Best of January 2010

The best five things in January:

1. Article I read: John Ed Bradley, “Hang ’em High,” Sports Illustrated (December 21, 2009)

Statistics suggest that this is the golden age of NFL punting. During the first 12 weeks of the season, the average punt went 44.3 yards, a half yard farther than the record set last year. Punters were on pace to drop 868 balls inside their opponents’ 20-yard lines, 103 more than the league mark set in 2007. And the Raiders’ Shane Lechler was on course to equal or break the season record of 51.40 yards per punt set 69 years ago by Sammy Baugh. Yet among fans, the punter may be the least appreciated man in the game. Even when he does his job well, placing the ball as close as possible to the opponent’s goal line, he exits the field to tepid applause. More often than not, when he faces scrutiny, it is unwelcome, coming after a fumbled snap or a badly kicked ball that lands out-of-bounds just yards past the line of scrimmage…

But punters’ recent successes, rather than their disappointments, should be examined before somebody at a year-end banquet hands a punter a trophy engraved with MOST VALUABLE PLAYER. Punters (yes, punters!) have become what coaches call difference makers, and the difference they’re making has observers of the game wondering if the punter is a defensive weapon every bit the equal of a shutdown cover corner or a run-stuffing middle linebacker.

2. Book I finished: Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Ground (1970)

Highsmith, "Ripley Under Ground"
Highsmith, "Ripley Under Ground"

3. Photo I saw, shot by Doug Bratland at Carleton, January 19, 2010

Arb Trees (by Doug Bratlander)
Arb Trees (by Doug Bratlander)

4. Video I saw:

5. Music I enjoyed (part of an inspired three-song shuffle that started with Uncle Tupelo, “Before I Break” and continued with Local H, “High-Fiving MF”)

The President of Work

Julia decided to play “work” this morning. First, she decided on her title – “the president of work” – and how many “food breaks” she needed: three, these being morning snack hour, lunch, and afternoon snack hour. With those matters addressed, she turned to writing some emails. It seems that “the people who work for me aren’t sending emails, event though that’s their job.” With a heavy sigh, she sat down at the toy computer. After a few minutes of typing, she stopped to go to a meeting, which only took a few minutes. Then she got back to the email, reporting, “I have to write some emails to the people who have a lot of money but won’t give it to the people who don’t have enough stuff to eat and wear.”

This seems to indicate that she’s either a grantwriter, or a Ponzi schemer.

Viviana

This afternoon, while Julia was at a classmate’s birthday party and Shannon was doing the grocery shopping, I spent two and a half hours with Genevieve. This is remarkable, since I probably haven’t spent more than ten hours alone with her in her entire life : virtually every moment that we’re together, we’re with Julia – which is just as it should be.

But ladies and gentlemen, let me report that this is a different child without Big Sister in the room. She was gentle, patient, and playful – all traits which glimmer when it’s the three of us (or, rarely, the four of us), but which are usually more hidden than not. I can’t remember a longer time in which she didn’t have at least one screaming fit.

Instead, we had a blast. We did puzzles (including a 24-piece world-map puzzle that took at least a half hour to complete, mostly because we had to stop to discuss all the interesting things on the map), had a short snack break, played with her Thomas the Tank Engine toys, and then “watched videos” – which actually entailed my snuggling on the sofa and “watching Batman, Spidewman, Tomis da Twain, an’ Bobda Builda.” Note that the TV was not actually on – even though Vivi was using the remote control like a sports fan with ADD. We laughed at “Spidewman” (“he crazy!”), jumped in fright at Batman’s “bad guys,” and enjoyed Tomis and Bobda Builda. Remarkably, Vivi discovered that all four of the shows were “Saves da Day” – Batman Saves the Day, Spiderman Saves the Day, etc.

What a good afternoon.

The Great Bunny Battle of 2010

School here in Northfield was canceled on Friday, so we let the girls stay up a little later than usual on Thursday night. When they finally straggled to bed, they hardly participated in the whole book-prayer-songs routine and uncharacteristically fell silent even before I left the room. I hoped that this meant that they’d go to sleep quickly and actually sleep past their usual wake-up time the next morning, but twenty minutes later, I heard some out-loud talking, which escalated, before I even reached the door to the girls’ room, into full-blown yelling. Julia: “But it’s myyyyyyyyyy bunnnnnnyyyyyyyy!” Genevieve: “No, you can’t have it! It not your bunny, it my bunny! I have it foh-evah!”

