Rain in Cali

So, I've finally gotten around to posting another blog post. Nick and I are here in Cali, at the 'rents, watching the drizzle mist the windows. Not the most spectacular weather, but a heck of a lot better than what we leaft behind in MN.

The worst part of a rainy Christmas day is that you're pretty much stuck inside the house. Perhaps I'll make some tea, read the cozy mom's checked out from the library, and stuff my face with more Yule Log (I make a mean Yule Log!).

Only two more days of vacation before work in LA.

Coming Home!

Yesterday's dinner plans kept going awry. The French restaurant we wanted to go to was fully booked by an event, so we had to look for an alternative. That's when we decided to go to a Jamaican place. So we all board Marta to get there, only to find that the place is shut down. So back on Marta to the next stop in Buckhead, where we wandered basically from one stop to the next in search of food.

Thankfully we finally settled on an Italian place (we'd started this process at 6:30, and didn't get to a table until 8:00). I don't know what it is, but add some academics and some bottles of wine, and suddenly you've got a three hour meal. I didn't get back to my room until 11 pm.

Thankfully, this colloquium is now over as well. I've packed up the library, and I'm getting myself ready to head to the Marta station. Even with a gas shortage in the city of Atlanta, at least the Marta goes to the airport!

Hotlanta!

Here I am in Atlanta, enjoying the beautiful weather in the snazzy Marriott Renaissance. It's actually a pretty nice hotel. No refrigerated towels in the workout room, but there are balconies in every room, so I can get real fresh air! Plus, we're within walking distance of tons of restaurants, which is always very nice.

I'm starting to think that Atlanta is my favorite place to go for Colloquium. You can't beat a town with lots of good food, nice hotels, and decent weather. I also rode MARTA from the airport, which was fantastically easy and fast.

Last night Sommer and I went to Shout for dinner. Thanks to Google Maps (which seriously mis-labeled Shout on the map), we ended up walking about 3 miles before we actually got to dinner. Still, despite being 30 minutes late for our reservation, it was a great meal.

Sommer had sushi (and sake), while I went for a more traditional salmon dinner. We split a dessert medly, with the most amazing molten chocolate cake. Even if the service was pretty slow, that cake was worth waiting for.

As you can see, it's a bit trendy, and we were a little horrified by the number of bachelorette parties (we counted 5 during our stay). It wasn't as good as the YO Ranch Steakhouse in Dallas, but still pretty good.

With two more nights out before we head back, I think we're going to go to the French American Brasserie for some more posh fare.

But we couldn't leave without going to the Varsity! I can see it from my hotel room, and the only reason we haven't gone already is the Saturday Georgia Tech game. Nothing like hordes of football fans to make a quick trip for hotdogs impossible.

I'm already practicing my order, so I'll be able to respond right away when they call "what'll ya have?" My only dilemma right now is cheese or no cheese on the chili dog.

5 Nights, 6 Days, 17 Portages

Dad finally dropped off the pictures from the BWCA, and I've uploaded them to shutterfly. We look remarkably clean and rested in the photos.

I like the portage view from under the canoe. Dad took this picture after I had portaged a short distance - there was no way I was going to stand there with a canoe on my head after carrying it half a mile. And I did both 180 rod portages on this trip.

Here's how happy I am to be portaging a measly 30-rodder:

And, despite seeing two bears . . .

We had no unfortunate encounters. Perhaps it's our excellent bear bag hanging skills!

I have to say we're such old hands that we made pretty good time. While boyscouts kept passing us on portages, we managed to pass them on the open water. And we also, somewhat miraculously, never flipped the canoe.

Maybe next time . . .

Back in Civilization

I made it back from my BWCA trip, and will shortly have pictures to prove it. I'm reliant on Dad sending me photos from his camera, the only one we had on the trip.

It was a pretty good trip all around, even though I managed to get some major bruises in the course of one of the portages.

Meanwhile, back in civilization, I received photos from my trip to Dallas. Here is my favorite picture of one of the librarians (not me) being carried back to the hotel by a writing faculty member. She couldn't walk the mile back in her shoes. You'd think we were students by the look of this!

This is why most librarians choose sensible shoes - to avoid embarrassing photos on the web!

Goodbye, Dallas!

