a connection

I really like fall, in case I haven't mentioned it before. One of the things I like about fall are its flavors. I anticipate the arrival of squash and brussels sprouts and "warm" spices like those found in a pumpkin pie. I am always enticed by pumpkin-spice lattes and, as autumn seems to indicate that Christmas-time is here and thus it's appropriate to start selling Christmas-type items in OcToBeR??!, gingerbread lattes. However, here-in lies a problem.

I have noted to myself several times that pumpkin-spice lattes make me feel awful. A stomach ache unlike others I get. Most of the pumpkin-spice lattes I've experienced also seem to taste waxy to me. Waxy is the best I can come up with to describe what I'd otherwise term "like crayons" (not that I believe I've ever eaten crayons. But the taste is the same as how crayons smell). Until this year I have ignored the fact that pumpkin-spice lattes are disagreeable to me, and I've had at least one when fall hits...only to be given another data point indicating that Something Is Wrong with them when combined with my body. I guess I mostly remember the bad taste, and I seem to think that if I try enough versions made using different recipes I'll find one that does not taste like a crayon. Finally this year I took the data into consideration and decided not to further test the hypothesis that pumpkin-spice lattes create a sensation of illness and taste waxy.

However, I did have a gingerbread latte yesterday. I think I've had these before, and perhaps they have been bad and I just don't remember it. But yesterday's left me feeling quite like I'd had a pumpkin-spice latte, although it did not taste waxy in the least. In fact, I really liked it. So I was quite disappointed when I had the just-drank-a-pumpkin-spice-latte feeling afterward!

In my scientific mind, it seems like gingerbread and pumpkin-pie flavoring could indeed have similar ingredients, because they have similar spice-tastes, and I know that gingerbread and pumpkin pie are made using similar spices. So I've tried to figure out what might be causing the problem. I learned something quickly: ingredients lists of flavored syrups will NOT give any useful information about what causes a disagreeable feeling in one's tummy or creates a waxy taste. For example, one list included these ingredients:

• pure cane sugar
• water
• gingerbread flavor
• citric acid
• caramel color
• cinnamon extract

Hm, well...I don't think that water or sugar or caramel color (which is in everything...) would cause me illness. And I have cinnamon all the time, so I doubt that. Thus, the culprit is likely "gingerbread flavor"...which is entirely useless. :-P

Kind of makes one start to think about food chemistry...how do folks MAKE gingerbread flavor. It's just chemicals, I know that. What is the chemical in, for example, ginger that causes it to taste like ginger?

I have concluded that instead of attempting to track down complex organic chemistry formulas of flavor molecules, it will be easier to test the individual spices that theoretically make up the pumpkin-spice and gingerbread "flavors" to see if any create a poor reaction (sounds fun, huh?). So far what I can determine is that cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and cloves are what goes into the flavor of these two. I'll give it a whirl, but...one thing I still don't understand is why neither pumpkin pie nor gingerbread in their original non-beverage forms don't give me any trouble at all!! Hm...

waiting and waiting...

It seems that I'm in an anxious period of waiting currently. Not Joe was informally offered a new job, and now it's been two weeks of waiting for HR at the company to send him an official offer. I'm also waiting for a lot of samples to be analyzed at another facility (although, honestly, I'm not DYING for the results to come back, because I'd then need to analyze them, and I'm already busy with work as it is).

The biggest ache I'm experiencing, however, is anticipation of the harvest season to be over & winter to set in. Don't get me wrong, I want to enjoy autumn and all its beauty and crispness. But I have been storing away food from the summer's harvests, and...I want to start using it! It's somewhat silly - obviously I CAN use it now. But this primal fear in me says, "But what if you NEED that in the winter! Use the fresh veggies now - they won't last for winter!" And it's not as if I don't have a lot of fresh vegetables. My refrigerator is literally packed full of vegetables that won't store anywhere else (unless I had a root cellar...which, being that I live in an apartment, I don't) (oh, and I guess I could can some of it, but I'd rather have fresh carrots than canned carrots, you know?).

This is thanks to the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group that I have been a part of this season. The CSA gives me a huge crate of food every week. This experience was rather a snafu. The first time I did a CSA I got a "half-share," which is supposed to feed 2 people who love vegetables - and that was way, way too much for me alone to handle. This year I found a bunch of friends who liked the idea of a CSA, so I went ahead and paid for a "full-share" - enough to feed a veggie-loving family of 4. Guess what. My pals liked the IDEA of a CSA, but they didn't actually want to participate in the paying for or consumption of the food from the CSA. So...I obviously have received a LOT more vegetables than I need. So, it's good that I picked this year to learn how to preserve food, because that was about all I could do with much of it.

I've felt like I've been in a never-ending battle with vegetables. I'd make it my goal for each Tuesday to get all of my veggies eaten so the fridge would be able to accept the new shipment that arrived that day. I kept up with it for a while, and then...well, then I learned that composting is a great way to pay back the earth for the bounty is provided to us from it. If my 10 eggplants from week 1 didn't make it to the end of the week, they'd go in the composter, and I didn't need to feel bad about it at all. Except that I'd intended to pay for the vegetable and not the compost material. Ah well.

