Meet me in St. Louis

Now it IS winter here...we had a good snowfall this past weekend, and my beloved Tower Grove Park is looking beautiful in white. However, it is somewhat treacherous, especially with Polly tugging at the end of the leash, not understanding my need to tread carefully on the ice and snow. I almost did take a spill today, and actually dropped her leash in the process. She is so sweet - rather than take advantage of freedom and dash around in the snow, she looked at me apologetically, and came right over so that I could take her leash in hand again. And off we traipsed, in our quiet white wonderland.

After quite a crazy weekend! The folks from Rockford came down/over on Friday (Patte, Linda, Carla from Rockford, Colleen from Kansas City, and Mike from Springfield). We had quite the time...playing Cranium and What's Yours Like?, catching up on what we've all been doing the last 28 years, and reminiscing about our time growing up together. We all stayed here together at the house, cooking, chatting, laughing (a lot and then some more). Mary Sue became one of the gang, as did Diana, and even her good friend, Jesus (aka Doug). There was quite a range of opinions on everything from smoking laws to religion, all expressed freely and all respected and understood. We even ventured out into the snow on Saturday to check out some of the antique shops down on Cherokee St. in yet another one of those charming St. Louis neighborhoods. Quite a satisfying and uplifting weekend!

At the same time...part of me feels so sad. This time in St. Louis has been nourishing in so many ways, culturally, architecturally, for me as a teacher and researcher, and above all as a mom, and even beyond that, for me to come back into touch with my earlier self/life. I did leave the midwest to go live far away 28 years ago. To do that I think I might have had to bury part of myself so it wouldn't be so difficult to do. Now I feel rewoven back into the braid of my life here, with added rich new strands of the people I've come into contact here in St. Louis. I will feel a sense of loss this Thursday. And at the same time...I am so happy to be going home to Madrid. The bottom line...I am so fortunate! I have Tower Grove Park here, and Retiro Park there (without snow...oh, I am looking forward to this!).

Next time I come to St. Louis, though, and my friends come down to visit, "we will dance the "Hoochie-Koochie"" if I have anything to say about it...

!

Just two weeks from today, I leave to go back to Spain. A freezing rain outside (freezing rain? shouldn't that mean snow?) doesn't do a lot to hold me here, to be honest! There is something that does, however. That is how helpful people really are here.

Numerous times in my stay here I've geared up for a fight. You know the kind of thing...getting something fixed, or getting money back after being overcharged, or getting something done. And every time so far there simply hasn't been a fight. Whomever I'm dealing with just gets it done, and they genuinely seem concerned and seem to want to help.

For example, when we stayed in Chicago, I had prepaid the hotel. However, we did get a bill for the parking ($37 a day) and also on the bill was a charge for a video game on the TV, $6.60. I know Diana had poked around, looking at what was available, and so I asked her what the deal was with playing a video game. She said that as soon as she saw that you had to pay, she shut the thing down. So I geared up for a fight with the reception, thinking that $6.60 wasn't a lot, but it was the principle of the thing. I called down, explained the situation, and the woman said "OK, m'am, I'll take that right off your bill". It was that easy.

The same with the insurance company that MAPFRE works through here for medical coverage. I was having some difficulty figuring out how to take care of making an appointment, going to the doctor, and getting the insurance to pay for it directly. So I was surprised when, after one initial call to them, they then called me back and arranged everything. Get this, too. I went to the doctor Tuesday (just to have my ears checked...one has seemed blocked for months) and they didn't see anything (age? sinus? nothing serious, anyway!) and this morning some bright bubbly young person called me from the doctor's office just see how I was doing. I was walking in the park in below 0 (centigrade) weather, so I said I was just fine, thank you!

The rental car company overcharged me by a good amount the last couple of months (I'm on a deal where each month is cheaper, I actually paid more in October, and even more in November, than in September). I wrote an e-mail to the rental car company, expecting a long wait to hear from them, expecting to be told that the original deal didn't include having pumpkins thrown through the window, or nails found in the tire. The next day my phone rang and a very nice woman explained how sorry they were for overcharging me, and that my credit card would be credited with all of the money they owed me.

I geared up for having to cajole the graduate school office into accepting a petition for the PhD oral exam ballots without adherence to the "mandatory" 2 week advance notice (I'm supervising a PhD student who just passed her written exam, and we want to schedule the oral before I leave). When I got there with the petition, the woman in the office said "No problem. I'll get those ballots to you right away".

So I keep preparing the big guns, and then am surprised by the supposed enemy coming up and giving me a big hug. And people genuinely seem to care; they are concerned, they want to help. Getting stuff done here is just so much easier!

Diana took her written driving test in about 15 minutes. I took about another 15 minutes to get a replacement social security card, and then about 15 minutes to get her driver's permit (with which she can practice drive to that she can get ready for her road examination). I can't imagine how long any one of those procedures might take in Madrid, and how many long faces, frustrated sighs, and raised tones might accompany it. Here, again, people are happy, friendly, and want to help. That I will miss!

I won't miss this icy rain, and having to take the car out in it.

Don't tell Luis - I got the pictures from Elisa from our Thanksgiving trip. Here is the rocker himself, in gear that we are all more familiar with! See you soon (I'm off to Boston this weekend, to see Elisa!).

Rockers

It's been a while, but of course with Luismi here visiting, life was not quite tranquil. We have enjoyed St. Louis very much...out to dinner with friends, sampling, funnily enough, the Spanish-style fare (Modesto has some great tapas - the only difference with Spain is that they charge you for raciones and literally give you tapas, and a server positively dotes; in Spain, a server would NEVER suggest "Hi, my name is Manuel, and I'll be taking care of you this evening"), and, on Sunday the 18th, we took in a concert at the fabulous Fox Theater...Neil Young!

Talk about fabulous. Neil came out alone to do an acoustic first set, just Neil and his circle of guitars, his harmonicas, and keyboards. After the Gold Rush is one of my long-time favorite albums; it's been with me through a lot for I'd say at least 35 years. His passion, his voice, his presence...I cried at the familiar (like the title track from my all time favorite album, as well as "A man needs a maid") and fell in love with the songs I hadn't heard before (like "Love art blues"). The second set was a highly energized full-band rock concert, again mixing old with new (like "Oh, lonesome me", on the one hand, and a jaw-dropping new "No hidden path"). Sigh, sigh, sigh....I would hear him again tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next night. I wonder if he will ever tour in Spain?

Two days later, Luis, Diana and I hit the road. We took off Tuesday late afternoon for my brother John's house in Michigan. To break up the trip a bit, we stopped for the Tuesday night in Indianapolis. Remember the car we got after the pumpkin went through the window of the previous one? Well, before we left on our trip, the Optima had shown some low tire problem through an indicator light on the dashboard. So Mary Sue helped us to fill all the tires with air (the air pumps here in the U.S. are quite different from those in Spain), and the right rear tire was especially low. About halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis the light came back on. So early Wednesday morning, we visited the nearest Firestone, who patched up the tire. Good thing they were located right near a Walmart, as Luis had forgotten to put our coats in the car, and they were left behind on the sofa in St. Louis. So, while the tire was being fixed, I got a new very warm down jacket - we left St. Louis at 75 F (24 C), and we were heading into Michigan's first snow fall. Indeed, as we rolled into Lansing, Michigan Wednesday afternoon, the temperature was dropping. And as we drove to Lansing airport that night at 11:30, to pick up Elisa (flying in from Boston) the snow flurries started. We woke up the next morning to a silent white world, and a flat tire! Yes, that rear right tire was like the proverbial pancake. Off to Firestone again. They found a hole, and a nail, which I now have as a souvenir. We think now that it is patched, finally.

