Spread

Trick-or-treaters.

 

 

Smiling with my eyes.

Betty and Poodle were here this weekend, and it was so lovely. We spent tons of time shopping for events we never attended, ran through a lot of rain and a little snow, and posed with the Big Boys and on the black rocks. We smized, as much as we could, with and without wigs. We cracked the case. I think we may have even convinced Poodle to get an iPhone. And we took so many pictures, though I don't think I got a single shot that doesn't have somebody else's camera in it, like this one. How cute are they?

Rather than dragons or black labs.

I found myself on an impromptu road trip to Houghton this weekend. What I hadn't predicted was that this was actually a trip to winter. It snowed all day Saturday, and I hadn't even brought a hat. I bought one when I was there, so I guess now I'm ready for when the weather hits here too, which according to TV6 is any day now.

On the way back, we stopped at Camp Michigamee, the Methodist church camp I went to in the summers of '81 and '82. The gate was locked, but we walked in and had the whole place to ourselves. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how little felt familiar. I thought one of the cabins would ring a bell, but I have no idea if I stayed in Asbury or Negaunee or where. There was a whole new dining hall, which was unlocked, and I dug through the binder of black and white pictures from the 80s and found myself, both years wearing my supercool glasses that darkened into shades in the sunlight.

I was Little Sweet's age that first year. I looked happy in the picture, but I doubt I was as brave as her back then. She joined the debate club this year, and they just had their first meet Saturday. Her team took third place, and they go on to compete against middle schoolers next time. She says she wasn't nervous, and the judges said she did great. I think I was nervous about everything. Even now, though I make my living talking to ill-prepared 20-year-olds, I don't think I could debate anybody about anything. I have a hard enough time convincing students to write stories about people.

Reaching across the aisle.

I had a new hygienist at the dentist today, one who tuned her little TV to Fox News. Normally, I could care less about the political leanings of whoever cleans my teeth, but this one, she wanted to talk about it. It's easy enough to avoid genuine conversation when there's scraping and buffing going on in your mouth, so I just ignored her when she told me how Obama's surrounding himself with commies and radicals who want dogs to be able to sue people. (And like I said, Fox News was on the TV, so she's not getting this stuff from nowhere.) When she got all riled up by Obama's planned speech to school kids, and how nobody was going to tell her daughter she had to write an essay, I got a little uncomfortable. But remember, she's the one with the sharp metal thing inside my willing mouth; I don't feel comfortable arguing. But then, "That's how these things start," she said, "my husband says Stalin did the same thing…" At that point, I had to get her off this. I just said it was a little unreasonable to be comparing Obama to Stalin, and after that, she went back to complimenting my teeth, which is all I want to hear from somebody with their hands in my mouth.

I thought before I didn't even care which one of the hygienists I made the appointment with, but I like my old one better. She's puts the TV on Regis and Kelly, and while I don't know who she voted for, her daughter's in college, so when she talks about her writing essays, it's a good thing.

Crunk and the nephew.

The whole weekend was so lovely: Sparky and Ruby and their fams and lots of Trivial Pursuit (both old school and iPhone versions) at the campground. But the highlight came last night when Hover brought two girl-kittens into the Boat Bar for Sparky. One in each pocket of his jean jacket. The bartender there is old and even though we were the only people there, he never noticed.

I got some alone time with the kittens this morning while they broke down camp. Don't tell Little Sweet how much fun I thought it was.

Third base.

I went to my favorite bar for happy hour today. I haven't been there in ages, but the old men there still remember me. "Ready for football?" they said, when I walked in. "How're the Steelers looking this year?" But my bartender? She totally forgot about me. I went up to the bar and ordered a drink and she asked, "How long for you in town for?"

Guess that's not the worst sign.

You try saying “porous sandstone” clearly.

So I went back into the studio last night to reread some lines for the DVD voiceover. The video guy defended me from the critics who said I talked too fast. He listened to it again, and he decided it wasn't so much a matter of speed as energy. He made me read all bubbly last time, to contrast I guess with his more somber narration. (The lines kind of alternated between us.) And compared to him, I did sound a bit jittery chipmunk. Or, as video guy's girlfriend said to him, "You sound stoned, and she doesn't."

But instead of remedying that in a more fun way, I just tried to speak more calmly this time. When my voice got higher, he'd say, "Calmer." Caaalmer. It was kind of hypnotic.

I can be a sensitive girl sometimes, but for some reason the criticism in this arena doesn't get to me. It's as if someone told me I wasn't a good high-jumper. True enough. But high-jumping isn't any fun, and this kind of is. Both times, I've left all pumped up and excited to say more words out loud.

Anatomy of a Murder.

The theater my dad and I went to last night is actually a working boathouse, set up with a raised stage and one end and a bunch of folding chairs in rows. There are nautical maps on the walls and ropes and pulleys, and during the play, you can hear the seagulls outside, even during the courtroom scenes.

Il matrimonio segreto

My dad and I went to the opera last night – The Secret Marriage, by Cimarosa. They set it in the 60s, which meant pretty cocktail dresses for the women, not to mention the cute gloves and cats-eye glasses for the secretaries. There was a summary of the plot in the program, so I wasn't too worried about following the story, but it turned out they provided subtitles! Or, supertitles, as they called them – a screen above the stage that provided English translations of the Italian they were singing. "To love is joy, but to love in secret is torment!" How gracious of them.

