Being guardedly optimistic

I haven't heard or seen any evidence of mouse activity since plugging in the sonic dealies, so maybe the sound is just annoying enough to keep them away. Which is the best solution, I think - you can keep on trapping but you have to keep traps set (and keep checking them) to deal with the mice that move in in the absence of the ones you caught. I'd rather keep mice out of the house than have to kill them, anyway.

As I said, I can hear the buzzing (I can even hear it over here, a couple rooms over from where I have them plugged in), but if they work, I can put up with the buzz.

I just hope the mice don't adapt to it. Or that I get the Three Deaf Mice.

***

I had only a dozen or so trick-or-treaters last night. That may be a combination of "alternative" events (they do a downtown, "safe" trick-or-treat. I hope they mean "safe" in the sense of "we block off the streets so there's no traffic" and not in the "DISTRUST YOUR NEIGHBORS THEY ARE POISONING THE CANDY" sense.)

Also, it was game 3 of the World Series last night (I had it on while waiting on trick or treaters) and I suppose some of the kids wanted to stay home and watch that.

So I've got a bowl of candy that I'm going to take over to my department tomorrow. (Probably everyone else who does trick or treating will do the same).

***

This morning, I earned my "2 gallon donor" pin from the OBI. (Fortunately, having had the flu shot 10 days previous didn't disqualify me, after hurrying to get down there early. And fortunately my blood pressure was back down closer to normal after being considerably elevated in the summer - when I was taking Zyrtec. So I take that to mean, no Zyrtec for me ever again.)

I'd be more proud of that but back when I was earning my one gallon pin, the guy in line after me was earning his 8 gallon pin.

I figure it's a good idea for me to donate when I can; I have none of the pre-conditions that would make me an unsafe donor and I'm healthy enough to tolerate losing a pint of blood every two months or so. And it potentially helps people.

***

I also finished the first of a fancy pair of fingerless mitts.

It's very hard to photograph it well, because it's dark with a lace pattern. It's the Snow on Cedars mitts from Knitspot. It's a more complex pattern than most fingerless mitts, but like all the Knitspot patterns I've seen, it's very clearly written and very detailed, so the mitts were not difficult.



There's an old knitting superstition that says you should not try on anything you're making as a gift for another person, lest you and they quarrel. (I'm not sure how that originated. The person making the item falls in love with it and feels unhappy they have to give it away?).

Then again, a bit of my hair inevitably gets knit into most things I make, and another old superstition says if you knit one of your hairs into something that is knit as a gift, it will bind that person to you forever. So maybe the two superstitions cancel out.

At any rate, they're for my mother, and I doubt she and I would quarrel. Or at least we wouldn't stay irritated at each other for long.



Not that this picture is much better.

I will say this is a neat pattern to knit because it makes a picture - cedar trees and snowflakes. And as I said, it's very well-written and detailed.

Now for cute

To help me erase the mental image of mice running around amongst my cleaning supplies.

Inspect winter clothes?

There's supposedly an old Japanese proverb that says, "When mice come indoors, it is time to inspect your winter clothes." (I presume that means, "The weather's getting cold and you'll need the clothes soon" and not necessarily, "The mice may be nesting in your winter clothes")

I heard evidence of a mouse (I hope it was a mouse, at any rate) under the kitchen sink last night. I live in an older (1946) house and it's not exactly air tight to the outside. So I periodically get critters coming in. The spiders I am generally fine with, the mice, not so much.

So I pushed heavy things against the swinging cabinet doors (no idea if a mouse could push them open and stroll out into the kitchen, but I was unwilling to risk it) and this morning, I ran out for supplies.

I got some snap traps but have never had good luck with them. These are the newer kind that you are less likely to break a finger with, but claim to be "guaranteed" to kill mice.

But, as I have an outlet with an extra plug under the sink, I also decided to invest in a set of those little sonic dealies that supposedly repel rodents. (I've heard they don't work, but whatever. They were less than $20 and if they work they will totally be worth it.) They do note on the package that the sound doesn't penetrate walls, but as the problem is under the sink and that's also where the plug is, maybe, just maybe, it will work.

They claim they don't "harm" non-rodent pets or humans, but I can definitely hear a low-pitched buzz coming off them. (I guess my low-range hearing isn't as compromised as I thought it was at one point). It will probably become annoying if I try to read in a quiet house.

I hope this works. I will admit to also having bought some poison but I really don't want to use it because (a) it's fairly inhumane, compared to the mouse either being driven away by noise or swiftly killed by having its neck broken, (b) if they die in the walls and it gets warm, they can stink and (c) there are neighborhood cats around, and while I doubt they'd eat carrion (or even catch and eat a mouse, for that matter - though they roam outside, they look well-fed), I don't want to risk poisoning one.

I know I have talked off and on about how I like the "cowgirl" image of women - women who are tough and capable and can take care of stuff - but this is a little more cowgirl than what I'd really want.

(And yes, I've tried to find where they're coming in and seal it up, but I can't find all of the spots or there's one under the house, where I am unwilling to go.)

Sometimes you get...

...what you want/need.

This afternoon, I was scheduled to give a tour to a prospective student. (These can be good or bad. I've given tours to really interested people, who had lots of good questions, whose parents seemed impressed by everything, and I've also given tours to people who seemed spectacularly uninterested, and who had parents that asked questions of a nature that led me to speculate that they'd be helicopter parents).

I really wasn't mad about the idea of giving a tour. First of all: for most of both Wednesday and yesterday's evenings, I was grading papers. I'm TIRED. Grading makes me tired in a way few things can. And second, I woke up in the middle of the night (I had to put my furnace on for the first "overnight" last night) and was coughing like crazy (Gas heat does that to me, at least for the first few days) and now my upper back hurts from the coughing.

And I have to go grocery shopping. (Though this afternoon - seeing as today is payday - is probably not the best day to do it, but still). And if I want to avoid having my house egged Saturday night, I have to go buy some candy. I don't know why I had kept putting it off (getting Halloween candy), I guess it was one of those "meh, I'm busy, I don't want to think about it" things. (They do trick-or-treating Saturday night here. I suppose because Sunday is a school night, and also, a lot of churches do stuff on Sunday night. My church is having a hayride for the kids and any adults who want to come, but I think with my allergies, I'm best sitting that one out).

Anyway, I came in this morning to a message from the secretary (who is retiring in January and we all wonder how we're going to manage without her. Oh, there will be a "replacement," but I don't think whoever it is will adequately replace her).

The student canceled. So I'm off the hook. After I walk out of my last class at noon, I'm done for the day.

I think I'm actually going to go to Sherman, to a larger nicer grocery than the ones in town here. And maybe go to the Target. Yes, I know, it's payday - but somehow, in a larger area, places are less mobbed on payday than they are here.

So anyway. I might even go out for lunch. I think I need a few hours to blow the cobwebs out after this week.

***

I do have to write an exam for next week, though. I am going to start that in a few minutes. (It never stops).

***

I think I've got most of my Christmas shopping lined up. (And I started the second pair of fingerless mitts last night, in the short time between finishing the exams and deciding I had to go to bed).

Lots of people are getting tea from various tea-purveyors. But I like giving tea as a gift. For one thing, people who like tea (most of my family) appreciate it. And it gets used up. And almost any kind of "restricted" diet allows tea (unless you are absolutely, positively disallowed caffeine). And you can share it - I try to give food-gifts to the extended family, where I don't know how many of my cousins will be present for Christmas, so they can all share in the gift. (For my two uncles and their families, I am getting gift baskets from Bigelow - they do one that features the "only tea grown in the U.S." (there is a tea plantation in one of the Carolinas). I think that's kind of cool, and I think they'll appreciate it. It also comes with boxes of benne seed wafers and similar regional treats)

I'm also going to use the Vermont Country Store, as they have a number of unusual things (like Ribena, a blackcurrant syrup you can use to make drinks with) that I think some of my friends and family will like.

And I'm ordering a box of these to give out to my immediate family. The "Lucky Penny Man" - a little marzipan figure with a fake gold coin clenched between his set of nether-cheeks. It's allegedly an old German custom, but I've never heard of it. But I can already hear my brother laughing over it.

Apparently the idea is that you're wishing people such a prosperous year in the coming year that they have money coming out of - um, bodily orifices.

But like I said: I can already hear my brother (and my sister-in-law) laughing over it, so I feel like I have to buy them. (Even if I'm the only one in the family who actually likes marzipan.)

The funny thing is, the other night when my dad called me, he remarked, "I'm going to need a list from you for Christmas" and I was kind of "Uh...buh..." I guess I'd been thinking so much and having so much fun trying to figure out what to get people, that I hadn't started to think about what I wanted.

A happier thing

While surfing around (I really should be grading, but whatever), I wanted to see if there was a reason why Monty Python used the Liberty Bell march as their theme song. (Apparently no reason, other than that it was bouncy, and the bell sounds could be comical).

And I ran across what is a copy of perhaps the first recording ever of the Liberty Bell March. (mp3 format for Quicktime.) It's from 1896. It's scratchy and hard to hear, as you'd expect, but it's from 1896. What is that, 114 years ago? That amazes me. And now I wonder if there are other Edison Grand Concert Band recordings out there online. (I checked. There's only one at that same site - Internet Archives, but there are other old audio clips.)

