New word coined

I should NOT try to type an exam during the aftermath of a migraine headache.

I was trying to type "economically or ecologically" and somehow it came out "economagically."

Um, no.

One little observation

A lot of high school students on campus today.

Merciful heavens, was I as obnoxious as some of them are when I was 18?

(There was one guy VERY LOUDLY talking into his cell phone about how he was going to the B.S. building. "B.S. for B***s***!" he exclaimed several times, with ribald joy. Um, actually, B.S. is for Biological Sciences, and it's where I WORK. I hope you are choosing a different major because apparently you can't get past the acronym.)

And again, it's a respect thing: these students are actually guests on our campus, but a few of them are behaving like guests I'd never want to invite back.

An East wind

I'm reading "Bleak House" right now.

I'm not that far into it yet - I read before going to sleep and many nights, lately, I've just been so exhausted when I get to that time of day, I can maybe get five pages in before I just can't concentrate any more. I'm just up to the point where Mr. Prince Tuveydrop comes on the scene. (I love the character names Dickens comes up with).

The characters are really one of the great things in Dickens. There are characters (like Mr. Harold Skimpole, at whom I would still like to throw my heavy hardback copy of the book) that are pretty dislikable, there are characters that you like and feel sympathy for despite the looming feeling that something bad is going to happen to them (Esther Summerson). And there are comic characters, some of whom are mainly window-dressing (the aforementioned Mr. Prince Turveydrop). But there are also characters that play an important role but who also have some comical characteristics.

Mr. John Jarndyce is one of them. He's the cousin (I think?) to Richard and Ada, the "wards in Jarndyce" (And I really need to look up more detail of how chancery court worked. I assume it's something like a very protracted probate...but I don't think there's quite a modern U.S. equivalent).

Mr. Jarndyce is a likable, friendly, kindly man. But sometimes (like all of us, I think) he gets out of humor. And, also like many people who somewhat pride themselves on their kindness, he doesn't want to blame his being out of humor on a particular person.

So instead, he blames it on the direction of the wind - saying that the wind is out of the East. (And in some cases, he will stop, think, and declare that the wind has changed direction, when his mood has improved).

I have to admit, I like that concept. (Especially today, when I can tell I'm feeling a lot of free-floating frustration, irritation, and sadness). Though I'd probably be more prone to blame my bad mood on the fact that something is flowering and releasing pollen that I am allergic to. (And this being Oklahoma, that excuse works pretty much year-round: even in January, we have the Dread Mountain Cedar.)

Unfortunately, I don't also have a Growlery I can withdraw to. I just have to suck up my bad mood and go out and interact with people, and remind myself that I have to make a pretense of cheerfulness. (That old saw about fake-smiling to improve your mood? In my experience, it doesn't work.)

This morning when I woke up I had a headache, what feels like bordering on a migraine. I went ahead and got up, took an excedrin, did my workout anyway (in the misguided hope that maybe the exercise endorphins would overwhelm the headache). Took an allergy pill after the workout.

I still have a headache. Not bad enough to be incapacitating, but bad enough to be annoying. Also, my allergies are very bad - I've been coughing and sneezing.

I contemplated taking a sick day. But then I thought about how I have class today. And I had agreed to help with a new-student orientation thing. And how I have a meeting for a group of which I am the secretary. And I thought about having to call each of those places and explain to the person in charge that I wasn't feeling well, and try to hunt down someone to take the minutes of the meeting in my place...and I decided that having to call would just be more painful than actually going and doing what I needed to do. (And I'd probably feel guilty taking a sick day when I'm not really "sick.")

I am reserving the right to go home after my class, instead of working on research, if my headache doesn't get better.

I don't know. I just hope I don't wind up running up against anyone who is needlessly demanding, or whiny, or otherwise vexing to deal with this morning.

a new low

Had a student in class this morning pull out a compact and start applying mascara during a discussion of a Fairly Important Point That Will Be on the Upcoming Exam.

Stuff like that has a way of ruining my entire day. My too-active inner critic goes nuts over that kind of thing, takes it as proof that I'm boring and suck as a teacher and all of that.

I'm taking deep breaths and telling myself what I'd tell another person in a similar situation (that the other person's behavior tells you more about THEM than it does about YOU) but it's not entirely helping.

Dangit, it's only Wednesday. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

ETA: Actually, a couple more thoughts, now that it's the end of the teaching day (but not the end of the work day; I still have some research work and grading to do). Afternoon lab (with a different class) went better so I'm in a slightly better mood but:

I think this incident is why I'm so wary of the "COLLEGE FOR ALL!!!!" plans. Not everyone WANTS to go to college. Not everyone needs to go to college. And making it seem like college is the ONLY option for 18 to 22 year olds is a real disservice. (I think part of the problem is that a college diploma - a B.A. or B.S. or B.G.S. now signifies what a high school diploma once did. I think high school has been considerably watered down in the last I-don't-know-how-many years. My late aunt, who graduated in like 1936 or so, never went to college but knew Latin and a fair amount of fairly complex math...she knew stuff that I don't know, with all my degrees. I may have more specialized knowledge but I also know there are considerable lacunae* in my general knowledge.)

(*I used that specific word unintentionally, contemplated removing it as a "show offy" word, but then realized its origin and it made me smile, given the context of me talking about not knowing Latin, so I let it stand)

I have run up against people - some of quite them open about it - who went to college against their wills, because it was what their families wanted or expected them to do. And I do think a lot of people now do have the idea (and it's probably more true than not) that you can't get a decent job without a college degree. (I would argue that needs to change: increase the rigor and expectations in grade school and high school, maybe offer a college-prep sequence and a "terminal degree" sequence along with vocational and other sequences, and let people pick what they want)

I also find a certain number of college students don't know what they want to do. I don't mean they're not sure whether they are better off majoring in Chemistry or Biochemistry, I mean they don't KNOW, in the sense of, if I ask them - as is a typical break-the-ice question I use - "what would be your ideal job?" they can't give an answer. And while I think it's fine to try different things out when young...it's a little unsettling to have seniors telling you they don't know how they want to earn their bread yet.

So: not so down with the one-size-fits-all solution of we MUST send them ALL to college!

Another idea I've seen floated - that rather than going straight to college, we require a couple years either volunteer or military service of young people - I don't like that either. On one hand, I've had a lot of former military students, and they are by and large more mature and have a clearer sense of purpose than the average graduated-high-school-three-months-ago person. But on the other hand, making it a blanket requirement would be frustrating to those (like me) who were ready for college, had an idea of what they wanted to do with their lives and what they needed to do to get there.

I don't know. I do know that some of the 18 year olds these days are *awfully* young. And that my parents would have slapped me silly (and they didn't even DO corporal punishment) if they heard of me applying make-up while I was in class.

(And this is one of those "poor, pitiful me" moments: I was raised to be SUPER respectful of my elders and those in positions of authority. And then when I achieve that status, apparently it's no longer "done" to show that level of respect. I feel cheated, somehow...)

Sweater and toenails

I have been working some on the Potter sweater. It's nice, after doing two sweaters in quick succession of sport weight or finer yarn, to have good old worsted weight, which knits up so much faster.

This is part of the left-front. There is a band of deep ribbing that runs up the inner edge of each front; the buttonholes get knit into this (in the righthand piece) and for this side, this is where the buttons will eventually be attached. (I'm thinking I might try tracking down either wooden or tagua nut buttons, partly because the natural brownish color would look good but also because they'd be light. I think heavy buttons would drag a lot on this fabric and ruin its lines. Or maybe antler buttons, if I can find ones large enough: antler is very light)



I'm almost done with the waist decreases, then it's knit plain (or rather: "continue in pattern," doing the ribbing and stockinette) for a while, then a little bit of increasing for the bust, then the armholes...

****

I also decided to go ahead and do my toenails again. I wound up buying a new color of varnish when I went out to get the topcoat to use with them. This color is a bit of a departure in that it's a more lavender pink than I normally would wear, but I rather like it.

I don't know that I'd ever be quite brave enough to wear traffic-cone orange, or bright green, or (for some reason, this is least appealing to me) blue nail polish (I think I don't like the idea of blue nails because I've seen too many semi-realistic police-procedurals with close-ups of dead hands and such)

This color is one of Revlon's shades, it's called Orchid.



I like it in part because I like the color, but I have to admit the color name also grabbed me. (That happens often. I've bought yarn at times in part because I liked the name given to the color, I liked the associations it conjured up in my mind). I liked the "orchid" name because it immediately made me think of Nero Wolfe. It's been a few years since I read any of the novels (but they still grace my bookshelves, and if I don't have a complete set of the books, I have darn near to one).

One of Wolfe's passions was orchids. In fact, he had a glasshouse on the roof of his brownstone where he raised them. (A big attraction of the books, for me, was the sort of wish-fulfillment life Wolfe lived: meals were strictly on time, business could not be discussed during meals, he had set hours for attending to his orchids, he didn't leave the house on business....many, many rules that in real life would probably be considered a compulsion worthy of a reality television show (I am sure Wolfe also hated television, or at least made the pretense of doing so, in the later books when television was commonplace) but that in the context of the novel, seemed wonderful.

I mean, would it not be delightful to have a Fritz to cook for you? Or to be able to dismiss work when you'd already felt you'd earned enough to keep yourself comfortable? Or to refuse to meet with someone if they were emotionally distraught or annoyed you in some way?)