So, PLEASE...harvest, stop! I look forward to eating my frozen and canned vegetables en masse with no guilt that I am ignoring the 10 pounds of brassica in the refrigerator! I welcome the day when I can slice open the winter squash that keeps so well in a dark, cool closet, and say, "This is the ONLY OPTION I have! No lettuce, no spinach, no late tomatoes to contend with! I shall consume this squash with no regret!" Come, winter!

moving forward

There has been a lot of waiting going on here for some time. I've been waiting (and...am still waiting) at work for several people to make some contributions to our joint project and for a bunch of samples to be analyzed. Not Joe and I have been waiting to hear about a job he began pursuing on July 26 (fortunately, it was July 26, 2009, not 2008...).

FINALLY yesterday I heard about two sets of samples that will be getting worked on in the next couple of weeks, and today I am going to work with one of the potential-contributors to see if the machine they're dealing with works or not.

And...yesterday...Not Joe got the job he's been waiting for!!!! We are both very excited. Financial stability (or, at the very least, income rather than expenses-only) is a really nice thing. He's also been self-employed for several years, and the new job will have health care benefits -- I think we're both rather relieved about that.

He's not sure on the start date yet, but at least there's a JOB waiting!!

weather?

It's been great autumn weather here over the past couple weeks - crisp and colorful. I was just catching the bug to start cold-season knitting.

And then, today...

IT'S SNOWING!?!?!?!!!

birthday

It's my birthday. So here I am to toot my own horn. :-)

A brief update on me:

I still work at Penn State. I still research the same stuff. It is going okay - slowly, but surely.

I am still dating Not Joe. I hope that soon we will be not-just-dating. Not Joe is looking for a new job because he does not like his current one & there hasn't been much work there anyhow. He purchased a foreclosed home in the late spring or early summer and has been fixing that up to sell at a profit. We hope it gets done soon. Note to self: flipping a foreclosed home by one's self is a lot of work!

Joelle is still kickin'. She's quite fine and is again due for a haircut. Not too long ago she somehow escaped from her cage AND THE DOOR WAS STILL LOCKED. I am not exactly sure how that happened, but I know clamp the door closed at a different angle.

This past year I have grown in my fascination of growing vegetables and preserving them so I can eat "in season." I learned how to can!! Just yesterday I made 8 jars of jam, one of which was made from wild blackberries I picked myself! I learned that if one is to "put up" enough food for a whole winter, one needs to put up A LOT of food. I do not think I will have enough to last the whole winter, but that is quite alright. I dream that some day I can have a "homestead" where I have prolific vegetable and herb gardens, chickens, honey bees, a plot of berries, and a small orchard (and maybe even some goats or sheep or rabbits...??). But for now I will settle for a small step or two, such as...starting a dwarf apple tree & growing sprouts over the winter. I know where to buy the sprout-growing stuff, but I'm not so sure about the tree. I will also note that I believe keeping a homestead will take a significant amount of time - not something that I could do while, for example, being a postdoctoral researcher.

I still knit, although infrequently. Now that the weather is cool again, I'm feeling more motivated to do so. Christmas is coming, so I will need to get on Christmas knit-gifts very soon!

magic bunny

Hello everyone... To the few of you who read this, sorry I've been MIA for so long! :-( No dramatic, tragic things have occurred, I just have not blogged. Sure, life has been "busy," but it always is. It's more a matter of what I decide to prioritize. Lately, work has been the major priority, and it's amazing how much time one can spend working!

One of the things I've been learning (relearning?) in this season of extreme work is that some of the smallest things have the biggest importance. I've spoken before about cleaning. That's one of them. Still haven't gotten that entirely rooted in my brain yet. Another one is taking care of what one's been given -- and for me right now that includes a) my body (giving it enough rest, quality food, showers, visits to the doctor, etc.) and b) my rabbit, Joelle.

The other night I had some gal friends over for a "tea party" (we...sat around the table and drank tea. Not exactly a party, but it was good) and towards the end we somehow got to talking about Joelle and grooming her. I mentioned that it's possible to put rabbits in a "trance" to work on their bellies when grooming them, and then of course they wanted to see this amazing phenomenon. So I scooped up Joelle and laid her on her back and rubbed her nose, and sure enough her head lolled to the side and she was passed out.

In the midst of this all I realized that she's a big, huge mess. I know she's been matted for a while, but she hates being groomed and I don't like doing it, so we agree to just not do the grooming thing most of the time. But at this point...it was really bad. So after the tea party I spent a good couple hours working away at her major problem areas.

Angora rabbits typically shed their coats several times a year. If one doesn't brush them regularly - especially during the shedding period - the shed hair just gets incorporated into mats. It makes it sort of fun to brush out mats, because if you put a mat rake to a mat made out of hair that's already been shed, huge chunks of hair start just falling out as the mat is destroyed. I find it rather satisfying.

