Let the sunshine (and everything else) in

I took this picture to show off our latest project: curtains for our bedroom windows. Hooray for privacy! (What a funny thing to write on the Internet.) Anyway, we love them--when we close them during the day the room has a warm, red glow that I think will be especially cheerful as it gets colder.

And it is getting colder, especially at night. We are keeping our windows open, though, and on the whole I'm enjoying this. Our open windows mean:

*thoroughly enjoying that slightly-chilly feeling of the mornings and evenings: perfect for snuggling or curling up with tea, a prayer shawl and a book.

*taking in the sounds of the city: busses and trolleys, classical music sing-alongs, wild parties late into the night (this can get a little old, but I have earplugs), cats in the courtyard, church bells near and far, fireworks for the holiday weekend. When we heard the fireworks we ran up to our roof-top balcony ... we really do have a great view! I've lived in big cities before (Houston and DC) but never right in the heart of the city like this--as much as I loved getting out of the city for an afternoon this weekend, living in the middle of it all suits me best, I think.

*living with pesky bugs. This wasn't so bad, at first, but as the weather gets colder the mosquitoes and bees are getting more aggressive. We take this as a sign of desperation and believe that our victory is near. Well, as near as the first real cold snap. They're just doing their buggy thing, feeding their babies with our blood, etc. We're just trying not to encourage them too much.

So, other than the bees and skeeters--which do add an element of excitement to our lives--we're loving the open windows. I listened to the bells today and wished I had our audio recorder set up to get all the great ambient sound. We'll have to capture some of that for our podcasts.

Podcasts may have to wait a bit--tomorrow begins a very busy week. The first week of school! Also, I'll be installed at the intern pastor at Bratislava International Congregation on Sunday. Lots of good things in the works; we'll report back as we can.

But first: I promised I'd report our first cooking or baking failure. We tried to make boiled ham, cabbage and potatoes tonight: the ham turned into a mass of inedible goo. We have no idea why this happened--perhaps the properties of ham are different here? Resistant to boiling? We ended up having a lovely cabbage and potato appetizer, followed by a delicious Tesco brand pepperoni pizza and a couple slices of freshly baked banana bread. Well-recovered! Quote of the night: "Sacrifice the ham to the bees!" "They don't want it, either."

Goodnight! Blessings on everyone returning to work after the holiday weekend, and to students and teachers going back to school!

So ... how's that move coming?

Cardinal rule of blogging: broken. I could make excuses about Internet access and bein' busy, but Sean's been in the same situation as me and managed to send out quite a few posts since we arrived. Of course, he was often doing this:

Yes, that is Sean precariously balancing his laptop on the sill of our bedroom window (no screen, sixth floor up), hoping to catch some wifi on the wind. We found that if it was both morning and not too humid, we had a fairly good chance of getting a weak-and -unstable-but-serviceable signal at that exact spot. Fortunately, you can't really beat that spot as far as views go. I mean ... castle! I love waking up and looking out to see it every morning through these huge, cheerful windows.

While we still enjoy standing at those windows, our wifi pirating days are over. These last few days have been remarkable in terms of taking care of the necessities: we have cable Internet here at the house, we have cell phones and bus passes. Today we started the process of getting our visas at the police station and tomorrow we will go for a medical check up required by the school--after this weekend (long weekend for national holidays) we'll also have a local bank account. None of this can be credited to our ambition or moxie: our hosts and guides have taken care of us and all the details--we've just shown up with our documents and been ready to sign stuff! We're feeling blessed in so many ways these days.

So, now that I really have no excuses, some first impressions of our new home:

• Sean is still an excellent cook here, and my baking skills seem to have traveled with us as well. Of course there are some differences in the ingredients, tools, measurements and methods, but so far we're doing quite well. I'll be sure to document our first (and, from what I've heard, inevitable) spectacular cooking/baking failure. Until then, though ...Sean made one of the best spaghetti sauces ever with oven-roasted tomatoes, bell pepper, onion and garlic. I made a loaf of banana bread, which you can see featured in this picture along with a St. Luke's prayer shawl (we've had some cool days already!) I substituted plain yogurt for the sour cream and it worked beautifully. I also made bread pudding, but it was a Paula Deen recipe and maybe unnecessarily sweet. I think I'd like to make cookies next, but we'll need to track down a cookie sheet. Everything is just a little different, and it's hard for me to explain exactly how: sugar, flour, butter ... but so far it's all turning into yummy stuff. One interesting difference we've noticed in the grocery store is that we can't find celery but celery root, or celeriac, is everywhere, even little tiny convenience stores. Time to make some soup! Also, the quality of fruit, especially stone fruit, in the grocery stores seems better here. It had been a long time since I'd had a good plum.
  
