the Queer QuiverFull

A few minutes ago I was waxing romantic about the future. I was thinking about all of our friends and their children, and I made a broad claim that there is a revolution within the coming generation. My argument was that there are so many more queer, multi-racial, non-nuclear families and these families are changing our culture in really exciting ways.

Rhonda interrupted my utopian fantasy by saying: "Except that the super-conservative Christians are reproducing at four time the rate. You know, the whole QuiverFull thing..."

Oh, right. How could I forget? That's kind of their whole point -- to ensure the future.

This put a momentary pause on my optimism. My response? There needs to be a Queer QuiverFull movement, ASAP.

August 13th

Today is Buddy's 5th birthday. Kinda.

We know he was born in the month of August in 2003. So, as convenience or tribute, I decided to assign him the 13th as his birthday. It seemed auspicious as three of my favorite people were born on this day.

Mr. Gabriel Foster, enemy of all bugs and recent transplant to Atlanta:


Mz. Tonja Santos, amazing lap-dancer & Rio-mamma:



Mz. Giorgia Aiello, Colorado State professora and Goodwill maven:



As a birthday tribute to these three amazing people, and as a testament to why people should never try to capture their dog's tricks and/or strange behaviors on film, I give you the video below. Felicidades!




P.S. - that is a dirty towel to be thrown in the laundry. Not like I will reuse it after that, anyway. I swear.

generosity

I have recently been the recipient of an amazing gift. Gaby, whose work and photography projects can be glimpsed here, had an older digital camera sitting in her closet. As Gaby is an amazing artist/photographer, her equipment is quality, and even her older camera is pretty fabulous. Perhaps in response to my earlier complaints about trying to document our rural lives with a point and shoot (found here), my dear friend oh-so-kindly sent me her old camera.

It has been a funny thing to be the recipient of such a nice gift. I feel as though I am deeply indebted, and I am worried that I might not live up to my ability to "make photographs", as G would say. So, we are embarking on a photography course. As luck would have it, the entire content of a digital photography class Gaby taught at Berkeley is online. I have only gotten so far as reading the syllabus and reading about the first practices, and the textbook she used in that class is on its ways from another UW library. So, very soon, my dear friends, you will be subject to an onslaught of photos. However, for the time being, there is a smattering of new stuff on my flikr page, and I will show a few of my favorite new pics so far.

Missing Seattle

I do. Wholeheartedly. I miss the clarity of light on bright, sunny days. I miss the business of city life. I miss walking around Capitol Hill with a Vivace latte in my hand. I miss being able to wander all day and never going too far from home. I miss piroshkis and spring rolls and green onion pancakes. I miss the bins. I miss hearing the sound of the ferry coming in at night, and I miss the smell of salt water that rolls in on the night winds. I miss seeing snow capped mountains and the pacific ocean. I miss my friends.

Chicago: Land of Good Things

At about 8:15 last night we pulled into our driveway happy and satisfied after a quick visit with friends in Chicago. On Saturday afternoon Rhonda picked me up at my department meeting in Waukesha (which I like to say very fast, with emphasis on the S-h-a!), and we headed to Chicago to see some of our closest friends. It was really exciting to catch up with folks from grad school (even briefly, Yang), walk around Millennium park with Lauren, and spend a good 24 hours with Vince and Ji. A lot has changed in the nine months since we left Seattle, and yet it felt as though it had only been a few weeks since we saw each other last.

At the core of our friendship with V & J is a love of good food. In Seattle we would regularly plan big, extravagant meals to cook together at our house. Thanksgiving with them was a must. Another notable event was the time we went in together on a bushel of peaches from the Farmer's Market, and then had a peach-themed meal (including the amazing peach barbeque sauce). So, combine our love of food with Rhonda and my good-food deprivation, and you get a Chicago food fest.

The quick run-down: We chowed down at Little 3 Happiness on Cermak. The meal included salt-n-pepper squid (sorely missed since we left Seattle), pea shoots in garlic sauce,rice noodles with Chinese broccoli and beef, and honey walnut shrimp.

Breakfast the next day was *really good* lattes and pastries at Intelligentsia.

There was a quick driveby of an ethiopian grocery where we purchased injera for a homemade ethiopian feast.

And lunch was an amazing repast of falafel, pita, stuffed grape leaves, and chicken shwarma at the Chicagoland institution, Pita Inn.

All of this foodie-ness was topped off with a routine stop at Woodman's in Green Bay where we bought lot of good food to stock our northwoods pantry.

Spring. Break.

I have been quiet for a while... trying to finish a load of stuff before spring break. I am so excited to have a week off. Why don't we do this every semester? I still have to do lots of grading and such, but at least I get to grade in my pajamas.

