Languages

I used to think I was good at learning languages. I started taking German in the 8th grade. I kept taking it every year until in high school I progressed out of the sequences and they brought in a woman to teach three of us--Pete, Alyssa and me--the 6th year German course. By the end of that year, I thought I knew German pretty well. That year, I went to Germany with my family. From the hotel room, I ordered towels. The housekeeper responded in English. Apparently, either my knowledge or pronunciation could have used a 7th year.
At Reed College, we had to take a third year language course in our English major. I thought, no big deal. I'll test out of that first year.
Not so much. I do think I got an A in first year. And I studied with my boyfriend who grew up with grandparents who spoke German (who is now also strangely living in Arizona. Thanks FB.) and therefore got A's and B's in second year German. Third year German, I read Perfume, The Clown, The Sleepwalkers, and the Magic Mountain--in translation--but read a few pages of each in the original German.
At the U, to graduate, you had to be proficient in one language or competent in two. I took the German test for proficiency. I translated the strangest passage about bees. I have no idea what that had to do with the title of the piece, which was something like "Disorientation in Adorno's Metaphor." Or maybe that wasn't the title at all, for I did not pass that test.
I high-tailed it to Spanish. I could never remember what aufrichten meant in German. I had a hard time with the verbs that cut themselves in the middle and the prefix is tossed to the end of sentences like: Ich richte meine Mutti auf. That could mean I called my mom up, out or bought her a sweater. "Auf," a preposition, can mean at, to, on, or upon. "Auf" can also be an accusative or dative perposition meaning that the articles, die, der or das, changed depending on how auf is used.
Although I may not understand German, I understand German grammar better than English.
Spanish proved easier because I already understood that sometimes verbs are reflexive, like "me gusta" and that adjectives can come after the noun "the cornflower blue." Again, the words didn't stick that well. Egg and I once tried to help a guy move his car. He spoke only Spanish. I kept (in my version of the story, Erik says this, but I really don't know which of us brought out the heavy cannons of translation skill) saying "Parko el caro." I think that means are parrots expensive here.
Now I'm trying to learn Italian. I have a language tape for my iPod. It's 70 minutes long so I listen to one half when I run one day, the second half the next running day. Over and over. There's fancy music in the background. The Italian woman who teaches me is named Philomena. I understand "mi piaci" is "me gusta" in Italian. I get "I would like," is "vorrei" in Italian and "Ich moechte"(the o should have umlauts but Blogger won't let me umlaut. The e suggsts umlaut) in German.
I had to look up how to spell "vorrei" since I only know the sounds of the words from Philomena. I presume, by the time I get to Italy, I will know how to order a towel in Italian. (Vorrei un asciugamano?) I expect that someone will counter with, "You'd like a towel" just to be sure I'm not asking for a wiry ice cream (gelato asciutto). I do think I know how to order a bottle of wine, red(vino rosso) and some bread (del pane), which is, in the end, all I probably need to know.

Green

My friend Steve has a new blog about poetry--gay men and gay critics specifically but also about the poetry world in general. Steve's writing voice is one of my favorites--both smart and sweet. I don't know how to be that vulnerable with words.

In response to Dr. Write's posting about the end of blogs, I do fear for the blog. People post less frequently, it seems. Facebook is OK but it's not as revealing. To me, it's a good way to remember I have friends but not a good way to actually learn anything more than I didn't already know. So, in honor of Dr. Write's Long Live the Blog, I updated my blog colors. Maybe one day, I'll make my own graphic. Maybe one day, I'll choose a more reasonable blog name. I thought Otterhead would be funny but now I can't remember why. When I updated, I accidentally lost all my links so there's new ones and old ones but if somebody wants me to add theirs, I'm happy to.

And in honor of more than you didn't already know I will tell you that I called some people in the department to invite them to dinner tonight--impetuously! Spontaneously! They, in turn, invited us over to their house instead which means I have a) a lot of food and b) might have to impetuously/spontaneously invite different people over tomorrow. I'm working on the making of real live friends. We'll see how it goes.

And, in Zoe news, she would like you to know that we have three flowering croakersez.

