Meet Tolstoy

We have a new little friend that lives with us. This is Tolstoy, the African Dwarf Frog. He lives in the aquarium where the late Bart, Mr. Fishie, Lucky, Dusty, and Ned used to live. I went to the pet store to get more fish (they call me the Fish Killa') when we saw these little guys swimming around. They are really cool because they basically act just like fish. They are entirely aquatic and don't need any land to rest on. I don't get it either, but apparently all they need to do is come up to the surface to breathe once in a while. He mostly hides under his little sherd (like he's doing in the photo) but sometimes he swims around or hops on the bottom. Every now and then it will really seem like poor Tolstoy is dead because he'll just float at the top or along the bottom with all his little limbs splayed out and not move for a long, long time. We looked it up and it turns out that this weird behavior is entirely normal for Dwarf Frogs. They call it their "Zen Pose". Isn't that adorable? He's just chillin'.
We feed him Frog Chow, which he doesn't seem to ever eat. We assume he's eating because he isn't dead, but we may have to try out the dried bloodworms (ew ew ew ew ew) if he continues to be so picky.
We're thinking of getting Tolstoy a bigger house so we can get him better hidey holes and a heater. And fish friends.

coooooookies

I made some cookies today for my favorite husband. He really likes peanut butter cookies, but the creative Blythe women have encouraged me to branch out and make different stuff. Well, only slightly different in this case. Instead of our usual peanut butter cookies, I made these with brown sugar and chocolate chips (I know. I'm a daredevil). Do you want the recipe? It was really really easy:Wednesday Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies:
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Peter Pan, but usually I like the more peanutty store brand for cookies)
1/2 cup brown sugar packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg slightly beaten
teensy handful of flour (maybe 1/4 cup)
1 cup chocolate chips (plus 1/2 cup for snacking)

I mixed the peanut butter with the sugars and the vanilla and then added the egg. It was seeming a little shiny and peanut buttery, so I added the small amount of flour until it seemed more doughy. I wouldn't add much, but I think just a little flour makes a cakier cookie. When I liked the look of the dough, I added the chips and drop them in large spoonfuls on a cookie sheet with a silpat. I think Peanut butter cookies smell weird when they cook, and the Silpat seems to help with that. I smooshed the dough balls with my favorite cookie fork* in a criss- cross pattern (of course) and then baked them at 375 for 10-ish minutes.
I cooled them on a rack and then ate them all. Ok, that's not true, I shared with Rob. Afterall, they were for him.

*I have big love for this particular fork. It is very narrow and has extraordinarily long tines. It's silver and has a semi-fancy handle. I got it at a thrift store, so it is the only one like it. It is so perfect for making cookies and for beating eggs and squooshing the edges of pie crust, etc. I would be so sad if I ever lost it. Do you have any funny tools like that? Anything that seems really ordinary but is indispensible for what you like to do?

I'm back

I'm back from a very long hiatus from blogland. I have lots of new things to tell you about and lots of fun things to look forward to. I promise to try and blog often now that I am home. I missed my blog when I was in Mule Creek and when I was away on GeoJourney. It has been kind of hard to make the decision to come back after such a long gap. What do I talk about? Where do I pick back up? I have decided that I am just going to blog as if I never left. I don't want to talk about the last few months, so we're going to move on. New Stuff. It's December now, so there will be lots of holiday stuff to post and lots of travel pictures to share. So, if you're still out there, I'm back and I'm ready to blog.

Run!!!

Mule Creek

We're back! What a wonderful field season this has been. We've been excavating the 3-up site in the gorgeous Mule Creek, NM since June. Rob and I, along with Katherine Dungan, Brett Hill and four students from Hendrix College in Arkansas. The site is a 2-3 story pueblo that was occupied from about AD750 to AD1450. It hasn't been excavated before so most of our efforts this summer were in mapping all the features we could find (trying to establish the boundaries of each part of the pueblo) and finding pottery and other artifacts that could be used to date the site.
I was the cook for the fieldschool which means that I didn't go to the site everyday. I'm reading for my exams, so this gave me a chance to read all day, and then cook dinner in the evenings. It was great not having to be apart from Rob. Also, it gave me a chance to meet the wonderful neighbors in tiny Mule Creek. We made some great friends there and have more stories to tell than I can possibly fit in a blog post.
This is the view from "Cell phone point". If we communicated with you this summer, it was from this spot. It's basically a pull-off on the side of the road through the National Forest almost at the state line where locals found they could get a tiny cell signal. If you pulled off the road here and stood on one foot and said the alphabet backwards, you could get one, sometimes two bars of service!

