pictures from xmas

The walkers.Visiting Temple Square to see the lights.
Craig and his Dad warming up at Temple Square.
Self-portrait on Temple Square.

The xmas fun begins

I thought it good hostess behavior to enquire about guests' food proclivities. Here is my email exchange with Oliver. Holy shit!

> Hi Oliver,
> just checking in to see what i need to know about you and
> Sophie and food. must and mustn't haves?
> Jane

His reply:

Sophie's vegetarian, except for fish and shellfish. I try to eat only humanely raised animals, if I can help it.
I like lactose-free milk in my coffee, if I'm going to have milk at all, and I don't eat pork or shellfish. There's lots of vegetables I'm avoiding or trying to partake of minimally,which I do according to too complicated a scheme to describe. A non-tomato-sauce, non-onion, non-cabbage option would be swell, but don't sweat it--it's no biggie. Thanks for asking and coping. Looking forward to seeing you!
- O



>

promised pics

Dinner at our place after seeing the live broadcast of the National Theatre production of The Collaborators.Catherine and Keziah after 'decorating' K's car... imagine loud Christmas music accompaniment.

The tree described in the earlier post.

exercise

This is what I am doing on Tuesday and Thursday evenings these days. Torturous fun. More pics of other things coming shortly. Trying to be a more visually interesting blogger...

On Speaking Russian

"To speak Russian involves a contortion of any English-speaking person’s mouth. We must make ourselves conscious of what have become reflexive actions. We can feel the errors of our mouths as surely as we can see the lack of precision in our drawing. We hear the wobbling, sloppy pronunciation as surely as we see our shaky imprecise hand when we sketch a work of art at the museum. That vowel that one of my Russian tutors called "61" (an idea that helped me with my handwriting of it — forget about the loops! Write a miniature 61 and you’ll have the Russian vowel pronounced from the back of the throat and with pursed lips: “ih” [ы]). I don’t have the vocabulary or oral-agility to spew Russian, so I must slow down the way I would were I relearning a baseball swing or basketball jump-shot. My mouth can handle the move this way and that, but certainly not in and out and over there. And so I study Dina’s mouth — she has good teeth; I peer into Albina’s — she’s wearing lipstick today!; I notice Katya’s wearing dangly earrings! I watch and I imitate, even though I can’t see my own mouth. I feel it.

"Say something in Russian," my friend Jose told me when I got back from a trip to Russia. I am accustomed to speaking Spanish to Jose’s wife, but as I wound up and twisted my mouth into the delivery of an easy Russian phrase, Jose laughed. 'Everybody, look at Bob’s mouth!'"

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/12/13/essay-role-mouth-watching-learning-foreign-language#ixzz1gRd3izng
Inside Higher Ed

the personal side

A few tips.

1) do not have microdermabrasion on your face right before hugely stressful and important meeting. The first time I had it I was CALM and my face just glowed. Today, i looked a little like a burn victim. Maybe outside mimicking inside?

2) don't trust your dreams. I woke this morning buoyed up by a dream in which I had been fearlessly interacting with a very large cobra. I naturally read cobra as curmudgeon faculty and felt a little more confident.

3) don't think a klonipin will 'take the edge off". When the edge is that precipitous, probably only heroin will do, and I don't think becoming a drug addict will actually solve any problems.

update on motto

oh my can they interrupt! We had our meeting today to unveil the Language Center and the troglodytes were out in full force. I think most painful was the admonition that "this proposal could have garnered support but we were never consulted." And I sat there making a mental list of the things on which we have consulted over the last four and a half years and the consul tees' miserable track record:

1) requiring study abroad: discuss, discuss, discuss, vote in favor..... and then REJECT in practice.

2) curriculum meetings: attend, atte... oh, not so much; why would we need to discuss that?

3) departmental governance bylaws: draft, draft, draft, discuss, discuss, --- oh, did I mention that we are still only discussing the introductory paragraph... (big raspberry noise)

4) graduate studies brought in line with national best practices.... oh, please, do we have to? we want to be insular and mediocre.

5) required departmental courses: sure, ok... do I have to teach them, oh, ok.... do our students really have to take them? oh, 'required'? but, well they aren't really useful, are they....?

Stay tuned for the part where I take my sabbatical next year and then transfer to the Linguistics Department....

Change is painful

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it!

This is my motto -- we are creating the language center here at the U and detractors, step aside!

"It looked better on the lot."

