NM to Arizona

I set off the next morning, July 5, with a mug of sweet chili tea. It was raining outside and I realized when I pulled away that I really should check the oil and the coolant in the poor Jetta. I had to take my bike off the back in order to accomplish this task, but both fluids were needed so I was glad I rememberd to check. The view as I drove out of the mountains was splendid.

Most of this day was hours and hours of driving. Occasionally, the thought would occur to me that this did not look like the landscape I remembered when I made the drive with ncd's family a couple Christmases ago. However, these thoughts were accompanied by the wandering soundtrack in a movie about someone trekking across a desert. It is the kind of music that indicates to the viewer that if a stream of consciousness is even occurring inside the person they watch as he/she puts one foot in front of the other or dozes on his/her camel, then surely each thought is as important as every other which is to say that none of them becomes a priority or requires the thinker to act (except, perhaps, to take an occasional swig of water or, in my case, eat a cherry).

Thus, it was not until I was about 20 miles out of Las Cruces that it suddenly occurred to me, that Arizona is not due south of New Mexico. I kicked myself because miles ago, I had talked to ncd's mother (who was visiting Scottsdale) and said that I was about 90 miles from Las Cruces. It hadn't even dawned on me then that I was headed the wrong way, that I had looked directly at the exit I should have taken and registered it with interest, but as if it were irrelevant.

I pulled out the atlas Mom gave me and discovered I was south of Tucson. My quickest option was to take a county road to the west and head toward Tucson. Though I had been in very empty country for some time, this detour was somewhat unsettling since it meant leaving the familiar interstate and taking poor Jetta off into the range. Luckily, the Jetta, guided by its stalwart car 'coon traveled like a champ...all the way to Tucson. There, in the middle of a fancy gift bow made of concrete, the car suddenly coughed and lost power and the check engine light went on. I went to press on the gas (since the cruise control had started working again after some coaxing) and it was all the way to the floor. I almost pulled over, then followed a burst of flight instinct for approximately 12 yards until it became clear that I had no option but to steer the car into an even less ideal patch of concrete shoulder.

I had been running the heat all day to go easy on the engine just in case. I had one long sleeve on and a scarf wrapped around my neck (since I realized I had no clue where the sunscreen was). As the cars blew past, rocking my car, I had to admit that it really was my own fault if this was as far as I made it. If I had paid any attention at all, I would already have been in Scottsdale. I called ncd for moral support. He stayed on the phone with me as I started the car up cautiously and drove past the next FIVE exits: all closed, barricaded with cones and barrels before I could get off at a gas station. I was pink and sweaty and suspected that half of me was sunburned despite my best efforts (even though there were no mirrors in the bathroom in which to confirm this fact). Luckily, there was no toilet paper in the bathroom either. Also, the gas station was attached to some fast food restaurant, but not the DQ I had been hoping for while I kept my eye out for gas. Now I would be lucky to make it to Scottsdale and there was definitely no option of risking another stop to get a blizzard.

Ever since I realized that I had traveled hundreds of miles the wrong way, I had been trying to figure out whether I could gloss over the fact. Was it possible that, even having told ncd's mother my location hours ago, I might just say, "It was a fine drive. Yes, everything went as planned" and leave it at that? Was there some thing I could say that would not be a lie, but would prevent me from having to explain this? The sound of the car's engine winding down decided that issue. I spent the next 15 minutes driving and stroking the searing hot black dashboard each time we passed a mileage sign.

"Only 97 more miles. Thank you. I know that's more miles than I really have a right to ask from you, poor mistreated baby."

An hour and half later I arrived, two toned in the driveway of my destination. The Jetta has been sitting there ever since, with the exception of one day when I took it out and it balked at the heat, bucking like it was trying to impress scouts from the rodeo scene.

More Flick Pics and Continuation of the Journey

He's a parsley shark:

He's a Pepsi poster dog:

He's the companion with the crazy eyes:

He is Flick the wonder weirdo. He was very coy during his photo shoot. There are additional pictures that show him posing contemplatively in the long grass and also pointing some floating cotton. He can really work it, people.

