The Week

A good and totally exhausting therapy session. 

A bad interaction with a colleague.

Francisco picked up pizza for dinner; Q had a guitar lesson after a long pause for basketball. I don't think music lessons are going to be something we stick with for him. 

The Week

Rabbits? 

My brain is distracted with a thousand little unimportant work things. I watched the basketball team (away, so online) eek out a win. The boys are happily obsessed with whatever they are reading and listening to. 

The Week

I walked to work this morning under Francisco's protests (my phone said -8 temp; it was fine). 

I'm already sick of one of my colleagues and the semester has only half started. Already had a tossing and turning night's sleep. 

The best part of yesterday was more pea soup and Francisco's delectable chocolate chip cookies. 

The boys and I are reading a graphic novel of Pope John Paul II's life (it calls itself a comic book, which it most certainly is not). 

The Week

It is too dark and cold for me to take pictures. 

Yesterday we found out that Q was one of three winners from his school for a little writing contest. We are all delighted. 

Q has been loving a children's book of philosophy that we got him for Christmas. He and his friends read it together in the after-school club. He is stumped by whether it is ok to do evil that good may come. I like seeing him wrestle with these ideas. 

This week we are giving big exams. As the furniture, I have a lot of responsibility--in addition to our first department meeting yesterday for a big review we're doing. Yesterday I came home totally exhausted--like wanted to fall asleep. What is wrong with me? 

BUT: I came home to steaming pea soup with garlic bread made by Francisco. Our whole family fairly happily ate it. You don't know what a rarity that is and how wonderful that was. 

Conservation

I would like to say that over Christmas vacation, I taught my mom to use a garlic press that we found in her drawer. After observing, she said she wouldn't be using it in the future, because with a garlic press there's some of the skin that you throw away. She didn't like that waste. 

My parents are really incredible--I've never met anyone who uses everything so thoroughly--well except in Slovakia where I watched a friend use the end of a container of lotion--and in Poland where the nuns at a convent dug the old towels that we brought to use on a backpacking adventure and then threw away (because they were very small old towels from when we were children) out of the trash, because we received them as our towels from the nuns--Mickey Mouse and Barney and all--on a return trip. 

The Weekend

On Saturday, we invited some of my colleagues, who have two kids, one of whom is friends with Blaze, over for brunch. We had a feast and the kids had fun playing. 

Then, a basketball game. Blaze's school had a special day at the basketball game--they got popcorn and books and to give the players a high five when the starting line up was announced. Blaze loved it--lots of his friends were there, and he sat with them during the game. 

At halftime Q and I played very casual--and fun--basketball with a 4-year-old son of one of my colleagues and his parents. 

Oh and the game itself--it was a nationally ranked team and we won! So much fun--I got to chat with two of my former students who now work here. 

I was so tired after all of this that I came home and mostly laid on the couch and/or in bed for the rest of the evening. What is wrong with me? I know Nana would have done of all of this and come home and done more. 

Sunday: Mass, cooking, cooking, cooking (chicken tacos, homemade chicken broth, cauliflower soup, turnips (practicing)), and I put a lot of pictures in a photo album. So I'm doing good on the home activities front. The problem with the photos: I have ten years of photos in no good order, and I'm sticking them in a photo album out of order! That is pretty distressing for a perfectionist. I'm trying to be proud of myself for putting them in an album at all!

The boys and I shoveled last night--Q hates it, but Blaze loves shoveling. We also tidied up the basement, which really hasn't been touched since our return, since a couple kids are coming over today. 

I forgot to say

also on that very long drive yesterday, Q said, "I'm not going to stick with this, but thank you for not always letting me play video games like all my friends, because it means that I read." We talked about what it means to be human and how video games may not be the highest of all human activities. Then Blaze told a detailed story about how a wizard was turned into a frog. When I asked how it connected to our conversation, he said that the wizard had been doing things that were not appropriate to its species and as a result he stopped being a wizard at all. I thought that that was a brilliant addition to our conversation. 

HEAT OUT AGAIN! 

I needed to yell at someone, so I yelled at you. 

There is a lot of deferred maintenance here. One of my colleagues called this a "first-world problem" and I think that's wrong--heat is a basic all-people problem, especially in the cold climate in which we live. Heat was like the thing on which civilization was built. 

The Week

Last night, Q and I shot some hoops. Wow--I feel like a teenager again, although also weaker than when I was a teenager--I airballed a three-point shot in front of some students to my embarrassment. And Q and Blaze played some hide-and-go-seek in the athletic center. This made me want to join my mail colleagues for their lunchtime basketball--but my fitness level is walking and not running up and down a court, so that's unreasonable.  