"It looked better on the lot." That was Ellen's comment this morning when I asked her how their tree looked once they had got it home and up. Ah, so we were not alone. I suffer from bouts of romanticism especially in December and had gotten it into my head that instead of buying a tree at the grocery store which we normally do, we would cut one down our very own selves. What I was really after was the back-country experience where, having secured a permit from the forestry service, we would tromp into the woods with a saw and a flask of hot cocoa. We would emerge later with rosy cheeks dragging a big, freshly cut tree.

I got on line and discovered that other people want to do this too and they are more organized. All permits had been sold by mid October. Plan B. I investigated Christmas tree farms. Once again, these seemed to cater to the early bird and most were open one weekend only, the one right after Thanksgiving. But I found one that was also open this past Saturday and agreed with Ellen that we would both head up there with children to pick out our trees. Sam, who had initially liked the tree cutting idea, backed right away when the word "farm" was added to the outing. Not adventurous enough for him. Craig, who until he met me, had always had a fake tree, looked at me indulgently and firmly and did not even pretend to be momentarily interested. So, it was me and Catherine. We drove and drove and finally after about an hour ended up in what was pretty much a subdivision with large lots. The "farm" owners had obviously decided to turn their tract of land over to xmas trees at some point. We piled out of our two cars at the end of a cul de sac and tromped into the wild forests of spruce around their otherwise manicured suburban lawn. The trees were pretty picked over but I was determined and Catherine was generous, trying very hard to find something acceptable about each strange tree we considered. Finally we found one that seemed good (or less "not good") and we cut it down, heaved it onto the roof of the car, tied it down, and headed for home.

The next day after it had overnighted in the garage, a temperature controlled way station, we brought it inside and the trouble began. What had looked charmingly erratic in the field, now refused to conform to the tree stand. We managed to get it in, but it promptly fell over. Too heavy? Too bushy? Too something. But I was determined and told the children in my most jolly tone that this was a problem that a bucket and bricks could surely fix. Their grandfather, I told them, had never owned a tree stand and every year the tree stood up, a triumph of pieces of broken brick and my father's determination to make do with what was at hand. They looked dubious. We found a bucket and some bricks and I kept telling them how fantastic this was going to be. Catherine, who cares very much about Christmas and nice decorating, looked appalled at the empty cat litter pail. I assured her that we would drape some nice red and green fabric over it the feat of engineering would be our little secret. Except the bucket didn't work either and the tree just fell over more loudly. Even I began to feel defeated and we left it lying across the living room floor hoping Craig would have an idea when he got home.

Bless him. For a man who is more humbug than ho ho (partly to do with suffering his entire childhood with a Christmas Eve birthday), he set to work. First he announced that another few inches of the trunk needed to be sawed off. This to deal with the first of the trunk's several deviations from the straight and narrow. Once that was accomplished we got it into the stand and now the lowest whorl of branches was sitting right on the edge of the opening, providing just that extra needed support. We stepped away gingerly and it stood. Catherine came back and moaned in dismay, "But it's not straight." Which, to be honest it wasn't. Craig, retorted that, what it was doing was all you could expect from a tree with scoliosis. In addition to it not being straight, it also has a curious yellowish cast to its long extremely prickly needles. We looked for the Christmas lights and Catherine finally remembered she had lent them out to a friend for some school club event so 24 hours later, the yellow giant still lurches naked in the corner of the living room. It drinks a lot of water.

from a student homework assignment

They were asked to do an observation connected to Deborah Tannen's work on male and female conversational rituals. One student wryly wrote in a footnote about students who sit behind her in class:

"...they spent five minutes debating whether or not 'linguistical' is a word. They all agreed that it sounded like it should be a word, but they couldn't figure out why it wasn't in their computer's dictionary. They concluded that they were just smarter than the computer because they knew a word that it didn't know. My opinion might differ slightly from theirs."

Ahhh, Russia

Starting to work on next summer's study abroad program and I get this tip from the group leader based on past experience.

"I also think this year we need to leave some money for bribes when we purchase group train tickets. Maybe around 50-60$? It is mafia who operates train ticket sales. They sell only 4 tickets at a time, so last year I had to stay in several lines. This time maybe we can bribe someone there and they will sell us the necessary amount of tickets."

Now, how to square this with our university accounting rules....

End of the long weekend

Feeling lethargic and weirdly pathetic. Today was a gorgeous day but I have been fighting off a nascent cold and so ended up sleeping/dozing all day. Finally roused myself because of the **bloody*** marking that just hasn't gotten itself done. Am trying the timer method-- ten minute bursts with the red pencil. There are only two more weeks of term so the end is in sight but I feel like I actually quit the race and forgot to let anyone know... On Thanksgiving day I ran a 5k and there was this tempting moment when the course was looping around and the unscrupulous could have cut down a side street and shaved a mile off the whole thing. I didn't do it, but am looking for the academic equivalent this week.

