On the Road

(Yeah, it's a back-dated post. Leave me alone. I only have dial-up here. Makes it tougher to spend time online.)

I drove the length of Indiana today, from my in-laws in the south to my parents in the north. Almost five hours of driving gave me a lot of head-time. Here are some of the things I scrawled on the fast-food bag laying in my passenger seat:

It's remarkable how I take my iPod and XM radio for granted. I'm at the mercy of a "seek" button and a lot of FM junk. Why so many automobile manufacturers fail to include a "scan" button on their radios is a mystery. By the way, I'm driving this Suzuki that's the product of some cross-pollination between an SUV and a station-wagon. It was dreadful enough until my father-in-law proclaimed it "a hearse". Crap - he's totally right.

Driving across expansive stretches of gently rolling farmland, I wonder whether my affinity for this kind of countryside is merely a product of the location of my upbringing. Granted, I've lived in and visited some excruciatingly beautiful places (sorry, Florida is not one of them...) - but there's something appealing about this kind of scene. I'm sure not everyone shares my opinion. I mean, who's going to deny that there are some places on earth that everyone finds unspeakably beautiful. But I can't imagine the same percentage would hold midwestern corn fields in the same esteem as I do. But if I'd grown up in Florida, would I consider swampy marshes as lovely? Maybe it's a moot point, trying to separate out the pure beauty from that which is simply familiar. Beauty is beauty. A product of the beholder, yes, but why question it?

Top Five Midwestern Ephemera

1. A dark sky, highlighted by the silvery undersides of maple leaves exposed by the gusts of an approaching storm. There's always a crescendo to a storm - when the sky gets progressively more ominous, but there's always a subtle dissatisfaction to the denouement, as the sky begins to lighten.

2. A temperate summer morning - not cool, but not overly warm, either - one you know is going to give way to a toasty afternoon later. We never seem to get these in Florida, presumably because of the humidity, which tends to assault you as you step out the door.

3. A bright snowy night, as any available light gets bounced all around off myriad white surfaces.

4. Tree trunks darkened by spring rain, punctuated by the bright green of young leaves on an overcast day. Also: The same thing in autumn, when those leaves have turned red and orange.

5. Late afternoon sunshine across fields in late autumn. Pewter stratocumulus in the sky, growing progressively more grey as the sun slips below them and casts sidelong illumination, gilding everything it touches.

One fun thing about driving long stretches in Indiana is the License Plate Game. License plates are issued by county, of course, and the first digits on standard plates indicate the county. So, 71 is St. Joseph (South Bend), 79 is Tippecanoe (Lafayette), 49 is Marion (Indianapolis). When I was young - middle school, maybe - my parents and I went to Indianapolis for the State Fair one summer. [Warning: severe geekiness to follow!] In advance of the trip, I made a spreadsheet on our new computer (using Lotus 1-2-3, a precursor to Microsoft Excel. On a DOS platform! And an amber monochrome monitor!) of all 92 counties in Indiana, along with their corresponding license plate number - they're numbered in alphabetical order. I remember the hardest to find was Switzerland county (77, IIRC...?) - a tiny little county in southeastern Indiana. Oh, the joy when I finally found that one! Anyhow, it was fun, playing that game again (without my lists, I got to be pretty good about interpolating between counties I knew; I've gotten rusty in the past decade) - though a lot of the fun has been lost with the rise in popularity of specialty plates, which carry no county designation.

I passed an old stone church for sale, on US31 in Tipton County, I think. Too bad there's not much around it, because it would be an awesome building to buy and turn into a bed-and-breakfast! I've long harbored desire for architectural reuse. As I've mentioned in this blog before and am too lazy to link right now.

Train tracks. This state is lousy with 'em. There really aren't many in Monterey, and I don't encounter many in Orlando, either - roads are built around or over them.

Just north of Indianapolis is a Wendy's on US 31 that was always the first indication that you're entering the Indy metro area. At least it was for me as a kid. Now, there's so much development going on around it, I hardly recognize the landmark.

Passed a fancy-looking high school (Westfield?) north of Indianapolis that advertises itself as a Verizon Smart Campus. Remind me to look this up later.

I should make some baklava when I get back to my kitchen. I haven't made that in a while. We also need to have a housewarming party. If for no other reason than to give us a deadline to finish painting the bathrooms. :)

Stopped at Trader Joe's in Castleton (NE Indianapolis). I went in looking for vanilla paste. Came out with $55 worth of stuff - and no vanilla paste. :-\ Did get some interesting foods. I shall report back later on them. Passed the hotel where I remember staying with my parents and some friends for the 1994 boys basketball state tournament, which our high school won. Turns out two of the players from that team have returned to the school as coaches. I wonder how that is, to be a player, with a giant picture of your coach at your age, staring down on you from above the bleachers. I know I'm romanticizing it all, but I can't help but think of Hoosiers. Which is a good movie, by the way. Go rent it - if you've never seen it, you are wrong.

More fields. Seed corn signs at the side of the road. Lonely irrigation sprinklers amid the dessicated remnants of chopped stalks. The demise of the family farm at the hands of mega-agribusiness operations saddens me, even though it seems an inevitability. Cue the John Mellencamp... seek... seek... seek... oh wait, there it is! Rain on the scarecrow...

Just when I looked down to my gauges and see that the temperature outside is 32, I notice some stuff in my headlights. Snow! Just a flurry here and there at first, but as I put my car in park, big floofy flakes started to fall. We have more in store for this week! A nice welcome "home". I catch myself when referring to this as home. I grew up here. Lived in this state for 24 years and one week (minus one summer). But looking around at all the changes, it's no more home than any other place, really. I suppose it always will be home, even if only home to my memories. Which grow fonder with time. It really was a good place to grow up.

Stuck in Chicago

So I'm currently stuck at O'Hare. Not the most exciting airport in which to be stuck, either. "Flight rescheduled due to air-traffic control"...

Now, one could argue that I would make good use of my time by grading exams, but that really involves spreading out papers across surfaces and there just isn't that much table space around here. But there is wi-fi (albeit not free - but cheap). So blogging it is! I'll save my book for the jet.

The people-watching has been fun. Normally, I'd be up for browsing booksellers or grabbing some ice cream, but I'm particularly tired, so slogging my exam-laden backpack up and down the terminal concourses just doesn't hold much appeal today. I'm on United, which isn't my preferred airline, but it does have one significant benefit: Channel 9. The air-traffic control broadcast to the seats in back. My next segment is a regional jet, which won't have it, but I got to listen to ATC on the Airbus. Glimpses into otherwise unseen worlds like that are fascinating. Kind of like factory tours - you get to see how it all happens. The arrivals controllers talk pretty much nonstop, carefully arranging their ballet of aircraft. I think it would be an interesting job, but I don't know if I could do it.

We had rain at home, but we took off just before sunrise and had sun the whole way, but icy grey stratocumulus clouds between us and earth. I was reminded of one thing that I loved about flying out of Monterey. Invariably, the airport would have a blanket of stratus over it. But the stratus layer is usually thin, and once you get through a few seconds of grey after take-off, you pop out of the clouds into a brilliantly sunny sky, with a cottony blanket of cloud below, snuggled up against mountain peaks that rim the bay. I was always a slightly nervous flier out of that airport (probably because of all the turboprop aircraft - not a fan of those), but I that particular moment always made up for the white knuckles.

I should go grab some lunch and wander on down to the gate. Wintergreen candy canes and Barnaby's pizza await my arrival.

...trim the occupant with floof...

Five Popular (Possibly Irreverent) Christmassy Tunes
Christmas Wrapping, The Waitresses
Trim up the Tree, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original - not that Jim Carrey crap)
Last Christmas, Wham!
Twelve Days of Christmas, The Muppets
Fairytale of New York, The Pogues

...and the whole world send back the song...

Five Christmas Songs Toward Which I Was Ambivalent Until I Heard These Versions
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Jars of Clay
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, Caedmon's Call
Do You Hear What I Hear?, Third Day
In the Bleak Midwinter, Paul Colman Trio
Silent Night, Sarah McLachlan

...oh the love must have been overwhelming...

Five Contemporary Christmas Songs
2000 Decembers Ago, Joy Williams1
Christmas Song, Dave Matthews
Mary Did You Know?, Gaither Vocal Band
Light of the Stable, Selah
Welcome to Our World, Chris Rice


1 This is such a fantastic song, I can't even begin to describe it.

...fall on your knees...

I love Christmas. Absolutely love it. No, I love the entire month of December and the run-up to Christmas. I will blog later (during/after finals, likely) about specifics, but it's such a holiday of possibility, of hope, of beauty, and of love. What's not to like? Well, this.

But beyond that, I very much enjoy Christmas music. So, since I just participated in our school's Christmas musical production this past weekend, I've been listening to Christmas music since mid-November, and also since I'm so far behind in grading I must be ahead, I present a few days of Christmas lists - but not the kind you check twice.


Five Favorite Classic Christmas Carols: 2007
The first two never change. The remaining three selections vary from year to year.
O Come O Come Emmanuel1
O Holy Night
Noel Nouvelet (Sing We Noel)2
The First Noel
[tie] Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella
[tie] Carol of the Bells



1 I highly recommend listening to the version by Chasing Furies.
2 I highly recommend listening to the version by Apollo's Fire.

Black Friday

In the spirit of crass hypercommercialization that is The Day After Thanksgiving, I present...


My Holiday Wishlist!

Letters and writings from friends. Always number one on my list. :)

Levenger broad-nib fountain pen in Frost.

Levenger bottled ink. Since they don't have blue-black, Bahama Blue and Amethyst will do.

Plain 3x5" index cards.

It's not a moratorium if other people buy me dishes. Large plates, small plates, and cup/saucers.

16 GB iPod Touch. Hey, it's a wishlist, right?

CHI Straightening Iron.

Plumeria. The white/yellow variety is my favorite, but I'd take a start of any color.

Chaco sandals in Sundae, size 9. Or maybe 10.

Beautiful, completely fanciful black heels. Size 10.

Red! Size 9.5. Maybe 10.

Airplane lamp.

Airplane cake pan.

Electronic picture frame.

A take-no-prisoners pepper mill.

Baritone wind chimes.

Table Topics - Teen and Book Club editions.

True Colors game. A friend had this in high school, and it was quite fun.

A really good New Zealand travel book. None of that Fodor's crap. If only these people wrote for destinations outside Hawaii...

Bath stuff from LUSH: Creamy Candy Bubble Bars, Snow Fairy Shower gel, Youki-Hi Bath Bombs.

Sephora gift cards so I can buy sparkly stuff. Specifically, Nars eyeshadows in Caravaggio and Rated R.

Albums I don't know why I don't own - even just ripped mp3s:
Paul Simon, Surprise
Paul Simon, Graceland
Poi Dog Pondering, Liquid White Light
Smalltown Poets, Listen Closely, Third Verse, and It's Later Than It's Ever Been
The Sundays, Reading Writing and Arithmetic
U2, Rattle & Hum

Plenty of books and such on my Amazon wishlist. Specifically, this book.

A Liveblogged Thanksgiving

Time to cook! Wheeee! Since I have the laptop in the kitchen with recipes, why not blog?

828a Someone got donuts this morning. Sweet.

835a Pies are in the oven.

Mom's Maple-Pecan Pie
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 c. corn syrup
1 t. vanilla
1 c. pecans (I usually over-pecan)
1/2 t. Mapleine

Cream together sugar and butter, stir in flour, then eggs. Add corn syrup, vanilla, and Mapleine. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Top with pecans.

Bake at 400 degF for 15 min, then reduce heat to 350 degF and bake 30 min more, or until done.

917a Making dough for dinner rolls. These and these, which I haven't tried before. I'm using my bread machine to mix one recipe of dough, and my Select button is acting hinky again, which is the problem of the last one I had. So I gotta call the warranty folks again. Grrrr...

943a Rolls are rising. I love wireless internet. Computing in the kitchen.

1015a Punching down dough.

1036a Bread for stuffing is toasted. I never liked stuffing - especially crap cooked inside the bird. Ew. I just don't like that texture of soggy bread - stuffing, bread pudding, centers of French toast. Yuck. But the stuff that I make, it's more like vegetables and apples baked with bread cubes - pretty dry, really. I'll post the recipe later.

1048a Wheat rolls have been coiled into muffin cups and are rising. Oat rolls have been rolled into balls, brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with more oats. All are rising. These wheat rolls are majorly fluffy. They rise like mad. I don't think my little muffin cups are going to contain them...

1139a Turkey breasts are de-brined, buttered, herbed, and in the oven. So are the gargantuan wheat rolls. Turns out two roll recipes were overkill.

1230p Taking a break!