I'm sitting in the Continental President's Club at the Dallas airport, enjoying the refreshments and the wireless internet. It's good to be leaving Dallas, finally, but it is a bit unfortunate that we're heading out just as the temperature has dropped enough to make walking around town bearable.

Despite the heat, a bunch of us went to the Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse in the West End on Monday night. It was by far the best meal I've ever had at a colloquium, and probably the best restaurant meal I've had so far in 2008.

I started with the house salad, which was an astonishingly delicious combination of greens, candied pecans, goat cheese, and apple. Sommer and I split the mixed grill, with a buffalo filet mignon, elk chops, and quail. I also ordered the Gouda mac and cheese and a piece of chocolate cake with raspberry coulis.

Luckily everyone was willing to share, so I got to try a taste of the pheasant ravioli and what was very likely the best pork chop on the planet. This was the first expensive meal I've had all year that was actually worth the price.

It was so good, in fact, that I might actually want to come back to Dallas, just to eat there a second time. It certainly is preferable to Orlando, which was a dining wasteland. Ditto with Lansdowne and Anaheim. At least the next trip to Atlanta will be near The Varsity. Not fine dining, but hopefully good.

I shall not succumb to blog fade

After talking to the much more consistent blogger of Wordlustitude this morning, I'm making a concerted effort not to let my blog just fade away.

It still feels like I do so much blogging on my work blog, that blogging here is redundant, but in reality, the two blogs are completely different. At least I haven't bored anyone here with my opinions on Wikipedia and Cuil - I just bore people with fat dogs and African violets.

I'm in Dallas right now, which really doesn't have much to recommend it. Welcome to Dallas, where we shot a President! Or, Dallas, where the sun can set your clothes on fire.

Seriously, it's been over 100 every day that we've been here, and it'll probably stay that way until we leave. I'd never go outside, but the hotel is so freaking over air-conditioned that I have to stand outside between sessions just to get full circulation in my toes.

We're staying at the Hyatt, which is connected to the most architecturally interesting building in Dallas: a giant, concrete dandelion. You can eat dinner in it. Yep, that's what Dallas has to offer.

At least I'm able to crawl out of bed early enough to get a spot in the hotel gym (and Hyatt does have those refrigerated towels). Plus, I can watch hulu in my room, and thereby avoid all of the cable news channels, which seem to make up all the television channels available in hotels.

I can't wait for my vacation next week!

We're overrun by pets!

The fat dogs are back - and will be here on and off for much of the summer. At least the 'rents have their house on the market. There is an end in sight.


Today we got our newest member of the household - the fish. He seems happy enough, despite the cats.



And so far we're all surviving the heat. Although I was a bit worried about Tasha puffing away in Monday night. I guess 85 degrees inside is a bit much for a fat dog.

I think I've been blogging for work too much; I just can't get into blogging here. That, and there really isn't that much going on these days. I dragged Nick to a Swing class on Thursday - I think he's nearly got the basic Lindy down. The rest was a good refresher. Now I just have to goad him into Contra on Saturday. I mentioned English Country dancing and he looked a bit sick. I guess I'll leave that one for now.

Other than that, I'm devouring The Ghost Map, which is fabulous. And tomorrow is my first book club meeting at work. So far I only have three people (myself included) who have actually read the book. We'll see if there are any surprises tomorrow. I guess three's better than nothing . . .

It's Finally Summer!

I can tell it's summer again, because it's 83 degrees inside my house. It never seems to be the perfect temperature - always too hot or too cold. I probably need to move to a more temperate locale.

Fat dog is here again, since she's been banished from the new carpet house due to he own poor behavior. She's been good so far, and the kitties have tolerated her. Except for one incident at 3 am on Monday.

I recently enjoyed "Is Google Making us Stupid?" in the Atlantic Monthly. Nicholas Carr apparently forgot that we've always been stupid. It's just more interactive now. Of course, that led me to the more interesting article American Murder Mystery, which makes the shocking point that inner city crime is not actually caused by density. It reminds me of all the epidemiologists who talk about crime as if it were an infectious disease . . .

And then there was this: "Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs" in the New York Times. It's full of comments about how suburban schools are always better than urban ones - another myth that I'm sure will be disproved soon. C'mon, it's all about the parents, anyway.