“Girls! What are you yelling about when you should be asleep?” I asked. Talking over one another, they explained that Vivi had gone to bed with Julia’s “favorite friend,” a pink bunny that she actually hasn’t probably touched in months. In a tone of voice that she knows drives her Julia nuttier than the Planters factory, Vivi affirmed that Julia could neither sleep with this bunny nor “evah” have it again – “not even in da moaning!” Julia burst into tears – that overwrought, fake kind that kindergartners must learn between storytime and art centers.

Talking more loudly than was perhaps really needed, I insisted that in fact they would trade control of the bunny in the morning, at which time Vivi could, if needed, comfort herself then with an identical bunny toy which we also own but which has somehow lost the teeny-tiny pink bow sewn to its chest. This bow, it emerged, was a crucial bit of leporine flair, the thing that distinguished the desirable bunny from the one that might as well be stew meat. Somehow – probably because they were so tired – the girls agreed to revisit the issue in the morning and to let sleeping rabbits lie. A few minutes later, they were well and truly asleep.

Come 6:45 this morning, when they woke up (a whopping 15 minutes past the time they usually get up: so much for “sleeping in”), I headed into their room to say good morning. Instead of returning that greeting, Julia blurted, “It’s my time with the bunny, and Vivi won’t give it to me!” and Vivi shouted back, “No! I gonna have it all day, Jooia! You can’t have bunny even foh one second!”

So much for the nighttime peace deal.

Luckily, their desire to have breakfast was greater than their desire to debate bunny ownership, so this hairy hare issue fell away.

Until bedtime tonight, at which moment Vivi was again firmly clutching the rabbit. Having, I’m sure, not thought for one second about the toy all day, Julia now chose to “need it,” and we instantly verged on another meltdown. But then Julia reminded herself that she was already in bed with her other favorite animal, a My Little Pony that’s all hard plastic and coarse hair. Not too cuddly, but apparently better than a bunny.

Dada Trees

One of my favorite things about working on a college campus is the everydayness of the weirdness: the cross-country team screaming out the names of the buildings they’re passing, streakers, “beard auctions,” cryptic chalk messages on the sidewalks, kids playing Quidditch on the soccer fields, oversized plastic letters in the trees out front of my building. You can’t spell “another day of work” without W-T-F.
Letter Trees

Letter Trees

Wintertime Rainbows

Though there are numerous ways to tell that Julia and Genevieve are girls, their shared penchant for using rainbow colors and motifs in their art is one indicator. Even when Vivi is pretending to be her alter ego, “Big Boy,” she colors with Roy G. Biv, as in this picture, about which she said, “It’s fow you, Daddy, because it says ‘By Vivi’ because ‘Vivi’ is shorta den ‘Genevieve,’ an it says, ‘To Dad’ but I wote ‘Dad’ foist, den ‘to,’ by de gwass.” I love the red halo hair.

Rainbow People

For her part, Julia is branching out into three-dimensional artwork, like this be-rainbowed heart that has a little flap under which a butterfly is hiding. I was repeatedly exhorted to take the butterfly out and make it fly around, so of course I did.
Butterfly Before
Butterfly Before
Butterfly After
Butterfly After

Wimpy Skiers vs. Not-Wimpy Skiers

Friday night, I wussed out of my ski workout because I was too tired; Saturday afternoon, I traded my ski for a gym workout because it was raining. It’s true that I am a wimp, but I’m especially a wimp compared to two Canadian skiers just named to their Olympic team.

Brian McKeever suffers from Stargard’s disease, an irreversible and degenerative eye disorder that’s made him essentially blind. Nonetheless, he did very well in several key races in Canada this winter to qualify for the team, and will probably race in all of the distance races. He’ll be the first athlete to compete in the Winter Games and in the Paralympic Winter Games.

Undersized for a skier (5’7″ and 150 pounds), Ivan Babikov is had little luck as a racer in his native Russia (which is stocked with top-notch skiers) and faced poor job prospects there, so he moved to Canada to start a new life for himself and his wife and child (who stayed back in Canada). But he kept skiing as a Canadian citizen, winning everything there is to win in North America and even winning a World Cup race last year. Now he too is on the Canadian Olympic team, and will race in all the distance races.

I have to remember all this next time it’s less than ideal outside.

