It's a Small, Beach Boys-Obsessed World

 

Last week my garden plot had a bunch of happy bean plants, one pepper plant, some radishes, three big squash plants, four kale plants, four chard plants, four ground cherries, and a ton of volunteer tomato plants, besides the two strawberry plants and one chive plant that always come up. Monday when I went to weed, all the beans had been eaten down to nubs! The pepper plant was gone, and something had pulled up one of the strawberry plants, which was dead. One of the chard plants had been pulled up as well, but it was still alive, so I replanted it, and today it looked really good. I should have spaghetti squash soon - I see several fruits, but none are ripe yet. Oddly, the ground cherries have tons of fruit, but I never seem to find any ripe ones. Is something or someone taking them as soon as they ripen?

Sadly, last week I found Lady Cardinal dead in front of our front door. I'm guessing she hit the glass and broke her neck. I moved her off to the bushes, and now there's nothing left of her but her delicate little bones. So sad! Even sadder, Lord Cardinal keeps singing loudly, like he's looking for her. I don't know if he saw her dead on the ground, or if he wonders where she is. I hope he finds a new mate next spring, poor guy! Last year they had a fledgling, but I don't know if they have babies this year, or if they're grown already, or if Lord Cardinal can raise them as a single dad. There are plenty of other cardinals in our neighborhood, but this pair lived right in front of our building, and we saw the two of them hopping around on the lawn all the time, so I feel like I knew them personally.

Today I asked Travalon what triggered the Beach Boys kick he's been on for the last couple of weeks, and he thought about it, and then he remembered that he was thinking of a speech teacher he had in high school. The teacher loved classic rock, and once he had them recite song lyrics, so Travalon recited "I Get Around," and everyone laughed because the words are so repetitive and silly. He said he wished he had kept in touch with that teacher, since the two of them talked about classic rock together all the time, so I said maybe he's on social media, and sure enough, he found him. They started chatting, and the teacher had just watched the same movie about the Beach Boys last week that Travalon had! And now Sirius Radio has a temporary station dedicated to the Beach Boys, just in time for Travalon's kick! Those are all weird coincidences, and then I had one too, because when I looked up this teacher on social media, he and I had a mutual friend - my old boss from the private sector. What a small world it is, with everything coming up Beach Boys all of a sudden!

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Travalon's High School Reunion

I hope my readers had a good weekend. I had very little energy, so on Friday night Travalon (that prince among men) got fish takeout from Mariner’s. Saturday we met Jilly Moose and OK Cap at the new coffee place in Garver Mill, and I thought the coffee had a burned taste. Some people like that, so maybe they were going for that flavor, but they roast their own beans, so maybe it was an accident. I’ll have to give them another try sometime… I did notice someone else put their entire undrunk latte in the bus bin, so clearly they REALLY did not like it. Then I was supposed to play at Eplegaarden, but I never saw the email canceling the gig, even though I was obsessively looking for it. (I knew it was a possibility due to low temperatures.) Who knows where emails sometimes go on their cyber-vacations? We went to Rich’s house, and he told us he once got yelled at for not responding to an email, and then a week later the email in question popped into his inbox. In the evening Travalon and I went to his class reunion at a park pavilion in Pewaukee (say that five times fast!), and people were friendly to me, but they didn’t really know me so I ended up talking to the very nice wife of one of Travalon’s classmates. We actually went to each other’s weddings but hadn’t seen each other in years. Then Travalon and I went to China Lights in Milwaukee, and they were beautiful. I will post some photos soon.

Yesterday I overslept and couldn’t get to my parish for Mass, so we went to Westport. People there are just not friendly at all; for example, the Knights of Columbus were trying to recruit men, and they didn’t even ask Travalon if he was interested. Why, because we don’t go there every week? We went to the Chocolaterian for brunch but discovered to our horror that they had closed, so we went to Common Ground and then drove out to Sauk to see eagles, since it was so cold. No eagles, but plenty of seagulls. Then we went to Devil’s Lake and looked around a little bit, but I was still wearing Mass clothes and was too cold to hike, so we took the Merrimac ferry back home, changed, and took a hike at Holy Wisdom Monastery. In the evening there was a compline service at the Lutheran church where I used to sing, but we got going too late, so we just got some ice cream. I went to bed really early – for me – but didn’t particularly have any easier of a time getting up this morning when my alarm went off at 6 am. Remember, thanks to the wonders of Daylight Saving Time, it’s really 5 am and totally dark. Sigh…

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True Story: Missing the Skiing Trips

Sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday. It was a very busy day full of subscription renewals at work, then Irish class, and then when I got home, instead of blogging on a computer with a dysfunctional A key, I just wanted to work out. Usually I dance around to the hip hop music on my iPod, but last night I actually ran in circles around the loft. It felt really good. Too bad I hate running anywhere else...

Not that I have that much to blog about, but I can share a seasonal childhood memory. (“Seasonal” in the sense of winter, so sorry if you were hoping for some romantic story about Christmas of yore.) Most of the kids at my elementary school were very well off, because their dads were doctors, so our school had an annual ski trip. My family was poor, so I couldn’t afford to go on this trip, and so I had to go to school those days with the few other poor kids. Most of them were Cambodian immigrants, so I started hanging out with them, especially a girl named Sokvouen. (Which is pronounced “So-QUEN.”) I would go over to her house, and her older sisters would dress me in traditional Cambodian clothes, which we all got a kick out of: this really blonde girl in Southeast Asian clothes. I actually learned a few words of Cambodian, especially the dirty ones, of which I only remember one. The other thing I remember is how to count to twenty in Cambodian. Sokvouen’s family moved to California (it was probably too cold in Minnesota for people who had just come from near the equator), and we sent each other a couple of letters but eventually fell out of touch. Anyway, there is no real point to this story except to say that if my family had had the wherewithal to send me skiing, I wouldn’t have been able to walk down the street and recognize the Cambodian F-word written in the snow, like I did one winter day. And so I have always been a pretty good linguist and a lousy athlete.

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Midweek Musings

Just to prove how old I am, I will admit that once in first grade I took part in a bombing raid drill. It was very scary, but I do find myself wondering what good it would have done us to duck under our desks, since by then the weapons were nuclear. Is there some advantage to being evaporated under your desk as opposed to sitting at it? Maybe this is why we never had another one. It was very terrifying as a six-year-old to hear that strange siren, even scarier than a regular tornado siren, and then have to dive below my desk. This was at a Catholic school, so maybe they were behind the times since most people who remember these drills are a generation ahead of me. Still, the Cold War continued on through the 80’s yet we never did another drill. Had they realized the futility of hiding under a desk from a nuclear warhead?

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Misadventures in Music: Instrument of Peace, Man

Third in a series of musical misadventures.

When I was in first grade at Catholic school, we went to music class once a week. One day the music teacher told us we had an instrument that was part of us, did anyone know what it was? The other kids were throwing out random guesses: “Drums? Trumpet?” I thought of the plaque my parents had on the wall of the St. Francis prayer that begins, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace,” so I guessed, “An instrument of God’s peace?” The music teacher just kind of stared at me for a moment, then she said, “Yes, that’s true, but I was thinking of a musical instrument.” She meant our singing voice. But that’s the kind of kid I was; when Sister Mary Pat was trying to teach us the difference between “there” and “their,” I immediately thought of a sentence in which neither seemed right, so she sighed, went to the blackboard, and wrote “they’re.” “I didn’t want to bring this up today,” she said, “but I guess I have to.” I must have been one of the reasons teachers have such high rates of alcoholism.

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Annual Evaluation, i.e., Yearly Career Path Reconsideration

I had my annual evaluation this afternoon, and it will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I was given an average score in most categories but a "below average" overall, and - OK, this did surprise me - in the area of Creativity.  Another perplexing point:  the actual part of my job that matches my job description is the part everyone seems to agree that I do very well.  (Though far be it from my supervisor to designate me as "very good" in any category, and "excellent" is definitely out of the question.)  Opinions on my performance were carefully collected from those, like hubie, who think I suck rocks, but definitely not from anyone who would actually have had anything positive to say about me.  (Though to be fair, when I pointed this odd discrepancy out, my supervisor did admit it was a discrepancy and even went as far as saying these other people might be consulted, though of course it is too late for their good opinions of me to show up in my personnel file.)  Just to add to the general air of "my life is scripted by a sadistic sit-com writer," as soon as I got back to the office, my office mate Light Bright pointed out that I had a huge wad of spinach stuck between my front teeth. Smoooooth. (Please know that this does not reflect badly on Light Bright; she was not in the office before my torture session and so could not give me a thorough inspection.  I wouldn't want my readers to think that she knew the spinach was there but didn't say a word until after I had faced down my enemy.)

