April 22, 2008

A (new definition of a) Successful Day

Posted new Module for students in Intro to College Writing course.

Vacuumed both the floor and ceiling of the dining room.

Vacuumed the carpet in the living room.

Vacuumed the floor in the kitchen.

Did "some" laundry.

Put on "out of the house" clothes and walked down the street to the big pond and back. It seemed like a long walk (it's really the warm-up of the walk I used to be able to do every day).

Did Physical Therapy exercises (with only a minimum of vocal accompaniment and few cuss words).

Found updated assignment sheets for Analytical Writing class I was sure I had done but couldn't find this morning, thus eliminating hours of new assignment development and writing.

Posted aforementioned updated assignments.

Discovered chicken in the freezer suitable for the grill and sufficient vegetables for the salad, eliminating the need to enter The Vehicle with the Broken Air Conditioner this afternoon.

Watered the daylilys that are still in their pots from last spring, which miraculously survived the winter in those pots in the shed and are already growing for the summer to come.

Some work, some therapy, some progress, and some wonder. A successful day.


Posted by cageyer at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Before you know it...

It's a beautiful, nearly perfect spring day. Clear blue skies, sunshine, 50-ish degrees and hardly any breeze. So there I was, sitting outside on the deck in a t-shirt, doing a little reading on African American rhetoric, and before you know it I was completely distracted by a small bird feathering a nest he built in the rafters of the arbor.

And then before you know it I have a rake in my hand, and then a wheelbarrow emerges from the shed, and leaves are being cleared from garden beds and fence gates and other winter gathering spots, and before you know it I'm out behind the fence, tidying up the now dead stalks leaning over said fence with no bugs to assault me in my efforts, and before you know it the whole line of the back fence looks changed, and the burn pile looks much bigger, and the tarp is off the compost heap, and green things are spotted throughout the several gardens.

And before you know it, I've done more than I should have, and it will hurt, but what a great way to overstress the back. A marvelous, delightful spring afternoon.

Posted by cageyer at 08:16 PM | Comments (1)

March 03, 2008

tying my shoes...

Yesterday, I could sit in a chair, bend over my knees, and with both hands, tie my shoes.

Today, for the first time in 34 days, I could bend over enough in the shower to wrap a towel around my hair.

We won't talk about how many pain pills it is taking to accomplish this. We will only record these small victories on the road to better-ness.

Posted by cageyer at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2008

New Year's non-resolutions, or something like that

I am not one to make New Year's Resolutions. If I'm going to "resolve" to change things in my life on any sort of wide-scale, reflective response basis, it is usually at my birthday, when spring is inspirational, or in September, which will always seem like the more logical beginning of the year. So what follows here are decidedly not New Year's Resolutions, but rather a public declaration of things I'd like to improve as the year goes by:

In my former life, these would be called "wishes" more than "goals" because they are not specific, not measurable, and not broken down into daily to-do components. Right. That's the idea. Because if I've learned nothing else in graduate school, I've learned that I can only control certain things, and the rest of what happens has a lot to do with other people, and how I respond to those other people. But if everyday I can remind myself that I'd like to have more good days than not when this year is over, the rest will be manageable.

Posted by cageyer at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2008

A New Year's Blessing

I received this as a forward and it seemed so appropriate for the year to come that I offer it here as my New Year's blessing for all of you.


My Wish for You in 2008

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet of $100 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.
May the problems you had forget your home address!
In simple words ............

May you find reasons to be happy every day in the year ahead.

Posted by cageyer at 08:45 PM | Comments (1)

May 08, 2007

Clean house

For the first time since we moved here last summer, this house is clean. (Well, okay, not the entire house, because I still haven't ventured to the basement to make sense of that space, and I'm still ignoring the god-awful blue bathtub with the cheap-o shower doors that all look like soap scum was their primary decoration). We had a lovely birthday party here on Sunday for GR's youngest, and we needed to clean. So here's how I spent the end of last week, right up to the hours before the party:

Vacuum the living room carpet.
Shampoo the living room carpet.
Sprinkle living room carpet with copious amounts of baking soda to relieve odor of wet carpet smelling vaguely of wet dog.
Vacuum living room carpet again.
Vacuum the rest of the main floor.
Wash all the hardwoods on the main floor (first time since moving in - what a relief that is!)
Clear and clean the spiffy new countertops in the kitchen.
Clean the stove.
Run the stove-top grates and the floor cleaner parts through the super-wombat power cycle of the dishwasher. Express dismay when they come out as if they hadn't been washed and super-spiffy dishwasher doesn't appear to have functioned correctly.
Clean the bathroom.
Clean all the windows on the main living floor. Notice that despite wearing my arm out, they are still full of streaks the sun magnifies by 100.
Do laundry. Actually put laundry away.
Wash dog beds.
Clean up guest bedroom after last month's sleepover.
Dust amazingly dusty surfaces in the bedroom.
Wash interior glass surfaces. Notice that when the sun hits them, they look worse than before I started. Reconsider the cleaning solution.
Mow the lawn, using bagger to avoid grass clippings tracked into house during party. Haul very heavy bag full of grass to back fence multiple times.

This list doesn't count the stuff GR did during the same period.

But! and this is a valuable but - the house is clean. It now requires continual upkeep, but at least that daunting task of getting it done after so many months of neglecting it for other things is now behind. Just in time for spring.

Sigh.... spring. Catch it while it's here, cuz as we know it won't last long.

Posted by cageyer at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2006

meanwhile, out west...