And I'm still revising a research proposal and a book proposal and an essay. I think the essay is nearly done, thanks to Steve. One day, I'll write something new. I think it will be about grilled cheese. Stay posted.

Saving Daylight

Good morning ye who are wondering where that hour went, thinking man, that sun is pretty low for 9:15. But ye people know that spring has arrived. Or will shortly and you can look forward to warm evenings when the sun sets at 9 or even 10. When we were in Michigan, right near the solstice, the sun wouldn't set until almost 10:30.
But now we are here. Where the Republicans don't like to switch time. Where there's some thinking that in Phoenix, it will be hot for a shorter amount of the day. I suppose one sleeps through an hour of extra sun?
But up here, it's not so great. First of all, I like daylight savings. I think everyone, everywhere should always wake up later and drive home in the light. In the summer, I like sitting outside until midnight. But when the sun goes down, at least up here, in this desert mountain town, so does the temperature. Therefore, inside we go, tamping out the fires in the fire pit and closing up the blinds at 8:30.
Perhaps I will spend the day writing an ode to Daylight Savings.
I look forward to going home next week where home isn't just a place, it's an altered, and therefore perfect, time zone.

Harper's

Life is listy. That's all there is to it. No matter what happens, I really only have snippets. I think it's like film--everything has its own frame and then we move onto the next. There really is no time for narrative or transition. There's only time for complaining. Sadly, I don't expect my index to be pithy or insightful like Harper's, but at least it's a different kind of list.
So this week, by the numbers:
Number of presentations and readings for graduate student conference: 2.
Number of panels attendended at grad school conference: 2.5.
Number of hours at the grad student reading fest: 3.
Number of classes taught: 3--2 regular, one independent study.
Number of colds Z almost recovered from: 1.
Number of new cold Z seems to have come down with: 1.
Number of times home after 7:00 this week: 4.
Number of preschooler performances: 2.
Cost, in dollars, of echocardiogram in Mountain Town: 3440. (Nothing is wrong--just an expensive test that revealed overall good health. I do not like, however, to be on the side of feeling sorry for an insurance company).
Cost, in dollars of echocardiogram at Harvard: 1400.
Number of needle sticks: 3 (again, more tests to confirm overall good health).
Number of movies working on with Egg: 2 (one about poetry another about our sister school in Italy).
Meetings about said movies: 2 (and one more next week).
Emails sent about said movie to student-poets and fellow professors: 15.
Number of visitors from an MFA program down in the valley, wanting to talk to me about the future: 1 (the future of what? I'm still not entirely clear).
Number of courses I'll be teaching next year: 3-3.
Number of courses I was going to be teaching, until last week: 2-2.
Number of would-be adjuncts bringing me their CV's even though I told them that we're not hiring adjuncts because faculty loads just changed: 3.
Number of emails from Provost threatening to let first year TT faculty go: 1.
Number of phone calls from Chair saying not to worry: 1.
Number of meetings with Chair over area recommitments: 2.
Number of finalists for a certain big prize: 4.
Percentage of those finalists of which I was one: 25.
Number of winners of said award: 0.
Letters written because of lack of awarding of award: 1.
Number of letters written from me & Z to relatives: 5.
Number of summer grants awarded to me: 0.
Number of essays sent out on my behalf from my agent: 1.
Number of hats found: 0.
Number of people who made me happy, commenting about said hat: 21.
Number of poetry contests submitted to: 6.
Number of glasses of wine to survive week: 6 (teen?)
Number of Burn Notices on DVR to watch: 1.
Number of spoilers about Top Chef read about on blogs: 1.
Number of proposals written to agent: 4.
Number of chances to write one more perfect proposal: 1.
Number of proposals I should be writing right now: 1.
Number of naps I think I'll take instead: 1.

Have you seen my hat?

I lost my hat on the second day of AWP. I recommend all of ye bookfair wanderers, panel-goers, anxiety sufferers and ennui-filled writers to lose your hat at AWP. Did I have to search for agents, publishers, magazines, books, professors who forgot me, friends who look at me bewilderingly? Did I have to worry about my talk at the panel? No, I did not. Because I had lost my hat and spent the next 2.5 days looking for it. A little OCD is good for the wandering soul.

