Despite the reality of mid-November rain showers and sleet storms, the proverbial clouds have lifted. Since last week's elections, things have been feeling good. Late Tuesday evening, I, like millions of Americans, felt proud to be an American. When I was living in Paris, my distaste for the local culture charged me with a new-found americanism. But when I was back in Europe, disenchanted by my experience with the culture and politics of my own fatherland, I hardly resisted being identified as Dutch. Scandinavian. Anything else. Any sort of exoticism would have done me well.

I realize that many of us will be disappointed with Obama's future performance as president. He won't be as liberal as we want him to be. Or if his proposals are, they will also be controversial enough to be checked by other legislative bodies. I am impressed with what he has (we have) achieved so far, with Obama's amazing swoop of a campaign. I can't wait to see what happens with our country, regardless of which side of the lake I'll back watching from.

Of course it helps that I have found a job. And that they will pay me well. And will give me more responsibility than most of my former employers saw fit.

This past week I engaged myself in a sewing project. I made myself an early-winter poncho from tan plaid woolen suiting and a charcoal "lightweight polyester fleece that transports moisture moisture away from your skin and is inherently flame resistant." (Pictures coming soon?) Because it's not knit, it should probably technically be called a cape, but I would prefer to keep the image of a superhero strolling the streets of Ann Arbor out of your head.

While scooping myself dinner from the hot bar at the People's Food Co-op sometime last week, I decided to give kale a try. It has a bit of a bitter taste, but I find it far more tolerable than arugula. Anyway, this evening I tried a recipe for kale chips. After tearing the leaves off a few stalks, I ripped them into chip-size chunks. I rinsed them well in cold water, drained, and dried them off with a paper towel. Then I tossed them with a teaspoon or so of olive oil. I spread them out on a baking sheet, then sprinkled them with my roommate's coarse kosher salt. 12 minutes at 350 degrees did the trick.

They don't really taste anything like potato chips. But they are greasy, and they are salty. So they are delicious. Plus, I figure they retain a lot of their nutrients. They aren't thick like potato chips are, and they shatter very easily. I warn against stepping on any of the chips you may accidentally drop on the oriental rug, and I do not recommend baking sugar cookies on the same baking sheet before (at least) washing it off.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours making lasagna. I followed this recipe with a couple alterations. I used:

1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 medium sweet white onion, diced
1/2 large green pepper, diced
1 glove garlic, minced
1 large box of dry lasagna noodles
26 oz. red pepper and garlic-flavored pasta sauce
14 oz. stewed tomatoes (sliced, but not diced)
3 oz. tomato paste
1 tub of ricotta cheese
3 cups of mozzarella
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
dash of chili powder
splash of white wine vinegar

(Note: I left out the mozzarella)

I don't have a large pot in which to cook all of my lasagna noodles at once, so I snapped them in half and boiled two 3-quart pots of water, one after the other. To keep my first set of noodles from sticking too much, I left them piled in a shallow pan sitting in the sink filled with cool water. Every ten minutes or so I would run more cool water on the noodles and carefully separate them. In the end, one could say I ran out of sauce -- I prefer, that I was making my own low-calorie recipe.

Things I would do differently the next time:
Make sauce first and let it simmer while boiling the noodles.
Borrow lasagna pan and aluminum foil before starting to cook.
Invite friends over to help me eat the damn thing.

Yes We Can

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Katie

It's been just over two months since I've been back in the States, in Ann Arbor, the city I thought I left behind forever six months ago. I intend to keep this (the blog) going. Some of you had your doubts. For that I can offer an explanation. In short, I have been busy, without the internet, and without much desire to start writing again.

In the past two months I've trudged over sand dunes in northern Michigan, made my longest drive alone to visit Karen and her cozy gingerbread house in Ithaca, and visited my family more often than I have in a long while. My job at the bookshop stopped much sooner than I had anticipated, and for all of October I was left unemployed. As a result I have been implementing the spectacular budgeting (and cooking!) skills I cultivated in Berlin. I have done a minimal amount of shopping since returning, which is especially difficult given that they opened a new Whole Foods not too terribly far from my apartment. This week I finally caved in and purchased some warmer pants for my chilly fall runs and (as yet unrealized) trips to the gym.

After a few tough weeks of looking, I found an apartment right downtown. My roommate is generous, amusing, and predominately absent. We have both slept in the apartment at the same time only once. The apartment has wooden floors, a living room spilling over with Danish modern furniture, books of impeccable taste, a record player and plenty of LPs, and a working Rhodes electric piano. The privacy lends itself well to practicing my Beethoven, and it is only a block away from the food co-op and the bus that takes me up to campus. The only downside is an apparent infestation of house centipedes.