There was a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving day - 1) probably just short of miraculous that Elisa flew in right on time in a storm on the eve of Thanksgiving, and after having to change planes in Chicago O'Hare's airport; 2) a white Thanksgiving - just beautiful! Luismi loved the run he, Elisa & John had at Hawk Island Park; 3) the delicious turkey, playing Monopoly, and spending time with John's family; 4) that John has fun musical "toys" in the basement, allowing Luismi to play the rock star:









Luismi, Elisa, Diana & I left Lansing on Friday and headed for Chicago. The four of us had such a great time. We stayed at a posh hotel in downtown Chicago, went to the Signature Room on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building and enjoyed a beer while looking out over the city lights, saw the Christmas windows at Macy's/Marshall Field's, strolled along the lakefront to Navy Pier where we ate some good ole' American hotdogs, took pictures at Cloud Nine (The famous Bean) at Millenium Park, had dinner with my college mates (Marie, Donna and Mark - who amazed us all with his ability to pull a cork out of an empty bottle -, Terry, Cathy) at Park Grill, in Millenium Park, watching the skaters whiz around right in front, had breakfast on Sunday in Downers Grove with wonderful friends...we even took in a grade school basketball game (Fran - nee Molloy - & Desi Jones' daughter).

It has been so hard to see Luismi back off to Spain this weekend, and get back into work. It's almost the end of the semester, and so much to do before I go!

Smashing Pumpkins

Can you believe this? This morning at about 8 p.m. the doorbell rang here at 3866 Russell Blvd. It was the neighbor, Sharon, saying “Did you know that your car window was smashed in last night?” An expletive spilled out of my mouth as I rushed outside to see what had happened. Sharon went along with me, and we saw the broken window and a broken pumpkin inside the front seat of the car.

Simple, unmitigated vandalism. There was a digital camera in the glove compartment, and Luis's sunglasses in a door side pocket that were still there - so obviously someone just wanted to test lobbing a pumpkin into a car window. Sigh. All's well that ends well, however, as the rental car company has now given us a Kia Optima, a slightly bigger car, and one with automatic locks and windows. This car will be better for our trip up to Michigan this coming week to spend Thanksgiving with my brother John and his family.

Yes!! Luismi is here!! We're having such a great time. While I was working Thursday he went with Marina, a friend of Diana's from Madrid who is visiting St. Louis, to the St. Louis Science Center, where there is an exhibit called Body Worlds 3, by Gunther von Hagens, on. Not for the squeamish, like me, so it was good Luismi had someone to go with. It's an anatomical exhibition of real human bodies...I'd rather go to the art museum! Today we went to City Museum with Diana and Marina - now that's a real treat. It's not REALLY a museum - more of a great big playground ("where the imagination runs wild"), made with bits of pieces of found stuff from all over St. Louis, such as old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, two abandoned planes, and a yellow school bus perched on a corner of the roof. There are stairs everywhere, and chutes and slides to clamber up or woosh down (that's Marina to the left, clambering up to one of the old planes). I did a bit of wooshing and climbing...and found myself smiling the whole time. Luismi was not feeling too well (Diana gave me a cold which I've passed on to Luismi) so he walked around and watched us be silly, and then sat and watched an acrobatic show, which we caught the end of.

And here's Marina & Diana deep inside the museum...

Luis & I have also been doing some shopping, sampling of restaurants: Italian (near the university on Wednesday night after my linguistics class, as 5 students from the course last spring in Madrid came to the class to talk about their final research projects), and Ethiopian, a placed called Meskerem (which I now know refers to the first month of the Ethiopian calendar) on Thursday night, with Cody and Travis (both of whom had been students on our campus, and had gone to Ethiopia on separate occasions with the English language teaching group that Hamish organizes), Travis' Dutch girlfriend Stina (who Luis recognized - it turns out she works at the Majestic, a bar here in St. Louis where Diana had taken Luismi the night before while I was teaching), Colin (former SLU student, who now works at Kingdom House, where Diana and I volunteer on Mondays in their after school program), Diana and Marina. The food was quite good - nice spicy sauces, the ingera different from any bread I've had before, and it was fun eating the food with it. The atmosphere was delightful, as was the Ethiopian beer. We've also been a couple of times for breakfast at the City Diner...in the same area as Meskerem, the South Grand area, which I've mentioned before.

The other morning, when we pulled in to the street next to the diner to park the car, we noticed a police car stopped, and a policeman talking to a guy who was walking his dog. We drove a bit further on, parked the car, and started walking up the street. We noticed the policeman behind the door of the police car, holding up some kind of largish weapon. He shouted to us "get back to your car!". That caused us both some alarm, and then he pointed to a spot a few car lengths away from us and shouted "there are 2 pit bulls loose!". I turned around and ran, and hid behind our car door, with Luis behind me, until he realized that this other guy who we had just passed in the street was saying "here doggie". The dogs went up to him wagging their tails - though they weren't his - they were quite docile, really. Then the health officers swooped in and captured them and whisked them off in a van. We went on to our breakfast at the diner. Really, it's never a dull moment in this city!

Luismi, Polly and I get to Tower Grove Park in the mornings. Fall continues to be amazing here. Just thought I'd let you enjoy these bushes turning red out in front of the porch to our house, and these trees across the street. It IS fall, and I'm trying to ignore all of the Christmas trees and decorations out already (what IS with that?). We'll enjoy Thanksgiving first...

Fall....changes

I've spent this week reveling in the changing colors of fall, and in my expanded capacity for understanding temperature. I was surprised one morning to see the temperature (according to the internet) at -3 C (29 Fahrenheit), and even wondered about the wisdom of jaunting off to the park with Polly. You see, in Madrid, -3 C is about as cold as it gets. I have seen the thermometer plummet to – 7 (about 19 F) but not very frequently. So I wound my scarf around my face, put on my hat and gloves and several layers of clothes, and off we went on a chilly November morning. Polly is so excited at the beginning of the walk that we end up running a fair bit, so fairly soon I was pretty warm. And mostly the weather has been warmer than that…this morning a good 12 C (a pleasant 54 F).
You will have noticed that I have become familiar once again with Fahrenheit! I had forgotten, and in Madrid if someone suggested it was 54 degrees, I would not have known what to wear. Now I am bi-thermometal. Note that what I mean by that is not that I can do some kind of mathematical conversion, but rather that my body knows how it will feel to be out in the given temperature, and thus what it needs to keep it comfortable. As soon as I saw it was 54 this morning, I knew I could go for the walk without gloves or scarf. Note that it is supposed to get up to 70 tomorrow…gosh, I’ll just need a sweater later in the day!
The nice weather is making the walks in the park that much more enjoyable…as are the changing leaves.

It's probably time that you met Polly...Polly meet the world

and the view of the tree in the backyard from my window...

I went to listen to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra yesterday, and that was quite a treat! I went with Jody (fellow Madrid campus SLU worker, who's moved back to St. Louis) and her husband Eugenio. Powell Hall is an elegant concert hall, and Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek (currently chief conductor of the BBC Symphony) directed soloist American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in singing Mozart and Mahler. She has a not very strong but incredibly clear voice, a delight to listen to. I kept imagining my morning walk, with the brilliant leaves, as I listened.

And speaking of changing colors...do you notice Diana's early x-mas present from her friend, Marina, who's visiting from Madrid?

