So it won't take . . .

3 weeks. I just received a phone call from the university health center at CU. Our paperwork has been processed, and we can now make an appointment to meet with the doctor, which we do as a family. It seems as though my doctor frustrations may be coming to an end. . .

Um, seriously. . .

I've spent the last half an hour calling various doctor's offices that have been recommended to us in an attempt to get Wild Man an appointment for his 2-year check up. So far, I've had zero luck finding a doctor who is accepting new patients. We've been warned this was an issue, so we do have a back-up plan: the University Health Clinic. There is apparently a really great pediatrician there, and as a plus, there is a separate clinic for faculty and their families. We don't have to wait in the lobby surrounded by sick students. But I can't get an appointment for 3 weeks because they just received our registration paperwork last week. In all the myriad of forms we've had to complete and take to various university office and government agencies since we moved to CU Land, somehow we forgot to complete our registration forms for the University Health Clinic. We realized our mistake last week, filled out the forms, and dropped them off. But it seems it takes 3 weeks to process this paperwork. Um, seriously. . . 3 weeks? The forms had our names, our address, our phone numbers, and really, that was it. How long does it take to put that in the system so we can take our kid to the doctor? Luckily, Wild Man isn't in dire need of of this check-up as his doctor in the States was kind enough to give him his 2-year vaccinations before we left Southwest College Town, but what if he really was sick? I asked the not-so-kind receptionist this, and she said "You could take him to anyone of the walk-in clinics around town." Yes, I've heard about these clinics--they are like walk-in clinics in the states, and they operate on a first-come, first-serve basis. Precisely where I'd want to take my sick toddler.

And a lot of this is to blame on the rampant doctor shortage in our province. Apparently a lot of newly graduated Canadian doctors prefer to find jobs in the States, where they can make a lot more money than they can in their own country. It seems that the U.S. healthcare system is also screwing up the Canadian healthcare system.

Thanksgiving: To Give Thanks or Not to Give Thanks

Monday is Thanksgiving in Canada. C and I have yet to decide if we will do anything to celebrate. I have learned that Thanksgiving in Canada is vastly similar to Thanksgiving in the U.S., including the menu. It is based on the same principles, without any false stories about the Pilgrims and the American Indians happily sharing a dinner together. It falls earlier, I've learned, to reflect the earlier Canadian harvest. I realize that today is Thursday, and if we, in fact, do want to celebrate in a traditional way, I need to buy a turkey tomorrow. . .

*Edited to add: I went shopping today (Friday, Oct. 10th), and I visited 3 grocery stores. It seems that one can only buy 30-plus pound turkeys in CU Land, and thus, C, Wild Man, and I will not be partaking of a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving. Instead, we're having tacos.

A book review

For months I've been eying a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld and one written on a similar premise called The Sneaky Chef. Both include techniques and recipes for "hiding" pureed veggies in your food in an attempt to get kids to eat vegetables. When both books initially came out, I thought "I already do that." And I do indeed sneak vegetables in all kids of food: carrots and celery in marinara, spinach in meatloaf and turkey burgers, and zucchini in chili. I also put bananas and apples in my pancakes, various muffins, and cakes (when I actually bake). My reasoning behind this: neither C nor I have the best family medical history. I figure the healthier I can make meals the better. Plus, while C will eat just about anything I put in front of him (yes, following traditional gendered roles I do almost all of the cooking in our house!), but he will not seek out fruit or vegetables for a snack. So I figured any way I could get more vegetables in our diet was a good thing. As attractive as both of these cookbooks was to me, I figured I didn't need another cookbook, especially to teach me a technique I already use. I briefly reconsidered purchasing one of these when Academama wrote a review for Deceptively Delicious, but as we were in the middle of moving, I soon forgot about both.

Flash forward to the last few weeks. Now that we live in CU Land, we have all sorts of produce available to us that we couldn't purchase in Southwest College Town, and it is remarkably cheap. During a recent trip to the local farmer's market, I bought a butternut squash for 50 cents. I had no idea how to cook it, but I figured for 50 cents I could experiment. When C saw the squash he was aghast. He hates squash of any kind, with the exception of zucchini, which he has only recently started to eat. I think he assumed the squash would go bad before I could figure out how to get him to eat it. Then we visited some friends who had Deceptively Delicious, and I took the opportunity to read the cookbook.

