Pittsburgh: sunny side up

Breakfast out on the town

Good morning, how many?
Table for four please.

Smoking or non?
[This is still an option in Pittsburgh]
Non.

I’ll take you'ns (Pittsburgh tries hard not to be outdone by y’all) there now. Coffee?
Yes, thanks. Could I have skim milk on the side?

Skim? We don’t have skim. Just regular 2%.
Okay, 2% then. Can you warm it up a little?

Oh gee, I don’t know. I’ll check. You want it warm. Okay, are you ready to order?
I'll have the oatmeal, please.

Just oatmeal?
Yes. Do you have honey?

Honey? I guess so. I’ll check that for you. Be right back.
(comes back with huge jar of honey)

The oatmeal comes with fresh fruit?
Sure: here’s some melon and pineapple chunks for ya.
[is there a worse combination?] Thanks.

Remaining guests to me: if you make one more difficult request, we’re leaving.

What’s so difficult about oatmeal with honey and fresh fruit (that are not pineapple or melon) and a cup of coffee with warm skim milk? I never even considered asking for a latté.

Pittsburgh reconsidered

Are sunsets over a suburban-commercial wasteland worth noting? You decide.

a room with a view? 

Redefining Pittsburgh

Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio. Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Max & Erma’s. Eat ‘n Park, King’s, Hoss’ – what do they all have in common? They surround you from all sides, like a fence with too few gates.

Looking out the Hampton Inn window, I’m tempted. Forget the highways, the world looks wintry-nice.

hills and highways 

But once outside, I cannot go anywhere without feeling that I am going to get run down from all directions. There is nowhere to walk. Since when did walking become the riskiest of activities? Not having a place to release some energy makes me too restless to be much good for anyone and so I set out anyway. But I am reminded of yesterday’s sign on the local road: “Watch out for aggressive drivers!” it said. I forge ahead. Surely no one will run me down on purpose. Will they?

I walk thinking how once Pennsylvania had associations for me that were all-Americana: like the picture on the Pennsylvania Dutch cigar box. Like Indian names (Monongahela has to be the coolest word to say out loud). Like cracked bells and Amish buggies. Now it’s more like all-American. Bob Evans for breakfast, Panera for lunch, Chili’s for dinner. The local chains (Eat ‘n Park, King’s, Hoss’) draw the neighborhood crowds (what neighborhood are we in though? A non-neighborhood of hilly suburbs with small brick homes). Increasingly one hears people speaking with the brassy twang of the southern Ohio and West Virginia counties that are not too far away. Pittsburgh, once ethnic, now mixed up, lacking an identity.

I walk and walk, looking for a destination until finally I come across a strip mall and I think I’ve hit rock bottom. The central focus of the little shopping center is a store ("Low Carb Headquarters") where you can buy all Atkins stuff. Gift certificates too. I think back to a blogger’s offense when he was told that Slender Fare might provide some good menu options. Is giving an Atkins gift certificate going to make you popular with anyone?

...and t-shirts too, with pictures of juicy hamburgers... 

I head back to the room with the view of the Turnpike and hills. Sometimes the walk isn’t worth the effort.

Ocean’s contribution to scientific argument

Now that Larry Summers opened the door for the possibility of evaluating innate ability based on scientific knowledge gained from observing the behavior of one’s little daughter (or those in one’s immediate surroundings), I felt empowered to do the same. If his girl was girlish because she called her little trucks a daddy and a baby truck, I think I can offer sensible anecdotal evidence as well that would contribute to the debate.

For instance, this afternoon, I watched the captains of both my flights (to Chicago and then to Pittsburgh), to see if they would take out a bottle to feed the engines formula. It didn’t happen. Moreover, they both landed the planes safely, without so much as a bounce and a shudder, and so I concluded that my two women pilots were the exception to the Summers rule.

I did note that the first pilot sped our little plane to the gate and I wondered if maybe she missed her calling as a speed car racer. Maybe as a next career.

Pittsburgh: always looking back

I have been going to Pittsburgh just about every year since 1976 (a little less frequently in recent years). The city has transformed itself, I know. The downtown area, the neighborhoods surrounding Carnegie Mellon and Pitt, they’ve become urban-presentable, in ways that Milwaukeeans can only dream about (sorry – not enough home-state pride, I know).

But that first visit, now almost 30 years ago, was the one that defined the city for me and I haven’t been able to shake it. I can’t think where else I am so unmoved to make adjustments over time. Pittsburgh is now as it was introduced to me then, by members of the family I’d married into.