That said, I'm hoping that those exurbanites don't move into my neighborhood. Exurbanites live in the exurbs for a reason, and the last thing I want is for them to turn my urban neighborhood (which is the only place you can live an urban lifestyle) into a recreation of the suburbs. They could tear up the sidewalks to increase the size of front lawns, push out buses because the stops encourage loitering and take away on-street parking space, or zone out corner businesses because they interfere with the "residential feel" and lack parking lots.

Hopefully the houses are too small around here to be appealing. Plus, I'm walking down the street a lot, and perhaps I look hoodlum enough to scare them off. At any rate, for the moment I hear mostly birds chirping outside my open windows. I don't want it to become the noise of leafblowers and SUV engines filling my house.

It's so inconvenient when losers keep winning!

I haven't bothered to write much about the current election in a while, but the last few weeks have had me shaking my head. I'm just astonished by the treatment of Hillary Clinton's campaign by many in the party and the press. For so long there has been the constant drumbeat of calls for her to quit. The insults took nearly every form: she's a sore loser, she's wrecking the Democrats' chances, she doesn't have support, she's the candidate of the old (read: racist/losing) Democratic party.

Now I'm not a big Hillary fan. I actually think she's only marginally less bad than Obama. My favorite candidate dropped out long ago because nobody liked him but me. Oh well. But let's stop for a minute and think about what we've done in the process of vilifying Hillary.

The party made a gigantic, colossal, ridiculous, horrifying mistake by nullifying the Michigan and Florida primaries. I don't believe that they should have taken results from the primaries as they were done (that would certainly not be fair to Obama in Michigan), but they absolutely should have called "do over." The cost of new primaries and the precedent of special treatment is far less of a concern to me than the near disenfranchisement of so many primary voters. This isn't Zimbabwe or Kenya - we can redo a primary in a fair manner that would get to the actual preferences of Michigan and Florida voters. Their voices are not being properly heard, and in a primary where even Montana managed to be pivotal, it should have been done.

The attitude of the media and the party has done a great disservice to women. I remember the day I realized as a child that my grandmothers were born into an America where they couldn't vote. I now wonder what we will say to our collective granddaughters when they learn about the first really viable female presidential candidacy. How could a woman have won so many primaries and still be so consistently be called a loser (and she won them right up to the end)? The labels used in this campaign were not the language you hear in any other close race - no nail biting or neck-and-neck. The moment Obama won Iowa the new press meme ran rampant: She's lost! Now she must crawl into a hole and disappear! Wait! Why is she still here? She must be ruining everything!

It's quite disingenuous for people to keep going on and on about Obama's campaign as being a shocking, surprise victory as well. I remember the 2004 convention. Anyone who saw that production was well aware of the collective gush that followed his speech. And the gush kept happening long after that. It would have been surprising if he hadn't managed a very successful run for the candidacy.

And now there has been so much focus on the question of racism, it's nearly tarred every Hillary supporter out there. The claim that Hillary represents the "old" Democratic party, which started long before the talk of door-to-door campaigners hearing racial slurs, is particularly damaging to the party. Treating Hispanics, women, and blue collar workers as if they are all part of Strom Thurmond's Democratic party only pushes people away. And it sorely misrepresents the true base of the party. Are we now to think that women aren't the backbone of the party? That Hispanics aren't a growing electoral force? That working class people, who have been hit incredibly hard by the economic changes of the last decade, shouldn't be a major focus? Get real.

And just how are we going to explain this one to the next generation? "Well, you see honey, she may have won a lot of votes, and she may have kept winning primaries, but not all of her votes could really count, and some might have been from racists. And by continuing to win, she just got in the way of the real winner. So, what you should learn from this is that if you are very close to winning, but it's not 100% sure you will win, you should just give up so that people will still like you."

So here we are; Obama now gets to preside over a party that has spent several months devouring itself. It wasn't the long campaign that did the damage, or even the candidates, really. Candidates are always going to try to spin things in ridiculous ways. You just have to ignore that and move on.

I blame the press and the party regulars. They turned this from a constructive fight about minor policy differences into a destructive battle over who really counts as a Democrat.

Adventures with Fat Dogs

It doesn't take long before there's some sort of adventure afoot with the fat dogs. Today we were on our evening stroll and just a block from home I looked down at Tasha. Although her face was complacent enough, there was blood everywhere!

