Heavy History

A holiday display at the Keulen train station of the city in ruins after World War II bombings. A manger scene was placed in the middle.

When we were asking fellow travelers about what to see in Keulen, they would mention the Cathedral, the view of the river, the Christmas markets, the shopping district. And somewhere along the way, through the course of the conversation, they would casually mention the ambiance of the city as a whole: Well, you know, because practically the entire city was destroyed during the Second World War, all the buildings are new. I mean, it's a great place to live, but if you want old Europe charm, you won't find it there. Old Europe charm you might not find, but it's amazing to me how quickly such a city brought itself back after being reduced to rubble. That in itself, really, is something to see.

History, as in a series of events that happened before the lifetime of you and everyone you know, as in lectures about dead people that school children are forced to listen to with their eyes half-closed, is certainly experienced differently across the world, and I think the time of the Second World War, and the decades leading up to it, are gradually becoming real history in the U.S.

My Great Uncle was an American soldier. He died about seven or eight years ago. I knew him only as a distant relative, someone I saw every few years growing up. He spent his entire life totally silent on his time at war until the very last year of his life, when he suddenly started pulling out boxes and dumping the contents on the living room floor - German helmets, swastika arm bands, photographs depicting things so horrific that even holding the small gray images seemed like an act with the weight of lives behind it. As a teenager, I didn't know these things were apart of our family at all. It is stunning to me beyond words that this simple mid-western family man carried this with him silently for so long, and that he still recalled even the objects of this life chapter with such heavy distinctness that he would come back to them, like a frantic last confession, before he passed away.

But I tell this not to pull at your heart strings, only to relay the potency of seeing past events not as history, but as something urgent and real and affecting. I am among the last of the generations that will know people who were apart of that time, and when I was a child, we often would lean over desks and compare family histories too eagerly - I know someone who had one grandfather that was an American soldier, and the other was a German soldier, and they were stationed at the same place!... I know someone who knows someone who was a survivor of the Holocaust!...We may have been flippant at the time, but we were at least interested in our own connections. If my children are educated in the U.S., I imagine with a touch of apprehension that their eyes will droop a bit more when the lessons of the Second World War begin. They will have fewer living stories to fuel a different reaction.

In Europe, though, I'm school children even of the next generation will feel that history more personally. Particularly, of course, in Germany, the relics of war are still evolving (we visited a Gestapo house in Keulen, notes of the victims who were tortured there still etched on the walls), and the cities themselves, at least, are still testifying to thick and heavy memories (the newness of most of the city contrasted to the Cathedral, which began construction in the 13th Century, resonated with me). Perhaps some Germans are ready to move on, and I'm sure the daily lives of those who live in Keulen aren't affected at all. But as an outsider, especially coming from elsewhere in Europe, I still see a potent history etched in Germany's landscapes. Even in cities and economies that are thriving. And that is, I would think, both a burden and a blessing.

A white Christmas

The Leuven University Library looking lovely in the snow.

It began to snow in the evening last night, what started as a light sprinkling and steadily built momentum. It's about the sixth time that it's snowed here during the last two months, but this one was heavier and closer to Christmas, so it was that much more special. We have ventured out, last night and today, to see the frosted buildings, the snowball fights, the kids screaching with delight as they pummel down the shallow hills on sleds, and the frustrated students who are yanking their wheeled suitcases through the stuff to make it home for Christmas Eve dinner.

Leuven City Hall snowed up.

We slept in the living room rather than up in our attic bedroom so that we could watch the accumulation during the night. I woke up several times and peered out the window to see whether it was still falling. It didn't stop until this morning, and I woke up feeling warm and cozy on a beautiful Christmas Eve.

Tredging through the park on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Fantasy Christmas Markets

Christmas markets make the holiday in Europe really wonderful. Roaming around, eyeing sweets and toys and pretty little crafts, drinking steamy hot cocoas or ciders or - for those who really want to feel the warmth - wine, add a cozy glow to Christmas that I've never quite found on public ground in the U.S. In short, I love Christmas markets, even the busy ones where you get elbowed and have to squeeze your way through the crowds, and this year, with the snows we've had, it seems to double the Christmas cheer.

I'm technically not supposed to leave Belgium until my visa is settled. It would have been tempting to go to Keuln, Germany this weekend since they are known for having one of the best Christmas markets in Europe, and it is a mere hour and a half by train (and travelling by train requires no passport-stamping). But, of course, instead of leaving Belgium, I stayed home and went to the Leuven Christmas markets:



If I had been to Keuln, I might tell you that the Christmas markets made the Leuven market, sweet as it is, look like cardboard boxes held up by broom sticks (there are, by the way, five markets in Keuln). The booths in Keuln would have been elaborate fairy-tale gingerbread houses, complete with colorful characters and a soft glow that made you feel warm, even in the freezing snow:



And, if I had been to Keuln, I might tell you that I circled at least one of the markets about four times in hopes of sampling sweet butter cookies, still warm and just crispy enough to melt when you bit into them, and spice cookies and cakes, reminiscent of the Speculoos cookies here. And chocolate. Chocolate coconut cookies, chocolate-covered fruits, chocolate for chocolate's sake. I didn't have any sauerkraut or bratwurst, but choices of it there were aplenty.

And I might have told you that, in the shadow of Keuln's remarkable, breath-taking Cathedral that resides right in the heart of the city, made the markets that much more special:

But of course, I wasn't there (and you can't prove that I was!!), so I guess I wouldn't know.

The snack cabinet

I was recently walking through the Leuven Christmas market with a friend, and I grabbed a free chocolate - one of the last truffles that was balancing delicately on an offering plate at the front of a booth selling candy. I thought I was justified. I wasn't going to buy anything that day, but I had bought a bag full of those very same truffles the day before to send home in a Christmas package to my state-side family. My friend gave me a suspicious look and said "I think you're addicted with chocolate."

Chocolate maybe not, but sweets, definitely. Since coming to Belgium, our snack cabinets have changed, little by little, adapting to the local culture. Tonight I was searching around for something - anything - to eat that wasn't a spreadable treat or a crunchy cookie, and I realized that we were woefully low on...well...anything that wasn't laced with sugar. Sure, there's fruit, but if you're not in the mood for sweets, a tangerine doesn't quite fit the bill. I found some old crushed walnuts I used in a Thanksgiving recipe and munched on them.

And so, readers, I give you our snack cabinet - one of the most accessible cabinets in the kitchen:

Yes, those are two jars of Speculoos spread (different brands!...and for those of you who aren't in Belgium, that would be a delicious, graham-cracker-y (or maybe gingery) sugared spice spread that's delicious on...well...anything). Two chocolate bars (one milk and one dark, because you HAVE to have a choice of both!), a jar of Nutella (and hidden coyishly behind this first jar is a locally-made version of the same thing), peanut butter (okay not too sweet of a spread, but a spread nonetheless), and to top it off, Christmas cookies at the far right. Oh, and don't forget the actual sugar, good for recipes or on plain yoghurt, in the white and red carton (makes it easy to pour!).

Your teeth may be throbbing with sympathy pains right now, but in my defense, I overbought sweets to send home for the holidays. That's right, some of this represents surplus that would have gone to my family if the box had just been big enough. I was only, let's say, prepared and diligent about my Christmas shopping. After all, the holidays come but once a year and what better time to explore the rich tastes of Belgium? I'll start with the milk chocolate please, and work my way back.

Belgian kissing

Living in another culture provides endless, uncontrollable swerves into embarrassing situations, and the formality of greeting someone for the first (or second, or third) time, someone you don’t know, someone you hope to build a relationship with (a cousin-in-law, perhaps, or a friend of a friend), offers up the perfect slippery slope down into the depths of the kind of outsider-humiliation that only the most socially graceful can avoid. And if you’re especially socially awkward like I am, the humiliation can just keep coming.

