Thanksgiving of Two Families

An Essay in Mostly Pictures

My parents' flight was canceled, and they had to be rerouted, and instead of having a relaxing afternoon with them and a pleasant dinner, I didn't get to see them until one in the morning, when they straggled in very weary and relieved to have arrived.

Pocket of Bolts' mom, however, arrived the next day and had no trouble with her flight. Here are the four of them bundled up to go out on our first night all together.

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We don't usually get the paper, but my dad likes reading it in the morning. As it turns out, Pocket of Bolts does too.

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The whole troupe came down to our school to see our offices and classrooms. Here is my mom and me at a restaurant I really like. Love this picture; wish it hadn't come out so blurry.

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Here is just a random picture of Pocket of Bolts looking very tall in our red living room. Mostly our high-ceilinged apartment makes us look dwarfish, but this must have been some funny trick of perspective. Doesn't he look jolly?

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We worked hard on this puzzle. It was a good ice-breaker. It was a thousand pieces, and depicted some kind of peaceable kingdom jungle scene in which the lion lay down with the lamb (but only the lion got a good night's sleep, as the saying goes). Pocket of Bolts and I found it particularly addictive. Mom and dad are old hands. PoB's mom didn't think she would enjoy it, but eventually she got into it too.

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It was a white Thanksgiving.

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In the middle of the day we all went for a walk down to the lake. The snow had mostly melted by then.

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Then we were tired. I crawled in under the futon on the floor (on which we'd been sleeping, having given all our beds to guests).

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Everyone else made themselves useful in the kitchen, and produced a magnificent feast. (I like how the picture of me standing next to the table makes me look like I was responsible for the feast! Actually, I hardly lifted a finger.)

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Pocket of Bolts' mom rolling up her sleeves to tackle the great mountain of dishes.

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The two moms sitting side by side, followed by my dad chatting with Pocket of Bolts' mom. Note that this was the first time our parents had met each other.

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My bro said this picture of me in my pjs made me look about fourteen. My Chinese friend said it made me look elegant and cultured. Different visual codes are so funny.

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Pocket of Bolts' mom left early on Friday morning. Also, it got cold and some water that had collected in our deck chairs froze, capturing a stray leaf.

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My parents stayed on, and while dad rested, mom and I went all over town trying on wedding dresses. One of the places we went was the Macy's bridal salon, which proved to be way too fancy for us. However, I did try on this dress which had an incredibly beautiful train. And also we saw the gorgeous ceiling of the old Marshall Fields building. We thought the Macy's very poorly laid out--bad signage, illogical arrangement. It was a frustrating place to get around in and I can see why Chicagoans are so resentful of its taking over from Marshall Fields.

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Well, that's my photo-essay on Thanksgiving. Sorry it is so belated! But the whole thing was grand and exhausting and came right before I had to start doing a lot of work for the end of the term... so I'm only now getting to it...

Post Thanksgiving Vocabulary

Well, I have not posted in quite some time due first to the flurry of preparation surrounding the parents' Thanksgiving visit, and then to their visit itself. It was quite a time! I will publish some pictures when I have the energy. For now, as I try to force my brain back toward something resembling a dissertation groove, here are some more words from the freerice vocabulary test game, which I then looked up in the OED.

parlous = dangerous (variant of perilous!), apparently quite an old word, with examples in the 14th and 15th centuries. How usage can trick us! I would have called it as some French-derived word having to do with speaking (French: parler, to speak) but that was totally wrong.

mazzard = sweet cherry; a small, dark cherry of Devon origin, the fruit of a variety of the wild cherry or gean, Prunus avium. Origins of the word unknown, possibly related to mazard, a bowl or drinking vessel. Early spelling variations include mazar, mazer, mazard, and massard.

coir = coconut fiber, used for making ropes, cordage, matting, etc. Origin: Malayalam (or Malayali, one of 22 official languages in India, this one spoken in the South Indian state of Kerala) words: kayar (cord), and kayaru (to be twisted). Also, the thread or cordage made from that coconut fiber.

illation = inference (from Latin, illationem, n. of action from inferre, illatum: to bring in)--drawing a conclusion from premises, or the conclusion thus drawn. Also (and this is more what I would have guessed): an Ecclesiastical term referring to a Eucharistic Preface to the Tersanctus, known as the Preface in the Roman and Anglican liturgies.

fatidic = prophetic (form of Latin fatum [fate] + dic [weak root of dicere, to speak]). So, to speak about fate.

Research Excursion

On Sunday I was working on my dissertation. This is a fairly commonplace occurrence, if not as commonplace as it should be. I was at one of those dangerous transition points between one section and another, when I'm always tempted to just set it down for a week or so because I've more or less finished the one thing but haven't yet got my hand in with the next one. But I knew I should really get my hand in.