Most mornings in Mule Creek I went for long walks with Becky, Nina or both. This was one of our destinations, "The Spring". It was about 1.5 miles from the ranch house and is where our drinking water came from. It's a beautiful little spot that was filled with the biggest bullfrogs you ever saw. Sometimes I would bring my reading out here for the day. If you think office noise can be distracting, try bullfrogs!
I couldn't get enough of the view. Everywhere you looked at every time of day, some part of the fields were spectacular. This was from an evening walk I took with Kelsey. As we walked, the whole world suddenly turned pink and our path turned silver. We must have taken 6 billion pictures.
The sunsets (and sunrises!) were jaw-dropping. This is our version of a 70's album cover. If you look closely, you can see everyone from the fieldschool except poor Katherine. She was taking advantage of a break in the monsoon to take a solar shower. Isn't the sky cool? Mule Creek is the only place I've found in the west that really feels like it could be a home. I like Tucson, but I think we've always known we couldn't live here forever. I could live in Mule Creek forever...
...except for these little jerks! These are called vinegaroons. They are Jurassic little bastards that are in the scorpion family and smell just like vinegar. Nina caught two (!) in her garage and brought them over in a jar to show me. Like a dummy, I stuck my face right in the jar when she mentioned their scent. I nearly fainted. I didn't expect their horrible smell to be so strong!
After threatening everyone in camp with a Vinegaroon in their tent, we set them free far far far from the house. I never ever want to see these in the wild again. It's like spiders, scorpions, and the predator all rolled into one.

So, that's Mule Creek story, volume one. There are so many stories to tell, I will have to do it in installments. It is great to be back, and I'm so glad to be talking to you on a regular basis now.

web crack

Darn you Ravelry! I had plans this week. Important things to do. Ravelry, do you know how impossibly long my bibliographies are? Do you realize that we have just a few weeks to get through them? Now I have to play around and search through your wonderful patterns and laugh at people's mountainous stashes. I was sewing before this! Sewing. It takes about an hour and a half to make something satisfying when you sew. When you knit, that's like your cast-on row.
This is one of the sundresses. It's made of thin thin linen with blue palm-y looking designs. The fabric reminded me of my wonderful time living in South Carolina. I doubled up the linen so I wouldn't have to wear a slip. Nothing spoils a sundress like a slip.
Dirtiest mirror ever? Don't care. Must play with Ravelry.

Also, I'm getting my hair cut today at lunch. My hairdresser is like a genie. She makes magic happen on top of my head. Today I'm going to ask her to make my hair longer.

What I've been up to

I just joined Ravelry. That means, of course, that I've been doing no knitting whatsoever. Just sewing. Lots of sewing. I've been making little sundresses for myself that I can wear this summer when our adventure in New Mexico starts (more about that later). I've also been making stuff for other people.
This is a purse that I made for my sister for her birthday. In real life, it's a little more purple than blue. The handles were handmade by my dad. Cool, huh?
It's lined with icy blue on the inside, because that's one of her favorite colors. I hope she likes it!
Then I made these coasters. These are for Liv and Kacy who liked the set I made for my mom (and still haven't sent). I still haven't sent Karen's present either. Hmm, maybe I should get myself to a post office. The coasters are from Last Minute Quilted Gifts, a book that possessed Ashley and I before she moved. Such big plans.
Then I made this teensy tiny dress for my niece. It's made of super thin cotton so she won't get too hot this summer. I can't believe that this dress could possibly fit a human. I'm pretty sure my Cabbage Patch Kid would be comfortable in it. Next up, sunhats and bloomers for the prettiest baby ever.

