Let's talk dirt

230 tulip bulbs have been buried in our yard. 230. Their 30 remaining friends wait to join the others in the north east patch of dirt on our property. 230.

And there is a crater in my trowel-yielding hand the size of Yellowstone. Broken blister. Dirt caked. 230.

The landscapers left us a mountain of dirt, by request, just in case we needed extra wheel-barrows-full to fill in holes. It sits near the curb out our front door. A neighbor took a truck load to fill a hole the size of a tree in his yard. Another neighbor hauled shovel and barrow up and down the street, back and forth, over and over again. And we have been hauling and spreading, shoveling, wheeling, dumping, spreading, filling the large holes in our yard, and 230 other small holes. And yet no matter how many loads of dirt we take, the mountain does not shrink. It is a miracle. It stands there, miraculous, unchanged and unchanging. The miracle dirt that does not fail or diminish.

It eyeballs us. Sinners. Waiting for the snow plows. Waiting. In majestic miraculousness.

And now I have a Yellowstone-shaped crater in my right hand. Trowel blister. From digging 230 six-inch-deep holes. Six inches apart. Exactly. Ish.

Only 30 more to go.

A few random things

Today I taught logarithmic differentiation, and my students laughed. I know that last sentence means nothing to you, but it was a personal goal of mine, and I'm happy to have checked it off.

We have been getting some things fixed up around our yard. To start, we got a whole new sprinkler system that does not leak around our foundation. We also got a beautiful gravel path through the overgrown raspberry patch. And we tore out the box bush in front that was starting to smell like old socks. I will post pictures, someday. I cannot post the before and after smell, but you try to imagine. Times like this, when projects are finished and look great, I love owning a yard.

I got 260 tulip bulbs for my birthday, to plant this fall. I spent a few hours Saturday, and planted about 50 of them. Only 210 to go. Times like this, I hate owning a yard. (But just think how lovely everything will look with the tulips in the spring!)

Since the semester started, I have been finding that lunch is not necessary. I wouldn't have believed it. I have colleagues who don't ever eat lunch. They can't eat lunch. When they eat lunch, it puts them to sleep in the afternoon. I was falling asleep during the afternoons. So I decided to take a shot at skipping lunch regularly. I figured if I could do it, I would also save time and money during the day. And you know what? My workdays are so busy that I pretty much don't miss lunch. When I remember, I eat an apple or two, but that's all. And I have been staying awake in the afternoons, even during research seminars! This seems great. Doesn't it seem great? I try to eat an extra large dinner to make up for those missed calories. I suppose if my weight starts changing one way or the other, then I may have to go back to lunch. Meanwhile, I like the new schedule.

Fall has been spectacular so far. The mountains are orange and yellow, the valleys are green and yellow. We've had rain in the last two days that has cooled things off and made the world smell wonderful. Or maybe it just smells nice because the stinky sock box bush is gone. But either way, October has been lovely. I am determined this year to have a positive attitude about the cool weather, in preparation for picking up a positive attitude about cold weather. And then colder weather. I am going to be so super excited about winter this year that you will have to stop reading this blog because of all the lovey-dovey mushy posts about wonderful winter. And then once I have picked up this positive attitude thing, I will trick myself into enjoying the winter. The bitter cold, lack of color and smell and sound... I will love it. Love it, I say! Love! Until I have to stop reading my blog.

Some pictures from Tokyo

Tim took most of our pictures in Tokyo, because he was the tourist, and I was working. Here are a few pictures that I think look nice, as well as my personal interpretation of what was happening when they were taken. Sometimes I was there, and sometimes I wasn't.


This is a picture from our first Sunday in Tokyo, and I was there for this one. Tim and I decided to find our way to the Meiji shrine, a huge shrine in the middle of Tokyo. We carefully looked up the trains we needed to take, where to transfer, etc, then headed out on our own into Japan. Alas. We took note of the train stops written out in our Latin alphabet. When we arrived at the train station, the signs were in kanji. Uh... ? It took us some time wandering the train station, and a stop by the information desk, and some hand waving and penciled writing to figure out where we were going. But we got there.

We got better at the train system very soon.

Here is Tim at the same shrine, in front of a huge wall of Japanese wines. I like the decorations on the barrels.

If Tim is looking particularly hot in this picture, it's because he is a pretty hot man. Also, it was around 95 degrees and 90% humidity. Hot hot hot. We weren't as prepared for the weather as expected.

The above picture is me, later that day, trying to figure out exactly what we might take from this street....

