i still can’t believe we nearly rolled down the steps

maura @ 9:18 pm

Yesterday I saw a manhole cover with the word TELEPORT on it. And I thought, “really?”

Now I can’t remember where it was, so maybe it was for real after all.

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three-quarters of george washington’s head

maura @ 10:19 pm

Hi there, intertubes! How’re you? We’re fine here, just back from our nearly-end-of-summer beach week. Yes, things are fairly chaotic in a house containing 3 six yr olds, 1 two yr old and 1 six mo old, thanks for asking! Despite the noise level, good times were had by all. While there were some disappointments (crab cakes that were more cake than crab, no clothesline at the rental house), they were more than offset by the good stuff (amazing weather, steamed clams, toasted waffles w/vanilla ice cream). And I managed to read 2 books. And I won at Carcassonne: fear my massive misshapen city, w00t!

Thankfully we have tomorrow to recover + to do all the laundry. Monday morning it’s off to camp for Gus again, poor kid. Though he did make a new friend this year who will also be doomed to camp for the last week of the summer. Plus they are swimming every day next week, so I don’t feel that bad for him.

And it’s back to work for me, where summer is over: the fall semester starts this week, eek!

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we found the house that the animals had built

maura @ 10:21 pm

You may be wondering how the kittens (now 5 mos old!) are doing. And I’m happy to report that they’re swell! They’ve quite settled in, and so have we. Jonathan said that he’d always thought that cats came in 2 varieties: normal and psycho. But it turns out that within the “normal” category cats actually have their own distinct personalities.

Gummy is still the little one — we are thinking that he was the runt. He’s got really big paws for how skinny he is and cuts a tiger-like figure when he strolls into the room. He’s definitely the smart one and the more accomplished hunter: he will sit still and watch while Caramel is freaking out over a toy, then bust out a crazy ninja move to steal the toy away. He also is always the dominant one when they wrestle. Gummy likes the loving but isn’t a pest about it — he’s happy to solicit cuddles and purrs mightily, but when you need to stop petting him and go do something else, he’s cool with it, catch you later, no big deal. He likes to sleep on the floor by the foot of our bed, which seems to me like something a dog would do.

Caramel is bigger, softer + prettier in a traditional cat way. His belly is super soft and he likes to be held like a baby for belly rubs. He’s kind of a dumbass, but it’s always good for a laugh when he loses it for a toy while Gummy watches + waits. Caramel is a super cuddle monster — he is all over you when he wants snuggles and meows insistently about it. He also does that thing with his paws where he kneads your leg or arm or whatever, which means we really need to keep his nails trimmed. It’s kind of annoying at times: he’s fond of walking all over our heads at 5am looking for love. But he’s a good lap-warmer, as I’ve found out these past two chilly evenings. And he’ll grow out of the early morning wakeups, right?

It’s hilarious how much cats are like kids. They are always following me around the house, wanting to be involved in whatever I’m doing. We got a fantastic new laundry rack at Ikea and I can’t really hang anything on the bottom rungs because it’s like a kitty jungle gym to them. They are even losing their baby teeth! I have found 6 so far, 4 canines + 2 molars, mostly in a spot where they like to wrestle. And of course you have to clean up their poop (though thankfully they are pooping less often than when we first brought them home).

I will admit that it’s a little hairy in our house right now. Gus is growing his hair long, “until I can put it in my mouth.” I’m not sure why that’s a compelling reason, but he does look very cute w/his skater boy hair. Which is good, because the maintenance is kind of a drag. Washing + conditioning w/every bath! Of course my hair is still long too, and the cats shed a bit… Thankfully Jonathan’s hair is pretty short right now or we’d be overrun! Or we could collect it to fill a mattress or something. (Yes, we are reading Little House on the Prairie at bedtime, can you tell?)

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to the center of the city where all roads meet

maura @ 10:29 pm

When do you write? Yes, I’m asking you.

(And if you = Anne then you have three where I only have one so surely if you can find time to write then I should be able to, too!)

No, really, when do you write? I would like to write more. Not even necessarily blag or scholarship or journal but anything, just anything. That new Lynda Barry book has plenty of prompts, just in case I get stuck.

Right now my weekdays are like this: get up, get ready for work, eat breakfast (and make sure Gus does, too), leave for work around the same time that Jonathan takes Gus to camp, work, come home, eat dinner, hang out with Gus a bit, either do the dishes or get Gus ready for bed (we switch off), make my lunch, download my email…and then it’s 9pm, if not later.

I’m pretty tired by then, and it’s hard to write. If I have a deadline I can do it (tea at dinner helps). But even my journal lately, when I write in the evenings, has been all “blah blah blah, I’m so tired, there’s never any time, blah blah blah.”

People say to get up early and write. It sounds torturous to get up any earlier than 6:45, but maybe I will give it a try. Of course I’d have to go to bed earlier too. Maybe I should be writing at lunchtime. Seems like it could be kind of pleasant to go sit on the plaza and write for a bit.

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we all go digital

maura @ 10:15 am

Yesterday the Annefesto challenge was issued, and I’m going for it!

