. . . that I really am recovered from the surgery, I thought I'd show you what I was doing this weekend, less than two weeks post-op. Hard to believe that just the week before, I was huddled on the couch bawling in pain.
And also, a little of this:
I have decided that this blog (and, by extension, those of you who read it) is like an old college buddy. The kind of friend with whom you can lose touch for months, even years at a time, meet up for a beer in an airport lounge when one of you is passing through the other’s town, and resume chatting as though not a day has passed since last you met. So, yeah, I’ve been busy. With work, and houseguests, and work, and skate-skiing, and work, and climbing, and work, and taxes, and, well, work.
Steve and I are spending a lot of time these days fantasizing about knocking down walls and remodeling our tiny, boring kitchen into something less tiny and more fabulous. For financial and other reasons, I expect we are a year or so away from taking a sledgehammer to the drywall, but we have come up with a pretty snazzy design concept and have priced out some materials and appliances. At least in theory, we’d like to do as much of the work as possibly ourselves (realistically, mostly Steve’s-self, since I’m rather lacking in the construction- and design-skills department. But I can paint!). This should be a challenging and possibly even fun endeavor, although I’m a wee bit terrified about how long it might take, and how we might survive being kitchenless for many months.
Other than work and kitchen-dreaming, we have been skate-skiing as much as possible. We leave Thursday for the Birkebeiner, and hopefully will reap the benefits of all this training. If you’ve been following along at home, you may remember that my plan was to ski the entire 51K Birkie race this year, on classic skis. For reasons of weather, wax, and gear, too mundane to explain, I have skied classic-style only twice this season, while I’ve been skating almost every weekend since November. A few months ago, I could barely go for 10 minutes without gasping and dry-heaving, but I’ve now skated 20K or so twice in the past few weeks, once in bitterly cold conditions for which I had the entirely wrong wax. And so, come Saturday, I will be attempting to skate the 23K Kortelopet race, the same one I classic-skied last year. This feels like the right challenge for me, for this year, and I’m very excited about it. It also means that the Freiburger clan will not have to sit around waiting for me to finish the full Birkie, since they are all skiing the Korte and I would almost surely be finishing at least 4 hours behind Steve’s Birkie time.
Speaking of cross-country skiing, did any of you see the men's 4x10K relay last weekend? Where the Italian skaters crushed the field and snagged the gold on their home turf? Just, wow! Very inspiring and intimidating, and extra fun to watch now that I understand the sport a little bit. On the other hand, curling? I watched for a good 15 minutes the other day, and I still have no idea what's going on. It seemed to have some resemblance to a retirement-home shuffleboard game, only slower-paced.
In addition to the exciting physical challenge ahead of me, this weekend’s Wisconsin trip offers a special post-race treat: fried cheese curds. Perhaps not the most cardio-conscious foodstuff, but well worth skiing 23 kilometers for!
Now that my books are unboxed and shelved, the house feels more like home. I am a (slowly) recovering packrat in general, and particularly with respect to books. I knew I had a lot of books, but until now, I don’t think I’d quite acknowledged the extent of my hoarding habit. I had a few things dating back to high school, and virtually my entire college and law-school courseloads, all packed into boxes that have traveled with me cross-country and even over the Atlantic, lo these many years.
Taking them out, dusting them off, trying to decide whether to keep or eliminate them, I was flooded with memories. I filled almost a full shelf with French plays, representing a year-long course in which I found a life-long friend and cultivated a great love for Molière. I’d like to read these again, because they’re wonderful reads and because my French could use a brush-up. I'm also keeping all the human rights and geography books, because they and the classes for which I bought them played a significant role in my decision to go to law school (at the time, I intended to become an international environmental and/or human rights lawyer). Many of my beloved anthropology books are staying, too. They played a huge part in my then-budding travel obsession and helped me go out into the world with an open-minded and culturally sensitive approach.
