They tried to make me go to conference, and I said NO, NO NO. . .

I’m slated to give a brief talk to grad students about delivering conference papers, so I thought I’d start with the usual “conference blunders” routine. There are some immediate biggies that come to mind, but I know I’m overlooking some more subtle problems of conference paper downers. Any that I’m missing?  Here’s my list:

• The snoozer. This is the monotone drone of a reader that makes you want to fake a coughing spell and head for the lobby bar.
• The guy in need of readerly translation. This is a paper that sounds like it was never made to be read aloud. There’s no “talking” delivery involved, which doesn’t make for an engaging 20-minutes of reading.
• The gotta-squeeze-in-every-possible-argument paper. This is the person who tries to solve the problem of post-national capitalism in eight pages.
• The talker. When “I’ll just speak from some notes” turns into a rambling stroll through Tangent Lane.
• The lesson. This is the person who feels the need to remind us all what ideology means (or some other concept, figure, idea that has already passed into general knowledge).
• The unprepared. Couldn’t seem to pull himself together enough to write a paper in advance. (AKA: The unforgiven)
• The pointless media clip. Several years ago, I sat through a session where a presenter showed a 10-MINUTE CLIP of The Matrix. I kid you not. Ten minutes! Why? So he could use the next 10 minutes to talk about The Matrix. Pointless. On an interesting sidenote, I had a bad hangover at that presentation and I thought I was gonna throw up into my purse.

So, what am I overlooking?

Crash Landing

Upon returning from the outer spaces of vacation, my face was quickly burned off by the forceful heat of re-entry. We were met at the door with:

1. A voice mail from the hotel. Turns out they want some extra money to clean up that little “vomit incident” our daughter had in bed. Something about charges for extra sanitizing or whatever. We talked them out of it by sounding pathetic. (It was no act.)

2. A letter from our home insurance company, demanding that we pay $60 for a house visit last month that lasted only enough time for the bullshit plumber to say that he’d have to replace the entire toilet. And then they turned us down for the whole thing. Get this: they turned down our claim, and then they still charged us for the visit! That’s like your insurance company making you pay for the operation that they just said you couldn’t get! (We later paid for the minor repairs out of our own pockets.) I picked up the phone and yelled. No lie. I yelled into the phone. I used words like “racketeering” and “Twilight Zone episodes” and “insane.”

3. After I hang up, we realize the air conditioner is dead. I pick back up the phone and call the home insurance company to send out a repairman. Yes, the same company I just accused of being “mafioso” and threatened to “see them in small claims court.” I asked that company to send out a repairman approximately 15-minutes after telling a customer service agent that she was probably getting money under the table from the plumber’s guild.

4. The cat is sick. She threw up all over the place while we were gone, and she continued after we returned. I pretended like one orange carpet stain was the customer service agent’s face. I scrubbed that bastard into oblivion.

5. Stressed, panicked, and hot. I decided to take my daughter to the public library to return our overdue books. The library has a terrific kids’ play area, and it also has working air-conditioners. While Vered scooted all around on her butt, I sat there stinking from the sweat of long drive+summer+anger+frustration. (V scoots. She doesn’t crawl, walk, roll, etc. She scoots.)

A perky looking stay-at-home mom noticed V’s scoot and said, “Well, that’s an interesting way to crawl!” I sort of gave her a weary nod, for I was not in any mood to chat. Ms. Perky Girls saw that I was a terrible mother in need of advice. That’s probably why she put on her best condesending voice and said, “Don’t worry! In six-months, she’ll be doing this. . . ” And she pointed to her chubby, homely 10-month old walking around the tables. I looked back at Ms. Perky Girls and snarled, “Yeah? Well, she’s already 14-months.” Ms. Perky looked at me with sad eyes, “Oh. Well, it certainly is unique.” I picked up Vered and walked off, but not before muttering something rather rude under my breath. It wasn’t necessarily my finest moment.

6. I still stink. We are still sans-A/C until the repairguy comes between 9 and 11 tomorrow. And I’m still not paying that sixty bucks.

Vacare

The word “vacation” originates from Latin, vacare: to be free or empty. I’ll plan to be vacare later this week, when we travel up to Madison, Wisconsin for a kind of family road trip. Why Madison? Long story, but it’s one that involves beer research.

I’ve never been to Madison, but it has always appealed to me as one of those liberal, funky college towns where everyone is hipper than you could even hope to be. I like living in places like that, even if I’m terribly unhip. Those kinds of places have coffeehouses that have hand-written signs above their homemade vegan brownies. They have white girls with dreadlocks who ride their bikes everywhere. They have public art, like wall murals and sidewalk mosaics. They have greenspaces. They have clever little things written on stop signs with sharpie pens (STOP war now. STOP consuming. STOP Bush.) Clever. How do they decide which stop signs to choose?

Anyway, those kinds of places also have cute shopping areas. I wanna see those. They sometimes have good places to eat. I also wanna see those. And maybe because I just started reading William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth, I just want to see the land.

So, here are some possible places to visit while I’m vacaring next week:

• Children’s museum. This one is for V, obviously. But I’m so glad I now have an excuse to visit these places again. I loved the Children’s Museum when I was a kid.
•  Harvest
• Olbrich Botanical Gardens
• Essen Haus

Stereotype Reinforcement Theater

Earlier this evening, right about the time that a very runny-nosed and partially-naked V was about to get a bath.

Ding Dong.

Jeff: (Answering the front door) Hello?

Big Whitehaired Man and Wife: Hello! We wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood with this basket. It’s our way of saying hello.

Jeff: (Looks at basket and gets excited.) Thanks!

Big Whitehaired Man and Wife: We’re from Trinity Lutheran Church down the street, and if you don’t have a church home yet, we would like you to join us!

Jeff: (Looks at basket again. Sees church literature. Gets unexcited.) Oh.

Big Whitehaired Man and Wife: Have you lived in Columbia very long?

Jeff: About a year.

Awkward pause.

Big Whitehaired Man and Wife: Well, we’d like to see you in church, if you don’t already have a church home.

Jeff: (Takes basket from man’s hand.) Uh, ok.

Big Whitehaired Man and Wife: And what a cute little boy you have there!

Jeff: Bye.

Door closes.

Me: Why didn’t you just tell him we’re Jewish?

Jeff: I thought maybe there’d be something good in that basket.

Me: And you assumed they’d take it away if they knew you were Jewish?

Jeff: Yeah. (Pauses. Looks at basket.) Ooh, free mug!

Dry spells

Imagine my sadness to learn that Working Blue wasn’t part of the Top 100 Liberal Arts blogs. How far from grace I’ve fallen since the days of Stupid Undergrounds, one of my original blogs, which won the first ever Kairos blogger award. (I bet you folks regret that one now, don’t you?) Anyway, sometimes you just have dry spells. Now is one.

Natural Born Rhetor

She has a lot to say.

A few things about my kid

Yes, this blog has evolved into one of those “mommy” blogs. Deal with it.

Here are some interesting factoids about my daughter that you might care to know.

1. She loves hummus (aka hommus, hummous). If she refuses to eat anything else, she will always eat hummus with olive oil straight from the spoon.

2. She refuses to hold her own bottle. Won’t do it. Not at all. Nope, not one little bit. She also refuses to drink out of a sippy cup.

3.  She says “hat” and “cheese” very well.

4. She loves throwing food on the floor. Loves it.

5. She wants you to carry her. Right now. Now! Pick her up right now, or else!!

6. She begins dancing the second she hears music. This includes the five-second NPR theme on Morning Edition.

7. She knows I’m a pushover.  

On being a 50/70% Localvore

Eating “local” has become somewhat of a bobo cliche these days, but it’s one that I think is totally worth pursuing. I really have found myself thinking about carbon footprints, the three Rs of green living, and all that jazz. Being green is hard on the habit-muscles sometimes. It is so much easier to throw away, buy new, drive through. But one thing we are conscious of in this house is buying local, especially food. We say no to chain restaurants, and we instead spend our few nights out at locally-owned joints. Our bread is made locally. Any meat we buy is from local farmers.

Much of this is made possible thanks to the Columbia Farmer’s Market. It’s awesome. We are regulars every Saturday morning. But we also buy some local stuff at Clover’s (a smallish hippy market) and even a local/healthy/hippy section at Hy-Vee. I keep forgetting to stop by The Root Cellar. Shame on me.

Anyway, I wanted to map the meal we ate this evening. It’s my way of forcing myself to become more conscious of where my food is coming from. Ideally, it would all come from right outside my own door. But that’s not how most of us live now. No sense in pretending. At the same time, it isn’t impossible to set a percentage goal for a 100-mile radius during any given meal. In fact, I would like to do that. But how would I know a “good” percentage to set as a goal? What’s realistic vs. idealistic? What is realistic in a house with two working people and a toddler?

Furthermore, is buying local the same as buying local?

Take tonight’s dinner. Pasta with a zucchini and goat cheese sauce. Salad with tuna, carrots, and black olives. The ingredients consisted of:

• Pasta (not local. not purchased from a locally-owned store) - 0% local
• Zucchini (grown locally, purchased from a farmer) - 100% local
• Goat cheese (local, purchased from a locally-owned place) - 100% local
• Milk (local, purchased from a locally-owned place) - 100% local
• Salad mix and spinach (grown locally, purchased from a farmer) - 100% local
• Carrots (not local, not purchased from a locally-owned store) - 0% local
• Olives (made?? purchased from a locally-owned store) - 50% local
• Tuna (Not local. Bought from a local store) - 50% local
• Olive oil. (Not local. Bought from a local store) - 50% local
• Maple Syrup. (Not local. Bought from a local store) - 50% local
• Vinegar (not local, not purchased from a locally-owned store) - 0% local
• Wine (not local. bought from a local store–Top Ten Wines) - 50% local

Total: 9 out of 11 ingredients were grown and/or purchased locally. 4 out of 9 ingredients were grown locally. We could have probably found local carrots *or* substituted something else. We could have bought locally-made pasta (or made out own). Not much you can do about tuna when you live in Missouri. Same goes for maple syrup.

So, that’s about 44% grown local and 81% purchased local. I think it’s possible to bump up the locally-grown number to 50% per meal, as long as we’re willing to make some changes with the season. And 80% purchased locally is maybe artificially high. Sometimes I just need canned tomatoes from Hy-Vee. But 70% as a goal seems quite manageable to me. This means that any given meal should consist of ingredients that have mostly (but not exclusively) been purchased at an independent, locally-owned store.

Being a 50/70% localvore is probably a lofty goal. My daughter tends to eat things in a very unpredictable pattern. Her dinner consisted of an Amy’s frozen pizza. Not locally grown. But I did buy it from a locally-owned store. On the flip side, she’s drinking milk that came from a local farmer. Yet we bought it at Hy-Vee. So, in a sense, I guess we’re technically on the 50% target right there. However, it’s not always easy to choose local over easy—especially for a teething child.

We can certainly try, though.

Road trip to Columbia, MO to Lafayette, IN: DINERS, DRIVE-INS, AND DIVES (or some version of that)

In a few weeks, we’ll be taking a road trip from Columbia, MO to Lafayette, IN. We’d like to hit some quirky diners or just plain good roadside stops along the way. We’re wiling to venture off-highway for a good bite. Any ideas?

One of those days

I gotta tell ya: this was one of those days. I put the wrong key into the ignition, and it is now stuck. As in real stuck. A guy came out from the dealership, performing the same “pull pull pull” maneuvers that I had tried an hour earlier. No dice. Now they’ve towed the car to the service shop.

Come on. Seriously?