Aberfeldy, Scotland

In August, M & I set off on a group adventure to Scotland with two of our closest friends. We met up with another couple at our US connection, and yet another at our destination, bringing the adventuring party to eight people, from five cities (in three countries); three rental cars; one two-bedroom apartment; and one poor, unsuspecting foreign country.

There has been a lot going on for us this year, from new jobs to re-evaluating old goals, to tending our first abundant garden. I haven't written much because I haven't been ready to write yet. Enjoy the pictures, and have fun reliving our trip with us.

Scotland on flickr.

Luzern, Schweiz

I am in Switzerland again for work, on some sort of top secret Special Ops Engineering mission with another Sr. FAE. On his advice, I flew in the Friday before our three day stretch in-office, and have the weekend to myself. Friday was consumed by the rigors of arriving, napping, adjusting and finding something to eat for dinner. I'm staying at the Walhalla, which is close to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof, instead of at the Seefeld which is further down the lake. We traveled to the Seefeld to see another co-worker, who departed early Saturday morning for home.

On Saturday, I took the Zug (train) down to Luzern to go exploring. It's the first adventure I have had here, outside of walking the Altstadt in Zürich. It was supposed to be rainy and cold, but the weather held out for the day. I met a nice couple from Omaha on the train, and we decided to adventure together through Luzern. They wanted to go to the top of Pilatus, and it sounded like fun to me, so I was the translator and our trio headed by bus, cable car, and sky gondola up the mountain to the -6 deg C weather at the very top.

After the mountain, we made our way back to the city center, explore the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) and walked to the Löwendenkmal. I took the 16.50 train back to Zürich, sharing a quick conversation with M via SMS before his morning class began, and set about getting the photos online when I got back to my room.

I've spoken more German in the last two days than I think I have in the previous five years. Most of it is asking for directions, or ordering food, or buying tickets. Now and then there's a bit of polite chit-chat, or an unexpected aside from someone who does not know I primarily speak English. I'm getting by, which surprises me (pleasantly) since it's been 12+ years since I had any sort of fluency.

Today is rainy and cold, and three days of interrupted and shallow sleep have caught up with me. I had designs on visiting Basel or Rapperswil, but I think I'm going to take it easy and hang around here. Catch up on some sleep. Maybe wander around the old city if the rain lets up. The purpose of my trip is to be useful Monday-Wednesday at work, so I should make sure I'm up for that. Maybe I'll just find somewhere to sit, sip Milchkaffee and watch the weather and the Limmat flow past.

Luzern photos, on Flickr.

Spring

I had great plans to write all about Thanksgiving, and our recipes, and our family fun, but then time passed too quickly and all my plans got away from me. Thanksgiving was wonderful. There was a requisite turkey-related mishap, but it was very small and didn't impinge on the holiday. We had an abundance of cheesecake and just enough leftovers. We liked the turkey thing enough that we made another for Christmas, and then learned that a turkey for just the two of us is way, way too much bird.

We're still using up the frozen turkey stock, eight cups to go.

Christmas was lovely. Instead of a mountain of presents from my grandparents, we got exactly what I'd hoped for: hand stitched ornaments for our tree. Little things to treasure, and pass down, and celebrate. It's worth more to me than a bunch of stuff.

We have an abundance of stuff.

My mom spent a lot of this winter telling me about the mountain of stuff at her mother in law's, which my mother and her husband are sorting through and fighting with E's sister about. It sounds terrible. Stacks of old, unopened toothpaste. A lifetime supply of Tums. I don't remember the specifics, and the truth is that they don't even matter -- there's just too much stuff. Too. Much. Stuff.

In some sort of reflexive reaction to these stories, M and I made a stab at organizing the garage room this weekend. It is going to take many, many weekends for us to really get a handle on that space, but we're started now and that's very important. The bad part is that we're trying to get the space organized so we can put more stuff in that room and less in the rest of the house (which ultimately leads to more stuff everywhere, I'm pretty sure).

This is the closest to Spring Cleaning I get, people.

Outside of the Stuff Wars, we're doing okay. We sort of mid-review on a lot of different levels. We're two-thirds done with our taxes, reviewing our investments and savings plan, waiting to see what my raise is going to be and how last year's bonus will pay out -- February seems to be when I clean house financially, if not literally. M's rounded the half-way mark on school, and that's sitting better with everyone. We've earmarked a few house projects for this year, and bought our plane tickets for this summer's vacation.

I've also had a few unsubtle reminders to keep in perspective how much seemingly little things can affect other people for the positive. Sometimes we downplay the effect we have on other people's lives, or miss acknowledging it entirely. It seems to be an object lesson at the moment, one the Universe has on repeat.

On outside matters, our tiny garden has started looking like Spring. There are lettuces peeking up and the Apricot's in bloom. M bought a lawnmower with some of the Christmas money, and keeps hacking at the palm trees in his spare time.

I wax in and out of love with my job. Right now I am very much in a holding pattern, waiting to transition into the next stage of my life once M graduates and our opportunities free up again. I don't know if this job will be part of that next great adventure, but it's still integral to our Now. Part of this great journey is finding reasons to love it until we don't need it any more, and that's easier some days than others.

Special Ops Engineering: Bienvenue au Québec

Customs was painless this time. Friendly even. I got teased for knowing no more French than merci beaucoup, which Grandma Stone taught me, along with s'il vous plaît, so I can at least be politely ignorant.

Unlike Greece, stop signs are in the native language. It's hard adjusting to the autoroute signage and I admittedly don't know what towns are north/south or east/west of anything out here yet. It doesn't help that it was 1am, and I was driving with my directions held up to catch the illumination of the car behind me.

M and I make a much better driving-in-a-foreign-language team than I do solo, but I'm getting by. Tomorrow I drive from Montreal to Quebec City. Thursday I drive back, and fly home.

Bonus? I now know "Exit" in four languages: Exit. Ausgang. Sortie. έξοδος. (Maybe five, if it's Salida in Spanish.)

Τζατζικι

Picture unrelated. It's just one of my favorites from our vacation photos.

Tzatziki! We eat a fair bit of this at home: with carrots, with crackers, as salad dressing when I'm too lazy to make some, as a side with grilled meats, with pita. When we were on vacation, M and I ate surprisingly little. Tzatziki in Crete was different from what we're used to buying at Trader Joe's, or getting at most of the chain Greek places. It was a bit thicker, much tangy-er, and all around tasty.

This first thing I tried making when we got home, and it's not perfect, but it's close. All the ingredients came from Trader Joe's, or my fridge, so it's not particularly esoteric, either. It is very much a to-taste food, so adjust the dill and cucumber and lemon as you see fit.

Τζατζικι
250 g Greek style strained yogurt (I used ΦΑΓΕ, readily available at TJ's)
1/3 of a large cucumber, grated and drained
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/8 c olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Fresh dill, chopped
Salt & pepper

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I scaled this down from a recipe that called for 1kg yogurt and a whole bunch of fresh dill, which I think may feed an army -- or maybe the entire Ness clan. The recipe in our Cretan Cookery book also doesn't call for lemon, but the τζατζίκι we had in Crete was more sour than what I had before I added it in. And Katie always tells us to add more lemon to things, anyway, so I figured that was what was missing.

καλημέρα

We are back from Crete. We had a beautiful time, and took a lot of pictures, and have a lot of stories to tell, but right now I'm pretty tired. Check out the pictures and ask me about the stories in about a week. :)

Here's a very small preview:


Beautiful scenery


From the ruins at Κνωσός


Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea


Wonderful local foods

January, January

Month of resolutions. I try not to make resolutions as much as I make plans. Plans are fluid and accept that life and priorities change with experience and additional information. Examples of this year's goals*:

1. Return to a lifestyle of financial awareness and active saving. Having reviewed our budget, I propose we attempt to save an additional $200/month over what is going directly to the 401K and whatever our investments are earning. Bonuses will continue to go directly to savings, unless otherwise earmarked. From savings, we can talk to the financial planner about broader and more expansive goals. (Yes. M & I have a financial planner. It's called "recognizing your boundaries" and not wanting to shove everything under my mattress.)

2. Trend toward smaller portions and healthier foods. M and I enjoy cooking and eating, but there's no reason we can't go back to having a reasonable amount of leftovers to tide him over through the week while I'm away.

3. Travel. This summer's goal is Scotland & Ireland. I want to go see Scott soon. M needs to get some stamps in his passport, and my new one is going to feel so empty.

4. Make peace with my job. 2010 was extremely frustrating, with the re-org and a new management structure to get used to, and a shifted region, and new responsibilities. My 2009 review was somewhat bitter, as I felt that my shortfalls reflected and resulted from my team structure as much as myself. I've had a year to fix those performance points, and hopefully my 2010 review will look a lot better. Still hoping for Sr. Engineer -- still expecting it not to go through. If I'm going to stick this out until M graduates, I need to find a way to focus on the parts of my job that I love. (Easier said than done when one is staring down two consecutive working weekends.)