On the other hand, I'm getting rid of more than half of my international economics and politics books, mostly because the international order has moved so far away from what it was in the early 1990s. I've shelved, and hope to reread, some of those, however. Like Looking Backward, and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
I found (and am not keeping) a grammar book from the Russian class I took from a German professor in France. I didn’t learn a shred of Russian in that class - and forgot most of the two-years' worth I'd already learned - because the professor always spoke French with a German accent. Still, I met some of my closest French friends in that ridiculous class.
My law books still had the silly tape-flag tabs I plastered them with before exams, a system that was useful only for forcing me to work my way back through the casebooks and to triple-check my outlines. I'll keep them, for now. A lighter memento of my law school years was the complete Tales of the City series, by Armistead Maupin, and a big book of P.D. Wodehouse stories. Early in my first year, I mentioned to the professor who would become my mentor and research supervisor that I sorely missed having time for non-law reading. He suggested short stories, which turned out to be the perfect solution.
My favorite box was the one crammed full of stuff from my childhood bedroom, which I must have packed up in the mid-90s when my father took over my room as his home office (he left the James Dean poster on the ceiling and still has my blue-flowered wallpaper). In addition to my degree from the University of Strasbourg and my National Merit Scholar certificate, I found a Certificate of Award from Foothill Elementary School, honoring me as the Best Creative Writer in 1980. If I recall correctly, this award was based on a poem for which I also won a citywide writing award, and which my mother probably has tucked away in my baby book!
In the same box were several mounted photographs I’d taken as a high school sophomore. I loved my photography class and was convinced that I had Vision. Alas, I was a bit daunted by the workings of my father’s manual SLR camera and never quite launched my brilliant career as a photojournalist. I like these photos, though. They are black-and-white and a little bit artsy, and I think I’ll frame them and hang them in my office at home.
In addition to my own photos, there’s one my friend Lys (from whom I drifted away when she turned into a Marley-obsessed pothead) took of me. I don’t remember whether this was pre-mohawk or just after I’d regrown my hair, but it definitely reflects my early punker days. I believe the focus of the photo was my hearing aid, because that fit into whatever assignment Lys was completing. Somewhere in my parents’ house, I think I have another version that my friend used for her pastel-on-photo assignment. The colors she added were pretty consistent with what was actually in my hair at the time!
Last but not least were my high school yearbooks. My senior picture shows me in a modest blue button-down shirt, with neat chin-length hair and a nice big smile. Junior year is forgettable. But in the 1986 Odaroloc, there I am in all my mohawked glory. My class picture was pre-mohawk, but my outfit of paisley blouse under a peach Forenza v-neck sweater, enormous earrings, rhinestone neck brooch, and an armful of black rubber O-ring bracelets looks like something Mollie Ringwald might have worn in Pretty in Pink. In the front section of the book, though, is the million-dollar photo. Me, on Halloween, dressed in black, and having a lovely spider web painted on the shaved side of my head by an Art Club student. That night I was a vampire, wearing this fantastic long black cape that my (extremely cool) mommy made me for the occasion.
I fully intended to share these photos with you, but I can’t seem to make the scanner work right now. If Steve can get it all hooked up, I’ll update with pictures, promise.
When we moved into our house last fall, Steve and I were quite delighted with the wealth of storage space it offered. We have lots of rooms, lots of closets, a basement, and a garage. Alas, what we don’t have - and what we hadn’t really focused on not-having when we picked the place - is bookshelves. Thus, for the past fifteen months, much of the aforementioned basement has been filled with 20 some-odd boxes of books.
Even before we moved, Steve promised to build me bookshelves. We picked out the ideal spot for our little library, in a hallway leading to the door on our "garden level." Then, for a while, we got distracted by wedding planning. Next, Steve realized that he didn’t have the proper tools to make "nice" shelves, something fancier than a few simple boards nailed together. So we registered at Home Depot. Friends and family came through with virtually all the desired tools, plus a great many gift cards for Steve to use for wood and other supplies.
But by that time, the front part of the basement bedroom was chock-full with furniture we were hoping to sell or donate (we’d acquired a dining room set dirt-cheap through a friend, and inherited beautiful bedroom stuff from my beloved grandmother), and with wedding presents and shower gifts we’d agreed not to use until we were legally wed. And so, the book boxes collected dust in the back of the room.
