Symchronized drowning

It is not very often that I ever do much outside home on weekday nights, where the endless cycle of dog-walking, children-feeding, and laundry-folding often ends up just swallowing my time. But last night something amazing (or so I thought......) was happening. Ulrik’s school had a visiting movie director who is working on a Titanic project. Something about re-filming it with more focus on the female story (well, in the movie it isactually Rose that survives because there is no space for Jack on the raft. I guess that is as female as an ending can get!). The custom design line had worked on costumes and props and teamed up with the synchronized swim team from university of Michigan. And it all took place at the Natatorium aka the big university pool.

I made sure Teresa and I were there super early. Totally not necessary, which she made sure to let me know repeatedly throughout the evening. And first there were costumes such as the chimney (????) and a lifeboat:

And then they started filming. One of the scenes were “the death of the captain”. A tragic death by bellyflop from a diving board:

And finally everyone started drowning:

It is by far one of the weirdest things I have seen ever seen. And not necessarily in a good way. The best part was the water polo team practicing in the neighbor pool. Water polo is a violent sport with big hunky dudes, who were the exact opposite of all the artsy art students. It seemed like they used their whistles a bit extra that night to disturb the filming going on. LOL

About the birthday

So...... it turned out that our elaborate plan to kick the 10 rowdy boys outside for at least some of the evening got completely ruined:

By thunder, hail, rain and slush. Seriously! The worst weather in months on that one night where we could really have used something better.

But it was a good night:

Where the strawberry syrup filled “bloody syringes” were a big hit

Where most of the pizza was gone relatively fast, and where at least some of the kids were up for the pumpkin face challenge, where you apply Vaseline to your face and have a contest about how many cheese puffs you can stick on there without using your hands

But I also felt a lot better after I brought a bottle of red wine to the upstairs neighbors apologizing for all the noise. Because these kids were anything but quiet. And it didn’t help that we just have too little space in general. Still Luca thought it was the best night EVER and already asked for a similar birthday next year😬

Lucky for me I had planned ahead and spent the rest of the night in the company of this:

With a generous splash of gin of course. The best G&T in quite a while! And what tasted even better was the leftover birthday cake. Nothing like a chocolaty sweet reminder that it will be another year before next time.

Today I slept until 8AM, which is the longest I have slept for months. And after church we decided to take the dog for a hike in the beautiful forest near Hell (yes. That is a place in Michigan - google it and see for yourself):

I guess I am ready for next week to begin

Party prepping

Finally. For the longest time I have wanted to throw a halloween kids party and this year we decided to have Luca’s birthday this way. He kind of ran out and invited ALL his friends before I could stop him, and I have to admit I have been a bit stressed about the thought of having 11 excited and dressed up preteens and teens in our apartment, but things are coming together and our living room is now party ready

Luca and I have been busy all morning. We have been at work to check on mice, that just came out of brain surgery:

We have gotten dry ice:

And we have been shopping the last bits in Meier:

So we could go home and make cake and witch hats:

We have prepared bloody syringes:

While Kristian has been busy making spooky pizzas:

Birthday Dino and his family are about as ready as they can get!

Gettin’ chilly with it

Back in Ann Arbor. And it’s cold. Well not “winter is upon us and it hurts to step outside” cold, but that raw wet dark fall cold that does feel quite depressing and makes you want to bundle up inside.

My trip back to the US went well. I even met a robot in the terminal

And had amazing Vietnamese food for breakfast and got to spend my last wons on special edition coffee Chocopies to bring back to the lab. And things went fairly smooth in customs - except that scientist now earn an additional luggage screen at the customs because some researchers are dumb enough to try to hide biological samples in their bags when they travel. Sigh. I actually told the screening agent that I was not that stupid and then I started thinking about what people in these professions think we actually do at conferences........

I stayed awake most of the flight so by the time I went to bed around 9PM I think I fell asleep before my head landed on the pillow. That’s my trick to avoid prolonged jetlag, because it gives a good nights sleep immediately.

And I am trying my best to be chill about next week, which will require a certain amount of “do not panic” attitude to get through with a bunch of surgeries that I had not planned for, but which needs to be done ASAP. And with Luca’s halloween birthday party where we have to find a way to stuff 11 awkward, excited, dressed up, hungry middle school boys into our apartment😳 (Luca did invite a bit more friends than we had anticipated......) and hope for the best!