Wondering where the usual Syracuse weather went as we enjoyed another balmy nearly 60 degree day? It went here.

Check out the "nightmare commute" pictures here. Midnight - these pictures are from midnight!

Incredible. Especially in November.

Posted by cageyer at 06:35 PM | Comments (1)

October 31, 2006

I bet you didn't know...

How cool is it to be tagged! Wheee!

Okay - 5 things I bet you didn't know about me:

1. The reason all things Pooh is my general theme is because when I was a little girl, my dad often called me "poohbear".

2. I really love children, especially those under the age of 5. And I am incredibly partial to those under the age of 8 months. And I've been told I'm very good with them. When I was growing up, my favorite doll wasn't any of my Barbie collection (which was significant) - it was my Madame Alexander "Pumpkin" doll. I took her everywhere for a couple of years.

3. I self-identify as (in this order): Christian, Conservative, Republican. I hate the requirement on the average standard form that requires me to identify as DWF or anything similar, especially the D part. (oh, and in case you're concerned: I didn't vote for GWB in either of his "elections". In 2000, I voted for the Libertarian candidate, I think. In 2004, I voted for Kerry/Edwards - the first time I ever voted for a Democrat for president. I'd do it again, if he/they ran again).

4. I learned to read at the age of 2. I have read voraciously ever since, until graduate school came along and damn near spoiled it for me. I love all kinds of genres, but I never got into fantasy.

5. I play the piano, the clarinet, the flute, the piccolo, and the french horn. None of them well, anymore, but the clarinet and piccolo once good enough for marching band (a favorite time in my life), piano well enough, once, to accompany the choir in the spring concert (yes, I have a recording), and the flute well enough, once, to play at a wedding.

My turn to tag: tyratae, m2h blogging, SailRunClimbRide, Red Pill Diaries, and penn (all of whom I hope are actually reading this blog).

Posted by cageyer at 07:24 PM | Comments (2)

October 19, 2006

Of disjointedness

Imagine my surprise on opening my own blog this morning and finding that my last post was over six weeks ago. Where did that time go? The semester is half over, I have a whole stack of things I've been meaning to post about, and suddenly they all seem too old to bother.

We moved, you know, over the summer, and we still aren't all moved in, and particularly not the space I now laughingly refer to as my office. The closest I am to feeling organized in any category is one shelf where the books I've read in preparation for the Major Exam are on one end and the books waiting to be read are at the other end.

I'm off next week to a conference - Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS). Originally, I was going to be part of a panel with a former instructor/friend and a friend of hers, but now we're each on different panels, so that's a little disjointed. And frankly, even though the conference is at Pepperdine, at Malibu, I wouldn't have gone if not for the idea of this panel. So while I'm looking forward to the beach and the ocean, I'm dreading the trip in general.

The whole idea of travel by air has lost its appeal for me. It's so damn hard to get to anywhere from Syracuse, and worse to get back because of the few airlines continued insistence in overbooking flights from anywhere to here. Almost anywhere I want/need to go involves a connection and a minimum 2.5 hour layover - wasting all kinds of time in places not conducive to work or study. I became aware, since becoming a student, of just how many public places have piped in music, or television. There is almost nowhere to go that is quiet enough for concentrated study.

I used to love to travel. Loved the adventure of air travel, of seeing all parts of the country. These days, I find myself really enjoying having both feet on the ground, except when four wheels are involved.

This is a paradox for me. I'm traveling to the NCA conference in San Antonio next month, a place I love and a conference I really want to attend but another trip by air that I'm dreading. All the new restrictions, the constant overcrowding, the long lines and wasted hours around the trip have really gotten to me. So now, I find myself deciding that I don't want to apply to any conference I can't drive to, which, as you might guess, really limits my choices, which is not so great for the whole cv building game we graduate students are expected to play.

I can't decide if this is just third-year-itis, or if it's just because I can't seem to get a grip on my surroundings, or what.

Posted by cageyer at 11:21 AM | Comments (1)

June 24, 2006

Diggin' in the dirt...

Today was my first day working at Grindstone Farm, the organic farm that provides the produce for the Community Supported Agriculture of Central York pod program. At the beginning of the season, share partner Kelly R. and I enrolled for a working share. What this means is that we agreed to work a minimum of 20 hours over the course of the 20 week season in blocks of at least 4 hours at the farm, doing whatever farm chores were required that day: weeding, picking, planting, etc.

On the Saturday after I returned from Florida, I drove north toward Pulaski to Tinker Tavern Road and my first encounter with Grindstone Farm. What an awesome place it is! Not just fields, though they are sooo cool to see, but also woods and a pond and a great and old blueberry field. Yippee! Walking through the woods on the way to the blueberry field that morning reminded me so much of walking in the woods back home in western Washington that I grinned all morning. It was a cool damp morning, and it was just fabulous.

So today I made the trip again, a quiet serene drive north on 81 with little traffic and the same sense of ease and contentment I felt on the open road last summer. The city and its commercial suburbs gradually gave way to the farm and pasture lands of the rural north country, and there were few other drivers venturing about at that hour.

