Kirk the Conductor

This summer, there was a conductor who worked on the train i took home from work everyday who had a crush on me. i was in his car about once a week, and he was always very excited to take my ticket. Sometime between summertime and now, i stopped seeing him, probably because he changed his schedule and didn't work on that train any more.

This morning, I took a later train to work than the one i usually take. An old man conductor came and collected my ticket, and i was sitting there reading my book when i heard the clinking i usually associate with the conductor coming up the aisle. He stopped next to me, and I looked up, thinking another conductor was trying to take my ticket again, and it was the conductor with the crush on me. He must have seen me get on the train and come looking for me. We exchanged pleasantries and he introduced himself. We chatted for a minute, then he handed me a train schedule and walked away.

I thought it was odd for him to be giving me a schedule unprompted - then i realized his name and phone number are written on it.

catching up

Here's the summary of my trip to Savannah:
BabyBaby and learning to knit
Baby
And some quality family time, and some dogs and a cat.
Since then, i've done ... well, not much. Some knitting. Some working.
Yesterday i baked pumpernickel bread. i didn't notice that it gave me devil's farts, but maybe it's too early for that. i made parsnip-beet burritos for dinner - a surprisingly good combination with black beans and salsa. i spiced the beans with some Cajun seasoning i got for Christmas from my brother-in-law... i refuse to be a Northerner afraid of flavor, as he claims we all are.


i'm trying to decide if i will go to my Irish session this afternoon, or down to the Cultural Center for a Taiko drumming show ... Taiko is amazing, and it's a free concert ...

also yesterday, i made it to the PO in time to fill out an application for a passport, and i find it quite terrifying that they took my birth certificate and sent it off with the application .... especially as Rachel said they lost her birth certificate when she got her passport. she didn't mind because they reissued her birth certificate and it's prettier than the old one .. but still, it was a weird feeling, handing off this precious piece of paper.

i suppose it's time to figure out what to do with my day ... this beautiful sunny day - spend it inside cleaning, or blow off my responsibilities and wander around downtown Chicago??

off into the sky

i had a wonderful day today - i worked from home all morning, working on the poster that i won't have to have done until May or so ... but i'm realizing that my predecessor was not exaggerating when he said sometimes you have to *look* for work. it's a bit cyclic, with all the work coming at once and not much happening between, so i'm trying to frontload the rest of my time with POC by getting done everything i can right now.
I am using Adobe Illustrator to make the poster, and it is so much fun. my predecessor did his poster in PowerPoint, which is the way that most colleges teach kids to make their nice glossy scientific posters, because it's hard to mess up. it is also hard to be unique, though. scientists don't worry so much about that, and don't tend to want to spend a lot of time learning complex graphics programs. i guess i'm not all scientist - but we knew that. this poster is much more arty than the past posters ... i'm not sure if my boss will hate it or not. i decided that there was no real reason that it had to be formatted as if it were the poster for a scientific paper or talk, as most of the people who see it are laypeople. so i am going for pizazz instead. trying to be chic and sophisticated instead of precise and wordy.

i am leaving in 10 minutes for the airport. i think i am being unnecessarily nervous. i cannot think of what i could be forgetting to do or bring. i might just go early just so i can't sit here being nervous any more.

i'm vindicated

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17429734
"'Generation Next' in the Slow Lane to Adulthood - a story about how 18-to-25-year-olds aren't really adults, we're 'emerging adults' and we shouldn't have direction.

Dance Dance Party Party

I recently resolved to do at least one new thing a week. This came about because i realized that i don't have that much fun at my job and i'm only in Chicago for a year, so, since i'm not here just for the job, i need to take advantage of being in this place and stop going home and going to bed when i get home from work.

This week, my one new thing was, instead of going to Nevin's, i went down to Rachel's neighborhood (Lincoln Square/Ravenswood) and we went to a 'fitness class' that she had read about in the Chicago Reader, the free arts/entertainment/what's going on paper. This 'class' wasn't so much a class as a jam session with bodies - you pay $5 to cover the cost of using the studio space, someone brings an iPod with an hour-and-a-half long dance mix, the lights go down and the music goes up, and everyone dances their butts off. The only rules are no boys and no judgment.

I had a very good time, and got a great workout - my abs hurt today! i expect Rachel will go pretty often, but i don't know about myself, as it's kind of a hike to get back home.

Oh yes, and it's called Dance Dance Party Party. their slogan is "we dance if we want to."

letter from grandma

i sent grandma a letter a week or so ago, just because, and i just got a letter back from her.
she is sassy - i talked a bit about my plan for the springtime, and the possibility of working on the Denison's CSA farm. to that, she replied, "I don't see why working for the Denisons would be much of a career enhancement. But what do I know?" i guess as far as she's concerned, farming would be a waste of an ivy-league education.

weekend wonders

so, quick update:
my saturday was awesome. i got up early and went to the Green Cities farmers' market and got delicious relatively-local food with my friend Rachel, then went to the Chicago Cultural Center with Rachel and our friend Zach. The cultural center is awesome - in the old Chicago Public Library, built in the late 1800s. half of the building used to be the Grand Army of the Republic headquarters - that's a club for Civil War vets. In the 1920s, the library took over the GAR half of the building, and then the library had to move out in the 70's because it outgrew the building. instead of razing the building to put in a skyscraper, as was fashionable in the 70's, Mayor Daley decided (or rather, his wife decided) to make it a public exhibit and concert space, and a home for city-based NGOs and not-for-profits.
the building itself is absolutely gorgeous, with the Library half being Roman architecture and the GAR half, Greek. Both sides were built at the same time, and each side has a Tiffany dome - incredible works of art! and the one is the largest Tiffany dome in the world. in one of the domed rooms, the walls are all mosaic, with each mosaic chip set at a slight tilt to its neighbor so that the walls sparkle as you move your head. it's pretty amazing, all of the tiny details that went into this place.
what we actually went there to see, though, was an exhibit of a crochet version of the Great Barrier Reef, done as a visualisation of hyperbolic space. it was pretty incredible. the exhibit taught us about math, handicrafts, and the biology of coral reefs.
then we went to Rachel's house and made mozzarella cheese, from my new book called Home Cheesemaking. this was my first attempt at making cheese, and i definitely think it was a success. lactose-intolerant zach ate a bunch of the cheese and didn't even get sick, that's how good it was. we also made ourselves very popular with the kitten that lives in Rachel's house.
we then headed out through the snowstorm to a benefit concert of folk guitarists, held at a coop called Stone Soup. it was a great hippiefest, full of dreadlocked people with high ideals for the world.
now i'm baking bread and trying to get things done, but i'm getting distracted by reading the newspaper and loooking out the window at the beautiful day - it looks deceptively nice out, as it's very sunny on all the fresh snow, but i know it's cold as the dickens and windy. maybe i will still brave a trip over to the lake.

oh what a beautiful morning ....

i got up early this morning and took the 6 am train to work. There's no shuttle from the early train, so i walked the mile to the North End of the garden, then the half-mile to my building at the south end. it took me about half an hour, and it was incredibly, subtly beautiful - it was just getting to be dawn, and it was so peaceful.

but i want to work somewhere without the constant roar of the freeway.

tollway, i suppose. it's definitely not free.

Peaches

It was raining on the way home from work today, so i was using my umbrella (which is fantastically leopard-spotted - i found it in a shrub this summer). I got home and set it down by the door so i wouldn't drip water everywhere. i went in the kitchen, and when i held still a second, i heard a quick little scraping noise. It was the sound of Peaches licking rain off my umbrella!Adorable.
Plus i'm reading a book about heirloom peaches and trying to make a living off of growing them. a very peachy day.

Pearl Harbor Day!

I've been going around reminding people that today is a very important day in the history of our country.
You can't exactly say "Happy Pearl Harbor Day" to people, though ...

relief

today was one of the biggest days at my job - it was our annual Advisory Group meeting, where a bunch of land managers from around the region get together and we tell them what we've been doing for the past year and they tell us if we're doing okay and what we can do better. My boss is a very detail-oriented person, and she takes this meeting very seriously, so the past couple of weeks have involved a lot of intense data analysis and data checking, making arrangements, and making a pretty powerpoint. the group is about 25 people, all of whom i'm pretty sure are smarter than me and i am positive have more experience both with natural areas management and with POC than me, so it was a bit intimidating to stand in front of them and tell them about the data analysis i've been doing. at the same time, it was gratifying because i apparently explained it well, as they didn't have too many questions, and since they're smart, they understood what i was talking about.

then we had a nice party for Lara and Marcello, the Australian couple who have been working for the garden for the past 6 years, because they're going back to Australia tomorrow - it's a pretty sad time for the garden, as they are very much loved - they and their two sons, one of whom just turned 1 and is always around. he is an incredibly adorable baby, with huge pouty lips - the first baby i ever held, and he helped me get over my fear of babies. i will miss him.

it is snowing again, and supposed to snow at least a couple of inches tonight. i think i will go for a walk just to hear the snow.

i can do stuff!

