Some random happenings

School

I’m reaching the halfway point in my anthropology class.  I turned in my first school paper in 12 years last week and I’ve got to say that it’s not exactly my best work.  I’m good at reviewing and proofreading for other people but I have a hard time disconnecting from my own stuff.  I had to summarize a scholarly journal article.  I chose one about the religious and social lives of infants of the Beng people of the Ivory Coast.  I’m hoping this paper was at least 80% coherent.  My next assignment is to “research a culture of [my] choosing and report on some aspect of social structure discussed in this module.”  I think I might do either Mennonites or Hasidic Jews.  This assignment will be posted in our discussion groups’ message boards and we all need to question and comment on our groupmates’ stuff.  So in addition to having to read eleventy-jillion articles in addition to three chapters of our textbook, I also have to read nine other students’ research.  I just don’t know what I’d do if I was taking more than one class right now.

Skating

I’m going to be playing roller derby again – yay!  This time it will be with other roller derby refugees retirees in a drama-free, business-free, spectator-free zone.  I’m so fucking jazzed about this.  All I want to do is skate and hit girls for exercise.  I don’t have time for committees or events or WFTDA or any of that bullshit.

Schedule

Derby will happen Wednesday nights and D&D happens on Thursdays so I’ll be getting out of the house way more than I’m used to.  I’m sure at some point something will have to give but I’m going to stick it out.

Dog/Poop

We’re dogsitting our niece-dog Nora indefinitely.  She celebrated her arrival by taking a giant dump in the yard three seconds after she walked through the gate.  Now we’ll have twice as many piles for Lily to point at and say, “poop?”  I can find no end to the humor in this.  Any time Lily finds something dirty on the floor, like cat puke, mud trailed in from the garden, or a stray pile of leaves in the yard, she points and says, “a poop?” in the cutest voice you can imagine.  No Lily, that is not a poop.  Yes Lily, that is a poop.  She will also stop everything she is doing, grab her diapered butt, and say matter-of-factly, “poop.”  

Lily

She is definitely trying to string words together now.  Almost everything she says relates back to Lily, Mama, and Dada.  “Lily likes that.”  “Mama’s shoes.”  “Lily’s shoes.”  “Dada’s food.”  We’re going to have to get used to having a large dog in the house now.  Lily has already been knocked down a few times by Nora so we have to be extra vigilant.  We discovered this last week that she’s terrified of bugs and worms.  We’ve had a ton of moth caterpillars in the yard this year and despite me trying to tell her that caterpillars are baby butterflies and the Very Hungry Caterpillar wasn’t scary at all, she seems horrified that I would ever pick one up.  I thought I almost had her at “baby butterflies,” though.  She said, “babies?” and her eyes lit up, then ran away again.  I try to get her to look at the worms in the garden but those are too scary too.  I have to do a sweep of the sandbox before she’ll play in it to make sure there aren’t any lost beetles or caterpillars in there.  Hopefully she’ll grow out of this with exposure.  That shouldn’t be too hard because our backyard is a bug wonderland.  I saw the first juvenile earwigs of the season this weekend.  We seriously need to get some backyard chickens because I’m getting sick of having to stomp on them.

Garden

The garden is finally fully planted.  I’ve also got squash growing on the sunny side of the house and along the fence in the backyard.  I’ve got a few leftover plants that I haven’t decided on what to do with yet.  I’ve promised a tomato seedling to my D&D host.  I have a ton more tomato plants, a couple squash, and some various herbs that I don’t have room for.  The lavender seedlings I started are doing better than the last few years’ attempts but I’m not sure where to put them where they won’t get overwhelmed by the creeping charlie, grass, or wild violet that grows rampant in our front yard.  The front is looking amazing this year because our lilies seem to be spreading themselves around, our irises are gigantic, and a couple of unnamed plants are flowering pink and yellow to break up the massive hostas that all need to be split.