Games, bets, no meals, no automobiles

Gary, an American living in southern Poland, throws out a question for his readers. The deal is we answer it in unison, posting a response on the same day (tomorrow) on our own blogs. Then we compare and contrast.

I had always wanted to do this during one of our blogger dinners in Madison. There, we’d have the pressure of time and no opportunity to cheat and peak. Still, an invitation to simul-blog is always to be treated seriously and so I signed on to the challenge. If you are a blogger, you might want to as well. Just follow the link to the post on trackingsuits. The handful of participants are a wonderful group of bloggers whom you probably haven’t read thus far. Check them out -- they all are thoughtful, creative, interesting and funny (plus Ocean supports any community that crosses an ocean or two -- from India, through Germany, France, to the States and of course, Poland).

I’m off to New York for a few days. Next post will be from there.

Games, bets, meals and automobiles

I never gamble. I do not want to depend on luck for my good fortune. I have never bought a lottery ticket and I have not touched a slot machine since I was seven and stranded in Vegas for a week (my dad had a car accident while we were passing through; it was his fault, too, but I pretended not to notice this little aside as everyone rallied behind him and caused him to come out financially unscathed).

But Marginal Utility offered a deal I could not resist: Rice on the Republican ticket in 08 - Tom says dinner on him at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. The TradesSports politics market indicates I have more than a spittin’ chance to eat my way to culinary heaven if I take on this challenge and so I signed on. My reasoning: it’s not a gamble, it’s a win – win. Rice is the nominee, I get to eat the dinner of the century. She’s not on – I relax (and pay for a round of drinks).

[Listening to her during this last week makes me a little nervous: she has a persuasive edge to her and she may in fact, if she survives the nomination process, pull out a win over our Democratic candidate X, especially since there is no candidate X who at this point even begins to spark anyone’s fancy. I’ll bet anyone (should I pony up a brand new car? If I win, will someone buy me a snazzy brand new car?*) that Feingold will NOT be on the ticket. Damn, this is how betting leads to corruption of the soul and an empty bank account…]

* This is a speculation, not a serious wager; the terms of the Feingold wager are yet to be determined. Always read the fine print!

Blogger Brian's beautiful baby boy is born

A few days late, but who's counting...
I am sending the link to Brian's blog not only so all can admire the picture of his (very new) son (some institutional pride here since Brian is a law student), but also because Brian's second blog (SosySteps) is always good to click on whenever you want to reassure yourself that there is indeed a new generation of wonderful children out there who will someday take charge.

Brian and Kris -- congratulations from all of us!

a cowardly, cowering ninny

Over on one of the European blogs, a writer wanted to take a pause for a day (I’m guessing that this was the motivation). He wrote something like this – okay you commenters (he has a fairly regular trickle of them), why don’t you have a conversation among yourselves today? And then he retreated. And they spoke up.

Now, everyone who has ever mentioned the word “blog” to me knows that I am terrified of random people saying random things and so I would never ever enable a Comments function on Ocean. I love it when people write emails to me and I almost always answer. Indeed, I have met some wonderful people in this way. Friends for life and all that. But I am way too marmish and sensitive to give free reign to readers who would, I am certain, slaughter me or something/someone that I care about in public while my attention was elsewhere.

However, today I was tempted, just for this one day, to let people talk while I took a back seat and listened. I have a hell-schedule of teaching and then traveling and I really did not think I could afford to take a moment to post anything. Still, I held back with this kind of an open invitation. Why? Because this is how I imagine the comments would look were I to solicit the words of random readers (I’m making up names, but the personalities are of people that I know read my blog):

Polish kielbasa is inferior to German sausage and in any event I don’t eat sausage. But this does not stop me from posting a comment! Because sausage rules and I rule and you Polish goons, geaks and freaks are all the same, pushing your keilbasa as if it were the import from paradise. Roll out the brats, dude!
-- raving anti-kielbasa lunatic

I came to your blog via xxxx (a PD blog from DC) and I expected some legal insights, given that you are a law prof. I must say I was horribly disappointed. May I suggest picking topics more profound than oatmeal in Pittsburgh or martinis in Madison if you wish to maintain some semblance of a professional reputation?
-- lawyer in limbo

Nie wiem co mam napisac. Na pewno mowisz po Polsku ale ja nic tutaj nie widze co by mi tu odpowiadalo.
-- niezadowolona z Warszawy

