maybe this year will be better than the last

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before? I saw one of the seven wonders of the world. I held an Inaz baby. As for the rest, I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I'm not sure I had any. If I did, I can almost guarantee that I failed spectacularly at keeping my resolve.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My friend Casey did, as did my aunt.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No.

5. What places did you visit? Cleveland, DC, Madison, Sedona & the Grand Canyon, Oakland, Albuquerque, Madison, Madison, Boise, Madison, Madison.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? A cure for pancreatic cancer would be swell, thanks.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? January 15. April 22. July 3. July 7. August 29. September 1. October 13.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Surviving.

9. What was your biggest failure? Guess who doesn't weigh 160 pounds today?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? In ridiculous quantities, both physical and emotional. Let's not do that again.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I purchased some really cool things for other people. For me, the best things I bought were probably my Keens. Or maybe my Skechers Bikers. Let's just say shoes in general.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? All of my friends. All of them.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I'm not at liberty to say.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent and car payments. And eating out.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Ummm. NWSA? Surprises for certain people, too.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006? I have to pick just one? "Delicate" by Damien Rice.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? It's a toss up. Fight the binary.
b) thinner or fatter? slightly thinner
c) richer or poorer? poorer, I think.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Exercise, pleasure reading, cooking.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Receiving catastrophic news, losing sleep, being weary, travel.

20. How did you spend Christmas last year? In Milwaukee and Madison, per usual.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006? Indeed.

22. How many one-night stands? None.

23. What was your favorite TV program? Big Brother. Though if I were inclined towards more TV, I'd totally get on the Scrubs and Family Guy and Arrested Development bandwagons. Good shit.

24. What did you do for your birthday in 2006? Dessert on my actual birthday with friends, party a few days later with requisite Birthday Lasagna. Still more celebration the next week with Aaron.

25. What was the best book you read? Um.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Damien Rice, Shawn Mullins, Jack Johnson.

27. What did you want and get? For Christmas? I didn't really have any wants, but was really excited to receive the gifts people got me.

28. What did you want and not get? Heh.

29. What was your favorite film of this year? Borat, the only one I saw.

30. Did you make some new friends this year? I certainly did. And thank God for them.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Erasing a lot of those dates I listed above.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? Grad student comfortable.

33. What kept you sane? My peeps.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I don't really fancy any of them...

35. What political issue stirred you the most? I was mostly unstirred all year. Though I was pleased about the EC approval, and dismayed, of course, about dumb South Dakota. Oh, and completely pissed off with the state of Wisconsin.

36. Who did you miss? Too many people to count.

37. Who was the best new person you met? #6.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006. Usually it's when you think things can't get any worse that they do. On the upside, you will survive.

family

These are my beautiful, wonderful Inaz girls, all of us partners-in-crime since we were wee:



They rescued me from Milwaukee the Friday before Christmas, and every time I am in town, they make a point to love on me as much as possible, for which I can never, ever repay them.

These are all the cousins on my dad's side, throwing gang signs like the badasses we are:



This is my mom, tiny and tired but still good at momming after all these years, holding Hannah Elizabeth who is only slightly older than I was at my first Christmas:

O lord, kumbaya.

Alright. For your reading pleasure, this is my exciting holiday travel tale. It's not so exciting to me after living it and then retelling it a million times to friends and family over the holidays, but..whatevs.

I flew out of Tucson on the afternoon of December 21. We were about an hour late leaving, and I only had 1.5 hours for my layover so I was a wee bit nervous. Never fear! The Delta Gods of Delays are here! Our pilot made up some time in the air and I was finally in the terminal in Hartsfield around 7PM, with a scheduled departure of 8:04 PM to Wisconsin. I hauled through the terminal to get to the bathroom, fill up my water bottle, grab dinner, etc. and made it with plenty of time to spare, since my next flight kept getting bumped back 15 minutes every 20 minutes or so.

