Finally a Snow Day!

Today was supposed to be my last day to get work done on my "Spring Break," and though it is officially spring, we had our first significant snow accumulation since Nora was born!  Billy still had to go into work, so Nora, Oscar, and I were on our own to play in the snow.  Today was not a good day to discover that my DSLR battery was dead, but we did the best we could with my iPhone so we could share this milestone with her family.

First we had to get her dressed in her snow gear.  She was quite thrilled by her snow pants, and I was thrilled that they were not bought in vain.  Though they are still much too long, her belly barely fit!

She was pretty intrigued by investigating the snow on our deck.  As usual, she kept a very serious expression on her face the whole time.

She had trouble standing up when she fell down into the snow, so the deck turned out to be the perfect place to play.  She could use the railings to help pull herself back up.

Once she got herself oriented, we began working on our snowman.  I decided to use mixing bowls to form the snowman's body, which turned out to be a good idea because Nora could participate.  Once I showed her how to pack the snow down she was intent on helping me each time.

She was less sure what to do with the domes when I started putting them together in the shape of the snowman.

Once the body was finished, Nora helped me put in the snowman's parts.  Again, this was serious business.  Patti gave these parts to Nora for Christmas, and each one is on a long peg that you shove into the snow.  We were so glad to have them because they were easy to use, made our snowman look professional, and were probably the only reason I thought to make a snowman in the first place!  Thanks, Gram!

I held out three hats for her to choose from, and she picked the Orioles hat-- a good fit for our man, and the only one with colors that matched his parts.  Once the hat was on, she seemed very proud of herself, and she thought the snowman was too funny!

After her mid-day nap, I went outside to slide the snowman over so his parts wouldn't fall into the neighbor's yard when he began to melt.  When I came back in, Nora was standing at the door, holding her coat, and demanding to go back outside.  Her clothes had all dried off, so we got her dressed again and tried to take Oscar for a walk.  Either he is getting old or he has already shed his winter coat, because he wanted back inside almost immediately, so he watched us from the window.  The snow was slushing up, and we discovered that Nora prefers puddle stomping over making now angels.  She was not a fan of the flakes falling in her face.

She was a fan of doing face plants into the snow.  She did it three times in a row.  She would just get this curious look on her face, put her hands in front of her, and lean forward.  The first time she kind of kneeled into it slowly.  The second two times she just flopped.  This actually made me laugh out loud.

When we came back in and got out of our snow clothes, I decided it wasn't a real snow day until everyone has some hot chocolate.  I put some in her warmed milk, and she played along long enough to pose for this picture, but after about three sips she threw her cup to the ground.  I guess she was not a fan.

Needless to say, I got much less reading done today than I had planned, but our snow day was definitely worth it.  Now I have at least one reason to look forward to next winter, but I am more than ready to say goodbye to this one.  I can't wait to have her in warm clothes again so I can see her chubby little arms and legs!

Preparation

I haven't updated in a while because I feel like I haven't been doing much of anything that might interest anyone.  Mostly I have been hanging out with Billy and trying to enjoy the peace, quiet, and slower pace of these last few weeks before our time alone together with Oscar becomes "the old days."  In case you're curious what we've been up to, though, here goes.

The baby and I are doing well.  We had another OB visit this week, which confirmed that she continues to grow healthily.  The nurse thinks the baby is head down already, which corroborates my sense about her position based on the movements I feel constantly.  I really enjoy feeling her move, and it is fun to feel pressure on the inside and be able to tell it is probably her foot by feeling my belly with my hand.  She weighs about 5 pounds now and it certainly feels like I'm carrying a 5 pound child around inside my body.  I'm getting fairly uncomfortable, and the frequency of her movements makes it even harder to get comfortable.  I try to remind myself that she's probably pretty uncomfortable in there too, so we're in this together, except that at least I know what's going on.

We enjoyed a nice labor day weekend.  With it came the first Navy football game of the year versus Delaware, which the Mids won 40-17.  The day was beautiful but hot.  I was glad when the game began and took my mind off of my discomfort, and I was glad again when some cloud cover appeared during the second half to cool me down.  There are two more games I should be able to attend, and I think Vickie might even be able to join us for one of them, so I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler next time.  We have our south end zone seats again this year, where plenty of touchdowns were scored, so it was another exciting game.  The team has had a dominant quarterback for the past two seasons, but he graduated, so it was fun to see that his replacement is likely to do well.  Here he is rushing for a touchdown.

After a few weeks of not working, I guess I am settling into my "maternity leave."  I am glad most of my maternity leave will be spent with a baby because I am bored.  I don't miss working, but I miss being on campus and being in the mix of everything.  It was hard to see all my friends go back to school and realize this is the first time since I was 4 that I did not participate in the ritual.  Thankfully, I have been able to stay a little bit involved.  The one credit theory colloquium class I attend every semester is open to everyone, registered or not, and there are three sessions scheduled before the baby's due date, so I have long planned on continuing to attend those.  There are normally about 10 or 15 people in attendance, so when around 40 people showed up for the first session, I was quite shocked.  Then I began getting nervous because I am due to present a paper on Katherine Anne Porter at the next session on September 23.  Everyone will read the paper and a few complementary articles beforehand, and then I'll spend about an hour answering questions about the paper and the project.  It's a great opportunity to get feedback on your work, and I have been looking forward to it since I made the arrangements with my professor in the spring.  But even if only half as many people show up for my session, that means a lot of really smart people who spend most of their time reading really smart things will have read my paper, but I am trying to avoid developing too much anxiety about it.

