Lazy last days

Summer is almost over. Monday morning I have to be at school at 8am to greet eager first years arriving for their "Intro to College." I have spent a lot of the last week prepping for classes, but also doing a lot of last-ditch summer stuff. We went to the county fair, spent lots of time in the garden, and devoured yet another Maisie Dobbs novel (I cannot over-recommend this series).

So, in lieu of a real blog post, I am going to post some long-overdue pictures of the big project of the fall and winter: the master bedroom. Rhonda and I gutted this room down to the studs, and Rhonda, with much help from the Mellingers, drywalled the whole room. It is now a beautiful, calming, bat-free space with new walls (the accent color is "dill pickle"), floors and lighting. Keep in mind that this room was paneled with blue shag carpet. Needless to say, we are very proud of this space.

Hard Worker

Accomplished today:

Scrubbed the kitchen floor
Scrubbed the rust stains off of the shower curtain
Built four more boxes to frame garden beds
Made lunch: eggplant, avocado, cucumber sandwiches
with fresh lettuce from the garden
Prepared a new bed for planting in the front yard
Hauled three wheel barrow's full of dirt from the woods to the front
Hung several loads of laundry
Took a load of garbage and recycling to the dump
Drank beer with friends who dropped by
Cleared and cleaned the 3-season room
Watched a bird take its very first flight
Knit a sock (well, just part of it)
Folded laundry


My friend Natalie's reply is too good not to post...

Accomplished today:

Bought an overpriced head of lettuce from the deli.
Stepped in chewing gum on the way home from the post office.
Stared at the orchid which is no longer an orchid, but rather, a stick in a pot with two leaves on it.
Ate two donuts in record-breaking time.
Stubbed my toe while taking out the trash.
Wrote about drag queens.
Made a glass of instant diet iced tea.
Read Keepin' It Rural instead of opening the electric bill.

D.I.Y.

I just put the finishing touches on my office space (meaning I cleared out the paint and nailed the baseboard back in) and I am feel particularly proud of my accomplishments. This is, I think, the first project I have undertaken -- and actually completed -- mostly by my self (with due credit to Rhonda the wallpaper scraper). So, I will self-indulge with a photo of my accomplishment. Isn't it lovely? It should really make me want to go grade papers right now...

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

Grumpy Smurf has an Ice Dam

One of my favorite books from kidhood is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. On the first page, Alexander explains:

I went to bed with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The book proceeds accordingly with Alexander recalling all of his woes and intermittently threatening to move to Australia.

So far, today has been kinda like that. It is only 2pm, so I am wary of making any grand claims that the Universe could take as a challenge to up the ante and make things worse. Lots worse.

I wasn't in a bad mood when I woke up. But Rhonda was. It started innocently enough: I made a joke that she didn't think was funny; I was more awake than she was; I was banished to the downstairs where I began to clean up a helluva mess left over from yesterday's cookie-baking session. Once R emerged from the upstairs, it was clear that the clouds were not lifting. I tried to offer solutions, but kept making things worse. So, after a few failed attempts at enjoying the morning, we both decided it would be best to just get to work. Clean up the house, get ready for the week, finalize some class plans.

Once I got to my desk, I began settling in to a day of work mixed with an appropriate amount of digital entertainment interspersed. Okay, I thought. This isn't so bad. I can hang out in my office, work on some stuff, watch some stuff, so and and so forth. About two minutes into this reverie I started to hear a noise. A soft but persistent "plop" every five or ten seconds. I looked up. Saw nothing. I listened. Heard it again. I looked up and left, and I stood up, reaching over to the corner of my desk when I began to holler "OH SHIT! The roof is leaking onto my desk. RHONDA COME QUICK! The roof is leaking. We have an ICE DAM! ICE DAM! ICE DAM!"

The next few minutes were pure motion with some cursing thrown in for fun. We had to quickly move all of my computer equipment, books, papers to dry ground. There was much running around and - at the high point - Buddy responded to our fervor with some barking.

Fast forward four hours. I am now sitting four feet to the left of my desk at a small makeshift table-desk. The dripping continues as we await the arrival of our gallant friend/superhero David who actually owns a ladder long enough to reach our roof. In the meantime, we spent some time walking from neighbor to neighbor inquiring about 25 foot ladders. "Good morning. I know it is the Sabbath, and we are your new lesbian neighbors, but do you have a ladder we could borrow?" Sadly we are the tallest house on the street and no one else seems to need a ginourmous ladder with which they can climb up to the icy rooftoop and begin to melt away the ice that, when thick enough, prevents melting snow from running off of the roof and, instead, encourages it to seep into the roof, through the attic, and right onto my laser printer.

