Wow! How quickly two months pass!
Henry is now a big bouncy 6 month old and crawling around. He started day care two weeks ago and we seem to be getting him into a pattern. He is getting his two bottomw front teeth and eating lots of mushy foods. He even tried animal crackers and enjoyed them a lot!
Quick recap of what has happened in the last two months:
*Thanksgiving in NJ
*visited South Florida family and friends
*Henry flew on his first prop plane
*to the Bahamas
*met an attack dog named Stan
*ate the most expensive steak dinner ever at the Atlantis in the Bahamas
*watched Jai-alai in Dania Beach
*dinner at the Mai Kai Restaurant in FLL- Henry loooved the Polynesian Review!
*met our friends with the twins for dinner
*parents visited us in the snows of Decemeber - dad even shoveled!
*bought Henry a high chair
*bought Henry and exersaucer thing
*flew to Hawaii (the Big Island)
*walked on a black sand beach
*Introduced Henry to the Baby Bjorn and the ocean
*bought banana bread and a Hawaiian quilt in Hilo
*ate lots of plate lunches
*drove the Saddle Road between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea
*ate shave ice as big as our heads
*realized Henry's head resembles a macadamia nut
*Martin got a blister on his foot
*I started back to work
*Chinese New Year Party!
*looked at more real estate
*Martin got a cold

That almost sums up everything we've been up to. I hate summarizing like that, but it can be fun as a memory exercise. I'll try to update more often. Especially since so many people read this!

My job as glorified office supplies clerk.
I spend most of my time refilling the stapler at the Ref desk. There are two statements (not questions, mind you) that come out of students when they are stapling something. the first one is "This one is out of staples." the other statement is... nothing. They try the empty stapler, say nothing and then use the electric stapler about a foot away. It leaves me wondering which one of these situations bothers me most. The fact that I am here to supply everyone with staples (and highlighters and binder clips and index cards)or the fact that I am sitting here, waiting, hoping for a question and getting nothing. Hrmph.

I had a comment from Lulalu about people in the bathroom talking on cell phones. This happens to me on an almost daily basis. I try to flush the toilet as much as possible and make it impossible for them to carry on a conversation. Sometimes the coversations are extremely loud and juicy and gossipy and I am kind of curious, but not enough to quit flushing and such. I do think that the folks who are actually using the toilet and talking on the phone are the winners in this weird wacky contest.

Other than strange, typical library stuff, things are progressing along nicely. For those of you that do not know yet, M and I are going to have a little butterbean in early July! Butterbean is our word for baby if you couldn't figure that out. OUr parents are excited, my mother has gone crazy over the whole thing, but I think in the end it will work out well. We are not going to find out the gender so don't ask!

I am working on marketing events for the library. The best one I have come up with so far is something based on this little gem:



Just replace the word Playboy with Library and you get the idea. Unfortunately this will be wihtout an appearance by Sammy Davis jr. :( Sid Caesar is still around though...

I'm heading off to Seatlle tomorrow for ACRL. Wish you all were going to be there!

Thinking of breaking my trip into multiple posts. Good thing I write down things we do on these trips because sometimes it is just a big blur.

Okay, first stop, London via Heathrow. Stayed in Holland Park at a Hilton on Hilton Honors points. Lovely neighborhood with a tree-lined street and a huge crescent of townhouses across from the hotel. Hotel was quite hideous on the exterior, but quite fun on the inside.

Things we did in London:

• ate pistachio macarons.
• met Jason & Robin at Piccadilly Circus
• ate "Fook kin Fried Rice" - lest you jest it was delicious.
• saw protestors yelling at each other over the Olympic Torch relay
• Wandered around the completely awesome Tate Modern
• ate a Buffalo Mozzarella salad at a tiny bistro neasr Harrod's
• walked through Hyde Park in the drizzle
• ate delicious Indian fare at Zaika in Kensington
• toured the Cabinet War Rooms & Churchill Museum
• finally saw inside Westminster Abbey
• walked in the snow past the London Eye

Our main reason for visting ever more expensive London was to see our friend David, who had graced us with his presence at our infamous tropical storm wedding 3 1/2 years ago. Along with his ladylove Gita, David showed us a marvelous time by spending some time with us on Saturday for lunch and dinner and then later took us to their local pub where we all enjoyed a beverage and cupcakes.

