[Sigh] revision.

Long gap in blogging here due to a semi-chaotic family visit and a very sick kitty. Family left on Saturday. Kitty is still sick, but somewhat better (down from a very high fever into sneezing and snuffles). There really is nothing more pathetic than a sick cat.

So anyway, with all that settling down, I got back into my article this weekend. A few weeks ago, I read it over in hard copy (my preferred late-stage revision mode), made a few edits, and thought that it was just about ready to go. This weekend, I reread it, and did this:


Might I just say, Augh!!

Now pardon me, please, while I go type those notes up before I lose the ability to read them.

Hot Dry Summer

In honor of July, I bring you a photographic essay documenting the behavior of cats on a 92-degree day:




The series concludes with Constant M.* telling me to knock it off with the picture-taking and rub her belly already.

Actually, it's cooler today, but we should be back up into the 90s this weekend. And just in time for the heat, I've finished my shawl:


Like the patrician tilt of my chin?

I'm also working on the paper-making, as this picture demonstrates:


Letting the sheets dry against glass gives them a smoother finish for writing, or so I have read. (I haven't actually written on them yet.)

In other news, I suppose I ought to go to the gym. At what point in my life does that requirement go away?


*A sudden, irrational fear that the eminent C.M.--whose work I respect--would find this page and be bothered by my pun has prompted me to abbreviate the cat's moniker.

Aerial View

It would appear that I still have little to say.

(Actually, I could talk your ear off, but it doesn't mean that any of it's worth saying. Also I'm pretty tired. In blogospheric news, however, I did get to catch up a bit with both Dame Eleanor Hull and The Rebel L this weekend! RL and I even got to celebrate her first night out in living memory. Good times were had.)

A Cat Picture

Because I've got like nothing to say, evidently.

So there you are.

Hey Fatty Boom-Boom

I only wish that I were so happy to be at my computer.

On Domesticity

Fig. 1: Laundry Day, February Edition

I've been thinking about domesticity lately, especially as this spring break--for the first time since I moved to Field State in 2007--I am not traveling overseas but am instead spending most of the time, together with my honey, working and puttering around the house. (We leave tomorrow for two nights in Possibly Exciting Northern City.)

I love travel: or rather, I identify myself as someone who loves travel, and I do believe that mostly this is accurate. I've traveled rather a lot (not as much as some people I know, but more than average, for sure). And I used to be haunted by the feeling that I hadn't done as much, or seen as much, as I could/should have done--especially when I was with someone who had lived a particularly nomadic life. The Ex-Boyfriend is one of those: He's been more or less everywhere by now, I think, and even though he's employed in the Legal Profession, he's managed to work things out so that he's spent the last two years on two different coasts.

But with age--and I have reached the Age of Perfection, after all, even though its remaining months are numbered--I've come to see that what I like, most of all, is coming home.

Fig. 2: Laundry Day, Moody Edition

Case in point: Last summer's month in France. Fabulous! Of course! But from almost the beginning I was looking forward to the pleasure of returning to our newly-moved-into little rented house, our garden, our cats, our...everything. Laundry, even. For truly, I do love doing the laundry, especially if I can hang it up (and we have a wonderful clothesline in the backyard).

When I think of such things, I'm reminded of that poet who is quoted with such irritating frequency and sanctimoniousness of spirit, but whom I do actually like--Rumi. Thus:

Either this deep desire of mine
will be found on this journey,
or when I get back home!

It may be that the satisfaction I need
depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone
and come back, I’ll find it at home.

-"In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad"

But most importantly, in The Minister I've found a partner who shares a commitment to the pleasures and comforts of home. Our time together is spent in domesticity: We cook (though he does most of it); we make things from scratch (me: yogurt, granola, pizza, pesto; he: creme fraiche, creme brulee, buttermilk, butter--basically anything to use up the remaining cream from our weekly milk jars--and most of our fancy breads, though I make a tasty one with onions and walnuts); things are put away; we spend our evenings reading and working and occasionally watching a show through Netflix. We go to bed early. We garden and eat what we grow. We have a candle on our table at dinner every night and we almost always have a glass of wine--it's comforting, it's civil, it's civilized. There is great reassurance in all of these things.