But the best was when the power went out in the beginning of Act II and didn't come back on. The auditorium was lit a little by the emergency lights over the exits, but the pit orchestra, the stage lights, everything else was out. So after some huddled whispering on stage, here's what they did. The stage manager, who, conveniently, played the butler, came out and summarized the next couple of scenes for us. The beginning of the big finale takes place at night and had already been staged with flashlights, so they skipped to that moment. The orchestra couldn't play, so the pianist took over the music. And even after the little moment with two lovers tiptoeing around in the dark, they lit the rest of the show just with flashlights. Nonspeaking servant actors holding them up, and pointing them at wherever we needed them, and actors lit themselves and each other. The festival director held one for the pianist. It was kind of wonderful. None of that polite clapping when it was over, either; this opera ended this all sorts of whooping from the crowd. Because a long power outage always does feel like some sort of adventure, doesn't it? You always feel closer to people when you're in the dark with them.

The power was still out when we left the Kaufman, though I could see lights down by the Landmark, and a few blocks north as well. The ride home, everything looked fine, and I don't think my power had gone out here. It was just that little plot of land that got hit, it seemed, and that made it feel even luckier.

We’re walking, we’re walking.

Okay, I know normally I'm all "the neighbor kid came over" and "I wondered who was going to finish my closet," but Friday, I did something different. I narrated the voiceover for a short video. I spent almost five hours in a recording studio, reading over and over into a big mic lines like this: "By the eighteen thirties, explorers, awed by the shape and shade of the Cambrian sandstone cliffs, called this two-hundred foot wall Pictured Rocks."

When I talked to the video guy who was given my name (he was looking for someone with an "upbeat voice"), I was pretty up front that this wasn't something I was sure I could be good at. I mean, I can read, and I talk, and it sounded fun, but if it required any level of acting, I worried I'd be too self-conscious. But honestly, I didn't know just how bad I would be at it for the first couple of hours. Honestly, it's harder than you think. Just getting the words out correctly and clearly is hard enough, but that wasn't even so much my problem. It was trying to sound natural, and friendly, without lapsing into some caricature of a tour guide that stumped me. "Just pretend you're talking to your daughter," he kept saying. And I'm all, "Why would I say this to my daughter: 'Seclusion…'?"

Because those were the hard parts, the dot-dot-dot phrases just hung there over some picture I'm sure was beautiful but I couldn't see. Actual sentences were okay ("Store food in your vehicle or on food poles in the backcountry."), but the mood-words, or whatever ("Stone and sand… forests and wildlife…)... yikes, I was awkward. I have total sympathy for all those Top Models doing their Cover Girl ads.

But I totally got into it. It was kind of a rush, to tell you all the truth, getting past the hard part and relaxing into it. For a while, I just kept thinking, why did I say yes to this, and wondering if there was a back door, and hearing my voice, it still didn't sound like I think I sound. But I walked out feeling all proud of myself for doing something so completely outside my comfort zone (which really only encompasses watching The Bachelorette and heating up soup).

It'll be playing on a continuous loop at the Munising Welcome Center in the near future, if anybody wants to go see it.

What else?

We saw a deer in our side yard. I had to buy a library book because I spilled on it, so if anybody wants to know about game theory in everyday life, I'm your girl. Big cat got stung by a wasp. The lilacs are dying but the rhododendron is starting to bloom.

And this: up on Sugarloaf, we're chilling on some big rock before we head back down, and Little Sweet says, "Shells!" And I get all teacherly and pull out everything I know about fossils and time and how all this was underwater long long ago, because if you ask her right now what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll say physicist, so I know I don't have much time left to teach her things. Then I say, let me see, expecting brachiopods or whatnot, and she scoops up something and hands them to me. Pistachio shells. Oh. Guess my time to be the smart one is already over.

The Montu.

If I say we were duped, you have to know I'm really not complaining. But where did we find ourselves heading direct from our arrival at the airport, despite my one and only request (no Disney)? Downtown Disney. Oh, my mother is a clever one.

Because I *had* said yes to Cirque du Soleil (which my mom calls "Circus Soleil," I think, or "Circa Soleil"), and *that* was at Disney, turns out. As well as a piano bar after, where the singalong was mandatory. Little Sweet even had to lead a line of kids around the room to The Saints Go Marching In while I drank my margarita.

We swam, did the old folks' Olympics: bocce, shuffleboard, putt putt. Went to Busch Gardens. Little Sweet went on her first roller coaster. Her first words afterward: "I hate roller coasters." So we stuck to the water rides after that. We flew into and out of Detroit. The highlight there was that someone had smeared shit all over the woman's restroom in baggage claim.

But forget that part. We had a lovely time. My shoulders are a little sunburned, and it did get into the 90s our last day there, but mostly we got lucky: thunderstorms followed by double rainbows our first three days. I'm sure there's more, and I'll tell you as it comes to me.

Yo gabba.

Memorial Day came early this year, and thank goodness: I was jonesing for some group time. Rubapalooza changes every year, depending on who's there and what's blooming. This year, there were no boys (except the teenage ones, of course, who will run errands for you or puts some brats on the grill if you ask). Just four girls under the solar-powered umbrella and with nail polish and quizzes and a Buddha board and never-ending orzo salad. Ruby's is the kind of place you can forget to pack a coat or a book and you'll be just fine. (Do bring your own straw if you're particular, though.) We talked a lot, but thank goodness, the only thing we really decided was that the reality show we'd have the least success on is the competition to be Paris Hilton's BFF. I just don't think she'd appreciate reading time, or head scarf training, or a hike to a mucky beach, or the trip to the grocery store for her own girl products. (I wonder if she's pro or anti-wings?) Not to mention she'd probably be freaked out by the actual-sized dogs.