Moving on:Deeper in the shrine we saw these traditionally clad women. I like the fact that the one is talking into a cell phone. Our trip was a mix of the familiar (young women on cell phones) and the unfamiliar (in kimonos).


Above: Unfamiliar. Tim took this picture sometime later in the week. It must be something famous and important.

Below: Familiar. Tall buildings. Probably also something famous and important in there.


So Monday, I headed to the Tokyo Institute of Technology to talk research with Japanese colleagues. That was the day of the raw egg lunch, but you can read about that elsewhere. Tim decided to head to the large park that contained the Tokyo zoo, and some other shrines and things. Like this Buddhist temple:
But unfortunately, he reported that pretty much everything was closed. So he headed back on the subway to the electronics district, Akihabara.


You can buy new electronic stuff in Akihabara. Perfect for a guy like Tim who likes electronics and stuff, right? Except he didn't want to go shopping. He found his way to one of the huge multi-story video arcades to play Street Fighter like a local. Kinda. He couldn't use their stick controller thing as well as his controller at home. So he stayed a while to practice with it.

And I was working and eating red bean shaved ice. Yum.

Which brings us to Tuesday, on which date a Japanese colleague took Tim and me, along with another American couple there for the conference, on a sightseeing tour! We started with the Edo-Tokyo museum, which was nice. But we didn't take many interesting photos, so we'll skip ahead to:


...The Imperial residence. We couldn't actually see the imperial residence. Apparently Imperials live there. But we could see this nice looking house near this nice looking bridge and take a nice looking picture. And a long drink of water. It was still 95 degrees with 90% humidity.


This sign says no bicycling and no running. Something looks wrong with those runners. Something will be wrong with you, too, should you go running around the Imperial residence.

It was too hot to do more outdoor things, like running, so upon the suggestion of the other American couple, we headed over to Akihabara to take in the cool sights at the electronics district. Oh hey. Tim was just there yesterday. We split up for some shopping, and Tim took me into the deep, dark abyss of an arcade.



It was creepy. Totally smoke-filled, full of Japanese males. As we went deeper and deeper into the arcade, I pointed out to Tim that I was the only female in sight. Maybe there were signs all over the place that said "no women allowed"? Maybe. We would never know, since we didn't know any Japanese. Tim didn't care. He showed me how you could pay 100 yen and play Street Fighter. Um... Cool? And so he played Street Fighter, and I sat at the machine next to him, and looked around nervously, and tried not to choke on smoke. And started getting a headache. And within a few minutes Tim started looking around nervously, and assured me he was almost done.... And as we left the arcade many minutes later, he commented that it wasn't much fun to take me to a Japanese arcade.

Sorry?


I don't know what the above picture is of, but I like it.

Wednesday I spent the day at the conference. And a tropical storm blew in and the sky opened up in rain. I purchased an umbrella for walking around campus. Tim was in Kamakura. Which is an outdoorsy location with a giant Buddha and a lot of temples and shrines. He also purchased an umbrella -- our two most useful souvenirs. His pictures from that day look pretty cool. Above is the giant Buddha from a distance. And then he got closer:

And even went inside. But his picture from inside is darkness with a big white hole where the door is. Not so interesting.

Anyway, the location looked pretty neat. Here is another picture Tim took that day:


Lovely, eh? Unfortunately, the pounding rain washed him completely away by the afternoon. Soaked, he hopped on a train and ended up back at the hotel.

Thursday, Tim went... somewhere else. And took some more pictures. Like this one below.
Hey. Isn't that Akihabara again? Wait a second. More Street Fighter?

Friday, while I was still at the conference, Tim wandered over to the Ginza shopping district, which is famous for being a pricey shopping district. You can buy pricey things there, like this car:
But Tim didn't buy a car, after considering our carry on space.

That evening, after the conference, we decided to find a nice restaurant for some very nice food. But then we wandered past a little Ramen shop and changed our minds. This was Tim's favorite meal of the whole trip. Except for the one where we ate steak. But close second.

See. He even photographed the food he was so excited about it. And here are his dinner companions.


Nice.

And that's about all that I have, except this photo from inside the little grocery store near our hotel:
Fresh octapus for you and me.

The end.

Family TV time

We don't actually watch TV much. But Tim wanted to see a show last Monday just before Jonathan's bedtime. So Jonathan wanted to watch it too. Alas, Jonathan does not watch TV like an ordinary couch potato. Jonathan watches TV like a potato in a frying pan -- crackling and popping and jumping around the couch.

This particular exchange happened near the end of the program when Tim was a bit frustrated.

Jonathan: *Gasp* "He just said a Bad Word. Did you hear him? He said a Bad Word."

