summer of hail

When is it going to warm up here? We've had tornado warnings, hail and thunder storms. Sheesh, it is June and the heater is on in our house. And the grape growers are all freaking out. There goes the wine biz.

finally!

After years of blossoms or baby fruit falling off the tree prematurely, we finally have a half-decent showing of lemons. Only about 20, mind you--but clear evidence that we will one day have a robust crop. Now, if only the lime tree would do it's thing. Meanwhile, I realize I'm not quite sure how one knows that lemons are ready to harvest.

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...

still struggling to catch up

Here is how I feel about the end of the semester:

Grades are in, commencement is over, and I can smell the freedom (ok, it is rain) in the air. BUT I have lots of loose ends related to the museum to get tied up for the coming year (archive the exhibit, correct student inventory work forms, save them to our shared drive, print out hard copies for a collection binder, etc.). I so want it to be done. And I am working on it (even as I take a break to blog), but I feel like my race toward the actual close of the semester is this slow:

I am on a hiring committee (late, emergency replacement hire), so I am technically on the job through June. Sigh. Yawn. Anyway, that is it for iPh*ne scenes from my front yard in late May. Still have to download April visit to MP2 from my camera and catchup on that. Again, soon, soon. Maybe even Friday.

movies, eating, more eating, presents...

Christmas came and went in a flash. My mom was supposed to come out, but canceled a few days before, which meant I could really relax for the holidays. This year I decided I'd rather deal with a real tree--and my lousy allergies--than drag out our artificial one. So on Saturday, I took a break from endless grading and bought a Douglas Fir (fewer branches, needles, sap, and so forth). I unpacked only a few of our ornaments--didn't worry about lights on the tree or the outside of the house. I also didn't worry about Christmas cards this year (I had to laugh when TH finally took note of this, decided "we" MUST send them to the relatives and close friends, printed out my excel list of xmas card addresses, and then spent two hours working on that while I read final exams). I got all my grading completed by late Sunday night and posted final course grades the next morning. Almost immediately, I received two grade queries...including a request for post-final extra credit [gah!]. This inspired me to leave the house, so I headed to the mall with MP2 and got all my shopping done in nearly one fell swoop (I'd already done a bit of Xmas shopping in November and some via amazon--including a Kindle for TH). On Christmas Eve, we saw Avatar at the Imax theatre. I had high expectations. I liked the first 20 minutes or so, but it was downhill (for me) from there on out. Soooo predictable, soooo long, and soooo many distinctive cultural traditions and practices patched together into a 6th-grade interpretation of an 'indigenous' society (have to say that I did love the line about "decanting" the avatars, and of course, the biz of "unobtainium"-mining as the corporate partner to/funder of scholarly research is so cliched and stereotyped that it is funny). Afterwards, we had a great seafood dinner at a restaurant downtown that we've been wanting to try. Christmas Day was really low-key. We opened presents, had some breakfast, and then MP1 and I made double chocolate cookies (which looked far better than they tasted--I think this was my fault, as I used Starb*ck's new microground coffee instead of regular coffee and I think it overpowered the chocolate). For dinner, I cooked a ribeye roast and veggies. Afterwards, we watched Julie and Julia (VOD) and Carl Sagan (MP2 asked for the DVD set). Julie, Julia and Carl, what a three-some that was.

our minimalist tree...

Awaiting Christmas dinner spills, really cute P*ttery Barn polka-dot placemats (my one Xmas decor indulgence for this year).

Our Christmas Day chocolate fix...

and now, a few of the presents I received...

merry christmas, everyone

from our house--

and town--to yours...

recitals and randomness

MP1 at grad recital last Friday--and then, a repeat of Brahms at the close of the String Project Recital on Monday evening (below)...

The U. president came to this event, which made some people very, very happy--though the kiddie musicians couldn't have cared less, I'm quite sure.

MP1 tries to get the cellists seated and settled...

It was a great recital--better than last year's I think.

