A Long Weekend

We're off on a short summer vacation today, coming back on Monday.  First we'll head two hours south to Owensboro, Kentucky, for the Romp bluegrass music festival.  Our favourite band, Old Crow Medicine Show is headlining on Saturday night.  There are some other goodies in store too, including The Punch Brothers.  It is my dream to see as much bluegrass as possible while living in the midwest.  Nashville, TN, at spring break was a good start.  

On Sunday morning we'll drive three hours directly east and stay a night at a fancy hotel - Boone Tavern Hotel.  We're not normally hotel dwellers, in fact, we haven't stayed in one since our honeymoon.  We found an excellent coupon on travelzoo.com which gives us a night, wine tasting at a vineyard, some credit at the restaurant, pastries in our room, and terry cloth robes.  

The Owensboro weather report is promising three days at 100 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 38 degrees Celsius).  We're praying for rain but have also frozen 8 litres* of water to put in our chilli bin*.  It's all our small freezer could hold.  We also plan on buying lots of ice blocks.  We are so grateful to friends who have lent us camping equipment, and a car.

We booked the tickets and hotel room such a long time ago, I cannot believe the we are leaving today! I don't know which I'm more excited about:  Camping at the festival and the subsequent overload of bluegrass, or the night at the hotel.  

*4 gallons
*cooler

Sing me a song

Jbird and I have been taking advantage of the summer concert series at IU.  They have an excellent line up because there's both a string and a piano summer school for high school students from around the country.  Tonight we saw Gilles Apap who delights in Irish folk music but is largely a classical virtuosi.  The first half was solo repertoire, the second The Four Seasons with kids from the string summer school.  I won't go into detail about the concert but I wish you could have seen it.  He's a dynamic, charismatic performer.  

I was inspired from his work with the youth.  They opened the Four Seasons by singing it and I had to kick myself.  Just this morning, I was struggling through a lesson with a four year old Chinese boy who speaks almost no English.  I always have my students sing their pieces to me and with me.  He's not really very into that and this morning when I insisted he do it again, he said "why?"  I'm sorry to say that I had almost forgotten and had no answer for him - the lack of spoken language barrier certainly held me back from launching into my usual tirade - it's an easy way to learn rhythm and notes, it helps with reading and pitch, if you can sing it, you'll know when you're playing it wrong etc.

The real answer is short and sweet: if you want to play the violin, it should share qualities of singing, that's why.  Musicality comes quite naturally from within us if we practice it.  For some, it just comes naturally.

*I wanted to link you to a recording of his Four Seasons but I could only find this which is a small look at what they were doing at the concert except with another group, and it's only a tiny part of it.  Or you can buy his version here. 

Processing the ideas

I'm working on a paper I initially found interesting but I had to put it aside for another one and I'm finding it really hard to pick up again.  The ideas that are coming up are all based around critical pedagogy: democracy, voice, agency, dialogue.  Really great ideas.  Unfortunately, the research I have found is all humanistic in that it not only suggests power should be distributed evenly, it also says we create power, together.  I was getting really sucked into this idea, that it is us that creates power but I read a something by Paul Friere today about the idea that we create word (or dialogue as he calls it), together, not alone. And it struck me that no, we don't, God did, does, and will.  But then He gave a lot of it to us, earthly power, and we mess it up all the time.

I spent the next four hours not doing anything because I was so flummoxed by it all, I wondered if I needed to change topics at this late stage, and I had to have a moment to have a think.  I'm ready to get into it now.  Or tomorrow, when I'm not working (bah today was my 'study' day).  My implications are going to be awesome, but I will dutifully analyse and synthesis the humanism out of it all first. 

Mixing up a treat

On the weekend, it is my habit to want an R-rated drink late afternoon.  We have the fixings for gin and tonics, it was our favourite drink last summer and I think I bought more just out of habit this year.  Mum got us two bottles of gin coming through duty free last April, and we've bought at least two more since.  Please.  No more G&Ts.

Instead, I emptied the remainder of Jbird's orange juice - around 1/4 cup, about a shot of vodka, a little less Gin, and a single serving sized bottle of tonic with some ice. It was a very pleasant drink.  I thought it would taste too alcoholy but vodka is subtle.  The surprise came when I realised it was a twist on the Grandma-Kirkby favourite - orange and Sprite.  She was a teatotaller, and it was the drink us grandkids associated with any type of function at her house.   Did your grandma serve the same?

I think I'm going to call it the dirty granny. 

Slightly shady neighbourhood

There was a shooting at our pool last week. That is, the pool here, at our apartment complex.  I was told someone accidentally shot their hand while cleaning their gun but the article says otherwise.  It sounds like a case of someone looked at someone else wrong.  I grew up in Avondale and lived in Baltimore so perhaps I'll be alright.

While gossiping about the incident with our maintenance man, I learned that anyone can own a gun here.  As long as they have had no criminal convictions, they're able to get a licence.  I'm not super thrilled to hear that.  Do law makers not realise what guns do?  The recent shooting of Trayvon Martin comes to mind, as well as a host of other incidents.  Not that there aren't guns in New Zealand.  They're just not generally legal except on the farm or for hunting.  Here, I have a friend who keeps one under their bed for self defence. 

This incident doesn't really affect me.  I will still swim, I don't feel closely related to the incident or nervous in anyway.  To end on a good note, I finally found a local newspaper online that doesn't charge me to read it while searching for information. 

I'm not normally so politically minded in this space.  Please feel free to tell me how it really is. 

An afternoon at the pool

I spent an afternoon at the pool with the munchkins yesterday.  Their parents had been offered an afternoon on the lake and they couldn't turn it down in this drought weather so I was on duty.  It was pretty fun, watching the girls gain confidence with their swimming teachers.  And to have an excuse not to be reading or trying to write academic type literature.

I had a little I'm in America moment while I was there.  All the life guards were in matching red bikinis and swim shorts.  The baby swim class sang "If you're happy and you know it" in American accents with American lyrics.  Only slightly different from our own, but different all the same.  

Unfortunately, sun and water makes for tired little girls and there were a few tears over dinner. 

A kiwi update

Months ago I shared my surprise at the lack of worldwide knowledge about the kiwi bird.  Turns out the rarest type of kiwi - the rowi -  are making a come-back and I thought you Americans (and other non-NZ-types) would like to see the gaze of this unobtrusive fellow.  He's not just a figment of my imagination. 

What do you believe?

I heard the Australian Ambassador to the US on NPR* yesterday.  He was giving advice to those interested in entering politics as a career.  He asked: What do you believe? In summary, he was suggesting that if you don't know what you believe and you are merely entering politics as a career, you could become a dangerous person.  I guess if you don't believe anything in particular, you won't stick to your guns over particular issues but will instead take whatever seems the best option at the time.

What do you believe? It's a pretty heady question.  Are they your guns you're sticking to, or has someone swayed you otherwise?  Do you stand in ovation because you truly thought the music was beautiful or because everyone around you is standing?  Do you go places because others were there first?  Buy things because others are buying them?  Love things because others love them? What's your passion?  I'd really like to know.  xx

*National Public Radio

Halloween Wasps

Grrrr...there's been a halloween wasp hovering over our garden for the past week, it has tell-tale orange and black body coverage.  Around the same time as he appeared, I noticed a pile of tiny spheres of dirt, similar to what you might find next to an ant hole.  At first I didn't consider it a threat, I thought it was merely visiting.  But it seems that it is here to stay as a few large wasp-sized holes have appeared next to the dirt piles and there is now more than one wasp hanging around.

Advice on the ol' interweb tells me to pour gasoline down the hole and set it alight.  More advice tells me to definitely not do this as it is crazy on the environment.  My friend's hubby did try it and it worked very well, but it was in their rather massive yard as opposed to within the boundaries of my tiny garden.  The interweb also told me to run away in zigzags if they ever attack.  Interesting.  It's definitely heightened my alert.  

I'm scared to get to my compost when they're out, they're such angry looking things and so huge.  I tried pouring hot water down a couple of their nests and covering another with a flower pot but they just dug new ones.   In fact, there are twice as many holes now.

They go away early morning and in the evening, should I try to co-exist with them?  What do you think the chances are of the apartment's maintenance dealing with it?  Non-existent, I bet, but I'll give them a try.

From a mixed bag

Our first sunflower bloomed last week.  I planted them aeons ago but I wasn't sure how long it would take for them to bloom.  I imagined late summer so this was a nice surprise, though he is well ahead of his siblings.  Because they're from a mix packet of sunflower seeds, it's hard to know what type he is.  I thought he was going to be a giant sunflower.  His stalk is thick, his leaves are wide, but he hasn't grown very tall, and is more of a stunted giant.  Perhaps there is a lack of root space, I have a feeling his section of garden is merely dirt over concrete.  No matter, some of his siblings are taller than me and just keep growing.

Endless cups of tea

I have met a lot of people who are working on their masters and around the middle of it they have made me think glad it's not me! They don't seem to be anywhere near the end, and they hate what they're doing.  It's part of the reason I chose course work instead of writing a thesis.  That huge, unachievable outcome seems like too much.  

I'm around the start of another assignment writing mania and I have so many books out of the library, I can't keep track of them. So many downloaded research papers, I don't know what I have.  So many ideas, they don't seem to mould together.  I get up every morning with the potential of a new day but it slips away under my fingers and I don't feel as though I've achieved anything.  It's overwhelming. 

I think, hope, that it's a good overwhelming.  One that I'll eventually see the other end of.  Right now, I can't see how that could be.  But in a month, I'll be over the moon and will potentially breath a little bit easier again.

I received a grade back this week and my lecturer had written something like: One of the best, most reflective, I have read of this kind in years...etc.  Every single column in the marking grid had the word exemplary.  I mean, have you ever?  I have not.  It sent me into a spin of euphoria but I'm coming out of it with the thoughts: these (new) assignments are so much harder, bigger, longer, how can I ever compete with that?

Watching The Hours last night did not help things.  If you have not seen it, I recommend it.  Except, maybe, if you're in the middle of writing anything.  Merely considering the writer and her outcome.

Cantaloupe and mint icy pops...

...is the only way to eat cantaloupe melons if you detest them raw like I do.  Jbird prefers them raw.  

I steeped 2 sprigs of mint leaves in about half a cup of sugar water (1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar).  I mixed this with a puréed mixture of just over half a cantaloupe after the sugar water had cooled.  I then froze the mixture in my icy pop moulds and voilà!  A delicious snack in my freezer.  I'm going to go and have one right now.

Remember to always taste the mixture before freezing.  It will taste the same when it's frozen so you'll be able to tell if there's something wrong with it.  And it will be easier to fix pre-frozen.

Manky side burns and baggy sweaters

I recently went to The Five Year Engagement with Jbird.  It was nice of him to come along to a chick flick with me.  A friend of ours from our youth orchestra days in NZ is in a photo in the movie and it made me want to see it. 

If you don't know the plot, I don't want to spoil it for you, but it felt like it spoke to us both on some complex levels.  Yes, there are levels to this chick flick.  It was set in San Francisco and Michigan.  I love seeing different places in the States in movies since moving here.  This is such a diverse country, and I've often met someone from there and can then relate further to why they are the way they are.  

The main theme was the big question of the limits of compromising 'life' for your partner.  I'm ashamed to admit that I often fight poorly with Jbird, telling him I just want to go home, or life would be better if we weren't here.  I don't know if I've used it in a fight, but I have definitely thought I'm here because of you, the stakes are high, you can do better than you are doing and I feel mad.  It feels horrid, so vulnerable, to put it into words here.  The movie helped me with this.  It showed me that I have compromised, sure, but I have managed to become myself again, somewhere that I didn't choose.  If we had moved somewhere more elegant or convenient, I am sure I would have hit the same struggles that I have here and I had in Baltimore.  

I often say that these years are precious years for us, but they often just feel humdrum, boring, and uncomfortable.  If I were at home, I'd be teaching, or have a baby, and probably be feeling those same humdrum, boring feelings.  But I don't think I'd have learnt so much about Jbird or myself in the process.  I definitely wouldn't cook the food I cook, or bike everywhere I go.  I probably wouldn't know how to crochet or knit.  And I doubt I'd have started a blog or decided to finish this Masters. 

