Christmas Break, Day 9

Yikes! Christmas Break is half over!

Tonight I tried to watch 8 1/2, but the phone kept ringing and I kept falling asleep. Maybe tomorrow. The problem was in trying to watch some dumb French film first (a movie with Amelie in it before she made Amelie)--so I started off bored. I'll try again tomorrow.

Christmas Break, Days 6, 7, & 8

Shopping Cooking Shopping Cooking Shopping Shopping Shopping Cooking Cooking Cooking Cooking Cooking Cooking

Merry Christmas!

Shopping: Last year, Thomas gave me one of those shiatsu massage chairs. Fantastic. So fantastic that earlier this month I broke it. And I have missed it terribly. So terribly that I went shopping, only this time I got a massage mat that I can lay down on and that has heat. I ♥ it. ♥ it, ♥ it, ♥ it. Deeelightful.

I've also spent a lot of time making candy--fondant for fondant centers of chocolates, and a batch of carmels. I have yet to dip any chocolates, but I would hate to be without a project, wouldn't I?

For Christmas Dinner, I went to Jane's. She was my department head my first year here, and her best friend was my principal the first two years. They always have Christmas and Thanksgiving together, and they are kind enough to invite me along when I don't go home for a holiday. When I called to see what I could bring, Jane said an appetizer, so I made a spinach and ricotta cheesecake with smoked salmon and capers on the top. I must admit that it turned out well. Unfortunately, though, there was a lot left over, so I'll be eating it for a while. The dinner was fantastic, delicious beef tenderloin with a bleu cheese sauce, everyone there was so nice, I had a wonderful time. Although I don't think I'll be invited to play spades again, as I tend to bid a little wildly, and Jane's mother is a card shark.

I also spent a lot of time on the phone with my family and with Elizabeth. I think Dad liked the glasses I got him, a lovely red, and Alan was very funny giving me the play-by-play as he opened them. Amilynne called me early before she went to work and we opened presents over the phone. She got me a cool persian rug mousepad, it's beautiful, but she got the one that replicates the rug Freud draped over his couch, so now that my mouse rests on it, it tells me a lot about its mother. David sent me 8 1/2, a Fellini film that I like a lot.

I also talked to mom, she got engaged.

Tonight when I got home from dinner, my carbon monoxide alarm was going off, and I couldn't get it to stop. You can silence it for like two minutes, but then it goes off again. I feel bad for my neighbors, because I'm sure they could hear it (I can hear theirs), and I don't know how long it had been going off, since I was gone for about 6 hours. I had to call the emergency maintenance number and get them to come--I had a pilot light on my stove that wouldn't stay lit, so he cleaned that up re-taped a hose, and replaced my alarm. I was sad to call the on-call guy at 10pm on Christmas, but I didn't want to die in my sleep, either.

So that's the big day. Now a week to recover, and then back to the grind.

Christmas Break, Day 5

Well, I didn't manage to complete ANYTHING on my plate today. I got up early to take Thomas to the airport, and on the way home stopped off at the grocery store (I think it was so early that I was their first customer of the day) to buy some unsalted peanuts for making peanut clusters. I came home and did nothing--talked on the phone, but nothing--I wanted a nap but I wasn't quite tired enough. What a grumpy, cranky mood.

In the afternoon I used a free movie pass (free is good!) to go see Ocean's 12. Which was more of a fun character sketch than serious burglary planning like in Ocean's 11, but I found it delightful, and laughed out loud a lot. Sometimes it's splendid to go to a movie alone. It's like the effect of watching is amplified 10 times because all of those little moments when you would elbow or grab onto or mumble something in a friend's ear has to remain inside, so the emotional effect builds up to the point of bursting. Not that movies with friends are bad--especially after the movie when you're out to dinner and rehashing it--the point is that a lot of people don't like going to movies alone and I do relish it. One other plus side: if the movie's a weeper, and I'm not with anyone I know, the embarrassment factor goes way down, becuase I admit that I'm a weepy one, and it is SO embarrassing to cry in front of people I know, especially when you've cried in the last 3 movies you've been to, and especially if they aren't crying, especially if they're guys, or most especially if it's my dad, who laughs at me when I cry at movies.

