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February 25, 2007
love. hockey.
Sat in a frozen ice arena again today. Marveled at my child's freakish athleticism.
That's him in the middle. He scored like a bazillion goals before the coaches relegated him to defense so other kids could get some puck-time. He can be a puck-hog, but it's mostly because no one can CATCH HIM.
Posted by mryonker at 08:46 PM | Comments (1)
February 24, 2007
in attempt to move the last post down
Big J, here on the ground sacrificing his body for the pass.
We spent the better part of the day today watching him play hockey. This is his first year, called "initiation" (or "tykes"--but Big J is certainly no "tyke" anymore), so he's spent the whole season learning. Learning to skate forwards and backwards. Learning to stop. Learning to "superman," a move whereby they skate full throttle, drop to their bellies and slide, and then pop back up to their feet (J is especially adept at this). Dribbling and shooting, etc etc. They have not had any games, except their quick self-scrimmages for the last few minutes of practice twice a week.
But the season is ending soon, and so the initiation teams get together and have informal tournaments, playing unscored cross-ice (ie half-court) games against other local clubs.
Because of my teaching schedules for this and last semester, I've only been able to watch a few of J's practices. In the beginning, J was a quick learn; his fearlessness and size (he's a sturdy boy) made him a graceful, fast skater. But the last time I saw him at practice, he couldn't stop. The coaches (gently) joked him, asking if he'd rather be figure skating since he would pirouette out of control every time he tried to stop.
When I sat in the freezing cold bleachers today and watched this boy play, however, it was like he was a different kid. He stopped almost magically, making the ice shoot up from his blades, his body controlled and agile. I know he's my kid; I know that this makes me completely unable to judge objectively. But DAMN my kid is a good hockey player.
If you click through, there's a couple more pics. J is #29.
Posted by mryonker at 09:14 PM | Comments (1)
grading/feeding frenzy
A list: things consumed while grading a huge stack of essays*.
1. Medium coffee, cream and sugar, from Dunkin.
2. Wild Berry Power Bar.
3. Countless Toasted Ritz crackers spread with braunschweiger**.
4. Reese's Pieces.
5. Can of Pepsi.
6. Enormous slice of homemade garlic pizza (courtesy the resident chef, B).
7. Handful of Lay's dipped in French onion dip (abandoned soon--too salty).
I have about 8 papers left (out of the 30 or so I started with), and I'm seriously contemplating the Samoas hiding in the freezer. And the only reason I don't completely hate myself right now is that we've got 13 on the training schedule tomorrow.
*This over the course of the day, of course, lest you think I am absolutely disgusting. Which, of course, I am. Since I also had lunch at Ponderosa today during Big J's hockey tournament. And I won't even tell you what I ate there.
**Liverwurst. No one I know loves it as much as I do, and I tend to think it's because I'm chronically anemic.
Posted by mryonker at 08:55 PM | Comments (3)
February 22, 2007
nasty talented
Fun stuff for a snowy day:
The link is to the Inspector Gadget theme (which has a hint of, what is that, Miami Vice at the end?), but his Mario and Sesame Street themes are pretty amazing as well.
Oooh. Peter and the wolf, too.
I've found clips to jumpstart class discussion on Weinberger's chapter on Perfection.
Posted by mryonker at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2007
diss reading
The great and not-so-great thing about my diss work is that I "get" to read blogs.
There are 19 blogs in a bloglines folder called "diss blogs." The great thing is that to gather my data, all I have to do is open my bloglines account in one window, my notes.doc in another, and see what the writers are saying.
The not-so-great thing is that everytime I open my bloglines account, the number of bold entries nearly bowls me over, and I feel this enormous compulsion to keep on top of them and not let the entries pile up unread.
Another thing that I haven't categorized as great or not-so is the fact that these are writers I am generally unfamiliar with; I set up the corpus selection essentially to be as random as possible (though still admittedly not-random). So I don't know these writers; none of them is uber-famous or from my own personal daily reads.
Even though I don't "know" them, I'm beginning to have relationships with these writers. I have made it a policy to not comment on their posts--if I did so, the project would take on ethnographic qualities that I'd like to avoid. For that same reason, I've decided to not link to the writers here, either. But I am learning these writers, some of them I am developing a kind of affection for, some of them annoy the crap out of me. As I read and code, I'm working to make myself aware of these personal judgments. For instance, I had to resist the urge to create a category called "Non-critical use of Biblical verse"--and that was the kindest of several other category titles I'd cooked up (one actually had the word "ignorant" in it--how horrible AM I?). I'm learning that I have to think harder, and think past my own values and trappings, to be able to make this project work.
Though I can't link to what these writers are posting, I will give you a sampling of those more interesting posts I came across this morning. I learned:
of a theory that Anna Nicole's daughter's father is Anna Nicole's son (ew).
strategies for purchasing Preparation H in the most subtle possible way (block it with the cereal boxes).
that one should be extremely careful about mixing up one's own lunchbox, which contains needles for Heparin (must look that up?), with one's daughter's lunchbox.
that the new iPhone is "aescetically pleasing." *sigh*
that Pep Boys will charge one $5 for "Miscellaneous Tools"--and if one asks to be shown those miscellaneous tools, the $5 charge will be taken off the bill.
that dooce's Monthly Letter to Leta has pervaded mom blogs with memetic vengence; essentially, Heather Armstrong has invented a genre that other mom bloggers follow to a 'T', even the smallest details (like signing the letter "Love, Mama").
and that a dog named Ollie has a penchant for barfing in unusual and hard-to-clean places.
Posted by mryonker at 08:24 AM | Comments (2)
February 15, 2007
hate. snow.
Today was the third morning this week I've put big J and H on the bus thinking about the bus accident I endured as a first grader on my way to East Butler Elementary in Dwight, Nebraska.
Nothing terribly traumatic. Snowy icy roads, and the bus slowly slid into a ditch and then slowly fell on its side. No one was hurt. The only pain I felt was from the third grade girl's elbow that jammed into my ribcage as she slid over on top of me.
It is bone-aching cold out. The wind is brutal. And it is STILL F*CKING SNOWING.
To take little J to pre-school, I have two options: the little bitty Civic, whose heat works great but will most assuredly get stuck at the end of the driveway; and the great big Montero, whose heat DOES NOT work but is four-wheel drive so I'd be able to muscle my way through the barricade of sand, salt, ice and snow the plow has so thoughtfully dumped at the end of my driveway.
I go out to start it. As I sweep off the snow and scrape the ice, the wind stabs me through my jacket. In 60 seconds, all my fingers are stiff with pre-frostbite. I curse. And curse.
After I drop little J off, I come home to read student work. I have 2.5 hours to work.
After 2.5 hours, I go back out to start the Montero to pick J up. But noooohoo. I left the LIGHTS on in the Montero, the battery is DEAD. And I had smartly parked in the middle of the driveway so I wouldn't have to climb through any snowdrifts to get into the truck, and in so doing effectively blocked the Civic in.
I know I already said the F word once in this post. I'll try to restrain myself.
So, I had to walk to get J from preschool. Now, granted, it's *maybe* a half mile to the preschool. Maybe. And I know that I run in crap like this all the time. But what. a. pain.
Thankfully one of the teachers was kind enough to drive us back home (I think she felt bad that J would have to walk in the crummy weather). But when we got home, I had the great pleasure of having to learn how to use a battery charger in the freezing-ass cold.
However, then I watched ze frank's post about valentine's day, and I laughed my ass off when he explained that he had to "shovel" the snow when he was a kid... and that they were too poor to buy a shovel...
I will be *so* sad when March 17 comes. So sad.
Posted by mryonker at 02:10 PM | Comments (4)
February 14, 2007
guess what we did today!
Shoveled the roof of the garage! Again!
The kids went sledding off the roof!
The exclamation points are indicative of how CRAZY the snow is making me!
*sigh* I really am out of my mind. B is out of his mind even more than I am. As we were on the roof this afternoon, the wind howled. Half the snow we scooped-and-tossed came flying back in our faces. B grumbled and grumped the whole time. "Why would ANYone choose to live here?" and "This is ABsolute nonsense." I, of course, was feeling his exact sentiments acutely, but I am always afraid that if we are both in completely foul states of mind simultaneously that the universe will implode (seriously, I mean that), so I put on my best face (or as best I could with the snow flying into my eyes) and rambled cheerfully on about the value of hard work and how *warm* the house will feel when we go back in, even though we only have the heat up to 60.
After what seems like hours of freezing, miserable work, B jumps from the roof. I holler after him, "Where ya headed?"
He answers, deadpan: "Virginia."
In the car this evening on the way home from hockey (yeah, they don't ever cancel hockey; what's with that?), B takes his gloves off to rub and huff warm breath onto his fingers. I joke him, because he insists on wearing gloves and I prefer mittens. "Mittens are always warmer than gloves," I waggle my great wool mittens that mom made me. "Didn't YOUR mom teach you ANYthing?"
"Yeah. She taught me not to move my skinny cold ass to New York."
Well. It was funnier at the time. I guess you had to be there.
Posted by mryonker at 09:11 PM | Comments (1)
February 13, 2007
sick kids
Laura Posts today about sick kids.
On Sunday we woke up and big J had a trunk full of red splotchy spots. They adorned the left side of his chest, his shoulder blades, and a few peeked out from his waistband. Further examination found them on his upper thighs and the place where he will one day grow pubic hair.
B and I, standing in the bathroom, immediately have the negotiation. We've both missed class last week because of the atrocious weather. B says he simply cannot miss his Monday classes again. I counter with the same. And what babysitter wants a kid full of mysterious read splotches? We decide to not decide yet--to wait and see if things get worse or whatever.
Sunday night is a hard one; big J has trouble getting to sleep because of the itching. I put him in a warm bath and then dot his spots with some innocuous bacitracin, hoping the careful attention I'm giving him will be soothing in and of itself. It works, and he sleeps soundly the rest of the night.
Monday morning finds him in nearly the same condition--if anything, he's gained a spot or two, but the spread is barely noticeable. It hasn't gotten better, though. And I argue with myself about whether I should send him to school. I call the doctor, who gives me an appointment for the early evening when B will be home to take him. J is not feverish. It has not spread to me or to the other kids in the house. And he is not itching ferociously.
I send him to school. Because I have to go to work.
I feel torn about it; I wouldn't have sent him if he were uncomfortable or if he were clearly contagious. Granted, I know that I'm not qualified to judge the latter of those specifications.
The doctor said he didn't know what it was, and that he was fine to go to school. He gave us a scrip for some steroid anti-itch cream. And this morning, Tuesday, J woke and the dots were noticeably smaller (though it may have been a function of him not itching any more--who knows?).
And this morning, Tuesday, I sit down to work; all my kids are off at their various schools. And I get a phone call: little J has thrown up in the kitchen of his pre-school.
*sigh*
No rest for the weary.
Posted by mryonker at 02:06 PM | Comments (4)
February 12, 2007
welcome to parish
Indeed. Just an update:
We have not broken the streak. Yes, that means we've run in some pretty crummy conditions. But I'll tell you, being outside in this crap makes me really appreciate being inside, even if it is to sit in front of my computer to work on my research.
To date: we have sustained over 115 inches of snow. Over the weekend, B and I climbed up onto the garage to shovel off the snow, which I thought would be an easy task. Gravity and all. Boy was I mistaken. Snow, and the wet lake effect snow that is nearly chest-deep-to-me on my garage, is heavy. We worked for a few hours, and managed to clear 1/4 of the garage halfway. Yes, that is not a fraction problem. I mean 1/4 of the garage has half the snow gone. Bleh. The kids had fun, though; we let them climb up onto the garage with us and SLED OFF. I'm not kidding. The snow is deep enough that to go from the roof to the top of the snow (in places) was only inches.
Posted by mryonker at 05:50 PM | Comments (3)
February 09, 2007
snow day #4
*sigh*
OK, I've had enough already. Last count, 88 inches.
Posted by mryonker at 07:42 AM | Comments (4)
February 06, 2007
snowed in, day 2
Over night, we got a couple of feet. Another snow day for the kids.
Here's the garage, buried nearly halfway up. If you click through, there's more pics. My favorite one is of D's husband Ch, snowblowing the driveway while holding a beach umbrella.
I'm going to bake something.
edited to add: Here's a video from the weather channel--the reporter is at a gas station down the road from me. There's an 30 second commercial on the front end...sorry for that.
Posted by mryonker at 09:43 AM | Comments (5)
February 05, 2007
the anatomy of a snow day
At 5:45 this morning I peered out my front window. In the light of the street lamp, I could just barely make out the house across the street through the thick sheets of horizontally-blowing snow.
We postponed our run for a time in the day when there would be less snow blowing and more visibility.
I curled up on the couch to watch the news, which this morning, was all weather. Over one hundred school closings in the area, with many of the one- and two-hour delays surrendering as the morning wore on.
The neighbor called. Neither of the cars would start. Could he borrow the battery charger?
The snow continues to fall as the kids, one by one, slide down the stairs to wonder where their wake-up call went.
"It's a snow day," I tell them.
"YES!" is the collective response.
As the day wears on, I enlist the kids with various chores to stave off boredom (ha HA!); I attack the kitchen with a particular vim not seen in these parts for lo a few months.
Big J decides, once he's trekked up and down the stairs a few times putting away laundry, that he will twine his ankles together for the rest of the day, to experience the life of a person with fused legs. Thud thud thud thud...he makes his way to the kitchen. Thud thud thud thud...back to the living room to watch a Harry Potter movie.
At one point I venture into the office where little J has commandeered my machine to watch Nemo, and H is on B's machine with three IM windows open.
B is busy running wire in the upstairs remodel, which for some reason requires me to spend a good deal of time in the basement pulling a thing called a fish wire through the walls of the house for him. During the lunch break, B says to the kids, "Quit putting stuff in the trash. It's getting full, and then someone will actually have to go outside in this mess."
And then D and I trip out for a quick three miler. I wrap my feet in Wegman's bags before I put on my running shoes so they would not get soaking wet. We combat the windchill by actually wearing our winter coats to run in, which we realize after the first mile was completely unnecessary (our bodies are plenty efficient in making heat). Our ears and faces, however, remain cold throughout the whole ordeal.
Now I'm going to continue to do laundry, grade papers, and wonder how an average citizen like myself will take responsibility for slowing the warming. If you missed Charlie Rose's interview with Michael Oppenheimer (Feb 2), I suggest you check it out. He is optimistic; he says that things will slow down (not turn around, mind) because "...humans are not that heedless."
I feel heedless as I run my dryer today. :/
Posted by mryonker at 02:50 PM | Comments (1)
February 04, 2007
pass the guacamole...I'm in
Known to others as the "supabah" and the "Stupid Bowl," today is the Super Bowl. The years that I am lucky enough to have my birthday fall on Super Bowl Sunday, we normallly seek out a party and crash it, doubling the festivities so that not only do we not have to worry about cleaning the house and buying pizza (presumably the party-haver has done all that), but we don't have to worry about feeling completely useless as Americans because we ignored the arguably largest TV-viewing, snack-food-eating, rabble rousing holiday of the year. That is, in crashing the party so people can wish me a happy birthday, we also secondarily fulfill our duty as Americans in observing this most revered day.
B is a bit more of a football fan that I am, though that is not saying much. Since we've moved to NY, he's developed a soft side (see, I cannot even write about football?? who uses the phrase "soft side" to describe anything about football?) for the Buffalo Bills. Where we're from (VA), the closest thing we had to a home team was that one team from DC...their name alludes me now...ah, the Redskins (had to look it up! I'm football illiterate!). So if the Bills are playing on Monday nights, we'll put the game on and little J will watch intently, waiting to witness the tackles and pile-ups (the more people involved, the better). He'll point and stand up and shout, "Did you SEE DAT??!!"
At any rate, this year my birthday was too early to do legitimate party-crashing. But I am strangely eager to behold the spectacle. I think it's partially because I want to see if Prince is going to flash some of his nearly-50-year-old nipple during halftime.
Just kidding. Really, it's because of the Bears (Da Bears!). I was 10 years old the year the Super Bowl Shuffle came out--my best friend's family never missed a game. When I was at her house, the Bears were on, and it seemed like they always won. She had a life-sized poster of "the Fridge" (Perry) on the back of her bedroom door, and people talked about the Sweetness, I was savvy.
Of course, the reason my best friend's family loved the Bears is that when I was 10 I lived in Waukegan, IL, and *everyone* was a Bears fan--even my own family, who normally preferred baseball to football (I still dream of Harry Caray's voice every-so-often).
Hm. Where'm I going with this? I guess this post serves as an apology. An apology to my subversive friends who would rather I exhibit some anti-consumerist solidarity and ignore the media frenzy this evening. An apology to genuine sports fans who might think my foray back into Bears fandom is unearned and nostalgic...I could be accused of that whole "fair weather friend" thing.
So, I'm hoping my quick history and my self-effacing apology will allow me to say just one more thing:
GO BEARS!
Posted by mryonker at 03:14 PM | Comments (1)
February 03, 2007
brian's boiled dinner
Until today, I've posted my recipes and general food posts under the "daily dilly-dally" or the "momness" category. Now there's an "eating" category so that if you're looking for a recipe I posted, you'll be able to find it there.
Last night we had nasty weather, and after I came home from working the book fair, I opened the door of my house to the wonderful smell of Brian's boiled dinner. I should interrupt myself here to mention Brian's culinary acumen *far* exceeds mine. He's intuitive about spices and unabashed with his use of olive oil and fresh garlic. Brian's boiled dinner is distinctly from the beach, like he is, which is nice when it's 2F out and the snow is relentless.
A quick caveat: I am reproducing this recipe from careful observation and interviews with the chef; I have never made it personally. And this batch will only feed two adults--assuming you have a potato or some kind of starch on the side. Our kids think it's gross (poor them), and it doesn't save well as a leftover, so we only make as much as we can eat when it's HOT.
Assemble*:
Two handsful of fresh green beans
Two handsful of baby carrots
3 or 4 ears of corn, broken in half
1/2 pound of peeled shrimp
1/2 pound of scallops
1/4 C Old Bay Seasoning
A stick of butter
*Your assemblage can be fresh or frozen; you'll have to adjust the boiling time accordingly.
Fill a large stock pot with water and dump in the Old Bay. Put in the stuff that takes the longest to cook first (corn, carrots). Work backwards from there, throwing the greenbeans in soon after, and waiting until the vegetables are nearly done (or done all the way) before dumping in the seafood, which only takes a few minutes to be done.
Melt the butter. Use a large slotted spoon to dip into the pot and fish out your choice of vegies and seafood (don't be greedy and take all the scallops like I do); plate it up. Drizzle with melted butter. You can also be disgusting and take your own personal bowl of butter and dip in each bite as you're eating, like I do. Try not to overeat or drip butter on your good jeans.
A note about scallops: you can use the small bay scallops and this will still be a tremendous dinner. However, if you can get some nice big sea scallops this can be even more of a treat. The problem is that they tend to be expensive. If you live in CNY, though, Wegman's sometimes has the large babies frozen for a a reasonable 7.99 a pound. Brian likes to quarter the sea scallops so they cook a bit more evenly--although I think he quarters them so it's harder for me to steal them all.
Posted by mryonker at 11:15 AM | Comments (2)
February 02, 2007
lavender's blue, dilly dilly
The early morning version of the daily dilly-dally:
If your secret ninja power happens to involve divining the location of items lost, you might send me some of that action. I cannot find my wallet. :(
I ran 109 miles in January. Not too impressive when you divide it by 31, but it still was a month with a day mot missed.
If someone would have told me sooner that volunteering at the kids' school book fair would have earned me a ten dollar gift certificate to said book fair, I would have dragged my fanny down to help out sooner.
The weekend is upon us. At the edge of every weekend I am filled with hope: hope for a clean house, hope for some productive writing sessions, hope for a decent movie for movie night (this weekend it's a double header: Open Season and High School Musical). At the edge of this particular weekend, however, I'm only hoping that a small light-blue canvas wallet finds its way back to me.
And for that reason, I will *not* do the Friday happy dance in class today. There's nothing happy about canceling credit cards and paying inordinate fees to have IDs and licenses replaced. Bleh.
Posted by mryonker at 07:03 AM | Comments (1)