We took the Tube everywhere except for the night we had dinner with David and his ladylove, Gita. We took a cab due to foul weather and being guilty of watching three episodes of "Futurama" in the hotel room while it rained.

One of the highlights to the trip was taking the tour ofthe Cabinet War Rooms and seeing where Churchill and the gang hung out during the Blitz. The audio tour gave a special insight to the entire situation and the rooms themselves were amazingly decked with actual furnishings left there at the end of the war. It was a little pricey but well worth it and Martin even wants to return and visit the museum again!

Movies I saw on the flights:

• Juno
• Gone Baby Gone
• Persepolis

My trip to Tucson got approved today so I'm finally getting to go somewhere for professional development. This is a happy occasion but a little depressing because I never think that anyone should get so excited about professional development.
In other news, we will hopefully be leaving the country tomorrow provided United can get their 777 airplanes up and flying.
We finally bought new lights for the entry, staircase and dining room. We will get these installed soon!
Thinking about the summer and taking another class at Harper College. So far it's a tie between figure drawing and oil/acrylic painting. I'm leaning more towards the painting one actually.

Other interesting things about Uruguay:
*A lot of dilapidated but gorgeous buildings
*they really like dogs
*everything is closed on Sunday too
*people were really nice once you started talking to them
*they have some of the most beautiful handcrafted knit items I've ever seen
*there are entire stores that sell nothing but caramel.

The longer we were in Uruguay the better my Spanish got. (Thanks Senora McDowell!!!)I could talk to people on a minimal level and order food and ask directions and tell the taxi driver where to take us. Everyone was very patient with us since Spanish is a fast language, I don't care who says otherwise!

The rest of our trip we kind of decided not to bother with the creepy Old City and spent Sunday wandering around the Tres Cruces area and the Sunday market that sold everything I could ever imagine. The market itself was on a shady street lined with antique shops so if you didn't like the wares of the vendors you could look at the antiques in the surrounding shops. We tried to take an English tour ofthe beautiful Teatro Solis but were informed that there was no such Monster on Sundays. We were disappointed since earlier in the day we had understood that there would be an English speaking tour. Fortunately they took pity on us and showed us the interior of the theatre. It looks like something out of Europe but much smaller than we expected.

On Monday we took a walk to the Pocitos neighborhood. It was a long walk but we had a delicious meal and got see several diverse neighborhoods, the Russian embassy and oodles of doggies. Some of these dogs were obviously for protection or to guard against robbery but a lot of them were beagles. Can beagles protect your house? I'm not sure. Most looked like they would lick you to death!

Walking through the old city or Ciudad Viejo in Montevideo on a Saturday had to be quite possibly the creepiest place I've ever been. Most cities I have been to are usually somewhat open on a Saturday and we thought that the city's main attraction would be at least somewhat open on a Saturday. Nope. Nothing. Closed up tight. We traversed the streets, zig zagging across the area until we came to the Mercado del Puerto. The Mercado is an old railroad station that was built and never used for its intended purpose. It is now filled with restaurants and bars and huge grills cooking every kind of meat you can imagine. What amazed us was the building looked like it would collapse at any moment and what had they put inside it? Huge wood-burning fires! Talk about tempting fate.

