gobble gobble

maura @ 7:43 pm

The dinner’s been consumed (dessert too), and Gus is in hog heaven: playing Link’s Crossbow Training on my BIL’s Wii w/surround sound. We had some iconic fall moments this afternoon raking leaves so Gus could jump into a pile of them a la Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (”never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker”). AND we didn’t even hit traffic on the SIE and NJT today. Much to be thankful for!

Don’t forget, tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day! Sadly, tomorrow we might actually have to buy something, since it’d be rude to eat all of my sister’s food + not pick up dinner in exchange for crashing at their pad. But dinner’s hardly frivolous, so I think we get a pass on that.

3 5 0 1 2 5 go

maura @ 8:48 pm

For our nation’s birthday this year we at mauraweb! decamped to parts north. Unlike other years, when we’ve headed to the Midwest, this year the Midwest met us in New England. Rollicking family fun ensued: lounging around, swimming, feasting on lobster + corn, and indulging in slightly terrifying backyard fireworks. Gus was surprised to learn that he has an 11 yr old first cousin once removed, who has 4 toy lightsabers (including the color Gus covets: purple), a pool, and Super Smash Bros Brawl. I was surprised to learn that teenagers still make friendship bracelets. Who knew?

The kittens were both good and bad in our absence. The house was in decent shape when we returned, but one of them had chewed through the thin Wii sensor bar cable. Luckily Jonathan was able to fix it, saving us from buying a new one (which isn’t as easy as it should be). They also chewed through the ground wire for my turntable, but it needs a new belt so I haven’t been able to use it recently. I’m thinking about upgrading to a USB turntable anyway — this one is nearly 20 yrs old and wasn’t that great to begin with. And it’d be nice to convert some of my records to mp3 so I can actually listen to them in the places I’m listening to music these days.

Sigh, another long + boring post. Sorry, Interwebs! I used up all of my writing mojo today on the first of my five Summer Friday Scholarly Activities Bonanzas: drafting outline of an article and researching the literature review of said article. Go me! I’ll make it up to you in the next post, promise.

your every scene is in the round

maura @ 10:22 pm

Woah! Seems like just yesterday I was all, “I’m going to write something every day, yes I am,” and now it’s already next month and here we are.

I did write something yesterday AND last Friday, but since I was at airports both times (and decided against schlepping the heavy laptop) it was on paper.

I was at a faculty development workshop all last week, then spent the weekend in America’s Most Livable City (2007). I learned a lot at the former, which was really fun, but you’re not interested in my blathering on about how much I love my job.

So let’s talk about travel, shall we? We don’t fly very often — about once a year, really, to visit Jonathan’s family in the midwest. And we tend to go for about a week so there’s not much time-related pressure.

But earlier this year a plan was hatched. A girlfriend* of mine moved to AMLC2007 w/her partner + son, so another girlfriend + I decided to go for a visit sans our own partners + kids. A whole 2 nights of sleep minus little Gus feet + little cat feet — incroyable! (Why is it suddenly French? Je ne sais pas.)

* I’ve been hyper-aware of small quick scenes in movies lately, one of which was that scene in Juno (which we finally saw, thank you Netflix) where Juno + her friend are at the mall and they run into Jennifer Garner who says that she’s shopping w/her girlfriends and Juno’s friend says, “are you gay?” And it cracked me up + made me feel about 100 yrs old all at the same time.

And thus a weekend away was planned. I’m hoarding my vacation days for our 2 family trips this summer, so I decided to fly out around dinnertime on Friday and return at the same time on Sunday.

You know, we’ve heard all of the travel horror stories over the past few years, but it didn’t really sink in until this weekend. Can I just say, wtf? What has happened to air travel to get us to this state? My flight on Friday was over 2 hrs late, and last night, 1.5 hrs. Much of the former was spent in the plane on the tarmac at Newark (hot, and with a chatty seatmate, grrr), while thankfully the latter delay was mostly in the airport. It doesn’t sound so bad while I’m typing it now, but on Friday I could have driven to my destination in the 7 hrs it took me to fly there.

My friend did fine on the Friday leg of her trip, which was earlier in the day, but fared much worse than me yesterday. Her (nonstop) flight was cancelled, she rescheduled to a flight with 1 layover, and with the inevitable delays didn’t get home until nearly 2am. Like mine, her kids are up at 6am. Ouch.

Can’t say I’m looking forward to flying again anytime soon. Luckily we’re meeting family in New England rather than the midwest this summer. And the next time I head to AMLC2007, we’re taking the train, man.

can’t fight the undertow

maura @ 1:25 pm

We’re back from our fabulous trip to the Midwest, but this week has been depressing, sad and frustrating in for many many reasons, completely trashing our stress-less vacation moods. I am still so sad about London, though thankfully all four of our friends currently living in London’s environs are fine.

So let’s sweep that downer stuff under the mental rug, pour ourselves a cup of our favorite caffeinated uppers, and recount amusing vacation anecdotes!