Also, it's occasionally alluded to in the books, that despite Wolfe's supposed misogyny/fear of women, he would occasionally place a female witness so he could observe her legs as he sat at his desk. And he occasionally did seem to take a bit of a shine to certain women. And I'dlike to imagine that, as a not-too-terribly-preoccupied-with-the-"ordinary"-female-pursuits type of woman, and as someone with a reasonably large vocabulary (and as someone who definitely considers there to be a difference in meaning between "imply" and "infer"), that I might be the sort of female Wolfe might, just might, take a bit of a shine to (as long as I didn't blow it by reaching into my purse and pulling out my knitting during a lull in the meeting).

(Surely some of the rest of you lot occasionally write yourself into situations from the books you read?)

So I like the idea of orchid-colored nail varnish. (Sadly, today is a field-lab day, so they're covered up at the moment, deep in thick socks inside sturdy shoes. But maybe tomorrow I will wear a dress and sandals and get to look down at my feet and smile, even if no one else notices them.)

Guess it's time...

The first cuckoos are showing up in Britain, and Jane Brocket has painted her toenails for spring.

I think it's time for me to start doing the same again. I do think I'm going to invest in a proper base coat and top coat this year, though, so the self-done pedicure lasts better.

I will certainly be going with a more sedate color; I can't quite bring myself to move out of the pink/red color family. (I may go with the Cherries in the Snow color, if the bottle of nail varnish I had last year is still good.)

Hand quilting again

Since the shop down in Sherman I used to take quilts to to be quilted has closed, and since I haven't seen any further promotion of longarm quilting in my local shop, I'm going to have to figure out some way to get the quilts I have stacked up quilted. (Also, the quilting group at my mom's church disbanded: one of the founding members passed away, another had a serious injury that kept her from quilting, so the two remaining active members decided it was best to disband).

I'm contemplating buying a darning foot for my machine and once again trying free-motion machine quilting. The upside to it is that it is a bit faster (and also, if you're making gift-quilts for someone, like as a baby gift, people feel more inclined to use them). The downside is that I think you need a bigger chunk of time to work on it at a go - unlike with handquilting, where you can do 10 minutes or whatever of it, if you have a little time.

I also like being able to do the closely-stippled type of quilting seen on what are sometimes called "Modern" quilts. (Flickr group of "modern" quilt photos, in case you are unfamiliar with the term. They tend to be more geometrical, sometimes have asymmetry, and often use brighter colors or more novelty prints than what might be deemed "traditional" quilts. I will say I've previously expressed reservations about quilters fractioning themselves off into "modern" vs. "traditional" and so on. I consider myself a somewhat-traditional quilter who likes modern quilts, and who particularly likes geometric piecing. And I like bright colors and novelty fabrics - part of the fun of piecing for me is that I'm able to use fabrics and prints that I'd never wear in clothing.

I'm not a big fan of applique. I just don't care for doing it, and I really prefer the look of the geometrically-pieced quilts for my own use. I do, however, recognize and respect the immense amount of work and skill that goes into applique (especially the traditional, hand-done, "needle turned" kind) and understand that for some people that's the real pinnacle of the craft; that's what they challenge themselves with.

(And I admit it - I wonder if some of my needing to explain my likes and dislikes in such a long-winded way is partly a justification; I can hear "serious" quilters looking at my stuff - or it's maybe just my Inner Critic in the guise of a "serious" quilter - saying "She needs to challenge herself more. She's making four-patch quilts? EIGHT year olds make four-patch quilts."

I will say, for me, with my life the way it is? The biggest "challenge" I'm up to in quilting these days is actually finishing something.)

So anyway. I re-started handquilting on the quilt that's been in the frame since 2002. I really, really want to get this done so I can move on to something else. I have, I think, one big block left to complete, several of the setting blocks, and then the borders.

A big part of it is just overcoming the inertia of it...sitting down, picking up the thimble, arranging the quilt in the frame over my lap (quilting a full-bed sized quilt in a hoop - getting the quilt comfortably arranged is the biggest challenge).

I quilted for maybe a half-hour last night. The forefinger I had under the quilt to guide the needle started to hurt after a while (my 'quilter's callus' has gone away) so I stopped. But what I need to do is make myself do a little each day (or very nearly each day) until it's done.

Monday morning mix

Yes, the question was a repeat. I occasionally re-use questions, a few per test. The low level of people-getting-it-correct (comparable to the level on the "new" questions) suggests to me that old test forms are either not circulating, or I have enough of a reputation as someone who writes new tests that people don't bother to memorize my old ones.

(I have a colleague who doesn't hand tests back, because this colleague likes being able to re-use old tests year after year. I tend to think there's pedagogical value in students having their tests back - especially as I tend to give comprehensive finals - and also, I teach different stuff every year, or teach the same stuff differently, so not all the old questions will still be valid.

***

I picked away at different projects over the weekend - worked some on the left-front of Potter, did a bit more embroidery on the pillowcase, sewed some on the current quilt (All the bits are cut for the four-patches, finally. I have a few more sets of four-patches to sew, the setting-squares to cut, and then I can lay out the quilt and start actually putting it together.)

I also went to the "family time" (What I would call, with my upper Midwest background, "visitation.") The oldest member (he was 99) of the congregation I belong to passed away. His funeral is at noon today and there was no way I could make that (this is one of my busier teaching days), so I figured it was probably better to go and pay my respects to the family there than to skip it altogether. (I admit it: I find visitations more uncomfortable than funerals. For one thing, they're open-ended: I know it's a "show up and stay as long as you feel you need to" but I never know what's a "respectable" length of time. And I generally don't know many of the people at them. (And it may be, I still have memories of the first one I went to, for my grandmother, and the fact that no one told me it would be open-casket, and I found that a little unsettling, even at 20).

But I think I'm glad I went. The only family the man had left were a son and daughter-in-law (both in their late 60s, I'd guess).

***

One last thing that I completed over break and didn't post about. This is a monster from the new Rebecca Danger monster book. (I ordered it directly from her and she autographed it to me).



This is Tony. In the book, Tony is described as the "Toy Box Monster." (Every monster in the book is themed to somewhere in the house or garden). One thing I like about the concept of monsters that this patternwriter uses, is that they are not SCARY monsters. They are FUNNY monsters, sweet monsters, monsters that want to be kids' friends. More like the Sesame Street monsters than the monsters that kids sometimes imagine as being under the bed or in the closet. (I don't remember being like that myself, but then, I think I moved out of that childhood confusing-reality-and-fantasy age fairly early, and it could be I just don't remember it).

I do make my monster faces just a little differently from hers - usually she has the teeth straight across, so it looks like the monster has an underbite or a bulldog-like expression. I like to curve the teeth a little so it looks like the monster is smiling. (I also sew the teeth on rather than gluing them).

The yarn used here is a Lorna's Laces worsted weight, the color is called "Verve."

Someone got it!

I used a question about Darcy's Law (which governs the movement of water under saturated conditions). I had two plausible-but-wrong choices, one correct choice, and for the fourth choice, I put "in situations where there is both pride and prejudice."

One of my students, after circling the correct answer, drew a smiley face next to the pride-and-prejudice answer. I wrote, "Yay, someone got it!" next to that on her exam. That makes me happy.

new ravatar time

this is just so I can have a "grabbable" copy of a flickr photo for a new ravatar...

(AND fwiw, I'm writing off what happened yesterday as some combination of perimenopause and eating way darn too much carbohydrates at the noon meal. I slept fine last night and felt perfectly healthy this morning, so I don't think my heart's about to poop out on me. But I might ask my doctor at my next checkup if perimenopause could do that.)

It happened again

I can't remember if I mentioned this on here before, or just on Ravelry. This is the second time I've had a weird little occurrence and I'm wondering what it is.

At the science fair, after lunch (so I'm sure it wasn't a blood-sugar issue), I started to feel very warm. The guy I was co-judging with had a coat and tie on so I figured it wasn't that the room was so warm*. And I started to perspire heavily, and feel a little bit sick and not-exactly disoriented, but like it was really hard to concentrate (And you need to concentrate, to fairly judge the projects).

(*Though later on, I found out it was - the director came to me and apologized and said, "Someone claimed last night it was too cold in here so they turned the A/C to a warmer temperature; that has been changed now")

I excused myself - I figured my having to go back and look at the project again would be less traumatizing for the student than having me pass out right there would be - and sat down out in the hall, where it was cooler. One of the "runners" went and got me a damp paper towel to put on the back of my neck. I divested myself of the little jacket I was wearing and left it with the person, and after a few minutes, went back in and judged some more.

But then I got to feeling even worse. Went back out, sat down, the runner got me a bottle of water, asked them if there was somewhere secure I could leave my (very heavy) purse. (Yes, there was).

I finally got to feeling better enough that I could go back in and finish judging, but I must have looked pale or woozy at the final poster because one of the students offered me the chair he had been given. (I will say not having the heavy purse pulling on my neck and shoulder helped a lot; it was like it was pinching a nerve)

(I was fine as long as I was sitting down; it was standing that was doing me in.)

I don't know, honestly, what it could have been. At the very start, I kind of panicked and thought "heart issue!" because I know heavy perspiration can be a symptom of heart attack. But my pulse seemed steady and normal, and I didn't get any other symptoms (no arm or chest pain). It wasn't a panic attack, because I didn't feel scared or like I had to get out of there and, as I said, my heart wasn't racing.