On the long journey to the gym (a stalled train blocked all but one of our town's roads), the boys were talking a lot about dreams. Blaze mentioned that he has dreamed that he lost me (at an arcade) and then found me. Q: "Oh I've had that dream a lot." (Q's at a farmer's market.) Both boys said that the dream ends with them finding me and giving me a big hug. I'm crying--I must not be a total failure of a mother if they want to find me in their dreams!

Yesterday I worked for part of the day in Francisco's building because our floor is have a huge problem with heat. My heat is working at the moment, but yesterday it was out. 

Quotes

I think my parents recited this verse to us a lot when we were kids--and it was the most damning thing I'd ever heard: 

If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God* whom he has not seen.

It seems totally easier to me to love someone you can't see than someone you can. How can you help but love someone you can't see? Especially if they're perfect! Easy-peasy. 

Perhaps the theory of Christianity has always been easier to me than the practice. Even now, when people around me ask me how I can believe in Christianity and not doubt--the theoretical belief for me is totally easy. My doubt comes in when I try to live it out in practice--to gratefully accept the suffering that God allows me to face. When the rubber hits the road and I'm supposed to embrace my cross, alls I have is disbelief and doubt and rejection and anger.  

Yesterday, on the other hand, has one of my favorite and most hopeful readings ever: 

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.  

When I read this, I become a universalist.  

The Week

Above: Some pictures we liked from the Neue, but I really, really feel strongly about no even slightly questionable art in my office. I thought I could hang (by which I mean stick to my wall with masking tape) this Klimt, but it turns out she needed a bit of editing. My office is still G-rated. 

I don't think I've said here: The boys were really pretty good all break--they played well together and they are just totally devoted to each other. Right now they're into some new audiobook together that they listen to whenever possible. And for all of this, I am truly thankful. 

Francisco has been working on the bathroom door mechanism. A spring inside broke and there isn't a good replacement in Home Depot's box of all possible springs. He asked me to consult (!! the first time anyone has been interested in a mechanical collaboration with me!), and it was delightful, though still unsuccessful. But Francisco has several more ideas about the door. And in the meantime, guests can use the basement bathroom. 

Oh my goodness. Blaze's first essay assignment. I remember when I did this with Q--I still have his stashed away somewhere--I would like to put them side-by-side. What a delight to get to work on this with Blaze. 

Also last night I made chicken pot pie, which took so long that the boys fed themselves first. Unfortunately all the broth got absorbed by the biscuits, but it was still piping hot and delicious, aside from being a dry bite. And I stayed up too late to watch the basketball game on streaming after the kids went to bed. 

Quotes

During Blaze's morning announcements, the school counselor read an inspirational quote: 

"If you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." --Thomas Jefferson

I don't know who actually said this, but it sure as heck wasn't Jefferson. (Francisco tells me that Mike Johnson also misquoted poor Thomas Jefferson lately.) But also: Who thought that this quote would be comprehensible to kindergarteners?!

I'm reading Josef Pieper for the first time:

"Leisure is only possible when a man is at one with himself, when he acquiesces in his own being, whereas the essence of acedia is the refusal to acquiesce in one's own being. Idleness and the incapacity for leisure correspond with one another. Leisure is the contrary of both." 

"The strongest affirmation of this agreement is the celebration of a feast, where 'to celebrate' as Karl Kerenyi says, is 'the union of peace, contemplation, and intensity of life.' In all religions, the meaning of a feast has always been the same, the affirmation of man's fundamental accord with the world." 

"It is true that ever since the French Revolution attempts have repeatedly been made to manufacture feast-days and holidays that have no connection with divine worship, or are sometimes even opposed to it." 

I am loving this essay. 

The Week

My Christmas present from Nana--stuck in Grandma's bowl--which was always full of red and green m and m's at Christmas when I was growing up. 

Last night Blaze tried out wrestling practice. Not sure if we're going to commit to that. He was fine as long as I stood in the doorway--and came to find me crying when I went to the parents' meeting. 

I volunteered at his school this morning and now I'm totally knackered. I played math games one-on-one with most of the kids in his class. It was nice to meet them and see their very varied personalities. 

More Stuff

Today I wrote in my planner, "Think about ChatGPT." I always do what my planner says,* so today I thought about Chat GPT. I tried it out. I looked up some articles about what faculty should do about it. One said, "Panic." That was the one that resonated most, though I'm currently calm and relaxed, so I don't feel like panicking. 

What I learned in the 30 minutes I devoted to this topic today is that there are no topics that ChatGPT can't write about (except maybe recent--a couple of days--events and perhaps one other thing that I already forgot?). And that there's no way you can make your prompt ChatGPT-proof. ChatGPT can write about feelings and reflect on things. And Chat GPT and students will get better and better at hiding the presence of Chat GPT. No one has written anything that I can learn from about ChatGPT and college! (The last time this was true was about teaching on zoom in the middle of the pandemic--what is a researcher to do when they can't find any articles suggesting any approaches that might help them?! This makes me panic.)

