ANNIVERSARY Countdown (Count-Up?)

Today is Friday, March 7th, 2014. We were married 986 days ago, on June 25th, 2011.


Friday, April 29, 2011

William and Catherine and Herb and I

So I woke this morning a bit later than usual to a day of sun and clear sky. I will leave shortly to get to work to interview the first of four candidates applying for the job I have been doing since October. But that is another story for some other day, or not.

I turned on NPR as is my usual routine and of course, all the news is about THE wedding. Not ours of course, but of William and Catherine (who used to be Kate). One commentator said that she was beloved because she was "discreet" like the Queen.  There were comments aplenty about the dress (and no, I still don't know what I am going to wear but there are comments aplenty about that too!).  As I look up from the computer, to the tv, there is a gauntlet of enormous long lenses pointed at the balcony to record the first kiss.And a fly over of war planes. And bells ringing non-stop and hundreds of thousands of people in the courtyard, where the gate to the Palace parade grounds (Is that what it is called?) is open as though you could just stop in with a little gift.

I am struck (again), by what this means to marry. I am struck by the hope that is expressed by all, that this is a marriage that will last. There is talk aplenty about the fact that this couple has known each other for 9 years and is similar in age and therefore less likely to have the same path ahead that his parents had, who married 30 years ago (!) There is talk of the commoner marrying the heir. And oh yes, the banner at the bottom of the screen reads "Awaiting Kiss on Balcony." Some echo I suppose of Romeo and Juliet.

And now that the kiss has happened, they are running slow motion reruns.

It is enough to give me pause as the saying goes. Not the kiss or the slow motion reruns. But the hope that is offered up in such full measure. While our wedding will be a very different occasion, we too share in that generous offering of hope for the future. And I am struck by what that means, by the importance that "hope" plays. It is something I will be carrying with me today. Hope that William and Catherine will be happy amid lives that will no longer be their own. Hope that H and I will have the happiness and future that all our friends wish for us. But I am reminded once again, that our lives will be built every day. That we will wake each morning and sleep each night believing that what is possible is what we can build together. There is a quote from Czech writer Vaclav Havel: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense." Hope enough in that.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Get On the Bus

There are about fifty companies who, for all of $15, will drive you from Boston to New York in about four hours.  The seats are bigger than they are on a plane, they have wifi and electrical outlets at each seat, and you don't have to get to the terminal an hour and a half early and take off your shoes and belt. It's amazing that the airlines are still in business.

So at 10:30 this morning, I'll get on the Bolt Bus to New York and spend the next couple of days talking with colleagues at the Fashion Institute of Technology, while Nora is talking with colleagues at the Interior Design Educators Council this morning at 7:00.  That's why I'm posting this at 4:45 a.m. EDT.

Then on Friday, she'll drive herself and the cats down to NYC, and we'll spend the weekend with Mom, and with Grazyna and Howard.  Wedding dresses are on the agenda again for both Mom and Grazyna, so I'll have to make sure that I bring my cues and stay over at Amsterdam Billiards and out of the way.

We do way too much driving.  Back and forth to Vermont, back and forth to New York, back and forth to work.  And it took an hour and twenty minutes yesterday to get to work, only seven miles away!  We could have gone the other direction and been in New Hampshire by then (and had a much better day in the process).  But the alternative is a bus and a train and a train and a guaranteed hour, often more.

In Vermont, we live half an hour from the grocery store.  There's only one way to get from Middletown to Rutland, the local metropolis, though the ride is prettier than I-93 through Medford and Charlestown.  Too bad Bolt Bus doesn't run between Middletown and Rutland...

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Things large and small

I dropped off my family diamond at our jewelry designer's shop today, after a long drive through heavy rain.  I also bought twenty envelopes, and a mediocre lunch at a brewpub with the big-screen silently playing NASCAR qualifying laps at some inconsequential minor-league track.

It's funny, the kinds of large and small decisions that we make.  I've played a large role in designing the ring that Nora will wear for the rest of her life, and I've also worked with her to decide that the CMYK formula for the font color on our invitations is 14/65/96/38.  We bought six or seven spools of ribbon last weekend to see which we liked best as an accent to a particular set of cards, and we drag our long-suffering real estate agent through one showing after another.

We replace cars, we replace paper towels.  We shop for a house, we shop for cat litter.  I take a call about a gift registry, and I take a call from a friend who wants a hand in writing her mother's eulogy.  We don't always get to choose the scale of the questions we're asked to resolve.

I hang the toilet paper over the top of the roll, and Nora usually hangs it from the bottom.  We've bought eight or ten brands of prosecco, and open a new bottle a couple of times a week to see which brand we want at the wedding.  (We agree more on the prosecco than on the toilet paper...)

I'm shy, and Nora is... well, you know.  She was driving to Vermont yesterday and an indicator light lit up on the dashboard.  She called, we tried a couple of things, and I ended up calling ahead to the Nissan dealership in Lebanon, New Hampshire, where she would be in about half an hour.  While she was waiting for Georgia to be serviced, she cajoled a salesman into giving her an open-throttle ride in a new 370Z roadster.

We do both like the Z.  And we both name our cars: Georgia for the Georgia O'Keefe desert-sky blue of the Rogue, and Habi for the Si's HabaƱero Red Pearl.  No gray cars around our house.  "Are we taking Habi or Georgia to work?"  Nora drives faster than I as a general practice, but I have the sports car.

