Life has been crazy busy yet again... I really wish the world would just *pause* for a month and let me catch up with everything.

Week before last, I went to Geneva with a colleague for a short conference on digital archiving. Good times- we learned a lot, heard about European initiatives, and mapped out strategies for dealing with projects here at home. In the evenings, we did some sightseeing- pretty city! They have this amazing clock built into a flower garden, and a huge fountain that's more like a jet stream. A couple evenings, we just sat out on the balcony, talked, listened to music, looked at the huge, cream-colored full moon, chatted with the nice guys in the corner store below. I found great new shoes that make me about 5 inches taller and are surprisingly comfy, and we picked up tons of yummy Swiss chocolate. On the last day of the conference, we visited the Special Collections dept. of the University Library and the Swiss State Archives. I felt a strong pang of longing as I looked at rooms where I'd worked, boxes I'd packed, listened to talks I'd given a million times, viewed ancient books and documents nestled into foam cradles and held down with velvet beanbags.... except it was in Switzerland. This was exactly what I'd been doing for the last decade, and ultimately what I want to do with the rest of my life- it was a nice reaffirmation of my passion, drive and ambitions.

Had a flight back that can only be described as rowdy and turbulent, at best. The weather was a bit touchy, and we had somehow been seated in the back of the plane, surrounded by about 10 members of a musical group. They were flying to Poland to perform and spent the whole flight loudly and boisterously chatting, throwing newspapers and books back and forth, laughing, making jokes. It was kind of nice- they had a good energy!

Took a cab ride home, dumped my bag out, re-packed it for the next trip, then crashed.

Woke up the next morning, went back to the airport and took a flight to Oslo to visit a friend for the weekend. That was a LOT of fun! Gorgeous city, right on the sea, fresh air, wonderful people, delicious food.... we went to a Viking museum where I saw the remains of three ships excavated in the early 20th century, a folk museum where I saw original and replica examples of houses from all areas and periods in Norway- stave churches are absolutely gorgeous! Wandered around, visited a pub with her friends, picked up some great Norwegian music, had coffee at the opera house, a huge white building built all on angles- you can walk all over it, even on the roof! Just amazing. Visited Viedland park and saw beautiful (and some consider them) scandalous sculptures created by the artist Gustav Viedland- truly marvelous creations. Then just hung out and chatted a lot. It was a perfect weekend.

Hung out with K & T last Sunday, ate Norwegian salmon, ham, reindeer sausage, cheese, watched the San Jose/Detroit game. San Jose won, putting them into the conference finals for the 2nd time ever (first was vs. Calgary in 2004). We just hung out afterward and chatted, looked at photos, etc. Nice time!

Today has felt productive- a day of doing things. I accomplished a lot at work, then realized my brain was just NOT in the mood to quietly learn anything. So I rescheduled Polish for tomorrow and did errands. Went with a friend to a nifty garden store and picked up a lavender plant. Came home and re-potted it on my balcony, then cleaned the windows and shelf out there. Did dishes and laundry. Got my nails done, a nice treat after hauling boxes and sorting papers for a month. Picked up some new eyeliner. Took out some recycling. Ate dinner and watched Rounders. Got info on ordering ESPN here. It's nice to get things done, sometimes. Helps un-clutter life a bit.

The next few weeks will be just as busy, I suspect- more to do a work, need to work on a database, train staff and prepare for a conference, process documents at said conference, deal with ongoing recruitments, figure out my taxes, etc. But this Saturday is the Night of Museums again, which should be lots of fun- looking forward to it!

Hope everyone is doing well! Hugs to all.