On the ride home, I learned some dinner etiquette (though it may not stick), and then I got the pleasure of coming home to a freshly painted living room, as if I'd left myself a surprise before I left.

Gotta get with my friends.

I went to a surprise party last night. The best part was that, even though I wasn't the guest of honor, it was surprise to me too. I thought I was just meeting a friend in from out of town, but we walked inside the Nickel to find people and food and parents a flashing pink tiara for the birthday girl. I played darts for the first time in a million years, and I let only nine-year-old in the bar (birthday girl's little sister, who shares my Flag Day birthday) play with my phone. I said she could text her sister and her mom, and take all the pictures she wanted. She downloaded "If You Wanna Be My Lover." How can that not be my new ring tone?

Can’t grocery stores write off spoiled food?

Last week, a woman in the grocery store asked me the date. I told her, and she recoiled. Seemed weird at first, until she showed me: Super One was selling chocolate milk for 30 cents a half gallon. A bargain, except that it had expired four days earlier. Who takes that deal?

Today, they had a whole grocery cart full of liters of tonic water also for 30 cents apiece by the checkouts. I should have stocked up; I can't imagine tonic can go bad. But I was still suspicious, so I left it all there to rot.

Ham omelette.

It was great to take Little Sweet to the play on Friday. I have this good memory of being in a pub in England when I was ten with my family. My dad's smoking cigarettes and drinking warm beer and explaining the plot of Hamlet before we go. I'm sure it still went way over my head, but it helped. (I wanted, just now, to say Angela Lansbury play Gerturde, but I just looked it up, and she was doing Sweeney Todd on Broadway at the time, so who knows where that idea comes from.)

I haven't read The Tempest since college, so I needed a recap myself. I suppose me and N reading the sparknotes version on my laptop isn't quite the same scrapbook moment as the dark London pub, but at least we were prepared, and she loved it.

But it's a weird play. Seriously, there's not really any conflict. It seems clear that from very early on that everything will work out. Maybe that's the trouble with having a magician as your hero: how can he lose? Much respect to J.K. Rowling for figuring that one out. You need other, more powerful magicians on the other side.

The tree.

Idol.

We had our first bonfire last night. Man, did we smell good for our drive today.

But Friday was our out-and-about night. We went to a talent show. Um. It was your expected amalgam of hits and misses, but for me the most interesting part was being on the student side of a group of people. Honestly, a third of people had their cell phones out for something or other. They waved them in the air in place of lighters when they liked somebody. They texted, of course, and they made videos like crazy. And when the dancer came on, I'll confess I did too. I can't get it onto my blog to save my life, but next time you're next to me on the couch, just ask and I'll show you. He was wearing a vest and matching pajama pants, and he spun in big-armed circles to Britney's Circus. I don't know. If I had six-year-old son who danced like this, I'd tell him to go to his room. It was awkward, but me and Little Sweet cheered like crazy for everybody.

We left after the last act but before they announced the winner. Fingers crossed for the guy who started his song over three times.

Puffles.

I asked Little Sweet what I should I blog about, and she suggested: Georgia, how it's warm enough for the cats to go outside, my poor foot, how we've scoured some new sources and brought home 19 puzzles since she's been up. She said I could take bets from you guys on how long it will take for me to finish all of them.

I said, but that's embarrassing, how many puzzles we have. I don't think I want to tell people about what dorks we are.

Blogs are for bragging, she said. Why do you think they sound so much alike?

So we're dorks. And right now she's turning yarn into fuzz and cutting it up and putting it back together in little balls and naming them, while I get some editing work done.

The squeeze.

I had my first mammogram today. Not because of any worries, but just because I am suddenly of a certain age. I was so nervous to have by breasts flattened. I imagined the pain like the pinch of my finger every time I try to use needle-nosed pliers, but over a bigger area. But geez, it's nothing. You could hardly even call it pain. It's just awkward and a little uncomfortable, mostly in terms of the tech nudging me around into the position she wanted me, like a sculptor, and the whole thing takes a minute. Maybe I'm particularly insensitive, or maybe bigger boobs hurt more. I don't know. But there are plenty of things that hurt more than a mammogram – stubbing my toe, or this piece of wood that seems embedded under my thumbnail. Missing Top Model for class. The grocery store running out of my Portobello mushroom soup. M-28 being closed Oscar weekend. Living a million miles away from everybody I love.

Seriously, if this experience is still in your future, do not expend any energy worrying about the procedure itself. You can handle it.

Illustrated.

I'm as we speak at the Boat Bar, trying to jumpstart my writing by working on some old things. (I've reworked the heart murmur piece in third person, which I do like, but it needs a better title. A little help?)

Someone has added to our dialogue in the bathroom, Ruby. Next to our sweet messages of love on the pizza cardboard warning us against flushing our tampons, someone has drawn a penis. At least I think that's what it is. It might be one of those Christian fish, with one eye, or a scud missile with balloon feet. Can't say for sure. I'm just happy someone is wishing us well.

Update: I'm calling on you all for more titles. (I'm so bad at titles.) What if you wrote a story about a surveyor, the neighbor kid, and a cat in a tree? What would that be called?

And the booby prize is?