5. Continue to make measurable progress on the house. (Oh, sub-lists, you are endless here.)

6. In the same vein of creative a sustainable financial plan, and reining in our unhealthier food choices, we've agreed to look into a cleaning person for a couple times a month. I can keep up with laundry, and M does dishes, but we can't really do the deep cleaning necessary to keep a house clean while I'm working this crazy job. There's also a serious amount of apathy towards housework in both of us.

7. Visit The Outside (tm) more. The quest to get out of the office more renews!

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* Disclaimer: By no means an exhaustive list.

Farmer's Market

M and I have learned a few things about how we like to travel, when we're not traveling for field work. We like having food at our accomodations, so we don't have to go out for breakfast. We like having a kitchen. We like eating local fare, even if we don't end up liking the way it tastes. We adventure with the camera, but often forget to take enough pictures to have something to share with the folks at home.

We hit up the Farmer's market in Lihue, Kauai yesterday. It starts at 3pm in the Vidinha Stadium Parking Lot. Google warned us that the action happens quickly -- no kidding! We showed up about half an hour early and waited in the car while the vendors set up stands. At 255p, it looked like this:

By 320p, half the stands were packed up and people were beginning to leave! Here are a few of our pictures from the market.

Adventuring, at home and away

Mom, M and I went out to Julian yesterday, braved the 100°+ heat, and wandered through the Old Town. We stopped at the egg ranch to grab a flat of jumbo eggs, some of which might have double-yolks. Double-yolk eggs hold a nostalgic excitement for me. When we were young, Mom would take Thing 2 and I on this same drive, and double-yolk eggs meant fascinatingly googly-eyed fried eggs the next morning.

We stopped at Dudley's, with its broad wood-floored rooms and fans going full-tilt. The interior has changed a bit over my 30-year lifespan, but most of our favorite breads are still in production. I religiously get Sheepherder; M has a fondness for their German Black. Growing up, Mom always loved their Date Nut Rasin (which I could take or leave, because I have no affection for raisins whatsoever).

Manzanita Ranch is no more. It's been taken over by a snooty winery that no longer stocks our favorite cider, jams, jellies cheeses and local fare. While their tawny port is passable, it's not worth dealing with the lady behind the counter! We didn't even wave as we drove past. Boo.

Out in town, we ate at the Julian Cafe, told lots of stories about when we were younger, stopped in the Cider Mill (Out of Cider Til September! Woe!), visited the bakery than made our wedding cake (where we are still welcomed with open arms and broad smiles), and wandered up to the gemologist's storefront that's been there as long as I can remember.

Then we wound our way home again. Mom met my piano, then journeyed homeward to Encinitas. Happy belated birthday to me.

When I woke up this morning, M had sneakily gone off to the grocery store and stocked up on things to make a surprise brunch! Usually I'm the one that pushes culinary adventuring, so I was surprised when he had me pick a bread and displayed his prepped workstation:

Mascarpone-stuffed French Toast with Maple Syrup.

Yum.

Good thing it's tasty. It will also be dinner. And dessert. It's so filling we a lot of left-overs!

Special Ops Engineering: Aloha edition

I've been a bad Special Ops Engineer. There were two trips, in May, back to the Nat'l HQ that I didn't bother documenting. It was travel hell, but beautifully lush and verdant while I was there. Delta credited me about a bazillion bonus miles for the inconvenience of sleeping in Atlanta, twice, and being delayed into Saturday for my return flight on another leg. *handwave* Let's pretend that didn't happen. Moving on to June.

Last week my boss called, sounding very serious. "K," he said. "I need you to fly to Hawaii. There's an emergency." You think I'm joking. I can see it, through the internet. No one's job has emergencies that require a tropical destination. Never in three-and-a-half years has dispatch sent me to Hawaii. But it's true, and off I went!

The problem with working in Hawaii is that over-nighting parts isn't an option. Combine FedEx's "that's not in the continental US" take on the Islands with Island Time, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Instead, the parts get over-nighted to me, I cram them into a "spare suitcase" (you have one of those, right?), and they become a second checked bag when I fly over the Pacific. The problem with this plan is that if I find I need another part while I'm there... well, over-nighting still isn't an option. So you order everything you might need, and end up carrying stuff back home with you too.