Do you want to know what Jbird says when I tell him I want to go home?  He tells me Well, let's talk about that.  Maybe that's the right thing to do.  Every time, I swear it.  It makes me kind of teary to think about.  By saying this he lets me know that even though it doesn't always feel like it, him and I are in this together, and we will get out of it together.  Lovely hubby o' mine.

The movie made me laugh, it made me cry, AND there are two great wedding scenes. People, even Jbird wanted to cry but manned up and didn't let it out.  A must-see.

Lavender essential oil

I've been enjoying using the strongly scented lavender buds to create a few different things including lavender shortbread* and lavender-blueberry pops.  When I was at home for my little sister's wedding, my big sister let me use her lavender oil on a pimple and it disappeared almost miraculously.  Ever since, I have been meaning to buy some.  However, whenever I look it up online or check the price in a store, I am outraged by the price.  I really am!  $10 for a tiny wee bottle, and those are American dollars!**  This week, I found this recipe for lavender essential oil, and I am steeping some of the good stuff right now.  In vodka (go and read the recipe).  I'll let you know how it turns out.  I think it's amazing what you can find on the internet and loved giving this a go.

*warning: New Zealanders, please use a NZ recipe for shortbread as we have different flour.  I swear we do, TRUST ME.  I suggest everybody experiments with different quantities of the flavours: lemon, mint, and lavender.

**US dollars remain significantly higher than NZ dollars.

Letting nature take its toll

Before planting this garden, we had noticed that although Bloomington has a pretty hefty deer infestation, we have never seen any around our apartment complex.  This led me to believe my wee patch would be predator-free.  It isn't.  Predators have come in all shapes and sizes.

I've been dealing with a little fungi problem which has turned leaves on several types of plants yellow, some of them with black spots.  Something loved my watermelon plants and they didn't survive past the mature-seedling phase.  Small seedlings that were happily growing have disappeared over-night, the thief leaving behind no trace of their own or the plants' existence.  A few peas have been tasted, tell-tale teeth marks in their no-longer perfect flesh.  My rose 'bush' managed to bloom just three flowers before something decided to strip it of its leaves.  Every strawberry I have ever grown here has been chewed before it was ripe.  The most alarming sign of these little visitors are the holes left by chipmunks.  It turns out that they eat roots.  And bulbs.  In the early stages of spring, I used to bound out of bed, throw on some clothes and excitedly survey new growth.  Now, I slink out and survey the damage.   

After heeding my kind mother's words to buy some netting for the strawberries, peas, broccoli, and carrots, I began to peruse the interweb in search of chipmunk solutions and found two pretty reasonable ideas.  The first is to put together a Chipper Dipper.  It's essentially a bucket with some water and sunflower seeds floating on the water.  Can you guess how it works?  The chipmunk reaches down to get to the sunflower seeds and falls in the water where he either drowns, dies of a heart attack, or is relocated gracefully by Farmer Brown (that's me).  The reviews for this idea are generally raves: "I killed 14 already" etc.  The other solution is known as Lawn Mole Formula.  I whipped a tablespoon of castor oil, another of dishwashing liquid, and six of water into a shaving cream consistency.  I added a tablespoon of this formula to each litre (half gallon) of water and poured it over the soil around my plants.  I then watered again to soak it into the soil.  It is supposed to deter burrows from burrowing but it seemed so diluted, I'm fairly sceptical that it will work. 

What do you think?  Am I onto something here, or am I chasing rainbows?

Patio on the grass

I find myself 'stooping'* on the concrete ledge that surrounds our garden several times a day while I eat lunch, take a study break, or merely take a moment to mull.  Recently, we procured two foldable picnic chairs for our imminent camping trip so I've set them up next to our garden with a few flowering pot plants and voila, we have a nice little patio area to sit in.  Soph leaves for Europe this afternoon so we'll have her over for lunch and to test our new patio before she goes.

*stooping - to sit on your front stoop or stairs, chatting, smoking, or greeting passers-by.  A commonly used term in Baltimore, MD., where stoops hit the footpath of busy city streets.

