Camp was fun; lots of connections; run-on sentences

Camp was lots of fun. It would have been darn near perfect if my wonderful sister Jenny had been there, too. I missed her. Cousin-in-law (hereafter referred to simply as "Cousin") Tyras asked after her. So did others. I could see in Little Cousin Helena's eyes that she, too, wanted to know when she would meet her other cousin. I said to her, sometime!

We saw: a big black bear (Monday night, from the porch, great view), 1 newt, lots of turkeys (young and old), 11 deer (some more, some less), 1 Moccasin Flower (found gleefully by Cousin Carrie), a very busy bluebird couple, towhees, pheobes, lots of tent caterpillars (sadly), lots of Russian Olive (very pretty and sweet-smelling, so probably an invasive, right?), some turtles, little white flowers, little purple flowers, little yellow flowers, bats, lots of whip-poor-wills (heard them, actually), carpenter bees, hummingbirds, piliated woodpecker (but it didn't look like the one in the book), poison ivy, ferns, an enormous number of jack-in-the-pulpits, some wasps, some smallish bees, and many more things that I forget. It smelled good, and it felt good, and we ate good. Boy, did we ever eat good. Paula brought fancy cheese from Rick's cheese shop in Chicago (herbed gouda - YUM, piave, madrigal, stravecchio, stilton, and maybe more), we had lots of wine (spread out over the week, spread out over the week!), bruschetta with the new olive oil, bacon, eggs, pancakes in the mornings (sometimes) (and these people know how to eat pancakes right -with peanut butter and syrup. Whitney puts peanut butter and sugar on hers, which I think is a good idea.), ham, bean soup, corn, watermelon, grilled pork tenderloin, pot roast, chicken turkey goulash with gnocchi, and other things that I forget. It was cool in the mornings and got pretty hot in the afternoons later in the week, and then on Saturday, we had (oh glory be!) a thunderstorm. Maybe it was Friday. It was short and sweet and cooled things down nicely, and most of us sat on the porch and watched it. We got ice cream (almost everybody got Keany Beany Chocolate; only Carrie branched out [as usual] - she got Teaberry, which she said tasted like the pink candies that Grandma used to have, and which most people apparently didn't like, but she did), and took a lot of walks, and played Uno and Pass the Pigs and Gin Rummy and I did cross-stitch and Mom pieced a quilt border and Paula knitted. It was good. The final night, I woke up thinking I heard a bat in the bedroom, which kept me up the rest of the night (as an alternative to the snoring keeping me up), so I wasn't terribly sorry to leave. Still pretty sorry, though.

Now I am home and trying to get back into the swing of things. My choir has a concert on Sunday. If you're in Seattle, you should come! None of you is (are? is), but whatever.

Here is what I wrote to Becky earlier today. She said I could put it here:

"Here's a cool thing, something I intend to blog about, but in case I don't: I am reading three things in my off-time. One is the New Yorker about the Great Wall of China. Very interesting. It's many walls, and nobody really studies it or knows how long it is. all about Mongol hoards. The second is "Another Mexico" by Graham Greene. He didn't like Mexico, and while he is a darn good writer, he is also depressed, depressing, and comes across as really self-righteous. But still, the point is, it's about Mexico. And to tie these two pieces together, I am reading National Geographic about the wall being built between the US and Mexico. It's a lot like the Wall in China. How's that for a nice little triangle that just happened without my planning it at all? Kind of neat. I might even remember something about all these things because of it."

Auction Over, Camp is Next, Work is Pervasive

The auction went pretty well, all things considered. We made more money than ever before, and hopefully did not also spend more money than ever before. We didn't actually lose any items at the auction, which was great. We just didn't know that some things went together when we gave people their stuff at the end of the night. But that happened only twice, which is still better than usual. It was frantic, it was chaotic, I got home at 1:30, but it was okay. It's over and that's great.

Next is Camp. I'm leaving Saturday afternoon, taking a taxi to a hotel near the airport, and then catching a flight out bright and early Sunday morning ... to Cincinnati. And then to State College. And then I expect to have to wait for my parents to show up, because they are picking up a friend who is flying in to BWI. If I had known that they were willing to pick people up at BWI, I would have flown in to BWI and saved myself $300. That would have been nice. I'll be lucky if I get home without shelling out another $300 because my plane is late, I miss my connection, and the airline is stupid. We'll see how that goes.