Craig flew off to Reno this morning for a few days of tax court. He has already texted me two pictures, one of his toilet and one of the view from his hotel room window. Not sure which he is more excited about.

Some new pictures

Here we are on Thanksgiving which we celebrated with Ellen and family.Craig and I got out the snowshoes a week ago and took a beautiful hike up Mill Creek Canyon

on a more cheerful note

Life around here is very different since a magical day almost two weeks ago when Catherine got her driving license. There was a bit of drama with the test - she failed the first time because she couldn't parallel park (but, really, how many teenagers can?) and she did not look over her shoulder sufficiently when turning and changing lanes. On the second go she did brilliantly although by then she was 'shoulder checking' so much that she looked like she had Tourettes. Todd has handed down his subaru outback so we are back to having three cars at our household - but the most excellent thing is that she drives herself and Sam to school now. SLEEPING IN!!!! Yes, my friends with young children, there is an end in sight. Very distant sight, but in sight nonetheless. She also lends the car to Craig for his gigs and he, in turn, puts gas in it when he uses it so they are both happy.

my patience is running thin

This chair thing can't end soon enough--or at least that is how I am feeling today. Allow me to share a couple of lines from emails I received in the last 24 hours. Admittedly these are out of context, but trust me, in most cases they are even more horrifying in situ. Still to protect my ass, I will edit down to choice phrases:

Response to scheduling conflict of the writer's making:

"You and Fernando set up the system, now make it work."

Commenting on the required course that yours truly teaches:

"but let me remind you, the L2020 is NOT part of the curriculum. It is not a prerequisite for any other language class or program, meaning that it does not clearly funnel into any particular course of study and therefore has little pedagogical application to the language major courses."

I feel so worthwhile....

On the same issue, from someone else:

"I think it's absolutely outrageous to ask a student not to take a required major course for a departmental course at the 2000 (!!!!!) level."

The only bright spot, is that the full text of one of the above, duly forwarded to relevant higher up on campus has gotten me the green light to "write the person up" for unprofessional behavior. Yippee. There go another couple of good hours.

So, here we are in our last months of leadership making some sweet enemies.

Sorry so grumpy.

update

I am not dead. And I promise a nice big post later today.

Student quote of the week

"Unlike Polia, Dasha is not so flatulent with her emotions."

Well meant

The following event is upcoming on our campus:

Event: The Imposter Syndrome
Date: October 6, 2011
Time: 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
Location: Guest House Meeting Room C

Description: How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are: What Every Woman and Man Needs to Know About Competence, the Impostor Syndrome, and the Art of Winging It

Now, I am thinking that if you are a person who suffers from said syndrome, the last thing you are going to want to do is enter a room full of unknown people and reveal yourself....Or is that just me?

The plagiarist sues

For anyone following the scintillating story of our now fired faculty plagiarist, Sunday's paper carried the story that he has filed a suit in 3rd district court. The suit is against a history professor named Peter Sluglett (I kid you not). Sluglett is vintage, unreconstructed Englishman of a certain type which, if you read his quotes in the article, you will have no trouble conjuring up. Here is the link:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52514204-78/bakhtiari-sluglett-plagiarism-suit.html.csp

Incase you don't have time to click over to the full version, my personal favorite Sluglett-ism in the piece is:

"After all, I didn’t write these things," he said. "He wrote them. I am no more responsible for his plagiarism than I am for starting the first world war."

It is official.

I am old. Sometime during our time abroad one of the pop stations on my car radio presets became an oldies station: 'Rewind' they call themselves and their version of oldies is to play 80s music. So just like my mum listened to her oldies stations when we were growing up, Catherine now rolls her eyes in the car when yet another Go Gos song comes blasting over the airwaves. I, however, am a pretty happy camper.

Sunday morning in Utah

One of the secret pleasures of living in Utah is the fantastic obituary tradition. The culture here is to publish lengthy and detailed accounts of a deceased's life and accomplishments, not just information on the where and when of the funeral. Sometimes, the lack of editing renders up such gems as this from Sunday's paper:

"X passed away on August 29, 2011 from an accidental drowning due to a head injury from a fall."

I am trying to picture the chain of events....

Later there is the sentence: "Eagerly learning to swim on his own by one year old." No irony intended.

Lower down the page we read about someone who "enjoyed hunting, snag fishing and art." Which made me learn what snag fishing is. So it is educational as well as amusing to spend time with the obituary section of the paper.

Rejoice! Undergraduate writing assignments are coming in!

