31 December 2000

Happy New Year! Year 2001, year of the snake, and I hope year of the bull because I need to do well in the market to retire! Or at least decent oil prices, 35 dollars per barrel is a good price!

December was a month of increased activity and inactivity. Inactivity came from the need to burn away the remaining 2000 vacation and weather that made it very tempting to stay at home and lounge around. Entertainment was provided by watching the assorted snow and ice storms to the north of us.

But we moved around as well in December. I went on a business trip to the Netherlands, this time stayed for a full week. Unfortunately did not have a chance to do much sightseeing. Forgot all about the short northern days. It was dark until 9 and the light diasappeared again before 4. My overall impression was dark and cold. Winter is not a good time to visit the Netherlands. (Neither is Moscow in January as I discovered on a previous trip.)

The other traveler was Alice, back for winter vacation from Calgary. Coming from a somewhat tougher climate than Houston or Amsterdam (let us say temperatures rising to minus 20 deg C on a warm day) she shocks the Houston population by walking around in short sleaves.

But of course I am not complaining. Where else could we be hanging up christmas lights (actually Kumiko and Monica did all that) around blooming azaleas? Granted they are not in full bloom, I would rather describe their situation as confused, but they have some flowers nevertheless.

Christmas decorations are not limited to lights. Some people drag out of their garages and attics impressive menageries of arctic wildlife, herds of reindeer and gangs of little Santa helpers. As you can see this is Texas and even Santa gets on board. We obviously do not live in a bleeding heart liberal-gun control - pinko neighbourhood. We like it that way. Actually I did not have to go very far to take this picture.

30 November 2000

We had a cold spell in November. Temperatures dropped below 10 degrees C. The gas heating kicked in, we had the fireplace going and we were shopping around for portable heaters - unfortunately many of them were already sold out. How did we ever survive in Calgary? Luckily we are back to balmier temperatures, some days are absolutely beautiful - leaves are changing color and the mosquito air force has largely retreated - with the exception of small, arctic weather trained elite commandos.

But back to the closing days of October. October was an exciting month. My parents came for a visit from Montreal (and initially complained about the high temperatures - they should see this place in August!). It was rather refreshing to have them come and visit us in Houston, after more than 10 years in Dallas we were running out of things to show them. Here we were exploring together. Being a short drive from the ocean is a great plus - we spent a very pleasant day visiting a W.W.II cruiser and then watching yachts from a seafood restaurant in Kemah. The highlight of the visit was Monica's 16th. She used to complain that nobody ever came to visit on her birthday, this time it worked out.

(remember to double click on the pictures to see a larger image! then use the back arrow on your browser (upper left corner) to get back to this page)

Her birthday is on the 31 of October, which is Halloween! A little word of explanation may be due to those who do not inhabit the Anglo-Saxon world. The festival, which has Celtic roots, originally revolved around communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Since it roughly coincides with All Saints Day in catholic Europe and Dia de los Muertos in Mexico (where it clearly has pre-Columbian roots) there is ample room for amateur anthropologists (and probably some professional ones too) to look for deeper meanings. However, these days it boils down to children dressing up (preferably as something scary) and going house to house asking for candy.

Some people, however, get carried away and decorate their houses for the occasion with all kinds of ghoulish displays. The amusing part is that other people take this even more seriously and see this as the tip of a black magic iceberg, a beachhead of witchcraft and assorted dark forces.

Beginning of November was marked by the big Houston International Quilt show. It is absolutely huge! As always the quilts were fabulous but after about two hours I reached my saturation level. Imagine a cavernous convention hall filled with hundreds of quilts and five times as many handicraft vendors and thousands of middle aged (and beyond) women, most of which reminded me of my high school teachers. (First thing they do is take over the men's washrooms.) But it was quite a spectacle and the show is truly international, strong participation from Europe and each year fairly large groups of Japanese fork over several thousand dollars to come. Because of our move and other activities this was the first year the Kumiko did not actively participate but she is already working on a new quilt for next year. Here are a few examples of her past miniatures.