Laowai

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  • REUNITING

    Brian has been back in the US for a couple weeks. I’ve been picking him up and dropping him off at the airport a lot as he’s had some meetings around the US. The other day on the way to pick him up – I hadn’t seen him since early August – I started thinking about reuniting. How many times have I been reunited with him over the years?

    We started out going to college very far apart. After an eight hour drive (pre-cell phones) I don’t really remember how we connected but I can picture him coming out a side door of Douglass Houghton Hall. Always in a plaid flannel shirt during that part of his life, I couldn’t wait to get my arms around him. And I vividly remember the feeling of flannel on my cheek.

    So many times I’ve picked him up at O’hare and I’ve experienced the little flutter of excitement in my stomach as I look through the crowd for him. So many times we’ve spotted each other and locked eyes and smiled. And then there were the times when I had little Bea in tow and he would rush to her and scoop her up and it was the sweetest thing imaginable. Sometimes he would have been gone a few days and sometimes he would have been gone up to a couple weeks or more like this most recent time.

    And then I thought about reunions at home – when he would burst out of the elevator at our Swiss apartments and I can picture the girls’ excitement and my relief. Sometimes we would meet him at the train station and I would spot him on the platform before the train came to a stop and I would get that same rush of happiness.

    There is a flip side to spending so much time apart and that is reunion. I don’t like missing my husband but getting back together is like making up after an argument. It is emotional and affirming.

    We took a trip to Midland to reunite with moms and sisters last weekend. And I took almost no photos (why???). Here’s a sweet photo of Brian and his mom and some delicious pastries.

    And here is a very artistic silhouette photo that Joan took about a minute after that photo above.

    This is a nice sunset view from my mom’s apartment balcony. That’s the Tridge lit up in the middle.

    Jennifer and I got to go to an antique store. She made me buy some bracelet charms and I made her buy this cool Georges Briard cheese board. Ha! Then we went back to mom’s apartment and made a cheese board dinner. A fun trip!

    Back at home Brian is getting to know Pauline. He’s very patient with the kittens.

    I tried a new sewing pattern. I made a bed sheet muslin – it’s a chemise style nightie called the Chloe Dress and Top.

    I had some help in the sewing room. This one is always giving me a look that says “Pick me up, snuggle me”.

    Asters from a walk to the lake with Brian.

    Bugs like my Zinnias.

    My rose hips.

    I made a new wreath out of the little cinnamon scented brooms that Trader Joe’s sells.

    Petra enjoying the sunshine.

    When I was in Midland Jennifer shared some pear and ginger sauce that she made. It was delicious and so I had to make some for myself. Mmmmm.

    One last photo, my shiny teakettle is back to work. It’s getting chilly and that means I like to wrap my hands around a warm mug of tea multiple times a day.

    I have to go pick Brian up from the airport in about an hour – another reunion.

  • IT’S BEEN ONE YEAR

    It’s been one year and a couple weeks since Bea left for Germany. What a year it has been! So many highs and lows and Bea dealing with many new and un-fun bureaucratic type things. She has become very very familiar with parts of Bavaria and the South Tyrol. She’s now an expert in German, Austrian, Italian and Swiss trains. I’m sure she has grown more confident in her German speaking, she had a latin class and she’s learning Italian too.

    This year her classes will be outside of Munich in a town called Freising. In addition to lots of science degrees offered on this part of campus you can also get a degree in beer brewing and the oldest brewery in the world sits above campus. So if Brian’s consulting gig doesn’t work out you might find him there with Bea.

    We just had a perfect cozy fall weekend here in the Chicago area and it made me miss the old times when I would make something like pancakes with applesauce for everyone. It’s still a time of transition. I still don’t feel used to not having my Bea around but I’m very hopeful about her school year. And of course I’m proud of all the hard stuff she’s survived over that past year.

    Here are a bunch of photos from Bea and a few from Brian – they are the ones taking interesting photos these day.

  • WHEN YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT

    You know the song When you’re happy and you know it clap your hands? I was thinking about it the other day – when I’m happy and I know it I take pleasure in my everyday tasks and projects. And also when I’m happy and I know it I tend to post on my blog. So it’s not that I’ve been unhappy really I’ve just been extremely distracted.

    My good friend has been unwell – scratch that because it’s such a huge understatement – she has cancer! So I’ve been thinking about her all the time and I’ve been trying to support her. I’m so distracted I forgot where I parked my car at the hospital the other day so I wandered around for a silly amount of time trying to find it. I also put my trash bin out to the road but forgot to put the trash in it.

    So it’s been too long since I’ve posted about the little things that generally fill my days and make me happy.

    Here goes.

    Starting with some photos from my botanic garden walks. I’m so happy to see the asters and, along with them, the hint of cool weather to come.

    My mom will remember this from when Bea was born – the Evanston hospital labels its parking garage floors with universities. And when you go into the elevator lobby you hear the school songs playing. I can usually remember if I’m parked on the U of M level or the Ohio State level.

    The hospital is close to the lake so on my way home I often go for a nice walk on the beach. I love to splash my feet in the water and feel the sand. I’ve also noticed that after school begins in the fall there are so many babies at the beach. Chubby little humans toddling at the edge of the water. Delightful.

    In my garden the morning glories are showing off.

    I’m able to pick lots of zinnias. And I’m growing one straw flower in a pot. I just love the papery blooms. I want to grow more next summer.

    I picked raspberries on a perfect windy sunny afternoon.

    And made some jam.

    And now to the cat portion of this post:

    Here’s Snoopy, our former foster cat who now lives with my friend. Since I’ve been watering her garden I get to see him (and chat with him) through the window. He believes he is supervising the watering. Who am I to argue?

    Cats do love windowsills! Here are Pauline and Petra keeping an eye on me from my sewing room.

    These two kitties are so very very different. Pauline the white one, is calm and gentle and quiet. While Petra is wild and funny and often naughty.

    Pauline wants to cuddle and purr all the time. Petra runs around playing like crazy until she falls asleep suddenly in a goofy position. And even though they are sisters their shapes are very different. Pauline is round and soft and she doesn’t seem to stand up straight while Petra is long and slender and always moving her muscles.

    We love them both because they are loving to us and they are so darn cute.

    In other cat news, Brian was in Istanbul this week and apparently they are well known for their tolerance of stray cats.

    A couple quotes from Wikipedia:

    The Turkish city of Istanbul hosts a sizeable feral cat population, with estimates ranging from a hundred thousand to over a million stray cats. Many Turkish citizens view street animals as communally owned pets rather than traditional strays, and the country has a blanket no-kill, no-capture policy.

    There is a positive attitude towards cats in Islam, the religion brought by the Ottomans, which remains most prevalent faith in the country.

    Brian sent the photo below – that kitty gentleman kept him company at a bar.

    So I guess I need to go there now.

    Here’s a yummy photo he sent.

    In knitting news I took this sweater I was working on apart because I was not happy with the fit.

    So now it looks like this:

    Ha. Actually it looks more like a sweater now since I’ve restarted the project. Stay tuned.

    And in the meantime I made this little project to try out mosaic knitting. It’s a different kind of knitting that uses multiple colors but the technique is different from something like Fair Isle knitting. It was fun and I’d like to do another mosaic project.

    And because you may be wondering – my friend is doing well. She has good days and very hard days. It’s going to be a very long journey but she’s powering through it all admirably.

  • THEN THERE WERE TWO

    The littlest sister of our current foster kittens was adopted a couple days ago. Posy – she was sick with an upper respiratory infection when she came to us and I was quite worried about her for a few days. But then her antibiotics kicked in and she became a perky sweet little girl.

    Here are a bunch of photos of the sisters.

    One last hug before she went to meet her new owners.

    And we also got to spend some time with Snoopy – helped care for him while his people had to be away. He’s a cool cat!

  • THE END OF SUMMER

    It’s only the middle of August so it’s not really the end of summer but to Claire it is since she goes back to school tomorrow. It’s been a very different summer. Lots of kitties but almost no Brian and Bea around here. I miss having Brian around and enjoying summer meals outside. But I have been sick of the hot humid weather. I really don’t have patience for it and I am longing for a crisp windy day and some cool nights.

    My morning glories are blooming.

    Bea sent me these two images and we decided they are so very Swiss they could be posters. Show me you’re in Switzerland without saying you’re in Switzerland.

    I’ve been working on a sweater made out of some free yarn that I got at my teacher’s yarn swap. When the yarn is free I feel like I can experiment a little. Or maybe I should say I don’t feel pressure to get it exactly right but I can still build on my skills. I don’t know – somehow it feels different when the yarn doesn’t cost anything and its good. I find that, just like with sewing garments, getting the fit right is the most difficult part. I guess using free yarn feels like a low stakes challenge.

    The sweater got a bath before moving on to the next step.

    I’ve been enjoying my zinnias.

    In kitty news our dear Edgar has moved onto his forever home. Yay.

    My good friend took care of him while Claire and I were doing our road trip. As we were driving and almost home we talked on the phone and she surprised us by saying she and her husband and daughter wanted to adopt him. I was overwhelmed with happiness when she told me how he charmed them and they decided to keep him. So not only has he found his people but he’s just a couple blocks away so we can visit him.

    His name is now Snoopy!

    We had to wait almost a week before we received our newest batch of kittens. We have three little girls – Pauline, Petra and Posy. Claire is happy to have some furry friends around the house again. They are a bit of a handful literally and figuratively (ha!) but I enjoy them.

    Some more stuff from Bea – she has done a lot of traveling this summer and she often makes sketches of the things she sees.

    This sketch is of Brian’s apartment kitchen.

    And one final photo – more zinnias.

  • OUR BIG ROAD TRIP

    Claire and I got home yesterday from a big big road trip. We wanted to see some colleges that Claire might be interested in and also just take a look at the Northeast part of our country.

    So eight nights, seven hotels, five universities, and ten states!

    According to Google we drove 36 hours and 2,142 miles going through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

    Brian flew into Syracuse and met us and then we dropped him at the Newark airport at the end of the week.

    It was quite a trip! And even though we were super sick of driving by the end I’m left with surprisingly good feelings about this corner of our country. I think that feeling comes from seeing the rolling hills and the beautiful university campuses with their interesting architecture and big mature trees.

    So here are a bunch of random photos. Just like our trip they begin and end with just Claire and I and there are lots of brick and stone buildings in the middle.

    So before you ask, no, Claire has not decided where she wants to go to college. She’s only going into her junior year of high school so she has plenty of time. She was just taking everything in during this trip. We visited Syracuse University, University of Vermont, University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut and Penn State. Oh and Brian and I took a nice walk through lovely Smith College but that’s not on the list.

    And a final note about driving an EV across the country. It is not as convenient as gas but it is cheaper. We learned that we can trust the app we used (ABRP) but you cannot trust every brand of charging machine to work properly. We had a couple hairy moments dealing with bad bad machines – yikes. I hope it gets better.

    Happy to be home.

  • TWO TOAD TOUR

    I haven’t been to the Chicago Botanic Garden lately.

    So it felt good to go last week. I had a nice walk through the prairie, a slow walk. Pausing to look closely at all the details.

    There were butterflies and every kind of bee and two toads and so much bird song. The redwing blackbirds have thankfully been replaced by gold finches. And I was finally able to notice that the compass plant does arrange its leaves in a mostly north and south direction.

    There are these big bubbles throughout the gardens this summer but I head straight for the prairie. I don’t need gimmicks – the beauty of nature is far more interesting to me.

  • LATELY IN SUMMER

    Lately it has been too hot and humid to enjoy the summer outside. We also had two days with the air full of smoke from Canadian fires. That feels disturbing and I’m looking forward to the weather moderating.

    A list of things I’ve enjoyed lately –
    – a native plants focused garden walk
    – a sweaty night at Ravinia
    – swimming in Lake Michingan
    – a very interesting percusion concert featuring a friend’s daughter
    – watching The Tour de France
    – getting back to my regular ballet and knitting classes

    I’ve also done some sewing. I finished the blue and red bag below – it’s a knitting project bag – the third one I’ve made. I modified the pattern that I started with and quilted the fabric with some light batting. I like the way the quilting gives the bag structure so it stays open when you want it to. The fabric below is an old apron. I have a weakness for bits of vintage fabric and I’m pleased when I find a way to make them useful. For the drawstrings I discovered that my local L.L. Bean store sells boot laces in a bunch of colors. You can have your specific length cut and they put the little metal ends on to finish them.

    This is my latest knitting project that I happily put into the new drawstring bag. It’s a simple cardigan – I’m checking it’s size against another sweater below and Edgar is supervising.

    I’m getting to know Edgar more each day.

    He found the courage to jump up on the sewing room desk and so now he can keep an eye on me from the doll bed.

    It’s a pleasure to watch him get more comfortable and confident around the house. I love to watch him discover favorite spots – like this patch of sunshine that comes in the afternoon. He’s so happy stretching and getting all roly-poly.

    He has also been helping us plan an end of summer road trip to the Northeast part of the US. So very helpful!

    I miss Brian and Bea but I do get some nice photos from both of them. They sent this goofy photo of my train pass that came in the mail.

    And here are a bunch of other photos from the two of them. Including one that Brian took at the Tour de France on his birthday.

    Lastly, I try to make progress on my windows. Here’s a close-up of some finished glazing that needs to cure for a couple weeks before I paint.

  • A HIKE WITH BEA

    On my last day in Switzerland Brian was working and Bea took me for a hike. We went to another not too far from Zurich destination called Flumserberg. Everyone in Zurich goes skiing there and they call it Flums.

    We had a beautiful day and even though the hike was about two-thirds longer than I was prepared for and Bea had to deal with a couple moments of her mother being a little grumpy while out of breath it was wonderful. For me, being way up there and the feeling of the fresh mountain breeze is uplifting and soothing like nothing else.

    There’s the lake where we were swimming and paddle boarding a few days before.

    Bea is such a strong hiker these days. The tables have turned and she urges her mother on. Seems like the hiking has helped her to deal with her stressful year. She sets her sights on some very difficult destinations lately.

    I’ll finish this series of posts with a series of selfies from our hike. You can tell I was very happy to be with my daughter.

  • INTO THE WATER

    More photos from my trip to Switzerland. These photos show the fun we had getting into the water on a couple hot days.

    First up Bea introduced us to something I’ve long wanted to do – a river float. It’s a really popular way for Swiss people to relax and cool off. We went to Basel and floated down the Rhine for a few kilometers. Everyone has a dry bag to put their shoes and clothes and towel in and there are lots of places to get in and get out of the water along the city center.

    There’s Bea with her dry bag below. We didn’t have room for all our stuff in her bag so I got in the water first and Brian took some photos of us as he walked along the shore with my clothes. Then he did his float with Bea after I got out.

    There were lots of swimmers – we are some of the little specks you can see in the water.

    There were four bridges we went under along our route. And there were lots of boats but they mark the swimming area clearly and there is plenty of room for everyone to use the river.

    There’s Bea getting out above. All along the river there were places to sit and places to buy drinks and food. Even some cool public grills that people were using. Such a nice atmosphere!

    I didn’t get as many photos of Brian and Bea in the water but they are in the photo below – more little specks.

    We went and had a drink (a delicious cold champagne cocktail for me) and a snack and then headed to the train station. What a fun day!

    The next day we got to enjoy more time in the water.

    We went to a beautiful lake called Wallensee – not too far from Zurich.

    As I mentioned I brought Bea’s paddle board from the US so she was eager to use it.

    I don’t think you could find a more beautiful place to paddle board – with the mountain coming right out of the beautiful turquoise water – it’s wonderful.

    Bea paddle boarded all the way across the lake and then she came back and gave me a ride.

    And here’s a photo of Brian – he had biked to the lake to meet us and then after our day of swimming and paddle boarding he biked home while Bea and I rode the train.

    I appreciate that the Swiss make enjoying the water so easy. There was no fee for these fantastic experiences. They were not exclusive and only available for wealthy people or locals. There was no regulation or registration for paddle boarding. Nothing of the ridiculous frustration Bea had simply putting her paddle board into Lake Michigan around here. And yet they make it safe – there are posted signs about safety measures that everyone respects and the swimming areas are well marked. And there are always amenities nearby – clean restrooms and little businesses right there where you can get an ice cream treat or a cold beer.

    They know how to make summer a pleasure!