The problem with lists

I knocked a few things off the list, added others. Got swamped by advising and teaching stuff and then we all got sick.
Zo has her regular Darth Vadar breath. I don't think even Darth could handle as much albuterol as we nebulized all over her last night. But she seems to have turned a corner. Or is maintaining. Or mainlining the albuterol.
I, however, have lost all hope for the list.
If you need me, you'll find me under the kitchen table, eating Tabbouleh. I'm sure I'll take my computer under there with me. So I won't be out of touch. Just out of range of the onslaught of reviews and conferences.

No way it's all going to happen

I was just reading over at Limon's about how she's not going to get all the things done this semester she needs to. I am panicking about my own semester by blogging. Actually, I'll make this a listing blog so the list and the weight can be palpably felt. And perhaps in order to lift the weight, I'll actually do one or two of these today.

• Host Grad School Night Sept. 24.
• Write a review by Oct 15.
• Read 40 student blogs a week (whoops! What a great idea! Student blogging! 750 words a week! Ack!)
• Write conference paper for Nonfiction Now.
• Contact my panelists for Nonfiction Now.
• Read 7 books for my independent study.
• Finish novel draft by Sept. 30 (60,000 words yesterday. 10 or 20 more thousand to go.)
• Compile 3rd year review file.
• Read apps for new hire.
• Review affiliate faculty.
• Finish Hospital poems for contests.
• Send out old book to contests of finalist last year.
• Write conference paper for AWP.
• Revise 14 essays.
• Buy plane tickets for SLC, NYC, and NYC.
• Develop course for Spring 2009.
• Finish kitchen (admittedly, my role is small. I mostly have to by drawer pulls and wine racks but still).
• Submit funding requests for trips to NYC and NYC.

Actually, now the list doesn't seem so bad. The biggest trouble is the 3rd year review file but I think that's mostly a matter of organization. Which is not my strong point. But perhaps lists like this are a sign of things to come.

Hope I didn't stress you out on a fine Sunday morning. I feel better though.

Hispanic Festival

Finally. A good taco. Better than a Salt Lake taco. Here, in GR.
We had a great day. Z's daycare hosted this odd fundraiser where we paid $20 and they watched kids for 4 hours to help pay for new playground equipment. If it was only $5/hour every half day--it would be an ideal amount of school for the Z where maybe I could get some work done without having to say, OK Z, five minutes. Mom's working. And then giving in to play magnet puzzle for twelve minutes.
So we went to the Hispanic Festival, purchased an adorable Equadoran sweater for Z featuring embroidered cacti and llama and I got a sweater full of orange colors.
I drank beer there.
Then, we went to Founders. Which has many a beer and nary a glass of wine. I drank half a glass of beer there.
And then our good friends who make GR a great place to live came over and they had another beer and I returned to my stand-by, wine. We had to escape the onslaught of mosquitoes and so came inside where we were accosted by Z's stuffed animals and Egg's lascivious jokes about portfolios and balance sheets.
Ah, the MBA. Who knew how sexy the MBA could be...

Stymied by Yahoo

Usually, I'm a pretty good Googler. I can find out what translocated genes are and what Rolling Stone cover Britney Spears may have graced and which New Orleansy foods are considered Cajun and which ones Creole.
But two answers the internet has denied me:
1. How do squirrels get inside of walnuts. Is it gravity that breaks the outer husk? Then how do they get into the harder one. I tried throwing it on the ground, stomping on it, even biting it but then the bitterness of the outer husk choked me and my hands turned black from the essential oils and I wonder do squirrels have little bearded nutcrackers in trees or do they just wait for the husks to rot or are their teeth the stuff nutcrackers aspire to be? The internets would not tell me. I googled a bunch of phrases and nothing.
2. Then, last night, while we're watching Children of Men, which I shouldn't watch because I tend toward a dystopic view of the universe and I find all things baby-related extra tear-provoking, Michael Caine's character says Shanti Shanti Shanti when imagining the hopeful Human Project. So I look up Shanti Shanti Shanti which , it turns out, is a common meditation mantra. But what poet says it three times in one of his poems? Gary Snyder? (ETA. TS Eliot. It came to me five minutes after I posted.)
And, although I could find it but I'm too lazy, on Hightouch's blog I used the phrase "bogart" as a verb. Does it mean plain old steal or just sort of take too much space up on? Because the latter is what I meant.

