Back in Western PA

The Spotted Pair and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4am yesterday in order to fly back to Pittsburgh. Or I dragged myself out of bed but I'm not sure what they did as they were already awake by then and wondering what dire event was in store.
While I was unhappy when our second flight of the day was delayed, all seemed better once we got to the apartment. The weather was pleasant--neither boiling hot nor like the recent Bay Area weather that caused some people to put on fuzzy gloves or even wool turtlenecks topped with sweatshirts. Actually, it was pretty much ideal summer evening weather, so I went out for a walk. My neighborhood looked positively enchanting in the gloaming, and I saw fireflies!
I can't say I have ever given thought to whether I have a favorite insect, but the thought occurred to me that perhaps the firefly ought to be in the running. Butterflies are often gorgeous, but I'm not sure they can be said to have the magical charm of the common lightning bug.
My stay in California was, in retrospect, an odd mix of things. I got a lot done on certain projects, although not as much as I would have liked. I saw more friends than I expected, given that I had less free time than usual--while both John and Cesar spent significant parts of my visit away on separate European adventures, I did get to see them, my writing group, and several old friends from the NWU. At the end, several parts of my life even combined in an unexpected manner when Cesar took me to the poet Alice Rogoff's birthday party. They're in the same writing group and I know Alice slightly from the NWU (she was becoming active just as I was getting ready to go off to school), but it turned out that a significant number of the guests are close friends of an old friend of mine. I thought I had known Sullivan a respectable length of time, but they've known him since about 1969. Anyhow, it was nice to have a few opportunities to escape my various projects and even my father's medical adventures.
Meanwhile, my birthday draws closer and tomorrow my father is scheduled to get out of rehab, so some celebration ought to be in order.
But I regret to say that I have been asked to do a second rewrite of a journal article written last summer. This is better than having it rejected, but one of the anonymous reviewers seems to want me to shoehorn most of my dissertation into a 10,000-word article, in addition to adding some things that I would have to research separately. I am not sure what to do about this, so I think I should return to putting the final touches on my fall syllabi and presentations, since after all I do commence teaching in a week and a half.

More Coffee?

I'm not one of the world's champion coffee drinkers. Many of my friends are, but I'm usually content with one or two cups in the morning.
On the other hand, I do find a good cafe to improve my overall productivity, because I tend to thrive on an occasional change of scene. If I work for a few hours at home, for instance, I usually need to go somewhere else if I expect to work for a few more hours. Back when I first returned to school and was taking classes at San Francisco State, I wrote one of my papers in some sort of marathon that involved 1) several hours at the UC Berkeley library; 2) several more hours at a cafe (I believe it was Coquelet, which has been in existence since before I first moved to the East Bay and shows no sign of disappearing these many years later--in fact, it's open 24 hours); and 3) a final frenzy of composition at home sitting on my bed. While one need not drink coffee in most cafes, it is what one does usually get unless a confirmed tea-drinker. (I drink tea more as a change of pace, or herb teas.) Thus, there arises that nagging question of whether I drink too much coffee.
My coffee-obsessed friends have been pleased to note that the medical world is no longer stern about the evils of coffee. Numerous recent studies seem to indicate that unless you really, really drink lots of the stuff, it is probably even good for you. The New York Times recently ran an article claiming to demystify the conflicting claims, though as far as I could tell it was only citing the favorable studies as a corrective to the previous anti-coffeeism.
I am a little skeptical of all this. I'm quite willing to believe that coffee is not bad for humans unless taken in huge doses; after all, people have been drinking coffee for quite some time without there being any discernable terrible effects. I am glad not to have an addiction to the stuff, since I hear unpleasant things from people who try to cut down their caffeine intake, but as addictions go, it is pretty benign, and I am sure coffee is much better for people than the various forms of cola. But given the size of the American coffee industry, I think there are quite a few people with a vested interest in seeing studies that promote the benefits of coffee. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of these studies were funded at least in part by the coffee industry.
Having said all this, I feel obliged to add my voice to the many that protest the Starbuckization of America and the world at large. I do not, in fact, detest Starbuck's; it has brought decent coffee and pleasant places to drink it to many remote parts of North America. If I am driving across country, and don't see a promising local coffee house, I am perfectly happy to visit Starbuck's. I am opposed, however, to the chain's habit of opening new branches right near thriving independents or local chains. In some neighborhoods this doesn't cause a problem--any place that can accommodate three or four cafes in one block obviously isn't endangered by a Starbucks--but in others, it drives the competition out of business. But perhaps this is no longer happening; I gather Starbuck's is closing some stores.
I dislike, however, the way that other cafes feel they have to imitate Starbuck's menu. I don't care where I am, I am going to order a small coffee (unless, like Tazza d'Oro, "small" truly means small and not big), not a "tall," because no matter what it's called, it will be more than I usually drink and I don't want to encourage tallness. And, apart from getting the occasional latte or cafe-au-lait, I am not about to spend my small cache of disposal income on fancy coffee drinks that will just make me fat and broke. I don't know what most of these are and I don't think I want to know. I first heard of "Americano" in Prague, as that seemed to be what I began hearing American tourists order, circa spring 2007. Whatever Americano is, I now hear it constantly in American cafes as well.
In the Berkeley area, total coffee devotees have gone to Peet's for a very long time. The original Peet's locations seem to have kept their extreme-coffee ambiance, which was always a little too coffee-worshipping for me, but which I respected. Mr. Peet has now retired and Peet's has expanded quite a bit. I regret to say that the El Cerrito Peet's is pretty much a clone of Starbuck's, even including being too chilly to sit in for any length of time. (El Cerrito does not have a climate that requires air conditioning more than once or twice every five years, so why must Peet's be so cold?) Still, it is not a bad place in general, especially since Fat Apples, which has memorable coffee and pastries, is more a restaurant than a cafe.
Having rambled on at length about coffee, I think it is time to gather my projects and remove myself from the temptations of the internet.