Chicago, Chicago!

I had a great weekend in Chicago. Jessica (former grad student and teacher at SLU Madrid) picked me up from O'Hare, and we made our way downtown (somewhat slowly - I had forgotten about big city traffic; yes, I know, St. Louis is a big city, but it is so spread out and the roads are all so wide that traffic jams are not very much in existence). We had some delicious flaky-crusted Chicago style pizza at Pizzeria Due, and then set off for a map exhibit at the Newberry Library...except the exhibit it turned out wasn't starting until Saturday, as the weary from repeating this information security guard informed us. We had fun browsing in the bookstore there, and then we set off for Michigan Ave to see the sites. I especially liked seeing The Bean, whose real name is Cloud Gate, a 110 foot high stainless steel sculpture whose shape allows for some very interesting reflections of the Chicago skyline, and of oneself wrapped up in itself. Jessica and I are actually in this picture...I took it.




And in the one at the beginning of this post, for that matter.

This kaleidoscope one below was taken from just underneath the arch, so under the Bean...

After our long stroll around downtown, Jessica and I went to Downers Grove, where we met her parents, Bob & Patty, at Emmett's for some welcome ale. My college friends Cathy Molloy (who also lives in Downers Grove) and Mo Jordon came along and picked me up there. Off we were for a real Clarkie weekend of non-stop talking, laughing, getting teary-eyed, and then laughing some more. We went out to dinner and were then met by Cathy's sister, Fran Jones, who was also a student at Clarke College with us, also living now in Downers Grove. I have always loved spending time with the Molloy family...they are all so easy-going, caring, and compassionate, and we got to catch up with more of Cathy's family as two more of her sisters live nearby as well on Saturday. And Saturday evening, a group of Clarkies got together for dinner. I hadn't seen Cathy, Fran and Mo for 8 years, and some of the others I hadn't seen in, well, we couldn't quite piece that bit of information together...but a good at least 20 years! Marie (Gaudette) had been in Madrid in 1990 or 91 (and if someone can tell us the name of the guy that Luis and I invited to have dinner with the three of us - he definitely didn't speak any English!! - I'd be happy, though I would like to exercise those memory cells and get them working).

It was such a fabulous treat to be able to enjoy a good meal (at Emmett's again!) and catch up. I really felt like I had just seen everyone, we found it so easy to talk. I have such wonderful friends, from Madrid, from Rockford, from my Clarke days. I know that they have all been so important in helping me become who I am, and I can see myself reflected in each one - what beautiful mirrors you all are!!

Left-to-right: front row: Marie, me, Cathy; back row: Donna, Lisa, Mo, Fran

Hooray! ... it's Halloween!

The last time I spent Halloween in the U.S. would have been 1978, so I was quite excited at the thought of kids trooping up to the door, doing the "trick or treat" thing (only because I probably really shouldn't be dressing up and traipsing about, ringing doorbells myself...though I don't know why not, actually - it is somewhat of an ageist thing to think that only kids can do this!).

Anyway, Mary Sue, Diana & I got dressed up for the occasion. Mary Sue found this really cool cow costume complete with an udder. Diana dressed up like a gypsy, and me like a hippy. I will say the kids seemed to like the fact that we were into it just as much as they were.

And so many kids came to the door! We actually ran out of candy, which was a real shame, as I was counting on some of those Reese's cups and little Hershey's bars coming my way afterward. The kids started coming in a trickle, so we gave them handfuls. But after a while they came in carloads. Some were really into the costume thing... Spidermen, Princesses, a tiny Ninja Turtle, one Hannah Montana, witches, vampires, pirates...(interesting...we were the only ones dressed as a cow, a gypsy and a hippy). Some told us jokes, Hannah Montana even sang for us. Others didn't even bother with the costume (maybe we should have withheld candy in those cases, as we deserved it more than they did!), and some were a bit pushy about the candy. But for the most part it was the spirit of Halloween, just as I remember it when I was growing up. The kids were so excited about their bags and plastic pumpkins full of treats, and the streets were full of people, as moms and dads, older brothers and sisters, escorted young kids eagerly about.

Since we ran out of candy, we turned off the front porch light and closed the blinds in the front of the house. But after a while, at around 8:45 we started hearing a commotion. I heard sirens and a helicopter overhead, and Mary Sue came into the kitchen and told me that she thought she had heard gunshots. We looked outside and could see lights flashing. I raced up to Diana's 3rd floor gable window and saw just a few hundred feet away (we're on the corner of Russell and 39th, and this was about half a block up on 39th) an ambulance, a hook and ladder truck, and a half a dozen police cars. The 3 of us (at this point no longer a cow, a gypsy or a hippy) threw on our coats and dashed out. When we got to the scene, a young man who lives a block over explained to us that there had been a shooting! The guy who had been shot was in the ambulance (and apparently not very seriously injured) and 4 guys had been seen running from the scene of the crime, which explains why the helicopter was roaming above with its search light on. While we were standing there a police canine unit pulled up, and a crime lab van, but the police just kind of stood there chatting, and a few seemed to be looking around for shells or something. So we kind of lost interest, talking to the neighbors. We actually walked up the street a bit to look at one neighbor's Halloween decorations in his front yard...complete with a graveyard, Dracula in an open coffin, skeletons, and a fog machine (I'm surprised so many trick-or-treaters made it to their front door!).

This morning there was not a peep in the newspaper about this shooting incident. That added to our cavalier attitude about hanging around the scene of a shooting kind of worries me. Are these incidents so commonplace right in the neighborhood where we're living that it's not really that newsworthy? It really is shocking to think that on the one evening when the streets are full of kids this would happen.

Rather an eventful Halloween. Perhaps that's what I get for letting almost 30 years go by!

Rockford (2)

So that was Saturday night, taken up with catching up until 2 a.m. (staying up til 2 a.m. is an easy feat in Madrid, but this was the first time I managed to do that here in the U.S.). We got up Sunday morning for a fantastic brunch buffet at Cliffbreakers, with everything from roast turkey to canteloupe, all kinds of eggs (Florentine, Benedict, scrambled, fried, poached...), and a hot fudge fountain with strawberries and marshmallows for dipping. Of course, we needed a lot of time to go back for food and to talk, and we needed a lot of food as we invested a lot of energy in talk...in our own private room, so plenty of time, space and energy to catch up with Patte, Carla (and her daughter Alyse), Linda (and her sister Sue), Beth Purfeerst (Paul-Petersen), Cathy, and Colleen. Of course, my Mom and Diana were there...the story of the cuff of my pants catching on fire in Ruby (Patte's red push-button transmission car that Carla and Joe Kelly drove into a ditch...but, of course, that was after the pants incident) and everyone throwing me into a snow bank to stomp out the fire surprised my mother (who insists she always thought I was so quiet and so good) and has given Diana a story (among others) to tell her Dad and her sister...I'll never hear the end of it!

It was hard to end that fabulous brunch ...but I do have promises from some of the gang that a St. Louis road trip is in the offing...