So, where was I? I drove toward the border, through Denver and southward. The car alternately granted me cruise control and a working gas gauge. There was rain off and on all day and it was beautiful. I was listening to the Gladiator soundtrack when I drove past this downpour on a lonely road in the middle of the afternoon.

I was also thinking of a dog I had seen a couple of hours before. I was just outside Raton and looking for a gas station when I saw a black dog with cinnamon paws. He was settled into a slow, resigned looking trot at the outside edge of the shoulder. I watched as a car and a truck ahead of me passed him and he slowed and turned his head to look at them. Although he looked like a smart and experienced foot traveler, he was also in pretty good shape. I wonder if he had just recently gotten lost, chased off, or abandoned. I've never wanted to make an animal my companion more than I did that one. There were a litany of reasons I couldn't/didn't pick him up, not the least of which was heading toward someone else's house in a neighborhood that might not even allow dogs. Since I couldn't keep the pup (or even fit him in my car), I didn't want to impose my will on his Incredible Journey style travelings. He seemed smart, but also lonely and heartsick which, in turn, made me heartsick as I drove through the empty landscape.

Several hours later, I decided I would stop and Aunt K's (fondly known as AK to her nieces) for the evening. AK is in Green Bay, but gave me directions to her cottage where I watched part of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and then fell asleep. This is a photo of the moon and landscape from behind a statue of Anubis (maybe?) in AK's window.

Tomorrow: New Mexico (continued) and, finally, Arizona.

2 in 2

I forgot to mention the ebm + Flick photo shoot from Wednesday afternoon. At some point, ebm and I tired of carrying out drudgery and decided to sit in the backyard with some beverages and a camera. This is a preview of the results since I neglected to load all of my pictures onto my flash drive this morning.

On Thursday we ate delicious dad-made waffles with walnuts and chatted pleasantly about climate change and the scale of future doom. We bid the California contingent a fond farewell mid-morning. I made Mom listen to some Radio Lab stuff about the periodic table of the elements and recounted another episode about the mind body connection until we left to see "Public Enemies". Several of us liked it. A couple of us were disturbed by the occasional reality TV cinematography. This is the camera work that looks like "The Blair Witch Project". Instead of making me feel like I am in the story, it makes me feel like I am on the set. It totally ruins the illusion for me and is bothersome. However, this only happened a few times and I thought it was an alright film. One of us did not like it (initials ebm) and one of us was proud to have fallen asleep for only 15 minutes during the movie (initials clm).

We had spaghetti for dinner. Unlike last time I was home, I refrained from making garlic bread. My garlic bread was really garlic salt with a thin slice of support bread: hideous. This time I selected some sundried tomato bread and just let it ride.

Friday I finally gathered three seasons of "Gilmore Girls" DVDs which clm is lending me and began to pack up the little white (ailing) VW Jetta. Because unflattering diagnoses have been made about the catalytic converter and other mainstays of the inner workings, and because those dire predictions have been followed by dismaying seizure like symptoms upon travel at less than highway speeds (including idling in line for fast food), I packed a cooler full of cherries, sandwiches, bananas, cheese, and crackers before vowing not to stop except for gas. My only other precaution was to show some love by pointing out my lucky car 'coon to clm. He looks like this:

Thanks to evershedm's flickr account for this photo demonstration of the car 'coon.

Tomorrow: the drive from WY to CO to NM.

10 Minute Post

This really takes the pressure off. 10 minutes remaining on this computer at the Mustang Library in Scottsdale, AZ. I've been searching for teaching jobs and in the last few minutes have made the decision that my mental and financial health might be better served making a push to get on as many sub lists as possible. Besides, I tell myself, this will afford me the opportunity to get another job during the evening or go to school to get a reading endorsement or a special ed. certificate. Nevermind that I haven't even finished the Master's program in MN yet: have license, will travel is the guiding principal of this venture, I guess.