The diamond came from my mother's ring.  Not a wedding ring, exactly; a ring that she inherited from her grandmother, with three diamonds that were cut and polished in the field.  A ring sold to the Averill family by Krautheim Jewelers, probably as Frank's ring to his new bride Elsie in 1892.  The diamond outlasted Frank and Elsie, outlasted Krautheim Jewelers, outlasted the economic viability of the city they both called home.  And now it will have a new setting, a new hand, a new marriage to mark. 

We do our jobs.  We do the dishes.  We write essays, e-mails, checks, shopping lists.  For Christmas, I've bought her snow tires, a chainsaw, a socket set.  And necklaces, jewelry boxes, art.

I listen to music while I work, and Nora needs silence.  She drinks coffee, I drink tea.  I rise early and get my best work done before noon; she rises late, and works best after dinner.

She can't abide cauliflower, I can't abide sweet potatoes.

We're both grown-ups, with the habits that many decades instill in us all.  But we're also grown up enough to know which habits matter, and which ones we can laugh at and set aside, and which ones we can learn from and adopt and become greater than we were.  We know which ones make us into us.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Morning Note...

It's too early in the morning for me. H is usually up well before me, and I am a night owl, but he is sick with that sinus infection this morning and I am hoping he will sleep in until a meeting that can't be postponed later today.  I am off this morning to a curriculum meeting and so ....

But I wanted to post a short note to quote a friend's words...words that I woke up to this morning on the web: "So there it is. Like life, today was filled with highs and lows, nerve-wracking moments that led to positive outcomes, and disastrous events that turned out to be an opportunity for a friend to BE a friend."
 
These aren't the amazing insights that: create revolutions in the world or win Nobel Prizes...but they are the words that make another day closer to the wedding as important in our lives as THE day. Thank you to all of you for making this passage as important to us every day as the 25th. And thanks to David for being there.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Public Art

We've decided what to do about all that junk at the bottom of the hill that you'll be coming through to get to the ceremony.  We're going to commission Christo to wrap it all in 17,000 square yards of lavender nylon.

Well, no, we probably won't do that.

But the ceremony itself is going to be a form of public art.  A happening.  A Be-In.  And we're in the process of choreographing that, and deciding on all the roles for all the appropriate players.  It won't be like watching TV, as most weddings are, with the action going on at a distance and everyone else passively absorbing the drama.  No, everyone who comes is going to be an integral component of the day.  You all are marrying us, declaring your membership in our community of mutual love and support.  We will have an officiant, but each of you will have some parts of the officiant's roles and responsibilities.

We don't know what that looks like yet, but it'll be fun.

On another art front, I was at a conference here in Boston last week, and when I got off the subway, I realized that right across the street was Frank's Tailors, a second-floor old-school menswear store.  I'd heard nothing but good things about them, so during my lunch break, I went up and got fitted for my new wedding suit.  What a throwback place!  The "showroom" was maybe 250 square feet, the size of a big bedroom.  The carpet had been newly installed in the 1940s.  And there were an upper and lower pipe rack around two sides of the store holding over 300 suits.

The walls were barely painted, the windows tiny and grimy, handmade signs all around.  They were NOT investing in the decor.  But Bill Kopellas (son of Frank) helped me find a wonderful Brioni summer suit, and marked the alterations in about three minutes.  (Brioni, by the way, is the brand of suit that James Bond wore, though, you know, don't get your hopes up for Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig...)  I looked at four suits, tried on two, got fitted, and still had time to get lunch before the afternoon session.  And during the time I was there, he worked with four other men to select or alter their clothes. 

Nora won't see this suit until the afternoon of the wedding, just as I won't see what she's wearing.  I'm going to have to buy a lock for the hall closet.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Place Setting redux


So here’s another place setting – one that won’t cause tiffs between us! 

I am sitting at the desk looking out over South Street. The cars are passing with parents who have dropped their kids off at school. The bird feeder perch is slanted down, blocking access to the sunflower seed. It is set at the lightest point so that the squirrels and chipmunks don’t take up residence and leave the birds hungry, but at this setting no one gets to eat. That will be my first morning chore after the wood stove warms the place up a bit. I saw some motion a few minutes ago and it was the first blue jay I have seen this year . Last week I saw the first robin, and the chickadees have already turned brilliant yellow. Herb saw a red-winged blackbird when we were driving into town.

It rained last night, and we were back to mud season for a few hours though it seems dry now. There are a lot of wind-blown branches to clear up and everyone is talking about the late Spring and frustrated that they haven’t been able to get into their gardens to till and plant the cold crops. There are however, buds on the lilac that holds the bird feeder.

Vermont is a beautiful place, but as I suppose with many beautiful places, it has its harder edges. This is not one of my favorite times of year as the green hasn’t really come out yet, and we don’t have the white blanket to cover the bald patches in the dirt. The same is true of the wedding venue. The reception is on the green (well, beside it) between the quintessential Vermont church and the building that houses the Historical Society, aka the Community House to those who grew up here (and of course there is an accompanying story or two). But on the other side of the green is Norm’s empty parking area where the garage burned down a few years ago. We are asking you not to look at the parking area, but to focus on the green. We are asking you to travel to one of our favorite spots on Emmett and Kerstin’s lawn. If the weather cooperates, the view is stunning, but the trip up is through an actively trashed landscape. There is a once beautiful enormous barn, now collapsing, dozens of junked cars and trucks and a primordial mobile home with the insulation blowing in the wind.

