Tinfoil + Raccoon

Remember Recess?

I am so horribly behind on my Bloglines account.  Not that it takes very long to get behind, but I've been out of the loop for a few weeks, and really a few months. Heck, I even missed Blog Day!   Last week I got the machine of my dreams--a shiny Toshiba laptop.  My laptop lust started a few years ago when I was doing tons of freelance work and had recently plunged into the wonderful world of blogging.  I hated being tied to a desktop, but there was no way to squeeze a laptop out of the budget.  Because I was so driven, I sat at the gd desktop for hours, numbing my butt and killing my neck and shoulders. 

I was thinking that with the laptop would come a renewed fire for writing, or that I would at least start checking my Bloglines account with obsessive regularity.  I thought I'd be keeping the machine by my bed and checking it first thing in the morning, or that I'd be sitting on my back porch pecking away, with the glorious vista of the bluffs before me.  So far, it hasn't happened.  I'm still on line, reading and writing more than the average boomer, and probably more than most people, but it feels disorienting to not feel so driven or....so obligated. 

This morning, I was determined to catch up on Bloglines reading.  Not just clicking "mark all read," but actually reading some posts to get an idea of what's been going on out there.  I'm so glad I did!   Of course, there was tons of really great stuff from the usual suspects, but what I most needed to read were posts by my two favorite Steph/v/ens, Misters Abram and Cohen.

Steven Cohen (Library Stuff) illustrates why he doesn't miss presenting at conferences and meetings. You don't need to read or even click through to the post. The title, Da Family, says it all.  Way to go Steven, for not only re-prioritizing, but doing it with conviction. I think I'm not enjoying my downish time as much because it still feels like I should be doing more more more.

Stephen Abram (Stephen's Lighthouse) pointed to a piece he wrote for Information Outlook (Aug 2006) titled Sanctuary. While I have a hard time imagining Stephen sitting still for more than a few minutes, it seems that he is able, once in a great while, to pull himself away from his tech-saturated world and just be.  He offers a list of suggestions for finding time for quiet reflection, my favorite of which is

Remember Recess? Remember all those things you learned about games and human dynamics when no one was "teaching" you? Reconnect with those feelings and moments.

This leaped out at me as I've been hearing Juniorina crow every day about her new school: "I can't believe we have recess! That is so awesome!"  Juniorina is in 7th grade and attends a public middle school, yet they still have unstructured play time.  That IS awesome and Juniorina can't believe our good fortune in having moved to a place where free-form play is valued.  I see it in the larger community--people are outside more, visit with neighbors more and are much less wired than in Bloomington.  Maybe I'm just absorbing the Wisconsin way of life.  Here, they not only remember recess, but endorse it.  I hope I can change my status from reluctant participant to immersed adherent.

New Kitchen or Notebook?

As I was smoking up the kitchen and adjoining rooms while frying bacon this morning, I couldn't help but think "for the money I spent yesterday, I could have redone my kitchen floor, gotten new countertops, a dishwasher AND bought a decent range with an exhaust hood."  But, instead, Raccoon, Mr. and I have shiny new, almost matching Toshiba notebooks.  So, now we are a three-computer household (five if you count the Treo and the presently-dead, General Tso-doused Sprint Pocket PC).  Overkill? Nah. Not when you consider that we're a household of four heavy computer users.  We all read, write, communicate and recreate (games, music,  DVDs) using a computer. My kitchen, though not pretty, is the most functional kitchen I've ever had, and we've never snapped at each other or had to bargain for access to make toast or pour a glass of milk.  There's room and food for everyone.  And now, there's a keyboard for every set of eyes and hands in the house, too.  There's also one less excuse for my scarce-as-of-late blogging presence.      

Don't Assume: Home Version

Today was one of those days that went on forever, so I enlisted Juniorina to help me prepare a dish for a neighborhood gathering tonight.  Right after work, Juniorette had a guitar lesson, so I emailed Juniorina a recipe for macaroni & cheese (James Beard recipe...to die for).  I even wrote it in a way that would make more sense than normal recipe-speak.  Juniorina is no slouch in the kitchen, but still, formal recipes assume a lot of prior knowledge.  Here's what I sent her:

1. Get the big rice steamer pan and fill it 2/3 to the top with water. Put in some salt (1 teaspoon or so), put lid on, and start to boil.
2. While the water is boiling, get the heavy orange pan that is shaped like a pumpkin. 
   
   1. Melt 4 Tablespoons of butter (that's half a stick) on MEDIUM heat.
   2. When butter is melted, add 4 TABLESPOONS of flour and stir into butter real good. Lower heat to med/low. Let bubble a bit, but do not let it brown.
   3. When your roux is ready (that's the butter and flour mixture), add two cups of milk and stir off and on until it is thick and bubbly.
   4. Add a dash or two of tabasco sauce and turn down heat to LOW
   5. Chop up or grate the big block of yellow cheese
   6. Is your water boiling?  If so, put in your pasta (most of the box)
   7. Put cheese in white sauce and let it bubble and melt.
   8. Add a little bit of half and half (in a small carton in the fridge---maybe 1/4-1/2 cup)
   9. Drain your pasta and add it to the sauce.

I checked with her before I came home, and she assured me that everything was fine, and agreed to take the dish to the neighbor's since I would be getting home late.   We all headed to the neighbor's garage as soon as Juniorette and I got home.  We met some folks, filled our plates, and I thought that Juniorette's first attempt at a classic mac & cheese dish was not too bad for a 12 year-old.   

Despite the miserable weather, I enjoyed meeting some new-to-me neighbors and getting to know others better. Mr and Mrs Bread (so named because they always have leftover bread from Panera after serving dinner to at-risk people on Tuesday nights at their church) had a Santa Claus-sized bag of bread that everyone got to pick from.  I got to hear Scott and another neighbor talk about the radical teacher nuns at Viterbo University.  And I met the neighbor cattycornered from us, who will be a new father come Thursday (wife at home on bedrest).  I declined the offer to stay out and drink beer with Scott and some others, since I hadn't been home all day, and came back to the house to decompress. 

After I'd sat for awhile, I went to the kitchen to tidy up.  Don't assume #1: I saw that Juniorina had used the wrong cheese. She did find a block of cheddar, just not the right one.  I showed her that we had some sharp cheddar that would have given the dish some more tang, but I didn't specify in the recipe.   Then, I did one of those cartoon head-shakes when I found my rice steamer with a big hole in the bottom.  Wha?!  The bottom wasn't burnt, just...missing.  I didn't see any evidence that it had been scrubbed, and there was no sign of kitchen drama.  I asked Juniorina about it and she was fairly evasive. "Look, I'm not mad. I just want to know what happened.  Did you just leave the pan on the burner and forget to turn it off?"   She said "yeah" without real conviction.  Then I remembered seeing the chair under the smoke alarm on the back porch. Obviously, it had gone off and Juniorina had pulled the battery. 

I talked to her some more, asking all sorts of questions.  "Really, I'm not mad.  I'm just curious how this happened.  If you forgot to turn off the burner, just say so."  She wasn't being evasive--she just couldn't tell me what happened, so I had her go over the process. "I had the top part on it."  "You mean the lid?"  "No. The other part." Ding ding ding!  "Oh!" I said. "You cooked the pasta in the rice steamer basket?"  "Yeah!"   

Don't Assume #2:  I gave her a hard time and asked her if she hadn't watched me cook pasta a million times.  I mean, I have cooked pasta a million times. But, I've never invited her to watch me.  She's made box mac & cheese, but uses a smaller pan.  When I told her in the recipe to use the rice steamer pot, I assumed she knew that I just meant to use the pot part, without the steamer basket.  "Nobody tells me these things!" she said.  "Haven't you watched enough Alton Brown?"  "He doesn't tell you how to boil water!"  She had put the pot on the burner with no water in it, but put the water in the steamer basket and got it to boiling.  No wonder I have a bottomless rice cooker now.  And, it's a wonder that I still have a house. And, it's a wonder that the pasta was not a gummy mess!

Don't assume #3: I think I tend to assume that my girls know how to do things because I either knew how to do things or had different interests at their age.  While I was no major whiz in the kitchen at 12, I suspect I had a few more skills than Juniorina, and possibly, a lot more interest. So, I learned a lesson or two tonight. Let's just hope I remember at least one of them.

Mad Pooper Puts Supper on the Table

Our youngest cat Gidget, now known as the Mad Pooper for her serial soiling of the neighborhood sandbox, has been quite an ambassador for us.  She's proven to be quite the huntress, and led to me being yelled at be a neighbor for the first time ever in my life.  I won't detail the negative interaction, except to say that I think it was entirely warranted, which led me to profuse apologies, the scooping of said sandbox, and a determination to keep Gidget inside. Even while I was scooping, the neighbors and I ended up chatting in a reasonably friendly way and we all chuckled uncomfortably about "what a way to meet your neighbors, huh?"  But, you know, it was fine.

Then, last night, the Mrs. knocks on my door with a bag of beautiful, cleaned fresh veggies from the community garden where she volunteers, and even more apologies for the weekend debacle, saying that they found more poop in the box, but knew that I had been keeping Gidget inside and shouldn't have assumed it was all her doing.  I assured her it was fine, that I was the bad neighbor for having possibly started the, uh, trend and insisted that apologies were not needed.  Somehow, we ended up talking about cherries, and the cherry tree at the end of the block.  I told her about my slick new cherry pitter and my prowess as a pie-baker and she said perhaps she'd bring some cherries down some time.  Swell! 

Sometime this afternoon while I was still at work, the neighbor-Mr. dropped by with his peace offering--a gallon of unprocessed cherries.  I thought that was right nice.  Then I realized that I had a gallon of juicy cherries that needed processing in the next few hours.  These cherries would not wait.  So, I made a lovely stir fry with the previous evening's gift veggies, setting off the fire alarm for the first time, having forgotten that I can't use the wok directly on the coils of electric stove. Then I decided I'd process the cherries and whip up a couple of pies after supper, one of which I'd deliver to the pooped-upon cherry-gifters.

I'd pitted about half the cherries when Juniorina decided she'd like to help out, so I did some kitchen clean-up while she pitted the remainder of the fruit.  At that point, I figured I could freeze the fruit, or make the pie. Of course, I opted for the path of most complication. I mixed the cherries with quick cook tapioca and sugar, and left them to sit for 15 minutes while I ran to the store for pie crust (I make my own crusts 95% of the time, but I figure for all the work that cherries take, it's no big crime to buy a decent lard-filled crust).  As I left for the store, guess who ran out between my legs, making her bid for freedom?  It was raining, getting late, and there was no chance of catching her.  It's all a big game of dodging and zipping and seeking refuge in the neighbor's hedge (the neighbors who like her).  So, I got in the car and hoped that the rain would force Gidge back inside.

I'm still learning my grocery stores here, and chose the wrong one for crust. I went to the closest non-convenience store to my house, but found, pretty much, a deluxe convenience store. They had crust, but not the best quality.  Nonetheless, I settled.   When I got home, Gidget was around in the yard, but I had to get the pies in the oven.  By then, I was getting tired and cranky with myself for having spent the whole night in the kitchen.  So, I filled the pies, and decided to make a crumb crust because I had too much filling for one big pie, and everyone knows that cherry pies have to have some sort of top.  Finally, they were filled and topped and popped into the oven, and I went out to try and lure Gidget back in. Unsuccessful, I went to check on the pies, only to discover a burning smell and smoke roiling from the oven.  Crap! I'd set it to broil.  So, I turned the oven off, got the fan to blow out the smoke and moved the broiled pie to the lower rack and started up again on bake.

The pies came out, not pretty, but pretty tasty and Gidget came in shortly after I started writing this. So, tomorrow morning, I'll head down the alley, a pie in one hand, and a pooper scooper in the other. Hello neighbor!

My Friend the Iconographer

Marcee and her family is one of the reasons I decided to apply for the job in La Crosse.  They moved to the area several years ago, and I've really missed them.  Marcee is a Jill of all Trades of the non-traditional sort. I've known her as midwife, herbalist, childcare provider, healer, Wiccan, and mostly, really fun friend. In the past few years, she's become a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and is learning the art of writing icons.  Here's a story about her and her mentor, Father Theodore, from the La Crosse Trib.

Root Canal! and other Relocation News

It's a good thing I have a sense of humor because I think it's hilarious that I had to go in for an emergency root canal today, with one week left at BPL and a house to fix-up and sell and a household to pack up and move and stray cats to find foster homes for.  It's a laff-riot!  Seriously, better now than right after moving, before insurance kicks in at the new place, or while I'm at conference in late June. 

Aside from the dental emergency, things are okay. We are officially approved for our new mortgage and the house inspection last week didn't bring up any horrible surprises. Just the usual old house things, some of which we'll ask the owners to fix, some of which we'll do on our own.  The big bummer is that we learned that the fireplace does not work.  We may be able to retrofit it with a nice woodburning stove, with a bit of chimney work. It's something I hope we make a priority since it was one of the things we most liked about  the house. 

Juniorina had a visit at her new school while I attended the house inspection.  She was quite giddy over the fact that her new middle school actually has recess!  And, the girls she hung out with were appalled to learn that there might be such thing as a recessless school.  I really liked how the new school felt. I didn't have to be buzzed in, there was no one demanding to see my ID, and the administrator and teacher introduced themselves by first names.  I also liked how the kids were boisterous--it was good, healthy adolescent energy.  Juniorina characterized it as "rowdy" and it seemed like a good thing to her, too. 

