Good enough for an amateur

Tiger swallowtail

Just moments after we walked up the hill behind my house the other day, my birdwatching-and-botanizing colleague stood stock-still and said, "Did you hear that?" 

I could hear many things--birds calling, frog croaking, insects buzzing around my ears--but she soon drew my attention to a wheezy call that sounded sort of like "Bee-buzz."

"It's a blue-winged warbler," she said, "and it seems to be over in that hawthorn."

Well it may have been in that hawthorn at that moment, but the warbler's call moved farther away as we crept closer. I don't know how long we spent stalking that particular bird before my colleague called out "There it goes!"--and there it went.

Cedar waxwing, too high for a clear shot

I caught a brief glimpse of the blue-winged warbler (and the yellow-billed cuckoo, green heron, indigo bunting, and common yellowthroat we saw later) and as much as I enjoyed those brief glimpses, I would have been more excited if I'd been quick enough to get a photo. My colleague was thrilled simply to hear the bird and over the moon when she saw it fly, but me? I need to get the shot.

Recently someone asked me what I would like to have done if I hadn't become an English professor, and I said, "wildlife photography," but of course this is ridiculous. At the time when I was in a position to choose my life's work, I wasn't thinking about wildlife or photography or anything outside the realm of writing. I didn't have the talent, the will, or the desire--and besides, I loved to write and knew I could do it well enough to make a living, so why step off the obvious path into the dark, dangerous swamp?

Cicada time!

I didn't know then how much I would come to love photography or how the camera could provide a link to the wonders of the wild. The more I learn about photography, the more I become aware of how much I still need to learn--but that doesn't make me love it any less. I'm frustrated sometimes by the shots I can't seem to get--those cedar waxwings, for instance, were just too high in the treetops for my limited zoom lens--but most of the time I'm happy to be a good-enough photographer. Good enough for an amateur, at least, recalling that the word amateur derives from the Latin amator, lover. I love my birds 'n' buds 'n' butterflies, but I really really love getting a good shot.

 

Cicada clings to the top of the leaf, discarded skin stuck on the bottom.

Red-bellied woodpecker with claws stuck to soffit.

It clung to the leaf even when we picked it up.

The anatomically correct computer

My first college-issued computer was a hand-me-down from a colleague who, I soon discovered, had given intimate anatomical names to the drives in the file directory: Scrotum, Testicle A, Testicle B, and so on. (I know it's sexist to assume that the computer's previous user was male, but I don't know a lot of women who would name a computer's hard drive "Penis.") I don't know who the previous user was and I really don't want to know, but I'm convinced that his relationship to his, um, equipment was very different from mine.

I've never named a computer drive or a computer or a monitor or any other electronic tool, and as much as I depend upon and appreciate computers, I don't even remember the brand names of some of my more faithful helpers. We had a Compaq at some point and I know we had a Dell--or wait, make that present tense: the little red netbook I take on planes is a Dell. Other than that, I have no memory of most of our computers except for the first.

Our first computer was a Sanyo, circa 1985, with twin five-inch disk drives and a boxy monitor with orange text on black background. I wrote my master's thesis on that computer using WordStar, a program I loved so much that I still remember many key commands. A decade later, though, when I worked for a newspaper that relied on an outmoded version of WordPerfect using similar key commands, I loathed that program. By then we had moved on to Windows systems and WYSIWYG word processing, so monochromatic monitors and CTRL-S seemed SO last Tuesday.

Soon we had our first laptop, a small but surprisingly heavy little box whose maker I've long forgotten. I used to take it to School Board and Village Council meetings, where I would sit in the back row and take notes for articles (or pretend to take notes while actually playing FreeCell, a game that saved my sanity during many an asinine public discussion). That laptop served us well until someone (possibly me) dropped it during a visit to a reservoir. No one as clumsy as I am should ever be allowed to carry a laptop, which may explain why my current college-issued computer is now in the hands of the IT gurus.


I don't feel particularly attached to that laptop, especially since all my files are backed up on an external hard drive. It served me well and it may come back to serve me some more, but as much as I appreciate its faithful service, I've never bothered to name my computer or its various drives. But maybe I should. Maybe if I interfaced with my computer more intimately, it might stop acting as if it hates me. 

But what shall I name it? Calling it "Stupid" doesn't seem to be working. 

Adventures in Rodentia

At some point I'll post some photos from yesterday's Adventures in Botany and Birdwatching, but at the moment the files are being held captive by a capricious mouse. It can act tame and obedient for days at a time, but then suddenly it starts scurrying all over my computer desktop opening and closing programs, clicking on files, and moving things around--and once it starts its merry dance, there's nothing I can do to make it behave, although I've been tempted to try whips and chains. So this morning I'm handing my laptop over to the IT gurus so they can take my mouse to obedience school, which is a good thing because my next step would have been to reach for the sledgehammer.

Endings and beginnings

The semester is over. My sabbatical is over. The visit from the parents is so very over. But look at everything that's about to begin:

My summer online class begins in two weeks so I've been updating material from last summer's class and giving myself the occasional pat on the back. I had forgotten how hard I worked last May to produce a class full of really cool stuff. A few updates and it'll be ready to run.

Two new freshman classes in the fall...and I've already started meeting with my learning community partners to brainstorm ideas for cooperative learning. I don't have much on paper yet, but I've planted ideas in my brain and now it's time to let them germinate.

And speaking of germinating, the constant rain finally stopped long enough to allow us to start planting the gardens. Herbs are in, and I found a surprise in the herb garden: plenty of cilantro ready to cut. Apparently last year's pathetic cilantro plant reseeded itself. Maybe tonight we'll get the rest of the tomato plants in the ground.

Great clouds of yellow pollen keep billowing down from our upper woods, coating everything with a fine yellow dust. The other day I carried a cup of tea out onto the deck but before I'd walked three feet, my tea was topped by a coating of pollen. I sneeze every time I walk outside the house, but that won't keep me indoors. This morning I'm off for a bird-watching and botanizing walk with my biologist colleague, one last moment of fun before the real work begins.

In Xanadu, with strawberries

I stop at the farm stand just up the road, lured by the sign advertising fresh strawberries. It's still early in the season but I'm hoping for a quart or two to cut up and serve with angel-food cake with a dollop of whipped cream on top. I walk into the greenhouse and find just four quarts of strawberries sitting on the counter next to the cash register. The berries are small but very red and they smell like spring and rain and sweet sweet earth. My lucky day! I choose two quarts, set them beside the cash register, and get out my cash.