I admit I wish that the wedding were in a venue with less to turn away from, but there is much to turn toward. We were greeted as we drove up this weekend, by Emmett in his red truck, the plow blade now gone at last, and a pair of chocolate fudge brownies. And that was before we had even unpacked the car. There are people here who plow unasked for their neighbors or those who are on hard times. My first Christmas, when I worried about the pipes freezing, the brother of the man who worked the dump and now mows my lawn, told me not to worry. Though everyone’s wood stock was already committed, if I needed wood, they’d be there, and sure enough Glen showed up with a load of wood on Christmas eve. And I was a stranger then.

Herb and I are here for both the mud season and the sweet green of summer. We look forward to having you share this town with us, and having friends meet friends.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Wedding community to the rescue!

Okay, it doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, it's miserable. I've got the start of a sinus infection. Without going all TMI on you, I had a dentist about 20 years ago who said that the drain from my sinuses to the back of my throat wasn't actually at the bottom of the cavity like it should be, so mucus could pool up in there and fester. (Sorry. Just saying the word "fester" probably disqualifies this as a wedding blog entry...) Anyway, he offered in all seriousness to drill me a couple of new vents, which I politely declined. So this happens once every couple or three years. Bleh.

I'm looking for your various home remedies for sinus pain. Stand on your head? Breathe from a Vicks inhaler? Mustard plaster? Walk with your head tilted sideways toward the clear side? Clothespin on the left earlobe? I'll try anything. Given our increasingly international viewership, I'm sure I'll hear of something I haven't tried before—a traditional Indonesian treatment, a bowl of yellow curry, vodka.  Actually, I've tried vodka before, so let's scratch that one.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Place(Setting) Identity

We looked at some dishes yesterday, and I came face to face with some more family history. 

As I've written about before, my mother's family is Congregationalist New England, and my father's family is Baptist Dust Bowl.  And that played out through their entire marriage.  My mother told me a story about my three brothers (all much older than I) being in elementary school, and the principal calling her.  "Mrs. Childress, what nationality are the boys?"  He had a smile in his voice. 

"Why, they're American, of course.  What sort of a question is that?" 

"Well, they were filling out information forms today, and all three of them wrote down 'hillbilly.'"

So apparently my parents' arguments predated me. 

I remember my mother being so proud of the "French Provincial" furniture from the Cole's Department Store downtown.  I remember it mostly because the paisley was satin-stitch embroidered, and I used to rub my fingers back and forth over it... so smooth.  I remember my father's shop in the garage, with all the tools hung on the pegboard over his workbench... so ordered.  She was so proud of being a "supervisor" at the phone company, clearly a status marker she'd worked hard for.  He was a union machinist who was unemployed for ten months one year after being laid off at Christmas.  She had the AMC Matador with the Oleg Cassini interior design package; he had the Chevy C-10 pickup with the truckbed camper.

North/South.  Management/Labor.  Widely-read/Never-read.  I grew up in Red America and Blue America simultaneously, forty years before those labels were ever known.

With that history, even something as small as the choice of dishes can stir really complicated feelings.  It's not that Nora likes one pattern and I like the other—that would be easy.  It's that stuff like dishes and furniture and clothing act as culture markers, and sometimes those cultures don't easily communicate.

We drove away from the dishes and talked for another hour about it, and about why it was difficult to even find words for my discomfort.  (They were nice dishes.)  I love that we can talk about things that are hard just as well as we talk about things that are immediately pleasurable; that's a big change for me.  We haven't resolved the dishes, or the issues beneath them.  But I know that we will, and that's enough.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Thinking with my pen

In preparation for going back to finish my undergraduate degree, I took three semesters at Laney College, the community college in Oakland CA.  (By the way, children, did you know that public schools really used to be public?  When I went to Laney in the late 80s, they charged an enrollment fee of $25 per semester plus tuition of $5 per credit hour up to a maximum of $50.  So I could take four classes a semester at a real college for $75.)  My original undergrad adventure ten years earlier had given me nearly no prerequisites for architecture, so I had courses in freehand drawing, design principles, studio architecture, architectural history, and so on. 

In my design principles course, I met a young man who was one of those guys who grew up drawing, the same way that some kids grew up reading or playing hockey or singing.  He just did it, all the time, since he was a little boy.  So I was entranced, not merely by the quality of the work that he did, but also by the creativity of it.  He was thinking with his pencil.  He told me that he wanted to go into fabric design.  And I thought, for the first time, of every shirt I'd ever owned, and the plaids and the stripes and the floral patterns and the textures, and realized that every single line was a decision by someone like my friend.  It was a revelatory moment.

I didn't enjoy architecture school at Berkeley because I kept trying to design buildings that fulfilled their social responsibilities.  I didn't let myself explore as much as the other students because I couldn't imagine creating a multi-million dollar object that was merely intellectual.  And that killed my interest in drawing for many years. 