Today as I pack my bag to catch a flight to this steely city, I’m thinking about that first encounter with it.

I always thought it was like no other American city (I am making no value judgment here). It’s so hilly! And so many rivers, hemming it in, tightly, from all sides.

But it is because I learned about it from people who had lived for several generations in the once-tight ethnic communities, that I see it from the expanse of time. Pittsburgh postcards in my head show steel mills, Kennywood (the amusement park where I was told you took *your girl* on a Saturday evening), the Incline for a panoramic view, and the river boat rides for polka dancing. I know where you once went to get Italian cookies and Jewish breads, where the Croatian clubs were and what took place within. Sure, I visited the Warhol Museum and the Pitt International rooms. But the city is really, for me, the city of postwar times, when young adults were making up their future within its blocks.

Maybe each generation, ours included, has a fascination with the lives of people who entered adulthood just before we were born. Maybe that’s why I’m stuck on examining so minutely the years immediately after the war (just prior to my birth), on both sides of the ocean.

Have you ever flown into the sunset in the same instant that your family flies into the sunrise?

One could, I suppose, draw great symbolism from this, but I haven't quite figured out what it is. As I was booking my return flight to Madison for Monday and a return flight for other family members living on the east coast on that same date, I came up with the most unusual reservation: same airline (United), same point of departure (Pittsburgh), same time (5:45), opposite destinations (Chicago and New York).

Do the two planes share a runway and pass each other at take off? Should I wave?

Some weeks are a breeze; some are not.

That this week has tested the “difficult” to “impossible” continuum is an understatement. That I am unscathed toward its end is attributable entirely to those of you who have ridden with me, chatted with me (on email or otherwise) late and early, and allowed me to keep chipper and sane as I navigated endless hurdles that cropped up. Thank you thank you.

Light posting ahead (Saturday through Monday) as I travel to attend to business elsewhere. I will have my computer with me, but be patient: Ocean will be surfacing here and there, as time and circumstances permit.

An unusual beginning to an Ocean day: a poem by Robert Frost

(bold emphases are my own)

An Old Man’s Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Poles serve as examples of complete incomprehensibility

I am at the gym. I have the usual props: cell phone, book, earphones. Some combination of the above keeps me from focusing on the boring repetitions. Then I hear it: clear, lucid, beautifully articulate, accent-free Polish. It’s coming from the TV screen. Have I finally cracked my noodle and plunged into the deep dark tunnel of insanity, for real?

Why no. It is a commercial for EdwardJones financial consultants. The beautifully articulate Polish speaking gentleman serves as an illustration of someone you DON’T want for a financial wizard: he is the incomprehensible one, the Person To Avoid. Apparently EdwardJones doesn’t have any of THOSE. EdwardJones, you and I are never doing business. Ever.

Where politics should never obfuscate, tarnish or in any way take away from a commemorative event

Sorry, Ocean readers, but a somber note is in order.

Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of Oswiecim (Auschwitz). Vice President Cheney is attending a commemorative ceremony in Poland. As are a number of world leaders. And, please let’s not forget the survivors. And a handful of men who once participated in the liberation of the death camp.

This was the wrong time to make a speech about a commitment to fighting tyranny around the world – a very thinly veiled allusion to a certain inaugural speech of a few days back.

Typical

5:30 Wednesday: seminar ends.
8:00 Wednesday: make my way home, scramble eggs.
8:30 Wednesday : make a whole batch of calls that needed to be made.
(email and post comments on blogs throughout)
10:00 Wednesday: turn on The Daily Show.
10:15 Wednesday: feel guilty, turn off the Daily Show.
10:30 Wednesday: take out lecture notes for next day’s class, start playing with them.
Midnight: decide I need to rewrite some of the conflict of laws and full faith and credit issues – after a brief nap.
2:30 Thursday: brief nap was too long. Oh well. Plow ahead.
5:30 Thursday: sufficiently happy with lecture that I take time to write blog post.
6:30 Thursday: break for granola and laté .
7:00 Thursday: tweak lecture more (I could do this forever).
8:00 Thursday: I tweaked too long. I rush to shower, get ready and fly out the door.
8:25 Thursday: pick up Ann.
8:30 Thursday: pick up Tonya. (Both are ready and waiting – thank you!)
8:35 Thursday: realization floods me: I did not “send” the lecture to my office computer!
8:45 Thursday: drop off Tonya and Ann.
8:46 Thursday: begin breaking speed limits to get home.
9:05 Thursday: press “Send” on my computer and wonder if I am really a sane person.
9:20 Thursday: drive into Grainger garage.
9:27 Thursday: Turn on office computer, print out 9 single-spaced pages of lecture notes, pick up important phone call.
9:30 Thursday: Begin teaching.
11:00 Thursday: collapse.