She had worn down a nail on her front paw to the quick, and with each step blood was spattering across her stomach and down her hind legs. We got her home and I had to try to wash off the blood while Nick ran to Walgreens to pick up some first aid supplies. In the time he was gone, the bleeding mostly took care of itself, but we still had to bandage off her paw in case it started again. We wrapped it up nicely, and she seemed to tolerate it just fine. You can see our handiwork here:Only a few minutes after this picture I left Tasha alone to file some papers. I should have known that the dog who loves to eat kleenex wouldn't be able to resist gauzy bandages. She had the bulk of her bandage halfway down her throat before I could pull it out.

So, we wrapped it up again, and then sacrificed one of my socks to be the bandage cover. So far she hasn't taken to eating socks, but I'll keep my eye on her!

Fat Dogs are Visiting

To make sure that the new carpet isn't ruined at the 'rents, I've got the fat dogs for a few days. We'll see how this goes - the cats are already pretty ticked, and it's only been half an hour so far! At least it's warm enough that they might not want to all sleep in the bedroom with us. Six beings in a 10X12 room is a bit too cozy for my tastes!

What do you mean, no flange?

So, on Saturday morning the toilet came up. We were sure we'd find something pretty questionable down there, based on our general experiences in this house and the puddle of water that formed on the basement floor. We weren't (were?) disappointed; the last person to install the toilet did so without using a toilet flange. They just stuck a wax ring onto the top of the drain pipe and dropped the toilet on top. Then they screwed the toilet to the subfloor.

Needless to say, non-standard toilet installation is not a good idea. In the decade that toilet was sitting there, bit by bit the floor rotted due to water not quite getting into the drain. So Nick & Dad spent the better part of Saturday morning digging out what was rotten and getting a flange put in place.

By the time I got home it was time to actually install the toilet. That wasn't as easy as we'd hoped, and we had to make a second trip to the hardware store to get an extension for the socket wrench. Somehow I got the job of reaching around the toilet to try to attach the tank to the bowl. I'm obviously just a weekend warrior - I had to rethink which direction an upside down "righty-tighty" was several times. Still, it's finally in. Here's the new (and incredibly tall) toilet in the bathroom, and the old (shall we make it a rabbit-proof planter?) toilet in the yard.
Now I just have to paint the sections of wall that were unreachable when we had the old toilet. That is, of course, if I'm not spending all my time working elsewhere. I have another Saturday shift at work, and every moment I have free seems to be spent working at mom's. Saturday afternoon was painting the exterior of her house (while Nick helped dad with the deck), and Sunday was painting the interior. Thank goodness I took Monday to work for myself, or I'd still be microwaving in the dining room, wearing dirty clothes, and crawling over piles of tools everywhere!

I even took enough time to play with Moxie and her tent. After sitting on the floor for three years with almost no activity, this tent is now Moxie's favorite toy. It's already been through one repair, and needs a second stint with my sewing box very soon.





So, what's next? I've still got to go through everything we took out of the basement and get that space set up. I've put in my order for a new laundry shelf, which I'm hoping Nick will get done over the weekend while I'm at work. I've also got to get our last boxes out of the storage locker and all the junk sorted and moved out of the spare bedroom. We have to move all the furniture at mom & dad's over the weekend and there's supposed to unload a bed that'll be going into that spare bedroom! Right now I can barely get through that room to water the plants . . . I guess I know what I'll be doing when I'm not watching LOST this week. That, and figuring out how to stuff an old toilet in a Chevy Malibu.

Three Down, How Many More To Go?

First the drain tile in the basement (no water yet . . . it works!). Then the plumbing extravaganza (pipes, chimney lining, shut-off valves, and water heater). Finally, the new kitchen counter and sink. I thought that all would go smoothly with the tile at least. How difficult can it be?

We have learned it can, in fact, be quite difficult. First came the electrician to install some under cabinet lights. We (fools that we are) thought that would be a simple job lasting a couple hours. No such luck. The curse of the handyman special came back with a vengeance. Our kitchen electrical was so confused and not up to code that it took the electrician a day and a half to get it all sorted out. So, as you can imagine, that one ended up costing about four times what we'd hoped. Instead of actually counting up the real job, you can just estimate our electrician costs by the number of outlets we end up with in the end; it's about $300-$400 per outlet. Of course, our first call to an electrician was far less than that (only about $50 per outlet), but that electrician came to fix up our bad wiring job. Apparently we are only slightly bad electricians, whereas the previous handyman electrician was a real loser.