I miss my dad.  I missed him when I got the email about this year's "Staff Development Day," which reminded me that my required attendance at this event last year ruined the trip home to Oregon I'd planned. As it turns out, that trip would have been the last time I got to spend time with him while he was "healthy."  I missed him when there were no text messages on my phone after the Navy football game.  I missed him when I thought about his friends gathering with our family in Lompoc with for the LHS alumni golf tournament.  I miss him when notable events like that one remind me just how many people are missing him and how much less laughter there must be in the world now that he is gone.  I missed him when the Oregon Ducks started the season in a highly anticipated, nationally televised game and I realized he had been alive for their last one.  I missed him when I realized that the first few days of a Grand Slam are still difficult for me to watch because they remind me of how excited I was about the Australian Open but how quickly the plans for that trip went from all of us going, to me and Billy going, to none of us going, to watching it in Dad's house on his TV while we packed up his stuff.  I miss hearing what he thinks about Federer's performance so far in the tournament, and if Fed ends up winning it, as I think he has a decent chance of doing, I will miss hearing Dad say you should never count out a champion with a killer instinct.  When people share their excitement about the baby with me, I know my dad would have shared it, but I miss experiencing in real life the ways I know in my head and heart that he would have acted.  I miss hearing how glad he would have been to have Nate back in Bend and how much he would have enjoyed meeting Ashley. I miss how proud he would have been of the work Vickie is doing and how much he would have been looking forward to her upcoming trip to Portland.  I miss him in moments when I expect to miss him and in moments when it catches me completely off guard.

Otherwise, I've been keeping busy by watching the US Open, trying to get some reading done, going to the gym, and continuing to get the baby's room ready.

It was fun to see Andy Roddick turn in several strong performances this tournament, especially since he has been plagued by injuries this summer.  He even beat #5 ranked David Ferrer, to whom we watched him lose while we were in Austin.  I thought he had a chance to make it competitive against Nadal yesterday, but he looked absolutely spent from the time the first ball dropped... and Nadal looked like Nadal.  After watching the way the matches have gone as a result of weather delays, I have a new appreciation for what a best of 5 set match does to the body.

As for reading, I've finally finished Katherine Anne Porter's 500 page novel, Ship of Fools, which means I've read all the fiction she published.  It also means I can join the ranks of everyone who thinks she was at her best when writing short fiction.  I've now moved onto Bonnie Kime Scott's The Gender of Modernism anthology.  The experience of reading this is equal parts "wow, this is fascinating!" and "dang it, I thought I was going to make that point in my dissertation, and someone else said it 20 years ago."

I still try to get to the gym about four days a week, and I've had to cut out a few of my lifting exercises as my body changes.  I spend about the same amount of time there, though, because I have to give myself more time between sets to prevent my heart rate from getting too high.  At some point I may need to stop the weights altogether and stick with walking, but I'm not there yet, and I'm getting so strong!  It used to be a little hard to lift a gallon of milk, but now I feel like I could throw one across the room, overhand.  My discomfort may be increasing, but overall I feel very fortunate that once I got help with the nausea, I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy. I think that is at least partly a result of being in good shape when I conceived and trying to stay active throughout.

And the baby's room is almost done.  Now that we have all of her things, we have a better idea of how much storage we're going to need, so we decided to use the money we've been gifted to get a new dresser and bookshelf for the room.  We are picking up the glider chair from Jay and Allen next weekend, and Mom is working on sewing us a window valance and a crib skirt with the fabric we picked out.  Once we get those pieces in place, the room will finally be ready, so we are looking forward to shooting a quick video of how it looks for those of you who won't be able to see it in person.  For now, though, here are a couple photos of the newest additions, carefully assembled by yours truly.  (I may be the only person in the world who enjoys assembling furniture.)

Oh, and we've survived all the bad weather relatively unscathed.  Since Sunday, Billy's weather station has registered 8.93 inches of rain, which is about twice what we normally get for the whole month of September.  Since all of this arrived after the ground was well saturated from Hurricane Irene, the low lying areas near us are having a really tough time with flooding.  Billy found the picture below, which shows that the restaurant where we held our wedding reception is under water.  We feel fortunate that the worst effect we've suffered is a few hours of lost power.

That's it from here, I think.  If you've made it this far without getting bored to death by my ramblings, you deserve a reward, so please check out how adorable and funny Krista's girls are.  If our little girl is born on time, her arrival is under 40 days away.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

(Preparation is a short story from a Robert Olen Butler collection I love, titled A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  If you like short fiction, I recommend all of his collection, and his novels are pretty good, too.  Some of the short story collections have really fascinating themes, like the one he wrote based on the inscriptions on vintage postcards he collects (Had a Good Time) and the one based the stories on real tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams).

On the Beach

Hi everybody!  We're home from the Outer Banks in North Carolina!  There's a lot to recap, so I'll just try to give you a brief sketch of what our trip was like.  (And you can click any of the photos to enlarge them.)