Various thoughts about eating good food

Another night of work, another night of trying to concentrate while my mind wanders. This time it keeps heading back to the topic of food: good food v. bad food (working through cases makes one think in terms of one thing versus another).

At McDonald's

One of the headlines from yesterday’s press was about the law suit filed against McDonald’s, alleging that through misleading advertising, it lured children to its golden arches and caused them to become fat. I do think that McDonald’s (unfairly) gets the sympathy vote because of these news stories, which indeed make the plaintiffs appear nothing short of ridiculous. I remember when the press paraded the hot-coffee case some years back as an example of our uncontrollable desire to push responsibility onto another. The facts of that case (which were actually extremely sympathetic to the plaintiff) as well as the procedural details were pushed aside. I wonder if this will be a rerun. I myself know nothing about the pleadings or allegations (beyond the scant info relayed in the news) and still I’m ready to say that the suit sounds ridiculous. In fact, I felt sorry for the McDonald's employees who were shown as background for the news clip on the law suit. Hang in there! I wanted to tell them. You’re not making kids fat! Keep flipping those patties! This from a person who absolutely hates McDonald’s. Imagine the sentiments of those who actually buy food there. I wouldn’t be surprised if McDonald’s is actually behind the suits, thinking that spending a few million on settlements is worth the free publicity and sympathy that it generates for the big M. The kiddies are probably sons and daughters of big-time investors in the fast food mega-chain. (One spins fantastic tales of this nature late at night).

Organic brown free range

Still another food thought – this one came to me just moments ago. Is it worth spending more for good quality food products? The answer is that, in the long run, you save. For example, I have been buying organic brown eggs. They are so good that each night this week I have happily cracked them into the frying pan without even considering other food options. Had they been just mediocre, I would have cooked something else, pricier perhaps. I came home very late last night and nothing, nothing could have pleased me more than that simple preparation of scrambled eggs. Add a salad, some Margaret’s Artisan rosemary flatbread*, a glass of white wine – it’s a feast.

Dessert across the ocean brought to you by Ocean

Finally, I got an email buoying my spirits this morning. The crepes and strawberries were tried all the way in Japan with great success and joy. Ocean has provided a service to another. Yesssss!

* If you haven’t sampled it I highly recommend that you rush to Whole Foods and give it a try. Packages are sold next to the meat section. I’m reading the description now: passionately made using the finest all natural ingredients and 100% olive oil from a personal recipe…

Where Ocean yet again provides an invaluable service to the community by encouraging readers to take part in scientific experiments

I’ve heard many a complaint about the difficulties of pushing forward with research projects. One recent blogger sadly admits that even after having her data and interviews before her, the task of moving ahead and writing anything sensible about such findings sometimes seems daunting.

But today I’ve come to appreciate that for many scientists, the difficulties really begin with the collection of data. For instance, over at Mind Hacks (via boingboing), I read about the problems faced by those engaged in developing a neuroscience of sex. Imagine this challenge: how do you study the brain of a male right smack at the “peak” of his sexual climax (to better understand its activity as it relates to an orgasm)? Is it reasonable to expect that a man can perform while irradiated, undergoing a scan, in a room full of neuroscientists, and in an exact 50 second window of time? The article reports that 8 out of 11 men were able to oblige, all thanks to the women who were at their… side (they had multiple practice sessions beforehand).

As Ocean is very much pro-science, I want to note here that the researchers are looking for more potential subjects. True, this particular project seems to be based in Holland, but I’m sure you could call our own research-focused UW Dept. of Neurology and tell them you’d like to volunteer your sexual services for purposes of scientific research. I’m sure you’d get an appointment right away. (The Q is whether they’d release you after you showed up.)

How do you teach a two-hour seminar when your eye is twitching like mad?

It started before I tuned in to the presidential press conference this morning, I swear! Yes, stress does do that to a person’s eye, yes, I’m not the first to have a fluttering eyelid. Still, every time I look at my notes on international adoption it kicks up and goes into high-speed. Do professors call in sick for reasons of a sudden twitch of the eye? I wont. But if it doesn’t go away, I may have to wear a black badge. Looking like a pirate is preferable than looking like I am constantly, surreptitiously winking at the person before me.