But where is the cashier? Out in the parking lot chatting with a middle-aged farmer-looking dude with a beard, a baseball cap, and a pickup truck. Fine--let her have her fun. I'm not in a hurry--much. When I left the house, I told the old folks I'd be zipping up the road to fetch us some strawberries for our supper, so they're not likely to start panicking for another 10 or 12 minutes.

Besides, it's peaceful inside the greenhouse, a gentle breeze rolling through the open windows and rustling the greenery. Here are some petunias in a shade I've never seen before, a sort of soft, buttery yellow, and here's a stunning display of flowering plants marked down after Mother's Day to a mere $110. I've done my flower planting for the year but it can't hurt to look.

I glance out the door. There's the cashier, still chatting with Mr. Farmer. The strawberries are $4.75 a quart and if I had a ten-spot I'd leave it there and let them keep the change, but all I have is a twenty-dollar bill, so I guess I'll wait.

Kind of a zen moment, really. How often do I get a chance to stand around a greenhouse breathing deeply of all that great oxygen and earthy odors? Here's a table of herbs--thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, two kinds of chives. I've already planted my herbs this year but it doesn't hurt to sniff. Half the joy of growing herbs is inhaling their aroma. I don't see any fennel plants in the greenhouse, but every time I walk past my herb garden, I stuff some fennel into my mouth and savor the fresh burst of licorice. That's not the best way to assure a bountiful harvest of fennel seeds, but with herbs, flavor and aroma are part of the harvest.

I glance out the door. There's that cashier, still chatting with the farmer. I'm not in a hurry, I tell myself. If I close my eyes and breathe deeply, I could be in Xanadu, except the muddy Muskingum looks nothing like a sacred river. A bird flies into the greenhouse and flits around. Is that a nest up in the corner? It flies out. I close my eyes and try to cherish the moment.

The moment is getting a little long. Where is that cashier? The old folks will be calling me any minute, wondering why I've been gone so long. If this is what they call customer service, it's a wonder they have any customers at all!

I walk outside, look meaningfully at the cashier, clear my throat. "Oh," she says, "I didn't know anyone was in there." She walks inside and bustles about the cash register.

"I hate to interrupt your conversation," I tell her, "but my parents are waiting for me to bring strawberries home."

"How nice that you still have your parents!" she said, smiling brightly. "That'll be $9.50."

I leave the lovely greenhouse with two quarts of strawberries served with a heaping dollop of fresh guilt.

Renowned for saving face

Interesting article in this morning's New York Times about a guy who uses scissors and paper to cut portraits of people in the subway (read it here), except the article tells us in two separate places that back home in Shanghai, Ming Liang Lu was "renown."

No he wasn't.

Judging by his skills on display in the Times, I have no doubt that Ming Liang Lu was celebrated, lauded, affirmed, reputed, and even famous in Shanghai, but he wasn't renown. Renown is a nown--er, noun (springing from the Middle English renoun and ultimately from Latin nominare, to name). What Ming Liang Lu was back in Shanghai was renowned. The -ed makes all the difference.

For a recovering journalist, there are few experiences more rewarding than catching the New York Times in an error. I don't get the same frisson from finding errors in my local newspaper, which is a good thing because I would quickly get frissoned out. Error is the order of the day in my local paper, and not just obvious grammatical or spelling errors but serious errors of judgment. Whoever wrote the headline  referring to the "Wife of exotic animals' owner" simply had no conception of how people read. (Wait, she married the animals? How many?)

But experience has led me to expect that kind of headline in my local paper, along with a hearty daily helping of mangled sentences, misspelled words, and general infelicities. If my local paper printed an article referring to a person as "renown," I would turn the page with a ho-hum. And there's no point in bringing the error to the attention of the appropriate editor because my local paper is too busy making new mistakes to worry about going back to correct the old ones.

Not so the New York Times. I have no doubt that renown will be replaced eventually and someone will get chewed out (but not by exotic animals or their wives or owners). A commitment to correcting errors makes them somehow more forgivable, particularly when they are so rare. Besides, the occasional error in the Times is offset by more felicitous uses of language.

Take, for instance, the point in the article about Ming Liang Lu when the artist explains that he's not in it for the money: " 'Not about money,' he said. 'About face.'"

That's just perfect. "About face" evokes the man's distinctive voice while glancing obliquely at other meanings: the artist as drill sergeant barking orders to his models or turning his life around in mid-march. The portraits he doesn't sell get taped to a display board propped on the wall, a place for saving face.

Now let's see the Times save face and preserve its renown by adding that -ed.

Breathing lessons

Two weeks after the final session of my core-and-flex class, I'm still mourning--which is pretty remarkable considering that I always hated gym class because it made me feel clumsy, clueless, fat, and futile. It's true that at first I had to force myself to try out the core-and-flex class, but after a month or so I looked forward to it and by the end I was positively addicted.

Why? The peppy music and pleasant people were part of the class's appeal, and the soothing stretches accompanied by deep breathing always left me feeling relaxed. There's no denying the beneficial effects of the workouts--my bad hip hardly ever bothers me these days and daily back pain is a distant memory.

In fact, the workouts worked so well that I bought some tension straps so I can continue making progress at home. I can breathe and stretch and crunch and punch on my own, and I can even turn on music to help me keep up the pace, but I'm missing one essential element: the master's voice.

The leader of my exercise class has a voice nothing like a drill sergeant's. Without ever raising her voice, she leads us to twist and push and pull and breathe, always breathe, don't forget to breathe. I'm lying on my back stretching my leg as it has never stretched before and I hear that voice urging me to stretch into the soleus, and even though I don't know where or what the soleus might be, the sound of that voice makes my muscles obey.


I can do the same exercises at home, but it won't be the same. No one will be there to tell me which muscles I'm working or to make me keep going when I'd rather just quit or to remind me to breathe, just breathe, don't forget to breathe. Sometimes I need a voice outside myself to make me do the right thing, even when it's something as essential as breathing. 

A glut of celebration

In the past eight days I have attended two college commencements (one as a parent, one as a faculty member), one learning community meeting, one marshals' meeting, and two half-day assessment workshops, and I have listened to more speeches and cliches than I would care to count. I have grazed at one celebratory brunch, three celebratory lunches, two celebratory dinners, and multiple snack bars, consuming tossed salad, chicken salad, shrimp salad, ham sandwiches, hummus, tomato soup, three kinds of chocolate cake, and, for the sake of variety, a tiny lovely lemon tart.

