Season's Greetings 06.12.07

Hola Doctor Linda! Your trusted ol' engine on this side. I will blog this to your blog with this post as I did not see it there. We are talking about a book in the future. I do not recall a previous copy of the below, but then I am growing old and aging gracefully.

One day moves into another and I appreciate my many blessings daily and strive to show it my helping others in what ways that I can. The struggle continues and I find meaning waging struggles for the truth. Images to come!

This year has gone by rather quickly and I find a sense of solvent stability in science, though I know that it is all this stuff is ultimately spiritual in nature. Look at the whole idea of synapse and what takes place in space, much of the stuff in the cosmos is apparent space or is it really just space or other dimensions entirely?!
~Prayers for Peace on Earth, Tu Amigo, Peta

P.S. I have resigned myself to the ideal of being an incurable romantic!
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Linda Whittaker <olsvig2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

Did you get another copy of this?

Linda

Note: forwarded message attached.

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Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:36:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Linda Whittaker <olsvig2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Season's Greetings 06.12.07
To: Linda Olsvig-Whittaker Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il

My annual holiday letter. No images with Yahoo, I'm afraid, but I attach the original.

Linda

4 December 2007

Season's Greetings,

In the office, we just lit the first candle of Hanukkah and gave speeches and sang songs and ate jelly donuts. Last Shabbat, I went to the Lutheran Church's annual Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market), where charities were selling handmade Christmas cards and other seasonal items, including "Mandelbrot" (Christmas almond cake) flown in from Berlin, and selling homemade Linzertorte. My English and Irish friends are preparing fruitcake and Christmas pudding. My diet is doomed until January.

It has been a year with ups and downs, in some cases quite literally. Last January, I was rescuing a cat from the roof when the ladder slipped under me, and I ended up unconscious on the marble terrace, with a cut straight through my cheek. Fortunately no bones, teeth, or eyes were damaged, just an ugly cut that required stitches and kept me out of work for a week. I still have a dueling scar but came out of that lucky.

At that point I had a checkup and it turned out I was severely anemic. It took half a year of testing to figure out exactly what was wrong and to fix the problem, which is pernicious anemia caused by autoimmune gastritis, a satellite problem of my Hashimoto's thyroiditis, also an autoimmune disorder. (Apparently if you get one autoimmune problem, expect more.) This meant taking iron, and that made me sick all summer; it took months to figure out how to take iron supplements that were not worse than the original problem. At this point in time, I think we have it under control, and I have more energy than I had for years (who knows how long I was anemic), but I do need to be more careful with my health now.

In spite of illness I went as planned to an IALE conference in the Netherlands during July, a chance to catch up with old friends in Wageningen, where I spent so many visits on research. I was pretty haggard, but glad I went and did renew old connections as well as strengthen new ones. We had a grant proposal cooking at that time (since accepted) to work with people in Wageningen on habitat mapping, so I got to know the people on the project better. It is good to know I'll be going back to dear old Holland again at least on a yearly basis for the next four years. It feels more like a second home that the United States does now. One side benefit of this trip: a Dutch friend who studies nutrition and alternative medicine figured out my problem with iron supplements and prescribed a different form of iron that didn't make me so sick. It's worked for months. Iron sulfate was deadly for me, but Iron bigluconate is tolerable.

I went from Holland to Denmark, this time a visit to the GBIF secretariat where my friend Meredith Lane works. She hosted me at her home (thank God, since Denmark is quite expensive for an Israeli) and took me on excursions around the area. I even got a chance to row around the bay as a crew member on a reconstructed Viking boat. (We were very inept Vikings, but the fantasies were first class.) Definitely one of the high points of my many travels.

Back home, I focused on regaining strength, and with the new form of iron, was visibly stronger after a few weeks. Good thing; in September we learned that our European Union project was funded, so it was time to start preparation for that. I'm still working on it, including a kickoff international workshop for my part of the project next April, with our South African, Greek, French, Dutch and English partners coming to Israel. Several of my colleagues in the Israel Nature and Parks Authority will also participate under my supervision (including both my boss and my boss's boss) so this will be a little tricky and very interesting.

On the private side, life at Har Gilo continues much as it always did. I have about 13 cats (the number varies depending on how you count the dining members who actually live outside) and three dogs. My favorite, Baby, had FIV and died in the early autumn from renal failure. I knew it was coming; he had lost so much weight. Still it was hard, especially since I was not at home at the time. The caretaker did get him to the vet, but it was clearly better to euthanize the poor creature. Still, thanks to the care he got, he lived three years after diagnosis with FIV, which is pretty good.

My car also decided to die this year. The old Charade developed engine trouble and although I fixed it, I decided to get another car. I found what I wanted, a 2004 Mazda Lantis, and bought it in early November. It still feels luxurious after thirteen years of the Charade, and I feel much safer on the road.

I'm also in the midst of some spiritual exploration. After giving it a fair trial for the last ten years, I finally threw my hands up and decided Jewish liturgical practices are just not for me. For the last four months I've stopped attending the regular Saturday morning services at our congregation, which have gotten a lot more traditional. I don't get anything out of it—but it took years to admit that. I'm not sure where this is going, but I'm alert for leadings that suit me better. How I miss the silent Quaker worship service! Unfortunately there are no Quaker meetings in Israel. (Wageningen has this also going in its favor; there is a nearby meeting of Dutch Quakers, and I guess visiting them again may have been a factor tipping the scales…)

So, some doors close, other doors open. The next year looks better than the last one. I am bearing more senior responsibility now, but if that isn't happening at the age of 54, I doubt if it is going to happen in the future. I don't particularly like leading but it will be necessary to do some of that to get done some things I want done. I guess most professionals get to that point sometime. The only surprise here is that despite the years in government work, I'm still a professional scientist and can't help that. It seems incurable.

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