The moon and bloggers were not aligned last night

It may have been the moon, it may have been the demands of the workplace, but all last night I was buoyed by emails from blogger friends who, like me, could not, would not sleep. Check out my Inbox. Four bloggers, helping each other through the night.

every hour a "you got mail" 

Why do I think that the night was especially difficult only for bloggers? Because I know for a fact that film stars, for example, had no trouble snoozing. NBC woke Hillary Swank from her heavy slumber minutes after the 7:30 am announcement of her Oscar nomination for Best Actress. I think she was on the East Coast (i.e. 8:30 a.m.) yet she herself admitted that her voice sounded groggy and hoarse from having just woken up. Laura Linney (Supporting Actress Nomination) sounded even worse, but at least she was summoned to the phone further to the west and so for her, it was pre-alarm-clock early.

Still, they were sleeping, we were not. A bloggers’ cursed night? A wicked lunar revenge against our lot? I’ll never know.

If a friend offered you a gift (worth up to, but not more than $50,000), what would you ask for?

Here are things running through my head as I work my way through the night:

1. Lots of airline tickets (in this way I would beef up my frequent flyer miles, because surely $50,000 worth of airline tickets would buy me life-long gold status in Frequence Plus or World Perks or something.)
2. …in the same vein, I could, I suppose, finally decide which coffee house I would commit to and buy 15,000 latés (tipping generously), punching one of those coffee cards each time so I’d get another 1,500 free ones.
3. A crumbling stone hut in Umbria, with the idea that it would grow in value, or if not, I could at least have some shelter on the day I do my “great escape” away from it all. It would have to be within walking distance to an Internet café.
4. ?? (Night is still young, room for more ideas, though one gets kind of nutty as the hours move along toward dawn…)

Cars

This afternoon I entered another universe. A galactic space of metal and metallic lacquer: moro blue, brilliant black, ocean blue (no, dear Ocean, this is not your world, keep quiet, lay low, I’ll get to you and a post soon enough). I am in Audi-land and Ann is buying a car.

…and you can have satellite radio, broadcasting clear signals of your favorite station anywhere in the country.
What if I am driving through the desert, will it broadcast in the desert?
Yes, of course, anywhere. It works especially well in the desert.

This car has the built-in system with one of the two brands of satellite radio..
But that brand doesn’t pick up NPR! What if I want NPR in the desert?
(Ann, don’t, please don’t pick a car based on the one hour you may conceivably spend in the desert without NPR.)

…excuse me while I cough again. I’m in the latter stage of a terrible cold.
(I back away)
…I got it from a friend, so yes, it was contagious, but my symptoms are different.
(he describes them. It seems ill-suited in this commercial upper stratum to be talking of your lung deterioration)(coughs again)
(I have to say this:) May I give you some free advice? Get a glass of water.

…I used to drive the Van Galder bus you know. It’s all about distance. And my wife, she had an accident and though she was found at fault, she was not.
(describes what happened, wife’s injuries and current state of her driving)

I’m feeling post-traumatic stress right now… Maybe I should not buy a car.
Ever? Ann, you need a car.

…unfortunately there are no cars with your desired specifications… Color is definitely an issue.
It’s not an issue for me! I’m feeling exhausted. But I need a car. Oh, but I have a pink house! But I’ll take any of the colors (she states one exception: for some reason she does not like the blackish green --If you’re going to make a green car, make it so it looks green!), I'll even take the whacky orange or bright yellow. Ocean blue would be my first choice. (She’s an Ocean fan, I can tell.)

Nina, I am worn out. This is taking forever.
(it does seem like forever, but we are in this astroland of Audis only 3.5 hours; But still, no car…)

Finally, a different, earnest young man finishes the deal.
Will my son hate me for the fact that you can’t sit up straight in the back seat? Will he think I don’t care about him?
Ann, this is about you: you will drive this car 99.9% of its waking hours. Your son will understand. He will be happy for you. We are happy for you. Be happy, you just bought a car!
[Sort of. As soon as they find one that they can get off the boat and roll out to Madison so that it is here by Friday. That's the goal.]

This one. I love it. Do I? 

Is that ever a classy rear end! 

Look at that grin as she flies through the blazing stars of the Audi galaxy 

Expect an Althouse blog post about her new baby. With pictures. 