Todays chores began with hand weeding a shallot field. I put on my invincible floppy hat, and my as yet unused spiffy new Atlas Glove Original Nitrile Touch gloves I got for Christmas and set about the task. Diggin' in the dirt. Diggin' and scratchin' and pullin' up weeds without disturbing the plants. Coooooool. There were seven of us altogether this morning, and we finished the shallot field in a little over 2 hours. It was gratifying to look behind myself in the rows and see nice clean rows of shallot plants with no weeds. There is a surprising sense of victory in that. The gloves are awesome. They fit close and stretchy, cuz they're thin knit, but are tough because of the nitrile coating. Weeding with them was almost like using bare hands, but better. The fit was great, the flexibility wonderful, and the best part was my hands emerged pretty clean afterwards.

On to the tomato field, where we hoed the weeds from between the plants. We only got about half the field done before the workday was over, but even that was satisying. Note to self, though: take my own hoe. The one I tried to use today was too short and a bit dull. Hard on the back.

I'd almost forgotten how good gardening is for my soul. Stephen Covey, in his famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and all its related books and planning tools, emphasises over and over the need to take time to sharpen the saw. That's what gardening does for me in a way nothing else I know does. It sharpens my saw. I'd almost forgotten.

I am so glad I joined the CSA-CNY program, so thankful to Kelly for agreeing to share a share with me, and so happy we chose the workshare option. I've been interested in CSA since before I left Seattle, but never found one or really got connected until now. Everyone should consider joining CSA-CNY. Not only is the produce just incredible, it's just logical to support a local farmer willing to work to keep an organic farm (not easy) and provide deliveries each week by subscription. The farm is good for the community, however widely you draw that circle.

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to sustain a farm. I'm proud to be a part of it.

Posted by cageyer at 01:47 PM | Comments (1)

June 23, 2006

Mi Casa esta.....

way, way cool!

As you may know if you are a fan of GR's blog, we have a new home!

GR put together a lovely set of photos from our two visits there. The second visit included his family, so there are some great shots of Carter enjoying the toys of the current owners (we don't know if the backyard apparatus stays or not...). The link gives you all the thumbnails together. You can click on any one of them for a larger view, and then it becomes a slide show if you like.

We expect to be moving the end of July. I can't even tell you how cool this house is. And the yard... oh a happy gardener am I.

Posted by cageyer at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2006

And there was much sorrow in the land....

It was with great sadness that I read the notice this morning that La Tazza, the small, elegant and wonderful coffee house started by Mike and Susan last year that quickly became a favorite place to work, read, meet and otherwise feel comfortable, will be closing its doors on June 30.

Once again the SU Hill community has failed. Failed to support a locally owned small business. Failed to appreciate the availability of organic and fair trade items of refreshment, failed to sustain something wonderful.

And the people laid down and were very grieved.

Posted by cageyer at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2006

Kaleidoscope

GR's younger daughter is a senior at West Genessee High School, where I must say they are justifiably proud of their music program. Thursday they presented their 31st annual Kaleidoscope performance. I was very impressed, both with the orchestration of the event and the talent of these many high school artists.

West Genee has a music department staff that is larger than the entire music staff of the school district where I went to school. 26 for band, strings, vocals, and general music, plus another 12 for visual arts, 1 for dance, and a dedicated secretary. Wow. The school has a much-honored marching band, but also has a concert band, orchestra, symphony (amazingly large for a single high school), plus wind ensemble and jazz ensemble.They have a concert choir, chorus, and chorale, and both intermediate dance and dance ensemble. These details seem important to me because I've never seen a high school with such a large or diverse music program.

And, while I'm being impressed, these young people are amazingly talented. It was hard to believe, sitting there listening, that these were not professional groups.

The Kaleidoscope effect was brilliant. The program made great use of the Civic Auditorium's main stage, rising stage, alcoves and balcony alcoves to present the various parts in a seamless (if sometimes slow to transition) presentation, blended together and moving audience attention from one part of the room to the other. Good, crisp finishes by the groups using a freeze-frame technique gave the whole program that extra snap.

It's not often that a school performance impresses me. This one really did, so I thought I'd share it.

Posted by cageyer at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)

April 08, 2006

Too many

Maybe it's because I really believe it's going to be spring now, or maybe it's because I feel my life focus changing in a significant way, but right now I feel encumbered with an overwhelming sense of too many.

Too many clothes I don't (or can't) wear.

Too many books I haven't read, don't have time to read, but can't bring myself to part with.

Too many papers unwritten.

Too many books on too many reading lists that I can never hope to do justice to.

Too many ideas about what might be possible in the two-three years ahead.

Too many discouragements about life's realities (not the least of which was the $.10 per gallon increase in the price of gas overnight yesterday).

Too many bills, too many looming expenses, too many things I don't have the money for.

Too many times I want to sit down and write, and too few spaces (mentally and physically) to do so.

I've never been much of a minimalist, but right now I have a strong desire for a nearly empty closet, a few sparsely populated drawers, and large open space with select pieces of furniture, a modestly stocked pantry and a nearly empty refrigerator. In a former life community I inhabited, we called such a lifestyle "traveling light" - as in: if you want to travel fast and far you have to travel light. I guess I've got a travel itch, cuz I really want to lighten up.

Posted by cageyer at 11:38 AM | Comments (1)

April 03, 2006

45?! Nuh-uh.

Well, yeah, it's true. I'm 45 years old today. Who'd have thought I'd ever be this old? (not me, that's for certain).

I spent a whole lot of my life never getting past 18 - not in the sense of party-girl or teenage slacker or anything like that, but rather never living up to my potential, always feeling like I had never finished growing up, never felt like I had the authorization to be the success my abilities suggested (or screamed, depending on the day) I should be. Part of that was dropping out of college the first time. Part of it was never going back. Part of it was just never choosing it, never daring to step out, to see myself as more and better.