After we returned from our honeymoon, Steve outfitted his workshop with all of his cool new tools. Eventually, we filled our kitchen and dining room with beautiful new things, recycled mountains of boxes and packing material, and donated our old kitchen and the superfluous furniture to victims of Hurricane Katrina and refugees from Sudan. Suddenly, we could see - and reach - the boxes of books again. So Steve trooped off to Home Depot and discovered that making the kind of shelves he envisioned out of solid oak, maple, or cherry would cost roughly the GDP of Andorra.
Discouraged, he built me a wonderful pot rack, freeing precious cabinet space in our tiny kitchen and giving our lovely new pots a place of honor. After that quick success, flush with the pleasure of using his schmancy new router, he returned to Home Depot to explore alternative, more affordable shelving concepts. He came home with a gimongous stack of materials - wood-veneer particle board, real wood for routed edges, some sort of backing, and assorted other gadgets and pieces.
For the past couple of months, strange noises and smells have emanated from the basement (beyond the usual, ubiquitous husbandly noises and smells, that is). Whenever he’s had time, often working well into the wee hours, Steve has been sawing, routing, planing, and sanding the massive pile of woodstuffs. This weekend, he finally had time to stain and seal the various pieces. Around 10:00 on Sunday night, he began putting it all together.
I came downstairs at 10:30 or so, and found him cussing and stomping around, having the kind of explosion he typically reserves exclusively for Packers’ games (speaking of which, GO BRONCOS!). Home Depot had cut the backing wrong, his carefully designed shelving components weren’t fitting perfectly into his beautifully routed slots, and he was fuming about the whole project being a washout. I offered calmly to help, Steve calmed down and switched into structural-engineer-genius mode, and soon I was squeezing the uprights together with every ounce of strength in my hyperextended shoulders, closing my eyes and trying to ignore the power drill running perilously close to my right ear. I imagine we will look back on this as a beautiful example of the trust we enjoy in our marriage.
At some point, my presence became superfluous, so I scampered off to bed while Steve continued to wrestle with the bookshelves. Many hours later, he finally crawled into bed himself. When I awoke, I immediately ran downstairs. There, lining the walls in our little garden-level entry, were the most beautiful bookshelves imaginable!
Last night, we liberated our many many books from their boxed-up confines, giving them a semblance of organization, eliminating duplicates, and even (horrors!) deciding to sell or donate quite a few. I hadn’t realized it, but many of the book boxes had traveled with me for over a decade, from city to city and house to house, essentially unopened. In my next post, I’ll share with you some of the journey down memory lane their unpacking provided me. In fact, if I can reconnect our scanner, I might even post a photo of my mohawk, circa 1985.
Steve and I left the house at the same time this morning, and walked together the first part of the way to our respective bus stops. When we walked outside, we each took a double-take. The morning light was eerily matte and sepia-toned, so that we seemed to have stepped from our little SoBo house into a Sergio Leone western.
Just after we went our separate ways, a spectacular rainbow nearly smacked me in the face. It was wide and clear and bright, its ROYGBIV array impossibly vivid. As I stared at this amazing rainbow, I realized I could see its entire span. There it stood, a perfect arc of brilliant color stretching over Broadway, with one pot of gold hidden on the NCAR Mesa and the other in Martin Park. Continuing on my way, I noticed a second, more muted and pastel spectrum shining in the sky alongside the brighter bow.
The wind whipped my curls into a frenzy, my sunglasses shielded my eyes against the glaring January sunshine, and a light but steady rain dappled my head and shoulders. I couldn’t help grinning at Mother Nature’s early-morning antics, which felt like a happy omen gracing the new year.
(At least until I got to the office, and spilled my entire cup of coffee on the floor.)
Like my blogger buddy Sherry, 2006 dawned for me with a sore throat and a head full of yuckiness. No hangover, this, unfortunately.
Last night's party was a success, methinks. After some initial schmoozing, we rallied the troops around the coffee table and spent the rest of the night playing party games. Trivial Pursuit was a study in generational differences. We played the original edition, issued in the early '80s; not surprisingly, my parents smoked the competition. Taboo, played women against men, was a more evenly matched contest. The men eventually won, but only after I somehow I got bumped onto their team.
