Adventures in Tuscany

My conference this week was held at Il Palazzone, a 16th century villa in Cortona, Italy, constructed by Cardinal Passerini "as evidence of the power obtained by his family" [from the brochure].

I was on the organizing committee of the conference.  As evidence of the power obtained as an organizer, I was one of twelve participants invited to stay in the Palazzone itself.  My room was on the 2nd floor, overlooking the valley. 

 

 

To get to Cortona, one takes a train from Rome or from Florence.  I took the train from Rome.  As we passed mile after mile of olive and cypress trees, yellow stone houses and red roofed villages, I peeked at my English regency romance novel to help me stay awake.  Arriving at the Palazzone, and unpacking my things in a bit of a jet-lagged stupor, I thought I must be one of the fine ladies in the novel, and in any minute my abigail would come help me dress for dinner. 

 

I went to bed around 8pm the first night.  I woke around 11pm with a terrible migraine.  Somewhere, loud music was playing.  From my 2nd floor Palazzone room, still feeling like a grand countess, I wondered to myself if the common people always played their music so loud.  I downed a couple of migraine pills, and listened as the music became fireworks -- it turns out that June 2 is an Italian holiday.  And then I slept again.

 

I awoke to a thunderstorm at 4am, and then lay in bed thinking that it was far too early to get up, and I must stay there until a more reasonable hour.  But the roosters gave up on sleep at 5am.  They must also have been jet lagged.  If they could get up, so could I.  I finished the regency romance novel before breakfast. 

 

 

The conference talks were held all week in the above room, painted in the 1500s with all sorts of gory scenes from Roman history.  Apparently it was the Cardinal's drawing room back in the day.  When conversation became dull in the drawing room, one could stare at the walls and imagine how much worse life could be.  Murder, death, rape, battle.  Staring at the walls worked for conference talks, too.  The talks this week were never dull. 

 

I love European conferences.  At dinner this evening, I shared antipasti with six people, from England, Greece, Ukraine, France, the Netherlands, and Russia, respectively.  All but two of them now live in the U.S.  All but one of them I knew before this trip, and I consider them to be friends.  We laughed and spoke in English.  No one spoke any respectable Italian.  Terrible tourists. 

 

Now, back in my room on the 2nd floor of the Palazzone, I am packing up, preparing for an early morning train back to Rome.  And I feel sad.  Disappointed, even.  Tomorrow I will no longer be a fine lady living in a Renaissance villa.  Tomorrow I will be just another traveler. 

 

 



May news

Our most important news from May is that we added a new member to our family.

His name is Mr Fish.  Or Fishy.  Or Mr Fishy.  He answers to all three. 

 

 

Jonathan won Mr Fish at his school carnival.  Luckily, it was the weekend just before Jonathan's birthday, so as a birthday present from Mom and Dad, Mr Fish got his own home.  Lucky lucky Mr Fish.

 

Last week we heard some other big news.  On Thursday, I found out that my large five year grant has been funded.  The grant will help support my research and teaching until... wait for it ... wait for it ... 2018!  Which means no more grant applications for me until 2017!  Which is awesome.  And maybe the apocalypse will happen before then, which means I'll be charred by nuclear weapons and then die a painful death by starvation because my food storage is not in order.  But in any case, in the event of the apocalypse in the next five years, I will not have to write another grant application in this lifetime!  Go apocalypse, go!

 

On Friday, I was called into the office of the Department Chair.  The chair's office actually has five chairs, I counted them all.  When the chair is in his office, there are six chairs.  On Friday, in the chair's office, there were six chairs, two deans, and me.  One of the deans was actually an associate dean which extra adjective means he is not as exciting as the dean.  But he gets to associate with the exciting dean.  And the dean, by the way, is the boss of the chair.  So he's like an extra layer of middle management, up above the chair.  Higher than the dean are the vague vice presidential people, and then the president at the top.  Only I've met the president a few times, and he doesn't really have an office at the top of the university.  I think the top is at the top of the old K. Building, which houses the nursing department.  So perhaps the nursing faculty are really at the top of the top.

 

In any case, I have digressed.  In the chair's office were six chairs and two deans and me.  And the dean dean, the one with no extra adjective attached to his title, sat down and read me a letter from the president, because while I have met the president, I doubt he remembers my name.  (His name is Cecil.)  He thought it would be a better use of his time to just write a letter, which I appreciate, and he wrote to congratulate me on having achieved Continuing Faculty Status at G.O.D. University, which is essentially Tenure here. 

 

So there!  I finally earned tenure. 

 

And meanwhile, there are a few house projects that Tim has been wanting to do, but that I have kept suggesting we hold off on doing until after I hear about tenure.  It has been less than a week since I heard about tenure, and Tim has already hired a contractor.  The contractor will tear out our two sheds and put in an Olympic Swimming Pool! 

