Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Sydney was spelling out a web address to me, but when he said “mmmmmmm” to make sure I typed “m” instead of “n” I laughed so hard I messed up, anyway.  His lips disappeared into his beard and moustache!  I had a mouthless man buzzing at me!

Erin

There’s an interesting post over here recalling the author’s experience of working in her elementary school cafeteria. The comments section is just as interesting as the original post.

I’ve long thought it a great idea to have students work, though I’ve thought about it more with respect to undergraduates. I think undergraduates should, among other things, be required to clean their own bathrooms and to prepare food in the cafeteria. I would especially like to see this happen at places like Yale, rather than having African Americans and Hispanics doing the menial work for a bunch of careless, irresponsible upper-middle to upper class kids.

Sydney

I handed in my last paper. And I’m showered.

Sydney

I just finished a paper.  Good grief, I’ve been wrestling with it for almost three weeks.  Maybe the relief of getting out of abstract poetry and back into fiction will help me tear through the last paper. . . in under a week. 🙂

Sydney refuses to shower before he finishes his paper.  Let’s all hope for lightning-fast progress!

. . . . .

Loosely-connected thoughts:

Nelson’s coming to visit; he flies in on Monday.  Nelson is Sydney’s younger brother and, for those of you who were at the wedding, our fabulous (and barefoot) chef.  We’ve already told him we’ll be begging him to cook while he’s here, and he seems fine with that. . . . I should be fitting in a few more gym sessions in preparation, but I know that won’t happen . . . I’ll be getting Penner in stereo for the next week or two–cool!

You should have some pity on Nelson.  Though we’re excited to have company, we don’t have a lot of room.  In fact, there are two rooms, so unless he wants to sleep in the bathroom (no longer quite so comfy after the recent tiling), the floor in our room (so he can be freaked out by the fact that his brother’s married), or the hallway (home of the litter box), he will have to sleep in the livingroom, on our fold-out couch.  The living room is also our study, kitchen, and dining room, so he may have to put up with some intrusions.  Oh yes, and there are absolutely no shades on the windows, so he’ll get full sun (too bad he’s not a plant), and the attentions of our cat, Arwyn, for whom the living room is a playhouse at night.  It would be terrible if he came back from his visit to Ithaca with bags under his eyes, yearning for a good night’s sleep, so I’m going to just hope that he’s adaptable.

I’m using Nelson’s visit and my upcoming visit to my parents as a reason to clean.  Not clean, scour.  I peer at all things, scour half of them, and reorganize the other half.  Sydney’s getting scared, because he knows I’ve covered most of the (small) house by now, and I’m circling ever closer to the mess around his desk.  Soon he may be driven to putting up an electric fence around his stuff to keep me away.

This weekend is graduation for Cornell.  We’ll be laying in the groceries early and keeping a good distance from the town and the college for the next few days.  When I dropped by school last week I saw gigantic Budget moving trucks all over campus.  Those better have been for an entire floor’s worth of stuff.  You can’t possibly need a moving truck to move stuff from one room, can you?  Before I knew Sydney I refused to own anything at college that I couldn’t move myself.  That way I needn’t get help from my friends, who had stuff of their own, or parents, who were halfway across the country.  My big demonstration of commitment to Sydney was getting a couch, since that was something that I knew I couldn’t move without him.  “And in thus such a manner did the lady bind herself to her man.”  The end.

Erin

when you feel a sneeze coming on and you’ve just highlighted a large chunk of your paper–and your finger’s still on the mouse.  Who knows what horrors could occur in that split second!  Introductions cleaved by parts of your concluding paragraph, the whole section gone without a trace, or perhaps only part of it gone, leaving you scratching your head and trying to figure out what disappeared.

Thankfully, we always have “Ctrl+Z.”

Erin

Varying shades and shapes, but a solid wall.  It’s gorgeous.

Erin

I still feel very green when it comes to running a house.  I’m constantly discovering new things that need cleaning, and then wonder how often other people remember to clean them.  I mean, really, unless you have nothing better to do, you’re going to forget a few things that could, I’m sure, use some scrubbing.  I think I only just figured out all of the pieces of the stove that come apart and can be scrubbed.  And thankfully, when I put it back to together, it still worked!

Yesterday I remembered the windows in our house.  So I prepared to clean them but, ack! there were bugs in the sills.  So Sydney said he would clean out the bugs.  But apparently I looked so awkward tugging at the windows as I began to clean that he couldn’t stop himself before asking me to hand over the window cleaner and a paper towel.  Teamwork is nice, no matter how it happens 🙂

Erin

the child will insist on coming out–and I do mean INSIST. Painful, oh yes, but there remains the sight of an end, no matter how many hours it is ’til then. Papers, on the other hand, can sit and look at you for days and dangle in front of you the remote possibility that you simply will not ever finish. Now that’s cruel.

Writing (finally), but the paper will fight me every step of the way.

Erin

Moms, feel free to write in and string me up for my misuse of metaphor, particularly if you forewent the use of an epidural.  You will help my paper keep from looming so large . . . at least for a moment or two!

Early this afternoon Erin and I went outside to see if we could find a few warblers. I’ve spent a few mornings birding at some sites around Ithaca that typically attract a lot of warblers during spring migration, but with less success than might be wished for. Anyway, I was hearing some warblers through the windows and thought that maybe I could add a species or two without leaving home. Besides, going outside is more fun than working on papers.

And we did find several species of warblers, including one that had eluded me so far: Blue-winged Warblers. But much more exciting than that were the Scarlet Tanagers that we saw. Despite their stunning colour, Scarlet Tanagers are seldom seen, thanks to their predilection for staying high in dense forest canopies. So to have really good unobstructed views of at least two males browsing a mere twenty to thirty feet from the ground was really exciting. I expect it will be years before I get such good views again. Not to mention that it was right outside our home.

Sydney

Sydney’s been having some problems with the bird feeder. Despite the fact that it has a weight-sensitive bar, supposedly so that squirrels can’t get at what light little birds can, the squirrels have been into the feed. So Sydney’s taped the top, and when he came out in the morning to see the feeder twisted around and food all over the ground, he taped the feeder to the tree. Still there are problems. So he’s been bringing the feeder to the front steps at night, with the idea that he will only set out the feeder when it’s daylight and we’ll be around to catch the thieving squirrels.

Well.

Just before 5am, he woke up and called me to look at the visitors on our front steps. The squirrels weren’t at the feeder, but the raccoons were! Two round and fuzzy raccoons didn’t stop eating because we were there, even when we turned on the lights. One even hissed at Sydney when he began to open the door!

Now I can say I’ve had a good look at a raccoon (two feet away!), and though they’re cute, I think they just scream “Trouble!”

Erin