While Colleen and Nicky Joy attended another brunch for Colleen's Dad's 89th birthday, Mom, Diana and I drove around Rockford. We drove past Boylan, my high school, and down past 3627 Huffman, the red brick rach home where I grew up, and currently adorned with 5 or 6 huge plastic Halloween figures in the front yard. Our house is on a hill, which seemed so long and steep when I was growing up, and now seems like a short stretch with a slight incline. We drove around and visited other spots...including 2339 Harlem, my grandparents' house when I was growing up, and then my parents moved in just as I was moving out to Spain. It is the house Elisa & Diana grew up visiting every summer, and they (and their cousins) have great memories of times spent there. The house is up for sale...so the whole family since has taken a virtual tour on the real estate agent's website, with talk, especially amongst the kids, and Luis - who loves that house! - of why not buying it? Sigh. It does have its attraction. Rockford was the place where a lot went into my becoming who I am, and I had a lot of fun going back for a visit. One of the funnest parts was sharing it all with Diana, who patiently put up with the road trip, the reminiscing, the stories, the introductions to old friends...not only patiently, she genuinely seemed to enjoy it. One of my favorite pics from the trip:

Sunday evening, the road trippers all piled back into Colleen's van, and headed down to Springfield. Mike Doran had us over to his house for pizza, and more reminiscing (he conveniently had a yearbook from 1975 so we could look up all those people whose names had been woven into conversations, yet whose faces didn't always come clear). Monday morning, Colleen and Nicky Joy dropped us off at the train station (thanks, Colleen & Nicky Joy, for the great company, the great ride...and the pics!) in downtown Springfield where we parked our suitcases while we went off to visit the Lincoln Musem. That was quite interesting (I especially liked the 1860 presidential campaign TV coverage and the Mary Todd Lincoln special exhibit)...although the "God Bless America" motif grates after a while.

We then had an uneventful train ride back to a rainy St. Louis...though these last couple of days have been absolutely exquisite - brisk fall days, and, yes, the trees ARE turning nicely, thank you (though that does mean that I have to sweep bunches of leaves off my car in the morning!). I even saw a flock of ducks flying overhead when I was leaving the park yesterday morning.

Tomorrow's Halloween...I haven't been here for Halloween since 1978...I am looking forward to giving candy out to the trick or treaters...

Home to....Rockford (1)

For all of you who don't know, Rockford, Illinois is where I spent the first 18 years of my life - rather important years. Rockford gets lots of bad press... I still remember one of my students in the Linguistics class of Spring 07 who, when I mentioned in class my origins, told the story of Hulk Hogan stating that Rockford was the second best city in the U.S., all other cities coming first. And apparently, on various lists ranking cities in the U.S. for quality of life, Rockford has been known to come in last or near last. Frankly, I trust Hulk Hogan and those kinds of lists people put together for whatever reason they have about as much as I trust politicians, certain administrators, and students who don't do their homework and can't own up to it. I think Rockford's great, and we had a great weekend there October 19-21.

The occasion was Sue Deery (Trixie)'s 50th birthday bash. Mom had come to St. Louis, and high school chum (and partner in bikeriding around Rockford, crime, and carkissing) Colleen Brophy (now Karstens, but aka Broph and/or Shirley) and her 10-year-old daughter, Nicky Joy, swung into St. Louis on Friday afternoon in their van to pick Mom, me and Diana up, and thus started our road trip across the Mississippi and northwards through Illinois.

The trip up was uneventful in terms of scenery, just as well, as Colleen and I jabbered away in an attempt to catch up on a good 20 years of our lives. When we arrived to the outskirts of Rockford, Mom, Colleen and I were all taken by that odd feeling of "this is SO familiar, then why is it SO different?" Cherry Vale used to be a mall on the southwest edge of Rockford, out in the country all by itself, and now it is surrounded by businesses, new streets, housing developments, cars everywhere. Progress!

I was delighted, though, when we arrived at our destination - the Comfort Suites hotel connected to Cliffbreakers, right on the Rock River, on Riverside Blvd., a mere mile away from the house I grew up in on 3627 Huffman Blvd., and right next to North Towne...a strip mall where I spent a good amount of time during my teen years, and where I held my first jobs at the age of 16, first at Key Rexall Drugs and then at Noble Shoe Store. OK, so the memory synapses were in overdrive...as they were all weekend!

After we got something to eat, Colleen and I took off for Finnegan's Cottage, a bar owned by old highschool mate John Waugh. I swear I don't remember him every being that talkative (or maybe I was so shy around the opposite sex in high school that I thought everyone else was!). We had a great time catching up, and John can tell some pretty funny stories!

We woke up to a beautiful morning on Saturday, and I got a couple of walks (one with Mom and one with Colleen) on the bike path which runs along the Rock River. It is a spectacular walk, especially at this time of year, with all of the trees turning to bright yellow and burnt orange, yet still a lot of green about. Mom was having a leisurely lunch with her bridge club at Cliffbreakers (coincidentally). So Colleen and I tooled about the town with our daughters in tow, reliving more of our past lives, getting ready for the big event that evening...Trixie's 50th.

Diana, Colleen and I giggled as we were arriving to the bash about the jumping around and "oh my god"s that were bound to take place, although...NOT US...never in that overexcited valley girl style...which, I would say, characterizes fairly well what DID happen when we saw wonderful people like...Trixie (that's Colleen, Trixie & me in the photo)

And ...with me in this photo Patte Armato (Lund) (who brilliantly provided the music for the evening) and Linda Marchese (Schuler)

and more of the very cool people I went to school with, and who I had a great time catching up with (and once again partying with...).

Missing from these pictures are other good friends, like Carla Saieva and Cathy Conti...who will feature in Part 2 of this exciting Rockford series...

Pictures!

Finally, Diana and I went out and bought a card reader so that we can download the pictures off of the camera. I thought I'd catch you up a bit on that, while I wait for the photos to come from friends from the trip to Rockford (and what a trip that was!! more soon...)

Remember our trek up to Compton Towers? Well...here are a few pics from that, which will give you an idea of St. Louis.

They say that the views from Compton Tower are better than from the arch. At least there is a great view all the way downtown of the arch.

I never realized how many trees St. Louis had until I tried to take a picture of the house we're living in from the Tower, and I couldn't see it because of the trees! The church you see is just a couple of blocks over from where we live, and just a few blocks beyond that is Tower Grove Park.

Someone asked what kind of car I was driving while I was here...it's a Chevy Cobalt, bright red. Diana laughs at me because I'm always trying to make sure I park it perfectly aligned with the curb. Usually I end up jolting up onto the curb, or parking about a foot away. People here are surprised, as they think that in Europe we get much practice with parallel parking...bit difficult on the metro or the busses!

Just beyond where our car is parked is a neighborhood called Compton Heights. This week, during Shirley's visit, it's one of the neighborhoods of St. Louis that we drove around. The houses are incredible...some mansions, some simply large. The area was laid out in 1880, and the homes are of various styles (after looking up exactly what styles, I came up with Tudor, Italianate, Quasi-Richardson, Chateauesque, Romanesque, and Georgian).

Other notable areas we explored were the Lindell mansions, also built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, across the street from Forest Park, and in the Central West End. Scattered around that area are some lovely apartment buildings as well, and some great cafes and restaurants (we tried Duffs, on Euclid and McPhereson, and the food is very good...can't resist the white chocolate cheesecake!).

We also visited the Loop, in University City, named after a spot on Delmar where a streetcar looped around. This stretch of Delmar has been deemed one of the 10 best streets in the U.S. by the American Planning Association, and it also has some noteworthy restaurants (we've loved the spinach-artichoke dip at Cicero's), shops, and generally a pleasant laid back feel, as it combines apartments, businesses, restaurants and bars in an interesting cultural milieu.

