back from paris

bonjour dear readers! we are back from paris, the land of the eiffel tower:



we had a great week in paris, visiting with our friends pony, thomas and their kitty, diva:



i am not sure if we are still suffering from jetlag, per se, but i can tell you that we were both dead asleep by 10pm yesterday and it is not quite 7am and we are both on the couch with our computers. i imagine it will take a few days to get back into the swing of things. it will also probably take me at least a week to complete all my posts about it. today jes starts her summer internship at the innocence project, so that is very exciting. i started back to work yesterday, and hope to start back to the diss writing some time this week.

while in paris, we stayed with thomas and pony and here is a photo of across the street from their apartment:



how beautiful is that? and here is a fine photo of us after our flight from jfk and a short train ride to their apartment that is east of the city center:



let's just say it is a good thing this photo is not scratch and sniff. eww. that's gross.

ok i am feeling tired again so i might try and catch an hour to two more of sleep. stay tuned over the next week or two for more about our trip.

a peanut farmer

our time in atlanta was good. jes and i totally surprised her parents. she waited in the car while i went in. then i pretended like i "forgot" my mother's day present in the car so i went out and go jes and she snuck in the house with me and stood in the kitchen. her mom walked into the kitchen and started hooping and hollering. so her dad walked into the house and saw jes and smiled. we spent a great day with them, making penne with vodka sauce and garlic bread. we also picked up four small little delicious desserts from alon's bakery. we all ate and drank so much, i fell asleep from food coma at like 10pm. we had breakfast there the next morning and headed out around noon.

the rest of the day we ran errands and then went to my work and spent HOURS making up the binders for MTP. i dropped jes off at the airport on tuesday and got on the MTP treadmill. overall, the event went well, but every day there was something: room locked, caterer late, and so on. it was completely exhausting. like end of the day i can't make a sentence tired. but what was great is that after i was done at work i was able to have dinner with dawn and sarah and kim and hang out even if i was a blithering idiot. and as is true of every year, i made a few new faculty/grad student friends and i really enjoyed seeing some of them get all excited about learning about the scholarship of teaching and learning. its really cool to see teachers become students.

things finished up a little early on friday so i got to the airport a little early and was able to get on an earlier flight. i was waiting at the gate writing a letter to my friend janet and i saw some sort of important delta suits hanging out around my gate and looking out the windows at the tarmac. since on the way to atlanta we had a backstreet boy (brian littrell) and his family on our plane, my mind went directly to britney spears or some bubble gum pop culture person. when i got on the plane i started looking around in first class to see who was on the plane. as usual it was all white business looking people- mostly men. as i scanned the group and i saw this older man who was 1. reading a book and 2. taking notes in the book with a pen. i found this curious, b/c more often than not, first class folks (mostly men) are reading magazines: money, golf, whatevs. and here is the older man reading a book critically enough that he needed a pen in his hand. then i looked closer and i realized it was PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER. i looked next to him and saw his wife rosalyn. then i kept walking and saw all the secret service dudes. as i got to my seat, i texted jes that he was on my plane. about ten minutes later, the rest of the plane started to catch on. once we were all seated, president carter walked through the WHOLE PLANE and SHOOK EVERYONE'S HAND (mine included). i was so nervous b/c i didn't know if i should call him "mr. president" or "mr. carter" i opted for the latter. it was cool.

jes picked me up from the airport and we went and ate at this delicious new vegan restaurant in park slope called "the v spot", i had a chicken parmigana sandwich. it was really good. we went back there last night with higgins and jes and i shared the nachos. also very good.

ok i am getting caught up on my starting over right now. i also have to report i am THRILLED that marissa died on the oc. i really didn't like her character.

thursday the 26th is my ro-ro's 4th birthday. happy birthday monkey!

FINAL-ly

so today jes finished her last final of her first year of law school. it was an eight hour take home test, so she did it here and that meant i had to try and make myself scarce (b/c i have a tendency to talk to her and that does not help the final process).

so this morning i went to the coffee shop and finished up a fairly complete shitty first draft of my third chapter. i printed it out and over the next couple days i will have to try and revise on the paper and then type it in, and pass it out to a few friends and to one of my committee members. my goal is for them to have it back to me by the end of the month so i can incorporate suggestions and then move on to the next chapter. today i got a bit of an idea that maybe i only need one more chapter after this instead of two. i will talk about this with saralyn and see what she says.

after coffee (i really got orange juice), i came back here and gave jes a hot soy chai and left her to her work while i watched (read) starting over (i had it on mute so as to not disturb the lawyer). then we had some soup for lunch and she went back to work and i went and bought all kinds of cat food. i usually buy it like six cans at a time, but this time i bought a whole case. the kitties are set for some time.

when i got home i started to feel a little ill, so i decided to lay down and take a nap. my belly has been bothering me a bit these last few days- mostly pain and queasiness- not like my normal IBS problems, so i am not sure what it is. i think its probably b/c i have not been exercising much since boot camp started. when i got up i didn't feel much better so i just drank some peppermint tea and did some of my work work.

