Blowing & Drifting

I dunno if it was the Mondays or the good weather or just some confluence of forces, but campus was full of unusual sights today: 

• a kid riding one of those crazy home-made "tall bikes"
• grim-faced professors migrating in pairs and trios from their daytime nesting spots to the location of the evening's faculty meeting
• a barefoot undergrad using the rather dingy men's room in my building (shudder)
• roughly half the student population crashing on the Bald Spot (the campus quad) to soak up the sun
• at least three couples holding hands - almost stareworthy on a campus that's usually devoid of PDA
• a biggish group of students trying their skills on a tightrope strung just off the ground between two trees on the Bald Spot

I vaulted out of bed at 5:42 when Vivi started calling. 126 minutes, three breakfasts, one cup of coffee, two and a half dressings, four puzzles, one shower, and one toilet-accident cleanup later, I'm going to be late for work. How can this be?

This afternoon, Julia, Genevieve, and I hit the second half of the St. Olaf senior art show. It was a fantastic time. I insisted on listening to "grown-up music" on the way to campus, and Julia immediately fell in love with last year's best pop song, the 1990s' "See You at the Lights."
and the great old Pavement song, "Stereo." 

The opening lines - "Pigs, they tend to wiggle when they walk/And the infrastructure rots" - were thoroughly discussed, to say that least.

The main event - or so I thought - was the art show itself. Many of the pieces were really impressive, and many merited hilarious reactions from Julia (as well as shrieks and "mmmmmwah" kisses from Vivi). A sample of these:

"I'm scared of those. They look like real alligators." (My internal reaction: "Wha?")

This is how Julia walked around the pieces above - until she realized that they were made of eggshells, which changed her mind about them.

"Is that a maze? It looks like a maze."

(This is actually the incredible sculpture by my boss's son, Karl Gleason.)

Of this rather dramatic installation, Julia said, "It smells like sculpture."

This piece invited everyone to lie down inside it and look up through the kaleidoscope-like glass suspended above. "Pretty! It's stars!"

Though I couldn't get a picture, Julia also was impressed by a Ole who was wearing a funny hoodie to which she'd affixed oversized gray rabbit ears. Julia asked, "Why does that girl have rabbit ears?" but relentlessly rejected my suggestions that perhaps the "girl" was actually a rabbit in human clothes. "Daddy, rabbits don't wear jeans or hats."

Though of course she couldn't be quite so verbally expressive, Vivi liked some big stoneware plates (you can see them in the background of the second photo above) - shouting "Nana!" ("Banana!") when she saw them - and going right up to this piece and mumbling "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh..."

After we meandered out of the second gallery, Vivi insisted on climbing up a nearby flight of stairs to the second floor, where we looked at some more art and then - cue the choir of angels - saw a girl down the hall in a leotard and ballet shoes.

Julia was drawn like a moth to a flame, first to a full-length window onto the studio and then - at the invitation of one of the dancers (high schoolers rehearsing for a show next weekend) - actually into the studio. While I held kept Vivi from sampling a water bottle sitting near us, Julia stood literally slack-jawed, watching actual ballet dancers dance. I was getting ready to drag her out so we could go home for dinner when the dancers blessedly took a break, ending the rapture. As we trundled back to the car, Julia kept saying, "I can't believe I saw real ballerinas! I wonder why they weren't wearing their tutus?" This little episode only deepened Julia's fascination with ballet and dancing. She changed into her own tutu within 60 seconds of getting home, even though dinner was ready, and then did some rather impressive dancing afterwards. (The dancers were really good, too.)

All in all, it was quite an arty Saturday afternoon! I feel so cultured.

I broke my Friday-morning torpor with a walk to the union for a drink to have with my lunch. On the way into the union, I had to run a gauntlet of students passing out information on the upcoming spring party/concert/bacchanal. They had some toddler-sized speakers set up, and they were playing music by some of the acts that will perform at the concert.

God, it made my head hurt. I was only in the free-fire zone for a few seconds, but crikey it was loud.

And then when I came outside, through another door, I heard someone yell, “Nobody understands me and my problems!” and I couldn’t tell if it was a lyric emerging from the music or some undergrad voicing his angst. I suppose it’s the same thing.

It was much more pleasant to sit on the bench next to the art building, listen to the red winged blackbirds, and peer into the oak tree’s branches.

(Cross-posted from my Tumblr log.)

I'm not a big fan of John Mayer's music, but he's a great writer and this video on how he makes music is damn funny.

