sometimes things go well

We had a great--though very brief--trip to the beach this weekend, and on the way home I got to thinking about how nice it was not to have to hold anyone up over the waves the whole time--or to have to drive home (Mariah drove). These musings coalesced into this week's blog post over at IHE...

Getting ready

The Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) has a great post today about letting a child go. My daughter's not going quite so far away as Australia, but tomorrow we take her to college and leave without her. It's all new. I said a little bit about it today over on the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed--more later.

weekend jaunt

We left for the Lake District Friday morning under overcast skies, with a promise of intermittent rain Friday and heavy downpours Saturday. Raincoats and umbrellas in the back, we pressed northward, getting to the hotel by about 2 pm (just under four hours). We'd chosen a hotel Mariah and I had stayed in nine years ago, hopeful that it would live up to our memories of it. (It did.) After checking in we took a quick walk to see the sights, then decided we'd best see what we could of the local attractions before dinner since the next day would likely be rainier.



the stream running under the road, across the street from the hotel.


I remember hanging over this gate with Mariah nine years ago.


Once we got our legs stretched we decided to head towards Windermere, Ambleside, and Grasmere. Despite the threatening weather, Windermere was like Fisherman's Wharf in SF: awash with tourists, spilling off the sidewalks into the (very narrow) roads. We drove on through and made our way to Rydal Mount, the last home William Wordsworth lived in (and the loveliest). Mariah remembered it so fondly from our trip in 2000 that we paid the admission to the gardens and had a glorious walk through them. It started to rain in earnest at the end of our walk, but held off until then.


Nick enjoyed experimenting with the "macro" setting on the camera. There are lots more of these flower photos.




From Rydal Mount we made our way northwards towards Ullswater, after driving through some glorious countryside. Ullswater is a spectacular lake, though it looked rather forbidding in the late afternoon with the clouds overhead.



I think it might have been the drive back from Ullswater, over the Kirkstone Pass (not the way we'd come), that was the most spectacular bit of the day, though really, it was all gorgeous. The road through the pass warned of difficult conditions in the winter--even in summer, it was windy and narrow and occasionally sheep took up a little more of the lane than one might wish for--but the views of waterfalls and lakes were spectacular.

After a great dinner at the (complete with candle on Nick's ice cream--we decided it was our celebratory dinner) we retired to our room. Mark and I walked around the inn one more time--the rain was just a drizzle at this point. (It had been showery off and on all afternoon.)


Have I mentioned the stone walls yet? You can see them in this photo--they divide the countryside absolutely everywhere--up on Kirkstone Pass, even, where you'd think no one would bother, they mark the boundaries of the roads as well as marking off one grazing area from another. The something that does not love a wall would have a hard time in the Lake District.


The next morning we had our full breakfast in the dining room and set off northward. "Full breakfast" included eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato, grilled mushroom, potato cake, and blood pudding, which I decided not to try--the veggie full breakfast, which Mariah had, included veggie sausage and veggie bacon, and beans instead of blood pudding. Most people would just go back to bed after a meal like that, but we only had one more day so we forged ahead.

We'd picked up a flyer for the "Lakeland Sheep and Wool Centre" in the hotel and made that--in Cockermouth--our destination, though we weren't too particular about how quickly we got there. We took the ferry over to Sawrey and drove through Beatrix Potter country, then up northward towards Keswick. Seeing a sign for the Castlerigg Stone Circle we decided to follow the (very narrow, twisty, one and a half lane but two-way) track up the hill to the top, where we found these views.



The skies look a little threatening in the pictures, but actually by this time they had cleared and it was warming up and turning into a glorious day. We could have stayed up on that hill for hours, I think. The views are spectacular in every direction, and the circle is, as such things always are, mysteriously beautiful. Why is it there? The ring of stones replicates the ring of hills around it; we felt as if we were in one bowl placed in another bowl.