Wright Brothers National Memorial: They had some interesting stuff there, but the park ranger who gave the talk about how the Wright Brothers figured out how to fly bored us to sleep.  They did have a replica of the plane, though, so we learned how they were able to "drive" it.  Mostly I left there thinking, "the people who knew these guys must have thought they were out of their minds until they succeeded... and then, maybe still."  It does make you stop for a minute to realize how far we've come with flight in under 100 years, though.

Kill Devil Hills vs. Nags Head:  Having never been down to OBX before, Billy and Patti spent a lot of time trying to decide on the best place to stay.  As a whole, we found that Nags Head had bigger, fancier houses than KDH, but our oceanfront condo in KDH was really nice.  It also stuck out farther than the buildings around it, so from our balcony we could see a long way down the beach in both directions.  Kitty Hawk seemed like a step down from KDH.   We also headed several miles north to Duck, which looked like a cool little town even though it's situated on the sound side of the "island" rather than the ocean side, but the traffic up there was so bad that we didn't even make it to Corolla, the northernmost town.  Initially I wanted to head all the way south to Cape Hatteras, but after reading that the lighthouse is currently under construction and surrounded by scaffolding, I figured we could pass.

Running on the Beach:  I went for runs on two different mornings, right after sunrise.  I loved it!  I could hear the ocean even over my headphones, and I liked being able to walk out into the water after I finished my run.  On the first day, I ran barefoot, which I learned as a bad idea after I got blisters on the bottoms of my toes.  I can say for sure, though, that regular beach running would help you develop some awesome calf muscles.

Food!  We ate at a lot of great places.  Patti set us up for breakfast and lunch at the condo, but we went out to dinner every night except one.  I'm not a seafood eater, so the restaurants at the beach never really cater to my tastes, but I was able to find a good thing to eat at each of the places we visited.  We also had some delicious beachy drinks!

Beach!  Almost everyone raves about the Outer Banks, but a few people told us that the beach was narrow and rocky.  The beach out front of our condo was great, though.  It was fairly narrow, but it never got too crowded, so that just meant we didn't have to walk very far to get to the water.  I did find that some areas were very rocky or especially narrow when I ran along the beach, but the note inside our condo said they had a "push" after the last big storm, so I think that must have made a big difference.

Waves and Sun: The weather was in the upper 90s for the first two days, and this caused upwelling (which Billy explained to us), so the water was very, very cold.  This made for two shorter days at the beach on Monday and Tuesday, since it was too hot to sit in the sun for an extended time and the water was too cold to get in.  On Wednesday it was rainy, so we drove around and did some sightseeing, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty nice.  It was in the 70s and 80s, and the upwelling stopped, so the water warmed up.  I really enjoyed sitting out in the sun, and I got a lot of reading done!

Activities:  We spent most of our time at the beach, but we also checked out a few of the sights.  We attended the Lost Colony outdoor play on Manteo Island, and though I wasn't really sure what to expect, I quite enjoyed it.  I learned enough about the Lost Colony of Roanoke to make me want to look up the historical facts online, so I could tell you all about it now!  We checked out a few surf shops, which I always enjoy visiting, and found some good souvenirs.  We played the mandatory beach getaway game of miniature golf, and Billy was kind enough to play poorly enough to ensure that I did not have the worst score in the family.  (I don't know when I got so bad at this.  I used to excel at miniature golf.  At least I did get one hole in 1.)  We also visited the Nags Head Fishing Pier, where we saw the most elaborate fishing set-ups I've ever seen.  I thought one guy had caught several fish until I realized the ones I thought he had caught were just bait.  It reminded me of the scene in The Old Man and the Sea where we find out how precisely he takes care of his fishing lines.  I didn't know you could do that off a pier!

Tennis:  Yes, I went away during the second week of Wimbledon.  Even worse, I did this with a full expectation that Andy Roddick was going to win the title this year.  I'm not exaggerating here-- I truly believed he was going to win it all.  Billy planned ahead to make sure the condo had a decent TV and cable.  I planned to set aside some time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to watch Andy's matches.  We'd talked about coming home Saturday night in order to be home in time for Sunday's final, even though checkout was not until Sunday.  But... Andy lost on Monday to Yen-Hsun Lu, someone I've never even heard of.  In only the FOURTH ROUND!  I. was. crushed.  And then Wednesday was rainy, so I would have had plenty of time to watch his quarterfinal match.  Instead I watched Federer lose to Berdych and Djokovic manhandle Lu.  I was thankful to be at the beach when I was dealt this crushing blow so I could forget about it more quickly.  Watching Nadal hit the cover off the ball in the final made it feel a little better, too.  I don't think I could have stood to watch anyone else raise the trophy.  I mean it; I would have had to turn it off.  Only a month until the Legg Mason!

I think that's about it as far as what we "did."  I really enjoyed getting away and spending some time with the DePriests near the ocean.  I love being at the beach because I like sitting out in the sun, but every time I go back I also remember how calming I find it to be near the ocean.  The repetitiveness of the waves and the permanent presence of their sound really mellow me out and help me to think about things from a different perspective.  I've been "off" of school for over a month now, but this single week at the beach did more to help me calm down and recharge than all that previous time off did.  I even got some work done for the class I'll be teaching in the fall, and that helped me start to get excited about making the switch to teaching.  Only one month left in the office!