Because I know you love them: here is an exchange between colleagues on the latest undergraduate writing gaffe:

Professor A

Homework answer: "Women bust learn to make full use of their rights and

to stop being timid or diffident."

Professor B
I never thought of Russia's social problems being linked to women not
making full use of their busts' rights.

Boy, this could revolutionize the place!

Professor A
Busts of the World, Unite!

A tale of two pictures

Recently I put a long ago purchased in Russia painting into a frame and hung in the hallway outside our bedroom. It looks like this:

Craig said it gave him the creeps but it wasn't until one of his fellow bandmates saw it and reacted so strongly that I learned it had to go. It turns out, my Russian subject bears an uncanny resemblance to Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. Here is a portrait of him:

These two middle-aged former Mormon men told me in no uncertain terms that I just couldn't have a picture hanging in my house that EVERYONE IN UTAH will understand to be Joseph Smith. "uh huh" I kept saying, but didn't actually take the thing down. I didn't realize how dire this was until today I found my Russian in the garage. Craig felt compelled to take matters into his own hands.

Back to school

is always exhilirating (how do you spell that?). I think the kids had an ok day. Sam was exhausted as evidenced by the napping on the couch he was engaged in when I got home from work. We just got back from a marathon school supply shopping trip so each of them is now sufficiently bindered and dividered for at least a month...

They actually have a class together -- ceramics although they are in different levels. I don't know if this means they are strictly relegated to opposite sides of the room or whether there is actual sibling communication. Perhaps I will learn something as the semester goes on.

I had a great first day. It feels good to be back in the routine of teaching and just generally having the school year structure.

we are back

Back at the ranch - aka Salt Lake City. Good to be home although we had to put Sadie down on Sunday. I like to think that she waited for us to return before she took her final slide downhill. I think she really did. Craig said she was in terrible shape and then we got home and she rallied, going up and down stairs and eating a couple of meals after days of only broth. But by Sunday it was clearly all over and we are now dog-less which is odd. Today, hunting for 409 I found three spray bottles of pet stain treatment stuff for carpets. I am not sad those days are gone...

The big excitement of the last two days was the arrival of "the bins". In Salt Lake City proper there is a big garbage window when you can put all your large items out on the curb and they are eventually collected. In Salt Lake County where we live, it is more circumscribed. The county delivers dumpsters (skips, for my English readers) every block or so and they sit there for exactly 24 hours. During this time you can cram as much junk into them as you like. I got home yesterday and called Craig with the rallying cry "the bins are here" and he rushed home. We dragged out the mountain of tree limbs we had pruned and then threw in glass shower wall and door and so on. During "bin time" the streets are driven by latino guys looking for scrap metal and any other salable items. We got rid of an old exercise bike, weight bench, computer monitor, gas cans, and enormous, heavy old Sony television. Excellent.

The arm

Sam broke his arm today. In a splint till casting on Wednesday. There goes his holiday swimming.

My first race

I ran my first proper race this morning!!!! 8k down (operative word) Mill Creek Canyon. Ellen picked me up a little after 5am and the race started at 6am. Home already after a bagel and coffee at the finish and no one else in my household is up.

Trying to lead the good life

On Sunday Daniel and I were having one of our leisurely weekend chats and I mentioned that we had bought a new lawnmower and how great it was to be able to start the mower myself. His response, "I have one word for you, Jane, 'gardener'" So, in addition to the fact that we only recently moved to a modest flat screen tv, the whole grass issue highlights that I am still woefully behind my little brother in leading the good life. To rectify this, I thought today I would finally use the coupon I bought weeks back for 5 super duper car washes. Again, while I am sure that Daniel and Michelle regularly have this cushy experience, it was a first for me. I am not quite a wash it in the driveway with a bucket person, but have only graduated to the self serve car wash where you do it all on your own, or splurge to go through a really lame automatic wash, but still get out and do your own vacuuming. So, today was a huge step up. It was one of those places where you exit your car so that a swarm of guys can clean its interior within an inch of its life. I was loving life, being the sort of person about to drive off in my 'looks almost brand new' car. Mild panic when I realized I should tip but had no idea how much. I was about to pull out of the lot when I realized that the little compartment for sunglasses next to the gear shift was open. And guess why. Because they managed to break a tiny piece of plastic essential to the close function. I did not just drive away and put up with it but backed up and had a chat with the manager. Of course, they will pay to have it fixed, but I have to bring them three bids. So, cushy car wash now turns in to schlep around town to insult mechanics by asking them to bid a tiny plastic doohickey.