Another aspect of this shed is that if one were to actually groom the rabbit at the appropriate times, they could easily harvest all of that hair that's being shed because it just pulls out. I have never really done this with Joelle for various reasons -- usually I just cut her hair short every now and then. I actually didn't realize quite what this "harvest" meant until lately when I visited this website.

But, on this fateful night, it just so happened that Joelle was shedding, and as I brushed out the tangles behind her ears, her hair just kept falling out and falling out. It was like magic! So, I thought...this would be a prime time to see just what happens when I harvest in the "right" way.

Joelle wasn't a huge fan of this, and we'd already been in grooming mode for at least 1.5 hours -- producing this fine mess...
...so I didn't get far. But...you can see the results:

light

One of my favorite things about this time of year is celebrating Advent. In the four weeks (or six, depending on which church calendar one is using) leading up to Christmas, I think it's great to take a little time to light a candle, meditate on the weekly themes of Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace (or whichever colors the particular tradition uses).

It's especially nice because this time of year can be really busy. I know it's been true for me this year!!

I learned something new about Advent this year: traditionally, it is a period of fasting and penitence while waiting for the 'coming' (which is what 'advent' means). I feel like the way my world's spinning around so fast, fasting and penitence are the last things I have time for! So I've been grateful for the moments I've taken on the weekends to light the candles one by one and pause for a bit.

The Advent candle lights are just one of the lights I love about Christmas. I enjoy lights on trees, candles in windows, the welcoming glow of a home filled with friends hosting a Christmas party. And a cozy fire.Warmth, cheer, and security are held in light, especially on fReEzInG cold days like today here in central Pennsylvania.

yes, please!

Drool.

Yarn. Sheep. Needles.

I love knitting!

Actually, considering how much I claim to love knitting, I don't really do much of it. Perhaps what is more accurate, then, is that I love READING about knitting and examining patterns of knitted objects and thinking about what would be fun to knit.

On the cold, snowy night that was Monday I busted out the sweater I affectionately call my Barney sweater. It is the first sweater that I made, and it's VERY amusing. I began knitting because I get sick of having to buy menswear in order to have the sleeves come to the proper place on my arm. Case in point -- the following picture is of me wearing an elbow-length shirt.I didn't know much at all about sweater construction or how to translate a pattern from a bunch of instructions on a piece of paper to the concept of a finished garment. And I guess that is why I decided to add a couple inches to the sleeve pattern's instructions. I don't precisely know why I thought I needed to excitedly begin my first sweater following the largest size on the pattern, but I am guessing it had something to do with the combination of not understanding the concept of ease, not knowing my body measurements, and not shopping for clothes much and thus not knowing my size.

These two decisions proved to be mistakes.

The result was a very large, very acrylic, very purple sweater that has very long sleeves.I'm not able to capture a picture of myself showing just how huge this sweater is, but I'll tell you this: if I roll the sleeves up 3 inches, the sleeves still come down to the knuckle on my thumb. This is in large part because the sleeves are joined to the body of the sweater a good 5 to 6 inches away from my flesh. I suppose that if I were going for oversized, this would be a PERFECT sweater. However, that was NOT what I was going for.

Despite my rather disastrous first sweater experience, I have gone on to make several more, and all fit me quite wonderfully, thanks. Good lesson the first time!

While sitting in Big Barney on Monday, I pulled out an Interweave Knits issue and read an article about Kate Gilbert. Let me put in that what I was supposed to be doing was working on the black socks I'm hoping to have done by mid-December (neither have made it past the heel yet...ergh!). If I would actually take up my knitting even half of the time I spend reading, dreaming, and plotting about knitting, I would have SO much knitwear...! Despite the small number in the Projects-Finished column of my mental spreadsheet-o-progress, I was surprised to find how many of her designs I have in fact knitted. I was also amazed at how many are on my list of things I want to knit. I then decided that I really like Kate Gilbert. Or at least her designs. I'm sure she's awesome, too, but I haven't really ever met her.

A bit more time-wasting led me to the new webzine she and friends have recently begun over at Twist Collective. Yeah. I am eating it up. I like so much about this project. I like most of the projects and love about 75% of them (this is a very large number for me...I am often convinced to buy a magazine if I can find 2 projects I would consider making). I love the graphics - the styling in the photos, the illustrations, the fact that there are multiple angles of garments so we can really see what they look like. I love the articles. I love the fact that it's paperless. And I love the advertisements for Good Things like yarn CSAs and giving small-business loans to women in Honduras. The 'zine isn't perfect, but it has a lot, lot, lot for me to love!

And with that...I think I'll go figure out what yarn I would like to use to make A Cardigan for Arwen.

finally...some (mostly) fo's!

Nothing inspires me to knit more than the following combination: cold weather, Christmas being on its way, and Harry Potter.

After a long hiatus from productive knitting, I seem to be back in the swing of things. It's chilly here - below-freezing weather 24 hours a day. I finally decided that it was cold enough to turn on the heater. Prior, I had been keeping warm with lots of layers and blankets and slippers and heated beverages. AND this:I'd like to say "AND these," being that typically items that go on one's hands are made in pairs. But I have only made one. And I haven't even really finished it - the pattern calls for some crochet edging...plus I didn't even take the time to weave in the yarn ends. BUT...it's not on needles anymore, and it's wearable. And it's REALLY WARM.

