Why the beach is better than the snow.

1. Specialized clothing for the beach: none.
Specialized clothing for the snow: Snow pants, ski cap, goggles, waterproof boots... And if you don't have them, you quickly end up freezing and damp.

2. Specialized equipment for beach activities: blanket (although you could bring a kite, flippers, snorkel...)
Specialized equipment for the snow: available at better used sporting goods stores for only a few hundred dollars.

3. Driving to the beach: If it's a particularly nice day, you might hit some traffic.
Driving to the snow: At some point, men flag you down, instruct you to pull your car over to the side of the highway, and have you put expensive chains on your tires so that you don't go skidding to your icy death.

4: Walking on the beach: flip-flops.
Walking on the snow: tennis rackets, cold, wet, and periodic bouts of falling on your ass.

5: Cost of beach: Up to $5 for parking.
Cost of snow: A really good lift ticket/ski rental package can be as low as $80.

6: Adjusting to altitude at the beach: home is at sea level, beach is at sea level. Done.
Adjusting to altitude at the snow: Takes six days, involves drinking lots of water, can involve headaches and trouble sleeping.

It kind of goes on from there. To be honest, any place where you can lay on a blanket and read a book in the sunshine kind of beats the pants off any place where you can't for me.

With that said, though, I went to Tahoe this weekend for a conference, and it was really lovely. I've only been two other times in my adult life. Once I had great fun with two good friends -- most of that fun involved sledding and Kahlua. The second time was for a wedding, and the company was wonderful, but the lodgings were pretty shitty. So I just wasn't really sold.

But now I'm actually thinking there are reasons to go. I hiked, put my feet in the lake, ate good food, gazed at the brilliant stars, and enjoyed an unparalleled view of the lake from up on a cliff. So anyway, if I had four chances to go on weekend trips, I would have previously suggested San Francisco, Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, and Santa Cruz. Now I would consider swapping out Bodega Bay for Lake Tahoe.

Also, my conference was really useful and I learned a lot. But that's a side note, right?
I'm glad to be home now with my family and cats.

Granlibakken

For a conference, I'm in Granlibakken, which is Lake Tahoe.

Good: great weather, easy drive, good company, actually entertaining first night's speeches, free wine, comfy room, reliable internet, food that is vegetarian and Weight Watchers-friendly, and a coffee maker in the room.

Weird: Postcards of this place include one of a nipple-pierced viking. The trails around here randomly have pictures of squirrels posted to the trees. It takes 6 days to acclimate to 6,000 elevation (which it is here) from sea level (which my hometown is), and we'll be here for three.

Bad: My upstairs neighbor is apparently one of these guys...

and the floor of his room is made of drum heads. Also, he wakes up and does calisthenics at 4.

Okay, off to breakfast. I miss my home and family and cats. You guys should all give each other hugs for me.

A very unusual week

So here's the main thing that was strange... my husband and mom were BOTH out of town last week. Zadie spent three days with Grandpa John, and by all accounts, everyone there had a good time. I was on half-days, which was awesome, but obviously Z's routine was ALL jacked up. At about the end of the day each day, she'd have a mini-meltdown. One night she had to put her feelings of missing Daddy into her piggy bank after a brief miscommunication where she thought I was giving my missing-Daddy feelings to her.

We did a bunch of fun stuff, though. We went to Mighty Kong Cafe for lunch one day and had a milkshake and a nice talk about Godzilla vs. King Kong. On another day we went to Bertha Henschel park in the evening. On another, we went there for a concert and she ended up in the wading pool in her underpants (so were half the other kids). We made dinners together and went to the gym together. We had a few treats like popsicles. We hung out in the hammock. It was odd but nice.

Our long, long, cold, gray spring suddenly turned to summer. It was actually a little reassuring: I always say that I'm not bothered by the heat until it hits 100, and yesterday it was 93. I was fine. Today it was over 100, so we sat in the air conditioning after noon and enjoyed the wonders of TV.

Father's Day was super-fun. I bought Sweetie some DVDs of Dr. Who, but I also made him fresh sriracha hot sauce. Then I made my dad a pineapple upside down cake. My stepdad was out of town, but when he came back, I made him a Portuguese marinade which is spelled Vinho d'alhos and which is pronounced vinya dazh or something. I don't get Portuguese.