Finally, signing on the dotted line. For a car that may be getting off the boat tomorrow. maybe. 

Chicken soup for the soul? No way! I’m all about desserts and other distractions.

After a day that is convoluted and not a little unusual, it’s so nice to come home to an email asking for a recipe for last night’s dessert. I don’t normally post such things, but tonight I will make an exception. Some people knit, some watch TV to unwind – me, I sing the virtues of food.

First though, an update to the post below: what does one do when two good friends are in a car accident thanks to the fact that they are rushing to pick you up, and both are somewhat injured (to say nothing of the destroyed car)? You watch a DVD together afterwards, just as a distraction. What would three women (+ obligingly tolerant son of one) select? SERIAL MOM. What the heck is that? Here’s a one sentence summary:
a wickedly funny--and nasty--comedy starring Kathleen Turner as the ultimate suburbanite: a woman so obsessed with suburban perfection that she kills a neighbor for not separating her recyclables.

BTW, minutes ago I dropped off the passenger in the accident, at her house. The theme of the evening had been that this is a *wake-up call.* We need to drive even more carefully, we said. This could happen to anyone. We need to drive like we were newly-minted, we need to take every precaution. So after these heartening thoughts, I then proceeded to back the van out of the passenger's driveway right into a snow bank. Eventually I shoveled my way out. Eventually.


Now for the food comment: there is no one place that deserves credit for the chocolate crepes with sautéed strawberries. I pulled together several threads from several sources. Chronologically, you should begin with making the crepes because the batter for crepes should always rest in the fridge for a while (one day would b e great) before you use it.

My version of the chocolate crepe is a direct steal from Pierre Hermé – my favorite French pastry chef. The strawberries are from Cucina Italiana – a food publication that I pretty much devour when it hits the stands six times a year.

CHOCOLATE CREPES

2/3 c all-purpose flour
3 ½ tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder (Valrhona is best, but not available here so I use Droste)
1 ½ tbsp sugar
2 large eggs (room temp.; hey – this is easy – just put them for a few minutes in a bowl of hot water)
! c whole milk (room temp)
3 tbsp beer (room temp)
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Sift flour and cocoa, then whisk in the sugar.
In another bowl whisk eggs and milk, then whisk in the beer, then melted butter.
Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and whisk well.
Pour batter ideally into Pyrex measuring cup, cover and refrigerate – overnight would be great.

Know how to make crepes once you have the batter? You should use a crepe pan. Spray GENEROUSLY with canola or other oil – you have to have the pan well greased or else the damn crepe will stick.
Pour in some batter, swoosh it around the pan and you can actually pour back the excess into the Pyrex cup.
Let it cook for a minute or two – until it looks cooked throughout . Flip. This part is hard, but if you practice with one or two, you’ll definitely get the hang of it: loosen the edges with a knife and then scoop it out with a thin wide blade (use your hands – it’s not hot!!) and turn it over. Cook for another minute – until it feels done.
I like to stack them, with wax paper between crepes. They can be refrigerated or even frozen. Since they are easy enough to throw in the pan, I just use all of them as I make them.

SAUTEED STRAWBERRIES

5 pints of strawberries, hulled
olive oil (I use enough so as to not have the berries stick: 2 tbsp is a good guess, but feel free to add some if you find your berries starting to stick)
sugar (the recipe says ¾ c of sugar or vanilla sugar; I think that’s too much: if you use half, you should be fine)

Take the berries and cup them up. Medium berries mean that you should cut them into thirds. I like to preserve the nice pointed tips, so I stop there, but I bet you no one will notice the shape. Just make sure that your pieces are big enough o hold shape and small enough to soften. One strawberry typically turns into maybe 4 pieces.

Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add berries and sugar. Cook over high heat, stirring– this takes maybe two – three minutes or so – no hard rules, taste!
Cool to room temperature.


I think it would have been terrific had I remembered to sprinkle powdered sugar over each served crepe. But then, how you serve the crepe is entirely an individual preference thing. Had I time, I would have also stuck a spoon of chocolate mousse inside each 'pancake.' Or, if I were desparate for time, I would have served the crepe plain, unadorned, perhaps with a drizzle of orange liqueur such as Grand Marnier.

Never ever let nasty thoughts run through your head when you're waiting for someone who is late

It's 3:15. My two friends aren't here to pick me up. The movie starts in 40 minutes, there's time.

