spud says hi

2009. How about that?

It's weird looking at a lot of the year end coverage this year, because 2008 was such a problematic (and that's probably putting it kindly) year in so many ways.  And yet, for me, 2008 was really a pretty good year.

I traveled to interesting places.  I spent time with family and friends.  I met new people, and established better friendships with others.  I had a very good year, professionally (OK, I'm superstitious enough that I'm knocking on wood about that, given that this year is really my most important year professionally--tenure review).  I partook of a lot of good culture.  I played with my cat.  I knit some stuff that I absolutely love.  I look like a financial genius because I kept meaning to invest the money I've been saving since moving to Toronto, and never got around to it, so it's all (all... it's not that much) still sitting in a savings account.

It wasn't perfect.  My perpetual good intentions when it comes to living healthier failed to lead to lasting change.  I spent much of the fall rather unhappy about the rhetoric of politics in the US, though I was in the end happy with how things turned out (expect for the fact that I think my home state would be better served by anarchy than by the idiot who's currently in charge).  Although I've been lucky, there's been stress for a lot of people close to me. 

But all in all, I'm very fortunate.  And I have great hopes for the new year, with plans for travel and both professional and personal development.

I hope the same for all of you!

Back and forth

I'm in the midst of a trip that mostly involves a big academic conference, but which also just involved a day at a school near the conference site (Philadelphia) giving a talk about my book.  Well, mostly.  I was invited to do this by a friend from graduate school who teaches here, and thought it'd be fun to get me down to talk tied in with this other conference.  It was fun to do the talk, and to catch up with the friend and his wife, and finally to meet their kids.

Going to academic conferences is such a weird thing to do--it's the major conference for my field, which means that people I know from school, from time spent in Russia, from other conferences... they all come together in a big confusing, tiring mix of people.  So you get both (in principle, at least) the intellectual stimulation of presenting your work and hearing comment on it, and of hearing other people's work and commenting on it, but then also the sometimes almost emotional stimulation of meeting up with people with whom you've shared the trials of graduate school, or a scrabbled together Thanksgiving meal in St. Petersburg, or just a weird conference.  And the emotional stimulation of realizing the passing of time--it's freaky to realize that the friends I saw last night have a third grader born after they moved to their current location, which means... wow, time passes--and then the ways that that doesn't matter at all, because even if it's been a year since you've seen someone, sometimes it feels like no time has passed conversationally, even if I can see a few extra grey hairs (and I feel like I'm at the age when everyone is starting to show grey hairs here and there... it's really strange).

Anyway.  It reminded me of something that made me yelp in surprise and amusement when I saw it in the New York Times a couple months ago:  Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap, tourist destination.

Jimmy's was the dive bar near campus that everyone went to all the freaking time.  I had a weekly workshop, every Tuesday night, with all the other Russianists, and after almost every single workshop we went to Jimmy's.  It was a weird academic community building place.  It went through a mild renovation after the original Jimmy died (I mostly remember they started serving Guiness after that, and the walls maybe got painted).  It's where I learned to like beer.  It's also just not glamorous at all, and the whole idea that it might be a place featured in a travel guide is really, really strange.

(Incidentally, the funniest single thing I read about the election from here was a line in a Toronto Star column about Obama, in which it noted that the Obamas had bought their dream house in "Chicago's exclusive Hyde Park neighborhood."  Because a) I think it's actually in Kenwood, and b) it ain't exclusive in the sense I think they mean.)

And that's enough navel gazing for now.  OH, also??  Yesterday I flew on a freaking PROPELLOR PLANE that sat SIXTEEN people.  Except there were only six of us.  TINIEST (commercial) PLANE EVER.

Fa la la la la

'Tis the season, and all that!

I got a tree this weekend, the first time I've done that in several years.  I am very pleased to be back in the land of moderately sized trees.  I had a hard time finding smallish trees in Colorado, where an awful lot of the trees for sale seemed destined for places with big cathedral ceilings.

You wouldn't necessarily think there'd be cultural differences in Christmas tree shopping, would you?  And yet, there seem to be.

Now, this could be because I just bought... I don't know, too early?  In the wrong place?  No clue.