What to do? In my planner for tomorrow, when I'm already scheduled to revise a syllabus for the coming semester, I've written, "do in-class writing" and "talk to students about ChatGPT." That's all I can think of at this point. 

*Sometimes I just move the thing to a different day. 

P.S. I am sad to say that I think I peaked with last year's planner. Available in the U.S. for something like $40 plus $20 additional shipping to the U.S., which I refuse to pay. I have now bought all the nicest planners that are for sale in the world, except that one nice one that's like $200, which is over-the-top. And I probably like Liberty of London's best (last year's). Also the one with the funny (German?) L-name, but that wasn't available on Amazon in any colors that I liked. So in defiance this year I bought a black plastic one for $10 bucks on Amazon, and it is just total crap, and I hate it. But my year is already in it. So I will suffer. 

***

I think I haven't told you enough about my new coat. I realized this while talking on the phone with Ilana today who really hadn't heard much about it. And I realized when I was telling Francisco more about it for the thousand-th time and he suggested, "Why don't you write about it on your blog?" obviously so he didn't have to hear anything more. 

So my last coat, a yard sale Calvin Klein waist-length black down coat, had been shedding feathers for some time. It hardly had any feathers left, and the ones it did have all attached to the black fleece I wore underneath it for added warmth. Then the black fleece's zipper broke, leaving sharp metal behind. Since we could bring barely anything home from the UK, we left behind our oldest clothes, including my coat and fleece. 

So I needed a new coat. I asked Stearns, who has the warmest of all the coats that I know of and lives in--shiver--New England, where to look. She recommended REI and somewhere else I can't remember. REI (and many other coat places) have three options: Warm, Warmer, Warmest. So I bought the one coat marked "warmest." (After countless time checking every single coat on three different websites, Francisco helped me figure out how to search for warmest using a search filter.) It's name sounded Scandinavian, so I took that as a good sign. 

I'm absolutely astounded with this coat. And for $400 (I paid $262 on Black Friday), I should be. When it arrived, I was struck by how light it was, and then doubted that it would be warm. It is *so* light. More like a rain jacket than a winter coat. And it isn't too bulky, either. And it is totally warm--like I broke a little sweat walking home today in feels like 13 degrees. The hood zips up above my chin and buttons and my neck is *never* cold--no scarf needed. (I mean, I also can't hear because the hood crinkles, so it's not without trade-offs.) The bottom of the zipper zips up, so although the coat goes nearly to me knees, I can still comfortably get in the car or on a bike. And the color--it said it was navy, but it's a prettier color than navy. There's some green mixed in with the blue. 

This coat is the best thing about my winter. Though I'm a little precious about it--walking through the Pennsylvania woods, I was petrified that I'd catch a thorn on it, carefully dodging all brush. Not that I need to justify the price to you, dear readers, but I have to justify it to myself: We only have one car and we live in a cold place, so this is really a transportation expense. 

The New Year

Propositions for the New Year (none of that "firm decision" that "resolution" implies):

• prioritize leisure (first figure out what it is)
• watch more comedy; welcome laughter
• engage in voluntary home-making--which is to say no guilt from myself on this one at all, but see what traditions and activities we can all get into and build together

Home

A nice return home--lots of time in our warm house, some time shoveling and walking. We just got, I don't know, six-ish inches? 

Q loves home--he was moved to take this picture of our backyard, which he found lovely in the snow. 

Last night we watched The Phantom Tollbooth after Q read and loved it. 

I put the kids on the bus--begin as you plan to go on. And even had them unload the dishwasher before they left. But boy, I loved sleeping in all break. It is so hard to wake up in the dark. 

I planned to go to work today, but I find myself instead on the couch. Perhaps I can work from here for a while? 

NYC, the end

 

A happy bit of blue sky to close out our trip. 

Because there was an impending storm in the midwest, we tied up our trip a bit early with brunch, and then walked to the ferry and drove him. 

We unpacked, packed, and drove the long journey home (hitting some snow at the beginning and then clear roads for the rest of the way). I got some late-night groceries. 

Today I'm stuck to the couch (after a morning mass where I could barely keep my eyes open). We wonder how much snow will fall--anywhere between 4 and 12 inches--the estimates keep changing. 

Above: A big pigeon sculpture?!

NYC, continued

 

Thursday was an amazing day: We started with coffee and an almond croissant at the fancy coffee place in our hotel. The croissant was filled with marzipan--sublime. 

Then a breakfast sandwich at a real NYC working people's cafe on the way to an exhibit on Imaginary Books at the Grolier. 

I've been there before--was it with you, Hopkins and Stearns, to see miniature books in 2007? Was that when we saw the Cocktail Party? 

The exhibit is hard to explain. I'll tell you a lot about it, which is totally self-indulgent, but what is a blog if not self-indulgent? 

