Saturday, January 25, 2014

Bleak Raven's January

"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."

I started this semester in my American Fear class with Poe's magnificent "The Raven," and that line has stayed with me because January has turned into the bleakest of its kind since we've been in Ohio, setting records for the worst arctic blasts in recent memory. A sci-fi-sounding "Polar Vortex" hit us in mid-January, bringing -40 windchill to our area, and now another Arctic Blast is scheduled for next week when temperatures will plummet to -11 and that's not counting the windchill.

I cannot wait for this month to be gone because, as my husband likes to note, this is simply not weather humans (or most anything in this weather zone) were meant to live in. Like Poe's raven, this January constantly reminds me of what I don't want to think about: how this might be the new normal around these parts. We are, of course, deeply grateful that we have a warm and cozy home but it constantly pains me to think of all the homeless people (and animals) who are forced to brave weather that is, in a word, brutal. If climate change means that Ohio is going to be colder than Alaska and Iceland (which is what has happened this week), that would be simply unbearable.

To keep warm, I've been gravitating toward vegetable soups (I have a PBS feed on my FB page that has started posting really interesting recipes) so I recently made this Carrot Ginger Soup. I added some curry and some milk and it was delicious. My mom likes my butternut squash soup, to which I add a little locally made peach salsa, and I'm thinking that's what I'll be making later today for dinner.


The cold outside has been hard to keep at bay inside in our old house with its original 1930s leaden-glass windows, and the dogs are constantly looking for ways to warm themselves up. My husband caught Chiquita trying to snuggle in Lizzy's bed with Lizzy's pink flatsheet and not being very successful in the process... He had to rescue her from her unplanned entanglement.


At work, this past week I chaired (for what I hope is the last time after six years of doing so) the committee that planned and implemented my small college on the hill's Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.'s Day of Dialogue. A group of junior faculty started this in 2009 with the collaboration of staff and students, and that effort has continued and grown to the point that last year the faculty voted the event into the class calendar. Although we didn't get as many people this time as last year (our first in the huge music theater at the college), the programming was the best yet, I think.


Today, after another 2 to 4 inches of snow in what has not only been a mercilessly cold January but an inordinately snowy one, too, the conference of birds that we feed at our birdfeeders was large, and they were accompanied by the four or five squirrels that remain with the wherewithal to survive in our yard (those are the smart one that now know Lizzy is after them and can "follow fast and follow faster.")



I keep reminding myself that "this, too, shall pass" (not hearing any "nevermores," so far) and am focusing on each day rather than on thinking how the weather is going to get even worse next week. Hope may never disappoint but although I had high hopes that the heart ablation would take care of my heart issues, not a week after the procedure I was back in Emergency and not a week after that I had to take my new emergency medication when it happened again (at least I didn't have to go back to the ER, which is really getting old!). If this weekend is uneventful, it'll be the first since the procedure. We'll have to see. Fingers crossed.

Instead of focusing on what I cannot control, I'm focused most determinedly on what I'm enjoying. I am, most definitely, really loving teaching my two classes: my new Intro to Latin@ Literature & Film. I have 20 students in that class and they're engaged and interested and I've added texts that I've never taught before so I'm learning a lot myself in the process of teaching. I'm also teaching my American Fear class to 23 students and I'm not sure how I managed to overenroll myself. The first two iterations of that class in past years were challenging for me, especially the first one in which I had that one student who wrote in her end-of-term evaluation that she'd "stopped learning after the first week" and then went on to Rate My Professor and said I didn't belong teaching college (no, in case you're wondering, I will never forget that).

But this time around I feel like I finally got a "good scald" on that class (as my husband says when his buttermilk biscuits come out particularly delicious). I'm so much more confident in what I'm doing and how I do it and so much more in command of the Gothic and horror materials I teach (given that most of my scholarship intersects with that genre), that I can feel it and am, truly, having lots of fun. How could I not when I get to teach Poe and I get to ask students to think about what being a demon means (the power of knowledge) and why witches are sources of horror (because they represent a woman with power)? I totally love that part of my job.

So I guess that's the way the Universe balances itself: there are external situations that challenge us, and sometimes almost nearly bring us down, but if, internally, we can remain grounded and focused and content then we can say to the Universe: "Bring it on!" (though we don't want to be like the raven's master for "whom unmerciful Disaster followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'"

whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.7vNK51CV.dpuf
some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.7vNK51CV.dpuf

some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.7vNK51CV.dpuf
some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.7vNK51CV.dpuf
some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.7vNK51CV.dpuf

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Jump starting


Last year, in late May, when my husband and I traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, to my niece's high school graduation, we walked the harbor area and passed a store that makes these wood nautical map clocks. We walked in, at my insistence (my husband is not the shopping, never mind window shopping, type at all), but they didn't have any Puerto Rico clocks. "That's too bad," I said, and then forgot about it.

Well, unbeknown to me, my husband was listening and arranged to have this one made and delivered in time for Three Kings Day. I opened it on Three Kings Eve, having no clue what he'd gotten me, and was delighted. Not only is the clock (now adorning the wall of my home office) lovely, but it's also such a sweet present, especially considering that we're going to be 20 years married this summer. Such a long time and he's still listening, and he still cares. As my father used to say all the time, Dios me vino a ver cuando conocí a mi marido.

Three Kings Day was extra special this year because on the Friday before I'd undergone the scary heart ablation that I've been dodging since I was diagnosed with atrial flutter about eight years ago. It wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat any time soon (someday I'll tell you about being all prepped and ready on the gurney, waiting for the doctor, wide awake and not yet sedated, when the techs started playing Beastie Boys on the speaker system! Let's just say that wouldn't have been my choice of pre-invasive procedure music at all!). But now that my heart seems to have finally settled down (now, as my husband likes to say, we wait for nothing to happen--that is, for no more alarming crazy heart episodes) I wonder if I should've done it before. That's what the surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, the man who performed the operation that saved my life and gave me this second chance, said before the ileostomy I had almost 13 years ago. That I would regret not having it done before because the quality of life it would return to my life would be so great. I didn't believe him then but I believed him after. He was, of course, right. Likewise, with this ablation, I might have saved myself many unpleasant and frightful moments if I hadn't been such a chicken to begin with. We'll have to see. It's still too early to tell.

For now, I'm taking it easier than usual since there lots to recover from even though it wasn't open-heart surgery (don't want to even imagine). But so far so good.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had to stay pretty much bedridden from 48 to 72 hours after the procedure, time I gladly spent in bed catching up on sleep. Everyone else, seemingly, thought this was a good idea, so I often had Darwin (who loves to "claim" me when I'm napping by lying right on top of me, male cat that he is) and Lizzy and Chiquita (can you find her in the second photo?) in bed with me. It always makes me smile to feel all that furry love around me.




And that's what this year has started with, lots of love. My mom came to be with me, which was very nice of her since she braved some of the coldest weather in Ohio (never mind this country's) history, and my family and close friends sent me best wishes and muchos cariños. If the new year develops as it began, then it will be a year full of love, of all kinds, and that's something to very much look forward to.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Víspera de Reyes

typical wood carving of the three kings

For the best story about the Three Kings, read my husband's story.