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June 26, 2006
a quick request
I'm loading my iPod with an exam playlist made up entirely of songs sans vocals.
I was shocked to see that the only thing in my library that fit this bill is Bela Fleck (this excluding any orchestra/classical music).
I need some good music without the distraction of lyrics. Suggestions?? Please?
Posted by mryonker at 04:51 PM | Comments (10)
what has thrilled me today
1. I woke up this morning at 445 to cart Deb and the Pattermooses to the aeropuerto so they could get to San Juan. I am living vicariously through them this week; I *so* could have made my living as a lifeguard and full-time beach bum in PR.
2. I came home at 600 and flopped on the couch and slept until 730, the latest I've slept in several weeks.
3. Delicious cantelope.
4. DEVONthink. I know that I've gushed here about Merlin at 43 folders before, but I really do love him for looking out for me. I was able to sift through 100 or so books' worth of notes this morning to dig out quotes.
5. The rain. The cool day has been perfect for sitting next to my window and sifting through notes.
6. My kids. This being their first "real" day off from school, they could have been monsters (especially with the rainy weather). But instead, J-baby slept until nearly 9 (no nap yesterday), Hannah made cookies and CLEANED UP after herself, and Jack wrote a book, which is the funniest thing ever. I can't even do it justice here, I'll have to scan it in or take pictures or something. Suffice it to say, the punchline involves a bird butt.
Posted by mryonker at 03:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2006
this is what I want my kids to know/learn/live
If I only teach my kids one thing, it's this:
"As an opposite to what many believe, the best times in life are not passive, receiving and relaxed moments. The best moments occur in general when a human is stretching her body to the maximum in a conscious exertion in order to achieve something difficult and effort worthy"(20).
This tidbit from
Paeonia, who gets it from Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi.
I should have known to check this author out a few years ago when a beloved fellow PhD here at SU brought some of his work to class. He will be one of the first on my list to read during the week after I finish my exams--also known as "the week during which I will not be sober for even one minute."
Posted by mryonker at 10:48 PM | Comments (1)
June 23, 2006
white rabbit salad
You have to be a fan of cottage cheese for this to work for you. A Molly Katzen, Moosewood Original (with my own edits and omissions):
A container of cottage cheese, your choice of curd size and % fat (I like small curd 4%)
2 sweet crunchy apples
1/4 C sunflower seeds (I like them salted, but however)
1-2 Tbs honey (a good-sized dollop)
lemon juice from a half a lemon (or a good squirt out of a ReaLemon)
Chop the apples, throw everything into a bowl and mix, and stick it back in the fridge. If you can't wait another hour to eat it (I rarely can), you can eat it right then, it'll still be good. It's just better really cold. Actually, I eat as much as I need to right then in order to fit the salad back into the original cottage cheese container, which is a good few mouthfuls, and then stow it back away for later.
Katzen also adds raisins and more roasted nuts, but I'm beginning to like raisins less and less in my old age. Strange, I know. I'll eat them, of course, but given the option, I leave 'em out. And I'm sure more nuts would be good, but I have only ever made it with the sunflower seeds, and I'm fine with it.
And Katzen says to eat it on crispy lettuce, but I just eat it out of the container. Standing over the sink. :)
Posted by mryonker at 07:10 AM | Comments (1)
June 22, 2006
competing voices
I'm lying with the boys last night as they fall asleep. Equipped with my head lamp and a book, I dutifully waste no idle moment, and read while I wait for their breathing to become heavy and even.
Hayden White: Romantic artists went to history for their themes and appealed to 'historical conciousness' as a justification for their attempts at cultural palingenesis, their attempts to make the past a living presence to their contemporaries...
Me: Must look up "palingenesis."
HW: In fact, when many contemporary historians speak of the 'art' of history, they seem to have in mind a conception of art that would admit little more than the nineteenth-century novel as a paradigm...
Me: Mmm. History as narrative, as story-telling.
Jack: Mom?
Me: Yes?
Jack: Do frogs bite?
Me: Um. None do that I know of. I could be wrong, of course. We can look it up tomorrow. I think there are frogs that shoot poison darts, though.
Jack: Do we have those frogs in Parish?
Me: No, I think they're only in the rainforest.
HW: A similar criticism can be levelled at the historian's claim to a place among the scientists. When historians speak of themselves as scientists, they seem to be invoking a conception of science that was perfectly suitable for the world in which Herbert Spencer lived and worked, but it has very little to do with the physical sciences as they have developed since Einstein and with the social sciences as they have evolved since Weber...
Me: [Herbert Spencer?] ...
Jack: Mom?
Me: Yes?
Jack: Do frogs have teeth, though?
Me: Um. I don't think so. Not that I'm aware.
HW: In sum, when historians claim that history is a combination of science and art, they generally mean that it is a combination of late-nineteenth-century social science and mid-nineteenth-century art. That is to say, they seem to be aspiring to little more than a synthesis of modes of analysis and expression that have their antiquity alone to commend them.
Jack: Well. Do frogs just catch flies and then swallow them whole without CHEWING THEM??
Me: [still trying to think of who Herbert Spencer is, and wondering if this is why Oh Great Leader in Composition told me to come back to White, after I had an effluvious epiphany about the history of technology, rhetoric, and pedagogy earlier that day] I suppose, if they don't have teeth.
Jack: Man. Didn't their mom tell them to chew their food? They're going to choke. Plus, they won't get all the goodness of the flies if they don't chew, huh Mom?
Posted by mryonker at 09:17 AM | Comments (5)
June 20, 2006
#300 (or, this is your brain on exam work)
That's 300 posts, this here one.
Ironic, because this post was going to be about my obsessive nature, namely, my tendency to obsess over certain foods.
Because today I'm eating vegie curry. Again.
My obsessions are eccentric (read: just plain weird), and few of them is particularly useful. I obsess about the toaster oven being clean, but the floor of my kitchen, well, that's another story. But having a clean toaster doesn't do much when there's two weeks of crud on the floor. That is, it certainly doesn't help the kitchen look "clean," even though I spend about a half hour every other day or so scrubbing the damn thing out.
Same with the toilet. I'll clean the toilet, but leave the sink in the bathroom looking like someone washed their scuzzy feet in it.
Numbers, however, are something that I don't obsess about. When I played sports in school, I thought the least useful thing any of my coaches did was to go over our stats. (I thought this was ESPECIALLY useless when I was on the basketball team, mainly because I was such a poor player that I didn't have stats; well, I always had plenty of fouls, but you get me). I have only recently, after having been a runner for nearly 15 years, started paying attention to distance and speed. And that is a result of having several good friends whose obsessions have rubbed off on me.
But back to the food obsession. I tend to make jokes that "I'll eat anything if it sits still on a plate long enough for me to stab it with a fork." And this is, for the most part, true; the only foods I shun are whole chick peas (they make good hummus, though) and lima beans. But even though I'll eat just about anything, I will do this horrible thing (horrible to my family, anyway) whereby I'll cook the same dish several times over within the same week. Sometimes it's even more neglectful than that: I'll cook the same dish that they all abhor (CURRY) several times over, causing them to resort to grilled cheese and hot dogs and similarly sub-nutritious meals.
Wow. This post has NO coherence. I'm an obsessed freak, I can't feed my family properly, and my house is a wreck with several discrete cleans spots.
This is what preparing for exams does to you: makes you find connections in small things. Or, this is what preparing for exams does to you: makes your writing an amalgamated mess of connections that only are apparent and/or important to you.
Posted by mryonker at 03:14 PM | Comments (5)
June 19, 2006
giddy-makers
First, I was overcome with a strange giddy pleasure when I read that our slew of marathon narratives were inspiration (and yes, she uses that very word) for Dr. Write to run a half marathon. She, of course, rocked.
Second, I spent the entire day yesterday at the Fair Haven State Park with 6 children and one really good friend, and we marveled at how our babies are all grown up. I mean, of course they are NOT grown up, but our youngest (hers 3, mine 2.5) are nearly maintence free on the beach. We sat at the water's edge and watched our kids play and did not have to chase them, change diapers, pull our boobs from our suits to nurse anyone, and I could go on. We packed sandwiches, beach toys, and towels and threw everyone on the sand and the flopped into our chairs to enjoy looking at the too-young lifeguards and the fjord-like cliffs ... oh, and to watch our kids. Not chase. Watch (and wipe sand out of eyes periodically).
So when I read Jen's post this morning about letting Nola scream herself to sleep, I felt another giddy rush: I survived that. I'm through it. And if I could console Jen at all (which it's questionable whether or not I can, because I remember feeling and knowing something so isolating and unconsolable when J-baby was a devil baby), I would say to her that the worse it is NOW, the better it is later. Not that later is any better than it would be otherwise, but that living through these specific hells make you appreciate when the hell goes away.