A Little Dancing

While much of my life this week revolves around visits to the rehab facility, quite a bit actually relates to writing things other than blogs, and a certain amount even relates to improving my dance skills.
My father continues to do pretty well at rehab, and the current estimate is that he'll be mobile enough to go home in about a week. The physical therapists put him through a good workout each day and he's learning about special devices that help people put on their shoes and socks when they're not allowed to bend over. We are pleased with the general level of cheer and helpfulness shown by the staff, and I'm told the food is pretty good too.
My friend Cesar, being fairly familiar with the dance scene around San Francisco's Mission, has kindly gotten me out a few times. Last Friday we investigated a free waltz and rhumba class at Cheryl Burke Dance. the instruction was good, the music not so exciting, so eventually we moved on to blues dancing on Heron, where the music was more fun.
Before leaving the Cheryl Burke premises, we signed up for free dance "consultation" (new students only). The school does this on a wide variety of dances, so I decided that since I had never done tango and everyone says it is difficult, I would try that. Of course, there's the problem that they teach three kinds of tango. I ended up having my lesson on American tango, on the theory that I would run into more people who did it.
I enjoyed my lesson and felt comfortable with my instructor, so I agreed to have a paid lesson the next day. It would be nice to learn dances in this manner all the time, with expert partners, but I'm afraid my income bracket dictates that most of my education will have to be in classes full of other beginners. After my second lesson, I met up with Cesar and we headed for one of these classes, at CellSpace. It was a good enough class, but we didn't get as far as learning any of the steps, focusing instead on getting the dancers used to paying close attention to their partners. I spent most of the hour walking backwards with my eyes closed. It was good practice and reminded me how differently less experienced partners lead, but I didn't really find out just how Argentine tango differs from American.
We have a plan afoot to gather a group to go dancing Friday. John says he wants to go and Megan is wavering on account (she says) of having biked all the way to Point Reyes over the weekend. I'm not sure who else is in the process of being gathered...

On to Rehab

I am pleased to report that my father was finally okayed to move from the hospital to rehab. His hip replacement surgery was successful and without complications, but since he normally takes various medications, these had to be restarted, and that meant several days of getting his blood in the right condition that the doctors felt he could be allowed to get out of bed more frequently and all that.
The rehab facility is farther from the house, but potentially BART-accessible. It seems like a nice enough place as such things go, and people can (and do) bring pets to visit. My father would like to see the rabbits, but as they dislike traveling in the carrier and are not too fond of sitting on laps, it's unlikely that they'll be making the trip over there.
Rehab will probably last about ten days.

