Being a verb...

I’ve been in Austria over a week now, and I’ve seen the sun shine for maybe 5 minutes total. It is cold (8-10° C = 46-50° F during the day) and rainy off and on. The only blue sky I see is over the Iowa cornfield that I’ve set up as my computer desktop. Despite the weather, I’ve got lots accomplished in the past few days: secured my residency permit, registered with the local authorities, ordered a new train discount card, sorted and filed all my school papers from last year, met with friends, flirted with the bus driver, shopped for essentials, and written – As my friend Robin would say, I’ve been a verb – (and an active verb at that)! School for me starts Wednesday, October 1, and because I’ve been so industrious, I have nothing hanging over my head for the first time in I don’t know how long. With my new-found freedom I will work on writing projects, taking time out to go to Sturmfest tonight. Sturm is the newly fermented wine that comes in three flavors: white, red, and Schilcher (a grape native to Styria). It tastes like grape juice but it’s a little fizzy and if one is not careful, it packs a powerful punch. Needless to say, I am always careful! Here’s a picture of me, Irene, Rob, and Rob’s girlfriend Diana as we celebrated our reunion at a local inn last week (http://www.imdoerfl.at/en/index.html). Note the glasses of red Sturm!

From Sheep to Cows to Pigs with Lipstick!

Sorry, I couldn't resist the title, since at the moment I left Cedar Rapids, McCain and Palin were campaigning at the airport. Proof!

I arrived in Austria early expressly to see the Almabtrieb in Donnersbach. This a festival in which the shepherds (or in this case cowherds) drive the cows from the mountain pastures where they have spent the summer months into the valleys where they will shelter for the winter. The cattle are decorated with flowers and ribbons and bells and mirrors to ward off evil.

The festival is not at all kitschy as you might expect. There's a wonderful brass band, and really good food--just clean, wholesome fun. Well, not so clean actually... they are cows after all! And the Stiertreiber runs around covered in "pitch" (actually a mixture of cold cream and soot) and hugs all the women leaving black marks on their cheeks. You've been reading this blog long enough... Are you really going to be surprised when I tell you that this is supposed to be a fertility ritual?You can see more pictures from last year's festival under September 2007 in the Archives.

World Sheep Festival

Every year on Labor Day Weekend, the World Sheep Festival takes place in Bethel, Missouri. When I lived in Kirksville, Missouri, this was an event not to be missed! For $3 you could get a weekend pass (which included a souvenir button) and see all the events: sheep dog trials, sheep to shawl competition, mutton busting, plus all sorts of sheep merchandise and lamb dishes (lamb burgers, kabobs, BBQ lamb sandwiches).

This year, I passed up a trip to Minnesota with my family to attend the World Sheep Festival. (Those who know me well know that next to Austria and Iowa, my favorite spot on earth is Minnesota, and I haven't been there since I was 17). I went to Bethel, Missouri instead, with every intention of reliving the Sheep Festivals of my past. I wanted to take a picture of sheep in spandex (sounds a little kinky, but it's just the way the exhibitors keep the wool clean before a show) and I wanted to buy a new pair of lambskin moccasins.

Bethel is about 160 miles from Iowa City, mostly on narrow two-lane highways with virtually no cell phone reception. So much for meeting up with one of my friends at the festival! When I arrived, I realized why no admission was being charged this year. It was a poor spectacle... about a quarter of the size it used to be. Only about half the stalls were filled in the sheep barn, there were no sheep in spandex (the lamb and goat show was the day before) and the only slippers in sight were a men's size 12, made of alpaca wool. In fact, nearly half of all the exhibits and merchandise at the SHEEP festival were angora rabbit, angora goat, llama or alpaca. They used to have a fiber arts contest, where women were judged on the clothes they made of wool as they paraded through the show barn with their pet sheep (a highlight of the festival). As it was, I ran out of things to look at after about 15 minutes.

But determined to make the most of my trip, I first took in the sheep dog trials which are always entertaining.
I stayed for the mutton busting, where small children wearing padding and helmets take a tour around the ring on a real live sheep (hoo boy...). I ate a lamb kabob which was o.k. Then I went to the parade. Of the 25 entries, probably half of them were political candidates stumping for votes with candy and election literature. There were only four sheep in the whole parade. And the C.S.A. was represented, complete with Confederate battle flag and a bumper sticker that read "Keep it flying." For the record, Missouri was considered a northern state, but there continues to be a population sympathetic to the Old South and all that implies. Here, on cue, one of my naturalized citizen friends would put her hand over her heart and sing in her most sarcastic tone, "I'm proud to be an American."

