Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

After roughly two months of angelic behavior, K is once again in what we’re guessing are the throes of teething.  At least, all four first-year molars are coming in (and have been for over a month) and she’s stopped sleeping, eating, and playing like usual.  Here’s hoping we last longer than she does.  She has been quite well-behaved for the grandparents, which is both lovely (I mean, that’s the goal, right?) and slightly maddening (they’re never going to believe us when we explain why we’re slightly haggard).

Erin

The internet guy was here today, enabling us to step back into the online world.

But where is “here,” you might ask?

Sydney, Katherine, and I are living in a log house just down the road from Sydney’s parents, in Berwick, Nova Scotia, at the end of a dead-end country road.  Between the “rustic” antiques that populate the house and the road that turns to gravel just at our place, it does feel like we’re in the middle of the country.  But the highway’s within hearing distance and, apparently, we’re not out of the reach of high-speed cable internet.

I will do my best to post pictures of the house, since it really is interesting.  Admittedly, I nearly despaired when I stepped inside it.  Why?  There are lots of antiques that either Katherine will break or that may break her, as well as a spiral staircase that she was immediately drawn to–and that would be a big problem if we left it unblocked.  But there are many interesting things: the thickness of the logs keeps us cool as the hot weather settles in, there is a loft that we’ve just set up for our books and papers, and there’s a rather cozy bedroom and a surprisingly comfortable metal bathtub with wood trim, both of which are tucked under the loft.  It is probably a better house for, say, us in our honeymooning days than it is for a young family, since the house is entirely open (as in, we can carry on a conversation as we move throughout the house).  We’ll see how well the loft retreat keeps Katherine’s noise-making capacities at bay.

The best benefit, of course, is that it’s a ten-minute stroll down the road to the Penner farm, so Katherine will have regular interactions with her grandparents.  She’s already learning about the greatness of farm dirt and elusive barn cats.

But to give you a sense of the interesting things we’re discovering around the house: a bear rug, a stuffed bear, an antler chandelier, a good three dozen wooden birds or ducks, a snowshoe mold from the 19th century, two butter churns, a female mannequin from the sixties (shod in pumps) outfitted in American Indian leather gear and headdress, a full-size American Indian statue (complete with tomahawk, knife, and arrows), a dozen rocking chairs, a pool table that doubles as a dining room table when covered, two large spinning wheels, and a two-foot-long snapping turtle (preserved).

Erin

Today was filled with packing and phone calls, but tonight Mom and I walked through town (and up to the high school, which was, reassuringly, still very much the same), and we made tacos for dinner.  Adam (my brother) and Shannon (his girlfriend) joined us, and we all settled onto the deck with large plates.  Absolutely delicious.  It has been pretty blisteringly hot in the past week, but for the last two days we’ve had gorgeous weather, turning almost chilly in the evenings.  After dinner Dad started up a fire, and we migrated to the front of the house, where we formed a ring around the fire and lazily ate s’mores.  After Katherine went to bed we really settled in, and after Adam and Shannon had to leave the neighbors joined us, so we made the most of an evening of teasing, eating, and catching up.  Really a lovely, lovely night.

Erin

It’s been a frustrating few days for us, as both Sydney and I have been on the phone a lot recently, calling up one business after another.  He’s trying to hunt up internet service for us, replace the fridge in the cabin, etc., and I’m talking to both our health insurer and doctors’ offices to make sense of bills that just came in.  And we’ve both been calling UPS, since our packages have spent over a month getting from New York to Nova Scotia.  Sigh.

But I’ve just about finished packing, it looks like everything will fit (despite Grandma Birdsong’s habit of buying new clothes for Katherine at the drop of a hat), and we are hoping that by tomorrow evening the Penner family will be reunited in Nova Scotia.  I’m starting to have dreams about living down the hall from Sydney and not being able to explain to our RA’s that we’re married and should closer to each other, particularly since we have a daughter.  Yes, it’s definitely time to go home.

Erin

I was running through the various things I need to pack before Katherine and I fly out on Wednesday.  Sydney has some of our clothes and nearly all of our books, so all I really need is a ticket, passports, and some food/distraction for Katherine, right?