And now we have two random outdoor scenes. TH and I went for Thai food 2 days ago & saw these guys scaling and hanging out in trees downtown.

I posted this to FB already...an out-of-focus image of the teeniest bit of snow in our front yard. We got a couple really hard freezes right after this, so our citrus trees are well and truly shot.

And now, I'm off to give the first of my finals. I'm hoping to get them graded before tomorrow's (which is entirely scantron-based). And a good thing, too, since MP1 graduates tomorrow (and TH has talked her into walking at Commencement--something I think she agreed to only because she'll be hooded in pink ;) and I've done almost NO Christmas shopping. Gah.

pumpkin bread

Two loaves cooling on the rack. I must say, the aroma of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg is pretty hard to beat...and a wonderful antidote to a day of dealing with willful ignorance.

Goodbye Spring Semester, Hello Summer!

Sunday evening and the house is all mine for the rest of the night. Time to catch up on a few things.

• First, I finally uploaded a selection of Las Vegas conference photos. You’ll have to go here to see them.
• Campus—Things just never let up on the academic front. Never. This past semester was entirely absorbed by the exhibit and the new prep. This latter course is the one we use to “assess” the sociocultural outcomes for our major. It was lots of work. Lots. Lots. Lots. Lots. Except for my grad seminars, which are always changing along the lines of my own research, I hope it is the last new prep I have to do for the rest of my LIFE. I enjoyed teaching the course and ran it like an undergrad seminar (which is how it should be taught), but grading the final essays (which double as the assessment instrument) was brutal. It was certainly made somewhat easier than it might have been because I had produced (and given the students) a pretty solid rubric, but even so, this course is capped too high. I think the only solution is to run two sections of this class (25 students each) for at least one year, till we get all our majors transferred to the new catalog , and then maybe this system of one section p/semester will work.
• Money, money, money—Once all my grading was done, I went right into a week-long teaching workshop. It was exhausting, but I did learn some things, and most importantly, I got $800 toward conference and/or travel-related expenses. This is super good—as it seems there will be no travel money next year. We also got some other fun and useful freebies—a very cool flash drive wrist band, for instance, and a book on Universal Design Learning (UDL). They also fed us breakfast and lunch every day—nice, indeed (although it started to feel a bit like we were hostages).
• Grad Students--I currently have five of these in the prospectus-writing phase. We had an informal advising session one week ago Friday at a nearby restaurant. To prepare them for summer writing, I gave them an exercise in which they had to distill their projects down to the bare bones and state their problem in a single interrogative sentence. They were to follow this single question up with 2-3 sentences elaborating on the problem, and then 1 more summarizing the intended course of research. I also made them identify 3 sources (from 2004 on) that they deemed critical to their work. This served some good ends for me, as well as for them--or at least the 4 who came to the meeting (and *all* my students from here on out will now have to jump through this hoop). One student was already well on her way (having produced a couple drafts), a second (with whom I met again this past Friday) is now 100% on target w/a project that seems more exciting every day. The other two are going to generate drafts over the summer. Actually, one of these last two produced a draft on a more broadly-conceived project and now needs to narrow her scope and do lots more reading on relevant themes (her project involves a bit of insider-ethnography), while the other needs to make a commitment to a do-able project, but has some critical informants lined-up in the wings (and in some ways—that’s half her battle). Cross your fingers.