I ended up the night on the winning side of a Cranium game (my favorite game) at a party. A splendid way to end the evening.

Christmas Break, Day 4

Finally I got a chance to watch the Return of the King extended edition! Hooray! Great show! Long show! Great, long show! I have to admit--I do love it, and I loved the extra goodies, but I was quite ready for it to end. Four hours is just a long show. Or maybe it's just a long time when I'm sitting on my couch (not the most comfortable piece of furniture in the world).

I also finished decorating for Christmas. The living room is clean, the nativities are out, it's beautiful and joyous and festive.

Christmas Break, Day 3

I worked hard today! I finished packaging packages, and did Christmas cards, and took the whole lot down to the post office. Living far from home is not cheap around the holidays. The post office lady kept looking at me like I was a loon for sending so much stuff, and I just said "It's the holidays, and this is the price you pay when you don't go home." C'est la vie. It wasn't even really the whole bunch--I'm waiting on one updated address and I'm still waiting on one thing that I ordered for Amilynne. These items might get shipped in August.

I did some surfing on epitonic and found a great new band called Bedroom Heroes, which I liked so much that I ordered their disc.

I also began the monumental task of cleaning my house. Ick.

I collapsed before 7:00, and slept until about 10-ish, then spent a couple of hours on the phone with Elizabeth and Amilynne, and made some fondant. The bad thing about having made good cooked fondant in the past is that I now expect good cooked fondant every time. It is very labor intensive, but the creaminess of the final product can't be matched by uncooked methods--no matter what, they turn out grainy. So there may be fewer chocolates, but they will be of a higher quality. I figure I'll need to make at least four more batches, plus carmels. It's busy, and all of the mixing and kneading is labor intensive, but it is relaxing to do something besides reading a textbook or correcting tests (although there is some of that to do on a later date as well).

Amilynne is reveling in the family-sized jar of Nutella she bought. She's eating it with vanilla wafers. I must say the combination sounds delightful.

Christmas Break, Day 2

Today I did very little. I got up and popped in Rushmore and worked on the dishes and a bit of gift wrapping. Then I went to church. It was the Christmas program, the choir really sounded good, but I was cramming the last half of Ether because I had a feeling that I would be teaching Sunday School. You see, we alternate weeks, and I was talking to a friend and found out that a couple of weeks ago the guy who teaches opposite me was asking for volunteers to teach while he was gone for Christmas, but I just kind of felt like I should be ready to fill in. So I was cramming during the Christmas program.

Sure enough, Sunday School came and no one was ready to teach. I got up after a while--everyone was just visiting--and said "Is anyone teaching?" and no one said that they were, so I said I would wing it, and I did. The good thing is that I focused on chapter 12 (faith) and ignored chapter 15 (complete destruction), and there wasn't a ton of time, so I got through it without being reduced to tears.

I came home and wrapped more presents and talked on the phone. Filomena called me and it was so nice to talk with her! She is fantastic and patient with me when I speak Italian. I also talked with Alan and Dad, and Amilynne. Amilynne is busy reading The Best American Non-Required Reading of 2004. She called me in sheer delight, reading something to me about parent-child relations that was, in fact, delightful, but of which I forget the details at the moment. I also called Sara to confirm that there is no "h" in her name. There's not.

Tonight we had a Thunder/Snow storm. Thunder and lightning with snowfall, fantastically wierd. I think it's time to make a nice cup of tea and pop in a movie (maybe Mary Poppins?) while I finish wrapping gifts. I also need to get the annual Christmas letter written. Ho Ho Ho.

Christmas Break, Day 1

I spent the day wrapping presents and getting them ready for the mail. I know that wrapping presents shouldn't take the whole day, but each one must be considered in the light of which of the 500 wrapping papers I purchased for this year should go on each. I know that having a wrapping paper room is kind of a joke, but I need one.