Back to research

In between the arrival of summer holidays and playing out my fantasies of being a prosecutor, things are also moving forward on the electropalatography research project. We finally got IRB approval and last week had a team meeting with the guy from Completespeech which makes the palate devices we are using. I now really understand collaborative research. It was so much fun to listen to the incredibly smart (I think 'smart' because I had trouble following) questions from my colleagues. Things about frequency and how various electrodes map to the excel data sheet...

We are in the process of getting our first two Russian speakers fitted and will be able to start collecting their data soon.

Boot camp

This is what I couldn't face getting up for this morning. Picture from last week. I am second back doing an excellent side plank with arm raised!

This is the view if you look east as we work out.

School's out for summer - almost

This is the last week of school for the children although why anyone bothers I am not sure. There was a four day weekend so no school last Friday or this Monday. They had already handed in all of their textbooks and cleared out their lockers. By yesterday evening it was 9th grade promotion party for Sam and 'yearbook stomp' for Catherine. I drove Sam and three of his friends over - had to roll down all the windows because of the asphyxiating amount of cologne they were all sporting. Here is a picture:

Today they are all at our local amusement park, Lagoon, for the day. Catherine and her friends went up to the university to watch the senior class graduation.

Craig and I had a quiet evening in last night watching an episode of Damages on Netflix. Our peace punctuated by phone call from Sam "How late can I stay out?" Followed by text "Spending the night at Quinn's." Catherine appeared briefly to collect stuff for an overnight at her friend Karli's - "Hi mom, just getting some stuff. Do you want to see Karli's belly button piercing." How could I resist. Not sure if Catherine was there while she got it - it was all of 20 minutes old.

Could not make myself get up for bootcamp this morning.

The birthday evening

Last night was supposed to be the Adele concert - tickets to which at vast expense were my birthday present from Craig. Got there only to discover it was cancelled due to illness. Now comes the long wait where you hang on to the tickets and hope she reschedules at a time that actually suits. So there we were all dressed up and no place to go. Decided to catch a movie and ended up at Hangover Part II which was hilarious but verging on too raunchy even for me. There were two tween age kids sitting in front of us with what I thought was their mom, until head turned and I saw full beard. Seemed like way inappropriate movie for them, to which Craig said "visitation." Midway through the movie a woman squeezed past us and plopped down in one of the two vacant seats next to me. She had an enormous bucket of popcorn and within about 30 seconds began agitatedly looking for her "bag". Very distracting. Then she began to talk to herself. Even more distracting. Craig and I got the giggles, speculating that perhaps she had gone out for a popcorn refill and had ended up in the wrong movie. She stayed to the end though, muttering a lot and then when house lights came up, crawling around on the floor looking for the bag which once found looked alarmingly like one of those tied closed bags of dog poo you see people with when out walking the pooch. Woke up to snow.

????

This has gotten ridiculous. This is what was on the grass this morning. SNOW! It is May 30th. We are still running the furnace.

Guess the native language

This could be a fun game for linguists. You get something like this in an email and you have to figure out what the writer's first language is.

"I do not think I can make any difference if I try to talk to him because
I already did and he is just like someone carrying two big melons and has
lost balance."

PS- It is Arabic

Birthday Party

The Bieber party is still going on chez nous. After five straight days of rain, today was perfect. sunny and 75 degrees - which Catherine assured me it would be. The certainty of youth. How could the day not be perfect? I'm having a party.

My morning started early with the arrival of Ellen's son Zack. Ellen is in Norway and Jerry was off to 'enjoy' some 100 mile bike ride so we had Zack for a chunk of the day. My hat is off to all you people with three year olds... We were full speed ahead until Dad returned at a little after 3. Super lucky for Zack that the company brining the bouncy castle with velcro wall had to drop it off a couple of hours early so he got to bounce his little heart out before heading home.

The party was joint with Catherine's friend Gina who also has a May birthday. We contributed the venue and bouncy castle and Gina's Chinese parents arrived with trays and trays of homemade Chinese food. The girls decorated like mad - balloons, fairy lights, tea light candles. Now that it is after 10pm they have gathered every sleeping bag we own and are camped on the lawn about to watch the Justin Bieber movie on the projector I borrowed from work. Catherine is still saying it is the best party ever so I'm happy.

maintenance

One of the things I love about being an academic is never having had to give up the rhythm of the school year. I always loved the excitement of late summer and some new clothes and shoes, but best of all school supplies, and then the weeks at the end of May anticipating summer. Being a professor is much the same except the end of the school year has also come to mean physical maintenance. All the necessary things that have been put off I try to cram into the month of May while the children are still in school. The teeth get cleaned, a visit to the doctor - blood work perhaps - revisiting medications, some attention to the lady parts, and this year I dragged myself for a mammogram having not gone since I turned 40. That was this afternoon and I still feel a bit squashed and tender. I even decided to have a brow wax and that turned out to be a big mistake. Fine for about four days afterwards and then suddenly I broke out in random dry patches or bumps and just generally looked even more ill kempt than I had prior to my attempt to be better 'kempt'. I've also been for a kick ass 90 minute hot stone massage by our lovely masseuse Michele (Alison may have a cleaning lady, but we have a masseuse...).