I have also been busy with a whirlwind of house stuff. Suddenly I feel like doing lots of house projects again. This week stripped wallpaper and primed and painted. The far wall in my office is going to be *green*. Though, I have discovered that painting paneling is a pain in the bum. I stripped the paper, primed, sanded and painted, and I am sure it will require at least two more coats. anyway, that is a boring topic...

What else? Buddy had his anal glands expressed today. The very nice (very gay!) vet was incredibly helpful and explained how we can do this at home (it s 24 bucks per gland expression ). He used all kinds of formal, veterinary language until he described the "upwards motion towards the butthole." His assistant said " hmmm... butthole. Is that the technical term?"

What else are we going to do during the week of break? Sand, paint, plan a garden, play with the dog, have friends over, play Life and Monopoly, cook, sleep, and grade some stuff. Oh, yeah, and then we are going to Minneapolis for a few days to see Emily and Elizabeth. Hooray!

Finally, I want to say congrats to the many of you who have recently accepted jobs. It is really exciting to hear the stories, and even more exciting to not have to actually do the work of looking for a job. It is a sad state of things (in the PhD job market) when you have a 50/50 chance of *ever* getting a job. That makes your various successes even more exciting and hard earned.

More soon.... A

Best of East Coast Retrospective

Decided to condense this entry of photos from our winter break on the East Coast
(no offense to any of the removed subjects!)



shadows of 30th street
philadelphia, pa



Gaby in the bakery (old ladies ooh and
aah over a baby)
ny, ny



a sunny, sunny day
newport news, va



gabriel - learning about my peoples
philly

Welcome Winter Snack Tree of Peace

As mentioned and documented in my last posting, we cut down a tree in our woods the other day. We brought it inside and it warmed and filled our still-bare walls in our partly-unfurnished living room. The strangeness of the tradition in which we go out into wintertime and kill a tree and bring it into the house as a way of celebrating renewal and winter make me think a lot about David Sedaris' story "Six to Eight Black Men" in which he laments the bizareness of Dutch holiday traditions. (By the way, this is so funny and worth listening to that I spent the better part of an hour tracking it down online. There are some bizarre versions on You Tube, but you might be better downloading this episode of "This American Life" to avoid odd video montages.)

Anyway, embracing the strangeness of cutting down a tree and bringing it into your home, we decided that the tree should be a "Welcome Winter" tree, since that seemed to be the real purpose of dragging this pine tree through our house and giving it a month of post-mortem bliss. Besides, we were slightly embarrassed about having to admit to putting up a Christmas Tree on November 17th.

So it was known as the Welcome Winter Tree for almost a whole day. But then we decided to decorate. The branches of the tree are spare and supple, and we decided that popcorn icicles would be the best way to go. We set about adorning our tree with freshly-popped popcorn strung onto 12-inch piece of thread. The effect was very pretty and simple; it is an old fashioned looking tree. However, it was within minutes that we realized our oversight: Buddy loves popcorn and could in no way resist the temptation of a whole tree laden with swaying strings of dangling popcorn. We watched in amazement as the dog circled the tree, sniffing heartily, while occasionally standing on his hind legs and trying to steal a snack. We soon realized that we had created a very wonderful, phenomenal thing in the life of our dog: a Welcome Winter Snack Tree.

Our friends the Gieblers came by a few nights later and were amused and delighted by our story of the evolving tree name. David informed us that we had a White Pine and after they left we looked up White Pines in our naturalist guide. I read out loud to Rhonda about the history of the White Pine, and its history in the logging and lumber industry in the North Woods. The book then went on to explain the importance of White Pine in the Iroquois Nation, explaining that the Iroquoi refer to it as the Tree of Peace. I looked at Rhonda and said, you know what this means don't you? " She smiled and said, "yeah, we now have a Welcome Winter Snack Tree of Peace."

Thanks

Our friend Lauren is in town between a trip to China and Thanksgiving with her family in Indiana. Her short layover is mostly about eating, walking in the woods, and making things for future eating. Later today we will eat a made-up holiday meal we will call Thankslauren. As the sweet potato rolls bake, let me regale you with a photographic list of things we've done.

We canned our own tomato sauce:



We cut down a Welcome Winter Tree (formerly known as Christmas Tree) in our own woods:

And we spent hours in front of the fire:




Most of these photos were taken by Lauren who is a professional photographer.

Innards

I have been a blog slacker. This causes me great worry: will my readership dwindle? Will I lose touch with my peeps? Will my mom ever read my blog when it is not updated regularly?

It is enough to keep a girl up at night.