But now I go to meetings.  Some of them are useful, many are not.  And the unproductive meetings have become the source of a lot of really interesting drawings, which Nora has started to collect.  Not representational drawings, but explorations of pattern, often launched by me taking one of my rings and using it as a template to draw a circle.

So when it came time to take my mom's diamond up to Edie Armstrong at Folia Gallery to design a ring around it, she and I just stood at the counter in the store and both drew and talked and drew and walked around looking at her other designs and drew some more.  I was there for about 90 minutes.  She said, "It's unusual for someone to actually work with me on their design."  More often, they have something already in mind, or they see one of her existing rings and ask her to more or less copy that.

A few days later, she sent me six sketches based on our conversations.  They're very cool, worth framing on their own terms.  I chose the one I liked best and used it as the grounds for my own new design, which I sent back.  And that's where we're headed. 

It's been fun to use that part of my head again. 

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

OH HAPPY DAY!!!

OK, So I know this blog is supposed to be about the wedding and our relationship and Middletown Springs, but sometimes something comes across the screen that is irresistable.

As you know, I decided to post a welcome to our international visitors, and in showing Mom how I was able to write Arabic and Malay, I discovered this site linked here. I was perusing it for additional phrases when I was stopped cold by the following in Uzbek:

Mening kayiqim baliq bilan to'lgan

When I recovered, I discovered that the site will also translate that same phrase into Turkish where you can chose from: Hoverkraftımın iƧi yılan balığı dolu   or Hoverkraftımın iƧi mĆ¼ren dolu

And Armenian: Ō»Õ“ Ö…Õ¤Õ”Õ©Õ«Õ¼ÕØ Õ¬Õ« Õ§ Ö…Õ±Õ”Õ±ÕÆÕ„Ö€ÕøÕ¾

And Afrikaans: My skeertuig is vol palings


And Estonian: Mu hƵljuk on angerjaid tƤis

And Chinese: ꈑēš„ę°£å¢Ščˆ¹å……ę»æäŗ†é±”é­š [ꈑēš„ę°”åž«čˆ¹å……ę»”äŗ†é³é±¼]


And Greenlandic!!!!!: Umiatsiaasara pullattagaq nimerussanik ulikkaarpoq
(Honestly, did YOU know there was a Greenlandic language?)


And for our polyglot crowd:

Here's the Dutch: Mijn luchtkussenboot zit vol paling

Did you get that? My LUCHTKUSSENBOOT!!! Someone is kissing my LUCHT BOOT!

And Italian: Il mio aliscafo ĆØ pieno di anguille

And Polish: For Grazyna, Paul, Joanna: MĆ³j poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy

And Romanian (for Delia and Josseline): Vehicolul meu pe pernă de aer e plin cu ţipari

Now I could make you all look this up, but here's the translation::

Are you ready?



My hovercraft is full of eels!

Is the internet great or what?????

BUT then there's also these:

In Breton:
Sot oc'h gant ar binĆ®oĆ¹?
Are you fond of bagpipes?

Gouzout a ran ober krampouezh.
I know how to make pancakes.

Or this in Cornish:
Yma pluven a-ji dhe'n lyver.
There's a pen inside the book.

Or this in Danish:
Jeg er allergisk over for muskatnĆød
I am allergic to nutmeg

You never know when you will need to say that.

Or this in Esperanto:
Mi volas brakumi tiun sciuron.
I want to hug that squirrel.

Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston? Lausajne estas rano en mia bideo!
Could you please send for the hall porter? There appears to be a frog in my bidet!

Or in Romanian:
Cu cana poţi să bei lapte, dar cu pisica nu poţi să tai lemne
You can drink milk with a cup, but you can't cut wood with a cat.

Or in Swedish:
De jƤttelika krƤftorna fƶrsƶker ta ƶver Jorden!
The giant crayfishes are attempting to conquer The Earth!

Or in Lojban ( What is Lojban?)
pavyseljirna kavbu ba'oxuku
Have you caught that Unicorn yet?

OH HAPPY DAY!  Can you say that in Greenlandic or Lojban?

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Home, Sweet Home

I'm not usually one to take a lot of advice from Pastor Rick Warren, he of the Saddleback megachurch and The Purpose Driven Life. But I heard him on a radio interview a couple of years ago, and he said something that's stuck with me since. He said that, when he first was ordained, he asked God, "You can send me anywhere you want, but please let me stay there." He followed that with the line, "We tend to over-estimate what we can do in a year, but under-estimate what we can do in 40."

I've lived in far too many places.  I grew up in a single house from the time I was born until I was 20 (not counting the college dorm).  In the 33 years since then, I've lived at 20 different street addresses in nine different cities.  For someone whose academic life has been focused on people's relationships with place, I haven't tended to my own very closely.  I've moved for grad school, moved to do my research, moved for a job and a job and a job and a job.

And now it's time to choose again.  I'll be marrying someone for whom home is also an intellectual focus, but she's done a far better job than I of making homes.  Partly it's because she's far more social than I am—her Native American name would be "Speaks with Doorknobs."  But she also has chosen to remain stable for longer periods than I.  Like me, she was born and raised at a single address (where Estelle has lived for over 60 years).  But unlike me, she has lived subsequently to that in fairly few places.  College was away, but both grad schools were back in NYC.  She lived for four years doing research and making place in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, but then returned to NYC for another 15 years.  And now, for about twelve years, she's lived in Middletown Springs, becoming an integral part of the community.  Going for a drive anywhere with her up there is an annotated narrative of families and relationships.  "That's where the Wilsons live.  That's the house where the new owner felled a tree directly onto his barn.  That's where Joanne and Dirk live; their daughter has run away two or three times, and I think there's some trouble with their son as well.  That house is owned by a professor of economics at Rice; they come up in June and stay for most of the summer."  (all names changed, of course...)

