Moving on

I have to stop posting monthly even if only because every post says "this is the worst month ever" as if I'm trying to taunt the next month.
Here's a happy post about Max, Zoe and food.
1. Max won't stay in the house. If we open the door to the garage he crawls at light speed, turns himself around to slide down the stairs, dig his knees in garage juice and turn, when he hits the driveway, and grins so hard his cheeks pummel his eyeballs. Danger. Baby.
2. When Zoe sees friends we haven't seen in awhile, she hangs back for five, four, three, two, one seconds and then catapults her body at her friends' things. If you see Zoe and you know she loves you, plant your feet deeply into the ground or she'll knock you over with her hugs.
3. Erik and I met Ander and Megan in Phoenix. We ate at Cowboy Ciao, a well-recommended restaurant. And yet, ever since, all I've wanted to eat is the nacho cheese dip that we ate by the pool at the Hotel Valley Ho.

This is Hella Boring

But if I don't actually write this stuff down (which I don't usually), I fear I'll forget it. Fearing to forget is more stressful than doing the stuff. And, I have to post it here because I at least know where my blog is. If I just write a list as a word doc or a piece of paper, what's the likelihood I'll check it? But my blog, I check it every day so I can read my blog list. A perfect system? We'll see.
Italics mean it's Done.

• To Do March 9th

• · Call Puente de Hozho for Zoe’s 1^st
• · Email Graduate Committee spreadsheet
• · Email grad coordinators new wording
• · Meet with Gail Westerlund about electronic admissions
• · Poster for Alumni Reading
• · Call Cline about Reading
• · Email VP research
• · Proposal to dean by March 25
  
• · Write Quiz
• · Read essay again to write said quiz
• · Ask G for list of students by genre
• · Meet with Khara for thesis
• · Write essay due March 16^th
• · Read Lydia’s thesis
• · Email re: letter of rec
• · Write letter instructor position recs
• · Glenn Sobbing’s letter for study abroad
• · Glenn’s request for writing group
• · Tuition Waiver files
• · Poetry responses
• · Final wording for GTA applications
• · Find meeting space for GSC April 13th meeting
• · Get back to Bonita about Degree Progress Change
• · Grade Quizzes
• · Grade comments
• · Get art books from David
• · Check with David about Book arts class—too late for fee
• · Photos of grad poets
• · Email Julie about April Visit
• · Check with Lynzi about posters in LA
• · Posters around NAU? For Beyond Baroque Reading?
• · Karna about film
• · Questions for Rolf, Bruce and Rosy for Monday’s interviews.
• · Email Taysha for tax ID
• · Alpine Receipt
• · Finish Facebook transition
• · Call Beyond Baroque to see if they’ve ordered books for the reading
• · Change litter box
• · Zoe lunch stuff for week after spring break
• · Faculty senate dues
• · Travel certification form
• · Ali’s recommendation form
• · Make pumpkin muffins with Zoe
• Rec for Khara
• Rec for Lizzie
• Financials for Allen
  

And then February tried to kill me

Never complain about a month. All the months are friends and if you complain about January, February's going to stick up for her and show you what's what when it comes to months that suck.
On the first of February, Zoe got the croup. One night of barking cough, steamy showers, freezing outdoors. Three days out of school. Then, on that Thursday, Erik said, I feel like I swallowed a Brillo Pad. He was out for a week. Max needed the steam/outside treatment but only one time. There is something lovely about being wrapped on a blanket, sitting on a picnic bench, staring at the stars. And yet.
I also missed AWP which was much harder than I thought it would be. Facebook is an evil temptress and every minute I just wanted to be with my people. I mean, I was happy to be with my here-people but they were sick people and lo though I wouldn't have wanted to leave Erik with two sick kids, I would have very much liked to dine with Dr. Write and HighTouch Mega and the other people I call my people when I'm not referring to my kids. (Shout out to Dr. Write again for taking my spot on the panel and regaling the people with her genius. Thank my good, brilliant friend).
Now, I was pretty sure I wasn't getting the croup. It had been a week since Zoe came down with it. 4 days since Max and Erik were debilitated by it. But on Monday, my ear hurt. By Tuesday, I sounded as much like a barking seal as any shower-sitting, outdoor freezing five year old. This disease was the worst I'd ever had (hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not). Unlike your average cold, this one got worse every day instead of better. My head hurt. My nose felt like it would fly off with every sneeze. Coughing and just general dysphoria (I don't know if that's the word but I presume it means the opposite of euphoria). I taught my class. I wore my sunglasses whilst teaching. I made almost no sense. I infected my people (other people who are my people--my grad students). I apologize.
Erik, while sick, still tried to complete this living room remodel. He's scraped the ceilings, repaired the drywall, remudded said drywall, primed the ceiling, painted the ceiling, primed the trim. Now, it's just painting the trim and the walls. Maybe next weekend? I have high hopes but it's the project from hell, like all remodeling projects. I had no idea how difficult losing a living room would be. But it's our dancing space, my writing space, Max's please-don't-fall-down-the-stairs space. It's going to be beautiful. One day.
Max is sick again with something that made him wake up every twenty minutes crying last night. It's only been two weeks since he had the croup! I feel so sorry for him but also so sorry for me.
Also. It's supposed to snow 2 feet this weekend.
Work has been assessment, committee meeting, area meeting, thesis meeting, independent study meeting, and marketing meeting. Oh, and teaching assistantship meeting (but that was fun because my fellow assistantship meeting friend and I went out for wine and potato bruschetta after).
Also: bad politics. I'm thinking of starting a PAC called Raise-My-Taxes-Damnit. Assholes. Let me quote from my Facebook "On the proposed cuts to Planned Parenthood, Public Broadcasting and Education: Keep 'em pregnant, keep 'em uninformed, keep 'em stupid = keep 'em voting Republican." I'm thinking of making bumper stickers.
But, I shouldn't complain so much for fear that March takes offense on February's behalf. I'll end with good news: Erik and I are making a movie. So is he and a friend/former professor of mine. We're having Ina Garten's chicken. There has been almost 500 word a day writing (but many publishing rejections this month. Many more than zero, which is my preferred number of rejections). I was able to run in the woods last week without snow on the ground almost every day and I saw some strange sea-eagle looking bird. Also, I saw a bald eagle on my way to drop off Max at his day care--which I love and also love because she only charges us part-time fees. Also, Zoe and I went looking for owls during the full moon. Also I talked to a cool editor at Milkweed.
Plus, despite the wake-up-every-12-minute-night-to-console-sad-baby (and to swear a bit when I couldn't fall back asleep), today has been highly productive. Grant app for film, conference app for writing, finish 12,000 word essay/part of new project, write thank you letters, go to grocery store, make breakfast, lunch and (see previous paragraph), dinner, and wrote this post, finally. Also. It's almost March. Yay February! Thanks for being so short (see all the nice things I said March. See?)