I tried to make yogurt, and i actually succeeded! it both yogged and gurted! it is tasty as well as the right consistency. i am pretty darn proud of myself.
next stop, cheesemaking. i haven't dared to go down that road yet. maybe tomorrow - i'm trying to convince myself to go back out in the cold and on the slippery, unshoveled sidewalks to play music at Nevins. i'm not sure it's going to happen. but i'll feel so guilty - i'm so faithful, they worry when i don't come.

first snowstorm!

it started snowing around 3 yesterday, and snowed all night, from what i can tell - not *that* fast, we only have about 4 inches, but it's so pretty! it seems to be really windy up here on the 3rd floor, but not down on the street level - the snow is unmoved on the shrubs and cars. it's supposed to snow a couple more inches today. i bet my boss will come in late, if she comes - she is quite terrified of bad weather. this is yet another benefit of taking public transit to work - someone else worries about getting me there safely

what a productive day!

since getting home from work, i made my first batch of yogurt, wrote a letter to grandma, and completed both my first crossword and my first sudoku by myself!!

the arrival of winter

so today marked the first real winter here in chicago.
i got up this morning at 6 and biked to my friend rachel's house, 3 miles south, to help her move 3 more miles south. when i got to her place, she was off picking up the uhaul pickup, so i sat on her front stoop, read my book of Billy Collins poetry, drank tea, and watched the sunrise. it was wonderful. so many dogs passed by on their morning walks. then rachel, her friend zach, and i moved rachel's stuff - we were done by 11 am, and then she took us out to lunch as repayment. as we sat in the sandwich shop eating our soup and sandwiches, we watched the snow begin to fall. by the time we left, there was already at least a quarter of an inch on the ground. by the time i left rachel's house 3 hours later, a half-inch had fallen, and the snow turned to freezing rain. it's still doing that, 10 hours later. it's quite horrendous, but i love it. it's real weather.
today i also baked some delicious pumpkin-walnut-oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, which i brought to a farewell party this evening - they got totally rave reviews. that made me feel good.
i also got rave reviews on the turkey soup i made this week. apparently all those hours in the kitchen are paying off.

plus i'm an aunt!!!

David Adam, 9 lbs+. well done katy!!!

back in the midwest

i'm back in chicago after my whirlwind tour of NY.
you'd think it was still summer ... except for the coats we're wearing.
anyway, i had 4 or 5 days in ithaca, staying with my friends Bruce and Drew downtown and spending every day and night hunting down friends. i got to go to several concerts, a semi-formal wine and cheese night, out to eat a bunch of times, and to Thanksgiving at my old co-op. it was pretty amazing, and i had a truly great time. and maple-flavored bacon.

then i went to Buffalo, to hang out with the family. i drove up the east side of Cayuga Lake, along NY-90, and it was the most beautiful driving i've experienced in a while. maybe ever, just because it was such a balm to my senses to look at all those hills and trees. once i made it to buffalo, i did a bunch of cooking, eating, sitting, and dishes. also a lot of shooting the breeze with the good ol' family.

Today I drove back to Chicago. it was entirely uneventful. i listed to Annie Dillard's The Maytrees on tape, watched the cornfields roll, and nothing else happened. my butt hurts and i am ready to move my body. after about 12 hours of sleep. my nose is running like a faucet and my throat is still sore.

it was very nice to be hugged so much and see so many people i care about. made it hard to come back to the cold concrete of chicago. time to start figuring out the next step.
then i

trip time

So, Danielle made it. last night we hung out with a friend from college (Sam Firke) who lives downtown - until 11:00, poor choice - it took forever to get home on the under-construction red line.
Anyhow, we're going to bed mad-early tonight so that we can get up and be on the road by 6 a.m. at the latest.
I just finished up everything I needed to here at work, so I am feeling free as a bird and clear as glass. Still no internet at home, so i figured i'd post quickly before skedaddling.
next stop: ITHACA!!
.. i checked the weather, and it looks like it will be mid-30s and Ithacating the whole time i'm there. beautiful. i love it.

Excitement!

I am getting incredibly excited to go on vacation and leave the Chicago area. And i am also getting excited to see all the people I love.

Danielle is winging her way to Chicago right now, with her father. They're going to visit with his mother tonight and tomorrow, and then she is going to make her way to me tomorrow night - i think we are meeting another friend downtown, having a wild time, and then going back to my place. On Thursday she's visiting her cousins that live north of the Garden, and then on Friday we're driving to Ithaca!!!!

I'm working extra hard this week (except at this exact moment) to get all of my data analysis done so that I can actually just take all day on Friday off and get to Ithaca before dark - or in as little dark as possible, since it takes longer to drive than there are hours of daylight. Apparently it's going to be a big weekend - Friday night is wine and cheese night at some friends' house, then Saturday is Ding's Japanese drumming exhibition, Sunday is Thanksgiving at Prospect of Whitby, and I'm going out to lunch with my undergrad advisor on Tuesday. I am almost too excited for life to handle it.

On the downside, my internet in my apartment is busted. We think the little box that turns cable into internet kicked it - it was over 2 years old, and you can't expect electronics to last longer than that. Hence not so much blogging and emailing in recent days.

I had a lovely day on both Saturday and Sunday - on Saturday, I hung out with my roommate in Evanston, then went down to my friends' new house in Humboldt Park, which is lovely. We made pumpkin soup (my recipe!) and grilled cheese sandwiches, then my friend Rachel taught us how to make truffles and how to knit (i think i could get into it - i know mom tried to teach me once, but i was too young to appreciate the coolness, i think). Then i went out to a party with these friends and slept on their air mattress (Aerobeds are awesome!) so that we could keep having fun on Sunday morning - we made pancakes and played Scrabble until 2 in the afternoon. Then i biked home the 11 miles from Humboldt Park to Evanston, mostly along the lakefront. It was beautiful, and it felt really good except that i was wearing jeans so i got a bit sore. I made it home in time to go (late) to the session, which was a rockin!!! good time!! it was a good one, a nice way to go out, as i won't make it on Wednesday, so i won't be there for 2 weeks.

Now I am just crunching numbers nonstop. I have been using Excel almost exclusively for a week now, trying to analyze a lot of data. BOOOOOOORRRRRIIIINNGGG... but that's okay. i guess i'm learning a lot.

thinking of christmas

so, i thought of a couple things i'd like for christmas:

- something roughly loaf-sized to serve as a breadbox - i stopped buying bread, which means the plastic bread-bags have stopped coming in. i'm thinking tupperware or something like that, big enough for a 10-inch loaf and maybe something else bready. i haven't bought it myself mostly because i never go to the kind of store that might sell something like that - except Salvation Army, and i haven't seen anything suitable yet.

- a tin whistle and basic beginner's book. i'd like to give it a shot, and i know whistles aren't all that expensive these days.

- a cast-iron skillet. i keep wanting to do recipes that go from the stovetop straight into the oven, and there aren't a lot of dishes in this house that do that.

- maybe a new (to me - i'd prefer refurbished to brand spankin' new because i'm a dirty hippie) iPod - i have to look into whether i can get credit towards a new one for returning my dead one. i looked into getting it refurbished - apparently that would cost $350 .. i only paid $70 for it originally (with my student deal), so i hardly think that's reasonable.

or just money, and i'll buy things myself.

new life plan

So, i'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I've been meaning to read it for some time, but i was waiting for it to get off the one-week shelf at the library. now it's a two-week book. i'm glad i waited - i've been reading it for a week, and i'm halfway through.

I am concurrently thinking hard about my future and talking to people about and searching for graduate programs that sound good for me. i think i could be ready for graduate school (meaning i've decompressed long enough from academia that i can plunge back in for a few years), but i still would have to find a program that makes me happy enough to want to do that. i figured i should go back to graduate school because it is a nice concrete plan for what to do next with my life, and i know that the career path i chose for myself in undergrad is best achieved with at least a Master's in hand.
i had a wonderful conversation with a man named Charlie Shabica, a professor at UIC, an independent environmental consultant, and an adorable older man with a gift for bringing out the best in people. he was very happy to listen to me talk about my dreams and what i need in my future to be happy, and he said, that's what's important, doing what makes you happy, whatever it is. which i know. but, his conversational skills helped me appreciate that all over again. it got me to thinking, i know that being outside is pretty much the number one thing required to make me happy, but in what context do i want to be outside for the rest of my life? this, in conjunction with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, are making me think that perhaps what i want to do most with my life is grow things for a living. Meaning, be a small farmer, or work on a small farm (i know being the owner is a *lot* of stressful work). this seems like a more positive way to affect change in my world, growing things for people and helping them achieve a more positive (for themselves and the environment) way of life, rather than being a natural areas manager where life is a constant battle against people. maybe i'm being silly, but i don't think so. at this point, this is all conceptual, but it's growing more concrete as a goal every time i say it to someone.

