Spring Snow
11.05.04

So yeah, it's the usual two-month gap between entries. Ah well. I'm home on a snowy day, figure I've got time for a quick update before hopping on the indoor trainer for an hour then collecting my daughter. I could be painting the bathroom, but oh well.

After three months as an "hourly" contractor, having barely missed a day's work, I finally have the long-anticipated week or so off between projects. The theory was I'd dig out a chunk of the back lawn and put in a brick patio. Sadly, spring snowstorms have delayed those plans, so it's just me, the cat and a stack of library books. I am not unhappy. Soon I will be restless, but not today. It's quite delightful, a very pleasant way to recover from a cold.

So here's the quick news. We're off to Germany for July and August, having successfully arranged a house-and-car-swap with a fellow academic in Potsdam. I've been working more or less steadily, not particularly unpleasantly. I finished speedskating in March and skiing in April, and have begun the summer sports, inline skating and cycling, as much as time and weather permit. I've bought new skates and plan to race as much as time and marriage permit once we're back in Berlin. (Mads will have day care for language immersion purposes, so I'll have lots of time for training, writing and loafing about.)

Annette and I are furiously landscaping: the front lawn will be a giant perennial bed with gravel paths, various things have been done in the back and it will all culminate in a patio sometime soon. More work remains on the house, of course, but it can wait until we get back in September.

The cat is well, if a little peeved by the sudden return of winter. Maddy is a head taller and smarter than both of us put together.

Oh yeah - Go Flames Go! Jump on that bandwagon.