Wrapping presents also took all day because I did it while watching movies: Mulan, Shakespeare in Love, and Maverick. All three are such good flicks, and worth multiple viewings, such as today, when I was in the middle of a package when the movie ended, I just hit play again. I watched some of the bonus material on Shakespeare in Love. For a long time, I proclaimed that that was my favorite movie. I really don't know what my favorite movie is, but that one is up there. Maverick is great too. First off--just the scenery is splendid. It makes me miss the Southwest a lot, since it was filmed around Kanab, Utah, and that's just a hop from Jacob Lake, where I spent two summers while I was in college. All of the red cliffs--it's really a beautiful part of the world. Second, the writing is just splendid and fun, and the great script is only matched by the fantastic cast. And don't we all want to be Jodie Foster in that fantastic blue dress?

Amilynne and I also spent some time on the phone. A lot of time on the phone. I am completely worried because the recent AT&T Wireless and Cingular merger almost certainly spells sudden death for my phone plan. Maybe it's time to start shopping around again.

Well, there are more presents to wrap, but tomorrow is another day.

New Chair

Tonight as I work at the computer, I am doing so in lush comfort, because yesterday I broke down and bought a new office chair for my house. When I had been out of college for about a year, I bought an 8' table and a dinky $25 office chair for my computer from Office Depot. The table is still here, although there are items besides its legs underneath helping to prop it up, but the chair had to go. It had been on its last leg since about two years ago--its early demise being prompted by my becoming a teacher and suddenly doing a LOT of work at home. The seat became unattached, so it would flop around, and I even fell out of it a couple of times, and all of the hours on a broken chair were doing a number on my back.

I did have standards for the new chair, though: I wanted adjustable arm rests that would go up and down, and I wanted an adjustable back. I've been seriously looking for the right chair for over a year--and yesterday I saw it, brought it home, and put it together immediately. And I am now blogging in the most heavenly comfort--compared to the other one, this is like sitting on a cloud.

So here's to another late night working...

Cheers.

The best things in life are chocolate.

I don't think I need to say anything more.

MoTab for Christmas

Amilynne called me the other night and practically the first thing out of her mouth was "ARE YOU LISTENING TO MoTAB?" MoTab, for anyone new to the abbreviation, is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A fine institution celebrating 75 years of Music and the Spoken Word this year. Actually, get me on the wrong day, and I can't stand it. In general, choral music is not my favorite, and I usually like something grandiose and symphonic (which the MoTab sometimes is, but isn't always) and more instrumental, or just some rock-n-roll. However, this all magically changes at Christmas time, because it is the time of year for choirs of angels, or of people, whichever you have handy. Ergo MoTab for Christmas.

So to Amilynne's query of "ARE YOU LISTENING TO MoTAB?" I instantly responded "Yes, it's Christmas. There is little better than MoTab for Christmas, except maybe Barbara Streisand, heaven bless her for doing it in spite of being Jewish." And to my surprise Amilynne came right back with "Yes, there is very little better than MoTab for Christmas." I admit I was a tiny bit shocked, but I soon recovered because I realized that she did grow up in the same house as I did and therefore she had been subject to the same range of Christmas recordings as I had been. MoTab would make sense for her too, thanks to our dad.

(Not thanks to our dad, we were also subjected to Manheim Steamroller's Christmas. We can entertain ourselves for a very long time immitating Manheim Steamroller's version of Deck the Halls. I do not suggest listening to it, or one may find onesself immitating it for hours on end, and I would propose that one's time could be put to better use doing just about anything else.)

At any rate, Amilynne commented on how the Christmas music at her work drives her nuts, until every once in a while MoTab comes on, and then she is happy.

I have listened to too much MoTab, though, because yesterday instead of working on all of my classwork and work work I got into the Christmas spirit and decorated my trees. (Yes, trees plural--but don't mistake it for anything fantastic. It's a group of three trees ranging from 18" to 3' high). In spite of their diminuitive size, the task took a few hours, as I decorated each individually and differently than its fellows. The best little detail is a nutcracker of a Venetian gondolier hanging from the largest tree. Also there's a bear that hangs from the lowest tree down to the ground, so he has his own forest to walk through. Very sweet. Makes me happy.

So at any rate I find myself coming out of this weekend even farther behind than I was before going into it, and yet there are lit trees, MoTab carols, and a jug of eggnog waiting for me when I get home. Sometimes putting onesself in the position of having to face stress and consequences is almost justifiable.

November 31

The calendar that's above my work area says that today is November 31. I probably won't find out otherwise until I turn the page tomorrow and find that it's December 2.