But I was amazed at the lack of oversight over the many, many trees stacked up against the sides of various grocery stores.  I remember buying a tree at the Dominick's on Roosevelt Road in Chicago, and there was totally a guy there on duty.  On the one hand, there's a theft prevention thing going on there.  But on the other, there's a helping thing, too.  The guy on duty would hold up trees for the buyers' admiration, would give the trunks a fresh cut after purchase for maximum water intake, and would supply twine to tie the thing to the top of the car.

Here?  Not so much with any of that.  The trees were all still bound up, there was no option for cutting (and of course my saw's packed away in the basement, where I can't get without calling the super), and if it had been necessary, there was no option to help you make off with a tree.  Strange.  But, I will say, cheap.

Anyway, this one fell out pretty nicely.  Ziti's been leaving it alone for the most part, though I did find one ornament on the ground (a low hanging non-breakable one), and this morning while I was reading the paper on the couch he suddenly jumped up at a higher (and very breakable) ornament.  Just in case, I've tied it to the radiator (which isn't on, no worries).

I really have a lot of ornaments, and I love getting the chance to go through them and look at them all.  Some of them I've bought as an adult, like the greeny-gold glass ball here.  Actually, virtually every ornament I've bought as an adult has been a glass ball, or possibly a glass thing in some other shape.

The others here are all childhood ones.  The pink elephant is my very first ornament, which means it's fricking 36 years old (almost).

I always got couple of ornaments every year as a kid.  My mom, my sister, our friend Charlotte, and I would go downtown on the Lake Street el (this was a big part of the charm and adventure) to Marshall Field's to see Santa.  And we'd look at the decorated windows, and the cool toy display, and eat under the giant Christmas tree.  Was there a cloakroom there?  I feel like I have some mostly sense memory of coming in from the cold into a steam heated place to check coats, and finding it kind of overwhelming, but maybe I'm making that up or conflating other memories.

The souvenir from the day was always an ornament.  Field's had a huge selection of them, and we'd wander around until we found ours.  Sometimes I was very faddish.  I know there's a gnome ornament in a box somewhere, presumably from the same year I was a gnome for Halloween.  Yeah, no clue.  I had that big gnome book and thought it was cool.

My mom wrote down the years we got most things, so I know that that wooden ornament on the edge of the picture was my ornament from 1980.  The dog... I'm not sure, but I know my sister has one with a green (right?) bow.  We each had our boxes of ornaments within the big Christmas box, and going through everything was hugely important as a kid.

Anyway.  On a slightly less sentimental note?  That star garland had been put in a box by someone (OK, me, obviously) all in a tangle.  It took me more than an hour on Sunday to get it untangled.  Augh!

Turkey, stuffing, and lots of pie

In other words, a happy Thanksgiving.

I'm in Madison, at my sister and brother-in-law's house.  I flew in last night, my parents showed up earlier in the day.  I've baked pies, and the turkey's now in the oven.  We're sitting around watching the Green Bay Packers game.  There's snow on the ground and sun in the sky, which is an awfully nice combination, especially when joined by a fire on the hearth.  I'm also re-teaching my mom how to knit.  We went through casting on, knitting, purling, switching between the two, and now she's casting on for the back of a vest (she saw a pattern on a ball band at Michael's, bought the yarn, and told me to bring an appropriate needle).  Go mom!

So, I've got to say, I'm very thankful for my awesome family, for my nice job, and for the cool friends who I can go without seeing for ages and still pick up right away (this just happened at the conference).  That's a pretty damned good slate of things to be thankful for, isn't it?

Love to all!

So... hmmm...

So, like, I kind of want to keep up this posting every day thing, but am having difficulty thinking of something to write about.  This could be because I did a ton of writing over the weekend, writing and finishing a conference paper to be delivered in New Orleans next week.  I wrote a LOT in a short time.  It ended up at 20 pages, which is FAR TOO LONG to be read.  But, that means that it's possible to make it into an article, which is a good thing.  And as of Thursday, there were approximate zero pages, so... that was a damn productive weekend.

On the other hand, I did actually also watch some TV, and do some knitting.  I'm about a third of the way done with the Lady of the Lake jacket's second sleeve, and I've already done the collar.  So it's quite close.  And I discovered that donkeys?  Can be enormously funny, when they're well edited.  The first episode of The Amazing Race proved this.  And I roasted a chicken.  That has nothing to do with either TV or knitting, but it was an event of the weekend.

A quick trip

I just went back to Chicago for the weekend.

Why?

Forty years ago yesterday, my parents got married.

And we had a party.