In the U.S., this is problem enough. After not seeing a classmate for ten years, do you offer them a hug? A firm handshake? An elbow bump? But here, the awkwardness is taken to a whole new level.

The famous bisous of the French (two kisses – one on each cheek) are manifest in other cultures all over Europe in various forms. Here in Belgium, I always learned that it was three kisses – left cheek, right cheek, then left again. But the rule is fraught with exceptions. If you’ve seen someone recently, it’s just one kiss. If you know them very well, it’s one kiss. Sometimes there are more Frenchy-types who stick to two kisses (leaving me hanging in the air awkwardly with my lips pressed together like I’m ready to lipstick up). Sometimes you kiss on first meeting someone, but in more formal situations, sometimes you don’t.

My first embarrassing experience with bisous was, of course, in France, those many (seven…wow) years ago. An American friend of mine introduced me to a neighbor, and when she leaned in for a greeting, I literally arched my spine back like a kid trying to avoid a spoonful of spinach. She had thick glasses. For some reason I thought she was just very near-sighted. You know, coming in for a closer look. (I know, that’s a weird assumption. Made sense in my head at the time.) Let me tell you, my friends who were present for that little gem had a hay day with it.

I haven’t learned my lesson. I met a group of people out for dinner a few weeks ago, and gave a firm handshake to everyone in the party in a fashion that I apparently don’t think twice about. Until another girl showed up. Kisses all around. Ah yes, I reminded myself. The funny thing is, it hadn’t even occurred to me to go in for a bisous-style greeting. At the end of the night, while a couple of the other females of the party were getting their cheeks slathered in kisses, everyone turned to me and…waved. Awkwardly. As in: Uh…we’re guessing you object to the bisous? You’re not used to it? We don’t know, but anyway, we’ll be avoiding that landmine for the time being.

Since then, I’ve gradually proved myself a bisous-er in the crowd, and the akwardness is slowly waning. Very slowly waning. And I’m learning, sometimes it’s better to go in and give it all you got. At the very least, I can use my outsider status as an excuse. And, at most, I’ll have a good laugh at myself.

Exploring Brussels

When we first began talking about moving to Belgium, there was a time that I was rooting adamently and passionately for living in Brussels. There, I was sure, I would be able to carve a niche out in the expat community, I would feel like I was living more of a cosmopolitan life, and I would, most likely, find an easy commute to a job in the city.

We, of course, didn't end up there, but we're close enough sometimes to feel the city's tugs and nudges. I have been to Brussels several times since we settled in Leuven, for various errands. We spent a weekend there a couple of weeks ago, after the last of my Dutch Level 2 test, and we walked from the north to the south in one go on Sunday morning, through dreary skies and bustling markets. I came away feeling like I knew the city just a little bit better. It's a city that has a lot in common with my former home - Philadelphia, with a brooding center that will also take your breath away with its monstrous, elaborate, and yet lonely architecture. Brussels, I feel, has that same personality, a monumental but serious beauty, one who will let you admire all you want, but will give you the cold shoulder if you try to snuggle up too close.


A city with its shoulders clenched a bit, built for deep-cutting winds and dreary rains. Or perhaps it's because I've never been there on a sunny day. Either way, I guess I prefer my cities with this kind of personality. Like feeling a city's flexed muscles. Its pose should be unwavering.

Passed

Just a quick update: I passed, with pretty good marks. Level three starts Monday! Whew!

Exams for beginners

I promise pictures in the next post (or maybe the one after that...heh heh), but I just had to write about this first...

Last Thursday and Friday, I took my first Dutch final exams. I always knew that the educational systems in the U.S. and Belgium were different, but one week of intense studying and a few panic-stricken days of threatening all kinds of crazy nonsense if I didn't pass, I sympathize much more with the Belgian student situation than I did before. This doesn't exclusively have to do with the cultural difference, it also has to do with my own personal background - I was an English major in college, and as all English majors will testify, nine times out of ten the "final" is a clean, double-spaced ten-page paper, typed out over late nights of thinking and analyzing and drafting and thesis-making in your pajamas, at your pc, spicing things up with some nuggets of delicious research after spending a few solitary hours in the library stacks followed by meticulous footnoting. My papers were things of beauty, my friends, and "exams" (the type where you sit down for two hours without any props or booster texts to help you along the way) weren't even a glint in my eye most semesters. And that's the way I liked it.

Here, it's not just that I've changed what I'm studying (I will admit that there is something to be said for testing language students). It's that all those little homework assignments, all those writing tasks and vocabulary activities count for naught. We even took tests to keep us on track with the curriculum - they mean nothing in the face of the final exam. Even showing up to class on time and on a regular basis (which I did -- perfect attendance, I might add!) only means that you can hope (hope!) all the class anecdotes, all that time put in will give you a head's up during the exams.

In the U.S., all this work during the semester would give you accumulating credit for your final grade. Lots of it.

For this exam there were exactly four hours and ten minutes (albeit, broken up over two days) reserved for me to prove myself worthy of moving on to Dutch level three. And even after I felt ready with the material, I was still incredibly nervous: What if something terrible goes wrong? What if you wear the wrong sweater and your back itches through the entire four hours and you can't concentrate? What if your stomach is suddenly not behaving? What if, ten minutes into the exam, you suddenly have to pee so bad you can barely hold it, but they refuse to let you out of the exam room? All nightmares of a novice test-taker.

Oh yeah, and as a former English major, I will also say that memorizing stuff is hard.

I took the exam, and thankfully, little interrupted my concentration besides a slight draft in the room and a few squeaky chairs here and there. I'll find out tomorrow if I passed or failed. So stay tuned...

Styling up

Everybody knows that coming to Europe means learning to tie a scarf in about 40 different ways, to fit any outfit and any occasion. I know of two, but don’t challenge me to a scarf-off with those two, because you’d be scrambling to gather your little threads off the floor at the end, my friend. I’ve mastered them.

A fashionista I have never been. But here in Belgium, I am both blessed and cursed with a family-in-law filled with women who are, as they say in Dutch, modieus. It’s not so much that they are interested in fashion as they are careful about looking quietly stylish, with just a touch of elegance, at all times. Imagine my surprise the first time I bounded down the steps in Belgium, ready for a day of site-seeing with H’s family, in a t-shirt with my alma mater splashed loudly across the chest, shorts and sneaks (of course, what else for a day on your feet??), only to be greeted by his sister. In a skirt. And high heels. Boy was my American face red.

But, as they say, when in Rome…Here in Belgium, I’ve begun to make an effort, at least most of the time, to dress nicer on a daily basis. As in, not just for nights out and special occasions. Of course, I wore high heels at my former job all the time, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t slip them off at the end of the day and throw on some flats to get me home. The less time I spend in them, the better – that was my motto. But here, I was lucky enough to find some very comfortable high-heels that I’m actually wearing to walk around town. In the daytime! By myself! Admittedly, the first time I wore them I shifted my weight wrong and the heel toppled in a ridiculous jolt to the side of my foot about eight times in the two hours I was out. (Then I debated whether looking decent was worth the humiliation of not being able to walk right in high heels on uneven cobblestone streets. I decided begrudgingly that it was.) It’s getting better. My average now is maybe two times of slight tripping per day.

So, my resolution is quickly evolving into results, and I feel good about that. Not so good as to drop my habit of slipping into my pajama pants and a comfortable sweatshirt the moment I get home for the day, but at least I look decent in public. And perhaps in the next few months I’ll even try a third scarf-tying technique. Not to get ahead of myself, but you never know. I just might be ready for it.