We finally boarded around 8:45 and then promptly sat around for awhile. The pilots decided since the weather was sketchy in Wisconsin, they needed some extra fuel in case we needed to circle or be diverted. In comes the fuel truck, which loaded us up with 500 pounds of fuel, instead of the requested 100 pounds. Haha. Funny. The plane was then overweight, so they asked some standby passengers to get off and began pulling bags at random from the hold. You can imagine how excited people were to hear that their bags might not reach Madison, but they'd be able to file a claim and have them delivered. Eventually.

So after the weight fiasco, we finally begin taxiing away from the gate. Once we're on a runway, we sit there for another 30 minutes or so. The flight attendant finally explains that there is a mechanical issue. As it turned out, one of the hydraulic pumps in the first engine was not working. So the pilots decide we better get this fixed before we take off and they head back to the gate.

The mechanics come and fix it and everyone is happy and ready to go, but no. Now, because we burned some fuel waiting out on the runway, we're low again. So they called the fuel truck to refuel us (AGAIN. FOR THE SECOND TIME. THIRD IF YOU COUNT THE INITIAL UNDERFUELING.). After it pulled away, we were still sitting there when a voice came over the loudspeaker and said "Because of the weather, this flight is canceled..." Haha. I just spent 2.5 hours on a plane (close to the entire flight time, actually) and now the flight is canceled? Great!

Before we left the plane, the flight attendant noted that if our bags were not on the carousel, we needed to file a service claim to have them delivered to Madison. I stopped at the carousel first and only found one of my bags, but more were still coming off the conveyor belt, so I decided to get in line to be rebooked and then check again later.

I waited in line for about 45 minutes before reaching a really nice gate agent who had a tremendously cheerful outlook for someone who had been dealing with irate and cranky people all evening. She clicked away on her computer and told me she could get me to Madison on the 23rd.

You know, 2 days after I left my house in Tucson. I told her that wouldn't do, but could she fly me to Milwaukee? She booked me a flight for noon the next day (it was now close to 1 AM) and gave me a voucher for a hotel and crappy airport food, etc. She also gave me the overnight kit featuring the t-shirt you see pictured below.

I headed back to the baggage claim to see if the suitcase with, oh, half my wardrobe had appeared. It had not. I wandered around all the carousels to make sure it wasn't hanging out and then headed to the long line to file a service claim. I greeted the agent cheerfully and explained that I thought my bag was probably pulled, but couldn't know for sure, and could she please use this pretty sticker with a barcode to tell me where it was? No. No, she could not. My bag was going to Madison, she said, and I couldn't file anything until I got to Madison. I explained that I was no longer flying into Madison, but Milwaukee. She asked me if I'd be going to Madison eventually anyway and I said yeah, of course. She then explained that instead of letting me file a service claim in Atlanta and having my bag delivered to me IN MADISON, I would have to make a separate trip to the airport to file the claim and/or pick it up. I then explained to her that this made no sense; if I had made it to Madison that night like planned, and my bag hadn't been present, it would be in my hot little hands the next morning at the latest. Now, because I was rerouted to Milwaukee, she expected me to fly in there, drive to Madison, and make a trip to MSN to see if maybe possibly my bag was there?

My breaking point was when she told me that the barcodes on the stickers didn't mean anything and that they didn't have a tracking system like that. Oh, travel tears. I love you so.

Anyway, I made it without incident to my hotel and got a scary outdoor room that permitted me a few hours of fitful sleep. When I woke in the morning, I got some breakfast and then started making calls to see who could pick me up in Milwaukee, and to cancel both my hair and dental appointments for that day. Kristin graciously offered to go to Milwaukee to get me. We ended up departing over an hour late from Atlanta, but I did eventually make it to the land of cheese and beer. When I headed to the airport later that evening, my bag was waiting for me at the Delta service counter, which I was pretty glad for. I picked up dinner for my dad and I and headed home to sleep, which amounted to something like 12 very blissful hours.

i got stuck in atlanta and all i got was this lousy t-shirt

Oh, yeah, baby. Tell me how sexy I look in my chintzy "SKYTEAM" t-shirt, compliments of Delta "We can get you home on the 23rd, fully 2 days after you left Tucson, ma'am" Airlines. Until I feel up to typing my Holiday Travel Adventure (oh, we've only just begun!), enjoy these pictures from the past couple weeks.



