catching my breath

Just logging in long enough to report (to those of you who know about the family crisis I've been living for the last year) that my mom is settled in Chicago. We still aren't sure how we pulled it off, but clearly the fall and second trip to a skilled nursing facility brought home to her the high degree of vulnerability her age and current mental state represents. My sister-in-law escorted her on the flight, while my brother and I, along with TH and MP2 (poor kid!--not much of a Thanksgiving Break) loaded the furniture from her assisted living apartment (unoccupied since her fall and long-term stay in the nursing home) into a u-haul truck for return to her house or the drive (my brother's) to Chicago. MP1 and MP2 saw her house (she didn't want that to happen, but it was good for them to see what we've been dealing with) and reminisced about memories of running around it as kids. That made me happy. I'm leaving out the details of the crisis on the Chicago end when my SIL and mom arrived to the facility into which she was supposed to move only to discover that they'd overbooked their skilled nursing facility (where she was supposed to be for a few more weeks before release to her assisted living facility in the same Senior Home). She spent Friday through Wednesday night at my brother's house meeting her great-grandkids, etc. Last night she was in the new apartment (and I mean new as in she refused to go back to the one originally reserved for her). Her cast is off and she is walking again (still needs lot of physical therapy, though). Last night I didn't wake up in a cold sweat worrying about her or her house. I SHOULD worry about her house, but I think I'll wait till January. Maybe I can write coherent posts by then.

Happy Halloween

I am watching the World Series and waiting for the onslaught of costumed kiddies in search of candy (I bought a bunch of it--none of which I like or will be the least bit tempting to me).  By all appearances, this is a holiday-celebrating town, so I think the door bell is going to get a work out.  I went shopping this past Thursday in the central district of nearby town. I got some Christmas shopping done, despite the fact that the entire downtown was in Halloween mode. Enjoy.

 

 

This little boy asked me to take his photo while he

and his sister waited for their turn sitting on the bear

in the fountain (above)--apparently lots of kids have

their photos made while riding the bear. 

(Cute parents, too, who were totally hip to

having their kids featured on my blog.) 



Sin City

So I had to be in Las Vegas for work last weekend.  For the first time ever, we visited (in fact, stayed in) the historic downtown district. I loved the old (mid-century) neon signs, which have been preserved and installed by the Ne*n Museum. I was so exhausted on Friday (I'd had that looong day of shopping on Thursday with  retired colleague here in sabbatical-land and had then gotten myself up at the crack of dawn to drive the 5+ hours so that I could hop on a plane w/TH),  that I wasn't sure I'd be up for any fun that night. BUT, our hotel (recommended by a Vegas resident) was right there next to the "Frem*nt Street Experience," so we couldn't stop ourselves from going. It was an (entirely unexpected) blast. Small stages featuing exotic dancers, musicians/tribute bands, and comedians; costumed Vegas strip characters-of-old (Sinatra, Elvis, etc.); tourists flying overhead on ziplines; casinos and neat old neon signs all under the cover of a huge 3 or 4 block long LED-light covered roof. Everynow and then, the lights would go out and Queen (band of the night?) would appear on the screen overhead--while their music would blast from the loud speakers. Everyone would sing and dance in unison for the duration of the song. We ate at a good (non-casino) seafood restaurant--truly decent food and drinks.  The next night, after a long (long) meeting on campus, we hopped on the Deuce and rode to the Strip. Last time we were in Vegas, we ate at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill (Caesar's Palace) and then at Mario Batali's Enoceta San Marco (Venetian) and the Eiffel Tower restaurant (Bali's Paris). All really, really good. This trip we went to Wolfgang Puck's Postrio (right across from Enoceta). Mmmm.  Delicious. We splurged and got dessert (mine, posted below, was S'mores). I think I was able to finish about 1/2 of it. So rich and deliciously gooey. And (as an addendum to my last post on retail therapy) since we had to wait an hour or so to be seated, we did some shopping on St. Mark's square. TH bought me a  bracelet from Bright*n (I love their costume jewelry--we can actually afford it) and we spent a lot of time in the most amazing rare book store, ever.  Ever. Right off St. Mark's Square ("with locations in London and New York"). Decidely UN-Vegas-y, but oh so fascinating to browse through. I did not take my camera on this trip, so these are iPhone images.

And now, I shall get back to work....

home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Sabbatical home, that is. And oh, how happy I am to not be sitting on the 405. And while the drive home yesterday was not so bad, the drive down was horrible. TH flew in to meet me--I was an hour and a half late picking him up from the airport--which was literally right across the street from the conference hotel.  I should have flown in too, but back when I wrote this post, about how this conference was "driveable" and would serve as an external deadline for some of my sabbatical goals, I was thinking sheerly in terms of distance.

Versus traffic. Waste-3-extra-hours-of-my-precious-sabbatical-to-drive-a-mere-50-miles-traffic! And no views except of the wasteland that is LB's industrial zone. Ugh.

