Trip to Germany

On 01/25/2012 my Grandfather turned 90 and my father 65 on 01/31/2012. Hence, it was time to cross the Atlantic again and participate in the family celebrations. Thus started a busy 1.5 weeks, which Michaela sadly could not participate in as her Sabbatical is over and the lecture season has begun:

Monday, 23rd of January: San Francisco has a lot of fog. And while planes can land on autopilot with zero visibility in PDX, SFO is behind the times: my plane is two hours late and I miss my flight from SFO to FRA by ~10 minutes, as internationally bound planes left on time despite all the delays caused by the earlier fog situation...

After standing in line for 2 hours at the United customer service desk (there were A LOT of people whose travel plans did not work out as planned), the only other United plane to FRA that day has already left: I have to spend the night in San Francisco.

Unfortunately my sister, who lives close by, is on vacation in Hawaii - bad timing.

After waiting for my luggage for 1.5 hours, I am told that I will have to wait for another ~1.5 hours to get it. I pass and beg the service rep to PLEASE make sure the suitcase will make it into my flight tomorrow, despite the chaos on the airport...

Tuesday: I am in for a surprise: I run into John Howell, Experimental Quantum Optics Professor of the University of Rochester at the elevator of my hotel. He is on his way to Photonics West (which I am obviously skipping this year). Another reminder of just how small the world has become.

Back at the Gate to catch my flight, I check with the United service rep about the state of my luggage: "Yes, your luggage got scanned in just 5 minutes ago and will be on the plane."

Wednesday: Baggage claim in Frankfurt airport: just a few bags on the conveyor belt, mine is not among them...turns out it is still in San Francisco...

Worse, I will be travelling today and tomorrow, so I can only receive the bag on Friday. After having already spent an extra day in San Francisco without a fresh set of clothes, this stinks...

Thankfully my parents waited long enough at our meeting point despite me being very late (sorting out the luggage mess took time...). The waiting turns out to be not nearly as self-evident as it may seem, given that they had already spent a good chunk of the previous day waiting for me at the airport, as they had not read my email in time that I would be 24h late (I should have called instead, doh!).

All in all, quite a start into my one week 'Germany vacation'.

From the airport we drive straight to Bielefeld to make it in time for my grandfather's birthday party:

Wilhelm is in good spirits and apart of some lapses in his short term memory - of which he is very much self aware - he is doing fine. I can only wish I'll be doing as well if I even ever get to 90!

In the evening we go on to my Aunt Susanne's place and I immediately retreat for the night - it's been a long day.

Thursday: I wake up after a good 10 hours of sleep to a glorious morning:

'Donny', my Aunt's dog, hasn't gotten any younger, but he is still a delight to be around:

After breakfast we are on to visit my grandmother Gerdi, to whom my visit (or even that I am currently in Germany) was not announced. At 87, her sense of humor is unchanged: after opening the door, she promptly closes it again, as she recognizes me...

After a bit of catching up we set off for lunch with my grandmother and Aunt Karin in downtown Bielefeld:

Then we are off driving to Gruenstadt.

Friday: No big plans for the day, just chatting with my parents, strolling through downtown Gruenstadt, getting some passport photos taken and then visiting the 'Einwohnermeldeamt' (registration office), as I could use a new passport. However, as it turns out, I cannot get a passport from the city in which I was born anymore: I'll have to fly to the German Consulate in Los Angeles for that. And if I were to register myself back to Gruenstadt for the intent of being able to get a passport (and then unregister again)? Turns out that's a crime these days! So I'll be visiting LA in the not too distant future...

On the plus side, I can still get an identity card in Gruenstadt - though the laws for that are changing, too: doing this will become outlawed in 2014...who knew?? I guess the German government want's to stick it to you, if you leave the homeland and stop paying taxes to them...

Saturday: In the afternoon/evening I am catching up with a few old and very dear friends who converged to Heidelberg from as far away as Munich. After some initial confusion - the 'Cafe Journal' I had suggested for our get together has been replaced by the 'Cafe Extrablatt' - we have a blast, catch up on each other's news and chat like old fishwives for almost 8 hours straight. (Sorry, no pictures as I forgot to bring my camera).

Sunday: We visit Bad Duerkheim in the morning, pass the 'Riesenfass', walk through the parks, and have a chance encounter with Gruenstadt's mayor Klaus Wagner.

In the afternoon, Horst and Vera Schipull stop by for a visit - always a treat!

Monday: Some shopping, more chatting with my parents and preparations for my father's Birthday tomorrow. Visiting Peter Knapp, whose Birthday is today. Andreas Bode arrives. In the evening I visit Claus & Anne with their kids Julius and Paula, who returned to Germany a few months ago after spending 1.5 years as expats in Great Britain.

Tuesday: My father's birthday! Breakfast with Andreas.