January high points

There weren't many. I hate to be mean to January since both Max's and the twins' birthdays are in January but January bites. And there were two high-points: Duck fat and white truffle butter. Gifts given to me by those twins in this month where extra fat is the only way to guard against depression.
I don't usually feel guilty about so much fat but it was so cold when we got back from Salt Lake that a couple of days I couldn't run. As you know, my running consists of forest-trotting every day for a half an hour. But the snow that came in December was so thick it just barely started to melt which meant on days when it was over 20 degrees, I had to run on the road. All those housewives watching me run so slow through their frosty windows. Blech.
The high hope that Max would sleep through the night disappeared in the first few days.
The start of school loomed and then it actually started and although I love my students, all the busy-work of my job started even before the actual semester did. Marketing. I did some marketing. I don't really believe in marketing. The university should speak for itself. But I'd like some more poetry students. So I'm sending missives out into the world, asking for some great poets. This isn't bad but it isn't exactly what I'd like to do with my time. Please send some students preferably when its warm and seductive here.
Also. Erik's remodeling the living room. He scraped the popcorn ceilings (no asbestos. We checked). This will be GREAT news in February but right now is very dusty news.
So I'm looking forward to that February because, even if it's just like January, it's shorter. And then, it will be March, when I can begin to pretend it's spring.

Max was/Max is

100% creature. In early, perhaps extra-sensorily perceiving his would-be Halloween costume, Max started to crawl. But it wasn't a normal crawl. I blame it on our hard tile or wood floors but he had a full-on chimpanzee going. One leg out, one knee forward, he flung himself like a monkey or a wookie or perhaps a one-oared, yet forward-going boat.

A mouth. He's been blowing raspberries for some time now. Most mornings, I wake up to the sound of an outboard motor vrrmming in my ear. Again, it's like boating. But wetter. He likes to stick his hands into your mouth as if counting teeth. He likes to taste everything first--be it food (preferably dog kibble) or magnet or phone. He particularly like my cell phone and it took a knife and some severe pressure to disengage the battery-cover from the back of my Blackberry.

An eater. He likes quinoa and beans and apples, rice, cheese, oatmeal, frosted Mini-wheats, life cereal and yogurt. And yet his not as vegetarian as all that. He likes turkey and chicken and steak. He seems to like potatoes roasted in duck fat. He likes sausage and bacon best of all, just like his sister. And like his sister, he has a sweet tooth. Zoe gave him his first Skittle the other day. Now, if she opens a package, he'll hear it from whereever he is and crawl (now, with all appendages on the ground) cheetah-like to her. He'll clamber up to her on the ottoman and make his "Max noise" which is half whimper, half cry, 100% he knows what he wants.

Opinionated. Max has an opinion on everything. When I should pick him up, put him down, give him some milk, feed him some food, let him play with the water line to the refrigerator, when to sit on my lap and pull the blue mouse-dot in the middle of my computer off. I have found the blue dot in the laundry, in his diaper, in his mouth (of course) and down my shirt. I am lucky to still have a blue dot (although, unlike Max, I don't like the blue mouse dot).

A charmer. He'll turn his head to the right when he see yous. He'll point at you and say "deeth" to say hello. He'll high five and wave and smile this new smile his cousin Cam taught him which is so toothsome and dimple-full (he has an under-eye, upper cheek dimple that is uniquely attractive) and eyesquishing that I'm afraid his smile might make his cheeks pop right off his face. He likes patty cake and when I bounce him and toss him and lean him backwards (over and over again. And then again. Whimper says, "again." See "opinionated").

A laugher. Mostly Zoe makes him laugh but all tickles do, peek-a-boo does, but, back to Z, when Zoe hops, skips, pretends to fall down, hides under a blanket, eats, makes slurping noises. He very much likes it when you put something in your mouth for him to grab. Oh the hilarity there. He mostly laughs whenever you laugh. We laugh a lot just to make him laugh. Which makes us laugh.

A stair climber. It's all he wants to do. He can go up and down now with great ease since it was either learn to turn around and go backwards down or keep crashing on the two steps from the kitchen to the family room. He can even go up and down the steps to the next floor but that is still doomsday what with the two-foot-span railing and all. We're fixing. Soon. Really.

Still not a sleeper. He loves the milk. He's mostly done with the breast. But he still wakes up. Not as much. Maybe half as much. And I shouldn't complain. He's sleeping now.

A good rider-in-the-car. In his one year he has been to Salt Lake and back 4 times, to Torrey twice, to Lake Powell, to Tucson, on a 7 hour camping-spot-seeking-and-failing-adventure, to Phoenix, to Bluff, Utah, and to various and sundry more successful camping-spot-seeking adventures. He can just play and sit and watch and listen for hours. I think he gets at least some of his sleeping done in the car too.

A many-named baby. Zoe calls him bubba. I've mentioned the numb-nuts and succubust here but he's also known as Mr. Squishy, lovebutt, Zuzza, B, Maxa, Maxy, tuddlehead, futzba, bear, magoogally, and buckaroo. I think he'll answer to them all, although I think he likes Bubba and Buckaroo, which his grandpa calls him, best of all.

A smarty-pants. All parents think their kids are the smartest and I am no different. Max has special talents. He can open and close doors and find balls days lost under the couch. He can hand me vegetables when I'm cooking. He knows everyone's name and can make my phone do things I didn't know it could do. He can turn pages of books at just the right time. He's the kind of baby that turns things upside down to see how they work. And then takes them apart. But mostly, he's smart in the opinionated way. He knows how to get what he wants. Maybe that's smarts or maybe that's just because we like him so much and think he's a pretty swell kid. And why not have the blue mouse dot if he really wants it?