When midnight chimed on the grandfather clock that Steve's grandfather built, we toasted the New Year with champagne and sparkling cider. No one seemed disappointed not to be at a more raging bash, and at least from my perspective, it looked like everyone left smiling (and mostly sober).
It was only after the house cleared out that I realized it was illness, not vino, crashing around in my temples and tickling my throat. With Nyquil's assistance, I was eventually able to put 2005 to rest.
I hate having yet another cold/flu/sore throat thing this season. But if this is the One Bad Thing that New Year's Day 2006 intends to inflict upon me, I can take it.
Once again, Steve and I are hosting a New Year's Eve gathering at our place. This shindig will be smaller than last year's sushi-making extravaganza, because the vast majority of our friends have decided to get out of Dodge for the long weekend. But the 15 or 20 lucky souls who will ring in 2006 with us will reap the fruits of my kitchen-bound labors over the past several days (as if baking 4 kinds of cookies in 6 hours wasn't enough holiday cooking for me):
in addition to the things I actually made, above, we'll have a variety of other treats:
And, of course, plenty to drink. Wanna come?
The past few weeks have been plenty busy, with briefs to write and file, trips of various sorts to take, and holiday shopping to accomplish. Suddenly, our Christmas journey to Middle America is but a few days away.
This will be my first Christmas with Steve's family, and my first real Christmas celebration in almost a decade. So there is no way in hell I'm showing up without cookies.
My recent and forthcoming schedule being what it is, I had only today to produce a suitable variety and quantity of sweet treats. I started early with the ruggelach (having made the dough at midnight last night, after returning from a most excellent evening with friends).
I grew up making my mother's (and grandmother's) recipe for these classic Jewish cookies, and hers are mighty delicious. But a year or two ago, I discovered Ina Garten's version (in the Barefoot Contessa Parties cookbook, should you wonder). As sacrilegious as it may sound to say so, they are better than mom's (though she disagrees), absolutely To Die For. I tweak them a bit here and there - soaking the raisins in wine to plump them, substituting fig spread for the apricot jam and pecans for walnuts in half the batch - but for the most part, I follow Ina's excellent advice.
While my little rolled-up yummies were chilling, I began preparing my famous Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
These are utterly decadent - Scharffenberger's dark chocolate, melted with a bit of butter, then added to a batter including both cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate chips. And eggs, and sugar, and flour, and . . . yep, they're tasty (and I don't even like chocolate!). This dough, too, needs to chill before the cookies can be made, so I transferred the gooey stuff to a bowl and handed the KitchenAid bowl, the beater, and my spatula to Steve, who pre-cleaned them with his tongue.
While the chocolate was melting for the crinkle cookies, I toasted sliced almonds for the Almond Butter Wafers. Then, when the chocolate dough was chilling, the ruggelach safely out of the oven and cooling, and the KitchenAid clean, I started all over.
Again, I mixed flour, butter, sugar, eggs, this time with almond extract and the toasted nuts. I then rolled the sweet-almond-smelling dough into a log, wrapped it in plastic, and found it some space in the refrigerator. Alas, I have no photos of this step in the proceedings, because Steve left to run errands and my hands were much too sticky to handle the camera!
My friend Sasha arrived just in time to roll crinkles. We filled baking sheets with little balls of dough rolled in confectioner's sugar, and chatted away as we rotated cookies through the oven.
As the finished cookies began to cool, we piled them up on a plate, trying hard to resist gobbling them up in the process.
Next, it was time to take the Almond Butter log from the fridge and slice it into cookies. Once again, my shiny new Santoku knife proved indispensable, and in no time at all, I had two sheets full of oh-so-thin wafers ready to bake.
These are a new addition, taken from my mother via a friend, but I expect they will become a staple of my baking repertoire. I loved the smell of the dough as I worked with it, I loved the way the almonds looked in the unbaked slices, I loved the crisp and golden look of the finished cookies, and, best of all, I loved the delicious, toasted-almond taste.