 

No, he will not. He'll put in a covered patio.  Won't that be nice?  We can sit outside under our covered patio and sip mint juleps.  Virgin style.  Because the difference between Continuing Faculty Status and Tenure is that at G.O.D. University, they reserve the right to fire you for turning against G.O.D's mission.  I mean God's mission.  And sipping alcoholic beverages is somehow involved in that.  But it's ok.  I'm a teetotaler.  Even with a covered patio. 

 

So anyway, this means we get to celebrate tenure by having the back yard ripped up!  But don't worry.  Tim made the contractor promise -- cross pinkies and stick a needle in his eye -- that he would be finished in July.  And since we all know how well that kind of promising works with contractors, we can breath easy now knowing that we'll be able to enjoy our covered patio from July until the apocalypse.  Because the patio will be covered, we won't actually get a good view of the apocalypse from the patio itself.  But that is a price we are willing to pay. 

 

That is almost almost all of our news from May.  The very last piece of news is that Jonathan attended his last day of fourth grade today.  That means tomorrow is the very first day of summer vacation.  We had a talk, and we agreed that it would be really super awesome if he spent his days cleaning the house and cooking meals and delivering them to me and Tim in bed.  By "agreed" I mean we had a talk, and I made the suggestion, and he rolled his eyes and ran away, but didn't actually refuse!  He didn't!  Of course, if I wake up tomorrow to a clean house and breakfast in bed, then I'll be pretty sure that I already missed the apocalypse. 

 

And what, you are asking, does all of this have to do with Mr Fish?  Here.  Ask him yourself. 

 

 

 

 



Week away

I was at a conference in Montreal last week, and it was a Truly Excellent conference.  Often I attend conferences that are pseudo related to my field, and I try to keep my brain in focus and learn something new, but it doesn't always happen.  This last week, most of the talks were directly relevant to stuff I'm interested in and thinking about now.  I also met up with a couple of collaborators, and during time off from talks we worked on projects, making real progress on a couple.  In all, it was a very nice conference and I'm glad I attended.

The Montreal airport, however, is a disaster.  I do not recommend flying in and out of Montreal.  If you can avoid it.  I suppose if you have a conference in Montreal, you have limited options.  Just know you have been warned.

While I was waiting in eternal customs lines in Canada, Tim and Jonathan were waking up from a neighborhood overnight father-son camping trip.  That's right.  Tim and Jonathan went camping Friday night.  In the rain.  They reported that they were having fun with friends and neighbors up until it started hailing, and then they decided to climb into the tent and go to bed.  Notice that they went into the tent in the storm, and not into the car and back down the mountain.  Apparently our tent is sufficiently high quality to keep two guys dry and warm overnight in the mountains in the rain.  I am a little surprised and impressed.  Camping in the rain is something that my parents would do, and something that my brothers would do, but not something I expected from my husband and son.  The world is full of surprises.

And the one week I was away, all the plants in the garden seem to have doubled in size.  In the kitchen garden, the lettuce and carrots are ready to eat.  The tulips are completely gone, but the irises are very pretty in full bloom.  If you stand back on the porch and look out over the garden, it looks very lovely and green.  If you start walking around the garden, you spot lots of dandelions, nightshade, and bindweed, all of which needs to be pulled out.  I am contemplating hiring a gardener....

Summer for kids

Summer is coming again, and I've been thinking a lot about what Jonathan should do with his summer.

He should definitely learn more foreign language.  He should keep up with his French so that he can ... um ... watch French movies or something.  And someday, travel to Africa and converse with the natives in their native French.  But not this summer.  This summer he should just learn French.

And this summer he should learn to play the piano.  This should be his summer of piano learning.  He should become excited and enthused about the piano, so much so that he spends an hour every day progressing first through the level 1 lesson book, then level 2, then level 3.  And by the end of August, at a rate of one level per month, he'll be a maestro.

Oh!  And he should do complicated math problems daily, too.  I know how to get copies of competition math problems going back for years and years.  If he only solves all of them, in a couple of different ways, he should be so prepared for the next kids' math competition in November that he'll blow everyone away with his awesome math-ness!

And he should clean his room.  And his bathroom, now that I think of it.  Summers are times for keeping rooms clean.  And even closets.

He should take swimming lessons.  It's not truly summer until kids are being shuttled to swimming lessons, and the moms are sitting on those hard plastic bleachers in the echo-y swimming pool chamber listening to shouts and whistles and watching their kids being dragged around on foam kickboards.  Nothing says summer like a foam kickboard.

If we're heading into lessons, you know he could really learn from taking that week of drama lessons at the local theater.  Not only would he have to learn to project himself in front of people, which would be healthy, but he would also have tons of fun.  Tons!  Because he's already such a drama king at home.  He would totally be a natural.  I would have to start turning down invitations for him to act in local theater productions, and then on Broadway, and then Hollywood.  Sign the boy up for drama camp.