There's also a rather lovely taken-from-a-78-recording version of the Incidental Music Mendelssohn wrote for Midsummer Night's Dream, which is another favorite piece of music of mine.

(The rabbit hole goes even deeper: I guess I'd never browsed around on The Internet Archive, but man, it looks like there's a lot of fascinating stuff on there)

Buttons being pushed.

I think I realized something about myself. (ETA at the end - added midmorning)

I get frustrated and angry - out of all proportion that I should - when I feel like I'm being judged in some way. Even when it's by a person I've not met and who would not know me from Eve.

An example: the occasional populist commentator who describes university faculty as leeches on society, sucking down valuable tax dollars while doing very little useful work. It frustrates me because 60 hour weeks are not completely unheard of for me, I frequently take grading home, a number of students I have taught have gone on to productive careers, I generate lots of credit hours, I worry myself almost sick over whether I'm doing what I "need" to be doing to get the students where they need to be, I'm tired all the time, etc., etc.

But I feel like there's nothing I can say that will convince someone who thinks I'm a lazy tenured radical bent on brainwashing their kid to vote a certain way (I don't even talk politics in class) of anything else.

And while I should just shrug and let it go, under the heading of "People are Strange," I can't, quite.

I don't often talk politics on here. And I'm not really going to today, except to refer to something a politician said.

Mary Fallin thinks she's automatically more qualified for public service because she's raised six kids.

Okay, fine: I grant that raising children successfully takes a pretty big level of time-management ability. And maybe a parent - MAYBE - understands the problems of families a bit more intimately.

But. What I hear when I hear that comment, right or wrong, is "People who don't have children just aren't as capable."

And by extension, stuff I've heard from other people - "If you're not married, you're just an overgrown adolescent." "You're selfish, because you didn't have kids." Or, my least favorite: "You should take on this [thankless volunteer task that the person asking does not want to do], because you don't have a husband or kids to take care of."

(My new rejoinder to that last one, if I ever hear it again: "Yes, but I also don't have a husband to occasionally do a load of laundry, or run to the store for milk and bread when my life is too busy to do so. And I don't have kids to occasionally run up to me, arms open, and tell me how much they love me." And yes, I DO think that occasionally explicitly being told by someone that they love you makes your life better and easier. And I will admit - since this is already a wee bit of a pity party - that it's something I hear far too seldom. I mean, yeah, I know, I'm supposed to ASSUME it in a lot of cases, but if you're someone who was trained by your peers to doubt your own worth...it helps to get a little reassurance now and then.)

But anyway. I realize the statement was likely taken out of context (I didn't see the debate in which it took place). But it makes me sad to think there are people who look at me and can't see all the other stuff I do, they can only see the stuff I haven't done, and they think of me as being "less" for it. And that little I could do or say is going to change that fundamental belief of that person.

(And yeah, yeah, I know: people who were genuinely discriminated against - the African-Americans, the Jewish people, the gay people - are probably all rolling their eyes and saying something like, "oh please.")

But I don't know. I suppose it's that I'm viewing it through my own lens of perfectionism and people-pleasing: that I feel like I need to be the BEST EVAR! at stuff, and if I'm demonstrably not, I start to wonder why I'm even bothering.

And it also feeds into my whole "fake grownup" neurosis: people who think people who don't have kids are selfish, overgrown brats who can't take care of anything. And that's why I'm so twitchy about having my house clean in case someone comes over. And that may be why I've taken on responsibilities at times that exceed my ability to fulfill all of them and still keep my sense of balance in life. And that may be why, as someone once said about me, that I'd "crawl 20 feet into Hell over broken glass" to do something I said I'd do.

I don't know. It's a sucky reason for being responsible: doing so partly so people won't look at you and see some kind of 40-year-old teenager, but yeah.

And if I'm such an irresponsible slacker (as I assume some people see me), why am I not having more fun?

I don't know. This week itself (Monday through today) I have done little other than grade and work on research, so I'm probably just kind of tired and worn down and that's part of it. But I'd happily invite anyone who thinks I'm "sucking at the public teat" and only working 12 hours a week to come walk in my shoes for a while.

I'm even wearing flats today, so you wouldn't have to be able to negotiate heels...

(ETA: I don't know why the whole "being judged by some other person and feeling like they find me deficient" thing bugs me so much. Some things I can more or less laugh off. I remember reading somewhere that Emily Post, in one of her etiquette commentaries, made some remark along the lines that women over 25 who still wore their hair out long looked childish and immature and it wasn't "proper" for a mature lady to do so. I can kind of roll my eyes about that - what should anyone care how I wear my hair provided it's clean and decently kept? (And I wonder if Post's comment - again, I seem to remember she was praising shorter hair on "mature" women - would have been written at a time when most of the women who kept their hair long into adulthood were either immigrant women, or farm-women, or women in some religious groups, and I wonder if her comment showed just a bit of her own personal bias. I don't know. Or maybe it was sour grapes; maybe her own hair didn't look good and she didn't want to be "upstaged" (in her mind) by women with prettier longer hair.)

But I will admit it does nettle me a bit - even though I can ultimately laugh it off - to hear someone opining on long hair on "older" women. (Actually, it ultimately brings out my stubborn side: "Yeah? Well, I'm'a let my long hair go grey, I'm not even going to dye it, and I'm going to wear it in a big bun on the back of my head. Because I can, and because I saw an older lady at a concert once who had that kind of hair and I thought it looked great. So nyaaah!"

But I don't know why the grown-up/childrearing/marriage thing I can't quite laugh off so easily, or get stubborn about.

I think part of it is that I recognize, in many ways, I am odd or strange or even "bad" in some ways, but I don't like others to remind me of it. It's like the weight thing: I know I'm overweight. I do what I can to try to keep it under control. But I recognize I'm fat and I will probably always BE fat, barring some kind of horrible health problem I develop. But it makes me angry to have someone else tell me I'm fat, at least in the sense of "You know, you should try diet X..." Again, I think it's the telling-me-what-to-do thing that frustrates me.

It's also like my Ms. Perfect neighbor who kept handing me the cards for her lawn crew. Don't tell me how to keep my lawn! My lawn is fine! It's just not as golf-course like as yours!

But I think the "fake grown-up issue" may not be something I can laugh off, because perhaps on some level I've bought into the hype, and maybe I really do think I'm less "responsible" because I've not proved I can raise a child without screwing that up. I don't know.

Perhaps it's like the old, "No one can say bad things about our team, except for us, the fans!" bit.)

Well Traveled Bagels

(And a recipe, at the end)

On my way home this afternoon, I decided I had to stop at the grocery - I was all out of plain yogurt (a dietary staple of mine), and also, I wanted to make a roast beef sandwich to go with the leftover red cabbage I was planning for dinner, and my last bit of bread went moldy the day before.

I went to the little locally-owned grocery (Green Spray) because (a) it's near to me (b) I like being able to support a local business and (c) I feel happy after I walk out of there, instead of feeling stressed and angry at my fellow humans, like I often do after walking out of the Wal-Mart.

I think there are a few things that cause this. First of all, the store is small. It's about 1/3 the size of the wal-mart grocery section. This means you don't have as giant a selection (and they don't carry some brands I use regularly), but it also means you don't feel like you need to be on roller skates to get from one end of the store to the other. Also, the cashiers seem a lot less harried, and are friendlier. I don't know if it's a difference in management style or if the smaller store just sees fewer customers (and fewer problem-people) in a day. And finally, the place, while it's busy at times, is never a madhouse the way the wal-mart is sometimes. And people seem to behave better. I don't know if that's because it's a different clientele (a lot of the Green Spray shoppers seem to be older people).

Another reason I like it: because a lot of the clientele seems to be older people (empty-nesters or widows or widowers), it's a lot easier to find small packages of stuff as opposed to the MEGA FAMILY PACK with eighteen pork chops in it when all I really want is one.

So anyway, I went there.

And I wanted bread for my sandwich, but like many stores without an in-store bakery, they do tend to suffer from a poor bread selection. Most of it was what my old high school French teacher would damn as "pain Kleenex"

So I wound up deciding between bagels or English muffins, which I figured would have a bit more structure. I went with the bagels.

When I got home, I noticed something about the package:



"Authentic New York Style Bagels" but made by Rocky Mtn. Bagels.

So, where do Rocky Mtn. Bagels come from?

I would have guessed Colorado; a number of the brands this store carries are based in Colorado, Utah, or Idaho.

Nope:



Avon, Indiana!

I guess these kind of things amuse me inordinately much, but they've got essentially three regions of the U.S. represented there.

And I was looking for things that amuse me. I'm grading exams. Several of them...do you remember that scene from "A Christmas Story," where Ralphie is imagining his grade school teacher grading their themes? And she's dressed as a tragic heroine, and there's sad dramatic music playing, and she's gasping and moaning and holding the back of her hand up to her forehead over how terrible they are?

A couple of the tests were like that.

Sadly, I've not yet found one that I can feel justified in exclaiming over and giving an A + + + + + + + to. (Though there were a couple people who scored in the low 90 percents).