I think it could have been one of a couple of things:

a. dehydration. I drank a big glass of water with my lunch but that was probably not enough for how warm it was in the building. And I felt markedly better after drinking water. The previous time I had this issue it was warm in the room and it had been several hours since I had had any fluids. Which means I'll just have to be extra careful in the future to make sure I drink enough water. (And now I think of it: one time I nearly passed out after giving blood, the one thing that made me feel better was drinking water).

b. some kind of weird allergic reaction: I had been out in the field the previous two days, and had been having lots of weird hives and contact dermatitis. And also, the pasta I had at lunch had "crabmeat" in it, which could have been the pollock-fish "crab" meat (the faux crab), and that has sorbitol in it, which I'm kind of sensitive to. (And heck, I could have a bit of a fish allergy; a few times in the past I've felt unwell after eating certain fish).

c. hot flash, or something akin to it. I'm about the age (sigh) where my mother started with that whole business. The fact that the thing was time limited - I was better within a half hour of it starting - might suggest that. But I didn't flush, and while I felt warm, I didn't feel the Oh noes, I'm burning UP sensation other women have described.

d. Possible migraine that never developed? I did have a slight headache by the time I got home, and felt wiped out in the way I often feel after a migraine. And apparently a low pressure system (a common trigger for my migraines) was right over the place where I was that afternoon.

e. Ate too much at lunch? And then went into a warm room? That's possible - I had a large dish of pasta (the campus I was on, like many now, are doing the Let's Promote Healthful Eating thing and had signs up all over the lunchroom suggesting healthful choices, and there was a sign noting almost apologetically that pasta servings were 3 ounces but we were welcome to go back and get more - well, if what I was given was 3 ounces of pasta (plus the crabmeat, plus the mushrooms and other veggies I requested), 3 ounces is an ENORMOUS serving of pasta compared to what I normally eat. I actually think it was bigger than 3 ounces, but I don't know for sure.) It's possible that my body was in conflict mode - "do we send the blood to the muscles to keep her standing upright, or do we send it to the digestive system so she doesn't lose her lunch?" and things just kind of got deadlocked and my body freaked out a little. I don't know. Most of the time I actually eat pretty small meals so I guess that was a lot of food for me to be dealing with all at once. And I usually don't have to be on my feet for hours after a big meal, on the rare occasions I do eat them. (My pre-fieldwork lunch of the previous day was a hard-boiled egg, an orange, a spoon of peanut butter, and a small glass of milk.).

Busy times now

Tomorrow I go judge the state Science Fair, as I do every year. (There's one of those joke websites out there called something like "41 unfortunate science fair projects," mainly poking fun at the inappropriate titles chosen for the projects. No link, because that kind of "humor" makes me squirm a little bit...I'd hate to be a kid who, in a fit of teacher-induced, "You HAVE to GRAB their ATTENTION with a CREATIVE TITLE" chose something that would turn out to haunt me as a double entendre. And then have my blunder live on the Internets forever, for the amusement of random trolly strangers.)

And anyway, the vast majority of the projects at this science fair are really pretty good; some of them are almost upperclassman college-level good, at least among the high schoolers.

So I enjoy doing it. And I get a free lunch.

I also went out and did my spring soil-collection to extract animalcules. (I think I am going to use 'animalcules' to describe my soil invertebrates rather than 'critters' any more. Neither is entirely accurate but animalcules sounds less countrified.)

It was about the perfect day for fieldwork: sunny, warm enough to be comfortable being outside for an extended period but not so warm that physical exertion became uncomfortable after a while. Low humidity (I actually find humid conditions less tolerable than heat for fieldwork). A slight breeze but not windy. The cooler conditions and the breeze kept away any unpleasant insects (wasps and ants) but I did see a few butterflies, always a welcome sight during fieldwork. (And there were lots of birds singing, too). So it was a nice quiet meditative way to spend an afternoon. The first batch of soil is extracting now; I will come in Saturday morning and change it over.

I'm also reviewing a textbook (I'm going to try to finish it this afternoon). Or rather, a couple chapters of a textbook. I get paid for this. I'm thinking what I will do - I always treat textbook-review money as "windfall money" that can be spent on what I please - is put the check, when it comes, into my bank account for a future day either at the end of this semester or sometime early in summer when I'm just bugging out and need a day spent in McKinney floating around the quilt shops and antique stores, that the money from the review will fund that trip.

It's work I like, generally (though I'm not wild about the new "read the whole thing online" because with the number of photos and figures in a typical textbook, it means a lot of scrolling - and because so much of it is in color, it's not practical to print it out to read). I've often thought that if I tried to have an "off the grid" life (living in a very small cabin out in the middle of semi-nowhere, with a well and septic system and either solar or wind power and being as unattached from the bills of society as possible) that the way I might earn enough to pay property taxes and dental bills and such could be by being an editor/reviewer/proofreader.

But the work isn't that regular, or at least is isn't for me. Sometimes I wind up having to turn stuff down because there are several opportunities at once (or they come right before exam week), other times I will go months without an offer. I don't think I could live like that. (And at any rate: living without "grid" electrical power in Oklahoma would be hard; I have to have air conditioning in the summer and I am reasonably sure there's no way a house-sized solar array, even with a mini wind turbine, could generate enough power to sustain that.)

I admit though, that's my little daydream...having as few attachments to the outside world as possible, because the more attachments you have, the more demands that can be made, like "We need you to let us install a new 'smart' meter" or "But the current set-up of your plumbing system isn't up to current code" or whatever other nightmares can be thrown at homeowners. (No, I haven't had any, lately. But I like the idea, I guess, of being dependent on as few outside forces as possible. Oh, I'd still have to have an internet link, ESPECIALLY if I were earning my bread as a reviewer of textbooks, but not being dependent on the power company or the gas company or the water district...there's something appealing to me in it. Maybe I read "My Side of the Mountain" too many times as a child or something.)

I do realize that's an unrealistic daydream for me, that I like having a regular paycheck (and health insurance, and the option to pay in for dental insurance) too much to just chuck it all and go live in the woods. As much as I'd like to, some days.

Thoughts on bullying

But first: Lydia, Malabrigo is a 100% superwash merino sock yarn. But it's more tightly spun than some merino sock yarns I've felt, so I have high hopes for its durability. (And I looked up the colorway; it's called Candombe. Malabrigo tends to name its colors after things in South America. I looked up Candombe and it's an Afro-Brazilian music style).

****

I heard on the news this morning that the Oklahoma legislature is working on an anti-bullying bill for schools. I was prepared to groan and roll my eyes, thinking, "This will be another one of those do-nothing, feel-good bills, where the legislatures get to decry bullying as Bad, but nothing will really change."

I can't find a text of the "new" legislation online. (This is apparently an add-on of "cyberbullying" to an existing 2002 bill. Which tells cynical me that it's not going to improve stuff much, since things don't seem to have changed much since 2002.)

I don't know how much a piece of legislation or even having a 'school plan' in place can do to prevent bullying. It seems to me that part of it has to be parents teaching their kids to be compassionate, recognizing that bullying happens and helping equip their kids to deal with it, (I don't think you can ever END bullying, and possibly, cracking down on it at school might make it get worse somewhere else, or make it go underground and sort of fester), and maybe, just maybe, being a little less inclined to suspend or expel the kids who DO stand up to bullies. (I'm not saying, "let the other kids beat the tar out of the bullies." But sometimes, a bit of strategic self-defense can lead to the bullies backing down).

And maybe, giving schools the authority to throw out the most serious bullies - to tell parents, "Sorry, your child is too much of a threat. Either send him/her to Bullying Rehab, or you will be finding an alternative school."

Here's a question for those of you who are parents (or grandparents): Is bullying substantially worse than it was when you were in school? Or is the main issue now that with Facebook and text messages and all the electronic devices, it's easier to spread lies, rumors, and unkind statements, and it's harder for the bullied kid to get away from it? (We didn't even have an ANSWERING MACHINE when I was a kid - and yes, I've heard of cases of mean girls in high school calling a family's answering machine and leaving a message purporting to be from a pregnancy crisis center telling the family's daughter that she is pregnant)

There are different types of bullying. I think often the physical kind - the big kid who beats up on smaller kids - gets a lot of press, but I almost think that's a less insidious form than some of the "psychological" bullying that kids do. I also think that the kid-beating-up-other-kids is the one most likely to get punished.

I rarely saw or experienced the physical kind of bullying in school. Part of it was, I think, because I was female, and back in those days (or at least, back in my district), it was very rare for a girl to beat up another girl, and it was still seen (I think) as cowardly for a boy to beat up on a girl. (Chivalry may have been on life support, but it wasn't quite dead.) And maybe, by extension, it was seen as cowardly for a boy to bully a girl.

It's also possible I was bullied less by boys than by other girls because I had a few male friends during my grade-school days, and now that I think back on it, they may have "had my back" in the whole bullying thing, and kept the boy bullies off my case. (If that's true, Mark and Brandon and Matt and Scott...where ever you are now, I thank you.)

The only real "physical" bullying I remember was having my textbooks and homework knocked out of my hands "by accident" in the hall, and my homework trampled. But that was a pretty common occurrence (in that, lots of kids had it happen) and I found that less hurtful than some forms of bullying.

I experienced a lot of what I will call "mean girl" bullying - the sort of psychological unpleasantness that (typically) girls do to other girls. (It's not EXCLUSIVELY girls, but in my experience, most of the people who bullied in this way were girls). A lot of times it involved backhanded compliments or statements that sounded neutral enough on the surface - but the tone in which they were delivered, or some sotto voce comment the person added at the end of the statement, made it clear that the person was being catty. The really insidious thing is that the girls learned how to do it to have plausible deniability - if you went to a teacher and reported that "Sharon said 'X' to me," 'X' would be able to be interpreted as something innocuous - which was how the teacher ALWAYS interpreted it. And sometimes they even said, "Oh, Sharon's just trying to be FRIENDS with you," when you knew darn well that (a) Sharon had said 'X' in the snottiest tone possible, meaning any niceness contained in the words of 'X' was negated by her tone and (b) Sharon wouldn't be your friend in a million years, and even if she wanted you as a friend, there was too much past history of meanness on her part to make that possible.