“Here’s the Annefesto! challenge: go to the free section of craigslist. It should be your town or the closest one available. Now, take the first 5 items listed and create something!”

Let’s head over to the Brooklyn Craigslist and see what we can find:

1. Tortoishell Kitten

2. Free Full Size Bed (Mattress, Box Spring & Frame)

3. hamster for free only to a good home (clicking in to the listing reveals that there are actually SEVEN hamsters, and if you take them all you get their gear, too.)

4. ENTERTAINMENT UNIT SOLID OAK

5. [ 2 ] 17″ tv’s for moniter to play video games

Okay, I know that this isn’t part of the challenge, but here’s the last listing verbatim:

“good condition i have agood antena also
i dont need them and on jan 1st we all go digital”

It’s Craigslist poetry!

Anyway, I read these all out loud and Jonathan immediately yelled, “luxury info spa for predator + prey!” Which is kind of what I was thinking, too:

Furnish your cat’s rec room in style! ALL the kittehs will want to be friends with yr cat, aww yeah. Your kitteh can lounge on the plush, full-sized bed while watching not one but two (!) TVs stylishly housed on this solid oak entertainment center. Throw in a cage full of seven sweet, tasty hamsters (plus toys — play with your food!) and your cat will love you 4evah!!!

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i’m an alligator

maura @ 9:10 pm

What is it about this summer? I’m feeling very blag-challenged lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending too much time with those hip new kids, facebook + twitter. But I’m taking a break from them this week and it’s all about YOU, blag. I still love you best.

Last night, for a variety of reasons, there wasn’t much food in the house to pack for my lunch. So I cooked something! Well, it’s a cold salad, so nothing was actually cooked. But I chopped things up and mixed them together in the proportions Jonathan dictated to me. And there’s enough for at least 3 days of lunch, so I feel victorious.

We’ll call this one: Johnny’s Take on Prune’s Black-Eyed Pea Salad (thank you Gabrielle Hamilton!)

1. Open a can of black-eyed peas, rinse them just a little bit, and dump into a big metal bowl.

2. Grab a bag of frozen corn, dump it into a colander and rinse with hot water to defrost them. Dump into big metal bowl.

3. Wash and halve a container of cherry or grape tomatoes and, you guessed it, into the bowl they go.

4. Really you should dice a nice-sized shallot at this point, but we didn’t have any so we subbed in a few scallions. Wash, chop, put in bowl.

5. Fresh parsley: wash and ask your sous-chef to chop them (I hate chopping! It is at least 80% of the reason I don’t like to cook). You can put them in the bowl, though.

6. Secret ingredient: gherkins! Any size gherkin pickle will do. Sometimes we use cornichons, but last night we only had the big guys. Roughly chop at least 3 big pickles — it will look like a lot but trust me, you need them!

7. Secret ingredient #2: gherkin juice! Put the lid on the jar and shake it up, then splash a few good pours into the bowl. How much? Well, you don’t want it to be soupy (and the tomatoes will shed water too), but there should be some liquid in the bottom of the bowl.

8. Pour some olive oil over the whole mess. Jonathan had me count to 20, but I counted fast. Remember that olive oil is good for you!

9. Salt + pepper to taste. Mix it all up and taste it. If you need to add more salt the next night, that’s okay.

10. Use the spoon to push everything down to the bottom of the bowl so it call all marinate together overnight. Mmmm, mingly flavors!

Voila! The perfect summer lunch, no hot stove required. Have a thick slice of sourdough bread with roquefort alongside, or even mix in couscous to make a complete meal.

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when you walk down the street

maura @ 9:50 am

Ah, Summer Fridays. The days I’ve scheduled for publication-related activities. Last week I had a good workday, but today I am far less motivated. I’m still not 100% recovered from my surprisingly evil head cold. And I feel like I didn’t get enough done this week, what with the 2 sick days. I guess I did finish two books while convalescing (one of which had been moldering on a shelf, half-read, since the spring!). But I’d like to have gotten more done at work, run some errands, cleared out some Coop work, etc.

(Yes, I know it’s not healthy to regret time lost to illness. I’m working on it.)

So, today I would much rather be doing non-publication-related things. But there’s not an infinite number of Summer Fridays, so instead I’ve planned procrastination until 10am (hence this post!) and work after that.

(So here’s the real post now, that was all just explanatory blathering that you’re free to ignore. Oops, too late.)

Two shiny new gadgets arrived in our house this week.

I know, I know, I’ve claimed at least twice that I would not be getting one. BUT, someone in the house joined the iphone developer’s program and needed a testing platform. Also, our old cellphones were really bad, practically unusable, and since our contract was up we would have needed to pay for new phones AND get a more expensive contract anyway since they no longer offer our old plan. And it’s not fair for just ONE person in the house to have an iphone, now, is it?

