Burchfield Park--new to me--was an easy eight-mile loop and scenic all the way through.
Pic: Big A my navigator + water and snack carrier ahead of me.
Burchfield Park--new to me--was an easy eight-mile loop and scenic all the way through.
Pic: Big A my navigator + water and snack carrier ahead of me.
Pic: Finally, I get to take a picture from the bank of the Maple River.
Home!
Reunited with my human kids, puppy kids, and plants!
I demolished a large bag of Culver's fries on the way home and demolished all my remaining grading after I got home.
Big A's doc gave us a hopeful update and now we wait for the actual results. Oh, the things I take for granted when I make plans and resolutions...
Pic: (anti-clockwise) Max, Huckie, At, and Nu. I missed these sweet loves and my zillion plants in the tea garden.
We made it back to Michigan! Haven't seen the kids yet as I'm currently in the hospital waiting room while Big A has his exploratory procedures. I hope to see Big A's doc in a couple of hours for some answers/counsel.
Big A was asked not eat anything for 36 hours, so I've been fasting alongside him in solidarity. We're totally going to demolish a brunch on our way back home.
Pic: From yesterday--we're kind of wearing matching shirts! Out on the balcony of our hotel room with the brilliant azure sea and the El Arco rocks in the background. (I'm wearing my heavy winter jacket in the hospital's waiting room today.)Back home (in Michigan) I have two bougainvillea plants I got at the specialty nursery, and one manages to put out a few blooms in the summer and the other one is dormant (or dead :/).
So it always surprises me when I'm in tropical climes and they seem to be growing untended the way they did in my childhood. (Especially if it's in the U.S.--they do that in California, Hawaii, and Florida AFAIK.)
In Cabo, they seemed to be using bougainvillea as hedges and cropping them pretty closely, but nothing could keep these plants from showing off a little bit.
Pic: A Bougainvillea hedge. I took this as a reminder that we're on the cusp of Spring, and soon we'll be awash in scent and color. I took a long Boss Day walk by myself this morning to say goodbye.
#LaterPost
In large part this is because the kids have been so awesome about taking care of each other and texting us regular updates about their meals, plans for the day, school projects, and so on.(It also helps to know that EM and LB jumped in to be our emergency contacts in case they need rides or advice.)
All the human kids want--they said--was for Big A to learn how to make towel sculptures and redo all the towels every day.
The kids are kidding, of course.
Pic: The hotel's towel "bunny" that prompted this exchange.
#LaterPost
Our wristbands are an open sesame to restaurants, bars, pools, clubs, spas, and tons of activities.
All we've been doing is taking long walks together, carrying margaritas back to our room, napping, and figuring out our next restaurant every couple of hours.
And then when Big A is resting, I'm grading, monitoring my online class, liaising with colleagues, and answering emails.
I guess I can do this! (For another couple of days!)
Pic: We have funny elongated shadows!
#LaterPost
I can feel my blues lifting...
I found six tiny sea shells--one for each person in our family... And they might be the only tangible keepsakes I bring back.
Pic: The view from our first hotel.
#LaterPost
Big A's big medical appointment is next week, and we hope to find out what's going on/why he's losing weight/what to expect in the future/what we can do/etc. We have more questions than the minutes the expert will spend with us, probably.
But in the meantime, we're going to take off for sunny climes for a few days to just... I don't exactly know what... Was it Seneca who said we can change the sky above us but not ourselves? So I guess our worries will come with us, but we'll be worrying under warmer skies?
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next few days of our tiny break and will catch up with some picture posts when we're back.
Pic: It snowed in the night, and was a picture-perfect winter wonderland as I headed to work this morning.
So we're not headed to Yellow Springs, OH for our belated Christmas with Big A's family this weekend after all. We were holding off on a decision because of the storm and then between the snowstorm... and Nu's finals next week... and my back... and Big A's general fatigue... and the likelihood of Max drooling/barfing all the way... and Huckie's dislike of MIL's dog Izzy... We're just staying home.
I'm so disappointed and my MIL is too--because we're the main gift-pickers and givers, I guess? No idea when we'll reschedule as Big A's hours have been brutal lately. We're probably just going to mail things out next week.
It has nearly been a week since I threw out my back and I thought it would be better by now. I even imagined it was getting better, but no. Today was worse than ever, and I feel so disheartened. It's frustrating because I hurt my back trying out a new exercise routine to get stronger, and now here I am--unable to do anything but the most basic stuff.
Pic: No pics. I was too busy feeling sad and sorry for myself.
By the time we got there, I was nice and mellow and then we spent four hours just scrabbling up and down the trail. It was slow going; on a flat surface we'd have logged 15-16 miles in four hours, but we got in just over ten miles because there was a significant amount of climbing.