I spent my birthday evening with friends near La Crosse where I was feted with nettle and morel quiche and $2.50/bottle Andre champagne. Kids and adults played a fun table game, no one had their face in front of a screen, and later my friend Marcee whipped me around gravel backroads so that we could meet a friend of hers at a hole-in-the-wall roadhouse.  Honestly, it was one of the best birthdays ever, despite the next day's ale-head.

Tonight is my last Monday night, and my colleague's last night as well. She's retiring after 35 years.  No--we didn't have an exit pact--just happened that way.  Tomorrow, there's a cake celebration, and I'm sure at some point I'll break down and weep in front of my coworkers.  I just hope I can eat cake by tomorrow.  But, for now,  time to go dribble some potato soup down my throat. 

Juniorette's Weekly Poetry Rampage

Juniorette here, with the start of my weekly Poetry Rampage. I've been writing a lot of poems lately--six today--and I want more people than those at my local art forum to be able to read them. So I asked the Raccoon if I could put some of them on here. Two each Wednesday until I run out, and so far that looks like five weeks. Feel free to give me some constructive criticism, as I know some of them suck arse. Also bear in mind that all of them are about RP characters of mine.

Millenium
Never sleep, never die.
All his life he's had to lie.
Kept alive a thousand years,
Unable to sleep away his fears.
Seen loved ones die, seen dear ones leave,
With so many lifetimes for him to grieve.
Each day he lives, for death he hopes,
Wants his life severed like frail ropes.
Each day he curses his curse of fire
And hopes to join the souls of the pyre.

Earth Angel
Lovely as the angels, kind as the earth.
Eyes full of delight, laughter full of mirth.
With a heart and soul as beautiful as a dove,
She'd readily sacrifice herself, just to save her love.
She’s a guardian over her friends and kin,
Always ready to fight when the battles begin.
Lovely earth angel with a heart of gold,
Her family's gone, leaving her in the cold.

Rumors of My Relocation...

Blogger friend Pete Lustig wonders where the heck I've been.  He's been into the library to say hi, but hasn't been able to find me. When he asked after me, he was told that I've already bugged out for Wisconsin.  Hey guys--I'm still here!  I admit that I've been preoccupied and taken a lot of vacation days to get my house in shape, but I've got another four weeks at BPL and another five in Bloomington.   

My ADHD brain lives for excitement and challenge, but the stress of having five weeks to sell a house, buy another and move is not so good for the rest of my body.  If you think your house is pretty clean and tidy, look at it as if you had to sell it tomorrow.  I've carted bags and bags of garbage out to the curb, and have filled my garage with items suddenly dispensible, but hopefully useful to others.  There's certainly a lot more I could do to make my house impeccable, but at this point, I'm settling for reasonably tidy.  I listed my house with CIFSBO, after two weeks' attempt at word-of-mouth marketing.  In two days, there have been 238 hits on the page (okay---30 of those are mine), but no queries thusfar.  I'm hoping for some action this weekend and am leaving Mr. Raccoon and Juniorette to be gracious hosts to any and all interested parties, while Juniorina and I head north to scout domiciles.

So yeah, Pete, I'm still here--just distracted and possessed of a rare, intensive industriousness. 

Adorable Bungalow for Sale

While I'm excited about my new job and the adventure of exploring a new community, the peripherals are close to ulcer-inducing.  I have six weeks to sell my house, buy another and relocate my family.  I'm going to try to sell my house without a realtor because I need every bit of equity I can get. Using a realtor would effectively leave me with no down payment.  So, I come to you, dear readers, to help me market my beloved bungalow.  I've put up a Flickr set, with detailed description, price and contact info. 

If any of you have sold a house without a realtor, I'd appreciate any tips!

Hello Wisconsin!

Say hello to La Crosse Public Library's  newest Information Services Manager-to-be (ermm...that would be me).   I received my Letter of Offer today, and assuming the criminal background check and drug screen come back okay, I will hit the floor running on June 1. (Thank goodness I gave up opiates for Lent!)    The folks I interviewed with were sharp, funny and passionate about their work and community.  The library was impressive to me, and to the locals I interviewed while I was in town, including the hotel maid who talked my ear off about the library's services and programs.La Crosse itself was charming and downright exotic to this lifelong central Illinoisan.  It just felt like a good place to be.  The Raccoons, Jr. are on-board and up for the biggest adventure of their lives and Mr. Raccoon has been waiting patiently for me to shake things up a bit.  Consider them shook! 

Big thanks to all of you who have offered advice and encouragement along the way.  Your friendship and collegiality have been invaluable.

The flip side of this is leaving a community I've known my whole life and colleagues I've known, admired, and learned from,  the past 10 years. I'm sure I'll shed more than a few tears the next few months, but am excited about giving my best to a new community and library.