I left Minnesota last Wednesday and rolled into Cheyenne early the next morning (so early it was still nighttime). I woke up early enough to walk Flick with Dad and spent Thursday with Erin cleaning up the house and taking recycling to the appropriate parking lot. clm and CLM when to pick the Mom up at DIA. She was flying in for an appointment for clm (apparently quite successful--this doc not resigned to clm's having chronic fatigue and ordered up some more tests). That evening we watched Eddie Izzard and ate Papa Murphy's pizza while we tried to stay awake to receive Aunt Kate and Uncle Joe and their two pups.

2 minutes. Decided to spend Thursday in Cheyenne as well and didn't leave until nearly 11am on Friday. Next post: hanging out with the fam & driving to Santa Fe.

Conquering the Pancake Craze

Last things first:  One day I saw a pair of cardinals in our backyard.  By the time I retrieved my camera, they were gone.  I am a budding bird kook.  By request, Dad got me a bird book for my birthday and when there hasn't been a bird in the area to identify, I have been reading about greater wing coverts and eye rings vs. orbital rings in the introductory portion of the book.  Anyway, lately I have noticed the breathy yodel of a cardinal most times that I walk out the backdoor before noon.  

Yesterday I was late on my way to serve lunch at ncd's school when I spotted the crimson source of the sound in a tree next door.  Remembering my missed opportunity to photograph the couple, I rushed back into the house for my camera.  This morning as 

I returned from dropping ncd off at work, I discovered the cardinal in an even more flattering light.  Along the side, yesterday's photo of the cardinal, the tree, and today's photo of the cardinal in the same tree.

You'll be pleased to hear that I did find a way to get quarters on Monday.  That load of laundry is still downstairs in the laundry room.  Perhaps some other resident has moved the clothes from the dryer into the bright green basket, but it's slow progress thus far does not bode well for a timely folding and filing.  Perhaps I should invest the time in making a coat rack to store the clothes.

Just before leaving for the Y on Monday evening, I went to turn on the 

grow light that's installed in a lamp by the bed.  The lamp has endured many moves and one of the tabs that makes the connection between bulb and electricity is no longer soldered as it should be.  As usual, I turned the bulb until it caught on the tab.  Usually the bulb flickers on, and stays put to give the plants a few extra hours of "sunlight".  I did this on Monday and a single, tiny, sparkler-like star jumped away from the lamp in an arc.  It was one of those moments when one is forced to acknowledge the ridiculousness of a minute, idiotic daily routine.  "Well, der I wasn't going to be able to jimmy this thing day after day without burning the bulb out 'before it's time'."  Then I looked up and without really having any proof, realized that I had just blown the fuse.  Sure enough, no clock on the stereo, no light in the carbon monoxide detector.  And then I remembered that when we moved in ncd said, "We have to remember to get some fuses because it isn't a circuit breaker down there--it's old school."  Having belabored the beginning of the story, I will now summarize the consequences of my minute idiocy.  Ncd went out to get a fuse: it didn't fit.  The next day (Tuesday) I went to return/exchange the fuse, didn't have ncd's credit card, had to go to school and get that, got the new/correct fuse:  it didn't make a difference.  That afternoon I went to another hardware store and got the 15 amp version that's in all the other apartments' boxes (ours had two 20s for some reason): that didn't work either.  Now, the power is fine in the east half of our apartment, it's just the bedroom, bathroom, and one wall of the kitchen that don't work so we're not in too big a hurry to get this figured out.  Last night, we blew the fuse for the east half of the apt.  When I went down to replace it (now an expert), I realized what I had begun to suspect after multiple examinations of the fuses: while this fuse was clearly blown, there is NOTHING wrong with the fuse for the west half of the apt.  What, exactly, did I do to the electricity in the back half of our house?  It remains a mystery, but is probably much more serious than a fuse.  "Wow," I think to myself now, "It was totally worth it to jimmy that lamp instead of taking 90 seconds to tinker with the tab to make it stay put."  But then, we live in an apartment and therefore someone else will ultimately pay for my lazy negligence...so there's that.