Eventually we drove on from Castlerigg through Keswick to Cockermouth--where we decided that the Sheep and Wool Center was really not worth much, after all--it was basically a big shop, with the promise of a "show" in a theatre--and barely any yarn for sale, even! (The show may be fabulous, and others may have a great time there, but it wasn't for us.) We headed back to Keswick for lunch and found ourselves in a somewhat overtaxed tea room, where there was something wrong with every single order: chutney on the plain cheese toastie, forgotten scone and strawberries with the strawberry cream tea, beer not cold enough to serve and then brought with a warm glass, you name it! Situations like this sometimes make me feel very American: bad service really annoys me at home, and I can be unusually assertive when things are going wrong in a restaurant. Somehow, though, this was fine--we had a great table right by a window, where we could see all kinds of people (and their dogs!) go by; the food was good, once it came, and we weren't in any particular hurry. So we lingered and eventually ate and then headed "home" to Oxford, ready for another adventure.

A sunny day in Oxford

One of the great pleasures of being in Oxford this summer is that we've been here before. There are things we know not to do (let's just say certain pubs are no longer on our list) and others we know to do again and again. We're living a lot further away from the Port Meadow this year than we were four years ago, so I hadn't had a chance to visit until yesterday. But the day dawned brght and sunny, there was nothing on the calendar, and there were three bikes* downstairs that could take us there in no time. (Well, not no time. But only about twenty minutes.)

The Port Meadow, for those not in the know, is one of the great wonders of Oxford. It's a large expanse of common land where horses and cattle range freely. It's bordered by a canal with a towpath perfect for biking, and on a sunny day it's really lovely (though I imagine it's quite desolate in the winter, when it floods).

This was that sunny day. And so was the day four years ago when I took a camera out there. So here's just a little side-by-side comparison, for fun.







*Mariah had to stay home to nurse her cold and work on two papers. This is a working vacation for both of us.

Not quite the day we planned

Four years ago when we were in England for the summer we went to Tintern Abbey. It was not the only national monument we visited, nor the oldest, but we loved it. I don't think we actually said out loud, "we have to come back," but we knew we did.



This is our first "free" weekend on this year's England trip. We had a quick jaunt into London yesterday afternoon, where we saw The Importance of Being Earnest at Regent's Park--a lovely setting and a fun production. Despite the threat of rain all day, we were almost too hot in our sunny seats.

Not so today. Today was our planned return trip to Tintern Abbey. We decided to take in Avebury along the way, since we'd never been before and we'd heard good things. The day dawned grey and rainy, but we were undeterred. And when the agent from the rental car company actually showed up early we took it as a good omen.

Maybe it was, but not for the weather. We (OK, Mark) drove through some of the heaviest downpours we've ever been through on our way to Avebury. And, remember, he's driving an unfamiliar car on an unfamiliar highway--on the wrong (left) side of the road! I played navigator, a role I'm spectacularly unsuited for. I can read a map, and directions, but reading road signs at the same time is, um, not my best skill. Roundabouts are a particular problem--I go into them confident of which sign to follow, then panic.

Mark is amazingly patient. And we really only went about 12 miles out of our way on the way to Avebury, I think. Maybe a little more. But we go there, and when we did the rain clouds cleared away briefly and we walked among the stones and the sheep and marveled at the things that humans do.



The rain started coming down again just as we were finishing our circuit, so we took that as a sign to get back in the car. Again my directional sense was problematic, but we did eventually make it to Tintern Abbey--ten minutes before they closed. (Side note: when the sun doesn't go down before 9 p.m., do you really need to close off access to an outdoor site at 5?) That gave us just time to hit the gift shop and then walk around the outside of the abbey--not quite the wonderful views we'd had last year from within, but in the cold and rain (by this time it was pretty unpleasant) we were happy just to see the site.


Back in the car again, we decided to take an alternate route home, up the Wye River Valley and then through Monmouth, Gloucester, and Cheltenham and so home to Oxford.

What a great decision! Cheltenham was particularly lovely, and we made it there just around the time we all needed dinner. We stopped at an inn for a terrific dinner, then drove the rest of the way home through glorious countryside. The rain stopped for us and the sun came out and yes, there was even a rainbow. No pictures, but we'll remember it.

Happy Birthday!

My calendar popped up today with a reminder that it is Beatrix Potter's birthday--only, according to Wikipedia at least, it isn't.* Curiouser and curiouser. My calendar is already confused by the time difference between Oxford and home--things pop up 5 hours later than they should, although they appear correctly in the grid when I look at it. Ah, well.