Before we went to Rockford, we also got in a visit to the Samuel Cupples house, built by a St. Louis entrepreneur finished in 1890 on what is now the Saint Louis University campus. You can actually see photographs of the house at the time it was finished at http://www.slu.edu/the_arts/cupples/vintage.html, as, apparently, these rich folks liked to show off their wealth for all to see, so the photographs would have been made available publicly. Now the house has been restored and furnished with furniture from the period. It is St. Louis' most prominent Romanesque Revival home, and the ornate detail (different in every room) is impressive, along with the glimpses of genteel Victorian life in St. Louis.

So much to see and do! Shirley was reluctant to leave St. Louis...but now I DO have time to catch up with things like this blog!

Fall IS here!

I had hoped to put up some pictures today, as a friend of Diana’s lent us a cable to connect the camera to the computer…but the cable doesn’t fit (Sony cable, Kodak camera), so we’ll have to keep doing this blind.

Fall IS here, finally. I’ve packed up my summer clothes for Luis to take back to Madrid after his visit here in November. Someone said that packing up may have been a bit premature, and Sunday the temperature did get up to 27 or so. But still, not the kind of weather that you need shorts and sleeveless tops, so those are staying packed up. This afternoon/evening it has been raining, raining, raining – kind of dismal, really, but necessary as it has been very dry.

I guess the dry weather during this year means we won’t be in for a spectacular fall in terms of the colors of the trees. I was worried that it was going to be like in Madrid – the leaves just kind of go brown and fall off the trees. Today on campus, however, I did see a few trees brushed with orange, and in the park this morning there was a promise of maybe some color changes coming up. Tower Grove Park really can be spectacular in the morning sunlight. One of the pathways has a bend in it that allows for a view of a grove of large old oak trees, nicely spaced to let the sunlight filter in. That always makes me feel fairly mellow, that is until this morning a hawk swooped down and almost got a squirrel.

I now have a companion on my walks. Mary Sue has a dog, Polly, (of uncertain breed(s)), who loves to go for walks in the park. She pulls me along and gets me trotting, only to stop abruptly to leave her mark after sniffing to see if it’s in the right place. She also went after a couple of squirrels today, but they seem especially energetic at this time of year, I suppose getting ready for the winter. I wonder if she is any protection against a hawk (although she IS on the smallish side...).

Not a lot going on during this past week, as I was busy catching up after the trip to Oregon and the stomach flu. However, last Friday I was tipped off by a grad student that there is an art exhibit on campus, in a building called Boileau Hall, featuring the works of 9 SLU faculty members, plus other artists. Boileau Hall is a small building, located on the edge of campus, and I probably would never have noticed it or known that it housed an art exhibit if the student hadn’t mentioned it. It was quite a treat for a Friday afternoon. I was particularly taken by some paintings by Tony Chimento, of “simple” things like everyday rooms painted in bold and vibrant colors with many sharply defined details strewn about, and these incredible canvases depicting paintings of glassworks by Charles Lotton, also bold in their pinks and yellows, and very swirly and pleasing to the eye. Much more soothing were the photographs by Sharon Pollack, of “little” serene moments, like an elegant wrought-iron stair rail in sepia. As far as I can figure out, she is the only faculty member of the three I just mentioned…so I’m not sure what the connection is with the others, or how their work got to the walls of Boileau Hall.

Unless there is some connection with the Saint Louis University Museum of Art, which I haven’t been in to see yet, nor the St. Louis Art Museum. Well, Shirley arrives tomorrow for a 10-day visit, so museum visits are on the agenda (along with a visit to the Samuel Cupples house – a historic mansion which is located on the campus as well). We have a road trip to Rockford next weekend, so that will also keep us busy. A high school friend of mine, Colleen, will roll into St. Louis with her 10-year-old daughter and their mini-van next Friday to pick me, Shirley and Diana up. Then we head up to Rockford (Diana, for some reason, is rolling her eyes at this road trip!)…one highlight of that trip is another friend, Sue Deery’s, 50th birthday bash. That’s Deery of Rockford Speedway fame, so, yes, the birthday bash is taking place there, complete with race car rides. On the way back from Rockford, Shirley, Diana and I will be dropped off in Springfield, Illinois, where we plan to catch the Lincoln Library. Looking like an interesting time ahead...though I'm half a mind to skip the Library and come straight back to St. Louis...Dylan is playing here on the 22nd, with Elvis Costello and Amos Lee. Sigh...Diana is taking two history courses on Lincoln, so I suppose I'll do the "right" thing. I WON'T miss Neil Young on November 18th, however!

….Hello Agan, Summer!

Yes, it’s October, and temperatures here in St. Louis are still in the high 80s low 90s (so 32 degrees C predicted for today). It’s still hot and sticky.

It's been a while, but I haven’t fallen off the edge…though almost! Last weekend I was in Oregon, visiting my friend from childhood, Lisa. She moved out there a few years ago, to a position at Oregon State in Corvallis. She bought a house about an hour away, in a town called Newport, right on the coast. Thursday night, she picked me up in Portland, and we spent the night there (Lisa has recently moved to Portland, as she has taken a new job). On Friday we got up and drove off to Corvallis. I kept saying how beautiful it all was – so green, so hilly, and so many trees! She kept saying, “Just wait!” And she was right. When we got to Corvallis we turned onto Highway 20 and headed to its western terminus on the coast at Newport…and what a drive!! Huge Douglas firs blanket the hills and peaks, except the scarce but sudden and very bare patches which have been recently logged, covered by stumps and branches (though, apparently, logging is very controlled). Still, I was amazed by the amount of trees. And then we arrived to the Pacific Ocean! Newport is a beach town, and Lisa’s house is - still is, though she is selling it as she’s moving to Portland :( - such a cool beach house…craftsman style, with dark green paint and red trim (see photo), with hardwood floors inside. Downstairs is mainly one big room (combined living dining and kitchen – though the kitchen has this cool slate floor) with lots of windows and so lots of light. From my bedroom window upstairs, I could see the ocean, off just a couple of short blocks away. We drove down to the bay, and had some delicious crab cakes next to the harbor. Then we drove along the coastal highway, exploring some of the towns, like Depoe Bay and Lincoln Beach. We managed to get some shopping in along the way as well (including the outlet mall in Lincoln Beach), along with stops for some beautiful views, with cliffs and sandy beaches and waves piling in off in one direction, and the ocean stretching away to the semi-circle of the horizon in the other.

We slept at Lisa’s beach house that night, and the next morning, went for a long walk on the beach. We drove back to Portland that afternoon (ok, with more stops for shopping along the way), and Saturday night went out in downtown Portland.

I really like Portland – it’s a city with a live and vibrant city center. People actually live there, so when we went out on Saturday evening, there were people out and about “keeping Portland weird”, which is their goal of having local businesses and residences in the center. We went to a huge book store called Powell’s, open until 11 every night, and which takes up a whole city block. It’s got new and used books, all sorted out into “color” rooms – e.g. the Red Room for philosophy, self-help and linguistics, the Purple Room for sociology, Rose Room for health. Then we went out for dinner at some time after 10 (yes, actually Spanish dinner time is quite do-able in Portland - quite a civilized place, in my view).

We were lucky with the weather for most of the weekend – very fall coolish weather temperature-wise, and not much rain, and even some sunshine. However, Sunday it rained all day! Still, we had a great brunch in downtown Portland – I actually had fried chicken on top of a waffle (with maple syrup on both) – believe me, it was a lot more delicious than it sounds!! We drove around Portland, and I got a feel for the scope of Forest Park, the largest woods in an urban area in the U.S., and also drove around Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, where Lisa hopes to buy a home (fingers crossed!). With a bit more shopping, a nice meal in a French-style restaurant, and a lot more of something we did a LOT OF all weekend – TALK – Lisa & I finished off my unforgettable visit to Oregon. I left the next morning (Monday)…

...after flying all day, back to St. Louis…to the heat! I think my system was shocked a bit by the weather change, the change of scenery, the change of time…I came down with a horrible case of stomach flu on Wednesday…still trying to get over it.