A cleaner: As noted on the blog, by my sister Val and by my friend Matt Gephardt, Max likes to vacuum. He'll push the wand back and forth all day. He also mops, but with yogurt, so I don't exactly call it "cleaning." If you give him a rag though, back and forth all day. Z did too. She was more a folder than a scrubber. And yet my house? Not so clean.

It's already Tuesday

After the long drive home from SLC to Flag, I made macaroni. With truffle butter ($12.99 at Liberty Heights Fresh/D'Artangan). My sister gave me a belated birthday present which made returning to a house with no food a return to a house with a welcoming dinner. I almost cried with the easiness and the deliciousness. I'm doing a lot of almost crying lately. Max. The weaning. It's going. He likes the bottle so much. Too much. Tonight, he went to bed with the bottle and the nipple in his mouth. His dream fulfilled! He misses the breast, obviously. In the morning, after his first night of no boob, Erik brought him into bed. He lifted up my shirt. I called him a succubust. I laughed too hard. It was early.
But I do think the weaning is a good idea. He's drinking like 6 ounces of milk every 5 hours. Way more than I ever pumped. I think he's been so thirsty! No wonder he doesn't sleep. Last night, Erik kept him all night and he woke up once to sleep with Erik at midnight and once again at 5. He usually wakes up at 1, then 5, then 5:45, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30. I think he kept going to the well, hoping it would refill but it was dry. Or dryish. And it would refill a little. Every 45 minutes. During delicious sleep.
Then, last night, with my duck fat ($4.99 Liberty Heights Fresh/D'Artagnan--spell, obviously suspicious. Sisters' commitment to taking off price tags--limited), I made roastd potatoes in duck fat. And then this morning, I took the leftovers, added more fat, and ate them for a post-run snack. And then I licked the tupperware.
Tonight, I made roasted chicken: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/garlic-roast-chicken-recipe/index.html. This is the right recipe. Accept no others. One dish. 1 hour 45 minutes to cook. 1 hour 45 minutes to play with the kids. One dish to clean (although one more if you make chicken stock from the bones). Also, it's a good thing my husband likes breasts (meat, in this case) since I decided to take all the skin off, put it on a separate plate so it wouldn't get soggy and serve it separately. By separate I mean to myself.
Admittedly, repeatedly, the roasted potatoes were cooked in chicken fat very similarly to last night's duck fat, but let's pretend we're doing a taste test. So far, I'd say I like potatoes roasted in fat. Duck fat though--makes me want to wake up in the morning so I can go for a run so I can eat more potatoes roasted in duck fat.
Tomorrow, I head to Phoenix on a research mission. I feel so very professional. I'll eat lunch there. With my research. Yay.
Max's birthday is Thursday. We might eat a lot of pizza for his birthday. Or beans. D'artangan sent me an email today to let me know that Max's birthday--January 6th--is national bean day. Cassoulet for everyone? Or just beans. And quinoa. Max loves quinoa and they say that quinoa is the one perfect substitute for breast milk--so Max's birthday might not feel so much a deprivation as a vegetarian festival (with duck fat).

Conflicted

Good things happened in 2010. Max was born. My book came out. The Huffington Post gig. But that good stuff brought a lot of conflicting stuff too. For instance, 2 months after Max was born, I felt hard-pressed to promote the book as best I could. Leaving him to go to AWP was so hard. Or, rather, working myself up about the leaving was so hard. Being gone wasn't so bad. Fear of what might happen--like what if he doesn't sleep? What if he won't drink a bottle? What if Zoe throws up all over Erik? Admittedly, I didn't preconceive the throwing up and it did happen but the gist is, freak out or not, it happens anyway. My attempts to stop things with the power of my mind were no greater in 2010 than they were in 2009. I worry and stress and feel like crap about, for instance, the Huffington Post. Great as it is/was a collaborative project, I still had to extend offers, worry that I wasn't inviting everyone I wanted to (which I didn't and still want to invite people I just haven't yet and still had to worry almost daily how I was screwing that up. And still worry), send reminders, fix technological snafus, worry over artists' responses to writers' and vise versa, and generally hope I wasn't pissing people off--even though this was, in terms of out reach and artistic realization, the best thing I ever did. My book--it came out. It felt great and then I got addicted to that feeling and now I just want more more more books. I also wanted to change things and make new poems and make it an even better book although I think it turned out beautifully.
Here's another conflict--like breastfeeding Max. I should do it a lot! More! It's so rewarding. So bond-making and healthy-making. So there was no sleep and a lot of worry that maybe he wasn't even getting enough milk and how much milk does he need anyway when there's so much yogurt in the world? I still don't know but I do think we're on a weaning kick. In the middle of cold and flu season, should I quit? But what if one of my goals of 2011 is to sleep?
Like all goals, I'm pretty sure that just the act of having them makes them suspicious and unobtainable. If I say sleep, I'm pretty sure I'll get an extra dose of insomnia. And if I think I can think myself out of it, I imagine that mind-power I pretend I believe in will in fact guarantee 2-3 hours at night saying to myself, I really shouldn't think about sleep when I'm trying to sleep.
One goal of 2011 feels like it should be fulfilling obligations--do the best at what I've already set up. I'm supposed to be called for jury duty. Since I'm already thinking of weaning Max, my duty might be to go full force and do my citizenly duty. But then I'm conflicted that perhaps my real duty is to breastfeed Max in the middle of flu and cold season. I'm also supposed to interview biotechnologists in Phoenix on Wednesday. Is it my true obligation to keep those appointments?
Again, it doesn't really matter how much I worry or not about it. I'll get called or not and be asked to stay or not and there's probably not that much I can do about it.
Perhaps that's my real obligation this year: to figure out what I can do and can not change/make happen which is kind of like that icky serenity prayer/Sinead O'Connor song.
Last night, I was complaining to Erik that maybe my food book should be more like Nick Flynn's "The Ticking is the Bomb." More meditative and retrospective. He said, you can only write like you write which I strongly objected to because what then about revision and craft and manipulaiton of scene and voice. But on the whole, he's probably right. I write like I write. I will probably worry and not sleep. I'll probably breastfeed Max and then wean him and then breastfeed him one more time. And yet, maybe I'll do it enough that he sleeps through the night. Maybe I'll go to AWP. Maybe I'll invite all the people I want to to the Huffington Post. Maybe I'll publish another book and I'll love it even more than I did This Noisy Egg. Maybe I'll write a lot and revise less since in revising, I worry about how I should make it more like something else instead of just making it.
Maybe making it. That will be my goal of 2011. That's a goal that I don't think you can avoid and yet can be a great thing or a muddling through thing which will make it a lot like 2010 but maybe less fraught.