I met with a personal trainer at the gym. I felt kind of awful saying it, but she was like "And what's your main fitness goal?" and I responded, "I just want to lose weight." I know that's not supposed to be your goal -- you're supposed to want to be healthy and fit and have low cholesterol or whatever, but the truth is, except for being overweight, I have all those things. I rarely get sick, I have lots of energy, I have low cholesterol, low blood pressure, a healthy resting heart rate... I'm just fat. And although I sort of believe in "health at any size," I don't want to be any size. I want to be smaller and not have a big fat gut and back fat. So she said I was doing things right, but thought I should add some circuit training, so I am, starting tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

On the cat front, the cats are finally getting along. Luther pretends to be super Beta -- Mina and he get close and he flops onto his back -- but when food is delivered, he throws himself bodily in front of her to get it. He's very sweet and cuddly and loving, but he pisses everywhere, which is going to be a problem. I think once we have him unmanned, perhaps that will get better, too. Also, I could do without his middle-of-the-light love-fests with my face.

Zadie is taking swimming lessons, which I'm glad about. I really want her to know how and to feel more comfortable around the water. She likes it, but she clings to me and won't even hold onto the wall. But in two lessons, she's already made progress. She is kicking and blowing bubbles, and will easily go up to about her nose in the water. She absolutely cracks me up, though: the instructor puts these shark-shaped weights on the stairs and encourages the girls to pick them up. I think he's getting them used to going a little deeper in the water. Well today, Z was sitting on the right side of the stairs and he kept moving the shark farther left so she would have to reach farther, therefore getting deeper in the water. Well he got to a point that she was like "okay," and stood up, walked up two steps, scooted to the left side, walked down two steps, and picked up the shark. I love her problem-solving, but I'm not sure his pedagogical goal was met. I have a feeling we're seeing the very early stages of "But why do I HAVE to show my work?" and various other school-rule-related minor rebellions.

The other girl in class is the most stone-faced kid I've ever seen. She NEVER smiles. And when he floats her along and tells her to kick, she just does a dead-body float. Zadie, on the other hand, is kicking wildly and yelling "WHEE!" The other girl has burst into tears once each day, and Zadie has been fine. About ten minutes before class got out today, she told me she wanted to get out, and climbed out on her own. I thought she was asking to leave, but then she announced "I have to go potty." I took her, still not really thinking she had to go, since we'd gone only about 25 minutes earlier, but she promptly peed and went back to her lesson. So she's kicking ass, basically.

My writing group is tomorrow and I haven't written a thing. I should have done it tonight, but I just didn't have it in me. Anyway, I have to get going to feed the cats and go to bed so I can go "circuit train" in the morning.

I hope you're all well, and I know life is good today, because everyone I love that lives here is here, and it's really summer time, and I don't have to work.

Almost done!

For the first time in all my years of teaching, almost all my classes are seniors. And if you don't know, seniors check out of school a bit early. Which means, for me, that I have almost no teaching to do this week. I had almost four hours free yesterday, two today, and the next two days involve no students at all -- eight hours of me-time.

Of course, I'm using it for school stuff. No, don't laugh! I've actually been working my ass off. I caught up on all my grading, created a new web site for my classes, packed everything in my room into boxes, moved about 75% of them to what will be my new room, took pictures of some of the art on campus and turned those into a slide show for a special project I'm doing.

So I'm busy, but in the kind of way where I'm actually getting interesting, useful new stuff done instead of catching up on old stuff. Kind of cool.

This is a weird week: my sweetie is at a work conference and my mom is in Iowa (well, as of tomorrow morning). So my dad is taking care of Z for the next few days while I'm at work, and then she and I have a bunch of mostly free time. I'm sad that everyone's away, but glad my mom's seeing my grandma -- she fell and broke her nose and sprained her ankle, plus she has a few other things going on. It's bad stuff, but a good time for Mom to be there for her.

Our new little kitten, Luther Furbank, is really fun. It's been so long since I had a cat that played! He's fattening up nicely, and he's just adorable. He and Mina have a tenuous relationship. Mostly they stay away from each other, but he's just so interested in her that he can't keep away. Then she hisses. Today I took this photo, because for the first time, they were hanging out next to each other with no trouble.


Then a moment later, he batted her tail and she FREAKED out on him, swiping at him for the first time. But she still wasn't trying to hurt him -- it was more of a "DUDE, GET OUT OF HERE!" motion.

Last summer, Z and I had lunch in the park with Monkeygirl, who suggested that Z and I should have matching outfits. My reaction was along the lines of "gag me with a pitchfork." But then I asked Z whether she'd like us to have matching outfits. She thought it was dreamy, so I bought patterns and fabric, but then I never did it. I busted all the stuff out yesterday and am on my way to making two dresses. It feels hecka Amish or something. Like I should just go ahead and make the dresses with high collars, puff sleeves, and a lace inset or something, then get a family photo taken in front of a fake Autumn leaves backdrop.

I guess that's about it. I hope you're all as happy and healthy as I am!

The things she says...

We were bringing our new kitten, Luther Furbank, home for the first time, and he was clearly nervous to be in the car. I suggested that she could talk to him to make him feel better, so pretty much the WHOLE way home, I heard this: I like your nice head, Luther Furbank. I like your blue eyes Luther Furbank. You're a nice cat Luther Furbank. You have pretty fur Luther Furbank. (I'm not sure why she felt she had to say his name in every sentence, but it was cracking me up.)