Martin & I both finally figured out how to sit down and get service (instead of waiting for someone to seat us). We ordered huge steaks that were both about the size of my forearm. hey were like butter! Service was slow, but with that much meat to digest it wasn't a bad thing at all. We ordered dessert. I had a yummy, flan with dulce de leche and Martin had tiramisu. We had seen one go by earlier that looked lovely. Martin's was kind of lop-sided.the meal was probably on par with Ruth's Chris Steakhouse or something similiar here in the U.S. The meal only cost us about $25. For everything.

The creepiest thing about the Old City was that no one was around anywhere except for the occasional stragler or begger. Everyone was eating at the Mercado but every store was closed and the streets had no cars anywhere. We were beginning to think this was the wrong place to be in the South American autumn. We took a look at our map once we got back to our hotel and saw that there were several shopping centers in Montevideo. We then found out that all shopping centers are opened until 10PM. We took a cheap taxi to the Punta Carretas Shooping Center that is housed in an elegant old prison. I found this great shot of the interior of the mall on this guy's website:

It looks like a normal mall until you read the name of the Store on the left.

This morning, I have been moving like a speeding train. We are getting ready for a trip and this usually entails me getting a bunch of stuff together, double checking that we have said stuff and returning numerous times to the house to retrieve said stuff. This morning I had to go back upstairs four times to get: passports, bank deposit slip, watch, toiletries, toothbrush, sweater and dry cleaning. After all of that was brought downstairs I had to take all that to the car. Then I had to return to the house for: a banana (mid-morning snack), cell phone, magazine for M. to read, and to deposit extraneous credit cards that don't need to be going to S.A. Then I double checked the doors to make sure they were locked and secure.

Actually the whole adventure started at about 6:22AM this morning when I decided to run around my yard chasing a huge rabbit away from my tomato plants. I have no idea if bunnies like tomatoes. And I can't quite remember if it's bunnies or deer that don't like marigolds. So I ran around the yard in my nightgown clapping my hands and yelling at a rabbit who thought that if it just sat really still I wouldn't see it. I might be big, but I'm not a T Rex. It eventually disappeared through the hole in the fence. A hole I have been vowing to cover with chicken wire of something similar for about 2 years now. M. watched the whole thing from the upstairs window. I think he enjoyed the show of me looking like a fool.

So a lot of nervous energy that now has to sit at her desk and write emails to people who probably shouldn't even be in college. What else might I be doing today, you ask? I will go to the bank to get some cash, get some light sandwichesque lunch, teach a class, drive to the parking lot where my car will be for the weekend, take a taxi to the airport with hopefully everything one might need for a long weekend in Uruguay and hopefully get on a plane to Dulles to get on a plane to Buenes Aires that continues on to Montevideo. Whew!

This past weekend was my husband's 20th high school reunion. It was unlike any reunion I had ever attended, but I haven't attended that many. Martin's graduating class had about 800 students. Martin had a major in high school: aerospace. (Is anyone surprised at that one?) Martin's high school had about 9 floors, including a pool in the basement, the second largest auditorium in NYC (after Radio City Music Hall) and the girls' gym was on the 8th floor. We're talking huge. He knew several people from his class and we met his English and History teachers and watched a bunch of what I called "Old Brooklyn" walk across the stage from the class of 1937. It was quite nice to wander around a school that about a dozen elevators and rooftop handball courts. Martin's school was quite awesome so I totally understand how he could have such fond memories of an actual building.

Also, bought me a smaller Manhattan Portage bag. I think that they might not be as cool as they once were, but I carry my large one almost everywhere and it looks so nasty that I thought a new one might be in order. It is gray where my older one is blue. I ate rice balls at this Italian restaurant for the very first time. They were...interesting.

Went to Pensacola this weekend...finally! We ate at McGuire's during a torrential rain storm and all got soaked on the run to the car. The weather was super nice otherwise. We took Dad and Martin to the navy base to wander around Fort Barrancas. Both of them had never been but I think they thought it was interesting. We also drove to Ono Island to see Polly and her two boys. We ate ice cream sandwiches, jumped into the sand and played with the fancy steam shower. I played on my old piano a bit and decided to take my piano books back to IL with me and Martin is going to set up his keyboard so I can play. Not quite the same thing as my parents' piano, but it's a start. I will now be looking for fun and different garden supply shops in the Chicago area after finding more inspiration at Duh - the landscape/interior design store that did the flowers and stuff for my wedding. If you're in Pensacola, check it out.

