So, I hadn’t been back to PLU since graduation…have any of you? Anyway, that was until Friday when I spent the day there. I didn’t realize I missed the place that much, but I guess I did. It was so much fun catching up with old profs (btw, I look older while they look exactly the same!) and seeing all the new improvements on campus. For those of us whom apparently don’t keep up with the PLU Scene there’s a great new PLU bookstore on Garfield just past the post office, a huge new life sciences/engineering/technology building where the old MBR parking lot used to be and the UC is totally revamped. All the changes are pretty green and it looks like that was a major focus of the constructions overall (yay!). And not that other students at much larger, public institutions aren’t great (Go Dawgs!) but seriously those Lute kiddos are so, so nice. Apart from my current old Lute buddies, I forgot about how genuinely thoughtful those students were/are….hope they don’t get jaded and keep the “I can save the world one person at a time” attitudes.

Anyhoo, I was there to give a talk to my old dept. It was a little surreal but also so great. I miss that environment and those people and it was wonderful to take a trip down memory lane to see where I (we) came from.

after walking past these bruised looking apricots for a week or two, i decided to stop and give them a try. turns out, they are not apricots, but (as evident from the title of this post) a strange fruit called nefles. that was a bit of a “duh” moment, because it is not apricot season. and they were even displayed with the other seasonal fruits. i’ll blame it on usually trying to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible due to cranky muchkins. i did a google search on them once i got home and wasn’t able to find much info, but did come across this blog entry that talks about them (scroll down a bit to the pic of the nefles). the ones i got are not nearly as juicy as the orangette blog person (who incidentally seems to have her priorities straight as far as traveling goes) describes, so i will have to get some to sit around and ripen a bit. wonder of wonders–even picky niamh liked them!

It may be official now. I must be considered a fertility good luck charm. Jeremy’s best man is now expecting twins after his wife had a fetility treatment right around the time of our wedding. Did I mention my Cosin Jenny is expecting again as well. That’s why I feel completely positive about the latest additon to the Swiss Family. All will be well. Trust me. I’m pretty sure my Swiss Miss got a good dusting of my fertility magic at a critical time. Positive, Happy, Healthy thoughts!!!

It seems to be standard procedure to do more ultrasounds here than in the states. I had one at my first appointment, and another at about 13 weeks. My doctor said that the thickness of the baby’s neck was on the high end of normal. Good Lord. Are we really going to have to go through this all again? Looks like it because she sent the results off to be analyzed. Went to see her yesterday for the results. Instead of the eight hundred and some chance of downs that someone of my age should have, there is a four hundred and some chance of downs. So we have to go to a specialist in Lausanne in a few weeks to have another ultrasound done on a higher machine. She said that this doesn’t mean I will need an amnio or anything, but come on. I’m not kidding myself, I’m sure that’s where this is headed. I’m trying to convince myself of what I know is most likely true–that this baby is just going to be ginormous like Niamh was. But it’s hard not to worry.

Ferris wheel from SoCal pier on sale; sorry, no ocean view
4-15-08
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — It won’t come with the ocean views, but you can still catch some thrills from riding your very own Ferris wheel, taken straight from the Santa Monica Pier.

The nine-story wheel that’s been at Pacific Park since 1996 was put up for sale Tuesday on eBay.

The wheel overlooking the Pacific has 20 gondolas and is outlined in 5,392 light bulbs. It has provided some 3 million rides and has been seen in movies, on television and in numerous photos.

Next month, however, the Pacific Wheel will be replaced by a $1.5 million modern model.

The old wheel is operational and still in “great” shape, said Cameron Andrews, a spokesman for the amusement park.

The wheel cost $800,000 when it was built. It was modified in 1998 to become the world’s first solar-powered Ferris wheel.

The auction will last 10 days and the minimum price is $50,000. Half the winning bid – minus fees – will be donated to the Special Olympics.

A support base for the wheel costs another $135,000, Andrews said.

And, the buyer must handle shipping costs for the 122,000-pound wheel.

So I ended up attending a church service this Sunday for mini’s baptism. Mini did great! He didn’t fuss at all during the service and he didn’t cry when they crossed him with water on the top of his head. I was a very proud Auntie! I caught most of the children’s service which was highly enjoyable. They had a goat puppet, named Gaston, who cracked me up. The baptism was pretty awesome–there is something very powerful about being a witness to a ritual. The guy who baptized mini was: the camp director where Mrs. Johnson’s mother was the camp nurse (Mrs. Johnson was just a year old then) and the same person who married Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Plus my gpa was there so it made it very special.

i made a new food discovery today. it is not swiss, but since it is the best tasting thing i’ve eaten since that tuna sandwich went down so well 3 weeks ago, i am going to post about it.

tried this quesadilla looking italian thing called piadina today for lunch (from the frozen food section at the migros on the corner). lo and behold it WAS just like an italian quesadilla. really really tasty. it was stuffed (in quesadilla shape) with herbs, mozarella, ham, and tomato sauce.

and then to find out more about this new taste sensation, i did a google search and came up with this cook & eat blog entry: http://cookandeat.com/2008/02/21/more-piadina-please/ (why the $%&* can’t i link it?). oh cruel world!!! et tu google? not a nice thing to do. so everyone please go down to la spiga and try it out and please take pictures so i can live vicariously through you all. or does everyone already know about la spiga and piadina? i suppose while i’m at it i could stop feeling sorry for myself and find a good italian restaurant here that has piadina. maybe finally call up that nice american high school girl in the building next door and get a babysitter for an evening.

on a side note, does anyone else think it’s funny that both italy and mexico, oceans apart physically as well as culturally, have both developed a food item so darn similar? cool. though for some reason italian food and mexican food remind me of each other in an odd way. maybe it’s the salsa and the tomato sauce?

on another note, my morning sickness is almost gone, which is helping a lot with the homesickness. so that’s good.

So we’ve been watching a little more TV since we have get to hang out with the little J man. We have Comcast cable, which I love to hate. Or just hate. But anyway, something I’ve been getting a kick out of lately — the switched their online menus last year. Used to have a system created by Microsoft. The new system is annoying, but I get a kick out of the descriptions you get when browsing through the programs.All the movies have a 1 -4 star rating. And there doesn’t seem to be much grade inflation — there’s pretty few 4 star movies and 1 stars pop up pretty often. But there’s a serious disconnect between the star rating and the description. While the ratings seem to be critical, negative words are few and far between. In fact, 1 star movies quite often have glowing reviews.Witness this review of Haven, a 1 star movie starring Orlando Bloom (emphasis mine):”Interlocking and cleverly involving tales of love, greed, drugs, racism and double-crosses in the Cayman Islands mark this pulse-pounding crime drama. Orlando Bloom plays a fisherman who falls for a black islander and runs afoul of her brother.”

I am very happy to report that Pedro appears to be doing much, much better. He didn’t cry or whimper at all. He ate up his Rymadal with out any coaching which is great since that’s his anti-inflamatory. With Jeremy’s help I was able to give him most of his liquid pain meds with a lot less fighting. The first time I gave it to him he ran into his xpen, crouched down in the corner, and then turned his back to me. This meant that I had to crawl inside with him and wrangle his head and pry open his puppy jaw that he was trying to clamp down and then feed him his meds. He went for a long walk yesterday and a short walk this morning. I was very pleased that he was clipping along a a good pace and his injured area appears to be fully functioning.

Thank you all for your healing vibes. I think they have been doing their work. I talked to my mom yesterday. Gma is getting lots of visitors and my mom thinks that gma is more comfortable in the hospital. They’re still not sure what is causing her symptoms. We’re guessing it’s just pain and stress & pain-stress. She’s still fighting though. She asked my mom to look up this Osteoporosis procedure and my mom was really impressed that she’s always looking for something. I’m in awe of my gma b/c she has so much hope and a vast well of spunky determination to not give up. Pedro got through his surgery okay. He was miserable yesterday which was horrible for me. He wants to sit down or lay down b/c of his lame leg but he can’t do it comfortably b/c his bottom is so sore from his a-sack rupture and surgery. He’s back in a cone again so he doesn’t worry at his surgery site. They had to put this giant cone on him because he’s pretty crafty due to his extensive past cone experience. It was terrible becaue he was crying and big puppy tears leaked out of his sad brown eyes. He made more wimpering noises yesterday than he ever did with his other surgeries. I’m just a ball of stress. I don’t know if they doped him up enough yesterday. He was very alert when we went to pick him up yesterday. He practically jumped into Jeremys arms as soon as the tech got into the room. His eyes weren’t glassy at all. He didn’t even nap that much compared to what he does normally. He is eating and drinking so I guess that is a plus. And the vet said we could call if we needed to.