I'd care more if I took this thing at all seriously.  However, it did start me thinking once again about going back to school.  My first stab at graduate school was expensive and disappointing, but it might be time to revisit the idea.  Here are some things I am considering and I would be interested in knowing what you, my readers, think:

PhD in Music Theory
PhD in Botany with a focus on genetics
MS in Sustainable Organic Production

The last one has two advantages:  it would take less time (and presumably less money), and it seems more likely to lead to some sort of career after graduation.  However, I probably have the most background in the first one.  Your thoughts?

Here is a rendition of my annual review, if I were discussing it with my nonexistent British coworker.

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Pulp Incunabula

Tiffy recently decided that Kathbert is Richard Bonomo's Wife #1 and I am his Wife #2; this was after Rich got sick and Kathbert called the doctor's office but I was the one who knew his date of birth offhand.  Tiffy has added more wives lately, like Anna Banana II is Wife #3 and she herself is Wife #4.  I told Jilly Moose and OK Cap that if they kept hanging around, they might become Wives #5 and #6.  Luxuli is safe because she has a husband already, but her Pomeranian was flirting so madly with Rich the other night that we joked she would like to become his wife too.

Kathbert keeps insisting that I should be Wife #1, so we came up with Spousal Credit Units, or SCUs (pronounced skoos) so that we can assign them to each other and bump the other one further up the uxorial scale.  Suddenly today Kathbert got an unfair advantage, thanks to the Mothership:  Rich has a bad case of laryngitis, and when the Mothership called, she thought he was being stubborn about insisting he is not sick, so she asked to speak to me.  By name.  The worst part is that Tiffy, who started the whole thing, was there to witness it.  (And so was Anna Banana II.)  They all laughed and said the Mothership had spoken, I was Wife #1, and since I could not prove Kathbert had plotted the whole thing with the Mothership beforehand, I had to accept several thousand SCUs.  (The Mothership wanted me to make sure Rich did not talk too much today, and that he drank some tea with lemon and honey.)  So now I need a real miracle to bump Kathbert back up over me in the ratings.

Anyway, while Tiffy was in town, we created a techno song called "Pulp Incunabula."  (I did all the work and she just offered some opinions about beats and stuff.)  We thought this was an oxymoron, that incunabula were handwritten books from before the printing press, but in fact they are the earliest books created on the printing press, from 1450 to 1501 (an end date that was arbitrarily assigned), and there were some trashy romance novels printed... so pulp incunabula DID exist!  Tiffy had to head home before I finished completely, then Kathbert helped me make the video, which she ultimately felt was too educational and detracted from the coolness of the song.  What can you do?  I needed to make a video in order to post it on this blog, since I do not know how to post sound files.  I will let you, gentle readers, decide for yourselves if this video seems too pedantic for the song.

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That's DR. A-Fooze to You!

This morning I left work for a couple of hours to see A-Fooze give her presentation on her thesis. Her parents and sisters and a professor she had as an undergrad came from various parts of the US and Canada, and Richard Bonomo and El Fiance were there as well. Although she was doing something really complicated with proteins from e. coli, she gave such a clear explanation that I could almost understand it. Almost. At the end she thanked her advisor and all her collaborators, but when she gave El Fiance and her peeps from Our Lady of Perpetual Sobriety a shout-out, she got all choked up. It was very touching.

Then A-Fooze disappeared into a room with her advisor and some other professors, and I returned to work. Just now I got an email from Rich that they are cracking out the champagne in A-Fooze's lab. She is now A-Fooze, Ph.D. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

And this has absolutely nothing to do with that, but Palm Tree Fan was inspired by my post about spiders to create this picture. It made me laugh so hard that I have to put it on my blog.


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