From the ALA:
Mean librarian salaries up 2% in 2008
Analysis of data from more than 1,010 public and academic libraries showed that the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited master’s degrees increased 2% from 2007, up $1,151 to $57,809. The median ALA MLS salary was $53,251, and salaries ranged from $22,000 to $331,200. Results are reported in the 2008 edition of the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic, published by the ALA–Allied Professional Association….
So my summer internship is over and it’s back to California tomorrow. I’m excited to get back to Victor, and Arty, and California friends. And I’m excited to start my new job at Berkeley’s bioscience library. I like work, and I’m going to be doing some challenging stuff and, doubtlessly, learning a lot. But I’m reluctant to re-assume all the trappings of working life.
Travis and I were just talking about this when I was visiting him over this past weekend. One of the nice things about this summer internship was the fact that I had work, without all the trappings of work. I could show up to work smelling like fish cause I’d just helped to pick gillnets, and that was cool with everyone cause they smelled like fish too. There was certainly no expectation of looking nice, or having showered, or any of that. Commuting consisted of walking across the street from the chicken coop to the office, although sometimes I did have to walk across the street in the rain. I could work extra hours on four days to scamper off early for the weekend on Friday.
So even though I’m excited to start work at Berkeley, I’m mentally rebelling against the need to dress (and smell) nice again, to commute again, to adhere to a schedule again. I’m particularly unexcited about the commute - I’ll be taking BART, which is nice cause I’ll be able to read on the train, but it’s going to be around an hour in each direction, all told. That bumps my workweek from 40 hrs to 50 hrs, right there.
So all this is making me feel particularly determined to find a close-to-ideal situation when I’m done with school next May. I doubt I’ll be able to find a job that allows me to show up smelling like fish (and I guess I can live with that). But I want to be picky about where the job is located (Victor and I want to move back east to be close to our families), and where we live in relation to the job, and the character of the town that we live in, whether it holds opportunities for Victor as well as myself, whether it’s a place where we’ll want to spend some time. Hopefully there will be enough opportunities when I graduate that I’ll be able to exercise some amount of pickiness - maybe my resolutions will melt away in the light of the reality of the situation. Victor and I have both made a few sacrifices for the sake of library school and my fledgling career (thank you, Victor); nothing major, but we’ve still made some decisions that have steered our lives away from how we’d ideally like to live. I’m hoping that with my first professional job, we’ll be able to re-adjust our priorities back to be more in line with our ideals.
So, this past weekend I went to my folks’ house for the 4th. We were going to go to Newport overnight on the sailboat (not on the aforementioned party boat) but we got rained out.
We ended up grillin’ out at the boatyard (steaks, pot-tate-toes, corn on the cob) and then going out on someone else’s motorboat to watch the fireworks off the North Kingstown town beach. Which was also nice, ‘cept for the part where I had too much wine, and felt poorly the next day.
Previous weekend, I went to see my friends Jessica and Jeff, who live in Our Fair City, Cambridge, MA. Jessica is currently pregnant, which I was able to capture on film but which photos I am not allowed to share with the general populace, which is a shame, cause she’s a good-lookin’ pregnant woman. We made french toast, then went canoeing on the Charles (upstream of Boston a ways), then went to this guy’s 60th birthday party, then the next day went to Dim Sum. Everyone always raves about Dim Sum, which is somewhat baffling to me as all we were able to get out of the experience were a bunch of mysteriously dense dumpling like items stuffed with equally mysterious fillings. There was this thing that was kinda like bread wrapped in noodles, which I quite liked, but other than that, not much goin’ on. Jessica and I did concede that perhaps it would have helped to go with someone who knew what they were doing.
Weekend before that, I went to see Ken and Kim down on the Maryland Shore. They live near Chincoteague and Assoteague, which are those island with the wild ponies. Here’s one now:
Apparently their bellies become bloated and round because they ingest so much salt as they graze. I imagine they must be used to it, but it sounds uncomfortable. Ken and Kim and I also went bird banding, and had ice cream, and seafood (my belly became bloated and round, and uncomfortable), and went to the zoo, where I took around a gazillion pictures of a peacock. Oh, all right, here’s a couple of them:
That about catches you up with my weekend doings, for now. On the horizon, I have a trip to Philly and some visitors from Arlington, MA, which is good, cause it seems that not much goes on around here of a weekend.
Party on Boone Lake, once they get it in the water.
Of course there are birds here, and I’ve taken pictures of a couple. Bird numbers are high, but I’ve not seen very many different species so far. There are a ton of tree swallows, who like to pick up insects from the lake. Also common are grey catbird, yellow warbler, common yellowthroat, house wren, barn swallow, cliff swallow, and American robin.
