Bad Bloggers

Yesterday Mo's brother sent an email message stating that we sucked as bloggers and we do. We apologize to our faithful readers for our long delay in posting. The following is a quick catch up and recap of what's been going on for us for the last 6 weeks.

California.

In early November we met up in Washington DC, Yo had flown in from Amman and Mo drove the car down to DC from Toronto (9 hours - thank god for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows CDs). We flew out to San Francisco the next day - Mo made a pit stop in Stanford to give a seminar and visit her advisor Doc B. and Yo went on to stay with our gracious hosts the Kansa family. We hung out in Berkeley visited friends, had a behind the scenes tour at the Bade (thanks to AB and CPF) Museum, saw some banana slugs at Muir Woods and ate some very good food.

Pillar-based figurines from the Bade Museum, Berkeley

On Sunday we all piled into the small orange car and drove up into wine country to visit our friends at http://www.karmadog.us/pages/contact.html We (the Kansas, the Addison/Connors and us) all worked on a dig (Shiqmim) together in 1993 and have remained in touch since then. The tribe has grown with the addition of Elie (where's my mushroom dress), Helena (or Bean), Rowan and Finn, so it was excellent to all get together. W and P have just finished building a barn to house the construction business (see image). If you live in CA and need a kitchen redo or cement counter top Preston is your man.

A few days later we all went down to San Diego for the annual ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research) meetings. We try to attend these academic meetings every year - its a good way to catch up with old friends, see a new city, and hear the latest about excavations in the Middle East. Yo (with his pal JE) is in charge of deciding who gets to present a paper when and where. Quite often the papers are not that exciting, but this year we heard a great paper by a cultural anthropologist (a rarity for ASOR) about a goat sacrifice in India. There was a video of the event, which ended with the priestess sucking the blood from the neck of the newly slaughtered goat. Cool but quite graphic. The keynote speaker was a famous archaeologist - Jodi Magness. She managed to turn a few heads by discussing the textual evidence for excrement at Qumran. The talk also became quite graphic at times - one woman shouted "ooooow" when Jodie mentioned that the Essenes used poop to seal their clay pots. Another person leaned over to Mo and said she was leaving if Jodi said poop one more time . . . All very intellectual. We were lucky to have a mini ACOR reunion in San Diego as J and her old man drove down for dinner one evening. Thanks!!

After the ASOR meetings we hung around San Diego for a few more days to see our friends P, B and S, they live in the very hip Pacific Beach. It was our first meeting of the divine Miss Sophie, and it was delightful. We stayed in a hotel with this sign in the front hall:

You have to love California.

After SD we headed back up to San Fran where we were lucky to meet up with Yo's rellies. Congrats to new American Michael! We wandered around the town and finally made it to Alcatraz. It was a great.

Yo in solitary confinement at Alcatraz:

After Thanksgiving we headed back to Washington DC for our next set of academic meetings - the American Anthropological Association meetings. We both presented papers, saw friends, looked for jobs and ate some more good food. By the time early December rolled around (HAPPY BIRTHDAY YO) we were fat and tired. Luckily we headed back to Amman for some rest and bad food. And that's where we are today.