Just a quick post from chilly Warsaw. Heathrow is not my favorite airport today, but I made it. Haven't seen much yet, but I like it so far. And we decided to spend a night or two in Krakow this week, too! :-)

Travel

I'm off to Warsaw tomorrow. Think warm thoughts for me! :-)

Furgood Marshall

Sad post today. This morning I had to send Furgie the cat to the Bridge. She would have been 20 (!) in March. She'd been doing quite well, but over the weekend she had an abrupt decline. Do cats get strokes? She was very confused and unhappy and not eating. And this is the first time in nearly two decades she didn't want to eat, so I knew it was time. She went very quickly and peacefully.

Furg's full name was Furgood Marshall; like my other pets, she was named after a Supreme Court Justice. She was born sometime in March in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I adopted her from the humane society there in March 1989. She was older than some of my students. She was a smart cat who learned to open our French doors and loved to play fetch with plastic milk rings. She put up with 3 huge dogs and 2 unruly children.

Snaggle-tooth

Looks like the tooth fairy will be paying us a visit tonight.

Science Friday

We took the Things to Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley today. We met up with some friends there, too. A fun time was had by all. Here's the Things with Zee and Zee's Dad, Hu:

Thing 2 helped build an archway. Or supervised, anyway:

And Thing 1 learned about tectonic plates while holding a paper airplane:

And this is the view, once the fog cleared. You can see SF, the Golden Gate, and a good part of the Bay from up there:

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all!

Had a quiet night last night. Hubby went to his friend's house for a poker game, Thing 2 turned in early, and T1 and I stayed up and watched the Twilight Zone marathon.

I'm leaving for Warsaw in a little over a week. I'm pretty excited about it! Have to dig up some of my warmest clothes, though.

Anyone know any good recipes for lemons? I have a good crop of Meyers this year. If you've never tried them, they're much better than the Eurekas you get in the store. Bigger and sweeter, with a bit of a floral taste to them, almost. Last year I made a nummy lemon custard cake, the year before that I mixed up some limoncello. Need ideas for this year!

Love

I'm in love. My new love is British and quirky and fun and fast.
His name is Mick.
Seriously, my new car is so much fun. It's a zippy little thing to zoom around town in. I still like my old car--an Acura MDX. It's comfortable and roomy and easy to drive. But it's no fun, which is why I'm now practicing polygamy with Mick. Plus, despite its tiny size, the Mini actually has some bells and whistles the MDX lacks, like a secret storage compartment and mood lighting, the color of which can be changed on a whim (really!). And I can plug in my iPod. My X is an NPR sort of vehicle, but I listen to the Clash and the Sex Pistols and the Outcasts in Mick.
Also, I gotta say, I have never had a car dealership spend so much time on customer service after I've bought a car. Nothing obnoxious, just one follow-up call and then several friendly little emails with info on the car's features. Mini is really doing their marketing right.

Tuesday

The Things are on vacation, and I'm trying to find ways of keeping them busy. Yesterday we made a giant gingerbread man:

Today they're sorting their bookshelves to weed out the outgrown books. I think we'll tackle their black holes closets tomorrow.

We had Chinese for dinner the other night. Here's my fortune:

Q. What is H20? A. Caring, 2 parts Hug and 1 part Open-mind.

Okay, first off? That's not a fortune. It's a--I'm not sure what the hell that is. And second, what on earth does it mean?? Who writes these things? The back of the paper was more helpful. It informs me that Chinese for beer is pi jiu. No clue how to pronounce it, though. And is that Mandarin or Cantonese?

Meet Mick

Some of you have apparently known about this since early November and have done a really good job of keeping your mouths shut.

We went to Sacramento today to order my Mini. And look what was waiting for me:

Hubby ordered it 8 weeks ago and kept it a secret until today. My whole family knew. Everyone at Hubby's work knew. The entire Mini and BMW dealership staff in Sacramento knew. Hubby isn't usually a secrets guy and the last time he really floored me was when he proposed to me over 20 years ago. This was a doozy. :-)

He even decorated it:

And he drove the 100 miles home with the kids in my old car, and I had much quieter company, also supplied by Hubby:

Hubby had also planned ahead and brought an appropriate CD for me to listen to on the ride home: the Sex Pistols. And I listened to it twice because I couldn't figure out how to switch to the radio while I was driving on the freeway.
I think Hubby's a keeper. And Mick is way, way fun. Here it is in our driveway:

I have to say, it's a pretty good Hanukkah present. :-)

Happiness

Hubby, who likes to car shop (yes, he's crazy) promised me a new car back in March. Today he finally struck a deal he's happy with. So we'll go order my car this weekend, and it should arrive from England in 6 weeks or so.

