Barb and Heather, part II

As I posted earlier, Barb and Heather Rhoads-Weaver are having a boy. He’s due September 15! No names as of yet and they seem to be leaning away from jinxing anything by saying their ideas aloud. I am all for that – very superstitious! Besides, Leah says that people say awful, awful things about baby names.

“Earl? That sounds like a gas station attendant!”

“Sally? Oh, Sally Rogers was the biggest slut in high school!”

The process they went through intrigued me and Barb was kind enough to share some details. I thought it might actually be something others might be interested in, too, and Barb and Heather agreed to go public.

So, my first question was how they chose who would carry the child. Evidently, Heather’s clock was ticking a bit louder than Barb’s and she’s also more established career-wise. They felt like she could take time off and still be in a position to get back in the game, as they say. What a great, fair way to be able to approach it. They are lucky!

They explored many options for sperm donors, including friends and friends-of-friends, but finally went with Rainbow Flag, a sperm bank that primarily serves gay and lesbian families. Their agreement includes that the organization releases the donor’s identity to them when their child is 3 months old AND the donor has already agreed to be known to the child.

And this was the part I thought was really interesting – how the hell do you choose a sperm donor for your child? In some ways, reviewing files and choosing based on questionnaires and forms seems distant and formal. On the other hand, it seems better than methods many women use. *ahem*

Barb said they ordered the profiles of some donors and picked the one that seemed healthiest. She said that the profiles were very detailed and extensive and that she even nixed one because he was a Republican! Um...can’t imagine what gay or lesbian couple would go Republican in any case, but some must. To each his or her own, I guess.

Exciting news was that Heather got pregnant on their first visit to the fertility doctor! But, as Barb pointed out, they didn’t really have a “fertility” problem but were actually just missing an ingredient!

If you are interested, Barb recommended the following clip from NPR’s Story Corp about sperm donors:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6691648&ft=1&f=1021

Congratulations, Barb and Heather!!

Babies, babies...

...and more babies!

Barb and Heather Rhoads-Weaver are expecting a little boy!

Congrats to the happy, happy parents-to-be!

(More on Barb and Heather's interesting experience to come, after a little editing. They were kind and patient enough to answer the questions of their straight, childless and admittedly naive friend!)

Melissa and Darin are having a baby...

...any minute now!

Here she is!

UB40 was right!

I don’t even know how to begin this story. It’s really absurd but, in the end, has significance. I’ll write about the absurdity first and then get deep with importance and meaning later.

So, Roland and I recently deemed our apartment open for visitors. Yes, after one year – it’s ready! We invited our first dinner guests and, of course, I chose foolishly. Both couples include amazing chefs and they’re all real Foodies. This was intimidating so I went to the family gourmet, Jen, and got a menu. We decided I would recreate the amazing pork loin she made for Easter. I needed a roast, bones in, “Frenched and tied.” Do with that what you will.

I had no idea what a pork loin was called in German and consulted my dictionary.

Schwein. I knew that part. But loin? Turns out, it's "Karree."

In any case, I figured I could do this. Nouns are easy - you just point.

I went to the butcher at the supermarket and said, "Ich möchte, bitte, eine Schweinekarree...mit sechs Knochen...alles zusammen...nur ein grosses Stück..." and pointed to the piece I wanted. (That roughly translates into, “I want a pork loin…, …um, er…with six bones…um, er…all together…uh…just in one big piece.” That makes sense, doesn’t it?)

He chopped off the piece I wanted and I happily watched him take my meat to the rear to package it. I was very proud of myself and marched out with my roast, successfully ordered auf Deutsch, BUT found when I got home that I had actually gotten six pork chops, no bones. All wrong.

I felt like an ass but decided to call my mother-in-law, wondering if there was some secret Viennese password for a proper pork loin. Neither she nor my father-in-law had any idea but my father-in-law offered to go to the store with me to help me get it straight. A couple hours later, he said something quite similar to the butcher. I understood every word and wondered what was really so different about what I had said. I watched the guy chop and prepare my perfect roast. Okay, whatever. I felt like a fool but I got my meat, thanks to my father-in-law and his pork loin password.

