Category Archives: all posts

a lovely time was held by the core of the usual gang of assateague campers. mariss, kelly, ruthie and I drove down sat. and stayed over at dad and maggie’s site (such brilliant hospitality!) and then we moved over to our very own sites on sunday. it didn’t rain until wednesday night, and we were leaving on thursday anyway, so the good behavior of the clouds in quitting the drizzle when we woke up long enough to pack up camp was pretty wonderful.

in addition, there were several amazing innovations that made their appearance this year in assateague, including:

the campfire cooking tripod that someone had left by their firepit and which dad had joyfully scavenged for us because he thought “well, they really seem to love cooking over an open fire!”

it created such gorgeous results as you may see here:

have you ever? seen? such amazingly grilled hotdogs? beautiful.

also pictured above is night two of our pirated wood. we didn’t buy any wood this trip and I think we had fires all four official nights we were there! it was great – I hate buying wood. it pays like gangbusters to get to assateague, stay overnight in your parent’s 5th wheel, and to pirate wood from all vacated campsites in the vicinity before the camp hosts or the other campers get a chance to do so. actually, someone drove by while we carried huge armloads of wood and yelled “PIRATES!” and I could only toss my head (roguishly) and grin in (bloodthirsty) acknowledgement because my arms were hella full of my plunders.

the other huge innovation was this magnificent shade canopy:

it’s a terrible dismal photo but you get the gist: with this beautiful canopy we were able to dawdle over breakfast without feeling a desperate need to lather up with sunblock and dash to the beach to avoid the hot hot sunrays. it was so luxurious. we took it down on wednesday in anticipation of the rain and even though it was cloudy and post-breakfast, I missed it badly.

lovely time had, regardless of my short workfest at the local starbucks. what is it about the starbucks that makes tourists feel so comfortable? I’m not talking about me here. I was there as a displaced businessperson, not a tourist. and oh, lordy. how about 1 pound of alaskan king crab legs for $9? waterman’s, you had me at all you eat crabs, but your half price appetizer and two dollar bloody mary’s were just what the doctor ordered this trip. amazing. even if king crab is almost too hedonistic for me to eat. so much meat, and so little work! it’s ridiculous! almost shameful!

and I’m back to work today, in what might be the best planned return from vacation ever. happiness is returning for one day to a pushed back deadline and a three-day weekend. oh, and the brilliant photo I took of myself on friday night when I got home, I added it to the last entry. ha!

a friend of mine reminded me about feministing.com yesterday, and I found a link to a horrible forbes article called, charmingly, “Don’t Marry Career Women.” I should have posted about it yesterday when it was live, but it was just too squalid. Apparently forbes caught on, and they yanked the very horribly funny slideshow illustrating just WHY you shouldn’t marry a careerist. I found the list (and some quotes and smart commentary) at feministe. the reasons are:

1. You are less likely to get married to her.
2. If you do marry, you are more likely to get divorced.
3. She is more likely to cheat on you
4. You are much less likely to have kids.
5. If you do have kids, your wife is more likely to be unhappy.
6. Your house will be dirtier.
7. You’ll be unhappy if she makes more than you.
8. She will be unhappy if she makes more than you.
9. You are more likely to fall ill.

the original photos from the goofy slideshow are here, if you’d like to read along. my favorites: the cheating, and the cheetos. edited to add: brilliant sans-photos captures of the original slideshow, so you can see the amazingly high-brow text.

Now, doesn’t this read just like a 1950s pamphlet? Some of them are ridiculous, like #3 (obviously contact with men who are not married to you leads directly to cheating) and #9 (the rationale for this one is that women are the ones who monitor their husbands health, make drs appts, etc., and without that MOTHERING it’s easier for the masculine health to suffer). What’s really horrifying, though, is that regardless of how weird and messed up the author is, at least one other person, probably 3 or 4, thought that this was an appropriate article for forbes to print. you know, forbes? the magazine for businessPEOPLE? the one that profiles women CEOs? the one that lists the best companies for women to work for? totally bizarre.

So today the article has been watered down to appear as a point-counterpoint piece and is here. there are some vile message boards here for readers to discuss and that are full of hate and reactionaries.

And just to emphasize how amazingly bad this whole thing is, the article originally appeared in the Forbes careers and leadership section. because, you know, only men are leaders. And honestly, some of the assumptions about men that are required to suspend disbelief and make this point are very insulting to men, too.

this whole fiasco is a sterling example of why feminism is still relevant. As long as there are people out there who think, honestly, that this is the sort of thing that is appropriate to introduce into the public discussion through a heretofore respected publication, well! Obviously we have not reached equality, and even more obviously, we have an incredibly long way to go.

edited again: lest we think the author is a rational and logical thinker, another article he wrote for forbes.com called the economics of prostitution has been mirrored here. and also, turns out dude is the executive editor of news for forbes.com, so maybe there weren’t any checks on his writing. however, you’d think SOMEONE would have caught on that he doesn’t really seem to have a healthy concept of marriage or of women.

have *almost* finished uploading all of my old journal posts to wordpress. I just have to fix a couple of figure locations and then I’ll start deleting all the old pages, and then will move onto the crafts stuff and old photo archive pages. I want to get my blog all pretty and happy and sleek and trim and like a jungle cat, but it’s taking some time: I’m lazy, etc, and also when I first started this here blame thing in 2002 I was armed only with ms word, a general reluctance to buckle down and really learn html, and an ftp site. it was good for what I needed, but it was a hassle and a half. I heart wordpress, by the way. it is superduper.

edited: done. have loaded all photos/etc up, fixed all links, etc. phew! it is so weird, by the way, to have a record going back almost 4 years of this kind of thing. I’ve never been so glad that I’m such a charming individual [ha!].