Time away

When I was a junior in high school, I was accepted into a summer academic program, a sort of overnight camp for nerdy types, and my parents dropped me off and left me hours away from the house I grew up in. It felt huge. I spent six weeks living in a college dormitory and attending a class on African literature (of which I remember very little, so don’t ask), and by the fourth week, it felt like an adrenaline rush to the finish line, a tight-rope walk to when I could be home again. I still vividly remember, after getting home, standing upstairs in the hallway that led from my parents’ room to mine, running my hands over an old quilt that they hung on the back of a chair, and feeling like I could relax, like there was something in me that had stayed tightly wound for all those days and hours that could finally unravel a little bit.

It’s funny how, as you get older, big gobs of time feel so much less epic, and not much more than a drop in an expansive ocean. Six weeks now rushes by in the blink of an eye. We’ve been here for about one blink, and there have only been one or two fleeting pangs of homesickness. Home over the past ten years has been divided between so many places – my hometown, my college town, Philadelphia – but I’m lucky to be far enough away from the entire expanse of my country that I get to miss it all, in one fell swoop, every now and then. Technology makes it so easy to keep in touch with the people I’m close to, and to see them, so that most of the time I don’t feel so far away. But every once in awhile, something sets my head reeling just for a moment. Seeing pets over the camera is one of them. You can’t chat with pets, and when my sister’s cat makes her way into the camera’s view, I feel the distance a little bit more. When my mother’s dog looks pitifully at the talking computer that seems to know his name (before he scrambles away – he’s the sweetest dog, but he’s incredibly cowardly), I feel like tearing up, just for a second.

I was a frequenter of independent coffee shops first and foremost in the States, and I only ever went to Starbucks because I was desperate (and it was the absolute only place to get a warm drink in the independent-business-wasteland of a neighborhood where my job was located in Philadelphia), so when I saw that big, round, green and white glow during a recent trip to Antwerp, I was surprised at how jelly-legged I suddenly felt. It was a cold and overcast day, so I sat and had an Earl Grey tea. The smell evoked something vague and desperate, no specific time and no specific place, not even specific faces. But it was something melancholy that made me think carefully about where I was, and, just for a minute, reminded me both cruelly and sweetly of where I was not.

Laundromat treasures

There's something just a touch romantic about laundromats. Okay, okay, I know, that's a strange thing to say, but I bet you can think of at least one romantic scene in some movie or t.v. show that takes place in a laundry mat (remember Ross and Rachel on Friends?). How many commercials have there been with the laundry mat as its setting - the soft whirl of the dryers, the florescent lighting that puts everything in plain view, the gorgeous girl folding her delicates, and some guy's inner monologue -- "Oh God, there's Megan. Okay, just say hi to her...be cool. Be cool." You know you've seen it. Multiple times. It usually ends in them sharing a coke or something.

We don't have a washer here, but thankfully, there's a laundromat practically right next door to our apartment. I did the laundry there for the first time yesterday. Not that I'm in it for the romance. Truth be told, it was cold and felt dampish and I was the only one in there besides an older Hungarian woman who literally sat right in front of the washer and did nothing but watch it spin around and around in a bit of a creepy way, and who spoke to me in Dutch and then tried to speak to me in Hungarian (she kept saying that I LOOKED so Hungarian).

But romance comes in all shapes and sizes. I always end up washing things that don't belong because I forget to empty my pockets - spare change, receipts, grocery lists, gum wrappers, all kinds of things. As I was transferring a load from the washer to the dryer, I picked out a wet receipt that was globbed to the damp ball of clothes, and, after putting in the money and hearing the comforting sound of the machine at work, went to throw it in the trash. Lifted the lid, and there, on top of plastic rap and lint balls, empty detergent boxes and water bottles, was a fifty-euro bill. Literally, just sitting on top. Waiting for someone to find it. Yes, it was in the trash can. But it was dry, clean trash. It was crinkly and had the slightly faded look of a bill that had just gone through the dryer (like I said, I've seen plenty of those in my time). I closed the lid. I opened the lid again. I looked at the Hungarian woman who was intently staring at the whirl of her clothes in the dryer, paying me no mind. I hesitated. I shut the lid again. Do I take it? It's not mine, it really belongs to someone else. But how would you even go about finding the person who threw it away (and we'll assume it was by accident)? You can't. You just can't. But I'd feel kind of sleazy. I mean, it feels a bit like stealing. Then again, if I don't take it, the next person will, and why are they more deserving than me? Or worse, nobody sees it again and it ends up in a landfill. When I could have taken it! After all, if I found it on the street, just lying on the sidewalk, I would have no qualms about picking it up. It's in a public place. In a trash can... Blog reader, I opened the lid again and took it. Slid it casually down in my pocket. I examined it at home that night, and it has all the appearance of being a legitimate 50 euro bill. Is it pretty gross that I took it out of the trash can? Perhaps. Does it make me a greedy, sleazy person? Maybe. Will karma come swinging back around to show me a thing or two? I don't know. I'm considering it a down payment on 10 future loads of laundry. A reward for not rushing out and spending money on a washer and dryer, money that we should be saving. Maybe I was meant to find it. The universe, after all, works in mysterious ways. At the very least, it'll make my next visit to the laundromat a little bit rosier. Who knows what I'll find.

Bike culture

In Philadelphia, I had a bicycle that I was really excited about and then rarely used. A few rides in Fairmount Park, and much fewer into the city. When it got down to it, I was often concerned that I would have to carry things home (I had no basket on my bike), or make numerous stops (and who wants to lug a bike around to 10 different stores), or the weather was bad (I just couldn't ride in the winter. Just couldn't do it.), or the city traffic seemed to whiz by at just the right amount of intimidating for an amateur rider like myself.

Okay. So it was often quite often the last reason there.

When I first put foot to petal in Philly, it was the first time I had ridden since I was about 10 years old. And even as a kid, trips around my tiny hometown block seemed like excitement enough for one ride.

Here in Belgium, the bike culture stands tall and firm as reality. Everyone bikes here - the kid going to school to the mother buying fresh bread to the retired. Bikes are just as frequent as cars, and it makes sense - cities are too small and streets are too narrow to worry with a car for a simple errand.

H and his family found the bike that was destined to by mine in a bush at his grandparents' house. At least I think that's the story. When nobody came to claim it after 3 months, they figured it was fair game, and I got a free bike. I'm glad to have it - it really does make some trips so much quicker. But, mind you, I'm not quite up to Belgian riding standards. You see expert riding here - people literally carrying a bag of groceries and biking, or biking with someone perched on the back, or just pedaling away with their hands at their sides instead of on the handlebars. (This always makes me narrow my eyes. Stop showing off, you Belgian cycling nut.) It's like they were born attached to a bicycle.

It's the carrying things that's the problem for me. And the few times I've tried it, it just hasn't gone well. Last week, I got groceries with my bike and was smart enough to bring a messenger bag I could wear on my back. Until it fell forward, tipping me over into the side of a truck. I literally fell into a truck. I've biked to my new gym a couple of times balancing my gym bag carefully on my right shoulder. For any Belgian, a quick flick of the bag when it seemed to be teetering towards the precarious place where shoulder meets arm would be an effortless and casual readjustment while pedaling perfectly straight uphill. For an unpracticed American amateur biker, it's me chanting in my head 'please don't fall to my arm', raising my right shoulder awkwardly while I try to find a good place to stop pedaling and coast a bit on a quiet stretch of street. This, so that I can reach my hand up as quickly as possible while letting the bike swerve out of control for a second to secure the bag. And I don't always make it. The bag has fallen before and thrown me off balance. Today, I literally just fell off my bike in the middle of a busy intersection. I also couldn't turn quite sharply enough and ran into a pole.