The beginnings of peanut brittle. No, you can't have the recipe. I've been sworn to secrecy.



The beginnings of the Candy That Would Have Been.



The next Joan Baez.

so he'll never be jealous!

Imagine my surprise when (NSFW) this was sent to me mistakenly by Amazon.com yesterday. I mean, Amazon and I go way back and we've had a pretty evenly keeled love affair all these years, but. . . I did have to check around to make sure it wasn't an errant Christmas gift sent by a well-meaning partner. He assures me it most definitely did not come from him.

A little mix up at the shipping facility, I suppose.

go shorty

I think there's something about Lauryn that you can't capture in words, or in pixels. Google tries anyway, and so will I. Lauryn is:

• a lyrical genius.


• an affectionate child who enjoys a warm relationship with her carers.


• not the only person who has looked terrible after a spiritual war.


• such an inspiration.


• really bothered by the seat now.

My roommate is one of my dearest friends. When I think about the gamble we took in living with each other--both essentially totally unknown quantities to each other--lo these 16 months ago, I thank my lucky stars that I landed with her at Casa 921. She is one of the kindest, most considerate, supportive and real people I know.

Lauryn makes up songs when she is happy, and she makes up songs when she is upset. They might be about our coursework, or her beloved Virginia Woolf, or the janky ferals that live in our yard, or our crazy landlady, or they might just be odes to PB&J or Kashi. She picks up phrases (Kelly, FYO has made its way to Arizona, and soon Long Island) effortlessly and seems to construct sentences even more so. She is a gifted writer, dedicated to her craft, and we could all stand to learn a little more patience with our words from her.

I think Lauryn has seen me cry more than any other friend I have, and that's saying a lot considering the years of friendship I have with some of you (or maybe it's saying a lot about the year and a half I've been in Tucson). She has watched me throw my phone to the ground in anger, and cry out in anguished sobs, only to pick up the pieces and bring them to me, asking what is wrong when it seemed like I might be breathing again. She has, time and time again, listened to me talk about my life, loves, and loved ones without judgment and without condemnation. She understands, more than anyone else I know, about the difficulty of family and when I cried at a wedding we attended together, she knew why. Lauryn is the kind of friend who will give you breathing room and the space to make your own decisions, but will always, always let you know that there's a spot on her bed for you if you want to talk. In other words, she is the ideal kind of friend.

She and I are sisters in the bond of dumb gyno issues, inconvenient body hair, Dawson's Creek, Big Brother, spinach & artichoke dip, the hottness, feminism, red, red wine, Soleil, steaming vegetables, a good burger, Hollaback Girl, a hearty laugh, chick folk rock, and a meaningful hug.

Happy 25th Birthday, Lauryn Lou. I love you and wish you all the laughter, contemplation, good sex, and amazing food you can handle in the coming years. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again (which will be in approximately 1 hour for your birthday dinner) and forevermore,
may you rock the hizzouse to its very foundations.

in the lady doctor's office

Her (examining my sexual health history sheet): Oh, I see here that you've been with your partner for 4 years.
Me (startled): ?! Er, I thought I wrote 1?
Her: Haha, oh you did. Okay.
Me (laughing): Seriously. 4 years? Where's my ring?!
Her: It's inside of you, honey.

Ah, Nuvaring. Constant source of hormones AND fun.

