You know you're a resident of the ghetto if.....

It is T-8 hours to my comprehensive exam for my master's degree.

About 4 hours ago, I called Papa John's to order a pizza. It seemed the student-cramming-for-a-test thing to do. It is also something that I never do. I seriously may have never had a pizza delivered to this place. Maybe once my first year here, but maybe not. I don't remember.

At any rate, the nice girl who answered the phone when I called Papa John's had to inform me that they don't deliver to my area after dark.

As I listened to gunshots about 1 1/2 hours ago (like a whole gun being emptied rapid fire), I just nodded my head and thought, "Yes, that's why I couldn't get a pizza tonight." When Thomas called to see how the studying was going and I told him the story, his immediate reaction was "You do live in the ghetto!"

"Yes," I replied, "that pretty much confirms it."

Disincrostare

Lately, I have been listening to Italian music radio at work. I would listen to it at home too, but somehow my computer here can't bring it up. You can see if your computer will do it by clicking to RadioItalia here. Good luck.

Anyway, there is this crazy commercial for non-stick spray with this nutty song that gets stuck in your head and really is as annoying as irretrievable popcorn hulls between your teeth. The saving grace in this commercial is the use of the verb disincrostare - to remove a baked on crusty mess. I told my students about it today and one of them just smiled and said that she loves the way Italian has crazy words like that.

I must agree with her. I love it too.

Jon Stewart - Hooray!

I had a good time watching the Oscars last night. Why? Well, if you didn't read the title of this post: Jon Stewart - Hooray! Shall we compare last night's awards to last year's? My rundown of the 2005 ceremony is here. Please refresh yourself, I will make comment:

1. Jon Stewart doesn't have to yell at us to be funny. His opener had me rolling - not hitting mute like last year. The whole bit with George Clooney was great.

2. George Clooney also gets the best acceptance speech of the night award. Do you think he might get to be sexiest man alive again? He certainly beats this year's winner. And he has a lake district house in Italy.

3. Dolly Parton. 'Nuff said.

4. I can't imagine what I would have cooked for the best picture nominees had I thrown a party this year. Racist ethnic foods for Crash? Fancy western hors d'oeuvres for Brokeback Mountain? I might have had to resurrect my smoking cigarette cake for Good Night and Good Luck. That might have been fun.

5. Martin Scorsese wasn't up for anything this year. Hooray.

6. I didn't see Puffy there. I'm sure he was there, but I didn't see him. I didn't miss him. But a torch-wielding mob needs to hunt out the people who thought that the pimp song was the best of the year. Was it just a bad year for music?

7. Jon Stewart cracked me up.

And that's it. Until next year.

Republishing: Amilynne is Brilliant

I originally published this on the new Amilynne & Melissa collaborative Blog of Blood. Amilynne then informed me that if I was going to brag about her it had better be in the traditional context of this blog. So I am republishing the following, which I originally published Friday, Feb. 26 on the Blog of Blood. Then I'll go erase that post--so you'll only be able to see me brag about my sister here:

Amilynne is Brilliant

As the Olympics finish tonight and Neve and Gliz become a footnote in history, there is something of much more consequence about which to write: Amilynne got a perfect score on her Language and Literature PRAXIS test. She is too modest to tell you herself. But if you ever need to know which novel has a coffeehouse named for one of its characters, she is the one to ask.

It's so nice to have a sister who is perfect. I just don't have to worry about being perfect at all, I have Amilynne to do that. I can just live my life and enjoy the warm glow of her brilliance and let it reflect off and bounce around and do acrobatic tricks.

On a completely different note, sort of, please check out the last page of the March issue of Smithsonian for an article about the words English hasn't borrowed from other languages.

SuperGreat Fantastic News

So this week there is some SuperGreat Fantastic news to report--Amilynne landed her first real-live, need-a-college-education-for-this-one job. She's a teacher! She interviewed Wednesday, was hired on Thursday, and started Friday. Basically, the teacher she worked with to do her student teaching said that she was the best student teacher he'd seen in 30 years, the department head wrote her letter of recommendation, and now she works there.

And I have to think--how cool would it be to have Amilynne for your teacher? She is hip and cool and brilliant. Yesterday she was at the museum looking at an exhibit of Roman frescoes and working out a lesson plan for this week. I want to be in her class.

Anyway, that's the best news of the week. Hooray!

