I know that my ambivalence about religion frustrates some members of my family—my sisters, I'm sure, and probably also my Soldier Son to some degree, and no doubt others—but whatever my thinking may otherwise be, I'm pretty sure lately I've had an angel on my shoulder.
I was peripherally aware of that Wednesday night when I visited my sister Susan Rene the evening after her home was burglarized. I was hugely proud of her strength of spirit as I heard her tell caller after caller that she simply doesn't have room in her life for fear, even as she admitted her frustration at having lost a few very precious items among the assortment of valuables the thieves had stolen. I was—and still am—pretty sure I would at least be rattled by such an experience, and while I can't think of a thing I own as precious as some of her losses, I'm sure I'd be far more groused by it than she was.
Her first response to the discovery that her home had been breached had been to call her children, two of whom were johnny-on-the-spot to help her pick up the pieces and put her home—and her life—back together again. As she began to cope with the violation of her space, she discovered that her daughter had suffered her own traumatic experience early in the day: a jerk with more time on his hands than brains in his head had gone to great lengths to express his anger at her over a decision she had made that he didn't like, ultimately following her into a parking lot and keying the entire side of her minvan.
And I was ticked off because I had been careless enough to lose a $4 lipstick out of a shallow pocket on a pair of too-tight pants.
I drove home without incident on Thursday, mulling over for a part of the way that it's really kind of nice that we are angry about and hurt by events like this because they are so rare: SR has been living in her house for 39 years without anything so scary happening, and she figures she's got another 39 coming. I think there's something in that.
Friday night I was absolutely sure the angel on my shoulder was on duty when I realized I should have been t-boned at an intersection on my way home from an errand. I don't know what sort of side trip my brain had gone on, but I had pulled to a stop at a red light that I probably had seen go from green to yellow to red. For some reason, I looked up to my right and saw the green lights there, my brain triggered "green means go," and off I started into the intersection.
I realized my mistake—and how completely stupid it was—when I realized that the car approaching the intersection from my left was turning alongside me into the street I was on. (Fortunately—or maybe not—there were no cars to my right; maybe if I had seen cars when I saw the lights I'd have registered that it wasn't my turn.) I glanced to the left to see that the other car there, which should have proceeded straight across the intersection and t-boned me, was instead making an illegal left turn into the lane behind me.
Having heard my niece's story only a day or two before, I had visions of the driver being either a cop, doing his civic duty by giving me the ticket I had more than earned, or another crazed driver determined to chase me down and give me what-for for cutting him off and endangering both of us. I popped to attention and watched for police flashers, but I didn't see any. I did everything I could to drive flawlessly for the next several blocks, alert to the potential for the other driver to make sure I got my due, but in less than a mile, that driver turned and I was on my own again. I couldn't believe it. I thought about driving downtown and turning myself in for being an idiot.
I was back on the road today to drive to an old friend's house an hour away so we could go to The Nutcracker together, and this time I turned short of the exit to her house. Except that I had to take a few ack roads, that trip was uneventful.
As soon as I got home, I buzzed around the house in packing mode so I could be ready to fly tomorrow to Darling Daughter's for Christmas. Late in the evening,when Number One Son got in from work, I wondered why I still hadn't received anything from the airlines about our flight, so I sorted back through my email to see what I had figured out wrong. Sure enough, it's because we don't fly tomorrow morning; in fact, our flight is Tuesday evening.
Turns out my failure to double-check means I'm losing a day and a half of vacation time that I could have saved for later, but that's okay; I'm looking forward to having two whole weeks away from the grind.
And I'm sure someone's parked an angel on my shoulder.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
About that walking in the sand thing...
I've heard for years that walking in the sand, like along a beach, is a wonderful form of exercise.
Turns out that not so much if what you're doing is hauling shovelfuls of it across the back yard.
I sort of thought I had "simulated" the walking-in-the-sand thing when I made myself a pair of "rice socks" a few weeks ago. That actually started a couple of years ago, I guess, when I found a pair of "footwarmer booties" at WallyWorld and really like the experience. The "booties" were a rather normal-looking pair of houseshoes that had muslin inserts with rice in them. The idea was that you could pop the inserts in the microwave and warm them for a few seconds, then slip them into the booties to keep your feet warm. Since my extremities tend to be cold anyway, I thought they were a pretty cool—warm?—idea.
The only problem with them was that the inserts had only a little rice in them, so it just sort of sloshed around and didn't keep my feet nearly as warm as I thought they could. I sent them upstairs to my sewing room so I could recreate the inserts (and, potentially, even remake the booties in some color more interesting than muslin) with a healthier stuffing of rice.
Sending anything to the sewing room around here lately has been more accurately consignment to a black hole, so I don't have a clue what happened to them. But when the weather started to get chilly this year, I figured I could buy a fun pair of booties and make new inserts. I found a pair of socks for a dollar, poured in small amounts of rice, and sewed across the socks to keep the rice in "pockets." I can stick these into the microwave for a minute and drop them into a big pair of socks or a pair of fuzzy booties and enjoy having warm tootsies.
Walking on them is interesting, too; as the rice moves around under my feet, I get a lot of the same feeling as I get walking on sand, so I like to pretend it's actually good for me. Of course, taking 100 steps a day or so on them is probably not exactly a workout, but I've always been a huge fan of play-pretend.
And I can walk on real sand anytime I take a notion to. When my Soldier Son's dog Tank moved in with us a couple of years ago, I had an invitingly green spread of Asian jasmine covering my back yard. Jasmine seemed to be a good choice because I have had too much shade to encourage grass to grow back there, and the sprinkler system was never designed to reach anywhere near my back fence. Turns out jasmine doesn't hold up too well to large-footed dogs charging around the yard, so within a few months of Tank's arrival, my lush green had become mostly ghostly gray sand. Not too good for my housekeeping, but plenty of opportunity to walk on sand if I want to.
Not that I really wanted to this afternoon, but duty calls. Tank, it turns out, loves to play fetch, and his favorite spot for waiting for the ball is right at the edge of the built-up patio. But the patio—like the deck I had before it—keeps sinking. With the deck, I'm pretty sure at least part of the problem was that sand and detritus from the forest built up around the uprights and caused them to rot from the bottom; with the patio, the only thing I can figure is that the sand is gradually seeping out through the walls. Or, in the case of the corner where Tank likes to wait for the ball, maybe under them.
I had asked Number One Son, the current resident, some time ago to move some bricks around to form a sort of "landing" under the patio to keep the dogs from digging out more of the sand and helping it escape from the under the walls. Since I had finished a couple of projects this morning and had a bit of spare time on my hands, I decided that this was the day to make that happen.
I grabbed a rake and a shovel and hopped off the deck to see what I was going to have to do. Raking up "available"sand was clearly not going to make a dent in the hole the dogs had dug just by taking off from the "landing" to chase balls. But the other end of the chase has often entailed skidding to a stop next to the back fence, and walking around outside the fence shows that they've built it up over a foot in some places—plenty of dirt to level out a "landing" that would be less inviting than dirt.
I happily set off to get a shovelful of dirt and thought how healthy it would be to make a few trips over the loose sand between the deck and the fence. My Darling Daughter gave me a yoga mat for Christmas last year as part of a plea that I vegetate less and exercise more, and I sort of pledged to myself this year to work out every day until I get my weight down a few pounds as sort of a birthday gift to her. I didn't do the prescribed exercise video today, but I figured the hikes across about 15 yards of sand would do.
Logically, this should have taken only a couple of trips; after all, surely no self-respecting do-it-yourselfer would try to survive long without a wheelbarrow, and I have one, too. Except at this time of year it is doing duty in the garage keeping outdoor plants in out of the cold. Given the choice between trekking across the yard with shovelfuls of dirt or unloading the wheelbarrow to save myself a few trips, I opted for the exercise.
Mostly, it all went pretty well, too. I trudged back and forth across the yard probably 30 times with loads of dirt, and mostly the dogs only watched. There was that one time when they decided to play chase across the yard, and they thundered past me kicking up a wall of dust that made me think of a west-Texas sandstorm. I thought fleetingly that they had come pretty close to knocking me down, but as I lugged the dirt the rest of the way back to the patio, I realized that I probably should have been more scared that they might have knocked me down and left me bruised or broken or something—my sedentary life for the past several months probably hasn't done much to ensure bone strength—but instead I had thought that I might have to kill them if they caused me to lose my load of dirt.
Other than that, the activity was pretty uneventful. My face felt gritty, my hair turned stiff, and I still have sand between my toes, but I do have a sort of a rudimentary landing to try to hold some of the dirt inside the patio.
And I'm just sure I'm going to wake up in the morning feeling all exercised from walking in the sand.
Or in my rice booties, since it's supposed to freeze tonight.
Turns out that not so much if what you're doing is hauling shovelfuls of it across the back yard.
I sort of thought I had "simulated" the walking-in-the-sand thing when I made myself a pair of "rice socks" a few weeks ago. That actually started a couple of years ago, I guess, when I found a pair of "footwarmer booties" at WallyWorld and really like the experience. The "booties" were a rather normal-looking pair of houseshoes that had muslin inserts with rice in them. The idea was that you could pop the inserts in the microwave and warm them for a few seconds, then slip them into the booties to keep your feet warm. Since my extremities tend to be cold anyway, I thought they were a pretty cool—warm?—idea.
The only problem with them was that the inserts had only a little rice in them, so it just sort of sloshed around and didn't keep my feet nearly as warm as I thought they could. I sent them upstairs to my sewing room so I could recreate the inserts (and, potentially, even remake the booties in some color more interesting than muslin) with a healthier stuffing of rice.
Sending anything to the sewing room around here lately has been more accurately consignment to a black hole, so I don't have a clue what happened to them. But when the weather started to get chilly this year, I figured I could buy a fun pair of booties and make new inserts. I found a pair of socks for a dollar, poured in small amounts of rice, and sewed across the socks to keep the rice in "pockets." I can stick these into the microwave for a minute and drop them into a big pair of socks or a pair of fuzzy booties and enjoy having warm tootsies.
Walking on them is interesting, too; as the rice moves around under my feet, I get a lot of the same feeling as I get walking on sand, so I like to pretend it's actually good for me. Of course, taking 100 steps a day or so on them is probably not exactly a workout, but I've always been a huge fan of play-pretend.
And I can walk on real sand anytime I take a notion to. When my Soldier Son's dog Tank moved in with us a couple of years ago, I had an invitingly green spread of Asian jasmine covering my back yard. Jasmine seemed to be a good choice because I have had too much shade to encourage grass to grow back there, and the sprinkler system was never designed to reach anywhere near my back fence. Turns out jasmine doesn't hold up too well to large-footed dogs charging around the yard, so within a few months of Tank's arrival, my lush green had become mostly ghostly gray sand. Not too good for my housekeeping, but plenty of opportunity to walk on sand if I want to.
Not that I really wanted to this afternoon, but duty calls. Tank, it turns out, loves to play fetch, and his favorite spot for waiting for the ball is right at the edge of the built-up patio. But the patio—like the deck I had before it—keeps sinking. With the deck, I'm pretty sure at least part of the problem was that sand and detritus from the forest built up around the uprights and caused them to rot from the bottom; with the patio, the only thing I can figure is that the sand is gradually seeping out through the walls. Or, in the case of the corner where Tank likes to wait for the ball, maybe under them.
I had asked Number One Son, the current resident, some time ago to move some bricks around to form a sort of "landing" under the patio to keep the dogs from digging out more of the sand and helping it escape from the under the walls. Since I had finished a couple of projects this morning and had a bit of spare time on my hands, I decided that this was the day to make that happen.
I grabbed a rake and a shovel and hopped off the deck to see what I was going to have to do. Raking up "available"sand was clearly not going to make a dent in the hole the dogs had dug just by taking off from the "landing" to chase balls. But the other end of the chase has often entailed skidding to a stop next to the back fence, and walking around outside the fence shows that they've built it up over a foot in some places—plenty of dirt to level out a "landing" that would be less inviting than dirt.
I happily set off to get a shovelful of dirt and thought how healthy it would be to make a few trips over the loose sand between the deck and the fence. My Darling Daughter gave me a yoga mat for Christmas last year as part of a plea that I vegetate less and exercise more, and I sort of pledged to myself this year to work out every day until I get my weight down a few pounds as sort of a birthday gift to her. I didn't do the prescribed exercise video today, but I figured the hikes across about 15 yards of sand would do.
Logically, this should have taken only a couple of trips; after all, surely no self-respecting do-it-yourselfer would try to survive long without a wheelbarrow, and I have one, too. Except at this time of year it is doing duty in the garage keeping outdoor plants in out of the cold. Given the choice between trekking across the yard with shovelfuls of dirt or unloading the wheelbarrow to save myself a few trips, I opted for the exercise.
Mostly, it all went pretty well, too. I trudged back and forth across the yard probably 30 times with loads of dirt, and mostly the dogs only watched. There was that one time when they decided to play chase across the yard, and they thundered past me kicking up a wall of dust that made me think of a west-Texas sandstorm. I thought fleetingly that they had come pretty close to knocking me down, but as I lugged the dirt the rest of the way back to the patio, I realized that I probably should have been more scared that they might have knocked me down and left me bruised or broken or something—my sedentary life for the past several months probably hasn't done much to ensure bone strength—but instead I had thought that I might have to kill them if they caused me to lose my load of dirt.
Other than that, the activity was pretty uneventful. My face felt gritty, my hair turned stiff, and I still have sand between my toes, but I do have a sort of a rudimentary landing to try to hold some of the dirt inside the patio.
And I'm just sure I'm going to wake up in the morning feeling all exercised from walking in the sand.
Or in my rice booties, since it's supposed to freeze tonight.
Happy birthday, Punkin
Today is my daughter's birthday. It's not one of those "special" dates like "a quarter century" or whatever the "Big 0s" mean, but it's close enough to the Christmas season—and the end of grading mountains of papers—that I always seem to grow a little mellow thinking of her on "her" day.
I understand that she and Prince Charming are in San Diego for the weekend to see the sights, and her one big wish, as I understand is, was to do at least most of the weekend without electronic umbilicals to the rest of the world. Since I don't make a lot of phone calls and I don't use my phone for internet browsing, that wouldn't be very meaningful to me, but I've watched her enough to know that being out of touch could either be the roots of an honest vacation or make her stir crazy.
I got that information from reading her blog before they left, and I found myself rethinking where she is in life.
When she decided almost 10 years ago now to uproot herself from Texas and move to Los Angeles to go to USC and try her luck in theater arts, I got plenty of flack about how I was "pushing" her there and how I wanted this for her because she would be responsible for living the dreams I never realized.
How wrong that was.
I am a mole; she thrives in the sun.
I don't make friends easily; she practically fights people away.
I am a wallflower; she loves center stage.
I have to work hard to understand the world around me; she takes it in at a glance and usually gets it right.
I like being at home, in my small space with my little world wrapped around me like a cocoon; she chases every passing rainbow.
I like a sunny day that lifts some of what I generally see in shades of gray; she brightens LA's smog.
She said in her blog that she expects to move back to Texas in the next couple of years, and I find myself facing that with divided emotions.
I'll be absolutely appalled if she makes that kind of move without first being sure she'll be able to take care of her financial obligations, although I shouldn't worry; she has put together a better life for herself than a lot of theater arts students do, and she's still heart and soul into the theater, even if she's not acting. She's got a good head on her shoulders, so she'll be okay.
Having her here would mean that going to see her would be a matter of traveling a few miles down the road, one way or another, without the frustrations of air travel or being stuck on the other end with only my feet for transportation. On the other hand, since I'm pretty much a mole, it doesn't really mean that I'd see her much more often; both our lives are pretty overscheduled, and setting some specific times when we can actually visit may actually have advantages over a rather looser "oh, whenever" kind of deal.
And I think I'd miss California. I've "hitchhiked" more than once on her successes: when she has done well in life, I have been thrilled to be able to say, "That's my daughter," and knowing that she has been able to take herself to the left coast and thrive there has made me feel as if a little bit of me has that kind of tenacity, too. Getting to set myself free of Texas, to go to west, and to see and hear and smell a place that is so foreign and yet so fascinating to me gives me a chance to feel as if my wings aren't quite so short and my world not quite so gray. I could miss that.
But wherever she goes from here, my heart goes with her. I know her dreams of Texas include finding a way to settle down and start a family (beyond her current little knot of PC and the Junkyard Dog), and I'd love to have grandbabies, too. I'm just not good at counting chickens before they hatch.
Today she's in sunny San Diego, about the last place I can imagine thinking of when I think of Christmas. But just the right kind of place, I suspect, for a December birthday.
Happy birthday, baby.
I understand that she and Prince Charming are in San Diego for the weekend to see the sights, and her one big wish, as I understand is, was to do at least most of the weekend without electronic umbilicals to the rest of the world. Since I don't make a lot of phone calls and I don't use my phone for internet browsing, that wouldn't be very meaningful to me, but I've watched her enough to know that being out of touch could either be the roots of an honest vacation or make her stir crazy.
I got that information from reading her blog before they left, and I found myself rethinking where she is in life.
When she decided almost 10 years ago now to uproot herself from Texas and move to Los Angeles to go to USC and try her luck in theater arts, I got plenty of flack about how I was "pushing" her there and how I wanted this for her because she would be responsible for living the dreams I never realized.
How wrong that was.
I am a mole; she thrives in the sun.
I don't make friends easily; she practically fights people away.
I am a wallflower; she loves center stage.
I have to work hard to understand the world around me; she takes it in at a glance and usually gets it right.
I like being at home, in my small space with my little world wrapped around me like a cocoon; she chases every passing rainbow.
I like a sunny day that lifts some of what I generally see in shades of gray; she brightens LA's smog.
She said in her blog that she expects to move back to Texas in the next couple of years, and I find myself facing that with divided emotions.
I'll be absolutely appalled if she makes that kind of move without first being sure she'll be able to take care of her financial obligations, although I shouldn't worry; she has put together a better life for herself than a lot of theater arts students do, and she's still heart and soul into the theater, even if she's not acting. She's got a good head on her shoulders, so she'll be okay.
Having her here would mean that going to see her would be a matter of traveling a few miles down the road, one way or another, without the frustrations of air travel or being stuck on the other end with only my feet for transportation. On the other hand, since I'm pretty much a mole, it doesn't really mean that I'd see her much more often; both our lives are pretty overscheduled, and setting some specific times when we can actually visit may actually have advantages over a rather looser "oh, whenever" kind of deal.
And I think I'd miss California. I've "hitchhiked" more than once on her successes: when she has done well in life, I have been thrilled to be able to say, "That's my daughter," and knowing that she has been able to take herself to the left coast and thrive there has made me feel as if a little bit of me has that kind of tenacity, too. Getting to set myself free of Texas, to go to west, and to see and hear and smell a place that is so foreign and yet so fascinating to me gives me a chance to feel as if my wings aren't quite so short and my world not quite so gray. I could miss that.
But wherever she goes from here, my heart goes with her. I know her dreams of Texas include finding a way to settle down and start a family (beyond her current little knot of PC and the Junkyard Dog), and I'd love to have grandbabies, too. I'm just not good at counting chickens before they hatch.
Today she's in sunny San Diego, about the last place I can imagine thinking of when I think of Christmas. But just the right kind of place, I suspect, for a December birthday.
Happy birthday, baby.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Workers in the attic
A convergence of recent factors pushed me into installing more workmen in my attic this week:
At some point, something in that system gave up and required a service call. I got the guy out here, and he replaced the part and got us going again for less than the energy bill had been. By then, the weather had taken a turn toward unseasonably cool, and I shut down the systems on both floors. But I took to heart the workman's observation that the other unit was really, really old, and this might be a good time to consider replacing it. And just think of all the money I would save by going from the old, energy-hog unit to a bright, new, efficient one!
Okay, I'm not good at math, but I know this much: if the electricity part usually only about half of my monthly bill from the city (which includes things like water and garbage pickup) and my monthly bill is usually not huge, then it will take the rest of my life for me to "save" enough to pay for a new system. Furthermore, as the guy explained to me, the system that gets the most stress is the upstairs one: since heat rises anyway, and that one is closer to the roof, it has to combat both the effects of sun on the roof and heat from downstairs. Sort of explains why that air conditioning unit only lasted about half as long as the one downstairs and the heater up there almost never trips on.
The only financial justification for this mess is to get the tax break, take advantage of the amount of money the soldier owes me, and deduct the remainder from the cost of the new unit I'd probably be buying in a few years anyway if I don't replace it now. So I bit the bullet and had it done.
Temporarily forgetting Margaret Joan's rule. My sister says a do-it-yourself job takes twice the amount of time you estimate, promoted to the next time unit: a 10-minute job will take 20 hours.
The workers showed up about 9 o'clock Thursday morning, ready to dismantle and remove my old system and plug in the new.
Of course it couldn't be that easy.
For one thing, nothing manufactured in 2010 bears much resemblance to anything manufactured in 1979, so "plugging in" was a somewhat bigger challenge. Even the cement pad beside the garage had to be replaced for the bigger new unit. And 30 years of people crawling around in the attic to store outgrown stuff hasn't done the duct work any favors, either. I remember thinking briefly as I chased one of the dogs out of the attic while the workers went to lunch that at least the weather was cool enough for attic work to be more comfortable.
In the daytime, at least. While the temperatures were just cool.
As the night set in and the units were still not all connected, I realized that I would have to come up with some alternative for keeping warm. I've had a heating pad on the foot of my bed lately to ward off Popsicle feet, and Soldier Son had sent me a wonderful, heavy, tiger-print blanket at the end of his duty in Iraq a few years ago. I bundled up in flannel pajamas, turned on the heating pad, and snuggled under my tiger for the night.
Getting up to a cold house Friday morning was harder. I layered on sweatpants and a hoodie, dragged my heating pad into my lounge chair, and curled up under my laptop to stay warm. By noon, the heater still wasn't ready yet, but the thermometer said it was warmer outside than in. I put out the dogs and headed to the office.
When I got home, the workmen had gone. Number One Son said they had left a couple of items to finish on Monday, but the system had tested out just fine and we could use it immediately.
The temperature was a balmy 72 degrees.
- The tax dudes tell me I can take a deduction of $1500 if I upgrade my air conditioning system before the end of the year.
- The son who deployed to Afghanistan last week has a lot of money in the bank and owes me enough of it to cover the cost of the new system.
- The system I had was more than 30 years old. Well, the air conditioner part was; the heater was replaced something like 10 years ago, but in the world of air conditioning systems, that means they're both pretty old.
At some point, something in that system gave up and required a service call. I got the guy out here, and he replaced the part and got us going again for less than the energy bill had been. By then, the weather had taken a turn toward unseasonably cool, and I shut down the systems on both floors. But I took to heart the workman's observation that the other unit was really, really old, and this might be a good time to consider replacing it. And just think of all the money I would save by going from the old, energy-hog unit to a bright, new, efficient one!
Okay, I'm not good at math, but I know this much: if the electricity part usually only about half of my monthly bill from the city (which includes things like water and garbage pickup) and my monthly bill is usually not huge, then it will take the rest of my life for me to "save" enough to pay for a new system. Furthermore, as the guy explained to me, the system that gets the most stress is the upstairs one: since heat rises anyway, and that one is closer to the roof, it has to combat both the effects of sun on the roof and heat from downstairs. Sort of explains why that air conditioning unit only lasted about half as long as the one downstairs and the heater up there almost never trips on.
The only financial justification for this mess is to get the tax break, take advantage of the amount of money the soldier owes me, and deduct the remainder from the cost of the new unit I'd probably be buying in a few years anyway if I don't replace it now. So I bit the bullet and had it done.
Temporarily forgetting Margaret Joan's rule. My sister says a do-it-yourself job takes twice the amount of time you estimate, promoted to the next time unit: a 10-minute job will take 20 hours.
The workers showed up about 9 o'clock Thursday morning, ready to dismantle and remove my old system and plug in the new.
Of course it couldn't be that easy.
For one thing, nothing manufactured in 2010 bears much resemblance to anything manufactured in 1979, so "plugging in" was a somewhat bigger challenge. Even the cement pad beside the garage had to be replaced for the bigger new unit. And 30 years of people crawling around in the attic to store outgrown stuff hasn't done the duct work any favors, either. I remember thinking briefly as I chased one of the dogs out of the attic while the workers went to lunch that at least the weather was cool enough for attic work to be more comfortable.
In the daytime, at least. While the temperatures were just cool.
As the night set in and the units were still not all connected, I realized that I would have to come up with some alternative for keeping warm. I've had a heating pad on the foot of my bed lately to ward off Popsicle feet, and Soldier Son had sent me a wonderful, heavy, tiger-print blanket at the end of his duty in Iraq a few years ago. I bundled up in flannel pajamas, turned on the heating pad, and snuggled under my tiger for the night.
Getting up to a cold house Friday morning was harder. I layered on sweatpants and a hoodie, dragged my heating pad into my lounge chair, and curled up under my laptop to stay warm. By noon, the heater still wasn't ready yet, but the thermometer said it was warmer outside than in. I put out the dogs and headed to the office.
When I got home, the workmen had gone. Number One Son said they had left a couple of items to finish on Monday, but the system had tested out just fine and we could use it immediately.
The temperature was a balmy 72 degrees.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Me-ow?
I think my cat needs oiling.
Miss Kitty was an adorable little thing when I brought her home from the shelter several years ago, and I've felt very sorry that she has spent about half her life hiding out from Tank, my Soldier Son's rescue dog that appears to be about 60 pounds of Portuguese pointer. Tank is kind of hard to figure out: he may just really want to be buddies with Miss Kitty, or maybe he thinks she'd be a tasty lunch. I certainly don't blame her for facing up to him with a bit of trepidation.
This week was Kitty's annual check up, so I rounded her up, snapped a leash onto her collar, and stuffed her into the car. She isn't as bad as our previous cats whose Siamese yowls always made the trip interesting, but she did manage to sing the unhappy song for much of the trip. She bore up pretty well on the examining table, but she was more than happy to be set free back at the house.
Like all the other lifeforms around here, she's pretty fond of affection when she can get it, but if she has a choice of providers, I'm not usually high on her list. So I was a little surprised the other morning when she levitated onto my lap and started kneading my collarbone—making biscuits, as my brother says it. I was somewhat surprised by that: she normally isn't too eager to visit me anyway, and if she does, she doesn't usually seem particularly content.
So I was doubly surprised when she settled into a rhythm and started to purr. At least, I think that was a purr. I haven't heard her purr much, so the sound that was coming out was a little hard to explain. It looked like she was purring, and it felt like she was purring, but the sound was more of a squeak, as if I were stepping on her tail.
Maybe she just needs oil.
Miss Kitty was an adorable little thing when I brought her home from the shelter several years ago, and I've felt very sorry that she has spent about half her life hiding out from Tank, my Soldier Son's rescue dog that appears to be about 60 pounds of Portuguese pointer. Tank is kind of hard to figure out: he may just really want to be buddies with Miss Kitty, or maybe he thinks she'd be a tasty lunch. I certainly don't blame her for facing up to him with a bit of trepidation.
This week was Kitty's annual check up, so I rounded her up, snapped a leash onto her collar, and stuffed her into the car. She isn't as bad as our previous cats whose Siamese yowls always made the trip interesting, but she did manage to sing the unhappy song for much of the trip. She bore up pretty well on the examining table, but she was more than happy to be set free back at the house.
Like all the other lifeforms around here, she's pretty fond of affection when she can get it, but if she has a choice of providers, I'm not usually high on her list. So I was a little surprised the other morning when she levitated onto my lap and started kneading my collarbone—making biscuits, as my brother says it. I was somewhat surprised by that: she normally isn't too eager to visit me anyway, and if she does, she doesn't usually seem particularly content.
So I was doubly surprised when she settled into a rhythm and started to purr. At least, I think that was a purr. I haven't heard her purr much, so the sound that was coming out was a little hard to explain. It looked like she was purring, and it felt like she was purring, but the sound was more of a squeak, as if I were stepping on her tail.
Maybe she just needs oil.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The second-worst call
The worst phone call I can image ever getting is one where something horrible has happened to one of my children. I don't lie awake—any more, at least—worrying that that might happen; they all are adults now, and they appear to be reasonably healthy and happy.
The second-worst call is the one I got at 4:30 yesterday morning.
My middle child is a soldier, and built in to that description is the contingency that he can be injured or killed; it's just part of the job.
That contingency is exacerbated if he is deployed to a war zone. He has been in dangerous situations before: he volunteered for the Army Reserves shortly after Shrub Bush did his Yosemite Sam act in Iraq because my son believed our country had damaged a country that he needed to help clean up. I recognized that our nation was losing soldiers there and I worried about him, but I also had faith that he would come home safe and sound.
This time the war zone is Afghanistan, and I am not nearly so sure. We went into this war too fast and with too little consideration of who we were fighting and how we needed to fight; Shrub happily oversaw the dismissal of some of our most critical personnel when he fired large numbers of Arabic translators because he was more interested in their sexual orientation than in their skills, and he left us exposed to an enemy we could not understand linguistically nor culturally. As far as I can tell, we have never moved much beyond that, and our short-sighted politicos are less than eager to resolve anything—with the possible exception of dismantling our government altogether.
My phone doesn't often ring at 4:30. I shrugged off the blankets, fumbled a bit in the dark, and picked up the receiver.
"Hey," he said. "We're trying to get out of here; our plane's been delayed for hours. I hate snow." I had noticed on my weather-checker that the temperature in Baumholder had been 17 degrees a few hours earlier.
"On your way to Afghanistan?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Did you get your lunch card?"
"No." He's been eating at the local fast-food shops. Presumably, the card made it to his post, but he had been too absorbed with preparations for his trip to even check his mail. I should expect it back here in a couple of weeks.