So I offer a series of excuses:

1. It is a lot of work to teach 4 writing classes
2. I had a lot of catching up to do 'cause baby Rio was captivating & distracting
   
3. We tore apart our bedroom
   

The third excuse is, perhaps, the most original and interesting. Yes, we entirely gutted our bedroom last week, starting with the ceiling and working our way to the carpeting and multiple layers of paneling. (Wisconsin interior design tip #125: What do you put over paneling? PANELING!) It was FUN -- and a lot of freakin' hard work. It became less fun once the insulation started falling down and we had gallons of loose cellulose "blown" insulation filling the room with dust and nastiness. But, we persevered (Rhonda taking over most of the work once Monday rolled around), and we are now ready for R's parents to come and help us drywall. Let us all say a prayer to the deities of your choice that we can actually drywall this funny, catty-wampus room.

On an entirely different note: we were watching Gray's Anatomy last night when I realized that I knew one of the patients. Ruthie, the over-zealous dieter and exercise fiend, was played by Maggie Siff who I know from Bryn Mawr. I rather idolized Maggie in college -- she always had the lead in the College plays whereas I was remaindered to the likes of a talking bird (yes, it's true). She also, I remembered last night, was one of the three people who took me out for a beer on my 21st birthday; she was older, cool and sophisticated. Sadly, Maggie/Ruthie died a rather gross death last night that began with vomiting blood and, subsequently, sending Rhonda to hide entirely under the covers while screaming "Oh my god! Oh my god!"

Maggie is an amazing actress and a very cool person. She has a recurring role in "Mad Men" -- a series about advertising execs in the 1960s. After years in the Philly and NYC theater she has taken the LA plunge; I hope that her career continues to skyrocket. Plus, do you know what this does for my status in the realm of six-degrees (of Kevin Bacon)?!

Rio!

My friend Tricia and her new, beautiful, baby-girl, Rio Shanti, arrived on Thursday. We are having so much fun just playing and talking. The only thing that would make it better would be having Tonja (Rio's mommy) here with us.

Buddy liked Rio a lot, at first. But then she got some special treatment, and she didn't leave soon enough, and it was like a call to war. Buddy spent much time (after this photo was taken) asserting his dominance and protecting me from Rio.

Friends

We are just back from two days in Madison. Buddy was lucky enough to have his own special Tirza-sit. He came away from the weekend with the new nickname: "snuggle bunny."

It was really good to get away for a little bit; Madison is a great city, and we enjoyed eating our way through the weekend. (The highlights: good Nepalese food on State Street, Kale and Greens and the Farmers' Market, and fresh dolmas at the Willy Street Co-op). It was also good to come home. As we turned onto Shore Drive after the last leg of the drive (we stopped for Chinese food at Chef Chu's in Green Bay, a restaurant whose name made us giggle in its similarity to our friends name -- Jeff Chiu) we talked about what it felt like to return "home." It is beginning to feel like a real home -- both through time and sweat equity -- and now we are ready to share it with our friends.

Which brings me to the second part of this entry. There is a lot going on in the lives of our friends. In addition to the previously-blogged mention of births, we have neglected to make any mention of other big, life things. Emily Hughes is 1-year cancer free!!!!; Sari Gold is a doctor; Beccalena moved to Berkeley; Gaby and Kaushik are recently without a home because of a fire (they are okay -- i still think they should come and stay here for recovery!); Ben Dorn got married; Natalie and Meg are becoming dog-mamas; and, last but not even a little bit least, Tricia and baby-Rio are coming from Northampton on Thursday to be our first house guests! The moral of the story? Buy renter's insurance, celebrate the good things, and come visit us!

xoxo

Summer time

Today we took the day off. No housework. No unpacking. No bat-proofing. Nothing. Instead we slept in, did some reading and napping, and headed out to the Giebler's place in Porterfield. Buddy got to run around with the dogs (and chase some cats) and we picked veggies and then pickled them! Afterwards, David proclaimed "we just captured 19 jars of summer!" Good stuff.


On the bat front, we have called in the experts. Judith Johnson came by last night and checked the place out. She has a lot of experience working with bats as a ranger and biologist, and she can even identify the type of bat by looking at their poop (= guano). She had been in our second floor for five minutes when she turned to me and said, "Oh, Amy, I cant imagine a better space for bats. They LOVE it here." I think Judith thought this was rather cool and interesting. We promptly vacated the second floor and returned to sleeping in the living room.

So, we called more experts. There are these guys in Door County (the Hanks family) who have a patented "bat door" that they will install in your "point of access." After you pay them a bunch of money, they guarantee no bats for at least 2 years. At this point, it is *so* worth it. They should be coming out to us sometime soon -- there is a bit of a wait because it is the height of bat season.