Pearl, the lovely, gentle, petite husky who rules over this house, had an altercation with a skunk very late last night that left our house absolutely reeking. Her owner, my roommate Ken, had to take an important flight first thing this morning and tried to rinse her off around 2 AM, to absolutely no effect, and then skedaddled with his be-skunked suitcase and all. So, Ms. E and I combined hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap according to a recipe found online and wrestled the stinky beast into the bathtub for her libations. Half an hour later, she was much improved, but we've had all the windows open all day and all the doors open... except Ken's, because during the night and morning, Pearl had been confined in there to try to lessen her effect on the rest of the house. So his room is still a danger zone, but the rest of the house is becoming more livable.
I even turned shaman and bound up some of Ms E's dried lavender into a smudge, lit it on fire and wafted the smoke convincingly around the house. It helped a lot, and was a bit more pleasant than Febreeze. Pearl has been quite self-pitying all day, although after her bath she actually seemed very relieved!
I am so excited! To begin at the beginning (and thereby build d r a m a) ... My friend Genevieve, who works for Google Books and who was an English major with me back east in college, has a super cool blog that I like to read as often as possible. This girl is one of the funniest people I have ever met (we were in an improv group together in college, and I spent most of our performances trying not to break out laughing at her utter hilarity), and a great writer, and she does cool stuff to link publishers and libraries with Google Books, AND she finds really great things on the internet, which she posts at her blog, piglets and fishes.
This is where the amazing part comes in. Genevieve posted the best video today, which I am embedding below, too. I loved it. I watched the whole thing, all the way to the credits. And THEN I saw that the people who created the video are the super creative, totally talented, artistic-from-head-to-toe couple Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp and Sean Ohlenkamp.
And then I may have made a little shriek of glee, because Lisa and I went to high school together, were in loads of classes together, mock trial together, etc etc, and I consider her one of my oldest, closest friends, and supremely gifted into the bargin. She and Sean moved to Toronto last year, where PDK and I visited them in September (insert long story here involving PDK's cousin's wedding and a Mustang convertible). Now Lisa and her husband, who is an artist and graphic designer himself, get to share a studio and be creative together. Lisa has a blog, Blonderland, where she shares her art and the secrets of yummy vegan cooking, and sells her drawings and crocheted creations on etsy under the name blonderland as well: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Blonderland/. I love the weird wiles of the internet that have allowed one of my favorite people find another of my favorite people, and then I get to bask in the sunshiny happiness of it all, and now so do you!
OK, now for their awesome, bibliophile-pleasing video
Call me what you will, but I hear "union" and it makes me think of the US's days of manufacturing strength, of the power in numbers, and of the little people banding together to support each other against those wishing to exploit them. This class struggle is something that is particularly pertinent to remember, in my opinion, when we know that it's the billionaire Koch brothers who have been financing the governor of Wisconsin and encouraging him to take down the unions there.
So when I hear on the radio about various Tea Party-led efforts to take unions down in Wisconsin and Ohio, with a focus on the public sector, it makes me wonder how our supposedly democratic values have led us to this. And simultaneously, in Michigan, the Detroit schools are getting their legs cut out from under them -- just as I marveled about California's cuts to the UC system: when has cutting back on education ever helped a people succeed?
I may be especially sensitive to these events because I have been in a TA union for the last six years, and that union has made sure I was paid fairly, received health care, and has generally made me feel that in a big system, I have a voice. I feel lucky, as what happened at New York University under President Bush, stripping grad students of the right to organize, removes most of the few rights we have as employees, and any pull we might have.
The Huffington Post has a cool feature: best signs from the protest in Wisconsin! I think the first one is my favorite. I just hope that the power of the protests in the Middle East and the American Midwest sends a message that a nation is not a group of individuals, but a collective, and that we are powerful when we stand together.
I am working three jobs right now: one of them is as a "reader" working for the University of California at the wage a barista would make, grading the papers of the best and brightest in an upper division English class, which means I spend hours and hours pointing out all their missing commas, explaining terms they misuse, and occasionally getting excited about a new argument or a clever turn of phrase.
Marking with the bloody red pen
However, even with sixty papers, those moments of joy are few and far between. Lots more frustration tends to weigh down the scales. Also, we had some friends who got their PhDs a couple years ago come back to visit Santa Barbara this weekend with their adorable blond little toddler, and I spent the weekend ricocheting between hanging out with them and grading. Talk about a lack of motivation to get that pile to shrink. Finally finished yesterday -- it took me literally all day to grade 20 papers because I had completely reached the end of my rope. I haven't had to grade that many papers in like a year -- last quarter, something about the combination of the class and the time section was scheduled (6 pm on a Thursday!) meant I had only about 28 students total in my sections: less than half the number I am grading this quarter.
My friend Megan, another PhD student in the English department and a fan of Irish lit, was a sweetheart and agreed to model for me for some Etsy photos. Her hair is so gorgeous and she has such a cool and unique style that I knew she would enhance my brooches and bobby pins. She did such a great job and made it so easy! We played around in the afternoon light for an hour, and then we each grabbed dinner, and later went to a clothing exchange organized by a friend -- more on that soon.
My household loves the Elizabeth Gordon Gallery (EGG!) in SB, primarily because we all adore the paintings of one of their mainstay artists, Sherri Bellassen. The more venal reason is because the owner of the gallery is very generous with goodies -- truffles, good cheese, lots of wine.... what else could a grad student ask for? Every time they have an opening, we trot down to it, but the one last weekend was special because it had Belassen presenting her newest work. I know little to nothing about fine art, but what I love about Belassen is how still her figures are, even though she is usually capturing them in motion (swimming, dancing), and how stylized they are. Also, being the daughter of a surfer, I love her paintings of surfers in the long hours of watching and waiting.
At the opening, we got to really spend time up close with the paintings, and I noticed the texture, the way that Belassen layered paint and left these interesting little squares open in the layers that showed other colors beneath, or even the canvas. From a distance, they looked just like little splashes or sparks, but they were so carefully planned in these perfect squares when we looked closely. My favorites were the divers and the surfers, but the hammock loungers also caught my eye.
Pssst... In the photo, I am wearing one of the pins I sell in my etsy shop.
Nanaob made this beautiful treasury yesterday, and I commented on it that it was so lovely it made me wish for rain here in California. Little did I know that I have god-like powers, and kazoo-kazaam, it started raining last night and is likely to go on all week!
It's been so dry and warm that despite the big storm we had in December that lasted for a week, people in the state are still nervously chattering about drought.
Secondarily, big thank yous go out from me to the lovely, talented, and perceptive(!) Etsy sellers who featured items from my shop in their recent treasuries: Katrina in Bird is The Word, Kristine in Robin Hood, DHElegance in A Floral Arrangement, and most recently, Ovgillie, who made a treasury titled with just an ellipsis ...
