Mark your calendars, Jett-heads: Tuesday, Nov. 14 at Stubb's will have Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Eagles of Deathmetal, and the Riverboat Gamblers. Tickets are on sale now!
Today was my first day back as a graduate teaching assistant in two years. For some reason I remembered it as being not very labor-intensive; talk about rose-colored glasses or something. The professor who runs the class changed up his style a little and now has 5 short papers (multiplied by 104 students = 520 papers to grade), a fill-in-the-blank portion on exams (which means actually reading these answers as opposed to sending them to the testing center to be scanned), and occasional little in-class surveys that require me to go home and enter data and run frequencies. Yuk! I am already plotting how I can swing Spring semester financially without the TA gig.
My research fellowship is so far looking like it will be fun, interesting, and challenging. I'm going to have a cute office in the School of Public Affairs, a laptop, and opportunities to travel to conduct interviews and do archival research on a topic I have a professional stake in. I haven't really started yet though so I'm trying to ratchet it down to a cautious optimism.
Thursday
Monday
August 28, 2006
Poopapalooza 06
Last week we found out from our esteemed developer-neighbor-dude that weeks ago during the demolition of the house next door to us, the sewer line was broken. So for the past few weeks we've been merrily using the facilities, as it were, without a care in the world, unknowingly contributing to a burgeoning cess pool down the hill. For the past week we were advised to "limit our usage," and every time I flushed I pictured the contents landing on the roof of some SUV speeding down Riverside Drive below. Luckily, esteemed developer-dude has temporarily moved into the other side of our duplex until some other dumb house of his is done, and the sewer backed up into his apartment (not ours, ha ha ha!). However, some white substance did bubble up a little out of a PVC pipe in our front yard. Gross! So tonight it finally got fixed, and we made him clean up our yard. Talk about environmental health hazard.
In other poopy news, about this same time over the weekend Frankie got a horrible case of the runs coupled with vomiting (she's okay now). The whole mess smelled like, well, gag-inducing poop. Also at this same general period in time, our backyard began to smell like hot dog poop baking in the sun, because esteemed developer-dude happens to have two big yellow labs who poop all over the damn place (big ones!) and he never picks up after them. They (the dogs that is) also strategically leave their "calling cards" right in front of our entrance gate about every other day.
Poop on you, developer-dude!
Last week we found out from our esteemed developer-neighbor-dude that weeks ago during the demolition of the house next door to us, the sewer line was broken. So for the past few weeks we've been merrily using the facilities, as it were, without a care in the world, unknowingly contributing to a burgeoning cess pool down the hill. For the past week we were advised to "limit our usage," and every time I flushed I pictured the contents landing on the roof of some SUV speeding down Riverside Drive below. Luckily, esteemed developer-dude has temporarily moved into the other side of our duplex until some other dumb house of his is done, and the sewer backed up into his apartment (not ours, ha ha ha!). However, some white substance did bubble up a little out of a PVC pipe in our front yard. Gross! So tonight it finally got fixed, and we made him clean up our yard. Talk about environmental health hazard.
In other poopy news, about this same time over the weekend Frankie got a horrible case of the runs coupled with vomiting (she's okay now). The whole mess smelled like, well, gag-inducing poop. Also at this same general period in time, our backyard began to smell like hot dog poop baking in the sun, because esteemed developer-dude happens to have two big yellow labs who poop all over the damn place (big ones!) and he never picks up after them. They (the dogs that is) also strategically leave their "calling cards" right in front of our entrance gate about every other day.
Poop on you, developer-dude!
Thursday
August 24, 2006
In an earlier post, I alluded to my disgust with the inherently misogynistic culture of the U.S. military. Robin Morgan recently wrote a short commentary in The Guardian that connects all this to the bigger picture.I do not believe the rape-murder of an Iraqi girl was an isolated incident. It seems almost weekly I read articles about yet more American servicewomen who have been assaulted by fellow soldiers (I actually know someone who this happened to), and it's common knowledge (isn't it?) that rape has routinely been used as a weapon in war. Also see Susan Brownmiller's excellent history of rape in the military in Against Our Will. Now, I'm going to have a drink.
Victory!
The political godbags at the FDA finally caved! Emergency contraception will be available without a prescription for women over 18. The sound of that sentence is just weird. It's like, am I really saying that in 2006? It's so 1960. I suppose now the battle will continue to focus on the whacko pharmacists who will try to either not stock Plan B or refuse to dispense it - as women will of course have to show I.D. before the pharmacy decides whether she can purchase it or not.
Thank you NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Susan Wood, and everyone else who worked so hard on this.
Thank you NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Susan Wood, and everyone else who worked so hard on this.
Wednesday
August 23, 2006
Just a few pictures from a week spent in south central Alaska...
A sight for sore eyes - mountains and water!
View from our train seat on the way to Seward
Aialik Glacier, in Kenai Fjords National Park (kayakers in foreground)
Alaskan sea lions
Humpback whale falling back to the water after breaching (you gotta enlarge this one to really see it)
M. freezing to death on a boat off the coast of the Kenai Penninsula
Back to Anchorage...