So much for fitting in, I guess. But of course, I'll keep trying. Until then, I hope the Belgians know to get the hell out of my way.

P.S. - We finally have internet in our apartment! Finally...

Wireless in Leuven

I've hinted at this in earlier posts, but finding free wireless in Belgium is like finding a contact lens in a pool of unpoppable bubbles. Last week, when I first got here, I scoured the city looking for a coffee shop with the tell-tale signs - quiet tables of one, laptops out, brows furrowed and eyes wide with the possibilities of all the virtual worlds there in front of them. The idea of asking whether a place had internet before ordering (and then, if answered with a negative, turning around and walking out) totally mortified me, and seemed beyond rude in a culture that puts even culinary simplicities like afternoon coffee before wireless access, so on the first day of looking I made it a point to order a drink first and then, ever so casually, ask if they had wireless, with a smile and a shrug if they didn't. I had three cups of coffee that day. (Okay, so it wasn't coffee every time, but it sounds much more dramatic that way.) I saw only a single person on a laptop that day, in a cafe that I eagerly made my way into, only to find that he must be connected to the University's wireless system, password-protected.

I find it both charming and frustrating that this small city doesn't offer more wireless. It's nice, in a way, that people still go to cafes to visit, and enjoy an afternoon treat. It's also nice that apparently this country isn't so addicted to the Network. The University Library, for instance, has about two computer terminals that I've seen. We visited the reading room in the spring during finals time, only to see a sea of students with their noses pointed into books, a practice that I think, sadly, is dying in higher education in the U.S. How charming!, I thought at the time How refreshing and healthy.

Yet, when I found an American style coffee shop down not two blocks from our apartment, with free wireless, laptops perching at attention, and individuals ordering drinks in a mix of accented English, alone, ready to turn their attention to their virtual connections, I couldn't help but sigh with relief. It just feels so familiar.

Dutch for non-beginners

When I signed up for French courses at the Alliance Francaise in Philadelphia, my last experience with language learning, I took a placement exam that literally included 5 minutes of conversation with the head of the school, followed by a simple recommendation from her about how I should be placed. For some reason, when I showed up to take my Dutch placement exam last week, I was expecting something similar - an informal, easy-going, in-and-out-in-ten-minutes kind of deal. I showed up fully planning a big grocery shopping trip afterwards, bag in hand. I was led to a large lecture hall with at least 80 other students, their pencils sharpened and erasers at the ready, and what I got was a formal, timed test - two hours for 100 multiple choice questions and an essay, followed by an oral exam with a language teacher furiously scribbling notes about my stilted performance. Three hours later, I left after it was dark outside, and with the exciting and slightly scary reminder that I was, in fact, now a student at a real university again. Because I was lucky enough to go to a graduate school that offered dutch in the U.S., I came here with two semesters' worth of knowledge (albeit that knowledge is now over 3 years old). Hence, I signed up and tested for the third level. I went into the language school bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, scanned the posted roster for my name, only to find myself listed with the second-level students. And so, to class I went with a slightly bruised ego and the wrong books. There are around 20 students in the class, and at least 4 of them are retaking it after failing the first go-round, which makes me sweat a little bit, but will also hopefully light a fire under me. Six weeks and 3 hours a day, I'm suddenly relieved not to have started work, and hoping for a quick adjustment into a territory where I feel at least comfortable with everyday conversations, like pulling off a band-aid. Of course, the university reminded me with their definitive placement of my skills in the second level, not to put the cart before the horse. So, I am both humbled and hopeful. I'll stay on my toes, level two.

P.S. - Forgive me for my sparse appearances on the internet for the next few weeks - we have no connection at home, and it's the devil trying to find free wireless in this town.

A new home in Belgium

I arrived in Belgium on Sunday, after an unplanned stop-over in Lisbon, and slept embarrassingly late on Monday morning (let's just say, it was after lunchtime when I finally sidled downstairs to H's parents' kitchen). With a few bursts of melancholy here and there, a couple of minutes of discomfort about being away from my family and friends every few days, this move to Belgium has felt like just about any other move in the states. Perhaps it's because I have family here that I know I can trust, perhaps it's just being older and more easy-going, or perhaps it's the giddiness of being with my husband after six weeks of distance, but it feels natural and fine. Then again, I've only been here five days, and perhaps there are rockier paths ahead.

We have a beautiful apartment in Leuven - three floors of a large rowhouse with balcony space and floor-to-ceiling windows to please all the nosy neighbors. The second floor - the kitchen - even has two balconies - one on either side, and opening the sliding glass doors in the morning to hear the bustle of University students on their way to class, and to enjoy the fresh, crisp air makes for a perfect morning cup of coffee. That is, of course, when the weather isn't being particularly Belgian and rainy. We have big plans for outside table and chairs, for quiet dinners with sweeping views.

We have been busy going back and forth after H's working days to retrieve the necessities from his parents' house - a good hour by car or train, so our nights have been late. We have now set up a kitchen table with two chairs, filled our cabinets with odds and ends of dishes, and lay out a couple of twin mattresses for the bedroom until we can get a proper bed. I'll be relieved when we get a couch to curl up in. I'll be even more relieved when we get internet access. (I post this from a Quick - European hamburger chain, and just about the only place listed when I Googled 'Leuven and free wireless'.)

I promise to update this blog much more frequently from here on in. I suspect it will become more of a lifeline here, and a way for me to chronicle my adjustment. For now, I head into my new city with its gnarly, compact streets to find odds and ends for our new home.

Furniture breakdown

When we moved from the small college town where we received graduate degrees, H and I just took everything and made a new home out of our old furniture. It was still a student home - a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs that matched just well enough to offer some interior cohesion. I remember standing in the doorway of our former neighbors - eyeing the Ikea splendor that was their apartment. They had painted their walls a series of matching soft rose colors. The angular, clean couch was situated just-so behind a rug that matched everything perfectly. The t.v. was flat screen. There were plants. Plants! When I returned to the white-walled furniture potpourri that was our apartment, I could only just sigh and shrug. Plants weren't my thing (I've killed every one we've had). Our 10-inch t.v. was over ten years old (it had a VCR built in, for God's sakes), but it was still chugging along. Interior design just wasn't my thing.

My furniture ignorance showed through when I tried to describe various items over the phone to some poor volunteer at a local charity. What kind of wood? It's...brown. Err...like, kind of a darkish, reddish brown color. It's, you know, an old-fashioned writing desk. With drawers and stuff. (Yes, something to that effect came out of my mouth. It was more than a little bit embarrassing.) I had to stop and really consider our collection of things only when this local charity wouldn't take certain items (they did take the writing desk, and a chair). Really? Is my furniture so horribly ugly that I can't even give it away? To our household's credit, the charity just blanket didn't take certain items. And so, I frantically looked for neighbors to unload the last few things onto someone - anyone. And as everything went out, scooted by strangers' hands, I felt not a smidge of nostalgia, but only a sense of relief. Goodbye ridiculously heavy couch! So long burdensome, old-fashioned writing desk! The only time I felt any kind of regret was when I balanced the television badly on the closed car trunk as I was loading the last of the items for a trip to Goodwill. It fell with a terrible crash while I helplessly looked on from the other side of a car door, and the screen shattered into tiny crystals that we did our best to sweep up, and if not up, into the large cracks in the sidewalk. You always hope the stuff you get rid of will find a new, good home. But some things, I suppose, you just can't save.

Still in Philadelphia

Haven't I been updating my blog? I could have sworn that no time at all had passed between this post and the last, but now I see, an entire month has come and gone, and my little space here has languished.