I have worn the same skirt to three events, though not with the same blouse. I have worn heels and hose in sunshine and rain, jumped puddles and edged around mud in my favorite sandals, and juggled a purse, umbrella, and a suit bag full of academic regalia while trying to open my car door into traffic. 

I have applauded colleagues winning service awards, hugged another who is retiring, and given a standing ovation to our retiring college president not once or twice but three separate times. I have cheered for students wearing so many honor cords they could weave a rug and others who just barely squeaked by. I have seen students march and sashay and dance across the stage in wing-tips, flip-flops, and spectacular stilt-like shoes, and I've seen a few well-lubricated students miraculously maneuver the steps without falling on their faces.

In short, I have survived the annual marathon of celebration and marveled at the way so many details come together without a hitch. (Well, mostly. Note to catering: if you load up 1000 people with finger foods on paper plates and then hide the trash cans where no one can find them, you're going to find soiled plates and crumpled napkins in all kinds of inappropriate places.)

The head faculty marshal and I were leading the academic procession out of the auditorium after commencement and we were about halfway up the aisle when she turned to me and said, "Do you think anyone is following us?"

Of course they were. They had to: we were leading them toward the next round of chocolate cake.

Hurray for everyone! Now let's all start our celebratory diet!

Pushing daisies

The only things that grow really well in our front garden are ants and daisies, but right now we're suffering a surfeit of both so we'd be happy to share. Take my ants--please!

Frankly, it's a wonder anything grows there: thick clay soil with lots of rocks close to the surface and a thick layer of gravel about six inches down where the driveway used to be. A big chunk of the front yard is defaced by an unsightly concrete cistern with a rusted iron cover, but this spring my sweet husband covered it with decking so I could set up a bench at a perfect spot for watching birds at the feeders. The rest of the front garden is a work in progress.

I don't remember how many years ago I saw a clump of daisies growing on our hillside and decided to move them down to the front garden. If they can grow up there on that thin, rocky soil, I told myself, they can grow down here--and that's what they do, threatening to take over every available inch. They're helpful early in the season because they crowd out pesky invaders like creeping charlie, but they also refuse to give my azaleas and ageratums any breathing space. That one little clump of daisies I transplanted now covers half of my front garden and would gladly cover the rest.

So today I've been pulling up daisies (better than pushing 'em!), leaving one swath standing near my new bench and replacing the rest with alyssum. The ants were not particularly helpful, but they did add a certain piquancy to the planting experience. They're nothing like the fire ants I used to encounter in Florida, but they're quite proficient at swarming up legs and nibbling annoyingly at ankles.


We've tried many times to discourage our ant colonies, but if we kill 'em off over here, they come back over there. Something about our front garden makes them thrive, just like those stubborn daisies--and just like me. When I'm done with my planting I sit on my bench and watch the birds visit the feeders and the butterflies visit the daisies, and something within me grows strong and stubborn and calm and colorful.

Dave for a day

Every year about this time I start wondering whether it's time to resign from our crack Faculty Marshal squad, and this might be the right time since I am now the only member of the squad whose name doesn't begin with D. The other day I told the head Marshal that consistency and gender equity demand that she replace me with one of our many Daves, to which she responded, "Why would I need to replace you at all?"

Good question. Being a marshal is, as we keep being reminded, an honor, but it's also extra work coming right at the point when we're already really busy. I scan the long document outlining information we need to prepare for our commencement practice meeting and I think, "I don't want to do this again," and then I go to the meeting and walk through all those complicated procedures and before you know it I'm laughing with all those D people and remembering the joys of past commencements and wondering why I would ever want to quit.

We don't get all the perks of marshals at other institutions. For instance, the head marshal at my son's college commencement sang a solo during the ceremony, which will happen at my college when pigs fly, and at my daughter's commencement last week all the marshals wore bright yellow robes and hats with big brims that looked like glittering gold halos. I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd sprouted wings and hovered above us like a multitude of the heavenly host.

Well, okay, maybe I would have been a little surprised. Just a little.

All our marshals do is carry sticks--and not particularly big ones. Maces, I guess they're called, and they'd be more useful if we were allowed to use them for something other than decoration.

Hovering helicopter parents refuse to separate from their soon-to-be-graduates before the ceremony? Use the mace to bar the door.

Graduates refuse to spit out their gum promptly at 12:30? A thump on the back will dislodge that wad.

Faculty members refuse to shut up and find their places? Harry them about the ankles with the mace until they toe the line.

Frankly, being a Faculty Marshal would be much more satisfying if we could deliver a few well-placed wallops, but meanwhile we're ready to step into our Darth Vader suits on Sunday and herd a crowd of bubbly graduates down the path to the next stage of their lives and I don't know about you, but I want to be a part of that.

So what if my name doesn't start with D? I can be a Dave for a day.

A little fanfare

The mingled sounds of thousands of restless people awaiting a big event roll through the auditorium like thunder when suddenly the noise is pierced by a trumpet fanfare announcing that the black-robed students are about to receive their diplomas. My first thought: I need one of those.

Not a diploma. I need a trumpet fanfare.

Imagine pushing an overladen shopping cart toward the check-out lanes at the grocery store when suddenly a piercing trumpet fanfare rings out, clearing awed shoppers out of the way. Or how about when I'm at a restaurant but can't seem to get the waiter's attention? No one can ignore a trumpet fanfare!

In addition to grabbing attention, a trumpet fanfare adds gravitas to whatever follows. I could be standing in front of a chatty class full of restless students who can't seem to focus on the task at hand when suddenly my trumpet fanfare rings out and every eye looks my way. "Turn to page 37," I'll say, and they'll be so stunned by the ringing brass that they'll turn to page 37 without a murmur.

And think of the celebratory tone a trumpet fanfare lends to any occasion. On Saturday the fanfare rang out to celebrate the accomplishments of students at the University of Akron, where my daughter received her Master of Music degree (ta-ta-ta-TAAA-ta-TAAAAA!), but today I could use a trumpet fanfare to proclaim that the new thermostat we installed yesterday appears to be functioning properly (ta-TAAA-ta-TAAA!!!) and the house is no longer a sweltering, musty sweatbox (ta-TA-ta-ta-TAAAAAAAA!!!) and I have finished painting the living room (ta-ta-ta-ta-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!)

I don't know how to go about adding a trumpet fanfare to my entourage or what sort of upkeep might be required, but just wait until I find out! You'll hear me coming.

Kiss me--I'm annoyed!

Dear T-shirt manufacturers of the world:

When it comes to casual summer clothes, I don't consider myself particularly demanding. I'd like a few simple shirts I can toss on when I want to work in the garden, walk the dog, or dash to the grocery store to pick up some emergency picnic supplies, and I'd like a few basic colors so I can change quickly after I spill iced tea all down my chest.