• On our first day in Slovakia, David and Carla took us to one of their favorite places for pizza. When we sat down our menu didn't have any pizza in it. We got a menu from another table--it, too, seemed to have had a page removed. We found out from the waiter that the restaurant, which continues to have the word "pizza" in its name, no longer serves pizza. This was especially weird because David and Carla had just gotten pizza there recently. Then a copy shop that had been open the day before closed without warning for renovations. Then Larry noticed the picture on my desktop: I told him I took it from the tower of Bratislava castle. "When?" he asked. "In January." "Right before it closed down for repairs... why ... it's you!" Yes, I am behind all these strange events. Beware. Bwah ha ha.
  
• So, between all that and successfully predicting the weather (I've started getting migraines the day before storm systems move in ... blergh) I've been pretty busy, but not too busy to pick up some basic and useful Slovak phrases. I'm pretty good at saying thank you, hello (at various times of day), excuse me, I'm sorry, good-bye, please and I don't know. I've gotten good enough at these phrases that I have misled many well-meaning strangers into thinking I know Slovak; hilarity ensues. The only solution is to learn Slovak! Put it on the list!
  
• My first Sunday in Slovakia I helped lead the singing and the prayers of the church, enjoyed sitting in the congregation with Sean, and got to meet many good folks after the service at coffee hour. My second Sunday I got robed and led worship with Pastor David, taking on parts of the liturgy previously off-limits to me (parts marked "P"!) I got to lead my favorite part of the service: the order for confession and forgiveness. It is such a reliable and powerful witness to God's grace--we confess that we are in bondage to sin, we cannot free ourselves, and we hear and receive the Good News that ALL our sins are ENTIRELY forgiven. What could be better? How about a baptism? We baptized an adult member of the congregation--it was baptism, confirmation, and first communion all at once, as in the Orthodox tradition. That baptism made everything feel even more precious than usual: the gift of water, the welcome of the table, the way the Word came to us in the sermon and the hymns, especially as we sang "Go, my children, with my blessing," the beautiful sending song by Slovak hymn-writer Jaroslav Vajda, who just passed away this summer. "In my love's baptismal river/I have made you mine forever/Go my children, with my blessing, you are my own." My parents and I sang this hymn and wept before I moved to Texas; Sean and I sang it walking down the aisle together as very-newly-weds; we sang it at St. Luke's again the Sunday I preached and the congregation prayed for our safe transition to Slovakia. I've always associated it closely with St. Luke's, and home, but now I also connect it with Slovakia, with the baptisms celebrated and remembered all over the world, and with finding home in Christian community near and far.

Well, now I've broken another rule of blogging and gone on for too long. No excuses, just one more picture.
This is our magnetic photo wall. We realized the day we left for Bratislava that we have lots of prints from our wedding and pretty much no other recent events. We also ended up with too many pictures of just the two of us and we know what we look like. Send us photos! We will display them with honor and care. Our mailing address is here.

Later, gators.

Very detailed anxiety nightmares and other updates

So, this morning I had an anxiety nightmare of the very, very detailed variety. Evidently I'd thrown together a band and planned to play guitar, even though in this dream, as in real life, I can't really play songs so much as make a chord, make a face as my fingers start to bleed, make another chord...

I was worried about this, and the fact that I only had one original song (which impresses me now, I wish I could remember it!) and the fact that all lyrics to cover songs had fled my brain ... and Leonard Cohen was in the unexpectedly large crowd of people coming to hear me sing and play.

This past year I've gotten really good at resolving my anxiety nightmares--my recurring back-in-high school nightmare lost much of its ability to induce trauma when my dream self was able to realize and assert that I didn't really need to pass this high school math class--I'd already done it, I'd graduated from college, I was in grad school ... the surprise exam and lost text book and the forgotten locker combination were irrelevant. I've gotten to the point where I enjoy working through this category of dream while I'm in it, and this musical performance dream was no exception. In this dream, Sean was there helping me come up with ideas for how to be most impressive with the least amount of skill and how to perform best at my most forgetful and nervous. He looked at my set list, "Of course you don't remember the lyrics to these," he said, "How about 'Come Thou Fount of of Every Blessing'?" Perfect. I could sing it in my sleep. =)

Anyway, I must be stressed about something. Probably item number 1 on that To-Do list: sell all earthly belongings. June is flying, y'all, and we have a lot of stuff. I made a spreadsheet last night and today I'm taking pictures for Craigslist. It'll happen--it has to happen. It makes me nervous about leaving for the Bread for the World Training this weekend. I am glad that, as in my dream, I'm not doing this alone.

