On Friday a group of us celebrated Switzerland's 717nd birthday with much revelry. The evening bbq really picked up when our host's bat-shit crazy neighbor started yelling at us and throwing water on our heads (she did something similar last year, so it was not entirely unexpected. Then there was yelling, swearing, sushing and the cops showing up. The policeman was actually quite reasonable, gave us a warning and offered to give us his number in case we were ever harassed by the neighbor again. He said he'd be more than happy to issue her a citation.
The party was full of beautiful people, wonderful food, and good company. As an extra bonus, my zuger kirschtorte turned out alright. As I expected, the flavor was excellent but the texture was a little off. My cake layer was dense b/c the eggs collapsed and the icing kept melting off the cake as it approached room temperature. For next time, I'm going to use an easier yellow cake recipe for the middle layer and a more stable (but hopefully equally tasty) buttercream.
Saturday, L and I celebrated (a month belatedly) our third anniversary. We trekked down to the Seymour Marine Lab, spent an hour or so soaking up rays on the beach, and followed it up with a tasty dinner of steak, Alaskan King Crab legs, and asparagus with homemade Hollandaise. Although my recipe is a closely guarded family secret, perhaps I'll post it at some point in the future.
Unfortunately, we learned Sunday that early on Sat. morning, two UCSC Researchers had been target with firebombs. In one case it destroyed the faculty member's car, in the second case the molotov cocktail, described as "on steroids" by the police, hit the driveway, ignited the door, and forced the family to evacuate out the second story window. As far as the police can tell, these researchers and their families were targeted because their research work involves experiments on animals such as rats and fruit flies. Aside from being a tragedy, the idea of attempting to kill human beings because of their work on fruit flies seems more than a little hypocritical. I understand the argument that the perps were perhaps trying merely to scare the families and do only property damage, but you don't hurl a flaming concoction of flammable and explosive material near someone's house and not realize that you might "accidentally" burn the thing down. You also don't do it at 5 am on a Sat morning unless you are purposely trying to catch everyone in bed.
As of now the FBI are taking over the case and we hope to hear more soon. In the meanwhile, other faculty who might be under threat are under full surveillance.
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