Charlie's Playhouse is hosting an Evolution & Art Contest, and my kid is too, um, inexperienced in drawing to enter.
You pick an animal, imagine an island, and draw an evolved animal. I already know what I would do if adults were allowed to enter, but it would be political satire, and this is probably why adults are not allowed to enter.
But I have cousins and friends from 4-12, and they should get drawin'!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
This Mississippi River You May Never See (cross-post)
I live near the Mississippi River. I work 500 yards from the Mississippi River. I grew up in a town on the river southeast of here. When I moved to this state at the age of ten, I was in awe of the fact that I was living on the western side of a geographical celebrity, lauded by Mark Twain and other artists; a waterway of continental historical proportions. I came to take it for granted, but every once in a while, it hits me again: that's the Mississippi River. This happened just a few days ago when babywhumpus pointed to the river and said "lake." I told him it was a river, the Mississippi River, and he repeated "Mississippi" perfectly. I again felt the pleasant weight of history, and felt fortunate to live here.
For the last four years, the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History has been working on a film about the river entitled "Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story," and it was due to premiere on October 3.
Not anymore.
(Pay special note to the update in the grey box, because it could be that something fishy is going on at the University, and that's quite simply the last thing we need.)
From an administrative and budgetary perspective, pulling a premier this late means that money has been lost in labor and materials, simply related to the event. That's not even addressing the costs associate with the film itself. Something like this will continue to feed into a public mistrust of government and the University that has been planted and tended by our current governor (himself a graduate of the University). We have enough people taking aim at us without shooting ourselves in the foot.
All this to say: make some calls; send some emails. Might as well flood the president's office and copy URelations. Tell your friends. I don't know about you, but as a citizen of Minnesota, an alum of the U, and a current employee, I'd like to see this movie.
Via e-mail: upres@umn.edu
Via U.S. mail:
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Via phone: 612-626-1616
Via fax: 612-625-3875
URelations
e-mail: urelate@umn.edu
Office of University Relations
3 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-6868
Fax: 612-624-6369
Link: Professor P.Z. Myers' post on this issue.
For the last four years, the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History has been working on a film about the river entitled "Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story," and it was due to premiere on October 3.
Not anymore.
(Pay special note to the update in the grey box, because it could be that something fishy is going on at the University, and that's quite simply the last thing we need.)
From an administrative and budgetary perspective, pulling a premier this late means that money has been lost in labor and materials, simply related to the event. That's not even addressing the costs associate with the film itself. Something like this will continue to feed into a public mistrust of government and the University that has been planted and tended by our current governor (himself a graduate of the University). We have enough people taking aim at us without shooting ourselves in the foot.
All this to say: make some calls; send some emails. Might as well flood the president's office and copy URelations. Tell your friends. I don't know about you, but as a citizen of Minnesota, an alum of the U, and a current employee, I'd like to see this movie.
Via e-mail: upres@umn.edu
Via U.S. mail:
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Via phone: 612-626-1616
Via fax: 612-625-3875
URelations
e-mail: urelate@umn.edu
Office of University Relations
3 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-6868
Fax: 612-624-6369
Link: Professor P.Z. Myers' post on this issue.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Musing. Fall makes me do that.
I had to run an errand to another part of campus. As I walked out of the building, I was confronted with a tent poster sale, and I was thrust back over twenty years, to purchasing large-scale images of The Cure and reproductions of Maxfield Parrish prints for the thickly-painted, fleshy beige of my dorm room walls.
I walk across the bridge from which poet John Berryman jumped, and I think about tossing a flower down onto the ice on January 7.
On this errand, I was reminded of the brash beauty of a completely cloudless autumn sky, that people still smoke, and that the incoming class of freshmen could be my kids. On the way back, I watched a crane loading up pieces of the bridge that fell. They have been languishing for three years next to the river. Maybe it's because the law suit has been settled; maybe it's because it's harvest time and someone needs the steel. In any case, it will be nice to reclaim that stretch of riverbank from the ghosts of failed engineering.