Oscar's glad we're home, too!  Now he can recover from his week at Camp Nancy!

(On the Beach is a novel by Nevil Schute about what people in Australia do when faced with the knowledge that nuclear war has killed the rest of the world and is coming for them next.  It sounds kind of depressing but I really enjoyed it when Mrs. Hartfeil assigned it to us our senior year of high school.  In fact, the girls and I took a photo of ourselves reading On the Beach on the beach at Outdoor School.  Luckily, I have no expectations that Andy Roddick will ever with the Australian Open, or we might have the makings of On the Beach II when we are in Australia next year.)

America's Library: The Story of the Library of Congress

On Wednesday, I took my first trip to the Library of Congress.  Evidently the Jefferson Building is an architectural marvel.

(image via F. Barry Wheeler)

Unfortunately for me, I did not go to the Jefferson Building.  I went to the Madison building, which has enough identical-looking fluorescently lit gray hallways for even someone with an unnaturally keen sense of direction to begin to feel lost.  (I almost always know which direction to walk to get where I want to go.  I maintain that I can feel which direction I want to go unless my surroundings are sufficiently disorienting.)

Anyhow, nobody is interested in my pity party about the beautiful structure I missed, especially since I could be back there in an hour if I really wanted.  So on to the real story.  I went to the Madison building because a) that's where you get your "reader's card" and b) that's where the "Newspaper and Current Periodicals Room" is located.  My current research project involves Margaret Garner, the slave woman who fled across the Ohio river into Cincinnati in 1856, and when faced with being recaptured, tried to kill all four of her children (and succeeded in killing one by slitting her throat).  You might know her as the woman whose story inspired Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize winning novel, Beloved.  For me, though, Margaret Garner is the woman whose story gives a historical context to Cora Gordon, a character nobody writes about from Harriet Beecher Stowe's second antislavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Dismal Swamp, which hardly anybody writes about.

After Margaret Garner was captured, the Cincinnati papers ran daily feature articles in the "city news" sections that recounted the day's events in court.  I made my way to the Library of Congress to read through these articles in order to understand the historical context of Cora's character and to see if there was anything in the articles that might help me understand Stowe's representation of Cora's experience.

I admit to having been really geeked up about my visit to the LoC.  When I go to the Maryland Room on campus, where I do my research on Katherine Anne Porter and where I was able to read Mencken's review of One of Ours, they do everything they can to enhance the aura of the experience.  They make you leave all of your belongings in a locker outside the room.  All you can take inside are your laptop, papers and books, and a pencil (no pens allowed!).  You have to request your items ahead of time, and you're watched closely while you peruse the materials.  Sometimes they even make you put on white gloves before you can touch the materials!  (I know this is nerdy.  By now, I think you all know the particular variety of nerd that I am.)  The Library of Congress was, by comparison, a total letdown.  I was allowed to take essentially whatever I wanted into the room with the exception of my giant purse.  The newspapers from 1856 were bound together in a giant book, which they propped up on a angled platform for me, and nobody really cared what I was doing.  I was there for six hours, and at one point, I even found myself resting my head on the newspaper.  I was way more upset that I'd allowed myself to do this than anyone else there was.  In the Maryland Room, you have to secure special permission to photograph the materials; in the LoC, I snapped away at everything and nobody cared.

I will say, though, that the experience was pretty intriguing.  As I flipped through the issues of the newspaper in my bound edition, I began to understand what it would have been like to experience news in that way.  There was a period in our younger, much less busy days when Krista and I were daily viewers of the Court TV channel;  we tuned in every morning to watch the latest developments in several different cases.  Reading the daily feature articles in this bound volume was like watching Court TV, 1856 style.  Part of the reason Garner's case was so interesting was because her lawyers were trying to prove that she was "freed" simply by traveling into Ohio with her owner as a young child, which would allow them to keep her in Ohio as a freed slave even though that would mean she'd have to stand trial for the murder of her child.  Conversely, her owner's attorneys were trying to argue that she was a recaptured fugitive slave, and according to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, she must be returned to Kentucky and handed over to her owner.  (Ultimately, the Judge ruled that though she could have "freed" herself when she traveled to Ohio as a child, she "waived her right to freedom" by returning to Kentucky thereafter.  As if she had a choice- she was 8!).  Thus, Garner's case became a conflict between the state laws of Ohio, which gave slaves their freedom, and the federal Fugitive Slave Law, which took it away, and everyone (even then) knew that the case would have large implications in the slave debate.  The fact that she admitted to killing her child, and that she evidently preferred to stand trial for murder instead of returning to slavery, also made it a huge national news story.

I was kind of amused that when I signed into the room, I had to choose between circling "House," "Senate," or "Guest."  Everyone that day had circled Guest.  I also thought I'd be surrounded by researchers like me, but that was not the case.  Mostly, the people that visited while I was there seemed a little crazy.  One guy was expecting the workers to help him research some old member of the Army, whom he claims founded the National Weather Service, but is never given adequate credit for it.  Normally I would have tuned these conversations out, but since it was weather related, I couldn't help but eavesdrop.  This guy claimed to have spent $2,500 of his own money on this research project, because NWS and NOAA and the "National Weather Bureau" (whatever that is) are unwilling to help him because they want to cover up this army guy's participation.  Worst of all (from my perspective), he hadn't done any research about whether the LoC might have any materials that would help his project, he just seemed to have shown up in DC expecting someone to figure it out for him.  After he left the room I wanted to ask the people at the desk what percentage of the people they interact with on a daily basis are trying to get to the bottom of "conspiracy theories."  Note to self: if you find yourself investing $2,500 of your own money in a project, it's because nobody else is interested in that project.  So don't continue to be shocked when people aren't jumping for joy at the prospect of helping you with it.