Here's the video

Blogger won't let me post the edited video, so here's the whole stupid shot. If you skip to about 30 seconds, it starts to get interesting.

Phoenix has landed!

We are so excited here in Tucson. Yesterday the Phoenix Mars lander touched down on Mars and we were all on campus to join in the celebrations. Rob and I and Dana and Matt walked over to the University Mall and tried to find space in front of one of the many screens set up that were broadcasting NASA TV.

We found a spot in the Sonett Space Sciences building. They had these countdown clocks hung up everywhere so we could keep track of Phoenix's progress.
It was very exciting. We were standing next to a guy who was part of the team that designed this: the HiRise camera.
It stands for The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and it's how Phoenix is going to send back all those great images. The guy wasn't worried at all that Phoenix would be alright. He said that the "7 minutes of terror" were really just slight anxiety. He said everything was going to run perfectly, and he was right. As the mission counted down "1600 meters, 1400 meters, 1100 meters" all the way down to "30 meters, 27 meters, 10 meters" the room was completely silent, crossing our fingers that the lander would slow down enough for a smooth landing. We held our breath as the announcer said "Phoenix has landed! Phoenix landed!" Then there were claps, screams, hugs, and handshakes all around. It was funny, the screen outside must have been a little delayed, because a full minute after we were done cheering, we heard the crowd outside erupt into applause.
Afterward, Space Science graduate students made ice cream for everybody out of liquid nitrogen. Very cool.

In the evening, we went back to Flandrau Science Center to see the Planetarium show on Mars. I love love love Planetariums. After that, we went up to the public telescope to see a very nice view of Saturn. It was so crisp, we could see the shadow of Saturn across the rings, and we could see the shadow of the rings across the surface of the planet. We also could see at least 3 of its moons. So cool. It was a very long day, but to finish it off on a funny note, we saw Rob on the 10pm news! He was interviewed about his experience watching the landing. He looked very cute and very smart.
Congratulations Phoenix and congratulations, University of Arizona. Go Wildcats. Well done.

Windy City

The weather in Tucson has been bananas lately. Here's a video of the stop sign last night. I'm surprised it didn't blow down the street like everything else did. It's been howling all day today too. And guess what. It snowed on Mt. Lemmon last night. Snow. May 22. Tucson.
Signs of the apocalypse? Perhaps.

In brighter news, this weekend's movie extravaganza has finally arrived. Poor R. has been wearing his Indiana Jones outfit nonstop for the last 19 years since The Last Crusade came out. Will it be worth it? Of course it will.

Muggle

My glasses are broken. They've been too big for a while now and I thought they were just getting stretched out. Nope, yesterday I noticed a little crack above one of the springs that's making the part that goes over your ears splay way out. If I tilt my head down, they slip down my nose. I hate (really hate) wearing my glasses anyway, but now that they don't fit, they feel extra bulky and dorky.
Apparently I was mulling all of this over in my sleep last night. I woke up this morning really early, the sky was mostly still dark and the room was just a little grey. In my sleepy head I suddenly had a brilliant idea, I could just use "occulus reparo" on my glasses. Of course! Then I wouldn't have to pay for a brand new pair or wear taped up ones. My brain woke up a little more and told me that I cannot perform magic, so I resolved to ask one of my friends to do the charm for me instead. I happily went back to sleep. When I woke up again at 7:30, I realized that maybe I shouldn't read Harry Potter before falling asleep.
I made an appointment with the muggle eye doctor at noon.

Bubbles!

I've been trying for a long time to make the kind of bread I would want to eat. I've made some really brick-like loaves of dense, gross bread. I've also made some greasy heavy bread that tastes delicious, but will make you sick. I really wanted my bread to have giant air bubbles that toast up so nicely and hold butter so well.
Dana came to the rescue with this recipe. She sent it to me ages ago, but I didn't try it until last night. I love it. Bubbly success!