There are a bunch of nestboxes here on fences and phone poles. I don’t think anyone’s doing anything with them now but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were part of a research project in the past- maybe David Winkler’s work on tree swallows, since he’s a Cornell guy (I took ornithology from him!) and since the boxes are primarily occupied by tree swallows. One of the boxes close to the chicken coop is occupied by a pair of eastern bluebirds: here’s a couple of pictures of the male:
And, here’s some of those tree swallows:
As promised, some pictures. You can check out more pictures (individual commentary attached to some pictures) here.
This is the chicken coop,where I and most of the other interns live. It’s divided up into five units, which are studios with small kitchens, bathrooms, and living areas: I have the leftmost unit. The central part is a common area, where we sometimes play cards.
Gazebo overlooking the lake. This is basically the front lawn of the grad students’ house, which follows:
(I don’t know why I have so much trouble holding the camera straight).
This is our little harbor with a couple of the research vessels.
And this,which used to be a barn, is now our office and lab space- it’s directly across from the chicken coop.
Sometime I’ll take some pictures that actually have people in them - that will be nice.
Howdy. So I’ve reached the end of my first week at Shackleton Point, on beautiful Oneida Lake here in fabulous central New York. The folks here keep saying that this place used to be a “gentleman’s farm” before the gentleman kicked it and left the land to Cornell back in, oh, I’m going to pull the date 1940 out of my ass (+/- 10 years). It’s around 400 acres, meadows interspersed with woods studded with white clapboard houses and barns and things.
I live in what used to be the chicken coop, along with 6 other interns. Before I came I was told that I’d be living with the grad students, who get to inhabit the ol’ massa’s house, with lake views and the whole bit, but it hasn’t turned out that way- no room. But, I’m glad - the other interns are a fun bunch, despite the (sometimes shocking, to me) disparity in our ages. The one bad thing about them is that many of them live around here, or down in Ithaca, which means that a bunch took off for the weekend, leaving the place feeling rather deserted this evening. The chicken coop consists of two Quonset huts joined in the middle by a more permanentish structure which serves as a common area. The Q-huts are divided into 5 apartments, one of which is unoccupied. Three are occupied by a pair of interns each, and the last is my domain- I get to live alone because of my general elderliness and venerability.
Each apartment is kind of a little studio, with a kitchenette stocked with random utensils of varying degrees of functionality, a bathroom outfitted with small plants that grow out of the drain, and a sitting/bedroom area well-equipped with live spiders and dead flies. If you let your imagination roam just a little bit you can still catch a whiff of chicken droppings. Fortunately I don’t anticipate ever having to shut the windows.
Our first few days mostly involved orientations of one kind or another. We had an overall orientation, then a lab safety orientation (which I had to take because I’m going to be working in a building that has labs in it), then a boat-safety orientation (which I had to take because I will sometimes, if not often, go out on a boat). The orientations were typical of their ilk in that the ultimate goal was not to convey information or keep us safe, but to obtain our signature on as many pieces of paper as possible as magical talismans against future litigation.
We’ve had a couple of social events - a pizza meet-n-greet on the first day and a potluck on Wednesday (this will be a weekly occurrence). For the potluck, I made an appetizer by slicing up some granny smith apples, smeared them with cream cheese, and topped them with smoked salmon- this caused quite a stir. One of the staff objected that they didn’t usually have this sort of thing, and that the traditional appetizer for potlucks was beer. Turned out he was ok with having both, so all was well in the end. A subset of potluckers hung out around the bbq pit for a few hours after dinner, which was a good time.
So at this point you may be wondering about, you know, that job thing that’s the whole reason for me being here. But, the laptop’s running low on juice so I’m going to save that for another post. Also forthcoming: pictures.
So my mom and I went to her hairdresser’s on Friday. This has become something of a ritual when I come back East to visit. A sort of mother and daughter thing.
In the past I’ve been persuaded to allow a semi-permanent color that lasts four to six weeks to be applied to my hair, with the stipulation that it look just like my regular hair color, only covering up the encroaching white. I had been happy with the results.
This time was a little different. She asked if I wanted the usual color, the secret formula of which she had carefully recorded on an index card and squirreled away. I said yes, and she retreated to the back to mix her witch’s brew.
As she applied the color to my hair, she informed me that she had added some extra red “to make it warmer”. “Huh,” I thought, “that’s not what I asked you to do.” But since she was already applying the color it seemed that there wasn’ t much I could do, and even if there had been I was inclined to trust the hairdresser, who is very nice and personable and is getting married at the end of the summer. Who was I to make a scene?
When I emerged from the procedure, it was clear things had gone horribly awry. The first indication was when the hairdresser noted, “Hmm. Your hair took the color really well.” I asked, “Is that a good thing?” “Well, it’s kind of bright…”. She dried my hair a bit to see what it would look like, and it was, frankly, shocking. Others in the salon compared me to Ronald McDonald, and not in a good way.