At any rate, I am sick again. I had a very mild cold last week that went away after 3 or 4 days and was feeling well until Saturday afternoon. I thought maybe my throat was just reacting to the congestion and whatnot, but..no. This marks the second time in two months that I've had some sort of wacked out throat thing going on. The last time, it was strep. This time, it's inconclusive. The strep test came back negative this morning, but there's definitely a party happening at the back of my throat, so the doctor I saw in Urgent Care (*after* I had my pap and annual exam, sat around waiting for a referral to get the Gardasil vaccination, and gave some blood to the nice lab folks) gave me a "broad spectrum" antibiotic, thinking the penicillin I took in October may not have done its job. Ah, well. Quarantined again until tomorrow morning. I'm feeling better after popping the first pill this morning and taking some massive doses of ibuprofen. And some Ben and Jerry's, of course.

kingfisher: tucson, az.

It's too bad I didn't think of creating a Tucson restaurant blog until I was dozens and dozens of restaurants into my culinary adventure here. I don't hit enough new ones these days to really warrant a full-on blog just for restaurant reviews, but I thought maybe I'd start writing about fantastic meals I've had around these parts.

We headed to Kingfisher tonight to use up a Tucson Originals gift certificate I had purchased back in June, set to expire later this week, and enjoy a veritable orgy of seafood. For the uninitiated, the quarterly sale of gift certificates by Tucson's independent restaurants is the best bargain in town. You pay $30 for a $50 certificate, or $12 on $20, or $15 on $25. I set my alarm just to wake up in time ('cause these babies go FAST!) when they go on sale. Alas, you've just missed the first quarter of 2007 sale, but there should be another in March or April.

We were seated quickly (we had a reservation, though the restaurant wasn't terribly busy when we first walked in, it did fill up with a basketball crowd pretty fast) and perused the drink menu while a busser filled our glasses with iced water. Kingfisher's lights are low and the furniture is quite beautiful. The entire restaurant is pretty small, which gives it a very intimate feel. Aaron ordered a mojito ($8.50) and I got a diet Pepsi. A few minutes later, we still didn't have our drinks, but we did have a lovely platter of rosemary artisanal bread.

When our waiter reappeared with our drinks, he took our order. I started with the grilled and chilled Gulf shrimp ($12) and Aaron ordered the calamari ($8), accompanied by a marinated cucumber salad and spicy tartar sauce. We both ordered the grilled sea scallops ($20), marinated in basil and garlic infused oil, but skipped the accompanying lentils in favor of our favorite potatoes (oven roasted for me, red skin on garlic, goat cheese on special for Aaron).

Our first courses arrived promptly. Six large shrimp adorned my plate, accompanied by a standard cocktail sauce, and a small container of a citrus sauce. The chef had sprinkled parsley over the shrimp and garnish it with a lemon wedge, which I took advantage of. The shrimp were well chilled, very flavorful, and rank among some of the best I've had. Though they were grilled, they weren't overcooked, nor were they overpowered by the grill smoke.

Aaron's calamari was pure heaven for him. It was lightly breaded and fried, served atop the cucumber pepper salad. All of the vegetables had been confetti-chopped, so they looked really colorful and inviting. I had a small bite of the calamari and it was the most tender I've had in Tucson. The salad was delicious, too. He who hates most raw vegetables even enjoyed it, though the spicy tartar was the hit of the dish, next to the calamari.

Strangely, though the bussers refilled our drinks regularly and replenished the bread often, our waiter never came to check on our firsts, or our mains. He was largely absent from the entire experience, actually, so I'd say the service ran hot and cold.

Our main courses arrived. 4 large sea scallops had been skewered and then grilled over an open flame. They sat above a mound of julienned vegetables (squash and carrots) that were tossed with butter. The scallops were amazing. The flavor on the outside gave way to the buttery interior. I also particularly enjoyed the veggies and we thought maybe we should always julienne veggies to cook and serve them. Aaron's mashed potatoes were delicious and had a strong, tasty flavor. My oven roasted spuds were pretty standard and a little lackluster--they didn't seem particularly fresh and were a little overcooked. I ended up not finishing them because I was getting pretty full anyway.