I promise to update often once I'm settled across the pond, at the very least. I'm not there yet, though my head is somewhere in between, maybe hovering over the tip of Greenland and leaning ever more heavily to try and move east. H leaves this Sunday with three large suitcases and a list of apartments to see next week. I'll stay state-side until the end of September, a choice I'm now regretting a little - we're dealing with all our big furniture and books and winter clothes before he leaves, so a rather empty apartment will await me every night. More than that, we're having epic conversations about the future, and I realize now that I'll miss him much more than I thought. The second year we were together we spent on separate continents, surely six weeks will be nothing. But I can't help wishing we were making the leap together. My head, anyway, has seen all it wants to see of the tip of Greenland.

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on work - editing videos of people talking endlessly (a stutter or a throaty hesitation sounds so absurd when you hear it ten times over), and staying altogether very calm and unsentimental about leaving. The only time I do have slight fits of panic is when I'm trolling websites looking for jobs. Would it be unwise to take time off and write my memoirs? A romance novel? A niche nonfiction history of salt and pepper shakers?

A Pittsburgh view

Pittsburgh View

Duquesne Incline

The Fourth - Pittsburgh style

We spent our last Philadelphia fourth of July away from Philly altogether - skipped the nation's first capital for one of the rust belt cities that's seeing a comeback on the horizon -- Pittsburgh. I love hills, so it was in some ways a place for me, one steep reach after another with the city center nestled in between. When I was in graduate school and applying for jobs, I eyed one with good benefits in Pittsburgh. I decided not to apply, for various reasons (one of them - a trusted elder asserted that Pittsburgh was "no great shakes" - I remember it very clearly -- ), and have had a vague pining regret of it ever since. I really should just apply to any job I consider. I always end up regretting the ones that I don't.

We battled it out for a great view of the fireworks on a stunning hill that overlooked the city, and let me just say, people are not kind when the stakes are as high as a good view of fourth of July fireworks. There was the overloading of teenagers on a public statue of - ironically - George Washington (one person literally sat on poor George's head), there was the small posse who stood in front of a poor wheelchair-bound girl, and there were nasty comments galore (Where do you think you're putting that chair? -- How am I supposed to see now? -- Am I bothering you? Damned right I'm not bothering you!) It was a sad display for a national holiday, and it made me believe a little less in the power of collective intelligence and respect. Or perhaps I'm just not a crowd person. But the fireworks were lovely. And I'll be damned if there wasn't a single head between me and the view.

Stuffed

Thinking about packing everything up, particularly in this heat, has been making me feel the need to purge and purge quickly. I'm not sure how we accumulate so much junk, but H and I have agreed wholeheartedly that whatever apartment awaits us in Belgium, it will be all the better because it won't be so stuffed. Whatever we pack up and lug back to my hometown will wait out the years ahead of us in my mother's basement, dank and dusty, until we're really settled and have more space. We must get rid, now, of whatever we can possibly bear to part with. Which, I'm afraid, it turns out is not much.

I've started with the desk drawers. We managed to accumulate about 20 highlighters over the years, sets of different colors, fat and still functional. I dumped them all in my work bag and smuggled them into the supply closet at the office. That's right, I've been reduced to pawning my old, personal office supplies on my coworkers, and if I get into trouble, it'll be for putting things in the supply closet rather than stealing from it.

On the same journey into the dark depths of our desk drawers, in between crevices stuffed with old scrap paper and Christmas cards from five years ago, I find something, I think, that we can quickly and easily make a decision on. A sweet, small present from H before my grad school days that's now old, chalky, and hasn't been used in years. Attached to the zipper is a furry monkey key chain. I'm getting rid of it! I say. H just looks at me. But I gave that to you! he says, puppy-eyed and quivery-lipped. It's sweet. It's really for a student, though - I just don't need it anymore. I thought it was a decent, sensitive argument. Suppose you could use it for work in Belgium, he counters. I start to feel guilty about giving away a gift, but even so, I stick to my guns. Must be strong! Too much stuff! Nope, it's going in the get-rid pile. He hangs his head, before mumbling the final, sad request: At least keep the monkey. And so, the knickknack goes back in the desk drawer for another stretch, and I'm left shaking my head at our weaknesses minimalism. This is going to be a hard, mean battle.

The more time passes the harder it is

Because the more time passes the harder it is, exponentially, to begin writing once again after a hiatus, I will spew a few words here to press the reset button, to finally in one confident stroke rip off the band-aid.

I'm sorry it's been so long. I was away, and even though the internet was accessible, I decided to take a break from my blog checking and writing. And so I declare with certainty that I, for one, am not addicted to the internet. I can do without for days on end. I can curl up with a book or a magazine, tuck my feet under me and feel cozy and (almost) totally satisfied with the day's reading material. I have no blackberry, no i-pod, no rectangular, vibrating, hand-sized device that absorbs my attention, and I feel happy that I don't have the need for one.

Or perhaps it's just that my need for abundance and drama has been fed through other channels of my life in the past few weeks. Things are changing. We are unofficially-officially moving to Belgium in late summer, and I'm going two or three times a day to stare at the little squares that mark out the days between then and now, between Philadelphia and something entirely different. The weeks don't seem like enough. There are still places on our list - day trips to do, city restaurants to sample, art galleries to peruse. And I'm looking at the little blank squares and thinking - Will it all fit?

Coins on the counter

I heard awhile ago that when someone pays with real money, something registers in their brain more firmly and they feel the significance of the transaction more. It makes sense - when you have plastic to slide through a reader, it's much harder to watch those hypothetical dollars disappear, just like when you order a hamburger it's hard to imagine concretely the slaughtering and the packing and the trucking that got that meat onto your plate.

I have been known to leave my wallet at home - sometimes I take it out of my purse and stick it in another bag. We've all been there, standing there starkly vulnerable at the front of the long line at the post office, frantically feeling for something we know intuitively isn't there. We smile and shake our heads and say You know, this is just crazy, but I don't think I have my wallet! I, just, I'm so embarrassed! It seems to have happened to me at the grocery store more than anywhere else. Once, in my small midwestern college town, when I had just a few items sitting there on the register, waiting for me to hand over the green, I found I had no wallet and was two dollars short for the whole purchase. The girl behind me watched me struggle and then, in a gesture that I'll always remember, reached out and handed me the two dollars that I was missing. Don't worry about it, she said casually. It was just such a nice thing to do. Earlier this week I stopped for groceries at Trader Joe's, and found that, as I inched my way closer to the check-out counter, I was lucky enough to, firstly, realize that I had forgotten my wallet before getting to the front of the line, and secondly, have exactly $56.00 in cash. I had lots of groceries, but Trader Joe's is cheap, and I decided to gamble for it. I told the clerk and we watched the total jolt up slowly, 56 minus X and counting. It was kind of fun. Leave the oranges and scan the lettuce. Don't worry about the barbeque sauce unless there's enough wiggle room a the end. I went home with one dollar, almost all of my groceries - I left behind the oranges and the barbeque sauce, and a few stray cartons of yoghurt - and a sense that I had collaborated with the cashier on something somewhat interesting for the day. Most of all, I can tell you exactly how much I spent.

There's a little deli down the street from us, one of those places that seems small at first until you're looking for the low-sodium beef bouillon that you need for a recipe and -- to your utter surprise and amazement -- not only do they stock it, but they have three varieties for you to choose from. It's on the ground floor of a high-rise and shares its modest space with a diner. I hear tell (I have not witnessed this myself) that there's an old woman who goes shopping there on a regular basis and who always arrives at the check-out counter with too many food stuffs than she has the money for. I picture her standing at the counter, counting out the money and the change over again, one dollar, one penny at a time, touching her pockets, her jaw kneading up and down as she tries to figure out what happened to those other bills, or that other wad of coins she was sure she had. The cashier and the manager give each other a tired look before they begin to scan things back through the register again to subtract to the total. I suppose the management just gets used to it and starts to feel like she's a nuisance. The image makes my heart ache. The next person in line, I'm sure, will replace the click of pennies, counted out one by one on the counter, with the slick sound of swiping, plastic on plastic. Without even glancing at the sum, they'll assume that the money, all of it, is just there.