I'm going to keep my SUV, but just use it mostly for longer trips when we have the whole family on board. My new car will be my daily commuter (not that I have much of a commute), and my taxiing the Things car.

Have you guessed what I'm getting? One of these in chili red with a black top and black bonnet stripes.

Yay!

Literary Efforts

I am trying to wade through 37 term papers on serial killers and mobsters. But the Things have graced me with much more interesting reading material. First, a story Thing2 wrote today at kindergarten, all by herself:

ONes A PONNA TiM sAr WAS A PONE NAMeD [THing2] AND SAr WAS A PONE NAMeD SPCKOLS. IF YOU. No SPorcKoLS iNttrrupt.

T2 is in bed now so I'll have to wait for the explanation of who Sparkles the Pony interrupted, or was interrupted by. T2 recently attended a birthday party that involved pony rides, so ponies have been much on her mind.

And here's a note that Thing1 left on our bed last night:

Dear Mom and Dad,
I want to go to camp again. I want to be surrounded by Jews, not
Christians! Sorry, ran out of ink [she changed from pink to red]. Anyway, what I
am saying is ever since first grade I have been the ONLY Jewish kid in the
class. And I am not sure about pre-school and kindergarten because I don't
remember. And I don't think anybody in school likes me because 3 reasons: #1
Nobody sits next to me on the bus. #2 Nobody ever pays attention to me. #3 I
can't think of number three. So I want to stay at camp for 3 weeks so you guys
can send letters to me.
Love,
Jewish [Thing1]
P.S. p.s. stands for post script.

Poor kid. We're not at all observant, but I guess it sucks when you're the only one not celebrating Christmas. Well, you and the Sikh kid or two in your class. As for the nobody liking her, this is a child who spent the entire weekend at her friend's house.

Okay, back to serial killers....

December 4

The end of the semester joy continues. I have 37 twenty-page term papers sitting on my desk, and the damn grading fairies have not yet come to do their work!

So of course my mind is thinking ahead, to travel. I'll be off to Poland in just over a month. I may get a chance while I'm there to visit the town where my grandfather was born. That would be pretty cool. Well, and cool is probably the operant word here. I've got my scarves and boots and things all lined up, though.

Memo to My Students

Memo to My Students

1. 
   
   If the syllabus says, in all-cap, bold, underlined letters that there will be no makeup tests, and if I said in class at least 3 times, beginning on the very first day, that there will be no make-up tests, you cannot take the final early so that you can go on vacation in Mexico.


2. 
   
   Remember that 20 page term paper? The one I've been nagging you to work on all semester? The one that's due today? If you emailed me questions at 11:34 last night about how to cite things or how long the second section is supposed to be, I didn't answer you.


3. 
   
   It's December. Even in California, it's December. Flip-flops with parkas or, alternately, uggs with shorts look stupid.


4. 
   
   I'm sorry your transmission died/you got pulled over by the cops/you had to drive your brother to the airport/you got called in to work/you had training to attend for work. No make-up tests. See Item 1.


5. 
   
   The paper is due today. If you'd tried printing it out at some point earlier than 5 minutes before class, it wouldn't have been such a tragedy when the printer broke/you ran out of printer credits/the computer ate your file.
6. I advise over 80 students every semester. When you come to see me for advising, if you can't remember what classes you've taken/are taking this semester, don't expect me to know.
7. I don't live in my office or on my computer. If you call on Saturday morning or email at 2am, don't expect an immediate response.
8. I'm happy to write you a letter of recommendation. Please ask me more than 2 days before it's due.
9. I know it's waaaay too much to ask that you actually proof-read and edit your own papers. But for goodness sake, please at least run a grammar and spell check.
10. Grammar and spell check will not catch all your errors. For example, statues are rarely violated or unconstitutional, except in term papers.

Baked Things

Thing 2 and I made sugar cookies yesterday while T1 was having a playdate.

I remember when I was a kid, how much I enjoyed decorating them. T2's have lots of sprinkles. :-)


And I brought a bunch of things home from ceramics class on Wednesday. Some I can't show you because they are destined to be gifts (but I'm really pleased with how they turned out). But I can show a few:

The thing with holes is just a little candle holder I made. It's certainly nothing special, but I do really like the glaze, which turned out a lovely coppery-brick color. And the mermaid is by request, for T2. T1 already has one. I'd made T2 a different one, but it fell apart in the kiln, so this is actually my 3rd mermaid. I also made T1 a monkey, but it cracked into pieces, too. So I've made her another, but it's not glazed yet. I'm better at mermaids than monkeys.