Mouse Fire

So if you have been as amused as I have been by the story in the news about the guy who tried to burn a mouse in a leaf pile, only to have the mouse (on fire) dart back at his house and burn the whole thing down, please make sure you have read Billy Collins' poem "The Country." There's a link to it (although stanza breaks are omitted) if you'll click on the title of this post.

Coming Through in Stereo

I know you won't be surprised when I report once again that living in my apartment is hell.

Here it is, after midnight, I'm trying to get some work done, and the music pours in--not from just one neighbor, but from the neighbors on the other side of me now as well. New people moved in about 6 weeks ago and the noise level has steadily increased. Now the music coming in is clearly audible no matter where I try to hide in my apartment, and at this moment, I kid you not, the discs the two neighbors are listening to have the exact same tempo and could be mixed quite neatly into one song by any talentless DJ who felt the urge. Me, I don't feel the urge at all. I just feel annoyed. Like I want to shoot up some stereos. I just can't believe that on a Wednesday night these people think they need to keep the whole world awake with their crappy music.

You'd think this really was the full-fledged ghetto. At this rate, it won't be long until it really is. Thug central, here we come.

Dare

I dare you to look at how cute Junior was at Christmas and not think he's the cutest baby ever.

Haiatus

Well, I didn't post for a while. The beginning of December brought Hell's wrath with it--finishing projects for my class, state testing, not to mention I still had to teach. Somehow I emerged from it all on the 17th still able to catch a flight home for the holidays. Home was blissful--far from the soul erosion that is my normal daily life. I finally got to see & play with Junior. What a sweet baby! He has gigantic blue eyes like searchlights and he loves to look around--in fact, he hates to be held in such a way that he can't look around--he won't let you do it--and he hates to go to sleep because it means he has to close his eyes. He is such a sweetheart and he wrapped his auntie around his little finger so fast.

One quick story about holiday shopping:

Before I went home, Thomas and I were out one day. He had taken me to a gallery to see some pottery that he liked a lot. After admiring the pottery, I was just looking around and I found the funniest little pewter pin. Just a small pewter square with a little jingle bell attached, and stamped on to it, it said "As Merry as I Get." Ha ha ha, I thought it was great, and as I picked it up to show Thomas, I noticed the $46 price tag. Gagging, I turned the price tag forward and said "Not that merry." We rolled our eyes, and the person working there, who had heard us from the back, came out laughing. "What does it say?" she asked, explaining that there was so much stuff in there that she couldn't keep up with everything. I showed it to her, and she just chuckled. She had thought she had heard me read "Not That Married." Which is probably a pin that someone would buy too.

One of the fantastic things that happened over the holiday was the discovery that Billy Collins has released another collection of poetry. Hooray! I grabbed one up for Amilynne, and, so as not to gift her a used book, I grabbed one up for myself as well. Splendid as usual.

But the best thing happened on the way home. Friday morning, Dad took me to the airport, and after I said goodbye to him at the security checkpoint, I went up to my gate and cried and cried. I was heartbroken to be leaving. They boarded us on the plane, and I sat there with tears running down my face, and then a Christmas miracle happened--they asked for 12 volunteers to bump--heavy snow in Minneapolis meant they had to take more fuel and fewer passengers. My hand shot up and I got off that plane as fast as I could. I got them to let me stay through Sunday (which I didn't do in the first place because it cost so much more than leaving on Friday), and I got a voucher for a round trip ticket to boot. Hooray! I get to go home again this summer! For free! I called home for dad to come get me and the next two days were great.

So that's a month in a few words. Too much shopping, and a bit of extra time at home. And now, if all goes well, I'll finish my master's degree in a year or so and I'll be that much freer. Commence the countdown.

Euphoria

Yeah! Yeah! Hooray! It's a snow day! I'm going back to bed.

Little Stories

Just two little stories because really not much is going on worth writing about.

Still a Geek Calling the Radio Station

Two weekends ago I was driving and listening to the radio station. This most amazing song came on. Fantastic guitar, very metal, but oh, such skill evident in the playing. The song definitely had two parts--the first half, which included the singing, and the second part, which was a classic metal anthem with lots of fantastic electric guitar. Very Metallica, but the voice wasn't gravelly enough. The song was long--I reached my destination and sat in my car for another minute listening to it end. Of course they didn't say what it was. I got home later and popped up MusicMatch to listen to samples of the latest Metallica disc, but it wasn't the same. I hopped around listening to other metal bands, but they didn't match either.