110p Potatoes are chopped and boiling (well, almost), and stuffing apples, celery, garlic, and onions are simmering in chicken stock:

Dressing with Roasted Garlic and Apples
1 c. onion, diced
1 c. celery, diced
1 c. Granny Smith apples, diced
1/4 c. shallots, minced
2 T. butter
2 c. hearty chicken stock
2 T. roasted garlic puree
1/2 t. fresh thyme, chopped
1 T. fresh chives, chopped
1 T. fresh basil, chopped
4+ c. diced bread croutons, toasted (I use honey wheat berry bread)

In a large skillet, saute onions, celery, apples, and shallots over medium heat in butter until tender. Add stock and simmer until liquid is reduced by half. Add garlic and herbs. Stir in croutons. Serve immediately, though I like to pile into a baking dish and bake (350 degF) until crunchy.

138p Plates set out. Now just waiting for stuffing and bird in oven. Corn pudding is out, green bean casserole about to go in. Potatoes boiling on the stovetop. The cranberry sauce is out of the can. Wine. I need wine.

218p Everything is ready to go - turkey is impeccably juicy. Primo. Just waiting for the pan juices to come to a boil so I can make gravy for the gravy-eaters. The Gravy Eaters. Sounds very Steinbeck. Or a Homer painting.


707p I don't know what was in that food, but we all zonked out after dinner. Well, apparently not all of us, because I woke up to find that pie had been had, plus all the dishes had been done and leftovers put away. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

832p Mmmm - pie!

No. 100

Woo hoo! My 100th post. Seems like it should be more meaningful. Eh, not keeping with the spirit if I did.


Central Florida is such a study in contrasts. There's a lot of fake touristy crap, but there's a lot of real life, too. You just have to hunt a little harder for it. Yesterday, we spent the day doing real-life Florida attractions; today, we spent the day doing the touristy Disney thing.

Yesterday, we went to Lake Wales, south of Orlando. We drove Hwy 27 south, through citrus-country-turned-housing-developments. I bet it smells divine in March when the orange trees are in bloom. I'm quite convinced that if heaven has a scent, it's the smell of orange blossoms on a warm spring evening. It used to be the main pre-interstate artery of southbound migration. A major attraction of Lake Wales is Bok Sanctuary, a lovely preserve and gardens, the centerpiece of which is a carillon tower. With a resident carillonneur and twice-daily carillon concerts. We arrived in time for the 300p concert, and strolled the grounds during and after. The sun filtering through mossy oak trees in a grove was particularly lovely. Lake Wales is remarkably high, for Florida, the State of One Topographical Contour Line. There were some nice vistas from the gardens. Too bad you can't go up the tower - I'm sure the view is lovely. I took some pictures and will have them up online shortly. The visitor center had some interesting information about Mr. Bok and how he decided to put up a carillon tower in the middle of Florida, and we got to bang on a carillon bell - always fun. I was surprised to see that the bells and clavier are mechanical, not electronic. After our stroll around the gardens, we drove down to Spook Hill. Not so spooky. We put the car in neutral and rolled back "up" the hill, as per the directions. Woo. Of course, with a sign featuring such a benevolent-looking ghost, I guess I shouldn't have expected much in the way of spooky. Santa Cruz's Mystery Spot was far more interesting. Florida's Natural has a visitor's center on Hwy 27, but it's just a video tour, not an actual tour. It was getting late, so we passed it up. We also passed up "Goat Milk Fudge" and boiled peanuts.

Today we did Disney, a brave thing for the day before a holiday. I was expecting much larger crowds. It was busy, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the crush-of-humanity for which I was braced. I try to avoid the public at all costs, but the Disney theme park crowd is far from "general public". That said, I've exhausted my quota of others' children. Admittedly, we were privy to only one nuclear meltdown, and only came across one band of disgraceful teenagers all day. But still... I've had my fill. There were loads of girls wearing princess costumes - very cute. And I wound up being the very object of my own personal vehemence: The Person Who Stops in the Middle of the Sidewalk. Seriously, I loathe these people. And my parents continually did it, forcing me into stopping, too. Mrmmf. We did a big mishmosh of rides and shows. I suppose the highlight of the day was our Jungle Cruise guide. That ride is wholly dependent upon the personality of the guide, and ours was nonstop witty, without being obnoxious. As a local, I always feel like an outsider, observing theme-park tourism from a distance. We don't deal with resorts or dining plans, and there is not a lot of pressure to do/see everything before flying back home. Not that it's a bad way to see the parks. It just seems like a vastly different experience from that of the average park-goer.

I feel like I had some more things to write about, earlier this afternoon, but they're gone. This is why I need to carry paper/pen around with me more often. I don't have the patience to text-message myself notes.

And today I am thankful for not traveling this Thanksgiving holiday. The weather in the Midwest is atrocious, which has to be bad for on-time departures tonight. Plus, as Jess and I discussed today, you have travel amateurs dragging down operations. You know the kind: people who haven't flown in the last ten years, don't know how to navigate the idiosyncrasies of the TSA, want to check three bags per person and carry on eight, and - heaven forfend - try to carry on a Walgreens worth of liquid, gels, and creams. Not missing that at all.

I should get to bed. There is cooking to be done tomorrow! I can't wait to take my kitchen for a serious spin. If you're looking for a place to spend Thanksgiving, come on over - we'll have plenty of good eats.

Legacy Teaching

One more post this week about teaching, and then it's Thanksgiving Break! A moratorium on educational topics is in place until next week.

I joke over there --------------> that I'm not a teacher, I just play one. And I really do think that. I never went to school with the express intent of becoming a teacher, so I picked up much of my training in teaching high school while I was in high school - I just wasn't cognizant of it at the time. I notice that I parrot a lot of my former teachers. I assign similar projects as I was assigned in high school chemistry. I've even said the same phrases as my senior-year-physics and multiple-year-social-studies teachers. I sense my favorite history teachers and professors, in my own classroom energy and management. I see my French and English teachers in me, too, particularly when it comes to compassion and individual attention. I heard a clip on NPR a couple weeks ago (I think - I can't find evidence of this anywhere online), in which the commentator said that he learned to be a waiter by pretending to be a waiter. That resonates - I think I learned to teach by pretending to be a teacher. Having had no formal teacher training, I model my teacherly behavior after my own teachers.

Of course, I'm already extrapolating this forward. Who are the future teachers sitting in my classroom? What are they picking up from me now that they will pass onto their students ten or twenty years from now? I already feel the burden of representing science to my students; they will form opinions of science in my classroom that will affect how they view science for the rest of their lives. But this newfound responsibility towards the future students of my own students - I'm constantly amazed at what is entrusted to me.


It's that time of year - Thanksgiving break is upon us and Christmas will follow closely. While I was an undergrad, I would occasionally stop in to see my teachers when I was home for university holidays. Even as recently as last Christmas, I visited the few remaining teachers at my old high school. Now I am the teacher being visited by former students. I gained incredible respect for my own teachers throughout my first year of teaching, but to have their perspective on these pleasantries, too... this novelty has not worn off! Of course, in this facebook age, it's remarkably easy to keep in touch with former students, and I think our school fosters a very different kind of relationship and involvement in students' lives than I experienced in school. Very much for the better. Anyhow, a friend and I were discussing yesterday our lack of friends who just drop by. Granted, my friend base is a 45-minute drive away, so a dropping-by requires a trip. Anyhow, my point is that I love it. So, if you're in town for the holidays, drop by! Your teachers would love to see you again.

Untitled

All right, what is going on here?

I spent an evening this week on and around a large university campus. And again, as my weekend at Purdue last month inspired, I felt this relentless and inexorable pull towards college.

What do I do with this? Do I write it off as reminiscent of past times and move on with my life? Is it a product of my interactions with college-bound seniors? Do I indulge it and seriously consider going back to school full-time? And even if I did, what would I study? Beyond that, what is my end-game? This has provided a lot of material for my favorite game of "What If..."

I can't be a professional student - I have to have a reason. I know I do not want an education degree. Not that I wouldn't want to continue working in education, I just have zero - nay, negative - desire to take any more education courses. Would I eventually want to teach in college? Some of my students and colleagues would say yes. But I'm not so sure. Like a quotation previously posted, I really think my job as a teacher of teenagers is to get inside their lives and help shape them. Would I have these opportunities as a professor? Maybe. They'd definitely be different. I have a lot of liberties in terms of creativity and a wide variety of disciplines; I think I would lose these at a university, where I would be hyper-specialized. Do I take an evening class here or there? As if I even have time for that. But maybe it would get it out of my system!

Food science? Art history? Pharmacy? Chemistry? A PhD? Another Masters?

I am officially too old to be having a quarter-life crisis.

Hm. You know, that was just a flippant comment, but after reading one selection from that link, I now have to wonder. The frustration with a lack of feedback and progress indicators does hit a little closely...

Furthermore, a factor contributing to quarter-life crisis may be the difficulty in adapting to a workplace environment. In college, professors' expectations are clearly given and students receive frequent feedback on their performance in their courses. One progresses from year to year in the education system. In contrast, within a workplace environment, one may be, for some time, completely unaware of a boss's displeasure with one's performance, or of one's colleagues' dislike of one's personality. One does not automatically make progress. Office politics require interpersonal skills that are largely unnecessary for success in an educational setting. Emerging adults eventually learn these social skills, but this process – sometimes compared to learning another language – is often highly stressful.

No. I refuse to be the stuff of John Mayer songs or Broadway musicals. I just won't have it! I'm eight years out of college. I'm gainfully employed. I'm not questioning what I want to do with my life (well, okay, it does kind of sound that way...). It's not a restlessness, I don't think. I do have a significant sense of purpose - more so than I have ever had. Nor do I lack opportunity for self-directed learning - that is precisely what teaching provides, I'm just not the one writing the lab reports. Well, my term papers and lab reports are now just the prompts and the lab directions I write. I could psycho-diagnose this all night if I wanted to. And I don't. I just want to know what to do about this ceaseless flirtation by large research universities. Anyone?

A New Plane in Town

The Airbus A380 made a visit to MCO earlier this week. I missed the takeoff and landing, but I did get to see it on the tarmac. I made a drive-by shooting of it on my way to work one morning - hence the crappy composition and the bad sun angle.

Confession

Let's not even pretend I was serious about the Christmas playlist in my last post.


I fought it off as long as I could - I swear!



... horses horses horses horses horses jingalingaling! ...

On the iPod

My Whose-Music-Is-This-Certainly-Not-Mine-
Where-Are-The-Dave-Matthews-And-U2-Songs Playlist:

Grounds for Divorce, Wolf Parade¹
Zombie Nation, Kernkraft 400
7 Nation Army, The White Stripes
When Worlds Collide, Powerman 5000
You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son, Wolf Parade
Hang Me Up To Dry, Cold War Kids
Faster Kill Pussycat, Oakenfold f. Brittany Murphy
Shine a Light, Wolf Parade
Shimmer, Fuel (okay, something more in my realm)
Santa Monica, Everclear
#1 Crush, Garbage
Silent Running, Mike + The Mechanics
Closer, Nine Inch Nails²
The Kill, 30 Seconds to Mars
Pepper, Butthole Surfers
A Girl Like You, Edwyn Collins
Promise, Eve 6
Hey Pretty, Poe
Lump, Presidents of the United States of America
Cult of Personality, Living Color

1 I'm running the serious risk of getting sick of this song, I like it so much. It's like iPod autism - I will listen to songs I really like 18 times in a row (okay, not that many ... maybe 14), which has to contribute to a hundredfold increase in the likelihood I will soon start to detest it.
2 I really wish this had different lyrics. It's such a great sounding song, but it's nothing I can play for public consumption.

It's rather... aggressive music. That's probably good, because I'm arranging my kitchen and pantry, and I need all the energy I can get. Big task.


I'm getting excited about dusting off the Christmas Music Playlist. I just can't bring myself to play it before Thanksgiving. Even though stores have stocked Christmas merch since September.

Food Graveyard

Let us take a moment and mourn for the lost:

1-2-3 Jello¹

Jello Pudding Pops (particularly banana; also chocolate-vanilla swirl). I know Popsicle makes some now, but... there's something not quite right about them.

Duncan Hines Tiara Desserts (we have so many pans - I should start putting them to use. My favorite was the black Forest cake, with the trifecta of sweets: chocolate cake, whipped cream, and cherry pie-filling goo.

Some really tasty toaster pastries that were round and sort of similar to Pop Tarts Pastry Swirls. They came maybe five to a box. The box was white, and I could swear the manufacturer's name was Rembrandt or Van Rijn or some other Dutch Master. My favorite flavor was cherry.

Boku Fruit Drink. Came in a tall juice box. Inventive flavors, for the late 80s.

Pizzarias. Pizza-flavored tortilla chips. This from the girl who can't ordinarily stand flavored tortilla chips. Doritos? Blech.

Chilito/Chili-cheese burrito. Still at some Taco Bells, including one in Tampa that is totally worth the trip. The original is from Zantigo's a Midwestern Mexican chain that was bought by Taco Bell in the 80s. Apparently, there are still a few stores remaining in the Minneapolis area. Totally worth the trip. From Florida.

Tribbles. Little mint chocolate chip cookie nuggets

Kool-Aid Purplesaurus Rex. It's grape. It's lemonade. It's a tasty beverage.

Snackwells Yogurt. Really more like pudding. A deep chocolate, prompting the wonder whether there was any dairy in it at all.

French Chew Taffy. Found this recently at Dylan's Candy Bar - yay!

Ben & Jerry's Cool Brittania ice cream. Strawberry and vanilla swirl with chocolate-covered shortbread pieces. Second only to Bovinity Divinity, which I would order because I'd get to say the name² at the scoop shop.

New York Deli Potato Chips. These came in a purple bag with yellow writing. I swear I came across these within the past two years. Any crunchy kettle-cooked chip makes a good stand-in.

Orbitz. Better beverages through polymer chemistry! For a texture girl such as myself, I was destined to either love it or hate it. The vanilla-orange flavor was oddly appealing. To say nothing of the suspended bits of goo.

Hi-C Ecto Cooler. Sentimental value, but appealingly bright green. We³ have a can⁴ of this stuff aging in a cellar our high school French teacher's classroom closet.


1 Though this appears to be a reasonable substitute.

2 Same rationale applies for "Tiki Tots".

3 I hung out with an interesting crowd in high school.

4 Yes, a large can. Aseptic cartons are for pansies.

To Whom It May Concern

The Teacher Recommendation Letter.

It's an... odd thing. One of the curious artifacts of my career. Over the past few years, I've had the pleasure of writing letters of recommendation for several students, including some students to whom I am quite close. Those letters are both the easiest and the hardest to write. What can you convey to a college admissions officer to convince them that the person on whose behalf you are writing should be accepted? How much does my opinion really matter? I mean, how many letters do college admissions offices receive that aren't full of gloriously high praise for the applicants?

I wonder whether I take my letter-writing more seriously than the students take their application. Probably not, but when a student gets waitlisted or rejected, I can't help but feel like I've been rejected, too. Last year, I wrote some (well, I thought) particularly well-crafted letters; I poured a lot of myself into them. I'd write, set them aside, revisit, revise, edit, rewrite, even sending follow-up letters once I got to know a student better. The average letter took me over a week to complete.

How can the essence of a student be distilled into a letter? (no more easy a task than their own application essays, certainly) I'm currently writing this year's crop of letters, mindful of the decisions that will be made as a result of them that will set the course of these students' lives. And the hardest part is getting started. Well, no, that's not true. Because I follow a basic format for all my letters and fill in the details; it's deciding what, exactly, to present about a student that is the tough work. Sometimes it's easy - there is one singular trait that stands out. They have fantastic artistic ability. Their analytical capability stands out among their peers. They're exceptionally teachable. Their elegance belies their age. Then, there are those who are more difficult to describe. The ones who evoke something more ephemeral to a teacher. These are harder to write than the shopping list of talents: work ethic, check; intellectual ability, check; leadership roles; check. The students who, deep down, you know are destined for great things, even though they make Bs in my classes. It's hard to write that and come off as sincere, though. I used to panic over how well I really know my audience. I would think, how do I know what the reader of my letter on any given day at any given university is looking for? That's the wrong approach. The goal of the letter, after all, is to paint a fuller portrait of the candidate, so any details are good details.

Because they are so much of myself, I keep my letters private. I require students to sign the waiver so my letters won't become part of a their record. I send them straight to the university myself or hand them over to our college counselor in sealed envelopes with my signature across the seal. Part of me doesn't want a student to be critical of my letter and think, "well, this piece of trash is the reason I didn't get in!" - however unlikely that may be. Part of me doesn't want students to know that I think so highly of them. That's an interesting conundrum - we all crave praise, but I'd hate for a student to grow arrogant as a result. Call it maintenance of the balance of classroom power, if you like.

So, Class of 2008. Good luck, and know that you'll end up where you're meant to be. But I'll still agonize over your letters.

Chasing Daylight

Attention, People Who Decide These Things:

Can we please do away with this daylight-savings farce? If there's ever anything that's truly outlived its usefulness, it's Daylight Savings Time.

Oh, sure, there are some crybabies who will claim, "but we get an extra hour of daylight in the summer!" or "but our children will have to go to the bus stop in the dark!" Suck it up, I say!

First off, Daylight Savings does not magically add hours of sunlight to the day. There's no astronomical solar voodoo going on - that hour of summer sun at 900p is given up by (read: robbed from) the morning. And I have to say, it just irks me when people say we get "an extra hour of sun". No we don't - count 'em up, it's still the same.

Second, if that extra hour of evening daylight is so great in the summer, why can't we have it all year round? It's getting dark at 430p now, it seems.

Third, as we approach the winter solstice, kids will again be walking to the bus stop in the dark. Funny thing, that angle of the earth's axis.

Fourth, the chore of resetting clocks is ridiculous. It's a completely unnecessary complication. Particularly this year, when DST lasted an extra week. Thanks, programmers everywhere, for making electronics like my car smart enough to change time on its own. Too bad your program was written before the DST date adjustment. And there's always the clock in your house or on your wrist that you forget, and you come across it four weeks later, have a fleeting moment of panic that you're late, only to have Father Time shout "psych!" People all across the country wake up an hour late or early, depending on the season, which does not foster good will towards DST, trust me.

I grew up in Indiana, one of the last states to adopt DST (RIP 2006, whyWhyWHY?). We never changed our clocks, ever, so it was a quaintly foreign concept to me. Our TV programs would shift by an hour, and times were listed as "700p, 800p in Michigan" - or maybe 800, 700 in MI. I don't remember, and don't feel like doing the math right now. My point is that I never had to reset a clock until I moved to CA, at age 24. Fall back, spring ahead, indeed. What the heck does that mean to a DST neophyte? Do we win an hour of sleep or lose it? I'll tell you what I've lost - time thinking about how superfluous it all is. When you really think about it, time - as it's been standardized in recent centuries, thank you railroads - is a largely artificial human construct. And here we persist in making time even more arbitrary by shifting things an hour for half the year because we can't leave well enough alone.

Let's get rid of DST and just keep our clocks the way they are next fall.




Footnote: Speaking of Indiana/Michigan, the area is called Michiana - no lie. But that sounds completely natural to my ears. On the opposite end of the state is Kentuckiana, which never fails to elicit a snicker from me. Do other states do this? Is the Florida-Georgia border called "Florgia"? (let's hope not) Was there a proposal for Indiucky (which may only be marginally sillier than Kentuckiana)? Wyodaho? There's the ArkLaTex and DelMarVa, which sound a lot sexier than they look. I saw a street sign in Tampa recently - Floribraska Street. Really? People, I can guarantee you that Florida and Nebraska do not share a common border. Pick one or the other - you cannot have both in this case. I won't have it.

Addendum to Footnote: Dang - I hate when I write something and then I find out later that it's already been done. Seriously, I've had that bit about Florgia written for months.

Weight

Several of my blogging friends have mentioned the weight of life lately, so I'll throw my thoughts into the mix.

This year has been... heavy, overwhelmingly so, for a number of reasons. I've lost my study hall, which means I've lost my second prep period, something I was promised when I interviewed three years ago. So I'm teaching six classes, five preps. (teaching colleagues everywhere gasp) Actually, when you factor in my once-a-week club preparation and my student lab assistants, I suppose you could say I have seven. At least I'm not working weekends any more... Anyhow, I'm nearly a month behind on grading - what with our new house, plus a bunch of responsibilities heaped on me the past couple of weeks. This year's theme is "suck it up," and I'm trying very hard to shoulder everything, but the cracks are beginning to show.

I'm annoyed that I'm being robbed of the joy of a new house: figuring out where everything belongs, rearranging furniture, hanging pictures, painting, meeting the neighbors. Instead, I get all the annoyances: the long search for something I need that could be in any given box in any given room, the inability to find something my husband has unpacked. I feel like a visitor in my house, rather than that sense of ownership that comes with organizing one's things in a new space.

I'm annoyed that this is my fourth year teaching high school, and it feels like my first again.

I'm annoyed that the very thing that keeps me teaching (and not chucking it all and going back to industry) is slipping through the cracks right now: the personal connections with students and my investment in their lives. This greatly troubles me.

I'm annoyed that the weight is beginning to manifest itself physically. I feel just-on-the-edge of a potential sore throat, and I'm supremely lucky that I haven't been taken down by some virus; I'm totally ripe for it, what with my lack of sleep. My shoulders are so tight, it's going to take weeks to unclench. I've been noticing my heart doing that little skip-a-beat thing it does when I'm under pressure.


This is not good.


This weekend will be filled with grading, but the mountain is steep. Of course, I'm not making any progress at this moment... Oh, who am I kidding? I'll be up past midnight regardless. May as well write on the internet for a bit.


All right, then. Back to work.

Totally Inconsequential Stuff

I mean, I haven't had a meaningful post in weeks. Why break with tradition? Besides, I should be in bed.

I'm bored with my hair, and I have hair dye in the bathroom, but I might get some bleach tomorrow, if I make progress with work. Any wagers on whether this will end well?


More Top-Fives. Because I can.

Ballroom Dances
1. Samba
2. Swing
3. Foxtrot
4. Viennese Waltz
5. Mambo

Fresh Fruit
1. Coconut
2. Pears
3. Peaches
4. Raspberries
5. Pomegranates

Nonfiction Authors
1. John McPhee
2. Bill Bryson
3. Dave Barry
4. Sarah Vowell
5. David Sedaris

Top Fives

Top-Five Lists in place of a more substantial posting:

Trees
Sugar Maple
Gingko
Eucalyptus
Flowering Magnolia
Date Palm

I really don't like oak trees. I don't know why. They just bother me. Maybe it's the leaf-drop in offset seasons. (shrug)

Classic Films
North by Northwest
Gone With the Wind
The Seven-Year-Itch
Desk Set
The Graduate

Pretense-Free Movies
A Chorus Line
Legally Blonde
Dirty Dancing
Aladdin
Good Morning, Vietnam

Ice Cream Flavors
Banana
Mint Chip (but only if it's green)
Blue Moon
Butter Pecan (it's not just for senior citizens!)
Cookies and Cream

Homecoming

So I'm back at Purdue for Homecoming weekend, with a science alumni board meeting tomorrow, tailgating festivities Saturday morning, football game Saturday afternoon, then back home on Sunday (missing the Mythbusters Sunday afternoon - that's a whole other rant I don't want to get into right now). I've never come home for homecoming, so it's kind of fun to be part of it all. Met some guy at the rental car counter who is back for his 50th reunion and some fraternity thing.

Anyhow, our flight was delayed from Cleveland, which means I just got to Lafayette about a half-hour ago. Driving I-65 from Indianapolis, I was awash with a flood of memories. I'm sure there will be quite the deluge tomorrow, too. I'm not going to even operate under the pretense that I'm not going to indulge in nostalgia. I'm just giving into it. It's too big a force to resist.

Via the scan button (took a few minutes to figure out the radio - why is it that American car stereos are so difficult to figure out?), I stumbled across an FM station playing 24-7 Christmas music. ?? People. It's not even Halloween yet!

It's perfect autumn weather forecast for the weekend - turtleneck-sweater-and-boot weather. I can't even explain how excited I am about this; I have grown weary of Florida and its 80s.

Happy Mole Day

Don't forget to celebrate Mole Day today, from 602a to 602p.

And you can dress up like a mole, if you like. This has me wondering why I don't own this. ------>

Five Things, Again

A friend and I worked at Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach yesterday, doing airbrush tattoos on people. I'm trying very hard to compartmentalize and never recall sights and sounds of the day, so let me just say that I've declared a moratorium on my interaction with the general public. I try to avoid the general public as best I can, but that's it. I'm done. My quota has been exceeded.


I'm exceptionally happy to report that all five things from the post below have been located! So now I have a new list:

Asset 001: Hiking Shoes
Known Aliases: Columbia Trekkers
Last Known Whereabouts: second-floor banister of former house; fruitless search for these rounded up missing Uncertainty book.

Asset 002: Blender
Known Aliases: The Kitchenaid Margarita Miracle
Last known Whereabouts: Under the sink of former house
Known Associates: other operatives such as the Food Processor, most of which have been traced

Asset 003: Knives
Known Aliases: none
Known Components: Block, five knives, and sharpening steel
Last Known Whereabouts: Kitchen counter of former house

Asset 004: #10 Envelopes
Known Aliases: none
Last Known Whereabouts: Office of former house

Asset 005: Toilet Paper
Known Aliases: Charmin, Cottonelle, many others
Last Known Whereabouts: Spotted in new house; presumed dead
Known Associates: Paper towels and napkins. May need to recruit more of its kin if it has indeed perished.


Other Top-Fives:

Fruit-Flavored Candy
1. Banana Laffy Taffy
2. Cherry Tangy Taffy
3. Passionfruit Tic Tacs
4. Peach Jolly Ranchers
5. Blue Raspberry Airheads


Chocolate Candy
1. Kit Kats
2. Dove Milk Chocolate
3. Valhrona 71% Cacao
4. Cote d'Or Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts
5. World's Finest Chocolate Milk Chocolate Almond Bars

Five Things

My life is in utter disarray.

There are five things I need to find. So far, I have located two. So, that's 40%. Still failing, but definitely redeemable.
- Toothbrush (found yesterday)
- Deodorant (found this morning)
- Blank CDs (haven't a clue - I might just cut my losses and go buy some)
- My Uncertainty book (no clue where it might be)
- A Consumer Reports magazine I'd been reading the night before our move (again, no clue)

I mean, at least the things I've found were the mission-critical personal-hygiene items, but still, there's no telling how long it will be before I locate these. Particularly forboding is the fact that the book was from the library, and I might be maxed out on renewals...

I have a mile-high stack of papers to grade, but I need to get the rest of my life in order. No comments from the peanut gallery about how I'm currently writing on my blog when I could be grading. It's called a break, people! Anyhow, I'm going to set a goal. Unpack two boxes per night. Now, that's a pretty reachable goal. And at that rate, we'll be unpacked around 2010. But, as someone who puts easy things on her to-do list for the mental victory of crossing them off, I'm all for easily-reached goals.


Other Top-Five Lists, just because:

Purdue University Courses
- Wine Appreciation (FS 470)
- Floral Arrangement and Interior Plant Management (HORT 360)
- Art History since 1400 (A&D 227)
- Weather Analysis and Forecasting (ATMS 444)
- Constitutional History since 1873 (HIST 328)

Literary and Theatrical Themes
- Highbrow comedy
- Unrequited love
- The non-Bond spy (think: Bourne Identity, Alias)
- Understated religious symbolism (think Matrix, *not* CS Lewis)
- Oblivious romance (think: Niles and Daphne on Frasier)

Desk Supplies
- Fountain pens
- Sticky notes
- Index cards, unlined
- Hole punches
- Erasers


Update (1201a): Found the CDs! At least now I'm passing. Unless I add my knives to the list. So, maybe I'll pretend I'm not looking for them...

Damage Report

Before I launch into tales of the move, let me tell a quick story about what happened to me Thursday morning.

So I have my clock radio alarm dialed all the way down to the lowest FM station - 87.7. Which overlaps with VHF station 6, in case you weren't aware. I don't know how it got there, but inertia keeps it tuned to that station. Anyhow. My alarm goes off that morning, and somewhere between the alarm going off and the smacking it receives by my hand flailing for the snooze button, Mr. Low-Fidelity Clock Radio shouts, "...Al Gore's murder..." and SMACK - the snooze bar shuts him up. I lay there in bed and think, what?? But before I can really process this, I'm back asleep. Nine minutes later, I hear the TV talking head say, "...suspect is considered armed and dangerous..." and SMACK again on the snooze button. What on earth is going on? So I drag my bones out of bed, brush my teeth, pull on clothes, and go downstairs to turn on the tv. All I see is traffic and weather, and one would think that if the former vice president was indeed murdered, that would have higher priority. Well, one would think. So there's nothing to be found, and so I drive to work. I don't bother listening to NPR or any other news outlet. First period is my prep period, so I walk into the copy room first thing in the morning and see Jess. I ask, "Um. Is Al Gore still alive?" She responds (disappointedly) affirmatively. Hm. So I'm puzzled by all of this. Until last night, I heard a reference to this on the news. Aaaaaaah!


Okay. So, we've moved. Mostly. At least, the majority of our stuff is now in our new house. It's going to be a long time before we've found everything...

You know how every vacation has a theme? Well, they do. For example, our summer trip to Europe (2006) had the theme "Peculiar German Things." Major life events have themes, too, and this move was no exception. I began to think the theme was becoming "Supremely Bad Decisions."

The morning began inauspiciously. First, after taking the first carload of stuff over to the new house and retrieving tools to take apart beds and bookcases, I noticed a big mamma-jamma spider on our front porch wall. I stood there, looking at it for a few minutes, wrestling internally, do I kill it, do I spare it, yadda yadda, and eventually I decided to just do away with it, because the last thing I want is to be staring at this thing *inside* my house, instead of outside. And this was no spider I'd want to come upon in a darkened alley. So, the nearest weapon is my foot. So I kick it, and it falls to the floor. And so do thirty baby spiders! Turns out big mamma-jamma spider is a mama spider. So now I've given this spider a brute-force caesarean, she's not quite dead, and now I have little baby spiderlets scurrying everywhere. And these are going to grow up to be big ol' spiders. So they get the stomping, too. So now I feel horrible, because mama's not quite dead, and she's having to witness the carnage of her children. I'm trying really hard not to think of Charlotte's Web, all right?

Supremely bad decision #2 (however involuntary) was Brian's choice of footwear. As he was carrying things out of our old place to the truck out front, his sandaled foot hits a utility meter grate and punches through it, sustaining injury involving toenails. Other people's toenails gross me out, so I'm going to stop here before I barf. The bonus is that we had a nurse practitioner there to help us move, so she did some triage and got him back up on his feet.


Things perked up after that. Cable's working, so's water, electricity, even internet. Everything has been pretty plug-n-play. So far, we've had only one wrinkle - the kitchen table set that hasn't been delivered. The rant on Kane's Furniture can come some other time.

We have all but two bathrooms and the entry hall painted, and it didn't seem like a great idea to paint the entry hall until we moved everything in. We've had a fleet of people here, doing all kinds of work - installing blinds, putting handles on cabinets, installing ceiling fans, painting, hauling, etc. It's been great. We made such progress yesterday, I suffered from some strange form of daylight savings - you know, the kind of day where you think it's gotta be about 700p, and when you look down at your watch, you're delighted to see it's 330p? Anyhow, it's certainly starting beginning to feel more like home.

Things I will miss about our old home:

• The Publix half a block away. So convenient for fresh food at a moment's notice. We have one nearby, but it's a 5-min car ride, at the very least. :(
• Stairs. My knees don't agree with me. They don't have any problem with a one-story.
• A private walled patio. We have a screened enclosure, which I love, but people can see in screens! Not like I run around outside naked or anything, but it's just different, being on a porch without walls.
• Being in the flight path of the Britain-bound 747s. We'll still get to see them take off and land, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same when they're not flying low and slow, directly overhead!
• Neighbors (mixed blessing). We're on the edge of the prairie here, on the frontier of our neighborhood, and we don't have many people around us yet at all. Another house across and down the street had a moving van outside yesterday, too, so I'll have to wander down and meet them sometime soon. I hope we can have people nearby that we like and know. I've never lived somewhere - besides growing up - where I really knew my neighbors. Maybe here.

Yay!

It's ours. :)

Bonus Picture Post

My latte art this morning.

It was actually intended to be a pumpkin. It ended up looking like a sea creature, so I gave it an eye and pronounced it a dolphin.

Summer Reading

I had an ambitious summer reading list (to say nothing of the teetering stacks and bowing shelves of books -yet-to-read here at home) that I wanted to finish during summer, when I actually have time to read. During the school year, my reading-for-pleasure consists of rereading the same paragraphs night after night as I barely finish a page before falling asleep.

So, my (hedonistic-scale - I loved it! I hated it!) reviews:

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
I liked it - plain and simple. I like books that plop you down in the middle of another culture and just let you experience it through the text. This was one.


Wonderland, Michael Bamberger
A quick read about a year in the life of an American high school. Interesting, but nothing terribly fascinating. Best lines:

"His career had spanned eras. When he began teaching, the role of the teacher, as Mr. Cunningham saw it, was to get inside the lives of the students and shape them. Now the job was all about, he said, 'covering your ass.'"

The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
This was a re-read for book club. I hadn't picked it up since high school, and was antsy to read it now that I'm (almost) a grown-up. A lot of ladies did not love it. I thought it was great, still. I'm sure I had more profound things to say about it two months ago.


A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Also a reread for book club. This and Catcher were my favorite books that I was ever assigned to read. I wound up reading A Separate Peace twice during high school. And so I was looking forward to re-reading, particularly since I teach at a boarding school now. I still like it, but I was expecting much more from it. It has given me a wonderful quotation, something I want to devote an entire blog entry to someday:

"...when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love."

Actually, I want to do an entire series of posts on the nature of love. I have a lot of scattered writings to condense into some posts. Maybe it will make a good school-break task.


Notes on a Scandal, Zoe Heller
I loved this. It was such an easy read, and really fascinating. A total bait-and-switch. It's billed as a story about a teacher who has an affair with a student, but it's really about the predatory friendship that the teacher suffers at the hands of another teacher. Which is a far more captivating story. There were some passages that made my commonplace book.(1) Maybe I'll get up and grab it. Maybe later.

Okay, it's later.

"I keep staring at things, willing myself to remember them. [snipped] Of course, memory is not really as obedient a faculty as that. You can't consciously decide what is going to adhere. Certain things may strike you at the time as memorable, but memory only laughs at your presumption. 'Oh, I'm never going to forget this,' you say to yourself when you visit the Sacre-Coeur at sunset. And years later, when you try to summon up an image of the Sacre-Coeur, it's as cold and abstract as if you'd only ever seen it on a postcard. If anything unlocks the memory of this house for me, years from now, it will be something - some tiny, atmospheric fragment - of which I'm not even aware at the moment. I know this, and yet I still persist in making my little inventory, trying to nail down my recollections."

"What is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left. That's the thing about people who believe in God, isn't it? The love they have for Him never ends. He never lets them down. I read some writer once who said that love - he was talking about romantic love - love is a mystery and, when the solution is found, it evaporates."

"Talking to him is rather like attempting to converse with a school play."

"Any break in my routine - any small variation in the sequence of work and grocery shopping and telly and so on - tends to take on a disproportionate significance. I'm a child in that respect: able to live, psychically speaking, on a crumb of anticipation for weeks at a time, but always in danger of crushing the waited-for event with the freight of my excessive hope."

All Loves Excelling, Josiah Bunting III
Exceptionally predictable. A decent beach-read, which is exactly where I read this. One portion made the commonplace. Again, later. Maybe. It's not as good as the other quoted text here.


The English Teacher, Lily King
A used-book-sale find. A pleasant read, interesting characters. A bit slow in parts, but enough character development to keep my interest.


Only Child, Siegel and Ulviller
I've already described my thoughts at length. Enjoy them.


Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science, David Lindley
I'm so enjoying this book, but I've made it my bedstand book for six weeks now (thank you, OCPL online renewals...), which means that I collapse, exhausted, into bed and reread the same paragraph or half-page three nights in a row, like I reference up there^. Not a great way to read a book; I don't recommend it. I'd like to make it a point to finish this one, in one swoop. Maybe tomorrow, but that's highly unlikely.


There were many I didn't so much as even think about. Actually, that's not true. There are a few books that I at least obtained, even if I didn't read them:
- The Headmaster, John McPhee (2)
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (A re-read; my husband and I had BNW inside jokes at the beginning of our relationship. Maybe that's too geeky for public release...)
- Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, Donald Miller (A treasured birthday gift, it was to be the first thing I read this summer, but I put it off. I don't know why. I should crack it open.)


There were several others I didn't so much as investigate the availability at the library. Still, I think I did some serious work on a pretty lengthy list. What with traveling and whatever else it was that I did this summer. It feels like ages ago already.


(1) I have sucked at writing in my commonplace book. It needs a more prominent home, and I might actually remember to write in it.

(2) I strongly encourage the reading of any John McPhee. Florida readers will enjoy Oranges, though it is somewhat dated, having been published in the late 60s, if I recall correctly. Rock-heads (geology, not death-metal) will enjoy his Annals of the Former World. The Control of Nature is worthwhile. Or if you want a sampling, The John McPhee Reader. On my McPhee short list are The Curve of Binding Energy, the aforementioned Headmaster, and Common Carriers, his latest.

On the Color of Lightning

We had a grey, windy, rainy day today. The kinds of mornings of which I have written. It was a stretch, but I made it into boot and sweater weather.

Tonight, on the drive home, the lightning was almost olive-green. Normally lightning here has a bluish or purplish tone to otherwise white light. Tonight, a storm in the distance had lightning with the most green cast I've ever seen lightning have.

On the iPod

Music to grade papers by:

Fade Into You, Mazzy Star
San Andreas Fault, Natalie Merchant
Gold Rush Brides, 10,000 Maniacs
Noah's Dove, 10,000 Maniacs
Le Spinner, Isabelle Antena
Snow Day, Lisa Loeb
Sleeping Satellite, Tasmin Archer
#1 Crush, Garbage
Fix Me Now, Garbage
Baby Can I Hold You, Tracy Chapman
David Duchovny, Bree Sharp
No Ordinary Love, Sade
Uninvited, Alanis Morrissette
Last Time, Shea Seger
I Kicked a Boy, The Sundays
Scarlett's Walk, Tori Amos
Bleed to Love Her, Fleetwood Mac
Malibu, Hole
Other Side of the World, KT Tunstall
Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield
Fast as You Can, Fiona Apple
Ladder, Joan Osborne

A lot of chicks... don't know why. (shrug)