I am guilty of blog neglect. I apologize. This semester is kinda’ kicking my ass. I haven’t even had a chance to write about my marvelous trip to Berlin to see TQE. I will, eventually. I promise.
But first, I just have to survive until the end of the semester.
Only five weeks and one day to go.
… the wife worked her tail off: cleaned the clutter off the dining room table; did the dishes; wiped down the cabinets; did the laundry; took the comforter to the laundromat; sorted the recycling; cleaned off the top of the dryer; picked up all the used dryer sheets that The Coach had shoved between the washer and dryer; made Spanish Rice; made pesto | tomato | onion | garlic | spinach | feta pizza; took the cat to the vet; pilled six out of eight animals (and i have the war wounds to prove it); and spent numerous — and I do mean numerous — hours begging | pleading | bribing the evil puppy to come inside.
… the wife will play: went to see Sucker Punch* with my friend, the English professor who loves all things steampunk and her hubby; ate Indian food with my friend and her hubby; spent another $75 at the Borders close-out sale.
I guess it’s a good thing that The Coach comes home tonight. I need him to carry up the towering bucket of clean clothes.
The highlight of my weekend was taking the Fattest Cat in the world to the vet for his shots. I swear, The Coach must do this on purpose just so he can avoid the “Your cat is too fat” lecture.* This time, however, I didn’t get the lecture. Oh no. You see, Carson has developed a reputation as the toughest cat on the planet. You remember the story: The cat took on our 90 pound lab-retriever mix and ended up biting through his own lip. So, the vet poked around in his mouth for a while, jabbed him with a couple of needles and pronounced him in excellent health (for an old fart).
Sounds simple, right? I mean, the worst part of the actual trip was hauling the cat into the house while carrying my dry cleaning (which, by the way, was not even under our name — apparently, my husband has a new pseudonym).
But, here’s the thing: the night that The Coach left for D.C. with a teacher, two parents, 10 kids and the superintendent’s wife, I found a worm hanging off of Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D.’s butt. {Yeah, I’m hoping you weren’t eating when you read that!} Nasty, right? And when one cat has worms, they all have worms. And when the cats have worms, the dogs — who love dining on Kitty Caviar — have worms.
14 pills. Five cats. Three Dogs. One Human.
It was not pretty.
Yeah, you can just click below the break if you’re really interested …
It’s my own damned fault that I am so far behind. I probably should have done more work while I was in Berlin, but then, I was in Berlin, damn it, and I wanted to see the sites. {And yes, I will soon have blog entries, but I’ve been too busy to write them. If you want the summation, click here.} Plus, I’ve been hammered with meetings since I came back to work on Wednesday morning.
Yesterday was particularly bad [1]: I had a meeting at 9 a.m., a four hour retreat, another meeting at 2, and had to cover a class (which meant I had to leave the retreat for an hour). Plus, I was the only “dean-like” individual on duty yesterday — which was the last day to drop classes. I got a cramp in my hand signing forms. {LOL}
This means that I now have a backlog of work to get done. Since I’m already on campus — doing presentations at our student recruitment day — I should probably stay and work. Yet, today is the first day that I can actually give into the residual jet lag that has been plaguing me since I’ve been back [2]. Since my friend isn’t coming to visit tomorrow and since my husband is in the grading trenches, I guess I’ll just work tomorrow. Blah.
The real question is: How much of a dent will I make in this list?
I am sure there are other things that should be on that list, but I’m too tired to remember them. Yep, I definitely think a nap is in order.
Book Burning Memorial, Berlin
Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.
In English: “Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people.”
Click here to see the rest of my Germany photos!
Subtitled: Things I need to finish now that my break is done
Brandenburg Tor, Berlin
Tomorrow is my last full day in Germany. I am having too much fun to blog, so I leave you with the above picture until I return stateside.
Evidence: I Made It To Berlin
Site of JFK’s “Jelly Donut” Speech
Subtitle: I have taken the TQE One Backpack Challenge & lived to tell the tale
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the ticker on the left side of my blog, I have abandoned Indiana for my very own version of European Vacation. Originally, I had plans to go to Guatemala on another one of M.’s tours, but a dead furnace, a car with a lemony smell, and eight new tires left yours truly with only lint lining her pockets. Fortune shined on me, however, when TQE got sick of my belly aching and told me to get my butt on a plane to Berlin.
So, here I am, crashed on his couch, eating his food, and using his weird little combo washer/drier (1). The last part is due to the fact that I have succeeded at taking what The Coach dubbed “The TQE One Backpack Challenge.” That’s right: I came to Germany with all of my clothes crammed into my work backpack. For the sake of full disclosure, I had to use vacuum bags to get all my stuff into said backpack and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be sick of wearing my purple cashmere sweater by the time I get home. Plus, I cheated a little bit by putting TQE’s Cadbury Cream Eggs in my computer bag and leaving all my liquids at home (2).
Of course, I nearly didn’t get to Germany on time. On Monday, I ran into work at 9 a.m. to print my boarding passes only to find that my 6 p.m. flight out of Louisville had already been delayed. In fact, it was so delayed that my flight to Amsterdam would have been well over some state located along the Atlantic seaboard by the time I arrived in Georgia.
Epic fail, my friends. Epic Fail (3).
Since I am a pushy broad – and because I had a day trip to Leipzig planned for the day after I was supposed to arrive in Berlin – I picked up the phone and called Delta. At first, the agent offered to put me on an earlier flight out of Louisville, but I persuaded her to fly me out of Evansville instead. Hey, why drive two hours to be molested by the Bluegrass chapter of the TSA when you can fly out of the kinder, gentler regional airport?
Of course, when I arrived at my kinder, gentler regional airport, the guy behind the counter had trouble printing out my boarding passes. It seems that the Delta agent changed the flight but didn’t reissue my ticket. I’m not quite sure about the specifics, but I stood there for about 20 minutes while the guy had to call the international desk.
Once I was on the plane, I thought my problems were over. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. The flight to Schiphol was uneventful. Immigration was a breeze – short wait, no questions, no landing card. I thought my problems were over until I tried to get on the flight to Berlin-Tegel and my boarding pass was rejected. Apparently, they had taken me off the flight because – wait for it – I had missed my flight out of Atlanta. And, even though I was standing in Amsterdam, passport in hand, I had to produce the boarding pass for my flight across the pond to prove that I had flown to Schiphol.
Good grief. It’s not like I’m a character in a Harry Potter book. Seriously, did they think I just apparated?
Sadly, The Traveling Ph.D. will be taking work along to Berlin. I know, I know, it’s suppose to be Spring “Break,” not Spring “Work Your Behind Off.” Trust me, I’m not taking a lot. I figured that I could do a little work each morning before playing tourist. My goals are threefold: (1) set up my research agenda for the next three months; (2) write up my colloquium presentation for next September; and (3) do some work on the Journal. Now, I won’t be able to do much on item 3, given the constraints of my netbook. And the colloquium presentation — that might seem earlier, but I also need to write up a conference paper and get it out of the way so I can focus on my two big projects this summer and fall. I don’t want to let my summer fellowship go to waste!