We've Moved!

There is a perfectly good reason for my internet silence, over the past few weeks we've been on a grand adventure trying to move into our new house! The adventure part was that we had to move out of our old place before we could move into our new one. So we stayed with some very gracious friends, and while we were there, on my birthday to be exact, it snowed! It's not all that unusual to have a bit of snow here and there in Eugene, but it usually never sticks, and it certainly never accumulates the way it did that day!

Lucy had a grand time (for about 10 minutes) and since I had packed any snow clothing away that I might have had, we used our friend's grandkids' clothing. We think she looks a bit like the Michelin tire man.

Isn't she cute?

I will post pictures of our new place at some point. We bought a foreclosure at a great price, and consequently there is loads of remodeling we want to do. Horrible wallpaper that needs to go, walls that need tearing down, ugly fixtures that need replacing, etc! But we're very excited to do all that stuff, and post our progress as we go!

We're Alive!

So we finally got internet up at our new place in Eugene. That's right, we moved to Eugene. Our last post was about Christmas Day, and then the next thing you know we're no longer Cohens in Moscow, we're Cohens in Eugene. In fact we're going to have to change our blog name but we have yet to come up with a catchy title (Joel suggested "Eu-Jew-Gene" or simply "Jew-Gene" but I nixed those).

So what happened? Well, the day before Christmas Eve a firm called Moss Adams called Joel to deliver the fabulous news that a job he interviewed for earlier that week would like to hire him for a position in Eugene, OR. We were thrilled. Moss Adams is a prestigious accounting firm and this is the job offer Joel had been waiting for for a while. And then they dropped the big bomb: start date was January 17th. That was very soon. Plus we had a week long trip to Phoenix to see family before that date, which gave us very little time to pack, let alone find a trip. And so the blog, obviously, completely dropped off the radar.

But we're back now! And it's time to play catch-up. So we'll start with our favorite subject. Here's one of the creative ways we kept Lucy entertained while we packed.



And while in Phoenix Grandma Sunny came up with this great idea to give Lucy the much-detested Tummy time. Now she loves it! Notice packing boxes in the background.

Two things we like right now

The first is a TV show that Meris got us hooked on: Bones. We've had to start limiting our tv watching time because of this show. And both of us love this song from one episode in Season 2.



The second thing is one of those marvelous 2-o'clock-in-the-morning-on-your-graveyard-shift finds:

http://realestate.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=23303422&gt1=35000

Also

In case the weather is as blah wherever you are as it is in Moscow right now, here's a little something that cheered me up!

http://vimeo.com/2926432

Sorry I couldn't embed it. And since I don't speak Swedish I just have to hope they're not saying anything wildly inappropriate!

Stay Tuned for Moon Bombings

Apparently the celestial beings didn't do a good enough job with battlefield Moon, now it's time for us humans to join in the fun. :)

NASA Moon Bombings Tomorrow

Time to dig out my telescope.

History buffs, this one's for you

I'm sure most of you have learned about this already, but I couldn't help posting about it anyway:

Huge hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure uncovered in UK

Apparently it beats the hoard found at Sutton Hoo by a long shot.

The best part? The man was unemployed and pursuing his favorite hobby: metal-detecting. He just happened to stumble upon the biggest Anglo-Saxon loot ever, and he gets 50% of the proceeds when it is sold to a museum. The other half goes to the farmer whose land the treasure was found on.

Incredible. My favorite find that they've uncovered so far is the strip of gold with the "crudely written and misspelled Biblical inscription in Latin: Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face."

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Beowulf. Wouldn't my Traditio teacher Mr. McIntosh be proud, I still have my commonplace book, and I'd copied that quote down:

"But the Lord was weaving a victory on His war-loom for the Weather-Geats. Through the strength of one they all prevailed; they would crush their enemy and come through in triumph and gladness. The truth is clear: Almighty God rules over mankind and always has (696-702)."

My skunk story

Last night I went searching for my cat. She frequently goes adventuring down at the bottom of the hill and out in the fields past the road. So, I grabbed a flash-light and thought that by shining the light I could hopefully detect her gleaming little eyes and be able to bring her in for the night.

In the fields past the road there is a marsh-like area which during the day resounds with the noise of hundreds of little birds happily taking baths. But at 11 at night, the only sound I could hear was rustling. A lot of rustling in fact, which made me think that perhaps my cat was down there. I got to the edge of the marsh and shone my flashlight. Instead of a cute little tabby cat, I discovered a whole family of skunks, rooting around in the tall grass. None of them seemed terribly disturbed by my presence, so I decided to give them a wide berth and look for kitten elsewhere. I shone my light and saw a gleam of kitten eyes around the other side of the marsh, so I started to head that way.

Apparently, however, there were more skunks than I had anticipated. And apparently I got too close to an over-protective mama skunk. As I was walking, I suddenly heard a very loud rustling to my left, followed by a SHRIEK! CHATTER CHATTER CHATTER and this animal comes bounding out of the marsh towards me. I'm not scared of little night creatures, but when they possess the ability to spray you with one of the most terrible smells ever invented, I run like my life depended on it. This was a persistent skunk, and it chased me all the way back to the road, chewing me out in skunk speech the whole way.

I decided against searching for Whiskey any more that night, although as I left I swept my flashlight across the fields one more time, and I could see those gleaming kitten eyes still in the distance. I could have sworn they looked amused.

In case you're wondering what a mad skunk sounds like, here is a good representation.

The Cohen Zoo

Yesterday was an exciting day at the Cohen petting zoo. It began around 1 when I received a call from Joel.
"Umm, Christine?"
"Yes, dear?"
"There is a bird in our house."
"Is it alive?"
"Oh yes, it's hopping around shedding feathers left and right."
"Where is Whiskey?"
"Well, she's chasing it."

After advising Joel to lock Whiskey outside, I came home to survey the damage. Joel hadn't lied, a torrent of feathers lay strewed around our house. In the midst of the carnage a very scared looking Robin crouched under our piano stool. I did the eco-friendly thing and rescued the poor bird. Elissa, you would be proud. While I didn't attempt to set its broken leg myself, I did stick it in a shoebox and transport it to the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center. We were fast friends by the end of the trip, I'd even considered naming him.

Whiskey has a habit of bringing her trophies inside and depositing them in her food-bowl. This would explain how the Robin found itself unhappily trapped in our house. It would also explain the appearance of our second guest of the day. While I was making dinner, Joel's voice came from the other room.

"Umm, babe?"
"Yeah?"
"There's a mouse in the house."
"Is it alive?"
"Well, yeah..."

And so the story repeated itself. Me chasing the little furry rodent around and finally managing to trap it under a teacup. Unlike the robin, the mouse didn't get to go to a comfy animal hospital. In fact it met a somewhat more depressing end (children, leave the room now). Despite my pleas to let it go free, Joel remained firm. He wanted Whiskey to learn how to kill mice. So we marched the poor rodent outside and stuck it in the grass next to our cat. Whiskey, however, while she makes a charming house-pet, is a failure as a mouser. She stared in fascination at the mouse, following it around and occasionally knocking it off its feet. The claws never came out, the teeth remained firmly shut. In fact, she was so un-intimidating that the mouse soon considered her a friend, and tried several times to snuggle up against her. This was too much for Whiskey, who was able to maintain at least some shred of dignity and backed away from her admirer in confusion. After several hours of inaction on the part of our cat, Joel took matters into his own hand and sent the mouse sailing into the next life with the help of a mouse-trap. I voted pro-life, but my husband, ever the practical one, voted anti-hantavirus. And that was the end of the Cohen zoo.

Big Snake

Make sure to check out its head.