This is actually the left-hand mitt (...yes, I'm wearing it on my right hand...) from the Buffalo Girl pattern in the Interweave Knits Summer 2005 issue. Yeah, I've had that sitting around for a while... This is the mitt that I started four times because I would continually mess up the lace pattern. There's one part of the pattern (the thumb gusset) that I either don't understand or is written incorrectly and had to make up some instructions to get through. All's well that ends well: there is room enough for a thumb, and the thing isn't falling apart. The published instructions should be fine for the right-hand mitt, so I've really done all of the dirty work. ...I just need to start mitt two. This guy is ultra soft and warm thanks to its construction in Frog Tree alpaca. I didn't use nearly as much of the yarn as I thought I would, so I may even have enough to make the companion cowl neck-warmer. Suppose I'll leave that until after the second mitt, though.

So - one item done. What else...

Well, I zoned out of the Harry Potter world for a while and missed a bunch of the news. For one, I missed the fact that there is Harry Potter-inspired sock yarn to be had! I stumbled upon some while browsing a yarn store on my birthday. I actually thought that it must have been for sale for a long time because the choices that were left seemed kind of weird to me, but it seems that Tonks, Dumbledore, Hedwig, Lupin, Harry and Ron (together and separate), and Draco are indeed the choices. I was hoping to find a Hermione...and I felt kind of bad that my favorite colorway was indeed Draco. Anyhow, I also missed the fact that the next movie's release date was significantly changed and is not going to be out anytime very soon. I had told myself I would knit up a Hufflepuff scarf for the movie's release using some black and yellow yarn I've had sitting around for a long time. Then I found out the movie would be coming out in the summer and I decided that I should just knit the scarf anyhow. It's not done yet (and has actually been tossed aside...), but it's coming along. I'm using Alison's "HiP" pattern.
Simple and small seems to have been working, so I also cranked out a little sweater.I need to sew it together, but it's mostly ready to be gifted to someone to use as a Christmas ornament. If I can get my act together (a.k.a. organize my time in such a way that I can get a lot of knitting time in between now and December 25), I intend to have a sweater for several friends using this pattern based off of one from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

And in the meantime...some socks!What I end up doing with these will depend a lot on how quickly I can finish them and at what point I run out of yarn. I really like these socks - I'm using some Cherry Tree Hill superwash merino that I got from Ruth's sale and following a slightly-modified version of a toe-up pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. One sock is being made with yarn coming from the outside of the ball of yarn, the other with yarn from the inside. Most of the sock yarn I have worked with has been self-patterning, and I can't do the inside/outside thing to have two socks going at once that end up matching...but it's kind of nice to do with these particular guys. And I LOVE KNITTING SOCKS!!!! They make a great companion while standing in line for 90 minutes at the polling place on Election Day.

So, that's what I've been doing. Among other things. Like visiting Niagara Falls with Not Joe and another pal (not pictured).

a very great birthday

Not long ago Not Joe asked me what my best birthday was. I thought hard and realized that my favorite one was nothing flashy or full of "partying." It was my 21st birthday - and no, not because I got trashed at a bar. Some of my dearest friends gave me thoughtful gifts, and then my dad came and picked me up from college when my classes were over and we went to my first Detroit Red Wings game where I got to watch Dominik Hasek play goalie. He drove me back home, I went to bed, and the next day it was Saturday. I'm not sure if in that question Not Joe was trying to get some ideas for something nice to do for me, but if he was I think he probably didn't get much. ...Sorry!

My birthday is October 12, and this year it was on a Sunday. I think that it ranks up there in the top Best Birthdays I've had. I spent the weekend in Pittsburgh because Relient K was playing a concert there on my birthday -- PERFECT! As if that weren't enough, I felt like I was blessed the whole weekend long: Saturday I drove from State College to Pittsburgh through 2.5 hours of gorgeous tree-lined roads, all ablaze in their best fall colors; I spent the day with my dearest friend Michelle and then dined with old pals from the 'Burgh; Sunday I got to go to my old church and hear a sermon that calmed my fears about the crazy stock market; something I had been waiting for for a long time finally occurred; I was served brilliant Indian cuisine by my friend Poonam and received reassurance about some struggles at work while I was at her place; and Relient K played some of my all-time greatest songs AND finished their performance with a encore of "Deathbed," which, since my first hearing of it, I have thought would be amazing to see live (I was right). The drive back to State College took until about 2a.m., but that was okay.

Monday I was gifted with a joint-birthday dinner hosted by a good friend for myself and 2 other pals with birthdays within a week of each other. It was splendid to be served a lovingly prepared meal and play fun games with good folks.

My busy weekend schedule (and the fact that other things were going on Thursday and Friday before my birthday) caused Not Joe to do "his birthday thing" with me the Wednesday before. This entailed getting all dressed up and going to a very lovely Italian place. It was great. He asked me if I felt old now. I realized that I'm 28 and that does seem rather old in some ways. While "being old" at the age of 28 may be arguable, I have to say that I didn't exactly feel young when I got to the Relient K concert; the median age was approximately 14. I often ask myself, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" but perhaps I need to face the facts and conclude that...I am grown up.