My mother was visiting

My mother was always a small woman (she could fit on the head of a pin, Louise used to say), and though she's changed as age sets in, her feet always seem the same. They are lovely, even as she gets older, and white and clean, but she prefers slippers to being barefoot, so I see only glimpses of them before she gets into bed, or when she slips quietly from her bedroom to the bathroom for a shower.

She couldn't help but finger through our kitchen again during this visit - a cramped kitchen, she's told us every time she's here - and she discovered the large plastic bowl of leftover turkey soup that we squirreled away in the freezer after Thanksgiving. She got it out and let it thaw, the clumsy mass shifting every so often in the sink, and then set it to simmer in our stock pot on the stove. She is always concerned about the leftovers. She bends down and rummages through the refrigerator with meticulous dexterity - she always has, ever since I can remember. She will throw together the rice left over from Tuesday night and the zucchini and tomato mix from Thursday for a weekend meal, while H and I go out on a Friday for a decent but pricey spread, only to discover the leftover casserole that we could have eaten months later, pushed to the back of the refrigerator and growing something wretched.

When I was small, she once dumped a plate of food on my head. I remember it - there were fruit chunks that splatted to the floor, and a dry sandwich flopping around. I was being picky about lunch, and in a very rare show of anger, she doused me with the closest weapon at hand, turning my food wholly against me. This was one time in thousands of lunches that she served us up - grilled cheeses, chicken salads, lunch meats, cans of kids' snacks that we requested, while she scoured the fridge and pulled out whatever was left for her own meal.

We ate the turkey soup together, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a side of bread with cheese, and I took the leftover leftovers to work for two more meals. There is still more than a serving left, but I can't bring myself to eat any more. I went out for a plastic-wrapped salad today and left the turkey in the fridge. I'll dump it down the drain tomorrow.

She gazed out the window with a pensive expression the night before she left, lamenting the fact that this might be the last time she ever visited us in Philadelphia. I hugged her and reminded her that there would be other places, other apartments with more luxurious kitchens to enjoy, and with refrigerators just the same to rummage through, slipper-footed, warmly and maternally at home and reminding me of the order of things, of how far I have to go.

The conference in-crowd

I was at a conference this weekend in a mid-western city, at a hotel out in the middle of a large parking lot, eating industrial-strength brownies that they set out as snacks and watching carefully as my skin dried out in the air-conditioned, windowless hotel rooms, one pore at a time. The only thing I forgot was my toothbrush, and I smeared the hotel's complimentary toothpaste on my finger and did the best I could.

It was a small conference, just over 300 people, and I was fortunate enough to know about 10 of those people and to meet, through my acquaintances, and get to know (enough for a 48-hour conference, that is) about 10 more, so in every session, at every cocktail hour and snack break, I was good to go with a ready-made and decent-sized posse. And a posse we were. All from the same graduate school, we chatted about the professors, the people we knew mutually, the political decisions of the university, the charming college town where we all spent at least two years of our lives. We smiled sweetly at the other people around us, and then proceeded to let them know, with a quick "Oh, how is Professor Humbledoo?" or "You know what I miss? That sweet little Indian restaurant..." that listen they were welcome to do, but participate in the conversation they could not. We were the in-crowd of the conference. The cool ones who met in someone's room after a session for a round of beers, who actually ventured out into the city for a night at a real restaurant, who skipped out on sessions to meet at the hotel bar and snickered as we texted each other during breaks. It felt like getting a little bit of school back.

I had to remember, after the conference, a large meeting I went to recently in the city. I was alone, and I knew no one. There was a breakfast spread with built-in time for chatting, and I hovered around the buffet table (being the free food vulture that I am) and took my time looking over the muffins, anxiously shifting my eyes to try and figure out who in the hell I would go stand next to after I finished loading my plate. When I finally drummed up the courage to step back from the table, I actually made eye-contact with a woman, smiled, and proceeded to do a full 360-degree turn around the room before coming to join her in her corner. Looking for someone better? Maybe. Just being my plain, socially-awkward self? Definitely. It's that initial meeting, plate-in-hand, that's so painful. That smile and "Hi, mind if I join you? My name's..." that feels so forced. I'm sure I'll find myself in that situation again in no time. When that happens, I'll remember my posse and pine for the days when I was in the in-crowd. It was a nice feeling.

Faces from the past

When I'm jogging, it's a very rare occasion that I see somebody I know. I used to see my neighbors every now and then, and once I ran into a coworker of H's. Every so often I'll recognize a face from the gym and nod in their direction, but no one to pause and chat with. Normally, it's stranger after stranger.

Philadelphia is big, and neither H nor I grew up here. We, in fact, settled here less than three years ago. The people in our lives are scattered over cities, and even over continents across the world. I suppose that it's the true, modern American way. Yet when I'm jogging in the park, I'll often see someone walking ahead of me and, as I come up to them, there's just one suspended moment where I'm convinced it's someone from my past. Is that Lizzie Johnson from high school? Sarah Morgan who played violin with me? Mike Rust from graduate school? I never see people from Philadelphia in those perky gaits, those swinging pony tails, those informal clothes - even people I know from Philadelphia. It's always someone from other times and other places. And as I gain on them, come up on them from the side, I always turn my head just slightly to see for sure.

It's, of course, never who I think it is. Sometimes I can tell while I'm still behind them, from the jaw line or the temple, and I adjust my gaze before they notice. Other times, I give them a full-fledged side glance as I pass, usually greeted with a surprised, annoyed look as the long-shot of a friendly reunion melts away to a stranger's face. I wonder now if I'll still do this once we've moved even farther, once we're settled across the ocean. Perhaps the farther you get, the stronger the urge to look. And I'm sure I will look. But the glance won't be long, and I promise, after that moment when reality sets in again, I'll quickly avert my eyes and focus once more on the road ahead of me.

Palm Springs

When you really get down to it, all major hotel chains are alike. Stay at the Holiday Inn or the Hilton, you'll get a room with tightly-tucked sheets, a desk with a leather-bound folder, complete with laminated restaurant suggestions, a humming air conditioner and windows that are bolted shut. If you're going really classy, the room will probably be done all in white. If not, the bedspread will match the tropical flower pattern of the curtains.

Two weeks ago, we whiled away the days in sunny southern California with a quick trip to Palm Springs. H had a conference. I didn't - I had a date with a lounge chair by the heated pool at Korakia Pensione. It felt so luxurious. It was ninety every day. I wore flip-flops and spent my days ordering smoothies, taking short hikes and then recovering with a swim. But what made it really special was the fact that we weren't in a hotel - we had a sweet little bungalow all to ourselves, with doors that opened to let fresh air in, and stone floors that kept the place cool during the day. There was no white tile in the bathroom, and there was a large, friendly, spine-cracked coffee table book of American photographs sprawled open next to the couch. Open up all the french doors, and indoor and outdoor became seamless and indistinguishable.





After a gorgeous week, weather this weekend was Philadelphia classic - much too windy to be spring, with the sun making cameo appearances too often for it to be considered really cloudy. I traded my running gear in for a trip to the dark, musty gym. The windows stayed shut, and the whir of the fans kept the air circulating. I missed that California sunshine, that poolside, and even the desert heat.

A sloppy lunch

I work with the public, and my office is off the main lobby of our building. It's an area that's normally swarming with people by 11 a.m. or so, and I can see it all happening - shortly after I began here, my boss insisted a window be put in my door. So people could see if I was in. Brilliant idea for someone who works with the public, so long as they always look presentable. Normally, I don't mind. It keeps me connected.