And we will travel.  We will visit far flung family and friends.  And while we are within an 8 hour drive of Mount Rushmore, we might as well go see it.  That would be Educational.  We will have a real Road Trip!  The kind where we all keep asking "Are we there yet?" and we only stop to pee every three hours and someone gets carsick and someone else has bad gas in the car.  We will hate it while we are doing it, but it will make for tons of Memories.  Summer is all about building memories.

We will plant a garden.  And this year, we will weed the garden even when it gets hot in July.  We will not slack off on the weeding like we have done every other year, because this year we are Motivated!  We will eat our own tomatoes in September.

And we will learn to make friends and play with friends and get along.  These are important skills to learn.  Why not learn them in the summer, when there is nothing else to do?

Ah.  What a wonderful summer this will be.

I can't wait until September.

Weekends are not for the weak

This weekend, I made two batches of granola, hoping to make it through two weeks without worrying about breakfast.

I weeded the garden path, digging out raspberry bushes that want to make the path their new home.

I cleared the ground around several strawberry plants and two rosebushes, and Tim and I heavily mulched around several rosebushes, hoping to deter weed growth.

Tim mowed and trimmed the lawn, and got the sprinklers running again.

He ran four loads of laundry, and we all went grocery shopping for a week's supplies.

I worked out.

Prepared and taught a Sunday School lesson.

Practiced and then played the piano for the Relief Society.

Ran the dishwasher.

Tim vacuumed the whole house.

Jonathan cleaned the bathroom.

And we read books.

You see?  I was legitimately busy.  Too busy to respond to your email.  Sorry.  Maybe tomorrow.

Stuff I have done

Sometimes, I focus too much on the things I want to do, the things I would like to see, and the way I would like things to be.  I forget the things I have accomplished already.  I decided for this post to list 100 noteworthy things I have already accomplished in my life.

1. I have danced on my toes in pink satin slippers.  It looked lovely, but yes, it did hurt.
2. I have flossed daily for about 15 years.  I can't even remember the last time I forgot to floss. 
3. I have lived in a house with five bedrooms, two baths, and 11 people.  
4. I cooked and cleaned for those 11 people, when it was my turn.  (I don't miss those days.) 
5. I learned to sew.  I sewed a few dresses that vanished long ago, and one skirt that is still my favorite (since 1998) that I wear more than any other skirt.  
6. I have climbed to the tops of several mountains. 
7. I have hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. 
8. I have given up hiking, realizing that it gives me a migraine.  
9. I have driven miles and miles and hours and hours across the Nevada deserts.  
10. I have written programs in C, C++, and Java.  
11. I have forgotten how to program, but I will learn again.
12. I have painted with oils, watercolors, and acrylics.  I like oil paints the best, but they are the most expensive (it figures).  
13. I have planted tulips, tomatoes, and onions.  
14. I've grown the bushes, picked the berries, and made my own jam.  Although really the bushes grew themselves.  
15. I have vacuumed.
16. I have also laundered, often.
17. I have read hundreds of books, if not thousands.
18. I have scrap-booked.  But not recently.  
19. I have learned to knit, and forgotten, and learned again, and forgotten again.
20. I have carried on a conversation in a language that is not my native tongue.  
21. I have played the first movement of a piano concerto from memory.  
22. I have touched my toes with my knees unbent.
23. I have learned to whistle.  
24. I can tell time on an analog clock.
25. I have run a 5K.  Do not inquire as to my timing.
26. I have fixed a flat tire on my bicycle.  
27. I have driven a stick shift.
28. I have purchased stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.  
29. I have lived a year as an adult without a car.
30. I can fill in a map with 50 states.  
31. I have taught children, weekly.
32. I have taught adults, daily.
33. I have sung alto in a choir.  
34. I have also sung tenor.  But never soprano or bass.
35. I have given haircuts.
36. And twisted hair into French braids.  
37. I have written grant proposals.
38. And have been awarded grant money.
39. I have paid taxes in four states and two countries.  
40. I have done the splits.  Several years ago.  
41. I have written two novels, though I have published zero. 
42. I have recited poetry from memory.  
43. I have had braces.
44. And glasses.
45. I have darned socks.  But you know it makes much more sense to just buy new ones.  (What a wasteful society we live in!)
46. I have cleaned a refrigerator.
47. And baked a cake.
48. I touched my tongue to my nose.
49. I learned to dance the Charleston, and wore a flapper dress.  (What became of my flapper dress?)
50. I have integrated, differentiated, and taken limits.
51. I have written essays, and discussed literature.
52. I have had my wisdom teeth pulled.  
53. I have discovered all the heart pieces in Majora's Mask.
54. I have read the entire Bible, and many of the works of Shakespeare.  (But not all the histories.)
55. I have designed and created a web page.
56. I have tied a quilt.
57. And patched the knees of jeans.
58. I have learned to swim.  
59. And I swam in the Great Salt Lake.
60. I hold the family high score on Tony Hawk's skate boarding game.  
61. And I beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
62. I have held my breath for 60 seconds.  
63. I have canned fruit.
64. I have sealed grout.  
65. And eaten clotted cream with scones in Cornwall.  
66. I have been in a canoe, a sailboat, and a motor boat.  
67. I have taken an overnight train.
68. I learned to type.  
69. I spoke at ninth grade promotion. 
70. I attended prom.
71. And I have kissed a boy.
72. I have hung pictures. 
73. And curtains.  And curtain rods.  
74. I have graduated.  Four times.  
75. And I have attended graduation more times.  
76. I have counted by sevens to 1400.  
77. I have added fractions.  
78. And written online quizzes.
79. I have mowed and weeded and mulched.  
80. I have slept through my alarm.  
81. I have published research.  
82. I have eaten escargot.
83. And sushi, in Japan.
84. And pasta in Italy.
85. I have seen a bear, a coyote, and many many bison in Yellowstone. 
86. I have parallel parked.
87. I have donated food and clothing and money.
88. I have sewn patches.  
89. I have asked for and given directions.  
90. I have supervised student theses.  
91. I have attended group meetings.  
92. I have boogie boarded in Oregon, California, and Hawaii.
93. I have built a sandcastle.  And a sand turtle.  And other sand things.  
94. I have had my picture on the front of a flyer.  
95. And my name on the back of a program. 
96. I have curled my tongue.  
97. And cleaned my teeth.
98. And captured the flag.
99. I have overcome failure.
100. And today, I won an award from the faculty women's association.