I walk across the bridge from which poet John Berryman jumped, and I think about tossing a flower down onto the ice on January 7.
On this errand, I was reminded of the brash beauty of a completely cloudless autumn sky, that people still smoke, and that the incoming class of freshmen could be my kids. On the way back, I watched a crane loading up pieces of the bridge that fell. They have been languishing for three years next to the river. Maybe it's because the law suit has been settled; maybe it's because it's harvest time and someone needs the steel. In any case, it will be nice to reclaim that stretch of riverbank from the ghosts of failed engineering.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Round about August the past two years I have started to notice all the hugely pregnant women there are. This continues through mid September and is exacerbated by the Minnesota State Fair, where every tenth woman seems to have journeyed for the specific purpose of jump-starting labor.
Why not?
That's what I was going to do.
It's a complicated thing, my reaction to full term pregnant women and women who have delivered healthy full-term babies. (If they have also had care free pregnancies and seem to lead uttey charmed lives, the reaction is much less complicated.)
On the one hand, it is marvelous that these families and babies do not have the ordeal of extended hospitalization and uncertainty. I do not wish that on anyone. On the other, there's a mix of jealousy and loss.
I cannot change things, and we have a frankly fabulous son who is thriving, but still I wonder what it would have been like to be that big and to feel all that movement. I think about a birth experience that did only involved the regular amount of fear and trepidation. I dream about being able to hold my baby when he was born and bring him home with me when I left the hospital.
Not every day, not all year. But it's there, and it probably always will, even as I mentally thank all the nurses and doctors who made it possible for me to have the amazing daily experiences I have with our healthy, growing boy.
Why not?
That's what I was going to do.
It's a complicated thing, my reaction to full term pregnant women and women who have delivered healthy full-term babies. (If they have also had care free pregnancies and seem to lead uttey charmed lives, the reaction is much less complicated.)
On the one hand, it is marvelous that these families and babies do not have the ordeal of extended hospitalization and uncertainty. I do not wish that on anyone. On the other, there's a mix of jealousy and loss.
I cannot change things, and we have a frankly fabulous son who is thriving, but still I wonder what it would have been like to be that big and to feel all that movement. I think about a birth experience that did only involved the regular amount of fear and trepidation. I dream about being able to hold my baby when he was born and bring him home with me when I left the hospital.
Not every day, not all year. But it's there, and it probably always will, even as I mentally thank all the nurses and doctors who made it possible for me to have the amazing daily experiences I have with our healthy, growing boy.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Damn Kid
As I was walking to get lunch just now, I looked down the street and saw a garbage truck. A big, blue garbage truck. My heart fluttered with excitement, and I thought of how happy Finn would be. I noted that it was a front-loader, and as I drew closer, I wondered, "Is that a McNeilus or a Heil?"
It was a McNeilus.
It was a McNeilus.
Monday, September 13, 2010
I Watch Trains
Youtube has created a demon. On one hand, it was sheer brilliance that Pete realized we could stream train videos from youtube to the television via the BluRay, but at the same time, we condemned ourselves to delving into some of the various transportation-related subcultures, which are out there, videotaping your trash.
Trains are one thing, and I knew that there are people out there who trainspot, or “railfan,” as it’s called here in America. (I should look up the difference so that no one finds this and flames me.) I had no idea that we would find edited videos of garbage trucks, complete with captions telling us the make and model of each rig. These are the most boring of the vehicular shorts that now clog the favorites on my channel.
I look like a freak.
Garbage trucks, diggers, trains, fire trucks, ambulances, toy trains, and subscriptions to Lark Rise to Candleford and the Minnesota Zoo sit together on my homepage.
“Garbage Trucks, Part I” has over 1.5 million views, and just under 1.2 million of those are ours from the past five days. I am at leisure to type this because he is currently mesmerized by “Garbage Trucks, Part II.” Make sure you see Part I first because otherwise, you will be completely lost. Both parts take place in Naples, Florida, and from what I can tell, people in Naples don’t recycle, and they throw away perfectly good stuff.