Waikiki, while gorgeous, is not really designed for people who have to work. Flying in at after-midnight o'clock gave me a unique perspective on the street signs there: They're non-existant. I drove around like an idiot for thirty minutes longer than necessary, finally got to my room around one, and had to be back out the door before seven. HQ helped with that early wake-up, too, since they're six hours ahead of Hawaii. My phone rang at four AM local time.

The lab I was going to is hidden in the hills, squirreled away like some remote ninja temple. Leaving the freeway, one must traverse a windy residential street until it narrows into a war-torn path, complete with imposing gate and guard who does not know if the Dept. of Health is actually up this road, because he's never been inside "The Area." Near the summit, past several dilapidated and unused municipal buildings, there is a small white sign with faded black letters and an ambiguous arrow. Follow it, turn right into the parking lot, and Lo! and Behold! There is a huge lab building up there, hiding, where no one would ever think to find it.

You think I'm joking again, don't you? Ask M. He's been there too!

The repair itself went well. Everything was sorted by late afternoon. Thursday night I slept like a rock, and I spent Friday adventuring! I drove east out of Waikiki, around Diamond Head, past a broad bay (where I found a new pet: Hermit Crab; Can I keep it?), past the snorkeling bay of infamy, past a blowhole; onward and somewhat inland. I picked up lunch to go and took it to the botanical gardens, which are free, and had a picnic at the visitor's center before wandering down toward the lake. Then I drove around the north shore, had a banana-coconut-chocolate milkshake and dipped by toes in the ocean before heading back to the airport just as the rain began to fall.

There pictures! So it really happened.

I spent a lot of my drive thinking about my brother. How, as a young teen, he spent an entire Hawaiian vacation trying to come up with the perfect description of the blue water he saw off-shore. How that precious brat (I say with all the love and tolerance of a know-it-all big sister) threw around "cerulean" and "azure" as if they were nothing-words, commonplace in a Jr. High vocabulary. He's a published author now, I thought, as I drove. I also thought of my husband, who had not enjoyed his solo adventuring on the same Island but who had brought home fond memories of our honeymoon. I thought of many family vacations, good memories all of them, and how I had favorite places on an Island that had never been home.

I enjoy traveling. I enjoy it enough to say I love traveling, but what I love most of all is when a once far-flung place becomes familiar enough to have favorites, habits, memories ingrained in its very soil, places I would share with friends or family if they traveled with me in the future. I love finding Home in all the places I visit, and then bringing that bit of Home back with me to share.

I took the red-eye home Friday night, and now it's back to work as usual.

Special Ops Engineering: auf der Schweiz

This week, I am in Switzerland for work. I arrived very early Monday, and found my way to my hotel -- via two trains, and a half-km walk. That afternoon, a colleague and I went on a 5km walk about, up along the river and through the old city, and then ducked into a pub for dinner. The next day was all sightseeing (and walking), and then a short nap, followed by more sight-seeing! Today we actually had to go to work.

I take the S7 train two stops from Stadelhofen to Uetikon, and then it's a 10min walk to the building. Everyone is really friendly, and the city is super clean and efficient. Our course is pretty interesting, too, which is the real reason that work sent me out here. I'm becoming an "expert" at something... which seems to be mostly about looking at edge cases, and trying to figure out how to troubleshoot more efficiently and get ahead of what's coming down the pike before our Sales people sell it.

And I wasn't the first person in class to be told This is impossible. So... win?

More stories later. I have to walk back to the Old City to meet everyone for dinner. (Add 9hrs to the time stamp of this post for Zürich local time).

Dispatch ..., 3

Left early. Breakfast in Waimea with new "Auntie", Kris. Hawaiian sweet bread french toast = win. Rain on way to Hilo. All pictures fuzzy. Almost-off-road scenic route adventure. Broke rental car (windshield wiper stopped wiping). Exchanged rental car in Hilo. Onward to Volcanoes.



Saw some lava.

Homeward bound by 4p. Long, long day.

Dispatch from honeymoon, 2

Met new people. Met a cat. Learned about coffee. Rescued belongings from cat. (Black shirt still in recovery from cat-hair overdose.) Got a massage. Had a nice dinner, watching the sun set. Got caught in a rainstorm. Surprised by breaking surf. Lots of relaxing. Planning where to go next. Thinking Scotland & Ireland in 2011, since 2010 is full of weddings. :)

Tomorrow: Breakfast with our new local friend at the Waimea farmer's market, Akaka falls, secret side-road of gorgeous, Hilo, Volcano, Lava Flow, long drive home.