Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Here’s a cute picture from last week that I found on the camera:

Sydney

After a rather stressful year — among other things, having our first child, going on the academic job market, and ending the year with handling an extraordinarily messy and taxing plagiarism case — I decided that I deserved a break. This introvert needs some relaxing alone time! So instead of driving directly and quickly to Nova Scotia, I’m planning to take a circuitous, meandering, leisurely trip up with stops along the way for birdwatching.

I’m also going to indulge myself and write a bunch of posts about what I’m seeing. I know that not everyone gets as excited about, say, Worm-eating Warblers as I do, but … well, y?ou don’t have to read the posts if you don’t want to.

As you may know, birdwatchers tend to keep life lists of the species they’ve seen and tend to get pretty excited when they get to add a species to it. I’m hoping to add a goodly number of species to my list on this trip, thanks to birding in new regions. A bit of background: I reached 250 species in May 2006 by seeing a Great-crested Flycatcher in Ithaca. (I don’t have the dates for the earlier milestones — I passed 200 at some point during my teenage years in Nova Scotia). Number 300 came in Iowa in May 2008 with a Great Egret. Number 350 came just a few days ago: on Sunday when I drove up to the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge for one last time before leaving Ithaca. I left Ithaca yesterday with 351 species on my list.

This morning, after waking up rather too early given when I went to bed last night, I went to sit on my hotel room balcony for a bit. The first bird I saw was a beautiful Laughing Gull dipping down in front of my balcony a mere twenty feet away (#352). Within 45 minutes I added another four species to my list: Black Skimmer, Royal Tern, Least Tern, and American Oystercatcher.

I also saw a Surf Scoter, with it’s distinctive white patch on the back of its head, diving just offshore. I have seen one of those before, but it’s been a while.

Here’s a picture looking out from my balcony this morning. Any guesses as to where I might be?

Sydney

I just got an email from Sydney: he’s finally headed off on his drive to Nova Scotia.  Just as the day before I left was spent frantically packing, so, too, he spent all day today packing the car–and dealing with the things that wouldn’t fit.  I’m glad he’s finally on his way for what should be a relaxing, birdwatching-filled, leisurely trip to his family’s place.

Erin

After a long day’s drive with Katherine she and I are now at my parents’ house in Iowa.  We’re all happy to be out of the car, though she did really well on the drive.  We stopped for long breaks for lunch and dinner, and she roamed all of the grassy areas I could find.  There were some great rest areas with playgrounds and wooden bridges that helped a lot in getting her up and moving while we had the chance.  She’s now happily roaming the house, enjoying a great deal more freedom than either the carseat or the Kentucky hotel.  From the way she acts it seems she remembers this place, but we can’t be sure.

Erin

Katherine, Mom, Dad, and I are holed up in Georgetown, Kentucky.  Things are going well thus far, with Katherine entertaining other restaurant patrons with her sounds (hmm, yes), introducing her grandparents to her strong little will, and keeping them entertained while I’m at a conference down the road.  It really is lovely country and, since it’s a conference on Woolf and nature, I’ve had my attention drawn to flowers, grass, and gardens all day long, with walks in the country and town in the evenings.  Sydney, meanwhile, is fighting the last of the moving battles while he attends a conference at Cornell.

Erin

Yesterday was our big moving day.  Our friends Jacob and Kate drove down for a long day of hauling.  Despite our fears, it looks like everything will fit in the container, and it actually looks pretty neat and spacious in there.  We still have a few more pieces of furniture to haul down, and a number of things to clean up in the house, but we should have time to do that today and still have time and energy for a family walk this afternoon.  We’ve worked hard, though, and we were only too happy to head to bed as soon as Katherine allowed.  Sore muscles aside, though, we’re feeling pretty upbeat. And Katherine loves having the house she thought she knew turned into a changing landscape.

I’m headed out for my last morning walk in Ithaca, hoping that a nice, easy walk will help shake loose those sore muscles.

Erin

We have three bookcases filled with books.  As in, of the twelve bookcases full of books in our house, nearly seven have been emptied of books, and Sydney fit the majority of those books in three bookcases in the storage container, puzzle-style.  I did all of the hauling, and he did all of the packing.  We’re hoping to finish up the books tomorrow and get everything ready for the big move on Tuesday, when our friends Jacob and Kate will be helping us haul out the furniture and boxes.  That means everything has to be in boxes by then . . .

Erin

We have one bookcase in the container, lying on its side, and Sydney has it filled with books.  As in, every last cranny has been filled with size-sorted and carefully packed books.  It looks like a crazy puzzle.  We’re planning to do one more like that, and then lay a couple of bookcases down flat, which will be much easier to fill.  I made about 20 trips down to the container, carrying armloads of books, and will continue that today.  But before we close off the bookcases with sheets of plastic we wanted to include some silica gel packets to keep the books dry.  Sydney ordered silica gel, but, because of the holiday, it looks like we’ll get it too late.  So, after my getting blank stares from 12 sales clerks around town, we found some at Michael’s, in the flower-drying section, and we bought little bags to put it in.  Sage organza bags, with silk ties.  No, we’re not planning a summer wedding, but it was the best thing we could come up with.  We’re going to have fancy bookcases!

Erin

The storage unit arrived today (hurray!) and is parked in our driveway.  Unfortunately, after Sydney took the measuring tape to it, it was not in fact 8x8x12, but rather something a bit shy of that.  They may have been measuring from the outside or any number of ways, but the fact of the matter is that our bookshelves will not fit like we thought they would.  We have fewer cubic feet than we thought and we will have more trouble using the space efficiently.

Sydney’s a bit tired of setbacks, and we’d both like to get on with things, so we’ll hope for a smoother path over the weekend.

Erin

We began moving in earnest today.  We went up into the attic and hauled down nearly all of the boxes, old computer parts, fans, suitcases, and garden gear that we’ve stored there.  The attic, by the way, is roughly the same size as our apartment, which means we have been able to make better use of our living space, but it also means that we can collect a lot of things.  Despite our careful measurements we stood appalled by the thought that the storage container may not be large enough for all of our stuff.  Not sure whether we’re more appalled at the thought of having to figure out contingency plans for things that won’t fit or appalled that we have that much stuff.

We had a bit of  a fiasco with U-Haul today, as we rented a van in order to haul plywood sheets from the store to our house.  Simple, right?  But we thought we’d first use the van to take the garbage down to the dump, since it tends to make a big mess and we didn’t want to get our car dirty.  But Sydney loaded up the trash only to get stuck in traffic (it’s graduation weekend for Cornell) and fail to get to the dump before it closed.  Great: now we’ve got a van full of disgusting garbage and it all has to come out again, and the van has to be cleaned.  Plus, renting a vehicle is a lot more complicated now that we can’t simply have two drivers come along, one for the truck and one for our car; I guess nobody thought it was important to have a place for baby seats in moving vans.  But, after a heroic effort and a crazy night, Sydney brought home plywood at 10pm and we’re going to drop off the van before 8 this morning.

Katherine is responding to the extreme heat by sleeping less.  A lot less.  She hasn’t been keen on going down before midnight, and she’s up at 8.  The nap (and there’s only one) is half the normal length.  She is, however, reasonably happy being plopped in the playpen to keep her out of dangerous things while we pack.  As long as someone’s moving a lot she’s happy, even if she’s not the one doing it.

Back to it.

Erin