Of course, the budget busting electrical work came before the actual counter tops. The tile went in pretty well, with no major hangups until the finish work. Then came my beautiful, Kohler cast-iron, special order sink. It didn't fit in the hole. It wasn't that the hole was cut too small or too big. It was the actual cabinet that was too small. The deranged gnome who built my lower cabinets 2 inches too shallow also built the sink cabinet about two inches too narrow on each side. You can't fit a fabulous cast-iron sink into a space with cabinet walls infringing on it. The bowls don't fit inside. You also can't fit a snazzy stainless steel sink, since there's no way to clamp it in place. Goodbye beautiful sink (and $35 in restocking fees). Hello cheesy acrylic.
And since no home improvement stores provide handy specs for their goods, there's no way to figure out which awful sink will actually fit unless you either look at every possibility on the sink manufacturers websites, or open up the sink, flip it over, and measure it yourself. We did a combination of both. At least the acrylic sink fits.

Then we had to install the faucet and drain pipes. Nick failed to look at the big red letters on the side of the plumbers putty - the ones that say DO NOT USE ON PLASTIC - so we installed the drains and faucet using the wrong stuff. Finally Nick was sent out to get some silicone caulk and we had to go through the process of uninstalling and reinstalling . . . at 10:30 on a Sunday night!

And then, finally, we had our new counters, sink, and lights. It's really lovely, and now all I have to do is try to keep it from being ruined!But wait . . . There's more! As soon as we were done with the kitchen, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Before I could even switch on the light, my foot landed in a puddle. I have never wished I had stepped in cat pee so much in my life. Unfortunately the cats have all been relatively well-behaved. The puddle was actually water that seeped from the base of the toilet. It looks as though our wax ring has failed. And to top it off, the mechanics in the tank seem to be off: there's a constant sound of refilling unless you manually lift the float at the end of a flush.

Now, pulling up the toilet to replace the wax ring wouldn't be so tough, but remember, Satan's handyman worked on this house. The shutoff valve won't budge, and instead of being bolted in place, the toilet was just screwed to the subfloor. And those screws are completely rusted. Nick is going to attempt to replace the valve, and he's already memorized what Menard's carries in their plumbing section. Once that toilet is up, we don't know what horrors we'll find. And that damn thing is the ONLY TOILET WE'VE GOT!

Wagon Train!!!

Kelly & I went to check out the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Wagon Train as it went through Saint Paul. Here are some pics:Tomorrow they start tearing out the kitchen counter tops. No more ugly multi-colored tile. We're almost done with the major jobs for this year (I hope). And, finally, here's a bored kitty with an African Violet.

Basement is Halfway There!

The drain tile is now in, and I'm halfway through scrubbing walls and repainting (not to mention hauling everything back down the stairs. So, in the meantime, here are my pictures of the work in progress:


And now with the cement in and the paint up (at least in half the basement).

Next week plumbers! And then I'll finally be working on projects that you can actually see, like new kitchen counter tops. And molding. And windows. Any the garden (it it that time again?).

How did I get so busy?

Back when I was in grad school, I would fantasize about how wonderful it would be to be done. There'd be nothing but time on my hands to read, be crafty, clean . . . but somehow I seem as busy--if not more so--as I was back in those dark days of evening classes and literature searches. (Oh, wait, I still search for literature.)

Image from Flickr

The last few weeks I've barely been home in the evenings, even when you exclude my work trip to Virginia. With Nick gone the last few days I've not only not been home, but it seems like the whole house has entered a time-warp where everything stays exactly the same. I'm not there to clean, but I'm not there to mess either.

In fact, when I discovered that the phone wasn't working last night, I had no idea how long it's been down. That, plus the whole woman-at-home-alone /horror-filmesque-plot-point, made it a rather surreal experience. Luckily Moxie is my cat in the coal mine - if she doesn't act frightened, then there can't possibly be an intruder lurking behind my shower curtain. This was especially important the night I went out without locking the door. So, Nick not only cooks, but he locks up behind me as well.

I did shovel the snow, though. Nick doesn't manage that one very well ;)

The funny thing about having no phone service is that you're really stuck. I couldn't call the phone company about it (obviously) and I couldn't look them up online either. When I did call them this morning they gave the whole "we'll charge you up to whazoo if it's an internal wiring problem" spiel, so here I am, no phone, and stuck trying to figure out the source of the problem before I call them to fix it. Good thing Nick'll be back with the cell phone soon. Being incommunicado while home alone makes one really want to reach out and touch someone. Lucky for Nick he can sleep through most conversations - and does so nightly in front of the t.v.