Boo hiss!! But, I have only myself to blame for this, because for more than a decade and a half  (since we moved here, and in fact--for years before that, when we came out from previous state to family reunions each Thanksgiving), we have had to navigate this hellacious traffic and spent more time getting through the city, than to it. But oh how quickly we forget. Now that I've blogged about it, I hope I can let it go. Thank god we only have one relative left down that way.  More about the conference later, I guess.

nit noi

I woke up in such a good mood this morning. I sent my small-potatoes-piece (SPP) off yesterday around 5 pm (and today, I found all the mistakes—that is a rule, you know—the tortured prose and goofy typos just highlight themselves all on their own once a ms. is gone from one’s hands). And I am oh so happy to move on to my sabbatical project, because it is not (so much) about depressing socio-historical events and conditions. In celebration of finishing one thing—which was in an inordinate amount of work—and moving on to something else I really want to do—I treated myself to two evening walks, with Thai take-out sandwiched in between.

The first walk was an exhilarating stroll through the fog (which rolled in early yesterday evening) to the Thai place, and the second was penance for the Pad Thai--a nice brisk walk round the block, and then down and back up side street hill.

"Fatso"  in the sun on Saturday afteroon...(click to enlarge)

...and all fogged in yesterday evening.

I spent a lot of today doing things like watering plants, throwing out all the notes for/debris from SPP (not enough for a bonfire), eating the rest of the pad thai, filing away books and archival docs, uploading some images to FB (finally), and hiking. I have a zillion places I want to visit—because this setting is just choc-a-bloc with natural beauty and places to enjoy it.

Today, I hiked in flip-flops (blister on my right heel—so my shoes are in temp retirement) through a monarch sanctuary and down to the south end of the bay to the edge the estuary. Sandy soil is pretty damned hard to hike through, and it was really warm today—so I decided not to go over the sand spit to the ocean. Another day; another reward for another writing milestone. Tomorrow—I’ll hike to a little bird watching spot on the bay for my break. Oh, and wifi is free at starbux here. Who’d have thought?

sandspit from estuary

and above

time for a blog post

I arrived in sabbatical town on Wednesday evening, got myself settled in on Thursday (groceries, unpacking, visiting the beach and bay) and settled down to writing yesterday. After a day and a half of steady work, a long phone call to my mom this morning, and losing a couple games of words w/friends (TH and MP1 are my constant scrabble buddies), I am still the happiest camper in the world. And, I am still pinching myself that this opportunity came my way at a stage in my professional and family life that allowed me to take advantage of it. My sabbatical house is fabulous, the location is yet more fabulous, and the owners of this house are just beyond-words fabulous—generous, interesting, wine-loving and adventurous. Lucky me. Their house is cozy, full of beautiful ancestral furniture, chiming (antique) clocks, family photos, cookbooks, gorgeous quilts made by Ms. Homeowner (retired special ed teacher) and books (owned by Mr. Homeowner, a retired professor in my field). And did I say they have been married 51 years? Very sweet. And I am over the moon to be here in my favorite kind of place (beach, ocean, sand!!) in a house that embodies so much love, and with furnishings that I find both familiar and new. (I’ll try not to gush so much after today).

The drive was long—partly boring highway, partly beautiful forest and mountains—but the entire trip was a very welcome opportunity to decompress and think about my upcoming projects, including the small potatoes one that I am currently working on quite dutifully. I am looking forward to TH coming to visit next week, as it will be a good excuse to go back to the great little bohemian, but excellent, restaurant that Mr. and Ms. Homeowner (M/MH) introduced me to on Wednesday night. We ate and talked, and then came home and talked some more (till well after 1 pm) over a great (local) cab. They left the next day around 2, and I immediately headed for the beach. In between paragraphs and pages, I’ve been strolling down to the bay to watch the birds and boats and enjoy the ocean air. Wonderful, guilty pleasures. I could ramble on, but I am going to power up my air card, post a few pics from my Thursday afternoon (semi-foggy) beach walk, and then head outside. The sun is just brilliant today. And the temperature? 71 at high noon—I may never go home. I can barely understand how M/MH manage to rip themselves away from this particular home front, even for new adventures.

Semi-annual emergency sirens are being tested as I finish this post. Reminds me, if only momentarily, of the risks associated with living on the edge of the world. Right now, I’ll gladly suffer them.

[I'll upload more photos to FB later this weekend; these are a bit "out of order," but I'm not going to bother sorting them here].

summer trip goodies

These are my summer trip souvenirs. Clearly, I'm taking a very minimalist approach to shopping and packing.