We digested awhile and then ordered dessert--vanilla bean creme brulee for him ($8), and apple cranberry cobbler ($7.50) for me. The creme brulee was a pretty standard presentation, though it was accompanied by two baby macadamia nut cookies (we later realized we'd left these untouched and Aaron, lover of the m-nut, was very sad). Aaron said it was quite decadent. My cobbler had a lovely, soft crust on top and was filled with tart apples and cranberries. The caramel ice cream it was supposed to accompany was actually vanilla, but if I had to guess, I'd bet it was made in-house.

It was a lovely meal, food-wise. I'd only been once before, but had enjoyed that meal just as much. The menu changes seasonally--or so they say--but in my experience, many of the seafood and turf options remain year round, while their accompaniments and preparation often change with the season. The service was mixed; our waiter was largely absent from our table the entire evening, but his support staff were quite attentive with refills and whatnot. They also wished us a good night as we walked out, which is a mark of good service as far as I'm concerned.

compact vehicle revolution

There was some kind of vehicle revolution, or a really funny prank, going on in front of our house last night. Around 10 I went out to my car to fetch my Nalgene. My car, Lauryn's car, and a car I didn't recognize were parked in front of our house. Unlock, beep beep, open door, grab bottle, shut door, lock, beep beep. As I walked back to the house, a car went Beep Beep BEEEEEEP! It sounded like my horn but I had no idea why my car would be beeping at me after I just locked it and reset the alarm. It stopped, so I kept walking, only to have a long series of beeps begin. The minute I turned back to the cars, it stopped again. I unlocked and relocked my car for good measure and continued onto the porch. Where, you guessed it, some sort of beeping revolution happened again. But anytime I got near the cars, it stopped. Eventually I gave up trying to solve the mystery and headed inside to the sweet melodious sound of car alarms.

no pod for you

Aaron and I made an unsuccessful bid to get free iPod shuffles at 4:30 this morning. The new Safeway at Broadway and Campbell (the closest grocery store by our house) finally opened up after being ripped down in May and rebuilt. They were giving away 100 of them to the first, uh, 100 people at 8AM. But by the time we got there, there were far more than 100 people in line, it was damn cold and we decided to skip it.

Instead, we slept gloriously late on my first official day o' break. After we woke, we ran an errand to exchange his work pants for something that actually, you know, works and grabbed a hurried dinner at Quizmo's so he could get to work on time (didn't happen).

I came home to face the caramel again and this time, I won. Hooray! Lauryn and I wrapped 'em up and they are beautiful. I'll have to make another batch, I think, but these will cover me for now. I also made the spinach and artichoke dips for ze party and felt all domestic n' shit.

thursday: the day of thurs

I've had an absolutely lovely day, which began with some delicious cake at our department to celebrate the December birthdays, and ended with a delicious dinner and drink with some of my dearest friends to celebrate the end of the semester. In between, I ran to the cake shop to pick up candy paraphenalia, finished my grading and posted grades, cleaned up the kitchen and made a disastrous batch of caramels with Heather. I didn't check the temperature soon enough, so they turned out like toffee after we poured them over cashews, pecans and nests of noodles. Alas! Not gift-worthy, probably, but definitely party-worthy so they will make an appearance at Lauryn's birthday party tomorrow night. She's been enjoying them, so that counts for something, I think.