jes finished promptly at 5pm and then went into the city to benny's to meet with some of her classmates to celebrate the end of their first year of law school. now she is home and is waiting me to finish this so we can watch the chronic-what-cles of narnia.

today is my friend mel corn's bday. happy birthday to her.

six minutes of fun

cut and paste this into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

and get ready to ROCK

thanks to jen lindsey (aka jay crew) for sending it my way. it brought back so many memories of drag king numbers of yesteryear.

so tired

i am not sure why, but i am so tired today. it was overcast and grey most of the day, so maybe that is it.

i have done only a little work on my diss today and for some reason, i don't really give a fuck. jes is studying for her last final on thursday. but check this out. she came home today from her other final and was really upset and i was like "oh shit, the final did not go well" but she said "i am upset not b/c of my final, but b/c i am stressed" and i am thinking "well geez i know you have another final in a few days, but i don't think you should be this stressed ALREADY" and then she tells me that during her final today her phone kept ringing from an atlanta number. so she took a bathroom break to check the message and make sure everything was ok with her parentals.

it turns out that this detective from atlanta was calling her to tell her that he had a georgia state supreme court supoena requiring her to come back to atlanta TODAY to appear in a court case. see, last spring, while working at caribou coffee, she and her co-worker naija got robbed by this guy. they were not harmed (per se) but he did pull a box cutter on them and took a bunch of the money. so fast forward A WHOLE FUCKING YEAR and now they are telling her she has to come back. she is all "i can't, i have a final for law school on thursday." they weren't hearing it. she even tried to tell them that she is studying to be a criminal defense lawyer and would that get her out of it. nope, he said. so she actually leaves tomorrow to go and testify. she will be there for a day or two. they fly her out, put her up in a hotel, the whole nine. the only silver lining on this very grey cloud is that she will be just BLOCKS from taqueria del sol so she can get as many chicken and fish tacos as she wants while she is there. isn't that all fucked up? i think so.

the other crazy thing is that the terminix lady came out to the house to assess the termite situation. first of all, i think it is cool it was a lady and not a guy. maybe there is equity in termite killing, i don't know, but i was surprised to say the least.

second crazy thing about that: she sort of looked a little like carmen from the l word which is altogether wonderful. when i im-ed supper club kim that, she was like "did you get a picture of her?" how hilarious would that be if i was "hey terminator lady, can i get your picture?" so she came into our apt to observe the few termite carcasses left on our floor, and my landlady kristin was there too and larrykitty went up to both of them trying to get some love. kristin was like "oh larry likes to be scratched doesn't he?" and i was like "larry likes the lovin'" and kristin then asked "does larry like to be spanked" and I said "yes, he does" and then carmen lookalike terminator says "WELL DOESN'T EVERYONE?" i nearly fell out. right there, all up on the dead termite carcasses.

i look forward to her return tomorrow when she "sets the bait traps." yeah you got it, she has to come and "check the traps" every now and again. loves it.

ok the reason i even started this was so that i could post this adorable pic of my nephew: SUPERBEN. how cute is he?



that is all for now. i need dinner soon so jes needs to move it through these cases she is reviewing. i am so over studying right now.

why my day got better

so after i finished up my grumpycheese sandwich and took off my crankypants, i had some of the supper club gals over for our very first bbq in our garden with our brand new target grill. jes not only SINGLE HANDEDLY put the grill together, she also manned it with her handy side kick ali:



cuteness! only two more finals to go for jes and then she has completed her FIRST YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL YALL. SO PROUD.

and don't let glennda's carpetbag and silver flipflops throw you off. girl can start a fire (for reals). here she is fucking shit up with her trusty sidekick kim. here they are BEFORE the fire got started (and it wasn't easy yall):



and here they are AFTER they got the fire going. bet you wish kim and glennda would come and light your fire. neener neener:



and here is a better pic of the roaring fire. perfect for...yeah... you know it... roasting marshmallows for SMORES. so delish:



and really, what is better than chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker all melty good? three hotty mc hotties making them up for youze:



holla!

termite pics-they nasty

so here are some pics of the little bastards that ALMOST ruined my day

no me gusta termites

so my morning started out well. sunny day, early start, i was happy.
after checking email and such, i decided to head out to the garden and read an article my yoga friend somjen asked me to look at. it's about homophobic violence.

i got out in the sun, started reading and was feeling great. jes came out to meet me. my landlady kristin came out and chatted and even gave us these delish apple strudel things from their party last night. after that jes and i went in to have some food and i retired to the bedroom/office to continue reading. my reading was interrupted by jes's yelling "aaaahhhh they are taking over!" i went out into the living to find termites swarming the living room floor and many were climbing on our couch. for the next two hours jes and i tried to kill these motherfuckers. i got out the windex and sprayed them all until they were dead. more kept coming. i had kristin come down and look at them and she squealed with us as we found more and more crawling around the room. jes and i decided to soak paper towels in windex and shove them in the gaps in the floorboards where the fuckers were coming in over and over. they subsided for a minute while we moved everything away from the wall and i wiped up all the windex drowned dead termite carcasses (luckily that funk got mixed in with a few furballs from the cats). nice. all the while the cats are locked in our room MEOWING to get out.