last farmer's market of the season

This Saturday felt like one of those wonderful and tragic days, like graduation, when a good thing comes to an end, and you celebrate the good thing but wonder how life will go from here. It was the last Evanston market of the season.
Last Saturday, i had driven to the market because i had other errands to run too, and i had bought more than usual and started stockpiling (squash, potatoes, garlic), but i knew i needed to go big this week too. i didn't want to drive, because that feels so cheap (the market is about a mile away from my house), so i pulled out my rock-climbing backpack (a Deuter mountaineering backpack, about 4 feet tall but only a little over a foot in diameter) and jumped on my bike, arriving at the market around 9 a.m. - i had missed out last week, not arriving until 11, when the Mutsus were sold out! i went immediately to the apple people that i always buy from, and my Mutsu friend was excited to see me - she calls me "my Mutsu girl!" - and i bought a big bag of them, with her usual bonus apple (payment for loyalty) thrown in. she regaled me with tales of her crazy coworkers (Mexicanos, all of them) and the boys looked bashful.
after apples, i picked up onions, garlic (10 heads for $5! not bad), spaghetti squash (i've never had it before, and i felt adventurous), bell peppers, sweet potatoes, and cabbages. i bought until my pack was full. i had wanted to get more apple cider (i bought some last week), but i didn't fancy carrying it home. as it was, it was a tough bike ride home, with 40 or 50 pounds of vegetables on my back. i felt extravagant, but then i felt great when i got home and put them away and looked at my little stockpile for late fall and winter. especially now that i am thinking more and more about the importance of buying locally grown food.
so far, from the produce i bought, i have only used a bell pepper and a head of cabbage - although the cabbage doesn't quite count, because 'use' here means 'processing so it lasts longer,' i.e., sauerkraut. i hope i did it right. there's lots of salt involved. it's quite briny right now. i sort of guessed on the saltiness, and i hope i didn't ruin it. but hey, you never know if you can do something until you try to do it. my next experiment will be yogurt. i'm even more nervous about that one, though.

the carrots

So, i haven't posted in a while - i've been busy living. The week went too fast for me to notice. i think i'll make life into several posts, instead of one huge one ... i get overwhelmed with long strings of unbroken writing. it feels like Finnegan's Wake every time.

On Tuesday, I went to the grocery store to buy carrots and powdered sugar, the only two ingredients i was missing to make carrot cake. Firstly, i felt guilty that i was buying conventional carrots, not local or organic (or both), but i hadn't known i was to make carrot cake until Sunday, and the farmer's market is only on Saturday. So i stood in the produce section pondering the carrots. My options were: a 2-pound bag of baby carrots (a definite 'no' - i reject these 'babies' on principle, as it's like dressing up 40-year-olds in baby clothes and trying to get them adopted), and then regular carrots in 1-lb, 2-lb, or 10-lb bags. The price per pound for the 1-lb and 2-lb was the same, but the price per pound of the 10-lb was half that. I stood there thinking, well, i'll probably use at least one pound in the carrot cake, and i do love carrots, so i want to have a few for myself ...
so the checkout lady thought i was crazy, first of all because i pulled out my own canvas bag to put this sack of carrots into, and second because i was going to carry it. the whole way home, i kept thinking, i'm just saving myself trips to the gym. real life *is* exercise.

then i baked moist and delicious carrot-cake cupcakes, as well as a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.
I was doing all of this baking for John William's birthday - accordion man who runs the seisun - which was on Halloween, conveniently a Wednesday. I had offered my services to Amy, his wife, who was organizing the festivities (she wanted there to be a toast, roast, or boast, but really it was just a toast, because everyone was just too happy to think of roasts). I finished frosting everything at 7 pm on Wednesday, which is theoretically the start time for the seisun. i wasn't worried, because i have gotten to Nevin's at 7 before and spent half an hour sitting there before anyone else shows up to play. this is Irish time, folks. I decided I would walk to Nevin's, as i had foregone my run to frost the cupcakes. i packed everything up and walked north through residential Evanston. It was so much fun, seeing all of the kids still out trick-or-treating - at 7, they were still out, even though it was dark. there weren't many *little* kids, but there were still a lot of people, including one street that was closed off for a block party, with a bonfire and a table covered in candy.
I got to Nevin's at 7:30, and the seisun was in full swing - there were already about 10 musicians there, including a couple that usually only come on Sundays, as they didn't want to miss the fun. To my delight, they had saved my usual seat - next to Amy, with my back to the fireplace - because they knew i'd be there, with cake. it was a raucously good session - many, many great musicians, a full and appreciative crowd (more appreciative than usual, because a higher percentage than usual were there for us, what with John's family and friends). a lot of people had on fun costumes (i sat next to a man with a bolt shoved bloodily into his head) and the atmosphere was very jovial, with much singing, dancing, and drinking. i had two strangers buy me beers, but i was not too interested in either one and those were the only drinks i had all night. John, on the other hand, enjoyed his birthday to the fullest. when i went to leave, he gave me a hug and tried to kiss me on the cheek, but missed a bit and slobbered in my ear instead. i tried hard not to laugh.

thus far, the carrots have gone into: cake, soup, snack (with homemade hummus), sauerkraut (in progress - i'm not sure i'll be good at this 'patient' sort of food ...), stir fry ... that might be it. i think i've gone through about half. i'm not sick of carrots yet! i may always buy the big bag.
does anyone have any carrot recipes i just *have* to try, while i have this beta-carotene abundance in my life?

The best name for a plant

So, I was just looking up a genus of plants - Lemna, the duckweeds, and I discovered the very best common name for a plant, ever. The species is Lemna miniscula, which is also pretty good, but its common name is "Dinky duckweed." Honestly. I can't stop giggling. Marian says it's the perfect name for my firstborn.

regretting my job

if you want to see some adorable fuzzy creatures, check them out here:

http://www.ualberta.ca/~sfm2/Movie.html
These are Pikas, which Vijay has been studying all summer up in the Yukon. The lucky guy.
this is the view from his front door:
and i've got pavement and people.

on the sidewalk

little old lady, little old dog. they stop to do some business.
little old lady to little old dog:
"Push, PUSH! pushpushpushpushPUSH!"
that's my kind of friendship.

saturday

my day on Saturday consisted of the standard business: laundry, farmer's market, cleaning, etc. I discovered the value of being a loyal customer at the market - i got free apples because the lady remembered me from last week and was excited that i was patronizing her stand again (not all free apples, just bonus apples - definitely good salesmanship - i'll be back to her again)
my saturday afternoon was spent at the Village Discount thrift shop with my friend Rachel, where we found some amazingly good deals. i bought a bathrobe that appears to be brand-new - it's fleece, and fleece definitely feels different when aged. it is covered with monkeys and snowflakes - an excellent combination, in my opinion. i also got an apron that wraps all the way around my butt, which is perfect for me because i always wipe my hands on my hind end. this should save me some laundry.
from Rachel's house, i went straight downtown to see a free showing of Nosferatu, the 1922 Dracula silent film, at the Chicago Symphony, with live music done by a band named Tortoise. They are sort of a rock band, but they also do a good deal of electronic stuff. they did a *very* good job. if you have never seen Nosferatu, you should - it's very entertaining.
From the movie, i went on with my friend David, who had been at the movie with me, out to bars with his friends (whom i also know by this point; we've been hanging out all summer). we spent most of the night at this local dive bar, with a bunch of 40-, 50- and 60-year-olds, who were stuffing money in the juke box to hear all of their favorites - with these two men in particular who actually had choreographed dances for many of the songs. it was incredible, and i hope those very drunk folks were at least slightly embarrassed today, because i was kind of embarrassed for them last night. i also did some dancing, which was nice, as i haven't done that in a while.
my Sunday was pretty lazy. i baked bread and muffins (i've decided to stop buying bread and just bake it myself, as i do like baking bread), went for a run in the lovely autumn rain, and spent my four hours at Nevin's. it was a great session, with lots of fast songs, which i *love* to play. now it's before 9 pm and i'm about to get in bed.

Friday

On Friday I got to go to another ravine for this Lake Forest/Fort Sheridan ravines project. this ravine, Bartlett, is actually on the Fort Sheridan army base, in the residential sector. There is a road all the way down the ravine, but it is not associated with the residences. it runs through people's backyards. apparently the road was for access to the beach for army vehicles. now the road is closed to vehicles, because Open Lands bought it to restore it as a nature preserve. it wasn't quite as beautiful as the other ravine, but it was still pretty cool, and the beach part was nice - lots of huge boulders.
Friday night found me driving to my friend James's favorite hot dog place, SuperDog, whose roof is graced by a six-foot-tall hotdog dressed as Tarzan, and another dressed as Jane. This place has a *lot* of character, and the hot dogs are awesome. You sit in your car and order, like in the 50's, but the waitresses just walk, they don't roller skate. It was still fun, though, and the first time i'd driven anywhere in about 2 weeks.