Or, there was just outright meanness, because some of the girls knew that a lot of us had given up on trying to tattle. And it was meanness about such STUPID stuff (or so it seems to me, now, as an adult). Things like how a person dressed...what brand of jeans she wore. Whether or not she needed a bra yet. How her hair was styled. Glasses. Braces. (My parents were frugal, so I had store-brand, rather than designer jeans. I "developed" early and fast. My hair was a hot mess, partly because of puberty hormones making it crazy. I had glasses - and because of the way my dad's insurance worked, I had a choice of three equally-unflattering frame styles. And I had braces.)

(The first time in my life I heard the term "trailer trash," it was applied to a friend of mine...I remembered being sad and baffled by that remark, because while my friend and her family DID live in a mobile home, they were NOT trashy people)

(Now that I think of it - the gym locker room was about the meanest place on the school grounds.)

There was some rumor-starting, but either the rumors about me never got back to me, or they didn't bother to do that to me. But that was also a common thing - passing word that so-and-so was a "slut," or that she "put out" or that there was something lacking in her personal hygiene, or something...in some cases it could really destroy a girl. (I may not have had enough "interesting" about me to be worthy of rumors...I had male friends, as I said, but not "boyfriends," so the putting-out rumors would be implausible...)

There was also name-calling. Anyone who has been called names (and I got the full gamut, from "brainiac" to "retard," which, now, as an adult, shows me just how illogical bullying is) and has heard the old "Sticks and stones..." rhyme knows that it's a lie, words DO hurt. I'm not saying the occasional insult or epithet is bullying per se, but if someone goes through their entire school career being insulted daily or nearly daily...then it rises to the level of bullying.

And then there's the whole laughing thing. If you're a self-conscious kid, and you've been laughed at in the past, it's agonizing to walk by a table in the lunchroom, have the kids there stop talking and begin snickering behind their hands - because the implication is they were talking about YOU. (I admit it, to this day, I am a bit paranoid about people "privately" laughing...)

And just a hundred little things, some that seem really minor to write them down but if you're a sensitive kid who never feels like they fit in, they are actually pretty big.

And I don't know how that kind of bullying can be stopped, really: if a person wants to be mean to another person, they will find a way to be. I know that's really pessimistic but it's been my experience. You can make kids in the classroom sit in a circle and say three nice things about everyone else in the room, but if someone has it in for another kid in the class, they will find a way to get to them...in the lunchroom, on the playground, on the school bus going home, or somewhere.

And now, I guess, online. While I think it would be far too draconian to say "No under-18s on ANY kind of e-mail or social networking or text-message plan" (and can you imagine the howls of protest?), I can see how not being able to get away from your tormentors would be a real anguish. (As teased as I was at school, I could go home at the end of the day to a family that loved me, and on the weekends I played with my friends - and went to church, and had people who loved me there and thought that I was OK, and that actually, I think, did a lot for me - having other people, not my family, who accepted me for who I was).

Anyway, I hate to say it, but maybe the best defense against the sort of low-level bullying that happens all the time to kids is to help the bullied kids deal with it. Help them develop some kind of sense-of-self that includes a recognition that the bullies are revealing more about themselves than they are about the kid being bullied. And embracing the kid and including them in as many bully-free activities (like church activities were for me) as possible. I don't know.

And maybe telling them that as they grow up, things get better. For me, high school was WORLDS better than junior high - for one thing, my parents sent me to a private school, which got me away from the established cliques of the local school system, and for another, I found several people there that I became very good friends with and was able to kind of let some of the meanness that still existed from other people roll off my back better. And as an adult...well, I still deal with the occasional bully, but I'm a lot better at coping with it now, and I'm more likely to find other people I can share the "bullying incident" with and have them go, "Oh, that's just HIM. He just does that. It's stupid and it's wrong but it wasn't directed personally at you."

(And actually, maybe, if it's possible - I don't know if it is, given the level of emotional development of a 12 year old - helping bullied kids see that it's "not them" that it's the bully, and trying to help them learn not to take it personally. That would have helped me, because I took EVERYTHING personally when I was a kid)

(The main "bullies" I deal with now are people who try to intimidate me, or who will get what I interpret as "angry" with me over minor things that I don't really have control over - the sort of kill-the-messenger situation - and I admit, I have a hard time coping with that sometimes, at least, during the fact (after the fact I can go, "Wow, there's something screwed up in that person's psyche for them to react that way.") I admit in the face of the intimidating sort of person I kind of cower and often acquiesce to things I'd rather not to. Or, this past fall, I had someone actually almost make me cry in their office, simply because of how they reacted to me when I THOUGHT I was following the rules, and it turned out I actually was not following the "secret" rules this person had but had not publicized...)

But I don't know. I've actually said to my mom, "If I were married and had a kid, and if there were any way we could financially manage it...I'd homeschool." Because the thought of dealing with one of my offspring going through the same (and perhaps worse) as I went through in school...wow.

(While no one deserves bullying, I can kind of understand now why I might have been...I was kind of a little egghead and a teacher's pet. And when I think back about how I talked and wrote, I was actually kind of a little pedant...probably sort of tiresome at times. And I was, for a lot of the years of school, emotionally immature compared to my intellectual level (Well, heck: emotionally immature compared to a lot of the other kids). And that's a bad combination: egghead plus cries-at-the-drop-of-a-hat is pretty much a big flashing sign that says IT'S FUN FOR YOU TO TEASE ME on it.)

I do think the teasing/bullying had some good, some bad effects: in the good column, I think it did make me a more compassionate person, less prone to "pile on" and tease someone, especially if the reason they were being teased was something like a speech impediment or disability or it was a boy who was somewhat effeminate...something like that. And I think it made me someone who is better at observing and interpreting human behavior than I otherwise might be.

On the bad side: I think part of the reason I'm such an extreme introvert/near-hermit is that I just kind of burned out on the idea of close friends after having some of my friendly advances rejected at an earlier age. And I'm terrified of rejection...to the point where I will put up with things that I maybe shouldn't have to. (I think that's why I'm not very assertive, nor am I any good with confrontation: there's too much of a specter of the old "Yeah? Well, I won't be your FRIEND any more!" about confrontation)

I also admit, and maybe this is good/bad: I am still kind of pleasantly surprised when I find that people like me. I know, that's sort of sad...but I spent enough years in grade school feeling like everyone hated me, and thinking it was because there was something wrong or strange or bad about my personality (again with the taking it personally) that I find it kind of hard to accept that I am generally likeable. I began in high school to realize that - that a lot of people seem to like me for ME, and it's sort of an odd new realization (it still is, kind of.) So I suppose it's good, because I don't take being liked for granted, but it's not so good because I'm not sure it's good for me walking around thinking that the default setting for my life is people not liking me...and that also would make me pessimistic about human nature.

Malabrigo sock yarn

Malabrigo (a yarn company - they make yarn in a variety of weights, I know there's worsted, and sock, and lace weight) is very popular among many knitters.

And in this case (unlike some super-hot yarns that seem to trade more on their exclusivity and difficult-to-get qualities - or at least, the people who knit with them trade on those qualities), I think the popularity is justified.

The Malabrigo worsted weight is super soft and nice, and comes in pretty colors. I've never knit a big thing with it - it might pill a bit much for a sweater - but it's very nice.

I have some of the laceweight. I started a crocheted shawl with it but stalled out because big crochet hook + laceweight = not fun for me. (I may go back to it. Or I may decide instead to knit something with the laceweight. I find it easier to knit on super-small-diameter yarns than I do to crochet. Especially soft wooly yarns as opposed to the hard-finished crochet cotton).

But the sockweight. I had never tried the sockweight, then I bought a skein at Ewe Knit over Christmas. I finally got around to knitting up the yarn.

It's a really super-nice yarn. Expensive, but not as wildly expensive as some of the hand-dyed. This particular colorway - I forget the name, but the photo doesn't do it justice - it's like they took a bright jeweltones colorway and slightly overdyed it with a dark brown. There are flashes of purple and gold and green, but in a neutral background (so no one could accuse the colorway of being "clown barf," which is how some knitters deride the super-bright variegated sock yarns*)

It's really not unlike the iridescence you see on some beetles' backs, or the wings of butterflies, which makes it a pleasure to knit with - it doesn't really seem to flash or pool (though I can see, if I look closely, a band of purple running through this sock - it's just very, very subtle).

The yarn itself feels good to knit with: it's sufficiently tightly plied that you don't have to worry about splitting (and I think it will wear well) but it also has a silky quality to it (I think that's the merino wool in there) that makes it a pleasure to knit up. And I'm sure the finished socks will feel good on my feet.

I'm happy that this is a good yarn, and I have more of it - in a bright, slightly bluish-green, and also in a brick red. Which will eventually become socks. Maybe sooner than later because it knits up so nicely.



As I said, the photo here really doesn't do that coloration justice. Perhaps when I finish them I will have to put them on and go out in the sun and take an outdoor photo.

The pattern I'm using is from the Sock Club book; it's called Serendipity. It's a very easily memorized lace pattern, but it does give a bit of interest to the sock.

(*I don't like the term "clown barf," because, well, I don't like either clowns OR barf, and I DO like the super-bright variegated yarns. I'd never make myself a sweater of them, but I think for socks - or fingerless mitts, or even a hat - they are just fine, and there's something fun about that bright flash of color. Also, the whole "clown barf" appellation sounds kind of judgmental to me ("Bless her heart but she just doesn't have any fashion sense...") and I tend not to like people making judgments on something as minor as a person's choice of sock yarn color. But anyway....)