The Nutcracker

It had been like 30 years since I'd seen the full William Christensen's (some distant relation of mine, actually) full Ballet West version of the Nutcracker. I remember the growing tree. I remember a gigantic lady under whose skirts out came hundreds of dancing babies. I remember thinking Clara was the star of the show.
This year, just like when I was a kid, I sat in the Capitol Theater on the main floor behind really tall people. The theater has wised up and hands out extra cushions for the kids but the people who sat in front of us were even too tall for the cushions to overcome so I watched the back of my niece's head for the most part as she sat on my lap and strained her neck.
Not being able to see might account for part of my troubles but I have some questions about the plot.
For instance, why would invite that Dr. Drosselmeyer who is obviously up to something when he put on a patch right before he went into the party? Was he pretending he was a pirate? Is it a bit weird he brought a special present for a little girl?
In these days of post-Spiegelman's "Maus," how can you not root for the giant mice and cringe when little Clara kills the Mouse King? The Nutcracker turns into a Prince? He takes Clara out all night? Isn't she a bit young to be out with a boy past say, 7 p.m.?
I kept telling my mother-in-law, who invited me and Zoe and Zoe's cousin, that the Sugar Plum Fairy was being danced by a man. She was like, "No. It was a woman." She looked it up in the playbook. It read Jacqueline something. I was like, "Otherwise known as Jack."
"Do you mean Mother Baffoon? She's played by a man."
"That big thing with the dress isn't the Sugar Plum Fairy?"
"No. That's Mother Baffoon. The Sugar Plum Fairy is the ballerina that dances the whole time." I always thought the little kids were the sugar plum and the Fairy would give them sugar plums. Maybe after they did their good dancing? I don't know I was 7. Again, another clash of other stories. "Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads."
So I did learn something although this Mother Baffoon only had like 8 kids run out from under her dress so it wasn't quite the spectacle I remember. Still, it was good to see The Nutcracker again only so if Zoe asks questions about how the tree grew so big and why Mother Baffoon has such a big dress and such big man-hands, I can try to explain although how it is that the nutcracker cracks no nuts through the whole ballet I have no answer for.

An apology

Dear Erik,
Although it was indeed only I who stood over the kitchen sink, cracking the legs of the Dungeness Crab open with my teeth and digging my fingers into the crevices and joints to pull out every thread of meat while you hung out on Facebook, I do recognize that our marriage vows included sharing every crab that comes within our midst. And although I did put on Facebook that all I wanted for Christmas was a Dungeness crab and realized that I was the only one likely to take me seriously so I bought that crab on sale $1.60 off the regular price so at $5/lb, I was not breaking any Christmas bank, I admit that while I dug and cracked and picked the crab that I promised you could have some crab later. And although I did in fact make you some crab dish that you liked (see yesterday's post) better than I, I have to admit that I did not mention that there was some crab leftover. And although you said, just that night that you loved crab sandwiches as much as I, I nodded and said, well, let's try this crab-stuffed trout thing instead.

So yesterday, when I had about 6 oz of crab leftover from the crab-stuffing project and Max and I decided that 10:30 a.m. was a good time for lunch, I have to apologize that I went straight for the crab. And I'm sorry that I chopped the celery into such tiny bits and minced the onions finely. I'm sorry I stirred in mayo and a bit of mustard. I apologize for adding celery salt and a titch of your favorite hot sauce. I'm sorry I was so gleeful to use gruyere instead of the usual plastic swiss we slice for these sandwiches. I'm sorry that I toasted the English muffin perfectly and dolloped the just-enough-crab mixture onto the muffin, then topped that with the cheese. I'm sorry I broiled the sandwich until the cheese bubbled brown. It was, I admit, delicious. And it is possible that it might have tasted even better if you'd been here to share. But I would have still been hungry. As it was, I still wanted another one.

With some regret, although not quite enough,
Your only wife


I promise to pick you a new crab clean, like any good otter-wife.

Dining Disasters

I wanted to title my food book "Dining Disasters" and just lament all the times I tried to cook for people and failed. The book would have been long but I guess it would have become tiresome eventually. I would have included a few success stories but I think the crux of the book would hinge on describing the people I fed and, since I mostly like my friends and want to keep them, it wouldn't have been very revealing. And, maybe it's kind of ridiculous--the way I shoot to make something so delicious and fail so often.

One of the things I wanted for Christmas was Dungeness Crab. No one believes that I want ingredients for Christmas (well, my sister Val believes), so I bought one on sale at New Frontiers for $7 and came home and cleaned it. It had been awhile since I'd had to clean a Dungeness Crab but it came right back. I stood over the sink and cracked and dug. I ate the green butter on the inside. I picked the legs clean with my nutcracking tools. I got about 12 oz of crab out of that dude. Not bad for $7 and half an hour of picking.

So, last night, I tried to make crab-stuffed trout. That's a dish, right? I started at 4:30. This should have provided enough time. But, as often happens when Erik and I hang out in the living room, talking and having a pre-dinner drink, I wander into the kitchen for five minutes here and there but mostly return to hang out by the fire and with Erik and the kids. This dinner should have been easy: mixed green salad with French vinaigrette, roasted fingerling potatoes, spaghetti squash and this crab stuffed trout. I love crab. I love trout. I love butter that makes the stuffing that makes the crab stick to the inside of the trout.
This dinner was the kind you could make in five minute spurts. Squash in the oven at 4:30. Potatoes in at 5:00. Make the vinaigrette at 5:30. Stuff the trout at 5:45. Dinner should be ready by 6:00.
Stuffing: egg, scallions, melted butter, lemon juice, breadcrumbs. Stuff the crab inside cleaned trout, read the recipe. Bake at 400 for 5 minutes and then broil for five more minutes.
I pulled the fish at 6:10, having given it 7 more minutes than the recipe called for. When we went to pull the bones out of the trout, the stuffing fell out. Worse, the bones wouldn't come loose because the fish wasn't all the way cooked. I tried to restack the fish and the stuff and baked it again. For ten more minutes.