So nine years ago today I decided to do whatever I had to do to get back to college. I never imagined that decision would bring me here. And but for certain people, and a certain class that began on my birthday seven years ago, it wouldn't have. In those years, I have finally learned to see myself as a grown up, finally been able to come to grips with being childless, even when so many of my colleagues are either new parents (scroll down a bit to see pictures of the little cutie) or parents-in-waiting (though they have experience with son Ph), finally able to understand that the friends I make here do not make me, and when they or I leave here we may or may not continue and that's okay, finally able to look out to the future and not feel like there's a huge gap in my life, my soul, of unaccomplished goals.

I thought I knew back then how much college meant to me. I know now that I didn't really know. And every day, when this PhD program seems interminable, and living poor grinds on me, and I can't get my head, act, or words together, I remember that for the first time I am choosing, that I have selected the career for the second half of my life, and all that I invest in it will be worth it -- or I'll leave it, too, with no regrets. I will have done the thing that mattered the most to me, and when the next thing that matters the most comes along, I won't be afraid to pursue it.

And that is probably the best present of all. Happy birthday to me.

Posted by cageyer at 09:35 PM | Comments (4)

March 01, 2006

Hail to the Caregivers

Today is all about getting reacquainted with my computer after a near week at my mother's house and a day or catching up. Mom lives in Sun City, Arizona and has been providing at home care for her husband, who is significantly older and in failing health, for several months now. There's a lot to that story, but it's probably boring for most who aren't actually part of it, so I'll skip to the larger social issues.

Of all places in the country, one would think that the greater Phoenix area would be awash in services for the elderly. And while there are some, there aren't nearly as many as I expected. So arranging to have help at home, even just to try and hire a maid service, has been difficult. There is a growing number of assisted living type facilities, but still very few custodial centers. Those facilities that are available are run by large corporations, and I know from prior work that those corporations are now and will be in the future very profitable. Still, they are corporations - businesses - and they run along business models. It costs money to be there, the staff aren't sharing equally in the financial success of the facility, many of the residents don't have someone watching out for them to be sure they are treated well, etc. These facilities are designed for people who can still largely take care of themselves and perform most of the Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) on their own. But as folks get older, as various and sundry ailments take over and diminish the capacity to function or perform the ADLs, then what? Very few places are set up to care for this segment of the population, leaving the two choices of paid in-home care, and the much more prevalent informal in-home care provided unpaid by stressed out family members trying to balance that care with a job or raising a family or both. This is a big problem in society that is still mostly hidden but really needs to come out and be the subject of a wider discussion.

Most seniors don't have the kind of assets to buy in-home care. It costs $10 per hour during the daytime, $17 an hour for nights - or at least it does in Sun City. Do some quick math and you find this service weighs in at around $3,000 per WEEK. Medicare does NOT cover this kind of care. Only Long Term Care Insurance will, and then only part of it. Even if one has money, it doesn't take long to completely deplete a lifetime of savings at that rate of expense.

The implications across our society and economy are huge and disturbing. Last week, there was a report speculating that by 2015 (that's less than 10 years from now) health care costs will account for as much at 20% of our total Gross Domestic Product. $1 in every $5 will be spent on health care services. 1 in 5. How long can we do that?

The baby boomers - the group that begins with those born in 1945, begin to be eligible for Medicare in 2010. Groups like AARP have been trying to years to educate the pre-retirement set about the kinds of care Medicare does not provide. And still not enough people have Long Term Care insurance, which like most other insurance, is one you can't buy once you need it. You have to buy it early and carry it a long time. It provides at least some financial assistance for either institutional or at-home care.

But the fact is that as long as we as a society are loathe to allow the life cycle to come to its natural end without medical intervention, we will have a ever-large percentage of our population consuming large dollar amounts worth of medical care and related care services with no real restorative effect. It's long past time we came to grips with this contradiction and started providing for it, planning for it, and having mechanisms in place to care for the elderly who can no longer care for themselves. It's time we educate mid-lifers to anticipate spending their final years somewhere other than in their own homes. Time we started to really develop well-trained and well-paid caregivers so that we can feel good about entrusting our parents to them (this argument parallels nearly exactly the need to better pay our teachers so we can entrust our children to them... another post).

Fortunately for my mom, she now has a rotating group of in-home caregivers, both to just be with her husband so she can move about the house and do things, or leave the house to do things, or just get some sleep, and to help with light housekeeping chores. It's those people I want to salute in this message. So here's to Dan, and Don, and Luce, and most of all, Magda, for choosing this line of work, for your patience, your cheerfulness, and your help. Thank you. And to all the caregivers out there who toil without notice, without pay, without appreciation or recognition, a shout-out to you. Make your work known, and know that some of us out here do understand how hard it is, how much you give up to do it, and how important you are.

Posted by cageyer at 09:40 AM | Comments (1)

January 11, 2006

Six Degrees of Michael Stipe

And now a word from the Department of How Could You Have Missed This?:

Michael Stipe, as many more tuned in people know, is the lead singer of R.E.M., whose song Losing My Religion is one of my soul-striking favorites. I only learned this recently - his name I mean, since although I loved the song I knew nothing about the band. So yesterday, I was reading an old edition of The New Yorker and I found a many-full page spread about a Sundance series called Iconoclasts. One of the six parts features Mario Batali on - you guessed it - Michael Stipe. The ad described Michael as a friend of Batali, among other things, and shows the two holding hands.