In the afternoon it is off to Mannheim to prepare for the evening. Papa is studying hard(ly?) for his speech...

Later on, Stefan Landwehr 'proves' a grand conspiracy of my father's based on the numbers on the invitation, which culminates in the ominous date 12/21/12, the end of the Mayan calendar. Very funny!

Wednesday: Georg's, my father-in-law, birthday: a phone call has to suffice, as I am already at Frankfurt's airport. Vacation is over... wait, what??

Picking up the beasties

After a great weekend, we were *very* excited to see our furry friends again. Since Pepper was staying right next door, he was the first. He ran up to me and jumped up on me. So excited. And yes, I got LOTS of doggies kisses (yikes.. hehe). Very happy to see us again. 

So were Abby and George. When we entered the room in which Sidney keeps the cats, they immediately moved to the door of their little condo and greeted us happily. 

While I am writing this, Pepper is sleeping on the couch next to me, George is sleeping on his cat tree next to me (and enjoying some head scratching and belly rubbing), and Abby briefly joined us too. The whole family, together again.

And as promised, here are some of the videos and pictures that Billie sent us over the last three days. She was so amazing. I really enjoyed receiving those little messages, just to know that Pepper is doing ok (which, of course, I knew he would be, but still... :)).

Billie sent us these two videos about an hour after we left our house. We were sitting at the airport, almost ready to board the plane. I really appreciated seeing this before we took off :).

And they kept coming and coming. I think by the time we landed in Chicago (4 hours) I had about 10 more emails. Pepper and Maggie really enjoyed each other's company:

And after all this running - nappy time.

And more nappy time - this time in the evening, getting ready for the night. Billie made this comfy spot in her bath room, right next to their bedroom, with Pepper inside and the door closed. Well, until about 4:30 when Billie went to the bathroom and Pepper sneaked out and settled on their bed with his head resting gently on Maggie! He was very gentle, though, so neither Billie nor Rod minded. They spoil him :).

And a few more from the following days. Everyone is settling down. 

Back to Rochester, NY - for a weekend.

Our friend Mishkat has a big birthday coming up this weekend, so Jan and I took the opportunity to head back to Rochester, NY. It's funny, walking down the roads we know so well, seeing people we still remember (and who remember us). So familiar. Yet so different. But I'm getting ahead of myself :).

  Thursday, 01/05. We're heading to the airport and spend most of the time on planes. The kitties are again at the Catnap Inn where Sidney has taken such great care of them last August, and Pepper is with our neighbor Billie this time. She has a dog too, Maggie, and Pepper and Maggie get along really well. Plus, Billie keeps sending us lots of video updates of Pepper eating, playing, going on a walk, sleeping, ... It's great to see that he's having fun while we are gone. I hope he still wants to come back to us on Sunday! I'll post some of the videos later in a separate post.
Right after we arrived in Rochester I see an email from Billie - she has accidentally locked herself out of our house. While Pepper is with her outside in our yard, his food is still inside. Thank goodness it is only 4 in Wilsonville, so she can get to our vet and buy a new bag of food for him. Brief shock, but I guess that settles whether or not Pepper sleeps at her house or ours ;).

Jan and I will spend the nights at the Mt. Vernon B&B. Jan's parents spent a few nights here in 2004 (I think?), when they visited us the first time. It's nice, although we are not really their target audience (wall paper with flowers in the bath room...).

  Friday, 01/06. Today we've visited the U of R and also stopped by our old apartments. Our first stop was the bookstore where we bought new UofR shirts (ours are pretty old already of course), a mug for Billie ("Wish my dog had a snooze button") and some toys for Maggie and Pepper. Next, we headed to Bausch & Lomb, the physics building, and checked if Sondra is still there - she is, and she immediately recognized us. Not only that, she still knows that Jan is working in industry and likes wind surfing, and that I am teaching at a liberal arts college. Quite remarkable (well, at least coming from someone like me who has trouble remember names and faces after only a few weeks!). We then got a lab tour in Nick's labs. Unfortunately, Nick himself is in Singapore (bad timing!), but it is fun to see our old lab spaces again. And there is so much STUFF in there that's not being used at all - oh how I wish I could take some of that with me, I'd know what to do with it!

After the lab tour we went to get lunch at the Dinosaur BBQ. Yummy!







Saturday, 01/07: We had a good breakfast during which we also met Nicki, Phil & Claire's African Grey. Here he is with Claire.

And I also got hold him for a while.

After those pictures he even settled down on my shoulder. Very cute and friendly bird!

We spent the rest of the morning in the living area (Jan was browsing the internet and I was reading application for a faculty position at WU since I am on the search committee and the application deadline in in only a week from now - better get a little bit of a head start.

Mishkat picked us up at around noon and we headed to the Simply Crepes in Pittsford, NY. We had never heard of that restaurant before - despite having lived in the area for 5 years... Had we known earlier, I am sure we'd have gone there more often! What a great concept. Just to get your mouth watering - here are a few pictures of our lunch. Yum!