:-)

fun with my shoulder

I began visiting a chiropractor about a year and a half ago. It has been a very delightful experience. The original issue that led me to the chiropractor has been solved through lots of very wonderful and skillful manipulation on the part of "Dr. Josh," but since then other issues have developed. The biggest and most persistent one is with my right shoulder.

I believe that the shoulder issue is mostly due to doing a lot of work on the computer and not doing so in a very ergonomic way. After making a few adjustments to my workstation (which, in many cases, was simply my LAP...certainly not a good way to be doing work for hours on end) during the writing of my dissertation, my problems subsided. However, then I moved away from Pittsburgh and adopted some new bad habits with the computer and also started talking for long periods of time on the phone and endured a lot of stress. The combination of these and probably other factors led me to a morning when I awoke and sat down on the couch and could not bear to put enough pressure on my upper back to get myself off of the couch - my shoulder and neck were in a HUGE amount of pain.

Thus, I found a new chiropractor. She's not the same as Dr. Josh, but she's okay. The shoulder certainly feels a lot better after I visit her. I ought to do some more exercises and stretches to make it so I don't HAVE to go see her to feel all right, but I am admittedly lazy and have not been very diligent in this matter.

Last week I had to cancel my Friday appointment with her, which meant that I went more than 7 days without an adjustment. By Sunday I was in pretty dire straights, so when I went over to Not Joe's to bum around and watch football at the bachelor pad he shares with 3 other guys, the pain had crept further down my spine so my lower back was also hurting. This all made me realize that I should absolutely not sink down into the couch cushions. Instead, I decided to be a good patient and lay on the floor with my legs bent and elevated. It was kind of weird, but it made me feel much better.

Eventually I was feeling okay enough to sit upright, so I carefully settled on the couch. My shoulder still wasn't quite right, but I set to work with some gentle knitting (yes! amazing! i'm knitting something!). I could tell something was just not in the right spot with my shoulder joint. After a few rounds on my circular knitting piece, I slowly lifted up my arm, and there came a huge "POP."

The guys looked over at me warily, and I smiled and said, "Wow, my shoulder feels a LOT better." It did. It felt perfect, in fact.

Not Joe's jaw dropped. "That was your shoulder?!"

It's nice to know that I can amaze guys with my fun joint noises.

knitting nowhere

Ergh!

It seems that the knitting muse has left me. I am having approximately zero luck with getting anything done. Well, that's probably because I am having approximately zero TIME to work on anything. It's interesting to me how my time is spent very differently with another person being important in my life - namely Not Joe. ...Perhaps I need to start toting my works-in-progress over to his place whenever I go hang out. We do a lot of sitting around talking, anyhow; I might as well knit while doing so.

Regardless of the time issue, there's also the previously mentioned (yes, from way back in July *whimper*) fact that nearly everything I was working on seems to be at a stage where the best option for it is to pull it all apart and begin again. I thought that I could use a quick project to motivate me back into knitting. I chose to make some hand warmers (a.k.a. fingerless gloves) out of alpaca. I adore alpaca, and I knew that fall and winter were on their ways and wouldn't it be lovely to have something soft and warm on the hands when the air became crisp? It's crispy now, but I have no hand warmers. I have started them four times, and then I mess up the simple lace pattern so terribly that the best option is to start all over. Not so cool. To steal a line from Relient K, "They say I've lost my Midas touch, what once turned to gold now turns to rust."

I am thinking I need a Knitting Weekend. Stop doing all the other things I am doing - work, road trips, cleaning my apartment, attacking Joelle's hair, sewing (more on that on another day), more work - and tell myself I have nothing I need to do except knit. ...But it sure is hard to convince me that it's okay to not do all of those other things and be allowed to do something...enjoyable. Wow, what a concept!

reality

I'm reading a novel. This does not seem to happen very often anymore. The last novel I read was the final Harry Potter book about a year ago. Actually, that may well be the last book I read, period! I pick up books here and there, but very infrequently do I actually get through more than about half of the book before I get distracted or lose interest. Talk about ADD!

Nevertheless, here I am reading a novel. (Although, to be honest, I'm thinking about tossing it aside and not reading any more of it, but that's mostly because the book is bothering me because it's kind of R-rated.) The thing about reading is that it can create a sort of alternative reality. A reader can get so engrossed in what is happening within the pages of the fictitious story that the story seems to be truly unfolding. When the reader is reading, she's entirely into what is happening to the characters. When the reader is not reading, she's thinking about the characters just like she would her friends or family - wondering what they're going to do next, trying to figure out why they acted a certain way... I suppose that's what makes good writing. But it's kind of scary.