I will say the worst tests belonged to the folks who have the poorest record of attendance. Interesting how that works out. (and by 'interesting,' I mean, "totally expected by me")

I will say one of the most frustrating things I know as a teacher, is explaining something again that you know certain people don't understand well, looking out over the class, and realizing that several of those people are absent for your re-explanation.

****
And on to the recipe. This is a new-to-me way of fixing red cabbage. Well, the method is new, the flavor is similar to most braised red cabbage. It uses a slow cooker, and it's an excellent way (or so I think) to fix the vegetable - for one thing, you can put it in there and leave it for most of the day, and not have to worry about it burning. And secondly, the cabbage cooks down much better - a few times when I used the stovetop method in the past, the small pieces got cooked but the larger pieces (or those from closer to the core) were still hard, and that's not very appealing.

You can cut the cabbage (and apple, and onion) with a food processor, but I admit I still prefer the old method of a knife. I think it takes about the same amount of time for either, but the difference is, with the knife, you spend your time cutting, whereas with the food processor, you spend your time cleaning the food processor. I'd much rather spend my time cutting.

So, here it is. This is based on a recipe from "Healthy Crockery Cookery" by Mable Hoffman.

One head of red cabbage, core removed, and chopped fine (about 2 lbs)
One onion, finely chopped
One apple, cored and chopped.
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup whatever liquid you are using* (must contain acidity)

For later:
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

*About the liquid. The original recipe called for port. I don't keep such a thing on hand, and didn't want to go out and buy any. (Besides, I remember my mother once making a face about port, and saying it was disgustingly sweet for a wine). Perhaps port would have made the cabbage less sour. I wound up using a dry sherry I had on hand for cooking. I liked the result, but I will say it was VERY sour and VERY oniony, but I like things that are sour and oniony. If you don't like things as sour, use some other liquid than sherry, and if you don't like a strong onion flavor, you might try half an onion instead.

Incidentally, whatever liquid you use, it should have an acidic pH. Red cabbage contains an indicator chemical that changes color with acid and base. In acid, it's a pinkish purple. But in base - or at neutral pH, it's a pretty disgusting shade of greyish blue.

Next time I make this I might try cider. Either sweet cider, if that's still in the stores, or I'll make the somewhat scary foray into one of our local liquor stores and see if they have the slightly fermented cider (like people in Europe have) available.

Anyway - what you do is combine everything in a 3 1/2 quart or larger slow cooker (except for the vinegar and cornstarch) and cook it on low for 7 or 8 hours.

Then, at the end, you mix the cornstarch and vinegar, add them to the cabbage, stir it, turn it up to high, and let it cook for 15 or so more minutes, so the juice gets thickened.

"Press 1 for..."

All my credit cards (well, the three that I carry) happen to expire the end of this month. (Which reminds me: I need to call MasterCard and ask them where my new card is. I hope they didn't send it and I just pitched it into the trash with all the other junk mail I get).

I decided to activate the new cards this morning. (Which also reminds me: I need to call one place I make an automatic monthly donation to on one of the cards and update the expiry date).

For the one visa, the one through my old credit union, all it required was that I call from my home phone, read off (or type in) the card number, and then I was ready to go. The other one, the Target visa (yes, I know: store cards are generally a rip-off but as I pay my card balance off in full every month, the interest rate doesn't matter to me), required me to not only punch in the full number, but also give the last for digits of my social security number (which I always have to stop and think about), and then enter the verification code on the back of the card. (All while calling from my HOME phone, and I am sure the number pops up in their computer and if it doesn't match the number on file, the card won't be verified).

It just struck me as interesting that two visa cards from different providers had such different rules about what needed to be done to verify them.

I also wonder what was done back in the days before widespread phone automation...I'm sure credit cards preceded that. Did people have to call during business hours and speak to a person? Or did the companies just trust that people got their new cards? Or did cards not expire as frequently? (Mine expire every 2 or 3 years, depending on the card).

Maybe fraud used to be less of a problem, I don't know. I remember back in the 1980s those little thin-paper booklets that the cashiers would have at their checkstands, and they would have to stop and look up the credit card numbers to be sure they weren't one of the "stolen" ones.

(Wow, can you imagine that happening today? There'd be brawls in the checkout lines at the grocery store. As I remember, far fewer people used credit cards to pay for just everyday stuff back in the 1980s)

It's strange when I think about how much stuff has changed even in my lifetime. When I was a kid, my parents had credit cards, but they really only used them for big stuff - like appliances. (Even when we traveled - they got Traveller's Checks). Now, if I'm buying a carton of milk and some bread and some vegetables, I pull out my credit card - because it's faster in most places than paying cash, I don't always carry a lot of cash on hand, and sometimes I get strange looks from cashiers when I do something like hand them $10.05 when I'm paying for $7.55 worth of groceries. (Also, we have a grocery sales-tax - which means that I'm paying 9.25% or thereabouts more on everything than what it's marked. Yes - state tax, local tax, extra-tax-to-pay-for-some-fancy-stuff-in-town-that-I-didn't-want-and-don't-use. And I think there's a ballot measure to raise the sales tax yet a bit more for something else, sigh.)

Also, there's now internet shopping. (And as soon as fresh-food delivery via internet order becomes a reality in my city, I will never set foot in a grocery store again.)

Of course, there's the downside to credit cards: lots and lots of people buying stuff they can't really afford, and winding up in debt for the rest of their lives. And in the weird backwards-world of credit cards, I get thought of as a "deadbeat," because I pay my bills in full every month (therefore generating no interest or late fees for the companies, and to this point at least, none of them have made any noises about charging me an annual fee to carry the card.)

The funny thing

I guess I read too many fairy stories as a child. I found myself thinking last night, "If life were like it was in the Red Fairy Book*, I'd probably leave the house tomorrow morning and find a gold coin or something on the doorstep. As payment for saving the rat/mouse thing."

(*There is a whole series of Fairy Books by color. I have the old copy of the Red Fairy Book my mom was given when she was a child; I have a number of the others in Folio Press reprints. And I see they're coming out with two I don't have...I should probably order those)

Of course, there wasn't. But that didn't stop me from entertaining the thought.

****

I'll be really glad when the election is over. I feel like someone should start a news channel that is 100% politics-free.

I will welcome the ads for the Clapper and the Chia Pet and all those other bizarre things that they try to promote as good Christmas gifts. Those ads inevitably come after election season is over.

****

Whiny people are whiny.

(An observation, without too much commentary, in case someone I actually know here in town reads this.)

****

I knit a bit more on the back of Potter last night, but man, I don't know what it was but I was just knackered last night. I suppose it was fighting off the migraine I had - often that wears me out (And people tell me I look pale after I've gotten over one, too - I feel perfectly OK, pretty much, but people react like I look really ill. Which is funny, because I'm so fair that I normally could be described as "pale.")

Also, it's been really windy here and I'm sure that stirs up dust and mold and pollen and stuff. And that probably affects my allergies.

The darnedest thing!

I came home after my last class - I have no more office hours today and I had a slight headache so I thought I'd eat a leisurely lunch, maybe practice piano a bit, and then decide whether to go back to campus to type my exam (it's easier to do that over there; some of the formatting I need to do is harder with my laptop keyboard)

After I got home, I went into the bathroom. Was ready to use the toilet.

There was what was either a largish mouse, or a small young rat in the toilet.

I am not, by my nature, the shrink-and-scream kind of girl. (Which is probably good, seeing as I wind up usually dealing with these kinds of things on my own). I stood there for a moment looking at it, going "How on earth did this happen?" (I was more puzzled by the fact of a mouse in the bog than I was frightened)

(They are working on the sewer lines down the street from me; perhaps the populations of critters that inhabit it have been disturbed. I guess I should be grateful it was not an alligator...)

I figured the only thing that could have happened was that it came up the drainpipe from the street (not a very long length), swam through the p-trap, and found itself in the toilet bowl. It was soaked and shaking.

I realized I had to get it out of there or else I couldn't use the toilet.

One option would be to flush and try to send it back the way it came, but I didn't, because (a) that seemed spectacularly inhumane, even to do to a disease-spreading vermin and (b) as I am not absolutely 100% certain that's how the mouse (I am preferring to think of it as a mouse, not a rat) got there, I figured it might not fit, and then I'd be faced with calling the guys at Blackburn out to come fish a drowned mouse out of my toilet drain.

So, I figured: if I can scoop it into the trashcan, I can dump it outside.

I donned the heavy rubber gloves I use for caustic cleaning - not that I was going to try to pick it up, but if it went rogue and tried to bite me, at least I'd be a bit protected. And I got a strainer from the kitchen (which will now be soaked in bleach before I use it again).

And I scooped it up. It was not that hard; it squeaked at me at first (which kind of made me go "awww" even though it is a disease-spreading vermin) but then climbed up on the strainer and let me dump it into the bathroom trashcan.

See:



And I took it outside and dumped it out at the end of the yard. I figured either it would find its way back to where it came from (and hopefully never return, after that experience), or it would become part of the cycle of life when a hawk or something found it, or it would just expire on its own - but at least it would be expiring out in the sun and the fresh air, instead of inside my commode.