So now, with this one connection to one of my favorite Food Netword chefs, I start to do some browsing. I find all these fascinating connections (in addition to Batali):

1. Kurt Cobain
2. Alton Brown
3. Natalie Merchant
4. Coldplay
5. Being John Malkovich

I'm off to go re-read Duncan Watts. I think I've missed many more things than just this.

Posted by cageyer at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2005

Observations and Lessons

Observations:
When the snow comes, especially when it sticks to the pavement and covers the stripes that define parking spaces (what an odd concept anyway, really), drivers determine for themselves what a comfrotable distance is from the next car over. Not surprisingly, this is about half a space more than the striping allows. Isn't it stupid that cars are still getting bigger and parking spaces are getting smaller? I think there's a story in that somewhere.

Shopping, particularly holiday shopping, is a strange and bizarre social activity. Reports of traffic back-ups along major arterials because the very large parking lot is already full to the brim, check-out lines snaking through the stores (or in the case of the small little Apple store at Carousel Centre, out the door and into the mall aisle), ten check-out aisles at the liquor store in Buffalo and a cop directing traffic in the parking lot - it's madness. And then after the holiday, the crowds still come. The shopping never ends. Mind-blowing.

Toddlers are a blast at Christmas.

Lessons:
Teaching two different courses each with a new syllabus is much harder than it seems. Combine it with taking three classes, and it's just goofy nut-so. The semester is over, grades turned in but possibly not really finished, and when I take the time to reflect on it in my teaching journal, I will have many lessons to record. Mostly about being disorganized and unfocused, and about the importance of turning the "idea notes" into an actual calendar when I first think it up.

Chores:
The room I laughinly refer to as "my office" at home is a disaster, as it has been all semester. I'm working on it. Really I am.

Oh, and if anyone is still reading this blog after such long silences, I owe letters, cards, and other greetings to: my Aunt Phyllis, Dad, Elana, Nick, Rich, Colleen, Rosemarie, Bridget, Emily, and Ann. I also need to re-enter the blogosphere instead of just lurking there.

I predict writing in my future. And fortunately, I got some very cool new writing tools for Chrismas, including a Sensa fountain pen, and a great little tote filled with important items like post-it note and flags, a small magnifying glass, tiny pencil, eraser (useful indeed for all those library books full of selfish people's leftover pencil marks), and a great book weight to hold books open while I type up my notes. Very cool stuff.

More to come. Stay tuned.

Posted by cageyer at 09:46 AM | Comments (2)

August 20, 2005

say what? I'm what?


You're The Things They Carried!

by Tim O'Brien

Harsh and bitter, you tell it like it is. This usually comes in short,
dramatic spurts of spilling your guts in various ways. You carry a heavy load, and this
has weighed you down with all the horrors that humanity has to offer. Having seen and
done a great deal that you aren't proud of, you have no choice but to walk forward,
trudging slowly through ongoing mud. In the next life, you will come back as a water
buffalo.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Posted by cageyer at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)

August 05, 2005

heffalumps and mourning

in which there was much sorrow in the 100 aker wood

:(

Posted by cageyer at 05:27 PM | Comments (1)

June 27, 2005

On Vacation

I am on vacation.

The very idea sounds silly coming from a graduate student coming off a year's fellowship. It's all been a vacation, in a sense, since the day I left my "real" job and rode off east to become an academic-in-training at Syracuse University.

But it isn't a vacation, and this trip is proving that to me. This vacation, this very long drive across the country to the Oregon coast and back, is a solo, self-driven, self-orientated space of time in which I do what I decide at the monent within the context of a larger loose plan, and where I can change my mind and do something else without consulting anyone, and where I don't have to be anywhere specific until Wednesday. And while I am enjoying this, I am also realizing that I have changed in the three years since I made that eastbound trek, that the things I had in my mind to do as a result of that trip are not important to me now, and the things I want to do now were beyond imagining then.

So when I do get back home, to Syracuse, my focus will be different than when I left, because I see Syracuse as home now, because I see this academic vacation as a vocation now, because I whave work to do, and because a mind stretched to new awareness never regains its original shape.

Driving on.....

Posted by cageyer at 03:11 PM | Comments (2)

June 04, 2005

Where did May go?

It's June. How did that happen? It was just April, wasn't it? and then I remember that May came, and with it the last day of classes, for which I danced a long Snoopy dance, and then settled in to write the inevitablly painful and bad seminar papers, and then it was dance and then it was.... June.

I had promised myself last year, after circumstances kept me from doing so, that this year I would go see the flowers and the falls, that I would go to the Lilac festival (missed that, though I did have a wonderful evening at the Sarah Mclachlan concert with girlfriends), that I would drive to Ithaca and see the gardens at Cornell while the rhodies were in bloom (haven't been there yet), that I would see Buttermilk Falls and Chittenango Falls while the run-off was happening (neither). I also thought I would spend some time blogging all the stuff that I have wanted to write about but didn't fit an actual assignment, and complete some of the drafts I had started, and write to my family and friends. I guess I overestimate what it possible even in these days of leisure.

In a couple of weeks, I leave for a long road trip across the country and back. I hope the great expanse of the prairie will remind me, as it did three years ago when I came here, not to take my own life and its issues so seriously. I shed a lot of emotional baggage on the trip out here. It's time to sort through some more and have some fun exploring at the same time.

