Tuesday, September 30, 2014
a ruby a day
sunday night:
yes, this amazon.com box has been transformed into a toy by cutting holes in it and putting a treat inside. miss ruby likes to hunt for treats and try to open cabinets, so this seemed like a good thing for her little brain. turns out it was a really HARD toy, though, because ruby was unsuccessful in getting the treat, even after putting in a good hour of work at 3am. so...i made the holes a little larger, and the larger hole was made big enough for her head to get inside (turns out, not having opposable thumbs is a problem when scooping treats out). and then she got her head stuck. so i made that hole even bigger, and now the toy is fun and the goal is achievable. whew.
sunday night cat lady fun!
yes, this amazon.com box has been transformed into a toy by cutting holes in it and putting a treat inside. miss ruby likes to hunt for treats and try to open cabinets, so this seemed like a good thing for her little brain. turns out it was a really HARD toy, though, because ruby was unsuccessful in getting the treat, even after putting in a good hour of work at 3am. so...i made the holes a little larger, and the larger hole was made big enough for her head to get inside (turns out, not having opposable thumbs is a problem when scooping treats out). and then she got her head stuck. so i made that hole even bigger, and now the toy is fun and the goal is achievable. whew.
sunday night cat lady fun!
Sunday, September 28, 2014
a ruby a day
82 degrees seemed like a good enough break in the heat to spend some time with Ruby on the balcony. Ruby thinks otherwise and would prefer to survey the world from the safety of the indoors. Silly girl.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
really interesting, and something i hadn't thought of: the cold, hard truth about the ice bucket challenge
Monday, September 22, 2014
what i'm listening to right now
yes, my musical tastes sometimes mirror a teenage girl.
"amnesia," by 5 seconds of summer:
"amnesia," by 5 seconds of summer:
Sunday, September 21, 2014
it may be fall in other parts of the country, but it was 91 in houston today. and my air conditioning broke. and the AC repairman couldn't fix it today, but gave me a few-hours-on, one-hour-off scheme to keep me semi-cool, which is actually working, and my apartment is no longer 85 degrees. more like 80. but i have a fan, and if (when) i get through the night the repairman is coming back tomorrow to fix me up for real. ruby spent the day being semi-happy (purring when petted) but not moving from the cooler parts of the apartment where she lay sprawled out. good kitty.
oh, the fun of living in houston. fall starts on tuesday, huh?
oh, the fun of living in houston. fall starts on tuesday, huh?
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
how to tell someone's age when all you know is her name
fivethirtyeight hits it out of the park with this one - i love it! statistics + pop culture = awesome.
fivethirtyeight hits it out of the park with this one - i love it! statistics + pop culture = awesome.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
i am…
…feeling sad about dropping ruby off at the boarding place for a few days while i go to a conference. but the new lady there is persevering and making ruby be her friend even after ruby was a BITCH to her the first time they met. i'm glad the new lady isn't holding it against her. at least while i'm around.
…feeling victorious at beating my friend josh at fantasy football this week. and though i do not care one lick about the NFL, i have found myself discussing recent events more than once in my government class. my attempts at deep conversation ("why would a woman stay with a man who abuses her?" "what's the difference between punishing your child and child abuse?") have gone…okay…in my class. even if they aren't thinking as critically as i want them to, i hope some of our conversations are sticking with them.
…feeling so excited to see two groups of fantastic friends in october, even though one of the plane tickets cost about $200 more than i wanted to pay. pennies may need to be slightly pinched this month, but it will be totally worth it to spend two long weekends in a row with good good friends.
…feeling sad about dropping ruby off at the boarding place for a few days while i go to a conference. but the new lady there is persevering and making ruby be her friend even after ruby was a BITCH to her the first time they met. i'm glad the new lady isn't holding it against her. at least while i'm around.
…feeling victorious at beating my friend josh at fantasy football this week. and though i do not care one lick about the NFL, i have found myself discussing recent events more than once in my government class. my attempts at deep conversation ("why would a woman stay with a man who abuses her?" "what's the difference between punishing your child and child abuse?") have gone…okay…in my class. even if they aren't thinking as critically as i want them to, i hope some of our conversations are sticking with them.
…feeling so excited to see two groups of fantastic friends in october, even though one of the plane tickets cost about $200 more than i wanted to pay. pennies may need to be slightly pinched this month, but it will be totally worth it to spend two long weekends in a row with good good friends.
Monday, September 15, 2014
what i'm listening to right now
"the boxer," by jerry douglas, featuring mumford & sons and paul simon:
this is such a beautiful rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs. i love everything about this version, not least the dobro in the background.
this is such a beautiful rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs. i love everything about this version, not least the dobro in the background.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
the NFL has a bigger problem than i thought: what the numbers show about NFL player arrests. "one NFL player in 40 is arrested in a given year"?!
a Ruby a day
Lazy Sunday with Miss Ruby! I love it. Now I have to peel her off of me so I can go to yoga...
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
doctor.
this is a poignant mini-memoir of the author's mother. sad and beautiful and absolutely worth a read.
this is a poignant mini-memoir of the author's mother. sad and beautiful and absolutely worth a read.