Sometimes, when a hairdresser screws up, they don’t really see it, and they think it’s great, and you think it’s horrible, and awkwardness ensues. One good thing about this situation was that everyone in the salon was in agreement- my hair was now a hideous disfigurement. So, the hairdresser, taking responsibility for her actions, set about fixing it by throwing some brown on top of the bright red. Although it did add an additional hellish hour to the salon appointment, it did improve things considerably- I no longer look freakish (at least, I don’t think I do. If your opinion differs, feel free to not disabuse me of the notion). But now I look different, which isn’t really what I was going for. It has now become clear to me that one good way to not look different is to not allow people to apply random chemicals to my hair. Lesson learned.
I kind of wish I had gotten a picture of the Ronald McDonald look, but I think I was too shocked to whip out the cell phone, and since the hairdresser was clearly alarmed and chagrined I had no wish to add to her distress. I do have a picture of what I look like now and will presumably be looking like for the next four to six weeks. In some lights, it looks kinda purple. I guess the upside is that the hairdresser didn’t charge for it…
A pair of robins have built a nest under my parents’ back deck.
It’s possible to look down upon the baby birds through the cracks between the boards. Here’s what it looks like:
There’s at least two nestlings. My mom was going to powerwash the patio furniture on the deck, but has changed her plans so as not to drown the wee bairns.
I just want to say up front that this post will contain no photos. However, it will contain a map, just to keep things lively.
I’m in Rhode Island now: got in Tues. night. The flight was fine, if by “fine” you mean being packed into a tiny seat trying to pretend that the dozens of people around you don’t actually exist, having all the moisture sucked out of your body by a ruthlessly efficient ventilation system, and subsisting for a total travel time of ten hours on two packets of mini-pretzels when really you don’t even like pretzels in the first place, but it’s all they’ll give you, the cheap bastards; if that’s fine to you then yes, the flight was fine. It was uneventful. It achieved its purpose.
So now I’m at my parents’ house, which is in an older neighborhood, on a lake. And I just want to take this opportunity to mention that, unbeknownst to many, there’s more to Rhode Island than the fact that it’s small. It’s a fine place, all green, with birds, and blue skies, and all that. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in RI at this time of year, so it’s kind of nice to be reminded of what a swell place it is in the late spring/early summer.
My mom and I went wine tasting yesterday. Yes, Rhode Island even sports a few vineyards. We visited two. The first was, well, lame. The climate and short growing season here really only lends itself to a few varietals, mostly whites, but this vineyard tried to make it all - they had like 30 or 40 wines available for tasting, and four out of the five we tasted were not very good. Seemed like they were just trying to fleece the tourists rather than make a quality product.
The second winery, Greenvale Vineyards, was excellent (although their website has annoying harp music when you first enter it, so consider yourself fore-warned!). The tasting room was tucked away in an old converted stable within sight of the Sakonnet River- very picturesque. They focus primarily on whites, and had six wines for tasting, all of which were good. They also have twin elderly springer spaniels, Sarah and Danielle. Sarah came and slept on our feet while we tasted. Here’s a map of where it is: note that it’s on the same island as Newport (Aquidneck Island).
View Larger Map
My folks are over there by the Arcadia Management Area, so we drove across Narragansett Bay on the Jamestown and Newport Bridges. It used to be that whenever I came back to RI from out west the landscape would look totally foreign to me and it would take some time for me to readjust to eastern topography and vegetation. I’ve been back and forth enough times now so that’s mostly worn off, but crossing the Narragansett Bay yesterday it struck me that it looked all weird and unfamiliar, and I realized that now the predominant “crossing the bay” image in my brain is crossing SF Bay on the Golden Gate Bridge. Narragansett Bay is smaller, and the shores are lined with trees rather than cliffs and/or city.
Anyhoo. Today’s plans include a little hike/walk around a birding area, an early evening showing of Indiana Jones, and dinner at a ribs place.
Just left my cool job at the Center to go on to another cool job at Cornell. I told my friends at the old job that I’d keep them up-to-date via this blog, so I’m unearthing it. Look at it! It’s so dusty and creaky. It’s like a zombie. Except that I think zombies are more wet than dusty. I wonder if my mom is still checking it (the blog, not the zombie) every day? If she isn’t, does it mean she no longer loves me?
So, since my last post, there was Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were lovely, then a new semester that included an internship and a coupla classes plus my old job at the Center, and then I got a job, and another job, and a scholarship. The first job is via Cornell’s Biology Library but I will actually be working and living at the Cornell Biological Field Station. It starts June 2 and will last through the summer. I’ll be working on a data curation project involving a long term aquatic ecology data set, an online repository, two dwarves, and a wheel of cheese. There will also be the semantic web. I will tell you more about it later, when it actually happens and I know enough about it not to be nonsensical and flippant. After that I’ll be working full-time for UC Berkeley’s Bioscience Library. In a fact that turns out to be not entirely coincidental, this is also where I did my internship this semester. And I won a scholarship for one thousand dollars based on my sheer intellectual prowess. Disappointingly, it’s to be applied to my tuition rather than given to me cash in hand. Oh, and I have to take a couple more classes before I graduate, which will be in Spring 2009, unless the asteroids come and muck everything up.