I'm being haunted by the gods of Quizzo. We went to the Locust on Tuesday night to play. (It's like the Shaft – live bar trivia against teams at other tables.) I never expect to win at those things, against big tables of regulars, but I never thought we'd be quite so humiliated. We tied for last place, and I seriously considered not turning in the answer sheet for our final round, given I wasn't confident about a single answer. The two questions – from the whole night! – I knew: the capital of New Mexico and Jet Travolta's mother. We also got a question about Woolworth's right, though that was just lucky. The list of things we did not know is long, but includes the following:

• The oldest active army arsenal in the US.
• The senior senator from Georgia.
• What the T and D in TD Bank stands for.
• What two countries border Lichtenstein.
• The Minneapolis indie band who sing the song in the Esurance commercial.
• The Yiddish term for food that is not kosher.
• What the BB in BB King stands for.
• The current name of Stalingrad.
• The parent company of Stouffer's.
• What cartoon Hal Foster drew.
• What cheese is made in the Orne region of Normandy.
• What oil company Atlantic Richfield is a subsidiary of.
• The shortest of the three horse tracks in the Triple Crown.
• The countries on either side of the Tatra Mountains.
• The main crop of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
• The Titanic's sister ship.
• The musical group comprised of the stars of VH1's Real Chance of Love.
• The country whose national anthem is Jana Gana Mana.

Oh, it goes on. I'm never on a winning team at the Shaft either, but at least there they sometimes ask about game shows or famous books or who bought the old Pizza Hut on US-41. At least there I have a chance.

But like I said, I'm being haunted. When they asked Danny Boyle's latest movie, I couldn't place the name, but I just saw him in on the TV guide when I was scrolling through. Oh, Trainspotting. Then I read a piece about Trent Lott's retirement, when we'd written him down for some other current-senator answer. And just now, I was reading a book review in the New Yorker. They were comparing The Joy of Sex to Our Bodies, Ourselves. If the first is The Joy of Cooking, they said, the latter is the Moosewood Cookbook. Which, they said, "lacks a certain trayf allure." Honestly. This word gets injected into my vocabulary just a few days too late to do me any good.

Trusting you not to look anything up, go ahead and post your own answers to any of them. I'm sure we could have used you. In fact, I'll say without question, I wish you'd been there with me.

Wild card weekend.

I flew into Philly and we headed straight to Allentown, which is much bigger than I'd thought. It appears everybody who lost a factory job there has become a satellite dish installer, because every home has at least four of them. Mostly, what I saw was the inside of a strip mall sports bar, which was good because instead of sinking into a post-fantasy-football depression, I've joined a post-season league (go, Steve Breaston!). The best was watching a game where the home team was winning, which was new for me. I can only imagine the Vikings fans here at The Base. Were they calling out for Gus Frerotte?

It’s always sunny in Philadelphia.

Or at least, it's never snowing. It didn't occur to me when I was packing, it would be spring there. It rained the whole time. And Detroit too, both times I was laid over at Metro: rain and warmish, no snow on the ground. But not here. I drove to the airport in the snow, before the plows came, and when I got back, I had to park on a snow drift and shovel before I could even think about off-roading the Subaru into the driveway. I'm starting to think Marquette is a snow globe on some giantesses dressing table.

And then, all I want to do is blog about it all, but my computer battery was dead and wouldn't charge up. I tried the only two things I can think of – different outlets, and taking the battery out and putting it back in. No luck. I started to wonder if I stole somebody else's charger when I was packing. In which case, I would have felt very bad, plus annoyed because I hate going to the post office for anything.

So I take my laptop to the help desk this morning, and the boy there says, "Oh yes, we see this all the time. All you have to do is take the battery out and put it back in." Which he does, and she's fine. Did I mention I tried this? Seriously, laptop? Didn't I do it with enough confidence or something? All the machines in my life like boys better.

I'll give up the details about Allentown and Quizzo and the Mutter Museum at a later time. Just know that if you're heading that way, you should maybe pack an umbrella instead of big old snowboots like I wore the whole time. Me, always out of season, the right place at the wrong time.

Iron and coke, chromium steel.

I leave for Philly in the morning! At 4:30 in the morning. That's the only bad part. (My ETD is less than six hours away and I'm nowhere near ready, let alone sleepy.)

I've convinced myself that putting lots and lots and lots of kitty litter in the boxes actually gives the cats more volume of litter and thus more days they can last comfortably without me. It may not actually work that way, scientifically. If anybody wants to come visit them while I'm gone, give me a ring.

We'll also be visiting Allentown, you know, filling out forms, standing in line. Though maybe there's more to it than I've heard.

All of this is, as everything is where I live, weather permitting. Think clear skies for me.

Just before the railroad track sign.

If January first is supposed to be a model day for the rest of the year, we did it right. We slept in and started a puzzle. Just like the superstition said, I did a little bit of work, but not too much. I broke the rules and did some laundry. But best was when Hover invited us to the best night-sledding spot in the whole world.

Some guy out off 510 has built a giant luge track out in his backyard that he's got open to the public. Before, we'd only gone sledding on the tiny hill by Whitman, but this place is Olympic, in comparison anyway. It's all lit by little Christmas lights and solid ice, so you go way too fast. They have a fire going, surrounded by old armchairs, and hot chocolate in a warming shack. Little Sweet is a daredevil, so she was up the mountain and down the slide over and over. I only got brave a few times. I spun the whole way down once. The last trip, they wanted to start at the way top, with an immediate drop-off, and I balked. But they made me. Little girl sat on my lap, so I couldn't see where we were going, so when she and Hover started yelling, "Oh no, a tree!" and "We're going to die," I almost had a heart attack. We're all sore today from walking up the mountain and falling down on ice. But happy.

I might have to change my mind. If I were playing Jeopardy for a charity, it might have to be this place.

Such a clatter.