• Old Fun-For-Me News from the Spring semester. Top of the list: I got to see my brother who was in the South Bay for a few days on a job with Ap*le. His company is fabricating the display furniture and related apparatus for marketing the i*hone overseas, in locations where Ap*le will not be opening stores. TH and I met him at one of our favorite seafood restaurants and had a great time. He lives in Chicago and I don’t get to see him very often. Who would have thought?—At the spring conference where MGC and I set up a mini-version of his exhibit, I met an officer of the host organization who is an assistant professor of WS and has a book in press. She came to our session and saw my PPT, which included a slide featuring an artifact (given to me by most-excellent grad student KJD) and then dropped by the mini- exhibit to see it in person. She was so excited by it that she asked if I’d let her use it in her book. So now, my photo of said artifact is going to be published! I’ll get a copy of the book and photo credits to boot (this is a very weird thing for me as I am not a photographer). Extended family good news round-up--My niece Sara (my brother's eldest) is having a baby! My mother will be a great-grandmother, although she'll never, ever, ever answer to that title. My brother will be in 7th heaven as a grandfather (he's turns 50 this month--so it's perfect timing for him), our cousin/niece Ryan graduated from Berkeley and her parents threw a great graduation dinner at Trader Vics. Even though I have eaten several times (a thousand years ago) at the Trader Vics in Houston--I never realized he (Vic) was the inventor of the Mai-Tai. They are still cranking them out in fine form some 70(ish) years later. Yeah for tradition and college grads who get out in four years.
• I have finally located and paid up all my professional memberships. Most of these come due in the summer, but this year I let some that renew in the fall and early spring lapse due to the various crises in our lives (exhibits, deaths in the family—my FIL last in Nov. and my favorite Uncle this past month--retinal repair surgeries and check-ups for TH, etc). The most expensive dues are for the AAA (and can I just say that re-adding a section I had dropped out of for about 7 years [as a cost-cutting measure] has raised my membership fees to $310.00???? I cannot drop out of the other two sections at all, so I wonder how long I’ll be able to stick with this one again. Good grief!).
• “Spring” Cleaning of the Closet—we now have a goodwill donation truck parked near our regular grocery store. I’ve been taking them 3-4 bags per week for several weeks. This is such an easy way to unclutter my life. I may keep this up all summer. It is kind of horrifying how much stuff we keep that we do NOT need and never, or rarely, use!
• Books—in the process of organizing my bookshelves and research files, I’ve probably recycled or given away 300 pounds of books and journals this past week. I’ve been really good about thinning journals down over the years, especially as they’ve more or less all gone on line. My policy is that I’ll keep the journals that aren’t on line and any hardcopy issues of other journals if I have an article or book review in it. Since I last culled journals, two more titles have been fully digitized, so that frees up an entire shelf in my study. As for books, well, I’ve held on to quite a few from waaaay back in the day when my specialty and focus was pretty far afield from what I now do. So, I’ve done a major edit on those from the home office side and will do the campus office some day when I’m stuck up there with nothing better to do. I've also dumped tons of textbooks. And wow, has this ever been therapeutic.
• Making Progress with Small Projects--I finally finished a slightly late ms. review, as well as an "author survey" related to a recent publication of my own. I want to say here that I am shocked (shocked!!) how many authors, reviewers and editors do not have the brains to realize that sending a manscript electronically is (apparently) risky business. My own ms. reviews came back to me electronically. One reviewer wanted to remain anonymous but used the track changes functions and call-outs to make remarks, etc. When my cursor hovered over the callout boxes, up popped the "author's" (as in the computer/software owner's--and thus the reviewer's) name. Likewise, the ms. I just reviewed was sent to me electronically and so clearly read like a dissertation vs. an article that I took a look at the properties and yep, there it was--the author's name. My work computer "signs" all my docs with a generic "admin." Needless to say, that's the one from which I send my own reviews--because I do NOT trust editors/editorial assistants to cut and paste my remarks into another document. Okay--enough of that rant.
• Tomorrow, I'm probably going to IKEA so I can buy another one of their handy-dandy hanging (and rolling) file frames so I can get all my archival copies from LAST summer organized and ready to roll.
• My ILL requests all came in last week and are sitting on my newly cleaned-off desk. One of them is fantastic and hot off the press (literally). It is really exciting to see an entire book on this particular subject. And with that...time to get some reading done.

Shrimp Creole

I made this tonight, in between 60,000 on and off-line conversations about curricular crap (gah). Don't bother looking at the link if you don't like southern cuisine--if you do--you'll be in heaven. I used only a pound of shrimp--otherwise I was fairly faithful to the recipe. And it definitely lived up to the hype.

