kili

really cool interactive feature on kilimanjaro in the times.

"it's like a deer shat on half the pizza"

this just about made p and me die.

friday catblogging

and here's some regular friday catblogging. we don't have any good pictures of oscar from the past week, and he's planted on my lap at the moment (awww) so i can't get the camera. so here's an old picture of him in an egg carton.

mealing chowls

here's some friday non-oscar catblogging:

oscar often makes incredibly similar sounds right after a particularly satisfying meal (and notice the cat in the video is licking its chops -- i know what that means), hence "mealing chowls". and notice also no people are around, just the camera on the floor -- oscar will always stop immediately once he realizes anyone is listening to him! textbook! could this be anything but a long lost littermate?

from www.catontape.com -- thanks for the tip, sandya.

p's birthday!

hey everyone, today is p's birthday! now make like good friends and family and leave lots of comments telling her how much you love her.

happy 28th, hon!

Visa Visa!

Here's P's week in news and photos! The big news is that I got my visa extension this morning! Technically it's a "temporary residence permit" and it's good till mid-February 2008 - gives me plenty of time to deal with getting a real residence permit. Wonderful not to have that breathing down my neck anymore!!

Without further ado, here's your Friday catblogging: Oscar enjoying the newly Oscarproofed front balcony.
What's Oscarproofing, you ask? Well, you can kinda see in last week's balcony pic why our balcony might be unsafe for an unattended, untame cat. The gap under the railing is big enough for a wildly rolling cat, and the divider between our balcony and the neighbors' would be deliciously easy for an intrepid cat like ours to subvert.

So until last weekend, balcony access had been restricted, the balcony doors kept shut even through lovely weather. Pretty unfortunate - these doors want to be open! Here's a pic of the dining room and kitchen area. (I think we're going to get a rug for this area at some point.)
I'd been thinking about how to solve the Oscarproofing problem, and for a while I had some pretty cockamamie ideas involving vinyl siding, metal sheeting, wood boards, and/or plastic under-rolling-chair-mats, cut down to size, punched with holes, and bound to the grid of the balcony, blocking off the gap under the railing. (Brian was pretty skeptical about the project.) Luckily, the perfect solution (if I do say so myself) dawned upon me before I sunk the family fortune into a half dozen plastic mats: wire mesh! On Saturday we went to this crazy über hardware/home decor store, Knauber, seeking wire mesh, and there it was, in the garden section, made for building rabbit coops! On Sunday we set to work with the wire cutters, a spool of wire, and the mesh, and before long we successfully cooped in our own little animal! Here's a picture of the final product: the square grid is part of the balcony; the mesh comprises little hexagons.
And here's young Oscar thwarted in his attempts to sneak under the divider to the neighbors' balcony - yes!
Before we made these modifications, Oscar was pretty scared of approaching the edge of the balcony; he knew he was looking at open space leading to a five-story drop. But now, he's so confident, so comfortable, it's almost frightening! But we've done a damn good job, and now the balcony below waist-height is basically a cat-impermeable box. He's safe, and we are pleased! This weekend we'll tackle the back balcony.

In other news, here's a rant for you. In mid-July, before I left Chicago, I stopped by the Medical Records Office at the U of C Hospitals to request a copy of my records. I left with every impression that the dude I talked to was about to photocopy my records and drop them in the mail. Six weeks and many phone calls later, my medical records show up, not in Germany, but in Flemington! Lovely. I picked them up when I was home in September. Putting my records in chronological order in anticipation of my endo appointment, I noticed a teeny tiny problem: no records from endocrinology or neurology, and nothing but lab work since 2005! Fucktards! The dude on the phone seemed to appreciate the situation and assured me that his supervisor would get on the job at once and send the rest of my records to Germany, but I know what such assurances can amount to. The reason I'm not boiling mad about this is that my endocrinologist had the good sense (and distrust of the records office) to send me on my way with a small file summarizing my endo treatment, enough to tell the doctors in Cologne what they need to know. It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which medical paper-shuffling is shot through with incompetence!

Here's a photo of a recent lunch: bitter seared radicchio with fresh mozzarella and white beans with fennel. Yum!

Looking forward to a weekend Oscarproofing and celebrating my right to three and a half more months in Germany!

The News

After two butt-kicking trips to IKEA and a great deal of ebay.de action, the apartment is starting to take shape. We're delighted with the results so far. This apartment is so beautiful in its own right that it's a pleasure to decorate. It takes so well to the dark wood and the bold colors (especially orange) that we're so fond of. Sorry that you have to take my word for it, still! I really will post some proper apartment photos one of these days! In the meanwhile, here are a few recent photos.

Here's today's lunch on our lovely new dark wood table: split pea soup and bread with quark.
Here's one apartment pic for you. This is our front balcony, with our little crop of herbs in the foreground. It's such a pleasure to have fresh herbs! We could never grow them in Chicago; they would get infested with white flies within weeks. They thrive here in the sun and breeze.
Here's the herb stand, a surprise find at IKEA. Schön!
And here's another sweet blackbird eating berries. I see one outside just about every day. This one is a different bird from the one I photographed before. Maybe if I watch carefully enough, I can identify the individual blackbirds that visit this tree.
And, lastly, for your Friday Catblogging pleasure, here's a rather less tame beast. He does love his stick!