Zoom forward a week. Saturday night I'm out driving again, and here comes the song again. And again, it is a truly great song. And again, it is played without identification. I absolutely had to find out what the song was. So when I got home I raced to the computer and found the station's website, but there was not any kind of "recently played" list. There was no way to chat with the DJ. I hunted through the pages of the site until, really little, I found what might be a phone number--and it was. And after describing the song to the DJ (which really makes one feel like one is a geek still in junior high) I found out that it was Metallica, in fact, it was 1984 Metallica, Fade to Black. So now I have downloaded my beautiful song and I can listen to it whenever I want, like, for instance, right now.

Weather Report

The first winter storm came through. Nothing makes a teacher happier than the prospect of snow. A lot of teachers wouldn't openly admit this - as though telling the truth were unprofessional - but I do. I love a snow day. I love an excuse to stay in the house sipping hot chocolate and watching movies, and I love having a bonus day to catch up on the correcting. So Sunday night as the weather reports were all about the incoming storm, my eyes were glued to the TV for updates.

One update, though, really left me giggling. The oh-so-serious talking head weatherman guy was pointing at his map, which showed the state divided into bands according to the heaviness of the snow that was going to fall, and each little band was labeled with something like rain/sleet/snow or 1-3", but on the band that represented the most snowfall, the label was FALLS LIKE LARD. Think about that one a second. I don't know how lard would fall, but I do think it would fall more heavily than even the heaviest snow. I was in stitches. I called my dad to tell him about it, so yesterday he left me phone messages like "CNN is reporting a storm in your area, but they didn't say anything about larding." The thing is, the weatherman must have realized how dumb it looked, because the next time he came on the label was changed to HEAVY BAND? Hooray for local television.

The snow was enough to close school an hour early yesterday. I'm hoping for full closure today, but I fear that the best I'll get is a delayed opening. The precipitation was too light too early last night. I was cruising around until about 8:00 getting bills in the mail and really, the roads were perfectly safe. It's currently 30 degrees. So maybe things have frozen up a bit, but I am resigned to getting ready for school like normal today. Bummer.

Walk the Line

Well, hooray, hooray, I went to see a movie.

And it was fantastic.

You know Joaquin Phoenix is going to be good. The enjoyment came from Reese Witherspoon's fantastic performance. I'm so tired of her as cute and fluff and this role let her get beyond that and into the realm of a real character.

Anyway, enough has been written on it. I do hope that Oscar nominations come around for them, and for the writing as well. And a few more: director, costumes, maybe best picture. I did like the film.

And since I'm on the topic of movies, here's what else is on my mind:

The new Harry Potter film was just what it promised to be: an action flick. Choppy beginning, scary monsters, good pull-you-in with the Ball, tears shed at the end. I also loved the bit with Moaning Myrtle.

Spanglish came on HBO this month. I missed it in the theaters but I simply LOVED it, and the DVD arrived from Amazon today. (HBO didn't replay it often enough for me.)

And last but not least, finally in February The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù) is coming to DVD. I saw a review of it on CNN.com forever ago--it's seriously been at least a year. I saved the review to my desktop so I wouldn't forget to keep checking up on it. Of course, it came nowhere near here in the theaters, but here's the review and you can see for yourself how good it sounds. I can't wait to get my hands on it:

'The Best of Youth'

Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Were "The Best of Youth" to air on national television, as it did in its original incarnation in Italy two years ago, I can assure you that everyone would be talking about it for weeks.

As it is, I can promise you this: Every lucky moviegoer who commits to the six hours this magnificent Italian drama requires -- ingestible in two discrete three-hour installments -- won't be able to stop thinking about gentle, empathetic Nicola Carati (Luigi Lo Cascio) and his broodier, more tempestuous sibling, Matteo (Alessio Boni), the two brothers whose lives come to embody nearly four decades of modern Italian history in one grandly engrossing experience.

Have I convinced you yet to invest the time? "La Meglio Gioventù," as director Marco Tullio Giordana calls his prizewinning narrative masterpiece, begins in Rome, in 1966, when the Carati boys -- two of four children born into a middle-class family -- are just launching their adult lives. Nicola wants to become a doctor (to which end a kindly professor urges the young man to move away because "Italy is a dying, useless country"); Matteo has more longings -- he's a passionate reader of books -- and fewer plans.