Rabbits and Their Tastes

Certain rabbits have peculiar culinary interests. I have alluded before to the broad tastes evinced by Calypso Spots, who likes not just most fruits, vegetables, and hays, but also macaroni and cheese, Indian cuisine, nuts, chocolate, gingerbread, yogurt, and countless other things that are best not given her in more than small doses. It was no surprise, then, when she expressed her grave disappointment that I had eaten an entire fortune cookie without giving her any crumbs.
I was much more disturbed to discover that when Orion discovers a pile of fur I have just groomed off him or Ms. Spots, he will proceed to begin eating it as though it were hay. He has done this twice in the past few days, and therefore I think this means that no piles of fur can be left temporarily for him to find.
Could this be the explanation of his abnormal bulk?

Sitting Around

When one visits a hospital patient, considerable sitting ensues. I suppose it could be worse, since no one says that visitors can't stand, or must refrain from walking around now and then, but no matter what progress the patient is making, the visitor tends to spend a great deal of time sitting there wondering what would make life more interesting for everyone. When the patient is conversational, that's something; when the patient is sleeping soundly, the visitor can actually read a book; but mostly the visitor just sits around keeping an eye on the situation, offering glasses of water, fetching nurses, reminding the patient to exercise in situ, and so on.
On the plus side, the patient in question seemed to improve considerably between 10am and 4pm, and even managed a journey out into the hall using the walker.
After all that excitement, I came home and let a pair of deserving rabbits out into the back yard and settled down to write some fiction since the likelihood of focusing my brain on matters academic seemed very small.

An Update, of Sorts

What, me dead? Me kidnapped by alien beings telepathically summoned by Orion as he sat in his litterbox?
Well, not quite. I didn't even manage to do the dancing forecast for last weekend (I hasten to say through no particular fault of my own but merely circumstances leading in other directions), although I do recommend the Frida Kahlo and Lee Miller shows up at SFMOMA. (I also recommend the food at the museum cafe.)
I did make it to a great party where I got to see fellow 1990s-era NWU activists.
I have also managed to spend some quality time (as they say) in various Bay Area cafes, communing with my laptop.
Of late I have been acquainting myself with the Kaiser Oakland Hospital, where my father has had the interesting experience of getting a new hip joint. So far I suppose this has gone well enough, although we could do without night-time disorientation that prompts him to think he can get out of bed or that people are out to get him. He is lively enough when wide awake during the day and interested in a topic. I'm not sure the medical staff always appreciate his playful answers to routine questions, however. I suspect his nurse Amelia, who gets along very well with him, purposely asked him who was president just so he could tell her "The president is... Dick Cheney... but the president doesn't know that."
I find that PK of BibliOdyssey, who could have confessed an attachment to Švejk to me long ago, has taken the unheard-of step of scanning illustrations from his own copy of the book to post. Those who haven't got their own copies, or who just want to look at some Josef Lada drawings, or even who just want to read what we all said, might want to take a look.

Berkeley Strikes, Cafes, and Music

Over the years, when I've gone over to UC Berkeley to use the library, I've periodically found the grad students on strike. They teach many of the undergraduate courses, they (like grad students everywhere) are not paid all that much, and it's extremely expensive to live in the Bay Area. And of course other issues are often involved as well. University of Pittsburgh's grad students aren't unionized, so we always have to hope that the university administration remains benevolent, and that our departments treat us well.
This week a different group of UC workers is on strike: the AFSCME service workers. It's a 5-day strike, called after 11 months of negotiation. These employees include custodians, cooks and food service workers, groundskeepers, bus drivers, building maintenance people, security guards, and so on. These are not types of jobs that historically get very high wages without union support. Life is expensive in the Bay Area, and while I thought gas was expensive in Pittsburgh when it got over $4 per gallon, it's well over that here, so I don't find it surprising that the AFSCME wants a "UC Statewide minimum wage," improvements on overtime pay, and other things.
Having said that, I'm off to The Musical Offering to have another cup of coffee while figuring out just what I need to look up at the library. I'm trying to avoid looking up too much more and just make revisions. Of course, the danger in hanging out at The Musical Offering is that I will buy CDs, since this is the place to go for anything in the early music (or other subsequent classical) line.