Is it a sign of psychological fragility that having a stable and well-ordered environment is so important to me? I don't actually think so--although it does make it particularly difficult for me to spend long periods of time (like, days) at other people's messy houses. But if it does, so be it; I'm pretty happy like this.

What I'm really driving at here is how nice it is to have married a person with whom I can live, in the day-to-day sense, in such a perfectly comfortable way.

Oh, and the cats like it, too. Here's visual evidence of how utterly they are spoiled:

Fig. 3: Pertelote on the Pillow Pile

I do believe she'd know it if there were a pea under there.

Things, Glorious Things

• After a very poky Monday and a "stern" (= kind and smiley, for I am seldom stern) lecture about participation on Wednesday, Brit Lit has become much livelier and more fun. We had a very good discussion on Wednesday, and today I organized them into four teams to stage two debates onByron (we just finished DJ Canto 1) and some of the other texts we've read. The debates were, in brief, the following: Byron vs. Wordsworth ("The Death Match") on the purpose of poetry, and Dona Julia vs. Elizabeth Bennet ("Head to Head") on sexual morality and the role of women. To tell the truth, I was really nervous about this activity, because it unlike anything I had ever tried before and I was afraid that they wouldn't be willing to be a bit silly and get into it. But lo, get into it they did, and we had a fabulous time that actually yielded some very interesting insights.
• Insight: Willingness to be a shameless ham is helpful when one wants one's students to get into the silly activities that one has planned.
  
• I have to spend all day on campus tomorrow for a big recruiting event. We start at 8 am. Why in God's name do we start at 8 am? Why in God's name do people in the Midwest do everything (like get up, eat dinner, EVERYTHING) so damn early???
• My copy-edited manuscript came in the mail yesterday; I have less than three weeks to turn it around. I am reading it, but oh, it is not a fast process. No it is not. When do I get to retire these dusty old paragraphs?
• I ought to be grading. It would be very very good of me to grade four seminar papers this evening. Yes. I would be very sage (in the French sense of the word) if I were to grade these four papers. Perhaps I shall dwell on that for a while.
  
• The cats have been reasonably well behaved lately, although Priscilla meowed at the door at 3:45 this morning and Pertelote vomited up her breakfast in a particularly disgusting fashion on Wednesday.
• Priscilla has a new nickname. Medievalists, rejoice: Henceforth, the talkative and MOST melodramatic cat in our house shall be called Constant Mews.
• I laugh every time I think about it. Constant Mews!
• Ha ha ha ha!
  

Least pithy ad campaign

Received in today's mail, and written out in prominent blue type, over a collection of smiling multiracial people with their arms around each other:

Q: How long can your kids remain covered under your health or dental plan?

A: Much longer than before in many cases.

Maybe it's the wordiness, or the vagueness of "longer than before" and "in many cases," but I find this curiously hilarious.

In other cheering news, Priss, our most melodramatic cat, has fallen in love with her new toy (a piece of string) and has taken to carrying it up to us and then meowing piteously (her meows are always piteous) until we play with her. It's really cute, and fascinating that she seems to understand play: she knows that we're the agents of the string's action, and she knows that she can get us to drag it around in the amusing fashion that pleases her so. I know that a lot of pets do this, but it's some pretty higher-order thinking, isn't it?

Thanksgiving was nice.

It was nicer still to come home.

How the Cats Spent The Weekend

I didn't do much better.

*And yes, these are the only cats: Kittenfoot went to live with her lovely new owner--a cat-needing colleague of ours--on Thursday. She is missed, but not by these guys, who never even detected her presence. Lazy so-and-sos.

Week 6

So: I have emailed Journal Editor with a variation on Notorious' message. I am not as blithe as she suggests, but am working up the confidence angle. I'll let you know what happens; it's making me nervous.

In other news, it's Week 6. What is it about Week 6? Either I get cranky or a small but visible portion of my students gets obnoxious. Example 1: In my 10 am class, one student was pretty clearly doing the homework in class, and then handed it right in to me at the end (it was comp; we discuss the homework before the handing-in. I will change this policy as much as I can immediately. Much as I hate walking around and checking off the homework for completion--hello, eighth grade!--I hate being taken for a sucker even more). Example 2: In my 1:00 class, one student told me that another was in the hospital. At 1:50, on my way back to the office, I spotted said student sitting on the floor OUTSIDE MY CLASSROOM waiting for another class to start. I sort of double-taked and vowed to deal with it later, in a stern email. (As I said to TM, "I might be all nice in the classroom, but I am one cold bitch over email!")