the best day i've had at work

About 10 miles north of the Botanic Garden, on the lake, is the city of Lake Forest. This is a very wealthy city, and it has a very wealthy, very active garden club. This garden club recently won some big award at a gardening competition in England for a garden they created with the theme of "Ravines." They chose ravines as their theme because Lake Forest has many of them. Lake Forest is in the middle of the stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline that is riddled with ravines. The ravine-y part stretches about 30 miles, from just north of Evanston to Waukegan. The ravines flow into the lake, and the longest one stretches just over a mile back from the shoreline. These ravines are considered a unique ecosystem, as they create an out-of-place cooler climatic zone, allowing plants whose usual southern extent is somewhere in Wisconsin to hold on here in Illinois, as well as allowing for a greater-than-average diversity in a smaller area because of the extreme topography.
As a result of winning this award in England, the Lake Forest Garden Club decided to 'give back' to the ecosystem that inspired them and take on ravine restoration in their city. they joined forces with OpenLands, a Nature Conservancy-like conservation NGO, and have acquired one ravine (area=77 acres) and somehow gained rights to work on another (187 acres) ravine that the City of Lake Forest owns. These two ravines will eventually become "teaching preserves," where ravine restoration techniques will be tested and showcased for the public, and the unique ravine ecosystem will be preserved and displayed.
This project has just begun, and the Lake Forest Garden Club and OpenLands convened a 'field team' of experts in various fields to look at the ravines, tell them what they have now, and make recommendations on how to proceed. this field team includes geologists, hydrologists, restoration ecologists, etc., and my boss, as the hope is to get Plants of Concern in there monitoring plants from the get-go, so that there is a record of plant populations as restoration efforts proceed. I feel pretty lucky because I get to be involved in this project to help my boss. So far, this has meant sitting in on one meeting and schmoozing afterwards while eating wine and cheese, and going out to visit one of these ravines on Wednesday.
Wednesday was the best day i've had since getting to Chicago - at least for the 6 hours i was in the ravine. This ravine looked almost exactly like the backyard at home, out in the area where the second stream has the fork, and to the east of that, where the slopes are very steep. It was so beautiful out there. we walked down from the upper reaches of the ravine, all along the rim, down to the lake, and then back up in the bottom of the ravine. the whole field team went along on the way down, but we all left the beach at different times and i ended up heading back up the ravine with just my boss, my coworker that i hate, and a very interesting restoration consultant guy who talked like a professor - lots of open-ended questions. i took the job of point, heading out in front on my own to make sure that we had a way forward, as there was no path. we made it all the way up in the ravine, but it was so exciting to be unsure of what was around the corner and if we'd have to turn back. we found a number of cool plants but i realized that i didn't really care about that so much as checking out the ravine and trying to visualize the course of the water as it shaped it and trying to understand the underlying structure of the soil.
it helped that Wednesday was our first real fall day, with a high of about 55 degrees and a stiff breeze all day, ensuring a delicious smell and invigorating feeling all day long. today was the same way. i kept having to come up with excuses to go outside so i could take it all in.
we are going to the other ravine tomorrow. i hope the weather's the same. i hope i get a chance for some alone-time, away from the plant-nerding.

lonely home

Emily has been out of town since Friday. Her grandfather died (not unexpectedly) last Wednesday, so she went home for the weekend. She comes back tomorrow. This is the third time in 4 weeks that she has been gone for a long weekend. i think the cats are starting to take it personally. They are getting very very needy. Especially since I have been either working long days or doing things after work such that I have been home less than usual. These cats are in dire need of constant cuddling, but when i'm at home, i'm cooking, cleaning, and studying for the GRE. And sleeping. They seem to take this one quite personally, and spend many hours every night cavorting directly outside my door. It will be a long time until I am ready for children - i can't even handle 2 cats alone for more than 3 days.
I'm glad Emily's coming home tonight. It has been quite lonely here - i watched two movies by myself! One was Babel, which was actually very good - there are large portions of the movie in 4 different languages, American English, Mexican Spanish, Japanese sign language, and whatever language they speak in Morocco - Arabic, i guess. It's actually a very cool movie, with some good insight into cultural interactions and lots of different emotions. Definitely a drama.
I also, out of loneliness and boredom with studying, got bitten by the furniture-moving bug and spent an hour last night rearranging my bedroom, only to end up putting it back the way it was because i couldn't find a more attractive configuration. i will have to regroup and plan a new way, because i don't want to leave my bed in the window all winter. that seems cold.
now it's time for bed - must get good rest until this test.

life's little thrills

so, i'm studying for the GRE. ugh. it's amazing ...ly tedious. i'm amazingly stupid. sure, i do okay, but so far i'm doing worse and worse. i did awesome on the diagnostic test that was supposed to tell me where my weaknesses are. apparently my weakness is in studying - i lost the element of surprise, and now i'm not good at the tests.

in other news, my roommate Emily picked up a certificate for a free month of Netflix. This could be bad - very bad. we got our first 3 movies, and watched them all within 3 days. that's at least a 200% increase over my previous month's movie watching. plus i went to the movies (!) and saw 3:10 to Yuma, which is good if you like dirty, strong men shooting at each other and riding horses over beautiful landscape. the worst part of the whole movie was when one man shot the bag of gunpowder hanging on another guy's horse and man and horse blew up (is that what would happen in reality?) it was incredibly gross.

in still other news, happy fall. it sure is happy here. the weather could not be more perfect. and i may have a new friend - there's a new girl at work, also a fresh college grad, who sits in my office and lives in Evanston. i can't tell if she likes me or not, or if i like her or not. i haven't had much time to chat. i'm going to have a dinner party next weekend, with my other friends from work, and i'm going to invite her. maybe this week i'll get her digits. i should have done this week, and showed her around town this weekend. i did tell her about the farmer's market, and where i do my grocery shopping.

anyhow. i guess i should keep doing practice tests. maybe i'll break through the wall soon, and start doing well again.

the horrors of modern technology

whoops. i just got bitten in the behind by the lure of the cell phone. $250 extra dollars in talking in one month. ouch ouch ouch. well, live and learn, as they say. I am learning a lot lately.
i guess i will have to take a vow of silence.

check it out.

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/programs/professional/
especially the Ecosystems Science and Conservation concentration.
Feedback? Thoughts? Opinions?

hey mom, the mexican restaurant 2 blocks from my house is doing a "like water for chocolate" menu this week.
maybe if i'm feeling wealthy this weekend i'll go check it out.

i want to see if the quail with rose petals makes me catch on fire.

my Friday night

so, on Friday i went to a concert - http://www.amyshoemaker.com/ is the website for Amy, who plays bozouki at the session twice a week. she's John Williams' wife, and she has her own band, the Shoemakers. i went to hear them at a club in Skokie, the next town west of Evanston, with my friend James. He is Noe's best friend in town. we had a great time, and the music was awesome. it was a very eclectic set list, with many of Amy's own songs mixed in with Johnny Cash and the Ramones and many other great artists. she was so thrilled to see us there, too. i don't think she'd believed me when i told her i was going, and James she just knows as the guy at the bar who always buys her (usually unwanted/unneeded) shots (she's a lightweight).

so anyway. that's the story. then i got James a book out of the library, and he lent me Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, just as education and adding to my list of classics. On Saturday night, i passed out in a chair at about 9:30, reading. a wild weekend, to be sure.

today, i went to Celtic Fest down at Millennium Park. it was sweet. the weather was awesome, and i hung out in the Harp Tent, the Celtic Voices tent (for storytelling and singing), watched some manly men in kilts throw heavy things around, listened to some pipe bands (and got very nostalgic), and ended up listening to a band called GiveWay, which consists of 4 sisters from Edinborough, Scotland, playing pretty traditional music in a pretty rock way - their drummer plays a full kit, one of them plays keyboard, one plays accordion, and one trades off between fiddle and acoustic guitar. they are awesome musicians, and their accents are awesome.
consequently, i was quite late for the session at Nevins - and, to my delight, much missed. i was the only bodhran player to show up!
now i'm back at home, and ready for bed - with the sun setting at 7, i get tired much earlier.

puppies!!

I will post pictures as soon as I get them from roommate Emily.
I finally got to meet Noe's puppies, now 8? weeks old? they are adorable. too cute for words. endless wiggling, until suddenly they yawn and then pass out.
if i had consistent puppy in my life, i think i'd be much happier. i told him he can leave the puppies with me anytime.
the cats aren't wild about them, but they're okay. they get over it and forget to be scared. and at this point the puppies are still too shy to accost the kitties.

hilarious moment of the evening: apparently he honestly wants me to call him Snake.

oh man

i just realized something.
what i used to say (jokingly) about Vijay still holds true for my current situation.
i like my coffee like i like my men -
strong and dark.
only this one's stronger and darker.
and busier. this might as well be a long-distance relationship for all i see him.

but anyway. now I'm reading another Barbara Kingsolver book - this time, not a novel, but a book of essays. It's called Small Wonders, and it's a book of essays she wrote in response to September 11, 2001, so a timely read, i suppose.
so far, it's mixed, horribly depressing and uplifting.

more twigs on the family tree

Susan DellOrto called me up the other day to invite me to Friday night dinner at her house, since she was having another relative over for dinner. John Kelly from Texas, son of Aunt Gert, was in town for a retiring-from-the-Navy party for one of his old friends. Susan also had a friend from Boston in town, Elaine. The four of us had a very quiet, relaxing dinner. He was a very nice, pretty retiring guy, and I think he was slightly overwhelmed by the three of us loud, aggressive women, but I think we all enjoyed ourselves. I would have been home for a relatively early evening, except Susan spilled wax on a suede-upholstered stool, and we spent about an hour working on getting the wax out (we ironed it, with paper towels to soak up the wax - was that bad? i think we might have burned the suede ... )

and now I'm off for a morning at the beach, at $11/hour. Life isn't so bad, i guess. I mean, besides the fact that I'm working on a Saturday. I just don't have enough backbone, and I have too much compassion and commitment to this job (what a silly thing to have, it's not like commitment is going to get me a promotion or keep me here any longer ...)