Sibling Bagelry

A couple months ago, Shannon and I hit on bribing persuading Genevieve to be a little less frustrating at bedtime by offering her – and Julia, of course – the chance to go with me Saturday morning for bagels at the downtown coffeeshop. The scheme has worked well enough that today’s outing was our third straight.

Not only is $6 for breakfast for three a pretty good deal ($8 if I need a latte), the breakfast works out to $1.20 for each quiet bedtime, or roughly ten zillion dollars less than each is worth. Pennypinching aside, the girls love the breakfast and the tradition, and we all have a great time.

Daddy-Daughter Bagel Breakfast

Artists’ Colloquy

I’m sitting at the desk, drawing a picture of the black bookshelf in the corner of our playroom. Julia walks up.
Julia: “What are you drawing? Do not draw a picture of something in this room.”
Me: “Why not? I like to draw things I can see. It’s called ‘drawing from life.'”
J: “You know what it’s really called? ‘Sketching.'”
Me, laughing: “That’s true.”
I keep drawing, finishing the left-hand vertical end of the bookshelf. Julia watches.
J: “What is that? Is it a sandwich?”
M, laughing harder: “No, it’s not a sandwich.”
J: “Why are you laughing? You drew something that looks like a sandwich.”
M, barely able to talk: “It’s supposed to be the bookshelf! Right there!”
Julia turns and looks at the shelf in question, then turns back.
J: “Maybe. It still looks like a sandwich.”

Tassava’s Bank for Northfield

Sunday, Genevieve decided, as part of an elaborate game of playing “bank,” that we needed a sign for “Tassava’s Bank for Northfield.” Here it is, in all its crazed but also well-punctuated splendor. The key parts are across the top – “Tassava’s” (note the apostrophe!) – and in the center “BANK” (love the N that looks like a W) – and along the bottom (“FOR NORTHFIE/LD”). The sign also includes some great extraneous letters and pseudo-words: “Bisca’s” and “ICSES” and “BSEi” and the line along the left, “STBE.”

Pure awesome.

Click through for a link to the annotated (deciphered) version on Flickr.

Tassava's Bank for Northfield

Ski Racing! (This Race Report Is as Long as the Race on Which It Reports)

Today, the Northfield High School’s nordic ski team held their annual fundraising race in the Upper Arb over their 5 kilometer course. It’s a fun event, despite usually attracting a pretty small field of competitors as well as more people who are just skiing for fun. The course, which covers most of the Upper Arb, is varied, the track was very well prepared today, and the high school team members cheer madly at several crucial spots on the course. Beyond just enjoying the day, I was looking to ski under control and turn in a good time. Mission accomplished.

After a little warmup under blue skies and bright sunshine, I lined up with the half-dozen or so people who were going to skate the course. It appeared that about twice as many people were going to ski the event in the classic technique, which was tempting because the course was beautifully set with two sets of classic tracks – unheard of, and beautiful. At the gun, two Carleton skiers zoomed off. I got caught behind another skater who looked to be ready to go, but was actually just cruising. After making my way around him at the foot of the first and longest hill, I pretty easily caught and dropped the second Carl skier, who had let a substantial gap open to the other kid, now already cresting the hill. I put in a bit of a push to try to catch on, but he was just too damn fast on the downhill, and I didn’t see him again until the finish line.

Nor did I see anyone come up behind me, so I basically just time-trialed the rest of the course, focusing on trying to smoothly handle the transitions between flats, uphills, and downhills and on cornering well, having discovered this winter that I often bobble as I try to skate through corners. I didn’t have too much trouble in either area, though my uphill V2 skate left something to be desired. I had my heart rate pegged up around 170 the whole time, which for me is about 90% of maximum, but didn’t feel too heavy until confronting the last little uphill – five meters long, but unexpected. I was surely helped by the ski-team cheering sections, especially the girls who were all wearing Batman stuff and the boys who were atop “The Wall,” a short but very steep little ramp at just about a mile into the course, and bellowed the way adolescent boys can.

I came over the line at 19:32, and according to my watch the course was 3.7 miles, or 6 kilometers. That’s not world-record pace by any means, but it’s the fastest sustained skiing I’ve done so far this year, and puts me on pace I think to ski well at the City of Lakes Loppet in three weeks. Between now and then, I definitely have to work on my uphill skating and on flat-terrain speed, and to put in more overdistance time, but with conditions like those we enjoyed today, I should be able to do all three of those things before February 7.

And even if I can’t, the roughest ski race is still a pretty nice experience.