Since everyone else is doing it...

Here is the play-by play from my notes of all the things we did and didn't do in Israel.
Most of the time the trip is half the fun of getting somewhere for Martin and me. On this trip we spent two days trying to get to Israel, well Frankfurt really. We ended up finally at Dulles on Saturday evening and not getting on any flights to Frankfurt.

(Let me interject with an opinion on Dulles. It is quite possibly the longest airport I have ever had the misfortune to walk through. While I love the uniqueness that is the Mobile Lounge and I am appreciative of a Potbelly Sandwiches in the terminal, the place is a nightmare for connectors. No quick way to get anywhere since moving sidewalks aren't de rigeur in the D.C. area.)

So instead of sleeping the airport we rented a wonderfully cheap rental car and drove to our friend Jim's house to meet his family and sleep in their guest room. They have a lovely room very near Mount Vernon. Since most European flights don't leave until the afternoon we had a leisurely morning and then strolled around George Washington's home for an hour or two before we headed back to Dulles to maybe get on a flight. Martin took a coach seat and I was in Business and we were off to Frankfurt. Both of us probably didn't sleep more than 2 hours on the flight until it was time to land and make a mad dash through the airport to see if we could catch an early fight to Tel Aviv.

The Frankfurt airport is labrinthine where Dulles is a straight edge. We wiggled and twisted through the various smoking areas and lounge chairs until we found a check-in counter without leaving security. We got Business Class to TLV on Lufthansa.

Arrival in TLV was typical and speedy. We stopped at the tourist counter to see if they could recommend a hotel. The guy suggested a place and called to hold a room for us. We got our rental car, a Mazda 3 and headed to find our hotel somewhere near the beach. We planned to meet Martin's cousin Moshe and his family for dinner. After driving around and around and forgetting where exactly we were going we finally found the right apartment building. The food! We had burekas, hummus, avocado, Israeli salad... I could go on but I won't.

The next morning we met Martin's other cousin Dovi and his wife for breakfast. Yummy labaneh cheese and eggs and lemonade with na-na (mint). We shopped for a few minutes at the Azraeli Centre mall and I bought some jewelry at Michal Negrin and Martin needed socks so the men went looking for those. After this adventure we decided to pack things up and head North to Haifa! We stopped at Zichron Yaakov on the drive.

Let me preface this part by saying that Haifa is not an easy town to get around in. Our first day in Haifa we got up and took the Carmelite down the hill in an attempt to see the German Colony and the Bahai gardens. The entire vist we saw neither because the rain was a deluge and it was not fun even with an umbrella. So we drove to Ein Hod artist village instead and looked at the artist colony and then drove down to the sea to see the Atlit Immigration Camp. The camp was very interesting and our guide was very friendly. When we returned to our hotel we walked in and saw that James & Rose had arrived from Jordan. We had sushi for dinner and it was quite tasty.

We tried again the next to day to get to the Bahai gardens. No dice. So with rain pouring down we decided to pack up and head south to the Negev and Mitspe Ramon. We stopped again in Ein Hod to buy a pretty painting and a gorgeous leather vase. I'll have to post a pic of that because it is unique. We stopped at Caesarea for a tour and lunch. I had kebab. We walked around the ancient theatre and took the very cool video tour. We also drove down to the aqueduct and wandered around.