The kitchen towels are great! Huge and very soft and absorbent, and a much better color than they than they look here. Worth every penny. I found them in a great market in my mom's city. The skillet is from her kitchen, I've been asking her--for years (!)-- for one of her cast iron skillets.  It is certainly well-seasoned, but also needs some cleaing. Any suggestions? (TH had to stuff in his suitcase, as mine was over the 50 lb. limit.) And the book is a first edition that I was thrilled to find in a great used book store in MP2's town. I also brought home a hilarious phrase of his: "If it's baroque, fix it." Cracked me up; so much for that summer music history course. And now I need to get packing for the start of sabbatical fun. 

five things that have helped me experience (a mostly pleasant) summer

In response to Bright Star's meme-play on a ProfHacker post:

Travel—to beaches, mountains, and major metropolitan areas—including hotter-than-hell metroplex where MP2 lives, and hot and humid-as-hell city where my mom* lives. (The climate where I now live is SO much better, but we do have dust. Dust that blows up and down the state and no doubt carries the toxic residue of fertilizer and pesticide, as well as pollen. Sometimes I’d trade the dust for the humidity. But not today, since it takes more than 5 days for me to forget how bad it is—and to think that I lived in that environment for a good decade. Hmmm. It does have a far superior cost of living, and some better cultural amenities. But the humidity is just brutal).

Organizing Sessions—to file/throw-away the debris of everyday academic life. This summer, I filed away the usual post-academic year stuff, but also adopted some additional technology tools to further organize many of my materials (mostly digital stuff) for writing. I am so happy I took the time to do this.

Swimming—although this has not been a particularly hot summer (and thus, the solar panels have not regularly heated the pool to a swim-able [for me] temperature), I’ve been able to enjoy some great days in the pool. And that, for me, is a signature of summer.

Being able to ignore (almost completely) the flurry of email that references the start of the fall semester—reminders about book order due dates (these started in February!), syllabi copying, faculty meetings, etc. (I say almost completely ignore, because a few topics and names still produce an involuntary “run for your life” response—but then I am able to remind myself that I do NOT have to deal with that person/issue/topic for an entire year! This reassures me that it is well-worth the half-salary I am going to draw during my sabbatical).

Email Out-of-Office Assistant—my new best friend; she speaks for me--and I let her have the final word in a way I wasn't sure I'd be able to do. Yay for me.

And the good news is that summer is not yet over, which is a damned good thing. I still have a boat-load of stuff to get done before Sept. 1.

*Okay. Time for a minor rant: I love and have lots of compassion for my mother, but she is a really stubborn soul who will NOT let anyone help her get herself into a better situation. I’d like to blame this on her age and failing eyesight, but the truth is that the latter problems have simply intensified the personality traits (perfectionism and pride, foremost among them) that got her into her current state. I don’t think she is in a particularly safe situation, but I cannot ‘remove’ her from it or in any other way ameliorate the context in which she has chosen to live (independently and without the ability to drive, in a rambling, increasingly ramshackle house). Her mental acuity (at least where fiscal issues are concerned) seems largely intact. I cannot say the same thing about her house, which she seems to imagine she is going to remodel at 80 years old (I barely survived a half-house remodel at half that age). I have not seen the inside of her house in more than 15 years (any time we visit, she stays in the same hotel we book—no space at her 4-bedroom place). My brother deals with her by not dealing with her. That term "sandwich generation" flashes neon in my mind at night.

recommended reading

Back home, knee deep in laundry and snail mail. Happy to catch this excellent post by Tenured Radical. The term faculty wife still makes me shudder.

pet peeve

I have many. But here is one for today:

Why the quotation marks?
Are we supposed to think the management is quoting god?

salt, sand and tsunami signs

 

 

 

I want one of these...

3rd blogoversary and 4th photos

In the spirit of my first blog post, here are few scenes from our Fourth of July celebration: a very casual pool party and bbq with a few colleagues from our two departments, followed by pyrotechnics street-side. I'll NEVER ever understand why our state allows this--but it does--and for TH, this is just an irresistible opportunity to blow (up) some $.  For me, it always brings back great memories of my really early childhood, because my dad also loved to do this kind of thing. He was really a rock star when it came to making memories for the four of us kids:  family barbeques with our cousins on the 4th of July--followed by a long evening of playing with sparklers and setting-off firecrackers that are probably illegal everywhere by now, camping trips in Yellowstone highlighted by unruly bear and clueless-moose visits to our campsites, lots of vacationing in places--like Ouray, Colo. and Bull Shoals, Ark.--where he could trout-fish and then let us safely run-amok in the shallow rocky streams, while he filleted the catch of the day, cross-country road trips that were really all-night driving marathons, with we four siblings stretched out in sleeping bags in the rear of the station wagon (seats all folded down) falling asleep while stargazing in the Badlands or the Smoky Mountains or the Grand Tetons--this after a long day of playing the license plate game and asking 6 zillion times "are we there yet?"  Good times, all.

Wishing a happy & relaxing summer of roadtrips to those of you stopping by...