So I guess that's only two incidents. There's the sleepiness, of course, and the sauce of a student who casually dropped off his homework in my mailbox a few hours after class ended (Example 3). I shall be discussing this practice with him.

What annoys me is that I try so hard not to police every little stupid thing in my classes. As Dr. Crazy recently argued, such practices can turn into a massive time-suck. (Those were not her exact words, of course, but this is what I recall of her general point, probably mistakenly. I'm tired.) So I got rid of "excused" and "unexcused" absences, and now say that you get three, and after three, no matter what, your grade starts to go down (barring extraordinary circumstances). When you've missed 20% of the class sessions, you fail. So I don't care if Example 2 was skipping class or actually sick; the penalty is the same. But when ze lies to me (and has another student lie to me, too), well, that's kind of disrespectful and insulting, and I feel like I shouldn't let it go. But I don't want to deal with it.

If I only have three Examples (one of whom--Ex. 3--is generally a pretty charming student, otherwise) out of my 60-odd students, I guess I shouldn't complain. But maybe Week 6 is just the point in the semester when these otherwise really little things start to get...just...super annoying.

(On the bright side: My seminar is going pretty well, though only 2/6 are really on board with the blog. Kittenfoot (also known as the Mayor of Kittentown--yes, I am awesome with the cutesy names!) is doing well: she still pees outside the box, for some reason, but otherwise is doing well, eating lots, and racing around the room, and she went to the vet last week. She can't come out of the attic bedroom until she's had her leukemia test on the 13th, though, which means that we have to spend a lot of time in the room with her. That's kind of tiresome and makes me feel guilty for neglecting the other cats! Our Chaplain might consider taking her in, which would be okay with us--as fond as we are of the little stripey-face.)

I do not have time to spend all evening in the attic, playing with kittens!

That's all.

Meet Kittenfoot

Yes, I know. The cat-blogging really must stop. But it's like I've opened a valve or something....

Actually, it's just been a really cat-intensive week. Here's what happened.

On Wednesday night, TM was on his way home from a late meeting (he's the faculty rep to the Student Senate, a thankless task if ever there was one). We live across the street from a graveyard, and the easiest way to get to campus is to cut through it. So he was walking home, through the graveyard, when he heard a peculiar chirping noise. And sitting on a tombstone was a tiny little kitten, squawking away.

He approached and she scampered. Of course he followed; she led him to a bush in which she promptly curled up, allowing him to lightly pet her back a little bit.

TM came home and got me, the cat carrier, and a bag of treats, determined to rescue her and take her to the shelter the next day. But the kitty was spooked and led us on a merry chase around the darkening graveyard, squawking all the while. At last we abandoned her and decided to come back the next day, leaving a few treats on her favorite headstone (where TM had first seen her).

Thursday morning, TM left for the office before me. When I was getting ready to go, he called: The kitten was in her bush and he'd been able to pet her. He suggested that I bring treats; she's really thin, he said. "Bring your camera, too," he said. "I think that we could find a home for her if we showed her picture around."

Behold: the kitten in her natural environment.


I gave her a few treats. She was really hungry, and also uncoordinated, so I had to hand her the treats to get them into her mouth. Annnnd of course one fell down and she mistook my finger for a tasty tidbit and bit down. Hard. It bled. Lots.

Now, did you know that cat bites--rabies risk aside--are actually incredibly dangerous? Really. You can get staf infections and need amputations. They are Not Good Things.

I gave her a little more food (just to prove to myself that it was an accident and she wasn't vicious, nor had I personally offended her) and took myself off to campus to clean up and call the doctor's office. And the vet's office. Long story short, I decided to cancel class (reluctantly) and go to the ER: Waiting until an afternoon appointment just didn't seem wise, given the rapidity with which these infections can spread.

They soaked my finger in a solution for 10 minutes and gave me a tetanus shot and five days' worth of antibiotics. I was able to make it to my afternoon office hours, at least.