Bethel is an old German colony, and they keep their traditions alive with a volunteer oompah-band that also participated in the parade:
After the parade, I'd pretty much *done* the Sheep Festival, so I cut over to Kirksville, taking pictures along the road. I visited with my friends Christine and Rowan, then headed back north, taking blurry pictures of an otherwise fantastic sunset, and arriving in Iowa City about 9:00 pm. I'll leave you with one of the best shots of the day (works nicely as a desktop!):

Take me out to the ball game...

Last week my family went to a Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball game. The Kernels are a minor league (Class A) "farm" team affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels, currently playing in the Western Division Finals this weekend. We had dinner at the ball park: hot dogs, french fries, and root beer. We sat along the first base line in front of these adorable young fans (Thanks for the photo-op, boys!) We sang the Star Spangled Banner at the opening and Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th inning stretch. This is what summers are all about in the U.S.: Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, (and fireworks!)

My mom also brought her baseball glove to catch a foul ball, although it was her sister, Miriam, who almost got beaned by one!

Iowa has a romantic history with the American pastime of baseball. The movie "Field of Dreams" was filmed in Dyersville, and one of the dialogues from the movies is:

"Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."

Gives us all a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Gustav, Hanna and Ike

So here we are, about a week after Gustav hit Louisiana, and all of my friends are still without electricity in Baton Rouge (for a justified rant, click here). Hanna damaged 80% of the east coast island homes (my aunt lives on Hilton Head). Now they're predicting that Hurricane Ike will likely enter the Gulf of Mexico. Haven't we had about enough of this nonsense?

Hurricane Gustav

They say that the damage in Baton Rouge is the worst ever sustained in a hurricane. Winds at the airport were clocked at 91 mph at the height of the storm. There was a lot of rain and wind which took out electricity to 1.4 million customers. The last report I read was that half of Baton Rouge should get power back within one week, and the other half will get power back in three to four WEEKS. After Katrina, 140,000 refrigerators had be be discarded after food went bad in them. I imagine that will be an issue again.

Here are some photos of the damage left by Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana. http://www.2theadvocate.com/multimedia/27800409.html
http://www.wafb.com/global/Story.asp?s=8929420

Because Gustav was not the television ratings bonanza the networks thought it would be, the news crews have turned their attention to the other storms in the Atlantic, named Hanna, Ike, and Josephine. So I haven't seen any pictures of damage from Lafayette or elsewhere in Louisiana.

Classes at LSU have been canceled until Monday. Sounds great, but remember, there's no electricity, no air-conditioning, very few grocery stores and even fewer restaurants are open. Not a vacation, by any stretch of the imagination. But the LSU Tigers and the New Orleans Saints are planning to play football this weekend. As long as they've got their priorities straight...

Katrina Reflections (Part 3 - Miracles do happen!)

Make sure you read Katrina Reflections Parts 1 and 2 first!

So what kind of miracle could arise from the tragedy of Katrina? Well, we’ll know within the next few hours whether the levees held, and there was certainly much more organization and compliance with evacuation orders during Gustav. We can only hope that the central western part of Louisiana doesn’t become “Cajun Country’s Katrina” as predicted.

But I’m thinking about the Aquarium of the Americas. Without electricity there is no air conditioning and no filtration. The reports immediately after Katrina were that the entire contents of the aquarium had essentially turned to gumbo, with the exception of the penguins that had been airlifted to Dallas. In the days that followed I reflected on the desperation, the loss of life, on both the human and aquatic scale. Thinking about the poor, defenseless sea dragons just made me even more depressed.

A week or so after the storm, I read a news article that leads me to believe that no matter how desperate the situation, there is always hope. When workers entered the aquarium, they expected to find only death. They certainly did not expect animals as fragile as the sea dragons to survive the dramatic temperature change and lack of oxygen. But they did...

And if that isn’t a paradigm of hope, I don’t know what is.