These are the "sound of music" hills I grew up with...the base of the Chugach mountain range
Going to the top of Alyeska, the ski resort 45 minutes south of Anchorage
This is classic - taken in Talkeetna, AK
The Pioneer Bar in downtown Anchorage - in the same location since 1917. Anything older than 1964 (when the earthquake hit) is old in Anchorage.
A sight for sore eyes - mountains and water!
View from our train seat on the way to Seward
Aialik Glacier, in Kenai Fjords National Park (kayakers in foreground)
Alaskan sea lions
Humpback whale falling back to the water after breaching (you gotta enlarge this one to really see it)
M. freezing to death on a boat off the coast of the Kenai Penninsula
Back to Anchorage...
These are the "sound of music" hills I grew up with...the base of the Chugach mountain range
Going to the top of Alyeska, the ski resort 45 minutes south of Anchorage
This is classic - taken in Talkeetna, AK
The Pioneer Bar in downtown Anchorage - in the same location since 1917. Anything older than 1964 (when the earthquake hit) is old in Anchorage.
Saturday
August 19, 2006
Some highlights from four days in Seattle
Our first night in town, leaving The Funhouse (sort of like Seattle's Beerland) where we visited with friends and listened to weird bands.
Mt. Rainier hovers over Seahawk Stadium and Safeco Field (where the Mariners play) in the distance...taken from Victor Steinbrueck park by Pike Place Market, where I used to eat my lunch in the old days.
Documenting our visit to Cupcake Royale in Ballard. I had the lavender frosting and M. had the orange. Legalize Frostitution!
My favorite dog in Seattle, Eve, with whom I used to live. Here she hangs with us at the Lava Lounge on Second Ave.
Rachel Flotard and Ben Hooker, Visqueen, playing on the Vera Stage at the Capitol Hill Block Party Friday July 28.
Ms. Led wows the rag-tag crowd of old hippies, families, crazy people, elderly Scandinavians, and Block Party escapees at the Ballard Seafood Fest, Saturday July 29. The next night we met Lesli and Matt for a drink at the Whiskey Bar in Belltown.
The crazed throng gathered to see the one-time-only reunion of the Murder City Devils, Capitol Hill Block Party Saturday July 29.
Good-bye Seattle! The view from Elliott Bay
Our first night in town, leaving The Funhouse (sort of like Seattle's Beerland) where we visited with friends and listened to weird bands.
Mt. Rainier hovers over Seahawk Stadium and Safeco Field (where the Mariners play) in the distance...taken from Victor Steinbrueck park by Pike Place Market, where I used to eat my lunch in the old days.
Documenting our visit to Cupcake Royale in Ballard. I had the lavender frosting and M. had the orange. Legalize Frostitution!
My favorite dog in Seattle, Eve, with whom I used to live. Here she hangs with us at the Lava Lounge on Second Ave.
Rachel Flotard and Ben Hooker, Visqueen, playing on the Vera Stage at the Capitol Hill Block Party Friday July 28.
Ms. Led wows the rag-tag crowd of old hippies, families, crazy people, elderly Scandinavians, and Block Party escapees at the Ballard Seafood Fest, Saturday July 29. The next night we met Lesli and Matt for a drink at the Whiskey Bar in Belltown.
The crazed throng gathered to see the one-time-only reunion of the Murder City Devils, Capitol Hill Block Party Saturday July 29.
Good-bye Seattle! The view from Elliott Bay
Friday
August 11, 2006
I am still organizing all the photos from our trip, but wanted to put this one up first. This is my godson/psuedo-nephew, 7 months old, of whom I am a huge fan. The picture was taken in Talkeetna, Alaska with Mt. McKinley a.k.a. Denali shrouded in clouds behind us.
Thursday
August 3, 2006
Greetings from Alaska - once again I forgot to bring the card reader to upload pictures, but here's a quick update:
-M. is ready to pick up and move to Seattle (loves it).
-M. got sunburned in Seattle (ironic).
-Yesterday we rode the Alaska Railroad to Seward, and on a 6-hour ocean tour we saw sea otters floating on their backs, some shy seals, scads of sea lions, Aililik Glacier which is a humongous tidewater glacier that is calving huge chunks of ice into the bay, and three humpback whales, one of which breached (jumped out of the water) not once, but twice - super rare to see that. Also saw tufted and horned Puffins, and several eagles.
We miss our kitties and puppy and our friends, but not the 99 degrees. It's like 60 here today.
Carry on!
-M. is ready to pick up and move to Seattle (loves it).
-M. got sunburned in Seattle (ironic).
-Yesterday we rode the Alaska Railroad to Seward, and on a 6-hour ocean tour we saw sea otters floating on their backs, some shy seals, scads of sea lions, Aililik Glacier which is a humongous tidewater glacier that is calving huge chunks of ice into the bay, and three humpback whales, one of which breached (jumped out of the water) not once, but twice - super rare to see that. Also saw tufted and horned Puffins, and several eagles.
We miss our kitties and puppy and our friends, but not the 99 degrees. It's like 60 here today.
Carry on!
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