Goggies! (That's "doggies" in LOLDog)

I've been transporting more dogs on their way to foster and forever homes since I first posted about doing this. And today was a treat because I got to meet my first German Shorthaired Pointers (GSPs) in person. Someone on the NBRAN volunteer list forwarded a call for drivers for a "GSP Express" run for National GSP Rescue carrying two 2-year-old GSP females; since it was coming right through our area, I volunteered. And I fell in *love*. If it weren't for the fact that Bullock *really* doesn't want a second dog and we're not sure Pippi would be happy to have a dog friend, I'd be signing up to adopt a GSP right now. And Bullock was pretty charmed, too -- I took him along because these were young and rambunctious dogs, and I knew I wouldn't be able to drive and manage them at the same time.

Anyway, let me give you a sense of how lovable they were. Meet Blue (the black and white dog on the left) and Cora (the liver and white dog on the right), two of the sweetest love-bugs I've ever met:


They look a little scared here (and wouldn't you be in their situation?), and Cora kept a kind of curious and serious demeanor most of the time, but they were also eager to be petted and to give kisses in return, and they settled into the car almost immediately. Blue even rolled over for a belly rub as soon as she got in the car, and Cora rested her head on the back of my seat, next to my head, for most of the ride as she watched where we were going. Blue, meanwhile, rested her head on the console in between the seats -- all the better to get ear-scritches from Bullock. And they were hilariously bi-polar: in the car they were mellow and calm (Blue even slept soundly for half the ride), but out of the car during the exchanges from one driver to another, they were insane balls of excitement and energy. Blue tried to crawl over my back to get out of the car as I untethered their leashes from the seatbelts because getting out of the car was SO EXCITING she just couldn't wait! But both in and out they were full of kisses and doggy affection. Adorable! And just look at Cora's eyes and reddish-brown fur. Wouldn't she look great with Pippi? And apparently Blue's coloring is rare -- it's likely she comes from a true *German* GSP pedigree since black and white isn't yet recognized by the AKC as part of the breed standard. Or maybe she's part English Pointer (which does come in black and white). Eh, who cares -- she was a doll. It was hard to hand either of them over, and now they're already half way through the next state in their journey. Sigh.

Btw, GSPs also come in a roan variation, like Pippi, and a roan GSP is the star of that Toyota "squeaky toy" ad you may have seen. ("Roan" in this context means the colors are blended together -- so liver and white are blended on GSPs and the orange and white is blended on Pippi. An American Brittany can also be liver and white, whether roan or not.) This also give you an idea of the crazy energy of a GSP. If you have a dog, you might want to play this video when the dog isn't around. Or, play it and watch your dog possibly go nuts looking for the toy:



Anyway, before Cora and Blue, I did two more Brittany runs. I promise not to post about *every* run I do -- I'll generally stick to notable dogs. But since I could never get Toby, on that first run, to face the camera, I thought I'd give you the opposite now. Meet Silas, who wanted to know, "What's that thing you're pointing at me? Can I eat it?"


Silas was a sweet, older gentleman, and a good copilot, as you can see here:


And before Silas, there was sweet, adorable Julio, a 10-month-old who wanted nothing more than to cuddle in my lap and get belly rubs. Luckily once he was getting said belly rubs, he was pretty calm -- a bit like the effect of a snake charmer's music on a cobra -- and so I was able to drive one-handed and rub Julio's belly with another. And oh, he was so, so soft. I often say that petting Pippi, who is also very soft, is like petting a bunny, but Julio was even softer. So I guess petting him was like petting a *baby* bunny. Heavenly! Unfortunately, what I wasn't able to get from Julio was a picture, because I was driving him after dark. But here are the small photos from the adoption site:



But don't fall in love with him -- turns out his foster already has and is adopting him. Hooray for Julio!

And what would a dog post be without a bonus picture of Pippi for all of her internet fans? Here's one of Bullock's 1,000+ photos of her (no, I'm not exaggerating!), this one from last summer:

RBOC - Gray winter day edition

Blogging bullets:

• You may have noticed that I have no blog roll. That's because it was a Blogrolling blog roll, and Blogrolling has ceased to exist. That's a shame, because it was a handy system (though the ads on it in the last year or so of its existence were annoying). But I cut and pasted the blogroll before that happened, and when I get the energy for it, I'll repost an updated version of it.
• I'm thinking of changing to WordPress. Those of you who've made the move, how hard is it to move the archive of the blog? What do you like/dislike about each platform?
• I'm also thinking of claiming my blog as service/outreach when I do my 5 year post-tenure review or when I go up for full professor. Any opinions about that?
• My partner has been known as Bullock on this blog because I named him in our Deadwood-watching phase, during which time he grew a Seth Bullock-style mustache and goatee. But Deadwood is long gone and my man is clean-shaven. Plus, even though "bullock" meant "young bull" in Middle English and that's one of its meanings today, it also can mean a castrated bull, which is not the association I wish to project for my Bullock. (Though it is kind of a funny pairing with Virago.) But it would be confusing to rename him. I'm thinking maybe of just putting a "cast of characters" in the sidebar and explaining the origins of the name. Any other ideas?
• I have been remiss in telling Pastry Pirate fans that she has long been blogging elsewhere. First she was in New Zealand, working and exploring, and now she's working in Antarctica. No, really. I kind of think "Baking in Antarctica" should be the title of the blog, but since it started before her life on the Ice Planet Hoth (as I like to think of it), it's called Stories That Are True.
  
• Hey, cool, I managed to blog more than in 2009. Not exactly an awesome accomplishment, since I was really lame in 2009, but still an improvement. What should I blog about next?
  

Work/Life bullets:

• Our Christmas tree is up, all the Christmas shopping is done, and all but one present is wrapped (because it hasn't arrived yet)! Hooray!
• On Thursday, I wired the deposit for the studio flat in Belsize Park. It's non-refundable, so this makes it official. I'm going to be living, however temporarily, in a flat in London! I've never lived in a flat in London before! Heck, I've never lived in a flat before (American apartments, yes). How cool is that?!
• The one-week rent for the studio flat in Belsize Park (the amount of the deposit) is just over my one-month rent in my awesome two-bedroom Rust Belt Historical District apartment and only about $175 less than our monthly mortgage payment. I'll never be able to live full-time in a big, expensive city again -- I've been too spoiled by the low cost of living here in Rust Belt. But hey, now I can afford 6-week jaunts there! So, I may live in Rust Belt, but I can better afford life in the big city in small doses. This is what I keep telling myself, anyway.
• OMG, my sabbatical is half over!!! Ack!!!
• Something I realized at the various holiday parties this week: asking me "So, how's sabbatical going?" is as crazy-making for me now as "So, how's the dissertation coming?" was for me once upon a time. Also, faculty on sabbatical don't want to talk about work issues. Come on, people, surely we can talk about something else!
• Bullock is grading finals. He just said to me, "It must be Christmas time, because a student just spelled Commerce Clause like Santa Claus."
• Bullock and I are going to BullockLand for the holidays (with Pippi). I spent Turkey Week in Cowtown with my side of the family and starting this year we're alternating where we go for Christmas so that we don't have to do the crazy-making hurryhurryhurry to get to one place and then the next. That makes my going out to LA to visit Virgo Sis and go to the MLA much less stressful (so does going to MLA just to go). Of course, so does being on sabbatical, because otherwise I'd be doing MLA back-to-back with starting our Spring semester.
  