I did not like it. The trout was soft. The skin. Soft. The stuffing. Soft. The potatoes, overcooked, were soft and so was the spaghetti squash. The only things sharp were the salad and the salad dressing. Mostly disaster in my book. The only good part? I had roasted the potatoes in butter but, in this disaster dinner, the butter didn't soak in even though I poked the potatoes. So Zoe and I broke the potatoes in half and dipped them in butter. That was success. But the crab? Barely tasted.

Fortunately, I have some crab leftover for which I have to write a different kind of apology.

Resolved-ish

I spelled etiology wrong on my last post. I fixed it here. Apparently, fixing Zoe's stomach ache was equally easy although how it actually worked, I'm not sure.
We went to see the ever-lovely Dr. D. She asked a million questions and then listened to Zoe's lungs. She'd checked them out just a few weeks ago but this day, she could hear the wheezing. She thought, just in case, to test her out for a possible urinary tract infection but if wasn't a UTI, she suspected pneumonia, which sometimes presents with stomach pain. But before we got to that, she'd try to UTI. She asked Zoe to pee in a cup. Zoe thought this was madness and she leaped off the table and hid behind me. I finally talked her into it and took her into the bathroom. Once I explained it's just like peeing in a tiny toilet, she relented.
Of course, no UTI.
We've been the pneumonia route before. Last time, it was the last part of an 8 day stay at the hospital. But the doctor did not seem panicked so I tried not to panic myself.
So we headed downstairs (radiology downstairs. How handy). I took Max and ran to the appointment at the university I had at 1:30 to cancel. This sucked in several ways: The first was leaving Zoe. The second was that the appointment was to help the printmaker who was helping my poetry students put their book filled with letter-pressed pages together. I felt horrible about leaving him to do all the work. I can't stand that I did not see my students' final books. I knew I'd done the right thing though. As I drove back toward the doctor's office, I kept imagining them admitting Zoe to the hospital to treat the pneumonia, wondering how one has a baby at home and a kid in the hospital and no family around for 500 miles. Apparently, Dr. D's non-panicking effect only works directly in her presence.
Zoe did have a little pneumonia but the not-panicking doctor, described the streaks on her lungs as very tiny. She prescribed a different anti-biotic from the one she'd prescribed last week for what she suspected was a sinus-infection--ampicillin does not help pneumonia but arythromax does. She had the former first. Now she is taking the latter.
But! Here's the rub. On the way home, my stomach started to hurt. We all went home and took a nap. Zoe for her usual 2 hours, Max for his usual 45 minutes. I slept too for those 45 minutes and my stomach still hurt. Like I'd been kicked in the gut. And in the back. And like I wanted to throw up but couldn't. I drank 64 ounces of water. When Zoe woke up, I made her drink two big glasses too. We both started to feel better--Zoe more than I. By six o'clock last night, there was no more, "it hurts. It hurts." She slept through the night. She's been fine all day.
So now, all the fine people we saw and ate and drank with this last week--I hope you didn't get what I believe now happened to be a short-lived stomach virus that Zoe couldn't fight off because she was fighting off the pneumonia too. Once the anti-biotics started working on the lungs, her body took care of the stomach--well, that and the huge amount of liquid I made her drink and that uncanny way of the virus that seems to abandon one person as soon as it's safely ensconced in another. If you did get it, let me know and I'll repay you with a dinner made without any infectious children around.

Zoe's illness-- an eitology? Please?

So Zoe's had a cough since right after Halloween. She's been to the doctor, taken albuterol, antibiotics and finally, prednisone (a coriticosteroid) to help her beat the cough. Suddenly, she's developed so really weird nighttime stomach ache. She said she felt like she wanted to throw up but couldn't. She writhed on the bathroom floor for an hour, got up and went back to bed, then got up again another hour later. The next day we called the doctor's office. The nurse said it was probably her sinuses, dripping into her stomach and her stomach was rebelling from all the mucus that now lay therein. That sounded sort of plausible even though she always has a cold and has never had a stomach ache accompanying.
The next day, she's 100% fine. Running, bike riding, movie-going, regular kid.
That night, more writhing. More chants of, my tummy, my tummy. No sleeping. More Erik and I saying, poor Z. I'm so sorry and rubbing her back and feeling totally helpless.
Two nights later, on Saturday night, we called the triage nurse, having been on the verge of taking her to the ER. That nurse said, if she's not coughing up blood or bile, if she can walk without clutching her stomach, and if it doesn't hurt on the right side (appendix) then she doesn't need to go to the hospital. Stomach things are weird, she said.
The next day, she's 100% fine. Running, bike riding, movie-going, regular kid.
That night, more writhing. More chants of, my tummy, my tummy. No sleeping. More Erik and I saying, poor Z. I'm so sorry and rubbing her back and feeling totally helpless.
Last night, more writhing. Less sleeping. Max decided 45 minute-stints of sleep were sufficient. I think I called him "numb nuts" as a rocked him to sleep--in a nice voice but these are the words that escape my mouth when I haven't slept in six nights.
Her stomach actually hurts now (in the day time!). We're more, "I know your stomach" hurts now. And more "yeah, stomach things are weird." Also, we've cut out all milk-products on the off-chance they're mucus-making or lactose-intolerable. But as Zoe says, "It doesn't help. Nothing helps. It just hurts."
We're also on our way to the doctor in a couple hours. But here's my guess what the doctor will say: She says, "it's a virus. Stomach things are weird." Or, at the other end of the spectrum, the battery of tests begins with an endoscopy and ends with a colonoscopy and has some CT scans in the middle.
So if you guys haven any ideas before the battery of tests begins, then let me know. Also, I don't think she's contagious. Max nor Erik nor I have any stomach pain as far as I can tell but if we did contage you, I'm sorry in advance and I hope that you sleep again one day.