So if it's not Beatrix Potter's birthday, what am I celebrating? My blog birthday! Yes, six years ago today I wrote my first blog entry. I'm not sure anyone read it--I'm not sure I wanted anyone to read it--but there it was, anyway, my little toe dipped into the waters. For quite a while I struggled with an identity for the blog, and then after a while I just decided not to worry and to post what I felt like. Which, lately, hasn't been much (I know the few readers I have already know this!); as lots of others have said, twitter and facebook and, for that matter, real life seem to be taking precedence lately. But six years is worth remarking--Nick was not quite six when I started writing, Mariah was 13, we had a French student living with us for a few weeks, and we still had yet to come to Oxford for the first time. Now Nick's in middle school, Mariah's headed to college in the fall, and Oxford feels almost like home.

*My calendar also said that the 6th was my blog birthday, when a glance at that first entry makes it clear that it is the 7th. I marked the third anniversary on the wrong day, and the fourth on the right one, and the fifth on the wrong one again. Somehow this all seems a metaphor for something.

All in the golden afternoon...

We arrived in Oxford Tuesday afternoon, following a relatively easy journey. Door to door took less than 24 hours and involved multiple modes of transportation (car, plane, people movers of various sorts, bus, taxi). Once here we faced the strange news that the weather here is almost the same as it is at home--which somehow feels hotter here, since there's little air conditioning, we walk almost everywhere, and no one ices the drinks.

We cooled off yesterday afternoon by taking a more leisurely form of transport than the ones we'd experienced over the previous day and a half: the pedal boat on the Isis. Not quite the rowboat or punt Charles Dodgson would have taken the Liddell sisters out in, but the same scenery: Christ Church meadow, with its large grazing cattle and the spires of Oxford just beyond. We did this four years ago and it was an experience we were eager to repeat.

cross-posting

My post over at the other blog today is mostly links, but there's also a picture of Nick over there that my readers here might not see otherwise. So click the link below and you can see him in all his last-day-of-school glory.


Lessons from the Tortoise

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Snow Day

Late Sunday afternoon the rain was pelting down. I looked at it and back at the weather report, which was promising 4-7 (or 7-12, depending on which weather station you checked) inches of snow. It just didn't seem possible.

Less than an hour later, we were inside a snow globe, a thin coating of snow already blanketing the lawn, the trees, the cars. Before Nick went to bed he knew he wouldn't have school.

Then the power started flickering. Mark and I were watching a movie; Nick was getting ready for bed. The power went out, came back on. Long enough to restart the movie--then out again. Repeat. Finally it went out and stayed out. We found flashlights, a booklight for Nick in bed, candles. Lightning flashed through the snow--an eerie effect.

I tried to call the doctor's office where I had an early morning appointment, but reached no one. Went to bed with the NYTimes Sunday magazine and a booklight. It was clear that the heat was dissipating, though the radiators were still lukewarm. I set my cellphone alarm.

I was up early to try to call the doctor again. Again no answer. And, clearly, no heat. The University had cancelled classes, though since I don't teach Mondays, this wasn't really relevant.

Nick was up at 6:30. He'd meant to set his alarm for 7:30 but somehow was an hour off. He had a bowl of cereal--the milk in the fridge was still mostly cold--while I had a peanut butter sandwich.

(front porch/lawn, early a.m. Statue by Mark)

I put the milk out on the back porch and wondered whether anything else in the fridge was really all that perishable. I reached someone at the doctor's office, who said she'd pass along the message that I wouldn't be there. I went back to bed, where it was warm. Nick did, too.

(backyard, also early a.m. Yes, I took it from inside the house; it was too cold to go out there in pjs, even for the blog!)

When Mark woke up we all bundled up and headed out to a relatively new neighborhood cafe for coffee/hot chocolate and treats. Lots of others had the same idea--it was nice to be somewhere warm and buzzing with activity. It looked as if everyone had walked. When we got home I borrowed a snow shovel and cleared the walks while Nick and his friends restarted the snowball war they'd begun the evening before. I took everything out of the freezer and put it into coolers, on the back porch. The milk was already slightly frozen.