I really can't quite believe it swam up through the pipes into the toilet - I thought such a thing was impossible, somehow - aren't there some kind of one-way valves in things? Or is that just in newer plumbing? But I'm forced to conclude that that's the most plausible way it got in. For one thing: I've been watching very closely for any sort of "mouse sign" - having had mice in past falls, I'm on the alert - and haven't seen any, so I have no evidence that they're in my house. And second, it seems bizarre that a mouse would get in, bypassing the much more pleasant and fragrant things it could go to (wool, and old books, and that box of butter cookies on my dining room table that I don't have entirely closed) rather than climbing the steep, slippery side of the commode, squeezing between the rim and seat, and plopping down in the water. (And that said - there are easier sources of water to find, if that's what it was seeking).

So I don't know. One of the stranger things I've seen of late.

I will say this seems to me to be another good piece of evidence in favor of the "seat down, lid closed" default position for the toilet. (Those of you ladies who share a house with a gent, who have argued about this: you're welcome to use my story as evidence in support of the seat-down, lid-closed position.)


(ETA: I am not crazy. It apparently is possible under certain circumstances. From the "Straight Dope" website:

you do have a problem if your john is at ground level or in the basement--that is, where the soil pipe runs horizontally or at a very shallow angle to the sewer. Rats are good underwater swimmers, and it's no problem--believe it or not, they actually have movies of this--for rats to stroll along a horizontal soil pipe from the sewer, swim through the water-filled piping inside the toilet, and emerge in the toilet bowl.

Yes to ground level. Yes to shallow soilpipe angle (I am better acquainted with my house's plumbing than I'd like to be, after the Tree Root Clog incident of this past spring)

Again: Lid stays closed in the future. If I ever have another one entering this way, I don't want it to actually get out into the house.

Upside and downside

The upside: this made me chuckle, it's the first time I've ever seen this weather icon:

"It's windy! And it's nighttime!"

The downside: Either the wind or the strong pressure gradient are beginning to make me start with a migraine. I should have guessed when I suddenly realized I could not spell any more (while standing at the chalkboard). For some strange reason these headaches make me go mildly dysgraphic and sometimes even dyslexic.

Break is over

Sadly, yes. Tomorrow classes start up again as usual.

Friday, the day was partly lost. For one thing, I went and got my flu shot. It took nearly an hour, in the middle of the day. In the past, I had gone to the county health department and while it was fine some years, other years it was like a cattle-call. And one year I got in line behind a mother and 7 or 8 year old daughter - the daughter just had found out that for some reason she could not get the mist vaccine and would need to get the needle instead. And she was rather inconsolable about that fact. And as I don't like needles myself, it was even more stressful to stand there in line behind a sobbing child.

So this year I decided to try one of the local pharmacies. That was kind of a mistake. I waited a long time to talk to someone. Then I waited to get my paperwork. Then I waited to get the shot. Because apparently someone had called in sick.

Then the pharmacist gave the shot in the wrong place - they're supposed to give it up in the deltoid; he gave it lower, more like in the tricep (and my triceps are less muscle-y than my deltoids). It still hurts, and there's still a small knot there. I just hope the shot 'takes.'

So next year, I guess, back to the health department, and maybe bring earplugs.

****

Yesterday I considered going over to my office and doing some grading and writing an exam. Because, I knew I could do them Monday night, but that would be a lot more hectic. But I wound up not doing it. Because of this:



That's not even as hard as it rained much of the day. And they kept talking about hail on the weather station so I decided to stay home.

Besides, there was an NCIS "marathon" on. Now, granted: I have seen most episodes a minimum of four times, so it's to the point where I mainly have them on as background noise and maybe look up when a favorite scene comes on. But still, it was nice to have it.

And I finished two things:



The first pair of Christmas fingerless mitts. The pattern is called "Mitt Envy;" it's available for free on Ravelry (but I'm not sure if it's out there elsewhere). It's a nice fast knit and it looks more complex than it actually is. I'm going to make a second pair of different yarn for myself and drop in a different 12-stitch cable than the one shown here.

This is just one of the many uses of fingering-weight yarn. These took maybe 1/3 of a 400-yard or so ball of sockyarn.

I also finally finished the Ninja socks.



It's really hard to see the lace-and-purl stitch pattern on these because the yarn is dark (it's a dark purple, called "Marionberry").



This photo shows the pattern a bit better.

I'm very pleased with how comfortable this yarn is. It's a cotton-wool-lycra blend in a sockweight yarn (it's KnitPicks "Risata.") You make the socks just a bit smaller than you would with a 100% wool yarn because of the stretchiness. But the lycra makes the socks super comfortable and the yarn looks nice knit up.

Today I did drive over to school before church and grabbed my grading and the materials needed to write my exam and I did those this afternoon. Because I knew I'd be a lot happier being able to work on research Monday afternoon and to be able to come home Monday evening and relax, instead of trying to do grading in my office. (I actually find it a lot easier to grade at home; there are fewer distractions and more room for me to spread out. I should probably adjust my out-of-class working schedule so I just plan to take any grading home with me; it's that much easier to do it here.)

Yarn! And Books!

Oh my goodness yes, yesterday was a good day.

For one thing: I forget how nice it is to have a conversation with someone that (a) lasts more than five minutes and (b) does not revolve around work, or the various types of volunteer work things I do. (My everyday conversations tend to be very functional, or they tend to largely be interrupted - there's not much time to chat in the "donut fellowship" at church, for example).

I met up with Laura around 11 at the knit shop. And we shopped. And it was excellent.

As usual, I decided to be the Little Pig because I live so far from any sources of super good yarn:



Yarn for two toys, a shawl, and (probably) fingerless mitts.

The pink and green are for a pair of Loopers from Mochimochiland Patterns. I have already tentatively named them Kip and Muffy (unless I can find a preppy-male name I like better). Because, see, they're pink and green? Classic 80s preppy colors?

I don't know; I find that amusing. Maybe no one else does. Maybe you have to have my personality and have had gone to a don't-call-us-prep-call-us-independent-high-school. (I never really fit in with the preppies but I do think the whole culture influenced my mindset a wee little bit in some ways).

The rust-colored yarn is for Zeke the Alpaca, another excellent Dangercrafts pattern. I wanted a yarn that specifically contained alpaca for it. (Yes, I know. But I'm also the person who made tiny eggs out of Sculpey for her dollhouse and put tiny yellow yolks inside them, even though no one would ever see the insides, just because. Because I would know it was there and it would please me.) It's one of the Auraucania yarns and I admit it was pretty pricey for a TOY, but part of the fun of making toys is having excellent yarns to make them with. (And there will likely be enough left over for a hat. I think I'm going to do some stash busting and knit a bunch of hats this winter, and then send them off to one of the many groups that can use them.)

(I need to get back to making more toys. Making toys makes me happy).

The green - which isn't coming out true color in the photo, it's more of a peridot green - is for the Oscilliscope shawl in the new Knitscene. I knew I wanted to get some of this yarn for SOMETHING when I saw it, it has a lovely shiny quality to it (it is called Lustra). It's a wool/Tencel blend; it's the tencel that makes it shiny. I think it will be excellent for that shawl.

And the one little ball of the multi yarn is an Auraucania Aysen. I just liked it. I think it will become a pair of fingerless mitts for me. I think there's a pattern for a worsted-weight yarn in one of the Clara Parkes books.

And then we went on to lunch. Thanks to the suggestion of an excellent short cut from Sue (or maybe it was Frances. I can't remember which of the yarn shop ladies is which), we managed to avoid allllll the construction on loop 281 (and I will remember that shortcut for the future, as it's a much faster way to get between Barron's and Stitches N Stuff, which are my two main destinations in Longview).

And we had an excellent lunch. (I've never had a bad meal at Barron's.) And we split a piece of cake. And as I said: it was wonderful to have a conversation that DIDN'T revolve around work for a change. We talked about a lot of things, including some about our own work, but as we both do different things (she is a CPA), talking about work is more interesting and less of an echo chamber.

And then after lunch, we shopped around a bit in Barron's. I bought some books there, a couple books came later (after we had split up) from the Books a Million (which is so much larger and so much nicer than the one near me):



I found an inexpensive copy of The Time Machine (I know, I know: you can read it for free online. But I don't want to!). And the other two books from Barron's were total serendipity finds: "Operation Mincemeat" (love the title), which is about an attempt by the British to fake out the Nazis in World War II. I find the Britain-in-WWII history stuff interesting so I decided I wanted to read it. (Also, the title grabbed me). And then the diary of a Farmer's Wife from 1796-1797 ("Anne Hughes: Her Boke"). I picked it up off a table while Laura was looking around, read a few passages, and decided I wanted to buy and read it. It looks fascinating - it has bits on the problems of sheep-thieves, and recipes (well, in very much an outline form), and discussion of village festivals, stuff like that. The kind of stuff I love reading about - how people lived. And yes, it is from a genuine diary that the woman kept back then.

(The other books were purchased at the Books a Million. The Charlie Chan one was one I was looking for; I saw the author interviewed on Book TV a couple weeks ago and found the interview so engaging that I wanted to read the book. And as I said, I think, before: I hadn't known that Charlie Chan was based on a real person, who apparently had an even more interesting (and far less stereotyped!) life. (I have read a few of the Charlie Chan mysteries. They are fun mysteries if you can get past the sort-of-cringey "Wise and Inscrutable Chinaman" stereotyped stuff. I guess I managed by imagining that Chan was playing an act - that he didn't really talk like that but he was playing into people's stereotype of him, so he could get more information by seeming less than he was. Kind of like Miss Marple being the sweet old lady knitting over in the corner...

