Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

1897: ‘… is almost sure to misunderstand and misunderestimate the significance of the question at hand’ (anonymous, ‘American Diplomacy on the Bosphorus’, The Outlook).

1975: ‘Now in the very earliest years of the eighteenth century it is understandable that, owing to the inevitable, due to our never-to-be-misunderestimated Frederick the Gross …’ (Thomas Merton, My Argument with the Gestapo).

1980: ‘And I think after Three Mile Island, not only does the NRC itself understand that it sadly misunderestimated the number of ways in …’ (Accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Powerplant, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. US GPO, 1980).

1992: ‘John helped Christians to see how the Synoptic writers, and not only the disciples within their accounts, had seriously misunderestimated the life and …’ (Adelbert Denaux, John and the Synoptics).

1997: ‘If you misunderestimate the power of the intense bureaucracy in these agencies and departments and federal institutions, you go, they stay’ (John Conyers, Jr.).

Have journalists ever heard of Google searches? Has anyone?

Sydney

We got a scary-looking official letter in the mail today.  Sydney has been called for jury duty.

I then spent 20 minutes explaining to my Canadian husband why the US government spent such stern language and such effort calling up obviously ineligible jurors.

Erin

Things are quiet here.  We’re spending lots of time at home, reading on the couch, cooking, playing with the cat.  We will be getting back to more studious habits today, though, since we know that this is just the quiet before the storm:

– Students come back in the next few days and classes start on Monday.  Though not technically enrolled in anything except graduate research this term, we expect the renewed campus activity will suck us in, too.

– Sydney will be delivering a paper in the Netherlands in mid-February and I’ll be delivering what I hope is the gist of Chapter 2 in Boston in late February.  We had better get going on these papers!

– Baby’s due in April.  Not much more that I need to buy or read up on before then.  Just need to do my work and keep going to my midwife appointments.

Erin

There’s something about our address that makes us difficult to find on some mapping services.  Google gets it right, Yahoo gets it wrong.  That means that it’s taken quite awhile to get the local mail and parcel delivery people to find us.  Thanks to much book-buying, UPS now makes regular visits and even knows to which part of the house we belong.  I ordered something shipped through FedEx, though, and the trouble began.  Yesterday the package was not delivered because, as the tracking website so dramatically put it, there was a “Delay in delivery due to weather or natural disaster.”  We had ice on the local roads, so I’m hoping they stayed home.  Today, however, the package did not arrive, so I called the service center to let them know that, yes, once again, though their computers say we don’t exist, we do.  Someday we may find the mysterious glitch that keeps us from being found, but, until then, I’ll be making regular calls to the FedEx folks (this being the third or fourth time we’ve gone through this).  I have, though, considered walking down to the other part of Landon Road, where I think they expect us to be and camping out with a big sign with my address on it.  Maybe in better weather.

Erin

Some Protect the Ego by Working on Their Excuses Early

Nice to know that researchers are seeing what I’m seeing.  Sad that, in some of the cases I’ve seen, young people set themselves up for a lifetime of this “I’m full of potential.  Just don’t make me show it” self-delusion.

As one who grew up in the music world, where performance was pretty much all that mattered (“we don’t care if you’re gifted; you’ve got three-and-a-half minutes to show us”), I’m glad I had some experiences that kept this from budding.

Erin

Sydney and I have been home for exactly one week, and I have only today been able to shake off the “nesting” impulses that gripped me the moment we walked in the door.  After unpacking our bags I just kept going, organizing the drawer of scarves, putting away my few Christmas decorations.  And then I started clearing out drawers for baby gear, reclaiming an entire bookshelf for baskets and bins that I know I’ll need when he or she comes along.

I have found a home for the blankets and toys and books my mom gave me from when I was a baby (yes, handing over baby blankets did make my mom pause and think, “Whoah, this is really happening).  And I did much reading and shopping online so that we now have a place for the baby to sleep, a place on which to change it, and a few linens.  Don’t worry: I didn’t spend huge amounts of money or buy lots of stuff.  Just a couple of things.  Most of the energy has been channeled into organizing what we already have; room, not stuff, will be the biggest necessity around here.  Sydney and I did, however, treat ourselves to a Christmas present: a glider.  It was the one piece of baby “stuff” I knew I really wanted, having spent countless hours rocking my babysitting charges to sleep and attending to what made those long nights more and less comfortable.  The chair is ordered, and should be here in plenty of time for our newborn.

When Sydney was on the phone the other day I realized our internet connection wasn’t working (precluding further reading and list-making), so I wandered into the bathroom and in an hour had thrown out old medications and unused cleaning products and neatly labeled and organized all of the items in the closet and drawers (trust me, they weren’t that bad to begin with!!!).  I found myself unfolding blankets and refolding them, just as a way to get a bit closer to the little squirmy thing inside me, the one that I can’t hold but that kicks me nearly every hour of every day.  Arwyn has noticed the kicking, too, and now gives me baleful looks when she sprawls out on my person and gets kicks in the stomach as her reward for warming me up.

But now, much to Sydney’s relief, I’ve let go of the cleaning and baby-baby-baby thoughts.  They can take a backseat for awhile as I get some work done!

Erin

When Sydney and I returned from our 2 1/2-weeks-long travels, he brought what looked like a semi trailer full of stuff in from the car.  And I looked around our apartment and thought, “Oh my goodness.  This place is so small.  We’re going to have a baby in here???”  But it’s okay.  I cleared off some surfaces, organized a few drawers (yes, I am a freak), and have since come up with a few bonuses to our situation:

– There’s no need for a baby monitor if you can’t possibly be out of hearing of the baby!

– Since we don’t have a rambling abode, we won’t need, as many parents seem to, three or four different sleeping beds for the child (crib for its nursery, portable playpen for the living room . . .).

– Our home will remind us to think twice before bringing the latest and greatest gigantic baby-must-have into our house.  Great for our wallets!

My mom also let me raid her stores for baby blankets and toys from when I was a kid.  Family heirlooms!

Erin

… just as the first snowflakes are starting to fall. We’ve been amazingly fortunate in our travels this season. It seems that pretty much every time we drove somewhere, a snowstorm had just come through the region and another one was supposed to come through shortly. So we get to drive home on dry roads and then wake up to a beautiful landscape blanketed with several inches of fresh snow.

Sydney

Today Sydney and I got up early and were on the road by 7am.  We drove from Dayton to Pittsburgh by noon.  Good weather all the way!  Then Sydney took off on roads in the city and surprised me with a visit to the Phipps Conservatory, where we saw, among other things, fig trees, orchids, ferns, amaryllis, banana and palm trees, and over two thousand poinsettias.  It was clear that lots of families were getting some post-Christmas quality time in among the flowers, so it was fairly busy, but we were tall enough to see over all the kids and had a great time.

After wandering through the conservatory we headed over to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where we spent over two hours looking at rocks.  Gems, crystals, and jewels, actually.  Gorgeous!  Throw in some time at the bird and insect exhibits (oh yes, and Sydney let me look at the dinosaurs), and we figured our heads were full for the day.

We wrapped things up with a fantastic meal at an Indian restaurant just down the street.  Best Indian food either of us have ever had, actually.  After two days of eating bread, cheese, and fruit, our stomachs were grateful for the bounty!

We’re now safely tucked in at a hotel outside Pittsburgh and will get ourselves ready for the last few hours to Philadelphia tomorrow morning.

Erin