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Door County, Wisconsin, May 2000. Here's Mom with her neighbor and dear friend, Helen.

Favorite-Field Reunion

Door County, Wisconsin, August 2000. It's a nice place to settle.

Our Christmas Cards: Ornamental Edition

Madison, Wisconsin, December 2000. This is the image of the first "granddogs"—Žulė and Pupa—that Mom still carries in her wallet.

The view from the other side.

Kenosha, Wisconsin, April 7, 2000. The courthouse is lovely, but sitting in a wooden chair all day was hard on the back.

Classic Courthouse

Kenosha, Wisconsin, April 7, 2000. I traveled to Kenosha with the Wisconsin Supreme Court for its "Justice on Wheels" program.

The Window Incident, in Three Takes

I mentioned recently that I once fell out of a window. The incident occurred when I was in college, on a lovely spring Saturday. A friend and I had been listening to music and goofing around in my dorm room. We stepped outside and realized that the keys to the room were on my desk.

The dorm was not conventional; it did not house several hundred students. Instead, it was a converted apartment building in which about thirty-six students lived. When my friend and I realized we were locked out, we walked around the building to see if someone might help us because my studious roommate was at the library. No one responded.

The room stood above a garden level on an elevated first floor. It had French-door windows overlooking a narrow balcony. The windows were open that day. I decided to try to reenter the building by reaching for the railing and jumping onto the balcony—I planned to walk in through those windows. I did fine at first: I grabbed the railing and started to twist over it. But I lost my balance, and I fell about ten feet.

I didn't feel much pain initially; I walked around without incident for about thirty-six hours. The next day—early Sunday evening—I was studying at (another) friend's room for a midterm. I felt suddenly "green," and I fainted. My friend telephoned the campus police, and an officer drove us to an emergency room. There, the physician told me I had broken my ankle. I was in a cast for about eight weeks.

 
My Dad drove up to campus to inspect the window and determine how I could have fallen out of it.

Evanston, Illinois, April 7, 1978. The room's windows are right above the green van's hood.

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Evanston, Illinois, May 17, 1978. I model my cast at the site of the injury.

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Evanston, Illinois, October 2000. I return to the spot where I fell.

A Walk in the Field, in Three Takes

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Door County, Wisconsin, August 2000. There are still plenty of quiet spots in which to roam.

Stone Fence

Door County, Wisconsin, August 2000. A stone fence sometimes makes property desirable.

This spot welcomes graffiti.

Ephraim, Wisconsin, July 2000. We're visiting The Hardy Gallery, where anyone can leave a mark.

Loden Coats

I recently admired a boiled-wool jacket that a colleague picked up at a resale shop. The loden-green jacket reminded me of the coats Venetians wore during the foggy, Italian winter months. In the 1980s, men and women alike sported elegant Loden coats. I regretted that I didn't buy one of the coats back then, and I failed to pick one up when I visited the alpine town of Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1985. I later acquired a Loden coat here in the States, and I've worn it ever since.

Ah! Loden coats are making a comeback in Italy.

Bailey's Harbor, Wisconsin, July 2000. Mom considers sizing while I try on a Loden coat. I bought the coat, and I also picked up one of the matching Fedoras.

Napoleons, Two Ways

Napoleon Bonaparte lingered in Lithuania during his Russian campaign.

Lithuanians claim that a chef created a "Napoleon Torte" ("Napoleonas") to honor the French general upon his arrival. Napoleonas consists of about twelve sheets of paper-thin puff pastry, held together with a rich, vanilla buttercream and a few layers of apricot jam. We cover the torte with buttercream and sprinkle the top and sides with crumbled puff pastry—that is, with the puff pastry layer that fell apart.

Legend maintains that when the French returned home, they asked Parisian pastry chefs to reproduce the Lithuanian delicacy. No one succeeded at making the torte in its original, complicated form. As a result, the French settled on a streamlined version. Today, French Napoleon pastries still consist of about four layers of puff pastry filled with a simple pastry crème.

We like Napoleonas in any form, Lithuanian or French.

Here is my Lithuanian Napoleonas:

Door County, Wisconsin, August 2000. No, this isn't 2011-fresh Napoleonas. This is an old photo for the old photo blog.

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In the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, the citizens also renamed a mound the "Napoleon Hill" because Napoleon stood on it as he watched the French Army cross the Nemunas River.

Napoleon's Hill, Kaunas, Lithuania, 1934. My Mom and my maternal Grandmother, Jadzė, sit in the park on Napoleon's Hill.

UPDATE: Look at my Mom's and Jadzė's hands and feet. Does this this mom-mimickery look familiar?