Hey muz, how come you haven’t answered our emails in the past 24 hours? And how come you never call? It’s all about your blog now, isn’t it?
-- a *relative* living far from home

I seekth thou, dearest, with sweet suggestion,
For willst thou giveth me indigestion
To think that all doth scorn my syrup
Thou kicketh my ass with one sharp stirrup
-- LDMsquared

O.M.G., it’s that lascivious, lecherous, lunatic again! Get him out of here!
-- embarrassed in eau claire

I recognize the communist overtones in your blog. I looked up your father and learned that he was a member of the Communist Party in Poland during the crucial years of Communism Over There. I am not a communist nor especially loyal to Poland but it pleases me no end to expose you in this way.
--Immigrant from you know where

And so on. Thinking about the range of possible contributors makes me produce more sweat than did the guy at the gym who covered the elliptical machine with a running stream of body water. So, thanks but I am too much of a thin-skinned and tender-hoofed ninny*. I guess I’ll just have to find the time for a (benignly marmish) post myself, work and travel notwithstanding.

*And inevitably someone from my past would write and point out that this was indeed my nickname while in grad school. I won it at a poker game and it stuck.

Teaching on a late Wednesday afternoon

The seminar room has no windows. And it is warm. Initially it had no desk or table at the end where I sit and so I would balance my tea mug, my notes, and my other papers on a makeshift, wobbly movable something that had slanting leaves, causing things to spill and papers to slide.

I enter dressed in proper teaching clothes: skirt and sweater set today. I keep my long scarf just in case the temps drop and I get nippy. But as I give an overview of a point (I’m talking about Burundi today, the class is Comparative Family Law and I want to demonstrate the interplay of customary law and imported general written law) I keep being distracted by the scarf. It reminds me of something the Pope would wear. Off it goes.

Is it me or is it hot in the room? It’s me. Off goes the top sweater, I am now in short sleeves. That’s better.

I want to keep going because the materials are so interesting (I would think that), but everyone hates teachers who sacrifice breaks and so I stop. I go up to my office, catch my breath, get more tea. On goes the sweater. It’s cold up here.

Back to the classroom for the final round. I get so into this topic that I sound hoarse by the time I’m done. I ask them if I had been shouting. They smile benevolently. Someone finishes her macaroni pizza. God, I’m hungry.

We begin a run with the rooster

If the Chinese New Year imposes Rooster-type traits on children born now (the Year of the Rooster starts today), I say hold off on your plans to conceive until we reach again the Year of the Snake. In a BBC article that describes the typical characteristics ascribed to people born under the different animal symbols (find yours here), I learn this about Rooster-ites:

People born under the year of the Rooster tend to hide their conservative natures via a display of aggression and self-confidence, however they are very "dignified". Roosters come in two types: those that are very somber and those that are very communicative. They love to be the focus of attention, showing scant regard for the feelings of others and as a result they are often susceptible to flattery and sycophancy.

Me, I was born in the year of the Snake. True, snake-types aren’t going to come around again until 2013, but it may be worth holding back on your desire to mate and procreate until then. Compare us to the above:

People born under the year of the Snake are intellectual, superstitious, sceptical, astute, have elegance, innate wisdom, and possibly some levels of supernatural capability. Snake people rarely seek independent advice or advice from others, possibly because on the whole they don't communicate well with others.

P.S.: I am working on my communication skills. That is something that you can acquire over time. Innate wisdom and supernatural capability on the other hand – those come from Snake-birth.

Headed for ruin and damnation

Until recently I could honestly say that I disliked drinking virtually all alcohol save for wine and an occasional beer. Oh sure, there’d been a gin and tonic era in my past (they were so fashionable once, especially in the summer), and a bloody mary moment (so “brunch from the seventies”), and I pumped all sorts of cognacs and liqueurs into sauces and baked goods, but all those oddly shaped bottles basically collect dust in my cabinet.

So what happened? Recently I decided that nothing tastes better than a martini after a day of not-getting-enough-work-done. There are a number of martini models and martini-look-alikes that suit me just fine (and that number is growing). I like the entire experience, the glass shape, the fact that you almost never drink martinis alone (it hasn’t come to that), the jolt of cold, all of it.

My reader from Boston writes this morning:

Another nice thing about martinis: one can talk for hours about them. …[A]t one point in Harvard History Department circles, the Bernard DeVoto formula was favored (2.6 [gin] to 1 [vermouth]— but the ice factor is VERY important; you must experiment. Then it's perfect).