On the bright side, on Tuesday I also had an interview for a long-term sub position at a high school.  This interview wasn't stunning, but it was definitely better than the last one.  Working to my advantage was the fact that there were no other candidates for the position and the woman I'm replacing is scheduled for a C-section in about a week.  Therefore, I walked into the brand spankin' new school at 2pm where I checked in at a desk that was dwarfed by the atrium that soared up about 3 stories to a glass ceiling.  I was ushered out of the interview at about 2:45 and was still driving home when I got a call offering me the job.  Tomorrow I'm spending the day observing classes and I start on 3/16 and go through the beginning of June.  I only teach 1st-4th period, but the dean of students at my interview said that with spring sports in full swing, I should be able to substitute the last couple of hours most days.  Sweet!  

Also, though not physically nervous, I'm clearly anxious to start as evidenced by the fact that I ate pancakes for breakfast...and lunch yesterday.  There is something fascinating about a pool of liquid that turns into a delicious pocket of steaming, bread-like deliciousness that can be plucked directly from the pan and eaten plain.  I'm over it, though, I think.  Yesterday's 2-batch frenzy did it.  I had some coffee and oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  

The whole episode reminds me of a scene from the book I'm reading right now, T.C. Boyle's World's End.  I don't know if I've mentioned my attraction to T.C. Boyle's writing, but let me explain.  Almost every single time I start one of his books I think, "There is no way that he's gonna pull this one off."  He often creates sort of loser main characters, anti-heroes whose redeeming qualities are only debatably redeeming.  Usually the characters are some combination of politically radical, dirty hippie, socially uninterested and uninvolved, morally ambiguous drug doing, random sex having wackos.  Boyle rarely makes me identify with these characters.  He doesn't even try that hard, I've realized.  Instead, his novels are just so interesting, his sentences so crafty, that I keep reading. It's also partly a gawker syndrome: "This is so gonna be the one that crashes and burns".  That makes the moment (which always comes) when he somehow ties all his outlandish strands together so pleasurable.  It is like the moment Houdini emerges from the submerged box and the straight jacket bound by locked chains: "No. Way."  I would say that Drop City and Friend of the Earth are the two books I've read which most adhere to this brilliant formula.  

World's End shares some of the characteristics, but the real "no way" factor comes from the fact that there is a full cast of characters that he's following in the seventeenth century, and two generations of characters in the twentieth century who are all connected (over FIFTY of them). Even though I don't necessarily empathize with the characters, I realize that Boyle is telling the truth when he exposes these people to trouble (sometimes of their own meeting) and shows their lamenting, ignoring, pushing through, stubbornly persisting, or succeeding by pure accident.  How he creates such a neat story while leaving the characters such a mess is beyond me, but it is fascinating.

And now, the passage that reminds me of my pancake frenzy.  

Near the beginning of the book, Walter Van Brunt, one of the present-day characters, remembers this experience:

His grandmother had got up from her potter's wheel to fix his lunch and tell him the story of Sachoes' daughter.  Shachoes, as Walter knew from previous episodes, was chief of the Kitchawanks, the tribe that was flimflammed out of its land by the founders of Peterskill--the-Hudson back in the days of the Colony.  At that time, the Kitchawanks, who were, generally speaking, a lethargic, peace-loving, oyster-eating clan of layabouts and bark-hut builders, owed fealty to the fierce Mohawk to the north.  Indeed, so fierce, so savage, so warlike and predetory were these Mohawk that a single brave could be sent down to collect tribute, and Manitou have mercy on the tribe that failed to feast him like a god and laden him with wampumpeak and seawant.  Kanyengahaga, the Mohawk called themselves, people of the place of flint; the Kitchawanks and their Mohican cousins called them Mohawk, people who eat people, a reference to their propensity for roasting and devouring those who failed to please them.

Well.  White bread was laid out on the plate, tomatoes were sliced, a cellophane-wrapped tube of liverwurst produced from the refrigerator.  He had a daughter, Walter's grandmother said, and her name was Minewa, after the goddess of the river who hurled thunderbolts....