Wins and Losses

FOOD: The product on the right is white balsamic vinegar. It is a winner. I found it yesterday at Whole Paycheck and used it in a cold rice and salmon salad that I've always used rice wine vinegar for. It was an excellent substitute, far more delicate and flavorful than RWV. I tossed in lots of fresh parsley and sliced cherry tomatoes, dash of salt, lots of ground pepper, some chopped cucumber--along with a splash of EVOO (unflavored). On the side, we had sourdough with the garlic olive oil (above) for dipping. A cheap and super quick, but excellent meal (canned salmon from the pantry--but I'm thinking I'll have to remake this with some that is freshly grilled). And all the rice left over from the evening before? Gone, thanks to an old, old recipe from college that just never fails (and is cheap--by definition--as are all "college days recipes." I think we put tuna fish in it back then). Anyway, buy yourself some white balsamic vinegar. It's really tasty.

MOVIES: MP1 had holiday movie duty and she picked some great ones that we are slowly making our way through. We watched "Charlie Wilson's War" on Christmas Day and we loved it--in part because TH and I knew of and regularly saw JKH in the papers (and at gala museum openings) when we lived in Houston. But the film is great even if you can't cough up all those nostalgic references to 1980's wealthy wives and US/Afghan war and politics. Christmas Eve we watched "The Visitor" (5 stars, at least). Last night we saw "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation." If you haven't seen it, you should. So many great threads woven together--Jewish tradition, Brazilian politics, student activism, soccer fanaticism (the film is set in 1970--during the World Cup), families--fictive and otherwise. Very touching and complicated and all that. It is a great film to watch with people of all ages and persuasions. Has anyone else seen it?

CITRUS TREES: Under the losses (or near losses), my poor little lime tree. I can't STOP the grapefruit and oranges that grow 30 feet away. I could wage a war with the fruit those trees deliver every year. My two-year-old lime tree/sapling? The frost got it this year. I was sick a few days ago when we were supposed to be paying attention to these things and just couch-potatoed my way through the freezing weather. I think the tree (and the sole lime) are probably salvageable, but it's a set back for sure. I feel like I should just go buy another damned tree, plant it somewhere ELSE and have another go at subsistence lime gardening. This spot just seems cursed.

Christmas Eve

• Christmas Eve day was very busy, but also kind of relaxing compared to the days just prior. TH and I did a bit of running around to take care of some last minute gift giving for the kids and each other and made a quick trip to campus (for me). No frenzied buying sprees--all things we had previously identified and knew exactly where to find. Clam chowder at a favorite, family-owned seafood restaurant warmed us up mid-way through the day. MP1 was out shopping and tracked us down just in time to join us for lunch.
• Luckily, none of this involved going near a mall, because 1. I was not well-enough for that and 2. even if I had been well-enough to manage the mall, I would have refused. It's just a Christmas-spirit-ruining-trip in my opinion. We are very lucky to live where we do (of course--we *planned* for this [and bought a super-fixer upper that we could b*a*r*e*l*y afford; it was the "dog" (mutt?) of the neighborhood at the time, but with good "bones" and all that]--because we so enjoyed the sense of community/easy drive/tree-lined thoroughfares in Ph.D. city that carried us to and from our campus and museum jobs, so we looked for that when we moved here.) Of course school districts dictate just about everything for people with children (public school devotees, anyway), but we are lucky that the home we bought allows us to travel a similarly tree-lined avenue to and from work. It has a plenty of boutiquey shopping places and great restaurants that come in all price points. It makes daily life--even on Christmas Eve--so much less-stressful. Occasionally we do think about moving to pedestrian-land even nearer to school, but that would cost big $ (too BAD we don't have all have nest eggs sitting around waiting for housing to costs to plummet as they now have.)
• We/I missed having my mom in town, but at least she commited to NOT coming before the last minute, which is her usual MO (and she is a load of work to entertain and wait on hand and foot). And of course, it's just sad not having to buy presents for TH's dad, or think about calling him, etc. Anticipating a big Christmas Day meal at downtown hotel (booked because my mother insists on this and we just kept the reservations when she canceled her trip), I made a salad for dinner and we just snacked on all the yummy sweets from SIL and other relatives.
• The highlight of the evening was watching The Visitor, which I highly, highly recommend (a nice antidote to The Love Guru which was among the featured cable fare somewhat earlier in the day--and which the two women in the house found incredibly appropriate for individuals stuck in Eric Erickson's developmental stage 2--if I remember my psych 101--but the two guys in the house just looovveed in all its incredible stupidness). Speciation at work there, I'm sure.
• Christmas eve night was super stormy, with rain and wind whipping and howling through every crevice in the house. I woke up at 1:37 am and tried unsuccesfully to fall back asleep so I got up and read an article I've been wanting to finish, had some Kahlua, then mapped out the next few years of my professional LIFE and other weird sorts of stuff. I'd blog the chart I drew out, but it's not ready even for late, late, night airing. At 3:30 am I called it a day.

Random Post-Party, End-of-Semester, 'Tis the Season Thoughts

*First—I’d like to announce that my annual (earnest) dusting (of the public portions) of the house took place on Friday evening. So that is off the list, folks.

*These are the party-leftovers now waiting in TH’s department office to be claimed. Actually, the pacifier and plates are already repatriated; the two utensils must surely have owners who miss them.
*Sunday was clean-up and put the house back together day. Plus I was sick (a virus is going around and I’m not surprised that it hit me on Sunday and Monday—I knew my adrenaline would disappear when Saturday was over. Indeed—around 2:30 am on Sunday morning when I finally fell into bed, I could feel it coming on.) I think (crossing-fingers and knocking on wood) that the worst of it is over. The last thing I want is to be sick on Christmas Eve and day. Two more tyl*nol down the hatch.
*Monday, I ordered books for my new prep (the other course I’d taken care of long ago). I held out on this one until I could have a day or so to dedicate to really conceptualizing what I wanted to do with this class and it took this long to find the time. In early December our provost sent an email reminder about ordering textbooks that included “3 ways” to place our orders and I decided yesterday to take the easy way out (I usually use the pain-in-the-ass computerized system our for-profit bookstore conglomerate wants us to use) and simply emailed the info to one of our bookstore managers. She sent a lovely thank you, so—quite frankly—I don’t think I’ll ever again indulge Foll*tt by using it’s stupid, redundant time-wasting system. Then, I proceeded to complete the process of ordering desk copies of all the texts from 3 different publishers. That was THE next-to-the-last piece of school-related business that needed to be done. Now I need to come up with a new round of assessment questions for our intro cultural course (pre and post course) for next semester. I might do this today and mail them out for approval/editing/write-them-yourself responses.
*Yesterday morning (in between bouts of being waylaid by viral chills) we ran out and got Christmas presents, gift certificates, a Hanukah card (for my little niece who is now a teenager—wow—time flies), and various and sundry other items that needed to be wrapped and mailed. All of which was completed before noon. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when under the gun. Plus, I mailed yet more Christmas cards to friends and colleagues (in my and TH’s department) who sent the same our way.
*Today, I’m waiting (okay PRAYING) for an email from the Dean that will help to make my Christmas a good one, and will mean that all the hard work of the search committee (especially MY work for these past two years) hasn’t been for naught. Let it ping, let it ping, let it ping (that would be my iPhone registering the download of that much anticipated email). Please. Please. Please.
*Following a long Friday (last) that included 3 hours of associate dean search business (busy-ness), a colleague—who is also a commencement marshal and fellow search committee member on the Assoc. Dean search—laid out her idea/prediction of how this search will fall out. I am a-okay with the choice she predicts the Dean will make, but surely do hope that it is not for the reasons she anticipates. On the other hand, if she is right, it will mean that bean-counter and football fan in the office of 2010 is not a shoe-in to the Dean’s position as rumor in some quarters has it. Here’s hoping some decent female candidates are in that pool.
*This year I sort of splurged on some white Christmas tree-shaped candles at P*ttery Barn. They come in two sizes and I bought three small and two large ones and waited to light them until right before our party began. I just want to say that they were worth every pretty penny I paid for them. They are gorgeous as wax sculptures, but they also burn slowly and very artistically. They were lighted for at least 5 hours on Saturday night and clearly have another 20 hours or so of time left on them. One of my favorite people (who comes every year) also ooh’ed and ah’ed over them so I’m hoping I can find some for her.
*After Christmas is over, I might go out and buy some more of the I*K*E*uh candles that I ended up purchasing this year when I couldn’t find the ones I wanted and had driven all the way out to rural-topia to get (the sales woman looked me up and down when I asked her where I could find them and then snapped out “those are a SUMMER product”—news for her: I put out the limited number I had this year and they damn well looked “wintery” to everyone who made their way to our front door). But I digress. When I couldn’t buy more of the one version, I bought a dozen of a new variety in white and red and they were a big hit—lots of fragrance for relatively small candles (the tree candles are scentless).
*Let me just say that during big parties, it is good to have a teenager quietly holed-up in his room at the back of the house. Yesterday morning—that would be two mornings after the party—the three of us went to breakfast and were talking about various and sundry departmental issues and he piped up with “Is that the [wo/man] who [description of physical attributes]? [S/he] must have been on the phone outside my door at least 5 times talking to his/her kid(s) and then the babysitter. Oh, and someone spent an awful lot of time in MP1’s room with their kid, and did you know that ________came in and insisted on talking for 10 minutes to [his—MP2’s—girlfriend]? He just took the phone away from me and totally freaked her out for 10 minutes and then he was like, ‘come outside and smoke with me—or is that bad for your saxophone playing?’ ” We knew about the parent/child duo in MP1’s room and also about crazy M/let-me-be-the-life-of-the-party talking to MP2’s girlfriend, but as to the former, we both cracked up and said “Yes, well—this is often what happens when parents [the mature ones—who actually care more about their kids than themselves] come to loooong parties. It’s just a non-stop job—even when you leave them with babysitters.” Funny thing is, we BOTH (TH and I) knew exactly who that parent could and couldn’t have been and have always respected this particular person's balance/talent in the parenting (as well as teaching and scholarship) columns.**
*This is the time of year when students flock to the various sites to rate their profs. One site I rarely go to is the M*space page for my university and department. This morning I checked it for the first time all semester and cracked up at two very recent posts. One was a rant against a person who now has one semester left to teach before retirement and the student wrote (among other things) that this professor “should never have been hired.” Uhhh—well, you just may be 45 years late with your assessment—however correct/incorrect it may be. And about another professor “She cries ALL THE TIME. Seriously.” I wonder how students will interpret THAT one. Her colleagues know not what to make of it, I assure you.
*This (somehow) reminds me that recent retiree sent a lovely email thank you to me for organizing his party. I told him it was a committee effort—but I was happy to receive his thank you, as he does not give these out in great abundance and knows I’ve been juggling lots of crap this month.
*Despite my best efforts to stay away from campus until after New Year’s Day, I’ve got to go in and file (already!!) a grade-change form. The new system of posting grades drives me a bit crazy, because you cannot make an online correction even one day after you post grades, even though the grading period is still open. Grrrrrr. But the mistake *was* mine.

** Still, hearing this from MP2 reminded me that I am so happy that *we* don’t have to live through our late 20s to mid-30s again, because it was a different kind of exhaustion—sheer, relentless physical exhaustion. Up at night with babies/toddlers/little kids, while writing dissertations, teaching, shuttling between grad school and teaching campuses and between room parenting and sports and music and homework duties during the day. Not to mention all the energy that goes into cultivating the kind—and calling off the mean and zealous—teachers. And in the midst of all this, trying to write an article or three so we could hope to find permanent employment when were out of grad school. The ‘tween and teen years are more emotionally, than physically, exhausting—but exhausting, nonetheless (no wonder my mother was so uninterested in baby-sitting—she survived 4, four, IV[!] of us). Why, I’m just full of holiday nostalgia. This is the perfect mood in which to write those assessment questions…maybe I’ll just get that over with today.