It's 3:30. How dare they! One has seen the movie. It's probably her fault. She's sometimes late. (So am I.)

It's 3:45. This is ridiculous. Did I get the time wrong? (Check email, I did not.)

It's 3:55, the time the movie is starting. No calls, no nothing. Damn it, I'm cold.

I go in, I call. My ride picks up the phone. What the hell is going on, were you in an accident or something?

Yes, she says. I completely totaled the car.

( I drive and spend the rest of the afternoon in the hospital with the other friend. All is basically fine. Read about it here. Is it providential? The driver had been lusting after a new car...)

Is the ballerina dancing for an audience of angry men?

The main shower in this house comes with one of those faux-marble interiors, where patterns are randomly worked into the surface (it came this way and we have never bothered to change it).

I have always stood in this shower stall happily admiring what I recognize to be a ballerina in front of me. She seems to take life with a leap and a bounce -- a nice start to any morning.

But today I looked cheerily at her and saw, for the first time in 17 years, something else: she is surrounded by angry men! She is trying to bring joy, but it is a struggle! Take a look at my photos below. Is it just me, after a night with too little sleep, being dragged into a macabre circle of fiends, or were they there all along?

the dancer does a leap, while the man with one huge eye (and the other squinting) watched 

a huge flat face with Beethoven-like hair 

terrifying 

Blogger dinnerama

Tonight, A, B, B, & F had a blogger-dinner here and you can follow the events on their respective blogs.

Me, I wrote nothing. I was too busy dirtying pots and putting forth plates of food.

The thing is, nothing they post can tell it like it is: these guys are all wonderful and to be around them is like being back in Poland, among friends.

When you walk through a storm keep your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the wolves…

I thought of those lyrics this morning, at dawn, when I decided (Lord only knows why) to set out for a hike in Owen Woods. The drama of it is lost now, since I not only made it back without incident, but then, in my exhausted and caked-in-snow condition, proceeded to dig my house out – a task that I already bragged about in the post below (but let me repeat it here for emphasis: TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF SHOVELING!).

Sometimes I wonder why we all don’t just wait ‘til spring. I mean, the stuff does eventually melt.

Only a few photos from the morning hike. It was too cold and too blizzardy to keep taking the camera out.

Where’s the path?
 

Hey, great! Thank you, wild animal with the deep tracks. WILD ANIMAL WITH THE DEEP TRACKS?? 

It’s snowing hard now. A little too hard.
 

It was worth it. Not every morning can begin with such splendid views. 

Where Ocean once again provides an invaluable service to the community

In an effort to bring together those in need and those with surplus energy, Ocean is suggesting that you volunteer your services to older members in the community who may be in need of shoveling assistance.

Oh, you don’t know where to direct your good will? Ocean will attempt to match you up with an elderly* homeowner.

* Definition of elderly for the purposes of this post: over 50. And no, I am sure they will not feel insulted if, on the day of the next big snow you show up at the crack of dawn and surprise them with a cleared driveway. Time estimate for the commitment? It took me, for example, two and a half hours today to clear my driveway, sidewalk and steps.

Bloggers making fun of their professional associations

Note the audacity of JFW and Bozzo in Comments (same page)! Rather than heralding the efforts of their associations to instill pride in their discipline and profession, they mock and ridicule it all. Gentlemen, be glad that there is someone fashioning shirts, baby ‘jammies and flash cards. In 1978, when my husband was first on the job market at the ASA meetings (in San Francisco, in the days when I, too, considered myself one of “them”), I had to take things into my own hands. Here’s the shirt I made up for him to wear at the meetings:

I wonder why he still keeps it around... 

The truth about Polish food

1. It blends into the background all too well.

Whole Foods has decided to occasionally feature foods from distant places by grouping together (fresh and natural) products, with signs explaining what’s special and unique about them. The first country to be so honored? Poland! Did I notice? No. At one point last week, I wondered why Polish pickles were taking up room in the aisle (by the meat section) given that it wasn’t barbecue season, but that’s all I noticed. Ann wrote me yesterday asking why I haven’t blogged about the Polish display, sending me immediately into a tizzy of remorse. I am making up for it today, giving it more space than it perhaps deserves.

2. It doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization.

Whole Foods says this about it: Polish cuisine is a blend of Slavic and foreign culinary styles (translate: it has no style) and it is distinguished by its use of foods with well-defined flavor profiles (translate: it’s boring, it’s not selling, let’s dress it up some!). They may be sweet, sour, or hot (who did the research on this?), but are always delicious (translate: positive thinking now, you hear??).