By noon it was frigid in the house. I was wrapped up in layers while the kids continued to play outdoors, coming into one house or another periodically to "warm up" (hardly possible) and eat something. I called several friends; one had power, and invited us to dinner; one didn't, and we talked about lighting a fire and drinking some wine later on. Mark went out, and came back reporting that the roads were relatively clear. I decided to go to the office and recharge my computer and cellphone batteries--and get warm.

By the time I returned home the power was back on. Nick was not, however, watching TV--the snowball war had started anew, after only a brief period of computer play. We reloaded the freezer and headed out to dinner with the friend whose power had remained on all day--her house was warm, her fire was lit, and the wine had been opened. It was a lovely end to the day.

(the view from my office window this morning)

(I have a blog post up at IHE today, sort of about snow days, sort of not. I wrote it in my warm office during that little hiatus...)

check out my fabulous sister

Who was interviewed here, on the Craving Balance blog.

I guess this needs a title

It's been a crazy week around here. After the excitement of last week (ahem), we were hoping for some quiet. But the fridge broke, the (other) car shudders when it runs, and the (first, recently fixed) car needed a brake job. I was supposed to upgrade some software on my computer this week but I decided not to tempt fate, honestly. The cable/phone bill came and it's wrong--by about 150%--again. And I took Mariah to the airport to fly away for her semester in San Francisco, driving home in pouring rain that turned a two-hour drive into three. I've been playing catch-up all week at work, and will need to spend the weekend in the office to get my syllabi in shape for Tuesday, when I start teaching again. Oh, and I had a doctor's appointment today (no big deal, just routine) that took up a lot of time and ended with, yes, another appointment. Still routine, but more time. Sigh.

So I was really glad to see this link to a nice review of Mama, PhD.

And I enjoyed skyping with Mariah tonight. As Mark said, the future is here. Now, where's my jetpack?

Under the wire

It's almost midnight, and I'd really rather be asleep, but I'm a bit wired from travel and from the crazy few days we've had. So here's a quick update, and then to bed.

The backstory:
A week or two before Christmas, we notice that the heat isn't really working in the car, and the defroster just fogs things up. We take the car in for service. When we get it back, it's a warm day; the defroster works fine and we figure that's that.

The story:
December 22: We drive to CT. With no heat. Yes, the fan and the defroster work, but the air that comes out is, um, not warm. Actually, it's cold, except for the sunny part of the trip.

December 23: We are in CT. We take the car to my parents' mechanic, who replaces the thermostat and tells us we need new brakes soon. We know.

Other good things happen in here, like a big family party, Christmas, a tree, roast beef, yarn, a guitar, a loom, new shoes, books, music, happiness all around. We don't really go anywhere for a few days.

December 27: We decide to go look for a yarn store. A light flashes on the dashboard, indicating something wrong with the coolant level. Indeed, there is no coolant in the car. We drive to my uncle's house--he has the same car, and extra coolant. Score! Only...it is apparent as we stand talking in the driveway that the coolant is in fact ending up on the ground after only a brief stay in the car. This is not good news. We drive our car home carefully, carrying an extra gallon of coolant.

December 28: Mariah turns 19! We borrow my mother's car and celebrate with a friend and her daughter. Afterwards, we drop the car off at the mechanic, leaving the key and a detailed note. (It says, why didn't you fix our car? Or something like that...) Later, we all pile into my mother's car and go out to dinner.

December 29: We are scheduled to leave CT, but there is still no coolant in the car. We call the mechanic. He will contact us. Soon. By late morning, he calls, and we go pick it up. Loose clamp, their fault, no charge. We are on our way, only three hours later than planned. We decide to take the "western" route--it's longer, but avoids all tolls, most of major cities, and much of the traffic. We are driving into the sun, but we are headed home.

Until another light flashes on the dashboard. A new one, indicating a problem with the electrical system. Sure enough, the power steering goes out. We drive to a service station, and then to another. The second one takes a look: a belt has fallen off its pulley. It's too late in the day for him to do the job, but if we leave the car overnight he'll check it out in the morning. We are offered a ride, directions to a motel, and the hope of a working car in the morning. We take it. Checking my email (grateful for free wifi in the room), I receive shocking, saddening news of a friend's sudden loss. Everything feels surreal.