And something's happened to me as I've spent time there over the past six years.  I'm starting to become part of the place as well.  I know the landscape, know the smell of the soil, know maple season and mud season.  And recently, a friend e-mailed to compliment me on a story I'd written, and said, "We'll talk more the next time you're back home."

Home.

I make a good living in Boston, and I don't have a Middletown Springs skillset.  I can't repair barns or tractors.  I can't drill wells or install septic systems.  I can't operate a backhoe or a salt truck.  And in higher education, it's almost impossible to choose the college you get to work for—I received a rejection letter last week for a position I'd applied for in Northern California, which complemented me on my materials and thanked me for being part of a robust applicant pool of over 200 people.  So I can't put much stock in being able to land a position at Green Mountain College or Castleton State College, the only schools within 50 miles.

I've sacrificed home many times over the years for what I thought would be interesting and productive work.  Maybe it's time to make that decision in the opposite direction...

Note:  I was cleaning my desk yesterday, and I came across a fortune I'd saved from some forgettable Chinese takeout food.  It reads:
Playing safe is only playing

Saturday, April 9, 2011

It was only a matter of time...

Š›Š°ŃŠŗŠ°Š²Š¾ ŠæрŠ¾ŃŠøŠ¼Š¾ ;   Š’Ń–Ń‚Š°Ń”Š¼Š¾  ŠŸŃ€ŠøєŠ¼Š½Š¾ ŠæŠ¾Š·Š½Š°Š¹Š¾Š¼ŠøтŠøся;

Selamat Datang ;  Senang bertemu dengan Anda

Š”Š¾Š±Ń€Š¾ ŠæŠ¾Š¶Š°Š»Š¾Š²Š°Ń‚ŃŒ Š² сŠµŠ¼ŃŒŃŽ    ŠžŃ‡ŠµŠ½ŃŒ ŠæрŠøятŠ½Š¾    ŠŸŃ€ŠøятŠ½Š¾ ŠæŠ¾Š·Š½Š°ŠŗŠ¾Š¼Šøться

ķ™˜ģ˜ķ•©ė‹ˆė‹¤     ė§Œė‚˜ģ„œ ė°˜ź°‘ģŠµė‹ˆė‹¤

Benvenuto  Piacere di conoscerLa.

Ł…ŲŖŲ“Ų±Ł ŲØŁ…Ų¹Ų±ŁŲŖŁƒn Ų£Ł‡Ł„Ų§ً Łˆ Ų³Ł‡Ł„

ę­”čæŽ   儽開åæƒčŖč­˜ä½ 

ę­”čæŽå…‰č‡Ø   å¾ˆé«˜čˆˆčŖč­˜ä½ 

Witam Cię  Bardzo mi miło

Bun venit  mi pare bine de cunoştinţă

VƤlkommen Trevligt att trƤffas

Ų®ŁˆŲ“ Ų¢Ł…ŲÆŪŒŲÆ Ų§Ų² Ł…Ł„Ų§Ł‚Ų§ŲŖ Ų“Ł…Ų§ Ų®ŁˆŲ“ ŁˆŁ‚ŲŖŁ…

Bienvenido, Mucho gusto Encantado

Wilkom! Blij u te ontmoeten!

Wilkommen, Schƶn, dich kennen zu lernen Sehr erfreut

Welcome, Pleased to meet you.

Friday, April 8, 2011

TRAFFIC REPORT: I may get arrested for sharing this local ethnographic wisdom with you, but here goes...

There are a number of speed traps between here and the rest of the planet. The ones we know about (by hard experience) are as follows:

Coming from the South on Rt. 133: 
North of Manchester occasionally has a local cop raising money for the township. Dorset is a renowned speed trap. Watch the signs carefully!

Coming from the East on Rt. 4:
1. Just past Quechee (pronounced KWEECHEE) on the way to Woodstock - just before you enter the town, there is a police car on the left near the hardware store. It will be shortly after you pass some kind of electrical substation on the right.

2. Bridgewater: Trust us.... Don't even try going 10 miles over. There are reliable reports of tickets and points given for being 5 miles over the speed limit which is 25 mph through the middle of town.

3. Mendon:  Nelson Tifft has a reputation for having given out more tickets around the county than the rest of the state combined. He is hanging out on Rt. 4 in the Mendon area these days (and sometimes Danby to the south).

4. West of Rutland is a broad stretch of road with two lanes in each direction. I haven't often seen police here other than at 8 a.m. for the late-to-work crowd, but it is tempting to go 6o plus here. Note that this is a 40 mph road.

5. Vermont is broke. According to one friend who has reason to know these things, the tax base is 180,000 strong. That's it. No other taxes available to pave the roads.... Can you see where this is going?  Slow down or you could very well a) lose an axle or b) make a very personal acquaintance with a deer or a skunk or a possum or even a turkey which will not make an attractive hood ornament!