Life is pretty complete.

Dear Mr. Nelson

In your opinion piece this weekend, you said a few things that were wrong.  And I would like to call BS on those things. 

What!?  I would invoke my brother's initials on this, a family blog?  Mr Nelson, I believe the use of my brother's initials is warranted in this case.  I think your errors are harming my son.  

Here is what you said.  

1.  Women are naturally gifted with the ability to nurture [and men aren't].

Liar!  The ability to nurture -- to love and help a child to grow -- is not a male/female trait.  It is a talent that must be developed.  It requires patience, love, and effort, from anyone who wants to develop it -- just like any talent!  Some talents come easier to some people, but men are wonderful caregivers as well as women.  And on the other hand, women are child abusers as well as men.  Stop telling my son that he doesn't have to work to learn how to love and develop relationships with his children.  Stop it!  It is vital that our men learn to nurture in their families as well as our women.  

2.  Because my wife is the better nurturer, my kids always go to her first with their problems.  

Dude.  I am assuming you've held traditional gender roles in your home during the life of your family. That means she's been at home all day every day, while you are away.  She has been around during your children's whole lives to drive them in the car, to talk to them about their school day, to hug them and hand them bandaids.  She has developed relationships with your kids because she has put in the effort to do so, and because she has been there.  They don't go to her because she's female; they go because she's done a good job at her work all these years.  Do the people in your company go to your wife when they have a problem at work?  No.  Do you think that's because you're male?  I don't.  

3.  "It is a cardinal rule of leadership and management that there must be one in charge. That is paramount for any kind of effective functioning."  [And therefore men need to rule at home.]

I call BS.  And why would I bring up my brother's initials again?  Because having one ultimate person in charge doesn't work.  It doesn't work for governments, it doesn't work for business, and it doesn't work for families.  My husband and I are both mature adults, and we are both in charge.  My husband doesn't need me to tell him when to wake up, when to get dressed, which tie to wear to work.  I don't need to tell him where we are going on vacation this year, and when, and how.  When major decisions come up that will affect the whole family, we talk them over together.  I don't tell him that his opinion is nice -- and thank you for it -- but now we will do what I wanted to do in the first place.  For major things that come up, we must be unanimous.  I respect him too much to tell him how it's going to be.  For minor things, we are both responsible.  We take care of daily tasks and chores together.  And we give each other breaks, so one of us doesn't have to run everything all the time.  In my little family, there are two people in charge, and all three of us know it.  

4.  Heavenly father is protecting our Heavenly Mother from her kids by hiding her in a shed somewhere that no one can find her.  Ha!

Those are not actually your choices of words, but that's the gist of your speculation.  What?!  After you just argued that women are naturally better nurturers?  If my husband tried to protect me from my babies in this way, I would have him arrested.  What mother would let her children go off and grow up all alone, while she stayed in the shed, worried that they would call her names during their teenage years?  BS.

Mr Nelson, you should probably just say "I don't know", rather than make up explanations that remind me so much of my brother's initials.  

It's good to practice.  "I don't know."  "I don't know."  "I don't know."