While reading my current book, I've been engrossed in the main character's changing relationships with various other characters. I noticed today that I am giving perhaps more of my "reality attention" to the characters' interpersonal relations than my own! Not Joe is in China right now for work and has been gone for the past two weeks. Despite his frequent emails and online chats and calls, it's very different having him not here. In fact, when I strolled in the lab this morning and glanced at the picture of him and me that is on my desk, I felt astounded and bewildered: I'm dating this guy? ...What did I ever do to be so lucky?! I'm dating this guy? Since when do I date people? I only ever have had one boyfriend in my life (yes...I am 27...), and that was eight years ago and really kind of weird and only for three months. I'm dating this guy? He's pretty great. :-)

And...he feels very unreal right now, like just words in an email or on G-chat, like simply a voice on a less-than-perfect phone connection from the other side of the world, like a face in a photograph, like a fictitious someone out of a novel. The unrealness of it brought me the shock: I'm really dating this guy? Truly. Woah. Pinch me. Some part of me is afraid to say it or write it down, because maybe by declaring that I'm dating Not Joe will somehow nullify it, curse it, end it.

The reality of it all is that he is real and we are really dating and he is coming back soon. His flight leaves Beijing in 12 or so hours. He's (presumably/hopefully) sleeping now, and then he'll wake up and get on a plane, and then I'll be picking him up at the airport in State College tomorrow night, God willing. I have been waiting for tomorrow night for the past two weeks. There are many eager questions. What will he say? Will he be dog-tired from the 24+ hours of travel? Will the flights be delayed and I'll end up grumpily waiting in the airport? What will it be like to see him again? What will it be like for him to be tangibly REAL again? Reality is, without a doubt, better than fiction.

Just like in a novel, all I can do is keep trucking along, getting through one "page" after another, letting the story unfold at its own pace. So...I will wait and see what is on the upcoming pages!

So...you want to see? Hee hee. I apologize for my giddiness. I bet it's pretty cute, though.

defining

This is a little randomocity (that's not really a word), but here goes.

I love words. And over the past week I've been struck with multiple moments of love towards them. Today when it occurred it was enough to send me over here to blog about it.

Every day I receive in my emailbox a note from Anu Garg who publishes A Word A Day. He includes a word, its definition and etymology, and a few examples of its use. Today's word is one I've not heard of before but am entirely grateful that it exists. It's a word that describes something that I find very difficult to put into words: a feeling of resentment and hostility accompanied by the lack of means to express or act upon it. The word is "ressentiment," pronounced Frenchly ruh-san-tee-MAH with the final syllable being nasal. How many times have I felt this way and wanted to say that's how I feel but have been entirely unable to say so?! Wooh! I love words that can succinctly and accurately describe things!

Anu also includes a quote, which has nothing to do with the word. Today's quote addresses a question I've been pondering recently: What is love? (Yes, every time I ask this question the song come into my head... It's a bit distracting.) Here's what essayist Michel de Montaigne has to say about it: "If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I." Ah. So sweet. So accurate. Love is not reasonable and is not able to be reasoned, so it certainly cannot have a definition that really is definitive.

My final thought for the day is that there are words that don't exist but we think they do. Just yesterday I was going to write the word "strategery" - you know, cunning, tactical skill, the quality you must employ in order to successfully carry out a good strategy. But...it turns out that it's not a word. So why in the world do I think it is?! Do you know who made this word that is not a word? A fake George W. Bush. James Downey, writer for Saturday Night Live, created it for a skit poking fun at Bush's invention of and misuse of words. Sad thing is, the fake word has actually now been adopted by the White House. Yow. And all of this tricks me into thinking it's actually a word. No fair!

...Can someone explainify that to me!?!

alterations and another mystery

For Labor Day weekend I set out to finish revisions for a paper I submitted months ago, cut Joelle's hair all off, do all of the dishes, and unpack boxes that have been sitting in my bedroom since I got here in April. I also intended to get a fairly good chunk of work done in the lab.

At the end of the weekend, what I had in fact done was...play the Sims 2 for a good 12 hours, chill with friends on Saturday and Sunday nights and all afternoon Monday, have ice cream and coffee with coworkers, wash half of the dishes, cut about a quarter of Joelle's hair so that she looks rather insane, write about one sentence for the paper and take out about ten sentences, and rearrange all of the furniture in my apartment.

Hm.

The good news is that somewhere in the midst of the half-hearted haircut and the major change in layout, Joelle seems to be making it into her litter box much better. It is also possible that my presence in the apartment (as opposed to the lab) for much of the weekend contributed to her success. I have also been slipping in some raisins and outstanding grapes when she gets treats for good behavior. In any case, something seems to be working.

Back at work, another mystery exists. In the history of my lab's working with my bacterium, there has only been one or two instances where there has been successful growing of the bacteria on what we call agar plates. They're sort of like Jell-o in a Petri dish. My bacteria only grow when there is no oxygen, and they like very specific growth conditions (a.k.a. what's in the Jell-o). Apparently I am not providing them with what they want, because they are not growing. And that is not good.

The question is WHY. There are several possibilities. One is that there is oxygen in the place where I'm trying to grow the bacteria, and that would make the bacteria die. Another is that the agar plates have not been prepared correctly, which could mean that the ingredients are slightly wrong, they got burned in the process of being made, THEY have oxygen in them, or something else. And it is also possible that there is both a problem with oxygen in the growth chamber and issues with the agar plates.