The joys of having teenagers, really

This is the card I got from Sam on mothers day. He gave me $11 to buy two perennials that we planted together in the piece of the garden we have been working on for the last two years.

Catherine used my ipad and the next time I opened it....

Bieber fever continues around here

Catherine and her friend Gina are having a joint birthday party and here is the invite they made...

Some pictures

Sam setting up new chess set from Granddad.

Post-op Sadie. Growths and several teeth removed....

This is what post boot camp looks like....

Ta Da

Birthday eve

I am sitting at the dining room table, writing and listening to Catherine and her friend next door in the kitchen making my birthday cake. There have been shrieks of delight and despair, much giggling, and just now something that sounded alarmingly like the steam function on an iron. "Are you two ironing in there?" I asked. "We're just using the steam from the iron..." From what I have been able to glean the cake involves fondant and has necessitated repeated trips to check clips from some show called 'Cake Boss'. Now I am hearing things like "basket weave" and "save enough to make a star." Happy 48th to me.

Pet peeve

Heavy breathers in yoga class. Honestly, there was a woman today who was just ridiculous. There I am trying to find inner peace and she is letting out these gargantuan groaning exhalations that were just so rude and inappropriate. I'm sure she thought she was the epitome of "breath work" but I beg to differ. I think the instructor agreed because towards the end she approached her and asked "Are you alright? You seem to be breathing very loudly." But of course, people who can let themselves sound like a gale force wind are not ones likely to respond to subtlety. She was "just fine." Apart from an ingrown toenail which she felt the need to tell us about...

An actual May day post

Its been a super weekend here. Today we bought a new lawn mower which Sam and I can actually start on our own. The previous one was old and temperamental and each time one stopped to empty a bag of clippings, Craig had to be located to get it going again. I decided that we were worth something a bit more user friendly. The grass is freshly mowed for the first time this season (thank you Sam) and I did some pruning and weeding today since the sun was finally out. Yesterday we had snow flurries...

On Friday night I got to go with Catherine and her friends to see the Justin Bieber movie in 3D. Now that was a good time! Oh to be a teenager again - ok, not really. It was very sweet of them to let me come with them, and even let me sit with them... For my part, I did put up with driving them home with the windows rolled down and them all singing his catchy "Baby, baby."

This week is the final real week of the academic year. We have graduation on Friday and once that is done, it is over. The countdown to sabbatical can begin in earnest as there really will be just one more round of chair things to do: one more set of grant/leave support letters; one more round of retention, tenure and promotion proceedings; one more faculty retreat; and so on.

I've put in for a couple of conferences - one in France in early September and one in Iowa in October. The latter more professionally interesting; the former, well, in France so say no more. I continue to collect suggestions for remote, desolate, windswept places to spend a few weeks during fall 2012.

Happy may day

apologies for dearth of posting

It is end of the semester and CRAZY busy. Some highlights.

1) handling a plagiarism charge. the student in question has the surname "Cleverly"...

2) Eric is marking papers so I get the occasional gem in my inbox: "Anna and Vronsky leave at the end of part 4 for Italy. This is significant because Italy is the city of love and they are escaping in the name of love."

3) Had a brush with a big administrative job which I did not get. At first upset and then so not upset! Part of that due to the magic of "The Work." Began with the thought: "If I were worthwhile I would be getting the job." Came out the other side with "Because I am worthwhile, I am not getting the job." Sweet.

4) Am still doing the 5:30am boot camp. Love it.

TIer One day

Sam and I played a little hookie today. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we headed up the slopes. Here are a couple of shots. None of Sam, since skiing with your mom is not acceptable.

Where is spring?

These shots were taken today up at Catherine's friend Tessa's cabin. The girls did some snowshoeing and hot tubbing. Sweet.

Hope springs eternal

Craig went to Costco, and now our bed has been reconstructed yet again. I have to admit that after a week on the bed at Nancy's condo which was way to firm for me, I have a little more sympathy for his nocturnal discomfort. However, I LOVED our current set up so I hope this new development doesn't ruin things for me.

A yard we saw on the way to the airport in San Diego. Isn't it fantastic? Doesn't it make you want to pick up your pruning shears?