Tuesday morning random

Funny, Katie - I was just looking at the newest Vt. Country Store catalog last night, and the simple little knit dresses they had - green, red, or blue, with a white floral - and I thought, "That might almost work."

Though really these days, I like things a bit more fitted. (Actually, I suspect there are more mail-order places out there that have dresses; I just need to find ones with sufficiently good return policies so if I get the dress and find it doesn't fit right, I can send it back).

If I had a nearby friend who actually sewed, and whose time I felt comfortable making some minor demands on, I'd go out and buy a few dress patterns and ask her to help me fit them. But I don't quite know anyone like that here. Because once the fitting is done, I can pretty much manage on my own. (Though it helps to have a second person when it comes to hemming.)

I was also reading through the Real Simple that came over break, and they had some cute dresses in there....but at $450 as an average price, not something that's in my budget. (Also, it seems to me, as the price goes up on a line, the sizing options go down. "Zaftig Women Need Not Apply" and all that.)


***

Speaking of which, on the morning news, they were discussing some new "French" diet (basically a rework of the Atkins diet, it sounded like) and they noted Kate Middleton was on it.

Um. Wait. The pictures I've seen of her? She's (IMHO) sufficiently slender already.

They talked about it as if it were something she was doing as a "get ready for the wedding" thing. This is something I simply do not get - women going on diets (though this one seems less extreme than what I've seen some women do) before getting married. Because:

1. Isn't planning a wedding (and yeah, I know, Middleton won't really be planning anything...it's probably all already pre-ordained) stressful enough, without either walking around hungry a lot of the time or being mildly obsessed by food (which is what dieting seems to do to most people)?

2. I understand the thing about wanting to look "good" for photos, but don't you really more want photos that "look like" you? And if your natural tendency is to be, I don't know, 5' 4" and 145 pounds, won't ekeing yourself down to 115 or so make you look not-quite-like yourself, at least not the "yourself" when your weight goes back up to normal? (Because for most people who diet, it does, eventually, without some kind of eternal maintenance of the diet)

3. (I realize this is a pretty sexist reason but): Didn't they guy ALREADY say he wanted you in his life? I mean, if I had a boyfriend, and he said, "I'd love to marry you, just lose 40 pounds first," I'd have a few choice words for him and then be looking for a new boyfriend. I mean, it's one thing to want to lose the weight for health purposes (and yes, by the old insurance charts, I could stand to lose 40 pounds...though it's possible some of that is muscle), but it's another to be told by someone (who is not your doctor) to.

Also, for a lot of men? The super-skinny look doesn't seem to be that appealing. (Women tend to be far more tough on other women's appearance than men tend to be - and yes, one of the morning show people brought that up, to her credit).

But it just seems strange to me to go on a diet shortly before the wedding. Do it after the honeymoon, do it during the engagement - but during the crazy flurry leading up to the date, cut yourself some slack.

(The other thing I've seen about diets...and maybe some people on diets do go for this, because of the attention it gets them...it can lead to a certain amount of public martyrdom, where they sigh heavily and roll their eyes and go, "but you KNOW I CAN'T eat THAT!!!" or where they ask waiters endlessly detailed questions about what goes in the food and how it's prepared. People with real health concerns - like celiac or allergies - learn how to do that kind of thing unobtrusively, but I've been out to eat with some new dieters who seemed to want to make the whole meal about themselves and what they couldn't eat and how tortured they were by it, and it just sucked all the fun out of going out to eat.)

***

And yes, Diane Bish. I used to watch her show pretty regularly (one of the PBS channels where I lived used to run it around 1 pm on Sundays - so I would come home from church and put that on, and either watch it or have it on in the background while doing other things).

(I think she's still on, at least in re-runs? Maybe on EWTN?)

Also, the mother of one of my childhood friends was the organist at their church, and I remember she had her "organ shoes" - lower heel than what she usually wore, and also had a strap across the instep to be sure they stayed on. (And I seem to remember the recently-retired organist of my current church keeping a pair like that next to the organ, and changing out of her dressier shoes).

Actually, I suspect a lot of those super-high-heeled, not-easy-to-walk-in shoes are partly what some would call a "clothing semiotic" - kind of like the long fingernails supposedly cultured by the Mandarins (to indicate that they didn't need to do manual labor), fancy impractical shoes probably say, "I don't really need to walk very far; my main purpose in these is to be decorative." For those of us working Janes who are on our feet maybe 6 hours a day some days, we require shoes that will actually hold up to some wear, and won't become actively painful after a while. (And to think of it...I'm not sure how OK I would be with the idea of myself-as-purely-decorative-object. I've made a living by my brain for long enough to tend to think most of my value to society lies there. (And at any rate: beauty can fade but (barring any kind of horrible accident/disease) smart is pretty much lifelong.)

Besides, there's probably a point where as a lady-professor, you have to tone it down*. (I once had a student - and this was an entirely male class, so I know it was a guy writing it - on his anonymous evaluation comment, remark that he "loved" me, which made me go "eep" a little bit. Of course, "love" can mean a lot of things, and he (probably) meant it as he learned a lot in my class and thought I was intelligent and organized and he could learn well from me, but after getting that comment I admit that for quite a while I checked my dresses and blouses to make sure they didn't even approach being décolleté. (Not that they were to begin with).

(*Heh. Now I'm thinking of Novella D'Andrea and her veil (though a different source said she lectured "from behind a curtain" to avoid distracting her students).

My (tiny) pony

This is the first of the things I made over break. I remembered this time to bring the book (Crocheted Toys by Claire Garland). I had planned to do this over Christmas, carried the yarn up there with me...and forgot the book at home.

So I made the pony this time. It was a lot fiddlier to do than I anticipated, and also came out smaller. I used dk weight yarn as specified in the pattern (but did go down a hook size; I was concerned that an H hook - as specified - would make too loose a fabric and the stuffing would show through). Also, the pony came out a lot skinnier - more of a horse body shape than a colt - than the one pictured, but again, that might be the smaller hook and tighter tension.



I was never really a horse-crazy kid: for one thing, I grew up in town and only the "rich" kids had access to horses. And also, I admit, horses scared me just a little; I had read in a book we had ("Our animal friends at Maple Hill Farm" by the Provensons, which is a lovely book for a child who likes animals or is interested in farms) that you had to be careful around horses because they could inadvertently step on your feet - because they couldn't always see where you had your feet. Also, they were so big, compared to the animals I knew. (Then again, I was also afraid of a German Shepard on our street, but that was partly because he barked).

I was also just a bit too old for the first incarnation of the My Little Ponies craze. (Actually, a lot of the cool "popular" toys of the late 70s/early 80s came out just as I was a "bit too old" for them. The 1970s were, by and large, not a very good era for fun toys, IMHO. Other than Lego bricks and the Fisher-Price little people stuff...it was kind of a desert. I suppose that's another way Gen X got shafted; the oil embargoes raising the price of plastics, and also the fact that there were fewer of us than there were of the baby boomers, led to less innovation in toys. Oh, I guess there was Barbie in the 1970s, but I never found Barbie all that interesting...she seemed to me like the prissy girl who was afraid to DO anything because she'd muss her hair or get her clothes dirty. I was more interested in climbing trees and poking mud with sticks, so I mainly played with small plastic zoo animals (which could be taken outside and washed off if they got dirty) or with stuffed toy animals).

Come to think of it, if My Little Ponies had come out when I was 7 or 8, I might have gone for them. I don't know. Or I might have found them too cutesy and unrealistic. I had a few Breyer-type horses and generally enjoyed playing with them, though mainly it was pretending they were wild horses running out on the prairie than show horses getting saddled up to do jumps and things.

I probably would have liked a toy horse like this when I was a child, though.



I decided to name her Lavandula, kind of in the same vein as the unicorn I made (knitted, but also from a Claire Garland pattern) that I named Eglantine.

One of my favorite things about her horse/unicorn patterns - which, sadly, doesn't show up as well on Lavandula - is the knobby knees that are made by increasing and then decreasing.

****

Here is a photo of the new shoes. They're certainly well-made (by the SAS company, probably one of the few companies left that makes their shoes in the U.S.) but are perhaps a bit plain compared to some of the shoes out there.



Though really, they're not so bad. I could even wear them with dressy slacks if I wanted (and if I owned any really "dressy" slacks; I don't, at this point).



They have a low heel on them. Perfectly flat shoes don't seem to suit my feet any more (or perhaps flat shoes have less padding, and it's the effect of standing on tile-over-concrete floors for hours that makes my knees hurt). But I'm guessing more than 2" or so on heels, I just can't do, lest I "destroy" my ankles. (These shoes have about a 1" heel.) And I do still have a good pair of bone-colored sandals for the little summer dresses I wear.

(I went clothes shopping on break, too. I was disappointed, though. I really, really wanted to find one or two more pretty little summery dresses - because I do think one of the perks of being female, and being in a more "creative" field where you can dress pretty much as you please, is being able to wear pretty, preferably flowered, dresses in the summer. But nowhere I looked had them. Well, the J. Peterman catalog did - they had a cute tucked-front dress and what they called the "1947 dress" (based on the New Look silhouette, and believe me, I saw that dress and went, "WANT.") But J. Peterman is VERY expensive compared to my usual clothing budget, and also I'm unsure of their sizing...that's always a problem with mail-ordering clothes. (And neither of the colors of the 1947 dress would have been ideal for me - there was a darkish teal and also a brick-and-teal stripe, and I'd really rather have the dress in a nice clear blue, or blue-and-white print, or some kind of small floral)

I don't know. I might still break down and buy another Deva Lifewear dress. They're more hippieish than the chic J. Peterman styles, but I can buy three or four Deva Lifewear dresses for the cost of one J. Peterman. And I know they're well-made, and I know what size fits me in them.