...One laze August afternoon a Mohawk brave strode into the village, naked but for his breechclout and painted like death and the devil.  Tribute, he demanded in a tongue that sounded like the thrashing of adders, and then he fell down in a swoon, blood pouring from his mouth and ears, and the pockmarks standing out on his face.  Minewa nursed him.  If he died there would be no more oyster eating, no fooling around in bark canoes and plucking the sweet white meat from the cavities of blueclaw crabs: there would be no more Kitchawanks.  The Mohawk would see to that.

Minewa succeeds at nursing he Mohawk back to life and he demands Minewa as tribute.  If he is denied her, he will return with "a raiding party and cut up the Kitchawanks like dogs"...

...Sachoes, who was shortly thereafter to be hoodwinked by the Dutch trader who founded Peterskill on the sacred rock where the chief's forefathers had watched Manitou's big woman descend to earth, said "Sure, take her."

Two weeks later a party of Kitchawanks was combing the adjoining valley for acorns, chestnuts and rose hips when they came across the smoke of a cooking fire.  With stealth, with courage and curiosity and not a little audacity--Manitou knows, it could have been the devil himself cooking up a plague--they approached the clearing from which the smoke rose into the sky like a capnomancer's dream.  What they saw, Walter's grandmother said, spreading mayonnaise, was betrayal.  What they saw was the Mohawk and Minewa, what was left of her.  She was nothing from the waist down, his grandmother said, setting the sandwich before him--liverwurst, the texture and color, the very smell of flesh--nothing but bone. (Boyle 4-5)

Several chapters later, Boyle introdces the Van Brunts, Walter's ancestors in the 1700s.  They are sharecroppers or indentured servants with the task of making money out of a wild part of the patroon, Van Wart's, property which is the ancestral land of the Kitchawanks.  They work hard and begin to succeed, and then...

"Outwardly, life had never been better: trees were falling, the woodpile growing, the fields knee-high with wheat and the smokehouse full...

...It began with Harmanus.  He came in from the fields one night and sat down at the tablewith an appetite so keen it cut at him like a sword.  While Agatha busied herself with a hutspot of turnips, onions, and venison, she set out a five-pound wheel of milk cheese and a loaf of day-old bruinbrod, hard as stone.  Flies and mosquitoes hung in the air; the children, playing at tag, shouted from the yard.  when she turned around, bread and cheese were gone and her husband sat contemplating the crumbs with a strange vacant gaze, the hard muscles working in his jaw.  "My God, Harmanus," she laughed, "save something for the children.

It wasn't till supper that she became alarmed.  Besides the stew-it was enough for the nextthree days, at least--there was a game pie, another loaf, two pounds of butter, garden salad and a stone jar of creamed fish.  The children barely had time to fill their plates.  Harmanus lashed into the eatables as if he were sitting down to the annual Pinkster eating contest at Schobbejacken tavern.  Jeremias and Wouter ran off to kick a ball in the fading light, but Katrinchee, who'd stayed behind to clear up, watched in awe as her father attacked the pie, shoveled up the creamed fish with a wedge of bread, scraped the stewpot clan.  He sat at the table for nearly two hours and in all that time not a word escaped his lips but for the occasional mumbled request for water, cider or bread.

In the morning it was no different.  He was up at first light, as usual, but instead of taking a loaf from the table and heading out with axe of plow, he lingered in the kitchen.  "What is it, Harmanus?"  Agatha asked, a trace of apprehension creeping into her voice. 

He sat at the crude table, big hands folded before him, and looked up at her, and she thought for a moment she was looking into the eyes of a stranger.  "I'm hungry," he said.

Harmanus continues to eat.  Agatha remembers a time in her childhood back in Holland when a baker when mad and would eat nothing but cherry tarts.  She knows this is different, but can't figure how.

Around nightfall, Harmanus began to toss on his pallet.  he cried out in his sleep, moaning something over and over.  Agatha gently shook him.  "Harmanus," she whispered. "It's all right.  Wake up." 

Suddenly his eyes snapped open.  His lips began to move.

