Red tins in a red cart

 The Chinese Moon Festival has come and gone this year; the students on my campus celebrated with many, many moon cakes (yum).   As a consequence of the student celebrations and my own determined efforts at gleaning, I present a red cart containing red tins. 

Voila!

The cart is nearly full, but the tins are all empty; and all of them are things that would have gone to the landfill if I hadn't rescued them.

I've rescued these from the landfill; the more relevant question might be what I'm rescuing them to.   The answer about the future of these tins, I'm hoping, is the freezer.   

We have a lovely chest freezer that we fill up (and then empty out) with all kinds of food.  One of the perennial challenges of chest freezers is figuring out how exactly to stash food so that it's easily recognizable and retrievable.   We have a pillow case of cheeses, and that works well.  Another pillowcase of bags of various veggies is also partly useful.   The working theory is that having a bunch of similarly sized, stackable tins might make efficient storage and retrieval of other kinds of foods.

The next few months, we'll get to test the theory out.   I am still trying to figure out how to best add labels without adding plastic trash (e.g.,  tape is out).  I've tried chalkboard paint on two tins, but I'm guessing that's going to flake off quickly.   The nice part of this experiment is, it's entirely free.  If the tins don't work well as freezer storage, I'm sure I can use the tins for other food-related tasks (taking meals to friends and church members in the meal train, for example).    And if it does work nicely, I know I just have to wait until September of next year to snag my next round of additional storage containers!

update, with delicious pirates

This past week I had two big events, and tonight I'm still catching up from them.   Event number one was, of course, the annual Pirate Dinner.  Ahoy there, mateys!

Bird's eye view of the Pirate Cake

It is a lot of fun to stop a passer-by to ask them to take a photo of a bunch of pirates.  Our photographer was on the phone with a friend: "Um, I'm taking a photo of some pirates".  [Us: this is because it's Talk Like a Pirate day".]  It is?  [Well, yesterday was.]  Is this just a holiday here, or is it an international holiday?  [Us:  International, surely].  dubiousness.

We were a motley crew. 

This turtle was not at our dinner. 
It was in San Diego with Gosling,
but the photo just happened to land here.

Did I mention we had a pirate cake?  We really loved how it turned out. 

OfSnough said that he didn't realize there were
ocean-going alligators.  If lego puts alligators with their 
pirates, though, it must be true.

Watch out for the shark!

We very much enjoy dressing the part.

Kinderling, only about 73 months pregnant by now, doesn't fit in her usual pirate regalia, so she dressed as a cannonball.  We love it!

With my extra shark paint, I made a shark bean-bag toss.  Several of the children let me know the shark bit their entire hand off.  (Don't worry!  We have pirate hooks!)

Inkling even dressed appropriately on the actual TLAP day, saying, "It's nice to have a shirt that works for pirate day and the yarn shop 🏴‍☠️  "

Yaaaaaaarn!

She has in general been having a great time wrapping multiple friends around three of her favorite activities: knitting circles, theater circles, and heading out to restaurants for fun food. She's now gotten her second booster.  The fancy kind.  

NRAAAAY!

I also got to hear from Gosling, who sent turtle pictures with the explanation, 

At the San Diego aquarium, this sea turtle was rescued and had scoliosis and lane back legs, but it does very well at the aquarium in captivity 

That made me say, "wait!  You're in San Diego now?!?"   She responded, 

Just got in yesterday for the Miramar air show. Colin's brother Marty, full name Col. XXXXX, is the CO of marine corps air station (mcas) Miramar. We will be schluppin it in the commanders chalet to watch it tomorrow.

[Your sister] and [her husband] will be joining us for the air show tomorrow and we will be seeing Tasha today for lunch. 

'Snough, in an interesting turn of events, your sister will end up meeting Colin about 2 weeks before you.

I'm jealous.  

Oh, my second event (a party that had about 100 people there) went well, too!  But that's a school thing, so I'll let the students be the ones to write to friends and family about that. 

And that's the news from our family, who continue to shiver our timbers with the best of them.  May you and yours be likewise hearty mates. 

 

Update with enough food

Life continues to be rich and fall here and enough still. Because of my job, and because we're in the middle of September, my life is full of food. Food, food, and so much food.

It's partly that, because my husband is off in Europe, I have a whole box of CSA vegetables to myself -- and I get a new box every week.  It's hard to keep up with those even when there are two of us, and even when we were mostly eating at home. But now there is one of us, and my job comes with lots of meals. Once a week, everybody in the college house where I work gets bagels for breakfast.   Other days, we had a lunchtime panel discussion (I brought homemade soup and homemade bread for the assembled gathering; this was strategic vegetable use on my part, but everybody else there was amazed that I made food myself instead of ordering from a restaurant.) Another night I had students over for dinner to talk about research funding and research projects. I "made" lasagnas that I had bought from the grocery store, and of course homemade bread, and also salads that were yet another strategic vegetable ploy.  Looking ahead, I'm preparing for next week's Pirate Dinner and also for a giant Cultural Heritage Festival, for which I will be ordering food from multiple restaurants. I am such a stranger to ordering food from restaurants that I find it much more relaxing to cook for a dozen or so people at my home, so the Cultural Heritage Festival is something that is consuming me, rather than the other way around, right now. Wish me luck with that!