This morning, Diana and I did manage to climb up the 198 stairs in the Compton Water Tower, just 2 blocks up the road from us here in St. Louis. It only opens the first Saturday of each month, so we took advantage of the height of the tower to get some fabulous views of St. Louis. We took pictures (Diana FINALLY got her camera back from a friend who had been safeguarding it) but…of course the cable to connect the camera to the computer is back in Madrid, so we’ll have to wait for those pictures another day…maybe it will be cooler then.

Goodbye, Summer!

Tonight we went to the signaling of the end of the summer in Forest Park. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra played at 7:00, followed by fireworks. It was a fantastic evening. The sky played along with the orchestra. The full moon provided the light, and the clouds the play. The clouds were tremendously versatile, making for a constantly changing scenario. Actually, there was a very real threat of rain, which never materialized, but I suppose that is what made the clouds so spectacular. They started out as these long thin white and blue banks, that, lit up by the moon, seemed like some kind of arctic landscape. They never covered the moon; at most they would float themselves over it, like a gauzy bit of material. Then they were chased away by these great big fluffy white masses, that would sometimes cover the moon, yet let some of the light puff out from behind. In the end, the gauzy ones came back, however. I’m sure there’s a proper meteorological name to these clouds, but I’m as good as those as I am on types of trees.
You might wonder how I spent so much time looking at the sky…well, Mary Sue and I took a picnic dinner. We got there early to get a good spot on the embankment which slopes down to the lake, where the orchestra shell was installed. We took some grilled salmon, salad, artichoke dip and crackers, and a bottle of wine. So after I stretched out on the blanket after dinner while the music and the sky played.
The music was an eclectic mix. Actually, the whole performance, which lasted just a little over an hour, was a preview of what the SLSO is going to be playing this season…so in essence, one big commercial, but I guess nothing is free! It was a tasty treat, at any rate. At the same time, we got some history of the SLSO, which was founded in 1880, and is the second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States after the New York Philharmonic. Tonight they played everything from a waltz composed by Max Zach, who was chosen to be conductor of the SLSO exactly 100 years ago (from 1907-1921), a medley from ‘Sound of Music’ (and, yes, climb every mountain did conjure up thoughts of extending comfort zones here in St. Louis…ok, so I was getting hyper-reflexive), and the lyrically alluring Dream Pantomime from Hansel and Gretel (by Engelbert Humperdinck…, hey, how was a pop crooner allowed to take his name??). The fireworks afterward were fun (though I still remember my first summer in Birmingham, when the BSO played in Cannon Hill Park, and they combined the fireworks with the music…a good idea).
Also, this past weekend I went to see a film, Once, a delightful film set in Ireland about a guy musician who meets a girl musician…and they do really make great music together and it is all told very well through the film. Sigh.
I’m squeezing in a lot of work (believe it or not!) between these musical outings (the classes seem to be going very well, and so does a bit of new work on the research front…more on that if it pans out!) and my trip to Portland, Oregon…leaving Thursday to visit my friend Lisa…can’t wait…so a report on that will probably be next!

Going out

Last Friday night, Diana's friend Jesus (aka Doug) had us over to his place for dinner. He lives right smack downtown, on Washington near 13th, on a strip which is full of bars, restaurants, shops, offices, and apartments. It's very well (and decoratively) lit, and the shops look like they could be on Serrano. A wonderful urban area, but it lasts just about a block, and then it's big empty streets again. The area between downtown and SLU (an area known as mid-town, which SLU is a part of) is about 3 miles, and it's a stretch of warehouses and industry which makes it seem like a veritable wasteland. On Friday, after the delicious dinner that Jesus prepared for us (including tomatoes stuffed with cheese and coriander, and fish with a wonderful sauce), at around 11:00 p.m., the young folk were fixing to go out, so I took myself off home in the car...with my heart in my throat the whole time, begging for no red lights. Let's hope that St. Louis continues to work towards urban development with mixed spaces, like where Jesus lives in that little block downtown, and like the South Grand area.

Jesus lives in the now very popular "loft" style apartment. Basically, that means an apartment with very few walls, exposed brick, and no false ceiling to cover things like the steel airconditioning vents. His whole front wall is window, so a nice view of that cool downtown busy city block. Don't misunderstand me...I like that loft look (but would probably argue for a wall or two around my bedroom and something to cover the vents...after all, I bet they charge you more not to put those things up in the first place!)

Since everything is so spread out, it does mean driving everywhere. I miss being able to walk more...but here it is just not safe! I do walk up about 4-6 blocks to get the free university shuttle to work. They moved the stop, so now we cross over Highway 44, and in doing so have to cross the exit-entrance ramps on either side of it. Mind you, there are traffic lights for pedestrians to get across the ramps, but there are so few pedestrians that cars are not used to having to stop. It's like in Madrid, when you have the little green man to cross, and the cars have a flashing yellow (meaning that they should stop if there's someone in the crosswalk), and the cars take flashing yellow to mean green. So, one is ever on the alert for all sorts of dangers. According to the newspaper yesterday, St. Louis is still the number 1 city for crime. So we are careful, and so far have felt very safe, except for the driving home at night.

A jungle

Have I mentioned that St. Louis weather-wise is rather like a jungle, at least in summer. The humidity is hair-raising, as I’ve said before. The mosquitoes are silently ubiquitous. I never see them or hear them, but my skin feels their bites, as evidenced by itchy bumps on my knuckle, a matching pair on the upper and inner sides of both my arms, on my knees…Diana has a succession of five across one of her feet.

Then there are the cicadas. I’d never heard a cicada before, that is if it’s possible to hear just a single cicada! The first time Luis and I ventured out in the evening for a walk in Tower Grove Park, we were met by the oddest sound, a very intense kind of incredibly loud and persistent metallic screaming shimmering sound…we thought it was coming from the electrical wires, but the sound seemed to follow us down the street. So we realized that it must be insects. We tried to get a look at the things in a smallish tree that was emitting a somewhat more timid version of the noise, but they would go quiet when we got near…so I haven’t actually seen a cicada.

Diana says that the birds sing at night, too. I haven’t experienced that yet.

Living in St. Louis

The area we are living in is very close to Tower Grove Park, in what is called Shaw Neighborhood. Shaw comes from Henry Shaw, born to a iron and steel manufacturing family in Sheffield. Because of hard times with the family business, it seems Henry set his eyes on the U.S. as a possible new market, which brought him to the small French town of St. Louis in 1819. He made his fortune here (the amazing growth of the city providing lots of opportunity), and bought up huge areas of land. He was able to retire at the age of 40, and thus he could pursue his passion for botany. This passion (and the money and time to indulge it) allowed him to work with established botanists. Thus Shaw built up an incredible botanical garden around his home, which would later become the Missouri Botanical Garden (it opened to the general public in 1859). The Botanical Garden is about a 4 or 5 block walk from where we’re living (and where we went to the Japanese Festival a couple of weeks ago). Shaw Street is 2 blocks over…where Diana and I catch the shuttle bus to SLU.
On the south border of the neighborhood is Tower Grove Park, where I walk in the mornings. It is a beautiful park, full of all different kinds of trees (of course, I don’t know the names of any of them, and don’t have the kind of time Henry did to learn them), and lots of lovely little pavilions built circa 1870. On the other side of the park (further south) is the Tower Grove Park South, a fun neighborhood which mixes businesses and residences in a way that allows a bit more for cars to be left behind. There are lots of ethnic restaurants (Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Afghan, and Ethiopian, to name a few, and American, at the City Diner), a grocery store, dry cleaners, post office…as it’s on the other side of the park, it’s about a 20-minute walk. No problem in the morning to go on my jaunt and pick up some rolls for breakfast, but not so good at night to go out for dinner….I’m always a bit leery about walking around after dark (a leeriness which I’m told is very sane), so I drive.
Last Sunday I did join a walking tour on that side of the park, led by an architect. I was wanting to know more about the houses in the area…I didn’t learn a lot. The architect was rather reticent – he would answer questions in a very knowledgeable way but not in a teaching way…so I came away with a little understanding of how say the Dutch Colonial style was vernacularized in St. Louis…but not an idea of the bigger picture. Still, it was fun to troop around the streets, and what was even more interesting was watching the personalities of the people involved. Some were passionate about their neighborhood and what they wanted to see happen in it, and there were some major disagreements, causing some tension and rolling of eyes. And I had never focused before on the metal stars (or other shapes) that cover the metal rods that run from one side to another of brick buildings, providing support for structure. What do they do in other cities?
Another little thing that’s been on my mind…people who drive around with these incredibly loud bass subwoofers in their cars. The “boom, boom, boom” is so deep and far-reaching, that I’ve been up on my bed on the 3rd floor of this house and I can feel the ground shake. I find it really spooky, like some massively huge monster is stomping his way down the street. Where does that come from? What must it be like to be actually sitting in the car?

Pathways

Last week I felt like I hadn’t had much chance to lift my head and look beyond the necessary pathways needed to build up a workable existence here. Now that I have had a chance, I see that it is not so usual to look beyond what becomes routine. I think that might be just because of the sheer size of everything.
Take the gym…at Saint Louis University, it is massive. There are at least three different areas set up with treadmills (I’d say a good 9-10 in each area), cross-trainers (7 or 8), stationary bikes (including those ones that look so comfortable, where you can sit back and read – I need to try one of those – probably a total of 7/8), free weights, and all sorts of weight machines. I believe each of these areas is somewhat different , but I can’t say for sure, because already I have chosen my area, and venturing into one of the others seems like a hike to a nearby county, so I haven’t bothered....but who knows what I might be missing?
And the supermarket…I can see where people at some point must stop being distracted by everything they see on the shelves and just home in on what they need to or usually buy, marking out familiar pathways around the supermarket. It takes me 2 hours to do my grocery shopping; just looking at all of the different spices takes me about 15 minutes! Not to mention the 1 ½ meter display of different kinds of lettuces (but then you have to remember that over on the other side are bags and bags of various sorts of lettuces, greens, spinach – all ready and washed for your salad - even mushrooms come washed, and carrots washed, peeled and cut – I guess it takes so long to shop that you have less time to prepare the food at home!). The problem is let’s say that you pick out a bag of lettuce, and then move on. All of a sudden you’re faced with this huge display of different kinds of fresh lettuce. So you turn around and trundle back (aisles are spacious, so people never have to bump into each other) leave off the bag, and then go back to the lettuce display, and have to try and decide the Romaine? Ruby? Iceberg? Butterhead? They all look so fresh and crisp (as they are frequently sprayed by an overhead water sprayer). You can also choose from several different kinds of dressings in this area (they look more homemade, less like the familiar brand names). But then later on you get to the aisle where the dressings are and you are faced with even more choice. The same goes for pickles, olives, wine (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, shiraz, pinot noir, Australian, Californian, Missourian, Italian, Spanish, French…), crackers, meat (I didn’t realize that there were so many different kinds of ground beef), yoghurt…just about everything except fish! I do miss the great array of fish choices we have in Madrid, and cheese, too (well, there are lots of cheese choices, but lots of them have the word "spread" or "whiz" in them, and are to be avoided)….Anyway, in the four months I’m here, I know that there is no way that I’m going to be able to sample more than just a small part of any of the different choices I have in any given food.
It’s the same when we go out to eat, especially breakfast. How do you want your eggs? Bacon or sausage? Rye, white, whole wheat toast? Hash browns or fries? Hash browns with onions or with none?
So much to choose from and explore! I’d better get back to it…

Surviving...

I’ve spent most of this week concentrating on constructing my new life here in St. Louis, and at Saint Louis University. I’m used to a much smaller campus…one that serves some 600 or so, and not over 10,000, as is the case here. Obviously, there are major differences living the life of a big campus, all of which have their plusses and minuses. For example, greater anonymity: plus: far less danger of running into people you know (and who might need something) when you’re walking to class or, more importantly, leaving for lunch; minus: it’s rather overwhelming not to see familiar faces (and rather daunting when you see a student who seems to know lots of people – which makes me feel awed, and at the same time unsettled, by the possibility of popularity in such a big pond).
Another difference is having my own office!! I feel like I’ve grown up and found a proper job!! Plus: I can concentrate – there are spookily few interruptions. Minus: I can feel somewhat isolated…and students have said that they find it somewhat intimidating to enter a prof’s private retreat (meaning even fewer visits). I guess I need to learn the art and etiquette of arranging to meet for coffee or lunch or a beer after work. Yet another difference is just the sheer size of everything – the longish walk from the parking garage or the shuttle bus drop-off to the department, the huge gym, a library you can, and I did, get lost in. It’s meant this week that I’ve kept pretty much to a routine pathway, not looking up and around yet at what is not connected to the initial basics of my campus life.

But I am starting to lift my head. I made it to the instructional resource center yesterday, and managed to scan something into a pdf file, with the aid of a very helpful student worker named Michael, who is actually going to study at the Madrid campus next semester. I also made it on Thursday to the Scottish Arms with a good-sized group from the English Department (and beyond) to celebrate the publication of Elisabeth Heard’s new book. I was sorry to cut that short, as the chips and salsa were substantial and nourishing, and even more so the conversation, but I had arranged to meet Diana and some of her friends to go out for a Vietnamese meal.

Ok, so that’s the other part of my life…being Diana’s mom. We are getting along quite well…she’s even taken to going to the gym. She helps me to navigate all of the machines available in that cavernous place. And dinner with her and her friends was quite enjoyable. At the restaurant, I ran into a former SLU student, Colin Hobart, who I hadn’t seen in about 5 years. Maybe St. Louis isn’t such a big city after all.

Though it certainly offers some big city stuff – another highlight of the week was attending the Maya Lin “Systematic Landscapes” opening at the Contemporary Art Museum. Her works of art recontextualize landscapes through different materials (including miniature canyons cut out of atlases, mountain ranges sculpted out of a series of particle boards, the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers outlined by thousands of pins)…causing me to muse about my own recontextualization. I’m still working on creating my life here…a work I trust will be in continual flux and flow, and full of more surprises and unexpected finds.

Of gables

I thought I should write about our new home in St. Louis. We're living on Russell Blvd., which is about 5 or 6 blocks north of Tower Grove Park. The house is one of many lovely turn-of-the-century brick gabled houses in the area...prompting Diana to suggest that she feels like Anne of Green Gables in her room. We're living on the 3rd floor of the house, Diana at the front with her two gables, and me at the back with one. My room (pictured) is quite cozy in yellow and green, with its two armchairs, and window seat.

Our housemate, Mary Sue, is easy-going and very helpful. Last week I had a bit of a jinxed week. On Wednesday, as I was driving Luis out to the airport to see him take off back to Spain, the air-conditioning on the car I was leasing went kaput. In 95 degree weather, with who knows what kind of humidity (my hair was seriously out of control), that needed taking care of right away. Naturally, there were no other cars available, and on the instructions of the car rental company, I perspired home to wait for them to bring me a new car…when I really wanted to be at the university, nervously preparing for my classes. Ah, but of course! I have this new laptop…so as I waited (and waited) for the car, I prepared my linguistics class notes and a nice little Powerpoint presentation (this for a 2 ½ hour class). Finally at 3 I called to see where my replacement set of wheels might be…still no cars in. I had a little tantrum and hung up the phone…when it came to me that I could just get the car next day, so I redialed and sheepishly suggested that option. Then I perspired on over to the university with a little over an hour to spare before my class. But of course! Microsoft Office 2007 programs refuse to even speak to Microsoft Office 2003, so I couldn’t access the work I’d done while at home. So my first day teaching the linguistics class in a “smart” classroom saw me using the overhead projector and the chalkboard…just a little flustered…enough to suggest that /l/ is an unvoiced consonant. Oh well, the students got it right!

Then on Thursday, with Mary Sue just driving away to her workplace (in case you were wondering about the first sentence of the previous paragraph, now the connection comes...), I put my key into the dead bolt lock on the front door in order to make sure the door was locked while I was up having a shower and getting ready to go pick up this new rental car and then off the SLU to teach my graduate class. I turned the key…and locked the door, and then somehow, as I twisted the key back, the cylinder pulled partially out, with the key in its clutch, and it wouldn’t let it go. I couldn’t get my key out, and couldn’t unlock the door! I was locked in (I forgot that houses have back doors!) After a few moments of panicking and wondering if I shouldn't just go back to Madrid, I phoned Mary Sue who came back and opened the door from the outside and took care of things without ever losing her smile, and without ever suggesting that it was anyone's fault but the lock and its age...so I'm staying! (though for 3 days now we’ve had to use the back door). The locksmith will fix it soon – but it is Labor Day weekend, so it’s not going to happen before Tuesday.

Mary Sue took me today to see one of the Gateway Cup bicycle races - a tradition on Labor Day weekend in St. Louis, as one of her sons is a participant. We went to the one in The Hill – the Italian district not too far from where we live. I definitely want to get back to that area to try some of the cafes, shops and restaurants out…

Another Labor Day treat in St. Louis – the Japanese Festival, in the Botanical Gardens…a 6 block walk from our house. Too many people (so we couldn’t get into see the kimonos)…but Diana and I did get the chance to see some martial arts practice, a string of enthusiastic children pulling around a dashi – an ornately decorated cart with a couple of people beating a taiko drum, and a whole crowd of even more enthusiastic adults shouting and parading around an omikoshi (a portable Shinto shrine). I was hoping to find some onigiri at the food stands, but none seemed to be offered.

Oh well…the city has so much else on offer! I look forward to seeing more...

A blonde Lily

Before I launch into life in St. Louis, I thought I should also mention for those who can’t see me that I am now really quite blonde. That was all a bit of an accident. It started with Eloy (as some of you know, my hairdresser for years and years – who is quite skilled at covering up my increasing number of grey hairs with light streaks) getting bit in his right arm by a dog sometime in July…so I couldn’t get an appointment to see him, and found the decision to try to find a new hairdresser that I thought I could trust just too difficult to face. Much easier was buying a hair dye kit…one with a light brown base with lighter streaks to be added in after the initial all over light brown hair dye (Eloy had been telling me that some day soon we would need to go in this direction – first dyeing all of the hair to cover up that encroaching grey, and then adding highlights to help make it all look “natural”). Anyway…we brought the kit home, and Luismi put the light brown hair dye on, doing what at the time seemed a very thorough job of massaging it in all over my scalp. When I washed it out, I had light brown hair…a bit boring and mousy, but no grey!
The next night Diana carefully painted on the streaks, wrapping each streaked strand up in tin foil. Those came out rather discreetly, but they added some oomph, and I looked much as I have for some time.
But then…something about the light on the top floor of this house here in St. Louis…Luismi and I both realized that when I pulled my hair back and wore it up, there was all of this grey stuff just above both my ears. So we forayed out to Walmart and got a package of hair frosting – blonde highlights for light brown hair. We figured we could highlight those grey bits and get them looking “younger”. It was a fun process. The kit comes with a little cap with lots of little holes, out of which strands of hair are pulled with what looks like a very fine crochet hook. Luismi set to work, poking, hooking and pulling out strands of hair, and after a while my head looked like that of a Pilgrim woman whose cap had sprung a whole bunch of leaks, with veritable gushes coming out above the ears. Then Luismi painted on the frosting, especially lavishing it on those bits. The kit suggested peeking at a strand after 20 minutes, and then after every 5 minutes, to see if the color was enough, with an hour being the maximum amount of time to leave it all on. I figured “what the heck – I’ll leave it 45 minutes”. I set the alarm – upstairs – and we went downstairs to watch TV…so of course I didn’t hear the alarm. So the stuff was doing its lightening work for probably the full hour. When I took off the cap, I was quite alarmed at the yellow gold stripes on the top of my head and especially over the ears. Somehow I thought washing it would make a difference, but there they were when I pulled the towel off my head. Then Luismi came up and saw me and suggested that perhaps drying it would make it better…
In the end, it’s not too bad – I am much blonder than I have been in years, and have these two Lily Munster streaks above my ears. Given that I usually push my hair behind my ears, they are somewhat hidden (and tend to look as if I have some kind of exotic earrings in). If I can get a picture, I’ll share it with you all. I think it has been a kind of good way to shake up the looks a bit…now, how I ever thought Luismi and store-bought hair-coloring kits would be more trustworthy than any hairdresser I could find is beyond me!

...after 50th birthday celebrations

Tonight I'm just testing this...to see how it works. I'm in St. Louis now...have been since last Sunday the 26th. Prior to that, I was in Virginia, visiting my Mom...and lots of other assorted family.

I suppose the highlight of that trip east (and, indeed, the initial impetus for planning it) was the birthday bash at my cousin's Mary's house on August 24th. It was originally planned for the sake of doing something special for my 50th birthday (which really happened on August 27th...the first day of classes, when I would be back in St. Louis...where I don't actually know a lot of people that I could invite around to celebrate something as distinctive as a 50th birthday) and I figured people who have known me since I've been born or at least somewhat shortly thereafter would understand what I was going through. Besides, my brother Ned's 51st birthday was actually on the 24th...and I was reminded of when we had joint birthday parties when we were little...and it meant we got to have a cake with candles representing "101". There's more excitement...I don't know how many people can say that they've celebrated their 50th surrounded by snakes...ok, they were behind closed doors (except when cousin Donnie decided to bring the odd one out for viewing - as you can see)...but that we were in an airconditioned garage which is part of a small building which houses Mary & Carl's rather large snake collection somehow only helped to underscore the notion that I was starting out a new year and and a new decade and a new life in a place that had few reference points with my life in Madrid.

After a fantastic day playing in some mean waves at Virginia Beach, having collected Diana and having seen Elisa off to Boston from Norfolk airport, we flew back to St. Louis...