I’ll add this: you can read people’s martini stories for hours as well. There is something about the drink that spells adulthood, irreverence, precision. It is a brainy piece of art, a drink for the strong-headed. A classic.

P.S. Oh why don’t I just blurt it out: ever since cooking late at night at L’Etoile and hanging out with the chefs and waiters afterwards at the bar, I have also grown fond of Cosmos. But these have to be even more perfectly prepared than Martinis: Triple Sec, not Cointreau! And if you overdo the cranberry, you may as well pour it down the back of your enemy.

Like I said in the title, I am steps away from a complete spiral toward hell and damnation.

Looking for something else and finding yourself

It turns out that for some unbeknownst to me reason, my photos come up on a Google image search pretty quickly. I was searching yesterday afternoon, for reasons that are irrelevant (as is most of my searching, I admit), for an image of Umbria (really, it doesn’t matter why, in the middle of writing my lecture I was looking up Umbria) and the first page, indeed the first photo that came up on Google was one from an Ocean post.

Now, I suppose that would be considered a good thing if you took it upon yourself to keep one of those photo blogs where people could come and admire (or so you hope in your delusional state of exalted pride) your photos. But Ocean is primarily a text blog and what also comes up is lots of text (always the last entry of the month where the photo is hidden). That is sort of funny. Or pathetic. Because I am sure that people looking for photos of Umbria are not a little surprised at where they are taken – to some lame blog of a Polish-born law prof in Wisconsin.

Welcome anyway. At least that first photo of Umbria is a decent-ish one. It would be terrible if the one that came up immediately was the one of me eating an ice cream dessert. Thankfully you don’t get to that one until much later in the search.

No, I did not attend a meat-eaters' convention, I am merely responding to the pressure to post more about FOOD

Tonight I had so much work to do that I went out for a healthy round of blogger martinis and cosmos. It did not end there. What started out as a meeting for a drink ended as many drinks and then some meat-eating. I think there were other foods proffered that evening. I think. Or maybe it was all about martinis and protein? I feel set for another night of work now. Really. Not sleepy at all. Not at all.

hunger struck 

Polish lessons

Today’s front page of the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza can stump a foreigner. On the one hand, there is a headline where only one word is unrecognizable to the English-speaking person:

New England Patriots Zdobyli Super Bowl!

I mean, you can guess what “zdobyli” means in a second – consider yourself then a fluent reader of the Polish press. But in another story, I read about an asteroid discovered by a young Polish astronomer. The young man has naming privileges now and he solicited suggestions from the general public. Thousands sent in names and most demonstrated Polish pride (okay, maybe I would not have submitted “Kiełbasa,” even if is suggestive of Polishness). What they also demonstrated was the inscrutability of my native language. Forget the Super Bowl headline. Try saying these out loud (any of which could easily be spoken by a Polish kid):

Brzęczyszczykiewicz, Chrząszcz, Szczebrzeszyn.

We are a mixture of the unpronounceable and the Polenglish. A mysterious lot. But predictable as well. The winning entry for the unnamed asteroid? Karol Wojtyła.

The Gates

I know, it is wrong to be in Rome and not do as the Romans do, but I am a football ignoramus and so I benevolently tolerate the Super Bowl craze, but I never participate in it.

Instead, tonight I went over to a friend’s and we watched documentaries. Your adrenaline flow could not surpass mine, because I finally got to see Running Fence, the film about Christo’s art project in California from the 70s. Why is this exciting? Because Christo is again setting up his miles and miles of terrain art (titled this time “The Gates”) and the unveiling of this two week wonder (26 years in the planning) will be in Central Park this Saturday, coinciding with my trip to the city. Will I blog about it? Stay tuned.

And speaking of mincing (garlic, etc.)…

A reader kindly requested that I increase the number of posts devoted to food. I cannot. I have a confession to make: I am taking a (rather extensive) break from major cooking. Indeed, today I restocked my refrigerator and this is how it now looks:

an exciting array of foods and beverages 

It would be even less full if someone hadn’t packed in a dozen cans of Klarbrunn many weeks back.

