Adventures in the Pointless Forest

Some things I learned

1. Regarding the caramels: (a) my pan is in fact 3.5 quarts in size (if you filled it to the brim) and I don't think you'd like to make this quantity of caramel in any smaller pan; when it boils up as you add the warm cream mixture it goes quite QUITE high up. Pour gently. (b) my pan, which is perhaps my very favorite saucepan, and especially for candy making, has been discontinued apparently! Shocking and sad. So I suppose I won't be recommending it to all of you, after all.

2. On other sweet-related topics: (a) whether the problem is the pectin I bought or me, or something else altogether, there will not be any fruit jellies going out this year. I tried, believe me I tried, but... no. (b) when things go excitingly wrong in a time-sensitive way with hot fruit puree, it seems that I respond by remarking "balls shit balls shit balls shit balls."

3. Whoops, we had succeeded in not going to the mall at all for YEARS and then we did it two weeks before Christmas, that was exciting. It was because I had, for some odd reason, when Jane said no, she really did not want snow pants this year, responded by not buying any. This was extremely stupid, obviously. Then it snowed, and it transpired that oh, in fact, she did want some and indeed would not even be allowed to play on the unpaved bits of the playground during recess until she got some so in fact it was actually rather pressing, you see, that she acquire some without delay.

So off we went and wandered stupidly from shop to shop on the tide of crowds, and then Steve discovered he had lost his credit card earlier in the day, and Jane discovered that there is ASTONISHING HIDEOUS BEAUTIFUL TAT for sale at the mall, and I discovered that I wished to depart my body. So we all learned a lot, really.

In the end we did find some snow pants for Jane and this made her quite blissfully happy, and when we got home she played outside for a long time and that was very nice. It all makes her very happy, as you can clearly see:

 

Halloween, Voting Day, Falling Back

Traditionally I am a big hater of the return to Standard Time, because it is depressing when the sun sets in what becomes more and more the middle of the afternoon, but traditionally I have not had to get up in time to have a relaxing breakfast while also wrestling a small child into her clothing and getting her out the door to preschool, and... actually it is kind of magnificent how much easier it has been to wake up in the mornings this week, so I may be revising my opinion on this matter. Also, Halloween was delayed around here until Sunday on account of Hurricane Sandy, which meant that the time change put the entire window of trick-or-treating after dark, which is how it should be.

—a pause here while I go and vote. Boy, there sure were a lot of judges and things on the ballot, and there sure were a lot of stations to visit in that process. But at last I have my "I Voted" sticker (actually an "I [Ohio as grossly deformed heart] Voting" sticker), which is of course the real point of the whole endeavor—

Anyway, trick-or-treating was pleasantly after dark. I am of the view that Halloween should be dark and thrilling and spooky, with friendly lit houses. If it is a weekday, your parents go to work, and then they come home, and then you have dinner which is pumpkin soup or something, and by then it is good and dark out, and you go, and then you come back and sort all your loot. Or you can have the dinner in between loot sorting and jumping up to give out candy to older kids, that works too and is what we did this year. But either way, it's all about a walk in the dark, and candy. And then more sorting and trading, until eventually your parents say "It's late and it's a school night, so get it together," and you go to bed kind of costume encrusted, the end.

What you do before it gets dark, of course, is take pictures:

One day, Ratty, all this will be yours.

"I pat the bread? I love you, bread."

I was a witch, to go with. I felt that Steve should go as a broom, but I didn't feel it so much that I made him a costume to that effect. Oh well, he was a broom in my heart. Or something. What about you? Any brooms out there?

Take that, Algonquin Round Table.

HIM: All fire, or just the one?

ME: I hope just the one. We need fire! It burns things. In a good way.

HIM: Do you think the fire was breaking into the home, and the home destroyed it in an act of self defense? Or was it just some innocent little fire minding its own business when... pow!

ME: It was probably a revenge killing scenario.

HIM: "Hey! I'm just a campfire! I never did anything to you!"

ME: "I've seen what your kind does to houses."

HIM: "Not me! I never hurt anybody! I just toast marshmallows in peace!"

ME: "Oh please. You're all alike."