Wrong.

It doesn’t matter that I will be bringing my daughter to her father; from the viewpoint of immigration officials it looks like I’m taking my child from her home country without the presence of her father.  As in, I might well be kidnapping my own child.  So I need a signed letter from Sydney saying that I have permission to leave the country with her.  If he were to travel alone with her he’d need the same from me.

Good thing that suddenly dawned on me today, when we still have time to get a letter faxed from Nova Scotia!

Erin

When I was in Portland Sydney and I were at the far extremes of the North American continent.  He was, however, suddenly (roughly) as close to Katherine as I was–two time zones apart. Freaky.

Part of the reason for the relative inactivity on our blog recently has been the sheer volume of email between my parents and me (how’s Katherine doing?  is she sleeping well?) and between Sydney and me (how’s the conference?  how are you settling into our summer cabin?).  So, although we were quite far apart we actually learned a lot of the day-by-day activities in all three locations.  And, lest I have failed to mention it before, Sydney has a fabulous writing voice; I’m sure that’s part of the reason I’m not as keen on phone calls when he’s away as everyone else seems to think I should be.  The writing’s quite nice 🙂  It also reminds me of when we were dating and would send instant messages between our dorms.  An odd form of nostalgia, I suppose, given that we often now talk about our daughter in our written conversations.

Erin

After a great weekend in Portland I’m home again in Iowa.  Katherine seemed interested in playing with me this morning, though I didn’t get any sign of “Oh, you’re back!  I’m so glad to see you again!”  She was probably wondering why Grandma ran off to work.

I didn’t get great loads of work done, as I thought I might.  It seems that even when you don’t have a little one at your knee you still may have trouble getting things done!

I did, however, enjoy the roses in the “City of Roses” on my 2-mile walk to the grocery store, wonder frequently what kind of strange conifers I was looking at, and eat some great Cuban and Mexican food with my friends Steph and Jamie.  Always good when conference locations line up with the hometowns of friends.  I also stayed in a dorm for the first time in five years, and I laughed that the four-bedroom suite in which I was staying was considerably larger than our Ithaca apartment (these college students aren’t exactly roughing it).

Although I’m generally pretty outgoing, I’m a bit slow at introducing myself and starting conversations at conferences.  As usual, though, things picked up as the days went on and we had more to talk about, and I had a number of people introduce themselves after my talk and express interest in my project.  By the final night I found myself having an hour-and-a-half conversation with a lady down the hall–all while I stood in the door frame of the bathroom!

Erin

As I was flying to Portland yesterday I got gorgeous views of winding Dakota rivers, leaf-vein-like mountain ranges, and even magnificent Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood (at least, that’s the natives’ best guess as to what I saw).  I am not used to mountains towering over the cloud horizon.  And now, of course, I would like nothing better than to rent a car and go off to see the Columbia River Gorge, the mountains, and some beautiful waterfalls I am told are nearby.

But instead I’m gearing up for a long day of papers, mine among them.  The conference schedule has shifted so that a bigshot is now on my panel.  Which is why I will soon leave to run through my paper a couple of times!

Although yesterday began at 2am with a two-hour drive to the airport, things went well.  I didn’t sleep much, but found myself inclined to read articles for work.  After I got into town the public transportation worked smoothly, and I made it to my dorm housing on the University of Portland’s campus without incident.  Last night I went out for dinner and a walk with my friend Stephanie, a Cornell grad and a Portland native, and we had a fabulous time.  So incredibly wonderful to meet up with a very good friend and work our way through a thousand topics.

Erin

So here are the numbers for the trip:

• Species seen: 149
• Life birds seen: 28
• Individual birds recorded: 4250

To put the number of species seen into perspective, last year I saw 136 species in the entire year. So I’m very satisfied with the trip.

As Erin mentioned, now I’m settling into a cabin. It’s a very nicely built, large log cabin. We’ll definitely have more space than we’ve seen in a long time. But the stuff I’m finding in the cabin is rather interesting: a spinning wheel, an antique cabinet radio, a pool table, a stuffed bear, a bearskin rug, more dear heads and antlers than I can count, a wooden toilet, a double-barreled shotgun …

Sydney