The drive to Mitspe Ramon was long but not horrible. We arrived at night so we saw nothing of the desert. We did however, see a lot of rain and hail and occasionally ice on the road. We were staying at the only place in town, the lovely Ramon Inn. This place is the high end hotel but they have no elevators. We were on the top floor :)

The first full day in the desert we drove to Sde Boker and saw David Ben- Gurion's grave and his hut at the kibbutz. We were surrounded by soldiers at both places which was fun. We also wanted to hike through the Ein Avdat wadi but all the rain had made the usual trickle into a raging river. We settled on looking at the waterfall and gorge from the lookout point. On our way back to Mitspe Ramon we stopped at Avdat, an ancient ruin of a Nabatean city on the Old Spice Route. It was full of arches and caves and we were the only people there. It sits on a plateau with a grand view of the desert below.

The final day of our trip and it was a long one. We hiked around the crater at Mitspe Ramon, visited and alpaca and goat farm ( where James made a donnkey friend), had lunch at the McDonalds, drove by Ben Gurion University in Beersheva and drove James & rose to their hotel in Jerusalem. We wish we had more time to spend in Jerusalem but the way our trip was scheduled we couldn't see much of anything there since it was Saturday and everything was pretty much closed. We left James and Rose and continued to Bat Yam to have a last dinner with relatives.

After dinner we drove to Ben Gurion airport (very Ben-Gurion heavy trip, this one). We met up with Dovi who works for El Al and we discovered that flights had been cancelled due to ice on the runway in Newark and that people from those flights had taken seats on formerly open flight to Atlanta with Delta. We were basically thinking that we were stuck until we were given, at the very last minute, crew seats on El Al to Toronto/Chicago. This means we sat in flight attendant seats for the entire trip except for meal services. By far the weirdest way to fly, but the best food I've ever had in a coach seat!

I have published new pictures on our Flickr account. Be sure to check out the Israel collection of photos! They are mostly of Israel and Tampa. Mostly they are lovely but I have come to the decision that with digital or film, I never take enough photos. It is a sad realization. Mainly , I think I should have taken pictures of the glorious food we ate and every hotel room we stayed in. So in case there are no pics to reflect the fun we had in Israel, here are some lovely things that we did:

• visited the artist village of Ein Hod
• waited patiently for the rain to stop in Haifa (it never did)
• experienced rain & hail in the Negev
• petted an alpaca and a donkey
• enjoyed a McKabob
• ate about a ton of hummus
• visited the Atlit Immigration Camp
• flew home on El Al in flight attendant seats

Three great things happened over the past week: (forgive me if I'm a little behind in the news, I've been travelling)

1. Rob & Amber are GONE from the Amazing Race All-Stars.
2. Travelled through Israel with Martin.
3. Found out that some friendships are not what they appear to be.

I try not to write hateful things on this blog about anyone in particular. Groups of people yes, but no names really. But right now, I want to write something hateful and I'm just not going to fall that low. I will repeat my mantra: I am above it, I am above it...

Tomorrow we are going on an adventure. I have not made a big deal out of it b/c most people have shown little or no interest in where we are going and when. Even my own mother thought we were going April. (I explained that we planning to see her in April). Plus, it seems that everyone I know is going somewhere this moth. Ninjagirl is going to NZ. My parents and Granny are going on their first ever trip to Hawaii. Martin and I are going to Israel.

Hopefully we will be able to meet up with our friends James & Rose, who are somewhere in the Middle East and maybe Egypt about now. Safe travels to all.

Planning our next international trip is underway. Nowhere new really, but always exciting! See if you can guess by the comments that I came across while researching hotels:

"So, if you don't like to be touched by strangers, this is not the place for you!" (referencing the dining hall at a kibbutz resort)

"If you expect a breakfast with real meat forget it! It is Kosher all the way, with fish the only meat served."

Now, I don't know about you but I never had a big meaty steak for breakfast except after a long night of drinking and we wound up at the Waffle House at 2AM. I have firm belief that Israeli breakfasts are the best in the world.