I've had a remarkably productive, if not expensive, day. Aaron and I went for breakfast at Grill early this morning and then crashed for awhile. I finished up my intro chapter to my thesis and e-mailed it off and when we parted this afternoon, I ran a bunch of errands to get ready for Lauryn's birthday party and a candymaking extravaganza. I hit up Costco, Trader Joe's, Sunflower Market AND Safeway to procure liquor, mixers, spinach artichoke dip fixings and dippy things, caramel and peanut brittle ingredients. Tomorrow I have to run by the cake decorating supply store to pick up some candy wrappers and maybe some cute boxes to package the candy in. I'm hoping to get my grading done by early afternoon so I can fully celebrate the beginning of break tomorrow evening.

on grandmas

Our friends and family have formed a care team to support my parents as my mom continues to undergo chemo, which is so incredibly amazing and touching, I can't even express my gratitude. She's doing pretty well, all things considered, but is often exhausted and after treatment, is wiped out for a day or two. She's hesitant to drive much because of the exhaustion and the pain meds she's on, so she needs some help getting the activities of daily living (cleaning, shopping, errands, laundry, etc) she's used to doing done, as my dad's mobility is still somewhat limited from the stroke he had a couple years ago.

The structure of the team is such that anyone who volunteers does so willingly and only signs up to do things they want/can do. So someone who hates, hates, hates grocery shopping doesn't need to volunteer to do that whereas someone who gets all zen about laundry can take that on. Part of the organizational process is asking everyone what they're good at and if they have any special skills.

Conspiracy theory Grandma is on the team, even though her own mobility is limited and her memory's not so sharp anymore. She wants to help and I think that's terrific. If I had to pick two non-personality related things to characterize my grandmother, it'd be that her house is littered with mail order catalogues (from which she orders frequently) and that she is always singing and takes great pride in her voice. Listed on the spreadsheet for the team? Her special skills? You got it. Singing and ordering from catalogues. God love her.

So. I spent more than 24 hours on my take home exam and I'm pretty sure it was still not that great when I turned it in. Alas. Next up are grading my students' exams and finishing up my intro chapter to my thesis (well, first I have to find the drafts I've been working with in the pit that has become my bedroom...). Should be home free by Wednesday or Thursday. Kind of, anyway.

Today is one of those days when work comes first, I'm completely drained of all my words, and exhausted to boot. I'll hopefully have some content for you, my dear and beloved readers, tomorrow. Hopefully.

don't drink the water

So after our water was turned off on Thursday afternoon, I said EFF THIS and went to go get a pedicure (and pee elsewhere). Our landlady was over bright and early on Friday morning and when I left at 8 to go shower at Heather and Josh's house, the plumber had just arrived. I guess it was an easier repair than they were expecting because when I came back just after noon, we had water again and she'd de-briefed Lauryn.

At any rate, this is what our front yard looked like when I got some sense and paid attention to the leak:



You can see how the presence of the hose totally thwarted me. I thought someone had just left it on (as is our neighbor and landlady's custom sometimes when watering the yard).

Here's a close up of the leak bubbling up from the ground:

Today has mostly been annoying. I started outlining for my damn exam, went to a department lunch at LaFuente (I was going to blog about it, but it wasn't that great and I don't have a lot to say except..salty), and began writing the exam in earnest this afternoon. Then a pipe in our waterline broke and we've now been without water for 5.5 hours. I think I can't explain to you how much water I drink from the tap on a daily basis, and how much I pee, that will give you an idea of the gravity of this situation. But our landlady has been really responsive and promises to be here with her plumber tomorrow at 7AM. Pictures and story to come!

christmas, christmas time is near

So I've been working on making people's wildest Christmas fantasies come true lately. Er. Who am I kidding? I'm a grad student, so the fantasies must be sort of mundane and affordable. I've got my cousins and my #6 covered (all of whom, except for the infant, read this site, so excuse me for keeping those things mum), but still have to shop for two aunts, a grandmother who can and does buy anything she might want and my folks (ditto).

When deciding what to give to Hannah, I briefly debated buying her a baby "this is what a feminist looks like," t-shirt. However, I'm fairly certain her parents would hate it and summarily cut me off from the babycrack, so I have to be sneaky about her indoctrination. To compensate for the lack of a sassy t-shirt, I instead bought her a couple of books with feminist heroines and plotlines--the Paper Bag Princess and um, something else I can't remember. They'll never detect my plot if I stick to wholesome, educational gifts.