Easy, right? So why have I spent the past month trying without success to buy a T-shirt?

1. Fabric so thin it's practically transparent. The helpful salesperson tells me this allows easy layering, but hey, it's summer! I don't want wear two shirts when it's 97 degrees and humid outside! I especially don't want to worry about color-coordinating layers when my brain is about to melt right out my ears! So quit with the chintzy fabrics already.

2. Chintzy fabrics embellished with ruffles, bows, spangles, and glitz. I'm not shopping for a prom dress, people! I want a T-shirt to wear while I'm digging in the dirt! So don't go all girly on me, okay?

3. Super-short sleeves. News flash: many of us have reached middle age without Michelle Obama's upper arms, and the last thing we need is a sleeve that stops short right at the arm's saggiest, baggiest spot. Wearing a sleeve that short is like carrying around a neon sign flashing, "Arm flab! Arm flab!" And then when you make the super-short sleeves really puffy, it looks as if I'm trying to smuggle hams in my sleeves. So please: I'll accept sleeves that stop a bit above the elbow, but don't give me sleeves two inches long.

4. Silly colors. Fuchsia is great and that sickly green must suit someone or it wouldn't be everywhere this season, but such specialized colors don't fit into my summer mix-and-match philosophy. Give me a basic T-shirt in a decent fabric with no frou-frou or super-short sleeves and I'll buy it in three or four colors as long as they can all be worn with jeans.

But I can't find those T-shirts in stores anywhere. Instead, I'm surrounded by ruffles and bows, spaghetti straps, and off-shoulder droopy things with bold horizontal stripes. Today I thought I'd finally located my dream T-shirt--plain red with the right length sleeves--but when I pulled it off the rack, I saw on the front a big pair of lips and the words "Kiss Me--I'm American!"

Seriously? You want an adult human being to walk around with her chest emblazoned with gigantic lips and "Kiss Me--I'm American!"?

I'll tell you what, T-shirt manufacturers of the world: you can kiss that sale goodbye.   

All that slithers

Nothing against snakes--some of my best friends are snakes! But I don't want a rat snake serving as my personal doorman. (Doorsnake?)


I grew up with snakes and I appreciate their peculiar charm. My baby brother was a pretty accomplished amateur herpetologist who kept snakes in terraria all over the house, including just below our tiny television on the TV cart, so that it was possible to simultaneously watch a thrilling episode of Gilligan's Island and a rat snake swallowing whole a live mouse.

And all these years later the only thing I remember from my Girl Scout troop's trip to the National Zoo was watching a 12-foot-long Burmese python regurgitate a big pile of--um, never mind.

So I don't mind snakes qua snakes. Rat snake in a terrarium in the family room: fine. Burmese python regurgitating behind thick glass at the zoo: swell. But when I open my front door to find a rat snake slithering into a hole just beside my front door, I object.

It's true that rat snakes are not bad to have around given their tendency to eat rats, bats, mice, moles, voles, shrews, and other assorted vermin, but sometimes creatures come to my door who are not vermin and who don't particularly want to be eyed as if they were vermin--who, indeed, might take offense at being greeted by a rat snake rather than a human being. I was, frankly, a little alarmed to note the snake sticking its beady little eyes out of its hidey-hole every few minutes as I worked out front planting purple petunias this morning. How am I supposed to pay attention to petunias while keeping half an eye on the snake?


Hopeful has been known to snatch snakes before but she took no notice of this one even after I pointed it out. Too hot for hunting? Perhaps.

Of course it's one thing to keep half an eye on a snake when you know exactly where the snake is, but it's another thing entirely to walk away for a while and lose track entirely. I'm bound to spend the rest of my days stepping carefully over the snake each time I walk out the door even when the snake isn't there at all.

But I'll promise you one thing: no matter how faithful a doorman he may be, that snake's not getting a tip from me.

Doing it right (mostly)

The last time I painted exterior doors and the trim around the big front picture window, I did a pretty slapdash job--no prep, no primer, leftover paint from another project. This time I resolved to do it right: Good paint! Good primer! Dropcloths! Paint-scraper and sandpaper for the peeling bits! Garish blue masking tape for all the windows! (Including the windows on the garage doors: three doors with nine tiny window panes per door. Whose brilliant idea was it to install doors with so many window panes?)

My efforts paid off: after a whole day of labor (and some sore muscles), I have doors and windows worth looking at--and the parts that aren't worth looking at are invisible. Mostly. I failed to wear a hat even though I know am constitutionally incapable of painting without getting paint in my hair, so I have white specks in my hair and sunburned cheeks. And I did a pretty good job on dropcloth placement, but I failed to anticipate the paintbrush's ability to flip out of my hand, fly across the porch, and land on the deck with a splat.

But those problems are easy enough to clean up. I'm more concerned about the invisible ones. I wanted to do this job right, but the right thing to do when you scrape chipped paint off a wooden window frame and discover that the wood beneath is wet to the touch is NOT to paint right over it. The right thing to do would be to call an expert on such things, a carpenter or a window installer. (Are they still called glaziers? I hope so. It is the dream of my life to one day excuse myself from an important meeting by saying, "I'll just step out and consult with my glazier.")

The right thing to do about that window would be to pull it out and replace it, but that's not what I did, and that's not what the previous owners did either. They pulled out and replaced every window in the house except the gigantic picture window, and one glimpse at current prices for gigantic picture windows will tell you why. If I'm going to invest that much money in the window, I may as well have the skewed door re-hung and replace the rotten threshold and tear out the cracked cement slab and replace the entire front porch while I'm at it.

But that's a project for another day. Instead, I dabbed on a coat of paint and walked away. I can't seem to stop my house from falling to pieces around me, but at least I can make it look good along the way.

A sabbatical shout-out

I'm back on campus this morning after spending four days never setting foot outside my front door (sick, bleh) and one of my wonderful colleagues comes up to me with a big smile, pats me on the back, and says, "I can't believe your sabbatical is over already!"

Thanks. Thanks a lot. I can't quite believe it either. I look back and tote up how much I've accomplished since January and I feel pretty good--until I notice those pesky bits of my project that remain incomplete. Kind of important pesky bits.