At one point, some man came up to me and asked if I realized I'd been staring at the bound volume for four hours.  I said I guessed not.  He asked me "how" I could do it, so I explained that it was either finish my research today or have to come back into the city again.  Then he asked me what I was researching, and he asked me why, and when I said I was in graduate school, he said "Oh, so you've already trained yourself in how to make yourself miserable.  That could have been your answer to my first question."  I thought this exchange was funny.  When I told Anne-Marie about it, she thought it was creepy.  Point taken.

Everyone working there was really nice to me and very helpful.  Before I went, I couldn't figure out why the people I spoke to on the phone were bending over backwards to help me locate my materials.  After I'd arrived, I realized it was because they must be used to other people expecting the employees to do all the researching for them.  Sometimes I believe my impatience can actually be a virtue.  It has made me into a "get shit done now" type of person.  I can't even begin to imagine showing up at the LoC, asking someone to find something for me, and sitting around waiting while they see if they can go dig it up.  I believe that my get-shit-done-now-ness was enhanced by my experience as a high school classroom teacher.  I could write a whole nother blog post on this topic, so I'll leave it at that for now.

My final amusing exchange of the day was at the coat check, where I had to stop in to pick up my purse.  I noticed that there was a lot of stuff that looked really old and beaten up sitting on the floor instead of placed inside the numbered compartments.  I asked the coat check guy if that was where they put the stuff that nobody claimed at the end of the day.  His response?  "No.  That's where we put the stuff that smells."  This brought to mind that while I was traversing the confusing hallways, I had passed a few gentlemen that looked like they hadn't showered in quite some time.  I was intrigued by the idea that if you were a homeless person in DC you might devote your time to researching in the archives.  It was a beautiful day, so they must have been there for some purpose besides escaping the outside air.  I couldn't help but wonder what they might have in common with the escaped slaves in Dred who flee the restraints of the mainstream society that enslaves them and choose instead to live "off the grid" in the Dismal Swamp.  And then I thought: Okay, Liz, that's enough thinking for one day.

I am happy to report that I finally sat down to write this blog entry this morning because after devoting the past several days to thinking about Dred and Margaret Garner, I finally have an idea of what I will write for my paper.  But that paper's not written yet, so I need to get back to work.  And, coincidentally, I'm also reading Beloved today for my other class.  It's not an accident that I find a way to bring all of these things together.

So when you visit DC, remember: head to the Jefferson Building for the aura and beauty of the Library of Congress, or the Madison Building for your reader's card and a handful of weirdos.

(America's Library: The Story of the Library of Congress is a nonfiction book that apparently explores the reasons the LoC was founded and the ways it has been used over the past two decades.  I haven't read it, but I imagine its "story" of the LoC is quite different from the "story" I just told.)

The Time Bind

I have a super busy week ahead and no time to write.

Wednesday I submit the "final draft" of my Cather paper whether it's finished or not.  That's also Billy's birthday.
Thursday I leave for the Narrative Conference in Cleveland.
Friday I present my paper at the conference.
Sunday I have my first race of the year-- the Cherry Pit 10 Miler.

I wanted to leave you all with a few things to keep you entertained in my absence:

Today, Andy Roddick won his second title of the year in Key Biscayne, and it's his first Master's level tournament title since 2006 (the Master's level tournaments are the next biggest ones beneath the Slams).  He's got the best record on tour so far this year.  In case you're not an Andy fan yet, you might want to check out this article that I think does a good job of illuminating all the reasons I love to cheer for him.

The weather here has been beautiful for the past several days.  Oscar and I have been soaking up the sun... Billy has been sneezing like crazy.

And yesterday, I took a much-appreciated break from all the work that's weighing me down to spend the afternoon at Billy's aunt's house with the family.  Billy helped his cousin Jacelyn's baby, Cash, get started with his easter egg hunt.

Cash is walking now, and he has mastered the use of the term "uh oh!"  He also gifted me with a whole lap full of stone coasters.  Thanks, bud!

(The Time Bind is a book we read in Freshman Core at Valpo.  I don't remember anything about it, but it sits on my shelf, and lately I find myself relating to its subtitle, "When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work.")

The Year(s)

Today they held the National Half Marathon in Washington, D.C.  This means it has been one year since I ran the race to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation!  (Read about that here).  It's nice to think about what the LAF might have been able to accomplish in that year with the money you donated in support of my race.  Thanks again for your generosity!

On my 7 mile run today, I was thinking about how I could have quit running again a year ago, and trying to figure out why I didn't.  I think the thing I like about distance running is that no matter how miserable the last few miles are, the finish line is pre-determined.  If you can make yourself more miserable by trying to run faster, you'll be rewarded by reaching the finish line sooner.  Then comes the feeling of gratification and the relief of gulping down water-- every single time.  Life's not like that.  Not even in books.