It is a rainy, melty day here, which is great, since I'm hitting the road on the one wet day between two winter storm warnings. Thanks, universe! And, I only have to drive 3 ½ hours today, instead of 8, which is a huge blessing, because the Robin Cook CD – Critical! – in my car isn't as entertaining as I'd hoped. (I'm paranoid enough about everything without MRSA fiction in my own car.) But we'll get to Esky earlier than I thought, so late-Christmas can last all the longer.

At the rail.

Peter got me out of the house last night and took me to a Rangers hockey game. What fun. He even caught a puck. It was foam, but whatever. It was so nice to be not on this yellow couch. Plus, today I have the remainder of a little hand stamp: a hockey stick crossed with a pick-axe.

Though the vodka tonics they made at the rink bar were enormous and today I'm thinking about ordering a pizza just so somebody will deliver me a two-liter of diet Coke.

Captain Gingershitsnap.

Well, becoming dog people didn't really work out for us. We got kicked out of the dog show at Lakeview Arena this morning. They said we were standing too close to the railing and thus (?) distracting the dogs. But I think the real reason is because I took pictures evidencing that they use twenty-year-old boys in neckties in place of pylons when they make the dogs run figure-eights. That's got to be illegal.

It felt like getting booted from the euchre tournament, especially in terms of the way the lady passed the buck: "I was sent to tell yous…" Maybe they thought we were spies. Probably, they could smell the cats right on us.

Adidas, Kohls.

Yesterday's first day of school went just fine. I tried out some new icebreakers, including "tell me the story of your shoes," but that only led to them telling me the brand and where they bought them. As well as a competition between the boys about who had the biggest feet, which is not where I meant things to go. The winner: size 16 cowboy boots. Oh my. We'll try something new in today's two new classes.

Then, last night, we made it to the planetarium show, which I always love, even if I'm not always following their narrative. Mostly, I was just thrown by all the images of the historical figures. *That's* what Kepler looked like? Tesla? A young Copernicus? If I was making a movie, I might have miscast them all.

Daytrippers.

Kiddo and I hit the road today and headed to Michigammee. What a nice day. We hiked in the woods and then went into town where there are little shops built in old churches and a place called The Crock and Rocker, I think. Had lunch at yet another place supposedly featured in Anatomy of a Murder. One day, I'm going to have to rent that.

I came home to, get this, an email from this chick who wants into my fiction workshop. Now it's terribly easy to say no to other people who write with this request, since the class is filled, but this 21-year-old is Rocco's girlfriend and Hover's ex. Or Hover's girlfriend and Rocco's girlfriend. Or nobody's girlfriend at this point, I really have no idea. But part of me thinks it might be interesting to read her stories. If only she'd actually spelled my name right. What should I do?

When the pretty birds have flown.

On our last leg home from our weekend, little Sweet and I were singing along to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack. We had empty single-serving milk bottles to use as microphones, and by the time we got home, my throat was all sore from pretending to be a soprano. Then later, we went out to pick up some things at the little store. We were singing again, but I'd already taken in the milk bottles to recycle. When I said I missed having my microphone to sing into, she gave me a tiny Sharpie to clip on my hair next to my ear. Which really did replicate a modern-day mic, but wasn't a tenth as fun. What were my hands supposed to do then? Steer?

Our weekend was so nice – roadtripping with our girls, having the swimming pool to ourselves, eating bagsful of cheddar cheddar popcorn. We flipped past some Olympic events, but decided instead to go to the movies. Did anybody watch the entire marathon?

Apt pupil.

I had an eye doctor appointment today and picked out some new glasses. Which combines all my least favorite things: looking at myself in a mirror over and over again, walking around somebody else's blurry space without contacts in, and being asked which I prefer – 3 or 4. I never feel terribly strongly about one or the other. Plus, this time, she dilated my eyes, which *completely* threw me off. Even with new contacts in, I was suddenly far-sighted, when normally I'm more used to the exact opposite: I can see up close ok, but everything past a book (geez, everything past my nose) is fuzzy. To suddenly not be able to see up close was a nightmare. I could only read the Allure headlines and see the big pictures. I couldn't read, and what, I was supposed to sit in the waiting room and just think?

So, since I do this at Walmart, I finally get done and grab a cart to pick up some things, and I run into a student. Love this girl, and today she's got newly-blue hair, which on her looks adorable, and we're catching up. But I'm still all thrown by this new vision, which somehow also affects my talking as well, and then I realize she must wonder what kind of drugs I'm on, my pupils expanded to cover nearly all the blue. Thankfully, she bought the whole "I just had an eye exam" thing, and promised to stop by my office, at which point I plan to appear more competent.

Maybe I should have waited for little Sweet to be up here to help pick out the new glasses – she'd be straight with me about what looked silly. But the last time I took someone with me for advice – four years ago – I didn't like doing it that way either. Because then, you put on a new pair, make the other person look at you in the face, wait for their reaction, try to pretend you didn't notice their reaction, look at yourself in the mirror, try not to make a face, realize how your eyes are crooked, put on a new pair, etc. It's all just way too much direct eye contact for me. So this time, I went it alone.

Went to a garden party.

They call them "mommy blogs," where every post is the new achievement or day's news about the new baby. Oh, and if I'd had a blog when N was little, you know I would have done my mommy blog up so big even her grandmas would have gotten bored. And while this thing, Spread, is still mostly a lament about how the neighbor kid isn't yet old enough to finish my closet, it may show elements of being an auntie blog now and then. Like today, as I've just returned from Li'l G's first birthday party. Check her out.

Go kiss your wife.