You start it about 20 hours before you bake it which seems like a pain, but really, this recipe is very hands-off. You mix up the ingredients, then let it sit for 18 hours. No kneading, no stirring, no rising in a warm oven, no nothing. Then you form it into a loaf and stick it in a cast iron pot (or a dutch oven or anything with a lid) and bake it for 45 minutes. Easy peasy. And delicious. Almost immediately after I cut into this and saw all the beautiful bubbles I started a second loaf. I added garlic, rosemary, and thyme to that loaf, so we'll see how this recipe does with some fiddling. The dough smells great, so cross your fingers. It'll be put in the oven in another 2 hours.

Year of cake. hmph!

Dang! I didn't do an April cake. Now it's May.
I made vanilla orange cupcakes last week, but I didn't take pictures of them. I just ate them. all of them. I've been messing around with recipes trying to make a "creamsicle" cake. Something creamy with a little bit of orange flavor.
So, I guess I'll have to make two cakes for May. Poor me.

Meet me at the Fair

This weekend Dana, Matt, Deanna, Shannon and I went to the Pima County Fair. It seems strange to have a county fair in the Spring, and I was skeptical, but this fair had all of the key ingredients:
There were lots of FFA and 4H kids with their animals. They had goats, horses, cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, peacocks, and even a row of pigeons (gross).There were also tractors!Most importantly, there were corn dogs, funnel cake, fried zucchini, and popcorn.

...aaaand (stop reading here Mom and Dad)

we rode rides!I put my life in the hands of drunk hobos.and it was awesome

Hotlanta

Guess who has pictures of her trip to Atlanta?

What I didn't let on in my last post is that the entire trip was planned, booked, financed and organized by one member of the family. Naturally, we had to do as he commanded.
Here we all are at Chuck E. Cheese trying to appease his insatiable appetite for pizza and animatronics. After this picture was taken, we were ordered to immediately begin shelling out Chuck E. coins to earn him tickets. He redeems the tickets for tiny plastic instruments of destruction and world domination. And gum.

Resistance is useless. Last month, his mommy tried to take away one of his trains and he unleashed hell on the city. Look, you can see some of the buildings he tried to bring down.

Here are Dad, Jennie, and Katie doing his bidding. He made them cut up tiny pieces of cheese and fruit to serve with wine to entertain a group of "dignitaries". Being three, he's too young to use the knives or purchase the wine himself.
It worked out well though. The wine and cheese were very well received and "the boss" actually got to spend most of the party napping. The next day he was kind enough to teach his daddy and me how to play golf.

I sure do hope he lets me come back to Atlanta soon.

I missed you!

Dear Marmalade,
It's been a really really long time since I last wrote to you. There has been so much going on in my life, that really, it's been hard to find a time to sit down and write about any of it. I know, it seems like if I have time to write about the minutiae of cake baking, hummingbirds, and the exploits of Orbit and Georgie, I would surely get around to writing about major educational milestones, trips to Georgia, family parties, and the return to Tucson and impending summer. But I haven't. You know why? Mostly because I don't have pictures of any of that.
The milestones were passed. The trip to the dirrrrty south was awesome. It was family-filled and utterly sleep deprived. Like, no sleep. All drinking. Wine drinking. There are wonderful pictures of the party (hint hint) that I would love to post (nudge nudge) if people would email them my way.
I also got to visit with the brilliant Liam and the adorable Ezra. I now know the difference between an Allosaurus and a T.Rex. Toes are a very important distinction, you know. Liam is the best fisherman, golfer, racer, paleontologist, and sportscaster I've ever met. I am a very proud auntie.
Up next for this week: planning a going away party for the B-H family (noooo!), working on school nonsense, baking April's cake (strawberry? lemon cream?), and catching up on missing sleep.
So, my lovely Marmalade, I promise to write more often and to not neglect you like that again.
Love,
Lizzie

Georgie's big day

I'm not sure who is being trained here, the cat or us.

Happy Birthday Karen!

It's my sister's birthday!!! Here's some cake for her. I can't wait to see her and everyone else next week!