Speaking of t.v., I love my digital converter box (with the one exception of it making it tougher to Retro TeVo my favorite shows). Seven channels of PBS is fabulous. And the three episodes of Eastenders per week starts up soon - I'm in television heaven. Thank you wasteful, pandering demagogues of Congress!

Why don't I care when memoirs are faked?

It seems that the last few years have seen several high-profile cases of faked memoirs. And each time I find myself interested in the details, but also puzzled by all of the hoopla. Now, I get my undies in a bunch every time I hear about plagiarism, but that seems different to me. Of course taking someone else's written work and pawning it off as your own is wrong. Insert "television" for "written work" and you can see how it directly resembles theft in the cops-and-robbers sense.

But making up a memoir? No one is out any money because they've had their own endeavors stolen by another. If not being the writer of the life portrayed were wrong because the person who actually lived it isn't benefiting, then biographers are consistently and permanently in the wrong. But many times the fake memoirist isn't even stealing someone else's life, they're merely playing pretend and neglecting to put the word "fiction" above the ISBN on the back cover.

Printing a false "truth" is hardly new. In fact it seems to have been a preferred literary model in the 18th century. Dangerous Liaisons, Moll Flanders, the Castle of Otranto: these are all faked works that falsely purported to be real, and while they fooled some, they were not shredded for it. In fact, many of my favorite works of fiction are memoirs.

So why are we so angered by this long-standing genre? Are we so wedded to a world of anecdote that we can't understand the problem of drug addiction without a Million Little Pieces to make it real? Is the only thing keeping us from being Holocaust deniers the ability to peek into the diary of a young girl? That would be far more worrisome than a fictional life story.

Or is there just too much shame in being labeled a fool? Are we collectively terrified of being Blair Witched? We place such an emphasis on the individual in America that maybe being tricked by a memoir is just an unforgivable sign of weakness in ourselves.

Personally, I kind of like being tricked this way. The faked memoir shows a slyness that is appealing -- it doesn't hurt me to believe in a life not lived. I certainly don't rule my own life by example of a memoir any more than by a novel. Both can illuminate how I see the world and how others experience it. Isn't that the point of fiction as much as biography? If there must be mendacity in the world I would rather it be between the pages of a memoir than in the content of a scientific research paper, or in the mail that comes to my grandmother.

So, perhaps I should content myself with Thackeray's Barry Lyndon, a lie on so many levels. A fake editor brings us the fake memoir of a man who never lived, but who nonetheless feels the need to lie about the true events of his life in order to protect his own, completely fictional, ego. Thank goodness for his Million Little Duels . . . I can't imagine a better joke in reality.

Kirk wishes he had pursued a different career . . .

as a librarian. Why would he want to be a Starfleet captain when he could know how to find everything in the universe?

I suspect Picard actually was a librarian at heart.

Things are happening . . .

We've had a parade of laborers around here as we start to get down to brass tacks with all the remodeling. Plumbers, tilers, and concrete installers have been coming through with their quotes. It looks like we may actually get some things done around here. And then I can say goodbye to the ugly kitchen countertops for good.Aren't they ugly?

The orchid is finally coming around, too. It's about time.
And the cat's are being their usual naughty selves, as you can see by Moxie's worrisome interest in my orchid. But I guess they're cute enough to keep around for a while.

Finally, a day off . . .

Kind of. I've still got some work that I need to do, but at least I've had the time and freedom to do some cleaning around here. Well, picking up, if not dusting and scrubbing.

And I managed to read most of my latest Economist. Oh how I missed real news while away. There's nothing worse than cable news channels, and that's just about all we had at the Conference Center (that and 800 channels of ESPN . . . not sure which one I find the least appealing).

At least my lack of t.v. news did give me some respite from this interminable presidential campaign. Every time I watch any coverage, I feel a bit like I'm on a death watch. It doesn't really matter who wins, it's going to be major letdown, culminating in a lackluster one-termer. The right hates Clinton so much, I wouldn't be surprised if they're already drafting articles of impeachment, just in case they get the chance to use them. And McCain and Obama keep making promises that any reasonable person knows are doomed to failure. McCain probably has the best chance of surviving his broken campaign slogans, but that's mostly because only about 5% of his supporters actually like him. The rest are just holding their noses.

