SNOW

Much snow today. Here are some pics.

semantic obfuscation

Due to an email glitch I learned at the last minute that today I was to join a lunch in honor of a visiting Turkish parliament member. Found myself next to a colleague from another department who embarked on a denial of the Armenian genocide. Well, let's be more clear. He concurred that something bad had happened in 1915 but insisted that it was irresponsible to term this 'genocide' because it did not meet the legal definition. He then veered off into a bizarre narrative about how Turks would be happy to admit to the event but not on those terms. Really, he opined, it was "more like what happened in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing." Oh, OK. No problem.

Craziness

Eric has been cleaning out his office and has found a few gems worth blogging about. These fall into the category of: and I thought I was insane, but...
Who knew that in the mid 90s, our department offered ski/conversation classes. Yup. You could get credit for skiing in German, skiing in Italian, etc.
Here's a gem from some 1994 meeting minutes:
The following amendments to the Merit Committee document were approved:
a...
b. that there be a sliding scale...
c. that the sliding scale be eliminated...
d....

It also turns out that the department voted on all sorts of things that never actually got put into practice.

What fun.

Happy New Year

Out with the old and in with the new. So far the Christmas tree stands denuded of its decorations, but still shedding profusely in the family room. We haven't yet figured out how the robotic vacumn cleaner direct from Taiwan works, but it should prove essential when the tree has been dragged out and shed all its needles. Both front and back yards are deep in snow - Craig has shoveled a path from dog door to off the deck for the obvious reasons. This allows Sadie to get to her special spot - repository of all her treasures. On Christmas morning this included Sam's wrapped ipod stolen from under the tree in the dead of night. For those of you haven't heard, I spent the first minutes of Christmas day knee deep in snow, in the dark, digging for the thing. I found it, a t-shirt, a stuffed animal, two paper plates, and well, you get the idea.
Since then, I've been to Chicago for the annual conference where I got to stay in a hotel room with two bathrooms... Got back in time to ring in the new year at Ted's where there was some truly abysmal karaoke and delicious food.

red wine and dermatologists

Some of you may recall my speculating that I might be allergic to red wine. This was a prime example of self-diagnosis. The thing is, I was suffering terribly from itchiness. I was reduced on many occasions to wrapping a cold, damp towel around my feet and ankles at bedtime in order to get some relief. Of course Craig suggested a visit to the doctor, but where I come from, we just suffer... Actually I did mention the itching to my doctor at my annual female visit late last spring and got the usual advice of changing soaps, laundry and otherwise, and so on. And so I continued to itch. What drove me to visit Craig's dermatologist? Well, I realized that people sitting next to me in meetings might be secretly repelled by my scabby wrists and hands. Yup, it was that gross. I had even tried forgoeing the red wine -- no discernible improvement (thank god). So I finally scheduled an appointment last week. As I recounted the visit to Craig, he said "Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you he is quite parsimonious." No kidding. I was called in and sat down. He asked what was wrong and I launched into my tail of itching and soap changes and lotions and.... he swiveled in his swively chair, grabbed a wooden stick with a pointy end and scratched my forearm three times. Then he jumped up and promised to be back in a few minutes. I sat there thinking I hadn't told him about the damp towel and I studied my arm. Eventually he came back and I held out the arm. "Hives" he pronounced. "Neuro-systemic". He then scribbled out a prescription for something better than benadryl and dashed out. I filled the prescription, took two at bedtime and the itching is history.

Christmas pic

When research calls

I am frantically collecting data for the paper I will be giving in two short weeks in Chicago. I needed some more Russian subjects and a friend at work volunteered that at the divey coffee place he likes to hang out at they are aplenty. So last night I popped the kids into bed and headed out to the Coffee Break. You get old and forget that places like this exist (ok, probably this is the only one in SLC). A pretty large place divided into three spaces. Back room with couches and comfy chairs. Main room with tables and the counter for ordering. Many pierced and tatooed young people bustling behind it. Then outside with heat lamps for the smokers. It looked like I had a big crowd, but the numbers shrank when it became clear that the task involved reading words on a screen. Many of them had come to the states prior to much schooling and simply weren't up for it. Still I got half a dozen which was pleasing.