Beatrix Potter Drawings

As my readers may suspect, the Spotted Pair and I have arrived safely in California and are pretending to be very busy. (Well, I am supposed to be, while they are making a show of having much grooming and other business to take care of.) I have actually made two plum and apricot pies, with two more planned for tomorrow, but there are no photos because we ate the evidence.
In the meantime, those who are fond of rabbits and other small animals, or simply have a weakness for wonderful illustration, can go see the rare Beatrix Potter drawings at BibliOdyssey. For the most part I haven't seen any of these elsewhere, although I do have notecards of a different version of the dancing rabbits.
Speaking of dancing, I expect to do a good deal of that over the weekend, assuming of course that I do not break a leg going up or down library steps.

Milt Wolff Memorial

As promised, some photos from Milt's memorial. Actually, most of them are from the graveside from Saturday morning rather than from the public memorial that afternoon. The Berkeley Hills seemed more conducive to photography, although I will say the ILWU hall looked handsome and there were several hundred people in attendance.
Above, Milt's daughter Susan and VALB historian Peter Carroll watch as Susan's husband Guy lays a spadeful over the ashes.

Richard Bermack and David Laub.

David Laub and Sylvia Drake. Below, more of us and a view of the Bay from where we were gathered.




And a photo from the shindig at the ILWU. Conrad Montell, who was a member of the Thursday's Child writing group with Milt and me back in the 1980s, gave my favorite recollection of Milt. After all, everyone in the room knew that Milt had fought in Spain, that the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was originally the Lincoln Battalion and the Washington Battalion, and that Milt and the VALB went to lots of peace rallies and raised impressive amounts of money for humanitarian causes. Not everyone knew that Milt loved Dostoevesky and Thomas Mann, was a painter, and liked to ponder the nature of the universe. Conrad knew that side of Milt intimately. (I'm afraid that while I've read a lot of Mann, The Magic Mountain always stopped me dead after a few chapters, so I could never really discuss it with Milt.)
I was delighted to see our old friend Lili Artel, who assures me that she is still writing and making art and getting ready to celebrate her 90th birthday.

Still Kicking

It's been a long strange week, and once I'm able to post some photos, I'll say something about the Milt Wolff memorial service and the unveiling of the monument to the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (but I may keep all that brief).
In the meantime, I'm pondering the implications of Rob Brezsny's horoscope advice for me regarding "any big educational experiences that promise to dislodge you from your routine." He thinks that "the astrological omens suggest you'll benefit from responding to invitations that just might thoroughly upgrade your world very quickly." Some of these seem to be in the offing...

Restaurant Dining and Its Oddities

My friend Dirk and I went out to lunch the other day, and settled on a nice little Japanese restaurant in Berkeley. We were quite content with the food, but two things struck us regarding American restaurants (Japanese-cuisine or not).
First, why is it that restauranteurs imagine that one wants TV while dining? I can understand that a sports bar ought to have a large-screen TV, but a restaurant that is tastefully decorated and laid out to encourage conversation? Not only were we disturbed to note the existence of televisions when we walked in, but after selecting a corner table where neither of us faced them, we realized that the mirrors on the walls forced us to watch all sorts of distracting movement. Neither of us like to be in the same room as a TV unless we plan to watch it. (I grant that Czech restaurants are no better than American in this respect.)
Second, why are waiters and waitresses in the US so obsessed with asking diners whether everything is all right? I am all in favor of being asked this once, but only once. I do not want to be asked this before I have taken the first bite, and I do not want to be asked this repeatedly throughout the meal. The wait-staff at this particular restaurant were so determined to ask whether everything was all right and to offer us refills of unwanted tea that it was difficult to carry on a conversation. They were so obsessed with asking that they were apparently incapable of attending to anything we really did want. For example, I had to ask twice for a fork (I can eat with chopsticks but the noodles in my soup defied them). And, of course, if the diners indicate four or five times that they do not want more tea, perhaps it would be a kindness to stop trying to press more tea upon them. Dirk and I finally concluded that the degree of solicitousness shown by our wait-staff indicated a serious insecurity about the food. I much prefer the Czech system, where the wait-staff silently removes empty plates and does not obsess about whether everything is okay.
In short, when I go to a restaurant with a friend, I would like to converse with that person, not have to deal with constant intrusion by TV screens and restaurant staff.