Seriously, does anyone believe that we can really make it through the next four years without raising taxes? Oh, sure, we can try; let's just sit back while we create a complete and total budget disaster. And what's up with the near messianic love of Obama? He's a politician, folks, and most of what he's spewing is pipe dreams. Remember when everyone loved W? When he was a regular guy, who would bring compassion and dignity back to the office of the president? When his approval ratings were around 80%? Umm, how many months did that last? And how hard and low did he fall?

Oh, well. I should probably just gird myself for the inevitable. There will be an election that votes in someone who is supposed to fix everything, someone who will assuredly work across the aisle for consensus. And then people will slowly realize that what they thought they were voting for can't really happen. And then there will be anger and despondency. Perhaps America will "lose its innocence" again for the bazillionth time.

Maybe if we're lucky--really, really lucky--something truly awful will end up killing lots of us. That will give the president (and countless governors) an opportunity to make a stirring speech about coming together and moving forward. And everyone will be happy again, sending approval ratings through the roof.

Let's just hope that bird flu or a hurricane doesn't kill off all the speech writers. . .

Peanut Butter Jars are Falling from the Heavens

While walking back from the grocery store this morning, Nick & I were surprised by something falling to the ground just in front of us: an empty peanut butter jar.

It came out of nowhere, falling down to the ground at the base of a tree. Some enterprising squirrell must have snagged it out of the recycling and hauled it up the tree. Those little buggers are getting pretty smart.

Not long after that, just as we were trying to leave for the airport, something went thud in the car and we were left with no steering. Trying to scrape another two years out of this car is starting to look questionable. It's good I live close to the bus line.

I'm now in Virginia at the National Conference Center, which is, as they bill themselves, a "city within itself." It's pretty confusing around here: rooms have this complicated lettering and numbering system, and I'm not sure how I'll find breakfast yet. At least I had a good dinner with some tasty profiteroles at the end (not here, but at a "lifestyle center" down the road . . . this place is a sea of strip malls and townhomes. A bit too stepford for my tastes.)

Tomorrow I start with reference appointments and teaching sessions. We'll see how my advanced session goes. . . they'll be taping it. Yikes!

Well, I'm not dead yet . . .

Well, it was bitterly cold out there. While the temperature wasn't too bad (on Saturday at least), the winds were definitely fierce. We were going to camp on the hill between Long Lake and Lake Neilson, but once we got there it was obvious that the wind was charging off of Long Lake and nearly creating a whiteout at the top of the hill. In the picture at left I'm lounging in the windbreak I built on the slope facing Lake Neilson. While it did break the wind, we decided to all sleep in the parachute on top of the lake instead.

We hauled a picnic table down to the lake for cooking, and everyone spent the afternoon building shelters. There were 7 quinzes, one "bunker," and two parachutes for the 34 of us (9 adults, 25 boys). We did send one boy back before dinner due to the windchill, but the rest of us toughed it out.

When we first left for camp it was a balmy 15 with light winds and snow showers. By 4pm the temperature was starting to drop by about a degree every half hour. We had reached zero before dinner was done cooking.

Inside the parachute wasn't so bad; it blocked the wind and the chorus of snoring around me drowned out the sound of the lake ice cracking beneath us. But, somehow I managed to press the wrong buttons on my watch and I ended up thinking it was much closer to dawn than it really was. It was a terrible moment when I realized that while my watch read 7:52 am, it was actually nowhere near that late, and I'd have to continue debating whether I should risk getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I decided to wait, mostly because I couldn't imagine trying to zip myself back into the bag when it was already covered with frost. Not long before dawn I could feel that the air in the parachute had gotten much colder. When I finally got up at about 6;30 it was -18 outside with winds of 30 - 40 miles an hour. It was a very bitter walk to the latrine at the top of the hill. Thank God it has walls.

Unfortunately, it didn't warm up very fast, and with windchills that were probably at -50 for much of the morning, we decided to break camp "fast." That meant no breakfast and no warm drinks (or any drinks). Most of the adults went to get the cars so we'd only have to cross the lake before climbing into a warm vehicle. Dad & I stayed behind. It took so long to get the boys up and going that I started to lose heat in my torso. Apparently three hours of -50 and no breakfast is about my endpoint. Being sick didn't help much either. I trudged across the lake and climbed into a truck and waited for the rest of the crew to finish up (2 hours later).