Searching for a new pair of pants on the internet

So you knew that if there was going to be a post from me, it would start with some scene setting, right?  SO it's a dark and stormy night. No. Actually it is quite bright, cold and there was a sliver of yellow moon at the horizon when we drove home from work at 11 p.m.  Yes. 11 p.m.

Herb went to the gala fund raiser for the school and I taught my class, and then I went to a "Studio" run by someone I hired at the beginning of the semester. I like her a lot and it was interesting to see how the students worked with her, but that's another story and probably not one you care to read. And I am looking for one that will intrigue you. Whoever you are. Parachute or Kathleen or the person in the Ukraine or United Arab Emirates who is reading this.

It's hard to know who the people are who are reading our blog. Some are friends of course; some are family; some are friends and family looking for a road map to the ceremony and a place to stay. You won't be surprised that Mom is a pretty committed reader. But what is it that brings others to this site -- other than some random term that they are searching for: "Steve Buscemi" or "quarter master"?  I suppose I see it as a parable for what all of us are searching for. Entertainment. Distraction. A new pair of pants. How many of us think we will find the "cure for what ails us" on the internet?  A bigger body part? A good way to cook zucchini for the thirteenth time this summer? (See? That will add someone in an "already-summer" place to the blog!)  I have met two young women in the past year who met the men they are marrying on the internet. Why not? It's as good as any other strategy, I suppose. But H and I met when we weren't searching. I had long ago given up on finding someone I wanted /trusted to spend my life with. And then we started sharing our professional lives. Sharing our fantasies about how education could be different. About how kids could grow up in a world that didn't make them feel like the vestigial appendages  to real lives led by adults. About what it meant to wake in the morning and see and feel the weather--not read about it in the paper or google "weather underground," but to look outside the window at a rime of frost, or feel it in the cold house with the stove as yet unlit, or calculate whether the cold crops can go in the garden yet.

Herb remembers the professional connection. I remember the letters--some on paper but most online. Letters about our frustration with our jobs and our respective searches for another one. Letters about an idea that seemed compelling--ethics in ethnographic research (ok ok I know that seems pretty arcane to most of you!). Letters about politics, and cats and my beloved dog, Argus, and the people we knew in common. I wrote to him about the road between the house and the supermarket and saw it with new eyes. He wrote about the birds at Merritt Park. We taught each other to see through the other's eyes. And he made me laugh. And that is I think what this blog is about. Seeing through another's eyes.  And if that's true, there is someone in South Korea and someone in Indonesia who could become a friend.

We met and learned to know each other through words. We weren't searching on the internet exactly though it made it easier than having to wait a year between conference presentations.Like those who peruse the internet, it was the words that drew us closer.And then it was what they stood for.

Hmmm..... It turns out that though I wasn't actually searching, I found someone. I clicked on some "links" and one thing led to another and I found someone whose words made me think. And made me feel supported. And made me see through his eyes and allowed him to see through mine. And laugh.

Join us on June 25 for laughter.. and maybe a new pair of pants.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Checklist, Take 3

Every month on the 6th or 7th, it's time for an overview of the schedule.  Never knew that a wedding had accountability measures, did you?  There's a reason why I'm the assessment guy at my school...

Anyway, here's the performance audit of the wedding plan, as performed by the bridal consulting firm Sinder Ellis Bahl, LLP

January
  1. Finish engagement announcements to those who don't already know
  2. Set date and location
  3. Develop invite list
  4. Write wedding budget
  5. Choose wedding colors
  6. Choose bridesmaid and best man
Auditor's report for January:  the couple has had solid outcomes on these measures, with only #6 open to question.  There are reports that they have begun to work on the nature of the ceremony itself, which will lead to a resolution of Task 6 as well.
February
  1. Officiant for wedding
  2. Host for reception
  3. Select and order wedding rings
  4. Create gift registries
Auditor's report for February:  the couple has fulfills Tasks 1-3, but seems incapable of addressing item #4.  It's possible that the team may require additional staffing to complete that task.
March
  1. Professional photographer
  2. Select and book music for reception
  3. Design ceremony and vows
Auditor's report for March:  the couple has successfully achieved Task 2, with excellent results. They are, however, in arrears on items #1 and #3.  Auditor suggests accomplishing both no later than April 18th.
 April
  1. Shop for wedding dress and accessories
  2. Create and mail wedding invitations
  3. Place order for Cypress Grove "cheesecake"
  4. Flowers for the reception
  5. Reserve tent/canopy for reception
  6. Reserve tables/chairs for reception
  7. Place order for wedding cake
  8. Place order for drinks
  9. Get marriage license
  10. Choose and buy thank-you cards
Auditor's report for April:  the couple achieved items #4 through #6 by the beginning of the month, and the completion of item #2 seems close at hand.  Task #7 has partial completion, but since the specification has changed, there are now additional steps to that task which still await the couple's attention.  There is no reason to expect delays on the remainder.  However, Item #1 seems worrisome, as the bride receives conflicting advisement from multiple stakeholders.  Auditor suggests that discussion on Item #1 be closed no later than April 18th, 2011, and that in the possible absence of consensus, the couple move forward with their own best judgment.
Report signed April 7th, 2011
Sincerely,
Wanda F. Thelmecket
Senior Auditor, Sinder Ellis Bahl LLP

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Robots Read Your Jokes

Gmail is a pretty great resource.  You get a free email account away from the prying eyes of workplace monitoring, and there's a vast amount of file storage along with it.  But there is a downside... they have robots who read your mail.