Admittedly, it still makes me a bit nervous to carry it around. I did bring my old ipod shuffle to work the other day because it seemed conspicuous to be listening to music on the iphone in the subway. But I have to admit that it’s pretty sweet. I stitched up a quickie cozy for it out of some felt I had lying around, but I’ve plans to sew a real case sometime soon. And the headphones fit perfectly into the little knitted cozy that Anne made for me ages ago (thanks Anne!).

I haven’t paid for any software for it yet, but I downloaded a free Othello, because I am a nerd. Now if someone could just make a (GOOD!) listmaking app and Tesserae, I’ll be all set!

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like the sound of a bird

maura @ 9:42 pm

I’m sick, bah. Standard head cold, nose is a faucet, you know the drill. Not sure how it happened — no one else I know is sick. Of course, Gus started camp last week so maybe he brought something home with him. Germy germy kids.

I have to go to bed, so what to do with the blag? Why, paste in twitter updates, of course! Recently twitter is the only interwebs thing I can manage. Call it summer brain, or snot brain, or something. Anyway, enjoy my past 2 weeks:

mauraweb still snotty, bah about 3 hours ago from web

mauraweb feeling a bit better, hoping to feel better enough to walk to work tomorrow morning 09:28 PM July 14, 2008 from web

mauraweb still sick, still crabby, sipping ol’ doc johnny’s medical lemony bourbon 09:16 PM July 13, 2008 from web

mauraweb constantly blowing my nose, hating summer colds 08:25 PM July 12, 2008 from web

mauraweb considering whether to feed twitter onto my blog 09:59 PM July 11, 2008 from web

mauraweb finished my outline, yippee!!! 12:34 PM July 11, 2008 from web

mauraweb 3 5 0 1 2 5 go! 09:21 PM July 10, 2008 from web

mauraweb gearing up for tonight’s work: reading (not writing, sadly) 08:21 PM July 09, 2008 from web

mauraweb looking at all the things to be done, wondering where the day went 09:14 PM July 08, 2008 from web

mauraweb watching a kitten spinning on the chair while one of its owners hums pee-wee music 07:30 PM July 07, 2008 from web

mauraweb sliding down the slippery slope to coffee time 02:02 PM July 07, 2008 from web

mauraweb family yay! traffic boo! home yay! 10:08 PM July 06, 2008 from web

mauraweb recovering from a strenuous day of sitting at a couple of playgrounds and hauling a pile of kids’ books home from the library 05:55 PM July 02, 2008 from web

mauraweb wondering if i will ever have time to read everything i want to read 09:33 PM July 01, 2008 from web

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3 5 0 1 2 5 go

maura @ 8:48 pm

For our nation’s birthday this year we at mauraweb! decamped to parts north. Unlike other years, when we’ve headed to the Midwest, this year the Midwest met us in New England. Rollicking family fun ensued: lounging around, swimming, feasting on lobster + corn, and indulging in slightly terrifying backyard fireworks. Gus was surprised to learn that he has an 11 yr old first cousin once removed, who has 4 toy lightsabers (including the color Gus covets: purple), a pool, and Super Smash Bros Brawl. I was surprised to learn that teenagers still make friendship bracelets. Who knew?

The kittens were both good and bad in our absence. The house was in decent shape when we returned, but one of them had chewed through the thin Wii sensor bar cable. Luckily Jonathan was able to fix it, saving us from buying a new one (which isn’t as easy as it should be). They also chewed through the ground wire for my turntable, but it needs a new belt so I haven’t been able to use it recently. I’m thinking about upgrading to a USB turntable anyway — this one is nearly 20 yrs old and wasn’t that great to begin with. And it’d be nice to convert some of my records to mp3 so I can actually listen to them in the places I’m listening to music these days.

Sigh, another long + boring post. Sorry, Interwebs! I used up all of my writing mojo today on the first of my five Summer Friday Scholarly Activities Bonanzas: drafting outline of an article and researching the literature review of said article. Go me! I’ll make it up to you in the next post, promise.

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like a whole bucket of stars

maura @ 10:17 pm

It’s time to blag, time for the blagging. That’s what the calendar tells me, at least. That it’s been nearly another week. And how can the time go by so quickly, anyway? What have I been doing?

Not much interesting, really. Working at work. Last week was a bad sleep week, so lots of coffee was consumed (and not much scooting done). Enduring high heat + humidity. Moving to temp office space during renovations. The members’ picnic night at BBG. Sesame Place. Family visiting + nephew baptizing. Driving on the NJT, 2nd most hated of all roads (right behind the SIE, which was also driven on). Kitten love (they missed us when we were away). And laundry, there is always laundry.

I am buried under reading at the moment. 1/2 a fiction book from the public library (renewed at least 13 times!). Another fiction book from work (plucked from the shelves mere hours before the PSs were sealed off for the rest of the summer!). 2 kids books. 1 new arty-n-writy book by Lynda Barry that I did not even know existed until my rad spouse got it for me for my birthday. 1 exciting (if you are me!) work book. Rounding out the pack are a few work-related articles, a few articles for the literature review of an article I hope to write, and a few articles for a research project I hope to start in the fall.

I need to stop sleeping. That’s clearly the only strategy.

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