You know you are on vacation when

You watch Craig drink a really tiny beer with his lunch. And then, late afternoon, you go to a restaurant and just have the creme brulee, because it was so delicious the other night.I never tire of the birds of paradise.

I also got to spend a glorious hour in a bookstore that specializes in, among other genres, mysteries. We spent the afternoon snoozing and walking on the beach at Carlsbad. After rain this morning the weather was heavenly.

Torrey Pines State Park

The Finisher

Since I will never run a marathon, thought I would proudly post the shot of my brother Daniel at the finish line.

Our toes in the sunshine

But first, we woke up to ferocious hail. This was the plant area in front of the condo.Then the sun came out and we walked and walked and admired the views.
And late in the afternoon, we warmed ourselves on the sand.

on a beach

Thanks to Nancy we are enjoying a fabulous spring break in Solana Beach. This picture was yesterday when it was quite sunny and beautiful. Today - overcast with rain threatening so we decided to drive out to the desert to see the wildflowers. Went to Borrega Springs, stopping in little towns along the way. It was all gorgeous. In B.S. there was an art fair with the usual jewelry, pottery and paintings - none too wonderful. As I was walking along, I heard English voices and turned to check out the brits far from home. Lo and behold there stood Mary and Charles - old family friends who some reading this blog will know. We were all amazed and after chit chatting a bit, gave Daniel a call to see if he had survived his marathon. The rain was torrential, but he finished.

we're poor and we show it

Instead of wrong and right side of the tracks, we have upper and lower campus. Upper campus is where the med school is. There was a talk up there by an historian of medicine and French cultural studies so some of us made the trek. We revealed our lowly status by gasping at the pile of delicious, free box lunches available for attendees....

More on aging

Last Thursday Kim (Craig's brother's partner) was working at home in the afternoon when there was a knock at the door. He opened the door to find Craig's father standing there. Not much chit chat or explanation, just "do you have a copy of the yellow pages I can take a look at?" Remember that Craig's parents live in Colorado, a five hour drive away from here. Turns out Lou had nipped across state lines to acquire a dog from the Salt Lake Humane Society, but having made it to the big city, wasn't quite sure where the Humane Society was. Ever since the dearly departed Delilah, well,.... departed, Lou has been keeping his eye out for a suitable successor. He and Renee are partial to dachsunds and other small breeds. The story goes that he saw the dog in question on the internet and was smitten. Of course, this story was a little odd since Lou does not to anyone's knowledge know how to turn on a computer let alone get on the internet. It later transpired that Craig's sister in law, Carol, had facilitated the internet viewing the night before. When Lou gets an idea he is like a dog with a bone and so he got up the next morning, called to make sure the dog was still available and told the caregiver he was "going over to Salt Lake to get a dog; be back by six." Alarmed the caregiver called over to Carol. It was getting on for lunch time and unless Lou is superhuman he wasn't going to make a ten hour round trip and be back in time for dinner....

Back to the front doorstop, yellow page round up. Kim suggested that he make the trip down to the Humane Society with Lou and meanwhile alerted Craig that dad was in town and determined to get a dog and head home. Between the two of them they talked him into coming over to our house once the dog was his and spending the night. No use driving five hours after dark at his age. Everyone showed up around 6. Out of Lou's hearing, Kim said he hoped the dog has lungs of steel because just a half hour in the moving ashtray that is Lou's car had about done Kim in.

We had dinner and looked at the dog who turned out to be a dachsund shitzu mix. I will leave that to your imaginations.... suffice to say that Catherine pegged it when she whispered to me "That is one ugly dog." It has a ferocious underbite - think eel.

We all went to bed and I was first up at 5am for my boot camp exercise regime. Went to pull the car out and noticed that Lou's was gone. Apparently, he had hit the road at midnight. You can't teach and old dog new tricks. He made it home in the early hours after shredding one tire to bits on rocks by the side of the road. Fortunately some big hearted highway patrol guys changed it for him.