• Speaking of holiday plans, in case I don't blog again before we leave:
  

Going to the dogs

Yesterday I drove 285 miles for two dogs named Toby and Brittany.

You see, we got Pippi from a national breed-specific rescue agency called National Brittany Rescue and Adoption Network (NBRAN), an organization run almost entirely by volunteers, and funded by donations, the good will of the volunteers who rescue, foster, and transport the dogs, and the $350 adoption fee you pay when you adopt a dog from them (which, when you think about it, doesn't really cover the expenses of a dog who's been fostered for any length of time). Anyway, Bullock and I can't really foster a dog -- Pippi doesn't get along with all dogs, and she seems well-suited to be an only dog; plus walking one of her is challenge enough -- but I wanted to help out with more than donations. So I put my name on the list for the transport drivers.

When a dog is pulled from a shelter and transferred to a foster home, or adopted into a "forever home," the dog might need to travel some distance to that home. When we adopted Pippi, she came from a foster home in our state, so her foster mom drove her to our house herself. But sometimes a Wisconsin dog might need to go to NY or a Texas dog might need to get to Pennsylvania, and so on. NBRAN will transport dogs up to about 1300 miles, and it's done with a chain of drivers who drive legs of about 60 miles each. Yesterday, on my first ever run, I drove two of them (and of course there and back again, accounting for the almost 300 miles), picking up two dogs along the way. I left the house at 7:15 am to get to the first meeting place and got back around 1pm.

First, I picked up Toby, a very handsome, mellow, sweet 5-year-old boy eager to meet new humans and dogs, but a little untrained and, sadly, deaf. But he was going to his "forever home," so his story already has a happy ending. Anyway, he was an affectionate love bug who wagged his tail and greeted me with a kiss right away. That's kind of novelty for me, as Pippi is deciding *not* the kissing kind. And when he got into my car, he decided that my lap was a great place to sit and look out the window:


Eventually I convinced him that he couldn't stay in my lap or else I wouldn't be able to drive, and he pouted:

He hid his face from me like this every time I tried to get a picture, and I didn't figure out until I dropped him off at my last meeting point that he was terrified of the camera! Poor boy! I didn't realize I was torturing him! But who would think that a dog would be terrified of a little point-and-shoot digital camera? But maybe he didn't know what it was or would do. And since he's deaf, when his head was turned, I couldn't soothe him with calming sounds or tell him he was a good boy.

Eventually he decided to move to the back seat, and at our first stopping point, we were joined by Brittany, a 9-year-old Brittany/Beagle mix. Brittany came with a crate, and I was planning to put Toby back in the front seat and Brittany in her crate in the back to keep them apart, but they got along quite well from the start. This kind of amazed me, as Pippi is such an alpha that she would have already claimed the car as her territory by this time and not wanted to share it. But here's Brittany posing for her portrait and Toby turning away, as usual:


In hindsight, I should've noticed that Toby's tail was tucked, but sometimes it hard to see that on a Brittany with a stub tail. When he wasn't hiding his face from me, he "dug" a little "hole" for himself (he scratched back the blankets and kept scratching at the upholstery until he was satisfied) and curled up and slept until we got to the next stop, where he'd excitedly greet the new people -- and the new dog -- just like he greeted me. Brittany was equally a great little traveler, settling down right away, just as in the picture (which I snapped as soon as we got in the car). It's amazing how resilient these animals can be. Occasionally she'd whine a little, but who can blame her: she was being transferred from stranger to stranger after having spent the first 9 years of her life with her family, who had to give her up because of financial disaster. Poor thing. Poor family!

I think, by the way, that's why I spend some time and money on helping companion animals -- it's as much about the people as it is about the animals. (The fact that it's NBRAN is just because we have a personal connection to them and the Brittany breed.) Anyone who has to give up their beloved pet wants to know it will find a nice home, and someone who adopts a dog (or any animal) is obviously getting something in return: love, joy, companionship, affection, and all the other benefits of pet ownership. So I'll probably do it again and again. I just hope the next dogs are just as easy as Toby and Brittany. And maybe I'll get better pictures of them!

Disconnecting from the social network / looking forward to social networking

I deactivated my Facebook account today. Deactivation isn't permanent -- my profile and all its contents are still there, somewhere, but those of you who are my FB friends can't see it. In fact, a lot of you now probably seem to be talking to a ghost in many of your threads.

I plan to return to FB Jan. 1 or thereabouts. I just got a little freaked out about how little time was left in the first half of my sabbatical and how much time FB was taking, despite all my leechblocking. See, the thing is, I have an iPhone, and on that phone is a Facebook app, and there's no Leechblock for the iPhone, alas. And I have no self-control. I've been tossing around this idea for awhile now, but last night, as I was curled up on the couch with a book, a glass of wine, and Pippi, while Bullock was at a job candidate's dinner, I realized how nice it was to slooooow doooooown and read for a good long time. And since I was reading a book set in Los Angeles, with many scenes in a neighborhood I knew intimately, I realized that there were other ways of being connected to the world than through Mark Zuckerberg's way of doing it. Even though what I was reading wasn't high art (it was detective fiction -- though its author's work has been promoted from the "mystery" section to the "literature" section of bookstores near you!), it felt more like a Forster or Woolf way of being connected -- like the "only connect!" motif of Howards End or the thin thread of Mrs. Dalloway. Both are vulnerable, fragile, abstract connections, of course, but that's what makes nurturing them and recognizing them important. It's not that FB prevented me recognizing these threads or of slowing down, but the moment made me realize that I could leave FB for a little while and not feel outcast or at sea or unmoored from the world or from my past. (I haven't thought this all the way out--it's really just a feeling, a hunch now--so my writing about it is a little flabby and cliche-ridden. For a blogger, I'm strangely not very good at writing about our socially networked world!)

Of course, as some of you know, the irony of all this is that I took a photo of that moment with the dog and the wine and the book (and fuzzy slippers!) with my iPhone and posted it to Facebook! Of course, I think there's something fitting that that was my last post before my hiatus. And it is just a hiatus, I promise (especially to Sisyphus, who is looking forward to beating me in our currently suspended game of Scrabble). In the meantime, most of you know where to find me at my real life, university e-mail address, and if not, there's my Dr. Virago g-mail address (see sidebar).

Meanwhile, I'm planning to go to MLA to do some old skool social networking, the face to face kind. Virgo Sis lives on the east side of the Cahuenga Pass, so I'm going to stay with her (and arrive and leave a few days before and after the conference) and take the Red Line subway from Universal City into downtown. I'll be going to all the medieval panels and to any meet-ups y'all want to plan (just let me know!), and presumably to my grad school's party, if I can find out when and where it is (it's often a big secret). I haven't looked at the program yet, so there's probably other stuff (besides the book exhibit of course!) that I'll want to go to. And I promise I'll start up Facebook again before that for easy contact. :)

And one other thing: I'm kind of hoping that less Facebook will mean more blogging. We'll see if I'm right.

You may be a hoarder if...

...like me, you purchased bulk staples, paper clips, and pencils the year you started graduate school (for me it was 1994) AND STILL HAVE UNUSED ONES. Good god.

Even worse, I forgot where some of these were (shoved into a box labeled "office supplies" in a linen closet in our hallway) and have been mooching off of Bullock since I moved in with him. And all this time I still had one full box of 5000 staples, five 100-count boxes of paper clips, and four 12-count boxes of unused pencils. Also in the mysterious box o' supplies: a life-time supply of unused "daily schedule" sheets for the 8"x10" Day Runner I no longer use; a bunch of 3" or 4" D-ring binders; some blank composition notebooks; unused letterhead from my graduate program department (WTF, why did that even move with me to RBU???); and, my favorite, 3.5" floppy disks with with system and program backups for a computer I no longer own.

Sigh.

Updated to add: Oh wait, there's more. One of the big D-ring binders has my undergraduate institution's name on it and inside are labeled dividers with labels such as "company info/lit" and "cover letters (copies)." In other words, this was the binder I used to organize my job applications in the Spring of freaking 1991! *headdesk*

A Ph.D. in the humanities? - A kinder, gentler xtranormal video

This is response to the now-viral video I linked to in an earlier post. This one is kinder, gentler, and more idealistic -- except when it takes a few jabs at the earlier video. It's also a lot more like the actual conversations I have with actual students. And bonus: it makes a Dr. Who reference. It's also really inspiring and I think that every time I get in a funk about the future of the university and especially the humanities, I'm going to watch this to recharge myself.

You should watch it, too.



h/t Karl at In the Middle

I'm posting this not only because I like it, but also especially for Jeffrey, meg, Flavia, and Clarissa, all of whom I know didn't like the original, cynical version (or, in meg's case, didn't like the emerging genre of xtranormal videos in which experience berates naivete).

New desk chair!

I bought my first new desk chair for the first time since circa 1999 and it was delivered yesterday. The old one was a $49 number from Ikea, which I bought when I also purchased my giant Ikea "Anton" computer desk plus rolling CPU/printer stand and file drawers. The desk and its accessories are still going strong. The chair...eh, not so much:

Crappy Old Desk Chair

No, you're not seeing things; the seat really is sloping to the left (or to my right as I sat in it - probably from years of leaning right to the file drawers, printer, etc.). Anyway, after spending about $500 on the perfect "dissertating" desk, that lame chair was about all I could afford.

This time, now that I'm a tenured professor on sabbatical, and therefore spending a *lot* of time in my desk chair at home, but also making a decent living, I put down serious money and got something like the comfortable, multi-adjustable chairs they gave us in the new building at RBU. (I wish I could have figured out how to get that *exact* one, because it is teh awesome! But it's made by a company that only does bulk office orders, alas.) At any rate, the one I got cost more than Anton and his pals combined, but if I use it at least as long as the cheap Ikea chair, I'll get my money's worth. And it was actually right in the middle of the price ranges at the local office supply store, so it's not exactly extravagant as far as office chairs go. And I got to pick out the fabric! And the arms! And they delivered!

Anyway, here it is, right next to Anton (ignore the wall color -- someday I intend to change it):

Awesome New Desk Chair!

You can't really see this unless you "embiggen" the photo, but the fabric has a kind of funky dot pattern that seemed a little mid-century modern to me -- or at least as mid-century as a high-tech, 21st century, ergonomic office chair can get. The other colors were definitely mid-century: avocado green, tealish blue, Wedgwood grey. I got black, though, because I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of the colors in the office, so I figured I'd stay neutral and also match my black filing cabinets. This chair does *not* have a right-sloping seat, though I think the angle I took the picture from makes it seem so. D'oh! Also, I have the arms high and pivoted inward in this picture because I was reading in it before this, resting my elbows on the arms. (If you're looking *really* closely, I have no idea why I stuck those red felt hearts on the desk drawer. I guess I was having a fit of whimsy that day.)

I'm still learning how it all works, which is why, in the background of the picture above, you can see the directions for the chair hanging off a bulletin board on the wall. Check out all the levers for all the adjustable stuff! Look! --

Levers!

Besides the four you can see on this side, there's another on the left side and one underneath. The back is adjustable in height, of course, and the arms not only pivot, but can be made wider apart -- though I don't think I'll ever need that. And they have soft gel cushions (though I wish the cushions were wider, but these were the only ones that weren't hard plastic). If only the pivoting arms went totally parallel to the back -- then I could get closer to the desk. Bullock may help me raise the desk because right now the arms won't go under it unless I lower the chair so much that I feel like a kid at the grown-up table! (That does work for my keyboard drawer, at least -- just less so for the other half of the desk.)

Right now I'm still fussing with all the adjustments and trying to find the sweet spot for my various tasks. And all this forced sitting up straight is actually making my back ache, ironically enough. Bullock swears this is normal and that I'll get used to it and be better off in the long run. At the very least, my butt is more comfortable than on that sloping piece of 11-year-old junk I had before!

*******

Bonus Pippi picture! This is what Pippi was doing for most of the time I was writing this post:


It's her way of saying, "Feed me!"

Happy Halloween!

Job dissatisfaction

This might be blasphemous to say, but I need to say it: I'm not looking forward to going back to the teaching grind next year (and let's not even start on service obligations). It's not because I'm enjoying my research and unscheduled time so much (see this post about how I'm just figuring out how to handle that unscheduled time; note how many times I mention how boring some of my work is). Nope, it's because I really kind of dread the whole package of teaching -- not just the worst parts (grading! oy, the grading!) but also the frenetic, when-will-this-semester-be-over grind, and even, I hate to say it, being in the classroom. I can't even put my finger on why -- I have always liked our students (well, most of them) and they have told me many times over that they like me -- but the excitement is definitely gone.

Maybe it's because next year I'll be facing another year of Old and Middle English, which I have to say, I kind of hate teaching. Oh, there are moments where I love it, and there were two sets of classes some years back who geeked out with me and made it awesome, but - ugh! - how can I possibly look forward to talking about weak adjectives and strong verbs and Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening...OMG. Kill me now. Horace, who just wrote a joyful post about what's cool about being a humanities professor (and whose positive post title I'm riffing only negatively) gets to talk about "the nature of time and the past in literature, about how drama and performance help us understand our very identity, how the language of advertising leaves us without a language of our own to describe our experiences of the real world." I, on the other hand, get to talk about i-mutation. Zzzzzzzz...And what's even worse is that it didn't used to bore me. But the thought of doing this over and over for the next god knows how many years is making my head explode.

And not even the thought of teaching Chaucer and Shakespeare in the spring term, or a newly designed Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic syllabus in the fall cheers me up. Something is seriously wrong with me if the thought of "The Miller's Tale," Twelfth Night, and "The Cattle Raid of Cooley" can't raise my spirits or at least make up for strong verb paradigms and brace constructions.

I have a feeling that part of what's coloring my attitude is the woeful morale at our university and especially in our soon-to-be-dissolved-and-chopped-into-three-colleges college. But I keep telling myself that that shouldn't really have an effect on my day to day experience, especially not in the classroom. Perhaps also, because I'm on sabbatical and not as crazy-busy as usual, when I witness just how burnt out and dog-tired Bullock is because of his overload of advising and service responsibilities (a situation created in part by the shrinking of his department by retirement and death without any replacements), I feel it more strongly than I would if I were distracted by a frenetic pace of my own. Or maybe my mood is a response to the bigger war on the humanities and higher ed in general here in the US and elsewhere (especially in the UK). One my Facebook friends (and who still reads this blog, I think) asked for robust language to defend the humanities. Once upon a time I could give it; now I just want to give up.

Tell me that this is what sabbatical is for -- to rejuvenate, to re-energize -- and that by next year I'll feel ready to take it all on again. Tell me that I'm just burnt out and I'm expecting to rebound too quickly. But most of all, tell me it's OK sometimes not to like my job.

Speaking (again) of delivering bad news to students in the humanities...

...I wonder if the author of this little movie read the post below? Of course, it could just be because it's that time of year.

SO YOU WANT TO GET A PhD IN THE HUMANITIES



And yes, I *do* question the meaning of my existence.

Sleepy sabbatical

One thing, at least, that I've finally figured about sabbatical is that I can sleep in. Of course Pippi sees to it that one of us is up by 7am at least (earlier in the summer when the sun is up earlier), but usually that's Bullock. I think she's figured out that he wakes easier than I do. I don't sleep much longer -- I'm usually up by 8, though today it was nearly 9 before I woke up -- but to me that seems almost decadent, since there are people on our campus with classes and meetings at 8am.

Now, you noticed that I said "finally figured" out. Yes, that's right. Given the ridiculous guilt-anxiety cycles that we academics make for ourselves, plus the conventions of the Monday-Friday work week in the white collar world in which I was raised, it took me quite some time to allow myself this sleep. (Yeah, I was forgetting that the word sabbatical is related to the word sabbath.) At first I had dreams of keeping some crazy schedule where I was up by 6 and exercising or walking Pippi by 7. Yeah, right. Now I realize my schedule can be what I want it to be (well, Pippi has to be walked *some* time by 9 or 10 am) as long as I'm still doing what I need to do.

There are other things I've finally figured out, but Pippi actually hasn't been walked yet and it's my day and she's letting me know that as I type (her chin is on my lap and she's looking up at me with her puppiest puppy-dog eyes). Time for walkies!

Random bullet points of "I'll get the hang of sabbatical yet"

• You'd think that because I'm on sabbatical, I'd be posting more. Well, clearly that's not the case. And it's bumming me out a little because after I kinda, sorta, not really came out at NCS, lots of people told me that they liked my blog and wished I'd post more and I promised I would. And I meant that. So what's up? Well, there are a couple of factors, too long for a bullet point, so maybe I'll write about them in a full post. And maybe *that* will get my blogging engine started again.
• I feel like I'm frittering sabbatical away. That's a post in the making, too.
• I really need to start exercising again. I'm trying to get back into it, and lord knows there's no time like a sabbatical year to do it, but I need to find a new thing or find a way to make running new again for me. After the Boston Marathon in 2007 I got really burnt out, plus I no longer had any more goals that really meant anything to me. That's a post brewing, too. But I'm riding my bike. Today I rode 12 1/2 miles and every time I have to go to campus, I ride it there, too. So that's something.
  
• The frittering, not-blogging, and not-running are part of my time management anxiety. Sabbatical is slipping away!!! Only 10 1/2 months left!!! (See counter to right.) Oh noes! Yeah, ridiculous, isn't it? But that's how I feel. WTF? What's wrong with me?
• On the positive side, I *have* been reading stuff for fun. Finally finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I liked a lot. As a fan of crime fiction, I especially enjoyed the mash-up of various sub-genres, and the way it kept switching things up. Also, I think I need to emulate Blomkvist's schedule in Hedeby for his research routine -- it would work for my rhythms. So see, the pleasure reading may have had a therapeutic effect on the sabbatical anxieties. Maybe.
• I'm also re-reading The Iliad. At first it was because I thought I'd be teaching our European Lit to the Renaissance class next year for the first time, so I set myself a schedule to re-read all of my undergrad great books syllabus, but I may now be needed for Shakespeare. So now I'm just re-reading it for fun. Shut up! It is *too* fun! I may even continue with the plan since I might still teach that class in the future, and there's no time like sabbatical, right?
• Also, I've advanced to the Budokan concert in Beatles Rock Band and have 5-starred every song up to that point on the bass. OK, so I have to keep it on the Easy level, but I'm still pleased with myself.
• My research? Yeah, don't ask about that. The first rule of Dr. Virago's research is that you don't talk abut Dr. Virago's research.
• Seriously, it's going. Sloooooooowly, that is. Here's some advice: don't apply for a sabbatical when you're at the beginning of something. Apply for it when you have something to write -- as Dr. Crazy smartly did. Her productivity is both inspiring and also, yes, anxiety-inducing.
• If only my research were as exciting as Blomkvist's. Or that I were stranded in a small, northern Swedish town with nothing else to do. Huh, do you think Bullock would mind if I took off for Sweden for six months?
  
• And now, for Eileen at In the Middle, a random picture of Pippi, "the super model of dogs," as I called her at NCS. (Yes, that's right, Pippi came up in the discussion at the blogging panel at NCS. She's famous!) Here she is, hittin' the road at the end of summer (photo by Bullock, dog wrangling by me):
  

On relics, medieval and modern, sacred and secular

Sorry for the silence, especially given that I'd promised to get back to blogging more regularly. Blame "LeechBlock," a plug-in for Firefox. It lets you bar yourself from certain websites during times you set, and I set it to bar me from Blogger (among other things) from 9-5, M-F, to help me focus on my work. And I haven't been getting up early enough to start the day with a post, and by the end of the day I need to get away from the computer because my back is killing me. I need to be at the computer during the day because I'm working on a editing project that is due very, very soon, but unfortunately, I tweaked my back a couple of weeks ago, so that sitting has been uncomfortable -- so you can understand why I don't want to do it for long.

Anywho, that has nothing to do with the subject of this post, which is all about relics, because this summer I got to see -- and even hold (sort of) -- my very first relics (one of them right here in Rust Belt State, no less!). Perhaps you find that surprising, given that I'm a medievalist and grew up Catholic, but I think there are some reasons for the belatedness of my encounters with relics. (And also, as the post title suggests, one of these "relics" is neither Catholic nor medieval. But I'll get to that.) First of all, the Catholic subculture I grew up in -- midwestern, suburban, largely well-off -- was kind of trying to pass as WASP, I swear. I have another post in mind in which I might try to explain that more, but you'll have to take that as a given now. At any rate, I don't think I even *learned* about relics until I was studying medieval literature, or if I did, the Catholics who taught me scoffed at them. And though I've seen many, many reliquaries in museums, it's not often that the relic is still in it (or if it is, it's not visible). This especially true in the US and the UK, for obvious historical reasons.

I must have felt this lack on some unconscious level -- how can I call myself a real medievalist if I haven't seen a relic?! -- and managed to turn this summer's travels into "Dr. Virago and the Quest for Relics." OK, that's not *all* I was doing, but I did consciously seek out three encounters with relics, and then accidentally encountered another one in a museum closer to home. The last one, the one in the museum, was one of the few rare visible relics in a museum-owned reliquary; it's the least exciting one, especially since it was the last of the relics I saw this summer, but I thought it was kind of serendipitous and funny that all this time I could have seen a relic in my own backyard. The overseas ones were the ones I actually sought out.

The first one was the hand bone of St. Etheldreda in St. Etheldreda's church in Ely Place in London (just off of Holborn Circus and next to Charterhouse St). My quest to visit St. Etheldreda's started when I purchased a book called Secret London (or was it Hidden London?? I don't have it to hand now) on my first day in London this summer -- to kill time at Waterstone's on Malet St. while waiting for my room at College Hall to be available. Both St. Etheldreda's and its neighbor, Ye Old Mitre pub, were in the book, and since they weren't far from Malet St., I decided I wanted to pay a visit to each -- the pub because it looked adorable and the church because, OMG!, a relic you can see! of a pretty cool Anglo-Saxon saint whose Life by Aelfric I've used in Old English and so know something about.

I went to the pub first with my friend Mark on a pub crawl that also featured the Princess Louise, the Cittie of York, and Blackfriars, all of which I recommend. But I'll have to do a separate post on those, especially so I can post pictures of Blackfriars, which is an *extraordinary* Art Nouveau extravaganza, and of the Mitre, which really *was* freakin' adorable (although its history is tied up with Reformation and the Bishops of Ely in kind of a nasty way -- at least according to history of St. Etheldreda's on their web site). And so when I was looking for something to do with my friend C. and we decided on another pub crawl, I talked her into starting at the Mitre, but only after we paid a visit to St. Etheldreda's first.

St. Etheldreda's was cool and fascinating not just because of the relic. Since the late 19th century, it's been back in the hands of Catholic church, so there were stained glass windows and statues commemorating Catholic matyrs to the Reformation who were all associated with the church or its nearby neighborhood, including Carthusian monks from the monastery up the street on Charterhouse St. The Carthusians were commemorated in the stained glass window made in 1964, and scenes of their execution lined up with scenes of the Passion. Yeah, not subtle. But it's pretty extraordinary to see such religious propaganda in England on the *Catholic* side of things. And while it must not have riled people up in 1964 in England, imagine such a thing being installed in Northern Ireland at the same time (or a decade later!). It's weird to think about the history *and* the present of religious strife in England and its dominions and to look at that window in peace in a quiet church on a placid little street in London today. You can see the window itself, as well as the statues commemorating other martyrs, here.

But back to the relic. The guide book said it was kept in the sacristy and if we asked nicely, we'd be able to see it. So, we asked nicely. And the man (lay caretaker?? he wasn't a priest) who we asked cheerfully marched up to the altar and the sacristy, opened the decorated coffin the relic is kept in (which I actually didn't see from my vantage, but you can see it here), brought over the reliquary, and *handed* it to us! OMG! I'm *touching* a relic -- weird! (To this day I keep thinking I could have turned to C. and said, "Run!" and we could have disappeared forever with the relic of St. Etheldreda. Not that either of us would have *really* done that, but it amuses me to think it.) And actually, we weren't really touching the relic itself -- just the surprisingly heavy reliquary, which was hand-shaped and had a little window through which you could see the bone. The web site says it's an "incorrupt" part of her hand, but it looked like a bone to us. And it had a bright red spot painted on it -- anyone know what that's about?

So that was my first relic, and being the kind of person fascinated with the macabre, I was fascinated with it, even though, in retrospect, it wasn't all that exciting. No, there was a *much* more exciting set of relics awaiting me at the Basilica San Domenico in Siena, Italy: the finger and *head* of St. Catherine of Siena. I have C. to thank for this, too, because she saw them first and told me I had to see them because they totally topped St. Etheldreda. And boy, was she right!

You can't take pictures of St. Catherine's head, and my measly camera wouldn't have been able to handle it anyway, because you can't get very close -- the chapel is roped off. (You can get much closer to the finger -- at which I stared for a considerable time -- but again, no pictures.) But luckily, there are images out there on the web that I can borrow. OK, prepare yourself to be a little grossed out.

Are you ready? It's pretty grotesque, so I thought I'd warn you before you scroll down.
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Here it comes, St. Catherine's head:



Now *that's* an incorrupt relic! (OK, it's partially corrupted, but it qualifies for incorrupt status.) Weird, huh? I was kind of creeped out and utterly fascinated at the same time. It was like rubbernecking at an accident. Standing and contemplating all of this, I had one of these moments where I thought, alternately, "What kind of weird freak-show religion did I grow up in?????" and also "Wait, *am* I Catholic? This is totally weird and alienating to me." It was one thing to hold a reliquary with a bone in it and think, "Hm, interesting!" and another to look at this and be kind of dumbfounded, as I was.

But you know what? It's not just medieval Christians and modern Catholics who preserve and display the dead among the living...and that brings me to the modern, secular "relic" I also paid a little "pilgrimage" to, back in London, and this was also thanks to that quirky guide book and my residence in Bloomsbury in a UCL dorm this summer. Have you guessed yet what modern, secular relic I visited?

That's right, Jeremy Bentham! Here's good old JB, with his wax head, this time in pictures I took myself:


And lest you think Jeremy's presentation is much more decorous than Catherine's, let me remind you that underneath those clothes stuffed with straw is JB's skeleton. And those are his clothes and accouterments. And once upon a time, JB's preserved head was also on display -- between his feet! -- as you can see in this picture from the nearby display [WARNING! Another grotesque human head coming!]:



(Sorry about the blurriness -- because of the glass case, I couldn't use flash. But perhaps some of you are grateful you can't see that mummified head clearly!)

Bentham called this little display, which he arranged himself before his death in his will, his "auto-icon," so he had to be thinking of the religious valences of the word "icon." And sure, given that it's Bentham the Utilitarian we're talking about, he was probably *playing* with that notion and had no intention of being actually venerated. But still, the little display that University College London has erected around him -- not to mention the UCL Bentham Project as a whole -- isn't all that different in its curatorship and its tone of appreciation from the display of Catherine's head and the San Domenico web site. The Dominicans and UCL may be fans of, respectively, Catherine and Jeremy for different reasons, and Bentham's fans don't expect him to intercede in the spiritual realm for the them, but they're fans nevertheless.

The other thing that unites Catherine and Jeremy -- besides the division of their heads from their bodies! -- is that both heads have been the object of theft. Catherine's head was originally secretly brought to Siena from Rome, where the rest of her body lies, and it's now under such tight lock and key because of subsequent attempts to steal it. And JB's head is no longer on display because of an infamous theft of it by King's College London students in the 1970s. What is it about mummified heads that make people want to steal them?!?!

And I think underlying both the religious relics and the secular one are our complicated relations to death and (im)mortality. The two heads, especially, seem to want to keep the memory of and admiration for these two figure alive, to show the ways they conquered death, whether spiritually or intellectually, but they also announce our universal mortality, and in that way serve also as memento mori. Catherine and Jeremy likely had very different attitudes towards the meaning of that mortality, but they couldn't escape it, and they each seemed consciously attentive towards that -- Catherine refusing to eat anything but the Eucharist at the end of her life and JB writing his will with instructions about his "auto-icon."

And it's probably my own obsessions with/fears of death that has me so simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by these relics.

Jane Eyre returns to Thornfield and finds it *not* a burning wreck

So in the last post I mentioned that I was returning to the place where I once spent "The Summer I Was a Governess." I have *many* stories to tell from that summer -- though my only friend from those days (how sad and melancholy -- *one* friend -- it's true!) thinks I should save them for a Nanny Diaries type novel. Suffice it to say for now that I was tricked into being a much-abused and exploited live-in babysitter, with responsibilities almost every day, all day, for a mere $15 a week, and that many of the other kids didn't seem interested in being friends with "the help." (Except for that one kind soul, who was the reason I returned to the place this week.)

*Anyway*, for the first time in 26 years, I went back to the sight of my indentured servitude, and I have to say that it was *great fun* being there as an adult with no children to look after! First of all, it's a *beautiful* place. It was originally a retreat for a particular denomination of Protestant ministers and their families -- not quite a Chautauqua, but related, I suppose -- founded in 1901. And like many other places inspired by American Romanticism and the urge to get back to nature, it's a bucolic and relaxing place, on a spit of land between one of the Great Lakes and a very large interior lake with the most crystalline water you've ever seen. Look! --


That water is up to the hem on my shorts (which are fairly short shorts), and I have long legs. And as you can see, it's a sand-bottom lake, too, so there's an actual sandy beach to lie on when you're not in the water. Here's a picture of part of the sandy beach with everyone's beach chairs and water toys just sitting around waiting for them to come back for them (because you can do that there and your stuff will actually be there waiting for you!):


People who live at this summer resort live in "cottages" of various styles. Some are very traditional, like this one --


-- and some are traditional ones expanded upon and made more awesome, like this one (*love* the tree through the roof line of the porch!):


And then there's the fancy excess-of-the-80s might-as-well-be-a-full-time-house I lived in with the family I worked for:


Yeah, I know, poor me. But I'm telling you, I really did get a raw deal. (Though I did like "laying out" -- as we used to say -- on the deck on the back when I was home alone with the infant.)

By the way, I wouldn't have been back at this place again if I weren't still friends with the one kid I really befriended up there 26 years ago. In the intervening years we kept in touch almost entirely by writing -- first hand-written letters, later e-mails, and now Facebook. We didn't see each other again until 2004, here in Rust Belt. And then Bullock and I went to a wedding in my friend's current vicinity and we saw him then. And then I saw him this week. Amazing, isn't it?

Anyway, this time around I made a quick, 24-hour visit (plus the 5 hours of driving on each end) and did some of my favorite things to do in a place like this (short of swimming, since I currently don't own a bathing suit that fits). Here's a quick photo essay of my visit.

I relaxed on the cottage deck with a regional and seasonal beer:

I walked along the shore of the Great Lake with my friend, looking for interesting rocks:


I took pictures of interesting rocks:


I enjoyed the sunset over the Great Lake:


I relaxed in front of a bonfire on the shore of the Great Lake:


And I marveled some more at the clarity and calmness of the non-Great lake:


Oh yeah, and I slept *great* in the quiet and pitch-black dark of the woods.

All it took was 24 hours of awesome laziness to wipe out the summer of '84. I'm now in love with the place and talking to Bullock about renting a place up there for two weeks next summer!

ETA: I should also add that all the people whom I met (or met again) who have been going to this summer spot since 1984 or before were *thrilled* to see me there again, and were warm and welcoming to me as an adult. I'm sure being 15 years old had something to do with my feeling like such an outsider back then.

Brief vacation

I will write those promised posts (I promise again), but Bullock and I are leaving for four days to visit his mother for her 70th birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her and wishing her happy birthday, but I'm not looking forward to the fact that it's supposed to be stormy weather on the drive there and possibly raining the four days we're there. Pippi is NOT going to enjoy the car right through a storm! (Yes, Pippi is going with us.) We'll see just how bad her storm madness gets in a moving vehicle.

Then after we get back, I'm taking another brief trip to the Land of the Summer When I Was a Governess. I can't recall if I've ever mentioned that traumatic summer of my life (I wasn't really a governess, but I *was* an exploited live-in babysitter), but I'm sure I'll have something to say about visiting that place as an adult 26 years later.

Anyway, back to blogging when I return from these adventures in the Midwest!

Don't know what to do with myself

I decided to take this week off (despite having a massive primary text editing project looming over my head), and have realized, to my utter horror, that I'm not very good at relaxing around the house. Now, I'm great at relaxing and doing nothing if I'm somewhere scenic -- on a beach or a river bank, or at an outdoor cafe or bar in a city, for example -- but I feel a little at loose ends here at home in Rust Belt. And given the mugginess of the weather, I have a little cabin fever, too.

Sure, I have books to read, and I pick one up every now and then, but none of them are really holding my interest at the moment. I think I need to order some new books (suggestions welcome!), because I think I've overdosed on the pulp genre fiction that I often spend my summers on. (Btw, can my peeps of the internets tell me: is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo going to be all financial crimes all the time? I don't think I can take 600 pages of that, to be honest.) So I find myself reading, then playing a game on my iPhone, then checking FB, then flipping through a magazine, and then going back to the novel again.

I think maybe because I was going non-stop for the entire school year until the end of NCS, I just don't have any more energy left for steady concentration -- at least not at the moment.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or is it just me? Or is it true that the web is making me stupider? Ack!

PS -- Was my last post too much about Me Me Me to elicit comment? Does no one else identify with the ups and downs of professional confidence?

Preview of stuff I hope to write about this week

Here's what I hope to write about in the coming week, as I take breaks from writing letters of recommendation and working on the big, fat editing project that's due in a month:

• NCS Siena and how and why it was a very different experience for me from NCS Swansea, and not just because of the gelato (a post that will be one of my usual meditations on 'professional identity,' among other things)
• A more lucid extension on my babbling comment at the end of the NCS blogging panel, originally about what personal blogs like mine can do for the profession and the sub-field of medieval studies, but expanded/modified to talk about why I've had such a blogging lull the past two years and why I want and need to pick up the pace again
• Meditations on visiting a part of Italy that wasn't Rome (for once), and how it made me think about the relation of the medieval to the modern, about historical and present space and geography, and about my relation to both medieval Christianity and my own Catholic upbringing in an assimilating, WASPy world
  
• Relics, sacred and secular. Yes, that's right: secular relics. You'll see.
• The nearly three weeks I spent in England before NCS Siena, including stuff about the London Rare Books School; tales of overcoming my fear of the London bus system (seriously); thoughts on my changing relationship to big cities; and pictures of the ridiculously cute Yorkshire town of Knaresborough
  

See, if write all this out here, its public presence will hold me to the plans for writing that I have. But today, I'm going to lie around reading Entertainment Weekly and pulp detective fiction -- something I haven't done in a long time.

Not dead yet...but not exactly in top form

While I was in Siena, Italy, at the New Chaucer Society biennial congress, I caught an exotic conference cold that had been imported to Italy from Leeds by my hotel roommate, The General. Now that I'm back in Rust Belt, I'm still congested, although the cold is in its final stages, I think. Still, the 95F temperature here combined with the dense midwestern humidity is not helping with the feeling that my head is some sort of giant, stuffed, pinata-like thing really to burst. Somehow the cold was more bearable in Siena. Perhaps that was because it was dryer there (but also about 95F), or because the gelato made it all better, or maybe just because I was in freakin' *Siena,* for pete's sake! But at least here I have robust American air conditioning and Bullock's homemade ice cream to replace the gelato.

Anyway, why am I telling you this? Because I'd planned to write a long post today about NCS to re-inaugurate the blog. Now that more and more people know who I am in real life, they can actually *bug* me in person to get back to posting, and I promised a number people at NCS that I would get back to it as soon as I got home. And I will, I swear, but right now my head is too muddled.

Back from the UK with visions of food dancing my head

In past summers I've spent a lot of time in the UK, but this year I went there only for a week -- totally personal, too, not professional -- and I'm actually looking forward to a summer of reading, thinking, and writing in my own home. And in the next post, I'll have a research-related query for you all. But first, an update.

Bullock and I are just now back from our trip to the north of England where, as many of my Facebook friends already know, I attended a good friend's wedding in a borrowed dress and shoes (and no makeup, and unwashed hair!) because my luggage didn't get there in time. The fact that there was an attendee who lived locally and who had an extra dress in roughly my size was nothing short of miraculous. Otherwise, I might have gone to the wedding in the t-shirt and chinos I'd been wearing for about 36 hours straight. And not just any chinos, but coffee-stained chinos, the result of the flight attendant having spilled coffee all over me on the flight there. But it all worked out, and I actually liked the borrowed dress better than my own. England has many more cute dress options that the States, even in the English cities that are more or less the equivalent of Rust Belt City.

Speaking of which, I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but much of the north of England -- especially Lancashire and Yorkshire -- have a lot in common with the upper Midwest. It's full of former industrial cities that hit hard times in the last few decades but are experiencing some renaissance now in the creative and cultural classes (think Chicago or Cleveland or even Pittsburg; and then Manchester and Leeds); the people are friendly, unsnobby, and hospitable; there are large Muslim populations in Dearborn, MI, and Bradford and Leeds; there's great Middle Eastern and Pakistani food to be had; and there is much beer drunk and much cheese eaten. No wonder I feel so much more at home in the north than in the south of England. Of course there are less savory similarities, too -- Yorkshire just elected a member of the British Nationalist Party to the European Parliament and Michigan is also frequently known as Militia-gan.

But one thing every city (and sometimes the towns and villages) in the north of England has that is missing in Rust Belt City is a slew of restaurants doing interesting and inventive things or just doing traditional dishes exceptionally well. The fact that the UK is having a cuisine renaissance is now practically common knowledge, and I've been noticing it and commenting on it for at least the last 10 years. In the north, especially, I've had amazingly good traditional, local food, often at small hotel restaurants and local pubs off the beaten tourist path. This trip I had tender, slips-off-the-bone-with-a-fork lamb at The Peasehill House Hotel Restaurant in Rawdon (a suburban village near the Leeds/Bradford airport); rich, tender duck confit salad at The Malt in Burley-in-Wharfedale (at the wedding reception); sweet and creamy mussels at Delrio's in York; mouth wateringly rich pork belly at the Hotel du Vin Bistro in York; and a lovely steak with a crunchy duck egg on top (the egg had been dropped into the fryer so that the whites fried up in the shape of wings, but the white stayed runny inside -- you wouldn't believe how good runny egg on steak is!) and a "trifle" of asparagus (a foam with crunchy peas in it) at J. Baker's Bistro Moderne in York.

