I'm presenting at a conference this weekend. It's called Shakespeare Connects, and it will be at Grand Valley's downtown campus. I'm pretty excited for my first real academic presentation. I presented a couple of years ago at a writing center conference in Traverse City (with my boss), but this one feels different. This one is solo, and I'm adapting a chapter from my book for it. I think I'm about finished with most of the prep work: the cutting and altering of the text and the (probably too lame) PowerPoint. I just need to practice, practice, practice. I'm using a couple of speeches from Richard III, so I really have to make sure I brush up on my acting, otherwise it could be painful.

The same day we're going with Ted and Tara to a Tiger's game--nearly the last one of the regular season. Yea! It's my reward for presenting at the conference, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. It's also our anniversary weekend. Our anniversary is this Thursday, but where will I be Thursday night? Not celebrating with my wonderful husband of 4 years. No, I'll be teaching at Grand Valley. At least it's a good class.

I finally finished Neal Stephenson's Crytonomicon. Tedious! It took me months to work through it (I read several other things in the meantime!). Right now, after being done with it for 12 hours, I have to say the payoff wasn't worth the time--1100+ pages and my satisfaction lies solely in the fact that I'm finally done with it. It wasn't terrible and it wasn't poorly written (it was actually really well written), it was just really, really long, and I expect considerable payoff when I've invested that much time and energy.

the garden

We've had several meals with green beans, but most of the garden hadn't been doing much of anything except get more greenery--not anything to eat. The tomatoes are 4-5 feet tall and, until a couple of days ago, didn't have any tomatoes! But I now have 3 green balls that I can only hope will turn into tomatoes. I also have picked 4 cucumbers in the last 3 days, and there are 3 more that will be ready in the next few days. They are taking over the garden, wrapping little tendrils around everything near them. They're actually creeping up the back fence. If the deer don't eat what's creeping, they might take over the world. I have 6-8 pepper plants, and they have nothing even resembling peppers on them. The corn, a big surprise, is already 6 feet tall and is showing about 4 ears. I have no idea how to tell when they're ready, but I suppose someone in my family of farmers can help me out. The broccoli that I had completely given up on now has decided to get little green...broccoli on it.
Ah, my boring life of watching the garden grow.

Snake Season

I can't believe it's already snake season. Actually, I think I expected to see them earlier, and when I didn't see any, I hoped that last year was a fluke. Or maybe I already got them all. But, alas, I didn't. I killed two when we got home from breakfast this morning. It took forever--they're fast and wily, it turns out. I'm quite sure there's one more in those hedges, but it hasn't turned up again (and I've been frequently checking). Last year I used my "snake killing shovel," which I had by my side, but today I found Jon's golf clubs more useful. I don't think he'll ever use his driver again, which, if he were a sportsman, might mean something.

I want to take a nap, but all I see when I close my eyes is slithering. (Or Slytherin, but I'll review the Harry Potter series later. We're finally done with it.)

We embark on our cruise next Monday at about noon. We'll go to Key West for a day and then we'll go to Nassau for a day. We booked passage for a cruise to Cozumel, but as you can see, Cozumel is no longer on the itinerary. Thank you World Health Organization.

I'm delighted the semester is finally over, that papers and presentations are graded, and I don't have to deal with that group of students again. There were, of course, some diamonds in the rough, but I had an all around bad vibe from this group for 16 weeks. And having to fail 5 didn't help matters. This wasn't 5 out of 50 students, or 5 out of 30 students. I failed 5 out of 18. Now that I think about it, it's really unfair to say I had to fail them. They failed themselves.

swimsuits

Why are bikinis such a huge trend? I wouldn't wear a bikini when I was 16, and I certainly won't wear one at 31. We're going on a cruise in 13 days, and every one-piece swimsuit I've seen is in a plus-size.

Oh, yeah...we're going on a cruise!!!

more kitties!

Here are some pictures of my kitties, who are basically my kids--be patient with me, this is as exciting as my life gets!

Here's Bailey at Jon's old place. "May I help you? What, haven't you ever seen a cat just sitting patiently in a cupboard under a sink before?"

Here's Remy, also at Jon's old place. She thinks she fits here; we beg to differ. She could not care less.

Ginny: "Wait, you can see me?"

Remy again. "Yes. I was taking a nap in the pantry. (And yes, I understand I'm not supposed to be here.) Just close the door and walk away before I kill you with my death stare."

Ginny and Bailey. Biggest two-headed cat EVER.

Ben Folds in Ann Arbor

Out of the 20 pictures that I snagged the night of the concert (February 18), I wound up with 2 that were any good.

The concert was GREAT! He played a lot of his newer stuff (a bunch from Way to Normal and from supersunnyspeedgraphic), but, of course, he tossed in some old favorites, like "Army." I really wish I'd written down the set list, because, typically, I can only remember a handful of songs he played.

My two critiques would be that 1) there were just too many people on stage playing too many instruments (FIVE!) which made the music sound almost cacophonous at times. The other two times we've been to his concerts it was just Ben, bass, and drums, but I would love to see just Ben sometime. 2) Also too many songs were too slow. I felt like many of the newer songs, especially, dragged; I kept waiting for them to pick up the pace.

Overall, the show was really good. Our seats were in the front row of the balcony and proved to be some of the best seats I've ever had for a concert--unimpeded view of everything. Despite my two minor complaints, I wouldn't hesitate to buy tickets for another show.

I missed the entire opening band while I waited in line for a t-shirt. There was one person working the booth, and she seemed rather...unmotivated. I got back into the theater and waited and waited, and finally the lights went down. Unfortunately, it was not Ben Folds who came out, but the University of Michigan glee club. What?! I waited, rather impatiently, for them to finish, and then had to keep waiting for Ben Folds. When he finally came out, he gave us a really good show, though.