Christmas in the East Bay

Christmas has come and gone with somewhat less attention paid than usual, although we did have one guest and he arrived laden with baked goods.
There were some special moments, of course. For example, we usually do a dramatic reading of the Christmas letter from one of my father's old schoolmates, since it always features a cavalcade of memorable items. This year's edition included news of the correspondent's colonoscopy, being "put to sleep" over a dental matter, and apparently having had an eye removed instead of the scheduled cataract surgery. We were ...ahem... impressed that anyone would be in shape to write a Christmas letter after all that. There was also a long string of deaths (referred to by My Sibling as The Death List).
Then there was My Sibling's discovery that someone had chewed a hole in the new air mattress upon which he was to sleep (Orion is the prime suspect in this crime).
Before and after our guest's visit, My Sibling kindly helped me go over some portions of the dissertation, especially the Czech translations. We were entranced by a section of a František Götz essay in which Götz characterized the Devětsil generation (this was one of many 1920s articles discussing the three culturally active generations of the day). Götz began by calling the generation embryonic, which was fair enough. Initially we thought he was describing it as sucking the life-blood from worldwide culture, so we were disappointed to find that he really only said it sucked nutrients from the rest of the world. After all, Götz can be a pretty lively writer in his way. No vampirism this time, though.
And, while I was attempting to put the finishing touches on the Christmas Day cooking, my parents distracted me by reading specially heartwarming segments of Newsweek, particularly a story about the search for senator Larry Craig's special bathroom in the Twin Cities airport. When my father announced that the reporter had "scooped out the stalls," I really had to inquire whether this was an airport bathroom or a barn. I guess the stalls had actually merely been scoped out.
There was some discussion over whether it was okay to cobble together wrapping from a couple of pieces of our stash of ancient recycled holiday paper. The verdict was that "if it's eccentric it's okay, but if it's crappy, it's not."
I dug up our Christmas records and tried to play them, but something seemed to have happened to the wiring for the old mono speaker my parents have been using in preference to the stereo speakers I left them. We ended up trying Pandora's Classical Christmas offering, which despite the limitations of my laptop speakers was a pretty satisfactory alternative.
This year's presents included items from the Blogosphere. One of my friends gave me a copy of Disapproving Rabbits, from the blog of the same name, which caused merriment around the house and seemed to prompt the lapines to practice some disapproval (not their usual habit, unlike some people's lapines). The copy of the BibliOdyssey book I gave My Sibling was much admired.
Finally, the new computer for the Parental Units arrived on Christmas Eve, but their slide scanner hasn't yet shown up. Of course, we're still configuring the computer and learning how Vista works...

The Holiday Ham Reprise

Last year John and Cesar, with some assistance from me, threw a massive holiday shindig with many performances. During the summer, they presented another iteration (without me), and now we've done a third. Read on to view the numerous photos of performers! And of course to see what John, his roommate Alice, and I cooked to feed the multitudes.
Aaron, one of John's roommates, kindly donates his bedroom to be the main stage. He chooses to leave town for the party and lets us remove nearly everything from the room, which I think is rather brave of him.

Alice and Cesar with freshly pinned Event Organizer carnations.
Cesar and John preparing to share the emcee duties.

Monica, our opening act, performing Bach.

Ken reading a couple of humorous poems.


John singing German love songs to piano accompaniment by Janice.

Mira reading a personal essay about a favorite pair of ugly but sexy shoes.

Since I read my work quite often enough in public these days, a second year of piano improv seemed more suitable.


A trio of three stunning belly-dancers followed.

I missed some performers, but here we have Katrina reading an account of what happens when you bring scented bathroom products to the Spirit Rock retreat center. It was not a pretty story. Defy the Spirit Rock rules at your peril.