First Two Weeks in Review

I've been refraining from blogging. Partly because I'm overwhelmed and partly because I feel complainy and I don't want to complain too much here. I'd prefer to list the delicious foods I've eaten of late, but there haven't been too many. I've been too busy.
Egg started MBA school last week so he's gone two nights of the week. I like to cook for Z and her palate is pretty broad for a two year-old but she doesn't act as impressed as I'd like my diners to be. So we eat noodles and pepper for dinner.
My foot. It is hurt. I pulled the outstep but it feels like the skin and the muscle became separateed and whenever I walk, the skin goes one way and the muscle and bone go another. I can't run so I'm grumpy. Even though I run slow. And short distances.
School. It is a long distance and also slow. I hate how I already feel behind. The first week of classes seem to require such tremendous energy--like right now I have to press all the force for the semester into these first weeks. If I do it well, the rest of the semester rolls right along, clicking along, amassing speed and work like any good roller coaster. And the more I teach, the more I know how much energy these first weeks require. Once we get going and I establish a rhythm, I think it will be fine.
Fine, that is, if I don't do anything but teach. I'm getting a bit bogged down in the details and I have a review coming up and assessment and benchmarking and curriculum making and etc. and oh my.
But it seems like it should be a pretty fun semester with some smartly students whose mindsI'm trying to blow by making them read hardcore theory. If my mind doesn't blow first.

Vacation Index

5. Number of runs ran in the high-altitude city.
4. Number of hikes hiked in the mountain behind in-laws house.
2. Number of hikes hiked in red dirt land.
1. Number of hike-type hikes hiked following Egg around disc golf course in red dirt land.
4. Number of fancy meals eaten at fancy restaurants. Pork confit, hanger steak, and sushi, cold Blackberry soup, mushroom tart, pablano creme.
1. Number of dinners eaten at Oyster Bar. No longer in the fancy restaurant dept. Good oysters. Overly salty and overly priced King Crab Legs.
1.5 Number of fast food trips taken because the french fries in the high, salty city come with special sauced.
2. Number Barbacoa's salad consumed. (Not enough.)
14. Number of anaheim peppers roasted, chopped, sauteed and eaten for two separate meals.
2. Number of filets consumed at in-law's and sister's.
1. Number of rib-eyes consumed at sister's.
238. Number of tomatoes paired with mozzerella and basil from Mom's boyfriend's garden.
2. Number of delcious squash dishes prepred by Maryland sister.
2. Number of delicious frut tarts baked by same sister.
4. Number of most exquisite racks of lamb made by home-based sister.
8. Number of twice-baked potatoes baked with blue cheese by home-based sister that people are still taking about.
2. Number of injuries sustained by either myself or home-based sister (1 finger cut deeply, 1 leg burned badly).
24. Number of Italian sausages accompanied by onions sauted in creme de cassis and grenadine made by father-in-law.
3. Number of those sausages I ate myself (not in one day!)
1. The ordinal number denoting the time I ate refried beans prepared by someone other than myself.
1,482. Number of glasses of wine consumed. Crawford, Joseph Phelps, Marilyn Merlot, were among the best.
2. Number of restaurants I meant and tried to eat at but didn't (Hong Kong Tea House, Red Iguana).
6. Number of pieces of fried chicken eaten (Yes, all in one day. They were wings though!)
342,095. Number of calories still need to burn off from trip.
9. Number of friends seen for drinks, lunch, or workshop.
3. Number of whom are on my bloglist.
2. Number of sisters seen for drinks, lunch, or dinner (dinner is a lot like workshop in that it involves sitting, talking and often drinking good wine).
2. Number of sister's who are on my bloglist.
528. Number of relatives seen at dinners, reunions, and birthday parties.
10. Number of siblings, mothers, fathers, nieces and nephews that were nearly impossible to say goodbye to.

must blog-quiz while traveling

Apparently, I'm not in reporting mode; instead, I take the quizzes. A brief update includes: I just ate a bag of spinach and Thirty-one and I are off to Taste of the Nation while my mom and Egg's mom and dad are volunteering. I won't relish any of them bussing my table or pouring me wine they can't drink...no, not at all. Or at least, not too much.

