Off to Ohio

Tomorrow we're leaving for Ohio to spend Christmas with my family. We did the calculations and determined that it would be cheaper to drive and bring the animals this year, because boarding two pets is quite pricey.  So we'll be packing the cat, dog, and two humans in the car tomorrow morning. With 20 hours of driving (which we'll spread out over two days), we'll be there.

Ada, the Miami dog, is now the proud owner of handmade purple coat that will help her survive the Midwest winter.(Since we don't have a sewing machine, Andrew and I did an awful lot of hand sewing this week).

This trip also prompted us to make a decision that I've been putting off for quite a while. As we've tried to live more frugally, I became aware that our Mini was not a frugal choice, as much as I loved it, and that's pretty much due to it's poor gas mileage. (You can't get great mileage when you're a sports car with a turbo-charged engine, after all).

So

So, when we take our trip, we'll be travelling in a new (to us) fuel-efficient car. It also happens to have more space and is beloved by Andrew, so it wasn't a total loss to give up my Mini.

Party time

We hosted our annual Christmas party last weekend. Every year, when I plan the guest list, I am grateful that we live in Miami. Since our apartment is tiny, having more than four people in the living room means that everyone is bumping into one another. But because winter is the pleasant season in Miami, we just open up the door and extend the party outside. Unfortunately, this December has been exceedingly warm. It was in the humid, high 70's (24C), which mean that it was rather warm for all the people who wore suits. 

I forgot to take any pictures of the food, but one of the biggest successes was the homemade French onion dip, which continually surprises people who think Lipton instant soup is the only way to make the recipe. I also received compliments on an appetizer of toothpick-skewered Brie chunks and grape tomatoes, served with a oil-pesto dip. The entire preparation took maybe 10 minutes, which seems sort of criminally easy for how much people liked them. The coconut oatmeal cookies, on the other hand, will never be made again; if I don't get at least two compliments on a recipe, it has failed the test.

Three of my closest friends from choir came, and they all wore their finest dressy outfits.

 Phi the cat is the black spot on the black tux. I think she spent most of the party on our friend's lap.

In addition, the dog was magnificently behaved. We've never had a real party since we adopted the dog, but she just collected a few friendly head-pats and then laid down on the floor for the rest of the evening. I am so grateful for all those training classes that Andrew did with the dog. They sure paid off.

Reading

To me, one of the best things about working at a university is the almost unfettered access to books. If my university library doesn't have it, they can borrow it from a huge network of other libraries, which includes both university and public libraries. Consider the two books the library just had delivered for me: "The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists" and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism."

The first book is part of my continuing effort to educate myself about what work you can do with a physics degree outside of academia. I like academia very much and I like to think that I have a fairly good understanding of how it works (at least for a relative newcomer to academia). But about 40% of students with an undergraduate or graduate degree in physics immediately go to work in industry. (Thanks, American Institute of Physics, for all your useful statistics) Most professors simply don't have experience with work outside of academia or national labs. (And in physics, we call everything beyond those two things "industry".) So professors don't know what advice to give students about employment, and they often don't even know what kinds of jobs people can do. Whenever I get a chance to go to a talk or read a book about this, I take it, and I hope I'm accumulating useful knowledge that I can pass on.

The second book is because of the Indian classical dance I've been learning for the past few years (Bharata Natyam). The people that I meet in class are all Hindu, and the dance itself is part of Hinduism. I know a lot about Christianity and can fake my way through discussions about Judaism and Islam, but I'm simply lost when it comes to Hinduism. Of course, when I went to the university library it had dozens of books on the religion, but it was all so academic or historical or philosophical that I was lost. I wanted a book at the level that, if it were written for Christianity, would say, "Christians hang often wreaths on their doors or walls during the weeks before Christmas". Basically, I want to know how it's lived day-to-day, so I can understand my friends' conversations, but I also want to know the deeper meaning of some of the things I am learning. And it looks like those embarrassingly-named Idiot's Guides are going to be just what I need.