So, here I am, back home and sore as hell. Apparently shoveling for several hours is not the best thing when you've already coughed yourself into sore chest muscles. And my knees are unbelievably sore. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm guessing it's because I was shoveling uphill to help build a quinze. It must have been the up and down on the steep hill carrying shovelfulls of snow.

All of my pictures are from Saturday, since the cold temperatures killed the batteries in my camera. Which is good, since we all looked pretty haggard this morning. Dad had icicles hanging from his eyelashes, and my hair had sneacked out from under my hat, become frozen with my breath, and created a humorous "beard" around my chin.

Busy, busy, busy . . .

I've been taken to task for hardly blogging at all lately. There's not much to say, except I'm so busy that I'm behind on work projects, behind on cleaning, behind on French, and behind on just about anything you can imagine. I've only kept up to date on meals.

I did half my civic duty last night by going to the caucus and being part of the straw poll. The caucus site was a complete madhouse - there were cars parked up and down every street, crowds trying to push through the halls, and a lack of enough sign-up sheets. Plus, those shoe boxes that passed as ballot boxes made me a bit nervous. At least Highland Park Jr. High was somewhat organized. It sounds like Macalester was just completely beyond the pale.

I left quickly(?) last night so I could get home and do some laundry for Winter Camping. I can't believe that I've got to spend the whole weekend doing that, and then turn around for five days of work followed immediately by a flight and five days of work. Blech.

At least I did ultimately figure out whom to support in the caucus. It involved reading a lot of candidate Issues pages and then figuring out what level of stupid everything is. I almost never think they say anything good. There's just stupid pointless and stupid dangerous. And the list is getting so long I may need a spreadsheet. Personally, I'm amazed that on the two biggest issues of the campaign--Iraq and the economy--I agree with 0% of the candidates. So much for voting my conscience. I also don't like to vote for the reasons that most people cite: change, experience, inspiration, looks. I also despise the coverage of elections:

Talking head 1: Let's cut to this 3 second quip that may determine the future of America.

Candidate on screen says something banal that somehow seems hilarious because a politician said it.

Talking head 2: Ha, ha, will that resonate with voters?

Talking head 1: Well, poll results show that Candidate A has rounded the final corner, but Candidate C is now a nose ahead of Candidate B. If Candidate D hadn't lost his jockey in the last turn, this could be a very different race. If Candidate B or C comes up with few more pithy and meaningless phrases, either might just win the triple crown.

Erin: Dammit Nick, I'm so sick of this shit.

Nick: I know. Let me make you dinner.

I guess it all means I'm screwed. Oh well. I'll go back to reading debate transcripts and complaining to Nick through the shower curtain every morning.

I'm Back!

I know it's been a long time. I intended to update my blog once I got back from Italy, but it just got so darn busy. I've barely had time to keep on top of washing clothes and paying bills.

I do have a giant collection of Italy pictures up on Shutterfly. That was one thing I managed to finish right when I got back. They're all overcast, but what can you do? The weather is the weather.

Around here the weather has been atrocious. We dropped by 49 degrees in 24 hours this week, and now I'm dreading a return of the deep cold for next week's winter camping trip. Especially now that my cough has bruised my rib.

And the cold has driven the rabbits to desperation. They ate an entire rhododendron and a mock orange. These weren't tiny bushes, and now there's almost nothing left. Here is a picture of what little is left of the rhode:

Now, to top it all off, the sink has developed a giant crack across the bottom. If only we could have decided on a new counter top, the sink would have been replaced months ago. Oh well. At least I'm 100% sure I won't be buying a composite sink.

But I still have to decide between stainless steel and cast iron. And the counter? Still don't know.

And I haven't even decided which candidate to support at the caucuses. . .

New Year's Resolutions

I don't have much to resolve this year, but I think I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to read novels again. I just can't seem to get through Tristram Shandy - the latest Economist keeps arriving just as I finish the old one, and now I have The Dirt on Clean beckoning me as well. I've also got a Maria Edgeworth sitting around, collecting library fines.


Perhaps I should also resolve not to get library fines.
Yeah, right.
Who am I kidding?