just an update

so mom is doing well, according to dad - walking around, occasionally without oxygen, feeding the birds, watching movies. so that's fun :)

Matt and I are planning christmas dinner, to be made when we go with matt's family up to maine (brrr!!) again this year. And I spent an inordinate amount of time tonight - with no small amount of injury to my person - trying out a new recipe for Butternut Squash Risotto which I HIGHLY recommend! Tasty!

mom update

well, they ran the blood test early (just for my mom, I guess!!) and it is, in fact, Wegener's Granulomatosis. But Mom should be going home today - yay! They started treatment on Saturday, which means mom had a chemotherapy treatment that is a slightly lower dosage than for cancer patients. (Cytoxan works on a lot of different diseases, turns out.) Downside - yes, mom will apparently lose her hair. So says the doctor.

Food and Wine Matcher

Thank you Nat Decants, for having an amazing wine site with the coolest thing ever - a Wine and Food Matcher. I will spend hours on this...

Christmas Dinner thoughts are brewing... game birds with sangiovese? Mille feuilles with sparkling Italian Asti Spumante?

Or more eclectic: what wine DOES pair with haggis?? (Answer: New World Cabernet Sauvignon, of course!) Sushi? How about a nice champagne blanc des blancs? Marshmellow sweet-potatoes (listed improbably under "vegetables")? Viogner.

your mom... no wait, my mom

I always knew my mom was one in a million... but she's also 1 in 30,000... 1 in 30,000 people to be diagnosed with a disease which is known to most doctors as the answer to trick questions on their medical school exams (no kidding!): Wegener's Granulomatosis.

She's been hospitalized since Tuesday and will stay there until confirmatory blood tests are run on Monday (apparently the blood test is so rare/complex, only one lab in Oklahoma does it, once a week).

I talked to her yesterday and knew she was feeling better when she started listing the types of flowers in the arrangement I sent her. (imagine: [labored breathing] "Your flowers are beautiful honey ..." "I'm glad you like them, mom, are you feeling better?" "... lillies ... irises ... [labored breathing] ... delphinium ... canterbury bells ... [labored breathing] ... some sunflowers ... and ... and some red things I can't see because ..." "because it's on the shelf?" "yeah, I can't see it. Oh and a pink rose.") (Those of you who know, know that in her emails my mom only tells me about her garden and what birds she saw that week.)

Anyway, she said she doesn't mind being at the hospital because people bring her food, she doesn't have to do dishes, and she gets to watch cartoons all day. And more people have come by to talk with her in the past two days than she's seen in the whole month.

whoa... too much free time theater

on the suggestion of Matt's dad Peter I took a look at the Althouse blog, blog of Ann Althouse, law professor and general commentator on politics, law, and the pretty shadows made by the holly branches in her office. Her articles - fine, interesting. But don't get mired in the comment threads!!!! I have wasted an entire day going through them... whoa. (And some of them are CRRR-AZY!)

Oh Christmas List, oh Christmas List, how lovely are your contents...

just in case some of you occasional readers (i.e. my parents, brother) needed some guidance, for your convenience:

- pink ipod nano
- alphonse mucha art nouveau book
- annie leibovitz photography book
- j crew gift certificate (or light sweaters in wool or cashmere)
- Emily Post's Etiquette (17th edition)
- LSAT study book
- cute fun books about etiquette, style, or event planning
- Nigella Lawson cookbooks
- things ingestible and comestible

SHAME ON NEW LINE CINEMA

TheOneRing.net, a fan site devoted to Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings, published a letter today in which Peter and Fran disclose that they will not be directing The Hobbit. This is due to the fact that New Line refuses to settle a dispute about Peter's still unpaid salary for the Fellowship of the Ring. WaPo story here.

Backbenchers in white wigs are standing up and yelling SHAAAAAME!

total wedding madness

can't... sleep... can't focus on school... must think about cakes with buttercream (or royal? or fondant?) in shapes and flavors - flowers (diy? splurge? pink? lilac?) - maps - must make a map and must find more ... more hotels! and put it on the wedding website! wait, must update this too! and when will we have time for pictures?? between? during? before? wha... six and a half more months of this?!?

oh, poor, poor Matt.

:)

we really ARE getting married...

just put the save the date cards in the mail!

totally creepy stalker ecard

Well, if you care about someone enough to bother sending them a halloween card, why don't you send them a creepy stalker card - one that's realistic enough to seem totally threatening and psycho.

Not taking credit for finding it - saw it first on Wonkette, who linked to this blog.

Coming Home to Georgetown... remembering food

Georgetown's homecoming is about two weeks away... As a student there, coming from Oklahoma, I considered McDonald's cheeseburgers a treat (the closest one is so far away!) but I did manage to have several culinary experiences... I remember:

- dessert-only trips to Bistro Francais, for their strawberries and raspberries in sabayon...
- california chicken sandwiches on a croissant from Wisey's (seemed so sophisticated on a croissant!) or of course the Chicken Maddness (no peppers for me)
- the first time I ever had crab rangoon, from Hunan Peking. Sitting on my dorm floor being introduced to chinese delivery (they didn't deliver in oklahoma back then!) and lemon chicken
- first eggs benedict, possibly first brunch experience ever at Daily Grill (Martin's Tavern also good!)
- going out to I Ricchi on the medieval studies department tab to wine and dine our internationally recognized guest speaker! I wore my easter dress... we were early, my friend Kristin, a senior at the time, marched up to the bar and asked the bartender what he recommended. I, a junior, was not carded... the bartender told us he'd invented a drink, based on the bellini, called the carnevale... raspberry puree and champagne. mmm... That night was also the only time I've ever seen someone order from the "special" wine list (not the department! one of the guests treated)
- on a diet which consisted mostly of individual frozen pizzas, kraft mac n' cheese, and salad... learning to cook on my own. My first recipe - spaghetti aio e olio.
- being taken to 1789 by a then-boyfriend and ordering (then my favorite food) caesar salad... and being served whole romaine leaves. (Do I cut them with my knife?? do I try and fold them up so I can shove the whole thing in my mouth?? I didn't think you were supposed to cut your salad...!)
- crab and artichoke dip at the Tombs. !!
- being taken to Cafe Milano by my thesis advsior with friends and other profs to celebrate graduation/thesis end. It was the day Michael Camille died. I was introduced to carpaccio - they insisted I try it. thinly sliced raw beef, arugula, parmesean, lemon. It is now, still, my favorite food.
- two filet mignons! with sauce at Nathans
- my first grape-leaves wrapped whatnot at Bistro Med, trying to impress first date Matt with my culinary adventurousness... didn't work. Ew. Chewing slower and slower... swallow... erugh. Still don't like olive tapenade, either. (Good opportunity for Matt to promise to take me out somewhere else next time!)
- Cheese sampling at Dean and Deluca for my dad's birthday present
- Chai from Uncommon grounds - late nights with Kristin in the leavey center
- snooty sandwiches and a glass of white wine for outdoor lunch at Peacock Cafe
- my first coffee.

wow... facebook.

ok so I was following up on the Reggie story when someone said that a comment had been made on the "Reggie" group on Facebook... so I caved and started a Facebook account... and I have to admit... it's WAAAAY better than friendster! Wow!

Facebook me!

Reggie loses his job at the Gregoriana

Reginald Foster, Latinist extraordinaire, was unceremoniously dumped from the Jesuit Gregoriana University because of exacerbated relations between himself and the bureaucracy (Reggie's general distaste for hierarchies, plus the fact that he would let students sit in on his classes without paying tuition). See the story here and here. [Note: these links take you to an ultra-conservative Catholic blog which is otherwise kind of obnoxious.] Reggie has taken this opportunity to announce the creation of his own Latin Academy in Rome, location TBA!

I have TWO friends! (at least!)

Beth, Me, and Anna on Wollaston Beach (just down the street from my house)


and inside the house!


And the angora bunny, as promised. (on columbus day we went to the Topsfield Fair, which was really weird, but we got cider doughnuts and saw a bunny. Lots of them, actually. And goats and bees and a pig race, too. Then we went to Gloucester MA and drove around.)

Well, that's pretty much up to speed (or up to meth, whatever). This past weekend we went to Matt's Homecoming up at Dartmouth, which was beautiful - all the fall leaves and Hanover is such a cute town! And Matt enjoyed getting tossed around by his Jiujitsu friends, too. :)

Dissertation Research is Hard!

Especially when the Red Sox lose!


Plymouth Rock - booooo.


Yep, that's it. That's the rock. It was designated so in the 19th century, so it has to be the right one.


So then we decided to go up to Maine, because lobsters are brain food. They help dissertations! Let's go get one!


Matt caught me a crab! Real live green crab! (No, not a lobster - but close!)


Lobster is food for brains!


They make you smart!

Albany - I have a friend!

Bethie! Iiiiiiiiit's been so long since last we met, lie down forever lie down! (OK, that's the georgetown song, not a strange solicitation...)


This *looks* like a college, but it's actually the Emma Willard School, where Matt's cousin went to high school. Damn.

The driving continued through Toronto and Niagara Falls

Oh Centre, how I've missed thee!


And then the falls, where of course there were rainbows, and lots of water, and ticky-tacky tourist things.


All of these are in one building next to the falls... get your teeth cleaned, then hypnotize your lover and convince them to marry you. One stop shopping!

Pictures!!!! Of Everything!!

So these go all the way back to Chicago during the road trip, when we visited Sohkeing. I vowed to stop working on my dissertation right then and there, having had the opportunity to try on Sohkeing's robes. Since that's all I've ever wanted to do - wear the velvet beret - I have no reason to continue my research on Gerald of Wales.


Here is the venerable Sohkeing - that IS brilliance at work.


Matt and Sohkeing outside her lovely apartment building (near Northwestern, where she's doing her postdoc).

matt *almost* got his camera cord...

So, I have over 150 pictures to share with you from road-trip chicago on (including me eating my first maine lobster, physical evidence that I have friends, and a real live angora bunny). Matt left his camera cord at his sister's - and then she moved - but rumor has it that she managed to find it while unpacking. The spare cord matt ordered from amazon electronics came all the way from Hong Kong - and it didn't work.

Last week we went and saw SPAMALOT! it was very good. Though if you know the movie too well (cough, cough) it can be hard to stop criticizing the actors' delivery of movie lines. They've obviously been told to "own" the part, so they do it differently, which can be not as funny...

sad news from last week

Nicholas Howe, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Berkeley, died last Thursday morning from complications with cancer. He was a great supporter of all graduate students.

It's hard to imagine that he's not on the other end of his email.