I went home, prepared the roast and rubbed it down. I trimmed the asparagus, whipped up some yummy potatoes and put the roast in the oven at 7. Our guests were due to arrive at 7:30, so I looked in on it around 7:20, only to find that the meat thermometer had exploded and sprinkled shards of glass all over my beautiful, sizzling roast!

Roland wanted to wash it off...that's why he has me...but luckily, I could pull out the first order of meat and quickly rub it down and gravy it up. The evening was saved, even if I was serving my Foodie friends pork chops.

Somehow, I didn’t cry during all this. Roland cracked open a bottle of red for me, despite serving pork, and things got better – especially because we have wonderful friends.

So, here's where I get all meaningful. I think it's kind of a parable for my expat existence.

Lessons Learned

* I have to put a lot more thought into many of the things I do here and frequently make mistakes doing ordinary things.

* If I look at things objectively, I often learn big lessons from mistakes I make. Sometimes, they even benefit me later on.

* In the end, I am always surrounded by friends.

* Red wine helps anything.

It's a boy!

Congratulations to Rachel and Ellie who will be the proud big sisters of a LITTLE BOY! (Congrats to Leah and Greg, too!)

This is good news for everyone, as when Leah asked Rachel if she wanted a brother or a sister, she told her she didn't care...but if it was a girl, she said, they needed a dog. If it was a boy, there was no need for one!

Oh, good luck little boy!

More fun with translation!

Last summer, Roland and I visited a small, kind of sad aquarium in Trieste. Everything was translated into English, including the scientific name of this special little guy.

Who knew there was a penguin named after Kevin McDermott?

Man, I really have McD on the brain these days...I see him wherever I look!

Only me...and four other people, too!

Okay, maybe it's hard to take me seriously when I post about embarking on my new life as an academic immediately following a photo of the Brat Pack, but I guess that's just me. Anyway, somehow Patrick Swayze and atrocity go together, don't they?

I recently got to look over the courses I'll take next semester and discussed them with my advisor. I think we've settled on a seminar on refugees, a seminar on comparative genocide and a class about "Racial Thought and Body Politics." I'll also try auditing a German course, to try to keep it up.

I think I am more excited about this than Bob was about Bowling class at SMC!! I can't remember being so excited about classes. Ever. Not even Contemporary Bioscience. Kidding.

I've been working so closely with people for such a long time - now it's time for some books and quiet time. Especially after the hyper-intensive work I've been doing here with the refugees, I can really (naively?) imagine loving being locked up in a library. Check back with me in a couple years but, for now, I am pretty jazzed!

Do it for Johnny!

I just felt it necessary to post this.

Can any of you believe that Ralph is perhaps the least successful of this bunch?

And does anyone else think that Tom Cruise looks like Kevin McD in this picture?

Spun!

Alana and I got our butts out of bed at 6 am and did a Spinning class this morning! So far, I am loving it. I tried it a few times in DC but never got into it...maybe it was the snoot-tay instructor who told me that my clothes and shoes were all wrong? And he didn't mean functionally...

This instructor was great and the promise of an amazing sauna after helped, too. It also didn't hurt that A and I have enchilada plans tonight at Tacos Lopez! Just when we thought we would fall off and die...we'd look at each other and say, "Do it for the taco!"

Mom got an iPod!

My mom got an iPod Nano! I am so impressed and proud! Also, jealous. My iPod is like 5 years old and is a dinosaur. I literally hide it on the subway so none of the cool kids see my black and white screen!

So, Suze, now we gotta load the Abba and the Dolly Parton onto it!!

Most beautiful and wonderful cousin!