"I've gotta go; looks like they're finally loading us."
"I love you, son."
"You, too."
That's the last I've heard from him, and my heart sticks in my throat every time of recall that call.
The second-worst call in the world.
The second-worst call is the one I got at 4:30 yesterday morning.
My middle child is a soldier, and built in to that description is the contingency that he can be injured or killed; it's just part of the job.
That contingency is exacerbated if he is deployed to a war zone. He has been in dangerous situations before: he volunteered for the Army Reserves shortly after Shrub Bush did his Yosemite Sam act in Iraq because my son believed our country had damaged a country that he needed to help clean up. I recognized that our nation was losing soldiers there and I worried about him, but I also had faith that he would come home safe and sound.
This time the war zone is Afghanistan, and I am not nearly so sure. We went into this war too fast and with too little consideration of who we were fighting and how we needed to fight; Shrub happily oversaw the dismissal of some of our most critical personnel when he fired large numbers of Arabic translators because he was more interested in their sexual orientation than in their skills, and he left us exposed to an enemy we could not understand linguistically nor culturally. As far as I can tell, we have never moved much beyond that, and our short-sighted politicos are less than eager to resolve anything—with the possible exception of dismantling our government altogether.
My phone doesn't often ring at 4:30. I shrugged off the blankets, fumbled a bit in the dark, and picked up the receiver.
"Hey," he said. "We're trying to get out of here; our plane's been delayed for hours. I hate snow." I had noticed on my weather-checker that the temperature in Baumholder had been 17 degrees a few hours earlier.
"On your way to Afghanistan?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Did you get your lunch card?"
"No." He's been eating at the local fast-food shops. Presumably, the card made it to his post, but he had been too absorbed with preparations for his trip to even check his mail. I should expect it back here in a couple of weeks.
"I've gotta go; looks like they're finally loading us."
"I love you, son."
"You, too."
That's the last I've heard from him, and my heart sticks in my throat every time of recall that call.
The second-worst call in the world.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Livid
Some words just don't get enough time in the limelight, so it's time to give a shout out to livid.
Actually, it's just wonderfully appropriate for the student who felt seriously offended the other night when I asked her a too-hard question after her paper presentation.
The course I teach is called a "presentations" course, but the course description says it's a research opportunity. That's not quite accurate, either; the students are required to complete a summer internship of some sort before the senior year, and most of them do some sort of "independent project" that becomes the subject of their presentations at our student paper contest. Most of them don't need a semester of "research" to develop a contest presentation, so my job is to teach them to write a paper about the topic. I decided this year to make them "practice" their presentations in a session with me to earn credit for the course.
The downturn in the economy in the past few years has has the twin effects of increasing our student population and decreasing internship opportunities, so a pretty big percentage of our students haven't had internships when they get to my class. The first of the semester this year was a scramble as they looked for topics for papers, but most of them came up with some idea or another.
I started listening to presentations early in the month, and earlier this week I was feeling pretty smug about how well things were going.
I had felt guilty for a while after I told one of the girls that I thought she needed to make some significant changes to her presentation. I tried to help her understand that my biggest problem was that she didn't appear to recognize what good work she had done, and the changes I was suggesting were an attempt to play up that fine work. Her reaction didn't suggest that she really thought I was trying to help her, but she was at least receptive enough to be willing to try to satisfy me.
Before many sessions had taken place, the joke among the students was pretty much that one student would present; the others would have a civilized, somewhat professional question-and-answer session; and then I would tear into them about things they needed to do to get the presentation up to snuff. Some of them seemed really attentive to my suggestions because they really want to do well at our contest, some were somewhat cynical about it, and for some, I just didn't see much point in saying anything.
And then we get to Miss Livid. This self-confident young woman started her presentation with a slide that had both her name and the name of a graduate student on it, which she explained by saying, "He did the work." Since the "rules" clearly say that the student is supposed to do an "independent" project, I jumped the gun at the end of the presentation and said,"I'm concerned about you. I need you to answer this question: What did you do?"
"I did the research."
That didn't satisfy me, so I asked again, this time with a little different emphasis: "What did you do?"
"I did the research," she repeated, stepping out from behind the monitor.
I asked again, and this time she said, "I don't understand what you mean. I did the research." At each question, she came closer to me.
By this time, I was pretty sure she hadn't done enough of the project to know what "research" means, so I pressed again: "What exactly did you do?"
She had come down the length of our long conference table to where her pack was sitting in a chair, reached inside it, and pulled out a stack of papers. "There. That's what I did," she said.
"So you downloaded and printed some papers?"
"No I read them. I read some of them. I mentioned the one by ------."
"Reading the literature is not 'doing' the research," I said. "It's an important part of the project, but it comes before the research. The question you have to answer is what you did in the project."
I've seen a dozen presentations since then, so I don't remember how she extracted herself from the situation, but she plopped down in a chair on the opposite side of the table from her bag and sulked there through several more presentations. In fact, I think it was close to an hour before I took a short break, and she stomped out of the room with me. I didn't have to ask how she felt about my questions.
"You had no reason to call me out like that and embarrass me in front of my friends," she spat out.
"You're right; I'm sorry," I answered.
"You haven't done that to anybody else," she almost hissed.
"Yes, I have—just not in your group," I said.
She stormed at me for several more minutes before she finally realized that I was not willing to believe that she had actually done the research, especially not after she let slip that the grad student had done all of the work during the summer before she ever talked to him and that she had "at least talked to him enough to know pretty much what it was about." I figured that "least" was about the size of it.
She had good reason to be afraid: as the course instructor, I have the privilege, if I choose to exercise it, of failing her in the course because of her academic dishonesty. Furthermore, if she can't make the project seem to be her own at the paper contest, she could be stopped from graduating. Except that that's never happened in my 20 years in the department, and I don't see it happening in the future.
I did what I could to assure her that I would not flunk her now (tempting as that is....) because I have accepted the work she has done so far. Besides, if she can cobble together an answer to the question that will fly at the paper contest, she'll be home free. I tried to be as reassuring as I could be, but she stomped out as angry as she had been from the time I first challenged her.
Livid.
Actually, it's just wonderfully appropriate for the student who felt seriously offended the other night when I asked her a too-hard question after her paper presentation.
The course I teach is called a "presentations" course, but the course description says it's a research opportunity. That's not quite accurate, either; the students are required to complete a summer internship of some sort before the senior year, and most of them do some sort of "independent project" that becomes the subject of their presentations at our student paper contest. Most of them don't need a semester of "research" to develop a contest presentation, so my job is to teach them to write a paper about the topic. I decided this year to make them "practice" their presentations in a session with me to earn credit for the course.
The downturn in the economy in the past few years has has the twin effects of increasing our student population and decreasing internship opportunities, so a pretty big percentage of our students haven't had internships when they get to my class. The first of the semester this year was a scramble as they looked for topics for papers, but most of them came up with some idea or another.
I started listening to presentations early in the month, and earlier this week I was feeling pretty smug about how well things were going.
I had felt guilty for a while after I told one of the girls that I thought she needed to make some significant changes to her presentation. I tried to help her understand that my biggest problem was that she didn't appear to recognize what good work she had done, and the changes I was suggesting were an attempt to play up that fine work. Her reaction didn't suggest that she really thought I was trying to help her, but she was at least receptive enough to be willing to try to satisfy me.
Before many sessions had taken place, the joke among the students was pretty much that one student would present; the others would have a civilized, somewhat professional question-and-answer session; and then I would tear into them about things they needed to do to get the presentation up to snuff. Some of them seemed really attentive to my suggestions because they really want to do well at our contest, some were somewhat cynical about it, and for some, I just didn't see much point in saying anything.
And then we get to Miss Livid. This self-confident young woman started her presentation with a slide that had both her name and the name of a graduate student on it, which she explained by saying, "He did the work." Since the "rules" clearly say that the student is supposed to do an "independent" project, I jumped the gun at the end of the presentation and said,"I'm concerned about you. I need you to answer this question: What did you do?"
"I did the research."
That didn't satisfy me, so I asked again, this time with a little different emphasis: "What did you do?"
"I did the research," she repeated, stepping out from behind the monitor.
I asked again, and this time she said, "I don't understand what you mean. I did the research." At each question, she came closer to me.
By this time, I was pretty sure she hadn't done enough of the project to know what "research" means, so I pressed again: "What exactly did you do?"
She had come down the length of our long conference table to where her pack was sitting in a chair, reached inside it, and pulled out a stack of papers. "There. That's what I did," she said.
"So you downloaded and printed some papers?"
"No I read them. I read some of them. I mentioned the one by ------."
"Reading the literature is not 'doing' the research," I said. "It's an important part of the project, but it comes before the research. The question you have to answer is what you did in the project."
I've seen a dozen presentations since then, so I don't remember how she extracted herself from the situation, but she plopped down in a chair on the opposite side of the table from her bag and sulked there through several more presentations. In fact, I think it was close to an hour before I took a short break, and she stomped out of the room with me. I didn't have to ask how she felt about my questions.
"You had no reason to call me out like that and embarrass me in front of my friends," she spat out.
"You're right; I'm sorry," I answered.
"You haven't done that to anybody else," she almost hissed.
"Yes, I have—just not in your group," I said.
She stormed at me for several more minutes before she finally realized that I was not willing to believe that she had actually done the research, especially not after she let slip that the grad student had done all of the work during the summer before she ever talked to him and that she had "at least talked to him enough to know pretty much what it was about." I figured that "least" was about the size of it.
She had good reason to be afraid: as the course instructor, I have the privilege, if I choose to exercise it, of failing her in the course because of her academic dishonesty. Furthermore, if she can't make the project seem to be her own at the paper contest, she could be stopped from graduating. Except that that's never happened in my 20 years in the department, and I don't see it happening in the future.
I did what I could to assure her that I would not flunk her now (tempting as that is....) because I have accepted the work she has done so far. Besides, if she can cobble together an answer to the question that will fly at the paper contest, she'll be home free. I tried to be as reassuring as I could be, but she stomped out as angry as she had been from the time I first challenged her.
Livid.
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