Fantastic Little Chicadees II

I have raised my kids right. Today one of my fourth years brought a panettone in for the class. She was like "Is this the stuff you brought for us last year?" and "It is from Italy, so is it right?" Turns out that she was thinking of pandoro, but that's all right. Later this afternoon I located and found pandoro to bring before Christmas break (my own tradition). But I thought, how fantastic that she saw something Italian cultural, recognized it, and brought it in! I was impressed.

A bit too much ink still smudging the top, but not too shabby for my first attempt at printmaking!

Fantastic Little Chicadees

I had the best time yesterday with two of my little chicadees at the Virginia Museum of Art's Teen Renaissance Symposium. And my two little chicadees were so good. We left the school around 9am and they threw everything they had in the back of my car and I looked at their empty hands and said "I notice that there are no notebooks in your hands." So I pulled out some new notebooks for them, admonishing them to use them for this symposium and for other fantastic lectures that they will have the opportunity to attend in college--lectures that maybe have nothing to do with what they are studying, but that will be interesting and that will broaden their minds anyway. I also asked them to think of questions they have and to write them down. We all piled into the car and soon arrived at the museum.

The first session of the day was on Michelangelo and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It was based on findings by a Dr. Meshburger reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association Oct 10, 1990 that the red cape around God and the cherubs in the Creation of Adam resembles the cross-section of a brain. We then listened to some Renaissance music and danced a Renaissance dance. After lunch, there was a fantastic lecture on Fibonacci's number and the Mona Lisa, a lecture on feminism in Shakespeare, and a commentary on the work of Durer (a special exhibit of his engravings is currently at the museum). We also made intaglio prints (my first attempt, which I will post). Dinner and a lecture on Leonardo's view of the body and soul. I had a blast. The kids had a blast. The kids were renaissance dancing in the parking lot. It was a fantastic day.

Amilynne and Vincent

I just got off the phone with Amilynne and she had the best news: this weekend, she saw her first Van Gogh. There was a special exhibit that came to her museum with lots of cool artists, but of course the Van Gogh was really what mattered. She said that she stood in front of it for 10 minutes and cried. I did the same the first time I saw a Van Gogh--the resident one at the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth. When Ami was telling me about it I was the biggest geek but I cried too. Standing in front of a Van Gogh just evokes such strong emotions.

It's one of those things that you really just have to DO. Van Gogh has to be seen in person, becasue he is all about the paint. And no matter what, a flat reproduction can't get the fantastic effect of the paint across.

I have to admit, though, that it was quite fun this last summer before Amilynne had seen a Van Gogh to tell her about the fantastic Van Gogh exhibit that came through here. A couple of years ago I got us a pair of matching Van Gogh books, and all of the paintings from this exhibit were in there, so over the phone I was all "...Now if you'll turn to p. 128, I saw that one too..."--she was green with envy. Her eyes even turned green. Permanently.

Next we just need to take a trip to New York to see the Starry Night.... We might need 15 minutes of weep time in front of that one.

Who am I kidding? The must is that my sister and I just plain must museum hop until we're dead. It's all so much better in real life.

Electric Coconut

Today I was administering a test in another teacher's classroom. This classroom belongs to an English teacher, and the walls were plastered with definitions of literary terms and parts of speech. As I looked around, I really had to wonder why parts of speech are so foreign to my students. The information is there for them.

The first thing that hit me, though, as I walked into the room was an overpowering coconut/vanilla smell. Woah! The teacher had a plug-in air freshener in the wall. By the time I left 90 minutes later, I was heady with coconut. I wondered how the students, still in the room testing, were faring.

It's unfortunate, though, that as strong as that coconut scent was, once I left the room I left the smell. If I had been in a room of cigarette smoke, I would have stunk like cigarettes all day. I do wonder why it is so hard to make a pleasant smell stay.

Catapults

Last night the Simpsons had a catapult in their intro: the couch in front of the TV was attached to a catapult and they ended up catapulted over a mountain range. I laughed. I do love a good catapult. It all started with seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 10th grade English. I laughed so hard that I fell out of my chair when that cow came flying over the castle wall. Then again, a couple of years later, I was watching Saturday Night Live and they had one of their fake commercials for the Yard-A-Pult, a personal size catapult that gets rid of nasty things like baby diapers, hot coals, and dead pets by flinging them over the fence. Once again: laughed so hard that I rolled off the couch.