Suddenly the passage I was looking at reminded me of a note I'd taken from a book I'd looked at nearly three years ago. Frantic shuffle through notes--yep, there it was, a citation of a citation, the ultimate goal being a 1983 article in a Chinese-language periodical. Library catalogs: yes, U of C had it.

I am allowed to use the U of C library, though not to check out books and I have to get a day pass each time. There may be a limit to the number of days too, but I haven't discovered it. It's rare for me to go down there because it's such a public transportation pain in the ass.

Apparently on purpose, Hyde Park is cordoned off from the rest of the city. I went there once last year and was very sketched out. But then, I'd made the mistake of taking the most direct route from home, which meant I approached from the west. This time I took the best route from work which, rather paradoxically (since my work is west of my home) meant I approached from the east.

From the east, Hyde Park doesn't have the feeling of an invisibly walled-off compound facing a ghetto. It just seems like a small college town, autumn leaves falling peacefully, bright-colored chrysanthemums, kids playing on the sidewalks, highly intellectual-looking people strolling by and chattering in a large variety of languages. I got off the bus at not quite the right place and ended up going for a long walk, but I found the library eventually.

Once there I was immediately distracted by a great book-sale. Ten dollars lighter and at least ten pounds heavier (if one considers the combined system of me and my backpack), I tracked down the article I wanted and got substantial sections from two other books I'd been meaning to look at as well.

This afternoon I went to one of my favorite coffee-shops, the Bourgeois Pig, and had a look at the article. It was only one page, and I had been worried that it would be too insubstantial. But you can say a lot in one page of Chinese, densely type-set at that. One page of pure research gold, at least as far as that section was concerned. I not only got my hand in, I wrote the whole section, just over a thousand words.

In case you haven't noticed my Diss-o-meter at right, have a look at it! You too can watch my late-blooming dissertation grow at about the same speed as grass. Okay, maybe not that fast, given how often my dad has to mow the lawn. Still, a 1000 word day is nothing to sneeze at. If I do that every day, I even have a chance of meeting my goal.

Free Rice

Word buffs, try this cute time-wasting activity! A friend of mine sent me the link to a multiple-choice style vocabulary test, where the sponsoring organization will give ten grains of rice to the third world for every word you get right. It's here, but watch out, it's addictive. Keep an eye on the "vocabulary level" because that's the fun challenge for yourself. I'm having a hard time getting above 50, and it's fun to try. But mostly it's just amazing how many wacky words there are out there.

For fun, I made a list of the ones I got wrong and then started slowly doing some research in the OED on them. I bet the free rice people won't mind if I share the ones I looked at so far:

cerumen = earwax (from Latin cera, wax)--also the French word for wax--anatomical

isinglass = mica (or a firm whitish translucent gelatin gotten from the air-bladders of fish, especially sturgeon, and used for making jellies, clarifying liquors, or making glue) a name for mica because of its resemblance to the fish gelatin. Apparently a corruption of the obsolete Dutch word, huisenblas.
commove = disturb

recrudesce = happen again (more literally, of wounds, to become raw again, from Latin crudescere, to beome raw)--a wound breaking out again, and extensionally, and idea recurring, connotation of pathology

lam = thrash (etymologically related to "lame" --to cause someone to be lame--but usually used in reference to beating)--colloquial/vulgar/slang

chigoe = sand flea: A small species of flea (Pulex or Sarcopsylla penetrans), found in the West Indies and South America. The female burrows beneath the skin of the human feet (and sometimes of the hands) and becomes greatly distended with eggs, which are sometimes hatched there, causing itching, and painful sores. (Word is some corruption of a West Indian name, possible related to the Spanish chigo--small) Also called chigger or jigger by English-speakers.

Vegan for a Week

Pocket of Bolts and I have decided to be vegan for a week. We've talked about it occasionally--it's part of our great long-term food experiment project, namely, trying to find the diet that makes us feel the best and also allows us to lose weight. We tried Diet for a Small Planet type eating, complementary proteins, etc.--what we tended to call Malthusian vegetaraianism, being a vegetarian because it's more ecologically responsible to be lower on the food chain. It was tasty, but unbelievably fattening! Lots of milk and cheese.

One of these weeks, we're going to try being straight-up healthful omnivores (chicken breast etc.), but we decided to try being vegans first. Believe it or not, it's not actually all that hard. We eat a lot of Asian food anyway, which is readily vegan-able. I also bought a vegan cookbook, Garden of Vegan, from our favorite bookstore, Unabridged. Our weekly menu planning, which we've been doing for several months, really helps. We have meals lined up already. We just don't line up anything that has milk or cheese in it.

Lunch is tricky, because if we don't pack one we are really stuck. Also it's hard giving up milk in my tea. We both miss cheese a lot. But overall, it's not nearly as hard as I had imagined it would be. And we are losing weight, despite gorging ourselves at every meal. I think part of the thing is that all of the usual snacks are off limits! And when you're exercising will-power as part of a larger project, it's somehow easier than exercising will-power on a case-by-case basis.

