A Quiet Day

It began when my husband, himself not a coffee drinker, woke me with the scent of my favorite hot brew. This has been our weekend routine for some time now, ever since he learned to use my French press. He wakes, grinds the beans, measures out the water and the coarsely-ground, fragrant roast, presses, pours, and lets the oversized, steaming mug coax me from sleep. We sit in bed, talking of nothing in particular, while I lay against the pillows and sip and sip and sip.

A short time later, I made breakfast: slow-cooked oatmeal on the stove, garnished with Honeycrip apples and a bit of cinnamon. I stirred the milk as it steamed, scalding it to a pale and golden white, its warmth and scent a perfect complement to the slow, fall morning.

The day pressed on. The kids played; they built a tent out of blankets and the dining room table, and they took the kitty inside with them. We watched football. Kurt and the kids made popcorn. During the Penn State game, my son crawled up on the couch next to me and propped his cheek against my arm. It wasn’t long before I felt his head relax against me, nod just slightly forward. I lifted him into my lap. He shifted, and sighed, and smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, much the way infants do once they’ve fallen, sleepily, from the breast. Across the room, I could hear my daughter quietly talking, and talking, and talking to her Daddy.

For dinner, I made the best meatloaf of my life. A few weeks ago, I attempted tomato preserves; while the taste was perfection, the preserves didn’t set. I used some as a glaze on grilled pork, and tonight I used a jar to make meatloaf. Culinary goodness.



All I can say, today, is that sometimes beauty is simple and implicit.

"Things of Beauty May Be Then in Season"

I began today with an attitude of discovery, looking “up and out,” just as I had hoped. It was something of a joy to notice the spray of burgundy leaves crowning the line of trees I pass every day, to glimpse the surprising strip of vivid green framing the drying cornfields and the shock of golden chrysanthemums on display outside the fruit market, a contrast to the crates of fresh honeycrisps. Quiet, iconic October.

And then . . .

Acid-washed jeans with tapered legs. Members Only-style jackets. Neon, color block hi-tops. An abundance of safety pins worn as accessories. Pleated pants with a long rise. Footless, lace-trimmed leggings. Oversize, neon, plastic sunglasses. Canvas, checker-board print, slip-on shoes. And a Whitney Houston-“I Wanna Dance With Somebody”-style perm.

More ugly, of a different kind: the creepy, scowling, leering guy on the bus who looked like an understudy for Argus Filch. The person sitting behind me on the bus whose breath I could smell with each exhalation. Whatever it was that someone dumped into the ‘bubbler' drain ('bubbler,' by the way, is ‘Sconnie for ‘water fountain.’). Just . . . ew. Then, on the way home, it rained mud.

So on day one of purposefully seeking and noting beauty, I was surrounded by a whole lotta ugly.

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season."
~Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Gardens," 1625

At least I can be sure of this: October has a wicked sense of irony, and that is a beautiful thing.

An experiment

Bear with me for a moment, folks: I've grown bored with myself.

Bored with my writing, which has grown ever more academic and dense. Bored with my thinking, which feels hopelessly unremarkable. Bored with my scholarship, even as it is becoming more relevant and interesting. Boo-frickin'-hoo, right? But here's the thing: nothing worth reading has ever, I assume, come from a bore: "that which is written without labor is read without pleasure," as Johnson wrote, and labor may be a lot of things, but it is never boring.

So this morning I had a thought. I scribbled a couple lines of verse

September's final kiss--
light frost at morning's light,
the delicious scent of autumn's breath
brings promise and renewal.

(go easy on me . . . it was just a few lines of scribbled verse while I was waiting for my coffee to brew. Anyway . . . )

Autumn, for me, is the very essence of beauty and renewal, and here we are on the cusp of October. In honor of October, then, and in an attempt to shake this ridiculous self-indulgent boredom, I have decided to carry out a little experiment: once a day, for the next 31 days, I will post something that has struck me as beautiful, beauty being as good a criteria as any, I suppose.

In doing so, I want to remind myself to "look up and out"--up beyond my immediate frame of reference, out beyond the end of my own nose. In posting every day, I hope to establish a bit of a rhythm, a bit of discipline in my non-academic writing, a scheduled 'break' from the academese that will, in turn, improve my other writing efforts. I also hope that, maybe, those of you who read my musings here will enjoy the fruits of my little experiment . . . and by the end I might have created an interesting little October essay. So, I guess we'll see.

"Unconditional Love"

After all that seriousness, a little hockey levity.

This is what happens when a Pennsylvania Girl Marries a Michigan boy.

This is my mother-in-law, Suzanne, my father-in-law, Bob, and my kids, Anya and Gideon, ready for Game 5.

Cheers!

Cross-Checking: A Lesson in Semantics

In hockey, it's a penalty.

In engraving, it's a necessity.

Case in point: today's Wall Street Journal piece, "The Stanley Cup Could Use an Editor" by Reed Albergotti investigates the fascinating and, as blogger Puck Daddy (Greg Wyshynski) put it, "unintentionally hilarious" errors that have been engraved into the Cup over the last 117 years. Frankly, I'm really impressed that they continue to stamp the thing by hand; now that's craftsmanship.

Still, some of the errors--but especially the, uh, shorthand notations--that appear on the Cup are worth perusing, whether you are a hockey fan or not. One that had me laughing like a ten-year-old boy: the entry for the 1944-1945 champions, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Allow me to draw your attention to poor F.J. Selke (line four) and Arc Campbell (line six):


Ah, semantics. It is amazing the difference context makes.

There's a Bat in My Potty

That's not a clever euphemism.

My husband came upstairs today and warned, "Don't run downstairs to use the bathroom any time soon. Someone has taken residence there. In the toilet, actually."

My first guess was a snake. Nope.

A bat.
A fat bat.
A fat bat clinging to the inside wall of the toilet, just at the water's edge.

So, uh . . . right. This is an ongoing theme; the potty is just a new twist. I'll explain, but first, a little bat--, er, backstory, presented in a series of posts. The first three installments are posted below; more to come.

Bear with me: I'll get there.

About a Bat, Episode I

We bought our house shortly after my son was born; in fact, he was this tiny, one-month-old package that everyone enjoyed passing around during the closing, his ‘big sister’ keeping her protective, two-year old eye on him at all times. The house we were buying was the original home built in our town, the oldest part having been constructed in the late 1860s. Multiple additions later, it had taken on a somewhat quirky, very charming architectural ethos—an open and bright floor plan with something of a bygone feel. It was simple, with a lot of possibility: a project, but not an overwhelming one. Just about right for our little family.

It also had a great history: it had been owned by the same family since the ‘40s, and several generations had grown up in the house. Though sentimental, I liked the idea that happy family memories had been made there—I’m also quite confident that the previous owners’ children, as executors of the property on behalf of their late father, were pleased that they were selling to a young family: the promise of a new era of memories clearly delighted them.

Their father was a strong Wisconsin farmer, and he kept this house as his ‘house in town’ and, later, his retirement property; his farm, a considerably larger property, was just north of Madison. We learned that he was beloved in the community and that he always had impressive gardens in the expansive backyard—expansive, considering the house is smack in the middle of town, just a block off Main Street. When we entered our house for the first time—as its owners—their family had left for ours a note and a picture of their Dad, the farmer. It was a simple and kind gesture, the handing-off of the baton, that really captures the character of our home. But I digress . . .

As we were unpacking, my husband, Kurt, came up from the basement and announced, with some excitement, that he had been surprised by a bat. He reasoned that the house had been empty for two years, so it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to find a bat in the basement. I was not, however, cheered. So after digging through a few boxes and outfitting himself in heavy gloves, his Carhartt jacket, and a baseball cap—and armed with two large fishing nets—the mighty humane hunter headed downstairs. After much searching, he never again saw that bat and concluded that it must have left the way it came in. After all, there was no evidence that the little guy had taken up permanent residence (and by that I mean there was no guano that we could see). Fair enough.

About a Bat, Episode II

Later that summer, once we were all moved in and reasonably settled, Kurt and I were enjoying the quiet late August evening. The kids were tucked in, sweetly snoozing their new rooms. The baby monitor was quiet save for the occasional, soft sigh. We were enjoying a rare ‘date,’ the kind that parents of young children often have: a shared bottle of wine and a few hours of quiet conversation. Simple. It was a nice evening, but as the sun began to set, we noticed a lot of activity in the sky. Bats . . . and in no small number.

Now, just east of our house—across the back alley and on the neighboring block—the spire of a beautiful old Catholic church, built about the same time as our house, reaches high above the roofline, so we thought perhaps—in this idyllic little house, in an idyllic little town, on an idyllic little summer night—that this impressive population of bats had taken up residence in that idyllic church belfry. But then Kurt heard it: a sound that I could not hear, but that he described as squeaking and chatter. He looked up, then slowly nudged me. There, in the oldest part of the house, where the steep pitch of the roof met the old chimney, a bat squeezed out of a small gap. It seemed to have materialized from the stone itself; the gap was so small, nearly indiscernible. Soon, another. Then another. Hesitantly, we walked over to the chimney, eyes fixed. Methodically, like the deployment of military aircraft, bat after bat squeezed out of the opening, dropped down, and made a long, graceful sweep above our heads, into the sky. They were dancing over our yard, the low trees, our neighbor’s sheds, dipping and maneuvering their way through the evening air. We focused on the chimney. Another. Then another. It was like an idyllic little clown car. Eighty-seven. Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine . . .

My husband and I just looked at each other, and continued to count.

About a Bat, Episode III

That Fall, after we were sure all the bats had left their nest, I steadied the bottom of a very tall ladder as Kurt climbed up and examined the nearly imperceptible gap, filling any potential gaps in the stone with expanding foam. We had spent quite a bit of time researching bats since that evening in August, and while we certainly didn’t mind having a few good bats around, patrolling the evening sky, we weren’t too keen on having them share our indoor living space. See, we couldn’t tell whether the bats had come from the old chimney alone—there were just so many of them—or if they had taken up residence in the old attic, which was no longer in use. So up the ladder went Kurt, battling mild acrophobia, can of expanding foam at the ready.

By this point I had made my imagination crawl with absurd but nonetheless unsettling scenarios of bats flying about the kids’ rooms, hanging from the crib rails, becoming tangled in my daughter’s hair as she slept, getting mixed up in the baskets of stuffed animals. I made myself sick with the thought of guano contaminating onesies and baby blankets. So Kurt, having completed his outdoor assessment, shimmied through the teeny access panel in the ceiling of our son’s closet—and I have to pause here, because the image of a 6’2” man shimmying through a two square foot opening in the ceiling certainly deserves pause—in order to examine the old attic, armed with his can of expanding foam. Problem solved.

Salt, Bread, and Silver

Happy New Year!

As per my family’s tradition, I sent my husband out in the sub-zero temperatures just after midnight to retrieve the “New Year’s Bucket,” a container holding salt, silver, and bread, which I set out on the back stoop on New Year’s Eve.

Did I mention that my husband is a good sport?

The “New Year’s Bucket” is a tradition that, according to family lore, my Great-great Grandmother, Hannah Phillips, brought with her when she emigrated from Wales ca. 1881. According to custom, the members of the household collect salt, silver, and bread in a bucket and place it outside on New Year’s Eve; at the stroke of midnight, or shortly thereafter, the ‘head-of-house’ brings in the bucket. The coins are gathered and donated to charity; the salt and bread is spread on the ground—salt to the earth, bread to her wildlife. The whole process is about giving—showing appreciation for community, respect for nature, and reciprocity with the earth.

Of course, it is also suggested that the reward for this first act of the New Year is the blessing of a plentiful and prosperous year: that the family will always have enough yet will be free from avarice and that they will enjoy good health, plentiful crops, and great joy.

I have celebrated nearly every New Year with this tradition. This year, I didn’t have a satisfactory bucket, so we placed the salt, silver, and coin in a wooden bowl made by my grandfather—a gifted woodcrafter—from Pennsylvania cherry grown and harvested on our family’s land. It seemed an appropriate vessel for a tradition borne of the same family who tended the tree and crafted the bowl, and it made ‘home’ feel a little closer to home. When I spoke with my Grandmother this morning and told her about carrying on the tradition in this way, she was clearly pleased.

I’d say that’s a pretty good way to start the New Year.

Here’s wishing you plenty of salt, bread, and silver of your own in the coming year!

Brilliant!

Fellow happy coffee lovers: you must check out Christoph Niemann's "Coffee" from Abstract City, his NYTimes blog.

Thanks a latte, Lucy!

(ugh . . . too much? yeah. probably. I'll go now.)

The Transformative Power of Coffee

Came across this brief piece by Kate Porterfield for Cookie Magazine this morning and just had to share:

I'm not proud that my 13-month-old has already learned, when she first wakes up, to wait--very quietly--for me to have my coffee before she starts angling for a bottle. Or that there have been times, watching the coffee drip through the filter, that I've caught myself whispering plaintively, "Okay, almost there . . . . Come to Mama." This isn't just about "jump-starting" my day. Sure, coffee wakes me up, but so does hearing my 5-year-old shouting, "Skittles fit in my nose!" It's what coffee does to my mood, the way it alters--I mean really changes--what I believe about my life, my loved ones, myself. That vague, haunting feeling that I've done something terribly wrong with my life begins to dissolve with each sip. And in its place emerges my love for my kids; for the idea of a jam-packed day stretching out in front of me; hell, even for myself. And that's just the first cup.

Yes, Ms. Porterfield. I hear ya'. And I lift my over-sized, steaming mug to you.

Belated gratitude

To Bradley for nominating my little ol’ blog for a 2008 “Brilliante Weblog” award.

(though after raising his dander with my most recent post, perhaps he has reconsidered?)

Anyway, it is shameful that it has taken me so long to post this and convey my sincere thanks . . . not just for the kudos but for his continued readership and thoughtful contributions.

Bradley, right back at’cha. And thanks.

I plan to pass the award along soon, so stay tuned.

My Scholarship

I just 'wordled' some of my work, related to my dissertation, and this is what I came up with:

>

Image courtesy of wordle.net

Yup, that pretty much covers it. Cool.

Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR)

Okay, so . . . the 3rd grade science geek in me is all kinds of excited about this clip from SPACE.com:

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080627-earth-sounds

I've been a big fan of the aurora since the first time I saw it
over Lake Superior . . . .

Okay. Okay. My fascination with the aurora maybe began earlier when I learned about it via Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem's "Can You Picture That?" lyrics,

Lost my heart in Texas
Northern lights affect us
I keep it underneath my hat
Aurora Borealis
shinin' down to Dallas!
Can you picture that?
Can you picture that?

Yeah, well . . . learning comes from unusual places sometimes. Anywho . . .

These 'Earth sounds?' Seriously cool.

And while I'm on this hockey kick . . .

Here's my little guy,

a boy conflicted.


Well, at least maybe he'll grow learning how to appreciate and negotiate diverse and conflicting perspectives . . .

or he'll keep a good counselor in business.

Cheers!

Q: What’s Black and Gold and Red All Over?

A: The Stanley Cup finals.

I think my head is going to explode.

When the Pens put it away Sunday afternoon, I was elated . . . and I immediately issued a snarky-yet-good-humored taunt to my cousin and a good friend who are both Flyers fans-—-and who had both been giving me a hard time the whole series. I have also had a slightly altered version of George Clinton in my head since Sunday, singing

“We want the cup! Gotta have that cup!
~YAOW~
We need the cup! Gotta have that cup!”

It’s been a LONG time. It’s been a LONG, UGLY 16 years for the Pens. I started college in Downtown Pittsburgh immediately after their back-to-back Stanley Cup victories in the early ‘90s. These were the days of Jaromir Jagr, Mario Lemieux (generation I), Tom Barrasso (I LOVED Barrasso!), Ron Francis, Phil Bourque, Paul Coffey . . . so many rockin’ ice men. Duquesne University, my school, was literally just a couple of blocks from the Civic Arena, and if you presented your student ID 30 minutes before game time, you could buy whatever seats they had left for, like, $11. Of course, I started college in ‘93, and we were always hoping for a repeat of their championship seasons . . . but the games were always exciting nonetheless, and the atmosphere was unparalleled.

I was in grad school in Michigan by the time Lemieux (generation II) shook off retirement and returned to the ice, and everybody hoped the mighty Pens would be reborn-—-came close, but during the playoffs they lost in quadruple overtime to . . . the Flyers (are you beginning to understand why I’m so dang excited . . . and why I couldn’t resist the aforementioned taunt?). Since then, with the escalating threats that the Pens would leave Pittsburgh, etc., etc., it’s been tough to get behind the team.

But now, with Lemieux (generation III) still at the helm (thank goodness!), new ice in the works, and the security of the team’s permanence in da ‘Burgh, I am so ready for the ultimate victory.

BUT

In the middle of all the Penguin strife, and during Lemieux II, I was (as I noted) in Michigan. It was there that my appreciation for the game itself deepened, in part because hockey is a part of the culture there, in part because I was able to watch the Canadian coverage of the games (which is far, far superior to the U.S.’) and in part because we had an awesome college team to follow: the NMU Wildcats. It was also there that I met—and I am sure this is a contributing factor, too--- my Michigan family and the two biggest Wings fans I’d ever encountered-—-the ladies who would become my sister-in-law and mother-in-law. And during the Wings’ 2002 Stanley Cup series victory, I sat at my soon-to-be in-laws’ house, watching the Wings and putting together wedding favors. Sentimental? Yepper. But I’ve been a fan of the Wings ever since—certainly not in the same category as my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, but a fan just the same. Last night’s victory pretty much sent me over the moon.

So here we are, the PENS against the WINGS for the Stanley Cup. I had prepared myself for the possibility that one day the Steelers might meet the Packers in the Super Bowl, but for some reason I’d never really mentally prepared for this NHL scenario. Even as I watched the Eastern and Western finals, knowing in my gut what the outcome would be (despite Dallas’ hometown officiating), I just hadn’t prepared. Come Saturday, I’ll be cheering for every goal, every assist, every save . . .

. . . and don’t even get me started on the power plays-—-will I root for a short-handed goal or be screaming for this-one-or-that to take advantage of the situation? Man, folks are gonna think I’ve lost it. But at least it should be an amazing series. Here’s hopin’ for a Game 7!

GO PENS! / GO WINGS!
GO WINGS! / GO PENS!

Yup. Folks will definitely think I’ve finally lost it. Lord Stanley have mercy.

"That was neat, wasn't it?"

We bought a new laptop a few weeks back, so I have been slowly replacing and/or updating our software. The new machine runs Vista, so not everything is compatible. Case in point: my scanner, which is old but in perfect shape, is now obsolete. Most of our hardware and software have patches and driver updates available, but when I clicked on the 'Vista' button in search of a driver for the scanner, no dice. Instead of a download, I got a nice little note that said something like "regrettably we we no longer offer service updates for your device. Please consider buying a new product." B00.

[Insert sad commentary here.]

Today, the tech world gave me another little, mildly amusing, slap with its kid glove or, rather, a blast of canned air to the face: see, I prefer Corel WordPerfect over MS Word because, well, I just do. We can talk about it another time. Anywho, in the interim between the purchase of the new computer and the arrival of my new WordPerfect software (which still requires a Vista service pack to run), I downloaded the free trial version so I wouldn't be SOL when working on any of my going-projects-of-the-moment (i.e. fellowship apps, the dissertation 'package,' LORs, poems, E201 Undergraduate Writing and Research Exhibition, conference papers/proposals, etc.). Well, the trial period expired, and instead of a dry notice and the expected information about converting to the full version, I got this:

"That was neat, wasn't it?"

Who wrote that?! Nelson Muntz?! Even now, I can hear his trademark "Heh!Heh!" Still, I gotta admire their approach and pluck, glove/canned-air-to-the-face or no.

The Simplest of Pleasures

You know, I’m not much for summer weather: after all, I moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula nine years ago—and to Wisconsin four years ago—on purpose. I’m also probably the most intense ornithophobe you’d ever care to meet. Yet, I cleaned and hung my hummingbird feeder today, and seeing it—this Symbol-of-Summer and Beacon-of-Birds—suspended just outside my kitchen window brings me such silly, uncomplicated, quiet happiness. Paradox or no, everyone should feel this nice every once in a while.