I got propositioned at the grocery store today! They say it's a good place to meet people (wouldn't Glamour say we should hang around the produce aisle until some hot young single dad comes by and asks us how to cook an eggplant?), but I've never believed it. Not that I met him there, per se. It's this kid I see around town sometimes, though not in years. I ran into him at the bottle return and I asked what he was up to, and he's gotten married and he's moving to Iowa on Sunday. He asked about me and I said I had a friend coming into town. He asked again what I was doing, and I didn't know if he meant bigger scale (still teaching) or smaller (duh, shopping and cleaning). But I got through it and wished him a good life in Iowa.

I saw him again by the deli and then again when I went back for the avocado I forgot. He was empty handed. Don't you hate when you forget what you came for?, he asked. Yup. He followed me though the olives aisle, where I decided I already had olives, and at the end of it he asked me again what I was doing now. Now, I was *not* looking good. I was in sweatpants and a flannel shirt (got to love July in the UP), but I was starting to get it at this point, so I showed him my whole list of today. Laundry, wash the coffee pot. But he finally got brave enough to ask if I wanted to get together this afternoon. I can't, I said, and showed him the list again. It won't take long, this boy said. Oy.

So, I said no, I didn't want to, and no, he was married. Remember? But he was leaving town, he said, and he'd always wanted to and it would be such good timing. I really was flattered. Is it because of your friend coming to town? he said. No, I said. Are you seeing somebody? This is always a tempting lie, and a good excuse, so I latched onto it, even though I'd already gone the tough way by saying I wasn't interested. But he was still following me and my cart, so I did the best thing I could think of at the time: I turned down the pet aisle and made a show of choosing just the exact right flavors of fancy cat foods. I even put a big thing of cat litter in my cart even though it wasn't on the list.

This didn't work. But it took me so long to get up the courage to ask you, he said. I know. Because I'd been there all of ten minutes, and of course I'd want to reward that kind of dedication by taking off my pants. Really, his best move was putting his hand on the small of my back as I was walking – I always dig that – but turns out it wasn't near enough to take me off task today. Next, I vacuum.

The beat goes on.

Sparky and her man were in town for days one through three of her birthday celebration. Which meant she got to pick the karaoke tunes and be served pudgie pies and make the rules for Password. Now we're imagining a whole line of campfireside games to market with the Can of Wagers.

Cool as I am.

Yesterday sometime, I think a bug bit my eye. Whatever happened, my eye got all swelled up and bloodshot. It looked awful and felt itchy. Really, it wasn't painful enough to stop me from doing anything around here, but I looked so ugly I couldn't imagine going out in the world. But the Shadow was picking me up for a bike ride, and a girl with a helmet as bananas as mine doesn't say no just because she has the left eye of a 90-year-old woman. Right? So I went. We went up to Little Presque Isle, which means the twisty, hilly Big Bay Road [!]. And then a bizarrely perfectly timed stop for the sunset on the island. But thank god for the face shield, I guess. When we stopped for dinner, early on, he suggested, "You could part your hair on the other side."

Tandem.

Yesterday, we discovered the back route to the bike path, which means we don't have to go down either Wright Street or Fair Street to get there. We do have to cross two foot-bridges over two separate cricks, and climb one muddy hill on the way there, but it's so worth it. It was beautiful pretty out last night, and though I told her, "Tell me when you're half-tired," so we could turn around, who can ever really judge that? We got all the way to Presque Isle, and at that point we were still full of energy. It was about two-thirds of the way back every little incline started to get to us. We were beat, and walked our bikes the last two blocks.

And today, I'm all sore. I ride my stupid exercise bike nearly every day, and I think it works one muscle. Riding a real-live bike, where you have to balance and everything, suddenly even my back is tired out. And when we got home last night, my elbows were sore. Weird.

Avuncularity.

I got a Tom Robbins novel on CD for my drive down to Esky for the weekend: Villa Incognito. I'm not sure I'll keep it for my next drive on Wednesday. Could just be me, spacing out and in too often to grab hold of the plot, but eh. Plus it's weird that when the plot switched from the point of view on a badger-god to that a human, I'd wished it would go back, because normally I'm pretty against animals as narrators in grownup stories.

The time down there, though, was one big good story. My dad's college roommate (plus a couple of my aunts (let's just say)) came into town to visit, which means we got to hear my dad reminisce about when he felt young and reckless. And I felt young too, kind of like a little girl, in a good way. And it's something I now recommend: spending time with someone who knew you only when you were pretty faultless in the world. I mean, he knew me through my teenage years, and sure I was a brat and self-absorbed and hogged the phone, but I hadn't yet fucked things up in the ways that only grownups can fuck things up.

In other news, fresh-start Baby G's learning to do the fist pump. I'll wait till she's a little bigger to teach her to explode it.

Memorial Day weekend, part two.

I get this feeling once in a while – maybe you know it – a kind of temporal vertigo, a sudden awareness of where I am. I always kind of shake my head and think, What am I forgetting? I do a little checklist – the day, where I'm supposed to be, is it time to call N yet. And it's not like I've been literally zoned out until then. I just get suddenly hyper-awake and nervous for a second before going back to whatever I'm doing. It's not a good feeling. It's disconcerting and troubling, just for that moment, and often a little sad, because there really isn't anybody waiting on me anywhere who I'm forgetting to tend to.

I didn't feel it once down at Ruby's. The play-by-play of what we did won't overwhelm you with action, but it did calm my head. Our core group was there, plus Ruby and Paul's friends – the New Orleans artist, who is always a delight, and the Sunshine Boys from Bay City. And two little ones, three and five, who we got to watch run around, fighting over the baby motorbike and stuffing dirt down their pants. Plus the teenage contingent, who had just graduated from high school and spent their first Saturday night of freedom with us old folks around the bonfire, telling us stories of Sasquatch. The only time I felt remotely sad was wishing my own daughter was there. But for the most part, I was just felt happy and lucky and not at all like there was anywhere else I should be.