Softball

It's that time of year again. Time when the anthropology department gets together for its annual ass-kicking. We have an intermural softball team called the Chaco Meridian. Our first year we won every single game in our division, so we moved up to the next division. Ever since, we have lost every single game. And they weren't close. I have some blurry pictures of our game on Saturday. Here's the team going over the roster...
And this is looking down the third base line at R. at bat. He had two hits in two at-bats. Unfortunately, he only got two at-bats because the game was so lousy. I mean, it was really fun, we just stink at softball. We lost 27-11. That's right. They scored 27 runs. These are little-league scores. We lost in the fifth inning because of the mercy rule. I am confident that in 4 more innings we could've turned the thing around.
It's possible we need more practice.
I forgot to mention that the team we played only had eight players (two of which were injured in the 3rd inning). We were a full team and only managed to score our 11 runs after their players started to get exhausted from being at bat so much. Ha ha! At least we made them sprint! 90 feet at a time.
Our next game is Thursday. This is the one. This is the game where the Chaco Meridian proves to the world that we belong in the intermediate division. Cross your fingers for us, and I'll let you know on Friday how we did.

What's my age again?

I am afflicted with injuries and diseases usually associated with the under 10 crowd. All week I've had monster bruises on both legs from falling down the stairs at the SAAs (twice). I was wearing new and fancy shoes and the stairs were outside in the slippery rain. If it weren't for R. and Nikki, I'd probably still be lying in a pile at the base of the stairs. The bruises are wayyy darker than they appear in these shots. The left knee is dark blue on one whole side, and my right shin is scraped and has a nasty yellow bruise. Pretty right? The worst part is that I also beat the crap out of my brand new conference shoes in the fall(s). The whole top of the right one is scuffed and pitted. I wore them for approximately 6 hours total.
To top it all off, this morning I woke up with the second most embarrassing kid disease ever (after head lice of course):
Pink Eye!!

When I woke up, my right eye was glued shut. G.ross. double gross. I looked in the mirror though and everything seemed clear and alright, so I went to work as normal. During the day people kept mentioning that my eye looked red, so I got worried and went to the doctor. Not before I shared a microscope with everyone in the lab (I'm so so sorry, Ashley!) and shook a lot of hands at a morning conference. Go me. I'm typhoid Mary. Pink eye Mary. Pink eye Mary who has to wear her glasses for at least 5 days. And has to change her pillow case.
I keep threatening to give R. butterfly kisses., but he won't come near me and says I'm disgusting. I don't think that's very husband-y behavior do you? Aren't I supposed to get cake or something?
Mom, sorry for the break from looking on the bright side, it must be my right eye that does all that. She's temporarily seeing pink.

doo dee doo

Just sitting around. Waiting for the big news from Georgia....

Vancouver to Seattle

It sounds funny, but one of my favorite parts of the trip to Vancouver was the ride home. We took the train to Seattle to hang out with R's awesome uncle for the day. The train was so fun. Here we are in the lounge car where there were swivel chairs and little tables you could hang out in. We drank tea and ate m&m's while we watched Puget Sound go by.
The view was beautiful.
At the end of the line in Seattle we got off at King Street Station. The building was really cool on the outside, but look at how ugly it is inside. I just hate suspended ceilings.
But look! If you peek along the edges of the ceiling you can see all the way up to the original 45' ceiling which is much more beautiful. Look at the molding. Turns out, they're restoring this cool building to the way it looked in 1905 when it was built. I don't understand what was going on in the urban renewal projects in the mid-sixties, but they made a mess of this cool place. Why would you cover up this ceiling with Styrofoam? They also covered up the marble walls with formica. Seriously. Well, I guess fashion has come back full circle because now it is popular to restore historic places back to their old glory.
Here is one of the lobbies already restored. Pretty, no? It was designed by the same architecture firm that did Grand Central in New York city. It may be gaudy, but it really feels grand. It makes you feel like your train ride is going to be something special. So what do you think? Are clean lines and basic, efficient design better, or is ornate, intricate, and overt design more your style? Is less more? Is less less?
At least in this building, I know what my vote is.
There are a lot of buildings in Tucson that underwent major changes in the urban renewal projects and some that were built at that time to replace older structures. Maybe I'll go around and take some more pictures so we can vote on which we like better.

