Well, what do you know...

...there's something new here!

Hi! I guess I am realizing that I either have (or make) no time to update this blog. Sorry about that.

I have added pictures recently, though (on the flickr site). You can click on the last post and it will take you there.

There are some new pictures from the island Cres, in Croatia. At the end of June/beginning of July we went there with some of Joe’s students. One of them has an apartment there, and we stayed with her. The weather was perfect, the food was fantastic, and the company was great. We had a lot of fun and visited the really charming little village of Lubenica, we picked lots of wild herbs, and met some great people.

We also went for a weekend to Goriska Brda, which is the wine growing region in the western part of Slovenia. We went with another couple (Slovene) who, surprisingly, had not previously spent any real time in that area. I say “surprisingly” because they are really into wine, and this is the region where most of the good stuff comes from. And it’s gorgeous – rolling hills, the geometric patterns created by the lines of vines, fields of crops, the mountains in the distance – these all combine to make it one of the most beautiful places one can possibly visit. Our friends were impressed.

And there might be a few miscellaneous pictures from other times of this past summer. Everything is grouped by date.

We also had a visit from Joe and Ceil (hi! If you’re reading this..) which was a lot of work on their part, it being such a long trip, but it was really great to see them. We spent a week in Croatia (by the sea) and a few days in Ljubljana, and then in Budapest. I will write about that at another time, though. I promise. And as soon as I get pictures from Joe and Ceil, I will put them onto Flickr.

Right now I am back in the U.S. because I didn’t feel like I had had enough vacation after those three weeks I mentioned above, so I came here. Kidding, of course. Actually, I had to come and help resolve the current financial crisis. And to try to sell this bridge that has been in my family for years and years.

Seriously, I am here for my father’s knee surgery. Not in a surgical capacity (if you thought that, see previous offer for bridge).

In case you are not following this saga, in a nutshell, the infection that invaded my father’s body last spring (prompting my earlier trip here) took up residency in his artificial knee. Uninvited, of course. And as if that bit of house-squatting wasn’t enough, the infection’s little children decided the knee wasn’t posh enough for them. Too cramped? They wanted to get out of their hometown and spend a year backpacking through the circulatory system? (I hear it’s lovely in the spring) Who knows. Anyway, they emerged en masse, visiting the kidneys, the liver, all the hot spots…and, like so many teenagers on their first trip without their parents, wreaking general havoc along the way. They even invited their friend MRSA to join the party. So, the knee had to be removed. It was replaced with a very unfriendly piece of cement (which had been impregnated with antibiotics) which has been sitting in place of my father’s knee for the past two months. Now that it seems certain (knock wood) that the infection is completely gone, he is going back to the hospital to get his squeaky clean new knee. Because Michele had already taken off so much time from work to deal with all of the previous problems, we thought it was best if I came for this stint. So now we are just waiting for transport to RW Johnson, where he will be deposited into room 752 for this last leg of this journey (No pun intended. Well, maybe a little intended...) Then he will come back to the rehab center (where we are now) for physical therapy, and then back home at some point thereafter. I am sure it is going to be a painful recovery, but hopefully once it’s done, that’s the end of these troubles for him. On the positive side, he has lost LOTS of weight, and looks great!

Well, I will end here. I will post another update soon. Really. I have loads of time at the moment. You probably won’t even have time to read it all.

Ciao for now
-S.