I note that there is a “Garbage Trucks, Part III.” It’s a trilogy, which makes sense because “Garbage Trucks, Part II” is clearly the “Empire Strikes Back” of the Garbage Trucks saga.
Trains are one thing, and I knew that there are people out there who trainspot, or “railfan,” as it’s called here in America. (I should look up the difference so that no one finds this and flames me.) I had no idea that we would find edited videos of garbage trucks, complete with captions telling us the make and model of each rig. These are the most boring of the vehicular shorts that now clog the favorites on my channel.
I look like a freak.
Garbage trucks, diggers, trains, fire trucks, ambulances, toy trains, and subscriptions to Lark Rise to Candleford and the Minnesota Zoo sit together on my homepage.
“Garbage Trucks, Part I” has over 1.5 million views, and just under 1.2 million of those are ours from the past five days. I am at leisure to type this because he is currently mesmerized by “Garbage Trucks, Part II.” Make sure you see Part I first because otherwise, you will be completely lost. Both parts take place in Naples, Florida, and from what I can tell, people in Naples don’t recycle, and they throw away perfectly good stuff.
I note that there is a “Garbage Trucks, Part III.” It’s a trilogy, which makes sense because “Garbage Trucks, Part II” is clearly the “Empire Strikes Back” of the Garbage Trucks saga.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Nap?
When I went for freshman orientation, an upper class-woman came to speak to us and told us naps were our friends. I didn’t nap in college. Oh sure, sometimes I stayed up all night, went to class at 8:00 in the morning, then went home and went to bed, but that doesn’t count.
When I had a baby, I read that I should be napping: sleeping when the baby sleeps.
Because I don’t nap, I didn’t sleep.
Which is of course untrue, but I don’t get that much-celebrated eight hours of sleep a night. I don’t think I even get six. And that’s not straight through. But sleeping during the daylight hours is practically impossible for me. First of all, I am a light sleeper, so I am easily woken by sound. Party at the neighbors, overenthusiastic dog in the distance, snarfling raccoon just below the open bedroom window, the muffled sounds of death metal coming from the odd neighbor’s basement, and I’m up. During the day, there’s just much more sonic activity, and it keeps me from getting into a good falling-to-sleep groove. Not to mention that it takes me 30 minutes and a good book to begin to drop off. If I am tired enough to nap, it’s pretty extreme, but even then, if I find that groove, and it gets interrupted, I’m done.
One afternoon on The Cape, I was that tired. I had almost gotten into the groove, and Pete came in looking for something. I could have ignored him and tried to hold on, but I knew what he was looking for, and I knew where it was. The groove was not far off, though, so I grabbed a quilt and snuggled down.
That’s when the lawn guys showed up.
When I had a baby, I read that I should be napping: sleeping when the baby sleeps.
Because I don’t nap, I didn’t sleep.
Which is of course untrue, but I don’t get that much-celebrated eight hours of sleep a night. I don’t think I even get six. And that’s not straight through. But sleeping during the daylight hours is practically impossible for me. First of all, I am a light sleeper, so I am easily woken by sound. Party at the neighbors, overenthusiastic dog in the distance, snarfling raccoon just below the open bedroom window, the muffled sounds of death metal coming from the odd neighbor’s basement, and I’m up. During the day, there’s just much more sonic activity, and it keeps me from getting into a good falling-to-sleep groove. Not to mention that it takes me 30 minutes and a good book to begin to drop off. If I am tired enough to nap, it’s pretty extreme, but even then, if I find that groove, and it gets interrupted, I’m done.
One afternoon on The Cape, I was that tired. I had almost gotten into the groove, and Pete came in looking for something. I could have ignored him and tried to hold on, but I knew what he was looking for, and I knew where it was. The groove was not far off, though, so I grabbed a quilt and snuggled down.
That’s when the lawn guys showed up.
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