Meanwhile, now that it is June, I want to deliberately make some time, as Amy suggested, for writing. Every day, at least something. I'd like to start with a very overdue letter to my father, but if I don't just go ahead and mail the card, it won't make it in time for his birthday next week. So, off to the mailbox I go, and then I can try to sort out the writing.

Posted by cageyer at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)

April 23, 2005

Come on Get Happy

In the extreme OMG category, I saw an ad in Entertainment Weekly announcing the DVD release of the Complete First Season of The Patridge Family. !

!

The season includes all 25 episodes (were there really that many?) and a bonus CD of 4 of their biggest "hits". (I'm guessing that will include "I Think I Love You" - a song someone was singing the words to a couple of weeks ago in the hallway at school without knowing that it came from that show, or at least claimed not to know that... which might have had something to do with my advanced age....).

True confessions: I was addicted to The Patridge Family. 8:30 pm every Friday night, immediately following The Brady Bunch. The threat of being denied TPF was sufficient to get me to do all kinds of things - including cleaning my room when I didn't want to at amazing speeds. I knew every song by heart, and had at least two on 45's (you do remember 45's, don't you). I still remember entire plot structures for several episodes, and in many cases can tell you the song that went with the plot. I owned both the first and second albums and played them often. Like many other young girls of that era, I had a serious crush on David Cassidy. And, the really BIG confession: I was a charter member of The Partridge Family Fan Club.

There. I'm out.

Now, don't take this to mean I'm rushing out to buy this new DVD collection. Far from it. I am in fact stunned that it has made it to DVD status. But then we were just talking the other day about how it seems the new thing is to find every old TV series ever and DVD it. (For evidence, see the "Customers who bought this also bought" portion of the Amazon page.) (Oh, and read the reviews, too. Just because it shows I'm not the only one...)

travelin' along here's the song that we're singin' - c'mon get happy

Posted by cageyer at 11:03 AM | Comments (1)

April 10, 2005

There should be a "first sunny week" rule...

There were golfers(!) on the course today. envy. envy. envy. I'm determined to get enough done to join them before this fine weather turns dismal again.

Cleaned up the grill yesterday, but got to the propane place too late, so grilling has to wait a couple of days. Should be porch sittin' sippin' beers with friends this evening, but too much work to do.

There should be a rule, at least here in Central NY, that the first full sunny week of the spring is a holiday from all classes and schoolwork, including rough drafts, weekly response posts, and yes, even blogging...

Posted by cageyer at 06:15 PM | Comments (3)

March 27, 2005

Birdsong

The birds are back.

Actually, they've been back for a couple of weeks, but today for some reason it seems there are more of them, and more variety of songs in the still bare trees in the still freezing morning.

I always thought birds returned when it got warm. I guess it has more to do with light. But I'm so glad to hear them. It's such a nice way to start a day.

Posted by cageyer at 07:37 AM | Comments (1)

March 22, 2005

Book Meme

I found this over on Arete and thought this was one I could actually do. I love books, and found it hard to narrow down choices here, but today, these are my answers.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Many times. Some of the fine men who come to mind are: Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Brandon Clayton Birmingham in The Flame and the Flower, the boy in The Black Stallion (when I was in elementary school), Francisco d'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged, and others whose names escape me at the moment.

The last book you bought is:
For school: Standing At Armageddon by Nell Irvin Painter.
For fun: Walden, in a pocket series hardcover

The last book you read:
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Just finished it over the break. After seeing the Emma Thompson adaptation many times, I thought I should see it in the original. Thumbs up for both.

What are you currently reading?
Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920, Antonio Gramsci; Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory by Walter Adamson; Composition Rhetoric by Robert Connors, Tropics of Discourse by Hayden White; The Writing of History by de Certeau. Just starting: Precarious Life by Judith Butler.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Dune by Frank Herbert
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (might be the only way I'll ever get through the 60 pages of John Galt's radio address…)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Selected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like JMP I thought about including the Bible too. If I were going to do that, I'd leave Emerson behind.

I could do the last part and send it to three other folks, but I think instead I'll just invite anyone finding this to post theirs either as a comment or in their own blog one with a trackback.

Posted by cageyer at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2005

Champions!!!!

What a treat last night! The University of Washington Husky men's basketball team won the Pac-10 championship last night, beating Arizona by 9 points, a difference that belies the close nature of the game. I didn't think they could do it, but they did! They kept in close, led once or twice only, and then at the end took the lead and never gave it back.

When I started at the UW, basketball just wasn't out game. Our football team won the Rose Bowl that first year I was in attendance, and I was among the happiest students on campus. (I still get a tickle about that).

About a year before I left the UW to come to Syracuse, a decidedly basketball school, Lorenzo Romar was hired as the new head coach for the basketball team. I got a chance to meet him very briefly, and he seemed and fine and pleasant man. What a difference he has made for the team! In a short 3 or 4 years, he took his team from mediocrity to a chamionship - their first ever!

And it was televised! Even here in Syracuse! Yay!

And then, right after, I got to watch Syracuse beat an extremely scrappy and determined West Virginia in the Big East Championship! Back to back wins from both my schools. How cool is that? And what a fine capstone for Hakim Warrick, Josh Pace and Craig Forth, the one championship they didn't have they now have. Very cool!

So it was quite a happy evening.

Update: in the extreme OMG category....
So now the Huskies are a number 1 seed for the tournament.
A Number 1 Seed.
Number 1.

in basketball?!?

The LoRo factor is huge. God bless him.

Did you hear, by the way, the commentators talking about how many of the young men on that team come from nearby high schools like Garfield and Kent? Very cool.