Slowly but surely clues are coming in. First, the chamber that I thought had no oxygen in it seems to in fact have oxygen. It depends on whether I look at the electronic oxygen sensor (which says there isn't any) or at the low-tech oxygen sensing paper strip (which says there IS). I tend to believe the paper strip since when I put excess non-oxygen gas into the growth chamber and overpressure it so that the rubber gloves that are part of the contraption blow up like balloons and stick out, the gloves deflate back to normal pressure within a few hours. This indicates a leak. Not Joe, being a mechanical engineer and rather handy, stopped by the lab and helped me in this investigation and agrees with me that there's a leak. He's funny: he wanted to figure out in which part of the multi-part chamber the leak existed, and he asked if I had a stethoscope so he could listen for leaks. Why in the world would I just randomly have a stethoscope!? Apparently a screwdriver works just as well, because he used that instead and achieved his diagnosis.

Another clue is that agar plates stored in a separate non-oxygen chamber have a high pH. This is bad since the bacteria don't like high pH and will die if exposed to it. What is kind of annoying is that the chamber in which the pH is wrong actually has no oxygen, which is what I want. But since it has nitrogen gas and not the carbon dioxide that would make the agar plates be at a normal pH, it's useless.

I also realized that the previous work done with the bacteria in our lab was performed in a chamber that detected oxygen using the same oxygen detector that seems to be giving erroneous readings in the leaky chamber. That old chamber also had some odd glove pressurization issues, so it's quite possible that it, too, was leaking and had oxygen inside and was killing the bacteria.

So, at least things are starting to make some sense. The long and short of it all is that there are probably multiple issues going on. Now all I need is one simple way to fix all of those issues. ...Getting that simple way is probably not going to be very easy, though!

Thank goodness I took a class in forensic science in college, eh? I'll get to the bottom of this, and hopefully within a couple weeks I'll have bacteria growing AND all of Joelle's bathroom habits contained in one location. Hopefully I will not need to rearrange all of the furniture in the lab in order to do so...!

behavior problems

My poor Joelle... I think that something is wrong with her, but since she is a rabbit she cannot tell me what the issue is. Thus I must conduct some detective work and attempt to interpret her clues.

me? have behavior problems?

Her behavior has changed since we moved to State College, and that is what has me concerned. The major concern is her use (or lack thereof) of the litter box. In my place in Pittsburgh Joelle had a box in her "house" and another one in the bathroom. She preferred the one in the bathroom, and often when I would come home and let her out of the house she would dash straight away into the bathroom. When I moved to State College I set up a box in the bathroom and showed it to her and even laid out carpet leading up to the box so she would not have to put her furry paws on the slippery tile. However, she has yet to use that box. In addition, not too long after I moved (within a month) she started using other parts of her house instead of her box as the place to pee. This is the most troubling part - and the most annoying. After a couple incidents that first month she's been pretty good, but in the past month she's been pretty consistently leaving spots in the corners that are not where her litter box is. I don't quite know what to do. One day this week I got exasperated and shoved the bathroom box into the house, also...leaving pretty much no room to do much of anything except sit in a litter box. That stopped the peeing-not-in-the-box thing. For about two days. Now it's back and apparently is spreading to any corner she wants.

The peeing is concerning enough, but also in the past week I have caught her chewing up the fabric on my footstool (Curses!!! That's a discontinued slipcover color, naughty rabbit!!) and digging at the carpet near the glass slider (trying to get outside???). She's just been acting WEIRD!

Several possibilities come to my mind:

• The apartment is smaller than the one in Pittsburgh, so maybe she feels cramped
• I am not home as much as I was in Pittsburgh, so maybe she is lonely and bored
• Her hair is a big huge matted mess, so maybe she is feeling miserable about being unkempt
• Moving probably stressed her out a lot, and maybe that and all the other things have just put her over the edge

Now...what do to about any of those things?

• I could add on to her house and/or rearrange the furniture to make it seem more roomy (or move to a bigger place...haha, not really)
• I could get another rabbit, although that would make it even MORE cramped!
• I could terrorize her by cutting off all of her hair so she's clean again, or I could even pay a lot to have the vet do it while Jo is sedated (this seems like a very tempting option...although the since rabbits are tricky the anesthesia scares me and I feel kind of like it's a cop-out and that I'm a bad mom who can't brush her own kid's hair and that it costs a lot)
• I could do yoga with her...? Or see if there's bunny Prozac. Or maybe at least do some cuddle sessions, although she doesn't really like cuddling

I suppose I'll try the easier ones first and see what happens. Any thoughts?

on campus

Not only are students prevalent these days on the Penn State campus, the regulars are here, too. All summer long I've been greeted day in and day out by rabbits and squirrels bustling about in the grass and underbrush. These things are the tamest wild animals you can imagine. They can be pretty funny, too: one day Not Joe and I were walking down a path when all of a sudden a trash can started making noise - and out popped a squirrel!