Also. This.

You Are The Star

You represent the ultimate in truth and purity. Insightful and illuminating, you provide guidance for others. You also demonstrate unselfish, unconditional love. You posses many spiritual gifts, including the ability to heal. Your fortune: Your future is looking brighter by the day. The near future will be a time of both hope and healing. Luck is about to come your way, perhaps the best luck you have ever seen. Life is about to get a lot easier and much better!

What Tarot Card Are You?

How did it know I was short?

You're Prufrock and Other Observations!

by T.S. Eliot

Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic
and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying
to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really
heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

4:00 am

I woke up at 3. This isn't so great. I even took a Lunesta which I rarely do. But at 3:17, I said the forbidden phrase to myself "I have got to get to sleep." I employed all my I need to go back to sleep strategies--counting slowly to ten, watch a stick tumble down the river, think of the plot of a movie I've seen a million times. Instead, of concentrating, which leads to peacefulness, I kept thinking of what I forgot, to tell the housesitter there's an avocado he should eat, that I should hide anything revealing.
Oof.
So now, I'm showered and ready. Egg will get up at 5, we'll rouse Zoe at 5:30. The cab will be here at 5:40. And by 10:50 a.m (12:50 our time) we'll be in SLC. And maybe I'll then get to take a nap. And then we have Ryan Adam's concert at the Red Butte Gardens. Oh the miracle, the expesne, the carbon footprint, the lines, the bad seats, the hours of distracting the toddler....
Perhaps it will all go off like a charm.
At least I didn't sleep through my alarm clock.

The Short List

This post comes from two places. The first is that one of the bloggers that I link to has a whole category of "shameless self-promotion." I'm not very good a self-promotion but I should probably work on propping up some of the good news that comes my way. Such self-promotion on her part though did make we want to know more about her so there is some danger in revealing one's anonymity by posting specific moments of renown. But in my case, I'm so far from actually anonymous and the good news I found was layered so deep that that being outed didn't worry me too much. The second is that my good friend who lives in CA and I are working on being friends again after a pretty huge falling out and she assured me that publication was just a matter of time. Lots of people say that, but when it comes from someone who now has some distance from you and your would-be successes, it seems somehow more plausible.
Publication-wise, this summer has been somewhat exciting but mostly kind of depressing.
I was short-listed at Graywolf nonfiction contest, Sarabande's novel contest, AWP's nonfiction contest and a few poetry contests. I found out last night that I was short-listed at the Faulkner Contest for the novel. Last year, I was a semi-finalist. This year, bumped up to the short-list of finalists, but still not quite a finalist. That one would be great to win because big books sometimes come from winning--The Three Junes being the most famous.
I've had a couple of poems and essays accepted which is very great. Still, I feel like I'm always a bridesmaid, never a bride at these book contest things. Perhaps my agent will still come through with something but, man is this process slow!

But the good news is that my friend M emailed last night to say a magazine I'd been published in had been favorably reviewed in New Pages and had quoted me. And so I went cruising around the internet to see if there were any other reviews of mags I'd been in and Utne reader had a really nice bit about a recent publication of mine and a magazine/writing group chose an essay from another pub of mine to be their Lit Pick of the Quarter. So. Slow. But good.