Early this week, I attended the meeting of the student Congress within my college house.  One of the main agenda items was to organize an arts-and-crafts evening for residents in the house. (Wouldn't it be lovely if that were also one of the main focuses of our state or federal governments?)  At any rate, the students were delightful to work with. During the course of the meeting, I mentioned that we had craft supplies in the storeroom.  One of the Congress people shuddered and declared that the storeroom was a scary place to enter. This is the very same storeroom that I had spent two hours every single day in July organizing, so we had a brief congressional recess, and we took a junket tour to the storeroom which was no longer junky at all. People who had been on the Congress last year were utterly amazed and impressed at how good the room looks now, and of course that made me feel awesome. I may not be any good at figuring out DoorDash that brings food and other things into our building, but I know how to create zones and labels that allow people to find what they need, once we happen to have the things already. 

Ofsnough is still enjoying his European adventures.  He writes,

I am attaching photos from a royal garden in Darmstadt. Palm trees and plants at 50 degrees north latitude. Most are potted, but a few are in the ground!

Nelson sends his regards.   He is . . .  

• still dealing with a bump on the back of his neck, 
• attending a talk that his sister Sizzling will give at AA tonight, 
• volunteering three times a week with a middle school basketball team, and 
• delighted with his girlfriend.  He specifically asked me to share her picture, and after verifying that she agrees to this, I of course said yes.  

And Kinderling (to return to the food theme)  has been enjoying an awesome local farmer's market (which is so, so much more than that -- it's where we got our Amish-made dining room table many years ago, for example).  She says, 

We went to Roots [Market] for the first time! Total success! Alanna did great, and prices are awesome! I'm also thankful to have reduced the amount of trash we brought into our home, even if it's just a little bit. I think I'm going to have to make a few more cloth bags for the smaller items like green beans and tomatoes and such, and bring another large cloth bag. Overall a great experience, even though I was slightly nervous about taking her with, it ended on a really great note! 

Picture of Alanna and the wagon.

Okay, I have a giant batch of grading sitting in my in-box, and so I'm going to hit "post" on this and get back to my students, so that I can have a proper Sabbath tomorrow.   That's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous. 

grading, and going places

Life here in Grading-homeworks-ville is . . . well, the name of where I'm at is where it's at for me right now.   

The offspring have been having other kinds of travel adventures.  Gosling invited travel to her town, luring Inkling with exactly the right kind of lure:

Inking, I stumbled upon this store last week,
so if you are ever in Richmond...

But she did some traveling herself:

Also, I'm in Lexington with Colin and his family this weekend
and we had a bon fire...

... it was a pretty large fire 🔥

Inkling has not snapped up the bait, but she has already started her sweater for Rhinebeck, also known as the New York Sheep and Wool festival.  Her end-of-the-week update included this cheery news:

Got my new COVID booster! 💉

The cheery news was indeed approvingly cheered by all, including Kinderling:

Thank you! We have covid running rampant in the home I work at. And spend a very nerve-wracking couple of weeks. Stay safe, ink!

Kinderling has had some wanderings, though: 

Went to Boston, MA for a couple days. <3 

Museums, Sailing, city!

So fun!

And of course, there's my husband, who's in . . . wait, where is he now?

Sunday I spent the afternoon in the vast Musée D’Orsay. 

There were cows!!!

[ibid]

From Friday to Tuesday I walked 60 miles in Bordeaux and Paris.  

[continuing the update]  I am now in Brussels serving as usher and speech writer. Friday I will go to see Cliff.  I haven’t touched a bike yet, but maybe I will ride one of the monastery rockets Saturday.

That was the update early this week.  Later in the week, here's what OfSnough wrote:

I just arrived in Darmstadt. Cliff and I are going walking in the rain in Darmstadt. 

Even Nelson is getting in on the travel-mania, at least in an anticipatory way.  He's told me he's planning to go to Chicago for Christmas, to hang with his girlfriend.   Aside from that, though, it sounds like things are falling into place for him.  We'd been waiting to hear from various authorities and bureaucracies about Nelson's situation.  He's just gotten a ruling / diagnosis that will lead to a much more stable and helpful housing situation for him, hopefully within the next few months.  I am very, very happy about this, and grateful to both Nelson and Sizzling for their persistence in this venture.

