The Pless People -- Gabe, Andrea, and their incredibly cute baby Emory -- are in town for a visit!
Last night we all got together at my parents' house and talked while all three children romped or wriggled around on the carpet, surrounded by a sea of toys. 
How wonderful to have everyone here, and to get to play with all the babies!
Finally, Pie Day is here!! Here are Gail, Katy, Mom, and Margaret enjoying the holiday.
Gail, Katy and children, Matt, Mom and Dad, and I had the traditional Pie Day meal of pizza pie, followed by these little quince pies. I added some apple and pear because I wasn't sure how quince would taste. It turned out to be very sweet and fragrant.
After dinner Katy played the piano, William provided a rumbling bass line, and the rest of us sang along. Margaret threw pie tins to the floor with a crash, and Socks the corgi dashed up and down the room in excitement. We should have the same Pie Day festivities every year!
Today was National Pie Day! I decided to celebrate by making pie with some of these quinces. They were a Christmas present, and have been waiting in the freezer for me to think of something to do with them. I didn't quite finish the quince pie by the end of the day, though, so tomorrow will be National Pie Day, Observed. Have a happy Pie Day!
It sifts from Leaden Sieves--
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road--
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain and of Plain--
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again--
It reaches to the Fence--
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces--
It deals Celestial Veil
To Stump and Stack--and Stem--
A Summer's empty Room--
Acres of Joints where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them--
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen--
Then stills its Artisans--like Ghosts,
Denying they have been--
-- Emily Dickinson
I don't take pictures at my workplace, which is why you are looking at an artistic representation of breakfast this morning in the cafeteria. It looked as if a bottle of blue food coloring had exploded: blue muffins (peach, not blueberry), blue poached eggs, biscuits injected with blue dye. Most spectacular of all was the sausage gravy, which was a brilliant light blue, like a vat of toothpaste. And everyone was wearing blue because today was Colts Day, in honor of Indianapolis' football team. At lunch they had a costume contest and a football-shaped pinata, and there may also have been more blue food; I'm not sure. I decided to go out for lunch.
My lifelong friend Katy, known on the blogosphere as Dr. Hausfrau, is in town visiting from Germany, along with her two brilliant and adorable children. (Margaret is the one seen here.)
It was too hard to get a close-up of William, because he was in constant motion! We went on a walk to the playground with my mother and Mimi.
It's a great playground with ladders, bridges, slides, bars, swings, and all sorts of things to climb on.
William directed all of us to climb onto his tugboat, where he was the captain. "Here comes another ship!" my mother said. "Steer around and blow your horn!" Mimi suggested. Then there was a storm, and we all went down the slide into the sea.
I'm so happy to have them all here in town for a little while!
Here are some of the pieces (unfinished) that I've been working on this weekend.
Lately I've been inspired by the gold wreaths made in Macedonia during the fourth century B.C., like this one ...
... and like this beautiful wreath from the Getty's collection! Maybe someday -- after my dissertation is done -- I'll have the time and skill to make something this elaborate.
My San Diego pictures are back! I carried a disposable digital camera around with me all week, and these are the results. This is where we stayed, at the gorgeous Hotel Occidental.
Our neighborhood had recently been reclaimed as a touristy area with parks, shopping centers, and lots of little hotels. Before that it was San Diego's red light district, and our hotel was a brothel.
Now it's just a lovely old building with a colorful past.
The rooms weren't fancy, but they were very cute and had everything we needed: a great kitchen, big closets, and a sunny balcony.
David spent most of his time in job interviews, looking sharp in a suit and tie.
If you look closely at the back seat of this cab, you can see David on his way to an interview.
The best part of the trip for me was getting to see Louise, who drove down to San Diego for a day and whisked me away to have a picnic at the Wild Animal Park. I had no idea a place like this even existed: a huge valley in the mountains where they breed all sorts of endangered animals and let them roam around. Here Louise is exchanging looks with some kind of bird -- a crane, or maybe an ibis?
We saw rhinos, including a baby who was asleep next to its mother and looked like a copy of her in miniature. We also saw giraffes, okapi, condors, the tiniest baby elephant, porcupines sleeping in the treetops, and a pudu who was happily munching fern fronds.
The Wild Animal Park is also a botanical garden with all kinds of lush tropical plants.
The weather was gorgeous, cool and sunny, and it was the perfect day to visit the bonsai garden, which had the most beautiful bonsai trees I've ever seen. On our way home, strangely, we saw a man selling his bonsais from his truck. We stopped to look but didn't buy anything.
For almost a week David and I had a little break from the cold, rainy Bloomington winter, and we both enjoyed it so much! Now it's back to dissertation, research, and work, and waiting to see what happens next.
... and then a duet with Janice, which was beautiful.
Then the stage filled with dancers in brightly-colored dresses ...
... and at last the big finale!
We're back from San Diego, and it was wonderful! I don't have my own pictures processed yet, but this is exactly what the city looked like on our first night as we were driving in from the airport. I found it here, and if you click on the photo, you will see the caption: "Moon occluded by clouds over San Diego."
We spent New Year's Eve with Jennifer and John. It's our tradition to get together and play board games until midnight.
We drank these very fizzy pomegranate-ginger champagne cocktails.
At midnight we all pulled the crackers that Jennifer and John had brought, revealing small toys, strange jokes, and comic hats.
After the ball dropped, some of us wanted to try out the new karaoke program that our cable service offers, while others wanted to watch a Richard Dawkins lecture on C-Span. In the end we did both: a chorus of "Walk Like an Egyptian," then a snippet of The God Delusion. We sang and danced until very late, or very early in the morning.
Happy New Year!! (You'll have to imagine the plastic horn noise. Actually we had to imagine it too, since this little horn that I got in my cracker didn't make any noise!)