…or even not that amusing. We had a fantastic time. Gus was, as ever, adored and doted upon. This year there was a new, huge, motorized Thomas train set for him to direct the big people around (”Grandma, I am Thomas and you are Percy. No, go on number one track only!”). Plus a Slip-n-Slide, which admittedly gave me a little pause (I am so vain — whenever he falls I always say a little prayer that he won’t land on his beautiful face) but which was rejected by my usually cold-loving child anyway because the (well) water was too cold.

We parents slipped off to a “meeting”, overnight, in Chicago, to stay with college friends, ride the Ravenswood line, gawk like the rest of the tourists at Millennium Park, and stuff ourselves with lingonberries + potato sausage at Ann Sather’s for breakfast. Good times. We felt a little bad while riding the El — our train freak child would seriously have loved it — but the El’s not going anyplace and neither are the grandparents, so it’s not like he’ll never get his chance.

I only read ONE book (Because I Said So, which I ripped through in less than 24 hrs), but I did write in my journal three times. And we did spend about 6 hrs in the car with the Chicago trip, time which could’ve otherwise been devoted to reading. But also, I just wasn’t that into the other books I brought. I actually returned two nonfiction books to the library yesterday, mostly unread. Yes, my nonfiction love affair has been rudely broken off, thanks to Jonathan and his pesky fiction recommendation. It’s sad, really, because mostly right now I just want to go back a few weeks and read Time Traveler’s Wife again, how lame is that? But I got three mostly fiction books at the library yesterday which should hold me, I hope. The first is starting out well, at least.

Which all makes me wonder why the nonfiction glut happened in the first place. I mean, the parenting/momoir (ugh, hate that word) stuff is easy: duh, I had a kid, didn’t you know? But the other stuff, I don’t know. Maybe it’s that having-a-degree-I-don’t-use complex rearing its ugly head.

And speaking of that complex…we topped off our vacation with a visit to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum (which really is fantastic, if you have kids and happen to be in Indy you should totally go — it has FOUR floors of fun for all ages!). Of course Gus now claims that his favorite thing was “the running ramp” — the ramp spiraling up the middle of the museum, leading to each floor. We made him run up and down this a zillion times, thus insuring that he was mellow + quiet (read: tired!) on the flight home.

But I digress! There’s also a big dinosaur exhibit called Dinosphere which mostly consists of huge skeletons in a dome shaped room. The walls of the room change colors + there’s a booming sound system to imitate the weather, plant and animal sounds + visions of the Cretaceous. When we walked in here, Gus said darkly, “I don’t like this world,” like it was a video game level or something. But on the edges of the sphere there was a fake (? maybe real, hard to tell) paleontology lab. Gus had fun fitting together the rubbery, amber-colored molds and bone casts. And I made Jonathan’s stepfather take a picture of this case for me:

Look, it’s Paleontology Barbie and Ken!!! Is this not hilarious? Note her supine, loungetastic posture! Check out the spiffy attire (yes, those are tiny dinos on her shirt) and the bright pink canteen! And there’s no alcohol in sight! Surely this CAN’T be right. At least Ken is wearing latex gloves. Sigh, maybe they should hire me as an exhibit consultant.

goodbye small hands

maura @ 10:41 pm

Phew, just barely coming up for air here before we jet off to the great Midwest for our 5 leisurely days with the grandparents, woo hoo! Things have been a mite crazy-busy recently, I’ve had lots of work, Jonathan’s had lots of work, and of course Gus is off school all this week. He and I have been seriously head-butting too, which doesn’t make anything easier. We are so similar, so stubborn, it’s a bit scary at times.

But never fear, for tomorrow we hit the promised land! Gus never wants a thing to do with us when the grandparents are around to attend to his every preschooler whim. Playdoh on the porch! Endless hours spraying everything with the garden hose! No pants ever! So we lounge, read, sleep, occasionally take a field trip to the playground or supermarket. It’s just lovely. I have FOUR books in the suitcase right now, AND my journal.

And, since that hotel date was so successful a few weeks ago, we think we’re going to try an overnight in Chicago while we’re out that way. I have been seriously suffering from the Chicago nostalgia recently. I read this, which I REALLY loved (even though it’s an Oprah book, o, the shame!), and of course reading Mimi Smartypants gets all the Chicago up in me, too. Our college friends we’ll be staying with told us that Demon Dogs, our favorite hot dog place (conveniently located under the El tracks), has closed, though, so who knows where we’ll eat. At least we can still have breakfast at Ann Sather. And I have this weird desire to see Millennium Park, does that make me completely uncool? Of course, if it’s 90 million degrees out we will not be spending any time outside, so I guess we need a plan B. Any ideas?

So, finishing the abovementioned book has put me in a bit of a fiction depression. I’d been on a serious, hardcore non-fiction jag, really for a few years now. But that book was so good, so dreamy, romantic, but not sappy, with all those tasty Chicago tidbits… Finishing it has left a big hole in my literary life. I know not what to read, I’m interested in nothing beyond reading MORE stuff EXACTLY like that. Sigh. Made an emergency run to the library last night to grab a few new books, so hopefully one of those will grab me. And if any of my 4 readers have any books they’re loving, let me know!