Meanwhile TM caught the kitten and put her in our attic guest room, where she is now living. She is, quite simply, a delight. Squeaky-voiced, clumsy, frisky, scampery, etc. etc. She likes to sleep on our laps and rub her face against our noses. We're trying to find her a home (ideally we'd like not to be outnumbered by the felines), but as the days pass...well, you know how it goes.

So here is Kittenfoot, in all her bug-eyed glory:




Look how wee she is!


Any takers?

The Absorbent Unconscious

Yesterday I did my thing in Brit Lit where I chant the first 18 lines of Chaucer's "General Prologue" at the class and they repeat it back to me, first as a whole body and then in groups (I read line 1; they all repeat line 1; I read line 1; Group 1 repeats line 1; I read line 2; etc.). I kind of like doing this, as silly as I (and they) feel: I always joke that it's my day to pretend that I'm a 19th-century schoolmaster.

So then, at 3:30 this morning, AS HAS BECOME COMPLETELY TYPICAL, Darling Kitty # 1 (aka Priss) awoke me with her plaintive mews.

Unable to get back to sleep, I found my brain dwelling on the line, "The droughte of March hath perced to the roote," perhaps because I spent a while emphasizing that it is toe the rota, not too the roooot. And then I found myself reconstructing more phrases...and more...and it turns out that I have, inadvertently and without even realizing it, memorized those first 18 lines.

It was funny to watch myself reconstruct them, too, because sometimes a word would evade me or I would have to visualize where on the page a certain line is in order to bring it back. But this morning, at breakfast, I was able to recite the whole damn thing from memory to TM over breakfast.

Ah, blessed kitties. Their enragingly ungodly early morning calls serve some purpose after all. Or perhaps she's simply like the birds who maken melodye And slepen all the night with open ye. Hath Nature so perced in hir corages? I had no idea.

(I have another cat story coming--a totally absurd story--that actually involves my canceling class today. But that'll wait. And isn't it remarkable how a single cat photo series has redirected this entire damn blog towards Teh Kittehs?)

In which I become one of those cat-posting bloggers!!!!!

I am posting to post, because I've just sat down at my computer and have nothing to read (get crackin', yo!), and I do not want to get back to work right now. No, I do not. Not that today was particularly hectic or exhausting or anything, although I am exhausted, in part because Darling Kitty no. 1 (let's call her Priss) came a-knockin' at 4:35 this morning and I had a hard time getting back to sleep before the 6:15 alarm. (Luckily, Darling Kitty no. 2--henceforth Pertelote--has the fond habit of mewling loudly at the door for breakfast approximately seven minutes before the alarm goes off, thereby ensuring that we do not oversleep.)

When Priss wants in the bedroom, it is a pathetic thing. Oh, the languishing, pale mews! The tiny paw scratching so softly, oh so softly, against the base of the door! How easy it is to picture her swooning away, her voice so weak from the effects of being left out in the cold, cold (actually rather warm) hallway! Oh! Priss!

Pertelote, on the other hand, bawls insistently, as she is demanding breakfast, not the special bathroom cuddles that Priss favors. Yes, what Priss wants to do is to race you into the bathroom, thrust her head against your foot, and purr like a maniac. Pertelote is all for the cuddling but would really prefer some food, now please damn it (only Pertelote would never say "damn it," for she is the picture of innocence, if it is a peculiar brand of self-absorbed innocence. Truly,Pertelote has no guile).

So, since this has turned into a cat post (the first ever on this blog!), I shall now append some pictures of the cats, which were a part of TM's dowry. First, though, I will have to find batteries for the camera, download the pictures, and shrink them so that they will not take thirty minutes to upload to the blog. Hold on a minute.

....
..
.......
...
Computer crashed. Please continue holding.
...
We thank you for your patience.
..
.....
.

OK. This is a little series that I call "Conquest," in which Priss (the black one) and Pertelote (the tabby) vie for the coveted study window.

Pertelote has taken Priss' favorite spot, but Priss manages to wedge herself into it regardless.

Priss tries for some revenge. This has got to be annoying, she thinks.

Unfortunately, Pertelote's girth overpowers her.

Still, Priss has a few tricks up her sleeve.

The efforts at expansion seem to be working!

--But again, Pertelote proves an unstoppable force, and Priss is wedged into smaller and smaller spaces.

They consider a compromise...


...and an uneasy, probably short-lived peace is achieved.

The End.