The real solution would be to sew my own, because I could have just what I wanted, but the fitting issue always stymies me - I like my clothes to fit well, and when I lived with my parents, fitting a pattern was easy - I had my mom to help me try it out and also to offer pointers on what to do where (for example: I almost always had to make the sleeves wider. A lot of patterns are made for women with stick-insect arms, it seems). Perhaps someday I'll break down and get a dress form that is made to my size (or make one; there's a method you can use with duct tape, but then again, you need to have a willing accomplice or two to help) and I could fit onto that. (Or I could just break down and make muslins of everything I wanted to sew to try out the fitting...)

More break stuff

- I guess I ride the particular Amtrak route I take a lot, comparatively. It's funny, to walk into the dining car, and have the dining car LSA (who is usually the guy who's on the runs I take) greet me like an old friend. (Funny, but also kind of nice. Generally the people I run into who work Amtrak - at least, on the trains - are pretty nice to me. I don't know if they're just generally chosen for friendliness, or if it's because I tip and also don't do special-snowflake requests (or get upset if they're out of the thing I intended on ordering) or what, but it's sort of nice to have someone familiar serving me).

- Tons and tons of huge student-apartment complexes going up in my parents' town. I really think they have more housing capacity now than they have students, and I wonder what will happen if the supposed higher-education bubble-burst happens, and far fewer people attend college. Also, the campus is tearing down the old married-student housing (it was built in the 50s; some of my friends in grad school lived there and they referred to it as a 'crackerbox' but also didn't seem to think it was so bad given what rent was). They're replacing it with some kind of big new dorm. (Again: I wonder about the funding; Illinois is practically broke, from what I've heard).

- The Borders' in my parents' town closed. Closed fast - it looked like they were loading up the last stuff to take to another location when I was up there, so I didn't even get a last chance to look. It makes me kind of sad; as I said, I remember the old flagship Borders' in Ann Arbor, and it makes me sad to see them crashing and burning. (My dad blames Amazon and e-books but I suspect that maybe there's more involved that's hurting Borders; Barnes and Nobles still seems to be OK.)

- Speaking of e-books, given the supposed hipster penchant for "outdated" technology (like typewriters and vinyl records), I wonder if someday soon pulling out my Big Fat Train Reading Book will brand me as a "hipster." (E-books are okay, I guess, but I admit I still think I prefer ink-and-paper books.)

- I am envious of the choice and size of grocery stores my parents have in their town. (One of them - its produce department alone is almost as big as the entire little Green Spray). On the other hand, I definitely don't envy them the traffic they have to deal with.

- The last day I was up there, we had a little scare. Because of a recent electricity price increase, my parents have shifted to all cfl bulbs to try to save energy. They have a lot of recessed lighting and the bulbs for those are a cfl inside a glass "sheath" to make them look kind of like the "real" recessed lighting bulbs. Unfortunately, a lot of the cfl bulbs are kind of cheaply and badly made. One of the "sheaths" fell off of the bulb (the glue holding it on just let loose) and it crashed to the floor. I jumped up and moved back from the area fast. I thought the whole bulb had fallen - given the concerns about mercury in them, and the arduous clean-up and decontamination procedure - I had visions of having to abandon the knitting that I was doing at the time, as the ball of yarn was sitting close to where the sheath hit. But it turned out that the bulb itself was still in the socket - it was just the outer glass sheath that let go. (But still- if I had been right under it, I could have been cut). I really wish incandescents weren't being phased out in favor of cfls. I understand all the arguments and everything, but I find myself wanting to go to Congress and say, "If I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, to turn off all unused lights, and not use electricity wastefully, will you please still let me have incandescent bulbs?" (Though now I read that 3-way bulbs will not be phased out; good. That's what I use in my bedside reading lamp and I'd hate to have to replace that with a cfl. I am sure there are "good" cfls that are not yellowish or glare-y, but I haven't found them for sale anywhere nearby.

- I bought a pair of brown dress shoes (pictures, maybe, later.) They are fairly "PTA Mom" shoes but they fit, they are comfortable, and they shouldn't kill my ankles. (I admit, I was a bit taken aback - I went to one of the "healthy foot specialist" shoe shops. I had picked out a couple pairs to try, and when I tried one on, the woman helping me said, "You have very flat feet and you pronate terribly! Those shoes will destroy your ankles!" I admit I was a little taken aback - for one thing, I've been walking on these feet for just shy of 42 years (I think my mom said I walked at 9 months), so I KNOW they are flat, and I KNOW I pronate. (My reaction was not unlike what my reaction would be were someone to tell me I was fat - "Duh, I live with this body every day, how could you think I don't know?"). I realize she had my best interests at heart, though, and the shoes I had on at the moment really weren't comfortable - so I wound up with a different pair, still ones with a low heel (I've decided my knees don't like perfectly flat shoes). As I said, they're kind of Banker Lady or Suburban PTA Mom, but they're nice enough shoes.

I do wish sometimes I could wear the really outrageous shoes some women do, with super high pointy heels and stuff, but I also still want to be able to walk when I'm 70. So I go with the plainer, blander shoes. (Well, also, I'm cheap, and I buy maybe one pair of shoes a year, so they have to be (a) well-made ones that will last and (b) ones that will look good with a lot of things in my wardrobe). So no bright-yellow pumps or ladybug-bedecked shoes for me, I guess.

Back home again.

Break was much too short.

I spent one entire day working on income taxes. Although in the past I've always kind of looked at the paperwork and gone "Challenge...accepted" I think next year I may consider hiring someone. I'm getting tired of giving up an entire day of a too-short break to figure out the legalese on some of the more esoteric forms I have to fill out. (Also, I did a standard IRA to Roth conversion last year, so, ouch. I hope my financial advisor is right, that I will be happy for having done that later on.)

I also met with one of my dissertation-committee members; she is doing some research similar to some I've done down here and wanted a consult on techniques. And while I was over there, I popped in to say hi to my graduate advisor (who is now retired - but the department he was in has had such attrition - I think he said six tenure-track positions in the past few years - that there are enough offices for retirees to maintain one.) He's still got some projects going but lamented that not having students meant he did all the fieldwork himself. (Well, I do a lot of my fieldwork myself, but that's because I'm kind of a control freak and twitch if someone does something in a non-standard way, or if they're careless with the equipment or something).

Retirement must be weird. I can't quite feature NOT working. I like having time off - and as I said, this break seemed too short to me - but I can't see having every day off. I think I'd have to either continue research (if I were still sufficiently able-bodied to do so) or do volunteer work or SOMETHING. (I've contemplated the idea of getting the necessary training to do literacy work in retirement. Or do something like a chaplaincy somewhere. Maybe even have an entire second career, but one I don't necessarily need to do for the money)

I suppose you get trained, and it's hard to uncouple from work. (Then again, there'd be something to be said for having enough money - and having the necessary benefits planned out - so that you could say "Forget it" and walk away if one of your bosses just got too difficult to take, or if the rules became too draconian).

(Well, we'll see how this summer goes; I'm not teaching but am doing research and planning to revamp at least one of my classes. So I'll be in the office (or field) most days, but will be able to take full days off here and there as I see fit).

I finished reading "1066." It's funny how you don't really think about some historical events you learn about - the author made a considerable point of how William was coming in to a country that was resisting, rather than welcoming, to him, and how much carnage there was, and how disrupted life was in the British countryside after the invasion. (Many of the towns, the tax revenues they submitted were half or less of what they were before the invasion - suggesting that many people had died or left, and that the land was far, far less productive than it had been - and the peaceful (or so the author described it) world of English country life was much changed).

I also started reading "A Distant Mirror," which is appropriately (or I now think, halfway in) subtitled "The calamitous fourteenth century." For one thing, there was the Plague, which later led to want in some areas - because there were few left to farm the land in some places, there was near-famine. And the Plague recurred periodically - it would burn out for a while (especially in winters; fewer fleas, I suppose) and then flare up again. And of course, no one really knew the mode of transmission and there was no way to treat it...)

And life was pretty horrible for women in the lower nobility - your value was pretty much as either a sex-object or a bearer of children. And many of the nobles apparently beat their wives, and everyone looked the other way. (It seemed that peasant women actually fared better; in a sense they were more equal to their menfolk - they worked in the fields alongside them, got paid for their work (though less than a man would), and in some cases, even seemed to have somewhat happy marriages). "Courtly love," now that I know what it REALLY is, is kind of strange and disappointing: court marriages were for land and power, not for love...so "love" came in the form of adulterous affairs with knights. I admit it, I was kind of a ninny about the idea previously - but then, I had seen mostly the "sanitized" version in the bowdlerized fairy tales I read. I had pictured courtly love as sort of an elaborate crush, with the typical pining and sighing that crushes bring...but also, like many crushes, the fact that the object of the crush is unattainable (because, in courtly love, she was MARRIED, see?), they went unconsummated. Or maybe I - at 12, 13, and 14 - kind of overlaid my own way of thinking on the idea. (And yes, in a lot of cases, the unattainability is a feature of the crush - I think, in fact, if some of the chaps I had crushes on in those days had shown up on my doorstep and said, "I'm yours," I would have run away and hid. [Heck, even at my advanced age now - and yes, I still occasionally develop crushes - I would likely WANT to - if not in actual fact, did - run away and hide if the object of my crush happened to reveal an interest in me]. So I saw courtly love as something much more...chaste...than what it actually was.)