I suppose I could have stopped at this point, but I was on a roll (and a spoon-and-finger-licking-induced sugar high). On an internet site I frequent, I'd seen a great recipe for quick, flourless, peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookies. Pretty much anything involving peanut butter makes me happy, and these sounded like the perfect complement to shapes and flavors I'd already produced.
True to their billing, these cookies were ridiculously easy to make. It took me barely 10 minutes to produce this:
And in just 12 more, I had these:
And then, I stopped, stiff-hipped from standing for hours, bloated and jittery from the nibbles, but utterly satisfied with my endeavors.
The only casualty of the day was one of Steve's cherished Packer Glasses, which I used to mix egg-wash and managed to crack.
When I suggested that perhaps the ruined glass was symbolic of the Packers' less-than-stellar season, Steve was not amused. He, by the way, spent much of the afternoon in the basement, building the bookshelves that will someday liberate our library from the 30-some-odd boxes in which it has been stored for the past 15 months.
Aren't we quite the non-traditional couple?
Apparently, turning 35 traumatized me into silence. When midnight struck and November 23 became November 24, I half expected crow's feet to sprout at the corners of my eyes, saggage to suddenly strike my boobs, and streaks of gray to appear in my hair. But, in truth, 35 feels pretty much like the tail end of 34, except with new cross-country skis and a gorgeous shell-and-bead necklace made by my very talented husband.
Speaking of XCing, I am starting to get the hang of this skate-ski thing. It is by far the most physically strenuous activity I have ever attempted, but I'm slowly putting together the pieces of the required technique and, more important, really enjoying it. Most of the time, I have to stop every few minutes to gasp for air and pull my form back together. But when arms, legs, skis, poles, shoulders, knees, ankles, hips, and head all come together correctly, it's like the elusive feeling of "swing" I sought to achieve in my college crew days. I wasn't a particularly talented rower, but on the rare occasion when the boat hit swing, it felt like we could go forever; the perfect rhythm of the boat turned the searing pain in my lactic-acid-churning muscles and oxygen-deprived lungs into a dull hum of background noise.
In fact, we have yet to ride a chairlift this season, having missed last weekend’s powder dump for a trip to Atlanta for boundless nephewly giggles. Assuming I shake the bug that’s currently plaguing my upper respiratory system, I’ll strap on my tele skis for the first time this season on Saturday, for an overnight back-country hut trip with Steve’s office crowd. I’m looking forward to the trek, and to the post-ski wine and relaxation in the cozy hut. But I’m feeling a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about skiing on the "big mountains" this season.
At the end of last year, I was starting to feel really nervous on the downhill slopes, particularly in areas with heavy snowboarder traffic. Both cross-country and back-country skiing allow me to focus on the physical effort, rather than the visual challenge, while alpine skiing down a crowded run requires me to be hyper-vigilant about what I can and can’t see. It’s stressful, and I’ve become increasingly afraid that I’m going to hurt myself or someone else because of my vision loss.
We likely won’t do any en piste telemarking until January. This gives me some time to think about what, if anything, I want to do different this season. I might start wearing an orange Blind Skier vest, if only so that other skiers will give me a wider berth. Wearing the vest will require that I suck up a fair amount of pride, of course, but if pride goeth before a fall, that’s an even better reason for me to get over it.
On an unrelated note, Congress is once again threatening to tighten the habeas reins, making it even more difficult for prisoners to obtain relief for serious constitutional errors in their convictions and detention. I have plenty of opinions on this matter, most of which are unsuitable for public consumption, but this piece by Slate's Emily Bazelon offers a good overview and reflects many of my own views on the issue.
That there is the audible sigh of relief, emanating from every fiber of my lawyerly being, as I hand off to my secretary for formatting the last of the SEVEN appellate briefs I have drafted and filed in the past four weeks. I have another one to turn to now, a big and complicated and, I think, really interesting one, but I have a few weeks still to focus on it. So, WHEW, for the moment.
In addition to brief writing, time in blindinsightland has been occupied with the following:
