Showing posts with label Puppies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Puppies. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that Steph referenced) must be because of the ceasefire in Gaza making me feel like I could take a personal pause.

Also, I took Max to the vet for his one-year check; he was a champ. I was not a champ. The receptionist brightly asked if I'd brought Scout, and I immediately welled up like a doofus. And then she was so apologetic, I felt bad for her and worse overall. 

But I handily completed a paper proposal titled "Extra, Extra, Extra!: Improving Critical Connectivity in Higher Education" and am particularly chuffed by this: "In Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Patricia Hill Collins describes critical theory as critical in a triple sense: as offering critique, as essential, and as expository. In this paper, we similarly draw upon the triple use of the term “extra” to unpack the ways critical feminist practices may be viewed within Higher Education--namely as exceptional, as supplementary, and (in recent slang) as excessive."

Also, Nu's sleepover guests just arrived, and I love the giggly and infectious energy they've brought with them.

_________________

Pic: The Red Cedar from the new walking bridge. (Photo's from my walk this weekend. It's another grey and cloudy day here today, so it probably looks the same. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
 

Monday, March 25, 2024

coincidence

if a mouth wails of never
do the lifted eyes count
to hold the world close 
to call it done... a day

crushed easily as a flower
we've said less this year
I catch the light, press 
in one more goodbye

had you remained forever
I could have loved more
yet owe thanks for our
time here ur-gently

coinciding
________________

Pic: Max frolicking. His rascally, trusting eyes and floppy ears are my favorite. This darling turned one today. This was also the week Scout took ill last year--he'd be gone in exactly a month. Somehow, it always feels like Scout arranged for me to meet Max. I know looking after Max and watching his antics lifted me from the depths of so much this last year. Love you, Maxie! I hope you enjoyed your banana and peanut butter pupcake, extra long walk, and the new squeaky toy you've already disemboweled.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Happy National Puppy Day!

Happy National Puppy Day!

Max turns a whole year old tomorrow!

Huckie always looks like a puppy...

TIL that Chopin's Minute Waltz was inspired by a puppy chasing its tail. In fact, it's even known as Valse du petit chien!

It was a cold day, with snow still on the ground, but we played outside under blue skies and sunshine and then napped like champs. (I'd done all my weekend chores in anticipation of being out of town, so there was nothing to do today but make chicken soup and check in on Big A now and then.)

Pic: Max and Huck in conversation.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

"Ting-Ting" / The Bee Sting / Spring things

Nu's much-loved lovey, Silky the Bee, used to go "buzz-buzz, ting-ting" back in the day. We still use Nu's toddler-ese "ting-ting" to refer to bee stings.

I've been chuckling over that while reading Paul Murray's The Bee Sting--a book both At and Big A gave me copies of at Christmas! (I've since returned the copy Big A gave me.) I was savoring this novel, frequently chortling out loud, as it was delightful in a Derry Girls kind of way... but things have taken a disquieting turn and the sexual violence is quite terrifying... I can't wait to be done now.

Pic: Huck and Max got a Spring haircut and look a bit strange. The bows on Huck's ears make it look like she has ponytails! Outside is somehow snow AND flowers.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

companion song

desire turning into decision 
at once terrifying, free
I am moved

into the path of turning knives
their rhythms familiar
I am here

afraid of turning the page
my mind un-scrolling
I am opened

like a hinge into the world
I've been here before--
I return once more
_____________________
Pic: Max and Huck, my writing companions, snoozing in the sunshine.

Friday, March 01, 2024

Five thoughts and things on Friday




1)      If yesterday's post was blessedly whine-free about Gaza, it was because I whined on FB, where I've mostly absented myself since October, instead. And then my people stepped in full of strength and sympathy and support. How can I not believe in the potential of this world when I'm surrounded by so much kindness and love?

   2)     Almost too much love. Just kidding...