(So much about that era seems so contradictory. Adultery was a major sin, and yet, among the nobles, the Church apparently looked the other way. And it also makes you wonder how many of those "noble" youths were actually the sons of their mother's husbands...)

And you can see some of the roots (well, they had probably already been established during and after 1066) of the English - French hostilities. And the rise of anticlericalism in France - some of the priests and upper hierarchy were shockingly corrupt.

And there was just sort of a casual violence in everyday life that's kind of dismaying to read about. There were the Jacqueries, a peasant revolt that turned into a brutal, unconscionable slaughter (in one case, it's reported - and this may or may not have been embroidered truth - of a knight being roasted on a spit, and his lady being forced to eat of his flesh before she was violated and killed). Yes, the peasants had been badly treated, but the level of some of the atrocities to which they rose...

And then there were the "companies," apparently roving bands of unemployed mercenaries who brutalized the countryside, attacking pretty much anyone, burning crops, stealing what they could take, killing many people and in general committing pretty horrifying acts. (Tuchman says that some of the later "Crusades" - which were aimed not at the Middle East, but at "Christianizing" groups like the Hungarians - were a way of trying to move the "companies" away from the French countryside. They were still being brutal, but they were being brutal elsewhere...)

The "companies" had little respect for anything - they even slew people worshipping in church. (And yet - they either bullied or bribed priests into giving them Last Rites when they were close to death.)

As bad and as ugly as some aspects of the 20th and now, 21st, centuries are, still, the past was hardly a Golden Era - and I would dare to say, the 14th century was worse, in terms of widespread misery to all the "estates" (clergy, nobles, and working-class).

There were some bright spots - there were priests and monks who were good and holy men concerned more for the souls of those around them than for their own enrichment. And men - some nobles, some from the working-class, who distinguished themselves with what we would even now consider noble acts. And a few women...one (Christine de Pisan) was able to make her life as a writer (Tuchman quotes part of a poem she wrote shortly after her beloved husband's death) and another, Novella D'Andrea, who was a lecturer at an Italian university. (She was reportedly so beautiful that she wore a veil when she lectured - so that her (entirely male) classes would not be distracted by the sight of her. Funny, I think I'd find someone lecturing wearing a veil far, far more distracting than even the best-looking lecturer. But maybe the wearing of veils by women was more common in that era.)

That said, I can see why for so many of the lesser-noble women, becoming a nun would have had a certain attraction: true, you had to take a vow of poverty and could own no property, but generally in those days, I do not think women "owned" much more than the clothes on their backs, or at least, the men to whom they were tied could take her property if they needed the money or wanted to "punish" the woman. And you would be taken care of: meals, meager as they might be, would be provided, you'd have a roof over your head. You'd be freed from the worry and danger of childbearing - or the alternate worry, of what would become of you if you proved to be barren.

Also, as Tuchman points out, at least in those days, the contented rarely wrote of their lots in life - so we may get a "worse" picture of history, based on what is left to us. (But still: I am glad not to be living in the 14th century. The level of casual violence that seemed to happen, even among the supposed 'gentry,' rivals that of the worst gang violence today.)

I did also do some knitting...pictures will come later, when my camera has charged back up.

Quick sock note

Tat:

I prefer using double pointed needles. I usually use four, with a fifth needle to knit from, but for some patterns, it's easier to put all the instep stitches on a single needle (like, if it's a lace pattern), and then I use four needles.

I started knitting socks before the circular-needles method became popular, and I admit, while I use circulars for knitting sweaters and shawls, I'm a little resistant to buying a whole mess of small-sized circulars for socks, considering how many sock-sized (US 1 and 2) double pointed needles I have.

I also prefer to knit from the top down rather than from the toe up, but I want to try a new Veronik Avery toe-up pattern - hers involves a provisional cast on rather than the tight little "figure eight" cast-on I find so fiddly and difficult, and if her pattern works for me, I may do more toe-up socks.

(The benefits of toe-up: if you have limited yarn, you know you won't run out. And also, some stitch patterns look better from one direction than another)

earthquake in Japan

Woke up this morning to this news. (And immediately went to the television to check up on the news; the semi-local Morning Radio Know-Little was talking about how some astrologer was predicting that the moon's perigee was going to cause more of this, and he was acting - or maybe not acting - as if he didn't know the difference between an astrologer and an astronomer).

Wow. It's horrifying. I think 8.9 is about as big as they get - I think the earthquake that caused the 2004 tsunami was that great, but it was in the middle of the ocean. I saw some video with part of the tsunami (? I think) in Japan carrying debris that was on fire. Horrible. My thoughts and prayers are with the people in Japan.

Also, there are tsunami warnings posted for all of the Pacific area. I know (well, "know" through the Internet) people in Hawaii and the Philippines. It looks like, from their Twitter streams, the couple that draw Nemu-Nemu (see sidebar for link) are somewhere safe from the tsunami. Haven't heard from any of the Ravelers I "know." But I think, since 2004, people are more serious about tsunami warnings.

I will say if any of the world's countries can cope with the aftermath of a monster earthquake, Japan is one of them. They're well organized and with a history of earthquakes, they have good disaster preparedness. But I'm sure there's going to be a huge loss of life. (I think CNN was saying 100 people, just before I left the house, so far).

(ETA, about 8:30 here: I am now seeing reports of 300 dead, 300 some missing, possibly a city of many thousands totally gone. Obviously these numbers will change and only 100 dead was way optimistic to hope for.)

I've been in one (tiny - like, 4.5) earthquake in my life (when I lived in Ohio...the semi-recent OKC quake, we didn't even feel here). But of course, the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale, so magnitude 9 quake isn't 4 times more than a magnitude 5, it's 1,000,000 times more. (I think...it's still early for me and I don't always "brain so good" on the different logarithmic levels)

I wonder if the Pacific plate could be moving, and if the recent big Christchurch earthquake, and the ones happening in Chile are related...

It seems like we're in a more seismically active period right now - more earthquakes (more big earthquakes) than I remember hearing of in the past. (Or maybe that's an artifact of the 24-hour news cycle, but I kind of think it isn't.)

Approaching escape velocity

This time tomorrow night, if all goes as it should, I should be on a northbound train, either eating my dinner or just having finished it.

I am essentially all packed (have to add in the stuff like my hairbrush and vitamins and make-up and all that in the morning). I've got a lot of projects, probably more than I can even work on. But I always like having the luxury of choice, and if you're carrying a sock book with one pattern you are knitting on in it, it's minimal extra weight to put in the yarn and additional needles for another pair of socks in that book you want to start.

I decided on the book of 1920s mysteries (again, thank you, anonymous giver) and The Distant Mirror as reading. (And 1066, if I don't finish it tonight - I think I have about 60 pages left so I likely will not).

I did finish one thing this week - these are the Paton's Kroy FX socks that started out as a knit-and-read journal articles project:



The color is called "Cameo Colors." All the yarns in the line have some "C" name for the colorways: Copper colors for an orange mix, Cascade colors for a dark blue mix, and so on.

For a fairly inexpensive and widely-available (Hobby Lobby has it) yarn, it works up into a really nice fabric. The yarn is slightly heavier than standard sock weight - sort of between sock and sport - so it makes nice cushy socks. And I'm always a sucker for those sort of ombre color effects. (And this yarn is much more nicely behaved than the Mini Mochi or Poems Sock or Kureyon sock yarn. Maybe it's not as outrageous in its color shifts, but it's also far, far less splitty).

Fifty grams of this DOES have a shorter yardage (166 yards as opposed to the more typical 215 or so) than other 50 gram balls of sockyarn (probably because it's thicker), so longer or larger socks might require three skeins. Or socks knit in a more yardage-intensive pattern, like cables. (I wonder how cables would look in this...)

I have a bunch more of this in my stash - it was a combination of a good sale on it at Hobby Lobby, and me out doing some self-pity shopping, so I have the Clover Colors, and Copper Colors, and Cascade Colors, and I think Camo Colors (greens and greys) as well. So I can make myself more ombre-ing socks when I want to. (Though the copper colored one I have, that might wind up becoming a hat instead, I think that would look nice with my hair).

new cereal study

There's a new study out stating that children report liking a cereal better if it has a cartoon character on the box. Oddly, a lot of the online sources treat that like it's a huge fail, like it's all "LOOK HOW THEY BRAINWASH KIDS." I see how it could be a way to promote healthful cereal: slap a fun character on the box!

(And yes, I am one of those tiresome people who still makes the healthful/healthy distinction: food is healthful if it makes you healthy. But food cannot be healthy, unless you're talking about the plant or animal that it was produced from and its state-of-health before it became food)

In fact, I think they need to repeat this study with the healthful cereals that many adults buy. They could have Bugs Bunny's Bran Bits, and SpongeBob Seaweed Crunch (now with more crab chitin!). In fact, I think they must try that.

I know I would enjoy the wholegrain cereals I eat more if they had a funny cartoon character on the box. (And I'd enjoy them even more with a fun prize inside. Except few "kids'" cereals even do that any more. I think the last "prize" I saw was a coupon for a free educational smart-phone app being promoted as a fun prize . ("I say it's spinach, and to hell with it")

Hm. Maybe I could try making my own cartoon characters and taping them on the cereal boxes to see if I were any cheerier at 6:30 am gulping down my bowl of Cheerios or low-fat, low-sugar granola.

I could even laminate them for re-use.