Winter

Sort of. It was so cold in the middle of November. And then it snowed a bunch, delaying our return from Torrey from Thanksgiving. Today though? 58 degrees. Zoe and I went bike riding/running and we both had to take off our coats.
Why are you and Zoe bike riding/running on a weekday you may ask? Well, Zoe was up all night with some stomach ache that wouldn't go away. At least not until morning when it miraculously disappeared. The doctor thinks her stomach's hurting from some sinus/post-nasal drip thing. I think I shall invite Zoe to sleep standing up tonight.
But we're having a fun day even though I'm a bit of a zombie. Did I mention Max's babysitter quit to move to Austin? So Erik and I have been juggling Max which means I'm really barely keeping it together.
But it's the end of the semester and although I have a million things to do, most of them are semi-mindless. At least the way I organized this semester. I have to lay out type for the poetry/print making collaborative project. I have to alert students to next semester's course offerings. I have to review a few poems but I didn't have students turn in portfolios this semester because I've come to realize that the portfolio is perfunctory (mostly) for students and the comments I give them sit in the folder waiting to be picked up and rarely are. Plus, they already worked their butts off this semester. Parties (College and Department receptions rather) and dinners (thanks Sandy!) and letters of recommendations galore makes me feel like it is time to go to Amazon and click presents that read "prime shipping." Maybe I'll make something Christmasy for dinner tomorrow. Or maybe we'll grill steaks because it's almost 60 degrees and feels cheatingly like spring.

So. Lots of Max and Zoe these days to go with the end of the semester stuff.
Max can almost always successfully crawl backwards down the stairs so the level of danger-mouse activities is lower than it was last week. Max still checks out most of the world with his mouth, including your nose and your mouth which I guess counts as a kiss even though if you were trapped in the desert for months you could rehydrate with the amount of saliva that kid drools into your mouth. Zoe made him laugh the deep belly laugh today while she dangled her Zhu Zhu pet (early Christmas) from its name-tag by her mouth and let it drop to the table. Max was trying to eat yogurt at the time. Max likes to make raspberries while eating yogurt. Raspberries plus yogurt plus laughing at Zoe's amazing Zhu Zhu trick made for a delightful if yogurt-blown lunch.

We finally got Max to sleep and had our own lunch. I made a spinach salad from a giant box of spinach and gave Zoe the rest of the box. She laid on the TV floor and ate spinach by the handful. How this kid ever gets sick is beyond me. But apparently, her sickness and sleeplessness doesn't affect her--she was happy to go on a bike ride and is wondering when we're going shopping for this holiday that I am really almost ready, even though it's 58 degrees outside, to acknowledge exists.

The Other Thanksgiving Food

I've written a long essay about Torrey in the winter but I imagine more people (6 people) read what I write here than they do in lit mags (4 people), so I'm not feeling incredibly redundant. In the olden times, the years of the great drought, Erik's parents kept the cabin in Torrey open all winter long. When you left the cabin after a long weekend, we had to drain the whole water system, including the water heater, put RV anti-freeze in the toilets and turn the heat down to fifty and pray that the amount of water left in the pipes wouldn't freeze. The cabin had suffered two major pipe explosions that resulted in much re-drywalling. Not even Erik, master drywaller that he is, likes to do the same walls three times so now they shut the house down completely. Rick, Erik's stepdad, hooks up the air compressor and blows every spot of water out of the pipes.
But they opened it up this year for Thanksgiving so we could see them and my mom and so we wouldn't have to drive all the way to Salt Lake.

It was cold. 1 degree one of the nights. All of the stores were closed. The only restaurant open was Tom's "Chillzz" which is more of a soda shop than a restaurant. If we neglected to bring whipping cream, well, then no whipping cream on your pie.

I did forget whipping cream but Erik's mom, El, brought three tiny cartons of it. My mom brought steaks, brussel sprouts and cranberry sauce. Rick brought ancho peppers and goat cheese and stuff for breakfast. I brought the turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, celery, butter, breadcrumbs, apples, pumpkin and evaporated milk. Nothing makes me think of cooking in dire circumstance as evaporated milk. I didn't know El would bring whipping cream so all along the drive I wondered how I might convert evaporated milk into pie topping. I also brought flour and sugar. So did El. She also brought potatoes and onions. A little redundancy goes a long way. She would have been redundant to bring whipping cream if I'd remembered mine but I didn't. She also brought beans, tortillas and sour cream. This would be key to our happiness later.

Thanksgiving went as thanksgiving goes. Everything was easier than it seemed like it would be and everyone ate faster than one thought humanly possible. Mom's cranberry sauce with pineapple was particularly good. I just cut the sweet potatoes into wedges and tossed half of them in cinnamon and black pepper and half in cayenne. That might have been a high point. The gravy I made like an hour early. That made finishing the mashed potatoes, the brussels and the rolls (El made rolls from scratch. I burned them by putting them on the bottom rack of the oven. Sorry El) totally easy. Gravy first. A good policy.

Pies were fine. I couldn't even eat any that night. Zoe and I had to take a short run down the street just to try to overcome the feeling that my stomach was full of rocks and on the verge of making me tip over like the wolf in Red Riding Hood.

The next night, we had steaks. Rick made them with a delicious roasted red pepper, ancho chili sauce. He cooked the steaks, topped them with goat cheese which didn't look like it melted but it had, and then a dollop of the sauce. In terms of flavor, maybe because it was new and maybe because it was spicy-ish, this dinner trumped Thanksgiving. I even loved the baked potato, with just scallions, butter and sour cream, better than the mashed potatoes. But maybe it was better because I cooked none of it.

The next night, we went to Chillzz for pizza and it was just fine. We got fries too which came with fry sauce which means that fry sauce is within a 6 hour drive rather than 8.5.

Speaking of 6 hour drives, we were supposed to leave the next day (Sunday) but a huge storm came in and the roads were awful. So we stayed even though there were no grocery stores open and we only had what was in the house. It turned out to be a surprising lot. El had made pinto beans. There was a box of vegetable broth and tomatoes and another can of beans and another ancho chili pepper equaled chili with bean burritos. This might have been the best meal of all.