Then there are the indelicate moments. I usually eat lunch in my office - browse the web or read a magazine or just work through the hour on something with a deadline. The leftover lunch after spaghetti night is always a social gamble that I make because it's just too delicious to give up. Let me clarify, I never learned how to eat spaghetti properly. Whenever I try, I always end up with a forkful that's way too big to fit in my mouth, or tiny nubs of spaghetti that are impossible to catch with utensils. I go for the all-out stuffing method. Grab a forkful and fit as much in your mouth as possible. Then bite. The slop, the mess, the potential for serious stainage is all something I take into consideration, but my partiality to the meal always wins out. So, when I'm hunched over, stuffing like mad, and I hear a faint knock at my door only to look up and see a colleague eying me awkwardly and shifting anxiously through my little window, all I can do is finish the bite, wipe my mouth, and pleasantly wave them in.

A rare condition

I had a biology teacher in high school who decided that we needed to know about rare genetic disorders and diseases. He gave us a packet with short descriptions, an encyclopedia of toe-curling, spine-tingling, nerve-twitching knowledge. Perhaps it was just a lesson to trick us apathetic teenagers into engagement, but if he was particularly morbid, we were particularly fascinated. Tissue turning into bone? Bad muscle control? We're listening. I remember distinctly learning about Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease through this unusually grim set of papers.

The Mutter Museum (part of the College of Physicians) here in Philadelphia is like a Pandora's box of "medical oddities" as they like to call it. I've been there three times myself with tourists in Philly. It's interesting that half of the visitors we have here shake their heads with large, terrified eyes when we mention it as a destination, and the other half already have it on the top of their list. Colons the size of a car tire. Bodies of conjoined twins. Skulls with holes in them. It's always a curious visit. When you go there and as you wander, it eventually occurs to you, between the hernia replicas and the giant ovarian cyst, that no matter how respectably 'medical' they try to make it, the collection will always come across as really more of a Ripley's Believe it or Not, a type of dark Carnival, than a scientifically relevant showcase. At least that's the way it feels to me.

I had reason yesterday to do a bit of research on rare diseases myself (not that I have one, or anyone I know has one), a topic that seems strangely lacking in the annals of Google (isn't there some guy walled up in his basement whose hobbies include web development and unusual chronic illnesses?). The best I could come up with on the fly was the Diseases and Conditions Encyclopedia from Discovery Health. I can tell you that the rare genetic disorder, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (the one where tissue turns to bone) is not included. But I always knew that airline travel with children should be a true medical condition. I've suffered from that several times in my life. Clearly, and as the Mutter Museum must learn, one's definition of 'diseases and conditions' has to remain flexible.

Right now, the Internet seems vast and scary, and I'm missing my handy-dandy paper encyclopedia of rare genetic disorders. I remember it still - I kept it in a little red notebook that I'm pretty sure I tossed (with a little whimper) a few years ago. In a junkyard somewhere, the only biology lesson that has kept my interest to this day.

Who are you again?

When I was in college, I had a professor with 80 plus students in his class every semester, and by the third week of class, everyone sat back with their mouths open while he took role by mumbling each name to himself, glancing up, and nodding towards the corresponding face. He had memorized all of us. I was later a teaching assistant for him and learned his tricks. He watched the students in his class like a hawk. He wrote down details in the first two weeks -about their features, but most importantly, the people in his past that a particular student conjured up in his memory. I, in fact, reminded him so much of someone named Susan that, more than once, he shouted the name once when I stood in his office doorway, before quickly apologizing and correcting himself. He assured me that, once you got to his age -- You've already met every type of person, and it's just a matter of categorizing them accordingly. How strange. But, it seemed to work. He could tell you, within every class, who was friends with who, who was just hoping for a decent passing grade because they were getting married at the end of term, who was struggling with the content and who would pass with an A without studying. He was a sociology professor, and so he was innately interested in people and in categories. Teaching, for him, was the perfect fusion of the two. I wondered at how neat it all was.

I recently saw a woman from a different department at work, a woman I don't interact with much, and I proceeded to have a full conversation with her before walking away and realizing she wasn't the person I thought she was. I suppose, in reflecting about it, the conversation was just vague enough to allow her to respond, perhaps with suspicion, without saying flat out that she had no idea what I was talking about. I asked if she had found a document she was looking for, and then I asked about her trip (a simple "How was your trip?" Everyone goes away every now and then, right?) Perhaps she didn't notice. Perhaps she did and was just being polite. I was lucky I didn't ask her something more direct.

But now I have to think back to Professor Category. I don't seem to be very good at remembering people. I can think of a few occasions in the last year when I've been introduced to someone and they've replied immediately "Oh, we've met before," with me trying to seamlessly change the gesture of holding out my hand for a first-time handshake to some other cool, natural movement. I try and nod like I know. But sometimes I just have no idea. And don't get me started on remembering names.

It seemed a bit too impersonal and sinister, his way of categorizing people. His quip that eventually everyone in your life is just a repeat of someone you've already met. But I guarantee, he remembers everyone who visits him. And, he remains one of the most popular professors at the university. So, here's to a little memory trick. Perhaps next time I begin a job, I'll work a little harder at the categories.

New York luxury

We spent yet another rain-drenched weekend in New York, watching the cat paw at Chinese Checkers and ogling over the Real Housewives of Orange County on my sister's HD tv. We battled our way to a cozy restaurant and a delicious dinner in the Village, huddling under our flimsy umbrellas, hoping that those thin little wires would hold just long enough, and pointing to all those other abandoned umbrellas - we must have seen at least 40 or 50 the whole weekend - that littered the street. Why do we always choose the worst times to go? It just seems to work out that way. The rain was spottier on Sunday. We got out in the morning, to a museum in the Park, through the afternoon, before catching the bus back to Philadelphia. It's the third time H has been to the New York since living in Philadelphia, and the third time the sky has cracked open over the Big Apple and pummeled us with heavy city rain. Eventually we'll catch a nice weekend. Until then, I suppose we'll satisfy ourselves with the decadence of sprawling out on a New York couch and not going out. Because there is something so sumptuously luxurious about it, isn't there?

Adjusting for Spring

My mother wakes up every morning to a tiny, timed bedside light ticking on -- a silent indication that the day is coming before the sun gets too high, and I picture her waking gradually, stretching her arms and blinking her eyes slowly open to a warm glow. This isn't our style. The alarm next to our bed, our own air horn to my mother's peaceful morning light, must be set to NBA-arena volume to get us stirring. This radio has been stuck for some time between stations - a loud, obnoxious morning show with dirty jokes and Lady Gaga music blares at 7 a.m. in between waves of static. We snooze for at least a half-hour, so the sound of it jolting back on every ten minutes might drive our neighbors crazy, if we had any. It's been like this for weeks, and neither of us have bothered to change it. After all, we're not morning people to begin with, not by any means, and anything we wake up to will be on our hit list of worst enemies - might as well be something we already don't care much for.

The weather here is finally changing, and I put on my walking shoes and took small bites out of the city this weekend, one step at a time. Kelly drive was delightfully crowded, and I walked out to the edges of it with a friend, sat on the banks of the Schuylkill and basked in the sun. On Sunday, I walked deep into the city, had a smoothie and went bathing suit shopping. These first few hints of spring's mildness, even if we do have a few more bursts of coat weather, are just so, so sweet. Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find that I'm much more ready and willing to jump out of bed in the morning and face the warm day, the sun, the possibility of a thin cotton dress instead of layers and layers of clothing. Even my trip to work seems a little bit more colorful. And in the next few weeks, after changing the bed-clothes to something lighter and cracking the windows for the first time in months, I just might readjust that radio dial to something pleasant and airy.