Clifford doing one of his tour-de-force poetry readings.

Tressa reads a story about encountering a New Yorker with MS.

Kathleen chose to entertain us with a poem about Paris rather than one of her own pieces.

Sally sang a song and read a poem.

And we got a rendition of a Ginsburg poem (this is before the Ginsberg disguise was donned).

John and Rachel sang duets.

A whole gang of performers doing Christmas songs and Martin's special "God Arrest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Michael presented some poems.

Further piano playing.

Cesar read new poems.

And our last reading of the evening, if I remember correctly.

A fine time was had by all or most!

Computer Gurus?

As usually happens when I visit my parents, their computer is ready for maintenance and has either developed or is in the process of developing some sort of weird problem.
Of course, this time is no exception. We were blithely planning to get a slide scanner and an external hard drive so that my mother could embark on digitizing and properly labeling our trove of slides (most of them are in pretty good shape but the Ektachromes have faded and are prime candidates for adventures in Photoshop).
It was right about when I was in the process of trying to decide just which slide scanner to order that my mother exclaimed that an alarming message had flashed onto her screen.
And lo, the machine wanted to install Internet Explorer 7 but had discovered that the hard drive was almost full!
I was not happy. I told it to cancel installation, but apparently the update had already downloaded itself, as I suppose we had set Windows to do automatic updates to spare My Sibling and I from having to spend hours updating Windows every time we visit. Apparently there remained only 383MB free on the 10GB drive (which I had tried to exchange for a 30GB drive awhile back only to be stymied by HP's having made a nearly impenetrable body for the thing).
My parents do not keep very much on this computer. They are your classic low-tech users who basically write some documents, send and receive a few emails, look at a limited number of web sites, and do taxes. They offered to delete documents and emails, and I said no. I got rid of a few unnecessary programs we had somehow missed in the past, but hesitated to uninstall the dictionary. I ran the antivirus software and looked for spyware. I halved the size of System Restore. And so on. I got the free space up to 6%, which strikes me as dreadfully low on a hard drive this size.
We are rather reluctant to replace a machine that does function, considering that their needs are so modest. On the other hand, it would be really nice if we could go ahead and get the slide scanner (its software would have to go somewhere), and it would be nice to stop messing with irritating things like whether the hard drive is large enough for Windows XP or the maxed-out memory is enough to make it run at a reasonable speed. Perhaps, now that flat-screen monitors are affordable, a low-end desktop computer would be a reasonable solution. (The laptop and printer live on an old typing table and my parents are loath to allot any more space to them.)
I invite comments from the technically aware, and of course if anyone has a recommendation on a dedicated slide/film scanner (Nikon or Plustek???) I would be deeply interested.

Travel, Cards, and So On

The Spotted Pair and I have arrived safely at the Parental Lair, although Orion was very unhappy about Travis and my attempts to catch him and put him in the new carrier (Travis kindly gave us a lift to the airport). Orion, to the best of our knowledge, had never been on a plane before, whereas Ms. Spots regards air travel as something she dislikes heartily but which one recovers from in an hour or so.
I have now gotten all twelve job applications off my hands and do not plan to prepare any more this academic year unless something absolutely fabulous comes along. Or so I tell myself. I also finished off yet another postdoc application, and am having that feeling of "maybe this is really enough" and that perhaps I shouldn't bother to do any more this year. After all, if I don't finish the dissertation itself, there is not much use in being offered jobs or postdocs.
Turning our thoughts from matters lapine and academic, there is the year-end sale at Archelaus to contemplate:

Despite our best efforts at cost containment, inflation is finally catching up with Archelaus! As of January 1, 2008, the prices of a number of our fine cards will increase, as will the charges for shipping and handling. This is our first price increase in over two years of operation.
However, you have an opportunity to turn this otherwise distressing situation to your advantage! To rid ourselves of as many fine cards printed with the old prices as possible, we are having a pre-price-hike, year-end, inventory-clearance sale.

Print out a retail order form, get it postmarked by December 31, 2007, and take a 10% discount on your entire order!

Note: If the Archelaus link isn't working, trim out the part of the URL that makes it look like part of this site. The code is OK on my end but Blogger seems to be experiencing a bug.