But rather, a one-sentence description of a post-workday errand:

When I went to the new Kwik Trip to redeem my coupon for two free bags of milk, a young woman asked me, "Sir, would you like a hot dog for dinner?"

Kwik Trip: the gas is expensive, the milk less so, and the surreality is free.

I had a working lunch today at the Final Course Cafe here in Northfield, my first time at this great new establishment. I highly recommend it for the excellent food, the pleasing ambience, and the good service. I had to wait a few minutes for my colleagues to arrive, and wound up talking to the owner, a very nice guy who opened our conversation by asking, "Ever eaten at this place?" I knew from that question that he was either the neighborhood crank or the owner. 

I had the "Robust Genoa Italian" panini and some potato salad to eat and a chocolate malt as a quasi-beverage - all three were fantastic. Next time I go, I'll trade in the malt, good as it was, for one of their desserts or maybe a truffle. Going later and having a coffee in one of the easy chairs is an enticing option, too.

Playing outside with the kids and a neighbor girl yesterday afternoon, I noticed a car stop in the middle of the road. A woman popped out and ran around to the front of the car, where she looked down into the road, reached down, and then jumped up as if shocked. She lingered for a second before going slowly back to her car and driving off. Watching this odd scene, I thought, sadly, that there must be some nearly-dead animal in the road. 

A few minutes later, glancing back at the site of this scene, I was surprised to see a little animal head pop up over the edge of the road, followed by the distinctively lumbering dome of a turtle. A few seconds later, the girls and I were over there, admiring this big green terrapin - probably a female snapping turtle (if size and surliness were any indication):

We watched for quite a while. "Yertle" - as Julia, She Who Names Everything, dubbed it, of course - eventually overcame her* shyness and resumed a plodding course for the pond she could surely smell a few hundred feet away. The girls all shrieked when she first stuck out her head and blinked at us, and gave her plenty of room when he started moving.

Unfortunately, there was a solid row of townhouses between Yertle and the pond, not to mention a busy street. One thing led to another, and soon enough a nice neighbor had put Yertle in a box to ferry her to the pond. He tipped Yertle out of the box a few feet from the water's edge.

The turtle sniffed a couple times, then lunged into the water, took a couple powerful strokes to get away from shore, and dove into the murk. I hope she's happy in our little pond! Maybe she'll meet last fall's friend, the Tiger salamander.

* I'm guessing the turtle was female because this article implies that female snapping turtles migrate around now to find new homes.

Thank god for caffeine, which helped me, yesterday, drive the two hours to La Crosse, WIsconsin (7:15 pm - 9:15 pm); see a decent superhero movie with two great friends (who paid for my ticket!) (9:15 pm - 11:30 pm); enjoy some halfway lucid hanging out afterwards at a Perkins in La Crosse (they paid for my pie and carafe of coffee!) (11:30 pm - 12:40 am); safely hightail it back home (12:50 am - 3:00 am); and now make it through a pretty darn nice Sunday (6:45 am - present). I don't want to duplicate this experience anytime soon - not least because Shannon had to put up with a very recalcitrant toddler and then got no sleep while I was gone - but it's been worth it.

(Addendum: In the 126 miles and two hours of driving between La Crosse and Northfield - mostly along I-90 and US 52 - I encountered exactly one car, an Olmsted County sheriff's cruiser just north of Rochester. It was unbelievable to drive so far without passing or being passed.)

Thursday night, Northfield got pounded with a massive thunderstorm. I estimate, conservatively, that there were a bazillion big thunderclaps and at least as many blasts of lightning.

Of course, all the noise woke up Julia, who whimpered in that way of terrified kids do. Lest Julia's crying wake up her sister, Shannon and I took a gamble we've never taken before and hauled her into bed with us. I thought, as she snuggled in, that there was pretty much no way in a cumulonimbus she'd fall asleep, given the storm and the novelty of being in Mama and Daddy's bed. I was surprised to find, a couple hours later, that she was still asleep, snuggled right there between us. Moved back to her own bed, she slept through till morning.

This evening, I asked her whether she remembered sleeping with us, and she said she did, adding that thunder's not scary because it sounds "like drums" and, what's more, lightning isn't scary because "it's like wavy white hair" or "thin string cheese."

(For her part, Genevieve slept through the big overnight storm, was elated by a dinnertime shower this evening, and then needed an extra white-noise machine to get to sleep during a bedtime storm.)