At Two

Z turns two today. She is a full-on person now, even if constrained by short sentences and challenged vertically. She knows when it's time to go--puts on her shoes, gets the keys, stands by the door waiting for us to get our shit together. She climbs up into her high-chair when it's time to eat, unless she's preferring at the moment to sit in a regular sized chair. She gets into her car seat herself, and her stroller. In fact, I'm not really sure what I have left to do besides drive the car, push the stroller, push the swing. She even says "please" and "thank you, (which sounds a bit like "Dane Do"), so her social graces are in tact.
Most days we do this: she wakes up by either singing or stating matter-of-factly, mommm-eeeee. We go and bug her dad who is not a morning person, then we go downstairs and eat Frosted Shredded Wheat. She likes a spoon, please. Then a little Sesame Street, either a walk or a run, then play a little, and then somehow lunch is already upon us. She will have berries and peas and grilled cheese, please. Then a nap with a sippy cup (the bottle has been gone for only a week!), then she wakes up at 2 or 3 and real playing begins. It's summer. We're outside most of the time. She gardens, which involves carrying the weeds we've pulled over to the yard waste can, or pours cups of water from one to the other in the swimming pool. She stacks the child-sized plastic chairs we co-opted from the neighbor. She plays Stop and Go (You yell go and she runs. You say stop and she stops. Eventually). Then, it's time for dinner. Maybe we ride our bike over to the store to pick up supplies. Mostly we drive. She likes steak and chicken and salmon and halibut and every protein except barbecued pork. She REALLY likes edamame. She can eat a pound in a bout twelve minutes. She also likes asparagus, onions, carrots, corn, beans, beets (had one for the first time last night), scallions, oregano and basil (the two plants she can eat directly from the yard), broccoli. She's starting to like bread and at restaurants, she has expanded beyond the chicken nugget to include the quesadilla and the pizza. She loves apples. She can eat a whole one. She likes them dried and in juice too.
She likes company. She hands out plates and napkins, takes off her shoes so one of our friends can put them on, she takes chip after chip out of their hand. She gives each of them a hug when we go to leave or she goes to bed.
At school, they say she's smart. They also say/warn that she can take her clothes off (and her diaper--scary. She mostly puts them back on). She plays in the sand and makes mother's and father's day presents.
Lately, she likes girly stuff more than before. She wants me to put her hair in pony tails and she found a doll she carries around. But she still likes to climb and wrestle and play with cars so she seems to maintain a reasonable gender balance. She likes her shoes and her juice although sometimes we give her one when she means the other and she looks at us like we are the least suited people to procreate in the universe. She states it clearly again, Soice. Oh. Suice.
There' s a lot of uh oh and bye and hi but also more complicated constructions like, need napkin, face dirty. She still likes her napkins but she flattens them a little less often. She still makes a pretty mean bed, even when you're often still in it.
Every day, she's the most fun to hang out with. I love that I can spend this much time with her this summer. On days when she sleeps later than I do, I go in and quietly look at her in her crib and send mind-beams of "wake up, wake up" so we have the most fun.
Today, for her birthday, we might go to her first feature-length film. She has a bit of a cold (but she doesn't sound like Darth Vadar!) and bug bites and is getting a new bicycle. And then she won't even need me to drive her around.

Happy Birthday, Bug!

Edited to add: Apparently, she knows all these songs from day care. How do I know? I start singing Ring Around the Rosies or Row Row Row Your Boat or Picking Up My Baby Bumblebee and she automatically (her motions are a bit robotic) spins in a circle or twirls her arms or cups her hands together to hold a bee. She goes only once a week but that's enough to absorb songs and their attendant dances. She has her own world that only intersects with mine when I coincidentally sing a certain song.

Edited again to say: She also says "woah" all the time which is why many of my emails of late begin with that phrase.

More nice things to say

about the place I live.
Lo, though it is 90+ today, it will be the hottest day of the year thus far. No hundred degree temps recorded since 1988. The humidity is a bit troublesome but since it hasn't rained, it doesn't feel too sticky.
And, there is water around here so I don't feel that desperate desert feeling I get in SLC in the summer when the edges of the tree's leaves start to brown and the grass gets crusty even though it's watered seven days a week. I just finished the book "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan which reminded me of all the trouble that goes into trying to garden-up a desert.
There is a little lake here--about a mile away. Zo and I ride around it once a week or so. She likes her bike seat a lot. From our perch we saw a turtle, a beaver and some ducklings. We've been mapping the ducklings progress and they are getting almost grown-up sized.
And, we're off to the big lake this afternoon after Erik finishes tearing down a wall, I write something, and Zo takes a nap. The big lake is as nice as the ocean with waves and super-sandy beaches.
So, this place, this summer, not so bad.
Look forward to more weather updates since pretty much that's all I think about, an obsession Egan's book thoroughly justifies.