Yesterday we were driving around, and we were talking about clothing. It went like this...
Z: I like to wear dresses.
Me: I know.
Z: And I like shirts.
Me: Oh, do you? What do you like to wear them with?
Z: Dresses..
Me: Hm. Do you like to wear skirts?
Z: I like to wear skirts with tank tops.
Me: Ah. Do you like to wear pants?
Z: Yeah, I like to wear them with dresses.
Me: Do you like to wear shorts?
Z: No. I like to wear tank tops with shirts.
Me: Oh. Then what do you wear on the bottom?
Z: [laughter] I'm going to tell you a joke.
Me: Okay, go ahead.
Z: I like to wear cream!
Me: Cream?[more laughter.] I'm going to tell you another joke.
Me: Okay.
Z: I like to wear a cream cheese sandwich!

Last weekend, she narrated a story while I typed. It went like this...

I love you. Cinderella didn’t love her sisters and also she didn’t like her stepmother. But her sister loved her stepmother. Then she was very mean to Cinderella and she almost hit Cinderella. And then when she was walking outside she saw Cinderella and she said, “Do your chores” and she said “I already did my chores.” And when Cinderella went outside to play, run and chase leaves and chase butterflies and chase butterflies again and everything she liked to do and not die. But then she didn’t like it because she didn’t like it again. But she laughed! But she didn’t laugh and she did all the things she wanted to do and she went happily off to bed.

And then she did something really naughty, and she did something really naughty again and the stepmother laughed. And then she did something really, really really naughty. And then she stopped being naughty and she went away to go fishing. And she tripped and fell and hurt her knee. And then she fell down into the river. And then she didn’t like it because noone was happy, and then she got to have fun and then she went to go outside and her stepmother wasn’t there but her stepsisters were there. And then she hit her stepsisters. And then she hit her stepmother. And she hit her stepmother so hard that her stepmother died.

[mom] Uh-oh, I don’t like stories about killing or dying.

I like to have stories about dying and killing. And then her stepsisters went off to bed, and the stepmother was worried about the stepsisters, but Cinderella wasn’t. No one loved Cinderella – she was alone. No one except anyone liked her. No one liked her except anyone. And anyone did it again. And Cinderella got a huge pot of peas and no one ate the pot of peas except her stepsisters and her stepmother. But they didn’t like the peas, but they had fun playing with nobody. They had fun eating dinner, and no one seemed to love her.

Pretty butterflies aren’t fairies. Fairies and butterflies aren’t fair. But fair-keys are. No one is happy about that. No one. No one.

(I really like that e.e. cummings-esque section toward the end with the "no one except anyone liked her" thing.)

Gloomy June, but high spirits

I love sunshine and warm weather and picnics and swimming, and this spring is really not allowing for that sort of thing, but nevertheless, I'm looking forward to lots of things, most especially, our July trip to Oregon.

I'm having a lot of fun with my new food blog. I don't know if anyone's getting any benefit from it, but I'm enjoying writing it, and I actually feel good about the content. I think a novice cook could utilize it and make some decent food.

Zadie just had her last day of her first year of pre-school. She loves school. She's a real extravert, and she loves being around other kids. Next year, she'll be in a four-day-a-week program, which is a little scary for me, because it feels like that's too much, too soon! Isn't she just a baby? But no, I think it's perfect for her and she's really going to enjoy it. Here's her first day and last day.




In other news, we're getting a kitty! I wasn't exactly ready, but this one wandered into my classroom at school three times. I kept shooing it away, but it kept coming back, so I figured it needed something. It was very small and skinny, and I picked him up easily and put him in a cardboard box. He mewled unhappily, so his sister came wandering in to see what the fuss is about. With a little more difficulty and some help, I caught her, too. My dad was kind enough to pick them up (I didn't want fleas in my car), and he and my step-mom are nursing them back to health. Anyway, I've fallen in love with the little gray guy, and I am pretty sure they are in love with the caramel one, so my initial concerns about how to adopt them our or whether to fix them and return them to the colony were unfounded. They both have homes. I'm naming the gray one Luther Furbank.


My school is almost out, but not quite. Sigh. It feels like it's a long year.

I was updating (okay, completely re-making) my web site for school, and I decided there ought to be a page that has my education and some of my writing credits. But there aren't that many, and so I decided to submit more of my writing for publication. I went to my writing group last night, and the other gals really supported that idea. Then, this morning, I read one of my local poetry blogs and they had an announcement that a journal's submission deadline is tomorrow. So I threw something together, attached it to an email, held my breath and hit "send" before I could change my mind. Wish me luck!