No big medical news, just some small stuff. My thesis adviser kindly sends me newspaper articles on CFS research, and last month he sent me this article on a study that suggests that one cause of CFS is chronic infection with a stomach virus. No doctor I've seen has suggested antiviral therapy (maybe this is the way of the future), but I've known for a while that Andrew Weil recommends the antivirals garlic and astragalus for CFS... so I've started taking astragalus and, yup, I've started eating raw garlic, two cloves a day! Yum! I'll spare you the details of the adjustment period; I'm doing better with it now, several days after starting. This is just the latest of a seemingly endless string of experiments, something new each month. Nothing to do but try!

In other news, I have an appointment with endocrinology, finally! The downside is that it's for early November, so the wait is a bit long. I've also found two acupuncturists within a 5 minute walk of home! I expect to give acupuncture a try soon, once I figure out just how my insurance works.

I've looked a bit into becoming a student at the University of Bonn. I don't want to write too much about it just now; the short version is that it's not as simple as I hoped, alas. Also not as simple as hoped: getting the three-month extension on my visa. (My first three months run out in early November.) Turns out I have to produce a letter from a German business or university saying they're considering hiring me. Great! At least the immigration officer is very sympathetic; I think he'll accept any such letter that crosses his desk. Wish me luck on this sticky point!

Foot and News

Here's me and a giant foot. I consider this a companion piece to this photo. Four such feet (all left feet, sadly) were scattered across Trier, recent statues erected to mark the city's Roman history and the role of Constantine the Great who, for a time, ruled from Trier. But really: giant foot! Fun!!

In non-Trier news: Yesterday B and I had a big day at IKEA, but we have no more furniture to show for it! Despite the fact that we budgeted close to seven hours there, we ran out of time! Rather than rush, we decided we'd go back later. (What is it about that place?? No matter what we do, we always have to go back!) We bought a lot of littler things, all hefted and dragged home via public transportation (two buses and a streetcar). Our apartment is much more pleasant for the little improvements.

In two separate incidents yesterday, old folks on public transportation started waxing poetic (in German) to us about love! One sweet old lady that we talked to for a while on the bus asked me if I was cold (I wasn't) and she said it must be love keeping me warm. And both she and an old man complimented Brian on, er, me! What the...? Why does no one ever compliment me on Brian? I guess that's gender stuff for you: complimenting a girl on her guy would be a left-handed compliment, alas.

Tomorrow is our second German class. The class is held at MPI, so the students are all mathematicians and their families, and boy did the first class remind me how much I hate mathematicians. Inevitably there's an asshat male (or two, or three) who shows off with jolly obliviousness to everyone else shooting eye-daggers at him. At least this asshat came nickname-ready: B and I have been referring to him as Schneeweiß (= Snow White), after his healthy crop of dandruff. (Our favorite moment was when young American Schneeweiß argued with the native French speaker in front of him about the way you say "hard-working" in French.) As for the class itself, time will tell if it ends up being worth the walk into the Altstadt one or two extra days per week.

There seem to be lots of medium-sized things to attend to all of a sudden. I am due for an endocrinology appointment. My Chicago endocrinologist had me ask a German colleague for advice on doctors here, and he pointed me to a center in Cologne that's supposed to be very good. Navigating a new health care system in a foreign language should be fun!!

Also, I need to talk to the immigration office about the three-month extension on my visa. (Time flies: my first three months are up at the end of October!) There seems to be some question as to whether I can get those three months if I'm not actively (and, presumably, verifiably) searching for a job.

Lastly, I have to look into enrolling as a student at the Universität Bonn! Why? Corinna had the brilliant suggestion that I enroll as a way to get my residence permit. I had dismissed the idea when the immigration officer suggested it, thinking that I can't possibly go to classes and it would be insane to pay student fees anyway. But it seems that in Germany, typical student fees are very low (about 800€ per semester for regular students, 200€ for doctoral students), and the registration office doesn't particularly care whether you go to classes! There are all sorts of ways in which this plan might not work out (fees for foreign students might be higher, the registration office or the immigration office might demand a full course load, they might not accept me as a student,...), but what a lead!! This is better by far than any other option I've considered, and Corinna is my hero for suggesting it. I'm not daring to fully imagine the possibility that this will work out - but you can! And you can keep your fingers crossed for me.

Long Day In Trier

Corinna, lifelong Cologne resident and girlfriend to Brian's Chicago friend Tasho, had her parents' car for the weekend and generously invited us for a day trip to Trier, a small city nearly on the border with Luxembourg. The only thing we knew about Trier before yesterday is that it lies on the Mosel River, whose dramatically steep banks yield some of the best wine in Germany. My woeful knowledge of European history (yeah HCRHS!) made my eyes go semi-glaze when I read the Lonely Planet's description of the city: some stuff about the Romans, oldest city in Germany, something about Jesus's shirt....

It turns out that Trier is a real marvel. Surrounded by hills and the Mosel, the city was of strategic importance during Roman times and was even a sort of "second Rome," home to 80,000 people (which Corinna, fount of knowledge, says is the modern day equivalent of a city of 12 million)! Scattered across the city are gigantic Roman relics that speak to the city's former prominence: the massive front gate of the old city wall dating back to 180 AD; the lofty brick town hall in which the emperor Constantine presided in the 300s; the brick ruins of a capacious Roman bath; the Trier cathedral; and a huge amphitheater, grass now growing where once there were stair-like seats that held 20,000 people, but otherwise intact. Corinna really made the place come alive for us.

It's bedtime now; more photos of Trier tomorrow after we go to IKEA to buy furniture at last! Here's a photo of the pedestrianized main street in Trier, taken from the top of the Porta Nigra, the old front gate to the city; the cathedral is on the left.