So this one anonymous book collector made the physical item (not the words) or books that existed and were lost or books that never existed except in the mind of an author, in the words of another book, or something like that. 

The exhibit was charming and funny--the line between truth and falsehood shamelessly transgressed. It is the only exhibit I've been to where I and others snickered from time to time. 

Just great fun! I loved this P.G. Wodehouse (story, I think) below: 

There was tons of Dorothy Sayers stuff, above. Below--the funding information. 

Next, we walked to the Neue to see an exhibit on Egon Schiele's landscapes, which was great. And the Klimts are lovely, too.

But before the art, we waited in line for the cafe, where we had Viennese treats. 

A picture from the Neue, before I remembered that there are no pictures. 

We had a rest at home in the afternoon--and dinner from the Whole Foods buffet across the street--before our play. 

There wasn't much small theater going on due to the holiday, but at the last minute I found a very entertaining play about Hannah Arendt. I didn't know she was briefly imprisoned and talked her way out of it. This play tells (imagines?) that story. We loved it. It was a little bit didactic, bringing all of her oeuvre into that one event--all held in one room, tracing her conversation with the Nazi officer who arrested her (with a brief discussion with a lawyer who offered to defend her). Anyway, it was great. 

Before the play started, in the row in front of us, a grandmother told her college-age grandson a bit about Arendt. "She wrote her dissertation on St. Augustine!" the grandmother said. The grandson obviously hadn't heard of Augustine: "What is he the saint of?" A look of confusion flickered over the grandmother's face. And then she lit on it: "He loved animals and was kind to them!" Francisco and I exchanged glances--she had mistaken St. Francis for Augustine. The grandmother's confidence returned: "He lived outside of Assisi!" She continued, "St. Francis of Assisi!" And then her face fell again, "No, that isn't right."

Is this funny to you? For some reason, this was delightfully funny to me. It gave me the first belly laugh I've had in a while; don't worry, I was discrete. 

 

NYC

Francisco and I had the absolutely best Christmas present this year--two nights in NYC sans children thanks to Nana and Papa! 

I love Hopkins' use of the line, "Start as you mean to go on," and it resonated in my head as Francisco and I walked around NYC on January 1. I mean to spend the year walking around cities with him. (A bit of an aspirational thought if you know where we live.)

Gertrude Stein.

Picture of a gorilla for the boys. 

Below: The Empire State building from our hotel room. 

We took the ferry, as usual, into the city. I sent Francisco out for $1.50 pizza slices after we arrived. 

Then we headed to a piano bar for cocktails (mine came with smoke!). 

Francisco: "Do you think they just did violence to all these books?" Indeed. 

We went to a very nice, very small Italian restaurant for dinner. Francisco ordered better than I did (usually I'm a very good orderer)--he had veal and risotto. This implement (below) was for eating the bone marrow! Good thing he always shares. 

The wine at this restaurant was sky high, so Francisco and I split a glass of their cheapest: $19. I had pasta with duck ragu and parmesan and orange which was also very good. I still like soft risotto though I acknowledge it's not traditional.

It was a perfect restaurant and we loved it. 

After dinner: A walk. 

Overheard as we talked: "...and I said, 'so I'm just going to be stuck with a Christmas tree for 364 days?'" Write a short story that puts that line in context!

Previously, Blaze during mass when I tried to get him to smile at an adorable baby starting at him, "You know I'm not the biggest baby lover." That's the truth--Q loves babies like a descendent of mine should; Blaze is uninterested. 

Happy New Year!

 

Perfect NYE: Mass, shrimp with Nana and Papa, champagne, a great meringue (a gift from Nana's friend), and all asleep at the regular time. (Except Nana and Papa who were enjoying the Penn State game.)

Christmassing

Here are the pictures from yesterday's graveyard walk. 

The real treat, something I've never seen before: Gravestones made to look like lumber, a huge industry here in, Francisco tells me, the 1870s to 90s. 

The last name was even sometimes carved to look like a font made of branches (above and below). 

Did I mention it was raining? 

This morning my brother's family came down. They come with a full engines blaring. I suspect that was a mixed metaphor; I don't know quite how to capture it. But with five adults to 6 children we did okay for 2.5 hours; not sure how #1tomatolover does it the rest of the time. 

My nephews brought me pictures they colored! They enthusiastically cracked nuts and shared them with me. They played with Nana's sparkly brown slime creatively. They played with all of the toys--they were most excited when they found a bird's egg in a nest on the Christmas tree. They were convinced it was a dino egg and that if they tried hard enough, they could get it open (it is made of wood). They are incredible with visual-spacial abilities (because my father works in psychology, this is how we think about kids). Nana made them their favorite--waffles--and they breathed down a hundred. 

My nieces and nephews are the absolute best and I'm so lucky whenever I get to see them, and I may need to sleep for the rest of the day.