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!