Favorite writers

Why is it that my favorite writers from high school/early college were famous for only one book--for instance, Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, Keri Hulme's The Bone People, and Marilynne Robinson, until Gilead, Housekeeping.
Some of it seems to be busy-ness but some of it seems to be satisfaction. Once their book was nomiated or won a huge prize, perhaps that's all the needed to accomplish? Or they knew themselves that the most perfect rendering of their words had been written? Or is it fear of the next book failing?

I guess it's somewhat true for the man-types--Salinger will always be better known for Catcher in the Rye but almost as read is Franny and Zooey or Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters. Who else has read Dunn's Attic or Truck?

My Life as Dictated by Weather

It has been the most beautiful three days of weather in my life. 75 degrees, no humidity. In JULY! I may forgive GR its previous days of below zero temps and above 100% humidity. What I like best about not-too-hot is that I actually do something in the weather. When it's too hot, after 11 a.m., it's hard for me to convince myself it's healthy to exercise. I could die out there. It's safer to stay here, prostrate, with ice water and possibly a fan if someone else could please turn it on.
If I could live in perfect weather, GR would count. The thing about SLC is is that if it's nice but not too hot in the day, then it's freezing at night. And, once it gets hot in SLC, it pretty much stays hot. Here, there are vicissitudes so that even when I panic about the 90 degree heat and humidity, I can hope for days like today.
I'm outside, typing, trying to remember the essay I started in my head last night. I'm also working on a novel. I wish I'd read more of Bloom's Anxiety of Influence but I don't think that's the kind of anxiety I have. The kind I have is that I imagine everyone is reading the exact same research documents and so when they go to read my novel they'll be like, didn't I read that in The Nation or on that one woman's blog. To lift experiences and knowledge from the web at large seems kosher--I don't steal anyone's words, I change the setting and the circumstance, but sometimes I need the detail like the kind of dirt or the date of invention. If there was someone tracing my url's, they'd be like, oh my god that's so obvious. But since no one is (that I know of) the details will still come as a surprise.

ETA: One more thing I was thinking about--writing as jealousy. When I was reading Three Tarts yesterday and one of the bloggers there wrote "curls of cinnamon" I was immediately jealous for that description. The best writing works like that--describes details uniquely but accurately. It wasn't trying too hard, it wasn't too fancy, it was just right on. Since I can't steal it, I want to go try and write something equally as perfect. Usually, this jealousy is a catalyst for more writing. Sometimes, it can be demoralizing as in somebody already said it better, yesterday.

Lovely wedding, hot return

I promise to complain slightly less about the heat. Actually, without the humidity here, it would be quite nice. But it's like 50% humidity. The weather sits on my chest and won't let me get up. Well, just for this second to blog/complain about the heat and recount the wedding.

P'swedding was so beautiful with the big falls right behind her. Z did a pretty good job of being a flower girl except that she, in true Z fashion, went to clean up the petals after she dropped them. "Ah oh" was the chorus to the song of the falling flower petal. After the petals were cleaned up and 5 zillion pictures were taken of the beautiful newlyweds, there was some dancing, some fine food and some hearty drinking. All hail the destination wedding!

I'm trying to write this afternoon even though it's a hundred degrees out (if you do my math of humid plus temperature plus complaining efforts) BUT the guy painting the house next door is listening to classic rock. Bad Company until the day I die, Watch what you say, you'll be calling me a radical, political, When I'm sixty-four, Mean mean Sawyer, mean mean pride. Plus commercial. And, did I mention we have no AC so if I shut the window I would surely die? I think that yes, yes I did.
At least they're painting the house a color (blue) better than its original beige.

ETA: I could update class rock songs all day. Best day of my life.., was the last heard. but now Fleetwood Mac's Golddust Woman is on and now I can't complain. Except I do want to go download Hole's version.