So that brings you just about up to date, except for two important events. One is that Victor and I went hiking on the Tomales Bay Pt. Trail in Pt. Reyes Nat’l Seashore and saw elk, and wildflowers, and elk in wildflowers. Like this:
And, we went to Limantour beach (also in Pt. Reyes Nat’l Seashore) and found that the best thing to do at the beach is to bury Arty in the sand. Here’s how:
And so:
And then he falls asleep:
And there you have it. Next post might be from Rhode Island, or Cornell, or something. Or it could just be from here.
I got to use my mortar and pestle tonight, which is another Christmas present from my parents. Most of my cool stuff comes from them (except my gun and my dolphin skull).
The model I have looks like this:
Image comes from here; it’s from AMCO Houseworks.
I used it to grind about 2 tbsp. of toasted cumin seeds, this evening, for a lentil soup that I made. Perhaps this is common knowledge, but today I found for the first time that my grinding became more effective if I just swirled the pestle around in the mortar, applying constant pressure to the contents, rather than using a repeated grinding motion where I push down in the bottom of the mortar with the pestle (if that made any sense).
This year I think I’m going to angle for a mandoline for my new kitchen toy - I yearn to be able to slice things wafairr-theen!
It’s just Victor and me for Thanksgiving this year (unless anyone wants to come out and join us) and I’m thinking of making a Thanksgiving-themed small-plate extravaganza. I haven’t run this by Victor yet so we’ll see if he embraces the idea or clings stubbornly to the old ways. Here’s what I’m thinking of so far, in approximate order of serving:
Stilton Tart Bites w/ Cranberry Dipping Sauce
Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Swiss Chard
Sweet Potato Chips with Turkey Leg Confit and Cranberry-Black Pepper Chutney
Champagne-Rosemary Sorbet
Mini-Mashed Potato Pancake Sandwiches with Sour Cream and Bacon
Individual Turkey + Mushroom Stuffing Bread Puddings
Haricot Vert and Red Onion Salad with Pistou
Small Pear and Almond Cakes with Muscat Syrup and Mascarpone Cream
I think most of your standard Thanksgiving elements are present in some form, except for pumpkin, of which I’ve never been a huge fan (and I’ve got butternut in there, so the squash family is represented). Some of the recipes are either straight from epicurious.com or slightly adapted versions of recipes found there; others are from my brain.
I was also thinking of tinkering with this menu and including a soup amuse bouche: maybe take away the gnocchi and have some sort of squash puree with star anise or cardamom or something, served in a shot glass or a little tea cup.
Anyhoo. What do y’all think?
NZC quotes some other dude’s post on the topic of being accomplished.
The dude’s observation is both apt and apropos, though when I think of accomplishment (seeing as how my brain has been turned by too much 19th c. literature) I tend to think of it in the Jane Austen sense of the word.
This being the case, I didn’t pay as much attention as I might to the observation itself (as one might expect from the haphazard and dilettantish approach I take to so many endeavors). Travis has a far more considered and mature response to the whole thing, accomplished individual that he is (though not up to his own standards…).
I was far more entranced by Nick’s pithy invocation of Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. Sometimes his ability to coin a catchy phrase approaches the sublime.
And, while we’re about the business of admiring Nick, he’s also responsible for shaming me into this latest fitful spasm of blogging activity by chastising my slackfulness. Mom, thank Nick. Or not, depending on how you feel about that previous post.
Update: oops, d’oh - forgot to give cred for the quote that’s entirely too long to be a post title.
I’d like to announce Victor’s and my intended schedule for our East Coast tour this year.
We’ll be flying into Boston Dec. 17, flying out Dec. 24, and we’ll be spending the bulk of the time with my folks in RI. Victor expects to have to work at Planet Pooch on Christmas (busy time for them) so we’re celebrating Christmas early. Or twice. Or something. If anyone is interested in rendezvousing, drop me a line. We’ve already booked Travis for Dec. 17, so that’s out.
Tangentially, when I first came to work at the Center, one of my coworkers said, “You’re from the East Coast, aren’t you?” (He hails from the Toronto area, incidentally). I responded in the affirmative and asked him why he was so wise in the ways of identifying natives of Back East. He said that he always found East Coasters to have a friendly and open demeanor, as opposed to the Californians he meets. This is the first time I had heard anyone make this observation, cause usually the opposite stereotype prevails: New Yorkers are obnoxious, New Englanders standoffish, and Californians are laid back and mellow. So it was nice to be appreciated. Go Back East!
I’ve read a lot of books in the past few weeks, cause of the camping trip and because I didn’t have classes for three weeks or so there in August (which was nice!)
I finally got around to getting a library card at the Daly City Public Library and have since been raiding their shelves. It’s a pretty decent library- like most public libraries, it’s best not to go in with any specific expectations about a particular book. I picked these books out pretty much at random. I’ll give them ratings on a scale of 1-10
The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth: 7 out of 10. It’s set in the 12th century, which is a plus. The plot was fairly predictable, with the “intrigue” being not very intriguing. The main character was annoyingly callow, but of course he wises up in the end. Entertaining, but I wouldn’t go out of your way for it.
The Divine Economy of Salvation by Priscilla Uppal: 7 out of 10. Canadian convent-school girls do something horrible back in the 50’s or so and the main character, now an aging nun, is scarred for life. It’s an extended flashback kind of novel. There’s redemption in the end, in the form of an unexpected visitor to the aging nun’s convent.
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund: 8 out of 10. This novel about Marie Antoinette is written by the same author who wrote Ahab’s Wife, which book I have Jessica’s copy of and need to get back to her. Ahab’s Wife is great. This book isn’t quite as good, but I think Naslund paints Marie Antoinette’s character really well and the story is fascinating.
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason: 8 out of 10. Centers around a British piano tuner who travels to Burma at around the turn of the century on a mission to tune the piano of a mysterious quasi-Kurtz type of figure. He gets wrapped up in the beauties of the place in general and of one woman in particular, and at the same time becomes involved with quasi-Kurtz’s political maneuverings amongst the natives. It’s heavy on atmospheric description of Burmese jungle life; Mason really tries to hammer home the languor, timelessness, and humidity of the place, which stretches a 150 page novella out to 300 pages.
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger: 8.5 out of 10. Cool culture-clash story about a Chinese artist who comes to the US under false pretenses and stays with a wealthy SoCal family, which, like any SoCal family, has problems of its own. Hijinx ensue. This is the first novel from an alarmingly young-looking Freudenberger. She’s pretty deft with characters, and her plot was tight and readable. I liked it.
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks: 8.5 out of 10. One of them war, love, and redemption stories. The war parts were pretty graphic and a bit hard to take- Faulks really hits the “war is hell” message pretty hard. The novel was set primarily before and during WWI, focusing on the character of Stephen Wraysford. It’s told in episodes: we see Stephen in France in 1910, then meet up with him again in 1916, etc. Intertwined with this story is the supporting story of a woman Elizabeth in 70’s England who finds Stephen’s encrypted diaries and tries to unlock the mystery of his life. It’s good, but heavy, stuff.
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry: 9 out of 10. I really liked A Fine Balance by the same author and so picked up this novel set in Mumbai about a semi-affluent Parsi family thrown into conflict when their aging father is injured and requires constant care. The situation is complicated by the father’s actions in the past. The dialog, which Mistry conveys faithfully in Indian vernacular, can seem a bit comical until you realize the underlying subtlety of the characters’ interactions. And, like in A Fine Balance, Mistry is brilliant at depicting the chaos and claustrophobia of Mumbai life.
Boring post, but necessary to properly document our activities. Why is writing about travel (at least when I do it) so unexciting, as compared to actually doing it?
Victor and I went up to Lassen NP and surrounding National Forest for a few days in mid August to do a bit of camping and see the sights. On our way up, we stopped at the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge to do a bit of birding. The refuge hadn’t done their water release yet (which is what makes all the nice wetlands that attract the shorebirds and waterfowl) so it was pretty quiet, but we did see some nice stuff including a pair of willow flycatchers at the viewing platform. There were also lots of ring-necked pheasant (not surprising since they’re introduced):
We camped in Lassen National Forest, right outside the park, along Forest Road 17 if anyone’s interested. We were primitive camping rather than camping in a campground, so basically we just found a good spot in the forest and pulled the truck up. At our first campsite, we were eaten alive by mosquitoes, which we blamed on the fact that we were camped right near a pool of stagnant water. We moved to a new campsite the next night, which was much nicer. It was on the edge of a dried lake bed. It was a great spot for birds: each morning we’d wake up and there would be a bunch of hermit warblers (as well as Nashville, MacGillivray’s, Wilson’s, yellow-rumped, and orange-crowned warblers) foraging high up in the trees as they moved through on their journey south. Tons of bluebirds and chipping sparrows hung out in the middle of the lakebed, and we also saw a goshawk at the site. Here’s Victor looking at something in the middle of the lakebed:
We went for a hike up to Heart Lake on one day - saw a black-throated gray warbler on the trail, which was a nice bird to see. This was in the National Forest so we were able to bring Arty; he’s not allowed on trails in the National Park. We were hoping to swim in the lake, but it was kind of narsty with algae and such, so we just looked at it. We went for a dip in a creek on the way down instead. It was freakin’ cold. Here’s Arty at the lake:
We spent a day in the Lassen National Park. Lovely place, but as with most National Parks we didn’t really fully sample all of its pleasures because we had Arty with us and couldn’t go on any extended hikes in the park. We did leave Arty in the truck while we went on a short hike into Bumpass Hell, which I believe is what one might call a geothermal feature.