It's true.  When you open a message in Gmail, it's surrounded by ads.  And the ads are keyed to the contents of the particular message.  I got a message about a local pet shelter having a fundraiser, and the ads around it are for candy to sell at fundraisers, and about other nonprofits that do animal rescue.  When I get messages from our jeweler, it's surrounded by messages for engagement rings and discount moissanite.

So today, I got a message from a friend about our wedding planning (Hi, Parachute!), and the ads around it were for:
  • wholesale wedding dresses ($112 each!)
  • a bunch of other wedding dress sites
  • wedding dress photos (a genre that seems pretty limiting to me, but what do I know?)
  • AND... Wedding MC Jokes
Well, I had to look at that one, didn't I?

That ad takes you to the website of Speech-Writers.com, who for a modest fee will give you the scripts you need to get through any social event.  In this case, it was the "M.C. (or EMCEE) guide for weddings, anniversaries, dinners, award ceremonies, etc."  A $39.94 value!  BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!! You'll also get the bonus guide, "How to Deliver a Speech like you're a PRO... even if you're scared to death!"

NOW how much would you pay???  $50?  $80?  Even more?

NO!!! Both books are yours for the low, low price of $19.97.  BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!!   If you act within the next eight minutes and twelve seconds, they'll throw in a third great bonus, the Wedding Jokes e-book "to add a funny note to your speech.  They are tried, tested, and ready to use."

There's just something about the style of this ad that leads me to question the quality of their advice.  And of course, there are no sample jokes on the website.  I looked at some other sites, though, and found a handful of really jovial little bits:
  • Marriage is an educational event.  The man loses his bachelor's degree, and the woman gets her master's.
  • We're having a three-ring ceremony:  engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.
  • Love is one long, sweet dream.  Marriage is the alarm clock.
All you'd need is the cigar and the powder-blue ruffled-shirt tuxedo, and you could go into business with material like that.

 

    Prognistication

    I was up at the Francois' on Sunday, looking at the broad area of their hillside where our ceremony will take place.  It was a gorgeous spring day, about 50 degrees, and the ground was drying out.  The view from there is just stunning.

    This morning, I was checking e-mail and looking at the weather forecast for the day, and I discovered that our favorite weather site has a historical section, where you can look back at weather histories for about 30 years or so.   So I looked at the weather on June 25th from 1991 to 2010 in Middletown Springs.

    It's rained twice in those twenty years, one a passing thunderstorm that left 0.07" behind, and the other an odd shower that deposited only 0.02".

    The high temperature has been at or above 80 on 13 of those days, with three of those being between 85 and 90.  It's been in the 70s four times, and in the 60s three times.  The historical average high temperature is 78.

    So if history is our guide, prepare for a high of 82, a low of 57, sun, and light winds of 5-10 miles per hour.  I'm sure, in this day and age, I don't need to remind you about hats and sunscreen...

    Monday, April 4, 2011

    The Challenge of Categories

    Here's a quiz, sort of second-grade level.  Which of these four things doesn't belong with the others?
    • Fork
    • Spoon
    • Knife
    • Plate
    The answer that emerges for most of us is the Plate, because the other three fit a category of "silverware" and a plate doesn't.  But...
    • it could be the Knife, because it's the only one you can't carry food with
    • it could be the Fork, because the others all have five letters
    • it could be the Spoon, because it's the only one that has a letter that descends below the base line
    Categories are in the eyes of the beholder.  Here's another one.  Let's say there's a room with a piano, a xylophone, and a double bass viol.  What is the category that holds all three of those things?  Again, we'd probably start by saying that they're all musical instruments.  And that's true.  But they're also things that are too heavy for me to carry; they're things I can't afford; and they're things I don't know how to use.  The nature of a "good category" depends on what I want that category to accomplish.

    So last night, Nora and I spent a couple of hours developing the first-draft seating chart for dinner at the reception.  We have 20 tables, and we want to put people together who will enjoy one another's company.  So what categories do we use?
    • We could do tables that are geographical, so that there are Boston tables and Middletown tables and Manhattan tables and a New Jersey table.  But that doesn't quite work, because a) not everybody from the same place likes each other, and b) there are a lot of ones and twos from other places.  Where do we put the two people from Kenosha and the other two people from Tampa and the one person from New Delhi?  It'd be a shame for one person to come all the way from North Carolina and have to sit by himself because there wasn't anybody else from there...
    • We could do tables by family teams like the seating at most wedding ceremonies, where some tables are for Nora's friends and some tables are for Herb's friends and some tables are for people who like us both and maybe one table for people who don't like either one of us.  But most of the people there don't fit those teams very well, for which we're grateful.
    • We could do tables by origin of meeting, so that one table is for my friends from the Council on Undergraduate Research, and one is for the people I met while doing my dissertation, and one is for the people we know from classes we've taught.  But the reason these particular people are coming to the wedding is because our relationship has grown far richer than those origins.
    • We could do tables by age, so that everybody under 25 is at one table and everybody over 80 is at another table.  But we don't know how old everyone is, and it's rude to ask.  And imagine putting Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh at one table just based on the fact that they were both born in 1951... maybe not such a good thought.  (Don't worry, it's okay, neither of them are coming.)
    • We could do tables by occupation, so that the farmers are all at one table and the factory workers at another and the college teachers at another.  But who wants to come to a wedding to talk about work?  Yuck.
    • We could do tables by hobby, so that all the piano players sat together, and all the knitters and spinners sat together.  But we don't know everybody's hobby... there might be a whole table full of jugglers or antique locksmiths or ferret owners if only we'd thought of it.
    In the end, we have table assignments categorized by some combination of all six of those elements, plus a little bit of common sense about shyness and garrulousness and old feuds.  It was really fun, and we'll do it again a few more times as we get firmer confirmations.  The invitations will go out in about a week and a half, and we'll start to get a much more realistic sense of who sits with who (for the first ten minutes, anyway — after that, people go where they want to go anyway, which is fine by us).