Then I remind myself that I still have all summer, except for the parts set aside for working in the garden, preparing for four fall classes (two of them brand-new!), teaching my online course (provided that at least three more people register), and spending a week sequestered in a secret bunker in an undisclosed location reading and evaluating hundreds upon hundreds of essays written for the standardized test that dares not speak its name. (The contract I signed includes a confidentiality clause so convoluted that I keep expecting Q to pop up and issue special cat-eye glasses spangled with jewels capable of emitting laser beams strong enough to incinerate intruders at 20 paces--and if I'm allowed to choose my own Q, I choose John Cleese.)

So yes, I've got all summer, except it's no different from any other summer except that I'll need to squeeze in the last little bits of my sabbatical work. Sabbaticalsummer. Summsabbaticaler. Sabbatisummicaler. Whatever. All I know is that it's all over but the shouting so we may as well shout.

A fine whine

Here's a challenge: open a childproof aspirin bottle with one hand tied behind your back--or if you lack rope or you don't want to put your loved ones to the trouble of tying you up because it's 2 a.m. and they're all sound asleep, just imagine that your left hand hurts so badly that the mere thought of grasping an aspirin bottle makes you feel faint and you need a little something to take the edge off the pain so you can get back to sleep and you know aspirin won't help much because last night you took a Percoset and all it did was make you dopey without putting a dent in the pain, so you stumble to the kitchen gently cradling your tender throbbing left hand to your chest and grab the aspirin bottle (with its childproof cap that's hard enough to open when you're not in pain) and open it up.

With one hand.

Because the other hand HURTS.

What have I done to my hand?


How could I have injured any body part this badly without being aware of it?

That's one of life's little mysteries. There's just a faint bruise and a tiny bit of puffiness--and the pain. Let us not overlook the pain.

Do you want to know what this pain reminds me of? Well I'm going to tell you anyway: it reminds me of the time I dropped a book on my foot. It was a big book, a bound volume containing a year's run of a weekly community newspaper, which slid out of my hand and landed with the narrow edge right on top of my left foot, which immediately started to turn colors and swell up like a Macy's parade balloon. Fortunately, there was an Emergency Medical Technician present to provide prompt medical care. He took one look at my ballooning foot and said, "You ought to get someone to look at that."

So helpful!

But I did get someone to look at it and the verdict was nothing broken but lots of what they called "soft tissue damage." Do you want to know how long it took my foot to get back to normal size and usefulness?

Well I'm going to tell you anyway: a full year. Twelve months. In the meantime, my injury led directly to my being cussed out by the mother of an Eagle Scout--and trust me, you haven't been cussed out until you've been cussed out by the mother of an Eagle Scout. She was upset because I didn't show up to take photos at her son's Eagle Scout ceremony. I apologized for inconsiderately spending the afternoon at the emergency room getting x-rays, but what could I tell her? "I dropped a book on my foot"?

Frankly, the cussing out felt appropriate. My foot was already screaming at me, so why shouldn't everyone else? 

Now my hand is screaming at me in the same annoying way, except without the swelling and the vivid colors. What did I do to my hand? I don't know, but I'll tell you what I can't do with it: open an aspirin bottle.

Please don't feed the vultures

They look scalped and angry, with sharp talons ready to eviscerate anything that sits still long enough to look deceased. No matter how you look at 'em, vultures ain't pretty.

So why would I want to keep looking?

This pair and I observed each other carefully at a local wetland this morning. I kept trying not to look like roadkill while they craned their heads to closely follow my movements. Can they turn their heads all the way around? It sure looks that way.

I was looking for green herons and I finally saw a pair, but they were too quick for me to catch on film. Geese paddled slowly through a fine mist that made them look like mirages, and in the trees orioles and warblers sang. I don't know warblers well at all so I hoped a photo would help me determine whether I was seeing yellow-rumped or prothonotary warblers or common yellowthroats or Wilson's or hooded or mourning warblers, but I think this is just a plain old yellow warbler. Also sighted: tree swallows, eastern bluebirds, sandpipers, and a great blue heron.

I've already forgotten the song of the warbler but I won't soon forget the glare of those vultures. What do they want from me? Whatever it is, they can't have it.

Yet.

A CFP built for me

There's nothing like a solid deadline and a clear sense of audience to spur along a writing project, so yesterday I spent some time scrolling through page after page of calls for papers, hoping to find something to motivate me to finish my sabbatical project. I found a few conferences on topics tangential to my research, most of them in ho-hum cities, and I found a few more promising CFPs with expired submission dates.

BUT--I also found a CFP for an edited collected of essays on a topic perfect for my work--AND the deadline is near enough to motivate productivity without being downright scary. Sweet! Give me an audience, a purpose, and a clear deadline, and I'm off and running! (Er, writing.)  

Not that anyone asked....

 Q: What's that bit of bark dangling from the fencepost?

A: Stand at attention when you address the Red Admiral!

Q: If bluets produce the cutest minuscule blue blooms, what is their best super-cutesy nickname?
A: Quaker Ladies. Watch their prim and proper curtseys when the wind sweeps past.

Q: If the Quaker Ladies listened to Jack-in-the-Pulpit, what would they hear?

 A: He may seem green, but he's hiding a mean purple streak.

      

Pie squared

When life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie.

So what if you stink at pie crust? Once they taste the filling, no one will notice the crust.

And so what if you suddenly discover that you're short on sugar? It won't kill you to hop in the car and run to the store. Don't forget to turn off the oven!

And if it turns out that those lemons that looked so juicy at the store are so thick-skinned that their juice content is pathetic, don't worry! Just juice more lemons--or make smaller pies.

And then if it's a really dim, gloomy day with lots of moisture in the air so that your meringue comes out gummy and starts to droop as soon as it cools--well, it'll taste just as good even if it looks wretched. Just serve it to your loved ones and give them that tart look that says "One complaint and you won't see a home-made pie for months!"

They'll love it. So will you. So go ahead: bake my day. 

Taking refuge (temporarily)

How can one small chipmunk make more noise running through the woods than four or five white-tailed deer? The deer were right in front of me, but they silently disappeared into the woods before I could point the camera; the chipmunks, on the other hand, kept dashing raucously across dry leaves with the subtlety of steamrollers.

I went for a walk through a wildlife refuge but heard more wildlife than I saw. I wish I could identify birds by their calls, but at this point I still have trouble seeing birds that are calling right in front of my face. I saw mallards, titmice, song sparrows, and towhees, but I heard many more birds I simply couldn't see, including a wild turkey. 

It's easier to see wildflowers, especially now that the big showy mayapples are blooming, but I saw only one Solomon's Seal with delicate green buds dangling beneath the leaves. For a while the woods hereabouts have been brightened by bright white dogwood blooms, but they're starting to fade as leaves burst forth and the woods turn green.