It’s got all these vents and hot springs and boiling mudpots and all that kind of thing. Good times.
We left on a Tuesday morning and got back Friday night. We had been planning on staying an extra day or two but I was fighting a sinus infection so we decided it best to curtail the trip.
It’s been a while, I know. Sorry, Mom.
A few weeks back we went to a party at Hilary’s house for our friend Ramiro, who had been imprisoned in Oaxaca last year, basically for being in the wrong place at the wrong time at a teacher’s strike. Lots of you already know the details: if you don’t, check out this Amnesty International Action Alert. He’s free now, and with his wife and two kids. This summer they moved up to Eugene, Oregon, where Ram has been doing some bird work.
It was purely amazing to see Ram free, and healthy and happy, and with his incredible wife and two great kids. Again, a huge thank you to all of you who took the time to sign the petition, write letters, donate money and give good advice. Here’s some pictures that Kerry took- I stole them off his Flickr site. Go here to see the rest.
Joshua and Cami, Ram and Ruth’s really cute kids.
Here’s Ruth helping Joshi to some pie.
Ramiro and Joshua.
Ramiro and Kerry. This is at the point in the evening when Ram had entered the “I love you, man. No, really, I love you, man!” stage.
A recent blog post from Travis, wherein he recounts a conversation we had via email:
Kelly: In other news, sadly, it’s a “long wait” on Netflix for Rome season 2 disc 1.
TJIC: Not for me, @#$% !! UPS delivered it to me at 8am today, and I am *** SO *** watching it tonight. Nyah!
Kelly: I’m on vacation for a week and a half
TJIC: This whole capitalist vs. hippy lifestyle war has both its winning (Rome, season 2), and losing (vacation) battles. Damn you!
I would just like to note that I returned from vacation to find Rome Season 2 Disc 1 awaiting me in my mailbox. Double damn me!
Later on Friday of last week we headed out to Inverness to meet up with some friends and have a picnic. Our friend Lisa chose the spot, which Victor and I hadn’t been to before; a bench atop Mt. Vision in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Our buddy Bob and his buddy Eric from Montana joined us. We had cheese and crackers and bread and chips and salsa and olives and wine and beer. Here’s some pics that Victor took.
Last weekend Victor and I were up in the North Bay, so we did what everyone does when they head up that direction: we went to an RV show. This was in the middle of the day on a Friday, the first day of the show, so we kind of had the place all to ourselves, except for the salespeople (who were all very nice, and who, reasonably, pretty much left us alone once they saw that we weren’t serious buyers (this assessment probably took them about .7 seconds)).
At first we were looking at the little RVs, cause feasibly, someday, we might want to set ourselves up with something like that. But eventually we migrated over to the big ol’ land yachts, cause, you know, how can you not?
We had a little photo shoot, with Victor demonstrating the various features of some of the rigs that we looked at. Maybe if we go to enough of these things we could make a calendar.
We have lots of lovely, big, reflective picture windows where I work. Which is nice, from a pleasant-work-environment standpoint. Unfortunately, one window in particular is situated in such a way that it reflects an inviting vista of trees and sky, and consequently it’s not uncommon for birds to crash headlong into the window and either die or be stunned.
This happened to a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk last week. It’s a beautiful bird: it was really a shame. It’s now in our freezer. I’m planning on donating it to the California Academy of Sciences, as they have a collection of bird skins, but before we froze it we took a few pictures.
I always thought that driving the Bookmobile would be a fun job, but this is way better.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6929404.stm
We used to have an Albertson’s directly across the street from our apartment complex. About a week ago, this Albertson’s had a power outage (the only one on the block). This past weekend, Victor and I went there to try to buy some meat and they didn’t have any. Meat. At all. The meat case was empty.
Monday morning, the Albertson’s sign was taken down and a Lucky sign was put up.
The Albertson’s was never a very nice store. The floors were always kind of dirty, and it never smelled quite right. But, the brand-conscious part of my brain still perceives the Lucky as being a step down from the Albertson’s. The store may in fact improve by virtue of being a Lucky, but it will still be tainted by its low-rent branding, at least in my mind.