So, I have a nickname and it is Sunshine. This name has a long and wonderful history back from I was bubbly and young. In college I had a friend who would often annouce: "And representing the Sunshine State, it's Amy!" This is because I'm from Florida and I was attending school in Louisiana. I'm sure there were other students from Florida, but I never met them and my friend seemed to get a kick of announcing my entrance into a group this way. So fast forward a few years to grad school. I am dubbed 'Sunshine.' I am not sure if this is a carry-over from the original Sunshine State connotation or a new invention all together based on the fact that my personality is like a big ray of sunshine. (I know a lot of you are probably snickering at this and you can stop right now).
The nickname is used by all of four people that I know of.

On a related note, I went to Birmingham this weekend. Actually most of my time was spent in Tuscaloosa. When I was younger my parents and I would go to Tuscaloosa to spend the day shopping at the mall and then eat at the Picadilly cafeteria. This mall was awesome for two reasons. They had a Gyro place in the food court and they had a Sanrio (Hello Kitty) store. I would save up a month of allowance just to go hog wild in that store. I have no idea if we went to Tuscaloosa 5 times or 20. I just remember that the mall was huge to my small eyes. Wow! Are things always smaller than how you remember them? On a rainy Sunday the mall took us about 35 minutes to explore. This did not include our 1 hour lunch at the Picadilly. I did not get liver & onions, my all time fave, since I didn't see it until after I had ordered the chicken. Oh well.

Driving around Tuscaloosa was a delight as I was with one of the four known people that refer to me as Sunshine. I had delish BBQ in Birmingham with Sweetie as well and got to see the Vulcan up close and personal. While talking pretty much the entire weekend ( I sound like Bea Arthur today)the Mz. and I were discussing other lovely sites to see in Alabama and we began talking about the Ava Maria Grotto in Cullman, AL. Then we started talking about this place. It looks like a beautiful place and so today I looked them up and due to a wonderful teacher my sophomore year in high school I learned about the Order of the Poor Clares and was thrilled to find them in Alabama of all places. These are by far the coolest looking nuns I have ever seen: Check this lovely lady out. It's amazing that I wanted to be a nun when I was little. I think I just liked the idea of having a bunch of girls that all lived with each other. Maybe it was because I never had a sister.

I am happy to announce that I am flying to Birmingham tomorrow. I am then going to be picked up by my loverly gal pal,Mz Librarian. Yep, spur of the moment trip and I chose Alabama. I'm very excited because 1. it has been forever since I've been to Alabama and 2. it has been forever and a day since I've seen the Mz. On another happy note, she has dogs.

Martin, back from his four day extravaganza in Vegas is going to go to Denver for a day and then hopefully remembers to pick up the hold I have at the library on Sunday. He asked for a good book to read. I gave him The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, from which he demured. So I have given him my over 10 year old copy of Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I have read this book three times. It is one of the few books that I have ever read more than once. The others that I can remember are Love in the Time of Cholera and Pride & Prejudice (of course). I have read Anne of Green Gables about ten times, but that's in a category all by itself. So, he scoffed at the Donna Tartt book. Probably because it didn't have :
*aliens
*spaceships
*alternate historical happenings
*zombies
The Secret History does have:
*murder
*Greek language scholars
*incest
*suicide
*snow
Lately Martin has had a thing for zombies. He has also not seen Shaun of the Dead.

What am I reading? Since I put all of this emphasis in being a walking book suggestor for my husband I must be reading something quite grand. I'm reading The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai by John Tayman. So far it is absorbing and fascinating. I try to sneak little bits of it in all through the day. It's better than crack. Or so I can imagine.

Like anybody had to really wonder:

You Are Very Worldly

You're an international jet setter - or pretty darn close. And while you may feel like you have many more places to visit... Most people live their whole lives without seeing what you've seen. In fact, you're probably going to be traveling again soon. So Bon Voyage!

How Worldly Are You?

I once saw a drunk man punch a police horse.