Nicola identifies with liberalism and enlightenment; Matteo becomes a soldier, then a cop. And as the lives and fortunes of the Carati clan wax and wane, expand and intertwine, their intimate struggles, joys, and accommodations reflect the rhythms of societal life on a larger scale: The 1966 Florence floods, Italy's 1982 World Cup championship, the terrorism of the Red Brigades, and the violence of Mafia murders share equal, gracefully apportioned weight with personal history. (The geography shifts too, from Rome to Florence to Turin to Palermo to the Tuscan countryside, with a magical stop in Norway.)

Like a great novel from a more expansive bygone age, "The Best of Youth" is full of big thoughts; like a great soap opera, it's also full of sharp plot turns, vibrant characters, and great talk. It is, in short, the best of cinema.

EW Grade: A

Little Dubbi

Amilynne and I were on the phone last weekend and she started play-cheering for wilderness areas that are lost to human development. So I started to call her Little Dubbi. Here is a picture:

Isn't that a lot of fun?

So we were talking this weekend (she didn't see the picture until I finally got the kinks worked out on Friday) and she said "What's that on my head?" and I said "It's a cowboy hat." Come now. It's not beautiful, but even our brother the scientist recognized it as a cowboy hat. Amilynne is refusing to use her immagination. "Oh. I thought it was a squirrel or something." Then she asks, "Where are the ground squirrels?" "Obviously, they are on your head, Amilynne." "Oh."

And the conversation turned to other things, like eggnog. At home, we always cut eggnog with sprite or ginger ale or something, and as I have gotten older, I have decided that I do not like this. Too wierd, the bubbles and the dairy product all together. So I say to Amilynne, "I don't like my eggnog cut with pop." Amilynne explodes with laughter. "Pop! You said pop!!!" Yes, I exposed my roots there.

So Amilynne agreed that I could post the picture of Little Dubbi if I would also admit that I say "pop." Usually I say soda now. But yes, pop comes out of my mouth from time to time. Or out of my nose if someone makes me laugh while I'm drinking it.

Enough said. Just please call Amilynne "Little Dubbi" the next time you see her.

Paperless Voting

I went to the polls today and to my dismay they have replaced the old dinosaur lever pulling machines with fancy new computerized voting systems--only they're the paperless kind, and I just can't say how much I don't like that. Not very much at all. I firmly believe that there should be a paper trail in case there is any suspicion (or knowledge) of an electronic failure. But just because some idiots in Florida who don't know how to punch a paper ballot made a careful recount necessary, the trend now seems to be to eliminate the possibility of such a recount by creating a paperless system.

I don't trust it. I don't trust it because as much as we depend on computers, we all know that they fail from time to time. For example, as important as is the state-mandated testing in schools, when that testing takes place on a computer, there is generally some kind of glitch that makes it difficult. And as important as that is, elections are immeasurably more so.

Big brother is taking over, and I find myself with misgivings.

Failed Experiment

I really prefer Daylight Savings time to normal time. I would rather see the sun later than earlier. So last week when normal time took back over, I rebelled and stayed on Daylight Savings. Everything was so much nicer. I got to go to work at 8:00 instead of at 7:00. At first, I got so much more done in the mornings! But the week wore on, and Thursday morning I found myself getting up at 6:30 (daylight savings), which was not early anymore. Friday as well. So yesterday I gave in and changed the clocks, defeat admitted.

I was telling my dad about this last night and he told my how my grandmother hated daylight savings because it meant the heat of the day would hit earlier, making her miserable while working in her garden. So I see that there could be some resistance toward my plan of keeping Daylight Savings time permanently. My suggestion would be that since Daylight Savings is not practiced in Arizona, non-practicers could flock there. Another suggestion would be that of carefully choosing which side of the time zone to live in. The closer one lives to the western edge of one's time zone, the later the sun will rise.

My deal is, if the government thinks that daylight savings would save us on energy until November, why don't they think it would work into and beyond November? Can't we just say "Hey, we're a daylight savings country (except Arizona)!"? Better yet, we could just move Arizona to Pacific time and be a daylight savings country all around.

Stop looking at me funny. I really think I'm on to something.

A Word to the Wise

Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation is the hot chocolate of the year. In a not-too-big mug, 2 packets, mixed with a bit of half & half and some flavor syrup (black cherry & almond or raspberry) and filled with water hot from the teakettle, and suddenly I'm looking forward to a chilly winter. This cocoa mix is actually chocolatey. So nice.

Just Because I Could

So I was roaming the Halloween aisle at the store and what did I see? Pumpkin Peeps. Knowing that there were still some Easter Bunnies floating around at home, I did what anyone should do, and brought the pumpkins home for a war.