In other news, I've gotten to talk to my folks every afternoon of their trip so far, which is a happy thing indeed. Yesterday was their first day in Israel, where they are staying on a hotel on a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. They day before that they had an 11 mile hike down a canyon to Petra, which Indiana Jones fans particularly may recognize. The weather has been good, Mom's been taking great pictures but hasn't had a chance to post them, everyone is doing well and soaking it in.

Soaking it in is precisely what we did at the Jersey Shore this past weekend, and we have pictures to prove it. Sea creatures, boardwalk food and grilled hot dogs were consumed. Mom Albright took us out to a lovely dinner to celebrate my graduation (Dad Albright had to stay home to meet up with the air conditioning repair guy--all went well.) The boardwalk was walked, plants were planted and the beach ... was sunned, read and strolled upon. Good stuff.

A self-portrait on the ferris wheel at the Wonderland Pier, on the Ocean City boardwalk.

On Tuesday night we had Jill, Brian, Bella, Gus and Eli over for dinner: Sean made fried chicken and summer veggie saute while I made some cornbread with fresh corn kernels and a little bit of pickled jalapeno and strawberry shortcake with fresh whipped cream for dessert. Bella helped whip the cream and took the lead on designing and building the shortcakes. It was wonderful to have them over to our house and pretty funny to watch Eli explore this new place with such great interest. (The kitchen! I want to go to the kitchen! While Uncle Sean is frying things!)

Here is Eli on-the-move! The child is fast. Fozzy was like, "Hey, wait up!"

OK, back to it. As much as I enjoy conquering anxiety in my dreams, I'd rather diminish my anxiety while awake so that my sleep is more restful.

Failing that, I could nap. =)

Meringue recipe and midwestern accents

Good times/"wuder" ice were had by all! It was a really lovely visit. One highlight of the evening for me was sharing the Mary/marry/merry dilemma with Diana and Sarah: Diana and I grew up in practically the same part of Illinois and we both grew up thinking (and even learning in school) that those three words were homophones. We also can't distinguish (sound-wise) between the names Erin and Aaron. Context is all. =) The best part is that most midwesterners have no idea this is unusual and most English-speakers outside of the midwest don't realize we’re doing it ... but when it's pointed out the midwesterners are befuddled, the non-midwesterners are totally horrified and hilarity ensues. I still maintain—and Diana will back me up, I’m sure—that the Chicago accent is delightful in its newscastery goodness. After all these years of thinking we’re the bland “standard”, though, it is kind of neat to find out that there’s something we do with vowels that the rest of the English-speaking world finds unbelievable (even if it does open me up to teasing by my Philly family.)


Sarah is allergic to gluten and dairy, so I ditched the usual cupcakes and went with meringues. I’m really starting to like these! They are simple to make, but take a long time to harden.

The recipe is here, on our recipe database site. A few notes to add: I haven’t gone the full three hours for baking yet, because I’m too antsy and I like them still a little marshmellowy in the middle. Two hours is the limit of my patience. I let them dry and cool in the oven over night. I used a piping bag and large tips this time but a plastic bag with the corner cut out or two spoons work well, too. I add about two heaping tablespoons of good cocoa powder to half the egg whites to make the chocolate ones. I know there are ways to keep them from cracking, but I think of it as the “homemade” stamp. In this case, it was good that they cracked, because it made it easier to split the tops from the bottoms; while I remembered not to flour the baking sheets, I didn’t remember Sarah’s dairy allergy and, yes, buttered the baking sheets. D’oh! Sarah did a very liturgical job of splitting the meringues, though. Sometimes you’re sitting around chatting and you forget you’re hanging out with an Anglican priest and a very-soon-to-be Episcopal deacon. And then the meringue is professionally broken for you, and you think, “Sweet!”

Traveling mercies and blessings to Diana and Sarah! Diana is ordained tomorrow! Tomorrow my parents depart (three weeks! what is an enmeshed child to do?) and Sean and I will be at the shore, hopefully enjoying some Annie-caught flounder. Time to start packing!