HIM: Racist!

ME: "You're not trustworthy. You can't be trusted." (confidentially) "That's what 'not trustworthy' means."

HIM: Do you think the campfire taunted the house about not being so trustworthy itself, what with its mortgage being underwater because of the real estate downturn? 

ME: I hope not. That would really be playing with fire.

HIM: YYEEEEEEEAAAAAHHH!

 

But, disappointingly, no Jesuits at all.

Steve is taking all of the vitamins:

Jane is just along for the ride on this one.

Meanwhile, the city is currently in the throes of Fiesta/"Old Spanish Days," which manifests ambiently in the form of lots of little girls running around in flamenco dresses, confetti everywhere, and a massive equestrian parade + mariachis.

For the most part the parade participants dress up in spangly sombreros or white-person cowboy gear, but as my local informant said, "as long as you have a horse, anything goes." The most striking example was the matched team of what appeared to be a dozen Revolutionary War cosplayers, complete with Paul Revere manpurses. The donkey-drawn cart full of elderly Shriners was good, too.

(Is there any other kind of Shriner, practically speaking? Yes, the pictures on their website strive mightily to give the impression that their ranks are bursting with plenty of robust young things, but Shriners in the wild tend to look more like they are probably veterans of the Spanish-American War. The fezzes, though?

 

Eternally young.)

And the servings are so small.

I am tired of this sedate and reticent posting schedule. It makes me feel that the posts I do make have to meet some minimum level of wit or significance, and this is not a plausible goal. So, away with wit! Down with significance! Up with frequency! Blather forever!

We are going out of town for part of August, and then people are visiting us, and then other people are visiting us and so on ad infinitum, so there are bound to be gaps in transmission, but let's see what we can do.

Since we last spoke, you and I, I went to Boston and attended a conference. While I was there, I discovered that it is VERY HOT in places where people have been complaining of the GREAT HEAT lately. Shocking but true. I also discovered that it is extremely possible to get brain-meltingly plastered from a mere two drinks in a hotel bar, which is frankly one of the last places I would expect such a thing to happen, but there it is. 

The next day, when all my responsibilities had been discharged, I went out into the GREAT HEAT and had a splendid evening with lovely people. On the way to the lovely people, I had the honor of sharing a subway car with a man who was not pleased that the train was not moving more quickly.

"This is not a professional subway. This is a terrible, amateur subway," he mourned. "A terrible, amateur subway."

As the ride went on, he warmed to his subject. "WAKE UP, PEOPLE!" he boomed. "Wake up from your sheeplike lives! This is NOT RIGHT. This is a terrible! Amateur! Subway!"

I am not sure what he wanted the rest of us to do about it, but point certainly noted. Take some inititiative and learn how to run a major urban public transit network, I guess.

Later someone told me that the T is sometimes delayed because the tracks catch on fire in hot weather. Can this be true? How does this work? Maybe the tracks themselves, being metal, get extraordinarily hot in the anvil of the sun, and then detritus on those tracks catches fire? Although a few smoldering coffee cups does not sound like enough reason to stop an entire subway train. ("That's my point exactly! Wake up, sheeple!") 

See you tomorrow. If you know anything more about this burning track business, I would love to hear about it.

An educational experience.

The bus I ride is usually filled with grad student types, lab managers, librarians, department secretaries, and the like. Every once in a while things are enlivened by signs of bacterial vaginosis, but it is a sedate group in general. 

One day last week, though, a couple of guys swanned on and began chatting volubly about (a) killer techniques for selling cable door-to-door, and (b) the good times of being on probation for drug-related criminal activities.

They were as cheerfully gossipy as any stereotypical little old ladies. Some dude called Aldo really brings the A-game with his pitch in Spanish, I hear, but if someone answers the door and speaks English he basically just walks away, oh and did you know he was a crackhead? Yeah, he did time for that in Guatamala. 

They had some tips for passing urine tests via drinking water with baking soda in it and also for being glad you got booked back before they were taking everyone's blood so they don't have your DNA on file. 