In no time flat, the pumpkins had the bunny surrounded. And into the microwave they went.

Scary! Looks like everyone has fainted for loss of...well, not blood....

But the stale Easter Bunny can stand back up in one piece--those fresh pumpkins were too oozy to make a last stand. So bunny went into the trash, and pumpkins went into s'mores. Not a bad ending to this little match, I must say.

Happy Halloween!

Go West!

To anyone who doesn't understand why my heart resides in the West, I submit this picture of the north end of Cache Valley--Red Rock Pass in Idaho. I just got the last of my pictures from this summer back, and this was among my favorites. See how the clouds trail off into the distance. See the varied colors of green against the foothills. See more mountains off in the center distance. This is beauty and freedom. You should see it in person.

And Amilynne is cute too.

The Problem Won't Go Away

This morning I woke up at 4:30. The people above me were taking a shower and there was some serious water coming down on the plastic over the hole in the ceiling. So much water that when they stopped, I decided to take a lightning shower before someone else got in and the water gushed. Good thing. Five minutes after I got out of the shower, one corner of the plastic came free, and a great gushing of water poured into my tub. How disgusting if I had been in there when it happened. How disgusting anyway.

So I waited until I was about to leave for work and called it in to maintenance. I think I woke the maintenance person up. He didn't sound happy to hear from me. I explained that I was pretty sure there was a leak related to the tub/shower above me because the dripping got so much worse when they were in the shower.

I got home this afternoon around 5:30. There was a note in the door saying that some plumbing and re-caulking had been done upstairs, but I came in to find that there is still a hole in the ceiling and there was a mess of ceiling particles in the tub, along with some footprints from a work boot. I flipped. Not only was the ceiling not fixed, a mess got left behind for me to clean up again.

I called the management office.

After telling the whole story to the girl who answered the phone, she said that they have ordered in sheetrock to fix the ceiling, but it's not in yet, and she offered, "well, I can send maintenance in to clean it up tomorrow." No good. No good at all. How am I supposed to get ready for work in the morning if I wait for maintenance to clean it up? No, I told her that I want a discount on my rent this month for my inconvenience. She told me I would have to speak with the manager, who (of course) was on the phone. I said I would hold. Every three or four minutes the girl would be back, acting surprised that I was still on the line. After more than ten minutes, she took my number, promising to pass the message on. Well, I did not receive a phone call. I am irritated beyond belief.

They think I am being terrible, but at work today the other teachers said, "You haven't called the health department yet?" I figure I am a fairly patient person. I just don't like being taken advantage of. Like what's this about ordering in sheetrock. Can't they just run to Home Depot? Are you telling me that there is not one piece of sheetrock to be had in this whole town?

New Shower Curtain

Well, today I purchased a new shower curtain for myself. You see, the ceiling above my shower had been looking suspiciously as though water damage were happening, and I called maintenance to have it looked at, but it wasn't a big enough problem to send someone until the ceiling fell into the tub and ripped up my shower curtain. The ceiling fell Friday evening, and at 10:00 p.m., after diagnosing the problem as the people above me do not use a shower curtain and they let water pool on the floor, maintenance said they would be back Saturday to fix it. Saturday afternoon. And then there was the whole mess to be cleaned up--moldy dust, bits of drywall, etc. etc. etc. CHE SCHIFEZZA!!!! You ask me, the freaks who live above me should have been down here sanitizing my bathroom and purchasing a new shower curtain for me (and one for themselves as well). It's not really even fixed yet--they have hung plastic under the hole and will fix it sometime next week. The disturbing part is that water is dripping onto the plastic. Not tons of water, just little drips, and I do still suspect that the problem lies in the plumbing as much as with the non-shower-curtain-using-fools. But I could be wrong, I could just be underestimating the damage a fool can do. At any rate, I get to look forward to cleaning the bathroom again after they come in and fix the hole. I should charge the apartment complex for my time.

As you can see, I'm posting this at 3:15 a.m. This is because it was after one when I finally felt like attacking the mess. That is probably due to a lot of factors, but the real one is that I am a night owl and I do better after one than at any other time of the day. Deciding to take a job that requires me to arrive at 7:15 really went against my nature. My retirement goal is to never see 7:15 again. In the middle of the night, my energy and creativity pick up, and I can get a lot done. Anyway. I digress. Or I'm done. Enough complaining. I've got homework to do.