hopefully I'm going to get to play with puppies this afternoon. that's all i want from my life right now - more dogs in it.

the decimals!!!

i just had an enormous tirade on the importance of decimal points. i just spent an hour deciphering the GPS coordinates given to me by this lady who apparently thinks a decimal point one direction or the other doesn't really matter. there is a *BIG* difference between decimal degrees and degrees minutes decimal, lady. Also a difference between NAD-27 and WGS-84.

so, i feel like a big nerd. but i still maintain the necessity of the tirade. data integrity is important, dammit.

what i forgot to say

So, in an effort to understand this new person who thinks in a way i have never tried to understand before (being complacent in my liberal Ivory Tower bubble), i am reading Jarhead - on Fiona's recommendation - which is written by an ex-Marine about what it's like to be a Marine. i picked it up this morning, and i'm most of the way through. it's very disturbing for this sheltered little girl to read (not because it's graphically violent - it's not, so far he's seen no combat), just because the thought processes are totally foreign but perfectly logical, in their own way. i think it's also offered some insight into why Noe reenlisted, which myself and his friends have been wondering about.
i'd say this book is worth reading. he's a vivid writer, and very accessible. thanks, Fifi.

sometimes i am the one with the exciting life

so, as most of the folks who ever read this already know, i recently acquired what is commonly called a boyfriend. i never really liked the term, but can't think of a better one that isn't out-dated.

he prefers to be called Snake, although i call him Noe, as i can't say "Snake" without cracking up, and i'm sure he'd be offended. this new friendship is a journey into totally foreign territory for me. he is both a former and a future Navy boy, with six years' prior service and a recent re-enlistment and pending deployment. he is very proud of his service, and that of his three brothers (all Navy, all Blue Knights of the Navy, whatever that means exactly). perhaps as a result, i am occasionally the audience for short lectures on the validity of the war, the importance of pride in the U.S., the superiority of Ford over imported cars (and any other American-made), and very occasionally, the watchfulness of God the Almighty.

His childhood was split between Evanston and Detroit, but he claims Detroit as his real home. He is devoted to muscle cars, and is the (very) proud owner of 2 1/2 racing Mustangs (he doesn't race them himself, just does all of the wrench work). Today I went on a field trip to his garage (Snake's Chop Shop) to see his babies, and while i didn't understand most of what he was talking about, i can attest to the shininess of the cars, both under the hood and on the outside. while he is not very educated in the academic sense, he is certainly not a dumb guy - he taught himself physics so that he could understand how to make cars go faster, and is just as quick as Dad to point to a piece of a car's engine and begin explaining the laws that make it work. he is also trilingual. people who speak more than one language always make me feel dumber.

what i find to be the most ironic about this new relationship is that i, the feminist, have found myself the ultimately traditional-minded man, who insists and demonstrates that chivalry is not dead. he is scandalized if i ever pull out my wallet to pay for anything in his presence, holds doors open for me, and is solicitous of my every need. he extends this consideration to all females - my co-worker Rachel came out to the session yesterday, and the two of them had dinner while i played, and he insisted on paying for her dinner as well. despite this determination to care for women, he claims (to my roommate, while i was away from the table), that my main attraction is my sass. he likes it that i talk back rather than deferring to him. apparently this doesn't happen to him very often, as he is pretty physically intimidating - barrel-chested and over six feet tall, with a default expression pretty close to a scowl and a penchant for heavy-metal music.

so, at this point, i have no illusions about this relationship. he will be shipping out sometime between October and March, and I am moving away from Illinois sometime between May and August. he and I have very different goals in life - when i told him I was studying for the GRE, he asked what grad school is, and what use it will be for me. we also have very different philosophies on life - he is a firm believer in the value of violence as a conflict-resolution tool, and doesn't really see the value in reading books.
however, at this point, he certainly does break up the monotony, and i am learning a lot. he has many good (and terrifying) stories from his life, including the tale behind the piece of lead still lodged in his sternum - he was shot off his HumVee in Fallujah, and it cured him of his homophobia, as the man who saved his life is gay and they are now bosom buddies.
I am not entirely convinced of the truth of all of his stories, being somewhat of an embellisher myself, but i did get to feel the bullet, and he is certainly nervous enough to have seen combat. i have already learned never to sneak up on him.
additionally, besides stories, he has two brand-new puppies - pitbulls, which according to him, are superior to all other dogs. and God knows i love puppies.

my coworker is making me a bad person.
i have gotten fed up with her shiftless selfish ways, and i can't be the nice girl anymore.

now i am being exactly as nice to her as she is to me. this translates to not giving a damn how she's doing, what she's doing, or anything about her unless what she's doing isn't exactly what she's supposed to be doing according to job protocol, in which case i am taking careful note so that i can backstab her later.

i feel terrible. i didn't know i could backstab like this. i am quite good at being catty. i have also perfected the ignoring whatever she says unless it is directly stated to me, and falling asleep as soon as she starts driving the 1.5 hours to her site (on days I go along to help). How well I learned from her!
the only thing i can't master is the interrupting. she's just too blatant and too aggressive about it, and it makes me cringe.

cool!

So, this morning I went to a beautiful piece of prairie to the southwest of Chicago, in the largest roadless area left in Illinois. The plants were super-abundant, and the man I was working with is an awesome guy, a professor of biology at a local college who is trying to make a former parking lot into 2 acres of prairie - that is a *hard* task!!!
When we finished monitoring, we were sitting at the side of the road we came in on, near the entrance to our prairie as well as the entrance to the woods. While we were sitting there, two four-wheelers came out of the woods, each with a driver dressed entirely in camouflage. Each driver had a big belt with lots of tools on it, including a pistol. They were government guys, and each one had a huge bundle of plants on the back of his vehicle. My first guess was marijuana, then I thought, no, it can't be - this seems so unlikely, and that is a *lot*. Then we both looked closer, and, yes, indeed, they were in the midst of a drug bust, taking someone's pot crop out of the woods. The steward I was working with told me that happens frequently in those woods - it's just such a vast tract of land that it's not too hard to grow things unnoticed, but now the authorities are onto them, so it's more difficult to make it to harvest.
It was something different for my field day, anyway.

photos, please!

I want people to send me pictures. Digital, hard copy, don' matta. I need more images of those I love.
I was just looking through the albums I've got - i have 3 - miscellaneous from childhood through high school, a wonderful amazing college album courtesy of danielle (plus the random photos i acquired randomly, plus pictures of flowers i took last summer), and the National Park Extravaganza, Susie B. Gifford, photographer. I just admired them all, and got very homesick for 1. Melrose, 2. Ithaca, 3. the Northwest. In no particular order.
So, if you're in the mood to share something, share a picture. of anything.

when life turns your milk sour, make buttermilk ... pancakes

i finally made it down to the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday evening - all summer long, Target sponsors 2 free nights at the Art Institute, Thursday and Friday, and I found out about this during my first week in Chicago, and have been meaning to get there ever since, but I always have an excuse - too tired after work, or just something else to do. So i finally said to myself, there are only 3 more weeks of this, and if you miss it, then you'll be very sad and disappointed in yourself. So I just did it - got off the train, ate dinner, got back on the next Metra downtown. I took it as an omen that i was doing the right thing when no conductor came by to collect my fare. I had a nice walk through sun-struck downtown, getting to watch all the people heading home from work and the other bunch heading out for fun.

Once inside the museum, I found myself in the Impressionist section, standing amidst a huge crowd of people looking at Monet. I found Renoir, Degas, all the classics. Then I found the Chinese art collection, and Japanese, and the Islamic pottery collection! Then the modern art collection, with Pollock et al. and the usual crap with half the canvas green and the other half white. Then i found an exhibit of photographs by Jeff Wall, a Vancouverite who takes incredibly dark (not light-wise) images of people and dirty interiors and random streetcorners. Then, in the basement, i found the interesting combination of European 18th-century furniture with all its ostentatious carvings and marquetry and fancy upholstery with American 18th-century paintings and statuary. My favorite room was all Remington, both paintings and statues of horses, native Americans, and cowboys. The other great room was all Hudson River School. I felt sort of homesick looking at all the sublime paintings of the Hudson River and New England - so many gorges and hills! I want hills!

So anyway, this morning, i got up and went to the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal, only to find that my milk had started to turn. It was a little too far gone for me to stomach on my cereal, so I just added lemon juice and made pancakes.

becoming a city girl

i just realized that i am getting city-desensitized.

i realized this as i was riding my bike back from la fruteria - i was riding alongside a city bus, about 2 feet away. a *moving* city bus. with parked cars a foot to the right. this, from the girl who, one year ago, had not ridden a bike in a decade, and who, before moving here, rode a bike about once every two weeks, on basically country roads. now i'm biking downtown without thinking twice about it.

and i don't notice sirens most of the time.

and i used to freak out in crowds, but i went to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at a free outdoor showing in Millennium Park on Tuesday, and i sat there with at least 500 other people and felt perfectly comfortable. and then felt happy walking down the street in that mass of people as we all rushed for the El afterwards.