  3)     But actually, I was late getting home because a workplace chat went on and on and then late to book club because Big A kept on prolonging our soak-and-chat and late getting home to dinner because there was pre-birthday cake and jollities at book club and then late for a friend's pooja because the dinner I made (couscous salad with almonds, felafel, and a ton of veggies, + the spicy feta dip a book club friend insisted I take home) was amusingly deemed merely "a side" so Big A got some shawarma wraps to top it off. At that point, I decided it would be best just to send my regrets to the pooja people. And so I did.

4)      I also got all the plant care, cleaning, and settling done today so I can take the rest of the weekend off to relax and luxuriate in birthday love and prep for reentry into the work week. 

5)       Pic: A snapshot of my very whiny FB post. Soc med circles are so weird. I bet if this was on Twitter, someone would have told me to STFU already.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Hello, it is me I'm looking for

Today was mostly spent in what my dad would call a "funk." But I'm on my winter break and I'll funk if I want to.

I still managed to renew my Driver's License, arrange catering for a campus event next week, and finalize the speaker series for Women's History Month. 

I feel sad and helpless, and I told Big A that I was going to take my emergency prescription medication, but I didn't (I'm always "saving" it in case I have I bigger crisis). I drank a lot of tea instead, clung to him like a baby monkey, and then rallied to make up and make an amazing dinner (rice with arugula, five-color veggies + beans braised with miso, sesame oil, and nori). 

And then as a reward, I found birthday cards in the mail! They were such a sweet surprise and such a cheery pick-me-up.

Pic: Also immensely cheering, my fuzzy welcome committee. Max and Huck always pop up to say hello as I unlock the back door.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

that's what they said...

I love when we're at dinner and random stuff comes up. Hilarious accidental texts, work wins and woes, getting into AP classes, general advice in both generational directions, stories about parents, "do-you-remember-whens," hair compliments, everyone making the same joke about Nu's American Idiot tee at different times, Huck and Max going crazy for samosa wrapper crumbs, everyone finding different ways to warn me not to succumb to AI-generated grief tech to deal with the anniversary of Scout's passing, plans for the week, the barely-contained excitement about my upcoming birthday... 

I love these people so, so much and am so grateful for this life with them.

Pic: A big, squeezy hug at the end of dinner. Nu, Big A, At.

Monday, February 19, 2024

updates

Good:  Big A's test results came back--nothing terrifying to report.
But:     The original symptoms persist. 
*
Good:  My stretch of overwork and late work evenings is mostly over.
But:     This week I scheduled two more late work evenings for March.
*
Good:   Participating in a teach-in panel on Gaza with the college YDSA in mid-March.
But:      Worrying about bothsideism from fellow-panelists.
*
[Pic] 
Good:    Big A, Huck, Max, and me on a post-dinner walk with a fabulous sunset ahead of us.
 But:     Don't look too closely at Big A's left hand. Ha.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

some backstory... and a Boss Day

Some backstory to yesterday's poem.

Our grandmothers were first cousins, so Sunil was a distant cousin--although that doesn't matter much in the  Indian context (something that's unclear in the poem, and I should work on it). Our grandmothers were as close as sisters--closer, as they had no sisters and lived in a big joint-family mansion where they had private tutors--so they were together all the time. They were really close--they always talked about how they breastfed each other's babies so their babies would feel like siblings and think of them (their aunts) as mothers too.  

It didn't work out exactly like that. My mother would go to her aunt when she fought with her mom, but later there was some family drama (our grandmothers fell out in their sixties) and mystery (things people won't talk about). Stuff that came out as what Nicole rightly called "mixed things." Nance found the ending surprising--something else I'm working on. I was trying to express how it felt to have someone in my peer group die... like the beginning of the end. As I mentioned in a comment to StephLove, Sunil died of a heart attack, so that feels as though our bodies are going. 

Pic: It's the puppies' Boss Day! Huck and Max got new lick pads and love them. 

(It's not their actual Boss Day, but it was too bewildering for Scout and Huck when we celebrated them individually, so we picked the 18th of the month to celebrate a puppy Boss Day. Max's "smile" cracks me up.)

Friday, February 16, 2024

what we do

the sky is full of bright 
holes, so whatever falls
from  them  is starry-- 
starting from distance 
but  now  lodged here

like empathy turned
into  a fact,  eternal
and  then carefully
teaching us to crest 
in  announcements

on  days  when  our
world seems ready to 
ignite, we can shout:
"I love you so much"
in a room of strangers
_________________________________

Pic: Max and Nu in yesterday's surprise snow. 

Thursday, February 15, 2024

in every register

my thoughts grow still 
in a landscape slowing
with  sleep, reckoning
now embalms the day

today  I  have  filled
my  heart  again  and 
again... today I willed
my soul to feel beauty 

for on learning in me 
the enduring vapor 
of stars; the brilliant 
 brevities of  flowers

I choose from the new
the needed next step... 
I will see the end arrive
still speaking only love 
_____________

Pic: Saying goodbye to Huckie and Maxie is the toughest part of my morning.

Monday, February 12, 2024

But after this week things'll slow down...

I saw this meme that's sometimes about academia and sometimes about adulthood recently. It goes: Being an adult/academic is saying "But after this week things will slow down a bit" over and over to yourself until you die.

Oh, I feel this so much. But also, things really are going to slow down after this week. I listed a long list of 'have to-be-dones' for myself last month and the deadlines on most of them have come and gone and I've done my best on each of them. The last of the colleague letters and student award letters went out today, our last campus visit was today, and one of our two speakers is presenting this week--which means my list has been significantly whittled down and the future looks so much more manageable.

Technically, that means I should be able to work on my projects for a bit. No more excuses.

Pic: From yesterday. Max and Big A in my tea garden where I'd gone to escape everyone. (Not successfully, evidently.)

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

and now we wait...

 

Home! 

Reunited with my human kids, puppy kids, and plants!

I demolished a large bag of Culver's fries on the way home and demolished all my remaining grading after I got home. 

Big A's doc gave us a hopeful update and now we wait for the actual results. Oh, the things I take for granted when I make plans and resolutions... 

Pic: (anti-clockwise) Max, Huckie, At, and Nu. I missed these sweet loves and my zillion plants in the tea garden.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

from a place of absence

Scout's  harness in a Ziploc
stays a  door always ajar
becomes a souvenir in
a sweet completeness 
of loss... nostalgia

Scout's photo on the altar 
has guarded so fiercely 
hellish trails of regret 
just my two eyes...
all these tears

___________________________

Pic: Snow and sky in the backyard this weekend. The last couple of days have been so foggy... I've been white-knuckling it to and from work as visibility is very low, especially in low-lying pockets, and it's easy to imagine shapes where there aren't any and miss objects that only loom up at the last minute.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

"mid"

I like the way the kids are using "mid" to describe things that are stuck in the middle to mediocre range. Here's my mid list for today.

*    Another day of freezing rain and grey skies... but not quite as cold and there was a fair bit of a thaw too.

*    I won't have my car back for five weeks (they have to order a part from Germany)... but they gave me a newer model as a loaner.

*    I headed to the gas station for the first time in years (Bluey is all electric). It felt spend-y to fork over 50$ for gas... but I found a lucky penny.

*    Last semester, I grandly agreed to give a talk in January 2024... and now it IS January 2024 and my talk is on Friday.  Thankfully, I was able to use my writing group time to get some slides done... but it did mean that I didn't get any new writing done.

*    I love, love, love teaching... but I'm on two search committees (SIX campus interviews--four more to go), three committees that meet every week for a total of four hours, on deadline for two career reviews, on deadline for recommendation letters for people's grad school applications, on deadline for rewriting our land acknowledgment, making final arrangements for two different guest speakers to visit campus (PBK and Women's History Month), arranging travel for the student honorary convention, vetting papers and programming the WGS portion of the MASAL conference, CASA report due next week... And the list for the next month goes on and on. Each of these things is important and has its own bulleted to-dos, and by itself, each would be something I enjoy doing. But cumulatively, having them all clustered together like this, feels overwhelming. One day at a time, I guess.

Pic: I cropped out guests' faces since I didn't ask people if I could post. But now the focus is on the happy plates (everyone is in the clean-plate club!) from our dinner party on Monday. There were two writers with new books out at the table (Sophfronia Scott and Jan Shoemaker) and I enjoyed introducing them to each other and felt a little bit like I was hosting a salon. Bonus peek of Nu at extreme right. I'm the black blob next to the blue-purple sweater (Big A) at the head of the table. Huck and Max are underfoot. 

Sunday, January 21, 2024

journeys

Nu starts a new day of term tomorrow.

At is in D.C. giving a talk to an organizing group who sprang for air tickets, hotel, and honorarium. So cool. 

Big A has been on the volunteer list for Gaza for weeks, but there has been no movement, because the organization cannot guarantee safety for its volunteers. This is the first time I've been okay with him going to a conflict zone. Twenty years ago, when he wanted to volunteer for Iraq (partly because it would forgive his med school debt), I vetoed it. I was even wary when he volunteered for COVID relief in NYC in early 2020 when things were baaaaad. But I feel like this is no longer even a choice. It's not going to get better until everyone who can help, helps.  

In the meantime, I'm so grateful a colleague is willing to travel with the honorary students to their presentation in St. Louis. Because Scout fell sick while I was at the event last year, convention hotel rooms now give me anticipatory anxiety and dread. 

Pic: The holly bush outside has been frozen for weeks now, and is now pretty in a different way.

Friday, January 19, 2024

infinitesimal

falling  where I  stand
fireworks and splinters 
of every moment's joy 
waving back like seas.
Every time  I  wonder--
if  this  is the  last time

Every time I remember--
it could be the last time 
I keep  up  conversations
with my body, its  borders 
while stars fall into my lap,
songs dissolve into laughter.

Pic: One of Max's many cuddly contortions with Big A.

Monday, January 15, 2024

dreams and hopes

Another day of sunshine! 

At breakfast, I asked Nu what they were going to do for Dr. Martin Luther King Day. They didn't even hesitate: "I'm going to eat my breakfast, then I'm going back to sleep, and I'll probably have a dream."

It was so irreverent, but it came so pat, I had to laugh. When the kids were younger, I'd take them out to some service project or other on MLK Day--but I'm happy for them to make their own choices now. 

Of all people, my mom--universally known by every person who knows her as overprotective--was reminding me the other day that Nu might soon be at college, so I was going to have to let them make their own way. (Where was all this permissiveness when I was growing up?! She's absolutely right though.)

Pic: Max and Huck mistrust the robot vacuum. "Rambo" comes out so rarely. My back still hurts, so I've been outsourcing work (and reducing my standards).
 

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Happy Pongal!

Imagine my delight this morning when the sun rose magnificently for the first time in (many?) weeks as if to show up for the Pongal sun celebration. 

Close to twenty years ago, I was writing on ye olde blogge about the range of procrastination the various Hindu "fresh start" dates allow. Nu and I were laughing about that at pooja today because At and Nu loved to use the term "fresh start" after they encountered Will Ferrell (their childhood fave) saying it in The Other Guys.

In any case, I've always thought of Pongal as a day to reset any New Year resolutions that didn't take.

A younger and wiser cousin wrote on the cousins' chat:  

The sun symbolizes energy, positivity, equanimity, discipline, consistency... adopt one value that you feel you need in life and practice it for the six months that the sun moves to the north.
I probably need all of those traits in my life, but may pick equanimity--I could certainly benefit by being less emotional.

Pic: Max and I are out by Scout's memorial around sunrise. Scout always came out with me for pooja. 

a day to be proud...

1) of my WGS students who set up 25 wonderful interactive booths to discuss subjects as varied as the female gaze in films, non-binary erasu...