Today it occurred to me on my run that determination is like anything else-- it can get horribly out of shape if you don't exercise it.  Running distances has helped me keep my determination in shape this past year.  Forcing myself through the burning lungs and sore feet to reach the finish line has helped me to endure the difficult moments when I didn't know quite where the finish line was going to be, and it taught me that chasing down mile markers is a good way to make a distant finish line seem closer.

The little victories help, too.  Today I shaved 4 minutes off the time it took me to run 7 miles last weekend.  Part of that was because I ran in the pouring down rain last weekend, and the water was ankle deep on some sections of the trail  (today it was sunny and almost 70).  But mostly it was because I was trying to run faster-- because I knew when I got back I had to tackle this writing project again, for the sixth straight day in a row, and I knew the feeling of gratification from posting a good time would help carry me through.

(The Years is the last book Virginia Woolf published in her lifetime.  Though it spans around 50 years and 3 generations, she focuses on individual events that happen in the characters' lives.  For me, she might have zeroed in on a random 7 mile run on the most beautiful day of the year yet.)

Fever Pitch

I wish I had never quit playing soccer when I was 14. Yes, I'd probably still miss it now, even if I'd played right through age 18. The thing that gets me every time I get back out on a soccer field, though, is that I have no idea why I quit. All I remember is that I just didn't try out as a sophomore.


I have had a few returns to the field: I played intramural soccer in undergrad, I played pick-up soccer on Friday afternoons when I taught at Northern, and yesterday I joined my fellow English grad students in an IM game on campus. I'm upset that our "season" only consists of two games.

Yesterday we were definitely outmatched. I knew we were in trouble when I heard a British sounding guy call it "football." If you call it soccer, I believe you're automatically at a disadvantage. I don't remember the score. We didn't score any goals, and they scored several.

But Billy came to watch, and it was a beautiful day, and I got to run around and kick the ball. One time I even had enough of an opening to begin to dribble upfield, but then it was like I forgot what I was doing and I lost the ball almost immediately. Billy says I knocked a girl down. I really think she tripped over the ball I was kicking. I was making a concentrated effort to keep my elbows in.

And have you ever played on this FieldTurf? Evidently, when you attend a large university with a prestigious athletic program, even the intramural teams get to use nice facilities. I am wondering, though, how long I will be finding rubber pellets in my shoes. Billy and I decided that football players, who tackle one another on this stuff, must be perpetually clogging their drains with these pellets.

The day was made even better by the fact that before I left for the game, I had pieced together a decent draft of a paper on The Golden Apples and I had already finished reading Clotel, so my homework was almost entirely done. Some days I really love you, graduate school.

And I love you, too, sunshine. Thanks for the visit. Stay as long as you like, and please come back again soon.

(Fever Pitch was Nick Hornby's memoir about what it means to be a desperately devoted soccer fan long before it was a mediocre baseball-themed romantic comedy. It was also first made into a soccer movie. But read the book: you won't regret it.)

Fine Just the Way It Is

Life is back to normal here at our house. There is still a lot of dirty, disgusting snow in heaps by the side of the road, but the weather has been conducive to melting for the past few days. I am getting more work done now that I am back into the regular routine of the semester. I thought I would have a lot more free time this semester, and while I do have a little bit more breathing room, I'm still quite busy. One good thing, though, is that my work is pretty evenly spread across the semester rather than being focused mostly at the end. It will be nice to be checking big projects off my list as I go instead of having three 20 page papers looming at the end of the term.

I found out this week that I'll be presenting my paper at the Narrative Conference in Cleveland on Friday, April 9. I was pleased with this development because it means I get to be home for Billy's birthday on Wednesday and my race on Sunday, but I can still attend two full days of talks at the conference. The program is so extensive that I am going to need to sit down at some point ahead of time to map out my plan of attack! My co-panelists are two other graduate students and one Georgetown professor, so that helps to make me feel a little less intimidated. A classmate told me that when she spoke at the same conference a few years ago, one of the people she quoted in her talk was on the panel with her! Three other students in my program will also be attending the conference, so that should also help me feel less overwhelmed.

That Sunday is the Annapolis Striders' Cherry Pit 10 miler, so I am looking forward to running my first race of the season (the Valentine's Day 5k was canceled due to snow). I went to the B&A Trail today in the hopes that it had been plowed, but it hasn't, so I still haven't been able to run outside. They had some plows in the parking lot, though, so hopefully they will get it cleared before next weekend.

We're still enjoying the Olympics, and Oscar got to enjoy a visit from his friend Hunter this weekend. He belongs to our friends Kevin and Rachel, and since he is only 2 he reminds us how much Oscar has calmed down since he was that age. He used to run us ragged! Luckily we lived in small apartments when he was that little. After they left, Oscar cried at the window for a long time. I guess we will have to get them together more often!

(Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx is her third collection of short stories that take place in Wyoming. Her most famous titles are The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain (originally published in her first Wyoming collection, Close Range). Both titles have also been turned into movies. I really like the way she captures the feel of the West.)

Post Script: If you visit this link and scroll down, you can find Annie Proulx's advice for writing fiction. Also included are fascinating tips from other authors. Including Joyce Carol Oates's "Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst." Want even more? The first set of advice is here.