A little blog-happy today! Looking through pictures and wanted to show off my drop-dead-gorgeous-amazing-wonderful cousin and new cousin-in-law! Jen and Kev got married last July and I thought I would post a picture within a year of the wedding! Sorry guys, that's my pace...isn't she beautiful???

Cool Vickis from Wisconsin

Paul Schiefer and Angie Kartusch got married on Friday and the reception on Saturday went from about 3:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.! Paul and Angie have very cool friends - some we already knew, others we met yesterday. We had so much fun, dancing and singing...all the Wieners knew every world to American Pie! Brought a tear to my eye! They also seemed to know every word to Sweet Home Alabama...weird! Of utmost cultural importance, I learned that the 80s song Major Tom was actually sung by an Austrian band and in German. When I sang, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, EARTH BE-LOW-OW-OW US, they thought I was a freak!

Equally as important - I met another cool Vicki and she's from Wisconsin, no less! Paul was a foreign exchange student in Wisconsin when he was about 21 and stayed with Vicki and Stan. V and S have no kids but have hosted something like 30 exchange students. They kept referring to their "Big 3" - Paul and two others they fell in love with and kind of adopted.

As good adopted parents and very fun party-people, V and S came all the way to Austria for Paul's wedding and we hung out with them most of the day yesterday. After hours of telling funny stories and a little too much vino, I confessed that I only know one other person from Wisconsin and she is seriously one of my favorite people in the world AND her name just happens to be VICKI! (Or, Wicki, as I prefer to call her..) Long story short...it seems that Vicki performed Stan's nephew's wedding! Small world of Wickis, huh?

Trying it again

I am seriously the world's worst blogger! I have a third inspiration now...Wicki was, is and always will be my first true Blogging inspiration...then, there came Binh...and now a new classmate, Emily. I have to get off my butt! Okay, trying, trying. I figured out how to post via email, so maybe that will help me?

Are any of you still reading this thing? Let me know. Maybe if I can get it together, I'll send another email to people.

Do you really want to read my crap?

I got in!

I have told some of you, others not because I am too damn superstitious...but I got into Clark University's Ph.D program! I am going back to school! (Maybe I am a glutton for punishment!?)

Lisa says it's all beshert, as Clark is the only Holocaust History and Genocide Studies Ph.D program in the world outside of Israel AND it's in Worcester, Mass! Yes, Lisa and I are going to be college roommates - again!

Austrian mothers

We had a discussion here at work today about Austrian mothers - well, mother-in-laws, really. Not mine! Mine is great, but coworkers were sharing stories. It seems fairly common that Austrian mothers enter their son's (and, therefore, daughter-in-law's) apartments without notice and clean from top to bottom - including laundry and underwear! Luckily, as I said, mine is great and does not do such things. But I have heard of a number of Austrian moms (of boys, of course) who do - what's up with that?!

Another Austrian tradition seems to be for parents to buy their kids houses. Well, not tradition exactly, but it's more common than in the US. Hasn't happeend to us but I have heard of it much more frequently here, too. Now, that would be nice! I guess it's a give and take!

Binh is putting me to shame!

Binh started a Blog and is making me feel lame. I checked this thing and realized that I last blogged August 31. I can't believe some of you are still loyal to me! True friends. I will try again. I know you have heard this before.

So, what's happened since August? Well, I'm still working at HIAS (www.hias.org) - have been since October 2005 - but now only three days a week. I am working with A Letter to the Stars (http://www.lettertothestars.at/) Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you visit the sites, you'll see why both organizations interest me...the latter maybe a bit more than the former, but I am happy and proud to be with both.

No new travels, except a weekend here and there. First weekend of March, Rolli and I are going to Salzburg for skiing (cross country - I'm a wimp) and to visit my brother- and sister-in-law and the second weekend Les is giving a presentation at a conference in Budapest and I'll hang out with her for a few days! Our last weekend as single girls! Oh, wait, I'm not single...

Okay, maybe I can be more creative and regular with these things and not just boring updates. Pastor Wicki is my blogging inspiration and Binh is my kick in the ass...love and thanks to you both!