Hallelujah! We're moving to Australia!

I am sitting at my desk watching a ladybug. My home office is "temporarily" -- meaning at least for the next six months-- located on the front sun-porch. This is an east-facing room, long and narrow with some wicker chairs that were left behind by the previous owners. Much to everyone's surprise the room is well heated; in fact, it is the warmest room in the house. Even warmer now than before thanks to the additional insulation added by Rhonda and family as they rennovated the master bedroom above. So, I am sitting her watching a ladybug attempt to regain full mobility after being partly squashed by my left hand just a few moments ago. The squash was accidental though inevitable. Apparently every home in Northern Wisconsin is annually invaded by thousands of ladybugs.

They are said to bring good luck. They eat aphids. But they also end up in everything: doing a backstroke in my tea, landing on food, dying in the windowsill, drowning in the toilet, dancing around light bulbs. The other night Buddy was alone in the bedroom while we sat just feet away in the tv area. He was growling and then barking at something we couldn't hear. I went in to investigate and found him sitting with his face inches from the lamp, barking at the silly ladybugs who were vigorously flying back and forth between the light bulb and the shade.

mellingers

Rhonda's parents left this afternoon. I am forever indebted to them for insulating, re-building, drywalling and mudding our rather large bedroom. Rhonda and her dad bonded over this project (one night working until 9:30pm) and all three of them worked tirelessly for six days in a row. The last morning, while Rhonda and her dad did last-minute things, her mom taught me how to make and can apple sauce. We had a really nice visit, and we never be able to repay them for all of the hard work.

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)?!

been a long time...

Another week has flown by. We have already completed three weeks of school. I have 47 ungraded papers in my bag to show for it. The week has been good, bad, and ugly. I think we are both struggling with our new and shifting roles as full-time teacher and stay-at-home domestic diva. I come home exhausted and needing to veg. Rhonda has been at home all day dealing with a range of projects from painting the bathroom to mowing the acreage to baking bread and feeding the masses (on a tight budget). I want to be helpful but am, at times, lazy. Rhonda feels overwhelmed with the amount there is to do in this old, needin'-updating house.

And there are the good things. I have funny stories to share about my crazy students. I have good teaching days where I feel inspired. Rhonda finds moments of relaxation in the woods. She has made several killer loaves of bread and new dishes (beet risotto!) that bring inspiration and good eating into our day.

One success in our week is that we finally finished the bathroom. It took so much longer than we thought, in part because of the surprises: the bathroom fan that David and Rhonda installed took several days to cut through the walls, wire the ceiling, etc. The wallpaper was a pain in the arse to get off. The walls underneath were damaged. There was drywall repair and paint consultations. Lights and fixtures were ordered online. We re-fabbed the sink and installed our own, new faucet. And then there was the shower curtain: we found the ideal shower curtain more than a month ago. But every Target in the midwest was out of it. We made lots of phone calls. We tracked it down.

Today we put the final touch on our new and improved bathroom. We found this enormous, heavy mirror at TJ Maxx for a super-clearance price of 5 bucks. It weighs at least 25 pounds and required hours of retrofitting to make it secure. We used a stud finder to locate the right mounting location only to find out that the studs stop halfway up the wall (WHY? WHY, I implore you?). After all of the effort that we put into this tiny bathroom, it was the mirror that brought us to the edge of our collective sanity. However, we persevered and jerry-rigged and alas, we have a centered, secure, level mirror. And a fully-functional bathroom. This is a huge luxury after weeks of having to pee under a ladder (in the mid-painted bathroom, not outside) and showering in the basement's farmer's shower. The end product is quite lovely. It is a space that feels clean and simple. It is pretty hard to capture the room well -- it is small and bare which doesn't necessarily lend itself to photography. However, here are some before and after pics:

Wall and light fixtures: Old = stripey wallpaper and globe lamp



Old, pearlized sink with coppery faucet; new, brighter and simpler fixture and sink top.



The final product:

In the kitchen

Finally! We are done with the kitchen. There are plenty of things that are still imperfect, but the simple act of stripping wallpaper and painting a warm, bright color has made all of the difference in how we feel about this space. FYI, the color is called "squish-squash." Ha.

Before:

After (ignoring the glare):

streaming

It has been a few days. Instead of trying to write some boring narrative of exactly what we have been doing, I am going to remain true to my ADD tendencies and share a range of moments/ thoughts and projects.