All my lyrical and impressive thoughts are gone. Here there are only boring, straightforward statements of fact: There is a lot to do before I leave. I have so much work that I can't believe it. And here I am, not doing work. And I didn't do work yesterday evening either. Or the previous evening, though that was rehearsal and that is a kind of work. The kind you pay to participate in. Yeah. On the other hand, much of my work is in the proposal stage right now, and it is conceivable that none of it will be funded. That would not be good, although I would still have enough work to keep me busy all year. The really big new project, the one that John calculated would take 6 man-months (or person-months, thank you very much, I am working on this, too) at the very very very least, has a very high chance of being funded. But they didn't know how big a project the statistical side of it would be when they said that. Now we know - it's kind of dissertation-level big. John pointed out the other day that I will be doing the equivalent of 2 or 3 master's theses this year. Then I pointed out that this project is more on the scale of a dissertation. He said, "Yes!" enthusiastically. I said, "At the same time." He said, "Well, yes, that is a problem." Nice of him to notice. Better than being bored, I guess.

But friends of mine have even more to do, which is scary.

Auction Day

Today is the day (Day) of my choir's big huge fundraisingbenefitauction (seems like a one-word type of thing). We have a big catalog and lots of guests registered, so we hope to make lots of money. I am in charge of item pick-up, which is the process of collecting all the purchased items and putting them all in neatly organized piles so that when people want to leave, we can easily get them their purchases and they can leave happily. It is the last part of the auction experienced by the guests, and so if it goes well, they may think well of us, and if it goes poorly, they will hate us forever. It is usually very chaotic. No stress. Last year it went pretty well because we had so many people working on it. This year we have lots of people working on it, too. But last year I was not in charge, and this year I am because the woman who is usually in charge (the lovely Judy) is in Peru. So I'm a little nervous. I got up early so I could get there bright and early, and then got an email this morning saying I don't have to get there before noon - hallelujah! So I am wiling away my extra hour on the internet.

I just joined Classmates.com. I joined under the name I use now (i.e., Rebecca) rather than the name I used then (Becky), and now I can't figure out how to change it. I assume that is why so many people have double entries. Either they forgot that they had already joined, or they couldn't figure out how to edit their profile. The people I am really interested in from high school either have not joined or have not done a profile. Most people are married with 1-3 children and are conservative in their political views. Thank God some are single, childless, and liberal. And no longer living in Illinois, those left-leaning anti-family people.

I gotta see what ferry I have to take. I hope this auction thing goes well. Tomorrow I sleep.

Congratulations, Becky!

Congratulations to Becky P. for passing the big huge nasty oral exam with flying colors, at the top rank, and no doubt in record time, too! Yay!!!

too much

Have you ever had those times when you ignore things like daily mail and cooking and cleaning and all those little entropy-fighting things that don't take that much time but are kind of a pain? And then when you do finally get to them, they take for-bleedin'-EVER? Because you haven't been keeping up? Of course you have. I know my readers. I know we all do this. Anyone who doesn't do this is some evil demon in almost-human form. This time, on top of all the mail and cooking and cleaning and all, I have birthday cards that I bought after the pertinent birthday and that I have yet to send. So I must send them, because then I will feel better. And maybe the recipient will, too, because they will know that I have not dumped them as friends and first cousins once removed. That reminds me that I have not responded to my own birthday card from a college friend who I really, really owe a letter. At least an email. It's so hard to email when you haven't emailed for so long. Either you write a tome that takes an hour and a half to write and 20 minutes to read, possibly boring the friend to a sock-free state, or else you write two sentences that basically say I'm still alive and how are you? Then the sock is on the other foot, or the email guilt is in the other inbox. And the friend writes back immediately with a nicely detailed (but not too detailed) description of her life and plans and all, and it is the right length and she even includes a photo, and then it's all back on you. aargh.