Then one of them was talking about the more hardcore mandated counseling classes he had to take under Prop 36 back when he was busted for possession, as opposed to the relatively mellow requirements of his probation at the moment. 

"Oh, this, this is just for DWI, it's real casual. I can drink, I can leave the country, whatever I want. We can talk openly about our drug use, whatever. And man, everyone in there has a million connects." 

Other guy: "You gotta be careful though, someone in there is gonna be a rat."

"Oh yeah, sure. Everyone knows. They say like, oh yeah, don't talk to Celia, she's no good. And then you see her file and you see yep, she got charged for like nothing."  

The other guy paused, thinking about the perfidious Celia and what could be done to protect hardworking cable salesmen, just looking for a hookup, from her ilk.

"There should be a blog for that," he said.  

"There is!"

(Apparently it's pay-to-play, though, and he didn't say what the URL was. Hopes dashed.)

The southernmost bridge in New York is called the "Outerbridge Crossing" because they didn't have the stones to call it the "Outerbridge Bridge".

You will be happy to know that at least seven people have been named "Outerbridge Horsey" in the history of mankind. Or, as the Wikipedia entry "Outerbridge Horsey" puts it: "There were at least seven Outerbridge Horseys." 

Nathanial Horsey (born 12 Oct 1689 at Manokin, Somerset County, Maryland) married Martha Outerbridge in Accomack, Virginia. Among their children was Outerbridge Horsey who was born in 1715. 

And the rest, my chickens, is history. Steve discovered the existence of the Outerbridge Horseys (or perhaps the Outerbridges Horsey) several days ago, and the joy has suffused the entire week at our house. Outerbridge Horsey! 

If the Outerbridge Horsey line can just keep things going for one more generation, there will be an Outerbridge Horsey VIII, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

I AM OUTERBRIDGE THE EIGHTH I AM

OUTERBRIDGE THE EIGHTH I AM I AM

I GOT MARRIED TO THE WIDOW NEXT DOOR

SHE'D BEEN MARRIED SEVEN TIMES BEFORE

AND EVERY ONE WAS AN OUTERBRIDGE

WHICH REALLY SEEMS EXCEEDINGLY UNLIKELY.

Also this week, Jane learned which end of a pencil writes on things, and I learned that she has no interest in watching me draw anything. We all learned, once again, that Santa Barbara's streets do not have adequate drainage to deal with rainy days.

Then I learned that the 1.38" of rain so far this June has made it the wettest June in recorded history (beginning, in this case, in 1941), which I guess is why they didn't bother to put in very many storm drains.

In 1941, Outerbridge Horsey VI was serving as the State Department's Vice-Counsel in Budapest. Maybe he was looking out the window at a rainy day, doodling idly (with the correct end of a pencil) and dreaming of the day he could drive over the Outerbridge Crossing and return home. 

Second verse, same as the first.

I have been exchanging a lot of planning emails with other academics this week. These messages might be too brief or blunt if we didn't plump them up with pleasantries. No one wants that. We must at all costs be pleasing and plump!

On the other hand, it is clear that none of us has a repertoire of stock phrases at all large enough to stretch to the number of stock spaces that need filling. So, on the theory that what worked once will work forever and always, we are very VERY ready to reiterate just how very much we are looking forward to things. 

I am looking forward to this event I am planning, with these speakers I am wrangling, and they are all looking forward to it, too. The organizer of the event I am attending is very much looking forward to my visit. I am looking forward to it as well! I am looking forward to her talk, and his talk, and meeting everyone. She is looking forward to everything. He is looking forward to everything. We are all so looking forward to what promises to be a very exciting forward-looking forward forward forward. Look!

When it is all over, I'm sure we can look back with pride at how thoroughly we looked forward to it all.

Master class

Our new babysitter, who is crucially instrumental to our navigating this week of flip-flopping single parenthood, gave a very suitable, very feeling sigh as she tore herself away at the end of her stint on Monday. 

We were all squared up for money and saying "Goodbye, see you next time," and she lingered by the door like you do when you are sixteen and dating someone who you think is just dreamy, and you can't quite bear to tear yourself away and return to the cold dark world where you write "Mrs. Baby Janeypants" all over your notebook until you can see him again. Quite right.

