Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

Do you ever have those moments in your life when, just for a short time, it all makes sense? That is exactly what happened this weekend at Temple University’s Honors Program reunion. Matthias extended his stay here so he could attend with me.

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far way, there was a transfer student from Bucks County Community College who decided she was going to go to Temple. Granted, this decision was based on little more than the fact that they were commutable from my parent’s place, affordable, accepted me and had a physics program, but destiny takes us where we need to go.

To make a long story short, I found the Honors program and, most importantly, Dieter and Ruth. They were the directors of the program at the time I arrived and going back to this reunion made me realize what an incredible impact the two of them have had on me - I could go on and on for days. Matthias saw the influence instantly upon meeting Ruth who was wearing a Fabulous crazy-quilt coat - something Matthias identified as ‘very Tammy.’ He also learned that my love and overuse of the word ‘Fabulous’ (with a capital ‘F’) has its origins in Ruth-dom.

The reunion was great. I didn’t know many of the more recent alumni, but I found a few people I had lost touch with and we had such fun catching up! I had really lost touch with Rachel, this fabulous guitar playing, sharp-minded, ageless wonder of a woman, who had been in Colorado after graduation. A few of us took the party back to Ruth’s afterwards where we really got a chance to reconnect.

Ruth’s home is what I hope my home becomes one day. It is filled with loving thoughtful images that make you feel at home as soon as you walk in the door. Following a much honored Temple Honor’s tradition, my fabulous skirt from H&M found a new owner when I gave it to Ruth who adored it - with anyone else in the world, with the exception of Leah, that might seem strange. I was clever enough to take along a pair of pants to keep me bum covered on the blustery autumn evening.

Matthias and I acquired Dieter and Sammy’s road atlas in order to find my parent’s place at 1:30 in the morning - many thanks Dieter and Sammy! I think it was a very symbolic parting at the end of the Honor’s reunion given the amount of direction Dieter has given my life in the past 11 years. The joke went out at the reception that I got along so well with Dieter that I had to go find my own German Physicist

Best of all, Matthias got to become a part of the this big piece of me. He felt the ‘vibe’ of this group of people immediately. Ruth said that was natural as I couldn’t have married anyone who didn’t get ‘it.’ I feel so lucky to be part of this, and I am looking forward to seeing how many more interesting things pop out of the Honor’s vibe.

So Shenandoah Park was pretty beautiful. It was a long, relaxing drive at 55 mph down to the park. The highways here are a lot slower than the Autobahn, but everyone just cruises along on the weekends. I makes for pleasant driving. The leaves were colorful, and the sun felt great even though I was incredibly sleepy thanks to a jet-lagged Matthias We both really enjoyed just being surrounded by nature. We even walked on the Appalachian trail for about 20 minutes and had a great conversation on war (not a great topic, but a great conversation). We have a few more photos of the afternoon on our photos page.

We decided to go see Mt. Vernon on Sunday - there are photos floating around one one of our cameras. It was a beautiful drive along the Potomac to get there. We had to pay $13 to go into to the grounds, and, in principle, to go on the tour of the mansion. We saw a long line of people standing in line to get into the mansion and decided that we’d rather check out the grounds. We hung out on the front lawn for a good long while and chatted about life while enjoying the view. The grounds are really wonderful. We took a long walk around the farm. We saw sheep, hogs (we learned that ‘pigs’ become ‘hogs’ when they are over 100 pounds), and two huge bulls. I was amused to hear one older gentleman on the grounds ask his wife, “They say that Washington had slave, but do you think they were real slaves or do you think he paid them?” I thought that was precious. I think I ruined it for the poor man when I told him that they were, in fact, actual slaves, and some of those slaves produced offspring from our dear first president (though I don’t know that they have been genetically verified like the slave decedents of Jefferson).

After our walk, we attempted to check out the mansion because the line was gone. We quickly saw that going on the tour required you to stand in a line all the way through the house. We decided we were happy to skip the tour for now. It gives us an excuse to go back. In the end, we got to experience the best part of Mt. Vernon, the nature. Washington has a nice piece of land, and most people aren’t interested in checking it out. The tourists seemed huddled in lines going into and out of the mansion. The grounds are quite peaceful.

This week has been pretty active. I have been working on a bunch of things at the office. My scope of work for the year is growing exponentially! My newest project is a study on the governance of international scientific programs! This week, I am getting to see my first panel meeting for determining who gets grant money. It’s really interesting to see how the process actually works from the stand point of the people with the money. I also did a yoga practice with my first private client here in Arlington on Tuesday; he tracked me down through Gary’s website and asked if I could help him with some problems he has been having. It was really nice to teach again and see a person connect with something I was introducing to them. We’ll see how long it continues.

Matthias has been running around and making trouble. He and I went to a cool talk on “The Trouble with Physics: The Rise and Fall of String Thoery” by Lee Smolin yesterday. It was a pretty good talk, and I loved that the only people who asked questions at the end were astronomers! (That would be me and guy in my division) Matthais ended up buying a copy of the speaker’s book because he enjoyed it so much - he has disappeared into it already. Today, he went to the Univserity of Maryland and got a chance to talk to some researchers on their work and some of the new stuff he is doing back in Regensburg. They were really interested in both his onld and new stuff.

In the past few days, we have realized that Matthias has picked up a terrible habit in his English. After visiting Phoenix, he decided that sentences like “I ain’t doin’ nothin’” were really funny to say. Unfortunately, ‘nothin’ has started to replace ‘anything’ in normal sentences! It’s like he’s slowly turning into a redneck! He caught himself twice today! I made a promise to start attempting to speak properly around him…. Some of you might know how difficult that is for me.

It’s really nice to have Matthias here right now. The apartment doesn’t feel lonely at all when he’s here! I don’t know how he does it, but I am just so relaxed when he’s around. Unfortunately, I sleep more as a result. It’s like I can’t rest until he’s with me, and when he comes, I just collapse into a sleepy stupor for a few days. I think I am finally starting to catch up on the sleep; he can’t figure out why I am sleeping all the time when we are apart extended periods of time. He doesn’t know if he should take it as a complement or an insult :-).

Matthias arrived safely!!! We drove home in our Mercedes (rental) and he passed out a couple of hours later. Of course, to my delight, he was wide awake at 4:30 this morning. We decided IHOP was the place for breakfast as it’s around the corner, and he hasn’t been to IHOP in a long time. I am so sleepy now. We are off to Shenandoah Park for a nice drive.

I am almost as excited about FINALLY getting DSL at home as I am to see Matthias!!!

I am not being a very good blogger, I know. I have been at a severe disadvantage lately because I have no DSL at home! I am just not inspired to blog at the moment because I don’t get the satisfaction of posting something from home. I just have to make it until Sunday!

The lack of internet access is affecting how I function these days. I arrived at work this morning only to find that I was supposed to be in D.C. at a workshop! I keep half of my brain on the computer, and if I don’t bother to turn on the computer in the morning then I screw myself up, like I did today. I used to be able to function without a computer…..

Matthias did get me a pocket PC a while ago, which, in theory has my entire schedule on it. I haven’t gotten into the habit of starting my day by looking at it. Then I have the added complication that my work and home computers have some differences in the schedules. Does anyone know if I can synch the Outlook calender between my two computers?

Enough tech-talk. I am recovering from my first weekend alone in Arlington. It was quiet, and I got a lot of exercise. I went for a walk to explore on Sunday, and I ended up wandering for about 2 hours or so after looking to the position of the sun for a guide to go in the general direction of my targeted destination. Upon arriving, I bought myself some maps of the local area. On Saturday, I took advantage of one of the fringe benefits of living in the area and went to the national gallery of art. They have a lot of nice pieces. There are two French painters (I’ll have to look up their names) that I really liked. One painted a lot of crazy jungle images. I’d like to get some prints for the apartment.

Matthias is at a conference for the next couple of days. He’s giving a talk on his work, so I am excited for him. I’ll call him after I publish this post. Once he gets back home, he’ll have just one day before he gets on a plane to come and see me!! I can’t wait. Maybe my life will feel more normal once he’s here. My brain is still trying to figure out what’s going on. It keeps trying to figure out when I am going to Newport beach or Kaminski’s soon…… my dreams are a mix of places at the moment.

I just got invited to speak about science policy at a big physics meeting in March. I am honored to be asked to speak and everything, but the coolest part is that it is the main physics meeting in the U.S., and I will, most likely run into a bunch of friends! Plus it’s in Colorado, which is always cool. I hope I am not far from Leah!

So, I am sitting in LAX as I write, even though I won’t post until tomorrow morning when I get into the office. I usually write pages of thoughts in my journal while I sit in airports, but I forgot mine this trip. I guess this will have to do.

I just spent the weekend in Orange County visiting Angelo and Christele, and the cutest baby in the world, Giovanni! It was great to meet him and hold him all weekend. Hopefully I gave mom and dad a bit of a break from their duties. They did find enough time to make some fabulous meals! (Were talking King Crab and Lobster!)

I didn’t expect to feel like I was coming home again. Sean, who normally resides in Florida these days, was in town too. When I told him it was nice to be here, he said, “It’s nice to come home again isn’t it.” I didn’t realize that I did feel home again here in California until I heard him say that. What is it about this place that hits me right in the heart? Maybe it’s the flip-flops (I hate shoes). Matthias and I felt it in the summer too - not about the flip-flops, that just a recent theory of mine.

Home is a strange concept at the moment. I am not sure what it means, but I know when it’s missing and when I feel at home. Matthias is at his home in Beckum this weekend, and I was here at home with friends. We’ll both go back ‘home’ afterwards - me to Virginia and him to Regensburg…..very strange feeling. Life is cycling around in a way I don’t quite understand yet. Not that long ago, I was here, living in the same apartment while Matthias was at his parent’s place looking for jobs. It’s almost deja vu!

Sometimes when I am travelling all over the world and doing things that sound impressive from the outside (from the inside, my life is always pretty ordinary), my life feels like a movie; it’s like all of the activity is just going on outside of me even though I am in the middle of it. This is one of those times. It’s as though I am just waiting around for my ‘real life’ to continue. During these times, I have this strange sense of profound calm because, after all, I am just observing. The rest of the time, my ‘real life’ is just being lived and I get caught up in all of the stress and details. Is it strange to sometimes feel like an observer of your own life?

PS - just a tip for anyone planning on taking a sleep aid before a red-eye flight - don’t take the sleep aid until AFTER you are 100% sure that the plane will be taking off on time. Otherwise you appear a bit drunk in the terminal while trying to stay conscious before the flight…