(Silence.)

Jonathan: "Why did he say a Bad Word, Daddy?"

Daddy: "Jonathan, hush. I'm trying to listen."

Jonathan: "But he said a Bad Word! Did you hear him? He said a Bad Word. Why did he say a Bad Word? That was a Bad Word."

Daddy: "Jonathan, not now. Be quiet, please."

Jonathan: "It was a Bad Word. Why, Daddy, did he say a Bad Word?"

Daddy: "Jonathan! Shut. Up."

Jonathan: *Gasp*. "Now Daddy said a Bad Word! That was a Bad Word, Daddy. Why did you say a Bad Word?"

Daddy: "AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!"

And that, my friends, was the end of all of our family TV time for the next seven years.

The dentist

I started this post a couple of weeks ago, soon after my gums suddenly swelled up. Decided to finish it up and post it now.

Tim's best friend from high school is now a dentist.

A dentist seems very respectable. Whereas Marcus always struck me as a little wild. He played the drums in Tim's three man band.

Now he is a dentist in Oregon.

We called Marcus Sunday night (August 29) for dental advice. I had spent the day in bed, in pain. It was Tim's suggestion to call Marcus. No, said I. We can't mix business with friendship. Why not? said Tim. Marcus called him all the time with computer questions.

Tim is in the computer industry, and works remotely. That makes more sense for a guy who used to play the electric guitar in the basement. Grew his hair long because his mother wanted him to cut it. A remote-working computer scientist seems a much more appropriate career choice for this personality type than a dentist. But that's just my bias showing through.

So we called Marcus, and told him about our week, and let him ask questions that are easier to ask as a dentist. (You guys aren't pregnant, are you?)

I believe Marcus's mother thought Tim was a bad influence on her son. But Marcus never struck me as the kind of guy who would be affected by peer influence. Maybe that helps explain the dentist thing, too. He and Tim were both smart, different, unexpected. No wonder they became friends and stayed friends.

So Sunday, Marcus listened to my dental woes and offered his opinion. He suggested that a change in diet (too many tomatoes), combined with a heavy load of stress (classes starting, international travel), depleted my natural defenses and led to canker sores. And once the skin of my gums and cheeks was breached, perhaps a secondary infection moved in. He listened and gave some suggestions, and prescribed a power mouth wash and second antibiotic to attack it.

And then Marcus the dentist talked to Tim for a while.

The day after starting the new prescriptions, the swelling was way down. By the end of the week, when I left for Japan, the bleeding was mostly gone. By the end of the trip, the gums were almost back to normal, just like Google predicted.

Thank you Marcus.

This has made me realize how important it is to find a medical doctor friend and car mechanic friend. I am taking applications.

Fall introspection

Fall is almost here again, and the mountains are splotched in red again, and the nights are colder again, and the apples are almost ripe.

We picked plums on Tuesday. The tree that, last year, rained down its bounty in bushels and bushels, this year produced only two large bowls of plums. Although I loved eating the fruit last year into the winter and spring, I am full of thanksgiving this year that I will not be spending every evening for the next month at the kitchen sink, gutting plums.

***

This morning, I taught the Intermediate Value Theorem. At one point in class, the students were all roaring with laughter. Over the Intermediate Value Theorem. The Intermediate Value Theorem? I looked at them, perplexed. Who were these people? It wasn't that funny.

Less than an hour later, I was waiting for a faculty meeting, while a colleague of mine was trying to get out of giving a presentation. He said he was unsuited to give the presentation because he was not as funny as 'Bob', who had given the presentation before. Then he looked around and saw me, and said, "Jessica is funny. She should give the presentation."

And then it hit me. I am funny. That is why the students were laughing at the Intermediate Value Theorem. They weren't drunk, because it was 10 in the morning at G.O.D. University. I must be funny. Not the Intermediate Value Theorem. Am I funny? Maybe I am funny.

I politely told the colleague that alas, I was busy, and then turned my rapt attention to the faculty meeting.

(Those students really were laughing pretty hard this morning. I must be funny.)

And contemplated a career change.

(How do you think the Intermediate Value Theorem would work as a stand up comedy routine?)

And focused on the future.

(Oh no -- Horizontal Asymptotes next time. There is no way I can make that as funny as the Intermediate Value Theorem.)

And my career in comedy was over before it began.

At least I know my colleagues think I am funny.

Wait.

Is that a good thing?

Adventures in food

Our plane, returning from Tokyo, landed on the tarmac yesterday morning around 10:00 am. Since we left on the same date at 4:15pm, and were airborne for several hours, we actually gained time. Kind of. If time on an international flight counts for anything.