It's like getting to stop after a run. Right now, Jen, you're running. Running hard. And it's a looooong grueling race. And when this one is over, there'll be another. But they get easier.
I think. I hope.
Posted by mryonker at 08:45 AM | Comments (4)
June 15, 2006
a different kind of camping
Derek posted today about getting ready to get ready for his exams, and the chore of organizing and amassing books and materials.
He's got a nifty pic up of his bookshelf devoted to exams stuff. Not to be outdone, I thought it would be interesting if I posted similarly, and explained my different(ly) way about getting ready for my exams.
Since they're in, like, two weeks. And right now it's all I think about.
I started out with a bookshelf devoted to "exam stuff only." However, there were two problems with that system (for me): first, bookshelves are kind of static, flat surfaces that crap gets put on, right? If there is ANY flat place where crap can get put in my house, then, inevitably, crap gets put there. What I mean to say is, that bookshelf was NOT my own. As it was in the office, B decided to co-opt half of the bottom shelf for his binders. Hannah came home from our village library this spring with a handful of discarded historical romance novels (like Harlequinn, but not--and btw, what was our librarian THINKING?? those things are definitely for ADULTS not 9-year-olds!!). They immediately went on my shelf. Since it was adjacent to my desk in the office, I was guilty of piling crap onto it as well, mostly teaching books and stuff I needed to grade and etc.
It was a mess. The second reason the bookshelf didn't work: I had family in this month, we needed to clean the office out so someone could sleep on the futon and use it as a bedroom. I wasn't going to be able to *really* get to my stuff for over a week, which was NOT acceptable (see above, where I tell you how SOON my exams are!!). I needed to be able to make my exam prep mobile. What I really needed was a nifty library cart (much like the ones in the reshelving room in our library, where I spent an hour today looking for a book that the catalogue SAYS was in the stacks and AVAILABLE but wasn't anywhere *sigh*). But I don't have a nifty library cart.
What I have are laundry baskets. Three of them, chuck full of books and notebooks and articles and stuff. And if I had any sense, I'd have one basket for each area, but I'm not even that organized. They move from the bedroom to the living room back to the office. I'm getting a decent upper body workout, too.
But my favorite spot to camp right now is in the dining room, which is the geographic center of the house. I have a window I can stare out occasionally, the fridge is only a few steps away, I can hear/see the kids where ever they are in the house, and the natural light is good enough to read by, but not so bright I can't see my screen.
Posted by mryonker at 03:15 PM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2006
how do you know my mom's left town?
1. half of the coffee cups in my house are filled with bacon grease
2. half the books in my house are gone
3. the TV is on for the first time in a week
4. I'm going through withdrawal -- my body became physically addicted to lunch buffet. When lunchtime came around today, I wandered aimlessly into the kitchen and found a fudgecicle and some left over baba ghanouj. Who can live without a lunch buffet??
5. I'm the first one up in the morning again
6. my recycle bin is FULL of seltzer bottles
7. the fingers on my left hand have developed some tough skin--callouses I'll have to keep up until next month, so when we play the wedding (and practice frantically the two days prior) I won't have wussy sensitve fingers
8. my kids tell me "I'm bored. I wish Grandma was still here"
9. I attempt pigtails, with less success than she has--my hair is too long and instead of "cute" I feel like "old lady trying to wear pigtails" (ironic, huh?). I twist them into Princess Leia buns, but I don't have *enough* hair for that, so it looks like I have mini-cinnabons sprouting from my head. *sigh* Can't win
10. I miss her
11. I'm back to the blog
Posted by mryonker at 05:35 PM | Comments (2)
June 09, 2006
how I have failed as a dance mom
Another quick list:
1. her body bag is not convertible
2. her lipstick is not red enough
3. I could not, after three stores and hours of driving, find peachy flesh-colored elastic for the red pill box she wears during her tap number
4. we had no bobby pins in the house for the dress rehearsal, so her bun was not a "true" bun, but instead a strange concoction of twisty braid and elastics
5. I could not stay for the dress rehearsal--I had to meet with my life coach
6. I only bought ONE body bag, and she snagged and put a hole into the only one she has during the dress rehearsal
7. I cannot afford to cater the after-recital party
To make up for my many shortcomings as a dance mom, I will:
1. attempt to cut holes in the bottom of the feet of her existing body bag see #6
2. send my mom, an at-large Sweet Adeline, to the drug store to find the reddest lipstick she can. Because her sense of glam is far more honed than mine, for sure.
3. use a peach-colored marker and color some white elastic.
4. run to the dollar store for some bobby pins
5. tell her to "tough it out, I'll be back to pick you up after the life coach gets me on the right track"--and then get her some Taco Bell when she's done
6. spend an entire Friday frantically searching for a (convertible this time) body bag (I ordered the first one online)
7. make my mom cook tamales for the post-recital party
Posted by mryonker at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)
June 05, 2006
how do you know my mom's in town?
1a. There's a short grey-haired woman in pig tails playing monster badminton in my back yard.
1b. There's a short grey-haired woman in pig tails playing spider solitaire in the office.
1c. There's a short grey-haired woman trying to talk me into getting my nose pierced *like SHE did*!!
2. I'm cooking all the goodest food I can come up with for dinner, because there is someone in my house that I can share it with. So far I've made some spicy gumbo, salmon croquettes, and tonight was shrimp curry with fried tofu. Can you say gastronomic big O?
3. My brother starts coming around (which means more people to share my goodest food with!).
4. We do a lot of thrift store hopping.
5. The guitars come out. We play show and tell, playing and talking through new songs we've learned since we've seen each other last. I was poorly prepared; teaching and reading have only given me time to learn two new songs. And she wins for figuring out a new Counting Crows song ("Accidentally in Love"). The Indigo Girls' songbook comes out. We stumble through a few we don't know but should.
6. All the kids in my house are walking around with knitting needles. What the hell is she thinking, giving my 6-year-old boy POINTED STICKS??!! So far all the eyes in my house remain intact. So far.
7. When we answer the phone, people think she's me, and I'm her.
8. The rafters and footers shake all night with her signature snore (how can such a cute woman in pigtails SNORE with such force??).
9. When the kids get too loud, neighbors hear a woman, who sounds much like me, hollering over the top of the din for them to "QUIT MAKING SO MUCH NOISE!!" Um, Mom? Quit making so much noise. :)
10. My husband hides upstairs and gets more work done on the second floor remodel in one week than he has in the past year.
Posted by mryonker at 09:39 PM | Comments (2)
June 03, 2006
runningburro makes her debut...
7:25 am/Starting Line: This was the second best part of the whole race -- the anticipation of how I’m going to kick some ass and surprise all of my friends and family with my running prowess. This kind of thinking was, of course, a strategy to cover up all the nervousness I had about my parents and rainbowhair being there: I would be mortified not to finish.
I’m still reeling from the incredibly poor rendition of our fine country’s national anthem when the gun goes off prematurely.
Mile 1: Deb takes off like a shot. Madeline and I follow at a slower pace, and we begin a conversation that would repeat itself until Mile 22 or thereabouts:
Me: It’s hot.
Madeline: I’m sweaty.
Me: And this is hard. It’s too damn hot. I’m no good in the heat (already making excuses
just in case I don’t kick some ass .
Madeline: Deb is going to qualify for Boston. She’s crazy.
Mile 2: There are very few spectators -- mainly a handful of folks living in condos along the lake (Lake Erie, that is) who are watching us while drinking their morning coffee. I have an irrational surge of affection for these people, who wave at us and wish us good luck. I begin giving a “thumbs up” in return, which makes me feel cool, like an astronaut about to board a space shuttle. Madeline opts for a “thanks!”
Around the 2.5 mark we are lapped by the folks who will complete the marathon in times that make people whistle and say, “Whowhee -- they run so fast, they’re blurry.
Mile 3: First water stop. Smiling people handing out cups, calling “Water here. Gatorade ahead.” Quick decisions must be made. Which do I want? Should I take one of each? Should I stand to the side and drink or try to drink while in motion? I am terrified that I will cause a traffic jam at the table. I followed Madeline’s lead and all goes well.
Mile 5: The course here forms a loop. Deb heads toward us, already through the second water stop. We are sure that she is going to die of heat exhaustion from running too damn fast. We are jealous and proud of her.
At the second water stop, I take two drinks, down them, and chuck the cups on the ground. Madeline says, “you look like a pro at that.” My crush on her gets a little bigger.
Mile 6-7: The miles, while fast, are not getting easier. More whining on my part about the heat. Fear that we won’t get to the halfway point by 2.5 hours and will be kicked off the course. Fear that Madeline will get tired of my whining and leave me to die in the heat.
Miles 9-11: We enter a cemetery, where a course volunteer shouts, “Plenty of water and shade inside.” This man will forever burn in hell for his lies.
Miles 12-22: I have no clear recollection of the exact series of events that occurred after this point. I, of course, blame this on the heat. I distinctly remember a few things, however:
Making the halfway point in 2:10 (thinking, “we so rule this course!”)
Choking down my first GU
Digging the volunteers who stop hostile Buffalo traffic for us -- such nice
people
Agreeing with Madeline that we should volunteer for one of these things (no
running involved!)
Hating the jackass volunteer at mile the 19 water stop who tries to “encourage” walking
runners to “pick up the pace” by saying “Only runners get water! Come on!” We
call him dirty names under our breath.
Being overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers -- people who were not official
race volunteers who had their lawn hoses set up like makeshift sprinklers so that we could cool down
Mile 22 (approximately) At this point, some of the mile markers have disappeared, along with the race volunteers who stop traffic and offer guidance as to the course route. Madeline and I are walking a bit, limping along, me panting. I’m walking because I feel like I’m going to pass out. Madeline is walking because her knee hurts. We are a sorry sight. We break into a shuffle (a run-walk kind of thing). Madeline stops.
(Disclaimer: the following dialogue is only somewhat representational of actual
conversation that took place between runningburro and Madeline. Parts
have been changed to highlight the drama of the situation).
Madeline: Leave me! You still have some strength left!
Me: I’ll never leave you! Dude, I want to walk! Do you think I want to run? I’m
only running because you want to run!
Madeline (adopting a Michael Corleone godfather accent): Runningburro, if
you don’t leave me, you’ll disappoint me.
Me: No.
Madeline: Yes.
And so on and so forth.
I don’t really remember how we got separated. We both started our run-shuffle again, and near a water stop, she fell back a bit and I kept going. I remember thinking, “I’ve just proven that if I were climbing Mt. Everest with a friend and that friend hurt her knee, I would be the sort of person who would leave my friend to be eaten by Polar Bears (if they lived on the Mountain) and save my own skin.” I am so tired that I can’t even muster up any real self-loathing.
Mile 23.5: I see an exhausted, broken runner taken away on a stretcher. I consider fake-fainting so that the firefighters will put me on a stretcher, too (perhaps I could convince them to carry me across the finish line?)
Miles 24-26: Some lady, partying on her front porch with friends, offers me a beer (which I decline). I strike up a friendship with a 60 + old woman, also running, who is nowhere near as tired as I am. I use her as my pacing rabbit, and am pleased (evil me) when I leave her in the dust.
Mile 26.2 -- The home stretch. I round the last corner of the race, onto to Franklin St. I see the finish line ahead. My well-laid plans to sprint the last 100 yards or so fizzle because it’s all I can do to keep shuffle-running. Suddenly, I see Deb (a.k.a. my new running idol)! And Rainbow hair! And they’re cheering for me! And then I see me parents: dad is smiling and mum is yelling “go sissy!” [My parents rock].
And suddenly I feel fine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother running on the sidewalk, bringing me into the finish line. She is a blur of color and energy. (I am simultaneously pleased and horrified by this gesture. It was a Christmas miracle of sorts because my mother is not really a “running type,” and I was terrified that she would trip and split her head open -- yet, she seemed possessed by some sort of fleet-footed spirit).
The finish line announcer gets on the mike, “Here comes number 543, Runningburro from Syracuse, NY. Our neighbor.” I give a little smile, and a little wave, and I cross the finish line: 5:16:30.
A lovely woman bearing a finisher’s medal comes up to me and says, “Let me put your medal on you.” And she does. And I want to kiss her and everyone else in the immediate area (I restrain myself and only kiss the people I know).
Soon after, Madeline comes through the finish line and I am so happy to see her. She gives me “five” as she makes her way to the mat, and I just want to give her a big hug (which I get to do at the finish line). Cheering her in feels as good as crossing the finish line.
After the race, I’m left with a sense of accomplishment and a confirmation of Madeline’s greatness. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have run the race in the first place or finished it. I make plans to steal her from her husband.
Posted by at 11:06 PM | Comments (2)