I don't have travel stories.  I have grading stories [boring], and procrastination from grading stories, with photos to illustrate. 

Here's (as seen from my second-story window)
is the "Free For All" pile I put at the curb last weekend,
as a way to avoid paperwork. The good news is, almost all of
it got taken.  Productive procrastination!

For some reason, getting all the administrative details meshing is just taking more out of me this year than it usually does.  Is it because I'm subconsciously grumpy about switching jobs the way I did?  Yesterday, I finally (FINALLY) got around to putting up pictures of the faculty and staff affiliates in the College House where I work. I'd been meaning to post these photos for a month or more, really. I discovered that one of our two custodians (Chris) didn't have their picture in our college database system, but both of them happened to be in the kitchen early that morning, so I popped my head in and asked them both if it'd be okay to put their pictures up.

The reaction nearly made me cry.  "Do you know NOONE has ever asked us this before?  Thank you so much".  They made a huge fuss about my even asking. Chris emailed me her picture, and then I printed the page of many photos out and put it up; they both came over to take pictures of me putting up their pictures, and immediately texted family members.  "They're never going to believe my pictures on the wall!  My husband works here at the college; wait till he sees this!"  Oh my goodness.   It made me feel both generous and also a bit ashamed.

So.  Putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  Speaking of which, on our family vacation we'd drawn beautiful pictures on an all-white puzzle (really, the all-white back side of a puzzle that had stuff on the other side).  When I brought the puzzle back home, I realized I hadn't taken a helpful picture of the drawing we'd done.  Inkling bravely and cheerfully [she loves puzzles] offered to help put it back together again.  It took a bit longer than we thought, because [reasons], but we (mostly she) succeeded.  So now, we have a photo.  Phew!

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

My haircut, a few musings

"Plan for failure;"  that's my motto.

I have become a huge fan of the (very optimistic, actually) strategy of assuming that whatever project you're going to barrel your way into, you're going to make mistakes that you can learn from.  The example I remember reading about that sold me on this idea was surgeons learning a new, minimally invasive technique: the teams that left deliberate time for debriefing after each surgery (what went wrong? what went right? what could we do differently/better?) ended up eventually being incredibly adept at the technique, whereas the teams that just assumed they'd be awesome at the procedure ended up eventually abandoning it for the old, more invasive technique.  

And so it is that when I cut my hair earlier this month -- and here, "cut" means "drastic change in hairstyle" -- I carefully thought about exit strategy.  

• I did the cutting a tad longer than I'd really wanted to give me wiggle room for further changes; 
• I warned the nearest and dearest in my life so that I could get emotional support for such a big change; 
• I also timed the haircut so that I was heading out of town for a week right afterwards, and 
• during that out-of-town week, I'd be with my sisters, one of whom is awesome with scissors.  

Indeed, said sister wound up snipping a few hairs at the back of my neck to even out the line there.  Minor touch-up.  I now know that I'll be paying attention to that area in the funky medicine cabinet trio of mirrors in the future. 

Even beforehand, I spent a lot of time staring at other people's heads (almost all the women in an Amtrak station had long hair tied up in some kind of pony tails or braids; the short hair I saw among most of my friends in academia looks more professionally manicured than I'm likely to maintain myself).  I kind of fell in love with the heads of the main characters on Peaky Blinders, and decided to try a less stark version of what they did.

The actual clipping of the hair (like the actual painting of a room) was short and sweet.  I used the largest guard on my clippers to do all the sides of my head, leaving the top long.  Then I bent over like I was touching my toes, and used one or two swipes of my sewing scissors straight across the mop on top.  The whole shebang took maybe 45 seconds.  

I have to say, I like my hair now so much.  I had been growing increasingly self conscious during online meetings (I describe it as, my hair was not "Zoom happy").  The new gray hairs go kind of wild when they get long, and I needed a way to tame them down.  

Other people claim to like my hair, too.  That's not why I did the chopping off thing, but it is nice to have affirmation from people around me, so that's fun.  (I love reenacting how I did it:  "and then I bent over like this, and . . .  snip!")  And my sisters, who aren't likely to hold back if they think I'm veering into trouble, were just the right first-feedback machine (including the helpful "back-of-the-neck" pointers).  

It's kind of nice to plan for failure and then to land in the comfy corner of success.  Whoop!

The dogs next door

Our next-door neighbors have three Rottweilers.  These dogs, they are very much loved by one of their owners, who tells me in on sentence that they are "very good dogs, very good dogs", and in the next sentence about how her family is replacing floors and furniture that the dogs ruined.  The other family members are much more muted in their praise. 

The dogs are not muted.  The dogs bark a lot.  We can often hear them through the walls; we also hear them barking for long stretches when they are let out into the back patio, next to our back patio.   When I was teaching via zoom during the pandemic, my students in Shanghai asked, "do you have a dog?", and I had to explain that, yes, I do, but what they were hearing was the dogs next door.  My husband and I hear the dogs barking, and we say to each other, "there go the very good dogs!".

Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the US, wrote a poem about listening to a Beethoven sonata while a neighbor dog barked, and how the sounds merged . . . so sometimes I will tell people nearby that the Rottweilers are singing to me.

One day when my young friend G came over, we remarked on the noise that the dogs were making. I told G that the dogs were singing, and wondered aloud to myself what song they might be performing for us. G confidently replied "Somewhere over the rainbow", which, now that he'd said it, I guess I could kind of hear. For a week or so after that, I would wander around the house and intermittently hear the next-door dogs breaking into their tribute to Judy Garland. The next time that G came over, he declared confidently that the song they were singing was now "Jingle Bells", and I guess that kind of made sense, too.  It was only July, but true musicians start rehearsing for the Christmas season early, I'm told.

And, just because it's so good, let me share the Billy Collins poem.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

Billy Collins 

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark

that he barks every time they leave the house.

They must switch him on on their way out.

 

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

I close all the windows in the house

and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast

but I can still hear him muffled under the music,

barking, barking, barking,

 

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,

his head raised confidently as if Beethoven

had included a part for barking dog.

 

When the record finally ends he is still barking,

sitting there in the oboe section barking,

his eyes fixed on the conductor who is

entreating him with his baton

 

while the other musicians listen in respectful

silence to the famous barking dog solo,

that endless coda that first established

Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Update with cows, sharks, and The Best hats.

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  This week we had the last of Orientation, followed by Convocation, followed by the start of classes, so for me, there has been a real transition:  summer is over, and the school year has begun!  

OfSnough went to a Maritime and Sea Museum in Bordeaux, France.
This is the most ordinary of the pictures he sent me. 
Boats, maritime, of course.

I thought I was done teaching when I signed up to be Associate Dean, so I'd gotten rid of a lot of my physical teaching materials, and I find that this week I'm scrambling to reassemble them.  Now I've got my canning-jar-on-a-rope for carrying chalk (because the classrooms never have enough for all the group work I do with my students), and I've got a cute cloth bag for students to put their homework cards in, and I've made all the signage for where things go when students are turning things in.  I seem not to have completely forgotten how to do algebra (good) which puts me way ahead of many of my students (alas); pandemic-constrained education has not been kind to these peeps.  

Also the Maritime museum. 
I think the shark is throwing a temper tantrum.

And these are hats (?) at the Maritime Museum.
I sense a party theme emerging . . . 
I want to do this so bad, now.

The transition goes beyond summer-to-school, though, since my head is partly in the clouds of next year and beyond, when I'll be (per the current roadmap) on sabbatical and then retiring to . . . well, to lots of things.  I've been telling friends that I want to learn welding; several of my acquaintances have expressed a bit of jealousy, and one of them has offered to hook me up with an art/welding professor at a college down the road [yes, please!].  I also increasingly thrill to the idea of becoming a "Rubbish Rescue Artist", and the universe keeps showering with providential gifts in that vein.  For example, I've been trying to plan out how to make a set of cow shelves (that is, shallow shelves to hold my many -- many -- cow figurines that are currently jumbled across the front porch).  The window where I want to mount these shelves is 60" wide and 51" high, and I hadn't scrounged any lumber quite that long.  But then, Monday night, Prewash and I went out for a post-dinner walk around the block; Monday night happens to be trash night, and would you believe it but somebody put out at the curb a set of bed slats.  There were a dozen slats, the kind that go under the mattress and that are held together with ribbon; they're 3/4" thick and 3" wide and . . . huzzah . . . 60" long.  So now I have cow shelf material, and I can hardly wait to get started sawing some of them down and attacking/attaching them with my cordless drill and doing the paint brush thing!

Before Bordeaux, there was Lisbon with the Ale-Hop.
Neither of us know what "Ale-Hop" means.
Nonetheless, there is a cow. 

Nelson is also taking classes; he's very happy where he is right now (having moved from Metro Hope to the next place).  He has a roommate who has lots in common with him.  He says that they had a trip out to a place called "Serenity Village", which to me sounds like a euphemism not too far from "Rainbow Bridge", but was an actual cool place with about 300 people in attendance, grooving to the message.  

The Ale-Hop cow did not go to Serenity Village.

I'm hoping to bring several friends and family members together in a few weeks for our annual(ish) Pirate Dinner.  I'm getting ready to go grocery shopping for that event (and also for school-based things), which will be the first time I've been in a grocery store in . . . I don't actually know how long.  I have been very, very happy that I found and painted a little shark to add to the Pirate Cake milieu, although now I'm totally jealous of that giant silver shark, and I keep breaking into giggles imagining pirates in their special Bordeaux Maritime hats.   

So, that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.