Some of that green will be poison ivy, already starting to show itself on the edges of paths and soon to become a nuisance. I've enjoyed my spring treks into the wild, but I can see responsibilities crowding onto the path and sending me back to a busy office. Will I go gentle in that good night? Or would it be better to scramble off raucously like a rambunctious chipmunk?

 

Liverpalooza!

Ancient Romans believed the liver was the seat of the emotions, but to me, liver is the seat of only one emotion and it's not a particularly pleasant one. So recently when my loving husband asked me what I planned to do with all the liver in the freezer, I wanted to say "Throw it to the dog" but I knew that would be the wrong answer.

What are we doing with all this liver in the freezer? Periodically we purchase sides of beef from our neighbors, really good locally grown grass-fed antibiotic-free beef in a variety of cuts, from ground beef to stew beef to steaks to exquisite roasts.

And then there's liver. There's always liver--not a lot, but over the course of several years our freezer has amassed two or three pounds of beef liver. I've never cared much for liver; the flavor is blah and the texture can be rubbery if it's not prepared just right and it makes the whole house smell like liver, but I used to cook liver regularly when we were first married at my husband's request. The only liver recipe I ever enjoyed eating involved searing the liver quickly in butter with garlic and rosemary, and even then I wouldn't touch the leftovers because the texture turned dreadful.

I don't believe I ever made a conscious choice to quit cooking liver, but I'm sure I haven't touched it in at least 15 years. Why would I bother cooking something that pokes so painfully at the seat of my emotions? At some point liver eased out of my life, and I never even managed to say "Good riddance."

But here we are with all this liver in the freezer, and here was my husband, cookbook in hand, telling me he'd found an interesting recipe for a whole lot of liver. I reminded him that the only way I like liver is seared with garlic and rosemary, but he said, "I thought you might want to try something different," which is his way of saying he wanted to try something different. So I said, "Fine--you cook it."

Which he did.

And it was not totally dreadful.

The vegetables were terrific and the parslied new potatoes were dreamy and the liver was edible when drowned in the piquant sauce. "Was it worth all that work?" I asked, and he answered, "Well, it's still liver."

The fact is that he doesn't like liver any more than I do. Well, maybe a little more. He tolerates it while my feeling moves more toward disgust. I asked him why he wants to eat liver if he's not really fond of the flavor, and he said, "There are some things you have to do whether you want to or not."

"But there's no moral obligation to eat liver."

"True," he said, "but it's good for you."

"Not that good."

But I have fulfilled my moral obligation to eat liver and somehow I survived. There's a whole lot of leftover liver in the fridge which I would be happy to serve to anyone who arrives with an appetite.

And this time I'm not ruling out the dog.

Irretrievable

In the movies, on commercials, in the park you see all kinds of dogs jumping to catch tossed Frisbees, but those dogs are not my dog. My dog treats the tossed Frisbee the way Superman regards Kryptonite, but that doesn't stop my son from trying to teach an old dog new tricks. He tosses, cajoles, and points, but the dog just licks his fingers. He offers rewards, even dips the Frisbee in dog food so it smells edible, but Hopeful declines to approach within five feet of a tossed Frisbee.

What do you do with a retriever that won't retrieve? Maybe it's time to let sleeping dogs lie.

Undented and undaunted

I was just sitting there minding my own business (totally unaware that I was about to become part of a story about a person just sitting there minding her own business when suddenly something totally unexpected happens) when suddenly something totally unexpected happened: my car was rear-ended, knocking loose some random thoughts about the nature of luck.

For years I've had a running disagreement with a colleague known for his good luck (in raffles, on the golf course, at the poker table, and just about everywhere luck is invoked). "You make your own luck," he insists. "If you think you're lucky, you'll be lucky."

My problem with this theory begins with the difficulty of distinguishing between good luck and bad luck. Take that fender-bender: I was driving away from a baseball game amidst hundreds of cars; what are the odds that any particular car should have ended up right behind mine? (To quote a student's T-shirt slogan: I'm an English major--you do the math.) If one of us had stopped for a burger or turned left instead of right then maybe I wouldn't have been rear-ended. Bad luck!

But wait: it was a low-speed accident that caused no injuries and left no mark on either car. Instead of spending a gorgeous afternoon standing around waiting to file police reports and insurance claims, we got back in our cars and moved on. What are the odds of getting rear-ended in a way that causes no discernible damage? Good luck!

Hold on: that was my second automotive mishap in a week. In the first, a college administrator and his wife walked right out in front of my car so that I had to slam on the brakes and squeal to a stop to narrowly avoid hitting them. (They didn't see me. What am I, invisible? The student who rear-ended me after the baseball game said he "lost it in the sun," suggesting that my car is suffering from an outbreak of Intermittent Invisibility Syndrome.)

Most of us would agree that mangling one's boss qualifies as bad luck, so missing him (just barely!) would have to be considered good luck. (Or good reflexes. Or good brakes.)

All I know is that I felt such relief at narrowly escaping maiming or killing my boss that I was inclined to pay that grace forward a week later when a student rear-ended my car. Given his age and gender, it would have been really bad luck for his insurance rates if I'd decided to file a police report. So he had the bad luck to run into me, but he did it on a day when I was grateful for the good luck I'd experienced in failing to mangle an administrator who'd had the bad luck to walk right out in front of a moving car. Once you add up all those pluses and minuses, where does this incident land on the good luck/bad luck continuum?

If my lucky colleague is correct, I could have been sitting in my car thinking, "I'm lucky, so lucky, so very very lucky" and maybe I wouldn't have been rear-ended. Alternately, if I'd been sitting there sulking over my sad sorry pathetic string of bad luck, maybe I would have been rear-ended by a cement mixer--or, I don't know, a cargo plane flying overhead could have suffered a catastrophic failure and dropped a grand piano on my head.

It could happen. (To Wile E. Coyote.)

But I wasn't celebrating my good luck or mourning my bad luck or making any kind of luck at all. I was just sitting there minding my own business when something totally unexpected happened...and a week later, I still don't know what kind of something it was.

You are now leaving the Cynicism Zone

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

"So what you've been doing," said my puzzled colleague, "is walking around the woods looking at flowers?"

"And birds," I said.

"And birds," he said. "Walking around the woods looking at flowers and birds. Must be exciting!"

Red trillium

But I knew by the way he said it that he meant exactly the opposite. We were, after all, on campus, inside the Cynicism Zone, where every attempt at pure unadulterated enthusiasm is sneered upon, where the enjoyment of beauty is considered an insidious disease that must be starved to death lest it spread.

