thanksgiving is here, and you know what that means.

a nice, big, green, lumpy helping of ginger ale saladé. mmmmm

thanks to / for you all from the chicago-o'hare airport.

when october gives you snow, make snow-narwhals (the work of l. gray)

a touch of zu swag

Q: what do you get when you add mason jars and swag?

A:

Occupy Val, Day 6

The Zu is in dire straits - this is our sixth day sleeping in a pile of cots in Lewis-Sebring. It was fun the first night, with "miniature tanks" and "places I've been fired from" and watching Space Jam on Maxwell's projector, but it's getting more than old by now. We even called dinner at 6:30 every night and marched into Val together and took an entire athletic team's table. It's been a weird week.

BUT! now we're even kicked out Lewis-Sebring! Our stuff is in a big pile in the middle of the floor, and we were awakened by the gentle roar of industrial vacuum cleaners mere feet away from our heads. Refugees again, lest our unwashed plaid discourage any parents (it's parents weekend! they must eat in lewis-sebring!) from donating to the college. Lulu and I are waiting for a shuttle to take our stuff back to the Zu now, where we STILL don't have power. But at least tonight we will walk our own unlit, freezing, incredibly-smelly hallways, under the watchful eye of a "guard" to make sure the house doesn't spontaneously combust. Long live the Zu!

Hot Potato

Our power just came on this morning after five nights in the dark. Last night we found a bunch of two by fours in the basement, dug a pit in the backyard, and finally made ourselves some delicious hot food. The Zu has been camped out on FEMA cots in Lewis-Sebring, which sounds awful enough to make our cold little house seem pretty wonderful.

In case you were wondering...

..this is what Andy meant by arts and crafts.

I believe the situation came about more or less like this:

Lyon, a local cafe, 16h on Sunday, sipping coffee, discussing what to do next:

Lizzie: Well, our options are little limited since almost everything in France is closed on Sunday.

Andy: We could decorate your apartment.

Lizzie: Okay, what sort of decorations?

Andy: mumblemumble...paper flowers!

Lizzie: Okay, let's do it!

And the idea was born. The one flaw in the plan was that I thought Andy knew how to make paper flowers and he (for some craaaazy reason) thought I knew how, when neither of us actually knew how, and we only found this out after Andy had meticulously crafted half a dozen paper stems for our non-existent paper flowers and arranged them delicately in a vase.

As it turns out, the "mumble mumble" I heard was actually Andy saying that if his grandmother were here, she would make paper flowers. Or something. Apparently I stopped listening for a few seconds. And my brain naturally filled in the blanks thinking Andy was proposing to make me a beautiful bouquet.

But it turned out okay because we made paper airplanes and cutout snowflakes instead.