I also like the glaze on this piece, which was my first attempt at a lidded jar. The glaze is kind of irridescent green and purple.

Stone Soup Day

Here's a really cute pic of Thing 2 and her friend Tiffany at school today. Tiffany has the most adorable blonde ringlets, which T2 covets. T2's adorable, too, of course, but not her hair, which she took it upon herself to cut last Saturday morning before her parents came downstairs. Sigh. At least this time she wasn't playing outside in her pajamas.

T2's school has Stone Soup Day every year, and today was it. Each of the kids brings a particular food item (we contributed onion rolls this year), the teachers make soup and other things, and parents get to join the kids for lunch. I never get to go because T2's school is a 45 minute drive from my office, but Hubby, who works only 3 blocks from her, does get to go. So he took this pic.

And here's T2 (who, as you can see, is currently into tatts) decapitating her dessert.

Baking

It doesn't feel very fall-like today, as the temps topped out near 80. Still, Thanksgiving's drawing near, and I refused to spend the day agonizing about my department budget (although I did get an email from the Dean today indicating the cuts won't be as bad as feared). So I've spent the day making multiple batches of onion rolls, my Thanksgiving staple.

Hubby is going to take the Things to visit his family this year, leaving me to stay home with the pets (there was no room at the doggy inn for Ruthie). That's okay--I'm looking forward to a few days of rest and quiet, actually. But I will roast myself a turkey breast, because it just wouldn't be the same without turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches on onion rolls (yes, I prefer the leftovers to the actual main meal). And I'm making extra rolls so Hubby and the Things can take some with them.

And while I had the flour and the yeast and everything out anyway, I dragged out the bread machine this afternoon and made a loaf of brioche. I'm going to make it into French Toast for dinner tonight, and won't that be yummy?

Is there any better smell in the world than baking bread?

Work woes

We're having a miserable, horrible budget emergency at work. I'm faced with a bunch of crap decisions that will make everyone angry. Blargh!

So I posted on LiveJournal an old essay I once wrote. It has nothing to do with work or budgets. So there.

Post-election

Okay, first off, I'm thankful for a few things. The damn election is over. Yay! I am, of course, pleased about Obama, and even more pleased that there are only 75 days left of President Stupidhead. I'm also happy about a couple of the ballot measures.

On the other hand, I'm deeply disappointed that Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage measure, passed. Whatever people's own views might be on the issue, why on earth should they care so much about other people's marriages? After all, I can think of lots of straight couples that I don't think should be married, but then that's really none of my frigging business. I'm also appalled at how much time, energy, and money the Yes on 8 people put into this, especially the local churches. If you think gay marriage is a bad idea, fine, but aren't there much more pressing issues? Things like poverty, abuse, war, and inequality?

I'm officially off my soapbox now on this issue.

Joys of Parenthood

So yesterday morning Hubby and I slept in a bit. Thing 1 was still at her friend's house, and all was quiet at ours. Too quiet. Hubby got up and went searching for T2 who, it turns out, was outside, still in her jammies, playing with the neighbor kid. We had a little talk about leaving the house without permission and without appropriate clothes.

Then last night around 11pm, T2, who had been fast asleep, came downstairs crying. She had chewing gum in her hair, on her arm, and on her jammies. She steadfastly denied taking any gum into her room, and insisted T1 had left it on her pillow. While I cleaned T2 up, Hubby questioned T1, who denied any involvement. We decided to leave it for the morning. I interrogated them both this morning and soon got the culprit to crack. The result? T1 will be cleaning T2's room for a while.

Monsters

The little monsters and their parents had a good Halloween yesterday. The vampiress went trick-or-treating with a friend, and then ended up spending the night at her friend's house at an impromptu slumber party. The pirate hit every house in our subdivision and filled her pumpkin literally to the brim. We went through 2 and a half Costco-sized bags of candy. Our conservative estimate is that 150 kids came to our house last night. There are a lot of kids in our neighborhood anyway, and then families import whole minivans full every year. My favorite costume was two girls dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2.--the Dr. Seuss versions, that it. :-)

It was rainy yesterday, but by evening there was only an occasional drizzle. And the cloud cover meant it stayed quite warm, so most of our block ended up spending the night outside in a sort of block party.

I think my favorite visitors was a group of 3 boys in their mid teens. Too old for trick-or-treating, really, but they all had on elaborate costumes and they were very polite. I gave them candy and little toys, and as they walked away, I heard one of them say happily to the others, "Dude! She gave us bouncy balls!!"