December 30: The helpful mechanic thinks it's too big a job for him and sends us to a VW dealer 10 miles away. We get a rental car and a promise that he'll "try to work us in." We drive off to explore Old Town Bethlehem. We are alert to the irony of being homeless in Bethlehem during the Christmas season.

After lunch, we drive back to the dealer, not knowing where else to go. We settle around a TV with our books and magazines. Eventually the service manager calls my cellphone, not knowing we are there. Mark goes to talk to him.

And returns with the news that the alternator must be replaced. Tomorrow. Can't do it now--it's too big a job, he doesn't have the part, other people want their cars too. It will cost lots of money and take lots of time. I might possibly cry a little bit but he is unmoved. We grab a few more things out of our disabled car and go shopping. (Yes, we are Americans, aren't we? I actually got some fabulous boots on sale, but I don't feel good about it yet.) Eventually, we check back in to our previous night's motel (same room!) and go out to dinner.

December 31: The free breakfast tastes better today. It is snowing. Hard. We check out and head back to the dealer after picking up lunch for the road (hope springs eternal). The snow lets up. Eventually the car is fixed, we give them all our money and leave the rental car, and we drive home--uneventfully, finally. We unpack the car in record time--no one fusses about carrying too much or being too cold. Our house is warm and quiet. Noisy revelers outside cannot disturb us. We are at home.

instead of TV

At my parents' house in northwestern Connecticut there's a big flat-screen TV at one end of the living room. There's a satellite internet connection and wifi, so my dad and I can both be online at the same time. (Too many laptops and the connection slows down, but it's early yet). There's a blanket of snow outside and before long I expect Nick will be out in it; he went out last night after dinner to start a snowman and was only barely persuaded to come back in despite the frigid temperatures and the almost impenetrable darkness.

But for now the TV sits quiet, the snow undisturbed. Nick sits in front of the sliding glass doors that lead out to the deck, entranced by the display of birds feeding at the various feeders. It's a pretty good show.

Dinner tonight...

...was courtesy of Gwyneth Paltrow, who posted this great recipe for buckwheat-banana pancakes to her site. Pancakes and veggie sausage=vegan dinner. Yum.

I find it somewhat disturbing that I spent long enough on Gwyneth Paltrow's site to find a recipe I could make. The truth is, though, it was the first thing I found.

Thank Full

Well, that was one successful Thanksgiving feast. Nick and I are sitting on the couch while Mark cleans up the kitchen and his dad slices up the leftover turkey. Mariah has disappeared to her room muttering something about being "too full." Remember, now, she's the wheat-free vegan; if I managed to overstuff her, I think I did something right.

I forgot to take pictures of either dessert before we ate them, but I can report that the wheat-free vegan amazing pumpkin pie is indeed amazing. I would make and eat it even if no one I knew had dietary restrictions; it was that good. (This picture is pretty accurate, though mine, made from fresh-roasted pumpkin which I then drained in cheesecloth for an hour or so, was a bit darker.) And Nick's apple crisp was perfect: crispy on top, meltingly sweet and tart inside.

Here's the rest:












Turkey and gravy, sweet potato casserole, roasted vegetables, Mariah's timbale, and the brussels sprouts that did indeed make a convert of me. I didn't get a shot of the stuffing, but it was not all that photogenic anyway...

I hope you and yours also had a happy Thanksgiving. We sure did; and we will have more of it again tomorrow.

(See yesterday's post for links to recipes; I'm too lazy to put them in again.)

About the body

Yoga is about the body. Knitting, too, is about the body. The more I engage myself in mind-work, the more important I realize it is to feed, clothe, care for the body as a central, not peripheral, aspect of life.