Great week with mom

We've had tons of fun here with Maestra (that's what my mom wants her grandkids to call her) and her boyfriend Bart. We've been shopping and to the lake and to an arts festival. We've grilled brats and trout and chicken and pork chops--all tasty with their respective sides and sauces. You pair them up: Corn, red cabbage, radish-carrot-snowpea-scallion salad, cous cous, asparagus, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, roasted potatoes, green chile, pine nut butter.
It was a lot of cooking: breakfasts, lunches, and dinners but my mom makes cooking easier because she's always getting the napkins and forks and things together that I always do at the last minute. Then she cleans the whole kitchen. She also did a ton of laundry! Woohoo!
Our friend who is riding his bike from NYC to SLC made it in time last night for Brats and we had local friends over too which made for a lovely party-like evening. Hoorah for summer, and house-guests.
We leave for Niagara Falls tomorrow morning for P's wedding. It should be fabulous, except for, as I mentioned before, the car ride. Onward to Canada! (Did you know Canada is only like 2.5 hours from here? Now if only my passport that I ordered over 4 months ago had arrived......)

Thank you for voting

Thanks everybody. I think I have a plan. It involves none of the suggestions I listed but a combination of them and yours. Or, as Lisa B. says, I'll go back to the old title. I couldn't have come up with this idea for a new title without you so very cool and thank and thanks. (I'm taking that post down to preserve what's left of my barely concealed anonymity.)

In other news, my mom's in town. We're having fun. It's kind of hot but I think I've acclimated to the humidity. Plus, it hasn't been nearly as humid as that first hot day here in May. We leave for Niagara Falls for P's wedding! on Thursday. We're driving and we have no idea how we'll fit:
2 of mom's boyfriend's rolly-suitcases.
1 of mom's rolly-suticases
3 of mom's they're-not-really-suitcases-because-they-don't-roll suitcases.
5 of Z's required bags.
Egg and my suitcase that may or may not roll.

Wish us luck!
Happy Father's Day!
Today, we're making for Erik: Green Chile Sauce. His favorite food. We'll put it on corn and potatoes and pork chops. I'll also make him chicken salad. He loves that too. Z made him a present at school and I'm going shopping now for what will be some seriously boring but useful gifts.

Thanks again for all the titular fun. Or titillary fun. Or titling fun though I prefer the double-meaning of the first two....

Ala Mode

In the Style of Hightouch, Dr. Write and ErinAlice, I bring a list of the days.

Since the last post, some of us:

• Bought new kitchen cabinets because one house demolition disaster is not enough.
• Edited blog to include new links.
  
• Rode our bicycles around Reed's Lake.
• Played disc golf four out of the last nine days.
• Cleaned out the fridge.
• Went on the swing four-hundred and seventy-two times.
• Wrote some number of words of novel.
• Contemplated getting an MBA.
• Wrote some number of poems.
• Watered the new outdoor plants.
• Read some of the Pynchon.
• Continued with bed-making propensity, flattening sheets, clothes, napkins.
• Went downtown to Local's Only Festival.
• Finished one essay.
• Made plans for crazy week of housesitting and wine-tasting and going-to-fancy-dinner with friends.
• Made rib-eye steaks topped with most delicious habenero and red bell pepper vinaigrette (OK, that was last week but it needed mentioning. Best food I ever made).
• Went downtown to nice restaurant. Like a slightly fancier Red Rock.
• Started the cleaning process for upcoming visit from the mom.
• Stayed up past 9:30 every night.
• Went downtown to arty street.
• Learned how to count.
• Made turkey burgers with green chiles, shitake mushrooms, bacon and pepper jack. Best food I ever made.
• Contemplated giving up on the Pynchon.

And conversation with the Z:
Do you want to swing?
Swing!
Do you want to go on the slide?
Slide!
Do you want to go on the swing again?
More.
OK. That's enough. Let's go in.
No. (In the most pleasant of tones. As in no, I'd rather not.)
Come on, we have to go.
No. (Ditto the pleasantries).
Do you want to go to time out?
Out! (Whereby, she walks to the vestibule which has the front door and also a French door. She opens the French door, walks in, closes the French door and waves.)