I think ultimately our ideal diet (socially, financially, and health-wise) is probably a slightly flexible one--largely vegetarian or vegan at home, milk/cheese/eggs/meat with company or in restaurants. But in some ways it's only easy giving up cheese and milk chocolate because it's a) temporary and b) absolute. As I said, the case-by-case decisions are more difficult.

One think about the vegan experiment--it sure does feel clean. Not to say I'm eating all organic or natural or anything. There is an incredible variety of chemicals in Coffee-mate, my milk substitute in tea, and in some of the other things we eat. Still, overall I feel cleaner. And although my metabolism seems a little lower than normal (and much lower than when I eat meat), I don't feel like I have less energy. It's more like the reserves are spread more evenly, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, more on this later!

Last Weekend

So sorry for the lack of updates. I think part of the problem was that last weekend was kind of crazy, and so I've felt a bit behind ever since. Last weekend:

Friday night we went out with one of my favorite friends, let's call him Kami-tsukae, because he is an absolute origami master. He deserves his own post, so more on him later. But anyway, we went out for pizza and beer and a whole lot of talking. It's hard to even say all the great things about Kami-tsukae, but at the same time he's a troubled soul. Being a philosopher (one of PoB's classmates, originally), he has the knack of abstracting his own problems into philosophical positions. You might say this isn't such a good thing to do, but it does enable one to talk about personal things without actually getting into personal details. Good for us over-intellectualized academic types. We have decided that the three of us our going to do "Bible-study"--more on this soon!

Saturday night, we were invited to a banquet in Chinatown. It was a fund-raising banquet for the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago ("the midwest's only Chinese-American museum!"), and I believe it was a $100/plate type dinner. Pocket of Bolts and I were invited (as in, we didn't pay) through a connection with my work. I managed to get us a ride with some other people, and PoB was very patient as I chattered away with them in Chinese. Indeed, he was overall a 5 star boyfriend that night. It's impossible than anything could have been less vegetarian friendly than the meal we ate (Cantonese food), so he'd decided in advance that'd he'd be willing to be an omnivore for one day. (He liked the duck and beef, but was less keen on the squid!)

There was also a lion dance (I'll update with photos if I can get them off my phone), and some live music. The bands they had engaged to provide the music kept urging people to dance. Sure the place had a nice dance-floor, but who's going a rich, shy Chinese person to go out and dance in a brightly lit room with several hundred other rich, shy Chinese people watching them? It just wasn't happening. Finally, a very distinguished looking middle-aged couple took the floor and it was about all I could stand. I persuaded PoB to come out onto the floor too, despite his insistence that he wasn't sure what to do. I told him we'd fake it. And so we did. Now tell me, am I or am I not actually marrying Prince Charming!? Because what was his comment when we and just one other couple were determinedly faking an ability to dance under bright lights in front of several hundred rich, shy Chinese people? He said to me, "You're fun!"

Because isn't it fun to step up and be a star when no one else is willing to? Isn't that the meaning of seizing the day?

Gifting Meme

Here is an interesting blog meme that I have lately seen going around. I pondered it for some time and decided I wanted to try it (despite potential sketchiness?).

So...

By the end of the calendar year, I will send a tangible, physical gift to each of the first five people to comment here. The catch? Each person must make the same offer on her/his blog.

I was thinking about whether this could potentially lead to exponentially increasing gifts exploding like an algal bloom out through the blogosphere. One would suppose that two factors might tend to damp this down though. One would be the lack of five willing commenter/recipients--possible fate for my own offer I'd think--and another would be reciprocal gifting, because surely you don't have to make the offer twice.

Am I overthinking this? I suspect so.

Halloween Goth

So I always wanted to try being a Goth. You know, just once. Well Halloween's the time to try that sort of thing out right? So I cobbled together something resembling a Goth costume. I was unfortunately lacking in death-themed jewelry, and I couldn't quite reconcile myself to some sort of paling product, but I did black lipstick and nail-polish, even though I am pretty bad at applying both. Well I did my best.

And yes, I did go around looking like this all day, including in my class. They were at least mildly amused I think. None of them have ever even seen me in a skirt, I think. I tried to do a lesson that was on the fun side, though their energy is quite low due to midterms and post midterm slump. I also brought candy for them, which they seemed to like, and scary big fuzzy tarantulas as prizes for Chinese-character bingo.

I didn't do anything in the evening. A long work-day ahead of me and a long work-day behind me--I just wanted to sleep. But I did take these silly pictures. I know that real Goths are skinnier and sicklier but I did my best. I do think from the right angle I have a slight resemblance to Helena Bonham Carter as crazy evil witch in the last Harry Potter movie. :)

Achievement

I just want to say that Pocket of Bolts and I ran almost three miles today down the lake-shore (and back). That's a greater distance than I have run in a really long time, and it's nice to know I can still do it. Naturally, we were both pretty aching and sore afterwards...