Monday, September 8, 2014
what i'm listening to right now
when i went to boarding school in 11th grade, the girls on my hall were this amazing group of young women who were funny and goofy and sweet and smart and we had great adventures together. i had been the "smart kid" at my old high school, but here i was an average kid, and i loved that - loved being surrounded by other smart kids and fitting in in a way i hadn't at my old school. in a life where i am incredibly lucky to have made special special friends in many places, these friends were perhaps my first special friends.
this boarding school had a ton of homework, and my life was school and homework and soccer and hanging out with friends in our dorm rooms and occasional forays into town for a cheap burrito. my memory of 11th grade also includes a LOT of time spent in front of my hand-me-down desktop computer, playing heroes of might and magic with my friend sara, with katie occasionally sprawled out on the bed next to us offering her critique of the situation. tracy chapman's self-titled album played on the CD player perched on the shelf above the computer, and if the game was particularly good we would have to push play again when the album ended. this sounds like the smallest pleasure in life, but it was awesome.
this morning i heard sam smith's version of "fast car" on the radio and fell in love with that song all over again.
you know those songs that take you immediately back to a specific time and place? this one takes me to 2C in 1999 and to the friends who surrounded me there.
this boarding school had a ton of homework, and my life was school and homework and soccer and hanging out with friends in our dorm rooms and occasional forays into town for a cheap burrito. my memory of 11th grade also includes a LOT of time spent in front of my hand-me-down desktop computer, playing heroes of might and magic with my friend sara, with katie occasionally sprawled out on the bed next to us offering her critique of the situation. tracy chapman's self-titled album played on the CD player perched on the shelf above the computer, and if the game was particularly good we would have to push play again when the album ended. this sounds like the smallest pleasure in life, but it was awesome.
this morning i heard sam smith's version of "fast car" on the radio and fell in love with that song all over again.
you know those songs that take you immediately back to a specific time and place? this one takes me to 2C in 1999 and to the friends who surrounded me there.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
with the help of my friend kate ("personal shopper" should be on her business card!), i bought my bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding! becky is letting all of us choose whatever navy dress we want…and half an hour at nordstrom yielded a great one. hooray! it feels good to check that off the list.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Tomorrow is a jeans day at work. Somehow that restores my desire to go to work tomorrow. We had an evening parent program on Wednesday night and I'm dragging because of it...but getting to wear jeans tomorrow will make up for it. (Not sure how that math works out, but it does. I am hugely jealous of any of you who can wear jeans to work daily!) Come on weekend! Hurry up and get here!
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
august: 20, 21, & 22
this month i read:
salt: a world history, by mark kurlansky (this is a book i bought last fall when i was teaching world history and wanted to do some professional development reading. the book goes chronologically through world history and talks about the significance of salt to different civilizations. parts of this book are fascinating, and i learned a great deal. but i discovered that i only care about 150 pages worth of information about salt, and this book is 450 pages long. so. i actually wouldn't recommend this unless you have a passion for salt and/or for random-ish world history. i definitely did some skimming as i got to the end...)
moonwalking with einstein, by joshua foer (i loved this book! it was recommend to me by my grad school friend dominique, and it is a super quick read. the author explains how normal human memory works and also how to expand your working memory, all while recounting how he trained for and competed in the US memory championships. but the book isn't so much a step-by-step summary of what he does while training - it's much better than that. and, i mean, this book has a pretty awesome title, so that's just one more reason why you should read it.)
cavedweller, by dorothy allison (thank god this book is over. okay, i don't really mean that. but i had fond memories of reading bastard out of carolina, by the same author, and i had this on my bookshelf so i picked it up. there's nothing wrong with this book, but the pace is slow and this isn't a book that was on my hundreds-of-books-long "to read" list - it's just a book i owned, so i felt some obligation to read it. does this happen to you guys? inner monologue: "i should read cavedweller - which i own - instead of buying the book i really want to read (winter of the world, the second book in a ken follett series)." well, people, the moment i finished cavedweller i bought winter of the world and it is so good and totally worth the money. so: this was not a review of cavedweller, but that is okay. this is instead permission to read the books you really want to read. practicality be damned.)
salt: a world history, by mark kurlansky (this is a book i bought last fall when i was teaching world history and wanted to do some professional development reading. the book goes chronologically through world history and talks about the significance of salt to different civilizations. parts of this book are fascinating, and i learned a great deal. but i discovered that i only care about 150 pages worth of information about salt, and this book is 450 pages long. so. i actually wouldn't recommend this unless you have a passion for salt and/or for random-ish world history. i definitely did some skimming as i got to the end...)
moonwalking with einstein, by joshua foer (i loved this book! it was recommend to me by my grad school friend dominique, and it is a super quick read. the author explains how normal human memory works and also how to expand your working memory, all while recounting how he trained for and competed in the US memory championships. but the book isn't so much a step-by-step summary of what he does while training - it's much better than that. and, i mean, this book has a pretty awesome title, so that's just one more reason why you should read it.)
cavedweller, by dorothy allison (thank god this book is over. okay, i don't really mean that. but i had fond memories of reading bastard out of carolina, by the same author, and i had this on my bookshelf so i picked it up. there's nothing wrong with this book, but the pace is slow and this isn't a book that was on my hundreds-of-books-long "to read" list - it's just a book i owned, so i felt some obligation to read it. does this happen to you guys? inner monologue: "i should read cavedweller - which i own - instead of buying the book i really want to read (winter of the world, the second book in a ken follett series)." well, people, the moment i finished cavedweller i bought winter of the world and it is so good and totally worth the money. so: this was not a review of cavedweller, but that is okay. this is instead permission to read the books you really want to read. practicality be damned.)
Monday, September 1, 2014
a Ruby a day
Ruby has learned how to open a drawer in my bathroom...the drawer where her toys are stored. On Saturday she made quite a ruckus at 6am, and upon investigating I found her standing on the trash can, halfway in the drawer, retrieving a toy and then carrying it from the bathroom into my bedroom. So that was day one: two feather toys removed from the drawer. Yesterday in the wee hours of the morning she removed a third feather toy and a glittery green ball. Today, a ball with feathers attached.
What will tomorrow bring?!? I told Mom about this and she was like "don't put them away! She worked so hard to get them out!" (This is why I love my mom.) So right now the bathroom floor is littered with toys that Ruby selected for some MacGyver-like task...or because she is obsessed with the feather toys.
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