3. There’s not enough of it…

At least not enough to fill a display, because there in the middle, I found packets of “Sweet Clementine Organic Sugar Polish.” Ha! Another one of those poor translation jobs – I thought. Polish what? I picked it up, examined it, wondered if they even grew clementines in Poland, and was about to buy a packet to try it out when I noticed that further down it said “exfoliating and moisturizing.” Oh! It’s those hip sales clerks at Whole Foods having themselves a little joke! Add the face polish to the stand of Polish foods! Ha ha ha, thanks a lot. I almost ate the stuff.

4. It’s what’s inside that counts

Polish pilsner is excellent. Really, it is my favorite. I hardly ever drink beer here but in Poland, my sister has me taste a variety of brews and they are outstanding. But the packaging… For example: I was tickled to find EB beer in the display. It was positively providential because I am about to make chocolate crepes tomorrow (with poached strawberries) and believe it or not, my favorite recipe calls for three tablespoons of beer. Normally I would have thought – eh, I have no beer at home, no one will notice the difference. But then, lo and behold, there is EB and there am I and it’s as if we were meant to be together.

The first thing that happened when I unloaded the van in the garage was that the cardboard container holding the six bottles together disintegrated into Polish nothingness.

I need say no more: let me wrap this post up by showing off two photos: one from the Whole Foods display, the other from the unfortunate incident in the garage. Note how close the glass is to the tire that has already been thrice repaired this season. (Btw – if the beer freezes into crushed ice, how long will it retain its over-powering aroma?)

And you don't even have to go to Poland to try some...pickles. And cheese. And beer. (Truly a Wisconsinite put this display together.) 

Polish beer meets American soil. Result? Shattered dreams. 

Another night of work, another night listening to Cincotti.

Did I read that he is only twenty two?

A friend writes that she knew of him several years ago, when he was a college student at Columbia. They say that his mom sometimes helped with the song-writing. So cool. Most moms send care packages to their college kids (I admit to not having done that either). Some fly in when the kid is sick, just to make that bowl of hot soup (another failing of mine – I only sent messages saying “take a vitamin”). Cincotti’s mom went the distance.

Oh but to have a developed talent that can actually prove useful to another!

Metaphors and clichés that speak right to me

I did not watch the inauguration. I did not watch any of the ceremonies or parades either. In fact, I was rather amused at those at the gym who had the parade on their TV screens, as if watching bands and Bushes was a really good distraction against the tedium of the exercise equipment. It wasn’t for me – I read my book, occasionally looking up at the Food Channel, which unfortunately was showing me how to make low-cal thousand island salad dressing – approximately as mesmerizing as watching an inaugural parade.

But the stuff on the inauguration is everywhere (I’m not seeing as much interest in low-cal thousand island dressing). I am in the kitchen looking listlessly at the eggs I am about to scramble and since that is almost as uninteresting as watching the prep for the thousand island low-cal dressing, which, in turn is almost as uninteresting as an inaugural parade – all this lead me to turn on the TV (and to blogging – I’m all about multitasking) and there I have the Bushes and the bands – all of it, in full attire. (All I need is some low-cal thousand island salad dressing and I'll have a full troika of boringness.)

The Bush speech itself has references to captives being set free and going forward with confidence in the triumph of freedom etc etc. Nothing that would cause me to look up. But hark! Did I hear some words that are cliché–ish images and metaphors for concepts that I am all too familiar with? Here’s one – when the ship of communism sank. Wow. Can you imagine the ship, carrying all that communism sinking... Powerful. Secondly, to take the sentence further – when that ship sank, America apparently went on a sabbatical. Now, I know the term sabbatical doesn’t NECESSARILY have academic connotations, but at least in this house, when one says “sabbatical,” one means a year away doing Very Important Research, say in New York or something.

So, I am pleased that Bush is talking about issues that I nostalgically recall (ships with communism on board), or am currently involved with (people who are on sabbaticals). It’s cool to be in sync with your president.

I dedicate this song to all the people out there who try to make those immediately around them feel good about their lives.

… And for the ones who make no such effort – get with it!