Although the reasons are becoming (immer mehr) unclear, I have been continuing my German course at the university. Nearly all of my friends have graduated and left town, leaving the folks at NPR as my primary sources of entertainment. I notice a similarity between being in Ann Arbor now and being abroad. When abroad, I do a lot of listening and not so much talking. That's due equally to not knowing anybody and having to deal with a foreign language. I am restricted to ordering food and telling someone I like their shoes. Now I might pass a whole day without saying anything of substance, and it's even more disconcerting in a city I've lived in for over four years.

That said, I haven't been going out too often. Four times to the Blind Pig, twice for Soul Night, once for Matt's band's cd-release party, and most recently for the Yeasayer concert. (I missed most of their set in Berlin, making it for the last two songs only, and bought tickets shortly after coming back.) I did go out this past Friday night for Halloween (I dressed as a mouse -- sort of). I have restarted my semi-obsessive film nights: The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine (a documentary about Louise Bourgeois) at the Detroit Film Theatre with Alison, Burn after Reading (which I found entertaining at best and strange that John Malkovich can be more attractive than Clooney and Pitt) at the Michigan Theater with Kebra, several German movies (Gegen die Wand, Auf der anderen Seite/The Edge of Heaven, Die Stille nach dem Schuß/The Legends of Rita, Sonnenallee, Goodbye Lenin), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I loved despite it being very painful), Down by Law (I had to round out my Jarmusch), The Shining (which provoked a number of embarassingly audible squeals), No Country for Old Men (excellent, but not nearly as good as There Will Be Blood), Be Kind Rewind (unfortunately boring), Le Gai savoir/The Joy of Learning (a dare I say "instructional" Godard), the very beginning of Alphaville (I fell asleep, film noir is not my thing), and The Other Boleyn Girl.

I recently finished Calvino's The Baron in the Trees, which was magical and sad and everything Calvino's work is and should be. Also picked up: In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (my god-send question-mark), The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson (who by explaining the economics of auction houses completely kills the personality of art), and A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World (the memoir of curator Marcia Tucker), and some of the house Rimbaud. Currently I am re-reading Amy Hempel's collected stories in preparation for her upcoming visit to the university.

And what have I not mentioned? My god, the Election! Two days! This is an exciting time for us Americans. I am looking forward to being a (small) part of this (pathetically huge) accomplishment. My absentee ballot has already been cast. And may I never speak to the soul who doesn't get out there this Tuesday and vote. (Let's hear it for Obama, the man who is willing to actually work to fix our country!) There are also two proposals on the Michigan ballot: the first wants to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and the second wants to extend state laws on stem cell research to match those on the federal level. I personally recommend voting yes on both of these. If a desperate, but all-around healthy man can ruin his life with alcohol, then why shouldn't a terminally ill man be allowed to ease his suffering with an altogether natural and time-tested medicine?

What now? Last year I made Berlin my goal, my project, my pet and my love. When I decided to come back to the States, it was under the general assumption that I would be returning to Europe in the not-too-distant future. If things failed to work out with Matt, I would resume my German adventure where I left it. In the ideal situation, he would return with me as my partner in crime. In some ways, everything is going according to plan. But perhaps that is only because the plan was always very simple: return home, resume the relationship, decide on the next step. I feel it's about time to be giving serious thought to this Next Step. Moves, especially when they involve crossing large bodies of water or driving across the country in the middle of winter, aren't planned and executed overnight. I'm ready to start conquering this project -- but time (and money) is needed before much more can be done. One fantasy we've come up with so far includes WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms) in France and Switzerland, and then moving on to settle semi-permanently in Berlin (my choice). A more realistic alternative involves moving out to Seattle, where Matt can find a farm and I can find a museum or publisher (or, gasp, Amazon) to take me under their wing. In short, we aren't sure. It depends largely on what employment I find in the meantime -- how much money I'll be able to save, what professional experience I accrue over the next four months.

Have I regretted leaving Berlin in the first place? Sure. The days when I am happy with the decision I made outnumber the others, although my regrets have been increasing over the past couple of weeks as my anxieties over having to make decisions about what I want escalate. I am eager to stay in touch with Berlin any way I can... and I miss very much the few good friends I made while I was there. I wish some of them weren't scattering elsewhere around the world, that I could just keep them leashed to a particular place so I would always know where they are.

The Pit of Babel

Es muß ein Fortschritt geschehen...
Wir graben den Schacht von Babel.

Some progress must be made...
We are digging the pit of Babel.
(Franz Kafka)

I am Katie Sharrow-Reabe and I am interested in structural and social architecture. Linguistic and cultural translation. Progress through retrospection. Subliminal and subterranean connections. And I would like you to help me put these fragments into a hole.

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