Trillions of trilliums

Fortunately, the woods are posted with "No Cynicism" signs. I can walk there alone or in company and unashamedly exult over the presence of mayapples or woodpeckers, saying things like, "Ooh! Trilliums!" without any need for ironic air-quotes.

Birds and wildflowers don't bow down in awe at academic degrees or pedagogical jargon or plum committee assignments, nor do they reward cynicism and ruthlessness with rapid advancement. They simply sit there making me happy, and you never see them sneering at the prospect of of simple happiness.

One of these days someone will figure out how to extend the No Cynicism Zone to embrace campus, but until that happens, I'll keep on walking around the woods looking at flowers and birds.

Make way for woodpeckers

I startled a pileated woodpecker this morning, or I guess we startled each other. I was looking for geese and great blue herons at a local wetland so I had water birds on my mind while beating through the woods, and then suddenly this pileated woodpecker was pounding on a tree right in front of me. I managed to get only one shot before it flew off.  It kept taunting me by chattering in the woods nearby, but I never got another clear view. Still, I've never been this close to a pileated woodpecker before, so who's complaining?  

Great blue heron

A family of Canada geese

Further signs of the impending apocalypse

Baz Luhrmann is filming The Great Gatsby in 3-D, with Leonardo DiCaprio (the king of the world!) as Gatsby and Tobey Maguire playing Nick Carraway (without a net).

No snow, rain, sleet, or hail here on Easter.

Mike Wallace, the irresistible force meeting many immovable objects, is dead.

And a guy named Bubba won the Masters golf tournament, which was not filmed in 3-D.

Kingfisher!

One day last week I was sitting on my back deck reading a book when two kingfishers started chattering and flying at each other right there in front of me, but the minute I got up (quietly) to get the camera, they vamoosed on up the creek. Not to be deterred in my eternal quest to photograph a kingfisher, I followed them upstream just as far as I could, right up until the creek edge turned vertical. Then I slipped and ended up sitting in the mud.

I never saw the kingfishers again that day and I've heard but not seen them along our creek since then. They seem to be living further upstream than they have in past years, but I can't seem to get a photo of them regardless of where they live.

Until today--but I had to go clear to the other side of the county to capture this photo. My local kingfishers are too camera-shy to pose, but this little female sat above a creek where a friend and I were looking at wildflowers. In flight they're such majestic birds, but at rest their heads look too big for their bodies, as if some toddler's been pulling apart his toys and can't quite manage to match up the parts. Our kingfishers seem to be mating so perhaps we'll have more--more birds, more chattering, more opportunities for me to fall in the mud.


But no matter. It's all good. I like living in a world with kingfishers in it even when they lead me far astray.

Masterful notes

The greatest gift of the sabbatical is the freedom to spend long hours immersed in reading without interruptions from students, committees, or piles of grading. This week isn't even over yet but I have  already read 34 academic journal articles (some more carefully than others) and one book related to my research project, not to mention my usual quota of articles in magazines and newspapers and a truly silly novel by Richard Walter called Escape from Film School, which is what Nathanael West would have written instead of The Day of the Locust if he'd landed in Hollywood 50 years later.

But by far my favorite bit of reading this week bears no relationship to my research. Why am I reading the draft of a Master's thesis about a composer whose name means nothing to me?

Because my daughter wrote it, that's why. And I may be a wee bit biased, but I think it's pretty darn good.

I can't comment on content, of course--it's too far outside my area of expertise. (Ostinato figures, plagal half cadences, and ascending octave leaps? Anything you say, sweetheart!) But the writing! It's very musical, full of phrases that effectively but unobtrusively employ the sounds and rhythms of the English language: "free from the bonds of specificity," "these gestures convey tired sighs," "the accompanimental texture beneath this tune is tempestuous." I hear that!

I don't hear much of that musical phrasing in the articles I'm reading for my research project, but after immersing myself in a big pile of articles this week, I'm ready to stick a fork in it and call it done. Done with the reading, that is. Time to move on to writing. I just hope my finished product will be as polished and musical as my daughter's, even if I don't know an ostinato from an ostrich.

Eighth time's the charm

Jeffersonia diphylla, aka twinleaf

Twinleaf, I am told. was named to honor Thomas Jefferson (Jeffersonia diphylla) and often blooms around the time of Jefferson's birthday (April 13)--but you have to look quickly, because the blooms last only a day or two. I've admired twinleaf foliage forming clusters at the edge of our woods for the past eight years, but I've never managed to see one blooming.

Until today. The blossoms are tiny and white, the leaves still reddish on the edges and only about six inches from the ground. Later the leaves will grow twice as tall and broaden out like elephant ears, but right now they're so small they're easily overlooked--which, I suppose, is why I've missed them at blossom time all these years.

And I might have missed them this morning thanks to the other distractions that drew my attention--a pair of wood ducks on our creek, a brown thrasher calling from the treetops, a pair of red-tailed hawks circling the meadow and then visiting their nest on the hillside.

There's just so much to look at right now that it's no wonder I miss things. I'm just thankful that sometimes I get a second chance. (And a third and a fourth and even and eighth.)

Duckies!

Brown thrasher

Hawk's nest with hawk

A monument to the daily grind

From one angle they look like any other stones jutting from hillsides in the southeast Ohio woods, their angles softened by lichen and fuzzy green moss. Look again, though, and notice the stones' uniformity of shape and size, the unnaturally symmetrical squares piercing the centers. We're standing next to a defunct grindstone quarry, a potent reminder that these quiet woods once rang with the sounds of hard work.

When we first moved to this area, we noticed a big stone disk half buried in a small park alongside the highway. A nearby sign offered an explanation: "Grindstone." That's all it said. Not very helpful!

Later we learned that for a century sandstone quarries in the county fed the needs of industrialization by providing stones to grind and sharpen tools. Workers who cut and shaped the grindstones breathed in sandstone dust until their lungs became coated with the fine powder, many dying from an occupational disease known as "sandstone consumption."

How did they get the immense heavy stones out of a quarry deep in a ravine served by no surviving roads? We had to clamber down muddy slopes and jump across streams on stepping-stones just to find the place where all those stones were left behind when the need for sandstone grindstones collapsed. Starting around 1920, synthetic materials made these quarries obsolete and the industry that had employed thousands for a century fell silent.

