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June 28, 2007
the gross thing I'm eating today
Strawberries dipped in sugar.
This marks my resignation back to mostly-housewifery. Since B has been in school the past two years, I've been essentially free to do whatever I wanted, and could easily guilt him into doing housework and watching the kids whenever I wanted.
Now he's a working stiff again, gone from 6 until 4. I'm home, chasing kids and wiping butts and noses and watching Ellen. Eating strawberries rolled in sugar. Dang, Jon Bon Jovi is OLD.
Posted by mryonker at 04:22 PM | Comments (2)
June 27, 2007
another lamely themed post
Here are the things I'm "working" on right now:
1. My tan. I'm really like a smoker in this regard, especially with Heather's second removal as a reminder that I shouldn't be laying in the sun unprotected. I know it's not good for me, but I *like* it. My old, wrinkly, splotchy skin looks oh-so-smooth and less splotchy when it's brown. Plus, it makes me feel productive as I chase umpteen kids at my friend's pool. As in, I'm not just chasing kids, I'm working on my tan! Also, it's an old-school way of thinking that I can't shake, like eating bacon: as a product of the "non-fat" movement, low-carb logic--even with the studies behind it--makes no sense to me. None. And so neither does sunscreen.
2. My methodology chapter. I've got the study corpus nailed down, with help from the boss, but am a bit stymied about what I really need to be doing with it. So, I figured that writing the methodology will force me to reckon with what I plan to do, and how I should do it. It's ugly right now, and reads a whole lot like a literature review of other people's methods, but it's work and *I'm working*.
3. This online 205 course. It's been a few years since I've taught research writing online, and I forgot how grueling sometimes it can be having ALL your work be in front of a computer screen, and ALL your communication in writing. I've already made the viable students* meet me briefly in IM conferences so that I could make them talk to me in real time, but I'm about to make them meet me again as they gear up to write their extended research.
4. Gearing up for the road trip to Iowa, the biennial pilgrimage to see my dad's family that involves a shitload of fireworks, both homemade and not, and this year a trip to Adventureland, which will supplant our normal trip to Henry Doorly Zoo. I already have 4 kids'** suitcases packed and ready to go. I'm learning to NOT do things at the last minute. I did wait until the last minute to buy tickets for for Adventureland, though. If I bought them online I could have saved $5 a ticket--$35 dollars total. But you can only buy them online for them to SHIP them to you, which takes at least 7 business days, which I don't have anymore. Bleh.
*I also forgot how many online students go AWOL.
**I have an extra kid this summer, my niece Charlotte.
Posted by mryonker at 05:00 PM | Comments (1)
June 24, 2007
who taught me what
I'd been working up a post about things people have taught me--things that maybe should have always been obvious but weren't (to me, anyway). Then Krista posted today about influences, and so I decided to riff a bit off her.
Mrs. White, my high school English/comp teacher, Dostoyevsky and Raskolnikov, and Sartre taught me when I was a junior that I could think about life in ways that I didn't know were viable. I had a kind of life-changing moment, sitting in the quad of my high school reading some Intro to Philosophy reader under the hibiscus, where I realized how tenuous my simple-minded perspective was. I remember that moment with great detail: the feel of the humid air and the hum of water fountain--and the way this epiphany brought me an equal sense of freedom and fear.
As an undergrad, I worked at a volleyball club in Virginia Beach as a referee and office person. The assistant director taught me that I could put as much cream cheese on a bagel as I wanted; I could even tear the bagel into pieces and drag it through the cream cheese. She also taught me (through her example) that infidelity in marriage, something I thought only existed in soap operas, happens all around us, all the time.
My step-mother's mother, who babysat us during those summer days we stayed at my dad's house, taught me that people actually DO watch General Hospital. She was the first person I ever met (and one of the few in total I've ever known) who watched soap operas. every. day. She also taught me that smoking can keep some people very skinny, and that smoking can eventually, after a good deal of suffering, kill a person.
My step-mother tried to teach me that running would make my uterus prolapse and render me barren and childless. I figured I would have to either smoke or run, and at 14 I'd yet to witness death-by-running. Since then, of course, I've read about runners dying because of hypo- and hyper- all kinds of stuff, but I clearly didn't have to worry about the barren part.
My mother sat me down when I was 14 and said, "Every single time I had sex without protection, I got pregnant. The same goes for all your aunts. Your eggs are of extremely fertile stock. Make sure you know how to use a rubber."
That same year, in English class with Mrs. White, we were talking about RU-486 and sex education. Within that context, I said something about rubbers, and got hugely quizzical looks from the entire class, including Mrs. White. "What Madeline means to say is condom," Mrs. White hastily added.
Posted by mryonker at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2007
it's that time of year again
Dance recital time.
Often, the dance recital weekend is pretty stressful. The influx of family members requires that I spend a day cleaning, and usually I needed that day to check to make sure if the video camera works, so having to gear up for the recital plus the family visit normally puts me into high-frantic mode.
But this year the studio is having the recital professionally recorded, so I don't have to worry about misbehaving video cameras.
This year I bought the convertible body bag with days, DAYS I SAY, to spare. I bought the right one. I also bought bobby pins. I am ON IT.
I do think she needs a new pair of white tights...but other than that, people, I'm READY. Bring this recital ON.
And my house is clean, linens are fresh, and my garage is painted.
:) Just don't ask about that, uh, memo* I have to write.
*Lovely D refers to the diss project as "that memo you have to write."
Posted by mryonker at 03:05 PM | Comments (3)
June 13, 2007
dunkin distraction
I neglected to post when, a few months back, Dunkin Donuts opened up shop in my village.
Really, a DD does not belong in my village, because there is so very little in my village in the first place. We have no McDonald's or other major franchise. We have a small library that still uses a card catalogue, and the librarian stamps and takes the cards out of the books when you check them out. There is a hardware store, an auto shop, a laundromat with about 4 washers and dryers, and a diner. There was a small market when we first moved here 4 years ago, but it has since shut down; there just wasn't enough business.
However, my village has the great distinction of being stuck to the side of interstate 81. And so we also have a truck stop and a couple gas stations whose business is not dependent on the 34 people who live in the village. *This* is how Dunkin Donuts came to town; by way of interstate traffic. Our DD actually shares space with one of our gas stations.
But it is NOT the interstate traffic that is keeping DD in business, I can tell you that. Nosirree. I alone am keeping that damn donut shop in business.
And I'm not buying donuts, either.
Once there was a great guy who I shared an office with here at SU. He was the best office mate: quiet, good-natured, and would ALWAYS ask if I wanted a coffee when he got up to traipse down the hill to the student center for a cup of his own.
I asked him one day, "Why do you walk all the way down to the student center for coffee when you can get coffee from the deli in our building? Or the little student-run place in the Chapel next door?"
He said, "Dunkin Donuts has better coffee than ANYONE. And don't ever forget it."
I haven't. And now a small iced coffee is 99c. And so for the price of 24 oz (medium), I can get 32 (two smalls).
buzzzz. buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
(I typed this entry in about 90 seconds.)
Posted by mryonker at 03:10 PM | Comments (4)
June 12, 2007
this is what happens when I think too hard about method
I have several posts I'm ruminating--the most pressing probably a response to Henry's reportage of the Hirshman-Schmitt debate on data about women voting rationally, or irrationally, or something. I have a good deal to say, most of it incoherent babble and objection to the "data" from a census being more valuable than anecdotal evidence (ie, real experiences narrated by real people).
I don't have the energy to link it all up here, but essentially Hirshman (in one breath, more or less) is somehow both critical of academics AND insists that people who make claims about mothers BE academic.
Um. That wasn't especially coherent. Clearly Hirshman would get all up in my face for that. But anyway.
Hirshman says that data from the census and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics proves mothers who leave work to raise their children, thinking they can "go back later," are screwing themselves economically.
When a non-academic refutes this claim, using anecdotal evidence, Hirshman is scandalized that such poor journalism exists.
My reaction to this exchange, which kind of devolves in the comments of Henry's post into an argument about rhetoric, is not about the the topic itself. I think it's abusive that this woman is trying to scare mothers into trying to keep their jobs and have kids just so they don't lose that time moving up the corporate ladder. But frankly I don't care about women who are in corporate jobs that are so high-stakes that to leave for a couple of years would keep them from making partner. Sounds heartless, I know. But the mothers I worry/think about are those who have to decide whether to quit their job at Burger King or if they'll be able to work enough hours to justify paying a sitter. I might be ignoring a part of this, but it just sounds like a rich person's dilemma, and I. don't. care.
Yes, Ms. Hirshman, both your daughters are working and have children. But their mother has a law degree. They were able to go to college. They have money for decent childcare. I think you offering up your own daughters as evidence is--gasp!--anecdotal and unacademic. And not fair.
Posted by mryonker at 02:44 PM | Comments (1)
June 09, 2007
late
I've gotten bad around here lately with the blogging. I wait until I've got a few good things to write about, and then I can't figure out how to make them all thematically fit, so I end up making up some lame tag that connects them all.
So here, I offer the epitome of dumb themes so that I can write about several things that have nothing to do with one another (except to maybe show that I've become...*gasp*...a lazy blogger!): this week I was LATE!
I just found out that fellow writer, teacher, runner and ODU alum zunshyn had her first baby, Aren Pierce, almost 3 weeks ago. (His daddy's beard will be a fun toy in about 3 months!)
LATE! getting this rhubarb pie out of the oven. Rhubarb courtesy the boss. It still was quite wonderful.
And finally: I was late leaving the beach yesterday. Yes, this would have made a great picture, but my camera's dead, and photobooth works for taking pictures of pies on counters, but less so for pictures of sunburnt bodies. I am always hugely annoyed when I get sunburned; I imagine myself cut of swarthy cloth, immune to the fears my fair-skinned, hat-wearing, SPF-slathering friends have of the sun. I lived in Puerto Rico for three years, worked on the beach for the entire time as a lifeguard. I am NOT A BURNER.
But apparently living 8 months of the year with every inch of my skin covered in SWEATERS for the past 5 years has rearranged my melanin make-up.
Posted by mryonker at 10:01 AM | Comments (1)
June 06, 2007
is it summer yet?
May and June are strange months for me; I am not "in school" (though I am teaching an online course over the summer semester) but the kids still are. I don't know if it's like this everywhere in NY or in the entire northeast, but the kids don't get out of school in these parts until the END of June.
It probably has something to do with the 4 weeks of snow days we get and the week of "winter break" in February. Where I'm from, school gets out right after Memorial day.
At any rate, this interstitial space is normally a good time for me to work; 2/3 of my kids are gone all day. I get up, get the kids off to school, and then can write and work with only the small distraction of Little J, who when the weather is nice, spends his days on his bike or on the swing set (or, "swing sweat," as he calls it).
But not today.
The school nurse, who is my nemesis, called yesterday to tell me to come get H, her eyes are itching and suspicious-looking. No matter that I'm 4 counties away on my way to a super-important lunch meeting with the boss. No matter that B is only in his second week at his brand new job and cannot leave.
No matter that this dang nurse calls me and tells me to come and get my kid because of a hang nail. No matter that H probably just sneezed and rubbed her eyes a bit and now the nurse wants her OUT OF THE SCHOOL.
I'm not saying that pink eye isn't a serious contagious issue. I'm not saying that school nurses aren't important and wonderful people. It's just that our school nurse would rather everyone stay at home, all the time, and keep their germy selves quarantined--this would make her job much easier.
So dutifully I took H to the doc yesterday, who told me what he tells me EVERYTIME I have a kid with itchy eyes: it could be allergies. It could be viral. It could be bacterial. It could be dust. It could be that aliens came in the night and are using H's eye for alien science.
But here's a scrip for some drops that should help, maybe.
That'll be $20. Oh, and keep her out of school for another day. And probably make sure the other kids aren't showing symptoms either--if they are, keep them home.
So today ALL THREE kids are home.
Because of all this, I burned the crap out of my arm toasting bagels in my oven this morning. Well, the fact that the real toaster kicked the bucket contributed to my having to toast the bagels in the oven. But all three kids are here, and by mid-morning the safe bowls of cereal they ate for breakfast have disintegrated in their digestive tracts. I'm frantically trying to keep them sated--bagels are heavy, no? And I can toast THREE WHOLE bagels in the oven simultaneously, which will save me scads of time.
Except ouch. That hurts.
Posted by mryonker at 09:06 AM | Comments (2)
June 04, 2007
especially dynamic moose
The pictures from the Buffalo marathon are up.
Posted by mryonker at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
butterfly run
This is me (in the hat) with a bunch of people from New Process Gear after Paige's Butterfly Run, a race here in Baldwinsville to raise money for pediatric cancer. To my left, #35, is my friend J.
I met J nearly 5 years ago when we first moved to CNY; her daughter and H were in the same kindergarten class. She was a Girl Scout leader in my service unit back in the day when I had a troop. J also has two boys, the same ages as my boys. So her family and my family have found that hanging out is especially nice; all the kids have someone to play with, B and J's husband hang out, and J and I have become good friends. Our two families go camping together once or twice in the summer, and the kids have sleep overs once in a while.
So, last summer, J started asking me questions about running. I told her if she wanted to start running, I would be happy to tag along with her for moral support. I dragged her to the local running shop to get her outfitted with some proper shoes. We began walking, and then when the weather deteriorated (ie winter came to CNY), J started walking on a treadmill during lunch where she works.
She called me excitedly early this spring: "I ran 5 minutes on the treadmill today!" This was a breakthrough for her. Each day she increased her time running by a minute or so, and worked up to running 3X10 minutes with a few minutes of walk between the repeats.
I told her she was ready to run a 5K. Such the instigator, me.
Her first race was the Heartwalk in April, three pleasant but poorly marked (and probably poorly measured as well) miles along Onondaga Lake. No bib numbers, no T-shirt, but organized distance nonetheless.
I do believe I've hooked her. :) The Butterfly 5K in Baldwinsville was a hot, difficult race. But she's already signed on for the Swamp Rat--the next 5K in a mere two weeks.
Did I mention she's lost over 50 pounds?
Posted by mryonker at 04:28 PM | Comments (2)