****




This is something that makes me happy these days at lunch. I bought these partly in desperation - the cloth lunch-sack I had been using wasn't really that washable (you couldn't throw it into the machine, and surface-washing just didn't fix it) and it had gotten ickily stained from yogurt runoff. The nice thing about the bento boxes is that they're all washable, so no stains. I find that the square ones (with Tupperware like lids) are a lot better for stuff that is semi-liquidy like yogurt because they are less prone to leak. I ordered a couple of these from Superbuzzy, but the square ones came directly from Artemis (the company that apparently licenses these characters). Yes, they are juvenile themed. But they work so nicely, and they satisfy my need to keep separate food separate. And they're good for portion-control: the littlest box is just right for a single serving of fruit-and-nut trail mix, the second-smallest box holds the right amount of yogurt, I can just pop two small cookies into half of the heart-shaped box. I don't carry all of them every day, just grab the ones that I need for the foods I'm taking.

Part of the reason I like them is the super-earnest, not-quite-native-speaker English phrases on the boxes. ("Tea full of love just for you")

And you know what: plain lowfat yogurt DOES taste better eaten out of a little square box with an elephant on the lid, than it did eaten out of a plain plastic "Ball" freezer container.

I do need to work out some way to either link them all together with elastics, or make a (washable!) bag that I can carry all of them in - I think one of my Aranzi Aronzo books has instructions on making a drawstring bag to carry bento boxes in.

I also have a new-ish Hello Kitty Sigg bottle to carry my water in.

Perhaps this is my form of a midlife crisis: beginning to carry juvenile-themed lunch kits and not really caring what anyone thinks. If so, it's about par for the course for other life-transitions for me: weird, and not quite like other people's.

Break sneaks up

Oh hey, next week is my spring break.

Like Thanksgiving, this break sneaks up on me - it's mid-semester, it's all WORKWORKWORKWORK and then realize, uh-oh, I have to get to the post office to get my mail held. And do laundry early this week. And pack. (And this go-round: remember to gather up all my tax documents; spring break is when I do my taxes*)

(*I guess the apple does not fall far from the tree. I remember many years - the local public schools where I grew up followed the same schedule as the university where my dad taught - of my brother and me having to tiptoe around while he worked on them. And I remember one year we didn't go on the usual Spring Break trip because one of the places he had to get paperwork from didn't get it to him early enough.)

So I also want to think about projects. I never have as much time over Spring Break as I think (Well, I never have as much time over any break as I think I will). I am going to take the socks-on-the-needles (neither one ever photographed yet because they are both just begun). One of them is a Nancy Bush pattern (ravelry link to them - not a particularly revealing photo, though) and the other pair is a pair of Serendipity Socks (a photo of someone else's pair is here).

I'm using a long-in-the-stash Alpaca Sox yarn for the Elegant socks, and some Malabrigo sockweight for the Serendipity socks.

I also think that THIS TIME I am going to remember both the book and the yarn for the crocheted pony that I wanted to make over Christmas break, then found I had forgot the book at home, which meant a trip out to the library in the (ultimately dashed) hope that they'd have the book.

Not sure what else I'll take. More sock yarn? Maybe wind off the green yarn I bought over my birthday weekend and take the Genmaicha pattern I bought to make out of it?

As for books, I'm trying to finish "1066" (I'm close to done) so I can start something new (maybe re-start A Distant Mirror, which is kinda-sorta about the same era (Well, 400 or so years later, but it might as well be the same era, for all I know about it. Most of the history I learned in school started around Shakespeare. And an aside: Enguerrand the 7th, referenced heavily in that book, was also briefly mentioned by Martin Prince in an episode of The Simpsons - I think it was the one where they were trying to set up a mock-medieval society. I saw that in re-runs after starting the book for the first time and I laughed because then I got the reference.)

Also, I got another gift book (I can only assume it to be such, as I did not order it) - The Mammoth Book of Roaring 20s Whodunits showed up in my mailbox yesterday. There was no note of who might have sent it (the Amazon associates seem not to do that) so I really don't know who sent it. Whoever it was, thank you. I may well take it with me on break because those kind of short stories are perfect train-reading.

Reading older cookbooks

I have a pretty large collection of cookbooks. Some of them I rarely cook from, some of them I just use for a single recipe. (I suppose the anti-clutter advocates would tell me to hand copy that recipe and dump the book).

I like looking at them, though, even if I rarely cook from most of them (There really are, I think, about five cookbooks I have, that I use regularly - Jane Doerfer's "Going Solo in the Kitchen" is one, The Settlement Cook Book is another, "Help, My Apartment has a Kitchen" (as much of a basic bachelor-feed-thyself book as that is, it does have some good small-quantity recipes).

I was looking at the "Williamsburg Cookbook" last night. (This is one of the cookbooks my mother owns a copy of, and when I found one in a used book store - for $3, no less - I decided I wanted my own).

One thing that strikes me about cookbooks from the 60s, 70s, and modern cookbooks: the differences in the style of photography. Some of the 60s era cookbooks I own (a number of the Farm Journal cookbooks, and also the Betty Crocker "Cooking for Two" and "Good and Easy" cookbooks) tend to have very bright pictures (almost lurid colors, in some of them) of the food on a plate in some kind of place-setting. (A lot of times the place setting is "themed" - fishing nets draped on the table for a fish dish, bright colors and juvenile dishes for something for a child's birthday party). The focus is on the food but the place settings and background are there. (It's actually kind of interesting, from a semi-historical standpoint: did people really have that bright of decorations in their houses?).

In the 1970s era books, the Americana theme seems to be pretty prevalent (my own family, when I was growing up, had sort of Americana decor. I think it was a Bicentennial-consciousness thing, though, as I remember, the Americana trend started before the Bicentennial). I have an old Joys of Jell-o book that has some pretty spectacular examples. Much larger motifs and much brighter colors than what we had as decor, but a similar feel. (I find it oddly comforting to look at that book; I can remember how the house I grew up in used to be decorated, with the blue-and-white mock-Delft-tile wallpaper in the kitchen, and the paneled family room...). Also, a difference in the 1970s cookbooks I own: there are people in the photographs. In the earlier cookbooks with photos, the photos are close-ups of the food. In the 1970s books - the aforementioned Jell-o book, and also the Williamsburg book - there are people. In the Jell-o book, it is mainly "family" pictures, of them sitting around a table, grinning at the jell-o dessert they are about to eat. Or a couple dressed in the height of 1970s chic arriving at the front door of a house for a potluck, with a gelatin salad in tow. The Williamsburg book's photos mainly feature the costumed docents (or re-enactors, or whatever you want to call them), but a few photos - I think from the more-modern "Motor Lodge" (I was to Williamsburg only once in my life, and then only for a couple days, but I remember the Motor Lodge). Anyway, the photo is ostensibly of a New Year's Eve party, and the women are in maxidresses.

Heh. Maxidresses. I just BARELY remember that phase (and was not old enough to wear one, myself). It's funny how a certain thing can take you back; those women in maxidresses made me think of the "entertaining" (dinner parties, more or less) that my parents used to do when I was a kid...how my brother and I were allowed to "meet" the guests but then sent up to bed while they were having dinner (we had, of course, eaten our own dinners in the kitchen much earlier).

And again: that's one of the images I got of adulthood as a child, that sort of stuck with me. That you "entertained" by having people over for dinner. I've never actually done that (unless you count the time I bought barbecue for all the people who helped me move into my house). I think it's one of the things that makes me wonder in the back of my head if I'm really a "proper" grown-up; there are so many things my parents did as "grown ups" in the 1970s that I don't do - but some of them are things that few people seem to do any more (Do people still DO dinner parties? I mean, real formal ones with the "good china" and a carefully planned menu and all of that? Part of the whole "entertaining" thing, I think, was probably that my father was a low-level college admin in those days (Coordinator of Research) and it was probably kind of "expected")

Still, I think if my circumstances were different (bigger dining room, more free time, actually owning "good china") it might be fun. I know for a while my brother and sister in law were part of a "dinner group" that rotated between different people's houses, but it was a lot more casual and the meals were things like spaghetti or make-your-own sandwiches.

I don't know. It's fun, though, to look at the cookbooks and think about how things used to be done, and about some kind of alternate-universe version where maybe I WOULD be hosting dinner parties (though it's probably a lot easier with a spouse to set the table and wash the salad while you work on the main dish).

Incidentally, the Willamsburg cookbook is still in print

And the contemporary cookbooks, the photography is back focusing on the food - but in a lot of the ones I've seen, it's very minimal; the food is on a white background or very plain dishes. Rather than setting up some fantasy of serving a 'themed' meal to the family or something, it seems like the food is the ONLY important thing - like it is food portraiture, rather than helpful photos to inspire "serving suggestions" (as they say on the boxes of food in the store). Food "cheesecake shots"? (I will not use the term "porn" in conjunction with food; it seems that our society is all too good at giving moral value to food, which is morally neutral. And usually the moral value is given in such a way that the food is seen as "bad," somehow. Or "virtuous," but that's often reserved for food that is very much in its state-of-nature - and you don't need a cookbook to deal with raw broccoli.)

(Edited to add: the irony is not lost on me that I happen to be posting about cooking, cookbooks, and entertaining - all traditionally "women's" domain - on International Women's Day. What can I say? I don't think there's ANYTHING wrong with cooking or entertaining if you enjoy it. I love to cook, myself, and it frustrates me when I - occasionally, still - hear people go on about how it's somehow antifeminist to enjoy domestic things. What I would argue is antifeminist is telling other women how they should live their lives, whether that's telling them not to work outside the home or telling them not to enjoy nurturing themselves and others...)