So what happens if/when the Huskies meet the Orange when each does well in their bracket?

??!!???

Posted by cageyer at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2005

Visitng Days

The last two days have been visiting days for candidates for the CCR program. They'll go home from it all well fed, loaded with information, advice, stories, and hopefully a sense of whether this is the right place for them. Last year, I was one of them; an internal candidate with an acceptance letter grinning from ear to ear and happier than words to have been admitted to the program that had me move all the way across the country two years earlier.

I hope if was really fun for them. I hope it is memorable, and that they have the sense we are interested in them as scholars and as people. They're a terrific group, with interesting and diverse research interests. I'm glad I don't have to make the choice.

Collin, Jennifer, and the rest of the graduate committee did a bang-up job putting these two days together. Shout outs to Mary Beth, LouAnn and Chris for setting up, ordering up, and especially, cleaning up. My applause to committee, and my best to the candidates, wherever their journey takes them from here.

Posted by cageyer at 09:18 PM | Comments (1)

And now a word from the Department of Cheap Advice

don't grab the frying pan handle to move the pan when it has just come out of the oven.

owie!

Posted by cageyer at 12:08 AM | Comments (3)

February 23, 2005

Thinking Problem

I can't remember now who I was talking to when this came up, but they hadn't heard of it, so I wanted to post it. I was surprised to find it in a blog called "Jumbo Joke." In my version, circulated widely through e-mail about 10 years ago, the last line isn't part of the text. Still, for my academic friends, a moment of reflection: "Do You Have a Thinking Problem?"

Posted by cageyer at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2005

workplace rules

I had a conversation this evening with a former coworker who is a good friend. In the course of the usual catching up, we got to talking about another former coworker, who had decided to exit our former workplace by slitting his wrists in his cubicle and asking his teammates to call the director so she could see what the place had done to him.

Now, such drama should be cause for deep concern about the health and well-being of the individual in the cubicle, but for me it's really not. Actually, my first question was "were the cuts vertical?" My friend didn't know, but my guess is they were not (this guess is partly based in personal experience, and partly in knowing that he recovered and wanted his job back). I know the individual in question - I was a chief advocate for hiring him. I'm glad I wasn't there when he decided to traumatize the rest of that working community for whatever personal issues he had going on (and he did have many). I hope the rest of the folks in that hardworking office got over the event, hope they knew enough not to carry a guilt burden, but I know some of them did, and that's the real tragedy of it.

What's my point? It's this: if the job was so damn taxing, why didn't he just quit and get a different one? Why subject the other people in that office to something haunting? I'm told the director, also a friend, declined to rehire him because his was an act of workplace violence, for which the institution has a zero tolerance. (rock on, woman!) What is it about people that makes them think they can take a job and then demand that the job conform to their whims?

There's something about this culture of demand and entitlement that rankles me, but probably never so much as when one selfish individual determines that his or her personal pain gives him or her the right to afflict others in some traumatizing way. What he did wasn't about seeking help--it was about hurting others. And that will never be okay with me.

Meanwhile, the coworker who called is off with a positive outlook to seek work in the field for which his is best qualified: working with the most valuable of corporate resources--humans.

rock on, Shawn. Thanks for calling.

Posted by cageyer at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2005

where I've lived

This suddenly seems like a cool thing to follow tyratae, tuba player, StepAside, Lyings and tirades on, so here's where I've lived:

Portland, Oregon (home)
Astoria, Oregon
Madras, Oregon
Edmonds, Washington
Lynnwood, Washington (same house, annexed by city)
Bothell, Washington
Bellevue, Washington
Snohomish, Washington
Everett, Washington (barely)
Edmonds, Washington (oddly enough, about a mile as the crow flies from my childhood home there)
Seattle, Washington
Syracuse, NY
Camillus, NY

this list may not be that long, but it belies the number of times I've moved as an adult.

Portland will always be home. The Willamette will always be the river I listen to, even though the Columbia is usually the one that tells me I'm home.

and then there's McMenamin's, but that's another post.

Posted by cageyer at 08:52 PM | Comments (2)

February 07, 2005

late night blogging

When I first started taking online courses, I changed the way I interacted with my computer dramatically. That period was the first time I seriously used e-mail, at least the personal, non-work related kind. It was the first time I started really "reading" online texts, and the first time I started really exploring websites. Often this happened late at night, after work and school were over and I had assignments to do or posts to read or comments to make. I started to have some regular e-mail correspondents, and late night became chat time too. All of that had faded away now.

Now I have blogging, which I am finding it increasingly difficult to tune my brain to, and more so to feel like I know what I'm doing or that I have anything to say. But as I'm sitting here today trying to catch up (after only three short days I feel weeks behind) I realize that this blogging is something of the next phase of my late night interactions. Starting dialogue always seems awkward and stilted, but once it gets going it becomes sustenance in a strange way, like Lilia Efimova talks about in her Blogging as breathing article.

Like Dianna, I need to get a sense of this new rhythm. It seems this would be easier if I were still in a job that tied me to a desk and computer all day every day, but that's the sort of thing I deliberately chose to leave behind. So now I have to find the balance between liberation from the desk/screen, and the conversation taking place on the other side of it.

Posted by cageyer at 02:02 PM | Comments (4)

January 31, 2005

Music that gives me chills....

Aaron Copland conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, Fanfare for the Common Man.