A good friend of mine has a big horrible nasty ORAL exam tomorrow - GOOD LUCK, FRIEND!!!! You'll do GREAT!!! And I will send and am already sending good thoughts and prayers your way, so that you will think clearly and calmly and creatively (and I know you will), and that when it is all over, you will wait until you get home before you break into hysterics. But if you don't wait, that's okay, too. Always remember that DONE IS GOOD! :-)

And "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" was actually pretty good. The writing wasn't top notch, but it got better, and who am I to criticize? A loud and annoying yet somehow admirable (as in, one should admire her but she drives most of us crazy) woman at choir was complaining about the butt of someone on "Dance with the Stars" (or whatever) the other day, and I thought that she really was not one to criticize anyone's butt. Hers is quite large. Not larger than mine, mind you, but not the seat of a butt critic. So perhaps I shouldn't criticize the writing in DSOFYYS ... but I do anyway. The story was pretty good. Had everything in it but the kitchen sink, actually. The message was good. Then I read Terry Pratchett, and while it ("Eric") was not one of his best, it was still better than most stuff out there, and it made me laugh. I don't know what I'll do when I have read all the Terry Pratchetts. I might go insane.

mysteries

On Sunday, I walked down to the Seattle Mystery Bookshop in Pioneer Square. I was looking for an out-of-print book by a particular author, and was willing to buy a book by another author, as well. I went in, turning off my cell phone as requested, and was awed by the sheer number of mystery novels they have. It's not a huge store, but it's not tiny either, and its shelves are packed. They have brand new editions and used ones, too. And if I ever kind of, sort of thought about trying to be up on all the big mystery authors and know them all, I have now officially given up on that idea. There are so many mystery authors out there, and they aren't all good, and even if they were, it's just too many. There are classic authors I have never heard of before. It's daunting. They didn't have the out-of-print book I was looking for, but I didn't ask about it, and so maybe they would help me find it. I bet they would. They (i.e., the man behind the counter) looked very helpful. Instead, I bought a new paperback copy of the next book in another series that I am reading.

And I felt guilty about it, because I already had about 23 books sitting at home, waiting to be read, plus the 82 books on my list at the library. And then there's my queue at Netflix, which will take me 4 years to get through at my current 2-DVDs-per-month speed, which has been too fast lately. And there's the DVDs I have on hold at the library, too. And the New Yorkers and National Geographics that I am behind on. And yeah, there's work, too! Keep forgetting that...

Right now I am reading "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells, whom I actually saw with my own very two actual eyes in February, on this actual island. I thought, ooh, Rebecca Wells, I should read her book. So I am, years after the rest of the country read it. And I am ambivalent toward it so far (I'm about halfway through). The story is okay, but the writing is not that great, which just goes to show how hard it is to write well, and in particular how hard it is to tell a story well. There are moments of something like greatness, though. Just when I want to give up on the book, there is some passage that makes me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, which I'm sure Wells would be thrilled to hear about. I don't particularly enjoy it, but I guess I'll keep reading. I will still have 23 books to read when I am finished with it, though, with the Laurie R. King novel I bought on Sunday. Her books and her writing I like. She has a nice blog, too, where I can go and read her writing any time I like. Cool.

I'm getting a cold. Bleh.

Motorcycle Diaries

I finally watched "The Motorcycle Diaries" this week, just finished it minutes ago. It's great. I liked it very much, and now I want to learn all about South America. The photography, the soundtrack, the acting, it was all excellent. And the scenery was fabulous. It makes me want to learn Spanish. I watched "Long Way Round" last year, which is also about two friends who take off on motorcycles on a long, long, long trip. LWR is a documentary, though, so you see Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman struggling through the Steppes of Asia for real, while TMD is a bona fide movie, and you get to see Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo De la Serna pretend to be Che Guevara and Alberto Granado struggling across South America. But Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman had a photographer and a support team that they met up with occasionally, while Che Guevara and Alberto Granado had nothing of the sort, only one bike, and it kicked the bucket part-way through. Both films are about male friendships and adventure, and they are both really nice. Go watch them. Plus, if you like dark-headed men, then you've got Ewan MacGregor and Gael Garcia Bernal. If you like light-headed men, you've got Charley Boorman and Rodrigo de la Serna. You can't go wrong either way. If you like women, you might have a problem.