"Yes?" she said, leaning over him.  "Yes, what is it?"

He was trying to say something-a single word-but couldn't get it out.

Agatha turned to her daughter.  "Quick, a glass of water."

He sat up, drank off the water in a gulp.  His lips began to quiver.

"Harmanus, what is it?"

"Pie," he croaked.

"Pie?  You want pie?"

"Pie."  

It was then that she felt herself slipping...

Once every bit of food is gone, Harmanus disappears and then he's found:

...There he was.  Harmanus.  His big head and torso throwing macabre shadows against the ghostly twisted trunks of the white birches behind him, a joint the size of a thighbone pressed to his face.  They stepped closer.  his shirt was torn, stained with blood and grease; gobs of meat--flesh as pink and fat-ribbed as a baby's--crackled above the flames on acrude spit.  And then they saw it, lying there at his feet: the head and shoulders, the very eyes and ears, the face with its squint of death.  No baby.  A pig.  A very particular pig.  Old Volckert Varken, Van Wart's prize boar...

...Harmanus was docile, a babe himself, as Agatha drew his wrists behind him and cinched the ehmp cords she'd stuffed into her apron half an hour earlier amid the wreckage of the kitchen.  Then she looped a halter around his neck and guided him home like a stray calf. (Boyle 21-25

He continues to request pie.  At this point, the family calls Mohonk, a Kitchawank, who calls his mother.  She says that the cabin "had been erected at precisely the spot where the hunting party had found Minewa." (Boyle 27)  The curse expands and affects the entire Van Brunt family and is passed down through the generations to Walter.  

This is what I'm talking about.  Boyle has no problem making up tribes, mingling them with real tribes that really existed, making up a historically plausible settlement, then conjuring a magical affliction connected to a sadistic incident which Boyle has Walter's grandmother recount while serving a liverwurst sandwich.  He himself refers to this book as "an historical fugue". (author's note)  Wait until you see how he proceeds, tracing the habits, afflictions, and mindsets of the living generations of Peterskill residents back to their ancestors while illustrating their ignorance of history and their connection to each other.  Plus, the parts I quoted are in the first three chapters and he's already introduced a theme that connects land/property and a destructive, insatiable hunger (Minewa/Mohawk, Harmunus).  I promise you, if this is anything like Boyle's other books, he will not fail to deliver on this theme and the others he promises when he dedicates the novel, "In memory of my own lost father," and kicks off the book with a quote from T.S. Eliot's "Gerontion": "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?".  

It was relatively early in this book when I thought, "Holy what?  He's gonna pull this off and somehow manage to make me keep all 50+ characters more or less straight" (maybe the eighth chapter or so).  I'm only about halfway through, but the fact that World's End is a winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award for American Fiction does not surprise me and confirms my faith in T.C. Boyle will make sure I emerge from the story uttering some admiring expletive.

Boyle, T.C.. World's End.  New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1987.

I am pancake obsessed

In the past it has been an obsession with scrambled eggs or hotdogs or french toast.  Right now, it is pancakes.  When I think, "Hm, I'm getting kind of hungry," I immediately think, "I should eat some pancakes."  This will probably pass.

Tuesday:  Subbed for a high school math teacher.  Luckily, just as I was realizing that the teacher had left no plans and had a first hour Calculus class, he walked in.  He was supposed to be in a meeting all day, but taught both Calculus classes' lessons and all I had to do was supervise the work time and also a test in 3 other math classes.  Whew.

Got a call from a high school I applied to for a long-term sub position and set up an interview for next Tuesday (that's now tomorrow).

Item To Be Filed Under "Not Such A Shrinking Daisy in 2009":  Also subbed for yoga class in the evening.  As expected, not as relaxing as following the instructions of someone else, but I got through it.

Wednesday I subbed for a Special Ed teacher at a high school.  As I listened to the CD and followed along in The Giver I realized that I have never read this book before.  I am so familiar with the cover that instead of thinking, "Oh yeah, I've never read that," when I would hear it mentioned, I would think, "Oh yeah, I know what the cover of that book looks like."  