But now we're all excited to find some kind of fall or winter 5k race to run. The cost dampened our enthusiasm somewhat. How can they be that expensive? I realize that there may have been a tiny bit of inflation since I was last into running road races 17 years ago...!

My Grey Coat, Recent Reading

Lately we've had the first bit of cold weather worthy of the name. Okay, so it hasn't got below freezing yet, but it's been cold enough that I want a coat AND a scarf, cold enough that I jammed a blanket up against the window for added insulation (the heat isn't on in our apartment yet) and we slept under the down comforter all night without kicking it off.

It was cold enough that I decided it was finally time to take my venerable grey full-length coat to the Korean cleaners to see if they could repair it. The repairs lady spread it out on the counter and looked at it with terrible disapproval.

Well, I admit, the lining is literally in tatters. Even inside the sleeves it's all torn up, and the "pockets" communicate directly with the interior. Don't ask me how it has gotten so bad. It still looks more or less flawless from the outside. But if I ever accidentally walk around with it open I get embarrassed because the torn-up lining shows.

The Korean lady shook her head sadly. "Need new lining."

"Can you do that?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "One hundred twenty."

"A hundred and twenty dollars," I said with gentle dismay. "I could get a new coat for that."

She nodded agreement. "Sorry."

I should have had the lining replaced while I was in Beijing. I thought about it so many times, but just never got around to it. I bet in Beijing it would have cost me 120 RMB--if that.

Now such a dilemma. I mean, I really could get a new coat, but I love the old coat and it looks fine from the outside. And I just GOT a new coat, only it's not full-length. It's not a matter of money; it's a matter of fondness.

Pocket of Bolts says, "Just keep it around until the next time you got to Beijing." I suppose in a way that does make sense.

Well, for now I'll wait and see.

My students and I finished midterm week today. I was vicariously stressed out for them, but also quite proud. Even the slow ones tried really hard, and I could tell they really studied. I am going to reward them by doing something with the class which is going to be more work for me but very good for them: conducting it as an immersion class from now on. I think it's about time, but not being a native speaker, it's a lot more work I have to put in. Well, it'll probably be good for me too.

I am sitting in a Caribou (coffee shop) hanging out and getting ready to start on dissertation work. Progress has been slow but steady-ish.

We just finished watching Unforgiven, which I had never seen before. I was very impressed with it. As Pocket of Bolts pointed out, it put a lot of emphasis on the fact that real events are messy. The English Bob/Duck of Death incident was particularly hilarious and riveting.

It's interesting how, in light of our schedules and how tired we tend to be at night, we very rarely manage to watch a whole movie in a night. Even a one-hour TV episode can be little taxing, though we managed with The Wire because it is just so incredibly awesome. (I have just finished watching Season 1.) But Unforgiven took us three (non-consecutive) days, even though it was pretty exciting too. Well, it's been a busy week...

I've also been reading a lot. I finished Absalom, Absalom which I found good but a little too repetitive. I admit that the surprise ending did surprise me though, and it had quite a lot of really good moments. I also read The Sun Also Rises which I loved. Hemingway is quite a change from Faulkner. I pretty much flew through the book. I liked the beginning, and how understated his injury was, the how the bulls and steers comparison was just sitting there waiting to be made but he never made it explicit.

I had been reading LeCarre's Tailor of Panama in the gym, and I finished that too. I had been a little frustrated with it because of all the lying. It made me very uneasy, but then maybe the gym was the wrong venue in which to read it. Anything I read in the gym gets read so slowly that I ponder it endlessly and it seems epic. So the Tailor of Panama was an epic pack of lies. What I should do is read some real epic in the gym, something that can stand that kind of treatment. I'll have to think on it.

Finally, I'm about halfway through The Warden, by Anthony Trollope. It's a book Pocket of Bolts borrowed from one of his colleagues before I went to Beijing, and I was somewhat interested in it then, but left for Beijing. PoB still hasn't read it, but since I talked to that colleague of his again on Saturday and she said something about the book, I got interested in it again. It seems like it's going to be trivial at first, but gradually you realize that people's very souls are at stake. And that's really the way things are--books are so often about such big things, but small things bring out what matters about people just as well, maybe better.

Well, okay, better get on with dissertation work.

We Go to the Zoo

How I like the Lincoln Park zoo. It's free, that's one thing. Maybe that's the main thing, because I would never go so often if it weren't free. As it is, all the animals start to get familiar after a while. I guess I probably always tend to take pictures of the same animals too. But every time it's a little different. So anywhere, here's the latest round of zoo pictures.



Sleepy sleepy lions. Although one of the lionesses walked around a bit and when a photographer in the crowd roared at her, she roared back. They really put their guts into roaring. I was impressed, although it wasn't too nice of the guy to get her all riled up. After she did her roaring, she just flopped down on her back like she was all worn out.



Rhino looking like a big leathery cow. They had filed down its horns, not sure why. Maybe so it wouldn't break them against things.