The real mystique is being able to throw things really really far using only physics. No gunpowder, no explosions, just gravity and torque, and CRASH! (or BOOM! or SPLAT!, depending on what you're throwing...) Total destruction.

When I was in Torino, I went to the medieval park they have down by the Po, and inside there was the coolest weapons shop, and they had a working mini-catapult. WOW. I wished so much that I had space in my luggage for that. It was beautiful, made of polished wood and all. And it would be so fun for flinging things around the house.

They also had guillotines in two sizes. But that's a topic for another day.

Life ReDesign

Sometimes I waste time thinking about what I would have designed into my life if I had started out with a bit of foresight. Nothing major--I'm not talking about warping into some weird life that doesn't resemble mine, because I have a good life and I'm quite happy with it. All the same, sometimes I find that I'm confronting a task and that my skill set doesn't quite measure up, and I think about when I could have possibly gotten the training I would need to attack said tasks head on. The skill set most often popping up as deficient is my skill with computers.

Now I'm not a complete idiot. I am a beast on Word and I'm darned good with Excel, and I make the meanest PowerPoint presentation you've ever seen. I love to play around on Illustrator and Photoshop, and I've even created (rudimentary) classroom materials with them. It's all kind of fun, because I don't know computers very well and so I can believe that computers inhabit a world with order where the right formula can get you what you want every time. It is this idealism that sinks my soul when I come up against a task that I want to figure out for myself but that just doesn't make sense, especially if it's something frivolous that I really could do myself but I just think it would be fun to make a bit fancier.

Or like blogging for instance. I would love to know enough to widen the column of writing on this page just a bit more. Why? No reason besides the fact that I think it would look better. Or I would love to be able to put together a cool web page, but I honestly don't have the skill, especially because I would want it to look good, not amateurish.

So should I ever come up with the ability to go back in time knowing what I know now, I wonder if I wouldn't make another choice--say web design--instead of what I do now. Or somehow in addition to what I do now.

It just would be kind of cool to understand better this cute little box I sit in front of every chance I get.

Breathing Again

How splendid is it to be able to breathe in again without accidentally inhaling too much political rhetoric! Sure, not all my guys won on Tuesday, but after watching the presidential race whittle down since last winter, WHO CARES! It's just nice to be able to see something different on the news (or to ignore the news altogether without feeling guilty about it).

On the downside, the people who live above me have been SO loud lately. They were shouting so loudly about 40 minutes ago that Amilynne could hear them over the phone. Now they're pounding around and stomping or dropping things on the floor or something. I usually try not to pound on the ceiling until nighttime, because during the day things are just more loud than they should be at night, but this is rediculous, and far beyond the noise of normal life. This has got to be the worst thing about living in an apartment.

The first nine weeks ends this week! Yippee! We're 25% through! And Thanksgiving's in 2 1/2 weeks! Yahoo!

Maria Full of Grace

Monday night we excursioned out to Williamsburg for a flick: Maria Full of Grace. All about a Colombian girl who decides to take a job smuggling drugs into the US by swallowing them. You would think that this would be tragic, and at times it is, but happily the movie didn't end in an absolute tragedy (although there is tragedy along the way) and that's good.

The movie also provides a glance into life as an illegal immigrant. It presents a very organized community that understands its environment and how to get by in it. What an issue illegal immigration is! I am worried that so many states are taking measures to withhold services to illegal immigrants. Of course I would prefer that all immigrants were legal, but I don't think that withholding services will effectively stem the tide of people leaving everything for a bite of the American hamburger. It will only create a wider diaspora between those that have and those who don't. How many people pushing for these reforms employ illegal immigrants to perform menial tasks an American wouldn't do?

How to fix all of this? I don't know. Giving opportunities for the poor of these countries to learn a trade may be the first step. Being willing to give legal status to the people who do our grunt work may also be a part of it. Keeping needed services from illegal immigrants is not the way to do this: it will only contribute to poverty, crime and disease in our society.