I’m very excited about this Chihuly installation at the NY Botanical Gardens — I wanted to go see his installation in chicago a few years ago but never got around to it. I saw a movie on pbs about his installation in venice and it amazed me, totally, and started me really thinking about glass. Now I have a bookmark folder of locations where I can learn to blow glass – if I had gotten a job in pittsburgh I would have been able to afford lessons at the pittsburgh glass center but that didn’t pan out, and I can’t find a place convenient to me in NJ yet. am still looking though!
Details:

“Gardens & Glass” – World renowned glass sculptor Dale Chihuly’s installations dazzle throughout the NY Botanical Gardens, Bronx River Pkwy at Fordham Rd (B/D – Bedford Pk Blvd station + 20 min walk or Bx26 bus east or Metro North – Botanical Gdns station) Open Tu –Su; 10:00AM-6:00PM, thru October 29. $20/$18 – students & seniors/$5 under 12. While there, see “Waterlillies & Locusts” (thru September 17) & “Victorian Ornamentals” (also thru October 29). For more information, call 212.220.0503 or go to www.nybgo.org. see also “Transplants/Transculture”

* I went running, twice! sunday was the first week of a full 20 minutes of running and I am happy to report that both my knee and the rest of me handled it like a pro!

* got my hairs cut and my toenails polished!

* I met a new baby! wee little amelia! she is wonderful! and even more so b/c instead of crying when I held her like most of my relatives do, she fell right asleep!

* I also cooked up a storm: eggplant and tomato risoto from world vegetarian and the dense chocolate loaf cake from how to be a domestic goddess for the baby momma and baby daddy, and a cabbage salad for a bbq.

* I went to a bbq! in brooklyn! at paula’s and cameron’s! it was fun! wine and cheese tasting! fancy sausage! seeing friends I hadn’t seen in months! the only thing it lacked, seriously, was kareoke! and it’s AMAZING, but everyone really seems to like cabbage salad. This time around it included chopped cabbage in a sesame oil, red wine vinegar, honey, and dill dressing, tossed with smashed toasted almonds. Almost Gourmet. And when I say gourmet, I’m pronouncing the “met.” That shows you how serious I am about cabbage salad!

* I went to the noguchi museum! with the CU alumni group! and it was fun! and ps, now that I’m elected to a three year term on the alumni council (did I mention that I’ve been elected to the alumni council?), I expect I’ll be attending a lot more of these CU gatherings!

* and then I took a short nap in my armchair!

* and woke up and did 3 hours of project management training while knittting industriously away on a corn baby!

lest you all think this is a CSA blog only:

Last friday michelle met me at the train and we hopped into the wee insight and drove south.

we headed to assateague for part 1 of my beach vacation august. we got in at 10:30 on friday and set up our tent behind dad and maggie’s camper, and hit the hay. sat. and sunday were lovely in a sit on the beach and get pink kind of way… monday I took it a little easy from the sun, and tuesday the wind was too brutal and kicked up too much sand. actually, monday night the wind blew so hard that it pulled my tent up from the ground despite the tent stakes (but luckily while we were in it) and tossed us around and tried to roll over (but we were in it!) and then just petulantly snapped the leeward pole right in half. we splinted it in the middle of the night while michelle held the tent down (aka laid on her back inside) and taped up the other obviously damaged poles (just splintered) and went right back to sleep as the wind blew the tent over the top of me like a noisy down comforter.

but wednesday, now, that was a perfect last day at assateague. classically gorgeous, temperate, sunny, and the kind of beach you don’t want to walk, much less drive, away from.

we caught some rays. got on the road an hour and a half late. took copious photos of the wee ryan, who hated the beach at first but after the brilliant coaxing of michelle, now can tolerate it as long as you don’t make him look directly at the ocean.

and then michelle and I picked ourselves up, rinsed off, and drove north to the metro ny area. it’s nice being on car trips in the daytime! We also 1. stopped to buy a peck of peaches and some cukes and then 2. found out that the jerky outlet, despite it’s great business model, has closed. well. that’s ok. we stopped for cokes and spicy chips at a wawa and made great time up the highways.

there WAS some excitement in delaware (what would a michelle and kari car tirp be without excitement?) — we came upon a van that was driving very erratically and very fast and swerving and tailgating and when we looked at the driver, it looked like he was sound asleep. So I fell back and put my hand at the ready by the horn while michelle called 911 and filled them in. luckily, after she called he pulled over and we drove off feeling a little more secure that we wouldn’t experience an awful horrible terrible accident.

I dropped michelle at the path and she was home by 8:30, and I picked up my veggies and headed home and washed my beach towels and read books in my recliner. Aaah. what a lovely vacation.

and I go back in just 6 short work days! that makes for some real perspective at my desk in front of my computer. perspective, and some lovely deep bronze tan color, my friends, even with the spf 50. no, really. are you laughing at me?