One of the other graduate students in the lab told me that there's a "legend" about the squirrels and rabbits. They are reportedly reincarnations of devoted alumni who now get to live out their days on the university campus they hold most dear. I like this tale simply because it gives an explanation for the 5-toed paw print that is one of the emblems representing the Penn State Nittany lion. I had been befuddled by this print for some time because felines do not have 5-toed prints. In fact, when I looked into it, only small mammals such as minks, otters, and RABBITS and SQUIRRELS have 5 toes showing up in their tracks. So, there you have it - the 5-toed print is actually that of the Penn State alumni-turned-lawn-crawler!

I was astounded the other day on my walk back from Afternoon Coffee to see another wild animal casually hanging out on campus, fittingly seated on a branch in a tree in the Peace Garden.Way cool! I love my neighbors here on campus!

school's on

Woah.

I moved here to Penn State at the end of April, which happens to be the end of the school year. I watched undergraduates dragging their feet and begrudgingly going to final exams. And then they were gone - SUMMER!

But now... Now, my friends, they are back. And with a vengeance!

Suddenly the population of the town of State College roughly doubled. What was once a sleepy town is now bustling. Traffic has picked up in all senses of the word: there are more cars, buses, bicycles, and pedestrians. Part of me thinks I ought to start getting up earlier and reaching campus before it becomes too crazy in the mornings (another part of me really likes to sleep).

It will take some adjusting, to be sure. Also what is sure that, despite the fact that busy-ness around me can be a bit stressful and annoying, I am glad that the "kids" are back in Happy Valley. It just seems right.

not joe

Well.

Back in January I received some flowers from Trader Joe's when I shopped there for the first time. So thoughtful and lovely. They brought a wonderful touch to my apartment.

But now Joe is gone...no Trader Joe's in State College. No real hope of getting any more flora from him.

However, here in State College there is someone even better. Much better than the individual to whom I wrote an unsent letter to last week... And from this Not Joe, I received these yesterday...I agree with Herman: "Something tells me I'm into something good."

Just had to share. :-D

knit love

Despite what it may have sounded like from my most recent post, life is good. Real good. Really, really good, in fact. There are some bumpy spots, but all in all life's a great thing.

Today I got a message on Facebook (yes...I have become One of Those...) telling me that someone was giving away ice cream bars as part of a promo for a bioreagent supply demonstration. Since I wasn't doing anything at all except sipping coffee, I went over and checked it out. As I meandered across the courtyard to the appropriate location, I thought, "Now...this is IT. Simple pleasures. The fact that I can get all excited about the prospect of free ice cream...that's great!" It is. Got to take the blessings and gifts that are given and receive them with thanks.

Another simple pleasure that has been sorely lacking in my life over the past several months is knitting. There has been a little bit here and there, but nothing major. It's sometimes very humiliating for me to read others' knitting blogs and see them whip out socks and sweaters and baby hats and all sorts of stuff. They get more finished objects in one week than I do in a year. I've pondered why exactly I am not knitting as much now. Was I just a fad knitter? I've heard that yarn stores are closing their doors by the hundreds because the interest is just not there anymore.

I think I'm not a fad knitter. I think there are several things that are keeping me from my wool. The first is that I wrote a dissertation, moved, started a new job, and went on a 2-week international journey in the matter of a month and a half to start out the summer. The second is that there are a lot of new demands on my time. The third is that I have only a 5 minute bus ride to work instead of the previous 30 minute one. The fourth is that I am not terribly intrigued by any of the items I currently have on the needles.

What are those items, pray tell, since I never write about them anymore? Well, there's a vest/tank thing made in brioche stitch. I don't actually know where this is located in my apartment at the moment, so it would be kind of hard to do any work on it. There's a pair of socks, but after forgetting to bring the directions for the heel (and it was a new type of heel for me) when I went on a road trip and subsequently knitting a much longer heel flap than anyone would ever need, I have concluded that I am going to rip the whole thing because I was not really liking it that well to begin with and if I'm makings socks for myself I might as well like them. I had pretty much finished a hat (about seven months ago...or more...) but now would rather use the yarn for something else, so that's probably going to get ripped, too. And I had started a sweater with some sweet yarn, but now I have no idea why I ever liked the pattern and think I will rip that out, too. That leaves me with a cabled raglan, which I like quite well actually. I have finished the chest/shoulder part, so now most of it is just stockinette in the round and that goes quite quickly. But then I found out that I had messed up some of the cables very minorly...and I'm not entirely satisfied with the way the increases turned out along the shoulders... Maybe I'll rip that, too, because I don't entirely love the neckline either and believe I could improve it, and I think there's some inter-dye-lot funkiness going on that I did not anticipate. That stinks, because I spent a lot of time on it.

In any relationship there's that "hey, this is cool and new and great!" time...and then that wears off. I think that's where I've gotten with the knitting. Our relationship is not over, it's just lost some of that novelty. ...We are finished with the honeymoon...

I think I need a shot in the arm! Something that's quick and useful and fun to make. ...But what?? I guess that if worse comes to worse, I could try my hand at this. Quick. Fun. ...Useful? Hee hee.

...But I'm open to other suggestions.