Item #1: We have just about completed the kitchen (and when I say "we" I mean that I taped and cleaned and Rhonda painted. She had better motor control). It was such a catharsis to strip the wallpaper and transform the room with paint. So much a thrill that I got ahead of myself and started to strip the bathroom wallpaper while in the shower. Yes, I was in the shower when suddenly possessed by a need to strip the wallpaper. Here is what the wallpaper looked like. You see, it had to go. Now we have a half-naked bathroom, stripped down the the paper backing and paint. Still, an improvement.

More important, here is what all of the fixtures including lighting, faucets, towel bars, etc. look like:

Can you name this style? I think the switchplate is actually designed to look like a scroll. Is it medieval? Colonial? ('cause, you know, colonists were really big into decorative switchplates.)

Item #2: We had to take the car to the garage to get this annoying rattle taken care of. The guys were super-nice and charges us only 10 bucks for tightening the heat shield. They did, however, also encounter a large mouse nest in the car -- when the mechanic opened the hood one of "the tenants" scurried away. (I can't help but think about how devastated that mouse-family is by this event. One of them now lives at Jim's All-Care while the others could be scattered at various points between here and there.)

I had to ride my bike back from the mechanic (as we have only one car and want to have only one car). I was struck by how beautiful the ride was. It is only 2.5 miles from our house to the strip mall area where the mechanic is located. Surrounded by fast food joints, a mall, and the ubiquitous Walmart, it was a huge surprise to realize that the swatch of land between stripmall-land and our house is untouched. For now. There are rumors of a Super-Walmart and a Target coming soon.

Item #3:

We went to Green Bay yesterday. This is, perhaps, the thing that makes me feel most like I'm living in the hinterlands. Most people we know drive to Green Bay (56 miles) once or twice a month to do a "big shop." The grocery stores here are notoriously expensive and there is a Woodmans in Green Bay. Woodmans is cool and huge and really cheap. And it is employee owned. It also has the largest cheese section I have ever seen in any store anywhere.

This picture shows Rhonda leaning over one (of four) of the cheese cases. They have everything from Kraft cheese in a box to local organic cheeses. Since we are on a pretty tight budget, we are not buying organics these days. However, we are trying to support local farmers and buying only Wisconsin cheeses.

I was also struck by the fact that you can buy lots of things in very large quantities. Just to give a sense of perspective, these mayo containers were as big as my head. Also, note the large cannister of MSG at the bottom right.

My final observation is more about regional brands. It goes without saying that, when you move from one part of this country to another, you will encounter new, regional brands. There are all kinds of things we have never seen before. However, this has to be one of the strangest. Faygo, a mid-western soda company, has a line of beverages called "Ohana." As indicated on the packaging, "Ohana is Hawaiian for family."

Ohana = family = brand of soda in the midwest.

up and at 'em

After a day of rest we are back at it. It is only noon and we have already seen the cable and internet/phone guy (James, seen here), visited with one of my colleagues (Tirza, not seen here), and begun washing the kitchen walls in order to paint.

I cannot over- state how relieved we are to have internet access. I thought it would be a nice, idyllic break from the 21st century. NOT SO. It was really hard to be away from email, celebrity gossip and Eagle news (rhonda). But most difficult was being just seconds away from information. We are so used to being able to research everything -- need to fix the washing machine? Look it up. Need to identify a critter? Look it up. So now we are fully ready to charge ahead with full research capabilities.

BatsBatsBatsBats!

We have been attacked! Two of the past three nights of sleep have been interrupted when our valiant dog started barking at low flying critters in the bedroom. Yes, WE HAVE BATS IN OUR BEDROOM. You really haven't lived until you have attempted to formulate a battle plan for a bat counter-attack while hiding under the covers of your bed with a shrieking partner and barking dog at 3am.

We have, however, survived. For now.

Thanks to some sage advice from Judith Johnson, Shore Drive's resident bat expert, when our 2:30am bat call came last night we acted appropriately. Shrieked, screamed, huddled, and then opened the screen door and turned on the lights. After Buddy chased the critter around for 10 minutes all went quiet. We bravely searched the upstairs rooms with no signs of a bat. We then went to sleep -- with the lights on, of course.

The remaining fear is that, in the six or more months that the house has been vacant, the flying mammals have taken our attic bedroom for their own home. We have seen droppings in the closet. I think we now own 7 acres and a bat house.

In the meantime we have mostly unpacked and are stripping wallpaper. We completed the kitchen last night (gracias a dios) and are now getting ready to paint. This little house is starting to feel more like home. It is a pretty cool experience to work on things in your own house -- you get to know the structure and the "bones" of the place. And, after two years of sitting on my arse writing a dissertation (and, for R, years of emotional support work) it feels really good to be doing more physical work.