Overall, the AWP was great success. I saw nearly everyone I meant to and had at least one drink with each of them meaning I had too many drinks but got to see all the good people. The panel was great even though at 9 in the morning on a Saturday. It was jam-packed with people sitting even in the aisles. The readings I went to were all pretty good and the buzz overall positive. Professors talked to me. No one turned their heads. The magazines and publishers shook my hand.

I always get home expecting something major to happen, but I do that after every trip. I need to focus on the one thing. That is the getting back of the hat. Which is somewhere, lost in Chicago. But I miss it. And maybe it will return to me. It was gray wool with tassles and one yellow and one orange stripe across the top. It was lined with black flannel so the wooly outsides did not make my head itch.

I would like my hat back but if that is impossible, I would like it to please be spring so I have no need for a hat.

Oh Wait,. We're still here.

OK. Welcome to AWP's dumb planning for the 2nd year in a row. Last year, my flight from GR to NYC, which left at 6:00 a.m. and included one snowplow buried Jetta, four frozen doors on the 4 Runner that I couldn't open, a slide into a Lexus SUV and a canceled flight. The flight was canceled not from snowy GR but into snowy Laguardia.

Today, I am in sunny Phoenix, again awaiting a delayed and possibly canceled flight.

F**k AWP and their winterly conferences.

I'm on the verge of canceling all my Chicago plans and hanging out in the Phoenix, which though an evil and unneccsary town, is 80 degrees and full of good food and wine. Just like Chicago without the OHare and the wind. I'll give my panel to the cacti. They'll probably be more interested anyway.

Edited to add I had to write f**k because Sky Harbor has rules. Stark and Draconian and Mormony rules.

Did I mention f**k? I think so. Perhaps I'll go find the Tequilaria. Again.

Snow Afternoon

Erik says my blog is getting list-rutty. It's been a listy semester so far, and I mean that in terms of bullet points and tilt. Today, I chaired my first thesis prospectus meeting. And then I hung out in my office and revised and revised and emailed and emailed students until the news came the campus was closed.

It snows a lot here, when it snows. And then it gets sunny and the snow melts. And then it gets snowy again.

I'm making mushroom soup tonight.

See why I write bullet points? I have nothing particularly coherent to say.

I leave for Chicago on Wednesday, should the snow stop and the planes fly.

Perhaps then I'll have something to say after AWP???

Fun fun fun

I wanted to write a post about how I'm trying to learn to have fun but it's complicated and I don't think I'm very good at it--having fun or writing about fun. It's much easier to write about work. It just takes lists!

Z started full time school this week. Very stressful. Also, the university's budget was cut by 13%. Egg or I may or may not have a job next week. And I have agent troubles. So maybe work is fun. At least it distracts from the anxiety.

Work has included yesterday and today:

• Take Z to first day of all day school.
  
• Meet teachers and find out where to put her lunchbox, blanket, pillow and water bottle.
  
• Worry she'll cry when I leave. Just a nervous glance and then she turned to ask her teacher what to play.
  
• Meeting about budget. 2 hours. Really?
• Talk with Mary Anne about Food Book. (thanks Mary Anne!)
• Make a plan to implement Mary Anne's suggestions.
• Pace a little about book. Ask Egg to read a section.
  
• Make BLT's for me and Egg.
• Read Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (3 hours) and Thomas and Beulah (1 hour) for Independent Study I'm teaching.
• Find criticism to support both books as allegory. A stretch? Possibly.
• Rememorize Pound's Erat Hora as it applies to Convex Mirror
  
• Write chapter synopses for food book.
• Pick Z up from her all day school.
• Much cuddling with Z required.
  
• Leave to meet with Independent Study Grad Students.
• Eat fondue with said students while discussing Self-portrait and backwards falling language, modernism, post-modernism, margins and seams with students.
• Come home, play dogs with Z.
• Watch old The Closer to keep up with Lisa B.
• Change bedsheets because I love new sheets and the news was impossible to watch because apparently we can't watch one channel and record another on our DVR (I thought that was the point of our DVR).
• Read Shouts and Murmurs (mice and wine) and begin Atul Gawande's plan for National Healthcare (New Yorker Jan 26).
• Sleep on clean bedsheets.
• Wake up at 7:45 because Z now has to be to school by 9 which is early for we people. She sleeps until 8:30 usually.
• Take Z to all day school.
• Come home--run through snowy forest.
• Work on Teach-In Day presentation for Thursday.
• Make lunch of smoked turkey leg, sliced fennel, and spring mix.
• Talk to long-lost friend for 1.5 hours. Yay!
• End up late for advising hours in advising center.
• Forget book for teaching. Panic. Call Egg to see if he'll bring me book. He will but....
• Student from upcoming class comes in to advising center.
• Get student to lend me book so I can make copies for class.
• Talk to said student for 1 hour about creative writing versus rhet comp, the 7 points of physical fitness--strength, flexibility (and 5 other points I didn't quite catch), robots, linguistics and epigenetics.
• Talk to student who is late to apply for graduation but I do highly powerful advising by signing off on science credits and dropping her 2nd major and 2 minors.
  
• Talk to new grad student about degree progress and course distribution.
• Get another email about budget. Freak out on phone with Egg.
• Write a prompt for class that starts in 15 minutes.
• Discuss two poems in class. Accidentally give a lesson on semiotics and the gnostic gospels (I do apologize, fine students).
• Get in an heated discussion with one student about why she shouldn't use so many abstractions as love, beauty, loss, hurt, miss, forever in a poem. I may have lost the fight but will win the war. I told her to write a poem against me/my arguments. I presume it will turn out particularly concrete and specific.
• Run Top Chef--this time, whichever group argued best for the poem won.
• Talk with another student about abstractions.
• Help Z peel potatoes for dinner.
• Fry up said potatoes which will underpin Egg's all-day cooked green chile sauce.
• Play puzzle with Z.
• Wonder why I have so few emails today.
• Read books with Z.
• Sing her to sleep.
• Check email again.
• Blog.
  
• Watch, in perfect synchronicity with yesterday, The Closer--though this one is new.

See. Lists. Fun and worky.

Happy New Year

We made wonton soup in celebration of the oncoming Year of the Ox.

Last night, I made roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, gravy. The chicken was undercooked. The mashed potatoes undermashed. I dropped the whole pan of gravy on the floor. Erik mopped while I ate potatoes.

So I had a lot of leftover chicken. I made stock with parsley, celery, onion, carrot and lots of pepper. Then, Zoe and I made wontons stuffed, following recipes from both Cooking Light and the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines) with ground pork, sesame oil, super chopped (perhaps by that I mean minced?) carrots (substituting for water chestnuts. Why don't I have water chestnuts in my cupboard), green onions, and rice wine vinegar. Zoe painted the edges of the wontons. I pressed them together--hoping I actually got most of the edges sealed.

We tossed the wontons in the stock (into which I followed no recipe and added ginger and star anise). I also sauteed some shitakes and cut up some bok choy and added that.

Z tried a wonton, ate a ton of raw bok choy, and sipped the broth.

Super delicious happy New Year making up, somewhat, for last night's gravy disaster.

My new new year's resolve: Make my own stock. That seems like a hard times, more delicious recipe for a happy future.

To the year of the ox.

Top Chef Too Mean?

Maybe it is too mean. My poetry/nonfiction class version goes like this. The students break into small groups with their writing and a ballot that lists the criteria for the writing. They vote in their small group for who the winner is. The winner goes into the ring of fire, also known as the vast expanse in the middle of the room when all the desks and chairs are in a circle. Then, they read. We vote. In the first poetry class, I had them vote by ballot and didn't have time to tabulate the winner. Last night, in nonfiction, I had them vote by raise of hands (making it seem, I hope, a little bit less official). But then when girl yelled out, this is hard and one student only got one vote (his group should have voted for him at least. They as a group seem disengaged).

I like the idea of competition because it makes them, in their small groups, not just be like "I love this. You're so great." And it makes them take the exercises seriously. But maybe the last Top Cheffery bit should go? If I had time, I would have the groups vote and then defend their decision, ala Tom Colicchio. That would be the best student-centered learning option but maybe overly complicated.

To Molly: I don't know about Stefan. I think I like him. I definitely like Fabio and the way that they both add a new edge to the Top Chef. Yes. I'm going to say Stefan rocks. Although he's no Jeffrey. Because blonds can cook! (and he's the best looking of the chefs, in any of the season.

To MaryAnne: No kidding. Isn't a list enough propulsion? I'm about to propel my food book over the cliff.

Cirque du so lame

What is the point of Thursday? Nobody does any blogging or emailing. My students are already worn out. I say, make Thursday the new Friday since it's already as unproductive. Then, Friday can be reserved like Saturday and Sunday for productive fun--like skiing and laundry.

Top Chef Poetry went pretty well. The students had to choose the best poem from their groups and then toss those poor poem-writers into the center of the room where they had to have their poems judged and rated based on the sound, image, turn and line on a scale of 1-5, 5 being best. The only problem came when I tried to tabulate. Too many numbers to add up without a 10-key. So, next time, I'll probably have the groups judge as groups and then defend their judging, more like Top Chef. And then the loser can pack his or her knives and go home! Or, rather, go on to write another day.

Top Chef Nonfiction will be trickier because the criteria can be a little more wobbly but we're going with image recurrence/evolution, narrative propulsion, voice, and place/space rootedness. That's tonight. We'll see how that goes.

Then, Friday can commence after class at 6:00 p.m. Until then, it's a workday. I expect to see you on Facebook or blogging or emailing me.

Happy Inauguration Day

It has been a long, long, long eight years.

It will take a lot to repair all the damage. I have enough hope to think maybe there will be enough good well and good energy to turn the tide. But having that much hope makes me nervous.

There's amazing images on the TV. One of someone holding a picture of Lincoln next to a picture of Obama, the millions of people with tiny flags, a very strong looking Jimmy Carter, an oddly hobbled George HW Bush, Bob Bennett (that guy is huge) towering about George W.

They're already 15 minutes behind, the announcers keep announcing. Which reminds me that I can't watch all day. I have to go in to the office so I'm off to take a shower. But I will be streaming all day at the office. And the Dean has it on in his office, he promises.

It seems like a different world today. I know it's not but it seems like it, for a minute.

January

January is trying to kill me. It's making me post blogs in pure list fashion just because my mind can't wrap itself around the greater meaning of why January would have it out for me. I like January. It's my sisters' birthday. The days start getting longer. There's fun snow times. But still. It has it out for me.
Thus far, I got a really bad cold on the day after the drive home from Mountain City. Then Z got it last weekend. As she's getting it and I get worried that it's bad enough to require outside intervention instead of just the 3 hours of nebulizing a day, I find that the letter I sent to Blue Cross Blue Shield telling them we indeed have continuous coverage and that we should not be subject to a waiting period was filed but not acted upon. Apparently, I needed another letter from my old University telling them the exact same thing (which no one told me I needed. I just sent them a copy of my insurance card since that's all this HR dept. told me was required). Happily, my old university was amenable to faxing BXBS the letter and now all is well and Z's cold is moving out of her lungs and out into some other poor child's.

But the viruses don't end there. I'm typing this on Egg's computer. My computer has the worst virus I've ever heard of or seen. When I go to Google something, the search results appear but when I click on them, I'm redirected to a shopping site of some sort. It's not always the same one--sometimes it's "yellow pages," sometimes "ad direct." When the IT guy tried to fix it, the computer wouldn't let it access Ad-aware or lavasoft at all. I tried to download Microsoft's malicious adware/spyware tool and it said "that page doesn't exist." It's very creepy and now they over at IT are reimaging my computer. I'm supposed to be finishing the last 60 pages of the nonfiction book but I'm not. Plus, other writing problems on which I cannot blame the computer unless someone the virus is keeping all the good news stored in some un-openable folder. But the bad news comes through just fine.
Perhaps the computer will be better by tomorrow? Just saying that sounds jinxy.

Also. I think I now get migraines. Last night, I could only move if I put both hands on my temples and pressed really hard.

Also. The snow. It snowed like a million feet right before we left and while we were gone. But it's been 50 degrees here every day in the sun. So I tried to go running in the woods behind my house. The people who walk there every day had not been doing their job, evenly tamping down a trail for me. Instead, there were some deep sinks made from what looked someone fence-poling and then a few smaller foot holes. It was like trying to run on lava rocks. Cleo and I kept sinking and then finding an icy cover and then sinking again. So now we have to run on the road which I do not like nearly as much.

Also. School started but that's OK. Except for that my classes are overfull because I'm a weak, weak person, I'm excited to teach Intro classes. We're doing a reality TV/Top Chef/Survivor contest thing so the first weeks are fun and not just whole-class workshop after workshop or peer group after peer group workshop.

Plus, the economy still sucks and I'm always nervous about my and Erik's jobs.

Still, except for the writing bad news and the headaches, none of this is really getting me down. We're invited to Obamatini's tomorrow night, are going to Phoenix on Saturday to see A & M (and to make a test run to see if it's feasible to go see Dr. Write if she comes down) and a new computer so chock full of anti-virus software (it already had some, but obviously, I need the Fort Knox equivalent of security) that it'll take fourteen "yeses" just to get to anyone's blog. The second half of January begins today. Perhaps January can call off the hit and we can try to be friends.

Winter Break--A Food Retrsopective

Some of this will be redundant because the people with whom I dined and cooked already blogged about it. The best part was how much we cooked at home and how many of us cooked together.
Thanks to food, the break is memorable. Everything else is sort of a hazy mess of sickness and conflictedness.

In reverse order though, I did eat well enough to sustain me through Mountain Town's semi-bleak cuisine. Highlighting the best parts:

The Sunday before we left, mom and Little Hands indulged me by going with me to the Hong Kong Tea House. As an added bonus, the kids came too. Watching Lil and Z eat rice with chopsticks and Cam and Lil try the sticky buns and Cam actually liking potstickers was the sweetest part. Well that and I got to order pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, homemade meatballs, homemade dumplings, potstickers, spare ribs, beef wanoki roll, shrimp noodle roll, curry roll in rice noodles, and the half-hour special--fried rice. I think there may have been more food ordered but the blood that rushed to my stomach trying to digest all that food stroked out part of my brain.

Sunday night: Halibut with dill butter. Halibut had a worm. Not a highpoint, but a highlight nonetheless.

Saturday....bleak except for brunch at Red Rock where I ordered a cholesterol sky-rocketer: eggs in a nest with hollandaise instead of red sauce. And yes, I'd like the bacon too.
Cheese at the Paris. Should have made a reservation for dinner.

Friday: Flew down to the New Yorker in the snow. Shared a rib-eye with bernaise will Little Hands. KJ had delicious carpaccio. H-ster ordered the best--some sort of chopped salad special.

Thursday: Delicious spaghetti and meatballs at Little Hands'.

Wednesday: The Pub with KJ, Doug and Egg. Southwest Chicken Salad. Mediocre. More queso fresco please.

Wednesday lunch: ACME burger with HighTouch and Dr. Write. Delicious shoe-string fries and even better conversation about movies, books and academics.

Tuesday day: Skiing lunch. Best pizza in Utah at Goldminer's or was I just hungry from torturing my calves?

Tuesday night: Delicious dinner with Scorpion's Tail (maybe she'll blog again if I link her) and Dr. Write at Cafe Madrid: Red peppers stuffed with white fish, sardines on toast points, manchego, prosciutto, and two other meats whose names I can't remember, a sausage, bacon wrapped shrimp, mussels. All in all, pretty good but overpriced and some problem with paying by threes. Rude.

Monday: Tomato soup and baked potatoes? I think so...

Sunday: Iron Chef Citrus--(mom's choice of "secret ingredient") You can get another angle at KJ's but overall, much more successful than Iron Chef mushroom. Citrus is versatile. Half the recipes I looked at had citrus anyway. KJ made a great halibut ceviche with lime and coconut milk and jicama. The chicken wings were spicy and fruity. Little Hand's roasted red-pepper with tangerine cream was possibly the best soup I'd ever tasted (should have made mushroom soup last time instead of risotto!). Her scallops were perfectly cooked and paired well with the lemon capellini. The caviar was just a huge bonus and El said now she can say she tried it, even if she didn't like it.
The shrimp I marinated for just a half an hour in lemon juice, salt and pepper then grilled and topped with a mango, lime and radish salsa. Sectioning the limes was the biggest pain. Then I made duck breasts marinated in orange, soy, orange zest, white wine vinegar. I also threw the marinade on top of some salmon and the leftover halibut that KJ brought for the fishotarians who don't eat duck. I cooked the duck skin side down in a large pan for a little longer than they said, took them out and let them rest and then reduced the marinade. Braised chicory formed the base and then I cheated by making lemon mashed potatoes.
Overall, a much more balanced and exciting meal--partly again because of the company and partly because citrus is just a note, not the primary ingredient and partly because that's a lot of food and it's easier to eat a lot in the winter.

Saturday night: Dinner at the cousin's with funeral potatoes and ham. Thankfully, mom brought sausage and cream cheese stuffed mushrooms and a turkey.

Friday night: Lugano's with my mom and sisters? Things are getting fuzzy. Either way, everyone ordered badly except Little Hands. Mom and I both ordered prosciutto pizza. KJ ordered clam linguini. Little Hands ordered something so good that I can't remember. It involved pappardelle and cream. And maybe prosciutto.

Thursday: Merry Christmas Meat-By-Val--ham, turkey breast, prime rib, sausage and cream cheese stuffed mushrooms. She made the best prime rib yet!

Wednesday: Christmas Eve. Tomato soup with dill. Cold roast beef.

Tuesday: Dinner at Marshall and Joy's (Egg's sister and boyfriend). They made Tom Kha Gai and spring rolls with peanut sauce and the most delicious skewered mushrooms I'd ever had.

Monday: I roasted a chicken at Val's. Mashed potatoes involved again? I'm sense a them.

Sunday: Erik and I went to Trio after I was mostly cured. A delicious pizza made better with a side of mashed potatoes.

Saturday: Rick's big party. El made nacho cheese green chile soup. I made clam chowder.

Friday: I was sick but I still made halibut and salmon and possibly the best hollandaise I've ever had. Fortunately, no one got what I had.

Thursday: Little Hands made something delicious. Mom was there. Edited to add: She remembered! Tacos. This after we realized that Erik is the Johnny Appleseed of beer caps, leaving beer caps everywhere he goes. Val found three in her ski boot. She thinks perhaps he's hoping for beer trees, she texted. Thank god for texting.

Wednesday: We arrive to a bounty of homemade enchiladas.

Surprisingly, I didn't got to Settebello, Martine, the Paris for dinner, Mazza, or the Metropolitan. I suffer I know. Being sick those first 4 days really cut into my organizational abilities and my food plans. I see already I didn't eat with my mom nearly enough and that mashed potatoes may have figured too prominently in my diet.

Bird Count

On the longish drive down from Mountain City to Mountain Town I saw:
Five redtail hawks with their winter-white stomachs.
Two wild turkeys drinking out of a puddle on the side of the road.
One golden eagle the size of my car.
Two turkey vultures smartly following the golden eagle.
Five bald eagles sitting strangely on top of a juniper-looking tree.

And, in non-bird sightings:
One deer leaping right across the road in front of the car in front of us but safely making it to his friends on the other side of the road.

2009 Wishes and Fishes

First the no's.

• No trip to the hospital (only one in 2008 and that was for a non-related .
• No complaining about coming and/or going (for instance, no complaining too much about going back home).
• Say no to a (every?) student at least once.
• Say no to a service request once.
• No moving.
• No freaking out about pubs (Ha. Ha.)
• No freaking out about plans changing, especially in regards to food (I get stuck on an idea about what we're having or going for dinner. Also ha.)