The tiger was all on the move. It was quite exciting. It made a regal pass through its cage and then in the outdoors portion. Bored royalty going on a procession to show itself to the commoners. I'm not sure if the blur in the photo is good or bad, but I didn't want to scare the poor guy with a flash.

I've got to say that one of the things I would like to see the Lincoln Park zoo do differently is give more information about the individual animals--their age, sex, how long they've been here, where they came from, stuff like that. When you see the same creatures over and over again, you start to wonder about them.



Pocket of Bolts with three camels. It was getting late and the camels were lined up by their door. Animals are such creatures of habit and routine. Me too!

Alchemical Geekery

Please ignore this post if it will make you lose all respect for me. I just had to brag a little to those who share this weakness of mine.





Bow before the power of the Grand Alchemical Emperor.

Bucktown Apple Pie Contest

A few weeks ago we had wandered around Wicker Park and Bucktown and noticed signs for the Bucktown Apple Pie contest. For some reason, this seemed incredibly appealing to us both, so we wrote down the information and yesterday (the day of the contest) took two buses and made our way to the contest's appointed site. There, amid the chaos, were more apple pies than I think I've ever seen in one place. It reminded me of Harold and the purple crayon--you know the part where he draws nine pies and has a piece of each? Well there must have been hundreds.

It looked like to enter the contest you had to submit at least two pies. Then the judges judged the pies and whichever were deemed non-winners got placed on these long tables. The general public could then buy tickets--6 for $5--and two tickets would get you a slice of pie. You could pick the pie, while supplies last. There were SO many different kinds, it was even a little hard to choose! After eating three pieces of pie, we were impressed by the judges' fortitude. The third piece we had, we managed to get hold of one of the semi-finalist pies (judging was still in progress while we were there) and I tell you, those judges did know what they were about. The semi-finalist pie really was head and shoulders above the other two we'd tried.

We also saw a rather astonishing savory apple pie--with pork. Is that not weird and gross but also kind of intriguing?

Pocket of Bolts said my apple pie is definitely better than the first two we tried (his tasted like artificial apple flavor and mine had a texturally promising crust that was obviously completely devoid of salt), and could give the third one a run for its money. Said Pocket of Bolts, "You should enter next year." How old-fashioned by kind of charming an idea is that!?

It was a really good time--a brief outing but there was lots to see, a well-defined goal (eating the apple pies) and much to think about as regards the amazing and hitherto unconsidered variations in the apple pie kingdom.

Here are some apples and sunflowers, an arrangement just outside the door. It was so very fall-like.

In Which I Get a New Coat

After the scorcher that was last weekend, we are having what I'm afraid I consider a cold snap. Pocket of Bolts assures me that it's going to get much much worse. Yesterday I decided I needed to buy a coat. Now usually I try not to pay more than $25-30 for an article of clothing, but coats, like shoes, are something that're kind of with you all the time every day, so probably deserve some extra resources devoted to them. I tried on lots, but realized that with my hair as short as it is now, all the ones I would naturally gravitated to (very plain and simple) make me look so androgynous that even I feel a little uncomfortable with it. So this is my version of "girly-coat" (not a very good photo, sorry). Honest, I tried on other colored ones--I'm especially partial to white--but they just looked plain wrong and ridiculous on me.

Today the house was very cold. The heat isn't on yet, but I'm still adjusted for summer. So that combined with yesterday's coat shopping marathon unfortunately brought on a bit of a cold. Naturally, PoB is fighting it off as well, but I think it's about caught me. I spent most of the day in bed, but at least I was working on the dissertation at the same time. Toward evening, we both got restless and tired of merely nursing the cold, so we went out for a walk by the lake. Here are some pictures that PoB took.

The Great Plagiarism Wimp-out

A certain unnamed office-mate of mine (after today, I'm thinking of calling him "Kewpie Doll") caught a plagiarism case. There were whole pages copied directly from different web-sites. It was so glaring that he noticed it right away just from reading through. He was easily able to track it down with Google. However, he completely failed to be fired with the righteous indignation proper to the situation. He went and talked to his supervisor, and that person told him that that failing the plagiarist on that paper was the absolute minimum punishment, and that failing them for the entire class was perfectly possible.

Now one thing that's clear is that there has to be a Talk. Several of the other office-mates said, well, okay, don't fail her in the class but you have to make her cry. You just gotta do it. Kewpie Doll: I don't want to make her cry. I just want her to know that she can't do that.

