Sylvia's Journal

The New Year’s first workweek has been completed, only 51 left to go. Every day it got a little colder. On Thursday morning when I got up at 4:30 AM it was 6°F which is -14°C. The remote starter that Sinterklaas gave me has not been installed yet.  I dashed out as fast as I could, turned on the ignition, put the heat on high blast, and dashed back into our warm house. A week from now I can stay inside and just press a clicker. I can’t wait.

Yesterday I had a marathon workday starting at 6:20 AM and ending at 6:20 PM exactly, just in time to pick Axel up at North Station. We were invited for dinner at the house of a friend in Cambridge who is off to Afghanistan for a year. She will live in Jalalabad which I think is a little too close to the Pakistani border, and wild places full off angry, bearded and turbaned men with guns. But a year will go fast, we know , and she will also be let out regularly  as per USAID regulations. The dinner was a joyful reunion of old MSH hands and Afghanistan aficionados. I realized that I was the only one still at MSH.

Today I completed two writing/revision assignments, standing at my desk, hopping from one foot to the other, the one in the  orthopedic boot that has to be angled at the right way, and the other foot with the damaged nerves underneath. Maybe a standup desk is not such a good idea right now.

Axel’s gravlax was fully cooked tonight, after days of turning and marinating. He invited some friends to help us eat it, accompanied by roasted herbed potatoes and a salad, and of course a small glass of aquavit, with gingerbread cookies for dessert .  With the snow still outside and temperatures still below zero ( Celsius) we could have pretended to be somewhere in northern Scandinavia .

After dinner Tessa gave our guests a full account of her and Steve’s road trip. It is an account of long rides across states, cold nights and rainy days in the car or a tent,  but also visits to Waring alumns and to national parks, beautiful places further west. I realize how much there is to explore in this country, and that one could probably spend weeks in just one or two states, like Utah and Colorado, to take in all these natural wonders.