The other book is called "The River Where America Began" and is about the James River, and now that I look at the title again, I'm really hoping I don't have another copy - purchased earlier and stashed on my bookshelf somewhere.)

And I found the Interweave Crochet accessories special article. Lots of scarves, a few things I might want to make, and besides, I just like having stuff like this to look at.)

After the lunch and shopping at Barron's, it was closing in on 3 pm, so we went back to the yarn shop (Laura had left her car there - I knew the way to Barron's so I drove). I decided to go back in to use the restroom, and also looked again at something I had looked at and tentatively decided against, because it was spending still more money.

But then I weakened.



It may be a slightly tired joke, seeing how many times I've used it, but I do like big skeins and I cannot lie. These are three more skeins of that Stylecraft yarn - the one I'm using for Potter. These will be for the Polperro jacket in Country Weekend Knitting. (Yes, Charles: probably my 2011 sweater!). The pattern calls for 2200 yards. Two skeins would have been about 1980 yards; which might have been enough, but I didn't want to risk it. The leftovers, I can either turn into hats and scarves for charity knitting, or, if I don't break into the skein and if I get back to the shop at a time when they are still selling the yarn, I might be able to return it. (Or I might be able to knit a vest out of the remaining skein.)

I decided to buy the yarn after all, because:

a. This yarn is by-and-large more reasonably priced than other yarns I could use (excepting some of the KnitPicks yarns, or a very lucky find on Elann).

b. I really like knitting with this yarn, and Stitches N Stuff is the only place I've seen it for sale

c. The pale purple color is pretty much the color I was envisioning knitting the jacket in. (In the book, it is grey, but I wanted something more lively, seeing as it's a heavier sweater to be worn on really cold days).

d. I really, really want to knit the Polperro Jacket sometime. I like the historical-pattern nature of the stitch pattern, and I wear cardigan sweaters all the time in the winter, because some rooms on campus are cold and some rooms are overheated, and it's good to have a garment that's easily taken off and put on as needed.

started getting excited

yarn yarn yarn yarn yarn lunch out yarn books yarn books books books fancy soap being away from my little town driving down the highway in the sunlight listening to the radio getting to see another person who is crazy for knitting like I am yarn books food candles fancy soap more books and more yarn.

wow, I really need the day out tomorrow.

(one of my students - she's older and has worked with me a bit so I think she felt she could say this - took me aside yesterday and very seriously told me: "you ARE taking mid-fall break off, aren't you? You are NOT going to be in here looking for critters in soil? You need time off." So I guess I'm not so far off base in my plans to take the whole span of time off.)

More on piano

I suppose it's true that the ability to chord and "fill in" (doing stuff like arpeggios in the left hand while chording with the right) may come with time. I suppose I CAN improvise in some sense - I am, after all, able to cook without a recipe and come up with successful combinations of things. (I've never tried baking totally without a recipe, but there are more things that can go wrong in baking if you don't pay attention to the types of chemical reactions that are going on - for example, misreading "baking powder" in a recipe as "baking soda" leads to very bad results.)

And that took a while to get comfortable with. (I have been cooking and baking since I was 6 or so - of course, with heavy supervision early on).

And after knitting socks for a while, I figured out how to "plug in" different stitch patterns and go from there. (I should try "designing" a hat or two, and maybe some fingerless mitts - work my way up to doing a sweater. Oh, I know I probably could design a sweater, at least I could if I used another pattern as a basis for how to get the armhole decreases and such figured.)


But also think sometimes that tiredness, and feeling that there is too much to do, is kind of an enemy of creativity. If I have some kind of problem to solve, the solution is more likely to come when my brain is kind of on "suspend mode" - when I'm in the shower, or when I'm out collecting soil, or when I'm weeding, or when I'm doing something that's NOT sitting at my desk trying to figure out how to juggle grading and teaching prep and advisement and that meeting I need to go to and everything else.

(Actually, I wonder what the modern plugged-in, 24/7 lifestyle may be doing to creativity. Especially for kids. When there was "nothing to do" when I was a kid, I went and made stuff - or went looking for bugs - or tried to invent some kind of proto-Calvinball (before we even knew what Calvinball was) with my brother, or I made up stories. And I wonder if kids with 24/7 internet access (and parents that don't push them to push away from the machine) are affected in negative ways by that. I know I get some students who are uncomfortable with the idea of having to PHYSICALLY go to a library and look for stuff. (Makes me sad; when I was a kid, trips to the library were a weekly thing. And we had the old-fashioned card catalogs back then, the kind that was actually alphabetized cards in a drawer.)

I suppose another thing with improvisation, or whatever I'm trying to learn: you have to know the rules really well before you can begin to break them. They tell writers that; in some cases you can break the rules of grammar if you want a certain effect, but you had better understand what you are doing (or else your writing is just a big mess. And yes, there's a difference between intentionally breaking the rules and simply not knowing or caring about them enough.) I still don't have quite enough familiarity with chord progressions and inversions and what goes with what yet. I guess that comes with time and comfort with the scales.

****

Yesterday was my longest day. (And it was made to seem longer by several issues.)

All I had the energy for last night, knitting-wise, was to pull out the "simple socks" (this being the pair from K1C2 "Ty-Dy Socks") and work a bit on them. I've already started the heel flap on the first sock.

I guess in a way even the simple socks I knit are a sort of improvisation. I don't work from a pattern or instructions (except for the heel turn, but I think I likely have the French (round)* heel turn for a 64 stitch sock memorized by now. But other than that, I decide on the ribbing (or not) for the cuff, how much ribbing to do, what pattern (1 by 1, 2 by 2, or some other combination), whether to do ribbing for the entire leg or just part, and then with the heel flap, whether to do it plain or with garter-stitch edging or whether to use a slipped stitch pattern....and on, and on.

(*And I admit it makes the 12-year-old in me laugh that the French heel turn is also called a "round heel." Well, maybe a 12-year-old from 1890; I guess few people know what the slang word "round heel" applies to any more, or there are even more graphic words used for the same tendency.)

Incidentally, the "cheat sheet" I use (I have about eight copies of it, stashed in different books and knitting bags) is available here. The nice thing is it has several different types of heels, and the math is worked out for a large number of stitch counts. (The are all flapped heels. But then again, the "hourglass" or "bullseye" heel fits my feet poorly so I always knit socks with heel flaps).

***

One thing I want to do tonight is flip through a few patterns I have and write down yarn requirements. I was too tired to do that last night. (And I realized that it was the new season of Dirty Jobs starting, and of course I had to watch that. I missed the show a lot while it was on hiatus.)

I know there's one sweater knit of aran-weight yarn held double (the Polperro jacket) I want to look for yarn for. And I bought the Looper toy pattern a while back, and I want some kind of fun-colored yarn for that. (The nice thing about making non-realistic animal toys is you can use whatever color you want.)

And, I don't know what else. I'm kind of so-far-ahead that it's hard to think specifically. So maybe I'll just wait and see, keeping in mind the amounts I know are the rough requirements for the various types of sweaters I knit. Maybe I'll see something that inspires me.

This and that

ETA: One of the parties sort-of apologized to me (the kind of "read between the lines" apology, which is often the most you get in the workplace) and was relieved to hear I had deleted the messages unread. So I think at least one person realizes they were kind of wrong.


I'm now fantasizing about getting an e-mail from one of the parties concerned, begging me to delete unread the rest of the e-mails, that they were sent in an angry haste. I don't think it will happen but I wish it would.

****

I decided to just delete the messages anyway. I don't need to be involved with this.
It's a huge relief to have them gone off my inbox screen. (I didn't empty the deleted folder just yet, just in case some dictum comes down that we need to cuss and discuss the situation, but I really hope it doesn't. If it does, I may claim a migraine and take one of my unused sick days that day).

****

Something else I'm thinking about:

I've been struggling to learn the chording-improvisation (or whatever you call it; the sort of thing where you do the chord progression and "fill in" for a song). I can't do it. I watch my piano teacher, I watch pianists on television (occasionally on House, Hugh Laurie will sit at his piano and play). I try to see what they're doing and I kind of understand, but I can't do it. My teacher tried to get me to do it with a simple chord progression- based on the old hymn "Will the Circle be Unbroken." And I just couldn't. Or at least, I couldn't at that point. She has me working on "His Eye is on the Sparrow" now, which has more different chords in it (what hung me up on the previous one, in part, is "what do you do with six bars of a G chord in cut time?").

I remarked with some dismay last afternoon, "I watch what you're doing when you demonstrate, but I can't do that. I can't quite see where everything is going." She told me she was going to try to "ease" me into it (rather than "dropping" me into it, as she had with "Will the Circle...") She remarked, "You're very structured, and so this might not come as easily for you."