Giving thanks at Disney

We went to Disney for Thanksgiving. We didn’t actually walk the grounds of Disney World, though, or pay the $100 entrance fee. Instead, we loitered near the entrance for a few days by staying at the Disney campground, Fort Wilderness. I must admit that Disney isn’t the first place I think to take a vacation, even though we now live a mere four hours from Orlando. However, my brother and his family were vacationing for a week at Disney, and the promise of family time at a place that is beloved by my niece, nephew, and sister-in-law was reason enough to go. And we had a blast.

The campground (contrary to what you might expect from Disney) is filled with real dirt and trees and squirrels and raccoons. But there’s also luxury – water and electric hookups at every campsite, and heated bathroom stations (a nice improvement over ‘dig a hole in the dirt’ bathrooms we have when we normally rough it). They also have lots of Disney events: there’s a nightly sing-a-long with  Chip and Dale, followed by an outdoor Disney movie. There’s a communal campfire for roasting marshmallows, and a restaurant where you can drink (very expensive) beer. We watched the nightly light show, when a train of boats with huge lighted screens glides by on the lake which separates the campground from the Magic Kingdom. (See how much I learned? I didn’t know until this weekend that Magic Kingdom refers to the original Disney World, whereas “Disney” is an all-encompassing term for the brand and/or the location.)

My niece Kyla got into the spirit by making her own nature-filled Mickey decoration.

We kayaked through the canals of the campground.

We played pirate-themed miniature golf.

We also froze nearly to death. We shivered through the first night, when the temperatures dipped to into the low 40s. Then we slipped over to a big box store and bought electric blankets for all, which led to camping bliss. I’m starting to see the benefits of electric hookups at campsites after all…

Fried food makes it all better

We had a day full mundane tasks - choir practice and washing dishes and writing for work. I'm always looking for ways to throw little treats into a day like this. So we had homemade french fries with garlic mayonnaise. We ate them all so fast there was no chance of them getting cold.

Happy Halloween!

You're looking at the full extent of our Halloween celebration this year.

Singing and gardening

     This past few days have been quiet, as I'm resting in preparation for several busy weeks of singing. This coming weekend  my choir in performing Carmina Burana, which means a week of nightly rehearsals. Two weeks from now, we'll repeat the schedule, singing Mahler's Third Symphony. 

     Even if you are not musically inclined, Carmina Burana is super-duper famous. It's been used in movies and commercials galore, because it's filled with very powerful, percussive singing. (Here's a version of O Fortuna, the opening movement. Even better, here's an animated, less serious take on that first movement.) The Mahler symphony is more traditional, and only has four minutes of choral singing in the entire concert. I am still rather nervous about it, as we are singing with Cleveland Orchestra, which is considered one of America's finest orchestras. The Cleveland Orchestra has its winter home in Miami, and they've hired our choir to sing. Last week the Director of Choruses attended our rehearsal and we spent two hours fine-tuning our four minutes of song. It was exciting and terrifying and I am so glad that I am not a professional musician.

     And when I am stressed, I turn to ice cream. In this regard, I am well prepared. I received an ice-cream maker for a gift recently and have three flavors stockpiled in the freezer: strawberry-limoncello (pictured below), fudge-mint, and frozen yogurt. The ice-cream maker was actually part of our budget plan, because I figured out that it's cheaper to buy whipping cream then the super-duper premium ice cream that I love to eat.

     Hurricane Sandy brought us cool weather* and a bit of rain, but its effect was relatively minor.** The cooler weather was welcome on Saturday when we helped out at our congregation's gardening day. The church has five acres, most of which is gardens or wooded areas. I was once again reminded that South Florida is teeming with life (in case the most recent flea infestation hadn't been enough reminder). We hacked down invasive air potato vines and other weeds. Here, Andrew shows off one of the largest plants he took out - a 10-foot tall tree. 

*It's 60F degrees right now! I'm wearing two sweaters. 

**And my thoughts are with everyone on the East Coast right now.