kristin said she had a friend coming at 2pm and he is sort of handy so maybe he could suggest something. it was about 12:30pm. thirty minutes later the swarms are still coming and jes is not studying one bit b/c she is spraying and wiping along with me. so i get online and find out that old school borax soap keeps them away. so i headed to the store and got some borax and some spray bottles. got home and the swarms were still coming. by this time jes is laughing about it. we move her grandfathers antique cherry kitchen table that he had made for him into the second bedroom just in case these fucking termites get some bright ideas. we also moved the carpet (also started to get swarmed with termites) into this closet off the garden.

next up: operation borax. while i spray the swarms and they start to drown and die, jes prepares a borax paste to squirt into the gap (after removing the windex soaked paper towels). we sit back and laugh/cry and wait. guess what? borax doesn't really help. though at a slower pace, the termites keep coming in and now they are jaunting down the hallway toward the bedroom full of meowing cats.

by this time i am quite veklemt about it all and jes has showered and is getting ready to go to the coffee shop. i decided to join her b/c if i stayed at home i would just continue to freak out. so here i am. no termites, just twelve million people doing work like me. i am going to finish reading that article and then if i have time, do a little more data analysis for the diss. then i think we are going to have a bbq in our backyard. hopefully the termites will not have tied up the cats gullivers travels style and carted them off to the basement for sacrifice. i am pretty sure horace would put the smackdown on their ass while emily pummeled them with her ovenmitt paws.

i took some pics of the infestation and will post them when i get back. they are disgusting.

babies babies everywhere

i don't have too much to post about. most days i work on my diss for many hours and then also work on my work.
today i watered the plants, put out the recycling, strung up lights in our backyard for my upstairs neighbors 30th bday party and then i came inside and took a nap with jes b/c she had cramps. now i am about to start my diss again. good times.

here are some pics of some of my favorite babies.

the first three are of bailey james. his mom dawn sent them to me in an email entitled (pics of mini gator). gator is his dad. they look a lot alike.







the other baby is emalee (i think that is how you spell it). lets just call her em. she is the one with the belly. her parents are kennie and kelli.





hope you are having a lovely weekend. yesterday was my friend nifa's bday. and i am not sure i ever posted about my friend nicole's bday. it was april 20th- i was sick that week. and my friend dusty's bday is tomorrow. i got a lot of friends born in may. that's weird. i love them all. happy birthday!

my secret garden

i plan to continually post pics of the gorgeous garden so you can get a true sense of the growth, but for now you can just get a sense of the "before" and "after." the actual garden (where stuff is planted) is u shaped, with the bottom of the u up against the furthest fence. on the left of the u is the shade garden and our compost container. back against the fence is also a shade garden that houses our lovely and fragrant lilac bush (though it looks like a tree) and on the right of the u is our veggie and herb garden. this gets sunlight for most of the day. there are also random planters in other parts of the backyard and out front. i don't think i have any pics of the out front ones yet, but they are lovely. when i get some, i will post them.

ok so here goes. first up: left side BEFORE:



and here it is AFTER:




now here is the back wall BEFORE (it was originally covered in ivy, but az hacked away at that):



and here it is AFTER:



and then finally, here is the veggie garden BEFORE:




and AFTER:



so all of this would not be possible without the geniousity of azad, the gardener/best friend:
(notice anything interesting about this pic?)



maybe you need a closer look?



how hilarious is that? overall i am thrilled with the final product and i can't wait until i can make some red sauce with tomatoes and basil from my own garden. i will keep you all posted on its progress.

lemme try those pics again

so here are the pics that did not post in the other email:

az and jes playing galaga at cattyshack:



kim. glennda & ali at cattyshack:

cluster map craziness

now i don't know how many of you look at that little map of the world that tells you where the people who read this blog live, but you should. its on the right hand side of the page when you first sign on.

there are folks ALL OVER THE WORLD reading about my little bat cave. so, it has left me wondering- who are you? and how did you get connected to my blog?

perhaps this is bad manners, but i would love to hear from yall. you don't have to tell me that much. just where exactly you live and how you found the blog. and maybe some day i can write an academic paper about it. but first i need to finish my dissertation.

i mean i KNOW that the internet is a powerful medium for the exchange of information an all, but seriously pictures of my fun, attractive and SINGLE best friend azad are being beamed all over the place. ladies, (sorry guys)- if you are interested, send me an email. he travels well.

happy wednesday. i am about to enter into dissertation boot camp hell. holla!