And you know, I have to laugh about that. "Structured" is probably a more diplomatic word than I would have used. I admit it: I'm fairly rigid. I'm a rule-follower, I always have been. I actually get uncomfortable breaking "rules" that might not actually be "rules" but that I think should be rules. (See post below and my "do I have to read every e-mail I get, even distressing argumentative ones that don't concern me directly?").

I think this is also what stays my hand when it comes to designing sweaters for myself. I'm a good knitter, I am good at math, surely I could figure out, for example, how to do a slimfitting cardigan in 4x4 rib using a bulky-weight yarn (which is what I want to do with some Auraucania bulkyweight I have). But then I'm afraid of messing it up. Part of it is that I do still fear failure, but part of it is that I know if I messed it up, I'd have to rip it all back - and lose all that time - and feel frustrated and upset with myself for not being able to do it.

But yeah, fearing failure. I don't know where I got it, although I suppose for a "good" kid in our public school system it's an easily learned lesson. (I think part of it was that I had given up on ever having the appreciation of my peers, and so I sought it from my teachers instead). Of course, that's supposed to be a bad trait in a scientist: we are supposed to EMBRACE failure, because that's how progress gets made.

But then again, there's a difference between, "Gee, that didn't give the result I expected" and "OH HELLS THE LAB IS ON FIRE!!!!" There are different grades of failure and I guess I've managed to avoid the most spectacular kinds while still allowing for the "well, gee, that experimental method didn't work" kind. Or maybe I don't regard unexpected results or having to adjust the methods as a "failure" so much.

My piano teacher did comment that maybe if I loosened up more, I would develop more comfort with improvisation. (And because I tend to believe "how you do anything is how you do everything," perhaps that would break my logjam on sweater designing). Or maybe, as I am unwilling to resort to chemical means for "loosening up," perhaps forcing myself to sit down and play at sweater designing will get me to a point where I can maybe improvise.

Though I will say that the pessimistic, critical side of myself tells me that I just need to accept the fact that I "can't" design and "can't" improvise, and to just content myself with the fact that I can actually learn the "little" Bach pieces I've been playing fairly rapidly, and that I am good at following patterns. So I don't know.

"When you walk...

...through a storm, hold your head up high, and don't be afraid of the dark...."

Well, one of the things I was concerned about sort of came to pass. Two people with whom I work have apparently erupted into an e-mail fight. Over a topic that really mainly concerns the two of them. And they cc'd everyone in the department.

I read the first e-mail, and part of the response to it (the response was very long) and the last e-mail, where they apparently agreed to a detente.

But this is one of the things as an (I guess) comparatively junior faculty member (though with 10 years experience, I'm really not junior any more), I don't know how to respond to.

My gut feeling is to delete the e-mails unread. For one thing, I think it shows a lack of tact (to say the least) to cc the other people in the situation - they have no dog in the hunt, so to speak. One of the people in question did raise the concerns with me and my response was essentially, "This does not affect me; I think you need to take it up with the person in question and not talk to me about it."

I also think of someone who left here some years ago and burned his bridges before doing so by saying things to people. He told me I had "anger issues." I felt bad about that for days and questioned my view of myself - yes, I knew I had a temper, but I worked hard to control it in situations where other people were around. (I had gotten mildly irritated at this person once because they failed to file some paperwork that affected both of us). But I didn't e-mail everyone else complaining about the paperwork mess-up.

I don't know. I don't understand people. I'll never understand people.

I don't know if I'm duty bound to slog through all the e-mails or not, in case some future problem comes up. Or if I just treat them as two people who were tired and angry and may have said things they later on realized they didn't want to say. I don't know if I will look unprofessional by saying, "Oh, I didn't read them" or if I will later be called on in a meeting to discuss the situation.

I also have a draft e-mail to my chair requesting that a request be sent forth that in the future, if someone has a problem with another individual that they PLEASE not hash it out by cc'ing everyone else, but rather try to deal with it individually and only involve others if there is no ability for resolution.

The thing is - there were charges of unprofessional conduct levied, and to be frank, I think it's unprofessional to make all of us unwilling spectators to the situation.

I don't know. I don't like wondering if my department is starting to fall apart at the seams, to think "Oh man, I may need to seek employment elsewhere" - with all the pain of uprooting and going through a tenure process again and all of that.

I'm trying to tell myself that this is not the first domino in a chain of events pushing me to do something but maybe it is. My brother and sister-in-law are contemplating a move away from Illinois. Apparently she's been offered a good position at a DEA office near DC, and my brother (as a campus minister) has a more or less portable job...so they're thinking about it. Which means my parents wouldn't have any close-by kids any more, and while that's not currently an issue, it could become one in the next years, seeing as my parents are both in their 70s. And as I'm the unmarried kid, as I'm the one with fewer other considerations (no spouse, no in-laws), it might be up to me to make the sacrifice of moving. And I don't know, I tend to believe things happen for a reason, and once before something that seemed Very Bad at the time pushed me into a better situation.

But, dear God (and I am not being flip here), I don't want to move. I don't want to seek a new position and all that entails.

I don't know. I don't like conflict. I'm a great conflict avoider. And so it perplexes me when people around me have large disagreements and blow-ups. I tend to be excessively tactful in how I react to people, to the point where I sometimes don't get my way (and I'm OK with that).

So I don't know. Do I read the e-mails, putting myself in a worse mood (my good mood was already disrupted by reading the first e-mail and part of the second), do I ignore them but leave them in my inbox, to be faced with them every time I check my mail, or do I just delete them unread and tell people - if they ask me - that I don't have the time and energy to deal with fights that I have no part in?

Once again, I find myself thinking of that job in Alaska measuring caribou basal temperatures, and how that may have still involved sphincters (to use a more polite word this time), but at least it was sphincters that could not talk. (But then again: I don't know how to field-dress a moose, and I think I'd be distinctly discomfited by having to use a privy, which many of those backcountry areas have, because plumbing is a great difficulty with permafrost)

I don't know. I'm just glad I can run away the end of this week and be away from this petri dish for a while.

It's so close!

I can't quite believe it but this week is my mid-fall break.

And I have plans. They always start out as vague plans - I think this year it was "oh, hey, I could go up to Arkansas and see that castle thing they're building." Or "I could go to Guthrie for an overnight trip." But then I change my mind about fifteen times (seriously, at one point, I was saying, "You should just spend those days working on research." Seriously, fillyjonk, seriously? You have no deadlines, the research you are doing can be done in bits and pieces snuggled into the two-hour gaps you have between classes some days, and you're seriously talking about sacrificing the only real free time you have until Thanksgiving? To do research that won't even count towards Full Professor, 'cos you've already handed in the stinking packet?)

So I snapped out of that pretty fast.

So I did make plans. And I sent a message to someone I know who lives in Shreveport vicinity, someone who also likes shopping at Stitches N Stuff, and it turns out she was free! So Longview it is, for yarnz and lunch out (and woo, I get to take someone out for lunch, that's not something I get to do often) and books and all manner of good things. Many of which are things that are not readily locally available (Certainly not good yarn, and not really a diversity of books, either.)

And I am taking the rest of the break off, too. I may go get my flu jab on Friday; I've been warned by several people that this year's one is hurty and I would rather take it before a weekend when I can relax.

And this weekend, I am going to relax. I've worked really hard so far this semester, particularly putting the packet together.

They're saying it might rain this coming weekend, but that suits me just fine. It's particularly nice to stay home when it's raining and sort of ugly outside.

I started the first of the Christmas-gift fingerless mitts this weekend; I would like to at least finish them - and maybe start another pair - during the break.

One thing I do want to do is scan through some of my more recent knitting books and magazines - and maybe on Ravelry some - and see if there are any patterns that grab my fancy, were I to find yarn I wanted for them. (Though actually, a benefit of having a shopping companion: I am a bit more reined-in in my spending tendencies.) And I also have less of a feeling of "well, the PURPOSE of this trip was to buy stuff, so I better buy stuff" because now the purpose of the trip is to see my friend, rather than just buy stuff. Nice how that works out.

I will say this is one of those rare occasions where I allow myself to break into my closely-hoarded (and earning almost NO interest) savings account to take a couple hundred dollars so I can shop without resorting to credit cards. (Again: it's less easy to spend a big chunk of cash when you're literally handing over the cash).

"Which three books?"

First up: an admission. I've never actually read "The Time Machine." I should rectify that at some point. (I thought I had but now that I think of it, I think it's just that I know the general story.)

The 1960 movie version of it was on this afternoon. And I watched it. I remember having seen it in school - I think they showed it as a "reward" for some of the students who had gotten ahead in class, or who had done well on tests and didn't need to be re-tested, or something. (As I remember, there was only part of a class there, and it was students from the entire "team" I was in, which would have been three homerooms).

I didn't remember much of the movie, aside from the excellent stop-motion stuff (which seems dated now, but I'm sure when the movie came out it was fairly remarkable) to show the passage of time - and the mannequin having its clothes changed. (I think I remembered that because at the time I was interested in early 20th century fashions). And I remembered the very end. The tantalizing question: "What three books?" What books did George take with him. (Apparently the same question isn't in the book version? That's too bad, because that's a fascinating way to end the story)

I'm glad they don't tell us. That would have been too pat. I could imagine going a very practical route - books of engineering information and mathematical tables, to allow for rebuilding in the future. Or perhaps, deciding the new society needed a strong moral grounding, maybe the Bible, and perhaps the works of a philosopher of ethics, and maybe something like St. Augustine. Or maybe just the three books he felt personally that he could not live without - the selfish route.