Second the yes's in the form of to-do's

• Go to Italy for June.
• Drive to Phoenix (the 3rd circle of hell Edited to add: I should also refrain from calling it the 3rd circle of hell until I know it better. Even hell deserves a proper vetting.) for something besides the airport.
• Go to Sedona visiting and wine tasting with Sam.
• Make one new friend.
• Make wonton soup (hankering since I watched Kung Fu Panda. Didn't get to go to Little World this trip.
• Be ambitious about next writing project.
• Play lion/witch with Z once a day.
• Walk/run every day.
• Send missives to Obama (not just letters of love and adoration).
• Ski with Egg at least one more time.
• Read at least one book a month unrelated to teaching/research.
• I would say be more mellow but then Egg would read this and say you vowed to be more mellow this year, which would make me respond in less than mellow ways.

Happy Holidays

Today I sent out email Christmas cards (which is about as good as it gets for me any more). Now I have to wrap and cook roast beef, tomato soup and mac and cheese (hard mac, as my nephew calls it.)

I'm having a bit of spell of holiday cheer. I love the Christmas email because people email right back to say hello. It's very sweet and reminds me of my good friends and family.

Christmas Eve begins at 5:00. That gives me 2.5 hours. Have a great Christmas if that's the way you roll, as Erik would say. Who picked it up from one of the many times he watched Alvin and the Chipmunks. Because it's a long drive from mountain town to mountain city, but well worth it.

On being sick

Sometimes, I prefer the sick version of me. For the four days I was sick, I learned how to be a better guest--not always getting in the way, worrying about compensating my hosts every twelve minutes by offering to cook or clean or empty the dishwasher. I let Erik's parents, just wake up with Z and play whatever she wanted without saying, Zo, Grandma and Grandpa can't play nonstop. I finally realize they only do this a couple weeks a year. They can get up early. I finally let my mom make me three kinds of toast and tea and find movies for us to watch all day Sunday. I let Val cook tacos without helping or even doing the dishes. I let Erik shop for gifts without worrying if I was doing my fair share. Erik cleaned and shoveled and I just laid in the bed and listened. I think I found an off switch. I kept seeing it in my head. It's electric blue and if I focus on it enough, my brain truly does not speed at a thousand miles an hour.

But being sick also irritates me. I missed a big deal party with for one of my friend's kids. We're trying to repair our friendship and this set us back. I missed a neighborhood party at my friend Sylv's. I missed going downtown every night and I love going downtown when I'm here. I'm also annoyed by realizing how frantic I get in trying to make everyone even--seeing everyone exactly the right number of times. I drive myself nuts and then end up in a crabby mood because I'm always fretting. I don't like being a fretter and I think that's part of the reason I was sick for so long. Also, I was not eating enough yogurt.

It is snowing like crazy up here in the Cove. Perhaps we'll ski tomorrow. Or sled.

I'm actually getting excited for Christmas. Perhaps I should finish shopping? Tomorrow. Today, I have to make up for all the writing I didn't do although I do think I
Plus I have a list of other things due by the end of break.

• 1st year review (I know. I've been there 3 months. They review yearly.)
• AWP talk.
• National teach-in day presentation.
• Syllabus 1.
• Syllabus 2 (speaking of which, I'm still getting emails for people asking me to let them into my class. I'm already over by 4 in each! Stop. It's Christmas week!)
• Holiday cards? New Year's Emails? Some sort of missive into the nonblogging universe saying hello.
  

My hope for everyone? May no one be sick for the rest of the week. Maybe even the rest of the year.

We did make it

We're here. It's snowing here too. Apparently, it's winter.
We're at Erik's mom's house where the snow hits hard. I have a stomach ache but think I'm on the mend.
Rick's sister and her daughters and her two dogs are staying here. Erik's sister and her dog is here. We're hunkering down, making halibut and salmon even though Rick's sister and her daughters don't eat fish. I'll make hollandaise and try to convince them that everything is edible with hollandaise on it.
Update when stomach is fully returned to its steely self.
Happy weather!

Will We Get Out of Here?

It is forecast to snow thirty-one inches by five p.m. tonight. I don't think we'll get that but Erik has shoveled for an hour and a half today after an hour's worth last night at nine. Cleo looks like a little skunk out there. I'm taking her running because if at all possible, we're heading north in the morning--come rain or shine or snow or sleet. We'll be like postmen.

For HighTouch I've included a picture, thanks to Egg who reduced it to a reasonable size. I need Photoshop.