of soggy couches and stained mattresses, all things which were burned in a huge bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night … but now is the site of a playground. A positive step, right?

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The playground has a gravel undersurface, covered by a waterproof barrier, a felt liner, and then …sand.

Hm.

Now, not being engineers or park designers, we may not have the right of it, but it seems a mistake to cover an entire playground in sand. It just rains here SO MUCH. We’re afraid the park builders have condemned the neighborhood park to damp, sandy sadness, rather than leaving it as it was: a happy, frolicksome place for the burning of mattresses, rubbish, and whatever else came to hand.

Not to mention the …cats.

We hope they rethink this, and that the park is not going to be the grand kitty-litter palace it looks like it’s turning out to be. (Point of interest: T. played in a sand-filled park like this when she was a child. Her favorite pasttime was sifting through the sand and picking out the cigarette butts. Great game, eh, and it would really work well in Glasgow! C’mon! Everybody play!)

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Meanwhile, a little closer to home, there’s Lights! Camera! and indeed, Action! Yes, our wee street and crescent are in the middle of a film or TV show — we have no idea which. By nine a.m., the end of the road was filled with trailers and guys on cherry pickers with big HD cameras. T. did not recognize the camera as an HD, she was just peeved that a man seemed to be filming the house. So, she took a picture of HIM. Then she worried he’d taken a picture of her taking a picture of him…

The big lights went up with their diffusers, and apparently all kinds of drama went on. T… didn’t notice, as she was on her computer, and not hanging about windows all day. It took D. coming from work and saying, “Hey, look out the window!” for her to realize the film crew was still there.

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We have gained a greater appreciation of the rigors of being filmed. For one thing, it rained all day, and was windy, which would have made things uncomfortable the guys on the camera lifts. D., who actually walked home from work past the site, reports that he saw scaffolding inside holding more cameras, and someone painting a wall — the fumes from the light and heat must have been intense. And those lights are painfully bright – we had to close the kitchen blinds because every time we turned that direction, our eyes were automatically drawn — and then we were blinded. They were apparently filming daylight in the flat, and we had to laugh — when it is EVER that bright in Glasgow? Maybe the show is set in Australia. Hrm.

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They packed up around eight and stood around in the street for awhile afterward, but we still have no better idea of who they were or what the show might be. Suppose we could have asked. Maybe tomorrow, if they show up again.

Meanwhile, all’s quiet in the ‘hood. Except for the car alarms, the feral children shouting in the park, and the man in the slouch hat walking his ferret… Can you believe nobody’s filming?

-D & T

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Sunny Sunday

Sunday was beautiful, capping off a warming trend in the weekend, it was a full 19°C/68°F — gorgeous, balmy weather at last, and our first fully springlike weekend. Of course, because of the way life goes, D. spent the entire weekend in the house sick, and T. had to attend a three-hour chorus rehearsal in the loveliest part of the day.

Kelvingrove Sunday-t

Shorts abounded, and T. walked back from rehearsal in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, feeling decidedly overdressed as contrasting her city compatriots. It was nice to see everyone out and about with dogs and toddlers in tow. Nicer still is the fact that although it blew up a storm late last night and it poured this morning with the temperatures dropped by fifteen degrees, it promises to blow (blow being the operative word – really windy!!!) through by noon and the sun will come out again.

The daffodils are all out — and there look to be signs of actual tulips. They’re the last bulbs up, around these parts, so if we’re seeing actual tulips – not forced, but grown from bulb – that does indeed mean that true Spring has finally arrived. T. remains skeptical, but persuadable.

The photograph is dreadful – taken with a cellphone camera – but it shows just how many people were outside. Glasgow is the second largest city in the UK, and it only takes a sunny day to remind you of this! Still — nice to see the smiles and relaxed faces. Have a happy week.

Entertaining Angels

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Okay, maybe not angels — there were a few too many low-voiced snarky remarks (which, in public, provoked silent laughter and tears of mirth) and stuck-out tongues for that. But, we were well-entertained last week nonetheless with our guests, whom we’ll call D’Nic & McFlea – previously known as The Littles.

On one hand, once you’ve seen one stately home or castle, you’ve pretty much seen them all. (Yes, SOMEBODY is jaded from having lived in a castle-on-every-third-hill country for almost four years.) On the other — there’s nothing like showing off those castles and stately homes to someone new all over again. And it’s a lot of fun being the tour guides to someone’s first time international flight, first castle, and first time in Scotland. We have played midwife to the birth of a new identity for D’Nic & McFlea, that of traveler. We hope our tourists have developed a love for the wider world that sticks with them, and changes their thinking about who they are, and how far that they can go.