And i feel comfortable going into a bar alone - although I'm talking about Nevin's here, and Nevin's on session nights, so it's not really just going to a bar alone.

i guess this is good. i almost screamed today when i was on the prairie, though, because i was so sick of everything being flat and never having to lift my knees and feel the burn in my quads.
i think anyplace can feel like home, if you just accept it.

i can't decide if i won or he did

so, i just went out for an evening lakeside run, as i do a few times a week. i enjoyed myself, running at a steady pace for about 40 minutes, watching the other runners, the dogs, the kids on the playgrounds, et cetera. as i stopped to stretch at the beach closest to my house, an older gentleman in itty bitty running shorts (who had also just paused to stretch, with a lady friend) walks up to me and says, okay, you're coming with us.
what?
he says, we're the evanston running club - and he gestures to the group i hadn't really noticed, 6 or so others who have also recently stopped running - and we meet here every monday at 6:30, and at evanston high school on wednesdays.
then he says,
you're a quality runner. i hope you'll join us.

so here is what i can't decide:
is this the moment when i say, ha, forbes, in your eye!
or
thank you, forbes, for teaching me what i know about running!
?

so mom, tell that one to good ol' j. fo.
i'm a quality runner.
who knew?

the cutest old man ever

So, I went to Nevin's on Sunday, as usual. It was an especially good session - our leader, John Williams, was particularly rowdy, and we had many good musicians. And for some unknown reason, my bartender was not charging me for my drinks and was mixing shots for me. I think it was because I have made friends with his two friends, ex-Navy Iraq war vets (24 years old), and he gives them free drinks. So anyway, i was spending as much time chatting at the bar as I was playing (which was fine, because there were two other drummers, and it was the first seisun for one of them, so I wanted to give him a chance to play).

Then, the highlight of the night. On his way out, my favorite old man accordion player, who i'm pretty sure is a WWII vet, stopped to say good bye. He told me that I get more beautiful every time he sees me, and that my face is like what you see on the prow of a ship.

Wow.

Not quite sure what to say to that. I've never been hit on so eloquently by someone so old. I guess age would mean he's got experience with this. And it's kind of nice to be able to make someone happy by just sitting where he can see you.

On a separate topic, my roommate and I went to two street fairs on Saturday - one aimed particularly at pet owners (meaning there were a bajillion dogs, each one cuter than the last) and the other aimed at the gay community (meaning that everyone was *fabulous*). My goodness. It was awesome. So many PEOPLE, first of all, and so many flamboyant people. There was even a stripper standing on a box dancing for people, and letting them put money in his leopard-print shorts and take their pictures with him. Also a lot of good art and jewelry for sale, but that really seemed secondary to being there and being seen and seeing people.

Now it's back to work, and work seems much more boring. The cute boy who worked in the horticulture department is gone. I got his phone number, but what's the point when he's off to Rhode Island. My friends are leaving one by one, since they're all seasonals. And Pete is gone, too. Now I need to start over with finding friends for the weekend.

i forgot to blog.

i was too busy living.
i spent the last week burning the candle at both ends, working my butt off and then going out every night.
worth it. i guess.
it's the peak of the field season, and i'm monitoring all sorts of cool plants, on prairies, in bogs, on the dunes ... it's a good time. sometime life will slow down enough for me to post pictures.
i'm also doing quite a bit of research on Population Viability Analyses. for anyone else who took Population Ecology, NatRes 310, or ConsBio, NatRes 410, you know how much it hurts. it's somehow more fun when it's for real life, though. and without Evan Cooch flexing his pecs threateningly and telling you you're stupid and pain is good for you.
So, this week at night I ... played Irish music, went to a barbecue with my coworkers, went to see the Simpsons movie, played Irish music again, went to see Buddy Guy and Susan Tedeschi at an outdoor concert, got hit on at a bar by many men with large pectorals and a questionable amount of brains, went to Wrigleyville after a Cubs game to watch the drunken crowds (not as much fighting as I had hoped for), and finally went to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday night, before going back to Nevin's for more Irish music and getting hit on by men of questionable intelligence (as well as some smart ones).
so anyway, that's the short version.

the news

http://www.tmz.com/2007/08/01/golden-gals-gone-wild/3

i heard this on NPR, on Wait, wait.

too much happening to take the time to write!

sooo.....
Roller Derby on Saturday! i saw the Windy City Rollers kick some ass .. man, was it fun. The Double Crossers are still undefeated over the Hells Belles, the Manic Attackers, and The Fury. talk about a lot of beautiful, insane women! their half-time show was the craziest person i've ever seen ... the brother of one of the skaters, he pulled out some old-school magic ... he started off by escaping from a straight jacket, then juggled knives and an apple, eating the apple during, and then went into standing (jumping!) on broken glass and lying on a bed of nails (with two people on his stomach). it was a bit much for me. but the skating was good. and they had 8 referees! and i actually knew more about a sport i was watching than did the people i went with! i got to explain roller derby to the one boy and 3 girls i talked into going along. it was cool. a long drive, though.
then, i came home to Harry Potter waiting for me! just lying on my bed, green eyes flashing from behind the glasses. i have no idea what else happened in the real world since then - i have been reading the book during every free moment. i managed to stop long enough to go produce shopping (7 kiwis for $1! i love this place!)
i just finished Harry. I guess the last chapter was something she had to give us, to make people happy and to kill any hope for a sequel. but boy oh boy is she a master of plot threads. so many stories to juggle!
i'm done, i'm off to bed, and tomorrow i start reading short stories for a while.

wait, wait ... i love chicago

so, despite being exhausted and alone, i made the trek down to Millennium Park (almost worth it on its own - what a cool place!) to see Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me live, for free, outdoors. It was awesome. It was so interesting to hear how much they screwed up and how much (an hour's worth) of extra talking they did to the live audience that the folks listening to the radio will never hear.
i'm glad i actually succeeded in going to do something that sounded cool, even though i didn't have anyone to go with me.
next up: i think the Art Institute tomorrow afternoon - it's free on Fridays.
then: Roller Derby on Saturday! although i won't be alone for that!!

big day for a Wednesday

i got to hold a baby yesterday. i don't think i've ever done that before. one of the ladies in my office has a 6-month-old that is usually with her at work, as he is still breastfeeding, so he spends awhile every day crawling around the place, getting to know people. i guess he's taken a liking to me, and he wanted to get in my lap, so i let him.
i have to resist the urge to pet him like a cat whenever he's crawling around. i don't really know how to interact with babies.

anyway, then i went to the seisun at Nevin's - a much smaller affair than Sundays, possibly extra small yesterday because it was pouring buckets and thundering and lightning like crazy. i had a good time and got some good playing done. it was an interesting crowd in there - the regulars who know about the irish music, and the college-age kids dressed up like they're going clubbing, plus working folks out to dinner who stick around to drink. we had a family visiting from Omaha with a mom that plays fiddle, and two little daughters who are taking irish dance lessons. they weren't too big on technique, but they sure had the speed and enthusiasm thing down. and the cuteness.

making new ... family

last night i met Susan, my third cousin. she lives in Chicago, in the Gold Coast. I got to meet her because her brother Andy came to visit, and I know Andy because he hangs out at my house to kill things. The three of us, plus Andy's girlfriend Liz, had dinner at Susan's house (lamb burgers - yum!), drank a lot, and then went to see Michael Ian Black, a comedian. We had a grand old time. At one point, Susan was on the phone with her dad Art, and she said that it was nice to find a friend in the city. Art, master of drama, says, Susan, that's not your friend. That's blood.
I have to say, it was exceptionally easy to feel comfortable with Susan - i don't know if it's just a good personality fit, or if it is the blood in there.
anyway, i was at her place until after 2 in the morning. i found out the tough way that the Purple line trains stop running around 2:30. I made it home by 3:30.
staying up that late hurts now. i think i'm an old woman.

Some facts i just remembered to look up:
when we were sitting by the lake, i wondered how big it is. i realized i have no idea.
Well, according to Wikipedia (never to be doubted!), Lake Michigan is 118 miles wide and 307 long. that is a big lake! It's the largest freshwater lake in the US, and the largest lake entirely within one country (poor Lake Superior misses the honors since we share it with Canada).
so anyway, that's where i live. next to a big tub of wetness.

I'm recovering from Mom and Dad's visit ... they came on Thursday and left on Monday. We had a lovely time, riding the El, visiting the Field Museum, dining out in style, picnicking on the beach, and hanging out at Evanston's premier Irish bar, Nevin's.

My parents spent all day Friday wandering the Chicago Botanic Garden - i spent part of the day with them, but they still know more about my place of work than i do now. Saturday was devoted to the Field Museum, where we saw their new Darwin exhibit - it was awesome! as well as their antiquated Plants of the World exhibit and one about pre-Colombian Americans.

We also stopped by the Taste of Chicago, a huge street fair devoted to Chicago's restaurants. It was packed, sweaty, and delicious.

Sunday, a day hotter than hell, was spent leisurely - NY Times read in a(n airconditioned) coffeeshop, picnic on Evanston's beach, with a Mexican family on one side and an Indian family on the other, and lots of people to watch.
On Sunday afternoon, we headed up to Tommy Nevin's, where there is an Irish music seisun every Sunday (and Wednesday!). I had a rockin good time playing, while my parents sat and drank and listened and people-watched. As the session was ending, i made the mistake of pulling out my bones - the regular bones-player took affront (not seriously), and the guy who runs the session (John), somewhat tipsy, announced to the pub at large that we were having a bones-off. he would play his accordion and we would have to keep up. We each played a tune with him, to riotous applause, and then both played on another. the old bones player (an Irish carpenter), gave up and played tin whistle instead. so he says i won, but i think he won because he has better technique. needless to say, we parted friends. Apparently a young lady playing bones is an attractive sight - i got many compliments from and introductions to the various guys hanging around the bar, and several asked for explanation and education in bones playing, and i had a pint bought for me (by one of the drunkest guys in the bar).
For those of you unfamiliar with bones, i found a random link that may help:
http://www.irelandlogue.com/music/irish-instrument-of-the-week-the-bones.htm
apparently the bones are the instrument of the week this week. Mine are actually cow bones. and in my experience, there are usually more bodhran players than bones players - often more than the other musicians want. everyone thinks they can drum - all you have to do is hit it, right?

anyway ... great thunderstorm yesterday, good job Mama Nature, but it didn't really cool things off as it should've. let's give that another go.

Vatican "driving commandments"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19308664/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11208268

the Pope giving driving lessons. Driving *morality* lessons.

this is both cool and funny.

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

Independence Day

wouldn't it be crazy if, instead of just celebrating our independence once a year, we had to fight for it?
then it might mean a little more than barbecues and fireworks.
i think it's too bad that the majority of people call it the 4th of July, instead of Independence Day. I also think it's sad that people don't understand the Independence part and all of its implications.

but anyway, here's a pretty picture:
this is Asclepias tuberosus, or Butterfly Weed. it's a milkweed. It's my favorite, because it's crazy orange instead of pink or purple like all the other milkweeds.
i think it looks kind of like fireworks.

man, i'm good

i baked a key-lime pie this afternoon, and i just ate a piece (after waiting the requisite 3-hour chill time). it's awesome. i should quit my day job and become a baker.
on the topic of good baking, i got a package from my biggest sister, with chocolate chip cookies. katy's good - they taste exactly like mom's! i'd say she fulfills the prerequisites for motherhood.

living the high life

well how-de-do. i am so covered in dog hair that my (black) pants look blonde.
i'm dogsitting for my boss's boss's boss ... which makes her sound way more high and mighty than she is. really, she's more of an equal with my boss, but somebody has to have the administrative title. anyway, she lives in Highland Park, very close to the Garden, in a cute little house with 2 dogs that I think are much too large for the house and yard. Song and Hadley are their names, and Hadley is a big baby (1 year 0ld) with obscene amounts of energy and a tendency to jump on you and chew you, and chew up any paper or food he comes across. really, he's kind of hellish. Song, on the other hand, is an old, laid back lady who is just ecstatic any time you tell her she's a good dog and is content to sit still and enjoy life. the house is adorable, with lots of dark-stained wood and floral art and botanical books. kind of the house i'd like to have in the future. this is my third day here. it's nice and quiet (except that the Metra tracks are about 100 meters behind her house - probably why it's affordable for someone working in the field of plant conservation - but the metra only passes once an hour) and there's nowhere i know to go up here, so i have time to read, watch tv, and relax.

i spent the past 2 days monitoring a plant called Cirsium hillii, Hill's Thistle, in a much more intense manner than I usually monitor a plant. Level 1 monitoring is what we usually do, where we count the plants, record the invasive plants and other threats to the population, and record the population's location and associated species. Level 2 monitoring, which is what I did yesterday and today, involves giving permanent metal tags to individual plants and then finding them again year after year so that we can measure their leaves and monitor their health to see if they die or succeed. This involves copious amounts of paperwork, so that we have exact coordinates along x and y axes (set up using rebar stakes as endpoints, so we can have the same axes every year) to use to relocate the tags and plants. Cirsium hillii does not flower very often, so the plants we were looking at were mostly rosettes, all less than 30 cm across, flat on the ground, many buried in other vegetation, so i spent two days on my hands and knees, getting poked by sharp thistle leaves in an effort to measure them. the ungrateful wretches.

so anyway, now my still-bum knee is very achy. actually, all of me is achy. two days of kneeling can do that. i tried to fix it last night by eating avocados and pineapple (not simultaneously - in sequence) and drinking half a bottle of chilled riesling. it didn't work. i'd better eat the other half of pineapple and drink the other half bottle of wine, to see if i have better results.

sunday: a day of no rest for the wicked

i left my house at 7:30 this morning, picked up an insane artist lady, and drove an hour north along the lake to the Illinois Beach State Park, where we spent the next 6 hours wandering around in a marshy, mosquito-infested field looking for some of the most beautiful pink flowers i have ever seen.Calopogon tuberosus, the grass-pink orchid. (taken by me, today)
Tough to spot when it's not in flower - its single leaf looks a hell of a lot like a blade of grass.
i've said it a thousand times already ... but again, i love my job.
we also saw many other ridiculously beautiful species of plants, and heard a couple dozen different species of birds sing, and i even saw a rotting beaver carcass simply crawling with maggots and bedecked with several beautiful butterflies.

then i drove home, showered (much needed! it was hot out!) and immediately left again to go to Tommy Nevin's irish pub, where i had heard there are irish seisuns every sunday. I was not disappointed! There were about 10 people playing when i got there. i walked in and sat down at the (not crowded - Sunday at 4 pm, after all) bar to get a pint. I sat there for about 5 minutes waiting, while the bartender helped people at the other end of the bar and generally ignored me. i was sitting next to an adorable old man drinking scotch on the rocks, and he started chatting to me, saying, i hope you weren't thirsty. finally, the bartender came over and i ordered my beer. when he brought it back, the old man insisted on paying for me, saying that i had to wait too long, so he'd pay for me.
then the bartender agreed with him, and bought my drink.
not too bad a way to start out the afternoon.
then the guy heading the seisun saw me at the bar with my bodhran and waved me over to the circle.
the music was great, and the people were great. many geriatrics, and a few 40-somethings. we played for an hour or so, and then this young (not even legal to drink) kid walks in with a bodhran. This is James, who has been playing with them for 3 years. He's a decent drummer, and has an angelic singing voice. he's also a good conversationalist, and a rock climber. we chat, and trade off on who gets to drum.
his drum is locally made, about 4 inches deep and with depth like a tympani. he also has a totally different style of drumming, so i personally think we could both play simultaneously without overpowering the other musicians. we'll see.
so then, during a break in the music, the guy running the seisun (who usually plays an accordion) stands up and announces to the room that it's tradition that when a guest or someone new joins them, he gets to play the tin whistle and the newbie has to accompany him. he then dives right into a fast (fast!)-paced reel, and plays for 5 minutes straight. he's a good whistle player! and i kept right up with him. we got a *big* round of applause afterward, and man, did it feel good.
this guy also played the "Star Wars" theme in traditional Irish style on the accordion (as a favor to the bartender) - it was remarkably good. and hilarious.

and now, after being home long enough to make dinner and upload my pictures from the day, i'm off to downtown to check out the post-day-pride-parade scene. pete wants to go, and is too afraid to go by himself - i guess he really doesn't want a boyfriend.

and all this while i'm in the middle of a really good book about cowboys, and all i want to do is read it - i keep grabbing time for a few pages here and there. it's called All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy. it's a good read.

so, more pretty pictures taken by yours truly will follow at a later time. too much to do, not enough time to do it.
i guess Nevins has sessions not only on Sundays, but Wednesdays as well! cool! i'm pretty psyched. i'll sleep well tonight - 5 hours bent over in the hot sun, followed by two hours drumming ...

saturday night at home?

so i went to the art fair. it was cool - there were a lot of pretty things there, although i felt guilty looking at all these artists' work with them sitting right there and then not buying anything. but then, my favorite piece had a price tag of $2000. it would be nice to have the kind of money that i could go to an art fair and actually buy the things i wanted.
then again i never want to be the kind of person who has an art collection.

anyway, now i'm at home watching Zoolander and reading a book about cowboys. it's 8 pm and i'm thinking about bed - i haven't been getting in bed early enough or sleeping well lately.

so pete has this theory, which apparently is true for him - if he is alone long enough, he'll get so lonely that he'll crack and make friends out of desperation.
i've realized that i'm not like that. if i'm alone long enough, i'll stop thinking i need to hang out with people. i've got so many books to read! and so many things i intended to do! so many craft projects, so much sleeping, so many cats to pet ...
maybe pete's other theory is right - that i'm going to end up as a crazy cat lady.

i guess that would be okay. as long as i had a garden too.

savanna restoration

I spent my Saturday morning at a place called Rollins Savanna, learning about how they restored the site from cornfields and cattle pasture to prairie and savanna - it's really a work in progress. I met the man of my dreams - the guy in charge of the restoration, who really understands about how ecosystems work and also knows an awful lot about the individual species that go into it. He's very honest about the mistakes they made at Rollins, and it's obvious that he works hard and is devoted to the site. He's also very deferential - by the end of the session, he was directing people's questions my way - i guess i can be sort of a loud mouth about ecology.

Now i'm off to the evanston art fair. I hope it doesn't rain on me!

Man vs. Wild!

My roommate just introduced me to a new tv show - Man vs Wild, wherein a 30-something former British Special Air Service guy gets dropped off in the middle of a different wilderness every week, with nothing but a knife and flint and steel, and the clothes on his back.
And a cameraman! they don't talk about the cameraman, or even acknowledge his existence, but he must be just as hardcore as 'Bear'!
That's right, Bear. Bear Grylls. (His real name is Edward or something).
Check him out: http://www.beargrylls.com/
and the page for his show: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/manvswild/bio/bio.html
The episode i watched was Bear in Iceland. He snared a ptarmigan with a shoelace, tore its skin off, and roasted it over a fire. He slept in a moss shelter and found water in a volcanic cave.
All in all, it was pretty cool. And ridiculous.

believe it or not ...

oh yeah, and something that i just learned about last week ... who knew they existed?
this is a prairie crawfish. that's right - it lives in the middle of a prairie. i didn't see one until the day after it rained a lot, when the grass was still wet, and it's a mesic prairie, meaning it's not terribly dry. but still ... in my world, crawfish lived in streams.
i think he's kind of cute. pretty darn cool, at the very least.

yay internet

so now i have wireless. hooray for technology. i got a wireless router (graduation present from Bridget), because my ethernet is nonfunctional on this computer (my laptop). after consulting bridget and dave, i decided it would be more economical to buy a wireless router than fix the ethernet. plus it's cooler. now i can be on the internet with no cables anywhere in my house.
the downside? i wasn't smart or cool enough to set up my own router. i tried. i gave it a good go, but the technology kicked my patootie repeatedly. so i called in the tech support - i called up Pete, Mr. Internet himself, to ask for guidance. he said, "okay, i can try to talk you through this over the phone, or i can come over and have it done in 10 minutes."
i decided that, for efficiency and sanity's sake, i'd swallow my pride and let him do it. and he wasn't lying. i didn't see what he did differently from me - i think that technology is just the same as animals - it recognizes an authoritative touch.
so, however i got it, i've got it. now, i guess, i owe Pete one. i made him a couple of margaritas to help the work go more smoothly, but i think he still wins.
then he impressed me by showing me his phone, which he managed to hack so that it has free internet. he's the biggest nerd i know. all that work just so he can check his email on his phone. and then he took me out to meet people. he's determined that i need to make friends. he's right, after all.
i really enjoyed the guys i met, but most of the girls seemed dumb as posts. nice, but not much under the hood.

all that's left now is to decide what to do with my friday night. maybe sleep - i'm going to learn about savanna restoration tomorrow morning, and i have to drive an hour to do it.
then orchid monitoring on Sunday - not a real weekend, after all, but a vacation day in the bank all the same.

it's actually kind of cold out - what a nice change. sleeping under blankets, what a treat! maybe i'll have a cup of hot tea - now *there's* something i haven't wanted in a while ....

i love my job

today i got to hang out in the woods with a crazy lady. she is so cool - an artist and all that connotates. and on friday i got to hang out on the prairie with an author. and all the time i get to learn crazy stuff about beautiful and adorable plants.
and i'm getting paid to do it.
is it luck? or what?

info dump after a long silence

so, life's been busy so i haven't been blogging. plus my internet doesn't work on this computer at home ...

i'm sitting in a coffeeshop 2 or 3 blocks from my place, doing all of the internet-y things that i've been storing up for the last few days and enjoying the air conditioning (it's about 90 degrees and 90% humidity here, and has been for 3 days or so).

so here are a few pictures of my new home:

the living room, only showing half of it (the other half is currently full of my roommate's brother's stuff ... he's moving out tomorrow)...
the dining room, which gets lovely evening light...



one of my fuzzy roommates, Olie.

He is incredibly friendly and in need of attention at all times. He spends the hot part of the day sleeping under my bed, and is always lying outside my door when I open it in the morning. He is the reason why i have an extra blanket on my bed - to catch the cat hair and keep it out of my pillows. His sister Peaches is much more difficult to photograph - she moves more quickly and is quite shy. She is prone to adorable bouts of insanity when she attacks anything she pleases and chews (gently) on it. Both of them are great at attacking you with all four paws and no claws.

I don't have a nice photo of my bedroom yet. I've been hanging pictures slowly, so it's finally getting to look like a place where I live. It's going to change soon, though, as Eric, the former inhabitant, still has some of his things there. I am going to lose a desk and gain some more closet space after tomorrow. I have a picture that I want to frame, and I mean to ask Emily for advice on that, as she is actually a professional.
I have realized i really need to cool it on the spending of money, at least for a little while - I haven't been holding still long enough to figure out the balance between income and outgo yet, and i haven't been worrying too much because so many of the things i bought recently were one-time, get-my-house-set-up purchases. I think i need to declare myself done with those and start only buying food and other necessities.

Anyway ... life in Evanston. It's good. It's better than in Roger's Park. The people here are cool, and the atmosphere is fun. There is a street fair a block from my house this weekend - called Custer's Last Stand, because one of the streets involved is Custer. I hung out there yesterday, and it was very cool- lots of artists and artisans (so many jewelry salesfolk!) and musicians of all kinds, plus greasy carnival food and lots of shiny Lincoln cars (Lincoln is the big sponsor, apparently). I made it to an Irish music session at the Celtic Knot on Tuesday, but I didn't play - i just went to case the joint. They already have 2 bodhran players - one of whom is really good, and his drum looks like it's made by the guy in Texas who makes the drums for Donnchadh of Danu. I plan to go again on Tuesday and this time be bold enough to talk to the guy. After I am done here, I am going over to Tommy Nevin's which is another Irish pub about 3 blocks farther north from this coffee shop. Apparently they have seisuns on Sundays, but I can't find anywhere that tells me when, so I figure i will just go ask. I was in in there on Friday night, with my friend Pete, but I didn't get a chance to grill the bartender about the music scene (the place was packed, as Saturday was Northwestern's graduation). I am hoping this session is easy to break into. I'm still trying to think of other pasttimes I might have or might enjoy that would allow me to meet some more people my own age - I know that bars are not the place to meet people, and I think Irish music tends to have more old people involved. And i don't want to rely on my roommate. Many of her friends are through her church, and they are very nice people, but, while I have a healthy respect for Jesus, i don't have the kind of consuming love for him that most of these church folks have. They do things like go on missions and go to conferences and try to change the world through Jesus' love.

On the subject of missions and God's love - i am reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and boy, do I recommend it. She is one of my favorite authors - I recently read Animal Dreams, which is another excellent book, and Prodigal Summer is one of my all-time top 5 books. Poisonwoods Bible is a long and intense book - it has carried me through a week of lengthy train rides and a few evenings at home, and I am still just half-way through. It's very difficult to put it down - i rode the El for 4 hours yesterday, reading it, and it felt more like half an hour. She is such a versatile writer that I can't get tired of her writing. I really miss the cornell library right now - I still haven't gotten my Evanston library card, and I want to get her other books. Maybe I'll check the used book store for more - that's where i got both Animal Dreams and Poisonwood Bible (they were in the front window, which means they cost a dollar apiece - the local used book store is awesome. the guy who works there is surly in a wonderful way, and covered with tattoos).

I'm checking my email while I'm writing this, and I was just looking at an email from my friend Matt Perkins, one of the CU engineering school's Golden Boys of environmentalism - he's in Beijing, trying to save the world : http://cornellsun.com/greenolympics can offer a window onto what he's doing. It's pretty fascinating!

the other thing i started this weekend:
last summer, i got it into my head that i wanted to make a bunch of my old clothes into a quilt. i had all these shirts that were stained, hole-y, or otherwise not really wearable, but they had a lot of sentimental value (i know it's hard for some of you to believe that Old Stone-face knows what sentiment is, but apparently i'm not as shallow as you think). so anyway, instead of giving my crappy clothes to charity, i tore them up and said, now i will learn to sew. then nothing happened. i found other things to do and forgot. i just carried this bag of rags every time i moved.
i finally pulled it out the other night and started sewing - hand-sewing. janni thinks i'm crazy. i think it doesn't matter, because it's not the destination, it's the ride. i don't care if it doesn't turn out as a quilt. we'll see how it turns out, and i'll have fun while i'm doing it. i think a little hand-sewing could be a good way to pass the time on public transit - when i read, i don't take advantage of the good people-watching opportunity.

anyway. updates will be posted as life goes on. I've been getting a few phone calls from folks - keep 'em coming! I love hearing from people I know and love! and i don't have the presence of mind or the predisposition to make lots of phone calls.

this is the plant i spent all day looking for:

Oenothera perennis, or small sundrops. the average height of the plant was about 3 inches - they're bitty! i am sun-full, sweaty, and gritty, and it was so much fun. i can't wait to get home and crack open a beer
... although i'll have to go to the store or bar, as i have no beers at home.
despite that, life is *good*!