We drive on streets still paved with bricks formed from clay quarried from the site where our grocery store now stands, and we marvel over the slate shingles still protecting roofs on historic houses more than a century after they were built, but it's easy to forget the labors of men who dug the clay, laid the bricks, notched the slate, cut the sandstone and hauled it away. Today these woods are so quiet that we feel like bold adventurers forging a trail into the wild, but the mossy remains of quarried grindstones stand as a monument to the many who have walked this way before, reminding us that we are not the first to walk these woods, and we will not be the last.

From blobs to blooms

The infamous xylobolus blob.

The highlight of my day might have been the moment when my colleague darted off into the woods exclaiming, "Look! A blob of xylobolus!"

And she meant it.

Xylobolus, as I'm sure you're aware (right!), grows on oak and is sometimes called ceramic parchment fungus. It looks--well, blobby. I would have walked right past it if I hadn't been tromping through woods and muddy streams with a trained botanist.

Earthstar fungus.

I would have walked right past the jelly fungus too because it looked like a wad of icky goo stuck to the side of a branch, but it's dry to the touch and feels like fine paper. In the middle of a stream my colleague suddenly stooped and pounced on a rock and crowed, "Liverwort!" And nearby she showed me a star-shaped fungus clinging to the side of a damp rock. It's called an earthstar but it looks extraterrestrial or aquatic, as if it's about to burst out singing "Under the Sea." 

The weather was cool enough for coats and hats and wet enough to thoroughly muddy up our hiking boots, but recent warm temperatures led to early blooms for some spring wildflowers. We saw twinleaf and bloodroot already past the blossom stage, and elsewhere we saw hillsides festooned with blue-eyed mary or  lovely yellow celandine poppies. Deep in the ravine we ran across rarer specimens: perfoliate bellwort and trout lilies just barely blooming,  mertensia and spring larkspur vying to produce the most abundant blue blossoms.

Squirrel corn. Note the little nodules belowground.

Everywhere we saw moss and ferns (maidenhair fern, Christmas fern, walking fern, club fern--which isn't a fern at all despite the name). I learned to distinguish dutchman's breeches from squirrel corn (darker leaves and more delicate heart-shaped flowers) and I even learned why it's called squirrel corn (because the roots produce these little corn-shaped nodules just beneath the soil's surface). We saw hepatica and rue anemone and waterleaf, foamflower and squawroot and two kinds of trilliums.

Sessile trillium.

I was the one who spotted the sessile trilliums, a discovery that me ridiculously happy. For an hour or more I'd been blindly stumbling past earthstars and liverwort and blobs of xylobolus and then feeling really blind and ignorant when my colleague pointed them out, so I got a little excited when I saw these mottled leaves and subtle violet flowers and said, "Is this some sort of trillium?"


Yes! A new type of trillium to know and love! Woo-hoo! It's not exactly a blob of xylobolus, but nevertheless it made my day.

Not jellyfish--jelly fungus.

Blue-eyed mary.

That blue-eyed mary gets around!

Club fern. (Neither a club nor a fern.)

 

Celandine poppies.

Squirrel corn on the left, dutchman's breeches on the right.

Fern fiddleheads unfurling.

Cited and delighted

I'm just grumbling my way through the latest issue of a literary journal, registering the usual complaints about the ubiquitous stiff and lifeless thesis statements following the "In this essay I will show" model and the prevalence of flat analyses and uninspiring writing, when suddenly the page lights up. I see my name--and not in a footnote! Right there at the start of a long paragraph that understands and engages with my ideas! Properly cited, too! Suddenly it seems there's hope for academic writing.

I suppose the slow pace of academic publishing heightens the pleasure produced when our work is finally noticed. Pour all your efforts into producing a worthy article, submit it to an appropriate journal, endure the inevitable wait period and perhaps a few rounds of "revise-and-resubmit," wait wait wait for the eventual publication, and then--silence. Is anyone reading? Does anyone care? Or is your brilliant work just another line on the vita?

So how delightful to discover that my ideas didn't just fall off the edge of the earth but instead inspired another scholar to advance the conversation. Let's see, the article he cited was published in 2008, but it had been submitted at least a year earlier and was based on a section of my dissertation that I'd been fiddling with since--oh, the late 1990s I suppose. That's a long time to spend throwing out a conversational bon mot and awaiting a reply. It's like communicating across the galaxy using only smoke signals and hoping someone out there will eventually understand and respond.

But when a response finally arrives--well, then it's time to give a little whoop and holler, even if I've long since moved on to composing the next message.

The game is underfoot

So I'm out at the big-box store looking for a rug for my new office (because making plans for my new office distracts me from my distress over losing my old office) and my heart isn't really in it because all the affordable rugs look pretty similar--same range of geometric shapes, same range of colors--but I manage to narrow it down to three rugs that would suit just fine and then I have to decide: the vaguely Frank Lloyd Wright stained-glass pattern, the swoopy curvy colorful shapes, or the muted misshapen checks. Not one of them really makes me stand up and sing, but singing isn't really part of my office repertoire. All I need is something to walk all over and all three are within the right price range, so how do I pick? Draw straws? Throw dice? I don't know how to play rock/paper/scissors with a rug.

Then my eyes land on the names of the rugs. All these patterns have names, of course, not Fred and Norm and Valerie but names reminiscent of apartment complexes: Green Leaf, Winchester, Halsey Court, Fireside. The names of two of the finalists are so generic I've already forgotten them, but the third stands out:

Scrabble.

How could an English professor say no to a rug called Scrabble?

Come summertime, this rug is MINE! 

The longest story never told

"It was the longest book I've never read" was what I thought the student said, but how would he know? He'd have to start with a list of every book ever written, cross off all the ones he has already read, and then find the longest remaining title on the list--which could easily change the next time a monolithic tome gets published. How could anyone possibly know the title of the longest book he's never read?

But of course that's not what he said. I heard "never" when he said "ever." He said the longest book he's ever read is Vanity Fair, so apparently he's never tackled Tolstoy. But he made me wonder: if I can't possibly name the longest book I've never read, what about the longest book I've never read that I ought to have read?

This is where I have to confess that I never finished The Magic Mountain (904 pages), never started Infinite Jest (1104), and never even thought about reading 2066 (912). I'm most embarrassed about Magic Mountain because it was on the reading list for my comprehensive exams. I read everything else on the list, including Bleak House (560), War and Peace (1296), Middlemarch (800), Ulysses (612), and Remembrance of Things Past (3200)--and I even made it all the way through Main Street, comprising a mere 360 pages so dull they seem like 3600.

But I never made it more than halfway up Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. I believe that's the only required book assigned throughout my academic career that I simply could not force myself to finish reading. Good thing it never came up on my comprehensive exams. (Shh! Don't tell or they might revoke my Ph.D.!)