Almost on the Road

The preparations for the drive to Pittsburgh are almost complete. Several of my friends have even confessed willingness to host me and the Spotted Pair on our way, for which we are very grateful.
I am losing track of my various last-minute activities, however. My sibling has taken up use of Dragon Naturally Speaking due to incipient carpal tunnel, and reports that it is an impressive piece of software. As I happened to have an unused disk for Dragon Naturally Speaking sitting around, I gave that to John since he is more comfortable lecturing than writing. It is to be hoped that it proves useful.
Cesar, meanwhile, persuaded me into trying a samba class. While I would not mind learning to samba, our class brought back recollections of why I used to abhor and avoid dance classes... I do not do well with "all levels" classes where everyone else already has a pretty good idea what they're doing and the instruction mainly consists of trying to follow along what you can see in the mirror. How am I supposed to "do four samba steps in each direction" if I don't yet know what a samba step consists of? I was disgruntled about this, but admittedly the attempt to catch on did involve getting plenty of exercise. I decided to regard it as a workout rather than a lesson, but I would have preferred to get some idea what I was supposed to be doing. Cesar had a better idea what he was doing, having seen more samba performed, but thought that the male body is really not designed for this dance. We concluded by drinking beer, and then, when John showed up after his Russian conversation class, drinking more beer. I gather the Russian class was more satisfactory, although John did think that it would have been hard to handle if he hadn't studied Russian previously.
The Spotted Pair has been repeatedly told about our upcoming trip, but as neither Ms. Spots nor Orion has any real experience with lengthy car trips, they have not shown any apprehension about it. Ms. Spots has, however, been preparing herself by molting. She has evidently been paying attention to the weather reports.
Many of my friends have inquired what prompts me to move back to Pittsburgh. The answer is actually relatively straightforward, if not all that brief. Apartments are considerably cheaper there than in the Bay Area (although not as cheap as sleeping on my parents' couch); most of my furniture and many of my books are there; my dissertation committee is there; I can get free interlibrary loan there; and I have friends there too. I can't say I am crazy about the weather in Pittsburgh, but other than that I tend to like the place.

Pears

The plums are all gone and now we're on to apples and pears. A good deal of apple pie has been made and consumed, so now with the pears ripened unexpectedly quickly (they have to be picked unripe, but they went ripe awfully fast after that), we are digging through the pear recipes. Or, rather, my mother is. I am ostensibly packing and returning library books.

Moving Right Along...

The weekend was more sociable than dissertation-focused, as it happened. As my birthday (and departure for Pittsburgh) approaches rapidly, John, Cesar, Megan, and I celebrated the birthday on Saturday by going out for Thai food and then taking a swing dance class at ODC. I wouldn't say that my dancing was quite at its best, but we all did fine at the class and those of us who stayed longer enjoyed additional dancing and the opportunity to watch those more adept than we are.
On Sunday evening I was invited to attend a graduation at Psychic Horizons. Oddly enough, I went to an introductory event at Psychic Horizons long ago; I suppose I heard of it through a shamanic-related mailing list or some such thing. At that time I had a reasonably positive impression, but one can only pursue a limited number of interests at a given time. The two graduates were suitably feted and congratulated, and afterwards they regaled me with some tales of a few of the more bizarre readings they had done during their course of study. One time, for instance, they were asked to find out why a house seemed to be haunted and see if it could be made to settle down.
Monday was notable mainly for Ms. Spots' excellent veterinary report. She is in fine shape, has lost a little weight, and ought to be in good condition to do the cross-country drive. Rabbits do not, in general, like driving or road trips, and she is no exception, so I am a little apprehensive about subjecting her and Orion to a week or so of travel. However, with familiar belongings around them and plenty of air-conditioning, they should be fine. The main thing is not to let them get too hot. We shall see.

El Cerrito Gardens, Part 2

I am quite certain that five or ten years ago there was nothing remarkably exciting about this yard. In fact, I am sure it used to be quite drab.
Not anymore. Perhaps inspired by the impressive garden that has long existed a short distance away (to be featured soon), the inhabitants of this corner house have planted lots of delightful things.