(And what skills, if you had time - what skills you would want to take to a depauperate future, full of Eloi who literally know how to do nothing for themselves? I would argue that the topmost idea should be agriculture, being able to grow food, and probably hunting and fishing as well. And how to make fire. And building shelter. But beyond that - probably spinning and weaving and perhaps even knitting would be valuable skills.)

I also want to read the book version of The Time Machine now to see how they altered it for the movie. Surely Wells was not enough of a visionary to predict both world wars (the novel was written in 1895), all of that must have been added by the screenwriters.

I will say one of the slightly surprising things about the movie: seeing "Wilbur*" from Mr. Ed as the Time Traveller's Scots-accented best friend. (And later, "Wilbur" plays Filby's son, both in the 1917 sequence and in the pre-nuclear-war 1966 sequence).

That said, were time travel possible? It's just not something that would interest me. I'd rather have other people go and report back - just as if space travel were available to ordinary citizens, I wouldn't have an interest in going. (Too much risk, too many things that can go wrong - I'm uncomfortable stepping on even an ordinary plane, I think of all the things that could cause it to crash).

(*Yes, I know, Alan Young did other things - more prestigious things - than Mr. Ed. But that's how I will always know him. The local-Cleveland "independent" television channel (43; I guess it's a Fox affiliate now. I don't know that any "independent" channels exist that are not network-affiliated any more. But back when I was a kid, it was an indie channel) used to re-run the show and when I was a very small child it was my favorite television show. Looking up a bit more information on Mr. Young, I now see it's very likely that the Scots accent he "wore" in this movie was natural: he's actually a British-born (Northumberland) actor and lived in Edinborough for a time as a child. And he also did Uncle Scrooge McDuck's voice. So perhaps, like Hugh Laurie, the American accent that most Americans know him for is actually a put-on. Interesting, considering I mainly knew him as a man who talked to a horse.)

Back to research

So, having handed in The Packet that Ate My Life, I find I can get back to doing what I am "supposed" to be doing - including research.

I began sorting the fall soil samples this afternoon. I had forgotten how peaceful it is. Just me, the soil, and the microscope. I can't be pulled away from it quickly or easily, I don't have to talk to anyone, I can just work. And there's the tiny chance of some kind of fun surprise - you never know what will be in the soil. (I found one of the rice beetles in the sample I'm soaking right now).

I also discovered that I talk to my samples. (I said, "Oh, what are you? Oh, you're a rice bug. Let me grab you, rice bug.*" Even though it was (a) dead and (b) wouldn't have understood me even if it was alive.)

I guess in a way the soil is kind of like knitting or cooking or quilting - it is a known property, it doesn't have all the messiness that human interactions do. (Some days I wonder if I'm a bit farther along the "continuum" than some people are - I mean, the continuum that has Asperger's at one end of it and what is sometimes called "Neurotypical" at the other. Because I often find human interactions baffling or uncomfortable. Or maybe I just wind up dealing with lots of nutso people; it seems the few times I've met up with fellow bloggers and such the interaction was not particularly strained.)

But it is nice to be working on it again. Even if I am wearing a hot, stuffy N-95 mask in the hopes of not breathing in all kinds of mold spores and giving myself an allergy attack.

(*I think one of the reasons "Ducky" Mallard is my favorite character on NCIS is his tendency to talk to the bodies that are brought in to his morgue. And his tendency to go off on rambling tangents, which I catch myself doing sometimes in class. Though I will say in recent seasons they seem to have downplayed those tendencies more.)

Sweaters are special

As much as I enjoy knitting socks, or hats, or lace shawls, there is something different and special about working on a sweater.



There's something particularly satisfying about watching it grow. (Especially this sweater, which is growing comparatively fast). There's something purposeful about it - socks and shawls and wristlets are all very nice, but nothing keeps you warm in the way a sweater does, and for me, few things give me the feeling of "I can take care of myself. I can provide for myself." than knitting on a sweater does.

I'm still very happy with this project; the yarn knits up very nicely. I'm getting close to the point where I start the increases (the sweater nips in ever so slightly at the waist, and then grows a little bit again up to the raglan armholes.)

Handed it in

So I realized: That portfolio thing? The thing that's eaten your life for the past month, that's caused you to have several private meltdowns in your office or home?

It's due tomorrow.

So, in the spirit of Always Having Things In Before The Deadline, I took it down to my departmental office. Handed it to my chair. Asked her if that was all I had to do.

"Yes." she said.

"It seems rather anti-climactic." I remarked. Seeing, as I said, that this had eaten my life for a month. She kind of shrugged and said, "I know, that's how it is."

(That's actually how a lot of academia is. You work your tail off for a long period of time, you worry and sweat and lose sleep, and then when the whatever-it-is is done, it's just like...is that all there is to it?)

I still lack a lost-in-the-mail letter of recommendation and one of my faculty development worksheets (which never got returned from the dean's office) but there's still the option to add them in if and when they show up.

Hot water again

It was the thermocouple, as it turned out.

The plumber called around 3:30 - the previous job he was on had a bad surprise involved with it, he wasn't quite done, would 4:00 be okay?

As I had nowhere I particularly needed to be, and as the only other option was to wait another day, I said fine. (Besides, I've had my share of "bad surprise" home repair stuff).

He got to my house right around 4, listened to my description, agreed that it was very likely the thermocouple, and went to work.

I will say one good thing about my enforced stay at home from 3 to a bit past 5: it gave me a chance to do some cleaning. I had already done some work in the kitchen (where the hot water heater is), but I also cleaned the dining room, living room, and bathroom while I waited for him and while he worked.

Part of it was to work off the nerves - I am always nervous when having work done in the house; part of it is the unsettled feeling of having a stranger in the house, but a bigger part of it is the worry of "what if the problem CAN'T be fixed?"

But also, I've been SO busy, things had gotten away from me. And while my house wasn't terrible, it still was beginning to make me twitch, so it was good to clean. (And I broke down the boxes I have been accumulating - including several from various Amazon affiliates that contained bits and pieces of the office supplies needed for my promotion packet). They're in my car now; if I have time this afternoon I'll drop them off at the recycling center. (Gah, I wish we had curbside. I'd even be willing to pay a little for it.)

Anyway. I kept listening to the various clinks and thumps as he worked, hoping he'd be able to fix it. Finally, he went out to his truck (I think he also had to take a call he got). And I realized I heard the heater running - it's in a former closet off the kitchen, so you can hear the whoosh of the gas flame running.

I said a small prayer of thanks for easy fixes. The plumber came back in. Told me it was the thermocouple, but he also had to clean the intake screen on the bottom of the heater - this model, the screen has very fine openings that can get clogged with dust and hair (and, I suppose, lint: my dryer is right next to where the heater is. I guess I'll have to be more careful about immediately disposing of the lint I remove).

One thing I like about these plumbers - and one reason why I continue to use them - is that they treat their clients like human beings who have brains and may just be unfamiliar with some things about plumbing, and not like idiots who don't deserve to be initiated into the Mysteries.

He also showed me the various cut-offs (gas, water, the electrical line to the starter) so that I could quickly cut power to anything if the heater started to go rogue (not that it's likely; he said it was a "good solid install.") I knew where the main gas cut-off to the house was but was unsure of where it was specifically to the heater, so that's good to know.

He also told me how I could clean the screen myself in the future: shut down power to the heater, get one of those refrigerator-coil cleaning brushes, and just reach under the heater to clean it. (He did say, however, that the clogged screen did not cause the thermocouple failure; apparently sometimes thermocouples just burn out)

I suppose they figure that by encouraging routine maintenance, they get fewer emergency calls. I think they probably have enough business as it is without trying to fish for more: the plumber who worked on my house said he had two more jobs left to do for that day (and that was at 5 pm).

I commented that I was glad the heater had not failed altogether, as it was only 3 years old, and the previous one I had had was over 20 years old when it failed. He kind of laughed and said, "They don't build them like that any more; we generally tell people that six years is the point after which a tank can fail." I also remarked that our hard water doesn't help that, and he agreed, that calcium buildups tend to kill the tanks faster here than in some parts of the country. (Then again: the old-style artificially softened water isn't as good for you to drink, because it's higher in sodium, and there's some weak evidence that calcium and magnesium ions in the drinking water may have a protective effect against heart disease.)

I'm thinking maybe, if I get one of them out again some time for some other matter, to ask them to take a look and tell me if one of those tankless jobs would be feasible for a future replacement. I know they're more expensive - but if they have a longer lifespan, that would be good.

After that, I had my second evening meeting for the week.

Tonight, I have no meetings. I also did my hour's piano practice by getting up extra early this morning. So after I get out of class, I'm taking my car in for an oil and filter change, and then I am going home and not doing anything. Because I'm tired.

Problem partially solved

Got the plumbers. They work on gas hot water heaters. They're sending someone out at 3:15 after I get out of class.

I really hope it's as simple as that. Maybe tonight I can take a hot shower and wash my hair.

