May 23, 2013

Hi everyone! I’m not sure where to begin with this note. Hmmmm, 2013 is fast. I feel like I blinked and it is suddenly June. But I take a moment to reflect, it’s clear that there has been a lot more than just blinking going on. This year heralds new colleagues, new classes, and a lot of adventure. I am now part of a cohort of new professors who are great colleagues and friends. It is a wonderful feeling to have comrades.

This Spring I have worked feverishly. I got a couple new papers published, and have helped my students get up and running with their research. I sadly bid our graduating senior, Eric, adieu. His undergraduate thesis is excellent, and I hope we can get it published. I look forward to seeing him do great things with his life.

I spent a week in Trinidad in March and completed what I might consider the most successful field season I have had to date. Everything went in our favor, even things I didn’t think would be possible. For example, my student, Jani, and I collected leaves from all over the island for a sulfur isotope project for her dissertation. We also were able to bring back a number of bones from an archaeological site so she can also examine sulfur isotopes through time. The fact that we were able to obtain samples for one let alone but both of those projects is astonishing. Plus, we were able to get all of the paperwork together for export and import AND our samples arrived in the mail within 2 days. In my opinion, this is nothing short of miraculous. So, not surprisingly, I came back in very high spirits.

Shortly after my return, Matt and I headed down to Knoxville for the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. This is my favorite meeting. I have so many friends that attend, and this year in particular was a great success. First of all, our Toronto friends, Keriann and Travis, drove down to the meeting, so we got to spend some time with them in Cincinnati both on their way down and back. Travis even organized a stop for us at the Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Secondly, Matt got to see some of our mutual friends from Santa Cruz that he has not seen in years (he doesn’t usually come to this meeting with me). Third, Knoxville was a lot of fun. We happened to be visiting at a beautiful time of year AND there was a really nice art festival going on. And finally, I presented a great talk and my student presented an excellent poster. So all in all, a stellar trip.

I had a hectic final few weeks of class with a rather apathetic group of students, and then it was spring. Matt’s Dad, Doug, came down to Cincinnati for the weekend to help us with some house items and we had a whirlwind “fixit” weekend. Matt and I had made a long “to do” list and actually got through every item and then some. What a great feeling! Thank you Doug!

At the end of the term, I competed in the first ever University of Cincinnati Science Idol competition. I was the “Masked Madagascan, Masked Ambassador of Madagascar”. I presented my research and Madagascar’s plight, and then performed an interpretive tap dance “stomping against deforestation”. I didn’t win, but I had fun, which is the most important thing, right?

After the term ended, Matt and I decided we had to get out of town for a bit. We headed down to Mammoth Cave for a weekend in Late April. We got in some surface hiking and three hours of underground time. We opted for the Violet City Tour, which is a lantern-lit tour that goes off the beaten path. We learned a lot about the cultural history of the cave and had a very unique experience. Unfortunately, the weather was rather foul, but it held up enough for us to have one night of camping, complete with a campfire and Busch beer. However, we wimped out for the second night and rented a sweet little one-room cottage at the national park. We made the right decision. For one, it rained cats and dogs. In fact, a tree was struck by lightning right outside the cottage. Additionally (and somewhat surprisingly), this venue was actually much more quiet than camping. There were no cars, and no residents in the adjacent cottages. Prior to the downpour, we got to hear the park storyteller share a couple of stories around the campfire. Other than that, we laid low.

From Mammoth, we headed north for a day with Matt’s mom, Drucie, in Louisville. Although the city was on the cusp of getting revved up for the derby, it was pretty low-key. We enjoyed a truly fantastic Persian meal, a walk through a superb modern art gallery in a novel hotel, and an evening checking out the ins and outs of the magnificent Galt House Hotel. This included a mint julep at a fish bar (literally the bar was a fish tank full of cichlids), watching the birds that were part of the hotel’s menagerie (my favorite were the diminutive button quail), and surreptitiously wandering through a closed dining room that made me feel like I was part of “The Shining”. All in all we had a great time in this city on the south side of the Ohio River. Thank you Drucie!

Next up was a trip to Kalamazoo in Early May. Two of my students presented at the North Central Regional Meeting for the Geological Society of America. I took advantage of the trip and visited mom for a few days. We got to go see “Wicked”, the Tulip Festival in Holland Michigan, and my grandmother. We also enjoyed a superb evening of Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo. But the main highlight of the trip was a visit to a local elk farm. We got to go out and feed the herd on a beautiful spring evening. The owners of the ranch, Debbie and Tom, were wonderful hosts. They took us out in their 4-wheel vehicles, introduced us to the animals, and answered all sorts of questions I had about the elk. They even gave me a bunch of bones from small animals that had died on their property for my teaching collection!

We then had mother’s day with both moms. Mom and I drove back down to Cincinnati together (stopping by Gene Stratton-Porter’s house in Geneva, Indiana on the way), and Drucie drove down from State College. We had a great time visiting some of our favorite places in Cincinnati and eating good food. We also got to break in our new yard with a round of off-road croquet. It’s rare to have both moms in one place (In fact, I think that the only previous occurrence was our wedding). Thank you for suggesting this plan Drucie.

I’m so glad it is spring. We had such a long winter but it is finally green and moist and lush and wow is the yard going nuts. All of that dreariness melts away quickly. The weather is fine - much nicer than last year at this time - and the yard is really coming along. Matt and I have spent many, many hours planting things of all varieties, shapes and sizes and watching with glee as they grow. In addition to trees, shrubs, flowers, and herbaceous ground cover, we have vegetables growing and tonight we were able to eat our first home grown salad. Yum.

I’ve got a few weeks of downtime before I head off to Ottawa to take a training course on maintaining and rebuilding mass spectrometers (something I will likely need to do at some point with our own new instrument). Because I know that things always come up that are unexpected and it is best to never procrastinate, I am taking advantage of this time to work on a manuscript and plan my class for the fall. I will be teaching Zooarchaeology. I am very excited about this class but it turns out this subject is rather more involved to prepare than I had anticipated. In order to get the students to a point where they can identify and interpret animal bone assemblages in archaeological contexts, they needs to learn basic osteology, ecology, geology, archaeology, and taphonomy. Luckily many of these topics are hands on (so much more fun to teach than lectures) but they’re also involved. In order for the students to be able to recognize different kinds of animal bones, I am actively building a skeletal collection of anything that could be encountered in Ohio today or over the past 2000 years. So… if you happen to have any dead critters (or parts of critters) hanging around that you would like to get off your hands, please let me know. I welcome pretty much anything and everything. Just to give you a sense of how serious I am, I am looking forward to collecting some bison remains from a ranch in Kansas in August.

Anyway, other than that, we just had our Chilean friend Esteban stay with us for a few days, and next weekend we have some friends coming down from Pittsburgh for the Cincinnati Tap “N” Run. Here’s the description official description “Tap ‘N’ Run combines a ridiculous running race – a 4K with 3 beer chug stations along the race course, a full beer at eh finish line, crazy costumes, great times with friends, and unbelievable athleticism”. That should be interesting.

So life isn’t dull. You probably won’t be hearing from me again for awhile, but rest assured I will have all sorts of adventures to recount in the not-too-distant future. I’m going to be in India in July and I’ll be heading back to Colorado briefly in August.

Brooke