Faure at peace

Jbird just put up a video of one of the pieces from his recent recital on his website.   This is Faure's first nocturne, it's very pretty.  Listen out for the bass line (left hand) theme that repeats throughout, giving an ominous feel to an otherwise calm rhetoric.  I told you about his recital here and here.  You could previously just listen but now you can watch too. 

Tag - you're hit

I got hit by a car when I was a little girl.  It was on Rosebank Road at that field next to Rosebank Primary and Rosebank Peninsula Church - outside Judy's house, if you're from the Short whanau*.  I had just finished attending said primary school and didn't know the teachers at the new school, giving me a sense of freedom.  I was outside of the law and I no longer needed to cross at the lights on that busy road.  Unfortunately, I didn't yet have that sense of how fast cars go, or whether I'd make it between the moving vehicles passing me.  I remember watching the car approaching, it kind of hesitated like it would stop, it nearly did stop but didn't quite, and I continued to run anyway.  

Neither the driver nor I could really believe it.  In slow motion, I kind of slid over her hood, landing on the grassy verge with a giant graze down my thigh. She couldn't take me home as she was driving a two seater sports car with a baby sitting in it's car seat.  The only other person that stopped was riding a bicycle.  I insisted I was okay and could walk, that home was only 100m away, I'd hardly been hit anyway.  I think I must have been pumped full of adrenaline.  When I got home, I was so exhausted from the shock, I climbed into my bottom bunk bed and slept until morning.  

I told my mum I'd slipped in a puddle as I ran through the rain without my umbrella.  When people asked, I continued to use that as the excuse for my torn up leg because I had a weirdly strong feeling of shame.  For jaywalking, for causing that lady to hit me, for 'bending' the truth.  

*whanau - family, NZ Maori

End of a camera

I bought a little canon point and shoot from Chinatown in NYC on my way to Europe in 2004, 6 months pre-Bangladesh.  It was a nifty little thing, advanced compared to NZ technology.  I proceeded to photograph the heck out of life through my short trip in Europe and two years in Asia, a courtship, engagement, marriage, and move to Baltimore then Bloomington.  We lost the battery charger when we visited Nashville, Tennessee recently, but my snapping had also slowed down to the point where I barely notice the camera is now unusable.

I have been trapped in the most delicious memory lane just now, strolling confidently through folder after folder of photos.  Some of the memories would have been lost without the captured image, even though all together they make up who I am now.  As I wander I use visual cues to remind myself when, what, why.  Hairstyles, people, clothing, all caught at a moment in time, to prove that these things really happened. 

On things laundry related

At home, we were accustomed to living in houses and all that comes with that, including our own laundry room with a large sink for things non kitchen or bathroom related.  In Bangladesh my maid became my laundry facility, she hand washed everything in my second bathroom and would drape it over the spare bedroom or outside on one of the verandas to dry.  Hand washing is rough on fabric.  At our first place in Baltimore, I used to walk the laundry a couple of blocks down to the school to use their facility.  We felt like kings and queens when we moved to a place with a laundry room within the apartment block.  

In our last place, we needed five quarters each load.  I would buy quarters from the bank, they came in handy for bus fare too.  At this place, we put money on a card.  When I have a machine in the house, I put a load on if I need a particular item of dirty clothing.  This means I might do two or three loads a week.  Here, I make do, and extend it out to every ten days or so.  The biggest hindrance to this was having enough knickers but thanks to the NZ knickers fairy (a.k.a. my mother), that minor issue is under control*. 

The fact that we are sharing machines with other people was harder at the last place as it seemed like the machines were always in use.  The generally accepted method of dealing with this is to move washed laundry to the inside of a neighbouring dryer.  The only thing getting in the way there is my dislike of touching a stranger's wet delicates.  Finding your own laundry moved by a stranger can feel invasive.

If I want to remove a stain, I have to do it at the kitchen sink.  Not having that laundry sink also means that if I need to wash something gardening related, I often do it in the kitchen sink where I worry about spreading garden related germs, or I drip it through the apartment to the bath.  I don't think many people have laundry sinks here, I know a friend of mine recently had hers removed as she felt it was in the way.

 

* I am happy to buy my own, it was just nice to reap the benefits of being a tiny bit babied recently.