But the best of all dinners was one I booked us for our last night. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport (NOT recommended -- boo!) for our morning flight, so I did a bit of hunting on the internet to find an interesting and fine restaurant in the general vicinity. I finally decided on The Alderley at the the Alderley Edge Hotel in Cheshire, about 7 miles southeast of the airport, whose online menu suggested that they did interesting interpretations of traditional dishes, using mostly locally sourced ingredients. (If you're ever inclined to do the same -- though hopefully from one of the other airport hotels, NOT the icky Crowne Plaza -- I recommend taking the train from the Manchester Airport to Alderley Edge and walking through the posh and charming village to the restaurant, then taking a taxi back, since the trains stop running back to the airport at about 10 -- the taxi is about 15GBP and the restaurant will call it for you. We chickened out and taxied both ways, because we weren't sure what the walk from the station looked like, which really was a waste of money.)

Anyway, we were not disappointed. First of all, it was simply a lovely dining *experience*, the kind we can't get at all around here. Our coats were taken and we were first seated in the bar, where drink orders were taken and we were given a complimentary plate of amuse-bouche to go with the drinks. Then we were brought the menus, and the head waiter/maitre-d' (it was a small wait staff of three who shared tasks, but it clear who the top guy was) let us take our time as we hemmed and hawed over whether to go with the three course prix fixe menu, or a la carte, or go for the 6 course tasting menu. (There was little overlap between the three and it all looked SO good.) In the end we went a la carte because those were the dishes that excited us the most. (And here, I should say, if you go there and order what we did -- cocktails, inexpensive house bottle of wine, bottle of water, three courses each, plus coffee and petit fours -- it will cost you about 150GBP. It will cost more if you go off the house wine list (which is still quite nice, btw) -- that's where we cut a little cost because we not as much oenophiles as we are foodies. We knew we were splurging, but given the level of service and the wonderful food -- and given how much we like food -- it was worth it for us.)

And then once we'd ordered and we seated at our table, we had a leisurely dinner, perfectly paced by the attentive but unobstrusive staff, who had the rhythms of their restaurant down perfectly. And the food! Oh. My. God. The food! I really should've taken pictures, because it was all so beautiful on the plate, and just as rapture-inducing in the mouth. (You can see what I mean if you go to the website; you can also see the whole current menu there.) Just to give you an idea, for our entrees, I had the "Saddle of Roe Deer, Venison Hash, Poached Cherries, Pickled Sloe Gin" and Bullock had "Cheshire Spring Lamb, Three Ways with 'Shepherd's Pie,' Pickled Beetroot and Leeks." The "Shepherd's Pie" is in quotation marks for a reason -- not because of random quotation mark abuse -- because it was a miniature, almost bit-sized "pie" with a tiny little tart shell, a bite sized piece of lamb, and a dollop of mashed potato on top. (And then there were the other ways his lamb was prepared -- a lovely variety of miniature traditional lamb dishes.) And the pickled stuff was in the form of artfully sliced jellies that added color as well as taste to the plate. My plate, with its accompanying spring carrots and green onions looked liked modernist art, like a Mondrian done in triangles instead of squares and rectangles, but topped by the perfectly bite-sized array of oval slices of roe deer and the little ovals of the venison hash. And oh, was it good. The flavors seem kind of busy in my description -- so many things on a plate -- but it was all laid out so you could have a bit of saddle of deer with a cherry, or the hash with a bite of the sloe gin and a carrot.

I know for some people this might seem all too fussy, but I really appreciated the care, the craft, the art, and the thought in it all. I like the way it appeals to the eye as well as the nose and the tongue. I like the fact that it reminds me of other arts while I'm enjoying it. In fact, I think that's what characterizes this kind of cuisine -- it's food for thinking about as well as tasting. Or thinking about *while* tasting. And given the leisurely pace of the experience you have time to do that, to savor, to think, to discuss, to ruminate (well, hopefully not literally!). And I also like that with three courses, plus amuse-bouche and petit fours, I didn't feel horribly stuffed. I like the fact that I get to try all sorts of different flavors (and the appetizers and desserts were equally abundant in tastes) without over-eating. And alas, I still haven't found anything quite like this in and around Rust Belt City. There's an award-winning regional restaurant in the city 2 hours away from here that we like very much, but it requires an overnight stay, since a 4 hour round-trip drive is too much for one night. But this academic year Bullock and I have been quite spoiled with our trip to Paris and our trip to England, and now I fear we'll feel the lack of such restaurants even more. Sigh.

We also did all the touristy things one does in York and Leeds -- the Minster, the Yorkshire Museum, the Jorvik Viking Center, the Royal Armouries, etc., etc. -- and had a fun time at my friend E's easy-going, relaxed wedding and reception (once the dress issue was sorted out, anyway!). I also recommend the Hotel du Vin in York, if you can get a good discout rate. It was by far the most comfortable and modern hotel we stayed in (fantastic hurricane shower head! wonderful bed! and everything smells so good!), and it's only a 10 minute walk from the train station, as well as from Mickelgate Bar and the medieval part of the city.

Oh, and also, having learned about Eric Bloodaxe in all the York Viking-related museums, Bullock now wants to be known as Bloodaxe on the blog. But I thought that might be confusing for readers who pop in now and then. I suppose I could just attach the Viking nickname to the Western pseudonyn, like so: Bullock-Bloodaxe (with or without the hyphen). What do you think?

And yes, I will have some pictures, once I upload them from my memory card, and once Bullock gives me copies of his much better ones. I have a post brewing about one in particular. More later.

In which I am teh lame

I'm back from Kzoo and I had a really lovely time. But I also completely crashed by the end of it and couldn't bring myself to make it to the dance. My headache was just too raging and my energy way too low. So I played Trivial Pursuit on my phone with The General in our hotel room.

That's reason #1 why I am teh lame.

Reason #2: I completely forgot about the party for Bonnie Wheeler. Forgot to RSVP. Forgot to go. Forgot it even existed, until I read about it on blogs today. The invitation is still sitting on my desk here in Rust Belt, under a pile of other stuff I've neglected this semester. D'oh!

My excuse for my lameness is in the post two below this one. It's hard to be on top of social things when you're barely on top of all the rest.

But I have to say, I'm in a much better mood post-Kzoo than I was pre-Kzoo, thanks to all of you whose company I shared this weekend, however briefly!