She has taken our only ammo and turned it into her own good idea. "I do indeed believe I need a break from you people."

Neighbors

To make up for a Memorial Day faux pas (I bailed on a neighborhood bbq in favor of one at our every-day friend's) Egg and I hosted a dinner party for 7 adults and 7 kids. The 7 kids part was unnerving. As usual, I cooked way too much food that was also perhaps too unusual for a neighborhood-party with kids. I made salmon with raspberry vinaigrette (raspberry jam, white wine vinegar, cumin, salt, pepper, olive oil and a little water), Greek Salad, baba ganoush, hummus (Egg made the Hummus) and this yogurt-cilantro-cardomon-caraway seed concoction that no one liked (I liked it!) And we roasted potatoes on the grill in foil which would have been great, had we not burned the crap out of them.
Our neighbor next door has a great yard for kids and she invited them over to play in her yard--which was OK--but then the party was split in two. The guys over here, drinking beer and the women-folk over there, watching the kids. Later, the guys went over there but I was annoyed at the splitting over the party and the division of labor. But I was happier to be annoyed than if all the kids were running around our small, flowery yard or if they were bored to tears asking to go home. So it really did work out, though the labor had to be divided. I kept running back over here to get appetizers and more wine to take over there and to roll my eyes at the guys. Only Egg had a clue what I was rolling my eyes about. These folks, except my neighbor, have a much more traditional understanding of labor and division than we do which I find difficult to understand. I don't understand how the division develops. At what point did it become clear to them that he would work and she would watch the kids? That she would take the kids to the bathroom? That she would be the one to make sure the hot dogs (I did not force my salmon or weird yogurt on the kids--although I made enough for 27 of them) were eaten? Even were Egg and I to come to that decision, we'd have to argue and pontificate and be stubborn and relent for eight to ten years and by then, Z would already be able to find the bathroom and cook her own hot dogs. That it was assumed that that's how the labor would be divided was fascinating, if also disturbing, to me.
Our next door neighbor is a single mom and she makes more sense to me. One of the kids asked her daughter where her dad was and the daughter said, "I don't have one. It's just me and my mom," in the most confident of manners. Under her breath, my neighbor said, "and if I did have a husband, he'd be inside doing dishes." A dig at the division of labor or a comment on her own cleaning skills, I'm not sure.
And, finally, the woman with three kids asked if we were going to have another baby, which everyone always asks, to which I said, I don't know, one seems so manageable. I hope I didn't imply that they weren't doing a great job managing their kids. They were. I was just commenting that it takes both me and Egg ninety percent of our concentration to manage the Z. More because we prefer Z management to other activities, but still, it is a big job.
All in all, a fun barbecue that left me thinking I could possibly invite near-strangers over again although I felt terrible about the one neighbors we didn't invite who kept looking over from their deck with left-out-itude in their eyes. That sucked and it makes me think it might be too hard to be friends with some neighbors and not others.

hot in the city

Um, it's 84 degrees outside and I think I may be dying of heat exhaustion. Me thinks I've never encountered humidity until this week. To continue the sorrow of the last post, I miss my old house with its old swamp cooler. How cool I was. And how little humidity. Here, we have radiant heat. Radiators. So there's no duct work. So no air conditioning. So I can sit here on my high-horse and save the planet by not using so much energy while I sweat to death. It's a short life-expectancy, up on this high-horse.
In other news, Egg is out of town so it's just Z and me. We went on a bike ride. It was death-defying. Now we're trying to decide what to eat/where to go for dinner. I thought I'd eat a bunch of foods that Egg hates: feta (which I did eat), Pho (but I'm really not quite up to cooking it or seeking out the one Vietnamese restaurant in town) and it turns out, I don't think I actually like chicken drumsticks as much as I thought.
My grill is broken so it's possible we will starve to death even off the high-horse. There's no way I'm roasting chicken legs inside when it's the ridiculous degree of now, 85.