I love Torrey in the winter. It's completely empty of people. Austerity measures apply. You have to make do. I love that. I also love hiking in the cold even though it was too cold for Max. His cheeks didn't thaw for an hour after one of the hikes. We did see the most amazing petroglyphs I've ever seen. The size of a Volkswagen, some of them (a small Volkswagen, maybe just a wagon. But still.)

And the pipes in the cabin did freeze a little--even with the heat on--but Rick caught them in time and with a very strong spotlight, he warmed the pipes and the dishwasher and shower worked again. Super-austerity averted.

Good days, birthdays, catching up days

November is not the hell-a crush of October but it's not much less of a vise-grip type life. I remember thinking in September, my, this semester is going to be a cinch. And then October. November actually has as much going on but it's less of a surprise than October. Also. November has my birthday and Thanksgiving which are great reliefs, no?
Well, my birthday wasn't exactly a relief. Since I was pregnant last birthday, I decided to do this one up. 5 days of birthday beginning with Pinot noir tasting on Wednesday, happy Veterans Day mellow birthday day Thursday, Friday friends over for polpettes and orzo soup (they brought me Gerber daisies. I love gerber daisies) birthday, Saturday babysitter birthday, and Sunday, more friends for spanikopita, tatizki, tabouleh, falafel birthday. Much good birthday. Nice talking on the phone with my mom and mother-in-law, sister-in-law and cousin. Five days of happy birthday from Z and a lot of "but it's my birthday" voice to Erik. He survived all five of the days.
He also bought us a couch for my birthday (and Christmas and my Christmas present to him). We shopped around thinking we'd never buy one but then there was this perfect sectional with leather on the outside to keep the cat from scratching it to death and microfiber on the cushions so it's soft and warm.
There was no chance it would fit, Erik said. And I said, it will if we keep the sections apart until we move the cable to the other side of the room.
The couch came today. At first, we just shook our heads. Even the small half looked like it had swallowed the room. The bigger half? Well, we could keep in in the kitchen where it could serve as an island/flotilla/spanikopita-making rest spot.
But it did fit, sections apart. And then Erik got highly excited about his ability to restring the cable until someone official came and snaked it behind the walls for more elegant effect.
We moved the TV. We put the sections together. The couch fits. We haven't moved off it all day.
Well, that's not entirely true since I have still November to deal with which involves finding a new day care person for Max, hosting a second guest writer in as many weeks, responding to some seriously great essays in some newly fun ways for me, and making appointments with the center for biodesign in Phoenix. Also, AWP deciding and money-getting (I'll go if I get funding from the college), and furious grant-writing and planning for Thanksgiving and general undergrad advising and students who need advising and letters of recommendation and extra love because it's November and I'm happy to give it because they are such the loveliest of students.
Tomorrow's guest writer will be talking about research in personal essays which will be particularly helpful for me since most of my research is internet research that stands distinctly opposed to my personal essay writing but since I'm on my way to visit the biodesign folks, I had better learn this word "incorporate" instead of big stony text blocks that read, "research here!"
I had a food thing to mention. What was it? Spanikopita? I did indeed make triangles. Again, I thought, there's no way that whatever Tyler Florence is saying about "fold like a flag" makes any sense, but I folded and it did. And I made chicken stock using just drumsticks--that was good and cheap at $2.38 for 4 drumsticks (plus, I saved a drumstick for Zoe's lunch making me a frugal cook and a good mom.) But I can't think of any fancy cooking moments. Except the polpettes and orzo which I made twice in a week. With homemade chicken broth.
So today was great thanks to the couch configuration. Also, the Huff Post. Kind words from many folks made me so happy. Also, nice words about an essay from the book of food and Mormons and fertility which is very good news. Also, nice words about the whole book which just makes November so much better than October.
Oh, on the note of babies--kids were sick and so was I which was a drag (worst cold ever. Sleeping on one side, turning over, sleeping on the other, hoping I could breathe through that nostril). But Zoe calls Max sweetheart because he's sweet and he has a heart and Max walks like some sort of crab, three-legged dude with his left leg sticking out, propelling him fast along.
Oh and Zoe and I are writing a book and I asked her if it was OK if I worked some while she was at school since at this rate the book would be done when she was 23, and she said sure, as long as I mentioned it was "illustrated by Zoe." I promised.

Conferences and Breathers

I really wasn't going to go. It was so far. A 2 hour drive, 3 hour flight, another 2 hour drive. Three nights away. Four whole days. It wasn't really worry about the kids that made me want to stay home. I knew they'd be fine with Erik and, since his mom came down to help, that no one would really notice my absence. It was a kind of laziness and a kind of tiredness of the writing business. And I would miss my people so much. I knew they'd be fine without me but not so much vise versa. Plus pumping. For four days. Ick.

But I made myself get up at 4:00 a.m. and drive in the dark down the mountain, looking out for elk and training my eye on the white line on the road. Once, the white line disappeared. I almost drove off the road. I hit traffic. I didn't care. If I missed my flight, I'd turn around and come back. But the traffic was due to an accident and abated pretty quickly.

Conferences are good for several things--especially this one. A chance to read your theories about creative nonfiction, a chance to hear others read theirs. Alison Bechdel, one of my heroes, spoke. I got to act like a grown-up or, rather, an adolescent, and go to too many bars and stay up past midnight (I know! Past midnight!). I saw people who I miss all the time and have deepened friendships that were slight before my conference going. I made new friends. I represented, as I said on Facebook, the crazy woman who has a baby and still goes to conferences. Not many folks at the just-had-a-baby-stage went. There were young-uns there, just out of grad school. It may be insane to travel while pumping and leave your ten month baby at home but it's also a choice you can make and survive, I wanted to tell them. Plus, they're a good audience to complain to about the 4 days of pumping. They've lived in Iowa. They've been to the state fair. They've seen the dairy contraptions attached to the udders of cows. They understand my pain. So did Margot. Thanks Margot! I want to say publicly, for hanging out with me and for listening me to also complain about the pumping. It's also good to go for the new ideas and new projects and general sense that at least 400 people in the world care about nonfiction and of those 400, at least 6 wanted to read again the paper I'd delivered and want a copy of their own. A little positive encouragement goes a long way these days.

And I admit. It's good to take a break. I didn't know it was a break. It was work in its own way. But, when you get home and you have to feed the people and there are no servers and very few excuses to go to lunch. I swear, if one didn't have to feed the children, they would be nothing but a breeze but they like so much food. Dinner, breakfast, lunch. And I like food too so then I cook for me and for Z and for Max, similar foods but delivered differently and by the time I'm done the kitchen is undone, I think, hmm, airplanes don't suck entirely.

But the way Max leaped out of his grandma's arms and tried to fling himself across the room at me and the way Zoe ran over to me to give me her notes that she'd been writing each day I was gone, I remember why I may well never go to a conference again.

Rough Week

It's been a rough week around here. Rejections all around. Plus some additional rejection that I wasn't even looking for. I mean, I go out of my way to get rejected for the most part but sometimes, rejection seeks me out. And bureaucracy. I had some. I wanted to apply for a grant because I like rejection but it turns out the university would like to protect me from myself and prevent that from happening by inventing and installing a device called grants and contracts which makes sure absolutely nothing can happen--even rejection--which is usually so easy to come by.

But it's amazing how resilient one can be. Yes. I will pat myself and the we's in my house for our resilience. And then I will say that kids are a good source of resilience. A) Even when they reject you, you can roll your eyes and tickle them and then you are quickly returned into most-loved status and b) they want so much (not rejection) that it's hard to get mired in your own morass.

Mas is curious. Possibly dangerously so. He likes to look under the stairs, crawl to the middle stair, fling himself off the stair onto the tile because he wonders what that might feel like. That we told him it wouldn't feel good is not so interesting to him. The humans yammer. The tiny bits of Starburst wrapper on the floor speak to him in a language he understands. Mostly--eat me. You can't hold him without him trying to crawl over your shoulder to see what everyone else is doing, including himself in the mirror or how, if you're holding him while you pee, he might propel himself into the sink to see exactly how the drain might work. Perhaps best by tonguing it, he thinks. The computer is good for typing but even better for pulling the keys off the keyboard and the pencil is good for drawing on the floor and stabbing yourself in the eye and if you're not a curious creature, however will you figure out that eye stabbing and floor drawing are equally interesting although perhaps one is more fun than the other.

So the week sucked enough that I sang Paul Simon's American Tune without irony. Also, Bob Dylan's Hard Rain although I don't know all the words. Tonight, I'm resilient enough, I think, that I can sing Frog went a Courtin to Zoe although only after we read Wigger--William Goldman's kid-story about parents who die in a car crash and Susanna holds it all together until a robber steals her blanket (Wigger). Then she cries. Then she's told to stop crying so she starts to flood. On the inside. But in the end, the undertaker adopts her which means it's a happy story, similar to this one.

The Trouble

I thought I'd have several hours to work on revisions. My only certain obligations were to take Max to day care and work in the advising center for two hours. But what actually happened between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. is what happens every day. First of course are the emails. The Huffington Post. The Facebook promotion. That takes an hour. Zoe wants hot lunch, thank goodness, but she also wants me to help her pick out clothes that are not too hot and not too cold. Max loves mornings and likes to two fist eat cheerios in his high chair and then, with those same two fists, pound the tray full of Cheerios until the Cheerios bounce off onto the floor. This leads to some, although not much, cleaning up of Cheerios. Then we go for a run which takes fourteen minutes to find the dog collar for, my shoes for, my sunglasses. Oh wait. My sunglasses are broken. Blind running into the sun.
Then what happens? Max goes to Taysha's at 11:30. If we get back from our run at 9:45, there's little time to sit down and write. Max needs to breastfeed. He would also like to type. He is not a horrible typist but he does have a bad habit of pulling off the keys from the keyboard which is contraindicated for future typing. He falls down one stair which requires much soothing and then he tries to pull the breastpump onto his head which requires much rethinking of cord-electronic arrangements. There is some kind of hurried cleaning up of bowls and electronics and other things that shouldn't be on the floor but are. Then more emergency emailing. Then emergency saving Max from certain doom. Then picking Max up because he does not like to be put down for more than 10 minute intervals (but those 10 minute intervals. They are productive ones! But not so good for sustained thinking about revisions). Taking a shower, getting dressed. How can these things take so long? There must be something slowing me down. Perhaps it's the 10 minute interval baby. Perhaps it's email. Perhaps it's the new eyeshadow I bought. Either way, I feel nearly Hollywoodian in how long it takes me to get ready these days.
Lunch. I just heat up stew. And yet that takes a good 20 minutes to heat and eat too. Max likes broth. Both time-consuming and messy. And yet, I have time to wonder if a baby is born and his mother dies/goes missing, could the baby survive on beef/chicken broth. I think so.
I put Max in the jumper thing and sit on the floor with the laptop to type. This totally gives me 20 full minutes of revising. Then. Finish getting ready (It's been an hour since I started). Get Max dressed (somewhat quicker but not entirely).
Then there's the driving. Or even getting to the driving. Max's everything needs to go into the diaper bag. I have things to remember (what things? I've forgotten by now). And then the car seat transfer and the finding of keys and the sunglasses. Oh wait. No sunglasses.
It only takes 20 minutes to take Max over to Taysha's. But it's sad and hard so that adds minutes and relativity that make it seem much longer than that. The drive to school. Longer than it needs to be.
Office hours are nonstop. I have students from my grad class, from classes last semester, from classes two years ago, from another advisor who gave incomplete advice, from administrative assistants, and from head-poker-inners just saying hi.
By the time I get home to work, it is 2:00. The kids will be home at 3:40. That gives me 1 and a half ish hours.
And then I remember I have to pump.
And eat dried apricots and almonds.
And check my email.
And Facebook.
Still, I get30 pages of revision done. I have 50 more to go today and tomorrow. Deadline. Friday at 5:00.
But this next section is chunky and problematic and won't go as fast as yesterday. And today I teach. And apparently blog.
In comparison to today, yesterday is beginning to look in retrospect like the freedom day it at first seemed like it was going to be and then wasn't really.
Off to prep a lesson on sonnets. And to sneak a page or two of revision in before I eat lunch.
Perhaps it's the eating that's slowing me down. But like all things these days that are slowing me down and keeping me from, I like them quite a bit. So really, I'm not complaining.