Tea time

At a new tea bar in my hometown.

I'm a tea drinker. I start the day with a dark black and a splash of milk, I treat myself to a light green in the early afternoon, and every now and then I return to a sweet cup of Rooibos at night. I'm not a tea researcher, certainly not a tea writer, and by no means a tea expert - I just like the stuff.

This summer I met a Brit at a conference, born and bred, and spent a bit of time with her. When I shook my mug and told her that I was a tea drinker, she cringed. American tea is just awful, she told me. Those little tiny bags...the only way I can stand it is to make a pot using twenty of those damn tea bags. Or loose leaf.

I had never bought loose-leaf until my husband came home with a bag of it for me last week. What a charming idea, I thought. How cozy. How posh. I'll go and buy a nice diffuser, perhaps even a tea pot, and become a real tea drinker who can discern the quality stuff from the corporate grind, who has a little cupboard with glass tea jars lined up and labeled, that will chink with friendly little reminders of their quality when I reach in for the one I want. Yes. This little scene struck me as just the right progression in my tea-drinking education. So, it was only logical to visit the little tea boutique in the city this weekend. I walked there with a friend who has abnormally refined taste buds (I have told her time and again to please become a food writer...she can rattle off comments about tannins, citrus infusions and cedar aromas like no one I've ever met). But, I must admit, after my experience, I'm not sure I'm ready to become a total tea buff. I walked around the store, gingerly cradling glasses and trying my hardest not to knock things over while my friend had a ten-minute conversation with the cashier about the differences between first-flush and second-flush Darjeeling (oh, she explained it to me, but hell if I can remember). I wondered anxiously if I was allowed to take the large tins of loose-leaf down and smell them by myself or if I had to wait for help. I fingered the more bizarre instruments with a furrowed brow before replacing them carefully on the shelf. I walked away with a nice little tea pot, perfect for two cups, and a small steal diffuser, both of which were probably a bit overpriced, but worth it overall for the true tea experience. I felt very smug until I flipped over the tea pot and saw those three little mood-killers that were printed in precise letters on the bottom...Made in China. Ah well. The Chinese do know something about tea at least, don't they?

My new tea pot, trying its hardest to create that cozy tea atmosphere.

A valuable cab ride

I never, but never, wear rings. When H and I decided to get married, there was no engagement ring, no jewelry exchanged at all (and let me just say now, with my aversion to everyday bling, I wouldn't have had it any other way.) So when he shoved that platinum band onto my left ring finger over a year and a half ago, that band that's supposed to represent our lifelong commitment to making sure all those versions of us remain supple and durable enough to thrive through years of real living, I remember being incredibly aware of the ring for weeks after. It was always there. It was uncomfortable. It felt itchy. I would sometimes take it off at work, set it carefully to the side for awhile, and sigh with relief. I'm used to it now, but old habits die hard - H and I both have apparently taken to fidgeting with our rings in moments when our hands are unoccupied but our fingers are anxious for play. I myself have been known to twirl mine around my ring finger, even to take it off, slide it on my other fingers, and every once in awhile (yes, I realize I have the habits of a ten year old), give it a good spin on a hard surface.

We went out for a date night for the history books this weekend - there was fancy dining with wine (at Bistro St. Tropez yet again), and there was a cozy, white-table clothed jazz club after, with a few rounds of cocktails. When we left, I was a little bit more than a little bit tipsy. In the cab on the way home, I remember distinctly playing with my ring and losing grip on it. I found it with a sigh of relief in my lap. I shook my head and scolded myself. Put your ring on, dummy, and stop playing with it! Not even a minute later, though, it was back off my finger and somewhere - somewhere, somewhere lost in the car. We looked. We stuck our hands down into the seat cushions. We felt under the front seats, under the floor padding. My hands have been in cab crevices that you probably wouldn't even want to imagine. The cab driver, most fortunately, was really very nice - he pulled over, got out a flashlight and helped us look. We managed to lift up the ENTIRE seat at one point (who knew that you could do that in any car?), and low and behold, there it was, gleaming in the glare of his flashlight. We laughed, thanked him profusely, gave him double what we owed him, and walked the rest of the way home. And today, I'm back to playing. I sometimes wonder if I'm just a storm drain, or a gutter, or a picturesque mountain overlook away from having to buy a new wedding ring. At least, for now, I know where it might be next time it flies out of my hand in a cab.

The hot of it

When I was in the fourth grade, someone from some non-profit organization came to talk to us about environmental conservation, and give us the very fervent hope that all children seem to be given at some point or another that all was not lost, that by encouraging our parents to recycle more and with efforts to conserve water, we, too, could save the environment safely from our own suburban homes, one little step at a time. I went home that night and put little clinging plastic reminders on our bathroom mirror that declared "Take shorter showers!" and "Conserve water!" with tiny cartoon icons of faucets and steam. I didn't think too hard about the message, but I thought their slick material was totally cool (they stuck to the mirror without being sticky!). For the next few years, my sister and my parents never let me live it down. If anybody needed to take shorter showers, they said, it was me. I turned on the faucet and was lost to the world for the next twenty minutes. I sang. I talked to myself. I examined my fingernails and scrubbed in between my toes.

When we moved to Philadelphia and got settled into our apartment, we noted to ourselves, then to each other, then to our neighbors, how the water wasn't quite hot enough. It got worse over the two and a half years we've lived here until a lukewarm shower was just about all that we could hope for. In the middle of winter, let me tell you, I could be in and out of that bathtub in less than five minutes. I even considered making a special trip to the gym for the sole purpose of a hot shower. But, somewhere along the way, several weeks ago, H put his foot down and decided to call the landlord. He should know about it, he said. If we need a new water heater, then we need a new water heater, he said. But, it turned out, the problem was much simpler than that. Embarrassingly simpler. Two and a half years of less than desirable showers were remedied with a wrench and a quick one-two on some knob or other. The plumber said to call him back if the problem wasn't fixed. There has been no need. Oh, the heat! The steam! The soothing flow of piping hot water on your body at the end of a long day! It's back in my life, and I have to admit, I missed it. Now my showers are creeping back again to real events. Twenty minute events, off-pitch show-tune medleys included. I'm sorry I've let you down, fourth-grade guest speaker, but I'll just have to find some other way to save the environment. My showers are just too precious.

A meaner snow

Well, we're getting pummeled again, but this time is different. The first two snows were light and frothy - snowflakes that didn't stick to your coat and landed ever so tenderly in heaps that dusted up and swirled cheerfully at the slightest breeze. But now it's back, and it's not as friendly. It's heavier, wetter, and all around meaner. The breeze turned into a biting wind, and the snow is really showing us who's boss. We thought you would be fun for awhile, we thought we'd just have a winter fling. We welcomed you, spent time with you and bonded with you just enough, but apparently you've gotten emotionally attached - you came back again, grumpier and needier, showing us your teeth.

As stir crazy as I get spending all day indoors, our quick trip outside today soaked through even to the sweater under my giant spaceman coat (I believe that's its proper name), and I was ready to curl back up on the couch with a hot cup of tea. We're relieved that no new neighbors have moved in across from us (yes, that apartment is still vacant), as we strip down, shed our winter gear, dripping all over the place, to the driest of our layers. Everyone is home today, everything is canceled, and even the chain drugstores are shut up with handwritten notes on the door - You can't really expect us to staff this place in this mess, can you now? We've spent a good bit of time standing side-by-side at the windows in our apartment, watching people sludge through the streets and neighbors scraping the sidewalks, seeing other heads at the windows across the way, watching the power lines anxiously as they get weighted down with icy snow. We're all a bit smug about having the day off, but really, staying indoors is the only possible way. There's just no moving in this stuff.