Still, I was expecting at least a few fireworks. Instead I hear the following dialogue.
Kewpie Doll: You know you can't do this right.
Cheater: Yeah I know.
Kewpie Doll: You know you can really get in a lot of trouble for this.
Cheater: I just didn't know whether I should put a works cited page at the end or what?
Kewpie Doll: Look, there needs to be some sort of penalty for this.
Cheater: Well, if you want I can rewrite it. I mean, it won't be five pages, but...
Kewpie Doll: I'm just saying, there needs to be some sort of penalty because if it hadn't struck me and I hadn't done research--well, you're presenting other people's ideas as your own. You know you can't do this right?
Cheater: Yeah, I know.
Kewpie Doll: Are you unclear about how to cite things, or were you just trying to fill out the page requirement?
Cheater: Well, I kind of like did write it but it was like three pages, so I just put some stuff in, and I was gonna change it but then it was like 1 o'clock.
Kewpie Doll: Okay, well look, you need to rewrite it, but there has to be some kind of penalty. What do you think is fair?
Cheater: [No answer.]
Kewpie Doll: You're not going to be able to get above a certain grade on this paper.

Gentle reader, do you know what that ceiling grade is going to be? A C. The gentleman's C, apparently. I have too much respect for female genitalia to say that what Kewpie Doll was doing here was "pussying out."

Following the above conversation, he proceeded to discuss with "Cheater" for 45 minutes how to make her paper better on her re-write. And get this, the paper was on copyright and intellectual property (specifically with respect to music sampling, U2 and Negativeland). And GET THIS: Cheater is arguing in her paper that U2 was right, Negativeland was wrong, and sampling music is cheating.

Kewpie Doll: Never do this again. Some teachers would throw you right out of the course for this.
Cheater: I know, I know. All I was thinking was "length, length, length."

Maybe that's what Negativeland was thinking too. Points off for hypocrisy.

Commutation

1. an act or process of commuting
2. a change of a penalty or punishment to a lesser one

Last year I used to laugh at Pocket of Bolts because he seemed so extremely obsessed with the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority): it's vagaries and subtleties, most particularly its failings. Well, now I understand. The CTA owns my life for about two hours a day, including the particularly vulnerable hour of the afternoon when I am tired and hungry and just want to get home. Well for that matter, and the other vulnerable hour in the morning when I'm half asleep, stressing out about class, and just wishing I were still in bed. When things aren't going smoothly with the CTA, it's like kicking a girl when she's down already.

Well, sometimes they do a fine job. It's well to avoid rush hour, and fortunate that we live near the end of a decently frequent direct bus-line. Going in to work, at least, we usually get a seat.

Still, it was a wake-up call when, the other night, we stayed at work really late and didn't get on the homeward bus until 8 PM. Given, the driver was hauling ass and there weren't all that many people getting on and off. But--really? Our 45 minute to an hour commute could actually be less than 25 minutes. That makes those hour and a half days, when we accidentally edge into rush hour, that much more painful.

It's not actually very far between work and home. Last Friday I tried riding my bike. It was going to be a race between me on my bike and Pocket of Bolts on the bus. He's just missed a bus, so I got a bit of a head start. Turns out I didn't even need it! I not only caught up with the bus he'd missed, but the bus ahead of that one as well. Averaging five minute miles, I made it to work in under half an hour, leaving him and his bus in the dust! (Yes, I wore my helmet.) Downside was, of course, I was sweaty and tired, and then had to ride home in the afternoon too. I wasn't looking forward to that, because I was already pretty tired. However, once I got that first bus in my sights, it was actually quite thrilling. I caught and passed THREE buses, one of which was PoB's (he had the head start this time). And felt energized when I got home.

No doubt about it, the bike commute is awesome. But only as long as the weather holds...

Marathon Kills People

Today they ran the Chicago Marathon--or, well, most of it. It started in the early morning, and the course happened to go right by our house! So sitting down to breakfast we heard cheering. Of course, we had to get dressed and go out to see. We cheered too, and took some pictures. What was amazing was just how many people had got themselves into this outrageous endeavor. They just kept on flooding past, some of them running easily and some of the red-faced and dripping. Mind you, our part of the course was pretty early in the race.

After a while we got tired and went in. I mean, you could get tired just from watching all these people.

Later we saw some people with marathon numbers on the el. They don't look tired enough to have just run a marathon, I said to Pocket of Bolts. On the street, we heard one of these people having a conversation with a guy. He asked her time and she said, I only got to mile 22 and then they canceled the race. We walked on past and had a debate about whether something had happened and they'd actually canceled the entire marathon (PoB's position) or whether she had just been too slow and they had closed the course so they could open the streets of Chicago back up (my position).

As it turns out, and regrettably, PoB was right on this one. Due to record high temperatures and humidity (it was 88 today, and the humidity was miasmal), one runner apparently dropped dead, and they canceled the race about four hours in. Who knows that we may not have seen that guy and cheered him on? It's even possible he is in this picture. A sad thought.

I have always been against the idea of marathons, though that doesn't mean I don't see the fascination. It's just--well, the first guy who ran it dropped dead too. We just weren't meant for that kind of thing, you know? Sure, some people are but--well, wow, is all I can say. I ain't running one.