Memorial Day weekend, part one.

Most people, they come home from a trip and you say, "Oh, you got some sun," and they look good – all sun-kissed and freckly. Yeah, you might say the same thing to me, but with pity. My face is harsh pink, and in ridiculous patterns, because of both my large sunglasses, and my bangs being kind of swept to the side. It's pretty silly. My nose in particular is a sad red triangle.

But totally worth it. More later on all the many and various events that transpired during the weekend proper. The ride home was cold, and it was so foggy over the bridge that I just had to trust that it kept on going straight like I remembered. It did. But for now, I need some aloe and to say hello to the fish.

G & Z.

My own girl was downstate for Mother's Day, but we picked out nail polish colors on the phone by name alone: Gorgeous, This is It, and Thimbleberry. I can't wait to do my toes. But I was a lucky aunt for the holiday. Here are my girls. (The little one, oh, I've got a million photos of. What a love. The one in the purple, she moves fast, so it's not easy to get a picture of her whole face.) Hope all you moms had happy days too.

A message from beyond!

So I took my laptop over to Boat Dreams, and I wrote two critiques and did all my lesson plans for this week's tech writing classes. Didn't take too long, but I'd been working on this couch all day and needed a change of scenery. On my way out, I hit the bathroom, and there it was. Sketched onto the circular pizza cardboard that hangs on the wall and beseeches us girls not to flush our sanitary napkins, it said, "Long live Sweet, Sparky, and Buckwheat. Love, Ruby." A note, to me and my girls, in one of my favorite harbors. I couldn't have been happier.

Love you back, Ruby! Can't wait till we can go there, sit at the prow, together.

A goat says “meh”?

Last night, I went to a dinner party. The attendees: couple, couple, couple with their sixteen-month-old son, and me. Luckily, little guy and I hit it off, so I didn't feel like some sort of seventh wheel. He sat on my lap a lot, but I'm okay with PDA like that if it's not over the top. Plus, he was really into his books and seemed to especially enjoy the page where you open the basket flap to find the sleeping kitties, so we really did have a lot in common.

Nobody’s ever seen the great Oz.

My step-grandma fell and broke her hip this weekend, so I stopped at the hospital on my way back into town yesterday morning. It was Easter, as you probably still remember, and the place was deserted. Nobody was manning the information desk, but there was a phone where you could press 0. I did, and I asked for her, thinking her name was Dorothy, but they had no such patient. I knew she was there. I figured together, me and the lady with the list could find her based on her last name, which I was sure of, and her injury, but I guess that violated all sorts of important hospital privacy laws. Her only suggestion was, "Don't you have any family you could call?"

Really, I didn't want to have to call my dad and ask for her name. I wanted to just find her. So I stood around the information desk for a bit, looking for a map so I could just go straight to the part of the hospital where old ladies recover from hip surgery. That's when phone lady peeked her head out from behind a glass partition about twenty feet away from where I was standing. Freaked me the freak right out. We'd been having this conversation and she'd been watching me the whole time? I'm paranoid enough without things like that happening.

Long story shorter: my step-grandma's name is Eileen. I found her. And it's on my list to make a list of my family and their names – both official and casual – so I can be more efficient next time.

Tonight: slippers.

I am so sick of my snow boots I could kick them. My students probably think these are the only shoes I have. I hate having to perform all my authority through words and such.

One day, a couple of weeks ago, I did dress up and leave the snowshoes behind. "Dress up" may overstate things, given I was probably wearing a cardigan sweater and jeans, but I did wear my tall, black boots, and that alone made it feel a tiny bit like spring, even though every trip from car to door and back was an opportunity to fall down. (This outfit, after being excited for a minute that I was going to a costume party, and had even conspired with three other ladyfriends to go as Little Women. I like to think I retained a little air of Beth in my pale cheeks and cardigan sweater.) That night, it was so nice, and while I can't attribute it all to the boots, sometimes I do think that's all it would take to cheer me up, to have somebody say, "Put your boots on. I'm picking you up."

I didn't recap it then, but let me tell you now what else was good: One, Peter's gangsta trio, The Flying Martini Brothers. They were tremendous. One of my friends had a friend in visiting from Brooklyn, and I was so suspicious of him. He'd say, "These guys are great," and I'd say, stern, "They're really great." Or he'd say, "Is this a John Denver song?" and I'd say "Don't make fun of John Denver." After a while, I think he said, all serious for me, "These guys are great." And I said, "Good." Because, you know city people and their irony and how annoying that is. I guess it's not really fair that just because someone lives in a populous area I think they forget how to enjoy a mandolin or a banjo, but I really do. Where is the space to let the strings vibrate?

Two, we played cards. Me and Hammer vs. various others. Diesel, you are the smartest card player I know, but if you had her luck, you'd have never skipped Euchremanias 17 though 19, or whichever.

Three, I think there's still a space for one of us to insert a portrait into an empty frame on the Ramada's captains of industry wall. Who's gonna step up?

Four, like I said, I didn't feel like I was walking from my igloo to the other igloo where I work.

The mall.

I'm not a good shopper. I'm fooled by nice packaging (the latest Kleenex box I bought has daisies on a light blue background – pretty!) and I'm susceptible to the color of the moment. In my head, it's a pine green. I'm looking at purses at Kohl's this morning, and there's lots of pine green purses, at full price. And in the clearance aisle, all the bargain purses are blue spruce green, so of course I don't want them. Six months ago, would I have loved them? How do the powers that be get me to feel this way? Is everybody on Lost wearing the upcoming shade of cantaloupe I'm going to want in a spring jacket?

