Family Up(in-the-air)date

Well, life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughville, although for me, life has been full of cancellations.  I'm feeling fine after my visit from the Covid Fairy, but since I'm still testing positive, I'm taking advantage of my sabbatical to sit home alone . . . meaning I've canceled running (4 times), biking (once or twice), giving blood, serving breakfast at the soup kitchen, holding a dinner party, going to Spanish class, meeting in person with my research students, . . . there's so much not to do these days!

I'm not doing it all alone (or at least, I'm not doing it all with Prewash).  She very much likes going for  long walks with me, and curling up beside me while I read novels, and greeting passers-by when I move out to the front porch.   My husband, on the other hand, is doing rather than not doing; he's bopping all around Europe, and his letter read like "Where in the world is Ofsnough SanDiego?"

I am writing from Kanaan, about to ride up to Frankenstein's castle for the third time. 

They have amazing tomatoes at Kanaan

On arrival from America, my flight to Amsterdam was cancelled. The rebooked flight six hours later boarded two hours late then sat on the runway for more than an hour. 

My sleep area at Gatwick.

And support for Ukraine at The Hague.

I went to the Escher museum in Amsterdam. I will post photos on the blog. Fascinating to see his paintings in person. 

Tomorrow I will meet a guest at Kanaan building houses for refugees in Poland. 

. . . 

The next day was a long train trip to Frankfurt where Cliff picked me up.  We drove back toward the monastery and ate sushi and udon on the way.  They don’t serve a lot of sushi in the monastery.  The next day I rode up to Frankenstein’s castle twice. In between Cliff and I went for a long walk and talked about how different the universe looks (and the God who made it) when there is no Hell. We both read a book by David Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian who believes in universalism. 

. . .  

Dinner was pizza with the brothers. Then we went to Wiesbaden to see Oppenheimer.  When the nude scene happened Cliff said, “I thought they might not have nudity in a physics movie.” I made the motion of smoking a joint and offering a hit.  When Oppy visited Jean in a later scene, I warned Cliff a minute in advance it might be a good time to hit the Boys Room. He toughed it out.  

Yesterday we walked along the Rhine and ate wurst and pomme frittes for lunch. Then I took another ride up to Frankenstein.  This morning we met a Ukrainian Army Chaplain and an American pastor who was traveling with him in Ukraine. 

Now I am on the train to Vienna.  My plan as of this moment is to go to Slovenia next then to Grenoble, but I'm not sure. I also will need a laundromat in the next day or two. . . . 

Vienna was amazing. 16.5 miles walking yesterday. Every place I am going on this trip is a place I was in before but either meeting or riding and saw almost nothing. 

I am in Geneva right now. It was an 11-hour train ride here from Vienna. I had the best conversation on the train with a Chinese comp sci professor and an Austrian teacher. It was almost three hours. I'm going to make it a blog post. 

Tomorrow is Grenoble after walking around Geneva.

So, that's where my guy is.  Got it all?  

And my kids?  Well some of them are up in the air.  

Gosling:  A couple friends of ours had 2 extra Tix for a tethered hot air balloon ride yesterday. First balloon ride! Now I want to do one of the full flights.

 

Y:  So cool! How would you describe the feeling?

Gosling: More primal then airplane flight and warmer, since you are right below the flames making the heat to float you around.

 

OfSnough's good advice: It's very bad to stand near the flames in jet aircraft ;)

 

Me:  Oh my gosh. My mom's best friend used to do a lot of ballooning; she often was in the chase car following balloons, but when we were kids, we got one of those tethered rides. It brings back memories! It's much louder than you'd think -- the flame machine makes loud noise!

Sizzling was a different kind of up in the air, bouncing in a Human-Sized paddle ball, apparently. She sent a movie, but I'll just show two still shots:

Kindering says,

I would legit throw up lol.

I love roller coasters, but will never ride that hope y'all had fun!!!

To which Nelson responded with a picture of his lunch.

And then there's the kind of lunch a person (or a dog) could only hope to have . . . here's a hopeful beast doing some window shopping, so to speak.  

Gosling:

When people talk about the thrill of tracking these animals, I am quite sure in different environments it is true. However, in RICHMOND CITY LIMITS it is a less onerous task to track these creatures. But for the window ole three legged Watson may have had a fighting chance at bringing that doe down.

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our air-dventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.