Same goes for A Tale of Two Cities (which I just read recently), The Cay, The Outsiders (though I feel like I know Pony Boy like a friend of a friend), and maybe Island of the Blue Dolphins. 

But I digress.  The point is that I realized this might actually be an asset!  I'm talking with students about what might happen next and the significance of what just happened and I'm modeling what a critical reader wonders when she really doesn't know what is going to happen.  I'm really living/reading in the moment with them.  Not that the students could tell, but it felt very fresh and authentic to me, unlike when I've read the book and then I have to construct questions that highlight something important without being too leading, preachy, or technical.  I thought I should make sure I write down my thought patterns for this and other books that I've never read, but will certainly have to teach so I can go back and remember what it was like to read it for the first time.  I think this seems particularly important to me now that I've taught The Crucible to three classes of 11th 

graders.  It's great because once you've read the book once to plan what to do/ask, then three more times in class, you start to feel like an expert and you can bandy about the characters' names and correct people on the order of events and maybe even toss off a quote.  However, I

 can see that this sort of expertise might wear away at the mystery of a book over the years.  It must be easy to forget that you were once in suspense and did not know the outcome of the book at the outset.  

I have not read The Giver, just read Red Badge of Courage (actually did not finish, though), only read To Kill A Mockingbird as part of a grad school course so that I could write a unit about it, only read Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies in college because I knew that I "should have" already read them (in the sense that people are allowed to assume that an English major...or HS grad, I suppose, has read those).  I know my education was built on the model of reading common texts which brings me to a great mystery:  What  did we read?  How is it possible that I haven't read any of these old standards?  I'll save the discussion about teaching a canon vs. giving student choice for another day.  I didn't really intend to spend 

so much space on this except that I keep thinking of things I should've read and haven't.  

To Be Filed Under "The De-Pansification Project of 2009":  Stopped by Dept Chairwoman's room to ask, "Since I interviewed with you for a job and it was not so great, could you help me not to biff my interview on Tuesday?"  Chairwoman graciously agrees, schedules mtg. for Friday.

Thursday I spent getting an additional set of fingerprints taken and mailed to the proper government authorities, then applying for a replacement social security card and running lots of errands.  It started snowing several hours later than predicted, but with plenty of flakey fervor.  

This gave ncd and I the opportunity to use the trio of "Smittens"

we received at Christmas.  This dorky triplet was invented for hand holders: 2 individual smits and one joint smitten with two wrist holes. In this photo we're in our backyard before going  to the YWCA.

Friday:  Typed answers to interview questions all morning and attended meeting (which went well and was not really that intimidating in fact did not have to speak much at all and got lots of feedback).  

Saturday:  Helped ncd's co-worker and his g/f and dog move out of the studio apartment they have been sharing and into a house that they will be renting (with a yard for the pup)!  Entire process took less than 4 hours.  Ncd and I have never completed a move together in less than 32.5 straight hours and we have dozens of friends.  We moved on to help another friend 1 block south and 1 block west.  This means that instead of living 1 block away from her, we now live 1 house away from her and across the alley.  We participated in the last 15 minutes of this move and again wondered how someone could fail to accumulate 3 truckloads of valuable heirlooms from dumpsters and alleyways.  It is dawning on us that we are not normal.

After dispatching our friendly duties, we discovered that we still had plenty of daylight.  Our friends from Chicago were at a "cabin" (note: Minnesotans "cabins" are all nicer than your house/mansion) in Wisconsin.  We packed Fluxx, Phase 10, Speed Scrabble, Catch Phrase, and a box of wine, and headed east.  Spent the rest of the weekend in good company in Wisconsin and headed home on Sunday afternoon.  I got a cold, but it's not so bad.  Interview tomorrow.  Quest to find a way to get money and then make it into quarters so I can do laundry.

