Attentively listening to the rawr of the war wagon Originally uploaded by Cranewife.org
Kyle was moving the car and Muffy was very interested in the sound of the engine. Is it a school bus? No. It’s just a diesel suburban. I’ll just be happy when we have our nice, quiet Impala back.
Christmas went pretty well. The week we spent ending on Christmas eve with my parents was really nice and I think I’m quite less apprehensive about our future time there as a couple. The day before Christmas Eve, I went out for coffee with Mallory and left Kyle at home so that we could visit more and because Kyle, I think, expected to get some reading done for next semester. He ended up instead spending the whole evening chatting with my mom. By the time I got home, mom decided that she actually is fond of Kyle and is glad that she had the chance to get to know him better. While I’m still fairly bitter that she never made this effort to get to know him sooner and never trusted my judgement on the man I chose to marry until a few days ago, I was pretty well convinced that she was simply never going to accept him fully as a member of our family and that seems like a greater possibility now so I’m fairly content on that status for the time being.
We bought both of our parents digital photo frames as their Christmas presents. Both sets seemed plenty happy with the gift and were excited to get them loaded up quickly. We’re having some trouble getting images from our computer to the cards and may need to break down and buy a card reader. Also, for some reason, our attempt to transfer photos from my computer to our PC at home resulted in Kyle’s jump drive becoming write-protected. What’s up, PNY? Get your self sorted out! So trying to set up gifts for my parents was pretty maddening… but it’ll get better. When we bought the frames, Best Buy was bundling them with digital frame key chains that are pretty nice so we gave those to my parents and my uncle. We figured my mom would take the keychain but my dad ended up opening that when mom opened up the frame and he was so excited to have something on which he can carry photos of his children that I think he’ll end up using it the most. It made me really happy. I love watching other people’s faces light up when I give them gifts!
Kyle and I had some good gift-opening ourselves. We got mostly gift cards and some DVD series and XBOX live and a PS3. I’m so excited for the PS3 to arrive. I basically want to play Little Big Planet all the time. Since it’s break, I’ve been playing Animal Crossing for DS basically non-stop. Kyle makes fun of me for it as it is pretty obviously a game for children that I love. I want the new Wii version at some point too, though I’m not sure I’ll be as interested in it when it isn’t portable because it’s not really so interesting that I can’t still watch tv or do whatever while i’m playing.
I need to read. I also need to go through the Nelson again while I’m back in town. I haven’t been in ages. Perhaps, I can find a good museum-going friend to traverse through it with me at some point this week. I have two new pairs of boots and want to redo my whole wardrobe from there up. I also have new jeans. A grey-blue pair of skinny jeans at that. Woo. I love skinny jeans. That’s pretty much all of my news.
I would like to talk about the Christmas Midnight Mass at the Cathedral but that entry will have to wait.
Best. Christmas. Ever. Originally uploaded by Cranewife.org
My parents bought me footie pajamas. They are the greatest things I have ever known. Best gift of all time.
I made soup for Kyle’s parents the other day and liked the recipe so much I’ve committed to eating it all the time. I made it tonight for my parents and they really liked it too, which is astounding as usually they won’t even eat the things that I bring into the house on account of they are crazy and vegetarian and often include words that have been appropriated by english speakers from foreign vernaculars. I’m quite fond of it and would like to recommend it to anyone looking for a sweet, warming break this holiday season:
Red Medley Soup
Combine one chopped red onion, one chopped red pepper, chopped fresh garlic cloves to taste (the recipe says one but I love garlic and use more) in a large saucepan with two tablespoons olive oil. Cook at medium heat until sizzling and then reduce heat to low and cover, cooking for five minutes.
Combine mixture in sauce pan with one drained can of dark red kidney beans, one undrained can of diced tomatoes, four cups of vegetable stock, two tablespoons of long grain rice, two tablespoons worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon sugar and one teaspoon dry oregano leaves in a large stock pot. Stir vigorously and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for fifteen minutes.
Serve soup over long grain rice garnished with grated cheddar cheese, fresh chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste.
Serves 4-6.
As we use long grain rice in the easy cook packets from uncle bens, we always have plenty left over to serve the soup over. I don’t notice the extra rice at the bottom and am convinced that you could just add more rice to the recipe. I think Kyle and I just like the idea of serving food with hidden rice in the bottom. I’m also pretty sure, after thinking about it during dinner tonight, that the recipe I have intends for you to toss two tablespoons of dry rice into the recipe, not to cook it. This would be massively cheaper as one bag of long grain rice translates into many-a-tablespoon and it would take the microwave out of our efforts.
Delicious Sushi from Fujiyama in Carbondale, IL Originally uploaded by Cranewife.org
I can still taste how wonderful this meal was a whole week later.
Winter break and I’m up to my usual antics. I have yet to start a new book since finishing The Historian but I have been catching up on my tv-on-dvd marathons. Kyle and I also have been driving a lot, probably too much, and trying to get out to see a movie here and there.
Last week, we left Lubbock on Wednesday and drove to Topeka. We got in around 7 or 8 and had some Jimmy Johns with my parents before he headed back to send an email to Joe about grades for the class he TA’d last semester. I spent some time socializing with Mom and dad and then watched Top Chef with him and James who showed up about 5 or 10 minutes in. It was nice to get to spend some time hanging out, but the night has seemed to be far more devilish in the grand-scheme of things which have dictated my lief as of late.
Thursday we left for Carbondale, spending an hour in Blue Springs to situate ourselves here before heading out. We spent Thursday and Friday night in Carbondale with friends. Duran came in and Adam and Kevin let us stay with them. Ben was there too which made me happy. I don’t get to chat with him enough, we’re both so busy… but it’s nice to see familiar faces around. That’s probably my most favorite thing about being home from break. We went out for dinners at our favorite places—Don Taco and Fujiyama. The sushi we had at Fujiyama was really remarkable. Mind you, we’ve been living in Lubbock, Texas for the past several months where I refuse to eat any sushi not made out of processed, cooked fish unless I made it myself… but we were in Carbondale, Illinois where pickings are usually not quite better. Every piece of fish I had seemed so fresh and yummy. The rolls were great, and the albacore sashimi was better. We also went to see Role Models with Adam and Kathleen which was funny.
The only real stress in Carbondale was my mom flipping out about our plans to be in Blue Springs for a few more days before we returned to Topeka. Our plan is basically to spend full weeks in places instead of three days here and three days there where we feel stressed out because we’re never in one place and we feel like we no more than get settled and already have to leave. It also cuts down on long driving trips, and with this winter weather, that can be quite the safety precaution. Anyway, my mom has somehow decided that we hate staying with them and that we are better off just spending all of our time in Blue Springs. We’re not going to take this route because we want to see our friends in Topeka and it actually is important to us that we spend time with my family too. It’s just so hard to reason with her. I pretty much gave up on it. I told her Saturday as we headed home that we were going to just do as we had always planned and that we’d be home later this week, so we’ll see how that goes when we get there.
I wish she wasn’t so insecure and hung up on issues which she mostly caused herself before the wedding. She just keeps claiming that she hardly got the chance to know Kyle and his family because we insisted on getting married so soon. That is true, to an extent, but a lot of that stemmed from mom and dad’s failure to get to know him when he was in town when I was living in the apartment, and his parents had basically the same amount of time to get to know me when we were dating and they certainly made that effort. And, since we got married, there is no excuse to not get to know them.
I am not sure what exactly mom expected in terms of knowing her future in-laws before the wedding. I guess, growing up in a small town with my dad where her parents and his parents had always known each other may have made their marriage a little easier in the beginning, but at some point they need to get past that and begin to forge a relationship. We have enabled this in anyway we’ve found possible but from cancelled dinners out on non-holidays to refused invitations on both Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems we are making no progress.
More than anything, it bothers me that she always claims that she doesn’t know Kyle or his family and expresses no interest in taking opportunities to do so because it suggests to me that she still doesn’t believe that this marriage is serious. That hurts because if she can’t figure that out then she’s not really paying attention to what I tell her about how our first several months of marriage is going. Also, I did not appreciate the assertion she made in her latest email to me: “I just don’t know what happened to the beautiful wonderful little girl I knew all these years. I feel like you have just turned on me.”
That is all that I have the energy for now. I’ll update more on the more-entertaining events of winter break.
I finished class for a month. So far I have one grade in for Preventive Conservation and it is an A+. I am excited for the others to come in. Overall, I feel confident. I should have at least an A if not an A+ in collections management and I am expecting an A or an A- in Data Management but it’s hard to say as I have no way to figure out how Mei grades exactly. It seems, to me… and the rest of us, that she grades based somewhat on how she feels the rest of the class did but I have yet to grasp what exactly she expects out of our writing. I think she just likes everything to be articulated very clearly which is an important skill in data management and so I think that she’ll give us a good grade because our manual is very detailed. Also, i was able to figure some things out about Filemaker Pro that can be implemented in the ethnology database and I think she’ll look fondly upon that. It’s somewhat hard to say though. I have As on all the other assignments but this is a huge part of our grade.
I’m also satisfied with our collections management plan for collections management. I think our recommendations were apt and well-explained. The test we had on Tuesday in that class was totally random as there was not a whole lot of material to test us on. Usually, we have four sections, Multiple Choice/True False/Fill-in-the-Blank, Short Answer, Lists, and Essay. This time, we had every section except short answer was somewhat in the first section and somewhat in the lists section. There was less extra-credit available because there were less sections. Generally, we answer 20 of 25 in the first section with the extra five worth 1 point each, 3 of 6 in the second with two points available for the each of the other three, 3 of 5 in the third section for two points and then the essay. Instead, we answered 25 of 32 in the first section, 3 of 5 in the second section and the essay. It should be fine, though. I feel like I did well even though a lot of the true/false were crazy specific and not anything we had covered in class or the lab, or much in the readings for that matter.
I also finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova today. My review from Goodreads.com:
Overall I thought the book was a little too campy. It was about what I was expecting and I was looking for a bit of a break from graduate school and it was enjoyable and a quick read, even at 642 pages. I’m willing to be a little lenient on it because I don’t think I was quite the target demographic and i wasn’t looking for something incredibly heavy or incredibly well-written. I wanted a book that was captivating and The Historian was certainly that.
Still, I find myself unable to get over certain aspects of the story. For one, I think the author fails to create a standalone voice for each story-teller in the book. I can attribute some of this to the preface which explains the narration is not meant to be from more than one perspective but the narrator is citing or quoting from four sources other than her own recall—her father’s stories and writing, Professor Rossi’s writing, and the Chronicle of Zacharias and accompanying explanation. Her father’s story is likely to fall into the voice of the narrator upon recall but the other sources should largely establish their own voice which does not even seem to be attempted. Stylistically, the author could have just not cited them as independent texts as she does, going so far as to dedicate an independent chapter to both the Chronicle and the letters from Professor Rossi. The failure to clearly define a voice for each independent narrator decreased the dynamism of each character.
Pseudo-spoiler begins here: Also, I thought the actual appearance of the character of Dracula diverged from the historical accounts of the man and merged with common folklore. I understand the importance of folklore in the construction of Dracula but felt Kostova had appropriately taken the character in the direction of the historical accounts of Vlad the Impaler. Her effort was largely undone by the appearance of Dracula in the end of the text, no longer the cruel military and political strategist who died in 1477 but instead a kind of protected academic serene and satisfied with his library and secret order of the dragon.
Today we are watching football and enjoying a little bit of being married without the pressure of grad school looming over us. Mostly, though, we are watching football.
Devon has also been in town this week. It’s been pretty awesome. I miss having my brother around and I’m happy that he gets a chance to relax and enjoy Lubbock. It’s funny how little he stresses us out, being here. It’s mostly just great to have him around and get to spend some time with him. I’m really glad my parents ultimately let him come back with us after Thanksgiving.
I’ve decided to start participating in this seven quick takes Friday blog where i post 7 little things from throughout the week. I really enjoy reading them and I hope others will too.
1. I don’t know how I’m going to survive winter break.
I have been bouncing between Topeka and Blue Springs for the last few days and having only been back a whopping 60 hours, I’m already in a bad mood. I feel like I have no space either physically or just personally at either place and it drives me crazy to not have a car that’s just mine. Plus, we’re trying to balance seeing my friends and seeing his friends and seeing our families and it’s just such a headache. I’m hoping that when we’re here for a long winter break that we’ll settle into a routine and I’ll feel less rushed to see everyone, but as for right now I just want to call the holidays off.
2. I finally got the last of the wedding thank yous done this week.
Now, I just have to gripe at Kyle to get his done and then we’ll all be good. I can’t believe that took so long. It was just impossible trying to juggle getting some sanity in between tests and projects in graduate school and having to find a time when I could really get organized enough to do it. In the end, i regret not getting more done before the wedding so at least i was sort of caught up as it went on. In the even that you get married, I would take this advice. I also don’t know how to get Kyle motivated to do them. I was basically in a panic over the ones that had yet to go out toward the end and I guess he just doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency about them. Luckily, his parents also don’t call and yell at us about them like mine do.
3. Why don’t I see movies anymore?
I realized while reading conversiondiary.com today (where I got inspired for these seven quick takes a week) that I feel like Kyle and I are starting to watch movies less and less. It may not actually be true, but we rent less than we did before and we go to theaters less than we did. Perhaps this will change when we’re not both in school, or maybe it’s just that I’d rather socialize with people when I’m with them and watch movies when I’m hanging out by myself. Also, I think movie quality is sorely lacking these days. Maybe I’d see more movies in Lubbock had a better indie movie selection. I should just renew netflix.
4. I’m excited to have some time to read more over break.
I’m finishing up the Historian hopefully before we return to Lubbock and I think I’ve decided that Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is next. I’ve read her non-fiction Nine Parts of Desire before but I have yet to read any of her fiction. Carla recommends it, and I think she has good taste in books so I’m excited to start it.
5. I’m going to put together some sort of photo project over break.
Basically, I read itsnicethat.com regularly and found this photoproject called @600 where at 600 internet time on a certain day, ea bunch of photographers took photos. You can look at them at mus-mus.org/at600. Some were posed and others were more random than that. My idea is to set up a twitter account that is the name of the project and then use twittertools on wordpress to set up a way that anyone can post tweets to that account. then, throughout a 24-hour period, a group of us who were subscribed to the twitter feed of the account would take photos everytime we got a tweet to take a photo and then we could also send out tweet requests. I think it would be fun because everyone would have the chance to play with the photo and we could create a sort of schizophrenic photodiary that captures multiple peoples days in multiple cities at the same time. I’ll probably get it organized and try to do it sometime by the new year. I think it could be a pretty sweet project idea and maybe could eventually be pretty widespread.
6. I don’t know about you all, but I’m cheering for Oklahoma State tomorrow night.
Kyle’s parents announced that they have two tickets for us to the Big 12 championship. We expected them to do this, sort of, but it’s still a surprise and has me super excited for the game–presuming Tech gets in. So let’s keep our fingers crossed that there’s an upset in Stillwater tomorrow.
7. I’m no longer angry at mass anymore.
I realized sometime last week that I’d sort of been avoiding mass or at least not making it as much of a priority. Most of the reason for this is that I was angry about the time in October that the priest handed over the homily to the student center intern so instead of having a homily about the liturgy given by a priest we heard a homily about the second offering given by a lay person. This is in violation of canon law and made me angry. Kyle was with me at this particular mass and I think I felt like the Church was failing to provide its element of witness to potential new members that might be in attendance. Further, I’m supposed to attend mass on Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. What kind of obligation is there if the mass turns into a pitch for money that the church needs? The homily, I realize, is not the most important part of the mass order… but how do I prepare to take communion when the homily is designed to only prepare me to hand over cash for the second offering? We did give money to the offerings that day, but I think I left feeling that it was slightly pointless. I know I’m a very conservative Catholic when it comes down to how I interpret canon law and how important I think it is that priests act in accordance with canon law, but I don’t think this is an issue on which I am too conservative.
Anyway, I have triumphantly returned to making mass a priority and I feel a lot better about it. Now, if I can only resucceed in getting Kyle to view it as important. I feel like my prioritizing it low was bad because it sets an example that actually you can set catholic obligations on the back burner, and I don’t believe that that’s true. I was just frustrated and angry and i think I lost a little view of the point of it all myself. It’s times like this that I know I would really benefit from having a spouse that has the same religious convictions that I do. I think he’s coming around and certainly we view things far more similarly than we used to.