My first reaction was that the text itself was incredibly annoying. Seriously, Jessica Seinfeld, Jerry's wife, includes cartoon images of herself and her children on each recipe and their comments. While the kids' comments are marginally cute, Seinfeld's comments are annoying and border on condescending. Here's an example: the cartoon Sasha, the Seinfelds' oldest child, says "I don't like avocado," to which the cartoon Jessica responds "Shhh, don't tell her it is in her quesadillas." I mean really, is that necessary? And this cutesy sort of thing is on almost every recipe. It makes me want to openly mock her. But I've got to admit, she's creative. And after flipping through the recipes I had about 15 different uses for that butternut squash that had been sitting on my counter for a week. Not only that, I learned I could make chocolate chip cookies with garbanzo beans, chocolate cake with pumpkin, and cauliflower in just about everything. Thus, I bought Seinfeld's book (as an aside, I chose this one over the other cookbook for only one reason: I like a cookbook that has photographs of the food accompanying each recipe.). With this cookbook's help, I feel like I have an easy way to make use of the fantastic (and way cheap!) produce that is now available to me. And, in my opinion, the best thing about this was that Wild Man and I spent Monday morning in the kitchen cooking and pureeing squash, sweet potatoes, and cauliflower. So I would recommend the book for the recipes, urging you to realize you can do all of this on your own and to ignore the annoying cartoon images and their commentary.

Dissertation Changes

In the past week I have been experiencing a lot of anxiety over my dissertation. I've become really concerned that one of the chapters I planned to write just wasn't going to work. On top of that, I'm having a hard time getting resources in CU Land (for some reason, CU has a relatively limited selection of critical sources on 19th-century American literature), necessitating that I spend some money on books I access regularly. I've also started to wonder if I could, in fact, finish 2 whole chapters, an introduction, and revisions by late May. Last week, I used C as a sounding board for some changes I wanted to make, namely reorganizing the dissertation, dropping an author and a chapter, combining two authors that were previously not linked, and changing the focus of that chapter a bit. C was for some of the changes, but he thought dropping one author was a bad idea. He argued that this author made my project more rounded and articulated the point that the spatial constructions I'm considering aren't limited to America. I think his points were valid, but they didn't ease any of my frustrations. So I scheduled a phone date with my advisor, which I just finished.

The result of the conversation is 100% positive as far as I'm concerned. I articulated my concerns about two of the five authors I'm dealing with as well as my concerns about organization. First, we tackled organization. I had planned to organize chronologically, but ultimately that doesn't make sense since I'm not making a chronological argument, i.e. arguing that history affects the way these women view the types of spaces I'm talking about. In turns out I'm making a thematic argument, and so now my project is organized to reflect that. I move from actual physical spaces to a discussion of metaphoric spaces, concluding with a chapter and a novel that deals with both. Then, we considered my concerns about Harriet Wilson and Fanny Kemble. Now, combining these two women in one chapter has always been sort of odd to everyone on my committee, but they all gave me the opportunity to work through this myself. In fact, Kemble's presence in the project has always presented complications--she's British, she comes from a position of privilege, and her work is published 30 years after she writes it. But I still think my points about Kemble are valid. So I explained that I wanted to keep Kemble, but not discuss her in conjunction with Wilson. I then would combine Wilson with Harriet Jacobs. My advisor's response: cut Kemble altogether. I was surprised, but on some level, I was hoping she'd say this. Her reasoning: I no longer have to argue why Kemble is in the project in the first place, and a comparison of Jacobs and Wilson just makes more sense.

So I now have a 4 chapter dissertation, including the introduction. I will, obviously, have a conclusion, but I'm not yet sure if that will be a chapter unto itself or if it will be at the end of the 3rd chapter. This means that I only have 1 chapter to draft in its entirety. I still have to revise Wharton signficantly and write the introduction, but somehow that all seems manageable. A late-May defense is looking more and more possible.

My Wild Man . . .

. . . is rapidly becoming a little boy. Everyday he looks more and more like a little boy. Here are some recent pictures of him, showing just how much of a little boy he is.

Here is he demonstrating his independent streak on two recent trips to the park.



And, he is clearly his father's son as he demonstrates his profound love for ice cream.


*Keeping with my promise to C I only left these photos that showed Wild Man's face up for a few days.

Motivation

I'm having trouble staying motivated to work on my dissertation again, and there are a variety of reasons why. I don't feel like going into the reasons, though, because I don't feel like that will accomplish much. I have lots of reasons to be motivated, and I am managing to get work done. I am not, however, getting as much work done as I think I should be. At any given point in the day I can thing of 10 things I could be doing rather than working on my dissertation, and generally, I'd rather be doing at least 5 of those other things. That seems to be the nature of dissertation work for me.

Milk and Butter

During our trip this past weekend, C and I did a little shopping for Wild Man. We bought all of his birthday presents, including a countertop kitchen, a set of wooden pots and pans, and 3 sets of wooden food. We had planned to by the countertop kitchen and pots and pans, but the wooden food was not a planned purchase. I found it at a toy store we visited and was amazed to see that it was about 15 dollars cheaper than any similar sets I've seen in CU Land. I pointed it out to C, who made the executive decision to purchase 3 of the 4 sets the toy store had. We've decided to put 2 sets aside for his birthday, and we gave him one set yesterday. He loves it. He played with it all yesterday evening while I made dinner and C finished unpacking. This morning he made C "steak and eggs." In fact, he was so engrossed in playing with the food this morning that both C and I had to tell him to stop playing so we could all get out the door. Wild Man said "Wait!" He took his play milk and butter over to the refrigerator, and said "Please open, Daddy! Food go in the refrigerator." He then placed the milk and butter in the refrigerator and said, "Ok, ready to go." As C said, it was rather difficult to argue with Wild Man's logic.

Vocabulary Explosion

Since our arrival in CU Land, Wild Man's vocabulary has exploded. He gains several new phrases a day, and it is quite easy to have a conversation with him. As many of my Southwest College Town readers have been asking for updates, I want to share a conversation that he and I had this weekend during our visit with Solon and Megs. During an afternoon out, C and Solon stopped in a store to shop while Megs and I amused Sweet Toddler J, Lion Cub, and Wild Man on the sidewalk. As we chatted, a police car zoomed by, and Wild Man reached for my hand and pulled me down to his stroller, and here is the conversation that ensued.

• Mommy, look!
• I'm looking. What do you see?
• I see a horse.
• You do?
• And I see a cow, and I see sheeps. Lots of sheeps.
• Really, sheeps on the street? What else do you see?
• I see octopus.
• An octopus?
• Yes, right there. I see octopus.
• What does an octopus say?
• Um, (long pause) I don't know, Mommy. (very loudly) Octopus, what do you say?

So not only is my kid able to carry on a conversation now, he also has quite an imagination!

Pajamas

Thursday is my day to work from home. I haven't worked from home consistently in over a year and a half. Our schedules dictated that I was the one who took Wild Man to school, which meant it was easier (logistically) to work from my office at Southwest College Town. That meant I actually had to put clothes on every single day. Since C takes Wild Man to school on Thursdays I don't have to get dressed all day long if I don't want to. I forgot how productive I can be while wearing my pajamas!

For Supadisco-T

Wild Man's best friend, Supadisco-T, is having tubes put in his ears this morning. I wanted to let him and his parents know that we're thinking about him today. Here's a clip from his favorite movie to let him know that Wild Man would love to help him recuperate today.

One more thing. . .

Why does my mother-in-law insist on saying things like: "For God's sake, be sure to keep hold of Wild Man in the airport!"? This comment was prompted when C reminded her that we are traveling to see our friends Solon and Megs this weekend. C, being the smartass that he is, responded: "Nope, we figured we'd let him check us in while we parked the car."

Oh, and she also tells me I'm perverted for taking pictures of Wild Man running around the backyard in the sprinkler naked: "What if a pedophile saw them, M? What is he was kidnapped because of those photos?" Yeah, because I'm planning on putting those photos up on a billboard in downtown CU Land along with Wild Man's name, our address, and our phone number.

I am, as far as my mother-in-law is concerned, an idiot with no common sense, and apparently Wild Man is damn lucky to have made it to almost 2.

Two year olds

Here's another piece of useful information: toddlers do not know that they are toddlers. Most don't even know how old they are. Most don't even count yet, and if they do, they don't really know what it means. Yes, my kid is bright--he talks in complete sentences most of the time, he can take the phone apart and put it back together (literally, we have an old fashioned rotary phone, and he does take it apart), and he knows his colors and his ABCs. But, in fact, he doesn't know that he is turning 2 next month, and no, he is not excited about his birthday.

Thanks for allowing me that sarcastic rant. If it wasn't for this blog I would have ranted all over Pita, and as you all well know, that wouldn't have been a wise idea.

More weird things about CU Land

We've been here for almost 2 months, and we're only now figuring out the trash pick-up. That's right, it has taken C, with his Ph.D., and me, with my almost Ph.D., 6 weeks to figure out when to put out our trash and recycling. Why do you ask? Well, my friends, because it is never picked up on the same day of the week. Last week, the trash and recycling trucks came on Wednesday morning (I remember because Wild Man loves to watch the recycling truck, so we looked at it for a good 10 minutes). The week before they came on Tuesday, and this week, they come tomorrow. Logically you'd think that next week, they'll come on Friday, but no. Next week they skip our neighborhood altogether because in CU Land we go one full week a month without any trash pick-up. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but here's the thing: there is a 4 bag limit. Yes, we're recycling so much more than we did in Southwest College Town, and yes, we no longer have to schlepp it to the recycling center. But we still average a full bag of trash about every 4 days, sometimes more often when Wild Man has had a particularly stinky diaper or we have to empty our cats' litter box. So in the 10 plus days our trash isn't picked up, C and I are cramming everything into each bag we can before we empty the trash and put in a new bag. This, my friends, is just plain odd to me.

A conversation with my father

I was originally going to post this on the other blob in which I participate, The Rhetorical Situation, but as it verges into the personal at times, I decided to post it here.

Sunday is the day I talk to my parents. I occasionally chat with my mom during the week, but for whatever reason, I usually only talk to my dad on Sunday. Lately the conversation has been rather mundane, almost to the point that I'm annoyed when we talk. This past Sunday, however, my dad surprised me by asking my opinion on something. He asked me why Democrats dislike Sarah Palin so much. This question took me off guard for several reasons. First, my dad and I avoid talking politics because when we do talk politics we usually end up yelling at each other. Second, my dad made it clear that he was only asking for information; he didn't want to get into a political debate. Rather, he wanted to understand some of the things being said about Palin. I tried, the best I could, to explain that I couldn't offer an opinion for all Democrats, so I tried to articulate why I think Palin is a bad choice for VP, without going into why I will not be voting for McCain. I told him that Palin is inarticulate, inexperienced, and ignorant about many things. I also said that I think McCain was pandering to women by choosing her. My dad then asked "But why are Gloria Steinem and NOW so anti-Palin? Don't feminists support all women?" I think my dad asked a question that a lot of Americans are also asking themselves, so I tried to explain, again from my perspective, as best I could. I said, yes, in theory, feminism is about improving life for all women. But Palin isn't representative of most American women. In fact Palin's situation is sort of unique. She is a working mother who has a supportive spouse and a network of family around to help her. Further, I said, her policies, and Republican policies in general, aren't supportive of women. He seemed to understand this, and we had a really good conversation without any yelling.

The conversation prompted me to consider how it is that my dad, a former self-proclaimed "flower child" who dropped acid, smoked pot, and wore his hair long, could become so conservative. It also made me wonder yet again how our politics can be so different. My dad is liberal socially (he supports gay marriage and a woman's right to choose), but he is very conservative in terms of crime and defense (and he, unfortunately, tends to vote for people who are equally conservative in those areas, negating his social liberalism). I can't account for all of my dad's conservative beliefs (although I do think his decision to join the military in the early 1970s profoundly affected his "hippie" views), but I do know that he has become increasingly conservative about military matters since September 11th. My dad is a firefighter, and he was profoundly affected by the number of firefighters killed on September 11th. Since that time he's become increasingly conservative and willing to follow our military leaders into any war that will ensure that the individuals responsible for September 11th are brought to justice. His brand of justice, needless to say, is vastly different from my own. Recently, however, my dad has begun to make some statements that lead me to think he is not so sure the Iraq War, of which he was once an ardent supporter, was the best idea. He has been out of the military for some time, but he continued to work in a military fire department, as a civil service firefighter, until he retired last year. I know several of the young GIs he worked with are currently on their second tour in Iraq, and one come home severely injured from fighting a fire caused by a bombing. I don't know if this accounts for his change or not, but I do know he seems to be rethinking some of his positions.

Given this I was more than a bit surprised to have a fairly open conversation with my dad regarding the current Presidential campaign. I don't think my dad will suddenly change his mind and vote Democrat, but the conversation does give me hope that maybe, just maybe the tide is changing in the U.S.

A conclusion

I finally have a conclusion for my Phelps chapter! I'm going to take some time today to read over the entire chapter (it is the longest thing I've ever written at 60-plus pages) and send it off to my advisor next week. I already know where I need to revise it, but now, I'm ready to move on to the next chapter.

Here's a tip

I've just finished printing off and reading the 20-plus abstracts I received for my panel, and I want to offer some tips to any of my readers who may be submitting an abstract in the future.

• put your name and your email address on the abstract
• single space the abstract
• give the paper a title
• and, finally, PROOFREAD!

Seriously, you'd think full profs at fairly well known and well respected institutions would make sure they don't send off an abstract with typos and misspellings in it. . .

How cool is this!?

I'm putting together a panel at a regional version of the Major Conference in my area, and I've received about 18 proposals. Apparently people liked my CFP, which I'd thought was sort of vague.

Here's the cool thing: 2 very cool scholars that I've read, one of whom I use fairly extensively in my Wharton chapter, have submitted abstracts to my panel!

The Holidays

Yes, I know it is only mid-September, but C and I are already getting the "What are you doing for the holidays?" question from his family. My family, as I've said before, is more laid back (read: passive) and doesn't think about the holidays until a week before. Both approaches are annoying. So what are we doing for the holidays? I have no idea. C and I are in total disagreement, although we're not fighting about it. I've made it clear that I'll go along with whatever he wants to do, since, in truth, Christmas tends to be a bigger deal to him than it is to me. Here are our options.

1. Stay in CU Land, enjoy a white (possibly) Christmas with just the three of us. This option, as I'm sure you're all anticipating, appeals to me quite a lot. No fuss, no muss. No stress, no tension. Just me, C, and Wild Man. What could be better?

2. Travel to Home State and divide our time between the 2 families. There are actually 2 variations on this option.
A. Fly to Home State, spend about 8 days, dividing said days between our 2 families, and fly back to CU Land. This is an ok option, so long as we are able to devise a schedule before we leave CU Land and get our especially stubborn families to abide by it. The biggest issue is cost. Wild Man will be 2 by Christmas, which means no more flying for free. Do we really want to spend $800 plus to be moderately stressed out for a week. C, who desperately wants to go hunting with his brother, says yes. I say, let's think about it some more.

B. Drive to Home State, with a side trip to Mountain State where my grandparents live, spend 3 days with them, continue on to Home State, spend 6 days with them, drive back to CU Land. Although this plan would be moderately less expensive and allow me to see my grandparents, none of us wants to spend 4 days in the car with Wild Man.

3. M's sister and her family, who will have relocated to the Midwest by then, travel to CU Land to visit us for the holidays. I also like this option. Our schedule and lives are only moderately disrupted and someone actually makes an effort to come see us. C has agreed that if my sister and her hubby actually decide to do this by mid-October (yes, he's a planner) we'll with this option.

So what do we do until we decide? We deflect the questions coming from Yetta and Pita, and we continue to discuss it amongst ourselves. I also try to figure out why I let a holiday visit stress me out so much, at C's request. But then, I already know the answer to that. It stresses me out because

• I'm not in my environment.
• Wild Man is not in his environment.
• We're pulled in 18 different directions (frankly, a summer trip is just easier).
• Yetta and Pita assume total control of Christmas, making my mother, who refuses to speak up for herself, feel marginalized. Note: all three of them irritate me equally about this.
• We never get to see people we want to see. It still comes as a surprise to our families that we have friends in the city where we both grew up and went to college.
• It is just a hassle, plain and simple.

But, as I said, we don't have to decide now. I just wish I could quit thinking about it. On the upside, we aren't getting any questions about Thanksgiving--at least not since C informed his mother that Canada doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving at the same time as the U.S.

Stuck in my head

This song, by Glen Hansard and from the very beautiful film "Once," is stuck in my head, so I thought I'd share it with my friends.