(If it's the thermocouple, it must have JUST failed. Monday night I washed my hair and noticed no problem with the hot water; last night, the water was still warm but not as warm as it should have been.)

Globally and locally

Well, locally, things aren't so hot.

I put in a very-nearly 12 hour day yesterday (I know, lots of people do that on a regular basis. But except for about 20 minutes to run home and grab a bowl of yogurt and piece of fruit - I misunderstood the meeting-call for this week and thought this was a lunch-meeting, so I did not pack a lunch), I was more or less busy that time:

prepping for class
writing an exam review
catch-up grading (oh, when is there ever NOT catch-up grading?)
typing up the minutes from a meeting
enrolling a student in classes using our hamster-wheel powered online enrollment system (seriously: some of the screens take 3 minutes to load)
teaching my class
writing an exam
counseling a stressed, "I'm gonna FAIL!!!" student
going to a stressful meeting, in which we made a decision that had to be made, but which will not have happy ramifications
eating lunch
meeting with my co-teacher and going over scores students earned on papers, and coming to some consensus grade out of both our grades
enrolling another student
writing three take-home computation-based stats exams AND going through detailed calculations of every problem thereon*
teaching my night class, which included a few nearly-miraculous feats of re-projecting data that had gone bad.

(*you HAVE to do that. You have to make the key up at the same time as the exam because if you don't, there's a small but real chance that you will invent an unworkable problem. I had it happen to me when I was a student - spent hours laboring over a problem, getting a total "What's This For?**" answer, and then, finally, several days after the take-home exam was given out, having the prof sheepishly announce that problem 2 could not be solved. Which, I guess, constitutes the Horrible Warning part of "if you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning," and so, I check all problems on an exam before sending it to the printer. Also, if you're telling students, "Run an F test to determine if variances are equal, then run the appropriate two-sample test," you need to know if you're directing them to do a standard t-test, a Behrens-Fisher, or a Mann-Whitney U.)

(** The politer explanation of what "WTF" stands for. Courtesy of the Ivory Tower Fiber Freaks group on Ravelry.)


Then I got home. Went to take a shower. Thought, "Wait, this water isn't as warm as it should be."

(Dear God, no.)

Tried filling the washer with hot water - figuring, if it worked, I could wash the sheets I pulled off my bed this weekend when I changed the sheets. Nope, water was cold by halfway through and the hot water heater did not kick on.

This is, I probably don't need to tell long-time readers, the hot water heater I had installed in 2007, after the 20-some year old one that came with the house finally died.

So, I looked at the booklet that came with it. Did the pilot-light test. Got nothing.

Stood looking at the heater: "Seriously? Seriously?" I asked it, "You crap out NOW, just over three years of service? And at the point in the semester when I'm having to pencil in times to go down the hall and micturate because I won't have time otherwise?"

And then all of my "Life should be fairer than this" or "don't I get a few karma points here?" feelings kicked in: I had just spent a long day. I helped a lot of people. I fixed lots of problems with people's GIS projects. I dealt with not one, but two, crying people that day. I was TIRED. I didn't want to deal with (a) getting someone out to look at the beast or (b) the possibility of buying a new hot-water heater (I have to say: three years. That's some pretty damn good engineered obsolescence, Whirlpool.) And (c), the thought of heating water on the stove just to wash my hair practically undid me at that point. Oh, I know, lots of people have done it in the past. (My mom did it all her growing-up years, and what's more, she or someone else had to haul the water from the well first). And I know lots of people do it now - even some by choice, people who live off the grid and such.

But at that point, to use a phrase someone else once used, I was fresh out of cope.

So, I did the only think I could think to do: start cleaning my kitchen. At 9 pm. Because IF I could get a plumber out, my kitchen was too much of a mess (in my eyes) for him to walk into it.

I did not sleep that well last night. (I also had to get up at one point and find earplugs, because apparently the dude who thinks it's juuuuust fiiiiine to park his boom car on one of the streets near me is back).

This morning, I have a little more perspective:

1. There are guys down in Chile being hauled out of a mine, one by one. Still alive, after a couple months, and apparently still ok, physically at least. (Last I heard, they had 9 out and were pretty much getting one hour per hour). I will say I do hope they have some good counseling/psychiatric programs in place for those guys, I cannot imagine you can be trapped underground for that long without it having bad effects.

But yeah - as one of the newscasters I heard said - it's something in amongst all the bad news that gives us a reason to hope.

2. The Rangers actually made it to the ALCS. While I am not sanguine about their chances against the Yankees, still, this is the farthest I think they've got in the franchise's history. (Or at least, its history in Texas). It would be fun to see the Rangers in the World Series, even though I doubt that's going to happen.

3. I tried the pilot-light test again this morning and watched more closely. There is a tiny, barely visible hint of blue flame, but it goes out when you release the "reset" button. Which seems to suggest, based on the troubleshooting flowchart that came with the thing, that it's either the thermocouple or the thermostat. (I seem to remember my parents having to have a thermocouple replaced on their hot water heater). As I lack the tools, the comfort, or the skills for doing either of those replacements, I'm going to call my plumber and if he works on gas hot water heaters, see if he can come out and fix it. I'm hoping today. (I have a late afternoon-evening meeting - but if the plumber comes out, I'm skipping the meeting). If not, I'll be pulling out my big crock pot as soon as I get home to start heating up water so I can wash my hair in the kitchen sink***. (Sigh.)

Once again, this is the place where I speculate that academics should be married (or coupled) to someone who is NOT in academia, someone with a job where they can take days off as needed. (Or, heck, I'd be willing to support a guy who worked at home writing books or something, if I loved him and he wasn't a total layabout). Because if the plumber said, "I can be out at noon today but not later," I'm out of luck. I cannot cancel classes for this kind of thing.

(*** Unless I decide this thing rises to the level of "It's OK for me to spend money a bit frivolously" and go to one of the local beauty parlors and pay someone to shampoo my hair for me. I have no idea what that costs now, though. Back some 17 years ago when I broke my elbow, I went to the barber shop where I got my hair cut and had the lady who cut my hair wash it for me. She charged $3, which I think she did partly because she was a family friend, and partly because she knew I was a grad student making $700 a month. I'm guessing shampoos now are closer to $15, which feels too expensive to me, seeing as I can buy two bottles each of the shampoo and conditioner that I use for that.)

this is sad.

I'm still thinking about it.

I had a student from one of my classes call me yesterday. This was someone who was a good, engaged, and involved student. He had been having some family problems, a few of which he confided in me about (by way of explaining the occasional absence).

When he called, he said, "I didn't want you to hear about this through the student grapevine, but I'm having to drop your class." He explained it was because of the circumstances he talked about before (I think he said he was withdrawing from college altogether). He thanked me for his class and expressed regret he was having to drop, as he had been enjoying it.

It makes me sad. Sad that so many of my students are carrying such heavy loads BESIDES their classes. I've had students go through divorces (ugly divorces at that) while in school. I've had students with serious illnesses. I've had students lose parents.

On the one hand, it makes me wonder at my own college years: was I so different and privileged in that I went to school and the only "work" I did (other than going to classes) was to earn extra pizza or movie money? And the fact that I didn't have a family to care for - heck, didn't even really have a boyfriend - made things far less complicated. I know that part of it is we serve a large non-traditional (e.g., older, married, former military, coming back to school after working for some years, etc.) base, and we're also in a less financially-advantaged area. And an area where people traditionally marry younger, I guess. (When I was in college, the only married couples I knew who were students were grad students in their late 20s or early 30s.)

And it does present more of a challenge when teaching. You have to be able to be flexible, to tell the single mom who's calling in in tears because her child was in the ER all last night with febrile convulsions and she's afraid she didn't study enough that she can come in the following day to take the exam (and you don't have to say - because she will - bring in the release form from the ER). And you can't plan "mandatory" evening or weekend things, because people work. (And sometimes, they even have to work during your class. There are a couple employers here in town - I will not name them - who will do things like call "mandatory meetings" when they KNOW some of their employees have class, and when the employees ask about missing the meeting for class, the employer tells them, essentially, "There are lots of other people in town who'd like to have your job.")

But on the other hand, it can be frustrating. Because I also have the "traditional" population of students. The folks who, like one of my students this semester, think that going to see their favorite band in the whole world should be sufficient reason for them to have an excused absence. Or people who "just really got sucked into" playing a video game the night before and didn't finish the homework. And sadly, some of these students lack perspective on life and don't understand that there's a world of difference, in my eyes, in granting an extension to a guy who had to go and sit at his dad's bedside, because his dad's in hospice and they don't know how many more days it will be, and granting an extension to someone who didn't get the work done because they were playing. And they tell me it's not fair. And I stop short of saying stuff like, "You know what's not fair? What's not fair is being 25 years old and having to watch your dad die, knowing you will be the 'man' of the family after that happens and not knowing if you'll be able to complete your degree because of your new responsibilities."

I know Plato said something along the lines of "Be kind, for everyone is carrying a heavy burden," but I tend to think some burdens are a bit heavier - and some burdens are not of the own person's making.

Like a monster

It's been well over 20 years since I watched "Sesame Street," but it makes me happy to know that they still have the "let's make the parents watching laugh a little too" attitude:



Grover was always my favorite Sesame Street Muppet.