More about how I love Canada

We took a very long walk all around the city and then ended up in Stanley Park. We'd heard a lot about the park and it really did live up to expectations. It was like a little magical forest where you can't see or hear the city anymore. Just gorgeous. Totem poles and trees and lakes and paths and flowers and everything you'd want in the middle of March. Except coffee.
Here are Nikki and I walking down one of the paths through the cedar trees.

This is a whale (me thinks) outside of the aquarium in the park. It was raining so I think he was happy to be wet. I've never known a whale that likes dry weather.

These are the people who live in the aquarium. I mean the seals that live in the aquarium. Seals are people too...


They're sugar seals and they kept swimming back and forth on their backs. They looked like they were having a good time. This view is from a path in the park that leads to a glass wall where you can see the seals and the beluga whales without going into the aquarium itself which was a little expensive. There were otters inside which was definitely a temptation (I heart otters), but we had sushi to get to. Also pizza and brownies. And then Canadian beer.


This is the view back to the city from the park. Wow, huh? The tide was out so you can see a lot of the shoreline. The walk back around to the convention center was very long, it would have been really tempting in hot weather to swim across instead. Then again, this is a shipping channel so that would be gross. And dangerous. Ok, bad idea.

So we walked back the normal (read: long) way and warmed up in the hotel's hot tub. The hot tub was outside (!) and on the eighth floor. Such a weird experience, being outside in the freezing cold, and wearing nothing but a bathing suit. Very fun.
Then, we walked down to Chinatown in search of dinner. If you go to Vancouver, I highly recommend not walking to Chinatown at night. Or maybe ever. We ended up having sushi in Gastown instead. Gastown was really fun and we hung out there a lot.
Ok, back to work. One last Canada installment tomorrow...

Trip to Canada

We just came back from our super fun trip to Vancouver. We were in town for the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting. We both had presentations to make on Thursday, and we were also there to hear other sessions and to discuss our work and the new research of other people.
We went to Seattle first and then headed up to Vancouver. The day we got there we got a great northern surprise!



I know, I know. everybody else is used to exciting weather, but it is about 80 degrees here in Tucson - even clouds are unusual.


We also tried Poutine. So. so. so. good. Can an American make this? I don't know, but I sure am going to try. It was little wads of cheese over thick fries with brown gravy over all. Delicious.
We did a lot more eating and a lot more sightseeing that I will have to tell you about in future posts. It's just too much for one day. Anyway, it's good to be back, even though I am officially in love with the northwest.

Happy Easter!

We made some eggs for you from a tie-dye Easter egg kit...
These little suckers are going to be deviled eggs soon, they just don't know it.

New Mexico

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair...


Rob and I took a trip to New Mexico this week to scope out some sites that he will excavate this summer. He's running a field school with five students. They're going to dig and survey for about six weeks, all over southern New Mexico. We talked to some really nice ranchers who will let the students stay on their land.
We also drove around looking for other places he can take the students on weekend trips and for archaeology lectures. Here are the amazing Gila Cliff Dwellings.
You can see the small, shallow caves from a distance in this picture.
Inside are pueblo room blocks. This site was occupied in the 13th century by the Mogollon people. It was dated using tree rings. If I remember right, the last cutting date (outside ring of a tree with bark on it still) was around 1280 or 1290. The families living in this site grew corn along the Gila river and hunted deer and other small animals nearby. They wore cotton clothing and plant fiber sandals. They made corrugated pottery and black on white pottery in which they cooked and stored seeds and water.
This next picture is a close-up of the lintel over the doorway of one of the rooms in the cliff dwelling. It's cool for a couple of reasons. First, it's cool that the wood is still preserved 700 years later. Second, you can see where dendrochronologists came and took a core sample of it for dating (apparently sample #74a). If you look carefully, you can see these bore holes in many archaeological sites around the southwest. Next time you visit one, see if you can spot them.
The other cool thing about this lintel is that in the mortar above the wood, you can see pieces of the matting that would have covered some of the supports for the roof (or ceiling). See? Right above the bore hole and another one a little to the left. This would have been covered with mud plaster when they were building the roof.
It was a great trip and I have many more pictures to share if anybody wants to see them. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of New Mexico as Rob works through the summer.