Reports are that Renee loves the dog who is a good little snuggler.

spring

Today everyone is in t-shirts and shorts and there is not a speck of snow left in the garden. Utah is a thrill a minute. I spent some time raking up leaves that we failed to get up before the first snow last fall. The crocuses are up here and there and the clocks changed last night so it feels very much like spring.

welcome to spring

On Monday morning Sam remarked that it felt very springlike and then yesterday we woke up to this:Which gave me cause to fall in love with my car all over again. I got up at 5am to go to boot camp and just popped it into 4 wheel drive and navigated the unplowed side streets with no problem whatsoever. When I got back from furious exercising at the crack of dawn I put the icing and sprinkles on this:
What is it you ask? Why, it is a 'king cake' - something they make down in Louisiana at mardi gras time. It looks like a large bagel and must be sprinkled with those three sugar colors. You are supposed to bake a plastic baby doll inside and whoever gets it is "king for the day." We didn't have a plastic baby. Oh, and we didn't eat it. Catherine took it to school for extra credit in her French class.

potpourri of activities

Yesterday was a varied and excellent day. It began with some skiing up at Alta with friends. I dashed back down to meet up with another friend to watch a broadcast of the National Theatre's production of King Lear with Derek Jacobi among the fabulous cast. Afterwards we had middle eastern food and then I came home and Craig and I watched Sunshine Cleaning on Netflix. At some point in the car I listened to an interview with Lisa Kudrow and they mentioned a series she has been doing on the internet called "Web Therapy" where she plays a therapist who has "limited patience for other people's problems." She limits her sessions to a few minutes and does them over the web to minimize contact with actual patients. Brilliant. I highly recommend checking it out Ali and Sian!

What your 14 year old has been up to....

I keep on my teenagers by tracking their netflix viewing. Witness the following from my inbox;

You recently watched Big Cat Diary: Season 3: "Episode 4". To help us ensure a great experience for all members, would you take a moment to tell us about the picture and audio quality?

A beautiful Sunday

I managed to get Craig to join me on a snowshoe hike today in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Here we are taking a self-portrait:

This is how deep the snow was if you ventured off the trail.
Me slogging up a hill where we hoped for a better view than we actually got.

Instead we parked ourselves and enjoyed a granola bar in the sun.

From my inbox

Shall I frame this? When will I ever be so addressed again?

Dear President Hacking,

2011 ADE-ADFL Joint Seminar Midwest, hosted by Northwestern University, will take place 9–12 June. The ADE/ADFL will sponsor the cost of your transportation to the seminar. The MLA/ADE/ADFL strongly prefers that all association-sponsored air travel arrangements be made via our contracted agent, MacNair Travel Management, since reserving your tickets through our agent will result in significantly lower fees for the association.

BYU curriculum

A student applying for a scholarship took these courses for his first semester at BYU...

Strengthening Marriage & Family
World Civilization from 1500
1st year Japanese
Volleyball, beginning
Intro to the Book of Mormon
Sharing the Gospel

Zoe

While I was away in Canada Craig put Zoe to sleep. It has been really strange to come home and not have her black shaggy presence in the house. Apparently she had missed a couple of meals and was moaning at night in her sleep from pain. She also fell more drastically coming down the stairs so he decided that it was time. She was around 16 years old which is no small feat for a dog. The vet came and put her to sleep and then took her away for cremation. I must admit that I cried when he described the whole thing to me.

My job part the umpteenth

For those of you who have followed or listened to me bemoan the Middle East Center and its politics here at the University of Utah. Or for those of you who can imagine the administrative fall out pending something of this magnitude, check out the latest:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51222181-76/baktiari-piece-tribune-region.html.csp

Cuz I know you all love them

Another email from my colleague with a stellar example of undergraduate writing:

"Westernizers were very pro west people. They considered Russian to be backward and wanted Russian to be Europeanalized. That the only way Russia will ever united was through the imitations and ideals."

And yes, he is a native speaker of English.

trying to get caught up

Lots has been happening. I spent two full days in Portland reviewing a department at Portland State. My first trip there and I was so impressed. The city is a real city and it is gorgeous. And the food.... Every meal I had there was beyond delicious. Here was my first working lunch. The salad was perfectly dressed, and the quiche...simply perfect pastry. Yum.

Catherine flew in on Tuesday evening and we flew on up to Vancouver for our college tour. The plane was late and we were exhausted. The car rental guys talked us into "upgrading" - how could we resist. Boy how I wish we had. The car is a behemoth. For those of you who know your cars... it is a Lincoln Navigator. Totally enormous, but what pushes it over the edge is the ski rack on top. Checked into the hotel and realized part way into the underground garage that we were "oversize"... Managed to park and then saw that I had ripped part of the ski rack off... Today when we got to UBC for our tour, I headed towards the recommended garage and then, YIKES - we won't fit here either. So I had to back out which of course was mortifying for Catherine. I have used super glue and duct tape on the ski rack and am hoping I can slip it back to the rental people without them noticing.

Here is the beast - up at a local ski report which we had to nip up to and check out.

A really sweet local resort that I can picture Catherine boarding at.

More importantly though. We both loved UBC. Here are a couple of pictures from the campus.

This is what they call the "million dollar view".

One of the first year dorms:

One of the many libraries: