Also: Our Christmas tree is up!
(It's late, right? It feels like we're late, but I think this is usually when we manage to get it done. The timeline suggests I start fretting the day after Thanksgiving that we're leaving it too late--after a couple of weeks of this, my family'll take pity on me and come through.)
Dinner at home for some Humphrey Fellows who are working out of MSU this evening.
HY joked that he'd experienced two things for the first time in his life: (1) building a gingerbread house (2) seeing dogs get fed with a spoon. (#2 is me. I feed Scout and Huck under the table--with a separate spoon--because it makes them happy to be with their pack at dinnertime.)
I had to charm Nu and Big A--who tend to be less social than At and me--into stepping up as hosts. But as always all the complaints are pre-guests; after guests are actually here, my loves are generous and delightful. My winning argument today was for them to think how kind everyone was to me when I was an international student.
It was lovely learning a bit about families and hopes and careers in different parts of the world.
Pic: A gingerbread village under construction.
Drove in to work today and puttered around doing homey stuff--took some Christmas treats to my favorite offices on campus, watered my plants, cleaned my office, swept, dusted, tidied. Decluttered my desk and swapped out some table lamps. A colleague needs stuff for their new home, so it gave me some incentive to be ruthless about anything I'm not actively using. Finally got to straighten that one picture that hung crooked and drove me crazy. It wasn't in "my" bay, but the neighboring modern languages bay, which usually always has people in it--so I'd held off until today. Created a chatty nook just outside the English Bay by pulling together abandoned furniture in the hallway--it's a very nice focal point as one comes up by the east staircase now. Tidied up the English Bay sitting area, retired the old periodicals and copies of the college newspaper and arts journal, and rearranged student informational material. I've been told a couple of times that I should let housekeeping or student interns do this stuff rather than do it myself, so it felt good to do all the things without making people uncomfortable. I was such a good little elf. When people come back things will seem neater and nicer even if they can't put their finger on it.
I got home to everyone (Big A, Scout, Huckie, and Nu) napping. I listened to old Tamil film music as I made us a gingery soup and cheesy corn muffins (jalapeƱos on top for the grownups) for dinner. I was happy to see Nu eat. He's been home sick for a couple of days: negative for Covid, but the poor baby had a fever and was miserable. He was finally well enough to go back drag himself to school today though. Winter break starts tomorrow, so thankfully, there'll be additional time to relax and recover more fully.
Pic: A week's worth of cloudy days in the forecast. As dull as today's post!
Gift wrapping party at DV's tonight, and I barely got any actual work done what with the marveling over Taco and nerding out on book recommendations from LD and KBJ.
LD used to host a pre-pandemic book club and KBJ is the librarian at Nu's HS, so my wishlists are full.
My heart is full tonight too.
Grades are in ! (Early!)
Dinner with BSL and EM!
LOVING Anna Karenina!
I get to pick up Big A from the train station tonight!
I can finally watch the season finale of White Lotus!
Pic: Lots of extra pets for Scout and Huck from EM.
At and I were up again around 6:00 am to make breakfast tacos. Then I dropped At off at the bus for Detroit where they're meeting up with friends to go see Connor O'Malley. Back home, Nu took today to "decompress."
Let me be weird: At got home late last night after Nu had already gone to bed, so I thought Nu would want some At time at breakfast, but Nu decided for a Saturday sleep-in instead. Fair. Also, At was in a hurry this morning and didn't say goodbye to Nu. Understandable. The thing is... ever since I read Cheryl Strayed's Wild, where the siblings become estranged after their mom dies, I've been hit by the fear that my kids will lose touch with each other as grownups if I'm not around.
How's that for a nice morbid thought? Ok... back to grading.
Pic: Grey skies and a glassy Red Cedar River; I love the curving tree in the foreground.
I have a lot of stuff about hope saved in an email draft--everyone from Mariame Kaba to Audre Lorde is on it. And also this solid article of how to deal with "hope fatigue" by Lesley Alderman.
It's nice to read this draft as it never fails to cheer me up.
(I suppose that's a good thing as I'm feeling a bit shaky currently. I teared up when I dropped Big A off at the train station and then cried in the car on hearing this fairly standard radio story because they talked about the 25th anniversary of Purple Rain. Something is going on with me, and I'm not sure what it is yet. Yes, I wish Prince were still in this world, but surely, it wasn't just that?)
Pic: Book Club over the weekend. Being with them gives me hope.
But one of Nu's other dreams came true today--he was able to spend some time with Judy and Betty--MB's brindled mice. Nu has always loved mice--until today only in theory and as stuffed animals--and was amazingly gentle and confident playing with them. Judy and Betty--named for the sisters in White Christmas will retire from their work as lures for the kestrels MB is banding--so their job is to act cute and tasty--at the end of Jan. At which point, MB would like to offer them to Nu as a present. It'll be an uphill battle convincing Big A, but Nu and I together can be pretty formidable. (I'm terrified and ick-ed by mice, frankly; but Nu enjoys them so much.)
Pic: Nu with Judy.
So I've been good about cash contributions.
But when The Refugee Development Center in town started taking up in-kind donations for Welcome Boxes, I signed right up to bring rice, flour, oil, sugar, and beans. If I were displaced and in a new place, I imagine I could make something my family might recognize from those supplies. I would want to.
There is a passage in Robert J.C. Young* that always resonates with students--where we're asked to imagine ourselves as refugees, to imagine the break in the daily routines of living... like discussing the day's menu with a neighbor. I think about that passage often.
Anyway, Nu and I dropped off lots of supplies this evening. I could have easily done it before I picked Nu up from their remedial (whole other story!) class at school. But I kind of liked the idea of doing something together that would get Nu out of their own thoughts and social loops for a while.
* Also, that book is the ONLY time ever where I'm listed right next to Homi Bhabha (in the "Acknowledgements").
Messy, turbulent reentry into the work week today = not a single photo taken. I'm trying hard to stay calm and remind myself of all the big, small, and daily crises people are facing so I can look beyond the forgotten deadlines and damaged expectations cluttering up this last week of instruction. I always forgive these, but staying compassionate does feel challenging sometimes. Mantra: I'm neither the target nor the source of all this; I can let it flow past me.
Small successes in getting budget approval for books to gift to our capstone students; workshopping final projects; two important sets of e-introductions--a DEI one (SJ-EM) and one for our MFA (SS-WA); finishing up the last of Thanksgiving by folding the pumpkin gravy and the roasted veggies into a sambhar; and a truly lucky and important breakthrough in my CASA case (like OMG, it was mind blowing, and I now know exactly how to frame my report) .
Went to work with sunrise; headed home with a sickle moon in the sky. But that's ok + these days are short. Dinner with the fam, a snooze with my Scout, and then to bed. (I stayed till Big A fell asleep and then crept out of bed to read... memories of doing this every day with the kids when they were littler made me smile. Guess I do this still with Scout and Huck daily...)
I usually have so many pictures for the card and calendars, but this year between Nu's hospitalizations, Big A's "commute," and At being so busy, I just haven't been taking as many photographs as I usually do.
Feels like this year went by really fast too.
Pic: Beginning of the video we shot; I'll grab a frame later for the card.
1) Worked on finishing yesterday's leftovers and bought absolutely nothing today as usual.
2) (I don't judge people who Black Friday since learning, that for many families, it's a chance to buy things that may otherwise be outside the budget. Also, I think my fam's at a different place as we've reached a stage where neither kids nor grownups need a lot. Yes, I may previously have been judge-y about going straight from being thankful to buying more crap the very next day.)
3) Exactly one month to Christmas now and I think I have a good idea of what everyone is getting. I may add a bookmark or sticker here and there, but for the most part I think it's handled.
4) I was invited to a conference in Alexandria (Egypt!!) and I think I'm going? It's in March so there's plenty of time for things to get canceled/for me to flake out and change my mind. But I've always wanted to see the pyramids, so I've said a tentative yes.
5) Pic: Lots of early morning walks with Big A now that he's here. Yay!
These once baby people set the table and set us up for a good time.
We usually do some version of saying what we're thankful for--sometimes filling whole sheets in alphabetical order. This time we went around the table taking turns with the alphabet. I was very embarrassed when I got a bit stuck on "O."
Also, I was a pill trying to edit people's choices: "say you're thankful for "Dad."" Thankfully, my family loves me and thinks I'm hilarious.
And then, my darlings started with an abecedary of insults... we couldn't think of anything for "G."
Later, a quick walk down the street, crisp with leaves and fragrant with neighbors' wood stoves, to join LB and TB's riotous feast where we saw old friends and lots of new people. At was a bit of a rockstar what with their appearance in Michael Moore's Substack and what not. And then everyone piled into the car to take At back to their place.
Big A is on his way home and will spend a week here.
This is the part of the holiday I absolutely love. Nu, Scout, and Huck are pretty excited too.
Pic: Screenshot of a text from Big A. That isn't Huckie in the car, it's Mr. Flooferson (a stuffie the family gave Big A as a silly gift for his birthday last month).
I woke up before my alarm went off this morning, glanced through the cloudy bedroom windows, and saw Max standing still in the middle of the...