Mishkat, Jona, Michaela, Jan, Chris

It was great seeing Mishkat and Chris again, and we chatted for quite some time there. At around four Mishkat drove us to the RIT. He just accepted a tenure track position there last Fall, so we were of course curious to see it. The campus is pretty cool - a lot more modern than the UofR one, but still true to the general agreement of how campuses should look like.
The building behind Mishkat is "his".

And once we arrived in his office, guess what we did - yup, we talked physics. Hehe.

Overall this was a great trip. I am glad we went, even though it was just short and pretty expensive. But the great conversations and the fun we had seeing old friends again made more than up for that.

Mt Hood fun

After some fresh snow on New Year's eve weekend, I set out to Mt. Hood for some fun in the snow. Timing was excellent: while the weekend was reportedly very crowded as people had been dealing with poor conditions for some time, Monday was very calm: virtually no lines at the lifts, still plenty of snow to go around, mostly clear skies, relatively warm (just around 33 Fahrenheit) and little wind. A nice start into the new year!

One year ago...

One year ago today we adopted Pepper. And boy, he has changed during that time. The little teenage rascal has turned into a wonderful companion.

For giggles, I'll revisit this post from January 6th:

"Walking on the leash - A (as in awesome!)." - Yeah. I had no idea what "awesome" really means ;). In this year we've gone through a plethora of harnesses to find the one that works best for him. His problem is, as always, his nose: 

 When he smells something he MUST follow that scent, and that means a lot of back and forth (and often a "let's just see how this tastes" finale). In addition, he was super-excited when he saw other dogs. So to combat both we had him on a Halti/Gentle Leader for a long time. During that time I practiced the "Leave it" (treat), "Come" (treat), and "Pepper, watch me" (treat) over and over again, until he did all of these on the loose leash, at least when there were no other dogs around. I then switched him to various chest harnesses (he hated all of them), continuously practicing the "Watch me" (treat) when we encountered other dogs. And by now he's on a flat collar. No pulling, typically. If he gets a bit too excited I can always call him back to me to ease the tension on the leash. Pretty remarkable. I'd call that an "A" now.

"Riding in the car - A." He was (and is) pretty good with that. We did have the occasional climbing over the back seats to see if there's more fun in the front area of the car, but a safety barrier took care of that too. He usually just sleeps while we're driving. Good :).

"Being calm in the office so that I can get some work done - B+. Being alone in the office or his room - B+" That has improved significantly. I still have his kennel in my office, just in case, but he hasn't been in there for a good half year or so. A simple "Not now." usually does the trick. And no barking or whining when I leave the office. He usually just takes a nap under my desk. So, up to an "A" from a year ago.

"Feeding time - by now A-." I can move that up to an "A" without hesitation. He walks (sometimes runs) to his blanket and waits patiently until I tell him to "Take it". We've also switched to exclusively feeding him from his kong toys - he LOVEs them. And it keeps him busy for a while.

"Lastly, moving around freely in the house while respecting the kitties: C+." I'd bump that up to an "A-". He has gotten much, MUCH better, but every once in a while he is still interested in chasing the kitties up the stairs. Rarely though. And, I can usually call him away from that. By now, Abby and George have also begun slowly approaching and sniffing him. In another half a year or so things have probably fully calmed down here.

So yeah, all in all we couldn't be happier with him. I'm very much looking forward to taking him backpacking next year!

Poor pooch again....

Pepper woke me up this morning at around 1 am. Since I had not let him in the yard after our evening walk (sometimes he holds back a little urine during the walk), I figured it's my own fault and let him out. Sure enough, that's why he was up. When he came back inside I noticed that his tail was hanging down, and that he was repeatedly biting it as if something irritated him. I didn't see anything obvious and decided to check again in the morning. Well, turns out I couldn't get back to sleep. After some tossing and turning I got up at 2 (urgh) and settled on the couch with the second book of the Hunger Games series. At least I was not bored (although pretty tired today)! I even got doggie company.

Turns out, Pepper's tail was still pretty limp later this morning. A quick check on the internet (amazing!) revealed that this is most likely a condition known as limber/cold water/flaccid tail. And breads that are most often affected are - drumroll - labrador retrievers and beagles. Of course. Looks like our little pooch welcomes every little ailment out there with open paws. 

We've decided to keep an eye on it for now since it most often clears up on its own within a few days, and since he does not seem to be in pain when I touch his tail (there is a little discomfort, but no whining). In the mean time, we kept his butt warm with a hot water bottle and blankets which he seems to enjoy. He just looks so sad with his droopy tail. I sure hope I'll see some tail wagging tomorrow!

Christmas 2011

One last picture before Jule, Juri and Soso headed back home again: