More/Less

I've had an up and down couple of weeks - I got a journal article accepted (finally), got some good work done. But I also wrestled with the self-doubt I always wrestle with, lost my patience with myself, got despairing over the new AHA "sugar guidelines" (no more than 9 tsp added sugar in a day, or apparently you get fatty fat fat and then die of TEH DIABEEETUS. And as I like candy and as I like sugar in my tea, and as I have been known in the past to get a wee bit obsessional over reading labels - well, I've had some issues these past couple days with my diet).

So I got to thinking this afternoon. There are things I need to do more of and things I need to do less of. And I should make a list, to remind myself.

Do more of (because it enriches my life and reminds me of who I really am):

pray.

light candles and just watch the flames for a while.

read articles and books in my field, especially about stuff I'm teaching, because it makes me feel smarter, and because the students get excited when I talk about stuff that's being currently researched.

be quiet; listen to music.

play the piano.

do my own home cooking, because it soothes me.

go to bed early when I'm tired.

breathe deeply.

maybe take up yoga again, if I can manage to not use it as a stick to beat myself with on the days when I don't feel up to doing it.

take a break and drink some water.

make tea (yes, even with sugar, if I want it).

read stuff that interests me: ancient history, Christian spirituality, history of technology, how people lived in the middle ages, Dickens novels, Gene Stratton Porter novels, books about maps and geography, funny books.

read my books of comics when I feel sad because they make me feel better.

get out on the weekend and go somewhere, even if I don't have a purpose in mind.

remind myself that I'm smart and capable and basically a decent person.

embroider.

watch old re-runs of NCIS on USA Network if I'm tired after work and what I really want to do is sit and watch old re-runs of NCIS.

Do less of:

feel like I'm "second best" because I'm not as good at the ridiculous self-promotion that some people I know are good at.

watching the news.

getting upset over stuff I basically have no ability to change (save voting when it's time to vote, or praying).

second-guessing myself.

beating myself up for not being as "perfect" as I think I should be.

obsessing over whether what I eat is going to wind up killing me or making me chronically sick.

obsessing over my weight and hating myself for not being slimmer.

tell myself that I'm "wasting my life" because I occasionally like to spend an evening watching old re-runs of NCIS.

worrying overmuch about the future. (Number one, there's lots of stuff I can't control, and number two, the "ultimate" future, at least for one who believes in an afterlife, really is not something that one should "worry" about - it may get bad here but it will ultimately be OK.)

getting irritated because a particular person I know has an irritating voice. They can't help it.

in general, getting irritated at piddly stuff that I don't have control over.

Oh back to school, back to school...

There's a Henry James quotation that goes, "Summer afternoon, summer afternoon...the two most beautiful words in the English language."

Well, I think we've established here I'm not particularly a fan of summer.

But I do love back to school. Always have. Even as a kid, when kids were supposed to groan and roll their eyes over the event, I secretly loved it.

I loved everything to do with it - the chance to learn new things, to have a schedule again, to (maybe) make a friend in class this year (and later on: maybe to make a BOYfriend in class).

I loved all the back-to-school planning: buying new shoes (a "good" pair of oxfords and a pair of tennis shoes for gym). Buying new clothes (at least a few). All of the school supplies: folders and crayons and pencils and everything all NEW, all unmarked-on and ready to be used the first time.

I loved going to the school (I don't know if all school districts did this but mine did) a few days early with my parents to find out who my "homeroom" teacher and other teachers were, and to see the list of kids in my class, and to figure out where my classrooms were - the halls still mostly empty and echoey, still kind of smelling of summer, but with that distinct feel of anticipation that back-to-school brought.

I also liked back-to-school because it felt like the beginning of fall. I have always loved fall more than the other seasons.

And so back-to-school felt like all kinds of good things starting up. The world seemed full of hope.

And I still feel that way, even now that I'm on the other side of the desk (and I don't get long summers off because I choose to teach summers). The world seems full of hope again. Two of the textbooks I have are new editions (even though at least one doesn't seem to have changed much, at least I can replace the old broken-spined copy I've been using for a few years).

Last week I cleaned my office over at school - I have a clear desktop to work on again, all of the old papers from the summer are gone. Things feel like a fresh start. (One of the best parts of being a professor, I think, is every four months or so you get a fresh start with new classes.)

Even though the economy still kind of sucks, and even though we've weathered some bad stuff (a big budget cut, a top administrator leaving under a bit of a cloud), the world still feels filled with hope.

9 am today I start my first class.

Awesome!

Dolly Parton got an honorary doctorate from University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

I love Dolly Parton. I am not really a country music fan, but I think she's got a great voice, and I particularly love a lot of the "roots" stuff she does, like her bluegrass albums.

It makes me so happy to hear of her getting this honor.

I know, some people aren't big fans of honorary doctorates - I've actually heard people claim they "take away" from people who have earned doctorates. As someone who HAS an earned doctorate, that strikes me as kind of an odd stance to take. It's an honor. I doubt many people who receive honorary doctorates NEED them to promote themselves in their careers or get a job the way people with earned doctorates use them.

I'm not so much a fan of the "politicized" ones - where they take someone that may in some way be majorly offensive to a large chunk of the student body (like someone who agitated for Hamas or some such at a school with a large Jewish population) but I can totally get behind the idea of honoring someone who has done the stuff Dolly has done.

She's such a great American character. And yes, I do think she's pretty uniquely American, I'm not sure you could get someone just like her in another country.

She just strikes me as someone who is a good, decent person, who has done well with her talent and with hard work, and who gives back.

She's also quoted on one of the UT pages:

"Learning is all about taking chances, and rolling up your sleeves and working hard," Parton said. "To learn more means to work more. Nobody ever makes it without hard work."

You go, Dr. Dolly!

Friday moment of happy....

This has been a bad, strange, and strange-bad week.

But this little video makes things a little better:



Firefighters in the Australian bush fires come across a young koala and give it water.

My favorite parts of the video - as the guy is walking up to the koala: "Heeeey....you all right, buddy?" and then "Can I get some WAH-TUH here? Some WAH-TUH?" (At first I was concerned his yelling for WAH-TUH would scare the koala away but it didn't).

And then the koala puts its paws on the guy's hand.

I think this video demonstrates why the stereotype of firefighters is a good one - they are the toughest people out there, and yet, when a chance like this comes up, they're all heart.

Oh, and more happy - the koala (its paws were scorched) was taken to a wildlife rehab center to recover.

the quiet hum of busy-ness

Two reasons for the title.

First, that's me this week - it is a busy week. One of our grad students (I am on her committee) is defending on Thursday. And there's a bunch of other work-stuff to be done. (This morning, campus is closed because of bad weather - so I am at home, trying to finish one of the books a student chose for Directed Readings).

But the real reason for the title is that is the sound you hear in a good lab. A lab that works, that the students find challenging but not frustrating.

I enjoy teaching labs. The situation is more relaxed than a lecture class (and yes, I am one of those evil-according-to-the-educrats profs who still lectures. What can I say? I teach the sciences. By and large it is the most efficient way to convey information. Believe me, I have tried the "read the chapter and we'll discuss" thing - test scores were a lot lower and the students did not seem to grasp the material as well).

In lab, you can talk more-or-less "privately" to individual people - in class, if someone has a question or of a discussion gets going, anything you say is for the class at large, for public consumption. In lab, you can talk quietly to one person, you can deal with their particular confusion or problem, and you don't have to worry about phrasing it in a way that will make sense for anyone else.

The other thing is you get to see more of the personalities of individual students. Some are quiet and workmanlike - after the introduction, they get their supplies, sit down, and you don't hear from them again until they're done. Some people are kind of slapdash, trying to finish as fast as possible so they can leave. (Generally the labs I do are self-paced for individuals or small groups; if I do a debriefing I wait until the next lecture section. It doesn't work well to have one group finish in 45 minutes and then sit around rolling their eyes and making comments about the super-diligent people who want to take the full time to do everything just so). Some people have a lot of questions, others you maybe have to press a bit to be sure they DON'T have questions. Some people want to talk about something from lecture or clear up some kind of logistics point.

So I tend to circulate around the class helping people, seeing how things are going, asking questions, discussion. This semester I have a TA who has HAD the classes (and mirabile dictu, I have a TA for both my labs who has HAD the labs - so he can answer a lot of the questions, which frees me up for more leisurely discussion with other groups).

There's a point I've noticed, about midway during a "good" lab, where there's relatively little talking going on - everyone's settled down to the task at hand, people are working, things are making sense, data are being generated and interpreted. It's a good feeling. It's about the "rightest" feeling of teaching there is - knowing the students are understanding, knowing that (at least some of) the students are happy at their task. You don't have to do much but be on hand to answer questions or to be a sounding board for potential interpretations of results. It's sort of a peaceful feeling - sort of a surrendering-of-control that is kind of nice. It's now the students' responsibility to figure stuff out, to do the work. If someone complains that the lab failed, or that they didn't get it, it's not that I taught it badly - because here are six other groups clicking away and doing what needs to be done.

There are also nice little "eureka" moments - one lab we do is a very simple natural selection simulation, and one guy doing it remarked, "Oh, so there can be random stuff too - like a predator with a really high score doesn't get near any prey, he may be the "best possible" genetically at getting prey but he will still die out" - things that are maybe hard to convey in lecture, but in practice the students get them.

I think some of the labs are enjoyable, too because they are practical. My soils TA remarked the other day that "Soils lab is a fun lab." He went on to explain: "You're doing stuff that matters. Stuff that you might need to know how to do in your job." Yes, I have them do all of the simple basic testing that you can do on a soil. (Another thing I do, which I think helps the lab a lot - the first lab is taking the students out to a local natural area, having them find locations on a soils map, and then collect the soil they and their lab partner will be analyzing. So they're always working on the same soil - they get to build up a picture of the details of it - and it's something they kind of have "ownership" of because they chose the site. It's little things like that which help a lab along, I think.)

Labs are one of the best parts of teaching.

Happy

I have to say, this is one of the best ecology classes I have had. Two people so far (there are a couple to go) have earned perfect scores on their research presentations - that nearly never happens. They're good. Maybe not ESA good, but certainly regional-level meeting good, which is better than I usually expect. (These are undergrads, mostly juniors, a few seniors or sophomores).

And even better, some of the projects have generated good questions and discussion from the "audience" (the other students in the class). I'm always happy to see that because that means the other students are paying attention and are engaged with the topics.

I think part of this may be because a number of the students chose more "innovative" projects - not the same old, "what time of day do deer move the most" or "how do different soil amendments affect plant growth" or "what form of sugar attracts the most ants" that some people choose (and I try hard to steer students away from). I think also a lot more people took real "ownership" of their projects - it was more an "opportunity" to learn or to answer a question they were wondering about than something they just "had" to do, and did grudgingly - a couple tailored their projects to subfields they are thinking of going into, a couple people did research on land their families owned where they had noticed and wondered about things (patterns of hog behavior, for example) and used the project as a chance to answer that question.

So I'm pretty happy. It's been a lot more interesting to grade these and I think the students are finding the talks a lot more interesting to listen to.

Nope, YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!

If you read my post below this, it will make more sense.

My e-mail client has a bad habit of "embargoing" e-mail so I don't get it until several to many hours after it's sent.

I just got one - with a time-stamp of mid-morning - from my dad.

Entitled "Good News." So I already knew what it was about.

it is NOT cancer. NOT. Yay. I am super super relieved. Apparently it was some kind of funky little infection that will clear up with antibiotics.

Cancer, you lose this one, you bastard!

So I'm guessing they're out enjoying a late lunch to celebrate.

Timelessness

I was walking across campus this morning - I had to take something to one of the offices across campus from my building.

(I kind of welcome that, the opportunity to get out of my office and walk a little bit.)

It was a nice fall day, a little overcast. A lot of leaves have come down already, though more because we've had such a long dry spell than because it's gotten very cold yet.

The mockingbirds were singing a little - not as much as they do during their breeding season, but I could still hear them calling a little. And I could hear the jays squawking as they foraged for acorns under the big oak trees.

I could also hear the marching band practicing off in the distance.

And I felt a sense of peace and timelessness. I could close my eyes (so I didn't see the cars and the way other people were dressed) and I could imagine myself in 1958 or 1978 or some time in the past.

And you know, that's partly why I like college campuses. There's a feeling of continuity about a lot of them. A feeling of almost being a little insulated from what's going on in the outside world.

I suppose a lot of the comfort I have on campuses is that I've been on them for so long. My dad was a prof when I was a kid, I used to go to campus with him sometimes to either go do schoolwork in the library or to hang out in his office. Walking across campus with him...somehow it felt right, it felt like a college was where I belonged. All of the things related to it - the football games on crisp fall Saturdays, hearing the marching band, the mysterious practices of the Greek system (I am more jaded about that last, now, but when I was a kid it seemed much more funny and innocent). The bookstore. All of the students and faculty walking across campus, it all seemed so PURPOSEFUL, so much like here were all these people who knew what they were doing and why.

(Cue Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture." Heh. That piece of music always reminds me of my romantic childhood imaginings of what college life was like. It's actually considerably less romantic and sometimes not as amusing. But at its best it's still pretty good.)

Campus always felt like a place apart - on the campus where my dad taught, the crime rate was lower than the surrounding city. There seemed to be a sense of respect of it as a place of learning. And it seemed like a safe place to me - somewhere where a lot of the ugliness of the outside world didn't intrude.

Probably the fact that I was a bookish kid was a big part of that - I loved learning, I loved libraries, and I loved the idea that there was a whole institution devoted to learning. And that one day I'd get a chance to go there and spend time at one.

So to me, colleges do have kind of a timeless, insulated feel - like a lot of stuff in the outside world is sort of "checked at the door." And while I may complain about how clueless some students can be about current events - you know, not being so very plugged into the news can actually be kind of a GOOD thing, where you focus more on what you're learning and less on what's buffeting you from the outside world.

Oh, don't get me wrong - there are a lot of politically active students. There are competing Obama and McCain signs around campus. The outside world does impinge on campus life.

But there are a lot of times when you can imagine it doesn't. And I love those times. I love the feeling of being a little world apart. It's a feeling not unlike what I feel in church - where there is a bigger and more important truth, and what's going on in the outside world is a mere distraction.

Because really - to come back to campus - no matter who resides in the White House come January, there are still things that will need to be done. My students will still need to learn to calculate a t test. Or they will still need to know how to make up a life table from cohort data. Or they will need to know how to test the texture of soil. There is work to be done; there are students to be prepared for their eventual jobs. And really, by and large, no matter what goes on in the world, those things remain constant.

And there is a sort of peace and comfort in that. In knowing that I have a role to play - that I have things to do despite what is happening "out there" around me. That I can make my own little corner of the world better by striving to teach well and to be compassionate (but appropriately compassionate; tough-love when it's needed) to the students.

Once in a while I have a student come back, either from grad school or from more advanced coursework and thank me for the preparation I gave them. That makes me feel like what I'm doing is worth it, like I'm doing the right thing. (I once had a young man - he wound up having to take one of my classes twice because he just struggled the first time - he worked really hard but just couldn't make better than a D that first time - come back after he got a job and tell a class full of my students, "Now you listen to her! She can teach you what you need to know to succeed!" Ha. It still makes me smile to think of it - this big rough-tough Backwoods Boy telling the students to listen to me.)

So I walked across campus and listened to the marching band and the birds and the wind in the trees and felt peaceful and blessed that I have such a good job, a job where (on the best days) I do something that makes someone else's life better. Because I really have all I want - enough money to survive, a little free time now and then to do what I want to do, and the feeling that I'm doing something to leave this place a little bit better than it was before I got here.

Good things

Rob (at Crab Apple Lane) and the Swillers who were in the path of Gustav are all OK. (And it looks like the worst of it's past Rob now...he has a nice photo up of cardinals coming to feed after the storm).

From my somewhat-distant vantage point, it looks as if Gustav was not nearly as bad as feared. Sure, there are going to be people who were killed (though at least one was one of those "alcohol was involved" situations - and so I would not blame that on Gustav.)

But I think if anything good came out of Katrina, it is that people in NOLA took the evacuation more seriously this time, and it seems that the Powers That Be were far better prepared. (And I agree with Rob - I don't think it's so much a matter of politics as it was a matter of "We were able to learn from the mistakes last time.")

****

I've been working in my garden some more, trying to put in an hour or so every few days as I have some free time. It's really probably too much for one person who is employed full-time elsewhere to keep up, but I try. I weeded the tomato and herb garden (and debated pulling out the tomatoes which look very sickly right now, but didn't. I gave them a shot of the special "tomato fertilizer" I have and think maybe when it gets a bit cooler, they'll pop back.)

I also planted a couple rows of beets. I want to try growing beets this fall. One of the things I'm still not used to about this climate is that there's a fall season for cool-season crops, and according to the beet package, I should be planting them now for my USDA region.

So we'll see. I've gotten to like beets recently, at least in the form of Harvard beets and pickled beets. I may try making borscht this fall if I get some beets from the garden.

I like the thought of growing food even if I'm not that successful in practice.

****

I also cleared out a disused flower bed - I'm going to order a bunch of mixed daffodil bulbs from one of the bulb places and put them in there, daffodils are one thing that do really well here in the spring, and there's almost no labor involved. While pulling up the St. Augustine grass that had invaded, I scared up what I think must be a Rough Earth Snake. They're fairly common around here (more common than in Georgia, I guess, judging from that website) and they are kind of cute little things.

I'm not snake-phobic (at least for snakes that I know are non-venomous) and I'm happy to let my little population of Rough Earth Snakes (I know I have more than one because I've seen more than one at a time) live in my garden. (It may be because I have lots of earthworms - their food - in my garden. And another website says they eat slugs, which, if that's true, means that any Rough Earth Snake that wants to move into my yard is more than welcome here).

I also want to find some kind of nice "fall flowering" plant (maybe calendulas) and put them in that garden until I get the bulbs and put them in (I think November is the right time for that around here).

I find working in the garden very peaceful. I know some people like to listen to an iPod or something while they work but I don't; I like hearing the birds and (today, at least) hearing the quiet of my neighborhood.

****

I bought a new pillow for my bed the other day. It's surprising how much a difference little things can make. I had been having neck and upper back trouble and I decided one possible source might be that the old fiberfill pillow I was using had got kind of flat and nasty. (It was a fairly old one; I think I had it even back in high school and it's been through the washer more than a few times).

So, on a trek out to do some other shopping, I stopped by the nearest "Bed Bath and Beyond" (which I cannot help thinking of as "Bloodbath and Beyond" because of that Simpsons episode). They had a lot of pillows. (Alas, all made in China. I looked at some of the down ones but then saw where they were made and thought, "Ew, Plague Birds" even though I suppose the down is sterilized before it goes in pillows).

I did wind up buying another fiberfill one (I have allergies, though not specifically to down). I have to say there must have been some real advances in fiberfill technology in recent years - this pillow is really nice and "squishy," it feels almost like a down pillow except it doesn't "pack down" the way some cheaper down pillows do.

And it's an "anti allergen" one - it has one of those miteproof covers, but doesn't feel plasticky.

I've been using it for a few days and my shoulders are better. So maybe the pillow was all it took. And there is something really nice about replacing something that was worn out (but you didn't realize it at the time) with something that's nice and new and works well.

Amazon, I love you!

Seriously. If you were a guy I would totally marry you.

I ordered a book a long time ago - well, actually, PRE-ordered. It was a craft book that was originally published in the UK and was set to have an edition available here sometime in October. (I know - I could have ordered from Amazon UK and had it shipped here, but meh. I could wait and didn't want to pay the overseas shipping).

I was waiting for it, thinking how nice it would be when it becomes available.

Well, I got an e-mail "update" from Amazon this morning: it's available earlier than expected and will arrive in a week or so.

Thank you, Amazon, you are so thoughtful. You didn't have to let me know - heck, you didn't have to ship it right as soon as it came in - but you did.

I call that good customer service. I know there are people who have issues with Amazon (some pickier and more eye-rolly for me than others), but I really have to say they have some of the best customer service I've seen in a company.

And I still say Amazon Prime is one of the most happiness-enhancing investments I've ever made. I can order a book from them and have it in my hands - shipped FREE - often before I can find time to drive to the next city over where there's a bookstore.

Boutiqueville ahoy!

Yup, I'm going.

It's cooled down considerably since last month (and it's rained some, and it may be raining tomorrow - if it's crazy-ass storms I won't go, but if it's just raining, I will. Because rain will keep the annoying people away).

I went to the bank and cashed a check. (Um. A check from my parents. My dad asked me what it cost me to take the train up to visit them and even though I insisted that I could easily afford it, that I was doing it as part of my meeting-trip, and he didn't HAVE to, he insisted on writing me a check for the cost of my tickets. Which was very nice but as I said he doesn't HAVE to do that. So anyway - I deposited 2/3 of the check but kept the remaining portion out as "fun money." Because I really wasn't counting on him writing me the check - so, see, it's like "found" money, right?)

Anyway. I've got cash in hand, I haven't used the credit card I use for such things much in the past month (I have a "life necessities" credit card for gas and groceries and medication and I have a "fun" credit card for ordering stuff online and "fun" shopping - that way I can keep track of the bills better, and I can know to scale back on the "fun" shopping if the "life necessities" have been higher in the past months.)

So I'm going.

And I'm glad I'm going.

Boutiqueville - I'm using a pseudonym like I do for everything on here to protect my privacy, but probably most of you reading this know of a "Boutiqueville." It's a smallish city with an historic downtown where there is a large mass of small shops. It's a place where it's easy to park and then walk the blocks around the area where the shops are - which is nice for me, I don't like the park - n - drive - n - shop - n - drive set up that some places have. I like to just leave my car and spend the day walking around.

It has several small restaurants - tea room type places - where a person can get a decent lunch. And it has antique shops. And two quilt shops. And a number of "gift" type shops, the kind of places where you can buy fancy soap or a drinking glass with the Eiffel Tower etched on to it.

It's a "ladies" sort of place. You see some men there, and I guess there are shops that cater to more typically manly interests (there's a old-building salvage place, and a rare book store), but most of the people there are women, most of the stuff for sale is girly type stuff - soap and candles and hats and jewelry and craft supplies and things that are pink or silver or pale turquoise. Even the restaurants are fairly "girly."

It's the kind of place I love. Good as a trip to the spa for me. It is, for me, not unlike Holly Golightly's description of Tiffany's - it feels as if nothing bad could happen to you there.

The kind of place, as one of my friends from grad school used to say, that sells stuff you don't need.

Except, I think I kind of DO. It's not a "need" in the way that water or nutritious food or shelter is a need, but it does an awful lot to help my outlook on life and my general well-being to, first, be able to get out a couple times a year, spend a day totally on MYSELF and spend a day looking at pretty shiny things. And buy some of those pretty shiny things. And second, it is very good for my psyche to have nice soap to wash my face with at the end of the day - or a cunning mug to drink my tea out of - or a few more nice old books to read.

(As Calvin might say, it's both the getting and the having.)

A big part of the restfulness of going to Boutiqueville for me is that it IS a day out - a day away. If I stay in town, people can find me. They can call me at home (yes, I know, I can unhook the phone, but I never do). They can come to my house. They can catch me in my office if I choose to go in.

But when I go to Boutiqueville - I turn off my cell phone. I leave the little sphere where people know me and can find me and can ask me to do stuff or tell me their life stories (I had a student in just today with the need to 'share' all the medical procedures he's been through this summer).

And while I TRY to be compassionate, while I TRY to look at people as children of God and see them as individuals with hopes and dreams and fears and loves...I have to admit sometimes when I spend too much time around people I get kind of worn down, the life stories start to sound kind of sad and tawdry and dingy and I almost feel like Claire in that scene from "Scrooged" (the part with the imagined future time for Bill Murray's character) where I decide I need to just "scrape 'em off."

And I don't like feeling that way.

So I do take a day and PRETEND I'm "scrapin' 'em off" by going out and sort of floating around the stores, smelling scented candles, graciously accepting the free samples that are offered, drinking an iced chai or lemonade in the early afternoon when I'm starting to tire - and spending time and money on myself.

And I know some people would be horrified by that - heck, as an ecologist I am supposed to loathe the idea of using even more of the Earth's resources to satisfy my petty wants - but you know? I feel a whole lot better after taking a day and going and buying some new quilt fabric or some lavender drawer sachets or a vintage toothpick holder. And sometimes I think a person's well-being, a person's sense of comfort and happiness and rightness-with-the-world, is worth a little use of resources, as I am unfortunately not the type who can be brought back into balance by going out and planting trees or chanting things in front of burning incense.

I would make a rather poor ascetic.

(And besides- I am really not much of a shopper, normally. Clothes are something I buy when the clothes I have now wear out. Many of the things I spend money on are "vintage" or antique, meaning, I suppose, I could argue I'm providing a market that keeps old things out of the landfill. Whatever. I prefer not to think about it.)

So tomorrow morning (provided, as I said, it's not crazy-ass storms), I'm off to Boutiqueville for the day. I don't know what I will find there - that's part of the fun (I HATE the kind of shopping where you go, "I must replace my worn out khakis" and then you slog through fifteen stores trying to find a pair that is in your size, in your price range, doesn't look ugly, and isn't crappily made). I have nothing I HAVE to buy, no pulls on my time.

It's rare, which is partly why it's so wonderful.

Things I (heart)

It's been an on-and-off distressing couple of days, both in everyday life and in the news.

So here's something lighter - a list of little things (and some perhaps not so little) that make me happy.

Amazon Prime. I still cannot get used to the idea that I can order books or a dvd and have it at my door two days later with no shipping charge (and yes, I know - that charge is paid up-front as the yearly "membership." But with the amount of stuff I order - both for me and as gifts - I think I get my money's worth).

Oak Hill Raspberry Vinaigrette salad dressing - it's hard to find and my supply comes from the gourmet shop in my parents' town (I always cart a bottle back in my suitcase when I go visit them. It's just GOOD. It's a little bit sweet but not sicky sweet. It's got a little horseradish in it for punch. It tastes wonderful on spinach salad. And it's low fat AND low salt, if those things are important to you.

Getting stuff in the mail. I mail-order lots of stuff, partly because I hate a lot of types of shopping (clothes shopping, ugh) but also because I love coming home and finding a box of something I ordered on my front porch. If there were a company where you could pay a small fee for monthly "surprise" boxes of something that interested you (like a sampler of teas or a couple of mystery novels), I'd totally sign up for it.

My bed. I love being able to get into bed at night - to surrender the day, to say "now nothing more can happen to me." I have a fairly ironclad rule - if my phone rings after I've gotten in bed, I don't answer it. Because 95% of my after-9pm phone calls are either wrong numbers or some idiot who is drunk-dialing (which I guess is another sort of wrong number.). I read in bed even though the anti-insomnia folks say you shouldn't (if it's a good novel or an interesting book of history, it never seems to interfere with my sleep - I don't read scientific journals or try to re-write papers in bed though). Right now I have five pillows on it - two forming a sort of headboard, one for my head, and two for me to rest my arms on when I sleep on my back. Somehow it seems more comfortable and secure with those additional pillows on either side of me. I started doing that the last cold I had, to force myself to sleep on my back (so I wasn't so congested) and I realized it was really comfortable.

"All ages" "graphic novels" (a/k/a books of funny cartoons). I've ordered a few over the past year or so - all of Andy Runton's "Owly" books, the Little Dee books, a few others. It's a comfort and joy to be able to open one and be immersed in that world. I'm slowly figuring out what authors, styles, and genres I like - it has to be the very light, very happy-ending type of stuff - "All ages" is the designation usually used for this, meaning there's nothing to overly scare children or offend parents. I also think I'm going to buy the Pogo reprints when they come out. (Oddly enough, for a rather conservative pair, my parents talk about having been HUGE Pogo fans when it was originally in the newspapers. I have one or two of the compilation books - picked up at used book stores over the years - and I feel like I maybe don't UNDERSTAND the era quite well enough to get everything in them. (But I do get stuff like the "Malarky" bits).

My yarn and fabric "stashes." If you're not a crafter, you might not quite get this, but a lot of us who do these things accumulate quite large collections of "raw materials." I have several of the large flat underbed-type boxes full of folded quilt fabric, and several of yarn. A lot of the stuff was acquired on sale, or in a situation of "the company is discontinuing making this yarn and I like it and I want to make such-and-such project with it, so I better buy it now". Right now, especially, the stash comes in really handy, because I'm not DRIVING anywhere (gas prices but also the time factor - something in me rebels these days at making an hour's round trip just to shop). So instead, I'm pulling stuff out of the stash and using it to make quilts or to knit up. It's kind of like having a root cellar, only for your craft.
(See also: liking getting stuff in the mail. There are several online yarn and fabric purveyors I like to order from when I want something specific or when I need, for example, a particular color of fabric to work with what I've already got).

My white-noise generator. It's one of those Sharper Image Sound Soother things and was something like $150 when I bought it last year but it's more than paid for itself in the better sleep I get. While it doesn't cover everything up (like neighbor's dogs and especially loud diesel duallies), it does cut out a lot of the ambient noise and I find I sleep more soundly. And getting decent sleep is extremely valuable to me.

Ticonderoga pencils. Only brand I will use. They don't seem to cheap out like some other brands and use a graphite that breaks easily. And the wood seems better quality. I buy these in huge boxes (like, 48 pencils) and keep them in my office. And if I loan someone a pencil, I insist on getting it back. (And well I should - they're MY pencils, darnit, I bought them.)

J. R. Watkins "Apothecary" Lavender hand creme. I bought this on an impulse on my last trip to Target and I have to say it is the BEST smelling lavender product I've had - it's more floral and less "harsh" - some lavender scented things, I don't know if they use more of the leaves than flowers, or if they use some cheap syntho-lavender, but some of them have almost a dusty or acrid after-scent. Not this - it's nice and floral and rich. And I use it more (which I really should because I have dry skin) because it smells so nice.

So there's a list. And oh, I know - things aren't supposed to be important, people come first, and all of that. But there are some little things that are just NICE and make life a little happier.

Gardening

I've been spending a lot of my (admittedly limited these days) free time working in my garden.

I love the whole planning part, I love going out and buying plants, I love planting them. (I don't so much love all the dead-heading, and I especially don't love weeding when it's 95* out).

I spent a shocking amount of money at the garden center today (now, granted, part of that was that I needed a new hose, as I apparently forgot to drain the old one completely before some of the heavy freezes this winter. Or maybe when my neighbor's dog got loose he used it as a chew toy. I don't know). I also bought something called Sluggo, which is the best thing I've found to kill snails and slugs. (It's an iron-phosphate compound; I don't know if they eat it or if it dehydrates them when they crawl over it or what, but it gets rid of them). Sluggo is expensive but it's not as disgusting (to me at least) as setting out little saucers of beer in the garden. (And it feels silly to me to buy a six-pack - even a cheap six-pack - just to poison slugs. {it's that alcohol-migraine trigger thing; I don't drink because of it so beer holds no attraction for me})

I also bought a bunch of special "heat resistant" cultivars (we shall see) of tomatoes and put them out. And some basil. And some lavender to replace that which drowned last summer during our period of high rainfall.

And four dozen bedding plants. Next time I propose planting four dozen zinnias and gomphrenas in a day, I'd like someone to dope-slap me. My arms hurt now and I ALMOST couldn't get up off my knees after doing it. And I expect my hands will go numb sometime tonight while I sleep (I have incipient carpel tunnel syndrome which you think I'd try to prevent by NOT DOING THINGS like digging 48+ little holes in the ground with a trowel...but NOOOOOO.)

I have a long, narrow flowerbed in the front of my house and it looks best with some kind of bright bedding plant in it. I haven't figured out a perennial that would consistently look good there so I just use annuals every year. Some years when I've been really energetic I rip out the zinnias when fall comes (when they're nearly dead anyway) and put pansies in for the cooler months but haven't done that lately).

So I now have 16 tomato plants - which I know, sounds like too many for a single person but the yields here tend to be low (All those folks who advocate some kind of modern version of a "victory garden" to allow people to eat locally - well, they must be folks that live in a perfect climate and have either the time or the "people" to do all the necessary work because I've found working full time and having a garden means the garden often gets neglected). I might get 20 or so good tomatoes over the course of the season. (And heck, if by some miracle the plants are super-productive this year I can always find people I want to spread a little goodwill to in the form of fresh tomatoes.)

I also have beans.

Tomatoes and beans are about the extent of my attempt to feed myself from my own land. If I had more time - and it didn't get so miserably hot and dry here most summers - I'd also try corn but I know a number of people who did it for one year and then gave up on it. (Maybe this year I will try a fall crop of cabbages; it seems that I always miss when the starts are in the stores - it's like August or something which just seems weird to me and I'm not thinking about cabbage at that time.)

Potatoes would be fun but you need lots of space for those, and good sandy soil. (When I was a kid, my parents were good friends with a family that had a HUGE garden. They used to invite us out in the spring to plant potatoes with them, and back again in late summer to help harvest, and then the two families split the harvest. I remember the harvesting times as really fun - the dad of the family had a little tractor with a flatbed trailer and we kids used to get to sit on it and he'd slowly drive up between the rows of potatoes and we'd lean off the trailer and grab all the potatoes we could see and put them in bushel baskets. Then, after the harvest we'd have a big cookout, which was fun, too.)

I tried watermelon one year but any of the melon or squash crops are risky - we tend to get the borers here that will attack the plants and you will go from a perfectly healthy plant setting fruit in the morning, to a totally wilted and dead plant in the afternoon, because some bug got into its xylem.

If I had more time, and more energy, and felt like paying someone to rip up more of my lawn for me (been there, done that, would rather pay someone next time), I'd put in raspberry canes and strawberry plants. I see lots of the strawberry plants for sale - I guess they do well here though I'd think it would be a little hot.

And I've toyed with the idea of converting the old clothesline setup to a grape arbor of sorts. (I don't dry my clothes and sheets outdoors - even though there's no "covenant" against it here, like there is in my parents' subdivision - because I suspect that would cause great misery for my allergies. I cannot think of sleeping on sheets that have basically bathed in pollen for a day).

(Then again - maybe I'd best keep the lines as lines against the day when we're all legislated to have to air-dry our clothes as an energy and pollution saving measure).

A lot of this daydreaming is just that - dreams. I have other things I really need to do first - like get rid of the brushpiles in back (I cannot bring myself to sent the limbs I cut to the landfill, but they're rapidly taking over my backyard) and get rid of the ivy (including some poison ivy) that are invading in back of where the brushpiles are.

But I love the idea of a perfect, neat, productive garden - maybe with a fountain plashing in the back (The birds would like that, too). I love the idea of being able to raise some of my own food - not for any kind of "stickin' it to the Man" sense, or not any kind of smug, "I don't need tomatoes that have traveled on a truck" sense, but in more of a sense of wonder, a "wow, I was able to produce this through my own labor" sense.

I think there's something very "centering" (to use a much overused word that I tend to roll my eyes at) about gardening. I always feel better mentally and emotionally (if not necessarily physically, and that will pass in a day or so) after doing it. I think it's because it's so immediate - you can see what you are doing when you pull weeds or cultivate the soil or put in plants. And there is the enjoyment of being able to see the results of your labor. (I will often go and peek at my garden out of one of my back windows just to look at it, just to see how it looks from the house. Or I'll make up excuses to go out back different times of the day just to see how it looks in different lights or to see how it's doing.)

I needed to do that this weekend. (There was a volunteer project I COULD have participated in, but decided not to - I figure if anyone asks I'll simply say, "There were other things I really needed to do Saturday." Which is the truth.)

I find as I get a bit older I need more downtime - more time where I can let my brain rest and get away from the work I do daily. (Perhaps that's partly why they have tenure and full professorships - many people can't drive at the same hard mental pace at 45 that they could at 28). I have begun to notice when I begin to feel a bit frayed and worn during the week, when I'm less patient, when certain personality tendencies of my colleagues are like an electric wire touched to an open nerve rather than something I can just shrug off. And I've gotten better at saying to myself, "You just need some time off."

And I've begun TAKING it when it needs to be taken. Instead of pushing myself to do more, or beating myself up for not spending Saturday in at the office writing another grant/article/proposal/who-knows-what. I'm coming to the conclusion that staving off the little beginnings of burnout now are better than dealing with the whole big mass of it if it comes later (kind of like how small prescribed controlled burns prevent a giant conflagration, if you're talking about a forest somewhere).

So I took my Saturday and worked in my garden. And it was good.

another thing I love.

Okay, I've calmed down a little since that earlier outburst. (It helps that the tosspot spammers have apparently moved on; at least I'm not getting any more "you bad person you, sending us spam!" bouncebacks).

But I have to mention another thing I love all to pieces, especially in this era of high gas prices and my having little time to go out and shop:

I love Amazon Prime.

Yes, it's kind of expensive - I think it's $79 for a year. But that gives you free all-you-can-use access to 2-day shipping on most books, cds, and dvds. Even to addresses that aren't yours...so you can use it to send gifts to people.

The most recent thing I ordered, just today? Season 2 of "House" on dvd. I debated about it a long time - I MIGHT be able to get it cheaper at Target, but I don't know when I'm going to be going out driving that direction (it's an hour's round trip) next. And I've almost run through Season 1 even though I kind of save and "dole out" episodes to myself so I don't blow through the new-to-me episodes all at once.

It's been only about a year and a half that I've even HAD a dvd player; I'm slowly learning the joys of having one. I love the idea of being able to buy whole runs of television shows I like. I love being able to find obscure movies and obtain copies of them.

Oh, I had a VCR before. But the tapes can wear out if you watch them too much; they're big and unwieldy; there's no good way to skip ahead to another section. And more stuff can be fit on a dvd than on VHS tape. And the reproduction quality seems better to me (that might just be because I have a better tv now).

But I was talking about Amazon Prime. I love that I can decide, kind of on a whim, that I want a book or a cd or a dvd, and instead of having to wait until I have time to drive somewhere to buy it (or hope one of the local stores, like wal-mart has it - which, with books at least, generally the answer is "no"), I can order it and have it show up on my doorstep in 2 days. Wonderful. What brave new world with such people in it, and all that.

It's a really wonderful thing for those of us who live in the 'sticks' where the option of running to Border's or Barnes and Noble's or the local indie bookstore ISN'T an option because these things don't exist in our towns.

And there's something oddly comforting, oddly self-caring, about being able to order a book you want, and come home from work some afternoon, and hey presto, there it is, waiting for you.

(Much of my "disposable income" goes to books these days. And dvds. I've never been a "shoe" or "purse" woman; I'm not that big on buying clothing. But books - they are friends that never let me down.)

old maids

I'm reading one of the "Hamish MacBeth" mysteries right now - Scots policeman who apparently turns the credit for solving hard cases over to others so he can keep his comfortable quiet position in Lochdubh rather than be promoted to somewhere else.

It's the first book that I've read in this series (not the first book OF the series; it was just one I picked up really cheaply at a used-book store. But now I think I will go back and read more of them).

Well, one of the things that comes up in the book is that MacBeth is beginning to think of himself as being akin to an old maid - he's not married, the various love affairs he had in the past fizzled for various reasons. What really brings it home to him is when he realizes he's letting his odd-looking dog and tame wildcat (and I wonder what a Scots wildcat looks like - is it like a little bobcat, or does it look like a Norwegian forest cat?) sleep on the bed with him.

And he's kind of horrified, and virtually decided to ask the woman he's been very casually seeing socially to marry him. (And as it turns out later on in the book - without spoiling too much - that marriage becomes impossible and his infatuation was ill-advised).

And I was thinking about that last night before bed. I AM an old maid. Never married, over 25 (over 35 for that matter), have an independent life. In some ways I even fit the stereotype: my main social activities revolve around church. I knit and sew. I like to put my feet up in the evening and read a book. I don't like movies with sex or large amounts of cursing in them. I am a prude in many ways.

And you know? There's nothing at all wrong with that.

I like my life.

It is a good life. I am very blessed.

My life is quiet and calm and relatively free of bad drama. I may not be raising biological children, but I am hopefully having some sort of beneficial impact on youth and young adults through teaching and youth group. I enjoy my work. I will hopefully leave this world a slightly better place than it would have been had I not been in it. Even if it's just by picking up litter on my street occasionally.

And this is one of those slightly epiphantic moments that I've had the past few years - perhaps the closest I'll come to a midlife crisis is to shed a lot of the unhelpful sorts of silliness I had when I was younger (please God). But realizing that I am HAPPY with my life, not MISERABLE, and that whatever society says about unmarried women over 30 and their problems and their hangups and their probable neuroses-of-a-sexual-nature is not true of me. I'm not desperate to find a man. I don't feel like I'm wasting my life.

Sure, in an alternate universe, it would be NICE to be happily married with children. But that wasn't in the cards for me, for whatever reason (And I'm assuming at 39 - even if I met someone tomorrow and we had a very quick courtship, children probably wouldn't be in the cards for me at this point). But there are a lot of worse things I could be. A single mom with multiple kids each with a different father, none of whom I was married to at any point, trying to scrape to get by, comes to mind.

And so, this is another one of those "society can go get stuffed" moments: society can go get stuffed for telling me that as a single woman over 30 I'm probably really very screwed up in some very strange ways, and that I should be desperately sad that I don't have a man warming my bed each night (and that, to society, in many cases, it matters little whether that man is married to me or not - that it's better to sleep with ANYONE than it is to sleep alone).

Because, as I said before: minimal amounts of bad drama. And you know? That's kind of the tradeoff. You can have an "exciting" life, but with it comes all kinds of tsuris. Or you can have a life where you are so predictable and consistent that when you fail to show up at 7 am the day after vacation, your colleagues figure you must have had some sort of travel delay and go ahead and cancel your classes for you.

And you know? Despite what society seems to say about "exciting" versus "predictable" lives, I like my life. I like the quiet and stability. I think they are highly under-rated in our society.

My life is pretty simple: I get up in the morning. I work out. I get cleaned up, put on my little dress or little skirt and top (or jeans and a blouse if I'm taking a lab out in the field). I go to work. I prep for my classes. I teach. I work a little bit on research. I gab with my colleagues. I go home around 4 or 5, fix a salad or something for dinner, maybe take a shower or do a load of laundry. I maybe watch a little tv if something good's on, or if not, I listen to music and read a book or sew or knit. I get into bed between 8:30 and 9, read for a while, then I go to sleep.

On the weekends I sometimes go antiquing. Or I bake bread. Or I work on a research paper. Or I go to a student art show at the campus gallery. Sunday I go to church; Sunday afternoon I rest and usually work on a quilt.

And it's a good life. Some might call it boring. Some might roll their eyes at how consistent I am in my schedule. But it is good. It is right for me; it works. I just don't quite understand why there seem to be so many in the entertainment and commentary world who are quick to dismiss or ridicule my lifestyle - I do not know if they've tried it or not, but if they haven't, I don't think ridicule is very fair.

As I said before: I think peace and quiet are highly under-rated in our society. So I choose to celebrate the peace and quiet I have in my nice little old-maid life.

Smiling

I saw this this morning (linked on another craft-blog I read) and it made me smile.

It's a woman who has done embroidery "portraits" of people she thought of as "heroes" when she was a child: Jacques Cousteau, Crystal Gayle (The hair! I love how she did the long hair!), Shel Silverstein, and Bob Ross.

That kind of thing just makes me laugh with delight - don't misunderstand, I'm not laughing AT the person for doing it. Not at all. I'm laughing because it's so wonderful, it makes me so HAPPY.

And it makes me think: who were my childhood heroes, that I would try to capture in embroidery? Mr. Rogers would have to be one; I'm inclined to think that Margery Sharp (although I've never even seen a picture of her) would be another. And Jim Henson. And maybe Marie Osmond (don't laugh, lots of kids looked up to her I bet)

(Margery Sharp is the person who wrote the "Rescuers" series of books, upon which Disney loosely based the 70s cartoon movie. The books are a lot better, though - they're almost little comedies-of-manners in some places and are very intelligently written.)

Enthusiasms

Yesterday morning, before church, I sat down and sort of flipped around on the television. So many of the channels either had infomercials (bleah) or were running news footage that seemed (as it so often does) to just be a litany of the bad stuff people do to other people. So I kept flipping, feeling kind of down - one of the channels, there were like three stories within 3 minutes that basically showed the suckier side of human nature.

Then I hit PBS. They were running a show on trains. Specifically, on old steam trains that train-buffs keep running. Some of the trains have short, dedicated routes; some of them use track belonging to freight companies that they get permission to use. The program talked about how the guys (mostly guys) who are interested in trains work to restore them- how a lot of the trains had been rescued from scrapyards - and how the train people spend their free time keeping the trains running.

That kind of thing makes me extremely happy. I need to see stuff like that as an antidote to the "People are getting killed in riots in Kenya; there might be a serial killer on the loose in Florida; homes are being foreclosed at record rates" stories. The barrage of bad news.

Part of it is also that when I was a kid, my dad was kind of interested in trains. Oh, not enough (and he didn't have the time) to actually go out and try to buy a caboose or an old steam locomotive or anything - the most we had were HO scale trains in the basement - but some weekends we'd get together with a couple other families and make a trip somewhere where there was an old steam line, and we'd take a ride on the trains. So as a young kid I kind of knew what the old steam trains were like. I remember winding through the forests of Pennsylvania on one such trip.

I love anything, though, where a person has a passion - a deep and abiding love of something - and they follow that. Especially if the passion isn't something particularly "practical," in the sense that the person will never get rich or famous off of it. (Yes, maybe it's snobby of me, but I tend to see the kind of impractical passions as somehow purer). The old steam train buffs are like that - no one is going to give them millions and millions of dollars to do what they do; no Hollywood producer is going to want to make blockbuster movies about them. But they don't care, because they enjoy what they do.

It also makes me happy from the "preserving history" standpoint. My main interest in history revolves around "how did people live?" - what were their houses like, what did they wear, how did they get from place to place, what did they do for fun. Being able to get on an old steam train, although it might never be a 100% recreation of the past, still gives you sort of an idea of what it was like.

And I just find people with a deep and abiding interest in something, especially something that seems kind of obscure, interesting - how did they get into it? What is it about that thing that keeps them so fascinated?

(One of the women who was married to a train fanatic, made the comment, "I get to go on a date with my husband and help drive a steam train at the same time. No other woman in America, I bet, gets to say that." hahahahaha.)

I remember this summer I was at an art festival and I saw a group of people who did clog-dancing. Now, I know boo about clog dancing other than that it reminds me a little bit of Irish step-dancing, it looks very challenging to do, but it looks like it would be fun once you were good at it (and were in sufficiently good shape!). The leader of the group talked a little between each set and described how his group would go to conventions (they have clog-dancing conventions. That makes me smile) and how they'd trade routines with other groups, how people would track down sources of traditional music - all that stuff. And it made me extremely happy - there's this whole secret "underground" world of clog-dancing that I know nothing about, but that there are people who are fascinated by it and want to do it and want to learn about it and want to share it.

It's kind of like a secret identity, I guess - that this ordinary-looking woman behind a desk somewhere has this whole secret life where she knows jigs and reels and wears shoes with taps on them. The idea that everyone is interesting, everyone has something cool about them, if you just take the time to pay attention.

There's also a dulcimer festival a couple towns over once a year. I've never gone - it always seems to fall on a weekend when I have other obligations, and I don't know, as a "muggle" in the dulcimer-world, how openly I'd be welcomed, but it makes me happy that there are people out there keeping that alive.

I also love the shows they do on Food Network about the barbecue fanatics - that there are people out there that do this serious scholarly study of 'cue and how it's made and what the differences between the four types (Carolinas, Memphis, Texas, and Kansas City) are and what the historic recipes are. And they actually argue about what's the best wood for smoking, or whether the meat should have sauce or not.

I think I love all those things for a couple of reasons. First, when I'm enthusiastic about something, I'm enthusiastic about it, and I don't really care whether it's "cool" or not. So it makes me feel happy (and maybe a little less weird) to see that there are other people out there who feel the same way about their particular interest. (And I have to admit, in recent years, because I've been so busy, some of my passions have gone on the back burner, and that makes me sad. And it makes me feel like a little bit of me is slipping away - like, "What is happening to that girl who used to be able to name almost any doo-wop band correctly on the basis of hearing a few notes of one of their songs?" or "How much do I remember any more about the marks of the different doll-makers of the past century?" Stuff I used to be really really into, used to actually STUDY because I had the time).

Second, I often see just the "surface" of people - people I work with, people in my classes. And sometimes that "surface" has kind of a glaze on it - like, you get the feeling, "This person isn't interested." And you begin to wonder, "Are they interested in ANYTHING?" And while I suppose there are people who have either taken the "cool" stance to the extreme that they don't care about anything, or people who are truly so uninterested in stuff that they really have nothing they're passionate about, I bet those people are rare. So seeing people working at what they love reminds me that even if my students don't LOVE biology, they probably have something somewhere they LOVE.

And finally - somehow, I think in some kind of weird mystical/spiritual way, the people who have those deep and abiding passions, who want steam trains to continue to run, who want to preserve traditional forms of music, who care deeply about a particular skill and want to pass it on, they're good for the world. They somehow make it a more interesting and deeper place. And they remind others that what you do to earn your bread - or the titles after your name - are not the sum total of who you are.

Whoo-hoo #3 (big one)

This is the best news I've heard all week.

Remember a couple weeks ago, my mom had an incident where she had some memory blackouts for a short period of time? They ruled out all the really scary neurological stuff at the ER, but they wanted to still do some heart-function tests and an MRI.

(One of her friends told her that if she had had a TIA, it would show up on the MRI.)

One thing they did was a carotid artery ultrasound to check for blockage. My mom had been a bit concerned over the results of this test because for years her cholesterol's bounced around - gone borderline high (never high enough for the doctors to push statins on her though), gone down, gone back up, etc. So she was concerned about there being blockage. (Also - a friend of our family had carotid artery surgery and nearly died of complications afterward. So she was apprehensive about the potential of surgery).

Well - the carotids are perfectly clear. No problems there.
The MRI showed no tumors or plaques or anything much.

Except - apparently she has mastoditis (sp?). I guess this is inflammation around one of the bones near the jaw. The doctor thought it was probably a lowgrade infection (My mom had been complaining of a "blocked" ear but she thought it was allergies). My mom asked her if that could have caused the memory episode and the doctor said she couldn't say 100% for sure, but it was likely.

So now my mom's got horse-pill antibiotics (she's allergic to a lot of them, so she usually winds up with sulfa drugs) and a decongestant.

So, to Kate and anyone else who was praying - thank you. It's a weight off my heart to know that she's basically okay and that probably the thing that caused the memory issue was an infection that can be cleared up.

Whoo-hoo #2!

I FOUND THE MISSING FILES.

The ones that, had I not found them, would have probably meant this paper died an agonizing death. This was the stuff I was "cuss word"-ing about yesterday.

I kept thinking: That HAS to be somewhere. Even I am not a great enough git to totally get rid of all the bits and pieces of that.

Then I remembered a couple of CD-ROMs that my co-author had handed me after some long hours of working on analyses. I was so brain-fried at the time that I guess his, "I copied the output of the analysis on this CD so you'd have it" didn't register. Or it did, and I put the CD aside and forgot it.

But I was looking for a CD of a program I had that I wanted to re-install. And there was the other CD, the one he had made, with his characteristically-cryptic label on it.

Don't get your hopes up too much, I told myself. It's probably just reprints of some of his recent papers. (He used to do what I called "the Reprint Fairy" - every time he had a paper come out, he'd get reprints and then go through the lab and leave a copy on everyone's desk before they came in for the morning. I can't quite decide if that was endearing or annoying.)

But I put the disk in and looked at it.

a text file, with a title that sounded right. So I opened it.

And it was there. Huzzah. (And contrary to what Lileks said, Huzzah is not ONLY used by people at Renaissance Faires or people making fun of them.)

That means the several hours of horrible agonizing effort I would have had to put in today have been done away with. It also means that I have something productive to work on this weekend.

Thank God. (What's the saying? God looks out for drunks and fools? Something like that? Well, I'm not the first, but I'll admit to sometimes being the second.)

Almost done

Well, I'm done with my grading. I have some research-work to do today (as soon as Colleague manages to get in here). It's been a pretty good week.

*I finished a Major Project I've been working on for over 2 1/2 years

*I have my summer presentation (at Large National Meetings) pretty well planned out and most of the data analyzed (these meetings are in July so I still have a little time).

*I'm done (for a little while) with the daily round of teaching, grading, and prep (as much as I LIKE teaching it's nice to have a break from it now and then).

*I had a student stop by yesterday to check on his grade. This is someone on scholarship who needs to maintain a 3.0. He had struggled a bit in my class and was just below the C/B border going in to the final. Fortunately, he did very well on the final and got an 81% for the class as a whole - a B.

The look of happiness and relief on his face when I let him know he had earned a B was priceless.

*I had another student come and thank me because he "learned so much" in my class. Yeah, we have a small cadre of students who always bitch about classes being "too much work" but we also have a (probably larger, but probably also not as vocal) group that sees the high standards in my department as a challenge to be met rather than an obstacle to their ease.

The student who came and thanked me was the same one who complained that the courses in his major (not my department) were too easy and that people taking them often seemed to be content to get by doing the barest of bare minimums. So I don't think he was sucking up (doubly so because the grades were already posted and because he's graduating this spring).

****

Actually, I think that's a big part of happiness - seeing difficulty (in whatever form) as a challenge to be met rather than as an obstacle to one's ease. Perhaps it's because we're basically adapted to be problem-solving beings (I've heard it said that anxiety is the natural state of the human race: if you think about it, Zog the Caveman, who was always hyper-alert, looking for sabre-toothed tigers and such, survived along with his family, whereas Oog the Caveman who just wanted to lie around and look at the pretty clouds, would be more likely to get eaten).

Shannon C. commented on this recently.

I know I'm happiest when I have some kind of challenge to face - some kind of thing that I can either "beat" or that I can let "beat" me. I think perhaps too MUCH ease is what ails us sometimes. When you're not dealing with some kind of difficulty, you FIND a difficulty, or so I think.

Look at some of the silly crap we argue over in the developed world. Now think of an African subsistence-farmer. Or a yak herder in Kyrgyzstan. Or someone who makes a living in the jungles of Malaysia by hunting and gathering.

Do you think they worry about the same stuff?

Probably not. Their main worry is getting enough food, avoiding injury or disease, finding shelter.

I think of the old (and likely apocryphal) story about the Women's Conference where women from the U.S. and Canada were talking about the "major problem" of "non-gender inclusive language." And a representative from either India or one of the African nations stood up, and spoke eloquently about the high rate of infant mortality in her nation, and about how kids were going blind from malnutrition, and how women still regularly died in childbirth.

The point being: we're too prone to see what's wrong in our own lives, rather than thinking about the things that COULD be wrong, but are not. We're too prone to see whatever (mostly minor, at least in the developed world) problems we face and treat them as major obstacles. (I get so tired - SO TIRED - of seeing people essentially throw a tantrum over something that will not matter two weeks from now. Or something they could fix with effort equal to what they have put into the tantrum).

Look, there ARE big problems in life. Cancer is one (and that's going to be my FFOT for this week: once again, I know a couple people who are being affected by cancer). But for most of us - we have so much, we have so few problems, we should be even HAPPIER than the kings of old (because, after all, even KINGS in the olden days didn't have flush toilets and hot showers and the option to buy strawberries out of season).