Making progress

√Mail Christmas cards
√ send jpg. of painting to publisher
√Post Grades
Remove book from exhibit case and leave in dept. office (1:00)
Meeting with current grad student (1:15)
Meeting with prospective grad student (4:30)
Commencement Committee Mtg. (2:00)
Interview with Assoc. Dean Candidate (3:15)
Pack up my study and prep it for holiday party
Dust. That one just stays on the list.

September Peregrinations

This is a patchwork of photos. They are mostly in chronological order, except for the last three that actually date from Labor Day. I'm playing catch-up with this post, because I've been too busy to blog very much over the last month. The fall exhibit (like ALL exhibits) has taken every so-called "free" second of my non-teaching, non-committee time, day and night--including almost every Sunday through Friday evening. (I tried to reserve Saturdays for at least some time out and about). Since the exhibit is now open, I'll post a few of those photos tonight or tomorrow.

Prelude to the Opening--MFW and Graphics Girl (GG) demonstrate their artistic talents...

and save me lots of $ that would otherwise have gone to a signage company.

She's thinking about the post-department-picnic pitcher of margaritas. I know that now.

Lunch at a new place downtown with one of my grad students. I'd never heard of this place, but no surprise. It's only open during the week for lunch. It has out-of-this-world, incredibly delicate french onion soup. Have to go back to see what the sandwiches are like.

The reason we were downtown to begin with...a very nice event. Good to see old friends and help MM hopefully make new contacts that will contribute to thesis topic. I was really impressed with how many state agencies were participating.

I love libraries. This is the old entrance, pre-galleria expansion.

I'm shocking even myself here, but I've been to 2.5 football games this year. We ate here afterwards with another couple who just spent the last year in Finland and Germany. Good goulash & beer & dessert, which led to....

a long, long evening stroll around an old city park and through great neighborhoods none of us can imagine living in (only because for that kind of $ I want 2 bathrooms. At least.)

This house or the one above (iPhone photos don't really do them justice) might have two bathrooms. But, alas, they are neither for sale nor in the budget.

Late bloomers in my front yard. But aren't they pretty?

Game #2 of the season. Notice which side of the no alcohol sign we were hanging out on.

While stuck at the football game, another wife and I decided that both couples should buy lofts downtown. We were already headed downtown for dinner, anyway, and talked the guys into 1) going along with our scheme to give up suburbia for downtown digs and 2) checking them out that night. Well, we toured the lofts looming in the distance here and while we liked the location, the interiors were pretty cheaply put together (cabinetry not even IKEA grade) and of course the prices were sky-high. The realtors were pretty pathetic too. They were clearly embarrassed to be hawking them at those rates in this bad economy.

This loft-touring evening took place on the Saturday (one every month) when all the art galleries are open late and musicians fill the streets. This little girl wasn't more than 11 or 12. Great voice. And a very nice break from the roll n' roll bands of middle aged men who all sound the same (although the one across the street from this girl had a fantastic guitar player--I must admit).

While the entire loft fantasy was extremely short-lived, dinner was a wonderful consolation prize. I absolutely love paella and sangria. I'd go to another football game this Saturday if the day ended this way.

I took this photo on the day after GG's birthday. MFW's present to her was a Van Gogh action figure. You can SEE that we were all in a fighting mood from working on this exhibit just a little bit TOO long. Good thing we couldn't see into the future, or we might have turned the "brush" on ourselves.

These 3 photos date from Labor Day. They represent the two extremes of the State Fair. Juried art contests and nut-case couples who want to hold snakes. Oy.