I have my dad to thank for this latest reminder, which is also an unexpected plug for Mama, PhD.

too much

Becca's been blogging a lot lately, in what seems like one of those "I was thinking about giving up the blog" moments. I haven't been--not because I'm thinking of giving up the blog, but because we're at that point in the semester/year when I don't really have much time to think about anything. Over the weekend I speed-read my way through several critical books on children's literature, trying to determine which ones to nominate for the ChLA book award. I also did some knitting, and watched Nick pass another tae kwon do test, and made a run to Trader Joe's (now a weekly occurrence--yay!). The Trader Joe's run resulted in mostly home-made pizza (TJ crust and sauce), spinach salad, and apple-berry crisp for dinner last night, so that was definitely worth it. But for the most part I'm just hanging on right now, hoping that I reach the end of the year without too many loose ends flying.

Mariah's trying out a wheat-free diet (she had soup instead of pizza) at the moment as part of a battery of approaches to her chronic fatigue/pain (we're not sure yet if we can call it fibromyalgia, but it's definitely painful). So I made the crisp without wheat or butter and it was still really tasty. But I'm coming to the end of my imagination pretty quickly, so if anyone has fabulous wheat free recipes out there, I'll take them!

All good things...

...come to those who wait. And after fifteen years in Richmond, my favorite grocery store has finally arrived! I found out during dinner this evening and made it out there before they closed, coming home with a good haul: wine, bagels, veggie "meatballs", cereal, milk, artichoke hearts, and chocolate. There was more, too, but we didn't go overboard--as I often have when visiting the one in Northern VA--because I knew we could go back next week. What luxury!

Eleven

So Nick is now, I guess, a tween. He starts middle school in the fall, and was recently heard to announce that he's "practically a teenager." Since it is one of my great happinesses in life that I will not be parenting two teenagers at once, I have quashed this notion thoroughly. Nonetheless it's true that he's a tween.

This summer he has:

1. been to France
2. eaten an oyster
3. learned stop-motion animation
4. lost a tooth (another one is hanging on by a thread...)
5. learned to unload the dishwasher
6. gotten used to having his sister as a chauffeur
7. swum in the Mediterranean
8. made pancakes for the family without a "tedium monkey"
9. gotten well into the second guitar book
10. grown from below my shoulder-height to well above it
11. turned eleven.

Happy Birthday, Nick!

Vegan (or not) Zucchini Muffins

When I was in graduate school I shared an office for a while with a woman who had a son a year older than Mariah. She was smart and funny and I always liked chatting with her when we were in the office together. I remember once moaning to her that I wanted something (can't even recall what, now), but didn't need it, and she looked at me and said, "Need. What an interesting concept." I've repeated her words often over the years--mostly ironically, I hope.

Anyway. This does get to muffins, believe me. Once she told me that she'd taken her son to the pediatrician and, in the course of the appointment, had asked for advice on how to get more vegetables into him. The doctor had suggested that maybe she bake zucchini bread, carrot muffins, things like that. Deanna was outraged. "What a sexist!" she exclaimed. "How dare he tell me to bake!"

I didn't see it quite the same way. I liked to bake (you'll be surprised to hear) and it didn't strike me as sexist at all, but as practical. He was 15 years ahead of Jessica Seinfeld, after all. But in the moment I sympathized with her; she was a good office mate, after all, and if she didn't want to bake zucchini bread I wasn't going to insist.

I don't know if Deanna ever got her son to eat vegetables, but whenever I make these muffins I think of her. My kids know they have zucchini in them, and they love them. They are loosely adapted from a recipe at marthastewart.com, and if the flax seed meal and the buckwheat flour freak you out you can certainly try her version and let me know how it is. But this is how I make them:

Ingredients

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. salt (I use less)
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tbl. flax seed meal
• 3 eggs (or egg replacer, which is what I use: 4-1/2 tsp. beaten into 6 tbl. warm water)
• 1 tbl. vanilla
• 2 cu shredded zucchini (I think this works best in the food processor rather than the box grater, because you get a drier, firmer shred, but you can decide.

Technique

• Preheat the oven to 375 F.
• Mix the dry ingredients (flour through baking powder) in a bowl and set aside.
• Mix the sugars, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the zucchini.
• Spray or grease your muffin tins, and fill them mostly full (the muffins don't rise a lot). When I do this, I get 15 muffins, which means using a second muffin tin. If yours come out the same, don't forget to put a little water into the empty muffin cups so they don't scorch in the oven.
  
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke it into a muffin. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan briefly before turning out onto a wire rack.