A Piece of News

Several posts ago, I mentioned this quote by Conan O'Brien:

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Turns out, he might have been speaking to me after all. I thought I would either get accepted to or rejected from the PhD program, but I received word from my graduate director today that I've been put on the waitlist for admissions this year. This means that a spot might open up for me if the right people choose to pursue their studies elsewhere or if they are able to secure more graduate student funding than they expect. So the waiting continues. I think I will find out if there is a spot for me sometime in March, after the other admitted students visit campus for the "admitted student day" that corresponds with our graduate student conference.

Not great news, but not bad news either. I guess half-good news is appropriate to get on your half birthday.

All day, it has continued to snow. Billy says we have exceeded 18 additional inches in the past 24 hours. I decided it was time to go investigate. I felt compelled to jump off my deck and into the snow (perhaps I've been watching too much Rob Dyrdek). I thought Billy would yell at me, though, so instead I just jumped as high as I could and leaned backwards.

I sat like that for a while, thinking. It was surprisingly comfortable and unbelievably quiet. It occurred to me that if nothing else, being waitlisted assures me that all the extra steps I took to try to strengthen my application were necessary. Without the extra credit hours, extra research, and extra paper, I might have received a straight rejection letter today. Because of them, I might be able to get through by the skin of my teeth.

All that extra work exhausted me, and I could not have done it by myself. I owe my most sincere thanks to some of this blog's regular readers: among those of you who visit me here are the people who have given me the support, encouragement, and continued determination that have been necessary to help me get this far. You're also the same people who remind me that whether I end up in the program or not, everything will work out just fine. Those reminders are what keep me on track and make all this anxious waiting tolerable.

I also thought about how the snow that was falling consisted of the same water molecules that have been evaporating, condensing, falling, freezing, melting, and crystallizing for millions of years. That helped me keep in mind that waiting an additional month to make my future plans is relatively a very short time. (It also confirmed that my middle school teachers effectively instructed me about the water cycle.)

Then I decided to stop thinking about all of that to play with the little guy, whose curiosity overpowered his fear of the snow today.

First, he turned the places I had stepped into a worn path for himself. (And yes, the pile of snow behind him is taller than our 5 ft fence.)

He didn't make his path quite wide enough for himself to turn around, though.

When we first brought home baby Oscar, he didn't have all of his vaccinations yet, so we were afraid to take him outside. We lived in an apartment complex and I didn't want him around other dog waste. One day, after a snow accumulation of a few inches, I decided it would be safe to take him out. He had no idea what he was standing on, and he was so light that his feet didn't penetrate the slightly crusty top layer.

As it turns out, when there is enough snow on the ground, he can still walk safely across the top of it.

I still believe Conan is right. All I can do is keep working hard, being kind, and waiting for these amazing things to reveal themselves in whatever form they will take.

("A Piece of News" is a short story about a young woman who does not quite know what to make of the news she receives during a bad storm. Its full text is available here, thanks to google books. The story is written by Eudora Welty, whom my professor recently declared "the first writer to come after Faulkner and not be crushed by him." You might know one of her other stories, including "A Worn Path" (linked above), "Death of a Traveling Salesman," or one of my very favorites, "Why I Live at the P.O." All are available in her Collected Stories. And, if all of that doesn't yet convince you that she was brilliant, she was also close friends with Katherine Anne Porter.)

Willa Cather: A Literary Life

So we meet again, Ms. Cather.

This semester, I only have classes on Mondays and Tuesdays. Campus has been closed both days on account of the snow, and Billy thinks that the impending storm will keep us closed for the rest of the week, as well. My professors have graciously pushed back all of our reading assignments a week, and since I had already completed my homework for this week, I am left with "nothing" to do.

One of the graduation requirements for the MA at Maryland is to complete the Master's Writing Project. Basically, you have to work with two of your professors to revise a paper you've already written. Then they get to sit you down in a room for a couple of hours to ask you a lot of questions about it. I've decided to revise the Cather paper I submitted as my PhD writing sample, and I have already met with both professors to discuss what needs to be done. Both agree that I am onto a great idea but that I need to re-work the entire paper. Rumor has it that when Ernest Hemingway showed Gertrude Stein the manuscript of one of his novels (The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms, depending on which rumor you hear), she told him to "begin it again, and this time concentrate." This is essentially what my professors have told me.

The problem is, I have been stalling.

I really am excited about the project. I knew that I had to stop sort of mid-way through my thinking to write it and submit it. I know that what I eventually turn out will be the best paper I've ever written. However, the process is fraught because of the way it is tied to my PhD application. It's hard to think about how I can improve this paper without simultaneously thinking about how its weaknesses might have influenced the decisions of the admissions committee. I've been very successful in refusing to allow myself to stress out about this decision. As a sort of coping mechanism, though, I buried Ms. Willa way in the back of my brain. I have been letting these ideas "marinate," as some of us in graduate school like to say. (Sounds better than "procrastinate.")

Now that I am on this weeklong hiatus, however, I have no excuse: I have to get serious about this revision. Unfortunately, this snow is sapping all of my creative/motivational energy. I believe if I could go for a run, maybe I could get myself in gear. Perhaps I will have to dig the treadmill out from the clothes currently draped across it. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

P.S. Hope you are all enjoying the new blog design!