Well, now that I've brandished the big guns, the rest of the month promises to be pretty boring. At least I hit Best Of Holidailies on day 2! Sorry to disappoint if you're looking for quality writing here. I don't do that as a hobby, I do it for a living. Here, I try my best to split my infinitives, use transitive verbs intratransitively, do without "with which" clauses, etc. (See? I don't even know what that last grammatical rule is called. I can't believe anyone ever paid me to write, let alone teach other people how. To write.)

I was idly surfing through my Flickr site to see if there's a photo in there worth blogging about. But no, not really. Mostly they are memories of very good times and I'm not too big on reliving the past at this here blog. I will say that since I set up the screensaver on my laptop to flash random pictures from my MyPictures folder, my life has improved 9000-fold. It is seriously relaxing to just watch a few minutes of my life fly by in pixel form, especially when most of those files remain untouched after they've been sifted and uploaded.

I am currently entering hour 25 of having had my only real final exam in my hot little hands and also having written exactly 0 words of it. I made out a cute little schedule for completing the exam (12 essay questions. TWELVE.) for the rest of the week and then promptly spent my afternoon at lunch and wandering through Costco instead of harnessing my writing chi when it was ripe. Now it's after 7 and seriously, who can start work after 7? The workday should be over at this point and it almost always is, in my world. Remind me of that when I'm pulling an all nighter next Sunday, trying to finish up that exam.

friend to children, part three

All this to say there's a new child in my life and I clearly couldn't be more thrilled:



My cousin Hannah Elizabeth was born 6 weeks prematurely on October 21, weighing just under 5 pounds. She is undoubtedly the tiniest baby I've ever held and thankfully escaped any and all issues associated with prematurity. She's as healthy as can be, and beautiful to boot. No babies have been born on the Inaz side of the family for well over 23 years. Chances are good that Hannah will socialize with and grow up alongside any children her cousins have.

I have so many hopes and dreams for this little girl, it's ridiculous. I want her to grow up knowing she is loved and that her family will always, always be there for her. I want her always to feel comfortable in her own skin, secure in knowing that she is a gorgeous girl. I want her days to be filled with laughter and beautiful words and warm memories. I want her to be independent, and have strong, healthy relationships with other people. I want her to be curious about her world and able to ask difficult questions. I want her always to feel at peace and to feel as though she has a place in this world. I want her to be kind to others and accepting of difference. I don't want her to feel she has a role to fill merely because of her gender. Knowing the family she was born into, these things will not always come easy to her, but we'll do the best we can.

So here's to you, baby girl. I promise to always be a friend to you.

friend to children, part two

Children have not been a part of my daily life since I left for college lo these seven years ago. Throughout my teenage years, I regularly babysat for the family across the street--a single mom who adopted three daughters from the foster care system. Those girls, and that family, were an integral part of my life (and I theirs) and I've never been so proud to see little people grow up as I have them. I still remember rocking the middle child to sleep when she was an infant, and being the youngest child's first contact with anyone outside the family when she was first placed with her mom. I was at the oldest's high school graduation a couple years ago and realized how much of their lives I had missed since leaving Madison. She is a strong, proud college sophomore now, complete with MySpace account and a doting boyfriend.

When I was in college, one of my mentors (formerly the director of a domestic violence shelter for women and children) once went on a tear about all of the children's causes out there. She was tired, she said, of all of the money and resources being shoved at children when there were so many adults who need help, too. It sounds callous, but it is true. In this culture, we value the lives of children because we are meant to nurture and protect them, because they so rarely have anything to do with their life situations should they go bad. She gave examples of donors refusing to aid adult women (because they obviously got themselves into trouble somehow), but happily donating hundreds of dollars of goods and money to the children's program of the shelter. She later become a mom and I wonder how her worldview changed, if at all.