Now, by "we," I mean my sister did EVERYTHING for this, all the planning, all the inviting, all the coordinating.  I just got to enjoy seeing a bunch of people I really quite like, namely friends and relatives.  And get credit by extension, which I tried always to put back to where it belonged, with my sister.

So, a day late, again, happy anniversary, mom and dad!  And thanks, sister, for pulling this together.  And thanks relatives and friends for coming, and making the party... well, a party!

Old/new

I lived in and around Chicago for the first 28 years of my life.  And if you count the year spent in Urbana, 29 years.  Of course, there were bits and pieces in there spent elsewhere, but the longest away period was about seven months, and even then my real home was always back here.

Now that I've lived away from it for (again, depending on whether I count the Urbana year) 5 or 6 years, every time I come back I'm hit by a strange combination of familiarity and shock.  It's a little trite to say that cities change enormously, but it's so true of Chicago recently, especially in some places.

You can see it on the web, of course.  Google's satellite images of the city are a bit out of date, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes not.

The number of condos that have been built all over the city never ceases to amaze me.  And the number of old houses in old suburbs that have been torn down and replaced by mega mansions (in some places, at least) is also deeply strange.

I was down in Hyde Park last week, meeting friends by the University, and then later for dinner.  Some parts of that neighborhood are so the same as when I left.  Bookstores, restaurants.  I ordered something I thought a bit at random for dinner, and as soon as the plate came I had such a strong visual and then taste memory of having exactly that meal there at some point in the past.

An odd personal landmark for me out in the suburbs has always been Sawa's Old Warsaw.  It's a restaurant I've never actually ate in, but which I've passed by countless times.  I've always been intrigued by its logo, by the fact that it's a "Polish smorgasbord," and...well, I don't know.  It's still there, and looks much the same as always, at least from the outside (and from the website, it looks unlikely that the insides have been updated recently.  But now it does have one new feature:  free wireless internet.  Which just brings up so many questions.  Do enough people bring their laptops to the Polish smorgasbord to warrant such an innovation?  How long do people usually stay?

Anyway.  Here's another bit of something new.  My finished Oz socks.  Yarn:  from Australia.  Pattern:  basic toe-up sock, with figure 8 cast-on, short row heel, and an eyelet rib pattern to make it interesting.

I can't remember when I started them.  After I moved to Toronto, I know.  But exactly when... I'm clearly not a good knitting blogger, as I fail to keep track of such things.

They're quite comfortable, and the all-over rib is nice and snug.  They're also 100 % wool, I think, and I also think non-machine washable.  But the label is back in Toronto, and I'm here in Chicago, and won't be back there to check on it until... July.  Crap.  Crazy.

So, basically, yay for the socks.

I'm, less sanguine about the future fate of another project, however.

In some ways I'm very happy with my top-down, raglan sleeve, black alpaca cardigan.  The fabric's quite nice, heavy, but not too heavy.  I did a turned under hem for the first time, and although it needs a strong blocking, I'm more or less happy with it.  It might be a touch too heavy, but I think probably not.  The first sleeve is just about done, and it's a good cardigan size; just loose enough to go over things, but not overly floppy.

The problem?  I'm not sure I want it to be a crew neck anymore.  I started it as a replacement for my beloved black cashmere cardigan, which started out as part of a twinset.  But in the course of going to after-Christmas sales, I've replaced that.  So now I'm thinking maybe I'd like this better as a v-neck.

Decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, Happy New Year!  С новым годом!  Best wishes for good luck, happiness, and health.

Bits and pieces

OK, so.  Teaching's done, and marking won't happen until the end of next week.  And then it's a matter of finishing quickly, heading out for the holidays, and then heading to Russia in January.  Yes, not a brilliant plan, that.  But there you go.  I still have no place to stay in Moscow, though I've just sent off a few emails in search of something (I'm actually contemplating staying in a dorm I stayed in several years ago; it was fantastically centrally located, and pretty nice, all things considered).

But anyway.  Here are various thoughts and points that have come up recently.  Or not so recently,depending.  No pictures, though, because none of my knitting is really worth taking a picture of at the moment.  By which I mean nothing really looks all that different than the last time I pictured it.  Except maybe for the vest, which is almost done.  I need to do something to finish the armholes, and then wash and block it a bit bigger, and then it's done.  Hmm.  I should do that soon.  Because it'll be a great extra warm layer to have when in... Moscow in January.  But, again, thoughts:

• My undergraduates applauded at the end of my last lecture.  That never happened to me in Colorado.  Yay, Canada!
• My knitting has been slightly slowed down in recent days by the fact that I had a bit of a vegetable peeler accident over the weekend.  I was peeling a butternut squash and admittedly did what you're not supposed to do--I peeled towards myself.  And, as a result, when I lost my grip due to the slippery surface of a just-peeled squash, I peeled off the very top of my left thumbnail and thumb.  It's not a deep cut, or anything, just a bit of skin shaved off (sorry for the squeamish), but it hurt like the devil.  Turns out, you use even your non-dominant thumb a lot.  Buttons, for example, have been a challenge.  But all seems to be healing well, and I'm again able to knit.
• In the last couple of weeks I've socialized more than in the entire first several months I've lived here.  A very good thing.
• I keep wanting to cast on for a new knitting project--Noro mittens to match my Noro hat--but I've so far managed to restrain myself until I finish one of the many other projects I've got going right now.
• Turns out, blackstrap molasses and unsulphured molasses are not remotely the same thing when baking.  For the same meal for which I was peeling the butternut squash, I made gingerbread according to a recipe I've used successfully several times before.  This time, however, it completely failed.  Instead of nice moist dark gingerbread, I ended up with a slightly burnt molasses-y crust over goo.  Very disappointing.  However, while investigating the various kinds of molasses, I also learned about an intriguing and bizarre event in American history:  the Great Boston Molasses Flood.  It's actually really awful, but it's at the same time so bizarre it's hard to take it completely seriously.
• I've been wearing the Orenburg shawl a fair bit, because it's silly not to do so.  And yesterday I got two compliments on it.  The best was from a Russian woman who said "That's a nice Russian shawl," without being prompted to recognize it as Russian, and who was then surprised to hear that I'd knit it myself.  Awesome!
• I'm watching a few too many TV shows now.  In the current rotation are:  The Amazing Race (which has been really cool this season in that it's gone to really interesting places, but I'm not in love with any of the teams); Heroes (which is sometimes actively stupid, but which is also at times jaw-droppingly cool, and thus somewhat addictive); Veronica Mars (which I'll never love as much as I did its first season, but which I still enjoy); Gilmore Girls (about which I'm keeping an open mind, though I greatly dislike a plot development); Ugly Betty (which I just love, full stop; it's so cute, it's so funny, and Henry's freaking adorable); and Grey's Anatomy (which I watch irregularly, because here it's on at the same time as Ugly Betty and if I'm out I choose UB; it also sometimes annoys me, and yet, it's enjoyable in a rather empty way).
• I'm reading not nearly enough.  I just finished something I rather disliked.  And mostly I've been re-reading (or, often, re-skimming) old favorites rather than find something new.
• I think my iPod may have died. At the very least, it's behaving problematically. This makes me sad.

And now I've got to run and do actual work.  Yeehaw.

A query

Why does Microsoft Word's spell check not recognize the word groats?  Is it really that uncommon? No, it can't be, because typepad's spell check recognizes it.  Geez.

Y'all (y'few, whatever), I'm almost done with the damn book, and at that point I'll actually have things to say about Toronto and knitting and cats and fall and cooking and TV and books.  Which should suggest that I have actually been doing things other than writing.  Which I have (honestly, I've got like six things on needles because I keep starting things because it takes too much effort to finish things).  But, I swear, not that much.  And writing fragments and crappy run-on sentences with fake swear words in it does not help my academic prose.  So, laters.

This whole global economy thing?

Is a complete and total crock of shit.

At least if you're a person, not an institution.  I sort of can't believe how much of a pain in the ass it is to transfer money between the Canada and the US.  Or how in the electronic world, just where you'd think borders wouldn't exist, they totally do.

Unless I'm just missing the magic bullet that will let me pay my mortgage, which I DON'T EVEN WANT, in an easy and straightforward manner, directly from my Canadian account, where money, you know, actually goes in.

I don't know, I assumed I'd be able to do some sort of automated transfer to do this.  No, apparently.

And, you know, while I'm at it, what the hell is it with Canadian banks and fees?!  I haven't paid for banking in years.  Now, I'm probably still not going to pay for banking because I should be able to keep a certain minimum in my account.  But still!  It's the principle of the thing!

Having to think about this shit is not helping my book get revised.