We Went Exploring

Last weekend we decided to go see some bit of the city we had never seen before. We ended up walking around on Division Street, near Ashland and Damen etc. It was a sort of gentrifying quasi-hipster neighborhood, but there were interesting things to see. We had a fairly mediocre lunch at Moonshine Chicago (really it was just kind of a bar, which we didn't realize because it had such nice outdoor seating): the food was expensive and the quality was merely okay; also though the service was attentive enough, it took forever for us to get our food. However, it was all up from there. After we finally had got fed, we went walking on down the street.

There was a stationary store called Paper Doll that actually we had heard of before. It had a lot of cute little stationary related things, but what had really caught our eye was their wedding invitation stuff, which was extensive. Unfortunately, we couldn't look really carefully or talk to the lady who worked there because there was a scary bride to be going all nuts. Well, we'll go back sometime soon.

We passed a chocolatier that looked quite interesting but unfortunately we were too full to go in. We passed several bakeries (same problem). And then we came to this Architecturally Important Church. I have already forgotten what it is called, but I took a couple of cell phone camera pictures of it. Can you imagine? I've gotten so much out of the habit of taking real pictures, I rarely do anything but quick cell phone snaps anymore.

Here are two more, which I took at an abandoned-looking storefront. There didn't seem to be an actual business there, but this sculpture of wood-shaving curls was prominently displayed in the window. I thought it was pretty cool.



We also saw a French kitchen store, in which nearly everything was out of our price range. Yet somehow we still thought it was a very cool place. Everything had a very French sort of niceness to it, all elegant and well made and looking like it would be pleasant to use. Bright, but not garish, happy colors. It was very fun. Also the proprietor was nice to us even though we were obviously not the target audience for the place.

Eventually we walked up Damen to and through Wicker Park, got up to North Avenue and looked at a scary "indie" clothing store called untitled. It was standard non-conformist stuff, if that's not an oxymoron, but almost completely too small for both of us. Not to mention too pricey, of course. We also went into a bookstore so hip it was almost surreal. Repository of independently published little magazines and pamphlets, and extensive "Goth and Death-core" section, any sort of perversion imaginable, and generally everything you wouldn't find at Borders. Sandman was the most mainstream thing there.

To recover, we took the bus to North and Halsted where there's a Borders and a CB2. All we wanted was some Faulkner and maybe a cookbook, you know? Also we got a carafe and a kick-ass bathmat, which we love. We don't spend a lot of time shopping or buying things, so it's fun to do it now and then.

That was our Saturday afternoon. Lots of walking! But a fun adventure.

An Adventure at 3 AM

Two nights ago, Pocket of Bolts woke me up at three in the morning by coming in the bedroom door and saying, "What happened to me?!"

"I don't know, love," I said. "What happened to you?"

"I woke up on the couch in the study."

"Why were you sleeping on the couch in the study?" (I started wondering in a frantic three AM way whether I had been snoring loud enough to chase him out? grinding my teeth? or did I kick? hog the bed?)

"I don't remember going there at ALL," he said lying down and looking extremely puzzled.

"Pocket of Bolts," I said ponderingly. "There was a lot of stuff on the couch in the study. How did you...?"

Then I had to get up and go into the study. The dissertation impedimenta (books, papers, note-cards) that usually lives on the couch in the study was neatly lined up in discrete piles along the foot of the couch. The couch itself had nothing on it but one lonesome pillow minus pillow-case, and a Pocket of Bolts shaped indentation.

"You were sleeping there all right," I said, going back into the bedroom.

"Now I'm worried," Pocket of Bolts said, and got up to check that the stove was off and the doors were locked and that in general there were no bizarre displacements in our rattly big nest. All was as it should be. Apparently he had not robbed any banks.

PoB's family on his father's side are notorious sleepwalkers. Once his grandmother saw one of his uncles sleep-walking through the house in the middle of the night. She followed him to see what he would do. Eventually he went into the pantry and started peeing on the potatoes!

Now I always tease PoB and ask him if he is going to pee on the potatoes.

As near as we can figure, he had got up to go to the bathroom, but got confused on the way back to bed, went into the wrong bedroom, tidily put the stuff from the couch off onto the floor, lay down there--never mind that the "couch" (just a futon couch) is hardly big enough for him to lie down on--and went right to sleep. But he didn't have a blanket even, so he was pretty cold when he came back to bed!

The odd thing was that, light sleeper though I am, I never even noticed--either that he'd got up or that he wasn't there in the bed.

Ha, I was probably getting some really good sleep. :P

(Just kidding, Pocket of Bolts.)

Back from Oregon

I am back from scoping out wedding sites in Portland. Actually, I think we've settled on one. Our main criterion was striking the right balance between "classy" and "fun." I mean, mostly we want our wedding to be a great party, but we want it to be a party that our more fastidious relatives will be happy with too. I think this place will fit the bill.

After checking it out, I went home and hung out with the family. Dad spoiled me by buying me not one but two pairs of shoes(!) to replace the very broken down and worn out ones, which I have been wearing almost constantly for nearly five years now. I am not a great shoe person, but even I confess it's fun to have a change. This pair I am wearing now. The other pair is coming in the mail, owing to their not having the color I wanted in that particular store. I'd put a link, but I can't quite remember exactly which type it was.