(Willa Cather: A Literary Life is James Woodress's biography of Cather. He devotes a chapter to each of her major works and what was going on in her life when she wrote and published them. It's as big as a brick and I have been carrying it around in my bag and my brain for almost a year now.)

Snow Falling on Cedars

The snow has finally stopped! To show all you out-of-towners how much snow 2+ feet is, I thought I would put together a little comparison montage.

Looking out the front door Friday afternoon. Some of Tuesday's snow was still on the ground.

Looking out the front door this morning. Billy had been shoveling all night, but you can hardly tell!

Front of the house in the summertime:

Front of the house today:

Patio furniture Friday morning:

Patio furniture Friday night during some of the heaviest snow:

The deepest measurement on the table after it stopped snowing was 23.5 inches. Taking fresh measurements every 6 hours, Billy calculated a total of 27.7 inches.

The Dads playing washers in the backyard:

No one playing in the back yard:

Chilling in the yard:

Chilly in the yard:

Our pond in the summer:

Our pond today:

Relaxing on the deck in the summer:

Shoveling the deck today:

Billy snapped this pic of all the snow on the roof. Somewhere under there is a DirecTV dish, but luckily we don't use it, or we probably wouldn't be seeing the Super Bowl tomorrow.

I had to stop helping with the shoveling once the snow pile got taller than my head. I couldn't throw the snow on top anymore.

Now the snow pile we created is so tall that we can't even see the cars from the front step!

I took advantage of my time indoors to finish preparing for my presentation in class on Monday. I don't feel too optimistic that class will be meeting on Monday, though!

Hope everyone is staying warm! Curious about the storm system that created this mess? Billy has written a summary on his Maryland weather blog.

(Snow Falling on Cedars is David Guterson's first novel which, like Inada's Legends from Camp, deals with the aftermath of the Japanese-American internment during WWII. Things I like about this book include: it takes place in the Pacific Northwest, it has a character named Chambers, it addresses issues of war, it has scenes in a courtroom, and it relates to the newspaper industry. Also, it made me desperate for strawberries, and if a book makes me physically hungry, I know it has touched me. Check it out. Snow Falling on Cedars has also been turned into a movie, which I haven't seen though I love Ethan Hawke. Incidentally, I don't know if we have cedars here in Maryland. I only know cedar by smell, not by sight.)

The Shovel People

Yes, you've heard right: we're experiencing a record-breaking snowstorm here in the B/DC. For information about the weather, check out Billy's Maryland Weather page or the corresponding Maryland Weather blog.

It started snowing heavily yesterday in the early afternoon, and it hasn't stopped. Billy's measurements at 6 hour intervals have now surpassed 2 feet of snow. The snow itself measures at about 21" deep, but it's a heavy, thick snow that is compressing on itself.

The other day, Billy picked up a new shovel, which meant that I got to help out with the shoveling this time. I'd like to share with you a few things I've learned about shoveling:

1) A snow shovel should have a second handle sticking up from the pole near the shovel part (blade?). Then you could grab that to lift the shovel up instead of grabbing the pole.

2) Shoveling wouldn't be so bad if you only had to move the snow once-- but when you live in a townhome community, there's nowhere to put the snow except back into your own yard. You end up moving the same scoop of snow at least 3 or 4 times to get it there.

3) Once you've shoveled a path, it operates as a doggie run. The snow is about 3 Oscars high, so he spent quite a bit of time running back and forth along the paths we had shoveled.

4) This is one of the things I am really, really bad at (which reminds me that these things exist). I don't know where to stand. I don't know where to put the snow. I become fixated on how I could design a better snow shovel that would allow me to get better leverage (see #1). I turn around and see that Billy has cleared 5x as much snow as me.

5) The Nike jacket my mom bought me back in 2000, when I was off to Valpo, is great for shoveling. You would never know it is 10 years old, except that it has a special compartment to hold your portable CD player. This includes an elastic band setup designed to keep the CD from skipping. That winter, she also bought me the Nike Air Dri Goat shoes to keep my feet dry. They worked perfectly until water started leaking in the bottom after I had literally worn through them. I wish I had another pair right now (half for their functionality, half for the freshman year memories seeing that picture stirred up).

6) If Billy was hoping I would soon warm up to these kinds of winter storms, allowing me to help with the shoveling was a bad idea. Not just because it's hard-- mostly because I hate feeling utterly helpless while trying to be helpful.

Instead, Oscar and I are planning to warm up to the couch, our new Oregon blanket (thanks, Dad!) and our Glee DVDs (thanks, Mom!).

It's still snowing. We're not done shoveling. I'll probably have another snow post if only to plug another book I like, the title of which includes the word "snow." Stay tuned. But for now, I'll leave you with "The Shovel People," a poem from Oregon resident Lawson Fusao Inada's collection, Legends from Camp. (You might remember me mentioning this collection here or here.) I love this poem even though I don't normally like poems. And I love the feeling it gives me about shovels even though I no longer like shovels.

I'll tell you, Mr. Inada: after the time I've spent shoveling, I too will now have a greater appreciation for "everything around me that doesn't need shoveling"!!

(This poem also reminds me that when we were kids, Krista's dad (pictured here, holding Clara), who is an otherwise kind and calm man, killed a possum with a shovel. Or maybe it was a raccoon. Either way, it learned its lesson!)