I can do a travel blog type post later. The weather was hot. The city was crowded, but clean. And Japanese is completely foreign. But we had a very nice trip.

On Monday, I first visited the woman who invited me, and her Japanese colleague, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. After a morning of work, they took me to their favorite soba shop near campus. Soba is a kind of noodle. It was served with dipping sauce and a bowl of rice and topping, along with miso soup and various pickled vegetables. On our walk over, I confessed that since arriving Saturday night, I hadn't really eaten any good Japanese food. They told me that for lunch, we would change that.

I never would have known the tiny shop was a restaurant. I think the flag-like banners hanging over the door indicate this fact to those who read the language. The menu was completely in Japanese, which is somewhat unusual -- usually the prices are written in familiar arabic numerals.

My hosts tried to translate the menu for me. They would look at a dish, begin translating, then read a few words back and forth in Japanese together, trying to decide on a word that would help me understand what I might choose to eat. After they had given it their best shot, I told them I would trust their judgment, and have what they were having.

The woman said she would have the dish with... what was that? ... Sardines eggs. Very good. I cringed a bit.

The man said he would have the dish just above it. Some sort of fish and vegetables with rice. That sounded a little more tame for my American pallet. I asked him to please order the same for me.

When the meals came, the woman had her bowl of rice stacked with small pink balls. Sardines eggs.

Mine, identical to my colleague's, consisted of some sort of flaked fish around the sides of the bowl, surrounding a beautifully raw egg. Staring up at me with its giant yellow eyeball.

Um. He didn't mention the raw egg.

My colleague stirred his up into scrambled eggs and fish and rice. I copied. Scrambled like that, stirred into the rice, it wasn't quite as slimy and inedible as a single raw egg eyeball. I was able to eat most of it. And it wasn't bad. And I do like miso soup. Yummy.

Later that afternoon, after a few more hours of hard work, the woman suggested we try a new sweets shop near the train station. That sounded like a nice break, so we followed her there.

This shop was very clearly selling food. Like many Tokyo establishments, they had pictures of their menu items outside the entrance, so one could see what one could purchase before entering.

It was a hot hot day, 35 C and very humid, and so I said I'd like a shaved ice. My colleagues recommended I try the traditional Japanese flavor. Red bean and sticky rice balls. A little more skeptical, but still willing, I ordered the red bean shaved ice. The woman ordered the same thing, only with extra green tea flavoring. The man ordered fruit and ice cream.

When I received my shaved ice, it was a small bowl filled with beans and a sticky rice ball, with plain shaved ice stacked twice its height on top. Plain shaved ice. So a big pile of snow, on top of red beans and sticky rice balls. I wish I had a camera. But I did not. So you will have to imagine.

Imagine me, eating plain snow down the side, scooping a bit of red bean to go with it. And it tasted just like ... red bean. I know the Japanese think red beans are sweet. But to me, they are an ingredient in savory dishes like chili. Or Mexican food. And they are not eaten plain.

The sticky rice balls were made of rice flour, but did not resemble rice. They were very very chewy. I popped one in my mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed. Very slimy. Unsweetened, except for the red bean. And so I chewed and chewed and chewed.

After about four more bites of the red bean and rice balls, I realized I was going to begin gagging if I ate any more, which is not polite to do in front of your wonderful hosts. And so I finished eating all the plain snow off the top of the dessert, and picked at the beans while I could.

"You don't like it?" asked my hosts.

"Oh, it's very good," I said. "It's just very filling."

At which they smiled at each other and said something to each other in Japanese. ("She totally hates it." "Oh well, it was fun to watch her try.")

Dear traveler, watch out for red beans in your sweet food in Japan. It's very disappointing to think you'll be eating chocolate chips, and then biting in....

Aside from the red bean shaved ice, I found the food to be good. I ate sushi, sashimi. Ramen from a ramen shop. Rice bowls and chicken and a very delicious steak one evening. Very delicious. Something that ended up tasting just like beef stew another lunch hour. Tempura -- deep fried fish and eel and vegetables -- with rice. And lots of miso soup. Soup with every meal. Salad and rice for breakfast, along with western choices like yogurt and bread at our hotel. Once a very fishy breakfast fish. Hm.

I was always the last to finish, among my Japanese colleagues. I am not quite as expert with chopsticks as they are. But I survived.

You hear? I survived.

How long do you think it takes for symptoms of salmonella to appear if they are to appear? I'm assuming that after nearly a week, I'm safe.