I did lots of chatting and hanging out with the parents, and watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (for the first time). Interesting movie. Funny to see Jude Law before he got really well-known. I am not a great recognizer of actors, but I always recognize him right away because he has a very slight facial resemblance to Pocket of Bolts!

Anyway, another fun thing I got to do was go on a bike ride with my bro and his new girlfriend. Although I've as a rule not been putting pictures of myself on this blog anymore, I just had to post this one because I like it so much. It was the perfect thing to do on a crisp Saturday morning in fall. The air was cool and the sunshine warm. Leaves were just starting to come down. The river looked deliciously beautiful. Not to say I don't appreciate our lake here, but it's just different is all.

We had a big dinner--leg of lamb--and Mom and my bro and his gf and I played Apples to Apples. I love that game, because it's all about laughing your head off, non-stop. When do we ever get a chance to laugh that much? Something funny is always happening.

Finally, back here on Sunday. My class was getting observed yesterday morning, so I was extra nervous. But got through it somehow. I am getting better about balancing course work and my own work, and have even made some limping progress on my dissertation these past couple days. Despite being still tired from the weekend. It is refreshing to get away from it all, and nice to come back to the ever-smoother routine. I even got into the gym yesterday and today. Working off those vacation pounds. My mom's fancy scale (which has a fat percentage sensor) told me I was overweight. Thanks for the vote of confidence, scale! I like it better when the scale just gives me the numbers and lets me be the judge.

Still, I have been trying to be moderate with food and conscientious with exercise. And... I guess nothing much else to report. I finished Vanity Fair and felt very satisfied with it, especially with the role Becky played in the ending. What an ambiguous anti-heroine she was throughout! Many of her manipulations were actually quite forgivable, and the only thing I really had to hate her for was mistreating her son. As for Jos, he deserved what he got.

Okay, guess that's it for now.

Statues on the Spirit Way

By the way, just in case you were missing the exoticism of Beijing photos, here are a couple I never got around to posting. I'll try to put a few up whenever I'm feeling particularly motivated. These are stone statues along the "Spirit Way," along which the funeral processions of Ming dynasty emperors would travel en route to their mausoleums. You can see it is spring by the amazing green color of the willows.

One Week Down, 14 to Go

One good thing about having to drag out of bed at the crack of dawn and get to work is that it makes you appreciate weekends SO much more.

Insight number two, teaching is really hard, even when you're teaching stuff you have down cold. I approached my first week of classes with an almost comical level of anxiety juxtaposed with a pretty calm, confident outward demeanor. I mean, even on the first day my hands didn't shake, my mouth didn't get dry, and things really went reasonably smoothly--even though I felt jumping-off-the-high-dive terrified beforehand. The rest of the days were a little uneven, some better than others. Being able to gauge the pace of learning is clearly just something that comes with experience; it's really hard for me to tell when I'm going over material too fast, until (say) I have them break into groups and we all discover that they were completely confused. But I have done my best to at least keep things moving and varied, so the class won't be TOO boring. I'm cautiously optimistic. But it's taking tons of time.

In case it's not clear, this is the first time I've ever taught my own class. I've done discussion sections for big lectures before, but never been responsible for things like syllabi and pace. Fortunately my "boss" is very helpful and understanding. She taught the class last year and handed down all her materials to me. But even so, it's a lot of work. It's also a confidence boost, though, as I'd hoped it would be. If I can get up in front of a roomful of people and keep all the balls in the air, so to speak, surely I can write a dissertation which can be done is small unhurried stages in the privacy of my own home? Still working on that one, but early signs are cautiously optimistic.

Meanwhile, yesterday we had to buy things. I had to buy clothes AGAIN because it turns out I really only have one week's worth of presentable "teaching-worthy" outfits. Shopping is hard. PoB claims to like the results. But dressing up still makes me feel like a monkey--leftover trauma from my consulting days nine years ago, I guess. I realize that that was actually the last time I spent any serious money on clothes, so you can imagine what I've been wearing since: miscellaneous assemblage of dumpster pickings, GoodWill and such, and the occasional splurge at TJMax or Old Navy. Not that the stuff I am getting now is MUCH above that but I'm at least trying to make it the nicer end, and look like it's better. But it does wear me out...

In other news, we have FINALLY(!) completed our basic essential furnishings, defined as, those necessary before we feel comfortable having guests. Couch was high on that list, then table, finally dining room chairs. We bought the chairs separately (wincing and grumbling at the price--why do chairs have to be SOOOO expensive?) but I think they look like a pretty decent match. Who wants to come to dinner? :)

Well, I'd like to write more, but I had better get started on dissertation work. Now that the (really incredibly stressful) first week is over, I'm hoping I'll have a bit more time for blogging.