Guests, movie, swim meet

I'm here again with my Sunday morning Krispy Kremes, getting ready to hit the thesis. I took a walk this morning to wake up. I ducked into an unexplored (by me) cul-de-sac and discovered a really quiet, green cove full of cricket song and honeysuckle. There were a lot of passionflower vines, too, and most of the flowers were pure white instead of the usual stripey purple. I went back on my way to the donut shop, took pictures and picked a maypop, the fruit from the passionflower.

I had wanted to get going a lot earlier this morning. I planned to go to bed right after Saturday Night Live and get up at 5; that's a respectable night's sleep lately. Instead, I didn't even make it to 10:30 before falling asleep on the couch, and I missed the beginning of SNL. (It was last season's finale, which I missed before and I've really been wanting to see: it's the Olsen twins, and Jimmy Fallon's last episode.) I woke up halfway through and stayed partially awake til the end, when I went right into my fluffy, clean-sheeted bed and slept til 7. Good grief. I guess my body is trying to force me to catch up on sleep.

Mama and my aunt Jyll were here last week. It was nice. The Boston terrier was pretty well-behaved, especially when he was in his service dog gear, and my cat suffered only minor annoyance from his presence. It was fun to see them interact, actually. The human interaction was nice as well. Mama came to classes with me Friday morning. She's always a hit with the students.

Friday, we took Jyll to the bus station, and later Mama and I went to a movie. Harry Potter was only a matinee and we missed it, Mama wasn't interested in Spider-Man, and I wasn't interested in The Message, so we agreed on Napoleon Dynamite. Low budget-charming, with a wonderfully creative low-tech opening credit sequence. It's about a very odd teenage boy and his kind of sad, eccentric group of family and friends. I was afraid it would be painful to watch, but somehow it avoided that for the most part (with me anyway) and instead was really, really funny and satisfying. I can see it becoming a cult classic, full of lines that stick in your head and you quote at random times in your life.

[Pick-up line] "I see you're drinking 2% milk. Is that because you think you're fat? Because you're not, you could drink whole milk if you wanted to."

"Do you have anything you could gve her?" "I don't think so. Unless she likes fish."


Saturday, we went to Arkadelphia for Allie's state swim meet. It was a madhouse, madhouse I tell you! Well, it was very crowded and loud, but exciting. Hundreds of kids from age six to high school, running around in their suits and swim trunks, with their event numbers written in ball-point pen or marker on the skin of their arms or legs. Allie's very cute in her skullcap and goggles, and she did great. I got to see her win her heat in the breaststroke. I also ran into one of my professors from Ouachita and ended up getting to visit with her most of the morning and see the whole family. I love the Sonheims.

Where the women are strong...

Yahoo! News - Keillor's Characters May Hit Silver Screen

What an interesting idea for a movie. I'd love to see some of the Lake Woebegon characters and stories included.

Tampon Henge

While making an assignment for one of my classes, I came upon the following Eighth Wonder of the World:

Tampon Henge

I approve of the making of photo-illustrated stories using toys and random objects. It makes me happy. I've seen some good ones made of Barbies and an absolutely thorough and hilarious retelling of the Bible using Legos (The Brick Testament).

Bulwer-Lytton!

Yahoo! News - Martha Stewart Inspires Bad-Writing Winner

Wow. This Dave Zobel guy produced a real gem.

"She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight ... summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail ... though the term 'love affair' now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism ... not unlike 'sand vein,' which is after all an intestine, not a vein ... and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand ... and that brought her back to Ramon."

Sleep deprivation oho

I worked on my thesis all last week in increasingly adrenaline-pumped evening and late-night sessions. On Friday and Saturday nights I gave myself a break and got five and six hours of sleep, but last night I vowed to finish before I slept. And I did. I wasn't even really cutting it close, so I didn't once feel panicked during the process. In fact, it was kind of enjoyable, for an all-nighter pulled off in a creepy empty office building in a drab, windowless office. I printed the document, deposited it in my advisor's door slot, and made it home in time to sleep for an hour and arrive at class on time, showered, dressed, and sort of fed.

I realized I was tired in my afternoon class when I woke up and realized I'd been standing there writing gibberish on the blackboard. It's not that hard to fall asleep standing up, but to do it while talking to a group of people and writing grammar on the board, that's quite an achievement. I decided I wouldn't do the errands I'd planned for after class. If I could doze off at the blackboard, I could do it while driving.

But it's out of my hands for a little while, and I'm free to worry about all the other little things I've been pushing aside. Also maybe watch some TV and go to bed early. Excellent.

Donut musings

On weekend mornings, either Saturday or Sunday, I like to get up early and go get donuts. It's a treat. When I wake up early enough for Krispy Kreme, I drive over, park, and go inside. I could drive through, but if you go in, they give you a free, warm glazed. Then you can save your other donuts for later.

The past two or three times, I've asked for one or two glazed donuts and a filled one. I would just order one custard-filled donut, but I'd feel too odd. Even buying three donuts is weird in Krispy Kreme. The least anybody ever gets is half a dozen, but almost everybody is going in for a dozen glazed, or a dozen glazed and a dozen assorted, or six dozen. Your single donut consumers are rare, it seems. Once when I drove through and asked for one strawberry shortcake donut, the guy at the window just gave it to me, no charge. "It's just one donut," he waved away the dollar I held out. At Shipley's, where I also go sometimes, it's not strange at all to order an apple fritter and a cinnamon twist. Shipley's is a chain, but it feels more like a mom-and-pop. The shop I go to is old; the paint on the sign is faded, the inside is bare and dim, and they close before noon every day. I try to put a tip in the styrofoam tip cup.

I'm hard-pressed to eat four donuts in a week; I just want that one treat on one day. But I can manage it. This morning when I went in to Krispy Kreme, and the woman who waited on me said, "You get almost the same thing every time!" I was secretly thrilled; I'm almost a regular!

Peace, Goodwill and plungers

After half a week of 6-hour days in the classroom, my students get burned out and exhausted, so I try to do fun things on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. This week we're in a unit on homes and have been doing vocabulary related to rooms, appliances, furniture, fixtures, and decorations. Today I took them to Goodwill. I prepped the activity by talking about thrift stores. They had to predict what types of items they'd find. We also made a wish list of how we'd like to decorate our classroom. Then I gave them a worksheet to fill out on-site, and we headed off to the store. I realized that they were the first passengers in my new car.

They'd never been anyplace like it here, and they were fascinated. So many things! It's a great vocabulary lesson. They hold something up and I tell them what it is. They have to categorize things on their worksheet. The Taiwanese guy, Y, was fascinated by a white rubber toilet plunger whose handle was a clear PVC tube filled with rice. (I have to say, I was intrigued myself. My main thought: "Why?") The Korean woman, E, used her time to do a little shopping for her family, though she couldn't find a junior-sized swimsuit. I myself snagged a stoneware crock with a lid, a Pampered Chef stone breadpan, and a paperback copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I also gave them 10 dollars to buy things for the classroom. E picked out a small resin witch figurine (she likes witches, what can I say) and Y pleased me with his choice of a handsome oak knick-knack shelf. I found a set of checked curtains to round it out.

As a chronic notetaker and listmaker who is rarely without a little notebook or a scrap of paper and a pen, I should have remembered how nervous it makes employees when you go around their store marking down items on a piece of paper. They think you're from a rival store. I don't know what other thrift store Goodwill would be locked in such a battle with, really, but fortunately I discovered the situation before the manager completely launched into E and took her worksheet away. Lady, it's just a field trip! She was apologetic and nice after that.

Lazy heat rises slow

The night of the Fourth, I think, there was a tremendous storm, with flood watches over half the state. That has happened every week this spring and early summer, it seems, but this time was different. The next morning, the air was so humid I could see beams of light shining through it like dust in a barn. And that day, it started to get hot. It feels like summer now. We had another morning thunderstorm yesterday, but when you get into the car at the end of the day, it's baking. And the pavement in the evening smells like summer. I finally heard cicadas.

I've been trying to do all-nighters. Every day I think, this is the day I'll finish my thesis! I'm finding my optimism and lack of panic disconcerting. Especially considering I'm working on two hours of sleep every night this week.

UConn Botanists Cultivate 'Corpse Flower'

Yahoo! News - UConn Botanists Cultivate 'Corpse Flower'

Pretty cool, to the enormous plant-lover in me. (Beware of some bad puns and at least two heinous misuses of apostrophes in the possessive "it" in the story.)

He got the hydro-phoby

3 Fatal Cases of Rabies Are Linked to Ill Donor

The first story I read said the original man, the infected donor, was from Arkansas. This story says Texas, but I think the mystery is explained by the fact that he's from Texarkana. He could live on the Arkansas side, but he went to the hospital on the Texas side, and the New York Times wouldn't know much about the geography of it.

I'm listed as an organ donor, and I feel pretty strongly about it, but if in the days before I die, you remember me mentioning being bitten or having contact with a wild animal, for heaven's sake, speak up. What a nightmare. Rabies! It almost sounds quaint, like the way the actors in Old Yeller say "hydro-phoby," except when it actually happens.

Saturday morning

It's a lovely, rainy Saturday morning. I went for a walk in the drizzle, had a leisurely stretch while watching an episode of My So Called Life on the DVDs my friend loaned me. Then I went out for donuts, came back and had a hot shower, and now I'm drinking homemade milk coffee, listening to Michael Feldman on NPR, and eating Shipley's. (Krispy Kreme is too crowded Saturdays, and I kind of OD'd on my birthday; I also like to spread my business around.) The windows are open and wind is jangling my chimes on the balcony.

Is there a climate event going on this year, El Nino or something? It was a mild winter, warm even. It's been an unusually cool, wet June, and here it is July and still 65 degrees and raining. My basil is failing to thrive, and the rosemary aren't thrilled, but the mint and green beans love it. I wish I had a cistern to store all this water for the inevitable drought that is August and most of the fall.

I feel very relaxed. I don't know why I'm not more worried about my thesis, which I've scheduled myself to start working on in an hour. Maybe I panicked so much last week and the week before that the stress sent me over the edge, and now I'm sabotaging myself.

This is actually a sport

100-Lb. Woman No. 2 in World for Eating

The headline isn't entirely accurate, though, because Sonya Thomas actually "weighs anywhere from 100 to 110 pounds depending on the contents of her stomach" [emphasis mine]. And check it out. There's an International Federation of Competitive Eating. Who knew.

Friday night

My sleeping has been so weird lately. I fall asleep on the couch before midnight, with my work spread out, half-done; maybe I wake up several times in the night and try to do some more work, and keep falling back asleep. Eventually I get into bed, though I never remember doing it, and sometimes I forget to set the alarms. I haven't been late to class yet, fortunately.

After classes ended this afternoon (noon on Fridays) I spent almost five hours on campus doing more planning. I have to get that stuff out of the way before I start working on my thesis; otherwise I'll forget and have to scramble at the last minute, like I've been doing. Made a test and some video worksheets and a lab.

Then I went to Leo's Greek Castle for a falafel sandwich and to Best Buy to spend my birthday money. My normal practice if I get birthday money is to buy the latest Newberry Award winner in hardback, but I got the feeling Mama would love it if I got the electronic adaptor device I mentioned to her. So I got one of those and the Finding Nemo soundtrack. (I figured it would be good for when I'm working on my thesis.)

It took me most of the evening to set up and test everything with the various recording functions and combinations of the two VCRs, but now all I have to do when I want to watch a DVD is walk over and push a button. Tell you what, it's a good thing my car doesn't have power windows or locks and there's no refrigerator at work, because otherwise my life would be getting so convenient I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Hi ho, Silver

Got the car! Brought her home, and she's all snug in a parking space, sticking out like a sore thumb with her lack of tags. Honda Civic sedan, silver. Took me three days this week, but I got Honda to beat Toyota's deal, and now I'm poor but I have reliable transportation that I worked out myself. I think I feel good. And my car is a pretty little thing. Simple but sweet.