Never do I feel the lack of a child's presence in my life more acutely than I do when I am on campus. Spotting a child around these parts is rare and as my roommate is prone to saying, "I never even SEE kids!" We had no trick-or-treaters in our student neighborhood this year, though I was prepared for them. Occasionally, babies are brought into the department and that is always a joy, but again, a rarity. The college campus was not built for intergenerational interaction, except in the case of professors and their students.

So though I wouldn't say I've been much of a friend to children in my early adult life, it's not as though I haven't had contact with friends' children and my cousins' kids. It's just that no one is geographically near enough to me to foster the same relationship I had to the three little girls that I think I had a part in raising, and I miss that tremendously.

friend to children, part one.

This is the first of three blogs I plan to write about children, raising, and mentoring them.

I have been wondering, lately, if I am a friend to children. There's a woman in my life who is undoubtedly so--she has always been active with the children's population in her church, she adopted a special needs child, and she keeps toys in her otherwise adult-geared home for when the neighbor kids come over. Her academic interests are often focused on children and who births them and later procures them, as in the case of adoption. She told me once that her mother instilled these values in her, that children are an important investment for all people to sock some literal and metaphorical bank into.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving found me at the mall to return a purchase at JCPenney. The store was overrun with families and I was surprised to see so many people out so close to The! Biggest! Shopping! Day! Of! The! Year! Nevertheless, I gave a little sigh and got in line for the long haul. About five minutes into my wait, a voice came over the loudspeaker announcing a code Adam--a lost little boy of 10 years old wearing a white sweatshirt. No one really seemed to notice the announcement around me. I didn't see people scanning their immediate vicinity for the lost child, or murmuring about it or anything like that.

But they began to take notice as the announcement was repeated every three minutes and I could feel the tension rising in the store with each further repetition. I imagined that mothers and fathers and aunts and grandmothers were imagining their own children temporarily misplaced, or worse, stolen. For my part, I remembered what it was like to be lost in Woodman's (Madison's huge, cavernous and ridiculously busy grocery store) as a little girl, wondering where my mommy went and how I would find her again. The memories alone made me consider getting out of line and wandering around the store to scout out the little boy.

I could hear a collective, hopeful intake of breath each time the voice came over the loudspeaker, as though the people in the store were wishing the code was called off. Eventually, the child was lost so long they began (unwisely, in my opinion) broadcasting his first name. I commented to the mother in front of me that this particular detail didn't seem like a good one to release in the event that Ben was not among trustworthy adults. She nodded her head and murmurred in agreement.

Just as I reached the register, the Code Adam was called off. I had anticipated jubilation from those around me. After all, we had endured more than 20 minutes of a very public drama in which a child was lost in a very large department store, part of a very large mall in a very large city. But no--there was no clapping and there were few smiles. Everyone seemed to go on with their business as though Ben was never lost at all.

I left the store wondering if my anxiousness about his adventure meant I was a friend to children.

it is december 1st. wow.

I (perhaps unwisely) signed up to do Holidailies this year. For the uninitiated, this means that I made a solemn vow to update this blog every day in December. I plan to keep this vow. Except on the days that eating holiday goodies or going shopping or writing my thesis or cuddling seems like a better idea.

At any rate, we're heading into the final week of classes. I have one semi-intimidating take home final to write next week, a teaching portfolio to construct, and the introductory chapter of my thesis to clean up. And a billion interviews to transcribe for my advisor. And 20-something finals to grade eventually. It's all spaced out pretty well, so I'm not too concerned about the work getting done, though it'd probably do me some good to scare myself into, you know, caring about it.

Today I had my students given presentations and/or skits about various articles on the po1itics of feta1 harm, e.g. the new pre-pregnancy guidelines, the fact that crack has no discernible effects on fetuses (yes, really!), etc. One of the groups did a skit meant to imitate the trial of a pregnant woman who does crack. They introduced themselves as the prosecutor, defense, judge, crack mama, etc. and then the only male in the group introduced himself as the "baby daddy." I love pop culture.