We were being silly and singing songs wrong and laughing and talking for the first couple of hours--we were mostly silent the last couple of hours as we tired, but that felt good too.
We got back late + Nu didn't want to go + At forgot some meds and would be delayed, so we decided to stay home from the candlelight service at UU. Instead it was dinner and Rocky Aur Rani ki Prem Kahani (with just a little explaining about the old money-new money angle and the snatches of old film songs).
When Nu was ready to head to bed, we did our traditional pajamas and books presents for the kids and they went off to bed happily laden with new books as usual. I prepped the breakfast pudding for tomorrow and then Big A helped me bring the kids' presents downstairs and put Max and Huck to bed. On to Christmas in earnest now. I am grateful I get to share this life with people who care so much for me.
Pic: Big A waiting for me at the top of a rise. I love how the tree roots criss-cross the path to make natural steps and terraces. Because The Overstory and Braiding Sweetgrass live in my head, I kept wondering if the trees do that to catch us in case we fall.
I was all full of effing holiday cheer in my Rudoph the reindeer overalls with the jingly red nose. And every time someone remarked on it, I was hard pressed not to sing this song.
Because that would also be inappropriate for this group--some of whom I know from work. Something very much on my mind, because after years at this point, last night I dreamt about the person I brought a Title IX case against. No current students remember him probably--he was asked to leave on the cusp of the pandemic--but in my dream an alumnus visiting the department was curious as to why there was no picture of the abuser in the faculty "gallery." I let it go on for a while, and when the alumnus asked again, I burst out: "Because he was a serial abuser. We don't have his picture up because he abused people."
And then my dream veered off into a seaplane ride and since the only time I've been on one was near Seattle, that's how it looked. And the only point of the ride was to ooh and aah over some baroque Christmas decorations visible from the air.
Speaking of which, I am almost ready for Christmas! In fact, I was almost ready last week, but I wasn't happy with the way I'd wrapped some presents, so I went in and did them all over again. No one will notice except for me. But it kinda makes sense to me. I'm so excited to give people their presents.
Pic: A blue tit (I think?) hides among the red winterberries along the Red Cedar. Walk with L.
Big A spent hours trying to get the lights on our LONG driveway to work. People are going to have to park on the street and it would be so awful to walk up our driveway in the dark. Plus inauspicious for a festival of lights!
BL (who was student, colleague, friend, sister, and is now my adopted nibling) is going to have a little station for people to paint diyas. I thought I had all the little earthenware lamps we'd need from my last trip to India... But when I took them out today, I realized many of them have swastikas imprinted on them (not in a Nazi way, in a Hindu way--but I feel like I couldn't expose my Jewish friends to something like that anyway). I'm going to have to improvise.
I suspect I'm going to have to improvise a whole lot in the next 24 hours, actually.
Pic: Diwali centerpiece with (flameless, multicolor) tealights; the favor bags are in the background. I plan to fill in the gaps with a flower-petal rangoli. I'll do that tomorrow so they don't wilt before the party.
Positive: Big A picked me up at the airport this morning and I am reunited with my people, puppies, and plants. I missed them! (The first day away was glorious though.)
Negative: On Friday, I finally ID-ed why I was beginning to feel anxious in my hotel room--the last time I was at a conference (late March-early April), Scout had suddenly (or so it seemed) become very sick. The beige of hotel rooms will forever be a trigger to that horror.
Positive: I took a walk to say hello the river, and it looks like the new eastward bridge is open! I'm very excited for this. I'm saving this walk for when I can go with Big A or L.
Negative: Between being out of town on Big A's birthday weekend and this NWSA weekend, I've missed every Halloween gathering in our town--I should find a way to make class extra scary on Tuesday.
Pic: The bridge is open! The bridge is open!
My panel yesterday went off well, I attended a ton of panels, got a ton of ideas to work into research or pedagogy, held elections, handed off my position as chair and its responsibilities, and yelled myself hoarse at in-room parties until late at night.
I had to take another personal pause yesterday for a while, but this morning's plenary gave me hope and a new mantra. Lorgia García Peña brilliantly said, "There has to be peace for everyone; if only some people have it, that's not peace, that's privilege." I told her I was going to work that into a poem and she made me promise to send it to her.
I feel quite renewed intellectually and socially. It's amazing how many of these people I love although I only ever see them at conferences.
Pic: Taking the annual "madcap" picture with SR. We've been doing this for years now. I gave her a forehead kiss after she gave me the bracelet I'm wearing. I think we're yelling "feminist tigers" or something cheesy like that in the other pics.
oh, these needles of rain the skies are full of surprises my only choice of speech is a quiet, topographical melody for I bring us to fors...