So here’s wishing you a little moment of your own, even—or perhaps especially—if it doesn’t make any sense at all. Cheers!

Congratulations, Amy!

Congratulations Amy!

My cousin recently passed her driver’s test and is now fully licensed. In honor of her success, I offer the following:

Amy, now that you’re licenced to motor, I have a few of my favorite, hard-learned (yes, sadly, all from experience) tips for you. In no particular order (ahem) . . .

1. It’s not usually a good idea to pass tanker trucks . . .
. . . on a two-lane country road
. . . in a no-passing zone
. . . on a curve
. . . when your dad told you not to take your car to school.

2. Those giant concrete planters that you often see in cities, larger towns, on campuses, etc.? Yeah, they tip over and break when you back into them hard enough.

3. If you happen to back over your boyfriend’s aunt’s mailbox, it’s generally a good idea to pull the car off the road, turn off the ignition, and close the door before carrying the broken mailbox, post, and tread-marked mail up the driveway.

4. Always—and this is important—open the garage door before backing out of the garage.

5. When taking a long road-trip with friends, letting your cat ride on the dashboard is . . . complicated (right, Lucy?).

6. When you get pulled over, remember to pull off to the right (not across traffic to the left).

7. Doing 75 in a 25 is rarely a negotiable ticket.

8. If you are ever caught speeding in Michigan with an out-of-state license, be sure to have the cash handy to cover the fine; otherwise, they will take your license on the spot.

9. Sometimes, “Honestly officer: I didn’t realize I was going that fast! It’s just such a beautiful day, and I had good tunes on the radio . . .” actually works.

10. If you happen to find that you’ve managed to place you car on the top of a rather large snow drift (i.e. you need climbing gear to get to your vehicle), a couple of evergreen branches under the tires and the help of a couple of cute frat boys usually does the trick.

11. 7:1 is probably not the best bumper to car ratio (over a three year period).

12. It is unusual, and not particularly recommended, to transport friends in the trunk. Especially tall and/or large friends.

13. Be sure you know how to change the tire: should you ever, say, slide sideways through a field or grassy embankment, it is nice to be able to refuse help from the creepy guy who offers.

14. If after #30 you lose count of how many times you have been pulled over, you might want to rethink your strategy.

15. If you happen to get lost in the general region east of L.A. and the cop you ask for directions laughs at you, find a trucker (again: right, Lucy?).

16. On down the road, when you go on your first outing with your fiance’s mother, you can be sure that backing into another car will make an impression.

17. Rain-X is cool.

18. Should you find it absolutely necessary to, ahem, communicate with another driver in another vehicle, be sure that he or she is not a police officer . . . or sheriff.

19. If you are running late and have to move your roommate’s and/or friend’s car because she a) can’t or b) is being generally uncooperative, try very hard not to lock her keys in her vehicle . . .
. . . while it’s running
. . . and in the middle of the street
. . . accidentally on purpose
. . . at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

20. If you happen to back someone’s bright red, vintage 1979 Firebird Trans-Am into a pine tree, the best thing to say is “I’m so, so sorry” NOT “See? I told you that you need to cut down that tree!” Contrite is best. Especially if *someone* happens to be your mother.

22. While drag racing off a traffic light in downtown Pittsburgh can be a great way to meet friends, it is generally discouraged.

23. It is great fun to confuse the cop who pulls you over by insisting that you know him from somewhere . . . where could it be? (Bonus tip: be sure he doesn’t know you from a previous traffic stop).

24. It can be a tad awkward when the cop who pulls you over—and who pulled you over last week . . . and about three weeks before that—is a good friend of your mother’s . . . but it is VERY funny when he tells you that you drive like your mother!

25. And finally, remember this rule: “those entering a traffic circle must yield to those already in the traffic circle” AND that this rule does not apply, it seems, to Carmichaels, PA.


Be safe, drive smart, drive defensively, and remember this mantra:

I’m a good driver. I’m a good driver. I’m a good driver.