Slovenia and Italy

Roland and I went to Ljubljana and Piran in Slovenia and Trieste and Udine in Italy for summer vacation this year. Here are a few pictures. We highly recommend Slovenia! Here's Roland at sunset in Piran.

Here I am on a pedestrian bridge in Ljubljana.

Fun with English

With all the native English speakers in Vienna, I can't imagine why they don' t pay us 5 bucks to make sure things are okay before printing.

Case and point - see picture above. It's an advertisement on a car for a race car sponsored by Bank Austria. Note the web address.

Why choose to be all cool and use the English word "team" but then go for the German for "ace?"

Dumbstruck, starstruck FOOLS

So, Gwyn and Rod Perkins visited us in Vienna last week and we had a great time touring around and catching up, gossiping about all of you...

We also had the Gwyn/Betsy experience of a lifetime at a Viennese Heuriger.

Heurigen are Viennese "wine gartens" in the same style as German "biergartens," so you can already begin to see why we enjoyed this wonderful Viennese tradition. On this particular day, however, magic happened...

While sitting there, eating all kinds of great food and drinking wine out of pitchers...a wedding was setting up. We started talking to the groom and his groomsmen and Gwyn and I noticed that one of them looked like Sean Lennon. Of course, we thought it was the wine and our blind Beatles obsessions at work. At one point, I even said, "Look at him - he knows it, man, he's working it!" or some other such crap, as if twenty-something guys normally go around trying to look like the son of a dead Beatle...

As we talked to them more, though, it became clear. One guy introduced them all as "musicians" and started pointing out who played what instrument. When he got to our look-alike he said, "And Sean here, well, he's more into rock and roll." Gwyn quietly asked him to confirm and he did, with an oh-so-pleasant condescention and irritation at his friend's celebrity. I am sure he was thinking, "Stupid Americans..." but who cares! We immediately turned into stupid teenagers, taking photos of the wedding party! We had even been chatting with Sean a little bit before the "realization," and then we found out who he was and were dumbstruck, starstruck FOOLS.

Coincidentally, Gwyn and I had been talking about my 30th birthday earlier that very same day and I told them the story of Stefan getting "John Lennon" to sing Yer Birthday to me from the stage (best birthday present EVER!). They dared me to tell Sean, "Dude...a guy pretending to be your dead father sang happy birthday to me a couple of years ago and it was, like, the most meaningful moment of my life..." But I didn't.

So, here's the proof. An anonymous hand (seriously, not one of ours!) is pointing him out for you.

Our question is, of course - if you want to be inconspicuous, why the shaggy hair and round, gold glasses?

John's in town!

Malkovich, that is. They previewed the Director's Cut of "Klimt" in Vienna this weekend and we had tickets tonight. For anyone who doesn't know, I have a strange fascination with JM but a little damage was done to that this evening, maybe while watching him slowly lose it with syphilis on the big screen. We also saw the Schiele exhibit today at the Albertina and, after the Klimt movie, I think I have a posthumous crush on Egon now. Freakshow, I know, but still...I recommend the movie, the Schiele exhibit and the actor who plays ES in the movie. The movie is slow at times but, as Roland pointed out, it was Director's Cut. Tons-o-Klimtesque naked girls, if they don't cut it out of the American version. But how can you do a movie about Klimt without? At any rate, it was fun to recognize streets of Vienna and also to see John again. I love talking about him as my friend. Roland doesn't seem to mind, except the John rejected our dinner invitation. Well, Brad and Ang didn't stop by last week either. We are getting used to it.

It is snowing here, despite Roland's promises of spring. Spring through fall in Vienna is really perfect and so I am anxiously awaiting the start of about seven months of Wien in all her glory. The other five leave a bit to be desired, as should and may be illustrated by our upcoming photo series, "Depressed Wieners in the Gray that is Wintertime Vienna." Coming soon, we hope, to a blog near you.