    So This Is What a Community Does

    A cliche about small towns is that you can dial the wrong number and still talk for twenty minutes.  Well, that's happened here for us.

    Middletown Springs is small enough that everybody knows everybody else's business.  Within hours of the arrest of one of the local nuisances, I'd estimate that a couple of hundred people knew about it.  [And remember there are only about 600 adults in Middletown Springs and there is no party line... well, there IS the internet, which IS the party line now!]  If someone gets seriously ill, fifteen people will show up with food within the next day.  You rarely have to ask for a significant favor, because if it's significant enough, someone already knows about it and will call you to ask if they can help.

    We know that there are many people we're inviting for whom this trip represents a real effort.  Other vacation plans deferred or canceled, work trips re-scheduled, trying to fit a stop in Vermont along an academic trip from India to Wales.  We're touched by the ways in which so many of you are excited about our pending marriage.

    We also know that there are some people we're inviting for whom this trip will be a deep economic burden.  But here again, the Middletowners are coming through.  We've had several people volunteer, without our asking or even hinting, to have a guest or two stay in their homes.  So if the cost of a hotel or B&B room would be a significant hardship, please let us know, and we'll arrange for you to stay with someone we think you'll enjoy.

    Let Middletowners help, if you need it.  That's what a community does, and we're grateful that you're a part of it.

    AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:
    H is right about this, but I wanted to add two other notes. Yesterday was a tough day for me for many reasons unrelated to the wedding. I drove up to see our friends who are hosting our ceremony. They listened and hugged and basically held me close in their spirit and in their home, located in these mountains Herb and I love.

    Herb went up to see the site with Melody a few hours later. Emmett asked if we would like him to build an arbor for us.

    Several hours later, I spoke with the woman who has been at the heart of this town's activities, pot lucks, support network. Nan will be at the wedding of course and is one of those who has volunteered space in her home for our friends. She gave us a pounded bark painting that she brought back from Mexico - a scene of a wedding - because she thought of us on her travels.  In saying thank you, I told her of our nerves and Herb's "vapours".  She said, "Tell him this is Middletown. Not to worry."

    Welcome to our home.

    Saturday, April 2, 2011

    Design Development

    Back when I was in architecture school, the longest we ever got to work on a project was six or seven weeks.  That was about enough time to start to understand the site, begin to work on accommodating user needs, and explore three or four alternative solutions before we had to take one of them to the point of presentation drawings and models.  It was never expected that we would get anywhere near to selecting materials, understanding the structural system, or do any of the detailing that would make the water and bugs stay out and the conditioned air stay in.  Those are the problems that get worked out in the months subsequent to the initial schematic design (usually by a team of people other than the person who DID the schematic design).

    There's the vision, and then there's the flashing details...

    I thought about this yesterday when we were driving into Middletown Springs, past the turn-off for Many Springs Road (which leads to Kerstin and Emmett's home where the ceremony will take place).  And I suddenly thought, "We need to have balloons tied to the mailbox so people know where to turn."  And from there, I went into an unseemly micromanagement tizzy, unspoken, inside my head.  "Who's going to buy the balloons and blow them up?  Should we write Herb and Nora on the balloons in Sharpie??  Coffee filters... someone has to buy coffee filters.  And trash bags.  What font should the table cards be in?  How is the wedding cake going to get here from New York?  Do they need a cooler?  Who needs a hotel how many electrical outlets who's holding the rings it'll be sunny I should wear a hat can we rent a piano for the bar which guests will want to play music can we change clothes before the reception what kind of envelopes for the invitations..." I mean, it was a full drama queen meltdown.  I managed to keep control of the car, but it was a struggle.

    Nora, wisely, said, "Hooonnney, that's why we have Melody and Patty.  They'll take care of all of that."  Like talking to a three-year-old who wants candy in the checkout aisle at the supermarket. 

    Well, SURE they'll take care of it, but we have to tell them what to take care of.  How will they know that we need to make sure that gifts and cards stay together and that guests who bring folk music instruments should play on the porch and whether we should have separate wine and prosecco glasses and we need more than one dessert plate per person or maybe we should have someone washing and restocking dishes and someone has to have the envelopes with payments for the band and Nelson and the catering staff and we still don't have a photographer...

    I'm all flushed even now, thinking about it.  I need a fainting couch, dearie, I believe I'm having a case of the vapours...