Oscarocity

On Saturday ncd and I went to see the animated and live action shorts in preparation for the Academy Awards. I've included a scan of our results. The column on the right is the order we saw them in. For the animated shorts we wrote rankings to the right, but all of them were good. The system ran off the rails for the animated shorts that were not nominated, but were "honorable mentions".
The note next to "Varmints" The says, "Good, but too (spelled wrong in the orig., though) hopeless & too escapist. But who doesn't like varmints? (a period in the orig. Note the importance of revision before publishing)". There were, after all, animated varmints in it and they were voiced by FIVE different animals including an ocelot--I mean, how much more promising does it get? Alas, it did not deliver. It got lost along the way somewhere between the savior jellyfish growing from seeds of a branch of a tree that the good varmint saved from the old paradise...and the introduction of a varmint love interest in the midst of varmint-created hell on earth.

The note on "Penguin and Polar Bear" says, "We know stuff about arctic and antarctic animals...also we can see that one is big and one is little." The plot of P&PB was that Polar Bear was apologizing to Penguin for the insensitive things he said on a date the previous night. Things about penguins only being able to catch tiny fish and the like. Penguin eventually forgives him. We, the audience, laugh and the note explains how weird it is to explore why a group of people are laughing at something so simple and absurd together in a dark theater. I think it is particularly weird to me because I am part of a select group of people who might make this situation between Penguin and Polar Bear up and inadvisedly share it at a party and people would most likely look at me and stop talking. Most likely they would not laugh. But then, I can't draw a polar bear eating ginger cookies so maybe that's the problem.

If you watched the Academy Awards, you know that Nate's pick for best live action short film, "Newboy" (which because my pick as well) did not win. All of these films were so good that we gave up ranking them before we began. However, both of us agreed that "Toyland" should not win. I thought not because it could have been called "Mini Schindler's List" and ncd was annoyed because the plot involved a German mother telling her son that his best friend (who was headed for the concentration camp) was going on a journey to toyland. The son is excited, repeatedly says he's going too, and even packs a bag at one point. Ncd cannot forgive mom's at telling and then persisting in this story that so clearly makes her son want to run away and puts him at great risk. "Toyland" won.

On Sunday ncd set about organizing a gathering to watch the Oscars at our house (of course, I use the term "house" loosely). He really is the host with the most. Him: making pork chili and inventing some sort of seasoned sour cream to put on top, cutting cheeses, organizing chili toppings cleverly in dishes...

Me: sharpening pencils made out of recycled newspapers for people to mark their ballots with. Don't we have any pens, you wonder. Yes, plenty, but I like to change my mind on categories I know nothing about so I decided it was absolutely necessary to sharpen pencils. Plus, look how cool the shavings were!

Don't worry, I am taking the self-descriptor "focused" off of my resume.

Here's what I really wish was on the ballot: a list of people and two, no maybe three columns marked "wowee", "mer?", and "blech". THEN dress coverage should be mandatory (and tux/shirt/tie coverage if the wearer merits it--clearly O'Rourke's fashion should be votable). I don't really care about hearing from people, but I feel like I don't get to see people's get-ups. There should be some sort of montage...

Anyway, that's all for now. Ncd's been at a meeting of social workers or something like and I'm responsible for putting some chicken on the George Foreman and steaming some veggies. Big, bigtime responsibilities.

Pick a topic, any topic

No posts since October, huh.  That's awkward.  What to do?

Well, last weekend contained Valentine's Day.  Here's a sandwich and salad ncd made me for lunch.  Sandwich = roll toasted with olive oil, then add turkey, tomato, avocado, pepperjack chez and put back in broiler with top part of roll for toasting/melting. Liked it so much we also ate it for lunch on Sunday and dinner on Monday.

Rewinding a bit further, I finished reading "The Road" at 1 am on 

Groundhog Day.  It was a haunted way to start year 28 so I ate a cookie (I didn't eat it in the bathroom, I just set it on the sink momentarily for safekeeping--the stark cookie/milk/sink contrast seemed appropriate which probably says something about my state of mind), drank some milk, and read "Catch 22" until I shook the haunting enough to go to sleep.  

More soon...

...No, really...soon.