Still waiting for the bus

While we are currently slightly busy with end-of-semester shenanigans, allow us to share a fun tidbit from a previous expedition: we're on Google Earth! Actually, if you relied on Google Earth and not this blog for updates regarding our whereabouts, you'd be liable to think we are perpetually waiting for a bus on the island of Laeso, Denmark.

If you want to see for yourself, look up Laeso on Google Earth. We can be seen modeling Danish public transportation at 57 degrees 16.794' N and 10 degrees 56.147'E (Elevation: 7m), or along Vestero Havnegade, near the intersection with Kanderedevej.

Making the garden cozy for the winter...

The time of year has come when the temperatures drops to the low 30s and frosts at night. And as New England weather becomes quite unpredictable, a small group of community garden stewards headed to the garden on a chilly Saturday afternoon to prep the garden for the winter for what may very likely be the last time for the season!

Along with some composting, sheet-mulching, rain-barrel draining, shed-tidying, and camaraderie, we planted what we estimated (by crude measures after the fact) to be about 600-800 cloves of beautiful Red Russian garlic to be harvested into 600-800 heads of garlic next summer! Magic!

With the onset of winter, our garden looks cozy. Hopefully you're enjoying the coziness that this season affords, too.

Miss Rissa Roo

It appears that our blog is being looked at by more people than we thought! (Please leave comments to say hello and keep in touch, whoever you are out there!) In light of the discovery, we will try to be better about posting. This time of semester does not lend itself to heaps of adventures or travel, but a quick post is certainly doable.

Tonight, after a long day of teaching labs, I think about coming home to a cuddly pooch. I dug out some older photos of Clarissa, a cuddly pooch very near and dear to many, and who provided endless joy to me and surely others. For those who don't know, I helped to train and raise Clarissa together with a friend in college for the program "Guiding Eyes for the Blind." It was an amazing experience, and though she passed her test at the completion of the first stage of the program, it was discovered that she had relatively severe cataracts (the irony!). In the end, she was adopted by a lovely little family in Ossining, NY where she currently resides.

Here she is as a tiny pup, and as an adventurous boating pup! Enjoy!

We diplomats disarm you with our smiles...and treaties!

Heh heh heh...I thought of that punny little title myself. Seriously, though, while I haven't posted much about it on here, my past several months as a legal adviser/diplomatic intern (for climate change and sustainable development issues) with the Mission of Grenada to the UN have been fascinating. I have gotten to attend all sorts of formal meetings, attend lots of closed negotiation sessions between different member states (countries), and-yes-even voted on nuclear disarmament treaties on behalf of Grenada!

While I hope to do a better job of photographically documenting my experience, here are a couple to give you at least a brief glimpse from within the "diplomats only" portion of the UN.

Here I am, busily working away in First Committee negotiations. Just kidding-it's lunch break. More people show up for meetings than this (after all, this is the UN, not Congress).

Here are a couple photos (sorry for the blurriness) that I snapped in astonishment on one of my first days at the UN. I was instructed to go unlock a conference room, and expected to find, you know, a conference room. Instead I found this behemoth, which my card apparently permits me to unlock at will! It truly has been a surreal couple of months.

And, finally, I just happened to be walking through the UN one day, and look who sauntered past! Is that blurry man next to the police officer in a white uniform Obama?!? Why, yes! That is President Obama.

[Confession-I was actually sent on a 40-minute reconnaissance mission by a fellow delegate to see if we could get a good spot for a photo as Obama walked by our conference room. Minus the blurriness, the plan worked well. And no, I was not the only diplomat eagerly awaiting this 5-second encounter, as you may be able to tell by the throngs of other diplomats the police are keeping at bay.]