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One of McFlea’s funnier repeated comments was, “I expected it –” whatever “it” might have been — “to taste/look/smell/be like the ones at home!” Surprise! Scotland is a whole ‘nother country. It’s amazing how you can know something in your head, but not have it sink in, until you get where you’re going.

At this time, we’d like to give a big shout out to Northern California, especially the SF Bay Area, for taking the Scottish weather for a few days. Thanks Cali! Your days of wild rain, water spouts, high winds and sheer misery enabled us to have a lovely week of mild Spring weather, with temps in the low fifties, light morning fog and clouds. NC, should you feel a need to trade again, let us know! We’re open!

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Ah, tourism: curious food (some of us are still bewildered at the scoop of shredded cheese-mayonnaise… stuff that was plopped next to our baked potatoes on Monday), naff – or tasty, depending on who you are – orange drinks (“It’s Made in Scotland from Girders”™), and fast-talking guides. McFlea was fun to watch as she peered intently at the castle tour guides. She has informed us that a Scottish burr is completely understandable if one simply watches the speaker’s mouth. Lip-reading! Who’d have thought! We did not try out her newly learned skills on any taxi drivers or random Glaswegians, as we’re not sure that it would have held up satisfactorily (and what happens if people mumble?). Still, we were pleased that she understood a lot more than any of our previous guests. It might be something to do with age, in some cases – ::cough:: – and the fact that others who visited were also polyglots who were accustomed to letting unknown languages simply flow past them like music. Either way, impressive work, McFlea! (Surprisingly, D’Nic even understood more than we expected, but he just shrugged when we asked him how. He’s got SKILZ, man. Mad skilz.)

D’Nic is one of those …um, quiet types, who apparently has a lot of amusing thoughts on his own and doesn’t say them – until later. He kept us smiling, and one night did a dreadfully accurate impersonation of a shopkeeper who kept calling T. “madam,” much to T’s disgust. With his teensy phone camera – on which he managed to take a number of surprisingly good photographs – he was always wandering off, engaged in capturing the memories. He enjoyed the castles well enough, but he really enjoyed the food — although where he puts it all, truly, no one knows — and getting active.

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On our last day, we went out to Braehead to visit Xscape, which is the teen wonderland of the area. It’s a huge indoor mall thing with laser tag, rock walls, video games, an indoor snow ski facility, and tons of junk food restaurants and a few stores. Of course, we only booked the day to go because it was clouding up, and we thought it would rain. Wouldn’t you know it, we had a gloriously gorgeous, sunny day that we spend indoors instead of cycling around Great Cumbrae and bugging our friend Axel. Oh, well, it was still great fun to watch the duo take their 90 minute ski lesson, watch D’Nic swarm up the climbing walls, and take a death-defying 18 meter/50 foot leap from the ceiling – complete with manly scream – and observe them shooting up aliens or whatever in the laser tag room. A good time was definitely had by all, and we can see the draw of Xscape for kids – and older “kids” – sick of the long, dark, inactive days of winter. The place is all neon and 90’s pop music and bright, flashing lights. Definitely fun once in awhile.

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They were with us and gone so quickly that we’re mainly left with the memory – like the aftertaste of a really good bite of food. It’s difficult for us to visit home – we go back and try to fit visiting around people’s work schedules, their children, and their other responsibilities. We flit around like nervous hummingbirds, finding it hard to settle in guest beds and are relegated to …visitors, where once we were family. It’s a strange and uncomfortable place to be at times. We find that having people visit US means that we actually see them and get time to interact, play board games, slouch around and watch dumb movies, and generally do all of those mundane activities that are not an event, but … make up a life. This was such a successful visit that we can’t wait to organize the paperwork and marshal the funds to do it again.

…of course, in a different house next time, and in a different country.

And now, the Serious Time sets in. D’s required to turn in a full-draft of his dissertation by 15th of June at the latest; he’s going to make every effort to turn in by the first deadline of May 30 6th (arrrgh, one month!). That means a bit of structured time during the week and on the weekends – we have to set aside play time and social time and work time. T. hopes to finish re-revising her science fiction attempt by the end of April, so that she can turn it in to a freelance editor she’s engaged in May, and then she, too, has to settle in for a long bout of revision for her book due on in Spring 2012, as well as finishing up another project she’s hoping to turn in to her editor by October (fingers crossed).

In the midst of all of this is the inevitable job-hunting and collecting boxes to pack and move…

             =====>BUT.

The sun has remembered to shine again, the nights are warmer, the birds are raucous, and there’s every chance that we have, once again, survived the Big Cold Dark, thank God.

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It might even be safe to say Happy Spring.

Until the next snow, then.