It continually surprises me, the low quality of grocery stores here in California. Back east, or at least in the southern New England and mid Atlantic states, any suburb or faux-suburb greater than 30,000 in size sports a huge, glittering mega supermarket that has everything you could ever want. Aesthetically appealing? Not necessarily. But clean, at least, and fully stocked with an array of both domestic and foreign foodstuffs to dazzle the eye and palate, with firm and fresh produce, and ham hocks available from the meat department, should you need such a thing. I thought that California would be replete with these types of establishments as well, being, you know, California, but such is not the case. At least, not around the Bay Area: I have in fact encountered a supermarket like this in Sacramento.
I think it might have to do with the fact that the yuppies all shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s here, or at the cute little individually owned boutique gourmet grocery stores. Don’t get me wrong, I shop at Trader Joe’s too, but when I need, for example, meat, I’m going to go to a normal supermarket. I’m not going to go to Whole Foods and pay $19/lb for meat from some grass-fed, diaper-wearing cow that only drank lattes till it was 6 months old. But apparently the power of the yuppie dollar is not with me on this, so there isn’t demand for, for instance, regular supermarkets that have meat departments with a decent selection of different cuts, or produce that isn’t wilted and brown. I suppose I will just struggle along with my Lucky, and hope for the best.
Sometimes you read things that interest you because they introduce you to things you’ve never thought about before.
Sometimes you read things that interest you because, though they discuss topics you thought about before, they announce a finding, result, or opinion that runs contrary to your expectations and may cause you to tweak your worldview.
Sometimes you read things that are interest you simply because they help to confirm your previously held general impressions of “how things are,” like this finding from the Pew Research Center:
Most Americans (62%) disagree with the idea that success is mostly determined by forces outside a person’s control, but 34% agree with this sentiment; in 2003, the public dismissed the idea that success is largely outside of one’s control by a slightly wider margin (67%-30%). Stark racial differences exist on this question as blacks continue to feel less empowered than whites. About half of African Americans (48%) say success in life is largely determined by forces outside of one’s control, compared with 31% of whites. A decade ago, the racial differences in views of personal empowerment were much narrower. Fewer than four-in-ten African Americans (38%) and 31% of whites said that success was mostly the result of outside forces. But since then, higher percentages of blacks have agreed with this statement. In 2002, 49% said that success was largely determined by outside forces; that number fell to 43% in 2003, and rose to 48% in the current survey.
Interesting that the gap in outlooks between black and white folks narrows during the mid-late 90s or so, and is wider during the 2000s and the late 80s/early 90s. I wonder if this fluctuation has to do with black people being actually financially better off during the late 90s boomtime, or if it has to do with the fact that there was a Democrat in the White House.
So way back when (maybe 3 weeks ago?), Victor and I went on a little wine-tasting jaunt, and I’m just now getting around to blogging about it.
Here’s our route:
Stop 1: Cline winery. The whole field trip was instigated by the fact that we belong to the Cline wine club, and we had just moved in the past 3-4 months, and our quarterly wine shipment was about to get sent out, and they didn’t have our right address. So we decided we might as well go up there and straighten it out and, you know, drink some wine. Cline has a separate little room for club members where you can taste whichever wine you want, rather than the schlock they have out for the sweaty masses (their schlock is actually very good, and I’m sure the masses are perfectly lovely. But it’s not every day that I get to be exclusive, so I’m playing it up). The reason we’re members of Cline is because their wine is really freakin’ good, so we were happy to sample several of their selections while there, and picked up our wine shipment in the meanwhile. They emphasize Zinfandels, but I particularly favor their Small-Berry Mourvedre, which is fruity, chocolatey, and tobaccoey, all in one. Like bundling a cigar and a chocolate bar together with a fruit rollup, and smoking it. Not that I’d do such a thing.
Stop 2 was Taft Street Winery. This has been a favorite of ours in the past, but on this visit we realized that the reason why it was a favorite was because of the Guy, and the Guy was gone. The Guy used to pour whatever captured his fancy, and tell you all about whatever it was, how it was grown on the rocky slopes so you could taste the mineral, yadda yadda. He was super chatty, and he picked out the good stuff to pour and he wanted to teach you about wine more than he wanted to monitor how much wine you were getting. This is probably why he’s been replaced by a robot. The robot only poured what’s on the tasting menu, which wasn’t very good, and she used the little pour spouts that measure a stingy little pour, and she didn’t say anything interesting. She just said what she’d been programmed to say, like “This would go great with grilled meats.” Which is pretty much what it says on the back of the bottle.
Saddened by stop 2, we moved on to stop 3. We like the wines at stop 3, but they’re kind of expensive so we just go there recreationally, and pay our $5 tasting fee without purchasing anything. Stop 3 is Sunce winery, and they have a Bocce ball court. The first time we went there, with Victor’s brother and his friend Susan G*****, we played Bocce, and they had just had a special event there so there was leftover food, so we ate some of the leftover food and finished off the wine in the bottles that had been left out for the event. So that was fun. The wine was still good, but there were no freebies, and playing bocce by our lonesomes under an overcast sky seemed uninviting, so we just tasted and went on our way.
Stop 4 is actually a restaurant. It’s Sooze’s wine bar and cafe and it’s in Petaluma, where we used to live. It’s one of our favorites: maybe 6 or 8 tables and a small bar, really intimate. Sooze’s is cool because they have half-price glasses of wine from 4-6, their wine list is well-chosen (I’ve not had a wine there that I haven’t liked), and the food is really good. We started with some oysters and something steely and white that I can’t remember the name of (I knew I should have written this post earlier). We had a bowl of olives, then I had the seared scallops with a pea-roasted garlic puree, that were just out of this world. I can’t remember what Victor had. Victor, what did you have? Anyway, for dessert we both got the molten chocolate cake, and I got a dessert wine recommended by the waiter, a Zinfandel that didn’t quite stand up to the dessert, so that was a little disappointing. They used to have this excellent Rosenblum “Rosie Rabbit” dessert wine that was excellent, like, I don’t know, sucking on rubies or something (maybe a more useful description would be, an intense berry jam flavor nicely balanced with a hint of acid), but it’s apparently gone.
Then we walked around a bit in the ol’ Luma, and Victor drove home, cause he wasn’t all drunk like me. Sometimes, Californ-I-A is aaallllright.
Dear blog readers,
How do I prevent Victor from putting his dumb motocross, NASCAR and surfing movies at the top of our Netflix queue so that my movies never move up, without doing something underhanded and vengeful like changing the password to our account?
-Kelly
P.S. I love you, baby!
New England White by Stephen Carter.
This is Carter’s second novel, though he’s written a bunch of non-fiction books: he’s a law professor at Yale. I really liked his first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park and so I actually did something I rarely do: I bought his 2nd book in hardcover within days of its release.
The premise of New England White, that of a murder mystery set among the black upper class against a backdrop of academia and politics, is similar to the first novel, but whereas The Emperor of Ocean Park featured strong characters whose identities stood up to the heavy themes of race, politics, morality, and family relationships that permeated the book, the characters in New England White just seem like carelessly drawn props. He doesn’t really seem like he’s exploring any new territory. This would be ok by me if the mystery itself were interestingly plotted, but I’m on page 400 of around 550 or so and the plot is dragging where it should be gathering speed for a climactic ending.
So, unfortunately, my impetuousness in rushing out to buy this book was not rewarded. But, read The Emperor of Ocean Park: it’s really good.
And, on the topic of reading, I just got a library card today and got out two books: The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth and The Divine Economy of Salvation by Priscilla Uppal (yes, I only looked at books in the U section. I should have gotten something by Leon Uris to round it out). The first book is “a story of love and intrigue in the 12th century”. The second book has something to do with nuns and girls’ boarding schools so I expect it will have predictably lesbian overtones. But the author is Canadian, which for some reason is an obscure point in its favor in my way of reckoning, and it got lots of good reviews.
Last weekend Victor and I went banding in Yosemite.
We stayed with our buddy Bob, at his gracious and well-appointed field house in Groveland. The house’s main attraction was its large stone porch. Over the course of their field season many person-hours were logged on that porch by Bob and his field crew, and we did our best to boost the number during our visit.
This is a fairly typical scene. Bob’s the one sucking down the beer; Ben was a member of Bob’s field crew this summer working on a willow flycatcher survey:
Of course, sitting on the porch was not in fact our primary mission. We banded some birds as well. We joined interns Craig, Bucky, Lanaye, and Jordan at Crane Flat and banded there for six hours. One of the highlights that day was a Lazuli Bunting:
When we band, we set up ten mistnets in established locations around the stations. We make a circuit to check the nets once every 40 minutes, and we extract whatever birds we come across as we’re doing our checks. That day, we had a rather impressive 23 birds in one net at the same time: it was pretty busy.
Here’s what a mistnet looks like:
I think I was taking a Lincoln’s sparrow out of the net in this picture but I’m not quite sure. Here’s what a bird caught in a net looks like:
Once we get the birds out of the nets, we bring them back to our banding station in small cloth bags. We put a band on each bird (unless it has been recaptured, in which case we record the band number) and determine the bird’s age and sex, along with some other data. The data goes to The Institute for Bird Populations, where Victor and I used to work. The data are used to estimate survivorship and productivity of the species that we catch: in other words, researchers at IBP can examine trends in populations of these birds with the banding data collected by folks at this station and around 500 others across North America.
Anyhoo, Victor went out with the interns the next day to Gin Flat, which is a higher elevation site. I hung back at the house cause the site was a hike-in, so we weren’t able to bring Arty (dogs are not allowed on trails in the park) and I didn’t want to leave him tied up outside all alone. But, the star of that day’s banding was a Williamson’s sapsucker, which I was sorry to miss as he’s a fairly impressive specimen:
So, there you have it.