Vangelis, Chariots of Fire

Posted by cageyer at 10:40 AM | Comments (1)

hi-tech/hi-touch

In 1983, in the fair city of San Francisco, I heard a talk by Tony Campolo called "Coping with our High Tech Lives." He couldn't have imagined at that time the places hi-tech has taken us since then. Anyway, in the talk he compared the hi-tech/hi-touch effect to the yin and yang. I'm not a techie. I can learn how to use hi tech stuff, and appreciate how it makes some aspects of life easier, but for the most part every new addition of technology has me looking for the simpler way. Take blogging, for example. The mere fact that I am expected to "do" it means that I have a strong urge for stationary and pen. I'm not sure I write anymore than I did before, but I am certainly more aware of it.

So this week, reading for class on the ways blogging can affect pedagogy and classroom practice, I find myself wondering how much, if at all, this new technology actually improves writing. Convenient? Yes, for revision and archive, although a series of kept journals also provide the scope of a writer's history. But not really, not when it requires being connected (which, although easier than ever through wi-fi is still a specific space thing) and glued to a computer. Is networking the equivalent of Campolo's hi-touch? and if it isn't, then what do we add to our lives to provide that touch?

Just wondering....

Posted by cageyer at 09:09 AM | Comments (1)

January 30, 2005

Tax Holiday Week

Tomorrow begins a rather interesting New York phenomenon. The Tax Holiday on shoes and clothing, but only those items under $110 retail. During this week the state waives its sales tax. Counties and local governments have the option to participate or not. Given that the combined sales tax rate is around 8-8.5%, depending on which line you cross, that's sort of like having a sale. Yet if the store had a sale advertising 8% off everything, would that really inspire shopping? Why then does the tax holiday inspire shopping? Is it because we know it's the government's cut we're saving? Just a little something I wonder about....

Posted by cageyer at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2005

Nails

All day long, my left ring fingernail has been bugging me. So of course I am now hyper-aware of my nails in everything I do. I pause typing to file a few of them, but it doesn't change the fact that I have really terrible nails. Oh, they're strong enough and all, but they just aren't in any way feminine or ladylike.

Years ago, especially when I had not one but two forays into the world of selling cosmetics (first Mary Kay, then BeautiControl - and yeah, you can laugh at the idea of me as an image consultant, it's okay), I used to paint my nails. Very carefully with the filing and the buffing and the undercoat, color coat(s) and top coat. It was nice for about an hour. Then my life happened. I type (for a living, at that time), I file (nothing like insurance for paper and filing), I work in the yard and dig in the dirt, I clean house with cleansers and brushes and no gloves, I washed the car - and my nails never held up. So I quit trying.

I'm always amazed by women who can have beautifully shaped and polished nails and actually do stuff. How does that work?

Posted by cageyer at 10:38 PM | Comments (1)

Handy monkey

My blog now has a complete sidebar, thanks to very handy tech-man . Most of the cool tech stuff that appears in my name has his work in it. Most of the not-cool stuff (like web pages STILL under construction) is completely my own fault.

Posted by cageyer at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2005

Go Husky men!

Saw over the weekend that the Husky men's basketball team is ranked 10th in the nation. Syracuse is at 7. Wow. Basketball heaven.

Posted by cageyer at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2005

Girl Scout Cookies

I have just ordered a half dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies from a shy young girl who came to my door, clipboard in hand, to ask if I would like to buy some. I ALWAYS buy Girl Scout cookies - every year. In way more quantity than I need. Why? Because I remember all too well the many years I spent selling them. I enjoyed Girl Scouts - made it all the way through First Class Cadet and then skipped Senior scouts to prepare for college (some crazy idea about becoming a lawyer....). So I asked this girl her name (Elizabeth) and what level of scouting she was at (Junior) and if it still took 35 boxes to earn a cookie patch (ummm... not sure, but she thinks that if you sell anything you get a patch).

Recently in Philadelphia, somewhere near the Reading Terminal Market (AWESOME place!), I spotted a historical marker indicating that Girl Scout cookies were first baked and sold in a building on that block. I never knew that. But I distinctly remember the paper covered boxes when I was a girl, made by Famous Foods of Virgina, with flowers on the front and a description (as in Thin Mint Cookies featuring Lazy Susan's on the front). We had only three varieties then, Mint Cookies, Peanut Butter Creme Cookies and Shortbread. Now they have like nine or something.

The Scouting organizations have taken a beating in the media and public opinion in this post-modern, anti-imperialist age, but whatever may be said against them, they are fine organizations and have produced many healthy, happy, successful young men and women (including yours truly).

Oh... the coolest thing about Elizabeth's visit? When she turned to go I looked up my walk and saw her dad waiting for her. That's right - her dad. Isn't that cool?

Posted by cageyer at 06:05 PM | Comments (1)

January 12, 2005

Cheers for UW Football

Cheers to the University of Washington for hiring Tyrone Willingham as their new head football coach. I thought Notre Dame's firing of same was disgraceful to that school. I thought the decision to go to the bowl game without him was a disgrace also. Willingham is a damn fine coach and just what the bedraggled Huskies need. I hoped my alma mater would jump on the opportunity to hire him. They did, and I'm excited. Now if I could just get TWC to broadcast Husky games, my fan life would be complete.

Posted by cageyer at 04:14 PM | Comments (1)

December 30, 2004

New ways to play in writing

Blogs - who knew? First it was e-mail, then IM, then ignoring both, now blogs. At least Collin has a plan to let us read blogs as part of the course reading....

Posted by cageyer at 02:34 PM | Comments (3)