Have I grown tired of the culinary arts? Have I thrown in my polka-dot apron and replaced it with the now ever-present in the kitchen Dell Latitude? No. I continue to love to cook and I diligently have the Food Channel on every time I am at the gym, in case a new creative cooking idea pops up on the screen. But everything needs a pause and a rest in life and this is the season for me to withdraw from cooking (the exception: when people come over – then I am all about pots and pans again).

Do I not eat? Oh, I’ll broil a fish now and then. But I am discovering the simplistic beauty of eggs, cheeses and raw vegetables – hardly postable material! Not to worry, though. My trends never last. Today’s cooking calm may soon develop into a cooking mania. One never knows.

Ocean proceeds mincingly

Brian writes that if you type in ninacamic into Blogger, the spell check will suggest a replacement: mincingly (M-W def: “affectedly dainty or delicate”). Although some would scoff and say that a person who plunges into each day with spirit cannot lay claim to any such finespun imagery, that robustness is incompatible with something balmy and light, let me (timidly) suggest otherwise: Ocean does indeed at least aspire to be more subtle than bold, more whimsical than forceful, more delicate than coarse. Bottom line – Blogger spell check and I are friends. Mincingly is a better fit than schoolmarmishly.

Neither prudish nor school-marmish

Last night a friend mentioned that my reputation may run the way of Marion the librarian in some blogging circles. Oh, how wrong you, who think that, are! [And I am not referring to episodes of skinny dipping in my employer’s pool with the lively crowds that frequented the Connecticut summer residence where I once worked as a nanny.]

I want to raise a quiet thumbs up to references to sex and nudity (caveat: in their non-exploitative form, and I don’t care if that is a hard line to draw, it can be done!) though I’m still firmly negative on gore and violence. Just because I refrain from dotting the Ocean pages with words that would make Margaret Spellings ears turn pink, I see no reason why others cannot express themselves more *creatively*. There’s a long stretch of road from acknowledging our interest in sex and the various fascinating parts of our anatomy, to plastering highway billboards with pictures of naked women and men having sex with animals.

It came as no surprise that the public response to nipple-gate was usurped by those who were eager to turn this into an all-out campaign against any positive reference to gays or even cohabitants on network TV. A cleaned-up Super Bowl is a blimp of an event. An absence of racy dicey commercials may lead to a boring half-time, but in the scheme of things, it is just a moment in television history. The pendulum will swing back and Paul McCartney in a turtle neck will again be replaced by something more representative of our lust for the daring and the obscene.

But the door has indeed been propped open for regulation of a more invidious kind: the banning of references to sexuality (sad in its own right) has spread to a standing ovation in favor of the clean, the morally upright, the perfect heterosexual couple, raising the clean the morally upright, the perfectly groomed pair of children.

I say no. I’m all in favor of getting rid of violence and meanness, of cleaning up our discourse so that degrading offense is not bandied randomly, endlessly. But please, let's not go the route of a sanitized nation, where even this splendid Ocean post would be regarded as inappropriate for public viewing.

Parental discretion advised: the post starts out in a gentle, bucolic tone and then turns towards violence and murder

It seems that for years now I have been foisting Indian Lake Park on friends and family. They always tell me they like it, but when I suggest a return visit, they balk. Too far (it’s only 15 minutes northwest of Madison), too doggy (people do like to take their dogs for a walk there – it’s permitted), too hilly (why is this a drawback?)!

But today I may have found an Indian Lake sucker and she packs a camera – meaning she doesn’t tsk tsk with annoyance every time I myself pause to take photos. In fact she takes even more than I do.

Indian Lake is splendid. A birch forest covers a hilly terrain on one side, and on the other, fields stretch upwards, from the lake toward the tree line. In spring the birches dazzle. But in my current “I love February every since yesterday’s post and ever since it decided to be a record-breaking 50 degrees today” mode, they are equally beautiful now.

Two small incidents did remind me that we are not always at peace with the animals that roam the wild, or even those under human stewardship: two dogs were (playfully, we were told) mauling each other and in their exuberance, one decided to entice Ann into the game, nearly knocking her down in the process. Then, as we retraced our steps, we came across a large bone. Those dogs! -- we said. But a few paces further, there was another large bone, this one with a perfectly preserved deer hoof at the end of it, leaving us with these tricky questions: who attacked the deer? And are we next in line?

Oh, it did not strike me until now that maybe Ann will not be so fond of returning to Indian Lake County Park after all!

They look like they're swaying to music. 

Are they bat houses or bird houses?