[Each year I take a new CD for my friends in Poland – one that exemplifies a pop-jazz trend on this side of the ocean and is lovely to listen to. This year I took Peter Cincotti’s “On The Moon.” I have loved this for months now. I haven’t read a single review that’s anything but glowing. They all say similar things, like this: “Unlike many talented youngsters, Cincotti is neither rebel nor revivalist. Rather, he combines a bit of the bluesy New Orleans raunch of his mentor Harry Connick, Jr. with a distinctly Big Apple sophistication that's as much Brill Building as it is Blue Note. The result is something at once fresh and accessible, based in classic forms yet quite contemporary.”]

From the terrific batch of them, what one song is best for the tenor of this post (and best from the collection, in my opinion) ? -- "Some kind of Wonderful."

I should qualify: you cannot fuss about the banal lyrics. (For example – your embrace – happy place, touch my hand – understand, alright, alright, how sap sap sappy can it get... But if you take it for its entirety, it works. Really.) And note that piano weaving in and around his voice – they say that Carole King had her hand in these notes, I can hear it.

I tell you, I would not have gotten through the last months without these melodies. And yes, of course, it got me through this dark night of work as well.

Blasphemy

To think that you could get away with not only having drive-up coffee houses (Victor Allen’s has had a drive-up for years), but that you would also structure them in such a way as to have one of those “advance request” stations where you shout in your order, to be picked up at the window further down – why, that defies and defaces everything that I love about coffee houses. Starbucks, how could you!*

* I will now admit that this afternoon, I not only did the drive-through for a second day in a row, but I was also very tempted to honk my horn punitively at the car in front who forgot to pre-place the order, thereby resulting in about a 90 second delay for me, as they had to do it at the pick-up window.

English is not my first language…

…but I thought I had certain words firmly under my belt (am I using the phrase correctly?).

For example, when someone says “inauguration” I think of that person stepping into an office, position, or association. Merriam-Webster confirms this:
inauguration: a ceremonial induction into office.

Is Bush switching jobs?

I interrupt Ocean’s typically bland and dispassionate posting to bring you this important announcement: my littlest one turns twenty today

You’re too far away today and way too old!
Here, these (lucky) four are yours, with names that are wishes for you:

...carefree wonder

...garnets and gold

...la vie en rose

...double play

…and so much more.
The truth is, I love you more than roses.

Happy birthday, little one.

Notes from a Spring Semester day

1. Out goes vanity, in comes perky little beret.

Did somebody say warming trend?

Tomorrow: out of the closet, onto the head. 

2. Is there someone sitting on the floor? It does look crowded in here…

Discussing optimal class size once, my fellow bloggers agreed that forty is about perfect to teach: large enough for the class to feel crowded and full, small enough to learn names and develop conversations. Family Law tends to hover around that number. Even when it goes up to 45, if you assume that there will be five rotating between flu and “didn’t feel like going to class today,” you still have the happy forty there to work with.

For a reason I cannot explain (is it the fact that family issues were so much at the core of political discourse this election season?), my Family Law class has over 60 students this semester. Unless there is a three-month long flu epidemic, I can expect 60 faces every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Sadly, this means that there will be at least fifteen whom I will not really hear from much, nor will I recognize them several years down the road as they begin to practice law. Oh, I’ll remember the names – I can tell if a student has never sat in a class of mine. But the faces will be harder to spot.

As I paced the room, I thought about this and I hoped more than the usual handful would stick around this semester after class, to chat and ask those secondary questions. I think I look forward to this contact even more than they do.

3. Conversation at Victor’s with a young barista who has a tattered little cup for tips with the sign “counter intelligence” pasted on it:

So do you think it’s inappropriate today to be wearing shorts? (I let my wool coat hang loosely around my shorts and t-shirt...)
Oh! I didn’t notice! Uh… is there a reason? (He looks furtively around, worried, possibly thinking that he is dealing with an extremely dangerous and armed lunatic; you can see him doing the mental calculation: dare I grab the phone and call the police?)
People have been looking oddly at me, I do not know why…
Uh… I don’t know… It’s cold outside? (I swear he’s moving sideways toward the phone… Time to make a hasty retreat…)
Well, so long, thanks for making the laté extra hot!
Yeah, you’re welcome, sure, yeah, okay…

What, I am supposed to put on my teaching clothes after the gym just to go home?

Welcome to Spring Semester

If it's Tuesday, it must be the bloggers' special: class at 9:30. Is it an innate preference? (Other bloggers teaching at this time? Read A and F; B is at 9:55, clearly preferring her beauty rest.) [For a rousing discussion of innate preferences, read this.]

A winter morning class means you wake up to a sunrise, as seen through color-tinted icicles