Even more confusing was Kohl's storewide Buy One Get One Free sale. It really complicates things. I don't trust them to give me the best deal. So I bought two things that were exactly the same price (and one sale sweater at $7 because it has this great magnet clasp at the neck – darling!).

Today, putting my new sheets through the wash and clearing out the bedroom for tomorrow's delivery. Remember a while ago when I said I lost another garbage can? Well, I didn't. It's up there, filled with drywall scraps. So that was a nice surprise.

Asiago.

I'm at Third Street Bagel, since I have a little time between the lawyer (because yeah, I'm finally brave enough to have a lawyer) and when I need to be at school. My total comes to $x.36, so I give her a twenty and change. She starts to give me back $x. 91. I say, Huh? She says, You gave me 27 cents. So I think that means one of my coins was a penny when I meant it to be a dime. I say, Really? You weren't going to say something? You thought I worked out the math so I'd get 91 cents change?

For what, did she think I had a magic trick to do at my next stop? Ok. Let's hope this is biggest misunderstanding I'll have all day. At least the only time I'll count wrong.

New York, NY, Day Four.

I think I gave the whole Day Four shebang away in the last post's coming attractions. I hired a car service to get me to LaGuardia, and it was so grand. Leather and too much leg room, and Sunday morning no traffic through new neighborhoods. Ten minutes in, he asked where I was heading, and I said Michigan, and he said his brother lived in Detroit but that Detroit was too quiet for him and everybody went to bed at 8:00. I said, without thinking, that I'd been looking forward to quiet, and I think I made him feel bad.

[Cabs (and car services) in NY are so oddly impersonal. I'm used to this little place, where they know more of your story than you do. Hammer calls the livery service – "Lance!" – and he either knows by mindreading where she is or has GPS to come find her. Or I get in a cab and give an address and he says, "So you're going to *his* place tonight?" Well. I suppose I am; tell me what you think about that. Strangers picking you up and driving you places? It's weird.]

The rest of Sunday was your regular travel. No drama, expensive airport snacks. What can I tell you.

Overall, NY was just too quick, too rushed. I didn't dislike the city or the conference, I just felt like I wanted to make 60 hours last 90, and – turns out – I don't have that power after all.

So I'm home and trying to pull it all together. I haven't had a second to do my hair all week, and today, I locked my keys in my office. I had to get another prof to let me into my classroom, and then when the secretary gave me the master (hooked to a license plate to humiliate you), my boss suggested I might start being compared to B. McThurn. Lord! (And then when I walked by her office to open mine, her keys – car, house, office, all of them – were actually hanging in the lock of her closed office door.)

I swear, by Sunday, I'll be myself again.

New York, NY, Day Three.

Saturday morning was our panel. To avoid flipping out about it, I decided to lose my phone in my suitcase so that I could flip out over that instead. (Because how would I ever know what time it was without it?) Only my cabmate could tell you if this was a fair trade or not. I probably lost it just so I couldn't call the moderator, and my friend, and cancel on her. Because I sure did want to.

But it went fine. I presented second of five, and I'm glad I didn't know the other spiels beforehand because with more planning I might have backed away from giving the exact opposite advice from speaker number one. Not that he was wrong, but he was loud, and I was quiet, and it was probably easy for writers to decide where there work would fit better – at his place, where the rules matter, or at mine, where we have trouble with boundaries.

We had lunch at the Carnegie Deli, with the most efficient hostessing staff ever, and the place I took the only picture I took in NY. I took one picture, and it was of my sandwich. And that's not quite true. I didn't even take this picture.

One of us disappeared into thin air at this point. And then there were three.

So I called my friend in Brooklyn and said, "Pick me up." That's a trek, but she made it smilingly and before you knew it I was on the Q or somesuch. Her building has a doorman, or several doormen, and all sort of great Art Deco appeal, and really, it was the first time all trip that I felt like I was in a livable neighborhood. Walking two blocks to a fantastic Mexican place with a 60-year-old female dj and guacamole made with love at the table? Now that makes sense. Dinner – where we met her cousin and his boyfriend – was all-around so nice, I was suddenly up for more.

So we all got in a cab and made our way back to the lower east side to a bar called the Hacienda, where people from her work were celebrating a birthday. The place was painted all red, just like the Boat Bar, so there was a certain comfort in that. Plus, I was with three so-lovely people, so I was quite happy. I even made a request to the dj, also 60 but male. We were of course the first people there, because we are old. Old and punctual. But that's okay. The young ones started pouring in soon enough, and suddenly the whole place was wall-to-wall full. I even stepped outside for a minute to breathe.

There, I was chatted up by Killian, from Germany, but who had just come back from Peru, and Canada, and who lamented how much trouble it is to get into a bar at one in the morning if you're with three other guys. He said, "But you're a girl, so you don't know what I'm talking about." I didn't know what he was talking about, but not, I don't think, because I'm a girl.

During the time between when we'd arrived and when I came outside, they'd installed a velvet rope and there was a line. I wasn't going to wait to get let in based on how I look, and the door guy did have a clipboard, so I went right to the front and said, "I'm with James and Nedda." That worked. Never felt cooler.

Again, I fell asleep to a movie on TBS, though this one with Heather Locklear and Mr. Big. TBS was the thing that most made me feel like I was still on earth. If I were going to talk about TV for three hours, almost all of it would be about that channel.

Coming up: Day Four, in which a man in a long wool coat takes me for a ride.