The kindness, not of strangers, but of friends

Yesterday, my car's engine started overheating, and so I dropped it off at our local mechanic (and, it needs always to be said, he's absolutely amazingly fantastic). Of course, since I dropped it off late in the afternoon, I knew he wouldn't be able to get to it until Monday, but that's okay.

Then this morning, LOML mentioned that one of the minivan's tires was looking rather low --- and so we decided that we couldn't drive that --- leaving us marooned. But fortunately, we have friends, and have been loaned a van for a couple of days. So thanks, JA! for asking your father, and thanks, JA! for lending us the van!

Yours, hoping that we can be as helpful to others as others are to us,
N.

An ending

And so another year's research program is over -- at least the part where the students stay here and meet with us on a daily basis. They've all worked extremely hard and done very well, and I hope that in a year or so we'll have a two or three published papers come out of it.
We all had lunch today -- at a rather less fancy restaurant than dinner last night! -- then said our goodbyes. Always a little painful, but such is life. And there is a good chance that we'll meet up again in a few years, after they've gone through graduate school and they are professional academics themselves:-)

Yours, as mentor,
N.

Final Dinner

Or, the Last Supper, as it were. We persuaded the research students that for the last night they are all in town we ought to go out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. And of course, that meant we had to go to LOML and my favourite restaurant, the Japanese place on the lake.
It was, as ever, lovely. They seated the seventeen of us in their separate room, with what look like paper screens (actually rather sturdier plastic) affording us some privacy.
A very pleasant -- if a little pricey -- and delicious evening.

Yours, stuffed on sushi,
N.

7/8/9

I believe that the correct way to count dates is either SML or LMS.
Either way, the US version of middle-endinian is irrational in the extremes (or perhaps, in the middle).
As such, my preferred celebration of 12:34:56 7/8/9 will be the 7th of August, not the 8th of July.

Yours, big-endian, or is that small-endian,
N

7/7

I'm struck, once again, by the resilience, fortitude, and just plain ability to ignore adversity of the British. I've mentioned before the different ways that the UK and the US responded to their respective acts of terrorism: but today I'd forgotten the date, until it appeared in an unrelated place, and I thought "Oh. July 7th". Most immediately I was struck by the fact that I'd seen no reminders in the US media, blogs, twit-head-streams, etc.
I checked the major newspapers: some of them appeared at first glance to have nothing: others had a small sub-head buried deep in their webpage mentioning that Prince Charles commiserated with families of victims at a memorial ceremony. But that was it. Four years on, it's not forgotten, but the nation has moved on.
Some day, we over here will react with the same sang froid. But not until we catch the Englishman's usual bloodly cold (bad translation intended).

Yours, thinking we need a little more sang froid over here sometimes,
N.

A holiday

Since July 4th was a Saturday this year, my institution nominated the following Monday as the "holiday" to be taken in lieu. Which meant that I was going to have to take today off, and teach on Saturday to make up for the missed day.
Well, my students all thought this silly, so I spend the holiday teaching instead.
I'd rather have all of next weekend to myself, thank you.

But we did manage to go swimming in the afternoon, without any thunder to force us out of the pool for half an hour. LOML had taken the kids a lot last week, but this was my first time to go in about two weeks, so it was wonderful.

Yours, swimmingly,
N.

How long does a blog last?

Having been writing now for a year or two, and having seen others similarly expressive for a while, then choose to stop writing, I'm taken to wondering: how long does a blog last?
How long before an early post is never again looked at, never?
How long after the last post before the whole thing disappears?
How long, after you post, before you are forgotten?

Yours, just wondering,
N.

Bash #8

The party's over: the guests have all gone, and LOML is putting the children to bed. I've walked the dog up to the square and back, and am about to collapse -- as is usual after this bash.
We have a major party every year on the 4th of July: this is our eighth annual such bash, one for each year we've had undergraduate students learning how to do research. We figured that first year that we'd an obligation to make the students feel at home, so we would throw a Memorial Day party, and then for much the same reasons, we'd throw a party for the 4th of July too. And both traditions have stuck.

Now, if LOML and I could just learn how to throw a minimalist party....

Yours, maximalistly speaking,
N.

Lots of fun, but little cooking

Today we were entertaining a friend of mine, visiting from far away --- last night we went to dinner (of course, at our only restaurant worth patronising) and had a lovely meal, just LOML, the children, my visitor and me. The children were incredibly well behaved, which was very nice, and they ate a good amount of sushi and sashimi.
Today, the students and I took our guest out for lunch and dinner: much less impressive, but great fun nonetheless. And then this afternoon, after commiserating about the loss (Murray, at tennis) we laughed at the spectacle of Palin attempting to spin resignation as a step forward.

As for cooking for tomorrow, right now, that looks like that's for tomorrow.

Yours, in postponement,
N.

Back to basics

Food.
Rolling out puff pastry (for sausage rolls).
Slicing ginger and garlic, to simmer in vinegar, sugar, molasses, etc, to make a barbecue sauce: tomorrow, marinating ribs and wings in the sauce.
Preparing a poolish for the breads I'm going to make (probably breads, foccacia,
pizzas).

All things that can be done a day or two ahead, to help mitigate the fact that I'm in the middle of a couple of the busiest weeks I've ever experienced, and am planning to host our big annual July 4th party in two days. Fortunately LOML is, as always, being wonderful, especially by preparing all sorts of amazing desserts, salads and salsas.

Yours, in preparation,
N.