I mean, it's ridiculous, of course. One cannot continually be having conversations that go "Your infant is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." "Yes, I know just how you feel." Not only is it unlikely, it's unseemly.

She is a nice baby, though, and I do like to feel that she is appreciated. 

When she was tiny, we observed that being out and about with a newborn was rather like walking around with a mid-range celebrity, in the range of responses it elicited from passersby. We decided that the mid-range celebrity Jane was was James Franco. And so conversations like

STRANGER: Is that a baby?

US: It sure is.

STRANGER: She seems so happy!

US: Yeah, she really likes being held.

could become

Is that James Franco?

It sure is.

He seems so happy!

Yeah, James Franco really likes being held.

Since then, you may have noticed, James Franco has gotten exponentially more famous. He's America's Sweetheart and Bjork all rolled into one, and suddenly we find ourselves with a special attachment to the zeitgeist's rising star. 

We can't help but think of his adventures and accomplishments as reflecting somehow on Jane, because we are simple. She's playing a multimedia artist named "Franco" on General Hospital! She's hosting the Oscars! And now, I learn, there's this.

"Master Class: Editing James Franco...with James Franco" will be offered by Columbia College Hollywood. Unfortunately, not just anybody can sign up for the course. Only 12 of the best editing students at the private film school will be selected to participate.

Once they're in the class, students will be tasked with creating "a 30 minute documentary film from videographic footage from Mr. Franco’s own unorthodox career." Essentially, it'll be a film about James Franco made from behind the scenes footage of James Franco.

Yes, it is nice to feel she's appreciated. It is.

Get on the bus.

Southern California, as a region, is not widely renowned for the quality of its public transit. One thinks of the scene in Swingers:

EXT.  SUNSET BOULEVARD - OUTSIDE THE CHATEAU MARMONT - NIGHT     46

        The swingers have left the party and are heading to their
        cars.  They are all parked in a row, one behind the other.
        They each climb behind the wheel of their own car.  They pull
        out in UNISON.

        They travel like a train with their bumpers ALMOST TOUCHING.

But actually, in this little corner of Southern California, I can ride my convenient little bus to campus all the time. There is even an express route. It comes when it's supposed to, which is frequently. It's full, but usually not too full, of perfectly ordinary passengers who generally seem neither destitute nor insane.  

Yesterday I was sitting next to a nice man who does asbestos abatement and mold removal. He was a butch sort of fellow who won my heart by saying dreamily, "Whenever I go in, you know, to start taking out the toxic stuff, I think that I am a doctor, a physician, and that the house is sick."

And mold and mildew, it turns out, are an excellent topic for generating about twenty minutes of friendly conversation, even without getting into discussions of IT'S MOLE, so we had a fine old time. The crazed and belligerent fellow passengers that Mimi Smartypants has encountered on her Chicago bus commutes over the years surely provide better anecdote fodder, but I'll happily take Mr. Mole Doctor instead.

Next week we are having an exciting adventure in serial single parenting. I don't think we are normally the kind of high-powered people who fly all over the place for work, but we are about to act as if we were. First Steve is going to San Francisco for three days while Jane and I stay home, then I turn right around and fly across the country first thing in the morning after he gets back. I at least will have some babysitting backup, because I cannot be on campus teaching (nor ON THE BUS) at the same time that I am watching the baby. Steve, though, is on his own.

Benefit to him: no need to worry about what happens if the backup falls through. (Hi, class! Don't mind this adorable infant strapped to me as you take your midterm!)

Obvious anti-benefit: all baby, all alone, all the time. And without even so much as a single tit to take the edge off.

Both of us: Extremely unlikely to eat a well-balanced meal with vegetables and things, for the duration? Yes. I am debating whether there is even any point in going grocery shopping this weekend.

But no, there is, because we need to buy more strawberries for Jane and her bottomless appetites. How unreal that there are perfectly ripe locally grown strawberries available for sale, here as we are at the end of January, for heaven's sake. They are not the tippy-top best strawberries you have ever had in your life, but really. 

And that's what we've been up to. How about you?